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what do you think of this list? i'm still new at this, but this is what i have for my army so far
Typhus-230

Chaos Lord-95
+optional 40 for 3+ invuln save
(sigil of corruption+mark of Tzeentch)


Chaos Space Marines-105
(is +1T worth 15 points do you think?)

Chaos cultists-50 (minimum)
-make them zombies with Typhus?

Chosen (+1 guy)-164
(or 145 W/O extra guy)

Helbrute-105

Plague Marines-135 (minimum)
-should i add an extra marine in at 24points each or stick to a five man squad?
-plasma gun do you think?-15


Chaos Land Raider-230
extra's-22
(deamonic possesion...for the Lulz at 15 points)

this list has 1114 points for allt the base points and none of the extra's, and falls exactly on 1300 with all the equipment + melta bombs for the CSM unit, Chosen and Plague Marines.


any constructive thoughts and feedback is welcome

How anchored are you to units from dark vengeance? Also, how open are you to buying more stuff?

 Ailaros wrote:
How anchored are you to units from dark vengeance? Also, how open are you to buying more stuff?

what do you mean by anchored?

and i am open to buying lots of chaos

just might take me a while at the moment with economic difficulties...

I'm not an expert on chaos by any stretch, but I would definitely suggest giving those standard marines some sort of mark to specialize them, if even a little. MoN is probably the way to go for sitting on objectives.

 KommissarKiln wrote:
I'm not an expert on chaos by any stretch, but I would definitely suggest giving those standard marines some sort of mark to specialize them, if even a little. MoN is probably the way to go for sitting on objectives.

MoN is already factored in to the 1300 points for that unit. thats the 15pts for +1t

An increase in Toughness (for example T5) typically means the model is going to take 33% fewer wounds.
This is based on a MEQ meta w/ S4 and needing 4+ to wound.

So whether the MoN upgrade is worth it, is dependent upon what opponents you typically expect to face and what weapons you're anticipating taking saves against.

MoN makes a unit more resilient to "small arms fire" but things that will normally eat through a marine, or "heavy arms fire" don't care about that increase in Toughness.
Plasma, Melta, Battlecannon or Demolisher rounds... those points are wasted.

If you're taking Typhus the "free" upgrade to cultists is well worth it. Cultists are really in the CSM book for two reasons:
Ablative wounds & Objective grabbing. The Fearless + Feel No Pain upgrade makes cultists very good both of these roles. As it's also free there's very little reason not to take it.

First off, welcome to 40k. It's a blast. I'll give some noob pointers.

What is this list for? Are you planning on playing in tournaments with it? Is it for fun? Several issues with this list right off the bat. I'll go through them and try to help you out.

1. Using typhus with only 10 cultists? Missing the point of him i think. Zombies are a great 'hold the line' type of unit. Get more, several squa ds and larger squads. They're cheap. If you don't want zombies, don't use Typhus.

2. The lord should be built to win challenges. Right now he can take some amount of beating, but a 3++ won't save you. A foot lord should be running with a power sword and usually a mark of slaanesh. This lets him hit first against other HQs.

3. CSM are practically not usable. If you lose close combat, which happens a lot because you're forced to challenge. Then you fail your leadership and are over run half the time. Their points cost is too high for how easily they go down. IF you want to use them, give them special weapons. 2 plasma or 2 melta. Plasma is more common/better.

4. For chosen, see #3.

5. Hellbrutes can sorta ish work. They have the same issue that SM dreads have. They die too easily for their points/firepower output.

6. Always take special weapons. So with your plague marines, yes plasma/melta with them.

7. Daemonic posession isn't a good idea for a land raider for several reasons. First off, it's -1 BS. the LC need this very much. Also, Land raiders rarely take penetrating hits, and when they do it's from AP 1/2 weapons that add +2/+1 to the damage roll, so ignoring any sort of damage result happens very very rarely.

8. Finally, since you're new I'll help you out over all. Think about what each unit is going to do. What is their purpose. You need to be able to take out small tough elite units, large hordes, tanks, and fliers. This list doesn't have any of that.

13whited wrote:what do you mean by anchored?

and i am open to buying lots of chaos

I mean, how important is it that you use units from this set? For example, the hellbrute and the chosen you get from DV aren't that great of units to begin with, and, in their stock configuration, they're kind of set up wrong.

Also, take-one-of-everything lists tend to be weak and difficult to play. Unless you're talking about big, expensive units (like 10-man terminator squads, or 20-man squads of noise marines or something), you're going to want to have copies of every unit you're fielding (except maybe HQ) so that you have a backup when the other one is destroyed.

