CSM army - Getting "underdog" units to perform

[Valaskjalf]

Hey guys

Having read through the SM codex and always loving assault marines I started getting a little bit of a crush on the new Raven Guard. And that got me thinking....there must be some way of making Warp Talons viable and getting them into combat reliably. I know the consensus is that Raptors > Talons, but I want to embrace the all-out Assaulty-ness of the Warp Talons and the unpredictability is quite appealing.

 

Im looking to create a fast army and see how the 3 fast attacks Im most interested in compete in the same game, total between 1500-1750 pts:
10 x Bikes Mon
5 x Spawn MoN

10 x Warp Talons MoS
Huron for his D3 Infiltrate abilities (who knows, maybe I can infiltrate all 3 of them)
2 x 10 barebones CSM troops in Rhinos as meatshields

2 x squads of Oblits MoN (3-man per squad)

2 x 10 Noise Marines (2 x Blast Masters each) for mid/backfield support
1 x 10 Plague Marines 
1 x Predator

I have no doubts that when you give Warp Talons MoS and get them into combat they will absolutely melt the faces off any MEQ/Tacticals. 

We all know the no-assault grenades is a big problem, but what ways are there around this apart from Assaulting units in the open, which lets be honest, won't happen too often against a player who knows what he's doing. Did some mathhammer of my own (not a strong point of mine) and if 10 MoS WTs charge a regular 10-man Tac squad they will releably kill about 6-7 of them (while losing 1 WT) before the TACs get a chance to swing. 

So what is the best delivery system for them to minimise casualties before Overwatch? Deepstrike is out of the question as Warpflame Strike is little more than a gimmick and I play mostly against Marine armies. Maybe run them in a rhino behind cover? Run them behind a unit of 5 Spawn and when in range jump and charge?

I only play socially with friends so Im not trying to create an uber competitive and one dimensional list of heldrake/cultist spam. I dont even own a flyer and have always enjoyed bodies on the board instead. 

So for those of you who have had success using them in some way, let me know Im very keen on using them successfully (most of the time).

 

Cheers

[Riptor]

Making Warp Talons effective is simply a case of allowing them to reach close combat. They are fantastic when they are there, but in this very shooty edition of warhammer 40k they struggle with a high points cost, coupled with not much more survivability than regular raptors.

 

This is not to say they do not work at all, but of course you understand they are a sub-par choice.

 

I have a very limited experience with them, so I will use my experience with Raptors here. I find the key point is saturating the opponent with other targets, with any luck causing them to not fire as much as needed against the Talons (Or, atleast if they do fire at the Warp Talons, you have other units to bring the fight to them). As such, I would say upgrade some of your squads to be a bigger target, nd do more damage. Put some special weapons on the marines squads, and they plague marines.

 

The list you have there (I am assuming that is your army list, or is it just a list of models you own? I haven't run the numbers on it yet) is severely lacking in troops choices. I would recommend taking a Slaanesh Lord of some kind (Perhaps on a bike, changing either the Spawn or the Bikers to have no mark or MoS and running him with them) to make the noise mariens troops, then splitting the noice marines into 4 squads of 5 man with 1 blastmaster each. This triples your scoring unit numbers, and means the opponent will have to put a lot more firepower in to remove you from objectives.

 

In addition, if you are deepstriking the Warp Talons, then you may want to maximise your chance to 'blind' the enemy by splitting them into 2 squads of 5. I know this takes you over the 3 fast attack slots, but thankfully the Black Legion supplement can allow you to ally with another Chaos army to gain extra slots where needed. This would require another HQ choice (Aforementioned Slaanesh Biker Lord?) and two more troops (Noise Marines) to work. To free up points for this, consider dropping 2 Obliterators.

 

The Predator sticks out a little as the only vehicles that is not a rhino. I think it will be a large target, and be killed rather quickly. I would go with 2 Predators, or none personally.

 

Plague Marines, with their short ranges and regular movement, probably want a rhino. I would happily ignore the squad all game, as they have no special weapons, are not scoring and are slow to move around to contest objectives/speedbump units.

 

 

I have just run the numbers, to write a rough army list, and realised that the units you posted is over 2,000 points, even bare bones. So my apologies, I thought it was a list posted, rather than a list of model you have available/want in the army.

[Icarsun]

Best answer for Warp Talons?

 

Skull Cannon

 

Ally in some Daemons, get yourself a Skull Cannon.

 

Use it to tag an enemy unit with the dread skulls rule (and take out a few models in the process to weaken overwatch) and then watch as suddenly the assault grenade problem on your warp talons disapears.

 

Dreadskulls allows a Daemon unit to assault into cover ignoring the initiative penalties.

