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I run a tzeentch list heavy with Oblitorators and it does fairly well.

I have a 270 sorcerer I use that has the scrolls of magnus and an unmarked ml3 one in terminator armour as a side kick.

Had a game on the weekend, 2v3 (me and orks @1500 each) vs (eldar, space wolves, and dark angels @1000 each), we nearly won the game, the space wolf player managed to get an enfeeble off on my command squad which was just enough to weaken them with firepower. They then proceeded to charge every one of their deathstars at my unit and died in melee except for the dark angels who took the anti Chaos melee hammer.

Needless to say that Sorc stood at the front and took 2 full rounds of their entire armies shooting and still killed many of their heroes.

Scrolls of magnus is the most under rated relic I think, it is completely random, but with a lucky roll on your initial powers it can add some great utility later on.

That same Sorc has also single handedly killed over 60% of the eldar guys remaining forces to win.

3++/4++ multi wound invisible endurance deathstar with possibly having life leech as well is quite nasty.

Draining your wallet. Chaos Knight is just an Imperial Knight kit with a separately purchased bit expansion. Same for Dreadclaw. Same for Chaos Warhound Titan. Our Rhinos and Predators just have more spikes than the Loyalist ones. Our marines used to be Space Marines with spikes glued on and a different color.

We're the faction that costs more than Space Marines to play yet doesn't even approach the same level of power.

Akiasura wrote:

 Runic wrote:
I'd say Blood Angels are worse off than CSM. Sisters of Battle aren't faring too well either.

It's hard to say who is worse, CSM or Blood angels. I want to say CSM, since pods at least allow blood angels to pop tanks and get a somewhat decent alpha strike.
CSM are just terrible in any phase of the game, and across all selections. We have a few options that get out of low power and move to competing with bottom of mid units (cultists, heldrake, plague marines, dropping termies with combi weapons) but its still worse than what every other marine codex can do.

Sisters actually aren't that bad. Probably solidly in the middle. They suffer from the tyranid problem though, where most of their dex isn't very good and enough units to make a list prop them up. I'd place them mid tier.

 Runic wrote:

 Shade of Asuryan wrote:
The Codex literally can't put even a remotely competitive take all comers army on the table.

Firstly, not true. Secondly, TAC is dead in competitive play, in the high end anyway.

First, we'd like to see a decent list. Jancoran has been saying both CSM and IG are great armies, but has yet to list a single strength or good build they can pull off. You'll understand why everyone here is prone to disbelief.
For example, his IG blob was wiped out in 2 turns by bikers (who were about 140 less points) and was shot to death by basic marines in pods over 2 turns (again, about 100 less points). Something like ASM with flamers would have been even worse, or sternguard with special ammo.
The eye of night, for example, is going to cause 2 penetrating hits a turn (which they can then attempt to save) and requires a supplement. It hardly deals with knights, an army that currently walks over CSM.
Saturation is also not a strong point of CSM. They have no strong units to spam, so saturation isn't going to work.


Second, TAC is hardly dead at the high end competitive level.
While house rules are alive and well at the high end tournaments, if you browse through the 2015 ETC lists, you'll mainly see TAC lists (especially from the eldar and necron players, who can easily pull it off).
It's hard to call the ETC anything but high end competition.

Does that surprise you about Jancoran? He stopped responding to people in the FW thread too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The truth of the matter is that CSM's don't actually do anything well anymore. They didn't really when the book was released, and they've gotten significantly worse overtime. I put away my codex for good basically because of it.

I could possibly name the at least mediocre and above units on 1.5 hands. It's pretty pathetic.

They can run lots of big units of marines, or can run lots of small units of marines. I'm not sure if having a more extreme range of unit sizes than codex/loyalist marines is a good thing to be good at though.

You rarely see it being taken advantage of even in the most friendly of games.

 Shade of Asuryan wrote:

Damn I was hoping you actually knew what you where talking about.

Haha. Let's see.

That army you speak of would only require; strong anti-air, anti-deathstar capability, anti-horde capability against something that is possibly fearless, has FNP & Hit & Run ( and now even Ignores Cover with Hunter's Eye ), something that can actually bring down the Decurion of Necrons, down 3-5 Superheavies ( IK ), weather the alpha strike of War Convocation + Skitarii or be able to function properly when coming out of reserves and lastly something that can beat the Gladius Strike Force MSU consisting partially of armour.

