Making Chaos Space marines (and troops) more viable

[HeresyBeliever]

Now I love my cultists and have spent a lot of time painting them to a tidy table top standard. 

 

However I do agree with some peoples views about them being to strong. 

The only reason they are as strong as they are is because they are cheap and the volume of dice. 

 

You cant just remove Obsec from all troops that is one thing troops of any kind do well.

 

You could give cultists a WS/BS of 5+ but if they have more than 20 models it changes to 4+. Orks and daemons get a buff for being in large numbers and that would make sense. 

 

As for CSM I personally would reduce them to 10 points with the bolter or a chain sword and pistol. 

 

40 points for 10 cultists as a filler unit 

or 

50 points for 5 CSM as a filler unit 

 

It would be the 5 CSM all day long. Easier to hide, better armour and a better gun. 

 

At 65 points that's 16 cultists which would be a better unit. That extra 3 points each is all it takes. 

Personally i would do the same to normal space marines as well. 11 points for a normal Marine, 10 points for a scout 17 points for an Intercessor. 

[Mekhitar]

I’m not on a speed train to nerf cultists but at the moment they do everything but carry heavy weapons better than marines do. Dropping HA would eliminate them as a target for VotLW and double shooting, which means if you want those on troops, take csm. They would still serve all their other functions, but just wouldn’t be as killy on balance.

 

Ofc I don’t want to nerf my own army, and I have a fair few culties myself...

 

The trouble with dropping points on csm is you start to crush the bottom of the points bracket. Drop csm to 10, and you start to wonder why sisters get -1 S, T, and WS yet cost 9pts. Drop the points on a battle sister, and they start crowding scions, and vets, and ordinary guardsmen... and the outcry already exists that basic guardsmen cost too little!

 

There just isn’t a lot of wiggle room down there!

 

Marines and csm are better than ever against high powered weaponry... and worse than ever against massed or AP-1 fire. :/ one of the things in the past they helped redeem csm is that with bolter+pistol+ccw they weren’t terrible up close (same for assault marines); but the changes to cc / falling back, and losing out on the kit for extra attacks, really was a big hit to their famed flexibility.

 

They just aren’t flexible anymore - instead they have become, well, medicore. Not unusable, mind, but definitely mediocre. And that’s a shame.

 

Now, if I could kit them with chain axes...

[DreamIsCollapsing]

Cultist should stay HA, nonsens to invalid a detachment because there is cultist in it. On the other hand they shoudnt be able to use VotlW (self explanatory..). 

 

Raptor & Warp talon should have a special rules about charge after deepstriking. When you figure how those units works it seems sad they got as many chance of reaching close than terminators. Whiles terminators are the speed of a normal SM and must teleport at some distance to avoid "incident" raptor are literaly coming from the sky to land directly into the opponent face. 

 

If we follow the course of pure logical and balance, a protective spell shoud be harder to cast on a 30 men cultist than on a 5 man Terminators squads. But giving different warp charge for a same spell is against the rules simplification 8th edition wanted to bring. 

[Mekhitar]

Let them keep <Legion> (imitating their betters) or give them a special rule such that they don’t break the detachment - a la militarum aux units. You could still spam them for CP, but chaos undivided tends to be hurting for CPs anyway with no relic to regenerate them.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

 

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)

Yes, but those Havocs are going to draw a LOT of fire and if built 4x lascannons on 5x bodies, they're going to lose potency FAST. That's where the CSMs earn their money.

[Aothaine]

I personally like the 5-man squads with lascannons. It spreads the threat out. I like cultists too but I just don't think CSM squads are as lackluster as most people. You can still take that 40 cultist bomb with no issues. And 5-man CSM squads with a lascannon each will do work on your opponent's target priority.

[Lord Abaia]

I'm not sure if MSU clown car rhinos are competitive, but it is a niche that is fillable by CSM and not Cultists.

 

In my Night Lords army I stick a 5 man CSM squad with a plasma gun in a rhino with a 5 man squad of something more scary (Havocs with flamers, Berzerkers, etc) This helps me generate an extra -1 Ld for having more units nearby, fills my troop requirements, and gets me some mobile obsec. The CSM tend to get ignored because of other threats so they can sit on a mid-field or forward objective and take plasma gun pot shots at targets of opportunity. I'm thinking of adding Icons of Despair to them for an additional -1Ld. 

[Akrim]

Thats probably their best current usage; small heavy weapons bunker squads.

[BrainFireBob]

My 2 cents: a sliding points scale.

Make a 10 man unit of marines 80% per model vs the 5 man cost, and 20 men 60%.

