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Just a question is to how good are they this addition? Strong lists? Or are they a cookie cutter army?

Can you play with any units or do they have a few units that don't do well?

I have found that they can do well, not top tier, but well enough to be fun. I personally go for the Crimson Slaughter supplement which I believe makes CSM a bit more strong (access to divination for one thing, PE on 1 squad of Chosen, and you can make a pretty powerful Chaos Lord). Most units are alright and can do well in the right lists. HOWEVER, units to generally stay away from are Rubric Marines, MoT Sorceror, and I have never seen anyone play Mutilators and I would not touch them unless I wanted to play a defensive game (for some odd reason) and even then I'd probably think thrice.

Tzeentch is pretty crummy in codex with Nurgle and Slaanesh having superior spells available. Khorne is not amazing especially with the Furious Charge nerf from 6th Ed.

Yeah, you can do a ton of stuff with them still, at least, as well as you could in 6th. They're still a CC army in a gunline rules edition, but the missions did help them out slightly, if you roll right.

As for cookie-cutter, that's entirely a reflection of the lack of creativity of players, not a statement about the army itself, which is just as true for CSM as for anything else.

What's your record look like with your Khorne CSM army in 7th, Ailaros?

Given how most of the new codexes arent overpowered at all, and as long as you arent facing Eldar, Space Marines or Tau, I think CSM, even if they arent bringing a netlist, have a fair chance of winning and dont have to struggle.

After the addition of the Imperial Armour 13 units into the army and the hell cult and murder pack formations they do pretty good. The CSM codex itself is very poorly balanced with some legions being nearly unplayable but with some clever design and liberal application of forgeworld, data slates, allies, and supplements you can make some pretty great armies and a decent variety of them.

I do fairly well with my CSM, I have problems against a few armies, such as eldar. I mostly use a deepstriking army. Ageis defence line with comms relay, then three units of obliterators, three units of terminators and two heldrakes. I also fly a daemon Prince around, or Belakor if I'm feeling mean.


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But yes, add imperial armour 13 to the mix, and watch out because chaos forge world units are filthy.

Quite some people in the internet consider them lacking in power for tournament play. But I love playing with them and it's a diverse and fun army for me. With certain builds (e.g. fast CSM with bikes, Spawns and Maulerfiends) you can play very well in friendly environments.

BlaxicanX wrote:What's your record look like with your Khorne CSM army in 7th, Ailaros?

About the same as it was in sixth. About the same as it usually is, in fact. I try to keep my win-loss ratio hovering around a certain percentage over time.

Sir Arun wrote:Given how most of the new codexes arent overpowered at all, and as long as you arent facing Eldar, Space Marines or Tau, I think CSM, even if they arent bringing a netlist, have a fair chance of winning and dont have to struggle.

And, really, it's certain builds of SM and Eldar. Serpent spam may be super popular, but it's not the only way to play eldar.

As a BT player I can truly say I hate Tsons. I want my Initiates to take the fight to the enemy and engage them in close combat, but when you are faced with rapid-firing AP3 bolters, there's nothing short of a Land Raider that could possibly escort your guys there with relative safety. And then you still have to survive a rapid-fire AP3 overwatch. I imagine Blood Angels Death Company feel the same, as do certain SWolf builds.

Tsons are also a real PITA for deepstriking crisis suits that for example want to fight your daemon engines that otherwise sit back and shoot stuff at the Tau gunlike like Defilers, Dinobots and LRs. Same goes for drop poded Sternguard vets looking to smoke your vehicles - they'll be forced to choose between a vehicle, and being gunned down by the rubric marines next turn.

 Sir Arun wrote:
And then you still have to survive a rapid-fire AP3 overwatch.

Tsons can't overwatch. They're snp.

On the whole, formations are bringing a relief to CSM. Be'Lakor, Helbrutes, Cypher with infiltrating chosen - they're all pretty much great.

Cypher + 20 slaanesh marines with fnp can wreck havok. And if you also bring Huron along, can create a solid all-infiltrate army with chosen.

