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hey guys this is my first real 40k army list tell me what you think and tell me what you think i should change. Also I mainly fight tyranids and dark eldar. Soon to fighting necrons.


160 5x havocs 2x lascannon

100 predator autocannon sponsons w/ Heavy bolter

220 Land Raider

150 10x Chaos space marines (squad 1) flamer

175 9x +1 AC w/ power weapon. Chaos Space Marines (squad 2)

145 10x Chaos Space Marines (squad 3)

120 Terminator Lord

120 5x Raptors 2x Melta guns

109 3x bikes 2x flamers

200 5x terminators 2x autocannon

1499 pts total

Well I can tell you what will win, but not what necessarily will be fun for you.


Havocs do the same job as Obliterators but aren't as good at it. Buy 2-3 Obliterators instead and you'll bring more and more versatile firepower.

The Bikers and Raptors cost a lot of points and are very vulnerable to being shot down. If you want to use them they can be fun but aren't terribly powerful.

Chaos Space Marine squads work much better with Rhino transports (not just for mobility but for protection and moving 12", piling out of a rhino and rapid firing, Rhinos can also pack havoc launchers) and even better with aspiring champions carrying power fists to really damage things in close combat. Flamers are fine but some of them should definitely be carrying meltaguns to kill vehicles, if possible specialize your squads so you don't waste shots. Perhaps one squad with two flamers and one squad with two meltas?

You could also invest in a specialist troops squad, of which Plague Marines are the best and the others are so-so. Khorne Berzerkers are an ideal unit to put in your Land Raider because it's an assault vehicle. Plague Marines are exceptional at holding objectives with toughness 5 and feel no pain. Thousand Sons can put the fear of god in anything with a 3+ armour save outside of cover. Noise Marines are ideal anti-horde units. All of them work best, as before, with a Rhino transport.

Terminators are okay, reaper autocannons are decent. Many people find Terminators most useful in small squads of 3 when equipped with combi-meltas, so they can deep strike beside a vehicle and destroy it.

Of your three HQ choices, Chaos Lords are the weakest due to both lacking psychic powers and not being appreciably more killy. You could just call your Terminator Lord a Sorceror Terminator Lord and call it a day. Warptime is a great psychic power, if you like Slaanesh Lash of Submission is the best power in the book (imagine moving your opponent's troops into a big pile outside cover and hitting them with plasma cannons from the obliterators).

What's the Land Raider doing? None of your squads are made for close combat and Land Raiders exist to deliver troops into the assault. You could spend those points on a Vindicator for some real firepower. Alternatively, gear out your terminators fully for close combat (lightning claws and such)

The Predator is alright, I find the best loadout for a Predator to be autocannon turret/lascannon sponsons for taking out transports at long range.

Well let see what is to change...

So your fighting nid's? Well what dose he have in his army

You will want shooty template units against the horde.

Ok so the havocs have to go replace with a squad of oblitorators (because havocs are bad).

Pred has to go replace with a vindicator of a defiler (against nids I suggest you have 2 deffy's and a vindicator with demonic possession).

Next Nitros is right, lords are bad (only use in fun games) replace with Abbadon, seeming that hes quite expensive I know but when he can kill the nightbringer (old ed), Draigo and carnafex's he is worth having.

The termies have 4 of them make them all champs with pairs of lightning claws and then add either a mark of khorne, tzeench or nurgle (which ever one you like the most) and put Abbadon in it (people go against it as he loses his fearless meaning he could run away but with a LD of 10 he's not gonna run away that often now is he) now you have anti-monster/tank and infantry unit, now you need to protect them and get them into assault... Bring in the LR with extra armour (people go with demon possession but I choose extra armour, so if it cant shoot next turn it will narrow my option down to going flat out towards target unit) and use it dedicated transport so you still have space for your heavy support slots.

