Saturday, January 23, 2010

Chaos Space Marines Units and Tactics: Huron Blackheart


Old School Terminator here with another article to add to the Chaos Space Marine Units and Tactics articles. It is nearly complete now with only Typhus and Kharn left.
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ARRR Matey! Huron Blackheart led his own heresy and many a space marine to damnation along with him. He is the pirate lord of the Maelstrom and its denizens and all the stories that involve him in the Black Library really make me like him.
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Objective takers ahoy! Huron Black Heart is armed with both a powerfist and a power weapon, which can make him a pretty good muti-tasker in Close combat, but like any IC without eternal warrior, you need to make sure you engage him with the enemy's weaker troop units (non-dedicated CC units) or use him and his squad to finish of a powerful unit after it has been whittled down. The last thing you want happening is your pirate lord getting swatted by a Powerfist of poked to death by power weapons.
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With Warptime, he gets dangerous - now he has three Powerfist attacks base, 4 on the charge, rerolling failed to hit and wound rolls. Not to mention that his heavy flamer gets to re-roll now too.
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Using Huron: I have seen the few people who field Huron occasionally use him in a land raider and while that makes good use of his flamer and his charge, it really seems like a whole lot of points tied into a unit that could accomplish the same with a unit of zerks inside instead of them AND an IC.
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My take on him is that he is a force multiplier for troop squads that are meant to grab objectives. He can provide them a much needed CC punch and can also take their rhino-rush rapid fires that much more dangerous by adding a re-rolling heavy flamer. He can use the fist to add to their squad's fist in case an MC attacks you. He can switch to power weapons if an enemy squad comes your way - in both situations, the warptime is what makes him acheive greatness.
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I would take Huron with a squad of plague Marines with 2 melta guns and a champ with a powerfist in a rhino with extra armour. With proper support, this squad can deal with walkers, monstrous creatures, non-powered CC squads, most troops and should have the staying power to be holding an enemy objective at the end of the game - the limited support it needs also frees up a large number of your units to better support each other and take their own objectives.
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Aside from multiple objective games, he can add to your spearhead in 2 objective missions and should be used to hose light troops in KP missions.
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Overall: Huron is a decent special character, but he is an easy kill point for a sergeant with a powerfist, his warptime is needed to make him effective and without it going off, he just isn't as impressive. As with all special characters, I would rather have a daemon Prince or a sorceror and in Huron's case, I could take a nurgle prince with warptime for 5 points more or a sorceror with lash for much less. If you want a special character though, he is a decent one and he is often underestimated or incorrectly used - so making him work will give the guy a little credit - he is a Pirate Lord afterall!

1 comment:

  1. Huron is the only Chaos character (other than Abbadon) that has a powerfist and an initiative above 1.

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