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Hey,
I have a dilemma that you might help me with.

I've tested couple of games with my freshly painted CSM killteam. I've had few alterations with it, but the below list is the most I'm pleased with. I've tried a demo/flamer cultist, but it's just way too glass cannon to my taste. The dilemma is that I would so much like to have a plasma pistol with my zealot champion, but can't figure out how to tweak the list to fit it in. I've found that 11 is a magic number conserning break tests so I would like to keep the model count that way. Feel free to suggest...

My current:

Leader - cultist w/ shotgun
Zealot - champion w/ power fist
Heavy - marine gunner w/ heavy bolter (beseech the dark gods)
Sniper - marine gunner w/ plasma gun

Marine w/ icon of wrath
Cultist w/ flamer
Cultist w/ heavy stubber
2x cultist w/ autogun
2x cultist w/ pistol&ccw

EDIT:

I see two ways to do it, but both feel bad?

Swap the power fist to power sword (99p tot)
Swap the flamer into heavy stubber (98p tot)
..Could get 12th model if combined with the PF to PS swap..

2nd EDIT:

Actually I'm playing on sunday and I fixed the plasma pistol issue by swapping the heavy stubber cultist gunner to a regular bp&ccw cultist. More meat for the grinder to benefit the 5p icon of wrath blob approach.

This is pretty much the list I’ve built up. I guess it’d be different if I were playing a campaign? I get headaches from the ‘100pts limit, until the campaign decides to suddenly jump up to 150pts, or whatever you decide to do, lol’ bit. So, basically, either we dismiss specialists with marginally useful promotions for their cheaper inexperienced clones, or else we leave behind another Cultist every other game, with another ten or so suddenly turning up after a few games then gradually leaving. With the first mission consisting of twelve or fewer models - probably very similar to the above list, especially until we get other gods’ perks.

And as soon as our Cultist ”fireteam” starts getting promoted, what do we do with them? I’m not sure I *want* to add 25% to the price of each of my horde. I’m feeling far more inclined to sacrifice the lot, with their -1 to injury rolls or rerolls of extremely specific 1’s, than leave a quarter of them behind. Especially since every time one of them dies, I have to take one of my infinity plus one theoretical replacements on a maiden mission and pay for their promotions that they can’t use.

Adding 8% to a Space Marine’s price for M7 or reroll half I’d failed saves to small arms fire seems legit, but I can’t see any appeal to any of these bonuses for a swarm of cannon fodder.

I've been running

Aspiring Champion Khorne, Chainsword & Plasmagun, Slaneesh

+ Specialists +

Chaos Cultist Gunner: Heavy Stubber, Slaneesh
Heavy

Chaos Space Marine: Flamer; Chainsword, Slaneesh
Demolitions

Chaos Space Marine: Plasmagun; Chainsword, Slaneesh
Sniper (Beseech Dark Gods amazing here)

+ Non-specialists +

Chaos Cultist Champion : Brutal assault weapon and autopistol, Khorne

Chaos Cultist : Brutal assault weapon and autopistol, Khorne

Chaos Cultist Brutal assault weapon and autopistol, Khorne

Chaos Cultist Brutal assault weapon and autopistol, Khorne

Chaos Cultist Brutal assault weapon and autopistol, Khorne

Chaos Cultist : Brutal assault weapon and autopistol, Khorne

Chaos Cultist Stubber; Slaneesh

Chaos Cultist Stubber; Slaneesh

Chaos Cultist Stubber; Slaneesh

Chaos Cultist Stubber; Slaneesh

Chaos Cultist: Flamer, Slaneesh

++ Total: [99pts] ++

It's worked out for me well as a TAC list with the plasma guns wrecking anything in power armor and the cultists out bodying a lot of things.

So a few things, some of which might be just from how you've posted the list:

Is your AC Khorne or Slaanesh? Going to hazard Khorne, for the attak twice tactic?

Why take Slaanesh on your gunners? Are you guessing that there's a shoot twice tactic coming in the box? (I think so too ) From a game perspective it's sort of a negative when taken on shooters (but only vs Eldar).

