Chosen of the Pantheon: An Updated Competitive List for EVERY Chaos Space Marine Legion


“We keep waging the Long War in 9th Edition, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. Because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” – John F. Kennedy, probably

“Why do we have to pay 3CP for 2 relics?”

This article is a labor of love for all the hardcore Chaos fans out there still fighting the Long War. The common perception that Chaos Space Marines are a below average faction is definitely true. But they’re also held back by being a very technical army full of trap units, so they’re perceived as worse than they are. Let me get straight to the point: Most CSM lists I see are terrible.

But that’s not really people’s fault, right? There really aren’t any serious players playing the vast majority of CSM Legions competitively. So when someone starts building a list from most Legions, they really have no blueprint or inspiration for what works well in that Legion.

Fortunately for CSM players, here at Warphammer, we are for the people. Today, we’re going to do something a little different. We’re going to dive into all the Legions that rarely see play in the Chaos Space Marine codex, and lay out a groundwork for any players trying to dive into these awesome factions. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The BIGGEST mistake that players of bad factions make is trying to play the same game as better factions. Let’s get weird and have fun.

Overview of the “Chaos Space Marine Meta”

To illustrate the issue of lack of resources for most Legions, let’s first dive into which Legions have been doing well at tournaments. It’s not a scientific way to do it, but I’ll just look at the top 10 ITC ranked CSM players and then list their main Legions so you can see what people are playing (and how hilariously close it is up top).

We’ve got:

  1. Black Legion
  2. Iron Warriors
  3. Me, serving up spicy Emperor’s Children meatballs
  4. Iron Warriors
  5. World Eaters (Fun fact: You can make Mark cry by reminding him faction-specific Secondaries exist. Another fun fact: You can make me cry in the exact same way. Another fun fact: Those facts were not fun.)
  6. Iron Warriors
  7. Iron Warriors
  8. Iron Warriors
  9. Iron Warriors
  10. All sorts of Chaos stuff

I guess Perturabo was right: Iron Within, Iron With Wins. That still leaves Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Word Bearers, Creations of Bile, and all the awesome renegade Legions like The Purge and Red Corsairs without anyone championing them. Let’s take a look at how a competitive player would approach these factions.

Let’s start with one of my personal favorites, and the Legion I think is most underrated: Night Lords

Night Lords

Strengths

  • We Have Come For You to create combat wraps, especially with Cultists and Warp Talons
  • In Midnight Clad (aka Lightning Fast Reflexes for Infantry) working on large Cultist squads
  • The +1 to Hit against lower Leadership stratagem making Death To The False Emperor into a terrifying weapon, since it’s (almost) always triggering in melee
  • Reliable deepstrike charges with jetpack units
  • The threat of turning off auras

Night Lords Cultists are one of the best units in the Chaos Space Marine codex. They’re one of the best kept secrets in the game.

(Artwork Credit: Kai Lim)

Night Lords are an army I’m really excited about. They have a strong set of stratagems that you can build a cohesive strategy around. You’re going to focus on fast or deepstriking melee units, and then consolidating multiple units into a single enemy unit and using We Have Come For You to keep them all from getting shot. Does that sound familiar? Night Lords should be played basically as Slaanesh Daemons-lite.

Just entirely forget the Legion trait. The Leadership debuff thing is a complete joke. Trying to find complicated combos to stack Leadership debuffs is just throwing good points after bad. There are just too many matchups where it’s useless. The only time I would ever care about Leadership debuffs is if you’re pairing your Night Lords with Slaanesh Daemons, and you’re stacking the trait with Phantasmagoria to make the Forbidden Gem/Contorted Epitome’s trapping extremely reliable.

Where you should be using the Legion trait is in helping to proc Prey of the Weak for +1 to Hit, especially vs Imperium armies. With From the Night, you can usually get two melee units each phase with possible +1 to Hit stratagems active. Give your units Icons of Excess for innate 5+ Death To The False Emperor. Drown the corpse worshippers in dice.

