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I'm new to w40k table top gaming, (big fan of Dawn of war though, and I've scratchbuilt a dreadnought, a land raider, a lucius warhound and a chaos reaver just cause scratchbuilding is fun as hell) and decided that Chaos was the most interesting army to put together, with a good mix of fleshy and mechanical bits.

So I went ahead and bought me a squad of ten standard CSMs, and opted to make em mostly melee (with some short to medium range options just in case), and have gone with the World Eaters as the paint scheme/general tactics.

I've read the codex, and have decided to split the group into 2 five man squads (will probably buy another set to make em 2 ten men squads), with one aspiring champion in each squad.

I've 2 pressing questions, since I've never played an actual table top warhammer 40k game before.
1) Is it ideal, in the squad configuration I mentioned, to make one squad focus on melee/assault, while the other supports at range? or should I make em 2 mixed squads of 2 melee units 3 ranged units each? I hear CSMs generally don't specialize, and so I'm not too sure if one squad should be supporting the other, of it they should be able to handle anything being thrown at them.

2) Is advisable/allowed to equip CSMs with a bolter instead of a bolt pistol when they wield a chainsword? From what I can tell, there's some provision for CSMs to do this, but I can't find it in the codex. Also, I head that only pistols confer a close combat advantage, not full on rifles. So, i guess my question is CAN I and SHOULD I make that swap?

I guess a bonus question would be, should I just equip all squad members with chainswords/bolt pistols since they're all World Eaters with Khorne insignas and I'm more of a full frontal assault kinda guy in most strategy games?

You're correct when you say that CSM don't specialize. However, you should make both squads at 10 man strength because 5 marines on the assault are not really scary. Both squads should carry 2 meltaguns due to their versatility and relative cheapness. When it comes to hordes, Bolters will do a lot of the work, and you're not really a pushover in close combat as well.

CSMs have Bolter, Bolt Pistol and CCW as part of their standard loadout. This means you can model them in any combination of said weapons that looks best to you and they will still have the standard loadout.

The real thing you should be looking at is Berzerkers. First of all, World Eaters have pretty much exclusively Berzerkers and no standard marines. Second, as you say you like assaults, Berzerkers are some of the best assault troops in the game. I would model all of your marines with pistol/ccw and use them as Berzerkers.