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Bear with me, as I'm still picking it up as I go with the codex. After speaking with many of the knowledgeable people on Dakka and GW in store. Here is what I've come up with for my first army of 1000 points.

My tactic with this army will be to leave my noise marines in a cover save position with good field of fire on the battlefield and approach to objectives. Havocs will remain in a good open field of fire to cover my noise marines, barrage enemy positions, and engage air if necessary. I will proceed on objective/s with Lucius and Cultists surrounding him, with Lucius diverting to engage the enemy in melee, once they have been weakened by the noise marines. During the movement/s, I will attempt to engage and lock the heavy support or elites (greatest threat) with Maulerfiend. Finally, harassing the enemies fast attack or troops as required with the Heldrake, preventing any possible threat to my noise marines, and provide cover as my cultists and Lucius move on target respectively.

Any recommendations, advice or criticism welcome

(LIST UPDATED: See a few posts below)

HQ
Lucius the Eternal 165

Troops
12 x Chaos Cultists 58

10 x Noise Marines 306
+ 7 x Sonic Blaster (3pts/pm)
+ 2 x Blastmaster (30pts/pm)
+ Doom Siren
+ Icon of Excess

Fast Attack
Heldrake 170

Heavy Support
Maulerfiend 125

Havocs 175
+ 4 x Missile Launchers (15 pts/pm)
+ 4 x Flakk Missile (10 pts/pm)

Total Points: 999

I can see this working fairly well for a 1000 pt army, I for one love noise marines. The Icon of Excess makes them ridiculously dirty also. Nice work. I like to see an army based around Noise Marines. Which weapons will you take with the Heldrake?

I love noise marines, but IMO you have them built to waste points, you can get a lot more out of your list if you maximize thier points efficiency.

Blast masters - 48" so putting a doom siren in here is doing you zero good. Wasted points.
Sonic Blasters - 24" good midfield gun but you don't want to endanger your blastmasters being this close and again Doom Sirens are wasted.
Doom Siren - template this goes in the unit that wants to get into the thick of it with a FNP banner.

Your heavy slots will just be outperformed by nurgle obliterators as well.

At 1k points I'd scrap lucius for a naked slaanesh lord. With all these changes you can probably get another squad of Noise Marines or another Heldrake.

If this list is for fun, well no one can tell you something is wrong or inefficient.

Pretty much what Goat said. I see no problem going 3x5 noise marines only blast master as upgrade and maybe Icon of excess

Nice list, Cultists as distraction unit I presume?

 TechmarineNic wrote:
Nice list, Cultists as distraction unit I presume?

Probably a meatshield for lucius until he can get close to something an slap it around.

Noise Marines are awesome.

I usually favor MSU tactics with them, unless they are being tossed in rhino.

So,
Doom Siren / PW / Whatever on champ
5 Sonic Blasters

Doom Siren / PW / Whatever on champ
1 Blastmaster and 4 Bolters

Doom Siren / PW / Whatever on champ
7 Bolters and 2 Blastmasters, all in a Rhino for extra protection.

The first two are squad size 6 for extra Slaaneshi fluffiness, the last one lets the guns fire from the top of a protective metal box. I like keeping a Doom Siren on the champ because he cannot really add more shooty punch anyway, and the flamer deters or mitigates the damage from your shooty squad getting assaulted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Blastmaster really shines when stationary and farther back, whereas you really want the Sonic Blasters moving up to, or deployed in, the midfield. They do well in separate squads, rather than together.

Remember not to post individual upgrade points.

Id specialize a 2 squads of assaulty ccw, doom siren in rhino, 2 squads of just sonic blasters, 2 squad of blast masters. Or id forget the assaulty squad for more blast master squads.

Thank you all very much for your time to reply. I made a mistake on my calculations and also displayed my sub-unit calculations. So originally I was only going to field 10 Noise Marines in total. However with the recommendations I am now able to field 3 squads of Noise Marines, 2 with blastmasters, and a mid-range sonic blaster squad.

ascended_mike wrote:I can see this working fairly well for a 1000 pt army, I for one love noise marines. The Icon of Excess makes them ridiculously dirty also. Nice work. I like to see an army based around Noise Marines. Which weapons will you take with the Heldrake?

I will be taking the Baleflame - it's a free upgrade and uses the flame template ignoring cover.

Goat wrote:I love noise marines, but IMO you have them built to waste points, you can get a lot more out of your list if you maximize thier points efficiency.

Blast masters - 48" so putting a doom siren in here is doing you zero good. Wasted points.
Sonic Blasters - 24" good midfield gun but you don't want to endanger your blastmasters being this close and again Doom Sirens are wasted.
Doom Siren - template this goes in the unit that wants to get into the thick of it with a FNP banner.

Your heavy slots will just be outperformed by nurgle obliterators as well.

At 1k points I'd scrap lucius for a naked slaanesh lord. With all these changes you can probably get another squad of Noise Marines or another Heldrake.

If this list is for fun, well no one can tell you something is wrong or inefficient.

In regards to the obliterator, I have updated my list and can only squeeze a standard Obliterator inplace of the Maulerfiend. Being just the one, and without enough points for an upgrade unless I remove them elsewhere, should I keep the obliterator or revert back to the maulerfiend?

killerpenguin wrote:Pretty much what Goat said. I see no problem going 3x5 noise marines only blast master as upgrade and maybe Icon of excess

Thank you both, I have updated my listing below my replies in accordance trying to take in what you have recommended. Please let me know what you both think of the changes.

TechmarineNic wrote:Nice list, Cultists as distraction unit I presume?

Correct, their main function will be to deliver HQ to the gunline, or proceed on objective.

ascended_mike wrote:

 TechmarineNic wrote:
Nice list, Cultists as distraction unit I presume?

