Have I picked the wrong army?

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.

**Worldeater_AZ**

This topic is mainly because I'm bored at work. As new as I am to 40k (only bought Dark Vengeance at this point, but very familiar with game/setting/history), I'm looking for direction and insight.

My intention is to play CSM, primarily Emperor's Children and Slaanesh themed army, for no reason better than I like the looks/colors/models. I'd like my army to be a foot slogging, fast attacking, assault force, playing up the demonish, possessed, mutated Chaos goodness with a side of psyker powers. I'm thinking more of a themed army rather than a heavily competitive one, but that doesn't mean I'd be ok losing every game.

Now here's what I don't like or want. I don't need to min/max my army, throw the mathhammer out. I don't want Khorne or Nurgle anything even though they may very well benefit my style of play. I don't want to buy vehicles, and really don't like fliers at all. Flying Circus builds are slightly interesting but I don't think I want to go that direction. Yet every army list I read puts every squad in a transport and uses multiple heldrakes.

So what's the best way for me to tackle this? I don't even have a point level in mind. I figure I'd just build until I have a good force and then try it out and expand it over time. I'm probably over thinking the whole thing, which is normal for me.

**phatonic**

Go for slaneeshie bikers they are good fun along with a biker lord, for max speed and deamonic pleasure... Id really suggest some deamon allies.
Spawns are generally fast and tough too.
And then there the Metul bawkses!

**Azreal13**

There's nothing wrong with just collecting a bunch of units together that you like, and just playing your army that way.

The best advice I can give is seek out opponents with a similar philosophy. The inherent problem with 40K, which seems to be really coming to the fore in 6th Ed, despite always being present in the game, is there is a massive disparity in the power levels of armies allowed by the rules, so your long term enjoyment really hinges on finding people like you. (And me, but I'm a little too far away to offer a game.)

If you can find a small group with the same approach, and perhaps all agree some modifications to the rules to mitigate some of the tougher units, you'll have a blast playing 40K.

If you're expecting more to be able to walk into a store, line up a game and potentially take on a Waveserpent spam or multi Riptide list and give a good account of yourself, probably less so without going as optimal in your list as possible. Which isn't to say you can never and will never win with the list you're proposing, but if losing a lot would bother you, I doubt you'd reach the end of the learning curve to reach the point where your knowledge of your list was intimate enough, and your playing it perfected sufficiently, in order to do so.

**Worldeater_AZ**

phatonic wrote:
Go for slaneeshie bikers they are good fun along with a biker lord, for max speed and deamonic pleasure... Id really suggest some deamon allies.
Spawns are generally fast and tough too.
And then there the Metul bawkses!

The biker lord sounds like it works well, but I've never modded anything and wouldn't know where to start. I fear screwing up multiple kits trying to make one.

Daemon allies are the next step after getting the CSM going.

**Desubot**

Yeah i think what your kinda looking for would be a biker army, while the DV stuff still will be fine as padded out scoring units.

You shouldn't fear conversions other than that when you start its hard to stop (and buying random bits that never get built

)

If you have DV and didn't split it you should have the raven wing bikers. it should be a fairly easy torso swap on the sergeant. you wouldn't even need to remove the insignias as they are very close to EC anyway.

**Phydox**

One thing I find is that players forget that Chaos Marines can come in squads as large as 20. If you could score Infiltrate as a Warlord Trait, bringing in a huge squad like that could be sick, especially slaneesh guys w/ +1 Initiative. 6th ed. likes faster initiative in CC and when your in CC you cant be shot at.

One cool thing is there are two Chaos HQs who grant infiltrate to several of their units (up to three): Ahriman and Huron Blackheart. So, you could stack the odds in your favor.

**Jayden63**

Noise marines do very well on foot. Being fearless and adding and Icon of Excess goes a long way to making them stick around. The ability to get two blastmasters in 10 models is a good way to put out long range firepower.

I'd recommend a unit of Havoks with autocannons. They do a great job of opening light transports. Slannesh bikers are great at charging into those displaced units and tearing them up. Again, I5 and IOE will keep those guys around to move to the next squad over and over.

There is nothing wrong with fielding a Heldrake. One drake isn't going to give you the crys of cheese and it does help getting a lot of killing done. I have one in my EC list, nothing wrong with it.

**Ailaros**

No, you didn't pick the wrong army if what you want is reasonably powered. Mono-god lists can work just fine.

Noise marines are pretty good because they can do everything but handle tanks pretty well. With good stats/armor/initiative, they're good in close combat, and with salvo weapons that ignore cover, they're not exactly bad in shooting either.

Just find something to take down flyers, fast vehicles, and land raiders, and there's no reason you can't do an emperor's children army reasonably well.

