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I've posted this list in a few other places but I like to spread out my feedback before moving into testing. Last week I went to my first GT for 40K which you can get more information about via my signature if you desire. I came away knowing that Malefic Lords were running out of time and also finding Smite Spam to be poor against other good players. This new list is my attempt to maximize what worked with the old (Obliterators, Cultists) without folding in the face of the Malefic Lord nerf that was put out this week.

Battalion
Abaddon (Warlord)
Exalted Champion (World Eaters) w/ Chainaxe, Chainsword, MoK, Brass Collar of Borghaster

40 Cultists w/ Autoguns and MoS
40 Cultists w/ Autoguns and MoS
40 Cultists w/ Autoguns and MoS

Battalion
Renegade Commander w/ MoS
Renegade Commander w/ MoS

10 Brimstone Horrors
10 Brimstone Horrors
10 Brimstone Horrors

Spearhead Detachment (Alpha Legion)
Chaos Lord w/ Jump Pack, Chainaxe, Bolt Pistol

3 Obliterators w/ MoS
3 Obliterators w/ MoS
3 Obliterators w/ MoS
3 Obliterators w/ MoS
3 Obliterators w/ MoS

2000/2000 Points | 12 Command Points

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In my previous list I've run the Abaddon and Cultist package to extremely good effect. Wiping out a unit of Cultists typically takes my opponents entire army, although many builds can do it with less, and they're extremely frustrating to deal with properly. If a unit isn't killed I can recycle it while if an opponent tries to reduce them all in equal number I can hide a damaged unit, still recycle one, or target anti-infantry shooting to make finishing the job difficult. Abaddon of course makes them Fearless and buffs their offensive output by quite a bit which pairs well with Endless Cacophony/Veterans of the Long War when needed. Previously the entire Detachment was Black Legion but with Chapter Approved giving ObSec based on <Faction> instead of <Legion> that's no longer a concern. I do miss out on Advance + Shoot, however this was mostly used to get Malefic Lords into range faster while still protecting them with the Cultists which is no longer a consideration.

I also used to run four units of Obliterators but I have a strong desire to move up to five. I think these will replace Malefic Lords as the best unit Chaos has, at least until the Demon Codex, as they not only are amazing at anti-Vehicle/Monster but function just fine into both Heavy and Light Infantry. Their survivability is significantly better than a Predator, Hellbrute, or Havocs to me which are the units that fill similar roles and a loss of Smite Spam requires filling that anti-Vehicle hole. I've moved these to an Alpha Legion Detachment for the -1 to Hit, which makes them that much harder to kill on top of their stats, and picked up a Lord with Jump Pack. Previously Abaddon was the buff bot for the unit but it's very difficult to land them within his Aura while keeping the Cultists where they need to be so having some extra flexibility is appreciated. Of course I'll lose re-roll 2's to hit but that's a minor concession in my experience and I'd rather have better positioning and access to Cover.

Finally I have the throwaway Detachment which really just gets me Command Points. Horrors now have ObSec as of Chapter Approved so I don't feel the need to run anything but a minimum sized unit, Commanders are also the cheapest possible HQ. While they are mildly useless with Mark of Slaanesh they can move decently far and function as an Objective grabber in the mid-late game while benefiting from the Character Keyword for safety, this helps with the Brimstones being shot off my Objectives at times. Otherwise they can tie things up, basically only Vehicles without dying, and hide in the back to deny Secondaries in the ITC Format.

While I've lost all my Psykers since Sorcerers are pretty overpriced and Malefic Lords are now horrible I still need Psyker defense. To that end I grabbed an Exalted Champion to run with the WE Relic and Strategem. The Strategem is great against things like Mortarion/Magnus who have one big power to get off while the Collar works against anyone and can punish armies with low Wound, important Psykers like Eldar. I will miss being able to go toe to toe with Eldar in terms of Deny the Witch but against all other armies there are only 1-2 Powers which actually matter and my army is not vulnerable to Smite the way others are just based on composition.

My only hard feelings toward the list right now is I wish I could keep the Black Legion Detachment as just Black Legion but there aren't enough points without compromising elsewhere. I'd also like to get better weapons on the Lord/Champion as their purpose is to unstick the Cultists and Obliterators if they get tied up. However in my experience Vehicles are usually what ties units up and Characters really can't kill Vehicles easily so tight positional play seems to be the better counter. Instead the Lord/Champion can be preemptive in tackling Transports and small, mobile units since their offensive output won't be wasted. Finally I would like to have a Sorcerer for Warptime as it lets the Cultists do some amazing things off of Tide of Traitors but I can't justify the points for a Mounter/Jump Pack Sorcerer just for that trick when I don't have a good Prescience target and Death Hex is so situational.

