Detachment of the week CSM 10th edition Detachement of the week: Pactbound Zealots.

[Cpt.Danjou]

 

 

CSM 10th edition Pactbound Zealots

 

This is a topic about the detachment Pactbound Zealots in the 10th edition.

 

• Do you use it?
• Are you using it?
• Do you think it performs well?
• Do you feel it being a strong or weak detachment?
• Which Stratagems or/and Enhancements do you use or not use?
• Would you want to tweak the detachement, and if so how?
• Units that perform extra well or bad in this detachement?

 

Other Detachement of the Week for Chaos Space Marines can be found in the link below.

 

Chaos Space Marine Detachement of the week 10th edition.

Edited January 17 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Cpt.Danjou]

This is the first Detachment of the week discussion. I am not sure if I should add or delete questions, so feed back would be great.

 

As it is the index detachment is the one we have been playing the longest, and the consensus is that it is the Word Bearer detachment. I don't fully agree, but I can see why, as it is the most fanatical and "religious" of all the detachements. I am pretty sure there have been followers of the the chaos gods in all fallen legions, and even full squads of of them. In the First Claw in the Night Lords books there even individual Legionaries who has more or less fallen to specific gods. Uzas is a Khorne berzerker. But I agree that Word Bearers is the closest to the detachment. 

I find the Detachment one of our strongest, maybe the strongest "Creation of Bile" is close, but that is up to your playstyle. 

 

Everything about this detachment is about Marks of Chaos, and Dark Pacts. If you want your Havocs to hit more times, mark the Nurgle, and they get Sustained hits on 5+ after a Dark pact, great when you shoot with Las cannons. If you want your puny cultist wound an Eldar Avatar in close combat, give them Mark of Khorne and the will have Lethal Hits on 5+, after a Dark Pact. As in all game try to think what the different units bring to the table, and what their objective and purpose is. Don't bring Cultist as Avatar killers by the way, it will probably never happen. For that a unit that have Mark of Tzeentch and shoots a lot, lethal hits of 5+ and hoping the Avatar fails it saves , or does enormous amount of wounds Mark of Undivided is my go to, as I rather want to hit something that dangerous, than fishing for lethal hit rolls.

 

You will be command point starved, as some of the Stratagems are great. Being able to advance and charge is great for close combat blender units like possessed and even legionaries, remember to mark them Slaanesh. Being able to hide one of those long range heavy hitter units, like Havocs, Predators or Vindicators with the help of Mark of Nurgle can save the day, just choose wisely which one of those units might be most valuable. One of my opponents knows that he can try to bait me to spend the stratagem on my Havocs and then shoot my Vindicator, when I have spent the CP. So I mostly let him kill of my Havoc leader with a one shot heavy weapon, so my Vindicator an be less scratched.

 

I am probably not the one to ask for tactical advise on this detachment, as I only have played 6 games this year,a nd of them only one have been Pactbound Zealots, but I hope we can have a good discussion, and give each other advice, and tell our funny warstories using this detachment.

 

Cpt.Danjou

[Brother Nathan]

Its a great detachment and fairly balanced but does require more thought in keeping an eye on your marks which is a fairly important extra detail on list building.outside of this detachment marks only matter on deamon princes.

 

Sure you can build purely for cc or shooting but the reduction in certain strats with this is not great So requires careful planning with strats which most detachments can just fire out when ever.

 

However this does make it much more potent when working. Weve all to owe something as all chaos ran this for ages and it did cover everything well as a detachment.

 

And kuds to anyone who revived and restored their tzench obliterators. Feels amazing...

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I haven't played it from the Codex -- just the Index -- but I will say that running my Deceptors after this makes ne feel like my damage fell off a cliff.  I used MoN tanks & Havocs for so long that not getting Sustained in 5+ is noticeable.  Relying on 5+ doesn't sound like much off the cuff but remember: most of our stuff hits on 3+.  If you're popping Critical Hits on 5s, that's *half* your attack rolls on average.  So yeah, like I said: the damage drop off, switching from this Detachment to another, was noticeable.

[MadEdric]

I've played this detachment a couple of times, I'm still testing them all out. 

I think it's a pretty strong detachment.

Due to personal tastes, I pretty much run Khorne, Tzeentch, and Undivided in my lists so Lethal wounds are usually what I fish for. 

A unit I really like in this detachment is the humble Helbrute. With their aura to allow both Lethal and Sustained hits is a big boost to another unit's output, allowing them crits on a 5+.

I've found use in most of the strats, especially the res one, fight on death, and fallback and shoot/charge. 

Both the enhancements I can take (Khorne and Tzeentch, remember) are good, half damage on either a Demon Prince or Terminator lord is great, the CP one is taken if I have the points.

I think it's a good detachment and pretty much any unit works fine in it, as you need to figure out the Marks that make them work.

 

 

[darkseren1ty]

In a national tournament I played last year, the winning team was CSM PBZ. he did the abaddon surrounded by vindicators, predators and a helbrute, with a couple rhinos and a few squads of legionnaires and chosen. Having both sustained and lethal hits on something like a vindicator, with full rerolls from Abaddon, means that overwatch from a vindicator against an imperial knight/daemon Primarch/tank can somewhat reliably be used to wipe them out as a reaction Strat instead of focusing them during your shooting phase. 
now, admittedly, this can be done in any csm detachment, but imagine how much stronger this is in your regular shooting phase when both sustained and lethal procs on more than 1/3 of your hits (more than 1/3 coz of rerolls).

 

you have an exceedingly strong fire base.

then mark your helbrute nurgle so it can’t be sniped by enemy lascannons, block LoS to abaddon with some tanks and/or cover and you just crawl Over the map daring anyone to come at you.