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What the actual funk are csm supposed to do against these royal pain in the asses! Too fast, too much poison, reducing weapon range despite being right in front of the stupid boats and then a 5++ on them too. 12 shots from a little flying thing that doesn't look like it can carry 5 bags of sugar, let alone 5 people... What do I have to match that?

Chaos are very lacking in a lot of departments, I know... If you run certain units, you can get by against most things, but when the things that make them 'ok' are totally negated, it is a tad infuriating to say the least. It then becomes almost embarrassing, considering your model count by turn 3. To make things worse, I later found out in the game that my opponent was running 100 points less than I was.

I will say, if I knew it was going to be a game against DE, then I would of had some more armor in my list. My list wasn't bad at all, I used it a few weeks ago and totally dominated my opponent who is a local veteran..The thing that has annoyed me the most about this particular game is realising that I have no real counter to lists like that. It was a very demoralising game, not that I lost (chaos lol) but because even against old codices, my army just does not perform, unless its against other marines, then it's doable.

I, like many, have put in a lot of time, effort and money in to this hobby and apart from the odd few wins, all I seem to get is reminded of how poor my damn book is. I started off in 2nd and 3rd edition, stopped for a few years and came back for 6th, after games like this one, I often think "what was the point"...

Little rant over.

Things like Havocs with Autocannons or Forgefiends would make a DE player cry. And Heldrakes. Generally, I'm pretty sure DE would have more trouble removing Vehicles than Infantry, and if you survive they don't.

Anyway, playing the CSM Codex is a truly tantalising experience. I know this feeling very well. You trim down unnecessary upgrades, fix squad sizes, take various special weapons to make a versatile army... Then you get utterly crushed. It's not that the victory is impossible, technically you could win, but no, everything falls apart quickly. My friend's Tyranids army is the very antithesis of my CSM, and whatever decent TAC list I come up with (without tailoring at all) I get utterly crushed.

We desperately need a Codex of quality comparable to the loyalist SM.

Oh, there were havocs and oblits. Shot off of the table.

Armour is generally good, as you say. That's tank armour, not vehicle armour. Massed poison weapons and disintegrator fire hurts but struggles against anything AV12 or more.

Night shields (the things which reduce range) are annoying as hell, but mostly for small arms and melta guns - one nice thing chaos has access to is a lot of variations on the autocannon, which is one of the best weapons for making dark eldar players very unhappy indeed.
Venoms do carry massive firepower, but, again, can't touch anything without a toughness value. Sitting in a rhino and shooting out of the firepoints essentially makes their guns useless.

My list wasn't bad at all, I used it a few weeks ago and totally dominated my opponent who is a local veteran

Exactly. The book's not that bad. It's more an issue that marines generally have an issue with a venom swarm - lots of light gunships that (thanks to night shields) can stay out of bolter and heavy bolter range with ease.

As noted, if there's one item in the chaos book which will make Dark Eldar cry, it's the Hades Autocannon. The fact that it's mounted on a functionally un-stunnable platforms with as much armour as is allowed against lance fire (and none wasted) plus an invulnerable save and it will not die is just gravy.

Try some buildings, especially the cheap Imperial Bunkers. Worked wonders for me in 2 out of 3 games. It's just a few points for giving your units a AV14 shell that will punish any list that didn't prepare to open cans.

What I tried so far:
- Oblits in the bunker. Worked very well, opponent destroyed the bunker in turn 4, and 3 unwounded Oblits popped out and lasted until the end of the last turn. I never had that before. The amount of pain they dished out for their points was really great.
- Noise Marines. Very nice against armies that rely on cover... or Jink on skimmers Since 8 of them can fire out of the bunker (unless I got that wrong - but says 4 models per fire point and i see 2 fire points) this allows you to bring a lot of blast masters and sonic blasters and protect them very well. I placed the bunker right in the open front so I could shoot at almost everything.
- Take an ammunition dump and you can reroll 1s. This means that most Chaos units will only miss on 2s. Also it helps a bit if you have to snap shot for some reason.

Just be careful if something with flamers comes... (no escape)

I tactically dominated him. It was the relic, he wasn't getting through a path blocked by two parked rhinos with a GUO (small daemon detachment) in front of them and 2 lots of plague marines behind them, one of which had the relic.

I had an 8 man havoc squad of 4 autocannons but he just deployed 43" away which enabled me to watch him move on his turn and destroy their faces. Oblits got to take 1 shot at some boat and done next to nothing to it.

