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there are units though that are just facepalm material in the book that could be made better with some of the other MEQ additions though.

SW also has drop pods. Don't get me wrong, drop pods aren't awesomesauce, but out of the basic MEQ transportation modes, (rhino, razor, drop pod, teleportation) CSM have two of the four. If you add in stuff like teleportation via Gate, or Storm Raven transports, the disparity gets wider.

I wouldnt count on CSM ever getting the Razorback, but they desperately need a Dreadclaw Drop Pod.

sourclams wrote:SW also has drop pods. Don't get me wrong, drop pods aren't awesomesauce, but out of the basic MEQ transportation modes, (rhino, razor, drop pod, teleportation) CSM have two of the four. If you add in stuff like teleportation via Gate, or Storm Raven transports, the disparity gets wider.

Good point; you've got to figure that they'll at least add Dreadclaws and improve LRs the next time around. CSM also can Outflank with Chosen, which, while not quite as good as the SW scout Behind Enemy Lines, is a significant addition. Summoning and Lash are not traditional mobility, but substantially add to your ability in that area mid-game. And Razors are better than Rhinos w/combi-bolters or Havocs, but Havoc launchers give a related capability.

Mannahnin wrote:Welcome, Raven!

Chaos Space Marines is an excellent army. One of the cornerstones of 40k. Rich in background and modeling opportunity, and quite competitive on the tabletop. There are a few flaws with the codex, and some bad units, but overall it's an excellent choice for someone enjoying any of the three major parts of the hobby- background, modeling/painting, and competition.

... [lots of great stuff]

Well said. And thanks for the info. Many great lists there.

May I ask a question?
I found the topic about Ard Boyz, but I didn´t found a battle report or some kind of advice against mech. How do you face mech armies (an IG Leafblower or a BA razor spam) in tournaments? Or perhaps they are not that good?



(And I really hope the dreadclaw will be in the next codex).

Mechanized armies are generally very good, though they can be vulnerable in missions using Kill Points.

Against these armies, you first want to minimize their ability to "Alpha Strike" (strike first with overwhelming firepower) your army.

If you win the roll to choose sides, you want to go ahead and take it to get the first round of shooting and movement.

If you do not, you will get to see their deployment, but they will not know yours while they are setting up. Once they have set up, survey the terrain and LOS lines across the table to figure out if there are any good areas for you to hide, particularly if you are able to bunch up on one side or the other, performing what's known as a "Refused Flank". If successful, if the terrain permits, you will be able to put most of your units out of range and/or LOS of a substantial portion of his army, cutting down his ability to harm you in that first turn. Often at least part of your army will be exposed, but you should at least be able to get cover saves for everything, and hide the most important bits, if the table has the proper amount of terrain.

If the table is very light on terrain, you may be forced to Reserve your army. This has the downside if making your army likely to trickle in, half on turn 2, most of the rest on turn 3, etc, and this can hurt. When an opponent is able to focus the fire of his entire army on a portion of yours, that's usually a recipe for losing. But again, you should be able to make SOME use of terrain, as well as smoke launchers on your vehicles, to reduce/minimize the damage. The other benefit of Reserving is that not only is your opponent not able to Alpha Strike you, but he loses an entire turn of shooting while nothing of yours is on the table.

Elements which can be really helpful against standoff/shooty armies are Deep Strikers and Outflankers. These are able to get close to your opponent without having to cross the middle of the table, and hopefully immediately kill something the turn they arrive. Popular options include small squads of Terminators, such as the ubiquitous "Termicide" (min-sized three man squad with three combi-meltas) designed to blow up an important tank when they arrive but cheap enough to not be a major loss if they die immediately thereafter. As well as Chosen for outflanking, often armed with up to five meltaguns, who come in from a short side of the table and hopefully immediately kill or cripple an important unit. Against IG, sometimes you can even kill more than one tank, especially Hydras which are often fielded in squadrons. I posted in some detail about Chosen here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/334170.page

