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 ClockworkZion wrote:
The Devs basically used "Word of God" on CSM back at Games Day a couple years ago and declared the Legions gone (which is fine, the Warbands that splintered from those Legions should still fight like the Legions they once were though).

Then why do they keep writing the opposite? I just quoted the last Chaos-thing, and it is consistent. We have a three book series about the Word Bearers, and the Dominion of Fire (50000 Khorne marines under command of Angron) is still as "canonical" as the Siege of Terra. Just to mention some examples. The Iron Warriors feature heavily in the (utterly disgusting) "Codex: Sentinels of Terra". And so on.

I think perhaps they said it as something of an excuse. People ask these kind of questions and they try to survive the nerd rage. But the books & background material say otherwise.

 da001 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The Devs basically used "Word of God" on CSM back at Games Day a couple years ago and declared the Legions gone (which is fine, the Warbands that splintered from those Legions should still fight like the Legions they once were though).

Then why do they keep writing the opposite? I just quoted the last Chaos-thing, and it is consistent. We have a three book series about the Word Bearers, and the Dominion of Fire (50000 Khorne marines under command of Angron) is still as "canonical" as the Siege of Terra. Just to mention some examples. The Iron Warriors feature heavily in the (utterly disgusting) "Codex: Sentinels of Terra". And so on.

I think perhaps they said it as something of an excuse. People ask these kind of questions and they try to survive the nerd rage. But the books & background material say otherwise.

I don't know. Ask Phil Kelly, he's the one who said there were no more Heresy-style Legions anymore, just Warbands (which as I said would be fine if they still had rules to fight like they did in Legions).

There are indeed some canonical shattering of Legions: the World Eaters were shattered into warbands sometime ago in the the Burning of Skalathrax. This is also tied with the breaking up of the Emperor's Children (in some versions of the story).

The fluff seems to indicate that the ideal of the legion as a single unified force is (mostly) gone with individual warbands doing their own thing, sometimes under loose supervision of a more powerful lord or daemon. A powerful enough leader can draw them back together (ie: Abbadon, the daemon primarchs) long enough for a campaign, but as is the nature of chaos they fall apart again eventually. If Angron let it be known to the various Khorne Berserker warbands that he was going to lead a party in the Imperium, and there was going to be plenty of blood spilled, how many of them do you think would turn that party down?

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 da001 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The Devs basically used "Word of God" on CSM back at Games Day a couple years ago and declared the Legions gone (which is fine, the Warbands that splintered from those Legions should still fight like the Legions they once were though).

Then why do they keep writing the opposite? I just quoted the last Chaos-thing, and it is consistent. We have a three book series about the Word Bearers, and the Dominion of Fire (50000 Khorne marines under command of Angron) is still as "canonical" as the Siege of Terra. Just to mention some examples. The Iron Warriors feature heavily in the (utterly disgusting) "Codex: Sentinels of Terra". And so on.

I think perhaps they said it as something of an excuse. People ask these kind of questions and they try to survive the nerd rage. But the books & background material say otherwise.

I don't know. Ask Phil Kelly, he's the one who said there were no more Heresy-style Legions anymore, just Warbands (which as I said would be fine if they still had rules to fight like they did in Legions).

But why? Did a Chaos player steal Kelly´s girlfriend when he was young?

Since mere mortal words cannot properly express my frustration, I am using this to express my feelings on the matter (look at it while asking yourself: why? why? why?):

I am going to completely ignore Mr Kelly´s opinion on the matter from know on. There is a lot of stuff about Legions in 40k anyway.

 Nuln_Oil wrote:
Hi everyone, greetings from a loyal CSM player.

Made me giggle!

I've recently returned and I picked CSM without even looking at the Codex; I'm a fluffy player who's the opposite of a Heldrake-spamming WAAC player. I wanted to play Alpha Legion, so I'm gonna field Cultists, Havocs and CSM. I'm aware I'm gonna get pounded most games, but as long as I play against guys who, like me, only want a fun game, it should be exactly that! Alternatively, I'll just have to only play against orks or 'nids.

 L0rdF1end wrote:
Oh my days...this thread.

