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I've been interested in starting a CSM army, and I know there's a rather unfavorable view of them at the moment. But, looking at the book, there seems to be some pretty decent things therein, and I'm sure that there's at least a few things in there that create a workable list. What are the units or combos in the book that make CSM good?

It depends on the mission format you're going to play. In Maelstrom/Modified Maelstrom, speed can have a lot to say when you suddenly have to capture an objective far away. Spawn and bikes (preferably with the mark of Nurgle) are good at this, and are solid units in general.

The Heldrake is still good, despite being hit by the FAQ nerf (from 360 degrees los to 45), but I don't see much point in more than one any more.

Sorcerers are solid, the Spell Familiar item became very good with 7th edition psychic rules. Your only problem is lacking in warp charges, which often results in allying in Tzeentch daemons.

Obliterators are solid.

Plague Marines are decent, but expensive. Great objective holders.

Maulerfiends are good.


Just minimize your troops and stay away from things like Warp Talons.

It's not that the CSM codex is in itself awful (although it can be said to be quite boring compared to what loyalist marines get and what CSM used to have), it's just that they lack the truly overwhelming units that other armies have.

I haven't played a ton of games with my CSM, but I've never been disappointed with a pair of bare-bones Obliterators. I've destroyed entire squads of Kroot, popped open rhinos, land raiders, and wave serpents, finished off daemon princes. If they don't make back their 140 points, they at least grab me 2 or more victory points!

I also like my Heldrake. I only run one, but it has the obligatory Bale Flamer.

Havok Squad with 4x Auto Cannons. Need to open up a Rhino or Truk? These guys do it all day. Other than that, though, they don't do diddly-squat! :-(

Honorable Mentions:

Forgefiend with 2x Hades Autocannons. I have knocked down some FMC with this guy, but otherwise, it rarely gets its points back.

Worst of Kronk's bunch:
Regular, unmarked, CSM squads with 2x special weapons and matching combi-weapon. Good for sitting on an objective, but that's about it.

Helbrute: I would rather spend the points on an Aegis Defense Line...

Iove running two sorcerers at ML3 with spell familiars.

forge fiends are good despite the common thought they aren't

8 str6 shots can hurt.

 raiden wrote:
Iove running two sorcerers at ML3 with spell familiars.

forge fiends are good despite the common thought they aren't

8 str6 shots can hurt.

forgefiends are Str8


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AwayFromLife wrote:
I've been interested in starting a CSM army, and I know there's a rather unfavorable view of them at the moment. But, looking at the book, there seems to be some pretty decent things therein, and I'm sure that there's at least a few things in there that create a workable list. What are the units or combos in the book that make CSM good?

Things in the FA section are STRONG.

Spawn (with MoN or an Attached Juggerlord)
Bikes (with MoN or MoS+Icon)
Heldrakes
Raptors(crap by comparison, but not a bad choice)

If Chaos could make an army of characters and FA, it might be playable.

So far the most reliable unit I have run is a Juggerlord (lord w/ khorne mount and AobF) accompanied by a handful of Spawn or Bikes. Quick, killy and has a decent amount of versatility (could always grab a melta bomb if you really want to).

However, they tend to draw a butt-ton of firepower. Nobody ever wants to see it enter melee.

Oblits should be standard VotLW and MoN as for that minuscule cost they mitigate their 2 big weaknesses, average leadership and multiwound T4.

Cultists are good for cheap obj campers or to provide some cover/bubblewrap to other more valuable stuff.

Keep sorcerors unmarked for the most part. The native psychic tables are generally trash.

The walkers aren't very good really. They're all pretty overcosted for what they do. People dig the Maulerfiend but people that play them usually bring at least 2 to ensure at least one gets into combat.

The fast attack slot is crowded with quality, whereas almost everything in elite is a newb-trap.

NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

And mauler fiends work really well.

Spawns can be nice. fast and hard to kill outright in cover.

Breakdancing nurgle princes are hard to deal with.

Sooo much FW stuff.

Noise marines can be fantastic anti troop removers. as a Heldrakes (just dont bother spamming em)

The 2 words CSM and competitive should never belong in the same sentence.

Check out IA13 for RH and Khorne Daemonkin.

I like my noisemarines, spawn and maulerfiends.

Noisemarines are among the scariest troops choices, in my opinion. The S8 ignore cover blast is the bane of marines everywhere!

The best list i've seen so far is an infiltration-based list backed up by summoning.

Ahriman/Huron, Cypher, 20 marines - khornates or slaaneshites, some ranged support and/or deepstrikers - oblis, termies, laspreds, rhino marines, something fast to threaten the flanks and grab points like bikes or spawns and tzeench daemons to fuel Ahriman with warp charges and summon stuff.

Another decent list is Murderpack - 5 helbrutes in a single squadron. They are unexpectedly good if you support them with psy powers like shrowded, 4++ or invis.

Anywayz, psy powers help a lot and they work best to support larger squads which csm can provide. To get them to the enemy you need to either move fast or get infiltrate which csm can, once again, provide.