Troops:

Plague marines are good but the a hell load of points (I.E 230 pts for 10 men unupgraded is a bit much), and same goes for any there all good but costly. The only one I would avoid most is Khorne berserkers (sure WS of 5 and furious charge seem tempting but Thats it, the rest your paying for is an ork in power armour...for 21 pts A MODEL)


I personally go for normal (10) chaos marines (since they get 3 attacks on the charge,meaning that the are good in defence) and get a multiple of heavy weapons (and template weapons) then go for an icon of tzeench (I know 5+ inv doesn't seem much but trust me it dose).
Put each troop in a rhino with daemon possession (nids have trouble with tanks, and you may want to avoid the odd carnafex coming into your flank next turn...).

If you want fast attack Raptors Dont do much, (ok jump troopers seem cool but using them they always are the ones to mysteriously die first, and rather quickly too) I would suggest as many large biker squads With as many flamers as possible, and equip mark of nurgle on them (because T6 bikers ARE fun to see zooming around the battle field).

Also I have fought the new necrons and I suggest using blast templates (because they still have the same effect like to old ed).

Dark eldar... I have only fought them in tourneys and TBH good luck with them, oh and take down their skimmers ASAP because you will not like them up close I can tell you...

Thats all I can say really, Just my two cents.

Nitros14 wrote:Well I can tell you what will win, but not what necessarily will be fun for you.


Havocs do the same job as Obliterators but aren't as good at it. Buy 2-3 Obliterators instead and you'll bring more and more versatile firepower.

wow you're right about the obliterators, they seem alight more versatile. Quick question. In the codex it says "Obliterator weapons (one per turn from lascannon, multi-melta, etc." what does the one per turn mean?

The Bikers and Raptors cost a lot of points and are very vulnerable to being shot down. If you want to use them they can be fun but aren't terribly powerful.

I especially want to use bikers and raptors lol. If you had to pick, which one would be the more bang for buck points wise?

Chaos Space Marine squads work much better with Rhino transports (not just for mobility but for protection and moving 12", piling out of a rhino and rapid firing, Rhinos can also pack havoc launchers) and even better with aspiring champions carrying power fists to really damage things in close combat. Flamers are fine but some of them should definitely be carrying meltaguns to kill vehicles, if possible specialize your squads so you don't waste shots. Perhaps one squad with two flamers and one squad with two meltas?

Good point rhinos are also fairly cheap I'll definitely rework my list with this.

You could also invest in a specialist troops squad, of which Plague Marines are the best and the others are so-so. Khorne Berzerkers are an ideal unit to put in your Land Raider because it's an assault vehicle. Plague Marines are exceptional at holding objectives with toughness 5 and feel no pain. Thousand Sons can put the fear of god in anything with a 3+ armour save outside of cover. Noise Marines are ideal anti-horde units. All of them work best, as before, with a Rhino transport.

Noise marines all the way. Not only they are Slaanesh but I will be going up agaisnt mass units.

Terminators are okay, reaper autocannons are decent. Many people find Terminators most useful in small squads of 3 when equipped with combi-meltas, so they can deep strike beside a vehicle and destroy it.

another good point. I could use this against ravagers and raiders not to mention necron doom arks

Of your three HQ choices, Chaos Lords are the weakest due to both lacking psychic powers and not being appreciably more killy. You could just call your Terminator Lord a Sorceror Terminator Lord and call it a day. Warptime is a great psychic power, if you like Slaanesh Lash of Submission is the best power in the book (imagine moving your opponent's troops into a big pile outside cover and hitting them with plasma cannons from the obliterators).

I've heard from so many sources that Lords are the weakest HQ in the book. I'll probably just put a slaanesh icon on my existing model and call him a sorcerer lol

What's the Land Raider doing? None of your squads are made for close combat and Land Raiders exist to deliver troops into the assault. You could spend those points on a Vindicator for some real firepower. Alternatively, gear out your terminators fully for close combat (lightning claws and such)

Forget the land raider. I looked at the codex and I can get 2 vindicators for the same price. Good look!

The Predator is alright, I find the best loadout for a Predator to be autocannon turret/lascannon sponsons for taking out transports at long range.

At 5 extra points you can't go wrong. Unless dealing with 50 hormagaunts

I see where you're going with the csm heavy list, rather than lots of cult troops, but I feel like you're not getting the best out of your squads.

