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Not fluff wise but stat wise and weapon wise are they different? I know the Chaos can field demons, but are vihicles and dreads the same stats? ive heard things about icons but idk what that is. In wanted to convert my lot of SM from AoBR to Chaos so I need to know.

You can't run a CSM army out of the SM book if that is what you are wondering. Chaos vehicles have different stats and upgrades than SM versions.

i was going to buy the codex, but are the stats of SM equivalent to their Choas counterparts? And overall, which is better/more efficient?

If your talking JUST chaos marine on Space marine. They are practically the same. Chaos marines have better Ld thats it. They both use bolters/bolt pistols/chainsword.

After that it comes down to wargear and Icons and things of that nature.

The dreds are fairly close stat wise. Chaos dreds you have to roll every turn, sometimes they are cool calm collected. Other times they flip out and go ripshitriot on your marines lol

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dracomere: And overall, which is better/more efficient?

They balance out.
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What are you looking to do?
How do you wish to play?
Do you prefer vehicles over infantry, or the inverse?

Oh, if you don't know something, type out 'i don't know' instead of idk.
The extra characters won't cost you a dime extra, and you may get more replies to your post.

Main differences:

-SM have bolters OR chainsword + bolt pistol, CSM have all 3
-Because of the above, all CSM get 2 base attacks, whereas SMs get 1
-SM have better technology, they get stormbolters, assault cannons, Storm shield and thunder hammer, and a bunch of other perks. CSM get older technology.
-SMs "Shall show no fear", CSM do not but are higher ld (10), can buy an icon to allow reroll of leadership (essentially a flag guy)
-CSM have daemons
-CSM have a few unique units: The defiler, obliterator, possessed, chosen...SMs do as well: Ironclad Dread, Sternguard, Assault Terminators, Whirlwind, Razorback
-CSM have special marines that worship the 4 gods. Each have certain advantages.


Basically it comes down to CSM in general being better in CC, and SMs being a little more ranged with better guns.

The differences are... complicated.

You're really in the wrong forum to be asking for a simple description of the differences, for someone who doesn't own (and hasn't thoroughly read) both codices.

The short answer is the comparable unit choices are comparable in stats (with CSMs getting an extra attack due to wargear and SMs getting Combat Tactics, Combat Squads, and ATSKNF), other than SM being cheaper in a handful of shared unit choices (due to SM being the newer codex, and taking more advantage of the 5th edition "discounts" to non-troops choices).

But the two armies are significantly different, even if similar models have similar stats on the tabletop.

if I was to answer your question Belphegor, I would like to be more inf heavy and have tons o squads with rhinos and dreads

Well with 'count as' it's easy to make a 'Chaos' army using the Vanilla Codex.

It's as easy as head and shoulder swaps...hell you can paint them all Smurfs and put red 'x's over the heraldry and they be 'chaos' space marines...ie renegades.

Right now I'm doing a 'Chaos' biker army using Vanilla Sm rules...works like a charm...just have to convert them without doing a piss poor job of it.

True, different armies.

Chaos are generally geared for close combat/close range shooting.

Sm have more specialist units and rely on overlapping support units.

Chaos Space Marines are spikier and angrier.

Maybe get the Chaos Codex, and mix the AoBR guys in as squad fillers?

Owain wrote:Chaos Space Marines are spikier and angrier.

Qft. Though if we wanted to make a shooty army, we could do it quite well. Better even. We have all of their ranged elements with the exception of the whirlwind, and we have other ranged units, such as the obliterator, the autocannon, and the reaper-auto. We could also to hth better methinks, due to the fact that we have stuff like possesed, marks of khorne, dps, khorne beserkers-etc etc. Truth is, chaos is better. Space marines are all naive fools who follow the corpse-emperor. Chaos cannot be denied

Main Difference is , SM chapters are guaranteed to constantly have new codex and new models release ,
especially as starter sets hence cheap.

CSM gets no love.

( oh i know the question isnt really about this , but i just thought its fun to mention it ;p )

It vaguely is, Luna. CSM at the moment have much fewer special tricks or rules, and have less built-in synergy; in that I mean you really have to work hard to make a good list. You can't spam anything too terribly much due to limited slots, and it's very easy to spend points on unnecessary powers or "special" troops whose advantages really just don't matter. If you enjoy the challenge, or really like daemons, go for CSM. If you want any sort of decent weaponry as well as free guns that are really badass, go for marines.