Only 1 CSM Gunner can take a plasma gun or flamer, the other one has to take a heavy bolter. Yep, it's dumb. And because you replace the boltgun with the special gun, you can't also replace it with a chainsword. So no chainswords on Gunners.

Stubber on the cultists = autogun, right? And again, why Slaanesh on the shooters? Khorne at least does something, others don't right now.

- Salvage

As well as the above, the Aspiring Champ can't take a plasma gun (but maybe you mean plasma pistol?) - Battlescribe does a good job of letting you know what you can and can't do.

Does the Flamer marine work well? I already use 2 flamer cultists but have thought about adding a 3rd flamer on a marine. But having it replace the plasma gun sucks (the plasma gun regularly takes out multiple enemies).

I use my cultists very similar to that - smaller kill teams have really struggled to take out that many bodies in the 4-5 turns. As long as you manage nerve tests you can swamp objectives and lock up enemy shooters quite effectively.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
So a few things, some of which might be just from how you've posted the list:

Is your AC Khorne or Slaanesh? Going to hazard Khorne, for the attak twice tactic?

Why take Slaanesh on your gunners? Are you guessing that there's a shoot twice tactic coming in the box? (I think so too ) From a game perspective it's sort of a negative when taken on shooters (but only vs Eldar).

Only 1 CSM Gunner can take a plasma gun or flamer, the other one has to take a heavy bolter. Yep, it's dumb. And because you replace the boltgun with the special gun, you can't also replace it with a chainsword. So no chainswords on Gunners.

Stubber on the cultists = autogun, right? And again, why Slaanesh on the shooters? Khorne at least does something, others don't right now.

- Salvage

Wow, those have been complete misreads on my part regarding the marines. I'm probably going to be switching out giving the leader a plasma gun and it looks like I'll be forced to trade out the flamer for a heavy bolter and make him the heavy specialist. I think it'll equal out about the same if he's the specialist. I'll then switch out the heavy stubber cultist for another flamer most likely. I really dig the flamer marine but a beseech the dark gods plasma marine is ungodly strong.

Hatachi wrote:


Wow, those have been complete misreads on my part regarding the marines. I'm probably going to be switching out giving the leader a plasma gun and it looks like I'll be forced to trade out the flamer for a heavy bolter and make him the heavy specialist. I think it'll equal out about the same if he's the specialist. I'll then switch out the heavy stubber cultist for another flamer most likely. I really dig the flamer marine but a beseech the dark gods plasma marine is ungodly strong.

I my view Beseech the Dark Gods on Plasma Gun is a waste. Make him a sniper - With the sniper tactic you can +1 to your hit rolls, and re-roll 1's. Overcharged you are wounding everything except T5 on 2's anyway. Better to Beseech a Heavy Bolter Marine or Aspiring Champ, or for lower risk (but less reward) a Heavy Stubber Cultist.

 lindsay40k wrote:
This is pretty much the list I’ve built up. I guess it’d be different if I were playing a campaign? I get headaches from the ‘100pts limit, until the campaign decides to suddenly jump up to 150pts, or whatever you decide to do, lol’ bit. So, basically, either we dismiss specialists with marginally useful promotions for their cheaper inexperienced clones, or else we leave behind another Cultist every other game, with another ten or so suddenly turning up after a few games then gradually leaving. With the first mission consisting of twelve or fewer models - probably very similar to the above list, especially until we get other gods’ perks.

And as soon as our Cultist ”fireteam” starts getting promoted, what do we do with them? I’m not sure I *want* to add 25% to the price of each of my horde. I’m feeling far more inclined to sacrifice the lot, with their -1 to injury rolls or rerolls of extremely specific 1’s, than leave a quarter of them behind. Especially since every time one of them dies, I have to take one of my infinity plus one theoretical replacements on a maiden mission and pay for their promotions that they can’t use.

Adding 8% to a Space Marine’s price for M7 or reroll half I’d failed saves to small arms fire seems legit, but I can’t see any appeal to any of these bonuses for a swarm of cannon fodder.

