Chaos undecided

[Submarine]

I've been going round and round the houses trying to work out which chapter to go with. Then I discovered CSM! Just to add more confusion!

 

I really like some of the models and IMO the HQ models are better than the SM.

 

How are the CSM in terms of competitiveness and fun? I'm also interested in iron hands and space wolves.

 

Would appreciate insight from those that play them before I fork out my hard earned money.

[Slaanbull]

Chaos space marines are in the top, regarding having fun, not only on the field, but especially when building your army and planning on what to aquire next up.

I got into chaos many years ago, maybe at age five or six when I saw my first fantasy beastmen and warriors, except for a small foray into necrons I haven't lost my love for everything chaos. (nurgle is getting a bit stale though.. ;-) )

Chaos in terms of rules and codex is space marines and their servants, opposed to marines and their brothers.

 

You might be underwhelmed if you compare a single regular marine of the chaos kind against a loyal spacemonk, but once you stack marks, larger squad sizes, dirge casters(vehicle upgrades that prevent the enemy from overwatch killing your assault dudes) and support from frothing cultists. Then the playing field is evened out.

 

Competetively chaos is alright, we have some nice tools in the form of dataslates. And a new forgeWorld book with some nice toys(but craft a detachment before thinking about buying two codices for the same force)

There's also a lot of nice tactics threads on this board, linked in the recourse thread. :-)

[Lord Asvaldir]

If you want the top of the line, more competitive tournament army, don't play chaos. If you want an army that will let you mold its background in almost anyway you want, has awesome, evil marines determined to burn the galaxy, and want an army that gives you a huge range of conversion opportunities-play chaos. 

 

Our current dex is decent, space marines overall are better off but I personally love the chaos lore so I'd never consider normal marines, plus the models look better to me and you have a lot more conversion opportunities given all the different warbands/mutations/daemonic engines you can play around with. 

[the jeske]

Non competitive. fun wise, it is subjective. But in general loyalist marines, specialy Space Wolfs can do everything CSM do , offten cheaper, with more flexibility[don't need to take special HQs or relics to get access good characters, long range is more flexbile] and better general rules[ ATKNF, chapter tactics, more battlebrother ally with better synergy].

[Submarine]

Im guessing the jeske isnt that positive about CSM!

 

Personally I would like a bit more choice on the vehicle front but I do like the defiler, maulerfiend and helbrute models. I need to track down the CSM dataslate as well.

 

I am not obsessive about being uber competitive, I like the chaos lore, and think they seem like a lot of fun.

 

I just dont want to get tabled every time i play!

 

My regular opponent is necrons by the way.

[Xenith]

Im guessing the jeske isnt that positive about CSM!

People just find different parts of the hobby more fun than others. It depends entirely on what you have the most fun doing.

 

If it's winning tournaments, then don't play CSM.

 

I'f it's the modelling, painting, and getting to be evil, then CSM are the best.

[Iron Skull Mask]

CSM = best there is. Eldar players cry every time the spiky models are put on the table.

[Tenebris]

Truth be told Chaos is one of the most unique factions across various fantasy/sci-fi settings, it is actually a very interesting and core concept to the whole 40k mythology and metaphysics. As Chaos you play the damned, the lost, the defiled, as Chaos and especially as a Chaos Space Marine you play the fallen angels.

 

As an army Chaos is usually a shock army, brutal, direct, random, savage when properly wielded, unconventional to say the least. It is not a hard army to play but is not an easy one either. You play Chaos because you like marines with a character, monsters, daemonic engines and all sorts of wicked and esoteric things. Among the 40k armies Chaos is indeed also the best army for conversions or to add that special touch of yours to one army, it benefits a player who has a lot of inspiration. 

