Chaos Space Marines Units and Tactics 5: Chaos Terminators

Ok, so here we go with another Chaos Space Marines article, this time focusing on our heretical Terminators.
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The Chaos Assault Terminator: The ability to put a termie on the table for 30 points with a power weapon may seem fairly attractive. Upgrading said termie to a champion will give it +1 attack for a total of 3 attacks base will cost you an additional 10 points, making it the same points cost as a loyalist. While this may be attractive to some, the assault termie for chaos really only comes into it’s glory in two ways; either with the mark of Khorne in a Land Raider (giving it another attack for a total of 5 attacks on the charge, or with lightening claws for even more attacks … or with a combo of fists and claws with the mark of khorne for high strength attacks and a volume of powered attacks.) Make no mistake, this squad will absolutely make mince meat of enemy infantry. While all that seems wonderful in theory, the cost of putting this unit in your army is more than I am willing to commit to a single unit. As an army that typically enjoys the use of elite troop choices, we simply cannot afford to place a points investment of approximately 400 points in a game of 2000 points or less.
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This leads us to the Chaos Shooting Terminators. The most common form of this unit in 5th edition is known as the termicide unit (ie a unit of 3-5 termies deepstriking, each termie armed with a combi-melta.) While this unit also in theory will also lay the smack down on enemy armour, especially with the addition of personal icons in your squads, it also suffers from a lack of versitillity. This unit will come onto the table and (chaos willing) will come on where you want it and hopefully will hit with enough meltas in range to kill it’s target. The problem here is that sometimes the optimal place for the squad to arrive is not near the 5 point personal icon and it is across the table where the nomal scatter may make his unit totally ineffective and I do not know about you, but any unit I am going to pa 120+ points for, I want it to do its job without failure.
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The tale of two camps This really brings to a head the ever present debate of termicide units vs Chaos Chosen units. The chosen weigh in at 175 if given 5 men with 5 meltas in a rhino. The idea is to outflank with them, giving you a 2/3 chance of getting them where you want them and even when they show up on the wrong edge, they give you the mobility of getting within critical melta-range. The terminators on the other hand will either rely on the icon of another unit or will have to suffer the deepstrike, which could put them out of melta range and nerf their ability to bring the pain to the enemy. This is counter-balanced by the extra survivability of terminator armour. The question you ave to ask yourself is whether you are willing to risk 120+ points on a shaky chance with the termies or 175 on a near-sure shot with the chosen. Both are, in my opinion, suicide units, but given the ability to take the kill to the enemy in a single turn, I give the advantage o the Chosen.
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With that being said, there may be those of you who still choose to take the Chaos Terminator. For those hardy individuals, the question is what mark do I choose. For assault purposes, the LR termies will almost always want to take the icon of khorne. Even in a unit of termies dedicated to assault, I cannot see a time where the I5 of the icon of Slaanesh will benefit your termies more than the bonus attacks afforded by khorne termies (outside any fluff reasons of course).
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For shooting termies, that really leaves Nurgle and Tzeentch as the marks of choice. Nurgle, in my opinion is a bit of a waste because people will either try to attack you with a high number of normal strength shots (which is kind of good for MoN, but not worth 30 points), or they will try to attack you with AP2 weapons (which is more likely in the age of the Guard and also means the Icon of Tzeentch will protect you more often than not.) The thing you have to consider is the overall fluff of your army and the way you want it to flow … if termies are the thing you really desire, then I recommend going hard one way or the other (the high priced Khorne Lclaw termies in a LR or the Shooting termies with combi-mltas and the icon of tzeentch).
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If you really want a suicide unit capable of killing tanks and elite infantry and MCs, then take he chosen, but that is really just my two cents. Make of it what you will and may the Dark Gods give you power!