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Darkhound:

No, I'd say that Thousand Suns work best when they're right up in the enemy's noses, either using their Slow and Purposeful to control the range so that the enemy can only shoot back, or closing to lock the enemy in close combat.

Because that's all they need to do. The Chaos Space Marine list has plenty of close combat troops, as you point out. The Thousand Suns synergize with the rest of the list by providing that dangerous front line that can wear down the enemy, lock them in combat, provide cover without needing it themselves, and so on.

You shouldn't charge with the Thousand Suns planning to defeat another unit in combat, you're going to charge with them to lock a unit in combat until you can bring something in to defeat that unit, something that the other player will be trying hard to shoot or avoid. Most likely they will be charged, but you can use their ability to move and shoot to its best ability by either drawing the enemy in to be locked in the right place, or to avoid being assaulted while they continue to add a considerable volume of firepower.

Now clearly I'm not saying that the Thousand Suns are better than Berzerkers, Chaos Space Marines, Plague Marines, Noise Marines, or Lesser Daemons. I'm saying that they have their place in a Chaos Space Marine strategy because they have a different role from all the other Troop choices. They complement all the other choices well, and synergize nicely with assault troops. In a pinch they'll add redundancy to Plague Marines and Chaos Space Marines as objective holders,

I think that their role will be highlighed by the new Tyranid army list when most other armies will have to adapt to an infantry-based mobile firepower strategy to counter the new "in your face" Tyranid army, and the Tyranid army itself will show the utility of locking the enemy in place so that the heavy hitters can be brought in to mop up.

Usually I'd be adverse to speculation, but this isn't speculation so much as conservative risk management applying what we already know about 40k tactics, and the 40k environment. The Chaos Space Marines can already do what it seems that the Tyranids will soon be doing (see here).

The biggest considerations for a CSM player against the new nids that we can confirm beyond any doubt, being that they are in the newest White Dwarf, a battlerep between Nids and Salamanders is as follows.

1) Zoanthropes get a str 10 ap 1 lance, unknown range, but if it is 36 or more ouch.

2) The venomthrope gives a global cover save to units around it, probably within 6 inches. Nothing flamers don't waste, but the hi strength ranged attacks will have to get through it.

3) The Mawloc has a Str 6 Ap 2 large blast attack on the turn it deep strikes. It can burrow into the ground and repeat this process, think of it as eldar skyleap on roids.

4) Last and possibly most annoying, the two large burrowing units, Trygon and Mawloc respectivly, leave a tunnel behind from their burrowing when the erupt out of the ground, (deepstrike), any other smaller nid unit can use these tunnels to enter play as though comming off the board edge. Guy builds his army right everything is going to come in from reserve and he is going to have damn near his entire army in your backfield.


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assualting and tieing up your shooty units while those previously harmless broods of carnifex walk up unmolested and hit you with a whole wack of attacks ignoring armour save.

Venomthropes also have poisoned attacks, and apparently everyone else will be able to buy poisoned attacks. This may mean the fall of the Daemon Prince.

Doubled: The range of the thrope is 18" mate, so you will be in range of it before it gets a chance to fire.

Venomthropes will be a problem again, but this can be solved.




My suggestions:

Double lash spam with 9 oblits has worked wonders over time, and again it will shine.
Lash units out of cover then pour fire into them.
Pick out synapse creatures to ruin control of the small critters.
Lash maw/try's as soon as possible.
Once you move them back and out the way just pour fire into them.


I'd go with a basic fire-line style army here.
Plagues are nice, but the chances are nid players aint dumb, so MC's will be removing those 3+ FNP wounds quickly.
I'd go with Ksons for the shooting perspective.

Also, if you dont want to take 9 oblits, i would go with defilers.
You need as many template / high strength shots as possible.

Just deploy on the table edge and go with tau tactics.
Shoot in priority, using lash to move units into better possitions and target them.
Fex's can pretty much be ignored if they are CC, if ranged then they pose a bit more of a threat.

I'd say work on tyrants and the trygons / mawlocs 1st.
Since they tend to be the biggest threat.
If you have alot of armour in your army then thropes need to go down quickly.
after that just pick away at synapse beasts.
If a fex gets too close too quickly then sacrifice a unit to hold it off, rather than divert shooting towards it.

Do we know anything about the "Shadow of the Warp" ability, is it getting redone, taken out, staying the same or what?

According to the Rumours Roundup on Warseer the Shadow In The Warp now has a range of 12".

Nurglitch wrote:Grundz:
Then the Thousand Suns volley whatever target is in range. Duh.

