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What do you think

Yes.

not even remotely, chaos fail almost everywhere, where as nids dont

Chaos space Marines is a very strong codex (though not the strongest) depending on what you run. A Heldrake and a winged Deamon Prince is nasty, especially if you run multiple. I feel like a strong CSM list could wipe out a strong Tyranid list. I play both, so despite my inexperience, I do think I know a little about the two.

From what I've heard, it would be harder to put together a strong Tyranid force than a strong CSM force (partly because the Heldrake stares you in the face and declares that you are not a man.)


But it is too early to tell, CSM tends to suffer as they have no way of getting their assault units into combat, when facing Tyranids they don't have this problem, seeing as the Nids are willing to attack the CSM, so their 'weaker' assault units are much more viable (Khorne Bezerkers, Mutilators even.)

I think so.

Both have come from relatively negatively-reviewed predecessors and carried across most of the complaints. Both seem to be devolving into 'paint-by-numbers' army lists with clear winners and losers, and both feature plenty of redundant mechanics, handicapping rules and iconic units made worthless in favour of new shinies.

That said:
- It looks like they at least *tried* to fix some of the CSM problems. Noise Marines were a wonderful improvement, Lords were fixed, Daemon Princes were made figures of legend rather than a 110pt monster that every warband featured in spades. The execution was lacking and not every unit could be fixed, but it seems that they at least made an effort to fix some of the fundamental issues.
'Nids cannot have the same said. Warriors are still an awful execution since the T4/W3 model simply doesn't work as a defense for valuable models. The Pyrovore and Lictors languish in mediocrity, and while the high-flying Trygons, Tervigons and Hive Guard were recognised as being good, ittle seems to have been done to fix any of the bad units.

- Chaos Marines have the Heldrake, Black Mace, Zombies and Obliterators. Sure the majority of the list is awful but they can bring the pain when they need to. It might be an affront to the background but when push comes to shove, the tourney-lists are actually capable of standing against the big boys. I'm not saying that horrific balance is a good thing as long as you're on top, but they at least have an answer and a hope of winning a big tournament some day. As it is, Tyranids seem to suffer from equally poor balance but without the silver lining of actually having winning units.
I suppose the ideal would be something like Eldar or Tau that lost Riptides and Wave Serpents, where the entire Codex is made of solid, dependable units without clear losers, but all being good enough to build an army on.

Depends on how you define 'worse'. If you are comparing the flexibility, number of viable units/builds, functional improvements from the previous book (i.e units that were terrible getting buffs etc), and the character and theming of the books then I would say they are both absolutely terrible books but are pretty equal in this regard. This is what really should be used as a metric when comparing codices, but people often just compare direct list power levels.

If you are purely looking at each books single most optimised build and comparing their power levels then the Chaos book comes out on top imo, mostly because Heldrake spam is still a list that some armies simply cannot deal with. I would have ranked the old Nid book on the same level as Heldrake spam because Biomancy and Tervigon AOEs were pretty powerful, but now they have nothing that stands out as powerful in any shape or form. As you look through the codex every unit is either 'wow this is way worse now' (Tervigon etc) or 'wow this is the exact same as before and they were terrible before' (Raveners/Shrikes/Warriors) or 'hmm thats ok if I bend over backwards to make it work'.

I think CSM is better and here why

Although I personally think the nids codex is stronger the CSM book still allows them to ally with other things.

Specifically allying with Daemons and getting access to their greater daemons and grimoire and stuff can really help the book. FMC with CSM as primary can work too.

It seems that the only real tactic the nids have available to them now (mostly because the mycetic spore was cut out) is run at the enemy and hope you don't die to overwatch. Even if the nids got a cheesy unit like a heldrake, they'd certainly be more competitive, but the rest of the book would still be pretty unimpressive.

Granted, the Chaos Marines codex is pretty unimpressive all things considered, but there are at least some units/combos that jump out as must haves and there's some cheese and enjoyment to be had.

Being able to ally is a big deal; the nids needed something big that would offset this, but didn't get it.

Edited for rule #3 - MT11

I don't think either is terrible really. I think both don't hold a candle to the MOST competitive tau and eldar lists, but they can do quite well against others. Seems fine.

 welshhoppo wrote:
From what I've heard, it would be harder to put together a strong Tyranid force than a strong CSM force (partly because the Heldrake stares you in the face and declares that you are not a man.)


But it is too early to tell, CSM tends to suffer as they have no way of getting their assault units into combat, when facing Tyranids they don't have this problem, seeing as the Nids are willing to attack the CSM, so their 'weaker' assault units are much more viable (Khorne Bezerkers, Mutilators even.)

Omg! U are so right! I feel like a little prinny every time i use a drake. I tell myself i can win this without a turkey, but at the end of the game i lose. I am not a good player and any wins i ever had in 6th was because the drake would decimate squads of infantry and vector strike the side of a tank.

I also think it is funny how csm was deemed the worst codex, but now it is tied with tyranid at the moment since people hav not discovered tyranids potential. Where can i find the army rankings? I knew csm was not great but i did not think it was very bad. Sure csm could have had modified chimeras for 40 cultists, infiltrating chosens, a new landraider with all the weapons taken out to carry 20 men, ectoplasma guns & pistols, daemon weapons for each god, dread claws, av13 dreadnaughts/defilers, flying transport, real jetfighters, etc...but we make due with what phil kelly wrote for us. (Did he also write Black legion?)

I made a choice when i first started playing wh40k, and that choice was csm or nothing. I am devoted to chaos, from thick to thin, in sickness until death, i shall only play csm (daemons by extension) or watch them die. Even if they keep writting csm as terribly as they can, i will not buy another army. Even if csm is ranked last, i will still play csm or not at all. They are my 1st army and they shall be my very last. I will atleast keep a few models if i decide to sell out because i might come back to the tables one day and remember exactly why i left. When gw or the wh40k game dies, i will atleast remember that i raised hell in wh40k.

