Making Chaos Space marines (and troops) more viable

[Furio Reyka]

My biggest issues with CSM squads is that they struggle to earn their points back and holding objectives is better suited to cheaper cultists. They need their damage output increased in my opinion but this is hard to do without making them too similar to other choices. I would give them bolter, bolt pistol and chainsword as standard and increase their attacks to 2. This would let them reliably contribute in 2 phases each turn allowing them a better chance of making their points back. Chosen (who also need fixed) should then be given some funky special abilities to make them stand apart or just removed from the codex completely.

 

But to be honest, I don't think GW wants to fix CSM or tactical squads, they want you to buy Primaris marines and whatever new chaos units they have planned.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Eh. If you want to play heavy on human heretics, play Renegades and Heretics. 

 

All list restrictions are 'artificial'. I suspect you meant 'arbitrary', which still isn't an argument against but it at least makes sense.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

 

And I would disagree with both of those premises. BS4+ S3 AP- shooting is only a serious threat in absolutely massive quantities

 

 

6 Cultists shooting with autoguns at guardsmen should kill about 1.

6 CSM shooting with bolters at a Guardsman should kill about ~1.8. So a CSM is not even two times as potent at range as a Cultist, yet costs more than three times as much.

What this tells us is that CSM shooting also requires pretty massive quantities to be a threat, but they cost way too much to be able to be used in that way.

 

Same with resilience. A boltgun hit to your CSM will lead to on average 2.2 pts losses for you. The same hit to your cultists will lead to about the same points loss, but with the huge difference that powerful guns are not really more potent than that, while your CSM will tremble in their boots at the sight of plasmaguns.

 

And that is the big issue as I see it with the relative power of CSM and cultists. They have less offensive output than Cultists and are much more vulnerable to heavier weapons than Cultists. The only thing CSM have going for them is their access to good heavy and special weapons (not a bad thing at all, but arguable if it's enough.)

But what people use Troops for is to fill out Detachments, to get CP for buffing Elites and such. Spending points on more 'powerful' troops leads to a direct loss of efficiency for your heavy hitters, since you lose out on so many CP.

And I think that is perhaps the main problem. Spending points on Cultist Troops makes your heavy hitters better since you get more CP. Spending those points on CSM leads to worse performance of your heavy hitters since you get much fewer CP.

And the entire first half of this post goes back to my point about gamers focusing on lethality too much; you shouldn't be bringing Cultists for their autoguns or CSMs for their bolters. How many Guardsmen one or the other can kill in a turn might be important in a game, but might also be entirely immaterial to the task at hand.

 

On the second point, I agree that low cost troops to fill detachment requirements for the purpose of generating CPs is a valid strategy; I do it too, where I take two 10x man Cult Squads and one CSM squad to fill Battalion requirements. I have no issue with that as a valid strategy, though I do feel that those who rely solely on small chaff squads are shorting themselves. Where I take umbrage is those folks who take, say, three squads of thirty Cultists and spout drivel about how those 90 models are so much more points efficient than Space Marines. The corollary to the "minimalist Troops" route though is that once your high priority stuff, like Elites and Heavies, have been eliminated or neutralized, you have no options. Three small squads of Cultists aren't going to save the day, but a ten man squad of Chaos Marines is going to be able to do more. Their better stats and better weapons, especially when they've got strats applied to them, let them act as effective backups once your main hitters - who tend to be the first targets, keep in mind - are out of the game. Ten man squads with double lascannons can back up Havocs, Helbrutes, and Predators quite effectively, just as one example. And now that we have universal split fire, those bolter guys are not just cannon fodder; they can also contribute to targets more appropriate to their weapons.

 

The point I keep trying to make every time this topic comes up is that both Troop types have advantages, and balancing them is necessary to get the most out of that particular org slot. Try both. Take a mix. Build the rest of the army first, and only then ask yourself " What exactly do I need my Troops to do?"

[Tallarn Commander]

As others have noted, I've found both 20 trooper cultists and 10-trooper CSM squads to be good. They just fill different roles.

