CSM (Competitive) Post Arks, LVO, Uprising

[Prot]

So just looking at some factoids while I have a few minutes. 

 

My gut instinct on GW jumping the gun on hitting our Termies and Abaddon might be right after all. I see in Uprising, only Dean did well with CSM termies but he unfortunately was outside of the top 'pod' but did finish with a very respectable 19th place. The tournament was taken by Custodes, Tau, Dark Angels, Tau, Admech, Daemons, Knights, Custodes, Astra, and Admech.

 

Note: Uprising did use Arks of Omen rules.

 

What I find even more interesting is LVO locked in Nephilim for their end of season to keep things consistent. So this means AoC was in play, and old termies, Abe pricing.

 

Surprisingly the only top finisher (15th !) from CSM was Emperor's Children, and no Termies, nor Abe was taken.  Nearly all the top Chaos finishes were Daemons or... Thousand Sons. Guess what they feature?  You guessed it, bricks of Scarab Occult termies. 

 

My theory has always been Termies, in any Astartes Chaos Legion is the lynchpin, and it was ours.  I always argued that Deathguard Termies, and Thousand Sons termies were among the best in the game, and continue to be so. And they do it without relics, or the need of buffs/CP expenditure, etc. They are Obsec, and tough as nails (for varying reasons). 

 

With LVO using Nephilim, I really did expect to see CSM termie based lists as being more prominent. 

 

I do think the LVO stats are interesting for older rules, but the Uprising tournament was using Arks and gives us a greater look at how CSM in this era might look like. We saw some point reductions and increases, but loyalists got far cheaper. With the loss of AoC which is evident in Uprising. Aside from the 19th place finisher you have to go down to about 70 spots to find CSM termies. 

 

While this isn't horrible it does appear that Emperor's Children may over take Creations of Bile, and Abe/Termie based lists as 'competitive'.  Just speculation of course, but I thought it was interesting to dig through the Chaos lists in general on two massive tournaments using 2 different rule sets. 

 

To my surprise it looks like Thousand Sons still have play, and Custodes certainly seem to have improved with Arks, and Dark Angels -MIGHT- overtake Blood Angels as the competitive favourite loyalist??? ( I thought this was supposed to be Iron Hands!)

So what's  consistent? Tau. They are everywhere, no matter the rule set, and Daemons manage to weather Arks changes fairly well too.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Prot

[WrathOfTheLion]

Iron Hands might be back to some of their old strength, but the flexibility of Dark Angels lists and the amazing amount of options available to them means both Ravenwing and Deathwing are coming in real strong right now, with combined arms Ravenwing-focus being really brutal. I know we have a topic about it in the DA subforum, there's really a lot in play with that faction, with the price cuts and Dev doctrine, as Ravenwing can get 3 inches extra movement, and advance and shoot all weapons like assault, which then further stacks with Jink to get a 4++ on all the bikes and speeders.

 

I suspect EC will probably stay near the top. It could be Word Bearers come in some too, but I'm not sure they're strong enough to weather the overall nerfs to the faction. Red Corsairs could also see some play I think, if someone is more technical, but again I'm not sure it's enough to get into the top or do well enough against the top factions. My gut reaction to the balance dataslate is that almost every CSM/SM faction that isn't based on Codex: SM will essentially disappear, but we'll have to see how accurate that ends up being

[BrainFireBob]

12 hours ago, Prot said:

So just looking at some factoids while I have a few minutes. 

 

My gut instinct on GW jumping the gun on hitting our Termies and Abaddon might be right after all. I see in Uprising, only Dean did well with CSM termies but he unfortunately was outside of the top 'pod' but did finish with a very respectable 19th place. The tournament was taken by Custodes, Tau, Dark Angels, Tau, Admech, Daemons, Knights, Custodes, Astra, and Admech.

 

Note: Uprising did use Arks of Omen rules.

