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Well, I started a thread in army lists about my CSM list that I'm taking to a local tourney and the thread turned into mostly being about Chaos heavy support. It got a little heated and was often one guy supporting one choice over the other. Where I stand is how you combine all these great choices, I firmly believe that CSM has some great options.

I personally catagorize the choices by long range fire support and flexibility. I usually try to take from both catagories in a single list depending on the level of the match. I think its obvious whats in each catagory but I'll list it anyways:

(Long)Ranged Fire support:

Predator

Havocs

Vindicator

Flexibility:

Obliterators

Defiler

Land Raider

I'm not looking for " Obliterators are better than Havocs because..." . Lets try to get out some great combos of our HS slots and how to use them. If you spam them how does the rest of your army make up for it.

Oh and a link to where this started:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/277627.page

Depending on if you know what your opponents armies are. If i know I am going up against many MEQ's I use 2 full squads of Obliterators. If I know im going up against IG, Tau, Necrons I usuallly go with 3 Oblit. anything else i actually use a combination of one defiler and 2 squads of 2 Oblits; with this you have the firepower to take down some heavy tanks while also having a nice support/ordinance powerhouse.


P.S totally forgot if you know your going up against some horde i ALWAYS use a dakka pred. Its only 100 points and you get something thats excellent anti horde/light armor.

LRFS:

-Preds and Havocs have the potential to be decent Anti-Tank. Preds have the upside of AV13, Havocs have the upside of multiple weapons and multiple wounds.
-Vindicators are useless for the most part :(

Flex:

-Oblits have everything: +2 armor save, +5 Inv, any weapon you can think of, including Power Fist, and Deep Strike. Considered the most flexible unit in the CSM inventory.
-Defilers can be tricked out either for ranged, or CC depending on your play-style.
-Land Raiders are generally considered a point-sink. Yes, you can assault from them, Yes, they have AV14. But they can only fire all weapons if they don't move, can only fire a single weapon if they move 6". and none if they flank. Points can be better spent in other areas (like 3 Oblits), but it's up to the individual and their style of play.

Oh P.S if you use a defiler watch out for enemy artillery usually when i put my Defiler model out (or my slightly larger Scorpion conversion) it freaks enough players out that they go for it immediatley, put in cover

one thing about vindicators. they scare the enemy and attract shots that would otherwise go to your rhinos. agree their offensive potential is limited b/c of cover, scatter rolls, and the simplicity of shutting the gun down.

Its easy to rule our vindicators, save them for a higher point game or convert it back to a rhino, more valuable that way IMO

There are Oblits.
Then there's everything else.



Seriously, I only ever consider the following options:
Oblits and Defilers.
That's it, they are unique units Chaos gets...no need for stupid Spiky SMurf units IMO.

I agree with Sanctjud, I only use defilers and oblits, as I don't want spiky space marine stuff (didn't dare to shorten that )

Both units work well at close and long ranges. Defilers are maybe a bit weak, but they look cool, and if your opponent has weak long range anti-tank, they can do hideous damage.

Sanctjud wrote:There are Oblits.
Then there's everything else.

Yep, I just lawl'd!

Has anybody tried possessed vindicator spam? I feel like it has the potential to work, and the potential to fail horribly.

However, vindicators dont work in any other situation sadly.

There's nothing wrong with them... just the normal pros and cons with them.
Chaos is generally a close range army, so I'd think they work and not work at the same time.
Both like to approach, but bad scatters are bad

In addition, they are pretty expensive to feel like a 'Chaos' Vindi.

145 vs. 115 for the SMurfs...really...30 points to keep shooting but also suffer by another balancing factor besides being expensive?

Demonically possessed vindicators aren't easy to stop from getting a shot off short of destroying the weapon or the vehicle itself. The 30 point upgrade to ensure firing is definitely worth it. There is a drop in ballistic skill, but one inch in scatter doesn't hurt too much when you are firing a 5 inch diameter plate.

mrwittwer wrote:Has anybody tried possessed vindicator spam? I feel like it has the potential to work, and the potential to fail horribly.

However, vindicators dont work in any other situation sadly.