All that in one package. Must be quite the army, do link an example. Seeing as you think an army exists that can take on all that with a TAC approach I'd say you really shouldn't be talking about other peoples knowledge.

Akiasura has some decent pointers and his comment already displays there is truth to what I say. Paired tournaments are always different, the teams can choose good matchups. In other formats there is no such luxury.

And in those formats, TAC will on average get maimed by powerful skewed lists, and the skewed lists will get maimed by other skewed lists that counter them.

If you choose not to see this then I don't know, must be a unique meta somewhere you live.

You can't make anything top tier out of the CSM. You can however make a list that can compete with other competitive lists, even if it's an uphill battle. Lastly, your point about them not being able to handle anything of the examples is false. A list with 3 Sicarans and 3 Heldrakes, supported by Daemons or R&H can absolutely decimate a scatterbike spam off the table, and fast.

Ofcourse there is a chance you mean something different with the term "TAC" - perhaps elaborate what exactly you mean by the term personally. There is no army build in existence that can take on everything that currently dominates the competitive scene. One can only play around some of them, avoid others and play the mission, or take other alternative approaches. If that qualifies as being "TAC" then I guess you can call every army in existence "TAC."

wonderful, a thread that expresses my thoughts and feeling on my favorite army.

210 Cultists+Typhus
'Nuff Said

 Runic wrote:

 Shade of Asuryan wrote:

Damn I was hoping you actually knew what you where talking about.

Haha. Let's see.

That army you speak of would only require; strong anti-air, anti-deathstar capability, anti-horde capability against something that is possibly fearless, has FNP & Hit & Run ( and now even Ignores Cover with Hunter's Eye ), something that can actually bring down the Decurion of Necrons, down 3-5 Superheavies ( IK ), weather the alpha strike of War Convocation + Skitarii or be able to function properly when coming out of reserves and lastly something that can beat the Gladius Strike Force MSU consisting partially of armour.

All that in one package. Must be quite the army, do link an example. Seeing as you think an army exists that can take on all that with a TAC approach I'd say you really shouldn't be talking about other peoples knowledge.

Impossible to bring a TAC army okay....., well lets just go off the top of my head. tweak the numbers slightly as I don't have my Eldar codex with me. 1850 tac's for the curent meta:

2x farseers on jetbikes one with stone
7-8 D Cannon platforms (3 units)
Cullexus assasin in a bunker with trapdoor.
as many units of scat bikes as possible (think you can get 6 units of 5/6)

there you go , wow I must be magic.

There are plenty of top lists that can tick almost all the meta boxes...that's why they are top lists to begin with.

It might be a bit of a tangent but as a painter and modeller first and player very much second CSM are great for converting, modelling and building varied and interesting sets of figures. There is a huge variety that you can put into one army. There are so many potential warbands, colour schemes, mutations, etc. When you start digging through your bits box to make start building new units you can absolutely go to town on them. No other army comes close for those options imho. You can mix in standard imperial bits, nid bits, fantasy bits, throw bits of blightkings onto raptors, etc, etc. Because it's chaos this looks good, not bizarre. You can build up a stunning variety of unique models that look wonderful on the table. Won't win many games mind! But as a modeller that is why I have a CSM army. Wish I had time to do them justice.

 Shade of Asuryan wrote:


Impossible to bring a TAC army okay.....

Don't know who said that bringing a TAC army is impossible, certainly not me;

 Runic wrote:
There are a few armies who can pull it off

-

I'm still interested in hearing your definition of TAC. Scatbikes can be countered ( in ETC they were mostly pit up against flyrant spam if a team had such a list available ) so in the end it's a skewed list which will get crushed by another skewed list, but which can in turn dominate many others. Basically exactly what I said earlier.

Maybe saying TAC is dead is an overstatement. But in high end competitive 40K it is a priviledge of a few armies at best. If you take into consideration all the armies in the game most of them can't conjure up such a list.

 Runic wrote:

 Shade of Asuryan wrote:


Impossible to bring a TAC army okay.....