People underestimate brutes and standard marines cause they have a bad rep and regular statline. But when you play them correctly, they totally wreck face.

 koooaei wrote:
The best list i've seen so far is an infiltration-based list backed up by summoning.

Ahriman/Huron, Cypher, 20 marines - khornates or slaaneshites, some ranged support and/or deepstrikers - oblis, termies, laspreds, rhino marines, something fast to threaten the flanks and grab points like bikes or spawns and tzeench daemons to fuel Ahriman with warp charges and summon stuff.

Another decent list is Murderpack - 5 helbrutes in a single squadron. They are unexpectedly good if you support them with psy powers like shrowded, 4++ or invis.

Anywayz, psy powers help a lot and they work best to support larger squads which csm can provide. To get them to the enemy you need to either move fast or get infiltrate which csm can, once again, provide.

People underestimate brutes and standard marines cause they have a bad rep and regular statline. But when you play them correctly, they totally wreck face.

This - the Huron infiltrate shenanigans work well with 3x Spawn Packs (and strong ICs) backed up by 3x Maulerfiends and perhaps an allied Harvest formation. Basically you're guaranteeing a T2 charge with lots of reasonably high S attacks.

This is one of the few builds that hard counters Wave Serpents fairly well.

Isn't that warlord trait d3 for Infiltrate though? Seems unreliable.

You just need to infiltrate one big blob with Cypher who has infiltrate himself. Extra infiltrates are just a bonus.

Requizen wrote:
Isn't that warlord trait d3 for Infiltrate though? Seems unreliable.

There have been numerous threads debating whether or not conferring Infiltrate to an IC, then adjoining a unit to him "before the game starts," is legit, or if they can't be kept to Infiltrate together because they aren't deployed together.

It depends how you interpret it. Everyone I game with is OK with an IC conferring Infiltrate to a unit upon deployment, so even if you roll a 1 or 2 on the D3, you can still infiltrate Huron and a unit. You should check with your group beforehand though to avoid any arguments.

Even if it's an issue, you can always deploy your blob 18" away from the enemy then string them back into your deployment zone to slingshot an IC into combat.

 clamclaw wrote:
So far the most reliable unit I have run is a Juggerlord (lord w/ khorne mount and AobF) accompanied by a handful of Spawn or Bikes. Quick, killy and has a decent amount of versatility (could always grab a melta bomb if you really want to).

However, they tend to draw a butt-ton of firepower. Nobody ever wants to see it enter melee.

A good alternative to this now is allied Khorne Daemonkin. Fearless flesh hounds are an awesome juggerlord escort. I've been having lots of luck with a unit of 15 and an AoBF juggerlord

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Requizen wrote:
Isn't that warlord trait d3 for Infiltrate though? Seems unreliable.

There have been numerous threads debating whether or not conferring Infiltrate to an IC, then adjoining a unit to him "before the game starts," is legit, or if they can't be kept to Infiltrate together because they aren't deployed together.

It depends how you interpret it. Everyone I game with is OK with an IC conferring Infiltrate to a unit upon deployment, so even if you roll a 1 or 2 on the D3, you can still infiltrate Huron and a unit. You should check with your group beforehand though to avoid any arguments.

Even if it's an issue, you can always deploy your blob 18" away from the enemy then string them back into your deployment zone to slingshot an IC into combat.

This was actually covered in the latest faq:


That would not be legal.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
This - the Huron infiltrate shenanigans work well with 3x Spawn Packs (and strong ICs) backed up by 3x Maulerfiends and perhaps an allied Harvest formation. Basically you're guaranteeing a T2 charge with lots of reasonably high S attacks.

This is one of the few builds that hard counters Wave Serpents fairly well.

Please correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly, but isn't the CSM infiltrate d3 infantry models? If so, then spawn/bikes/raptors/talons/juggerlords/etc don't qualify.

Why would you want to infiltrate spawnsin the first place - they're allready fast enough to make it across the board by turn 2. Not worth sacraficing the ability to charge 1-st turn imo.

In my experience a lot of the things allready mentioned here are key.

Unmarked Sorcerers with Spell Familiar (maybe on a bike)
Cultists for cheep scoring
Mark of Nurgle Spawn
Heldrake
Maulerfiends
Mark of Nurgle Obliterators

These units play a part in many of my lists.
I also agree that alied Daemons (especially for Tzeentch Mastery levels) are recomendable. Daemons synergise well with the units mentioned above.

One thing that hasnt been mentioned yet as far as Ive seen and is a very competitive choice is Be'lakor. He is a great toolbox and a signicant CC threat.

