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Dawn of War 2 is an amazing game and it was a stunning addition when Chaos was added to the mix. Unfortunately many have found Chaos to be even harder to play then Eldar! Maybe this quick strategy guide can help you out if you want a powerful chaos army. I'm not going to give you an in-depth strategy guide but rather the tactics that have worked for me time and again.
When I started playing I started Chaos. I got my butt kicked time and again but finally figured tactics out that worked for me. I HATE JUMP INFANTRY. And I'll show you how to counter them.

General Tips:
As with most factions you have general rules that will help you obtain success no matter what race you are.
1. Press for points constantly, heretics are great for this, sabotage enemy power whenever you can, your foe will grind to a halt.
2. Push as far as you can into enemy lines, the deeper you can possibly go the less ground your foe can make if they manage to rout you.
3. use cover, duh.
4. for more look up general tactics, I'm here to tell you how to use Chaos better in DoW 2

Leaders:
1. Chaos Lord, my personal favorite, he is useful in many ways and is a Juggernaut for health. I find that the most effective wargear for him is actually what you start with. If you combine Dark Halo with the Energy Regen armor then you can stay in the fight much longer, replenishing your shield with every hit. Both of these items are available in T1 so right away you have a very hard to kill commander who can go head to head with any other leader and come out on top. The weapon I would advise with this combination would be the Lighting Claws, they do a lot of damage and they have a slower recharge time, meaning you regenerate energy faster, thus keeping your shield even longer. With this wargear combination your Chaos Lord is more than capable of defeating even the dreaded Nobs and Terminators that elite players will field.
Just remember that your Chaos Lord is very adaptable, configure him to your liking.
Also remember that he destroys cover, making it convenient when attacking shoaled up defenses such as multiple enemies in cover, just break the cover and then tie them up.
As with the Chaos Lords global abilities I find them to be less helpful, the only one I make full use of is malignant blindness, which allows you to close to melee or outflank your enemy without being detected. It is also handy for retreats where otherwise your units would be gunned down.

2. Champion of Nurgle: This guy comes pretty close to being my favorite, not only does he have some awesome support options but his global abilities are amazingly helpful and potent. For wargear it really depends, Nurgle Champion is very flexible, his three wargear options each tailored to specific roles, Bile spewer is anti-building and cover- Sword is anti-infantry - and the fist is effective against just about everything but hits slower, its mainly anti-armor. I find that the best wargear combination for Champion of Nurgle isn't really defined and depends on the situation, I prefer sword-breath of Nurgle- and heavy armor that is unlocked in T2. With this combination you deal good damage in melee and turn your defeated enemies into allied zombies. If you find yourself charging a suppression team the Champion is great, he moves at almost normal speed when suppressed and still fires normally, with breath of Nurgle you can heal yourself and stay in the fight longer, whether closing the gap with ranged units or in the thick of it with melee. The champion can also heal surrounding infantry with Breath of Nurgle.
Another reason I like the Champion so much is because he can deploy turrets and repair vehicles and structures.. It is a massive deterrent when a small army has to close with a turret and you will find the enemy will avoid these areas until better prepared, use these clear zones to regroup, lure your enemies into them, or set up a flanking maneuver when the enemy is making their attack on it.
The heretics are very helpful when Champion is your commander, when they worship your health regen goes up considerably. I find this most helpful if my army was routed. When my units are sitting at my HQ I can have my heretics heal them much faster then they would have otherwise, meaning I can get back to the fight twice as fast as any other commander in Chaos. This Nurgle worship is also helpful if your army is damaged in the front lines but you don't want to give away a superior position. You can also use their shrines to reinforce in the field with is immensely helpful when you don't want to retreat.
Champion of Nurgle's most useful Global ability is the pestilent cloud. (I'm not sure of it's actual name but you'll know it when you see it) once activated it will do damage within a radius of itself, ignoring cover. The nice thing about it is that it is fully controllable and out of the enemies notice. Say you were just routed, you can activate the cloud, if you have the favor, and use it to whittle down the enemy health. If the enemy commander isn't paying attention to his troops he won't notice anything while his models take heavy damage. In lucky cases you can get squad kills without them noticing. If they do notice you just tell the cloud to follow the enemy. A very helpful global ability indeed.

3. I don't know much about the Sorcerer, I tried playing with him but found his support options vague and hard to use. He is good against basic infantry as far as I could tell. His heretics and shrines are helpful for setting up ambushes and he can teleport you but I don't know much else. If you do feel free to enlighten me and anyone else who is going to be reading this.

Playing the game:
Chaos is at a distinct disadvantage from the moment you start playing the game. You would think that super soldiers who have experienced ten thousand years of constant warfare would be significantly stronger than their counterparts but alas, no. CSM are actually weaker than their loyalist counterparts, so make sure you keep them in cover.
You start with four options, Heretics, Chaos Space Marines, Havocs, and Noise Marines(if you are playing on Retribution) Nearly every other race has instant access to elite jump and melee infantry while chaos does not, this means you have to be very careful fighting armies that favor melee since this is your initial weakness.
As soon as the game starts immediately push for resources, go farther away from just the points around your HQ and conquer the ones farther out, this means whatever units you build afterward can capture the closer points while you have denied your enemy those points in the middle.