Probably a meatshield for lucius until he can get close to something an slap it around.

This as well if there is no objective Although I have updated my HQ to a Chaos Lord, so that I could fit another unit of Noise Marines in.

spycer wrote:Noise Marines are awesome.

I usually favor MSU tactics with them, unless they are being tossed in rhino.

So,
Doom Siren / PW / Whatever on champ
5 Sonic Blasters

Doom Siren / PW / Whatever on champ
1 Blastmaster and 4 Bolters

Doom Siren / PW / Whatever on champ
7 Bolters and 2 Blastmasters, all in a Rhino for extra protection.

The first two are squad size 6 for extra Slaaneshi fluffiness, the last one lets the guns fire from the top of a protective metal box. I like keeping a Doom Siren on the champ because he cannot really add more shooty punch anyway, and the flamer deters or mitigates the damage from your shooty squad getting assaulted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Blastmaster really shines when stationary and farther back, whereas you really want the Sonic Blasters moving up to, or deployed in, the midfield. They do well in separate squads, rather than together.

Thank you, I have updated my listing to include your recommended tactic along with other people's recommendations. Please have a look over it to see what you think

Below is the updated listing taking everyones recommendation into account. I can understand the value in MSU, my concern at the moment is CC. Being a gunline consisting of extremely powerful weaponry it was doubtful that anything would surive before engaging a larger squad. But with the alterations I've kept the Doom Siren in case my mid-range Sonic Blasters are charged, however the long range Blastermaster units are only equipped with Bolters. Would this suffice, or will I need my HQ to remain with one of the two to ensure CC survivability?

HQ
Chaos Lord - 65
+ Mark of Slaanesh

Troops
12 x Cultists - 58

5 x Noise Marines - 155
+ 1 x Blastmaster
+ Icon of Excess

5 x Noise Marines - 155
+ 1 x Blastmaster
+ Icon of Excess

5 x Noise Marines - 152
+ 4 x Sonic Blaster
+ Doom Siren (Champion)
+ Icon of Excess

Fast Attack
Heldrake - 170
+ Baleflamer

Heavy Support
Obliterator - 70

Havocs - 175
+ 4 x Missile Launchers
+ 4 x Flakk Missile

Total Points: 1000 exactly.

What I ment was you can show total squad points but not the upgrade points like you are with the havocs.

I like how you chose msu of blastmasters.

Filch wrote:Remember not to post individual upgrade points.

Id specialize a 2 squads of assaulty ccw, doom siren in rhino, 2 squads of just sonic blasters, 2 squad of blast masters. Or id forget the assaulty squad for more blast master squads.

Yea I won't in the future caused a lot of confusion.

Filch wrote:What I ment was you can show total squad points but not the upgrade points like you are with the havocs.

I like how you chose msu of blastmasters.

Fixed I've included overall unit cost instead of subtotals and so forth.

I would have to begin removing the Obliterator and Havoc to squeeze another Sound Marine squad in and Rhino, would this negatively affect my capability to intercept air and armour?



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Any further thoughts to the updated list or should that be good to go?

Id swap out the oblits for adl+quad gun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also shave points from dropping 1 ml+flakk to make adl fit.

HQ
Lucius the Eternal 165

Troops
12 x Chaos Cultists 58

10 x Noise Marines 306
+ 7 x Sonic Blaster (3pts/pm)
+ 2 x Blastmaster (30pts/pm)
+ Doom Siren
+ Icon of Excess
I think the Doom Siren is a wast of points... You could lose the Icon and split this into 2 squads.

One alternative. I would lose the Cultists and the Maulerfiend for a squad of Noise Marines with either free or additional CCW. Then outfit your champion with Doom Siren and Power Maul or Lightning Claw. Perhaps an Icon and VotLW. This becomes Lucius escort unit.

Fast Attack
Heldrake 170

Heavy Support
Maulerfiend 125

Havocs 175
+ 4 x Missile Launchers (15 pts/pm)
+ 4 x Flakk Missile (10 pts/pm)
Hmm average 3 hits vs air or 3 hits vs ground target... I guess I would go cheap and just go 4 x autocannons. 1.3 hits vs air and 5.3 hits verus ground target. If you are faced by air targets, you have the heldrake anyways. Go cheap and take the better autocannons.

Thank you. I've realised that I did not account for MoS on my Chaos Lord. As a result I've had to removed the obliterator, which was solo anyway.

With the extra points, I've added another 8 cultists, so that I now have a total of 20. Would it be wise to keep these guys as one unit, or split them into two units of 10 (costing an additional 10 points)? I would like to fit in an Aegis Defense Line, but I think it will need to keep until I increase size perhaps.

Retaining MoS on Chaos Lord - this brought my total to 977 points. Using the extra I have given the Chaos Lord, Gift of Mutation, Chainaxe and a Combi-bolter - pending the cultists MSU or mob - if I need that extra 10 points to split them up I will drop GoM. My total now standing at 998.

I'm sorely tempted to drop the Havoc squad for a 2nd Heldrake, simply based off what I hear they can do.

Any thoughts?

HQ - 101
Chaos Lord
+ Mark of Slaanesh
+ Gift of Mutation
+ Chainaxe
+ Combi-bolter

Troops - 552
20 x Cultists

5 x Noise Marines
+ 1 x Blastmaster
+ Icon of Excess

5 x Noise Marines
+ 1 x Blastmaster
+ Icon of Excess

5 x Noise Marines
+ 4 x Sonic Blaster
+ Doom Siren (Champion)
+ Icon of Excess

Fast Attack - 170
Heldrake
+ Baleflamer

Heavy Support - 175
Havocs
+ 4 x Missile Launchers
+ 4 x Flakk Missile

Total Points: 998