My solitary drake had the flamer, when asked what it had I could of just said hades but I had a list written and im not the sort of guy to say "nah, its a free swap, I want it to have hades when it comes on"

He had 2 'tanks', one of which wrecked rhino on turn one and I kept the other back in cover to attempt to cover other things for later scoring. That didn't work out well due to their manoeuvrability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't own any fortifications at preaent but I suppose it's something worth looking in to.

In reference to the DE not being able to handle armor I've been thought that Haywire Grenades would be more then a match for most vehicles.
I'm not actually sure what my Wych Cult would be able to do against a drake though.

Back in 6th, when the Heldrake was something to be feared, one alone could make the DE shudder with fear. Now in 7th, not much so.

I play against DE a lot and find autocannons spam the only viable solution. Open-topped means their flying boats can be made to explode without AP2 and S7 is enough for AV10 and AV11. The trick is, as you definitely realised, is to keep your Autocannons alive. Here are some options I found useful:

1) Use the Forgefiend. He is only BS3 but with EIGHT s8 shots, he will take down one boat each turn.

2) Havocs in a Rhino. 2 fire points means 2 Autocannons with AV11, negating the poison.

3) Oblits sadly do not work since they immediately get shot to bits. Havocs do better due to their numbers /rhinos.

4) THE MAYHEM PACK! Deep Strikin AV12 Walkers with MMs tend to worry them a lot. Deep striking Terminators Squads of 3 with Combi Weapons is also useful.

5) A Predator with Autocannon turret and Lascannon sponsons is cheap and versatile. It will attract the DE player's attention, giving your Havocs more time.

PS A Land Raider is a waste of points vs them due to a) Two TL Lascannons on one target is overkill vs DE b) points c) AV14 is only AV12 to them anyway

cbteom wrote:
Back in 6th, when the Heldrake was something to be feared, one alone could make the DE shudder with fear. Now in 7th, not much so.

I play against DE a lot and find autocannons spam the only viable solution. Open-topped means their flying boats can be made to explode without AP2 and S7 is enough for AV10 and AV11. The trick is, as you definitely realised, is to keep your Autocannons alive. Here are some options I found useful:

1) Use the Forgefiend. He is only BS3 but with EIGHT s8 shots, he will take down one boat each turn.

2) Havocs in a Rhino. 2 fire points means 2 Autocannons with AV11, negating the poison.

3) Oblits sadly do not work since they immediately get shot to bits. Havocs do better due to their numbers /rhinos.

4) THE MAYHEM PACK! Deep Strikin AV12 Walkers with MMs tend to worry them a lot. Deep striking Terminators Squads of 3 with Combi Weapons is also useful.

5) A Predator with Autocannon turret and Lascannon sponsons is cheap and versatile. It will attract the DE player's attention, giving your Havocs more time.

PS A Land Raider is a waste of points vs them due to a) Two TL Lascannons on one target is overkill vs DE b) points c) AV14 is only AV12 to them anyway

1) At your mention of the Forgefiend I believe a resonable tactic would be to deepstrike a 5 man Haywire Grenade Wych Squad in a venom behind it.

2) Rhinos don't appear to be very hard to pop however until they are this could be a problem.

3) Agreed.

4) I feel like MM would be pretty easy to move around. And if the DE have Shadowfield it would be a breeze.

5) The predator is a good idea because it would make a tempting target distracting from the rhinos.

My primary army is CSM, and my secondary is DE (which I'm selling! See the link in my sig!).

As DE the list style I have the most trouble against is my friend tailoring his SM. He runs autocannon dreads, occasionally heavy bolter devs, predators, a whirlwind or two, and melta drop pods.
I don't win these matches, even when I bring wyches with haywire grenades.

CSM equivalents are Helbrutes (cheap and cheerful!) maybe with missile launchers, autocannon havocs, predators, forgefiends, and raptor or better yet terminator melta and flamer drops.

CShaffer talks about DSing wyches with haywire; shoot the venom, pens and glances make the wyches test LD. The Forgefiend is already pinning and can stick the wyches in place during their turn and you can finish them off with bolters. Or cultists. Or a heavy sneeze.
Sure Rhinos aren't hard to pop, but they're cheap and negate all of the poison dakka. Plus then the DE's anti-armour has to be pointed at them instead of your scary other vehicles.

Helbrute Mayhem Pack is always good. Even cheap with MMs you're guaranteed to drop a vehicle or two, and then they have to deal with the Helbrutes. If they run, you can try DS so as to corral them nearer your other models.

Heldrake baleflamer wrecks DE. Gets through ALL their armour, and it can burn occupants of vehicles with the No Escape rule. Soul Blaze murders everything else too.
Plus with torrent and being a flyer it can keep up to everything no prob. And they have basically zero AA.