**Worldeater_AZ**

Unfortunately Huron and Ahriman wouldn't fit in a slaanesh or EC llist but I do love that idea.

I have toyed with the idea of a horde list. It's something I may build towards.

Noise marines are definitely on my list. I read Soul Grinders are good for anti-air. If that's true I could add that to the daemon allies.

**Ailaros**

Well, you don't have to use Huron as Huron. You can have your warlord Emannuel Gangflash, Arch Noiseblaster of the Sons of Hakkon who is one one the greatest Slaanesh lords ever to plague the galaxy... and to show how awesome he is, he uses the same rules as Huron.

**Dust**

Ailaros wrote:
Well, you don't have to use Huron as Huron. You can have your warlord Emannuel Gangflash, Arch Noiseblaster of the Sons of Hakkon who is one one the greatest Slaanesh lords ever to plague the galaxy... and to show how awesome he is, he uses the same rules as Huron.

This

I may or may not be doing this with the rules for the Red Scorpions Librarian Sevrin Loth.

I can't name a specific page number but isn't there a section in the core rulebook about the nature of "Counts As"? I mean... by all means make your own Chaos Lord, they can take all kinds of stuff and there's plenty of kits for you to draw from while making a model... it isn't hard to make a badass HQ when you're playing Chaos. But if, in your mind, the best rules for your HQ are those of a named character than just go for it... make a snazzy model that still represents all of their wargear and equipment in some form or another and just go with it. Make sure your opponents are aware of what's going on and you should be fine.

**Worldeater_AZ**

Hmm... I did not know you could do that. Seems like people would get bent out of shape about bending the rules like that.

**MarsNZ**

Don't worry about it, the days of SC being Special are long past us.

'Counts as' is pretty much standard in 90% of 40K games I've seen, it's actually really rare to see a game where neither side has some SC.

**Makumba**

Ailaros wrote:
Well, you don't have to use Huron as Huron. You can have your warlord Emannuel Gangflash, Arch Noiseblaster of the Sons of Hakkon who is one one the greatest Slaanesh lords ever to plague the galaxy... and to show how awesome he is, he uses the same rules as Huron.

But thinking this way , he shouldn't be using slanesh units at all . Just oblitertors with MoN , cultists and a nurgle lord one a bike with nurgle spawn or bikers.

**Worldeater_AZ**

MarsNZ wrote:
Don't worry about it, the days of SC being Special are long past us.

'Counts as' is pretty much standard in 90% of 40K games I've seen, it's actually really rare to see a game where neither side has some SC.

Along those lines, can I build a generic lord and give it the infiltration ability? Would there be points assigned to it? It seems like it would add some heavy points to a lord or sorcerer. Or would I need to use those particular models because the points are already baked in?

Makumba wrote:
Ailaros wrote:
Well, you don't have to use Huron as Huron. You can have your warlord Emannuel Gangflash, Arch Noiseblaster of the Sons of Hakkon who is one one the greatest Slaanesh lords ever to plague the galaxy... and to show how awesome he is, he uses the same rules as Huron.

But thinking this way , he shouldn't be using slanesh units at all . Just oblitertors with MoN , cultists and a nurgle lord one a bike with nurgle spawn or bikers.

Can you explain why Slaanesh wouldn't be a good idea? I've seen what you've mentioned in many lists. But I'm just not interested in Nurgle even with the benefits it brings.

**pgmason**

Makumba tends to play in a very competitive, tournament led environment, and likes to build optimised, powerful armies, and his army list advice should always be seen through that lens. I don't think its particularly appropriate to your situation. He's just taking the 'counts as' idea to an extreme really.

For what you want to do, Slaaneshi units are perfectly suitable. Marked chaos marines and/or Noise marines as troops (assuming you have a slaanesh marked lord as general), bikers in fast attack, supported by possessed and spawn. If you want to avoid vehicles, you probably want some lascannon or missile launcher armed havocs or meltagun armed chosen for anti-tank. Note if you were to go with the counts-as for one of the special characters like Huron, to get infiltrate as a guaranteed warlord trait, you wouldn't have noise marines as troops, only elites.

**Jayden63**

Nurgle is useful, but less so when looking at the high number of S7 or higher, poison, and grav weaponry that shows up in today games.

I have always run Slannesh and have always found its bonuses both desirable and effective. Striking first and FNP go a long way to helping with that win.

**Ailaros**

pgmason wrote:Makumba tends to play in a very competitive, tournament led environment,

There's a difference between playing against strong lists and persistently making a perfect solution fallacy. If someone says that something isn't good because it's not the best, they can be safely ignored.

In this case, what Makumba should be suggesting is that if you want a slaanesh list, take a screamerstar or a taudar list and use slaanesh models to represent it.

