Warphammer
Russell Tassin Joins Warphammer to Discuss His Amazing Run with Black Legion!
Black Legion have always been a fan favorite, so I was really eager to talk to whichever player first made a deep run at a Major with the new Black Legion rules.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the player who stepped up to the call was Russell Tassin! A long-time competitive hero of the Black Legion, Russell made an amazing run at the Lone Star Open. He won 5 straight games to start the event, only losing a close game at the top table in the final round (to an amazing and sporting opponent, Russell wanted to make sure everyone knew). Russell and Mike (last year’s #1 and #2 ranked CSM players) sat down to break down how to win with Black Legion in the new codex, and shared an incredible amount of general Chaos Space Marines wisdom along the way.
Full Video
I wanted to do timestamps, but Russell shared so many different types of insights into playing CSM in each section that I’ll let you have fun discovering it all yourself.
Main Takeaways
I highly recommend you watch the full interview so you can have fun with us and catch all the details, but here are a few quick takeaways that every fan can take away from Russell and I’s discussion:
- Chaos Space Marines can be built many different ways. While Russell chose to go with a more melee focused build, he believes shootier builds are viable and could be better on different terrain sets.
- Abaddon’s buffs make units incredible. 6 Chosen with Abaddon’s command phase buffs just walked up and cut Morvenn Vahl to shreds. To shreds, I say.
- Can’t choose between Terminators/Chosen/Possessed? Why not run all three! There has been a lot of debate over which variant of “3 Wound melee unit in the Elite slot” people should bring. Russell’s list runs at least 10 of all 3, showing they all have a place in the right list.
- You can win with sportsmanship. This has been a consistent theme every time I’ve talked to Russell, and it rings true here. He described a scene where a stratagem of his might catch his opponent off guard, so he literally told the guy to take a second and read the stratagem before moving so he understood the nuances of how to play against it.
Note: Excited to get your Chaos army on the tabletop? Me too! I’d love to work with you on making your fun or weird Chaos idea into a competitive list. If you’re interested in supporting the growth of Warphammer and quality 40K writing, feel free to check out Patreon.com/Warphammer and join the team. Additional benefits and coaching are available.
Interested in learning more about playing Chaos? Check out the Warphammer Discord here: https://discord.gg/SgBcXW5s6R
Author
Mike Pestilens (magnustheread)
Mike, the founder of Warphammer, probably talking about which Warlord Traits he will include in his list. Not pictured is his date texting her friends to come pick her up early.
This Post Has 5 Comments
Good stuff! What a wholesome guy, how can you not like Russel? Thanks for all the gems sprinkled in there! Im gonna have to rewatch the game @ WarGames Live vs sisters to get an idea of how the maestro operates. Also props for being loyal to the legion and not getting sidetracked by all the other goodness! I do hope we get to see a variety of CSM gameplay in the coming months though, shaking up the scene. Also i cant wait for the Daemon codex to drop and hopefully boost CSM even further! There could be so much potential there, particularly for the unaligned legions 😉
Anyways, thanks for the free content Mike, keep doing what you do and stay creative (drillgang+warpflamer yuck). I really appreciate your work, especially Warped Wednesday since Daemons/Be’Lakor got me back into the hobby. May your corner of the Warp thrive!
Thanks so much for the kind words Bel’barras! Sending good warp-y vibes your way. Just as excited for Daemons as you.
(No idea why the AI thought this comment was spam, you’re approved going forwards)
It was a good interview, but i find it wierd that Russell didnt talk about new demonshells or remain stationary strat. They cost 1cp each and combined with abby buffed terminator brick, will consistently shatter non armor of contempt vehicles from across the map, while advancing to get closer to melee. Did any of you try it, and if you did what are your thoughts.
Hello, any chance you will put the audio for this and your YouTube show on a podcast platform?
Hi Cam, I’m a total beginner when it comes to podcast stuff but that’s a great idea! Just waiting for them to get a bit more popular and then we’ll work on distributing them across various podcast platforms.