Warhammer 40,000/10th Edition Tactics/Chaos Space Marines
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This is the current 10th Edition's Chaos Space Marine tactics. 9th Edition Tactics are here.
Why Play Chaos Space Marines
Faction Rules
- Dark Pacts: Any time one of your units makes an attack, you can choose to make an offering to the dark gods, giving either Lethal Hits or Sustained Hits 1. After you resolve your hits, you have to pass a Leadership test or suffer d3 mortal wounds. While not the wisest take on cultists, but the marines could make use of this - especially if you grab an icon to re-roll their Ld test.
- The Lost and the Damned: The rule that lets you attach Khorne Berserkers, Plague Marines and Rubric Marines despite no longer sharing a codex. This gives them the Heretic Astartes keyword instead of whatever they used to have. That said, it's only presumed that they get Dark Pacts, since their datasheets only have their faction rules. It's also uncertain if anyone can attach to them due to the limitations of the Leader rule.
Detachments
Slaves to Darkness
Special Rules
- Marks of Chaos: Every non-epic hero unit without any of the following keywords must be assigned one; khorne psyker is an illegal pairing, and characters can only Leader Bodyguards who have the same Mark keyword as them. Each keyword also provides a special rule, all of which buff your hit rolls, so leave those Torrent weapons at home, folks.
- Khorne: If you use Dark Pacts in the Fight Phase to gain Lethal Hits, you critically hit on a 5+.
- Nurgle: If you use Dark Pacts in the Shooting Phase to gain Sustained Hits 1, you critically hit on a 5+.
- That means Nurgle particularly favors Combi-Weapons, the Infernal Gaze Sorcerer gun on Hazardous mode, Forgefiends regardless of guns, and the Fellgor Beastmen Corrupted Stave.
- Slaanesh: If you use Dark Pacts in the Fight Phase to gain Sustained Hits 1, you critically hit on a 5+.
- That means Slaanesh particularly favors Axes of Dismemberment, the Commune Stave on Dark Communes, Daemon and Warp Hammers, Heldrakes, and Possessed.
- Tzeentch: If you use Dark Pacts in the Shooting Phase to gain Lethal Hits, you critically hit on a 5+.
- That means Tzeentch particularly favors Fleshmetal Guns on warp hail mode, (Twin) Heavy Bolters, and Reaper Autocannons.
- Chaos Undivided: Re-roll hit rolls of 1.
- Note that this means Khorne and Tzeentch have less use than the other three keywords for Devastating Wounds, as their special buff makes critical wounds even less likely, and across the board you should be avoiding Torrent weapons.
- If you use a Helbrute to pick up both Dark Pact abilities at once, Khorne and Tzeentch will like Devastating Wounds just fine. The same is true if you're wielding a weapon with Sustained Hits 1 built in, like a Heavy Bolter.
- Note that this means Khorne and Tzeentch have less use than the other three keywords for Devastating Wounds, as their special buff makes critical wounds even less likely, and across the board you should be avoiding Torrent weapons.
Stratagems
- Dark Obscuration (1 CP): When an enemy tries to shoot at one of your units, that unit gains Stealth for some extra protection. Nurgle units take this a step further by preventing enemies from attacking them unless they're within 12".
Tactics
- Take Abbadon and a Helbrute and mark all of your units to be of Tzeentch or Nurgle; re-roll even successful hits to fish for crits. Now a BS3+ shooter will hit critically 5/9 (56%) of the time (and hit non-critically another 2/9 or 22% of the time); each critical hit is an automatic wound that must roll to penetrate and a hit that must roll to wound.
- Add Forgefiends and fire in Hazardous mode so the hits that roll to wound are hoping to Devastate and ignore saves.
- Give Abbadon a Chaos Terminator escort full of combi-weapons and a reaper cannon; he has Chaos Undivided, so you can use the Profane Zeal strat to re-roll wound rolls to fish for critical wounds for Devastating Wounds. Odds are good Abbadon will refund the cost of the strat anyway.
Equipment
Unit Analysis
As per the Daemon index, you can have 1/4 of your army in points be Chaos Daemons. As per the Adeptus Titanicus index, you can have up to 1 Chaos Titan model. As per the Chaos Knights index, you can have up to 1 titanic or 3 war dog Chaos Knights models in your army. See those tactica pages for an in-depth analysis, but remember, in both cases anything you field will lose its Faction rules (what happens in terms of Detachment rules will still be Detachment-specific, but you'll have to pick a CSM Detachment).