Vox Scream is an amazing tool in 9th Edition. Basically all of the 9th Edition codices have access to Bodyguard jank (like Morvenn Vahl being untargettable on an objective because some friends with shields are standing behind a wall nearby). Vox Scream is a game changer. They can’t just hold objectives for free and have to start putting actual resources on objectives. And the best part is you never have to spend the CP. Just knowing you can do it keeps them honest.

Night Lords List

  • Night Lords Battalion
    • Chaos Lord (Warlord: Inspiring Leader, Jump Pack, Combi-melta, Power Fist)
    • Dark Apostle (Illusory Supplication, Dark Disciples)
    • Sorceror (Mark of Tzeentch, Warptime, Weaver of Fates)
    • 28 Cultists, Mark of Tzeentch
    • 19 Cultists, Mark of Tzeentch
    • 10 Cultists
    • 8 Terminators (Mark of Slaanesh, Icon of Excess, all combi-melta and lighting claws)
    • Chosen (Champ with Hammer, 1 Hammer, 2 Chainsword, 3 Lightning Claws, Mark of Khorne)
    • Leviathan Dreadnought (3 Hunter-Killer Missiles, 1 Grav Bombard, 1 Storm Cannon, Mark of Tzeentch, Volkite Calivers)
    • Dreadclaw Drop Pod
    • 8 Warp Talons
    • 7 Warp Talons
    • Heldrake
    • Hell Blade

Chaos Lord with Inspiring Leader will give the Leviathan +1 to Hit and Reroll 1’s at the start, while the Dark Apostle’s invuln bubble and Weaver of Fates/In Midnight Clad on the front squad makes your Cultists very durable as they are pushed up the board. Turn 2, your Terminators and Warp Talons keep taking huge chunks out of their list while Cultists start charging in. Use We Have Come For You to grind their movement and shooting to a halt.

Iron Warriors

  • Daemonsmith to supercharge Daemon Engines
  • Great stratagem support for Vehicles
  • Legion trait helping Havocs with chaincannons and Terminators with combi-bolters perform
  • Making Obliterators be less bad

Iron Warriors really only have one shell in 9th Edition, but it’s a damn good one. Take a Lord Discordant/Master of Possession/Chaos Lord with Daemonsmith, then fill the rest of the roster with Decimators and Lords of Skulls until you have truly blistering damage output. Round the roster out with Venomcrawlers or Heldrakes to provide some more mobile and cheaper harassing Daemon Engines. You can basically either go with a second Lord of Skulls or a unit of Obliterators/Terminators/Havocs in a Drop Pod to pump up with Endless Cacophony and your choice of buffing stratagems.

If you’re bringing some Dreadnoughts, it might be worth running Siege Master instead of Daemonsmith. The issue with Siege Master is it provides the exact same buff as Infernal Power for Daemon Engines if you bring a Master of Possession. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you go with Siege Master, you can drop the Master of Possession and play an entirely Psyker-free list with all the Secondary advantages that provides. You do lose the +1 invuln bubble from Cursed Earth. On the other hand, you only lose the +1 invuln bubble from Cursed Earth *on turns it would go off*, which is far from guaranteed.

Anything with a 2+ armour save becomes extremely attractive in Iron Warriors. Bring a unit of Slaanesh marked Terminators or Obliterators, drop them into cover, and spend 1CP to reduce the AP of incoming attacks by 1 so they need AP3 to even stop you rolling 2+ Saves. You know what else has a 2+ Save? Land Raiders. Land Raiders remain… inefficient. The Land Raider Achilles variant, however, is genuinely good in Iron Warriors (and to a lesser extent in World Eaters). Don’t be afraid to do some converting. An Iron Warriors list with a Land Raider Achilles and some Plagueburst Crawlers souped in has a significant amount of non-Line Of Sight shooting, blistering anti-vehicle firepower, and lots of T8 wounds with invulns. The more I think about it, the more I want to play this list. Quick list sketch below!

