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I am toying around with some pre-heresy army ideas, so that means that I can't use Demon Princes, Greater Demons, Defilers, and Obliterators.

I can make do without Defilers, and although DPs and Greater Demons are good values for there points, I can live with out them.

But can you make a successful Chaos army without Oblits?

You need Oblits for 2 things, long range AP 2 shooting and mobile heavy weapons. You need long range strength 9, AP 2 for a lot of reasons…Monoliths, Terminators, other Oblits, Land Raiders, upgraded TMC, etc. You need mobility to move into places that a static shooting army can’t get to. For example, an Eldar army can just move so that they are screened by terrain from being shot by static heavy weapons. You have to be able to move to react to their movement to get shots on to them. Unless you can bring an overwhelming amount of static heavy weapons like Guard and SM, what heavy weapons you possess need to be mobile.

And without Oblits you struggle to get Lascanons into a chaos army.
Your options are:
#1. Chosen. Which are static and pay a lot for their lascanons, but an infiltrating squad is a not a bad idea.
#2. Chaos Space Marines. Which have to buy 10 guys for the role of static shooting squad, and then they pay 5 points more than SM for their Lascanons.
#3. Predators. They had a large price increase for Lascanons this edition, and they took out upgrades like Mutated Hull which increased their durability, and modified Demonic Possession so they are shooting at BS 3. But the Predator with the turret Lascanons and Heavy Bolter sponsons is not a bad buy, and can move and shoot all its weapons.
#4. Land Raiders. I thought they would be a lot better now that they took a price drop, but after play testing them I am not so sure. With out Possession (Machine Spirit) rules, they are not that great anymore. You use to be able to move 6” and shoot one TL Lascanons at BS4, one at BS2 and the Heavy Bolters. And then if you were stationary you could split fire and shoot the Lascanons at vehicles and the Heavy Bolters at Infantry at BS2. Now that is all gone. You can move and shoot one Lascanon and the Heavy Bolters only.
#5. Use the short range options of Melta Guns, Bolts of Change, and Plasma Guns. They are effective, but for most of them there effective range is within 12”. There are fast moving delivery options like Raptors and Bikes, but are they viable substitutes for Oblits?

What are everyone’s thoughts about building a Chaos army without Oblits?

What rules allowed you to split your fire with your LR? This is illegal as far as I know.

Bikes can help oblits, but I don't think they are a good substitute.

Frankly I think Chaos armies will all look like this eventually:

2 DP.
6-9 Oblits.
Flavored troops choices.

So, no, I don't think Chaos should not bring Oblits. The army list has enough problems as it is, not taking Oblits...ugh I'd hate it myself.

Why don't you take Techmarines and modify them to suit your needs? A local buddy of mine has techmarines as oblits in his army. It works as it's heavily themed.

The tech marine conversion seems like a good idea. Flat out your going to need the HS so you might as weel resign yourself to taking the obliterators. You could model tech marines armes to the teeth or something equivilent to a space marine HW team. Then again I don't know if any of this fits into your armies back story.

Pre-heresy? Have you been getting into the black library series about Horus?

Ok, I have a Fluff question, what is the angle? Is this the luna wolves? or a fallen chapter that has not yet moved on the emperor? How far before Hearsy are you planing? How would a space marine build different from a chaos marine build

if they were both pre-heresy?

Could you use the counts as rule for the Oblits?

Lake

It will be very hard to build a good chaos army without Oblits. They are a huge pariah in the chaos list. You are right, there is nothing that approaches their viability as long range heavy weapon units and yet they suck up valuable HS slots and take up lots of points. They force competitive chaos builds into one formula and it is rotten for the game.

That being said your best option, without Oblits, seems to be 5-man chosen squads with a lascannon at 120pts each. Three of them will give you 3 shots and 15 wounds, usually deploying last. This, unfortunately, takes away your elite slots. This option is a little weaker, yet just good enough to suffice in a good tourney army.

If you then saturate your heavy slots with havocs and make liberal use of heavy bolters, autocannons and missile launchers you should have enough firepower to deal with armor <14 and 3+ TMC's. The 3 chosen squads would be needed for Monoliths, Land Raiders, Leman Russ', and the occasional 2+ save TMC. The 3 lascannons, in combination with the havocs should also give you a chance against enemy oblits.