 

What I find even more interesting is LVO locked in Nephilim for their end of season to keep things consistent. So this means AoC was in play, and old termies, Abe pricing.

 

Surprisingly the only top finisher (15th !) from CSM was Emperor's Children, and no Termies, nor Abe was taken.  Nearly all the top Chaos finishes were Daemons or... Thousand Sons. Guess what they feature?  You guessed it, bricks of Scarab Occult termies. 

 

My theory has always been Termies, in any Astartes Chaos Legion is the lynchpin, and it was ours.  I always argued that Deathguard Termies, and Thousand Sons termies were among the best in the game, and continue to be so. And they do it without relics, or the need of buffs/CP expenditure, etc. They are Obsec, and tough as nails (for varying reasons). 

 

With LVO using Nephilim, I really did expect to see CSM termie based lists as being more prominent. 

 

I do think the LVO stats are interesting for older rules, but the Uprising tournament was using Arks and gives us a greater look at how CSM in this era might look like. We saw some point reductions and increases, but loyalists got far cheaper. With the loss of AoC which is evident in Uprising. Aside from the 19th place finisher you have to go down to about 70 spots to find CSM termies. 

 

While this isn't horrible it does appear that Emperor's Children may over take Creations of Bile, and Abe/Termie based lists as 'competitive'.  Just speculation of course, but I thought it was interesting to dig through the Chaos lists in general on two massive tournaments using 2 different rule sets. 

 

To my surprise it looks like Thousand Sons still have play, and Custodes certainly seem to have improved with Arks, and Dark Angels -MIGHT- overtake Blood Angels as the competitive favourite loyalist??? ( I thought this was supposed to be Iron Hands!)

So what's  consistent? Tau. They are everywhere, no matter the rule set, and Daemons manage to weather Arks changes fairly well too.

IIRC, the DA never saw the light of the tournament sun before you were forced to rotate out of Dev doctrine. We never really saw them fully unleashed. 

 

TS I frankly suspect are a gambler's wildcard- there are hard counters to them, but if you don't draw them, it's a 1-2 punch of tough termies and mortal wound spam. 

[Prot]

I think almost every player, no matter how good, at these events has to 'dodge' some bad match ups. The game is just so full of options and playstyles right now it takes a good piece of luck to never run into your nemesis. :)

 

The Chaos stuff that impressed me the most was definitely Thousand Sons. They are just all around solid. In the big picture though I think a HUGE piece of this is secondaries. Emperor's Children just have such a good secondary. 

 

When I play my Black Legion, or Iron Warriors, I stopped trying to score their secondaries. Just too hard. 

[WrathOfTheLion]

8 hours ago, BrainFireBob said:

IIRC, the DA never saw the light of the tournament sun before you were forced to rotate out of Dev doctrine. We never really saw them fully unleashed. 

 

TS I frankly suspect are a gambler's wildcard- there are hard counters to them, but if you don't draw them, it's a 1-2 punch of tough termies and mortal wound spam. 

That's definitely true, I remember getting Ritual of the Damned and it was less than a week later that they made doctrines have to advance. I was pretty annoyed at the time, as I wondered why they couldn't have just done that earlier instead of letting the Codex marines run their reign of terror for that long.

 

TS I think have made out better than some. Certain armies like Death Guard now have to go against the newer armies with their ease of access to autowounding and now even Guard have stuff that completely drops disgustingly resilient.

[Malakithe]

Kinda funny how TSons have the least amount of options and yet tend to be the best Chaos faction. WEs might be the same way with their seemingly simplistic style and lack of options.

[Prot]

16 hours ago, Malakithe said:

Kinda funny how TSons have the least amount of options and yet tend to be the best Chaos faction. WEs might be the same way with their seemingly simplistic style and lack of options.

that’s a good point. However thinking about it, I really believe a big part of Tsons success is those obsec Termies and the flexibility of the psychic phase not to mention the access to mortal wounds which appears World Eaters won’t have much of. 

