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Hi. My name is Aaron. I've been playing for about 3-4 months now. I've built a Chaos Space Marine army but I need some help tweeking it so I can be more competitive with it. I've won a few games with it. But I have been absolutely destroyed a couple times to. I was hoping that someone here could help me tweek it and give me some pointers. I apologize if it is hard to follow. I copied it from Battlescribe.

Aaron's 2000 pt CSM list


Selections:

Chaos Space Marines 2000 points

HQ:

Chaos Lord (173pts)
Blight grenades, Gift of mutation, Mark of Nurgle, Melta bombs, Sigil of corruption, Power Armour: Combi-bolter, The Black Mace

Elites

Chaos Terminators (277pts)
Heavy Flamer, Mark of Tzeentch, Reaper Autocannon,
2X Terminator with Chainfist
2X Terminator with a Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator Champion with Chainfist and Combi-flamer, -melta, or plasma

Troops

Chaos Cultists (82pts)
12x Autopistol and Champion's upgrade
12x Squad models (champion included)
12x Mark of Nurgle

Chaos Cultists (82pts)
12x Autopistol and Champion's upgrade
12x Squad models (champion included)
12x Mark of Nurgle

Plague Marines (Troops) (253pts)
6x Plague Marine, 2x Plasma Gun
Chaos Rhino with Combi-bolter, Dirge caster, Searchlight, Smoke launchers
Plague Champion equipped with CCW, Plasma Pistol

Plague Marines (Troops) (253pts)
6x Plague Marine, 2x Plasma Gun
Chaos Rhino with Combi-bolter, Dirge caster, Searchlight, Smoke launchers
Plague Champion equipped with CCW, Plasma Pistol

Fast Attack

2X Heldrake with Baleflamer (340 pts)

Heavy Support

Havocs (175pts)
4x Havoc all with Missile Launcher and Flak Missile upgrade
Aspiring Champion with bolt pistol and CCW

Maulerfiend with Lasher tendrils (135pts)

Obliterators (228pts)
3x Obliterator with Mark of Nurgle

You need to delete the details for all the point costs from your post, it is against forum rules. Something like this is ok:

Chaos Lord, MoN, Blight Grenades, GoM, Melta, 4++, Termi Armor, Combi-Bolter, Black Mace = 173 pts.

Or similar.

That being said, I will give you my thoughts on your list.

HQ: Strong HQ unit for close-combat with the black mace. You want him to be stomping troops. I think the Gift of Mutation and Meltabombs are probably wasted points here. GoM is fun and fluffy, but kind of a gamble on getting something useful. The meltabombs are good for anti-vehicle, of course. But with the Black Mace you want him hunting troops. Just some thoughts, but you may be able to save some points by changing his load-out.

I assume that he is deep-striking with the terminator squad? Blight grenades are a good choice to help survive the first round of counter-fire while you get ready to charge into combat. Good selection there.

Terminators:

These guys are mostly decked out for close-combat, complementing your lord, which is good from a consistency viewpoint. Except for the reaper autocannon, which is a powerful weapon but very expensive. I'd consider dropping it and saving the points. Stick with the heavy flamer and combi-flamer or plasma on the champion, and deep strike them next to an enemy unit for some BBQ action. MoT give them +1 invulnerable, which I guess is useful if you think they are going to face a wave of plasma/melta/lascannon fire when they arrive? MoN gives them +1T, also helping them to survive the round of shooting that they will face when first arriving. Both help survivability I suppose, which is good. MoT is slightly cheaper. I would experiment with both on this squad over the course of a few games. In general, I think +1T is better just because the majority of fire you will run into is bolter-equivalent. But I can't argue too much with your choice.

Troops:

Cultists are good back-field objective holders in large blobs. I think MoN is wasted on them personally, and would combine the two groups into one big blob of 20 or so, give them a flamer and have them sit on an objective in cover. Keep them cheap and use the points elsewhere! Use their large numbers to hang onto that objective, putting the champion in the middle of the mass to keep him alive and benefit from the higher leadership for the unit.

Plague Marines: These guys are very good, and will probably be your primary mid-field objective grabbers. I'd go with at least 7 for each squad - the points saved on dropping MoN on the cultists will pay for a couple extra plague marine bodies for example. I would also go combi-plasma on the champions. Once you are inside 12" pistol range, you are only likely to get one shot off anyway before close combat, and you save a few points. The rhinos are good for delivery and mobile LoS blocking.