Chaos still have good units and can still be a threat to top tier lists.

[...]

CSM needs allies to be competitive. Daemons help hugely.

Uuuuuh.

I play csm and enjoy my Nurgle hoarde win or lose... If you don't like then don't play them simple!

Look at it from the bright side, at least you've been relevant some time after 2004.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 da001 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The Devs basically used "Word of God" on CSM back at Games Day a couple years ago and declared the Legions gone (which is fine, the Warbands that splintered from those Legions should still fight like the Legions they once were though).

Then why do they keep writing the opposite? I just quoted the last Chaos-thing, and it is consistent. We have a three book series about the Word Bearers, and the Dominion of Fire (50000 Khorne marines under command of Angron) is still as "canonical" as the Siege of Terra. Just to mention some examples. The Iron Warriors feature heavily in the (utterly disgusting) "Codex: Sentinels of Terra". And so on.

I think perhaps they said it as something of an excuse. People ask these kind of questions and they try to survive the nerd rage. But the books & background material say otherwise.

I don't know. Ask Phil Kelly, he's the one who said there were no more Heresy-style Legions anymore, just Warbands (which as I said would be fine if they still had rules to fight like they did in Legions).

Every other codex writer seems to write differently, every other black library seems to disagree..

It's just those they seem to pick to make the codex itself seem to hate chaos.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 da001 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The Devs basically used "Word of God" on CSM back at Games Day a couple years ago and declared the Legions gone (which is fine, the Warbands that splintered from those Legions should still fight like the Legions they once were though).

Then why do they keep writing the opposite? I just quoted the last Chaos-thing, and it is consistent. We have a three book series about the Word Bearers, and the Dominion of Fire (50000 Khorne marines under command of Angron) is still as "canonical" as the Siege of Terra. Just to mention some examples. The Iron Warriors feature heavily in the (utterly disgusting) "Codex: Sentinels of Terra". And so on.

I think perhaps they said it as something of an excuse. People ask these kind of questions and they try to survive the nerd rage. But the books & background material say otherwise.

I don't know. Ask Phil Kelly, he's the one who said there were no more Heresy-style Legions anymore, just Warbands (which as I said would be fine if they still had rules to fight like they did in Legions).

Every other codex writer seems to write differently, every other black library seems to disagree..

It's just those they seem to pick to make the codex itself seem to hate chaos.

Kelly would have probably much rather have preferred to work on the Tyranid codex (he's an admitted fanboy) rather than the CSMs.

Not sure if any of the design team plays the Chaos Space Marines.

I know Cruddace seems to be biased towards Imperial armies, Ward's perhaps a bit overeager and is mostly into Crons and Power armor armies (and seems to have picked up the Eldar), Kelly prefers Eldar of both stripes, daemons, and Tyranids, and I have no idea what Vetock's into.

Vetock is a die-hard Ork player.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Vetock is a die-hard Ork player.

If he makes the next Ork book...

...I think we may see a new terror that makes the terror of fortuned/guided Triptides seem paltry.

There will be a new darkness, and it will be green and talks funny.

 Ging3rDw4rf wrote:
I play csm and enjoy my Nurgle hoarde win or lose... If you don't like then don't play them simple!

This is not valid when they change what you play. Or when you want to play something close to the books and fluff you read but cannot because the books don't allow it.

As for the "Kelly says no legions" thing, I wonder if it's not being taken out of context. Does he think are those nifty icons with description of war doctrine and philosophy in the book he wrote? Does he really think that two warbands that both sprang from World Eaters companies have less in common among themselves than they do with the Black Legion? Or that there is any better, fluffier way to group chaos for purposes of both lore and rules?

Hell, they have a full supplement for a single company of Imperial Fists because they come from he same tribe. That's like Flame s of war releasing a full book just to detail a company because it's from Peoria and thus gets bonuses to cow-tipping.

Night Lords, World Eater and Iron Warriors sprang from the gene-goo and ideas of radically different demigods. They definitely SHOULD play different than each other and have different options. I guess that is reserved for, say, forces who all swore to organize themselves according to a single book of doctrines, the Codex Astartes.

