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I was thinking about getting more Chosen to run the Cypher Dataslate formation. Does anyone have any idea how good it is? I only plan to go no further than 1000 points. So some suggestions would be real helpful. I kind of like the idea of Fallen Angels theme.

Many people here will tell you that Chosen are crappy and you should never bother to take them. My personal opinion is that there are no really bad units just bad players.

It depends on what you want to accomplish. Do you want to have an army with a strong power level (=competitive) so you don't have to rely on outsmarting your opponent? Then think about getting a fast CSM army. Get things that move 12", i.e. Chaos Spawns and put a Chaos Lord on a bike. Add more bikes, with the Mark of Nurgle to get T6, fast hitting units. A Heldrake complements well with this since from turn 2 you can see where you need it the most and get it there quickly.

Up to that many will probably agree, but when I say add some Raptors many won't. Raptors are considered too expensive, but when you got a fast army you want everything hitting the enemy roughly at the same time, else you give him time to shoot your units in turns while they are not there or in cc.

2 more Helbrutes allow you to deepstrike them with the formation which also complements a fast army since the opponent either has to target them or allow you to wreak havoc undisturbed. You can get Helbrutes rather cheap from Ebay since people sell the one from the DV box.

Same goes for the Chose btw., if you really want to try them buy them cheap from eBay. At least in Germany people are spamming the market with the units from the DV box, so prices are acceptable.

I'm sure a decent chunk of the people that say 'Chosen are crappy and you should never bother taking them' are either A) parroting what others have said and accept it as gospel truth, or B) are just tired of saying the same thing again and again everytime the subject comes up so over-simplify it.

Chosen are normally passed because they're very expensive points-wise but all the offensive additions don't add defensive upgrades or mobility. So they're still just as slow as CSM and just as squishy but where a CSM dies and you simply don't care, when a Chosen dies, there goes that special weapon that DIDN'T go in another squad or the upgrade that didn't go to make an entire squad more resiliant and if two Chosen go down, well, that's the price of a Rhino right there. In some cases, a single Chosen model can be as expensive as a Rhino. While Sternguard loyalists can be placed exactly where needed with a Drop Pod and almost for sure kill a big target the turn they arrive, Chosen don't have that option.

So the above post got fast Chaos pretty well, but I would dump the Cultists and Helbrute in a Helcult Formation instead of the Mayhem Pack. Admittedly, I am more of a fan of getting across the board instead of Deep Striking and maybe ten extra Cultists to the 20 in DV would give a good clump to work with the Helbrute on.

Another alternative along those lines is dropping the Chosen altogether for Plague Marines in Rhinos (Havoc Launcher attached) and a couple Obliterators (MoN). That would keep with the Bike Lord and Spawns, albeit much slower, idea of moving forward always with good firepower at the ready. Fill the final troop slot with either more Cultists or with standard CSM. Turns the list into a sort of advancing gunline with the Heldrake and Helbrute hitting the harder stuff and the Lord and Spawn hitting the weaker side.

why do people think Chosen are crappy? I mostly want to run them for the theme of the army. I don't have much experience with Chaos in general. So this will be my first chaos space marine army. I can see how helldrakes are nice.
The set I am getting from a friend is all the Chaos from the DV set and 2 Deamon Princes, 2 Defilers. I will plan to get at least 1-3 chosen units. I'll take your advice on a fast army as it sometimes fit the gameplay style I like. Just trying to figure out how to make it all fit. I don't want my army to be total crap though lol.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:

Chosen are normally passed because they're very expensive points-wise but all the offensive additions don't add defensive upgrades or mobility. So they're still just as slow as CSM and just as squishy but where a CSM dies and you simply don't care, when a Chosen dies, there goes that special weapon that DIDN'T go in another squad or the upgrade that didn't go to make an entire squad more resiliant and if two Chosen go down, well, that's the price of a Rhino right there.

This is a very good and unbiased assessment of Chosen.

They are not bad, they are just expensive and squishy. But, and this is a big BUT: if you have a plan how to use them countering their weakness they are a strong, viable unit. In a defensive setup you can put them into an Imperial Bunker. Bam, they are not squishy anymore, but have AV14 and can control a big chunk of the battlefield with their special weapons. Think of them as a high risk, high reward unit. If they die without accomplishing their goals you have taken a hit you will have a hard time to recover from.

I just realized that the Fallen Angel formation gives the Chosen They Shall Know No Fear rule within 12" of Cypher and Infiltrate special rules. I am sure this would work great into fitting a fast army. And Cypher conferring shrouding to the unit he joins.

rnlmeat0666 wrote:
I just realized that the Fallen Angel formation gives the Chosen They Shall Know No Fear rule within 12" of Cypher and Infiltrate special rules. I am sure this would work great into fitting a fast army. And Cypher conferring shrouding to the unit he joins.

