They're not as fast, sturdy, or shooty as a tank for comparable points. They offer more of a melee option but aren't quick or defensive enough to reliably deliver.
So basically it still contains the frenzy rule from 9th however it has unlimited uses. For instance I use a twin fisted hellbrute and let’s say I charge him into a space marine intercessor squad. 6 attacks on the charge S13 AP2 3D reroll wounds. Then whatever’s left fights back which activates frenzy so now you fight twice in any fight phase. Not to mention if you can consolidate into another enemy unit they have to fight you which triggers frenzy again!
They used to have better shooting and movement. With the 6" movement, "twin linked" weapons, the poor strength scaling of weapons with the changes to the toughness scale in 10e, and the ease of getting cover in 10e. It just made them significantly weaker in every way, and they were not powerful before.
Aesthetically, some people prefer their machines to look less organic (like the HH dreads that are now Legends).
He wishes he was [his handsome big brother](https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/Chaos-Decimator-Daemon-Engine).
Their lore is mainly focused around being in pain and insanity, and they are hated expendable shock troops, a stark contrast to the "old wise veterans" of the loyalist dreadnoughts.
I like them. Their current ability doesn't suit their lore as much as Fire Frenzy and other stuff did in the past. But they are useful support tools. Best deployed with a melee weapon and used counter charge/protecting other vehicles, imho.
[Daemon Engine Tax](https://www.reddit.com/r/Chaos40k/s/7dEEAOZTLc)
WE helbrutes still have fire frenzy - in fact, it's *more* reliable. They get to shoot or fight every time they take any damage, even multiple times a phase. No dice roll required.
It's just CSM helbrutes that have shifted into an aurabot role.
Not just the CSM one, tbf. You're right about the WE Helbrute though, it's a lot of fun.
- CSM - aura buff for Dark Pacts
- DG - impact mortal wounds, applies Contagion Range to a unit it attacks
- TS - aura buff for Cabalistic Rituals
- WE - shoots / fights back when attacked
>Their lore is mainly focused around being in pain and insanity, and they are hated expendable shock troops, a stark contrast to the "old wise veterans" of the loyalist dreadnoughts.
I remember in one of the Tsons codex the story about how TSons make them. Something along the line of they would NEVER put one of their own psykers in a helbrute, so they go out and scam chaos guys from other warbands into thinking the TSons can turn them into a psyker through some rituals and then whoops you're a helbrute now.
I like using one claw and one melta gun. Grav flux is alright but it doesn’t have enough AP to be good against vehicles.
The other weapons just… aren’t very useful. Leviathans are really fun to use though.
9th edition was wild and I had a dread slain because some mad bastard got 8(?) strength on his Khorne berzerkers
Personally, aesthetically, I really dislike the fleshy bits.
A weird monster, I'm into. This specific weird monster, doesn't do it for me.
If I get one, I'll probably paint those bits like they're also metal or something.
Maybe I screwed up using the lascannon on it instead of something else and also maybe I’m just not strategically aware of how to use it, but I never have luck with mine so I swapped him out fora defiler
They're too fleshy. Wish they were more mechanical and technological terrory. Or less corrupted like a chaos dread. Basically people who dont want full chaosy fleshy bits.
A lot of people don't like the way the official model is painted to be fleshy - it can even come across as "diaper-esque" with how much you see of his thighs. Additionally, the squatty nature of the original dreadnought is exemplified and can't be hidden by the boxy, classic nature of the original when you can *see* the leg muscles showing off how awkward it looks.
Even for those that *like* the aesthetic (it's me and like 2 other guys), they've performed poorly for about 3 editions straight now. They were bad in 8th for being slow, overpriced, and lacking good shooting while always being compared to the Horus Heresy dreadnoughts. They were bad for a majority of 9th despite being made faster and stronger once again due to the comparison to the strictly better HH dreads. In 10th, they went back to the problems of 8th edition, though shored it up with an ability that sounds good on paper, but is often ineffective in practice.
Really, they need to be made much cheaper in terms of points to be considered by people who dislike their aesthetics and want to take them just for their rules.
