Chaos Marine Player Reveal Yourself!

It's 2:00am, I need to be up in 6 hours for lectures, I'm hungry, tired, and I've had a little drink. Which must mean that it's time for me to introduce myself.

Hello, my name is Tom Leighton and I will be the second author for the Northern Wastes. As it is highly likely that anything I spew out which is remotely game related will be complete rubbish I'll stick to the basics right now.

I've been playing tabletop war-games for almost 11 years now. I started off in 2003 with the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game but after encountering a new group of gamers made the switch to 40k in 2008. I dabbled in Fantasy a little with the release of the latest edition, and have recently started playing Warmachine and Hordes which I have thoroughly enjoyed. However, my main focus is 40k. Probably because I have developed a massive ego when it comes to the subject.

I've played more than half the races in 40k. In chronological order being: Eldar, Orks, Necrons, Tyranids, Daemons, Imperial Guard, Space Wolves, Chaos Space Marines and Dark Eldar. However again, my main focus here is my Chaos Space Marine army, simply because of how I like to enjoy the game. For about a year now I have been enjoying going to large independent tournaments. I went to my first Throne of Skulls in July 2012 (not a tournament) with my Wolves and it was fantastic preparation for the tournament scene, even if the general level of play is higher in independent events, and even if you don't do well at Throne of Skulls, the atmosphere is good practice.

I then proceeded with my Wolves through Battlefield Birmingham and the 2013 GT Finale, before moving straight onto Chaos. With my Chaos Space Marines, I have really been intrigued by the Codex. Since the 'we need to sell more Heldrakes' FAQ – dramatically effective as it may have been – in February, all I saw at these 2 events were really, Heldrake lists as Chaos Marines representation. The only exception being a Khorne army that was struggling in the second event.

I've run a blog over at www.wargamingrampage.blogspot.co.uk for a couple of years now, and last year I did a rather large breakdown of every unit in the FAQ (take that with a pinch of salt). When I was looking through it, it stuck me that even back in the day, CSM would really struggle to match armies such as Imperial Guard, Wolves, even old Tau, in a shooting match. In addition, combat was a struggle due to just getting mowed down by gunfire. So I set out to create a Khorne list, without any Heldrakes, that could compete at tournaments.

The original train of thought led me down to what I liked to do with my Wolves. A.K.A. Ram so many targets down my opponent's throat that they can't deal with them all. So. 3 Land Raiders, bam. Then what to put in them. Possessed? Too unreliable. Mutilators? Spits all over the keyboard. Terminators? Could do, but unable to run things down and not scoring. What I went for in the end were squads of bog standard Chaos Space Marines. I then replaced the Bolters for Close Combat Weapons for free and gave them all Mark of Khorne, so 15pts for 4 attacks on the charge per model. That isn't bad.

That said, they still needed a threat in there. You can throw a load of attacks at something but you may not kill it because of poor rolling, especially with no re-rolls. So to fill the HQ slots, I took 2 Terminator Armoured Chaos Lords with the Black Mace and the Axe of Blind Fury respectively. This is where the real threat from the Raiders comes from, as any model with a decent save or toughness can hold up the marines. Now with the Lords it's much harder. Plus they can tank for the unit with the 2+ save, plus they're fearless so they don't run off, plus the Aspiring Champion can take challenges, so the Lord is free to wreck face, plus I can still separate the Lords off to run stuff down with the marines, or leave him in there to guarantee that I'm locked in close combat and can't be shot at, etc

Obviously there are only 2 HQ slots, and the Land Raiders really aren't worthwhile without the Lord's threat. So I take the list with only two. However, an Aegis Defence Line is a must. For 50pts, I can effectively double the survivability of the Raiders with the 4+ cover against everything so long as it's not right up in my face (if I'm pressed right up against the Aegis).

In addition, there are a number of threats that the Chaos Marines struggle to deal with. For example, they will find it difficult to take down a Riptide and should it have Fusion Blasters it can just walk up and pop my Land Raiders, else force me out and make an illogical attempt to take it down. Enter 2 squads of Spawn with Mark of Nurgle. These are some of my favourite units in the game. They're quick, they're exceptionally hard to chew through, they're multi purpose and they're ridiculously cheap. Each squad of 4 Spawn is cheaper than my CSM squads.

To round off the list, I had to add another threat. Flying monstrous creatures screw me hard so I inserted the ultimate anti-flying monstrous creature slayer. A big bad flying monstrous creature of my own. The Bloodthirster with 2 Greater Gifts is exceptionally useful, and has really invalidated the Heldrake from my list. It may not be able to burn stuff off, but it can still vector strike and be a menace at the back of the board, and it has at least 1 shooting weapon. In addition, it creates this massive threat bubble of pure terror (like the Land Raiders) that opponents are fearful of getting into.

So, the list mainly revolves around threat rather than actual damage output. I have 2 vehicles with big nasties in that are extremely difficult to take out at range, which can threaten up to 24” away each. So, I can sit back, poke with Lascannons and the Bloodthirster if I need to, and I'm not unlikely to win the shooting war against most opponents as I'm so durable.

If my opponent decides to come and punch the Land Raiders, I can sit even further back, continue to poke with Lascannons and then jump on them with Spawn, the Bloodthirster, and all sorts of other gribblies including not yet mentioned Pink Horrors to make the army legal and provide additional scoring and the deckchair cultist unit.

So, that's what I play. I'll just quickly bash out what the hobby is to me and how I choose to enjoy it. I've always been pretty competitive, and as such I really enjoy the tournament scene. The community of guys that are regular players on the scene are all fantastic guys and show just how wrong the nay-sayers are regarding the nature of competitive players. I'm currently ranked 74^th in the UK according to Rankings HQ, and am currently preparing for Death or Glory 2 in 3 weeks time and the UK Grand Tournament Finale the week after that. I'm going to be shattered.