 Sir Arun wrote:
As a BT player I can truly say I hate Tsons. I want my Initiates to take the fight to the enemy and engage them in close combat, but when you are faced with rapid-firing AP3 bolters, there's nothing short of a Land Raider that could possibly escort your guys there with relative safety. And then you still have to survive a rapid-fire AP3 overwatch. I imagine Blood Angels Death Company feel the same, as do certain SWolf builds.

Tsons are also a real PITA for deepstriking crisis suits that for example want to fight your daemon engines that otherwise sit back and shoot stuff at the Tau gunlike like Defilers, Dinobots and LRs. Same goes for drop poded Sternguard vets looking to smoke your vehicles - they'll be forced to choose between a vehicle, and being gunned down by the rubric marines next turn.

This is literally the first post I have ever seen where somebody talked about Rubric Marines being a PAIN to face. For the points, their firepower is pretty terrible, they don't get Overwatch, and they lack grenades. They're the worst Cult Marine option for a VERY good reason.

?

1ksons get a 4++, so don't care about cover or Ap1-3 weapons, and they come with Ap3 small arms, and fearless, and hatred space marines, and their sergeant is a psyker, and he comes with a force weapon, and for a trivial fee, their bolters start people on fire.

Who cares if they don't get overwatch when you've got all that other stuff? Of course 1ksons can be a pain to face.

To whom? someone who plays with tacticals without transports or drops pods and standing in the open?

They are rather bad, because their msu unit cost as full units. ap3 is cool, but not on strenght 4 weapons and the psyker leader is not a very good caster himself, has to use a bad psychic school and if he is just there to supply psy dice, then horrors do it better for less and can use demonology.

CSM were annoying as ally, because of helldrakes. Now with the drake nerf, they are bad as ally and stand alone they seem to play biker or spawn deathstars with invisibility.

Yeah...

The 4++ is nice, but only against AP3 or better- they die just as well as the standard 10ppm cheaper marine to everything else. Fearless is nice, but since they have standard-marine durability, you need to take them in non-MSU sized squads to get the most efficiency out of fearless, and that inflates their cost greatly.

Their dakka is nice, but inefficient. It's overkill against anything that's AP4 and T3 or worse, and against Marines it being only S4 really cuts into into its wound potential. Taking MSU 1KSons to keep costs down, they're only killing two marines per round of rapid-fire shooting. Bump that up to 10 Sons and you're killing a respectable 7 MEQ per turn of turn, but you're also paying 235 points to do this (how else are you getting your slow-and-purposeful unit into rapid-fire range if not with a rhino?), and it's assuming that these units are completely naked of cover. A simple 5+ cover save knocks those 7 wounds down to 4. Are you really getting ahead when you're allocating 435 points of shooting toward killing ~85 points (assuming upgrades) of combat-squadded marines?

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, you can do a ton of stuff with them still, at least, as well as you could in 6th. They're still a CC army in a gunline rules edition, but the missions did help them out slightly, if you roll right.

As for cookie-cutter, that's entirely a reflection of the lack of creativity of players, not a statement about the army itself, which is just as true for CSM as for anything else.

Aha! Thank you! ! I was wondering why certain codexes seemed so linear in viable units and builds, and why so many units are so bad they are unplayable, and how I was meant to make my Mutilators & Warp Talons not put me at an immediate disadvantage just by including them in my list. But you've just opened my eyes. It's not that the UNITS are bad - it's that Ailaros is a better player than everyone as usual and the entire world bar him is incapable of using these overlooked units properly. Sheesh, it all seems so obvious in hindsight.

 koooaei wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
And then you still have to survive a rapid-fire AP3 overwatch.

Tsons can't overwatch. They're snp.

On the whole, formations are bringing a relief to CSM. Be'Lakor, Helbrutes, Cypher with infiltrating chosen - they're all pretty much great.

Cypher + 20 slaanesh marines with fnp can wreck havok. And if you also bring Huron along, can create a solid all-infiltrate army with chosen.

You can't give Fallen Angels marks.

I've fared quite well in 7th edition, but I've only been playing against Khornate Warbands, so that doesn't really say anything at all!

Despite the naysaying, I've had a lot of fun with my Thousand Sons army.

I even use a Warpsmith.

I also win games. With infantry. I don't own a single chaos vehicle.

Then again, I only play Kill Team and 1000 point games.

 ChazSexington wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
And then you still have to survive a rapid-fire AP3 overwatch.

