So, after some play-testing, this looks like a fairly nasty CSM list at 1750pts.
Well, this list looks pretty mean to me. I haven’t had a chance to play test it yet, but I will try something very similar to it today.
Here’s the list:
| Chaos | 1750pts | ||
| Unit | Description | Size | Cost |
| HQ | |||
| Daemon Prince | Wings, Armor, MoT, Brand | 1 | 250 |
| GUO | Cloud of Flies | 1 | 165 |
| Troops | |||
| Plague Bearers | 6 | 90 | |
| Plague Bearers | 6 | 90 | |
| Cultists | Flamer | 10 | 55 |
| Cultists | Flamer | 12 | 63 |
| Elites | |||
| Flamers | 6 | 138 | |
| Fast Attack | |||
| Helldrake | Baleflamer | 1 | 170 |
| Helldrake | Baleflamer | 1 | 170 |
| Heavy Support | |||
| Havocs | A.Cannon x 4 | 5 | 115 |
| Havocs | A.Cannon x 4 | 5 | 115 |
| Obliterators | MoN | 3 | 228 |
| Fortifications | |||
| Aegis | Quad Gun | 1 | 100 |
| Totals | 58 | 1749 |
So what makes it scary?
A few things.
For one, those Helldrakes with Baleflamers are crazy. The Helldrake is arguably the most resilient flyer in the game with a 5++, ignoring stunned and shaken on a 2+ and It Will Not Die. Combined with a 12/12/10 profile and the usual Flyer resilience and you have a pretty tough nut to crack.
I have always been a HUGE fan of flamer weapons as they reduce so many variables: to hit and cover saves. When the flamer is AP3, you also remove armor saves from the equation for most units, and at strength 6, it is going to cause Instant Death to a lot of units and take away FnP. Soul Blaze is just icing on the cake.
Toss in the Vector Strike ability and the flexibility of going into hover mode, and these things are beasts. They are going to plague infantry armies, particularly MSU shooty units like Long Fangs, Havocs, etc. and they will also be great and hunting down those little scoring units that so many folks are using these days. A Rhino is actually something you want when these monsters are prowling the skies.
The Daemon Prince is more of the same. The Brand is a toned down version of the Baleflamer, but still AP3 with torrent. Add in the tough to kill MoT DP, and his ability to drop in and kill units with ease, and he becomes yet another great tool.
The Great Unclean One (GUO) is an absolutely fantastic disruption unit. For not many points, you plop big fatty in the enemy back lines and laugh as they are forced to focus a ton of attention on him. He is not easy to kill. Plus, when he makes it into combat, he’s beastly. S&P is a pain, but as he drops in the backfield, it isn’t so bad.
The Cultists and Plague Bearers are on objective duty, and serve no other function. They fulfill missions objectives admirably though, and while not glamorous, they will win you the game.
The Havocs, Oblits, and Quad gun are you core of shooty units to de-mech anyone trying to hide from the flying flamer units, and serve well against other flyers, too.
The big unit of Flamers is good against anything. That unit is brutal, to be honest. Able to lay waste to infantry and vehicles, this unit got massively better in 6th.
Between all of the fast, brutally good template weapons, respectable long range firepower, assault capability and AA, and mobile scoring units, this list looks like it has the ability to do everything you need to do in 6th and go into most fights with a list advantage.
Again though, hahaha, where are the actual Chaos Space Marines? Other units just give you so much more for the money, I’m afraid.
If you were to draw an army that had a lot of AV13+ vehicles and transports (Crons) or great AA (IG with Quad Gun, Hydras, and an OoF) you could be in trouble. But with all the fast threats coming down on the other guy turn 1, it will be easy to overwhelm their ability to fight back. I could see a Drop Pod army going first being a lot of trouble. If they could get stuck into you in combat fast, and take out some key units right away, they could stay safe from your flame weapons, but you should be able to fight back with your assault elements.
So what do you guys think? This army hits like a ton of bricks, is fast, reliable and has few weaknesses. You all see any holes I am missing?
this is about what i want to run as an army except it would be more khorne than nurgle.
What Khorne units would you rather run? And would it be for effectiveness reasons or for theme? I am curious as maybe you are seeing something I don’t.
well cameron (camelloy, above) loves his fluff-bunny Khorne theme
i personally like tzeentch, so i would replace the nurglings with pink horrors and the GUO with Fateweaver, fix that into the points cost, etc.
also might cut a group of havocs to add a sorcerer or Ahriman
and the Obliterators would have MoT not MoN because I dislike Nurgle
I just went with Nurgle as it is the most survivable. Toughness 5 makes you immune to ID from a lot of weapons, gets your more mileage out of those Oblits. If you have a theme you prefer though, stick with it, by all means.
well i probably won’t bring that list to tournaments anyway (when/if i eventually start playing in tournaments).
