8 years of Chaos VS Eldar

8 years ago I got into 40k with a buddy of mine. I bought CSM and he bought Eldar. At that time our armies were fairly balanced verses each other and we had a lot of fun. We made sure that we bought what we thought was cool and to stay away from the stuff we knew was "the best" in each codex. My buddy bought Khaine, dire avengers, banshees, fire dragons, wave serpents, and a falcon. I bought Abaddon, csm, khorne berzerkers, terminators, rhinos and defilers. We saw a few new rule books come out over time, but we found that our armies remained evenly matched. We had a lot of fun.
Right before the newest Eldar codex came out, another one of my friends picked up a used Eldar force which included wave serpents, wraithguard, fire prism, and guardians. He went on to buy a wraith knight, which he thought was the coolest thing ever, more wraithguard, more wave serpents, more jetbikes...
I took on the challenge. I believed that with enough creativity and tactical ingenuity, even Chaos could defeat the mighty Eldar. I've done it before, I'll do it again. I bought Obliterators even though I vowed when I first started playing that I'd never play them. I studied all the supplemental codex's to figure out what my options are, I teamed up with Daemons, I proxied, I used imperial guard, I used psychic powers, I slowly moved farther and farther away from the close combat bash and slash style that got me into 40k in the first place, and made lists where I squeezed in as many lascannons as I possibly could into an army. I could win sometimes, but it was a stretch. And at the end of the day, it just wasn't fun playing like this. Always trying to made the perfect efficient list to compete with a codex that can pretty much slap together any combination of units and be more competitive.
When Khorne Daemonkin came out... I reclaimed my gaming identity. I'm a bloody Chaos player. I'm a Khorne fanatic, and I want nothing but to run in and bash some skulls. I picked up this codex with incredible excitement, ready to finally destroy the Eldar. But I soon found myself wondering, where is Kharn, the champion of Khorne? Why do bloodcrushers suck so bad? Why didn't GW fix my defilers? Don't they know they are over costed? How come I don't have any realistic assault options for my assault army? Why can't Bloodthirsters assault the turn after they deep strike? These questions run through my mind as I get blown to smithereens by strength D weapons.
Then Traitor's Hate came out. Meh. All it is to me is proof that we will not get the changes we need anytime soon. That's the truth.

So now, after all the time, money, blood and sweat, it's come to this. I'm just another whiny Chaos kid.

But don't get me wrong, I still love 40k. I'll never sell my army. I still enjoy myself, in a twisted way, when I'm getting mashed to a pulp. The problem is, I really just don't understand. The game just doesn't make any sense.

CSM players, how do you go on with your wounds?
Eldar players, how lonely is the top?

Share with me your story Chaos and Eldar players!

 stealth992 wrote:
where is Kharn, the champion of Khorne? Why do bloodcrushers suck so bad? Why didn't GW fix my defilers? Don't they know they are over costed? How come I don't have any realistic assault options for my assault army? Why can't Bloodthirsters assault the turn after they deep strike?

Why don't you play them this way? You said you got the "not best" stuff in the first place, so you were kinda aware that the game balance is not there.

Common story. 8 years is not a long time compared to some players having to survive Codex updates.

I like Chaos but can't bring myself to play much under 7th edition. Not that 6th edition was much better, but this is what I did to keep the game interesting.

1) Carry around 4 or 5 lists and constantly experiment with tactics. Make sure your opponent never knows what to expect. If you bring the same army to each game, you are probably going to play it the same way.

2) Make your weaknesses strengths. I like having Rhinos because I can put 3 or 4 of them together to form a wall, and run the occupants up the board behind them. Your odds of winning improve whenever your opponent is shooting at empty transports instead of troops.

3) Get a copy of IA:13. For all the complaints about Forgeworld, Sicarans, Fire Raptors and conversion beamer artillery pieces are very good at killing Eldar.

4) Daemon allies are good to have. If you haven't run Fateweaver with the Grimoire, do so. It's a whole different game.

5) Play objective games instead of kill points. CSM has more options for MSU than most armies.

6) Do not write off Traitor's Hate. Think about what you can do to Eldar Jetbikes with deep striking Warp Talons that charge the turn they arrive. That book has some answers to the worst power creep abuses.

7) Stay away from tournaments. There is always someone who feels it's his responsibility to constantly remind you Chaos is not very powerful and probably will not win. You have better ways to spend your time than that.

The "Top" depends on the units you have. Like your first friend, I have the units I think are "cool". Unfortunately, most of them suck against the so called "Nice" lists my opponents kept bringing.....

In the end, the "Top" sucks if you don't have or want Wkights/bikes/spiders.

 stealth992 wrote:
Eldar players, how lonely is the top?

Share with me your story Chaos and Eldar players!

I shelved my Iyanden army when the 7th ed codex dropped, had a fair amount of stuff for it only 2 wraith knights, something like 3-4 wraith lords, wraith seer, a bunch of farseers and spirit seers and many wraith guard. Even a revenant and other Eldar stuff to support it.

Just stopped being fun really, dropped out of 40k for a bit eventually got into AoS and only now starting to look into getting back into 40k properly again after maybe taking a break for a bit over a year or two now. Even then not with my Eldar. I don't like winning unless I feel like I've earned it through skill instead of falling back on a crutch.

Former KDK player here, i thew in the towel against my freinds Eldar, couldnt do ANYTHING against the Wraithknigt, Jetbikes and stuff. No awnsers, no solutions, i just purely said... I am not playing against it anymore.

I went to Space Wolves (muuuuuuch better army melee wise, and ive allways loved them, Wolves and Vikings AWSOME!). Having much more fun now. And my freind is playing eldars as 6th instead of 7th. And she also bought Grey Knights, needless to say, we are both having a blast now

p.s. Bloodthirster in KDK should be able to get a drop and charge formation!!! 1 turn standing around is a joke!

And those people who said two turn for summoned Bloodthirster.....I hope their ass is itching and they have no arms, such idiots!

stealth992 wrote:CSM players, how do you go on with your wounds?

I stepped away from 40k early in 5E, but that wasn't really because my CSM had now become bland and rather weak (though they had), more that I moved to a new state with a much stronger WHFB presence, the game I'd started with and was thrilled to return to, especially in light of the ramping complexity of where 40k looked to be headed and me generally not enjoying it or its gamer mindset any longer. My chaos lads are absolutely ready to rampage the universe again once things get a little less complicated and WAACy out there

techsoldaten wrote:8 years is not a long time compared to some players having to survive Codex updates.

Part of what really bothers me is that CSM once had perhaps the best codex ever written:



Way back in 2002, Pete Haines stuffed so many options and upgrades and gifts and legion rules (!!!) into this thing that it was a modeler's dream, and not just in the typical chaos 'well at least it'll look cool as it does boring things in game' way. On the flipside, I also remember it being like the ultimate power gamer book as well, again because of all those options and upgrades and gifts and legion rules (!!!) leading to some combos and min/max builds that weren't necessarily anticipated.

But then over the years I've either personally experienced the blandification of CSM or watched it from afar, which hurts far worse falling from such a height. Honestly I think the worst was the 4E CSM book, which was the first in a 'new' line of stripped down codexes with far, far, far fewer options ... a design philosophy that didn't make it past CSM and then Dark Angels, before revving back up to fully equipped glory with (IIRC) C: SM, leaving those two armies to languish for much if not all of the edition.

- Salvage

I also remember it being like the ultimate power gamer book as well, again because of all those options and upgrades and gifts and legion rules (!!!) leading to some combos and min/max builds that weren't necessarily anticipated.

It really was. Normally, I'm happy to play the "never assign to malevolence what can be explained by incompetence" card, but you can compare every codex/army book Haines wrote and check its power level off against "did he own this army at the time" (compare white dwarf battle reports, etc).

The post index astartes chaos marine book could essentially have been retitled Codex:Screw You I Play Iron Warriors and the title would have been more accurate. Allowing the force to take what was essentially seven heavy support choices and a daemon prince who'd be in assault on the first turn was....a little over the top?

I liked the book - the artwork and background was lovely but it wasn't even slightly balanced with any other codex out at the same time or even for quite a while afterwards.

Play objective games instead of kill points. CSM has more options for MSU than most armies.

And Khorne Daemonkin better still. In fact it's probably the single best army for fielding a horde of disposable minions because not only are you okay with them getting killed, you're actively happy about it.

Bloodthirster in KDK should be able to get a drop and charge formation!!! 1 turn standing around is a joke!

They have got the Fist Of Khorne, too, which can be good (unless someone gets into full-blown nit-picky mode).

locarno24 wrote:
Normally, I'm happy to play the "never assign to malevolence what can be explained by incompetence" card, but you can compare every codex/army book Haines wrote and check its power level off against "did he own this army at the time" (compare white dwarf battle reports, etc).

QFT, and I had forgotten about the massive wave of Iron Warriors armies around this time

- Salvage

locarno24 wrote:

Allowing the force to take what was essentially seven heavy support choices and a daemon prince who'd be in assault on the first turn was....a little over the top?

.

Huh...no?!

Max was 4 HS when you're playing IW, you had to trade 2 FA slots for 1 HS, so how in the nine layers of hell could you have "essentially" 7 HS?...

3.5Ed CSM has become such a legend that, all sorts of weird stories are floating about it.

And DPrince first turn assault was possible only in the beginning, when you had the Daemonic Speed upgrade on a Khorne Prince, because Speed would make it move like cavalery ( 6"+D6" Fleet and 12 assault) and Mark of Khorne would give you the Blood Frenzy( +D6" movement in the shooting phase instead of shooting), and since it was poorly worded you could actually move 6"+2D6".

It got FaQed a week later that you had to choose between Fleet OR Blood Frenzy, and not cumulate both, wich nerved the Rape Train DPrince.

Even though a D SPeed Khornate Prince with either the Berserker Glaive or Dread Axe, was still the scariest thing that could have been on a table, but thats not only because of the Codex rules, it was also the assault rules of 3rd/4th Ed that where different like been able to come into contact of another unit when making a sweeping advance or a consilidation move and count has been locked in combat with that unit, nearly annihilated a Tau army with one guy doing so...

locarno24 wrote:

I also remember it being like the ultimate power gamer book as well, again because of all those options and upgrades and gifts and legion rules (!!!) leading to some combos and min/max builds that weren't necessarily anticipated.

It really was. Normally, I'm happy to play the "never assign to malevolence what can be explained by incompetence" card, but you can compare every codex/army book Haines wrote and check its power level off against "did he own this army at the time" (compare white dwarf battle reports, etc).

The post index astartes chaos marine book could essentially have been retitled Codex:Screw You I Play Iron Warriors and the title would have been more accurate. Allowing the force to take what was essentially seven heavy support choices and a daemon prince who'd be in assault on the first turn was....a little over the top?

The rules for Iron Warriors were as follows: -2 FA slots, +1 HS slot, could take a single Vindicator and Basilisk, and had the 0-1 restriction on Obliterators removed. They also got Siege Specialists for free. Not sure where that 7 came from.

 Lukash_ wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

I also remember it being like the ultimate power gamer book as well, again because of all those options and upgrades and gifts and legion rules (!!!) leading to some combos and min/max builds that weren't necessarily anticipated.

It really was. Normally, I'm happy to play the "never assign to malevolence what can be explained by incompetence" card, but you can compare every codex/army book Haines wrote and check its power level off against "did he own this army at the time" (compare white dwarf battle reports, etc).

The post index astartes chaos marine book could essentially have been retitled Codex:Screw You I Play Iron Warriors and the title would have been more accurate. Allowing the force to take what was essentially seven heavy support choices and a daemon prince who'd be in assault on the first turn was....a little over the top?

The rules for Iron Warriors were as follows: -2 FA slots, +1 HS slot, could take a single Vindicator and Basilisk, and had the 0-1 restriction on Obliterators removed. They also got Siege Specialists for free. Not sure where that 7 came from.

Could he perhaps mean the Obliterator Cult? These were Elite choices, not Heavy, correct? (Not a chaos player, and it's been years ago)

So you could have a Basilisk, a Vindicator, a Defiler, and a Predator, along with three squads of Obliterators (Three squads of 3x Obliterators). That could be what he meant by by 7, as he was looking at the Oblits as a kind of faux heavy support choice in the Elite slot.

I knew a guy who ran this exact list. He had them painted up as "Fallen Dark Angels" so he could field them as Loyalist Dark Angels who just were using their pre-heresy paint job, or as Chaos marines (Iron Warriors) who were Fallen Dark Angels. We started calling them the Dark Iron Angel Warriors. He didn't like that, but the shoe fit. It was a tough list, not unbeatable, but certainly tough.

Thanks, and take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

I'm generally attracted to underdog armies that slip below the radar, because I feel that playing them and learning their quirks and flaws to second nature helps me become a better player overall. Relying solely on "my list is better than yours" doesn't help me learn. Also, I enjoy the conversion potential of armies.

I know it could be far worse, knowing that this time Chaos has passable Fast Attacks and Heavy Supports, while the previous codex had gems like Bikers that cost 33 points per model, Dreadnoughts that could shoot your own army, Slow and Purposeful Spawn that *had* to charge the closest enemy unit, no matter if it was a unit of Guardsmen, or a Dreadnought that could Instant-Death it because you didn't have the option to buy Marks for them (or Marks for Obliterators for that matter), and that Autocannons used to cost 20 points on Havocs ("Gee...do I take 4 Havocs with Autocannons, or do I take a Defiler?).

I think the other reason I'm not feeling as salty is I'm a fairly defensive player. I care less about closing rushing headlong into the fight, as much as I do locking down the center of the board, while using melee as an speed booster "finishing off" weakened targets.

Also, Traitor's Hate may have been a lazy copypaste job, but I would argue we now get better Psykers than the Loyalists do. True, we don't get Psychic Hoods, but the most dangerous powers are Blessings/Summonings, which Hoods won't do anything against. Our Sorcerers start off a few points cheaper due to not paying for this upgrade, and can be upgraded to Mastery Level 3 (unlike Conclave Marines) and take Spell Familiars.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I'm generally attracted to underdog armies that slip below the radar, because I feel that playing them and learning their quirks and flaws to second nature helps me become a better player overall. Relying solely on "my list is better than yours" doesn't help me learn. Also, I enjoy the conversion potential of armies.

I know it could be far worse, knowing that this time Chaos has passable Fast Attacks and Heavy Supports, while the previous codex had gems like Bikers that cost 33 points per model, Dreadnoughts that could shoot your own army, Slow and Purposeful Spawn that *had* to charge the closest enemy unit, no matter if it was a unit of Guardsmen, or a Dreadnought that could Instant-Death it because you didn't have the option to buy Marks for them (or Marks for Obliterators for that matter), and that Autocannons used to cost 20 points on Havocs ("Gee...do I take 4 Havocs with Autocannons, or do I take a Defiler?).

I think the other reason I'm not feeling as salty is I'm a fairly defensive player. I care less about closing rushing headlong into the fight, as much as I do locking down the center of the board, while using melee as an speed booster "finishing off" weakened targets.

Also, Traitor's Hate may have been a lazy copypaste job, but I would argue we now get better Psykers than the Loyalists do. True, we don't get Psychic Hoods, but the most dangerous powers are Blessings/Summonings, which Hoods won't do anything against. Our Sorcerers start off a few points cheaper due to not paying for this upgrade, and can be upgraded to Mastery Level 3 (unlike Conclave Marines) and take Spell Familiars.

Yeah... but the marine conclave can harness on 2+ versus our 4+.

Lord Kragan wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I'm generally attracted to underdog armies that slip below the radar, because I feel that playing them and learning their quirks and flaws to second nature helps me become a better player overall. Relying solely on "my list is better than yours" doesn't help me learn. Also, I enjoy the conversion potential of armies.

I know it could be far worse, knowing that this time Chaos has passable Fast Attacks and Heavy Supports, while the previous codex had gems like Bikers that cost 33 points per model, Dreadnoughts that could shoot your own army, Slow and Purposeful Spawn that *had* to charge the closest enemy unit, no matter if it was a unit of Guardsmen, or a Dreadnought that could Instant-Death it because you didn't have the option to buy Marks for them (or Marks for Obliterators for that matter), and that Autocannons used to cost 20 points on Havocs ("Gee...do I take 4 Havocs with Autocannons, or do I take a Defiler?).

I think the other reason I'm not feeling as salty is I'm a fairly defensive player. I care less about closing rushing headlong into the fight, as much as I do locking down the center of the board, while using melee as an speed booster "finishing off" weakened targets.

Also, Traitor's Hate may have been a lazy copypaste job, but I would argue we now get better Psykers than the Loyalists do. True, we don't get Psychic Hoods, but the most dangerous powers are Blessings/Summonings, which Hoods won't do anything against. Our Sorcerers start off a few points cheaper due to not paying for this upgrade, and can be upgraded to Mastery Level 3 (unlike Conclave Marines) and take Spell Familiars.

Yeah... but the marine conclave can harness on 2+ versus our 4+.

Chaos does get spell familiars to reroll their psychic tests

Just curious, has anyone still got a copy of the 3.5 dex and used to it make an army, then played it against a current Codex? I'd be interested to see how it held up.

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
Just curious, has anyone still got a copy of the 3.5 dex and used to it make an army, then played it against a current Codex? I'd be interested to see how it held up.

Yep, and I will, let you know what happens

 Formosa wrote:

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
Just curious, has anyone still got a copy of the 3.5 dex and used to it make an army, then played it against a current Codex? I'd be interested to see how it held up.

Yep, and I will, let you know what happens

Thank you.

 n0t_u wrote:

 stealth992 wrote:
Eldar players, how lonely is the top?

Share with me your story Chaos and Eldar players!

I shelved my Iyanden army when the 7th ed codex dropped, had a fair amount of stuff for it only 2 wraith knights, something like 3-4 wraith lords, wraith seer, a bunch of farseers and spirit seers and many wraith guard. Even a revenant and other Eldar stuff to support it.

Just stopped being fun really, dropped out of 40k for a bit eventually got into AoS and only now starting to look into getting back into 40k properly again after maybe taking a break for a bit over a year or two now. Even then not with my Eldar. I don't like winning unless I feel like I've earned it through skill instead of falling back on a crutch.

Ya, I figured there would be some players like you. I feel like if I was Eldar, I wouldn't have that much fun stomping my friends all the time. The problem is, my buddy who runs the wraithknight/wraithguard/jetbikes, etc., he is fairly new to 40k and so he does not have a good sense of how imbalanced our armies actually are verses each other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brutallica wrote:
Former KDK player here, i thew in the towel against my freinds Eldar, couldnt do ANYTHING against the Wraithknigt, Jetbikes and stuff. No awnsers, no solutions, i just purely said... I am not playing against it anymore.

I went to Space Wolves (muuuuuuch better army melee wise, and ive allways loved them, Wolves and Vikings AWSOME!). Having much more fun now. And my freind is playing eldars as 6th instead of 7th. And she also bought Grey Knights, needless to say, we are both having a blast now

p.s. Bloodthirster in KDK should be able to get a drop and charge formation!!! 1 turn standing around is a joke!

And those people who said two turn for summoned Bloodthirster.....I hope their ass is itching and they have no arms, such idiots!

Yeah it took me like 8 years to finally paint only 2000 points of Chaos, so I don't have the motivation to play any new armies. I also couldn't afford it if I had the motivation! I'm trying to think of some house rules that would make games vs my buddy more enjoyable. Maybe if we added a universal special rule where you get to take cover saves after to hit roles, then after wound roles you get armor or invulnerable saves. So kinda like universal feel no pain. I'd probably still lose with this house rule too hahaha.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I'm generally attracted to underdog armies that slip below the radar, because I feel that playing them and learning their quirks and flaws to second nature helps me become a better player overall. Relying solely on "my list is better than yours" doesn't help me learn. Also, I enjoy the conversion potential of armies.

I know it could be far worse, knowing that this time Chaos has passable Fast Attacks and Heavy Supports, while the previous codex had gems like Bikers that cost 33 points per model, Dreadnoughts that could shoot your own army, Slow and Purposeful Spawn that *had* to charge the closest enemy unit, no matter if it was a unit of Guardsmen, or a Dreadnought that could Instant-Death it because you didn't have the option to buy Marks for them (or Marks for Obliterators for that matter), and that Autocannons used to cost 20 points on Havocs ("Gee...do I take 4 Havocs with Autocannons, or do I take a Defiler?).

I think the other reason I'm not feeling as salty is I'm a fairly defensive player. I care less about closing rushing headlong into the fight, as much as I do locking down the center of the board, while using melee as an speed booster "finishing off" weakened targets.

Also, Traitor's Hate may have been a lazy copypaste job, but I would argue we now get better Psykers than the Loyalists do. True, we don't get Psychic Hoods, but the most dangerous powers are Blessings/Summonings, which Hoods won't do anything against. Our Sorcerers start off a few points cheaper due to not paying for this upgrade, and can be upgraded to Mastery Level 3 (unlike Conclave Marines) and take Spell Familiars.

Yeah I've definitely tried playing as a super defensive player. Its something that I'm quite capable of doing. I have maybe 100 or more models of traitor imperial guardsmen and cultists. Pretty sure I can make some pretty nasty high firepower infantry armies if I really wanted to. The problem is, I just never enjoyed sitting back and shooting a ton of cannons all game. I want to be able to play with the models I think are cool that got me into 40k in the first place. Most notably, my defilers. I use them as proxied soul grinders. The regular defiler cost is just too unbearable to field.

I still have the 3.5 book (I bought like 3 of them over its lifespan, due to its various stealth reprints; the one I have is the April 2006 printing). I don't think I'll ever get a chance to try out a list from it, though - my gaming time is too limited as it is.

That said, looking through the "Books of Chaos" at the back of the Codex, those rules could easily be ported over to the 6th edition CSM codex with just a few tweaks.

In fact, I'm very tempted to do exactly that...

 stealth992 wrote:
...Eldar players, how lonely is the top?

Share with me your story Chaos and Eldar players!

