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Hey there!

I was hoping that you guys could give me some pointers, and some much needed help to defeat my little brother, and his CSM!

We are both new at 40k, and havent played that much either! But so far, ive lost about 90% of the games..

My army;

hq: Librarianx2, Mephiston, Sanguinor, Captain Tycho, reclusiarch.
Elite: Sanguinary guards, 3 priests, furioso librarian.
Troops: 3x10 assault marines, and a bunch of DCs..! about 15..!
Transports: Drop pod. and a land raider..!

So im lacking some heavy, and fast support choices..

He has;
HQ; Abaddon, Huron, Demon Prince, Lord, and Sorc.
Elites: Khorne berzerkers, terminators, and thousand sons.
Troops: Reguler marines, and he usually fields thousand sons as troops.
Heavy: Obliterators, Havoc Squad, and Deffie..!

It doesnt really matter how many points we go for, i usually takes a big beating very fast..!

I dont seem to have anything to kill Abaddon with, and i always loose alot to deffie, and his obliterators..

So i was hoping that you guys here can tell me what i should be getting, what i should be fielding, any good tactics against them and such..
Im really desperate here.. he barely knows the rules, and im the one always reading, and searching for tactics and everything.. And he always comes out the winner..!

Welcome to BA. If there was a hell for BA, it would be 2nd edition. However, the gateway to said hell is 6th edition. We took nerfs in all the areas marines did, and then got some more nerfs!

There is an entire thread to how badass Abbadon is. You must shoot him. End of discussion.

Unfortunately for us, the CSM are better BA than the actual BA. I have lost the majority of my games against CSM. I have lost all my games to CSM against lists I considered good.

It seems to help leaving the DCs at home. They are no better at taking fire than a regular ASM, and they don't score. And they get hoovered up real good by helldrakes.

Against thousand sons, you can beat them in HTH if you can live long enough to get there. But be aware, the CSM can field all kinds of troops and elites that BA simply can not beat reliably in HTH. This presents a serious problem given the way the BA are supposed to work.

So I guess where I'm going with this is to shoot them. Shoot them some more. Shoot them some more. And then when there's a few stragglers left, then you can win the HTH assaults. Of course, this is easier said then done, especially when they can get triple las preds cheaper, noise marines, etc.

Thanks for responding!

What do i shoot abaddon with? Im guessing i need AP2, for him to use the inv save instead..

I have a Baal predator on the way, and i will get a few reguler predators, and maybe another baal one as well, hoping that might help a bit..!

As of now, i guess i have to accept loosing, seeing as i dont really have much that can shoot effectivly atm! Will the predators give me a fighting chance, or do i need to get something else?

Predators are awesome for the BA. Fast lets us move 6" and fire all weapons at full BS or move 12" and fire 2 weapons at full BS.

Unfortunately, points spent here are not points spent on assaulting or troops. The BA simply can not cover all the bases like the top tier armies can. I'm not even sure CSM are top tier, but they can do it better than we can.

Yes, you need AP 2 vs abbadon, and he's EW, so you can't instant death him. You are looking at meltas, lascannons and plasmas.

There are various ways to beef up BA shooting. Some like vindicators, These tanks are nice, but get shot a lot on the side armor and fare poorly when faced with monstrous creatures. Which CSM can also bring if they like. Las/plas razorbacks also bring some serious AP 2 firepower, but they are kinda pricey for AV 11 hulls. But they are also fast. Another way to bring devastating fire for one turn is a squad of sternguard with combi-meltas or combi-plasmas. If you are gaming for Abbadon, use the plasmas.

The primary conundrum is not really guys like Abbadon. The other marine chapters are in the same boat vs him. Our problem is that we are supposed to be a HTH chapter, and our rank and file ASM is now outclassed by too many other lists. This makes for some very bizarre compensations and none of them are really working out 100% as far as I can tell.

If anyone knows something else that will help here, I'm perfectly willing to learn.

