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Hi all! long time lurker, first time poster,

Always been a closet 40k fan (as has the family), last time played / painted must be coming towards two decades ago! Anyway, as we gathered for Christmas, my brother brought over his First Strike 40k set and paints, before you know it, our father (67 going on 17) popped out and bought the Dark Imperium box, and things escalated from there, additional Deathguard units were bought, Roboute G and some friends appeared overnight (poor quality photo attached! - can't directly link / embed as not allowed on first post)



Refusing to be outdone, I decided to jump back on the bandwagon and as I really like the CSM aesthetics... and being the all or nothing character I am, now find myself in possession of the following...

Arch Lord Disco
Daemon Prince
Kharn
Dark Apostle
MoP

40 CSM

36 Khorn Bezerker
6 Greater Possessed

6 Bikers
10 Warp Talon

3 Venomcrawler
6 Oblit

3 Rhino


I've been scouring this forum and other resources, in addition to the codices, FnF etc to try and make sense of how to prioritise and turn all these little plastic figures I've bought, into a false emperor slaying warband of greatness, but I keep dithering in terms of picking a <Legion>
I really, really like the in your face approach of World Eaters, and my first thought was perhaps start with those bezerkers with the rhino's, and perhaps disco/venoms offering some disctractions / shootiness. Clearly this would include Kharn leading form the front, who from what I've read seems like a stand up guy.

But I really like the Obliterator models, and to an extent even the bog standard CSM figures.. but does it really make sense for shooty things to be in a Army such as WE?


So what would you do with the above models available to you, if you loved World Eaters, but wanted to be able to game everything. I suppose an option could be paints up the zerkers as WE, and perhaps with the rest go for something like Alpha Legion to be used in battleforged detachments? I'm guessing this is the most 'optimal' thing to do, but I do like the idea
of having everything as a member of a single legion in the same pretty colours. How much am I gimping myself if I do this?

World Eaters loves shooting, actually. A 50/50 blend of melee and ranged hugely compliments their style.

Khorne Berserkers for the hard front, and shooting to deal with fast, high or simply out of reach units .

Kharn has to be World Eaters, MoP cannot be World Eaters so you can either run multiple sub-factions or leave one of the two at home. Taking shooting units as WE is silly when they'll be quite a bit better as AL or one of the renegade chapters.

WE Battalion: Kharn. Daemon Prince w. 2 claws. 9+5+5 Zerkers all w. chainaxes and chainswords, replacing chainaxe w. powerfist is an okay option on the champions. 2 Rhinos, combi-bolter is okay but no other upgrades.

AL Battalion: Disco Lord. MoP or Apostle. 3x5 CSM w. plasma in each squad. 6 Obliterators (MoS).

That's your core list, now you can mess around with the rest of your pts. Bikes and MoP/Apostle belong in AL the rest belong in WE. Make squads as small as possible to avoid morale, exceptions include units you want to buff with Stratagems or psychic powers like the Obliterators or when filling up space in a Rhino.

From your stuff available it seems likely you will want a detachment of world eaters with kharn and some berzerkers in a rhino. The above poster pretty muched covered the most likely optiomal choice for what you got which is a world eaters / alpha legion combo.

You could also remove the disco lord and use the MoP and Apostle as the HQ and make a 3rd Detachment using the Disco Lord and 3 Venomcrawlers in a soulforged pack. (I still suggest keeping them alpha legion) Now you got more threats pushing up board with your berzerker in rhinos. Gives your opponents some decisions to make whether to take out the disco lord, rhinos, possibly prince and venomcrawlers

Greetings Invidious, welcome to Dakka!

In building your warband, ask yourself how "competitive" you want your army to be - or perhaps a better question is what you want it to do for you. What do you enjoy about the hobby? Is it having a fully painted and cohesive army? Is it the fluff? If so, then you could go all in for World Eaters.
Obliterators are good generally (so people say - my rolls are always atrocious with them and they always underperform for me!), and World Eaters do appreciate ranged support - Khorne cares not!

If you are looking for a competitive army that will win battles and stomp your opponents, then running detachments from different legions may be more 'optimal'. Alpha Legion grants a greater defensive buff and offers a toolkit of useful stratagems. Red Corsairs grant you more CP for taking lots of CSM squads. Night Lords gives you a reliable stratagem to get those warp talons in to tie up large parts of the enemy force.

I'd recommend starting off small and building up. Run World Eaters to start with and see where that gets you. Something like this:
Battalion Detachment: World Eaters
HQs
- Kharn
- Exalted Champion (use the dark apostle or greater possessed models, or convert one up)

Troops
- 3 x 9 berserkers, all with chainswords and chainaxes, an icon of wrath in each squad, and champ with a powerfist.

Transport
- 3 rhinos with dual combi-bolters

Spearhead Detachment
HQ
- Disco Lord

Heavy Support
- 3 x Venomcrawlers
It's a fast and choppy list with decent threat saturation. Will struggle with flyers but should perform well against infantry and tanks.

