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

===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.