Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (section)

==Builds==
This section is divided into three main parts: There's the "fluffy" section for people that want to run armies that adhere closely to how the nine Traitor Legions work, the "min-max" section that does a more clinical analysis of what is/isn't competitive with Chaos, and the misc/FUN/shits & giggles section. As usual, YMMV and caveat emptor and all that funky jazz.

===Legion-Specific Guidelines===
For the first time since the legendary 3.5 codex, making a fluffy yet powerful Legion army is now an option thanks to the Traitor Legions Supplement! Just in case we failed to mention anything in previous or later sections of the tactica, here are some suggestions/tips/observations for compiling a Traitor Legion detachment.

====Alpha Legion====
Alpha Legion is about sneakiness, infiltration tactics, and highly-trained Cultist teams. Alliances of Convenience with Orks are not unknown (as one may recall from [[Dawn of War]]). Fortunately for you, the Alpha Legion tactics do just this, allowing cultists, Chosen, and Marines to infiltrate. In addition, they allow any character to generate a warlord trait after your warlord dies. Who's the real Alpharius? Oh, and they don't get Slay the Warlord unless they kill every character in your army.
*With so many infiltrating units, it is very easy to dominate the early game. Set up 5 plasma gun chosen to assassinate the enemy warlord; melta chosen for armored targets. 20 Man CSM squads plopped onto objectives or close to the enemy (circumventing the need for transports). Cultists infiltrated onto back/midfield objectives. Flamers to crisp some nasty CC units before they can get into combat. '''THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!'''

====Black Legion====
Choice is the name of the game here. With no restriction on marks, you are the only Legion that has access to the entirety of the CSM range, minus characters. Including the new TSons and (soon) Death Guard units. This makes a CAD rather interesting to play with. You also have two warbands to choose from. For killpoint games you have the Black Legion warband, for everything else you have the chaos warband, unless of course you feel like murderizing units off of objectives rather than competing with other ObSec units. So between the aptly named Black Crusade, our Speartip and CAD/formations and access to all units, you can be defensive, aggressive or anything in between. Hell, you can even give TSons a run for their money in the psychic phase. And being the largest Legion by far, it's all fluffy too.

The Black Legion supplement provides a few starting points for fluffy lists. Hounds of Abaddon are a khorne warband with their own formation and it's a core choice for the speartrike. Khorne in general works really well with army wide Hatred. Plays similar to WE. Another option is to go ham on elite choices. We get ObSec terminators and chosen in a CAD and it doesn't interfere with turning the cult units of your choice into troops as well. Spice with Forge World and formations as needed. Cultists are for peasants. Or go full glass cannon with the speartip and enjoy turn 1 assaults with possibly the best legion for the raptor talon and maybe a terminator annihilation force. If you somehow still have points, bring the psychic dakka with a cabal and let the galaxy burn.

====Night Lords====
The Raptor Talon was tailor-made for Night Lords players. Night Lord Raptor Talons inflict [[Rape|-4 LD]] on units the turn they charge. Plus, now it's a core choice for the Night Lords Decurion! To make your horde of Fear-inducing Marines even more absurdly successful, bring the Heldrake Terror Pack formation to force more penalties on your opponents during fear tests.Milage may vary against loyalist Marines, but you do have the cover saves to really make use of the re-rolled charge in the decurion. Still absurdly successful against most other armies in terms of failed fear tests.

====Iron Warriors====
Iron Warriors play differently from most Chaos armies in that they emphasize shooting rather than herohammer. Their Warlord table has a lot of stinkers or depend on your army composition: you will [[Rage]] when your Lord or Daemon Prince gets Fearless, gives all your nearby Daemon Engines It Will Not Die when they already have it, or lets your Obliterators fire the same gun when you didn't take Obliterators!

Thankfully, Obliterator troops mean you can take a minimum-sized CAD (or 2) and get Strategic. It's because of this that the Cult of Destruction is ironically usually not worth taking for Iron Warriors!

