Discussion post points CA leak

[Tallarn Commander]

Cryptix, I often use a battalion of R&H supporting a CSM battalion. As you note, the R&H provide the numbers and the long-range firepower while the CSM can deliver mobile units that can assault, close-range shooty units that can rip the enemy apart, and HQs that use spells and auras to buff. Also, since R&H lack stratagems, the CSM unlock access to some superb statagems.

 

Plus, in terms of fluff, Alpha Legion would jump at the chance to manipulate, er team up with, a Renegades and Heretics brigade.

 

My R&H plus CSM lists generally outperform my pure CSM lists. This is probably because my meta tends to lack anti horde ability and because 8th edition improved chaff units overall.

 

By the way, in my experience, 8th edition nerfed our heavy weapons squads by dropping our access to BS4+. Although BS5+ mortars are still worthwhile. Instead of autocannon heavy weapons teams I'd go with autocannon (or, even better, lascannon) Disciple Squads with 5 or more troopers. They are a great static firebase unit. And if a cheap Enforcer is nearby hiding behind something like a wall or rock the Disciples can withstand some enemy shooting.

 

 

Good luck in building your army!

[Iron_Within]

Trying to look at the Chaos Space Marine Chapter Approved updates with fresh eyes (I am still hoping they errata the Terminators to 23 points but hey ho). So I'm going to look at the positive builds instead.

I'm going to just be looking at CSM armies as a solo force - no soup generally speaking.

 

General  

Although 8th edition favours hordes over elite armies in this edition, with the points drops what we seem to do well now is present a lot of units at the 100 to |<150 point mark, allowing us to have a lot of cheap, units and grant redundancy to each role required. As with before we have Rhinos allowing us to double up two 5 man units into 1 transport.

What I can see is the ability to build an army that is keyed to small unit threat overload rather than monster horde units. Of course this doesn't mean that 40 man cultist units are dead, far from it, it's just we cannot really have 90 cultists in one army easily anymore - what once cost 360 points would now cost 450 points and that cuts into other units.

 

HQ's

Warpsmith: I'm looking again at this guy, he's now the cheapest HQ unit we have and the ability to heal vehicles we have a greater incentive take him. He's still a nasty contender for melee and close range as well as his auto smite on vehicles.

 

Sorcerer in Terminator armour: My own go to for sorcerers is a Jump Pack Sorcerer so he can keep up with the main line, however with the successive points drop a Terminator Sorcerer is now cheaper than a Jump Pack Sorcerer. As a backfield defender or a Deep Strike unit to match with a turn 2 charge this would still have utility. He's useless for Warptime unless dropping him turn 2 (though if you are doing that the Jump Pack is still better) however other abilities like Prescience, Smite are still useful, Death Hex along with Deep Striking Terminators and/or Obliterators he would do well with for destroying pesky Invulnerable save shenanigans.

 

Infantry

 

Chaos Space Marines Yeah, they're still bad, but the drop in points to special and heavy weapons they can have a place in the right army. For me they are the support role niche to harder hitting units if someone takes them. The most important thing is they can fit in a Rhino.

Builds:

• Naked Marines: Pure escorts and bodies in a Rhino. Having them with a squad of Chosen means they can form an instant screen. I wouldn't take this setup as for a few more points you can have special weapons and have them do something. One bonus is of a marine squad over a Cultist squad now is that 5 marines are easier to hide than 10 cultists, so just sneaking onto an objective is an option.
• Flamer Marines: 1 Flamer, 1 Combi Flamer on the champion. The cheapest load out that has any worth in taking, they come in at just under 80 points. They can escort a Chosen Squad or Berzerkers in the same Rhino - for the Berzerkers their flamers and bolters do a half decent job of clearing screens before a charge (which are a bigger issue these days), along with sticking some bolt pistols on the Berzerkers or add a combi Flamer on the Champion. 
• Plasma Marines: 1 Plasma, 1 Combi plasma. The "nuisance" squad on it's own, at just under 90 points. Main thing is this is a Marine killer in an edition of weak Marines, but it can also strip the odd wounds off a vehicle.
• Melta Marines: 1 Melta, 1 Combi Melta. Pretty much unusable on it's own, but again we need to think of Marine squads as support squads. Two melta Guns supporting a heavier hitting squad can help with heavy armour
• Fisty McPunchPunch: An escort for the Champion with a Power Fist or other power weapon, again, can do little on its own but can support a more hard hitting unit, either by being a nasty screening unit.
• Chainswords: Outfitting any of the above units with Chainswords will increase their close combat potential, and it's free, it depends on what you want to do with them, personally I think bolters are best. But again, forget about CSM units doing anything on their own, they are a support unit for stronger units.

