Giving +1 Toughness is going to do the most work for you on T4 models, but you can also pair this with something like Berzerkers to give them Strength 7 on the charge, helping them hack up vehicles. One of the new additions to the faction is the TRAITORIS ASTARTES keyword, which helps differentiate the more standard Chaos Space Marines from the likes of the Death Guard (Bubonic Astartes) and Thousand Sons (Arcana Astartes). While you’re at it, join us on the Warhammer 40,000 Facebook page and let us know what your plans are for developing your Battleforce! Overall, this gives a HQ, a Troops, a Fast Attack, and one or two Heavy Support units (depending on whether you field the Obliterators as one or two squads) – this means you can start playing a game straight away, giving a good core to build an army around. Despite the ease of build, it is still packed full of details, covered in furs and feathers, to make it stand out from the rest of your army.

Being able to fight first with multiple units in your army can really throw a wrench into an opponent’s plans, though note that “at the start of the Fight phase” rider – you won’t fight first if a unit gets into Engagement Range with a pile in or consolidate move. When building your army, ‘The Lost and the Damned’ allows you to include a limited number of World Eaters Khorne Berzerkers, Thousand Sons Rubric Marines, or Death Guard Plague Marines in your army, replacing their faction keyword with Heretic Astartes. Although this box has now been replaced by Combat Patrol: Chaos Space Marines (you can see my review here), many of its component parts are still available separately.On top of that, the Mark of Slaanesh gives you the Murderous Perfection Stratagem, letting you change a die roll for a hit/wound/damage to a 6 in the Shooting or Fight phase, while Excessive Cruelty lets you punish enemy units attempting to Fall Back by consolidating 3” or shooting the unit leaving. you may remember how disapointed fans were to recieve what was essentially 4 cardboard boxes and some dice. Once, this World Eater was an intelligent and empathetic warrior who only took pleasure in bloodshed once his terrible, torturous brain implants, the Butcher’s Nails, took hold. The Dark Prince’s kink-obsessed never-born followers are all about pleasure and pain – both giving and receiving – with a battlefield focus on finesse and vicious, unmatched swiftness. The transfers in the box give you options for six different Chaos Legions: Black Legion, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, Night Lords, and Thousand Sons.

When approaching a brand new Chaos Space Marine army, there’ll be a variety of ways to build out a competitive, complete force, which will depend on the way you want to go and what you want to focus on. Not only are they absolutely AMAZING on the battlefield (seriously, check out our article on the subject), but they’re commonly used to provide Vanguard strike forces with heavy fire support and spearhead assaults, so they’ll fit the Detachment’s theme perfectly! There’s a few exceptions: if a unit already has one of these keywords it doesn’t gain another; Psykers can never have the Khorne keyword; and Characters must have the same keyword as the bodyguard unit they join. Still a very good power, though the WC 7 requirement does make it a bit of a crap shoot compared to other powers. Instead, we’ll cover each section with a general discussion of the good units, relics and stratagems, point out any traps, and then discuss how these pieces fit into a competitive army.

A hasty bit of rethinking and retooling, along with some new lore, saw the idea of a schism in the Imperium being born. For Chaos Space Marines, you have access to two disciplines: The Dark Hereticus discipline and the Malefic discipline.

All TRAITORIS ASTARTES units (excluding CULTISTS, SLAVES TO DARKNESS, and AGENTS OF CHAOS) with this ability gain a Legion Trait, provided every unit in your army is from the same Legion.Hopefully, we’ll see an update to the Chaos transfers soon, otherwise some factions, like Emperor’s Children and Red Corsairs, will need to be bought separately. Chaos Space Marines have some of the game’s best melee threats – Possessed, Abaddon, Chaos Space Marines, Lords Discordant, Masters of Executions, and Chosen are all absolutely nasty threats, and you can make most of them even better with relics, warlord traits, and upgrades.

From this omnipresent, immaterial realm stems the most pernicious and nefarious enemy of the mortal races in 40k, the reason for thecivil warthat split the Imperium of man and the reason why its ‘immortal’ Emperor of Mankindis now a wasted skeleton wired to a chair: the malign and ever-tenacious forces of Chaos.Note that as of the time of this writing, Khorne Berzerkers come with the Mark Of Khorne and have it baked into their points cost, so you don’t need to pay additional points for their Mark Of Khorne. It does appear, especially with some revelations in some of the novels, that the rot which led many Space Marines to the dark side set in exceedingly early.