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Also, it may be possible to plan to get 15 VP for certain secondaries. Like the grand ritual secondary. It requires a psyker to be near the centre, and the psyker has to perform this grand ritual 3 times. Its easy to cast, and its something that a sorceror can easily do as one of its casts. Just need to beware that it can be denied. But if you are constructing a list that is planning on taking the midboard anyway, it can be an option too. Especially if your opponent has no ability to deny. (maybe Tau). Just get your sorceror into the midboard and cast this 3 times and its 15 VP.

I don't have the new rulebook. Anyone have a link to a run down of all the secondaries?

CSM armies in 9th are going to be fighting for victory points more than dominating the battlefield. We're just so outclassed with shooting and combat, I don't see us dominating battlefields so much as playing for points.

Hi Techsoldaten,

Here's a link to an article talking about secondaries:

https://nightsatthegametable.com/how-to-score-secondaries-in-9th-edition/

And I made a mistake. Its not treated as casting of a psychic power. Taking a psychic action (like mental interrogation or that grand ritual) means you can't cast any other psychic power for that model during your psychic phase. That's kind of harsh if you need that sorceror for more than just doing a psychic action.

But at least it doesn't prevent you from taking other actions with the unit, whether its to move, or charge or fight or even shoot.

Some lists can be designed to take easy 15 VP secondaries. Like Tau can easily max out the secondary "while we stand, we fight" because they can have 3 riptides as their most expensive models, and then protect them with shield drones" The opponent is placed in a situation where, if they shoot at those 3 Riptides guarded by drones, they are not shooting at the other stuff that might be contesting objectives. But if they ignore those 3 riptides, then its an easy 15 VP in secondaries for the Tau.

I think how we design our lists to maximise VP will be important. Because I agree with you, we can't outshoot people on the battlefield. The good thing about this edition, is that we don't need to do that. You can win the battle in VP without having to kill more stuff than your opponent. BTW, no matter how killy an army you have, you can only take one secondary from each category. So, for example, you can only take one from the "purge the enemy" category. You can't choose all three from that category.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Been thinking of individual "strike forces" These are cheap enough yet powerful independent strike forces that can go and contest, win and then sit on an objective. Like take for example the below strike force:

Dark Apostle
council of traitors: blackclad brute
Relic: black mace

2 dark disciples

3 Hellbrutes, all with reaper auto cannon, hellbrute fist, combi bolter.

10 cultists.

This strike force costs 459 points. Not counting the Apostle, you need to chew through 36 wounds, of which 24 of those wounds are T7. And all of those wounds are protected by a 5++ invul bubble.

The Hellbrutes can shoot, and want to get into combat. So, whatever they can't kill by shooting, they will charge and beat up in close combat melee. The apostle himself has Str 8 attacks in close combat and is no slouch at fighting either. Meanwhile, the cultists are a cheap distraction, but being obsec, if they are on the objective, then you are assured of getting it. The 5++ invul on them just makes it even harder to get rid of them, if the opponent choose to focus on them over the hellbrutes.

The whole strike force is cheap, yet tanky and independent enough to function fine without any other support from the rest of the army.


One more thing. Played MOP before, seen MOP used lots in many battle reports before. My conclusion, if you want to use MOP for casting cursed earth, because you need that 4++ invul on your daemon engines around him, then the world bearer's MOP with that relic is probably the best bet. Otherwise, I have seen too many people fail to cast that WC7 power cursed earth just when they needed it.

How would you upgrade this Red Corsairs list to 750 points while trying to play to the strengths of the corsairs?

Chaos Lord with power axe of blind fury

5 CSM with chainswords
5 CSM with bolters and 1 missile launcher

5 Raptors w power fist

Defiler w heavy flamers and autocannons

500 on the spot.

I'm tempted to just smush together one big unit of CSM just so the player can pull them off the board and refresh them, but it just kinda feels like starting to drop a lot of units and going down to 20 CSM + Defiler would be pretty boring.

I am also not that great at building chaos in general, I don't quite know what's worth it and what's needed. I do know that Red Corsairs do want larger units and that third unit of CSM as well.

But do I just chuck in a second 5-man squad of chainswords and cram as many CSM into the bolter squad as possible? Do I go oblits or terminators? Like, what do I do with the remaining 180 points after those 5 CSM for the extra CP?

