Likewise, try and build your army to make your opponent’s secondaries hard to score as well – try to avoid giving up more than 10 points on the likes of No Prisoners and Bring it Down if you can. Be Aggressive On the whole, the Lord Discordant is still one of the army’s best units, and has gotten better thanks to now being 9 wounds and protectable with Look Out, Sir. He’s great as a front line threat and able to charge in and take out key targets, punching up. There are a bunch of different ways to kit him out depending on how killy vs. durable you want him to be, and there are plenty of different ways to use him in-game. He’s really a unit you can fit into most lists. Cypher In 1991 the range was expanded to include a Captain, and heavy weapons. This allowed for the full matching counterpart squads and officers to the Imperial Terminators. This not only made them useable in the 40K side of things, but as dangerous foes in Space Hulk. Note that funky Traitor Storm Bolter 1 with the over-under clips. NICE! That said, you want to make sure your strike is considered – the last thing you want to do is feed your army to your opponent piecemeal. Keep your units grouped effectively, look for opportunities to trade up when you have to sacrifice a piece, and try to avoid outrunning your coverage or leaving your rear too exposed to deep striking threats. Your army will typically have a lot of strong melee threats but a savvy opponent can still divide and conquer those individually if you aren’t careful. Souping with Daemons and Chaos Knights

Note that you cannot replace the keyword with DEATH GUARD or THOUSAND SONS unless you’re working with Forge World units from Imperial Armour Compendium. Three of the legion’s finest are teleporting into action wearing mighty suits of Terminator armour, presenting a real danger to even the Ultramarines’ huge Invictor Warsuits. Tzeentch: Mutating Invocation (Aura) – While a friendly TZEENTCH CORE or CHARACTER is within 3”, roll a D6 each time a model in that unit would lose a wound; on a 6, that wound isn’t lost. This is a solid little buff that pairs well with the failed save ability for the mark, but won’t stop you from dropping your mark’s damage zero ability on your first failed save. C+ While there are other ways to soup, including lists that run Abaddon, Mortarion, and Magnus, the most common and popular ways to soup for Chaos Space Marines are to either include Chaos Knights in the army or a detachment of Chaos Daemons. Each has its own advantages and quirks. Note that you can generally build an army with detachments from different books, but what we’ll be talking about here are ways to build mixed-faction armies without losing access to the army-wide special rules (such as Let the Galaxy Burn ) and secondary objectives. Note that Chaos Space Marine Legion traits only apply if your army is mono-faction, or bringing “allowable” allies in the form of 25% Power Level or less of Daemons or a single Dreadblade unit of Chaos Knights. For example, if you run Mortarion in a Supreme Command detachment alongside a unit of Iron Warriors, your Iron Warriors will lose their Legion trait and no longer ignore cover or turn off Wound rerolls. This is a massive blow to anyone who wanted to soup in non-traditional ways.Chaos Space Marines • Havocs • Chosen • Chaos Terminators • Possessed • Greater Possessed • Khorne Berzerkers • Plague Marines • Noise Marines • Rubric Marines • Obliterators • Mutilators • Chaos Spawn • Fallen Angels • Noxious Blightbringer • Foul Blightspawn • Biologus Putrifier • Blightlord Terminators • Deathshroud Daemon weapons saw a large change with the new Codex; now they upgrade weapons more generally, adding cool effects. Each one comes with the Daemon Weapon rule now, which has you roll 2D6 each time the bearer is selected to fight. Roll less than or equal to your Ld and you can fight normally. Go over and you can choose: Either take D3 mortal wounds and fight normally, or you can’t fight with the Daemon Weapon. This is an excellent tradeoff, and you’ll almost always be taking the wounds if you have to. There are some powerful effects here and a daemon weapon will make its way into almost every competitive Chaos Marines army. Daemon Weapons are Relics, and so to take one you’ll need to spend CP to get one as normal in competitive play.

The only small drop pod the Chaos Marines have access to. The Imperial Armour Compendium updated these to be 115 points and be able to arrive on the battlefield turn 1. With the most recent FAQ updates, the passengers can now get out of them the turn they arrive on the table. This is a huge upgrade in value for Dreadclaws, which now give you a relatively inexpensive way to put your units in reserves and drop them on the table turn 1. It’s particularly valuable in Emperor’s Children, where you can almost guarantee a charge out of deep strike with Honour The Prince, but there are plenty of other units you might want to put forward, like Havocs, Noise Marines, or Obliterators. In a non-Death Guard army Plague Marines lose Inexorable Advance, making them susceptible to difficult terrain and movement modifiers. As a unit their best value is loading them up with melee wargear like the cleaver and flail so they can do a bunch of high-damage wounds to opponents, but this just makes them a very slow melee unit in an army that is already flush with melee options that move faster and hit harder. You can also give them more shooting options with special weapons and a blight launcher in a 5-model unit, but these are just OK and again, the unit is pretty slow and not really more durable than a unit of Chosen. This has made me wonder, do we just forego chainaxes now and build whatever options are also 0 points? Do we bring in 5-pt power fists? Chaos Cultists • Poxwalkers • Pestigor • Plague Zombies • Plague Ogryn • Thrall Wizard • Tzaangor • Tzaangor Enlightened • Tzaangor Shaman • Dark Disciple

