Jared Allen, the Annointed Arch Patron

So for those non-football fans out there who don't know who Allen is I'll explain. Jared Allen is the Right Defensive End (RE) for the Minnesota Vikings. Last year (the 2011 season) he racked up 22 sacks, .5 away from the NFL record. His number is also 69, which is where I got the final inspiration for my army's idea.

I always have ideas for conversions, my mind never stops working on ideas and "chaos-izing" everything I see. One of my favorite ideas is making anything and everything into a Deamon Prince. So keeping with the theme and idea of this army I figured I'd try and find a Jared Allen model. I mean this guy is a BEAST, and how cool would it be to have this guy charging across the batlefield to sack every unit in his path? Fricking awesome.

Well luckily there is a company that makes such models. The company is Macfarlane, and I checked out their site and low and behold there it is. So this is my next project, making the model below into a Deamon Prince. I'll keep ya'll posted on the progress with updates to come.

My arguement for Typhus

If anyone has kept track of the hype that has come out of the new CSM dex release you'll often hear the word Typhus used at the start of many lists. His new found hype and cookie cutter status is due to good reason. While I hate copying anyone else, I have started to look his way recently when coming up for new lists. There are many obvious reasons, which I will get into, for people taking him. But what I want to look at first is his sole role as an HQ choice for a list.

Off the bat Typhus costs 230 points, which may seem like alot if it wasn't for all his fancy rotting bells and whistles. His stats are very good, WS6, T5, W4, A3, along with his 2+/5++ for the termie armor. He's armed with Blight Grenades and a Manreaper. The Manreaper is easily on par with the Black Mace, which is a 45 point weapon, only it's better in a couple of ways. Not only is it AP2 it also gives +2S and is a Force/Deamon Weapon. This increases his challenge capabilities and overall CC utility immensely. The Manreaper is also Unwieldy which negates the nice I5 in his stats. However in this case the pros heavily outweigh the cons. All this is only 230 points, but gets even better.

Typhus is has the Champion of Chaos, Fearless, FNP, IC, MoN, VotLW, Lord of Terror rules and is a Lvl 2 Psyker. So:

• Champion of Chaos: Not only does this rule make you Challenge every round of assault that you're in, it also gives you a roll on the Boon of Chaos table if you win. A good number of the results on the table really help Typhus and only make him even more of a beat stick. Considering the fact that he's most likely gonna be sticking around to strike at I1, you're almost always gonna kill your challengee. The only thing you have to watch out for is weapons that cause Instant Death, so having a unit champion in his unit is a good move. This also frees him up to wipe half a squad by himself and win you the combat.
• Fearless: This rule got alot better in 6th. In case you decide to run alot of regular CSM units Typhus can be attached and then grants them this rule. This will really help you out with keeping an assault protracted until your opponents next turn so you don't get shot up.
• Feel No Pain: This rule also got a huge boost this edition. FNP has really become 40k's version of a Ward save. So now if Typhus ends up in a challenge with an AP2 wielding opponent he still gets a 5+ invuln and then a 5+ FNP. The rule also allows you to have a save in case he perils.
• Lord of Terror: This gives you the Terror special rule, if Typhus is your warlord that is. Terror isn't that great against things like daemons or Space Marines. However, if you attach him to a unit they gain this benefit. So attaching him to a unit of regular CSM or Cultists and then making your opponent be WS1 is a huge boost.
• Level 2 Psyker: In addition to all of his other cool rules Typhus is a psyker as well. Now he has to roll for both of his powers on the Nurgle table, which really isn't that bad. His malediction spells aren't horrible and can really come into play with assaults, giving your units a small boost over an opponent in a key round of combat. His psyker status also helps in assault due to the fact that his daemon weapon is also a force weapon, that's AP2. So against Paladins, or any Termies with FNP he can still carve out a good chunk of guys potentially.
• Veterans of the Long War: This gives Typhus Hatred against all units that are from any Space Marine codex. This lets you re-roll all failed To Hit rolls in your first round of combat. While it only works for the first round, it could prove to be huge if you roll a 1 for your Daemon Weapon and are WS1.

