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Hi
I am looking at various builds in Chaos Space Marines and kinda struggling to come up with stuff. I wanted to run a horde of cultists backed up by marines but I figure they are vulnerable to sweeping advances.

So I am looking at a couple of lists before I go buying stuff
List 1
sorcerer
5 marines + meltagun + rhino
5 marines + meltagun + rhino
5 marines + meltagun + rhino
Vindicator
Defiler

List 2
Sorcerer + bike
5 marines + meltagun + rhino
5 marines + meltagun + rhino
5 marines + meltagun + rhino
2 bikers + sgt
Vindicator
Vindicator

Any suggestions would be welcome no matter how brutally honest

I'd go with the second list, it's more mobile and has more units. The Bikers are good harassers, the Marines are anti-infantry objective holders and the Vindicators are anti-everything and good distractions. I personally adore Vindicators so I'm probably very biased on that point but I think most people will agree that the MSU marines and bikes with psychic support are a solid choice.

In the future if you want a good number of human cultists you could consider going into Renegades and Heretics to get a load of humans through that and keep your Chaos Marine numbers down, but that's not something to worry about at such a low points level.

 TheManWithNoPlan wrote:
I'd go with the second list, it's more mobile and has more units. The Bikers are good harassers, the Marines are anti-infantry objective holders and the Vindicators are anti-everything and good distractions. I personally adore Vindicators so I'm probably very biased on that point but I think most people will agree that the MSU marines and bikes with psychic support are a solid choice.

In the future if you want a good number of human cultists you could consider going into Renegades and Heretics to get a load of humans through that and keep your Chaos Marine numbers down, but that's not something to worry about at such a low points level.

Hey thanks for that. Yes I tried both lists out with proxies and the one with 2 vindicators did much better. I screened the vindicators with rhinos till they got in range. The bikers did great. I guess a pod army would wreck me but what the hell.

What is the deal with Defilers? They are like 200 points for a av12 front armour wtf? How the heck do people use them?

I'm no chaos expert, but here's my opinion:

Sorcerers - can't go wrong here. Terminator Armour or a Bike seems like a must. Solid, flexible choice.

5 man squads w/ Rhino & meltagun - these seem weak to me. For the amount of points you spend, there isn't much you get in return. They aren't great at any one task. IMO, putting a mark on your sorcerer or lord and grabby berserkers/plague marines/thousand sons/noise marines is the way to go.

Vindicator - always a solid choice.

Defiler - this will be the first thing that dies. It's a long range threat, giant target, and not very tough. When I see my opponent brings a defiler, I smile. Easy first blood.

bikers - always a solid choice.

If you want a horde of cultists, check into the renegades/heretics list as mentioned above. There's some really cool stuff in there, and LOTS of potential for great modeling. If some of them get swept, it's not a big deal. They are cannon fodder to the gods - you should view them as such.

EdwardRenus wrote:

 TheManWithNoPlan wrote:
I'd go with the second list, it's more mobile and has more units. The Bikers are good harassers, the Marines are anti-infantry objective holders and the Vindicators are anti-everything and good distractions. I personally adore Vindicators so I'm probably very biased on that point but I think most people will agree that the MSU marines and bikes with psychic support are a solid choice.

In the future if you want a good number of human cultists you could consider going into Renegades and Heretics to get a load of humans through that and keep your Chaos Marine numbers down, but that's not something to worry about at such a low points level.

Hey thanks for that. Yes I tried both lists out with proxies and the one with 2 vindicators did much better. I screened the vindicators with rhinos till they got in range. The bikers did great. I guess a pod army would wreck me but what the hell.

What is the deal with Defilers? They are like 200 points for a av12 front armour wtf? How the heck do people use them?

The defiler used to be 150pts in previous edition. GW upped the cost and nerfed it so they can sell you mauler and forge fiends for $70.

I like the second list

I don't mind the triple CSM squads. With rhinos they're reasonably durable for their points and for a 750 point army it looks great at controlling objectives. I'd probably drop one of them to use the points elsewhere though. A couple more bikers. Extra points spent on the sorcerer who has a bigger bike squad to hide in. Dozer blades and combi bolters for the vindicators. Spend the rest on the two CSM squads you have left. You could go full melta on one of them- melta gun, combi-melta for the unit leader, combi-melta for the rhino. Probably melta bombs too. I think that's pretty solid for a mandatory troop choice.

I was thinking about maelstrom of war missions that the Warband formation could be better with all units being objective secured.

I came up with this
Chaos Lord, bike, power fist
4 Bikers + champion
4 Bikers + champion
4 CSM+champion+rhino
4 CSM+champion+rhino
4 Chosen+champion+rhino
4 Havocs+champion
750 on the dot
Havocs are just mandatory unit running as backfield objective grabbers / support fire.

I main idea is to camp objectives and use bikers to assault vehicles / high threat units.

OR drop a couple of bikes or the power fist, drop the havoks and get a hellbrute

Thoughts? Better than the vindicator list for old school missions and / or maelstrom?