Chaos Space Marines 1750 List

Hello children. Welcome to the 41st millenium, where chaos rules all, and I, High Sorcerer Ahriman, am the master of it all.

Today we have a 1750 tournament list, so without further ado, here it is.

Ahriman - 230

Warlord

Thousand Sons x9 - 317
Gift of Mutation, Meltabombs, Icon of Flame, Rhino, Dozer Blade, Warpflame Gargoyles

Thousand Sons x9 - 317

Gift of Mutation, Meltabombs, Icon of Flame, Rhino, Dozer Blade, Warpflame Gargoyles

Cultists x20 - 118
Autogun x18, Flamer x2

Cultists x20 - 118
Autogun x18, Flamer x2

Heldrake - 170

Baleflamer

Heldrake - 170

Baleflamer

Obliterators x2 - 152
Mark of Nurgle

Obliterators x2 - 152

Mark of Nurgle

Total: 1744

Bringing the pain by winning the war of attrition.

Almost any list you play from the chaos marines book is a late game army. Meaning, as long as you play ahead of your opponent, you're going to outlast them with your tough as nails marines. This is especially true of thousand sons and plague marine lists, as these two units will typically outnumber most opponents on turn 7, though probably be outnumbered on turn 1.

Play to your strengths, don't take the bait that your opponent will set for you, and MAKE SURE YOU ARE PLAYING 2-3 TURNS AHEAD. No one can stop you otherwise, except for slow players, and if someone is slow playing you, you better get yourself a judge.

BATTLE REPORT - NECRONS VS. CHAOS SPACE MARINES 1750

Welcome back to another installment of conquest of the galaxy, children.

Today, the Warmaster does what he does best against the ancient necrons, played by Mr. Guy here.

His army is something along the lines of an overlord with mindshackle scarabs, a res orb, and a phase shifter, illuminor szeras, one unit of twenty warriors, one unit of ten warriors with a cryptek of the storm and lightning field attached, a ghost ark, a triarch stalker with heat ray, a single heavy destroyer, one unit of ten immortals with gauss weapons and a res orb lord with warscythe attached, a unit of 7 sword and board lychguard, and a monolith. Scary tough stuff.

Today I ran Abaddon, two heldrakes, two maulerfiends, two squads of ten CSM with flamer, meltagun, veterans, and 5 additional CCW in rhinos, two squads of 15 autogun cultist with one flamer, and a squad of 8 terminators with two chainfists, two combimeltas, a heavy flamer, and a single lightning claw.

Game was practice for our local tournament coming up, so we played both the relic and purge the alien, with dawn of war deployment. I won the roll-off to deploy, and we had no night fight, so off I went setting up a hard push to the middle.

His deployment was pretty widespread and prevented me from coming after him and getting turn 1 charges with the maulerfiends.

My turn 1 was a push forward. Both maulerfiends made a B-line for the monolith, and both rhinos surged forward. The left rhino charged through terrain to get to the relic, while the right rhino moved flat out to hide behind a ruin, setting up a melta shot on the monolith.

His turn 1 was a scary amount of shooting. So much shooting. I really underestimated the amount he puts out as a necron army. The maulerfiends were both destroyed by the end of his turn 1, but the air cavalry was about to arrive.

My turn 2 saw one heldrake and Abaddon's speartip arrive. The heldrake flew towards the 20 warriors with szeras to devastate them, while Abaddon attempted to deep strike into the center of the board. A wide scatter caused him to mishap, but luckily he went back into reserve rather than dying. The left rhino saw the marines disembark and swarm the objective, and the rhino screened the squad from the gigantic warrior unit.

On the right side I made a very stupid gambit and disembarked the chaos marines through terrain in an attempt to get a tank shock on a warrior squad. The movement they scored was 2 inches, and kept the melta at 7" away from the monolith. The rhino then tank shocked the warrior squad that had come through the portal and the lychguard, both of which passed their morale checks. The melta bounced harmlessly off of the monolith.

The cultists shot from a distance at the immortals and the large warrior squad, as did the chaos marines on the relic. The heldrake killed 6 of them, and at the end of the phase, quite a few came back.

His turn 2 saw aggressive counter attacks, as he swarmed and blew the right rhino while attempting to shoot down the heldrake - to no avail. Lots of shots resulted in some dead marines, but otherwise this was an uneventful turn.