Tsons can't overwatch. They're snp.

On the whole, formations are bringing a relief to CSM. Be'Lakor, Helbrutes, Cypher with infiltrating chosen - they're all pretty much great.

Cypher + 20 slaanesh marines with fnp can wreck havok. And if you also bring Huron along, can create a solid all-infiltrate army with chosen.

You can't give Fallen Angels marks.

I've fared quite well in 7th edition, but I've only been playing against Khornate Warbands, so that doesn't really say anything at all!

You can't give marks to chosen from the formation.

BlaxicanX wrote:The 4++ is nice, but only against AP3 or better- they die just as well as the standard 10ppm cheaper marine to everything else.

The existence of Ap4-6 weapons doesn't disprove the existence of Ap1-3 weapons. The argument you're making could just as easily be made to say "FNP is nice, but they die just as fast against weapons with ID as much cheaper models", or "terminator armor is nice, but terminators die just as quickly to Ap1-2 weapons as far cheaper models with a 5++. That's true, technically, but so what?

Better armor is better armor. I mean, would you rather 1ksons go around with no armor save and no invul save? They'd certainly be cheaper then, but they'd also be terrible.

The ++ may not mean they're any better against lasguns, but it means they're better against that vast pile of weapons that exist to shred marines into tiny pieces. And it makes it so that they can face these weapons without being stuck buried deep into cover, and they can hold off against serious CC threats for longer to let those units with force weapons do their work.

The fact that the advantage isn't universal doesn't change the fact that it's an advantage.

BlaxicanX wrote:It's overkill against anything that's AP4 and T3 or worse

Once again, this continuum argument doesn't really track.

Ap5 is overkill against Anything that's Ap6, so should bolters be only Ap6? What you're talking about is only true if the 1ksons player is up against an army that contains literally no Sv3+ or Sv4+, and most armies have something in this range. Even if they don't, the fact that the advantage isn't universal doesn't change the fact that it's an advantage.

BlaxicanX wrote:Fearless is nice, but since they have standard-marine durability, you need to take them in non-MSU sized squads to get the most efficiency out of fearless

But its effectiveness is the same, regardless of squad size. It still passes all morale tests and makes you immune to certain special rules, if you MSU or not. Would you really rather not have fearless if it made them a point or two cheaper?

In any case, I'd rather have fearless in large squads where I have more to lose if I roll badly once than if I had a lot of little squads that are more likely to get wiped out before they fail a morale check anyways.

BlaxicanX wrote:Are you really getting ahead when you're allocating 435 points of shooting toward killing ~85 points (assuming upgrades) of combat-squadded marines?

If they're on an objective, or if you're forcing them to cower in cover while you take up board space elsewhere, then it very well could be. Not to mention Sv3+ MCs.

In any case, the argument you're making is GROSSLY unfair. You're rolling in the price of the invul save and fearless, etc. etc. while then throwing them away in the comparison. It would be like looking at terminators and asking if a storm bolter is really worth 40 points apiece. Of course it's not, but a TERMINATOR, complete with 2+/5++ and a power fist in addition to that storm bolter, is worth it.

Making grossly skewed comparisons doesn't really do anything.

5+ FNP on slaaneshi marines is IMO better than 4++ on rubric marines, because while I do agree that it is slightly worse against plasma, it on the other hand protects against small arms fire as well and you gotta keep in mind that S8 AP3 weapons or better do not negate their FNP. Of course, Noise marines work best when stationary, so have them sit on an objective and give deepstrikers a hard time taking it - especially because they can also fire overwatch unlike Tsons.

 Ailaros wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:The 4++ is nice, but only against AP3 or better- they die just as well as the standard 10ppm cheaper marine to everything else.

The existence of Ap4-6 weapons doesn't disprove the existence of Ap1-3 weapons. The argument you're making could just as easily be made to say "FNP is nice, but they die just as fast against weapons with ID as much cheaper models", or "terminator armor is nice, but terminators die just as quickly to Ap1-2 weapons as far cheaper models with a 5++. That's true, technically, but so what?

