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Looking at the powers chaos now has access to it want to try and make a deathstar. Only question is do I make it with terminators or bikes. With the new powers not overly concerned with the movement of terminators although it would be nice to focus on other disciplines. What do you guys think making purely csm

I think you're boned. CSM are NOT very strong at the moment, and while the new Traitor's Hate buffs are nice... They aren't enough.

If you're dead set on making it work, though, I'll offer some advice. But right now, my biggest advice is don't use CSM.

Unlike vanilla SM, we don't have any great way to fish for psyker powers or make it really easy to cast them (unlike tigerius or libraius conclave)

As such you are going to have to take a Sorcerer Cabal formation to just spam Lv3 sorcerers on bikes and hope you get the powers you need (plus spell familiars help casting a good amount)

As for what to make a deathstar our of I would think Spawn are a good choice since you can already make a solid deathstar out of them

 CrownAxe wrote:
Unlike vanilla SM, we don't have any great way to fish for psyker powers or make it really easy to cast them (unlike tigerius or libraius conclave)

As such you are going to have to take a Sorcerer Cabal formation to just spam Lv3 sorcerers on bikes and hope you get the powers you need (plus spell familiars help casting a good amount)

As for what to make a deathstar our of I would think Spawn are a good choice since you can already make a solid deathstar out of them

Yeah, probably a good idea. 5 Nurgle Spawn, 5 unmarked Sorcerers (gives you majority Toughness 6, but 3 rolls on any table of your choice) with Sigils of Corruption on all the Sorcerers. Give whichever one rolls on Biomancy the Black Mace, to hope for Smash.

I would be looking at some sort of combo involving

Terminators 2+ save and 5+ invul

Mark of Tzeench +1 invul

I think there's a psyc power that may an additional +1

Then maybe aim for a warlord trait or something to add further to the whole squad,

They would probably need a land raider but that limits the squad size a lot.

spaceman1 wrote:
I would be looking at some sort of combo involving

Terminators 2+ save and 5+ invul

Mark of Tzeench +1 invul

I think there's a psyc power that may an additional +1

Then maybe aim for a warlord trait or something to add further to the whole squad,

They would probably need a land raider but that limits the squad size a lot.

There's no power that gives +1 Invuln. There is one that lets you reroll saves, though.

But here's the thing-Terminators suck in Codex SM-and they're just kinda worse in CSM.

Thats untrue. There is indeed a power that can give you +1 invul. Sanctuary on Sanctic daemonology.

 Lord Commissar wrote:
Thats untrue. There is indeed a power that can give you +1 invul. Sanctuary on Sanctic daemonology.

Woops! My bad.

I was thinking just off the new powers.

If I was trying to make a sorceror-heavy force.... you can do worse than the Cyclopea Cabal - 3-5 sorcerors who get an awesome unique power.

I dunno. Mastery 3 is a given. I'd be tempted to take The Mark Of Tzeench - it's characterful for sorcerors, but also when stacked with Sigil of Corruption gives you a 'hands free' storm shield straight off the bat.

Almost as importantly, you get access to the Disc Of Tzeench as a mount - arguably better than a bike, because you get the key +1 toughness, but you're a jetbike, not a normal bike, so you can skip over terrain, flambee someone with psychic awesome, and then pull a ludicrous turbo-boost to get out of dodge in the shooting phase (when all you'd have are some desultory bolt pistol shots anyway).

It also gives +1 attack - rather a nice thing for the sorcerors, whose base stats aren't amazing. Should you find yourself facing (say) a dreadnought, that extra Iron Arm/Force Staff attack could be what tips the balance.

The downside, of course, is that you end up shackled to the tzeench discipline for one of your powers. Tzeench's Firestorm (which you'll get as a chaos focus primaris) isn't exactly bad, but nor is it amazing. Barring those turns where everything goes your way, it more or less works out as a frag missile with a few trimmings. The Tzeench discipline powers......eh. Bolt of Change is bloody good, I guess.

More importantly, you can bulk up on sorcerors and almost make them their own deathstar(s) - I'm not sure if the black legion relics were changed in the latest supplement, but, for example, the crucible of lies, mark of tzeench and sigil of corruption together gives a 3++ save with a reroll of 1s before you even get to psychic buffs.

How about this for a death star? (Disclaimer: this death star requires that your opponant allows you to use the original CS supplement before DP's were banned, if you have the original it shouldn't be a problem)

Instead of surrounding your sorcerors on bikes with Spawn, surround them instead with CS possessed from the Favoured of Chaos formation. Give the squad mark of Slaanesh and Icon of Excess. The unit can still move 12" because the possessed become beasts, the sorceror has Jink for being on a bike which stacks with the possessed's shrouded for a 2+ cover save. The enemy have ignores cover? No problem! the possessed have a 3++ invul. Failed your cover/invul? No problem! They also have FnP from the Icon.

Don't want Slaanesh? Give them Tzeentch instead: the spawn get a 2++ invul and you can have that as a re-roll with some psychic buffs.

You could fill this unit with more sorcerors to give them some extra buffs

I don't think that Crymson slaughter possessed will get any benfits at all from this possessed formation as it's worded: "At the start of combat...".

Also, MoT limits you to 3++.

Well they get the equivalent of stormshield and rending in combat, that's hardly nothing. They just don't get guaranteed beasts outside of combat.

 koooaei wrote:
I don't think that Crymson slaughter possessed will get any benfits at all from this possessed formation as it's worded: "At the start of combat...".

It is worded that way on the CSM codex possessed table, this is a different table you role for at the start of your turn and lasts until your next turn

Courtesy of crimson slaughter supplement.

Yea, but you only get the benefit of all 3 powers at the start of combat, so you might not get beasts and have to footslog.