If you take the Grand Company, you're doing it either because you love pieplates, or you want to re-enact the Iron Cage and plop down lots of Fortifications. Or you can do both: You can take a pair of Vengeance Weapon Batteries with Battle Cannons, or a Firestorm Redoubt which you can then garrison with a unit of [[Awesome|Objective Secured Tank Hunter Havocs! And the Battle Cannons reroll scatter]]! Fist of the Gods becomes a fun formation if you want to throw down 3 Vindicators, and if you use Legacies of Ruin, you can grant one of them Outflank to really keep your opponent guessing where the next attack will come from!

That said, don't go overboard. You can do Fortification-spam, Vindicator-spam, or even (for more casual games) taking an odd Defiler in support of Maulerfiends, but you won't be able to do it all at once; taking more than one Warpsmith in games less than 2000 points will be a heavy tax for most of your armies, and you should almost never take more than two. If you're playing at lower points or just want to field more bodies, the humble Munitorium Armored Crate is only 10 points more than a Spawn Auxiliary and provides a good deal of support for your Warband, from additional cover, ammo crates to help your Havocs shoot better, and even the Fuel Tanks can let you turn a unit of Chaos Bikes or two into a jury-rigged Torrent flamer team.

====Word Bearers====
While Word Bearers have access to all Marks of Chaos, unlike most legions, they have some of the weakest legion rules, which revolve around a few particular HQ choices. Possessed as Troops in a CAD with no other improvements to their rules are still a bad unit, while the Dark Apostle 6" range is small and only gives Hatred and Fearless(which other legions can get for free). The harnessing of warp charges for Conjurations on a 3+ is the strongest benefit from playing Word Bearers: combining this with a Spell Familiar, and you summon daemons more efficiently than most daemons. You will have to keep this in mind when building the list: free VotLW is the only thing your basic Chaos Space Marines gain from(not counting formation and detachment rules), without the help of your supporting HQs. 

Because Possessed themselves are bad, and Word Bearers do not get any other advantages to support running Forgeworld-heavy lists, most Word Bearers lists should start with a Grand Host rather than a CAD. Although Eight-Fold Path is mostly inferior to Path to Glory in the Black Crusade detachment (you can use it on Daemon Princes or Warpack characters, but it doesn't benefit from Favored Scions and you can't pile blessings), Crusader allows your grunts to get across the board faster while the Word Bearers Warlord Table is rather nice. The question is whether you want to do a Cultist-heavy build, or a Marine-focused build. 

The Cultist build is pretty simple: Use a Lost and the Damned Core, but try to balance the ratio of Cultists to actual killing power; the main reason for this formation is how expendable it is. The Warpack actually makes sense as an Auxiliary for this army, as taking several Daemonology Psykers means you have respectable odds of getting Cursed Earth, plus Warlord Psyker Defiler remains the most memetic Crab Cathedral (Crabthedral) to emerge from rule interactions; take advantage of Crusader so your Cultists can run forth, jam movement, etc. 

The Marine-focused build will go for a Warband, and try to take advantage of the ability to mix-and-match Marks. If you want some Cultists to support this build, one option is to use a Helbrute as your mandatory "Heavy" requirement for the formation, then take an allied Helcult so you have a second Brute and two units of super-unbreakable Cultists. If you're feeling cheeky, you can attach your Lord/Sorcerer to each Cultist unit so they also get Crusader, and move faster towards objectives (presumably the Grand Host characters are whipping them up into a religious frenzy). Bring Spawn or other..OHGODNOARRRGRMGH...as the other anon was saying, other fast-moving assault elements can put additional pressure on your opponent, so that MSU Bikes are not your only trick!

No matter whether you go for a Marine or Cultist-focused build, a Palanquin Summoner is a good pick for your army, as the blessings from Lore of Nurgle can buff your army to do nasty things, while the extra wounds give you additional breathing room for casting powers despite Perils. Though you can run Bike Sorcerers, you're not really taking advantage of the Word Bearers' main draw if you do this. On the other hand, a Daemon detachment (be it Allied Detachment, CAD, or Heralds Anarchic) can provide you a lot of extra Warp Charge to play with as well as Paradox. When you can reliably expect to get at least two free units of Flesh Hounds per turn, while you're running lots of small threats, you can maintain a momentum over your opponent that is more powerful than it appears at first glance!