Most of all, it's the thinking behind it that boggles my mind. Most other companies are happy to bring in more variety: it means more foundations for products, more chances to find a niche that will bring customers, etc. Infinity is creating new aspects and branches of their factions all the time. If tomorrow they posted "Guys, we've been thinking, Military Orders and Shock Troops of Acontecimento are just the same thing. Deal with it", they'd lose out on tons of cash and even more player goodwill.

 GimlisonofGloin wrote:
I think the power of CSM lies within the dual Foc. Consider that that things are good need to be multiplied. My list below has only lost 5 games since the book dropped and I play against a variety of opponents in a semi-competitive environment.

The key is to rush the enemy with as much of your fast and hard hitting units as possible. Make them choose what to shoot and if it dies you will still have the other to take its place.

Lord - MoK, Jugger, AoBF, SoC, Votlw, GoM - 185
Sorcerer - ML3, bike, SoC, Spell Familiar, GoM - 180
10 cultists - 50
10 cultists - 50
10 cultists - 50
14 cultists - flamer - 71
Heldrake - flamer - 170
Heldrake - flamer - 170
Heldrake - flamer - 170
5 Spawn - MoN - 180
5 Spawn - 150
Mauler Fiend - Tendrils - 135
Mauler Fiend - Tendrils - 135
2 Oblits - MoN - 152
2 Oblits - MoN - 152

TOTAL = 2000

The idea is that everything is in your face by T2 and it really screws with target priority. Oblits will be deep striking while the 10 man cultists sit in reserve and claim objectives late in game. The 14 man cultists will start on the board to help make the numbers more balanced and also act as a meat shield if its purge the alien.

I'm not trying to pick you out, but you just pointed out the issue with the CSM book. The only CSM in that whole army is the lord!

Everything eals is bassicly Deamon enginies and cultists! lol

^And this, ladys and gentlemen, is why the Codex is a fail, and why there is a feeling that CSM are "irrelevant".

All the "classic" units have been so badly mistreated that most lists do not include a single one of them. So you have Chaos Space Marines without a single Chaos Space Marine. It is even more obvious in tournament lists. It is easy to find many "CSM" lists with cultists, heldrakes and a DP. Perhaps a Sorcerer or a Lord if you want to go cheap.

I think that a CSM arm doesn't -need- to be just CSM to be a CSM army (a small unit of Word Bearers and a LOT of cultists and some Daemon Engines is really fluffy as would Cultists, small number of CSM and some regular vehicles (like Predators and Rhinos) for Alpha Legion), but the fact that people choose to ignore CSM (or just got straight Nurgle) on everything for their competetive builds is the issue.

The issue isn't that there are lists that don't use a lot of Chaos Marines, the issue is that there are a lot of lists that don't feel like they have the crunch when you play CSM and that's not good.

As a diehard casual/fluff player who is building a mechanized mono-Slaanesh Noise Marine force, I don't mind the codex. It's kinda underpowered, and it does have some crappy choices (*cough* Mutilators) but overall it's a fairly well balanced book with some good options.

I think to be honest, the big problem CSM (and 40K as a whole) has is the top-tier armies like Eldar and Tau. If they weren't so monstrously powerful then i think the game would work a lot better, Even the weakest 6th ed Codex (Tyranids) is fairly balanced when compared to the other low-mid tier codices (so most of them). It's just against Uber-tier armies that they flounder- and to be honest, everybody does.

My solution is just to play friendly games with special scenarios and house rules. But then I will confess I've never seen the attraction of the competitive gaming/tournament scene- to me, the joy of the game is the variety and narrative that home games can bring, which I suspect is what GW were trying to achieve with 6th edition (albeit not hugely successfully).

For me the worst part of the Codex, not counting the fluff, is the wide breach between Chaos units and their Loyalist´s counterparts. I play both Marines and Chaos Marines and playing a "mirror-match" is nearly impossible.

Chaos find itself completely outclassed unless you use specific units, the heldrake being the obvious one.

