Starting Pure Undivided Chaos Army need help tho

[Karsarn Forsworn]

Hey guys so im starting a pure chaos army. As I am gonna be doing pure undivided I ideally wouldnt like to take any marks and iuf I was to include any of the cult units I would only want to take 1 of each unit to maybe show a pact with the legion that cult unit comes from. Now a couple of things I cant deicde

1) Name for Warband

2) Build for a decent undivided Chaos Lord

 

So can anyone give me any help with these decisons

[kdruthless]

Make sure that the name is visceral and nasty sounding: if you don't like the established names try combining a colour with an animal, body part or element. The Crimson fire, The Emerald Skulls, The Silver Snakes etc.

Those aren't too good, but I've just come up with them form the top of my head there but you get the gist. it's probably a good idea to nail down what sort of force you want this to be before coming up with a name. It needs to be fitting, so I'd read some background and decide what bits you like best.

As for your warlord, there are a number of different builds: if you want combat go for terminator armour and twin lightening claws, or a daemon weapon. if you want shooty, go for a combi-weapon. I'd recommend the close combat variant tho: its where chaos lords are best, and you can get a boon if you kill an enemy character (anything that can accept or issue a challenge) close up

As for the idea of having all the cult troops together, its probably a bit risky. Its rather tricky to get them to work together (and actually impossible to fit them in a regular force org chart without a marked lord (?, may be wrong there. Don't have the codex in front of me at work) or special character - (four units, three elite slots) so its probably a good idea to pick your favourites and go from there. EC can lay down obscene amounts of firepower, WE can kill virtually anything on the charge, DG can hold ground (if not objectives, unless you take typhus to make them troops) well and TS are sort of okay at the same thing. Another factor to consider is that these units are expensive on the table top: if you were to take decent sizes of all of them, you'd only be able to field a decent lord and a couple of units of cultists in a 1500 pt army

I'd also reconsider the marks: all of the legions (bar DG, WE, EC, TS) have at least one grand company aligned with each of the gods at a time so I wouldn't say its out of character. Mark of Khorne helps out a lot in combat too

[Tenebris]

Well if they are a splinter force of the Undivided traitor legions (BL; WB; IW; NL) than something linking them to their genetic heritage could be proper. Consider the above when naming.

 

For a Lord:

 

Terminator Armor

Lightning Claw

Melta Bombs

Burning Brand of Skalathrax

 

Nice, tested, killy and dangerous on all levels and against all opponents. It rocks in duels due to his rerolls with the Lightning Claw, it can damage vehicles with the Melta Bomb but above all he is superb in support with the Burning Brand since he can kill things on higher building levels, roast things behind the ever present Aegis and kill marines like boss. It is relatively affordable too. 

[Karsarn Forsworn]

My warband is basically my loyalist chapter (the Nova Lords) who turned to chaos after their primogenitor chapter the Ultramarines basically accused them of being heretics and basically had them become outcasts. As such they were forced to steal their geneseed and equipment and so became pirates for a while. This would begin their hatred of the corpse Emperor and the Imperium. Around 200 years after this began they eventually began to get tired and bored of just raiding the imperium for recruits and resources and so eventually began to head towards the eye of terror. As they found a hidden warp hole they entered the eye of terror and became aquanted with the Daemon Prince Nazarihakalwho eventually sucedeed in turning the entire chapter to chaos. After that day they renamed themselves the Heralds of Destruction vowing that they would not stop until the entire of the imperium was engulfed in chaos and that they would not rest until they had crushed every ultramarine and every successor of the ultramarines. This all happens in M36 so there is plenty of time for them to increase their own numbers. Culttroops wise I was thinking about maybe a unit of Noise Marines and a unit of Bezerkers with maybe a unit of plague marines chucked in. Bezerkers would ride around in a land raider while the plague marine unit would be used in a similar fashion to  stern guard and the noise marines would sit back and just shoot til they cant shoot no more.

