Chaos at close combat

[derpasaurus]

Jeske always shoots my Chosen down, and yet my chosen almost always smash units in the face at my store.
So yeah. 

Warp Talons. ugh. Tough. I've seen them absolutely butcher things, but any unit that benefits so much from Deep Strike and only has around a 50% chance of it's ability going off (assuming it doesn't scatter, which CSM can't account for at all anymore) and can't assault the turn they Deep Strike, AND HAS NO GRENADES, is pretty much worthless. Add to that the fact that you're paying 30pts each for them and you have a unit that even I won't argue too hard over. Bikers are way better. Me gusta relentless plasma and hammer of wrath.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Well as long as the tanks are solid then I'm good. =P

I probably just need to pick up a codex, but do the CSM get feel no pain from any of ther HQs?

[derpasaurus]

Typhus gives the option to make cultists plague zombies which are fearless and FNP. A blob of 35 fearless FNP things is one hell of an objective holder/tarpit.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Meh, nvm then. I'm not really interested in the plague marines. I was thinking more Khorne's type

[derpasaurus]

Nah, berserkers just kill things. And funnily enough, Chosen with MoK make better berserkers than berserkers, and for less.

[Brother Ambroz]

invulnerable saves =/= armor saves, Tanith.

 

Didn't see anything where he was talking about inv saves over armor saves. I missed Ammonius saying that too thanks.

 

No we do not have that many effective units. Most of our Fast attack and Heavy support are effective though. You can make a pretty decent AV list with daemon engines, tons of It will not die and 5++ vehicles.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

What are said 'chosen'

I understand Invuln saves are not the same as armor saves. ALL that stated.. I was told a certain character or Lord had a 2+ *invuln* (not armor) save. Sorry if you were confused by my typing.

[Gman]

I knew I'd see jeske up here talking about how we're not as good as SW. lol

2 words: Abaddon & Chosen.

TDA character with ap3 or ap2, up to a dozen attacks on the charge and every mark of chaos. a unit (that Abby makes scoring!) of 10 guys that depending on how you build and mark them can have up to 6 special weapons in a squad of 10, and 50 attacks on the charge, or 40 on I5, or at T5... yeah.

Saw something here that gave me an idea the other day. Abby and 2 Chosen with rhinos, 2 or 3 mid to large blobs of cultists, bikes, assorted heavy support. Job done.

Yup, beat me to it. Where I will agree, there are more impressive CC loyalist marine armies, chaos is no slouch. It is about being into the fluff and background, which is full of renegades and space pirate armies. You could even use loyalist models, and just paint red over the marine symbols, cut off the purity seals, and play them as "just fell out of grace" marines. In the fluff it totally explains how when a space marine, with all it's awesome genetic and technological supriority, falls from grace, they see the potential of power in what they are. Go with that. My Alpha Legion army has no marks, nothing. Heck my Lord is a converted Space Marine commander kit.

Standard CSM unit has bolters and pistols. for minimal points you can buy them a CCW also, and then for even less points, buy them VotLW, which gives them Hatred:space marines. Those two combined have won me many combats vs tactical units.

Take Kharne, who is a beast in CC himeself, and now berzerkers are troops. Don't have to paint them up in red and all that if you don't want to. It's your army.

I thought of the Abaddon/Chosen army last week too, and plugged it into AB. I think I came up with 3 units of Chose(come with bolter/pistol, CCW, and VothLW standard) put in multiple special weapons, and a couple PW in each unit, and a rhino. I added a unit of terminators loaded out pretty good mix of CCW and ranged weapons to fight with Abaddon, and some heavies. It looked like a fun, nasty army, that would be good in ranged, and great in CCW.

You can't compare a DC with chaplain to a CSM or even berzerker unit with no character. That's like apples and oranges. How much does a full DC unit and chaplain cost in points, compared to a full berzerker unit? Please, compare things that are at least closer to being equivelant.

[AekoldHelbrass]

Yep, full DC with a chaplain in a LRC is a better unit than berzerkers with no CC HQ. Without a chaplain though, charging berzerkers would win against a DC. Both need a LR to carry them though.

And as for a priest, it's 50pts without PW and jump pack, CSM or raptors of equal cost would still beat ASM or Tacs even with him.

I'm not saying that going full melee against other marines is a great idea, but you can expect that chaos units will do well in melee with them.