Less than you'd think, honestly. I own a Wraithknight for tournament play, I own Windriders because they're the newest and nicest Troops models in my book, but I don't bring either to pick-up games because contrary to popular belief Eldar players aren't all awful munchkins with no sense of balance or proportion. I play pretty much the same old mechanized Swordwind approach I've been running since I first picked up Warhammer back in 4th in casual games. I don't win very much that way because I keep trying to play it the way I learned how to three editions ago, but everyone has a lot more fun than we would if there were giant stompy things wandering across the battlefield escorted by a swarm of flitting laser-flies.

Oddly the Eldar are the closest I get to playing 40k 'normally'; my Salamanders were built for 30k so they don't translate well (Spartans and Sicarans aren't in any formations, among other things), and I've gotten sufficiently fed up with the Great Codex Diaspora that's spread my Daemonhunters army over five books that I've been building them a homebrew Codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cheexsta wrote:
I still have the 3.5 book (I bought like 3 of them over its lifespan, due to its various stealth reprints; the one I have is the April 2006 printing). I don't think I'll ever get a chance to try out a list from it, though - my gaming time is too limited as it is.

That said, looking through the "Books of Chaos" at the back of the Codex, those rules could easily be ported over to the 6th edition CSM codex with just a few tweaks.

In fact, I'm very tempted to do exactly that...

I actually have a pile of brainstorming notes to that effect. The big thing I like about trying to use elements of the 3.5 book today is the lack of differentiation between 'unit with the Mark of X' and 'Cult unit', it makes the whole affair much more straightforward and makes it much easier to define other Cult units (Berserker bikes, Plague Havocs, Noise Terminators...). The Daemonic Gifts and proper dedications for vehicles were also a lot more interesting then.

 CrownAxe wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I'm generally attracted to underdog armies that slip below the radar, because I feel that playing them and learning their quirks and flaws to second nature helps me become a better player overall. Relying solely on "my list is better than yours" doesn't help me learn. Also, I enjoy the conversion potential of armies.

I know it could be far worse, knowing that this time Chaos has passable Fast Attacks and Heavy Supports, while the previous codex had gems like Bikers that cost 33 points per model, Dreadnoughts that could shoot your own army, Slow and Purposeful Spawn that *had* to charge the closest enemy unit, no matter if it was a unit of Guardsmen, or a Dreadnought that could Instant-Death it because you didn't have the option to buy Marks for them (or Marks for Obliterators for that matter), and that Autocannons used to cost 20 points on Havocs ("Gee...do I take 4 Havocs with Autocannons, or do I take a Defiler?).

I think the other reason I'm not feeling as salty is I'm a fairly defensive player. I care less about closing rushing headlong into the fight, as much as I do locking down the center of the board, while using melee as an speed booster "finishing off" weakened targets.

Also, Traitor's Hate may have been a lazy copypaste job, but I would argue we now get better Psykers than the Loyalists do. True, we don't get Psychic Hoods, but the most dangerous powers are Blessings/Summonings, which Hoods won't do anything against. Our Sorcerers start off a few points cheaper due to not paying for this upgrade, and can be upgraded to Mastery Level 3 (unlike Conclave Marines) and take Spell Familiars.

Yeah... but the marine conclave can harness on 2+ versus our 4+.

Chaos does get spell familiars to reroll their psychic tests

And? 83% is still better than 75% as far as my math goes. Also, tigurius gets to re-roll the tests.

Tigurius has that ability too. Huh, remember my first match ever in 40k.

I brought a very elite army, I went and did a very Your dudes approach and dropped plenty of upgrades. The guy I went against brought an unbound list of ultras: grav-vets (1st company taskforce), grav-centurions and tigurius with a 10th company taskforce. I killed exactly one scout there from the slaughter he made.

On a side note, eldar have a very good power balance: wanna play friendly? Do as I do and bring a couple of shinning spears (good but far from OP), a couple vehicles with lances and guardians/avengers. Maybe one bike squad if you want the jetseer and maybe a spiritseer for your wraithblades.

Loyalist Marines can't spam cheap Warp Charge the way Tzeentch Daemons can, and if you're playing with Forge World content volume of dice and Kasyr Lutien may actually be situationally better than Tigurius' 2+/reroll failed. I'd have to do the math on it, but twenty-odd Warp Charge that can pick and choose which dice to reroll on Malefic Daemonology tests may get more powers off and get fewer Perils results.

Chaos isn't better at psychic powers than loyalist Marines, but they're certainly no slouch at it.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Loyalist Marines can't spam cheap Warp Charge the way Tzeentch Daemons can, and if you're playing with Forge World content volume of dice and Kasyr Lutien may actually be situationally better than Tigurius' 2+/reroll failed. I'd have to do the math on it, but twenty-odd Warp Charge that can pick and choose which dice to reroll on Malefic Daemonology tests may get more powers off and get fewer Perils results.

Yes, they can because they not only can take the exact same Tzeentch daemon Allies but their conclave is better at summoning daemons than anyone else but a Tzeentch daemon with Paradox.

Don't forget; CSM aren't Chaos Daemons and visa versa, they are their own separate entities with one making up part of the "big four" competitively while the other battles it out for the title of worst Codex in 40K. I'll let you figure out which is which.

 Drasius wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Loyalist Marines can't spam cheap Warp Charge the way Tzeentch Daemons can, and if you're playing with Forge World content volume of dice and Kasyr Lutien may actually be situationally better than Tigurius' 2+/reroll failed. I'd have to do the math on it, but twenty-odd Warp Charge that can pick and choose which dice to reroll on Malefic Daemonology tests may get more powers off and get fewer Perils results.

Yes, they can because they not only can take the exact same Tzeentch daemon Allies but their conclave is better at summoning daemons than anyone else but a Tzeentch daemon with Paradox.

Don't forget; CSM aren't Chaos Daemons and visa versa, they are their own separate entities with one making up part of the "big four" competitively while the other battles it out for the title of worst Codex in 40K. I'll let you figure out which is which.

I thought Necrons were the 4th,not Deamons. Also, id hardly call CSM the worst codex in 40k. Im a newer convert to CSM so ill try not to sound like I know to much, but Ive seen csm win games, the army still has harder lists (belakor + lord of skulls + heldrakes) and im sure once traitors hate has had some time to settle in itll produce some decent lists as well. Sure CSM isnt a tourney army. I think most people understand this and also understand we will always be a subpar army due to being the punching bags of 40k along wih the orcs and tyranids (because loyalists need wins amirite?) but other armies have it far worse as of late and I can now say CSM is firmly mid-tier. The problem is that the distance between mid-tier and top tier is so vast.

Now that im done white knighting my new favorite faction I will admit that even to a new convert that the codex has severe problems. Everything is horribly overcosted (chaos tax) you will almost never see lists with actual chaos space marines in it and most will be fluff lore lists that do field them. The codex is getting long in the tooth in general and needs a replacement, not a supplement. But to make a blanket statement that CSM is the worst codex, well that is incorrect.. Also add in the fact that CSM can ally in some nice toys and you have firmly mid-tier faction.

"Ive seen csm win games, the army still has harder lists (belakor + lord of skulls + heldrakes)"

Sorry for the badly done quote, I'm on phone and this is the only part I really wanted to focus on. The problem with this army that you've seen win, is that although it's a CSM army, only one of the units you've highlighted are actually from the Codex. Belakor is a dataslate, the Lord of Skulls is a massively expensive (point wise) superheavy from one of the forgeworld books.

If an army needs to look outside of its own Codex to be viable in anything more than the most casual setting, then that Codex is bad. It is not achieving it's intended goal; Allowing a player to use an army to play games with a reasonable chance of winning.

Orks: need FW support to really shine. Dark Eldar: need to use allies to keep an edge. Chaos Space Marines: need supplements and dataslates to be a worthwhile force. The top tier codices don't need that, they have everything they need to win already in their book. Eldar don't need to bring along a Scorpion superheavy to give them a better chance of winning. Vanilla Space Marines don't have to buy dataslates and supplements to remain competitive.

It's frankly ridiculous that the codices at the bottom of the pile either spend 3-4 times the amount on extra rules/allies just to be at a similar level to the top books, or have to make their peace with forever being the underdog.

Sorry for the rant, but this "I've seen such and such army win" really winds me up when at its basic level, that army is a hollow representation of its Codex.

I'm not a CSM players, but at this point I really understand Chaos fans who just run their armies, using SW or SM codexes...

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
"Ive seen csm win games, the army still has harder lists (belakor + lord of skulls + heldrakes)"

Sorry for the badly done quote, I'm on phone and this is the only part I really wanted to focus on. The problem with this army that you've seen win, is that although it's a CSM army, only one of the units you've highlighted are actually from the Codex. Belakor is a dataslate, the Lord of Skulls is a massively expensive (point wise) superheavy from one of the forgeworld books.

If an army needs to look outside of its own Codex to be viable in anything more than the most casual setting, then that Codex is bad. It is not achieving it's intended goal; Allowing a player to use an army to play games with a reasonable chance of winning.

Orks: need FW support to really shine. Dark Eldar: need to use allies to keep an edge. Chaos Space Marines: need supplements and dataslates to be a worthwhile force. The top tier codices don't need that, they have everything they need to win already in their book. Eldar don't need to bring along a Scorpion superheavy to give them a better chance of winning. Vanilla Space Marines don't have to buy dataslates and supplements to remain competitive.

It's frankly ridiculous that the codices at the bottom of the pile either spend 3-4 times the amount on extra rules/allies just to be at a similar level to the top books, or have to make their peace with forever being the underdog.

Sorry for the rant, but this "I've seen such and such army win" really winds me up when at its basic level, that army is a hollow representation of its Codex.

Lord of Skulls is considered a CSM unit with an entry in traitors hate. And heldrakes come from the codex. But your point is still true. While you can use the CSM dex solo, its not going to end well. Also for the record, ive seen other lists win. This one is just our currently "accepted" tourney list.
I cannot say I have won yet, because I have yet to play (still painting and converting. have played necrons previously) . But im fairly certain ill get a few wins in , even vs eldar. You see people like to forget about things like mission type, scenario rules and treat every game as a kill point game. Now, not accounting for your meta in your circles. But in mine and id wager most others, kill point games are not seen. In my meta its all maelstrom missions or scenarios. This isnt also taking into account one HUGE factor in this game. Luck. You can bring a a top tier filthy scatter bike list but if you roll horribly you are going to have a hard time.

If your meta is nothing but tournament lists and kill point slug fests then yes, we are one of the worst codex's and never win games outside of our ONE tourey list. And i would suggest shelving the army if winning in those conditions is what matters to you.

Table wrote:


Lord of Skulls is considered a CSM unit with an entry in traitors hate. And heldrakes come from the codex. But your point is still true. While you can use the CSM dex solo, its not going to end well. Also for the record, ive seen other lists win. This one is just our currently "accepted" tourney list.
I cannot say I have won yet, because I have yet to play (still painting and converting. have played necrons previously) . But im fairly certain ill get a few wins in , even vs eldar. You see people like to forget about things like mission type, scenario rules and treat every game as a kill point game. Now, not accounting for your meta in your circles. But in mine and id wager most others, kill point games are not seen. In my meta its all maelstrom missions or scenarios. This isnt also taking into account one HUGE factor in this game. Luck. You can bring a a top tier filthy scatter bike list but if you roll horribly you are going to have a hard time.

If your meta is nothing but tournament lists and kill point slug fests then yes, we are one of the worst codex's and never win games outside of our ONE tourey list. And i would suggest shelving the army if winning in those conditions is what matters to you.

Oh god, you're sounding soooo condescending right now. Also, if you're relying on luck, you're going to be dissapointed. And even with luck, you'll lose against a filthy eldar list. Period.

Table wrote:

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
"Ive seen csm win games, the army still has harder lists (belakor + lord of skulls + heldrakes)"

Sorry for the badly done quote, I'm on phone and this is the only part I really wanted to focus on. The problem with this army that you've seen win, is that although it's a CSM army, only one of the units you've highlighted are actually from the Codex. Belakor is a dataslate, the Lord of Skulls is a massively expensive (point wise) superheavy from one of the forgeworld books.

If an army needs to look outside of its own Codex to be viable in anything more than the most casual setting, then that Codex is bad. It is not achieving it's intended goal; Allowing a player to use an army to play games with a reasonable chance of winning.

Orks: need FW support to really shine. Dark Eldar: need to use allies to keep an edge. Chaos Space Marines: need supplements and dataslates to be a worthwhile force. The top tier codices don't need that, they have everything they need to win already in their book. Eldar don't need to bring along a Scorpion superheavy to give them a better chance of winning. Vanilla Space Marines don't have to buy dataslates and supplements to remain competitive.

It's frankly ridiculous that the codices at the bottom of the pile either spend 3-4 times the amount on extra rules/allies just to be at a similar level to the top books, or have to make their peace with forever being the underdog.

Sorry for the rant, but this "I've seen such and such army win" really winds me up when at its basic level, that army is a hollow representation of its Codex.

Lord of Skulls is considered a CSM unit with an entry in traitors hate. And heldrakes come from the codex. But your point is still true. While you can use the CSM dex solo, its not going to end well. Also for the record, ive seen other lists win. This one is just our currently "accepted" tourney list.
I cannot say I have won yet, because I have yet to play (still painting and converting. have played necrons previously) . But im fairly certain ill get a few wins in , even vs eldar. You see people like to forget about things like mission type, scenario rules and treat every game as a kill point game. Now, not accounting for your meta in your circles. But in mine and id wager most others, kill point games are not seen. In my meta its all maelstrom missions or scenarios. This isnt also taking into account one HUGE factor in this game. Luck. You can bring a a top tier filthy scatter bike list but if you roll horribly you are going to have a hard time.

If your meta is nothing but tournament lists and kill point slug fests then yes, we are one of the worst codex's and never win games outside of our ONE tourey list. And i would suggest shelving the army if winning in those conditions is what matters to you.

You're right, playing to the objectives in a maelstrom game is going to give you a better chance of winning. And luck is definitely a deciding factor. However, my issue is not so much about winning itself, but how much we at the bottom have to spend just to be in the same league as the top. We literally pay more cash, by paying for supplements like Traitors Hate, just to even play on a level field alongside higher tier codices. And then when we do pay extra, we're forced into sub-par purchases points-wise (Warpsmiths anyone?) simply because the original entry in the codex is overpriced and ineffective. So now not only are we paying more cash, but we have to take inefficient units at a higher points cost, just to be able to use a formation that in theory, should put us on a level chance against higher codices. Basically what I'm trying to say there is that our "tax" for a lot of our formations is higher than it should be, for which we are getting less effective units, which in turn means that we will literally never have that level chance.

And as for shelving the army, I did that a few years ago when 90% of my Worldeater force got stolen. I've just been playing my Dark Eldar since then, which although suffers from the same kinds of problem, I at least don't have to drop a load more money on building just to know that I'm probably going to lose most of the time. As soon as a decent (core) Codex for CSM gets released, I'll dive right back at them. But for now there's no reason to buy an entirely new neutered army when I have a perfectly good one sat at home to lose with.

Lord Kragan wrote:

Table wrote:


Lord of Skulls is considered a CSM unit with an entry in traitors hate. And heldrakes come from the codex. But your point is still true. While you can use the CSM dex solo, its not going to end well. Also for the record, ive seen other lists win. This one is just our currently "accepted" tourney list.
I cannot say I have won yet, because I have yet to play (still painting and converting. have played necrons previously) . But im fairly certain ill get a few wins in , even vs eldar. You see people like to forget about things like mission type, scenario rules and treat every game as a kill point game. Now, not accounting for your meta in your circles. But in mine and id wager most others, kill point games are not seen. In my meta its all maelstrom missions or scenarios. This isnt also taking into account one HUGE factor in this game. Luck. You can bring a a top tier filthy scatter bike list but if you roll horribly you are going to have a hard time.

If your meta is nothing but tournament lists and kill point slug fests then yes, we are one of the worst codex's and never win games outside of our ONE tourey list. And i would suggest shelving the army if winning in those conditions is what matters to you.

Oh god, you're sounding soooo condescending right now. Also, if you're relying on luck, you're going to be dissapointed. And even with luck, you'll lose against a filthy eldar list. Period.

I fail to see how ive been anything other than to the point and polite. I guess it got lost in translation. To be fair, im not relying on luck nor am I telling anyone else to. But it is a factor, just as the other points ive brought up but you failed to read over (or maybe you did read them but dont have a comment or rebuttal.) Once more, people on dakka (for the most part, exceptions exist) would rather just state that every game is a killpoint brawl and every game you face a hardcore eldar cheese list. None of that is even remotely true..But i guess it is easier than hitting the books and reading what little traitors hate has brought us and coming up with new fun lists. Hell maybe even a tourney list will pop up out of it (doubtful).

The point im making, is that CSM isnt trash tier nor is it the worst codex in the game. And I stand by that.

Sudowoodo1 wrote:

Table wrote:

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
"Ive seen csm win games, the army still has harder lists (belakor + lord of skulls + heldrakes)"

Sorry for the badly done quote, I'm on phone and this is the only part I really wanted to focus on. The problem with this army that you've seen win, is that although it's a CSM army, only one of the units you've highlighted are actually from the Codex. Belakor is a dataslate, the Lord of Skulls is a massively expensive (point wise) superheavy from one of the forgeworld books.

If an army needs to look outside of its own Codex to be viable in anything more than the most casual setting, then that Codex is bad. It is not achieving it's intended goal; Allowing a player to use an army to play games with a reasonable chance of winning.

Orks: need FW support to really shine. Dark Eldar: need to use allies to keep an edge. Chaos Space Marines: need supplements and dataslates to be a worthwhile force. The top tier codices don't need that, they have everything they need to win already in their book. Eldar don't need to bring along a Scorpion superheavy to give them a better chance of winning. Vanilla Space Marines don't have to buy dataslates and supplements to remain competitive.

It's frankly ridiculous that the codices at the bottom of the pile either spend 3-4 times the amount on extra rules/allies just to be at a similar level to the top books, or have to make their peace with forever being the underdog.

Sorry for the rant, but this "I've seen such and such army win" really winds me up when at its basic level, that army is a hollow representation of its Codex.

Lord of Skulls is considered a CSM unit with an entry in traitors hate. And heldrakes come from the codex. But your point is still true. While you can use the CSM dex solo, its not going to end well. Also for the record, ive seen other lists win. This one is just our currently "accepted" tourney list.
I cannot say I have won yet, because I have yet to play (still painting and converting. have played necrons previously) . But im fairly certain ill get a few wins in , even vs eldar. You see people like to forget about things like mission type, scenario rules and treat every game as a kill point game. Now, not accounting for your meta in your circles. But in mine and id wager most others, kill point games are not seen. In my meta its all maelstrom missions or scenarios. This isnt also taking into account one HUGE factor in this game. Luck. You can bring a a top tier filthy scatter bike list but if you roll horribly you are going to have a hard time.

If your meta is nothing but tournament lists and kill point slug fests then yes, we are one of the worst codex's and never win games outside of our ONE tourey list. And i would suggest shelving the army if winning in those conditions is what matters to you.

You're right, playing to the objectives in a maelstrom game is going to give you a better chance of winning. And luck is definitely a deciding factor. However, my issue is not so much about winning itself, but how much we at the bottom have to spend just to be in the same league as the top. We literally pay more cash, by paying for supplements like Traitors Hate, just to even play on a level field alongside higher tier codices. And then when we do pay extra, we're forced into sub-par purchases points-wise (Warpsmiths anyone?) simply because the original entry in the codex is overpriced and ineffective. So now not only are we paying more cash, but we have to take inefficient units at a higher points cost, just to be able to use a formation that in theory, should put us on a level chance against higher codices. Basically what I'm trying to say there is that our "tax" for a lot of our formations is higher than it should be, for which we are getting less effective units, which in turn means that we will literally never have that level chance.

And as for shelving the army, I did that a few years ago when 90% of my Worldeater force got stolen. I've just been playing my Dark Eldar since then, which although suffers from the same kinds of problem, I at least don't have to drop a load more money on building just to know that I'm probably going to lose most of the time. As soon as a decent (core) Codex for CSM gets released, I'll dive right back at them. But for now there's no reason to buy an entirely new neutered army when I have a perfectly good one sat at home to lose with.

Fair enough, and I agree with most of what you type. We do have a rather silly and somewhat insulting tax. In the end we are ahead of orcs and tyranids by a decent margin and let snot bring up SoB, those poor sobs. I think another huge problem facing the army is that as long as GW sees the army as a punching bag and a generic villiian force to be defeated then CSM at some point is going to be a in SoB territory. Which is not enough people buying the mini's to warrant a update. Our next codex will probably be the make or break edition for us. because for evey player like myself joining the forces of chaos, we have 5 leaving for greener pastures.

Indeed. I truly hope we get a Codex that actually reflects the lore that we are the singular biggest threat to the imperium (although, every non-imperial Codex gives that spiel).

And for what it's worth, I don't believe you've been condescending at all.

The narrative for chaos space marines is to lose the mission but claim Abaddon actually ordered you to play Relic!

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
Indeed. I truly hope we get a Codex that actually reflects the lore that we are the singular biggest threat to the imperium (although, every non-imperial Codex gives that spiel).

And for what it's worth, I don't believe you've been condescending at all.

They aren't the biggest threat. Necrons, Tyranids, and Eldar are.

Chaos is supposed to be the biggest threat, as it is a dual nature threat, from both within and without, borne from the Imperium's (and mankind in general) own sins. The Eldar have never been portrayed as anything like the biggest threat to the Imperium, theyre a dying race that can manipulate things to their advantage sometimes but arent capable of directly defeating or destroying the Imperium. Necrons are still a very unknown threat level for most of the Imperium and their lore has changed radically of late. Only the Tyranids really directly rival Chaos for greatest nemesis.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

They aren't the biggest threat. Necrons, Tyranids, and Eldar are.

Eldar? Noo. Eldar are a classic foe, certainly, but not nearly the threat that Chaos, Tyranids and Necrons pose. Of those three, Chaos and Necrons are still likely to keep humans around as slaves. Tyranid victory eradicates everything. Total endgame.

If they could, Eldar would probably drive humanity to backwater worlds, and then forget about them. But there just aren't that many Eldar around, and they have bigger issues to deal with than the Imperium.