Conclusions

Sorcerer ( Balefire Acolyte) • Warpsmith • Dark Apostle • Master of Possession • Master of Execution • Lord Discordant • Warsmith • Apothecary • Infernus Abomination The real value of these units is that you have another cheap ObSec option that sits between Cultists and Chaos Space Marines, with significantly more firepower and durability than the former. At 6/7 Leadership they’re also less likely to flee or kill you on Dread Tests and for 10 points more getting a unit that can actually ruin someone’s day with a meltagun and plasma gun is pretty solid. This gives Chaos Space Marines four solid Troops choices in their games, and that’s pretty cool. Elites If you’re taking the Master of Executions, chances are you want him to have the Mark of Slaanesh so he can fight first after intervening. This turns him into an especially deadly counter-charge threat, as staying more than 6” away from him is a real challenge. Traitor Enforcer

We’ve come a long way from this guy costing 888 points for narrative reasons. The Lord of Skulls is like a less mobile knight that trades access to Chaos Knight Stratagems and rules for the and DAEMON ENGINE KEYWORDS. The Lord of Skulls comes with the Khorne keyword baked in and comes with a big axe and two guns – a gorestorm cannon and a hades gatling cannon. You can swap out the gorestorm for an ichor or daemongore cannon, while the hades gatling cannon can be swapped for a skullhurler. Ultimately the base loadout is fine; the Daemongore cannon is short-ranged but great, while the Hades Gatling cannon has solid AP and enough shots to be worth looking at, though the Skullhurler is also very good as a replacement, though much less reliable. The Lord of Skulls is a fairly tough monster, sitting on T8 and a 2+ save, plus a 5+ invulnerable save and daemonic regeneration. It can get some strong synergies depending on the Legion. My favorite one is running it alongside your Word Bearers and using Hexagrammatic Ward to 0 out of the damage from a Railgun into your un-obscurable KLOS. It’s a fine include in a World Eaters army, though if you want to get it a legion trait you’ll need to take three of them, which is, uh, a lot. Alternatively you can try and pad out a detachment with cheaper options like the Kytan or the Brass Scorpion but more than likely you’re better off going Chaos Knights if you want to take that many big machines. Kytan Ravager This versatile multipart plastic kit allows you to assemble a squad of five fearsome Chaos Terminators. Each of these formidable warriors is equipped with a combi-bolter as standard, providing a deadly mix of rapid-fire bolter shots, while two of them can be upgraded to wield combi-flamers, two to combi-meltas, and one to a combi-plasma gun for added tactical flexibility. In close combat, they unleash havoc with their melee weapons, featuring three power fists, an armor-splitting chainfist, and an array of accursed weapons including axes, blades, and a maul. Additionally, the kit includes two lightning claws that can be used individually or paired for maximum carnage. To further bolster their firepower, you can choose between a heavy flamer for close-range devastation or a long-ranged reaper autocannon for precision strikes.

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You will want to support this unit’s charge with a Chaos Lord or Daemon Prince for re-rolls of 1s to hit. My vote is a Daemon Prince with wings since it will have no trouble keeping up with teleporting Terminators. The Daemon Prince can also come with a fiendish psychic power to use – like Death Hex . If you remove an enemy’s invulnerable save you’re in business with your lightning claw-wielding Terminators. As an added bonus, this model is a WARP LOCUS, so he can drop in any Daemon codex units that have tagged along a mere 6” from the enemy. Flamers and Bloodletters love getting close to the enemy, but do note he is restricted to Warp Locus-ing units from the same God if he is anything besides Undivided. Dark Apostle The Blood Slaughterer is a moderately fast melee vehicle with moderate melee output. It doesn’t have a particularly impressive damage profile but it can be useful in Red Corsairs, where it gains the ability to Advance and charge after moving 16”. You’ve got better, cheaper options, though. Dreadclaw Drop Pod (FW) Chaos Space Marines have access to a single Fortification, The Noctilith Gate . It’s a very pretty boondoggle that suffers from the same issues that most fortifications have. Namely that it’s big, hard to deploy, and will sit in your deployment zone all game while the majority of your units want to be pushing toward the middle of the table grabbing objectives. The Crown has a 4+ invulnerable save aura which expands in range every turn, but again, the thing is only even deployable meaningfully in some tournaments and it’s not worth the effort to bring. You get these free if your Apostle has a mark. They’ve all got their uses, and do more than just buffing your Dark Apostle these days.