Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, I'm starting my new Chaos army.

To start with I have an army box set that consists of:

1 Terminaor lord
10 marines
8 Khorne Zerkers
5 Chosen (or just 15 marines)
5 Terminators
5 Posessed
2 Spawn
1 Defiler

The whole thing comes out to around 1350 pts.

As I still have another $200 or so to burn, I want to finish buying what else I want for the army to have a 2000 pt force put together so I can play as I paint. I'm kinda new to Chaos in 40K and also haven't played a marine type army in a good 8 years or so.. so I'm wondering what else I need? Here is a 2000 pt list I put together:

Unlimited Pts - Chaos Space Marines Roster - Crypt Keepers

HQ

Chaos Terminator Lord @ 150 Pts
- Daemon Weapon; Combi-melta

Troops

10 Chaos Space Marines @ 220 Pts
- 2 Plasmaguns, Mark of Chaos Glory
- Aspiring Champion w/ Plasma Pistol

10 Chaos Space Marines @ 210 Pts
- 2 Meltaguns Mark of Chaos Glory
- Aspiring Champion w/ Plasma Pistol

8 Khorne Berzerkers @ 213 Pts
- Skull Champion w/ Plasma Pistol

Elites

5 Terminators @ 235 Pts
- Power Fists, 2 Power Weapons, 3 Twin Linked Bolters, 1Reaper Autocannon, Mark of Chaos Glory
- Terminator Champion w/ Chainfist & CombiMelta

5 Possessed @ 145 Pts
- Mark of Chaos Glory
- Possessed Champion

5 Chosen @ 185 Pts
- 1 Meltagun; 1 Plasmagun; 2 Power Weapon; Mark of Chaos Glory
- Aspiring Champion w/ Lightning Claws

Heavy Support

Land Raider @ 255 Pts
- Havoc Launcher; Demonic Posession

2 Obliterators @ 150 Pts

Defiler @ 155 Pts
- Reaper Autocannon; Havoc Launcher

Extra

2 Spawn @ 80 Pts

Total Roster Cost: 1998


Wadaya think?

Another idea I had is to skip the land raider and get 3 obliterators and have 2 defilers, and maybe toss in an extra marine or 2 to fill up the points.

Any other ideas?

Well, it looks like the list you are going for is shooty the first two turns as it advances and then digs into combat from there.

I think dropping the raider is a good idea as even if you use it to transport your berserkers to assault, they will be too far ahead of the rest of your list and will be unsupported.

If you drop the raider you can afford a raptor squad (w 2 melta I suggest). This gives you two pure assaulty lists that can do counter assault if you stand and shoot or can push a flank together and support each other while the rest of the units assist in the assault and form new shooting lines.

I also sugggest trading the spawn for another oblit. In fact, my buddy turned me onto converting the spawn into oblits so i now use the new spawn models and have a magnetic arm with a tentacled lascannon/plasma weapon and a regular tenticled arm so it can be an obliterator or spawn.



I wouldnt go for two defilers ... in fact I really would suggest taking it out alltogher as armor 12 just isnt enough to stand up to the long range fire that will be leveled against it. Vehicles are just two many points to lose two one shot. I prefer oblits as the yhave invulerable resistance, and multiple wounds for thingsthat don't insta kill them. Plus they are just so versatile ... lascannons for enemy armor, plasma cannon for clumps of marines or horde armies, multi melta's for vehicles up close. Yum al the way around. Two oblits are the same price as a defiler, but in my experience are there at the end of the game much more often than the defiler. They can also still be scoring after taking two regular wounding hits or 1 instant death hit.

If you decide to leave it in (it is one of the coolest vehicle models out there and I realize you are trying to work with the box set as a starting point) I also suggest kitting the defiler with 2 close combat weapons. Let it shoot with the battle cannon as it advances (again ... this is another fast unit so it can keep pace with the raptors I suggest and they can support each other) and then tear into it in hand to hand. Just watch where the power fists are in your opponents list as a vehicle in close combat is more vulnerable to hidden fists than a squad that can lose a model or three and still fight back. So just choose close combats carefully where you can do enough damage to walk away or where they have no weapons that can hurt you. Just like a wraith lord if you get into a squad that doesn't have a power fist (or other equivalent) you can kill troops every round and they can't touch you.

I also have decided the deamon weapon is not worth the trouble ... you have the best one since the mark of chaos glory gives the weapon + 1 strength and you might actually hurt something with all those attacks. I use the blissgiver (I run mostly emperors children) and I have found that having 5-9 attacks that usually hit on 4 + wound on 4 + (or worse depending on what you are fighting) only amounts to about 2 or 3 kills ... Lightning claws give about the same kill ratio for less points and no chance of killing myself.

