Sorcerer
SWORD: what Sorcerer kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 65 pts kill ~50 pts in one activation.Typical unit: 48 per 100
Best against heavy vehicles and monsters, weakest against hordes
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
Across the game· units
SHIELD: how hard Sorcerer is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 65 pts take ~143 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical unit: 306 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· units
What reviewers say
3 reviewers- Gives bricks the armour piercing they need 1 of 3
- Decidedly average in play 2 of 3
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sorcerer65 pts | C | Top 11% | Bottom 14% | 3of 134 |
| Master of Possession65 pts | D | Top 18% | Bottom 17% | 4of 134 |
| Warpsmith65 pts | B | Top 14% | Bottom 42% | 28of 134 |
Leading a squad
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 77 | 82 |
| SHIELD | 220 | 288 |
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 77 | 79 |
| SHIELD | 220 | 274 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then for it and the squad together.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Sorcerer, 65 pts, with its datasheet's weapons, 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.
65 pts → kills ~50 pts → 77 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.
~143 pts → 220 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 935 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.