====World Eaters====
The Butcherhorde is pretty amazing. <s>(Fill in the rest here, World Eaters players!)</s> Don't mind if I do!

* The Detachment is good for a noncompetitive setting because the 2d6 pre-movement will be negated because you don't want your Berserkers from the Maelstorm of Gore to sit out in the open and get shot to death. However, instead of bringing Kharn, bring a Juggerlord with the Talisman of Burning Blood and put them in a bike or spawn unit and now they have a pre-movement of 2d6, base movement of 15" and a charge of + 6" if the Lord is from the Maelstrom of Gore (note: the other model's in the unit he's in won't get that extra 3 inches, so you'll have to put your Lord in front Mad Max style). You can easily get first blood and if you bring the Raptor Talon which can charge when they come from reserves, you can disrupt the front lines turn 1 with the Lord and spawn then charge the back lines with the Raptors/Warp Talons turn 2. Then charge with the Bersekers turn 3. You can bring an additional JuggerLord with the Dimensional Key so your Deep Striking units do not scatter.

* As most opponents will be smart enough to not deploy on the edge of their deployment zone (or they're Tau), a Gorepack for scouting Flesh Hound escorts makes your turn two charges all the more devastating. Mixing in more Khorne Deamonkin like a JuggerLord with Blood Forged Armour and Axe of Khorne escorted by scouted Hounds can be great anti-charge/tarpit units as well. You wouldn't want your Axe of Blind Fury or Gorefather JuggerLords bogged down by Wraiths now, would you? Pretty sure those things don't even have skulls...

* Speaking of special weapon wielding warriors of wape: this army has a few very strong toys to play with. Where Death Guard can MSU and Alpha Legion can Cultists spam, HQ spam seems to be the name of the game with World Eaters. JuggerLords with AoBF or Gorefather are a must. A Deamon Prince with Berzerkers Glaive will make your opponent scream in terror as they fire volley after volley into him before the inevitable bladed insertion. Any Warpsmith (escorting Obliterators) or Dark Apostle (escorting Cultists) can be tricked out with a Burning Brand of What-Do-You-Mean-It's-AP3-Torrent. The trick to a good assault army is to give your opponent too many high priority targets to choose from. If they're too busy taking out your Deamon Prince they'll leave your Spawn wrapped JuggerLords alone, leaving them free to run wild in their deployment zone.

* One very important rule to remember is to not split your forces. World Eater units aren't tough, you will get shot a whole bunch and you will be removing models by the handful at times, but if anything gets close to your mass of swirling axes and flailing tentacles its going to get mulched. Nothing kills you faster than your own hubris, however, and thinking you can split off one unit of Chaos Space Marines to deal with something is a surefire way to get those Marines killed by shooting/PSYKIC NONSENSE. Be a red tide of death crashing into the enemy on mass and you will have success.

“monuments are dust, tales merely words soon forgotten, but blood, blood is forever” 
Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters

====Death Guard====

Another approach is a Death Guard Vectorium with a Chaos Warband with plenty of Havocs and a Cult of Destruction for added versatility. Use Nurgle Bikers to intercept enemy melee specialists.

The Plague Colony Formation compensates your -1 Initiative by also inflicting it on the enemy, along with -1 WS - putting enemy MEQs on the same level as your walkers. So give your Plague Colony some Rhinos, combine with Maulerfiends from a Hellforged Warpack, don't forget the Dirge Casters and maybe add a bunch of Nurgle Bikers. Cue Advancing Wall of Death. Very expensive but can really put a dent in things (especially in Apocalypse games).