Once you've weathered the first turn, generally the main viable tactic against transport spam armies is to charge full steam ahead, using your shooting elements to at least Stun, or when possible Destroy, his transports, focusing on the ones containing the units deadliest to you. Once some of your Chaos troops manage to close the distance, you can frequently perform charges against multiple enemy vehicles at once- your basic guys with Krak grenades, or Berserkers just making S5 regular attacks. If you have HQs with Lash, you can move any of his dismounted infantry to be best assaulted by you, preferably at the same time as you assault a tank. Remember that damage results inflicted on a non-walker vehicle don't count for combat resolution. So a good move can be to Lash an infantry unit into such a position that you charge all but one of the models in your assaulting unit into a vehicle (or more than one), and only ONE of your models into the infantry squad. This way hopefully you do not break the enemy unit in your turn, and your opponent is unable to shoot your unit in his own.

Generally very shooty transport spam armies do not also have a lot of assault punch, so rushing in quickly like this can work. The ones which do incorporate significant assault punch have less shooting, so you can generally make a more cautious assault across the table, using your shooting to try to soften them up first, and not necessarily taking the first assault which is available.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:we have Abaddon, who is basically the best HQ in the game.

Wait what? Sure, he kicks butt in CC, but he doesn't add anything to the army other than his prowess as a beatstick.

Sometimes a wrecking ball is what you need.


His fluff is ultimate fail though.

Honestly, Chaos was my first army... and I did very well with them starting in 5th (53 wins, 13 losses). The things to note when playing them:

1) Redundancy. If your going to run a defiler, run 3. If your going to run vindicators, run 2+. If your going to run oblits, run as many as you can fit.
2) For your troops, make them varied. I ran 2-3 squads of Plague marines in rhinos, 1 squad of 10 zerkers, and the rest were basic chaos marines in rhinos. Dual special weapons for everything, zerkers just with a PF.
3) AVOID LAND RAIDERS! Chaos LR's suck, period.
4) For your HQ's, Demon Princes are your best bet. Sorcerers come a strong second, they're cheap lasher's. For special HQ's I cannot recommend Abaddon in a squad of zerkers enough. This is the only time I ever ran a LR.


Chaos is a great army to pick up; saddly they're just a shell of their former glory. Needless to say, when they eventually get a rehash, I believe they will be awesomesauce and I'll probably revisit them... wish I hadn't sold all 10k points I had :(

when they do get an update, expect to see Dreadclaws, Helltalon-clones and probably super possessed or something, and more daemon engines (here's hoping for the Brass Scorpion).

Mannahnin wrote: ...

Thank you very much!
I do not want to go off-topic, so I will not make more questions. It is obvious most of us think that Chaos rules (or at least that it is good enough).
But this is the reason I registered here: to learn things.

I was fortunate enough to speak to a tourney player at my flgs and he had some suprising words of wisdom.

He agrees with Zid's approach to redundancy. More is win and win is good.

He said that out of all the armies he faces, Chaos gives him the most trouble and that the lash builds of old are just not cutting it the way they used to. He says they are too situational to make a difference in a mechanised meta. He agreed with my nutcracking analogy:

First we crack the shell, then we crack the nuts inside.

He said for Chaos to move on, players need to start thinking about what is actually good in the dex that can make their games better.

He listed the following as awesome units:

DP - Mark of Tzeentch or Nurgle with wings and appropriate powers to match.

Marked Troops choices - Zerkers and Thousand Sons are very good, PM have taken a fall since DE. NM are fail.

Big units of Chaos Marines. Are better to hold objectives than PM, due to numbers.

Obliterators/Defiler/Vindicators - go big or go home.

Finally, he said the troops choices are the bread and butter of the army, everything else is just built around them.

This guy plays his army like Orks. Massive footslogging squads that nobody wants to assault when they are on an objective and are damned hard to shift.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW the fandex will be ready by the new year for those interested.

Where should I post it ???

Sir, for your consideration I put forth my own theory on Chaos Space Marines and why I love them:

Firstly, I have to agree with the redundancy thing. It helps a great deal, especially as it's surprisingly easy to blunt a Chaos advance if you pop the only Defiler/Vindicator they bring.
Also, I'd strongly disagree that CSM are "inferior" in some way in assault. I play a guy who runs an SW assault army regularly, and my units are more than capable of going toe-to-toe with his. It's more about being clever with the choice of units in your army, I think. You really have to think about how your units will benefit each other in a game, as opposed to what they can do on their own. Synergy is what will carry a CSM list beyond average and into glorious victory, not the talents of individual units working on their own.
Also, as a serious note, some of the CSM units are a lot better than they're given credit for. My Dreadnought is remarkably reliable; indeed, the only unit of mine he ever decides to shoot is my Slaanesh marines. Odd, that.

