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I finally started really playing 40k in 8th edition after being a long time hobbyist, and I'm totally hyped it about right now. I have about 2k of Necrons and 2k of Eldar. Eldar is my new army and I'm really enjoying playing it, the Necrons not so much.

For years, my wife (who paints but doesn't play) and I have had an unassembled CSM Renegade Strike Force just sitting around in the box. It came with 10 (or 15?) regular chaos marines, 2 rhinos, 5 terminators, a terminator lord, a defiler, a vindicator and a land raider. When I bought it I also bought a dreadnought and demon prince. More recently I've acquired a maulerfiend. It's a pretty good sized force to be just laying around. I decided to draft off of my current 40k hype and start assembling it. So far I have the defiler, maulerfiend/forgefiend and the vindicator assembled.

My problem is that I'm not sure which direction to go as far as dedicating my army to a god or legion. It seems like there are so many options now.

Since I already have two shooty armies, I was hoping to focus more on assault. Khorne would seem the obvious choice, but both my wife and I aren't very big fans of Khorne. Or Nurgle for that matter. Slaanesh and Tzeentch are both appealing to us, but from what I've gathered Slaanesh armies tend to be on the shootier side. Plus, I like the looks of all of the flame demons more than the demonettes.

So Tzeentch seems like the best option. Is it possible to make a decently assaulty Tzeentch army?

If I'm going to follow Tzeentch, should I just be a Thousand Sons army? Are there any other interesting Tzeentch legions besides Thousand Sons?

After reading a few threads I'm still confused on how Thousand Sons works with the new CSM codex. Can I take units from the Thousand Sons index and the CSM codex? If not, can I take units from the Thousand Sons index and the chaos index?

I suppose my main question would be this: if you were me, and had this large chaos force just sitting around waiting to be played, what would you do with it, and why? Even if it's a Khorne or Nurgle force.

I'm actually mostly in the same situation. I have a fairly large generic Chaos Marine force (about 4k points) and 2k of Death Guard as a side project.

I've been indecisive about what Legion to go with for my main force for YEARS now. They started off as Word Bearers with a heavy Tzeentch slant, then I was going to make them a Tzeentch renegade warband (the Scourged) but got frustrated by the colour scheme. Thousand Sons are my favourite Legion by far, but I just don't have the models for them. I've (somewhat) settled on Black Legion but still change my mind fairly regularly.

I think a big problem for me is that aside from the Thousand Sons there just isn't a lot of Tzeentch stuff out there in the background. The only "generic" Tzeentch Chaos Marines I know of are the Scourged, which are admittedly pretty cool but not well defined. Crimson Slaughter have a weird Tzeentch/Khorne duality thing going on, but I'm so sick of painting red there's no chance I'm going to do them. So that leaves me with Black Legion, or more specifically the Sons of the Cyclops warband. They're ultimately Thousand Sons that pledged allegiance to Abaddon, and they've very influencial so it makes sense that they'd have the resources that aren't available to "proper" Thousand Sons forces.

As for how Thousand Sons works with the new codex... well it doesn't. The Thousand Sons army list still uses the index, the only new thing they got with the Codex is access to the new Dark Hereticus powers. I guess there's arguments to be made that you can use the updated points costs from the new Codex as well, but there seems to be a lot of debate about that.

At the moment my Tzeentch/Black Legion plans are on the backburner while I get my Death Guard ready for the table.

My first response would be, what does your meta look like? Are they competitive or non-competitive? Because that will be the big decision in what you choose. If you're playing in a competitive environment, you can lose the game in the list building phase in which case the specific legion type counts.

As for dakka's collected wisdom on the thousand sons, https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/727574.page

As for your main question? I played thousand sons, through many crap iterations. I'm not a masochist, but tzeentch was always my favourite of the chaos gods. And magnus was ultimately the loyal servant wronged. Okay, he smashed the golden throne, but a bit of plywood and some flyscreen. His heart was in the right place, and he turned traitor for the right reason - he was betrayed first.

