What to do with troops?

[Lepaca]

As we all know: Good troops are the basis for a good army.

 

So, what are your experiences so far with our troops selections?

What works and what does not. Let's share and discuss!

 

Are noise blaster Noise Marines a good fit if I want a unit to stay behind with my Havoc units behind a Aegis Defense Line?

 

Are Khorne CSMs with double Plasma superior to Zerkers? If so: Icon of Wrath or Vengeance?

 

Are cultists worth it? 10 or 35? And how to use them?

[JohanReidel]

I'm a big fan of the 10 CSM with veteran upgrade, dual plasma, bolters, bp and ccw with a power weapon/meltabomb champ. 218p for a solid squad that can ride a rino or footslogg it across the table while still haveing solid shooting and combat.

 

As a base for a infantry army I would take 4 squads like that, add 2 squads of 21 or more cultists add in Huron or a Warpsmith and 3 units of 3 Nugle Oblits and call it a day.

 

When looking at cultists I think the minimal extra investment of buying 13, 17, 21, 25 ect is worth mentioning as it helps when they start taking casualty's and need to test.

[Spacelizard]

In my army I am having a lot of success with a fully loaded close combat CSM squad. I run them all with pistol +cc weapon, mark of slaanesh, 2 flamers, icon of excess, VotLW, champ with melta bombs, power sword, and gift of mutation. Comes out to 404 points and they infiltrate with Huron. In the last game I played I rolled invisibility with my sorcerer so this 20 man blob infiltrated and then had a 2+ cover save while in ruins, 4+ cover save in the open, and all of it's opponents in close combat counted as WS 1. Everything I assaulted with it literally evaporated before they even got to swing back thanks to initiative 5. Oh and they also got rerolls thanks to VotLW since I was playing against space marines.

 

I also run two 10 man squads of shooty CSMs with mark of nurgle and double plasma guns...the poor mans plague marines.

 

I also use one squad of 20 cultists with no upgrades other than 2 flamers to camp out on my backfield objective. So far they have fulfilled this role quite well. I always make sure to place my back field objective in cover so that if they get shot at they can just go to ground for a 3+ cover save (we use lots of ruins).

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I've had good luck with squads like Johan's: ultragrit, paired specials, power sword champ, VotLW, and some with Rhinos. Reasonably inexpensive, reasonably fast due to being mounted and with Huron providing Infiltrate, with decent firepower and still good in assaults.

[Verbal Underbelly]

7 plague marines every time for me. I play Death Guard so I kinda have to!

 

That said I always have success with two of the same special weapon and I kit out the champion with a weapon combination that mirrors the squad. eg giving my double melta squad's champion a power fist and combi melta.

 

I haven't tried cultists yet but like the idea of having a large throw away unit in what is essentially an exclusively elite army.

 

VU

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Im in the experimental stage of Troops right now. I'm going to test a Nurgle-y/Death Guard-y 1500-pt list with two 7-man PM squads and two 21-man Plague Zombie blobs with Typhus shortly. Normally my modus operandi is 1 Troop per 500 points of list, so I'm cutting back on HS options in favor of an additional Troop in the list and infantry saturation. I imagine I'm going to have to take all the varying Troop possibilities for a whirl or three before I finally settle on what I want to bring to tournaments, but friendlies are good for playtesting with.

[Minsc]

I tend to use Plague Marines and/or Noise Marines if they are troops.

 

Otherwise regular CSM with MoN / MoS+Icon / MoK+Icon works pretty well.

I have yet to use Berzerkers/Thousand Sons in this edition.

 

Cultists I use in units of 10, either as objective campers (Heavy Stubber) or as general annoyance unit (Flamer + Shotgun.)

 

Zombies work wonders in units of 35. <_<

[TristanAquaeusRodentbane]

I'm having great succes running a 12 man squad of noise marines (icon of excess, blastmaster, 10 sonics, champ with power sword and doom siren) backed up with two 20 strong cultist blobs (2 flamers each). One Blob stays on the backfield objective, the other is joined by a cheap lord and advanced in front of the noise marines until they get to midfield. Once the noise marines get to midfield they just ruin anything and everything that gets close. I run a lvl 3 slaaneshi sorc with the Noise Marines to provide Symphony of Pain.

 

Cheers

-Rodentbane

[minigun762]

I'm surprised by the success of the Undivided CSMs.

Each time I consider them, I feel like plague marines or noise marines could do the same job better.

