Fighting The Long Nerf: Where CSM Players Go From Here

I’ve played CSM when they were awful. Not “awful” in the sense of “a below average but powerful faction with many very favored matchups”, like Custodes players use the term. I’m talking awful, awful.

I’m going to be honest. When I first saw the CSM changes in the latest dataslate, I started doomspiralling. My first reaction? Great, here we go again. It’s time for CSM to be bad again, which is where everyone else wants us to be. Go away and take away our 2nd wound on our Legionaries while you’re at it, Games Workshop.

But then a few days passed, and I started thinking. We lost a lot of mechanics, that’s for sure. But a lot of the mechanics we lost were more crutches than actually essential (like Undivided units staging in Nurgle Rhinos). And most importantly, our Dark Pacts didn’t get changed. As long as we’ve got Dark Pacts, we’ve got a fighting chance.

I also remembered the most important thing, and something I’ve said at Warphammer many times: The Dark Gods are generous, and have beautiful gifts for their followers.

CSM players, as long as we still have the following three things, we’ll be okay:

• The Dark Pacts mechanic
• Deep, unshakable faith in the power of the Dark Gods
• Hatred of the Corpse Emperor

It’s real Veteran Of The Long War hours again for Chaos Space Marines. That’s when they’re at their most fun.

Let’s all take a deep breath. Welcome to the Warphammer guide to winning post-nerf with Chaos Space Marines.

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It’s Going to Be Okay

Plenty of even well-known and respected CSM players were freaking out over the nerfs. Honestly, I don’t blame them. It was even worse for World Eaters players, but CSM players were really shaken up too.

I really like Goonhammer. They’re one of the best 40K resources out there. When the dataslate dropped, I went over there to get some objective analysis about how CSM were going to be affected. What I saw instead were some really dramatic overreactions. I mean seriously, take a look at this:

It’s the CSM writeup. Why are you moaning about Eldar?

The key piece I missed when reviewing the CSM changes initially was that CSM were not the only army that got hit. Basically every army that was above average took some sort of nerf. CSM got hit way harder than basically anyone else, but we also were way ahead of most armies so that’s totally fair. If our power level goes down by 30% but the average power level of our competitors goes down 15%, we’ve only gotten half as nerfed as it seems.

While our roster isn’t quite as deep as some other faction’s, we still have a pretty damn deep set of units and tools for various situations. There’s some armies that when they get nerfed, they have nowhere else to pivot. Armies like Votann and World Eaters are like this. Their pool of units is small, the pool of good units is even smaller, and when they take a nerf they have to run “basically the same thing but worse”. Chaos Space Marines are not like this.

In fact, if previous Warphammer tournament reports have shown anything, it’s that the pool of good CSM units is far deeper than most people realized.

If you have some units that have been stuck on your shelf this edition that you’ve wanted to run, the dataslate nerf could actually be a good thing! Points increases on things like Forgefiends hurt, but they make other shooting platforms look better like comparison, and CSM has a bunch of good shooting platforms. The same idea applies to Chosen+Chaos Lords being the go-to melee brawler for every list. Let’s actually start using our deep toolbox.

How We Have to Adapt

I don’t remember much from business school, but one of the few things I do remember is the idea of identifying what you do better than your competitors. We took some huge nerfs, but we still do some things better than basically any other armies in the entire game.

The two strengths CSM players should lean into:

• Dark Pacts lets basically any unit turn into a real damage dealer
  • To get something like Sustained Hits on a 5+, other armies generally have to attach a character or invest some sort of resource. We just pay with a light trickle of mortal wounds. This means that even our MSU units have the ability to do much more damage than opponents planned for.
• We have access to one of the only full Hit rerolls auras in the game
  • If we want to shoot, we can shoot. Shooting very hard is one of the best ways to win games of Warhammer Forty Thousand Tenth Edition. I mentioned I have a Patreon if you want to support incredible analysis like this?

Let’s talk about some different meta matchups and a few quick thoughts on them.

