Goatboy’s Oldhammer 40K – Busted Chaos Formations of 7th Edition
Goatboy here with another look back at old 40K, with some of the most busted Chaos formations from 7th Edition.
7th Edition from 2014-2017 was the edition that really pushed the initial thoughts on playing whatever you want we have in 40k right now. You would pick your formations and they would cost points to build it. You couldn’t have 0 points when building your army so you would normally see 2-3 formations that would combine to create whatever monstrosity you wanted to build. We’ll talk about building things in the future but let’s look at the formations that were pretty busted.
This was during the time we didn’t have an App that helped build our armies. We would see new campaign books that would come out with listed Formations so players would have to go grab those books in hopes to utilize some powerful nonsense. They would list the units that could be taken in the formation, the minimum to get it to work, and the maximum things you could choose. It was an interesting system and while it let you build some gnarly armies it really was not nearly as balanced as the things we have now. You mix this in with some of the busted psychic spells you had access too and it was a crazy mishmash. Oh you also rolled all your powers, warlord traits, and extra abilities before the game begins.
Formation – Infernal Tetrad – Chaos Daemons Formation
This formation from Curse of the Wulfen (2016) consisted of 4 differently marked Daemon Princes. They would gain abilities based on how many were alive and the one Warlord trait you rolled would activate for all of them. This was during the time of Flying things being a pain to take out of the sky as well as psychic spells that let you summoned daemons or get bonuses to your strength and toughness. The initial power for all 4 being alive was +1 to your toughness, the next for 3 was +1 to your strength, if 2 were still left you got reroll 1’s to hit (during a time you didn’t see nearly as many rerolls), and if only one was alive you got nothing. All the powers were cumulative if all 4 were alive. You would also get to roll all your rewards for the unit beforehand too so you could get things like crazy powerful artifacts on your daemon princes. You could also get a 4+ FNP, a +1 to your invulnerable save, and other fun damage options.
This was the detachment I used heavily when it came out and was one of my favorite options on the tabletop.
Formation – Cyclopia Cabal – Black Legion Formation
This was a simple formation from Traitor Legions (2016) that gave you 3-5 Sorcerers. At this time you could put them on Bikes which would give you a model unit of death. You could also then take a Khorne Daemonkin army that allowed you to take Fleshhounds of Khorne (which at the time didn’t hate Sorcerers) and combine them with these Cabal of jerks. You then had a little death star of psychic monsters that would run around the table top and they would cast spells that would increase their Warp Charge (dice you would gather to cast your spells – you would throw X amount to try and beat a WC score). I would normally run this with Magnus as he had a power that would go over and let him gather Warp Charge Dice for successfully cast spells and then power up to throw damage all across the board. I have a lot of cool Chaos Bikers that have been repainted and updated so many times during the old edition and having the ability to run psychic biker jerks from the warp.
VROOM VROOM – and totally busted!
Formation – Lords of War – Core Rulebook
Hey if you want to take Magnus the Red – well you can just take him thanks to the Core Rulebook Lord of War detachment. There were a lot of ways to just take one super leader and this guy was amazing. He would fly around, throw out high damaging spells, and then just never die. I think I played a ton of games where the only thing that killed him was him getting hit by the dreaded D powers/weapons and failing some of his saves. He was a monster and I made sure to paint him with no armor on so he would be Hot Magnus – coming to steal your boyfriend/girlfriend and all your candy as he ran around with a Cabal of Black Legion Sorcerers and Flesh Hounds of Khorne.
Alas 7th Edition…
7th edition was a wild time with so many crazy combos, damage potential, and rough interactions in the game. I am thinkful we are past this edition and have moved on to the two- page Detachment system. I do worry sometimes the ally options might come back too strong but I play armies that have access to them (CSM and CK). Do you remember how the formation system came in Apocalypse and then was reborn into detachments?
Do you have favorite formations from this past era of 40K?
