What SCARES! you in a chaos space marine army

[daboarder]

Hey all,

So I should probably admit that my thoughts on the chaos marines codex are probably pretty well know right now :rolleyes: Its not uncommon to see me arguing about it around these parts. And the arguments are pretty straight forward in that the chaos marine players usually think we have the short straw and the other armies are usually telling us we don't (with largely silly fluff justifications that aren't :p)

However I've been wondering lately WHY our opponents seem to think chaos marines is a healthy codex. So instead of the usual what do you think is right about chaos I want to ask the question slightly differently

What about chaos marines SCARES you when you see it across the table.

What in a chaos army makes you feel the same way as a bunch of waveserpents, a pair of riptides, O'mortals, missileside units, wraithknights or WS/RW Bike armies, Grav centurians, pod wolves, guard armies or even screamer stars.

As our opponents it would be cool to get some insight on what units and combo's in our armies have our opponents thinking "how do I deal with this before I die?"

NB: for the purposes of this discussion please ignore the heldrake, its a single flier and really if thats the only thing in the codex that scares people would prove the point.

[Learn2Eel]

Aside from the Heldrake, not much really. Nurgle Obliterators and Nurgle Princes with the Black Mace are pretty nasty, but most army lists I run have good ways to counter both units.
And mind you, this is an opinion from a player with extensive experience both playing with and playing against Chaos Space Marines.

It is kind of sad though how if you change the question to relate to Chaos Daemons, you start getting a lot more answers.....Lords of Change, Fateweaver, Nurgle Daemon Princes with baleswords, Seekers with Heralds, Flesh Hounds with Heralds, Screamerstars, the list goes on...

[Sly]

Nurgle Spawn ferrying either a Sorceror with the Last Memory That Your Troops Will Ever Have, or a Bike Lord with the Brand. They beat a lot of units in CC, they beat up Riptides & Wraithknights, they're fast enough to get to shooty armies quickly, and they actually are still dangerous in the Shooting Phase. Of course, they also share a slot with our other dangerous unit, the Heldrake.

I see Cultists and PMs as good units, but they're mostly good because they're solid Troops who can hold objectives cheaply (Cultists) or take objectives from other Troops and then hold them (PMs). They're not, however, anything that you expect to do a lot of damage.

The thing is, stuff that "scares you" usually means either stuff that is amazingly hard to kill, or stuff that has a lot of firepower and isn't especially fragile. CSM have nothing like that outside of Fast Attack... Forgefiends do good damage but not amazing. They match up in damage per point with Psyfleman Dreads, which is good damage output, but at 40 pts more and only a little more durable, they're not tough enough to be scary. Havocs with ACs are either very efficient but vulnerable (small squads) or tougher but not nearly as efficient (large squads). Obliterators are great units because of their versatility, but they don't have overwhelming firepower against any target, for the points that they cost. So, what really does a lot of damage for CSM? Only Heldrakes, and Spawn are scary because they do nothing well except get to you fast and are hard to kill... which makes them perfect CC units against shooty armies, which will fold to any unit in CC. So that's about it.

[Deadlift]

It used to be Nurgle Prince, with wings and black mace. Heldrakes too but after switching to Eldar. Nothing really. Sorry :o

[Anggul]

Blastmasters. Most of my deployment time against my EC playing friend goes to mitigating the destruction caused by Blastmasters.

Plague Marines are also pretty worrying, as are Nurgle Obliterators.

A full squad of Chaos Marines is just as dangerous as a squad of loyalist Marines, and there are generally more of them.

Nurgle Princes with Wings and Black Mace are obviously pretty worrying, able to kill nigh anything with impunity. Most Chaos HQs are capable of being pretty killy really, Axe of Blind Fury on a Juggernaut hits like a train. A very angry train. Murder Sword also puts a lot of control in the hands of the Chaos player. The target model of the sword is generally going to avoid wherever the sword is, meaning the Chaos player can dictate more of the movement of the game. Chaos Lords in general are very well priced for the damage they can put out.

The issue isn't so much with Chaos, rather than with certain units that other armies have which are clearly not so balanced. Riptides and Wave Serpent spam are obvious ones. I only ever run two or three Wave Serpents and use them as they're intended so it's not so bad, but they're one of those units that when used in moderation are fine, but become overwhelming when taken in large numbers, in their case because you don't need to worry about keeping the shields up because there are so many, so you can just fire them on all of them every turn and not have to worry so much about the returning fire. When you only run two or three of them you very rarely fire off the shields because you need them to stay alive.

I do feel really sorry for Khorne and Tzeentch fans though. Slaanesh and Nurgle are just so much better. A couple of friends have very strong Emperor's Children and Death Guard armies, because those two can do well. Not so much for Khorne and Tzeentch.