I watched a nurgle lord kill himself with his daemon weapon, khorne only gets to attack about half the time .. just blah ... so I suggest you see how that deamon weapon works for you. With strength 5 it might be the magic combo ... but be prepared to run into combat ready to own your opponent and then roll a one, maybe take a wound and watch them giggle as they do all the attacking and wounding for the turn.

Anyway, just my thoughts on things ... I find that when just starting an army it is most important to just put models on the board and have fun. As you find out what works for your play style you can really start to build your A list by checking in here and testing it on the field.

Meph

If you're taking a lord, there aren't that many reasons not to take a demon weapon, IMO. They're cool, unique to the lord and rolling a ton of attaks is a beautiful thing - I run a deathscreamer in my undivided, and have so far rolled a 1 once, and that was shooting with it at some kroot (the irony). One of my team mates in an APOC game had a bloodfeeder on jugger, and was wiping squads out by himself. He did roll a 1 and finished himself off, but such is life and undeath in the service of chaos.

Couple quick things on your list, why no powerfists in the CSM squads? 10 CSM + fist will trash anything, and you've got the assault weapons so I assume they're intended to close. And are you taking the MoCU on the possessed for the teleport homer? Because I can't think of another reason to take it, as they're fearless

I do like what I see though, lots and lots of variety. Just need some killy ACs is all

- Salvage

I've tweaked the list a bit

Still with the same army box stuff but at first I was thinking 2 defilers and 3 obliterators and 1 box of plague marines put me right at 2000. But I'm starting to think instead of a 2nd defiler I'll just have one and 3 obliterators and then take a demon prince in addition to the terminator lord. I'd love to get to paint up another one of those models.

And yeah I overlooked the powerfist thing. Definately going to change that. My plan is to walk forward with guns blazing and assault as soon as I'm able. I was setting up the defiler to be shooty because if I fleet with that, I can't shoot right? or is that different because it's a war machine kinda thing? I know from playing nids that a big assaulty critter moving a whole 6" a turn is very easy to avoid if the other guy really wants to. And I don't want to waste it's firepower on fleeting if I can put that battlecannon and reaper cannon to good use. And since I am kinda low on long range anti tank I was thinking of taking the lascannons with that instead of the reaper.

I like that spawn obliterator idea though. I think I'm gonna give that a try

Spawn oblits was my idea. You get two spawn in a box throw on some extra Las Cannons/plasics and some small conversion work and you have cheap affordable oblits. I personally don't like the oblit models any way and that big of a model is great in plastic. You also get fantastic bits from the spawn box anyway. So for $20 dollars you have 2 oblits instead of just one for $25. I also like the terminator lord thing after seeing one in action over the weekend with a Korne Daemon weapon. The term save saved his lord 3-4 times from insta kill and then he proceeded to hit me with 20 something attacks (or so it seemed to me) and I lost lots of things until Mephiston regulated.

Your starting list:

1 Terminator lord
10 marines
8 Khorne Zerkers
5 Chosen (or just 15 marines)
5 Terminators
5 Posessed
2 Spawn
1 Defiler

My suggestions (take them or leave them)

Trade the defiler away. Tind someone who will give you a Daemon prince or 2 for it.

Defilers are BUNK now. They aren't worth the points.

We've played DOZENS of games in my group, and the thing just doesn't work. it has NEVER made it into HtH which, face it, is what they're trying to market it for.

 

Additionally, it's WS BLOWS. The Battlecannon is too unreliable. There are STRONGER weapons you can get for the points.

Forget the Terminator Lord. Make hima  REALLY COOL Aspiring Champ to go along with the rest of those Terminators.

If you're taking Berzerkers, add 2 more and put them in a Land Raider. If you absolutely don't want to do that, give 'em a D. infested Rhino. You HAVE to get them there fast, or they'll get shot to (another word for feces). I'm actually not that fond of them, though. give me T5 Deathguard or AP3 T-Sons, any day.

Also, buy a LR for your Terminator Squad.

A 3rd LR isn't a bad idea, but some would scoff at that idea.

Whatever heavy choices you DON'T use up with LR's, use FULL SIZE oblit squads.

Now, the 2 D. princes I mentioned? Both get Wings. One is Tzeentch (one spell is WarpTime, for certain. The other should be shooty). The second is Slaanesh. Give him Lash. Use them in conjunction.

Fly both up, LASH a unit you need to destroy towards the Tzeentch D.Prince & assauilt it with him. not much can survive that.

Stay away from bikers. The only bikers you should even contemplate anymore are Nurgle (T6 WOW).

For the Chosen, I like a 6 man squad in a land raider with 4 P-Fists & 3 regular. You could also bump it to 8, with 4 PFists & 4 regular.