Two of my more competitive CSM CAD/Daemons AD lists as an example:

Be´lakor
Sorcerer, Bike, ML3, SF, MB
10 Cultists
10 Cultists
5 Spawn, MoN
Maulerfiend, Lasher Tendrils
Maulerfiend
AD
Fateweaver
11 Pink Horrors
15 Fleshhounds
Soulgrinder, DoS, BT
12ML 1849points

Be´lakor
Sorcerer, ML3, SF, MB
10 Cultists
10 Cultists
5 Spawn, MoN
Maulerfiend, Lasher Tendrils
Maulerfiend
3 Obliterators, MoN
AD
HoT, ML3, Grimnoire, Disc
11 Pink Horrors
8 Screamers
Soulgrinder, DoS
11ML 1847

Interested to see if more ideas pop up in this thread.

Cilithan

CSM Codex only? Noise marines, plague marines, juggerlord with axe, obliterators, non-markes sorcerors are good units. Then chaos predator and chaos vindicator are average, maybe Fabius Bile. Nurgle is a best mark.

With Forgeworld? Tons of good units.

 Draco wrote:
CSM Codex only? Noise marines, plague marines, juggerlord with axe, obliterators, non-markes sorcerors are good units. Then chaos predator and chaos vindicator are average, maybe Fabius Bile. Nurgle is a best mark.

With Forgeworld? Tons of good units.

With Forge World coming to GW stores as a rumor, that might not be as big of a problem anymore. What FW units are good?

Overall, the CSM codex in a vacuum isn't that good, in that you can't just take a mishmash of good units and have it work coherently as a competitive tournament army.
You need to pick a theme and go in on that theme. Oftentimes, even then, that theme is best served by having CSM be allied to another codex, usually Daemons, and maybe now Khorne.

A lot of people have already picked out generally efficient stuff, and most of it tends to be things that go towards a fast assault build.

Your best slots are HQ, FA, and HS. Elites and Troops are generally subpar.
HQ: you can get Juggerlords or Nurgle Biker Lords, Sorcerers or a Black Mace DP, or Be'la'kor (Be'la'kor is probably the best choice).

FA: Heldrakes are still great, although they're not "heldrakes does as heldrake pleases," Spawn are really great, same with Bikers (Nurgle Bikers).

HS: Maulerfiends really go into a threatening style, Obliterators (w/ +1T and Vets) if you can't decide which heavy weapons you want.

Troops: Generally quite weak for their points. CSM are worse tacticals without any of the good stuff tactical marines can do (Obsec combat squadding out of Drop Pods, ATSKNF). Plague Marines are tough but expensive, not that killy, and require a Nurgle Biker Lord. Cultists are cheap, default is just take two squads and call it a day.

Elites: Most of the things here are not that good. Terminators are probably the best, and even then you only want them because they're cheap deep striking melta.

Oftentimes, you'll go fast assault + Daemon summoning. Take Belakor + Sorcerer, ally in some Tzeentch Daemons (either heralds, a LoC, or just Horrors), and start summoning daemons all over the place while the fast CSM stuff ties up the enemy.

What works? All you need is you Codex:CSM, Codexeamons, Codex:KDK, IA13, and a few dataslates and you can build a middle tier army! Not so hard to do, is it?

But I still love them, I guess I'm a masochist.

Robis thanks for that tip.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Drasius wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
This - the Huron infiltrate shenanigans work well with 3x Spawn Packs (and strong ICs) backed up by 3x Maulerfiends and perhaps an allied Harvest formation. Basically you're guaranteeing a T2 charge with lots of reasonably high S attacks.

This is one of the few builds that hard counters Wave Serpents fairly well.

Please correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly, but isn't the CSM infiltrate d3 infantry models? If so, then spawn/bikes/raptors/talons/juggerlords/etc don't qualify.

Not saying you should infiltrate the Spawn (which you cannot), I'm saying that infiltrating blobs of Cultists or Marines with attached ICs using Huron works well with rush lists. If necessary, just string a few dudes back into your Deployment Zone and attach them during your Movement phase.

He's saying that Cypher already has infiltrate, so even if Huron rolls a 1, you can give the squad cypher wants to go with infiltrate and they can deploy together.

forge fiends!

My friend had good luck with the (I don't know exact name or details, I have almost no chaos) formation involving a bunch of cultists in front of a forge fiend with a evil techmarine behind him.

Also, he's had really good luck with deepstriking some weird formation of three dreadnoughts

^ first one I have no idea

2nd one is the murder pack.

First one is probably a Helcult (2 units of ferless cultists and a Helbrute).

Second one is Mayhem Pack (3 crazed deepstriking brutes).

Murderpack is 5 brutes in a single squadron.

The Codex alone won't cut it. Add in IA13 and there can be some competitive lists. Allied with KDK (Gorepack!), it could even be a threat to win a couple of games at a tournament.

What I see work is a rush assault list, possibly with air support. Surprisingly, CSM can even bring some of the best flyer-spam lists.

Take your HQs of choice, add minimal troops, then spend the remaining points between FA choices, Maulerfiends, and IA13 units.

From IA13, best units are probably from the following list, in ca. that order:
Fire Raptor, Sicaran, Rapiers w/ C-Beamer, Helblade, Brass Scorpion