  • Iron Warriors Patrol: Nurgle Daemon Prince with Siege Master (he still gives hit rerolls to the Plagueburst Crawlers), some Cultists, Land Raider Achilles
  • Death Guard Poxmongers Spearhead with a Malignant Plaguecaster with damage spells, 3 Plagueburst Crawlers, and 2 Foetid Bloat Drones
  • Iron Warriors Super Heavy Auxiliary with a Khorne Lord of Skulls

High volume of firepower units are extremely attractive in Iron Warriors because of the 1CP stratagem to reroll wounds vs Vehicles. Rerolling wounds is better than +1 to Wound in all situations unless you’re wounding on a 6+. The way I would play Terminators in Iron Warriors is give them all lighting claws and combi-bolters or combi-meltas. Just assume you’re going to fail the deepstrike charge, so drop them into cover and Endless Cacophony everything nearby. Then you have a unit that that will control it’s section of the board with it’s melee and shooting threat.

Iron Warriors List

  • Iron Warriors Battalion
    • Chaos Lord (Warlord, Daemonsmith)
    • Lord Discordant on Helstalker (Talisman of Burning Blood)
    • 3 x 10 Cultists
    • 3 x Decimators with Soulburner Petards
    • 1 x 10 Terminators (Lightning Claw, Combi-bolter)
    • Dreadclaw Drop Pod
    • 1 x 5 Havocs with Reaper Chaincannons
  • Iron Warriors Superheavy Auxiliary
    • Lord of Skulls

Word Bearers

I’ve previously written in-depth about the strengths of Word Bearers competitively here: https://warp-hammer.com/2021/09/14/faith-hate-vengeance-and-truth-winning-a-tournament-with-word-bearers/. To avoid making this article even longer, I’ll link it rather than copy the text here.

That being said, this article promised a mono-faction list for every Legion. I went ahead and adjusted the Word Bearers + Daemons list in the article to show what I would run if I were playing pure Word Bearers. The main change would be splurging for that 3rd Word Bearers relic, since I’m saving the CP by not bringing a 3rd detachment.

I also went ahead and gave the Lord Discordant the Exalted Possession trait instead of Diabolist, going for a bit more offense over defense. I found that the Lord Discordant was never getting shot because he has a better invuln than the rest of the Daemon Engines

This Word Bearers Lord Discordant is just a nuclear weapon. A Lord Discordant standard with Daemonforge is already a strong melee option. Giving him Exalted Possession for +1 Strength/Attack/Movement takes him to the next level. Crucially, it also gives him the Possessed keyword. This gives him access to the Revered Hosts stratagem for +1 Damage across his huge volume of attacks. Seeing a Lord Discordant with +1 Strength, Attack, AND Damage in action is enough to convert the most loyal corpse worshipper into a frenzied Chaos devotee.

Word Bearers List

  • Word Bearers Battalion
    • Dark Apostle (Illusory Supplication/Benediction of Darkness, Epistle of Lorgar, Apostle of the Dark Council, Dark Disciples)
    • Lord Discordant (Exalted Possession, Crown of the Blasphemer, Tzeentch)
    • Master of Possession (The Malefic Tome, Cursed Earth/Infernal Power/Sacrifice)
    • 3 x 10 Cultists
    • 3 x Decimators with Soulburner Petards
    • 8 Possessed
    • 7 Possessed
    • 2 Rhinos
  • Word Bearers Superheavy Auxiliary
    • Khorne Lord of Skulls

Alpha Legion

Strengths

  • Pre-game move for Infantry
  • Multiple ways to mess with deepstrikers
  • Being able to buy multiple Warlord traits
  • Being able to redeploy 3 units
  • Giving Bikers a chance to shine

Alpha Legion are so close to being good. So close! They have a weird but powerful suite of tools. The issue is that these tools are very narrow in scope, and you don’t need a ton of units to take advantage of them. This means that Alpha Legion are currently more of a supporting detachment in a soup list than a real army by themselves. That doesn’t mean Alpha Legion fans have to give up on playing their army as a mono-faction. It just means that we have to get a bit more creative than usual.

