Dark Mechanicus (Chaos Marines Troop Review Part 1)

Hi guys this week I will be running through the normal Troops section of the chaos codex and how I see them being used.

Chaos Space Marines

At 13 pts each they look like a great deal on paper compared with their more expensive imperial counterparts however there are several reasons for this. The main being they don’t have ATSKNF which is a big deal. The other reasons are they can’t combat squad so this reduces flexibility in scoring and kill point missions, and they don’t have combat tactics.

It’s not all bad though; Chaos Marines have lots more flexibility built into the war gear and upgrades they can buy. So the first thing is that a chaos marine squad is 5-20 meaning that you can take a Chaos Marine blob which will be pretty hard to shift even for the likes of Tau. As well as the standard special and heavy weapon options,the other things that chaos squads bring are Marks and Icons. The Marks of chaos can greatly change the killyness or survivability of a normal marine unit without massive cost.

Mark of Khorne This helps turn the unit into a smash unit giving them rage and counter-attack, with the addition of swapping out bolters to bolt pistol and combat weapon that gives the 4 attacks each on the charge not bad with a marine stat line. Models with this mark then gain access to the Icon of Wrath, this boosts this units killing potential further by giving more reliability in making a successful assault move and the furious charge rule. The same problem as always applies with these guys how do you get them to combat safely.

Mark of Nurgle: This is a big help in keeping a unit alive, making a marine T5 is a big deal as he already has a good save. This allows even a minimum size unit of marines to have a fighting chance to be hanging around at the end to claim those objectives and not give away easy kill points, a pretty good buy in my eyes. The Icon of Despair gives the unit fear which isn’t really worth the points.

Mark of Tzeentch: This mark gives the unit +1 inv save which in the case of chaos marine is a 6+, I can’t see a use for this and the Icon of Flame giving the soul blaze rule to all bolt weapons isn’t going to change my life.

Mark of Slaanesh: This is possibly the most interesting option, +1 Initiative doesn’t sound great on paper but can be very useful in assault for several reasons. It allows you to strike before other marines meaning you dish out more hurt, by doing this you could also be more resilient as you may take less hits back, and by having the opportunity of the 3” move up at I step 5 you can get more base to base and spread the wounds around the basic marines. Also their Icon (Excess) gives them the Feel no Pain special rule, again making them more resilient. This all comes at a price and the icon is probably best being used on a larger unit.

Icon of Vengeance: This can be put on any unit that doesn’t have another Icon and it give the fearless rule, not bad I think on 20 chaos marines but the same can be achieved by putting your lord in the unit so you will need to decide if this is needed or not.

How would I run them?...

Holding unit: probably 5 man with bolters and a plasma gun, and either no mark or the Mark of Nurgle depending on my points.    

Midfield or attacking unit: 20 man with Mark of Slaanesh, and icon of Excess, maybe with double melta gun, a combi melta and a power sword and melta bomb on the champion. You could always swap melta for plasma if your army needs that more.

Cultists

Not much to say about these guys they are cheap and allow a chaos player to flood the board with models without allies. I wouldn’t equip them with anything as you will usually be hiding or going to ground with them so they can more up and take objectives once your hard hitters have done the damage. These really are great troops in a smash list as you can get 2 minimum units for 100 pts this means you have more points to spend on beating face. These guys are basic guardsmen for the most part so need to be kept safe or will get wiped out easily.

How I would run them?...

Either as a basic 10 man holding unit no upgrades, or as a 35 man blob probably with a character making them fearless. If I went for the second option I may be tempted to put the 3 flamers in if I could find the points as they would probably be pushing forward.

Zombies

Just a quick word on them. You can only gain access to them through bringing Typhus. They are a free upgrade from cultists, if you take this option it makes the cultists fearless with feel no pain. This is a massive buff for cultists and for free is great they will often be seen in big units 20+ gaining board control through weight of numbers. Things to think about is that they then can’t go to ground as they are fearless which in some games could make them less survivable, as people are working this out we are seeing a shift to people running both cultists and Zombies in a typhus list to do different jobs.

 Next week I hope to post up some more painting, and maybe go onto the cult troops that are unlocked by the Chaos Lord of their God.

As always thanks for reading

Rich