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Hey guys, I'm starting an Escalation Tournament in a week or so and I'm a rather new player. I'm looking for some help for my CSM army list. I want something that isn't going to be ROFLstomped but isn't like cheese either.

The leagues rules are basically hold to 1 codex, but the guy running it said he would let me run the CSM and Crimson for mine since CSM are in such a bad way as it stands now.

So any ideas or what would be a worthwhile list to run at 100 points? I have limited models but willing to be open minded with ideas. Thanks!

EDIT : Forgot to mention they said it was CAD and no Formations.

Whoops... there doesn't seem to be anything here.

As of this moment i got:

1 Chaos Lord (dark veng. Kranon)
3x Chaos Sorcerer
45x Cultist
10x CSM
5x Havoks
10x Raptors
10x Warp talons
20+x Chosen
5x Terminators
5x Hellbrutes
2x Rhinos
1x Landraider
2x Maulerfiend
1x Heldrake
6x Bikes
6x Obliteraters
6x Spawn
1x Vindicator

I do believe that is it. I also have an Imperial Knight but since they are limiting it to 1 codex, they can't be fielded.

I do believe that is all I have for them. I got a lot and I mean a lot of CSM stuff from the Dark Veng set from ebay for cheap so that's why I got so much of that.

Can we come up with anything from this?

 Bignob wrote:
Can you give us some info on what models you have?

Sorry they changed it to start at 750pts.

for cheese:

sorcerer
cultists
chaos knight

for balanced:
use one of your bikes as a lord with any wargear and put him in spawn
cultists
heldrake
insert whatever else you want

 -v10mega wrote:
for cheese:

sorcerer
cultists
chaos knight

for balanced:
use one of your bikes as a lord with any wargear and put him in spawn
cultists
heldrake
insert whatever else you want

Thanks but I can't run the knight since we are locked to 1 codex, but as I said they are letting me use the CSM and Crimson Slaughter Codex since Chaos is in such a bad way codex wise.

I was thinking maybe 2 bike squads and using one to run my lord with. Culitist as the troop choice and some other things. Any reason to run Spawn over other Bikers?

I'd just keep it simple. Spam a bunch of cultists and support it with armor (Vindicator, Heldrake, Maulerfiends).

If you want to be fluffy Crimson Slaughter (or at least get some use out of their rules outside of Relics) you could always load the Land Raider up with a bunch of Possessed and hope you roll well on the "Slaves to Darkness" table. Alternatively, load up some CC capable Chosen and buy the Draznicht upgrade so they all have preferred enemy. Hard to argue with rerolling 1s in general.

I think the obvious HQ thing is to go for a Sorcerer with the Balestar of Mannon. I wouldn't even bother to give him a Mark of Chaos.

As for Spawn vs. Bikers, the whole point of Spawn is to be ablative wounds for an HQ on a bike. They do it a lot cheaper than Bikers do. No shooting, but deadlier in close combat.

okay so my HQ is the lord on a bike with a 5 spawn group running with him?

2 groups of cultist.

What would you round out the army with? heavy armor like the Land Raider, or a couple maulerfiends, or hell drake? I just have a feeling most people at the 750 range are gonna go with armor and not a lot of troops ... I don't know why I feel that way I just do lol.

ideas?

chaos knight is a lord of war for chaos

Didn't see the Chaos knight in the 6th edition CSM codex so I can't use it. Just saying.

It's a dataslate from FW... basically appends your codex. But if your league is as restrictive as it sounds, I can bet that they'd not allow it.

The heldrake seems like a pretty safe bet, but you'll either do really well with it or really bad with it, depending on your luck.

Honestly, most people really rag on helbrutes, but if you stick enough of them in (like 3) at the 750 level, they can be pretty brutal. That's a lot of AV12 saturation for 300 points (assuming they are the bare DV brutes with no upgrades) and they have some pretty hard-hitting close-range weaponry.

Last 750 game I played, I took two. My friend was running a Space Wolves formation... hellpack? something like that. It had the drop-pod dreadnought as the character for the formation, which he tried to plant in my backfield, assuming my helbrutes were not equal to his dreadnought. A single multi-melta shot proved him wrong as I scored a penetrating/explodes shot on the first try.

