Chaos Marines Shaping Up

It's been a rather slow week for hobby activities, only getting time to assemble three sets of Citadel Woods. Terrain's important but still kind of blah and cleaning the mold lines has been frustratingly slow. I was able however to spend time with my recently unburied Chaos Marine codex to see how I might adapt my old collection for the current edition. Other than juggling some squad members around and consolidating one unit of Marines, there really wasn't all that much changing that needed to be done. I had thought that if anything the points value of the collection would decrease but in fact it seems to have gone up a bit, and that's after dropping a couple of weapon options and plenty of the old wargear gadgets. If I also included some newly found Khorne Berzerkers (pictured above) and their even older Rhino transport, in addition to changing my former custom Chaos Lord into a simple counts-as Abaddon, I discovered that the army can push well above the 2000 point mark rather easily. It may not be optimized for the current edition but it's at least useable with what I have at hand. And learning that I can play them at those bigger sized games came as a very unexpected but welcome surprise. Cool.

So it looks like I'll be able to turn this collection into a decent sized army without a whole lot of effort. Perfect! I've at last figured out what I'm going to paint as the chapter badge and I'm optimistic that it won't be too hard to pull off. I have decided to go with the Beasts of Annihilation despite my reservations about the name and noticed today in the chaos book that the info I sited from Lexicanum actually comes from this edition of the codex. There's even another two miniatures shown but neither of them give a glimpse of the official badge if there is one. No matter, I'm ready to move on without GW's sanction and go with my own design. It pokes some fun at the chapter's name which is why I'm now kind of glad they're going to be the Beasts. I'll show what I'm up to once I have an example painted.

Now here's where my plans are changing. I noticed after putting together these tentative army lists that if I just added a couple more tank transports then I could potentially field a 2500 point army. What? Seriously, where did this army come from? It helps that one of those tanks would be a Land Raider but that's still pretty exciting news for me. I've already got a couple of Rhinos sitting around for other projects that could easily provide one of the needed rides, and that was all it took to persuade me into expanding the army. I placed the order this afternoon for a new Land Raider. If I look hard enough I might even be able to find some Forge World chaos land raider pieces that I have hidden somewhere to go with it. Obviously that would be sweet. I'll have to look into that.

I've got some touch-up work to do on the army in addition to painting the necessary chapter badges to make them look presentable. I'm going to tone down some of the brighter greens and reds and at last tidy up the last few dudes. Once I get the Rhino and Land Raider finished I will have a completely painted 2500 point force, and one that is legit and useable with the current set of rules. How's that for an army I had essentially given up on years ago? I dig it. I'm looking forward to getting all this taken care of and trying it out on the table this summer. Should be fun, I think. In case anyone is interested, below is the army list I've drawn up staying within the constraints of my existing collection, but with the addition of those previously noted tanks.

HQ

counts-as Abaddon (275)

Elites

8 Possessed Chaos Marines (208)

Chaos Dreadnought: twin-linked autocannon and heavy flamer (115)

Chaos Dreadnought: plasma cannon (105)

Troops

10 Chaos Marines: Icon of Chaos Glory, meltagun, flamer, aspiring champion w/ powerfist, Rhino w/ extra armour (265)

10 Chaos Marines: Icon of Chaos Glory, plasma gun, missile launcher, aspiring chammpion w/ power weapon, Rhino w/ havoc launcher (265)

10 Chaos Marines: Icon of Chaos Glory, plasma gun, lascannon, aspiring champion, Rhino (245)

8 Khorne Berzerkers: personal icon, plasma pistol, Skull Champion, Rhino (238)

8 Summoned Lesser Daemons (104)

5 Summoned Lesser Daemons (65)

5 Summoned Lesser Daemons (65)

5 Summoned Lesser Daemons (65)

Fast Attack

Chaos Spawn (40)

Heavy Support

3 Obliterators (225)

Chaos Land Raider (220)

Total Points: 2500

I've also got a few other partially painted HQ options for this army that I never finished, so if I get around to it I could potentially have even more flexibility with this army. Why again did I stop playing this army? I foresee good times ahead.

Let the galaxy burn and such. Rah, rah, rah.