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Well guys, I think after searching and searching, I think I have finally found my army. This is one of my first non-horde armies, so it's a bit scary from my point of view.

But, I need your help ,dakka. Can you post any tactics, builds, or wargear selections you have found out on Chaos Space Marines?

Thanks

there are some excellent CSM tacticas in the sticky... other than that, you'd have to be more specific. i.e., what type of army are you planning on? Khorne, Nurgle, etc. Not tryin to be a jerk, sorry if it came off that way.

Thank you. I do not need any further posts here.

The best way to tackle this would be to start out small and work from there. Perhaps focus discussion on a couple of units at a time. To start things out generally, CSM armies revolve around troops so at 1500 points, you’re probably looking at:

1-2 HQS
3-4 squads in Rhinos
2-3 Heavy Support/Equivalent
Other stuff & upgrades.

I will also suggest that you try to build a decent list around units you generally like rather than run an internet list. Perhaps kick things off by posting some units that you would generally like to field in a 1000-1500 point list

Ok, maybe I take back my last post. Thanks to the candy.man for helping me brain storm for a brief moment.

I particularly like Khorne, I really am all about close combat, but I dislike the look of Khorne Berserkers.. I know an easy kitbash will do, but that is besides the point.

My favorite Chaos unit is probably the Terminators- I just favor those tusks and trophie racks!

How many points does your local grop most commonly play?

Berserkers are a very good unit. Khorne icons tend to be expensive, so you usually don't want to make other units "officially" khornate. If you're playing a large enough points size to fit in a land raider, a unit of Terminators with Icon of Khorne can throw out quite a bit of pain.

I had taken some time off from the Army Lists forum for the past few months, but by lucky chance I've been frequenting it again in the last few days, and have probably done a half dozen or more detailed rebuilds of various CSM lists. Let me see if I can get you a few links...

1850 Death Guard list & discussion:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330792.page#2172661

2000 mixed-powers list rebuild & discussion:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330496.page#2174192

1500 Khorne & unmarked mix with terminators:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330555.page

2000pt mixed-powers:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/329707.page#2151569

1500 Khorne themed (with Lash/nurgle Princes, but Khorne prince option in discussion):
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330800.page#2170656

1500 Iron Warriors mech army with comments:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330892.page#2172356

1500 Rhino rush with Chosen:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330510.page#2166512

Chaos has very solid troops, and both Daemon Princes and Sorcerers are very useful and deadly HQs.
Chaos has terrible Fast Attack units.
Chaos Elites are pretty good, but because all of your units tend to be on the pricey side, you need to keep the costs down here to afford enough Troops.
You almost always want several Rhinos to get your squads where they need to go.
You almost always want to get a bunch of melta weapons into your troop squads, because antitank shooting is otherwise limited in the army.
Heavy Support is pretty much your only source of ranged antitank, and they're pretty much all good options, though our land raiders are not nearly as good as loyalist ones, so they're not very popular.

At the moment I reckon your looking for a close combat favoured army with the addition of something khornate and terminators. Since you like terminators and close combat, I reckon you probably want a close combat themed terminator unit. Therefore I reckon the core of your army at 1500 points is probably going to look like:

5 terminators with 5 x lightning claws and 5 x combi weapons
8 Khorne Berserkers with power fist champ and rhino: 243 points
10 CSM with 2 x melta guns, power fist champ, Icon of Chaos Glory and rhino: 255 points
10 CSM with 2 x melta guns, power fist champ, Icon of Chaos Glory and rhino: 255 points
1 Chaos Land Raider

Total: 1198 (302 left over for HQ and heavy support/other stuff)

CSM units are expensive and dead 'ard. The upside to this is your army is like a sledgehammer the downside to this is there are units/weapons in the game that can ruin your units in a turn- accurate basilisk shot, battle/demolisher cannons/anything pieplate shaped and ap2 or 3, groups of plasma guns/plasmacannons... they can turn your dead 'ard traitors into just dead very quickly. A simple mistake of leaving 1-2 squads of expensive troups like plague marines out of cover from a firing lane from one of those weapons, and you can lose a chunk of your army in a turn.

possibly the best thing you can do IMO is jsut go through the codex find which unis you like and make a army revolving around them. Like they said heavy support will be your friend vs tanks.

I recently started Warhammer 40k and the people in Gameworkshop asked me a few questions about what i wanted in a army and they pinned me down to Khorne in chaos and i have looked around at the other armys and they were right, they hit me right on the head with the right army. Khorne beserkers are my fav unit

I myself like khorne and melee but i wanted to have utility in my army so i tryied to make it so even if a majority of my army doesnt get into melee (because of something very unlucky) i have another option, which i never really saw in other khorne armys.....im still working on that but thanks to the people here at Dakka my army list is MUCH better now .....oh hey he linked my forum XD

Thank you all :


@Zhangbob: I own the codex already, but I never have played CSM, that is why I made this thread.



/thread