At least 5 more CSM for the bolter squad I would assume, so 110 points left... now what? Upgrade the lord to a Disco lord so that I have two daemon engines? A single oblit? 5 more CSM and a jump pack for the lord? I'm kind of lost.

I’d look at a Sorcerer with Warptime, and a bikers unit with Flamers

Advance and fire three Flamers, then charge, alongside a Warptimed Defiler

CP galore works great when you’ve got something to spend them on, in a 750 game you’re going to find it tight to field three troops and also have a lot of working parts

Leveraging advance & charge enables potential to contest enemy objectives on the first turn, speed bump their infantry, or shut down their gunner

Could even Warptime the bikers after they advance, for a real deep insertion

Bonus: Huron likes his bikes, this is rather thematic

Neknoh wrote:
How would you upgrade this Red Corsairs list to 750 points while trying to play to the strengths of the corsairs?

Chaos Lord with power axe of blind fury

5 CSM with chainswords
5 CSM with bolters and 1 missile launcher

5 Raptors w power fist

Defiler w heavy flamers and autocannons

500 on the spot.

I'm tempted to just smush together one big unit of CSM just so the player can pull them off the board and refresh them, but it just kinda feels like starting to drop a lot of units and going down to 20 CSM + Defiler would be pretty boring.

I am also not that great at building chaos in general, I don't quite know what's worth it and what's needed. I do know that Red Corsairs do want larger units and that third unit of CSM as well.

But do I just chuck in a second 5-man squad of chainswords and cram as many CSM into the bolter squad as possible? Do I go oblits or terminators? Like, what do I do with the remaining 180 points after those 5 CSM for the extra CP?

At least 5 more CSM for the bolter squad I would assume, so 110 points left... now what? Upgrade the lord to a Disco lord so that I have two daemon engines? A single oblit? 5 more CSM and a jump pack for the lord? I'm kind of lost.

At some point, start to introduce psyker into the army. Chaos spells are very powerful and the player needs to learn how to use and defend against psykic. So either add in a sorceror, or upgrade the chaos lord to a Daemon Prince.

Jumppack sorcerer to be excact, mobility. Either warptime, deathhex or prescience on it for babysitting the good ol defieler. <which is a good start to teaching synergy.

The rest of the pts into a another small CSM squad to get a battalion. ( that way

I'd still replace the heavy flamer with a havoc launcher on the defieler..


If you go to 1000 I 'd expand all CSM squads to 10, simply for the fact that i found that to be the sweet spot for no shortage and survivablity to trigger it.
>

BTW, alot of new FAQs have dropped. But by and large it seems that faith and fury and our CSM codex 2 are mostly untouched. So, based on that, Abaddon still adds 2CP to your army, and Red Corsairs also add CP to your army simply by being red corsairs.

Hence, for those that want to soup in either additional detachment or other chaos detachment, then right now, Black Legion and Red Corsairs allow you to do that without taking much of a CP hit.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
BTW, alot of new FAQs have dropped. But by and large it seems that faith and fury and our CSM codex 2 are mostly untouched. So, based on that, Abaddon still adds 2CP to your army, and Red Corsairs also add CP to your army simply by being red corsairs.

Hence, for those that want to soup in either additional detachment or other chaos detachment, then right now, Black Legion and Red Corsairs allow you to do that without taking much of a CP hit.

probably make RC lord discordant battalion quite interesting as an add on.
you get advance + charge on them ontop of a selfpaying battalion if you field 3x5 marines.
Vice versa you could go cheap and add mostly sorcerers instead.

Huron also does give CP to my knowledge, and he didn't hike i feel so that makes him actually quite decent, funny thing too, Huron made me start CSM

Alright! With your advice I've cooked up the following for the 750 points of Red Corsairs:

Lord w blind fury
Sorcerer w force axe, smite and warptime

5 CSM with chainswords
5 CSM with bolters and 1 missile launcher

5 bikers with (if I understand it properly) flamers AND combi flamers. Or is this a needlessly excessive cost? Also got an Icon of Wrath and a power axe on the aspiring.
5 Raptors with Icon of Wrath and a power fist

Defiler, still with twin heavy flamers and the reaper autocannons. Perhaps I should drop an Icon to try to make room for a havoc, but I am assuming that it's blast and the short range, fire in combat 2D6 gun feels as if it would encourage the player to close with the defiler rather than sit back.

