Editing Warhammer 40,000/6th Edition Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (section)

==Allies==


===Battle Brothers===

*'''Black Legion:''' CSM don't benefit from Black Legion allies very much. Chosen are pretty shit (if you don't believe me then take a look at Sterguard Veterans) and the best thing you can get are an extra FA and HS slot and a character who has access to a different set of chaos artefacts. That's it. While it's better to consider other allies because they add different and better things to your army, BL allies are actualy highly recommended (or even a must) if you want to play pure CSMs. Extra HS and FA slots means less competition in those categories and suddenly some units become viable because you can take more of them. Example setups:
**2 units of Autocannon Havocs + 2 units of Obliterators: Very optimal setup, with 2 units dealing a lot of high Str shots, while 2 units have less shots but have more powerful weapons and are more flexible.
**2 Forgefiends + 2 units of Autocannon Havocs/2 units of Obliterators: Before if you wanted to run Forgefiends, you had to take 2 of them but in that case you'd had only 1 slot remaining for Havocs or Oblits. Not anymore.
**2 Helldrakes + 2 units of Spawns: 2 Helldrakes and 2 very fast and annoying units, what's not to like?
**12 Obliterators: Iron Warrior players, do you like your 9 Obliterators? Yes? Well now you can have 12! Sadly it's unlikely that you'll have enough points for this combo in games smaller than 2000 points.
**[[troll|4 Helldrakes:]] I know what you're thinking. In fact this was the first thought you had when you've read "an extra FA slot" Don't do it. Not only is it unreliable (reserve rolls can be a bitch) but you need to consider this: is an extra Helldrake better than, say, 2 Vendettas or 2 Necron Croissants? I don't think so. So basically you take an extra Helldrake if you really, really hate other people. You sadistic motherfucker.
**'''Alternative Opinion:''' Chosen as troops have some advantages. Camping squads with 5 plasmas on an objective makes for a much more defensive game. Sometimes it's nice when the enemy has to run to you.

*'''Chaos Daemons:''' New Daemons Codex! Soul grinders of Nurgle are now unspeakably awesome because they automatically have a 5+ cover save due to shrouded and have 4 HP with AV 13! Fantastic mobile cover, and they pack a punch, too! Troops are no longer obscene amounts of points in this codex, either, and heralds are fuckcheap HQ units; the mandatory units in an allied detachment can cost as little as 135 points, meaning you could take Soul Grinder support in lists as small as 1000 points and still be none the worse for wear. Meanwhile, bloodthirsters follow the flying monstrous creature rules and have WS 10 (10!). Lords of change are mastery level 2 psykers by default, level 3 with the upgrade (which you will always take) and can take either Tzeenchy witchfire powers to give your enemy feel no pain or Divination powers to be useful (Divination is probably better in a shooty CSM army because of Prescience). Daemons are by far the best allies you can take simply because they bring Divination.
**Protip: Wanna make your Bloodletters or Daemonettes actually survive so they can reach combat? Run them straight towards the enemy every turn, then park a rhino in front of them and block all incoming fire! Then deliver your delicious, demonic payload right into those helpless loyalist corpse-fuckers' sphincter!
***Careful when taking a Daemons army as the allied detachment, you can only take one HQ, and you only get four heralds per HQ slot if Daemons are your primary detachment. This means a Daemons allied detachment can only bring one divination-user. The three options are Fateweaver, a Lord of Change, or a Herald of Tzeentch. The herald is only suggested if you put him with something other than horrors if your goal is to give prescience to your CSM as prescience is usually best used on the horrors in this situation. 
**'''Icons''' Also, friendly 'daemons' can get more accurate deepstrikes off daemonic icons. This does still work for warp talons ('blind' bursts near the enemy, you say?) and obliterators. You still scatter D6", but that's not ''that'' bad.

*'''Renegades & Heretics (Forgeworld)''' - probably the most obvious one for both fluff and functionality. You get to combine the Helldrake AND Hydra flak tanks and DOMINATE the skies. As battle brothers your characters can join each others squads and/or benefit from each others abilities, so you can have an impressive number of psykers buffing each other up. Dark Apostles can make your massively combined renegade squads fearless & zealots and Warp Smiths can fix up your multitude of tanks that you'll probably have. Your big platoons/troops choices don't need to take up several FOC slots so can generate a considerable amount of cheap bodies.

