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I'm about to jump into the war game and I want to play Chaos, now may hopes are to have a Slaanesh-y army with noise marines, now I'm brushed up on the fluff and have need playing the Dark Heresy for about a year but I want to know what chaos troops are the best and how do you use them to the fullest of their ability.

The most competitive choices are berserkers and plague marines, because PM will bring the melta to open the transport and KB will pounce on the occupants. Thousand sons are very difficult to play because they lack easy access to reliable anti tank or counter assault powers. For noise marines the hardest thing is not to try and multi task the squad too much, because it gets too expensive. Doom siren champions with a power fist give you a solid assault unit whereas blastmaster squads can camp objectives and provide fire support. Sonic blaster units hold the midfield. Just make sure you take some dedicated tank killers.

Minigun is very correct.

I often do something like

Noise marines
1 Champ w/ Doom Siren (super flamer) + Sonic Blaster + maybe power weapon (optional)
6-8 Noise marines w/ Sonic Blasters (powerful)
Maybe 1-2 Noise marines w/ bolter just as fodder.

In small games I take 1 or 2 such squads. In large games I take 2 or 3. It has no anti-tank ability but it has a bullet output which is staggering.

The 9-man could stand still at edge of a forest pumping out 27 S4 AP5 shots hitting on 3+. That can crush a decent unit of tyranids/orkz/guardsmen/eldar/darkeldar/etc.
They even average 3 marines killed at 24" for just 9 of them. The Doom Siren flamer can kill 3-7 marines instantly even in cover.

If you go with 1-2 of those squads dedicated to crushing anything except tanks, then you need the rest of your army to be able to handle tanks.

I'll bring Plague Marines with meltagun + powerfist as my other troop to pose anti-armor danger.

Then I usually bring as many obliterators as possible (up to 9 if I can afford them.) They're flexible in that they can move-and-shoot, occupy cover well, endanger any armor, and also kill hordes of troops with heavy flamers if needed.
They can deep strike to pop tanks that're hidden in a corner if needed, but normally they're best deployed right away.

To compliment the Slaaneshi troops, I bring 1-2 Slaanesh Lash Princes with wings. They can move 12", psychic an enemy unit 24" away, and do great things like make the enemy jump in front of your flamers (in a teardrop shape so every single one of them dies.)

You can make them bunch up into a ball so your obliterator plasma cannons kill more (or vindicators if you bring those instead.) Lash of Submission also helps get your troopers into combat faster against squishy enemies such as Tau and Imperial Guard and Smurf marines.

6" move on foot, 6" assault, and 2d6" from lash is an average threat range of 17". Shoot 16 S4 shots and one super flamer then jump into combat with 3 I5 S4 attacks per model.

I prefer noise marines over berserkers for fighting any threat except for tanks. Noise marines are amazing at shooting and good at combat, berserkers are garbage at shooting and amazing in combat. On average, I'd rather have the first situation. If you're for some reason bringing a landraider in a chaos army, then it's probably viable to fill it with berzerkers since they'll be moving instead of shooting.

Thousand Sons just plain suck. They do worse in a shoot-out against anything than Noise Marines. They aren't tough like Plague Marines. They're the worst of all marines in close-combat. They lack anti-tank but don't do well against troops (which noise marines Destroy)

Check the article in my sig, but mainly focus on the related discussion thread and you'll get some awesome arguments for and against each cult marine.

Berserksteve wrote:I'm about to jump into the war game and I want to play Chaos, now may hopes are to have a Slaanesh-y army with noise marines, now I'm brushed up on the fluff and have need playing the Dark Heresy for about a year but I want to know what chaos troops are the best and how do you use them to the fullest of their ability.

plague marines, then berserkers, then noise marines, last thousand sons.

plague marines are best used to hold territory, preferrably in cover. they're wicked hard to get rid of and they're good fighters too.
berserkers are best used to charge light infantry and monstrous creatures. they have alot of high quality attacks but heavily armored foes with power weapons, like terminators or nobz, can easily defeat them.
noise marines are best used to hold territory, like plague marines; rather than being hard to get rid of they have pretty good shooting attacks. staying in 1 place is key to using sonic blasters and blastmasters effectively. the variant is to run a small squad with a doom siren, which is also an amazing gun but not at its best when the squad is stationary. park them in cover and blast the crap out of anything within 2 feet of you.
thousand sons are devastating against meqs who are out of cover but are otherwise pretty much just plain dumb. they're overpriced, their 4++ is easily obtainable vs shooting by any unit in the game by making use of cover, and it wont help in close combat, where its really unique to them, because they're so horrible at close combat they'll generally lose it anyway. overpriced, best avoided. but they do counter sisters of battle tolerably well and can be used to spam gift of chaos, so those are both valid uses of them.

hope that helps.
AF

Noise Marines have the cheapest ranged anti-armor min-squad troops option.
280 points to fill your obligatory two troops with Str8 Ap3 Pinning Cupcakes.

minigun762 wrote:The most competitive choices are berserkers and plague marines, because PM will bring the melta to open the transport and KB will pounce on the occupants. Thousand sons are very difficult to play because they lack easy access to reliable anti tank or counter assault powers. For noise marines the hardest thing is not to try and multi task the squad too much, because it gets too expensive. Doom siren champions with a power fist give you a solid assault unit whereas blastmaster squads can camp objectives and provide fire support. Sonic blaster units hold the midfield. Just make sure you take some dedicated tank killers.

