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Hey guys, I've been thinking about getting into the hobby, and after reading all the codecies except eldar/DE/Tau. I have decided that my first army will be Chaos SM's centered around Plague Marines. Anyone have any tips on building this army, like what my heavy support/HQ/Fast attack should be etc.... Also is this a good first army or is the hype about PM's being tough just hype?

Thanks.

These are some viable choices

Heavy: Obliterators, Vindicators, and Defiler

HQ: Typhus, Daemon Prince with wings and warptime

Fast Attack: none!

3x7 Plague Marines with 2x meltaguns and Rhinos with Havoc Launchers

3x2 Obliterators

2x Nurgle Warptime Daemon Prince

I believe this will fit into 1500. To get to 2k simply add more plague marines and Obliterators.

Actually big squads of raptors (10+) with an icon of nurgle can be quite good. They beat the snot out of most things in combat because they just dont die. Add meltas and a powerfist champ to give them some punch.

Plague marines are probably the best troops choice in the codex. They are insanely hard to get rid of and can take two specials in under 10 models, which is very good. Use them in rhinos to give them extra protection and make them more mobile.

Obliterators are the best heavy support in the codex so get some of those (they arent hard to convert from terminators if you dont want to sell your soul for the models)

Demon princes are the best HQ choice. They are very hard and can kill most things with taking loads of punishment.

Nurgle terminators can also be very good, but only in big squads to spread the cost of the expensive icon. There are articles about how to use terminators in the articles section.

There are no restrictions on what you use in your army so feel free to have some nurgle elements and some other god/unmarked elemetns.

Thanks for the replies. Just a couple more questions.

Can you put wings on a Daemon Prince of Nurgle? And does the box set come with wings? What about including Typhus in my starter army? Would he be a good counter to Marneus Calgar I ask this because half of the Space Marine codex is devoted to him, which leads me to believe most space marine players would field him.

You can put wings on your demon prince but the current metal model doesnt come with one, which means you'll have to convert it yourself. Its not too hard with a bit of patience and the guys at your FLGS should be willing to help. There is a plastic DP with wings coming out soon, if it hasnt already, but the model is as ugly as a bag of smashed crabs.

Typhus isnt actually that good, purely because he can the instant deathed by S8 attacks. In a straight up fight between him and calgar he would lose because calgar is immune to instant death from typhus' force weapon. If you want a super-hard character go for abbadon, but only in bigger games.

Also a lot of people have a weird aversion to ultra marines and so usually stay away from calgar. He is very very good, but his large points cost usually means he is only used in larger games where there are more points to throw around.

Typhus is really not a good choice for his points lvl. You're better taking a sorcerer or lord w/MoN until you want to model up some demon princes.

Demon Prince kits don't come w/ wings unfortunatly; but you'll want to get some or sculpt some because they make your DPs so much better.


I also should mention that if you are not to concerned with having a total nurgle theme, you can couple your plague marines with two demon princes of slannesh with wings and lash of submission. It's a good competative list. You use PMs in rhinos to take and hold objectives while using your DPs to use lash to move enemy units together for your obliterators to drop plasma cannons on. There are a ton of threads about lash here at dakka you can look up.

Regwon wrote:[...]but the model is as ugly as a bag of smashed crabs.

Wait... isn't that a GOOD thing for Chaos (especially Nurgle)?


OP, do commit to staying mobile with your PMs if you can. PMs on foot make everyone else happy. PMs in Rhinos are much more difficult to deal with. That 12" makes a huge difference (must.. resist... infantile... joke...)

For the deamon prince use the Dragon Wings GW sells as they fit perfectly to the deamon model

I'd say run at least a squad or two of regular Chaos Marines in there too to add a few numbers. Avoid the Mark of nurgle on squads like the plague though, it's way too pricey and Plague Marines are 800 times better. For small points especially, you'll want at least a couple more bodies in there. Something like:

Chaos Space Marines x10 w/Rhino - 255
2x Melta guns, Champ w/Power Fist, Icon of Chaos Glory

Do similar squads with plague marines and you'll be set for your core. My number 1 advice for anyone starting CSM is to avoid the flashy stuff. Pick something solid, and make sure you get something out of every point you spend or there's no point in spending it.

Lots of power fists, because you don't need to strike first when you play PM's.

