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Draigo wrote:I like the defiler.. People dwell on the canon but they forget hes also a fleet dread lol have him run and shoot at stuff and who cares if they blow off the canon.. now hes assaulting you and rippin you to pieces. As far as the stated thing with the second daemon prince is cheese etc.. I'd blow that off. The "cheese" arguement is abused and is becoming a synonym for "waah*tear you beat me and in any other list dice roll whatever they had you BUT it must be that one thing." Their cheese is starting to mold their brain.

Says the GK player

Yours is more thematic towards Khorne I guess. But its less versatile honestly. For example, in objective games, his plague marines are better because they are far more durable to being shot at while camping on an objective.

And he has more shooting. Yours is now almost entirely a close combat army. Yours has one more slight problem too. Given that it has 5 whole squads of berzerkers on foot, you could run into a case of a jam of bodies.

If your opponent deployed mainly on one side of the table, while you deployed across the whole table, parts of your army won't get into combat until very late because they are all foot sloggers.

Are 5 T5 models more durable than 8 T4 models when camped in 4+ cover? As for a traffic jam of bodies, I am a seasoned foot horde guard commander, 40 models won't be too much to deal with.

I'm more concerned about where PMs are clearly more durable, namely turns 2 and 3. After that, the advantage swings to khorne once the second round of close combat starts. I guess it's sort of tough to compare, though, as nurgle is a shooty army and khorne is a choppy army.

I guess what I need to know, then, is how good of a job a pair of demon princes do at absorbing high strength fire on turns 1 and 2. Is it enough to keep plasma from shooting berzerkers? Is this a case where I should dump the fifth berzerker squad for a big squad of summoned lesser demons (or perhaps IoCG CSM) to bulk the numbers up? I also read somewhere about DPs hiding in with the berzerkers to take cover saves, would this be better than just charging forward as a grand distraction?

There's no possible way we could see a battle report from this list, is there?

Ailaros wrote:All of them.

It would be something like...

DP, MoK, Wings
DP, MoK, Wings

8x berzerkers, fist
8x berzerkers, fist
8x berzerkers, fist
8x berzerkers, fist
8x berzerkers, PW

2x obliterators
2x obliterators
2x obliterators

Or something. 40 berzerkers running forward. Turn 2 the DPs hit and the obliterators deepstrike. Turn 3 the berzerkers hit, the other obliterators arrive, and the first obliterators shoot and charge. Everything in close combat for the rest of the game.

Certainly the khorne models by themselves aren't as durable, and without the free KP wrapper for a turn, but there are more of them, and berzerkers do more damage per model, so they can get away with having slightly fewer surviving models.

I mean, I've got to think that if this list works, a khorne variation could as well. Still don't know about the defiler, though.

First off, the Berzerkers NEED rhinos. Moving 6+d6 inches per turn when not in transports is just asking to get blown off the table. Cover helps keep them alive, but slows them down. Also, Khorne Berzerkers are great at what they're meant to do, which is torrent things to death with high numbers of high quality attacks, but they're just regular marines when it comes to holding objectives, and become worse when you consider the fact that they have no real ranged weapon to speak of. They're better than Death Company in the sense that they have the ABILITY to hold objectives, but that's really not where you want them to be, ESPECIALLY on the back field. Run 1 squad of them, 2 max, unless you're going for a fluffy list, in which case this will be a lot of fun (adding rhinos) but won't be the most competitive list.

