For those fluff/theme/lore enthusiasts like myself out there, this series is for you. One of the great failings of the 2007 Chaos Codex was the difficulties it presented to those seeking to build an effective a mono-god chaos army. Sure, there were marks, and cult troops, and some lists worked better than others. But lesser daemons lacked flavor, and Lash was so good it was difficult to justify taking an HQ that wasn’t a lash prince or lash sorc. Paint it how you want, call it what you want, when you’re running a lash prince we all know it’s the Prince of Excess setting those enemy infantry up for that perfect Vindicator blast or ‘Zerker charge. Either way, the lack of in-game recognition and support for individual Legions, specific Daemons, sacred numbers, or any reason to take anything purple that wasn’t a Lash Prince, mono-god theme armies were relegated to the land of the beer and pretzels game. But now it’s 6th edition, and we’ve got the new Chaos Space Marines codex in our hot little hands. Will it be enough to run a mono-god theme list that isn’t going to auto-lose to anything balanced and competitive? In this series, I’ll talk about how the new Chaos Space Marines Codex and 6th edition in general have helped mono-god theme lists make a comeback, and provide some sample lists for your viewing pleasure.
How did 6th edition help? Allies. The allies system lets us bring in battle-brother status Daemons to aid our forces.
How did the new Codex help? Lash is gone, there are more options for virtually every unit in the book, most units can be devoted to a particular god using Marks, and the versatility of Lords, Sorcs, CSMs, and Bikes make devotion to a single Chaos God a little more palatable.
The goal here is to create 1500 point lists that are as competitive and balanced as possible while staying true to the theme, fluff, and flavor of one of the four Dark Gods. Disclaimer: these are still theme lists. They may not win you your next GT, but they should let you put up a fight against most lists without having to write the fluff abomination necessary to justify Khorne Berzerkers and Thousand Sons grabbing a beer together after work.
For these lists, I am sticking with CSM and Chaos Daemons. In general, many CSM lists could benefit greatly from Chaos’ allies of convenience – be it cheap troops, vendettas, and special weapon spam from the guard, or durable fearless blobs from the orks, or tank-busting fliers and mobile scoring units from the necrons. Don’t get me wrong, allies can still be fluffy – a Guard blob, Vet squad, and Vendetta sounds like a corrupted planetary defense force waiting to happen. But for now, for thematic reasons, I’m sticking with the true denizens of the Warp.
For the first list, we’re starting with Grandfather Nurgle.
The Planning Stages:
Nurgle is a mixed bag of 6th edition strengths and weaknesses. Pappy Nurgle brings strong, durable scoring units to the table, a must in 6th edition. Your scoring units have to be able to survive outside of transports, and Plague Marines and Nurgle-marked CSMs do it well. However, speed is an issue. Going without transports lets you get more boots on the board, but makes it difficult to get into the best firing positions, achieve line-breaker, or threaten any objectives deep in enemy territory. You need some mobility. Nurgle lacks the sheer killing power displayed elsewhere in the codex, which can make it tough to shift an enemy off of an objective. Nurgle forces are rarely going to win by tabling the opponent, but they’re also rarely going to be tabled. We’ll build our list around Nurgle’s strength – durability. The goal here is to play the positioning game, the area denial game, and win by staying alive on more objectives at games end and giving up as few killpoints as possible.
Allies:
We’ll start out by addressing the elephant in the room – Epidemius. What exactly is a follower of Nurgle? Do marked units count? Cult troops? Zombies? Dedicated transports purchased with marked units? It’s been a hot topic in our rules lawyers in-box of late. These all ignore the most important question… do you want chaos daemons in this list anyway? Ultimately it’s a huge risk building a list around a concept (Epidemius) that may not fly depending on your TO. But more importantly, it’s not a good fit for this list. This isn’t a leafblower list – we’re here to play the mission and get onto objectives, not rack up the body count. And without the tally man, there really isn’t a good reason to bring any of the Nurgle Chaos Daemon forces. Plaguebearers are mediocre-to-poor. They can’t shoot, rely on a 5+ invul/5+ fnp, can’t go to ground, and have to deep strike in. Nurgle heralds don’t add much. Limiting yourself to Nurgle also rules out any decent fast attack options – Beasts of Nurgle are worthless. If you’re DYING to use Epidemius, and your TO is liberal when interpreting “followers of nurgle” take him, a squad of PBs to guard him, and hide them as best you can.
I would however make a special note of Great Unclean Ones… they’re not terrible. They’re arguably one of the better bang-for-the-buck Greater Daemons out there and they play their role well. If you need a big ugly monstrous creature to solidify your midfield presence, and you really want to ally in chaos daemons for some reason, there are certainly worse units you could take.
What about zombies?
Zombies would be great, but until they fix the wording, we can only get 10 man zombie squads. Sucks, but we’re stuck with it for now. They may be worth consideration if that changes.
Without further ado… Lets get to some Death Guard:
Heavy Support:
Total: 1500
How it works:
There’s nothing fancy here, but then again nothing about Nurgle is fancy.
This list packs 7 units of divisible-by-7 models to invite the blessings of the Plague Father. Take that, fluff bunnies! The cultists and the Lord can rush midfield or hang out on objectives – that’s a lot of ablative wounds for your very combat-capable chaos lord, who will do a number on enemy hordes with that black mace. Or you can stick him in with some Plague Marines leave the cultists behind in some ruins where they can go to ground to get the +2 cover save while protecting the objective. The Rhinos motor Plague Marines into position to grab other objectives, then block fire lanes and fire twin-linked S5 blasts for maximum annoyance. Between T5, FNP, blight grenades, 3+ armor, and hopefully a cover save, along with some CC potential from the plagues and Axe/Gift sergeant, it will take some dedicated shooting and assault to shake your plague marines off of those objectives by game’s end. The Havocs provide support while the Bikes head for the enemy backfield to clear/contest enemy objectives.
I’d also consider swapping out the bikers’ powerfist to put the Chaos Lord on a bike – with him in the unit they’re an effective, speedy deathstar that will catch a lot of opponents off guard. While they’re random and unpredictable, Gifts of Mutation are distributed liberally in this army because virtually everything on the list is useful in one way or another. And nothing says Nurgle like hideous, hideous mutation.