(Artwork Credit: Cerxis)

The relics are pretty much useless. It’s so crazy comparing the Alpha Legion relics to the Word Bearers relics from the same Faith And Fury supplement. Alpha Legion relics are barely worth the ink spent printing them, whereas the Word Bearers supplement is chock full of complete bangers. If you’re ever writing an Alpha Legion list and spend the CP to buy an extra relic beyond your free one, just stop what you’re doing and reconsider. I think it’s perfectly justifiable skipping the Alpha Legion specific relics when picking your free relic and just taking the default CSM codex Intoxicating Elixir or Talisman of Burning Blood on a smash character. On the other hand, you should almost always be spending the CP to buy an additional Warlord Trait.

The issue with Alpha Legion is that they really don’t have any damage buffs. The damage output just isn’t really there. You basically have to bring a Lord of Skulls and/or multiple Dreadnoughts with hit bonuses to have enough damage to keep people honest. Berzerkers are another interesting choice for Alpha Legion. They are pricey, but are one of the few CSM units that can do massive amounts of damage regardless of Legion. Alpha Legion are also, sadly, one of the only Legions where actual Chaos Space Marines in the Troops slot makes any chance. Being -1 to Hit with a 2+ save in cover isn’t great, but it’s at least something. I also think Alpha Legion pair very well with Daemons, Death Guard Daemon Engines, or Thousand Sons.

One unit of Warp Talons to pre-game move and deliver some damage is an interesting option. A few other plays that Alpha Legion players can take advantage of:

  • Put a Dark Apostle behind a wall, string out his Dark Disciples backwards on the other side of the wall, and put a unit of Infantry you want to keep alive behind those Dark Disciples. When you use Conceal on that Infantry unit, literally nothing is targettable even if they have snipers. Dark Disciples remain Chaos’s premier jank unit.
  • On missions that let you keep control of an objective once you control it in your Command phase, if you go first pre-game move an Infantry unit onto an exposed midfield objective and then run it back behind a wall to safety. You’ll have the objective at no risk until the opponent sends something onto it.
  • Pre-game move a unit of Rubric Marines, then swap out their default Smite for Warptime and push them (or another unit like Bikers) really far up the board

Alpha Legion List

  • Alpha Legion Battalion
    • Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour (Warlord, Master of Diversion, Viper’s Bite)
    • Sorceror (Warp Lord, Prescience, Delightful Agonies)
    • 3 x 10 Cultists
    • Leviathan Dreadnought (2x Grav Flux Bombard, 3x Hunter Killer Missiles, Volkite Caliver)
    • Dreadclaw Drop Pod
    • 1 x 5 Havocs with Chaincannons
    • 1 x 5 Berzerkers with a lightning claw
    • 1 x 5 Rubric Marines
    • 1 x 9 Bikers, all combi-bolters with 3 meltas
    • 1 x 8 Warp Talons
  • Alpha Legion Superheavy Auxiliary
    • Khorne Lord of Skulls

I love this list, because it feels strong but also captures the shenanigans of a true Alpha Legion list.

This list can play either very aggressively or defensively. Pre-game moving Warp Talons, 9 Bikers with Warptime, a Drop Pod full of Havocs and Berzerkers, and a redeploying Leviathan and Lord of Skulls gives an experienced Alpha Legion player a huge toolbox to apply different forms of pressure. What I would do with the Dreadclaw is put the Havocs and the Berzerkers inside, then drop the pod on your side of the midfield so the Havocs are behind the Dreadclaw and in range of the Chaos Lord’s aura, keeping the Berzerkers safe inside. On your next turn, your Berzerkers can disembark and get in the scrum.

Bikers have always been plagued by the issue of just getting clobbered if you go second. In Alpha Legion you can deploy them on the line to set up Warptime + Endless Cacophony + move blocking plays, then use your free redeploy to hide them if you go second and try again when the time is right.

Creations of Bile

Strengths

  • None

There is no greater disconnect in 40K than how good COB seem in the theoryhammer stage and then how disappointing they are on the table.

Fabius Bile shooting… down your chances of winning by wasting your Warlord Trait

I’ve been down this Creations of Bile road before. You’re going to be like “Wow, Strength 6 Possessed sounds amazing, this army is so good!” And I’m going to explain to you all the issues with the army.

And then you’re going to reply, “But have you realized Possessed are strength 6 in Creations of Bile!”