[Malakithe]

18 minutes ago, Prot said:

that’s a good point. However thinking about it, I really believe a big part of Tsons success is those obsec Termies and the flexibility of the psychic phase not to mention the access to mortal wounds which appears World Eaters won’t have much of. 

True but WE do have access to rend -3 and -4 and Dmg 3 and 4 

[INKS]

On 2/1/2023 at 8:50 AM, Prot said:

I think almost every player, no matter how good, at these events has to 'dodge' some bad match ups. The game is just so full of options and playstyles right now it takes a good piece of luck to never run into your nemesis. :)

 

The Chaos stuff that impressed me the most was definitely Thousand Sons. They are just all around solid. In the big picture though I think a HUGE piece of this is secondaries. Emperor's Children just have such a good secondary. 

 

When I play my Black Legion, or Iron Warriors, I stopped trying to score their secondaries. Just too hard. 

Secondaries: This is something we need to figure out,. which ones are the best to take generally? It's impossible to skip out on these in order to win.

[Prot]

Well I just had a game VS. New Astra. I don't think it was optimized, but nor did it have to be... just a lot of strong units, and strong mechanics through tactics and Strats.

 

I felt like T1 and 2 were just a ugly. I played IW and took a Landraider. Thankfully he fell for the same old gag.... shoot the Landraider. Frankly I love it when they do that. I even tell them it's a red herring. I  think it got through the dice rolls required to actually have a damage roll... maybe twice? At one time it was as low as 3 wounds. My biggest move with it was assaulting a flame tank (Can't remember the name). To free up my Warpsmith to assault the same flame tank and grab me 3 VP.

The game was tight until T4 where I got a firm lead.

 

Single Oblits won me the game. No doubt I was in trouble. This list did not have the aggression of my Black Legion this list required some very focused fire power and the Oblits to clear the thick piles of light infantry from his deployment.

 

BTW: Bullgryn seem somehow worse... T5, 2+/4++ and -1 damage ala Death Guard. I lost 7 Possessed trying to get through a squad (he also put a Dorn tank into them. No trick could save them, psychics, Black Rune, etc.)

 

Really tough game. 

[INKS]

what is the list, so we can see? I am toying with a few lists right now and Oblits are in all of them. I probably rely too much on their firepower. I also haven't given up on terminators even though I think they are dead. Expensive and dead right now.

[Prot]

17 hours ago, INKS said:

what is the list, so we can see? I am toying with a few lists right now and Oblits are in all of them. I probably rely too much on their firepower. I also haven't given up on terminators even though I think they are dead. Expensive and dead right now.

 

My list was nothing special. It changes a lot from game to game so I just swap a few units out here and there.  D.P (MoN), MoP, Warpsmith. Legionaries (5 man squad loaded), Accursed Cultists, 7 Possessed, 2 Helbrutes, 3 single Oblits, Landraider, Chaincannon Havocs, 2 Spawn, Venomcrawler.

 

It feels like I'm missing something... maybe not.

 

On Termies: I've pulled them my last few games. I did play them after the nerf, but GW went way too far imo.  Deathguard and TSons still have a far better selection in termies than CSM. Possessed are where it's at. GW still wants to sell these boxes so they are probably the easiest 'tough' unit to take right now.

 

Oblits always do something for me. They are a gamble and VERY match up dependent. A bad match up and you have to hide them, in a good match up I've gone into close combat with them where they can really shine (In the old days this was a no-no, but they can excel at it now with support).

 

Landraider. I just have to use it with my Iron Warriors. They are the only ones that can support it properly, and it's still on the verge of being cut out of my lists. The only reason I keep it (aside from fluff) is although I feel the Pred is a better choice, I'd still need a Rhino. In my Black Legion I often go Pred/Rhino and it works better, but that army is far more aggressive.

 

The Landraider draws so much fire the Helbrutes often get to roam the countryside, plinking off whatever they can.