The campaign rules really make no sense at all. My friend and I gave it a shot early since we were really excited about the idea, but basically every level up and promotion hurts your list by forcing you to waste points on literally useless upgrades, and because there is no limit on replacing fire team members, the optimal solution is to replace everyone on the team with fresh recruits in between each campaign round, defeating the whole purpose of playing a campaign.

Yeah, my mates are playing a house rule that advances don’t add to the pts cost of a model, but do get counted for calculating if anyone’s an underdog and gets extra CP at the start. As long as you’re churning your (not MEQ) fire teams to prevent artificial overvaluing from useless promos, it’s not too bad.

It’s still a damned weird system that almost only ever punishes you for playing, especially if you take on an overdog with a heavy that shuts down your shooting on the first turn. The risk-reward is completely nuts. You can sit out most of the campaign and then at the end repeatedly fight the only player left with 1-2 of each resource, with your reserves of 5-6 holding out until you finally take out their heavy in the first turn and turn them into a Guerilla.

Only played one game so far but enjoyed it. We missed at lot of the rules but it will come with more games under the belt. I played heretics and he death guard. I had superiority in firepower and manage to get a lot of wounds on him but between FNP and fleashwounds he had most of his guys standing for far longer then they should have. Me on the other hand, he shoot like gak but once he hit my guys and they failed saves they went straight out off action.

We were both down to breaktesting, both still standing, but played a scenario that ended on the 4(?) round if we did not roll well, We didn't. And he had a guy on a marker so he won on points even if he only had 2 guys left to my five. Oh well.
My cultist stubber actually did more for the game then my marine gunner with h. bolter. He did slay two pox walkers and a plauge marine, while the h. bolter only did fleshwounds. My other cultist with flamer was on fire (pun intended) never rolling less then 4 dice when he did shoot.

I like the mix of power armour with cheap bodies and think it's a wellrounded killteam but lacking in options. On the other hand, it seems like most of the other teams have few options as well so shouldn't get to greedy.

Game 2 tonight! Will remember a lot more rules and test another scenario.

Game 2 last week. Went well.

Leader; CSM champion with power sword and plasma pistol.
Sniper. CSM gunner with plasma gun.
Heavy: CSM gunner with H. Bolter.
Combat: CSM with boltpistol and chainsword.

Other; Cultist leader for CC. Cultist with h. stubber, cultist with flamer, cultist with autogun and a marine with bolter.

My opponent had death gird with i think; Leader with plasma gun. Veteran with plasma gun. Combat guy with flail. Gunner with melta. And 3(?) poxwalkers.

The scenario was the one with 5 objectives, one in the middle and 2 close to home for both players.

I was lucky to get my h. bolter in a good spot were he got good firelanes and was lucky to kill the plasmagunner in the first round. Did a solid round were he was a constant threat that my opponent did have to move behind cover and other things that played to my advantage.
Heavy stubber cultist did't do much but sure is nice to have more long range firepower then a single heavy bolter, But once he got a fleashwound he's shooting went from bad to gak.
Plasma gunner with reroll ones and stratgem 1+ to hit makes overcharging plasma safe.
Champion with powersword, he really needs a fist to make his few attacks hurt when he hits.
Flamer cultist was solid.

I won with 16-15 i think. Manage to hold middle objective for 2 turns with 3 dudes, then the flailguy comes along. He kills cultist champ and combat marine one the way in and puts 2 fleashwound on my leader in one turn of fighting. Flail is terrifying, and that he rolled well with his saves and FnP did't improve things either.

I like my killteam but compered to deathguard they feal a bit underwhelming.

I'll be running a Khorne List on Monday night, will post how they do here.

HQ

1 - Aspiring Champ - Leader - Plasma Pistol, Power Sword (axe)

Specialists

2 - Chaos Space Marine - Zealot - Chainsword (axe) and pistol - (has Icon of Wrath)

3 - Chaos Space Marine - Combat - Chainsword (axe) and pistol

4 - Chaos Space Marine - Sniper - Plasma Gun (I found this to be one of the best units for Heretic Astartes, was super effective when I played Night lords as vanilla).