And I’ll nod my head. And I’ll acknowledge that S6 Possessed are cool. But then I’ll point out that pre-game moves, or guaranteed Warptime/Prescience, or +1 damage, or preventing enemies from falling back, or army wide fights first, or -1 to Hit, or being literally unshootable are all way better for Possessed than +1 strength.

And then you’re going to rub your temples in irritation, look at me like I’m a moron, and angrily yell “WHAT PART OF STRENGTH SIX POSSESSED DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?”

Rude.

Creations of Bile List

  • HQ
    • No
  • Troops
    • No
  • Elites
    • No
  • Fast Attack
    • No
  • Heavy Support
    • No
  • Flyers
    • 5 Heldrakes or whatever

I will say: There actually is some really cool stuff in Creations of Bile. It’s just such a trap army that I feel an obligation to steer Chaos fans away. If someone wants to really mess with me, join the team at Patreon.com/Warphammer and request a Creations of Bile list or coaching. I’ll give Creations of Bile some more thought when I have to. In the meantime, I’ll continue pretending they don’t exist and sticking to the real Legions.

World Eaters

Strengths

  • Berzerkers with ObSec
  • Kharn using his hit reroll aura to make shooting units extremely reliable
  • Solid melee buffs
  • Pre-game moving Infantry

Kharn is an amazing gunline centerpiece. In an edition where all new codices are losing their abilities to give rerolls to Vehicles, Kharn gives all units within 1″ full (failed) hit rerolls. Contemptors and Leviathans absolutely love this. Even the humble Vindicator (credit to Mark for this piece of tech) becomes weirdly efficient with Kharn nearby. And being a Khorne Legion, you can always bring a Lord of Skulls and Daemonforge it for a CP. As World Eaters, you want to build around a very strong shooting core and supplement it with enough melee to keep them honest, not the other way around.

They’re also a great army at playing Primary and scoring Stranglehold. With Berzerkers getting two activations every time they fight and a strat to consolidate 6″, a unit of Berzerkers can get up to 30″ of movement if they charge a unit and kill it on the first activation.

And once a World Eaters unit gets into combat, the stratagems are great. +1AP in in combat on demand is beautiful with the huge volume of attacks World Eaters units get in combat, especially Berzerkers.

You’ll want to bring one big hammer unit of jump pack Infantry to take advantage of the pre-game move. A big block of Warp Talons is the best option, but 8-10 Raptors can be a budget substitute. A unit of even a bare minimum 5 World Eater Warp Talons gets 26 lightning claw attacks on the charge. The issue with World Eaters is they have no almost no way to buff their charges, so building around any deepstrike units is a mistake. Jump pack units in World Eaters are just there to deploy on the board and pre-game move or project threat.

I’m also going to talk about Violent Urgency, the Warlord trait for a +1 to charge and advance aura. I see so many players putting it on Terminator or Jump Pack character, and deepstriking him with Red Butcher Terminators or Warp Talons and building around a strategy of having them charge with +1 to charge for an 8″ charge from deepstrike. I cannot overstate just how bad that play is. Deepstrike is at such a disadvantage compared to being on the board in terms of letting your opponent control your location. If you’re investing heavily in a deepstrike play (and a Character + Warlord Trait + Terminator unit + 2CP for Red Butchers upgrade is a massive investment), the odds of that play better be damn good. Emperor’s Children fail 9″ charges 1% of the time with a reroll. World Eaters fail 8″ charges with a reroll 33% of the time. Upgrading a Terminator Lord into a Red Butcher is a much better play than upgrading a Terminator unit, because he can move up the board safely with his Look Out, Sir protection and then get into the fight.

World Eaters List

(Adaptation of Mark Whittaker’s World Eaters)

  • World Eaters Battalion
    • Dark Apostle (Illusory Supplication, Brass Collar of Borghaster
    • Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour (Red Butchers, Battle Lust, Chainfist, Talisman of Burning Blood)
    • Kharn
    • 2 x 10 Cultists
    • 8 Berzerkers
    • 8 Warp Talons
    • 8 Raptors
    • 3 x Vindicators
    • 2 x rhinos
  • World Eaters Superheavy Auxiliary
    • Khorne Lord of Skulls

Black Legion

  • Abaddon’s hit reroll aura
  • Abaddon’s fearless bubble
  • Abaddon’s combat and durability
  • Abaddon’s rugged good looks

Great news for anyone who got into the Black Legion from Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Black Legion series: Abaddon is as incredible on the tabletop as he seems in the stories.

