Chaos Space Marines Units and Tactics: Raptors

This next entry in the Chaos Space Marines Units and Tactics will be about Raptors! First, I would like you to take a look at this Jump Pack posted by Brother Nihm at B&C. A pretty good idea I think, though the photo was the only thing he posted as far as how-to.
.
Chaos Raptors
.
Chaos Raptors were once a glorious unit to bring upon the field, filling the enemy with fear and delighting Chaos players everywhere, but that was a long time ago. Raptors have since been laid low to mirror a sort of Chaosy Assault Marine. That does not mean the unit is without its uses on the field.
.
I'm Up, They See Me, I'm Down: The Chaos Raptors are jump infantry and with that comes the lack of a transport, so in order to use them effectively, the first thing that must be discussed is the proper use of cover. Keep in mind that if they jump into difficult terrain, they must take a dangerous test, so it is often more beneficial to hop behind rhinos, buildings, Land Raiders or anything else that denies line of sight until it is time to deliver the killing blow.
.
This means that, at times, terrain is going to dictate your stategy. I tend to deploy in a spearhead in most games and this is what I recommend for the raptors as it will allow them the most cover.
.
The MC and Vehicle Hunter Unit: One of the ways Raptors can be used is to hunt vehicles and mostrous creatures. To do this, I recommend arming two of them with either plasma or melta (in a take-all-comers environment, I prefer melta, as there are more scary vics than there are MCs for now). You can run this squad behind your objective takers and when the enemy is ready to make his move, you can jump up and take out his walker/nasty vehicle with ease and make your troops' job a little less stressful. The enemy will also take note of this and either hold off on bringing those units toward you (controling his movement: a great way of pinning his units down when you also have great firing lanes with your Oblits ect.) or he will try his luck and possibly get blown up.
.
When attacking an objective, this unit can also help add to the assault, allowing your troops to rapid fire while your raptors jump in and assault leaving his unit to get assaulted the turn after by your troops. For this type of Raptor unit, I leave the squad bare except for the melta guns, they need to be cheap and of minimum size to allow me to field my other units optimally and I may run two squads depending on the type of army I am fielding. If I can, I might put an icon in the squad in the event they take some cover-denying fire, I would hate to see them run before they get to do their job.
.
Assault Raptors: Other than vehicle hunting, Raptors can be a decent little assault unit. In this role, you can take or leave the meltas depending on how much you want to pay for them. If you really want to be assaulty, take the two flamers (preferred) or two plasma(just remember that you cannot assault after rapid fire), a champ and either the lightening claws or the powerfist.
.
The lightening claws will help you do more damage on the front end and if you are going to take them, then you will probably want to take the Icon of Slaanesh (to get the first hits on anyone but Eldar and DE and ICs) or khorne for the higher volume of attacks. In this case, Slaanesh is a little cheaper and would be a good fit for the unit.
.
A powerfist is a good choice as well for Raptors as it can harm walkers. When given the mark of Khorne, it will allow your champ 3 attacks with the PF, which can get you the win in close combat and gives you a better chance of hurting walkers and monstrous creatures. This is my prefered layout for the champion.
.
The same basic tactics apply for this unit as the vehicle hunter unit, bound behind vehicles and LOS blocking cover (use the flamers if needed) and unleash the assault when the time is right.
.
Deep Striking: Deep striking your Raptors is risky, but can effectively drop vehicles. The problem is that there are cheaper units for that (Termicide squads) and in the case of assault, they are often better off starting on the board, if for nothing else than giving the enemy target saturation.
.
Other Icons: The icon of Nurgle can work well for both variants, but it costs 50 points, so I tend to leave it behind in order to take a more assault flavoured mark and it won't offer any extra protection from ordnance anyway. The mark of Tzeench is also expensive and a 5+ invul really doesn't appeal to me for what the Raptors are used for.
.
Deamon delivery system: Raptors can be a pretty mobile platform for delivering daemons, but if the daemons come in turn 2 it can be a waste and if they come in too late, then you want your other squads to have icons to make sure you can still get your daemons if the raptors die.
.
Overall: The Raptor can be a useful unit on the field, but tends to need cover support to get into place and tends to work better supprting other units. Our troops and heavy support tend to run expensive and can fill the role that the raptors provide pretty well, or in the case or Zerks (who can hold their own in assault) and Plaguers (who can hold their own and tand to have meltas), they don't really need Raptor support. They can be nasty and fun and warrant playtesting, but I tend to use their points for more troops and more long-range fire support.