Khorne chaos marines were my first ever 40k army back in Rogue Trader and I still have that army today. It has been added to, modified and tweaked over 25+ years of gaming. I still love it and just finally built the greater brass scorpion I acquired for it from forgeworld.

The way I keep enjoying is by having a gaming group that plays 40k to a lower power level than the standard high end power meta all the time. Our one Tau player has a single Riptide. One of my armies is eldar ghost warriors, but I don't use the latest codex because I don't really want to D spam my friends. I also only use my wraithknight when my Black templar opponent wants to use his knight. All pretty simple. Within this meta my chaos marines can still win consistently because our goal is fun games no curb stomping. Sometimes the curb stomps happen, but they are the standard.

I have 4 different chaos marine armies, each allied to one of the 4 chaos deities. They have slightly different feels and all have multiple forge world models added into the mix to make them varied and interesting. I also have a fully converted renegades/lost and the damned army which I sometimes run as renegades and sometimes run as IG. Also have forces for all 4 powers with daemons as well. I play them in various combinations and still have fun with them.

If I was stuck playing in local stores only regularly I would probably stick to my renegades,dark angels and space wolves more often, but am glad I don't have to because is where my heart is when it comes to 40k.

 Skriker wrote:
Khorne chaos marines were my first ever 40k army back in Rogue Trader and I still have that army today. It has been added to, modified and tweaked over 25+ years of gaming. I still love it and just finally built the greater brass scorpion I acquired for it from forgeworld.

The way I keep enjoying is by having a gaming group that plays 40k to a lower power level than the standard high end power meta all the time. Our one Tau player has a single Riptide. One of my armies is eldar ghost warriors, but I don't use the latest codex because I don't really want to D spam my friends. I also only use my wraithknight when my Black templar opponent wants to use his knight. All pretty simple. Within this meta my chaos marines can still win consistently because our goal is fun games no curb stomping. Sometimes the curb stomps happen, but they are the standard.

I have 4 different chaos marine armies, each allied to one of the 4 chaos deities. They have slightly different feels and all have multiple forge world models added into the mix to make them varied and interesting. I also have a fully converted renegades/lost and the damned army which I sometimes run as renegades and sometimes run as IG. Also have forces for all 4 powers with daemons as well. I play them in various combinations and still have fun with them.

If I was stuck playing in local stores only regularly I would probably stick to my renegades,dark angels and space wolves more often, but am glad I don't have to because is where my heart is when it comes to 40k.

Hey man, that's awesome to hear! Since I only play my friend who has the OP elder army these days, I don't have much options. Pretty much all his stuff is OP and it would be too much to ask him to maybe invest in lots of other stuff that isn't as powerful. He might simply say, "why don't you buy stuff that is more powerful?" So I think the most realistic option for me, is to agree on some kind of house rules that could balance our armies vs each other, or maybe play some type of scenario game type that could balance the armies. For example, if he brought 2000 points of his nastiest stuff, and his objective was to hold some location, then I could probably bring over 3000 points of stuff with the goal of overrunning his position. I honestly believe that his army would put up a good fight if not straight out win.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
Indeed. I truly hope we get a Codex that actually reflects the lore that we are the singular biggest threat to the imperium (although, every non-imperial Codex gives that spiel).

And for what it's worth, I don't believe you've been condescending at all.

They aren't the biggest threat. Necrons, Tyranids, and Eldar are.

Ill give you that Tyranids are probably the biggest issue in the lore. But not at the moment. Its going to take a while for the full weight of the fleets to come to bear on the galaxy. The necrons are in much the same territory as they are just starting to awaken and it can be hundreds of more years before they are ready to push out. And eldar? Now I think you are either a chaos hater or a troll. The Eldar, while mighty on the table top, are one of the weakest overall threats to anyone seeing as they are having problems trying to not go extinct.

There is no hope verses elder. You have to break your back to counter them, and they just need to maneuver slightly differently to counter you. Your only option as chaos is to shelve your army for now and pick up another army, or sell your army outright because you can't afford a brand new army. No use hanging on to the army either because chaos isn't going to be up to speed for at least three more years is my guess.

Or you can just keep buying chaos everything, and not play them. Just sit alone in your room for years, painting and detailing, and detailing some more. Then keep doing that for years until you own upwards of 10000 points of chaos. Keep shining their swords and sharpening their knives. Then some day, some wonderful day, when a new book comes out that will realize your armies' potential, come out from hiding. Everyone will have thought you had left warhammer 40k for good, but no, you had been training, preparing, and brooding for this moment. Return with such vengeance and hatred that you will not hold back, and you will destroy everything in your path. Like a true chaos crusade, wait for the right moment, then burst forth from the Eye of Terror and unleash your pain on the whole universe. And when they cry and complain that you are OP and that it's not fair. Reassure them that it's true. It isn't fair, but it's what they DESERVE. All of them, each and every one of them deserve to be obliterated into oblivion. And if they ask you to play with a fluffy army, tell them you will do so. But on game day bring the meanest nastiest, ugliest army you can. Give them no opportunity for victory, give them no opportunity for enjoyment. Your only goal is to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible. And when they cry, and they will cry, laugh at them, drink their salty tears, and bath in their sweet, sweet blood.

 stealth992 wrote:
There is no hope verses elder. You have to break your back to counter them, and they just need to maneuver slightly differently to counter you. Your only option as chaos is to shelve your army for now and pick up another army, or sell your army outright because you can't afford a brand new army. No use hanging on to the army either because chaos isn't going to be up to speed for at least three more years is my guess.

Or you can just keep buying chaos everything, and not play them. Just sit alone in your room for years, painting and detailing, and detailing some more. Then keep doing that for years until you own upwards of 10000 points of chaos. Keep shining their swords and sharpening their knives. Then some day, some wonderful day, when a new book comes out that will realize your armies' potential, come out from hiding. Everyone will have thought you had left warhammer 40k for good, but no, you had been training, preparing, and brooding for this moment. Return with such vengeance and hatred that you will not hold back, and you will destroy everything in your path. Like a true chaos crusade, wait for the right moment, then burst forth from the Eye of Terror and unleash your pain on the whole universe. And when they cry and complain that you are OP and that it's not fair. Reassure them that it's true. It isn't fair, but it's what they DESERVE. All of them, each and every one of them deserve to be obliterated into oblivion. And if they ask you to play with a fluffy army, tell them you will do so. But on game day bring the meanest nastiest, ugliest army you can. Give them no opportunity for victory, give them no opportunity for enjoyment. Your only goal is to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible. And when they cry, and they will cry, laugh at them, drink their salty tears, and bath in their sweet, sweet blood.

Or you can play games to you know, have fun and not worry about winning all the time? You may even find the mythical game where its not a killpoint brawl vs a scatbike eldar player. Sorry, I know that comes off as snarky. But there is something to be said for it.

It's nice to win games. You don't have to win all the time, but you always want to feel like you have a chance.

And CSM versus Eldar? Without some pretty ridiculous shenanigans and a badly played/made Eldar force, you don't have a chance, be it kill points, Eternal War, or Maelstrom.

Table wrote:

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
"Ive seen csm win games, the army still has harder lists (belakor + lord of skulls + heldrakes)"

Sorry for the badly done quote, I'm on phone and this is the only part I really wanted to focus on. The problem with this army that you've seen win, is that although it's a CSM army, only one of the units you've highlighted are actually from the Codex. Belakor is a dataslate, the Lord of Skulls is a massively expensive (point wise) superheavy from one of the forgeworld books.

If an army needs to look outside of its own Codex to be viable in anything more than the most casual setting, then that Codex is bad. It is not achieving it's intended goal; Allowing a player to use an army to play games with a reasonable chance of winning.

Orks: need FW support to really shine. Dark Eldar: need to use allies to keep an edge. Chaos Space Marines: need supplements and dataslates to be a worthwhile force. The top tier codices don't need that, they have everything they need to win already in their book. Eldar don't need to bring along a Scorpion superheavy to give them a better chance of winning. Vanilla Space Marines don't have to buy dataslates and supplements to remain competitive.

It's frankly ridiculous that the codices at the bottom of the pile either spend 3-4 times the amount on extra rules/allies just to be at a similar level to the top books, or have to make their peace with forever being the underdog.

Sorry for the rant, but this "I've seen such and such army win" really winds me up when at its basic level, that army is a hollow representation of its Codex.

Lord of Skulls is considered a CSM unit with an entry in traitors hate. And heldrakes come from the codex. But your point is still true. While you can use the CSM dex solo, its not going to end well. Also for the record, ive seen other lists win. This one is just our currently "accepted" tourney list.
I cannot say I have won yet, because I have yet to play (still painting and converting. have played necrons previously) . But im fairly certain ill get a few wins in , even vs eldar. You see people like to forget about things like mission type, scenario rules and treat every game as a kill point game. Now, not accounting for your meta in your circles. But in mine and id wager most others, kill point games are not seen. In my meta its all maelstrom missions or scenarios. This isnt also taking into account one HUGE factor in this game. Luck. You can bring a a top tier filthy scatter bike list but if you roll horribly you are going to have a hard time.

If your meta is nothing but tournament lists and kill point slug fests then yes, we are one of the worst codex's and never win games outside of our ONE tourey list. And i would suggest shelving the army if winning in those conditions is what matters to you.

Eldar roll so many dice they can't roll poorly. That's kinda their thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
Indeed. I truly hope we get a Codex that actually reflects the lore that we are the singular biggest threat to the imperium (although, every non-imperial Codex gives that spiel).

And for what it's worth, I don't believe you've been condescending at all.

If amuses me that you think you can challenge the tau or eldar.

Did someone really say the Lord OF Skulls was good?

I don't even know that that does. Is it a super heavy?

It is a 888 point super heavy walker that can't stomp.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It is a 888 point super heavy walker that can't stomp.

For reasons..... but not the same reasons as eldar lol!

Like much of the Chaos range, the Lord of Skulls has a cool rule concept (every HP lost = 1 extra attack) which is badly put in practice/doesn't work well. It can't keep up with the likes of the Wraithknight and Imperial Knight when in combat, because against D weapons, it doesn't matter how many attacks you have or how good your armour is - you get decimated either way.

and you can take 3 wraithknights for one LOS, when you only need 1 to kill it.

For those that dont know, the point of the Belakor list is to make Lord of Skulls useful. On its own its horribly overcosted and subject to d-baggery but with Belakor and some heldrake support it can actually do SOMETHING...sometimes. Its not the strongest list in 40k by a long shot, but it can work, and has. Look I understand Im the new guy entering a smoke filled bar with grumpy old one eyed, hard fighting hard farting vets with steel wool for stubble and quite possibly missing a few digits. Chaos is not in a good place when you look to things like Tau, Eldar and Gladius. But I stand by my points that the codex is not the "worst" and has value on some levels, stands. Be it because our meta doesnt have scatbike d-bag eldar or because you regularly play more down to earth armies. Hell even if my meta was full of pimple backed wraithbag scatbike try-hards I would still play chaos. Because to some people, winning isnt everything. Id rather lose with a army I loved than win with a army I dont.

Now this all fine and dandy. But I also have to make an apology. I somehow didnt register that this thread was a sanctioned support group thread and i had no business trying to make it anything but. And with respect to this revelation I bring you the following tears.

On what planet, in what universe did GW exist on when they priced Khorne Bezerkers. I mean they would be viable at 10 points. But 20+? They dont even match the lore GW puts forth for them at any price. If the best the lord of skulls can muster is some one attack chump with a ap4 weapon that costs extra ontop of a bloated point cost, then I say "Crom, I spit on you."

I believe an unmarked possessed model is only one point less then a scatbike....... I apologize for the language..... but that's MALARKY!

XvReaperXv wrote:
I believe an unmarked possessed model is only one point less then a scatbike....... I apologize for the language..... but that's MALARKY!

Or how about the Deflier whos 75 points over costed and its nearest cousin, the soul grinder is better and 2/3rds the cost.....with skyfire, at BS3, But still. At least you can ally in A soul grinder.

You can get 3 Soul Grinders in a formation. It has no drawbacks.

Table wrote:
For those that dont know, the point of the Belakor list is to make Lord of Skulls useful. On its own its horribly overcosted and subject to d-baggery but with Belakor and some heldrake support it can actually do SOMETHING...sometimes. Its not the strongest list in 40k by a long shot, but it can work, and has. Look I understand Im the new guy entering a smoke filled bar with grumpy old one eyed, hard fighting hard farting vets with steel wool for stubble and quite possibly missing a few digits. Chaos is not in a good place when you look to things like Tau, Eldar and Gladius. But I stand by my points that the codex is not the "worst" and has value on some levels, stands. Be it because our meta doesnt have scatbike d-bag eldar or because you regularly play more down to earth armies. Hell even if my meta was full of pimple backed wraithbag scatbike try-hards I would still play chaos. Because to some people, winning isnt everything. Id rather lose with a army I loved than win with a army I dont.

Now this all fine and dandy. But I also have to make an apology. I somehow didnt register that this thread was a sanctioned support group thread and i had no business trying to make it anything but. And with respect to this revelation I bring you the following tears.

On what planet, in what universe did GW exist on when they priced Khorne Bezerkers. I mean they would be viable at 10 points. But 20+? They dont even match the lore GW puts forth for them at any price. If the best the lord of skulls can muster is some one attack chump with a ap4 weapon that costs extra ontop of a bloated point cost, then I say "Crom, I spit on you."

Yeah. So here's my two biggest tears. 1) Defilers are my favourite unit and model of all time. I own two. And I they are so bad that I can't bear to play with them. I run them as soul grinders, so I least I get to use the models I paid for. 2) Khorne Berzerkers, the backbone of CSM Khorne devotion, are absolute crap. I'm not sure what is worse, defilers or berzerkers. Either way it's a long sad tear for my berzerkers.

I had 3rd edition necrons, have a chaos army (Night lords favoured) and a Tyranid swarm. Cry me a river.

I solved all my problems by buying a typhon and kitting it out with ceramite armor and some warpsmiths and sorcerers rolling for warp metal.

A 7 inch S10 ap 2 Ignore cover blast is a lovely thing to see.

The chaos model range is terrible right now. If chaos gets a power boost next codex/edition we might get some decent models. The fact that every plastic chaos marine has mk. VI robot pants is so frustrating. How can we take the scope of the chaos legions and renegades long exile with UNIFORM mk.VI robot pants exclusively? It was a lazy modeling job and now we are paying for it. I should have been Mk4 and Mk5 mostly and some Mk2/3/6. A generous mix not unlike the space marine tactical squad box. The DV chosen and the plastic raptors has shown us it can be done, but its a lot of kits and boxes that will need to be remade. Any way, hail hydra.

 stealth992 wrote:
There is no hope verses elder. You have to break your back to counter them, and they just need to maneuver slightly differently to counter you. Your only option as chaos is to shelve your army for now and pick up another army, or sell your army outright because you can't afford a brand new army. No use hanging on to the army either because chaos isn't going to be up to speed for at least three more years is my guess.

Or you can just keep buying chaos everything, and not play them. Just sit alone in your room for years, painting and detailing, and detailing some more. Then keep doing that for years until you own upwards of 10000 points of chaos. Keep shining their swords and sharpening their knives. Then some day, some wonderful day, when a new book comes out that will realize your armies' potential, come out from hiding. Everyone will have thought you had left warhammer 40k for good, but no, you had been training, preparing, and brooding for this moment. Return with such vengeance and hatred that you will not hold back, and you will destroy everything in your path. Like a true chaos crusade, wait for the right moment, then burst forth from the Eye of Terror and unleash your pain on the whole universe. And when they cry and complain that you are OP and that it's not fair. Reassure them that it's true. It isn't fair, but it's what they DESERVE. All of them, each and every one of them deserve to be obliterated into oblivion. And if they ask you to play with a fluffy army, tell them you will do so. But on game day bring the meanest nastiest, ugliest army you can. Give them no opportunity for victory, give them no opportunity for enjoyment. Your only goal is to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible. And when they cry, and they will cry, laugh at them, drink their salty tears, and bath in their sweet, sweet blood.

You just made my day, thank you for blessing the internet with this post. Though by similar logic Eldar are just getting revenge on CSM for 3e.

Chaos isn't in such a bad spot anymore. Traitor's Hate literally changed the game. I thought Khorne Daemonkin would be our saviour, but as it stands, Traitor's Hate has a great detachment with some really interesting options. Turn 1 Charges, 2++ rerollable inv saves, plenty of WC to cast with, access to solid support and reserves control, Chaos has many more tools than before.

Traitor's Hate redefines Chaos in a way that Angels of Death really didn't. Traitor's Hate makes some wargear that was completely useless, now very useful, Hand of Darkness, Crucible of Lies, Murder Sword, just to name a few. The only way to find out is to open your mind and explore what used to be, and compare it to what is.

Chaos no longer is bottom tier with Orks, that's reserved for the Greenskins alone, unfortunately. Traitor's Hate Chaos is a contender.

 stealth992 wrote:
8 years of Chaos VS Eldar

8 years ago I got into 40k with a buddy of mine. I bought CSM and he bought Eldar. At that time our armies were fairly balanced verses each other and we had a lot of fun. We made sure that we bought what we thought was cool and to stay away from the stuff we knew was "the best" in each codex. My buddy bought Khaine, dire avengers, banshees, fire dragons, wave serpents, and a falcon. I bought Abaddon, csm, khorne berzerkers, terminators, rhinos and defilers. We saw a few new rule books come out over time, but we found that our armies remained evenly matched. We had a lot of fun.
Right before the newest Eldar codex came out, another one of my friends picked up a used Eldar force which included wave serpents, wraithguard, fire prism, and guardians. He went on to buy a wraith knight, which he thought was the coolest thing ever, more wraithguard, more wave serpents, more jetbikes...
I took on the challenge. I believed that with enough creativity and tactical ingenuity, even Chaos could defeat the mighty Eldar. I've done it before, I'll do it again. I bought Obliterators even though I vowed when I first started playing that I'd never play them. I studied all the supplemental codex's to figure out what my options are, I teamed up with Daemons, I proxied, I used imperial guard, I used psychic powers, I slowly moved farther and farther away from the close combat bash and slash style that got me into 40k in the first place, and made lists where I squeezed in as many lascannons as I possibly could into an army. I could win sometimes, but it was a stretch. And at the end of the day, it just wasn't fun playing like this. Always trying to made the perfect efficient list to compete with a codex that can pretty much slap together any combination of units and be more competitive.
When Khorne Daemonkin came out... I reclaimed my gaming identity. I'm a bloody Chaos player. I'm a Khorne fanatic, and I want nothing but to run in and bash some skulls. I picked up this codex with incredible excitement, ready to finally destroy the Eldar. But I soon found myself wondering, where is Kharn, the champion of Khorne? Why do bloodcrushers suck so bad? Why didn't GW fix my defilers? Don't they know they are over costed? How come I don't have any realistic assault options for my assault army? Why can't Bloodthirsters assault the turn after they deep strike? These questions run through my mind as I get blown to smithereens by strength D weapons.
Then Traitor's Hate came out. Meh. All it is to me is proof that we will not get the changes we need anytime soon. That's the truth.

So now, after all the time, money, blood and sweat, it's come to this. I'm just another whiny Chaos kid.

But don't get me wrong, I still love 40k. I'll never sell my army. I still enjoy myself, in a twisted way, when I'm getting mashed to a pulp. The problem is, I really just don't understand. The game just doesn't make any sense.

CSM players, how do you go on with your wounds?
Eldar players, how lonely is the top?

Share with me your story Chaos and Eldar players!

I play Night lords. Your life is instantly better when you play Night Lords because the fluff is exquisite and the models are just ridiculous to begin with..

i do not lose that much with Chaos Space Marine, but I do understand where the frustration comes from (somewhat). Eldar have the very weakness we are designed well to handle so it makes it a bit easier than against some armies. Eldar rely on Scatter Bikes, which Heldrakes eat for lunch, the WraithKnight against which Missiles are generally capable of at least whittling to the point of being managable, the Chaos Marines have the answer to the Wraithguard, which are sort of the nuclear deterrent against charges via Dirge Casters and of course, with the ability to kind of play MSU, the Chaos Marines are also able to have the sacrificial charger against those same WraithGuard.

The thing about bating Eldar like that isn't whether you can or not. You can. The real issue is whether it's fun. I personally don't have a lot of fun playing against it, especially the WraithKnight since it changes entire armies and the way they are built which is far tyoo much impact on the game in my opinion. How do i deal with that? Like most, i just had to modify my army and accept the new reality.

So now i play with three Singular Obliterators, 3 singular Mutilators, the Heldrake, three Chaos marine units in rhinos with Dirge Casters and a Chaos Lord to bring the pain and Fearlessness the Raptors need. i (now) add the Raptor Talon Formation and stuff about 29 Raptors into it with meltaguns, and a Chaos Lord that wields the Eye of Night. The only thing I wish is that I could afford a third Chaos Lord to join the third Raptor unit but i suppose you can't have everything.

This formula allows me to compete with the Eldar and pretty much everything else. Every Eldar player comes with a different variation on the same theme these days. Just like back in the Wave Spam days, most Eldar have caught on to the new hotness and they use it to the extent their collection allows.

Keep fighting. As you say the game is fun. You might just have to get creative in order to negate the strengths of the Eldar. I think the world of Dirge Casters, i think that Nurgle allows the Raptors to perform much better and the new Raptor Talon formation makes it entirely possible for the Night Lords to get at the enemy without losing their ass as they cross the field of battle.

I wish you well!

rusty4tw wrote:
Chaos isn't in such a bad spot anymore. Traitor's Hate literally changed the game. I thought Khorne Daemonkin would be our saviour, but as it stands, Traitor's Hate has a great detachment with some really interesting options. Turn 1 Charges, 2++ rerollable inv saves, plenty of WC to cast with, access to solid support and reserves control, Chaos has many more tools than before.

Traitor's Hate redefines Chaos in a way that Angels of Death really didn't. Traitor's Hate makes some wargear that was completely useless, now very useful, Hand of Darkness, Crucible of Lies, Murder Sword, just to name a few. The only way to find out is to open your mind and explore what used to be, and compare it to what is.

Chaos no longer is bottom tier with Orks, that's reserved for the Greenskins alone, unfortunately. Traitor's Hate Chaos is a contender.

