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Chaos space marines codex is not generally considered shooty, but they have some good shooting options.
Just in theory, what is the best way to build a shooty CSM army?

My first thoughts are:

Havocs (four autocannons are beast)
Defilers, for the shear range of the thing
Forgefiend; is it worth it? I haven't looking into it much
Sonic Marines; lots of good ranged weapons
tzeentch. is the mark worth it?

Whats the best way to do this, whats the best HQ to run with this?

Just asking out of sheer intrigue.

Oblits always.

I really want to like the Hadesfiend but I keep coming back to it's high point cost. If it was 15-20 points cheaper, it would be entirely worth it.

For as shooty as you can get, a slaneesh marked lord with a combi-something.

Then take all the noise marines you can, some with blastmasters to sit back and shoot the big profile. Some in rhinos with sonic weapons to move up and then sit in cover and salvo things to death.

Back those up with havocs, maybe oblits if you want the variety, and possibly a heldrake or two to keep the skies clean and add to your ignores cover weapon list!!

If you really want a shooty CSM army, then some of these units will do the job for you.

HQ: Sorc, Demon Prince, Ahriman, Lord (in order of preference)
I would think psykers of any color will be your best friend as they can buff and shoot.

Elites: Choosen, Terminators, Helbrute
Really just the three options with access to heavy weapons.

Troops: Regular CSM, Noise Marines
Both of these can get a heavy, but should find a place mid-field to leverage their small arms.

Fast: Heldrake, Bikes
Bikes are a great way to put plasma and melta where you want it. I would avoid fights unless you gear for it though. Heldrakes are, well Heldrakes

Heavy: Vindicators, tie between havocs/oblits, preds, Defilers/Forgefiends
I put Vindis up first, because the rest of the army should have enough las/plas to do the ranged work. 2-3 Vindis will help you clearing out mass enemies that will cause problems for your reduced shooting quantity. You need templates big or small that can help you reduce some numbers, especially if you find yourself against a cc army.

From the competitive perspective, you should cram your HS slots with havocs / predators with gun of your preference (mine is lascannon) and oblits are always nice, but not mandatory. My main argument is that oblits can move, without taking them its hard to position yourself in a good firing lines and proper model spread out. Oblits add a mobile, versatile and tough gun platform, while shooting a bit less than other HS choices.
Next fill fast attack slot with 2 helldrakes (they are shooty aren't they) and maybe supporting lord on bike/steed joined with spawn / bikers (not a gunline but it gives so much to your list).
Rest would be troops, as people mentioned, noise marines gives a lot of shooty elements to your army.

Defilers are bad. AV 12 is bad mkay. They are not barrage (which would help sometimes) and you will die horribly from lots of things. And battle cannons don't kill that much these days.

Tzeench mark isn't usually worth it. Only place where I'd put it, is terminators for 4++.

I also don't have experience with demon engines, but AV 12 seems like a turn off.

AV12 isn't that bad. Like any other unit type, it shouldn't be taken alone. 1 dread is a sucker for all the las on the table. 3 will make it the distance. The same goes for vindicators, predators, and every other walker in the CSM book. Besides, CSM have enough demon buffs on their AV12 to offset a lot of those concerns.

I would probably advise against a cc lord with bike support, as it will take points away from your shooting. Also, a shooting army is going to be all back, and a lord will want to be forward. With limited support, that bike unit will go down quickly.

IF you are going for shooty CSM you should seriously consider daemon allies so you can get divination from a herald of tzeentch.

 Cypher's Sword wrote:

Havocs (four autocannons are beast)
Forgefiend; is it worth it? I haven't looking into it much

My list will have one of each, plus a pair of obliterators in the Heavy Support slots.

For your Fast Attack slots: Hell Drake. Excellent anti-MEQ shooty unit. Don't forget Hell Blades if your group allows forge world.

Elites: Chosen. Max out plasma guns or meltaguns and slap a combi-weapon on the Champion, depending on needs. I prefer plasma here.

HQ: Sorcerer. Take some biomancy for squad buff powers and stick him with the plasma chosen.

Troops: Do you want quality or quantity?
Quantity: 30+ cultists with autoguns.
Quality: 15+ CSM squads with your favorite heavy weapon, sitting on an objective behind an Aegis Defense Line with a quad gun.

Have fun mowing stuff down!

