Tactica Chaos
Slanneshi Armies - The Emperor's Children!
by Baronsmeg

its looking like the zenos tactica could use some info so I would like to say some things on the chaos lord of pleasure's minions THE EMPERORS CHILDREN!

many people have played against the likes of khorn and nurgle! and from the looks of things many underestimate the capabilities of the price of chaos! 

a slannesh cult army has a dizzying array of tricks up its sleave to make most generals cry! I'm here to inform my fellow brothers in the ways of slannesh

the keeper of secrets,do to underestimate this fellow! for 35 points less than a blood thirster he is the second best greater demon when it comes to HTH, he does lack the agility afforded by wings, but also can use psychic powers! the fleshy curse can handle any model the demon feels is to much of a threat, since us space marines have a T of 4 we will end up fighting for him on a 5  and there is not much we can do about it! 

the best way to handle him is with shooting since he only has a 5  invulnerable save like all demons! fortunately though he is not often seen on the battle field! 

what your more likely to see is a chaos lord and his retinue! 

now slannesh has given his warriors access to bizarre sonic weaponry, and one of the most useful would have to be the doom siren! this lovely piece of wargear effectively gives the bearer an assault weapon, and still leaves him the option of taking 2 close combat weapons! 

and this weapon comes in to its own when grouped up! the best unit for this is the chaos lord and his retinue! since all the models can be upgraded to aspiring champions, if is quite feasible to give them all doom sirens, the chaos lord along with his cult terminators can be extremely dangerous, one of my favorite configurations is cult terminators all equipped with duel lightning claws and doom sirens, not only are these terminators great at assault with a high base attack of 4, they also can lay down 10 flammer templates with a strength ranging from 5 -10 and an AP of 6!!! so yes they can take out vehicles and insta kill your troops! seriously there is nothing more dangerous than multiple flamme templates, even at strength 4 multiple templates can take out anything! several times I have been able to hit a ten man terminator squad with this, all ten flammers were able to to hit all ten terminators, that is 100 hits with a ST ranging from 6 up, wounding on a 2 , last time this happened I caused 94 wounds, and after there was not a single terminator left!!!

now since these guys are super expensive, the slanesh general likes to protect them! a common chaos tactic is to screen your troops using cheep cultist, chaos doesn't really care about their lives so they are great meat shields!! although some times they get scared and run! however slannesh has seen fit to give us the rapturous standard! thus making these cheep cultists a fearless wall, this is an awesome wall for are guys to get behind!

so how should a blood angle handle this, unfortunately there is no quick and easy way to do it! but we do have a few things at our disposal! what needs to be done is open up the wall so we can create a whole to shoot through! the chaos terminators will be close since they must be 6" away to create the fearless cultists, so we need to use a joint effort!!! we have a few tanks at our disposal to open the wall, the wirl wind can get the job done but is not to accurate! then we have the Baal predator, this tank has enough DAKKA to make an ork jealous! shoot with every thing you have and you should be able to open the wall wide enough to get several plasma cannon shots through on the termies! yes this does mean we have to take devestators, but I found it the best way to do things! you will have to repeat this because you can be sure the wall will close again at the beginning of the chaos turn!!!

most of slannesh' tricks involve his HQ but you must also watch out for his vehicles! because WARPAMPS are not your friends, do not let these things get to close, especially multiple ones because there effects add up! 3 warp amps 6" away cause a minus 9 to you Leadership! as already mentioned slannesh is great at HTH so watch your assault squads carefully, you don't want them to run away from a fight because of warp amps!  watch out for cross fires, and being to close to the board edge when near those things! fortunately warp ams don't make the vehicle stronger so take them out quickly just like you always have!!! 

the rest of a slannesh army can be highly flexible! to the point where they even rival our tactical squads!!! some times you will see other chaos unit and such, but the rest of a slannesh army can be composed of nothing but troops and be very effective, 

emperors children space marine squads can have the usual weapons or sonic weapons which can do lots of damage to vehicles will still remaining mobile! these squads also allow for lots of cheep warp amps by giving them to their rhinos! 

expect to see lots of noise marines! these units are extremely dangerous! and count as both heavy and troop choices!!! again watch out for doom sirens, expect most aspiring champions to have one and a power weapon and bolt pistol! 

fortunately slannesh and his minions aren't to big on shooting, besides noise marines don't expect to much heavy weaponry!!! what you must look out for is there assaults!!!

like I have said slannesh worshiping troops, often have a high base attack and can have close combat weapons and assault weapons on one guy!  coupled with raptors and possessed marines the emperors children will always put up a good fight! and there is nothing harder for an assault based army to take out than another assault based army! especially when they are marines also!!!

I know I rambled on a lot but I hope I have been able to offer some insights in to what these guys are capable of!

thanks for reading
by Baronsmeg
 

++++ the following comment was emailed to me by Mike Harbison, I include it here to further add to the quality of the article ~ Brother Edward

Mikes comment is: 
   "In your tatic you made 1 HUGE mistake.  you dont need the rapturous standard for fearless.  by definition EVERY model in an EC army is fearless, not including daemons if they are being used.  how are they ALL fearless?  THE MARK OF SLAANESH!  EVERY model must carry a mark of slaanesh, or they cant be used.  the mark of slaanesh makes everyone who carries it fearless, and also in close combat lowers enemy initiative by 1.  so your tactic has a hole, that the EC CSM's could be halfway up the field while still screening some of your shots."

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