I'm not sure what you're smoking, but none of those relics became more useful, especially that piece of Garbage known as the Murder Sword.

No i agree here. Traitors hate is really cool and the Black Legion book is and was good. I have used the Eye of Night and the Hand of Darkness in my force for quite some time. the Hand of Darkness is fantastic. A Powerfist that does not go last, wounds on 2's and instant Death? Yes please. it allows you to whittle the WraithKnight by say, 2-3 wounds with shooting and then whallop him. lesser creatures in challenges like it even less. and if they refuse the challenge, all the better.

The other plus is the way you can start piling on Boons.

The Eye of Night is just killer. There are few weapons that can do that much damage to that many targets all at once and reliably, for less than the price of a Nurgle Obliterator or so. it's a big fat waste of points against some forces that do not rely on armor, but then... by that standard, you'd never take a Lascannon ever again, so that's not really that relevant. Having a tool for every kind of opponent is important. The Eye of Night is just spectacular in the general sense against some fo the things Chaos fears most.

I'd also add that Traitors Hate gives the Renegade Knights information as well and the Renegade Knights can take not one but TWO Gatling cannons which is just absurd amounts of firepower. So while i personally have never had any kind of Imperial Knight in any army, I'm not blind. 24 shots per round AP 3 rending? Good lawd. I know of very few things that can delete a unit as thoroughly as that can.

You're literally one of the only people to defend those relics and everyone knows you're not a competitive player.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You're literally one of the only people to defend those relics and everyone knows you're not a competitive player.

They...do?

Well... i mean I'm in the top 3% of the ranked ITC players (4010 of them), as I've told you before (and i still am). I think most would disagree with you there (who know what they are talking about, that is).

I think you have me confused with someone else.

I'm honestly more curious how you deal with the Single attack with ID and actually getting close enough to use it. I actually want to like those artifacts but they tend to be more expensive then should be.

 Jancoran wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You're literally one of the only people to defend those relics and everyone knows you're not a competitive player.

They...do?

Well... i mean I'm in the top 3% of the ranked ITC players (4010 of them), as I've told you before (and i still am). I think most would disagree with you there (who know what they are talking about, that is).

I think you have me confused with someone else.

Ah yes and that's why the relics get so much use and CSM armies appear a lot.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I'm honestly more curious how you deal with the Single attack with ID and actually getting close enough to use it. I actually want to like those artifacts but they tend to be more expensive then should be.

Well as i said, i play Night Lords. Delivering it is easy. As aforementioned the Raptor Talon Formation is the best thing since sliced bread for Night Lords. I literally didnt have to change my list much to accomodate it.

it allows you t odrop and assault the turn you show up. So fist drops...and...charges. Kaching!

Surviving is a dice thing. but as for delivery, no sweat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You're literally one of the only people to defend those relics and everyone knows you're not a competitive player.

They...do?

Well... i mean I'm in the top 3% of the ranked ITC players (4010 of them), as I've told you before (and i still am). I think most would disagree with you there (who know what they are talking about, that is).

I think you have me confused with someone else.

Ah yes and that's why the relics get so much use and CSM armies appear a lot.

Do you think it matters to me whether you personally "get" their value or not?

You can do one of two things. First you can bend your mind around the problem and work out HOW to use it well. Option two is to spend your points elsewhere. I'm actually okay with whatever you decide. What you don't get to do is tell me I'm wrong because i'm "not even a competitive player". Lol. That, sir, is absurdity. lots of people don't use lots of useful things for all kinds of reasons. That's their choice. it's your choice. But since we're on a forum, i am going to share what i know and what I know is, they are highly effective whenever i have used them. While bad dice happen, good things happen when average dice happen. =)

And average dice show you are barely inflicting above half a wound on a Wraithknight without a Shield, and .4 with it, meaning that ID mechanic is unlikely to come into play. So average dice is saying it is a bad weapon against a Wraithknight even though you JUST said it was perfect for finishing a Wraithknight off.

A good counter to Eldar is that new Formation from the Curse of the Wulfen book and Be'lakor.

1 Herald of Tzeentch on a Disc
3 Screamers of Tzeentch
3 Screamers of Tzeentch
3 Screamers of Tzeentch
3 Screamers of Tzeentch
3 Screamers of Tzeentch
3 Screamers of Tzeentch
3 Screamers of Tzeentch
3 Screamers of Tzeentch
3 Screamers of Tzeentch

1 Be'lakor

Be'lakor Swoops and all nine units of Screamers put 1 model within 6" of him after they've moved.

Be'lakor casts Shrouding, suddenly all 27 Screamers can jink for a 2+ rerollable cover save.

Also Be'lakor has Psychic Shriek to take a few Wounds off a Wraithknight, and Fleshbane to finish it off in combat if he makes it in.

Sure this isn't new to anyone but this is what I would do if my housemate started cheesing his Eldar too much.

As for pure CSM, yes they are bad. But looks like we'll be getting Daemon Primarchs soon, hopefully it'll be a Gargantuan Monstrous Creature by the looks of it too!

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And average dice show you are barely inflicting above half a wound on a Wraithknight without a Shield, and .4 with it, meaning that ID mechanic is unlikely to come into play. So average dice is saying it is a bad weapon against a Wraithknight even though you JUST said it was perfect for finishing a Wraithknight off.

Let's stop before this turns into a 16 page thread with no one getting anywhere lol.

You're not going to convince him of anything. Ever. It's pointless.

"24 shots per round AP 3 rending? Good lawd. I know of very few things that can delete a unit as thoroughly as that can. "

Riptide don't care.

" by that standard, you'd never take a Lascannon ever again, so that's not really that relevant."

Now that you mention it, I don't use lascannons anymore. Because they suck.

There rae no half wounds in 40K. also, instant death doesnt inflict just one wound. Also, Unlikely is a strange word to use given that he cannot really avoid the charge. Like i said: you are free to eschew it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
"24 shots per round AP 3 rending? Good lawd. I know of very few things that can delete a unit as thoroughly as that can. "

Riptide don't care.

" by that standard, you'd never take a Lascannon ever again, so that's not really that relevant."

Now that you mention it, I don't use lascannons anymore. Because they suck.

Riptides do care. 24 gives you 4 rends. Maybe they get their shield up and maybe they don't. Woe betide the Riptide who doesn't, although to be fair it seems unlikely that the Renegade Knight is going to target a Riptide with its shield up, above other targets it could hit (unless there just arent any good ones i suppose in which case it's going to cause some damage).

Anywho, point is, Traitors Hate contains a lot of good stuff for Chaos Marines to use and obviously no one is going to rightly claim that 24 shots like that is anything but awesome firepower. if something is tough enough to take it, good for them!

"24 gives you 4 rends."

24 gives you 2.66 rends, because you still have to roll to hit. 2.66 AP 2 wounds is nothing to a riptide. You just fired your expensive walker and accomplished nothing.

The renegade knight to me is just a another day at work for the Eldar. It's awesome for the CSM, because it gives them a taste of the Eldar's power.

I play this game at tournaments and if I saw a Renegade Kight with two of those, i wouldnt be as cavalier as you are. Lol.

I again am fine with whatever you want to do but understand that you are TACITLY ignoring what i said, which is that its unlikely he'd be firing it at a shielded Riptide anyways. So there's that.

But then you are a downer about almost everything, especially your Blood Angels so i do not expect any form of optimism from you when talking 40K Martel732. I've come to accept that anyone who tells you anything is good will be met withthis very predictable response. Sigh.

I can't afford to be cavalier with BA, but if I were rocking the Tau or Eldar you can bet I'd be cavalier. Because at the end of the day, IKs are still overcosted compared to GMCs.

Is there such a thing as a non-shielded Riptide to shoot at? Even a Riptide without a shield is getting 5++/5+++ against the rends.

"'ve come to accept that anyone who tells you anything is good will be met withthis very predictable response"

It depends on whether the thing you are telling me is good is actually good. You're gonna have to look long and hard to find such a thing in the BA codex.

Martel732 wrote:
I can't afford to be cavalier with BA, but if I were rocking the Tau or Eldar you can bet I'd be cavalier. Because at the end of the day, IKs are still overcosted compared to GMCs.

Is there such a thing as a non-shielded Riptide to shoot at? Even a Riptide without a shield is getting 5++/5+++ against the rends.

"'ve come to accept that anyone who tells you anything is good will be met withthis very predictable response"

It depends on whether the thing you are telling me is good is actually good. You're gonna have to look long and hard to find such a thing in the BA codex.

My point, made manifest.

Doesn't mean I'm wrong. You are not automatically right because you go to more tournaments.

Martel732 wrote:
Doesn't mean I'm wrong. You are not automatically right because you go to more tournaments.

Newp. That's true. I'm just right. No tournaments necessary on this one.

Right about what?

You weren't right about the number of rends generated, and you grossly exaggerated the harm it would cause a Riptide.

Bad armies like BA and Orks have to fear the Renegade Knight. Good armies can tank the damage or just kill the thing.

You are correc that Traitor's Hate is pretty good, but the CSM are still largely victims in 7th ed.

I was right about how negative you would be.

 Jancoran wrote:
There rae no half wounds in 40K. also, instant death doesnt inflict just one wound. Also, Unlikely is a strange word to use given that he cannot really avoid the charge. Like i said: you are free to eschew it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
"24 shots per round AP 3 rending? Good lawd. I know of very few things that can delete a unit as thoroughly as that can. "

Riptide don't care.

" by that standard, you'd never take a Lascannon ever again, so that's not really that relevant."

Now that you mention it, I don't use lascannons anymore. Because they suck.

Riptides do care. 24 gives you 4 rends. Maybe they get their shield up and maybe they don't. Woe betide the Riptide who doesn't, although to be fair it seems unlikely that the Renegade Knight is going to target a Riptide with its shield up, above other targets it could hit (unless there just arent any good ones i suppose in which case it's going to cause some damage).

Anywho, point is, Traitors Hate contains a lot of good stuff for Chaos Marines to use and obviously no one is going to rightly claim that 24 shots like that is anything but awesome firepower. if something is tough enough to take it, good for them!

You're right that there aren't half wounds in 40k. In other words, we would need on average 2 rounds of combat to inflict a single wound, which turns into 2 or 3.

You can't ignore math as you feel like. Hell, you got math wrong earlier in this thread and do it consistently. I don't believe you actually work with math at your job at this point.

He goes to tournaments. Math doesn't apply to him.

I don't even believe that. I almost believe he makes this gak up to make us try and respect him.

Im with Jancoran on this one. But then again. Im just a filthy casual who doesnt care about winning.

Daemonkin are very decent. The problem is the more you run them, the further you move away from marines and berserkers to dogs and letters and in the end you only have a jugger lord and a few min bikes in an otherwise khorne daemon army.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
There rae no half wounds in 40K. also, instant death doesnt inflict just one wound. Also, Unlikely is a strange word to use given that he cannot really avoid the charge. Like i said: you are free to eschew it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
"24 shots per round AP 3 rending? Good lawd. I know of very few things that can delete a unit as thoroughly as that can. "

Riptide don't care.

" by that standard, you'd never take a Lascannon ever again, so that's not really that relevant."

Now that you mention it, I don't use lascannons anymore. Because they suck.

Riptides do care. 24 gives you 4 rends. Maybe they get their shield up and maybe they don't. Woe betide the Riptide who doesn't, although to be fair it seems unlikely that the Renegade Knight is going to target a Riptide with its shield up, above other targets it could hit (unless there just arent any good ones i suppose in which case it's going to cause some damage).

Anywho, point is, Traitors Hate contains a lot of good stuff for Chaos Marines to use and obviously no one is going to rightly claim that 24 shots like that is anything but awesome firepower. if something is tough enough to take it, good for them!

You're right that there aren't half wounds in 40k. In other words, we would need on average 2 rounds of combat to inflict a single wound, which turns into 2 or 3.

You can't ignore math as you feel like. Hell, you got math wrong earlier in this thread and do it consistently. I don't believe you actually work with math at your job at this point.

If you don't want to piss off the people who don't understand math use percentages and it makes it simpler for all of us.

Reavas wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
There rae no half wounds in 40K. also, instant death doesnt inflict just one wound. Also, Unlikely is a strange word to use given that he cannot really avoid the charge. Like i said: you are free to eschew it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
"24 shots per round AP 3 rending? Good lawd. I know of very few things that can delete a unit as thoroughly as that can. "

Riptide don't care.

" by that standard, you'd never take a Lascannon ever again, so that's not really that relevant."

Now that you mention it, I don't use lascannons anymore. Because they suck.

Riptides do care. 24 gives you 4 rends. Maybe they get their shield up and maybe they don't. Woe betide the Riptide who doesn't, although to be fair it seems unlikely that the Renegade Knight is going to target a Riptide with its shield up, above other targets it could hit (unless there just arent any good ones i suppose in which case it's going to cause some damage).

Anywho, point is, Traitors Hate contains a lot of good stuff for Chaos Marines to use and obviously no one is going to rightly claim that 24 shots like that is anything but awesome firepower. if something is tough enough to take it, good for them!

You're right that there aren't half wounds in 40k. In other words, we would need on average 2 rounds of combat to inflict a single wound, which turns into 2 or 3.

You can't ignore math as you feel like. Hell, you got math wrong earlier in this thread and do it consistently. I don't believe you actually work with math at your job at this point.

If you don't want to piss off the people who don't understand math use percentages and it makes it simpler for all of us.

I think what Jan is trying to impart is less about math and more about attitude. Its that you can join in the internet chorus and mantra of crying about Eldar and Riptides and how every game has three wraith knights and is all scattterbikes and objectives mean nothing along with narrative play.
Im not going to say the dirty 3 are not infact, over the top. Its clear they are.. But you can either bitch and moan like a sop or actually try to work with what you have. CSM isnt the bottom boy anymore. Traitors hate has helped out more than your local power gamer would like to admit. It may not be lolwraith knight level, but its clearly capable of holding its own against most other armies. The Codex still has major issues and we wont see a solution till mid 8th. But until then you can either work with what we have, or take your ball and go home. No sense doing anything else.

But I do have to say. I cant see how the murder sword is anything but junk. In any build. But id sure like to be shown differently.

Table wrote:

Reavas wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
There rae no half wounds in 40K. also, instant death doesnt inflict just one wound. Also, Unlikely is a strange word to use given that he cannot really avoid the charge. Like i said: you are free to eschew it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
"24 shots per round AP 3 rending? Good lawd. I know of very few things that can delete a unit as thoroughly as that can. "

Riptide don't care.

" by that standard, you'd never take a Lascannon ever again, so that's not really that relevant."

Now that you mention it, I don't use lascannons anymore. Because they suck.

Riptides do care. 24 gives you 4 rends. Maybe they get their shield up and maybe they don't. Woe betide the Riptide who doesn't, although to be fair it seems unlikely that the Renegade Knight is going to target a Riptide with its shield up, above other targets it could hit (unless there just arent any good ones i suppose in which case it's going to cause some damage).

Anywho, point is, Traitors Hate contains a lot of good stuff for Chaos Marines to use and obviously no one is going to rightly claim that 24 shots like that is anything but awesome firepower. if something is tough enough to take it, good for them!

You're right that there aren't half wounds in 40k. In other words, we would need on average 2 rounds of combat to inflict a single wound, which turns into 2 or 3.

You can't ignore math as you feel like. Hell, you got math wrong earlier in this thread and do it consistently. I don't believe you actually work with math at your job at this point.

If you don't want to piss off the people who don't understand math use percentages and it makes it simpler for all of us.

I think what Jan is trying to impart is less about math and more about attitude. Its that you can join in the internet chorus and mantra of crying about Eldar and Riptides and how every game has three wraith knights and is all scattterbikes and objectives mean nothing along with narrative play.
Im not going to say the dirty 3 are not infact, over the top. Its clear they are.. But you can either bitch and moan like a sop or actually try to work with what you have. CSM isnt the bottom boy anymore. Traitors hate has helped out more than your local power gamer would like to admit. It may not be lolwraith knight level, but its clearly capable of holding its own against most other armies. The Codex still has major issues and we wont see a solution till mid 8th. But until then you can either work with what we have, or take your ball and go home. No sense doing anything else.

But I do have to say. I cant see how the murder sword is anything but junk. In any build. But id sure like to be shown differently.

Oh I completely agree, there is a vast differance between enjoying the experience of playing the game and competitive "mathhammer" play. I personally enjoy both, sometimes I bring lists with lucius and some CC noise marines with doom siren (my fav part of the lore of emperors children) and competativly I wouldnt touch him with a 10 foot pole.

Personally I find all the new suppliments finally adding up to something moderatly competative, Im starting to see some strong synergies between the codex and new formations and dataslates. Synergies such as typhus and the lost and the damned, sorcerers with heritech combined with the hellfist murderpack, even the murdersword on a lord in the raptortalon formation has a good chance of taking out its target (although I prefer other weapons and using the raptortalon to deliver some much needed melta shots into vehicles and then charging in with meltabombs)

Right at this moment CSM's main difficulty is in taking out monsterous creatures with high toughness, other than allying in daemons there are no really cheap, reliable ways to take out GMC's or MC's such as eldar wraiths or riptides and stormsurges. There is tarpitting and even plasma guns on bikes to a lesser degree. But every top tier codex you will find has very reliable ways to deal with GMC's and MC's and imo that is what sets them apart as top tier codexes, space marines has grav, eldar have D, all necron models wound on 6 reguardless, tau just has incredible abouts of high strength weaponry.

And as a side note to any slanneshi CSM players we are in a great position with the new suppliments, from the initial release of the codex we have had the ability to deal with scatterbikes, ravenwing bikes, and jink based screamerstars as well as tau steath cadre's with relative ease thanks to our sonic equipment. With the new traitors hate we can ramp things up from average to pretty great in terms of competativness.

Relative ease thanks to sonic equipment...?
It's...it's a small blast template. It scores 1-2 hits per turn. On a unit that is prohibitively expensive and slow.

And that 5 man scat bike squad can inflict ~5 wounds, and wipe the min squad of noise marines. Chaos has no real answer to Eldar. The supplements have made them stronger, just not enough where they can compete with the big boys.

XvReaperXv wrote:and you can take 3 wraithknights for one LOS, when you only need 1 to kill it.

Look Out Sir or Line of Site? I don't get it.

Akiasura wrote:
Relative ease thanks to sonic equipment...?
It's...it's a small blast template. It scores 1-2 hits per turn. On a unit that is prohibitively expensive and slow.

And that 5 man scat bike squad can inflict ~5 wounds, and wipe the min squad of noise marines. Chaos has no real answer to Eldar. The supplements have made them stronger, just not enough where they can compete with the big boys.

Any slanneshi CSM player worth his salt packs atleast 2-3 blast-masters in separate squads which with 48 range guarantee's to out range eldar scatter-bikes, not only that but although being a small blast is likely to hit at least 2 to 3 of the bikes, with Str 8, ap 3 ignore cover, the bikes are as about as dead as can be. And we are just talking in one turn.

Reavas wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Relative ease thanks to sonic equipment...?
It's...it's a small blast template. It scores 1-2 hits per turn. On a unit that is prohibitively expensive and slow.

And that 5 man scat bike squad can inflict ~5 wounds, and wipe the min squad of noise marines. Chaos has no real answer to Eldar. The supplements have made them stronger, just not enough where they can compete with the big boys.

Any slanneshi CSM player worth his salt packs atleast 2-3 blast-masters in separate squads which with 48 range guarantee's to out range eldar scatter-bikes, not only that but although being a small blast is likely to hit at least 2 to 3 of the bikes, with Str 8, ap 3 ignore cover, the bikes are as about as dead as can be. And we are just talking in one turn.

How much does a Blast master cost? Plus a Rhino for cover or some sort of survivability.

Eldar can bring out Scatt lasers for pretty darn cheap compared to that, plus they're more mobile than your Blastmasters. Oh, and throw on Invuln saves on the squad with a Farseer. Now your AP 3 means squat.

It's hard to outrange 36" guns on a board with decent terrain.

Martel732 wrote:
It's hard to outrange 36" guns on a board with decent terrain.

Exactly. Bikes aren't hard to hide behind terrain, and then they get a 12" move plus 36" range.

Akiasura wrote:
Relative ease thanks to sonic equipment...?
It's...it's a small blast template. It scores 1-2 hits per turn. On a unit that is prohibitively expensive and slow.

And that 5 man scat bike squad can inflict ~5 wounds, and wipe the min squad of noise marines. Chaos has no real answer to Eldar. The supplements have made them stronger, just not enough where they can compete with the big boys.

We have an answer, a few well placed helldrakes and some really lucky dice rolls

Just remember that if you really think Noise Marines are that good at killing Bikers, Legion Of The Damned do it MUCH better and nobody is using them.

Reavas wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Relative ease thanks to sonic equipment...?
It's...it's a small blast template. It scores 1-2 hits per turn. On a unit that is prohibitively expensive and slow.

And that 5 man scat bike squad can inflict ~5 wounds, and wipe the min squad of noise marines. Chaos has no real answer to Eldar. The supplements have made them stronger, just not enough where they can compete with the big boys.

Any slanneshi CSM player worth his salt packs

Great start

Reavas wrote:

atleast 2-3 blast-masters in separate squads

2-3? I usually take 5-6 between the army. It's the only reason to take them at all.

Reavas wrote:

which with 48 range guarantee's to out range eldar scatter-bikes

For someone throwing "worth his salt" comments you don't seem to understand certain things about the game.
The blaster is a heavy weapon, essentially. You can't move. This means the weapon has a 48" range, since moving it makes you fire with the horrible profile that isn't worth the points.
The scatbike is on a jetbike that can move anywhere within 12" and move back 2d6 in the assault phase. The guns are 36". They essentially have a range of 48" plus can move back to safety (cover or out of LoS) and move to better firing positions.
The scatbikes equal or exceed the range of the blastmaster due to superior mobility. Heavy on an infantry weapon is a death sentence.

