2000 Points Chaos Marines for general gaming

[BlueSwirl]

2000 points, Codex Chaos Space Marines, Fun

Description 2000 points of Night Lords and Nurgle, meant to be able to handle any situation with some competency. I don't want to have to buy 5000 points worth of stuff and have to rewrite the list for every game, I want to be able to chuck it in my carry case, go to my local club and play.

HQ

140 - Chaos Lord (Jump pack, twin lightning claws)
165 - Daemon Prince (Wings, Mark of Nurgle, Nurgle's Rot)

Elites

190 - Chaos Terminators (5 man squad, Champion w/ twin lightning claws, 2 w/ twin lightning claws)

Troops

290 - Plague Marines (10 man squad, Champion, Personal Icon, Rhino)
290 - Plague Marines (10 man squad, Champion, Personal Icon, Rhino)
225 - Chaos Marines (10 man squad, Champion, Chaos Glory, meltagun, Rhino)
225 - Chaos Marines (10 man squad, Champion, Chaos Glory, meltagun, Rhino)

Fast Attack

150 - Raptors (5 man squad, Champion w/ twin lightning claws, two flamers)

Heavy Support

75 - Obliterator Cult (1 man squad)
250 - Land Raider (Daemonic Possession, Combi-flamer)

Hey guys, this is my first post, but I've been listening to the podcast for a while and it's the best 40k-cast out there. (All the others make me want to gnaw my own arm off.) I started playing during 3rd edition, and I've recently got back into the hobby after having to stop during my time at uni, so I essentially missed 4th edition entirely.

I've played a few games and have found that I underestimated how hard it is to take out tanks. The Chaos Marines used to have a heavy bolter and a missile launcher, but I've swapped those out for meltaguns so they can keep moving and get that tasty 2D6 armour penetration. My gaming club has recommended that I put powerfists on the Champions, and I've thought about putting chainfists on a couple of my Terminators, but I'm not sure I can afford the points. Maybe I should drop the Obliterator and use those points to "pimp" my other squads with a smattering of chainfists and powerfists?

Thoughts, opinions, feelings, questions, all welcome. And yes, I freakin' love lightning claws.

Cheers all.

EDITS: Corrected list, originally vanilla Chaos Marines were listed as having Personal Icons, they actually have Chaos Glory icons. Apologies.

[beeny13]

first off, the jump pack lord isn't that great, not bad, but not going to do all that much, why not go for kharne instead. your assault terminators are pretty ridiculous right now, but kharn makes them unstoppable.

the raptors should go with meltas instead, flamers are nice, but the raptors will already overrun most bad save hordes, and if not then i would rather have a rhino unload bolters and 2 flamers rather than 5 raptors with 2 flamers, if the raptors are that close to a low save horde that they don't want to charge then they are going to die.
if you have a 10 man chaos marine squad take the special weapons, i would recommend flamers, maybe melta. melta is nice but it is an expensive squad to use just to pop a vehicle, and if it is a vehicle you need to pop you might lose the squad to its occupants.

i'm sorry, i didn't notice that it was night lords and nurgle themed, i will start over. 10 man plague marine squads are a bit much. you can probably hold objectives and tarpit units just as well with 3 six man units in rhinos. plus make sure that they have two special weapons apiece. i would recommend plasma. they can keep their distance because they suck in assault, and your opponent will have to put forth so much effort to pop their rhino, assault them, and finish them off, all the while taking plasma shots that you roll feel no pain against the gets hot.
the raptor unit will just get shot down, and even as a twin claw lord delivery vehicle isn't really that scary. i would do twin claws and two meltas. if you plan to attach the lord you might want to put a couple more raptors in there as ablative wounds. and an icon of chaos glory so that your lord doesn't run off of the table. well actually i guess you could have the six of them hide behind the land raider while advancing.
also why not add a heavy flamer into the terminators, it doesn't cost many points but it really can come in handy.
sorry about the wall of text and random nature of the comments, i would go more along these lines for the list-

HQ
140 - Chaos Lord (Jump pack, twin lightning claws)
175 - Daemon Prince (Wings, Mark of Nurgle, Warptime)

Elites
210 - Chaos Terminators (5 man squad, Champion w/ chainfist, 3 w/ twin lightning claws, 1 w/ heavy flamer,
185 - Chaos Chosen(5 man squad, Champion w/twin lightning claws, 3 meltaguns, Rhino)

Troops
203 - Plague Marines (6 man squad, 2 plasmaguns Rhino)
203 - Plague Marines (6 man squad, 2 plasmaguns Rhino)
203 - Plague Marines (6 man squad, 2 plasmaguns Rhino)
255 - Chaos Marines (10 man squad, Champion w/powerfist, Chaos Undivided, 2 flamers , Rhino-combimelta)

