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Just wanting to know if it is better to have a 10 man squad or 5 man squads of reguler CSM??

10 man = 2 special weapons and fills a single Rhino nicely.
5 man = 1 special and does MSU so-so.

Witch do most people go for?

is it possible to put 2 diffrent 5man in one rhino if it is not taken as a dedicated tranny?

You can't buy Rhinos except as dedicated transports. Most people go for 10 to a Rhino.

Take 10 man squads, you can't put two squads into a rhino. A 10 man squad with a fistychamp and two special weapons of choice is one of the most potent things you can field, best cost/performance you can get out of regular CSM.

whats the best combo of SW?

It's personal preference, but the melta reinforces the agressive nature of chaos marines in general, and gives them potent closerange anti armor or anti MEQ/TEQ pre-assault shooting.
For pure effectiveness you should also give the squad chaos glory for the morale rerolls. There's nothing quite as silly as watching your LD10 10k year old astartes flee the table because of a bad LD roll.
I personally prefer my first 2 squads as dual melta, and the third to be dual flamer after that. I then alternate melta to flamer squads, one for every 500 pts of the list.

I'd also consider one 7-8 man unit of plague marines with plasma guns for holding an objective, there are few things more difficult to remove from an objective than plague marines in cover. Of course, regular CSM work(say, 10 with a heavy weapon so they're not just sitting there useless), but they're vastly less durable to massed fire and feel no pain makes plasma guns fantastic to field.

At the moment i am running 2 squads of 1ksons, and the CSM are to get HW into the front lines, oblits will be the heavy support.

Ive found 10 to a rhino works well. And those heavy weapons can really make a diff..

ChaosBeast73 wrote:Ive found 10 to a rhino works well. And those double special weapons can really make a diff..

-I fixed that for you.

I just wish i didn't have to field 10 to get a missile launcher :/

Attomsk wrote:I just wish i didn't have to field 10 to get a second special weapon:/

-Fixed that too.

Sanctjud wrote:

Attomsk wrote:I just wish i didn't have to field 10 to get a second special weapon:/

-Fixed that too.

Not really, he was right the first time, a missile launcher is a heavy weapon, not a special, and only if you get 10 men


I'm running 2 squads of 7 zerkers an 2 squads of 6 noise marines in 1750 points.

with kharn and a lord with deamon weapon, if i support a unit when it assaults i usually win combat

You misunderstand the point of my 'fixes' SCYTHE9.
If I must explain it, it's somewhat jokingly poking at the more 'chaosy' choice for CSM would be double special weapons and IMO the more competitive and 'only' choice for them.

That's what the emocons are there for at the least (representing a joke).

It's a crappy joke. Taking a Heavy Weapon in a Chaos Space Marine squad can be a very good idea if you take the right army.

Given the effectiveness of min-maxed Plague Marine squads, I never take regular CSM...ever...

Plague Marines are only more effective than Chaos Space Marines in one way: they are more effective at dying. With a minimum sized squad you finally have a squad that enemy Melta weapons can destroy if your opponent decided to leave Plasma at home and go full-Melta. Of course, you never go full Melta...

Actually, Plague marines also get no FNP against plasma, because of the ap2. Either way, they lose.

JSK-Fox wrote:Actually, Plague marines also get no FNP against plasma, because of the ap2. Either way, they lose.

true. still a +2 to wound and Ap2. goes clean through.

its the oblits and slaan prince you need to watch out for!

They lose worse if someone brought Plasma Guns instead of Melta Guns. Twice the shots makes a difference. Then there's Battlecannons, Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons, Missile Launchers, Demolisher Cannons, and so on. Basically any weapon that murders MEQs murders Plague Marines and more efficiently because they're so expensive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Plasma Guns do a similar number on Obliterators and Daemon Princes. More reliable against Obliterators, and more efficient against Daemon Princes.

Taking a Heavy Weapon in a Chaos Space Marine squad can be a very good idea if you take the right army.

Well, what is the right army? The Spiky SMurf one? Do you use that option of a heavy weapon? 'Cause I really don't see it excercised nor suggested too often.

Granted, any unit combination can be answered that way. From what I've seen/hear/read the double specials are the standard, though anything else can work, but just doesn't look as good, at least to me.
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Plague Marines are only more effective than Chaos Space Marines in one way: they are more effective at dying. With a minimum sized squad you finally have a squad that enemy Melta weapons can destroy if your opponent decided to leave Plasma at home and go full-Melta. Of course, you never go full Melta...

Sounds a bit like some PM hate going on there Nurglitch.
Plague Marines even if blow awayable by melta spam (what isn't really) are better than CSMs in multiple ways, not just one.

They min/max special weapons better.
They receive charges better.

That's 2 right there, on top of your suggestion that's 3.

Min/maxing special weapons isn't a great idea. While it gives you more special weapons to begin the game, it makes the unit smaller and more vulnerable to shooting. As for receiving charges, if we qualify that as better at receiving charges from units that aren't specialized for close combat, then I agree. Yeah, they could ward off that Tactical Squad better in close combat than a points-equivalent Chaos Space Marine squad, but it doesn't matter since the Tactical Marines are going to sit still, shoot, and let their Terminators/Dreadnoughts/Vanguard/etc do the charging.

Nurglitch wrote:Plague Marines are only more effective than Chaos Space Marines in one way: they are more effective at dying. With a minimum sized squad you finally have a squad that enemy Melta weapons can destroy if your opponent decided to leave Plasma at home and go full-Melta. Of course, you never go full Melta...

Yeaaaaaa...no. Not in my experience. Fearless is huge, defensive grenades are huge, double special weapon at any squad size is huge, T4(5) and FNP are huge.

Anything drops to plasma and melta fire. If everyone thought like you, nobody would be running Terminators...they're only 1/3 more survivable vs. plasma and melta fire.

Well that's just super for you and your experience.

This is a good thing.
They work in more ways than one, yay for not being boring, nor predictable......kinda .

In general, if it's PM's, the great balance tactically and fluffingly is 7; Nurgle's Favored Number.

I'll agree on run 10 CSM if you're using them. It fits in the rhino and opens up all of your weapon options. I'm in the two special weapons camp. I just don't think CSM do heavy weapons well. They're expensive and you're basically chaining 9 not-exactly-cheap dudes to one shot. If you could grab a HW in a 5 man squad, I'd be much more inclined to look at them.

I run the Plague Marine 7 as well. I really like having the 2nd special weapon open up early. I'm not positive a champion is worthwhile though. If you run meltas, you probably need to run two squads of them. My only issue with these guys is my oppoents tend to run so many power fists/claws/weapons that they just get rolled in close combat. They're great against small arms and crappy blast templates, but those seem to be getting uncommon in my area.

Berzerkers I like between 8 and 10. Fist champ is well worth it here. If I could run these with specials I'd probably only run zerks.

Haven't used the other cults. Sort of want to try Noise Marines but the cost seems at least 2 pts over what they should be. 1k Sons would probably be good given the number of marines I have but meh.