Should CSM go hard towards higher toughness/ pseudo-knights?

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.

**sambojin**

With the massive amount of points nerfs, is it feasible to take that on the head, and just go further into it? T9-10, lots of firepower, mortal wounds on charge before combat, etc?

Just a thought. What are yours, on the rather painful nerfs?

An army list, to conjugate the meat behind the eyes:

Spoiler:

It's a pseudo-Knights list, but it has sticky objectives infantry (with a bit of lethal wounds), some redeploy for them to fake out or screen or not suck at that (Huron, but also representing illusions of Tzeentch), a few more deepstrikers than normal, and a decent bit of melee considering the mortal wounds charges the flying DPs do. Still has the overly expensive Forgefiends, yet also has the possibly slightly underpriced Annihilators.

As a fake Knights list, it does a lot more than Knights can do in some ways. Is this a viable CSM list, to your mind?

**techsoldaten**

I'd love to see how a list like this performs, but I don't think it's going to keep up with CKs.

The Forgefiends would be bullet magnets, I can't see them surviving past turn 2 against most armies.

The Daemon Princes don't have the melee oomph to make up for losing large parts of the shooty offense. They're not going to chew up entire units each turn.

The Predators are not going to outperform something like Possessed or deep-striking Terminators. The lascannons don't just smash armor the way they used to.

TBH, the strength of this list is the Cultists / Nurglings, who could cover most objectives while the opponent shoots up the rest of the list. That might win some games.

**sambojin**

The Predators are some of the better anti-tank CSM has. 3-4 lascannons shots with Nurgle (hope you roll 5+ for the S14 one), and reroll on 1 damage, means they do smash armour a bit. Not great, but not bad. With the twin bolters and the havoc, they're kinda just a fast moving devastator squad, with ok'ish toughness. Not great, but not bad.

If you group up your flying DPs, 15mortals before melee can be quite the surprise. I'm a TSons player at heart, and while this isn't Mutalith Vortex 6" aura mortals, it can really hurt some units. Strikes First unit just moving like it's invincible to melee? No worries. Melty time.

The Forgefiends are exactly that. They still do HEAPS of damage, they're just a bit over-costed now. Still, they do good work against most things.

And yeah, the list would be nothing without the slight excess of Cultists and Nurglings. You could go for a Wardog Karnivore by dropping Huron and a cultist unit, but I do like the "has a fake-out or back-up plan" style of the list.

I mean, it's not as good at knight stuff as CK is, but they don't get infantry or marks or pacts either. Strangely enough, in very particular board states, you do get a bit of battleshock stuff though.

That you can happily deploy 5 units (cultists and Huron), before ever revealing a thing on where you're going with the battlefield on your heavier stuff, is nice. And is something Chaos Knights would kill for. You get a slight redeploy of the cultists too. Yeah, it costs 300pts to do it, alongside Nurglings infiltrate/ deepstrike decisions, but that's a thing you can do every battle.

((If you ever played Warhammer Fantasy in 6-7th edition, Huron feels sorta like Skarsnik for a pseudo-knights list, just not as orc'y or as broken. But tricksy schemes are fun, thus the Tzeentch DP as warlord. It's also got 5x deepstrike units, so depending on your meta in your playgroup, there's stuff to mess with. And you can just send a unit of Cultists or two off to reserves, only for everyone to forget about them, until turn 3 or 4. It's probably not "highly competitive" as a list, but it's not that low either))

**sambojin**

Are you sure chaos shouldn't be doing this?

Spoiler:

That's 13 nurgle lascannons, 3 forgefiends, 3 sets of flying DP mortal wounds on charge (~15 at full health, and battleshock sometimes too), 4 units of redeployable infantry, and the customary nurgling set. Oh, and Huron came along to tell the infantry where to go too, because sometimes you need to redeploy some infantry lascannons.

5 deepstrike units. Weird stuff like Heroic Intervention gets a +5'ish mortal wounds for your efforts (Daemon Prince suprise tank shock!). Infantry wherever tf, the opponent will always have a threat to face. Don't know.... I know there's not that much on the board, and you won't roll that many dice, but whatever there is on the table punches up pretty well, or is scary af. It's not like actual Chaos Knights aren't scary, but this seems slightly more worrying in many ways. You've essentially got 9 pseudo-knights, and some infantry and deployment options, which is what CK's don't have.

It's hard to say anti-tank will slaughter you, when you are the one doing the anti-tank. Yay for point cost reductions!

"Yeah, you know that lascannon unit you were hiding your tanks from. Weeelllll.... It's over there now. And so is this and that. Sorry, basic Chaos Administarum paper-work error, happens all the time. Chaos Ad mechs, am I right?"
Huron Blackheart, 2024.

**sambojin**

This is also pretty basic on the high firepower/ low-end usefulness. You could chuck Huron with some legionaries for high OC. You could join a couple of Cultist blobs together for extra hard to de-stick.
But there's venom crawlers (fast cheapo dreadnoughts), maulerfiends (punchy dreadnoughts), helbrutes (actual dreadnoughts), bikers (crappy fast terminators, remember I'm TSons, so 3x3 bikers seems reasonable, even without a ward save), and even raptors (crappy but scary winged DPs), depending on how you like your army running and the style you want (and the minis you've got). There's lots of styles available, and pts/ usefulness ratios, when dropping one basic from the above means more tactical flexibility for two entire units and more OC to win by points. Add the depth you want, this is just the shallow "should work ok'ish" end of things. But geez there's some combos available.
(Yes, winged DPs and Raptors seem like a go'er. One 6+ battleshock test is easy to pass. 2-3 7+ "Deez nutz" flyover ones? Not so easy, and it's on your turn, so they'll have to blow some CP to recover hopefully with strategems. That's right, they can't. They're battleshock'd... A basic Ld roll at -1 for you then)
As a 1kSons player, I still kinda like CSM more than my list, because there's so many other options.

And, regardless of that, winning in turn 0 is fun. Two sets of Nurglings infiltrating straight off, 3 sets of Cultists wherever, one set of Havocs (so they'll react on deployment or assume yours), an Annihilator, that's 7 deployment options done. Without anything revealed. Chuck down Huron. That's 8, and the gig is up. Except, it isn't. Lol.
You can deploy so wrong, for the psychology on it, and make it so right. Amazing against World Eaters, fast, other heavy toughness forces, but even hordes. It's nice to mess with heads on turn zero to put them on the back foot.

It also has good strategem support. Ie: Every CSM strategy available. Someone shoot a Nurgle tank or Forgefiends or Cultist unit doing backfield stuff? Maybe make it stealthy or invisible. -1 enemy action. Undivided Forgefiend need more damage? Give it more damage. +1 action. Someone kill your Khorne berserker Prince? Maybe let him take a few skulls on the way out. +1 action. Slaneeshi Prince just not quite there yet? 14" advance and charge (and mortal wounds on impact) usually does it. +1 action.
It's kind of weird how this army does action economy and strats, but also has every unit with internal synergy on marks and pacts.
It's nice to lay out every CSM strategem card on your side of the table, with over half of them being 1 command point, and every basic one too, and smile. Most of them won't come up, but it's a full undivided list. Sometimes they do. And you've got the full hand on turn 1. It's like a Boon of Tzeentch list, without trying.