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I have a 2000 and 2500pt army in the works. When asked for advice it was mostly to get as many plague marines to use as possible, and run them in groups of 7 with a rhino. I have 20 nicely painted regular CSM sitting there doing nothing. I would hate for them to go to waste.....

Is there a way I can trick them out to use them instead of buying more plagues? I have 2x7 man squads with rhinos. I am still very new, so forgive me if this is a silly question.

Convert them into Plague Marines.
CSM by itself is pretty lame, the strength and character lie in the Cult units (PM, 1K Sons, Noise Marines, Berzerkers)

Thats what I was afraid of.....Ill prob eBay them and buy more plagues.

Count as is about the best you can do without ruining the paint. If you are OK with stripping the paint you could add zombie heads from the fantasy range, add green stuff pustules and bloat their armor out a bit. Add some guitar strings here and there for breathing tubes. Rust up metal parts and add holes and damage to the armor to make it looked decayed. Here is a guide on chaos details: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat440167a&categoryId=400029§ion=&aId=1200005. I plan on doing this with all mine. You could even, and I would do this very carefully, melt them with fire a bit, you gotta be careful as it can weaken the model but you may have a good effect with it.

CSM are not lame. Take 2 units of 10 Marines with 2 meltas each in Rhinos. They have their uses like tank hunting (inside the Rhino please), sitting on an objective, counter charge, bolstering a charge.

You could try just throwing on a greenstuff belly?

these particular guys are all painted in black w/gold, and they were actually painted by a service. I obtained them from someone quitting the game. I havent had much luck stripping and frankly would hate for the painting to go to waste.

I could try the tank hunting option. I am running 2x 7 man plagues and 2x 8 man Khorne Berserkers in my 2k list. I could add the two CSM in my 2500 and call it a day rather than buying 14x more plagues. I dont play competitively so I dont think it would make a huge difference.

CSM are fine, they just don't have gimmicks like cult troops do. My Iron Warriors run regular CSM with the mark of Chaos Glory and they do great. Plague Marines are really cool, but regular Chaos Marines are significantly cheaper and have some different options.

wuestenfux wrote:CSM are not lame. Take 2 units of 10 Marines with 2 meltas each in Rhinos. They have their uses like tank hunting (inside the Rhino please), sitting on an objective, counter charge, bolstering a charge.

This. You could also make them chosen, put them in an Elite spot and make them outflank, being a threat of no small calibre for a mechanized army.

Hhmm, Chosen. Thats an idea. I have never seen anyone use them. I always figured the point cost was too much for the leadership difference, but i didnt realize they had infiltrate.

alexwolf1216 wrote:Hhmm, Chosen. Thats an idea. I have never seen anyone use them. I always figured the point cost was too much for the leadership difference, but i didnt realize they had infiltrate.

Infiltrate and access to 4 special weapons + a combi weapon on the champion are what make them awesome. Don't forget you can stick them in a rhino and the rhino can outflank as well.

CSM are pretty decent, and allow you to get more bodies on the table which means you have more 3+ saves, more bolters and more melta/plasma/flamer/etc and can hold or contest more objectives.

Like most things, it is not how good it is, it is how you use it that counts.

Everything said above could easily be done with plague marines instead and cheaper too as you don't need 10 man squads to take 2 special weapons.

Food for thought.

terranarc wrote:Everything said above could easily be done with plague marines instead and cheaper too as you don't need 10 man squads to take 2 special weapons.

Food for thought.

This is only true if you take a 5-6 model unit of plagues. 7 plagues with two meltas is 181. 10 CSM with two meltas is 170. The CSM have more attacks at higher Init in HtH, more bolter and bolt pistol shots, and more bodies to absorb high-strength, low-ap woundsm (plasma, missiles, lascannons, enemy powerfists) against which the plagues are equally vulnerable. The Plagues are Fearless and much more resiliant against lower-strength, lower-AP attacks. The two both have their own virtues.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brother SRM wrote:

alexwolf1216 wrote:Hhmm, Chosen. Thats an idea. I have never seen anyone use them. I always figured the point cost was too much for the leadership difference, but i didnt realize they had infiltrate.

