Hello everyone, Frankie here making my new chaos list for some up coming tournaments. Let’s give these poor bastards a chance to get onto the table!
We recently just ran the BAO and chaos had a very poor showing opposed to the previous year where almost a quarter of the field was chaos, lol. What has changed? Are chaos still worth using at events?
Let’s start with some large changes that have hurt chaos. Well the poor backbone of the chaos book got nerfed hard (the Helldrake). Unfortunately now with vector strike getting toned down to only doing one hit on ground units it makes them only barely worth their points. You used to take Helldrakes to kill monstrous creatures, vehicles, and well, pretty much anything that stood in your way as long as it didn’t have a 2+ save, haha. Now you take a Helldrake for anti-flyer ability and it is still an infantry mulcher with its Bale Flamer. Honestly I don’t see myself taking a Helldrake in the new edition with the nerfs that it took. Hard believe one nerf can hurt a codex so much. The other change was to challenges. Now that people can swing at a character locked in a combat as long as they don’t have another target, your poor chaos champion never stands a chance. Although this issue isn’t huge and in some ways benefits you as well since your badass character that has to challenge can kill other guys if wounds spill over from the challenge.
So now on to the things that chaos benefited from in the new edition. Challenges, as I talked about above, can be good or bad. Wounds from a challenge now spill over into the unit if you over kill the challenger. So be sure to deploy your secret weapon: the cultist champion! He’s gonna get you with his zipgun and broken bottle shank, hi-yah!
Next big benefit would be the nerf to smash. Your toughness 5 Nurgle Obliterators just got a little tougher as did the Nurgle lords. The biggest change and most beneficial to chaos was the change to everything scoring. Now you don’t have to take those crappy cultists. My list is going back towards my fifth ed list with Plague marines inside there objective secured rhinos!
So my list currently consists of one Chaos Lord with mark of Nurgle with a power fist. He’s mainly just in the list to make my plague marines troops and provide a little bit of assault punch. Watch out for that boon table though haha last game he turned into a mighty spawn after winning a challenge…damn you GW! The core of the list is five x seven man plague marine squads inside of rhinos (sacred numbers, bro!!). They are armed with two melta guns and the champion has a Combi-melta and a Melta bomb. I use these guys to charge at the enemy, usually hopping out of the rhinos on turn one if the army I am playing against comes towards me, or turn two if it is a shooting army. The Plague Marines are so resilient and pack a pretty large punch with 3 Meltas for shooting and poisoned attacks in cc. The Plague Marines killed 30 Wraithguard and 2 Wraithknights last game, for me! While the opponent is dealing with the Plague Marines the rhinos are getting into a position to score the objectives. So far I have been having a blast with this army and haven’t lost yet. The nail in the coffin for this list though is of course the eight Obliterators, haha. Two units of three and one of two. They are so good at toughness five and the ability to deep-strike or even infiltrate if you get the right warlord trait. Eight Obliterators infiltrating and five units of plague marines charging at you is brutal, but when that combo is being commanded by the worlds greatest 40k player? Good game, broseph, don’t even get your models out of the case! Might as well just shake hands and go buy a me beer, haha!
Anyways, just wanted to let everyone know that chaos still has it and some of the cult troopers are actually worth taking. Chaos with allies might even be better but all I’m all about Plague Marines, all day, everyday. Thanks for reading everyone and hope to see more chaos at the next event.
I think Nurgle Spawns are the strongest unit in the codex by far, overlooked due to 6th Heldrake reign.
It’s also amazing how much punishment a 5man unit of plagemarines can take.
Plague Marines are still rock solid for sure !
Any frontline gaming battle reports with this army? I would be really interested in seeing that army on the table…
By the way, received my two FAT mats, they rock:)
Tough to run Infantry in 7e with all the AP3 and Pie Plates.
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Chaos SM were doomed from the start, when three of the four Gods are rarely used (Nurgle is King), and no bonus for ALL the same God armies, etc.