Man you've never played against BA tailored to maim CSM. DC without chaplain on charge gives you 20% more attacks than berzerk, plus can have any amount of hidden PW, plus has FNP. And they don't need LRC, they have Storm Raven or if the whole army is going JP they can go with JP too. Costs incredibly, but it's a deathstar any way. And berzerk can only go LR or on foot.

 

And for Raptors against BA Assault Squad with priest, just do the math. Even when you charge it's a tie, when they charge you will need Insane Heroism.

 

Yes, we can slaughter most of other marines, I'm not intimidated even by SW, but they are not CC-oriented army. BA are, and if both we and BA tailor against each other - we have to take dragons and zombies, because in CC it will be just a massacre.

[derpasaurus]

Chosen are an elite choice, Abbadon being an HQ that moves them to Troops, and therefore scoring. They're pretty much just like basic CSM but with 2 attacks base and 2nd close combat weapon already included. gives em 4 attacks on a charge. put mark of khorne on them and they get 2 extra on a charge instead of 1, and counter attack, giving them 5 per model on a charge, and if you pass leadership, 4 (2 base, +1 for 2nd ccw, +1 for counter attack) if they're charged. Also, they can have up to 6 special weapons. Mine have 2 flamers, 2 meltas, 2 power swords. Pretty effective. I even kill terminators just due to the sheer numbers of saves you can force on a squad with 40+ attacks rerolling misses on turn 1. 

 

Edit: fixed maths.

[Ammonius]

It's possible he did it on the boon table or maybe that I just remembered it wrong on the saves. It seemed like for the extra attacks he was using something that I would compare to the MoTW. For his assault marine style units (don't know if they war berzerkers or warp talons) It seemed like they had quite a few attacks. The rest of the guys who were not sergeants, just the regular marines 3 attacks seems about right.

 

Anyway.. subject change. I'm a new play but I have found that I am fond of all units. I really like bad ass infantry but I also really like tanks. Are Chaos Space marines an Army in which all of the units are pretty effective?

 

I run two Vindicators in my 1500 pt list, and they work well. I run them with seige shields so they can reliably move across the table. I usually run a line of spawn in front of them so they get a cover save without having to pop smoke early on.

 

Either my opponent focuses on them, and I get a free turn to manuver or they fail to take them out either through bad dice or not trying, and I get sweet template action. Just remember that they are still only AV 10 on the back.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Chosen are an elite choice, Abbadon being an HQ that moves them to Troops, and therefore scoring. They're pretty much just like basic CSM but with 2 attacks base and 2nd close combat weapon already included. gives em 4 attacks on a charge. put mark of khorne on them and they get 2 extra on a charge instead of 1, and counter attack, giving them 5 per model on a charge, and if you pass leadership, 4 (2 base, +1 for 2nd ccw, +1 for counter attack) if they're charged. Also, they can have up to 6 special weapons. Mine have 2 flamers, 2 meltas, 2 power swords. Pretty effective. I even kill terminators just due to the sheer numbers of saves you can force on a squad with 40+ attacks rerolling misses on turn 1. 

 

Edit: fixed maths.

This is similar to what the guy I was playing against was doing. it wasn't Abaddon though and it wasn't 40 attacks but it was pretty stinking close! Haha and all of those rerolls.. it was nasty. The Wolf Standard is similar.. I still don't think it's as effective.

[Gman]

Hah, never even thought about putting MoK on the chosen with Abby, holy smokes, that's nasty. And as you pointed out, drop in a good spread of special weapons and those units are something to reckon with, and Troops!.

 

Abby on his own, is nothing to scoff in CC. Not as nasty as the last codex version, but still a lot of fun.

[chillin]

What are said 'chosen'

 

I understand Invuln saves are not the same as armor saves. ALL that stated.. I was told a certain character or Lord had a 2+ *invuln* (not armor) save. Sorry if you were confused by my typing.

 Nah, no chaos character has a 2+ invul. Best u can do is a MoTz character who can have a 3+ invul.

[Aidoneus]

Chosen are our veterans. They start off as marginally better CMS (better basic Ld, 1 more attack, bolt pistol). The benefit of chosen is they can take lots of weapons upgrades. 4 of them can take either a special weapon (gun) or special CC weapon, and a fifth can take either a heavy weapon or special weapon (gun). And that's in addition to the Sgt. Keep in mind, those special CC weapons aren't on characters, so they are the same sort of "hidden" power weapons that you can get in SW squads.