Btw what do people think of this lord build. Idea was it was to represent the warbands Chapter Master Karsarn Forsworn

Chaos Lord Karsarn Forsworn Lightening Claw Burning Brand Sigil

[Sception]

That terminator lord is not dangerous against all opponents, due to the inability to penetrate 2+ armor saves and poor inv save. Any opponent with a AP2 weapon and either multiple attacks at high initiative (ie: fighty daemon characters, hive tyrants, etc) or multiple wounds and a 2+ save (ie: fighty marine characters, mega-armored orks) is more often than not going to kill him in a challenge. Considering that that's a pretty wide swath of melee characters, I wouldn't rate that termie lord very high as a duelist.

 

Not that it's a bad character set up. Brand does a lot for anyone, and it's not a poor combatant, just not one I'd send into challenges with serious duelists. Brand compensates for the poor threat range that comes with an infantry locked melee character. I'd just be sure to make sure there's someone hanging out with him to eat challenges you don't want him in, and maybe consider a power fist in place of the mbombs & l.claw, so as to have a chance of pulling 2+ save marine or ork characters down with him.

 

I prefer faster set ups (bike mounted lord), or more dedicated support characters (smiths, sorcerers). Like, maybe a bike lord with fisticlaws and sigil, trading the bike's TLBolters for the brand. Or a warpsmith, either walking up the midfield with dura and a brand to support infantry and melee walkers, or naked behind an aigis with havocs and long range vehicles, manning an icarus with his BS5. Or a lv3 undivided sorcerer with spell familiar, sigil, force sword, m.bombs, and telepathy; or spell familiar, terminator armor, force axe, m.bombs, and biomancy, either way supporting mid field infantry. Or a sorcer on a bike with sigil, familiar, m.bombs, sword or axe, and telepathy or biomance, either way.

 

Or just take Huron. Several workable options, here, if perhaps few outstanding ones.

[kdruthless]

That's a decent lord who should be able to make his points back.

 

Noise marines are a good choice for solid firepower, Berserkers are good for linebreaking. As you are going to have an unmarked Lord, I'd perhaps leave the plague marines at home. They wont keep pace with the berserkers and probably wont make their considerable points back being used as baddie sternguard. Save the points and the elite slot for something else I think. An evil dreadnought maybe. Or nurgle obliterators

 

All in all tho, your plan should work and create a fairly flexible army. Make sure to take lots of troops though to ensure that the objectives swept clean by your cult units can be held before a counterattack

[Sception]

If going undivided, I'd shy away from all cult marines, actually. They don't fit the undivided aesthetic, and none of them are great as non-scoring elites. If you must take elites, take terminators, but for the most part you should find yourself running out of army points before you run out of better things to take from your HQ, fast, heavy, fortification, and ally slots (lords, princes, smiths, sorcerers, special characters, spawn, bikes, drakes, havocs, oblits, predators, fiends, ADL, bastion, quad, icarus, allied daemons or guard or necrons or orks or tau), provided you're also taking the obligatory troops spread - about one scoring unit per 500 points, split evenly between backfielders to camp your own objectives (minimal cultist squads & long range shooty shooty or tough & slow alied troops), and midfielders capable of claiming enemy objectives (CSMs, large cultist squads escorting fearless characters & short range shooty or fast & assaulty allied troops).

[Tenebris]

Well if I have to deal with enemy terminators I feed their sergeant my Aspiring Champion with Power Axe. Now the Lightning Claw makes for a poor terminator killer but it works in concert with MoS, for bar that only the Power Maul and Power Sword are useful with the said mark, the Claw gives me a basic reroll so it is in many points better.

 

Usually Chaos Lords come in three flavors, Terminator to deep strike nearby enemy units and act as a fire magnet with its high threat range, Biker as a fast delivery system for the Brand or cheap and cheerful with only a Mark to unlock the Cult Troops. If you do not plan to have anything particular than a solid Sorcerer is the way to go but you loose Fearless for a unit and that can be in certain occasions a big thing.

[Sception]

MoS of course makes a difference, but we're theoretically talking about an undivided lord, here, at which point the melee options for a brand-armed termie lord lean towards the axe or fist, imo. If we weren't concerned with maintaining undivided, I might have brough up a winged mace prince or a bike or jugger mounted axe lord. Probably not superior to brand lords overall, but still worth considering for sheer brute impact in melee.