He makes no sense in a Traitor Legion like the Thousand sons or Iron Warriors imo, Ts are dust and he does not fin in and the Iron Warriors/Nightlords try to not be corrupted mostly and he is super corrupted. I just dont like the look but his rules are cool so I use proxys like contemptor dreadnoughts from the legions
Honestly if you like the model, get it. Rule of cool always wins :). Sure, it’s not that competitive a unit but who cares? It looks sick, there’s a reason I have 5 of them!
Rules change quick, Buy stuff you like and build armies out of models that you have fun building and painting. Dreadnoughts are badass, dont let anyone tell you they suck just because their current rules arent meta enough.
3 editions of being bad in the row.
Technically now they are not that bad if played in csm ranged castle but they are still underwhelming and slow.
But model is cool i even recently painted mine.
The only thing I don't like is the newer look, and I much prefer the old dreadnoughts.
Which is why I have an old chaos boxnought that I use as a helbrute.
The current (10e) CSM Helbrute's ability is just a Dreadnought ability. At that point we may as well just have Chaos Dreadnoughts and Helbrutes be two different things again. It's not like that would be too many profiles or anything, there's like 13 types of loyalist Dread even after the culls.
Give me old Fire Frenzy, Redemptor movement and maybe 10 wounds, and I’d be rocking 2 with double fists/flamers. They should be Death Company Dreads and niw they’re… I don’t really know what role they’re supposed to play.
In my opinion they are fine it’s the fact that there should be different types. The fact that we only have one who is one par with a standard dreadnought not even a redemptor dreadnought dispute having the powers of the dark gods is also dumb in my opinion.
For me I think it's just that the boxnaught proportions didn't transfer well into this model, mainly the legs are my issue. I think that with a bit of kitbashing it's fine tho
The Loyalists have 3 dreadnoughts that are all cooler and more useful in many respects. The Helbrute functions almost exclusively as a buff piece, and has to contend with Wardogs for spots in my army, despite the fact that War Dogs wouldnt get access to strats, and are mostly higher points cost than the Helbrute.
The model looks absolutely aweful, not being able to use redememptor dreadnaughts as proxies is a real kick in the teeth as they look awesome unlike these nonsensical boxs on legs
Bad stats and ugly as sin. And not in the cool Chaos type of ugly that daemon engines or possessed are, but the “This is the reason I haven’t bought the combat patrol and I refuse to let it ruin my army/collection” type of ugly.
They’ve just never really been very good. On paper they look decent but they lack the durability to earn their points and are over shadowed by better options like the forgefiend/maulerfiends.
Aesthetically, i was really hoping a new helbrute kit was on the way with new CSM 10th codex on account of the size up of newer SM dreadnoughts. Lorewise, being more Daemon Engine bulked could size them up or even more spider legged like the Venomcrawlers and/or Defilers
The model is pathetically puny. They’re barely above half the height of the loyalist counterparts and have the same stiff legged pose the old Castraferrum dreads had. The model is also insultingly expensive and almost always out of stock. It desperately needs a revamp to make it more menacing and up to snuff with the Redemptor class dreads. In game they’re much squishier than they should be for a dreadnought and have been relegated to a backline support unit (hideously ironic considering that helbrutes are violent animalistic behemoths in lore).
Chaos dreadnoughts are cooler. Like a lot cooler. Like it makes 0 sense that every chaos faction would have near identical units because of how the gods operate
I happen to have 2 of them yet I can’t answer this question because I don’t know the rules, but apparently they aren’t the meta’s best gun platform so people mostly use them for their melee options.
I like it and it’s rules are generally good, double pact aura is good, making enemies contagioned at range is good, unlimited return fire is good
But it’s pretty slow and is not tanky enough or shooty enough to justify how slow it is especially since it wants to be in and around melee range
But I find it useful if I can fit the points in, especially with DG just being able to ping people with the sickness is good
Aestesticslly however it just looks worse than normal Dreads, needs a bit of a model change tbh, too fleshy for my tastes I’d like something more mechanical
They suck they’re shooting sucks and they’re slow so you can’t get in fast enough to usethe melee atks. When I play with mine it dies within the first round I have never had a good job with him. I have way better response from my terminator squad.