Unfortunately, stronger units means not DV ones, and multiple copies of things means buying more stuff.

paidinfull wrote:
An increase in Toughness (for example T5) typically means the model is going to take 33% fewer wounds.
This is based on a MEQ meta w/ S4 and needing 4+ to wound.

So whether the MoN upgrade is worth it, is dependent upon what opponents you typically expect to face and what weapons you're anticipating taking saves against.

MoN makes a unit more resilient to "small arms fire" but things that will normally eat through a marine, or "heavy arms fire" don't care about that increase in Toughness.
Plasma, Melta, Battlecannon or Demolisher rounds... those points are wasted.

If you're taking Typhus the "free" upgrade to cultists is well worth it. Cultists are really in the CSM book for two reasons:
Ablative wounds & Objective grabbing. The Fearless + Feel No Pain upgrade makes cultists very good both of these roles. As it's also free there's very little reason not to take it.

well mostly i face necrons...i feel like the extra T could be worth it, but i'm still quite new at this so i havn'e got much experience to draw upon



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:

13whited wrote:what do you mean by anchored?

and i am open to buying lots of chaos

I mean, how important is it that you use units from this set? For example, the hellbrute and the chosen you get from DV aren't that great of units to begin with, and, in their stock configuration, they're kind of set up wrong.

Also, take-one-of-everything lists tend to be weak and difficult to play. Unless you're talking about big, expensive units (like 10-man terminator squads, or 20-man squads of noise marines or something), you're going to want to have copies of every unit you're fielding (except maybe HQ) so that you have a backup when the other one is destroyed.

Unfortunately, stronger units means not DV ones, and multiple copies of things means buying more stuff.

i don't particularly care about them, it's simply what i have ATM

Another thing to consider is if you believe your opponent will bring strong AP weapons (Doomsday ark, doom scythe), Mark of Tzeentch will really help anyone with an invul like termies or warlord. I recently allied with my chaos friend against the 'crons, and that was actually a pretty good investment, considering the number of times heavy support targeted those units.

 KommissarKiln wrote:
Another thing to consider is if you believe your opponent will bring strong AP weapons (Doomsday ark, doom scythe), Mark of Tzeentch will really help anyone with an invul like termies or warlord. I recently allied with my chaos friend against the 'crons, and that was actually a pretty good investment, considering the number of times heavy support targeted those units.

mostly my friend has troops. he built his army based on the previous codex (poor guy, he started like a month before the new codex release)
but that FECKING monolith...

So,

Chaos lords are great, and if you and your friends don't mind proxying, try a MoN instead for your lord, and bring Plague marines instead of standard CSM.

Also, Investing some points to put that lord on a bike or give him some sort of other mobility and make sure to build an escort unit. MoN bikers work great, as do MoN Chaos Spawn.(5 spawn get 15 wounds and toughness 6 with MoN. No saves, so use cover wisely.)

I know you don't have those right now, but might be worth it to pick some up.

Helbrutes are really not worth the point cost.

something else to consider is bring in a heldrake or two. They can really eat the standard warriors with a baleflamer.

Dejan_Guard wrote:
So,

Chaos lords are great, and if you and your friends don't mind proxying, try a MoN instead for your lord, and bring Plague marines instead of standard CSM.

Also, Investing some points to put that lord on a bike or give him some sort of other mobility and make sure to build an escort unit. MoN bikers work great, as do MoN Chaos Spawn.(5 spawn get 15 wounds and toughness 6 with MoN. No saves, so use cover wisely.)

I know you don't have those right now, but might be worth it to pick some up.

Helbrutes are really not worth the point cost.

something else to consider is bring in a heldrake or two. They can really eat the standard warriors with a baleflamer.

can't drop the CSM because it's my second troop choice...or actually nevermind...typhus.
okay

but the mark of tzeentch+ sigil of corruption grants a 3+invuln

if i may also give some input...

just a general chunk of advice on the CSM codex:

- if you take typhus, take at least 20 zombies. also, cultists in general are extremely good for their points.

- a good way to maximize your CSMs is by running them with fabius bile and giving them mark of slaanesh. it makes them S5 I5 marines. this is huge against most infantry units.

- heldrakes are really good. if you wanna win, take one. if you wanna have people to regularly play with, avoid running it.

- nurgle sorcerer on bike with nurgle bikers is a great unit, just make sure they have the proper support.

- chaos marines don't have access to drop pods which means if you do decide to take transports (rhinos), move as fast as you can on the first turn because they will almost always be popped on the opponents first turn. if you do not take rhinos, make sure to take larger units / more units. target saturation is a very important element of wargaming. if your opponent has to sink everything he/she has into one squad to get rid of it, let them, this only allows you to move in with the rest of your force.

