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Okay, so I'm sort of getting back into the hobby after an absence, and I've finally conglomerated all my various old models in one place, and something I've noticed is that I've really got a lot of Space Marines (I bet most people do...), but the army I'm really enjoying the theme of is Chaos Space Marines. Now I've got quite a few CSM units, but I'm thinking of using the standard Space Marines I've got knocking around to fill out their ranks. However, since I'm trying to be cheap and get as much variety out of them as I can, I'd quite like to avoid totally Chaossifying them up, so that I could potentially still field them as a standard Space Marine force as well.

Now I know, obviously, that kind of stuff isn't going to be allowed in a lot of official tournaments and those kind of circles, but I'm just wondering whether people think it's acceptable in casual play to put together an army like that, and if so, what would be the best way to do it. Obviously, I could just go "all these dudes are Chaos marines", but I'm trying to think of some piece of painting or design I could easily apply to a bunch of space marines that could unify them into a single horde, something like painting the forearm of each marine bloody red, so they can be the Bloody Handed Horde or something. My Chaos Marines are already hodgepodge, so the idea of a ragtag group bound together by a powerful leader would work quite well.

So, give me your opinions? Is this kind of army cheese heavily frowned upon, or is it a good way to make use of models?

Thanks for reading.

Sounds like a perfectly good plan. In casual games I've come across opponents 'proxying' all sorts of things as all other sorts of things, but you're using space marines as chaos marines so there won't be any (or hardly any) bother about "What is that unit?" "What weapon is that?" "That coke can is a what now?".

Not all Chaos Marines have spent a thousand years in the warp, smaller sections of 'loyalists' have fallen in more recent times, often simply smearing paint over their armour and defiling any Imperial symbols (Eagles etc.) so you're all set up to have your normal marines as this type of chaos marine. I have a feeling these are called 'Red Corsairs' or something, hopefully someone else can fill in more on that.

My plan is to do some kind of modification so they can all be identified as belonging to the same force when you put them all together, but not anything that means they can't be played as non-chaos marines, so basically getting two armies for the price of one, and also letting me use my old marines with my new proper chaos marines.

Actualy that sounds pretty cool. Having a non standard hodge podge of CSMs in 1 unit. Does sound more Hurons bag of tricks though.

Lets face it though. Red will work. As you can either go Red Corsairs, Khorne, Blood angels or Word Bearers.

Depends on how many figures you're talking about. I've still got 10 Mk VI old school figures that I might try and incorporate somehow.