Thats good to hear.. At least i whont waste my money completly then!

Maybe i can try Captain Tycho, or DC Tycho against him.. he will ignore armor.. tho, i think abaddon will kick him in the groin, and just laugh, but.. maybe if i shoot like crazy first..!

One of the reasons i picked BA was their HTH abilities.. but i might have been fooled by all the youtube videos from 5th edition..!

I'm very willing to learn as well if people have some tricks and tips!

In 6th edit, forget BA and assaults. Shooty is the way to go as the assault side got totally nerfed for BA, taking out the initiative boost from furious charge and the ability to assault out from rhinos and razors. BA can be a decent shooty army, but not a good assault army anymore, which sucks as they are an assault force by fluff. Also their hard hitters like mephiston and dante got nerfed by some small changes, but they are still decent choises. DC is just hard to use now as they are too expencive for what they do and to get them into combat requires to put them in a LR which brings the point sink up too high.

You might wanna consider a Stormraven to that list.

I dont see where all this doom and gloom is coming from, while assault focus BA lists arent good this edition anymore, BA is still at home shooting very well.

Dont fight abbadon in melee, pretty much no one can beat him that way, get some plasma guns or lascannon to shoot he and his termies.
Chaos CC is actually just about as bad as BA, their delivery system is worse, since their land raider takes a heavy slot and are worse in general.
BA FNP bubble with Tacs and Dev in cover, preferably an aegis line, is pretty solid.
Assault Marines play more of a secondary role compare to last edition, either keep them back to protect your shooty unit from melee or use them as mobile/deep striking melta squads.
BA vehicles are still all very good, Rhino and Razors are more frail, but that goes with everyone else too. Predators are still quite tough and mobile like they used to be and can now shoot more weapons at cruising speed.

If you want to play BA just do yourself a huge favor. Buy a $30 upgrade called Codex: Space Wolves.

 Goat wrote:
If you want to play BA just do yourself a huge favor. Buy a $30 upgrade called Codex: Space Wolves.

Ha ha ha....jerk

Seriously though, you can make a decent BA army with their tacticles. A Horde of power armor with FNP behind an ADL supported by SR and Baal Preds is nothing to scoff at.

Looking at your list, it seems to me you have waaay too many HQs and close combat ones at that. BA are now a shooting army and they do razorspam and SR spam very well. Their blender-dreads are still great, as are fnp bikers and fnp terminators. Also av13 spam is great. Never understimate being able to take 6 av13 tanks + dreads.

You have superior speed, dance around the chaos force whilst whittling them down with assault cannon fire. Using your fast bikers, your cheap devastators and your SRs, reach out to hit his force at distance and then pull back.

Looking at his army it's slow, CC orientated and quite sturdy. If you don't fight him in assault then you'll stand a good chance of winning. Shoot his range and run away from anything CC based.

 Goat wrote:
If you want to play BA just do yourself a huge favor. Buy a $30 upgrade called Codex: Space Wolves.

This is sadly pretty accurate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jackster wrote:
I dont see where all this doom and gloom is coming from, while assault focus BA lists arent good this edition anymore, BA is still at home shooting very well.

Dont fight abbadon in melee, pretty much no one can beat him that way, get some plasma guns or lascannon to shoot he and his termies.
Chaos CC is actually just about as bad as BA, their delivery system is worse, since their land raider takes a heavy slot and are worse in general.
BA FNP bubble with Tacs and Dev in cover, preferably an aegis line, is pretty solid.
Assault Marines play more of a secondary role compare to last edition, either keep them back to protect your shooty unit from melee or use them as mobile/deep striking melta squads.
BA vehicles are still all very good, Rhino and Razors are more frail, but that goes with everyone else too. Predators are still quite tough and mobile like they used to be and can now shoot more weapons at cruising speed.