 

Although my assessment is that of a casual player who uses really crappy 5+ WS/BS Renegades and Heretics militia rather than cultists. So take it with a grain of salt. :)

[Kite Senet]

I think a (theoretically) large portion of the problem is the simple linear growth model of morale test losses coupled with linear growth of expected combat damage received by enemy unit size--i.e. for large mobs, you expect to lose about twice as many models as wounds lost, which is proportional to enemy models per unit--vs the much-fast-than-linear growth of the quantity of models per unit when decreasing points cost; this intrinsically pushes the balance of power in the direction of horde units.

 

As such, an appropriate correction would seem to me to be rules which accelerate the quantity of losses on horde units. I had two ideas, one or more of which needs a lot of work:

1. Rather than having max(0,D6+Losses-Ld) models flee per morale check, instead what if max(0,D6+Losses-Ld)*min(1,Ld-LdE) where LdE is a unit of the enemy's choice which wounded the unit in either the shooting or combat phase? That is to say, units with higher leadership are capable of causing "mass panic" larger morale losses on less well-trained troops.
   
   So, for example, a few Chaos Space Marines units deal a total of 10 wounds to 40 cultists. They roll a 4 for their morale test, so they fail it by 4+10-6 = 8 since they have a leadership of 6. However, the Chaos Space Marines have a leadership of 8, so that the Leadership difference is 8-6=2, so that in fact 8*2=16 cultists flee.
   
   The problem? Suppose a Dark Apostle shows up; he lends the 40 man cultist squad a leadership of 9, so only (4+10-9)*max(1,8-9) = 5 cultists would flee if the CSM's attacked. But furthermore, those cultists attack yet another mob with their Ld 9: then they could trigger a triple-losses mass panic against another (Ld 6) squad of cultists! So this idea might need some work.
    
2. If a leadership test failure exceeds the Ld of the unit, it suffers double morale losses for each loss exceeding their leadership. So, for example, a group of cultists fail a leadership test by 10, then since they have a leadership of 6, they lose 6 models; the remaining four losses are in excess of their leadership, so they lose 2 models for each, losing an additional 8 models, so that instead of losing 10, they'd lose 14.

Both ideas are probably a bit excessively complicated, and I figure I'm rambling rather horribly, but they're primarily attempts to strike at (what I consider to be) the heart of the problem, the superlinear growth of unit effectiveness with respect to points decreases compared to the merely linear losses inflicted by models preferring a quality-over-quantity strategy.

[totgeboren]

 

And the entire first half of this post goes back to my point about gamers focusing on lethality too much; you shouldn't be bringing Cultists for their autoguns or CSMs for their bolters. How many Guardsmen one or the other can kill in a turn might be important in a game, but might also be entirely immaterial to the task at hand.

 

.....

 

The point I keep trying to make every time this topic comes up is that both Troop types have advantages, and balancing them is necessary to get the most out of that particular org slot. Try both. Take a mix. Build the rest of the army first, and only then ask yourself " What exactly do I need my Troops to do?"

 

 

But I did point out all the other issues between CSM and Cultists, not just their lethality (or lack thereof in the CSM case). If they are about equally resilient, but one does a lot more damage for the points, while being able to contest three different areas of the table at the same time, and also filling out three times as many Troop Detachment slots, we have an issue with balance between these units.

That you get so many more CP if you go for Cultists instead of CSM makes your heavy hitters much much better, to the point that you are much less likely to need to fall back on your Troops for damage dealing.

CSM are a versatile Troop unit that can be used for anything, but wont do anything well. Sadly, the worth of units that wont do anything well isn't that high, yet they cost as much as elite units.

 

I agree with your final statement "What exactly do I need my Troops to do?"

And for most people Troops are in the list for two reasons. Gathering CP and claiming objectives. Cultists do both these much much better than CSM, but if CSM were much much more lethal, they would still be an interesting choice. Now that they don't even have that going for them, they really don't have a role that sets them apart. 

