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I thought I'd have a go at some shooty CSM. What do you guys think?

Lord and warpsmith to buff the gunline, apostle to buff the cultists. Spawn for capturing objectives.


Chaos Lord: Chainsword, Combi-plasma
Dark Apostle
Warpsmith: Combi-plasma
30x Chaos Cultist: Flamer, 2x Heavy stubber 27 cc weapon pistol
30x Chaos Cultist: 3x Flamer, 27x autogun
5x Chaos Space Marines: Plasma gun
Helbrute: Missile launcher,Twin lascannon
Helbrute: Missile launcher,Twin lascannon
Helbrute: Missile launcher,Twin lascannon
Chaos Spawn
Chaos Spawn
Chaos Spawn
5x Havoc: 4x Lascannon
5x Havoc: 4x Lascannon
5x Havoc: 2x Heavy bolter, 2x Missile launcher, Combi-plasma
Heldrake: Baleflamer

Poxwalkers are vastly superior to cultists due to fnp and immunity to morale. For shooty csm, quad hb rapiers are almost compulsory, and I'd consider taking a deredeo for your gunline for the invuln. Are you expecting to face a lot of tough models? 14 lascannons seems like overkill if not, and won't help you to deal with hordes or even moderately sized armies. If you want dreadnoughts, I'd drop the helbrutes and go for the FW stuff like decimators and contemptors as they're straight upgrades.

3x3 quad rapiers would allow you to hurt everything up to T9 pretty badly, and from there your gunline would simply be a matter of bubblewrapping, obj grabbing units, and some additional anti tank (lascannon havocs work fine here). I would only take the chaos lord as a hq, as the others aren't really worth it. Standard chaos marines are also pretty poor, and won't do a great deal compared to your rapiers (which would be the main heavy-lifters). Spawn for objectives isn't very strong as objectives are held by whomever has the most models (so only helpful if uncontested). 80-100 poxwalkers would be more than enough to bubblewrap and hold objectives.

Overrall, for a great shooty csm army, you do need to delve into FW stuff as they completely outshine everything else.

units of 10 CSM, with 2 plasma and a combi plasma on the SGT works really well.

The heldrake has been underwhelming in my games thus far. I will suggest also that the hel brute Plasma is one of the only multi firing plasma weapons in the game, that is STR 8, that does not cause a model to be removed when you roll a 1 to hit, and only causes a single mortal wound.

As for pox walkers they are a little better than cultist, I like the guns. I played cultist a lot in 7th, and needing 6's to would T5 was rough, now that they would T5 (necrons/cents) on 5's they are a whole new unit for their points, so the DA is worth it for the leadership.

If you go with pox, take Typhus as your second HQ, drop the DA, Save on the points on helbrute plasma. And As you know helbrute reroll 1's help with the plasma shots, from their <legion> if Lord is same <legion>.

Good luck. I like the list.

Ditch the 5 CSM with the plasma gun and take some nurglings (saves 20 pts).

If you take poxwalkers instead of cultists, you can ditch the apostle (another 80ish points)

Helbrute's aren't really ideal for shooty because of the fist, Decimators are really good and so are rapiers (rapiers are really, really good). If you can figure a way to convert your helbrutes to decimators I would definitely do it!

And if you need a flier take a Fire Raptor. They're 150 pts more than a heldrake but about 10x as effective

I agree with respect to the Cultists / Pox Walkers. I am on the fence with choosing between them. If you put Huron Blackheart with the cultists its a good cheap way to make them fearless (as long as they are 6" away).

I also think Debilitate nailed it with respect to the Helbrutes. I ran three of them and was not super impressed with there backfield damage output. The freaking Fire Raptor is a beast!