Chaos Space Marines Units and Tactics 2.5: Noise Marines and Sacred Numbers

"The Twisted" Noise Marines . Finally, we get to the Noise Marines. Noise Marines are great for two purposes, long-range, static fire and mid range mobile small-arms fire. Other than that, they can be decent in assault, but not great and that really depends on who you are fighting.

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Armed for Pleasure! I generally have two layouts for Noise Marines and it depends on what I want them to do. First, there is the Blastmaster and sonic weapons fire-support squad, which is usually 6 Noise Marines, 5 with sonic blasters and 1 with the blastmaster (sacred number for fluff and in order to afford more squads). This squad is great for being able to sit back in (or near) a rhino first turn and deliver S8 AP3 small blasts on the enemy and doing so until it is no longer beneficial, then it can disembark and fire 24 inches, using its rhino to block LOS from deadly enemy weapons. I tend to give their rhino a havoc launcher. It makes them either have to keep taking tamplate fire or attack the rhino, taking the heat off other units and off the noise marines themselves.

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The blastmaster is expensive, but it is also the key to this unit, delivering harsh stationary weaponry onto the enemy with the small and seldom effective bonus of pinning. The squad is also good standing beside the rhino (if the enemy id standing close enough) to deliver three shots a peice while doing so. The mobility of their weapons also means that in games where staying static could get you killed, they can still move freely and lay down a lot of shots. I 5 also means that most of the time, the unit will strike first against the enemy in CC. The weakness of the Blastmaster is the fact that it scatters, so always have more dedicated anti-tank units in the army and use the Blastmanster to hunt infantry.

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These squads tend to run expensive so I really leave them Champ-less for the most part as they are meant to hang back and if they assault, it is to support another unit that is in assault already, but if you would like, a power weapon works just fine. I tend to avoid the Doom-Siren in fire-support squads for the counter assault and distance shooting reasons.

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The second kind of squad really only works in armies where they will be supported by long range squads. These squads are meant for assault. I give them all sonic weapons in order to always have the option to shoot at 24 inches or to assault after shooting 2 shots. I then use a champ with the doom siren for lightening up the enemy load before assault. These units work very well due to the initiative (unless you fight Eldar) and while I would like to say you should equip the champ with a power weapon to take advantage of the I5, I have to say that a powerfist will keep you alive longer due to the threat of enemy walkers and MCs. I also tend to take these squads in units of 10 to make the most of their offensive abilities and to keep them alive longer. If you want to try them without the sonic weapons, it will make them cheaper, but then why not just buy Berzerkers for 1 point more each? This unit really shines more in a themed army.

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A final note on Sonic Weapons The bad thing about the blastmaster is that it is AP3, which, as with the 1k Sons, it is great at killing Marines, but so expensive that hordes will laugh at you for paying so much for it. In that case its saving grace is the blast. Sonic weapons in general are just bolters with an assault profile and extra shots - the benefit being that your squad has a lot more mass of fire than their number betrays, but every dead NM makes that mass smaller.

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Maybe you noticed the fact that I tend to use the sacred numbers in my cult troops. That is because in games of 1500 points or more, most of the cult units are at their best efficiency when at those numbers, TSons for killyness and survivability, Plaguers for points cost and survivability, Zerks for Assault power and the ability to get enough living Zerks to the fight and Noise Marines to match the killing power of their counter parts while keeping the points cost down. . You can explore this yourself. You may notice that by the time you kit them out, most units will match the cost of a fully-geared and transported vanilla CSM squad (except the TSons when taking expensive powers). The added bonus is the cool-factor of keeping the favor of the Dark Gods!

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Playing nicely with others Unless you are bent on your fluff, it can sometimes be beneficial to take a force that mixes cult troops. Vanilla CSM can surely benefit from taking a unit or two of Zerks for assault power or Plague Marines for objective holding ect. Zerks and Plaguers are very good together (Plaguers tie up combat while zerks come in and charge the combat). The possibilities are endless, so find your flavor and make it your own, but remember the Principles of Mutual Support, Mobility and Defense in Depth, Take it or leave it, happy hunting heretics. Feel free to comment.