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After some time figuring out and trying different factions I have finally been won over by all the new CSM releases!

Today I picked up the following
CSM half of shadow spear
2 more obliterators
Another venom crawler
10x CSM
Abaddon The Despoiler

I am asking for your advice on 2 things

1) what is the best way for me to build the CSM?
I want 4x 5man combat squads but what options do you give them & champions to get the most mileage?
My initial thoughts are on having 2 or 3 units with a ranged loadout and 1 or 2 melee.

2) how to paint so I can field both alpha legion & black legion
I really like the trait for the alpha legion and think the paint scheme is cool! However I just had to buy Abaddon when I saw that sweet model!
I’m not sure how critical people are about the schemes in this game but any suggestions on how I can paint that gives me the best of both worlds without people getting pissy or confused?

Thanks!

I haven't played much 8th edition nor I have played all that recently. That said,

I think you will actually get more mileage in the long run going with an Aspiring Champion just armed with a Bolter or Pistol/Chainsword. Without Rhinos or other transports, it is hard to make use of power weapons and plasma pistols especially in MSU. Additionally having your Aspiring Champions armed with basic weapon means you retain flexibility at the list building stage as you can combine and separate marines into squads as you want. Full disclosure, I usually run my Aspiring Champions with a Powersword and Plasma Pistol mostly because I like that combination of weapons. I think in use they are usually wasted points.

As for using two legions at the same time, you could paint them in the colors you like and them paint the edge of the base in separate colors to indicate which legion is which. It will somewhat limit the above mixing and matching, but it would be much easier to re-paint that instead of the entire model should change your mind. I would say IRL most players are happy just to play an opponent with painted models period. As long as confusion is minimized, they don't mind.

From what I have seen, and I don't claim to have seen every chaos lists that was good ever, chaos lists are soups. With no csm, no crawlers, some cultists, a lot of demon princes, ahriman. MoS oblits are also very popular, in fact you will never see non MoS oblits. Havocks seem to do a lot of shots with the new gun they got, and they have updated better rules. Haven't seen them played yet. On the other hand I know that people here bought out the out the kromlech supply of rottor cannons. So they are at least willing to test them out.

They did have a new codex, and I haven't played them lately so maybe good lists look a bit different.

I know people often run more demon as troops and cultists got nerfed in the new codex.

Karol wrote:
From what I have seen, and I don't claim to have seen every chaos lists that was good ever, chaos lists are soups. With no csm, no crawlers, some cultists, a lot of demon princes, ahriman. MoS oblits are also very popular, in fact you will never see non MoS oblits. Havocks seem to do a lot of shots with the new gun they got, and they have updated better rules. Haven't seen them played yet. On the other hand I know that people here bought out the out the kromlech supply of rottor cannons. So they are at least willing to test them out.

They did have a new codex, and I haven't played them lately so maybe good lists look a bit different.

I know people often run more demon as troops and cultists got nerfed in the new codex.

you'll see Red corsairs in most of the toruny chaos lists now I suspect. the additional CPs you can get from them making them the prefered chaos CP battery

BrianDavion wrote:

Karol wrote:
From what I have seen, and I don't claim to have seen every chaos lists that was good ever, chaos lists are soups. With no csm, no crawlers, some cultists, a lot of demon princes, ahriman. MoS oblits are also very popular, in fact you will never see non MoS oblits. Havocks seem to do a lot of shots with the new gun they got, and they have updated better rules. Haven't seen them played yet. On the other hand I know that people here bought out the out the kromlech supply of rottor cannons. So they are at least willing to test them out.

They did have a new codex, and I haven't played them lately so maybe good lists look a bit different.

I know people often run more demon as troops and cultists got nerfed in the new codex.

you'll see Red corsairs in most of the toruny chaos lists now I suspect. the additional CPs you can get from them making them the prefered chaos CP battery

Thanks for the tips - i’m not too fused about building towards a tournament level of competition, obviously I want to smash my friends armies but I’ll mainly be basing my purchases off of the models I think are the coolest.

Basically I want some help to make sure I don’t glue on a bunch of weapon options I’ll later regret. Bare in mind I only have a couple games under my belt so I’m still super noob so some simple suggestions will go a long way.

IMHO, you can never go wrong with a bare bones squad of CSM- just bolters and bolt pistols, and MAYBE a heavy bolter if you've got the points left over.

I wouldn't bother with making pistol/sword squads- when it comes to melee units, you've got better options.

JackoG40 wrote:
After some time figuring out and trying different factions I have finally been won over by all the new CSM releases!

Today I picked up the following
CSM half of shadow spear
2 more obliterators
Another venom crawler
10x CSM
Abaddon The Despoiler

I am asking for your advice on 2 things

1) what is the best way for me to build the CSM?
I want 4x 5man combat squads but what options do you give them & champions to get the most mileage?
My initial thoughts are on having 2 or 3 units with a ranged loadout and 1 or 2 melee.

2) how to paint so I can field both alpha legion & black legion
I really like the trait for the alpha legion and think the paint scheme is cool! However I just had to buy Abaddon when I saw that sweet model!
I’m not sure how critical people are about the schemes in this game but any suggestions on how I can paint that gives me the best of both worlds without people getting pissy or confused?

Thanks!

The best way is to tailor them to World Eaters, blood for the blood god is all you need.

I don't claim to be an expert in Alpha Legion lore, but I would just paint your marines black. This way you can run as Alpha Legion or Black Legion or whatever.

