Chaos Space Marines: Making The Best of a Bad Unit

[Scribe]

Yeah, functionally, I just cant get behind chosen. I see some of the value, but VotLW needs to be baked into the cost, essentially free. Agree with malisteen, they are nothing but CSM++, without really adding much.

 

The much touted 10 CSM, Plasma x 2, in a Rhino (though I am pretty sure I am dropping down to Melta, Plasma pisses me off as I roll 1's like they are going out of style) gives you a solid, if uninspired unit.

 

10 CSM, VotlW, Melta x 2, Rhino, Dirge. Probably what I will settle on, but only 2 units as required.

[Excessus]

Lol, I know how that feels. Those damn 1s on the plasmas are haunting me! Last tournament I brought 4 plasma guns, in three games they all killed themselves... :P

 

 

And no Alecium, basic CSM are not up to par with the other options in our codex, and not if you compare with other codexes either. If you want to belive we are all incompetent morons then that is your perogative, but it's not like we don't know they are crap. We just choose to play them anyway...

[Scribe]

Yeah I mean crunch the numbers a bit. In a void? Sure Plasma can do great things, rapid fire and all that, but over a tournament? How many 1's may you roll? How many will you fail to save on? That kind of :cuss really burns me up. :p

 

On top of that, it saves me some points so I can throw a LC on my Raptor champ because it looks cool. :p

[Dragonlover]

So, my current list looks something like this:

 

HQ:

Huron

 

Troops:

10x CSM with Vets, CCW, 2x Plasmagun, Powerfist and Combi Plas, Gift, Rhino, Dirge Caster

10x CSM with Vets, CCW, 2x Plasmagun, Powerfist and Combi Plas, Gift, Rhino, Dirge Caster

9x CSM with Vets, CCW, 1x Plasmagun, Powerfist and Combi Plas, Gift, Rhino, Dirge Caster

 

Fast Attack:

2x Baledrake

 

Heavy Support:

Forgefiend with all the plasma

3x Obliterators, MoN

10x Havocs, 4x Autocannons, Vets, CCW

 

All the CCW are paid for rather than being swapped out (ubergrit?). The powerfists are a relic of the previous codex that I keep around as a 'just in case' measure for walkers and MC's. And yeah yeah, Gift is terrible, I know, but there's just something tantalising about the possibility of getting a cool thing. I tempted to try dropping them though, it pretty much buys me a Cultist squad, and since this is an Alpha Legion list...

 

I tend to use the CSM squads as infiltrating plasma bunkers that trundle around, softening up units, getting in the way and just generally being aggravating while my other specialist stuff does what it's there to do, then they'll hop out and grab an objective/charge a unit off an objective.

 

I find that Vets does what I need it to do, the majority of my failed Ld tests have been boxcars or elevens anyway. The first couple of games I played with the codex I didn't take it, and found that I was being forced to run away way too easily. Admittedly I was footslogging at the time, but the point still stands.

 

I find that they're solid. Sure, occasionally they'll run from a combat I don't want them to (or indeed one of their own blowing himself up), but them's the breaks.

 

I'm playing a guy tomorrow who's trying a blob of 20 with MoS and Icon of Excess, I'll try and remember to report back on how he gets on with it.

 

Dragonlover

[Tenebris]

I have only two Rhinos in my collection and since I am not sold on the mechanized squads I prefer to field my CSM on foot and in quite some numbers. Too bad that I have to decide between a Sorcerer or two Icon of Vengeance and this is indeed a hard choice to make. The problem is that I am in a meta where artillery is abused and you are forced on average around four Pinning checks per turn for each squad so it can be nasty without Fearless. A Krieg artilleryman managed to keep a squad of 15 CSM stunlocked for two turns with his mortars, nasty I say. 

 

That is why I am biting the proverbial pill and rolling with Plague Marines. Still there is ample place for our PA grunts in many lists but usually I have to boost them with cultists or tons of Obliterators to actually have some shooting done. The problem is that if VotLW would be a Fearless upgrade, even with a point cost boost it would be better than the current interpretation. 

 

So the question is to spam or not to spam. 

 

I find that spamming units of 10 and fill with them most of the Troops section is a good idea. Sure requires a lot of points but we are playing an attrition rate against the armies that shoot better by the day so more bodies is usually the best idea. I think I will roll with four generalist squads in one of the tournaments soon.

 

CSM

+ 5 CSM

+ Melta Bombs

+ 2x Plasma Gun

+ Extra CCW

 

Or even better, 1 2x Flamer Squad, 1 2x Melta Squad and the rest with Plasma to keep behind. No Veterans since the point cost would skyrocket but a nice threat range though sadly on foot. Keeping with the old Valhallan adagio, just throw more men at it and it will eventually fall. 