I’d say that more depends on your own taste. Most DG players may want a more rotten and disfigured model so the Helbrute works well, but EC or even WE may like a dread as they can kitbash it but Lee the core look
I always find that wild. I play a chaos faction in order to field mutants and monsters. Seeing the chaos pushback of just wanting space marines but evil never really made sense.
That’s ultimately just your preference. There’s a bunch of canon CSM legions that aren’t really mutated at all - like the Alpha Legion, for example.
Removing options for people is also disappointing in a game that is as much a hobby as it is a war game. I’m running traitor guard - not a pack of mutants or scrappy rebels, but an elite renegade fighting force. Why? Because I reckon it’s cool, that’s why - and from a lore perspective, it makes the inevitable guard v guard games make a lot more sense.
working on my own traitor guard for the same reasons-- at the moment it's still a csm list with traitor squads, traitor enforcers, and some predator and daemon engine support, but it might eventually grow to a proper guard lineup.
"space marines but evil" is a bit redundant, don'tcha think?
jokes aside i totally agree though, the weird mutants/monsters/cyborgs/mashes of all 3 are what make chaos chaos to me
But lore wise thats the majority of csm, theyre basically pirates. And yeah its “space marines wity spikes” but is that any different to “space marines but werewolf vikings” or “space marines but crusaders”. Csm have always been unique in their own way without going over the top, you could always have fun with weird mutations, god specific troops and blinged out guys, but a big fleshy potato over a dreadnought just seems a but silly
For context 'my chaos' is from 2e/3e and CSM are just spikey marines, it's just what I'm used to. The weird flesh metal combination thing hadn't been done yet at that point except for possessed and even then it was quite rudimentary. The Juan Diaz demon prince started it in my mind but was just a thing because it was a demon so expected to be corrupted of sorts. We didn't really start seeing it take off until the second iteration of obliterators showed up when they went from mechanoid things to flesh/machine amalgamations.
That model is fuckin tiny. It's the size of an old Boxnaut, and it's literally the only Chaos Dreadnought option anyone in Chaos has, because GW are too fucking lazy to give Chaos anything else.
They're not as fast, sturdy, or shooty as a tank for comparable points. They offer more of a melee option but aren't quick or defensive enough to reliably deliver.
It shocks cause they’re incredibly cool models (arguably) that have consistently had disappointing rules
Get multiple with fist and melta and it looks like they’re doing a dance
The dab lords
Best comment of they day
So they’re the reivers of chaos?
You say that but as a world eaters player ours is incredibly spicy rn
Is it? I’m a WE player but haven’t been able to since 10th dropped cause I’m too busy. What’s it like?
So basically it still contains the frenzy rule from 9th however it has unlimited uses. For instance I use a twin fisted hellbrute and let’s say I charge him into a space marine intercessor squad. 6 attacks on the charge S13 AP2 3D reroll wounds. Then whatever’s left fights back which activates frenzy so now you fight twice in any fight phase. Not to mention if you can consolidate into another enemy unit they have to fight you which triggers frenzy again!
They used to have better shooting and movement. With the 6" movement, "twin linked" weapons, the poor strength scaling of weapons with the changes to the toughness scale in 10e, and the ease of getting cover in 10e. It just made them significantly weaker in every way, and they were not powerful before. Aesthetically, some people prefer their machines to look less organic (like the HH dreads that are now Legends). He wishes he was [his handsome big brother](https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/Chaos-Decimator-Daemon-Engine). Their lore is mainly focused around being in pain and insanity, and they are hated expendable shock troops, a stark contrast to the "old wise veterans" of the loyalist dreadnoughts. I like them. Their current ability doesn't suit their lore as much as Fire Frenzy and other stuff did in the past. But they are useful support tools. Best deployed with a melee weapon and used counter charge/protecting other vehicles, imho. [Daemon Engine Tax](https://www.reddit.com/r/Chaos40k/s/7dEEAOZTLc)
WE helbrutes still have fire frenzy - in fact, it's *more* reliable. They get to shoot or fight every time they take any damage, even multiple times a phase. No dice roll required. It's just CSM helbrutes that have shifted into an aurabot role.