Well if you go for a nurgle theme, Drummers right on the dot. Personally I mix Nurgle and Khorne units to get the mostr of both worlds; very hard to kill troops with good anti-vehicle, and great assaulty units that curb stomp all other troops. The beauty of chaos is its variety, so test out and see what you like! Normally I run 1 unit of Plagued Marines w/ Slanesh Chaos Sorc w/ whip, 1 squad of khorne w/ power fist (both squads in a rhino), and 1 land raider with terminators and a lord (vary the types). I also go themematic sometimes. At 2000 points I run 2 squads of zerkers w/ power fists, in rhinos, 1 with a khorne lord. 1 land raider w/ 5 khorne terminators. 2 obliterators. 20 summoned demons, 1 defiler (cc), and 1 demon prince w/ lash whip (slanesh).

Its all about finding what you like. I'm a very aggressive player, so I run CC Tyranids and CC chaos. I doubt I'll ever play a shooty army because, well, I like to smash face! So find what you wanna do, then pick the army that does it

Regwon wrote:Actually big squads of raptors (10+) with an icon of nurgle can be quite good. They beat the snot out of most things in combat because they just dont die. Add meltas and a powerfist champ to give them some punch.

Sorry for being offtopic, but you just gave me some food for thought. Maybe Ill switch my IoK for IoN on mine.

I wouldnt take fast attack with nurgle though. Its unfluffy, and raptors are the only decent option (not overwhelmingly necessary).

Don't forget, bikers with MoN have T6!

Be careful if you ever go up against a slaanesh army that has the lash and a few blastmaters on the field. Yeah not a pretty picture especially for plague marines. I've wiped out an entire PM squad with one nice blastmaster shot. With str. 8 it will wound on 2+ and ignore your FNP rule seeing that PM are only toughness 4 when it comes to instant death!

Watch out for the creepy prince/princess thingy chaos god slaanesh! haha

whitedragon wrote:Don't forget, bikers with MoN have T6!

hehe I love nurgle bikers, they wtfpwn all over troop units

Night Lords wrote:
Sorry for being offtopic, but you just gave me some food for thought. Maybe Ill switch my IoK for IoN on mine.

I wouldnt take fast attack with nurgle though. Its unfluffy, and raptors are the only decent option (not overwhelmingly necessary).

Its only unfluffy if you want to do a deathguard army, in which case you can only take foot-slogging marines, deads and terminators. The current codex encourages you to do "renagade marines", that let you do whatever you like.

whitedragon wrote:Don't forget, bikers with MoN have T6!

The trouble with bikers is that they are rediculously expensive for not much benefit. The maximum squad size is 10, so you are looking at paying 38ppm for a squad with an icon before you get any other upgrades. The gun upgrades also replace the bikers pistols so they get less attacks if you want them to be better to shooting. T6 may seem like a nice idea but the squad is too expensive with too little power to be actually good.

My final questions.

What is a PM based army weak against? How will I fair against Mechanized IG armies, jet bike based eldar armies, or Grey knights? What armies will my PM based army be strong against?

Thanks

My Plague Marine army seems to have the most trouble facing heavily mechanized opponents like Mech Eldar and some Tau builds. I haven't faced a mech IG army yet, but I'm not as concerned about them - I field lots of plasmaguns in my Plague Marine squads, and they should be able to do some damage against those AV12 Chimeras. But those pesky pointy-headed Eldar and Tau "chicken suits" love to hit and run and mostly stay away from my mostly short-ranged AT firepower...

*shakes stinky fist at them*

I found a nice source for the wings on my Nurgle Daemon Prince - I went to the local five-and-dime and found a big toy bug (it looks like some kind of flying termite!) with insect wings that resembled a fly. I sawed the carapace and attached wings off of the toy with a razor saw, glued it to the back of the Daemon Prince, and filled the gaps with greenstuff - I even made a multifaceted compound "fly" eye out of greenstuff to cover the big bulging eye on the Daemon Prince as well! All hail Bubonicus, Lord of the Flies!

PMs hate things that are S8+ and/or AP3. Additionally, things that wound on less than a 5 and deny an AS. Basically anything that denies FNP, gets past armor, and can wound them easily. They also tend to struggle against mobile forces since they lack long range firepower. (Oblits help fill that gap.) Nurgle DPs don't like S8 Powerfists (wounds on 2s and no save- ouch), but are otherwse pretty resilient to anything short of a demolisher cannon thanks to T6 (ID is not an issue, thanks to EW). Things that deny his AS do need to be avoided or quickly engaged (if shooting). He loves getting stuck in with S6 and Warptime- he will shred most things killing 3 or so per combat round and laughing off S5 or less. Just watch out wiping units in your assault and then being open to big hits in the following turn!

