Escape from Reality: Death and the Possessed Tax

As the old saying goes...There's two certainties in life: death, and the fact that Games Workshop will shit on Chaos Space Marines.

The big boys in blue get their Gladius formation where they get free tanks, free razorbacks even, and old Chaos well, we get a steaming heap of shit called Traitor's Hate.

Right before the supplement came out, I had an awful feeling in my stomach, I just knew, deep down, that it would eat a giant bag of dicks. I went down to my local GW flagship store anyway and took a look. The neckbeard working there has Mr. Burns syndrome with me, meaning he forgets who I am each time I go in there. When I walk in he greets me as "sir" which, even at 40 years old, still annoys the fuck out of me.

So yeah, I tell him I want to see the Traitor's Hate supp.

"Oh, I have a store copy," he says.

I flip through it. It's hardcover, so $50. Fuck that by the way. I flip through and check out the formations, I look for anything that resembles rule changes for Chaos, as in, reduced points costs and additions of Chaos Legions. Nope and nope.

I fight the urge to urinate on the book right in the store and then leave, my time wasted.

I wanted something, anything. But what I really wanted was fairness. What I mean by this is equality among units and their points costs. For instance, five possessed marines are 150 points and so are the Wulfen. This is just blatantly wrong on so many levels.

Sigh.

But what can a Chaos player do? I'm truly loving the Khorne Daemonkin book on the table and I'm having a grand ol' time painting the army up. Am I being too much of a bitch? Should I just suck it up and soldier on?

There's not much use in complaining I suppose. A Slaughtercult is a Slaughtercult. If I want my extra blood tithe point per turn I'll just have to plug in those possessed marines.

I'll admit it...I bought a box of possessed way back in the day, solely for the fantastic bitz selection the sprues provided. When I started building a Daemonkin army I realized I needed, not wanted, to paint up a unit of these felchers.

When it came time to find those old bitz...Well, most of them were used on other projects. I had to dig hard and get a little creative with my leftovers.

Luckily I had most of the bodies and all five pairs of the legs. What I didn't have was the motivation to paint these fuckers. Why? Well, because they're a fucking tax...And a shitty one at that.

But, but, possessed are good you say.

Don't get ahead of yourself, son. Go milk your pud in the corner while the adults are speaking.

Take a look at the picture above and you'll see some badass dudes ripping apart some Tau. They don't do this so well on the tabletop. Well, they do, but getting there is the difficulty. If they get into close combat they're very effective and their Vessels of Chaos mutations table is pretty good, but they're still only one wound and cost 30 points per, which is an outrage.

Whatever. From a modeling perspective they're cooler than your mom's ass after me and the Vancouver Canucks have finished with her.

This dude is part ork, part forsaken and all champion. The head is a bugle from the chaos knights kit. Apologies for the shit picture.

The only bit I needed to add with this fella was the spawn arm.

This strapping young lad here sports a raptor lightening claw.

And this guy, he's a berserker that let the devil in a little too often. The right hand bit is from the discontinued forsaken models for fantasy.

This guy here is all possessed except for the forsaken head. Goddam, that old forsaken box was a gold mine for great bits.

Here's the gang all together.

The potential for possessed is ridiculous. They have a base 2 attacks to start off. Their close combat weapons give them another. That's 3 base. They're also Mark of Khorne and Daemon of Khorne, so they have rage, counter attack, and furious charge. Now we're up to 5 attacks on the charge at S6. Now, with their mutations they can either have AP3, reroll wounds or +1 attack and initiative. Not too shabby.

Here's their whip. I bought this rhino from some slugger on eBay years ago and washed it with black India ink as an experiment. I think the wash had a pretty unique effect.