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So I am posting this here cause I guess I need some ideas before I move into list building.

Now I have a fairly typical CSM Undivided army, with zerkers for aussault, CSM or Plague marines for objectives and shooty.
For support I use a Defiler, a Vindicator, and Oblits. Then I alternate between termicides or chosen for some interesting suprise attacks.

It seems to work out pretty well for me, but it generally ends up melee heavy. As I already have 3 other melee armies, I was thinking of runnning some almost pure shooty lists, but I seem to have run into a blank there. I have no idea if CSM can support a mainly shooty army, and if so, how? Is spamming Oblits the only way?

Most importantly, how about troops? My mainstrays are Plagues and zerkers, but those are generallly more close combat. Perhaps I should switch to Noise Marines? I hear thousand sons are terrible, though I do LOVE their looks.

Any ideas or suggestings about making a shooty CSM army?

Plague and Noise Marines are ok at shooting.

Noise Marines have sonic weapons that they can fire out of Transport hatches while the Plague Marines sit on objectives outside(protected by T5 and FnP)

I run a really shooty CSM list. I do 3 squads of havocs with autocannons and use 3 squads of 3 terminators as a reaper autocannon platform. I like to run Khorne- and the obvious downside of a Khorne army is their lack of ability to drop fast vehicles and armor in general. Havocs are expensive- but they drop down so much firepower with autocannons and you can run them in squads of 7 so they're more survivable than longfangs (but a hell of a lot more expensive). AV11 gets pounded by this- and AV12 at least usually gets stunned so you can advance with less pressure.

Hmm, interesting, I always thought that Chaos termies are not really recommended for proper range, dude to lack of missles etc, but I will try it.

So Havocks over Obliterators?

Also, you suggest I go buy a squad of Noise Marines? Are Thousand Sons really just not worth it?

Up to now, my most efficient shooty unit is porpably my Plasma Plague Marines, I love those guys, but they are still not impressive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bert, do you give combi-meltas or combi-plasmas to your termies? I am thinking that for non Deep Striking terminators, multi plasmas might be a better bet.

Thousand Sons aren't worth it in this army. Typically, you run TS because you like them, and if that's the case you build an army to take advantage of them.

If you're not a fan of Terminators - and I'm not a fan of them in that role - you can go for Chosen instead. They give you the ability to spam a few more meltas, or another (expensive) heavy weapon with an alternate firing lane thanks to infiltrate.

The reason I don't like Terminators this way is their limited range, and the fact that in order to get two guns you have to have a full ten, but with no combat squad you're still looking at only one target each.

I've been having success with Plasma Havocs in Rhinos.

The issue the 1K sons will run against is that they are really meant for taking out Marines, and only that. The ap3 guns are not backed by high str. so it suffers against vehicles and the sorcerer will be bound to fire whatever he has at the same target as the squad. So, if you give the sorcerer anti-tank you paid to much for it and if you don't give him something anti-tank you'll need something for that, and all this ignores the 1K sons very high price

DrDuckman wrote:

So Havocks over Obliterators?

I prefer Oblits, due to their ability to have whatever gun you need at the moment. They are the ultimate ranged Swiss Army Knives of 40k, and as such would use them as the backbone of a shooty CSM list.

the only thing chaos has over loyalist marines in shooting is Obliterators, which have been done to death.

Obliterators are nice because they are a cheap Lascannon, and can do other things in a pinch. For their points, they are the best ranged anti-armor we have.

Havocs have no business running anything except Autocannons, imo. They are an inferior delivery system for heavy weapons, but if you want autocannons, you might consider them.

Its between Oblits and Defilers for Heavy Support.

Defilers really need to be run at least in pairs because you need target saturation. they can also assault and do damage that way(although I3 hurts them against Dreadnoughts and some MCs) in addition to the Battlecannon.

Oblits can do anything and everything for shooting. but in CC they are just a 2 wound terminator.

digi laser wrote:Obliterators are nice because they are a cheap Lascannon, and can do other things in a pinch. For their points, they are the best ranged anti-armor we have.

I assume you mean long-ranged anti-tank, to which I say they're the worst. 150 points gets you 2 Lascannons from Obliterators. 130 points gets you 2 Lascannons and an Autocannon from a Predator. 155 points gets you 5 Havocs with 4 ML/ACs. Obliterators the least efficient way to get anti-tank in the codex because they're diluted with anti-infantry weapons.

