Chaos Dreadnought

It's like the armor equivalent of Doomrider.

The eviler version of the loyalist Dreadnought. Generally-speaking cruder, less-advanced bullshit, in 40k old tech is best tech functionally identical but less shiny, except for the fact that the dual-linked axles connecting the legs were "discontinued due to instability". Notably less-noble than its Space Marine counterpart, the Chaos Dreadnought is usually piloted by former Chaos Champions who were cut down in their prime. As a great many of these were not particularly mentally-stable in the first place (what with serving Chaos and all), and Dreadnought tech the Chaos Legions have is typically older, less-advanced, and shittier than that of the loyalists, most Chaos Dreadnoughts have a notorious reputation for succumbing to built-up psychosis and flying into screaming, psychotic rages in which they do a bang-up impression of an Angry Marine high on hallucinogenic drugs, flinging themselves forward and burning, slicing, crushing, ripping, tearing, and raping anything in front of it.

Often a combination of many (if not all) of the above at once.

This is made worse by the fact that what a given Legion does with its Dreadnought occupants varies dramatically on an individual basis. The Emperor's Children for example, keeps them in a drugged-up haze, whilst the World Eaters simply leave them awake and aware but unhooked from their Dreadnoughts. Suffice to say, when they go into battle, either due to a hangover or due to pure balls-out rage, the average Dread pilot has ample amounts of frustration to vent.

Suffice to say, the Chaos Marines have a divided opinion on Dreadnoughts. Many continue the ways of their pre-heresy fellows, often view interring their fallen champions in Dreadnoughts as a sign of reverence, but in many cases Chaos Marines view this as being assigned a living death; their ambition has been cut short and they are now doomed to fight on in a cold metal shell, never again to participate in the glory of direct combat. The ones that fight on despite it, such as Tankred's rival Donovan, are bad-ass, if, like all Chaos Dreadnoughts, out of their motherfucking minds.

Additionally, whilst rare, it's possible for the occupant of a loyalist Dreadnought to turn to Chaos. One that does keeps its loyalist chassis but becomes a Chaos Dreadnought in all other respects. So Grimdark.

Overview

On paper, the Chaos Dreadnought is amazing save for one major flaw (which is described in detail below) - same cost as a loyalist Dreadnought, with one more attack. Its close-combat weapon can take a variety of forms (Many players like giving them Defiler claws, Chainfists, or giant sledgehammers), but regardless of what it is, it counts as a Dreadnought Close-Combat weapon. This Dread CCW comes equipped with a twin-linked Bolter by default, and can be replaced by a Heavy Flamer for a surprisingly low points-cost. The arm can be replaced with a Missile Launcher, just like a loyalist Dreadnought, and this reduces its melee capacity significantly (but does not remove it).

The other arm (which you need to pay for) can be any of several options. You can put on another close-combat weapon with another twin-linked bolter (which can be upgraded to a Heavy Flamer just like the other one), and it can pack twin-linked Lascannons, Twin-Linked Heavy Bolters, or a Plasma Cannon, just like the loyalist flavor. The Chaos Dreadnought cannot take Assault Cannons, but it also has an option the Loyalist version doesn't HA HA NOT ANY MORE which is pretty decent (twin-linked Autocannon). The Plasma Cannon (which costs surprisingly little) is widely considered its best option and is widely-regarded as one of the best ways to get a no-risk Plasma Cannon onto the table (with default config this will run you only 105 points!), but all are pretty viable.

With all these options and a low cost, the Chaos Dreadnought, in theory, is amazing. Unfortunately, it suffered from the Crazed rule.

Crazed

The old Crazed rules basically means that the Chaos Dreadnought, overpowered with pain and rage, has a small chance (about 1 in 3) to act other than how its owner desires. The table below covers the effect of the dice rolls on 1d6:

• 1: Fire Frenzy - the Dreadnought may not move or assault this turn. Instead it must turn towards the closest unit(friend or foe) and See below fire all of its weapons. Twice. If the Dreadnought cannot fire any ranged weapons (due to everyone being out-of-range or its ranged weapons being offlined), this is treated as a 2-5: Sane result instead.

IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION REGARDING FIRE FRENZY: Due to the wording of the fire frenzy rules versus the movement rules and line of sight rules for vehicle weapons in the 5th edition rulebook, the Chaos Dreadnought cannot legally pivot to fire at anything due to the fact that you can only pivot in the movement phase in 5th edition, it can only target units in its forward firing arc as its line of sight is determined by its weapon's orientation, so it can only fire frenzy on units already in front of it, this means it will not turn to face enemies that are directly behind it. Anyone who tells you that you must turn around and shoot your own models is forcing you to take an illegal action, that is pivoting in the shooting phase, pivoting is explicitly written as being only possible during the movement phase thus you cannot turn the dreadnought, and must fire on the closest target that is within your weapon's line of sight at the start of the shooting phase. Additionally because pivoting is a move action it cannot pivot because it may not "move" due to the first sentence that forbids it from moving this turn. Pivoting on the spot does not count as moving according to every page of the vehicles section of every rulebook GW has ever printed.