Reavas wrote:

not only that but although being a small blast is likely to hit at least 2 to 3 of the bikes,

No, a small blast is 3". Unit coherency demands 2". A scatbike squad spread out is never going to get 3 bikes tagged. A large blast, a ~5" template, gets 3-4 bikes, sometimes 5 on rare occasions. A small one never gets 3 unless your opponent got lazy. Realistically, it's 1-2.
You're also ignoring the fact that the scatbikes can deploy out of LoS and fire first. Due to superior mobility, they get to dictate the terms of engagement, and its not hard to wipe out a squad of noise marines unless they take a rhino.

Reavas wrote:

with Str 8, ap 3 ignore cover, the bikes are as about as dead as can be. And we are just talking in one turn.

1-2 bikes is not as dead as dead can be, especially on a fragile platform. Let's compare point costs.
A noise marine squad is best taken as a squad of ten to reduce the cost of the rhino and useless champion per model.
170 for the squad
60 for the blast masters (2).
10 champion.
35 Rhino.
275 points for the squad. That's 140 points per blastmaster, nice! For the record, a scatbike pays 27 points total and, while not as good as the blastmaster per model, but at 5:1....

For the record, a 5 man squad with rhino is more expensive per model. You can not take the rhino, but it becomes very easy to kill the marines and they can't redeploy well, losing a turn of firing pretty easily.

For the eldar, 275 points will get you 10 scat bikes. Let's compare!
2 blastmasters average 2-4 hits assuming no bad scatter. Let's go with 3. After that, its ~2.5 wounds assuming no powers. You are killing ~55-80 points per turn, and will need 4-5 turns to earn your points back. That's pretty bad. We can double that, assuming all perfect scatters getting 3 hits each and your opponent not deploying well, and get 5 wounds, which is 2-3 turns to earn your points back. This is much better, but extremely unlikely.
Most eldar lists that are semi-competitive run 20+ bikes. It would take 4 blastmasters all game, a 500 pt investment, to kill them. 8 blastmasters, which is half the army, would do the deed by turn 3. This is assuming the eldar sit there and let you do it.

For the eldar, 1 scat bike does the following
2/3 * 5/6 * 1/3 = 10/54 per shot, 6 shots. A little over 1 dead marine per bike (~1.1), with the average cost of the marine being 27.5 points (as much as the scat bike!) if you break it up per model. It takes one turn for the scat bike to earn more than its points back on average. This is excellent.

So the 270 points of eldar kill over 240 points worth of troops in one turn. That's...that's amazing. And most eldar take about 500 points in scat bikes if its competitive. They can easily delete 500 points of noise marines in one turn.

Such Relative ease
Sonic blasters are a good answer to WG, not scatbikes. If you can pop their transport open, which is doable. Scatbikes just hose down everything we have. The WK adds to that. Those two units alone means chaos can't compete currently. Believe me, I've been asking for a BR against a competitive eldar list involving chaos forever, and no one has delivered. Not once.

Table wrote:


I think what Jan is trying to impart is less about math and more about attitude. Its that you can join in the internet chorus and mantra of crying about Eldar and Riptides and how every game has three wraith knights and is all scattterbikes and objectives mean nothing along with narrative play.
Im not going to say the dirty 3 are not infact, over the top. Its clear they are.. But you can either bitch and moan like a sop or actually try to work with what you have. CSM isnt the bottom boy anymore. Traitors hate has helped out more than your local power gamer would like to admit. It may not be lolwraith knight level, but its clearly capable of holding its own against most other armies. The Codex still has major issues and we wont see a solution till mid 8th. But until then you can either work with what we have, or take your ball and go home. No sense doing anything else.

But I do have to say. I cant see how the murder sword is anything but junk. In any build. But id sure like to be shown differently.

Murder Sword isn't very good in comparison to the better options available to Chaos but its not without any merit. I think you just end up looking at it and going "or I could take X...". Your eyes kind of slide off the page a little bit when you read it.

As for my message, you are precisely right about that. The hyperbole that surrounds this codex is so ridiculously negative that any reasoning person shouldn't buy into it. The level of despair people act like they have (and maybe for some it's even true, but its more the mob mentality speaking than reality) is not supported by my own experience. In other words, how is it that someone can win consistently with the same codex and it be the codex's fault? I'm just saying. This comes up on so many codex's and people want it to be GW's fault they are losing. Well i am sure GW isn't entire guiltless in the matter but if someone wants me to buy off that its all GW, and not just the Generals being inflexible, I'm sorry. I just can't get behind it.

At some point, some personal responsibility for wins and losses needs to happen. I tire quickly of people who want it to be about anything but them. That's a personal point of view I will always have. I am not here to lie to you all and tell you that there aren't codex's which make your choices easier and more prolific. I am telling you that there are plenty of combinations thanks to the Black Legion and Traitors hate supplement that should positively give a capable general all he needs towin.

No one wins all the time. No one. Dice are involved. Terrain is involved. The opponent is just as interested as you are in winning so there's his involvement and skill. Ultimately though, good generals win more often than worse ones and that happens no matter the codex. I've stomped the last four Eldar players i faced. All of them. i used Dark Eldar and did it. I used Tau Empire and did it. I used Night Lords and did it twice. This is why I do not like this kind of talk. It's B.S.

The Eldar are a powerhouse butthey have stats like everyone else and you can kill them like everyone else. So choose your tools wisely (yes...perhaps more wisely than other codex's force you to) and be smarter than you normally have to be playing those other armies and you will come out ahead more often than you don't. as you should, if you're the better general. Every now and again, you'll lose. Every now and again, you'll lose big. So what. you'll win more often than you lose if you play your A game. And if you don'd want to "have to" play your A game, stop playing War games! What are you (the global you) even doing playing if all you want is to coast down the hill every game?

Although the maths look pretty dire for the slaanesh marines, I don't think you can look at the 'average cost of the marine' per turn.

Most of the time it will be bolter marines dieing, which you've not even bothered to do the maths for as we know they won't accomplish much.

However, for the eldar, each wound taken represents a substantial drop in firepower.

On top of this, the first scat bike squad is essentially a throw away round of shooting; it destroys the rhino, but accomplishes little else... it might not even do that with cover/smokes and night fighting, which means another unit of scat bikes shooting wasted on a rhino.

That said, jetbikes might initially seem good targets for sonic weapons, but jet bikes do play against some of the strengths of noise marines. Most obviously, they are bikes so can't be pinned, which is one of the ways noise marine armies a) control the damage they take and b) get their non-grenade wielding combat specialists into combat striking at initiative order.

On top of that scatbikes are simply more points efficient at grinding down units, as shown by the poster above above.

Scattrbikes are frighteningly good. Hiding from them until the Heldrakes arrive is never a bad plan.

 Jancoran wrote:
I was right about how negative you would be.

That's not an epic prediction, really.

Addendum: you never have told me what's "good" in the BA codex.

 Jancoran wrote:

Table wrote:


I think what Jan is trying to impart is less about math and more about attitude. Its that you can join in the internet chorus and mantra of crying about Eldar and Riptides and how every game has three wraith knights and is all scattterbikes and objectives mean nothing along with narrative play.
Im not going to say the dirty 3 are not infact, over the top. Its clear they are.. But you can either bitch and moan like a sop or actually try to work with what you have. CSM isnt the bottom boy anymore. Traitors hate has helped out more than your local power gamer would like to admit. It may not be lolwraith knight level, but its clearly capable of holding its own against most other armies. The Codex still has major issues and we wont see a solution till mid 8th. But until then you can either work with what we have, or take your ball and go home. No sense doing anything else.

But I do have to say. I cant see how the murder sword is anything but junk. In any build. But id sure like to be shown differently.

Murder Sword isn't very good in comparison to the better options available to Chaos but its not without any merit. I think you just end up looking at it and going "or I could take X...". Your eyes kind of slide off the page a little bit when you read it.

As for my message, you are precisely right about that. The hyperbole that surrounds this codex is so ridiculously negative that any reasoning person shouldn't buy into it. The level of despair people act like they have (and maybe for some it's even true, but its more the mob mentality speaking than reality) is not supported by my own experience. In other words, how is it that someone can win consistently with the same codex and it be the codex's fault? I'm just saying. This comes up on so many codex's and people want it to be GW's fault they are losing. Well i am sure GW isn't entire guiltless in the matter but if someone wants me to buy off that its all GW, and not just the Generals being inflexible, I'm sorry. I just can't get behind it.

At some point, some personal responsibility for wins and losses needs to happen. I tire quickly of people who want it to be about anything but them. That's a personal point of view I will always have. I am not here to lie to you all and tell you that there aren't codex's which make your choices easier and more prolific. I am telling you that there are plenty of combinations thanks to the Black Legion and Traitors hate supplement that should positively give a capable general all he needs towin.

No one wins all the time. No one. Dice are involved. Terrain is involved. The opponent is just as interested as you are in winning so there's his involvement and skill. Ultimately though, good generals win more often than worse ones and that happens no matter the codex. I've stomped the last four Eldar players i faced. All of them. i used Dark Eldar and did it. I used Tau Empire and did it. I used Night Lords and did it twice. This is why I do not like this kind of talk. It's B.S.

The Eldar are a powerhouse butthey have stats like everyone else and you can kill them like everyone else. So choose your tools wisely (yes...perhaps more wisely than other codex's force you to) and be smarter than you normally have to be playing those other armies and you will come out ahead more often than you don't. as you should, if you're the better general. Every now and again, you'll lose. Every now and again, you'll lose big. So what. you'll win more often than you lose if you play your A game. And if you don'd want to "have to" play your A game, stop playing War games! What are you (the global you) even doing playing if all you want is to coast down the hill every game?

This is literally the worst L2P argument I've seen in awhile, and I can't wait to respond to it when I get to my computer.

nareik wrote:
Although the maths look pretty dire for the slaanesh marines, I don't think you can look at the 'average cost of the marine' per turn.

I'll admit that it's not the best way to do it, but its hard to determine when the blastmaster marines will actually die since the scatbikes can move around a bit and get angles.
Since equivalent points in scatbikes one rounds the entire unit, I found this to be a non-issue. If I kill the whole squad, it doesn't matter when the blastmaster dies, and ten scat bikes will kill 11 marines on average.

I mainly did it to determine PPM. It's pretty standard practice when doing these comparisons for tactical marines since you don't know when the PG guy will die, but he's roughly double a basic marine. You just assume he brings the pppm up a bit. Transports its different since they have their own HP and defenses. Otherwise 8 bikes earn half their points and the last 2 bikes earn double their points. It averages out the same.

nareik wrote:

Most of the time it will be bolter marines dieing, which you've not even bothered to do the maths for as we know they won't accomplish much.

I didn't do the math since they'll never be in range. The scat bikes shot 36 and move 2d6 away. If the slaanesh troops move they can't fire the heavy weapon.
They will literally do nothing, which is why they were not included. The bolter marines only come in to play against melee armies, which hardly includes eldar. I wish the sonic weapons had a similar range even if it was one shot, but chaos is filled with this kind of thing all over.

nareik wrote:

However, for the eldar, each wound taken represents a substantial drop in firepower.

It represents 27 points of firepower, hardly substantial. It might seem substantial from the chaos player's perspective, but for the eldar, they have 20+ bikes in many competitive lists. Losing 1 or 2 is 5-10% of scatbike firepower. It's not a big deal considering how quickly the scat bikes earn their points back (1-2 rounds of firing against the majority of armies unless 2+ spam. Sometimes even then). Compared to the marines, sure, it's 10 points more. Still, hardly game breaking...you invested so many points for so little return after all.

To neuter scat bikes, you must wipe them before turn 2. That's a real struggle for chaos, if not impossible. I have other armies that can do it (Tau, Marines. Necrons can make them need 3-4 turns to earn their points back) but chaos is not one of them.

nareik wrote:

On top of this, the first scat bike squad is essentially a throw away round of shooting; it destroys the rhino, but accomplishes little else... it might not even do that with cover/smokes and night fighting, which means another unit of scat bikes shooting wasted on a rhino.

At no point should a scat bike fire at the rhino unless they have to. Eldar have much better units for that if they need to, but if it makes you feel better, that's fine.
2/3 hit, 1/3 glance, 2/3 go through cover, 4/27 per shot glancing/pen hits. Nearly every scat bike causes a glance with cover, there should never be a point where more than one squad needs to fire on the rhino barring horrible dice.
It's easy to have one 5 man squad kill the rhino, and another fire at the troops wiping them in half. You kill 3 bikes, next turn the squad is wiped. 80 points to 275, advantage eldar. If you fire first, it becomes a bit better (6 bikes die, making it 160 to 275) but that's optimal and still not winning.

nareik wrote:

That said, jetbikes might initially seem good targets for sonic weapons, but jet bikes do play against some of the strengths of noise marines. Most obviously, they are bikes so can't be pinned, which is one of the ways noise marine armies a) control the damage they take and b) get their non-grenade wielding combat specialists into combat striking at initiative order.

Scat bikes are actually one of the best targets for noise marines. They are expensive per model, rely on cover saves, and big enough that a scatter should still get 1-2 models. WG are better because they cost more per model, but its hard to think of a better target.
It's just chaos is so overpriced that they come up short. Really short. It's a sound strategy, the codex just actively works against you here.

I play both armies, chaos was my second army after eldar. I've owned both since 3rd and have played them extensively. Chaos is in a horrible place and can't compete with eldar power lists currently. It's why you never ever see battlereports of eldar vs chaos where the eldar lose in this edition. It'll never be against anything resembling a competitive force (Dragons, Hawks, Spiders, WG, Bikes, WK for the record...everyone knows what's strong with the eldar at this point). I spam noise marines because they are one of the better options in the chaos dex, but they can't compete with the top players. Compare a squad of noise marines to a Riptide. It's roughly equivalent points. Guess which one is superior in nearly everyway?

nareik wrote:

On top of that scatbikes are simply more points efficient at grinding down units, as shown by the poster above above.

Right, which is why there is nothing the chaos codex does that counters this one unit. Throw the rest of the army in and it gets worse.

Scatbikes would be fair with 4+ armor.

I think they need less guns per bike tbh. It's rare to see a unit that can take such a powerful weapon with every model, and usually they pay a massive premium for it, and for a worse weapon.

If they were 1 in 3 or in 4, it'd be fair. Still strong, but not "All other troops are garbage lol" like they are now.

I'm not arguing about a jetbikes versatility, nor would I play a battle of pure noise marine blastmasters against an army of pure scatterbikes thats just plain suicide. Rather Im arguing as a heavy artillary role which serves to support front line infantry, blastmasters do a particularly good job at killing jinking bikes or models with a particularly good armour and cover save that other armies struggle with. A unit on its own is no measure of its strength, its like comparing a farseer to a sorcerer without knowing what unit they are attatched to, its pointless, similarly in comparing infantry artillary to jetbikes, they are largely differant roles. However you can argue a units strengths purely from a points/stats perspective, and ignoring almost every save bar a invuln save is a pretty powerful tool to use in an army.

Saying a unit is bad because this unit is better completely ignores other aspects in the game that make it competative

Reavas wrote:
I'm not arguing about a jetbikes versatility, nor would I play a battle of pure noise marine blastmasters against an army of pure scatterbikes thats just plain suicide.

Agreed, it is suicide.
The issue is that the chaos army fails to bring anything else that is strong. They really lack options.
The eldar army have a WK, WG, Spiders, and others that are still really difficult to handle for chaos.

Reavas wrote:

Rather Im arguing as a heavy artillary role which serves to support front line infantry, blastmasters do a particularly good job at killing jinking bikes or models with a particularly good armour and cover save that other armies struggle with.

Sure, I'll agree with that. Out of everything in the chaos dex, they serve that role the best.
However, other armies don't struggle with this. My marine and tau army will wipe the bikes turn 1 or 2, not turn 4. And they will suffer few casualties in return.
My necrons don't care about the bikes and will hit melee by turn 2-3. My Wolves care but have enough cheap 2w FnP bodies to get through the firepower and destroy in melee (wulfen).

The only armies that struggle with this are the bad armies. It's why you'll see scatbikes used alone to determine if an army is remotely competitive. Dealing with them is the bar, and chaos don't rise above it sadly. This makes noise marines, and really all of chaos, not competitive.

Reavas wrote:

A unit on its own is no measure of its strength, its like comparing a farseer to a sorcerer without knowing what unit they are attatched to, its pointless, similarly in comparing infantry artillary to jetbikes, they are largely differant roles. However you can argue a units strengths purely from a points/stats perspective, and ignoring almost every save bar a invuln save is a pretty powerful tool to use in an army.

That's moving the goalposts quite a ways and is an awful argument. Few units in the game have synergy, and for most armies its transports, formations, or HQ. Tau are an exception, as are necrons.

Originally it was noise marines can handle scat bikes quite readily. The math argues against this. Now you argue synergy, but chaos has little if any synergy. Very few of their powers buff units after all, and nearly none buff noise marines. You can take an icon for FNP, but that rises the cost of the unit even higher and the icon could get killed causing the bonus to disappear. What else can buff the noise marines? They must have a target to contribute, and if you argue its bikes, but they fail against bikes, then the argument becomes what is their point against an eldar force?

Eldar, on the other hand, buff units quite well. Fortune with an invul save on the bikes and the blast masters go from 3 kills a turn to 1, completely neutering them. The same can't be said for the reverse. The best armies have amazing synergy, Chaos doesn't.

Look at a centstar. With a 2+ save, a teleporting centstar can cripple a chaos army by itself, let alone the rest of the army. A wraith wing in decurion or riptide formation go through chaos like its nothing. No unit, formation, or anything else chaos has stands a chance against this. Show me a Bat Rep against a competitive marine, tau, or eldar force and I'll believe it. I've been asking for one for quite some time now, and no one has provided one.

Evidently, a single helldrake is going to fix your scatterbike problems. At least, that's what Jancoran has in his list. Unless I missed something.

Martel732 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
I was right about how negative you would be.

That's not an epic prediction, really.

Addendum: you never have told me what's "good" in the BA codex.

I kind of ...did?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Scatbikes would be fair with 4+ armor.

agreed. Im not sure why they made them so good compared to say Dark Eldar bikes with 5+ armor. That puzzles me but..meh.

No, you really didn't. Certainly not since the latest hard-to-use book dropped. It's fine. This thread is about CSM. But I still see a lot of parallels between BA and CSM. Both are have-not power armor armies.

There is no "choosing your tools wisely" when you've got nothing in your entire codex that threatens Eldar or Tau.

Martel732 wrote:
Evidently, a single helldrake is going to fix your scatterbike problems. At least, that's what Jancoran has in his list. Unless I missed something.

I'm pretty sure I didn't say that. Also: Most people take more than one. I just happen not to. Not enough points, given my strategy. But I handle the jetbikes in a different way and the Heldrake is supplemental to that. Its a REALLY good supplement though. It bakes a unit per round and often kills two to three of those units before it dies. It's awfully effective at its job with even just one of them up there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
No, you really didn't. Certainly not since the latest hard-to-use book dropped. It's fine. This thread is about CSM. But I still see a lot of parallels between BA and CSM. Both are have-not power armor armies.

There is no "choosing your tools wisely" when you've got nothing in your entire codex that threatens Eldar or Tau.

oh dear... I know that if I respond...nah... nah. Let's talk Chaos Marines here.

Well there are certainly BA tactic threads where you could explain what we need to be doing other than dying like chumps to dozens of S6 shots and S8 AP2 ignore cover interceptor pie plates.

Your slaneesh marines or whatever aren't looking so useful when the Riptide just evaporates them all from across the board.

I don't see how anything from the recent CSM book, like the BA book, fixes the problem of losing 33%-50% of your list per turn. Because Tau and Eldar say so. Your tools aren't helping you much when they are back in your model carrier.

Martel732 wrote:
Well there are certainly BA tactic threads where you could explain what we need to be doing other than dying like chumps to dozens of S6 shots and S8 AP2 ignore cover interceptor pie plates.

Your slaneesh marines or whatever aren't looking so useful when the Riptide just evaporates them all from across the board.

You forgot he did math wrong earlier and claims he works with math at his job.

Martel732 wrote:
Well there are certainly BA tactic threads where you could explain what we need to be doing other than dying like chumps to dozens of S6 shots and S8 AP2 ignore cover interceptor pie plates.

Your slaneesh marines or whatever aren't looking so useful when the Riptide just evaporates them all from across the board.

I don't see how anything from the recent CSM book, like the BA book, fixes the problem of losing 33%-50% of your list per turn. Because Tau and Eldar say so. Your tools aren't helping you much when they are back in your model carrier.

So it is your opinion that I will allow the riptide to do this to me? its your opinion that the Traitors Hate book gave me nothing good to deal with that possibility?
Umm...

So you heard me when I said I play Night Lords right?

Akiasura wrote:

Reavas wrote:
I'm not arguing about a jetbikes versatility, nor would I play a battle of pure noise marine blastmasters against an army of pure scatterbikes thats just plain suicide.

Agreed, it is suicide.
The issue is that the chaos army fails to bring anything else that is strong. They really lack options.
The eldar army have a WK, WG, Spiders, and others that are still really difficult to handle for chaos.

Reavas wrote:

Rather Im arguing as a heavy artillary role which serves to support front line infantry, blastmasters do a particularly good job at killing jinking bikes or models with a particularly good armour and cover save that other armies struggle with.

Sure, I'll agree with that. Out of everything in the chaos dex, they serve that role the best.
However, other armies don't struggle with this. My marine and tau army will wipe the bikes turn 1 or 2, not turn 4. And they will suffer few casualties in return.
My necrons don't care about the bikes and will hit melee by turn 2-3. My Wolves care but have enough cheap 2w FnP bodies to get through the firepower and destroy in melee (wulfen).

The only armies that struggle with this are the bad armies. It's why you'll see scatbikes used alone to determine if an army is remotely competitive. Dealing with them is the bar, and chaos don't rise above it sadly. This makes noise marines, and really all of chaos, not competitive.

Reavas wrote:

A unit on its own is no measure of its strength, its like comparing a farseer to a sorcerer without knowing what unit they are attatched to, its pointless, similarly in comparing infantry artillary to jetbikes, they are largely differant roles. However you can argue a units strengths purely from a points/stats perspective, and ignoring almost every save bar a invuln save is a pretty powerful tool to use in an army.

