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I'm beginning a Chaos Space Marine army in a few days and I'd like some suggestions as to what I should get. I plan basing my army either around Emperor's Children or Thousand Sons. I'm going to be using this army for some tournaments after I get used to it with some other players. Does anyone want to recommend some models or builds?

Most successful csm armies have: daemon princes, plague marines, rhinoes, obliterators. I also include berzerkers in mine.

Pick a god, get a defiler, done.

If you're going Slaanesh, you may want either a Slaanesh Daemon Prince and a Slaanesh sorcerer as your HQ options (of just 2 princes if you wanna cheese it). Put Lash n both, get 2-3 vindicators and exposed infantry will suffer in your hands.

Get a unit of 3 obliterators to help you open transports and tanks. Troops-wise, Noise Marines are cool but very pricey. The Blastmaster is worth more than a Champion! A good build it 6 Noise Marines with a champion (with power-weapon so youcan kill marines at I5 before they strike), a Doom siren, and 4 sonic blasters.

Maybe some raptors too, though people don't see them as competitive. 2 meltas and Mark of Slaanesh means they can pop vehicles and help the Princes assault the contents.

All in all, you'll have an army with a low model count but some very killy options.

I'd say you need to decide your heavy selection before anything.

Common choices are:
3x defilers
9x Oblits
3x Vindicators

Second decide on your HQ:

Common choices again are:
2x Daemon Prince
ABADDON
Terminator Chaos Lord

Third pic your troops:

Khorne > ALL
Plague Marines = good
Thousand sons = expensive, but AP3 bolters rock and a force weapon isn't to be laughed at.
Noise Marine = expensive, but blastmaster and doom siren are both AP3.


All and all Chaos is a boat load of fun and competitive. Be wary of Thousand sons and Noise marines, while they are great they are quite expensive... Also wait until the new finecast thousand sons come out as the "current" models are the metal front torso bits with the plastic back.

There's literally one competitive build for CSM: 2 Lash Sorcerors, 9 Oblits, and as many min-max PM squads in Rhinos as you can field. Maybe a Berzerker squad somewhere to help with horde.

IMO: do it on the cheap. Zerker box + bolter arms and bolters (very cheap on EBAY) + Zombie sprue bits = Plague Marines. Terminators w/ Greenstuff = Oblits. You can get 5 Terminators for around the price of 2 Oblitz. 2 boxes of Terminators nets you everything you need.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:There's literally one competitive build for CSM: 2 Lash Sorcerors, 9 Oblits, and as many min-max PM squads in Rhinos as you can field. Maybe a Berzerker squad somewhere to help with horde.

That's not true.

Usually I'd add 'IMHO' or something after such a statement, but that really isn't true.
Such a build is simply the most forgiving and uses the best units; to say it's literally the only competitive build is wrong.
Mannahnin can vouch for that I'd say.

---

I'd recommend Slaanesh over Tzeentch personally, in which case it's almost always best to have a Daemon Prince (or 2, preferably with warptime or fzorgle) leading the army, supported by a couple of 10-man CSM squads with meltas in a rhino; this makes a solid core IMHO.
Heavy Support is arguably Chaos' strong point though; Oblits > Defilers > Vindicators, Predators > and arguably Havocs are the best choices, in that order IMHO. Oblits can provide reliable, versatile firepower but don't add armour saturation. Defilers are flexible (CC or shooting), whilst Vindicators are a threatening, cheap target that your opponent must remove. Predators are dependable as ever, but blast weapons really benefit from LoS which Preds don't have.
Chosen (3x Melta, 2x flamer, rhino) are also good options, as are termie squads (who you'd want to max out on combi-weapons).
Noise Marines can also work well in a Slaanesh army, but are too expensive and specialist to form the core IMHO and instead should be used as auxiliaries.

Hope that helps; good luck!

Real men use Havocs

Demon Princes, Rhinos and Chaos Space Marines are a good start.

Oblits and Defilers are good.

Terms suck unless you suicide them.

Predators suck... Bikes suck ... Raptors suck ... Possesed suck...

Everything else is fair game.

Blood Lord Soldado wrote:Demon Princes, Rhinos and Chaos Space Marines are a good start.

Oblits and Defilers are good.

Terms suck unless you suicide them.

Predators suck... Bikes suck ... Raptors suck ... Possesed suck...

Everything else is fair game.

I don't want to undermine you, as you could be a really experienced Chaos player. But in my experience:

Yes Daemon Princes are great, Rhinos are useful. CSM are 3rd/4th best troops choice after Plagues/Zerkers and possibly (although probably not) Noise Marines.
Oblits are the 'competitive' unit in the Chaos dex, especially when used in conjunction with Lash Princes. Defilers are fun, but not especially wonderful.

