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I am building a Chaos army and want your opinion on my Heavy Support choices.
I am wondering what is better a Defiler, Forge Fiend or a Vindicator.
I right now have a Havoc Squad with 4 ML + Flakk teamed up with a 5 man CSM squad.
They are my hold the objectives team. I need a unit to go forward with my other CSM squads for support.
Whats the best

Defilers are a pretty cool model with a lot of guns, but they suffer from land raider prices for dreadnaught armor and a slew of guns forced to snapshot if it fires the ordnance weapon. Being able to take vehicle upgrades means they're the most versatile walker in the game, and are able to fire more weapons at once than any other non-apoc vehicle in the game.

Forgefiends are cheaper but can't fight out of a paper bag if anything assaults them, have the same dreadnaught armor, but can wipe out entire squads of terminators in a single volley. They're run either as long-range fire support with their autocannons or short range terminator/power armor killers with the triple plasma cannons. Autocannons give a decent anti-air unit, though bs3 means you really need daemon allies to twin-link it for maximum effect.

Vindicators are the most straightforward heavy support unit. It's cheap, it drives forward, it drops str 10 blasts on things with armor 13. There's not much else to say on the topic.

Each unit has a different role to play depending on what you're running. If its a chaos gunline, forgefiends or vindicators are your best bet. Heavy assault or raptor/bike focused lists could benefit from the defiler, with its ability to switch from fire support to close combat monster.

Vindicators are probably the most reliable and safe choice of the three though. Higher armor, cheaper, with a stronger gun with a very specific purpose and no hybrid roles.

your forgot oblits i personally feel nurgle oblits are an auto include in any csm list however i think the difliler is the best second choice as he is an all around unit the mualer feind would be viable if it could take a dirge caster but as it cant its not worth it imo

Vindicator is probably the best choice as it's cheap and aggressive.
Another thought is a maulerfiend.

FacePalm for when I bought 2 defiler before 6th Ed and CSM codex. It seemed like a great idea at the time. I would kill so many things with it back then. I would bring a vindicator to toss a stronger blast too.

Having av12 is simply not good enough. Any Str 6 weapon can glance it. Plasma guns can penetrate it. I would flip a table if my defiler died to a plasma gun.

Since I have them, I rock them when ever I can knowing full well a Heldrake can do the job better and cheaper.

 muagenreaper wrote:
your forgot oblits i personally feel nurgle oblits are an auto include in any csm list however i think the difliler is the best second choice as he is an all around unit the mualer feind would be viable if it could take a dirge caster but as it cant its not worth it imo

100% agreement here. I will always have a minnimum of one 3 man team of MoN Oblits. anything else and I'm just messing around. although it is tempting to throw on as many weapons as possible on the defiler and just rain lead.

Spam vindicators, one is a waste of points, three can faceroll entire armies.

Obliterators Mark of Nurgle, undisputed champion of the heavy slot in this book. It has almost every gun and doesn't have an AV, which is the most appealing part of the deal.

 Goat wrote:
Obliterators Mark of Nurgle, undisputed champion of the heavy slot in this book. It has almost every gun and doesn't have an AV, which is the most appealing part of the deal.

correct, this is the only correct choice in the heavy slot.

Again, triple vindis are pretty cheap, can get some nice bits slapped on, and can blast big damn holes in any line.

Another vote for Nurgle oblits here.

They always have the right tool for the job, and, if necessary, they can handle themselves fairly well in an assault(although I try to avoid this when possible.)

I take mine in two squads of three. Three squads of two is also good. In tournaments, I bring 9 oblits and they wreck everything.

Hope his helps.

 Chaos Legionnaire wrote:
I bring 9 oblits...

You dirty dog, you...

I wish my LFGS had higher points totals for their tournements.

Defilers
These are fairly confused devices. They have a battle cannon, which is a great weapon, but makes their other weapons snap fire. They are good at crushing things in assault, but don't want to use the battle cannon while doing so. If your looking for a scary beast to use, ally in a daemon soul grinder.

Forge Fiend
These units are OK on their own, but suffer from BS 3. When you add prescience from a herald of tzeentch, suddenly these become much better as your chances of hitting shift from 50% to 75%. That's an overall increase of damage output by 50%!.

Vindicator
Some people swear by these, but I've not been a big fan of them. Vindicators always seem to be more dangerous on paper than they are in reality. In a game where every marine has krak gernades that hit on 3's, this is even more true.

If I break down the Heavy Support section of CSM I'd do it like this:

Best: MoN Oblits and Maulerfiends. The oblits are great at shooting, resiliant, and mobile with deepstrike. Their only negative is cost but IMO they are worth their points. Maulerfiends are cheap, durable and extremely useful tacticaly when used right. Because of their speed if your opponent is not hyper aware it is easy to get maulerfeings into combats that you want that will change the game (bogging down scoring units/threats or stomping things that can't handle them)

Good: Havocs, vindicators, and preditors. Cheap effective fire power. They suffer from some survivability issues but they still all are solid. They also get a knock because they would fit better into gtunline builds and CSM IMO don't have the ability with the rest of the codex to create competative gunlines.

