Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (section)

===Basic Chaos Detachment===
Other than the Black Legion and Thousand Sons detachments, '''every''' Chaos Detachment will have the below in common, unless stated otherwise:
(As a fun little aside, due to RAW, Crimson Slaughter and the old Black Legion supplement state that any formation may be declared as belonging to them, while traitor legions scales this up to detachments. Thus, it is, RAW at present, possible to have a Black Legion or Crimson Slaughter formation within a Traitor Legions Decurion. While taking a Black Legion formation within another detachment is only really viable with Thousand Sons (As BL traitor legions overrules the old supplement), this does open up interesting variations with Crimson Slaughter (e.g. Take a relic burdened Chaos Lord as a 'Lord of the Legion' while the rest of the detachment belongs to a formation with actually good Legion rules.) 

UPDATE:- GW actually lists the internal formations of a Decurion as detachments now, rather than formations. And, rules as written, nothing says that all the sub-detachments have to have the same legion rules. Expect FAQ, or agree with tournament organisers beforehand, but if ok, this is very valuable, as some legion rules are excellent for certain detachments (Thousand Sons= Great for Terminator Annihilation Force, sucks for Chaos Warband/Lost and the Damned. Alpha legion rocks for Lost and the Damned, but is less great for basically any other formation, due to lack of beneficial rules.) General trend in this anons local area is this is fine for Black Crusade detachment, but iffy with Legion Specific detachments.
====Command(0-4)====
*'''Lords of the Black Crusade:''' A Chaos Lord, Sorcerer, Dark Apostle, or a Daemon Prince. 

====Core (1+)====
*'''Chaos Warband:''' This is a core formation not only for Black Crusade, but also for all Legion-specific detachments except Black Legion Speartip and Thousand Sons Grand Coven. The Chaos Warband is fairly simple: You take 1 Chaos Lord, an optional Chaos Sorcerer, 2-6 Chaos Space Marine Squads, 1-3 squads of Chosen/Terminators/Possessed, 1-3 squads of Bikers/Raptors/Warp Talons, and 1-3 Helbrutes/Havoc Squads. You can also take any of the named characters from the main codex in those first two slots, which is a moot point for most Traitor Legion detachments since they disallow unique units. The entire formation gets ''Objective Secured'', and the ''Favored Scions'' rule, meaning that anytime a character from this formation rolls for a Chaos Boon as a result of Champion of Chaos ''(this explicitly includes the "free" bonus granted by Path to Glory but <u>does not include the rolls from</u> from Gifts of Mutation/Boon of Mutation)'', the character may roll twice and apply either or both results. 
**'''Summary:''' This is the formation you take if you want to play Chaos Space Marines as actual Chaos Space Marines. Favored Scions lets you either sacrifice rank-and-file Champions hoping for Princes or those-that-must-not-be-named, or buff your Lord to truly frightening levels. However, this pales in comparison to the universal Objective Secured bonus. That Biker Lord of Nurgle? He has it. That "throwaway" Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher you bought for a unit of Autocannon Havocs, so you have a "budget" Typhoon Speeder equivalent? It has it. Those units of MSU Bikers or Terminators? They have it.
**'''Comparison with the Gladius:''' The Chaos Warband can be viewed as the traitorous version of the Battle Demi-Company. When Traitor's Hate first came out, the initial reaction was negative: The Battle Demi-Company also gets universal Objective Secured, but grants a turn of improved shooting; furthermore, the Gladius free transports overshadowed the bonuses gicen by said Gladius. However, what the Chaos Warband lacks in "free" points it makes up for in relative flexibility: Whereas the Demi-Company <u>must</u> take exactly three Tactical Squads, exactly 1 Fast Attack, and exactly one unit of Devastators (of Power Armor or Centurion flavor), the Warband lets you take a greater ratio of Fast Attack/Heavy Supports. While the Loyalists must take a mandatory Chaplain to fully benefit from the Battle Company, you get an optional Sorcerer who can provide far more utility throughout the game. The Chaos Warband also allows for Objective Secured Terminators(buying Objective Secured Land Raiders of course), which can be a game-changer if your opponent doesn't have enough anti-armor, and is something loyalists can't do at all.
**'''Drop Assault:''' If you're playing with Forgeworld Chaos Marines, Chosen and Helbrutes can take Dreadclaws ''(RAW deepstrike disables Daemonic-bullshit from eating the contents; furthermore, FW has sent multiple emails confirming this)'' as dedicated transports. Drop in, assault out of your delicious skimmers turn 2, then run around and cap objectives with your '''ObSec''' claws.
