Dark Apostle
SWORD: what Dark Apostle kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 70 pts kill ~32 pts in one activation.Typical melee unit: 55 per 100
Best against hordes, 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 Dark Apostle is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 70 pts take ~259 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
4 reviewers- Boosts Chosen and cultist bricks 3 of 4
- Resurrects models and steadies a unit 1 of 4
- Overlooked outside the cult builds 1 of 4
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dark Apostle70 pts | C | Bottom 29% | Top 24% | 5of 134 |
| Traitor Enforcer70 pts | B | Top 29% | Top 47% | 1of 134 |
| Master of Executions75 pts | D | Top 36% | Bottom 5% | 10of 134 |
Leading a squad
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 45 | 88 |
| SHIELD | 370 | 295 |
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 45 | 80 |
| SHIELD | 370 | 281 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then for it and the squad together.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Dark Apostle, 3 models, 70 pts, with its datasheet's weapons, in Renegade Raiders. 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.
70 pts → kills ~32 pts → 45 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.
~259 pts → 370 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.