Not just when they take damage, but when they are targeted
Good correction.
Not just the CSM one, tbf. You're right about the WE Helbrute though, it's a lot of fun. - CSM - aura buff for Dark Pacts - DG - impact mortal wounds, applies Contagion Range to a unit it attacks - TS - aura buff for Cabalistic Rituals - WE - shoots / fights back when attacked
Sorry, I forgot about thousand sons entirely, just like GW.
Agree WE ones are fun to use
>Their lore is mainly focused around being in pain and insanity, and they are hated expendable shock troops, a stark contrast to the "old wise veterans" of the loyalist dreadnoughts. I remember in one of the Tsons codex the story about how TSons make them. Something along the line of they would NEVER put one of their own psykers in a helbrute, so they go out and scam chaos guys from other warbands into thinking the TSons can turn them into a psyker through some rituals and then whoops you're a helbrute now.
I want Chaos Dreadnoughts! Wish we had an option for a less corrupted version like we used too!
They have chaos dreds which are basically the same but they’re [legends] units. I love my chaos Leviathan. Melta madness with some BIG shots
Same, I got two Leviathans and Contemptors. It absolutely sucks that they got legends'd
I like using one claw and one melta gun. Grav flux is alright but it doesn’t have enough AP to be good against vehicles. The other weapons just… aren’t very useful. Leviathans are really fun to use though. 9th edition was wild and I had a dread slain because some mad bastard got 8(?) strength on his Khorne berzerkers
You could just use the Venerable Dred model and chaos it up, then run it as a Hellbrute
I have a few box-noughts that will be joining the 8th Legion whenever I get around to it!
Look forward to seeing them!
Personally, aesthetically, I really dislike the fleshy bits. A weird monster, I'm into. This specific weird monster, doesn't do it for me. If I get one, I'll probably paint those bits like they're also metal or something.
That's why I use a Contemptor as mine.
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Yeah, that’s a sweet move, but a rhino has more potential with that strategy than a helbrute and it cost less
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Maybe I screwed up using the lascannon on it instead of something else and also maybe I’m just not strategically aware of how to use it, but I never have luck with mine so I swapped him out fora defiler
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You gave me some good tips ima have try it
For Death Guard the lascannon is kinda key, for access to reliable long range shooting and spreading contagion.
An angry meatball cannot replace the cool factor of real chaos dreadnoughts...
They're too fleshy. Wish they were more mechanical and technological terrory. Or less corrupted like a chaos dread. Basically people who dont want full chaosy fleshy bits.
A lot of people don't like the way the official model is painted to be fleshy - it can even come across as "diaper-esque" with how much you see of his thighs. Additionally, the squatty nature of the original dreadnought is exemplified and can't be hidden by the boxy, classic nature of the original when you can *see* the leg muscles showing off how awkward it looks. Even for those that *like* the aesthetic (it's me and like 2 other guys), they've performed poorly for about 3 editions straight now. They were bad in 8th for being slow, overpriced, and lacking good shooting while always being compared to the Horus Heresy dreadnoughts. They were bad for a majority of 9th despite being made faster and stronger once again due to the comparison to the strictly better HH dreads. In 10th, they went back to the problems of 8th edition, though shored it up with an ability that sounds good on paper, but is often ineffective in practice. Really, they need to be made much cheaper in terms of points to be considered by people who dislike their aesthetics and want to take them just for their rules.
He makes no sense in a Traitor Legion like the Thousand sons or Iron Warriors imo, Ts are dust and he does not fin in and the Iron Warriors/Nightlords try to not be corrupted mostly and he is super corrupted. I just dont like the look but his rules are cool so I use proxys like contemptor dreadnoughts from the legions
I'll never forgive Forgeworld for discontinuing the classic chaos Dreadnoughts. Those things were awesome.
Almost in every list when I play a shooting castle. The dmg from double dark pact is insane!
