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Sort of a two in one topic here.

Background: For the most part, I am a "Black Legion" Chaos Space Marine player. I have my various Black Legion lists and I have played a couple Apocalypse games with the Sprue Posse, and I am loving it. I have been wanting to create new armies, but keep them Chaos themed so it fits into story mode for Apocalypse, and I am almost done with my Chaos Renegades detachment (counts as IG), and I was thinking of moving on to Space Marines next. I will eventually do Daemons, but saving that for a future date. By end of year I would like my Apoc force to consist of Abaddon w/ Black Legion force (Done, 2500+ points), Chaos Renegades (IG) (80%, currently at 1500 points), Space Marines (The Pyre), and a contingent of various Daemons... oh and some super -heavies However, I sort of want each army to be able ot function on its own in non-Apoc.

1) So I want to create a Codex: Space Marines army, but theme it Chaos. The fluff gets hard here, but here are my thoughts... (also wanting to use paints other than Black or Brown). I am thinking of using a Renegade Chapter called The Pyre (with a reason to finally use that pot of Macharius Orange Foundation), but I really could roll my own chapter if needed. The background is limited, but what is known is that the Pyre turned Renegade as during the 13th Black Crusade, i think this was around 999.M41. Given they are recent converts, I am thinking this would let me get away with them using the "new" equipment and Codex:Space Marine formation and tactics. So my first question is am I stretching this to far?

2) The an approximation of the list I would like to build..

Commander Varian Fulstar (counts as Vulkan Hes'tan) (190)
3x Dreadnought (MM/HF) w/ Drop Pod (450)
2x 10 Man Tac Squads (F/MM) w/ Rhino (400)
1x 5 Man Scout Squad (not sure if snipers?) w/ Rhino (110)
3x 2 Land Speeders (MM/HF) (480)
2x Predators (AC) (trying to find points for HB sponsons) (120)

1750

The list probably needs some additional tuning, but that pretty close to what I would like, being Semi-competitive, with hopes of making it very competitive with minor tweaks. Not a "new" list by any means.

C&C welcome.

For some reason Scouts and Land Speeders just never work for me. Granted, it's probably Operator Error most the time, but the speeders tend to pop and give away kill points too easily for me. Scouts work best for me if they Outflank, but then again I can never roll rending with sniper rifles.

I'm a huge fan of Dreads with flamers in pods backed up by Vulkan's twinlinking. I've learned that if you really want to bust up a tank though, you need more than 1 shot from a melta. For not too many more points you could have a 5-man Sternguard Squad with 2-4 Combi-Meltas and/or Meltaguns. Now you've got several melta hits on that vehicle and should get several penetrating rolls. A single Combi-Flamer or Heavy Flamer can be sick against some armies.

The fun thing that I've been trying lately is a full Bike Squad. Load it up with Meltaguns x2, a Multi-melta Attack Bike, and a Power Fist just because. Turbo boost can be amazing and Vulkan makes those mobile meltas that much more fun. I'd rather take that at ~310 than the Land Speeders.

Yeah, I actually don't like the scouts in there... they are really just there as a cheap 3rd scoring unit.. scoring near side. :(

I was looking at the bikes, but there has been a huge meta-shift in my local games that reduces the effectiveness of non-fearless, non-mech.... namely IG's Psychic Battle Squads. I'm the TFG in our group that run's the dual lash list so, I can't hate that much

Dark Angels bikers, = fearless, would have been a cool option and I was for a bit thinking "Fallen Angels" Ravenwing list, but I am trying to avoid the darker colors, only because I have painted my fill of dark colors for a bit.

However, I have never ran speeders and I am definitely wary of AV10 vehicle squadrons and understand your reservations. I also definitely agree with your 1 melta not enough Three is not enough sometimes.. boy do I know, I feel like throwing the dice when I get three BS4 meltas on a Rhino and get nothing!

Hmm, I will think more on this and probably propose a list that doesn't use scouts for sure, but I will need to think of what options I have.

Comming from the guy developing the "counts as Dark Eldar" orks I have no problem with you running a chaos themed army using space Marines. After playing Salamanders for the last 5 months I'll give you some advice on list building for them:

My most effective unit is Vulkan with a 5 man Thunder hammer/ Storm shield Assault terminator unit inside a land raider redeemer. I'd be jumping for joy if I saw your list because almost everything is AV12 or less. I find that lots of players put a ton of firepower into the land raider and don't seem to pay enough attention to the Attack Bikes, Dreadnoughts, and land speeders.