Poor to bad: Forgefeind and Defiler. These guys at first seem ok but when you get them on the table it becomes obvious you've paid way tomany points for what they give you. I mean it's absured that you pay that many points for the defiler and you are regulated to snapfiring all those other weapons when you want to use the good one. Forgefeinds are just two expensive for mediocre shooting.

I mostly agree with Pony_law, although I haven't used Maulerfiends so I can't comment there.

1) Nurge Obliterators. They are good in nearly any army composition, and the most versatile. Plus, they can punch things dead when you need them too. The nurgle upgrade is a waste of points against DE, but worth it against almost every other army I can think of.

2) Havocs/Predators. These are both very good also. It just depends on the army. If you have a lot of armor, then the Predator is great. If you are going more infantry, then the Havocs are solid.

3) Vindicator. Again, I think you need armor saturation to get them to really shine. Plus, I think the Heldrakes kinda step on their toes. They are still a very scary threat to your opponent and must be dealt with.

The biggest drawback to using Nurgle Oblits is that they lack firepower density.
2 VotLW versions run you 156 points for 2 lascannons every other turn.
For 155 points, you can take 4 lascannons every turn for Havocs.
For 140 points you can use 2 lascannons and 1 TL'd lascannon with a Predator.

If your goal is a significant amount of long range anti-tank, you could probably do better for less by not using Oblits.
If your goal is to take a flexible unit who is strongest within 24", Oblits work out well.

 labmouse42 wrote:
Defilers
These are fairly confused devices. They have a battle cannon, which is a great weapon, but makes their other weapons snap fire. They are good at crushing things in assault, but don't want to use the battle cannon while doing so. If your looking for a scary beast to use, ally in a daemon soul grinder.

Forge Fiend
These units are OK on their own, but suffer from BS 3. When you add prescience from a herald of tzeentch, suddenly these become much better as your chances of hitting shift from 50% to 75%. That's an overall increase of damage output by 50%!.

Vindicator
Some people swear by these, but I've not been a big fan of them. Vindicators always seem to be more dangerous on paper than they are in reality. In a game where every marine has krak gernades that hit on 3's, this is even more true.

The biggest problem that nobody has addressed is that vindicators are range 24". You can only shoot whats close.
Not good as a support choice


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have read all of your posts and would like to add the following. I like the Havocs with 4 ML and Flakk missles. Its the best for the points all around killer in Heavy support.

If there was some way to get an Obliterator with skyfire they would rule.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I was thinking of running a Havoc squad with 4 ML + Flakk and 2 squads of 2 Obliterators

Pony_law wrote:


CSM IMO don't have the ability with the rest of the codex to create competative gunlines.

Im not so sure about this statement. The friend i game with most uses a pretty effective CSM gunline using Slaanesh Noise marines for troops.
IIRC he uses 4 squads of 5 Noise marines with Blast masters, 1 Lass Cannon Havoc squad, a Auto Cannon Havoc squad, 2 man squad of MoN Oblits. With a Heldrake, A Lord on a Steed, Spawn and Bikes for a forward attacking force to take pressure off his gun line.

Against anything but my Draigo wing his Blast Masters tear up units with 48" range S8 AP3 and with ignore cover there's not many places you can hide from them, i know hes planning on increasing the amount too which i think will make for a pretty effective gunline army.

My vote on Heavies would be MoN oblits. The lack of AV, high toughness and weapon versatility is just too good.

 Kain wrote:
Spam vindicators, one is a waste of points, three can faceroll entire armies.

Exactly this.With all the str6/7 out there vindicators are just kings.They are also cheap,unlike obliderators,and they demolish deathstars(like wraiths,terminators,de beastpacks) like no other unit in the chaos codex.

oblitz are amazing for versitility. last time i tried havocs they didnt do well but next game i may try them out again. Vindicators are amazing but they need alot of support coming up the field.

 Messy0 wrote:

Pony_law wrote:
CSM IMO don't have the ability with the rest of the codex to create competative gunlines.

Im not so sure about this statement. ....

President Clinton said it best.

Basically, what Pony_law is describing as a gunline probably does not match what your describing as a gunline.

mp40guy wrote:
I am building a Chaos army and want your opinion on my Heavy Support choices.
I am wondering what is better a Defiler, Forge Fiend or a Vindicator.
I right now have a Havoc Squad with 4 ML + Flakk teamed up with a 5 man CSM squad.
They are my hold the objectives team. I need a unit to go forward with my other CSM squads for support.
Whats the best

genearlly you either want all your HS and in fact army on foot/bikes or tanks/walkers/rhinos. You either make your opponenet waste his str8+ AP1 on cheap marines or waste his str3-4 shooting on tank armor.

Havoc squads are great. But 4 autocannons or 4 Lascannons are the prefered builds. 4 missile launchers with Flakk cost a ton of points and arent very good at killing anything. They cost so much you opponent will shoot and kill them easily.
Obliterators can also be very effective in a foot list.

