STARTING A CHAOS SPACE MARINES ARMY IN 11TH EDITION: SWEARING YOURSELF TO THE LONG WAR
Chaos Space Marines are the Traitor Legions: ten thousand years of spite, spiked armour and burning eyes, and no two warbands need look alike. This page covers the Legionaries box to start with, the Helbrute, Chosen and Havocs, and Abaddon as the summit.
Legionaries set the warband's scheme
Begin with the current Combat Patrol box. Chaos Space Marine starters are built around Legionaries, the core infantry whose baroque, trophy-hung armour defines the faction's silhouette, usually with a character and something monstrous in support. Legionaries are the painting classroom: pick your warband's scheme on squad one and every later purchase inherits it. Black Legion menace, Word Bearers crimson, or a renegade scheme of your own all work; the Traitor Legions reward a hobbyist who wants the army to feel personal. While you are at the till, note that 11th edition changed points and datasheets across the board and starter boxes rotate, so look up today's points before building a list around any single unit.
Widen before you deepen
Once the first squad wears your colours, broaden the warband rather than deepen it. A Helbrute is a rage-filled walker that paints up fast and towers over your infantry. Chosen are Legionaries turned up to eleven, veterans with options and character to spare. Havocs bring the heavy guns and the most overwrought weapon sculpts in the range. A squad of cultists, if you fancy them, adds cheap bodies and a palette-cleanser between power-armour projects. On the table the Legions trade the loyalists' discipline for brutal close-in violence and a deep bench of daemonic toys, and these three boxes are where that bench starts.
Abaddon, or a lord of your own
Every warband kneels to someone eventually. Abaddon the Despoiler is the summit: the Warmaster of Chaos is one of the great character kits in the game, and finishing him feels like a hobby graduation. If you would rather crown your own champion, a Chaos Lord or Sorcerer converted from spares does the job with more personal spite. Either way, save the centrepiece until the core squads are painted. A warlord deserves an army to lead rather than a pile of grey shame.
Recommended: Abaddon The Despoiler
Temptations to refuse
- A second Combat Patrol while the first is unpainted. The Dark Gods reward devotion over hoarding.
- Every daemon engine at once. Buy one, learn it, then let the Warp tempt you further.
- Legion-specific upgrade sprues for a Legion you have not committed to yet.
- Anything bought because a points change made it fashionable. Points move; paint stays.
Ten millennia of records
Grudges only last ten thousand years if somebody writes them down. Log each kit as it comes through the door and mark it boxed, built or finished. The finished column is the real victory condition; it is what turns a shelf of intentions into an army that looks terrifying across a table. The full roster of what the Traitor Legions field, from Legionaries to the Warmaster himself, is on the Chaos Space Marines faction page under Data.