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I am a fan of Black Legion, always have been and they were the reason I picked up CSM in 5th edition. However I have had basically no success with running armies that are not based around marks. My go to list for CSM right now is Nurgle themed, Oblits, Bikes, PM, Cultsits, Zombies/Typhus etc. I haven't tried Slanesh but I have heard that it does quite well, but I am no fan of Slanesh themes at all.

So has anyone had any success with armies not spamming MoN/MoS/3 Drakes? Or should I just make my Nurgle army into Black Legion for 6th edition. Love to hear some outside ideas.

I play a Khorne CC army. Axe of blind fury on a Lord with 30 Cultists as meat shields and a couple of Berzerker units. Good hard hitting army

You play against alot of heavy shooting armies?

I placed pretty well at Gottacon 2013 (60 player tournament, 5 wins, 0 losses) with an all Tzeentch army with Tzeentch Daemon allies, but to be honest the Greater Daemon did most of the heavy lifting.

The list was

Ahriman

5 Terminators, Mark of Tzeentch, Combi-meltas

9 Thousand Sons, Rhino, Havoc Launcher, Warpflame Gargoyles
10 Chaos Space Marines, 2 Meltaguns, Mark of Tzeentch, Veterans of the Long War, Rhino, Havoc Laucher, Warpflame Gargoyles

Predator Annihilator, Warpflame Gargoyles
Vindicator, Combi-Bolter, Dozer Blade

Daemon Allies were

Lord of Change

Minimum size pack of Horrors of Tzeentch

4 Screamers of Tzeentch
4 Flamers of Tzeentch

Melta and Lascannons/Vindicator/Screamers for anti-armour. I usually infiltrated or outflanked the Terminators.

Thousand Sons and Ahriman were pretty much a fluff choice, but they can deter marines effectively and Ahriman deletes squads by himself if he gets in range. If I happened to roll invisibility the ol' 2+ cover save rhino is pretty funny. One game against imperial guard I cast invisibility on the Screamers, turbo-boosted them for a 2+ cover save behind his parking lot, then they ended up killing 3 basilisks and 2 leman russes.

Chaos Marines/Flamers/Havoc launchers can chew up light infantry decently.

The main thing is that the Lord of Change and Screamers are incredibly fast, everything else is mostly fast and infiltrate gets the Terminators where they need to be. I usually found I was able to concentrate a lot of firepower on one section of the board and kill anything I really needed to. The army is fast enough to play keep away with close combat armies and get in close and assault shootier armies. I usually reserve the Horrors and deep strike them onto an objective later on.

My last game against Chaos Marines with Imperial Guard allies with double Heldrake plus Vendetta the Lord of Change killed all of his flyers just by flying behind them and shooting rear armour.

I don't know that it's the most amazingly competitive army but I have a lot of fun with it.

Yeah I play a lot of shooting armies. Space Wolves and Necron mainly. We use a fair bit of terrain thothough so LOS is harder. All together it seems to be mostly even. I posted my full list if you want to have a look.

I'm trying my hand at cheap CSMs in Rhinos supported by armor. 14 points for a MEQ with VotLW isn't horrible.

Asides my Nurgle collection, I run an Iron Warrior force lead by a Warpsmith and kitted out mainly with meltaguns. Similar to minigun762's idea of CSM with VotLW in rhino's supported by armour (Helbrute with stock, double maulerfiend, vindicator, etc)

I have had better than average success with them, except when they decide to shop at Akbar's Discount and Totally Legit Power Armour shoppe, then it is sad times.

Just recently I also played a game with berzerkers and it went pretty well.

The thing about khorne armies is that you've got to have a strong grasp of of fundamentals to get it to work right. You've got to understand how field position works, and how it does things like limit opponent's mobility. You've got to know when NOT to get into a close combat, and how to get the right kinds of close combat units into the right places. You've got to have a keen understanding of relative force concentration along with knowing when to take casualties and when not to.

Because even in the linked game, I made mistakes that could have made things even better for me (or have could have turned things around had the dice been a lot worse). If you play a khorne army as "deploy, run straight forward", things are probably going to be tough for you, unless your opponent isn't expecting it.

Slaanesh and nurgle, with FNP, are a lot more forgiving, and a bit more straightforward, oddly enough, but just because they're easier to play doesn't mean the alternatives are necessarily bad or not worth taking.

I have had limited success just taking standard marines as my core but they always feel so underwhelming compared to what my PM bring.
Talking to other CSM players much of the success outside of the standard PM/NM/Drake lists comes with the addition of allies.

 Ailaros wrote:
Just recently I also played a game with berzerkers and it went pretty well.

The thing about khorne armies is that you've got to have a strong grasp of of fundamentals to get it to work right. You've got to understand how field position works, and how it does things like limit opponent's mobility. You've got to know when NOT to get into a close combat, and how to get the right kinds of close combat units into the right places. You've got to have a keen understanding of relative force concentration along with knowing when to take casualties and when not to.

