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 small_gods wrote:


Just a quick note on something I was misunderstanding until a couple of days ago too.

If you give all the csm units the same mark of chaos as the soulgrunder you could field them in a Khorne, Nurgle, Slanesh or Tzeentch detachment.

Well, blow me down! 'Tis true, by the Dark Gods!
So, if I have a detachment without units that benefit from any legion trait - like a spearhead full of daemon engines or tanks - I can just stick a Greater Daemon in there as my HQ!! Damn and blast! And here's me goofin' around with an added daemons detachment or summoning nonsense to get those big boys into my armies

sturguard wrote:
Snugiraffe,
Thanks for the info, I'm sorry, I meant Defiler not Soul Grinder, so that detachment should be fine.

What do you think of raptors?

I imagine those 5 demon engines, jump pack lord and Greater Possessed running at an opponent and supporting them with the Oblits, Havocs, and Raptors. Meanwhile the marines take the objectives and the 15 man blob makes for centerfield and double taps their bolters.

Would Black Legion be better than Red Corsairs? Also if I am going with Red Corsairs how is Huron? What do folks think of the Lord of Skulls?

Finally, a question on Daemonic Ritual. Lets say I want to summon a unit of bloodletters. Their power rating is 4. I roll 3 dice- the odds are VERY good that I roll over a 4. Do I need to pay for these bloodletters when I make my 2k army list? I assume yes because it seems like all 5 of my characters could summon every turn and although some may end up taking mortal wounds the amount of daemons you could put on the board would outweight the cost of the characters. Could someone please clarify how this works?
Thanks

Raptors aren't very good this edition. They're simply too expensive for a unit which will drop in and then die. People often screen pretty well this edition, so getting a perfect target is hard.
The main issue you'll run into with GP running with daemon engines is that he'll get left behind. He is considerably slower than all of them. Some have viable paths to a first turn charge, while he has to plod along. I think you're probably better off smooshing your jump pack lord and GP into a daemon prince with wings who is not only one of our best units, but can also keep up.

Black legion is good, but has to use a lot of its complexity to be legit. So you need to know their various elements quite well and build around them. Huron I think it's generally agreed is a very solid way to go if you're running RC. Lord of Skulls is sort of a mixed result. A lot of people like him, so he's decent but not amazing. He also needs to be built around. I think the kytan is probably the stronger pick.

You reserve points for summoning at the start of the game. So if you want 100 points of daemons, you need to make a list which is 1900 points. You pick what you summon at the time of summoning, however so you could summon blood letters or horrors or plaguebearers or whatever else as you like.

So just quick math on 2k points

Lord Discordant
Lord Discordant
Venom Crawler
Venom Crawler
Defiler

Daemon Prince w wings
Sorcerer in termite armor
Dark Apostle
5 CSM w/rotorcannon
5 CSM w/rotorcannon
5 CSM w/rotorcannon
3 Oblits
5 Havoc's, 4 Lascannon

I think that's around 2k. Suggestions on marks, etc or tweaks? This gets in all the models I like except Greater Possessed.

I think that's pretty solid tbh.
I wouldn't really spring for the terminator armor on the sorc. I'd probably take huron over that. He can sit back then and babysit your oblits, havocs and maybe CSM.

You might go then something like Red Corsairs for your big group, put the oblits and havocs in a devastation battery. Make sure they're all marked slaanesh so they can use Endless Cacophony. Use the Dark apostle to give -1 to hit to your oblits.

If you have the points, I might even do an aux detachment for a cheap mounted herald of slaanesh; mark up your daemon engine group as slaanesh or chariot; she'll keep up and give them +1 strength, while being able to keep up and provide another psychic power.

What's the cheapest I could do an auxiliary detachment as you suggest? I could save points by dropping DP for Lord with JP and dropping term armor from sorcerer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And with their short range, don't I want to deep strike the Oblits in? That is why I was taking the sorcerer with termie armor

Snugiraffe wrote:

 small_gods wrote:


Just a quick note on something I was misunderstanding until a couple of days ago too.

If you give all the csm units the same mark of chaos as the soulgrunder you could field them in a Khorne, Nurgle, Slanesh or Tzeentch detachment.

Well, blow me down! 'Tis true, by the Dark Gods!
So, if I have a detachment without units that benefit from any legion trait - like a spearhead full of daemon engines or tanks - I can just stick a Greater Daemon in there as my HQ!! Damn and blast! And here's me goofin' around with an added daemons detachment or summoning nonsense to get those big boys into my armies

What's that you say, 2 bloodthirsters and 3 lord discordants in one supreme command detachment? Bwahahah

You can also mix and match the legions so you can get access to all the stratergems. Especially looking at the crimson slaughter, -1 to hit on all units with 3" of a piece of terrain!