• Necrons
  • Necrons are a serious balance issue. Fortunately, they’re not as dominant as the armies that were on top of the previous few metas, like Eldar, Eldar, or Eldar.
  • High volume of Lethal Hits are your friend into C’tan, and CSM can do that better than almost any other army. Units like Tzeentch Bikers can punch up hard into C’tan. We also have several sources of +1 Damage or Melta, like Chaos Lords or Tzeentch Bikers (yes I know I mentioned them twice–I like them a lot)
  • Mobility is needed to screen and reach their Immortals, and CSM can definitely bring that.
• Custodes
  • We’re decent into Custodes. We can shoot them better than most armies while still hitting them hard in melee. Every time they have to pop -1 Damage or a Warden Feel-No-Pain to survive some Predators shooting at them, that’s a defensive buff they won’t have later or CP they won’t have to Fights First. Our own access to a dangerous Fights First brick is also an issue for them. We also, generally speaking, have a mobility advantage.
• Knights, including both the Boring, Uptight and Cool, Spikey, Parties Hard variants
  • We like killing things. Knights don’t like when they can be killed.
• Guard
  • I’m legit nervous to list Guard here. They have a fanbase that mobs people like the Fireside 40K crew when they say Guard are good, but Guard are very good. They’re also a pretty hard counter to CSM, and we’ll be in real trouble if they become popular. Fortunately Guard players give each other absolutely the worst advice of any fanbase I’ve ever seen and they think their army is bad, so hopefully we don’t have to see much of them.
• Eldar
  • This will sound weird, but I actually want to play a game of New CSM versus New Eldar. Both armies have lost crutch mechanics and have gotten much more skill-intensive in their list design and playstyle. We kill Elves well, they kill us well, it would be a great game.
• Death Guard
  • Plagueburst Crawlers are very painful for the MSU style lists, but we kill Death Guard incredibly well too. This feels like a pretty fair fight.
• Daemons
  • This would be a really weird matchup. I think Daemons are favored if they bring Be’lakor, CSM are favored otherwise.
    • Daemons players, bring Be’lakor. Just do it. Stop getting cute.
      • “But Mike, I can bring so many Burning Chariots for Be’lakor’s points!!!”
    • Good for you. Have fun with that. I’ll have fun not being shot and dropping Greater Daemons on their doorstep.
• Orks
  • Orks are in an amazing spot, and make the Lucius brick pretty mandatory. You can win if you have it. You’ll be in deep trouble if you don’t. We’ll talk more about this later.

There’s definitely other important matchups, I just don’t want this section to get too long. Feel free to ask me in the comments here or elsewhere for thoughts on other matchups for CSM.

What’s Still Good?

Most things, actually!

I think the one build that is dead is Accursed Cultist spam. As someone that never bought into that godawful list… good. It was an awful play experience for both players that required very little skill and gave CSM an awful reputation. You can still get away with running one AC/DC (Accursed+Dark Commune) brick as a tempo piece but you’re definitely not going to want to invest in any more.

Let’s recommend some units for you to include in your lists:

Abaddon

The Warmaster is a patient man. He’s seen you all abandon him for passing fads like AC/DC spam and ChosenLords in Rhinos. And the whole time, he stayed prepared, knowing you would come crawling back to him.

Abaddon is pricy, but he’s still an almost unparalleled centerpiece for your army. His combination of synergy and damage output is arguably the best in the game.

I’m running him with 5 Legionaries. At 400 points flat, I feel that’s the right level of investment. He’s protected from chip damage, brings some OC with him to contest midfield objectives lategame, and doesn’t have to spend the CP on Profane Zeal for Wound rerolls in melee.

Predators

I was already starting to consider Predators over Forgefiends when they were 50 points apart. Now that they’re 70 points apart, I’m leaning towards Predators as my gun platform of choice. They’re cheap as chips, synergize very well with Dark Pacts, and and are also randomly OC4. What’s not to love?

I think the clear best loadout is Predator Destructor with Las Sponsons and the Mark Of Nurgle, but other builds are also generally fine if that’s how you’ve built them.

Bikers

Bikers aren’t flashy, but they’re solid damage dealers and have just enough OC and durability to skirmish over objectives well. I thought Bikers were already good before, and still think they fit well into a wide variety of CSM lists. You can either go Tzeentch and Plasma for C’tan killing or Nurgle and Plasma/Melta for objective grabbing. There’s probably an argument to be made for Slaanesh Bikers, but I wouldn’t agree with it.

Lucius and the Boys

Lucius and 10 Legionaries (plus an optional Master Of Executions) was probably the best package in CSM that came out of the dataslate without any nerfs. They’ll require a bit more care because they can only go into a Slaanesh Rhino now, but I still think he’s a near auto-include.

Lucius’s Legionary brick is completely gamewinning in melee matchups. Their OC is too high to go for contest plays, and their damage is too high for most things in the game to engage with them in melee. Lucius himself is also a real blender with the wound rerolls from Legionaries, and the hit rerolls from the Master Of Executions take him to absurd levels. Don’t forget that since he hits on a 2+ and gets 5+ Sustained Hits, he averages over a hit per hit dice rolled. The MOE lets you reroll everything besides 6’s once you’ve done a single wound to the target. Lucius can easily take out lots of units in the game by himself before the MOE or Legionaries even get to swing.