Stuff to do with them: 

• The Escort: Have them run in a Rhino with a squad of Chosen, or Berzerkers as support, either clearing chaff or blocking counter charges. Placed with a Rhino it gives more changes to stop the more valuable unit dying.
• The "Hides in a Bush": The unit sneaks about grabbing objectives, trying not to be noticed. Arguably does it better than 10 cultists as with 5 power armour it's easier to be out of Line of Sight.
• Front line assault: hehehee... No. They are still CSM and so still a bit rubbish.

 

Chosen: I like the look of Chosen now. They excel in the 100 point category for cheap hard hitting units. In most cases I think having them in a Rhino is worthwhile. Always take a Chainsword. If these guys could be troops I would take them over CSM units any day.

• The Dakka Chosen: A 5 man squad with Chainswords and Combi Bolters comes to 80 points and puts out 20 Bolter Shots in 12" before charging. They are competing with Noise Marines who pump out 15 shots at 24" range ignoring cover, (which doesn't matter if like me you're playing Iron Warriors). However I think the Noise Marines win out because of Music of the Apocalypse. Nevertheless they are a cheap unit good at taking out Chaff at range and in melee.
• Flamer Chosen: 4 Chosen with Flamers, Champ with Combi Flamers. This unit clears Chaff, rolling 5D6, making an average of 21 hits, and mops up with Chainswords. Slightly more efficient with Combi Flamers. Pairing with Flamer CSM in a Rhino will net even more flamers and mitigate the rubbish range. It's also cheap around the 100 points mark. 
• Plasma Chosen: The mini me of Hellblasters. decent at taking out everything and their points are just shy 130 so are still relatively cheap. Needs protection and will die to a stiff breeze. Again combining with Plasma CSM gives 7 Plasma in one unit.
• Melta Chosen: "We're not Firedragons, Honest guv". The most expensive heading towards the 150 mark, they are no longer cheap and they would struggle to get into range, then again if they do, if it's a vehicle it will possibly cry. Needs buffing for their shot and so likely needs character escort.
• Power Weapons: Adding too much into one unit will make them unreliable as power armour is tissue paper in 8th. However having power weapons in a Chosen Squad, can hurt the other side. Khorne Berzerkers arguably do this better with sheer number of attacks however Chosen with a couple of Power fists or power weapons could support a zerker charge.
• Two man special Weapons: This is cheapest option by far, two Special Weapons and a champ with a combi weapon. 5 man with triple plasma comes to just over 100 points.

Stuff to do with them: 

 

• Two team Party bus: Get a Rhino and put Chosen and another unit it, it comes to a price however it becomes harder and harder to eliminate them all.
• Party bus with a buddy: Warpsmiths have dropped a lot now, so a Chosen squad with flamers or plasma or a mix along with a a cheap Warpsmith could put out a nasty number of attacks. combined with a Lord or Prince escort this could be the form of a speartip.
• Real Marines: best for the two man special Weapons group, but simply use them as you would use a marine squad but with

 

[Trevak Dal]

The thing I'm currently looking at is (still) chosen.

A 5 man unit of chosen in a rhino could double up with a 5 man unit of csm. You can "double up" your abilities and it takes care of the troops tax but still gives the cam unit something to do (supporting the chosen).

E.g. a unit of chosen with flamers could be paired with CSM with plasma/Combi plas and now they have a multi role function. Or double up on the same weapons have 7 of a special weapon in a rhino relatively cheaply.

A 5 man chosen with Combi flamers and a unit of 5 CSM with flamer/Combi flamer and power swords on each champion comes to 197 points, which isn't bad when you're playing 7d6 flamers on.