Abadon with chosen troops is an option.

Noise marines are another.

Slaaneshi sorc with sensory overload is decent, add a lord on bike with burning brand to get noise marine troops.

10k suns are decent anti meq, and are fairly tough.

A bajillion cultists is very shooty.

Don't forget to look at allies too though, you could always add in some tau goodness.

Then you could be silly and just take tons of rhinos that have havoc launchers, extra combi bolter, and an extra twin linked bolter, with msu squads

MSU Noise Marines with Blast Masters, 3x2man squads of MoN Oblits and 3x Hell Drake fast attack. I saw a list like this in action and it was awesome, the amount of ignore cover was seriously impressive.

cryhavok wrote:
Abadon with chosen troops is an option.

Noise marines are another.

Slaaneshi sorc with sensory overload is decent, add a lord on bike with burning brand to get noise marine troops.

10k suns are decent anti meq, and are fairly tough.

A bajillion cultists is very shooty.

Don't forget to look at allies too though, you could always add in some tau goodness.

Then you could be silly and just take tons of rhinos that have havoc launchers, extra combi bolter, and an extra twin linked bolter, with msu squads

actually its funny, i regularly play a tau player, and with chaos, I can disrupt his lines with CC, but I was considering what it would take to put some serious shooting at them, I want them to be at least nervous about a shooting unit enough to draw their fire.
Having a shoot out could by a lot of time for my CC to get in there.

It's funny you say that. Chaos is an army that can do both unit by unit. Terminators, PMs, CSM are all capable of doing shooting and CC well. I think if you have a CC-based army though, you're better off with the full commitment. The more points you invest on shooting, the less scary your charge is. You want enough shooting to crack vehicles, but that line should still hit really hard.

You don't need to deck out Chaos to beat Tau or IG in assault. The stock troop choices are sufficient so the choice is, what is the toughest unit you're looking to kill in assault?
Spend enough points to accomplish that and then boost your shooting.

 minigun762 wrote:
You don't need to deck out Chaos to beat Tau or IG in assault. The stock troop choices are sufficient so the choice is, what is the toughest unit you're looking to kill in assault?
Spend enough points to accomplish that and then boost your shooting.

Your entirely right, but I was just pondering the best way to make a full CSM shooting army. Just to see how viable it is.

Would you consider allies?
IG especially could add a lot of firepower.

I actually was playing with the idea of a shooty Chaos army. I think it's definitely doable.

Noise Marines in the Elite / Troops section. Heldrakes in Fast. Havoks, Triple Las Preds, and possibly Vindis in Heavy. CSM or Plague Marines with dual specialist weapons doing drivebys from their Rhinos are also viable.

No offense intended, but I think anyone who is still saying Oblits uber alles are still playing 5th edition. They're not bad at all, but, for the points, if you are looking at things from a competitive standpoint, there are better options now. Think about it. 150+ points for two Oblits with the mandatory MoN gets you two shots a turn. Whoopie. You can get 4 - 8 shots a turn out of Havoks or 3 out of a Triple Las Pred for less points.

Shooty CSM with a smattering of hard hitting assault units for backup is one of the scariest, most well-rounded armies I can think of.

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:
I actually was playing with the idea of a shooty Chaos army. I think it's definitely doable.

Noise Marines in the Elite / Troops section. Heldrakes in Fast. Havoks, Triple Las Preds, and possibly Vindis in Heavy. CSM or Plague Marines with dual specialist weapons doing drivebys from their Rhinos are also viable.

No offense intended, but I think anyone who is still saying Oblits uber alles are still playing 5th edition. They're not bad at all, but, for the points, if you are looking at things from a competitive standpoint, there are better options now. Think about it. 150+ points for two Oblits with the mandatory MoN gets you two shots a turn. Whoopie. You can get 4 - 8 shots a turn out of Havoks or 3 out of a Triple Las Pred for less points.

Shooty CSM with a smattering of hard hitting assault units for backup is one of the scariest, most well-rounded armies I can think of.

Well I can't see myself using more than one oblit, I like it for the versatility, I've run just one oblit bare bones and he just sits there popping things as needed, frees up a lot of my points so I don't have to dedicate as many point to tank popping etc. I think the main reason people like them is for all comers list, simply because he can get you any gun for any enemy.

