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As a guy who has only ever played with Tau and Guard, I have little experience with anything Space Marine (Chaos or otherwise), so what should I know or keep in mind while attempting to build/play a Chaos Space Marine army?

Don't.

Not exactly the answer I was looking for...

Chaos has strong psychic powers and assault HQs, a weak shooting phase, and interesting cross-synergies with Daemons. There's also a fair bit of randomness built into the faction that you wouldn't see with a faction like Tau. Much more interesting though.

The shooting phase is probably the easiest to understand in the game. Chaos doesn't alpha strike to any great degree, psychic powers are unreliable and assaulting can be fairly complicated as well, so just be aware of that going in. It's a pretty good choice if you want to be challenged. Be careful though. You need a lot of terrain to hide in to make games work.

Ignore the general saltiness here. CSMs are great for anyone who loves the lore and look. They are not the best competitively at the moment but that ebbs and flows over time. I've been playing chaos since 4th and their power waxes and wanes so first is to make sure you like them because that is always the most important thing.

In playing, they focus heavily on characters for fighting, buffing, and psychic. They also have relatively powerful vheicles in the forms of various demon engines. They also have some of the best elite troops in the game. Where they lack is in Their base grunts and troops so you'll find you'll likely play with fewer models unless you go full cultist horde.

I would check out the various legions and see which calls to you visually and lore wise. They all mostly have rules that reflect their lore so think about what kind of playstyle suits you. Then work on a list big or small. The army list forum can help you refine from there.

Best of luck and welcome to the service of the dark gods.

You absolutely need daemons to go with CSM, they dont work alone.

I havent' played Chaos myself, but from what you gather around here from veteran players, Chaos is a character heavy army.

I mean your characters will do the heavy lifting while your troops might struggle here and there. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing, just a different army design. Don't expect any of your regular squad unit choices to be outstanding on their own. They are there to catch bullets for your really murderous leaders.

The new Faith & Fury book is very nice if you plan to play any of the featured factions, as they add a ton of fluffy and at the same time useful stuff to everybody.

You absolutely don't, unless you're playing tournaments or 'that guy'.

That said, Daemons are fun and I do enjoy them.

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

Ideally we'd have more info to go on.

Cult or Undivided? Willing to soup? Cultists or Mahreens?

Chaos always has and always will be fun. But don't think they will be a great army. You can win with them, but they won't be a power house.

Also be prepared to pay through the teeth to get some of the basic load outs for things like Terminators. Who's kit doesn't come with enough Combi-Bolters or Chain Axes to make their basic load out, or enough of the other weapons (ie, Power Swords, Axes, Fists) to give them all those.

 Excommunicatus wrote:

Ideally we'd have more info to go on.

Cult or Undivided? Willing to soup? Cultists or Mahreens?

Probably Marines since I'm not looking to have giant blobs of infantry


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 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Chaos always has and always will be fun. But don't think they will be a great army. You can win with them, but they won't be a power house.

Also be prepared to pay through the teeth to get some of the basic load outs for things like Terminators. Who's kit doesn't come with enough Combi-Bolters or Chain Axes to make their basic load out, or enough of the other weapons (ie, Power Swords, Axes, Fists) to give them all those.

1. I'm not looking for victory per say (if I was I would've quit a long time ago), more just to have fun

2. Ah, just like Guard kits

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Chaos always has and always will be fun. But don't think they will be a great army. You can win with them, but they won't be a power house.

Also be prepared to pay through the teeth to get some of the basic load outs for things like Terminators. Who's kit doesn't come with enough Combi-Bolters or Chain Axes to make their basic load out, or enough of the other weapons (ie, Power Swords, Axes, Fists) to give them all those.

1. I'm not looking for victory per say (if I was I would've quit a long time ago), more just to have fun

2. Ah, just like Guard kits

Are there any units or models I should avoid for one reason or another?

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Are there any units or models I should avoid for one reason or another?

Basic CSM units, really anything that relies in any way on a basic CSM model, including Chosen.

Cultists, Daemon Princes, Character models are good. Avoid all the vehicles. I hear some people are finding success spamming Helbrutes.

Also, Cult Marines, avoid those, they are pretty horrible.

Terminators might be good, but only if you keep them stripped down to their base loadout, which will be really expensive to build.

Only characters are allowed to have Jump Packs, if someone in a game store tries to sell you something that's not a character with a jump pack, walk out with a hearty 'Good day, sir!'.

Be very careful with Daemon Engines, get a Lord of Skulls, not super competitive, but you'll have a lot of fun with it occasionally. The primarchs are pretty fun, again, not super competitive, but fun. See also, Abaddon, for the same reasons.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Also, Cult Marines, avoid those, they are pretty horrible.

FYI, there is a rumour that they are going to 2W in the next Chapter Approved release.

I've played a lot of Chaos in 8th edition. They are an INCREDIBLY diverse army, and can be worth it to play simply for the variability and looks alone. It's so hard to see Chaos armies and say they all look the same, because it's easy to give them incredibly unique flavours.