For the possessed.... BLECH. Use them as REALLY COOL LOOKING chosen. They're not worth the points as Possessed.

What to add to your list?

Choose your fave's:

-T-Sons

-Deathguard

-More CSM's

-Havocs

-Land raiders (I already mentioned these)

-Rhinos (Every squad you want to get into HtH should have a transport, especially at 35 points base for a Rhino (always D. Possess, if you have the points)

-If you don't want to fill up your slots as I mentioned earlier, there are always havocs... but your better choice is a unit of Oblits

-STAY AWAY FROM RAPTORS. The ONLY time they have a chance is if you DEEP STRIKE THEM (WITH an icon) within charge range of the enemy. In this case, Slaanesh (+1 Init) or Khorne (+1 Attk), Nurgle (+1 T) or Tzeentch (5+ Invul) are good choices (in the order I mentioned, IMO).

Even then, I don't know if they're worth it.

 

That's all from the top of my head. I'm at work with no codex.

With the exception of how TO use Raptors, everything above is from experience.

 

Eric

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dunno, I don't want a win at all costs kind of army. I'm one of those dreaded fluffy players. I rarely go to tournaments both becuase I usually don't have the time and also because I know I'm gonna get my arse handed to me. But I have gotten several "best army" trophys though from local store tourneys

The reason I want the defiler is I just really like the model. ANd I have a really cool idea for a conversion. So I'm thinking if I do 3 obliterators and 1 shooty defiler and a demon prince I should be OK. I'm not really a fan of raptors. I had them before when I was doing a night lords army and I hated how top heavy they were. Always falling and breaking especially when you play on bumpy flocked tables.

If I can do the spawn/obliterator conversion I won't have spawn in the army so there's 80 more points to spend on more marines, or skip the demon prince and get a land raider But right now i'm leaning most toward demon prince, death guard, and 3 obliterators on top of the box set models

Ok based on some of the advice above and what I have on hand and the theme I want to go with, here's what I'm thinking of...

1 Terminaor lord swapping demon weapon for a power or chain fist
1 demon prince with demon weapon
10 marines
8 Khorne berzerkers
7 death guard
10 chosen mostly geared for assault
5 Terminators
1 Defiler
2 obliterators using spawns

I should have points left over so I could either:

maybe get 2 more spawns and have 2 units of 2 obliterators...

Add more marines.. Should I make the khorne and/or death guard units bigger? it seems just 7 or 8 guys is a little too few... I prefer squads of 10 usually.

Add a dreadnought.. People say dreadnoughts suck now. Why? Just because they might shoot their friends?

Add rhinos.. a LR is too many points, but I figure if I go with transports I could just do 2 rhinos for the chosen and the berzerkers.. but then, since the chosen can infiltrate it might be better not to give them a transport...? I have 2 marine rhinos I can proxy for a while till I eventually get chaos ones


I feel like I'm still lacking long range anti tank, so I will prolly put lascannons on the defiler. But then, I can only shoot that OR the battle cannon, right? not both? If that's the case should I just take whatever side weapons are the cheapest?

Demon prince don't have weapon options, so he may be a demon with 1 cc weapon but it ain't a "demon weapon" - I'd really suggest warptime on this guy, works wonders with the rerolls

On the dread, I think it largely come down to if you want to use / make a model for him then go for it. The dread though is particularly not so hot with loss of the good side to the angry rolls - used to be 2x shots at whoever but no move, or no shot but D6+12" assault (basically) and double attaks. I still love my dread and will use him forever, but just isn't the same with 1/3 of the results being just bad ... Loss of mutated hull hurts too, on defilers as well but at least they can sit back and battlecannon stuff still.

On defiler armament, I've never seen anybody actually use secondary upgraded guns before - they're generally taken for modeling purposes, though in theory the twin-las I guess would be effective when you need an anti-tank shot and not the bcannon. I forget the points cost, used to be hefty in the old book but I think it went down in points ...

Without knowing how many points you've got left over, I'd say maybe move to beef up the zerkers or plaguers. They're fluffy as is, but more is better. Just be warned that you should throw some points down for real before counting your demonic chickens, as Chaos gets pricey very fast.