** This formation, while simple, can be used with the legion rules and legion detachments to create hilarious combos. Run this with the Death Guard Vectorium. On top of your basic marines (and just about everything else not being a vehicle) becoming non-poisonous plague marines for 2/3rds of the cost, you retain Objective Secured and gain rerolls to 1's on FnP. Just watch as your opponent tears his hair out as he just finishes dealing with your T6 FnP bikers only to realize that he has to now shift your T5 Terminators with FnP off of a point. Or run it with the Alpha Legion Insurgency Force and have everything but your Havocs/Helbrutes and Fast Attack infiltrate on top of objectives while having Shrouded for a whole turn (since Chosen do not occupy the same spot as Chaos Marines, you can have effectively up to 9 units that infiltrate all over the board. All of whom have Objective Secured).

====Auxiliary(1+)====
You will notice that several of these Formations have a mandatory Warpsmith tax. Some people like 'em, some people don't. Good luck trying to make them work.

*'''Cult of Destruction:''' The first of the "Warpsmith" formations. 1-3 Warp Smiths and 3-5 units of Obliterators or Mutilators in any combination. In exchange for this, the formation gets a rule called '''Empyrionic Guidance Rituals:''' At the start of this turn, each Warpsmith may "guide" a unit of Mutilators/Obliterators from this formation within 8": The Obliterators may shoot twice (using different shooting weapons) that turn, or the Mutilators may make two "immediate" sets of close combat attacks this turn with different weapons.
**'''Summary''': If you try running this formation to get MOAR DAKKA out of your already awesome obliterators, you're going to be disappointed. The Warpsmith (you really don't have practical reason to run more than one) is a pretty hefty tax for just 3 extra shots, and the actual rules for Empyrionic Guidance Rituals are very restrictive. Your Warpsmiths have to be within 8" of your Obliterator/Mutilator unit at the ''start'' of the turn to guide them, meaning not only can you not "move" your Warpsmith in range, but you also would not be able to use Empyrionic Guidance Rituals on any units that arrived from Reserves/Deep Strike. Unlike many "Fire Twice" Formation benefits, your Obliterators cannot split their fire against different units, while their weapon cooldown restrictions remain in full effect.
*'''Favoured of Chaos:''' A Daemon Prince leads 3-5 units of Possessed. While within 12" of the Prince, all Possessed automatically receive all 3 Mutation rewards at once. While you might be thinking "Run this as a Crimson Slaughter formation for Shrouded Beast Possessed with Storm Shields," 1)Crimson Slaughter doesn't get Daemon Princes RAW and 2) the Crimson Slaughter Vessels of Chaos rule doesn't actually work due to the mutations only applying in the Fight sub-phase.
**The Possessed in this formation, while the bonus is active, have 3 base attacks, S5 AP3 shred. They have I5 but no grenades. They are actually superior to Warp Talons and Vanguard Veterans, except for a major problem: their lack of jump packs. The question when using this formation should be "how do I protect these guys from shooting or increase their speed?" The Daemon Prince has access to many artifacts and psychic powers that answer this problem.
*'''Fist of the Gods:''' The second Warpsmith Formation, this time he leads 3-5 units of either Land Raiders, Predators, or Vindicators. All vehicles within 12" of the Smith have a 6++, and the Warp Smith has +1 to his repair attempts. Unfortunately thanks to the draft FAQ, AoE abilities do not extend beyond the hull of a transport vehicle unless it explicitly says they do, so keep that Warpsmith following the tanks around on foot. And it's that last sentence that summarizes the main issue with the Formation; unlike Loyalist Techmarines / Iron Priests, Warpsmiths cannot take Bikes, and are stuck footslogging it, meaning their own effective threat range remains...questionable to say the least. More than anything, this formation is for Iron Warriors players that want to mass Vindicators, as their detachment's ability to grant re-roll scatters to all Ordnance weapons makes them deadlier as a result! Otherwise, you're probably best skipping this formation.
**Note: RAW, the formation needs a minimum of a Warpsmith and three UNITS of tanks. This means, if you really felt like blowing a ton of points, you could field squadrons of Vindicators or Predators as individual units. With the new Squadron bonuses provided by Traitor's Hate, this could be interesting. Just don't expect it to be competitive whatsoever.