The point being, that you fielding a slow, short range, expensive, silly unit with the hopes of being able to counter a single unit in your opponents army that can /easily/ be countered by a chaper, longer range heavy weapons squad that could engage the carni's at will anywhere on the map. Your opponent would have to be braindead to let you assault a squad of gaunts and the carni at once, and on top of that half or more of most early tyranid armies they are no more effective against than normal marines.

Realistically if your opponent was /that/ scared of silly 1k sons, he would run his MC bait near the edge of the map and either drop pod them or outflank them with stealers. /most/ of what you are facing are either going to not get a save even if they were normal bolters, or are going to get a cover save from the bugs that wouldn't get a save normally. If this was 4th edition i could see them being used to walk down the middle of the map and create a sphere of relative protection from dangerous CC anti tank to funnel your rhino's through, but I'm not really getting a comprehensive army strategy like that from you, I'm getting silly "well i'll just do this haha i win" abstract scenarios that takes nothing into account in either persons army, that belong in the "beat this unit" thread, not the tactics forum.

He who plays his army better generally wins, not he who runs a single gimmicky unit that he hopes his opponent bumbles into with the one unit they stand a good chance at killing.

Grundz:

Yeah, that's the ticket...

Seriously, do you even bother reading?

I don't know what Grundz is talking about either, and I'm playing the Devil's Advocate.

While the Thousand Sons may be slow (Rhino's make that irrelevant), they are not short ranged. Rhino moves them 12", they can still shoot out to 24". That's 36" range AP3 bolters. MEQ players are not allowed to leave cover, ever.

As for finding targets for the AP3 Bolters, every army has some. Most of what you will play are MEQ, and anything that isn't has something as large as a Marine that deserves special attention ('Nid Warriors, Incubi, Aspect Warriors, etc). If you are taking Thousand Sons, you really can't count them as part of your anti-infantry. They are specialized for killing heavily armored targets at range.

Getting the Thousand Sons to perform is not a gimmick. It is a full-blown skill.

Thousand Sons would be an option to take on MC's with 3+ saves.
As DarkHound said, they should be transported in a Rhino to ge their job done.
Moving 12'', disembarking, and rapid firing.
But then they are eventually left in the open and the bugs could counter charge.
The TS will die as they are not cc specialists.
At the end, you took a 300 pt unit to take on a 160 pt Carnifex.

I would say the biggest advantage chaos has vs. the Tyranids is Abaddon. He already goes through every bug like a hot knife through butter. Add in the fact he can now instant kill warriors and ravenors and that means there is nothing ready to stop him rampaging through the bug army.

yeah but abbadon is countered by genestealers rending the crap out of him at I 6,


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the answer nids have for any choas infantry unit is genestealers with broadlords, rending and then a bucket full of saves need to be taken due to hi I and S, and WS

Abby? I don't get why everyone likes him and sees him an answer for most things.
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There's not much different in how I would approach Tyranids than I normally do.

Stay in Rhinos as long as possible...I'm not too worried about Gaunts.
I'd have to baby my DP's and use them as MC counter attackers, while OBlits will focus on targets that present themselves...

Prob. the best thing to do is consolidate and not spread out...keep a counter attack unit ready.

Stuff like that.

Abaddon is not a match up for Nids.
I'd more rely on shooting like a Defiler with its S8 shell. Ouch!
In the new edition, this will cause instant death.

wuestenfux:

It'll cause Instant Death on T4- Tyranids, much like Abbadon will. A Defiler will likely be more useful for the large blast and Twin-Linked Heavy Flamethrower.

I think Chaos Space Marine players will be forced to start using Nurgle's Rot more often.

Typhus will definitely be better than Abbadon when it comes to Tyranids.

I think Chaos Space Marine players will be forced to start using Nurgle's Rot more often.

Right. Nurgle's rot is good vs. creatures with low armor saves.

Another question: What kind of troops would you suggest vs. Nids?

wuestenfux wrote:

I think Chaos Space Marine players will be forced to start using Nurgle's Rot more often.

Right. Nurgle's rot is good vs. creatures with low armor saves.

Another question: What kind of troops would you suggest vs. Nids?

Plaguers, Berserkers, Marheens, Loud Marheens, sometimes even Dust Buckets if you are so inclined (apparently). Seriously, we'll be ready for this.

