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So I decided that I am going to play Chaos Space Marines as my first army. I just bought the start collecting box (1 terminator lord, 1 tactical squad, and 1 hellbrute) I also purchased a terminator box that comes with a terminator lord. And an ex-chaos player at my shop is going to sell me 3 Obliterators and about 15 cultists (for about $25 which I think is a great deal)

So I'm really excited to begin my commitment to the Dark Gods and I sat down earlier to plan out my tactical squad but as a new player I feel overwhelmed by the options. I don't have a good understanding of the various weapons as far as what's considered good and bad, or in general, this is more or an anti-vehicle weapon and this is more anti-infantry etc.

I am planning on running an Iron Warriors themed army so I already plan on having lots of heavy units like: Hellbrute, Defiler, Forgefiend, Maulerfiend, Havocs. Maybe not use them all in the same list every time but these are models I will plan on getting. I also plan on getting one squad of khorne berzerkers.

So how does a new player go about selecting the weaponry for his tactical squad and then eventually other units like havocs and terminators? I'm afraid of building an army and then find out after a few games, I really messed up on the weapons I selected.

Have a good read on the rules =D

Special weapons will always be situational and the proper load out will depend on who/what you play against, if you can magnetize them then go for that

Low Strength (3-5) with High Number(2-5) of Shots is Anti Infantry

High Strength (7+) with High Damage (2+) is Anti Tank

There are plenty of guns that are decent at everything, or that break the mold.

Also, in general shots with at least 1 or 2 AP tend to be great against everything. While higher values like 3 or 4 tends to be Anti Heavy Infantry or Anti Tank.

Forgefiend is pretty Anti Everything
Havocs /can/ be Anti Everything, but they are at their best at being Anti Tank
Defiler is a little weak in my opinion, since his firepower is a little low but at least he has great survivability.

This isn't always true but traditionally for any kind of marine army you look at weapons as follows:

Weapon Type:

Flamer: Anti-infantry
Melta: Anti-Tank
Plasma: Anti-Elite heavy armoured infantry/ light tanks
Missile Launcher: Does both but thats because it has different missile types.
Lascannon: Anti-Tank
Autocannon: Anti Light Vehicles/medium armour
Bolters: Anti-infantry

Traditionally, you would want the entire squad kitted out to perform one job and do it well. So, if a unit of Chaos Marines is armed with Bolters, you generally want them to be targeting infantry squads because thats what bolters are designed to kill. This isn't so much the case anymore because now different weapons can fire at different targets inside the unit. They don't all have to fire at the same target like they used to.

However I still like to arm my units with weapons that are intended to take on a specific target, rather than generally being mediocre at everything.

Given that units split fire now, it's not necessary to kit the entire havoc squad the same, it's just better for organisational reasons.

Anyway, I would look at what bases your current forces excel at, but generally I would kit the tac marines for anti-infantry uses, I believe the rule of "only flamers vs melee" still applies. Marines I feel are usually always better suited to engage infantry, so pick something that will complement their boltguns.

You can kit out the helbrute and the eventual obliterators for dealing with heavier targets. I believe bezerkers are still pretty good at just hacking tanks apart as well.

Thanks these posts are very helpful! I think i was planning of having my havocs be my dedicated elite/tank hunters while my infantry mows down other infantry.

Now ive seen a lot of different opinions on ranged vs close combat terminators. I guess it all depends on how you want your army to function. I know there is not one concrete answer but in general what are your thoughts about ranged/melee terminators?

I listen to Wargammer Fritz on Youtube and something he says he likes to do with his terminators is to have them kill things that are weak(er). So instead of having them fight enemy models of an equal threat level he sends them to fight models with a lower threat level to minimalize his loses.

I think I'm planning on having them melee just because most of my army will be ranged but still not decided.

One thing to note: this edition throws out much of the traditiinal ways of doing things.

In previous editions 1 unit could only target 1 unit with a rare few exceptions. Now 1 unit could target a separate unit with each weapon it has if it so chooses.

It is moderately more beneficial to mix weapon target-priorities in units now and spread those weapons amongst several units.

A Lascannon havok squad in 7th could reliably take down or hamstring an enemy vehicle per turn, but losing them hurt really bad so you needed a second unit with anti-tank weapons(and pretty much only anti-tank) to have as a back-up. Now you can include a Lascannon on each Chaos Marine squad, along with a plasmagun or flamer. The bolters and flamer can fire at infantry while the lascannon fire ata tank.

Also plasma is now good to decent at (slowly) stripping wounds from tanks, or doing so a little faster at the risk of killing the gunner.

Heavy bolters and similar s5+, 3+shot weapons are also in a sweet-spot for killing everything equally, they wound most infantry on a 3+, and vehicles on a 5+ but produce enough shots to expect 1 forced-save per firing.

Missile launchers are much better as versitile weapons effectively doing the same number of wounds to either infantry or vehicles as long as you use the appropriate missile.