Predators don't suck. Bikes are expensive, but can serve a purpose. Raptor like Bikes are a bit on the pricy side, but can be very useful. Possessed don't ever get put in lists are they are too expensive for what they do, but they don't outright suck, if you get the right roll on the table they can be quite the surprise package.


There has been some good advice from a few people here, what i would say:

Pick a god, or a legion if thats what you plan on doing. (I originally didn't, had a whole mix. Sold all that, now have gone back to Chaos, was attempting to do a Nurgle themed army, but is branching out a bit more).
Then like some have done, go through each section of the codex to find the most effective units.
Before you do this, you need a style. If you want to do a mech army, you don't really want to be taking Havocs for example. If your doing Rhino rush, you don't want Dreads etc etc.
Like some others have done, my own quick run through. My rating of (some) units in each section:

HQ: Daemon Prince, Abaddon, Sorcerer, Kharn, Lord, Typhus, Huron.
Elite: Chosen, Terminators, Dreads, Possessed.
Troops: Zerkers, Plagues, CSM, Noise, 1k Sons
Fast: Raptors, Bikes, Spawn.
Heavy: Oblits, Vindicator, Defiler, Pred, Havocs (Haven't included LR, because i see that more of a transport than a heavy support)

Each of those units have different jobs, and work well in conjunction with other units.
For example, if you wanted to take Abaddon, put him in a Land Raider with Zerkers for max damage output. Or Plagues for a tougher unit.
If your going 'mono-god' Have a couple of units of Zerkers for assault, and a couple of Plagues for melta back up/toughness/objective grabbers.
If you lack anti-tank, maybe add 3 deepstriking Terminators with combi-meltas.
etc etc etc
hope thats helps.

You dont JUST have to play one god either. My buddy nearly won ard boys playing one of each squad of the marked troops. Undevided plays very strong as each type of unit is good at one things.
1 Plauge marine squad+ Rhino = Objective Held.
1 Zerker Squad + Rhino or Landraider = Horde begon
1 Noisemarine Squad = Awsome ranged shooters

It is what you make of it. The undevided army is great because each unit excells at one thing. Also undevided troops are fearless which can really be a nice bonus.

Thousand Sons have been really hit or miss when I use them. Either they purge their way up the field, eating apart just about everything save terminators. I've also had them do nothing, my opponent abusing cover to make sure that I don't have a fun game. If you're good with positioning and like the fluff definitely buy Thousand Sons.

I don't like Thousand Sons, personally. Too pricey for a unit that can't kill tanks and sucks in cc.

My own experience with noise marines is that no matter what role you want for the, someone else could do it better. 25 points per model for fancy boltguns (sonic blasters) is too expensive. (it takes 75 points worth of Sonic Blaster fire to kill 1 marine or 3 orks- that's 15-18 points.) They can be decent assault troops with their I5, but Berzerkers do that much better, for a handful more points.

In a way, they have opposite problems. The 1k sons are hard to use because they're only good at 1 thing. The Noise Marines are hard to use because they're ok at everything, but don't excel at anything.

Go for Emperor's Children. They have some nice troop builds:
5 NM w/ blastmaser or 6 NM w/ doomsiren, including AC w/ power weapon, Rhino.
Both work very well with the lash of submission.

In 40k there's a divergence between theme and competitiveness. This is a gap that can be bridged by skill, and I'm glad you have an idea of what you want coming into this. Playing an army with a history and a style makes learning the game more fun, because you're going to get pummeled for a long while before you get the hang of it.

Emperor's Children are going to be easier to play, because frankly the Thousand Sons got shafted in this edition and playing a themed army is going to be a delicate balance of taking fluffy units and generally solid ones.

Cult units are very specialized, and taking too many of any one kind leaves most of them relegated to tasks they aren't ideal for. For instance, if you have 3 Plague Marine squads, but only two objectives that need to be covered, that third Plague Marine squad will have to go off to combat. Plague Marines aren't the best fighting units we have, so using another unit would be more efficient.

Noise Marines are unique in that they can be either great shooters or close combat units. They very expensive though, and taking them will eat into your numbers. Compensate by taking cheaper Chaos Space Marine squads built for the role you don't choose.

If you invest heavily in infantry (and that means taking transports for them all), take Havocs and Obliterators for fire support. The more infantry targets you present, the more his anti-tank weapons are forced to fire at your infantry (which is hugely inefficient).

If you fancy Daemon Princes or a Greater Daemon, take Dreadnoughts and Defilers to help spread his anti-tank weapons out, making focusing down a single monster more difficult.