Don't know who said that bringing a TAC army is impossible, certainly not me;

 Runic wrote:
There are a few armies who can pull it off

-

I'm still interested in hearing your definition of TAC. Scatbikes can be countered ( in ETC they were mostly pit up against flyrant spam if a team had such a list available ) so in the end it's a skewed list which will get crushed by another skewed list, but which can in turn dominate many others. Basically exactly what I said earlier.

Maybe saying TAC is dead is an overstatement. But in high end competitive 40K it is a priviledge of a few armies at best. If you take into consideration all the armies in the game most of them can't conjure up such a list.

Runic, agreed. The upper dexes can bring TAC lists, especially in the ITC format.
Actually the list he posted is similar to what is commonly seen in the ETC with only minor changes being needed.

CSM are good at 6th edition 40k. That's what they were made for. They can counter any 6th edition list by running at them and beating them down in CC.

In 7th they run at you and die.

''All that in one package. Must be quite the army, do link an example. Seeing as you think an army exists that can take on all that with a TAC approach I'd say you really shouldn't be talking about other peoples knowledge. '' - Runic 2015

I gave you my example above. Which dealt with everything you asked.

Not sure why you are bringing up the ETC which is a team based tournament using pairings , has nothing to do with what I was talking about /shrug.

Now you decide to change your position.... this is a total waste of time.

Enjoy your competitive CSM wins in your FLGS I guess?

 Shade of Asuryan wrote:
''All that in one package. Must be quite the army, do link an example. Seeing as you think an army exists that can take on all that with a TAC approach I'd say you really shouldn't be talking about other peoples knowledge. '' - Runic 2015

I gave you my example above. Which dealt with everything you asked.

Not sure why you are bringing up the ETC which is a team based tournament using pairings , has nothing to do with what I was talking about /shrug.

Now you decide to change your position.... this is a total waste of time.

Enjoy your competitive CSM wins in your FLGS I guess?

You gave an example army that gets demolished by flyrant spam ( as evidenced by the ETC pairings ) as a TAC list. So, you gave no fitting example. If you're only talking in a team competition context then it's indeed pointless.

You might also want to consider changing your tone, that arrogance simply humours me.

The Helcult is an amazingly useful formation and doesn't get mentioned as often as it should. Rules overview: 1 Helbrute and 2 units of cultists. The cultists gain fearless as long as the Helbrute is alive. They gain Zealot if it is destroyed. The Helbrute gains rage, but, more importantly, it can claim a 3+ cover save from cultists. If it passes a save, it kills a cultist.

I usually run it with two 20-25 man squads of cultists with no upgrades. They are a very effective tool in establishing board control, bubble wrapping more important units, swamping dangerous enemy units or monstrous creatures, camping objectives, distract your opponent, etc. I almost always give the Helbrute a plasma cannon - it usually makes up its points this way. It also soaks up enemy fire with the 3+ cover save. In a competitive environment, I have combined the formation with Necrons and using the swaths of cultists to disrupt my opponents' movement and insulate more important units. Last local tournament I finished 2nd without using a decurion.

Helcult is decent, I usually do 2x min cultists with a lascannon on the brute but I always found that a raider was more worthwhile for nearly the same points.

Honestly the only way I have been able to play chaos marines effectively is by using houseruled and FW. I run a mix of all chaos gods, and only daemonkin seem able to hold themselves up without relying on Belakor and added psyker summoners to screen opponents. One houserule that is often accepted here is allowing any chaos dreadnaught to be used in the hellcut/etc formations. Using 40+ plague zombie cultists to shield my contemptor with butcher cannons works rather well against most armies, as does my apostle of Tzeentch w/sorcerer spamming boon of mutation inside a cultist tarpit...really I should be playing renegades and heretics with all my cultists xD

Look here I was criticized as making cheesey lists with CSM at my flgs. How the hell am I supposed to win if I dont min max CSM? I take troop taxes and spam fast and heavy slots. That is all i can do with CSM as other armies get free points or op formation rules.

 Grumblewartz wrote:
The Helcult is an amazingly useful formation and doesn't get mentioned as often as it should. Rules overview: 1 Helbrute and 2 units of cultists. The cultists gain fearless as long as the Helbrute is alive. They gain Zealot if it is destroyed. The Helbrute gains rage, but, more importantly, it can claim a 3+ cover save from cultists. If it passes a save, it kills a cultist.