I think it can work fine. The key would be the kind of army you have working around it. For example, I don't think they blend well with Berzerkers or assault based CSMs as those guys will be wanting to assault the opponent, denying you shots.

However with Plasma PM/CSM or Noise Marines, I could see it working quite well. Basically focus on making a 24" death zone that the enemy has to get through. The Vindicator would fire at a target first, hopefully claim multiple models and the Troop squad would play cleanup. If its a big unit, simply use 2+ Vindicators. The Troops' Rhino can also be used to help screen the AV11 side armor of the Vindicator and act as mobile cover.
Basically this kind of army would want to get to midfield and dominate there. Add in some Termicide for popping Land Raiders or long range shooters in cover (Predators/Leman Russ) and you got everything covered.

EDIT: Also don't underestimate the Vindicator for tank busting. S10 +reroll means that its very likely to punch through a Land Raider if need be.

Ive never understood why chaos players like defilers. vindicator is like the same thing, but cheaper, better and harder......

GloryToThe16th wrote:Ive never understood why chaos players like defilers. vindicator is like the same thing, but cheaper, better and harder......

Defiler looses its BC and its not a sitting duck, Vindicator looses its gun and its just moving cover.

plus id you loose the Defiler's BC and you give it an extra CCW you now have essentially a possessed dred that fleets and does NOT go crazy with I3 and 5 attacks

IronfrontAlex wrote:
Defiler looses its BC and its not a sitting duck, Vindicator looses its gun and its just moving cover.

plus id you loose the Defiler's BC and you give it an extra CCW you now have essentially a possessed dred that fleets and does NOT go crazy with I3 and 5 attacks

+1.
Defiler is a great multi-tasker.
I like the AV12 on front/side vs AV13/11.
I like that my Ordnance weapon has 3x the range and still insta-kills the important units
I like the fact that its a Chaos-only unit and not a spikey Codex choice (as Sanctjud will point out)
I like that I'm not easy prey to a few Marines with Krak Grenades.

To be honest, I think a Defiler/Vindicator combo would work well. Vindicator up front, Defiler in back.

True it really is an excellent choise, just a real big target. I don't use my dakka pred that often either. I almost always use just oblits.

I never understood the fascination of the the dakka predator. 6 non twin linked BS4, S5 shots just isnt that amazing unless youre tailoring your list for orks or nids.

Night Lords wrote:I never understood the fascination of the the dakka predator. 6 non twin linked BS4, S5 shots just isnt that amazing unless youre tailoring your list for orks or nids.

its also pretty decent against horde IG

plus its at only 100 points.

well IronFront, in defense of vindicators moving cover is not to be overlooked. when I play chaos, which isnt much these days, I *always* bring my own terrain... ie a gutted predator, vindicator, something, even occasionally a land raider. all you really have is the rhino rush and considering how shooty the badguys are these days cover just doesnt do it. not here anyway. anyway stick a melta on that vindicator when they blow off the cannon they'll forget aaaalllllll about it....

about defilers... even the lowly dreadnought smashes this thing in close combat. lascannons, even autocannons can smash it but have a harder time than against the vindicator. vindicators, however, smoke nobz in mega armor and terminators........

Dreds only beat out defilers because of the higher I, if it doesn't hit or destroy it the defiler can attack ba@ck with many more attacks.

IronfrontAlex wrote:Dreds only beat out defilers because of the higher I, if it doesn't hit or destroy it the defiler can attack ba@ck with many more attacks.

I believe there was recently a post about the chances of a Dread beating a Defiler in HtH.
End result was that if the Defiler charges, it will usually win.

minigun762 wrote:

IronfrontAlex wrote:Dreds only beat out defilers because of the higher I, if it doesn't hit or destroy it the defiler can attack ba@ck with many more attacks.

I believe there was recently a post about the chances of a Dread beating a Defiler in HtH.
End result was that if the Defiler charges, it will usually win.

Basically i fine the defiler to be the best walker in close combat aside from the furiso

but it almost certainly will destroy it.... because its init. 4.... like you said... also it hits on 3s.

point taken

GloryToThe16th wrote:but it almost certainly will destroy it.... because its init. 4.... like you said... also it hits on 3s.

