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Don't get me wrong. There are some things that will quickly add up if you go overboard with them. But the key thing I notice about CSM seems to be that it has very cheap units in almost every category, be it HQ, fast attack, elite or heavy support. So, you can get some expensive units but then you should then strive to go cheap for the rest of your army. If you go with a super elite heavy point sink for every single unit, then you will likely not do well because you don't have enough of an army to fight a war.

The advantage of chaos seems to be that you can take a few expensive stuff, and the rest are still so cheap you can still have a sizable army to field and round up your toys.

Of course, you can also go the whole hog, and take cheap units for everything, and then you will have a very very sizable army.

The downside is that our troops will usually be inferior to a regular MEQ space marine. Odd isn't it? But its true. The basic CSM marine is worse than the basic SM. You could buff it up to the sky with marks, banners and such, but then it will become more expensive. You can do that to one or two units, but if you try it with the whole army, something else has to give.

The release of the dark angels army and the point costs associated with their new bikes, termis and normal dark angels marines made me realise this. As future SM releases, each one will see new traits and abilities tagged on to bikes, termis, etc. CSM will not be able to match them ability to abilitiy. (or unlikely). We can't make our termis better than Deathwing termis can we shouldn't try. Our advantage is that our termis are cheaper. Same goes for our bikes. We can't make our bikes better than ravenwing, but they are cheaper.

So, chaos needs to concentrate on its strengths. We need to plan and fight in a way where we understand that we are likely to be overmatched if we have a similar unit faceup (say our bikes vs their bikes). But we can make up for it by having a bigger army, with more units! So, always plan on having lots of the cheaper units to round up your army. You should limit your expensive stuff to two or three things only. Example, you can take 2 defilers if you want, sure they are expensive, but in that case, go for a cheap lord, a cheap predator tank, cheap basic MEQ, and cheap bikes to round up the rest of your army.

Example 2 - take expensive HQs, like a Khorne jugger lord plus a named charecter like Tyhus, etc. But similarly, in that case, round up the rest of your army with relatively cheap stuff like havocs, bikes, plague zombies, etc.

I am leaving our mention of helldrakes because based on their battlefield impact, their point cost is fair.

The relatively cheap things in the codex

1. Basic CSM (no marks, no additional ccw)
2. Basic bikes
3. basic havocs
4. basic terminators
5. basic Predator tank
6. basic chaos lord
7. basic sorceror
8. Spawn ? (considered quite cheap)
9. Cultists (basic)

So, if you spend more points on a few things, make sure the rest of your army is rounded up by the above list so that you can still field a sizable army. That is CSM's key strength. We are the cheapest MEQ army to field, so we should capitalise on that advantage!

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Don't get me wrong. There are some things that will quickly add up if you go overboard with them. But the key thing I notice about CSM seems to be that it has very cheap units in almost every category, be it HQ, fast attack, elite or heavy support. So, you can get some expensive units but then you should then strive to go cheap for the rest of your army. If you go with a super elite heavy point sink for every single unit, then you will likely not do well because you don't have enough of an army to fight a war.

CSM are "cheap"...for now. But that has all changed with the new Dark Angels codex. They have 140 pt, 10 man tactical squads (with no upgrades). Their basic Marine squad is 70 points, which is actually cheaper than ours, and they can buy a heavy weapon without needing to purchase any more guys. For only 1 more point, they have Stubborn and ATKSNF built in.

In fact, look at the Dark Angels codex and you'll realize that most of our stuff that barely cheaper than theirs (if cheaper at all) but their stuff is insanely superior to ours.

I understand what you're saying here:

So, chaos needs to concentrate on its strengths. We need to plan and fight in a way where we understand that we are likely to be overmatched if we have a similar unit faceup (say our bikes vs their bikes).

But the fact of the matter is that Marine codices in particular are only going to get less expensive in cost to match the new CSM and DA and we are going to find that not only we outmatched in terms of actual units, but they actually have comparable units to us. Just something to think about.

That being said, hordes of mark of slaanesh+feels no pain Marines seem to be the way to go forward, to me at least. In challenges, we'll strike first (unless going against Eldar or we're using Unwieldy weapons) and we also have a 3+/5++ against anything that hits us.

A 1500 pt list I made had Huron for Infiltrate, a Slaanesh Marine lord on a Steed for outflank, and then the rest of the army was FNP Chaos Marines with some Nurgle Oblits as backup. That's the closest I've gotten to "competitive".

Also cultists are only "cheap" in comparison to Chaos. However, Imperial Guard are so superior that it's actually pretty sad.

True, their basic stuff might be as cheap, but they will likely field their goodies, which is their strength. Take deathwing termis. If a Dark Angels player takes Deathwing army, then all of his terminators will cost much more than our basic terminator. Its not possible for CSM to field a full termi army, but we don't have to. We could literally field 3 squads of 4 basic termis with combi plama guns, and still have more than enough left over points to have a full army to support those 3 squads termis. (In fact, those 3 termi squads won't even cost 450 points in total).

