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As title, what's a good, cheap force for CSM to ally in? I recently bought some Blight Drones from Forgeworld and thought it would be fun and effective to mix them with my Necrons. To that end, I thought I'd get a small force of CSM to make it work. I don't want to take up too many points in my Necron list, but I also don't want the compulsory HQ and Troops to be worthless either. I was thinking either:

-Typhus + Zombies - would be fluffy and also a good meatshield for my army (though from a numerical perspective, Flayed Ones with an Overlord is about the same thing)
-Go Black Legion and take Chosen with Meltas or Plasmas in a Rhino, since Necrons lack a lot of Special Weapons
-Be'lakor or another Daemon Prince with minimum Cultists. Yeah, the Cultists are basically bodies to squat an objective, but then again, having a AoC Daemon Prince is hilariously awesome.
-Ahriman (or other Tzeentch Sorcerer) + Thousand Sons. Brings Psychic Dice to my Necrons, though AP3 guns are kinda redundant when I have Destroyers who are faster and more durable.
-Kharn in a Cultist blob. Not as tough as Typhus + Zombies, but very, very killy because, well, Kharn.

What do you think? Given that Necrons mostly lack Psychic power and cheap bodies (with 13 points Warriors/Flayed Ones being the cheapest), Typhus and his Zombie Horde might be the best choice. But, throwing a Daemon Prince in the mix sounds awfully fun as well.

Abaddon with a squad of CSM (maybe with MoK) in a dreadclaw. Will gut the centre of the opponents battle line. If you want to save 105pts replace Abaddon with Kharn. Similar effect.
Also suggest some Hades or Conversion Beamer rapiers for your HS slot, brings a bit of range that necrons generally lack (Blight drones are FA aren't they? Not got my IA:13 with me atm).

If you want cheap bodies then go IG guardsment or blobs of cultist or Renegades and Heretic zombies/mutants.

Requizen wrote:
As title, what's a good, cheap force for CSM to ally in? I recently bought some Blight Drones from Forgeworld and thought it would be fun and effective to mix them with my Necrons. To that end, I thought I'd get a small force of CSM to make it work. I don't want to take up too many points in my Necron list, but I also don't want the compulsory HQ and Troops to be worthless either. I was thinking either:

-Typhus + Zombies - would be fluffy and also a good meatshield for my army (though from a numerical perspective, Flayed Ones with an Overlord is about the same thing)
-Go Black Legion and take Chosen with Meltas or Plasmas in a Rhino, since Necrons lack a lot of Special Weapons
-Be'lakor or another Daemon Prince with minimum Cultists. Yeah, the Cultists are basically bodies to squat an objective, but then again, having a AoC Daemon Prince is hilariously awesome.
-Ahriman (or other Tzeentch Sorcerer) + Thousand Sons. Brings Psychic Dice to my Necrons, though AP3 guns are kinda redundant when I have Destroyers who are faster and more durable.
-Kharn in a Cultist blob. Not as tough as Typhus + Zombies, but very, very killy because, well, Kharn.

What do you think? Given that Necrons mostly lack Psychic power and cheap bodies (with 13 points Warriors/Flayed Ones being the cheapest), Typhus and his Zombie Horde might be the best choice. But, throwing a Daemon Prince in the mix sounds awfully fun as well.

So by good, you realize you are talking about CSM right? The codex was terrible when it came out and hasnt gotten any better with all the nerfs.

As for Cheap, are you talking in terms of Money or in terms of Points?

I would either go for a lvl3 undivided sorc(you dont get anything for marking them) and some CSM in a rhino. Cheap flamer or melta, cheap transport. Add to some armor saturation.
Or
Something fearless in a HUGE squad of cultists. Probably a chaos lord in TDA with 35 CC cultists. Perhaps give the Chaos Lord MoN and to make him nastier and fluffier. Sprinkle around to give your crons cover and prevent them from getting rolled in CC. 35 cultists take a while to kill. Can use a DA for fluff and to give all the cultists hatred. 106 attacks on the charge rerolling misses: it doesnt matter they are str3. Can add plague marines with a rhino for more cheap specials and rhino fun.

The problem is you are adding blight drones. Chaos's best choices are all in the FA section.

Bikersorc with a bunch of nurglespawns can fit in every list imaginable

Poly Ranger wrote:Abaddon with a squad of CSM (maybe with MoK) in a dreadclaw. Will gut the centre of the opponents battle line. If you want to save 105pts replace Abaddon with Kharn. Similar effect.
Also suggest some Hades or Conversion Beamer rapiers for your HS slot, brings a bit of range that necrons generally lack (Blight drones are FA aren't they? Not got my IA:13 with me atm).

Blight Drones are fast indeed.