that’s what my rape-nids are for 😉
The list scares marines, but xenos dont care. all your ap 3-2 flamers are something the generally armor 4 crowd isn’t as worried. DE vehicle spam will munch ya as well as tau twin linked goodness and 3+ cover save jinks. orks are fighting so they really win anyways . eldar have enough AI to kill the havocs turn 1 or at least put some hurt on. crons have av 13 and great units to deal with some of your tougher elements. against marines, you are pretty gold. against xenos (something becoming more popular) you may suffer alot
Hmm, I don’t see why AP3 flamers DON”T worry Xenos. I know as a Footdar and Ork player the units that scared the crap out of me where Hellhounds, Manticores and Dreadknights with Heavy Incinerators. The reason why is because each time they fired, I lost an entire unit. Flamers are actually excellent for taking out DE Mech. The Templates auto-hit and will make a mess of AV10, open topped vehicles. I think that the Daemons would definitely have to worry about the Poison weapons, though. Assault isn’t so bad, as assaulting Flamers is usually suicidal with Overwatch, and the GUO will just roll through Orks. The other units either Fly, or dictate where assault will happen. I don’t think Orks would be as troublesome, but it depends on the build.
Havocs will die to small arms fire, though, I agree. But, that is true with any army. War Walkers will smoke them turn one, but the same is true in reverse. The main advantage War Walkers or Venoms (or any unit like that) has is that they can move and shoot and with good terrain, get the drop on the Havocs.
Tau don’t worry me as much, honestly. Daemons usually scrape Tau, and with all of those threats coming in and assaulting, Tau will be in trouble. They really struggle with fast, fearless assault armies. Nids also usually go right through Tau. You don’t shoot Tau vehicles too, unless you have to. Assault is how you kill them in most cases.
It bears investigation, though for sure.
The flamer comment was mostly about xenos being able to take casualties where marinesbwillbiust crumble. I thought flamers of t just glanced on a 4+. Also on flamers, 30 orks assault the six man squad and over watch kills on average 5-6 (saying each averages 2 hits and half wound) which still leaves a full squad to hurt them. The greater unclean one is a problem, but orks can drown things in dice. Also, nob bikers may not be as awesome, but they are still incredible
That is a good point, a big unit of Orks would weather the overwatch, but, the Flamers coming down will do massive damage with the templates. I guess it really just needs to be played out! Theory only goes so far.
The Baleflamers will be smoking DE transports and ignoring jinks, flat outs and cover saves. lus with torrent on 2 bale flamers and the brand you can realistically cover at least 2 vehicles a turn.
Horde orks arent afraid of template weapons? News to me.
Vector striking nails the ap 2 worry.
AC Havocs produce an incredible torrent of fire against light AV. Put them behind the Aegis an you can have Sarge shoot the AA gun.
Daemon deep strike creates an evolving and incredibly dynamic battlefield where the opponent will usually be put on their back foot. There are just too many possibiities for deployment.
Oblits are for killing AV14 priority targets.
This list has enough AA to deal with Cron air reliably.
DP needs to pull backup for AV 14 but 6 flamers of tzeentch will knock 3 HP off per turn on average too.
This is going to be an army about chewing off bites of the enemy in a very synergistic way. It should play akin to your footdar list Reece. I was actually working on a 3 dragon list today. This looks a lt more…balanced.
my hellhound has been devastating lately.
Mine too! I loved them in 4th and 5th, now they are all stars. That’s why I think the Dragons will be so good.
Awesome list Reece I think it has a ton of tools to deal with a lot of different army lists out there. It has a ton of high power shots as well as mobility in the way of the Heldrakes so there’s really no hiding except in reserves. I know my Ork army would be afraid of this list with all those flamers. The only thing I would like to add is the unit of flamers seems a bit more than what is needed. You already have 3 flying units that can reach anywhere and flame whatever threatens your army the most. I think dropping them and filling up your cultists troops a bit more would be nice as your troop choices are very light and wouldnt take much to shoot them all off the board. Once that is done then one can worry about the rest of your army.
Flamers also have warpfire and 18 shots at 18 range with bs 4 is nothing to sneeze at. flamers can be pretty elusive against foot squads.
That is a very good point. And the ones that can’t drop the template can use Warpfire.
Not a bad idea at all. I would actually drop a Helldrake first, to be honest if I were going to buff up the troops. The Flamers are better. But like you said, this list leaves little to nowhere to hide.
IMO, this list just doesn’t do enough. It’s ok but won’t be able to stand up to some of the top armies. It can’t really handle deathstar armies nor does it have the resiliency to last against MSU shooting or the Necron airforce. The helldrakes, while scary on paper, is slightly overrated IMO. I’ve actually played against a pair of them with my orks and basically just ignored them while killing the rest of the army.
