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Wow, give whoever wrote THAT into the codex a medal!

Ok, so, I just acquired (via eBay) a Rhino, 5 Terminator models, and two additional Havoc models.

Suggestions? Also, I'm still not sure which of my units to have inside the rhinos.

Rhinos help units get close to the enemy. Who needs to get close to the enemy?

Well, certainly the Berserkers... so I guess I'm really only torn between the Thousand Suns and the normal CSM. Thousand Suns have the invulnerable save, making them more resilient and the rhino may be too much, but they're also really slow. The CSM only have a single Meltagun and aren't fearless... though I suppose I could put the Thousand Suns in the rhino and then use it to screen my CSM for cover.

If you give the CSM 10 models they can take a lascannon or missile launcher, and give you another unit with a 48" range gun. It's not very efficient for the cost, but you want at least one scoring unit holding an objective or two on your side of the table anyway. Once you can afford another Rhino they'll be better with a pair of meltaguns and moving around.

Pretty soon, I'll have 17 models with which I can make units of CSM and/or Havocs and might be able to do this, but for now I can't.

Well, work on those as you go. If you want to make a new post in the Army Lists forum and put a link to it here, and put a link in the Army List post back to this thread for context, we can start building you more lists over there.

Just be sure to give a complete listing of everything you have available for models now (including special and heavy weapons), and maybe a sense of what your budget is/how much stuff you can add in soon.

Done! http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/405942.page#3482853

Ok, this may come off dick-ish, I've played CSM for years, that list will die at any competitive tournament. If you're playing for fun than ok, but you're still going to get whooped :(

The problem with the CSM dex is, the choices after a while become sadly apparent.

Obliterators are really the only good heavy slot..Predators are expensive for what they do. Defilers have a BIG shoot me sign. with only AV12 they will die easy. If they had the AV13 Soul Grinders had, it would be fine, but they don't.

Noise marines are to expensive and Thousand suns are to specialized. They're slow and need to be in a rhino.

Demon Princes are really the only HQ to take, khorne DP's are garbage but the others are good.

So the only troops you got to deal with are marines, zerks, and PM's..

Plague Marines are good, but run them in 7 and depending on the loadout a champ with PF. If they have meltas than champ, plasmas questionable. Zerks you would want a DP with lash of submission to pull people into your zerks. If they are not in CC they are not happy.

Again, Havoks..obliterators will give you more point for point.

Dread is to random to do anything worthwhile.

Termicide is good to go.

Now with that said..

Those extra points invest in a Rhino. the zerks want to bash someones face in, the marines are not fearless so like to run, and the TS are to slow to do anything without wheels.

The two oblits run solo, they'll do a little better with a choice of what you want to kill, watch for lascannons sense they can ID.

Use the havoks against transports only, focus man, FOCUS.

Oblits can switch between las and plas cannons for AT and horde.

This is a lot of good stuff; thanks man! I'm not yet into the competitive scene, and I just play for fun. As a quick aside, you can find my first army list earlier in this thread. It is way worse, I think. Using that army list, I was undefeated in about 10 games against IG and Tau, and recently started losing to a more competitive Tau list (and player).

I'm definitely very interested to see how this new list works against that Tau player (and, of course, the IG).

That's good advice, If you want to make cookies.

No doubt it's cookie cutter but the problem is, more often than not, if you don't pick the obvious choices in CSM, then chances are you will fail.

I hate cookie cutter, I love to try new things. Like running a list with as much Chaos Spawn as possible. Granted they where horrible but it was hilarious.

Ahh 3 CC Dreadnaughts and as many spawn as I could fit in 2500 points.

Abyssel wrote: if you don't pick the obvious choices in CSM, then chances are you will fail.

this appears to be true in every army list i have both begged for (Jihallah i remember you ) and thought up on my own. CSM players can atempt to have a special snowflake army, but it needs to be backed up by the usual army choices like DP's, Obliterators, and PM's. you can try to make a special snowflake without the cookie cutter template that you will find, but you are not going to win often, if ever.

just the opinion of someone who didnt get his fries...

My raptors and havocs do me just fine. And Darkhound goes well with his possessed.

Seriously, guys, are we all just playing in a hyper competitive environment? Whatever happened to the beer and pretzels games =\?

I mean, everyone wants to win, but does everyone want to win that bad where they have to take the most competitive army they can think of? Doesn't sound like fun to me =\...

Abyssel wrote:Obliterators are really the only good heavy slot..Predators are expensive for what they do. Defilers have a BIG shoot me sign. with only AV12 they will die easy. If they had the AV13 Soul Grinders had, it would be fine, but they don't. . . . Again, Havoks..obliterators will give you more point for point.