====Emperor's Children====
Turn up your sonic weapons to 11 with the Kakophoni formation. Noise Marines in the Decurion have S5 sonic blasters and S9 blastmasters with Shred. Judicious application of Slaanesh psychic powers allows for potential S6+ and S10! ''Yeah good luck with that. You only get the +1S if you field 6 Noise Marine units. That means with minimum Noise Marine units without Icons or Rhinos but with their weapons of course + a Lord without any upgrades would cost you already 980p. Good thing we all play 3k point games everytime, right?'' Things shall get loud now. A Helcult povides you with nice mobile cover, AP2 and is a good way to represent your pleasure slaves. Lost and Damned, while flakier, unlock -and take- Combat Drugs. Alternately take a Chaos Warband for Anti-Air and AP2.

The Raptor Talon really benefits from the Slaaneshi Decurion, especially when you combine it with a melee oriented Chaos Warband.

====Thousand Sons====
There are two ways to go about running Thousand Sons. The first way would be to run a Tzeentchian Sorcerer, unlock Thousand Sons troops, and...that's about it really. Add anthing with a 5++ save to benefit most from MoT and thus legion tactics, maybe a Skyshield Landing Pad as magical fortress for your Havocs. Or start with a War Cabal and expand from there.  Thankfully, Traitor's Hate gives you more leeway in running a wizarding army, and without the need to lock your own Sorcerers into using the Mark of Tzeentch. Run "The Lost and the Damned" as your main core, for the gaggle of cultists/Spireguard that are kept as servants, and add at least two Thousand Sons units as your Auxiliary of choice. Run several Sorcerers with your Command Choices, Add some [[Chaos Spawn|Things Which Must Not Be Named]] or Heldrakes as additional auxiliaries, and max out points on getting . Why not consider adding a Daemon CAD for additional variety as well?

Ok so this has been playtested once and I will try it a few more times before my final verdict but after the first game this is my opinion.
The Ahriman's Exiles Formation. You cannot get any more elite than this. Ahriman and 3-9 Exalted Sorcerers to get a 3+ warp charge. Now, this is a veeeery pricey formation in points, I played a 1k game and it had only four models in it. All were on discs, familiared when possible and level 3. I also threw in some artefacts like the Murder Sword which really paid off. Now I lost on points (Crusade with three of five obj in the opponents board half made things tricky) but that was partly down to my only mistakes early on and some bad luck. The trick is that you rarely perils thanks to 3+ rerollable Warp Charge rolls and if you pick your disciplines right you end up with a very tough (Endurance and Warp Fate almost every turn) unit that can constantly keep out of combat until it wants to get stuck in. At 1500 you add some more Sorcerers and maybe a Malefic one to expand your presence and it could be quite nasty to handle.

===[[Dwarf fortress|Fun]], fluffy and Semi-old builds===
*'''STD squelch:''' (Nurgle oriented). Ever wanted to have a legit CSM army that numbers many models ''and'' is fluffy? Then, my dirty friend, this one's for you. Take 9 units of cultists (minimum size) an Apostle to make the Lost and the Damned formation, then add Typhus. The fun part is that Typhus makes these meat puppets  Fearless zombies with Slow and Purposeful and FnP, while the Apostle makes every wiped unit come back on 4+ from ongoing reserves. With ''Outflank''. Let that sink in. Then add 3 Vindicators and a Warpsmith for some well-needed firepower. The grind is real when the enemy is guaranteed to be tarpitted ''or'' blasted back into the age of pre-industrial Russia by the Vindicators (they can combine their shots into 1 apoc-blast). All of this would be just under 1.300pts, with more than enough room for whatever bile-infused mayhem you may need to complete a Black Crusade detachment!

*'''Love Parade''' (Nurgle+Slaanesh). Take the Kakophoni Formation at full size, sorcerer included, add a Helcult at full size with MoN (representing drugs) and 6 flamers, and an [[Chaos Spawn|unnamable beast]] as mascot to get that sweet Combat Drugs detachment bonus. With the Kakophoni at minimum model count for 6 blastmasters, some 65 cultists and various upgrades it costs you 1500 pts, with the Kakophoni at minimum model count for 12 blastmasters and 6 icons of excess it costs 2500 pts. Give the helbrute a plasma cannon for some AP2, and all you miss is air defense.