Alternatively a 7 plasma squad and 2 power swords is 216 points. Again, not bad.

The problem you got to (sadly) watch out for with those set ups is overkilling a target so it exposes your guys to direct counter fire in your opponents turn. I love me some killing :cuss, but if you get too greedy and don't got anybody to lock in combat they are going to just sit back and blast you like it's order 66 and you're a Jedi.

 

Now, if you got that x3, and your opponent has been co-operative to have his stuff in blobs of forward thrust (Tyranids and orks do this by accident) then you can Starship Troopers that :cuss to your heart's content. But all flamers/Combi flamers will dissapoint you sometimes because 1s come up in the d6 shots.

[Iron_Within]

The main thing I come up against is guard with the infantry screening the tanks, a chosen flamer squad deployed from a rhino correctly would be able to hit multiple squads and effecting at thinning/clearing a screen for a follow up charge to tag the vehicle

[Iron_Within]

Part 2 - Vehicles

 

We have a glut of "Distraction Carnifexes" now, that are all in the 100-150 range, sure that's a bit more than the actual distraction Carnifex however each of these can hit harder in their own way.

 

Defiler

Captain Crab, also has been Captain Useless, Captain "it doesn't know what it is" has dropped 32 points since Codex release, that puts it into the "viable" category. But for me, it still has to be kept cheap as it doesn't really know what it wants to be when it grows up. But what it is is a 14 Wound Monster that is hard to kill for it's points. Always make sure it has a Mark on it, as each of the psychic abilities will help it, personally I prefer miasma of Pestilance, but that's because I fight Astra Militarum alot YMMV. The important thing IMO is to keep its points down. As tempting as a twin Heavy Flamer is, the Defiler will always be a bullet magnet so will often die to enemy shooting. Anyway, a couple of builds that could work these days

 

Ranged Dakka Defiler

Havoc Launcher, Reaper Autocannon

The ranged defiler is the cheapest build. It has a Battlecannon, Havoc Launcher and Reaper Autocannon - so weapons for a range of targets. There is a suggestion to put on the Heavy Bolter, which would bump the model up by 7 points, if you can sure, but this thing is cheap at 136 points. It would be best paired for decent shooting and backfield defence - deepstriking units attacking the backfield will thing twice before attacking it generally - either because they cannot kill it in a turn, turning it into a defacto Tarpit, or they are elite enough that it's claws will hurt (if you get it to hit, I seem incapable of rolling 4+ with mine).

 

Captain Lasso-Crab-Crush.

Reaper Autocannon, Defiler Scourge.

So this is 6 points more expensive than the cheap Dakka Defiler, but if he reaches combat he's a beast and will outperform a Maulerfiend on high Toughness targets. He has a movement of 8" only which puts him at Hellbrute Speeds which is a shame buuut, he's 142 points that can cripple a Knight on the charge. At full strength he has 4 Strength 16 attacks -3AP and D6 Damage, plus 3 Strength 12, AP-2 3 Damage. You would need to use Daemonforge on him to get the maximum benefit off but he can inflict around 18-23 wounds on the charge with Daemon Forge. Naturally this means he's going to attract an unholy amount of fire from anyone with valuable armour, however if your army has redundancy, then he becomes a nice terror unit to soak damage. Again, putting -1 to hit on him or 5+++ on either with Nurgle or Slaanesh is fun. This configuration is a more successful Distraction unit than Dakka Defiler, because they cannot ignore him, Dakka Defiler, despite his scary face doesn't put out a lot of hurt per turn he's just annoyingly there. Part of me thinks the Defiler might be a secret gem for our army now. 

 

Maulerfiend

All the things of Captain Lasso-Crab-Crush but without ranged firepower, nice drop in points puts him cheaper in the 130 range of points with Lasher Tendrils so again makes him an expendable Carnifex. Faster and not as many wounds as the Defiler, he has more attacks with 4 S12 AP-3 Damage 3 and 6 S6 AP-2 Damage 2 attacks - would do well against multi wound units but could hurt any unit really. Melta Cutters are still trash which is a shame, seriously don't bother with them.