The gloom and doom is coming from the fact that BA are a demonstrably low end list now. CSM CC is much better than BA CC. I don't where you think its not. You don't need to be slinging LRs for CC options on troops to be important. Yes, I shoot with the BA now, which is bad enough, but other lists shoot much better and have a higher model count.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lunarman wrote:
Looking at your list, it seems to me you have waaay too many HQs and close combat ones at that. BA are now a shooting army and they do razorspam and SR spam very well. Their blender-dreads are still great, as are fnp bikers and fnp terminators. Also av13 spam is great. Never understimate being able to take 6 av13 tanks + dreads.

You have superior speed, dance around the chaos force whilst whittling them down with assault cannon fire. Using your fast bikers, your cheap devastators and your SRs, reach out to hit his force at distance and then pull back.

Looking at his army it's slow, CC orientated and quite sturdy. If you don't fight him in assault then you'll stand a good chance of winning. Shoot his range and run away from anything CC based.

Marines HQs are generally kind of a liability. Limit yourself to one for 2K and below as a standard rule. Blender dreads require a delivery method, which are all problematic. Fragnoughts delivered by drop pod are the way to go for dreads. AV 13 spam can be effective, just as in 5th. It's a throwback to mech Angels. But the IG does mech much better in 6th.

 Goat wrote:
If you want to play BA just do yourself a huge favor. Buy a $30 upgrade called Codex: Space Wolves.

Except that the two armies play pretty differently. Make the switch and suddenly you'd be complaining about how you don't have enough FNP or Flyers.

He's how I killed Abaddon.
Dante.
Assault squad armed with 2 plasmaguns and vet with inferno pistols.
3 of those.

When deep striking the combat squad has 6 shots at AP2/1, and dante dumps in his AP1 melta shot as well.
With 3 units, I'm kicking in 18 AP2 shots that wound on 2's.

Dante's death mask means that Abaddon starts off down a wound. So far, I've been able to drop in close enough to gun down his bodyguard.

Dante is more expensive than he should be, but it isn't too horrible. If you can soak up a challenge so he's swinging freely on the enemy squad, he does tons of damage.

I also like having the storm raven, it shoots the snot out of the chaos flyer.

Not every CSM list has Abbadon. The units you propose are very much overkill for any horde armies. The BA don't look too bad when you tailor them. They start looking bad when you try to build all comers lists.

 Goat wrote:
If you want to play BA just do yourself a huge favor. Buy a $30 upgrade called Codex: Space Wolves.

Harsh but true. It is what I did.

Being completely objective, the single biggest thing that stands out in the BA codex are the fast vehicles. I think the key to making effective, yet distinctive lists lies there. But as I already stated, I feel IG can do even better with mech.

FNP is a cute trick on the troops, but after you pay for the priest, it ends up not making a huge difference in the outcomes of *most* games. The BA codex has too much cute stuff now that doesn't get the job done.

Martel732 wrote:
Welcome to BA. If there was a hell for BA, it would be 2nd edition. However, the gateway to said hell is 6th edition. We took nerfs in all the areas marines did, and then got some more nerfs!

There is an entire thread to how badass Abbadon is. You must shoot him. End of discussion.

Unfortunately for us, the CSM are better BA than the actual BA. I have lost the majority of my games against CSM. I have lost all my games to CSM against lists I considered good.

It seems to help leaving the DCs at home. They are no better at taking fire than a regular ASM, and they don't score. And they get hoovered up real good by helldrakes.

Against thousand sons, you can beat them in HTH if you can live long enough to get there. But be aware, the CSM can field all kinds of troops and elites that BA simply can not beat reliably in HTH. This presents a serious problem given the way the BA are supposed to work.

So I guess where I'm going with this is to shoot them. Shoot them some more. Shoot them some more. And then when there's a few stragglers left, then you can win the HTH assaults. Of course, this is easier said then done, especially when they can get triple las preds cheaper, noise marines, etc.

What do you consider a "good" Chaos Space Marines list?