Cypher with 5 infiltrating plasma chosen (preferably in a ruin for a 2+ cover save) is a force to be reckoned with.

IMO it all depends on your play style and what would benefit your army best. If you have the DV starter set the I can guess you have A CL, HB, some chosen and some cultists. So you have a armor 12 walker that becomes twin-linked when it gets pissed, a means to make any squad fearless, an objective holder and an objective taker. Why not some bikes for that brutal cross between toughness and mobility? x5 Chaos Biker with the mark of nurgle and either x2 meltas or just ccw on everyone is a pretty nasty unit. But as I said it depends on your play style.

Chosen are also good in a landraider with lord or sorc. The great part is their extra attack allows for both better damage-per-point damage output than regular ccw marines and hidden fists. But the key for them to work is not overinvest in equipment. Yep, it's sometimes tempting to take fists, claws, power axes and stuff. But i'd just go with a mark + 1-2 power fists in a squad and probably 1 claw on a sarge for easier challenges and an icon if needed. Their cost will be fairly reasonable and their damage output enough to wipe everything but the toughest mellee deathstars.

CSM troops are DIRT CHEAP on ebay (strangely enough cultists always seem to cost more than CSM). Also since they are 'chaos', varying paint schemes aren't all that bad!
I built my CSM army from barely 2k to about 4k with just the purchace of DV from GW and 80 CSM (with tons of specs and plenty of heavies) from ebay, many were nice conversions too. The ebay purchases only came to about £10-20 more than DV.
Now I have a fluffy CSM foot horde, as apart from plenty of termis, oblits and characters, I only have CSM, cultists, 1 LR, 1 rhino and 2 dreads. Fortunately, havocs can take specials otherwise I would have lots of specials I can't use due to not having enough ratio of bolter models lol.
With cypher and huron, you can make a great in-your-face, infiltrating army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So - you can do it for cheap, going way higher than 1kpts for the same monetary cost, if you use Ebay.

Also, don't be afraid to take 1-2 squads of csm in rhinos. Internet wisdom is:"take 3 heldrakes and never ever consider power armored guyz" but my experience shows that 10 guyz with 2 plasmas + combi-plasma in objective secured rhino are a solid squad. They're not gona win you games by being super-killy, but they have a wide range of tactical possibilities that are very important now. 5 with plasma/melta + combi are fine too. They're not too expensive and will never be complete dead weight.

Now, possessed are harder to utilise. To be honest, i don't see any use for them out of casual fluffy lists. Yep, they can be oki with being fearless daemons and somewhat fine in mellee. But they cost way too much for what they do.

So I have 2 DV sets for chaos to get me started that is mostly put together. Going to use my SM rhinos to proxy for CSM rhinos.
I got 2 Daemon Princes incase I get lucky on the boon tables.

Cypher and a Proxy Squad of 5x Plasma Guns of Space Marines from DA DV sets and running them as Chosen and all the Chaos Chosen models left over to make one squad of close combat combiningunit with a few lighting claws, powermaul, power axe, and power fist with melta bombs.
With the formation I will just bring two units of Chosen to work with by sticking Cypher in the close combat unit, make them shrouded and hope to infiltrate in cover along with the 2nd unit of chosen with plasmas.
I think running two CSM squads in rhinos giving them different tools, one for more anti infantry and the other going after armor.
For my HQ i have two chaos lords, but I picked up Huron as one of you guys suggested and I want to figure out how I can utilize the infiltrate rule from his warlord trait. In all I have well over 1250 points but I want to make sure it works Money well worth spent, cannot wait to start playing with them once they get painted first. I know for a fact the people around me play a variety of armies. I am probably gonna play alot against one of my friends who started an Eldar army, hes the one that gave me his chaos stuff from his DV set. He wants to run a 1250 game this tuesday and was gonna run some a Farseer and some jetbikes and wave serpants if I can recall. I heard they are pretty tough but if anyone has any suggestions on what I can do to prepare myself. I am all ears.

Use the chosen as Sergeants for your army, the gear they have in the DV box is silly but not bad so the sergeant in each squad. The helbrute as is is ok, and you have the commander but you could also say he's a sorceror with a force sword and take a commander with terminator armor.

As for what to buy, as you can see from the posts, that will be dictated by your play style.

rnlmeat0666 wrote:
I was thinking about getting more Chosen to run the Cypher Dataslate formation. Does anyone have any idea how good it is? I only plan to go no further than 1000 points. So some suggestions would be real helpful. I kind of like the idea of Fallen Angels theme.

so the chosen in DV are armed with melee weapons, the chosen you want for Cypher's dataslate are all going to be armed with melta, plasma, or flamers.