Non-Specialists

5 - Chaos Space Marine Gunner - Heavy Bolter

6 - Chaos Cultist Champ - Autopistol and CC weapon

7 - Chaos Cultist - Autopistol and CC weapon

8 - Chaos Cultist - Autopistol and CC weapon

9 - Chaos Cultist Gunner - Flamer

I am wishing more Khorne-centric rules come out soon.

Yeah love Khorne and was thinking the same thing so please do share your thoughts

So, uh... any way to get rules for the new commanders? CSM seem to be part of an elite group that has not gotten a commander box.

No commander box, and in all likelihood no extra general tactics to give us parity with factions that got a Kill Team box.

Can’t even take a Chaos Lord or Dark Apostle, by the looks of things. Exalted Champions seem to have lost what distinguished them from Lieutenants. (Not that I’m complaining about a cheap preroll to wound for both plasma gun and Heavy Bolter.)

I need some help. I've played against Tau in three separate games and lost every one. Especially when it comes to snipers. By the time I've killed hi pair of snipers, he's already killed off my plasma marine and my leader.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
I need some help. I've played against Tau in three separate games and lost every one. Especially when it comes to snipers. By the time I've killed hi pair of snipers, he's already killed off my plasma marine and my leader.

What sort of list are you running? And what's in your command roster?

My experience against Tau is limited but I'd generally think to tie them up with Cultists + a killy Aspiring Champ while jumping on objectives with other cultists.

I'm running four chaos marines and roughly 12 cultist, one of which has a heavy stubber.

. Power sword leader
. Boltgun Zealot
. Plasma gun veteran
. Standard marine with chainsword/plasma pistol.
. Cultist are split roughly between auto rifles and combat weapons.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
So, uh... any way to get rules for the new commanders? CSM seem to be part of an elite group that has not gotten a commander box.

Im sure the Vrosh Tattersoul/Exalted Champion box will be re-packaged again for KT soon. Interestingly, they used his picture in the Faction Focus for Chaos, but a Combi-melta isnt an option in the book, so I expect new rules when we do get one.

Chaos also get a Sorcerer option, and right now Psykers are very rare.

As for how to use them, I would probably take a dirt cheap Level 1 Exalted Champion, with Strategist, then spend remaining points on a better Kill team, or go bump him to level 3 Leadership for morale boosting.

Infact, I'd probably do the same for most faction Commanders. Go cheap with Strategist, get an extra CP a turn, and spend remaining points on more Killteam members, or go Level 3 Leadership for morale. There's a tactic to auto pass for everyone, and an aura buff.

Mr Nobody wrote:I'm running four chaos marines and roughly 12 cultist, one of which has a heavy stubber.

. Power sword leader
. Boltgun Zealot
. Plasma gun veteran
. Standard marine with chainsword/plasma pistol.
. Cultist are split roughly between auto rifles and combat weapons.

Quick note, only your Aspiring Champ can have a plasma pistol. Yep, that sucks.

I settled on 4 marines + 9 cultists for my in progress HA team, though frankly I'm pushing them to the backburner again to work on more fun things (Gellerpox and upgunning my Tau, in this case). It's so hard for me to get excited about the HA list, especially as I play more games with other teams. For completeness, I'm slowly painting:

[C] AC - power fist, plasma pistol
[D] CSM Gunner - heavy bolter
[Z] CSM - icon of excess, chainsword
CSM - chainsword
[L] Cultist Leader - autogun
8 Cultists - autoguns

Plus a heavy stubber dude to swap out for the champ if I feel like taking the AC as leader. I really hate the cultist leader thing but I also want to get the most out of my one multi-damage combat dude As to the icon, I'm playing a Slaanesh team and feel like I should take as much Slaanesh as I can - i.e. the icon!

Nightlord1987 wrote:Interestingly, they used his picture in the Faction Focus for Chaos, but a Combi-melta isnt an option in the book, so I expect new rules when we do get one.