 

We don't have great HQs, and we especially don't have great duelists (Abby or Typhus arguably, but they lack the mobility needed to force engagements without resorting to the overpriced and underwhelming land raider), which is a real shame considering our fluff, our supposed melee focus, and our burdensome champions rule. But we do have a pretty wide variety of 'somewhat ok' HQs to choose from, so at least we can't complain about available variety in the commander slot.

[kdruthless]

Another possibility for a lord is to take the rules for a special character and build up your own fluff. For undivided that leaves you with Abaddon, Huron Blackheart and Bile. I'd personal go for Blackheart. he's a versatile commander, pretty good at everything, and doesn't cost the earth. Also fits nicely with the traitor space marine chapter feel of it

[Sception]

Huron is a very good choice for a new chaos player's warlord. Reasonably affordible, decent melee, some psychic support, some shooting in the form of a heavy flamer, and serious tactical support from his warlord trait.

 

The only downside to starting with huron is that the units and tactics he encourages don't work so well without him. The difference between a chaos army with d3 infiltrating units and a chaos army without is pretty major, so if you change up warlords later you're going to need to relearn a lot from scratch.

 

 

The other downside, of course, is that he's a named special character from a paticular subfaction, and some won't want to run him counts-as, purely for aesthetic & thematic reasons. That's the only reason I don't have a huron counts-as in my own collection, yet.

[kdruthless]

Of course, the alternative is to create an army representing a temporary alliance between the Red Corsairs and the Heralds of Destruction. Huron plus another cheap lord, some squads of Chaos Marines, some noise marines, a dreadnought, a vindicator and some termies should be possible in the 1500 to 1850 point bracket and should be pretty competitive on the tabletop, as well as thematic and giving a nice looking army 

[Fibonacci]

About the name, do you have a color scheme in mind?  Sometimes it helps.

Sanguine Slaughter

Jade Death

Sable Marauders

Lapis Lipbitters ...

 

Other names:

Deathmongers

Legion of Hate

Carnage Inc

Death's Chosen

Starbane

Deciples of Malice

The Stillborne

Faithless Corruptors

 

 

As for the lord, what do you want?  A beat stick?  Tactical support?  Mobile fire support?  Since you are not wanting to open up cult units as troops, does it have to be a Lord?  I have had great luck using an undivided scorcerer with jump pack, sigal  and brand.

 

If you take one unit of each god ...

Khorne Jugger Lord with Axe

Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with Mace

Noise Marines with blastmaster and sonic weapons

Nurgle oblits

 

At least that is what I would take. 

[Karsarn Forsworn]

I wanted a lord as I want to have the chapters former chsapter master leading the army. I tried out the build I said yesterday Lightening Claw Sigil Burning Brand and as I had points to spare I added a GoM. This game was the relic and my friend was using my Grey Knights army. the 5 man squad the lord was with got the relic and foot slogged it away while the lord who was in the rhino as it got imobilised litrally used the burning brand to great effect he slaughtered quite a few GK strike squad members and 2 justicars. By the end of the game he had crusader multiple rewards hammer of wrath +1 BS and adamantium will. Also I was thinking of going for mainly black armour with the shoulder pads and the things above the feet on the legs (which I think are called Pouldrons) being painted red with a gold trim. Overall im happy with the lords performance. While Huron is a good option I dont really like him as I prefere to build my own characters and in a way I feel like Huron is forcing me to build and play my army a certain way which I dont generally like. Yes my lord will struggle against 2+ saves but my answers to them is generally shoot em til they stop moving

[kdruthless]

Okie dokie then. That's a good lord build, and as you have seen can be pretty effective. I would say that using the rules for a special character while using your own model and background is just as good, but its your army and one of the boons of this hobby is that you can do whatever the hell you like , particularly if you are chaos, because if anyone argues, just shout 'BLOOD FOR TH BLOOD GOD!' and they leave quietly

However, don't commit him against overwhelming odds without backup. Generally speaking a unit of chosen or terminators are a damn good bodyguard for him. If you go for chosen, they are surprisingly cheap and you get to use the stunning dark vengeance models (or make your own). However, terminators got a lot better in 6th and you may want to go for them if you have the points and if your lord isn't in termie armour they're gonna need a land raider to ride in so they can actually do something (no deep strike if accompanied by power armour). However, both are versatile choices with lots of different loadouts so have a play.

