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Hey there all, one of my close gamer friends has been having a really tuff time with his chaos SM. he's not 100% new to the game but in about 20 or so games he's won 5ish (his losing streak just hit 10 in a row ) SO i need your help Dakka! his lists usably include the elite name infantry (1k sons, zerkers ext) and a lord to make m troops, a lot of heavy support (IE 2 squads of havoks, a defy, and a fiend) and almost always 2 hell drakes and a set (or 2) of 5 man termi's. Iv been trying to show him some combos with more troops or a set of spawn for his nergl biker lord but he needs a good base 1k list to start out that he can use as an take on all list then add in his bits. he really like the new summoning Powers but never takes a DP to summon !! please help me!

he has close to 5k and almost 20 of every troop/elite troop. 2 LR, 2 deffies, 2 drakes, 2 fiends, 2 spawn. Not 1 possessed, raptor, muta, or vanquisher.

Thanks for the helps!

Hmmm looks like he has the tools just not the tactics down to use em, he needs to watch batreps haha. If you tell him combos and try to help him and he isnt winning still is he using those tips and tricks? thats what its going to boil down to.

Its hard for me to just toss up a list from what he has but if he takes some cultists for back field, those two heldrakes in his FA slot. throw zerks and lord in a LR, maybe grab some obliterators and a sorc, it would be a fairly decent list. at that point all he would have to do is learn proper target priority to handle most things.

What does he play mostly? is he losing to alot of cheese builds? if so than your guys's meta kinda sucks and would be rough for him to win. have him play against some non cheese armies if that is what fills your meta and while he plays talk about target priority and unit positioning to help him control the field better.

aside from that is hard to give advice to peopel without knowing what they are up against and how they play, but i tried

A simple list at 1000 points could be something like:

Lord of Nurgle, Power Fist, Lightning Claw, Daemonheart, Sigil of Corruption, Bike, Blight Grenades

7 Plague Marines, 2xMelta, Rhino

7 Plague Marines, 2xMelta, Rhino

5 Spawn, Mark of Nurgle

Heldrake

He might want to run a Maulerfiend instead of a Heldrake, depending on what people tend to play in your area (marines or vehicle heavy)

Roll on the Crimson Slaughter WL traits and hope you get Shrouding, his boss then has a 2+ armour and a 2+ jink save, making him capable of tanking a lot of damage.

Tell him not to take Thousand Sons at all under 1500pts.. Berserkers in Land Raider should get the job done for troops.. I'd go plague marines for a home objective, 5 spawn, heldrakes...

As Solosam47 said fielding the right army probably isn't a problem. Also as he said watch Batreps. I don't recommend miniwargaming for him at this point even though. They make great reports, but they also play a lot of "for fun" armys. Have him really look at each units ability. Plague marines are great for holding objectives, Drakes for infantry, fiends (mauler or forge) are effective anti AV. The next step will be getting units that work well together.

What points level do you usually play at? CSM do great at lower points levels and get progressively weaker as the points go up in my opinion. For example the list above can dominate at 1000 points but will struggle to be scaled up to 2K.

That's for all the feedback!!

There's about 10 people at our game store. Mostly marines, a nid, a necron, a de/e player, a few tau and demons. We Mostly play at 1850-2500 points. There is a lot of cheese that some of the space marine players do (super heavys, knights, termy/stormraven/biker spam). I think he has the most trouble with fingering out what troops to take at that point level, but i think he just needs to watch the bat-reps like you said. Thanks!

 death_scythe wrote:
That's for all the feedback!!

There's about 10 people at our game store. Mostly marines, a nid, a necron, a de/e player, a few tau and demons. We Mostly play at 1850-2500 points. There is a lot of cheese that some of the space marine players do (super heavys, knights, termy/stormraven/biker spam). I think he has the most trouble with fingering out what troops to take at that point level, but i think he just needs to watch the bat-reps like you said. Thanks!

I agree with all of the advice there, maybe like said earlier a couple rhinos to protect those troops, sounds like nothing the helldrake would have problems with though.

You had my attention when you said "1k sons, zerkers."

As far as troops go, in 6th and 7th edition, these 2 units vie for the title of most overcosted. Your friend is burning points taking these guys.

I look at the selection of troops for CSMs this way:

Cultists -> Plague Marines -> Noise Marines -> Chosen -> CSMs

... where you want to build up survivable units first, then heavier hitting units for synergy.

In terms of heavy support, 2 Havocs + 1 Fiend + 1 Defiler strikes me as suboptimal, even for friendly games. It always seems like a lot of firepower, but it goes down quick (which I bet has been his experience). I tend to find Obliterators do a lot better than each of these units mostly b/c of the invulnerable save - the longer they are on the board, the tougher they can be.

Your friend might benefit from looking at the IA:13 book. Sicaran Battle Tanks, Rapier Weapons Platforms, and Fire Raptors are the new thing for winning.

Another good idea would be to have him play escalation and slowly build up a list while learning strength and weaknesses of units easily through smaller more focused games

 Solosam47 wrote:
Another good idea would be to have him play escalation and slowly build up a list while learning strength and weaknesses of units easily through smaller more focused games

Such a good idea, second!

I'll see what we could do about starting a escalation league up at my store, but most people just want to play games. I think if we just play lower points games (like 1k) and have him take a bound army he might be able to pick up some good combos.


Thanks again every one!