 

Forgefiend

Just too expensive for what it does still, the Decimator or Contemptor do it better for cheaper now so this is still a "gathering Dust" unit. 

 

Hellturkey

The Turkey will take its revenge once more this christmas! Or at least it might cause a nuisance for a couple of units before being shot to pieces. It's slightly more viable - again a distraction unit with the added benefit of tying units up in combat. 2 could shut down a gun line for a turn or two - and gunline players know this so it will turn it into a bullet magnet - so solidly in the maaaaybe? category. Still never take the Hades autocannon.... Personally at the near 170 point mark I find them a bit too expensive for what they do - drop them another 20 points or so then we can talk

 

Hellbrutes

The angry rage box is now in the 100 points range. a Lascannon/Launcher Brute will set back 120 points ish, so it's a nice platform now that doesn't degrade and has the option for extra shots as it dies. Will still die quickly to dedicated shooting, but hell what doesn't in a CSM army nowadays? Most builds sit comfortably at the 100-110 mark, the double fist Brute and reaper autocannon armed brutes being the cheapest. Scourges are excellent still, adding +3 attacks is nice. I'm not convinced by taking 2 as that's a 130 point model that's fragile - but if it did make it into combat that's 11 attacks which is nasty for still a cheap model.

 

The question for me now is - with all the mechanised monster units being <150 points, are a heavy armour walker army more viable? Simply saturating the board with armour. My own collection would be around 1600 points before anything else but for that I'd have 6 Hellbrutes (1 Plasma/Scourge, 1 Hb/Fist, 1 Reaper/Fist, 3 Twin Lascannon/Fist), 1 Contemptor (Butcher/Fist) , 1 Decimator (2 Butchers), 2 Maulerfiends and 1 Defiler (Magnetised) - that's around 100 wounds to get through at toughness 7, would it just die horribly? Or make a horrible mess

[Scourged]

I've only played the one game with new points so far, but for how I like to play the changes have been nice. Had a small firebase of autocannons havocs, a las/missile brute, reaper/missile brute, and a stock lord. It did fairly decent for what it was. And that motley lot is less than 400 points. It's not the best shooting in the world, but I was pleased... Granted, -1 to hit and super hot rolling on Helbrute saves really helped.

 

Throwing 25 point spawn at the enemy feels good. I enjoyed them before, but they feel even better now. My opponents never know of they can ignore them or not, so it forces decision making.

 

The neat thing was that all of the new savings made filling a brigade easier. No, it's nothing that will come close to placing in a tournament, but it held its own.

 

All I am missing is a double Butcher Contemptor and I'll be a happy camper.

[Mekhitar]

I used to run a Drake and a defiler in my old lists - always the first to die, which lets me happy rhinos deliver death to the enemy. I am so pleased they both went down by about 20 pts.

 

Will be finding room for a third.

[DominikB]

So I love the defiler, and all the daemon engines for that and I will be starting to run them again slowly again. I mainly play DG, so for me the helbrute is the winner here as it gets access to a fantastic legion trait.

 

For normal CSM, I have been planning for a while to make an IW or WB (or maybe AL) army either of which will feature daemon engines heavily but I still think they miss out on not getting the legion trait :/

[Sonoftherubric21]

Good run down!  I think if you want to play with walkers, chaos is *the* army to do it with.  My engines regularly perform well for me and my dreads are usually pretty solid. Now even more so. 

[Maschinenpriester]

Looking forward to field a dirt cheap sonic hellbrute with, dual fists, doom siren and combi bolters now. It's been cheap before. now even cheaper.

[balordazul]

Maybe this has already been talked to death but why are the CSM termies 5 points more then SM?  Even the Cata termies are only 26 points.  I'm honestly asking as I did not recall anything special that CSM termies could do that was not built in for points.  

 

For example CSM termies best element is being able to take combi weapons BUT that is taxed correctly as they pay for those weapons.  I thought they also had icons other items like that are payed for by points?

 

So what am I missing on this.  Is this an oops on GW or does CSM have some secret awesome power or trick with the termies that have them costed 22% more?

