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I've got about 12'000 points of Chaos Space marines that I cycle through gaming with. My usual games range from anywhere between 1500 points to 8000 points and I strongly dislike playing the same list consistently. I decided to finaly make some possessed and look into a khorne daemon warband, but I'm having trouble figuring out where the actual killing power comes from.

For example, I do have a typical "pick-up game" list that is fun to play, wins a good chunk more than it loses and almost always results in a tight, entertaining game for both people.

It's around 1500 points and I can mix and match in squads and wargear to mix things up, but the basics are:

2x lvl 2-3 sorcerers with force axes (90% of the time they roll on biomancy), sometimes with jump packs
2x 5 raptors with melta guns
2x 10 marines in Rhrinos with dozer blades (w/2 specials)
2x Maulerfiends with magma cutters
1x10 noise marines in a rhino (icon, doom siren, pw)
And pistol, bolter and ccw on everything

In that list (and most lists I play), I like to use the sorcerers or sometimes lords to make my fairly lackluster squads into threats. With biomancy an 2 sorcerers I can usually rely on them to get a wide enough set of powers to act as great force multipliers and threats in their own right. I can see what can hurt what and with sorcerers, I have wildcards, powerful add ins to units and psyker protection.

So here's the thing, I can figure out what to put into 8000 points of daemon kin. 4 bloodthirsters, all my defilers and grinders, at least 5 rhinos of marines, etc... The problem is, I can't quite figure out how to go about constructing a tactically sound force around the 1500-2000 point range. I'm used to taking lots of squads of marines and lots of characters, but the slaughter cult limits that (being the only way to take a chaos lord) and it seems like, on paper, the best way to get your force organized, what with the fringe benefits. But what actually does the heavy lifting of killing the enemy. There no long range weapons to speak of, no havoks or battle tanks and a beefed up sorcerer is what helps my marines actually win in close combat. There are no assault vehicles other than land raiders and no psychic help. The short range shooting is also pretty much just pistols and bolters, so I'm just at a loss. Is the point to build something that runs up and dies and hopefully kills enough to summon a few things to finish the job, or am I missing some way of actually slaughtering things in melee with marines. Because while I love my marines, and I do and take them in large quantities, but it's the characters that actually handle most of the killing and I'm only really comfortably with marines running around outside their safety boxes if they're hit with endurance.

Any help or insight would be welcome.

I believe the saying is 'flesh hounds, flesh hounds everywhere.'

Without allies, in 1850, the scary units that work in combination might look something like:

- Two juggerlords with powerfists/lc and/or other scary wargear (bloodforged armor on the Warlord perhaps). They run with...

- Two large units of hounds (12-15+), which are in...

- Gorepack (arguably the best formation), giving them Hammer of Wrath, plus two units of melta bikers.

- Three maulerfiends or three deep striking soul ginders.

- Heldrake support.

- Bare bones cultists for claiming objectives.

Overload your opponent with targets, and reap bodies for your god.

Amusingly, the heavy lifting of daemonkin comes from the disposables.

The more disposable units you got (cheap units that you can afford to lose without a care), the better the heavy hitters become due to the flow of blood points (can even get you free daemons)

Keeping the army a swarm of MSU assaulty units is the key. make it so there is no "key unit" the army revolves around, just good old fashioned swarm tactics.
Sure, most stuff will die on the way. but death is GOOD for you. that 8 man cultist squad? they net you blood points for dying. that 8 man berzerkers? if theydie, who cares. if they kill? great.
Just keep in mind to have enough groups of useless bastards to send to their deaths and to upgrade to princes and you are good to go.