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So, I've been really considering building an army around Raptors and Warp Talons. HQ would most likely be Lord with jump pack. One or two Heldrakes considered, and some Havocs for long range support. That list may sound trash, but I'm just throwing an idea around. And of course more units would be included. Would a Chaos Jump Army be at all effective? If you have some suggested troop choices, I'd love to hear them!

So it sounds like a stereotypical Night Lords army. The KhorneKin has a good Formation along those lines, and you can run multiples of that Formation in regular games, so you don't need anything but those models. Maybe throw in a Gorepack for Melta platforms. A single CAD of CSM would give you access to the rest of the models you might need, but the main focus would be those Formations so you can really load up on Fast Attack.

Doable, sure, but effective? I seriously doubt it. I personally wouldn't waste the money on 4+ boxes of Raptors to make it effective but I have seen Chaos Jump Packs at their most worthless, and never at their best. So my view is pretty skewed.

I'm not sure a whole army of jump guys would work that well, but Raptors and Warp Talons are not as bad as most people say. Like Shark mentioned, the Khorne Daemonkin codex has a decent formation for them. I have used this formation and found it to be decent. It would have been more so if I was a better player. If you're running regular CSM, consider Mark of Tzeentch for your Talons. Heldrakes are pretty good, too, and should be included in almost any CSM force.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I'Warp Talons are not as bad as most people say.

Warp Talons are pure crap. Raptors can be made to work, even though they take the spot away from Heldrakes or Spawn or Bikers. Warp Talons aren't even CLOSE to being worth using that valuable slot on.

Purchase icons for deep striking abilities with Raptors and Warp Talons as well as Havocs, Heldrakes take care of themselves.

But if you face an army with Hunter/Stalkers and Hydra Flak Batteries, you are screwed unless your Heldrakes takes care of them first, however they are vulnerable to anti aircraft tanks.

Me personally I would dump the idea, but it's your army.

I run raptors lately. Theyre good for one good turn in Maelstrom type missions. Turn one bodies, fast moving, and usually people are more afraid of other things and under estimate them.

Most people will recommend Bikes since the +1T, jink, and twin linked bolter is better than... the 3 point difference.

But more effective isn't a requisite for playing Chaos in the first place.

I use Raptors, Spawn, and Bikes in every list at the moment, and so far Spawn work out the best, followed by Raptors and then lastly bikes that get focused on the most.

I second the raptor idea, don't take the warp talons thou, not worth it at all. Being a NL player I usually run them with KDK codex, but only 2 squads, supported with hounds, rhinos, and pretty much anything than can move 12" just like the raptors so that they don't get killed due to being the closest thing to the opponent army.

First of all, don't listen to all the naysaysers lol
Second how many points are you aiming for?
And third, just how raptor/talon heavy should it be? I'm asking cuz you mentioned air army, that could include anything deepstriking or dreadclaws or what have you

And lastly...forge world yay or nay?

That sounds awesome dude! If you're new, let me just run you through the fluff here, the 9 big chaos legions are Black Legion, the World Eaters, the Death Guard, the Emperor's Children, the Thousand Sons, the Word Bearers, the Iron Warriors, the Alpha Legion, and the Night Lords.

The night lords are the fast moving, get in mess gak up and get out legion. They used to get a lot of support from GW back in 3rd edition because of the awesome lightning pattern that the army usually has all over the place and you can still get the upgrade packs online. They are pretty out of date so you might be able to find a 3rd party company that does it better but definitely look around. The most important thing is that it's your army and the fluff is out there if you want to play that style, or if you want to make it your own thing that's just as good. Maybe some kind of successor chapter. If I were you though, I would use the Khorne Daemonkin book because you get a little CC boost and better army construction options.

Jump Infantry will always make some useful hammer of wrath attacks and if you play it right you'll get a few turn two assaults, which is quick enough to have the remaining manpower to shred whoever you touch. Don't let anyone tell you that you're doing the list wrong because you aren't spamming Heldrakes. It takes a lot more than that to win big tournament's and if you're the average run of the mill player, the games more about having fun and you can definitely do that given the theme you're working with.

Roknar wrote:
First of all, don't listen to all the naysaysers lol
Second how many points are you aiming for?
And third, just how raptor/talon heavy should it be? I'm asking cuz you mentioned air army, that could include anything deepstriking or dreadclaws or what have you

And lastly...forge world yay or nay?