Infiltrate and access to 4 special weapons + a combi weapon on the champion are what make them awesome. Don't forget you can stick them in a rhino and the rhino can outflank as well.

Yep. And it's FIVE special weapons. Not just four and a combi. And the champ is optional (though he can make a nice cheap delivery point for a greater daemon). 5 Chosen with 3 meltaguns and 2 flamers are 130; which is a nice all-around support unit I have good success with. 5 Chosen with 5 Plasma is 165, and is an absurdly shooty bit of fun.

Mannahnin wrote:

Yep. And it's FIVE special weapons. Not just four and a combi. And the champ is optional (though he can make a nice cheap delivery point for a greater daemon). 5 Chosen with 3 meltaguns and 2 flamers are 130; which is a nice all-around support unit I have good success with. 5 Chosen with 5 Plasma is 165, and is an absurdly shooty bit of fun.

This actually sounds like a lot of fun. I may rip this off and run both.

alexwolf1216 wrote:I have a 2000 and 2500pt army in the works. When asked for advice it was mostly to get as many plague marines to use as possible, and run them in groups of 7 with a rhino. I have 20 nicely painted regular CSM sitting there doing nothing. I would hate for them to go to waste.....

Is there a way I can trick them out to use them instead of buying more plagues? I have 2x7 man squads with rhinos. I am still very new, so forgive me if this is a silly question.

I daresay that I've been able to find some success with them. And almost every list I take starts with a core of two units of 10 CSMs with double melta, icon of glory, and champion with Fist, in a Rhino w/combi-melta. That's 265 each for a great all-around unit, capable of busting tanks and killing troops. It won't take on first-rate assault units (TH/SS terminators, tooled-out Thunderwolves and such); but then, neither will a unit of Plague Marines for that matter. 7 Plagues with similar equipment are overall a bit more durable and slightly more expensive, but don't hit quite as hard. Both are (IMO) the mainstay core units for CSM, bringing assault capability and the double-meltaguns needed in the current mechanized environment.

True but overall, you'll lose more CSM from bolters and melee than you ever would from lascannons or krak missiles.

Also, S3 and S4 generic power weapons are significantly weaker against plague marines. With the except of a powerfist that gets 2 attacks and random long fang squads, there's little to fear.

Most importantly, once you reach 4 CSM models, you can't regroup anymore so if fail any morale test, you're perma-retreating.
I always give my CSM MoCG when I run them but even so, a reroll with Ld 5 is still pretty horribad. Overall, this is what pushes me to use cult troops over vanilla troops. Too many weaknesses, not enough strengths.

It's a real shame too since in the past, black legion vanilla CSM were really competitive.

terranarc wrote:True but overall, you'll lose more CSM from bolters and melee than you ever would from lascannons or krak missiles.

Depends on what army you're playing against, what terrain you're using, and how quickly you jump out of your Rhinos.

terranarc wrote:Also, S3 and S4 generic power weapons are significantly weaker against plague marines.

S3, sure. S4, not so much, as they wound a third less often on a model which costs a half again as much and negate his FNP. Where do you see S3 power weapons nowadays? Banshees almost never see the field, and IG horde power blob squads will pretty much mulch either unit; you have to shoot those buggers a lot before ever engaging them.

terranarc wrote:Most importantly, once you reach 4 CSM models, you can't regroup anymore so if fail any morale test, you're perma-retreating.

This is a danger, but it's a rare one. Ld10 fails 1/12 the time without the re-roll you can get from IoCG.

terranarc wrote:I always give my CSM MoCG when I run them but even so, a reroll with Ld 5 is still pretty horribad. Overall, this is what pushes me to use cult troops over vanilla troops. Too many weaknesses, not enough strengths.

The only time they're ever testing on Ld5 is if they lose a combat by 5 (or 4 without a champion). If they've lost a combat by that much your opponent has simply outplayed you by getting some uber-HtH unit into combat with your core scoring unit. If a PM unit lost combat by that much they'd either be completely dead or have 1-2 models left (10 model PM squads being too pricey for most folks).

Your mileage may vary, but mine is quite good with them, and I've run them with a lot of success in a lot of big events.