 

The table had fairly thick terrain, and it is dead even terrain (no player placed in this group.) And I prefer that, the only downside to it is stuff like a Landraider can be tough to maneuver, however we have a rule that we make sure pregame that our stuff can actually move around with relative ease.

[ChazSexington]

On 1/31/2023 at 6:40 PM, Prot said:

 

 

What I find even more interesting is LVO locked in Nephilim for their end of season to keep things consistent. So this means AoC was in play, and old termies, Abe pricing.

 

Surprisingly the only top finisher (15th !) from CSM was Emperor's Children, and no Termies, nor Abe was taken.  Nearly all the top Chaos finishes were Daemons or... Thousand Sons. Guess what they feature?  You guessed it, bricks of Scarab Occult termies. 

 

My theory has always been Termies, in any Astartes Chaos Legion is the lynchpin, and it was ours.  I always argued that Deathguard Termies, and Thousand Sons termies were among the best in the game, and continue to be so. And they do it without relics, or the need of buffs/CP expenditure, etc. They are Obsec, and tough as nails (for varying reasons). 

 

With LVO using Nephilim, I really did expect to see CSM termie based lists as being more prominent. 

 

At the higher levels of play, the CSM Termie brick has been dead for a while. It simply isn't as 'ard relative to the firepower some other factions have available, even before we lost Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

EC Termies had and have the benefit of Honour the Prince, so they have a realistic chance of charging out of DS, which is a huge boon. They can also effectively prevent Fall Backs with their Characters due to Excessive Cruelty (that's only Slaanesh locked, not EC, mind). 

 

With the benefit of hindsight, CSMs seem to have stabilised a bit below the 50% win rate mark in the AoO meta, which isn't too bad. At the time (and still do), I thought it was bizarre that they'd increase the point cost on Termies and MoS, and remove AoC. The unit was already only going to be aggressively mid table in Nephilim, no need to curb stomp them outside of casual play. That's what you get with a 3-6 month delay on nerfs, mind.

 

On 1/31/2023 at 6:40 PM, Prot said:

To my surprise it looks like Thousand Sons still have play, and Custodes certainly seem to have improved with Arks, and Dark Angels -MIGHT- overtake Blood Angels as the competitive favourite loyalist??? ( I thought this was supposed to be Iron Hands!)

 

So what's  consistent? Tau. They are everywhere, no matter the rule set, and Daemons manage to weather Arks changes fairly well too.

 

Tau are decent, but especially on more bare tables. Though you were prescient on the Loyalists - IH Successors are now top dogs competitively, followed by the District Attorneys! Current top 5 is DAs, IH Successors (71%!), GSC, Daemons, Sallies, with BAs way off the top 5, with a win rate in the upper 30s  

[Prot]

Yea, for once I was right about something.... but unfortunately I don't think the bottom is in for CSM. 

 

Here is the new Meta watch numbers where they claim the numbers aren't quite as high as they wanted:

 

As we can see CSM took a huge hit from prior to the nerfs. Funny how that happens when you remove AoC from all factions that had it, and nerf Chaos while improving loyalists.

 

I honestly am fine with this. I definitely expect it. Chaos Space Marines is always the bottom feeder in this game since 4.0 and it felt very weird to have us at the top for a while. I saw weird stuff that I'm not used to. I used to be THE CSM player in local events (RTT's/smaller GT's, etc). At the store I was most certainly the only one I saw except the very odd weekend. But it changed and it was just... weird to me.

 

Well that oddity seemed to work itself out didn't it? lol. I don't see them anymore. Most have left for something new, or pulled out the recently buffed up loyalists.

 

The problem I have with "meta watch" is they claim to not have a knee jerk reaction but I would submit that CSM took a multilayered nerf that just frankly did not make sense, all while buffing marines. 

 

Losing AoC, and taking the 'competitive' mark, then increasing point costs... that really bugs me. It was (apparently proven now) too much. 