Havocs have no business running anything except Autocannons, imo. They are an inferior delivery system for heavy weapons, but if you want autocannons, you might consider them.

Missile. Launchers.

DarkHound wrote:

digi laser wrote:Obliterators are nice because they are a cheap Lascannon, and can do other things in a pinch. For their points, they are the best ranged anti-armor we have.

I assume you mean long-ranged anti-tank, to which I say they're the worst. 150 points gets you 2 Lascannons from Obliterators. 130 points gets you 2 Lascannons and an Autocannon from a Predator. 155 points gets you 5 Havocs with 4 ML/ACs. Obliterators the least efficient way to get anti-tank in the codex because they're diluted with anti-infantry weapons.

Havocs have no business running anything except Autocannons, imo. They are an inferior delivery system for heavy weapons, but if you want autocannons, you might consider them.

Missile. Launchers.

That predator can be killed in one shot, though. And must be completely immobile to shoot more than 1 gun. And all the guns have to shoot at the same target, unlike 2 separate oblits. And can never shoot a plasma cannon or multi-melta. You need to consider these limitations in the final analysis.

Havocs also need to be immobile. They're vulnerable to morale checks. And they're overpriced, especially compared to Long Fangs.

to be fair to the Havocs, everything is overpriced compared to Long Fangs.

digi laser wrote:That predator can be killed in one shot, though. And must be completely immobile to shoot more than 1 gun. And all the guns have to shoot at the same target, unlike 2 separate oblits. And can never shoot a plasma cannon or multi-melta. You need to consider these limitations in the final analysis.

Havocs also need to be immobile. They're vulnerable to morale checks. And they're overpriced, especially compared to Long Fangs.

I'm not even going to bring up that "2 separate oblits" comment. Yes, Predators can be killed in a single shot... just under 4% of the time from a BS4 Lascannon. The virtually all shooting has a lower chance of causing damage to Predator than it does to an Obliterator. I'll take that critical miss chance for all the protection it brings. And while a Predator cannot shoot a Plasmacannon or Multi-melta, it should never need to. CSM is filled to the brim with anti-infantry, and if the vehicle is within 12" of whatever backfield weapons platform you're fielding, you've probably done something wrong.

The Obliterator's ability to move is only enough so that they can alter their elevation, or leave LoS. They will never reach a new firing angle, so their "mobility" is moot. Hell, Predators are more mobile. They can give up a turn of shooting to actually reach a new firing angle. Obliterators never get the option; if they can't see anything, they waste a turn.

Havocs are vulnerable to morale checks? With IoCG they fail far less than 3% of the time, and with extra bodies forcing a morale check is difficult. And comparing them to Long Fangs is useless. That is the same as saying you should never take Chaos Space Marines because they aren't as good as Grey Hunters. They are cost efficient within the confines of the codex, which makes them a viable option.

I just get bored of seeing

you must have Obliterators

I run a squad of 7 Havocs with 2 ML and 2 ACs and they seem to do well most of the time. It's my dice rolling skills that let them down ... the poor guys

Extra Heavy support depends on the points and what else I am running i.e Bezerkers or Plague Marines.

Irons Warriors is a perfect siege army. Its a pity that the current codex does no longer reflect this while the old codex (3.5 ed.) did.
Have a look at the options you have in the HS section. Then you'll see that the choice of HS units is limited. You could go for 9 Obliterators who perfectly reflect the IW feeling.

Those IW armies were pretty rediculous sometimes and, honestly, I am happy that they went away. Don't get me wrong, I hate the loss of fluffy chaos armies, but something needed to be changes and GW doing what they do went too far. So havoks are a waste for anti-infantry? I am working on a shooty chaos army myself and I was curious as to how? Also what good shooting do they have for anti-infantry?

I'll stand by Havocs with autocannons. 8 S7 shots, and you can beef out the squad to protect those shots. I run oblits a lot- but against lists like mech guard, where the high priority targets are hidden behind chimeras, 2 lascannon shots for 150 points just doesn't cut it.

Tactically- STRING THE HAVOCS OUT LIKE ITS UR JOB. 50% of them in cover, 2' apart ALWAYS. Shoot high priority targets up to AV12 with them- if you don't kill the tank you'll at least stun it to cover your advance.

You definitely have the makings of a very shooty army with CSM.

Chosen with 5 x SW
Termies with combiweapons.
and of course the grand master the obliterators.