 

(And another similarly nasty combo is Herald of Tzeentch in a Tzeentch Obliterator unit. Perfect Timing Prescienced Plasma Cannons....)

[Valaskjalf]

Making Warp Talons effective is simply a case of allowing them to reach close combat. They are fantastic when they are there, but in this very shooty edition of warhammer 40k they struggle with a high points cost, coupled with not much more survivability than regular raptors.

 

This is not to say they do not work at all, but of course you understand they are a sub-par chocie.

 

I have a very limited experience with them, so I will use my experience with Raptors here. I find the key point is saturating the opponent with other targets, with any luck causing them to not fire as much as needed against the Talons (Or, atleast if they do fire at the Warp Talons, you have other units to bring the fight to them). As such, I would say upgrade some of your squads to be a bigger target, nd do more damage. Put some special weapons on the marines squads, and they plague marines.

 

The list you have there (I am assuming that is your army list, or is it just a list of models you own? I haven't run the numbers on it yet) is severely lacking in troops choices. I would recommend taking a Slaanesh Lord of some kind (Perhaps on a bike, changing either the Spawn or the Bikers to have no mark or MoS and running him with them) to make the noise mariens troops, then splitting the noice marines into 4 squads of 5 man with 1 blastmaster each. This triples your scoring unit numbers, and means the opponent will have to put a lot more firepower in to remove you from objectives.

 

In addition, if you are deepstriking the Warp Talons, then you may want to maximise your chance to 'blind' the enemy by splitting them into 2 squads of 5. I know this takes you over the 3 fast attack slots, but thankfully the Black Legion supplement can allow you to ally with another Chaos army to gain extra slots where needed. This would require another HQ choice (Aforementioned Slaanesh Biker Lord?) and two more troops (Noise Marines) to work. To free up points for this, consider dropping 2 Obliterators.

 

The Predator sticks out a little as the only vehicles that is not a rhino. I think it will be a large target, and be killed rather quickly. I would go with 2 Predators, or none personally.

 

Plague Marines, with their short ranges and regular movement, probably want a rhino. I would happily ignore the squad all game, as they have no special weapons, are not scoring and are slow to move around to contest objectives/speedbump units.

Cool thanks for the replay. Yeah that was just a WIP list running around in my head, especially as this is more an exercise in making a list with more diverse fast attacks and no flyer. I was thinking that perhaps dropping the Predator and make use of the 6 Oblits who are probably more surivable and versatile than the vehicles I can field.

 

The MoS Lord is a pretty cool idea, that was actually something I considered, but the way you put it makes quite some sense. Do you think running the MoS Lord as the solitary HQ or still use Huron for the Infiltrate? I was thinking that anything that can help my Talons (and Spawn/Bikes for that matter) to get into range sooner will be best. 

 

Im quite a fan of having T6 bikes and T6 Spawn as they are pretty survivable on their way to combat - Perhaps infiltrating the MoS bikes and Lord will even out the loss of T6. Id really like to keep the Spawn just to see how they fare, and since they have no saving throw (not reliably) T6 is probably the best way of avoiding making any sv whatsoever against small arms.

 

But like I said, the MoS Lord on bike makes a lot of sense. The Plague Marines in a rhino sounds good as well, maybe 10 man with 2 x plasmaguns?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dam13n]

Icarsun:

 

A Herald of Tzeentch cannot join a unit of Obliterators as they lack the instability special rule and are not "Daemons of X" as defined by codex Daemons.

 

He can stand next to them and use prescience on them, but cannot join the unit itself.

 

This has been discussed in the Official Rules Forum already.

 

Reference to hopefully avoid an off-topic argument:

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/275063-daemonic-alignment/

[Valaskjalf]

Best answer for Warp Talons?

 

Skull Cannon

 

Ally in some Daemons, get yourself a Skull Cannon.

 

Use it to tag an enemy unit with the dread skulls rule (and take out a few models in the process to weaken overwatch) and then watch as suddenly the assault grenade problem on your warp talons disapears.

 

Dreadskulls allows a Daemon unit to assault into cover ignoring the initiative penalties.

 

(And another similarly nasty combo is Herald of Tzeentch in a Tzeentch Obliterator unit. Perfect Timing Prescienced Plasma Cannons....)

 

That sounds fantastic! I never even considered Daemons, tbh I havent even read through the Codex so I will look into it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[the jeske]

It is going to be hard to fit NM and pms and huron in to a list under 2k points. In general a lot of the units are too big . bikers should be 6 man max , 5 man with 1-2 HQ is effective enough .I understand the idea of cheap csm , but runing them without the 2xplasma rises an important  question , why take them at all. PM are good enough at 7 man , 10 man squads cost too much.