This is also the case for them competitively! Chaos Space Marines have access to a lot of different ways of playing the game. However, all three of these ways generally involve a lot of Chaos Soup in order to function on a competitive level. Chaos is best known for having lots of Characters, frequently Psykers. The best Smite Spam lists have a Chaos focus. If your meta is heavy on units with low wounds and high toughness (Aggressors/Centurions/Obliterators/Ogryn/Aberrants, etc.), then smite spam will be very strong.

Chaos can also bring in some of the games heaviest close combat hitters. Mortarion may be the single deadliest model in the game. I have never seen anything stand toe to toe with him and win - at best it's a tie as both have killed each other (due to "only in death does duty end"-type stuff).

Lastly, Chaos still have potent shooting. Is it as good as Imperial or T'au shooting? No. But that doesn't mean it's bad either. It just means that you have to follow it up with something else or some other tricks. The best Chaos shooting is, sadly, locked behind Forgeworld, so if your local meta doesn't allow or looks down on Forgeworld, then that's something to consider.

Good luck!

Characters can get sniped off table regardless of screen.

Slaanesh bikers are boss af imo for screen clear if you invest 2cp for Endless Cacophony and 1cp for Vets of the Long War.
Daemons like plaguebearers are fun but slow, ur screen is your 'delivery system' aka melee characters don't do much til turn 3 or you can invets all that cp into Obliterators which are good but costly and i personally haven't pulled them off to great effect yet.

Discolord is very fun, I tend lose 1 per turn cuz high threat but when they hit it's a great time.

Horrors with a changecaster to give +1 str to shots and cast Flickering Flames giving them the equivalent to a str 5 wep, 30 horrors = 90 shots.

Grab a theme.
If you not look to win, make a themed army, like my ghost bunch.
etc.

However, baseline CSM are playble somewhat if you don't have many new marine dexes and armies running around if yo go for a red corsair warband.

Alpha legion might be the most wierd and fun that you can build now, with a D3 unit redeploying warlord, deployment shenanigans in general etc. If you want to go marine, grab faith and fury aswell as the dex 2.0o and ALpha legion for that flat -1 to hit.
You still should atleast field 30 cultists but that has more to do with screening and CP then anything else.

Cultmarines range from bad (EC) to meh (rubrics) to actually not bad (Plague marines , doubly fun if AL) to actually dangerous if you plan on movement shenanigans (khorne berzerkers)

Chaos Space marine armies (if you intend to go mono) are extremely brittle, as in they generally look tough but break easily apart.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Only characters are allowed to have Jump Packs, if someone in a game store tries to sell you something that's not a character with a jump pack, walk out with a hearty 'Good day, sir!'.

What ??

 p5freak wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Only characters are allowed to have Jump Packs, if someone in a game store tries to sell you something that's not a character with a jump pack, walk out with a hearty 'Good day, sir!'.

What ??

Host raptorial and the new NL would atleast on a average table disagree nowadays .

 p5freak wrote:
What ??

Fine, I'll be more specific. If someone tries to sell you Raptors or Warp Talons you should walk out with a hearty 'Good day, sir!', because they're just trying to clear excess inventory at your expense.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Host raptorial and the new NL would atleast on a average table disagree nowadays .

I'd expect we see a lot of Warp Talons and Raptors given all the new boosts available in PA2.

They are not exactly what you'd call strong units, but if you can't disrupt a gunline -- I think that's game right there!

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
What ??

Fine, I'll be more specific. If someone tries to sell you Raptors or Warp Talons you should walk out with a hearty 'Good day, sir!', because they're just trying to clear excess inventory at your expense.

The way you said it, it sounded like its against the rules. With the new F&F book Raptors or Warp Talons could be decent, time will tell.

Host Raptorial gave some momentum to actual Raptors (a large charge bonus), and the new hateful assault or whatever gave them a tiny advantage. Are they worthwhile assault troops? No, not really. I use a couple squads and they rarely accomplish anything. A decent way to deliver a handful of melta or plasma though.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Fine, I'll be more specific. If someone tries to sell you Raptors or Warp Talons you should walk out with a hearty 'Good day, sir!', because they're just trying to clear excess inventory at your expense.

I'm really curious about your ideas of tactics and strategy

Yoyoyo wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Host raptorial and the new NL would atleast on a average table disagree nowadays .

I'd expect we see a lot of Warp Talons and Raptors given all the new boosts available in PA2.

They are not exactly what you'd call strong units, but if you can't disrupt a gunline -- I think that's game right there!

A NL detachment with a bunch of Warptalons and a jumppack lord with relic.
A RC detachment for the Cp and free relic.
A Alpha lefion troll detachment for movement shenanigans and the hard hitters.

That could make for a preety mean melee heavy CSM list.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yoyoyo wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Fine, I'll be more specific. If someone tries to sell you Raptors or Warp Talons you should walk out with a hearty 'Good day, sir!', because they're just trying to clear excess inventory at your expense.

I'm really curious about your ideas of tactics and strategy

TBF GW 40k atm is less about strategy and more about maximizing killiness.

Not Online!!! wrote:
TBF GW 40k atm is less about strategy and more about maximizing killiness.

I don't think CSM can compete on that level, honestly.

It's shenanigans or nothing!