Because even in the linked game, I made mistakes that could have made things even better for me (or have could have turned things around had the dice been a lot worse). If you play a khorne army as "deploy, run straight forward", things are probably going to be tough for you, unless your opponent isn't expecting it.

So you have to play Khorne with a good strategy and just charging won't work? Funny.

Well yeah.

A gunline, for example, requires almost no player skill. You just deploy and then point at the most threatening things and roll dice at them.

With a close combat army, you use the movement phase, so automatically needing more skill as you navigate between difficult terrain and moving to counteract your opponent's movements. You also need to understand when to shoot and when to assault, rather than only using the shooting phase, and there are things inside of an assault as well, like where you position models within a squad to change how you take casualties / determine which models get into range to fight, and who should give or accept challenges when.

A melee-focused army uses all the rules, which means you've got to be good at more stuff to make them work, especially in a world so hostile to close combat as 6th ed. Armies that don't move or assault... well... you could throw most of the rulebook away, or have not bothered to read it and you'd still have the ability to win games.

I've used Fabius Bile and Kharn in marine spam to good effect. 20 khorne marines enhanced by Fabius, then 20 more with Kharn, then 20 more led by Fabius. Rhinos for each squad with dirge casters and destroyer blades providing cover and tank shocking units closer to charge range. Heldrakes and the usual firespam can't whittle them enough before they're in melee range.

I recently decided to get out my pure 1000 sons army (no allies) and give them another try.

I went for a completely unconventional list which featured a single Tzeentch sorcerer, two large 18 man squads of Thousand Sons, a cultist blob, and the rest of points on oblits.

I played three games vs three different opponents and won all three ( all by very narrow margins.)
The armies I faced were Deathwing, Imperial Guard, and Grey Knights.

I confess that the victories were more than likely due to the fact that my opponents were completely unprepared for such a bizarre list. I usually run pure Death Guard, you see.

This list leaves absolutely no room for error and is easily countered by anyone who is remotely prepared for it. (Or Orks, or Nids, prepared or not.)

Sometimes it's just fun to run something unexpected and see how your foes react.

 Ailaros wrote:
Well yeah.
A gunline, for example, requires almost no player skill. You just deploy and then point at the most threatening things and roll dice at them.
Stuff...

This is a fairly major simplification tbh, the extra stuff you mention applies to any army. Yes the static gunline is fairly point and click and if two inexperienced players face off the static gunline probably comes out on top but a static gunline against a good player with a balanced TAC list will lose more often than not, not even the most unbalanced over the top lists static gunline have enough firepower to remove an entire army if you play smart (i.e don't just walk into their guns, use terrain, overload a flank etc) and since this is an objective based game you can always just go second and win the mission if the static gunline player never moves. In general the mastery of the movement phase is one of the hallmarks of good 40k players, it defines threat ranges and is the biggest influence you have in minimising risk/maximising reward. Its why static gunlines are far inferior to lists with mobile firepower (even if its limited infantry based mobility), if it can still fire at full effectiveness on the move then it will always have far more options than a static list.

40k, as you note, is about killing your opponents army and then sauntering onto objectives at the end. Killing your opponents with a gunline requires virtually no thought, and doesn't require you to know very much about movement and nothing about close combat. You just need to know how to deploy, and how to do target prioritization. Well, that and how to hold the control and V key down at the same time so that you can print off a netlist.

Mobility doesn't is much harder to pull off when you're dead before you get where you're going, and close combat doesn't help you if you never make it there, or make it into kill a speed bump and then get gunned down in the subsequent turn. It takes a lot more thought and effort to do either of those than to just sit there and roll dice in the shooting phase. Of course, if you really wanted to be a clever gunliner, you could deepstrike a single unit of something to clear off a backfield objective, but this isn't very difficult - adding a small fraction of the complexity that the other person's entire army has

A player with an easy list to play will tend to win games against a player with a difficult list to play. It's why tournament players bring either straight gunlines or mostly gunlines. The easier difficulty mode you play the game on, the more likely you are to win.

If close combat armies were easier to play than gunlines, tournaments would field only close combat armies. They don't, because they're not.

Tactics aside, the OP is asking if the Other marks or specificly Black legion (no marks) is a viable list. I say yes, and I feel all Marks and BL are viable. How you use the list depends on your skill... I have to agree with Ailaros that some lists are easier to use than others, but poor placement and poor target choice means a gunline needs some amount of skill. And just because you play a melee based list does not mean your a better player, your just more aggressive. Either list used with poor tactics will fail and both lists used with good tactics win.

Now, that aside, I feel the reason why people use Nurgle and Slaneesh lists more than other lists is that the increased Toughness of most Nurgle units make them more survivable and FNP (IoE) makes Slaneesh units more survivable. Plague Marines bring a lot to the table... two special weapons in a 5 man squad, Fearless, Poison melee, Blight Nades, FNP, AND T 5 just makes 5 man Rhino units hard to beat and easy to spam. Really, that boosted Init for Slaneesh kinda means nothing to most lists, so it isn't the Mark making the list good, it is the ability to make nearly every unit you field have FNP. That and Blastmasters are pretty good too.