This is all true. You did say you wanted to do a Slaaneshi list. Might I suggest 2 squads of Noise Marines in Rhinos and then 2-3 squads of Chaos Space Marines with Mark of Slaanesh? I used to run that with my CSMs and I really enjoyed the list. It certainly isn't amazing but it can be a lot of fun. Another thing I liked to run with this army was a Choas Terminator Lord w/ 2 LCs MoS + 4 Terminators w/2LC MoS in a Land Raider. If you want to go full slaanesh I don't suggest all Noise Marines but it certainly is possible to run it.

Plague Marines and Berserkers are the easiest to apply and best at what they do. <- Makes for a great combo.

NM and TS are in the 'expensive for what they do'. Though the NM eek out ahead of the TS, just cause Sonics will generally outperform the inferno bolts and the Doom Siren is cheaper than a Wind of Chaos Aspiring Sorc.

Regular CSM aren't that bad, they are cheaper than the cult troops.

15 point per model vs 20+. You lose fearless and the unit special rules, in return you get generic scoring units that can hold their own as well as any space marine.

If you want a solid Plague marine unit, try 5 strong, 2 melta, plague champ with combi melta and power sword. Unlike regular marines, you still get your 2 weapon bonus even with the combi weapon (bolt pistol is still there). 3 melta shots should reliably handle most transports (2 hit, 2d6 pens most of the time, 50% pens are destroyed) The power sword gives you at initiative power weapon attacks, which with plagues isn't that great, but against units with PFs and TH, you at least probably will kill something. Fists on the other hand aren't worth the number of points spent most of the time.

As for noise marines... they can be a points sink, so choose a role for them, and stick to the war gear that makes them fill that role.

As for Korne, I'm not a fan of them. The number of attacks is nice, the WS is nice, the FC strength and Initiative is nice, I just don't like their delivery systems. Rhinos can't be assaulted out of, CSM LR aren't very good, and walking usually isn't a good idea.

Thousand sons are what I call a unit that shouldn't be taken lightly. They have glaring weaknesses that take experienced play to compensate for. When used Ideally, they can be amazing, but its really hard to craft that ideal situation.

I run a Noise Marine list and have been quite successful with it so if that is what you want to do. It works.

3 x 5-man NM 4 SB 1 BM in Rhino
2 x 10-man NM Asp Champ w PW, Meltabomb and Doom Siren in Rhino or Landraiders.

2 Lash Demon Princes and usually as many Oblits as I can fit.

I 5 puts you in good stead against most things and the 3 weaponed up NM with the lash can clean anything up.

In general though, I would say Plague Marines are the best - undercosted with FNP versus any of the other 3 choices. Those are troops that will stand up to alot of enemy fire.

Just in case I left it out, one important thing to note with Noise Marines.

Choose a role for the squad.

Never pay for a blastmaster for a squad that's going to assault. It's a complete waste of 40 points if it's not standing still firing blasts from turn 1.

Never pay for combat goods for a sniping squad. If you're gonna sit still far away and shoot a blastmaster, do not buy the champion a power weapon + doom siren. The squad should be long range from anything.

Viable options
Combat (Naked NM, Champ w/ powerweapon or powerfist + doom siren.)
Tactical-shooty (Sonic Blaster NM, Champ w/ Doom siren)
Tactical-assault (Sonic Blaster NM, Champ w/ Doom Siren + powerweapon/powerfist)
Tactical-sniper (Sonic Blaster NM, Blastmaster, naked champ)
Naked-sniper (nothing except for 1 blastmaster)

They're all somewhat viable if you play to the strengths of the gear you gave them and don't buy any gear you'll never use.

I only use builds that include Sonic Blasters because the main reason I take Noise Marines is because they outshoot basic marines/guardsmen/orkz, etc. With regular bolters, they do not outshoot those other armies.
3 shots at 24" makes them hit as hard or harder than Space marine Sternguard, yet they can also shoot 2 then get 3 attacks in combat (5 S4 attacks in a single round.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At 13-24" standing still
10 Noise Marines with sonics kill 1.11 Plague marines per turn.
10 Plague Marines with bolters kill 1.11 Noise marines per turn.