[masterstrider]

Cultists are chosen over CSM because:

*They can pump out far more shots (which can be upgraded with stratagems)

*Are a cheaper source of command points (120pts for 3 units of 10 vs 195pts for 3units of 5 CSM)

*Are affected by more interesting stratagems e.g. Tide of Traitors

*Have a larger footprint on the battlefield, which restricts enemy mobility and tactical flexibility, while providing superior tactical options in return

*They regenerate for 2CPs

*Have a weight of wounds that you need to deal with. Granted morale is an issue, but players are finding ways to mitigate this with stratagems or immunity to morale buffs.

*Have a much larger weight of dice, which exponentially increases their damage output.

 

Something to reign them back a bit would be to limit ObSec to only being able to hold one objective at a time with a unit. That'll prevent a unit stretching across the entire board holding 4-6 objectives.

 

---//----

 

I honestly don't think that CSM can cover that many benefits in this edition. They are basically an okay way to farm CPs and bring heavy weapons. They need some way to either add tactical flexibility or increase their rate of fire.

 

Some suggestions for making them a little better would be:

*Change the profile of the Boltgun - make it Rapid Fire 2 if a unit did not move. This would give a 5 man unit 20 shots within 12" but sacrifices their mobility. A 20 man unit of CSM would pump out 80 shots if they don't move, and can double this with Endless Cacophony.

*Introduce a stratagem: Fury of the Fallen: that lets CSM only increase their AP by -1 for a turn for any weapons they use in that phase - 1CP. This will make them lethal when necessary.

*Let them take boltgun, chainsword and bolt pistol, like they could in the past.

*Drop the points to around 10-11pts. 10pts if they don't introduce any way to buff them, since they are basically a lascannon/missile caddy. 11-12pts if you can buff them with the above special rules and stratagems.

 

I do agree with an earlier point about Elite units should be the main damage dealers. I think the fact that Elites are crap this edition and horde troops win you the game says that the balance of power is a bit off.

[Bonzi]

The cure to horde issues is easy...you have to cast your mind back to why horde didn't work near as well in 7th or earlier. It was blast weapons and flamers...those weapons you took to counter hordes no long work as horde counters.

 

Even at 2D6 shots for a guard tank sitting still...hitting on 4+ means that even if you roll 12 shots...that's 6 hits and probably 4 to 5 wounds vs horde. Back in the day you could cover (hit) 8+ models if the enemy didn't spread out. These guns are much better vs monsters, but absolutely ineffective vs hordes. Give flamers and blast weapons an extra d6 per ten models of horde and the equation will shift.

[intel31337]

The cure to horde issues is easy...you have to cast your mind back to why horde didn't work near as well in 7th or earlier. It was blast weapons and flamers...those weapons you took to counter hordes no long work as horde counters.

 

Even at 2D6 shots for a guard tank sitting still...hitting on 4+ means that even if you roll 12 shots...that's 6 hits and probably 4 to 5 wounds vs horde. Back in the day you could cover (hit) 8+ models if the enemy didn't spread out. These guns are much better vs monsters, but absolutely ineffective vs hordes. Give flamers and blast weapons an extra d6 per ten models of horde and the equation will shift.

I can see what you are getting at, but even in 7th, cultists were generally preferred over CSM. The problem still persists today - CSM units are just not point efficient for what they offer.

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

 

Make Cultists a 0-1 choice.

 

J.D.

Artificial restrictions like that are the worst.

Every restriction is artificial. People cry out at limits on units or HQs or what have you, but the game was far less of a mess in 5th there was one force org chart with no way to render it useless.

[Kite Senet]

I dunno. I think the restriction of one copy of Abaddon per army is pretty natural.

 

Contrariwise, suggesting that no Chaos warband can ever convince that stubborn 41st cultist to get out of bed and onto the field of battle to earn glory for their Chaos god seems pretty unnatural.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Do what you like in open or narrative play, mate.

[Kite Senet]

*Let them take boltgun, chainsword and bolt pistol, like they could in the past.