I hadn't considered CC chosen as part of an aggressive Abaddon build. It's worth trying out. A couple small nurgle chosen gun squads for objectives, a couple big Khorne chosen squads for moving forward, supported by Abby and maybe a vehicle or three... I'm thinking heldrake(s), vindicator, and/or maulerfiend(s). Definitely sounds like fun, and it's worth trying out.

If one were to try a CC unit of chosen lead by Abby, would you suggest Khorne + Icon or Wrath or Slaanesh + Icon of Excess. Khorne is slightly cheaper, is more reliable on the charge, gives more attacks, and works better with hidden power axes. Slaanesh lets you strike before more marines and gives FNP, which helps a lot with resilience. Keep in mind that Abby, having every mark, benefits from either icon.

[the jeske]

Highly disagree with this statement. 2+ sv is NOTHING compared to the

ability you have to re-roll 1s.. I love Termi's but there have been too

many times where I'm like "oh Armor save HAH 2+ I got this" and that

nasty 1 rears it's ugly head.

realy ? a rune priest or termi WG re-rolling his +2 sv has nothing to do the units survivability when he can more or less tank your whole unit ? tht totem re-rolls all ones .

 

 

 

Jeske always shoots my Chosen down, and yet my chosen almost always smash units in the face at my store.

how . you have a huge tax model in the list in the form of abadon . you have dudes with csm resiliance[but higher cost . so same deaths ,but you have fewer units , so they die faster] . tell me how you do it .you cant be wining by shoting because other armies do gunlines cheaper and more effective , no way your doing melee chosen lists , because melee is A bad to begin with in 6th and B chosen arent good at melee. So how do you do it ? get carried by 3 drakes , that can be done with any chaos army and does little to prove the "power" of a chosen build.

 

 

 

 

Pretty effective. I even kill terminators just due to the sheer numbers

of saves you can force on a squad with 40+ attacks rerolling misses on

turn 1.

dont forget to tell them that this unit costs more then a unit of terminators.

[chillin]

I disagree that chosen are "horrible", by the time u give reg csm's a ccw the are w in 3 pts of chosen (not that 30 xtra pts per squad in cheap or anything) but the chosen can have 4 spec weapons including hidden pwr hth weapons plus get +1 attack. VotLW does cost them 10 xtra pts per squad as well, so thats not good. But u end up w a pretty strong all around unit. They are cheaper then all the cult units (except NM's w/out sonics, and chosen are certainly much better then those). The main problem they hav is what plagues all of chaos in this ed. , and that is no effective delivery system. I'm not saying they're great (but what "great" boots on the ground unit do we have in this dex ?), but I could see me trying them in a higher pt (2000+) game. You are talking about a unit, if given MoK, with 5 attacks per guy, w some LC's, a pwr sword and an pwr axe , and still room for 2 spec guns and a combigun on the champ. I really cant think of a meq unit that could stand up to that kind of slaughter even termi's (unless u rolled absolute crap...I could see myself doing that :-D )

[Nehekhare]

A Chosen with a power weapon is 2 points more expensive than a Terminator that comes with Terminator armor, a combi-bolter and a power weapon.

 

No point in paying more for less.

[Deadman Wade]

Man you've never played against BA tailored to maim CSM. DC without chaplain on charge gives you 20% more attacks than berzerk, plus can have any amount of hidden PW, plus has FNP. And they don't need LRC, they have Storm Raven or if the whole army is going JP they can go with JP too. Costs incredibly, but it's a deathstar any way. And berzerk can only go LR or on foot.

 

And for Raptors against BA Assault Squad with priest, just do the math. Even when you charge it's a tie, when they charge you will need Insane Heroism.

 

Yes, we can slaughter most of other marines, I'm not intimidated even by SW, but they are not CC-oriented army. BA are, and if both we and BA tailor against each other - we have to take dragons and zombies, because in CC it will be just a massacre.

DC is better overall, but for the same cost berzerkers and even warp talons or possessed still would beat them on charge.

