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Ok guys, I play tested the list and it didn't work the way I was hoping. I'm calling for anyone who can help me turn this the way I wanted.

My last tournament list was this:
Chaos Daemons -
Biomancy Unclean one
Nurgle Soul Grinder
Epidemius running with 9 beasts of nurgle in a melee death star
one plaguebearer squad
one small squad of drones
4 small nurgling squads

My list from last night was this;
Chaos Lord
Be'Lakor
two heldrakes
three nurgle obliterators
3 rhinos with 5 man plague marine squads with 2 melta.

THINGS I LIKE -

The Lord; I'm using Crimson Slaughter and happy with that
The lord is taking Daemonheart for 2+ and It Will Not Die, Sword of the Relentless which buffs to S7 and AP2 gradually as it makes kills, Slaughterer Horns for Rage and Furious Charge, Sigil of Corruption for 4++, mark of nurgle and a bike with melta bombs.

The problem is he got tied up with models with invul savs but more importantly, with 2+ armour. while that wont always be a problem.. it was pretty devastating. i could run him with lightning claw and powerfist, but then hes missing out on the strength buff and its more expensive. i could add a powerfist for the turn one ap2, but then its even more expensive. i like the fluff of the sword but I dunno..

TEMPLATES - I love flame templates. i love taking out anything with uncertainty in the game. being able to get rid of rolling to hit is awesome. ignoring cover is awesome. as such, I like heldrakes a lot. but with their reserve dependency.. that's tough. I am considering some havoc squads, if i took them i could potentially spring for an aegis and comms relay but thats a lot of points for heldrakes which are already not cheap.

SORCEROR - i can take a sorceror with no mark and take the Crimson Slaughter wargear that lets him roll on Divination and reroll failed tests. this could be awesome. guaranteed prescience more or less on a big blob. maybe a 4+ invul etc. as a level 3 with rerolls.. thats pretty awesome.

So all that said, I definitely want to run the Lord and Sorceror together in a death star... but with what???

PLAGUE MARINES - I know theyre pricey but i LOVE fearless. it takes away the guesswork of running away. im running with two melta. is a combi melta on the sarg worth it? should i run 7 models instead of 5? my trouble there is the points start looking like 250 pts per rhino ish. thats a lot.. but i wonder if it changes them to more of an offensive unit rather than a defensive/scoring unit. I'd love to have the plaguemarines kill first/score second.

SHOOTING - I love rolling lots of dice. I hate lascannons. I like assault cannons because of their high weight of dice. essentially, i want s6 shooting eldar bike spam in chaos form lol. i DO like melta because vehicles have a hard time getting cover when youre that close, and the melta has a very good chance to do some hurt. im ok with those odds. If plasma is twin linked im ok with that too but probably only on bikes.

THINGS I DONT LIKE

Be'Lakor was really really expensive for a model that cant join units. while wave serpent spam is dead, he is still very very vulnerable to things that ignore cover. while i could keep him in the air... thats a whole lot of points just to spam invisibility and ive decided not to do that. i dont want to run a list that relies on that; i dont have fun with it. so no more be'lakor.

OBLITERATORS - yuck. as fun as they are when they pull off the perfect deepstrike and get to nuke something.. theyre just not reliable. sitting them in a ruin is risky and pointless. i dont want to shoot three lascannons, miss one shot, not penetrate with another and have the last one glance a hullpoint or get cover saved. i feel their big benefit is the up close shooting and i could bring more weapons, that are more reliable in a suicide havoc squad in a rhino.

HELDRAKES - i dont like waiting for them to come in, i dont like their points (i dont hate the points either but theyre not exactly a huge bargain) and i dont like having to deal with flyer movement. With that said, I've converted one beautiful nurgle heldrake dragon monster. ive also made a second which is nice, but pales in comparison to the first. I kind of want to just run one and free up points.