The Khorne Daemon Princes are deceptive. A str6 monsterous creature with 6 attacks on the charge (at WS7!) seems bonkers, but when you math-hammer it vs a Daemon Prince with warptime and any other mark, the latter (with warptime) comes out on top every time. Mark of Nurgle also bumps the toughness up to a magic 6, meaning str4 close combat and shooting attacks (basically everything) wound on 6s, and plasma weaponry wounds on 3s instead of 2s, which is HUGE. I actually have one of my "Nurgle" daemon princes painted up as a Khorne Daemon prince and just use the nurgle/warptime loadout. If anyone argues, I just say that it's a really tough Khorne daemon that happens to be so good in combat that he rerolls hits and wounds! XD

Also, deepstriking or charging your obliterators is a bad idea. You want those bad boys on the table from turn 1 blasting away at things with lascannons and plasma cannons, not stuck in reserve. Also, even though they have 2A base power fists, running such a valuable model into close combat is far too risky. They can fist things like marines (without fists) or guardsmen, but anything other than that is too dangerous.

Overall, I really love that list for it's fluffy qualities. Who doesn't want to see a horde of Berzerkers running across the table screaming bloody murder? But in the end, it's not as competitive as other chaos lists I've seen, or the one I built (really not trying to sound arrogant here).

I'm headed to my LGS tomorrow for testing, and painting more berzerkers tonight. Wish me luck!

Edit: Should have a battle report up tomorrow from a game vs either Necrons, Space Wolves, or Imperial Guard. Might not be comprehensive, but should give you all the right idea. Thanks for all the comments folks!

Do let me know how the tourney goes! th3maninblak ! Good luck and I hope Chaos Space Marines will rock!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ailaros wrote:Are 5 T5 models more durable than 8 T4 models when camped in 4+ cover? As for a traffic jam of bodies, I am a seasoned foot horde guard commander, 40 models won't be too much to deal with.

I'm more concerned about where PMs are clearly more durable, namely turns 2 and 3. After that, the advantage swings to khorne once the second round of close combat starts. I guess it's sort of tough to compare, though, as nurgle is a shooty army and khorne is a choppy army.

I guess what I need to know, then, is how good of a job a pair of demon princes do at absorbing high strength fire on turns 1 and 2. Is it enough to keep plasma from shooting berzerkers? Is this a case where I should dump the fifth berzerker squad for a big squad of summoned lesser demons (or perhaps IoCG CSM) to bulk the numbers up? I also read somewhere about DPs hiding in with the berzerkers to take cover saves, would this be better than just charging forward as a grand distraction?

There's no possible way we could see a battle report from this list, is there?

His plague marines are definitely more durable. They also have full no pain rule besides the T4(5). So, he gets to make 2 saves normally while the zerkers will only get one save. The problem is that your daemon prince will go in first, and your zerkers only the turn after (at the very fastest). So, a shooty army has an easy strategy. Focus all shooting on your 2 princes, kill them, then next turn focus all shooting on the rest of the zerkers.

Don't rely on obliterators successfully deepstriking in when you want them. I have had terminators come in from deep strike only on turn 5. If you get lousy rolls, then none of your obliterators will come in until turn 4. Then that makes it even more easy for your opponent to kill off your army because it is coming in in drips and drabs.

Good Luck, Tell Dave I said "Hey"

Got in 2 games today. I didn't take full battle reports, but I'll give as specific of a description as I can.

Game 1: Space Wolves

His list was a Rune Priest, Wolf Priest, Raider full of Bloodclaws (with wolf guard), 2 rhinos full of Grey hunters and one Grey Hunter drop pod (also with wolf guard), 2 squads of wolf scouts, and 2 squads of missile launcher Long Fangs. Game type was Annihilation, Spearhead deployment. I managed to wipe a squad of Long Fangs early on from plasma cannon shooting, and used LoS blocking terrain to render the other one largely ineffective. I pretty much ignored the Land Raider (until he used it's contents to multi assault my oblits and wipe them in the final turns of the game) and focused on downing his grey hunters with a combination of Daemon Princes and Berzerkers. Both melta scout squads went after my Defiler and wiffed, so he ate them.

Result- Victory for Chaos, 6 kill points to 4.