I noticed that too! And was sad, I looked forward to having a combi-melta

- Salvage

Psyker commanders can all take iron arm which is +2str +2toughness
melee specialism specialism is +1 attack
psyker specialism is +1 to psychic tests
strength specialism +1 strength
stack this with either prescience for +1 to hit or diabolic str for +2str and +1 attack
This means a sorcerer melee specialist with a force stave has 3+ws 3 base attacks +1 diabolic str +1 melee specialist base str of 4, force stave is +2, +2 diabolic, +2 iron arm or str 10
so 5 str 10 ap-1 d3 damage attacks

Its more than a power fist wielding exalted champion but you do have to manifest the warp powers

Not going to risk an Iron Arm rushdown on a T4 W4 no invuln character playing Perils Roulette :/

 Mr Nobody wrote:
I'm running four chaos marines and roughly 12 cultist, one of which has a heavy stubber.

. Power sword leader
. Boltgun Zealot
. Plasma gun veteran
. Standard marine with chainsword/plasma pistol.
. Cultist are split roughly between auto rifles and combat weapons.

Your specialist choices are interesting - I'm not really sure what the Zealot would benefit from or Vet on the plasma gunner.

I would try running the power sword champion as combat or zealot (or switch him to Power Fist). Make a cultist your leader and hide him (so you always get your 2 CP). Sniper for the Plasma Gunner (so you can safely overcharge and the level 1 sniper strat is good).

For a third specialist I would try a Heavy (cultist with stubber or CSM with Heavy bolter) or a demo cultist flamer.

Drop the two other marines (Tau shooting will take them out too easy) and max out cultists. Possibly running two cultist flamers - they will do well against T3 Tau.

For tactics your plasma sniper can try to take out any stealth suits - overcharged plasma will work great as long as you hit. A bunch of cultists plus Aspiring Champion can rush the gun line to try and tie up the shooting. Remaining cultists and leader can play for objectives. Obviously mission dependant.

I’d just like to take up the term ‘safely overcharge’ - this isn’t 40K and overcharged plasma kills on an *unmodified* 1.

This means that negative modifiers don’t endanger you, and a re-roll on 1’s means shots have a fixed safety of 97%. This is very helpful in a game of machine gunners heir heads around walls 13” away. Buuuut it also means that no amount of positive modifiers are going to give you perfect safety, which when you’re double-tapping means a higher than 5% chance of death.

It’s still a good gun

 lindsay40k wrote:
I’d just like to take up the term ‘safely overcharge’ - this isn’t 40K and overcharged plasma kills on an *unmodified* 1.

This means that negative modifiers don’t endanger you, and a re-roll on 1’s means shots have a fixed safety of 97%. This is very helpful in a game of machine gunners heir heads around walls 13” away. Buuuut it also means that no amount of positive modifiers are going to give you perfect safety, which when you’re double-tapping means a higher than 5% chance of death.

It’s still a good gun

Yes sorry I meant "safe" as in re-roll ones to hit from the sniper ability. So technically not 100% safe - good clarification. Still worth the risk IMO - multi damage is very powerful in Kill Team.

I hope 40k goes the same way specifying unmodified rolls of 1. It gets a bit crazy with all the -1 modifiers and re-roll auras.

MaxB wrote:

 Mr Nobody wrote:
I'm running four chaos marines and roughly 12 cultist, one of which has a heavy stubber.

. Power sword leader
. Boltgun Zealot
. Plasma gun veteran
. Standard marine with chainsword/plasma pistol.
. Cultist are split roughly between auto rifles and combat weapons.

Your specialist choices are interesting - I'm not really sure what the Zealot would benefit from or Vet on the plasma gunner.

I would try running the power sword champion as combat or zealot (or switch him to Power Fist). Make a cultist your leader and hide him (so you always get your 2 CP). Sniper for the Plasma Gunner (so you can safely overcharge and the level 1 sniper strat is good).

For a third specialist I would try a Heavy (cultist with stubber or CSM with Heavy bolter) or a demo cultist flamer.

Drop the two other marines (Tau shooting will take them out too easy) and max out cultists. Possibly running two cultist flamers - they will do well against T3 Tau.

For tactics your plasma sniper can try to take out any stealth suits - overcharged plasma will work great as long as you hit. A bunch of cultists plus Aspiring Champion can rush the gun line to try and tie up the shooting. Remaining cultists and leader can play for objectives. Obviously mission dependant.