[totgeboren]

But how would the Icon of Vengance help against artillery? Or do you house-rule how wounds from artillery are allocated?

I mean, otherwise the Icon will most likely be the first model to die anyway. What you need to deal with lots or artillery is rhinos I think.

[Tenebris]

I use it for Fearless so I do not have to run Pinning checks every turn, though it lasts as long as it lasts, usually three turns max if I am careful with my positioning. The problem with having only a flat discipline number and having no discipline buffers is that you are subject to the myriad of nasty effects like Fear, Pinning, Weakened Resolve... all of which have the potential to cripple our CSM units very badly. With the preponderance of Daemons, artillery, forced discipline checks due to psychic powers and other nasty effects I dread to venture forward every time without at least two squads that are Fearless.

 

The other books have a way to mitigate their lower Discipline or do not suffer from it (Mob Rule) most of the game but the problem is when you face the new armies which can have nasty debuffs and the discipline debuffs are especially painful for the CSM. In the end the Icon rarely lasts long and the other alternative are the cult troops. Damn I have been so pressed a few times that I clustered like a madman around my Dark Apostle to squeeze the maximum out of his leadership bubble when things were dire.

[totgeboren]

But wounds from artillery are allocated to the model closest to the centre of the blast first. So your opponent should just target your icons with the mortars and if say a blast causes 3 wounds while centred on the icon, the icon bearer wound need to pass three saves or be removed as a casualty.

 

As I see it, if I were foot slogging, I would rather take 2 extra chaos marines than the IoV, especially if my opponent fields lots of artillery.

VotLW would also be more or less mandatory, so that your marines stand a farily good chance of crossing the board even if the Champ gets sniped by the incredibly accurate artillery of 6ed (which my group has thankfully house-ruled to work a bit more balanced).

Also, as Ld is on 2D6 you don't have a linear probability distribution, meaning +1 LD has a big impact if your value is already pretty high. (Failing LD 10 is only half the odds of failing Ld 9 for example).

[RapatoR]

It depends on how much multi-floor ruins you have, where you play. Because you can make your icon safe from artillery there.

[Kythnos]

 

VotLW would also be more or less mandatory, so that your marines stand a farily good chance of crossing the board even if the Champ gets sniped by the incredibly accurate artillery of 6ed (which my group has thankfully house-ruled to work a bit more balanced).

 

I'd be really interested to hear about tis house rule of yours. Might be worth it to put it forward to my group :)

[totgeboren]

VotLW would also be more or less mandatory, so that your marines stand a farily good chance of crossing the board even if the Champ gets sniped by the incredibly accurate artillery of 6ed (which my group has thankfully house-ruled to work a bit more balanced).

I'd be really interested to hear about tis house rule of yours. Might be worth it to put it forward to my group

We do it like this. First, make a Wound pool of all the wounds caused by the barrage attack. Secondly, the player owning the unit allocates the wounds (just like wounds caused to units inside exploding transports), with the one exception that models in the open must be killed first, then those in 6+ cover, then those in 5+ and so on.

This makes barrage slightly better at taking out models in the first place (because even if you hit models in cover their friends in the open will be hit first), but it totally removes the ability to snipe out characters and special weapons. Seriously, a guardsman with a mortar is at least 3-4 times as good at sniping than a guardsman with a sniper rifle, when barrage weapons should be the least accurate weapons in the game.

[Kythnos]

Thanks, that does sound like I might be able to sell it to my group :)

[Iron_Within]

That sounds like a fantastic idea. Don't know if I'll be able to sell it to my group though they don't like house rules. which sucks.

[Sception]

Yeah, functionally, I just cant get behind chosen. I see some of the value, but VotLW needs to be baked into the cost, essentially free. Agree with malisteen, they are nothing but CSM++, without really adding much.

 

The one thing I do want to try with chosen at some point in the future is a combination of troop chosen via Black Legion supplement and infiltrate via Huron or Ahriman.  In the past I've felt about running other sub factions' special characters in my Black Legion, but then again, I was hoping for new character write ups for some of the Black Legion characters apart from Abaddon to appear in our supplement like Farsight got his eight.  Zaraphiston or the Chosen at least would have been nice, but that didn't happen, instead we got a note that 'all the other special characters have worked with Abaddon in the past' which is fine and all, but I thought that was what allowing BL to ally with CSMs was for?  But whatever, it is the way it is, so as far as I'm concerned all the named characters in C:CSM have officially taken the Black, and I just won't care anymore.