So get your hobby knife out and start clipping off lightning claws/powerfists and start adding on meltaguns, flamers, and plasmaguns.

Chosen have ubergrit, and can trade their bolter for a special weapon. So Chosen with axe, boltpistol, + plasmagun strapped to his backpack is perfectly legal and WSYWIG

If you're keen on converting and anyone who plays chaos should be , you should definitely do as was suggested and start cutting.

The DV chosen models are almost tailor made to be aspiring champions. The one with the power maul and cape makes a great looking sorcerer with a bit of work and the DV lord can very easily be converted to almost any weapons combo. Any of the chosen are convertible to whatever your typical champion load out is.

My advice with regards to the chosen is don't give them plasma guns and if you're going melee, go for a full squad of ten. Their stats and ability to take virtually any weapon is poorly utilized with plasma guns. A squad of havoks can take four and is much cheaper. Try running a squad of 10 with 2 power weapons and 3 melta guns. Add champion upgrades to taste, possibly another power weapon and/or combi flamer. With infiltrate and shrouding and good use of terrain, it should be able to attack attack in conjunction with the rest of your army.

If you're looking to try out a fun unit, take 2 squads of 5 khorne bikers with a banner of rage and a power maul. Then go tank hunting.

 Murenius wrote:
Many people here will tell you that Chosen are crappy and you should never bother to take them. My personal opinion is that there are no really bad units just bad players.

I don't think Chose are crappy. I do think the Chosen kitted out in the DV kit are crappy.

You get two marines with bolters. I just use them as normal space marines. Other than that, you have what? one with a pair of lightning claws, a power fist, a power maul, and ... I think a power axe? That is a lot of points to be thrown on a power armor unit.

I do like the models and have used the chosen as champions for regular chaos space marine squads.

Chaos simply don't have the necessary "Umph" to make them unique from their SM counterparts. They don't have "Good" daemon engines for multiple reason (Which I've blasted about in several posts sadly) Their generic transports are laughable and generally fall under "You take, or you die" mentality, which is sad to say not really helpful if you DO take them, since you're just as likely to DIE anyways.

Ive played CSM for roughly 6 years now and with the introduction of 6th Edition Chaos Rules, they were "Good" until armies like Tau and Eldar came out and pretty much made the melee mongering CSM army obsolete in pretty much all aspects. If we simply had Obliterator Weapons on Daemonically Possessed vehicles as an upgrade, or more variants of the Land Raider, Chaotic Variants of Rhinos, If our Maulerfiends didnt suck in CC against equally costed Enemy Walkers (Like Dreadnaughts) Why the hell is my murder machine so crappy at CC?

The general rule of them with chosen is you WANT them to be equiped for close combat. Throwing a as many plasma guns as you can in a squad of chosen is a waste of points because you can do the exact same thing with a Havoc squad.

Chosen need to be equipped for close combat for them to really make there points back, other wise your going to have a pretty expensive unit killing itself with Gets Hot and not making use of the extra attacks YOU payed for. Havocs would do the same exact job only cheaper. Chosen are for close range, Havocs are for long range.

 jackflashultra wrote:
The general rule of them with chosen is you WANT them to be equiped for close combat. Throwing a as many plasma guns as you can in a squad of chosen is a waste of points because you can do the exact same thing with a Havoc squad.

Unless your heavy slots are filled with other things. Then it allows you to take these squads from your elites section instead.

Chosen are nice in that you can kit them out to tailor you play style.

 Green is Best! wrote:


Unless your heavy slots are filled with other things. Then it allows you to take these squads from your elites section instead.

Chosen are nice in that you can kit them out to tailor you play style.

True.

 jackflashultra wrote:
The general rule of them with chosen is you WANT them to be equiped for close combat. Throwing a as many plasma guns as you can in a squad of chosen is a waste of points because you can do the exact same thing with a Havoc squad.

Chosen need to be equipped for close combat for them to really make there points back, other wise your going to have a pretty expensive unit killing itself with Gets Hot and not making use of the extra attacks YOU payed for. Havocs would do the same exact job only cheaper. Chosen are for close range, Havocs are for long range.

you put plasma/melta/flamers on chosen if you want to do close range shooting and combat. Havocs are better suicide troops. Get into 12" range and double tap away. Of course what you dont kill is going to charge you next turn and havocs are vunerable to just about everything in close combat. Chosen on the other hand have 3X as many attacks, which doesnt make them heavy assault units, but keeps them from being weak.



If you want a heavy assault unit, take terminators. PW, 5++ and 2+ save all for rather cheap.
If you want a pure shooting unit, take havocs or regular CSM. Cheap and can take special weapons
If you want a versitile midfield unit, try Chosen. 6-7 guys with 5 flamers. Flame and charge or on D overwatch+take the charge.