Predators and Vindicators synergize with themselves. Take multiple to get a good use out of them. And only ever build Predators to kill tanks; you have more than enough anti-infantry else-where.

Lesser Daemons make for fantastic meat-shields, bolstering your lines where you need it most. If you find you don't have enough infantry, invest in some of them. But you need to develop ways to bring them to the enemy. Bikers are particularly good at this, as are Chosen and occasionally Possessed (a complicated unit, I can discuss them with you later if you'd like).

This is a lot to take in, so you're obviously wondering: how do I start? Get a Battleforce and a Daemon Prince and play a bunch of games at 750 points. If you like the Khorne Berserkers, try Noise Marines in a close combat role. If that Daemon Prince isn't really your style, get a Sorcerer and steer clear of the other big beasties in the codex. Just don't go out on a limb when you buy new things or you'll end up with a whole bunch of spare parts.

wuestenfux wrote:Go for Emperor's Children. They have some nice troop builds:
5 NM w/ blastmaser or 6 NM w/ doomsiren, including AC w/ power weapon, Rhino.
Both work very well with the lash of submission.

I'm all for theme, but it has to be said- don't berserkers just do this better?

Only the assault part. They lack the nasty shooting part.

digi laser wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:Go for Emperor's Children. They have some nice troop builds:
5 NM w/ blastmaser or 6 NM w/ doomsiren, including AC w/ power weapon, Rhino.
Both work very well with the lash of submission.

I'm all for theme, but it has to be said- don't berserkers just do this better?

The doom siren is one of the best (shooting) weapons in the game. This combined with assault makes them on par with Berzerkers.
Once I had 8 BT Marines under the template (thanks to the lash of submission) and I rolled amazing (3+): 8 dead Black Templars.

rodgers37 wrote:HQ: Daemon Prince
Elite: Chosen, Terminators
Troops: Zerkers, Plagues
Fast: Raptors
Heavy: Oblits, Vindicator, Havocs

These are your choices:

Daemon prince: Wings, MoS/MoN/MoT, Lash/Warptime
Chosenx5: 5xmelta/5xplasma, rhino
Terminatorsx3: Chainfist, 2xcombi-melta, heavy flamer/combi-melta
Zerkersx8: Asp Champ, fist, rhino
Plaguesx6: 2xmelta, maybe champ w/ fist
Raptorsx5: 2xmelta, maybe IoCG
Oblitsx2
Vindicator: Possessed
Havocsx5: 4xmissiles

This is if you want to be good, if you want to run fluff take whatever you want.

LordWaffles wrote:

rodgers37 wrote:HQ: Daemon Prince
Elite: Chosen, Terminators
Troops: Zerkers, Plagues
Fast: Raptors
Heavy: Oblits, Vindicator, Havocs

These are your choices:

Daemon prince: Wings, MoS/MoN/MoT, Lash/Warptime
Chosenx5: 5xmelta/5xplasma, rhino
Terminatorsx3: Chainfist, 2xcombi-melta, heavy flamer/combi-melta
Zerkersx8: Asp Champ, fist, rhino
Plaguesx6: 2xmelta, maybe champ w/ fist
Raptorsx5: 2xmelta, maybe IoCG
Oblitsx2
Vindicator: Possessed
Havocsx5: 4xmissiles

This is if you want to be good, if you want to run fluff take whatever you want.

ummm? "This is if you want to be good"... riiiight...

Prince: MoT/Warptime? MoT is expensive, and you don't even have Spartan prince there (Wings/Warptime baby )
Chosen: You can give them flamers, also a mix. If your not sure whats going to work best with your local meta, I found trying a combo of flamers/meltas (both close range assault weapons) outflanking really helped me define what mix I wanted out of them. Also can Infiltrate in daemon focused armies.
Terminators: yeah termicide pretty much sums them up. Kinda sad, although I have heard SM players grumble they wish they could termicide, but I say we grumble louder over a lack of pods or TH/SS
Zerkers: x9 with champ, yeah, but alot of people value the 5 attacks at Str/In 5 with a power weapon. Make sure you get a meltabomb though! I prefer the fist myself
Plagues: 7. Papa nurgles number. Its 7. And they don't just get given meltaguns. Flamer and plasma plague-O's are awesome. Plague-O's are just plain awesome I can't live without the champ though.
Raptors. x5. "this is if you want to be good". ooooooookkkkk then buddy. I love my raptors, but x5... lol?
Oblits: yeah they work best in pairs. agreed.
Vindicator: Possessed. Extra agreed.
Havocs: 4 ML, OR 4 AC, or 2AC 2ML. 4 AC is really getting into " dakka dakka dakka! " territory


And theres more to it than that! I'm just feeling lazy/kettle just boiled for ze coffee