 

Anyway, yeah, infiltrating troop chosen might be worth a try, though the 2 point black legion surcharge is pretty painful on them.

 

I guess that's kind of off topic, though.

[Dragonlover]

So, played that game last night. Yeah, the 20 guys with MoS and Icon of Excess died horrifically to pinpoint triple-ectoplasma fire on the first turn, so no real data there. My guys just stayed in the Rhinos pretty much, other than Huron and his crew who killed some cultists then some Berzerkers.

 

WRT Chosen, I've always discounted them because up til now, I've not liked the idea of paying more points for a guy that dies as easy as a normal CSM but can't score. I'll probably have a play around with them once I make a Black Legion list out of the new book.

 

Dragonlover

[Brother Eleysium]

Yeah I mean crunch the numbers a bit. In a void? Sure Plasma can do great things, rapid fire and all that, but over a tournament? How many 1's may you roll? How many will you fail to save on? That kind of :cuss really burns me up.

On top of that, it saves me some points so I can throw a LC on my Raptor champ because it looks cool.

I feel your pain 100000000% here!!! Sorry, going a bit for a moment. I played in a tourney one time where it was the last round, the guy I was playing had 4 Khorne Berzerkers standing in scoring position of the objective in the open, all I had to do was hit!!! I rapid fired my 2 plasmaguns, and BAM 4 1s!!!!!! I then failed 2 of my saves thus killing my two marines toting the weapons, which then took my squad to an unscoring unit. So I took myself from a hard fought stalemate, to a painful second round loss!!! I still run plasma all over the place, but we definitely have a love hate relationship.

@the jeske I think I'm just going to agree to disagree with you here. The strange thing is I agree with the CSM tactics that you have posted, bc i have also said the same thing in this thread. But, we seem to be having a pissing match still.

[minigun762]

I've been a fan of plasma but the high cost is more of an issue than the chance of killing yourself.

saving 20 points per squad if I switched to Flamers is a constant temptation.

[Sception]

Thing is, plasmas do a job that needs doing - anti terminator duties.  And they do it at the same range as the squad's default weaponry.  What are you taking for AP2 if you skip on them?  And how often are you finding yourself able to fire off meltas or flamers if you take them instead?

[Dragonlover]

I've been a fan of plasma but the high cost is more of an issue than the chance of killing yourself.

saving 20 points per squad if I switched to Flamers is a constant temptation.

 

 I just switched from flamers to plasma. The plasma has been infinitely more useful than the flamers ever were. Sure, occasionally a guy melts his own arm off, but it's not as often as you think.

 

Dragonlover

[minigun762]

Thing is, plasmas do a job that needs doing - anti terminator duties. And they do it at the same range as the squad's default weaponry. What are you taking for AP2 if you skip on them? And how often are you finding yourself able to fire off meltas or flamers if you take them instead?

I like me some Lascannons, whether it's on Predators or Havoc, I think the extra Str and AP2 is worth it.

Besides, terminators can die to mass fire just fine, it's more about FMCs or Riptides where the Flamers suffer.

[Sception]

I don't ever like to bank on my opponent rolling ones.  Sure, termies can fall to weight of fire, but they can also easily shrug off an entire game's worth of light arms fire while taking no damage at all.  I've had the latter happen too often to skip in AP2.  Lascannons are decent if you're taking enough of them, though.  I would strongly consider las for my havocs, if there were a reasonable way to get my hands on some.  FW makes nice autocannon sets that fit CSM bodies with little bother, but the heresy lascannons require special arms that only come on particular, pricey, and not-at-all chaosy looking heresy guys.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Add spikey bits to Devastator lascannon bits?

[minigun762]

Add spikey bits to Devastator lascannon bits?

That or some blood splatter, I think it's ok for Chaos weapons to look more normal as they can always be justified as spoils of war.

[Sception]

Devastator lascannons aren't exactly easy to come by, either.

[Scribe]

This kind of speaks to that whole 'in a void' thing.

 

Plasma is awesome, termi killing joy, no doubt.

 

However, what if you have some MC daemon support, or 2 such things? What if you have some maulerfiends that can run in, and swing before powerfists/chainfists?

 

There are ways of killing Terminators outside plasma. Sure maybe those terminators have Storm Shields, but maybe you have Misfortune cast on them (MC Support from Daemons...).

 

Or maybe there are no terminators, and you are pumping plasma shots into a guard blob....I get the value, I like the profile, but I still think they may be a bit pricey once the downside is considered.