My turn 3 sees Abaddon return, though the second heldrake stayed off - oh well. Abaddon deep struck a little more conservatively this time onto the right side of the board, in front of a warrior squad, the lychguard, and the monolith. The chaos marines come around and prepare to charge the ten warriors, and the other chaos marines begin to withdraw with the relic, pursued hotly by a destroyer, a stalker, and szeras and warriors.

The charge failed and I was left out in the open to die from a particle whip, though i was fairly confident about what Abaddon and his terminators would do.

His turn 3 saw more shots. The chaos marines with the objective finally started to die, though it was only a few who did, the monolith shot everything it had at the terminators, the warriors shot my marines, and everything else he had shot at the heldrake, who crashed directly onto the lychguard, though he killed nothing. The lychguard attempted to charge Abaddon's unit and failed. My turn 4.

The heldrake arrived and killed his entire immortal squad in one use of his baleflamer. Guy found this pretty startling. Abaddon and his terminators moved towards the lychguard to put an end to them. The chaos marines got closer to shoot and hopefully succesfully charge the warriors this time, while my marines fell back and got the objective into range of the culists. Nothing spectacular happened with my shooting, so onto assaults.

Abaddon and his terminators charged the lychguard, and my terminator champion declared a challenge - I didnt want to face abaddon killing himself, though surprisingly the champion passed his leadership and brought the lord down to 1 wound remaining. the lychguard were wiped out, and the warriors and chaos marines got tarpitted with each other. The lord fled, and my terminators were at the mercy of the monolith and its portal.

At this point, the store was closing and we were forced to rush through, so alot of the details run together for me, but I brought the monolith to one hull point remaining, lost the objective, though he didn't gain it either, and abaddon killed the lord in single combat. The final tally war 6-7, Guy's favor. First blood and the amount of killpoints he achieved were just a little bit much for me. Had I had another turn I may have had a chance at winning the game, but... we shall never know. Until next time, children of the dark gods.

Finally Moved

Well, I've finally finished moving. Sorry about the absence, or I would've been posting more. The schedule has been hectic and I haven't found time to go play games to make batreps.

Practicing some painting and list building have been all that I've done in the meantime. I've got some pretty gnarly lists that I'm eager to show off as soon as I can, so worry not, my cultists, for I shall soon deliver.

I work swing shift, which will be changing in about two weeks, so look forward to triple tournament batreps once a month after that. And many more, as the shift change frees up sundays, which are 40k days at my FLGS.

Chaos is on the mind, and I wanna know what you guys think are the best competitive components of the chaos book, be they single units or devastating combos. And, what do you fear the most when playing your chaos on the table? Leave your comments below.

And never forget... the galaxy shall soon burn as it once did ten thousand years ago.

Chaos Marines Update

Well, obviously, this blog is pretty highly dedicated to Chaos Space Marines (And Harald Deathwolf's clearly Khornate space wolves), and with the release of the book, a new chapter is starting for my army.

I feel that two quintessential units will become part of any chaos marine army I play, and those are heldrakes and maulerfiends. Well, three if you count cultists. So, with the addition of two maulerfiends and one more heldrake, I'll feel satisfied with my thousand sons.

On the other hand, I am on a very deep quest to discover what is competitive within the chaos marine forces, and what makes them work well on a regular basis. With that quest in mind, I will be starting to collect and paint a brand-new force of traitor marines, with weekly updates, battle reports, and paint guides to go along with it. Stay tuned and enjoy.

BATTLE REPORT - CHAOS SPACE MARINES VS BLOOD ANGELS 2000

Enemies. We need them. If there's anything we need, it's enemies. Thank God for enemies.

Luckily for me, I have plenty of those, and they're lining up to face me.

On a serious note, General Chris, the man in red, is my opponent for today. He was playing his Flesh Tearers, quite a nice army and well commanded, I must say.

His list was something along the lines of two jump assault squads with dual melta, and SS/LC/MB on the sergeants, two small de-packed assault squads in A.C. Razorbacks, one dakka baal predator, one burny baal predator, one dev squad with lascannons, one with missile launchers, a furioso dreadnought with blood talons in a drop pod, a sanguinary priest with a jump pack, and a captain with pair of lightning claws, meltabombs, and a jump pack. Oh, and a vindicator.