The secret to beating Dark Eldar is to get them out of their boats ASAP. It's like how you're supposed to shoot Tau Markerlights first.
Once their advantages are gone, they crumble. And SM/CSM armies have enough 36" and 48" guns to wreck them even when they bring Nightshields. Then dealing with their infantry is like mowing down skinny spiky sadistic guardsmen.

Also, if you can force your opponent to make tough choices with targeting priority he's bound to make a mistake eventually. And with a DE army, if you make 1 mistake you lose. It isn't forgiving because it's so fragile.

Of these two armies I prefer to play CSM and I do better with CSM than DE anyway, though both have a >50% win ratio.

 Laughingcarp wrote:
My primary army is CSM, and my secondary is DE (which I'm selling! See the link in my sig!).

As DE the list style I have the most trouble against is my friend tailoring his SM. He runs autocannon dreads, occasionally heavy bolter devs, predators, a whirlwind or two, and melta drop pods.
I don't win these matches, even when I bring wyches with haywire grenades.

CSM equivalents are Helbrutes (cheap and cheerful!) maybe with missile launchers, autocannon havocs, predators, forgefiends, and raptor or better yet terminator melta and flamer drops.

CShaffer talks about DSing wyches with haywire; shoot the venom, pens and glances make the wyches test LD. The Forgefiend is already pinning and can stick the wyches in place during their turn and you can finish them off with bolters. Or cultists. Or a heavy sneeze.
Sure Rhinos aren't hard to pop, but they're cheap and negate all of the poison dakka. Plus then the DE's anti-armour has to be pointed at them instead of your scary other vehicles.

Helbrute Mayhem Pack is always good. Even cheap with MMs you're guaranteed to drop a vehicle or two, and then they have to deal with the Helbrutes. If they run, you can try DS so as to corral them nearer your other models.

Heldrake baleflamer wrecks DE. Gets through ALL their armour, and it can burn occupants of vehicles with the No Escape rule. Soul Blaze murders everything else too.
Plus with torrent and being a flyer it can keep up to everything no prob. And they have basically zero AA.

The secret to beating Dark Eldar is to get them out of their boats ASAP. It's like how you're supposed to shoot Tau Markerlights first.
Once their advantages are gone, they crumble. And SM/CSM armies have enough 36" and 48" guns to wreck them even when they bring Nightshields. Then their infantry are like mowing down skinny guardsmen.

Also, if you can force your opponent to make tough choices with targeting priority he's bound to make a mistake eventually. And with a DE army, if you make 1 mistake you lose. It isn't forgiving because it's so fragile.

Of these two armies I prefer to play CSM and I do better with CSM than DE anyway, though both have a >50% win ratio.

You bring up some great points, and most of what I'm going with is purely speculation.
However as I am building Wych Cult (Not the best I know but I like fluff and stuff lol.) I feel like I would have enough Haywire grenades to go around. Do I think CSM could destroy me if they were dedicated/adjusted their list? Probably lol. But I do think I could randomly kill off a balanced list.
Having not actually used the Razorwing, could that not work as a strong AA option?

cbteom wrote:


5) A Predator with Autocannon turret and Lascannon sponsons is cheap and versatile. It will attract the DE player's attention, giving your Havocs more time.

The parts of a DE army that kill havocs(posion) are completely useless against Pedators, while the parts of a DE army that are useful against predators arent really useful against havocs.




Do not split up your forces between mech and foot. It's either all armor, men in rhinos or all foot. DE are particularly segemented in that their anti infantry is completely useless against armor and their anti armor amounts to just pot shots against infantry.

I'm not sure of it was discussed yet but a helldrakes bale flamer is s6 ap3 correct? If you fire a template weapon on a transport doesn't it do like d6 hits on the guys inside? You should be able to kill units in venoms pretty easily with that. Maybe have 2 helldrakes.

 tankboy145 wrote:
I'm not sure of it was discussed yet but a helldrakes bale flamer is s6 ap3 correct? If you fire a template weapon on a transport doesn't it do like d6 hits on the guys inside? You should be able to kill units in venoms pretty easily with that. Maybe have 2 helldrakes.

The problem is the venoms can too easily outmanuver the helturkey because they move so fast.

Plus even if you kill hit a venom, get d6 hits, you might not get 5+ hits, you might not all wound, wracks get their FNP, you are likely to only kill 2-3 models leaving the squad half intact. If you dont kill the venom, you havent really affected it's ability to do damage or it's ability to score.

I feel like with enough venoms/haywire wychs you can handle most situations.
Unless they have like a crazy gunline and then w/e you tried your best lol.

Autocannons are simply the best weapons available for killing Dark Eldar.