In comparision, if Dark Angels boy wants to field a deathwing army. How many point is he going to have to spend just to get 3 squads of terminators? Who might still also die just as easily to a rapid fired combi plasma.

And a basic ravenwing bike is also more expensive, and an upgraded one will be so much more so. Again, it would only cost the CSM player 220 points to field 10 chaos bikes with veterans of the long war. So, 3 full squads of such bikes will cost 660. Again, the CSM player will be able to field a sizable army besides those 30 bikes to round up his force. If the dark angles player puts 30 bikes on the field, how many points will he be left to play with?

Some chaos stuff might be cheaper but lose a man or two and your whole squad runs away. ATSKNF is worth an extra point.

Some very good points. I have been having a hard time simply because i play nurgle themed and that mark of nurgle adds up.

I'm fairly certain that both MoN+IoD and MoS+IoE cost almost the same. MoS+IoE is definitely awesome, mainly because FNP is awesome.

Kevlar wrote:
Some chaos stuff might be cheaper but lose a man or two and your whole squad runs away. ATSKNF is worth an extra point.

Hyperbole much? I've never gotten the absolute obsession with ATSKNF; sure, not having it hurts, but people really need to stop pretending that stuff without it will always flee the board after 2 casualties. Argue the real drawback of not having it instead: sweeping advance.

Well, we are talking about CSM here. And CSM simply don't get ATSKNF. So, its a mote point. What's the point of crying about ATSKNF? I think its more important to focus on what CSM does have, which are relatively cheap choices in every single categories and use that to supplement our weaknesses.

For me personally, I just give that 1 point each to make them veterans and I risk failing leadership on a roll of 11 or 12, which seriously is quite rare.

Just go kill them in HTH with your CC weapon option. And init 5. Sorry, the BA codex has zero sympathy for the CSM, given that they are better BA than the BA now.

Honestly if you're fielding marines as troops you are falling into the old dex way of thinking.
I used to use the SW/SM dex and our regular troops are total crap in comparsion. Chaos, imo, has some of the worst troops in game out of the newer dexes. This will not get better as time continues.
Take 2/3 20 man cultists and reserve them. Move forward, gtg. Costs about 200-300 pts (a little more then 1 solid troops choice in any dex but DA, where you will see 3 5man squads with a HW instead). You can easily have 60 bodies wherre others will have 10-20 bodies.
Our other slots are so much better, why handicap yourself with 500 pts of garbage?

Martel732 wrote:
Just go kill them in HTH with your CC weapon option. And init 5. Sorry, the BA codex has zero sympathy for the CSM, given that they are better BA than the BA now.

They don't have the same maneuverability as BA by a long-shot.

ATSKNF is so broken it literally ripes a whole page of rules out of the book. Oh you're xenos? LuLz sweeping advance... Lulz run away... did you regroup? Enjoy not moving/assaulting/snap shooting for a turn bro!

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Kevlar wrote:
Some chaos stuff might be cheaper but lose a man or two and your whole squad runs away. ATSKNF is worth an extra point.

Hyperbole much? I've never gotten the absolute obsession with ATSKNF; sure, not having it hurts, but people really need to stop pretending that stuff without it will always flee the board after 2 casualties. Argue the real drawback of not having it instead: sweeping advance.

The kind of people who get scared of not having it are usually the kind of people who have only ever played armies that *do* have it, and having units break at all is unusual to them.

Yea leadership 10 is leadership 10.

Kinda like when I stopped playing grey knights and found out that throwing your army headfirst at your opponent and rolling badly would not win me games anymore........

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Just go kill them in HTH with your CC weapon option. And init 5. Sorry, the BA codex has zero sympathy for the CSM, given that they are better BA than the BA now.

They don't have the same maneuverability as BA by a long-shot.

Maybe not, but at least they can win the combats they do get into.

When I started to play chaos space marines I turned total sad panda when 2 of my troops were sweeping advanced. Chaos doesn't protect as much as the emperor. Oh well at least I can heldrake people out of the game, yelling maim, kill, burn. While my heldrake shoots flames out of its arse. And no more cover saves for the weaklings in terrain. Go-go vector strike.

Aren't CSM LD 9 and 10 still? An easy way to not have to roll it is to win your combats, which the CSM are very good at.

Martel732 wrote:
Aren't CSM LD 9 and 10 still? An easy way to not have to roll it is to win your combats, which the CSM are very good at.

^ this.

I think I have been able to sweeping advance the CSM players like once where I play. I keep losing the combats because the CSM are init 5 or T5 or some silliness.

ATSKNF is only good when you are losing(in whatever aspect). Something to think about.

So anyway. I was looking at the new FAQ and it definately changes how some things function

Nurgle Lord giving terminators blight grenades
360 on the heldrake and measured from the base
Vector Strikes ignoring cover.
Noise marines and blast masters
All of these are huge boosts. I am sure there are others.

I think another CSM advantage is that they beat people's asses in HTH if constructed correctly. Might just be my imagination, though.

