Making a pure Chaos army - advice needed.

[Slyfox1990]

Hey all,

 

I am thinking about starting up a pure chaos army and would like some advice/help/information. When I say a pure chaos army, I mean an army which is exclusively dedicated to one of the four Gods.

I.e: I cannot use more than one God's Mark in my army.

 

I m not sure what units each God would be likely to use so that is where I m really looking for help.

 

So far I have read a little through the background of each of the four God's and come up with some conclusion.

 

Slaanesh

 

I really like the background in relation to Slaanesh and am keen on the special character and Noise Marines which "sound" interesting.

 

What other units would they use? More long range weaponry as opposed to close combat?

 

Tzeentch

 

A definate no-no. Having read through the fluff of the Thousand Sons and Rubric Marines I really really hate them.

 

Nurgle

 

I have thought about using Nurgle but I m not keen on the special character(s) and a few other aspects are less interesting. I think they would be fun to model but less interesting to play with and less interesting to me in terms of fluff.

 

Khorne

 

I think probably my preferred God of all of the options available to me ( a little ahead of Slaanesh )

 

Again what would they use other than the obvious Berzerkers? Possessed as well? Other units?

 

Summary:

 

Its pretty much a shoot out between Slaanesh and Khorne at the moment. When I have a clearer idea of what each uses that will help me make a decision between the two.

 

If anyone has any particular reasons why either is better than the other then let me know!

 

Thanks all :)

[Hellios]

Ok questions...

 

How competative do you want to be. How much count as can you stand? How important is the painting/modelling? Would you prefer your army to be more or less common or not care at all?

[minigun762]

Between Slaanesh and Khorne, I'd say that Khorne is more competitive in general mostly because Berserkers are easier to play well then Noise Marines.

Quite honestly, we've had alot of debate about how best to play Noise Marines (all shooty, all assault, hybrid etc) and there is no clear answer.

The best I could say is they're alot like Chaos Grey Knights (assuming they have Sonic Blasters) which may/may not be your cup of tea.

Berserkers on the other hand, are in a 3 way time for best assault troop in the game (along with Ork Slugga Boyz and Tyranid Genestealers).

Throw them into melee and watch them beat down the opposition. The downside is that you'll lack alot of range firepower, unless you use Icon of Khorne marked CSMs (which isn't a bad idea really)

 

Outside the Troop choices, both armies can be played very similar.

Terminators will be a good choice, especially if you keep them cheap.

Obliterators, Defilers, Vindicators all provide fire support

Daemon Princes and Chaos Lords are viable HQ units (but not the Khornish Daemon Weapon)

Khârn is typically better then Lucius.

World Eaters/Khorne are typically played much more often then Emperor's Children/Slaanesh if thats important.

And the biggest choice of all!

Red vs Pink/Black?

[Slyfox1990]

Ok questions...

 

How competative do you want to be.

 

Reasonably competitive. I don't want to go into games pretty much knowing that I m going to lose ideally.

 

How much count as can you stand?

 

Ideally none. Its not my style.

 

How important is the painting/modelling?

 

Not overly important as I m making a Salamanders army which I m putting huge amounts of effort into. The Chaos army is more likely to be a nice looking playable army, but not one that has taken massive amounts of time to complete.

 

Would you prefer your army to be more or less common or not care at all?

 

I m quite keen on doing something which is a little bit more qwerky and fun.

 

Berserkers on the other hand, are in a 3 way time for best assault troop in the game (along with Ork Slugga Boyz and Tyranid Genestealers).

Throw them into melee and watch them beat down the opposition.

 

I have a good a friend who uses Berzerkers and Icon of Khorne CSMs and its fair to say that they are a handful. I play BT and as such am all about assaulting. His higher initiative, number of attacks and strength on the charge mean that I just can't match him at all. It makes me very tempted to go all Khorne.

 

Daemon Princes and Chaos Lords are viable HQ units (but not the Khornish Daemon Weapon)

 

Why not the daemon weapon? High likelihood of hitting yourself?

 

Red vs Pink/Black?

 

I quite like both! I think that doing the Pink/Black colour scheme would be a lot of fun. My Templar's are red so it would be a little samey ( potentially ) to do Khorne.

 

 

I m starting to swing towards Slaanesh. I ve not seen them a lot, the colour scheme could be fun to do and I like the character. I think it would be good fun to do something which is not all about assault maybe.

 

I m very torn though, I like them both a lot.

[chillin]

Khorne

 

I think probably my preferred God of all of the options available to me ( a little ahead of Slaanesh )

 

Again what would they use other than the obvious Berzerkers? Possessed as well? Other units?