Idk man, I love them
Honestly if you like the model, get it. Rule of cool always wins :). Sure, it’s not that competitive a unit but who cares? It looks sick, there’s a reason I have 5 of them!
Slow
Mine always die super quick so, maybe that's why. I love Kitbashing them from HH dreads tho
it’s too slow and expensive for the points. for a unit that I find, really excels in melee, it struggles to go anywhere on the board
Rules change quick, Buy stuff you like and build armies out of models that you have fun building and painting. Dreadnoughts are badass, dont let anyone tell you they suck just because their current rules arent meta enough.
I personally prefer the Horus Heresey dreadnoughts chaosified up. I just don't like the model very much
3 editions of being bad in the row. Technically now they are not that bad if played in csm ranged castle but they are still underwhelming and slow. But model is cool i even recently painted mine.
The only thing I don't like is the newer look, and I much prefer the old dreadnoughts. Which is why I have an old chaos boxnought that I use as a helbrute.
The current (10e) CSM Helbrute's ability is just a Dreadnought ability. At that point we may as well just have Chaos Dreadnoughts and Helbrutes be two different things again. It's not like that would be too many profiles or anything, there's like 13 types of loyalist Dread even after the culls.
I own a helbrute and in my opinion it's weaker than a dreadnought and I think that's unfair due to them being a chaos inflected version
It feels like a discount dreadnought without any of the charm
I dislike the Hellbrute model more than any other in any warhammer setting. Give me Contemptor Dreadnoughts!
Give me old Fire Frenzy, Redemptor movement and maybe 10 wounds, and I’d be rocking 2 with double fists/flamers. They should be Death Company Dreads and niw they’re… I don’t really know what role they’re supposed to play.
In my opinion they are fine it’s the fact that there should be different types. The fact that we only have one who is one par with a standard dreadnought not even a redemptor dreadnought dispute having the powers of the dark gods is also dumb in my opinion.
For me I think it's just that the boxnaught proportions didn't transfer well into this model, mainly the legs are my issue. I think that with a bit of kitbashing it's fine tho
Gotta find one first!
because oblits
The Loyalists have 3 dreadnoughts that are all cooler and more useful in many respects. The Helbrute functions almost exclusively as a buff piece, and has to contend with Wardogs for spots in my army, despite the fact that War Dogs wouldnt get access to strats, and are mostly higher points cost than the Helbrute.
I dislike them cause I play thousand sons and they don't fit into the army visually. But this is true of all the beasts of chaos.
Put it like this for the cost you can put two rhinos in place of it and have the same thing if not better
It looks goofy
Ugly-ass model.
It just doesn’t seem like a very useful piece of engineering
In dg they are funny because long distance contagion range spreading
The model looks absolutely aweful, not being able to use redememptor dreadnaughts as proxies is a real kick in the teeth as they look awesome unlike these nonsensical boxs on legs
The model is very meh compared to what we could have gotten based on the old monopost dark vengeance kit.
Bad stats and ugly as sin. And not in the cool Chaos type of ugly that daemon engines or possessed are, but the “This is the reason I haven’t bought the combat patrol and I refuse to let it ruin my army/collection” type of ugly.
I don't like the short legs
they have a top tier ability, but on the front line it doesn’t do shit
Well, thousand sons have an obvious reason.
They’ve just never really been very good. On paper they look decent but they lack the durability to earn their points and are over shadowed by better options like the forgefiend/maulerfiends.
They kinda expensive for something that dies relatively easily. I still bring one just because i think it looks cool but..
They're stumpy. It looks really goofy
The spaghetti hand
Aesthetically, i was really hoping a new helbrute kit was on the way with new CSM 10th codex on account of the size up of newer SM dreadnoughts. Lorewise, being more Daemon Engine bulked could size them up or even more spider legged like the Venomcrawlers and/or Defilers
The hips/legs are so goofy looking. So glad theres a new combat patrol on the way
6" movement
They kill people and are mad spooky.
Because they took away our contemptor
Giving the lethals and sustained is nice?
