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Having dabbled with painting and whatnot for years, I've recently gotten into the actual PLAYING, and I'm hooked. Thank you, Dark Vengeance.

So now I have the Codex Chaos Space Marines and a CSM Battleforce. I've halfway assembled the rhino and am currently painting its interior. My plan is to play small games on a monthly basis and slowly work myself up. I figured the battleforce was a good starting point, but I'm at a loss as to how I should assemble it, what equipment works etc. Any pointers would be welcome, the more detailed the better. I'm going for a heavy Slaanesh theme though and will paint anything pink given the right excuse.

battleforce has 3 bikes,10 marines, 5 possesed, and a rhino from memory.

bikes
very fast very cheap but in squads of 3 they break too easily consider in future expanding that squad and making one a biker lord to deal with leadership, for now outfit one with a meltagun and/or give the champ a powerfist and use it as a tankhunter suicide squad slanesshi bikers with a icon of excess take a lot of fire to kill and mathwise can take more boltershots than nurgle bikers.

possesed
dont like them too much but the wings are great if you want a stylish jump pack character

CSM
beware its easy to overspend on these, IMO its mainly personal preference to how you want to outfit this squad i run mine in 10 man groups with Votw and additional cc weapons if I have points, but i play against a lot of marines and hatered is good and +1LD is always useful

Blackskull has it right on what is in the battleforce, and has some good points. My own additions would be as so:

Buy another biker as soon as possible, and make a biker lord (Use the possessed bits if you want a more unique looking one). This will give you a HQ choice, and one you will always want to use (even at higher points games) at that.

I would personally mix the Possessed part with the Chaos Space Marines to make 15 regular CSM, then proceed to purchase 5 more marines, and use a bits site (or ask around) in order to get the special weapons you want.

If memory serves, you will have one Meltagun, one Flamer and one Plasma Gun within the battleforce. If you can, get a hold of another Plasma gun, and perhaps 2 more Meltas.

Build the following squads:
10 CSM, 2 Plasma Gun, 7 Bolters, Aspiring Champion (whatever equipment you want on him).
10 CSM, 2 Melta Gun, 7 Bolt Pistol&CCW, Aspiring Champion (with a power sword, or a lightning claw if you can get one).
Put the second squad in the Rhino.

This will give you a good start to an army, between these, the bikers and the biker lord you have a fully legal force of about 600 points or so, so from there it is a short jump (One small squad of whatever you want) to go to 750 for your next increase.

Thanks for the input! Much appreciated.

Would you say Burning Brand and Power Sword on the lord, then?

Apologies for the double post.

I've assembled a Chaos Lord as per your recommendations. Put him on a bike, gave him a lightning claw from a Space Wolves sprue and used the mutated arm that looks like it's gushing fire from the Possessed sprue to represent the Burning Brand of Skalathrax. All the frills you'd expect; high initiative from MoS, rerolls to wounds, biker toughness and a wicked torrent weapon. Even gave him the possessed head with the big horns and big smile!

Because I'm learning the game and want to try out a sorcerer, I've assembled a dude with a force sword and a bolt pistol for that very purpose.

I'm in the process of assembling/painting my rhino (painted the interior halfway through) and pending whether or not I should glue a dirge caster to its roof, and whether or not I should give it a havoc launcher (but perhaps I don't need to glue that option on and remove/add when needed?).

Tactics question: Am I correct in assuming that the plasma squad will be so shooty that bestowing any additional wargear to the aspiring champion would be a waste of points, whereas the melta squad will be more likely to mash face, justifying the expenditure of a lightning claw as suggested by Riptor?

Yeah I'd say the plasma squad would be fine without a CC weapon unless you plan on them being close up alone, it also depends if you've got units to help them out in case they get into CC. If you don't a CC weapon is good insurance.