I usually run it with two 20-25 man squads of cultists with no upgrades. They are a very effective tool in establishing board control, bubble wrapping more important units, swamping dangerous enemy units or monstrous creatures, camping objectives, distract your opponent, etc. I almost always give the Helbrute a plasma cannon - it usually makes up its points this way. It also soaks up enemy fire with the 3+ cover save. In a competitive environment, I have combined the formation with Necrons and using the swaths of cultists to disrupt my opponents' movement and insulate more important units. Last local tournament I finished 2nd without using a decurion.

The helcult is actually pretty good. My friend uses it and it's pretty solid.

I've heard they throw great parties

 thegreatchimp wrote:
I've heard they throw great parties

Our cheese is bitter though, but at least our whine is endless!

 Runic wrote:

 Shade of Asuryan wrote:


Impossible to bring a TAC army okay.....

Don't know who said that bringing a TAC army is impossible, certainly not me;

 Runic wrote:
There are a few armies who can pull it off

-

I'm still interested in hearing your definition of TAC. Scatbikes can be countered ( in ETC they were mostly pit up against flyrant spam if a team had such a list available ) so in the end it's a skewed list which will get crushed by another skewed list, but which can in turn dominate many others. Basically exactly what I said earlier.

Maybe saying TAC is dead is an overstatement. But in high end competitive 40K it is a priviledge of a few armies at best. If you take into consideration all the armies in the game most of them can't conjure up such a list.

Lists that are 'top tier' are there because they are TAC lists. Thats a tautology.
Yes, 40k is a game of Rock-Scissors-Paper and you can construct a counter to any other list if you really want to. But the top lists either dominate or hold their own against 99% of non-tailored lists.

Eg, Scatterbike spam works because it has masses of mid strength long range firepower that can put the hurt on anything less than AV13 / T10. D-Weapons destroy anything that S6 can't handle. Its fast and maneuverable so it gets easy points on Maelstrom.
Flyer spam is tough for *anyone*, because it relies upon target saturation to survive the game. That being said, jetbike spam Eldar deal with it better than most - masses of fast S6 shooting with relatively easy access to twin-linked means they can get behind the Nid flyers and force them to jink.

ETC pairings really skews the game and can make powerful armies seem even more powerful. Sometimes you see a overpowered list on the other team (5 WK lol) and just throw the game, putting your worst list against their best so your other lists have a better chance of survival.

 Filch wrote:
Look here I was criticized as making cheesey lists with CSM at my flgs. How the hell am I supposed to win if I dont min max CSM? I take troop taxes and spam fast and heavy slots. That is all i can do with CSM as other armies get free points or op formation rules.

Min max it, take one look at their Imperial Knight and tell them to feth themselves. That's my answer. Chaos Marines are great but anyone who complains about min maxing a Chaos army just hates losing.

Not really a tournament goer myself, but at a tournament, you don't need to be able to defeat every other list present. You only need to be able to do well against most of the lists you are drawn against (depending on scoring systems). This makes me wonder, is it really worth making the concessions against the lists you are most likely to face (FOTM) just to improve your chances against the lists that might be present, but not even close to the same number? Is TAC a winning strategy?

Besides which, the most prestigious awards are Best Sportsman, followed by Best Army, both of which CSM have a very good shot at winning. In my opinion Best General is nothing but a nod to the fact that warhammer is nominally a competitive game as well as a creative/social hobby. Well that's my opinion as a non-tournament goer!

I think the word "All comers" is too vague for a true answer.

Basically, I build all armies to be able ot handle the worst examples of the codex's I'm familiar with. So for example, if you do not bring enough firepower to kill a Wraith Knight your chances are sharply reduced of winning it all. If that's within your lists ability, you move to the next checkbox. And the ORDER of he checkbox's is really a reflection of the most compeittive things you are seeing because by extension, that should prepare you for other things. Not a perfect mesh but certainly good enough for Generalship to play its role.

I myself now have a Adepta Sororits list that barring horrible dice, will AVERAGE be able to kill a Wraithknight and a half in turn one. So once I have that ability I move on to the next thing on the list until I'm out of points.

Knowing whats out there is a big part of being smart about the build. And that takes time and practice. So to be a "tournament level" player (also a terrible term but I couldn't think of a better one on the fly) you can't just be good at deploying and planning. You need to KNOW the enemies well!