Any idea about your general army composition yet? Daemon engines, or hijacked imperial equipment?

[Karsarn Forsworn]

Okie dokie then. That's a good lord build, and as you have seen can be pretty effective. I would say that using the rules for a special character while using your own model and background is just as good, but its your army and one of the boons of this hobby is that you can do whatever the hell you like , particularly if you are chaos, because if anyone argues, just shout 'BLOOD FOR TH BLOOD GOD!' and they leave quietly

However, don't commit him against overwhelming odds without backup. Generally speaking a unit of chosen or terminators are a damn good bodyguard for him. If you go for chosen, they are surprisingly cheap and you get to use the stunning dark vengeance models (or make your own). However, terminators got a lot better in 6th and you may want to go for them if you have the points and if your lord isn't in termie armour they're gonna need a land raider to ride in so they can actually do something (no deep strike if accompanied by power armour). However, both are versatile choices with lots of different loadouts so have a play.

Any idea about your general army composition yet? Daemon engines, or hijacked imperial equipment?

So far the plan is it will have a small unit of 10 cultists (to use as either living cover or to hold a objective in my deployment zone) with 3 10 man squads of Chaos Marines and a 5 man squad in a rhino which he goes with. I generally plan to have the squad get out but leave him in there so that hes pretty safe. Eventually I will probably add some warp talons or more bikes and spawn a sorceror maybe a helldrake (but only one so that my opponent still has a chance lol). Backing that up will definately be atleast 1 unit of havocs maybe some oblits and a couple of either defilers or forge fiends. I am planning to have some chosen at games of 2k+ thinking of putting 5 flamers and a combi flamer in there for overwatch lols :D

[kdruthless]

I'd beef up the cultists. A unit of ten will die very very quickly, and/or leg it. I'd consider 20 to be the minimum size.

 

Apart form that though, it all looks good

[Karsarn Forsworn]

I'd beef up the cultists. A unit of ten will die very very quickly, and/or leg it. I'd consider 20 to be the minimum size.

 

Apart form that though, it all looks good

The only reason for 10 cultists currently is I dont want to use the auto gun cultists from Dv so I am considering converting some cadians up to be traitor guard and using them as cultists

[kdruthless]

Pop on ebay if you want a quick solution. I saw someone pick up Sect Techtvar for about £7 about a week ago. That's a bit cheaper than Cadians and you don't have to make use of 'counts as' lasguns

[Karsarn Forsworn]

True thats why im thinking if I dotake allies it will be Daemons as if I go for guard as allies il have to put quite a bit of money and points into it where as I can just take a cheap herald and troop from daemons then take what I need from the other slots.

[kdruthless]

Sorry, maybe I didn't make that very clear. Sect tetchvar are the autogun wielding cultists from the DV box set. Theyre a pretty cheap way to add more bulk to your army

[Karsarn Forsworn]

Ah I got both sects mixed up :L

[Trevak Dal]

Well if you didn't have any qualms about using special characters, and wanted more badass than normal CSMs without marking them you could go with Abaddon and Chosen as troops.

 

I'd suggest not to pile more than 2 special weapons, maybe a heavy, an embedded power weapon and a lightning claw for the champion to try an keep costs down if you go that route.

 

I'd go 10 man strong units, 2 plasma guns, embedded power axe, Heavy bolter with the champ having a lightning claw and meltabombs for a shootier/generalist squad.

 

Similarly, 10 man strong, 2 flamers, 2 embedded swords or claws, champ having a power axe for an assault oriented Chosen squad.

 

Chosen come with 3 attacks base (2+1 for being double armed) the Old CSM leadership.  But they get expensive quick.

 

Add in some terminators to give Abaddon some proper support (I'd take 4 and a landraider with Big A riding shotgun, rhinos for your Chosen)

 

If you wanted to include another HQ besides Abaddon, you could, and could take a smaller than 10 man Chosen squad (and still get all the options).

[Karsarn Forsworn]

I dont really like Abbadon tbh hes too straight forward and I feel I can support my army in a better way without him. Yes the prefered enemy is nice but he changes my army in a way I dont want it changed :p plus I generally dont like single no monstrous creature models to go over 200 points at max :p. Also I dont use named characters as a rule just because I prefere my own generic characters