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So I finally got my SW:A rulebook and am now wondering how viable a sort of CSM Deathwatch would be. (Black Legion)

On the lord I was wanting to take two power swords and either a mark of Khorne or undivided. Two power swords so I can parry twice (and not be parried) and since you have to alternate hits, so I don't loose out on damage compared to bringing a chainsword or less.
Iwas planning on getting him stuck in combat as often as possible and to hunt for those free advances. Maybe add a plasma pistol eventually so he can at least still shoot or just settle for frag grenades. Hopefully the parrying would keep him relatively safe once in combat.
With Undivided, I'd aim for ferocity and Iron Will, that seems like it would be very welcome indeed in a low model count kill team with leadership 10 on the champion and fluffy for black legion. The rest helps him reach combat, makes him tougher or more deadly.
For Khorne I'd probably aim for combat, potentially forcing three re-rolls and not really loosing any attacks with feint, although counter attack could be a problem with fumbles. Muscle would also work well and would be very fitting for Khorne.

I'd get at least one gunner to roll on guerilla tactics as soon as possible, just because it seems like an amazing skill tree in general. Give this guy a plasma gun for starters and later a heavy. Not sure which, they all seem good. Mark of nurgle since this guy should survive.
Though if he is being hit by ranged weapons because everybody else is hidden or whatever, Mark of Tzeentch might be more valuable? Although that would seem more valuable yet on a normal chaos space marine.

So a normal marine (MoT) with a bolter with scope and such and a bolt pistol for melee and maybe two pistols if he can get gunfighter. Equipped with Inferno bolts of course. Rolling on Shooting when I get a chance, eventually turning this guy into somewhat of a marksman spec-ops type. Seems like it would be pretty decent for not a whole lot of points invested.

Then another marine Geared for melee, so chainsword and bolt pistol I reckon that can act as back up for the champion. Muscle seems nice, Body Check would help the champion against high WS leaders or hurling fighters as a kind of CC or taking fighters out of action as it's no longer a multiple combat. Or throwing them to the champ that is hiding out of line of sight lol. Mark of Slaanesh seems nice here to prevent pinning and with the champ close could do so within 6 inch. Plus MoS works well with headbutt.

And then I guess another khorne gunner just so I don't have to open a cache later to afford a second one. Just with a chainsword as he would get the plasma gun from the other gunner when he gets his heavy.

First resupply would be spent on cultist meat shields whose only purpose would be to eat lead so my marines can get into CC or to round out gear.

So the list would be this:


What are your thoughts? I kinda want to make the leader khorne, but the leadership thing seems like it would be wasted on anybody else, what with the leader testing for bottling. Also camo gear seems like something you would want on everybody, but the same could be said about scopes, which totally negate camo gear.
I'm also kinda worried about my champ being too expensive given that he only has a single wound and other leaders are pretty nasty too. How valuable is MoT on the leader, or MoN? I'd be specifically hunting other leaders after all in order to benefit from extra advances.

The overall plan would be to round out the marines and add some meatshields that can (ideally) gang up on stuff. The cultist weapons aren't half bad from what I can tell, but yea, they're meatshields first. Then from there just try to maintain the 5 marines and like 3-4 cultists.

There's a thematic sub-forum for specialist board games.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/57.page

Anywayz, there are a couple things i can suggest.

The average result that you get from your attacks doesn't scale linearly with the number of attacks. There's really no much use having more than 3 attacks unless you're fighting someone with parries and can't parry yourself. So, your standard champ's 2 attacks and 2 weapons with parries will likely be enough. On the other hand, you might face teams that can disarm your fighters. And than you would benefit from 3 base attacks (MoK). However, you're usually better off not fighting those guyz in mellee at all. Even with CSM.

Every mark has a place. And every member can pick individually. There's really no best pick. I'd probably not take MoK for a champ unless it's a thematic list. As notet above, 3 attacks are usually enough. A regular fighter will benefit from this +1 attack. MoN and MoT will always be useful. MoS is also great for a champ but you risk rolling +1 ini and you don't ususally need to have ini that's higher than 5. Undivided is interesting as most games end with a failed bottle test - like gw has insightfully noted in the rulebook. But if you aim for ferocity tree, ld 10 is not required as ld9 re-rollable is still good enough. However, ferocity also has a sorta furious charge talent that doesn't work with parries. And parries are really great to have.