 

They could use possessed (possessed are not very good though, esp. when you have brzrkrs)

You could use termi's and csm's with IoK.

A K. army would certainly use raptors.

You could get some bloodletter daemons.

Chosen could be used.

They could use almost any hvy support. In the last couple of dex's K. has been mostly about raging nutbags getting into hth combat, but in older dex's and fluff, khorne was the god of all aspects of war.

[Rain]

Even in the last codex, World Eaters used pretty much all heavy support, though a WE vindicator strikes me as odd. In any case, the "problem" with Slaanesh is that the higher cost of Noise Marines over normal CSMs only buys you +1 initiative and the potential to pay more for noise weapons. So essentially you are paying points for a melee upgrade (higher I) and the ability to buy ranged upgrades (the noise weapons).

 

This makes the units a bit unfocused which I personally see as a disadvantage as no matter what you have them doing, they are wasting the points you paid for the other role. If they are in HtH they aren't shooting their noise weapons and if they are in the back shooting, their I5 is pointless. That said, some people like them, especially combined with double lash to keep the enemy away while peppering them with noise weapons. So on the other hand, if anything this kind of thing might be a good change for you from Templars which basically play like Khorne as far as I've seen.

[Hellios]

From what you have said I would go with Slaanesh :blink: as you see them less often, you won't be painting another red army that runs forwards and assaults (although worshippers of the big S can still do that). Getting Lash of Submission & what many would see as the best daemon weapon are just a bonus :P. If I have understood Jeske he has a "water warrior Emperors Children army", which he has said is not the most competative army (still decent I guess if Jeske plays it) so maybe he can shed some light. I'm sorry if I have misunderstood previous posts you have made jeske ;)

[minigun762]

If I have understood Jeske he has a "water warrior Emperors Children army", which he has said is not the most competative army (still decent I guess if Jeske plays it) so maybe he can shed some light. I'm sorry if I have misunderstood previous posts you have made jeske :)

 

No you're pretty much right on. Water Warrior is a way that Grey Knights play using PAGK's and basic Land Raiders to harass and wear down the enemy while minimizing their own losses. Its a much different playstyle then most of Chaos (or Black Templar) which is Rhino rush, shoot, charge, rinse and repeat

[Corpse.]

I have a trick with sonic weapons, perhaps widely used (or not considered and used by default by others), using pie plate spitters along with move and shoot weapons. A type of water style. Where you abuse the many blast(oblits) or a few large blasts (defilers/vindicators). Also using transports, as in the general tactica in my sig. Along with any daemons you summon along side them, after the unit shoots the daemons try to make a decent "run" in front to provide the noise marines cover saves. Or if you want to be technical, use cults from other gods, like thousand sons and put them in front where their high AP weaponry forces no saves for most models in the game while the low AP guns that prefer longer range peck from behind on any decent armor save models of 4+ or better (where AP5 wont matter anyways).

 

The whole blast thing is to make the enemy spread thin and have your models "eat away at the corners" getting just within range preventing minimal 24" range weapons to fire in return. Making them move and not fire their rapid fire guns at all, and so on. Tau and move+shoot armies work well against it, but that means facing blast weapons if they bunch together or worse, melee with a defiler/most of your army against a small number of their force. That is if they make a mistake. I have plenty of links to read up on on people's tactica's and so on in my sig if your interested.

 

Jeske uses a Water NM force? Interesting.

 

Berzerkers are a one way ticket in most accounts, depending on getting the charge against any counter force of similar playstyle and deadliness. Zerks lack fleet, so it means creative use of the mobile terrrain things called Rhino's to make sure you get the charge. I have butchered up a new tactic or two I will be adding to the link below. Think I'll do it now.

[chillin]

I think that doing the Pink/Black colour scheme would be a lot of fun. My Templar's are red so it would be a little samey ( potentially ) to do Khorne.

 

I think it would be good fun to do something which is not all about assault maybe.

 

I think if I had already done a red BT's army (a rather large one if I remember correctly) I would choose slanny. Well I would never choose slanny (but that's just me), but I would do something different then another red, assault oriented army.

You could do khorne with a different paint scheme, mostly black and brass/bronze perhaps, but a khorne army would still play much like your BT's, where a slanny army would play totally differently.

[Slyfox1990]

I think if I had already done a red BT's army (a rather large one if I remember correctly) I would choose slanny. Well I would never choose slanny (but that's just me), but I would do something different then another red, assault oriented army.

You could do khorne with a different paint scheme, mostly black and brass/bronze perhaps, but a khorne army would still play much like your BT's, where a slanny army would play totally differently.