On charge ASM would have 27 attacks and 4 with a PW (with either sarge or priest in a challenge), inflict ~9 wounds and 1 or 2 with a PW, which means 3-4 kills at best, even less against Slaanesh raptors. With a champion easily killing characters in challenges, raptors would eventually come out on top even when charged.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

 

 

Highly disagree with this statement. 2+ sv is NOTHING compared to the

ability you have to re-roll 1s.. I love Termi's but there have been too

many times where I'm like "oh Armor save HAH 2+ I got this" and that

nasty 1 rears it's ugly head.

realy ? a rune priest or termi WG re-rolling his +2 sv has nothing to do the units survivability when he can more or less tank your whole unit ? tht totem re-rolls all ones .

I don't know of a (single) Terminator that can "more or less" tank a whole unit. I find that to be exaggeration on your part. For the space wolves the terminators are really decent units but when it comes down to the wire that cursed *1* always rears it's ugly head for me. Terminators are really not so awesome when playing against Horde armies either. I thought I was all good to go with my Loganwing Terminator army against nids and I was rudely awoken to the Terminator weakness... a lot of points are wasted when those ones come out. Statistically does it make since, I guess not... however the "dice gods" I guess like having fun with the poor warhammer 40k players and their units.. in particular my wolf guard terminators. 

[Aidoneus]

A Chosen with a power weapon is 2 points more expensive than a Terminator that comes with Terminator armor, a combi-bolter and a power weapon.

 

No point in paying more for less.

And it has an extra attack and grenades, plus the other models in the squad all cost considerably less, and the marks and icons and VotLW all cost less. Granted, the 2+/5++ save is huge, and it's nice that termies can deep-strike as a cheap (i.e. free) delivery system. Then again, Chosen can be made Scoring with Abaddon, which is incredibly useful. I'm not suggesting there's a clear winner, just that both units have their advantages and drawbacks.

[minigun762]

I know it defeats the purpose of dedicated assault units but my gut tells me Chosen are better as special weapons spammers, not power weapon spammers.

 

That said, taking a single "hidden" power axe wouldn't be a bad choice to help take some weight off of the champion with forced challenges.

[derpasaurus]

 

 

how . you have a huge tax model in the list in the form of abadon . you have dudes with csm resiliance[but higher cost . so same deaths ,but you have fewer units , so they die faster] . tell me how you do it .you cant be wining by shoting because other armies do gunlines cheaper and more effective , no way your doing melee chosen lists , because melee is A bad to begin with in 6th and B chosen arent good at melee. So how do you do it ? get carried by 3 drakes , that can be done with any chaos army and does little to prove the "power" of a chosen build.

 

dont forget to tell them that this unit costs more then a unit of terminators.

• Abby isn't required, dude, it was an idea I had. They're brutal even without him. Oh, and, do Chaos terminators ever score? Yeah, they don't.
• HOW IS 50 ATTACKS FROM 10 MEN FOR 200 POINTS BAD?
• Yes they get expensive when you give them toys, but what doesn't? Let's not forget your favorite thing, Terminators, START at 31 points each and sorta suck compared to any loyalist ones, especially your pet wolves. If you were to do a comparable squad of 10 you'd have to spend over 300 points for naked terminators.
• Yes, I do melee chosen, see the 50 attacks.
• No i don't always win. and no, I don't care, Mr. "It is not sufficient that I succeed – all others must fail."

 

A Chosen with a power weapon is 2 points more expensive than a Terminator that comes with Terminator armor, a combi-bolter and a power weapon.

 

No point in paying more for less.

And it has an extra attack and grenades, plus the other models in the squad all cost considerably less, and the marks and icons and VotLW all cost less. Granted, the 2+/5++ save is huge, and it's nice that termies can deep-strike as a cheap (i.e. free) delivery system. Then again, Chosen can be made Scoring with Abaddon, which is incredibly useful. I'm not suggesting there's a clear winner, just that both units have their advantages and drawbacks.

Exactly. 

Thank you.

[Dam13n]

Prey_fall - Jeske is referring to the Wolf Guard Pack Leader in TA joined to a unit of Grey Hunters with a Wolf Banner. During the assault phase the banner is activated all 1s may be re-rolled (hit, wound, save, MoTW attacks, etc.)

 

So that means that as long as the wolf guard is in base-to-base you allocate wounds to him first. He effectively has a 2+ re-rollable armour save at that point, so only has a 1/36 chance of dying on each wound suffered. I've seen my TDA WG soak up over 20 wounds in combat and live more than once.

 

It's pretty broken.

[the jeske]

SW chaos icon is best chaos icon there is.