I never run dreadnoughts without extra armor. Unlike a tank, a dread without extra armor also loses effectivness in the assault phase.

I LOVE Multi Melta Attack bikes because of the outflanking rules. However, they can alsohide behind some forms of cover & a rhino if needed.

Scouts can't take Rhinos and with the reduced balistic skills they are pretty weak. Besides, with combat squad abilities you can have 4 scoring units with only 2 tac squads. Plenty at 1750 for me.

So I would drop the scouts and get extra armor for your dreads along with heavy bolter sponors for your preds.

Thanks for the catch on the Scouts can't take Rhinos, I think I just assumed they could and didn't verify.

I am really liking this input, as its actually allowing me to think about a more diverse list, meaning more fun playing and more fun modelling and painting, since it won't just be X of the same thing over and over again.

Crunching the numbers on list alternatives... (i.e. Speeders vs Bikes vs Both and do I make the jump to fit an LRR + TH/SS in there ) Hard decisions. Building and Painting everything from ground up, so very flexible now, but if I get it all painted and change my mind, I might lose it (that said, I will proably change my mind and end up with 3000+ in Space Marines)

Haha, I too am doing almost the same thing. Here is my take on this:

After several box sets from 4th edition as well as one from 5th, I have an abundance of Imperial Space Marines. I have always been a follower of Chaos however, since before the 2nd edition Codex. Huron Blackheart has been an interesting character in Chaos lore (fluff ) since 2nd edition, and since he turned traitor AFTER the heresy, I thought that doing an army representing his piratical traitors using the the new space marine forces would be perfect use of my extra minis. I plan on using Vulkan He'stan's rules as he has both the heavy flamer and a power weapon. I also wanted to use all the special toys that I don't normally have access to as a chaos player, so scouts and landspeeders were a must.

I read the story in the BRB about Huron's seige; The Fall of Vilamus, page 146, and thought that a deep striking force would fit Huron's methods better, so I modified the list to the following. With 2 locater beacons on the scout bikes (with their infiltrate and scout rules) my first 2 drop pods could be pretty much land where ever I wanted them to come in. With the teleport homers on the two scout squads, the terminaters would have even more options.
2000 pt list.
HQ
Vulkan 190
ELITE
5 Termis w/ assult cannon 230
5 Termis w/ Heavy Flamer 205
FAST ATTACK
2 Landspeeders w/ 2 multimelta & 1 heavy flamer 130
5 Scout Bikers w/ locater beacon, clustermines & powersword 160
5 Scout Bikers w/ locater beacon, clustermines & powersword 160
TROOPS
10 Tac Marines w/ flamer & multi melta w/ drop pod 205
10 Tac Marines w/ flamer & multi melta w/ drop pod 205
10 Tac Marines w/ flamer & multi melta w/ drop pod 205
8 Scouts with sniper rifles, camo cloaks & teleport homer 153
8 Scouts with sniper rifles, camo cloaks & teleport homer 153
No Heavy

Now I have gotten some comments about not taking assault terminators for the thunder hammers, but I figures that since you can't assault the turn that you deep strike, that having the fire (pun intended) power would be more useful.

Kill points are a b*tch though. My list has 15, this is a lot compared to my chaos army. Your army has 18 and you are probably noticing a big difference from you chaos army too I'm guessing.

I would consider making the list more mobile armour. Dropping 1 dreadnought w/pod and 1 predator for some assault termis and a pimp ride (read landraider redeemer) and put Vulckan in with them, just like Asugradinwa said. Maybe replace scouts with a small tac squad with razorback maybe. Also put in a Vindicator instead of a predator. It does a lot more damage. Do you really want to pay 60 pts for 1 autocanon?

Something similar to this mght work for you:
1724
HQ
Vulkan He'stan 190
ELITE
5 Assult termis 200
Landraider redemer w/ multi melta & extra armour 265
FAST ATTACK
Landspeeder w/ multi melta & heavy flamer 70
Landspeeder w/ multi melta & heavy flamer 70
Landspeeder w/ multi melta & heavy flamer 70
TROOPS
10 Tac Marines w/ flamer & multi melta w/ rhino 205
10 Tac Marines w/ flamer & multi melta w/ rhino 205
10 Tac Marines w/ flamer & multi melta w/ rhino 205
HEAVY SUPPORT
Vindicator 115
Vindicator 115

In this list, splitting up the landspeeders makes each more survivable as they no-longer are affected by vehicle squadron rules for immobilization.

Don't get too hung up on scoring units either, remember that you can combat squad so that makes 4 tac squads scoring.