Puscifer wrote:He said that out of all the armies he faces, Chaos gives him the most trouble and that the lash builds of old are just not cutting it the way they used to. He says they are too situational to make a difference in a mechanised meta. He agreed with my nutcracking analogy:

First we crack the shell, then we crack the nuts inside.

He said for Chaos to move on, players need to start thinking about what is actually good in the dex that can make their games better.

He listed the following as awesome units:

DP - Mark of Tzeentch or Nurgle with wings and appropriate powers to match.

Some good points here. Lash has definitely taken a hit in utility with the shift to heavy mech, though it still has amazing utility in extending your assault range, putting enemy units into bad situations, and multiplying the power of your plasmacannons, flamers, and any ML Havocs you take. The other big contender when fighting mech armies is definitely the nurgle prince with warp time (wings always being mandatory, of course). Nurgle makes him durable; Warp Time makes him killy, giving you good odds of at least one hit even when needing 6s to hit a vehicle which moved over 6".

Puscifer wrote:Marked Troops choices - Zerkers and Thousand Sons are very good, PM have taken a fall since DE. NM are fail.

You've got T-Sons and Noise Marines confused. T-Sons are too expensive, and their AP3 bolters have a tendency to suck in the edition of 4+ cover everywhere. Noise Marines are good in HtH, can get an AP3 heavy flamer, and can put out tons of shots. The Chaos player the US sent to the ETC used them, as mentioned previously. PMs are still the best general purpose cult squad, though. Despite DE poisoned 4+ spam, FNP still makes them twice as durable against that stuff than any other cult marine. Getting meltaguns & blight grenades is also awesome.

Puscifer wrote:BTW the fandex will be ready by the new year for those interested.

Where should I post it ???

Proposed Rules.

I'm quite surprised that people are so quick to forget Noise Marines, sure they're a bit on the pricy side but I have managed to succesfully run a static gunline with them and with Lash Sorcerers.
The advantage, I find, of taking units (Such as Noise Marines) is that many players expect to be facing plague marines and oblits and when they see 3 squads of 7 noise marines with Heavy 3 bolters and a strength 8 AP3 blast weapon their face tends to go:
"O.o"

da001 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote: ...

Thank you very much!

You're welcome. Please bear in mind that's all pretty basic introductory stuff, and is subject to significant variation based on the terrain, mission, and evaluation of your opponent's and your own army lists at the start of the game. Much as I tooted my horn earlier in the thread, I am NOT one of the top players in the US, much less the world. I'm just a reasonably competent veteran, who's attended a LOT of tournaments and a fair number of GTs and Adepticons over the past 11 years. I know and have faced a bunch of guys better than me.

da001 wrote:I do not want to go off-topic, so I will not make more questions. It is obvious most of us think that Chaos rules (or at least that it is good enough).

Well, that it's still certainly competitive, even if I am jealous of some things about newer codices. Mostly their having more good units spread all over the Force Org chart, and more characterful stuff; Chaos lost out on that a bit as GW was thinking more stripped-down when they wrote the chaos one. At least they didn't get hosed the way my Dark Angels did.

Mannahnin wrote:

You've got T-Sons and Noise Marines confused. T-Sons are too expensive, and their AP3 bolters have a tendency to suck in the edition of 4+ cover everywhere. Noise Marines are good in HtH, can get an AP3 heavy flamer, and can put out tons of shots. The Chaos player the US sent to the ETC used them, as mentioned previously. PMs are still the best general purpose cult squad, though. Despite DE poisoned 4+ spam, FNP still makes them twice as durable against that stuff than any other cult marine. Getting meltaguns & blight grenades is also awesome.