One would think with the Net mentality of shooting and Invuln saves that 1ksons would be more popular, specially with AP 3 bolters. But I feel the lack of special weapons and the costs (they are the most expensive unit, with only PMs costing more per extra guy) hurt them. That lack of consistent AP 2 (since now you have to depend on the sorc) in a game where AP 2 is king hurts the units. And tossing a 6+ Invuln save on CSMs with MoT doesn't feel worth the points. These lists can work, you just have to look at other units than your troops to solve those AP 2 questions.

Khorne lists that focus on melee normally do it in such an inelegant fashion, effectively Orks in Power armor. Overwhelm them with numbers and get into melee as soon as possible to minimize losses from shooting. Get all of those attacks off and just overwhelm them in wounds that they fail armor saves (if they even get them). The Net says this is the shooty game edition, yet Khorne lists still win. Any dedicated melee list can win, or so I believe. Still, 10 man CSM squads with MoK and 2 special weapons in Rhinos with a IoW (with maybe extra CCW and VotLW or even IoV instead of IoW) can give the Zerkers the fire support they need and can be just as nasty in CC.

Now, as for Black Legion, I honestly think IoV and at least VotLW takes care of those pesky morale issues makes them just as hard as the cult troops. They are still marines and are the cheapest marine troop choice overall and per guy. You can still field 2 special weapons for attacking lists or give them a heavy weapon plus special weapon for defensive lists. You just can't combat squad them, but otherwise you play them just like normal space marines. Give them an extra CCW and you can use the Khorne tactics if you want to go melee. The Havocs and Raptors suddenly don't feel so out of place in this list like they do in cult lists. And hey, a Mastery level 3 Sorc without a Mark gets 3 picks on a list... that is a pretty sweet deal. Now Abby and a Chosen lists just bleeds points... way to many points for my tastes, but I don't think you need him to make a real Black Legion list.

Obviously this is just my take, and it doesn't make it the right take on the Chaos Codex. You just have to make a list to fit with your play style. I am just enjoying the thread to hear list ideas.

My best victory was without fielding any cult troops. I did an Abaddonwing using MoK, MoT and MoN marines.

Aby in a 10 strong unit of MoK CSM, delivered by a LR is a strong hammer. You have to build your list around it though.

 Turock wrote:
I am a fan of Black Legion, always have been and they were the reason I picked up CSM in 5th edition. However I have had basically no success with running armies that are not based around marks. My go to list for CSM right now is Nurgle themed, Oblits, Bikes, PM, Cultsits, Zombies/Typhus etc. I haven't tried Slanesh but I have heard that it does quite well, but I am no fan of Slanesh themes at all.

So has anyone had any success with armies not spamming MoN/MoS/3 Drakes? Or should I just make my Nurgle army into Black Legion for 6th edition. Love to hear some outside ideas.

I dont think MoT and MoK are very effective, but you can go unmarked. It kind of defeats the purpose of playing chaos, as that is really the only thing they have to give the army feel but you can go with CSM, Havocs, Termicide, Cultists, and Oblits unmarked. It works.

My 1850 right now is roughly
Warpsmith, Burning Brand
Sorceror, ML 3 Spell familiar

9 CSM with Melta, CCw, Power Maul in rhino
10 CSM with Melta/Missile

10 Havocs, Lascannons
10 Havocs, Autocannons
Forgefiend with Hades Autos

Helbrute, Reaper/Missile
3 Terminators, 3 Meltas, one Chainfist

Herald of Tzeenth with Grimoire, ML3, Exalted Loci
16 Horrors
10 Horrors

It works pretty well so far as a shooty army. The 9 man Rhino squad and Warpsmith hide for two turns then advance as a counterpunch, while the Forgefiend with Grimoire and Tzeentch shooting from behind the Aegis is nasty and tough. A forgefiend with prescience is very very mean, by the way. Basically every unit is pretty tough, and its hard to reduce shooting effectiveness as all units can take a few hits and keep putting out power.

The list still needs major playtesting but so far I've done well against a guard player, and tabled a DE skimmerspam list. Plus its fluffy for IW.

One thing to note: Just because a unit is unmarked does NOT make it Black Legion. I proudly play a Huron/Red Corsairs list which is also unmarked. Show some proper respect to big H!

I use an unmarked army to great success. Two large blobs of Uber Grit CSM, dual specials as needed make up the core of the list with a few cheap cultists to take backfield objectives. Dual Havocs, one with Lascannons and one with autocannons. Large blob of terminators. And then I pepper in units that suit my fancy from game to game. It's very possible to make a very formidable list of unmarked units. If you're not spending points on marks you can spend them on more units.

 gpfunk wrote:
. If you're not spending points on marks you can spend them on more units.

Very true, I apply the same logic.

Well this thread exploded, did not expect that to happen. I've been reading through these posts over the past few days and it has got me thinking. I'll be trying out more CSM squads with Marks as opposed to spamming PM every game.

Also a fan of the 1k Sons list by Nitros. I think that is a pretty creative list to run and has me interested in tzeentch.