My list was something fairly new for me, besides the dual heldrakes. A tzeentch sorcerer, M.L. 2 with doombolt and smite, Kharn the Betrayer, a squad of 9 bezerkers in a dirge caster rhino with meltabombs, gift of mutation, and an icon of wrath, a squad of 9 thousand sons with meltabombs, gift of mutation, and an icon of flame in a rhino, and two 10-man squads of slaanesh marked marines with meltagun, plasmagun, gift of mutation, icon of excess, and veterans of the long war in rhinos, and two maulerfiends.

Terrain density came out pretty high, and I deployed to have cover and block LoS to my maulerfiends on turn one.Purge the Alien and Dawn of War, rough stuff for a late game army vs. an elite late game army.

His deployment after winning the roll-off.

My counter-deployment, followed by a failed attempt to seize.

On with turn 1. He jumped up very aggressively and shot a lot of shots, dropping the dreadnought next to Kharn and his boys, and taking as many shots as he could on the maulerfiends. In the end, his first blood came from rhino kills, and the maulerfiends survived unscathed in any way.

My response was to terminate threats and push right back at him, perhaps too aggressive of a move for this early in the game, but I felt pressured but all of his dakka and speed. The Maulerfiends shattered the ruins that had protected them and moved into assault range of the vindicator and baal predator, while Kharn and the bezerkers disembarked to brazenly take a charge or launch one on turn 2. The slaanesh marines on the left moved to within 6" of the flame baal predator, while the ones on the right closed in on the thirsty furioso. Both of them failed to do anything other than stun each vehicle, however, and I gleefully initiated charges with the maulerfiends. The vindicator blew up, and the predator wrecked, both crumbling beneath the power of my daemon engines.

His turn 2 saw his assault marines come out to play as he throws everything he has to shoot into the maulerfiends, and he actually accomplishes very little, as he eventually had to charge them both and destroy them with meltabombs.

My turn 2 saw no heldrakes arrive, and both of my maulerfiends destroyed. Worse stille, a furioso blood talon dreadnought was in my deployment zone, and I had deadly choices I was forced to make, several of which came out fairly wrong. Kharn and the bezerkers squeezed between the dreadnought and drop pod to set up a charge against the assault marines, whilst the sorcerer and his cabal disembark to unleash hell on nearby armour. The slaanesh marines on the right get within an inch of the captain and his squad, preparing for a charge. Kharn succesfully charges, and the bezerker sergeant declares a challenge, which is accepted, and the two characters kill each other. The marines flee and Kharn consolidates, unscathed. The Slaaneshi marines charge the captain and his squad, declaring a challenge and hoping for the combination of hatred and I5 to pull them through. Not enough, unfortunately, but the icon survives and keeps them alive. The other Slaaneshi marines charge the furioso, hoping to lock him up and prevent a charge, but lose 5 of their squad and run, feel no pain doing very little to help them survive the blood talons.

His turn 3 was filled with blood maneuvers and more harmless shooting. His dreadnought launcher a charge on Kharn's squad, and Kharn responded by annihilating the dreadnought before he could swing. Thank the Gods for armourbane.

The Slaanesh marines stuck in combat for a very long time, surviving round after round, if only barely, and the assault squad and sanguinary priest manage to charge Kharn again and fail and run, again.

The heldrakes showed up on turn 3 and nearly wiped out both dev squads and vector striking armour to no avail. My turn 3 saw Kharn charge into combat with the captain, winning a challenge, and gaining I6, though I finally lost my bezerkers and slaaneshi marines all at once.

His turns became uneventful, as his 4 saw nothing but combat, and my 4 saw his devs removed.

Kharn challenged the captain and managed to wound him 5 times over an entire game turn, and the captain consistantly made his rerolled invulnerables, while Kharn failed all of his. At this moment I knew I had lost the game, as losing Kharn and giving away slay the warlord was too much to sacrifice without having achieved it myself yet.

For the rest of the game, heldrakes hovered and devastated his assault squads, though both immobilized in my turns 4 and 5, and were assaulted by meltabomb wielding characters. They each managed to pick off a few marines, but one eventually crashed, just before the game ended on 5. I had 10 victory points, he had 12.

This game was very tough, and I had a great time. I think the high points I've learned from this battle are:

-Don't underestimate cultists. They are a cheap and tactically useful unit for troops, giving you more points to spread out.