Take a look at this Glory. Its not quite as bad as it seems, especially since Defiler has Fleet and therefore is more likely to get the charge in.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/277584.page

ummm... this might be worthy of a new thread... but i'll tell you what i thought about his argument.

if i understand him right then he's treating each die roll as a 1/6 chance of anything happening, mashing the stats of the dread and the defiler together to get a bunch of fractions, then dividing the fractions out to get his percentages.

for instance: let's say there's two marines in close combat and you want to know how likely each is to kill his opponent. 1 attack a piece, 4+ to hit 4+ to wound 3+ saves gives you odds of 1/2 x 1/2 x1/3 or 1/12. so each attack has a 1/12 chance. so far so good.

what you *cannot* do, and what i suspect he did (could be wrong), is say I have 4 attacks so 1/12 + 1/12 + 1/12 + 1/12 = 4/12 or 1/3. if I have 4 attacks I have a 1 in 3 chance of killing the marine. the reason you cant do this is that each dice roll is an independently random event; not an ordered stack of predictable outcomes. in other words if you roll 1,000 dice it's just as likely that you'll roll a thousand 1's as it is you'll get any other specific combination. do you see what i mean? put another way, if you could add your fractions together, all you'd have to do to kill a terminator is make it roll 6 armor saves, because each roll is a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 1, and 1/6 x 6 = 6/6 or 100% chance of rolling a 1. if this were true the terminator would always always always die. but we all know from experience that this isnt true. test it out: roll 6 dice 10 times and see what happens. once in a while you'll get 1 2 3 4 5 6, but more often its 1 1 2 3 4 6 or 1 4 5 5 6 6 or something like that. if the terminator lives even once then the mathematical model we're using is inadequate.

so basically i dont think his math fully captures the complexity of the situation. I don't know how to properly model 40k... I'm a math major but I'm just starting and haven't gotten that far into it. what I'm absolutely certain of is that math hammer is educated guessing with numbers, not the kind of math that keeps bridges and skyscrapers from collapsing.

because I don't know how to properly model 40k with math, I just ran the combat between the dreadnought and the defiler 20 times, 10 times with the dread charging and 10 times with the defiler charging. in fairness to the dread i gave it two close combat weapons, since the guy on the other thread assumed the defiler had two. the dread won 8 times and lost twice when it charged, and won 6 times and lost 4 times when the defiler charged. and the defiler costs 50 extra points.

GloryToThe16th wrote:put another way, if you could add your fractions together, all you'd have to do to kill a terminator is make it roll 6 armor saves, because each roll is a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 1, and 1/6 x 6 = 6/6 or 100% chance of rolling a 1. if this were true the terminator would always always always die. but we all know from experience that this isnt true.

You are exactly right. If I remember correctly, its the difference between averages and probability. On average a Terminator will die after 6 wounds. The probability of it dying is actually the chance of it not making 6 successful saves which is about 66% if I did the math right.
Now while there is a big difference 100% vs 66%, I think most people are willing to go with averages and just let the dice do their thing.

I just ran the combat between the dreadnought and the defiler 20 times, 10 times with the dread charging and 10 times with the defiler charging. in fairness to the dread i gave it two close combat weapons, since the guy on the other thread assumed the defiler had two. the dread won 8 times and lost twice when it charged, and won 6 times and lost 4 times when the defiler charged. and the defiler costs 50 extra points.

Those results are more in line with what I originally expected, though to be fair I would expect the Defiler to have a much larger advantage against the more standard shooty arm/DCCW arm loadout.

I think it would be more fair (or at least more representative of a usual match-up) to run a standard gun/CCW Dread against a 4xCCW Defiler. A 4xCCW Defiler is still a useful shooty unit, as it has a battlecannon. A 2xCCW Dread is nothing but close-combat.

Does it really matter? The Defiler likely got shot turn 1.

But in all seriousness, how often is that matchup going to occur. It really has nothing to do with list building as Dreads are in the weaker Elite slots and Defilers are in the important Heavy Slots.

Depends on what you like.