Tactical question: I will like to use T-Sons however (background + models are great), even if there are better options. The Aspiring Sorcerer (quite costy) can use two powers every turn (MoT) and can not be singled out in close combat. Any tip for using this to your adventage? Which combination of powers?

Tough call. One of the weaknesses of all the cult marines other than PMs is the lack of meltaguns. Chaos tends to be light on antitank, especially long ranged type (the latter mostly only available in HS) so you generally need to compensate for that with meltas in your Troops.

If you have sufficient melta in your army, then probably Warp Time (which is the only way for the unit to do anything in HtH) and Wind of Chaos, which combos well with Warp Time, and reinforces the squad's roll as an infantry-killer. If you're not certain that you're amply supplied with melta, then grab Bolt of Change for another antitank shot, swapping out either of the others.

They're just so expensive, though. Especially for a unit that's Slow & Purposeful and has no CCWs, bolt pistols, or grenades. GW really kind of made them suck in this codex. AP3 bolters and 4+ I saves are both often meaningless in the edition of plentiful 4+ cover.

I partially agree with your comments on the Thousand Sons. The Aspiring Sorcerer lets the squad down, the individual Rubric Marines are freekin nasty.
Yes, cover saves are a problem for AP3. Just shoot the nearest squad that ain't in cover, but this isn't the reason to take Rubric Marines.

It's their 4+ inv save vs DE Dark Lance Spam, SW Long Fangs with ML and IG and their Battlecannons.

PM can't do squat against them, where as Thousand Sons can.

There is a guy at my FLGS who has recently changed from PM to Rubric Marines. He went from winning a couple of games now and again, to a win or two every week because of his choice of troops.

It comes down to Meta though. We have DE Sliscus Spam (that's me and yes I lost against said CSM player), lots of SW players pretty much with the same army and a couple of IG players. We have a couple of fringe army players too.

But in our meta, the CSM player using Rubric Marines is hard to beat.

I might have to have another look at the Noise Marines again, but I tend to agree that they are a bit shiny and bright (in the cockney slang).

Thanks.

Another unit: havocs. 4 melta/plasma on them and a rhino. Like chosen, but cheaper and without infiltration. It will be a first priority target.

I've posted the WIP copy of the Fandex i've been playtesting:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/334481.page

Please comment and I'll give the author all the feedback you give.

I´ll give it a try. Downloading.....

EDIT: hummmmm... DOOMRIDER is back, I see.

Well, I played my EC army three times this year vs. SW.
SW got table two times and the third time, SW suffered from a minor loss.
The two opponents are good players, but not top players.
This might be part of the reason why I won these games.
CSM is still competitive if played correctly. Hands down.

Anyone posting that CSM arnt competitive dont know what they're talking about.

CSM codex is a good codex. Does it have broken units like BA and SW? no it doesnt, but its a solid codex.

40k is a game of tactics, any codex can beet an codex.

Obliderators/Demon Princes are strong and unique and can make for a VERY competitive list.

Obliderators/Demon Princes are strong and unique and can make for a VERY competitive list.

This is absolutely true.
As a play winged lashing DPs, I prefer NM as troops.
Moreover, Termies with combi-weapons are rather cheap and can be rather effective.

How do NM work for you???

I see them as nothing more than a Glass Cannon.

What squad config are you using???

It is a class cannon. My prefered configuration is
5 NM
1 AC w/ power weapon, doom siren
Rhino
The doom siren is one of the best weapons in the game, especially when compared with the lash.

Glass cannon? It's certainly one of the sturdier ones in the game, if that's the case. I certainly make use of them in small units (by which I mean, one small unit of about 6 guys) who tend to act as a fire support/mediocre assault unit.

MSU of six with Sonic Blasters and upgrades ???

Might give them a go.

Sonic Blasters? If you hide the unit in a transport and the transport moves (not more than 6'') then you have 2*2 bolter shots at 24''. Not really much bang for the bucks.
If the Rhino moves 12'' and the unit disembarks you have rapid bolters at 24''.

I prefer NM with bolters.

It does seem a bit much to make people pay even more for what are essentially Storm Bolters, given that NM are over 20pts already. Still, I do like the Doom Siren, and the Blastmaster is fairly entertaining, though horrendously expensive.