What would you suggest for an HQ? I'm a little torn, because I love the Chaos Lord, but I haven't run a deamon prince and I think wings would make for a very scary thing to pop out of cover, when you've been paying attention to shooting the whole time.

Just not sure, thoughts?

BTW: CALIFORNIA! UBER ALLES! CALIFORNIA! UBER ALLES!

hehehe couldn't resist

Yeah, that comment about Oblits wasn't directed at anyone in particular. It's just I still see people talking about running 9 Oblits and how they are the best HS option and I just think... those people are stuck in 2010.

Again, they're not bad. Just, from a purely min/max competitive standpoint, I don't believe they are the most points-efficient HS unit anymore. You pay a huge premium for their flexibility.

But yeah, you're right. One lone Oblit can be very useful, and yes, it is the cheapest way to get a single lascannon / plascannon / whatever on the table when you're hurting for points.

As far as HQ, I don't think you can go wrong with a Khorne Lord on Jugger and Axe of Blind Fury. It's a lot of points, but that dude is a beast. Run him in a squad of 20 cultists so he can soak up some shots on the way in and he does a lot of damage.

DPs... again, if you're thinking competitive, not the most points efficient HQ at all. From what I understand MoT Prince with Wings and Black Mace is the "best" way to run them, but I can't speak from personal experience yet.

Careful Cypher... the suede-denim secret police are coming for your uncool niece.

What about a base of Noise Marine blastmaster squads hiding in havoc launcher rhinos?

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:
Yeah, that comment about Oblits wasn't directed at anyone in particular. It's just I still see people talking about running 9 Oblits and how they are the best HS option and I just think... those people are stuck in 2010.

Again, they're not bad. Just, from a purely min/max competitive standpoint, I don't believe they are the most points-efficient HS unit anymore. You pay a huge premium for their flexibility.

But yeah, you're right. One lone Oblit can be very useful, and yes, it is the cheapest way to get a single lascannon / plascannon / whatever on the table when you're hurting for points.

As far as HQ, I don't think you can go wrong with a Khorne Lord on Jugger and Axe of Blind Fury. It's a lot of points, but that dude is a beast. Run him in a squad of 20 cultists so he can soak up some shots on the way in and he does a lot of damage.

DPs... again, if you're thinking competitive, not the most points efficient HQ at all. From what I understand MoT Prince with Wings and Black Mace is the "best" way to run them, but I can't speak from personal experience yet.

Careful Cypher... the suede-denim secret police are coming for your uncool niece.

I think what I wanted to do in 3rd edition would work very well now, Iron warriors with allied basilisk

We both win point for this thread.

I wouldn't even bother with Rhinos. A blastmaster has 48" range, an autocannon has 48" range, all you need is some counter charge to keep the enemy at arms length while you blast away.

My go-to CSM foundation is 4x 5 Noise Marines with a BM and 2x 5 Havocs with autocannons. Withering firepower for under 750 points. From there I add the ubiquitous Heldrakes and some specialized Chosen for anti-TEQ/anti-armor detail and go from there. Depending on points being played I can try to squeeze in some spawn, bikers, or even a KoS and daemonettes.

These are my suggestions.

HQ
The sorcerer can provide some direct effects. The lord can give fearless to troops, and can unlock plague marines.

Elites
Terminators are fantastic for this role. They can help to ensure you get linebreaker, and are excellent for contesting areas. The trick is to not give them lots of bling. Keep them cheap, add a combi-melta or two tops.

Troops
Normal CSM in 10 man units can help fill this role. 10 CSM can take a melta gun and an autocannon for 160 points.
Another option is to just take cultists to act as deck chairs. They don't have any shooting but are only 50 points a unit. This gives you more points to spend elsewhere.
Plague marines are excellent troops for mid field objective grabbing.
Another option I've been doing lately is taking two 20 man CSM squads and Fabius Bile. Fabius makes one squad fearless by joining them, and the other squad fearless with his ability. This gives you two blocks of cheap, hard to shift models. I've found this to combo very well with daemon allies.

Fast Attack
Take heldrakes. Helldrakes are the reason CSM are a teir 1 army. Take 2-3 of them, depending on your needs.

Heavy Support
Predators are cheap solid weapons platforms. I've shifted to using these lately.
Havocs give you more bang for your buck, but they are more vulnerable. You can give them a bastion or more models to make them tougher but then they are no longer cheap.
Oblits, some people swear by them, but I've always found them a bit overrated.