I'm the same way man. 36,000 points of CSM emperor's children and counting. I'm never giving up!

I wish I could say the same!

CSM are my second army with eldar being my main one.
I didn't hop on the bandwagon though; I had this army back in 4th edition and suffered through the last crappy dex until we got this one.

For CSM I only have 1500pts of Iron Warriors but will probably double that before I call it a day with them. Oh and no Heldrake!

I think the new nids will be okay but CSM is still iron and fire. I know in these competitive or bust conversations it's drakes or nothing, but spawn bikes oblits havocs and a Lord or dp can stay toe to toe with most builds. Laspreds and maulerfiends are decent Armor. And yes we have drakes.

Forget triptides, screamerstars, and dark jetseer builds. Against non gimmick list you can stay pretty competitive.

I haven't heard one positive review of nids. It's pretty universally a Nerf bat. The nidzilla regen builds are you best options that I've seen so far and daemons can do it better and fly and several armies can waste that particular build (poison span DE etc). Even the min/max builds are medium good at best.

Well, in both cases one can play MC heavy lists:

CSM with 2 flying DPs, 3 Helldrakes, and 3 Maulerfiends.
Nids with 2 Flyrants, up to 9 Carnifexes, and whatnot.

CSM have Heldrakes, Daemon Princes, Cultists, allies and rulebook powers.

Tyranids have Flyrants, Biovores and... Um... Hoping to roll lots of 1s when it comes to psychic powers?

The premise of this question is that both armies are really, really borked. I don't agree with that idea, each one has it's own strengths and weaknesses. It's up to the player to come up with their own gamestyle that they find satisfying and use it to their advantage. I do just fine with the CSM Codex and find it to be just fine.

That said, my guess is that the main weakness of each army is the lack of viable transports. Shooty armies are too strong currently, and armies that need to move up the table suffer. When you look at it like that, I think the question comes down between these factors:

1) Chaos has better transport options than Tyranids, which don't. Rhinos are not great, Land Raiders are too expensive, but they are there.

2) Tyrannids can get more troops cheaper, which means they have a better chance of getting up the board on their own. CSMs have cultists, which are simply not as effective, and CSMs themselves are not all that great. I think the advantage goes to the Tyranids.

3) Chaos and Tyranids both have really powerful HQ options. As long as they survive long enough to get into combat, they can do some damage. From what I have seen, Chaos has slightly better ones. Not sure about this tho and looking forward to seeing what comes out of Tyranid lists.

I'd say no. For one, the new Tyranid book hasn't gone and made anything mandatory for success (hello Helldrakes) and in return has helped some of the older options that languished about unloved.

The Chaos book has pretty much made me shelve the Chaos armies until a later date. Sure, they may look pretty but unless I'm willing to roll over and fart out Helldrake and Obliterator spam they're pretty much a no-go.

It's much worse because it has no allies and therefore cannot adjust to the changing meta. Also it's an incredibly boring book.

If you take into account the Black Legion supplement and the Be'lakor dataslate, the CSM "army" is WAY better. There are so many more tools that can be used, and many cool options.

I also maintain that the chaos lord is one of the best non-special character HQ's in the entire game (Juggerlord, Tzeentch Lord/Sorcerer on disc, etc).

It fixed some of the problems with the older book: A lot was to exspensive and a terrible internal balance.

 Spellbound wrote:
I don't think either is terrible really. I think both don't hold a candle to the MOST competitive tau and eldar lists, but they can do quite well against others. Seems fine.

Why is it okay for new codices to be good against everything but the good codices?

Martel732 wrote:

 Spellbound wrote:
I don't think either is terrible really. I think both don't hold a candle to the MOST competitive tau and eldar lists, but they can do quite well against others. Seems fine.

Why is it okay for new codices to be good against everything but the good codices?

Because people don't want to admit they wasted a ton of money on plastic models.

No. The tyranids are just going to require more thought in list building and playing. CSM has evolved into spamming a handful of units and a couple minimum cultists squads.

POKEYtheBIG wrote:
No. The tyranids are just going to require more thought in list building and playing. CSM has evolved into spamming a handful of units and a couple minimum cultists squads.

I can pretty much guarantee Nids will evolve the same way once people start hammering out lists.

POKEYtheBIG wrote:
No. The tyranids are just going to require more thought in list building and playing. CSM has evolved into spamming a handful of units and a couple minimum cultists squads.

Explain to me how Nids require 'more thought' and tactical ability to play than CSM?

Such a strange thing to say. They're both poor codices with awful internal balance.

POKEYtheBIG wrote:
No. The tyranids are just going to require more thought in list building and playing. CSM has evolved into spamming a handful of units and a couple minimum cultists squads.

Why would you say that? That's exactly the build they used last book, and this book is pretty much the same except they lost biomancy.

You have 1 useful troop choice and about 3 other solid choices. Again, it's worse than CSM because you can at least take allies with CSM.

Basically, at least they cheapened down basic gants but debuffed them from the synapse bubble >.< Both books give you options to work but make competetive runs difficult. Everyone keeps saying heldrake heldrake heldrake but that new tyranid crone looks like itd rip it outtta the sky on paper (still waiting on it to arrive though)

The crone is a perfect counter for a heldrake because it starts the game on the board, as soon as the heldrake enters play you can vector strike it with 2-4 s8 hits. Haven't read the CSM codex in a while but I can't think of any other AA.

Wait maybe havocs can get flak missiles but that's what your Matlock/devourer flyrant is there for