Game 2: Imperial Guard

A fully Mechanized list. Joy... Rolled up Pitched Battle with 5 objectives. His list consisted of 5 Vet squads in Chimeras (melta/plasma), Command Squad in a Chimbera, 2 LRBTs, and a manticore. I wrecked his manticore on turn 1, and stunned a LRBT, all the while moving the Plague marine rhinos up the field, with Daemon Princes and Berzerkers behind it. I made some pretty lucky cover saves during his shooting phase, and by the time my turn rolled around it was all over. He had repositioned himself during his movement phase and had thus gotten just a little too close. The Daemon Princes managed to kill one LRBT and wipe his command squad (after some good melta shots), and the Berzerkers multi assaulted 2 other Chimeras. At that point it was pretty much over, as Chaos is pretty much the king of close range firefights.

Result- Victory for Chaos, 4 objectives to 1.

All hail the Dark Gods!

Edit: Oops! 4 objectives to 1, not 4 to 5

Congrats on your wins, Close match there with the Space Wolves dont you agree

I have to say this list does look pretty damn awesome! And obviously is awesome, judging from the results you are getting. So Congrats on the wins.

I'm with Ailaros in that making a Khorne version of this list would be good as i do love big K and his choppy choppy'ness, but this list of yours is so damn good looking i'm going to have to shamlessly copy it! Just need to do some "counts as" models for the time being as i only own 7 PM's and my DP's are Khorne and Slannesh in colours but that's not an issue really as i play at an independant gaming store who are cool with counts as/proxy models and such.

I'm also loving how you've got a working Defiler in there as i love mine, it's a great model, but it's normally a model sitting in my "killed" pile quickly! Hence why i don't often use it. However i don't normally run with with a duel Prince list so can see it will make most people wanna kill the DP's first and ignore the Defiler.

So just to clarify, you move the rhinos 12" and use them to give your DP's and zerker rhino a cover save, then turn two/three pop and transports and get the DP's and zerkers to nom nom the goodness inside?

May well have to use this list at my LGS tomorrow. I'm also wondering how you would drop this list to a 1500 one as most of our games are 1500? Don't have my codex to hand as i'm work so i'm guessing drop one or two squads of plagues, and perhaps take off an oblit or two.

But anyway, great list!

A Khorne version is in the works right now, using Khorne Berzerkers and IoK Chaos Space Marines (need the special weapons).

Thanks for the compliments! And that's exactly how this army works. Everything grants a cover save to everything else, essentially. That way, everything your opponent shoots at has an automatic 4++. Just continue leapfrogging until you get within Melta/Rapid Fire/Assault range of the enemy and then cut loose. Against more agressive armies (Dark Eldar, Blood Anges DoA, and Orks) you have to play more conservatively, using terrain and your Plague Marine rhinos to block off their assault lanes, forcing them to deal with the metal bawkses and get tied up with the Plague Marines. Then, you counter assault with Zerkers, Princes and the Defiler.

At 1500 I run an entirely different list. Unfortunately, the way the numbers work out means this type of list does best at 1,750+. At 1500, I'd drop both squads of Plasma Plague Marines and put some toys on the remaining rhinos. I'm not sure if it'll work, but it's worth a shot.

Good idea, however I think you should drop a squad of plague marines for chosen and the defiler for oblitz. Always run defilers in twos, solo would be suicide.

th3maninblak wrote:So after taking a hiatus from my Chaos Space Marines to work on my crimson fists, I decided to return to them for an upcoming 1,750 tournament in december. The list I've put together has been nothing short of brutal, and as well it should be: I'm basically making the cheesiest chaos army possible at this point.

Testing has been a blast. Anything other than a perfectly optimized list from one of the most recent codices pretty much just folds to this, and at my LGS, I can't expect to see many of those. I think I have a pretty good shot at winning. Anyway, enough rambling. Here it is.