Nurgle's Rot is good against models with low armour saves, but it's good against armies with lots of models like Imperial Guard, Orks, and Tyranids. It's even handy against Space Marines that clump up seeing as more armour saves rolled are more armour saves failed. Sanctjud's tactic of turtling up, and therefore bringing the Tyranids to you, would be another way of getting models concentrated in the 13" diameter kill-zone.

I would suggest Chaos Space Marines, Khorne Berzerkers, Noise Marines, Thousand Suns, Noise Marines, and Lesser Daemons as Troops to use against Tyranids.

I'm of the opinion that they're all good if used correctly, and in combination (that combination being governed by the interaction of flexibility, redundancy, and synergy).

For example, using Thousands Suns as front-line Troops to form a picket line, Berzerkers to form counter-charge units, Noise Marines as close-support, Plague Marines as objective campers, and Lesser Daemons to engage in screening. The Noise Marines and Thousand Suns offer redundancy to each other in terms of firepower, the Thousand Suns and Lesser Daemons offer redundancy in terms of screening and pickets, the Plague Marines and Noise Marines are redundant second-line Troops (objectives and close support), and the Chaos Space Marines can be redundant for everyone depending on how you configure them. Etc, ad nauseum.

The exact configuration of Troops depends on your strategy, and the tactics you plan to employ to implement that strategy.

I'd consider troops transported in Rhinos for speed and protection purposes.
Normal CSM units with 2 special weapons of the same type should not be underestimated.

wuestenfux:

I certainly don't under-estimate them: they're what my own army is modeled on!

Very good analysis of the strategical usage of the CSM troops choices Nurglitch.

I do not personally see CSM players as needing too make much in the way of changes to prepare for the new Tyranids. Lash with Oblits/vindicators/defilers are still going to be as effective, as will zerkers and normal CSM. While some units like plague marines will find themselves a bit more vulnerable due to the abundance of poison, it will add another tactical element to the game - plague marines will still be used in tourny lists due to their resilience against non-poison.

Poison means what?
Wounding on 2+ but not negating armor saves.
So PM will be better than any other MEQ unit against poison.

Dracos wrote:While some units like plague marines will find themselves a bit more vulnerable due to the abundance of poison, it will add another tactical element to the game - plague marines will still be used in tourny lists due to their resilience against non-poison.

Plague Marines are still going to be better off than everyone else for the most part. If rumors are to believe, 10 points Gaunts will chew through MEQs through sheer hitting power (re-roll ones to hit, Furious Charge to S4 I5 with Poisoned Attacks, so they'll swing first and wound 75%). Plague Marines are still T5, so they don't get the Poison re-roll, and Blight Grenades dramatically reduce their attacks. No, Plague Marines will stay despite the poison.

Wustenfex, Poison Weapons are defined on page 42 of the BRB.

Darkhound, the tone of your post said to me you were disagreeing, but the words said the same thing...


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Dracos wrote:plague marines will still be used in tourny lists due to their resilience against non-poison.

DarkHound wrote:No, Plague Marines will stay despite the poison.

I was merely pointing out that Plague Marines are still better off than everyone else against the poisoned attacks. They are more durable than anyone else in the game against any kind of small arms, and will continue to be invaluable against 'Nids.

Darkhound has a point:

So long as the Poisoned Attacks are S4-, then they'll only wound on a 4+ without a re-roll and the Plague Marines will get both their Armour Save and Feel No Pain roll. That'll be better than basic Chaos Space Marines against whom S4 Poisoned Attacks will get re-rolls to wound, and who won't get Feel No Pain. Even if th Chaos Space Marines have an Icon of Nurgle, they won't get the Feel No Pain.

However, the combination of Rending and Poison will murder Plague Marines only slightly less effectively that anything else, and Monstrous Creatures will continue to make a mockery of their extra Toughness and Feel No Pain.

It doesn't change what they do, or their role, but it will punish the players who treat them as the only Chaos Space Marine infantry worth taking.*

*Said players may be imaginary, but you get my point, right?

the combination of Rending and Poison will murder Plague Marines

Will this combination be an option in the new 'Nids codex?

Warriors (as Troops), Raveners, Gene-Stealers... Ymarglmomma Gene-Stealers... Maybe Gargoyles will get it since they want to sell the plastic kit... Venomthropes... Pyrovores will probably be able to take it too... Yeah, literally anything bigger than a Gaunt can take it.

We'll have to wait and see, though I will be you a donut that it will be available to Warriors.

Humm I did just crunch numbers and you are in fact correct, and normal CSM are affected greater by the poison than the plague marines (not counting FNP, just toughness). I figured the PM would be worse off, but that assumption was incorrect. Math ftw.