There's not really a wrong playstyle for the defieler though, it's just that the flamer is bad.
ATM: you pay 22 pts LESS for a havoc launcher instead of a twin heavy flamer. and even in 9th you will pay less for the havoc, (infact the havoc got cheaper in 9th even though it gained blast.)
BTW: the sorcerer can pick 2 powers and baseline knows smite.

I'd not equip flamers on the bikers, it's indeed excessively overcosted, the combibolter is good enough since it allways rapid fires on top of a bike.

Another thing to think about:

Distance of the midpoint objectives to our deployment zone is quite reachable even for infantry. Objectives are 40mm in diameter, and you only need to be within 3 inches to contest it.

Consider this:

2000 point strike force missions:

1) Retrieval Mission: Your deployment zone is only 4 inches from two of the midboard objectives and 20 inches from the other two. In turn 1, you can literally move onto your closest midboard objectives, and by turn 2, you are within charge roll of the other two.

2) FrontLine warfare: Your deployment zone is 12 inches away from the midboard obj. Again, considering you just need to be within 3 inches of the 40 mm diameter objective, a good advance roll even for normal infantry will literally put you within that 3 inches on turn 1. And if you go second and your opponent already has stuff on the objective, then you can literally move normally and be within good charging distance as well.

3) The Four Pillars: Your deployment zone is 10 inches from 1 midboard obj, 15 inches from the other. Again, 10 inches is literally a move advance away for even infantry. Actually, given the size of the objective, I think even a normal move will get you to within 3 inches on turn 1 already.

4) No-Man's Land: your deployment zone is 12 inches away from the two midboard obectives. So, same as Front line warfare.

5) Scorched Earth: and vital intelligence. Same thing. midboard obj are 12 inches away from your deployment zone. So, very reachable.

Based on this, unless your opponent intends to give up the midboard objectives totally. Both you and him can bring to bear lots of forces by turn 2 (possibly even turn 1). And this is even with "slow moving" infantry.

And I know a lot of people still think shooting is king this edition. But again, the midboard objectives have sort of changed things up. Consider this. Say turn 2, you push onto a midboard with a successful charge with your infantry units and they are stuck in combat. (Let's assume both sides have enough units so that neither side suceeds in wiping the other side off for now). So, now, beginning of turn 3, all the midboard are contested. Now, will your opponent decide to fall back and use shooting to blast you off that objective? Let's say he decides to do that. He risks 2 things.

1) He tries his best, but fails to shoot you off that objective. And he already fell back his own units. So, you get to score VP while he doesn't. It will be Turn 4 before he gets to charge his units back into the fray. And he will NOT get to score VP until the start of his turn 5, even if he cleared you off.

2) He suceeds in shooting you off that objective. But again, his troops fell back in turn 3. So, at most only by turn 4, can he then move in his units to the now vacated objective and again, he only can start scoring VP for that by the start of his turn 5.

So, because of these considerations. Having strong shooting and relying on that to clear units off an objective is... not always going to be a winning strategy. So, based on this, Melee is pretty important this edition. Because with melee, you charge onto an objective, kill the troops on that objective and then you consolidate 3 inches to boot so you get to reposition yourself. If you rely on melee to get the job done, you set yourself up to immediately start scoring VPs on that objective at the start of your next turn. Whereas if you rely on shooting to get the job done. You only set yourself up to score two turns later even in the most optimal circumstances.

Disagree, giving up T1 scoring might be very well worth it if you can guarantee a butchering of enemy units. Can all armies pull something like this off?
No, will armies like marines etc be capable enough doing so, yes.

Erm, I think you need to elaborate. What do you mean by T1 scoring? You can't score any objective VP on turn 1... Do you mean, have a shooting army that blasts away the entire opponent's army on turn 1... well, that's what obscuring terrain was supposed to address...

Also, what I was trying to bring across is that Shooting isn't all powerful in 9th ed. Melee still has a place in 9th ed, and a pretty important place too.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Erm, I think you need to elaborate. What do you mean by T1 scoring? You can't score any objective VP on turn 1... Do you mean, have a shooting army that blasts away the entire opponent's army on turn 1... well, that's what obscuring terrain was supposed to address...

No i meant you pull defense in depth.

Basically you concede land to preserve men and lure the enemy, in this case the player attempting to rush midfield into your fireing line.
He can't score until T2 for him anyways, you blasting happily away at his units there allows you to potentially significantly weaken the enemy before you get to counter attack, if done correctly and having enough firepower you will basically have crippled your opponent from T2 onwards to a degree that you can dominate more of the board easier.

