CSM as allies, what do they bring?

[FlamingDeth]

I'm currently constructing a three branched force consisting of orks, traitor guard and chaos marines, and I'm stumped on what the strengths of chaos would be here. The orks and guard are more obvious, they both have number of bodies, the guard bring serious AA from hydras and vendettas, and mass melta in the form of vet squads and platoon command squads, whereas the orks have infantry murdering taken care of. What I can't peg down is the role of the chaos marines in the force; what would they do that isn't being covered by the other forces? I know that I want them for fluff and thematic reasons but I don't know what I'd have them do other than kill space marines.

[minigun762]

Beyond the short answer of "Heldrake", I think there are good reason to bring Chaos as allies.

 

Cultists provide a cheap scoring unit and if you bury a Chaos lord inside a giant squad, you have quite the tarpit/bubblewrap squad that is fearless and fairly killy.

Most heavy support options provide good long range firepower at a value price, especially Autocannon Havocs who are a solid threat to new Eldar skimmers.

Termicide is still a viable option for spending a few points to kill something important, especially now that combi-plasma is so potent.

[Scribe]

Baledrakes. I kid you not. That is what you ally CSM for.

 

Sorc

Cultists x 10

Baledrake.

 

And I do not mean to disparage commentary either but given the Primary's listed, that is what I would bring CSM for.

[minigun762]

Ahh yes, I forgot cheap Lvl 3 Sorcerer HQ.

[FlamingDeth]

I'll have to take a look at the heavy support choices, see what I can take that wouldn't be redundant with what the guard can take. Sorcerers seem like a good plan for sure though since neither guard nor orks have any serious psychic power at the moment. I do know that I want more than minimum required stuff + drake as I want the option of running CSM as a primary detachment, its just easier to figure out his to run them primary and fill weaknesses with allies than to figure out what weaknesses they fill as allies.

[Pariah Mk.231]

I'd also add Nurlge obliterators and termicide squads to reasonable allies choices. If you magnetise the arms on the termies you can swap them around depending on who you're playing against. Depending on where you drop them, they can make decent roadbumps, diversions, assassins or a good scare unit. A 3-man unit with combi-weapons comes in at 112pts, so it's not too hard to earn their points back, especially if they have meltas and you successfully drop them within 6" of a landraider or other expensive vehicle.

[Teetengee]

I would look through the list at things that guard and IG don't do at all well(as has been posted) Baledrake of course, but also things such as deepstrike (terminators, and obliterators), and heavy infantry, which include the humble chaos space marine by ig/ork standards.

[berzerkermike84]

bring hellbrutes. nothing says chaos like a dreadnought thats no longer called a dreadnought (btw, this was a joke, i havent played/seen a chaos dread since the new book came out) 

[FashaTheDog]

They offer Heresy.  They also offer Idleness (but if you leave it out overnight it will be covered in Heresy).

[the jeske]

helldrakes and mace DPs for demon armies . Mace DPs help demons with aoe and swarm armies. Beside those two chaos is a bit meh as ally good. Too few battlebrothers ,few all round buffs etc.

[daboarder]

Realistically we dont get ANY battle brothers, considering all the "daemons can never join" crap we basically have glorified allies of convenience only.

[SRSFACE]

Realistically we dont get ANY battle brothers, considering all the "daemons can never join" crap we basically have glorified allies of convenience only.

They still benefit from allied psychic powers and warlord trait, but that's about it.

 

Sorcerers make bad allied HQ choices as a result. You bring psychic powers to buff your guys because Witchfire powers are unreliable. Maledictions are pretty handy, but they are also rare (maybe 1 or 2 in an entire discipline) and are therefore difficult to roll consistently. I'd rather just run some steroided Daemon Prince or Chaos Lord.

 

But, I'll have to echo what everyone else is saying. Their big nasty things are still big and nasty, but your troop choices are going to be pretty limited. Luckily, if you're allying with orks, you won't care. You could take a basic CSM squad and rig them to be shooty to hold objectives while your Green Tide goes and does its thing, and having an accurate HW guy in an Ork army never hurt nobody but your enemies. Something like Obliterators to go be an anti-mech ally that is pretty effective for the cost and benefits an Ork list as they can actually hit things without lucky dice. You could also take some Havocs with tons of Flakk missiles to be anti-air, but, you said you've already got Guard and they have units that can do it much better (like their own ridiculous flyers, perhaps).

 

And then of course Heldrakes because they are effing ridiculously good.

[the jeske]

They still benefit from allied psychic powers and warlord trait, but that's about it.

What powers that csm use ,  do you cast on demon ally?

[Tenebris]

Sigh:

 

The CSM as allies are so far only good for:

 

Sorcerer

Cultists 

Helldrake

 

Nothing more and nothing less. The problem with us as allies is that our troop choices are either expensive and specialized, or general and lacking and more often than not the core troops of the main army do their thing better. Some would argue with Bikers and Obliterators but so far the last books that came out are very formidable in the Fast Attack and Heavy Support slots that there is little that CSM do it better than their own. On the other side the Helldrake is a superb unit that benefits almost any army out there. 

 

Do not mistake the Sorcerer for a cheap Mastery 3 for usually he is not allied with this setup, he is a cheap HQ for 60 points who goes with the Cultists and rolls on the Primaris of the Telepathy discipline. When you take Helldrakes you are on the lookout for every spare points and we can be quite cheap thus a wise player would cut our cost as allies.

 

Said all that, the sad truth is that we are taken as allies only for the Helldrake and nothing else. I fear that when the supplements will come out and if the rumors prove true that will allow for mixed Daemon/CSM allies than many would probably prefer to take Daemon units over our Sorcerer and Cultists. 

 

Yeah, it is that sad. 

[SRSFACE]

 

They still benefit from allied psychic powers and warlord trait, but that's about it.

What powers that csm use ,  do you cast on demon ally?

Endurance on the Biomancy table.

Invisibility in Telepathy

Fire Shield in Pyromancy

 

If you're running Tzeentch and get Boon of Mutation, you can force your Daemon allies to roll on the Chaos Boon table, which is fun because that's not even a thing in their codex.

[the jeske]

But you already going to be runing biomancy on your DPs and invisibility works ok only for nurgle DPs.

[SRSFACE]

I am not sure I see your point? Just because you also have access to those things with Daemons doesn't mean that Chaos Marines can't also bring that to the table. More psychic powers, the better. Just saying, people were stating that allying with daemons might as well be glorified allies of convenience, but I was just pointing out there are still a few things Battle Brothers gives you.

[zyl-]

You could always do my favorite and run daemons as allies so you don't have to deal with that warp storm crap, which is crap without question. The fact that rolling an 11 on it is amazing, and a 10 is alright does not excuse the rest of the table being bad. It may as well read "roll 2d6 and see how you kill yourself before each shooting phase."

[the jeske]

I am not sure I see your point? Just because you also have access to those things with Daemons doesn't mean that Chaos Marines can't also bring that to the table. More psychic powers, the better. Just saying, people were stating that allying with daemons might as well be glorified allies of convenience, but I was just pointing out there are still a few things Battle Brothers gives you.

But endurance doesn't stack , so after 4 biomancy MC there is little use to take a sorc to cast endurance on them . If someone takes csm as ally for demons , he does so to get a helldrake and a mace DP and the DP is going to be casting stuff on himself and not the other MC . Chaos marines don't have access to divination , so we don't realy bring buffs . At the same time our god powers[and the DP always has to waste a slot on those] have little utility with non marines. An option that doesn't realy work or is  a win more option , isn't realy viable. Even invisibility requires the use of shrouded nurgle stuff.