Armies in 5th: Chaos Space Marines Part 1: Mobility

Well it’s been a while since one of these. Armies in 5th are back! To jog your memories Armies in 5th articles analyse how an army operates in 5th edition and is not a codex review. These articles will tackle common misconceptions around the internet on how the reviewed armies are percieved and hopefully provides insight into how 40k works and the specific army reviewed. This new edition of Armies in 5th will focus on Chaos Space Marines and once GWvsJohn is working less, hopefully he’ll continue his CSM Codex review. This codex is commonly thought of as one of the better books out there by the internet forums thanks to special troops such as Plague Marines backed by the power of Obliterators and ‘cheese’ of Lash. However, the book of Chaos suffers quite significantly to other books with FoC problems and this is not shored up enough by decent Troops, HQ and Heavy choices.


You’ll notice the title of this article is mobility and whilst Chaos are generally no less mobile than any other 12” mech based army, there is far less scope for their mobility in being able to destroy tanks quickly, tie up units or block. Some armies like SM variants have Land Speeders which can quickly run out and drop a couple of MM shots into a Land Raider and either kill it or block it. Tau & Imperial Guard can do this as well with Vendettas and Piranhas. And all of these are 12” move based armies. However, not all competitive SM and IG use Speeders/Vendettas so is Chaos really suffering in competitiveness or simple flexibility in army design? Because SM & IG can generate signiticant firepower from the rest of their army list. I.e. Artillery, Russes, Rbacks, Chimeras, Preds, Dreads, etc. Chaos are at a disadvantage in terms of firepower and applicability. Whilst their Dreads are capable, they aren’t putting out 4 S7 TL’D shots (imagine that on Fire Frenzy!). Their Troops, particularly Plague Marines who don’t have heavy weapons, cannot put out the firepower IG Platoons, Vets, Chimeras, Tac Squads, Razorbacks, etc. can at range and nothing in CSM codex remotely compares to AB Squadrons, Land Speeders, Vendettas, Hellhound variants or Sentinels. This means the Chaos codex is relying quite significantly on their Heavy Support to provide long-ranged firepower through Oblits and Preds.

This is where their lack of effective fast and mobile melta hurts Chaos. Raptors and CSM Bikes are both capable of running around and dropping melta into things, especially bikes who can turbo-boost. However, both of these squads are woefully inefficient costing you ~100+ points for a meltagun and therefore used minimally. The combined lack of movement outside of 12” and good suppression fire outside of Heavy Support puts CSM on the back foot in terms of mobility. Other 12” move armies will often easily outshoot CSM (which limits their mobility; see Suppression Fire) or be able to outshoot them and have 12”+ move units such as Speeders. Against armies which move 12”+ such as BA, Eldar & DE, CSM don’t have the firepower to limit their mobility enough to get close or the mobility to keep up. This is largely due to their lack of effective Fast Attack choices but also because of their lack of effective firepower acorss the FoC.

This is not to say CSM are a static army list but rather are limited in their applicability on the battle-field against other 5th edition armies who are often more mobile or more shooty than the best CSM lists. This is a pre-cursor that effects their whole entire codex and is really the main issue they are not as competitive as people think. Comparing their Troops/HQ/Heavy to other armies directly and they don’t come off that badly but their lack of effective Fast Attack and so-so Elites really puts a damper on their ability to create competitive, balanced lists. Much like Orks, Chaos are a decent army but on a level below that of the top armies.

Next article will cover how this disadvantage for Chaos is expounded by the general lack of sacrifical units available to Chaos and the high direct cost or opportunity cost of the ones they do have access to.