HQ
-Daemon Prince (175 points)
Wings
Mark of Nurgle
Warptime

-Daemon Prince (175 points)
Wings
Mark of Nurgle
Warptime

Troops
-5x Plague Marines (170 points)
2x Melta
Rhino

-5x Plague Marines (170 points)
2x Melta
Rhino

-5x Plague Marines (180 points)
2x Plasma
Rhino

-5x Plague Marines (180 points)
2x Plasma
Rhino

-8x Khorne Berzerkers (248 points)
Champion with Power Fist
Rhino with Dozer Blades

Heavy Support
-Defiler (150 points)
2x Extra DCCW

-2x Obliterators (150 points)

-2x Obliterators (150 points)

Total- 1,748

So I've got another 5 point upgrade in there somewhere, maybe a Personal Icon on the Zerkers so I can deep strike the oblits in if I need to. The list suffers from a lack of long range firepower, as per the usual with the chaos dex, but not nearly as much as most lists. It has strong shooting elements (both at close range and long) and 4 balls-to-the-wall counter assault units in the form of the Zerkers, Princes, and defiler.

Thoughts? Suggestions? I wanna win this tournament.

Edit: Added Dozer Blades to the Berzerker Rhino

Id drop a squad of PMs or the zerkers for some chosen with maxed out plasma or maxed out Meltas. maybe even run 2 squads maxed out. I know I always get good performance out of my maxed out special weapon chosen squads. And that would really help with the anti vehicle. but I mean other than that you have an excellent list already.

We're talking in circles a bit here, folks. I do have a question... How would you all go about beating this list?

th3maninblak wrote:We're talking in circles a bit here, folks. I do have a question... How would you all go about beating this list?

With which codex, army or what? Sayin how you beat this is very open ended as you can see.

th3maninblak wrote:We're talking in circles a bit here, folks. I do have a question... How would you all go about beating this list?

I'd play DE, thats how I'd go about beating this list, lol.

I would play my Ork list and talk badly about you to both Khorne and Nurgle and hope you fall out of grace with them! Then Waaagh

My list (which is similar to yours in a lot of ways) loses really to two things. Pure much armies ( a la blood angel razorback spam) and to shooty armies like tau. Hordes and superunits are, on occasion, problematic simply due to sheer dice roll volumes (nobs/warbikers in particular come to mind).

I don't see de being a huge tobe honest. There's enough ffn and tough units in the mix to handle wyches and warriors in melee if it comes to that and while blasterborn and lance spam* can* pop a,lot of the armor early on, they really don't have a good reliable way of killing the princes in succession (save for maybe an archon with a retinue). I play with raptors and chosen as dedicated anti-tank and in the later case squad mopup, so as long as you can get them there, they wreak havoc. The only unit I see in the base list with no chance against a standard de list is the poor defiler, he's probably fethed.

Also stupid autocorrect for android - _-

dracosz wrote:

I don't see de being a huge tobe honest. There's enough ffn and tough units in the mix to handle wyches and warriors in melee if it comes to that and while blasterborn and lance spam* can* pop a,lot of the armor early on, they really don't have a good reliable way of killing the princes in succession (save for maybe an archon with a retinue). I play with raptors and chosen as dedicated anti-tank and in the later case squad mopup, so as long as you can get them there, they wreak havoc. The only unit I see in the base list with no chance against a standard de list is the poor defiler, he's probably fethed.

DE have disintegrators, S5 AP2 3 shots. Negates FnP, wounds PMs on 4+ no save. I get tore up by these all day lol.

And for taking out princes its just regular kabalites with all their poison weapons wounding on 4+ and splinter racks so they can reroll misses in shooting.

For vehicles its Dark Lances.

DE can really mess up CSM. Pretty much any MEQ.

DE are a pain in the arse.. I hate facing them with rhinos espeacially. Plus against power armor things like disintegrators, hellions etc an reduce them to nothing even without assaulting.

