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Bad tournament performance, and lots of Marines that Do Know Fear. Add mandatory challenging and annoying random charts, as well as a lack of Chapter Tactic equivalents. Not too much to write home about, besides a few edge units, right? The only purpose of the army is to spam Cultists/Spawn/Heldrakes/Oblits? As easy as it is to recite a litany of woes, I would actually argue that amidst a tide of rule updates, it will become increasingly viable to run a list with an increasing focus on Chaos Marines despite inferior-for-cost statlines and special abilities. Consider the following:

Historically, one of the main weaknesses of Chaos at 1850-2000 points was that they had a crowded FoC; all of their ranged firepower was in Heavy Support, and all their units that moved more than 12"/turn in Fast Attack. Attempting to focus on super-assault infantry with super-expensive Land Raiders doesn't get far against MSU armies, and heldrake spam only really worked versus some Biker armies prior to the LOS nerf. However, with alternate formations and dual CADs becoming an increasingly common event, it is now a lot easier to compensate for the inherent issues with playing an army that was designed in theory around slow infantry attrition.

With access to Necron, Ork, Daemon, and Khorne Daemonkin allies, they have access to edge-case combos that generally haven't been explored as of yet. Add to this an ever-increasing list of formations that they're gaining Allies of Convenience (or better if Khornekin maintains BB status) access to, and running a Chaos Primary is increasingly looking palatable. Whether running a Necron CAD/AD and mass Heavy Destroyers for fire support, adding a Judicator Battalion with attached Nightscythes for a mix of air support and speed, or turning Chaos into Hell's Angels with a Gorepack, you are increasingly being offered ways out of the dilemma of whether to plod forth or take a 250-something-point brick on wheels.

And of course, IA 13 has its own toys to boot. I am still hesitant to get reliant on FW units as a crutch, given the fickle nature of TO restrictions but as hackles are slowly suppressed and units become acceptable in a manner allowing duplicates, units like Sicarans and Chaos Rapiers and Dreadclaws will add a lot of teeth, the latter giving speed to assault units.

What are your thoughts overall?

I think in conjunction with daemons and IA, CSM are very competitive.

BTW: Aren't all darkhorses underrated? That's the point of the term.

I work for the Department of Redunancy Department.

As for core units, other than Possessed/Talons, most units have a case for their inclusion. Troops are a tax but this is the same in many armies.

As for IA 13, the main issue with it by itself at face value is that its best units are in Fast Attack and Heavy Support, with Elites receiving the short end of the stick. Also, while tournaments may allow FW units, FW armies are a whole different beast. If you want multiple Sicarans, you want a Crimson Prophet.

The Khornate Daemonkin book may actually change this situation somewhat, its a pretty viable book.

I hope Daemonkin is a sign of good things to come. I would like a one codex CSM army that is competitive.

This is the stupidest poll ever on this forum.

CSMs are near the bottom of the barrel in terms of codex power as they frankly do nothing well. Allies can help but most any competitive list you see with CSM have them as cultist caddies. As such I voted that they are just plain bad.

To elaborate further their army is focused on expensive generalist models. I like to think of their build as the bizzaro eldar model which focuses on expensive specialists. This is frankly a losing combination as armies like guard or orks are generalist builds as well but are cheap to counter act. As such chaos can't assault like specialist assault armies, shoot like specialist shooting armies, or be cheap enough to not care.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
This is the stupidest poll ever on this forum.

Lol. Not even close. You must avoid the entire GD and YMDC subforums.

IA:13 CSM units and/or deamon allies/renegades can make for a very competitive list.


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 DarknessEternal wrote:
This is the stupidest poll ever on this forum.

Probably one of the stupidest 'inputs' into a thread ever on this forum.


Don't worry OP it is actually a relevant and interesting point of discussion, ignore those who try to put you down with no justification.

 buddha wrote:
CSMs are near the bottom of the barrel in terms of codex power as they frankly do nothing well. Allies can help but most any competitive list you see with CSM have them as cultist caddies. As such I voted that they are just plain bad.

To elaborate further their army is focused on expensive generalist models. I like to think of their build as the bizzaro eldar model which focuses on expensive specialists. This is frankly a losing combination as armies like guard or orks are generalist builds as well but are cheap to counter act. As such chaos can't assault like specialist assault armies, shoot like specialist shooting armies, or be cheap enough to not care.

I'm not following you on this. You're calling Eldar specialists and Orks generalists, when Orks have hyperspecialized units, and many Eldar units have been generalized to the point they can reliably take on two or three different types of unit-defense?

To be a decent force, CSMs need allies.

Anti-air? You need IA13 allies.
Long Range Anti Tank? IA13 again.
Superior Flyerpower? Daemon Allies.
The codex has a few good slots, but great chunks of it need improvement.

It's really stupid that although you can make a decent list from all the sources available every marine you add detracts from it.

The problem I have with the poll is that it assumes the army is still chaos marines once you've thrown all that other stuff in. Generally all you're doing is creating a daemons army you've ruined with the inclusion of chaos marines. That or you've spent ludicrous amounts on FW resin, that would've been better off painted in a loyalist scheme, and thrown in a vanilla marines army where it isn't a crutch, it's cool looking variation.

The problems with the chaos marines dex are well known at this point. It's one of the oldest codexes out of the current batch, and nothing apart from a new book is going to fix the inherent problems built into it. Unfortunately with the Khorne: Daemonkin release it looks like that will be a long way off yet.

Yep that really is the issue. IA 13 is great. Fire raptors, sicarans, all sorts of specialized tanks if you want them, plus a drop pod that can jink and move after landing (and still be a dedicated transport for the right units) all makes the codex quite viable, and Daemons (and presumably Daemonkin) just add more to it.

The real question remains though - are you still running CSM at the end of the day? I have CSM primary with Kharn, 2 squads of Zerkers (one in the aforementioned pod) Be'Lakor, a fire raptor and a land raider with an allied detachment with a Bloodthirster. Pretty fluffly except for the fact that the troops choice for daemons is pink horrors

But at the end of it all, I have like 20 marines in the entire army. I could do more, but every one I add just makes the list worse :( maybe downgrading the horrors to nurglings would net me some more Zerkers, but that's really not any more fluffy

I find csm doing great with a maxed out blob of infantry supported by Cypher and infiltrate or escape hatch. For larger games, Kharn with 19 khornate marines in an escape hatch + Be'Lakor are really frightening when you have other stuff running around the board too.

I've also found that Murderpack (5 helbrutes) with rhino marines, bikersorc, nurgle spawns, oblits/plasma termies and a small allied detachment of tzeench daemons for summoning work unexpectedly well!
So far, they've beaten double CM marines, Crusader spam GK force (for 2++ crusaders), Tyranids with flyrant, 3 droppoded big bugs with lots of flamers - including haywire ones. a squadron of dreads is really great especially when you can buff it with shrowded or invisibility and support with fast stuff - spawns, summoned daemonettes or khornedogs.

I don't use heldrakes at all. They're not bad but i'm not a fan of flyers with all the inherited problems of mobility and board presence.

CSM are an assault army with ranged support - not the opposite. And they function to their full potential in this role. Assault has become much more potent with maelstorm missions.


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Why is there no option Good alone, Great with Allies/Forgeworld?