You take min sized troops to unlock "the good stuff," so you need a way for lots of troops to equal the good stuff. A sliding discount does that

 

EDIT:

 

Having time and not being on my phone, this is the kind of thing I mean. You'd be locked into squads being 5, 10,5, or 20 man, but still. Applying 11% of the initial cost as a rough example:

 

Base CSM squad: 65 points.

Recommended 10 man squad: 115 points

Recommended 15 man squad: 152 points

Recommended 20 man squad: 174 points

 

Now that 20 man squad, with its limited mobility options, is comparable to a 5 man terminator squad. Way more wounds, far less tough, far less wargear flexibility, and far more limited transport and deployment options, but has the staying power troops should have.

 

Personally, I'd do the opposite for cultists- increase their cost as the squad goes up in size.

 

Sidebar, this is where things get sideways. People want a fluff explanation or reason for rules that isn't just "game balance," but points values cannot be static. You always have tipping points where you either have diminishing returns or exponential gains- it's why helblasters are so good. Two plasma guns is more than twice as good as one, and three more than 1.5x as good as two or three times as good as one- so that plasma gun bluntly cannot have a static value, but there's a rather shrill section of the player base that insists that it must.

 

The problem isn't the cultist versus the CSM. It's the large cultist squad in particular.  

[Kite Senet]

Would a "tax" model be a reasonable implementation of that concept? As a fluff nerd I could totally see large armies of cultists turning into absolute backstabbing chaos if the Cultist Champion didn't have some form of bodyguard and/or sergeant to work with to keep the troops in line. Suppose instead of adding 10 more cultists (per 3 power), you added 9 cultists and an expensive, power-inefficient Enforcer model?

 

My fluff instinct tells me that it should be paired with a Treacherous rule where an opponent can make cultist morale losses resolve a shooting attack as if they controlled that cultist unless an Enforcer is within some small range. But perhaps that's excessively complicated.

[Zodd1888]

How about chaff/horde units suffer damage spread from multi-wound attacks? Could be one step in the right direction.

 

And/or chaff/horde suffer double leadership casualties.

 

Keyword Horde.

[Marshal van Trapp]

Honestly I think VotLW should be keyword HERETIC ASTARTES since it's more fitting. I don't think that'd fix cultists but it'd help for certain. In that same regard there are a fair few other stratagem that should be fixed thusly but I can't think of any off hand

[Kite Senet]

How about chaff/horde units suffer damage spread from multi-wound attacks? Could be one step in the right direction.

 

And/or chaff/horde suffer double leadership casualties.

 

Keyword Horde.

 

A Horde keyword seems like it would be an good mechanism for a fix; that opens up a lot of different options, and seems like a reasonable method of applying a general patch to the situation without demanding a total rules re-write. Heck, they could just Errata Horde onto the models now and then release Beta rules to explore the downsides that horde units should have.

[totgeboren]

 

The problem isn't the cultist versus the CSM. It's the large cultist squad in particular.  

 

I agree that sliding points would really improve the game. It has been implemented for a long time in HH, though simplified in that for example a base squad costs say 150 pts for 10 models, and then each extra costs 10 pts each up to a total of 20 extra models. You get a discount if you field large squads.

In 8ed, a lot of units instead get a bonus if they take lots of dudes, which I think both cultists and especially CSM should have gotten. However, I don't like it that they lose the bonus in-game when they are reduced in numbers. The bonus should simply be a tradeoff for using large and unwieldy units instead of msu. As it is now, you generally get nothing in practice when on the tabletop, due to your opponent easily being able to bring your big units down below the threshold.

 

However, I do not agree that large cultists squads are a problem in particular. As long as they are affected by morale, they crumble so fast it's crazy. But if you take lots of small squads, they don't, yet cost the same.

 

Also, it's not just a question of the relative cost between CSM and Cultists.

 

-Take lots of small squads of cultists and you have a much easier time claiming objectives, and if a squad needs to run to reach, that's fine. The loss of offensive output doesn't really matter. Shooting at them with anything other than small arms fire is a waste of opportunity. They do not require CP to fulfill their role of objective claimers and chaff, to the contrary, lots of small squads of cultists gives you access to more CP by allowing you to fill out lots of Detachments without a big commitment in points. These extra points can then be spend on other damage dealers.

 

-Take a 10- man squad of CSM and they are punished by morale, are a juicy target for every sort of gun in the game, and omitting their shooting to claim objectives means a significant investment of your points isn't shooting. They generally require CP spent on them to do anything worthwhile (VotlW), and you wont have the points to field more than one detachment, if even that if you want to field anything other than CSM squads.