There are many configurations of CSM that have caused me trouble. But in general, lists that cover all their bases well. Just small things like making sure the regular troops have their CC weapons and stuff like that. Players who are good at taking advantage of the customization in the CSM list that the astartes marines lack.

Triple helldrakes never hurt, either. But I've lost to CSM lists with only a single helldrake, so I really can't blame that.

I posted a Chaos "theme" army list in the Army Lists forum. please take a look at it. My idea is to play them like Sisters of Battle (mobil short range firepower), but with a viable assault option.as back-up.

I also have a Blood Angels all Jump Pack theme army that I am rapidly losing faith in.

The BA jump list will absolutely crush a portion of lists, but if you run into some grey hunters or chaos demons, you will kissing your ass goodbye. As I said, tailored BA lists can be quite good, but confronting the unknown has become super tough for the BA.

Martel732 wrote:
The BA jump list will absolutely crush a portion of lists, but if you run into some grey hunters or chaos demons, you will kissing your ass goodbye. As I said, tailored BA lists can be quite good, but confronting the unknown has become super tough for the BA.

Honestly that's all I'm asking for.

Back in the say I played a "ballanced, but mostly shooty" Marines army. I nearly never won. Guard & Tau shot me to snot, and BA, Chaos, Orks & 'Nids chopped me to pieces. I played for a few years then got frustrated, because I always assumed "play a balanced force and Marines can find a way to win." I ended up giving away my 2500 point army.

Now I'm thinking of getting back in, and I just want to cheese out with a total one-trick pony army. Sure I'll lose at least half my games, but I already know that going in. The games I do win will be a slaughter.

My initial 1750 list had 70 Marines with Jump Packs and nine power weapons.

Honestly most of 40k is that way. My lists are pretty balanced and TAC-compliant, but on the 1/6 chance I get a Kill Points game I'm going to get hosed. There isn't really a way to cover all eventualities.

I agree with this, but the 6th edition rules make it harder for BA than other meq armies. In reality, this might only matter in 1 in 10 games, but like in baseball, it adds up over time. Remember that even bad baseballs times win 40% of their games and the best ones only win 70%. In that kind of limited range, changing the result of 1 in 10 games can drop you from "good" to "mediocre" or worse. I contend that 40K is a lot like baseball in this way.

Martel732 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jackster wrote:
I dont see where all this doom and gloom is coming from, while assault focus BA lists arent good this edition anymore, BA is still at home shooting very well.

Dont fight abbadon in melee, pretty much no one can beat him that way, get some plasma guns or lascannon to shoot he and his termies.
Chaos CC is actually just about as bad as BA, their delivery system is worse, since their land raider takes a heavy slot and are worse in general.
BA FNP bubble with Tacs and Dev in cover, preferably an aegis line, is pretty solid.
Assault Marines play more of a secondary role compare to last edition, either keep them back to protect your shooty unit from melee or use them as mobile/deep striking melta squads.
BA vehicles are still all very good, Rhino and Razors are more frail, but that goes with everyone else too. Predators are still quite tough and mobile like they used to be and can now shoot more weapons at cruising speed.

The gloom and doom is coming from the fact that BA are a demonstrably low end list now. CSM CC is much better than BA CC. I don't where you think its not. You don't need to be slinging LRs for CC options on troops to be important. Yes, I shoot with the BA now, which is bad enough, but other lists shoot much better and have a higher model count.

As a Chaos player, I disagree with that.
Assault units has to be delivered somehow and Chaos lacks good ways to do that.
Which is why the best Chaos lists are the shooty ones.

I don't mean dedicated assault units. I mean little things like how your CSM can get a cheap CC weapon in addition to the boltgun/bolt pistol. So when your shooty guys into into melee, they have an extra atttack! Throw in a mark of slaneesh, and they are a real foil for many meq assault teams, and they will absolutely mash tactical marines given the chance. Astartes marines that can shoot, usually can't do CC at all. This is not true for CSM or Space Wolves. ASM squads basically don't participate in the shooting phase.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't mean dedicated assault units. I mean little things like how your CSM can get a cheap CC weapon in addition to the boltgun/bolt pistol. So when your shooty guys into into melee, they have an extra atttack! Throw in a mark of slaneesh, and they are a real foil for many meq assault teams, and they will absolutely mash tactical marines given the chance. Astartes marines that can shoot, usually can't do CC at all. This is not true for CSM or Space Wolves. ASM squads basically don't participate in the shooting phase.