- Salvage

Oh, oops.. did princes used to have demon weapons? dunno where I got that from

I think what I'll do is get the demon prince and the 2 obliterator/spawns, and another box of marines that I can use to convert a few extra berzerkers and plague marines. I'm hoping I can squeeze in a land raider though if anything just because it's the one tank I always wanted to build but never had the chance. if I can maybe I'll get the terminus version for apocalpyse and convert it, so I have extra lascannon bitz for my obliterators and/or defiler. I'm at work so I can't check the codex or use army builder at the moment.. but I'm expecting after the extra marines and 2 defilers I should have roughly 500 pts to put toward the land raider and the demon prince

Well, here's what I get from that latest list of yours (combined with some from the earlier):

Lord - termi, chainfist, combi-melta = 140
Prince - warptime = 135
5 Terminators - equipped as yours above = 235
10 CSM - MoCU, 2 meltaguns, AC w/ powerfist = 220
8 Berzerkers - AC w/ power weapon = 198
7 Plague Marines - 2 plasma guns, AC w/ powerfist = 231
2 Oblits = 150
Defiler - havok launcher = 155
Land Raider - possession = 240
------
1704 points

Leaves 296 points for those 10 chosen and any other marines or equipment sprinkled around. 10 Chosen = 180 points, so that's really just 96 points in their gear (which will go fast, 4 power weapons + MoCU = 70, and that's about the cheapest pure combat gear).

- Salvage

Yeah I think that looks like about what I'm after. Tonight I'll play around with army builder and do some tweaks.

I still have about $180 worth of store credit to finish off the army, so a land raider, demon prince and nurgle fellas should still leave me with a good chunk for extra goodies

OK, here's my updated list.. Couldn't fit in 10 chosen, plus the unit was just too pricey and I didn't wanna paint a big VP bullseye on em for being such an expensive unit. I may try and drop a plague marine and add wings do the demon prince but I guess we'll see if I feel like doing wings when I get around to modelling him


Unlimited Pts - Chaos Space Marines Roster - Krypt Keepers

HQ

Daemon Prince @ 135 Pts
- Warptime

Chaos Terminator Lord @ 140 Pts
- Chain Fist; Combi-melta

Troops

10 Chaos Space Marines @ 235 Pts
- 2 Plasmagun; Chaos Glory
- Aspiring Champion
- Plasma Pistol; Power Weapon

8 Plague Marines @ 244 Pts
- 1 Plasmagun
- Plague Champion w/ Plasma Pistol; Power Weapon

8 Khorne Berzerkers @ 213 Pts
- Skull Champion w/ Plasma Pistol; Power Weapon

Elites

5 Terminators @ 235 Pts
- 2 Power Fists; 2 Power Weapon; 3 Twin Linked Bolter; 1 Reaper Autocannon; Chaos Glory
- Terminator Champion w/ Chain Fist & Combi-melta

8 Chosen @ 234 Pts
- 2 Power Fist (x2); Chaos Glory
- Aspiring Champion w/Lightning Claws

Heavy Support:

2 Obliterators @ 150 Pts

Defiler @ 155 Pts
- Reaper Autocannon; Havoc Launcher

1 Land Raider @ 255 Pts
- Havoc Launcher; Daemonic Possession

Total Roster Cost: 1996

You can keep that power weapon on the CSM, they're really short range fire support in the end, but I think the fist is nigh mandatory on the plaguers. Looks a little better aesthetically IMO (big chunky fist, with chunky diseased marines), but they're I3 so the fist sacrifises nothing by going last. Drop the plasma pistol on the skull champ to pay for the fist - the ppistol on the CSM can add to their turrent of plasma, but the ppistol on the skull champ mostly gives you the chance to fry your WS5 S5 I5 power weapon. True, it can add the flexibility to nuke back armor on a tank every few games, but I don't think that offsets the possible loss of the SC.

If I were running the list my other change would be to drop the CSM ppistol to give the Chosen a meltagun (on the ikon bearer, probably), but I distrust ppistols that don't have FNP behind them. I like everything else, should be a good, fun army and give a LOT of variety for modeling. Will be following that blog of yours

- Salvage

EDIT: Plasma pistols are 15 points, right?  So 10 points go to the plague fist, and then that's 5 points to buy the skull champ melta bombs.  Now he can still bust a tank in a pinch.

That makes sense, I can drop the ppistol on the khorne champ. But I was loading up on plasma just because I like it And with marines it will be a less risky than with my guard since they have better armor. For the whole army set I have a total of 3 plasma guns, 3 melta guns and 5 plasma pistols, plus a few extra assault marine plasma pistols that I had saved up for IG plasmagun conversion. I would like to try and free up 20 pts though for wings for the demon prince

Dropping the havok launcher on the land raider and the melta bombs I suggested for the skull champ is 20 points, can buy that demon some mobility.

And cool on the plasma, more power to ya then. I guess going guard -> chaos you have more respect for a 3+ save then I do

- Salvage

So I was just thinkin... what if instead of the khorne berzerkers, I just go with 2 units of marines? I'll have the demon prince and chosen for close combat .. and even the normal marines always getting the extra CCW thing isn't so bad.

I don't think it'll be a big deal to shave off the khorne symbols on the models I have .. just trying to find a way to add a few extra bodies.. guess I'm still used to playing guard