Don't neglect shooting. Especially with csm. You've got high bs and decent weaponry. Even primarily mellee fighters could use bolt pistols - great weapons. There are some armies that you can't reliably deal with in mellee. They're too fast and have higher ws. Like harlequins and tyranids. But you can use your mellee dudes to eat charges and get a chance to actually hurt those clowns with overwatch. Furthermore, your bolt pistol reach, including movement, is 12' for short and up to 28' for long with sights. That's a lot more than simply 8' charge. And don't forget about grenades. If you have a MoN guy that's not a heavy gunner, don't hesitate to take those sweet poison grenades. Even regular frag and krak are good depending on what you face.

Overall CSM are an interesting flexible team. But you need to keep in mind that your fighters are quite expensive to purchase. The start might be rough cause your ranged damage output is almost identical to other more numerous teams on a per model basis and you got to be very careful to not loose too many fighters. And loosing a champion - especially early on is a huge problem. So i'd not aim for those 'free' advances and instead treat them as just rare opportunities. So, i think it's good enough to have a bolt/plazma pistol and a power/regular/chain sword. Chainswords are not as advantagious to csm as they are to orks or ig cause you allready have 4 str and all you're getting is parry, 1 better rend and a noizy rule for 25 pts. It's not that bad to stick with a regular sword when you don't have those 10 pts. They also become better if the model gets +1 str. Though, most models come with chainsword arms.

I'd try to squeeze in 5 csm at start, including 2 specialists. It's not necessery to equip your specialists with expensive weapons from the get go - a plazma and a flamer could do. You can purchase heavy bolter or autocannon later on. The start of the campaing is the toughest time for you but the end result will be amazing.

Oh, ok. Thanks for letting me know. Could a mod please move this to the correct forum then? Thanks.
I don't consider it a board game myself, but I suppose it technically is lol.

From what I understand ALL fighters get the bonus attack for two weapons. They all carry a basic knife and all the units I looked at start with a combat blade or similar, which has a knife profile, but the knife has it's own entry too so that's two weapons right there no?
I just went with two power swords due the alternating attacks, so I wouldn't loose on the AP/Strength for the alternating attacks as opposed to power sword and the cheaper assault blade, but then It's much much cheaper so maybe that's worth it, at least at the beginning.

However, ferocity also has a sorta furious charge talent that doesn't work with parries. And parries are really great to have.

I assume you're referring to Berserk Charge? I don't see how that would interfere with parrying? It's just a better modifier for your combat score.
As for LD10, I regularly fail even LD10 morale checks in 40k so that +1 bonus is not overkill as far as I'm concerned XD. You're right about MoK being better on a regular fighter though, so I guess I'll stick with undivided on my leader.

Should I trade a power sword for an assault blade and a plasma pistol? That is get the pistol later and use the extra points in the beginning to get some camo gear or so for the team? Or a scope for the tzeetnch guy.
Should I get the +1 strength bonus the assault blade would be a better chainsword anyway and weaker fighters still wouldn't get much of a save so having a second power sword wouldn't do THAT much more.

plasma is really good. It allows to pin harleuins and tyranids. The armies you will have problems against - especially at start.

I already got the plasma gun for the nurgle gunner, to be replaced later down the road with the khorne gunner who still gets two attacks due to being khorne. Who knows, maybe 3 if I decide to roll on muscle.
So later I would have a plasma pistol, a plasma gun and a heavy bolter or autocannon. Kinda leaning towards a heavy bolter. They look cool and sustain 2 sounds pretty wicked combined with the BS 4/5 that we get. I'd also have the inferno bolt marine.
So a potential 3 guys with sustained fire at -2 AP or better and two or three heavy impact weapons. That should be ok for shooting I'd think while still being quite heavy on melee.

 Roknar wrote:

From what I understand ALL fighters get the bonus attack for two weapons. They all carry a basic knife and all the units I looked at start with a combat blade or similar, which has a knife profile, but the knife has it's own entry too so that's two weapons right there no?

Unless they carry a non-pistol shooty weapon. In which case, no extra attack for them.

 Roknar wrote:

I assume you're referring to Berserk Charge? I don't see how that would interfere with parrying? It's just a better modifier for your combat score.

Yeah, i got it wrong.

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but, if I loose the champ, he's gone for good? You can spend a maximum of 200 points in the resupply phase and he costs 225 naked, so you could never afford a new leader?

There's a guerilla tree talent for +50 pts after battle. Also, there's a chance of earning more pts with some pre-mission rolls.

Ah right, so possible but tough to replace. What about the guy that was a leader before? Is he demoted again or do you have a bench warmer now? They seem to mention only being promoted to leader, not the other way round, unless I'm missing something.