Any ideas on how to make a lord discordant viable? Looking at his stats I think he's going to get shot off the table in a single turn by most armies...

Also what should he be buffing and attacking?

Love the look of the model but so far cant find a place for him in the lists I'm coming up with.

mrtomski wrote:
Any ideas on how to make a lord discordant viable? Looking at his stats I think he's going to get shot off the table in a single turn by most armies...

Also what should he be buffing and attacking?

Love the look of the model but so far cant find a place for him in the lists I'm coming up with.

Take him in multiples.

I think he's cheap enough that you could just throw him in a list with a couple other engines and treat him like you would any other walker. 40pts more than a mauler or 20pts more than a defiler is fine. If he dies, he dies.

If you're gearing him up to be the lynchpin of your army, then yeah, he'll have a huge target on his squishy back. You'll need extreme target saturation (like 5+ big scary walkers). If you dont get first turn, for sure pop the cover strat, which will give him a 4+ save against stuff like lascannons and the like. If you DO get first turn, then with the combo of warptime, +movement WL trait, and advance/charge shinnanigins, he\ll have done his job and it doesnt really matter so much if he dies after that. You'll already be in combat mulching stuff.

I think the "get shot off the board" thing is probably overstated. Provide other targets which will attract fire more and run multiples. I think a supreme command of 2 lords discord, 1 sorc and 1 kytan will be a lovely blender.

Don’t suppose any veteran chaos players can put together a list of the best combos CSM have access too?

Flawless host Slaanesh demon prince with Elixer/ Talons
Alpha Legion Havocs in a devestation battery with infiltrated stratagem

Etc?

I’m new to chaos and really struggling to build a strong competitive list.

How much are Kytans?

Wilson wrote:
Don’t suppose any veteran chaos players can put together a list of the best combos CSM have access too?

Flawless host Slaanesh demon prince with Elixer/ Talons
Alpha Legion Havocs in a devestation battery with infiltrated stratagem

Etc?

I’m new to chaos and really struggling to build a strong competitive list.

Problem is literally all off the good things regular csm have is heavily combo reliant.

sturguard wrote:
How much are Kytans?

410pts

I think that's a good question.

So I would say rerolls+prescience+endless cacophony+VotLW is the strongest realistic shooting set up. 1 demon prince or huron is all that's required. I think you probably want to have multiple units who would benefit because any one could be targeted and destroyed.

Best candidates: Chain Cannon Havocs, Lascannon Havocs, Oblits. Honorable mention goes to the plausible red corsair 15-20 man CSM squad.

Survivability-wise...probably alpha legion + dark apostate for a single target is the strongest on turn one. Not much is worth this kind of protection in my mind though; it costs 100 points. After turn one, you can of course add in nurgle -1 to hit or slaanesh 5+ fnp. But I have a really hard time relying on things which aren't active turn one.

There are a lot of combos which are solid that include "if you give it a warlord trait and a relic". Like, the lord discordant with the half damage BL trait and either a slaanesh elixir or the mechatendrils is pretty damn scary. I've seen several chaos lord variants wandering around. I'm curious which one we settle on as best: I tend to think it will have to be one who doesn't too heavily rely on being in an otherwise difficult to use legion. Like, the flawless host DP and/or lord is scary, but what else are you going to put in your flawless host detachment exactly?

I'm kinda feeling weirdly nice feelings about a pretty plain biker lord with thunder hammer and the elixir as my second HQ for Red Corsairs. Sure, he'll die horribly, but not before he shoots off advance+charge and smashes something unexpectedly to bits.

drakerocket wrote:
Like, the flawless host DP and/or lord is scary, but what else are you going to put in your flawless host detachment exactly?

Quite revoltingly, the best thing to add to a Flawless Host force would actually be Berzerkers, wouldn't it? Or those thunderhammer Chosen in a Rhino, although that's a bit of a suicide unit.
In fact, you could make your FH detachment a Soulforged Pack and cram it full of daemon engines - that way, the FH trait and strat are just icing, really. If you're going to run daemon engines anyway, the legion is almost neglectible.

Thunder hammer chosen would have -1 to hit so their trait would be wasted as flawless host. You would need to add a further buff.

Thunder hammer chosen are cool, but not even remotely competitive because you need to stack way too many moving parts together on a unit with literally one focus, which happens to be in the hardest phase lol.

