Desiring Clarification (daemons and such)

[Vecius]

Hello, I am new to the forums, so I guess I'll start with a brief intro before I go into my major questions. Feel free to skip. I am a Chaos Space Marines collector; I started collecting way back in about 2000, before the Necrons were even a wisp of an idea in someones mind. I collected quite heavily through till 2005, when moving on to College and other interests took precedence; my 2500~ pt army got stuck in a series of boxes and stashed in a corner. Recently, though, a good friend of mine who recently moved in with me brought up the idea of starting to collect and paint again, reminiscent of the old days. I thought it was a brilliant idea, as I find myself with much more free time now, and having wasted my time on stupid things like online games, I thought the painted miniatures of Warhammer 40k were a much more rewarding investment of time. And so, me and my friend ventured out, bought up new paint, new codexes, a few new models, and picked up where we both left off on our respective armies.

 

And now onto my question. Before I start, I realize a few things: this question may be better suited for the 'Official Rules' forum, my reason for putting it here is that I imagine this is a fairly common concern that is pretty specific to Chaos Players, and as such I expect many players that collect Chaos may have much more detailed and accurate answers compared to that of your average player. I also realize that the answers to this question are almost surely buried somewhere amongst the internet; both on these forums and out there somewhere on google... but after about 2 hours of searching google and an hour sorting through these forums, I am just too confused with the misinformation and conflicting articles everywhere, so I would love a real, solid answer from a fellow chaos player answered that is up-to-date.

 

 

Alrighty, down to business. In the past I avoided collecting Daemons for my CSM army because I didn't quite see the value in the invulnerable saves or the CC power they command. With my several years of wisdom piled up since I last collected, I now realize that daemons are potentially massively powerful and a great compliment to the CSMs I already have. However, upon picking up the new Codex for CSM, I found that we are, according to that source at least, limited to very meagre wimpy daemons that, although they have low point cost and don't take up force organisation slots, don't have any of the fancy bonuses or differences that make them unique and awesome. I learned about the Codex for Chaos Daemons, and was excited when I looked through it at the store, but after reading a bit, I quickly learned that there isn't any officially defined rules that allow you to use these specially stat-ed guys with CSM, aside from the alliance system in Apocalypse. My dissapointment was great, but further reading on the interweb gave hints that there may indeed be rules that allow use for certain daemons (I definitely understand that access to certain Chaos Daemon units for a regular CSM army would be beyond unfair) from the codex as regular summoned daemons in my CSM army. However, many of these articles were several years old, and several contained conflicting information.

 

Long ranting wall-of-texts aside, here is my question. Is there ANY -official- rules, preferably from a white dwarf issue or something similarily official, that give specifications on how CSM can summon daemons from the Chaos Daemon codex in strict rule games? I have read lots of things on 'Chaos Cults' or other special units that may or may not be official instead of the dream of some guy who just really wants to use his Daemons, but my friend and I try to follow the official rules as much as possible, so if there isn't an official rulesheet or list somewhere I can print out or reference, I won't try to use daemons against him in our games. I would really love to start collecting some daemons to add to my army, and it would be extremely helpful if anyone has ANY information at all regarding any of the things I've talked about.

 

Big thanks in advance,

Vecius

[Dammeron]

Short answer, no. God specific daemons are now (absurdly, IMO) restricted to armies produced from the Chaos Daemons codex except in Apocalypse games. Makes no sense in background terms, but there we go.

[Vecius]

Thanks, I kind of suspected that may be the cold hard truth. Is there any speculation on new official rules soon?

 

That said, what would be a chaos players suggestion for my next unit choice? I like to collect more than I like to play, so having a unit that isn't specifically useful isn't a terrible thing, but I also would like to hear some suggestions for my next choices from a competetive standpoint. So far I have (probably not exhaustive):

 

-Lord w/ plasma pistol, khorne mark

-Old retinue (I guess regular zerker squad now) of Zerkers, 1 w/ icon, several special weapons, about 10 units overall

-20 zerkers w/ various upgrades

- 30 to 40 plague marines with various upgrades

-15 thousand sons

-Sorceror (I guess is the 'aspiring sorceror' for thousand sons now) w/ force sword

-5 havocs

-20 to 30 marines

-7 raptors

-two rhinos

-predator

-8 noise marines

-5 terminators

[Cornelias]

Thanks, I kind of suspected that may be the cold hard truth. Is there any speculation on new official rules soon?

 

That said, what would be a chaos players suggestion for my next unit choice? I like to collect more than I like to play, so having a unit that isn't specifically useful isn't a terrible thing, but I also would like to hear some suggestions for my next choices from a competetive standpoint. So far I have (probably not exhaustive):

 

-Lord w/ plasma pistol, khorne mark

-Old retinue (I guess regular zerker squad now) of Zerkers, 1 w/ icon, several special weapons, about 10 units overall

-20 zerkers w/ various upgrades

- 30 to 40 plague marines with various upgrades

-15 thousand sons

-Sorceror (I guess is the 'aspiring sorceror' for thousand sons now) w/ force sword

-5 havocs

-20 to 30 marines

-7 raptors

-two rhinos

-predator

-8 noise marines

-5 terminators

 

good place to start would be 2x 10 man strong CSM squads with rhinos backed up by a 2x plasma squad of PM, this will give you a good base for the rest of your army. use either a lord or daemon prince either should always have wings and look to build on your heavy support options, predators and havocs are less used now due to how good oblits perform so maybe look at picking up some of those in pairs.

 

mobility is the key to playing chaos these days and you'll want plenty of troop options ( which you seem to have) with transports for most, getting you into HtH quickly :)