Working towards perfection: List Ideas for Chaos SM with allies

As anyone following this blog by this point may have gathered, I've been playing a significant amount of orks and Chaos SM games as of late. As discussed in previous blog posts, a real issue behind Chaos SM is a lack of mobility for its MEQ units. These being a backbone of the army, its rather prohibitive. So having discussed and play tested a great deal with my teammates Eric, Jon and our alternative Matt, plus had input provided by Collin, Rob and a few others in our gaming company, I've come up with the following.

My currently proposed 2k CSM / CD list.


Primary Force:

HQ:
Chaos Lord : 205 Pts
Khorne, Sigil of Corruption, Gift of Mutation, Plasma Pistol, Meltabomb, Vet's of the Long War, Juggernaut of Khorne, Axe of Blind Fury.

Chaos Lord: 190 pts
Nurgle Mark, Bike, Meltabombs, Power weapon of choice, Sigil of Corruption, Gift of Mutation, Vet's of the Long War, Burning Brand of Skalathrax

Troops:
Cultists - 15 models - 70 pts
Cultists - 15 models - 70 pts
Cultists - 15 models - 70 pts

Fast Attack:
Chaos Spawn - 5 spawn - 150 pts
Chaos Spawn - 5 spawn - Nurgle Mark - 180 pts
Helldrake  - Baleflamer - 170 pts

Heavy Support:
Maulerfiend - Lasher Tendrils - 135 pts
Obliterator - Nurgle Mark - 76 pts
Obliterator - Nurgle Mark - 76 pts

Allies:

HQ:
The Masque - 100 pts

Troops:
Plaguebearers of Nurgle - 75 pts

Fast Attack:
Screamers of Tzeentch - 225 pts

Elite:
Flamers of Tzeentch - 207 pts



So, this list might look funny to you. I assure you that is has come about not lightly!

So how does one play this list? Good question!

This game starts in deployment. First you need to figure out based on your opponents army what daemons work best for the preferred wave (here we are going to assume that's what you are going to get). I would stipulate that the best preferred wave (in general) is the flamers of Tzeentch combined with the Masque.

Why the masque: She allows you to use an ability called Pavane. This lets you move your opponents models for him up to D6 inches.
How this is useful: If you are facing a blob army, you can group up blobs near flamers for a hefty dousing of flamethrowering. Or if you want to be a sneaky asshole, you can pavane models closer your spawns / lords to allow you to get turn 1 charges off. (this is the direction I'm leaning, but again, battlefield conditions will dictate which course to follow).

This, is an excellent tactic. You can pavane up to three times, that means three squads get moved to your advantage. This is a huge freaking deal. Use it wisely.

If you are facing a heavily mech'd army. You probably want Screamers and the plaguebearers in your prefered wave. Why you might ask? So you can deepstrike them somewhere safe, and set yourself up for a glorious turn 2 multicharge in which you proceed to pop every tank they have with your nasty as shit S5 armorbane destroying monsters.

It's kind of a win win for you here.

So why not play just raw Chaos Daemons? I can almost hear Neil asking this now. Because Chaos SM shores up some weaknesses that Chaos Daemons has. Namely, dealing with those pesky grey knights who maybe get that turn 1 warp quake off. Or playing vs. a good player who knows how to bubble wrap and keep Daemons at bay... Or deal with a horde ork player who doesn't give a shit about daemons.

The khorne lord on the juggy can easily kill almost any MEQ infantry squad on the charge, by himself. He's a fantastic model. The nurgle lord with the burning brand can wound tank as needed for the nurgle spawns, and his flamerthrower is good in the current meta at raking those infantry hordes over the coals.

The bale flamer dragon lets you harass backfield elements, and again, deals with pesky infantry hordes reasonably well.

The oblits give you some duel functionality. They can follow the spawns shooting at targets of opportunity or conversely, they can deepstrike into your opponents backfield, wrecking havoc with meltas, flamers, plasma, assault cannons ect.

Plaguebearers can let you take long range objectives that your cultists will be unable to get to.

15 man cultist squads are pretty survivable. Especially since you can go to ground in terrain for a nice 3+ cover save. It's pretty sexy really. Most of the time your opponent is off dealing with the rest of your army and doesn't really have the time to mess with them. Ideally you reserve deploy these guys unless you have an over-riding other need (bubble wraping yourself, ect).

The maulerfiend provides some nice options for you. It can keep up with the spawn squads. With lasher tendrils, when combo'd with a spawn charge, it can greatly reduce the number of attacks your opponent can throw at your models. It can be used to absorb overwatch (especially since it won't care about 90% of it in the first place).  It's also one more fast moving threat your opponent has to deal with.

Three fast moving assault squads is kind of the bare minimum I would want to run. I would feel way more comfortable with 4, but there simply are not the points available to make that work (nor FOC slots!).

So, that's it for now. Is this a good list? Yes I think so. Can it be improved? Absolutely. But this I feel this is honing in on making Chaos SM work. Yes, you have to take allies for best effect. But you can apply this army, and the ideas of putting pressure and remove the Daemons and come up with a pure Chaos SM army that's similar.

Most likely substituting the 600 points or so of Daemons with some nurgle marines and an extra oblit or two would do the trick.