 

The problem is that 1 unit of cultists and 1 unit of elite dudes is better in basically every single way than 1 big unit of CSM. The cultists and elites (by elite I just mean something heavy-hitting) are much more flexible by being two units, so can fight and claim stuff at the same time, while spending CP on the Elites to maximize their damage output. The CSM have to make a choice between fighting and claiming stuff, and spending CP on them still wont give you a unit that is as potent as the heavy-hitter buffed by CP generated by the Cultists.

[Panzer]

Maybe increasing the min size of Horde units to like 15 or so would be a good idea. That way the morale mechanic could actually do work for once (with smaller squads the squad is dead before you have to worry about morale). Of course that means horde units can't ever be immune to morale. Such rules would have to be re-written to maybe just half the losses from morale or whatever.

That way you also couldn't spam them to gain cheap CP anymore. It would be a question of whether you'd prefer 15 Cultists (64p) or 5 Chaos Marines (65p). Of course that wouldn't get rid of all the advantages horde units have over more elite units but it could be a good start. Combine that with a slight point decrease of Chaos Marines and it'd look even better (11ppm sounds good to me compared to Skitarii Ranger and T'au Firewarrior for 7ppm, maybe even cheaper).

[HeresyBeliever]

Its interesting to hear different ideas. 

The Horde keyword sounds an option. But what is deemed to be a Horde? Any unit over 20 models? 

A unit of 10 ork boys or cultists isn't a horde. 

 

Maybe 

 

BS 5+ / WS 5+ for a cultist in units under 20, above 20 (Become a Horde) they are BS 4+ / WS 4+ but multi damage weapons spill over. 

Its gives benefits and disadvantages to the controlling player. Also gives target priority choices to the opponent. 

 

Even with the above rule I would take 40 man units but i would be picking them off the table a lot quicker. 

 

Cultists not using VOTLW is easy to achieve via an rule change. Personally I use that on my obliterators  (when I remember to deep strike them in!) 

 

Have Characters near them is used now all the time. The dark Apostle and Exalted Champ are a must for re-rolls and also helps the Leadership losses. You suffer for not having them so basically is already a TAX. 

 

626 pts nets you 3 CP's with

 

Dark Apostle

Exalted Champ

3 x 40 man cultists 

 

Which in most games gives you 1374 points to spend on toys. It also gives you plenty of board control and deep strike annoyance. 

 

Its the main start of my army lists most days. Some days I drop the 3rd unit down to 10 men to give 506 points. 

[Iron_Within]

How would the "Horde" Keyword work with other armies though? I mean minimum sized units for Obsec seem to be the way to go for many armies, including cultists. Also, this does not affect "horde" armies like Astra Militarum, so how would that work as they are certainly a horde of miniatures but come in units of 10.  I think the problem for me is that with weaker units like cultists, Tyranid Gaunts (of all flavours), orks and IG units they've mitigated the primary weakness of them - which is morale. Every single one of those units has a way to mitigate morale which was supposed to be the equaliser. In my own experience, the IG have several ways of mitigating morale and buckets of CP it doesn't actually feel like much of an issue.

 

So my thoughts on what could help a little more in depth, adding to what has been said: 

I think the return of the Chainsword is a no brainer firstly.

Second I think bonus for larger units should be a thing similar to Daemons, I'm not sure what that would be, I'm thinking +1 attack maybe? Or potentially something individual for each Legion, e.g. Iron Warriors always count in cover when they are 11 models or more, something like that

Thirdly, I think the indroduction of Fury of the Damned was a fricking cool idea - if Chaos Space Marine units have not moved they count their  Bolt guns as Rapid Fire 2. I personally think Tactical Squads in our loyalist counterparts should have the same.

Fourth, I think Chaos Space Marine units should have an exclusive strategem, to mitigate the effects of Hordes when capturing Objectives, which arguably is their primary purpose: "To the bitter end" (1CP) - Play this Strategem at any time. A Chaos Space Marine Squad on an objective, becomes immune to morale and each model counts as 3 for the purposes of number of models capturing an objective" so if a two guardsmen push onto your objective in a last game push you can play this and suddenly your last remaining marines have to be utterly killed pretty much to take it.

 

 

To summarise what has been said and put an idea of what I'll be emailing over (I will correct myself as I will inevitable miss stuff - I'm supposed to be getting ready for work while typing this )

Chaos Space Marine Units are the jack of all trade units, however there is nothing that they do that other general units cannot do better and so have been left without a place in most army lists, both in hobby games and at competitive level. Being outshone in certain areas is fine, one would expect a Havoc unit to be able to destroy a tank more effectively than a Chaos Space Marine unit. However Chaos Space Marines are outshone by cultists in their potentially primary role in filling out the army and taking objectives. Cultstists have greater numbers and are considerably cheaper and so are simply better at taking objectives, they also bring greater weight of fire and so with support characters are largely better at shooting than Chaos Space Marines. Our experience is this has left our Chaos Space Marines gathering dust on a shelf and that is not something we want. In short, please make Chaos Space Marines better, more adaptable and more dangerous.