By the way it is even worse if you play Sisters. A 12 point Sister is something of a joke against a 14 point Marine. You learn to expect nothing from your basic units, and that´s bad for enjoying the army.

But why? Did a Chaos player steal Kelly´s girlfriend when he was young?

His eldar cirucus list was beaten a few times , by a Emperors Children syren build a lot in 4th and since then he hates chaos . Since then he was waiting to nerf their fluff and make it sure that what ever chaos has only helps his eldar armies , by removing bad match ups from the meta game , and besides that losing to eldar every time. Or at least that is what people that played chaos told here after codex eldar arrived.

Makumba wrote:

But why? Did a Chaos player steal Kelly´s girlfriend when he was young?

His eldar cirucus list was beaten a few times , by a Emperors Children syren build a lot in 4th and since then he hates chaos . Since then he was waiting to nerf their fluff and make it sure that what ever chaos has only helps his eldar armies , by removing bad match ups from the meta game , and besides that losing to eldar every time. Or at least that is what people that played chaos told here after codex eldar arrived.

Sounds like a bit of a conspiracy theory honestly.

But his eldar were beaten by circus lists back in the days when he was still playing tournaments.He mever won a game against them .

Maybe that is why he dislikes them . There has to be an anwser why he makes eldar , which he plays a lot, always good , while other factions he writes are randomly bad or good.

Makumba wrote:
But his eldar were beaten by circus lists back in the days when he was still playing tournaments.He mever won a game against them .

Maybe that is why he dislikes them . There has to be an anwser why he makes eldar , which he plays a lot, always good , while other factions he writes are randomly bad or good.

If he hates CSM so much then why does Kharn and a Squad of Chosen from the DV box on his desk? (yes I realize I'm in the US, and he's not but this is still something I'm aware of thanks to the magic of the internet and correspondence in relation to a thick packet of stuff I sent him regarding Sisters)

I think the bigger issue is an internal one where the studio knows they can't just remake the same exact stuff as the regular Marines but they don't know how to take it all the way out there and really get things going.

And no, you're not likely going to see drop pods in the CSM codex, or Dreadclaws. Look at what they just did to the FW stuff they were borrowing for the IG codex for instance: it's gone. Things have changed (again) and they won't be doing that again from the sounds of things.

It may sound as a conspiracy theory, but Makumba is probably right.

To further elaborate:
1) The Studio is not concerned with balance. They do as they please in this regard.
2) The Studio is no longer concerned with the background. This is sad but I think it cannot be argued anymore. I am not talking about major changes, but about a lack of caring about the "details" of a faction. Perturabo switching from Chaos Undivided to a Nurgle Sorcerer, stuff like that.
3) Personal bias is the most logical explanation for most of the changes. Just like lazyness is the reason for the 90% copy-paste. And the "Chapterhouse" thing is probably the reason behind taking away units and the general lack of variety.

Another good example is Ward´s Necrons vs Ward´s Sisters. In general, if the author likes the army, it gets more "power". If he doesn´t, the final product is rushed to market, lacking coherence, viable options, and detail, spiced with countless minor retcons and over-all weak units save the occasional must-buy new model.

The solution would be to find someone who likes ALL the armies. (On a second thought, this is a biased "solution", since I like all the armies)

 da001 wrote:
It may sound as a conspiracy theory, but Makumba is probably right.

To further elaborate:
1) The Studio is not concerned with balance. They do as they please in this regard.
2) The Studio is no longer concerned with the background. This is sad but I think it cannot be argued anymore. I am not talking about major changes, but about a lack of caring about the "details" of a faction. Perturabo switching from Chaos Undivided to a Nurgle Sorcerer, stuff like that.
3) Personal bias is the most logical explanation for most of the changes. Just like lazyness is the reason for the 90% copy-paste. And the "Chapterhouse" thing is probably the reason behind taking away units and the general lack of variety.

Another good example is Ward´s Necrons vs Ward´s Sisters. In general, if the author likes the army, it gets more "power". If he doesn´t, the final product is rushed to market, lacking coherence, viable options, and detail, spiced with countless minor retcons and over-all weak units save the occasional must-buy new model.