• 2-5: Sane - the Dreadnought controls normally this turn.

• 6: Blood Rage - the Chaos Dreadnought may not shoot until the end of the turn, gets the Fleet special rule. It must move towards the closest enemy unit as fast as possible and assault the enemy in the assault phase, if possible. If the Chaos Dreadnought is immobilized, this counts as a 2-5: Sane result.

For reasons obvious, the Chaos Dreadnought is one of those tabletop units that is either insanely good or insanely bad, with no real middle ground, depending on where and how it's used and whether or not the blessing of the dice god decides to cooperate. If used correctly and deployed carefully with lucky dice-rolls, it will bring a heaping pile of ownage to the table for a disturbingly low points cost - 100 or so points for a Dreadnought with a Plasma Cannon is amazing for efficiency, especially given that its crazed rules can actually work for you on occasion (Fire Frenzy + Firing line of Necrons = lots and lots of Necron casualties). If you get bad rolls it will spend most of the game pointlessly chasing a unit or worse, firing on your own troops. It wasn't a unit for the faint of heart. But anyone who can maintain the blessings of Lady Luck and Admiral Awesome would have found a place in their hearts (and armies) for the Chaos Dreadnought.

Notable Chaos Dreadnought

• Sol Talgron, the Warmonger: The Warmonger, of the Word Bearer's 34th Host stands out among his peers namely for the fact he's sane-ish. This may be due to his faith or the fact that since Sol was the former Dark Apostle of the host and fought at the siege of Terra he's not treated like a weapon and chained to a wall. Rather he hangs around the host's base giving out advice to his brother and in turn they all treat him like their cool grandpa, kinda like an evil Bjorn who likes telling stories. However he's not fully there and so still thinks he's fighting the Hours Heresy and that Horus is alive and kicking.

Hellbrute

Much like Eldar and Ork Dreadnoughts before them (now Wraithlords and Deff Dreads, respectively), Games Workshop will be "replacing" Chaos Dreadnoughts. This new model called a Hellbrute is just the classic CSM dread with a different name. Rumours speculate that it will retain its rules (Crazed included, possibly with a few tweaks such as Rampage base), get a new model (essentially the bastard offspring of an Obliterator and a Dreadnought chassis) and appears to come equipped with a multi-melta to start (in fact, the Dark Vengeance Hellbrute is literally identical crunch-wise to the Black Reach Dreadnought). From there, the options are both familiar (standard dreadnought shooting weapons) and new (can take a thunder hammer or a power scourge - squee)!

Fluff-wise, Hellbrutes are essentially Chaos Dreadnoughts with the grimdark dial turned to 21. Rather than just being entombed inside a sarcophagus and forced to never again feel the glory of combat, the pilot of a Hellbrute are entombed like regular Chaos Dreads, but rather than going just insane from captivity, the pilot of the walker will eventually meld into the machine's metal, ensuring he not only loses his shit from being hooked-up to an insane death-machine, but also from the fact that he's forcefully becoming one with said death machine, which is probably preferable, to be honest. It's like becoming a poor man's Daemon Prince and actually having your 'own' (giant, powerful, Daemonic) body again, rather than being stuck in a small space in your own withered, crippled crapsack of a near-corpse while also piloting a Dreadnought, which isn't really that much consolation. What's a better permanent fate; being trapped in a sarcophagus, or becoming a daemonic version of The Hulk (possibly with guns!)? Even considering that the process tends to make them crazy, Chaos Dreads got crazy anyway.

In one of the solo missions included in Dark Vengeance, the Helbrute is given a name and background. His brother, who fell to chaos, tricked/forced him inside a Helbrute chassis. The resulting transformation slowly crippled his body and soul, melding him into his prison. The process turned him so insane that the loyalist Brother was completely lost, replaced by the Id that is the Helbrute. Then a Dark Angels Librarian flooded his mind with empathy for several seconds, stunning the Helbrute long enough for a Tactical Marine to shove a plasma cannon up its mechanical ass.

Crazed 2.0

In the new 6th edition codex, the old dreadnought's biggest liability gets reborn into much of a positive feature for the brute. For starters, the roll is now a D3 whenever it loses a hull point and no more will you face a 33% chance of the Hellbrute shooting at your own guys if you roll a one. However, the target priority harkens back to 3.5 where you have to shoot an enemy within range (preferably the unit responsible for removing an HP from the brute) twice. Otherwise, a 2 will scrub stunned and shaken results and grant rage while a 3 will do all that plus bestow fleet and force the brute to run if not within 12" of an enemy (preferably closer to whatever was responsible for making it lose a hull point).

Gallery

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  Even in death I'm still killing shit.

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  The Hellbrute, now with fleshy bits.