Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (section)

==Generic Notable Strategies==
*'''Cacophony Blitz:''' Take as many units of Obliterators as you like. Mark them all as Slaanesh. Take a terminator or jump pack Lord, a Sorcerer with Prescience or even Abaddon, to keep them company. Deepstrike ASAP depending on the target you want to chew through, you may need to pop Veterans of The Long War for good measure. Then proceed to tear anything below heavy infantry and/or light vehicles a new asshole FOR SLAANESH. Then, if anything is left standing anywhere near you, engage trollface and use Endless Cacophony to do another round of shooting with one unit of obliterators FOR SLAANESH. If you manage to clear most of the threats in the area (which you should), you can then charge your chaos lord and continue with the rape FOR SLAANESH. Don't worry about leaving him in the open - he is a throwaway piece with a 4++ after the first turn of shooting, and if your opponent concentrates on taking him down, this means he's diverting valuable firepower anyway from your shooty dudes. If he does, you can use them to blast again next turn. FOR SLAANESH!
**Note - this tactic becomes downright brutal if you use a large unit of plasma terminators instead of obliterators. That yields 40 STR 8 shots, re-rolling 1s, hitting on twos or re-rolling all failed hits, then wounding everything on twos or threes. And each of those does 2 damage at AP-3. If you position your terminators optimally, you can ideally wipe TWO big targets in two consecutive volleys, then charge a third right of the bat and butcher it in melee in the fight phase. True, it does require quite a bit of setup, as well as costing about 800 of points to actually pull this off, not to mention 1-3 command points, but if you do manage to pull it off well, it will probably win you the game. 
**Note too that Veterans of the Long War gives +1 to wound rolls for the WHOLE shooting phase. This means BOTH rounds of shooting with Endless Cacophony.

*'''DISTRACTION DEFFIEFEX:''' Take a Defiler with a Scourge and mark of SLAANESH, then place it on the edge of your deployment zone. Then, have a Terminator Sorcerer (or any nearby SLAANESH Psykers) cast Warptime along with Prescience and/or Delightful Agonies. You now have an obscenely tanky monstrosity in the face of the enemy that can delete any vehicle or monster in an instant with Daemonforge in the coming fight phase(with some luck on damage rolls, a Defiler with a Scourge+Prescience+Daemonforge can instantly destroy a Necron MONOLITH). You likely can't (and shouldn't) buff your Deffiefex like this every turn despite the absolute destruction it can bring; this is a scare tactic. The goal is to have your opponent make 1 of 2 painful choices, either A: Realize it's part of a distraction tactic and leave it alone to wreak their shit, or B: destroy it and save their ass for the moment, but at the cost of letting the rest of your army wreck their shit even harder.

*'''Forge World Fuckery:''' Take at least 2 Sonic Dreadnaughts each with a Doom Siren and two Fists with Heavy Flamers, and drop them in with Dreadclaws as the ultimate DISTRACTION CARNIFEX that can threaten absolutely anything on the table. To be the ultimate asshole about it, don't even use actual Forge World models for these units, as normal Helbrutes and Drop Pods with some extra bits attached will do the job just as well.

*'''Fuck 40k, we play 30k... and we play it dirty!!:''' The main difference in our troops department over loyalist scum is that we can take 2x heavy weapon instead just 1 on our CSM troops, if you plan to play a big footblob this can be a win-win situation; remember that only models that move get -1 penality to shoot with heavy weapons; this mean you can move all the units except that single models (as long it remain in cohesion). This allow you to bring heavy support stuff like lascannons OUT of heavy support and also help those so heavy support stuff to be buried by bodies (if you bring a 10 man squad, every 2x lascannon are hidden behind 8 bodies) and last but not least you get an objective holder (win-win-win situation). If you then add a morale controller (Iron Warrior warlord trait), then the enemy has to remove every single model by wounds for them reach the cool stuff you are hiding. The best use is to put the lascannon right in front of the unit then make the rest of the unit jump in front of 'em your next turn (you can decide what to remove from casualties, literaly where you want, so it dosen't matter where you put 'em). By doing this, you get a free extra unit movement/bolter range without getting any penalty for moving the lascannon. This allows you to have 3 heavy support slots free for additional firepower of mauler-raping machine or whatever you plan on doing with interesting heavy support units.