Finally the list is meant for ITC Play which means Secondary Objectives are a big deal. I am surrendering The Reaper although it's not as easy to get as it is against other armies because of how Tide of Traitors is worded, I also have much less to go after for Headhunter. The Commanders will likely never be in the thick of things, the Lord is fast and has Alpha Legion, and Abaddon is a tank and usually well defended. This usually puts people on Kingslayer which is fine with me, Recon which means I can punish them for it, or the Table Edge one which no one ever gets in competitive games. Death By 1000 Cuts is also out the window as I don't have enough units to realistically get 3 in a turn more than twice and of course I have no 10+ Wound models or Titanic Keyword models. Overall I think that's pretty much the best you can ask for without playing pure MEQ which is not really doing much competitively at the moment.

Thoughts?

Changeling! You can run two obly units with MoT to get the -2 to hit, it's really frustrating for the opponent since you have enough screen to protect them from Cac

brugner8 wrote:
Changeling! You can run two obly units with MoT to get the -2 to hit, it's really frustrating for the opponent since you have enough screen to protect them from Cac

I've seen this elsewhere but I don't know where I can get the points for him. 25 for the HQ he replaces and ~40 for replacing the Exalted Champion? He's a very tough fit at 100.

Great list cant really fault it!! Pretty sure you would wipe my DG lists in time. Very well structured, incredible screening and as everyone knows superbly flexible main troop choice on OBLITS.

List is also absolutely horrible for target priority, glad its an itc list because that would be unfun to play week in week out!!

Well, since you are already rgive up the Black Legion Trait you can replace the exalted champion with the changeling.
It give you a reliable smite AND a less reliable Boon of change to use on Abbadon ( it's situational but can be useful).
Sadly he's not a Deamon, so no -1 to hit him...

The -2 to hit obly are really nasty but I noticed that you have to do serious effort to protect them from Cac BUT they can outgun almost everything since a standard devastator / veihicle , even with a full reroll is down to 5+ to hit them.
Even pask begins to have some difficult since the hits are more or less halved.

Well The Changeling cannot replace the Champion, he's 29pts more. The best I was able to come up with is moving all the Obliterators to MoT as that's an all or nothing change. There's no point in having any with MoS as those ones will just get shot first so at best I'll get one use of Endless Cacophony with them. I think having 5 units makes EC not that needed so if I take The Changeling I am all in on a defensive gameplan. I can still use EC on the Cultists and VotLW on either if needed.

This basically forces me to scrap my second Battalion, instead I was able to cobble together a Supreme Command with two Renegaed Commanders and a Warpsmith, The Changeling replacing the Exalted Champion. I run the Warpsmith the same way as the Champion was in terms of MoK/Collar/WE. I think that's actually a much better Character to use, he's barely more points but has a Meltagun with BS2+, a Flamer, a Power Axe with the same amount of attacks (no re-rolls of course) and he can do a Mortal Wound to a Vehicle on a 2+ from decent range.

The bad part is I have no Brimstones so my Objective game gets much weaker. I can use the Commanders to hold Objectives but they have no ObSec and are insanely vulnerable to Fliers/Deep Strike. The only way to get them in is to run a Patrol but then I only have 9 Command Points which is just too few for this list.

This list has given me a couple of ideas as well. The Changling + MoT + Alpha legion combo is cool. Having a -2 to hit is huge. But that would only work if the army is battle forged right? or am I missing something?

Also, have you thought of doing either Chosen or Havocs with melta/plasma to infiltrate and or double tap to bring down a vehicle down in one turn with the Endless Cacophony? Just a thought, I haven't tried it yet.

You also need the Daemon Keyword for that to work which not much has, I believe it's only Demon Princes and Obliterators/Mutilators. But Mutilators are awful so we ignore those.

Battle Forged isn't important, although you do need that for Matched Play. You have to have a Detachment that is all one <Legion> Keyword, so you can't have Index Demons in it for example. That's why the Spearhead is all Alpha Legion.

