Right to the point here: the Veteran class in the Tome of Decay gets to choose one special ability from any other chaos marine archetype. Descriptions make them sound like the ultimate chaos warriors, but I'm torn about what ability to choose.

My favorite legion is the Alpha Legion, but they're abilities don't seem so focused on combat like the veteran class is implying to be about. How bout you guys? I'd love to hear some opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of choosing one ability over another. Anybody give it some thought?

Using the Night Lord ability that makes them harder to see works well. It's way better than the actual Night Lord Archetype.

The hatred-related archetype benefit is exceptionally potent on a Khornate given the possibility of combining it with Purity of Aggression, so picking Aligned: Khorne and grabbing one of the Khorne Berzerker's archetype benefits on a Veteran of the Long War seems like a pretty good plan (I probably wouldn't take Avatar of Slaughter as Running or Charging with the Hard Target talent is going to be much better in most situations and doesn't even cost infamy or require a test). Admittedly, Unstoppable Wrath also isn't great given that Frenzy already makes stunning and fatigue irrelevant (and there are also other ways to deal with such effects that last for more than one round and don't consume infamy), Killing Strike is better than the Parry-ignoring perk if you are built around All Out Attacks as it requires no test, and the ignore death/limb loss for a turn gimmick is funny but probably not something you actually want to plan around getting a chance to use. All in all Khorne Berzerker is simply not very good in terms of archetype benefits as far as I can see, which is all the more reason to just base a Khornate around Veteran of the Long War and its very Khorne-appropriate archetype benefit.

Otherwise, you can be an Undivided Psyker taking the base game's Sorcerer's Psy rating as your bonus. You don't start with any psychic powers, psy-related talents (not that there are too many of them), or psyniscience, but an already strong advanced class (you even get a bonus to willpower!) coupled with psy rating 2 and a force sword will get you places in the long run.

Right to the point here: the Veteran class in the Tome of Decay gets to choose one special ability from any other chaos marine archetype. Descriptions make them sound like the ultimate chaos warriors, but I'm torn about what ability to choose.

My favorite legion is the Alpha Legion, but they're abilities don't seem so focused on combat like the veteran class is implying to be about. How bout you guys? I'd love to hear some opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of choosing one ability over another. Anybody give it some thought?

Archetype, I'm not sure it means advanced archetype (has there been any confirmation?)

Agree that the sorceror's psy rating and force weapon are a good option to half-inch.

Right to the point here: the Veteran class in the Tome of Decay gets to choose one special ability from any other chaos marine archetype. Descriptions make them sound like the ultimate chaos warriors, but I'm torn about what ability to choose.

My favorite legion is the Alpha Legion, but they're abilities don't seem so focused on combat like the veteran class is implying to be about. How bout you guys? I'd love to hear some opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of choosing one ability over another. Anybody give it some thought?

Archetype, I'm not sure it means advanced archetype (has there been any confirmation?)

Agree that the sorceror's psy rating and force weapon are a good option to half-inch.

If it can't get the powers of the advanced archetypes it's really pointless.

I already feel that it's pointless because mechanically I feel like it doesn't really add anything (you don't have to be a veteran of the long war to play a veteran of the long war - it's already covered by the ancient warrior talent).

It's the only CSM advanced archetype that I don't see the point of.

As far as I can guess the point of Veteran of the Long War is to allow people to seamlessly bring in more general unaligned CSM archetypes (the existing ones are either Legion-specific or are specialists like Warpsmiths/Dark Apostles) into Advanced Archetype-based games (just bolting on the xp differential is not great given how much better a player could optimize their character with that xp relative to the construction of a typical advanced archetype). It would have been nice if there was a similarly general "upgrade" archetype for unaligned humans, really.

Archetype, I'm not sure it means advanced archetype (has there been any confirmation?)

It HAS to include advanced archetypes, as there's no language implying otherwise and more importantly, it specifically notes picking one of the same alignment, and 0% of the non-advanced archetypes start with alignment -- prohibiting VotLW from picking an advanced specialty would be a case of the homebrews.

Yep fully agree, the option to pick a particular alignment of another archetype would be completely pointless if you could only pick from the basic archetypes which all start unaligned.

FFG have been known to make blunders of that magnitude before but it's a pretty strong indicator that that advanced archetypes are including when picking. Also why would you have an advanced archetype who's greatest ability was to take the ability of only the basic archetypes, would be completely ridiculous IMHO.

VotLW: "I choose to start aligned to Khorne."

Gm: "As there is no basic Archtype aligned to Khorne, you don't get to choose anything. Tough luck."

VotLW: "But, but. Dammit."

This could come up if you can choose only Archtypes and not Advanced Archtypes.

Hyperbole yes, but if rules are interprited like this.

The way i read it (and i can be totaly wrong here) is this when you create your vet you choose your alignment. Then you pick "one special ability and one piece of equipment from any other chaos sm archetype with a starting alignment that matches yours"

So that would mean i could take "aligment to Nurgle" and get "infactious miasma" and "plague knife." from the (starts nurgle aligned) plague marine

But since it sais " any other" i was thinking about going unaligned and getting the ability from one archetype and the equipment from another archetype. It doesn't say it has to be the same archetype for both, right?

So i might pick "unaligned" plus "binaric curse" (warpsmith) and "accursed crozius" (word bearers), correct?

aww to bad. Gues i was reading it wrong. Plus i have the bad habbit of wanting to play multiclass characters.

So whats the point of picking a Nurgle aligned vet with infactious miasma and a plague knife over a plague marine?

Now a word bearers veteran i can understand, because an acursed crozius goes great with "abhorrence unchained".

I guess i shall take "harbinger of heresy for his ability then.