Base your army around oblits and you have all opponents covered with AT and AP weapons. Your standard chaos marines or rubric marines (though more costly) will do you fine but the shooty power of chaos is obliterators because they provide so much flexibility to the need of the moment.

I run an Iron Warriors army with 3 Vindicators and 3 squads of Marines with plasma or melta guns in rhinos. It makes for a shooty, if midrange force.

I play tourny chaos and doo really well with a shooty based list. That being said I still run 3 monsterous creaturs in 2k...

If you really want to base on shooty you must go the obliterator route... as for hq I strongly sugest a lash prince. I use a warptime and lash prince in nearly all my armies and they kick ass..

As for troops I find standard chaos marines to be excelent fire support. 10 guys, 2meltas/plasma and a IoCG in a rhino. No need for a champ unless you got a greater daemon waiting to pop out. And even without a fish you got pistols and ccw if you have to charch something

My 2k list includes 3 10man scm sqauds with 2x meltas/plasmas. Iocg, and champ in a rhinoe
1 squaad of 8zerkers for fun
Lash prince
Tzeench warptime prince
Greater daemon
3x 2man oblit sqauds,
3termicde with 2x meltas, chainfist, autocannon

Primarly shooty with some monsters running around to cause distractions. My lash prince plays defence, my warptime prince is my seek and destroy missile, and the zerkers are there just to charge blindly at the foe.... does me proud. Tourny winning army !

Thousand Sons for MEQ armies!

Shooty meq lists must maximize the number of units that can shoot across the board. CSM can't combat squad their Havocs and they don't have a good troop transport that can fire heavy weapons across the board (IE no Razorback). CSM also suffer from not having a good, cheap shooting option from the Fast Attack catagory. Loyalists can take Typhoons or Attack Bikes for cheap downfield heavy weapons from the FA slot. CSM do not have that luxury. If CSM could make a good shooty list I would play it, but they can't. If you insist then here are some recommendations.

Oblits are nice, but they are pricey and die real fast. Their best weapon is the lascannon (remember we are a shooty list and not an assault list that deep strikes to get into melta range and then assault). That means if we lose the Oblits then we have to get the lascannons from another slot. I would look at the Elite slot for my lascannons.

5 Chosen with a lascannon is 125pts. They give you a cheap, survivable lascannon which infiltrates. Even if you don't want to deploy them closer to the enemy, you can deploy them last - after the enemy deploys.

An old axiom of 40k list building is to have your anti-tank weapons in troops (foot models) and your anti-troop weapons on tanks. Unless the codex does something real funky with the rules I would stick with that axiom. That means you need some anti-troop tanks and the only place they can come from is the heavy slots.

EL - 5 chosen + lascannon
EL - 5 chosen + lascannon
EL - 5 Chosen + lascannon

HV - Predator + side heavy bolters
HV - Predator + side heavy bolters
HV - Defiler

This gives you a 725pt core of shooting. 3 lascannons which can fire at 3 seperate targets and deploy last to maximize firing lanes. 4 autocannon shots and 12 heavy bolter shots to help thin out enemy foot units and also contribute to av 10-11 enemy destruction. I through the defiler in there as a bridge between the two unit types. It can target enemy tanks ro infantry.

This would be a fine core if you could add in some shooting FA selections, but there are none. If you could add in 3 Typhoons to this you would have something. Unfortunately this is where the CSM shooty list breaks down.

The CSM troops slots are not the most shooty. You can get a 10-man CSM squad with missile for 160pts, but without combat squads you are paying for 5 guys to sit around. That's not good. Add in that a Rhino with havoc launcher is all you can get to back these guys up and it doesn't look good. The Loyalists can do all this so much better.

At this point I am screaming for some additional shooty help, but it doesn't come and I am resigned to have to make some close assault elements with assault weapons. 10 CSM with 2 meltaguns or 5-6 plaguemarines with 2 meltaguns. That's all you can do and the good 725pt core above is not enough to hold the line against enemy dedicated shooty lists. A good shooty meq list would need to be able to target 12+ different enemy vehicles a turn to have a chance to outshoot the enemy, but as you can see the limitations of the CSM codex do not allow that to happen.

Personnally I am experimenting with 5 x chosen with plasma rifles. The downside is this is 165 points each or about 500 stuck into it. To the plus side I will have 15 infiltrating plasma shots (30 at close range) that I can pester MEQ/TEQ or light vehicles. That should free up my long ranged and or melta items to do their job on the heavy tanks.