- obliterators are amazing! give them MoN for T5 and you are looking at one devastating squad of doods. also, in a pinch, throw them into a weaker / smaller opposing unit to tie them up for a long time. 2A isn't impressive, but when there are 10 guys that aren't strong enough to deal consistent wounds to you, you are still averaging 1 wound/ oblit in combat (and still survive).

- any of the elite troop units are good so long as they are used for their intended purpose. zerkers need numbers or a land raider, plague marines should have plasma and camp objectives, thousand sons should get to the middle and provide cover fire, and noise marines should stay in cover and hunt 2+ and 3+ armor.

- warp talons are not as good in actual gameplay as they sound. this is unfortunate as this is the cheapest way to get twin LCs in this codex. if you start them on the board they have a better chance of survival, ironically, seeing as most of the time (even if they don't scatter) they won't blind anything and they will still get shot at from other things before they are able to engage in combat.

- overall, decide on which tpe of tactics you want to play. are you trying to play the slow nurgle fortress or the fast hard hitting threats of khorne/slaanesh or the shooty tzeentch list that doesn't care about your opponents AP values. it is good to have variety within your list, just make sure you have a unit for everything, or a good general tactic (i.e., holding objectives, wiping out the enemy models).

hope this helps and welcome to the dark side of chaos! mwahahahaha!

if you take a Chaos Lord with a Mark other than Tzeentch (taking a Sorcerer with this Mark will do this instead), you unlock a Cult Marine unit of the corresponding Mark as troops. Marked Warlords (such as Typhus) do this as well, and considering the average performance of your vanilla Chaos Marine, this is a huge-arse deal. If you plan to take Typhus, then why not make your troops Plague Marines and Zombies? Sure your Plague Marines might get expensive (the way I tend to kit them will be included below, but it cost 342 points for the squad), but your zombies sure aren't anywhere near as costly, so pile up the bodies! 30 Plague Zombies only cost 130 points! With that many FnP bodies, you'll sit on objectives forever, and will tarpit anything short of an extreme close-combat specialist. Need anything to go fast? Well, since you're already showing a slight Nurgle tendency, then by all means be that guy that takes Nurgle Bikers. Need moar dakka? Nurgle Obliterators are your answer. Even as a Slaanesh player, I like the Mark of Nurgle a lot, because it helps so much. Here are some examples of units you can field.

Nurgle Biker Lord - 65 points base
Mark - 15
Bike - 15
Power Fist - 25
Sigil of Corruption - 25
Total: 150 points

Plague Marines - 120 points base
5 more marines - 120 points
2 Plasma guns - 30 points
Power Fist - 25 points
Rhino with Havoc Launcher - 47 points
Total - 342 points

Nurgle Bikers - 70 points base
2 more bikers - 40 points
Mark - 25 points (5 per model)
Power Fist - 25 points
2 Plasma Guns - 30 points
Total - 195 points

Nurgle Obliterators - 70 points base
2 more Obliterators - 140 points
Mark - 18 points (6 per model)
Total - 228 points

lol, i field a nurgle list that is very similar to that. i give my nurgle sorcerer the black mace though and take him with 5 bikers instead of 3. i don't upgrade my rhinos at all though as usually they are the first things to go (or the vindicator). if you combine this with some slaanesh guys with FNP and I5, and you are looking at a pretty fearsome list.

I run something similar but have Nurgle Spawn rather than bikers as the potential damage output is better and they have 3 wounds each. Only problem is the Spawn models aren't great so you get to do some conversions!

Picking up fabius bile makes a CSM squad worth it...especially in a 20 man tarpit

when playing chaos marines remember that alot of models have to challenge all the time. i have been running 2 hqs and it has been working out.

try to give one of your hqs a daemon weapon from the artifacts list because of the extra attacks and special properties.

i put a lord or a character with a unit of marines that way i can choose who makes the challenge i.e. if its a enemy hq use your hq if its just a unit then have your champ make challenge and your hq can attack the unit and wipe out most of them.

oblitz are the schiznit!!! they always kill more then there point value, and dont be afraid to mve then shoot or deep strike behind enemy lines and then you can hit rear armor or pinch other units

play a few games and find your style then try to proxy in some units if its a friendly game most wont care if you use your marines but play them as berzrkers or 1k sons for example and see if it worked for your stratagy.

termies are good and custumizible try them out if you can

mark up some units but you dont need to mark everyone it gets expensive, and have a plan for the ones with marks i.e. mid field objectives or contesting enemy objectives.

most of all remember csm are very customizable

just use dark vengeance chosen marines as champions for the chaos space marines

I highly recommend plague marines for new players.