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One of my friends wants to go halves to get him an army, and I really like CSM, but how many points is it? I do have some old SM that I can convert quite easily, but I wanna know what I'm working with first.

It's a better way to start DA than CSM, I think. You do end up with about 5-600pts depending on how you gear your models but you don't have most of the CSM core necessities and you're hilariously underarmed for the points.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It's a better way to start DA than CSM, I think. You do end up with about 5-600pts depending on how you gear your models but you don't have most of the CSM core necessities and you're hilariously underarmed for the points.

That's not his question though. He likes CSM and he's going to split with someone.
As for OP's question:

If I look purely at the models, then I'd say around 750 points for a fun, non-competitive list. The reason I say "If I look at the models", is because a Chaos Lord can take a bike which has a bigger base.
You could also use the Chaos Lord as a Chaos sorcerer.

In the end it all depends on how competitive you want to be. Chaos lords/sorcerers are mostly seen on bikes, Chosen and Helbrutes are rarely seen in tournaments.
Does that matter to you though? It doesn't to me, I field my Helbrutes regularly and I'd like to see more playtime on the Chosen when I'm done painting them.
I've used the chaos lord model tons of times 'counts as bike' when I started playing. My friends weren't bothered by it, so neither was I.
These days I have a bike model and I use my chaos lord model as an aspiring champion. :p

Based on WYSIWYG models you start at 483pts by my count.

Did you include the Horns, Daemonheart and Sword relics from Crimson Slaughter?

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Did you include the Horns, Daemonheart and Sword relics from Crimson Slaughter?

And a Sigil of Corruption, if you're using Kranon's official layout.

7 chosen:
1 pair lightning claws.
1 bolter, bolt pistol & power fist.
1 bolt pistol, bolt gun, power axe.
2 bolt gun, bolt pistol & ccw.
1 boltgun(?), bolt pistol, power maul.
1 combi melta, bolt pistol, power axe

20 cultists. 8 auto guns, 9 auto pistols (1 can be a champ), flamer, heavy stubber, shotgun champ.

Helbrute multimelta + fist.

Plasma Pistol + Power Sword lord

It's looking about 500 points, as Spooky says, but you can add in VoTLW, marks, wargear and other upgrades.

Speaking of wargear and other upgrades, if you use the crimson slaughter supplement there is a specific item of wargear for the lord's sword and a unit upgrade for the chosen.

You mention conversions, the chosen won't be too hard to weapon/hand/arm swap to suit your needs. I think many people swap out the power weapons for knives and call them plague marines (plague marines have bolter, bolt pistol but plague knife instead of ccw). I guess you could make them into some tooled down chosen or plain chaos marines or whatever too. You could probably turn the lord into a regular guy/champ too if you want a drastically different leader (like a jugger lord or a biker lord).

Another consideration, if you are going heavy on marines, is to use some of the chosen models as squad champions. Obviously that would require acquiring more marines!

DV is the unqoustinable best path for chaos starters, if you don't mind some dirty work.

You see, with some work and some bits you can convert nearly everything to chaos with ease, so your army gets:

HQs
SUPER fancy chaos lord (kanon)
Sorcerer (librarian, can be used as sword team leader as well)

Team leaders: (switch around to use the one you need each list)
Champ with axe
Champ with axe and combi-melta
Champ with mace
Champ with Pfist
Champ with claws
Champ with nothing special (the DA sarge, can be used as regular dude too)
Fancy sword dude (DA captain)

Troopers:
7 bolter marines
2 fancy bolter marines
Plasma marine
Heavy weapon marine (requires conversion from the plasma cannon, that's the hard model to convert.)

Cult:
9 CCW cultists (one of is the assault team leader)
8 gun cultists
Flamer cultist
HStubber cultist
Cultist leader with shotgun

Bikes:
Champ biker
Plasma biker
Regular biker

Terminators: (can be used to create terminator lords too)
Termi champ (the sword dude)
2 PFist termies (might want to swap out to power weapon off bits if you got some, shouldn't be too hard to get spare left-handed power weapons off people)
Ofist+autocannon termi (the assault cannon is close enough, again the fist should probably go.)
CF termi (again, you wonna get bits to switch hand)

And the Helbrute.


If that aint a steal for its price, I don't know what is. even if its not the most top-tier units CSM has, they are no real useless dudes there.

You can make over 1000 points worth of a crimson slaughter army (for the relics) just by taking models as they are, with no marks, and with models to spare (you will use only one or two of the "team leaders" after all) and it will even be a decent, well-balance casual army.


With some conversion works (mainly guns) and good mark choices, you can even make it into a good army in general (not top tier turny army, but a good army)
After all you can keep modifying some dude as long you got weapon bits to get more special guns around. and can make really nifty stuff (like turning two termies into oblits, probably the autocannon and chainfist)


Ironically, its the DA who does not get a good deal here, they get a better model list on paper, but anything they got can be chaosified, but the chaos dudes cant be loylaised, and the DA side can't even make a proper legal basic army with it with no way to make a second troop choice. (and DA are overpriced point-wise in general.)
Not good for splitting, but good enough if you just want to get chaos

If your friend just wants to "get an army" and does not really care what army, there are better starting paths out there than DV for DA. if he wants DA spesifically, well-DV is the best he's got.

Other worthy starter deals of various armies:
Wrath of the Hive Mind
Tau battleforce (just add HQ and play FE so crisis suit teams are troops)
Warriors of the Fang (good set of SW units)
Adeptus Astartes Strikeforce (requires to make two 5-man TAC squads)
Space Marine Strikeforce (NOT the same as what's above. pretty good set. currently sold out, not sure if returning?)
Necron battleforce (just add HQ. barge recommended as it can be tank+HQ in one kit.)
Eldar battleforce (again, just HQ needed)
Shardstorm (not the greatest unit picks, but its a stand-alone army)
Cadina/catachan defense force (technically stand alone army, or a huge troop choice and a tank-depends how you deploy it.)

 BoomWolf wrote:
anything they got can be chaosified, but the chaos dudes cant be loylaised

Interrogator Chaplain problems!

Thanks for the tips. I'm probably gunna buy it and start a really weird Chaos/Tau army. I also got a Daemon Prince a few years back since they look really cool and I wanted to paint one.

I'm looking on Ebay now for some good chaos deals, and try to get it up another 250 points or so

 luky7dayz wrote:
Thanks for the tips. I'm probably gunna buy it and start a really weird Chaos/Tau army. I also got a Daemon Prince a few years back since they look really cool and I wanted to paint one.

I'm looking on Ebay now for some good chaos deals, and try to get it up another 250 points or so

CSM/bezerkers/plague marines are dirt cheap on ebay. I got around 60/70 for around £40 from 4 different sources, and that included 4 lots of p&p.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also included were so many specs that I have to run some as havocs or chosen when taking them all.

Not much to add, I think half a DV is a very good start for Chaos, you generally want a few big models like a Hellturkey, or two. So you would get those seperately anyway. You should decide on where you want to go before going e bay. I would want plenty more cultists, others want plenty of marines...

DV isn't a great start for Chaos; their Chosen takes up WAY too many points. Additionally, the DA in the DV box are already 200 points better off, which is why I now have Fallen Angels

I actually use the DV Cultists as Pink Horrors now, they make up the two big units that start on the table and get the Daemon summoning going. It makes a lot of sense lorewise and I don't use actual Cultists at the same time so nobody complains.