That's moving the goalposts quite a ways and is an awful argument. Few units in the game have synergy, and for most armies its transports, formations, or HQ. Tau are an exception, as are necrons.

Originally it was noise marines can handle scat bikes quite readily. The math argues against this. Now you argue synergy, but chaos has little if any synergy. Very few of their powers buff units after all, and nearly none buff noise marines. You can take an icon for FNP, but that rises the cost of the unit even higher and the icon could get killed causing the bonus to disappear. What else can buff the noise marines? They must have a target to contribute, and if you argue its bikes, but they fail against bikes, then the argument becomes what is their point against an eldar force?

Eldar, on the other hand, buff units quite well. Fortune with an invul save on the bikes and the blast masters go from 3 kills a turn to 1, completely neutering them. The same can't be said for the reverse. The best armies have amazing synergy, Chaos doesn't.

Look at a centstar. With a 2+ save, a teleporting centstar can cripple a chaos army by itself, let alone the rest of the army. A wraith wing in decurion or riptide formation go through chaos like its nothing. No unit, formation, or anything else chaos has stands a chance against this. Show me a Bat Rep against a competitive marine, tau, or eldar force and I'll believe it. I've been asking for one for quite some time now, and no one has provided one.

In oder to explore the synergies in the chais dex/suppliments Im going to have to go into what I often pack, which Im happy to do for the sake of argument.

One of my favourite things to pack is a minimum of 4 units of CC cultists with flamers and run them towards the enemy, with the new lost and the damned formation this is great as fearless makes some of the units a great tarpit and having them respawn on the board edges is great for taking out many low toughness units (Ive been very lucky and have had them even take out several units of CSM) this synergises with the blastmasters as 50 points of cultists can prove rather troublesome if you leave them to their buisness, even worse is if you target them as a priority, leaving the blastmasters to put large dents in the enemies units while the cultists run amok. They also give my chaos spawn a 5+ cover save which is always nice.

Other than useful distractor units like cultists one of my favourite things to ally in is a forgehost, although not innately CSM its damn better than a defiler, and they brutalise even wraith units and the instant death on most units is amazing! The Grinders become top priority targets that allow for the noise marines to, again, do their job from the other end of the board.

Sorcerers are also always a welcome synergy, roll on ectomancy if you want to shoot those blastmasters without tbe need for LOS, cant hide from them anymore but personally I roll on heritech for the soul grinders but the potential for synergy is there.

Blastmasters are meant to serve as an auxillary and thats how I play them, all of what I mentioned above is what I pack in 1350 point games and I have tabled opponents on multiple occasions, opponents such as necrons, tau, and space marines (eldar I got close but no dice).

In reguards to pitting single units against single units I dont think its fair to pit an auxillary that is used to eliminate specific threats such as scatterbikes and a unit that as you said, can make up the bulk of an eldar army. If you would like me to point out some more synergies that are indide the actual chaos codex and supplimemts, as I know several people will rip me a new one for the forgehost not being in the dex but being a synergy I use, I will do so after class (which Im attending now) because there are some great synergies with certain formations.

On a side note: how the feth did your necrons get in CC with scatterbikes??? I mean, scarabs maybe but what else possibly could catch those things?

wraiths are beasts so i mean they move real fast and with 4+ fnp... Well...

 Jancoran wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Well there are certainly BA tactic threads where you could explain what we need to be doing other than dying like chumps to dozens of S6 shots and S8 AP2 ignore cover interceptor pie plates.

Your slaneesh marines or whatever aren't looking so useful when the Riptide just evaporates them all from across the board.

I don't see how anything from the recent CSM book, like the BA book, fixes the problem of losing 33%-50% of your list per turn. Because Tau and Eldar say so. Your tools aren't helping you much when they are back in your model carrier.

So it is your opinion that I will allow the riptide to do this to me? its your opinion that the Traitors Hate book gave me nothing good to deal with that possibility?
Umm...

So you heard me when I said I play Night Lords right?

I'm not familiar, because most people quit playing CSM where I play. So what do the Night Lords do that's so special?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Well there are certainly BA tactic threads where you could explain what we need to be doing other than dying like chumps to dozens of S6 shots and S8 AP2 ignore cover interceptor pie plates.

Your slaneesh marines or whatever aren't looking so useful when the Riptide just evaporates them all from across the board.

You forgot he did math wrong earlier and claims he works with math at his job.

Slayer-Fan123, do you know how to win with Chaos Marines or not? Simple yes or no. Do you or don't you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Well there are certainly BA tactic threads where you could explain what we need to be doing other than dying like chumps to dozens of S6 shots and S8 AP2 ignore cover interceptor pie plates.

Your slaneesh marines or whatever aren't looking so useful when the Riptide just evaporates them all from across the board.

I don't see how anything from the recent CSM book, like the BA book, fixes the problem of losing 33%-50% of your list per turn. Because Tau and Eldar say so. Your tools aren't helping you much when they are back in your model carrier.

So it is your opinion that I will allow the riptide to do this to me? its your opinion that the Traitors Hate book gave me nothing good to deal with that possibility?
Umm...

So you heard me when I said I play Night Lords right?

I'm not familiar, because most people quit playing CSM where I play. So what do the Night Lords do that's so special?

Its not what they do thats special. its their reliance on Raptors. The Night Lords are kinda the masters of using Raptors. And you have said quite wrongly that they will just line up and shoot me. But they wont. Because Traitors Hate now allowsme to drop in and charge...immediately. So i can shut those Riptides up and start smashing them with the Chaos Lord and his doughty minions with their grenades or poweraxes after we shoot them with our meltas.

Overwatch? Thats why we have the Dirge Casters. The more Riptides there are, the less of everything else there is in that Tau force. A Riptide Wing which I have faced with as many as FIVE of those things in an army means there's almost nothing else!

Now Riptides aren't helpless in close combat. But they sure aren't going to do anything approaching their potential for damage if they are doing the tango with me. We exude -2 LD if two units pile in together. So if we win by 1, we actually win by 3. Pretty cool.

Now we both know that all kinds of things can go wrong. deep striking mishaps, float too far off course, charge distances impeded and so on. We know that all is true. But to tell me Traitors Hate did nothing for me is just blind. It did. And there is goingto be a Riptide Wing loving Tau player out there real soon whose going to find that out.

This ignores the Mutilators and Obliterators I can bring to the party as well. and i do bring them to the party.

So its a different solution that is helped by Traitors Hate which you said emphatically "did nothing" to help withthe problem.

Same thing happens to the Scatter bikes. jump in , assault. Silenced. Here again: too many variables to insure success, but then thats true for both of us.

So to answer your question, my Night Lords got considerably better thanks to the Raptor Talon Formation...which i mentioned in my very first post here.

I am enjoying the impact of Traitors hate. So should you.

Your interceptor casualties are going to be huge. And Riptides don't give a feth about melta. Been there, done that. But maybe this will help. The BA assault from deepstrike formations don't seem to, though. I guess there's a difference in that assault terminators and sanguinary guard are both expensive and poor units.

Oh yes. If you think you're goingto play a wargame and not take casualties, you're crazy.

So will he fire at the Raptors... the Mutilators? The Obliterators? the Dirge Catsers? The scoring Marines? the Heldrake? I mean what exactly is it that he is going to shoot...first?

Dunno. I do know he cant get us all. That I do know. My guess is he tries for the Raptors. He's then not firing with precision if at all in the next phase at the other things I dropped in, assuming hes successful. If he isnt successful it will hardly matter...

He also will miss some shots. He will fail to wound a couple times since I am T 5 and because: dice. My invul save will save me from some of it, and so when its all said and done, I dont think one round of interceptor fire is going to end the threat. Do you? it will not be MORE painful than crossing the board in any event. So a net gain methinks.

In my case, he can kill half my list turn one and the other half the next turn. The Tau have the firepower to get you all. I guess you've got invulns that I don't and T5. Must be nice to no longer be the worst power armor list.

It is.

You still need to stop over in a BA thread and tell us what we're all doing wrong then. Since it's not GW's fault.

Noise marines have the advantage of being smaller and fearless. 1 will always stay out of los and score. Blastmasters, sonic weapons?.. They're too damn pricy for doing so little. CSM main power are spawns, lords and sorcs. Other stuff is just support and distraction. I also don't like drakes cause they're so unreliable. Yep, they're gona be decent when they arrive 2-d turn. But there will be games they arrive 4-th turn. I'd definitely not go overboard with them unless you use comms relay or eldar allies with exarch.

So, probably the best way to beat eldar with scatbikes is use eldar with scatbikes.

I deleted my original post since you no longer wish to discuss those points, in order to save room.

Reavas wrote:


In oder to explore the synergies in the chais dex/suppliments Im going to have to go into what I often pack, which Im happy to do for the sake of argument.

Please, go ahead.

Reavas wrote:

One of my favourite things to pack is a minimum of 4 units of CC cultists with flamers and run them towards the enemy, with the new lost and the damned formation this is great as fearless makes some of the units a great tarpit and having them respawn on the board edges is great for taking out many low toughness units (Ive been very lucky and have had them even take out several units of CSM)

A unit of SM charging the cultists does the following
2/3, 2/3, 5/6, 20/54, so every 3 marines kills 2, plus the champ. So figure 7 die before initative.
On your turn, they wipe the squad, maybe suffering 1 casualty.

If they rapid fire, assuming no cover
2/3, 2/3, 4/9 per shot, nearly every marine kills 1 cultists. Probably 9 dead.

You have no way to start the charge since you're slow, and its easy to charge first or just rapid fire.

And they are relatively slow...and this is marines here. Not exactly a CC powerhouse. Most units can wipe them in one round if they leave cover, which is why their current role is objective grabbers that go to ground and sit there. With a 3+ cover save they become only removable for tau and a few other weapons.

What units are you using them against specifically? I've never seen cultists used aggresively and most BRs seem to back that up.

Reavas wrote:

this synergises with the blastmasters as 50 points of cultists can prove rather troublesome if you leave them to their buisness, even worse is if you target them as a priority, leaving the blastmasters to put large dents in the enemies units while the cultists run amok.

I'm afraid I don't see this.
In the above example, the marines or basic troops can fire at the cultists but will never reach the blastmaster since they lack the range to do so.
In stronger lists, like tau, the riptide moves faster than the cultists while still firing. Scat bikes are the same, and both armies can take other units to fire at the cultists (the WK can just stomp them tbh and nearly wipe the squad, though that seems like a huge waste).
How are cultists absorbing shots from scat bikes, tides, and grav cents (units going after the blast masters) rather than say... warp spiders, avengers, basic marines, fire warriors?

Reavas wrote:

They also give my chaos spawn a 5+ cover save which is always nice.

Wouldn't that imply the spawn are behind the cultists? Doesn't that slow them down? And it's not like cultists are hard to remove, though in this case I'd probably just fire on the spawn anyway and ignore the cultists since they don't do any real damage.
Let's see, 2/3, 2/3, 2/3 per shot from a bike, is 8/27, so almost 2 wounds per bike. A squad of 5, even with cover, will kill 3 spawn. Not great, but not bad, I'm not sure if being that slow is worth it. Depends if it costs a round or not.

Reavas wrote:

Other than useful distractor units like cultists one of my favourite things to ally in is a forgehost, although not innately CSM its damn better than a defiler, and they brutalise even wraith units and the instant death on most units is amazing! The Grinders become top priority targets that allow for the noise marines to, again, do their job from the other end of the board.

I'm not aware of this unit, so I won't comment.

Reavas wrote:

Sorcerers are also always a welcome synergy, roll on ectomancy if you want to shoot those blastmasters without tbe need for LOS, cant hide from them anymore but personally I roll on heritech for the soul grinders but the potential for synergy is there.

I'm not sure which power you mean...Ghost Storm makes the unit count as moving no? So you can't fire the blastmasters if you use it.
Soul Switch causes a unit to switch places, meaning another unit must now move and possibly wasted it's turn. This isn't a bad use for cultists, but switching a 150 pt unit just to fire one more time seems like a heavy point investment to me.
You must also roll those powers, and the primaris power is garbage. A lot of the rest of the powers are okay, so this leads to a bigger investment if you want this trick to work. This is the problem with more powers unless the guy has the ability to choose, re-roll, or just get all of them (like marines oddly enough).

Heretech is nice but has similar issues. The main power is really bad, and only half the powers seem to be any good. To be fair, the ones that are good are REALLY good. Fair point, if we could pick our powers I'd love to see a daemon engine list work. I own a bunch of fiends modelled as hydras for my alpha legion army that I never get to use.

Reavas wrote:

Blastmasters are meant to serve as an auxillary and thats how I play them, all of what I mentioned above is what I pack in 1350 point games and I have tabled opponents on multiple occasions, opponents such as necrons, tau, and space marines (eldar I got close but no dice).

1350 is a weird points level...do you play competitive games?
I ask because, while not really eldar, Necrons and especially marines can be made to have total dud lists. Their codexes are incredibly swingy. Just facing them alone isn't enough, we had someone claiming they defeated a competitive eldar list that ended up being guardian spam. Not exactly competitive or a sound bit of evidence as you can imagine.

Reavas wrote:

In reguards to pitting single units against single units I dont think its fair to pit an auxillary that is used to eliminate specific threats such as scatterbikes and a unit that as you said, can make up the bulk of an eldar army.

My point was thus
Your argument; Blastmasters counter scat bikes
Mine; Actually, they don't. It takes an equivalent amount of points 4 turns, nearly the whole game, to wipe the bikes. On top of that, the bikes can wipe them out without trying.

If the unit could wipe the bikes out quickly (say 2 turns) they would be a good counter even if they can't absorb shots. If they were very resistant to shooting from them, but couldn't kill them quickly, they would still be a decent counter though not great (why would the bikes fire at the blastmaster in this case?)
However, none of these are true. Instead, scat bikes counter blastmasters. And since they can make up the whole army, this makes the blast master useless against eldar unless they leave their strongest option at home, in which case we are no longer talking competitive.

To be fair, I don't run scat bikes. I play biel-tan. Blastmasters do okay against me, though never ever earn their points back. CSM has issues opening up my WS and really want to target my WG. My spiders move around too quickly and are hard to get a bead on, and dire avengers don't cost enough to be worth it.

Reavas wrote:

If you would like me to point out some more synergies that are indide the actual chaos codex and supplimemts, as I know several people will rip me a new one for the forgehost not being in the dex but being a synergy I use, I will do so after class (which Im attending now) because there are some great synergies with certain formations.

Sure, by all means post more synergies. I'm going to look into heritech with my daemon engines, I hadn't looked at all the powers and a few of them seem quite strong.
I don't think any of this makes CSM remotely competitive though.

Reavas wrote:

On a side note: how the feth did your necrons get in CC with scatterbikes??? I mean, scarabs maybe but what else possibly could catch those things?

...Wraiths?
Wraiths are one of the fastest CC options in the game and are incredibly strong. How do you beat necrons without facing wraiths? Competitive necrons spam them to the point they are called the Wraith Wing.

And they are relatively slow...and this is marines here. Not exactly a CC powerhouse. Most units can wipe them in one round if they leave cover, which is why their current role is objective grabbers that go to ground and sit there. With a 3+ cover save they become only removable for tau and a few other weapons.

Sorry I mustn't have been very clear to what the cultists role was within my list, I predominantly use my cultists to push up the front line, grab and hold objectives in cover late game once the enemy lines are thinned out and act as a distraction unit, the one game where my cultists wiped out a few units of Khorn Berserkers was possibly incredibly bad luck on my opponents part, the amount of 1's he rolled was statistically impossibly but, nonetheless happened. If my opponents uses a round of shooting to kill the cultists only for them to come back possibly even closer than before thanks to outflank, it was a waste of that turn on his part, all the while long range units such as Blastermasters and my soul grinders thin out the enemy lines to great effect. As for their movement I run them incredibly aggressively, even giving up turns of shooting (depending on context) in order to run them and put pressure on my opponents units. In reality the cultists are very little threat wound-wise but are like pawns in chess, expendable but powerful when used strategically and in a more likely event sacrificially. Also I really must stress the power of outflank with these units, if 2 units return to the board (so 50 points each respectively) and often into or next to the enemy gunline they are often forced to use another turn of shooting to attempt to remove them again. Also Im sure you can mathhammer the likely-hood of how many cultists are going to be around late game when both side have suffered heavy casualties, this is great for grabbing any spare objectives and putting even more pressure on the enemy.

I'm afraid I don't see this.

Hopefully I explained their roll well enough above, their ability to re-spawn makes whatever firepower you put into them risky at best, so I know they will die, only often to come back even closer, and in most cases angrier , and again, I'm happy for riptides to fire into cultists, seems like a sub-optimal play to me, especially because around 40-60 of the buggers are running around the board.

Wouldn't that imply the spawn are behind the cultists?

First turn if your going second yes, probably should have clarified that, was in a rush to class. But with outflank it can sometimes if not rarely prove a bonus.

I'm not sure which power you mean...

Ah crap, my bad, again, was in a rush. I meant to say Geomortis, the power in question is the "earthly anathema" it is incredible considering it turns any weapon into ignore cover and there being no need to draw LOS to a unit to fire it.

I'm not aware of this unit, so I won't comment.

I'll briefly inform you on what It entails as it takes up a good 1/3 of my 1350 point list, so soul grinders are large daemon walkers AV 13, 13, 12 with 4 HP with 4 melee attacks and carry:
Phlem Bombardment: 36 inch Str 8, ap 3 large blast,
Harvester Cannon: 24 inch Str 7 ap 4 Heavy 3 (optional sky-fire)
Iron Claw: Str: 10 ap 1

I take 3 of these in a formation that if one of them causes a wound during the assault phase or shooting phase the other 2 soul grinders re-roll to hit and to wound for the rest of the turn (pretty sweet considering they are only slightly above 500 points in cost for 3 of them)

With these hulking models on the board it allows me to draw all enemy fire unto them and away from the blastmasters, which means they are going to continue to get their ignore cover blasts off at specific cover sitting/jinking units that the soul grinders with their ap 3 large blasts can't particularly handle well. without them cover becomes a particularly big issue when attacking enemy units.

1350 is a weird points level...do you play competitive games?

Not often but yes, I'll give you a quick run through of just a few lists that my list has done well against. Also a fair few competitive events run that point amount in my area just due to it being noticeably faster and still rather competitive in regards to lists

- Necron Decurions: their 4+ reanimation isnt so scary when most of your shots are instant-death and ignore their armour, I have had a few games some even tableing my opponent, with competitive lists often leaving behind units like orikanstars which my cultists kept busy. There was one particular recent game against someone who brought a Tesseract vault, killed near all his infantry but that vault really started to wear down my troops, my grinders couldn't get close enought to get into CC with it and really damage the thing. The blastermasters came in real handy against warrior blobs hiding in cover, you can afford to let the enemy take more than 1 save when they have such crazy reanimation on every one of their units. havn't run into any wraiths, musn't be in the local meta, most necrons I see are very shooty orientated.

- Tau: I remember one match quite vividly, the poor guy looked so despondent by the end of the game. He took a stealth cadre with a load of stealth suits, about 6 or 7 crisis suits, 3 broadsides and a large stealth suit to which its name escapes me. We ended up running out of time due to he was rather slow at moving things around and setting up but I didn't mind, in the end the turns were brutal and his stealth suits were being taken off the board in handfuls thanks to blastermasters (I imagine you can see why I like them so much now) Other than that match I'm fairly well versed against tau, mostly suit spam with some fire warriors and marker-lights mixed in, on the occasion a few monstrous creatures.

- SM: God there are too many to name, blastmasters have served me well against bikes and a few other things but against the superfriends Im Sh*t out of luck, I rely on my sorcerer and sinistrum to kill them or in higher point games the masque of slannesh is a godsend (don't even get me started on how underrated she is, got some priceless stories about her and rarely disappoints me)

- Eldar: f*ck their psychic phase, I've been up against some downright dirty lists, wraiths I don't have too many problems with but psyker conclaves for sure, as I have said before I have handled scatterbikes with relative ease as I have never seen someone purely build a list out of scatterbikes and farseers only seen them as additives that take up only a few hundred points. But the experiences I have had with them was difficult but manageable, probably my least favorite army to fight.

hopefully that gives you a few ideas on my experiences in competitive play, if not too much information (god this post is getting long)

Sure, by all means post more synergies.

Raptor talon has great synergies with a lot of CSM lists. It is a downright amazing replacement for the "melta termicide" that many CSM players ran, pack 2 melta guns and a melta bomb on the champion and bam, no more vehicle. In an army that from my experience had very little reliable anti-vehicle its great, bikes were an option but not likely they would live to melta an enemy vehicle, terminator suicide squad wasn't as reliable or as point savvy as this new formation, and also expending their melta only to not be able to use it again isn't nice. Also give a possible use for the dimension key, lord knows that thing was terrible (still is a little bit). As for synergies with blastmasters and noise marines in particular? I can see some use there, defiantly helps round out the anti vehicle in my lists.

Sorcerers are just always worth a mention, first turn charges with geomortis? yes please. Enemy has a deathstar that has a 3+ invun save? Sinistrum will you make that a 5+, thanks. +1 AV on my squadron of 5 hellbrutes? (why would anyone take that formation is beyond me) thats amazing! The BC's cabal is a nice excuse to shove some IC's into some of the new formations.

If you don't like blastmasters as a long range artillery then you can always take the cult of destruction! (for the heavy tax of a godawful warpsmith *grumble grumble*) I've had it used against me to some good effect, it can be a powerful and versatile tool but you better use it damn well or risk overspending a buttload of points on those obliterators. (if you bought mutilators for this formation thinking they would be good you have my condolences)

And finally, daemons, I may get strung up for suggesting it but they about fill every damn problem CSM has, taking them as allies gets rid of some of the randomness and you still get all of the goodness. not to say CSM isn't viable without them, they are, even competitively if you really know how to build a list, but they really have some answers for some big problems and turns your list from semi-competitive to legitimately competitive.

Praetorians, Tomb Blades, and on occasion Flayed Ones can make it into combat with Scatterbikes.

Chaos Raptors can also easily get into it with Scatter bikes.

 Jancoran wrote:
Chaos Raptors can also easily get into it with Scatter bikes.

youre joking right

He's using the assault from deepstrike tech. He's not qualifying his statements in any way which makes it very hard to follow.