 

I agree with you that Termies are not a top competitive table option. I've done the experiment now with several games, with both my IW and BL against multiple opponents. There is no reason you would take Termies over other options unless you're like me and just trying to take the fluffy option.

 

To me both BL and IW are strong users of Termies. But yet the Deathguard and Thousand Sons still didn't see the same level of Termie nerfs and I would submit that they are still very strong units for those armies where ours got burned by some strong tournament results in Nephilim. (And our Termies did not have a great showing at LVO, the send off for Nephilim.)

 

So we'll see where this goes. I don't expect GW to fix Termies, or marks, or Abaddon or any of that. I expect something very strange to happen like.. fixing the "Dark Commune" or something off beat. lol

Edited February 16, 2023 by Prot

[BrainFireBob]

Silo thinking in action. Nerfs to CSM make sense if the system isn't viewed as dynamic and coupled- as in, they made changes to move CSM down X%, made changes in isolation to move Marines X%, then are surprised that relative movement is doubled. That's "yes man" culture for you

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

6 hours ago, Prot said:

So we'll see where this goes. I don't expect GW to fix Termies, or marks, or Abaddon or any of that. I expect something very strange to happen like.. fixing the "Dark Commune" or something off beat. lol

 

Given that this is the last patch before 10th no change id like to see is worth even the bones of a dead cultist but here goes.

 

-CSM should be allowed to choose wontons the same as loyalists.  *YUM

-terminators cost the same as loyalist terminators.   If loyalists get free gear then so do we.  If they lose it.. so do we.  

-oblits down, a lot.  not sure what number is but it has to be in and around 75 points.  

-all daemon engines down, a lot except the venom crawler.  So maybe 130ish for forgefiends(either build) and 120 for maulerfiends.  Defiler... whatever.  Sucks at any points within reason.  

-bikes/raptors/havocs get free gear OR access to icons.  

-helldrake goes to FA or HS.  Currently is unrivaled dog crap since it has to start off the table.

-dark commune goes down in points to 70!  You love it.  

 

 

 

[WrathOfTheLion]

6 hours ago, BrainFireBob said:

Silo thinking in action. Nerfs to CSM make sense if the system isn't viewed as dynamic and coupled- as in, they made changes to move CSM down X%, made changes in isolation to move Marines X%, then are surprised that relative movement is doubled. That's "yes man" culture for you

The 40k rules team definitely doesn't get compound modifiers on things, as we can see from the results on the chart. I think notably they didn't take into account the crutch that AoC was propping up those factions, as we see the ones that lost it with nothing in return (CSM, Sisters, etc.) dropping to the bottom.

 

The CSM one was definitely the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen from their balance team when that article was published. They had a chart with CSM at like 51%, proceeded to talk about how that's where they wanted things, and then proceeded to nerf said thing at 51%. I have a hunch they expected those changes to only affect internal balance, but as you say, that's another instance of silo thinking. Move terminators this much lower, bump legionaries up a bit -> keep the same win rate in their thinking.

Edited February 17, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[BrainFireBob]

Yes. Which is only the case where the ipgrades you were buying your legionaires equaled the price increases- but no one was going whole hog on Legionaires and winning tournaments.

 

I have private opinions on what needs to happen to either the head of the studio or the manager boxing them in that involves their CV being updated. Not going to happen while GW is rakung it in. Harder sell when you're ahead

[Malakithe]

7 hours ago, SanguinaryGuardsman said:

-oblits down, a lot.  not sure what number is but it has to be in and around 75 points.  

Change/fix the weapon profiles if they keep them up as high as they are.

[TrawlingCleaner]

13 hours ago, SanguinaryGuardsman said:

Defiler... whatever.  Sucks at any points within reason.  

 

Back to being serious

I agree with most of your points, Guardsmen, except for the first. Giving CSM the choice to stay in Wanton (as SM have with Doctrines). The CSM book is built almost entirely around melee and to be honest, our shooting is largely guff in comparison to SM. IW could have some builds with Forgefiends and other legions could have success building around Rapid fire and Assault weapons, perhaps I could misjudging our shooting but it doesn't really feel that great.