He’s an absolute menace in melee (and downright gamewinning against Imperium armies), and comes with an inbuilt rule to halve all incoming damage. His fearless bubble works wonders with Cultists (and notably applies to non-Black Legion CSM units too), and getting an extra 2 CP for having him as your Warlord is icing on the cake. But where he really shines is in buffing shooting units around him. Full hit rerolls for your entire shooting castle is the best way to tear down Flyers, Drukhari, or Orks.

Daemon Engines don’t really need Abaddon’s rerolls because of Daemonforge, so you’re going to want to invest in Dreadnoughts to benefit the most from his aura. There are plenty of cute units you can stick near Abaddon–hey, I wouldn’t want to be the person going second against Abaddon and 3 Black Legion Fire Raptors. But realistically, no units combine firepower and durability like Dreadnoughts. And because Abaddon + Dreadnoughts is a shell that basically functions without CP, you can invest in fancier plays like using Tide of Traitors to retrieve data with Cultists or double shooting Havocs with Chaincannons out of a Drop Pod.

I also think Berzerkers can be fantastic in Black Legion. Not only are Black Legion Berzerkers a fluffy pick, but they become imitation World Eaters with the Merciless Fighters stratagem and smart charging movement before piling-in. Black Legion Berzerkers near Abaddon average close to 2 hits per attack vs Imperial targets with Prescience. They actually kind of break the game. An MSU unit of buffed Black Legion Berzerkers averages 80 hits from their 47 attacks vs Imperium units. This mathhammer is more for fun than something super impactful in real world terms, but you don’t have to invest much to make your Berzerkers into real weapons.

Another cute trick Black Legion can pull is supercharging Obliterators. Bring a Khorne Daemon detachment with a Crimson Crown holder, then use Chosen of the Pantheon to give your Obliterators all four marks. Use Veterans of the Long War to generate additional shots on a 5+ to Wound near the Crimson Crown. Go ahead and shoot again with Endless Cacophony at the end of the phase. If you like Black Legion, and you own some Obliterators, give it a shot sometime. It’s not great because you’ll roll low on your Obliterator’s random stats too often to justify their expensive points cost, but Black Legion Obliterators are an unmatched nuclear weapon if you want to set up some big brained buff stacking just for the fun of it.

Russell Tassin’s Black Legion

  • Black Legion Battalion
    • Abaddon (Warlord)
    • Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour (Angelsbane, Chainfist)
    • 3 x 10 Cultists
    • 2 x Contemptors with Twin Lascannons and Missile Launcher
    • Leviathan (Grav Flux Bombard, Storm Cannon, 3x Hunter Killer Missiles, Volkite Calivers)
    • Decimator with Soulburner Petards
    • Termite Drill
  • Black Legion Superheavy Auxiliary
    • Khorne Lord of Skulls

Renegade Legions

The premier Renegade Legion is the Flawless Host. Flawless Host Lord Discordants and Infantry are just incredibly killy. People get hung up on the fact that Flawless Host Lord Discordants get innately exploding 5’s to hit, and don’t even realize that Flawless Host have a 1CP stratagem for Infantry to reroll all hit rolls in melee. With Icons of Excess for 5+ Death To The False Emperor, around a 120% hit rate versus Imperium armies and around 100% versus everyone else. Flawless Host Chosen with Lightning Claws are just insane. Hell, even Flawless Host basic CSM with chainswords are really solid.

The issue is delivery. If you’re souping with Slaanesh Daemons for a Keeper and Be’lakor rush, a small detachment with some combination of a Lord Discordant, Psyker, and Warp Talons or Possessed is an excellent addition.

I am a big believer in Flawless Host Warp Talons. Getting full Hit and Wound rerolls for 1 CP makes them really efficient trading pieces.