 

And I loved me some basic CSMs last codex.

[Lepaca]

I tend to use Plague Marines and/or Noise Marines if they are troops.

 

What setup do you use for these?

 

Is the old 1 troop per 500 points rule of thumb still accurate?

 

 

Also I want jeske to post in this. B)

[the jeske]

NM suck as shoty units , and syren aint worth trading for 2 special weapons

1ksons suck . this needs no comments

zerkers are out performed by khorn csm and its not a melee friendly edition

pms are still good plasma platforms , but force us in to taking a nurgle lord [so mace , so no ax , if someone wants to run huron/sorc he wont have the slots ] which a lot of time aint worth it [huron/sorc is better for a chaos army then a lord/huron or a lord/sorc].

So it is csm , csm everywhere and cultists bubble wraping fire bases .

 

rest is rather situational . For example sometimes it is not bad to give infiltration to a 30man cultist blob and make it ouflank . But that depands on opposing army set up , terrain etc.

[Minsc]

I tend to use Plague Marines and/or Noise Marines if they are troops.

 

What setup do you use for these?

 

It depends on the rest on the list, but since I realized how bad Salvo-weapons are I stopped using Sonic Blasters on my Noise Marines.

 

5-10x Plague /w 2x Plasma with or without Rhinos work for me. I don't give the champion anything except maybe meltabombs.

10x Noise /w Doomsiren, Powersword, Meltabombs and Icon, and extra ccw on the marines, also with or without Rhinos, works for me.

I only buy Blastmaster if there are spare points left, since it's quite low on my prio-list.

The only time I'd give the Noisemarines Sonic Blasters are if I were to outflank them with a Lord/Sorcerer on Steed of Slaanesh.

 

I have yet to try several squads of 5x Plague Marines with 2x Melta or Plasma each, but I think they can be quite effective as well. They're "only" 140/150pts each.

 

Is the old 1 troop per 500 points rule of thumb still accurate?

 

It really depends on the list as well.

Sometimes I don't field any PM's/NM's, and in those cases I field Khornate CSM's /w meltas in Rhinos, or Slaaneshi CSM's /w meltas in Rhinos.

 

At 2000 pts I would probably field 2-3 units of marines, and 1 unit of (10) cultists.

At 2500 pts, it would most likely be 3 units of marines, and 2 units of (10) cultists

 

Edit: But it doesn't have to be like this at all. I got a 2500 pts game against SM in the comming weekend, and there my troops are 2x10 Berzerkers with Powerswords, Icons and Meltabombs, and 5x Plaguebearers.

(I blame the low troop-count on the fact that I have 3+1 HS, 3+1 FA and 2+1 HQ in that list.)

[x01848m]

I have done okay with 35-man zombie squads and 6/7-man plague marine squads with dual plasma and naked champ. My csm squads are 10-man, unmarked, vets, dual plasma, über grit config, and lightning claw champ. I have run 20-man cultists squads or larger, but plan to go to 10-man squads - either way, though, I like giving them all autoguns to pick away at the enemy instead of just sitting there). I tried thousand sons against grey knights, but he had way too many termis to make even that match up worth it (was hoping that they would do well against an equally expensive power armor army... Nope...).

 

I am trying to figure out what to do with my zerks - thinking about running them as khorne csm with ccw/bp and giving them dual melta, since they will just be running for the first few turns anyway and want to charge once they get close.

 

I used to do the one troop per 500 pts deal, but now with cultists about I go for roughly 50 percent in troops, mix of cultists and csm or pm.

[Chimerical]

Here's my philosophy: our elite troops aren't cost effective killers compared to other armies with solid troops choices (Orks, BA, SW, GK, Necrons); so, to be on an even standing we need to minimise our expenditure on troops and focus on letting our other stuff do the heavy lifting.

 

This leaves me one option: Cultists. Zombie cultists if possible, although I'm finding it hard to justify Typhus over Huron, Sorcerers and Bike Lords. Probably, I'd have one squad of CSMs or god-cult CSMs, just because a horde of cultists is boring.

[Plaguecaster]

I really want to take a mutant rabble from the servants of decay list as allies a 50 strong horde with a preacher of nurgle, 7 rogue psykers and a exalted plague champion in it would be cool sure won't be as good as a chaos marine or cult unit but would be funny especially since there are some funny psychic powers for the rogue psykers and I can use my converted cultists/ mutants etc