As mentioned, transports are inherently useful, and worth taking in almost every scenario. Some rhinos for your guys will give you that extra flexibility.

If you're going to take 10 man squads of csm, take double specials, or well matched heavy special combos ( I.e plasma and auto cannon vs lascannon and flamer.) those squads with all those guys but less dakka are not doing all they can for you.

Land raiders, as said above, are made for delivering troops into assault. If you want an assault based csm squad, mok is good, slaanesh is handy, running double flamers or meltas to soften up the unit before you jump in. However, if you want a more dedicated assault unit, bezerkers, chosen with power weapons and MoS or terminators with cc weapons do the job better.

All that being said however, the most important part of all this is that you get to have fun with your army. If winning is where its at for you, then there are stronger choices but otherwise, you're on your way to making an interesting army that will be different from the standard net list version of csm.

Best thing i can say is try out/play a lot of difernt lists and find what works bets for you.

Happy gaming and welcom to 40k

Thanks for all the advice guys I appreciate it. I'm definitely going to mix fun and power together (can't be too powerful, my buddies would get pissed haha). Obliterators are expensive models though know anywhere i can get them cheap?

Btw just ordered two vindicators for 80 bucks together just to let you guys know they're having a sale at waylandgames.co.uk a lot of stuff is cheap if you want to check it out.

I think my strategy against the Dark eldar would be a shooty one and once they get up close I'll use the bikers to soften them up like Reanimator and happygolucky suggested. I could even take the points from the raptors to add a more devastating flamer attack. 4 flamers fast attack? sweet!

The main thorn in my side against 'nids is that hive tyrant. So I could deepstrike with the terminators with melta (If the vindicators and obliterators don't destroy it first)

And I'll be sure to add rhino's to the list. Watching a lot of battle reports I always see SM and CSM taking rhinos almost every time. (the one time I didn't see rhinos was a blood angels battle)

All in all i'm super pumped for my army. My goal is once i get them all is to paint them in 30 days.

again thanks for the help guys!

shadowsnip wrote:Thanks for all the advice guys I appreciate it. I'm definitely going to mix fun and power together (can't be too powerful, my buddies would get pissed haha). Obliterators are expensive models though know anywhere i can get them cheap?

Btw just ordered two vindicators for 80 bucks together just to let you guys know they're having a sale at waylandgames.co.uk a lot of stuff is cheap if you want to check it out.

I think my strategy against the Dark eldar would be a shooty one and once they get up close I'll use the bikers to soften them up like Reanimator and happygolucky suggested. I could even take the points from the raptors to add a more devastating flamer attack. 4 flamers fast attack? sweet!

The main thorn in my side against 'nids is that hive tyrant. So I could deepstrike with the terminators with melta (If the vindicators and obliterators don't destroy it first)

And I'll be sure to add rhino's to the list. Watching a lot of battle reports I always see SM and CSM taking rhinos almost every time. (the one time I didn't see rhinos was a blood angels battle)

All in all i'm super pumped for my army. My goal is once i get them all is to paint them in 30 days.

again thanks for the help guys!

Ah a common problem for all chaos is a hive tyrant...

I still have no idea how to beat my friends hive tyrant so Il give you my best advice

On a low point game (600-1500) use a sorcerer with lash of submission then keep that big at his own table edge.

On a high point game (1750-2000) use a daemon prince or two with lash and, any trygons/maw locks and tyrants come close you will be pushing those big back to whence they came (yes you dont want them to get into combat that much).

Also dose you friend give his tyrant 3 tyrant guard (like mine)? if not smack a DP with mark of nurgle with wings and warptime into the big (it will die). If so lash will be your best friend...

no the big doesn't have any tyrant guards haha

even more reason to not have lord and to have a sorcerer. He won't know what hit him

Best way to take down a Hive Tyrant?
Abaddon
He can beat even a Swarmlord with Tyrant Guard in combat. Its a pretty tight battle, but Abaddon is a beast in combat (apart from the occasional time he hits himself).

Obliterators are a little over priced but check out my post on scratch built obliterators.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/410773.page