I can offer some thematic and modelling advice. I don't play 8th ed so can't really help with rules.

I think in terms of making the most of the models you have, you should consider a 'generic' chaos warband that is dedicated to Tzeentch or Chaos Undivided. Going pure Thousand Sons would make it harder to use all those models and still get that Thousand Sons look (unless you are a good modeller).

There is also the option of a Black Legion army, made of the models you have now, but with some Thousand Sons and Tzeentch daemon models/allies added in later. A Black Legion army, I have recently realised, is very useful for getting new Chaos armies off the ground, because it's perfectly thematic to include any Chaos models in a Black Legion army. Therefore if you decide to make a Slaanesh based army later on, you can paint a few models, and field them within the Black Legion force until you have a full army ready.

My 'Champions of Plufestea' army is a generic CSM warband who have recently dedicated themselves to Tzeentch. The models aren't particularly Tzeentchian since they have only recently converted to worshipping that god, but maybe the images will inspire you a bit. I think the thread also has my Black Legion models and some other Chaos in it.
Link to the army:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/685795.page

Fhanados wrote:
I'm actually mostly in the same situation. I have a fairly large generic Chaos Marine force (about 4k points) and 2k of Death Guard as a side project.

I've been indecisive about what Legion to go with for my main force for YEARS now. They started off as Word Bearers with a heavy Tzeentch slant, then I was going to make them a Tzeentch renegade warband (the Scourged) but got frustrated by the colour scheme. Thousand Sons are my favourite Legion by far, but I just don't have the models for them. I've (somewhat) settled on Black Legion but still change my mind fairly regularly.

I think a big problem for me is that aside from the Thousand Sons there just isn't a lot of Tzeentch stuff out there in the background. The only "generic" Tzeentch Chaos Marines I know of are the Scourged, which are admittedly pretty cool but not well defined. Crimson Slaughter have a weird Tzeentch/Khorne duality thing going on, but I'm so sick of painting red there's no chance I'm going to do them. So that leaves me with Black Legion, or more specifically the Sons of the Cyclops warband. They're ultimately Thousand Sons that pledged allegiance to Abaddon, and they've very influencial so it makes sense that they'd have the resources that aren't available to "proper" Thousand Sons forces.

As for how Thousand Sons works with the new codex... well it doesn't. The Thousand Sons army list still uses the index, the only new thing they got with the Codex is access to the new Dark Hereticus powers. I guess there's arguments to be made that you can use the updated points costs from the new Codex as well, but there seems to be a lot of debate about that.

At the moment my Tzeentch/Black Legion plans are on the backburner while I get my Death Guard ready for the table.

Man I understand that feeling. I bought basically a demi company equivalent of units of "generic" chaos units planning on making a renegade Tzeentch black/blue chapter called Crystal Flames based on my Chaos Lord. (He has Wings, a Sorcerer style heads leaking blue light with a eye on the forhead riding a disc of Tzeentch. Powerfisting a plane with him riding a Disc might be the coolest thing ever.. The issue is it was about impossible to build a list in 7th that was fluffy for what I was wanting and not flat out terrible. I ended up giving up and started building them as Black Legion. At least some day if I feel it can work I can probably just repaint one leg / arm in blue and they'll fit properly.

So, in researching some of the things that people have replied, I came across fiends and seekers Of Slaanesh. Even though I dislike the demonettes, I like the fiends and seekers a lot.
Since I was looking for something more assault oriented I was thinking that I could make a chapter dedicated to Slaanesh, use my current CSM models as my shooters by making them noise marines and havocs (along with all of the other heavies I mentioned), then rush in with my seekers, fiends, maybe some heralds on chariots. The Slaanesh bonus of always attacking first seems like it could be great. I really like this idea of a "soup" list, taking units from the CSM codex and the demon index. (I think that's what people mean by that word). The Slaanesh assault units do seem like they might be kind of hard to get into battle, but it might be rewarding when they finally make it.

Still toying with idea of Tzeencth, too, it will be a difficult choice.

 corpuschain wrote:
I can offer some thematic and modelling advice. I don't play 8th ed so can't really help with rules.