===Allies of Convenience===

*'''Imperial Guard:''' WOOOOOOOOO LOST AND THE DAMNED... sorta. In any case, strange fluff issues aside (Commissars allied with Chaos? Shut up and convert them into Apostates!), allying with Impy Guard nets you a ton of awesome tanks and a ton of <s>squishy meat shields</s> fire support. And remember, with platoons and vehicle squadrons, you don't really need to worry about how many you can take. To be fair, this is sorta why Cultists are in the book, <s>but... but... but... Lost and the Damned!</s> but Guardsmen are better at that role, <s>as well as being kind of more thematic</s> if you want thematic, take Renegades instead - if you really wanted to emulate the scrappy non-Traitor-Guard Cultist vibe, use Penal Legion Squads.  Also [[Leman Russ]]es and [[Manticore Rocket Launcher|Manticores]].[[Deathstrike Missile Launcher|The biggest middle finger to imperialfags]] you can encounter is worthnoting also!

*'''Necrons:''' Use to easily fill in the gaps you're army might be lacking in the anti-vehicle department. An Overlord with a court of several Res-Orb Lords and two full squads of warriors (hopefully with lightning or destruction crypteks) are durable and take down vehicles. Use them as Living Metal shields.  Can also contribute a few fantastic fliers: a night scythe can put a squad of warriors and a volt-tek lethally close to an important vehicle while simultaneously burning anything else in the sky (point for point).  The Doom Scythe is more of a mixed bag.  While its death ray can slice apart an entire formation of tanks in one ray, your Heldrake outclasses it for anti-infantry work for five fewer points.  Best answer: bring both.
**If you plan to field a largely deep-striking army you owe it to yourself to check out Nemesor Zandrekh.  His Phased Reinforcements ability doesn't specify 'crons only: as soon as a single enemy arrives from reserves you are within your rights to swamp it with Heldrakes, Night and Doom Scythes, and even deep-striking mutilator teams and/or Abaddon himself (all of which will be able to charge as soon as the enemy ends his suddenly-frantic turn).  Be prepared for your opponent to punch you if you ever mention this tactic again. 

*'''Orks:''' The basic ork are like the cultists, but made worthy. Can be used to screening, in the FieldMek/"biggest ork/grot blob avaliable", (sort of) vanguard in the Warboss/Nobz/Battlewagon or the Bike Warboss/bike Nobz. Also a XBAWSHUEG blob of Lootas can do a good anti-air unit (they go usually at 5+. Going 6 is no great loss).

*'''Tau:''' NEW CODEX!!!!!! Pretty good choice. First take a Cadre Fireblade and a minimum squad of Firewarriors. Followed by a MOTHERFUCKING RIPTIDE, THIS BABY WILL SHIT DOWN THE NECK OF ANY IMPERIAL DOG!!! For extra brownie points align your MOTHERFUCKING RIPTIDE to your preferred Chaos God. For extra, extra brownie points replace the giant burst cannon on your Slaanesh Riptide with a huge dildo. If you want to be a dick, take sensor towers and make any three of your squad's weapon twinlinked. Yes, it would work on any allies, not only battle brothers. Heck, you even can twinlink enemy squad just for S&G. Worth mentioning, that Broadsides with velocity trackers are near the best anti-air in the game, and one of the few capable of penetrating damn Caestus ram.

===Desperate Allies===

*'''Dark Eldar:''' This could be a good (or at least interesting) pairing, with Plague Marines and massive Cultist blobs holding down the objectives while the Dark Eldar range ahead and blow things to pieces. Don't worry too much about the whole Desperate Allies thing; Chaos Marines don't have that many abilities that would benefit the DEldar, and the DEldar are usually so much faster than the rest of CSM (with the exception of the Heldrake and maybe the Maulerfiend) that you don't need to worry about the whole One Eye Open, "we won't work within 6" of you" thing.