[Mr Mystery]

Honestly? Sorry if this sounds like I'm just Trolling...but I genuinely fear CSM players everywhere just cracking on with it, and discovering 'hey, our Codex is actually no worse or better than anyone else'. Because until then, I'll continue to smash them due to their lack of resolve.

[Demonus]

Sadly nothing, and I play CSM as one of my armies.

While they have some fun possibilities and decent combos, they don't have Riptides or Fateweaver + Grimoire.

[KrewL RaiN]

Nurgle irritates me (I am also follower of Tzeentch, so its double arrrgh DIE ALREADY lol)! Heldrakes dont bother me much, due to not playing power armour armies.

[Defenestratus]

Flying demon princes. They're a pain in my *** to shoot down/ground and once they are down, they can engaged in close combat on their terms. Its pretty sick.

I hate blast masters with their stupid str 8 ignoring cover guns - those piss me off to no end. I don't really mind helldrakes - they're easy enough for me to avoid after their first turn of shenanigans but those FMC's really just get me every time.

[chicop76]

Helldrakes.

Nurgle bikes are annoying and so are Nurgle Marines.

Oh you said scarry. What scares me.

I guess a cheap character turning into a prince. Marines don't scare me since I kill them in droves with most of my armies. That said if I had to choose CSM or Marines to play against I would play against Marines. Simply due to marines being less annoying than CSM. CSM is why I run snipers.

[daboarder]

You know I was hoping for a better response to this thread. Thank you all and at least now we know which posters ar willing to back up their position on the matter.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

i know as a chaos player some of the things that people fear have been hashed over and over again but honestly if i were to go up against the chaos codex at this juncture i actually fear very little.. okay so people have the hell turkey... most armies now have some very decent AA options so i don't expect it to be in the air for long.

nurlge. okay just because we can mark stuff with nurgle doesn't mean that things like plasma or ap1 wont ruin our days.


oblits ya they are good but their also pretty fragil T4 can be insta killed and if you make them T5 they still drop to plasma and melta.

[chicop76]

Thinking about it over a few days is that I fear playing CSM not because I fear I will lose. I fear them cause it's one of the more annoying armies to deal with. High toughness and feel no pain with hell drakes.

I don't fear the mace prince, because it always dies with a vengeance. If I let it live I guess I might fear it. I can fear it with a 2plus invulnerable save, but hey that's getting into allies. Than my fear turns into possibly lossing instead of getting annoyed by what I am playing against.

Hmmmm. Actually they are the most annoying army besides daemons. I fear the annoyance of dealing with the crazyness.

Daemons vs CSM is annoying as it gets, Well Daemons vs Daemons is very annoying.

[Madcore]

Being a CSM player, i am surprised no one mentioned a full squad of spawns....either unmarked with a jugger lord with AoBF or with MoN with nurgle lord on bike....add a sorcerer in the mix for some telepathy and they can be quite devastating...

Just my 2 cents

[daboarder]

Waveserpents, missilesides and whitescars mince spawn

[chicop76]

Being a CSM player, i am surprised no one mentioned a full squad of spawns....either unmarked with a jugger lord with AoBF or with MoN with nurgle lord on bike....add a sorcerer in the mix for some telepathy and they can be quite devastating...

Just my 2 cents

Annoying = tough to kill, tough to deal with
Scarry = game changer, can cause me to lose, wipes out whole armies

Mentioned units above is annoying and not really game changers. Units like Riptides fo serious damage for what they cost. +2 re rollabe save on Loc is scarry.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

@daboarder
Sorry it is just a sad day when not one unit can actually be mentioned as a game changer. even the drake at this point can be migigated and handled. chaos just fell from the wayside so quickly. i blame it on being one of the first codocies to be worked on in the adition and currently none of the suppliments really add anything to them to change my perception of them.

[daboarder]

@daboarder
Sorry it is just a sad day when not one unit can actually be mentioned as a game changer. even the drake at this point can be migigated and handled. chaos just fell from the wayside so quickly. i blame it on being one of the first codocies to be worked on in the adition and currently none of the suppliments really add anything to them to change my perception of them.

I don't.

claiming that chaos is **** because of first codex syndrome is an easy out for a bull**** design team that has flubbed chaos for two editions now. if necrons and grey knights could be written for 6th and released in late 5th then there is no reason for CSM to be such an unimaginative piece of ****.

edit: thats not a go at you romulus

[chicop76]

Look at the 3rd and 4th 6th edition codexes which is still rather strong in 6th edition. I don't buy the 1st and 2nd codex thing, although they are the worst so far.

I think that we should as what is the most annoying units in CSM. They do have some of the more annoying abilities out there second to Daemons. However I really dislike plague marines. Not saying they are scarry, just really annoying.