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Can Chaos Space Marines with the Mark of Nurgle be competitive? If I wanted to take a Nurgle Army would I be gimping myself? I like to play close shooting armies that wither their opponents down with tons of close range fire and then mop up in close combat. I used to play 3rd edition Nurgle this way and was quite effective at it, but I am concerned with the new rules on charging, firing, etc. that it won't work anymore the way I want to. Do I have to basically take a mix and match army these days?

What about a slaanesh shooty army instead? Topping out on blast masters and sonic blasters? Will this army be able to compete with Double Flyrant 'Nid Armies or Mass Night Scythe Armies?

Defiler? Is it a good edition to the army? At 195 points it seems very expensive, and no more mutated hull means it feels like it's easy to remove from the table. Should I just rely on Helldrakes for my Armor?

What is the average model count for a CSM Army these days? I am having a hard time getting up into the 50-60 counts I used to have back when I played last.

archamedius wrote:
Can Chaos Space Marines with the Mark of Nurgle be competitive? If I wanted to take a Nurgle Army would I be gimping myself?

Currently, Codex: Chaos Space Marines is often referred as Codex: Nurgle and Baledrakes. Nuff' said.

archamedius wrote:
What is the average model count for a CSM Army these days? I am having a hard time getting up into the 50-60 counts I used to have back when I played last.

It is usually well over 90, because nobody takes the MEQ stuff, just fills in with cheap Cultists/Zombies and call it a deal. Alternatively, if you take the MEQ (Plague Marines, Nurgle Bikers, Havocs), then it should be around 20-30, or maybe even 40.

Well i don't play CSM but from what i've seen and read as well as played against , Nurgle Marines are by far the MOST competitive right now , and guys in my local meta have been having about 25-35 models so i don't know if that is a good number or not but i do think things have certainly changed ,

I've found Slaanesh marines to be very competetive. That's my primary army right now and they have not let me down, even against armies with more shooting, like Tau and GK purifiers.

Blastmasters are rapetastic against MEQs, especially when they're cowering behind Aegis lines or in ruins, or doing funny tricks with shrouding (nurgle).

Doom sirens are miniature baleflamers for 15 pts a piece.

Initiative 5 + power weapons means you win most challenges without a problem, and initiative 5 in general more than makes up for the body count. On that note, vanilla CSM are 13 pts of often overlooked swiss army knife goodness.

AC havoks are good, cheap anti-air/light armor, along with a quad gun I've had no problems with 2 flyers at a time - nobody in my area plays more than 2 flyers, so I'm not sure how that would go without some additional backup. Daemon allies gives you super-cheap access to prescience though, so that's a bonus.

Helldrakes are obviously good in general terms, as are obliterators and chaos bikers.

It's been a very strong army for me.

Edit: Also - Fearless scoring units are never to be underestimated.

archamedius wrote:
Can Chaos Space Marines with the Mark of Nurgle be competitive? If I wanted to take a Nurgle Army would I be gimping myself? I like to play close shooting armies that wither their opponents down with tons of close range fire and then mop up in close combat. I used to play 3rd edition Nurgle this way and was quite effective at it, but I am concerned with the new rules on charging, firing, etc. that it won't work anymore the way I want to. Do I have to basically take a mix and match army these days?

Nurgle being competitive... Maybe. Its expensive, but some of the "good" choices run with Mark of Nurgle (Bikers and Obliterators to name a few). Typhus is interesting, but you have to keep Plague Marine units small usually. Don't make the mistake of freaking out over Zombies and just loading up on them....

archamedius wrote:
What about a slaanesh shooty army instead? Topping out on blast masters and sonic blasters? Will this army be able to compete with Double Flyrant 'Nid Armies or Mass Night Scythe Armies?

Noise Marines are competitive, spamming them is not. Most other units don't really benefit from a MoS.

archamedius wrote:
Defiler? Is it a good edition to the army? At 195 points it seems very expensive, and no more mutated hull means it feels like it's easy to remove from the table. Should I just rely on Helldrakes for my Armor?

Defilers are kind of bad. The Battle Cannon means you dont benefit from other guns, so run them with all melee armaments if you decide on one. Havocs and Obliterators are usually a better choice though. Defilers are delicate and its hard to give them cover.

Heldrakes are best with a Baleflamer really. One is plenty, two is choice, and three is cruel.

archamedius wrote:
What is the average model count for a CSM Army these days? I am having a hard time getting up into the 50-60 counts I used to have back when I played last.

Are you ignoring Cultists? They can be surprisingly effective depending on the mission. Consider The Relic: I watched someone Infiltrate some Cultists and Ahriman and grab the Relic on the first turn. 3 turns of shooting at Invisible Cultists and there were still half a dozen models left standing.