IDEAS I HAVE

Havocs --- I like the idea of 7 havocs. maybe using extra plague marine models and buying autocannon bits. even thinking of buying some forgeworld legion autocannon models. my problems with this.... easy to kill. bike spam will wreck them. a heldrake will wreck them. if i put them behind an aegis, that might help with drop pod spam and such like that. is their range and 4 autocannon shots per unit worth it? if i had two squads of 7, thats 16s7 shots bunkered down in the back line. but its also probably 500 points ish with the aegis. is it worth it? mark of nurgle would make them tougher, but now theyre getting more expensive. worth the mark? or just take more ablative wounds in the form of extra bodies.

BIKES OR SPAWN???? after praising spawn i realize that i hate their lack of an armour save or FNP etc. moreso, i hate that they only have 3 wounds. weight of fire even from bolters brings them down. if i could take more, sure. but 5 isnt enough. i was running 9 beasts of nurgle that pretty quickly used Epidemius's benefits to end up as T6, 4 wounds, 5++, 4+ FNP and IWND. they were invincible. id also buff them with a grimoire too for added shenanigans.

i had the idea of running my killy lord, my prescience sorceror, epidemius and beasts of nurgle in one disastorous unit. until i realized i cant take non daemon characters in there :(

maybe taking 7-9 nurgle bikes at t6 with as much plasma as possible would be ok? but again.. why? i want the lord fighting, and i want him fighting soon. alternatively, maybe i run bikes, the sorceror and the lord, move them up the table together and then have the lord detach and solo charge units he can take apart. i buff the bikes with the sorceror to shoot other targets. but casting prescience to twin link two plasma guns is a waste. i could run spawn and prescience them instead... that would buff them in combat. if i could get them a 4++ on diviination, that would also help.


Other thoughts...

add a daemon prince? probly from daemons codex... theres no good daemon prince wargear in the crimson slaughter that i saw.
i like chaos predators with autocannon and heavybolters but i dont think the output is good enough.
what cheap and efficient damage output is reliable that im missing? thanks for your thoughts!

A lot of these choices are going to depend on what your expected opponents look like. Autocannon Havocs for instance, are solid, but are going to be a whole lot more valuable against something like Dark Eldar or Imperial Guard than they will against say, Daemons or Necrons.

I'm building this for Da Boyz. Expecting no gargantuan or superheavy, (could be wrong on that). Using a 0-2 comp and 0-3 for transports and troops. I'd bed on lots of necrons, lots of marines, lots of eldar

In that case, I'd advise against running CSM's at all...

Though, less cynically, Baleflamer Heldrakes are going to be extremely useful against such foes, but their reserve issues will also be a challenge.

I don't know if the event allows access to Imperial Armour units, but if you have IA13, you might want to look into Fire Raptors, Plague Hulks, Sicaran Battle Tanks, and Rapier Weapons Batteries. All very needed boosts for CSM's in a competitive environment.

Aside from that, with regards to Havocs, you may want to consider them with plasma guns in a Rhino over autocannons in the backfield. I've had ok luck with those against a variety of opponents, but it is a little pricier and risker than the autocannons. I'd expect either to really only get one or two rounds of fire off in a comeptitive environment against SM/Nec/Eld armies runnign competitive lists, so range vs AP2 will be your bigger deciding factor.

Ia13 will prob be allowed. I was looking at fire raptors but I don't want to buy one. Plus it would be ANOTHER flyer to rely on.

What are the rapiers like? Artillery could make me happy

What lore should the sorceror role? Telepathy would give him a shot at invis or shrouded. And shriek. Maybe more reliable than divination. And half the price of belakor and more survivable being in the unit

I honestly haven't run Psykers all that often in most of my armies, I've only run one a couple of times with my CSM's, and that was with Telepathy. I like Psychic Shriek a lot, and obviously invisibility has its uses Divination through the Crimson Slaughter book has its uses, but primarily for a heavily shooting oriented army.