By far the most requested thing have been:

• The return of Boltgun, Chainsword and Bolt Pistol as their standard armament
• A points drop to 11 points a model (that is including the above change to armament).

In addition to this we feel that something should be done to make the Chaos Space Marine units more "special" and thematic in the game, we have made a number of suggestions:

• Fury of the Legion - Chaos Space Marine models in Chaos Space Marine units that have not moved count their Boltguns as Rapid fire 2. - This suggestion is to make CSM have more tactical firepower, defending objectives and countering the horde that they face, at the sacrifice of mobility, which is poignant as it leaves a player with the agony of choice - do they charge with their 21 attack CSM squad (remember they have chainswords) or do they hunker down and unleash a storm of bolt Shells
• A buff of some kind for larger CSM units - there is little point in taking CSM units in groups larger than 10 and even then they lose out to Cultists. Daemons and the like gain a buff for larger units, please consider this for our humble Marines.
• reintroduce the "1 in 5" rule - at 10 models CSM units can have 2 heavy or special weapons, at 20 models they can only have 2 heavy or special weapons, this feels counter-intuitive and discourages larger squads. Please reconsider this.
• Removing "Veterans of the Long war" Strategem from Cultists, we're not just asking for buffs How can a cultist have the same experience as a 10k year old marine? This makes little sense and discourages marine units, please remove this as an option for our cultists.

 

As I said I'm gonna collate these all together but if you want to send your own experiences and thoughts over to Games Workshop on Chaos Space Marine troops you can do so by emailing 40kfaq@gwplc.com - kind of a personal request is not to use it to spread the salt, I think it doesn't help anyone. EDIT: I think I'll be collating an email to send on Sunday or Monday.

 

Does anyone here, especially the mods, have issue with me saying this is from the CSM B&C forum when I send it? I will include a link to this thread?

[Zodd1888]

Regarding Keyword Horde:

 

I think it should have the damage roll over mechanic and/or double casualties from leadership as a result of the keyword. Then, you can delineate which units are immune or effected by what using special rules, stratagems, relics, etc. specific to mitigate whatever the factors are.

 

It's hard to quantify what's a horde/chaff unit, but really it could be seen as any unit at or below 7 PPM and max size 30+ initially. I can't think of too many units besides what would be intended to be effected off the top of my head.

 

That said, all Horde units could then use the highest leadership of a character within 6" when making leadership tests to try to balance things slightly.

 

I don't know what the specifics would be right now, but I think that milling this idea over and submitting it is a solid idea to help the horde dilemma. That would help us all better identify the gaps in PA troops since the comparison would be less skewed, and at that point a points drop may be the solution.

[Akrim]

Im sure some of the older players around here remember the era when CSMs had Veteran specialist skills available, it gave CSMs something more characterful other than just being bolter dudes.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Im sure some of the older players around here remember the era when CSMs had Veteran specialist skills available, it gave CSMs something more characterful other than just being bolter dudes.

This, yeah. I remember this from 3.5. Bringing that back sounds like a good idea to me, allowing us to personalize the squads while giving them abilities both fluffy and useful.

[Tallarn Commander]

Yes, I loved being able to infiltrate 1 squad of CSM and give +1 to cover saves to another squad. It was very fluffy for my Night Lords to sneak around the table and then pounce on the foe.

[Azekai]

The problem with damage roll over for Hordes/infantry is that it makes Lascannons (already potent and ubiquitous) basically good against everything. I don't relish that prospect.

I like Akrim's idea of reducing points cost while improving the versatility of the humble CSM. And while we are at it, give plague marines their damn pistols back too.

[Iron_Within]

Veteran abilities and the like are already there with strategems/ warlord traits and other abilities

[masterstrider]

How would the "Horde" Keyword work with other armies though? I mean minimum sized units for Obsec seem to be the way to go for many armies, including cultists. Also, this does not affect "horde" armies like Astra Militarum, so how would that work as they are certainly a horde of miniatures but come in units of 10.  I think the problem for me is that with weaker units like cultists, Tyranid Gaunts (of all flavours), orks and IG units they've mitigated the primary weakness of them - which is morale. Every single one of those units has a way to mitigate morale which was supposed to be the equaliser. In my own experience, the IG have several ways of mitigating morale and buckets of CP it doesn't actually feel like much of an issue.