Theme lists are almost always sub-par. The strongest builds for CSM that I've seen have a decent variety of units, though you DO tend to see a lot of the same stuff, like x2 Heldrakes and units of 3 Obliterators with MoN.

cowmonaut wrote:

Are you ignoring Cultists? They can be surprisingly effective depending on the mission. Consider The Relic: I watched someone Infiltrate some Cultists and Ahriman and grab the Relic on the first turn. 3 turns of shooting at Invisible Cultists and there were still half a dozen models left standing.


Theme lists are almost always sub-par. The strongest builds for CSM that I've seen have a decent variety of units, though you DO tend to see a lot of the same stuff, like x2 Heldrakes and units of 3 Obliterators with MoN.

I don't own any cultists at the moment, and they seemed rather lackluster for troops aside from being meatshields. I prefer units that can do something other than die, but I am finding I might need to have some. I am not a fan of special characters either, probably because when I played last they were considered taboo (not allowed in tournaments, and were either horridly overpriced or horridly overpowered).

Is a winged demon prince of nurgle with 3 psyker levels and the black mace, etc. (roughly 350 points) too expensive of an HQ slot. He seems like hes a really tough nut to crack with the biomancy powers, and great versatility with vector strike, long range movement, etc. But I really don't like the high point cost.

I feel that daemon princes are best left out of a CSM list. Like you said too expensive. They fit better as the allied HQ for Chaos Daemons. Typhus is a solid HQ, priced approprietly IMO and unlocks cultist as zombies. I find all the other special characters sub par or too expensive for what they bring. Or they generally don't fit my plan.

Nurgle and slaanesh are the two most competative gods for CSM right now.

Winged DP with black mace and biomancy is pure awesome in deamon form, and easily worth its points and more.

Add Huron and 3 squads of noise marines for some infiltrating uber shooty goodness (if you have a slaaneshi lord for having noise marines as troops). They can dish out some serious dakka.

As far as marked CSM, I personally do not use them. As someone above mentioned they are 13pt marines--I just run large units of them with 2 special weapons and sometimes CCW. Cult Marines I have a very strong affinity for and do believe they are very competitive. Plague Marines you can build an army around using MSU tactics due to their resilience. Noise Marines, while good, I find harder to use as my troops. Their Blastmasters are AWESOME, Sonic Blasters are good too, but they can quickly become too expensive for what they do. I do like to try and fit a unit of Noise Marines in a lot of lists though.

Again, as someone above mentioned, I find Huron to be very competitive and help with getting choppy guys across the board. I really like infiltrating a blob of vanilla CSM with bolters swapped for CCW and forcing the opponent to deal with them now. This helps with target saturation with the two Vindicators I also like to include in lists.

Lastly, yes Cultists are almost too squishy and really only viable as zombies or held in reserves for backfield object holding, and the Heldrake is an auto-include that can fill so many roles in the army.

Yes Slaanesh and Nurgel are the competitive choices if you are running a mono-god themed CSM army. The most competitive CSM army will of course mix marks/gods but some people like having themes.

For Nurgle the name of the game is survivable meat grinder. T6 span and a lord on a bike is a really tough unit that puts out decent killyness. MoN oblits are great, Plague Marines are really survivable if expensive. If I was running Nurgle I'd take Typus 2 units of 20 zombies, 2 units of Plague marines with 2x plasma in rihnos, a loard on bike with mon with some spawn with moN, oblits with Mon and 2 helldrakes.

Slaanesh is also really good. Spammed blastmasters is really good in the meta because so many armies rely on cover. you can also effectively our range tau. giving your noise marines the banner of excess is expensive but makes them more survivable. I'f I was running slaanesh I'd take a lord or huron hiding them both in some squads of cultists. then spam out noise marines, as many heldrakes and probably maulerfiends to distract every one from all the templates you will be dropping.

A DP winged with Axe of Blind Fury is a pretty mean HQ ... i prefer the axe to the Black mace.

 felixcat wrote:
A DP winged with Axe of Blind Fury is a pretty mean HQ ... i prefer the axe to the Black mace.

I used to think the same thing but when you look closer at it the Black mace is the better option all the way around. Here is why, first, as a MC all of your attacks are AP2 anyway, so the only thing the axe gives you is 2+ strength -1 WS and +D6 attacks. the black mace let's you auto wound on 2+ regardless of toughness and causes the whole toughness test thing. This is superior because now you DP can charge into fearless blobs and cause havoc and not worry about getting tar pitted. For example let's say you charge a squad of 30 boys. with the axe you will on average kill 5 boys every assault phase that means it takes 2+ game turns to make them lose fearless so you can sweep and move on to another target. with the BM you will kill 13 on the turn you charge and then on the orks turn you will kill another 8 making them lose fearless and likely to be swept. Also as you DP only has a 5+ invulnerable save, you want WS9. at WS8 WS4 models are still hitting you on a 4+ you want to make them hit on a 5+ because it adds to his survivability. Guard blobs are even more vulnerable due to their low toughness. Thus, at the end of the day the all the Axe of Blind fury gives you is more attacks that will ID t4 models. That is not a very big advantage considering you can smash with the black mace. for what you give up BM all day everyday.