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Hey Dakka, I'm starting up a budding chaos space marines army (and struggling to choose whether to paint them up as Word Bearers or Black Legion), and I really like the look of the standard marine troop choice CSM gets.

I want to run a blob of 20 CSM (probably unmarked) with a Dark Apostle and maybe a Sorcerer to fish for buffs to keep the blob alive. Not counting special weapons, would the versatility of having a slew of bolters be better than relying on running forward to get into combat?

Even without CCW, I can still (if the unit survives) charge in and get quite a few relatively tough models into combat with a decently large number of attacks. I'm not sure the chainswords would make a difference. I play Orks and often take Shoota Boyz, and I've found at least with them that beign able to shoot choppy units or not wipe out an enemy I've charged can be better than an extra attack.

When giving feedback, please keep in mind my local meta is very much a have fun, low competition environment. I understand blob CSM is likely to get shot off the board in most places by triple riptide etc., but it is slightly less so here. Thanks in advance!

If you want a CC blob then obviously go CCW and BP. To help take Huron and an unmarked lvl 3 sorc and go fishing on telepathy (even the shrouded power works great). Huron let's the blob infiltrate, gives fearless, and the sorc buff. Ally in a gore pack or similar fast moving units to support and you might have a useable unit.

Stick a chaos lord out front in terminator armor to tank for the unit - if you get hit with ap2 then look-out-sir onto another guy.

The weapon upgrades are 'per model' so technically you could mix up the unit half with bolters and half with CCW. Put the bolter guys infront to die. Or you could put a couple more expensive CCW+bolter guys in the back since they will be safer.

Mark of nurgle or slaanish I think would be best to ensure they get into combat alive. Mark of slaanish with icon of excess for feel no pain.

Also some rhinos out front for line of site blocking is a good plan. You can even take a dedicated one for the unit even though they don't fit in it just to give them cover (park it sideways infront of them) and nice part it will also have objective secured.

Could I just stick the Sorcerer in Terminator Armor, or would that not be as good for tanking for the blob since he has one less wound?

I had fun running a large CSM unit with Fabius Bile to buff them all up. It definitely encouraged me to go the ccw route.

 Gratlugg wrote:
Could I just stick the Sorcerer in Terminator Armor, or would that not be as good for tanking for the blob since he has one less wound?

For tanking I would take the lord.

Against normal bolter fire or other mass >ap3 shots he would take the place of 6 warriors before going down (so saves 6 lives).

However, against ap3 weapons (which there are a lot of) he could potentially save 18 of your warriors worth of wounds before going down.

My math reasons that if your warriors suffer 18 ap3 wounds then 18 of them die. However if your lord out front suffers 18 ap3 wounds he would likely save 15 of them when he makes 18 2+ saves and suffer 3 and die.

Now that assumes those shots are not str 8 which would insta kill him, which is why taking a nurgle lord with toughness 5 would make it so that str 8 shots would not instant death him.