If you're playing an meq army against de and aren't using the benefit of cover for your squads then you're doing it wrong =P: de really don't have a reliable way to negate that (unless they're running a razoring maybe). Again, short of an annihilation game, I don't see de CRUSHING this list if the chaos player abuses cover right. It would definitely be an uphill battle at times but not something insurmountable like you're trying to claim.

Perhaps. Its the fact that I run with a single lash sorcerer over a second prince as well that gives me a bit of positional flexibility. *shrug*

Personally, I see tau shooty lists and ig mech being the real issue. Sure you can pop parking lots but vendettas/valks with vets can really ruin your day...

Edit: damn you autocorrect...

dracosz wrote:If you're playing an meq army against de and aren't using the benefit of cover for your squads then you're doing it wrong =P: de really don't have a reliable way to negate that (unless they're running a razoring maybe). Again, short of an annihilation game, I don't see de CRUSHING this list if the chaos player abuses cover right. It would definitely be an uphill battle at times but not something insurmountable like you're trying to claim.

Perhaps. Its the fact that I run with a single lash sorcerer over a second prince as well that gives me a bit of positional flexibility. *shrug*

Personally, I see tau shooty lists and ig mech being the real issue. Sure you can pop parking lots but vendettas/valks with vets can really ruin your day...

Edit: damn you autocorrect...

vs over a dozen hellions with baron even cover isnt great. Just cause your not insta killled making 50 saves isnt awesome. I am not saying anyone will be crushed but my own dislike of running rhinos of any kind vs them and how power armor/cover isnt reliable depending what type of de you are against.

dracosz wrote:If you're playing an meq army against de and aren't using the benefit of cover for your squads then you're doing it wrong =P: de really don't have a reliable way to negate that (unless they're running a razoring maybe). Again, short of an annihilation game, I don't see de CRUSHING this list if the chaos player abuses cover right. It would definitely be an uphill battle at times but not something insurmountable like you're trying to claim.

Perhaps. Its the fact that I run with a single lash sorcerer over a second prince as well that gives me a bit of positional flexibility. *shrug*

Personally, I see tau shooty lists and ig mech being the real issue. Sure you can pop parking lots but vendettas/valks with vets can really ruin your day...

Edit: damn you autocorrect...

Lol, yeah I actually don't use cover that much at all with my CSM lists. I always run rhino rush so when my stuff gets popped DE usually get a turn or 2 to unload on my hand full of PMs with some nice AP2 lol.

I never run lash in my lists I've been a diehard MoN, WT, wings kinda guy myself. I know lash is suppoused to be good, but the way I play I've just found it more practical to use the nurgle build.

As far as Tau go I don't believe I've ever lost to them with my CSM, almost every time I've played Tau it was like a walk in the park compaired to the Hell I have to go through to try and beat the DE lists I've played, lol.

Dark Eldar is a weird matchup. On the one hand, Dark Lances don't have a hard time popping my transports, and poisoned weapons are awesome against my T6 Daemons, but torrenting with poisond 4+ firepower does very little against Plague Marines and Obliterators. Granted, I lean very heavily on these two things in this matchup, but it does make it winnable.

Guard is a terrible matchup for this army. I've just played against it so damn much that I know exactly what it's capable of and how to beat it. I'd say that my win/loss record versus IG is probably more due to my knowledge of the army than my CSMs, though they help a great deal.

I haven't played Tau with this exact list yet, but in my previous experience, they have to go first to have a real advantage. This army is mobile enough that one turn of unhindered movement is all it takes to get close enough to put a hurt on them. If they do win the roll off, however, you need to deploy as well as you can, using any LoS blocking terrain or cover to your advantage.

I'm almost done tweaking 2 more variants of this army, one with a Khorne/World Eaters theme and another with chosen. Those will come later.

One matchup I'm afraid of is Purifier Spam Grey Knights. Str5 force halberds, Psycannons, and Psyflenoughts seem like they'll be a huge pain.