There really wasn't much logic to my specialist choices. I built my models and then gave whatever speciality that matched their look. I've come to regret some of my choices, although the veteran can get some rerolls at higher levels. I'm playing a campaign at the moment, so the specialist choices are locked in for now. I do have a cultist with a heavy stubber and I swear he's had more success than some of my chaos marines.
I like the cultist mob idea. Maybe I'll build some extras and give one of them a heavy flamer or maybe another heavy stubber.

Thanks for the advice.

Another wave of KT sets and still no CSM one to give us more than a handful of Tactics. But! An interesting insight:

 lindsay40k wrote:
Another wave of KT sets and still no CSM one to give us more than a handful of Tactics.

They do make it hard for me to want to finish painting my Chaos bois

The second wave of AdMech / GSC boxes has me wondering if they're waiting on some cool new plastic CSM hero to premiere in KT, boxed with like a cultist frame and some sad old marines. They could have actually done this with the models that became Servants of the Abyss - boss dude, 2 legionnaires, frame of traitor guard / cultists - but the Blackstone box and official SOTA rules means no.

Quick Aside on SOTA: Any of y'all messing with that list? When it dropped I spent a morning workshopping a team that a) would look cool, and b) wouldn't be 100% terrible. Here's where I landed:

Traitor Sergeant [L]
Traitor Gunner [D] - krak
Traitor Gunner - krak
Rogue Psyker [V]
Negavolt Cultist [C]
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
-----
98

So clearly my thought was that the Negavolt is the best thing in the list - I main Gellerpox so saw a lot of commonality in the Nega's value (decent combat, stacked saves, etc). Rogue Psykers are neat but psychic casting limits means you don't want to spam them, and the traitor guard have great models and are cheap enough to do garbage duty / be an invisible leader. The points are there to make guard beastmen, but beyond T4 I didn't see the upside, as they're essentially pure combat in a team loaded for combat. If I'm camping an objective with a gunner I'd rather be out of sight (so T4 doesn't matter) or at least taking pot shots from long range (mmm, lasguns).

Ultimately I don't hate the list, and it's cheapish to buy on Ebay and would be fun to run. However it's objectively not great and relies on skew to get something out of what IMO is the weakest team in the game.

Honestly, I think if would be an interesting way to go make Chaos Space Marines have weak/expensive tactics but are overall stronger to balance to it out. It makes sense that CSM are far more individualistic and/or conceited in their martial prowess and thus would be tougher to wrangle, but many Chaos Space Marines are often veterans of the Horus Revolution or infused with daemonic warp and can be much stronger on an one-on-one basis. I imagine it would be pretty hard to balance though in a game like 40k or Kill Team, and I seriously doubt anyone at GW has the chops get anywhere close. Especially with the non-TS/DG CSMs since they constantly feel like an afterthought or victims of the new Primaris models slowly sunsetting regular space marines

 Boss Salvage wrote:

Quick Aside on SOTA: Any of y'all messing with that list? When it dropped I spent a morning workshopping a team that a) would look cool, and b) wouldn't be 100% terrible. Here's where I landed:

Traitor Sergeant [L]
Traitor Gunner [D] - krak
Traitor Gunner - krak
Rogue Psyker [V]
Negavolt Cultist [C]
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
Negavolt Cultist
-----
98

I agree beastmen aren't great for you. I'd recommend either going beastmen heavy or taking negavolt cultists with some melee-armed traitor guard meat shields (beastmen are expendable enough not to need them but losing Negavoltists will really sting if you lose 3-4 of them to charging adversaries by timing your moves wrong. Losing Jim The Traitor Guard and his mates, much less so. Even two of them can block the route of something like a flail-wielding Death Guard Fighter for a turn so you get the drop not him.

Traitor Sergeant and Demolitions grenadier - fine. Not sure of the point of the second gunner, though - I know Krak grenades are free but that's because only one guy at a time can throw one; I get that a second grenadier doesn't cost much but I think a flamer would be a better choice - it's ferocious overwatch would also make him a good screen for the negavoltists.

I think you've made the right call not taking Black Legionnaires. Since they can't take chainswords, they want nothing to do with melee - so use them to stiffen the spine of a mostly lasgun-armed traitor guard team, instead.