Actually, the correct analogy would be "that Terminator armour may as well by scout armour vs AP5, AP6, AP2, and AP1", and you would be correct. To answer your question on why this matters, well - they quite clearly pay out the ass for this bonus. The 4++ on TSons is enough to be relevant at times, but it's not like a 4++ on CC Tzeentch Terms, both in usefulness and in cost. Considering that practically all standard weaponry is Ap4 or higher, AP3 or lower being mostly restricted to specialist weapons, and considering TSOns are likely to be the flimsiest things in your army, why would all their Ap4 and higher weaponry be going anywhere else but these guys to begin with? Unless you are running Spawn, there isn't much that even has a lower save than Marines in the dex. And even if they DO use Ap3 or lower weaponry on them, they still get SOME efficiency out of it by costing them a point or armour save, and even after that the TSons are STILL less durable than standard Marines point for point, but as said they often won't even be using I think the statement that 4++ isn't that huge on them especially at that price is a pretty fair one.

 Sir Arun wrote:
5+ FNP on slaaneshi marines is IMO better than 4++ on rubric marines, because while I do agree that it is slightly worse against plasma, it on the other hand protects against small arms fire as well and you gotta keep in mind that S8 AP3 weapons or better do not negate their FNP. Of course, Noise marines work best when stationary, so have them sit on an objective and give deepstrikers a hard time taking it - especially because they can also fire overwatch unlike Tsons.

Well, it's all interlocking. For everyone except khorne, at least.

If you compare what different weapons do against the different marines, you find that, unsurprisingly, nurgle is better against the small stuff, slaanesh against mid-level killing power, and tzeentch against the big guns. The +1T of Nurgle, for exammple, stops making a difference once you're facing S7+, and FNP becomes more useful than +1T starting at S5, and even lower with good Ap. Meanwhile, the 5++ is the same against Ap1-3 than FNP, but then it's always better against weapons S8-10, regardless of Ap.

But the important lesson here, is that whichever you choose, you get one advantage or another against certain kinds of things but not against others. Saying that 1ksons' 4++ is junk because there are S3-4 weapons means that plague marine's +1T is worthless because there exist S7-10 weapons. Neither of those statements is true. The existence of circumstances outside of those where the advantage is useful does not change the fact that they're still useful in those circumstances. Nobody says that bolters are useless because they can't hurt AV14, nor should they say that a 4++ is useless because there are bolters.

They're just different tools for different circumstances. That is all.

It is true. PMs are a lot weaker now. They are ok, because of 2 specials per 5 marines, something 1ksons get and FnP they can take from all weapons giving them 2 effective saves most of the time. 1ksons cost more. Have less utility then PMs , as no special weapons means an inability to deal with AV targets. Also PMS are unlocked by a nurgle lord who is a popular and ok HQ, while 1ksons are unlocked by either a super costly Ahriman or a bad tzeench marked sorc.

1ksons are always bad, and pms while not the best units in the game at least have some synergy with other units.

 Ailaros wrote:
they fail a morale check anyways.

BlaxicanX wrote:Are you really getting ahead when you're allocating 435 points of shooting toward killing ~85 points (assuming upgrades) of combat-squadded marines?

If they're on an objective, or if you're forcing them to cower in cover while you take up board space elsewhere, then it very well could be. Not to mention Sv3+ MCs.

In any case, the argument you're making is GROSSLY unfair. You're rolling in the price of the invul save and fearless, etc. etc. while then throwing them away in the comparison. It would be like looking at terminators and asking if a storm bolter is really worth 40 points apiece. Of course it's not, but a TERMINATOR, complete with 2+/5++ and a power fist in addition to that storm bolter, is worth it.

Making grossly skewed comparisons doesn't really do anything.

For 435 points I can load up squads to table that are much better than Rubric Marines. Hell, I could probably do it with CSMs. I'll do the maths later. Are we going to assume the objective is in cover and grant the CSMs a 5+ save?

IMHO, they cost too much for circumstantial bonuses.

ChazSexington wrote:IMHO, they cost too much for circumstantial bonuses.

Sure, so long as your circumstances never include Ap1-3 weapons, Sv3+ or 4+ models, don't mind being set on fire with soulblaze, or have monstrous creatures.

Circumstantial? Of course, but those are pretty broad circumstances. Unless you really never wind up facing off against that kind of stuff, then failure to get use out of them is going to rest more on the players than the unit itself - they already have the rules after all.