Fast Attack:

Heldrakes are awesome, of course, and taking 2 at this point level is reasonable. No arguments from me. Baleflamer = anti-personnel, and the vector strike can be very effective against light armor.

Heavy Support:

Havocs with missile launchers and flakk. Very expensive for what it gets you. I would consider going Havocs with auto-cannons and investing points in an ADL+quad-gun. You may also be able to use the ADL to cover some of your cultists. Dropping missile launchers + flakk and swapping to auto-cannons pays 2/3 of the cost of the ADL with quad-gun by itself. The auto-cannons are also effective anti-flyer, complementing the quad-gun.

Maulerfiend: This is one of your two primary anti-vehicle units, correct? I'd stick with magma cutters. The lasher tendrils are better for anti-personnel close-combat, but your lord+termie and heldrakes will take care of those. Dedicate this unit to tank hunting, in which case the magma cutters are more effective. It also saves a few points to spend on other items, like VoLW on your obliterators.

Obliterators: I have never been disappointed in mine. Since you are taking (3) 2W models, you need to make sure that they stay on the board. MoN is perfect, it keeps them from being instant-killed by a lascannon or whatnot. However, you really need to spend the points on Veterans of the Long War. The +1 leadership is critical to keep them from breaking. In a squad of three, you are taking a leadership test if one model dies, so keeping the remaining units "in the game" is critical. Between lascannon, multi-melta, and plasma cannon, these are your other primary anti-vehicle unit. They can also be good against flyers with the auto-cannons. You can pay for VoLW on this group by dropping lasher tendrils on the maulerfiend.

Summary:

Solid core list, but try to stay consistent with the roles and therefore weapons/loadout of the various units. Your biggest concern is the deep-striking lord and terminator team. If they do well, your army will do well. If not, you are going to struggle to win.

Good luck!
-Aeglos

If you knew it was hard to read why didn't you fix it up a little? :(

anyway, some suggestions..

MoN on cultists is not point efficient. Against bolters, its more effective to take more bodies, and against high str weapons that dont care if you're t3 or t4, its especially effective to take more cultists. I could share the math with you but you can look it up easily on your own with mathhammer

You cannot have 1 maulerfiend. As you play more and more CSM you will realize that there are many aggressive units that dont actually have a defensive stat line to match that aggressiveness, and the way to fix that is to take several of them. For example, never take 1:
vindicator
mauler/forgefiend
Daemon Prince
Rhino
Helbrute

Finally, your death star terminators are very underwhelming compared to other deathstars. Compared to SM SS/TH termies with FNP, MCs from nids, screamer stars, circuses, and all that, your opponents death stars will often eat up yours as if it wasnt even a death star. Come up with something scarier.

Also, stay open to taking daemon allies.

Thank you for all your help. I've already started reworking my list based on your suggestions.

Changer. Do you mean make my Terminators scarier? How would I make them scarier?

Just drop the termi n turn them into more oblits to replace missile havocs n fiend.

Turn any other champ into your lord with MoN n stick him with plague marines.

If you want to keep termi then i reccomend typhus to go with shooty termi n turn cultist into zombies. If you can just get 3 more oblitz then you can have 3 pairs of oblitz for your heavy slot.

List i recommend
Typhus
Termi squad with rac

12 zombies
12 zombies

Plague marines with your loadout in rhino
Repeat

Pair of helgobblers

3 pairs of oblits MoN n possibly votlw.

Chaos Terminators are "scarier" when they take advantage of the one thing going for them: Cheapness. Depending on their role, I would go with Power Axes and 3x Combi-______ for whatever type of thing your army faces the most. I wouldn't give them power fists or chainfists, or even marks (I give MoTz because of theme). 5man units, all the time erry day.

If you have over half your store in Space Marines, I would give them Veterans of the Long War in place of combi-weapons. I will throw a 5man squad with power axes at a 10-man Tactical Squad for 172pts, yes please, and I will take a side of "Hatred". Squeeze in a Biomancy sorcerer for Enfeeble and/or Endurance and watch the fun begin.

A note on taking melee weapons like power fists and chainfists- if you need them, it means your army is lacking the ability to take care of walkers. This is bad. Terminators with melee weapons will not help this lack. Better to just worry about slaughtering medium infantry or horde with a cheap terminator unit armed with Power Axes.