Slaanesh sans Noise Marines

[Polaria]

I've been using my Slaaneshi themed army as allies for some time now but a few days back I got a chanse to test it on its own against Imperial Guard. The list I used was this:

 

Dark Apostle, MoS, Combat Familiar

 

Helbrute

 

Helbrute

 

20 Cultists, two flamers

 

20 Cultists, two flamers

 

20 Cultists, autoguns, two heavy stubbers

 

10 Chaos Space Marines, CCWs, MoS, Icon of Excess, two plasmaguns

 

Heldrake

 

Notice that there are no Noise Marines, but neither did I feel like I was missing them. Two cultist squads kept objectives just fine on their own, CSM soaked a TON of incoming fire without fail and had nice bit of extra anti-tank with plasmaguns and one cultist squad escorted the Dark Apostle into assault range. Since the Imperial Guard was taking heavy advantage of cover Noise Marines would have had a field day certainly. Still they were easily handled by the Heldrake and the Dark Apostle all the same.

 

Now, I'm not saying Noise Marines don't have a role, but you can play Slaanesh without them and win. Next time I'll take two of those nasty Icon of Excess squads.

[Tenebris]

Now that is an interesting concept, though I would switch the Autogun cultists for an additional squad of CSM. 

[Polaria]

When playing them as allies detachment the autogun cultists have yet to disappoint me, so I'll probably drop the second CCW cultist lot first. Without range or character to give them Fearless they are a bit vulnerable to sweeping advance or just simple botched Ld and can't contribute anything to shooting if held back on an objective.  A second CSM squad is part of the plan, but its still on my desk, waiting for painting.

[Phytoon]

I like this concept, and while noise marines are my favorite units, I'm definitely willing to say that they are overplayed a bit.

 

In one game I played, I ran possessed instead of noise marines, and made an assault-based army. They were surprisingly good, despite how much I feel they are limited by their inability to shoot. However, with their 3+ armor and fleet, they get all the survivability of space marines with "double" the speed since they don't stop every turn to shoot. With their static +1 init from mark of slaanesh, they are indeed a force to be reckoned with, especially if they roll AP3 for their vessels of chaos. With that, they tore apart a Tyranid Hive Tyrant after he killed their champion.

 

However, if you usually run CSM as an allied detachment, you probably wouldn't want possessed anyway, since regular daemons are generally better at assaulting, and you might get some better bonuses.

[Brother Ambroz]

Just be careful of CC oriented singular characters Polaria. If they kill your champion in one of those big squads and you fail (like I did twice in a row) they can get swept.