 

Thats exactly what I m thinking as far as things go. My templar army is certainly up to around 2500 and more than likely I could field a decent 3000 point army. Slaanesh looks like it is certainly going to be the trickier army to play with but more fun in terms of the fact that that it is a lot different to my Templar.

 

I m liking the look of the sonic weapons too but as many have pointed out paying for I5 to then fire at longer range seems like such a waste/such a shame. However if I am going to do a pure army for Chaos I think it will definately now be a Slaanesh and therefore an Emperor's Children force. It will present more challenges in terms of game play which I think could be fun and hopefully not disheartening if I end up losing all the time!

 

Now just need to work out what I would use... I m thinking Noise Marines with Sonic Weapons in transports, Daemon Princes with Lashes, Summoned Daemons and some sort of fire support.. what should I choose?

[Drudge Dreadnought]

I think if I had already done a red BT's army (a rather large one if I remember correctly) I would choose slanny. Well I would never choose slanny (but that's just me), but I would do something different then another red, assault oriented army.

You could do khorne with a different paint scheme, mostly black and brass/bronze perhaps, but a khorne army would still play much like your BT's, where a slanny army would play totally differently.

 

Thats exactly what I m thinking as far as things go. My templar army is certainly up to around 2500 and more than likely I could field a decent 3000 point army. Slaanesh looks like it is certainly going to be the trickier army to play with but more fun in terms of the fact that that it is a lot different to my Templar.

 

I m liking the look of the sonic weapons too but as many have pointed out paying for I5 to then fire at longer range seems like such a waste/such a shame. However if I am going to do a pure army for Chaos I think it will definately now be a Slaanesh and therefore an Emperor's Children force. It will present more challenges in terms of game play which I think could be fun and hopefully not disheartening if I end up losing all the time!

 

Now just need to work out what I would use... I m thinking Noise Marines with Sonic Weapons in transports, Daemon Princes with Lashes, Summoned Daemons and some sort of fire support.. what should I choose?

 

Well, not sure it'll be helpful but this is the flawless host list i'm (very slowly) building:

 

Warptime Prince, Lash sorc

2 squads of 8 noise marines with power weapon + doom siren champs, 4 sonic blasters, and a rhino. 1 squad of 5 guys with a blastmaster (objective camper)

3 oblits, 2 defilers.

 

The details of the list are in my fairly neglected wip thread in my sig.

[Slyfox1990]

Its always helpful to see peoples ideas for what they are going to do with their lists so thanks for posting that.

 

I m fairly certain that I won't be using obliterators ( at the moment anyway ) as the models are just so depressingly hard to make properly/well/easily. I helped a friend to make his and it was a truely horrible experience.

 

I quite like defillers and would be very tempted to use them, I have thought about using Vindicators instead though.

 

My understanding of Emperor's Children, Lash and other aspects of using a Slaanesh army are fairly limited and I think I will need to do more research before settling on what I would really want to use. In all likelihood I think I would work out a 1k army and expand from there as I see fit.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

Its always helpful to see peoples ideas for what they are going to do with their lists so thanks for posting that.

 

I m fairly certain that I won't be using obliterators ( at the moment anyway ) as the models are just so depressingly hard to make properly/well/easily. I helped a friend to make his and it was a truely horrible experience.

 

I quite like defillers and would be very tempted to use them, I have thought about using Vindicators instead though.

 

My understanding of Emperor's Children, Lash and other aspects of using a Slaanesh army are fairly limited and I think I will need to do more research before settling on what I would really want to use. In all likelihood I think I would work out a 1k army and expand from there as I see fit.

 

There are lots of poss here and there in here and in the slaanesh sub forum that discuss the use of noise marines. I can't refer you to a specific tactica off the top of my head. However i've done a lot of research myself, and more importantly played 10 or so games with variations of the list i posted. So i can share a few tips off the top of my head:

 

- Here are some of the common tactics employed with lash:

 

1) To pull units to you, and generally into an assault. This is a very common tactic when running undivided lists that have lash and a strong CC unit likes berserkers. It can also be used to get a really long assault range. 12 inch move (wings), 2-12 inch lash, 6 inch charge makes for some potentially insane assault ranges. There are downsides to this tactic though. Firstly, lash has a wide range of movement it could give you. If you are relying on it to get you into assaults then sooner or later you'll roll low and be left short of your assault. This can cost games. Also, this tactic isn't so great if you are playing pure slaanesh with no counts as simply because we lack berserkers. There are still plenty of opponents slaanesh marines or noise marines can overpower in CC, but it is less than undivided lists. So this is a good use of lash, but it isn't particularly reliable unless you only need a couple inches of movement.