 

Not trolling or poking anyone here, I play many different armies and I honestly want to know if someone has worked it out. 

 

I probably own 20k points of CSM but don't tell the BT people or I might get banned from that forum. ;)

[dice4thedicegod]

I'd like to know too.

 

I have 5 night lord termies with dual lightning claws I'd like to use. But at 40 points each (and no warptime after deep strike), I may as well charge myself with them for all the good they are.

[Ghorgul]

I'd like to know too.

 

I have 5 night lord termies with dual lightning claws I'd like to use. But at 40 points each (and no warptime after deep strike), I may as well charge myself with them for all the good they are.

Endless Cacophony 2CP Stratagem should explain away your bewilderment. In other words, designers need to balance the units based on the combos and buffs available. Endless Cacophony is quite a significant boost to deep-striking plasma-termies.

 

EDIT: replaced 'buff' with 'boost' as it's more appropriate term for the single use of stratagem.

[Iron_Within]

I strongly disagree Gorgol. Chaos has strategems but lack synergy of a lot of overlapping buffs, space marines have lots of overlapping buffs; e.g. apothecary's Vs nurgle strategems. It evens out. There is zero reason because space wolves have the same flexibility. I talked this to death on this very thread and emailed gw about it but obviously no response. They wouldn't change it this close to Christmas but hopefully there will be a chapter approved faq in the new year - as per the normal post two week release.

If not I'll be very unhappy about it as I have 20 terminators.

[Ishagu]

Chaos Termies are definitely superior to loyalists because of additional synergy abilities through Strats and Psychic powers.

 

Looking at some of the above analysys, I think the Defiler looks excellent for it's cost.

[dice4thedicegod]

 

 

I'd like to know too.

 

I have 5 night lord termies with dual lightning claws I'd like to use. But at 40 points each (and no warptime after deep strike), I may as well charge myself with them for all the good they are.

Endless Cacophony 2CP Stratagem should explain away your bewilderment. In other words, designers need to balance the units based on the combos and buffs available. Endless Cacophony is quite a significant boost to deep-striking plasma-termies.

 

EDIT: replaced 'buff' with 'boost' as it's more appropriate term for the single use of stratagem.

Then the answer would be to increase the cost of chaos plasma weapons (and /or decrease non-plasma costs). Or increase the cp cost of endless cacophony.

[balordazul]

 

I'd like to know too.

 

I have 5 night lord termies with dual lightning claws I'd like to use. But at 40 points each (and no warptime after deep strike), I may as well charge myself with them for all the good they are.

Endless Cacophony 2CP Stratagem should explain away your bewilderment. In other words, designers need to balance the units based on the combos and buffs available. Endless Cacophony is quite a significant boost to deep-striking plasma-termies.

 

EDIT: replaced 'buff' with 'boost' as it's more appropriate term for the single use of stratagem.

 

 

 

Chaos Termies are definitely superior to loyalists because of additional synergy abilities through Strats and Psychic powers.

 

Looking at some of the above analysys, I think the Defiler looks excellent for it's cost.

 

So far between what people are posting the blame is on stratagems and psychic powers.  That is a little hard to swallow as that means we should see a higher cost on almost all equivalent units in CSM.   

 

Also Know no fear is inherently stronger than Vets of the long war as it is not dependent on the faction related trigger.

 

I guess I'm still not seeing the issue with CSM termies.  I believe that all termies need a rework in their game mechanics but that is a game Dev issue.

[Iron_Within]

Chaos Termies are definitely superior to loyalists because of additional synergy abilities through Strats and Psychic powers.

 

Looking at some of the above analysys, I think the Defiler looks excellent for it's cost.

 

Oh I forgot to mention - first turn with an assault defiler - pop smoke on it(I always forget it has smoke), place miasma of pestilence on it and it's -2 to hit from shooting.

Even if you warp time it into combat it should kill what it hits (within reason) and if it's surrounded by the enemy, it still is -2 to shooting. Against guard that'll be horrible

[Panzer]

 

 

I'd like to know too.

 

I have 5 night lord termies with dual lightning claws I'd like to use. But at 40 points each (and no warptime after deep strike), I may as well charge myself with them for all the good they are.