I know the old csm box came with special weapons and a heavy Bolter. The heavy Bolter really isn’t a bad range weapon; consider running a squad of heavy Bolter havocs. Also, with the cunning use of a file, you could turn two bolters into a Combi-Bolter so you could run a Combi-Bolter chosen squad or two. Plasma chosen can be a bit nasty as well. the beauty of the generic CSM with special/heavy weapons is that they can be special weapon chosen/generic chaos space marine squads, or havoc/generic chaos space marines (just clarify to your opponent. If there’s a squad of marines with 4 heavy bolters obviously it’s a havoc squad, etc.) . Glue a Bolter to an occasional plasma marine like it’s a backup weapon and you’ll also have a combi-plasma marine for either a chosen squad or if you want dual plasma chaos space marine squads so that you could have a plasma and Combi-Plasma marine, which will give you something to do with 40 marines XD Berzerkers are min/maxed with chainswords and chainaxe with no bolt pistols but I feel like they really don’t need that; if they make it to combat and as long as they made the charge then you’ll be fine. Definitely include an icon for your Berzerker squads. It might be worth saving a few marines for in case you buy a havoc kit in the future as well, and figure out what you are willing to magnetize for the marines. Melta was, in terms of what you paid for what you got, the best special weapon you could put on the generic marine squads last edition, and this edition it is plasma or Combi-Bolters by a land slide. The point is, don’t be afraid to apply the rule of cool to your models. What performs the best on the tabletop is shifting constantly this edition, let alone between editions. Top tier super competitive is only temporary at best. Chaos space marines are often best run MSU to avoid losing expensive models to silly things like morale and to cram 2 units into a transport should you use the rhinos. Also, paint the legion colors you enjoy the most. If worst comes to worst and you like the lore of the night lords for instance but you think a different legion trait fits your army play style more, the, run them as such. Also, you can count as the MoP as a sorcerer. Which will synergize with your list better since he really works with Daemon engines... as do the greater possessed. I also love bikes. Modeling your champs with a second Combi-Bolter and the other two with spare plasma (maybe from your warp talon box?) will make for a mobile gun platform.

TL;DR
Rule of cool takes precedence as does your personal preference.
Currently, plasma weapons are the best special weapons.
Heavy weapons are generally decent. Model them if you want them.
When in doubt, magnets.
Berzerkers work best with chainsword and chiainax and an icon.

That’s what I would consider with what you got.

 Drakeslayer wrote:
Greetings Invidious, welcome to Dakka!

In building your warband, ask yourself how "competitive" you want your army to be - or perhaps a better question is what you want it to do for you. What do you enjoy about the hobby? Is it having a fully painted and cohesive army? Is it the fluff? If so, then you could go all in for World Eaters.
Obliterators are good generally (so people say - my rolls are always atrocious with them and they always underperform for me!), and World Eaters do appreciate ranged support - Khorne cares not!

If you are looking for a competitive army that will win battles and stomp your opponents, then running detachments from different legions may be more 'optimal'. Alpha Legion grants a greater defensive buff and offers a toolkit of useful stratagems. Red Corsairs grant you more CP for taking lots of CSM squads. Night Lords gives you a reliable stratagem to get those warp talons in to tie up large parts of the enemy force.

I'd recommend starting off small and building up. Run World Eaters to start with and see where that gets you. Something like this:
Battalion Detachment: World Eaters
HQs
- Kharn
- Exalted Champion (use the dark apostle or greater possessed models, or convert one up)

Troops
- 3 x 9 berserkers, all with chainswords and chainaxes, an icon of wrath in each squad, and champ with a powerfist.

Transport
- 3 rhinos with dual combi-bolters

Spearhead Detachment
HQ
- Disco Lord

Heavy Support
- 3 x Venomcrawlers
It's a fast and choppy list with decent threat saturation. Will struggle with flyers but should perform well against infantry and tanks.

This is a solid list. I would say, if you're looking for a second sub-faction to run with, Red Corsairs in a battalion with your Chaos Space Marines gives you a very strong amount of command points and you can run 20 csm with chainswords and bolt pistols as expendable goobers that you can resurrect with a stratagem. That sounds funny.

No useful advice as such, but kudos to you and your family for going all in! Hello and welcome

You could go Black Legion and run everything, you could also paint your army in your own scheme and use the rules from whatever faction you like best. These are your dudes after all.

One option is to go for all world eaters and take a patrol or supreme command of Khorne Daemons.

They have a relic, the crimson crown, which works really well with oblitorators, lord discordant, venomcrawlers and warptalons. If you take a daemon prince with sword or axe they also have great relic weapons for that. They would also let you reroll your charge rolls for all your venomcrawlers and warptalons.

It's not the most optimal possible but still will work and be a load of fun!

I’ll add my opinion to the mix. As others said a lot of your choices will depend how competitive you want to be. That said I will be giving advice from a more competitive sense as whole.

As most already said world eaters is a must for bezerkers and Kharn. So if you plan to play them you will have use world eaters in your list. As a whole world eaters are just a tad too fragile to good in a very competitive environment, but they hit like trucks if you can get them into close combat. So in you’re current situation they will be just fine.

Now on to the main discussion of this forum, whether or not you should take another sub-faction or not. From a purely “making your army better” perspective, you should absolutely add another subfaction. For Obliterators ,especially locking them into world eaters is quite bad, because when they’re Slaanesh (which they can’t be as world eaters) they are able to fire twice with a stratagem. World eaters offer them very little on the other hand, and taking a detachment of another legion costs you nothing within the framework of the rules. If theme is very important to you/your group than this might be a worthy sacrifice, but just know you are nerfing yourself if you play pure world eaters.

Lastly I strongly disagree with the rest of the thread that alpha legion is the best choice for Obliterators and your discordant. Iron warriors is the more fluffy choice for these, and IMO much better rules-wise. Your solo discordant can take a relic which gives him T7, 13 W, and S5 which is extremely good. Also Obliterators can get much more firepower with Iron warriors. Re-rolling random characteristics on their guns is super important (enough that you don’t want to have to rely on a MoP power going off), re-rolling wounds against vehicles, and they can get 2 hits on any 6’s from a warlord trait. Every-time I play with/against alpha legion I’m disappointed with them, while Iron warriors always seem quite strong.