I think in terms of making the most of the models you have, you should consider a 'generic' chaos warband that is dedicated to Tzeentch or Chaos Undivided. Going pure Thousand Sons would make it harder to use all those models and still get that Thousand Sons look (unless you are a good modeller).

There is also the option of a Black Legion army, made of the models you have now, but with some Thousand Sons and Tzeentch daemon models/allies added in later. A Black Legion army, I have recently realised, is very useful for getting new Chaos armies off the ground, because it's perfectly thematic to include any Chaos models in a Black Legion army. Therefore if you decide to make a Slaanesh based army later on, you can paint a few models, and field them within the Black Legion force until you have a full army ready.

My 'Champions of Plufestea' army is a generic CSM warband who have recently dedicated themselves to Tzeentch. The models aren't particularly Tzeentchian since they have only recently converted to worshipping that god, but maybe the images will inspire you a bit. I think the thread also has my Black Legion models and some other Chaos in it.
Link to the army:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/685795.page

Those look great, I especially like the converted DP.

I would heavily avoid using Daemonettes. Emporer's Children/Slaneesh marines? Absolutely! But Daemonettes just fall behind every time in my experience. The same goes for fast attacks. Their elites and HQs are pretty good though, so there is that.

But Noise Marines and Lucious Lucious are real, real good. Nothing wrong with Slaneesh, just their Daemon troops.

Go Black Legion, then you can mix and match all you want since every other legion has members in the Black Legion. So you could have Bezerkers and Rubrics in your army, or whatever else you want to add.

Thanks for the ideas about the Black Legion. It seems like a good place to start. However, for some reason it just doesn't excite me. It feels a little too generic, and I don't find the black armor that interesting looking.

 vaklor4 wrote:
I would heavily avoid using Daemonettes. Emporer's Children/Slaneesh marines? Absolutely! But Daemonettes just fall behind every time in my experience. The same goes for fast attacks. Their elites and HQs are pretty good though, so there is that.

But Noise Marines and Lucious Lucious are real, real good. Nothing wrong with Slaneesh, just their Daemon troops.

How are the fiends? I keep coming back to those, they look super cool. I saw the idea of taking two DPs, one from the demon index with wings with frenzy, the other from the CSM codex with Warptime (somehow the article said this could lead to 60" of movement). Maybe I could do this with fiends, could get a 28" move. In practice I don't know if this would be effective, but if I go Slaanesh it would be fun to field some fiends.

Discodoggy wrote:
Thanks for the ideas about the Black Legion. It seems like a good place to start. However, for some reason it just doesn't excite me. It feels a little too generic, and I don't find the black armor that interesting looking.

 vaklor4 wrote:
I would heavily avoid using Daemonettes. Emporer's Children/Slaneesh marines? Absolutely! But Daemonettes just fall behind every time in my experience. The same goes for fast attacks. Their elites and HQs are pretty good though, so there is that.

But Noise Marines and Lucious Lucious are real, real good. Nothing wrong with Slaneesh, just their Daemon troops.

How are the fiends? I keep coming back to those, they look super cool. I saw the idea of taking two DPs, one from the demon index with wings with frenzy, the other from the CSM codex with Warptime (somehow the article said this could lead to 60" of movement). Maybe I could do this with fiends, could get a 28" move. In practice I don't know if this would be effective, but if I go Slaanesh it would be fun to field some fiends.

Fiends are great. The ranged option is a hard bruiser who is essentially a Vindicator with more tricks and plasma up its sleeve, while the Mauler is a melee power house, who operates like a super- Helbrute. I wouldn't attempt taking two Daemon Princes, for the simple fact you'd be hovering around 300-350 points for the two of them. It's not worth the investment at anything under 1500. But as an HQ, a single Daemon Prince is fantastic. For Khorne he becomes less of an HQ and more of a hilarious melee one man army, while as any other god he is a pseudo-psyker who is scary in melee, and with wings can blast up the board by turn 2.

 vaklor4 wrote:

Discodoggy wrote:
Thanks for the ideas about the Black Legion. It seems like a good place to start. However, for some reason it just doesn't excite me. It feels a little too generic, and I don't find the black armor that interesting looking.

 vaklor4 wrote:
I would heavily avoid using Daemonettes. Emporer's Children/Slaneesh marines? Absolutely! But Daemonettes just fall behind every time in my experience. The same goes for fast attacks. Their elites and HQs are pretty good though, so there is that.