It all really depends on your meta though. Those same helbrutes are going to be kinda worthless against flyers, which is where the heldrake would be a better bet.

If you want to run possessed as others have suggested, I use the chosen models from DV to represent them, since they have a daemon-esque look to their armor, and no opponent I have ever played has had a problem with that as long as it was plainly stated from the start (and you keep it consistent by not running the same models as chosen elsewhere). Your mileage may vary, of course.

Just my 2 cents, good luck with your league!

 FoxPhoenix135 wrote:
It's a dataslate from FW... basically appends your codex. But if your league is as restrictive as it sounds, I can bet that they'd not allow it.

The heldrake seems like a pretty safe bet, but you'll either do really well with it or really bad with it, depending on your luck.

Honestly, most people really rag on helbrutes, but if you stick enough of them in (like 3) at the 750 level, they can be pretty brutal. That's a lot of AV12 saturation for 300 points (assuming they are the bare DV brutes with no upgrades) and they have some pretty hard-hitting close-range weaponry.

Last 750 game I played, I took two. My friend was running a Space Wolves formation... hellpack? something like that. It had the drop-pod dreadnought as the character for the formation, which he tried to plant in my backfield, assuming my helbrutes were not equal to his dreadnought. A single multi-melta shot proved him wrong as I scored a penetrating/explodes shot on the first try.

It all really depends on your meta though. Those same helbrutes are going to be kinda worthless against flyers, which is where the heldrake would be a better bet.

If you want to run possessed as others have suggested, I use the chosen models from DV to represent them, since they have a daemon-esque look to their armor, and no opponent I have ever played has had a problem with that as long as it was plainly stated from the start (and you keep it consistent by not running the same models as chosen elsewhere). Your mileage may vary, of course.

Just my 2 cents, good luck with your league!

thank you. My idea was maybe run the heldrake and two mauler fiends. I like the hellbrutes idea as well. Of course 2 groups of cultist and the lord. But I don't know. I want some armor killers since I'm going to be playing against some IG, Wolves, Necrons, and some other stuff. So I feel they are going to load up on armor thinking that they can roll over infantry based armies.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SRSFACE wrote:
As for Spawn vs. Bikers, the whole point of Spawn is to be ablative wounds for an HQ on a bike. They do it a lot cheaper than Bikers do. No shooting, but deadlier in close combat.

Okay here is my list I'm thinking up so far at 750 pts. with point breakdown

Chaos Lord: 65pts
Powerfist 25pts
Lightning Claw 15pts
Chaos Bike 20pts
Mark of Nurgle 15pts
Sigil of Coruption 25

Total: 165

5x Spawn 150pts
(unit with lord in it)
***(not sure if I want to give them Mark of Nurgle, or maybe cut the number down?)

Total: 150 or 180pts with MON

10x Cultist 50pts

Total: 50pts

10x Cultist 50pts

Total: 50pts

1x Maulerfiend 125pts

Total: 125pts

1x Heldrake 170pts
Baleflamer

Total: 170pts

So all together with the basic spawn I'm looking at 710 pts. I have 40 points left over. I was thinking I could either cut down the number of spawn by 3 and run another Maulerfiend or I could give the spawn mark of nurgle for 30 and have 10 left over for either lasher tendrils on the mauler or 10 autoguns for one cultist squad.

I think this is about what I'm going to run but help with the fine tuning guys?

What do you guys think?

Maulerfiends are great for their points. But the spawn are there to help your lord get in there and kill stuff... it really depends on your meta I guess. If I had to pick, I'd do the second Maulerfiend for additional armor saturation. He's hard to kill and has the daemon invul save, plus being really killy in close combat. Adding more spawn just add to the survivability of your lord, who is only 160+ points to start with, and who will probably kill about the same amount of stuff as a maulerfiend in combat.

Could go either way really. But I am slightly inclined to the maulerfiend.

 FoxPhoenix135 wrote:
Maulerfiends are great for their points. But the spawn are there to help your lord get in there and kill stuff... it really depends on your meta I guess. If I had to pick, I'd do the second Maulerfiend for additional armor saturation. He's hard to kill and has the daemon invul save, plus being really killy in close combat. Adding more spawn just add to the survivability of your lord, who is only 160+ points to start with, and who will probably kill about the same amount of stuff as a maulerfiend in combat.

