From the Powers of Chaos pdf:
The powers of Chaos, and likewise their fleets, are myriad. Abaddon may have led a fleet of Chaos Undivided during the Gothic War, but there are nonetheless numerous fleets dedicated solely to the service of one of the Great Powers of Chaos – Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch. Over the next few months we’ll be releasing a number of new models to provide additional specific options for each of the Powers of Chaos, beginning this month with the Terminus Est, flagship of the Plaguefleets of Nurgle. In a series of accompanying articles, we’ll be looking at the Powers of Chaos in Battlefleet Gothic. In this first instalment, Matt Keefe and Pete Haines introduce the Major Powers, plus full rules for the Terminus Est and the Plaguefleets of Nurgle.
Check the bold part. That's what we want.
Tzeentch
Khorne
Slaanesh
Hi Horizon!

This is EXACTLY what we are working on, complete with flavored battlebarges, specific fleet lists, etc. Ray is working on this as well so if you liked his Tzeentch fleet list, you will probably see some form of it again. This is why we are bringing up adding ships to the list, as it will be a "Powers of Chaos" book in total as opposed to just something that only dredges up ships from the Horus Heresy. Here's the painful part. flavored battlebarge models actually existed. the Terminus Est really was the first of what were supposed to be more models, and second Chaos BB model master was actually completed, but it was all unplugged for reasons beyond the scope of this post. I will try to dig up a copy of the pic for the master model as it appeared around 2003-04.
Yes everyone, a re-profiled Despoiler will be one of the options. Before we gets lots of input on this, it will be a minor re-shuffle to make the prow more WYSIWYG as opposed to a complete re-do, so please refrain from the "please add more WB's/lances/Ether Cannon/whatever." However, there WILL be some options...
In the larger scheme of things, Chaos is only one of many threats to the Imperium. While in M30 it encompassed nearly half the Imperium, the intervening ten millennia have not been kind to them. It’s numbers are shattered due to the wars of reunification, and to an even greater extent the internecine wars that took place within the Eye of Terror that pretty much consumed what little remained of these Legions. One Legion never made it to the Eye of Terror, such as the Alpha Legion that exist as separate warbands scattered throughout the Galactic East. Some of the Night Lords only retreated to the Eye of Terror much later, and much of their remaining number subsist as pirates on or around the Maelstrom or in secret bases throughout the Galactic East and Southern Rim. The Emperor’s Children and World Eaters are no longer Legions in any sense of the word, the Death Guard and Thousand Sons fared only a little better, and the Iron Warriors lost much of their number in protracted battles against the Imperial Fists during their flight to the Eye of Terror, a campaign that decimated the Imperial Fists for 19 years after the Heresy. Only the Black Legion and Word Bearers still exist in numbers that approach a real legion in strength, though the Word Bearers have their numbers split between the Eye of Terror and the Maelstrom, where they possess the corrupted factory world of Ghalmek.
Here's the part all the Chaos lovers are going to hate, and I KNOW I’m going to catch some vitriol for this. Chaos as an entity only possess only one real forgeworld (Baji IV), where many (though not all) of their escorts are constructed. Their escorts are all either renegade Imperial escorts or based on xenos, stolen or obsolete Imperial technology. In sum, even Abbadon’s 13th Black Crusade for all its destruction only managed to capture at best maybe four or five sectors, and even then only at great cost and in many cases only temporarily. Gazgull Thraka did at least that much in the War for Armageddon when he captured and held (and still holds) nearly two dozen worlds in the sectors surrounding Armageddon, and he is only one of many Ork warbosses throughout the galaxy that can claim such a great (or in some cases even greater) dominion of fallen Imperial worlds.
Where am I going with this? Chaos is not the be-all, end-all some fans make them out to be. They do not have the resources to design and construct new cruiser and battleship designs, though fluff has many examples of them finding and utilizing many ancient pre-heresy warships, some of unimaginable size and dimensions in more than one case. Except for the Planet Killer, every capital ship they own is stolen or subverted from the Imperium, and the vast majority of cases these are obsolete ships decommissioned due to design flaws or for possessing technology that can no longer be economically maintained. The Planet Killer was a one-off ship designed and constructed around a massive and extremely powerful artifact for the specific purpose of intimidation or destroying worlds when intimidation proved insufficient.
What does this mean? While we will be entertaining new cruiser hull ideas, it has to be something that is different from but closely correlates to the ancient Cypra Mundi pattern vessels Chaos would have access to. The Hecate fills this prerequisite nicely as a pre-Mars vessel built in small numbers after the Styx and before the Mars. The Hellfire was a good idea, but despite how cool the model is in the 2002 Annual (I built one), killing two hulls to make one is no good. However, the Hellfire profile wasn’t very far removed from what a Slaughter heavy cruiser variant would look like so that’s the direction Bob and I went. This is all set in wet mud right now which is why we posted it to the forum first, and Sigoroth made some excellent points concerning the Hellfire that we will take on board to an extent.
We are entertaining other cruiser ideas that may be out there, maybe as "one-offs" like the Acheron. That also means we are
not entertaining “transitional†designs new to the game that are somewhere between the two, such as torpedo-armed 5+ prow cruisers and the like, or anything that has to be scratch-built or requiring multiple model hulls to make in any extent whatsoever. We are also
NOT entertaining Chaos-unique cruisers with 6+ prows, Chaos light cruiser classes, or anything with a Nova Cannon/Ether Cannon/Warp lance/pink horror catapult/whatever. This of course doesn't mean a Chaos fleet can't have a renegade Imperial cruiser in it, and the Draft FAQ allows a Chaos fleet to field a single Imperial cruiser (not battlecruiser) of any class as a renegade cruiser as long as no special weapons are taken (NO Nova Cannon!).
Here’s an entirely separate but related issue coming only from me, meaning I have NOT discussed it with the other HA’s. I have always been bothered by the fact that the Vengeance GC’s weren’t given prow torps. While 6+ armor is a definite NO, what’s the feeling about giving these 6 prow torps as an option? Even if we do it, it should be expensive, and it will be available to ALL variants if we do it. Keep in mind I haven’t run this past the other HA’s yet. Thoughts?
- Nate