 

I've used Daemon Engines quite a bit now (perhaps too much ), I agree that they either need points reductions and no changes OR they need chnages to weapons profiles, statlines etc

I think Forgefiends could work at their current points if their Plasma cannons were S8 or S9. When compared to a Redemptor dread plasma cannon or most of the Tau and Votann weapons, a S7 gun feels very lacklustre.

Defilers should feel closer to War Dogs for it's current points cost. It's currently too slow and too inconsistent with it's claw and Battle cannon. If it's going to be slow it needs to be more survivable or if it's going to be damaging it needs to be faster.

The Maulerfiend always gets picked off first, poor guy. He does hit very hard but can't take any hits in return. I'd love to see the Mauler get a -1D reduction similar to Dreads, I'd argue that all Daemon Engines should have -1D at their current points level with the exception of the Lord Disco and possibly Venomcrawler

 

Free Icons and weapons on Bikes and Raptors would make a big difference to both units, I think

 

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

3 hours ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

 

 

I've used Daemon Engines quite a bit now (perhaps too much ), I agree that they either need points reductions and no changes OR they need chnages to weapons profiles, statlines etc

I think Forgefiends could work at their current points if their Plasma cannons were S8 or S9. When compared to a Redemptor dread plasma cannon or most of the Tau and Votann weapons, a S7 gun feels very lacklustre.

 

Free Icons and weapons on Bikes and Raptors would make a big difference to both units, I think

 

Hey I like the forgefiend with autocannons.  Id just prefer it was 120-130 points.  

[Khornestar]

Stu Black said there would be another balance update in the next quarter, in the video. It isn’t a guarantee just because he said it, but I’d be inclined to believe that over 10th launch rumors. Who knows?

[WrathOfTheLion]

2 hours ago, Khornestar said:

Stu Black said there would be another balance update in the next quarter, in the video. It isn’t a guarantee just because he said it, but I’d be inclined to believe that over 10th launch rumors. Who knows?

10th is definitely coming, as we know the store employees already have it blocked into their schedule to not take off, and have to fly out to Dallas in the US. Any specifics beyond that are iffy at best.

 

I'd expect because of that though, that Stu Black is correct there, and they'll increase the frequency of balance passes before 10e hits. With how wide this last one was, they're going to have to do a further correction.

Edited February 26, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Prot]

I heard the vacation thing as well, but I have to be honest I'm looking at the 4th (redacted) book of Arks as lining up pretty close with June. I think that might cause a ton of orders. 

 

More on topic though, I did watch a few of the games on a major tournament this past weekend, and Chaos has fallen off the edge of a cliff competitively it seems. Really disappointed with how they handled this. Everything else got 'baby stepped' into compliance, Chaos gets a rug pull. 

 

That said, if they do another balance, I'd have to really hope this is where they come back around on some of those harsher decisions to nerf CSM.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

2 hours ago, Prot said:

I heard the vacation thing as well, but I have to be honest I'm looking at the 4th (redacted) book of Arks as lining up pretty close with June. I think that might cause a ton of orders. 

 

More on topic though, I did watch a few of the games on a major tournament this past weekend, and Chaos has fallen off the edge of a cliff competitively it seems. Really disappointed with how they handled this. Everything else got 'baby stepped' into compliance, Chaos gets a rug pull. 

 

That said, if they do another balance, I'd have to really hope this is where they come back around on some of those harsher decisions to nerf CSM.

What set CSM apart from loyalists was the durability inherent in all CSM subfactions.  I've had 1 small 1k points game with AoO so far and my stuff evaporated at breakneck speeds in that game.  It was a close fun game but all my units felt like trading pieces.  If 10th can tone down the lethality and allow for certain units or armies to have staying power then im all for it.  

 

Seems like full Sigmarization is on the menu!