By the end of the day, that all end up very expensive. A CSM with CCW, BP and Bolter cost more than a GH and has no ATSKNF or Counter Attack. The Cult Marines (Namely NM and PM) tend to end up more effective in comparisson.

 Jackster wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I don't mean dedicated assault units. I mean little things like how your CSM can get a cheap CC weapon in addition to the boltgun/bolt pistol. So when your shooty guys into into melee, they have an extra atttack! Throw in a mark of slaneesh, and they are a real foil for many meq assault teams, and they will absolutely mash tactical marines given the chance. Astartes marines that can shoot, usually can't do CC at all. This is not true for CSM or Space Wolves. ASM squads basically don't participate in the shooting phase.

By the end of the day, that all end up very expensive. A CSM with CCW, BP and Bolter cost more than a GH and has no ATSKNF or Counter Attack. The Cult Marines (Namely NM and PM) tend to end up more effective in comparisson.

At the end of the day, no meq can stack up to the grey hunter. So that comparison is not necessary. But start comparing your troops to Astartes tacticals and you'll see what I mean. ATSKNF doesn't matter as much if you win the CC.

Martel732 wrote:

 Jackster wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I don't mean dedicated assault units. I mean little things like how your CSM can get a cheap CC weapon in addition to the boltgun/bolt pistol. So when your shooty guys into into melee, they have an extra atttack! Throw in a mark of slaneesh, and they are a real foil for many meq assault teams, and they will absolutely mash tactical marines given the chance. Astartes marines that can shoot, usually can't do CC at all. This is not true for CSM or Space Wolves. ASM squads basically don't participate in the shooting phase.

By the end of the day, that all end up very expensive. A CSM with CCW, BP and Bolter cost more than a GH and has no ATSKNF or Counter Attack. The Cult Marines (Namely NM and PM) tend to end up more effective in comparisson.

At the end of the day, no meq can stack up to the grey hunter. So that comparison is not necessary. But start comparing your troops to Astartes tacticals and you'll see what I mean. ATSKNF doesn't matter as much if you win the CC.

And stop. This is a load of crap, chaos space marines units without fearless somehow (character or cult) are garbage in any effective number. They get pricey for decent hardware or a mark and have no reliable mobility and being swept sucks badly for a them, if they are msu then they still can't win an assault so you won't waste the points on the extra weapon if your smart. So basically your crying because you assault squad/priest has difficulty vs 10+ meq with a lord in there unit which is slowed because they should lose that fight and have the mobility to avoid the anyway.

I say stop wasting time with shooting and go for a bit of fluff and respect. This is Blood Angels vs Black Legion after all! Horus vs Sanguinius, IX vs XVI. Grudge match. Go for pure assault. Spam the hell out of Death Company and select your targets. Berserkers, Oblits and the Regular marines. He can't hold a torch to them in assault on the charge. Even with Mark of Khorne. I assume that Abbadon rolls with the Terminators? Throw the Death Company at them too, and even with AP3-6 or worse, the amount of attacks will kill. The assault marines can drop in can drop vehicles like nobodies buisness.

As for Abbadon himself, yeah, he's a tough nut to crack. Try Dante. Reduce Abaddon's stats to a respectable level, then hurl a few shots his way, even throw Sanguinior and his Assassin style at him.

Even consider taking allies. Try Grey Knights. Some Terminators for objective holding, an Inquistor for HQ, and one of the assassins. Eversor or Vindicare. Not even Abbadon stands up to 2 wounds per turn which ignore LoS!