I thought I would take this opportunity to look into why I still believe Chaos Space Marines are a good army. Indeed, it is my opinion that they are possibly the best army in the game to learn how to play the system with, rather than regular Space Marines. This may come as a shock to many readers, but I will hopefully be able to explain my reasons why I beleive this to be the case.
Point 1.
They are MEQs. This means they have good armour, reasonable statistics and a reasonable gun. Regular Chaos space marines have the ability to take two of the same special weapon in a ten man unit or one and a heavy weapon. This allows them to imitate regular tactical squads, or field a more aggressive, shorter ranged unit.
Point 2.
The book is very simple. Most units have no or very few special rules of any kind. While this is bland and boring, it is also incredibly easy for someone to pick up and learn. After a few games, players tend to notice that Plague Marines, Berserkers and regular Chaos Space Marines are better than Thousand Sons and Noise Marines for example.
Point 3.
They have very few competitive units. There are pretty much only three really good units in the book, and a handful of good ones in my experience. The really good ones are Nurgle Daemon Princes, Plague Marines and Obliterators. The good units are Berserkers, Chaos Space marines and Terminators. Most of the rest of the units are either nothing special, over priced, or down right terrible. Some of these are more than usable, in the right build, but require a bit more planning, so are not as newbie friendly as the units in the Really good/good categories.
You can therefore make a tournament competitive level list by taking two Daemon Princes of Nurgle with wings, three units of two/three Obliterators, and filling your points up on small units of plague marines with dual melta in Rhinos. This is, all things considered a simple list to design and play with. It only has three different units. With the new FAQ, Warptime is no longer as mandatory as it used to be, but it is possibly still worth having on your Daemon Prince. Otherwise just stick with wings.
Point 4.
Chaos follow the normal rules for leadership. Unlike regular space marines, who have "And they shall know no know fear" which is very newbie friendly, the units in the chaos marine book, generally speaking, are either regular on leadership tests, or fearless. Playing with these rules is useful as a stepping stone into the xenos codexes or guard. If you learn with loyalist Space marines, it can be difficult to adapt to the other armies, due to the space marines inherent resilience to being run down in hand to hand and automatically rallying regardless of squad size.
Point 5.
Cheap in terms of money. Unlike a lot of armies, this army can be very cheap to buy. While individual units and models within this list are quite expensive, you get a lot of points and more importantly, you will use these models. If you just buy the four model types I suggested, these will always find a place in your list. This is not my usual experience with units in other codexes, where very expensive units, like Land Raiders, can sit gathering dust for months between games.
I hope this has given people some food for thought. Any feedback is welcome.
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