I can't even buy a win !

[NeverEnder]

I need help, Im getting battered off the table nearly everytime I play with my CSM.

Im using a reasonably standard list, biker lord+bikers, winged prince, 3 oblits, 20 cultists, couple of marine squads, heldrake etc. but, Im getting tabled regularly.


Anyone have some tactics for deployment, advancing etc?.

I try to get my bikers and lord up close and personal, but never gete there, I try to plonk my cultists on a objective, they get smashed, the oblits draw too much firepower and only sometimes make their points back.
I know im playing them wrong, but can'y see the forest for the trees.


Help me Father Nurgle. you're my only hope !

[helterskelter]

What armies are you up against most regularly?

[Uprising]

To help you we need to know

army your enemy play

point level

your complete list with upgrades

your enemy list

and any rules/house rules in your gaming center

 

Once we get that, we can help you crush all your foes!  

[Prodigal Son of Magnus]

Run 9 MON Obliterators, 2 Heldrakes, Typhus, and 120 Zombies. You will never get tabled. Buts it's really boring to play.

[Warsmith Aznable]

What Uprising said. Give us your list and a general idea of what you're doing with each unit (how you deploy them, their target priorities, upgrades you give them, etc.)

[Leif Bearclaw]

In addition to what Uprising said, amount of terrain and size of board would be useful. What worked on a 4x4 board at my old GW doesn't work as well on the 4x6s I play on these days.

[Smurfalypse]

Ally in Daemons or AM and that will help you greatly.

CSM actually work really really well with Daemons as they both pressure enemies decently well (Daemons just do it tons better). If you are going to do a CSM list solo then there are a few rules you need to abide by.

 

1. You will lose a fair share of games as it is an uphill battle.

2. Do not worry about the shooting phase, focus the assault phase. Any points dedicated to shooting from an all CSM list (other than Baledrake) is a waste.

3. Use your Sorcerer/s liberally.

4. You need at least one tough Lord to be able to hold the challenge front down.

5. Unfortunately you need to spam (though this applies to most armies, so nothing new here).

 

Sounds like you have the right idea of what you are running but your tactics may be a bit flawed.

When you rush someone you MUST keep your units close enough to each other so they can support one another. If you have two Biker Squads with characters in them, then keep them within 14" of each other so that they can follow up your next assault phase. Preferably you assault with them both at the same time.

 

I regularaly run Lord+Sorcerer+x5 Spawn of Nugle and a large unit of Flesh Hounds with a Herald of Khorne and they work wonders for me, but they have to support each other because they just cannot hang solo long enough. The Hounds are super fast with their initial game Scout Redeploy and usually soak tons of fire for my Lord & company who almost always make it fully intact.

 

Drop the Oblits, they are not worth it in a pure CSM assault army and a CSM force cannot out shoot anyone in the game currently so the only option is to charge the lines (best :cussing tactic ever).

Try some tweeks to your list.

 

Lord from Crimson Slaughter with all the fixxin's, should come out to 214 ish with a Gift of Mutation.

Sorcerer with Mannon.

Allied Sorcerer for more buffs from Biomancy or Telepathy.

 

Cultists x10, run a fair amount of these. Not the bare minimum.

Heldrakes are the great equalizers. They can come in and do work real quick, then usually die :P

Spawn are cheaper than Bikers, hit harder than Bikers, and generally better than Bikers point for point.

Maulerfiends. . . Seriously, run these. Like two or three minimum, they are wicked handy. Not great, but they take fire and do work when they reach the lines.

 

 

With that said, I will explain why I like to ally with Daemons. Troop choices. Plain and simple, a x20 Plaguebearer squad does wonders in games. They can assault anything and do well, they can pile in on an objective and keep it all game, they can grab the Relic. They do whatever you need, deepstrike them and they add pressure to your opponents lines.

 

x20 Horrors is a wicked group that surprises people. They are more surviviable than they appear and can easily knock down other troop squads that are not MEQ (how many of those do we really see anymore?). You also only need one in range to fire so they can stretch nearly across the board and you can shoot from any one of them. Again, super good for 180pts.