Don't forget Soul Blaze on the Heldrake's Baleflamer, that's still enough to get through DE infantry armour. And a half-intact DE unit isn't nearly as scary as a half-intact Marine unit.
Plus if they bring special characters, that S6 flamer is enough to Instant Death their T3 butts.
Lol.

And a Heldrake Vector Strike should be enough to wreck a Venom.

Exergy, if he brings Wracks with FNP then CSM has already won. As a DE player I love me my Wracks, truly, and they're decently killy in CC. But CSM live for CC. That's meeting the enemy on their own terms.

CShaffer, ya for sure enough MSU Venom/Wyches with haywire grenades is a serious threat to anything. And it's a list that works.
But they're still a glass cannon and have specific flaws that can be exploited. Namely, AV10 and T3. Your opponent doesn't need to be in range for more than a turn of shooting to end a vehicle. And Wych Venoms HAVE to get close to do their job, eliminating their ability to kite via Nightshields.

Funny thing about DE flyers. The Razorwing "Jetfighter" is better anti-infantry while the Voidraven "Bomber" is better anti-air. The Jetfighter gets 4 cheap large blast S6 missiles, great at mincing troops and entirely unable to target air, and 2 S8 lances as AA. The Bomber gets 2 S9 lances for the same price.
Trick is they're one of the only flyers in the game without Twin-linked guns. So even there they tend not to be able to reliably put down even a Stormtalon in 1 shooting phase.

I love both flyers, but they're not the best AA.

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Don't forget Soul Blaze on the Heldrake's Baleflamer, that's still enough to get through DE infantry armour. And a half-intact DE unit isn't nearly as scary as a half-intact Marine unit.
Plus if they bring special characters, that S6 flamer is enough to Instant Death their T3 butts.
Lol.

And a Heldrake Vector Strike should be enough to wreck a Venom.

Exergy, if he brings Wracks with FNP then CSM has already won. As a DE player I love me my Wracks, truly, and they're decently killy in CC. But CSM live for CC. That's meeting the enemy on their own terms.

CShaffer, ya for sure enough MSU Venom/Wyches with haywire grenades is a serious threat to anything. And it's a list that works.
But they're still a glass cannon and have specific flaws that can be exploited. Namely, AV10 and T3. Your opponent doesn't need to be in range for more than a turn of shooting to end a vehicle. And Wych Venoms HAVE to get close to do their job, eliminating their ability to kite via Nightshields.

Funny thing about DE flyers. The Razorwing "Jetfighter" is better anti-infantry while the Voidraven "Bomber" is better anti-air. The Jetfighter gets 4 cheap large blast S6 missiles, great at mincing troops and entirely unable to target air, and 2 S8 lances as AA. The Bomber gets 2 S9 lances for the same price.
Trick is they're one of the only flyers in the game without Twin-linked guns. So even there they tend not to be able to reliably put down even a Stormtalon in 1 shooting phase.

I love both flyers, but they're not the best AA.

Let me ask this then, if they are not good AA what is better for DE?
Becuase my buddy runs CSM and I'll be running DE. He's pretty excited about his turkey and I need to shoot it down to add insult to injury.

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Don't forget Soul Blaze on the Heldrake's Baleflamer, that's still enough to get through DE infantry armour. And a half-intact DE unit isn't nearly as scary as a half-intact Marine unit.

A fully intact marine unit is a lot scaryer than a 5 man DE unit. It also usually costs more than twice as many points

 Laughingcarp wrote:

Plus if they bring special characters, that S6 flamer is enough to Instant Death their T3 butts.
Lol.

The only SC that get much use in DE armies are the Baron and the Duke, both only have 2 wounds and a 2++ that goes away after the first wound(at which point they die anyway) ID them isnt your primary way to gimp them, you just need to put a lot of regular wounds on them.

 Laughingcarp wrote:

And a Heldrake Vector Strike should be enough to wreck a Venom.

1 str7 AP3 hit. 4+ to pen and then a 6 to explode the get past the 5++. Not liking those odds to be enough to wreck a venom

 Laughingcarp wrote:

Exergy, if he brings Wracks with FNP then CSM has already won. As a DE player I love me my Wracks, truly, and they're decently killy in CC. But CSM live for CC. That's meeting the enemy on their own terms.

Wracks in a venom are usually 3 man units waiting to score, not looking for combat. 30 points. If you manage to flame them, get 3+ hits, wound all of them, and get past all the FNP saves and kill all of them, great. But otherwise 1 man left can score like 3 men could.

Most chaos players don't bring a lot of armor, the basic troops are terrible but some of the other stuff is downright nasty.