Roknar wrote:
Yea, but you only get the benefit of all 3 powers at the start of combat, so you might not get beasts and have to footslog.

You might have to footslog for turn one but on turn 2 you will have all 3, which is a slight draw back :/

Why not just get spawns for cheaper?

Don't want to tempt fate.

Can you mix Crimson Slaughter with Traitor's Hate? i.e. use CS possessed for the Favored of Chaos formation? Cuz if so, that's they way to Death Star CSM

3 units of Slaanesh Possessed with icon, each with a Cabal Sorcerer on bike. Turn 1, the bikes move full up as fast as they can and stay in coherency. Shrouded gives them 2+ Jink, and you can LOS ignore cover hits. Turn 2 the unit can use its beast movement a garuntee a turn 2 charge.

That's 3 self-contained Deathstars using only 2 Formations. Plus the FMC DP. You could then add the Lost & Damned formation to wrap it up in a Mega-detahcment with cheap Scoring units that recycle themselves on a 4+

-

You can mix them,yes. Though if you're using the latest CS supplement you don't get to use the favoured formation due to them not being able to use princes.

 mrhappyface wrote:
How about this for a death star? (Disclaimer: this death star requires that your opponant allows you to use the original CS supplement before DP's were banned, if you have the original it shouldn't be a problem)

Instead of surrounding your sorcerors on bikes with Spawn, surround them instead with CS possessed from the Favoured of Chaos formation. Give the squad mark of Slaanesh and Icon of Excess. The unit can still move 12" because the possessed become beasts, the sorceror has Jink for being on a bike which stacks with the possessed's shrouded for a 2+ cover save. The enemy have ignores cover? No problem! the possessed have a 3++ invul. Failed your cover/invul? No problem! They also have FnP from the Icon.

Don't want Slaanesh? Give them Tzeentch instead: the spawn get a 2++ invul and you can have that as a re-roll with some psychic buffs.

You could fill this unit with more sorcerors to give them some extra buffs

We established in the thread where you asked this that you can't use Favored by Chaos formation because you can't take the Daemon Prince in Crimson Slaughter

 CrownAxe wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:
How about this for a death star? (Disclaimer: this death star requires that your opponant allows you to use the original CS supplement before DP's were banned, if you have the original it shouldn't be a problem)

Instead of surrounding your sorcerors on bikes with Spawn, surround them instead with CS possessed from the Favoured of Chaos formation. Give the squad mark of Slaanesh and Icon of Excess. The unit can still move 12" because the possessed become beasts, the sorceror has Jink for being on a bike which stacks with the possessed's shrouded for a 2+ cover save. The enemy have ignores cover? No problem! the possessed have a 3++ invul. Failed your cover/invul? No problem! They also have FnP from the Icon.

Don't want Slaanesh? Give them Tzeentch instead: the spawn get a 2++ invul and you can have that as a re-roll with some psychic buffs.

You could fill this unit with more sorcerors to give them some extra buffs

We established in the thread where you asked this that you can't use Favored by Chaos formation because you can't take the Daemon Prince in Crimson Slaughter

Did you even read the disclaimer?

 CrownAxe wrote:
Unlike vanilla SM, we don't have any great way to fish for psyker powers or make it really easy to cast them (unlike tigerius or libraius conclave)

As such you are going to have to take a Sorcerer Cabal formation to just spam Lv3 sorcerers on bikes and hope you get the powers you need (plus spell familiars help casting a good amount)

As for what to make a deathstar our of I would think Spawn are a good choice since you can already make a solid deathstar out of them

Does anybody have the math to say whether the spell familiar rerolls are as good as harnessing charges on 2+?

2+ grants a 5/6 or 83% chance of a successeful WC cast, whilst spell familiar is a 3/4 or 75% chance.

2+ is better.

Its simple, BL Sorcerer Cabal, all Mastery Lvl 3 with bikes roll on sinistrum and telepathy, maybe a bit of biomancy and some of the other disiplines. Throw them in with a bunch of nurgle bikes and BAM toughness 6 deathstar with crazy rerolls on saves.

Also what does everyone mean CSM are unreliable, spell familiar is great! I play daemons and we have nothing that reliable.

Not quite as good but it does give you the option to throw around more powers since you're not limited to one psyches mastery levels

Good Deathstars always start with decent units that can preform WITHOUT psychic powers. The powers then crank the Star up to 11. So ask yourself, is a unit of Nurgle bikers with a few extra characters in it make a good Deathstar on there own?
I think the answer is no. Models with multiple wounds, or that are really cheap make good Death Stars. 1 wound bikers are best as MSU harassment units

 Galef wrote:
Good Deathstars always start with decent units that can preform WITHOUT psychic powers. The powers then crank the Star up to 11. So ask yourself, is a unit of Nurgle bikers with a few extra characters in it make a good Deathstar on there own?
I think the answer is no. Models with multiple wounds, or that are really cheap make good Death Stars. 1 wound bikers are best as MSU harassment units

Very true. For better or worse, the best Chaos can do is still the Cabal with a bunch of Hounds. That particular configuration got a boost from the new powers but that doesn't solve the problems it had to begin with, namely being more vulnerable to alpha strike than other imperial death stars.

The funny thing about sanctuary is that it even though it is meant to be anti-daemon when used by a cabal with flesh hounds it actually helps them a lot. The extra +1 to invuln and since the hounds are beasts they ignore the dangerous terrain effects of the power. You can also stack cursed earth (and myriad of other things) for fun times too.

Im personally a fan of the tzeentch lord/sorc with the crucible of lies that lets you reroll 1's to invulnerables.

So I kinda want to make my unit of 5 bloodcrushers work.
Ideas?

Sorcabal. Invis, endurance. Everything will owrk with this.