If no havocks are run , then oblits should be run in 3 units of 2 each .

I don't think that a single tank in a 1850 army is worth taking . If you had 3-4 of them  and some rhinos it could be different.

[Valaskjalf]

It is going to be hard to fit NM and pms and huron in to a list under 2k points. In general a lot of the units are too big . bikers should be 6 man max , 5 man with 1-2 HQ is effective enough .I understand the idea of cheap csm , but runing them without the 2xplasma rises an important  question , why take them at all. PM are good enough at 7 man , 10 man squads cost too much.

If no havocks are run , then oblits should be run in 3 units of 2 each .

I don't think that a single tank in a 1850 army is worth taking . If you had 3-4 of them  and some rhinos it could be different.

 

Well I think Id just have to reconsider what other units aside from the Fast Attack I want to field. As mentioned this is primarily brainstorming for trying out my Warp Talons and figuring out what support units I can field and how to make them most effective. Heck, I would even field 2 x 10 WTs with MoS and MoK to see how they stack up against eachother in the same match.

 

So the head scratching is more about weather I even need vehicles at all, which I dont think I will do. The fact that 2 of the 3  FAs Im looking into dont have any shooting abilities at all thats why I felt having a couple of bigger CSM squads in for the extra special weapons, along with the Noise Marines for the long range blast weapons. I could potentially drop the plague marines alltogether and add more special weapons and more squads of regular marines to create more targets to shoot at.

[minigun762]

If you really want to get the most out of Warp Talons, I would consider not taking MoS. Thanks to no grenades, investing in a higher I value doesn't give you as much of a return.

 

I'd be most tempted to run unmarked, as all of the marks are pretty expensive on an already expensive model. If you want to mark, I'd consider MoN to help survive long enough to get to combat.

[Valaskjalf]

If you really want to get the most out of Warp Talons, I would consider not taking MoS. Thanks to no grenades, investing in a higher I value doesn't give you as much of a return.

I'd be most tempted to run unmarked, as all of the marks are pretty expensive on an already expensive model. If you want to mark, I'd consider MoN to help survive long enough to get to combat.

Yeah I definitely considered MoN on them, its a toss-up between that and MoS for me. I feel that even though its expensive to give them marks, attacking first is probably the driving force for me at the moment and rather shielding them on the way toward combat with a blob of T6 Spawn and then hope the overwatch doesnt kill me lol So I think the overwatch is the crux atm....against Tau you probably really want that resilience with their overwatch-shenanigans, but perhaps against Marines its ok to be T4? If I do use MoS on them and lose 2/10 models through overwatch that will still result in 24 AP3 attacks re-rolling wounds on top of HoW, leaving my opponent mostly stuffed before he can even swing. But again, then there's the no-grenades issue so Im not sure.

Just on that...assault grenades are beneficial to attack units BEHIND cover or when my units run THROUGH cover to assault? To my mind it's different things...

I think what I will most likely do in the next game is run 2 Squads - MoN and MoS and see how it pans out. The games we play are very social so there is room for experimentation - would be nice to win though

[Redtoof]

Mark of nurgle seems like a good deal for warp talons, I don't think I'd take them with anything else. I'd guess they are best suited working alongside marines/havocs in rhinos so they can zoom up behind the tank wall then jump over it to engange a target that threatens the marines. This could work but I don't think I have to say it'd be a bit of a uphill struggle to pull it off against many armies.

[Valaskjalf]

Mark of nurgle seems like a good deal for warp talons, I don't think I'd take them with anything else. I'd guess they are best suited working alongside marines/havocs in rhinos so they can zoom up behind the tank wall then jump over it to engange a target that threatens the marines. This could work but I don't think I have to say it'd be a bit of a uphill struggle to pull it off against many armies.

So resilience over assaulting first? Id have to give it a go..

[the jeske]

without the grendes the "always strike first" is very questinable.

 

To use WT you have to make a death star out of them .

1xcsm sorc 3 lvls biomancy , brand . undivided familary jump pack

1xlord mon , jump pack  , fist+L claw .

1x BL sorc . vets , 3 lvls biomancy undivided , brand or D.mace familary.

 

sorc are there to get iron arm and buffs for the squads . mace is there for anti swarm , lord will do the challanges

7x talons no mark .

[Valaskjalf]

without the grendes the "always strike first" is very questinable.

 

To use WT you have to make a death star out of them .

1xcsm sorc 3 lvls biomancy , brand . undivided familary jump pack

1xlord mon , jump pack  , fist+L claw .

1x BL sorc . vets , 3 lvls biomancy undivided , brand or D.mace familary.

