Stilus Primoris

Based on the idea of my WH40k mentor to start blogging his thoughts, I decided it could be both a way to keep a track of what I've observed over different battles/scenarios with my Warhammer 40k armies.

Although I'm far too lazy to make a long-winded post at the moment, I will begin with somewhat of a very brief introduction to what I'm starting out this blog running.

As you can most likely tell from the title...I run a Khorne heavy Chaos Space Marine army which is highly mechanized. It's gone through several revisions, starting out with tons of Berzerkers and a random Havoc squad but over the course of the last few months (seeing that I'm still a relative newcomer to WH40K, getting about 25 games in since mid-January of this year) has evolved to the following:

HQ

Kharn the Betrayer
165 Points

Troops

Khorne Berzerkers x8
Skull Champion
Power Fist
Rhino ded. transport
243 Points

Chaos Space Marines x10
Aspiring Champion
Power Fist
Meltagun x2
Mark of Khorne
Rhino ded. transport
275 Points

Chaos Space Marines x10
Aspiring Champion
Power Fist
Meltagun x2
Mark of Khorne
Rhino ded. transport
275 Points

Plague Marines x5
Plasma gun x2
Personal Icon
15o Points

Fast Attack

Chaos Raptors x8
Aspiring Champion
Pair of Lightning Claws
Mark of Khorne
Flamer x2
240 Points

Heavy Support

Obliterator Cult x3
225 Points

Chaos Defiler
150 Points

Chaos Vindicator
125 Points

As explanation...

Kharn is a very recent addition. I've been playing with a Khorne-marked terminator lord with a daemon weapon coupled with 8 berzerkers in a land raider...but the lord was slightly lackluster despite sometimes pumping out up to 17 power weapon attacks by himself. The landraider just presented the enemy with a giant blinking "SHOOT HERE" sign as well, and never really got a chance to do anything beyond dropping off the assault troops (which, when comparing it's 225 points to the 35 of a rhino...makes it slightly undesirable). In order to free up a lot of points, I opted to make the 10 point change to Kharn and throw them all into a rhino. The general idea is to have Kharn unattach himself from the berzerkers once they reach their destination, go off and merrily mow down an infantry squad by himself while the berzerkers run around doing something else (thereby negating his "betrayer" tendencies to hit friendlies on a roll of 1) and still getting lots of the enemy into assault so that my tactical squads can move about a bit more freely.

I originally had a second squad of berzerkers in place of the second tactical squad, but I made the change in order to add more versatility. Keeping the MoK makes them still fairly nasty in assault, but gives them a significant punch against vehicles as well. I've always had one tactical squad, and just decided to upgrade them with a MoK to ensure that each unit is capable of handling most situations thrown at it (melta/power fist for vehicles/monstrous creatures and regular sheot for everyone else).

I also recently replaced 2x meltas with the 2x plasma guns in my plague marine squad as they added reach and more of a capability to punch out monsterous creatures, which have given me a pretty big problem up to this point. The fact that there is only a 1/6 chance of the overheat, of which there is a 1/3 chance of failing the armor save followed by a 1/2 chance of failing the feel no pain makes it really a no brainer (around 3% chance of actually losing a plague marine to overheating makes me happy in pants).

The raptors have stayed the same essentially since my first game, though I vacillate between a pair of lightning claws and a power weapon for the champion. I love them, as they are an extremely nasty anti-infantry tool and very mobile.

Obliterators are sex. That is all.

I've gone back and forth between running the vindy and a defiler separately since previously I've played using a land raider. Since it proved to be ineffective once it delivered troops, I opted to drop it and *gasp* get both! I've only had one game running the vindefiler lineup, but it was pretty much amazing. I was already a huge fan of blast templates (plasma cannon = win, anyone?), especially a battlecannon and demolisher cannon. With both in play, the enemy was always threatened by a heavy HEAVY artillery piece, and if one is taken out (aka when the vindy gets off its token shot) the enemy still has 3 oblits staring hungrily at them and a really pissed off defiler in the distance lobbing shots in. Depending on how you position them, you can really split the enemy's anti-armor as well, as they have high-threat targets coming at them from multiple directions. Even if they manage to deal effectively with one, it leaves the 3 rhinos wide open to rush forward and dump out troops capable of dealing with most anything thrown at them as well as gives the other free reign to lob bombs.

Basically, 2 large blast templates = win.

My thoughts thus far, so I completely lied about the not-feeling-like-writing-a-long-post.

I'll be posting pictures of my models in the near future (one significant problem I have currently is just not having enough...my 2nd TAC squad is still 1/2 berserkers *cough*) although painting the army is still a work in progress. Notwithstanding the tactical squad I still need to get, the Kharn and plasma-toting plague marines I need to green-stuff together, everything is assembled just awaiting the final brushes.

In conclusion...