**Experiment 626**

Worldeater_AZ wrote:
MarsNZ wrote:
Don't worry about it, the days of SC being Special are long past us.

'Counts as' is pretty much standard in 90% of 40K games I've seen, it's actually really rare to see a game where neither side has some SC.

Along those lines, can I build a generic lord and give it the infiltration ability? Would there be points assigned to it? It seems like it would add some heavy points to a lord or sorcerer. Or would I need to use those particular models because the points are already baked in?

Nope - if you want guaranteed Infiltrate, then you have to pay the points for either Ahriman or (your better option, due to not being marked Tzeentch!), Huron Blackheart. Otherwise you're limited to only a 16% chance of rolling up the Infiltrate ability on the Warlord Chart.

Don't worry about people being anal about counts as, as long as you pay the proper pts cost AND build your counts as model to show all the relevant wargear, (ie: a counts as Huron would need to have a lightning claw w/built-in flamer + power axe), and make it clear to your opponent, "my fancy Lord here uses the rules for Huron", you'll be fine.
Only TFG's will ever give you grief over using 'counts as' in your army.

Worldeater_AZ wrote:
MarsNZ wrote:
Makumba wrote:
Ailaros wrote:
Well, you don't have to use Huron as Huron. You can have your warlord Emannuel Gangflash, Arch Noiseblaster of the Sons of Hakkon who is one one the greatest Slaanesh lords ever to plague the galaxy... and to show how awesome he is, he uses the same rules as Huron.

But thinking this way , he shouldn't be using slanesh units at all . Just oblitertors with MoN , cultists and a nurgle lord one a bike with nurgle spawn or bikers.

Can you explain why Slaanesh wouldn't be a good idea? I've seen what you've mentioned in many lists. But I'm just not interested in Nurgle even with the benefits it brings.

As others have mentioned, Makumba only plays vs. cutthroat & highly optimised tournament lists. Ignore his 'advice' because it's not for you and doesn't apply to the kinds of games you'll be looking for.
When you head out to the local game shop/meet new players, just be upfront and inform them of what kind of game you're looking for. A quick little, "hey, I'm not really into super competitive tourney style games, and my list is for funsies & theme rather than being really optimised - can we play something a little more on my level?" Even letting your opponent have a quick look over your collection can help to set the tone you're looking for. (again, only TFG's will take it as an opportunity to outright list tailor against you)
Only WaaC's donkey caves will actively object, the vast majority of people will typically at least lay off of the more brutal combos. (though a competitive player will still be bringing their 'A-game' regardless of their army list composition, but this can often times be a fun challenge!)

Now as a mono-Tzeentch player, (mostly Daemons, but CSM's are cool too!), I might suggest looking to some Tzeentchian allies for some added flavour. Both compliment each other quite well, with Tzeentch typically being very 'shooty', while Slaanesh can help out on the choppy end of the spectrum.
Units like Thousand Sons for example are often really looked down upon because they're costly and very one-dimentional. But alongside a mainly Slaanesh army, those Thousand Sons can suddenly offer you some ranged ap3 for killing MEQ's, while your high initiative Slaaneshii units can protect them from being overrun in combat! (plus the blues/golds of Tzeentch look really
ace alongside the pinks/purples/blacks of Slaanesh!)
With Daemonic allies, Tzeentch brings even better options as they get access to Divination psychic powers, thus giving you things like re-rolls to-hit with shooting/combat, allowing better Overwatch accuracy, forcing opponents to re-rolls successful saves, etc...

**Boggy Man**

It does my bones good to see another soul join the symphony of excess.
My first advice is to jettison all the preconceptions the metaclods have about CSM. This codex can be highly effective, and Slaanesh lives up to her rep as the lord of aggressive affection. All it requires to devastate with the pink tide is a bit of imagination and tactics.

Bikers are amazing, 2 ccw, haw, 3 I5 attacks on the charge and the option for feel no pain. Expensive? Perhaps, but a hyper fast, shooty, stabby, hard to kill unit eraser should be.

Same goes with noise marines. mid range objective campers and infantry erasers par excellence. They can actually be outfitted as close combat squads for cheaper and more effectively than regular marines, but you should always pick a role for them and outfit for that.

Your lord with steed is one of the few units in the book that can outflank. Oh, and he can take any unit he joins with him. <Evil Grin>

She who thirsts rewards excess. Your units aren't the cheapest in the book, but they can outstab Khorne, outshoot Tzeentch, and get so high they feel as little pain as Nurgle.
And don't forget, Daemons are properly part of the codex and you can pop those sexy demonettes, seekers, and such in your list to plug any holes you'd like. (giggedy)

TLDR: Slaanesh rocks all the buts! Mix fast attackers, firepower, and objective holding for massive lulz. Here's a sample list; http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/580731.page#6562889

**Trondheim**

@ Boggy man : You have now earned a place in the hole of excess( giggels) and you raised a very fine point.