 

sorc are there to get iron arm and buffs for the squads . mace is there for anti swarm , lord will do the challanges

7x talons no mark .

Thats the thing I was wondering about....the Assault grenades are beneficial for charging an enemy through cover, but since the WT would generally be jumping over cover do they still need the grenades? For instance, if I were to assault a squad behind some rocky terrain and not necessarily be running through cover won't I be negating the cover alltogether?

[the jeske]

over cover do they still need the grenades

yes. but you have two iron armed sorc to tank str 6+ stuff and the nurgle lord to tank the str4 or lower stuff.

[Chaeron]

I would agree that their capacity lies in hitting hard but the survivability of the unit given their cost really relegated them from being a good, regular choice.

[Iron_Within]

Warp Talons as previously mentioned work well alongside Daemons. Skull Cannon is a good bet, a Sorcerer in the unit works we as mentioned. Finally Grimoire of True Names on the Unit turns it into a complete monster to kill making it easier to get them into position.

[daboarder]

how the heck are you taking the d.mace on that BL sorcerer?

[Sanctimonius]

Dang, just looked up the Grimoire. Daemons get such fun mechanics and items to play with, but it would be fun to have a maulerfiend running about with a 3++, or a unit of Wtalons with a 2++

[daboarder]

Dang, just looked up the Grimoire. Daemons get such fun mechanics and items to play with, but it would be fun to have a maulerfiend running about with a 3++, or a unit of Wtalons with a 2++

Thats why a lot of people recommend daemon allies.

[Excessus]

How would they get 2++ outside divination?

[Dam13n]

They wouldn't.  I assume that the poster was thinking - Daemon + Grimoire + Mark of Tzeentch.  However Mark of Tzeentch caps the invulnerable save at 3++ and as we all (should) know when applying stat modifiers, set values happen last (multipliers, then additions, then set values) and the MoT cap is a set value.

[Sanctimonius]

Indeed I was, cheers for the correction. Still nasty in cc, though, and durable enough to stand a chance of making it there.

[Dam13n]

I'd have thought that if you were going grimoire for this then it may be best in a Khorne themed army.  Skull Cannons to add Assault Grenades, Flesh Hounds and Bloodletters to add assault unit saturation and maybe a Bloodthirster to add a Flying Monster.

 

Something along the lines of:

 

Daemons (primary)

Bloodthirster (could use Kairos for the re-roll on the Grimoire but goes against the theme)

Herald on Juggernaut with the Grimoire

Karanak and/or Heralds to lead units (if points available)

2-3 units of Bloodletters (don't need to be large for the reasons noted below)

1-2 units of Flesh Hounds (ideally 10+ as they'll be taking a lot of enemy fire)

1-2 Skull Cannons

0-1 Daemon Prince (Flying)

 

CSM (ally)

Lord with MoK, Sigil, Jump Pack and AoBF (for plenty of AP2, plus he will hopefully get a 2++ from the Grimoire)

1-2 Cultists (or CSM with MoK and 2CCWs if points available)

Warp Talons with MoK, Champion with 1-2 Gifts

0-1 Maulerfiend (or Obliterators if you're worried about ranged threats)

 

I'd like to have Karanak and the Jugger Herald in the Flesh Hounds (Scout and Fast Moving) with the Lord and Talons deployed nearby.  That way you have a seriously scary 1-2 assault combo that will be moving quickly and hit hard when they do hit.

 

The Bloodthirster, Daemon Prince and Maulerfiend all add fast moving heavy hitters to the army, you could justify taking the prince instead of the Bloodthirster (as a HQ) if points are tight.

 

The Bloodletters add a potent AP3 spamming 2nd wave that should arrive relatively unscathed as the enemy will be more worried about killing the 1st wave.

 

The Skull Cannon(s) can direct their fire where needed to aid assaults.

 

The Cultists (2 small units ideally) could be used as objective holders in your deployment zone.  If CSM taken instead then the Portalglyph might be a wise investment to allow you to bring on small units of daemons to hold those objectives and free up the marines to join the 2nd wave.

 

The keys will be hitting the 2+ save enemy units (if they have any) with enough models that they'll be killed in 1 round of combat (or Plasma Cannon them to death with the Obliterators if taken) and using the Skull Cannons effectively to allow effective assaults into/through cover.

 

Now this list won't be top tier, and may struggle against a well conceived gunline, or a Deathwing/Meganob spam list, but it could be fun to play.

[Elrahir]

Mhm, yeah grimoire is a good trick but do not rely on that too much. My question is, why use jump-packed units? When you can field equally or even more effective cheap bikes, 6th edition is the bike era.