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Hello,

I'm a old CSM player who recently came back to W40k. In my old days, I liked to play IW chaos legion but looks like with the new editions this is almost a mission impossible.

I would like to ask how to play with a CSM army with those limits:

- No gods' marks.
- No allies

Do you think it's just impossible to win with those limits in mind nowadays? I used to play 1000-1500 points games.

no, i don't think its impossible. you'll have some definite hard counters though. some of the best units require mark of nurgle (MoN) to be really effective, like spawn, obliterateors, and demon princes.

but there's units that can survive without it. and going with your restrictions of no marks and IW theme I'd run a walker heavy list. as many maulerfiends and one of the helbrute formations here would work wonders. i prefer the murder pack of 5 brutes with reaper auto cannons. its a hard unit to remove, and their twin linked guns will help in your fight against light vehicles and anti air targets. the Helldrake is still useful, alot of people will tell you its garbage now, its not. its just not what it was in 6th.

for HQs you have the fluffy warpsmith, i can't remember if he can have a bike, but if so he'd be great on one with some spawn or bikes staying with the maulerfiends. an unmarked sorcerer is great! and of course i will recommend the demon prince character be'lakor. he's a beast, i don't play any chaos without him.

Sorcerers work best unmarked, anyway, so this would fit.

The warpsmith is a good idea. You can run him behind a mix of Helbrutes, Defilers and Forge/Maulerfiends. If you also have a Land Raider this is a nice degree of target saturation and the nice thing is that the Warpsmith will raise the probability your units will be at full HP when they get into cc. Even better I found that quite some people will not shoot at vehicles with a Warpsmith behind them since they seem to think "Those shots are wasted in part since he will repair it anyway". This is a nice way of influencing what is being shot at. But you might want to add some ablative wounds to the Warpsmith.

As said above, build your list around Be'lakor. Invisible Spawn. Nasty.

Sounds like you are interested in a bit of a fluff based army (iron warriors themed) so might not be into spamming spawn (which get exponentially better when marked with nurgle anyway) sounds like you might also be against the idea of Bel'kor.

Now Bel'kor flies and can buff 1 unit a turn to only be hit-able on 6s (both vs shooting and melee - also they cannot be targetted by blasts). He also has shrouded and can jink to get a 2+ cover save. So he basically flies around being hard to kill and points at a single unit a turn and makes that unit impossible to kill (small chance you can fail the buffing roll ofcourse). If you like the sound of that then have him as your warlord (350 points!) and take a max squad of either nurgle spawn or bikers with a biker lord throw in too.

If you think that doesnt fit with your theme and really want to just have a load of iron warriors chaos space marines pwning stuff. Then I would recommend minimum 5 man squads armed with a special weapon with the sarge carrying a combi version of the same weapon.

5 marines + rhino + flamer + combi flamer = ~130 points (swap out their bolters for bolt pistols for free).

If I was going for such a list I'd take
2 squads with meltas
2 squads with flamers

3 bikes with 2 meltas and a combi melta each
5 bikes with 2 plasmas
5 bikes with 2 plasmas

Lvl 3 unmarked sorc or a PF+LC lord or a naked lord (all of these options would take a bike too).

Finally worth noting that an Invisible Bel'kor (when he casts his buff on himself) can beat up a Stompa or 2 Imperial Knights at once in close combat, he's that much of a badass.

Forge world has some great Iron Warriors stuff! Check this out

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Chaos/CHAOS_DREADNOUGHTS_AND_WALKERS/IRON-WARRIORS-DREADNOUGHT.html
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine_Aircraft/FIRE_RAPTOR_GUNSHIP.html
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Chaos/CHAOS_VEHICLES_AND_ACCESSORIES/IRON-WARRIORS-LAND-RAIDER-DOORS.html
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Chaos/CHAOS_VEHICLES_AND_ACCESSORIES/IRON_WARRIORS_RHINO_DOORS.html

Iron Warriors have a very valuable heavy support slot. You have competing:

The Fire Raptor
Forgefiends
Maulerfiends
Vindicators with daemonic possession and attached weapon [ http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/607867.page ]
Obliterators
Havocs with Missile Launchers or Autocannons

Heavy support is usually a crowded force slot but is even more so for IW. Choose wisely. Make sure to take rhinos and helbrutes to saturate your force with some armor, and consider taking a heavy weapon on your CSM squads, which no one else would really do. For example:

1500 points Iron Warriors

Warpsmith- AoDG (Warlord)
10 CSM- Plasma Gun, Missile Launcher w/ Flakk, Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher
10 CSM- Plasma Gun, Missile Launcher w/ Flakk, Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher
Helbrute- TL Lascannon, Missile Launcher
Heldrake-Hades Autocannon
Vindicator- Daemonic Possession, Siege Shield, Combi-Bolter
Vindicator- Daemonic Possession, Siege Shield, Combi-Bolter
3 Obliterators (Warpsmith here)
Aegis Defense Line- Quad Gun (Manned by Warpsmith)

So this list is kind of out there but that's the iron warriors for you. Sit back behind the ADL and shoot stuff. Lots of missile launchers and forms of diverse firepower that can take on all sorts of targets, air, ground, horde, whatever. The heldrake is a dogfighter, I know not taking baleflamer is this crazy idea to most people lol