 

Everything else from Daemons is gravy after the Troop choices, add in a Herald or a Greater Daemon if you want. I usually go with a unit of Hounds and a Herald of Khorne.

Run 9 MON Obliterators, 2 Heldrakes, Typhus, and 120 Zombies. You will never get tabled. Buts it's really boring to play.

 

This is :cussing hilarious and I love it :P

[Shuggnuggath]

I would consider adding a unit of Nurgle spawn, as a second rapid moving threat along with the bikes. If your only fast moving threat is some bikers then the opponent will try to eliminate them pronto.

[NeverEnder]

ok, guys here we go.

 

im playing against Tau, salamanders dark eldar and 'nids. tau the most.

 

list is

prince, mace, wings pa

lord, bike, pf, lc mon

 

20 cultists, mon

 

2x10marines double plasma, champ with melta bombs and power weapon, mon. rhinos

 

heldrake, bale flamer

5x bikers, 2 melta power axe on champ, mon

3 nurgle ob'its

5x havocs, 4x autocannons, champ with power sword, mon

 

4x terms, mon, combi meltas, chain fist and 2x pf. mon

 

6x4 board usually 6pieces of terrain.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I think right off the bat I would drop the Terminators and add a second Baledrake. That alone could be a huge benefit. Scale back the Oblits to 2 and add an aegis line with a weapon to go around the Havocs. Maybe get crazy and use the Comms relay to try and get both 'drakes at the same time to minimize the ability of Interceptor to negate them.

[helterskelter]

To be a pest I'll ask the daft question is the tau army battlesuit heavy?

[Fibonacci]

6x4 board usually 6pieces of terrain.

?!?!?!

 

Wow.  There should be twice that with at LEAST 6 pieces being large, line of sight blocking pieces.

[NeverEnder]

To be a pest I'll ask the daft question is the tau army battlesuit heavy?

3 broadsides, 2x3 squads of suits bouncing around and 2 of those  riptides.

[Prodigal Son of Magnus]

ok, guys here we go.

 

im playing against Tau, salamanders dark eldar and 'nids. tau the most.

 

list is

prince, mace, wings pa

lord, bike, pf, lc mon

 

20 cultists, mon

 

2x10marines double plasma, champ with melta bombs and power weapon, mon. rhinos

 

heldrake, bale flamer

5x bikers, 2 melta power axe on champ, mon

3 nurgle ob'its

5x havocs, 4x autocannons, champ with power sword, mon

 

4x terms, mon, combi meltas, chain fist and 2x pf. mon

 

6x4 board usually 6pieces of terrain.

Uhh, no wonder the Tau player is killing you your playing with almost no terrain at all. Next time you play him demand to have at least 18 pieces of terrain.

[NeverEnder]

we play at warhammer world if that helps, the terain pieces are quite large. the board is 6 squares. so i think i might be wrong on the size.

[Fibonacci]

The size it right.  Each square is 2'X2'.  When setting up, you should be rolling a d3 for each square and placing that many terrain pieces on the square.  This will average 12 total pieces of terrain including any fortifications being used.

[Forté]

6 terrain pieces! The Tau player must be in heaven.

 

Used to be that the terrain would have to be enough to cover a full quarter on the table before players taking turns to place pieces. Then rolling to see who picks the side they want to deploy. Always ment a fun and fair game.

[NeverEnder]

6 terrain pieces! The Tau player must be in heaven.

 

Used to be that the terrain would have to be enough to cover a full quarter on the table before players taking turns to place pieces. Then rolling to see who picks the side they want to deploy. Always ment a fun and fair game.

thats it then, im flooding the table from now on. we are both used to playing fantasy were terrain is a pain.

[Leif Bearclaw]

That's defintely a good idea. We normally end up culling extra terrain from the surrounding tables when I'm playing at warhammer world.