I wouldn't ever say a 4++ is junk or useless. It can however be called over-costed. My only real beef with TSons is the crappy tzeentch powers. I'd rather have pyromancy or any other table besides csm tzeentch table.

 Ailaros wrote:


If you compare what different weapons do against the different marines, you find that, unsurprisingly, nurgle is better against the small stuff, slaanesh against mid-level killing power, and tzeentch against the big guns. The +1T of Nurgle, for exammple, stops making a difference once you're facing S7+, and FNP becomes more useful than +1T starting at S5, and even lower with good Ap. Meanwhile, the 5++ is the same against Ap1-3 than FNP, but then it's always better against weapons S8-10, regardless of Ap.

Note that MoT gives +1 to invul, or 6++ on a model that has no invuln. So a regular CSM with MoT has a 3+/6++, not a 3+/5++.

While I agree that 6++ is better than FNP or +1T against Str8-10 it is fairly limited as it only comes into play on AP3 or better and is only a 16% chance to save and str8-10 weapons are not usually what kills most CSM foot sloggers.

 Ailaros wrote:
Better armor is better armor.

No, it isn't, because as noted by SHUPPET, you're paying a premium for that 4++, and 90% of weapons in the game are AP4 and up. An advantage that's only applicable 10% of the time doesn't justify its cost and it isn't worth building a strategy around.

It's probably even less than 10%, as even when against armies that are packing AP3, unless they're idiots they're just not going to use their AP3 on the Sons. I know that all the times I've played against 1KSon armies, I've just reserved my AP3 pie-plates for his regular CSM and used standard shooting to kill the 1KSons, which always works out well because, as stated... against AP4+, which makes up 90% of ranged/melee attacks in the game, they're just more expensive marines.

Ap5 is overkill against Anything that's Ap6, so should bolters be only Ap6?

AP5 and AP6 is basically free and is never costed into the unit- the Sons pay a premium for their AP3, yet again paying out the ass for an advantage that will rarely be worthwhile. Rarely worthwhile because, as you conveniently swept under the rug, even against MEQ their AP3 bolters aren't that effective due to being only strength 4 and helpless against cover.

But its effectiveness is the same, regardless of squad size.

No it isn't, because MSU marines are just going to die, no morale test needed. This reminds me of people who whine about ATSKNF and claim that it's overpowered because it prevents units from running off the board, totally ignoring the fact that in today's 40K meta ranged firepower is such that a 10-man tactical squad can easily be crippled if not wiped out just by weight of fire. Fearless is points being thrown away if the unit gets sweeped off the board, which is what's going to happen to MSU Sons against any optimized list.

If they're on an objective, or if you're forcing them to cower in cover while you take up board space elsewhere, then it very well could be

No it can't, because you can very easily achieve the same goal using units that don't cost 200+ points.

In any case, the argument you're making is GROSSLY unfair. You're rolling in the price of the invul save and fearless, etc. etc. while then throwing them away in the comparison.

No, I'm not throwing away anything. The game is throwing them away. The fact of the matter is that the type of situation that would allow all of the 1KSon perks that you pay out the ass for to shine in are extremely atypical, especially against opponents who what they're doing, to the point where there are significantly more point-efficient options in the codex to perform whatever role you want them to do.

Makumba wrote:
It is true. PMs are a lot weaker now. They are ok, because of 2 specials per 5 marines, something 1ksons get and FnP they can take from all weapons giving them 2 effective saves most of the time. 1ksons cost more. Have less utility then PMs , as no special weapons means an inability to deal with AV targets. Also PMS are unlocked by a nurgle lord who is a popular and ok HQ, while 1ksons are unlocked by either a super costly Ahriman or a bad tzeench marked sorc.

1ksons are always bad, and pms while not the best units in the game at least have some synergy with other units.

Did you just call Ahriman bad? Have you SEEN what 7th edition did to him?

The guy cleans entire units per turn, given te right powers. Get Psychich shriek and Smite and he will send models flying across the table. If you're lucky you might ecen get doombolt. I've had bad games with him but since 7th hit the table, he's always managed to clear more than his worth in points except in cases of very bad luck.