The Rapier batteries are indeed artillery, relatively cheap, started at just over a Rhino in price with a quad heavy bolter (twin linked 6 shot HB), and can upgrade to Laser Destroyers (Ordnance rule lascannon with shorter range, no blast, but TL'd), or the Hades Autocannon or Ectoplasma cannon from the Forgefiend, or a special conversion beamer for nearly double the base cost. They're heavy support and can be taken in units of 1-3.

They can get you lots of very capable firepower for a very low price, but be aware they don't have the option for VotlW or Champions so will be Ld8.

Interesting.. that could be cool with divination. Perfect timing could help with a weapons battery; especially if it's already twin linked

Yeah, Divination with the Rapier batteries could be really sweet, Telepathy is great as a more offensive line for CC units and the psyker himself.

Also, I forgot Blight Drones. AV12/110/10 HP2 flyers that you can take in squadrons as Fast Attack choices with half-range Battlecannons and heavy flamer alternate fire modes.

I do own a blight drone, could consider a squadron.

Also considering a spartan assault tank and taking a possessed star. They're decent survivability if in a landraider. But holy crap that'd be expensive lol. Landraider spartan at 285, lord at 250 18 spawn at like 400, sorceror at like 200 lol

Just typing it out... no lol



But three squads of hades autocannon rapier batteries behind an aegis with a Comms relay and two heldrakes. That could work

Yeah, the Spartan's are pricey, go for the Rapiers

Blight Drones are advised after the Heldrake nerf, along with the fact they would only take up one slot compared to multiples.

Since you got a bunch of Melta on your Plague Marines instead of Plasma, I might advise Spawn for easier soaking of wounds, assuming you can get decent cover. If you can't get easy cover on your tables, Bikers are the way to go. Still go with Melta Guns on the bikes though. And then a Melta Bomb on the Champ.
Now, assuming IA13 is good to go, I'd say ally in your Crimson Slaughter Lord for a primary Purge detachment instead. Load up on Sicarans/Fire Raptors with a Warpsmith, and then ally in your evil sounding Lord.

What's this purge do? I'm not at my computer to read the copy I have handy. I didn't even see it in there.

And why sicarans? Seems like rapiers would put out more shooting. I like the autocannon rapier base. 12 s8 twin link shots is pretty snazzy. That's more shooting than a sicaran. Ignoring jink is alright but the only stuff that really jinks that'll save it would be FMC or flyers and if I need a 6 to hit anyways that doesn't seem great. As a venom and dark Eldar player, i know that the rapiers would be just as scary.

The fire raptor is cool but again, the rapiers are pretty intense. (depending how many models and squads the comp allows). But in a normal tournament three squads of three autocannon rapiers seems like an autoinclude to me. That's 36 s8 BS4 twin link shots with range at three different targets. That's pretty punishing. Use the plaguemarines for armour 14 which you rarely see.

And I saw a really cool conversion using plague toads as a base. I've already got nine. Could just strap hades autocannons to their backs and it'd look very cool.

One thing I DO want to do is maybe run a bunch of kroot as cultists. Almost makes me want to run typhus and zombies lol. It's a swamp nurgle theme and kroot seem perfect as a vibe.

Spawn have always outperformed bikes in every list I've played them in. I field two Deathstar units, a Lord with spawn, and a Sorcerer with bikes (or switched around) and even tho spawn have no Armor save, people target the bikes. Or the bikes jink, and now my Meltas are wasted, or they get chewed up in CC.

I play recklessly, and toss spawn into anything. Bikes don't seem to bring anything to the table.

Now, if i played a KDK army, then maybe multiple fast min (suicide blood tithe) units could work, but just plain Nurgle Bikers, without any of the other Armies bike benefits, they fall flat. Loyalist SM CT bikes, Ravenwing rerollable jinks, eldar 36 flatout jetbikes, and even the Ork warbike have built in benefits. But CSM bikes are the most basic, with marks you have to pay for.