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 BrotherGecko wrote:
CSM just exist as the less effective alternative to cultists in their own codex.

I just thought it was odd to compare CSM to repentia.

There are chaos units that can have stacked bonuses. Doesn't seem all that long ago that I punched a stormraven out of the air with a chainlord for instance, and I one-shot Mortarion with what I remember being pretty average dice from an (insanely buffed) enlightened squad. But like repentia these are specialist combat units, not generalist core troop units.

I find once your facing down a turn of devastator doctrine then tactical doctrine with buckets of rerolling your CSM become as effectively durable as the cultists. They both are going to die but one only cost me 4ppm. MSU CSM is countered by you spending the points on trying to make MSU CSM work. Your better off spamming MSU cultists and using the saved points for something good.

3rd edition heavy and special weapons could use a buff I guess. That would help CSM. Because CSM are stuck with load outs from grandpa's 40k.

I'm still lobbying for rapidfire 3 heavy bolters.

5 CSM in cover tends to be easy to ignore or forget about with the actual threats on the table we bring, but that might be a difference of metas.

I mean they're more likely to shoot your Possessed Bomb, or Venomcrawlers with Greater Posseswd support, kr one of ykur Lord Discordants over CSM.

 Orange Knight wrote:
60 Marines, split Into MSU in cover, out of LOS, supported by the rest of the army. You think you can remove them in one turn? How about on turn 3 when your big guns are silenced? Piece of cake?

So you're either on a very heavily covered table (unlikely to happen at a lot of stores) or hiding ~1/3rd of your army in an ITC magic box. In either case that means you're trading board control for durability and allowing the enemy to sit 24.1" away and wait for you to move out.

My list isn't a top meta smasher by any means but I'd be happy to see 60 bodies that produce almost no offense taking up space in my opponent's list.

Honestly if you have the cover to hide 60 marines then your better off saving almost 300pts and take 100 cultists.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Honestly if you have the cover to hide 60 marines then your better off saving almost 300pts and take 100 cultists.

Seconded.

 BrotherGecko wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Point being SoB can do what CSM are famous for but better and that annoys me

At this point you've thrown in the sisters biggest glass cannon with a whole slew of buffs and bonuses, an entire army of support and some pretty impressive strategic manoeuvering - it's no surprise that basic CSM don't stack up.

Besides CSM aren't an all-in up the board assault army any more than loyalists - they've got far too many guns for that. Sounds like a job for a khorne daemonkin codex.

Well I did express the annoyance that CSM can't power up to be dangerous at anything. They are stuck being a minor nuisance.

I can power up plague marines in death guard and make a pretty good assault threat. It might not be efficient but in casual games it will be fun.

Building a list around repentia might not be the best but it will be fun.

CSM just exist as the less effective alternative to cultists in their own codex.

You can, you just don't want to. It's the problem with relying on all these buffs.
You can pump them up to 4 attacks as mentioned earlier, give them prescience for a 2+ to hit, VotLW and soultearer portent to wound even a knight on 4+, or even better if debuffed by summoned nurgle herald or so.
Rerolling ranged hits and melee hits through auras or stratagems

Furthermore generating extra hits on 4+ or even 3 plus with the masque. while being able to double attack and claim any objective.
They'd also be immune to morale.

We're looking at 80 attacks + 40 vs imperial stuff and then double that if fighting twice, hitting on 2s rerollable and wounding most stuff on 2s also rerollable.
You can even speed them up by putting them in a kharybdis and/or slingshotting them via warptime and potentially a re-rollable charge.

You only need an entire army worth of support for a units that can get stopped by a screen and get gunned down by just about anything.
But hey, I suppose you can add a bit more support at this point to make them more survivable if you had enough CP.....