-Maulerfiends are also wonderful, provided you can keep them safe until they make their charge.

-CSM does assault much better than the previous book, imo, and my list tweaking will see cultists introduced to this list, as well as a land raider for Kharn(Or a chaos lord of my own) and his bezerkers.

Still having a hard time making CSM by themselves a competitive army, but I definitely feel closer with every game. I'm going to be looking into more chaos undivided army builds, and see what comes up next time. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

BATTLE REPORT - SPACE MARINES VS. CHAOS SPACE MARINES 1750

At last, back to war, er... something like that.

I was jonesing very badly to apply some of my tournament lessons this weekend, so I conveniently scheduled a game with a buddy of mine, General Travis.

 This is his battle face.

The points value was 1750 and my army was the one posted earlier.

The Prodigal Sons, led by Khaldun, assembled.

Travis is famous(in my mind) for playing an awesome raptors space marine army.

Four tactical squads, a devastator squad, two thunderfire cannons, two level 2 librarians, a bastion, and a stormtalon... pretty tough, pretty scary.

The game type was crusade(5 objectives) and hammer and anvil deployment. Ouch for the Sons.

We place terrain, making sure I only gave him one ruin to bolster, and generate warlord traits and psychic powers. Boon of Mutation and Doombolt for the two rubricae squad sorcerers, and Tzeentch's Firestorm and Psychic Shriek for my lord. Warlord trait was the soul blaze one. Gift of Mutation on my sorcerer awarded him a 2+ armour save with a 3+ invulnerable, while the warpsmith gave an unworthy offering. I won the roll and let him deploy first so that I might get a chance at vector striking his stormtalon before it can shoot down my dragons.

I placed 2 objectives near my deployment zone and one in the center, while he placed 2 on either side of the ruins. I placed the warlord with the boon sorcerer and start them outside of the rhino. Night fight was in effect and I had counterdeployed to be outside of 36" of his thunderfire cannons, while also allowing myself boon table roll at the start of the game. The cultists deployed near objectives lodged in area terrain, and the warpsmith was inside a rhino with a thousand sons squad. The obliterators deployed at the front of the line, next to the vindicator, which was poised for a turn 2 template on the quad gun, and a turn 1 drop on an enemy tactical squad. After deployment, I made no attempt to sieze and the game began.

Travis didn't move much. He cast his psychic shenanigans which mostly involved biomancy powers giving out feel no pain and relentless, as well as iron arm for his librarians. One deployed with a tactical squad, the other with the dev squad atop the bastion. His turn one saw nothing but a glance on the warpsmith's rhino - a glance which he heartily laughed at.

My turn one saw a 12" push to center with both rhinos, cultists moving into cover and seizing objectives, and heavy guns moving up. The obliterators fired harmless lascannon shots at the quad gun, and the vindicator's template failed to kill more than 2 marines due to night fight. The warlord moved flat out, while the warpsmith repaired his hull point to keep his rhino trucking. The boon of mutation successfully wounded the warlord, though it granted him 6 rolls - multiple boons first, followed by poisoned attacks, adamantium will, another multiple boon, wounding enemy psykers, and +1 BS. Amazing rolls, giving me an amazing, albeit fragile and wounded sorcerer.

Travis' turn 2 was exactly what I was anticipating. The stormtalon arrived, and now that the sun was up, things got nasty. The sorcerer's rhino was destroyed by tactical marine lascannons, and his squad was pelted heavily by thunderfire cannons. The vindicator took a ton of fire and ended being immobilized with one hull point remaining. Painful, the warpsmith was too far away to do anything.

My turn 2 saw one heldrake arrived, which i nervously placed near the center, knowing interceptor fire was coming. In general I pushed up even further with the rubricae and the obliterators, managing to kill half a squad of tacticals outside the ruins, and quite a few in front of the vindicator. With his interceptor quad gun firing on the heldrake, it took one pen, which only amounted to a shaken. Of course, my dumb ass forgot daemonic possession, which would've ignored the result on a 2+ and resulted in a fully dead tac squad. Instead, I forgot, and moved flat out to prepare to sweep the back of his line. 

His turn 3 saw pain brought to me. Staggering amounts of damage resulted in the sorcer being by himself with his one remaining wound, and the warpsmith losing 4 rubricae and hte aspiring sorcerer lost to thunderfires.