Endless Cacophony 2CP Stratagem should explain away your bewilderment. In other words, designers need to balance the units based on the combos and buffs available. Endless Cacophony is quite a significant boost to deep-striking plasma-termies.

 

EDIT: replaced 'buff' with 'boost' as it's more appropriate term for the single use of stratagem.

 

 

 

Chaos Termies are definitely superior to loyalists because of additional synergy abilities through Strats and Psychic powers.

 

Looking at some of the above analysys, I think the Defiler looks excellent for it's cost.

 

So far between what people are posting the blame is on stratagems and psychic powers.  That is a little hard to swallow as that means we should see a higher cost on almost all equivalent units in CSM.   

 

Also Know no fear is inherently stronger than Vets of the long war as it is not dependent on the faction related trigger.

 

I guess I'm still not seeing the issue with CSM termies.  I believe that all termies need a rework in their game mechanics but that is a game Dev issue.

 

 

Know no fear is inherently weaker than Vets of the long war just because MSU is the name of the game and Marines already have good LD. By the time you'd really need that re-roll the unit is usually already dead anyway.

 

But yeah Stratagems and Psychic powers is the best guess we can offer since GW didn't give an official explanation and if that's the case then those Stratagems should be more expensive and either the powers should be harder to cast or the Psyker itself should be more expensive as well since we can't have all the boosts active on every unit all the time and whenever they don't have a boost they're just an overcosted unit now.

[DominikB]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd like to know too.

 

I have 5 night lord termies with dual lightning claws I'd like to use. But at 40 points each (and no warptime after deep strike), I may as well charge myself with them for all the good they are.

Endless Cacophony 2CP Stratagem should explain away your bewilderment. In other words, designers need to balance the units based on the combos and buffs available. Endless Cacophony is quite a significant boost to deep-striking plasma-termies.

 

EDIT: replaced 'buff' with 'boost' as it's more appropriate term for the single use of stratagem.

Chaos Termies are definitely superior to loyalists because of additional synergy abilities through Strats and Psychic powers.

 

Looking at some of the above analysys, I think the Defiler looks excellent for it's cost.

So far between what people are posting the blame is on stratagems and psychic powers. That is a little hard to swallow as that means we should see a higher cost on almost all equivalent units in CSM.

 

Also Know no fear is inherently stronger than Vets of the long war as it is not dependent on the faction related trigger.

 

I guess I'm still not seeing the issue with CSM termies. I believe that all termies need a rework in their game mechanics but that is a game Dev issue.

Know no fear is inherently weaker than Vets of the long war just because MSU is the name of the game and Marines already have good LD. By the time you'd really need that re-roll the unit is usually already dead anyway.

 

But yeah Stratagems and Psychic powers is the best guess we can offer since GW didn't give an official explanation and if that's the case then those Stratagems should be more expensive and either the powers should be harder to cast or the Psyker itself should be more expensive as well since we can't have all the boosts active on every unit all the time and whenever they don't have a boost they're just an overcosted unit now.

Does that not apply to vets in turn? As you either have to run bigger less optimised units or use vets on a smaller MSU squad?

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I think the VOTLW comment was in error, I think he meant DTTFE because the comment referred to a faction-dependent trigger.

[Panzer]

I think the VOTLW comment was in error, I think he meant DTTFE because the comment referred to a faction-dependent trigger.

 

Hah you're right ... I actually thought about DttFE as well and just went with what he typed without correcting myself. :D

So yeah while DttFE only triggers against Imperium targets it still happens more often than ATSKNF simply because there's no reason for people to play bigger than min sized units on the loyalists side. They are lacking all the unit buffs like double shooting stratagems, VotLW or Prescience that would reward taking bigger units.

[balordazul]

Ya that is what I was thinking, sorry about the confusion.  Not Vets but DttFE vs Know no fear, again sorry I was getting things mixed up.

[Sception]

Generally the thought at this point is that the terminator points discrepency is an error.

[Iron_Within]

Agreed arguing any other way from what I've seen involves very flawed logic as any arguement in favour of +5 point chaos terminators would apply to all equivalent Chaos troops