Characters
- Chaos Lord:
- Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour:
- Dark Apostle:
- Dark Commune:
- Exalted Champion:
- Heretic Astartes Daemon Prince:
- Heretic Astartes Daemon Prince with Wings:
- Lord Discordant on Helstalker:
- Master of Executions:
- Master of Possession:
- Sorcerer:
- Sorcerer in Terminator Armour:
- Traitor Enforcer:
- Warpsmith:
Epic Heroes
- Abaddon the Despoiler: One of the very few to have lost out in tankiness, being nerfed to T5 with the same W9 and 2+/4++. Dark Destiny at least makes using Dark Pacts a good idea as passing the associated Leadership test lets him roll another d6 and win 1 CP. The Warmaster lets him pick from one of three different 6" buff auras: Paragon of Hatred lets friendly units re-roll to hit, Mark of Chaos Ascendant shares his 4++ save with friendly Infantry and Mounted units, Lord of the Chaos Legions lets friendly units re-roll Leadership and Battleshock tests.
- His combat loadout remains quite the threat and then some. The Talon of Horus remains plenty terrifying with a barrage of S7 AP-3 with Devastating Wounds while the strapped-on Combi-Bolter remaining S5 AP-1 D2 with Sustained Hits 1. Drach'nyen, however, got an absolutely monstrous buff, now being upped to Strength FOURTEEN AP-4 D3, also with Devastating Wounds - and all without any drawbacks that come with being a Daemon Weapon.
- Cypher:
- Haarken Worldclaimer:
- Huron Blackheart:
- Fabius Bile:
- Lucius the Eternal: If he is your warlord, you can only take slaanesh Chaos Daemons.
- Vashtorr the Arkifane:
Battleline
A unit that can gain Battleline from a special rule, like Noise Marines, is not listed here as it does not have the keyword intrinsically.
- Cultist Mob:
- Legionaries: As the frontliners of your forces, they deservedly get plenty of variety in weapons, with so many guns they don't all even fit on the card. Among the ones more unique to the unit is the Balefire Tome, which used to make the unit psychic but now just gives a rather basic 18" A2 S5 AP-1 gun.
- While they're plenty useful at range, their Veterans of the Long War ability strangely only lets them re-roll 1s to wound in melee (or re-roll all wounds if they're on an objective). Part of the issue is that they've undergone the great consolidation of weapons, now stuck with either their S4 CCWs or Chainswords if they want an extra attack and AP-1, with the sergeant having the option for an S5 AP-2 Accursed Weapon instead of the variety of power weapons. You can also take an S8 AP-2 D2 Heavy Melee weapon in case you have the heavy chainaxe from the more recent Legionaries box.
The Lost and the Damned
You can have up to 25% of your points be imported Battleline units from World Eaters, Death Guard, or Thousand Sons, and you modify their faction keyword on the way in. Note that you do not modify their Faction rule, which means any imported units below will get your Detachment rule but not your Faction rule (i.e. they will not get Dark Pacts, and instead will have to function with no Faction rule).
- Khorne Berzerkers:
- Plague Marines:
- Rubric Marines:
Infantry
- Accursed Cultists: Slightly tougher cultists with a 6+ FNP and OC2 for...some reason... Look, the only reason you're using these is because they're easy resurrectable fodder. It doesn't matter whether you sacrifice some of the puny mutants or the slightly stronger torments, you can resurrect them provided that they can hide for a bit.
- Chaos Terminator Squad:
- Chosen:
- Fellgor Beastmen: Gallowfall's newest kill team. While a bit tougher and stronger than any mere cultist, they are still OC1. This unit has strong preference to get into fights, as the entire squad only gets pistols except for the Shaman's Staff, and that offers nothing but a psychic weapon. In melee, meanwhile, the squad gets a +2 to charge rolls when charging enemies on objectives and you can pick up a very powerful great weapon to kill a couple MEQ on the way.
- Havocs:
- Noise Marines:
- Obliterators:
- Possessed:
- Traitor Guardsmen Squad: These cultists get access to some of the fancier guns of the Guard like plasma and snipers. While impressive, their melee output suffers as a result. While they can't perma-cap units like regular cultists, they do get cover when camping on an objective.
Fly
- Raptors:
- Warp Talons:
Beasts
- Chaos Spawn:
Mounted
- Chaos Bikers:
Vehicles
- Chaos Land Raider:
- Chaos Predator Annihilator:
- Chaos Predator Destructor:
- Chaos Vindicator:
Walkers
- Defiler:
- Forgefiend: Has weapon options, but assuming you pay attention to the rules, it'll always have 1 ectoplasma cannon and 2 autocannons - both with Devastating Wounds. You'll also be constantly Dark Pacting for Sustained Hits 1, so make sure your trio of these have a Warpsmith babysitter.
- Helbrute: An absolutely critical piece of your Tzeentch/Nurgle army, this dude has a 6" aura letting everyone in it (including him) get both Dark Pact benefits at once, not just one.
- Maulerfiend:
- Venomcrawler:
Dedicated Transports
- Chaos Rhino:
Aircraft
- Heldrake:
Titanic
- Khorne Lord of Skulls:
Fortifications
- Noctilith Crown: A large shield generator for your heretics, as they all get a 4++ save within 9" of it on top of all the other benefits of hiding behind it. It curiously has some token weapon in some ambient warp energy lashing out, but it's too short-ranged to matter for anything unless you've got peopled fighting around it.
Tactics
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