Raptors

With Warp Talons going up, you’ll want to consider Raptors.

Warp Talons

And then you’ll probably want to run Warp Talons anyway because they’re still great at 110. Warp Talons are still fast skirmishers that will win fights versus anything in their weight class.

Helbrutes

Helbrutes are a pretty awful datasheet in a vacuum, but given that Dark Pacts is our main mechanic now and they synergize extremely well with that, they’re going to see a lot more play. They’ll provide an extremely buff for your shooting units and do absolutely nothing themselves. I really, really hate Helbrutes. It’s a shame that I’m including one in almost every list I write.

Vindicators and Land Raiders

We’re stretching “recommended units” a little bit here, but they’re both very fine units you can feel good about running. Land Raiders seem like a big dumb box but they’re actually a very tricky unit to use well, because you have to balance their placement as a gun platform versus their placement as a transport.

Legionaries

Legios are still great objective brawlers, and you’re going to end up including a few units in almost every list. My big gripe with them is their silly weapon loadout options (why can’t we run another Heavy Melee Weapon when we increase the squad size from 5 to 10?), but they’re still a great unit to use.

I’m very, very happy that the classic Chaos Space Marine is a strong unit in the army Chaos Space Marines. Don’t take this for granted, newer players. It has not always been this way.

Chosen + Chaos Lords

ChosenLords got hit as hard as any unit in the game, and you know what? They’re still pretty good! 5 Undivided Chosen + an Undivided Chaos Lord is still a versatile and mobile damage dealer.

10 Chosen plus a Lord is just too expensive, but 5 and a Lord still makes a lot of sense. An Undivided Rhino with something like 5 Chosen with a Lord and 5 Legionaries with Huron is a package with the tools to respond to many situations.

Winged Daemon Princes

The Winged Daemon Prince with the Elixir is still really disappointing. I don’t know why I included it here. It’s a bit more appealing since other options got nerfed, but it’s still an incredibly mediocre unit for the points. I have 0 idea how not a single Daemon Prince in the game got a buff in the last update, because they’re all unfortunately pretty bad. It does some stuff. Nothing you really need, though. And all of the other Marks/Enhancements are pretty bad. I just think Daemon Princes are really cool, and you can get away with running 1 if you give it the Elixir. Let’s move on.

Obliterators

Obliterators really did not need the points increase. On the other hand, the points increase is relatively small, and they still have huge spike potential with Dark Pacts. They also have huge whiff potential and are little waddling babies. But they are relatively durable and can win fights versus other small units. And as long as you plan where you drop them around future turns too, their mobility isn’t too bad.

Masters Of Execution

I love their reroll buff to their unit (toss a grenade to trigger it nearly guaranteed) and if you give them the Mark Of Khorne, suddenly they and their unit are capable of punching up really hard. They also go well with the Talisman enhancement. I’m not running any in my specific lists, but they’re a good unit you can feel great running.

The best part is you can pick up MOEs very cheap from your World Eaters friend who threw their MOE out in anger.

Haarken and Huron

These are two great named characters that you can feel good about running. I actually really like the idea of Huron with some Legionaries in a Rhino as a high OC bomb, and Haarken helps a unit of Raptors punch up well.

Cultists and Nurglings

CSM units are expensive (now more than ever), so you’ll always want to include some cheap idiots Little Lords and a unit of Cultists to sticky your objectives.

I’ve seen some people trying Cultist spam. I promise you, this is not what you want to be doing with your life. It’s neither good nor fun.

Noctilith Crown

Let’s get weird. I’m just going to say it–the Noctilith Crown is better than you think! People forget that it can be deployed without any terrain restrictions these days, and it still functions as a model to screen your backfield. It’s also “models wholly within” not “units wholly within” so you can string some Cultist models back in a unit to get the invuln on them. I’m probably not going to run one, but it’s probably the most functional terrain piece in the game. Don’t forget that it gets its own 4++ aura, and can be marked Nurgle so it can’t be shot.

Lord Of Skulls

We’re continuing our trend of weird recommendations here, but the KLOS is pretty solid at 450. The style points you get for running one are also unmatched. It will definitely not belong in an optimized list, but you can run one and feel good about it. It does enjoy exploding 6’s, a reroll aura, and 1CP Stealth, 1 CP 3+ Fight On Death.

I’m also just going to throw this out there. Abaddon and 3 KLOS is 1660 points. You could absolutely destroy a small RTT with this. Don’t do it. Why are you even thinking about this? Something is wrong with you. But you could do it. I’m just saying.