Points-wise, 1500 to 2000 would be the target. Based on my own recent research, and overall opinion, I'll probably be rocking Raptors as the main force. Unless there is a third jump infantry I missed, they'll be the bulk of the army. I wouldn't want to bring only Raptors, so I was wondering if I should bring normal CSM squads along, just Havocs, or a little of both. For my HQ choice, for better or worse, is going to be a Winged Daemon Prince of Tzeentch. Just bouncing around whether to go Black Mace or Burning Brand. May depend on the enemy, though. Heldrake(s) will be included, for sure. No more than two, I think. I want the main focus to be flyer/jump infantry/units, but not the sole focus. So I might throw, say, a Maulerfiend in there, lmao. Also, no Forge World.

What's your stance on using khorne daemonkin then? So far, the list is pretty much already partly a Khorne's Bloodstorm formation. Limits your options of course being all khorne and all, but free bonuses I guess. Of course to get the most out of them would mean to go full daemonkin, which would interfere with the tzeentch DP.

It would suit the playstyle though. To get the most out of raptors, you probably will want a lot of other threats in your opponents face, and Daemonkin can do that.

On the other hand with enough jump or deepstriking units, the dimensional key might come in handy, that alone would be worth trying for me lol, but then I really like the idea of the key lol.

The normal dex can somewhat let you do ranged raptors though, with some sorceror support and luck, if you want to give that a shot. Probably not the most competetive idea but I would imagine it's pretty fun.

Roknar wrote:
What's your stance on using khorne daemonkin then? So far, the list is pretty much already partly a Khorne's Bloodstorm formation. Limits your options of course being all khorne and all, but free bonuses I guess. Of course to get the most out of them would mean to go full daemonkin, which would interfere with the tzeentch DP.

It would suit the playstyle though. To get the most out of raptors, you probably will want a lot of other threats in your opponents face, and Daemonkin can do that.

On the other hand with enough jump or deepstriking units, the dimensional key might come in handy, that alone would be worth trying for me lol, but then I really like the idea of the key lol.

The normal dex can somewhat let you do ranged raptors though, with some sorceror support and luck, if you want to give that a shot. Probably not the most competetive idea but I would imagine it's pretty fun.

Forgive me if I sound noobish here, as I'm still new to the game. Do Khorne Daemonkin & CSM count as different armies altogether? If so, can I just take the Raptors/Heldrake as an allied detachment and still use the bloodstorm formation? Can allied detachments use formations?

In game terms they are completely separate. So you can't mix them in a CAD or so, but nothing is stopping you from using a Blood storm formation of daemonkin and a combined arms detachment of CSM together. or multiple blood storms and nothing else.

If you wanted to you could use an allied detachemnt of CSM and make the bloodstorm fomration your primary detachment.

Allied detachments don't "use" formations, formations are a form of detachments all on their own.

An allied detachment is also a detachment. Different from the "normal" combined arms detachment. It has nothing to do with allies. It just happens to be named so.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Of course there is always unbound, where you can mix and match as you want.

For reference, the bloodstorm formations is a formation consisting of several units of Raptors and Talons with an optional Heldrake. You can take as many of this as you like.

You can take a regular FoC along side the formation(s) with a DP as HQ (I'd go with burning brand on a Tzeentch DP) to fill in the other needs of your army (like anti-tank for instance).

DaPino wrote:
For reference, the bloodstorm formations is a formation consisting of several units of Raptors and Talons with an optional Heldrake. You can take as many of this as you like.

You can take a regular FoC along side the formation(s) with a DP as HQ (I'd go with burning brand on a Tzeentch DP) to fill in the other needs of your army (like anti-tank for instance).

That cleared things up a lot, thank you. With taking the normal FoC along, with DP as HQ, would the correct way to say that be "Chaos Space Marines allied with Khorne Daemonkin"? Or perhaps "Chaos Space Marines with (x) Bloodstorm Formations"?

CSM with the Bloodstorm Formation(s). Because your primary would be where your Warlord is, so that gets priority even when it isn't the focus.