A Dreadclaw is kinda cool, getting that turn 1 Alpha Strike could be really interesting, sucks that they don't have scatter reduction and might eat people though (remedied with Abaddon, I suppose). Not a cheap squad, though.

Filch wrote:If you want cheap bodies then go IG guardsment or blobs of cultist or Renegades and Heretic zombies/mutants.

I've mulled over Renegades and Heretics, but there's a lot of downsides. First, it's a pretty intensive force to start. Either big Forgeworld investment or a lot of conversions from Guard.

Second, and more importantly, to get Zombies or Blight Drones in this list, you'd need for the Arch Demagogue to be your Warlord. Given that I want Necrons to still be my primary force, that doesn't really appeal to me.

Exergy wrote:

Requizen wrote:
As title, what's a good, cheap force for CSM to ally in? I recently bought some Blight Drones from Forgeworld and thought it would be fun and effective to mix them with my Necrons. To that end, I thought I'd get a small force of CSM to make it work. I don't want to take up too many points in my Necron list, but I also don't want the compulsory HQ and Troops to be worthless either. I was thinking either:

-Typhus + Zombies - would be fluffy and also a good meatshield for my army (though from a numerical perspective, Flayed Ones with an Overlord is about the same thing)
-Go Black Legion and take Chosen with Meltas or Plasmas in a Rhino, since Necrons lack a lot of Special Weapons
-Be'lakor or another Daemon Prince with minimum Cultists. Yeah, the Cultists are basically bodies to squat an objective, but then again, having a AoC Daemon Prince is hilariously awesome.
-Ahriman (or other Tzeentch Sorcerer) + Thousand Sons. Brings Psychic Dice to my Necrons, though AP3 guns are kinda redundant when I have Destroyers who are faster and more durable.
-Kharn in a Cultist blob. Not as tough as Typhus + Zombies, but very, very killy because, well, Kharn.

What do you think? Given that Necrons mostly lack Psychic power and cheap bodies (with 13 points Warriors/Flayed Ones being the cheapest), Typhus and his Zombie Horde might be the best choice. But, throwing a Daemon Prince in the mix sounds awfully fun as well.

So by good, you realize you are talking about CSM right? The codex was terrible when it came out and hasnt gotten any better with all the nerfs.

As for Cheap, are you talking in terms of Money or in terms of Points?

I would either go for a lvl3 undivided sorc(you dont get anything for marking them) and some CSM in a rhino. Cheap flamer or melta, cheap transport. Add to some armor saturation.
Or
Something fearless in a HUGE squad of cultists. Probably a chaos lord in TDA with 35 CC cultists. Perhaps give the Chaos Lord MoN and to make him nastier and fluffier. Sprinkle around to give your crons cover and prevent them from getting rolled in CC. 35 cultists take a while to kill. Can use a DA for fluff and to give all the cultists hatred. 106 attacks on the charge rerolling misses: it doesnt matter they are str3. Can add plague marines with a rhino for more cheap specials and rhino fun.

The problem is you are adding blight drones. Chaos's best choices are all in the FA section.

I get that CSM isn't the best book currently, but they're the only AoC army I really would think about including, because frack Tau.

Rhinos actually wouldn't fit with my list because I play my Necrons relatively vehicle-free. Occasionally a transport, but nowadays the only armor I bring is on Flyers.
Your second example would be good as Kharn + Cultists or Typhus + Zombies. I was thinking that it would be a pretty good army from that standpoint anyway.

koooaei wrote:Bikersorc with a bunch of nurglespawns can fit in every list imaginable

Sadly, as pointed out above, I wouldn't have a FA slot as I'd be using Blight Drones.

Requizen wrote:

I get that CSM isn't the best book currently, but they're the only AoC army I really would think about including, because frack Tau.

Rhinos actually wouldn't fit with my list because I play my Necrons relatively vehicle-free. Occasionally a transport, but nowadays the only armor I bring is on Flyers.
Your second example would be good as Kharn + Cultists or Typhus + Zombies. I was thinking that it would be a pretty good army from that standpoint anyway.

Yeah, but both Kharn, Abby and Typhus are expensive. A simple TDA Chaos lord is still suitably nasty to put the beatdown on things while not costing an arm and a leg, if memory serves he costs about half as much as any of the special characters. He's fearless, 2+/5++ with a power weapon. Decent number of attacks and fun but nothing game breaking. He can take the burning brand if you like for AP3 torrent flamer fun.

