Warhammer 40K: New Chaos Raptors & Warptalons Are Here – Are They Any Good?
Today let’s discuss the two new 40K Chaos Raptor & Warptalon datasheets – to find out if they are worth your time!
While my World Eaters and Emperor’s Children didn’t get anything new last week the regular ole Chaos Space Marines got an updated new data sheet with the reconfigured Raptor and Warptalons unit. These are in response to an upcoming release for Killteam and will talk about those whenever they get up for preorder. Today I want to discuss the two new updated Datasheets with one being a huge update and the other just getting a nice new keyword.
New Warptalons
Let’s start with the Warptalons. The data sheet did not change from what we are used to now. They come down, are angry, and if they kill something they jump away. This is all well and good for a weird little brawler unit. The big thing they got that is interesting is they get one single keyword that opens up a Stratagem for them. The keyword is Grenades which allows them to throw a Grenade for 1CP. This gives them an option to do some mortal wounds to a target and help soften them up a bit. This could also help activate some other rules in detachments that care if a unit is below starting strength. This just gives them an extra tool for the Nightmare Hunt detachment to use.
New Raptors
The next Datasheet update for the Raptors unit is a heck of a lot better. This was a unit that just felt very underwhelming initially. They were supposed to be a shock unit and in the old edition they gave you a little bit of shooting bunch to help things out. As the game has moved away from single shot Plasma Guns or Meltaguns as being a viable choice and instead looked at ways to make these units little brawler options.
A brawler unit is normally something that won’t bowl over an enemy tough unit and instead is designed to punch a bit up for its cost. It can come in and knock out a troop choice, an MSU option, or sometimes just get a chance to throw in a few extra wounds on a damaged target. They normally have 2-3 heavy melee weapon options and when mixed with a decent amount of attacks and maybe a dark pact they can become a hero of your tabletop. The new Raptor changes do super charge them and helps create a nice little bully.
The update gave them access to 3 Heavy Melee weapons in a unit of 5 models. They can also take some Plasma Pistols too but the real star is having them get access to three Strength 8, AP -2, and Damage 2 weapons. This lets them come in with 9 attacks – or 14 if you have a Jump Chaos Lord with them and expect to take out or severely weekend an opposing Intecessor unit or other simple troop choice. We have seen the CSM players utilize a Chaos Lord with Legionaries to help create little bully units and this new Raptor unit is a Jump Pack version of that. It costs a bit more but when the entire scope of CSM right now is utilizing bullies to get the job done this unit is important.
Beyond just having 3 Heavy Melee weapons the unit also has some fun Battleshock options too with -1 given to units within 6″ and causing Battleshock tests at the start of the fights phase if they are in engagement range of someone. Remember the Charge Phase is first and then the Fights Phase is after that. This will cause a lot of fun cascades of Leadership checks in the Nightmare Hunt detachment and give you a whole heck of a lot of chances to get the rules to work. Is this going to be back breaking? I don’t know yet but this updated unit is going to do a lot of heavy lifting in making things work.
The Chaos Verdict
I think between these guys, some Noise Marine friends in Rhinos, and a bunch of other small units the CSM player might be able to punch up to things in this environment. Thankfully the Victrix Guard took a bit and while they are still good you might get a chance to quickly remove these so called Heroes of the Imperium. Are you excited to get some new Raptors together? Do you think you will see a lot of the new Horus Heresy Jump Pack boxes used as players Raptors?
~Are you ready to have scary Chaos boys jumping around in combat?