Could go either way really. But I am slightly inclined to the maulerfiend.

Not that I'm going to have the points but would the spawn having MON be of any good when the lord is with them? i mean if they are shooting at the lord on the bike with a T6 that's what they are targeting and would have to roll to hit that correct, so it wouldn't matter if the spawn had T5 or T6?

The rules are that the average toughness is the toughness used when they are making their wound rolls, unless they are using Precision Shots, so it would make a difference provided you have more than 1 spawn in a unit with the lord.

However, you are paying those points purely for ablative wounds for shooting, mostly, since your lord HAS to challenge in assault combat. So those ablative wounds won't do you any good with that Wulfen character slices you down with his claws in a challenge.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for taking ablative wounds for important ICs like your warlord. I'm just saying there is a point at which they suffer from diminishing returns, and I'd guess that 2-3 spawn should be enough, and a Maulerfiend would add to your offensive capability much more than investing all your eggs into your Lord-basket there.

Problem with the Maulerfied is one immobilized result and he's a paperweight

 FoxPhoenix135 wrote:
The rules are that the average toughness is the toughness used when they are making their wound rolls, unless they are using Precision Shots, so it would make a difference provided you have more than 1 spawn in a unit with the lord.

However, you are paying those points purely for ablative wounds for shooting, mostly, since your lord HAS to challenge in assault combat. So those ablative wounds won't do you any good with that Wulfen character slices you down with his claws in a challenge.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for taking ablative wounds for important ICs like your warlord. I'm just saying there is a point at which they suffer from diminishing returns, and I'd guess that 2-3 spawn should be enough, and a Maulerfiend would add to your offensive capability much more than investing all your eggs into your Lord-basket there.

Im in agreement as well. Well with the list I got now it sets at 740, so I guess I could take one of those spawn and give it MON and it would have T6 like the lord so that's 2 with T6 vs 1 with T5. So I could do that to be safe.

But I haven't looked at any of the wulfen stuff, are they really that bad ass?

MitchellTyner wrote:
[...] I guess I could take one of those spawn and give it MON and it would have T6 like the lord so that's 2 with T6 vs 1 with T5. So I could do that to be safe.

You can't elect to just give one spawn in the unit MoN - you must give the entire unit a mark, and pay the points for each model.

 Raichase wrote:

MitchellTyner wrote:
[...] I guess I could take one of those spawn and give it MON and it would have T6 like the lord so that's 2 with T6 vs 1 with T5. So I could do that to be safe.

You can't elect to just give one spawn in the unit MoN - you must give the entire unit a mark, and pay the points for each model.

you have a rule book page for that? I haven't seen that one yet.

It says in the CSM codex (page 100):

"The -UNIT- may purchase one of the following Marks of Chaos:..."

Meaning the entire unit has to purchase it, not just the model. The per model cost is just for calculating the cost.

 FoxPhoenix135 wrote:
It says in the CSM codex (page 100):

"The -UNIT- may purchase one of the following Marks of Chaos:..."

Meaning the entire unit has to purchase it, not just the model. The per model cost is just for calculating the cost.

oh okay so to do that I'd have to knock it down to one model in the unit to do it.

Well played my game last night. Got rolled pretty hard. First turn I moved my Maulerfiend up to try to flank his ghost ark or whatever, me not knowing that it has rapid fire with the troops inside, I thought it only had 5 guns instead of 15... So anyway, he pumps 25 shots from the guass guns into my maulerfiend, out of the 25, 21 hit. Out of the 21 that hit, he rolled 17 sixes.... yeah my maulerfiend just evaporated. I did down one of his arks from some game mechanics manipulation, got into CC with a smaller unit right beside the ark, didn't kill them all, on his turn I wiped the squad and consolidated near his ark, then next turn I charged it and pop'ed it with one hit. Then it promptly died to a 7 man warrior squad... dude rolled so many 6's that it was just stupid. My heldrake was pretty much ineffective against his armor 13 arks, and his stuff that wasn't in them had 2 wounds a piece. It was a rough game, now I know why people grumble about necrons.