Where GK will frustrate you the most is the prefered enemy vs your dp and oblits. As far the halberds itd be very similar to wg or assault termies with claws cept you can shoot the crap out of them since they lack wounds and models lol Have you played razorback spam ba or sw with this yet? those could be rough I would imagine.

power blob guard wouldn't be too poorly off. Guard shooting can open up transports or take down the DPs, and the melta hedge can handle most of what's left. The berzerkers would be somewhat of a problem, but PMs lose to power blobs in close combat.

KP games would go to foot guard hands down, as breaking down a 40-dude power blob is a little more challenging than acing a rhino. While there is enough MSU in this list to be competitive on objectives, no one of those units (except the berzerkers) has all that much staying power in close combat. FNP doesn't work against power weapons after all.

What you've got here does really well against lists that are similar to your kind of list (hence being good in tournaments), but I fear it would struggle against lists that excel in the world of proper terrain and no time limits, like horde armies.

Ailaros wrote:power blob guard wouldn't be too poorly off. Guard shooting can open up transports or take down the DPs, and the melta hedge can handle most of what's left. The berzerkers would be somewhat of a problem, but PMs lose to power blobs in close combat.

KP games would go to foot guard hands down, as breaking down a 40-dude power blob is a little more challenging than acing a rhino. While there is enough MSU in this list to be competitive on objectives, no one of those units (except the berzerkers) has all that much staying power in close combat. FNP doesn't work against power weapons after all.

What you've got here does really well against lists that are similar to your kind of list (hence being good in tournaments), but I fear it would struggle against lists that excel in the world of proper terrain and no time limits, like horde armies.

If the foot guard player is running a Stealth Pants Lord Comissar, then its a pretty big problem. This list does suffer against horde armies, and you've raised some points I hadn't thought of. This is a Mech/MSU list designed to bring down other Mech/MSU lists. In fact, my 1 loss to guard was to a foot list.

FNP may not work against power weapons, but T5 does. Guardsmen needing 6s to wound provides some protection, and most everything else wounds on 5. And you forget that the Daemon Princes provide a close combat rock. T6, 3+/5++, four wounds and Eternal Warrior goes a long way.

Thanks for the advice. You've definitely given me some food for thought.

Also, anyone interested in seeing the Berzerker list should PM me. What I came up with is wildly different from the posted army, so I really didn't want to put it here. It might be my next project though, as I just got done painting my counts-as Kharn the Betrayer Model, and I've been meaning to buy a landraider for some time.

One final update: Only 1 more model left to paint and this army is 100% complete! Of course, it happens to be an obliterator. I hate painting those metal monstrosities...

Not to throw the conversation in a different direction or anything, but what in the world is a "Stealth Pants Lord Comissar"?

A lord commissar with a camo cloak. The camo cloak gives the model stealth. If even one model in a squad has stealth, the whole unit has stealth. As a lord commissar is an independent character, he can wander the field giving stealth to units who need a +1 cover save.

Ailaros wrote:A lord commissar with a camo cloak. The camo cloak gives the model stealth. If even one model in a squad has stealth, the whole unit has stealth. As a lord commissar is an independent character, he can wander the field giving stealth to units who need a +1 cover save.

Oh, thats kind of what I was guessing it was. Only I was kind of hoping it was alot more intricate than that.

Either way seems like a cool little thing. If I ran more blobs in my IG army I'd give it a try, but I'm stuck on Vet Chimera rush right now lol. Just doing too good with it in my current meta to really run anything else lol. Although I have tried some of your power blob ideas before, Ailaros. Power blobs are a great idea and work very well, assuming you know what your doing with them, lol.

Yeah. Leadership 10 stubborn guardsmen with a 3+ cover save are NOT easy to deal with,

I just finished painting the last model for this army! Bonus points at the tournament!

Hopefully I'll be able to test against grey knights this Wednesday. Anybody have any tips on how to handle hordes? Maybe flamers/combi flamers?