Pink is the New Black: Trial Run

I finally had a chance to use my Slaanesh CSM list on Saturday in two separate games. Actually, I used two different versions of the list; now that I have a daemon prince together, I went ahead and created a variant that included one. First, though, I wanted to play the original list I'd built. I'd promised my friend Jon that he would get first crack at the list, so he brought his Space Wolves to the table. Here's what I brought to the table:

HQ: Chaos Sorcerer (1#, 125 pts)
1 Chaos Sorcerer (Mark of Slaanesh; Lash of Submission)

Elite: Possessed (7#, 241 pts)
5 Possessed (Icon of Slaanesh)
1 Possessed Champion
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)

Troops: Noise Marines (7#, 280 pts)
5 Noise Marines (Sonic Blaster x4; Blastmaster)
1 Noise Champion (Doom Siren; Power Weapon)
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 285 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Plasmagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol)
1 Rhino

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 265 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Meltagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Fist)
1 Rhino

Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators

Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators

Total: 1496 points

We rolled up a mission from the Battle Missions book and ended up playing Pillage, a Chaos Marine mission. It's basically a Spearhead deployment objective mission, but with two differences. First, your board edge is not the long board edge touching your table quarter; instead, you only get the edges of your quarter itself. It's a bit restrictive, but as you can only start with an HQ and 2 troops, and everything else goes into reserves, it's not as crowded as a standard Spearhead deployment. Secondly, you don't score objectives held at the end of the game. Instead, you accumulate points by having an uncontested, un-assaulted unit touching the objective at the end of your opponent's turns. It's an interesting concept, but in practice it felt very wonky. I was able to claim two of the three objectives on the first turn, and I just out-accumulated Jon to the point where the winner was clear on turn 3. I'd rather use the deployment with a standard Seize Ground mission instead.

With the scoring being a bit odd, I won't go into the play-by-play, but I will cover some of the highlights of how my army performed.

Initiative wins battles. I've played enough games against Eldar, with both my Tau and Khorne CSM armies, to know how important going first in assault is. Having the Mark of Slaanesh on everything in the army (save the vehicles and Obliterators) made a huge difference. Rather than trading blows with the Space Wolves in assault, I could get the drop on my opponent and throw a flurry of blows at them. With enough hits, I could cut down the competition (even something as hardy as a Storm Shield Terminator) and reduce their ability to counterattack. Unlike Khorne Berzerkers' Furious Charge, the effect wasn't limited to the first round of combat; every time, I was swinging and hitting first.

Lash of Submission is effective. I know that quite a bit has been written about Lash princes and Lash sorcerers, but there's a reason; it's that good. Even with mechanized armies being so prevalent, it's not hard to force troops out of their transports, and once they're out you can pull them right to where you want them. One particularly effective strategy was to Lash a unit of marines towards my Noise Marines into a vaguely teardrop-shaped formation, and then have the Noise Champion hit them with his doom siren. Whatever survived the AP3 template weapon (which generally wasn't much) would be mopped up by the rest of the unit's sonic blasters, and any particularly lucky enemies that survived would get assaulted.

Obliterators are more fragile than I thought. Obliterators are basically Terminators on steroids: same armor save, same invulnerable save, and twice as many wounds. However, melta guns ruin their day. Not only do they ignore the Oblits' armor, but they're strong enough to double them out and kill them instantly. With every unit of Jon's Grey Hunters packing a marine with a melta gun, there were multiple threats on the table, and Jon used them effectively to whittle down my heavy support.

Possessed Marines aren't bad. There's not much chance of me running them as a hammer unit; they're not predictable enough or nasty enough to serve that job. However, they're still a decent assault, and the randomness is a fun aspect (which I think can be just as important as being powerful). I'd compare them to summoned daemons, but with a number of advantages even though they cost more. First, they're not solely dependent on having a 5+ invulnerable save; they still have marine armor under all the claws and teeth. Second, they can take icons, which mean they can take chaos marks; see "Initiative wins battles" above. Third, they really only have one bad random power: Scout. Everything else they can get is a solid option. Finally, they can take a Rhino, which gives you another piece of moving cover to use.

All told, I had a lot of fun playing this army. Unlike my Tau, which can really only shoot, and my Khorne CSM, which can really only assault, this felt like a much more versatile list. Like most marine variants, it's solid both in shooting and in assault, and it has a few edges particular to it that really allow it to shine. In fact, I enjoyed playing this army so much that I'm strongly considering selling off my Khorne army to focus more resources on growing this one. Anyone interested in 1750-2000 points of assault-y Chaos Marines?

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the other variant of my Slaanesh list, which got to face off against W.D.R. from the Undergopher podcast and his vanilla Marine army!

Artwork by Remton. Used without permission.