If someone has a problem with Alpha Legion being black, then just say you are Alpharius, then run out of the room shouting "just as planned!"

I reccomend a custom, generic paint scheme you enjoy, and never getting rid of bits. The rules you may like can change from edition to edition, and so can the "favored" weapon loadouts. This will ensure the best flexibility and longevity for your models.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I reccomend a custom, generic paint scheme you enjoy, and never getting rid of bits. The rules you may like can change from edition to edition, and so can the "favored" weapon loadouts. This will ensure the best flexibility and longevity for your models.

This.

Your army a good base for a pretty decent army and you can easily build from there. Your Oblits will especially cause a lot of grief to players who aren't used to them. Since you have two venomcrawlers already, I would suggest getting a Lord discordant eventually. He will buff them quite a lot. Might want to check out the CSM tactica thread. A lot of ideas and stuff there. Probably more active experienced CSM players on that thread too who can help you too.

No one will give you too much flak for running grey models if you're still deciding on which Legion you like best.

If you've got just the csm box, I'd build one squad of 5 with heavy bolter, one squad of 5 with plasma gun. I believe your shadowspear monobuilds is a 10 man squad with autocannon/plasma? tat's also fine. gets you to a battalion. if you buy havocs, build 1 chaincannon and swap in to your 10 man squad and use the autocannon as part of your havocs.

I would honestly do a comination of Alpha legion colours and black, maybe dark green, black helmets and gold trim.

I'm planning one one 10 man sqd with 2 chain guns in my chaos marine sqd, plus champion with combi-bolter and power axe. It's a lot of dakka. Then maybe 2x5 man sqds with a heavy weapon such as autocannon or missile launcher.

the_scotsman wrote:
If you've got just the csm box, I'd build one squad of 5 with heavy bolter, one squad of 5 with plasma gun. I believe your shadowspear monobuilds is a 10 man squad with autocannon/plasma? tat's also fine. gets you to a battalion. if you buy havocs, build 1 chaincannon and swap in to your 10 man squad and use the autocannon as part of your havocs.

Of note, the Havocs use a bigger base. So I'd recommend slapping a metal washer under a 32 and a magnet under a 40 base.

Havocs are on 40mm?

 Insectum7 wrote:
Havocs are on 40mm?

Yes, same base size as terminators. I spent today building 10 of them.

Though given usual policy (use the bases the models shipped with) you could probably get away with putting them on smaller bases since GW has in the past shipped Havocs with 25mm and 32mm bases, and the new models do fit on 32mm bases.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Havocs are on 40mm?

Yes, same base size as terminators. I spent today building 10 of them.

Oh man, that really annoys me.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Havocs are on 40mm?

Yes, same base size as terminators. I spent today building 10 of them.

Oh man, that really annoys me.

it is midly annoying given it means you can no longer slide spare havoks into CSM squads yeah. but the minis are gorgous eneugh to forgive it

BrianDavion wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Havocs are on 40mm?

Yes, same base size as terminators. I spent today building 10 of them.

Oh man, that really annoys me.

it is midly annoying given it means you can no longer slide spare havoks into CSM squads yeah. but the minis are gorgous eneugh to forgive it

There are lots of squads with mixed base sizes. Heavy weapons in Neophyts are bigger than the rest. As I understand it, base sizes aren't enforced outside of a requirement that you must have a base of some kind for your models. I've seen Space marine captains on secnic bases 100mm in tournaments before.

Thanks again for the advice, I didn’t realise the shadowspear set was mono build so I’ll be going for 2x5 man bolters from the csm box and 4x chainsword, plasma pistol & chain axe from the shadow spear set.

This leaves me 3 bolter marines, 1 plasma and 1 autocannon. Thinking I will make 1 extra plasma using the special weapon from the csm box to drop in/out of units when needed and the others will be kept a for future builds so I have some degree of options to choose from.

I play thousand sons regularly now but have played CSM in some form since 2nd and have played them a bit in 8th. You got a good start for pick up game level list. However I would really recommend getting a box of havocs. Put the chain gun in your CSM then do the havocs how you like. The oblits are good. I just played with the new ones the other day not even using slannesh and I liked them. But you army needs a bit more anti tank and that is where havocs come in. If you really want to spend like someone said a lord discordant would be good. Finally don’t under estimate the lascannon misslie launcher hellbrute. With the point reductions I really like him now and I field one in most of my CSM and Tsons lists. Plus you can get on eBay for cheap. Finally a daemon prince is always nice and those are consistently good every edition.

 Togusa wrote:


There are lots of squads with mixed base sizes. Heavy weapons in Neophyts are bigger than the rest. As I understand it, base sizes aren't enforced outside of a requirement that you must have a base of some kind for your models. I've seen Space marine captains on secnic bases 100mm in tournaments before.

the thing is the csm model for the new csm does not come on a bigger base. Can't use models on illegal bases.

Karol wrote:

 Togusa wrote:


There are lots of squads with mixed base sizes. Heavy weapons in Neophyts are bigger than the rest. As I understand it, base sizes aren't enforced outside of a requirement that you must have a base of some kind for your models. I've seen Space marine captains on secnic bases 100mm in tournaments before.

the thing is the csm model for the new csm does not come on a bigger base. Can't use models on illegal bases.

HAHAHA be happy BCB isn't here.

In fact there is no rule that disallows you to use a base you want.
Common sense dictates that you use the reguloar base the model was shipped with but beyond that nobody will complain about you using the smaller havocs with smaller bases due to them beeing valid models.