 

2) To push units away from you. Lash can make for some amazing water warrior situations. Just the other week i played that list against a shrike list with two 8 man thunder hammer + storm shield assault terminator squads on foot. Only 4 of them ever made it into assault. There are great oppertunities for things like rapidfiring into a unit and then lashing it away so it cannot assault the next turn. Noise marines with sonic blasters walking backwards with lash to keep faster units at bay will destroy most anything that isn't fully mechanized.

 

3) To pull units out of cover or off objectives. Pull guys out of cover and then hit them with AP weapons. Or if you can keep your lasher alive to the end of the game, lash their guys off their objective on the last turn. They basically need to have 2 scoring units on their objective instead of just one.

 

4) Clumping. You'll notice that my list has a crapton of templates and blasts. Even targets that i cannot AP will crumble due to sheer numbers of hits. Just lash them all together and unload.

 

- Sonic Weaponry:

 

1) Blast masters are not that great. And by that i mean that they are amazing, but they cost far too much. Don't mix blastmasters with other sonic weaponry. The only place for them is in a 5 man squad for objective camping. It is a nice squad and has served me well, but you only ever want one.

 

2) Sonic blasters are good. As has been mentioned, don't body bag them. 8-10 man units all with sonic blasters and no champion is the standard water warrior setup. You can throw a couple into a more assault oriented squad as they themselves are not that expensive, but its up in the air if thats really worth it. I've done it myself because i like the hybrid squads. I'm not playing a competitive list anyway, so may as well have it be a bit more flexible.

 

3) Doom Sirens are my favorite. Their pure killing power is only matched by oblits hitting guys out of cover with plasma cannons. They do amazing things against clumped enemies. I've had plenty of times when an opponent has rhino rushed, disembarked and rapid fire me with something like Tac marines only to have my doom siren one shot the entire squad. When facing something like footslogging BT hordes they just get stupid. I had 1 doom siren shot kill 8 initiates and 5 neophytes once. On the other hand, i've had times when the doomsiren only killed a couple guys and i got my face eaten. But oh well. They are still tons of fun. They are best used in 8-10 man squads in rhinos as counter units. Don't put them out in the open at first. Let you opponent make the first move even if it costs you some stuff, then zoom in and drop a template on him.

 

- A note on anti tank: This is an area where we struggle if you do a pure noise marine force as you cannot have troops with meltas. Powerfists work, but they waste that bonus initiative. So make sure you load up on plenty of other sources of anti tank. Mainly oblits, termicide, or daemon princes. My list struggles with fully mechanized or armored opponents. But it murders things that don't have tons of armor saturation, so i'll call it even.

 

- A note on competitiveness: You cannot make a top tier competitive list if you are pure slaanesh. However, you can still make some damn fun lists. Slaanesh lists are most often geared as anti MEQ, as the higher initiative is either not high enough or wasted against a lot of the geno races. The exception would be water warrior lists vs orc and nid horde armies.

 

- The main slaanesh list styles i know of are: Template based (my list) lots of doom sirens. Mainly kills by whittling stuff down at range with clumping and templates then finishes stuff off with assaults. Water Warrior. If you are lucky you can get Jeske to post you a list of those. Fabius Bile: Very much a fun list only, not going to go into them.

 

Anyhow, thats a start. Some people may disagree with some of it, but its mostly stuff i've read on here anyhow.

[Slyfox1990]

Thanks a lot for that Dread, is a real help!

 

What exactly is meant by an undivided force? What does it consist of?

[Theis]

Undivided pretty much means, if it's in the codex, it can show up in your army. As an example, a rhino rush undivided build can look something like;

 

2 DPs one can be nurgle, one slaneesh, both with wings, or any combination of marks and wargear you find useful

3 or 4 troops choices in rhinos, 2 zerkers and 2 plague marines are pretty common choices

2 x 2 oblits

2 x 3 man termicide

 

It pretty much dispense with fluff, ignores the ancient enemies fluff of earlier codexes, and is aimed at building a list with a lot of synergy. Two lash dp's leading a bunch of plague marines for instance.

[incinerator950]

Remember Lash was meant to be used to support a unit, don't be the idiot from the tournament who uses his Lash princes only once and end up getting his 2 Lash Princes and Vindicator wiped from a Single summoned Greater Demon, or a squad of Blood Angels Death Company. They're demon princes with +1 initiative and the cheapest (it's something above cut) spell, but it's not an instant win if you have no clue what you're doing. IBjeske argument

[Spacefrisian]

Lash is highly overrated now that Transport is becoming cheaper and cheaper.