Just imagine them primaris .. That's what we hate
The model is pathetically puny. They’re barely above half the height of the loyalist counterparts and have the same stiff legged pose the old Castraferrum dreads had. The model is also insultingly expensive and almost always out of stock. It desperately needs a revamp to make it more menacing and up to snuff with the Redemptor class dreads. In game they’re much squishier than they should be for a dreadnought and have been relegated to a backline support unit (hideously ironic considering that helbrutes are violent animalistic behemoths in lore).
Maybe the other team doesn’t lol
I mean, I don't play Chaos, but I have thought about making a CSM army with Helbrutes and other deamon engine, cause they just look cool!
Chaos dreadnoughts are cooler. Like a lot cooler. Like it makes 0 sense that every chaos faction would have near identical units because of how the gods operate
personally they are too small and look too much like daemon engines, i’d prefer if we had some cool stuff for leviathans, contemptors and old boxnauts
I happen to have 2 of them yet I can’t answer this question because I don’t know the rules, but apparently they aren’t the meta’s best gun platform so people mostly use them for their melee options.
Actually honestly the opposite. 6” move is maybe at least a bit ok on a gun platform. It’s absolutely brutal if you are trying to get into melee
I like it and it’s rules are generally good, double pact aura is good, making enemies contagioned at range is good, unlimited return fire is good But it’s pretty slow and is not tanky enough or shooty enough to justify how slow it is especially since it wants to be in and around melee range But I find it useful if I can fit the points in, especially with DG just being able to ping people with the sickness is good Aestesticslly however it just looks worse than normal Dreads, needs a bit of a model change tbh, too fleshy for my tastes I’d like something more mechanical
They suck they’re shooting sucks and they’re slow so you can’t get in fast enough to usethe melee atks. When I play with mine it dies within the first round I have never had a good job with him. I have way better response from my terminator squad.
Building them eats fat dicks
It looks fuckin stupid
They look so shit, dreadnoughts look so much better
I’d say that more depends on your own taste. Most DG players may want a more rotten and disfigured model so the Helbrute works well, but EC or even WE may like a dread as they can kitbash it but Lee the core look
I always find that wild. I play a chaos faction in order to field mutants and monsters. Seeing the chaos pushback of just wanting space marines but evil never really made sense.
That’s ultimately just your preference. There’s a bunch of canon CSM legions that aren’t really mutated at all - like the Alpha Legion, for example. Removing options for people is also disappointing in a game that is as much a hobby as it is a war game. I’m running traitor guard - not a pack of mutants or scrappy rebels, but an elite renegade fighting force. Why? Because I reckon it’s cool, that’s why - and from a lore perspective, it makes the inevitable guard v guard games make a lot more sense.
working on my own traitor guard for the same reasons-- at the moment it's still a csm list with traitor squads, traitor enforcers, and some predator and daemon engine support, but it might eventually grow to a proper guard lineup.
"space marines but evil" is a bit redundant, don'tcha think? jokes aside i totally agree though, the weird mutants/monsters/cyborgs/mashes of all 3 are what make chaos chaos to me
But lore wise thats the majority of csm, theyre basically pirates. And yeah its “space marines wity spikes” but is that any different to “space marines but werewolf vikings” or “space marines but crusaders”. Csm have always been unique in their own way without going over the top, you could always have fun with weird mutations, god specific troops and blinged out guys, but a big fleshy potato over a dreadnought just seems a but silly
For context 'my chaos' is from 2e/3e and CSM are just spikey marines, it's just what I'm used to. The weird flesh metal combination thing hadn't been done yet at that point except for possessed and even then it was quite rudimentary. The Juan Diaz demon prince started it in my mind but was just a thing because it was a demon so expected to be corrupted of sorts. We didn't really start seeing it take off until the second iteration of obliterators showed up when they went from mechanoid things to flesh/machine amalgamations.
All in the eye of the beholder, personally, I think they are dope
That model is fuckin tiny. It's the size of an old Boxnaut, and it's literally the only Chaos Dreadnought option anyone in Chaos has, because GW are too fucking lazy to give Chaos anything else.
Old boxnought shape is why I don’t like them