Yeah...that is one way to go, but the BL warlord trait on a discordant is such a game changer for him. And I actually quite like the Brazen beasts strategem.

So, I think the issue I'm finding with the daemon engine list is detachments. I really want some daemons with them; a cheap group of slaanesh daemons is a big boon, granting them advance+charge and +1 strength from a mounted herald/chariot. And I'm feeling a red corsairs detachment is almost mandatory. It narrows me to only one other detachment, which makes choosing hard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for berserkers, like, sure, they're fine in flawless host, but I think both alpha legion (for survival), red corsairs and world eaters all do better for them.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Thunder hammer chosen would have -1 to hit so their trait would be wasted as flawless host. You would need to add a further buff.

Thunder hammer chosen are cool, but not even remotely competitive because you need to stack way too many moving parts together on a unit with literally one focus, which happens to be in the hardest phase lol.

How so? with 10 guys armed with the melee weapon of your choice all you gotta do is put them in a transport.
They will kill just about anything in terms of infantry with lightning claws, or more affordably, power axes.
They will be 1 point cheaper than possessed, minus the invulnerable, which is kind of a big deal but then they also still have bolt guns and bolt pistols.
And in combat, given the amount of wounds they cause on average, you really won't be needing a second activation.

Of course, berzerkers come very close, cost less and the addition of a gun really doesn't matter if you're transporting them, and they DO still get that second activation.
All I'm saying is that they're not really hard to use in that sense. It's just that there are more efficient solutions. And they still can't go up against elite units unless you buff them as well, which then becomes trickier and again, there are easier ways.
If only they could still be taken as troops.

**edit**
Though in order to kill a knight you'd pretty much need to deepstrike them in a dreadclaw, which requires forgeworld and the knight can simply bugger off and you're stranded without warptime . Or warptime turn 1 and charge it.
On the plus side, that sorcerer can also hitch a ride, but still.

So I run World Eaters and Alpha Legion. Alpha for access to Psykers and the -1 to hit. World Eaters are for a fun party bus of bezerkers with dark apostle and exhalted to add more fun with rerolls

I go up against mostly imperial gaurd, loyalist scum and eldar.

One thing I am considering doing is adding in some Death Gaurd. Anyone have any opinions if DG would work well with my set up?

Gangland wrote:
So I run World Eaters and Alpha Legion. Alpha for access to Psykers and the -1 to hit. World Eaters are for a fun party bus of bezerkers with dark apostle and exhalted to add more fun with rerolls

I go up against mostly imperial gaurd, loyalist scum and eldar.

One thing I am considering doing is adding in some Death Gaurd. Anyone have any opinions if DG would work well with my set up?

Would depend on your al part, no?

Snugiraffe wrote:

 small_gods wrote:


Just a quick note on something I was misunderstanding until a couple of days ago too.

If you give all the csm units the same mark of chaos as the soulgrunder you could field them in a Khorne, Nurgle, Slanesh or Tzeentch detachment.

Well, blow me down! 'Tis true, by the Dark Gods!
So, if I have a detachment without units that benefit from any legion trait - like a spearhead full of daemon engines or tanks - I can just stick a Greater Daemon in there as my HQ!! Damn and blast! And here's me goofin' around with an added daemons detachment or summoning nonsense to get those big boys into my armies

This is fine as long as you weren’t wanting your GD to unlock Daemon Stratagems (Possession is a really nasty secret weapon), or to benefit from their deity’s Locus (Khorne Daemon Engines tend to like the aura of re-rolling charges).

Here’s an interesting thing about DEITY detachments: three units of WE Berzerkers led by Karanak and a Bloodthirster counts as a Battalion. No LEGION trait, as it’s not a ‘pure’ CSM detachment, but being World Eaters is all it takes to make zerks into troops.

Replace the Daemons with, say, Abaddon and a Word Bearers Master of Possession, and the detachment is a CSM one, and unlocks CSM Stratagems. Which, for instance, enables Tide of Traitors to be used on some friendly Death Guard Cultists.

8ed’s solution to soup exploitation has built a lot of weird facets.

I'm not a hardcore CSM player, previously just an Alpha Legion fanboy. The latest expansion gave me an excuse to play my Huron model I've had forever and expand a bit. I just played a game using a 20-man Red Corsairs with pistol/chainswords, Havocs in a Spearhead that became a Cult of Destruction, and a 30-man cultist blob for the Cult of the Damned. My takeaways:

1. The Red Corsairs bump to CP is so nice! Advancing and charging a 20-man squad is great, and the only thing better is the Stratagem to bring them back again. I recycled the blob when they got whittled down and had them smash a Demon Prince to pieces.