My turn 3 saw the next heldrake arrive. Knowing due to the long table edges I would need time to position, I brought it up on the left side to prepare to ignite the ruins holding both thunderfires, two tactical squads, and a librarian. The other heldrake zoomed over the bastion and performed a vector strike on the quad gun, causing 1 wound to it. The sorcerer was unable to reach enemies but managed to use his torrent flamer to kill all but two of a tactical squad which then fell back. The obliterators fire TL-meltaguns at the stormtalon to no avail.The warpsmith fire and did very little, failing a charge.

Travis rallied his two tactical marines and embarked them into the bastion for more shots - a decision he would later regret. He snap fired two tactical squads into the heldrake in his lines, getting a lucky melta hit, pen, and explosion with the second squad, and furthermore the wreckage did not scatter and hit nothing. The thunderfires turned to my cultists and decimated them with ignores cover shots, though they held their ground and ducked out of LoS.

I immediately pushed the warpsmith within 6" of the bastion, as well as the obliterators and the warlord. My heldrake that yet lived flew next to the ruins and managed to wound the librarian and kill 4 tactical marines, his pesky biomancy feel no pain preventing me from totally annihilating the unit. The obliterators fired multimeltas, got a single pen, and rolled a 7 for the building damage - detonation. The building collapsed and killed the two marines inside, and the librarian and devastator sergeant were forced to jump off - right next to the warpsmith and his escort. Because of Iron arm, the unit was considered T5, so I fired at and killed the librarian before the warpsmith assaulted. 

This is it. My moment of glory. "My warpsmith will challenge." "I have to accept." No wounds from the sergeant. I felled him easily. "Boon, first digit is... 6. Second digit is... 6!!!!! DARK APOTHEOSIS!!"

I gleefully retrieved one of my daemon princes and placed him where the warpsmith was.

Travis proceeded to shoot everything at him and kill him before he did anything(Oh well, it still soaked fire and still happened), then assaulted the 4 rubricae left over, their hatred doing little for their one attack each. 

The heldrake went into hover and flew circles around the ruins, dodging shots and making invulnerable saves like you wouldn't believe, all while killing off all of his troops. At the end of 7, I slaughtered all of his tactical marines, had lost my warlord, and took a very close victory - 4-1. I held one objective and had first blood, he had slay the warlord.

Great game, definitely brought up new list adjustment ideas which you will see posted shortly.

The new Thousand Sons list

So, with my return having been noted, here's my new list for my Thousand Sons.


Lord Khaldun(Chaos Sorcerer) - 170
Veteran of the Long War, Mark of Tzeentch, Sigil of Corruption, Gift of Mutation, Burning Brand of Skalathrax, Mastery Level 2, Warlord

Ahtep Fireblade(Warpsmith) - 155
Veteran of the Long War, Mark of Tzeentch, Aura of Dark Glory, Gift of Mutation

Photep's Cabal(Thousands Sons) x9 - 282
Meltabomb, Rhino


Kahsis' Cabal(Thousands Sons) x9 - 282
Meltabomb, Rhino

Khatep's Spireguard(Chaos Cultists) x20 - 120

Autoguns, Flamer x2

Sobek's Spireguard(Chaos Cultists) x20 - 120

Autoguns, Flamer x2

Trogdor, Burninator of the Countryside(Heldrake) - 170

Baleflamer

Phosis, Eater of Fenris(Heldrake) - 170

Baleflamer

The Scarab Occult(Obliterators) x2 - 156

Mark of Tzeentch

Fire of Tizca(Vindicator) - 125

Dozer Blade

This list comes out to 1750 exactly altogether. Some of the notes for it:

First of all, this list is frightningly shooty, with alot of stable units and two not so stable units. Cultists are still under review for me, but a block of twenty with autoguns have put out enough shots that they've made up their points for me more than once already. The amount of AP3 saturating this list could be a record, that could even be increased. The Warpsmith serves to shatter defenses on those large buildings that could be the bane of my AP3, at least until the heldrakes arrive to sweep up. The obliterators should theoretically be capable of crossing the battlefield and either soaking up fire or laying down the important shots when I need them, while the vindicator serves as an excellent tough distraction. All in all, the list is a lot of firepower, a lot of misdirection, and a lot of survivability. This weekend I'll be testing it out against raptors space marines, much to my chagrin. Time will tell!