Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm looking to field a second army off of 8th edition and was wondering what are the best Chaos Space Marine units are for building a mid to large size army. Thanks.

Havocs, Legion-specific troops, helbrutes (especially the sonic variety)... There's a lot of good, more than can be easily listed. You should probably pick a specific Legion since generic CSM is kinda weak.

Berzerkers get a good name.

Typhus is a good character this edition, and I bet he'll only get better with the new DG codex. Not a fan of the Plague Marines though.

Khornate raptors and terminators are excellent for deepstriking special weapons followed by a charge. Run a deepstriking lord as well for if you want plasma overcharge.

Warptime with a sorcerer in terminator armor is also a great way to insure your terminators, warp talons, or whatever else you want to use manage to get into combat.

Abbaddon is great if you don't mind playing black legion, immunity to morale can be a life saver for some units, and the rerolls are always helpful. His own combat prowess is just icing.

Beserkers and noise marines (with sonic blasters) can both clear enemy infantry exceptionally well. Beserkers are generally better but need transports, while noise marines can footslog and still be effective.

Havocs are useful in either special or heavy weapon roles. Chosen are an alternative for special weapons that are slightly more expensive but far more dangerous if something charges them.

Melee hellbrutes are relatively cheap yet very nasty up close, scourge and fist gets my vote.

Our tanks aren't amazing. Land raiders are expensive and terminators don't really need transports now that they can deepstrike. Our demon engines are tough, but are only rocking a 4+ was/bs at best, and are almost exclusively mixed melee/ranged loadouts while still suffering from the penalty to shooting heavy weapons and moving.

Our rhinos and predators are both perfectly fine however, for your transport or heavy weapon platform needs.

Spawn got a good boost. -1 AP, -Ld, and an armor save makes up for them moving a lil slower.

A little slower=their speed was almost cut in half, they lost charge rerolls and move through cover. They're another "slow melee brute" in an army full of them, and thus they lost their reason for existing

Noise Marines are fairly underrated, and make an amusing Sniper Rifle due to Music of Destruction letting them shoot outside of the Shooting Phase.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
A little slower=their speed was almost cut in half, they lost charge rerolls and move through cover. They're another "slow melee brute" in an army full of them, and thus they lost their reason for existing

Noise Marines are fairly underrated, and make an amusing Sniper Rifle due to Music of Destruction letting them shoot outside of the Shooting Phase.

I've played a lot of matches against an Emperor's children player at my FLGS. Music of the Apocalypse is real dang strong. I swear I take more casualties during my own turn, than I do on his turn
Woe be if you're within 6" of anything Emperors children when they're dying. Due to the wording on it, it being on a model-by-model basis, each Noise Marine to die can shoot with it's gun, OR throw a grenade or melee. Each dead Noise Marine within 6" of one of your things throwing Frag, or Krak. I learned fast to stay back after losing quite a few things to a hail of Krak grenades the first time.

How appropriately Slaaneshi, that they know that Krak kills.

I'v found the following to be pretty decent now, but not played enough games:

Plague marines - old fav
Daemon prince - wings 2x mal talons
Havocs
Defiler and close combat helbrutes
Terminator sorcerers

How about Rhinos? Are they good to get shooty troops around, or really only for advancing fighty troops to the enemy?

Is there a good meta to them?

BTW I am a Death Guard guy.

I used 2 rhinos to transport 20 fighty BL Chosen then teleported Abaddon in near them. I went up against 3 knights and one shadowsword. No cover or terrain. Just a blood bath. We actually ended in a draw with 1 victory point apiece. He was more worried about vindicator, poxwalkers and helbrutes. Everything else made into CC or was about to. Lost 45 out of 70 poxwalkers, vindi, and brutes. So moral of the story as long there are other juicier things to shoot at, rhinos will serve your intended purpose

I found Chaos Spawn to be really scary in combat. Also the Rubric marines and other Tzeentch units that have good AP flamers are brutal with overwatch... I lost more in overwatch than in the combat against these guys every time.

Rubric marines also have those really good AP bolters too, solid unit.

Berserkers, full stop. They RIP AND TEAR! RIP AND TEAR YOUR GUTS! YOU ARE HUGE AND SO YOU MUST HAVE HUGE Guh.... uh... oh, sorry. Lost track of myself there. Why am I in a straightjacket?

Coyotepunc wrote:
How about Rhinos? Are they good to get shooty troops around, or really only for advancing fighty troops to the enemy?

Is there a good meta to them?

BTW I am a Death Guard guy.

I've not felt much need for transports for my shooty guys, but I've primarily been running the following units:

Pox walkers for taking objectives (too many to fit in generally), noise marines with sonic weapons who can advance and fire, meaning transports are rarely helpful, plague marines with the new blight launchers who also work well footslogging for the same reason, and raptors+terminators to deep strike and shoot, followed by hopefully a charge.

I can see them being useful for havocs, normal CSM, or plague marines with other special weapon options, I just haven't found them useful yet.

I think rhinos are great either way... even for a shooty unit they are cheap mobile LOS blocking that can assault and tie up threatening units - or at least prevent them from firing/advancing/charging the next turn.

I had a rhino harassing my poor sniper scouts for an entire game, I was too outnumbered to put further resources on that little battle but the scouts never really hurt it and it kept charging them so they couldn't shoot (and thus couldn't target his characters with sniper rifles).