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My son and I are looking for an army to do now that his Tyranids are done. I was thinking of Chaos-but hoped to avoid buying 2,000 points of troops only to find that I have THE WRONG UNITS. Might somene give us a clue as to what some of the successful GT Chaos marine armies are using these days?

Thanks

Oh alot of people use Lash armies. Personally I don't, as simple math defeats the gimmick, and then where are you?

A list like the one I just posted is quite good. Nurgle is also good.

I'd avoid running bikes or vehicles in a Chaos army. Khorne and full Noise marine lists are not very good.

Running non-fearless troops...also not a good choice in a Chaos army. Pay a little extra, get the fearless troops.

Possessed should be avoided, as should dreadnoughts.

Sorry if it seems negative, the design team removed alot of choices in the Chaos army as viable tournament choices.

At least I think so.

would you mind expounding on these issues a little further?

Particularly i'm interested in your thoughts re: khorne armies ---I myself was thinking of running a chaos army with zerker core. Are they really that crappy?

They were bad last edition, with only a 'chance' at fleeting forward and easily moved where your opponent wanted them.

Now, they have furious charge (which everyone paid for last edition anyway) and are fearless...

However, they don't charge forward, are slow, and are just marines....and don't have choppas.

As in last edition, they have plasma pistols only.

So let me recap:

They lost the super champion, choppas, and fleet.

They gained...nothing.

They've completed their 3 revision slump to crap. In another book or two, they'll be half decent again. If and when the core game system itself is fixed, assault troops that are just infantry might have a place.

For now, they don't--esp not these.

makes sense. thanks for elaborating on your thoughts.

is the other list you drew up what you'd consider a "standard" army, or just one that you've found personally effective (i.e. would you expect to see a build like that at tourneys)?

I play a bit outside the box of what many players consider 'standard'. Standard for me isn't standard for others.

However that said, I'd say the army is as good as you make it. That one I've been running does very well, it can take most of my own armies down. Not sure how well it'd do against the IG army, I haven't had a chance to playtest that one yet. It's beaten or tied the rest, and some of my local buddies lists that are quite good.

I think however that no matter how you cut it, the following should pretty much always be standard in a Chaos army:

2 Demon Princes.
6 Oblits in 3 choices.

The other HQ's are no good, they get instakilled.
The Oblits are better than vehicles despite the fact they get instakilled--tie the DP's into the equation and all of a sudden there's alot of stuff to fire at.
My buddies have started picking off my EC as everything else has a invulnerable save.

Btw the EC are excellent at spreading marines out (Blastmaster), excellent at close combat (I5, 2 attacks each standing there), and excellent at hacking apart hordes (Assault 2 or Heavy 3 on the Sonic Blasters).

The Thousand Sons keep assault troops and all marines at bay.

Except for the DP's they are all infantry, so escalation does little to the army except make the DP's more of a defensive/midfielder than a charger. Which is fine so long as you can adjust to it.

Oh and my DP with Warptime can put a hurt on alot of stuff. WS7 I6 S6 5 attacks, with re-rolls to hit and wound...it's crushingly depressing when two of those are running around.

6 Lascannons from the Oblits, 2 Blastmasters, and 3 Bolts make for pretty decent anti-tank firepower.

Now it's not all roses. I unloaded the whole army at just beyond rapid fire range into a biker seer council and only killed one guy. It was an experiment, but man that was annoying as all get out. lol

Sorry, ask a simple question get a long winded answer, I'm terrible that way.

Slaanesh DP, lash, flight
Slaanesh Sorcerer, lash, bike/flight
3x 6 las/plas Chosen (infiltrating)
2 Berzerker Rhino squads
2 Obliterators
2 Havoc squads

Stelek wrote:
Sorry, ask a simple question get a long winded answer, I'm terrible that way.

Hey, it's all good to me. Appreciate the full explanations, quite a bit, actually.

I actually used something very similar to your core (2 DP warptime, 6 oblits) in a list I had posted --think it's fallen to second page by now --and of course it had berserkers (in rhinos) for assaulting. It looked a lot like wuestenfux's list actually. I wonder if lashes with the princes can help make berzerkers get that assault? I'll probably be tossing the zerkers out the window (not literally!) but I do want to look at other assault options.

next question: chosen? The best thing that jumps out to me is pump them with meltas and use their free cc_BP to make them an infiltrating chaos Fire Dragon squad. charge up, zorch enemy armour or MEQs, then assault what's left. you could even toss in one or two lightning claw specialists to make them extra nasty.

noise marines do seem awesome, if only for the opportunity to shoot and move fairly big weaponry. I'll definitely get a few squads for my future list.

Yeah, Berzerkers can get the charge more easily if the opposing force is lashed.
I say this once in a game Chaos vs Necrons, where the Necron army got badly beaten.
Noise Marines in Rhino can drive by, disembark, and target the enemy via doom siren.
This weapon is absolutely nasty. I used it vs. drop podded Black Templars,
the loyalists got badly beaten, too.

Infiltrating las/plas Chosen squads can be nasty able to target side armour and occupy key spots.

Man Zerkers are just horrible. Even in Rhinos--only fools or people with superior assault armies will let your Zerkers get out and assault their army.

I don't think the Lashes can get past the AV11 Rhinos, no fleet, no assault if the vehicle moves, the smaller squad size to get in the rhino, getting entangled, blech too many issues. Just give up on Zerkers this edition, they're really just no good....not that they were really any good last edition but at least with a few decent fleets you could scare people.

The other problem with non-DP HQ units is they get owned by powerfists, and have Chaplain-itis with the S4.

Chosen are ok, but the costs add up very quickly and in missions without infiltrate--they are total junk sitting on your side of the board. Due to high costs, you rarely see big units of Chosen, but even when you do...are they really scary? They're little better than SM Scouts, but for twice the cost. Run up a tactical squad, rapid fire, dead. Run up a assault squad, shoot/assault, dead. Seems a waste to me. They aren't 'Chosen' like the last Codex. They are 'Veteran Space Marines' like in the current Vanilla Codex, and players don't play those for a reason--they aren't that good, and there are lots of things in the list that are better. So it is with Chaos.

I don't use Havocs, mostly because SM Devastator squads are much better at the moment....and they stink like Loyalists. They can't move and fire. Oblits can. For me, I'd rather eat the occasional instadeath than have static firepower units mech armies can just avoid...especially so as they get deployed first.

I'd recommend no more than 2 or 3 NM units, they are very pricey and really only defense against clustered marine defenses and horde armies. Essentially they 'defend' the thousand sons from mass attack and close combat...which they suck at stopping.