 

This would be really nice as a specific improvement to CSM. I just played a game against my brother's Space Wolves and I was frankly a bit envious that his Grey Hunters actually get to be equipped with bolter, chainsword, *and* bolt pistol. I mean, most of my power armor is filled with dust, so I don't benefit with my main T-Sons force, but I'd be much happier with the CSMs in my side army if they could actually be competent in both melee and ranged combat with the same loadout, something that only somewhat seems to hold with Cultists (via mixed wargear loadouts) and doesn't seem to hold at all with my Tzaangors; it'd give them a nice, unique purpose to encourage me to take them, at least.

 

That said, I am of the opinion that the problem is broader than just Cultists vs CSM, and larger fixes need to be made to bring hordes more into line with specialist Troops.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

For the people arguing in favour of chaos marines troops, could you guys please show me which players that play 40k for money/prizes/cred actually use chaos marines?  

 

 

I really cant see any likely situation where chaos marines are better than cultists.  

[Panzer]

It's also funny that some people just think about AP0 and AP-1 shooting when comparing the durability of Marines and Cultists.

Once you start with AP-2 and better weapons then the gap between those two just becomes bigger since Cultists die against high AP weapons as fast as against AP-1 but a Marines durability becomes worse the higher the AP up to AP-4.

 

Also Mortal wounds are WAY more efficient against Marines than against Cultists since they bypass all defenses making both units lose equal amounts of models ... just that one has expensive models and the other doesn't.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

It's also funny that some people just think about AP0 and AP-1 shooting when comparing the durability of Marines and Cultists.

Once you start with AP-2 and better weapons then the gap between those two just becomes bigger since Cultists die against high AP weapons as fast as against AP-1 but a Marines durability becomes worse the higher the AP up to AP-4.

 

Also Mortal wounds are WAY more efficient against Marines than against Cultists since they bypass all defenses making both units lose equal amounts of models ... just that one has expensive models and the other doesn't.

 

One way to look at mortal wounds vs units is how many points will it remove?

 

d3 mortal wounds vs marines =  13-39 points removed

d3 mortal wounds vs cultists = 4-12 points removed

 

Perhaps marines actually need a native 2+ save?  That might make enough difference for chaos marines and tacticals viable... but then that kind of messes up primaris marines.  

 

This issue might be come down to a really straight forward points adjustment.  13 is obviously ridiculously high... I'd say start at 11 and play test?  That would bring 10 marines into line with 30 cultists in terms of points efficiency.  The marines would still get completely rekt by smite spam/plasma but the cost would make it less painful.

[DreamIsCollapsing]

Mortal wound are a false debat imho. Major source of mortal wound are to be short range or "at the nearest unit". The original purpose of cultist is to act as meatshield for marine against such think. So yes, it's normal to feel Smite and co to be "wasted" on cultist. If something as to change is the anti-horde stuff : Vindicator & Defiler cannon for eg. 

 

We don't need CSM to be superior to cultist, we need CSM to feel a different purpose than cultist. A unit who fails a moral test shoudnt be able to keep an objective, Space marine should get more weapons and/or more strategic possibilities. 

[Iron_Within]

So if cultists are the meat shield, heavy support like obliterators the dakka, what are the chaos space marine troops? Not in crunch but in how you'd like to see them.

 

Also great replies So far :)

[Ketzer]

The thing is: the Cultists don't act as a mere meat shild. They have their own use as objekt grabbers, bubble wrap and as ingredient for some strategem shenanigans.

On the other hand side, we have the tried and tested Chaos Space Marine that you have no need to set up in squads bigger then 5 (despite of fluff that is)

Don't get me wrong: i never leave home without 2 5-man-squads of Chaos Space Marines - but i quitted being a competitive player some time ago.

Despite my own will to field such troops, there isn't much that makes them interesting.

I think the problem is the scalability - you can field 10 Cultists for 40 points and it even makes sense to field bigger groups of them, like 20 for 80 points.