**the42up**

As an avid player of all things chaos, if I wanted to make a mono-god slaneesh army with an assault-bent, here is how I would do it:

Primary-
HQ- Slaanesh Biker Lord (my model of choice is DOOMRIDER!)
bike, PF, LC, 4++, Mark of Slaanesh (you can spice with artifacts of your choice, or if you want to be crazy, make him a crimson slaughter lord)

Fast Attack-
4-6 Bikers (mark of slaanesh and the FNP banner, bikers over spawn because the sgt can eat the challenge)

Troops-
Noise Marines (these guys make both decent units in assault with their flamers or nice backfield support, give them rhinos with havoc launchers)
Cultists (unmarked...chaos needs cultists!)

Ally-
HQ-
Keeper of Secrets (a big fat nasty guy, even better when its kitted out with phycher levels and gifts)

Heavy Support-
Slaanesh Daemon prince with lash of slaanesh (these guys handle SO many problems, especially if you get lucky on biomancy and get iron arm)

Fast Attack
Seekers of Slaanesh (extremely fast but not as critical as the daemon prince, keeper and daemonettes)

Troops-
LOTS OF DAEMONETTES (these things shred in melee)

And there we are, an extremely effective assault oriented slaanesh army.
There are of course ways to tune it up, but that breaks theme. Heldrakes, unmarked sorcerors on bikes, nurgle marked obliterators, flesh hounds of khorne, etc

**Worldeater_AZ**

the42up wrote:
As an avid player of all things chaos, if I wanted to make a mono-god slaneesh army with an assault-bent, here is how I would do it:

Primary-
HQ- Slaanesh Biker Lord (my model of choice is DOOMRIDER!)
bike, PF, LC, 4++, Mark of Slaanesh (you can spice with artifacts of your choice, or if you want to be crazy, make him a crimson slaughter lord)

Fast Attack-
4-6 Bikers (mark of slaanesh and the FNP banner, bikers over spawn because the sgt can eat the challenge)

Troops-
Noise Marines (these guys make both decent units in assault with their flamers or nice backfield support, give them rhinos with havoc launchers)
Cultists (unmarked...chaos needs cultists!)

Ally-
HQ-
Keeper of Secrets (a big fat nasty guy, even better when its kitted out with phycher levels and gifts)

Heavy Support-
Slaanesh Daemon prince with lash of slaanesh (these guys handle SO many problems, especially if you get lucky on biomancy and get iron arm)

Fast Attack
Seekers of Slaanesh (extremely fast but not as critical as the daemon prince, keeper and daemonettes)

Troops-
LOTS OF DAEMONETTES (these things shred in melee)

And there we are, an extremely effective assault oriented slaanesh army.
There are of course ways to tune it up, but that breaks theme. Heldrakes, unmarked sorcerors on bikes, nurgle marked obliterators, flesh hounds of khorne, etc

This is really close to what I originally toyed with. For allies I had prince HQ and a soul grinder. If I break the Slaanesh mold I'd love to add Ahriman and a unit of Thousand Sons.

**Worldeater_AZ**

I toyed around with this list and will probably start building towards it. My original idea was CSM with Daemons allies, but flipping it around fits better with the theme I wanted. No idea how long this will take me with long days at work and a new baby at home. Seems like I picked the worst possible time to start up this hobby again. Feel free to comment. Should end up about 2500 points. It's my first "official" list so be gentle.

Primary HQ:
Keeper of Secrets, Lvl.3, exalted & greater rewards
Daemon Prince, Slaanesh, Lvl.3, flight, armor, exalted & greater rewards

Troops:
12x Daemonettes, Alluress
12x Daemonettes, Alluress

Fast:
6x Seekers, heartseeker, 2 lesser rewards
6x Seekers, heartseeker, 2 lesser rewards

Heavy:
Soul Grinder, Slaanesh
Soul Grinder, Slaanesh

Allies HQ:
Chaos Lord, Slaanesh, bike, VotLW, 2 claws

Elites:
6x Possessed, Icon of Excess

Troops:
6x Noise Marines, Doom Siren, Blastmaster, 4x Sonic Blaster, Icon of Excess, VotLW
6x Noise Marines, Doom Siren, Blastmaster, 4x Sonic Blaster, Icon of Excess, VotLW

Fast:
5x Bikers, Slaanesh, combi-plasma, 2x plasma gun

Heavy:
3x Obliterators, Slaanesh