But Noise Marines and Lucious Lucious are real, real good. Nothing wrong with Slaneesh, just their Daemon troops.

How are the fiends? I keep coming back to those, they look super cool. I saw the idea of taking two DPs, one from the demon index with wings with frenzy, the other from the CSM codex with Warptime (somehow the article said this could lead to 60" of movement). Maybe I could do this with fiends, could get a 28" move. In practice I don't know if this would be effective, but if I go Slaanesh it would be fun to field some fiends.

Fiends are great. The ranged option is a hard bruiser who is essentially a Vindicator with more tricks and plasma up its sleeve, while the Mauler is a melee power house, who operates like a super- Helbrute. I wouldn't attempt taking two Daemon Princes, for the simple fact you'd be hovering around 300-350 points for the two of them. It's not worth the investment at anything under 1500. But as an HQ, a single Daemon Prince is fantastic. For Khorne he becomes less of an HQ and more of a hilarious melee one man army, while as any other god he is a pseudo-psyker who is scary in melee, and with wings can blast up the board by turn 2.

I do have a Maulerfiend/Forgefiend that I magnetized so I can use either. Good to know it will be useful, it was bought based on its looks.

I was referring to Fiends of Slaanesh from the demon index.

im in a similar place. I have a large amount of chaos marines, a prince, some daemons, and a rhino. I was originally doing Alpha Legion but I cant do their colour scheme justice and it ruins the army for me. Now im not sure if I want to convert them to Khorne or Slaanash. Probably whichever one gets an update next.

Im in a similar positiom. Im honestly considering just going black legion XD mainly due to the fact im currently listening to talon and omg i blooming love this book lol

Playing a Night Lords army I have a few things to chip in about some units:

Maulerfiends: These guys are amazing, and the hilarity only grows if you pair up with a sorcerer for warp time (Thank you heretic Astarte's). personally I find that I prefer the Lasher tendrils over the Magma cutters because I find them pretty effective against infantry but both are pretty solid options. The daemonforge stratagem is always one to be sure to consider as I can personally attest to the damage it can deal, destroying a redemptor dreadnought turn 1.

Forgefiend: Not a favourite of mine, but I have seen them perform well.

Warp Talons: Depending on whether these guys fit your taste, they can really shut down MEQ if you play your cards right. best used on the better guys though, rather than just plain marines, otherwise you're left with a tie game where you killed a standard unit only for yours to get creamed. definitely pair with a jump lord (If you can) and a jump sorcerer for warp time to guarantee that charge with rerolls to hit and wound.

Raptors: I feel these guys are underappreciated. yes they can be lacklustre on their own, but the legion traits can really help improve the utility of these guys depending on what you are looking for them to do. renegade, night lords and emperors children improve the utility of these guys.

Also, with regards to your question on Warptime. it is a warp charge 7 ability that allows a unit within 3 inches to move during the psychic phase as though it were a movement phase, so 2 movements a turn.

I'm a huge fan of the Thousand Sons, and while a typical TS army would be more on the shooty and magic side of things, you could do an assault army. TS lore has the Khenetai Occult Blade Cabal, basically these guys were psykers that wielded twin force swords back before the Hersey. There's also the Order of the Blind, the Thousand Sons Fast attack/ambush/assault/infiltration type units.

I've been working on an assault version to my Thousand Sons army, to represent the Khenetai Blades I'm using the 30K kits and they will most likely 'count as' Bezerkers. I'm looking at running them as either Alpha Legion or Night Lords for the legion trait, since both would fit in with the fluff of how the Thousand Sons worked.