As for terain, that has a whole lot of issues attached to it, last but not least that RAW for it atm is WONKEY, but also even more depending on how a table is set up.

Further, i seriously doubt alot of armies even have the required staying power to remain in the midfield long enough for the scoring to reward them for it.

Also, what I was trying to bring across is that Shooting isn't all powerful in 9th ed. Melee still has a place in 9th ed, and a pretty important place too.

melee will be forced into the same it was in 8th, a slew of units with movement shenaningans punching above their weight class either or as a part of such acounter offensive plan.
Khorne berzerkers might verywell even in 5 man squads outright butcher anything they charge in the middle field but lack the staying power.

Alright, magnetizing it so that I can run either havoc or twin heavy flamers depending on what the list needs and what the enemies look like.

Though even if the havoc has a longer range, it shares strength, has blast so no melee shots and it only has 1D6 shots and uses balistic skill.

25 points more in 9th gets you 2D6, -1 AP (which the havoc does not have) and auto hits whilst being able to fire in melee.

Although the havoc does LOOK hella sexy on this particular conversion.

The Defiler's main selling point is its durability vs cost. It has enough damage dealing capability that you can't afford to ignore it in any loadout. Spending more points on it hurts its main advantage of being very cheap for how hard to kill it is.

Generally you'll get a better return off putting points into upgrading other unit's firepower instead.

Yes exactly and to that I'll add punching the lights out of most things including threatening even knights. Maaaybe one exception would be a pair of twin Las defilers supported by proper buffs to save pts. But even then your only 85 pts away from EC Las havocs so upgrading defilers is more downgrading to the army.


And I feel Blast is getting overrated with maybe a few exceptions. Actually obsec is too, to an extent. In certain context it is a game winning strategy. For csm I don't feel it will be. Typically, although certain builds ya maybe such as DG for example. But it doesn't change much for chaos marines being trash.

Yeah, CSM troops just aren't that good. Except maybe mass cultists as a meatshield, and that's if you buff them up. I have tried mass cultists with 5++ invul plus FNP (delightful agonies). Its a pain to remove, plus if your opponent fails to remove the whole block, then use a tide of traitors and they are all back.

My point about Blast was actually less about the possibility of getting those max hits and more about the inability to fire the weapon in melee.

At a 25 point difference, there isn't a whole lot I could do with a 500 point list for those extra points by downgrading it, but some options are:

Jump Pack on the chaos Lord
Plasma pistols for the vulture squad
Another special or heavy weapon for the CSM squads

At higher points, this might be more valuable to work with, but at 500, I don't quite see anything other than the jump pack as being possibly worth dropping the heavy flamer for.

Neknoh wrote:
My point about Blast was actually less about the possibility of getting those max hits and more about the inability to fire the weapon in melee.

At a 25 point difference, there isn't a whole lot I could do with a 500 point list for those extra points by downgrading it, but some options are:

Jump Pack on the chaos Lord
Plasma pistols for the vulture squad
Another special or heavy weapon for the CSM squads

At higher points, this might be more valuable to work with, but at 500, I don't quite see anything other than the jump pack as being possibly worth dropping the heavy flamer for.

I think you'd get more out of more weapons on the CSM, and Jump Pack on the lord is a very good thing.

Neknoh wrote:
My point about Blast was actually less about the possibility of getting those max hits and more about the inability to fire the weapon in melee.

At a 25 point difference, there isn't a whole lot I could do with a 500 point list for those extra points by downgrading it, but some options are:

Jump Pack on the chaos Lord
Plasma pistols for the vulture squad
Another special or heavy weapon for the CSM squads

At higher points, this might be more valuable to work with, but at 500, I don't quite see anything other than the jump pack as being possibly worth dropping the heavy flamer for.

You could get a spawn.
Which is actually not a bad choice.

Hmmm, have a question.

If we take a Nurgle batallion. So everything is mark of nurgle. This means we can bring

Abaddon, any characters, Nurglings, Any other CSM units which are mark of nurgle. Correct? Still battle forged detachment right?
The only thing is we now lose the legion trait. We can still use CSM strategems right? We do lose Cacophony though...

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Hmmm, have a question.