 

List wise, most of the obvious stuff's already said, but I'd drop the power sword on the Havoc champ, if he's in assault, something's gonewrong enough that a power sword isn't going to help. I'd also look to give the Lord at least a 5+ invunerable.

[Trevak Dal]

 

To be a pest I'll ask the daft question is the tau army battlesuit heavy?

3 broadsides, 2x3 squads of suits bouncing around and 2 of those  riptides.

 

A good elite army for Tau.  Are you CSMs plague marines or just FauxPlagues (MoN marines)?

 

Because with Plague Marines you'd at least get FNP (and fearless) though they are more expensive.

 

He's got 5 units, + a commander or maybe 2, and with wargear (Target locks) he can target up to 9 different units, though he will typically miss out on other wargear opprotunites.  Multiple small units can be effective against Most Armies...but a canny tau player (especially in a suit heavy army) can equip a few Target locks so they can 'janitor' squads, or hit multiple Small units.

 

While Nurgle psychic powers are meh (all marked powers suck), the one where you can make weapons Get Hot could be useful against crisis suits-I generally wouldn't bother using that against riptides, since they're 2+ and will likely have the FNP giving Stimulant Injectors, so that can force some saves, which can hopefully weaken crisis squads.  They're typically only 6 wounds.

 

He's got range on you, and Tau don't really care about your higher toughness, because at worst case (firewarriors/other s5 shooting, or plasma at your MoN Bikers) they wound you like Marines wound Marines: On 4s.  Otherwise, it's 3s and 2s.  

 

Your first turn I'd move your Rhinos as far forward as you can (flat outing).

[Forté]

Fantasy only needs a few bits of scenery to add a bit of story to a game. But with the ranges and weapons used in 40k scenery is much more important. Some nice large LOS blockers makes for a more tactical game.

[GreyCrow]

As people said the scenery is what lacks on your game there. You're walking up an open field here !

 

Page 120 of the base rule book suggests a method for generating terrain. Either you create a narrative table, either you use a random allocation.

Per 2'x2' square, you roll a D3, and you select and place within that square the terrain your like by taking turns.

That makes a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 18 for the total board. You can see that with 6 pieces of terrain, you are at a great disadvantage to fight shooty armies !

[Forté]

6 pieces is rubbish. 6 barrels. And watch a Tau or Astra force with fortifications trash you in no time at all.

[maskpking]

Your over paying in points.

 

Power weapon on your havoc champion??

Run your termincide cheap...3 termies, all p axes, combi melta, no marks, 112pts total - your paying ~200 pts atm

Run cultists w/o upgrades

Your build doesn't need  2x10 chaos marines (these guys aren't even worth the points)

Is your prince running lvl 3 biomancy?

[the jeske]

ok, guys here we go.

 

im playing against Tau, salamanders dark eldar and 'nids. tau the most.

 

list is

prince, mace, wings pa

lord, bike, pf, lc mon

 

20 cultists, mon

 

2x10marines double plasma, champ with melta bombs and power weapon, mon. rhinos

 

heldrake, bale flamer

5x bikers, 2 melta power axe on champ, mon

3 nurgle ob'its

5x havocs, 4x autocannons, champ with power sword, mon

 

4x terms, mon, combi meltas, chain fist and 2x pf. mon

 

6x4 board usually 6pieces of terrain.

prince goes out, your not runing him as ally to demons or ally demons to make him more viable. Right now most lists have to deal with 3-5 FMC  a single one is dead.

csm are out , replace them with cheap cultists . terminators are out , nurgle and melee upgrades on havocks[why?] are out .

your getting a sorc lvl 3 undivided . second unit of mon oblits and a second helldrakes . To complet the fast attack section [4 slots because we CS ally all  the time] a unit of nurgle spawn .

 

spawn and bikes let you divided the power , cultists hide out of LoS and in  reservs. helldrakes try to survive the intercepting fire and burning troops +swoop transports. oblits are there to take pot shots at stuff and draw away fire . With a unit of bikes and spawn they should probably survive turn 2-3 even within LoS of opposing army [unless he gets realy lucky].