You could technically have some lowly champ in the bloodstorm be your warlord though, making the blood storm your primary.

and just for clarity, your army could looks something like this:

Your army 1:

1 Combined Arms detachment of CSM

hq

2 troops

1 Bloodstorm formations

a bunch of raptors, a warp talon and heldrake

OR

Your army 2:

1 Combined Arms detachment of CSM

hq

2 troops

1 Combined Arms detachment of Daemonkin

hq

2 troops

OR

Your army 3:

1 Combined Arms detachment of CSM

hq

2 troops

1 Allied detachment of Daemonkin

hq

1 troop

OR

Your army 4:

1 Bloodstorm formations

a bunch of raptors, a warp talon and heldrake

1 Bloodstorm formations

a bunch of raptors, a warp talon and heldrake

In the first three armies your always using allies. The detachment type doesn't matter, just that your using different factions. The core of your army is whatever you want it to be. That could be just one unit that is borrowing a special character from an allied faction for some nice combo.
But your primary detachment is determined by your warlord. In 1,2 and 4 that can be any character in the army, but in 3 you are using an an allied detachment, which has a specific restriction that it can't be your primary, so there your warlord would have to some character in the CSM CAD.

So saying CSM allied with X doesn't actually mean anything. It just means your using more than one faction. And you can't mix factions within a single detachment, so you will have at least 2 detachments if using an allied force. How you organize that is up to you and can get pretty crazy.

I hope this wasn't more confusing than helpful^^.

 BrandonSparkman wrote:

DaPino wrote:
For reference, the bloodstorm formations is a formation consisting of several units of Raptors and Talons with an optional Heldrake. You can take as many of this as you like.

You can take a regular FoC along side the formation(s) with a DP as HQ (I'd go with burning brand on a Tzeentch DP) to fill in the other needs of your army (like anti-tank for instance).

That cleared things up a lot, thank you. With taking the normal FoC along, with DP as HQ, would the correct way to say that be "Chaos Space Marines allied with Khorne Daemonkin"? Or perhaps "Chaos Space Marines with (x) Bloodstorm Formations"?

It would be considered "Chaos space marines with Khorne daemonkin formations" because technically you'd have to use the Khorne daemonkin codex unit entry as far as I'm aware. But I think no one would object to you using the CSM codex entries, because apart from the mark, they're mostly the same. You'd actually be handicapping yourself a bit by using CSM raptors/talons, since you wouldn't be using blood tithe points (a mechanic in khorne daemonkin that gives you buffs for killing/getting killed).

Personally, I think if you want to make "the best possible army around raptors/talons", daemonkin is the better bet if you don't mind going full Khorne (altough I'm not saying CSM won't work, I just think daemonkin'll work better). The concept of the army would be something like this:

Blood host detachment (special detachment that can replace the standard FoC in the Khorne daemonkin book):
1) Slaughtercult formation: You need to have this, there's no going around it, it's mandatory. (1 Lord/herald/DP/BT, 2-8 CSM/Berzekers/ Bloodletters, 1-4 possessed, 0-2 spawn/cultists)
Note: take bloodletters if you can, I'll explain why in a moment why they're better than CSM and berzekers.
2) Any number of Khorne bloodstorm formations (2-4 raptor units, 1-4 talon units, 0-1 heldrakes)
3) Any number of the War machine "formation" (1 forgefiend/maulerfiend/defiler/Helbrute/soul grinder)
Note: I'd pick Soul grinders (and maybe forgefiends) here since this'll be the anti-armour and soul grinders have at least some skyfire.

You can take up to 8 formations (not counting the slaughtercult)

The idea behind the army is the following:
You give all bloodletters a banner of chaos and keep the in deepstrike reserves, along with (most of?) the Warp Talons. The banner allows all daemons (so other bloodletters and warp talons) within 6" of the bearer to deepstrike without scatter, this is immediately active as they arrive on the board. The idea is to DS a unit of bloodletters (that do scatter, so watch out) somewhere and deepstrike all other units that come after it (even in the same turn) without scattering. This will allow you to use the Warp talon's warpflame strike ability to its maximum potential.

This doesn't work for raptors, so you deploy them as usual along with your vehicles. They will have to chew through some bullets on the first turn, but you can assume the enemy has got better things to shoot from turn 2 on like, oh I don't know, ALL those bloodletters and warp talons that deepstruck right in front of their face. Best to take small units of bloodletters (ensuring at least one comes in turn 2) and small units of warp talons (to get as much warpflame strikes as possible). Best case scenario, quite a chunk of his army is now blinded and can only snapshot at your freshly arrived killers.

Another strategy is to take berserkers in rhinos, instead of bloodletters, and just deploying everything as normal, all in small units. This will give your enemy more targets than he can shoot, ensuring that as many units as possible get to him.