*'''Poop Bucket Prince:''' ''Many times proven to work in practice''. Upgrade your DP with MoN, Burning Brand and lvl 3 Mastery Level. Fly around the map, dropping AP2 pie plates full of shit and AP3 torrents full of morning breath, while being hit on 6'es and having 2+ jink save. If you jink and have to give up that torrent, don't worry, as you still have those awesome Nurgle powers left to itch your opponent with. Throw in a [[Heldrake|Hellturkey]] for free beverage during your game consisting of your opponent's salty tears.

*'''Choo-Choo Chosen:''' Chosen can take 5 special weapons. That's possibly '''5 MELTA GUNS!''' Alternatively, you can give up to 4 of those special weapons for fists/claws/power weaps. You can either cram squads of 10 of them in Rhinos, or drop them in Dreadclaws and gear them how you want to function. There are three ways to run "mass Chosen."
**'''Take Abaddon:''' The most immediate one, Abaddon makes Chosen Troops. This is fun if you face lots of Marine players, since his Preferred Enemy Bubble will add up. However, if you're not facing Marines, his bonus won't matter as much...however, he is still ultimately a giant beatstick capable of bringing the pain. You have the option to Deep Strike him in, either with Terminator pals or in a Dreadclaw (since he would presumably be your Infernal Warpsmith, he would be effectively immune to being "nommed" on by his own transport), or run him in a Land Raider if you're bleeding points (how did you manage that?!)
**'''Run a Black Legion army:''' Black Legion get Chosen Troops, or the Black Legion Warband lets them take additional units. However, they '''must''' take Veterans of the Long War, which the Black Legion used to pay points for - paying an extra 10 points per 5 guys could add up fast! Fortunately, the updated rules from the Traitor Legions supplement lets them take VotLW for free, so this isn't such a drawback anymore. Meanwhile, you don't have to pay for csm or cultists regardless of your HQ - use that to your advantage. 
**'''(Forgeworld) Run The Purge:''' A Purge Detachment switches things around so rather than making Chosen troops, you only need to run mandatory Elites instead. The only catch is you can't Mark your Chosen with anything besides the Mark of Nurgle, but if you weren't planning to Mark them anyway, it's no big loss.
**'''Alpha Legion:''' Not only are Chosen Troops, they also get Infiltrate! Add a few infiltrating regular marines and cultists for distraction and you are golden.

