Chaos Vehicle Upgrades |
| Blasphemous rune | Very useful when assaulted and absolutely disgusting (read: Cheesy) when used in conjunction with a warp amp of Slaanesh. Also fun cutting out little heretical symbols in plasticard whilst chanting blasphemous litanies in a hushed voice. |
| Coruscating flame | Another way of defending your vehicle, this is an excuse to
a) Cover your vehicle in resin flames (which I would like to try) and
b) Give yourself title of lord pyromaniac.
On a serious note, this upgrade is great, and handy at keeping off that cheap anti tank unit. |
| Daemonic possession | Very useful for predators and defilers, and also very fun to model. It is simply machine spirit, except nothing can then enter or leave the vehicle. I would always use it on any of the above mentioned vehicles. |
| Destroyer | Blood for the blood god! This simple upgrade makes tank shocking fun, and is sickeningly effective at killing troops quickly and effectively. Large, and slicey, for want of a more sophisticated word (bear in mind we're dealing with Khorne here and that whole weird "kill! Maim! Burn!” crap.) |
| Dirge caster | If playing a World eaters, Death guard, Emperor's Children or Thousand sons army, leave this at home. You really have so much to benefit from becoming fearless. If, however, you play one of the normal chaos armies, this is mildly useful, but only really works well in that all mechanised army. 4th edition didn't kill the rhino rush. It gave birth to the rhino rapid fire rush. Ahhh. Happy times. |
| Dozer Blade | Designed to avoid that "stuck in the mud/traffic/giant pile of flayed corpses situation, the dozer blade is, as ever, just a big snow plough. Handy, but by no means essential. Keep off predators and fire support vehicles; this is best used with transports. |
| Extra armour | Useless if a vehicle had daemonic possession but useful for that chaos land raider or other transport vehicle that can lay down fire power. Well worth it in the circumstances recommended above. |
| Havoc launcher | I love this upgrade! This turns any vehicle into a lovely multi shot fire support vehicle. Who can argue with two blast templates? I highly recommend it for mowing through infantry, especially Kroot and Tyranids. |
| Living Vehicle | I recommend this for slanneshi players to ensure that their rhino's can make full use of the warp amp and blasphemous rune ability. It's really nice, but I wouldn't take it all the time, simply because vehicles, especially transports, have so much other great stuff available to them in the chaos vehicle armoury, that your average rhino could easily double in cost! And, it's only a rhino... |
| Mutated Hull | This particularly useful with a few vehicles - defilers, dreadnoughts and predators come to mind. The increased armour this offers will protect you from a lot more than could normally be taken by that vehicle. Plus, the opponent thinking that his power fist is about to shatter the sarcophagus of your dreadnought asunder, only to find out he glances it and manages only to scratch the dreadnoughts paintwork (that for the followers of the changer of rooms, who are really into DIY and changing colours etc. count as crew shaken) |
| Parasitic possession | Despite getting to model your vehicles in a ramshackle way ("now it's time for... raid the Ork buggy kit!") it is actually a great way of irritating your opponent and assuring, during a tournament situation that you can still capture a table quarter. Worth it's weight in platinum in a tournament situation. |
| Pintle Combi-bolter | Wow the excitement. Despite me being annoyed that as a noise weapon only slanneshi player I can't upgrade them to sonic blasters, they are still useful weapons. However, making them into either a combi melta or flamer is nice, for that sister of battle drive by flaming (or drive by gravitational field shift resulting in immense heat in the case of a melta (Microwaving, Petrus; you seem to be getting it confused with the graviton gun – Ed).) Not really essential, but useful if drive by shootings of all sorts are your playing style. |
| Plague carrier | surrounded by many of the super bugs currently associated with NHS hospitals, the plague carrier upgrade is pretty much the same as Nurgles rot. Very good for transports and dreadnoughts as those are two vehicles in your army that should be trying to get near the enemy where this can be used effectively. |
| Searchlights | What can I say really? Make a night fight test to spot a unit only for the vehicle to be equally vulnerable. Give it to transports that have kamikaze role after delivering troops. It's handy in a night fight, but other wise leave it at home. And never, never, put it on a large valuable vehicle (land raider + searchlight = no more land raider.) |
| Smoke launchers | My favourite transport upgrade. Smoke launchers give transports great protection, whilst only costing three points each! If there is one upgrade to give all transports, it is always this. In some ways, this is the most essential item in the whole chaos armoury. |
| Warp Amp | The final entry in armoury chaos Space marines is one of my favourite. The Slanneshi warp amp. The idea of a dreadnought, with warp amp and blasphemous rune, assaulting a unit of guard and forcing them to take a leadership test at -4 is worth it just to see the look on the guard players face (especially if the unit is under half strength.) This is one of the best upgrades available to any player and can be modelled with some careful manipulation of the exorcist kit, or any other large musical instrument. |