 

So my thoughts on what could help a little more in depth, adding to what has been said: 

I think the return of the Chainsword is a no brainer firstly.

Second I think bonus for larger units should be a thing similar to Daemons, I'm not sure what that would be, I'm thinking +1 attack maybe? Or potentially something individual for each Legion, e.g. Iron Warriors always count in cover when they are 11 models or more, something like that

Thirdly, I think the introduction of Fury of the Damned was a fricking cool idea - if Chaos Space Marine units have not moved they count their  Bolt guns as Rapid Fire 2. I personally think Tactical Squads in our loyalist counterparts should have the same.

Fourth, I think Chaos Space Marine units should have an exclusive strategem, to mitigate the effects of Hordes when capturing Objectives, which arguably is their primary purpose: "To the bitter end" (1CP) - Play this Strategem at any time. A Chaos Space Marine Squad on an objective, becomes immune to morale and each model counts as 3 for the purposes of number of models capturing an objective" so if a two guardsmen push onto your objective in a last game push you can play this and suddenly your last remaining marines have to be utterly killed pretty much to take it.

 

 

To summarise what has been said and put an idea of what I'll be emailing over (I will correct myself as I will inevitable miss stuff - I'm supposed to be getting ready for work while typing this )

Chaos Space Marine Units are the jack of all trade units, however there is nothing that they do that other general units cannot do better and so have been left without a place in most army lists, both in hobby games and at competitive level. Being outshone in certain areas is fine, one would expect a Havoc unit to be able to destroy a tank more effectively than a Chaos Space Marine unit. However Chaos Space Marines are outshone by cultists in their potentially primary role in filling out the army and taking objectives. Cultstists have greater numbers and are considerably cheaper and so are simply better at taking objectives, they also bring greater weight of fire and so with support characters are largely better at shooting than Chaos Space Marines. Our experience is this has left our Chaos Space Marines gathering dust on a shelf and that is not something we want. In short, please make Chaos Space Marines better, more adaptable and more dangerous.

By far the most requested thing have been:

• The return of Boltgun, Chainsword and Bolt Pistol as their standard armament
• A points drop to 11 points a model (that is including the above change to armament).

In addition to this we feel that something should be done to make the Chaos Space Marine units more "special" and thematic in the game, we have made a number of suggestions:

• Fury of the Legion - Chaos Space Marine models in Chaos Space Marine units that have not moved count their Boltguns as Rapid fire 2. - This suggestion is to make CSM have more tactical firepower, defending objectives and countering the horde that they face, at the sacrifice of mobility, which is poignant as it leaves a player with the agony of choice - do they charge with their 21 attack CSM squad (remember they have chainswords) or do they hunker down and unleash a storm of bolt Shells
• A buff of some kind for larger CSM units - there is little point in taking CSM units in groups larger than 10 and even then they lose out to Cultists. Daemons and the like gain a buff for larger units, please consider this for our humble Marines.
• reintroduce the "1 in 5" rule - at 10 models CSM units can have 2 heavy or special weapons, at 20 models they can only have 2 heavy or special weapons, this feels counter-intuitive and discourages larger squads. Please reconsider this.
• Removing "Veterans of the Long war" Strategem from Cultists, we're not just asking for buffs How can a cultist have the same experience as a 10k year old marine? This makes little sense and discourages marine units, please remove this as an option for our cultists.

 

As I said I'm gonna collate these all together but if you want to send your own experiences and thoughts over to Games Workshop on Chaos Space Marine troops you can do so by emailing 40kfaq@gwplc.com - kind of a personal request is not to use it to spread the salt, I think it doesn't help anyone. EDIT: I think I'll be collating an email to send on Sunday or Monday.

 

Does anyone here, especially the mods, have issue with me saying this is from the CSM B&C forum when I send it? I will include a link to this thread?

 

I like the post. Thanks for consolidating.

 

I have just one comment:

*I don't think that nerfing Cultists by removing the VotLW stratagem would make CSMs any better. I understand the logic, but it would add no value other than to nerf the Codex as a whole. Chaos Space Marines have very little in the way of massed shooting, apart from Noise Marines, which need a new kit. Cultists offer that threat of "weight of dice" that no other unit can really compare to for the points cost and we need it. Fluff rules and tournament rules don't always logically align.

 

 

P.S. Glad you liked my suggestions.

[Iron_Within]

I personally don't like nerfing cultists either and I'd be disappointed if they took that route (y'know if they address any of this), I don't think cultists are overpowered personally I think they're solid which is world of difference. I included it because there were a few calling for it, I mean I'll include it, unless I decide to be an evil tyrant