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Hello everyone,

after some struggles against Tyranid FMCs I now got an Aegis Defense Line for my Chaos Space Marines. In a first game I tried 5 Havocs in it to use the AA gun and also use Flakk missiles. This worked better than I thought with the cover save (also I put it in a good place so no Genestealers could break through). In each turn I managed to down a flyer so the rest of my army could finish it off.

However, what other options would you recommend to put behind the AA gun? Maybe simply a sorcerer since he can use his stuff in the psychic phase or buff and then still shoot in the shooting phase.

Regards,
Murenius

Which AA gun?

If its the TL autocannon, then doesnt really matter who shoots it. Bs 4 is better tho.
For the lascannon you want high bs and reroll to hit.
I dont think there are many bs5 options. A chaos lord is quite expensive, but at least gives you some combat defence. I've heard of kharn manning the gun, but I can't condone that.

The only way I can think of getting a reroll is a crimson slaughter sorceror with the balestar rolling on divination. But that's still more points than id spend.

Other anti air options exist in the stronghold assault book, which is worth a read.

The defence line stays far back, so you need a unit with long range weapons for the unit as a whole to be useful. You could run with Cultists if you just want something cheap, but most CSM units either want to get in close-medium range or need to fire their own weapons and thus don't want to be manning a weapon battery.

This leaves two (arguably three) unit options as I see it: Havocs and Noise Marines (and possibly 1k Sons).

Havocs can run with flak missiles as you did, but you end up with a very expensive unit. Might be worth it agains flyer-heavy armies though. Otherwise there are always the Autocannons: significantly cheaper and always a solid choice. No Skyfire though, which is a big downside. 4 Heavy Weapons and a champion to man the gun platform is a perfect setup to go behind a defence line.

Noise Marines also have access to long-range weaponry with Blastmasters. Depending on if you use varied or single frequency, you have a 36"-48" range. You can't use the long range blasts on flying stuff, but if you manage to ground them with the Anti-air gun, you're good.

1k Sons aren't generally considered very good, and are not very long ranged, but if you really want to run a tzeentch-themed army I can see them doing alright.

If you want allies, a unit of Horrors work really well, as do a Herald of Tzeentch. If you want you can use the Herald to throw Prescience on your Havocs, and/or you can attempt to summon more units from behind the defence line.

You can also put a Warpsmith there. He has BS5, but if you make him man the gun, you can't use his repair/curse vehicle skill. Depending on your terrain and stuff, his shatter defences can be pretty handy as well.

I'm running a warpsmith behind defilers/helbrutes/forgefiends/maulerfiends and made good experiences with that, I think putting him into the ADL would be too much points for not using quite some of his useful things.

So generally I'm happy on one hand I didn't miss a much better option than the Havocs, but it also seems there is nothing that's a obvious choice.

Blood letters with bs5. Lord also has bs5. I have even used abaddon to man the gun. Its just so hillarious!

If it's just the one FMC then an Aegis is fine. If it's multi FMC or Skyblight your best not putting points into Skyfire, it's a game CSM can not win.

If you take Havocs stick them on it, champ has no ranged gun anyway. Also, Lascannon > Quad gun vs Flyrants, AP4 doesn't cut it.

"a game CSM can not win" is not an option. Last game it worked quite well. It's mostly about grounding them more or less reliably. After that they die pretty fine. After all if he spends so many points for FMCs he doesn't have that many units. And usually having fewer units is a big problem for CSM.

You do know I'm talking about Flyrants here? Harpies/Crones meh whatever. They're not an issue. If you're telling me you're wounding multiple Flyrants with a handful of AP4 weapons then what can I say? Congrats?

The best Skyfire CSM have is the Fire Raptor, aside from that everything else we bring is either over costed or just ineffective. It takes 8 x Skyfiring S7 AP4 shots to cause one wound on a single Flyrant on average, then there's a 66% chance he won't be grounded. Guess what twin-linked devourers do to 5 Havocs, behind an Aegis or not, they're done.

Plus Skyblight can have his cake and eat it. 6+ FMCs? Check. Loads of fast, dirt cheap troops that have a chance to respawn? Check. All for circa 1000 points. Check the data slate, it's not even botherin getting into an arms race with Tyranids.

Just my opinion.

You probably already have the right combo.
The AC CSM of the Havoc squad is perfect for the job.

Better than that would be a BS5 model, but it's a very expensive option just to shot a gun. BS4 is already often more than enough.

A lv 2 sorc can man the gun alright. Bs 5 with options to customuze role. Put a helcult around him for a large wound pool and an autocannon helbrute plus they become fearless.

Summon bloodletters. If I remember right they get bs5.

Pay the extra few points for the bastion, get bigger av 14 and add 4 autocannons and a skysweeper.

Flakks are too expensive. 4 flanks and you can almost afford 4 more autocannons.

Sorcs are not BS5 since the 6th ed codex nerfed their statline