Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Would the Dark Vengeance be a good start for a Slaanesh CSM army?

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440206a&prodId=prod1700019a

New to the game still figuring out who will be my first army .

Well with some VERY careful modeling and cutting you could make a nice EC army with the dark angel stuff.

But as a good army? well it can make a legal army.

Not really. The CSM side of the DV box is pretty bad. They give you two units (hellbrutes and chosen) that are not only low-power, but are also hideous models, and the lord is put together in a configuration in which you would never, ever take him (power sword and plasma pistol? What?), and is also hideous.

That leaves cultists, which are all right for their cost, and their models are decent, but those 16 cultists you get are going to come in at a pittance number of points (so you still have a lot else to get) and are only good if you want to run cultists (which no everyone does). I'd say that the new battleforce is better... and it is... but it likewise comes with a somewhat curious mix of stuff.

If what you want is an EC army, and you know that's what you're looking for, I'd start by spending the next month checking in on ebay to see if someone's unloading stuff for cheap (after waiting for like 6 weeks, I got basically a perfect 1,000 points worth of khorne army for like $70). If you want to start from scratch, I'd buy a pair of boxes of regular CSM and a EC upgrade pack or two (GW makes sonic weapon upgrade sprues), so that you can get your noise marines on, and then figure out what you want to start running as your HQ. A lord or sorcerer can be made from the bitz you'll already be getting, while something on a bike or in terminator armor will obviously require those things.

The plus side is that with some lascannon bitz, and EC upgrade pack, and three boxes of CSM, you can get both HQ's, two largish units of noise marines, and a squad of lascannon havocs, which will provide a solid core for your army, and likely get you nearly up to a 1000 point list, which is a good points level to play at, especially if you're just starting out.

 Ailaros wrote:
and the lord is put together in a configuration in which you would never, ever take him (power sword and plasma pistol? What?),

It's pretty clear that's a Daemon weapon, not a power sword.

 Ailaros wrote:


If what you want is an EC army, and you know that's what you're looking for, I'd start by spending the next month checking in on ebay to see if someone's unloading stuff for cheap (after waiting for like 6 weeks, I got basically a perfect 1,000 points worth of khorne army for like $70). If you want to start from scratch, I'd buy a pair of boxes of regular CSM and a EC upgrade pack or two (GW makes sonic weapon upgrade sprues), so that you can get your noise marines on, and then figure out what you want to start running as your HQ. A lord or sorcerer can be made from the bitz you'll already be getting, while something on a bike or in terminator armor will obviously require those things.

The plus side is that with some lascannon bitz, and EC upgrade pack, and three boxes of CSM, you can get both HQ's, two largish units of noise marines, and a squad of lascannon havocs, which will provide a solid core for your army, and likely get you nearly up to a 1000 point list, which is a good points level to play at, especially if you're just starting out.

Could I apply the noise marine packs to the chosen that come in the DV box? Would that be legit?

 Ailaros wrote:
the lord is put together in a configuration in which you would never, ever take him (power sword and plasma pistol?

That is unless you pick up the Crimson Slaughter Supplement where that sword becomes the Blade of the Relentless, as that's the build you're supposed to take to field Kranon (it's as close to getting proper characters as supplement books get).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smotejob wrote:
Could I apply the noise marine packs to the chosen that come in the DV box? Would that be legit?

While there would be nothing wrong with a little kitbashing, the Chosen in the box are all snap together models who don't assemble like normal models do so it wouldn't work.

I'd say it depends. The DV set does have a lot of models. The chaos side is kinda meh being cultists which are fine. The helbrute is kinda meh and you have to do some heavy-ish conversion to give him any other options than standard. The chosen squad are a schizo geared unit that are lack luster on the table top but they look neat.

If you're into a little modeling you can take the DA tacticals, terminators, and bikes and scrape off all their iconography. They look ok if a little bland. DV is a very good way to get a lot of models "cheaply" but they aren't going to be quite up to the standard of the normal kits.

 Smotejob wrote:
Could I apply the noise marine packs to the chosen that come in the DV box? Would that be legit?

This is an excellent idea and will help convey the elite status of the Noise Marines. Be aware that chosen have slightly different weapon options to Noise Marines though. I suggest the more exotically equipped ones be used as squad champions.

This leads on to a suggestion I was going to make when I first saw the thread; the biggest improvement you can make when converting loyalist models to traitors is a backpack swap as this will give the signature chaos silhouette.

Weapon swaps are a pretty easy way to make loyalist models look more chaotic. The basic chaos space marines box will provide you with plenty of spare parts for this. Chaos space marines tend to wear a different style of glove, so if you chop off the loyalist forearms/hands and replace them with the chaos gloves this further improves the conversion.

nareik wrote:

 Smotejob wrote:
Could I apply the noise marine packs to the chosen that come in the DV box? Would that be legit?

This is an excellent idea and will help convey the elite status of the Noise Marines. Be aware that chosen have slightly different weapon options to Noise Marines though.

This leads on to a suggestion I was going to make when I first saw the thread; the biggest improvement you can make when converting loyalist models to traitors is a backpack swap as this will give the signature chaos silhouette.

Spoiler:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440336a&prodId=prod1860239 and http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440336a&prodId=prod1860240 provide some chaos backpacks, http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440213a&prodId=prod1710128a will give you conversion parts for the noise marines (though this will take more work)

Weapon swaps are a pretty easy way to make loyalist models look more chaotic. The basic chaos space marines box will provide you with plenty of spare parts for this. Chaos space marines tend to wear a different style of glove, so if you chop off the loyalist forearms/hands and replace them with the chaos gloves this further improves the conversion.

The Noise Marine kits won't work on those Chosen though. You can see a couple of Chosen here:


The kit just doesn't go together like a normal Marine kit does and that makes the Noise Marine upgrades incompatible with these guys.

Ah, when he said packs I thought he was referring to the champion back packs. My mistake.

On reflection, is it possible to even swap out the backpacks on the DV set?

nareik wrote:
Ah, when he said packs I thought he was referring to the champion back packs. My mistake.

On reflection, is it possible to even swap out the backpacks on the DV set?

Probably not. They seem pretty integrated into the backs of the models. You might be able to swap arms on some of them, but you'd basically need to build the model then saw the arm off you wanted to swap so that it had both sides on it and the cut was even on both halves.

Pretty easy to change a models allegiance. The Painting is what will do the most and adding bitz here and there helps too.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

nareik wrote:
Ah, when he said packs I thought he was referring to the champion back packs. My mistake.

On reflection, is it possible to even swap out the backpacks on the DV set?

Probably not. They seem pretty integrated into the backs of the models. You might be able to swap arms on some of them, but you'd basically need to build the model then saw the arm off you wanted to swap so that it had both sides on it and the cut was even on both halves.

Entire arm swaps would be a lot of work, but just swapping the loyalist gloves for chaos ones certainly should be easy work. Shame about the backpacks.