Yes the assault from deepstrike makes it possible unless you scatter badly. Outside of that, they can't really catch it.

Still weird that Chaos has one of the worst deepstrikers considering the whole warp thing. I can understand necron being the most accurate, but next should really be chaos.

Well we have the dimensonal key, for what its worth. But now im itching to run some raptors and maybe even a warptalon squad. Jan, are there other legions or warbands that focus on raptors or is it a nightlords type of thing. I ask because I dont have the skill to paint nightlords.

Table wrote:
Well we have the dimensonal key, for what its worth. But now im itching to run some raptors and maybe even a warptalon squad. Jan, are there other legions or warbands that focus on raptors or is it a nightlords type of thing. I ask because I dont have the skill to paint nightlords.

Any khornate warband would be suitably fluffy, also raptors/warp talons would be pretty good at taking out warp spiders too

Martel732 wrote:
He's using the assault from deepstrike tech. He's not qualifying his statements in any way which makes it very hard to follow.

Im not qualifying my statements because I am assuming all those bitching and moaning have all the facts before they do so.

I already said Traitors Hate did a lot for us and the responses from you...Slay-Fan123 and others was typical.

So to be clear to those who are truly interested in a good faith back and forth, yes. The new Formation allows my Raptors to drop in and handle their business on the drop as a Disorganized charge. In addition, if two units charge a target that target is at -2 LD. And as always, Raptors cause Fear so that means some of their victims will be hitting on 5's. And better, the new Black Crusade Formation can even make it so I get Veterans of the Long War for free. Which is awesome.

So Scatterbikes will get clamped down on hard and this is good. it answers a huge problem the forces of Chaos faced. More than that, the Night Lords (nothing more than the fluff name I give to my army because of how it fights and I imagine them being Night Lords) is not an actual "thing but it is in my heart!

I don't own the chaos book and no one plays them anymore in my group. Forgive me for assuming it was as underwhelming as the ba book. I don't understand why raptors got this and not my assault marines.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't own the chaos book and no one plays them anymore in my group. Forgive me for assuming it was as underwhelming as the ba book. I don't understand why raptors got this and not my assault marines.

No offense but im starting to think almost everyone bitching on this thread hasnt read traitors hate. I thought BA got a attack from deep strike formation in AB? I need to read that soon. Also, fun fact. WHen I first made the switch to Chaos from Necrons I was boggled to see that Bezerkers had one attack and that a unit that should be its mirror ( Death Company) infact beats them silly. So theres that to feel good about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reavas wrote:

Table wrote:
Well we have the dimensonal key, for what its worth. But now im itching to run some raptors and maybe even a warptalon squad. Jan, are there other legions or warbands that focus on raptors or is it a nightlords type of thing. I ask because I dont have the skill to paint nightlords.

Any khornate warband would be suitably fluffy, also raptors/warp talons would be pretty good at taking out warp spiders too

And thank you. I guess I can go with a khornate warband, could even moonlight it as a KDK force with a few doge's.

Blood angels can charge turn 1.

 Jancoran wrote:
In addition, if two units charge a target that target is at -2 LD.

Is that the rule for this formation?

Anywayz, the way it can work is if you have a dimensional key + something like a pod or scouting dogs, a deathstar and a bunch of sorcerrers for electroexchange. You perform a 1-st turn charge, charge up the key and now your opponent also has half his army in d terrain. Now all you need is a way to ensure the raptor's arrival. It's doable with a fortification with comms relay that you'll likely need anywayz to score the backlines with your min cultists or maybe csm with an autocannon. A well placed bunker can controle 2 points with obsec from the guyz inside.

Now that's a risky strategy but it might be fun when it goes off. Scatterless raptors will be a great source of melta. Warp talons are decently choppy vs 3+ armor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jancoran wrote:
Blood angels can charge turn 1.

If you're about termies in pods, i'm not sure it's really allowed due to wording "roll on reserves" and 1-st turn pods don't roll on reserves. Anywayz, termies are still good turn 2-3.

I see the old "you need to use Forgeworld" argument has now turned into "you need to use Forgeworld + Traitor's Hate". So, in order to compete against certain base codices (i.e. Eldar) now I need to buy my main codex, a FW supplement and another GW supplement.

Fantastic.

Can you use KDK Warp Talons and raptors in the traitors hate formation?

KDK Warp Talons are daemons of khorne, so you can manipulate reserves with a unit of blood letters musician and precision deep strike off their icon too.

I want to throw this out there.

A lot of people criticizing Traitor's Hate may still be digesting what you can actually do with it. When the 6th edition CSM codex came out, there was a period of about 3 months when people were praising it for being the first Codex in a new era of balance. It takes time to get adjusted to something new.

That said, a lot of the people praising Traitor's Hate have been overlooking how it works with IA:13.

Raptor Talons, Helforged Warppacks, and Favored of Chaos formations backed by Fire Raptors, Sicarans, and Rapier Conversion Beamers would be no joke. The addition of long-range firepower to hard-hitting frontline units is pretty much what CSM armies have needed since 5th edition, and now we have it.

For that matter, you could fit almost an entire Malestrom of Gore formation in a Spartan and charge 4 squads simultaneously from a vehicle that is very hard to blow up. Thinking this could almost be an easy button for 1500 point games.

I know no one really sees the value in the Terminator Annihilation Force, but I am thinking about what happens when you drop 3 rapier batteries (so 9 platforms) in the backfield to compliment them. The terminators could tie up anything they want while the big guns shoot down threats. Incredibly point-efficient compared to the Cult of Destruction and leaves a lot of points for Cultists to fill in the gaps.

I mean, screw you and your Eldar, I am coming at you with 9 conversion beamers and dropping 25 LC terminators to tie up half your army for the whole game. If you think you can take out my big guns, go through 60 respawning cultists before the terminators arrive.

XT-1984 wrote:
Can you use KDK Warp Talons and raptors in the traitors hate formation?

KDK Warp Talons are daemons of khorne, so you can manipulate reserves with a unit of blood letters musician and precision deep strike off their icon too.

Nope, unlike the crimson slaughter or black legion supplements Khorn daemonkin is a completely different army.

 techsoldaten wrote:

I know no one really sees the value in the Terminator Annihilation Force

I've run it 2 times so far.
3*3 combiplazma + mostly 2 axes 1 mace, sometimes a lc or sword but it hasn't really come into play yet.
Nurgle lord with nades, fist or chainfist and a brand.

1-st game vs Iron Hands + FW.
Turn 2. 1 squad arrives, mishaps and gets delayed.
Turn 3. 2 squads arrive including lord's squad, lord scatters 10", mishaps and gets delayed. Another squad scatters a bit, shoots plazma at a dread's back armor but he saves everything with 3+ cover from techmarine+ruin. Termies get killed with 2 tl asscans.
Turn 4. Game's over by that point. Biker lord, sorc, spawns and scoring rhinos won the game allready.

2-d game vs eldar.
Turn 1. I infiltrated 3 regular non-formation termies and marines, got 1-st turn, termies than managed to double-tap plazma some bikes to death. Marines scored and ate fire.
Turn 2. Lord+termies and another squad arrives. Lord doesn't scatter and burns down the seer council with double shooting brand helped by plazma and tl bolters. They didn't get invis.
Turn 3. Game's over as Lord+scoring bikes and termies managed to wreck enough havok and controle the field. But the opponent had no wraithknights or mass scatbikes - he even had a squad of banshees and a few fire prisms, while i chose to field helbrutes, regular decked up marines, a large squad of khornate bikers + lord and termie annihilation force. Iirc it was a 1000 or 1250 fun game.

So, my experience with termies so far is that they're very random and unreliable. They can be great - especially the double tap brand but without reserve manipulations (no comms relay without cad) and scatter mitigation - leave them to fun games and laugh when they inevitebly fail 1/2+ of the time.

 koooaei wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

I know no one really sees the value in the Terminator Annihilation Force

I've run it 2 times so far.
3*3 combiplazma + mostly 2 axes 1 mace, sometimes a lc or sword but it hasn't really come into play yet.
Nurgle lord with nades, fist or chainfist and a brand.

1-st game vs Iron Hands + FW.
Turn 2. 1 squad arrives, mishaps and gets delayed.
Turn 3. 2 squads arrive including lord's squad, lord scatters 10", mishaps and gets delayed. Another squad scatters a bit, shoots plazma at a dread's back armor but he saves everything with 3+ cover from techmarine+ruin. Termies get killed with 2 tl asscans.
Turn 4. Game's over by that point. Biker lord, sorc, spawns and scoring rhinos won the game allready.

2-d game vs eldar.
Turn 1. I infiltrated 3 regular non-formation termies and marines, got 1-st turn, termies than managed to double-tap plazma some bikes to death. Marines scored and ate fire.
Turn 2. Lord+termies and another squad arrives. Lord doesn't scatter and burns down the seer council with double shooting brand helped by plazma and tl bolters. They didn't get invis.
Turn 3. Game's over as Lord+scoring bikes and termies managed to wreck enough havok and controle the field. But the opponent had no wraithknights or mass scatbikes - he even had a squad of banshees and a few fire prisms, while i chose to field helbrutes, regular decked up marines, a large squad of khornate bikers + lord and termie annihilation force. Iirc it was a 1000 or 1250 fun game.

So, my experience with termies so far is that they're very random and unreliable. They can be great - especially the double tap brand but without reserve manipulations (no comms relay without cad) and scatter mitigation - leave them to fun games and laugh when they inevitebly fail 1/2+ of the time.

I really dislike this formation, not because the rules aren't amazing for it, don't get me wrong they are great! its just the terminator equipment does not jell well with how the formation's rules work. So to elaborate, CSM terminators can only be upgraded with heavy weapons with units of 10!, and the only other shooting weapons are the combi weapons that can be only shot once. This means if you want to pack melta you better hope you kill your target because bolter rounds in the shooting phase wont help. with flamers and infantry it isnt as bad, but still very unreliable imo.

There are some nice synergies with certain weapons with chaos lords and sorcerers that they can actually use in the shooting phase, such as the aforementioned brand which would decimate many types of infantry squads, come to think of it, It looks like a very reliable way to kill jinking enemies like bikes or screamers. But I have to stress the brand is only one weapon, unfortunately the others that the terminators can be equipped with aren't as reliable, unless you want to just use plain bolters then go ahead

Traitors Hate is certainly a good supplement, it did a lot for Chaos. I only really have two problems with it.

1) I don't think it did enough to make the chaos dex competitive.
Chaos now stands at the top of the bottom, occupying a similar spot to Tyranids or SoB. They are just not competitive in the way that SM or Eldar are if everyone takes their A game. I don't think this is the fault of the supplement...chaos has too many problems for anything to fix it completely other than an overhaul.

2) I don't like the manner in which Chaos was fixed.
To play competitive chaos, you now need to spam psykers to a degree. The cult troops, the reason many of us got into Chaos, is now being left in the dust. Raptors, Bikes, Spawn, and Psykers are now the best units (though the other poster made a good case for Daemon engines with psykers).
I play alpha legion, I wanted some psykers, but mainly a small elite fighting force backed up by huge amounts of cultists. I can't really get that.
My second chaos army is 1k sons, which are still awful and don't have access to the new powers. If 1k sons had the conclave rule for their squads and could take other powers, it would go a long way to fixing them.

Nowadays it seems the most competitive lists are Word Bearers (Daemon allies + Deepstrike + Cheap cultists holding objectives + Psykers), Black Legion (Just take whatever), and Iron Warriors (Field psykers as tech priests using heritech and spam daemon engines and FW). It's kinda funny, cause this was the same thing that happened in 3.5...


For the record, I have read it. I haven't gotten a chance to play it as my gaming amounts have died down, so I haven't seen it at the table. I've been mainly playing Tau and Eldar lately. None of the other chaos players are trying it yet.

 Jancoran wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
He's using the assault from deepstrike tech. He's not qualifying his statements in any way which makes it very hard to follow.

Im not qualifying my statements because I am assuming all those bitching and moaning have all the facts before they do so.

I already said Traitors Hate did a lot for us and the responses from you...Slay-Fan123 and others was typical.

So to be clear to those who are truly interested in a good faith back and forth, yes. The new Formation allows my Raptors to drop in and handle their business on the drop as a Disorganized charge. In addition, if two units charge a target that target is at -2 LD. And as always, Raptors cause Fear so that means some of their victims will be hitting on 5's. And better, the new Black Crusade Formation can even make it so I get Veterans of the Long War for free. Which is awesome.

So Scatterbikes will get clamped down on hard and this is good. it answers a huge problem the forces of Chaos faced. More than that, the Night Lords (nothing more than the fluff name I give to my army because of how it fights and I imagine them being Night Lords) is not an actual "thing but it is in my heart!

Janc, you can't blame people for being unimpressed with the Traitor's Hate book. I think it's great that Raptors can deepstrike and charge the same turn, but that doesn't fix the fact that A) it's still a deepstrike, so it's risky, and I don't know a way CSM can get no scatter deepstrike and B) it doesn't fix more glaring issues like points costs or bad codex design.

Second, that disordered charge still hurts, plus the Scatterbikes still get Overwatch (with reroll if a Farseer casts it) and any player worth his salt will ask what your formation does, then intentionally plan around it.

I'm not saying it's not a good tactic, I'm saying it's not the end all be all you claim it to be.

Akiasura wrote:
Traitors Hate is certainly a good supplement, it did a lot for Chaos. I only really have two problems with it.

1) I don't think it did enough to make the chaos dex competitive.
Chaos now stands at the top of the bottom, occupying a similar spot to Tyranids or SoB. They are just not competitive in the way that SM or Eldar are if everyone takes their A game. I don't think this is the fault of the supplement...chaos has too many problems for anything to fix it completely other than an overhaul.

2) I don't like the manner in which Chaos was fixed.
To play competitive chaos, you now need to spam psykers to a degree. The cult troops, the reason many of us got into Chaos, is now being left in the dust. Raptors, Bikes, Spawn, and Psykers are now the best units (though the other poster made a good case for Daemon engines with psykers).
I play alpha legion, I wanted some psykers, but mainly a small elite fighting force backed up by huge amounts of cultists. I can't really get that.
My second chaos army is 1k sons, which are still awful and don't have access to the new powers. If 1k sons had the conclave rule for their squads and could take other powers, it would go a long way to fixing them.

Nowadays it seems the most competitive lists are Word Bearers (Daemon allies + Deepstrike + Cheap cultists holding objectives + Psykers), Black Legion (Just take whatever), and Iron Warriors (Field psykers as tech priests using heritech and spam daemon engines and FW). It's kinda funny, cause this was the same thing that happened in 3.5...


For the record, I have read it. I haven't gotten a chance to play it as my gaming amounts have died down, so I haven't seen it at the table. I've been mainly playing Tau and Eldar lately. None of the other chaos players are trying it yet.

How is this new update not good news for you? We have amazing cultist formations in spades, You have a choice of re-spawning, outflanking cultists that it is better to take a lot more smaller groups, or the Crimson slaughter formation which has re-spawning 1d6 cultists which is also useful. As for elite groups why not run the chosen of Abbadon (black legion formation) It fits what you want perfectly, you can either take a chaos lord/sorcerer with a unit of chosen or chaos terminators. Bam, alpha legion, loads of cultists and a group of elite.

It's good news, but like the BA book, it's not WK/scatbike/Riptide/TWC/Wulfen good news. The SW still make the entire BA codex pointless and arguably this one too. Actually, two units make the entire BA codex pointless. Anyway, SW don't need these shenanigans because they just endure. And can handle a bigger variety of targets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jancoran wrote:
Blood angels can charge turn 1.

Which isn't always a good plan. Especially vs your null deployment schemes. Which can be copied by Tau and Eldar.

Reavas wrote:


How is this new update not good news for you? We have amazing cultist formations in spades, You have a choice of re-spawning, outflanking cultists that it is better to take a lot more smaller groups, or the Crimson slaughter formation which has re-spawning 1d6 cultists which is also useful.

I don't find the cultists useful since they are so easy to eliminate and slow. It's not a problem with the formations, it's a problem with the cultists. I should have explained better, I've tried the crimson slaughter one and never had it accomplish anything of note.
Really, with cultists, I think they need better guns or a suicide option. If they died and gave warp tokens, that would be amazing. Or for every so many cultists that die your other units get buffs or something, making cultists a risky thing to deal with and the spawning matter. Or if they reached CC they exploded and for every model that blows up it's S2+Model and Ap 6 - model. So if I get 4-5 guys to your line you're in trouble, but they are easy to remove.

As it is currently most of my enemies just ignore them and it seems to work. I'll try the outflanking ones but seeing how easy they are removed and how little damage they do, I don't see it accomplishing anything outside of explosive dice. It could be fun against the weaker armies. I have a game against Saim-Hann next week

Reavas wrote:

As for elite groups why not run the chosen of Abbadon (black legion formation) It fits what you want perfectly
you can either take a chaos lord/sorcerer with a unit of chosen or chaos terminators. Bam, alpha legion, loads of cultists and a group of elite.

The problem here is the formation doesn't do anything that makes chaos terminators or chosen any good. Chosen are one of the worst units in the dex, and I own a lot since they used to be so excellent.
Similar issues with the terminators. They just aren't very good, attaching a caster helps but I'd rather use the caster with bikes or raptors now.
Again, not an issue with the formation. A free boon isn't bad, and the other bonuses are okay, but it doesn't fix the core unit which is awful.


I think what chaos really needs is a big deathstar unit sadly. All these psykers and good powers are just dying for a unit worth casting them on. The best we have is Nurgle bikes or Khorne Raptors though, which fall short of the wulfen or other melee units. I am not a fan of deathstars, haven't liked them since fantasy, but it does fit the chaos mindset of ultimate power resting in the hands of a few.

Akiasura wrote:

How is this new update not good news for you? We have amazing cultist formations in spades, You have a choice of re-spawning, outflanking cultists that it is better to take a lot more smaller groups, or the Crimson slaughter formation which has re-spawning 1d6 cultists which is also useful.

I don't find the cultists useful since they are so easy to eliminate and slow.

That's the point. You take a 55-64 pt squad with flamer + autoguns or just flamer and than the enemy has to spend time dealing with them and you have 50% chance of them returning from outflank which makes them even better. It's a win-win formation. They're really cheap for what they get.

Akiasura wrote:

The problem here is the formation doesn't do anything that makes chaos terminators or chosen any good.

They get obsec and free VoTLW. It's good enough to run...but without fanatism.

Akiasura wrote:

Reavas wrote:


How is this new update not good news for you? We have amazing cultist formations in spades, You have a choice of re-spawning, outflanking cultists that it is better to take a lot more smaller groups, or the Crimson slaughter formation which has re-spawning 1d6 cultists which is also useful.

I don't find the cultists useful since they are so easy to eliminate and slow. It's not a problem with the formations, it's a problem with the cultists. I should have explained better, I've tried the crimson slaughter one and never had it accomplish anything of note.
Really, with cultists, I think they need better guns or a suicide option. If they died and gave warp tokens, that would be amazing. Or for every so many cultists that die your other units get buffs or something, making cultists a risky thing to deal with and the spawning matter. Or if they reached CC they exploded and for every model that blows up it's S2+Model and Ap 6 - model. So if I get 4-5 guys to your line you're in trouble, but they are easy to remove.

As it is currently most of my enemies just ignore them and it seems to work. I'll try the outflanking ones but seeing how easy they are removed and how little damage they do, I don't see it accomplishing anything outside of explosive dice. It could be fun against the weaker armies. I have a game against Saim-Hann next week

Reavas wrote:

As for elite groups why not run the chosen of Abbadon (black legion formation) It fits what you want perfectly
you can either take a chaos lord/sorcerer with a unit of chosen or chaos terminators. Bam, alpha legion, loads of cultists and a group of elite.

The problem here is the formation doesn't do anything that makes chaos terminators or chosen any good. Chosen are one of the worst units in the dex, and I own a lot since they used to be so excellent.
Similar issues with the terminators. They just aren't very good, attaching a caster helps but I'd rather use the caster with bikes or raptors now.
Again, not an issue with the formation. A free boon isn't bad, and the other bonuses are okay, but it doesn't fix the core unit which is awful.


I think what chaos really needs is a big deathstar unit sadly. All these psykers and good powers are just dying for a unit worth casting them on. The best we have is Nurgle bikes or Khorne Raptors though, which fall short of the wulfen or other melee units. I am not a fan of deathstars, haven't liked them since fantasy, but it does fit the chaos mindset of ultimate power resting in the hands of a few.

I dunno, I have played loads of games with both the crimson slaughter formation (personally I find it underwhelming) and the traitors hate formation which at first you may see it as unremarkable or just on par with the crimson slaughter formation but from my personal experiences with it I find it incredibly powerful when used correctly. Now with the crimson slaughter formation it was too easy just to wipe out the unitand the formation rules to be useless, now your essencially encouraged to run your cultists in on a suicidal frenzy.

Despite being underwhelming in reguards to strength the cultist unit itself is priced well in reguards to points. With the formation it forces your opponent to pump their limited resources into something that not only has the possibility to come back, meaning the wasted a turn of shooting with a unit. But also with outflank has the option to grab objectives or outflank into the enemy gunline. One game I had with necrons had my opponent pulling at his hair in frustration as his unit of 20 warriors constantly poured fire into this one unit of CC cultists only to have them come back on the same flank more than 3 times and unload some shots and flamer into the warriors. In the end thinning out around half the unit of warriors. You see, the value isnt what you get out of the cultists its what your opponent has to put into stopping them from grabbing objectives or getting into CC with their units. Which I LOVE because it encourages you to use them as fluffy suicidal pawns they were meant to be, after quite a few games with them I finding myself drop more and more long rang cultists for CC cultists in my lists just due to them being more effective in causing the enemy strife, your encouraged not to go to ground but rather charge closer without a care for their lives, as their deaths just mean they will probably come back even closer, which I find both fluffy and fun.