Not Online!!! wrote:
Host raptorial and the new NL would atleast on a average table disagree nowadays .

They've been dialed up to mediocre with a side of meh.

You're better off exploring tactics that don't involve hinging your army on tactic that can fail entirely off of a single die roll, leaving an entire unit doing nothing. Against almost half the opponents you'll play in the game you'll need to pull off a 12" charge instead of a 9" charge.

Additionally, HR and the NL warlord costs you 2 CP for the honor of 'maybe' pulling off this tactic, plus 1 more for Raptor Strike.

There are way more reliable tactics available to Chaos.

Probably building a Chaos Knights list is a good place to start. Lower investment cost, low model count, easy to transport, and if you get in and realize that playing chaos just sucks and you don't want to wait for their time in the sun to return you can dump the army easily. Pick up some cultists and a couple scrub characters to support them and you have a something competitive to play with.

Anyone who cries salt should have their opinion ignored outright. It is a non-statement, and should basically be regarded as spam imo.

If you're interested in fluff and lore, then I would say there's not really much point in looking at anything beyond the lore since the games lore and mechanics do not match up in any meaningful way. People are lying if they say otherwise.

Now, about CSMs.

Chaos Space Marines are a weird faction in that your standard troops are, in general, terrible and rarely if ever feature in competitive lists except as a Battalion Tax. Generic Chaos Space Marines are overcosted, die easily and lack the tools to have any meaningful impact on the field (people are basically lying if they say otherwise, or citing anecdotes). I've personally had success with Reaper Chain Cannons but even then they rarely make back their cost. Cultists are basically a non-unit due to ridiculous nerfs. You're gonna have to take one or the other, however; unless you take Daemon Allies that is.

Chaos Space Marines also have some of the worst army traits in the game; a number are simply bad (Word Bearers, followed by Night Lords), others are unlikely to ever help you; World Eaters get an extra attack, which is nice but they need ways to get into combat in the first place, which they lack. The Emperor's Children always fight first but their premier unit is a shooting unit, while the premier Slaaneshi themed stratagem is based around shooting.

The problem is CSMs have always been envisioned as Space Marines, but better at close combat (people say CSMs aren't just spikey space marines but all empirical evidence proves them wrong). A lot of your units have a lot of attacks; unfortunately there's no point in going into CC when you can just shoot the enemy.

Now you do have 'good traits'; it's called Alpha Legion. It's a flat -1 to hit at range; there's ways to increase this. -3 to hit on a Leviathan Dreadnought is nasty (though a bit redundant). I've been using this against my friends Tau and it drives him to genuine bouts of fury. There's also the Red Corsairs, and Purge. With Red Corsairs you get additional CP and can advance and charge, with the Purge you re-roll failed hits on units you've wounded.

The thing is, this edition is based around shooting; shooting is superior in literally every aspect to assault. Many of your units are simply bad (Defilers, Raptors, etc.) and others require large buffs to function properly (the other Daemon Engines, kind of, and Warp Talons). You'll notice throughout the thread people trying to theorycraft ways to make these units work; unfortunately much of this is never going to work.

Your best units are Forge World Dreadnoughts, where your shooting game comes in. Weirdos and cretins will claim these aren't real 40k models or something, but ignore them; if you want a chance of winning, you'll be hard pressed not to take them. They're also very lovely figures. Your other best units are allies; Thousand Sons, Death Guard and most importantly; Daemons. Daemons do what you cannot; get into close combat and provide large, effective tarpits. Soup is a fact of life of good CSM lists; in fact you'll rarely if ever see lists with actual Chaos Space Marines.

EDIT: Another thing. The new F&F book that came out recently has a ton of new stuff, but it's locked behind pure armies, so plans to try and run that stuff together fall apart from the get-go.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
TBF GW 40k atm is less about strategy and more about maximizing killiness.

I don't think CSM can compete on that level, honestly.

It's shenanigans or nothing!

Hence why ALpha legion is the only way......

the TRUE WAY: so to speak.
Especially with the ammount of movement you now can pull



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Host raptorial and the new NL would atleast on a average table disagree nowadays .

They've been dialed up to mediocre with a side of meh.

You're better off exploring tactics that don't involve hinging your army on tactic that can fail entirely off of a single die roll, leaving an entire unit doing nothing. Against almost half the opponents you'll play in the game you'll need to pull off a 12" charge instead of a 9" charge.

Additionally, HR and the NL warlord costs you 2 CP for the honor of 'maybe' pulling off this tactic, plus 1 more for Raptor Strike.

There are way more reliable tactics available to Chaos.

Probably building a Chaos Knights list is a good place to start. Lower investment cost, low model count, easy to transport, and if you get in and realize that playing chaos just sucks and you don't want to wait for their time in the sun to return you can dump the army easily. Pick up some cultists and a couple scrub characters to support them and you have a something competitive to play with.

Atleast they are dialed up to MEH. that way you can field them amongst your friends and not just lose.

Also disagree on the knight part.
They tend to spark local armsraces.

It is gonna be glorious seeing half of an IH gunline go up in a single 3+ vehicle explosion.

That's what you get for turtling for 200 re-rolls!