2. The stratagem to shoot at the end of the first turn is phenomenal. If you have a variety of weapons (I took a Lascannon crew, a Missile crew, and a Chaincannon crew), the flexibility to hit what needs to be hit is great.

3. Reaper Chaincannons are ridiculously good; in other news, water is wet.

4. Paying CP for the Apostle's prayers in the Cult of the Damned sucks; take the Disciples for the extra points.

It has just occurred to me that a chaincannon havoc squad with Punishing Volley is horrific against fast close combat units like kraken genestealers and shining spears, these units rely very heavily on first turn charge and having them come to us effectively negates the short range issue that chaincannons have.

 Continuity wrote:
It has just occurred to me that a chaincannon havoc squad with Punishing Volley is horrific against fast close combat units like kraken genestealers and shining spears, these units rely very heavily on first turn charge and having them come to us effectively negates the short range issue that chaincannons have.

If we had the same meta saturation as Imperium, I suspect they’d become a minor gatekeeper. Not as much as Castellan, but close. Has anyone else got a strat like this? As the first 2.0 Codex, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see similar cropping up in other factions. Maybe minor Chapters, like Raptors and that.

That said, it’s from a Specialist Detachment. And relies on a new, somewhat extraordinary weapon. Hmm. We live in interesting times...

Snugiraffe wrote:

The Greater Possessed are sweet, I totally love them. Remember though that they need to share the same <LEGION> and <MARK OF CHAOS> keywords with the daemons you want them to buff.

Question on that i've been stumped on. what if something shares the legion keyword with the possessed, but doesn't have any mark? I get that if it has a mark it needs to match, but what if you have non? Coming from admech, and GSC the chaos keywords seem like a convoluted mess to me.

Danny slag wrote:

Snugiraffe wrote:

The Greater Possessed are sweet, I totally love them. Remember though that they need to share the same <LEGION> and <MARK OF CHAOS> keywords with the daemons you want them to buff.

Question on that i've been stumped on. what if something shares the legion keyword with the possessed, but doesn't have any mark? I get that if it has a mark it needs to match, but what if you have non? Coming from admech, and GSC the chaos keywords seem like a convoluted mess to me.

Greater Possessed need to share both deity and legion and empyrean connections to buff units. I agree, it’s a tight restriction and it stands in janky contrast to the ability of Daemon Princes and Heralds to share their auras between Legions and species. I’ve not taken them, much - I like a fast Daemon Engine rushdown and they feel like a footslogging ball & chain. Gonna try them out with a Possessed deathstar, though.

Danny slag wrote:
Question on that i've been stumped on. what if something shares the legion keyword with the possessed, but doesn't have any mark? I get that if it has a mark it needs to match, but what if you have non?

If you don't give them a mark, then the keyword sort of disappears into thin air. And if you don't have the keyword, the GP won't buff you.

 lindsay40k wrote:
Greater Possessed need to share both deity and legion and empyrean connections to buff units. I agree, it’s a tight restriction and it stands in janky contrast to the ability of Daemon Princes and Heralds to share their auras between Legions and species. I’ve not taken them, much - I like a fast Daemon Engine rushdown and they feel like a footslogging ball & chain. Gonna try them out with a Possessed deathstar, though.

So far, I've used a GP to buff a Venomcrawler's shooting in the first turn. Which is only worth it if you're firing at T8. Otherwise, I've not worried about the buff at all. At 70 points, the buff (while still giving the model itself S6) is just a bonus. A GP is an awesome melee unit and can be annoyingly tough to kill if the dice like you. You need a Rhino, though, and another unit to screen it (or them, I run two, because more blood).
I'm going to try out an RC GP warlord with unholy vigour and the elixir this weekend. It's a 1000pts game limited to a patrol detachment, I expect I'll have some fun with it at least.

Had a thought, but again because chaos keywords are wonky I'm not sure if this works. I have Karnak from the wrath and rapture box. I'm thinking since he's a character, cheap, and fast, he could keep up with my rushing daemon engine list, and with his loci give them all re-rolls to their charges. Does that work?

Danny slag wrote:
Had a thought, but again because chaos keywords are wonky I'm not sure if this works. I have Karnak from the wrath and rapture box. I'm thinking since he's a character, cheap, and fast, he could keep up with my rushing daemon engine list, and with his loci give them all re-rolls to their charges. Does that work?

Karanak is very good at this niche, and also provides useful DTW coverage. The only other unit that can perform this niche is a flying DP - who is faster, doesn’t care about obstacles, laughs at most snipers, and can carry a relic axe so powerful it scares Castellans.