Lord, Jump Pack, lightning claws, mok
5 chosen + lascannon
5 chosen + lascannon
5 chosen + lascannon
10 csm, missile, flamer, champ, fist, mok, rhino, pintle combi-bolter
10 csm, missile, flamer, champ, fist, mok, rhino, pintle combi-bolter
10 raptors, 2 meltaguns, champ, fist, mok
6 havocs, 2 missile, 2 autocannon
6 havocs, 2 missile, 2 autocannon
6 havocs, 4 heavy bolters

That's an 1850 list that meets your requirements. It looks pretty good. Meets all the basic requirements. Anti-armor at range, anti-troop at range, it can bring the fight to the enemy and includes mobile terrain for fighting in the desert. You can always take out the marks of khorne for more bodies or other marks. I think 30 guys with 3 attacks (4 on the charge) can put a hurtin' on horde lists.

lakegamer wrote:Pre-heresy? Have you been getting into the black library series about Horus?

I have the books, but I have not read them yet. I might do it since I have some time over the holidays.

The idea has been around for a while, and it is inspired more by the Visions of War series of art books than the new novels. Here is my Thousand Sons Chosen squad from the 2004 LA GT

Ok, I have a Fluff question, what is the angle? Is this the luna wolves? or a fallen chapter that has not yet moved on the emperor? How far before Heresy are you planning?

It is for a Thousand Sons army. And the time period will be during the heresy.

How would a space marine build different from a chaos marine build if they were both pre-heresy?

There are a few minor differences. For Space Marines you can tell what they did and didn’t have by the difference between their equipment and Chaos. Pre-heresy there were no Assault cannons, Plasma was limited so no plasma cannons, and no Ahriman. I have not heard anything about whirlwinds or vindicators. As far as Chaos goes, they did not have access to Land Speeders. They also do not have Oblits, Defilers, Spawn, Demons, Demon Princes, and Marks of Chaos.

Could you use the counts as rule for the Oblits?

Thousand Sons did not use an excess of machines, and relied more on Sorcery.

well, because the oblits are foot troops , and the Thousand sons are magic based, could you run a squad of combat wizards as heavy support. Convert them up all nice, and say that they have combat magic like eldar warlocks that are always on, and just count them as Oblits for the rules. Does that work? It might be fluffy for your theme.

Nice thousand sons squad , paint looks great, how long did it take you?

Granted, I haven't read the series, but I thought there were Assault Cannons in the Horus Heresy (The Custodians I heard used them with every marine...)

Assault cannons were mentioned twice so far in the HH series. Obviously, the Heretic factions forgot how to use them in the 10000 years following the Heresy.

Darrian

I thought assault cannons were just rare. And are 'suppose' to be rare to this day.

btw isn't a havoc squad w/ two lascannons about the same cost as an oblit? I know they aren't as versitle but at least you have some antitank.

Possessed Las/HB Pred vs 2x Oblit

- About the same price
- 1 TL BS3 Las vs 2x BS4 Las
- 2x HB vs 2x Plasma Cannons

Oblits have more AP2, the question is wether or not they are more durable than a pred, and that's a question I for one can't help to answer.

But for pure firepower I'd say you're better with Oblits. Especially if you don't have any other vehicles in your list.

But personally I'd probably take two preds and a vindi, just because.

And Havocs should have Tank Hunters standard. For shame, GW, for shame.

You should check out Bell of Lost Soul's Pre-Heresy Codex for ideas. They have a pretty exhaustive list of things extant in the 31st millenium, as well as special rules for all the characters and legions. It should give you some pretty good ideas to run with, though since it is it's own codex, you might be tempted to make things that are not tourney excitement.

For 1ksons, oblits could be some sort of sorcery created monstrosity or warp creature. Outside of 1ksons, oblits could be proxies for the robots that were around back then.

@Blackmoor, Just to be clear, you admit that oblits are not part of the pre heresy 1000 sons fluff. So, if you do use them against me, I can dock you on comp because they should not be in a well comped pre heresy 1000 sons list. Right?

Darrian

Does Chaos need oblits for a viable tournament army?

Yes they do, but not nearly as much as they need two Lashes of Submission. That spell is absolutely critical if you're looking for tournament success with the Nerfed Marines.

/laugh.

Please.

Stelek wrote:/laugh.

Please.

Do you consider yourself a contributing member to the community? Did you add something useful to the discussion at hand? What is that comment supposed to mean? Frankly you seem like another Brother Edwin to me. 100 posts per week and most or all of them utter garbage. You try to project an image of an experienced player who looks down upon everyone else, but

a) ...although you criticise everyone's army lists, you have failed to post a single effective army list yourself despite being requested to do so. Your mech Eldar and Tau lists were the stuff of legends.
b) ...although you advertise yourself as undefeated in order to give weight to your army list & tactics "advice", you have never won or placed high at a major tournament.
c) ...although you constantly disagree with people on various subjects, you are unable to point out the holes in their arguments and/or offer reasonable, alternative views.
d) ...when confronted or asked to explain yourself, you laugh the discussion off, change the subject, or disappear altogether.

