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Hi all,
I am new to 40k and am looking to build up a CSM army.
A friend of mine sold me some of his excess unpainted CSM miniatures for cheap.

So what I have to work with is.

1 x Chaos Lord
5 x Chosen
30 x Cultist
1 x hellbrute
10 x space marines

What modifiers should I be putting on these units, and what units should I look to add first?
I am thinking a rhino for the space marines or the chosen.

I am still working through the codex so be gentle on the lingo please.

Thanks.

Iám a long time chaos collector and i think the question you need to ask yourself is which chaos god do you like most and what kind of playstyle suits you.(shooty army, assualt focused or a mix)

Ofc you don't have to choose one god you can take what you like but if you do like one god more then the others it would be easier to suggest your next unit.

Rhinos, spawn, helldrakes are good buys.

You want to try and build a lord that works for you.. the on foot version isn't great... maybe try and get a jump pack for him at least.

Alternative is to get a load of bikes and some bike characters.

Lastly something shooty. Oblitorators, forgefiends and predators are the main choices. A land raider could mobilise those chosen.

If the rumours are true and we get a havok box, that would be nice also.

With what you have, I assume your looking to play games in the 500-1k point region? Any more than that will require you to field everything you have with upgrades out the wazoo.

Your lord is on foot I assume? The lord is decent with the CSM, but could be best used in the blob for fearless. You can go dirt cheap, or trick em out. There is also the option of proxying as a sorcerer.

For cheap, just take the burning brand. Mark with nurgle or tzeenech for defense, or khorne/slannesh if you want CC. Khorne+axe of blind fury is pretty solid. Take the best invul save you can afford, be it an aura of dark glory or sigil of corruption.

You lack any long ranged shooting sans the hellbrute, so I would get some ASAP. You could go with havocs or oblits, just something to get long ranged AT in your list. I would run the hellbrute with a reaper autocannon and missile launcher until you get some other AT.

Cultists are best naked, 2 squads of 10 or one blob with the lord. Upgrades are generally wasted, unless you plan on camping and want to throw in some heavy stubbers for dakka.

The CSM need a rhino, and you probably want to use cult troops eventually. Plague and noise marines are very good, regular CSM are a bit meh. A special weapon, probably melta or plasma is a good choice.

What you get next depends on what you want to do. Do you want a fast assault heavy army, lots of small marine units, any particular dedication to a god, demons, etc?

For now, at 500

Lord: Burning brand, aura of dark glory
Hellbrute: reaper autocannon, Missile launcher
Cultists X28
CSMX10: Combi-bolter on aspiring champ, autocannon.

You could push to 750 by tricking out your squads and adding the chosen(as chosen or regular CSM) but much past that and you won't have enough on the table.

I am not looking to play anything really complicated with a lot of points because I am still so new.

I was thinking of aligning with Korhne but at the same time I like the whole Black Legion thing they got going on. I was looking at Abbadon the despoiler and he seems pretty awesome.

My Lord is on foot, how would I get him on a bike?

I am thinking my first buy will be a rhino and some obliterators.
Thanks for all the input guys. very helpful.

As said above CSM has the most synergy when you pick a chaos god to follow and stick to him.

I agree with the poster above on the Burning Brand. It is THE BEST upgrade you can purchase for a cheap lord or sorcerer in a low point game. Throw him in the rhino and eliminate over 100 points per turn of space marines with him.

A quick overview:

Slannesh: Noise marines. Mass of fire through sonic blasters, durability through Feel no Pain. Special weapons like Doom Siren and Blastmaster allow for great AP3 options as well. Or, take close combat weapons and use that Initiative 5 to your advantage. Great versatility here, closest thing to a gunline army as CSM gets. A defensive playstyle.

Nurgle: Plague Marines and zombies. Lots of durability, midfield presence. This playstyle is all about seizing the midfield quickly and making it so miserable for your enemy to charge you because of your defensive grenades, flamers, and plague knives, that they'd rather shoot at you, which isn't much better because of your Feel no pain, power armor, and T5. A defensive play style.

Tzeentch: Thousand Sons. Very resistant to powerful weapons because of their 4+ invuln save, extremely powerful close range firepower. Require great mobility and support to get thier powerful AP3 bolters and witchfire spells into effective range. Require protection from small arms fire, as they die just as easily as regular space marines to bolter shots but are nearly twice as expensive. Also require protection from being charged as they cannot overwatch and their Close combat is laughable. Probably the most complicated god to follow but the most rewarding if you master him. (OPINION ) An aggressive playstyle.

Khorne: Berzerkers. Protect them with land raiders, or, if you have accesss to spells such as shrouding or invisibility, rhinos will do. Require anti-vehicle support from monstrous creatures or walkers as chain axes will not be popping open any land raiders. Berzerkers are all about overwhelming force on the first round of close combat, but lose much of their power after that, requiring tactical charges and avoiding very large squads. An aggressive playstyle.

So that's the Dark Vengence list. First thing above all else, get rid of those Chosen. They were worthless, expensive and fragile units in a group of 5. Played against DV Chaos with a ragtag 500pt Space Marine list of 2 squads of 6 Marines, Sternguard, Librarian and long range Dreadnaught and the Chosen died before the Cultists did. They just don't have the fight in them to stay alive until they get in close and were picked apart by everything until twin flamers roasted the last few alive in cover. A lot of points wasted for a handful of Bolter shots and no way to close the distance quickly.

The Helbrute is also fairly useless in the Multimelta configuration. It has one shot at 24" and a fair chance to miss with it. I would also scratch that model. The problem with DV is that the models themselves can't be altered, so either you proxy other weapons, or they're just wasted.

I'll agree on the Brand and Rhino for the lord, but also add as many beefy units as you can with your remaining points. Obliterators with Mark of Nurgle, Terminator units, another troop choice of Marines to hold objectives properly instead of just relying on the Cultists who are better served as tarpitting and meat grinder units.

Take a good look at Forgefiends as well. For mid-toughness and multi wound models, the S8 Autocannon is devestating and the AV 12 means it is immune to Bolter fire and other S5- weapons. Can really be a turning point in a small game but they are very expensive. Over 1/4th of your points in a 500pt match but a good unit for smaller games nonetheless.

^^^ well that's some bummer news.
They looked a lot more bad ass then they turned out to be.

how much could I get for the chosen and hell brute? Enough to get a couple obliterators?

Lolz! Sorry, but check on ebay, and weep a little. People buy dv just to get the cultists.

You're not going to have resell value on those models. They are likely the most common few models on the market right now and no matter what price you try to put on them, someone else will have lower. I've seen the Hellbrute go for $5... I would suggest using them as a platform to practice painting on. It never hurts to try out a color scheme on a model you aren't fielding just to see how it ends up.