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Hey,
Me and a buddy of mine just recently got in to the hobby and we're having our first game in about a week.
I will be playing CSM and he just regular SM. From what I understand, CSM aren't very good at the moment and I would like to get some advice on usable units or tactics for a 600 points game.
At the moment I just have got 20 cultist and 15 unbuild regular marines that I'm considering making noise marines. Are they any good?
Any suggestion is welcome,
Thanks in advance!

Of the cult marines Plague Marines are generally considered the best due to T5. I have used Noise Marines for my CSMs to some success. How do you think you would kit them up?

CSM aren' t good only in tournaments or against very competitive list, otherwise they are pretty strong imo, but 600 point games are for fun, and you can play everithing thanks of the csm variety.

What i can say is that the 20 cultist are good for taking objectives or for slow your opponent (you can assault an enemy unit and even if they die, your opponent will need some turns to do it), the noise marine are good for shooting and they have more initiative than the regular SM so they will always start the combat

My advice is to take a very cheap HQ (you can take a dark apostle and put him with the 20 cultist to make them stronger) and you can take an hellbrute if you want, it is really strong at low points cause generally your opponent doesn' t have weapons that can bring him down (generally)

Hope it helps!

Alright thanks for the replys!
I was thinking of only using blasters on a couple marines. The blastmaster seems cool but quite expensive for a 600 pts game.

The dark apsostle idea seems logic. Might bring him. Im quite sure my oppontent is bringing termies so I might need some plasma. Maybe bikers, or oblits?

Noise marines are good.

You might want to check out the errata/FAQ on the games workshop website https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Errata/Warhammer_40000/Chaos_Space_Marines_EN.pdf.

You'll see you can take a blast master in units of 5. A unit of 5 with a blast master is great at sitting on an objective and shooting at other marines.

Another good way to run noise marines is to give the champion a doom siren (maybe team them up with a Slaanesh chaos lord with the Burning Brand, making noise marines troop choices) and have them up in the enemy's face.

Personally I wouldn't rate sonic blasters for fighting other marines, stick to bolters, or even bolt pistols and close combat weapons.

The internet wisdom is that plague marines are the best.

These are easy to build from the basic chaos space marine kits; use bolt pistol arms, but cut away the bolt pistol and in its place glue a bolt gun. Use the chainsword arms for the other arms, but cut away the chainsword and glue a knife in it's place (paint it to look gross). For plague marine helmets, use the ones without horns. There are lots of spikey bits in the chaos space marine sprues, it can be good to cut one of these spikes free and stick it to the top of the plague marine's helmet. A couple of plasma guns or occasionally meltas, make good options for plague marine squads.

PS plague marines are also easy to paint; spray them white, shade/filth them with various washes, pick out the weapons/shoulder pad trim and you are more or less done.

Oblits are awesome but expensive (if you take them take just 2 with mark of nurgle), against termies you can take an hellbrute but he will probably die after killing 2 or 3 termies or you can take an havoc squad with 4 plasma.. and if you want go nasty you can take nurgle bikes with meltaguns

If you wanted to really upset his play, consider using your CSMs as thousand sons? yeah they're expensive, but AP3 vs an army that will be almost entirely 3+svs at 600pts could be deadly...
just a thought though...

I got some bikes and obits today so probably gonna use them. Thanks for all the responds!
Apparently he is bringing assault termies with thunder hammers and storm shields.. Not really sure how to counter those though.

Rof of fire, he will through ones at some point. Ss are just pretty good against any low ap since the 3++

For 600 points, I'd be tempted to drown him in cultists.
1 sorcerer, 2 units of 35 cultists and another of 32. 103 models in a 600 point game would be a hard slog. Camp on objectives and beat him on victory points.

Requirments to playing CSM

Do you Like Demon souls, Dark Souls 1, 2, 3, Blood Borne?

Do You like losing but trying harder each time?

Are you ready to lose/Die? Because you will be doing that a lot playing CSM...

If you ever get up to 700 points you MUST begin using helldrakes! For now, building some Marines as chosen could be fun, especially if you can magnetize the weapons, they can do pretty much anything you need them to. Investing in rhinos isn't a bad idea either, considering how inexpensive they are...