Chaos Terminator Squad
SWORD: what Chaos Terminator Squad kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 185 pts kill ~126 pts in one activation.Typical melee unit: 55 per 100
Best against line infantry, weakest against hordes
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
Across the game· melee units
SHIELD: how hard Chaos Terminator Squad is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 185 pts take ~667 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical melee unit: 307 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
In Chaos Space Marines
Across the game· melee units
What reviewers say
6 reviewers- The new bolters made them the post-update core 3 of 6
- Tougher, and tougher still with Bile 3 of 6
- A Sorcerer or Kravek adds armour piercing 3 of 6
- Deep strike up and down in the right detachment 2 of 6
- Overcosted before the update 1 of 6
- Few lists took them in the early meta 1 of 6
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chaos Terminator Squad185 pts | A | Top 27% | Top 29% | 66of 134 |
| Mutilators165 pts | B | Top 6% | Top 18% | 82of 134 |
| Chosen140 pts | A | Top 24% | Top 47% | 91of 134 |
With a leader
| Solo | Led | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 87 | 94 |
| SHIELD | 361 | 361 |
| Solo | Led | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 87 | 94 |
| SHIELD | 361 | 361 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then with the leader joined.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Chaos Terminator Squad, 5 models, 185 pts, with 2 Combi-bolter, 3 Power fist, 1 Chainfist, 2 Combi-weapon, 1 Paired accursed weapons, in Nightmare Hunt. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: its own abilities, the army rule and the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
185 pts → kills ~126 pts → 68 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~667 pts → 361 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 571 melee units. How we score.
The letter
The average of 8 reviewers' newest Chaos Space Marines tier lists: M.S.G. (CSM tier list, 25 Oct) (25 Oct), Goonhammer / tabletopbattles.com (dataslate review, Detachment Focus, Competitive Innovations: 4 post-dataslate lists) (28 Oct), Auspex Tactics (meta watch of 30 lists, first month of 11th) (14 Jul), Boltgun Tactics (dataslate review and London GT recap; his own lists, inferred) (6 Oct), Exalted40k (every CSM list at the WTC, counted; post-dataslate list writing) (6 Oct), 40K Dirtbags (Chaos Cults list, 3-0 and 1st of 30 at an RTT) (19 Oct), 6 Plus Plus Gaming (interview with Theo Hayat, 5-0 at Birmingham) (14 Jul), 1d6chan (community 11th-edition tactics wiki, much text carried over from 10th) (30 Oct). A reviewer who would rather not be counted: tell us.
Lists
134 public Chaos Space Marines tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer. Organisers and players: ask us and we'll take a list or an event down. Numbers run 4 Nov.