Chosen
SWORD: what Chosen kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 140 pts kill ~98 pts in one activation.Typical melee unit: 55 per 100
Best against line infantry, weakest against heavy vehicles and monsters
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
In Chaos Space Marines
Across the game· melee units
SHIELD: how hard Chosen is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 140 pts take ~440 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical melee unit: 307 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· melee units
What reviewers say
6 reviewers- The elite melee unit of choice 4 of 6
- Strong behind Bile or the Apostle 3 of 6
- Flexible across detachments 2 of 6
- Accursed weapons bounce off tougher marines 2 of 6
- Overpriced for five models 1 of 6
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chosen140 pts | A | Top 24% | Top 47% | 91of 134 |
| Possessed130 pts | C | Top 21% | Top 17% | 50of 134 |
| Warp Talons130 pts | C | Top 48% | Bottom 36% | 6of 134 |
With a leader
| Solo | Led | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 104 | 117 |
| SHIELD | 314 | 302 |
| Solo | Led | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 104 | 116 |
| SHIELD | 314 | 314 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then with the leader joined.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Chosen, 5 models, 140 pts, with 3 Accursed weapon, 3 Bolt pistol, 4 Boltgun, 1 Paired accursed weapons, 1 Power fist, 2 Plasma pistol - standard, 2 Plasma pistol - supercharge, in Nightmare Hunt. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: 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.
140 pts → kills ~98 pts → 70 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.
~440 pts → 314 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.