The solution would be to find someone who likes ALL the armies. (On a second thought, this is a biased "solution", since I like all the armies)

Cruddace did the Crunch on the Sisters, Ward did the fluff (which was the GOOD part of the WD Codex).

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Makumba wrote:
But his eldar were beaten by circus lists back in the days when he was still playing tournaments.He mever won a game against them .

Maybe that is why he dislikes them . There has to be an anwser why he makes eldar , which he plays a lot, always good , while other factions he writes are randomly bad or good.

If he hates CSM so much then why does Kharn and a Squad of Chosen from the DV box on his desk? (yes I realize I'm in the US, and he's not but this is still something I'm aware of thanks to the magic of the internet and correspondence in relation to a thick packet of stuff I sent him regarding Sisters)

I think the bigger issue is an internal one where the studio knows they can't just remake the same exact stuff as the regular Marines but they don't know how to take it all the way out there and really get things going.

And no, you're not likely going to see drop pods in the CSM codex, or Dreadclaws. Look at what they just did to the FW stuff they were borrowing for the IG codex for instance: it's gone. Things have changed (again) and they won't be doing that again from the sounds of things.

Because he can get the models cheap or for free ? What he always played was eldar , they are his army. I don't think he made chaos bad because he hate them , he probably doesn't care for them much . He makes random codex just like all the other GW writers , as long as they are not eldar. When he writes an eldar codex it is always too good for the edition it is in , offten too good for the next edition too.

2) The Studio is no longer concerned with the background. This is sad but I think it cannot be argued anymore. I am not talking about major changes, but about a lack of caring about the "details" of a faction. Perturabo switching from Chaos Undivided to a Nurgle Sorcerer, stuff like that.

Actually that's not how it worked, what Perturabo did was a ritual to call upon Nurgle's 'blessing' upon a planet, which IS separate from basic sorcerer/psyker abilities as anyone can call upon and do ritualistic things to call daemon powers from the warp.

Plus after the whole thing alot of the daemon primarchs became hypocrites anyways, remember Mortrarian became a Tyrant in the end like he hated, and one of the theme's of chaos is basically 'You forget your purpose turning towards the powers of Chaos.'

So I'm not going to mind something like that, unless he becomes marked by nurgle and starts flinging psyker spells everywhere.

I wonder why people keep talking about Kelly's bias as if he made 6E Eldar good. He didn't. The fluff sections in 6E Eldar are some of the absolute worst I've seen of the codices (matches pretty close with 4E CSM), and the only new thing he brought to the table crunch-wise is the Wraithknight and the Wave Serpent. The Eldar's army-wide move-shoot-move ability was created by Ward, bladestorm was created by Ward and the points reductions across the board is standard for 6E codices. So, meh.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I wonder why people keep talking about Kelly's bias as if he made 6E Eldar good. He didn't. The fluff sections in 6E Eldar are some of the absolute worst I've seen of the codices (matches pretty close with 4E CSM), and the only new thing he brought to the table crunch-wise is the Wraithknight and the Wave Serpent. The Eldar's army-wide move-shoot-move ability was created by Ward, bladestorm was created by Ward and the points reductions across the board is standard for 6E codices. So, meh.

It's consistent with his 4th edition eldar codex, where Falcon spam was horrifically OP.

So it's not like I was surprised to see a different skimmer OP.

Yah, I've heard many a tale about the tri-falcon days of horror.

I'm almost inclined to download a 4E rulebook and take a gander at the 4E CWE codex just to see what the hype was about (I jumped into 40K halfway through 5th).

Because falcons sure as hell weren't badass in 5E.

Chaos Space Marines are fine. Im winning. I'm not feeling outclassed. I run just one Heldrake. I even use Mutilators.

Find the cheese is my advice, if you're struggling. =)

I feel that way about my all-kroot army.

People are like "man, a kroot army isn't strong" and I just laugh because I'm 9-1 with my kroot-spam army and I've faced Screamerstar, Seer Council, Ovesa-star, scythe-spam, pretty much everything and have come out on top.

If you can't win with kroot spam, my advice is to find the cheese.