 

Technically speaking Chaos, all of Chaos, is a pretty straightforward army which should be played in an aggressive way, it is not a static army, it is not a gunline army and it is not a pure assault army, but it is a shock and awe army. You pile various elements upon an enemy unit, you mess with his shooting with the various tough creature and vehicles bearing upon them, you mess with his mobility with spells and with your own rapid units, you mess with their psychic phase with your dominance when come to psykers and you mess with their elite units when you show up their throat a horde of cultists. Chaos is an army, or rather a concept of armies, for the ruthless, vicious player, step into this mentality and reap benefits from it. Never play by the rules, always bend them, always mess with the adversary, cheat since you have units which lend well to cheat (various toughness levels in an army, monster and vehicles, cheap or elite infantry...).

 

At the end of the day though you still are a space marine army thus you can play many variants which count-as. 

[Beachymike123]

The great thing about Chaos armies is that anything goes, and I mean anything. Tenebris and others have pretty much summed it up, but there's also the modelling side of it too - you can use the CSM as they are from the box or convert them in any way you see fit. You're not even bound by a single paint scheme like with loyalist marines (as a general statement, I know some collect multiple chapters) - if you want a Black Legion CSM squad supported by Word Bearer Havocs and fallen Blood Angel bikers, that's fine; just as it's fine to field an all Iron Warriors force or renegade chapter. The whims of Chaos know no bounds. 

Oh, and welcome to the winning side in the Long War. 

[Submarine]

Wow, what a summary! i assume by cheating, Tenebris, you dont mean breaking the rules of the game or trying to cheat your opponent in some way.

 

My only real misgiving about CSMs is that they dont have a flying vehicle. I know they have a heldrake but I like the idea of units like stormraven and stormtalon. I do like the heldrake model as well.

 

On the plus side I love the walkers in the CSM army especially the defiler, dreadnought and maulerfiend models. I downloaded the helbrute dataslate and 3 deep striking helbrutes sounds awesome!

[Tenebris]

Hehe, by cheating I mean play dirty, use cover, line of sight, mob up on an enemy unit, use daemonic weapons to rank kills, summon daemons... in short do not play a straight fight, play a dirty one, tricks and all. 

 

As for the flying vehicle the Heltalon and Helblade from FW as well as the awesome Fire Raptor are nasty nasty. 

[Strazhakov]

 

My only real misgiving about CSMs is that they dont have a flying vehicle. I know they have a heldrake but I like the idea of units like stormraven and stormtalon. I do like the heldrake model as well.

 

Oh but we have those as well. We have the Storm Eagle and the awesome Fire Raptor. Also not to forget the Hell Talon bomber and the Hell Blade Interceptor.

[RolandTHTG]

I can tell you that Dirge Casters, Feel no Pain rolls, and Noise Marine Blastmasters get constant from my opponents. It can be your whole army charging in while suffering no overwatch against Guardsmen because he let a Land Raider get too close, your last guy in the squad passing 4 FnP rolls to hold the objective, or the marine player picking up an entire squad because he left them bunched for the Blastmaster to hit, but "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying".

[the jeske]

What does being pos or neg has to do with anything, and I think I have said it enough times that I don't write about chaos from a tournament point of view[never did unless the talk was about tournaments] . Loyalist marines do, objectivly, the same things marine players can do.

Super HQs , they can do it[and have more options to build one then with 2 relics]. fast moving DeathStars, they can do them [even get additional special rules like we do with hit and run or being cavalery. better yet they can combine those traits by being BBs and for example puting a WS HQ in to a TWC or DA unit].

Their psychic powers options are more flexible. They don't have to take a relic to get access to divination[although one must say that chaos kind of a lacks a target squads for divi casters].

They have their oblits. Their MSU is cheaper, because it doesnt run away from objectives. And this is just the basic marines[ignoring knights or IG+meq synergies here ]. There is nothing comperable we could take to purficators in drop pods[i mean not the efficiency, but the two codex synergy],gravs in non sm armies.

 

When I say loyalists do eveything csm do, then it is just that.

 

 

 

Since when is focus fire or LoS use dirty?