Chaos Space Marines: The Black Crusade

Greetings minions, Son of Horus here. This is the first of what I hope will be many articles about playing, assembling, army building, and painting Chaos Space Marines. I figured with all the loyalist love on the site, a view from the Traitor Legions would be a welcome break.

For my first article I decided to discuss my prep for this years 'Ard Boyz tournament. I have 3 trains of thought for how I'm going to get prepared for this years tournament.
1.) What's Powerful - As 'Ard Boyz has no soft scores to determine outcome and only cares about winning, it frees people up to play the lists that they wouldn't normally play. For this reason I'm expecting to see people packing armies from the newer codecies (ie. Imperial Guard, Tyranids, Blood Angels) and some powerful old favorites (Drop Pod Marines, Green Tide Orks). Of these I think I should be most prepared for large hordes of Imperial Guard, Tyranids, and Orks. These armies allow you to field massive amounts of cheap guys that can just flat overwhelm the specialty armies like mine. So how does one beat these guys? That brings me to point #2.

2.) How do I beat the best? - Beating the big guys comes down to knowing and exploiting their weaknesses. Imperial Guard loses to close combat. If you're able to get to them before the tanks blow you to bits then you can tear them apart and prevent their tanks from shooting your infantry. Tyranids can suffer if you're able to off their synapse creatures and use your long range weaponry to soften up their lines before they get to you. The same is true of Orks. Just use your guns to soften them up on their way across the table. These kind of armies HAVE to come to you if their going to win so there's no reason to make it easy for them by going out to meet them.

3.) What about the other guys? - It can't all be Nids and Orks and Guard. How does one handle the guy that shows up with Marines or Eldar? Marines hit very hard and are able to get in behind your lines with drop pods and assault marines. The same is true with an extremely fast Eldar army that get up in your lines on turns 1 and 2. This can be quite problematic if you're not ready for these kinds of things. You have to have an army that is balanced enough to handle these kinds of armies as well as getting at the big guys.

This is the army list I decided on. Lots of thanks to Chris and Carlos for the help and the ideas.

HQ
Typhus - 225 pts
Kharn The Betrayer - 165 pts

Elites
Chaos Terminators x4 - 120 pts
-Pairs of Lightning Claws x4 +40 pts
-Icon of Khorne +30 pts
190 pts

Chaos Terminators x4 - 120 pts
-Heavy Flamer +5 pts
-Power Fist x2 +20 pts
-Chain Fist +15 pts
-Combi-Melta x3 +15 pts
-Icon of Nurgle +40 pts
215 pts

Troops
Plague Marines x7 - 161 pts
-Plague Champion +15 pts
-Power Sword +15 pts
-Plasma Gun +15 pts
Rhino - 35 pts
-Havoc Launcher +15 pts
256 pts

Plague Marines x7 - 161 pts
-Plague Champion +15 pts
-Power Sword +15 pts
-Plasma Pistol +15 pts
-Flamer +5 pts
-Meltagun +10 pts
Rhino - 35 pts
-Havoc Launcher +15 pts
271 pts

Khorne Berserkers x10 - 210 pts
-Skull Champion +15 pts
-Power Axe +15 pts
-Plasma Pistol +15 pts
Rhino - 35 pts
-Havoc Launcher +15 pts
300 pts

Khorne Berserkers x10 - 210 pts
-Skull Champion +15 pts
-Power Fist +25 pts
-Plasma Pistol +15 pts
Rhino - 35 pts
-Havoc Launcher +15 pts
315 pts

Fast Attack
Chaos Bikers x3 - 99 pts
-Meltagun x2 +20 pts
119 pts

Heavy Support
Chaos Land Raider x2 - 440 pts

2496 pts

I came to this list after several weeks of research on various sites and just by listening to the buzz in the store and looking at the results of the last tournament. I wont really go into the strategy behind the list (I don't wanna give you potential opponents a leg up on me after all :) ), but I will say that I should be able to handle my own against most of the armies I'll be seeing. I feel that the only problem I'll have are in those Annihilation missions against the horde style armies.

The most glaring omission that people have pointed out to me is my lack of a Defiler in the first list. I made the decision to run dual Land Raiders over a Defiler because I felt it would be a better option to get my heavy hitters into combat as soon as possible. Khornite Terminators with Lightning Claws assaulting out of a Land Raider and led by Kharn himself could cause major havoc on enemy troops in the early going. Being able to re-deploy them by getting back into the Raider and moving to a more vital part of the battlefield could be game-breaking late in the game. I really expect these guys to wreak all kinds of death on the enemy all over the board. The same holds true for putting Toughness 5 Terminators anywhere I want them on the battlefield in the midst of enemy assault troops. This is potentially devastating.

That's all the time I have for today. Next time I'll go over converting Scout Bikers into Chaos Bikers and Assault Terminators into Chaos Terminators. Until then
DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!!