What I recommend is to use an Epidemius-based Nurgle list if you want to go Chaos competitive, but that is a preference that not all would want to play. You can keep the 2 helldrakes and flamers. Just make sure everything else has the Mark of Nurgle or is a nurgle unit.
True, 2 Helldrakes wouldn’t care a horde army, but 2 Helldrakes, a DP with flamer and a unit of Flamers will, at least I think so. That is a LOT more anti-infantry. And again, I don’t think MSU shooting would be that bad, honestly. Those Baleflamers will smoke light armor. My Flamer Dreadnoughts kill vehicles all the dang time.
Epidemius is very competitive but I don’t think it will be with us for long. As soon as the new Daemon dex drops (we’re hearing January/1st Quarter) that list will be gone, I will bet money.
I would be interested to see it against Franky’s Harliestar. Seems pretty solid, not my cup of tea flavor wise, but i think it’d be good…on paper. But yeah, I agree it is kind of a lame looking army. Not much flavor at all, just a bunch of powerful units. Flame theme, I guess.
Frankie said he thinks that list will smoke his Harliestar! haha, I will have to try it against him.
A solid list as always. My only input is to make 2 squads of flames for lucky ds full blast flames since I’m not seeing many kp missions….
The only issue is that you can only take 1 Elite in your allies.
I think that you need more troops. The Daemon Prince is expensive for what he does. You’ve already got 2 Heldrakes, I don’t think you need the 3rd AP3 flamer. If you disagree, you could better spend those points with a cheap lord or sorcerer and a 3rd Heldrake.
That’s a good point. The DP is very expensive, but it’s not just the Flamer, he is also a back field disruption unit and a beast in combat. They do die easily, though, and give up Warlord pretty quickly. Mine rarely survive a game.
a sorcerer wont add much i think. there is not a lot to buff up. You could use him as support for the havocs but how much would he accomplish there. Torrent fire would kill him along with the havocs he joined. a lord wouldnt be able to add a whole lot as he couldnt really join a unit to boost them. A dp might be expensive but he is also fast. Best thing i could think is to use it to tear up a flank, and hopefully cut down on incoming fire that way.
that would be for this list
the daemon prince has a lot of close combat killing power as well.
im looking forward too putting all those autohitting templates down. Utter devastation
Me too. I will have to test this list out, soon.
I also am building up the double dragon action with flamers in my allies. I got to say though, I really think you need more troops. In the same way you are flaming infantry, your small squads are going to kick the bucket super fast. Do you really think your threats mitigate the fragility of your scoring units?
I hope so! Haha, but you make an excellent point. I know when I play now, I go straight for enemy troops if I at all can do so. I think that will be a common practice. With this army, the Cultists will reserve pretty much every game, and the Plague Bearers will do so as well, which helps a lot. By then, your attacking units should be right in the other guy’s face doing their thing. It isn’t foolproof by any means, and the troops certainly are the weakness of this list, but I think you can play around it.
The prince is still only 3+5++ at t5, not super durable, especially for so many points. You seem really light on troops too, the cultists in such small #s are easy enough to remove, and 12 plagues isn’t exactly alot.
While the drakes are nice, they die pretty easily to anti air. Vendettas or storm ravens will blow them out of the sky.
Maybe it’s just me, but this list doesn’t seem scary at all.
Perhaps you’re right. Vendettas would be a tough one, but they’re just good in general, and really, really underpriced.
My DP’s tend to die, but they do a lot of damage before dying. And with MoT, you do get a nice increase in durability.
Yes, the troops are vulnerable, but you have play them very defensively. We use lists like this quite a bit and while it isn’t foolproof at all, you can play around the low troops.
Xeno arent any more worried about ap3 flame then normal flame in general. All flame is really really bad. All str 6 is really really bad.
Everything but the HQ choices in this list seem to be the new competitive CSM template.
Once you bring demon allies how can you not stock up on PB n Flamers?
the demonprince seems to be THE weakspot of the list. Because he is 250pts that could be other more durable killyness, IMO. Im not into using the HQ units as disruption, even the GUO could be more durable killyness seemingly. nothing seems able to stop someone from targeting your troops except attrition and target priority.
Nurgle warlord with some plague marines seems to almost fix everything there.
Exactly, flame weapons are horrible for Xenos, they really scare me as a Xenos player.
You may be right about the DP. He is pricey and fragile, but he can be so powerful. Frankie uses the much more dependable Nurgle Lord on Palanquin which I must say, is probably the better investment. I just like the mobility and punch of the DP. It presents an overload of threats.
I think the best thing to do at this stage is play this baby out and see how it goes. Theory is great, but the table top is where you see what works and what doesn’t.
I used to spend lot of time on this double dragon video game during my schooling, after seeing this post now again i want to play that game.
Right?! That was an awesome game!