For tanks
LR as dedicated transport are ok(not as a heavy support choice really)
Perditors with auto lascannon are great
Vindicators are awesome
Forgefineds are ok, but kind of expensive.
Defilers are very expensive and dont do anything particularly well.


For what you have I would get a squad of oblitorators and a squad of havocs with useful weapons.

Here is a thought. Is there any time you'd rather have an Ectofiend over a Vindicator.

Well, Maulerfiends can be tough to stop for the enemy since they are very fast and ignore terrain. I'd take two or three of them to maximize their effectiveness.
Obliterators are still good but you need to bring them close to the enemy to make them effective. Just deploying them in the backfield shooting lascannons will not be enough.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Obliterators are still good but you need to bring them close to the enemy to make them effective. Just deploying them in the backfield shooting lascannons will not be enough.

This. Obliterators can dominate the midfield and/or seriously disrupt the enemy backfield, but if you're just sitting back in your own deployment zone firing lascannons, buy something else with your points. I daresay even a Defiler is a better investment than Oblits in your own backfield.

Maulerfiend with mechadendrite tendrils, -2 attacks and Strength 10 What more do you want?

I'm always scared of vindis, and they manage to do nothing nearly every time.

In hundreds of games, I can count on one hand the number of times a vindicator has earned its points back in kills. Between cover and scatter, they're ridiculously unreliable. They make good distractions though. Against triple-vindi templars I've had to run around quite a bit, but I've never lost a game because of 1-3 vindicators.

There are situations where Havoks/Defilers are better, but Obliterators are the most versatile, which makes them the best IMO.

It's one of the few units in the game that can adapt to any opponent, any situation.

If you go into a game thinking 'I'm going to stick these oblits in a ruin and hope I get lucky with my LC shots' then you're going to fail sometimes.

If you go into a game thinking 'I'm going to use this tool to destroy my enemy, by any means necessary' then you're going to do well. There're a lot of ways to use oblits well. Not so with the other choices in the 'dex.

I have had an incredible amount of success running Vindicators--simply subtracting deathwing units--and have had Vindicators decimate my armies. I think it goes without saying, but I am a huge proponent of Vindicators, but agree they must have support. I run Vindicators in my Huron lists so I have units close to the opponent early that they have to choose between.

I also really love running Obliterators. I almost always deepstrike them into the opponent's backfield. Against horde armies or Tau--to knock out those markerlight units--I will play them very aggressively deepstriking them close to the unit I want to go away, using the heavy flamer and then hitting them with the twin-linked flamers when they try to assault. MoN is a necessity if you are going to run Oblits though.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
Maulerfiend with mechadendrite tendrils, -2 attacks and Strength 10 What more do you want?

magma cutters are better against fortifications, MCs and vehicles.

CSM Heavy Support I feel really depends on what the rest of your army wants to be doing, and whether you want your heavy support to be doing the opposite of that or doing the same thing.

Let's start with Nurgle Obliterators (dude you're basically always taking MoN on them, it's too much of a benefit not to). As other people have said, and especially now that they can't shoot the same weapon twice in a row, Obliterators aren't that good if you want a gunline. Obliterators are SnP, so they should always be moving forwards. By the end of the game, they should be TL Melta, TL Plasma or TL Flamering away -- you get the most value out of them at this point. Thus, if you're taking Obliterators, you don't want them to be the only forward targets, as they'll just get shot to pieces. T5 works to keep them safe from most non-focus fire, but it won't help if the enemy turns their best guns on them. Obliterators work best when you have other elements moving forwards as well, like a Juggerlord, or Rhinos with Noise Marines, or allied wraiths/Boyz/whatever. Obliterators do not work well when the rest of your army is a gunline.

The same theories apply to Maulerfiends and Vindicators, except that these two are fast enough to be the distraction from the other elements of your forward moving army. While Obliterators are your late-game anchor, these two are the first strikers. You start a piece trade with these guys, or force your opponent to deal with them first, while the rest of your army is spared from enemy fire.

On the other hand, Predators and Forgefiends pressure towards a more gunline-oriented strategy. Despite the relatively short range on the Forgefiend's weapons iirc, both of these want to offer back-row fire support.

Defilers have no clue as to what they want. If they were priced as Soulgrinders, or had AV13 like Soulgrinders, they'd be good (or at least not as bad as they are now), but as it is, equipping them for ranged firepower is largely worthless b/c Ordnance battlecannon ruins the rest of its shooting, and AV12 is not something you want to risk 200 points on near meltas. In a competitive HS slot, I can't see defilers being worth it for any tactical purpose. They could be made to work if it's like 2k Double force org and you go 6 Defilers 3 Helbrutes and a warpsmith all moving up, but in other situations, they're overpriced and badly outfitted for whatever role they want to pursue. And if you're doing heavy skew HS in double force org, why not go 6 Maulerfiends or 18 Obliterators?