===The Min-Max Section===
*'''Cabalstar''' - The Cabalstar is one of the more common builds if you're trying to build Chaos with a degree of competitive viability. Simply put, you're taking the Cyclopia Cabal for multiple Sorcerers, and you're looking for a suitable unit to make a Deathstar out of; add supporting fire support and objective-grabbing units to flavor, be they Bikers, Cultists, or whatnot. While you "could" experiment with making a Cabalstar out of other units, deathstars work best when they bring their own mobility, and thus the two notable units used for stars are:
**'''[[Chaos Spawn|You-know-whats]]:''' You get 3 high-toughness wounds for a reasonable price, but lack any Invulnerable Save, and lack raw damage. That said, if you're giving one Sorcerer the Black Mace, chances are that Sorcerer is also rolling Biomancy in order to fish for Iron Arm; if you get Endurance, the things-that-must-not-be-named become that much tougher against many things.
**'''Flesh Hounds:''' The more popular option for running a Cabalstar, though if you're using Chaos Marines as your primary, this would effectively eat up three detachments, which would limit your options depending on if you're playing in certain tournament formats. Because Daemonkin Flesh Hounds do NOT have Daemonic Instability, there's nothing preventing you from joining Sorcerers to them. Ironically enough, Sanctic Daemonology is a good discipline to use on these guys; Hammerhand makes them that much deadlier and capable of grinding down more enemies due to weight of attacks, while Sanctuary improves their armor save while being stackable with Cursed Earth. The best thing though is that because the Flesh Hounds are Beasts, they're immune to the "Difficult and Dangerous Terrain" side effects of Sanctuary. Gate of Infinity gives them a "get out of jail free" card against certain problem units as well. Or you can just take an Alpha Legion Lord with the Mindveil and you will be able to move in and out of combat better than the White Scars!
* '''[[Dark Mechanicus]]''' - Other than the Maulerfiend and certain Forgeworld units, most Chaos Walkers are slow and don't have good alternate deployment options (most of your Dreadnought Chassis models can take Dreadclaws as DTs). They do provide unique fire support vectors and the potential for a lot of long-term damage over the course of a game, so if you do want to give them a go, you better go "All In." That said, there are several formations that cater to playing a Walker-heavy army in different ways; all three Helbrute Dataslate formations have their use, 
**'''Fast Builds:''' If you're looking for something more aggressive and "In Your Face", then you're probably playing Daemonkin instead. That said, even for such an army it probably pays to have fire support or "more maulerfiends" so it still helps to bring either Warpsmith formation (the Black Legion one or the other one). If you're using Forgefiends as fire support, having extra turns of Daemonforge will generally carry you farther than said Forgefiends getting Blood For The Blood God. 
**'''Attrition Builds:''' A "simple" build for 1850 points is: One Helcult with two units of 35 Cultists and a Helbrute, a Warpack with Warpsmith Tax, Helbrute, 3 Forgefiends and a Defiler (Alpha Beast), and a Forgehost with 3 Soulgrinders of Slaanesh (two with Torrent, and one with Bombardment). The Helcult gives you unconditionally fearless bodies to screen with or edge around for objectives with (it may help to keep the second unit in reserve), the Forgefiends give you "solid-strength" shooting for blowing through Knights/Void Shields/etc, and the rest of the Walkers provide a mix of fire support and speed to play the objectives game. 
**'''Experiment''' - The Mayhem Pack can be cute for certain "beta-strike" lists. Forgeworld gives more options of course, with the Plague Hulk being a "discount Soulgrinder", and the Blood Slaughterer allowing you some board control shenanigans with moving enemy units around. Malefic Daemonology can help, as the difference between a 5++ and a 4++ adds up across multiple vehicles, while the Void Shield can provide some protection. Remember that nothing is so tough that it cannot be killed by a D-weapon, Haywire, or Assaults, and plan accordingly.

*'''Using Infiltration/Outflank''' - Both Ahriman and Huron have Master of Deception, so you're guaranteed to have at least one unit of Infiltrators in your army. Unlike Marines, you don't get Scouts or Scout Bikers, and the trait itself is strictly inferior to the Master Of Ambush Strategic Trait in the core rulebook, but you can at least guarantee that you'll get this power. If you don't take marks you can go Alpha Legion, making your Chosen troops and giving Chosen, CSM, and Cultists Infiltrate. And then there is Cypher and his infiltrating Chosen. For best utility, take two detachments, one for Chosen and one for infiltrating specialists. While Infiltration can be used both offensively (reposition your Havocs in a better firing position, place Obliterators in Multimelta range, outflank Chosen Rhinos, etc) and defensively (lay out a unit of Cultists to deny Scout Moves versus White Scars/Ravenwing Bikers, grant Outflank as partial defense against Skyhammers or other Alpha-strikes), you don't have the redundancy or reliability (since you could always end up only infiltrating one special unit anyway) to make a "pure" infiltration army, and any army that includes an Inquisitor with two Servo-Skulls can shut down Infiltration hard. Consider Infiltration more of a Bonus than something you build your army around.