The CSM costs you 65 points naked - and you don't want them naked. You want a Powerfist/Heavy- or Specialweapon depending on your masterplan for them. Intersting on this is: If you field ONE 10-CSM-Squad with 2 heavy weapons or TWO 5-CSM-Squads with 1 heavy weapon each, you pay the same points but get one champion less and still need two other standard choices to get that battalion full.

Maybe it's worth thinking about making some units more expansive the more you field? This would affect units like Cultists, Pox-Walkers, certain Guard/Tyranids/Ork units - generally everything that has "swarm" written all over it.

And on the other side making elite choices (donno... Chosen/CSM/other Marines or stuff?) cheaper if you take more then 5 of them.

But i admit that I don't like the idea of making units cheaper/more expensive.

Personally i'd prefer to make stuff like CSM/SM/Primaris stronger in their stats. Like giving a CSM/SM 2 W and a Primaris 3 W - or give other rewards for fielding certain units like giving an aditional CP if you field full Squads of CSM.

[Mekhitar]

If cultists lost Heretic Astartes, it would be a start.

[Iron_Within]

If cultists lost Heretic Astartes, it would be a start.

I disagree tbh, I view cultists as fine as they are but CSM struggling to find a role. I think nerfing cultists is just a race to the bottom.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

 

The CSM costs you 65 points naked - and you don't want them naked. You want a Powerfist/Heavy- or Specialweapon depending on your masterplan for them. Intersting on this is: If you field ONE 10-CSM-Squad with 2 heavy weapons or TWO 5-CSM-Squads with 1 heavy weapon each, you pay the same points but get one champion less and still need two other standard choices to get that battalion full.

 

The flip side of this equation though is that the larger the squad, the more efficient they are at using strategems and psychic powers. You get more oomph out of eight bolters with VOTLW than four, more out of Endless Cacophony with two lascannons than one, etc. Which is why I keep saying use a mix: cheap cultists to make CPs, CSMs to make better use of them.

[Ketzer]

The flip side of this equation though is that the larger the squad, the more efficient they are at using strategems and psychic powers. You get more oomph out of eight bolters with VOTLW than four, more out of Endless Cacophony with two lascannons than one, etc. Which is why I keep saying use a mix: cheap cultists to make CPs, CSMs to make better use of them.

 

True, but then we end up at the core of this discussion again: how do we make those poor Standard CSM valid again?

You want units to spend those CPs on? Endless Cacophony is even MORE effective on Havocs with 4 Lascannons and so on. Why should we spend points for standard CSMs? (speaking from a competitive point of view)

[Akrim]

Fix; give them a melee weapon or reduced cost. Probably both.

 

It seems like GW is slowly phasing out the tac marine of yesteryear. Bolter marines just dont get much done anymore; too many armor modifiers now that have erroded the value of simple power armor. Boltguns lack much offensive output.

 

Veterans of the Long War is about the only thing that can give them an edge in spamming wounds, but sadly those are CP usually better spent elsewhere.

[Panzer]

Maybe it's just a problem with the general design of Marine armies. Tacticals/Chaos Marines can't do anything better/just as good as other units because that's how they're designed. Devastators/Havocs are literally the exact same unit except that they can take two more heavy weapons at 5 guys and Veterans/Chosen are literally the exact same unit just with +1A and special weapon/melee weapon options for every model.

The only thing Chaos Marines can do the others can't is having ObSec ... and for that Cultists and other Horde units are simply better since their additional defense means little against the right kind of weaponry.

Assault Squads/Raptors are in the same boat just that they don't even have ObSec going for them. For deep strike burst damage Inceptors/Chaos Terminators/Obliterators are just better.

 

Basic marines without that can't do anything others can't do either just don't have a place. Interestingly enough the Primaris range does that better by making Intercessors a really solid line unit and every other Primaris unit released so far isn't trying to do their job but in better but rather has their own jobs to do (Inceptors are too few and too expensive for board control, same goes for Aggressors, Hellblaster are really strong but also die pretty fast since everybody and their mother knows that you can't ignore a unit full with plasma, Reivers are actually similar to Intercessors but worse).