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Lately I've been reading some of the old Realm of Chaos books from yore, and I'm curious, is it viable (not necessarily "super competitive" but has any merit) to build a Chaos (Grand Alliance: Chaos) army that's themed similar to how the old Chaos warbands are? So what I mean in effect is like a mixture of the various Chaos subfactions, like it was in the olden days when everything was lumped together.

An example might be this, which I'm thinking of as an idea for a Nurgle Warband, loosely based on the "Grand Congregation of Nurgle" in the Ghal Maraz book: A mix of Beastmen (i.e. Pestigors, although I don't think those exist as an actual thing anymore), Nurgle Chaos Warrirors, Nurgle Daemons, Putrid Blightkings (representing the elite champions) and even Clan Pestilens Skaven (since oldschool you could get Skaven followers). In the book's story it has this, but would something like that actually play on the tabletop and not suck if you aren't going for some huge mega-battle? For matched play purposes specifically I mean, is a mixed Chaos force viable in the sense I'm talking about?

Both of those options are viable. Slaves to Darkness has most of the 'classic' warriors of chaos options and several battalions which are god-neutral. Varied nurgle is also viable, many nurgle abilities will damage enemies but heal nurgle models and there are two options (Orgotts Daemonspew and Glottkin) for leaders with command abilities that affect any nurgle; mortal, daemon, or skaven.

This is the sort of thing that really intrigues me about AoS.
Wayniac, have a look at this if you haven't already. His idea seems somewhat along the lines of what you've described:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/blog/663727.page

I loved watching the collection and story progress, it was very inspirational!

You can definitely make it work, you'll have to think about what you include and why (for tactical reasons, but you were doing that anyway) and some options (mostly heroes) will be less viable because their strength is in synergy, but not all or even most.

If you have a few casters then I recommend having some daemons to summon, it's fluffy and adds a lot of versatility.

 Anastasis13 wrote:
This is the sort of thing that really intrigues me about AoS.
Wayniac, have a look at this if you haven't already. His idea seems somewhat along the lines of what you've described:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/blog/663727.page

I loved watching the collection and story progress, it was very inspirational!

Thanks man :-) I am glad you liked the thread!

I can attest that a Slaves to Darkness army can be viable. It's mostly what I run (though I throw in Khorne Bloodbound for 2k point games). You're not going to do much against the "top lists" like Skyrefire or Skyborne Slayers, but against most lists, you'll be able to hold your own.