If you are just starting with Chaos I would suggest the Chaos Lord as he is the easiest to use. You can achieve dominance with quite a small build so push to deny the enemy resources before they can get jump infantry to ruin your plans. Chaos needs to blitz to be effective. Start out the match by immediately building CSM(Chaos Space Marines). Keep your army together and use tactics such as the following to achieve dominance early on.
Your enemy will likely move in a single army. It is wise to keep your heretics back unless you see melee heading your way. Have your CSM grab some cover and charge with the CL(Chaos Lord). After you engage send in the heretics, this will prevent them from getting gunned down prematurely in a charge as now your enemy will be focusing shots or melee at either your lord or your CSM. If your enemy is attacking your CSM with melee use the heretics immediately and utilize doomblast. Your CSM will be able to escape without retreating while your enemy is suppressed and half of the time the melee unit shifts it's focus to the heretics, allowing you to support your tics with the CSM. Meanwhile make sure your Chaos Lord is still alive, have him attack ranged units or the enemy commander if you are fighting an offense player, if you can force the enemies melee to retreat support with your tics as well. Ranged armies fall apart with any kind of melee besting them, especially if they are also being attacked by ranged at the same time.
In short keep your ranged to cover and hold the tics back until the opportune moment. If worst comes to worst you can actually use the CSM as melee, they have a higher melee than any other ranged unit in the game so can actually defeat units such as Guardians or scouts if they are in CQB. Only use this as last minute however, it is wise to keep them ranged.
some other tips: Heretics are effective against ranged units, CSM are effective against any kind of weak infantry as long as you keep them out of melee combat with units such as sluggas and banshees. The CL is good against pretty much everything so use him where you can see the biggest impact.
If you are attacked by jump infantry it would be a good investment to upgrade a CSM squad to mark of Khorne. They can go head to head with Assault marines and Stormboyz even if they lack the jump capacity. Support them with heretics and you should send them packing.
When using suppression use the same advise as with the heretics, keep them out of sight until the enemy is engaged. They will charge with their entire army at your bulk and then suddenly they will receive suppression fire and a heretic charge from their flank. I can't tell you how many times this tactic saved me from Tyranide or ork melee swarms.

If you use effective tactics and best your enemy several times always push forward as I have said before, take and destroy your enemies economy wherever possible. More times than I care to remember I was defeated by superior infantry and vehicles when I was on the verge of victory because I didn't focus on resources. ALWAYS take out enemy supplies. I can't stress this enough. You can win in T1 as long as you deny the enemy the supplies they need to get past you. This is universal not just for Chaos, but it is more important for Chaos seeing as how you need to get the quick jump in order to be more effective.

Generally if you use the tactics well enough you will be well on your way to winning by T2. If not there isn't much hope for you, as I said before Chaos needs to blitz or you will be overwhelmed by elite infantry that you have nothing to counter with. That is one of the most annoying things about playing chaos. They have no counter to jump infantry or super-heavy infantry unless you have a fully upgraded CL or bloodletters, which are so weak in health that they generally have to retreat before they cause much damage. Blitzing is the key, keep your enemy on the run and low on resources and you won't have to deal with these annoyances.

At T2 I generally only grab two additional units other than perhaps grabbing more CSM or Havoc squads. Bloodletters are useful for dealing with suppression units. When your army is tied up you have them warp in and wreak havoc with the enemy and force them off. This generally only works if your enemy is already engaged with you, don't waste Bloodletters attacking without support or you risk losing the whole squad to concentrated attack.
The other unit I find extremely helpful is the Chaos Dreadnought. After playing my beginning matches and using the Khorne upgrade I quickly learned how easily Melee Dreads can go down to kiting(when a ranged unit moved backwards just out of reach of a melee unit) tanks or enemy units. Sure the Khorne dreadnought is a Juggernaut that can counter most melee units but it isn't worth it when you lose it to a tank driving backward. I find that the missile launchers are far superior.
1. You can barrage enemy formations suppressing them and causing heavy damage to units hit by the missiles,
2. The missiles are extremely effective against vehicles and you are immune to kiting.
3. The missiles are also very effective against most other targets.
4. The missiles are long range, allowing the CDN to support your army from afar and defeat any armored threats that may appear, including super-heavy infantry.
The only weakness of the missile CDN(Chaos Dreadnought) is elite melee infantry such as Nobs or Terminators. When faced with these enemies you either have to tie them up quick with suppression or beat it out of there. The other thing the Missile dreadnought cannot do is kite. I wish you could make the thing walk backward but you cannot, so if attacked by a melee dread, hit it with all the missiles you can but be ready to back it up and tie down the other dread by other means.
A combination of two dreadnoughts is extraordinarily effective if you can muster the resources to build them.

If you are really stuck in and have enough resources use predators, Great Unclean One is tempting and a fierce opponent but you would be surprised how easily he can be dragged down by concentrated fire. Use kiting from Khorne and Tzeentch predators to sock it too the enemy if you are that far in and need a powerful unit.

Well there you go. I guess these are more just hints, per say, but I still hope they help you out.
Just remember the early blitz or you will go down quick! Learn from my mistakes.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!
LET THE GALAXY BURN AND THE HEAVENS BLEED!
BY THE KEYS OF TZEENTCH AND THE ROT OF NURGLE OUR ENEMIES SHALL FALL BEFORE OUR ETERNAL MIGHT!
Let me know if this helped you out any.

Ummm, wrong forum?

Moving to videogames.