I suppose, sticking to your example, you also need to consider the missions and scoring systems of the events you attend. Obviously some times you don't need to have enough firepower to kill a Wraith Knight, just enough manpower to survive a Wraith Knight's firepower.

Knowing yoru enemies... very Art of Warhammer advice there Jancoran!

I got criticized for bringing an invisible bikerstar, and the guy i played against brought a transcendant ctan from the apocalypse book. chaos space marines are really good at beating your opponent, their spikes can be used to impale your opponent. or they can be used as inspiration to invest in the greek economy

We see units in competitive play that can TAC because competitive play itself is TAC. But this means a ton of units are unwanted in lists, not necessarily because they're awful but because they have too narrow a role. Unless that role is destroying super heavies, flyers, or troops in cover, it's probably unneeded for your TAC list.

Wraithknights can kill just about anything, as can Wraithguard. Scatbikes are spammed because they glance fast moving things to death and can stay out of range of the slower stuff while having sufficiently high strength weapons to handle almost all opposition and crush hordes or high save models with volume of fire. Flyrants soar through the skies shooting tanks in the rear or hitting infantry with the same high volume while being hard to hit themselves. Plague Marines are the only CSM worth taking because T5 counters more things than AP3, Ignores Cover, or Extra Charge Attacks. Be'lakor is used commonly because his Invisibility is guaranteed and a great counter to all types of shooting/assault lists. Heck, 2++ saves are popular because they counter all types of attacks except volume. Fire Raptors obliterate flyers AND ground units, Grav cannons work against armored warriors AND vehicles, mid to high strength Rending troops cause AP2 AND make penetrating easier, Imperial Knights are sturdy AND lethal both in shooting AND assault, the tournament scene in general favors anything that is versatile and can Take On All Comers.

Which leaves specialized units out in the cold when a more GENERAL USE ONE can accomplish the same task. CSM Is basically full of those, a virtual Swiss army knife of utility that desperately needs to "KNOW the enemy".

There are a ton of CD/CSM armies in tournaments. The CSM side is usually Be'lakor, Heldrake, 10x Cultists but that's still top table material.

No comments on the relative value of the codex but the above is true. Meanwhile KDK might open up some new synergies as Daemon ICs can be attached. Just food for thought.

Yoyoyo wrote:
There are a ton of CD/CSM armies in tournaments. The CSM side is usually Be'lakor, Heldrake, 10x Cultists but that's still top table material.

No comments on the relative value of the codex but the above is true. Meanwhile KDK might open up some new synergies as Daemon ICs can be attached. Just food for thought.

Also food for thought, Choking on badly cooked fish can kill you, Tau or not.

There are perhaps 3-4 units within the CSM Dex that are constantly used, not because they're viable, but because they are simply the best in slot.

Heldrakes for instance, aren't that great anymore. People shouted doom and gloom over them being marine killers but nothing ever stopped Marines from bringing Div on Libs and gaining invulnsaves. People only shout D&G when things don't go their way, but every codex to date in one way shape or form has an answer to something another codex might have (Stave for Chaos)

Obliterators, Nurgle Bikers, Heldrakes and Artifacts (Not even the units carrying them) are pretty much all we have going for us. That isn't much to say about a dex that by all rights should be cheaper all around in terms of PPM...

As for Daemons, so far from what we have ALL seen in the tournament scenes, the Daemon Players are running WC / Daemon Factory with multiple levels of resummons. Most Daemon players are aware that the only way they can compete is by summoning and maintaining board control through objectives. By utilizing Pink Horrors and hoping for Possession or Hounds/Seekers they manage to eek out a top 10 in Tournament scenes. Are their lists good? Certainly not frightening.. They're durable and not by the model, Daemon collectors like myself have to invest in extra models due to GWs "Maelefic Summoning" which effectively means I need to bring almost double my Troops, Fast Attack and HQs. Which I have to buy first. If anything, Daemons are a shot straight from the "Pay to win" section of GWs sick and twisted inner workings of how to screw players over just a little more. We have to bring more models to the field just to be adequate and the only way to do that is to run a certain list type dedicated to making full use of it.

Chaos as a Faction are garbage, if you play competitively against them and lose, as Necrons, Eldar, Tau, SMs, you are doing something horribly wrong.