Allies
I like daemon allies for CSM as I find they mix very well.
- 2 squads of plague bearers make wonderful deck chair units. I prefer them over cultists, who always run away at the drop of a hat.
- Soulgrinders have some very good shooting, and counter assault. Overall they are very multi-purpose units that make defilers cry themselves to sleep at night.
- Fateweaver/Lords of Change/Tzeentch heralds can give some divination to your army. When combo'ed with some CSM units this gives some excellent shooting. (BS 3 Heavy 4 STR 8 autocannons become a lot more appealing when they are hitting 75% of the time and not 50% of the time

So I'm gonna ask a question here, and it's probably going to sound ignorant, but I've only come back into 40k in the last few weeks after years off. I have an EC army and thought that nowadays Noise Marines are considered elite? I saw some guys mention them as Troops options. Did I miss something there? I want to have them as my Troops like back in the day.

Yeah, if you take a Slaaneshi Chaos Lord, it makes them troop choices. True for Plague Marines, Bezerkers (with their respective marks) and similarly with 1k sons with a Sorc with MoT


As far as shooty CSM, I made a list of NM with blastmasters and a Slaaneshi CL, some havocs, 2 preds and a heldrake. At 1k points, I nearly tabled the previous Tau codex (damned Sv 2+ broadsides), tabled a new DA list in 4 (and that's because my drake took so long to come in) and had a necron player quit turn three because I dropped both his arks and 2/3s of his warriors.

 Flanker wrote:
So I'm gonna ask a question here, and it's probably going to sound ignorant, but I've only come back into 40k in the last few weeks after years off. I have an EC army and thought that nowadays Noise Marines are considered elite? I saw some guys mention them as Troops options. Did I miss something there? I want to have them as my Troops like back in the day.

any cult elites can be turned into troops with the proper generic HQ choice

General Duf wrote:Yeah, if you take a Slaaneshi Chaos Lord, it makes them troop choices. True for Plague Marines, Bezerkers (with their respective marks) and similarly with 1k sons with a Sorc with MoT


As far as shooty CSM, I made a list of NM with blastmasters and a Slaaneshi CL, some havocs, 2 preds and a heldrake. At 1k points, I nearly tabled the previous Tau codex (damned Sv 2+ broadsides), tabled a new DA list in 4 (and that's because my drake took so long to come in) and had a necron player quit turn three because I dropped both his arks and 2/3s of his warriors.

Exergy wrote:

 Flanker wrote:
So I'm gonna ask a question here, and it's probably going to sound ignorant, but I've only come back into 40k in the last few weeks after years off. I have an EC army and thought that nowadays Noise Marines are considered elite? I saw some guys mention them as Troops options. Did I miss something there? I want to have them as my Troops like back in the day.

any cult elites can be turned into troops with the proper generic HQ choice

Awesome. Thanks, guys!

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:
Yeah, that comment about Oblits wasn't directed at anyone in particular. It's just I still see people talking about running 9 Oblits and how they are the best HS option and I just think... those people are stuck in 2010.

Again, they're not bad. Just, from a purely min/max competitive standpoint, I don't believe they are the most points-efficient HS unit anymore. You pay a huge premium for their flexibility.

But yeah, you're right. One lone Oblit can be very useful, and yes, it is the cheapest way to get a single lascannon / plascannon / whatever on the table when you're hurting for points.

As far as HQ, I don't think you can go wrong with a Khorne Lord on Jugger and Axe of Blind Fury. It's a lot of points, but that dude is a beast. Run him in a squad of 20 cultists so he can soak up some shots on the way in and he does a lot of damage.

DPs... again, if you're thinking competitive, not the most points efficient HQ at all. From what I understand MoT Prince with Wings and Black Mace is the "best" way to run them, but I can't speak from personal experience yet.

Careful Cypher... the suede-denim secret police are coming for your uncool niece.

Xeno, would noise marines be the best way to "Play ethnicky jazz to parade your snazz?"

I agree on Oblits being a less efficient option for a maxed out shooting list. I would think havocs are the way to go. Add in a couple of bodies and they are the most solid option. The are cheaper for more guns and can't be stopped by one solid hit. That will keep you in business into turns 3+. I would think a defense line would be critical for this.