Id only take 3 squads of PMs to me there objective grabbers/holders give em' flamers and send em out.

I would say that the only mechanized vehicles that are really going to present a problem are going be eldar wave serpents, eldar falcons and necron monoliths. To deal with the falcons and wave serpents you really need to concentrate fire and even then you still need to have a little bit of luck. With the monoliths your going to need lascannons, obliterators would work nicely maybe with a dread. In my experience tau vehicles are relatively slow and easy to pop! And space marine land raiders should be easy to destroy if you have a few meltaguns.
Also look out for enemy plasma cannons seeing that AP 2 now ignores FNP.
I have only played against a few grey knight players and the only thing they had that presented a threat was their dreadnoughts...and nasty CC weapons.
Keep in mind you should build an army that can cope with mobile armies (as well as every type of army) so that when you go up against an eldar bike army from hell you will know what to do. I would say take a daemon prince or two with wings...they will help you with the mobile armies!

The first thing you need to do in my opinion is to pick what chapter/theme you want for your army. There really isnt a "plague marine" army, but you could choose a nurgle-based army like the death guard which are pretty much solely foot slogging (with a few rhinos and some other broken-down vehicles) with lots of massed infantry(esp plague marines, so if you like that unit death guard are great). Death guard are not the end of nurgle armies though, check out lexicanum.com for a lot more renegade chapters for theme ideas and paint schemes. Once you've decided on the theme for your army it will make choosing your units a lot easier.

One tip I'm going to give you, that it seems like most CSM players ignore, is that you have a squad called havocs. Give them all autocannons and you have a death spraying unit that can punch into armor/infantry/whatever from a good distance away or you can arm them (or chosen) with meltas and get in close to take out armor. A nurgle-based csm army really should not have any more trouble dealing with armor than any other csm army. If you choose death guard the only anti-vehicle options you lose might be predators/landraiders, which really arent the best anti-tank imo. Oblits with multi-meltas or havocs/chosen/regular csms with meltas are great as well.

Obliterators are good, but they are very expensive, relatively squishy for their points cost, and only fire one shot. For the price of one oblit you can get 2 havocs and those 2 havocs can deal out 4x the shots. I would suggest using a few oblits to fill in the holes in your arsenal depending on what your opponent brings (if you know in advance what your opponent is bringing you might consider skipping oblits all together and taking specialized predators/havocs/chosen to deal with your enemy's most dangerous units).

Halsfield wrote:A nurgle-based csm army really should not have any more trouble dealing with armor than any other csm army. If you choose death guard the only anti-vehicle options you lose might be predators/landraiders, which really arent the best anti-tank imo.

Remember, Death Guard (Plaguemarine) squads lose the heavy weapon option in their squads and get two special weapons instead.

Two specials means they should usually be packing meltas so they have some AT (albeit at short range). Flamers are okay for anti-horde, but PMs are typically better used on the defense to hold objectives and weather ridiculous amounts of fire, not moving after stuff to get into flamer range. The Oblits can do he heavy lifting in the shooting department.

Halsfield: People forget havocs (and all the other HS) because of Obliterators. I mean really, why take AC havocs when you can get the versatility of everything from a lascannon to a plasma cannon to a heavy flamer and resilience of of T(4)5, 2+ save, 2 wounds and can fire on the move?

jmurph wrote:
Halsfield: People forget havocs (and all the other HS) because of Obliterators. I mean really, why take AC havocs when you can get the versatility of everything from a lascannon to a plasma cannon to a heavy flamer and resilience of of T(4)5, 2+ save, 2 wounds and can fire on the move?

Because you can still only shoot one gun a turn. Youre paying for versatility that, when making a list, isnt needed if you take units with specific roles - funny enough most of the other units do the job better than oblits point for point. Also, Id rather have 10 wounds with 4+ save than 3x 75 point IKable oblits with 4+.

Ontopic: I personally would take some regular CSM, as they are more versatile for a much lower cost.

Commissar Molotov wrote:

Halsfield wrote:A nurgle-based csm army really should not have any more trouble dealing with armor than any other csm army. If you choose death guard the only anti-vehicle options you lose might be predators/landraiders, which really arent the best anti-tank imo.

Remember, Death Guard (Plaguemarine) squads lose the heavy weapon option in their squads and get two special weapons instead.

No where did I say anything about giving them heavy weapons, I said anti-vehicle. Anti-vehicle being meltas. My point was that there are no options that a regular army would get that plague marines wouldnt for anti-vehicle that are very effective (oblits, havocs, meltas in general).