I can't do anything else but ask you to take some time off. For example, four or five years, just so that you grow out of your pre-teens. Maybe then we can have a reasonable discussion. I bet 6th edition will be just around the corner when you get back.

I hate to say this, but you might give thought to the vanilla codex for a pre-heresy force as well. Use the traits permitting greater infiltration, greater fast attack, or more devestator squads depending on your vision. Just leave out skimmers and whirlwinds.

In a tournament, do space marine armies never bring librarians? I think I would [though never had the opportunity to play in a "real" tournament myself], if only for countering game-altering psychic powers like Lash of Submission. The simple inclusion of one turns the Lash into a crap shoot that will work only slightly less than 50% of the time. For a tournament I'd imagine I'd want more "sure-fire" things than a gimmick like the lash, such as... well, lots of men with lots of guns.

Are there really so few librarians in tourneys?

Preads seem to be the other viable alternative in the heavy support slot for Chaos since you can give them possession and they can run around the table blazing away with their lascannon /HB combo.

it works better than a possessed Landraider that now is only useful for being either a bunker or an assault platform but cant do both at the same time despite paying over 240 points for it.

Is the forum bully talking again?

Boy, sure wish we had mods to stop these personal attacks.

Like night and day.

@Stelek, I think you have to understand that Dakka has been around for a long while. In my time here, I have found that credibility is earned. It is earned through insightful, witty and often meaningful posts. Most importantly, if you make a statement here, you better be willing and able to defend it, or people will write you off as a troll. I have also learned that it helps to admit when you are incorrect, it has been a tough learning experience for me.

Hope this helps,

Darrian
(Sorry to go OT)

Darrian is right Stelek. Your not impressing people with your condescending remarks and what I see as an elitist attitude towards the game. At the same time you simply comment you can defeat said army or list but rarely do you enlighten a poster with the tactics on how to.

sorry about going OT.


Has anyone had any luck with any other heavy support choices? I see the defiler as kinda of a fire magnet for some of my other units to move to position because most other armies fear the battlecannon.

Hmmm, I don't offer tactics or army list advice?

Since when? I do it almost every damn day.

If I find a post laughable, I'm going to laugh at it. If that's condescending, so be it.

I don't laugh at new posters posting stuff, I try and help them.

When a small set of people think they can call dakka their turf and I need to 'prove' myself, well I don't. I don't measure my skill against GW tournaments, it's laughable to suggest they are skill tournaments. Adepticon is 'the best', and that's just a sad commentary on the tournament scene AND the 40k rules as they stand. For all the shock my bluster might cause, every tournament I've attended in the last decade (plus) I've ALWAYS scored in the top 10 for battle points (GT's) and top 3 (RTT's). If that isn't good enough, what else is new?

Back to this topic: I've already said several times that you need 2 DP's, 3 Oblit units, and then whatever amount of TS/EC/PM you can/want fit into your army.

The rest of the Chaos army is dreck in comparison. You cannot be mobile with Chaos, so don't try to. You will have a hell of a time outshooting anyone, so you better bring resilient units and lots of hard targets.

Defilers aren't resilient, and they are very soft targets.

Disagree? They were not worth their points last edition when they had indirect fire, because sooo many armies had units that could blow the defiler away on turn 2 that cost half the points! How are they better now?

Dreads will be awful until the 'fluffy but sucky' rules for them going crazy is removed from the game. Oh and a new model sometime in the next 15 years would be A-1.

Havocs are fine, if you bring some oblits to support them as an area denial unit. Multiple havoc units are, imo, not worth it since that means you have only one (or none) oblit units which isn't enough.

DP's and Oblits combine to make for target selection quandries for your opponent. Reduce the shooting into me by taking the Oblits, or stop the close combat monster coming my way? Most armies cannot do both.

I don't like Chaos Vets because just like regular CSM, Terminators, and oh just about everything but the 'core' dedicated troops--they RUN AWAY and don't come back!

Want to have a useful unit? Bring 3 bikers, give them 2 meltaguns...and bring multiples of the units. They WILL help you against mobile armies. Vets won't do much, even with infiltrate.

If you are trying to make an assault army with Chaos, and it doesn't include 60 Raptors or 30 bikes...stop now, whatever you are dreaming up, it won't work!

That enough advice or do I need to write a tactica?

Stelek wrote:If I find a post laughable, I'm going to laugh at it. If that's condescending, so be it.