This is just my experiance though, who knows, maybe you will be super unlucky and none will respawn. But I do encourage you to try it out. Also on a side note, the BL formation I recomended also makes the unit fearless but you are right in saying chosen are overpriced but maybe try a large terminator unit with 2 to 3 sorcerers? Roll on sinistrum till you get those sweet 2+ re-rollable armour saves then roll on telepathy and biomancy. Sounds like it could be fun, not as good as most deathstars, but fun.

Chosen with OS are still bad. They're barely worth running with Cypher when they get to frickin Infiltrate AND have ATSKNF. Why would they be worth using with OS?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also any Necron player would ignore the Cultists until they needed the Objective. They're not frightening or even worth paying attention to unless Typhus is there granting them FNP. Which is then ignored by literally anything in an Eldar list.

 koooaei wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

How is this new update not good news for you? We have amazing cultist formations in spades, You have a choice of re-spawning, outflanking cultists that it is better to take a lot more smaller groups, or the Crimson slaughter formation which has re-spawning 1d6 cultists which is also useful.

I don't find the cultists useful since they are so easy to eliminate and slow.

That's the point. You take a 55-64 pt squad with flamer + autoguns or just flamer and than the enemy has to spend time dealing with them and you have 50% chance of them returning from outflank which makes them even better. It's a win-win formation. They're really cheap for what they get.

I don't find the enemy deals with them at all, that's the problem. The autoguns do so little damage that maybe they'll kill 50 points by the end of the game, maybe. And only from basic marines or other MEQs you don't care about. Against necrons they kill maybe 1 model per squad the whole game. Eldar just shrug and move out of the way.

If they were faster, they'd be better. Eldar and tau couldn't ignore them and they could tie up the bikes or tides at least.
If they did more damage they'd be better. Necrons and SM couldn't shrug their soliders and move on.
If they were a bit tougher, they'd be better. The melee armies couldn't just kill them before their next turn.

Against the weaker armies sure, they can be annoying. Charge a group of lootas for example, and they are worth their weight in gold. But the better armies don't take stationary backfield heavy fire power units anymore, and thats really what you want to send them in against.

Again, this is just my experience. I haven't played traitors hate, maybe they are better with the first turn charges. I wish they had a suicide mechanic though. My cultists do fine as objective holders but that's literally all they do currently.

 koooaei wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

The problem here is the formation doesn't do anything that makes chaos terminators or chosen any good.

They get obsec and free VoTLW. It's good enough to run...but without fanatism.

The problem with terminators and chosen (especially chosen) isn't really the lack of Obsec or leadership, it's their toughness or firepower. Terminators are slow for a melee unit and don't have enough shooting beyond the first turn to be a threat you have to deal with quickly. Even in melee, they struggle against the tougher units out there right now since they lack attacks (they really need 3 base plus khorne, then they'd be scary).

Chosen are marines that can cost nearly double. They die to concentrated firepower while really giving up the attrition game. They need to alpha strike a unit that is expensive and doesn't want to be shot at, and it's hard to think of many in the game that fit that role but also see table time yet still fear plasma spam or flamers. Scat bikers would jink, Riptides and WK laugh at plasma spam, Warp spiders can flicker, wraiths and TWC have invul saves...not a lot of targets I want dealt with that chosen can handle. As a melee unit they are terrible.

Not insulting the formation. It's not the formations fault the base unit is so poor. If chosen had say...FnP base and the marks were cheaper, this formation would be pretty solid. Or 2 wounds, something to make them tougher.

 Korinov wrote:
I see the old "you need to use Forgeworld" argument has now turned into "you need to use Forgeworld + Traitor's Hate". So, in order to compete against certain base codices (i.e. Eldar) now I need to buy my main codex, a FW supplement and another GW supplement.

Fantastic.

Your alternative is not to use Traitors Hate. I don't see that as the superior alternative.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:


Is that the rule for this formation?

Anywayz, the way it can work is if you have a dimensional key + something like a pod or scouting dogs, a deathstar and a bunch of sorcerrers for electroexchange. You perform a 1-st turn charge, charge up the key and now your opponent also has half his army in d terrain. Now all you need is a way to ensure the raptor's arrival. It's doable with a fortification with comms relay that you'll likely need anywayz to score the backlines with your min cultists or maybe csm with an autocannon. A well placed bunker can controle 2 points with obsec from the guyz inside.

Now that's a risky strategy but it might be fun when it goes off. Scatterless raptors will be a great source of melta. Warp talons are decently choppy vs 3+ armor.

...If you're about termies in pods, i'm not sure it's really allowed due to wording "roll on reserves" and 1-st turn pods don't roll on reserves. Anywayz, termies are still good turn 2-3.

Im not sure you'd want to come in turn one with Raptors in most games. You need some time to get your Dirge Casters up for maximum effect.

Blood Angels have the Storm Raven formation that allows them to charge turn one. Plus you get three Storm Ravens so that's pretty cool.

That formation got really gutted by the FAQ.

Martel732 wrote:
That formation got really gutted by the FAQ.

I saw nothing gutted in it. It appears to work just like I said it did to begin with.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MJziOtysDfo/V3U23LvER2I/AAAAAAABEqw/fGAU2bt8rBUSrl2GscmIyu9NeTKiwqJugCLcB/s1600/13497611_1640088732978426_7616278738916625067_o.jpg

Just curious, has anyone tried to combo a few renegade knights with some heretech sorcs? Or perhaps some geomortis with rapid fire battle cannons (ignores cover, no LoS needed)?

Martel732 wrote:
In my case, he can kill half my list turn one and the other half the next turn. The Tau have the firepower to get you all. I guess you've got invulns that I don't and T5. Must be nice to no longer be the worst power armor list.

If a Tau as a 100% hit rate on his hit rolls, then there is something "fishy"...

Because thats what you're describing

 Slayer le boucher wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
In my case, he can kill half my list turn one and the other half the next turn. The Tau have the firepower to get you all. I guess you've got invulns that I don't and T5. Must be nice to no longer be the worst power armor list.

If a Tau as a 100% hit rate on his hit rolls, then there is something "fishy"...

Because thats what you're describing

BA are very fragile for their points.

BA's are as though then any other MEQ, they are not more fragile then others Marines

 Slayer le boucher wrote:
BA's are as though then any other MEQ, they are not more fragile then others Marines

The Tactical Marine isn't exactly the most durable thing for the points. Also the fact they don't have offensive bite offends me.

That's the singular thing CSM does better than the Loyalist Scum: the concept of how the Tactical Marines should work.

But then you got the free transports and then suddenly they're super cheap.

Table wrote:
Just curious, has anyone tried to combo a few renegade knights with some heretech sorcs? Or perhaps some geomortis with rapid fire battle cannons (ignores cover, no LoS needed)?

I have tacitly avoided using Knights. I think they dont belong in 40K and so i refuse to perpetuate their use. Maybe I'll get over it. But in the meantime...nah.

Table wrote:
Just curious, has anyone tried to combo a few renegade knights with some heretech sorcs? Or perhaps some geomortis with rapid fire battle cannons (ignores cover, no LoS needed)?

I haven't tried it with heritech, but the problem with any list that spams AV in a few small packages is going to obviously be grav. A single centstar can down two knights a turn.
Necrons and eldar also have good answers to AV and ignore the actual values.

It should do really well against a lot of the other lists though

Akiasura wrote:

Table wrote:
Just curious, has anyone tried to combo a few renegade knights with some heretech sorcs? Or perhaps some geomortis with rapid fire battle cannons (ignores cover, no LoS needed)?

I haven't tried it with heritech, but the problem with any list that spams AV in a few small packages is going to obviously be grav. A single centstar can down two knights a turn.
Necrons and eldar also have good answers to AV and ignore the actual values.

It should do really well against a lot of the other lists though

Emmm... I'm pretty sure super-heavy walkers ignore immobilized results, rendering grav a non-issue. Then again I could be mixing things up with super heavy vehicles who DO ignore said result.

Lord Kragan wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Table wrote:
Just curious, has anyone tried to combo a few renegade knights with some heretech sorcs? Or perhaps some geomortis with rapid fire battle cannons (ignores cover, no LoS needed)?

I haven't tried it with heritech, but the problem with any list that spams AV in a few small packages is going to obviously be grav. A single centstar can down two knights a turn.
Necrons and eldar also have good answers to AV and ignore the actual values.

It should do really well against a lot of the other lists though

Emmm... I'm pretty sure super-heavy walkers ignore immobilized results, rendering grav a non-issue. Then again I could be mixing things up with super heavy vehicles who DO ignore said result.

It's more how quickly they rip apart the HP then anything else. I usually don't even bother rolling for effects since I'm going to destroy it pretty handily.
If each cent could pick a different target, one cent squad could easily destroy 4 tanks a turn, maybe 5 with a single buff.

 Slayer le boucher wrote:

3.5Ed CSM has become such a legend that, all sorts of weird stories are floating about it.

I love the Legends of 3.5 really, I do. Because they all revolve around Iron Warriors magically gaining Heavy Support choices and Siren being autocast army wide. Apparently. Even though we know that's not true.

Even better, the people who loathed Chaos 3.5 seemed to have forgotten that the following existed at the same time.

4th ed. Trait Space Marines - Bikestars started here.
4th ed. Nidzilla or Assault Outflank Tyranids
4th ed. Tau Fish of Fury - because firing through a floating invisible wall of a tank with impunity was fun, right?
Eldar Craftworlds - Ranger Tables, Black Guardians, 3 shot AP 3 Starcannon spam everywhere.
Ork Kult of Speed.

3.5 to late 4th ed 40k was broken across the board. It wasn't just a single army. Every damn army could pull off feats of stupidity.

The big difference is that this was the first time that CSM were actually a viable threat in the meta. 2nd ed? Not too grand compared to Imperials. 3rd ed. Very bland. 4th/5th ed codex? A joke. 6th ed? BUY DINOBOTS NAOW.

Only 3.5 was anywhere near as flexible as any SM codex has been for the past 4 editions.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

 Slayer le boucher wrote:

3.5Ed CSM has become such a legend that, all sorts of weird stories are floating about it.

I love the Legends of 3.5 really, I do. Because they all revolve around Iron Warriors magically gaining Heavy Support choices and Siren being autocast army wide. Apparently. Even though we know that's not true.

Even better, the people who loathed Chaos 3.5 seemed to have forgotten that the following existed at the same time.

4th ed. Trait Space Marines - Bikestars started here.
4th ed. Nidzilla or Assault Outflank Tyranids
4th ed. Tau Fish of Fury - because firing through a floating invisible wall of a tank with impunity was fun, right?
Eldar Craftworlds - Ranger Tables, Black Guardians, 3 shot AP 3 Starcannon spam everywhere.
Ork Kult of Speed.

3.5 to late 4th ed 40k was broken across the board. It wasn't just a single army. Every damn army could pull off feats of stupidity.

The big difference is that this was the first time that CSM were actually a viable threat in the meta. 2nd ed? Not too grand compared to Imperials. 3rd ed. Very bland. 4th/5th ed codex? A joke. 6th ed? BUY DINOBOTS NAOW.

Only 3.5 was anywhere near as flexible as any SM codex has been for the past 4 editions.

You forgot 4th edition Eldar FalconSpam

Akiasura wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Table wrote:
Just curious, has anyone tried to combo a few renegade knights with some heretech sorcs? Or perhaps some geomortis with rapid fire battle cannons (ignores cover, no LoS needed)?

I haven't tried it with heritech, but the problem with any list that spams AV in a few small packages is going to obviously be grav. A single centstar can down two knights a turn.
Necrons and eldar also have good answers to AV and ignore the actual values.

It should do really well against a lot of the other lists though

Emmm... I'm pretty sure super-heavy walkers ignore immobilized results, rendering grav a non-issue. Then again I could be mixing things up with super heavy vehicles who DO ignore said result.

It's more how quickly they rip apart the HP then anything else. I usually don't even bother rolling for effects since I'm going to destroy it pretty handily.
If each cent could pick a different target, one cent squad could easily destroy 4 tanks a turn, maybe 5 with a single buff.

Again, that's a non-issue to knights because the grav's effect is: causes an immobilize (which is what removes the HP) result. If the knights do have inmunity to inmobilized I see no way why they should run into trouble with grav.

Grav does a HP and an Immobilized result.

That being said, 3 Centurions with Grav-Cannons will hit with an average of 10 shots, which will do around 3 HP of damage. Half a dead knight.

Lord Kragan wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Table wrote:
Just curious, has anyone tried to combo a few renegade knights with some heretech sorcs? Or perhaps some geomortis with rapid fire battle cannons (ignores cover, no LoS needed)?

I haven't tried it with heritech, but the problem with any list that spams AV in a few small packages is going to obviously be grav. A single centstar can down two knights a turn.
Necrons and eldar also have good answers to AV and ignore the actual values.

It should do really well against a lot of the other lists though

Emmm... I'm pretty sure super-heavy walkers ignore immobilized results, rendering grav a non-issue. Then again I could be mixing things up with super heavy vehicles who DO ignore said result.

It's more how quickly they rip apart the HP then anything else. I usually don't even bother rolling for effects since I'm going to destroy it pretty handily.
If each cent could pick a different target, one cent squad could easily destroy 4 tanks a turn, maybe 5 with a single buff.

Again, that's a non-issue to knights because the grav's effect is: causes an immobilize (which is what removes the HP) result. If the knights do have inmunity to inmobilized I see no way why they should run into trouble with grav.

Yeah that's not correct. You remove an hp and they can possibly remove 2, but not against Knights.

Reavas wrote:

How is this new update not good news for you? We have amazing cultist formations in spades, You have a choice of re-spawning, outflanking cultists that it is better to take a lot more smaller groups, or the Crimson slaughter formation which has re-spawning 1d6 cultists which is also useful. As for elite groups why not run the chosen of Abbadon (black legion formation) It fits what you want perfectly, you can either take a chaos lord/sorcerer with a unit of chosen or chaos terminators. Bam, alpha legion, loads of cultists and a group of elite.

You know, the really funny thing is that Tyranids have access to a similar formation that gives infinitely spawning and respawning termagants and hormagaunts. Wonder why no one takes it? Oh, wait, because you are mass spamming a low toughness, virtual non-armour unit that basically just hands out free VP to whatever it comes across - someone has already worked out the maths later on against a basic tactical squad of all things.

No, no, Traitor's Hate was terrible.

Because its 'buffs' were done by further reinforcing the gak-awful rules that no one actually wanted in the first place. Like, seriously, the random boon table is the reason CSM have next to no options and are overpointed to boot - we're paying a premium for 'possible results' and not for the gak awful results we can get instead - which also can hilariously hand over VP as well. The boon table forces the mandatory challenge rule, which is god awful as a whole. Like, no, I do not want to randomly call a challenge against that Hive Tyrant with my aspiring champion. Tactically it would be more sound to not do so and use his squad as ablative wounds. But nope, guess we gotta call a challenge and hand them potential free VP as well (iirc there is a warlord trait which awards VP for killing characters).

You don't fix something by making us more reliant on the problem you stuck in.

Traitors hate was simply not terrible. Simply untrue.

And the Boon table is nice to have but uit had almost nothing to do with how we are pointed. the impactr of getting ones for free though is pretty awesome.

Path to Glory Boons Table is rather nice.

It gots a simplier and down to essential Boons, and Boons for each Gods, and not to forget Boons that can be used Once per games by units, and they are pretty nice all of them.

 Jancoran wrote:
Traitors hate was simply not terrible. Simply untrue.

And the Boon table is nice to have but uit had almost nothing to do with how we are pointed. the impactr of getting ones for free though is pretty awesome.

Yeah, like getting things you already have or worse losing everything you have on your kitted out lord, when it worked it was okay but the problem is too much of its either redundant, or worse just straight up useless to you despite being forced into challenges.

The problem with the forced mechanic is that it seems like a holdover when they were making the Fantasy version, where Warriors of Chaos are infact bigger, and badder then most things that one could imagine from normal humans. If the standard human profile prevailed in 40k (S3/T3/I3) then being stronger then the rest would actually be a boon for having a painful forced mechanic. The problem is CSM does not have that sort of leeway in 40k where they are infact just on par with most of the common races, their Chaos Lords are actually only comparable to Captains while Chapter Masters and the like are even stronger, with more and more better CC lords coming out daily.

What I'd like to see however is a changeup, Aspiring Champions are no longer just CSM +1A, but are actually full on powerhouses to themselves, Give them a stronger statline where they actually could represent someone becoming a Lords second or third in command, 2 wounds, I5, WS5, A3 and the like, swap them up from the normal SM sarge's a bit to show that these are people who at a moments notice could become the new Chaos Lord after their boss suddenly kicks the bucket, maybe even let them buy ML1.

Though I'd also like to see the Challenge Mechanic gone, since it's unfluffy for most. I mostly just want buyable 'mutations' from the older books back rather then the random it's become, if it must stay.. Well why not let you buy options from it? Coldar The Frost Hearted got his mutation in an early conflict and comes in freezing everyone for an X cost. Heck if they want to push it further, they can instead make it so that mutations can upgrade if you get it again, already have the Flesh Metal mutation? Well guess what, now your spawning weapons from your own body like an obliterator/mutilator! So many things one could do with it to make it interesting I suppose.

CSM aspiring champs need +1 wound.

Maybe they put the forced challenge mechanic in because they were afraid that the boon table was so bad people might actively avoid challenges so they wouldn't have to roll on it? And also to make sure your Chaos Lord wouldn't not die cinematically in heroic single combat with Chapter Master Smashfether.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:
CSM aspiring champs need +1 wound.

Will never happen unless SM sergeants get it too. The First Law of Chaos is that CSM must always be strictly worse than the SM counterpart where one exists.

Eldar get that along with BS/WS5 and cool equipment because reasons

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Eldar get that along with BS/WS5 and cool equipment because reasons

Eldar are not intentionally designed to lose against SM.

 koooaei wrote:
CSM aspiring champs need +1 wound.

Exarchs of all things got two wounds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Eldar get that along with BS/WS5 and cool equipment because reasons

Eldar are not intentionally designed to lose against SM.

Nor are Chaos Space Marines.

 Jancoran wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
CSM aspiring champs need +1 wound.

Exarchs of all things got two wounds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Eldar get that along with BS/WS5 and cool equipment because reasons

Eldar are not intentionally designed to lose against SM.

Nor are Chaos Space Marines.

That's how the codex operates though. It needs a severe rewriting. I'll fully admit the supplement helped, but really it did just reinforce the good choices being good and little helped anyone else.

 koooaei wrote:
CSM aspiring champs need +1 wound.

This is a very good idea
WS 5/ BS 5, +2A, I5, Free Mark. Champion and squad must be marked the same.

Aspiring Champions should be equal to minor HQs, with leaders being some of the strongest in the game outside of SCs and Daemons.
Princes should be terrifying and expensive. Fantasy does such a better job with Chaos for a variety of reasons

Akiasura wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
CSM aspiring champs need +1 wound.

This is a very good idea
WS 5/ BS 5, +2A, I5, Free Mark. Champion and squad must be marked the same.

Aspiring Champions should be equal to minor HQs, with leaders being some of the strongest in the game outside of SCs and Daemons.
Princes should be terrifying and expensive. Fantasy does such a better job with Chaos for a variety of reasons

The greatest slight in my opinion is that Chaos Lord equivalent to a Chapter Master. Despite Chapter masters falling to Chaos. Also why no artificer armor? Chaos somehow managed to maintain Terminator armor, after all.

Cost aside - How does using FW models impact the balance and efficacy of Chaos? Seems they have some pretty good options in FW.

Also are the DFTS rules for fliers any good for Chaos Heldrakes ?

CSM has Battle Brother access to Chaos Daemons. Who are very abusable. Hence CSM are sub par. If they were good they would be crazy OP when coupled with Daemons.

Akiasura wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
CSM aspiring champs need +1 wound.

This is a very good idea
WS 5/ BS 5, +2A, I5, Free Mark. Champion and squad must be marked the same.

Aspiring Champions should be equal to minor HQs, with leaders being some of the strongest in the game outside of SCs and Daemons.
Princes should be terrifying and expensive. Fantasy does such a better job with Chaos for a variety of reasons

I like this. One of my problems with CSM is that aspiring champions are basically SM sergeants, and making them scarier (probably with an appropriate price bump) would make them more interesting.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
CSM aspiring champs need +1 wound.

This is a very good idea
WS 5/ BS 5, +2A, I5, Free Mark. Champion and squad must be marked the same.

Aspiring Champions should be equal to minor HQs, with leaders being some of the strongest in the game outside of SCs and Daemons.
Princes should be terrifying and expensive. Fantasy does such a better job with Chaos for a variety of reasons

I like this. One of my problems with CSM is that aspiring champions are basically SM sergeants, and making them scarier (probably with an appropriate price bump) would make them more interesting.

Agreed, when I bought chaos in 3.5 (they were my 3rd army) I wanted a hero hammer based force. In that edition, I got it. The leaders were very dangerous, and the troops were too, but overall my army was small unless I used daemons (who were very cheap). It felt like Chaos, where a few powerful figures lead a deamonically powered elite force that is hard to fight. Chaos marines should be tougher but fewer when compared to marines, relying on cultists and daemons for numbers. Slightly cheaper originally makes no sense, how can there be more legions then current marines given their infrastructure and geneseed issues? Why turn to chaos if you get weaker?

I don't know if its to cater to the fans. In fantasy, Chaos Champs can fight heroes if they don't bring magic equipment. A chaos lord is a terror, and can buzz throw most enemy armies (not in AoS, I'm just getting into it with Skaven and can't comment). When you challenge and win it feels good, and feels like a proper chaos force. A few people could fight them, Vampires, Lizzies, Dwarves, some dark elf builds if they went magic heavy, but they were generally seen as the gold standard and top of the heap.
Not so in 40k. Since 5th, they've been near the bottom for combat potential, which is just sad.

Yeah Champs are below Lords and Sorcs, but they are ambitious moffos who are working their way up the food chain, and not waiting for a promotion, they are in a constant competition with the others to stand above them all, it should reflect in their profil/rules.

either 2Wounds and a 6++ save, or increased WS/BS and some LD reroll...

Could make a "trait" for them really, for X pts the Champ as the Brutal Leader trait, wich boost his base stats, or the Cunning Legionaire who boosts his LD capabilities and add a special rule...