*'''Mass Deep Strike''' - Technically, a build like this is possible, either with Purge, Formations or even through a CAD. The problem of course is that you don't get equipment that allows you to reduce Scatters, and the only reserve manipulations you have on-hand are through Fortifications. One thing you "could" do if you were feeling cheeky would be to run mass solo-Obliterators/Mutilators (either through Purge or the Cult of Destruction) with some optional form of aerial support, akin to a Chaos Lictorshame. However, you don't get the ignore cover shenanigans of that army as a whole, or the maneuverability needed for objectives play. The Terminator Annihilation Force and Raptor Talon both offer you ways to help your Strike go off more effectively however; the former letting you "beat" Interceptor, the latter letting you tie up trouble screening units from the first turn onward. Daemon allies are the most obvious pairing, as Icons can help mitigate scatter for your Obliterators while Cursed Earth prevents it entirely! However, Necrons also provide their own tools as well; a Necron CAD can provide aerial support/obsec troops at a critical location with Nightscythe Immortals, can back up your Obliterators by running solo Heavy Destroyers (in both Fast Attack **and** Heavy Support, mind you), and three of their Elite choices also have Deep Strike. Flayed Ones are your cheap ones, Praetorians are your "Special Weapon Team/melee anchor", but the real funky combo comes with Deathmarks. Since you're Allies of Convenience with Necrons, your units are enemy units to your Necrons, so anytime you manage to Deep Strike a Terminator or other unit in, you can use Ethereal Interception to have your Deathmarks immediately follow suit. They won't be able to shoot at the end of that movement phase, but they can still shoot in your Shooting phase, so if you '''really''' need that Wraithknight dead...

*'''Mechanized''' - The Loyalists have more and better mechanized formations; the Battle Company, Ironwolves, Lucifer Armored Task Force, and many others provide significant buffs or discounts that mean in a straight-up armored slugfest, you will be outnumbered and outgunned. The only "tank" formation that Chaos gets on the other hand is the Fist of the Gods which gives...6+ Invulnerable Saves. Moreso than the other ways to build a Chaos army, this one relies heavily on Formations, Forgeworld, and/or allies to pull its weight across.
**'''Mass AV 11''' - There are two ways to go about this. The non-Forgeworld way is to take a Chaos Warband, and the minimum number of Marines needed; Chosen are your Elites and Havocs are your Heavy Supports. Mount them up, and give each team either two Specials or a Special and matching Combi-weapon. Universal Obsec helps in this regard. The Forgeworld way is to run a Purge detachment and use Chosen as your mandatory Elites. You don't get Razorbacks but you can do Havoc Launchers in a pinch. Add an alternate source of AV 11 to your mix: Ork CADs give you mass Looted Wagons (even with reliability issues, 67 points for an AP 3 pieplate can add some crowd control), or Junkas if you're using Forgeworld. If you prefer a more "melee-MSU" approach and prefer the Rhinos to be support-pieces, the Seeker Calvacade lets you bring a lot of solo Seeker Chariots on the cheap. 
**'''Heavy Armor''' - Fist of the Gods gives underwhelming bonuses and saddles you with a Warpsmith tax, but is one way to take "more armor" without having to pay the requirements for a second CAD. Purge does its thing of course. Another thing to note is that most Forgeworld vehicles of this class are just plain better than the codex options available; sure, you can squadron Predators or Vindicators, but you're putting too many points in single units when that happens, and make it easier to be focus-fired. The Deimos Predator makes a scary support-piece provided you can protect it, the Sicaran is an all-around brutal vehicle, and the Relic Predator Infernus can be a source of cheap Plasma blasts that don't Gets Hot. Orks "can" up your overall resilience since Kustom Forcefields do work on enemy units, but another option is running Necrons, either with CAD tax or even just taking the Annihilation Nexus (with Doomsday Ark tax); two Sicarans and two Annihilation Barges are capable of a surprisingly respectable amount of fast-moving twin-linked S7 firepower. 

* '''Aerial Warfare''' - Other than the iconic Heldrake, Chaos does have other fliers. The Daemon Prince sacrifices durability and raw killing power for the ability to engage in close combats or combo with psychic utility (though remains very overcosted), and Forgeworld adds its share of fliers. The Hellblade is a dirt-cheap fighter for the firepower it brings, while the Chaos Fire Raptor is one of a small number of Forgeworld vehicles that is flat-out better than its Imperial equivalent.

[[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics(7E)]]
[[Category:Warhammer Tactics/Old]]

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