[Darzolak]

Hey, I was wondering if I could any opinions about my current army list and would appreciate any improvements to it. I tend to face tank spam Eldar and Tau quite a lot. But I am also preparing this list for competition and tournament level play so advice and help there would also be appreciated.



Chaos Lord, Sigil of Corruption, Burning Brand Skalanthrx, Power Weapon
145 Pts

10x Chaos Space Marines, Power Weapon
155 pts

Chaos Rhino
35 pts

10x Chaos Space Marines, Power Weapon 9x CCW
155 pts

Chaos Rhino
35 pts

9x Chaos Space Marines, Power Weapon, 8x CCW in addition to bolters
173 pts

Chaos Rhino
35 pts

Helldrake, Bale Flamer
170 pts

Raptors, 2x Meltagun, Power Weapon
130 pts

Raptors, 2x Meltagun, Power Weapon
130 pts

Maulerfiend, Magma Cutters
125 pts

Maulerfiend, Magma Cutters
125 pts

Havocs, 4x Autocannons
115 pts


1500 pts

 

[mayegelt]

The addition of dirge casters might be nice to stop some overwatches if they survive on the rhinos. Also I tend to like marking CSMs with either Khorne or Nurgle by default as they do both make the units that much more powerful. Also of course the lord having a nice mark is good, nurgle giving that boost against instant deaths from S8 -> S10.

Personally I am not a fan of raptors when for a couple of extra pts they can be bikers with T5 (or T6 if nurgle). But a lot of that is personal preference.

 

[DaisyDuke]

Its solid but I would try and get some melta in the csm squad's and dirge casters on the rhinos.
If you lost the pow wp on raptors you could get two melt as and two flamers for the csm squad's

 

[neferhet]

I'd go with (from a competitive standpoint)

Chaos Lord, Sigil of Corruption, Burning Brand Skalanthrx, Power Weapon, chaos bike
145 Pts

10x Chaos Space Marines, 2 plasmaguns, bolters
170 pts

Chaos Rhino
35 pts

10x Chaos Space Marines, 7x CCW, 2 meltaguns
170 pts

Chaos Rhino, dirge caster
40 pts

10x Chaos Space Marines, 2 plasmaguns, bolters
170 pts

Chaos Rhino
35 pts

Helldrake, Bale Flamer
170 pts

9 bikers, 2 meltaguns
210 pts


Maulerfiend, Magma Cutters
125 pts

Maulerfiend, Magma Cutters
125 pts

Havocs, 4x Autocannons
115 pts


1500 pts

fast army, 10 bikers used as hard hitters thanks to the lord, supported by the maulerfiends. Heldrake cleans objectives for the plasma marines that reach midtable, while meltamarines support as needed. havocs just kill things and die in return, quite presumably.

 

[Darzolak]

Cheers for the advice guys I have been thinking of getting bikes for a while. I've always been on the fence about adding special weapons into my squads

Yes it does make them more versatile but if they're going to be shooting at a tank for example that makes the other 8 guys in the squad useless that turn or if I'm shooting at infantry my special weapons are pretty much just as effective as bolters for quite the increase in points.

 

[Kristopholes]

trust me man, those special weapons are good against infantry as well. They usually give you that one or two instant kills that can cause a squad to lose 25% or something and when you gotta fight bigger baddies they can actually deal damage on a reasonable scale. to go without any special weapons is sort of dooming yourself to ineffectiveness.

 

[neferhet]

Yes it does make them more versatile but if they're going to be shooting at a tank for example that makes the other 8 guys in the squad useless that turn or if I'm shooting at infantry my special weapons are pretty much just as effective as bolters for quite the increase in points.

well, hear my reasoning.
Full bolter or full ccw unit: mildly effectiveness vs infantry, low eff. vs monsters & heavy infantry
2 meltaguns, ccw unit: mildly effectiveness vs infantry plus 2 guaranteed death, mildly eff. vs monsters & heavy infantry, plus effective vs tanks, able to open a transport and assault unit inside
2 plasmaguns, full bolters: mildly effectiveness vs infantry plus 2 guaranteed death, mildly eff. vs monsters & heavy infantry, plus effective vs light tanks at mid range. at short range becomes very effective vs Heavy infantry & monsters
2 flamers, full ccw: very effective vs infantry, low eff. vs monsters & heavy infantry

That is to say that if you are willing to pay max 30 pts more per squad you give them tools to excel in their role or to be able to swap role in a support fashion. that's what marines are for. multipurpose unit. otherwise you want specialists. they are the "obliterators of troops": wildly versatile but heavy price. if you just want bodies and volume of antiinfantry fire to get some objectives, go cultists. if you want special weapons, go chosen. otherwise you can have a support unit, the space marines. with 3 of those units, they can support themselves. 30 marines with 16 bolters and 4 plasmaguns can milk the shit out of any non vehicle unit. top that death cake with 2 meltaguns and other 8 pistol+ccw charging buddies and you can mop any non deathstar unit out of existence. but if they work alone...well...you don't want to do that.

 

[Mossy Toes]

Neferhet's got the reasoning dialed in. Special weapons are rarely less useful than bolters, and very often more useful--especially when you're only faced with enemy units that bolters aren't very effective against.

I'd probably go 2 squads of 5-ish bikes rather than 1 squad of 10, to replace the Raptors, but Neferhet's suggested list is generally quite good, there. Putting the Lord on a bike also lets you max out that one CSM squad to 10, allowing 2 special weapons rather than one (or... I guess, in your case, none)

 

[Darzolak]

I'm going to give the list that Neferhet provided a go to test out the special weapons. My logic before was just I could provide extra bodies instead of getting the special weapons so thought it would be more efficient without them. Hope it will changes my slight issue with killing heavy infantry.

Also I was wondering if there is much benefit to running a Marked Chaos lord with the appropriate Daemon steed. Such as I was thinking Mark of Slaanesh with the Steed of Slaanesh in order to provide the Biker squad (was originally going to be Chaos Spawn) the ability to outflank.

 

[neferhet]

thanks for the trust in my list :biggrin:
about slaanesh steed: bikers are so fast that usually you need just one turn to get to the enemy ( and with new 4+ save jink, you will survive even better) so outflanking them means tha they will at best charge turn 3, instead of turn 2. bad thing, especially if you have 10 bikers!

outflanking a big slow unit like 35 cultists, on the other hand...

 

[Darzolak]

I thought units could assault the turn they come in from outflanking?

But I guess with the randomness of reserves means that it's a bad unreliable idea to outflank. I shall just stick with the bike lord instead.

 

[neferhet]

I thought units could assault the turn they come in from outflanking?

nope. nor from DS, nor reserve in general.