The reason I don't favor the Alpha Legion Infiltrate Strategem is it's a very all in game plan. You do get to know who goes first with certainty before you place the models but if you go second it does nothing for you of value. Since you'll pretty much go first around 50% of the time, often less in ITC Missions, that's a lot to bet on. Havocs can work without it but Chosen have to get close. I prefer Deep Strike, it has some draw backs but it's all around more reliable to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Updated list that I will be playing today for a test run:

Iron Warriors Battalion
Demon Prince w/ Wings, 2x Malefic Talons, Cold and Bitter, MoS, Intoxicating Elixir
Warpsmith

40 Cultists w/ MoS
40 Cultists w/ MoS
40 Cultists w/ MoS


Battalion
Renegade Commander w/ MoS
The Changeling

10 Brimstone Horrors
10 Brimstone Horrors
10 Brimstone Horrors


Alpha Legion Spearhead
Chaos Lord w/ Chainsword and Bolt Pistol

3 Obliterators w/ MoT
3 Obliterators w/ MoT
3 Obliterators w/ MoT
3 Obliterators w/ MoT
3 Obliterators w/ MoT

----------------------------------------------

Not sure how much I like it until I play it, I think it's very strong but hard to play. I do lose the two excellent WE entries but also ditch the useless Exalted Champion who in revisions I was going to replace with a Warpsmith anyways. I swap to Iron Warriors from Black Legion which means less re-rolls but I ignore Cover which comes out ahead on a lot of targets but makes me weaker against straight up hordes. To that end I have the Brimstones for dealing with melee hordes and I'm not that worried about killing Guardsmen. I also get some toolbox access with the Demon Prince who can grab Warptime, Delightful Agonies, or Death Hex. He is also much better at killing Vehicles/Monsters than Abaddon. While his Fearless Aura is smaller he's also faster and has a bigger base.

I think most games the army has to play refused flank to keep the Auras working even when Tide of Traitors is used. Fortunately I have a lot of Deep Strike so I can get a good idea of what goes where, I also have three chaff deployments and can feign with one Cultist unit in the middle or middle/flank. Worst case I have to shift to a flank on Turn 1 in some Deployment types.

Losses are the WE Strategem but the plan for Magnus would be to feed him Cultists. This makes Eldar probably my hardest matchup in a list neutral sense. Dark Reaper heavy Eldar is probably my biggest counter which isn't great since that's most Eldar but I don't think there's a way around that. To be frank the previous list wasn't that great against that in the first place.

I really like it. Keep us posted on how it goes.

I was wondering if maybe having at least one MoS obilt unit would give you an opportunity to DS and use an Endless on you first turn. Give you a little ace in the hole so to speak. Also are you planning on DS the Brimestones as well for late game objective grabbing?

I do love the agonies cast on the blob, please let me know how that works out.

Good Luck.

I tried it with all the Obliterators having MoT, I lost two the whole game. My opponent didn't have the army to take me on though so that's not a huge data point, I will have a Battle Report for that game and another today up tonight.

Horrors can't Deep Strike or that's what I'd use them for most games.

I will probably swap to one MoS, I knew I should but I like things more uniform. I just have to carefully position that unit so it can't be shot easily or it'll go down fast.

The list plays very differently without Abaddon, not sure if I like it yet. Iron Warriors against Marines is the bomb though.

mmh, I think the version with Abbadon is better, because the Prince, even if is faster, is a way more fragile than Abby and he's more situational: since the model is much more bigger and its save is 5+ , he tends to be lascannoned fast, not to mention that the cultist are exposed to horrific casualties from bad morale rolls. You have also to give up two CP.
I think that to renounce to a MoS Obliterator unit is a pity, you can even sacrifice the whole unit if they can grab a juicy target with DS and Endless C.
Anyway your list are brilliant, they gave me a new prospective on competitive caos.

brugner8 wrote:
mmh, I think the version with Abbadon is better, because the Prince, even if is faster, is a way more fragile than Abby and he's more situational: since the model is much more bigger and its save is 5+ , he tends to be lascannoned fast, not to mention that the cultist are exposed to horrific casualties from bad morale rolls. You have also to give up two CP.
I think that to renounce to a MoS Obliterator unit is a pity, you can even sacrifice the whole unit if they can grab a juicy target with DS and Endless C.
Anyway your list are brilliant, they gave me a new prospective on competitive caos.

