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I'd like your thoughts!

I'm making a Nurgle CSM army list and I keep wanting to take Plague Marines, but they seem too point-heavy to justify taking in an army. How do you use your Plague Marines, and have you had much success with these guys?

Objective camper = 5 bodies, 2 plasma guns (could possibly be 2 flamers if you really need to save points).

Objective takers = 7-8 bodies, 2 special weapons, power axe on champion (he's already I3 so might as well get the stronger weapon with better AP)

All the better if you had a Chaos Lord with MoN; then you could take Plague Marines as troop choices! Cheap too!

I'll add two questions:
1. To rhino or not to rhino?
2. Are they good for attaching lord / sorc?

Rhino is more dependant on what else is in your army.
The more armor you have, the better and safer rhinos are.

And they are good spots for HQs to hide. They provide durable wounds and the HQ provides high I assault protection. Sorcerers work great because they also get fearless.

dy/dx wrote:I'd like your thoughts!I'm making a Nurgle CSM army list and I keep wanting to take Plague Marines, but they seem too point-heavy to justify taking in an army. How do you use your Plague Marines, and have you had much success with these guys?

Plague marines are high in point-cost, but they are actually more resilient to most fire than MEQ on a point-for-point basis. The toughness 5 and FNP push them over the top in resisting a lot of damage!

Plague marines are the swiss army knife of the CSM codex. They are good in assault with CCW's and plague knives. They are actually as good as chosen in assault, due the ability to reroll wounds on MEQ. They also can hurt high toughness creatures with the plague knives.

They are good in shooting as they have bolters, 2 special weapons and bolt pistols. You can throw a few MGs/PGs/Flamers in each squad to help increase their shootyness.

Plague marines are fearless. This means that they are not going anywhere anytime soon. This is a significant advantage as you know that your models will not be ran off by a bad morale test or losing in assault.

There is only one drawback with plague marines. They don't put out as much firepower on a per-point basis as equal points in other MEQ. At 24 points per model your going to have about 2/3 the firepower of other MEQ armies. What your getting back is a lot more durability and flexability.

Mr. Voidness wrote:I'll add two questions:
1. To rhino or not to rhino?

Rhinos are a mixed bag. They are extremely useful for moving your model to where it needs to go. A rhino can push your models 18" a turn, which means that when you need to get to that objective you can get there fast!

You can also use them as extra protection from helldrakes. A helldrake must crack open the rhino before frying the squad inside.
They also can help protect against some assault units. A termigon will be tearing up the rhino and not the marines inside. This can save you an extremely important round of getting stuck in an unwanted assault.

Rhinos can also be used as transports for dirge casters -- probably one of the best pieces of 5 point wargear in the game.

On the other hand, to many rhinos is a waste. Your just not going to need that many of them. Some of your PMs wont need them. I've been bringing 2 rhinos for 3 plague marines squads. In the 3rd squad I've been sticking a MoN lord in terminator armor.

Rhinos biggest drawback is that they can give up first blood pretty easily. Even hiding them behing LoS terrain and an aegis, its not uncommon for me to lose 1 on turn 1. When it does, you will be pissed.

Mr. Voidness wrote:I'll add two questions:2. Are they good for attaching lord / sorc?

A lord goes very well with a squad of PMs. PMs, while good in assault, they are not great. They will be swept by things like beast packs, bloodletters, etc. A lord helps you shore up this weakness.

You want to put him in terminator armor for the 2+ save -- which is huge in 6th edition. If your assaulted by a bunch of death kult assassains, you can put the hits on him, greatly lowering the chance of you getting your squad wiped out. I give my lord a power fist and lighting claw so he gets 4 attacks base (both are specialist weapons). He clocks in at 147 pts. YMMV on how your lord works out.

A sorc is cheap. If you look at it like your swapping out a 24 point PM for him, he 'virtual cost' is 36 points. Its a cheap upgrade for a psychic power. Don't mark him. Just take biomancy and hope for enfeeble.

Due to the nature of marine transports, all meq armies have to be aware that they will likely give up first blood if they use transports. But you just have to play for the long haul.

I guess CSM has a lot more options that can't go in transports compared to loyalists, which makes their rhinos more vulnerable.

One of the problems with the CSM rhinos is there are so many juicy options, its almost enough rope to hang yourself with.

Havoc launchers are actually really good for 12 points! A combi-melta on a rhino can be a very unexpected threat. Dirge casters are awesome. Of course, if you start tacking on all these bits you will have a 50+ point rhino -- which is where you don't want to be.

My rhinos are 50 pts. But they are also fast. But I don't have the option to take it off. CSM is still better! Bah!

As for Rhino equipment, I either give them dirge casters if the squad is assault based or havoc launchers if the squad is rapid fire based.

That seems reasonable. Stuff dies in 40K; you want to spread your eggs around.