Abbadon is a beatstick, but he also gives PE Space Marines to CSM nearby. You are paying for that force multiplier effect and in an ally formation it really isnt being used.
Kharn is beaty too, but not as much. He also is rather vunerable with T4, 3+ save. There are quite a few characters out there that can chump him pretty easy and he costs a lot. Remember he MUST challenge.
Typhus is the nicest. He makes Cultists into zombies, which means you can run small 10 man fearless squads of them. They lose a lot of their combat punch but stock fearless is pretty nice. Typhus is also pretty nasty in CC and doesnt get chumped as easily. The only thing he really fears is force weapons and rare Str10. Although a nasty with a stormshield can wear him down, he wont get chumped.

Well, Kharn's only 160, so around the price of a properly kitted Terminator Lord. Still, you're right, T4/3+/5++ isn't exactly the same as Typhus.

For an affordable (points wise, anyway) detachment, Kharn or a TDA Lord is probably the way to go, though I'm of the opinion that Typhus is probably well worth his cost.

After some play of the combo, I don' think CSMs really offer crons anything. Renegades and Heretics (IA13) can offer some great fire support though and mass cheap bodies. I'd look into that if you want something chaosy for your nerons.

Why would you need to ally in anything with necrons? It would just be holding them back.

He wants to use his blight drones though.

Just worth mentioning - you don't use the dreadclaw as a drop pod alpha strike, you use it as an assault vehicle for a T2 charge.
Also remember that since most the time you'll be deciding where the assault happens, you can keep kharn away from the few things that can beat him.
The other option is to take the TDA Lord as you say, but throw in MoK and AoBF. The axe is by far and away THE best relic in the entire game for its points (imo)!

You could make use of 20 outflanking marines. Crons don't lack durability to be hindered by <500 pt in reserves.

Cypher + a squad of 20 khornates or slaaneshits. They're solid. Or a slaanesh lord on steed to get accute sences.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But...aren't blight drones from C: Daemons? Means, you need daemon allies and not CSM allies.

Blight Drones are FA for both C: Daemons and C:CSM

Yeah, it's mostly because I got the Drones for my Daemons army and thought trying them out with my Necrons would be fun.

I hadn't really thought of Cypher. Not too much more expensive than Kharn or a TDA Lord. But, a bad choice for a cheap allied force. He doesn't count as HQ, so you have to take something else with him. And he doesnt' confer Infiltrate/Outflank to his unit. So, not a great choice in this situation, though I like him a lot otherwise.

I had a thought that an Allied Detachment from Black Legion could bring a very cheap ML4 Sorcerer for giggles, though I guess it doesn't really add a whole lot other than an extra Warp Dice.

I still think you're wasting your time adding CSM when you could be taking more 'Crons, especially when their codex is top tier and CSM are, well, CSM.

You've got access to extremely durable troops in necron warriors, so you're not hurting there. You've got access to small'ish objective campers in Immortals. You can make a combat beastick out of a Overlord, DLord and/or Lychguard/Wraiths/Paetorians so you're not really missing any killiness there. You've got 2 good fliers, one of which is a troops choice. You've got ranged AP2 in heavy destroyers. I really don't see what you're looking to add. If you want to run your blight drones, use them in daemons, another faction that does well on its own.

Kharn and cultists ablative wounds is about as good as you're going to get if you're running footcrons, since it diverts firepower away from your guys, but then, you want them to be shooting your guys instead of kharn's unit since your guys don't actually die. I still think you'd get more benefit from running either a royal court full of combat crypteks or a tricked out bargelord with Shroud, scythe, phylactory and shifter for the same points. Probably be more surivable too. Even just 5x scythe lychguard with a chronometron cryptek for 3+/5++/4+++ would be more survivable and more killy the kharn and some meatshields for around the same points.

Why are you so focused on CSM, you want blight drones, you want zombies, and you want a daemon prince? Just go daemons. Point for point, I bet Plaguebearers are a better camper than cultists, especially in cover. Blight drones are a fast attack, and Be'lakor can be your HQ, or a nurgle instagib DP.

That probably is the better idea, I'm just usually so annoyed when I try to play CtA allies, due to having to deploy and space out certain ways, it can really screw up plans. Not to mention ITC banned it, though that doesn't really have bearing on FLGS games.

I suppose I'm just looking for an excuse to start a new army

Requizen wrote:
That probably is the better idea, I'm just usually so annoyed when I try to play CtA allies, due to having to deploy and space out certain ways, it can really screw up plans. Not to mention ITC banned it, though that doesn't really have bearing on FLGS games.

I suppose I'm just looking for an excuse to start a new army

What do you mean, deploy a certain way? I'd use my daemons as a full Deep-Strike army (Nurgle into Ruins) with the drones coming onto the board from turn two anyway (I believe they have to right?).
Otherwise, take them as renegades and heretics with covenant of nurgle allies - huge zombie blobs, blight drones as FA, and ARTILLERY!
Yes, you can get the awesomeness of wyverns and all those wonderfully cost-effective infantry murderers in IG Heavy Support, but Cheaper!