Martel732 wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Just go kill them in HTH with your CC weapon option. And init 5. Sorry, the BA codex has zero sympathy for the CSM, given that they are better BA than the BA now.

They don't have the same maneuverability as BA by a long-shot.

Maybe not, but at least they can win the combats they do get into.

This, this forever.

To win as BA its all about using mobility to pick apart your opponent, save hammer time/meph/SG if your lucky the BA army is good at first round assault and that is is. I am looking forward to MoS+IoE marines to bring back that old BA feeling

Martel732 wrote:
Aren't CSM LD 9 and 10 still? An easy way to not have to roll it is to win your combats, which the CSM are very good at.

Generally, not any more. They're LD 8 and 9 now, unless you pay for the Veterans of the Long War, then they become LD 9 and 10.

 atomsmasher wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Aren't CSM LD 9 and 10 still? An easy way to not have to roll it is to win your combats, which the CSM are very good at.

Generally, not any more. They're LD 8 and 9 now, unless you pay for the Veterans of the Long War, then they become LD 9 and 10.

Okay, that's a nerf. But now that units can rally as low as 25%, I'm thinking its not so bad. CSM are still very customizable, and that is a very powerful thing. Always has been.

DA Tacs are weaker than standard CSM. Compare the minimum sized units: For 5 points more, CSM gets a Veteran Sergeant that has ubergrit (Bolter, BP and CCW).

Also consider that the two squads have totally different roles in their respective codices. Chaos is all about rushing into combat with all of the combat buffs and relative lack of massed shooting. DA Tacs are the ones that sit back away from the fight, letting the RW/DW close the distance to the enemy.

Just to point some things out

Yes we don't have ATSKNF... then again we never did... 3.5 we won every game... I didn't play with that piece of crap 4thed dex... 6th edition Other then funny as hell games where i ran over 700 points in a 2k game in deamon prices i haven't lost a game, I play 1500 through 2500 point games. I have tied a few times, if they game continued I would have won most of those.

I've done all sorts of armies
ones with 0 pluage/noise marines
or 0 Elites
never more then 1 heldrake in any of these. (this will change with the update as it's too good not to field 2)
some games only cultist troops.
Hardly ever use VotLW btw.

Throughout all of this, i've had 1 cultist squad run off the board and a few marine squads get sweapt by CC beasts (like death company, nids, and wraiths)
They are cheap, and they are comparable to or better then everything else out there for their point cost.

DA changes this, now we finally have something almost equal but i think we'll be fine. Only issue is DW termies depending on the army you are running.

start with the simplest first...
CSM vs TAC
TAC gets for 1 point more one less leadership, ATSKNF, stubborn (but can't choose to fail moral), combat squads (now not that usefull since they get heavy weapon at 5 anyway), HW at 5 is the biggest boost along with the fact that, that weapon can be a plasma, and their champ has 2 less attacks, vet sarge brings their base squad point cost up to 5 above ours to get equal leadership, but still 1 less attack then ours, unless they swap their bolter for a ccw...

so what do we get if we spend 1 more point for ours marines?
+1 leadership and hatred marines... which puts us at ld 10 and still 5 points cheaper then them if they get a vet sarge.
or for 1 more point then them, still equal points with a squad of 10 with vet sarge... we get a ccw, or init 5, or swap bolter for bolt pistol for free and take MoK...
We are more flexible with the squad and will do better then them in CC.
Shooting other then that they can get the Plasma cannon (which can kill then 1/12 of the time and is hilarious)

Only situation they are strictly better, is when they are losing combat, but they will lose so they are just good at not losing as badly as they would without it...
Doesn't seem to be worth 1 point to not lose as badly when you could just win...
---
Cultist vs...scouts? ok scouts aren't bad but IG allies are better then again the same thing can be said about cultists.
I'll let you decide on this one since you can get 30 cultists to gtg behind an ADL with a +2 cover save (pretty much means you will hold that objective)
or 10 scouts with sniper rifles that hit on 4s, but +1T. the one thing they can do is take a heavy weapon again...
---
Chosen vs Vet squad,,,
same points
Chaosen +1 attck (bp and cww auto)
combi bolter vs storm bolter
1 HW each but the chosen can take 5 specials instead of 2 (or 3 at 10 models)
no option for storm shield... but get marks and VotLW
once again this ONLY thing vets do better is when they lose they don't lose as bad again...
---

I could keep going and will do a full comp at some point but for comparable units they are either cheaper or just better and winning and when they lose they lose harder.
Obviously DA bikes are better but they are 7 points more, DW is the one place where the points might now balance out but so many point will be sunken in to them they they wont have much else. Just play like eldar and out maneuver.

Oh and they have nothing comparable to the Heldrake, Daemon Price, our psyker out class them other then that they get divination.
They start getting good when they use force multipliers like the banner that makes bolters salvo 2/4 or FNP to everything within 12, so you just need to play smart and snipe those units.

Once i figure out how to deal with DW, and use that option as my anti TEQ instead of my current choices then i am not worried about DA.