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Maybe Kill-Team with a ton of House Rules, but who has that kind of time…
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How about an Infantry Only Tournament?
(I think an all the same codex tournament is a good idea also, like an IRL war game, I ran a small sixteen player SM tournament in 5e, went well)
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I have a unit of 20 Possessed built, primed, and base colored, then stopped when 7e dropped, to hard to get across the table with all the superheavies out there…
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Tournament wise I think;
A large unit of Cultists is still a good choice, with Typhus of Dark Apostle (ld 10) attached.
Nurgle Bikes are still good.
Cannot CSM get LoW Baneblades of some sort?
How many points were you playing with 30 wraith guard on the field and 2 wraith knights?, sounds like you were not playing the most clever player in that one as its not often that wraith army’s die to Nurgle as they have every thing they need to bypass your armour and a lot of the time bypass your feel no pain……10 wraith blade’s wAxes plus Eldrad and 2 spirit seers = unkillible.
Also, as soon as you run into things like basalisks, vindicators, leman russes or chapter masters with ob ur plague marines r screwed…
As this is a golden opportunity to plug my blog, I wrote an article about Objective Secured units for CSM, coming to the same conclusion: Plague Marines are king. However, I often run them in units of 5 with double melta or plasma and combi on the champ. As a Lord, I use a Biker with Mark of Nurgle, Fist, Claw, Sigil and Daemonheart in a unit of Nurgle Bikers. And Spawn of course.
Here is the shameless blug (follow me, nobody reads my stuff)
http://wargamer31married2puppies.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/the-cream-of-the-crop-rating-the-chaos-space-marines-troops-choices/
What does daemon heart do ?
2+ armor and IWND
Be a real man frankie and play noise marines
I second this! Decked out too, or it doesn’t count.
LETS BATTLE
y u no 20 plague marines with cypher?
Throw that lord on a bike and get him some Spawn! For a cheap close-combat squad, the Bike Lord and Spawn are still fantastic; just the thing to mulch those AS blob squads.
Losing the reroll to wound with poison against T4 did hurt though :/
Gotta say, it’s hard to argue against spawn. Though there just isn’t fat to cut from that list. 10 OS units, with 5 being plague marines is brutal. The fire power isn’t great, in a meta of eldar and tau, but there just aren’t enough turns to deal with em all.
I’d add spawns because I likes me a resilient Death Star to draw fire with, and I kind of feel a Cc threat is manditory to keep tau honest. But honestly that’s a personal pref. thing, the list doesn’t “need” it.
I like it. I really want to see Chaos work. I just hate that they are shoeboxed into a handfull of workable builds. 🙁 Here’s hoping their reboot sometime next year is better
BBF Daemonheart is a relic from Crimson Slaughter that gives the lord a 2+ armour save.
Don’t forget, it also gives the wearer It Will Not Die – which is pretty awesome for a Nurgle chaos lord on bike.
Yeah, man. Plague Marines are still the bee’s knees. I once shot two entire Dakkajets at one Plague Marine on an objective and did BUPKIS. They’re so awesome.
Only army I ever have trouble beating is chaos. Though pretty sure my brothers dice are loaded. No one should make that many 5+ fnp.
I used to run two drakes in 6th as they were mandatory, but also made the decision to drop them once the nerfs came through. It’s also important to note how minimally efficient they became when they lost the ruling for having a turret weapon. Now you can’t even kill the unit piling out of the transport you have a marginal chance to destroy.
However my list revolves around an over the top spawn star and a high AV mech line. Cultists are my troop of choice solely for the fact that I can have four squads for a tenth of the army size I usually play at. Means bringing 6 heavy supports becomes very feasible.
But I am the most atypical chaos player in the world, I know, because I just don’t think obliterators justify their cost.
If you’re looking for mono-god lists, Try slannesh. 5 units of 10 noise marines with 2 blastmasters in rhinos behind an Aegis line. 10 S8 AP3 small blasts that ignore cover? Winner!
If they do a decent plague marine kit, I’d love to try this out.