Slaanesh Daemons and Flawless Host List

  • Slaanesh Daemons Battalion
    • Belakor
    • Keeper of Secrets (-1 to Wound exalted reward, Warlord, Forbidden Gem, Celerity of Slaanesh)
    • Keeper of Secrets (+1 invuln exalted reward)
    • 3 x 10 Daemonettes
    • 2 x 2 Fiends
    • 1 x 5 Furies
  • Flawless Host Outrider
    • Lord Discordant
    • Daemon Prince with Wings (Intoxicating Elixir, Wings, Talons)
    • 3 x 5 Warp Talons
    • 1 Chaos Spawn

Final Thoughts

Whether you play at tournaments or on a kitchen table with friends, I really hope these guides and lists give you some ideas. Rather than copy the lists directly, I would recommend you experiment with them and adapt them to your playstyle and preferred models. As always, have fun, stay safe, and may the Dark Gods bless your rolls!

Note: I’d love to work with you on making your fun or weird Chaos idea into a competitive list. If you’re interested in supporting the growth of Warphammer and quality 40K writing, feel free to check out Patreon.com/Warphammer and join the team. Additional benefits and coaching are available.

Interested in learning more about playing Chaos? Check out the Warphammer Discord here: https://discord.gg/SgBcXW5s6R

Published: October 15th, 2021. Last Updated: October 15th, 2021.

13 thoughts on “Chosen of the Pantheon: An Updated Competitive List for EVERY Chaos Space Marine Legion”

  1. This is one of my favorite posts master! I would really enjoy if you bring to a tournament the night Lords list and win it like you did before with other legions! Amazing!

    1. Thanks Ditchwalker! Really glad you enjoyed it mate

      I didn’t cover EC because I’ve already a lot of articles on playing EC and didn’t want to beat a dead horse, but rest assured there will be more future EC focused content!

  2. Nick Birkemeier

    Love the lists man! I’ve been trying to make Blsck Legion work for a while and was happy to see that the BL list topped a tournament.

    Looking at the Black Legion list I was a little surprised by the load outs on the contemptors. Why pick Las over volkites? Seemed to me that there was a ton of anti tank firepower in the list already.

  3. I want to combine a small Slaanesh Patrol (Belakor+Keeper) with some of the lists you made here. What would be a good combination? I made a list below but I’m not very good so I was hoping on someoneelse’s input. What are some things youu would suggest or change on this? Things I’m lacking 😮

    ++ Total: [109 PL, 7CP, 1,997pts] ++
    The Poxmongers Patrol
    – Malignant Plaguecaster: 1. Miasma of Pestilence, 5. Curse of the Leper
    – Poxwalkers
    – Deathshroud Terminators
    – 2x Plagueburst Crawler

    Emperor’s Children Patrol
    – Dark Disciples:
    – Dark Apostle:
    – Chaos Cultists
    – 2x 7 Terminators: Combi-melta, Lightning Claw, Icon of Excess, Mark of Slaanesh

    Slaanesh Patrol
    – Be’lakor
    – Keeper of Secrets: Bewitching Aura, Delightful Agonies, Exalted Keeper of Secrets, Hysterical Frenzy, Jewel of Excess, Shining aegis, Warlord
    – Daemonettes
    – Furies

    1. Hey Nick, I think that’s a very fun idea!

      I’m not sure the Dark Apostle is doing anything for you–he is in EC lists to hold the Remnant relic, but he won’t be able to sync up with the Terminators. I would go for a Prescience/Agonies Sorceror as your HQ in that Patrol

      Good luck!

  4. How about some lists without tons of forgeworld. Not all of us have access to tons of either money or recasts. Not that I don’t use it. Just as an exercise because you know nerfs are always coming.
    Thanks
    Greg

  5. Pingback: We Are Returned: First Tournament Report with the New Chaos Space Marine Codex – Warphammer

  6. Hi – I know it’s been some time sińce you posted this, but as a new CSM player in 9e I came across this article and one thing in your Word Bearers list made me curious. I mean – what do you need rhinos for as Possessed cannot use it?

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