Rubric Marines

Rubric Marines are the best Cult Marine to ally in, and they can still do good work out of a transport. Their flamers actually help us shore up some of our trickier matchups. I also don’t have Plague Marines in Nurgle Rhinos, but that’s probably getting too creative.

With the Recommended Units out of the way, let’s talk about how you’re going to use them.

Abaddon’s Moving Castle

I’m going to let you in on one of the best kept secrets in 40K: With the right buffs, CSM Predators shoot incredibly hard for their points.

They hit hard on the board. They hit hard out of reserves.

And they hit as hard as anything in the entire game with Abaddon and a Helbrute nearby. With both Sustained Hits and Lethal Hits on a 5+ and full hit rerolls, they threaten everything in the entire game. You can build some absolutely vicious lists built around Abaddon, a Helbrute, and shooting platforms of your choice.

“But Mike, scoring wins games. Sure your Abaddon castle does incredible amounts of damage, but how will you play the mission?”

How will I play the mission? How will they play the mission when they’re all dead!

This was a list archetype that already won a few smaller events before the dataslate and comes out largely unscathed. In fact, it might be even better in the new meta. A core of Abaddon + 5 Legionaries + Helbrute + 3 Predators is only 930 points, so you still have a ton of room for skirmishers and mission play. You also don’t need to run exactly 3 Predators. Other units like Forgefiends, Vindicators, Land Raiders, and Obliterators can work very well too.

This list archetype is pretty terrain dependent, so make sure to adapt it to your own terrain set.

Kill Teams

This is the other archetype that will be very strong for CSM, and it’s also incredibly fun to play.

With Dark Pacts letting small units trade up very well, CSM can still find success by going wide and bringing tons of fast, threatening units. You bring units that will all win fights with enemy units in their weight class, and can win fights versus tougher units by ganging up on them with their mobility. CSM MSU builds will still be very strong in terrain heavy formats.

All Star units in this list archetype will be Warp Talons, Bikers, Raptors, Obliterators, and Legionaries and/or Rubrics and/or Chosen in Rhinos. I don’t think Abaddon really goes in this list style, as you want every unit to be able to operate independently. He’s also too much of a points sink and liability if you aren’t crafting a castle around him.

You can still definitely bring some traditional gun platforms like Predators/Vindicators/Forgefiends in this list. If you do, definitely consider reserving them, and using them like a gun held to their opponents head if they try to interact with you. Want to come interact with my skirmishers? You’re welcome to, but you’re going to have to step in these firing lines to do so. Have fun taking a Forgefiend to the face.

Sample List

Here is the list I’m personally going to be running for my post-slate CSM. Please remember that this is designed for my own model preferences/playstyle/PPT terrain, and you should adjust the list as needed for your own needs rather than copying it directly.

Abaddon’s Moving Castle

• Abaddon the Despoiler, the Warmaster of Chaos, and the Arch-Fiend
• 5 Legionaries (Slaanesh)
• Helbrute (Nurgle)
• Predator Destructor (Las, Nurgle)
• Predator Destructor (Las, Nurgle)
• Predator Destructor (Las, Nurgle)
• Forgefiend (Undivided)
• Cultists (Nurgle)
• Lucius
• MOE (Slaanesh)
• 10 Legionaries (Slaanesh)
• Rhino (Slaanesh)
• Warp Talons (Slaanesh)
• Raptors (Nurgle)
• Cypher
• 3 Nurglings
• 3 Nurglings

I love this list. It’s got an incredibly powerful shooting battery at its core, but it also has some fasts skirmishers and some melee hammers. It also has an Undivided Forgefiend in strat reserves to cover any angles my Predators on the board can’t reach.

I don’t think this list would win a Major, but I could easily see it winning a smaller GT.

Final Thought

I shouldn’t say this part out loud, but I won’t miss the “CSM players” that jumped onto this army for easy wins when it was busted. I don’t begrudge them anything, of course. There’s no shame in running strong units in a competitive game. But I’m happiest when CSM are an underrated underdog faction.

People are also going to stop teching for CSM in favor of other meta bullies. In the long run, this will work to our advantage. Now that we’ve taken the nerf we all knew was coming, you can feel great running your CSM again.

it’s time for the Veterans Of The Long War to show the Loyalists and Xenos what we can do. Let the galaxy burn!

But before letting the galaxy burn, take a moment to join the Warphammer Discord today (https://discord.gg/VMXb8Hvj) or supporting Warphammer on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Warphammer). Once you’ve done that, you can resume your regularly scheduled galaxy burning. Thank you!