Point for point, Havocs and Predators are both more durable with a higher damage output. All the Obliterators' extra guns for anti-infantry are redundant when the rest of the army is composed of anti-infantry already. It is viable because of the Lascannon and Multi-melta, both of which have a lower output than two Autolas Preds or an AC or ML Havoc squad.

Wow, someone showed up late to the party to repeat all the internet received wisdom about Chaos.

Well, I'm sure he regularly plays Chaos at big events.

I don't play competitively at all, and only with friends. I guess I have one big question: What is the "proper" setup for Obliterators and when would you take them? 3 units of 3 models each and only take them in a take-all-comers list?

Tangent wrote:I don't play competitively at all, and only with friends. I guess I have one big question: What is the "proper" setup for Obliterators and when would you take them? 3 units of 3 models each and only take them in a take-all-comers list?

What do you mean by "proper" set up for obliterators? And I run a unit of 3, nothing more because I hate the models.

I mean, how many units, how many models per unit, and how are they best used (ie, should they deep strike)?

Tangent wrote:I mean, how many units, how many models per unit, and how are they best used (ie, should they deep strike)?

I've always found that deep striking them is a little bit silly since I need the fire power on the field, but some do deep strike them and use the melta/flamers.

Agreed. I rarely DS them, usually needing the lascannons or plasmacannons on the field and firing from turn 1.

I commonly run two squads of two and a squad of havocs. I don't usually take squads of three except in big games. In a small game (1k or something) if points are tight you might go with singles.

point for point preds and havoks do more damage yes, but competitively you may face IG blobs or so on. so that pred you just put points into will do nothing. trust me, i once had 3 preds whom i could equip however I wanted, but after years of playing Oblitz have proven themselves more.

I still do play beer and pretzel, and I'm not out to win, but to have fun (which is why i now play tau.) but when you sit there with nothing to do, that is not fun unless your definition differs from mine.

Abyssel wrote:point for point preds and havoks do more damage yes, but competitively you may face IG blobs or so on. so that pred you just put points into will do nothing.

A competitive IG army with a blob squad or two still has plenty of armored assets to destroy. Even an exclusively infantry force would have heavy weapon teams, which are prime targets for a Predator. The point of an army of specialists is that when one component is ineffective, the parts specialized in the scenario are effective enough to make up for it. If he literally leaves no targets for my Predator, I am confident enough in my infantry's ability to outfight and outmaneuver that I'm willing to play at a handicap. The Predator is more valuable because he is more effective at what he does in 99% of cases.

Replace Predator with Havocs at your leisure.

Predators are also nice to get more armor saturation into your list. Having more elements which can move 12" for late-game tank shocks and objective-contesting is nice too. Most of the time I prefer Havocs and Oblits, which I like for what they bring to the table in my build, but all three units are solid.

So, what exactly is the Predator so good at?

Depends on the loadout.

Dakkapred- AC and HB sponsons- Infantry. Sheer infantry firepower- its cheap too. Puts out 6 S5 shots and 2 S7 shots for a relatively good price. Not exactly a good target range though, it can threaten light armor with the AC and the heavy bolters might throw glances on, but Its main target is infantry. The AC can instant death T3 or lower models- IG, Eldar etc...

AC/Las pred- AC turret, LC sponsons. The all round approach. It excels at light/medium armor, also known as transports anything AV10-12 doesn't like 2 S7 and 2 S9 shots. The AP2 on the lascannons can be used to snipe marines/termies out of cover if you have nothing else to fire on (an the AC will wound them on 2+). The AC can ID T3 or lower models, the LC can ID T4-space marine multiple wound models, Nobs etc...

Laspred- Lascannon turret and sponsons. Is very expensive for what you get. Really good at blowing vehicles. Shots will be wasted vs infantry, sure you can snipe marines with it, but to pay that much for a couple of marines a turn is painful, and when its a couple of guardsmen or ork boyz because you don't have vehicles to shoot at, alot of potential is being wasted. If you payed under 100p for that it wouldn't be so bad, but a Laspred will set you back 160/180p (can't remember how much the TL LC turret is, its either 40 or 60p, either way WAAAY too much!)

Yup. IIRC it's around 165 for the tri-las. AC/las sponsons, OTOH, is 130. 10 more than SM pay, IIRC, but not bad, really. Good against AV10-12, as mentioned. Not terrible against AV13, and can hurt AV14 in a pinch.

Sounds pretty awesome, the AC/Las loadout seems like the one I would want to use, for sure.