*'''Have Command Points, Will Travel:''' If you need CP, but want them as cheap as possible to buy more interesting toys in other detachments, consider using a Renegade and Heretics Battalion. 2 Renegade Commanders, plus 3 Squads of Renegade Militia. This gives you 5 CP for 170pts allowing you to fit in more toys in other detachments. Considering the cheapest Battalion you can field from a codex is 2 Warpsmiths (120pts) and 30 Cultists (150) this saves you a flat 100pts for wargear or units elsewhere. The downside is H&R are basically worse guardsman, who have most value as a means of hiding on an objective, being meat shields or blocking deep-strikers in your back line. Chances are they aren't going to see out a game but such is the price of power. However since cultists can't take legion traits anyway the cost is largely mitigated. 

*'''I feel something coming up...:''' This one's quite simple, actually. Just take a Vanguard detachment that is 4 chaos decimators with twin soulburner petards (210 points each), with a terminator sorcerer as HQ, and take a outrider detachment with four dreadclaw pods (130 points each), and a terminator sorcerer. Starting turn 2, you will be able to deepstrike everything in your opponents face and vomit 16D3 mortal wounds on him, and cast prescience on two decimators.
**Do remember that if you're playing with the Rule of Three, you're limited to three Decimators.
*'''Istvaan Chainsword Massacre:''' As of Vigilus Ablaze, Chaos Lords can take Thunder Hammers. This means that you can run your own traitorous smash captains (who are still sub-par compared to their loyalist equivalents). More interestingly, the new Black Legion chainsword relic, Ghorisvex's Teeth, can be taken by a Chaos Lord with a Jump Pack. Aside from a decent profile, it deals Mortal Wounds on a 6 to wound. Give him the Flames of Spite Warlord trait and hit him with Veterans of the Long War and what do you get? A Chaos Lord that can move 12", has a 4++, 6 attacks, hitting on 2s and rerolling 1s, wounds MEQs on 3s and GEQs on 2s, each wound is -3 AP 2D AND, because of the relic and warlord trait stacking, you deal '''2 Mortal Wounds''' on every wound roll of a 5 or a 6. He can reasonably threaten T7 targets and absolutely flattens anything that is T3 and doesn't have a 4++. If you can hit him with the Dark Apostle's Soultearer Portent, it gets even crazier! The catch is that you are risking a lot by making him your warlord to get Flames of Spite and you are basically hoping he rolls one to three 5s or 6s to wound. He is only 93 points though! 
**Additionally, investing even more CP with Chosen of the Pantheon means you can give him a 3++ with Weaver of Fates and make him fight twice with the Khorne fight again strat. Of course at that point, you have invested 5 CP, warlord, and a relic. He better get some serious damage done.

*'''Overwatch is SO Last Edition:''' About to charge into a sea of painful Overwatch, such as T'au, blob Guard, Shoota Boyz, or lots of flamers? On the turn you plan to do so, right behind them Deep Strike in a unit of Warp Talons, then charge with the Warp Talons before anything else. No Overwatch for anyone! Consider multiple small units and go for priority targets, hoping to get that 9 inch charge and saving a reroll. Don't expect them to last long or do much, but taking out 500+ pts of gunline can neuter your opponents strategy whilst the rest of the army moves into position. Do remember that this tactic isn't meant to be used solo as Warp Talons have no native re-roll, so combo them with other Daemons or just expect them to get shot off when the enemy pulls back (by then you should at least by in a good position).

*'''Bile's Boys:''' Ever felt like your generic CSM's need a bit more punch to them? how about a blob of 20 s5 marines with potentially 4 attacks (base 1, chainsword, hateful assault, bile upgrade) per model on the charge? how about about that same unit getting a 7" inch move, d6+1" advance and a d6+1" charge? all for the low low cost of 11pts a model and 1 cp? throw something fun on the champion like a power fist, and you get 5 s10 ap-3 d3d in the mix too. And they can cap objectives. If you feel like losing friends try the same thing with Khorne Bersekers  or possessed running alongside greater possessed, and watch them turn a knight into pulp.