Fast Attack
170 - Raptors (5 man squad, Champion w/ twin lightning claws, two meltaguns)

Heavy Support
250 - Land Raider (Daemonic Possession, Combi-melta)

vehicles really are harder, whereas before you could get a lucky 6 on a glance and on a pen your chances of destruction were 50/50. now if you pen a vehicle it has a 2/3 chance of surviving. you can think of wehicles as marines with 3+ saves, downgraded to 4+ against meltas.
this list has plague and fast nightlords, the landraider thunders up the middle with the raptors and lord hiding behind it, the 10 man chaos squad is used to claim objectives, rapid fire/flame hordes, throw bodies at problems. the plague marines sit on objectives in rhino, shooting plasma guns at 24" moving backwards to rapid fire if they are advanced upon.
the chosen outflank, or infiltrate as necessary.

some of the weakness are that there is no long ranged weaponry besides the land raider, and twin linked lascannons aren't really worth 460 points for two shots with some terminators inside. the oblit helps with the long range shooting, but only a little bit. really it is best used as a deep struck twin linked meltagun that can survive quite a bit of fire. then charge forward flaming units. but the list definitely advances quickly on the enemy, charging into them on turn 2, split into 3 prongs if necessary.

[the GrEeN MoNsTeR]

Love the concept, but I agree with beeny on a few points. Namely the 10 man plague squads are pretty large. Also make sure to kit them out with two special weapons. I'd give at least one of them 2x meltas, they make for a great unit to pop out of a rhino and melta something while still being able to survive a round of fire before climbing back in.

Also he's spot on about the chosen and the outflank. It's a nasty combo. Honestly with all the icons, I'd drop the land raider and deepstrike the termies off the icons. It serves two purposes, 1 it frees up a ton of points, and two the chaos land raider if horribly overrated. Unfortunately we don't get the nice move 12in and still shoot a weapon rule that vanilla marines get. Which makes this a giant 250pt fire magnet.

This would free up enough points for a predator or two with the TL autocannon/ hvy bolter sponson options, or a couple of obliterators. Both of which will let you lay down some more fire power vs light armor and horde. Plus the predators give you quite a bit more armor on the table.

[fwumps]

10 man Plague squads are to much. I personally feel seven is the magic number and with those points you could give them a plasma, melta and power fist.
I would also give the lord a daemon weapon. Take out the personal icons and give them chaos glory. Without the melta guns I cant see this list standing a chance against a mech list.

[BlueSwirl]

Woops, the Chaos Marine squads have Chaos Glory icons, not Personal Icons. Sorry, have edited original post.

Cheers for all the advice guys, currently thinking I'll just not bother with the Obliterator and use the points towards some fists.

I never would have thought of using <10 man squads, but thinking about it, my Plague Marines managed to walk across the table sans Rhino and none of them died last game. 7 should work, and it even fits with the Nurglish theme.

Now I just have to work out the best way of getting some dudes with fists...

[BlueSwirl]

Also, liking the idea of dropping the Land Raider and getting some "regular" Chaos tanks, that could up the number of vehicles on the table. Plus Predators and Defilers just look cool.

And if the Termies are deep striking, this means I can have more than five in the squad... *evil grin*.

Been thinking of getting the Typhus model, and if you treat him as a Chaos Lord with a Daemon weapon he comes out as about the same points as my current Lord. Reckon he could be a good laugh, teaming up with the Night Lords.

[beeny13]

if you deep strike the termies load them up on combimeltas.

[Tricky Dick]

Don't listen to Beeny. The Chaos Lord.....give him a mark so he may purchase the demon weapon. Specfically, the Tzeentch mark for the Tzeentch weapon. It's the best all around demon weapon that won't kill your own guys AND it can shoot.

[BlueSwirl]

Had to look up the Tzeentch Daemon weapon, and yeah, that thing's pretty grim. Get some decent rolls on it and that could decimate Marine based armies.

Doesn't really fit the Night Lords/Nurgle theme, though. Shame. Maybe I should expand the army to be Chaos Undivided? Khorne Terminators are just too cool...

[solkan]

BlueSwirl,
That's the major limitation (or the major blessing) of the current codex--the upgrades and marks are basically disconnected from the legions.

You could interpret a Lord with jump pack, twin claws, and the mark of Slaanesh as a Night Lords lord with unusually elaborate weapons and avoid the usual iconography and color scheme. At worst, he'd be just like the occasional conservative student at a liberal college.