In addition to all these fancy rules Typhus has a few more special abilities. The first of which is The Destroyer Hive. What this allows you to do is place a large blast template over Typhus during the assault phase at his initiative step. All models besides Typhus that are touched by it suffer a S4 AP2 hit that ignores cover. You can only use this attack once per game, so make sure you do it at the right time. Usually this would be when you get swarmed by a blob squad or some sort of other large squad like Ork or Nids. The one key part of this ability is that it effects friendly models as well, so be careful with who else is around him. However if you ever have Typhus alone against a SM command squad and are in a challenge this would be perfect to use to wipe out half the squad while also being in a challenge and get rid of any re-rolls they might have.

Typhus' second ability is called Plague Zombies. This allows you to turn any squad of Chaos Cultists in your army list into Zombies. Your Cultists loose any weapons they have (oh no, las pistols are SOOOO good right?) and cannot take any upgrades, in exchange they gain the Fearless, Feel No Pain, and Slow and Purposeful special rules. Considering the fact that Cultists can get up to 35 models strong, this ability makes them almost impossible to kill. They are suited perfectly for holding back fields, and taking up huge chunks of board space so daemons have a better chance of mishapping. If you stick them in cover they become even harder to shift. While they can't go to ground or run they have FNP, so going to ground is pointless. And by having them take your back field objective during deployment you'll never have to run anywhere. This unit is good at one thing, soaking up wounds and not dieing. Even with only one squad of 35 I haven't had a game where I've lost all of them.

Lastly is the ability called Lard of the Plague Host. This isn't listed in on page 61 with the rest of his abilities. All this does is makes Plague Marines a troop choice instead of elites. This allows you to now take 2 of the most resilient units in the game as troops.

Tactics. As I've talked about above, Typhus has alot to offer an army list. Not only is he a beast of a model on the table and on paper, but his force modifiers that he gives to your army cannot be understated. He completely changes the Troop section of your force organization, unlocking Zombies and Plague Marines, both which are vastly superior to regular Cultists and CSM. Both these units are good at holding a line and being slow to kill. So while you have these resilient troop choices what exactly do you do with Typhus?Of course it matters what is in the rest of your list, I'm just gonna give a few suggestions on what I think are some of the best ways to use him effectively.

As a Rock: This idea is simple, all you do is keep him in you backfield. I usually attach him to my giant Zombie squad and have him chill out on a Quad Gun. Hitting flyers on a 2+ with re-rolls really annoys people, and makes Typhus a target priority. What Typhus provides in this role, in the back field, is a deterrent. The huge squad of Zombies is usually a unit someone will try to shoot to death before trying to assault, however having Typhus attached makes assaulting them a risky proposition. The Zombies also work very well as Flak (expendable units) for trying to get into assault. Charging a unit of Flamers with Typhus by himself would be stupid (I have done it once, and it worked out fine, but that's not the point) yet having Zombies there to take the over watch fire for you ensures that Typhus is able to get in a beat face.

As your Beat stick: The idea here is that Typhus is your main beat stick you have to unleash hunt baby seals. There are various ways you'd be able to execute this idea. Deep Striking with a unit of Termies or possibly Oblits, or if you're really out there god forbid a unit of Mutilators, would get him into your opponents face rather quickly. Typhus himself is a threat big enough to draw alot of fire from your opponent, so having extra models around him to take the extra wounds is always a good idea. An alternative to Deep Striking is the Chaos Land Raider. Load it up with Typhus and what ever fun extras you want, say even a squad of Plague Marines, and drive it down your opponents throat.

As your Midfield Threat: Basically have Typhus in the middle of the board to provide a threat range to anything that might be there. Close enough to threaten your opponents deployment zone, and close enough to add so reinforcements to your own if need be. All the same ideas from the previous to are used here, just in a different form.

I hope all this has helped some of you. Maybe opened your eyes to some new ideas, cause the CSM dex is full of them. If you have different ideas on how to utilize Typhus effectively I'd love to hear them.