At 13-24" moving
NM kill 0.75 PM. PM kill 0 NM.

At 0-12",
Doom Siren gives shooting to the Noise Marines.
In combat, it depends on who has powerfists/powerweapons and how many guys have been killed by shooting. Plagues probably slightly win unless NM got a flamer off to kill a few.

Plague Marines are amazing against basic infantry fire. They die to plasma guns / plasma cannons and S8-10 ordinance in a flash though. If the enemy has those, he can negate T5, negate FNP, and negate the 3+ marine armor. But if you can protect them from those, they don't do much damage but they're durable. I've had like 30-40 kroot charge a squad of like 6 plague marines and take like 3 turns to kill them.

Never give Plague Marines a Power Weapon if you can help it. They're I3 so they're going after anything the PW would really help you with, go with a Fist or go with nothing IMHO.

Okay, so in my personal opinion, Berzerkers are best. They can really bring the hurt on, and will do some serious damage if you play them right.
Then Noise Marines, because they have a great shooting ability. I use mine as a mobile firing line, blowing holes in things that annoy me.
Thousand Sons are third. They can do some damage with shooting, but they are very expensive and are reliant on their Sorcerer to get anywhere.
Plague Marines. You guys may like them, I don't. They are very slow, even though they can take some punishments, and will get slaughtered in cc because of lower initiative. and they are very expensive.
I would opt for Berzerkers or Noise Marines.

azrael8 wrote:
Plague Marines. You guys may like them, I don't. They are very slow, even though they can take some punishments, and will get slaughtered in cc because of lower initiative. and they are very expensive.
.

Plague Marines are basically CSMs with a few trade offs. You gain alot of small arms durability but you lose out on numbers, speed and overall Bolter shots. For most people, its a fair trade.

I like berserkers as assault troops but I feel like they're lacking a little something.... volume of attacks and slightly higher quality of attacks just isnt enough some times. they're just shy of being top tier imo

Give 'Zerks rending chain axes again, that would be awesomesauce.

I'm going to run a Slaanesh theme army eventually with a couple of squads of NM but just haven't got anywhere near finishing my current stuff ... so sad so sad.

minigun762 wrote:The most competitive choices are berserkers and plague marines, because PM will bring the melta to open the transport and KB will pounce on the occupants. Thousand sons are very difficult to play because they lack easy access to reliable anti tank or counter assault powers. For noise marines the hardest thing is not to try and multi task the squad too much, because it gets too expensive. Doom siren champions with a power fist give you a solid assault unit whereas blastmaster squads can camp objectives and provide fire support. Sonic blaster units hold the midfield. Just make sure you take some dedicated tank killers.

There's a dude that knows his Chaos. Good post.

Plague Marines are just bricks...probably my vote for best core infantry in the game. Nothing raises eyebrows more in fellow players like watching them assault/shoot PMs and being surprised on how many are left standing...

AgeOfEgos wrote:

There's a dude that knows his Chaos. Good post.

Plague Marines are just bricks...probably my vote for best core infantry in the game. Nothing raises eyebrows more in fellow players like watching them assault/shoot PMs and being surprised on how many are left standing...

Well thank you.


The funny thing is, I run with basic CSMs and not cult troops, because I like the super flexible nature of them better.

minigun762 wrote:

AgeOfEgos wrote:
I like the super flexible nature of them better.

It's not just that, they are economical and essentially the standard of the Dex by which everything else is measure against.
I mean look at the Space Wolf Grey Hunters.... they had to start somewhere

Plague Marines don't have nothing but advantages, for sure.

Against strong enemy guns, plague marines die like regulars but their cost is monumental. Enemy vindicators / demolishers, krak missiles, battle cannons, etc. all kill plague marines on 2+ with no FNP or save.

They also don't put out much firepower. If your squad is basically just a delivery system for a meltagun, then I guess the moderate firepower of regular troopers is fine since only the special gun matters.

I certainly won't call them take-all-comers units when their value is dependent on the enemy using FNP-allowing weapons against them. They're certainly not bad though.

yeah. for an extra 8 points a guy a plague marine si a really good deal. they drop like normal to plasma weapons and such but they ignore anything that isnt a plasmagun or better. their firepower probably isnt the best but the fact they dont have to be in a squad of 10 to take an extra assault weapon is really nice. I'd spam normal CSM squads of 5 if they came with that ability. Keep them in cover and for gods sake keep them out of combat with guys with power weapons.

@Plague marines dying to plasma and better:

But here's the thing... I see it as somewhat of an advantedge when the opponent has to seriously consider using more powerful weaponry on your joe troops than on say your armored vehicles or monstrous creatures?

I know that this terribad target saturation for the opponent makes it a win/win on my side of the board.

Plus the abundance of cover saves mixed in with the protection of Rhinos helps to protect PM against those same weapons, at least at range.