*'''Heldrake Terror Pack:''' 2-4 Heldrakes. All enemy units within 12" of 2 Heldrakes suffer -1Ld, 3 Heldrakes take -2Ld, and 4 Heldrakes -3Ld. Also all Turkeys deal D6 Vector Strike hits on all units which are Pinned, Falling Back, or gone to ground. This is extremely situational, as the only way to pin troops in your Movement Phase is either to destroy their transports in said Movement Phase (meaning Vector Strikes, Ramming, or the Terminator Annihilation Force), or use an Emperor's Children Terminator Annihilation Force Lord/Sorcerer with the Bolts of Estatic Vexation...can you say extreme edge-case?. That being said, if you were already going to bring 2 Heldrakes, you might as well take this. Good way to keep your fast attack slots free (if you're running a CAD) while gaining bonuses (though admittedly useless ones).
**One decent combo to consider is to fly these guys close to a Raptor Talon formation. If two units from the Talon charge a enemy unit they get -2LD. Coupled with the LD debuffs from the drakes circling overhead, you can really go a long way to guarantee the enemy breaks. Combos well with the Night Lords legion bonuses.
*'''Helforged Warpack:''' The last of the Warpsmith formations, this one might actually be the best one. This time the Warpsmith tags along with 3-5 Helbrutes, Maulerfiends, Forgefiends, or Defilers in any combination. The Warpsmith lets vehicles re-use Daemonforge multiple times as long as he's alive (Maulerfiends with infinite Daemonforges are potentially quite scary), while you get to nominate one vehicle in the formation to be the Warpack Alpha. The Alpha becomes a Character and gains a 4+ Invulnerable Save, and should that model be destroyed, all other nearby models gain Rage.
**'''Summary:''' This formation is great. The Warpsmith tax is almost nonexistent with how you field this formation. but unlike the other formations the warpsmith puts in serious work here. Tired of your maulers and brutes being turned into paperweights after one lucky pen roll? Warpsmith has got you covered and he's not limited by range, so you can pop the smith in a unit of Cultists and call it a day while your walkers parade onward. The ability to give one Maulerfiend/Helbrute the Character Status has some amusing implications too; it's fairly common for Bike armies or similar armies to give Meltabombs to their sergeants in case they need to help finish off a Knight or other similar target, and you gain the ability to challenge those characters out of their unit as a result. The Helbrute also benefits the most from gaining a 4+ invuln save, since it doesn't have a 5+ already like the Maulerfiend or Forgefiend. Take a Helbrute for an alpha and pair him with two Maulerfiends. If they ignore the brute it walks over to their transports and punches them to death. If they focus the brute then the maulers get rage, and there are few things scarier than maulers with +2 attacks running you down and shredding all of your shiny toys. 
**'''Warlord Mech Shenanigans''': You can make the Warpack Alpha your Warlord if you really want to. While this is potentially risky due to the numerous ways to punk AV 12, it has the potential for all sorts of shenanigans, depending on your Legion and the detachment in question. The "safe" option would be an Alpha Legion Warpack, due to the resilience versus Slay the Warlord, but the '''funniest''' option is a Word Bearers Defiler. Whether your Defiler gets a free Boon from 8-fold Path, or it becomes a support-piece with Voice of Lorgar, a Defiler gains utility beyond being an overcosted Battle Cannon. The funniest option though is if it rolls Latent Psyker: think about it for a second. The Defiler has a Daemon so only suffers Perils on a double 6 when using Malefic, and it manifests Summoning on a 3+ due to being part of the Word Bearers. Add in 4 HP and It Will Not Die, alongside the Warpsmith potentially repairing it, and Daemon Summoner Defiler is one of the more comedic options to lead your army, provided you screen against Haywire of course. 
