Chaos Gun List

To cap off the review of our useful and useless guns, I believe it is time for an army list! 1850 points, keeping to the guns.



HQ

Chaos Lord - Mos, Terminator Armour, Combi Plasma, Power Sword, Warlord - 130

Elites

Helbrute - Missile Launcher (power Fist) - 110
Helbrute - Twin linked lascannon, missile launcher - 135
4 Terminators - 4 combi plasma, 3 power axes, 1 power sword - 151



Troops

5 Noise Marines - Blastermaster - 125
5 Noise Marines - Blastermaster - 125
5 Noise Marines - Blastermaster - 125

Fast Attack

Heldrake - Baleflame - 170
Heldrake - Baleflame - 170

Heavy Support

5 Havocs - 4 lascannons - 155
5 Havocs - 4 lascannons - 155
3 Oblitorators - MoN - 228

Agus Defence Line - Comms - 70

Total: 1849

My first thought going into this army is range, I want to out range other armies and bring a lot more firepower to bear at that range than my opponent can take. So seeing as the miracle number for Chaos Marine heavy weapons is 48" I thought to stuff the list full with 48" ranged weaponry.

Starting with my heavy support, two squads of havocs with lascannons, finished with a unit of 3 oblitorators with MoN to give them far more durability and not get double tapped so easily. This right off the bat gives me 8 Lascannons to fire a turn and the oblits every 2nd turn, not what I would call soft by any means.

Next came the Elites, 2 helbrutes both armed with missile launchers and one with a Twin linked lascannon. These are to form what I call 'Rooks' in my gun line, a model which can stand out in the open and attract attention/ get in the way of enemies wanting to kill my troops, even if it means sacrificing themselves, they can also be sneaky and hide quiet easily behind small pieces of terrain, giving them a cheeky cover save. Also they each have a 1 in 3 chance of going haywire and shooting twice into an enemy unit, doubling the amount of damage potential. However, we are not to rely on that for anything, as they have the same chance to decided to run off somewhere and get themselves killed.

For my Fast Attack, it was simple. Two heldrakes zipping around over the field barbequing anything that is hiding behind a ruin or building that I cannot see, they also double as last ditch attempts at knocking your enemies off of objectives, with a S6 AP3 flamer and S7 AP3 vectors to boot they are nasty things to come into contact with and enemy aircraft chase them all day. Good, shoot my units that are not scoring, it is what I want.

To compliment the list I decided to go with a Chaos Lord with MoS along side a Terminator body guard, all armed with Combi Plasma and a mix of Power Swords and Power Axes to jump in and deal a surprising amount of AP2 damage nice and close to my enemies late game. This can be to finish anything that has escaped my grasp, or if fleeing with the Relic.

For the troops, I decided the 5 man Blastermaster choices were a good way to go, as being fearless and hidden behind all the other deadly aspects of my army they have a good chance of surviving. Along side giving fire support to bog down my enemy with pinning and quickly take out multi-wound models, they offer me the perfect troops choice.

To top off my list, I wanted more control over my reinforcements, needing the drakes to come on turn 2 and the terminators with the lord to stay off till around turn 3 or 4, then I needed to invest in a comms, the cheapest and easiest to use is the Agus Defence line, granting all my troops and Brutes - if my placement is good - a 4+ cover save in the process to help defend against the long range firepower that my enemies may bring to bear. Over all the list holds a lot of firing potential, even if the brutes don't do much, they are cheap and used correctly they may even get points back or help win the game.

Now one thing I know you are thinking, why is he taking Brutes? Well there is a couple of good reasons, so I shall go through them:

1: Enemies seem so keen to kill them, they forget everything else.

This is surprisingly true, many of times have my enemies fired big scary guns into a single DreadBrute that should have been used to tear apart my infantry first turn. Although most times resulting in the Dreadnaugh- I mean Helbrute falling over. They have wasted valuable firepower taking out something I think should die every game, instead of taking out the scoring units earlier on.

2: Death Vs Output.

This type of goes next to what I was saying above, enemies using big guns to kill Mr Dread...naught...Brute... well how much firepower have they taken out of my army? 1 S8 and 1 S9 shot? or the happy one who gets a power fist and never gets to use it? Seen as though the - ok, I am going to call them Dreadnaughts, because that is what they are. Seriously GW, why did you change their names? you are not fooling us - Dreadnaught has the least amount of firepower and use in my army, you might as well ignore them.

3: If I get first turn, it doesn't matter.

Ok, First blood. If the game is not night fight and I am going first - so 25% of games, hopefully - I will have enough firepower to bring something down. Even if I don't get first turn, my enemies might not have that much ranged fire power, or I can hide them around a corner or behind my Agus. Simple.

4: A big argument.

Ok, a big argument for being against two Dreadnaughts would be "it's actually cheaper to get a Land Raider" Which, if you trade in both of them, it is. The land raider has better armour, similar fire power, and can transport my lord and his Termis, making it a Dedicated transport, also it can hide behind the Agus and adds two more Twin-linked Lascannons to my gun count. It can also use it's search lights to illuminate things in night fighting...

Hang on... Dam! I've just given a viable reason to not take HelDreadnaughts, well... Ok, I give up on them, take a Raider, they are much better.