Hellbrutes are okay, maulerfiends are great and helldrakes are still pretty good.

I did not have so many options to fight DE back in 5th ed. You guys are spoiled!

 Exergy wrote:

 Laughingcarp wrote:

 Laughingcarp wrote:

And a Heldrake Vector Strike should be enough to wreck a Venom.

1 str7 AP3 hit. 4+ to pen and then a 6 to explode the get past the 5++. Not liking those odds to be enough to wreck a venom

Vector Strike is ap2, so it's a 5+ to explode a raider or venom. Venoms only have two hull points anyway though and pretty much any result on the pen table lets you ignore the venom for a turn even if it does survive too. From my experience, each heldrake kills or neutralizes two vehicles/squads a turn.

I think someone else asked about fighting them too. We're lacking in many anti-air options. I ally Eldar for a single crimson hunter exarch to do the job for me (because it's insanely good at that). Alternatively, I find my best options come from getting lances to skyfire objectives.

 Exergy wrote:

cbteom wrote:


5) A Predator with Autocannon turret and Lascannon sponsons is cheap and versatile. It will attract the DE player's attention, giving your Havocs more time.

The parts of a DE army that kill havocs(posion) are completely useless against Pedators, while the parts of a DE army that are useful against predators arent really useful against havocs.




Do not split up your forces between mech and foot. It's either all armor, men in rhinos or all foot. DE are particularly segemented in that their anti infantry is completely useless against armor and their anti armor amounts to just pot shots against infantry.

Listen to this guy.

It's not just specifically anti-DE either, a lot of armies will be setting the pace against CSM and really denying a bunch of their offence is one of the greatest tools we have. When I build Bio it's Bikers, Spawn, Raptors, cultists, Havocs,Oblits, Terms, etc. When I build mech it's all out, Heldrakes, Rhinos, LandRaider, Helbrute Mayhem Pack, Preds, etc.

WE CAN DO THIS SO WELL. Just by building coherent list, you can deny plenty of points that a TAC list is forced to spend, even if some of the individual units we use are subpar to other armies it's about the overall picture. Unlike Space Marines, who need to mix armour with Bio all the time, we can really spam the field with whatever the hell we like and leave opponents with either Templates or LasCannons being a bunch of wasted points. Especially if you take suicide units capable of dealing with critical threats early on, eg Oblits/Termicide squads or the Helbrute Mayhem pack/Heldrake (plenty of other options for both styles, that's just 2 examples), it can leave an opponent with very little to fall back on to deal with your overall unit type composition that has been spammed all across the board.

I feel like this is how you are meant to play CSM. Otherwise you may as we'll be playing loyalists if you are going to mix and match they can do it better. This is our indirect advantage IMO.

You could ally in a soulgrinder, a nurgle one with the torrent flamer would put him in a world of hurt.

 SHUPPET wrote:


I feel like this is how you are meant to play CSM. Otherwise you may as we'll be playing loyalists if you are going to mix and match they can do it better. This is our indirect advantage IMO.

Agreed. However I don't think that was intentional by Kelly, more like we are forced to play like this now.
When using all mech, never rule out Rhinos. Those two fire points + the Havoc launcher and/or a combi weapon makes them pretty good when there are Havocs inside!

Yeah I don't think many of the Fexes at as intended at the highest level. But since we have such a broad range of bio with all our Marines and Daemons, and such a broad range of mech with all our tanks, Daemon Engines and other walkers, and the fact that it's very viable building an army nearly entirely composed of models from one category we may as well take advantage of it.

DE are all glass cannons. The more Dakka you can throw their way, the better you will be. Most vehicles are AV 10 or 11, so most fire will hurt em. Also, be careful, as some vehicles have items that reduce your firing range at them by 6".

 Exergy wrote:



Do not split up your forces between mech and foot. It's either all armor, men in rhinos or all foot. DE are particularly segemented in that their anti infantry is completely useless against armor and their anti armor amounts to just pot shots against infantry.

This, and it's sound advice for all armies.

Noise Marines make DE cry pretty easily too. Very usefull as their sonic weapons ignore cover/jink and FNP/fearless helps keep your guys on the table firing their guns. Noise Marine armies can also bring a much more deadly flamer template in the form of warp amps. Insta kill most DE, wounds on a 2+ and they get no armor or cover save.

My personal list is Noise Marines in Rhinos, Auto Cannon havoks in Rhino, Mauler fiends and a Heldrake. Lots of ways of killing the squishy DE

Burning Brand of Skalathrax is great. Noise Marines. Flamers. Psychic Shriek. Any large amount of ignores cover fire.