Well with Cold and Bitter the Cultists are still immune to morale, just in a 6" bubble instead of 12". I have played two games with the Prince and keeping them together was not an issue, it's easy to daisy chain those big units. As for being shot, the Demon Prince cannot be targeted unless he's the closest thing and that's extremely unlikely to happen unless I'm getting smashed, so I'd probably lose anyways. While Abaddon is more resilience which can matter in melee the Prince puts out S8 attacks and is thus much better at killing Vehicles/Monsters and can get more damage done against things like Ork Boyz. He's also a Psyker which is a slight boon as it's another Deny the Witch, I can also pick up Warptime. In one of my games I recycled a Cultist unit, Warptime'd it, and tied up a unit from a very unexpected angle.

Being able to recycle them and then buff them is great. Definitely looking to try it out. I keep thinking of the Oblits doing the old Termie suicide squad from ages ago, where you just drop them, blow up something more expensive then them, and wait for them to get killed next turn anyway. But to each their own.

I'm just curious with the way you are playing if the Oblits are getting the Alpha legion trait as well as the Changling's effect?
In that case, no wonder they aren't dying.

Also how much of a buff is the re rolling 1's, it's gotta be ridiculous

Yes the Oblits always get -2 to Hit if I can make it happen. Some armies can make that hard but people really don't seem to take anti-Deep Strike that seriously. Plus Marines are one of the best at it and Marines are not seeing much play in the competitive game, at least aside from a few inclusions.

Re-rolling 1's with the Oblits is nice. It's been a lot easier to get them that than having them within 6" of Abaddon, that was very hard to pull off.

I completely miss the Cold and Bitter trait.
Your list is awsome, I'll try it in next days. I feel a little bit hatred for you, as I'll have to paint 100 cultist to avoid the grey wall effect.

I'll post the result then...

A question: how many obly do you deep strike?

I tried a few times the changeling trick but if I noticed that if you keep all the obly in the 9" bubble you lose too much mobility.

All the Obliterators Deep Strike every game. The only time I might not do that is against Eldar, with a full Dark Reaper unit, and if I can completely hide all of them behind Terrain. So pretty much never.

You only need one Obliterator within range of The Changeling per unit so 9" is very lenient. They do bunch up but I generally want them to so I can protect them from Charges.

Can't you just adjust your first list, drop the exalted and give up like... 6 cultists to get changeling? Nothing says you HAVE to bring 40 cultists. you could do a 40 40 34 (check my math but you get the idea).

I've certainly considered it. The issue is 40 feels mandatory when you get table time in with the army. The amount of times I've kept ~5 Cultists alive to recycle the unit is insane. The list really thrives when you can absorb the opponent's first shooting phase, the counter to this is to just shoot all the units equally but no one does that. Also it can backfire since the Obliterators kick like a mule and many armies can find themselves out of anti-Infantry shooting quickly so they then cannot finish those units off. It's a weird list.

But you save on the morale test by keeping abaddon. You are losing 6 models or so but you probably save more in the long run. How do you save all the models from morale when 20 get shot off?

*sigh* Please read the thread. The Demon Prince makes them immune to morale with the Warlord Trait. Otherwise the list would be garbage, you're correct.

I managed to replicate the list, I swap an obly with a Decimator with double butcher cannons, it's 45 points less, so I can field three blue horrors in the brimstone to use their mini-smite without casualties and give the lord a jump pack.
I can't DS the Decimator but it helps a lot with battleshock test hitting units crippled by obly.
Obviously the main reason is that I don't own the fifth obly unit :-P

Here goes another stupid question on my end.

What is the point for the brimstone horrors? Just cheap scoring units to hold the back lines? Makes sense with the Changling to make them harder to hit.

Not a stupid question to me.

They're multi-role. One is to fill up another Battalion, CSM is a very CP hungry Faction and they only way for them to get it is to bring more dudes. For that reason I think bringing two Battalions is mandatory for most builds (not all) and that's what I've done here. They're also a cheap screen that can hold up some things with The Changeling, a lot of fast units aren't actually very good in combat so they can't eat through them. They're also great Objective holders, Chapter Approved gives ObSec to all Troops in a Battle-Forged Detachment so Horrors now get it whereas they didn't before. Because of their insanely small physical profile and the fact they can Advance at no penalty with decent Movement this makes them good at going where needed and not dying. Since I play ITC Missions being able to spread out is very important.

That's what I figured. You get two models for the 5 points right? I've never seen an explanation for it.

But yes, getting the most CP is very important.

Can't wait for this Saturday

The smallest of clarifications .. The renegade commander mark only works if the renegade commander is your warlord, which is obviously not worth it.

You get one model for 3 Points.

Ah I did not read the Covenant correctly, I thought it only impacted that model not the Detachment. That's fine though, he pretty much just stands around.