This is really why you rankle some of the posters. You've been condescending to many, many posters on this board, and this has earned you a reputation for arrogance and rudeness. While Therion's comment about your maturity level was a bit out of line, it's not nearly as bad as some of the things you've said to other posters. While you do give good advice, you have just as many empty/negative posts where you disagree with someone's post in a manner that indicates that you think it's so inane that you couldn't possibly be bothered to deal with it other than with a biting remark. You are still a newcomer to our little pond and haven't formed any sort of associations with people that aren't confrontational, and you ride the edge (and sometimes cross over it) of being rude to other posters. To go to the old standby, Mauleed is sometimes gruffer than the rest of us, but he can be very helpful, especially with new people, and for the most part will only pick apart a post without referencing the poster at all. He's also quick to admit when he's wrong and has proven himself in several GT's, so we tend to listen to him.

There are probably a lot of posters on this board who aren't as good a player as you are, and I'm sure that you have lots of good advice to dole out. What usually happens is that you'll make a statement and "leave the proof as an exercise for the reader" instead of laying out your logic point by point. To go back to Mauleed, he posts rigorous explanations of why he's taking 4 Missile Launcher Dev squads in his army (for example). If you do more of this, and don't treat the other posters like they're foolish, you'll get a lot more respect and polite responses. For example, laughing at the poster's statement about requiring the Lash to win tournaments was unecessary and unconstructive, and simply served to deride the idea. There was no counterpoint or explanation, just a non-contributing interjection.

Also, don't forget that Rule #1 is Be Polite. There are many ways to contest a point without breaking rule #1, and being polite will earn you a degree of respect.

Ideally, as mods, we won't have to moderate at all. Unfortunately we do have to step in from time to time, but we tend to let small, one-time things go. If something becomes a pattern, or is a bigger infraction, then we'll act. I've seen the posters themselves do a terrific job of getting a derailed thread back on track, for example.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns regarding any of this you can PM any of the mods, including Yakface. (That goes for everyone! )

Iorek, how many times must I post the same comments on an army before going to the lame standby of 'use the search feature'?

It's not like I DON'T post rigorous explanations, I just don't do it all the time.

Therion decided a few days ago to be a prick towards me. I'm returning the favor. If it's not appropriate for happy dakka for ME to do it, why is it appropriate for HIM to do it? Yak told me to be to be polite, and if I'm being crapped on why the hell should I be polite?

I don't see any of the crap messages I've been getting this week deleted or even commented on, but I speak up and all of a sudden you're available to comment?

And you know what else? The minute someone can break my own personal experiences and PROVE me wrong in a game, I'll admit I'm wrong. It hasn't happened in over a decade. TEN YEARS. I'm so gakky at this game, why am I undefeated vs everyone I've played at GTs--what, I've only played scrubs while staying on the top 5 tables the whole tournament? All I hear is 'oh well soandso played the system and won a GT, we have mass respect for them but you? Toss off till you win the big one, mate.' Who are you guys kidding with that crap? Talk about condescending, arrogant, and rude! You'll note I just spent 3 hours posting 'rigorous, polite, and helpful' posts despite the crummy way I've been treated this week, only to find this 'calling out' waiting for me.

Double standards suck.

Getting back to the original topic, but I think that you could build a good list without Oblits, but you'd still be better off taking them.

They outshine every other heavy support choice, by a fair margin, and they're the only way to get Lascannons (or better stated, Long Range, S9 AP2 firepower) that can move and shoot into a Chaos list.

Said firepower is certainly necessary to compete against big lists.

In my personal opinion, if I wanted to build the best damn chaos list I could to win a tournament, it'd be centered around 2x HQ's (either princes or sorcerers, sorceres need the Lash, princes probably do, but it's not as mandatory for them), as many oblits as I could fit with as many cult troops as I wanted in the army, or mixing some cult troops with raptors.

Stelek, Therion's post, whether or not you agree with it, was fairly substantive. Your response was

/laugh.

Please.

You can't see why a mod would have a problem with this? Really? Hint: this is a forum, not a chatroom.

-

Back on topic, I think it really depends on just how competitive an option has to be to qualify as "viable". Blackmoor, you took an Eldar list to LVGT that many (including myself) would consider sub-optimal, containing things like BL Guardians and an extraneous Troupe Leader, but your final standing certainly makes it "viable" by most definitions. That is the same sort of "viable" I think an Oblit-less Chaos list would be: not an instant-lose in a cut-throat environment, but not exactly the best shot you can give yourself.

LASH OR NOTHING!

That's substantive?

Raise your standards.