*'''The Lost and the Damned:''' 1 Dark Apostle leads 4-9 units of Chaos Cultists. The Dark Apostle gains a 6" bubble of Zealot to all LatD units. Every time a unit of cultists dies, you roll a die and on a 4+ they instead go into ongoing reserve and gain Outflank. Commander Chenkov called, he wants his Send in the next wave! rule back in. The Zealot bubble is of limited use, unless you take the Cultists in large blobs, which will be unwieldy. Their enhanced charge will still only be a load of Guardsmen attacks, and depend upon the survival of a mediocre character who has to take a forward position. They don't get Objective Secured, either, so unless you're getting mileage from their gimmicks they're worse than an Allied Detachment - which is the only way a Black Crusade will get a single Hell Blade to troll bombers & escort Dreadclaws. You could also turn them into zombies if you brought Typhus, which will free them from the Apostle, give them feel no pain, and, most importantly, allow you and your opponent to reenact the night of the living dead. You can recreate this effect for cheap in a Death Guard army by giving the Apostle the Poxwalker Hive. This will save you 90 points, but you'll only be able to turn a unit of Cultists into zombies one at a time, at the beginning of every turn. On the plus side, these units will regenerate D3 zombies a turn. Take Huron, infiltrate them, and create the ultimate regenerating tarpit, laughing at the fact that your opponent's lines are going to be stuck cutting their way through zombies for a really long time, while your army gets grabs all the objectives and gets into a better position.
*'''Raptor Talon:''' A Chaos Lord with a free Jump Pack takes 3-5 units of either Warp Talons or Raptors. They can charge the turn they deep strike, but always make disordered charges if they do, and enemy units suffer -2 to their Leadership if charged by 2 units from this formation. Think twice about taking the Mark of Khorne in this formation, since you won't get to apply the extra attack for Rage on the turn you make a Disordered Charge, though it may still be valuable to get a Relic on the Chaos Lord or access an Icon of Wrath. This may be the best formation in Traitor's Hate and it makes an already decent unit (the Raptors) much better. The key is to mix Warp Talons and Raptors - the Raptors bring flamers, meltas, and grenades, while the Warp Talons can blender most units in a fight. Even MSU Melta Deathsquads are better in this formation, since you can immediately reroll-charge in to shove a melta bomb up the exhaust of the tank your morons somehow failed to shoot up (with extreme HATRED too). They don't even take up valuable FA slots anymore.
**''Note:'' This formation is particularly interesting in a Black Legion Speartip. Declare the Lord as your Warlord and you can charge anything you want from Deepstrike turn 1, bonus points if you brought the Dimensional key. Seriously now, Night Lords Raptors play second fiddle to your black dudes. You trade Stealth (whoop-dee-doo), Night Fighting (yeah) and rerolling charges (which you already do for jump packs since you've just deepstruck anyway) for Hatred, Marks&Toys, and FREAKING ALPHASTRIKE. And remember that leadership debuff? Yea, they also get +d3 to sweep if they fail that. Seriously, if playing Black Legion speartip, take Raptor Talons as Auxiliaries, while keeping all terminators in your Warband and the Chosen of Abaddon
*'''Terminator Annihilation Force:''' A Chaos Lord or Sorcerer takes 3-5 units of Terminators, getting free Terminator Armor for his trouble. Other than the free armor, the formation's main draw is the '''Targeted For Annihilation''' special rule: Pick an enemy unit (hereby referred to as The Target). The formation gains Hatred against The Target, but the main draw is that whenever a unit from this formation arrives from Deep Strike Reserve, that unit may immediately get a free shooting attack against The Target. Because this shooting attack is in the Movement Phase, it does not prevent the unit from making another action in the Shooting Phase, which opens up additional shenanigans, but you can thankfully nominate a new enemy unit to be The Target once the original Target is appropriately annhilated.
**'''Summary:''' You take this formation if you want to run a non-Black Legion/Iron Warriors "Chaos Deathwing" army for fluffy games, or you want a more efficient Termicide game. The main drawbacks of this formation are that it doesn't do anything to mitigate scatter issues, the "Hatred" bonus is window dressing, and a "free round" of shooting doesn't do too much since Chaos Terminators usually only wield Combi-Weapons anyway! That said, the ability to shoot your opponent in the Movement Phase opens up the door to assorted shenanigans. You can guarantee that your Terminators get a round of shooting off without being shot by Interceptor weapons. You can shoot a Knight in an exposed arc before it gets the chance to reposition its Ion Shield. You can run a unit of 4, firing 2 Combi-Plasmas at one unit and 2 at another unit, or you could play it safe and Run after firing at The Target (Word Bearers and Black Legion can do this better due to Crusader). And of course, you can give your Lord/Sorcerer a Burning Brand (or one of the other shooty relics) to get two rounds off of shooty goodness. Running this formation as part of a Black Legion Speartip can lead to one of the more entertaining alpha-strike builds out there, though board presence will be an issue.
*'''Spawn:''' 1-3 units of Chaos Gribblies. 30 points bottom nets you the cheapest auxiliary choice there is. You are playing Champions of Chaos, so you've already got one, right?