If we take a Nurgle batallion. So everything is mark of nurgle. This means we can bring

Abaddon, any characters, Nurglings, Any other CSM units which are mark of nurgle. Correct? Still battle forged detachment right?
The only thing is we now lose the legion trait. We can still use CSM strategems right? We do lose Cacophony though...

You need a pure CSM detachment to unlock the Strats.

If you had a CSM Patrol and a mixed Nurgle Battalion, you could use the CSM strats on units from the Nurgle Battalion, but if you ONLY had the mixed Nurgle Battalion, you would not unlock any strats at all.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Hmmm, have a question.

If we take a Nurgle batallion. So everything is mark of nurgle. This means we can bring

Abaddon, any characters, Nurglings, Any other CSM units which are mark of nurgle. Correct? Still battle forged detachment right?
The only thing is we now lose the legion trait. We can still use CSM strategems right? We do lose Cacophony though...

You need a pure CSM detachment to unlock the Strats.

If you had a CSM Patrol and a mixed Nurgle Battalion, you could use the CSM strats on units from the Nurgle Battalion, but if you ONLY had the mixed Nurgle Battalion, you would not unlock any strats at all.

Ah I see! Thanks! Bringing Abbadon and then taking a mixed patrol detachment seems like a pretty good deal to me. The patrol detachment cost is paid for by Abbadon and in the mixed nurgle patrol, we can take everything from nurglings to deathguard units like Plague burst crawlers to nurgle daemons.

Going to try my first 1,000 pt game of 9th game this weekend. What do you guys think of something like this? Still gotta tinker with points but I'm a little concerned running 5 man squads isn't going to be survivable enough.

Black Legion Battalion

Abaddon
Dark Apostle
Sorcerer

4 5 man CSM squads with 1 Missile Launcher

1 5 man Havoc Squad with 4 Lascanonns

1 5 man Havoc Squad with 4 Autocannons

 l0k1 wrote:
Going to try my first 1,000 pt game of 9th game this weekend. What do you guys think of something like this? Still gotta tinker with points but I'm a little concerned running 5 man squads isn't going to be survivable enough.

Black Legion Battalion

Abaddon
Dark Apostle
Sorcerer

4 5 man CSM squads with 1 Missile Launcher

1 5 man Havoc Squad with 4 Lascanonns

1 5 man Havoc Squad with 4 Autocannons

5 man squads are quite survivable if you have enough different ones, the missile launcher with the improvement it got in 9th could be interesting. The list may bee a bit too slugish on the field but it should be workable so long you can have the havocs survive?
I'd assume you'd run prescience and warptime for the sorcerer, maybee warpsight on the DA?

Not Online!!! wrote:

 l0k1 wrote:
Going to try my first 1,000 pt game of 9th game this weekend. What do you guys think of something like this? Still gotta tinker with points but I'm a little concerned running 5 man squads isn't going to be survivable enough.

Black Legion Battalion

Abaddon
Dark Apostle
Sorcerer

4 5 man CSM squads with 1 Missile Launcher

1 5 man Havoc Squad with 4 Lascanonns

1 5 man Havoc Squad with 4 Autocannons

5 man squads are quite survivable if you have enough different ones, the missile launcher with the improvement it got in 9th could be interesting. The list may bee a bit too slugish on the field but it should be workable so long you can have the havocs survive?
I'd assume you'd run prescience and warptime for the sorcerer, maybee warpsight on the DA?

Correct on the psyker powers. DA was going to get either Warpsight or Benediction. I'm also thinking of doing Council of traitors, giving the DA Black Clad Brute and the Black Mace. Sorcerer would get Trusted War Leader. MoS on everything but the regular CSM.

Hmmm, Abaddon seems very expensive for a 1000 points game. Your characters take up 40% of your army ... Well, it might work I suppose, but you need to make your characters do work. They can't afford to hang back. Abaddon especially needs to be leading the charge.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Hmmm, Abaddon seems very expensive for a 1000 points game. Your characters take up 40% of your army ... Well, it might work I suppose, but you need to make your characters do work. They can't afford to hang back. Abaddon especially needs to be leading the charge.

Abaddon is expensive. But look at the list.

- 4 Missile Launchers
- 4 Lascannons
- 4 Autocannons

These are high damage, long range, single shot weapons. Abaddon's reroll aura increases chances to hit by about 16% and his morale immunity aura will probably be important.

Is that worth it?

If this list is going to fight tanks / elite troops / etc, yes. Hordes no.