Fresh Chaos: The Crimson Slaughter

I'm a sucker for anything chaos related. Of this course this means I was more than excited to get my hands on the new Chaos Space Marines supplement, the Crimson Slaughter. Boy, this book is quite the game changer for Chaos. It all boils down to one relic that brings the pain in so many ways. The Balestar of Mannon.

To get my feet wet with this book I played a fairly friendly game against two of my normal gaming group with the following list.

2000 Points Double Force Org

HQ
Huron Blackheart (Warlord) 160 pts
Sorcerer Mastery Level 3, Balestar of Mannon, Mark of Nurgle, and Bike 170 pts
Chaos Lord - Daemonheart, Lightning Claw, Powerfist, Mark of Nurgle, Bike, Sigil of Corruption, and Blight Grenades 200 pts

Troops
10x Cultists w/ CCW 50 pts
10x Cultists w/ CCW 50 pts
10x Cultists w/ CCW 50 pts
18x Possessed w/ Mark of Tzeentch

Fast Attack
5x Chaos Spawn w/ Mark of Nurgle
Heldrake w/ Baleflamer

Heavy Support
Forgefiend w/ Hades Autocannons
3x Obliterators w/ Mark of Nurgle

Total 1991

This list was tailored to give me the ability to try as many new things as I could in one go. This is by no means what I would like to field most of the time because of the sillyness behind it, but its a good way to get a lot of the new toys on the table to see how they work.

The basic idea with this list is infiltrate the possessed up as far as possible giving them an easy turn two charge while spawn with the Lord shoot up the flank to support them. While doing all of this you have the Forgefiend and Oblits giving support fire from the backfield covering the other flank. Of course I'll try to bring in the Heldrake as soon as possible and the cultists work as last minute objective grabbers.

After turn one I had made a pretty dire mistake against my opponents playing Blood Angels and Ultramarines, I left the rear of my Forgefiend open for them to just drop pod behind it and blow it to little chaos bits. Sadly, that meant I didn't get to throw prescience on it all game like I had intended. Other than making that major mistake this game taught me a few simple lessons about units that I rarely used these days.

The first lesson being that Possessed just aren't good. Even with this new chart for them to roll on, they don't get the job done. All they had done for me in this game was take on an assault squad with a chaplain and then charge a unit of tacticals with Tiggy. The saddest part? They couldn't kill Tiggy. Round after round he kept shrugging off their blows. I was never fortunate to get the power with rending and that would have made killing him a far easier task, but I digress.

The second lesson was how immensely power divination can be. My other two armies being Neurons and Flying Circus Daemons, I don't get to use divination too often so I was more than excited to reap the rewards of it. I equipped my sorcerer with a bike so depending on what powers he gets from this discipline he can either stick with the Oblits or he can shoot up the flank with my Lord and Spawn as a support beast. Seeing that I got prescience, perfect timing and scrier's gaze, I was more than happy to sit back buffing the Oblits. Let me tell you Oblits ignoring cover and being twin-linked are nothing short of terrifying. This was definitely my MVP of the game.

In short, I was pretty happy with how the army performed. Crimson Slaughter breathed some new life into a book that I have been extremely disappointed with this edition. (Last edition as well) I'm happy to be fielding the ol' Chaos Space Marines again and I can't wait to see how the Forgefiend fair when it doesn't take a Furioso to the rear first turn.

What kind of list have you guys been having success with? Have you even tried the new book yet? Why do possessed have to suck so bad?