Gav Thorpe responds in a candid manner to some gents who take issue with the Chaos Space Marines codex. Interesting discussion. Surprised that it took this long for someone to take it to his blog.

http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/

Well, what *else* would Gav say?

I agree with some of his stuff but some of it was just a poor attempt to cover his a**

EDIT: p.s. he basically confirmed legions are probably in the works.

Cue the Gav "Put something insulting here" Thorpe posts.

What I got out of this was:
Codexes are guides not rules.
3.5 Legion armies were too inflexible.
It was about Renegades.
Mix codexes if you want cultists/daemons.
3.5 was too complex.

He tries to absolve himself of balance issues by saying he wrote the codex as a "foundation" for building Chaos armies without regard to gaming.

a decent read. some good points, some BS. in the end im always going to play chaos, whether its going to be my current "not so deathguard" deathguard or actual deathguard again if/when we get a legion codex.

To all CSM players that know your not getting a new codex soon:

Fair enough, I suppose - doesn't make sense to make Chaos too regimented. Having a box set which was supposed to contain all the information needed to field several different army types (CSM, Daemons etc.) AND have four different gods as a variable on top of THAT?
Admirable but over-ambitious, IMHO.

Did somebody actually expect him to come out and say "yes, some of the units in that Codex are overpriced/weak/unusable. Sorry, we made a mistake"? He still gets his paycheck from GW.

What Gav wrote is pretty much the way my group thinks. There's a lot to be offered in mixing together the units from different codexes and even using old LATD lists in games.
It can really add layers of enjoyment to games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It really is no great feat of wit, I think for a lot of the posters here to use the new codex in conjunction with the other things written, current and past, to create power specific armies.

I think the best part was when he said that a Codex is just a rough guide that you should use to tell the story you want with your awesomely painted miniatures. This definitely cements my decision to transition over to Hordes and Warmachine permanently.

More fail from Thorpe

*reads*

Hmm... I will respond to this message of Gav's - line by line if I must - later.

For the moment though, this stuck out like a sore thumb RE: Daemons:

"They were only folded into the Chaos Space Marines in the previous version of the Codex."

Daemons - as in God-specific Daemons - have been part of the Chaos Space Marine list in the following editions:

1. Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness
2. Realms of Chaos: The Lost & The Damned
3. Codex Army Lists (2nd Ed Black Codex)
4. Codex: Chaos (2nd Ed)
5. Codex: Chaos Space Marines (first 3rd Ed Codex)
6. Codex: Chaos Space Marines (second 3rd Ed Codex)

Daemons have not been part of the Chaos Space Marine list in the following editions:

1. Codex: Chaos Space Marines (4th/Current Edition)

So either Gav just has a terrible memory, or is out-and-out lying about this, because his book is the only book to not allow forces of God-specific Daemons and CSMs not just in the last edition, but since Chaos Marines first appeared in 40K.

Additionally, his preamble about personal attacks and opinions is a nice "Get out of argument free" card as it allows him to call any dissenting opinion a "personal attack" and ignore it or give the "agree to disagree" cop out.

Huh, I expected a lot more hatred in the comments over there, but only one hateful guy there. And even he posted with some amount of intelligence.

I need to go read this codex and figure out if it's as horrible as you all say. (speaking of, what ARE the other upgrades for possessed? There have to be six and I know one of them is rending.)

Don't like the way your codex was written? Play another codex or find a new game. Blaming one guy for a bad codex is nonsense. He is bound to have proof-readers, editors, and supervisors who tell him to change things they don't like. Of course he isn't going to say that. He wants to keep his paycheck. It all comes down to selling product. Don't like it? Don't buy it.

Ironhide wrote: Don't like it? Don't buy it.

And make GW even more money. I think that was the problem a lot of people had with this book. They had alread bought it, and now the stuff they bought over the past years is useless or not as useful as it used to be. Apparently though, CSM is not the only codex to inspire hatred in the player base, I saw one guy who quit playing Orks (and 40K) totally after the new ork codex came out.

Ironhide wrote:Don't like it? Don't buy it.

I'm sorry, but that's a stupid thing to say, and that argument holds no water.

Y'know, as bad as the codex is, this brings something up that gets my goat, every time.

I understand you're upset about your gaming experience, be it a change to your class on Warcraft, an alteration to an army book, etc.

But why the heck do you resort to doing nothing but ragging on one of many different people most likely, to have worked on the project?

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Ironhide wrote:Don't like it? Don't buy it.

I'm sorry, but that's a stupid thing to say, and that argument holds no water.

I agree with Ironhide in part on this, but I'd expand it a bit to say, "Don't like it? either don't buy it or if you do, modify it or combine it with other codexes.
There is never going to be a way to write a codex to please everyone, and it falls to us to take a number of possible actions. To me, what I wrote seems the most logical.
You're a fairly elequent and intellegent writer and gamer, what are your suggestions?

Gavin Thorpe pretty much iterated why I like the 4th edition Chaos Space Marine codex. Cool.

Use the previous Codex. That's a start.

Kanluwen wrote:But why the heck do you resort to doing nothing but ragging on one of many different people most likely, to have worked on the project?

Well who should we address our concerns to then? The artists? The model makers? The painters? The layout guy? The dude who runs the printer? The Chaos Codex was written by Gav Thorpe, with 'additional material' (whatever that means) by Alessio Cavatore. As all the other people credited either work in the art or modelling side of things, what other avenues are there besides addressing complaints about the rules to the two people responsible for the writing of said rules?

Am I going to blame Phil Kelly because Wolfy McWolfrider is a stupid model? No. He didn't design the model. Same reason I'm not going to blame Karl Kopinski because Spawn are a gakky unit or lambast Brian Nelson because I can't field my Alpha Legion any more.

Now I'm sure that the rules involved more than just two people and I'm certainly not pretending that Gav and Alessio did all the work themselves, but they're the people that get the credit next to their name - written by/additional material by - so where else should my objections go?

starbomber109 wrote:Huh, I expected a lot more hatred in the comments over there, but only one hateful guy there. And even he posted with some amount of intelligence.

I need to go read this codex and figure out if it's as horrible as you all say. (speaking of, what ARE the other upgrades for possessed? There have to be six and I know one of them is rending.)

Scouts, Furious Charge, Fleet, Feel no Pain, Power Weapons

H.B.M.C. wrote:Use the previous Codex. That's a start.

Is there anything in your group that prevents using the previous codex in friendly games?

Relapse wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Use the previous Codex. That's a start.

Is there anything in your group that prevents using the previous codex in friendly games?

As far as I understand it H.B.M.C. and his friends don't even use the official codices, instead using their homebrewed rules that've been growing over the years.

Neconilis wrote:Scouts, Furious Charge, Fleet, Feel no Pain, Power Weapons

Thanks :3

Hmm, you roll for powers when you deploy them, what if you put them in reserve? Granted, rending is awesome, but the rest of the upgrades seem 'good' (in the words of a friend however, "they just aren't uber") *digs around for an FAQ about putting them in reserve*

Relapse wrote:Is there anything in your group that prevents using the previous codex in friendly games?

It doesn't. But how does that help Mr. 8-Tournaments-A-Year and his Word Bearers? Or Mr. Plays-At-The-Local-Shop with his Death Guard?

starbomber109 wrote:

Neconilis wrote:Scouts, Furious Charge, Fleet, Feel no Pain, Power Weapons

Thanks :3

Hmm, you roll for powers when you deploy them, what if you put them in reserve? Granted, rending is awesome, but the rest of the upgrades seem 'good' (in the words of a friend however, "they just aren't uber") *digs around for an FAQ about putting them in reserve*

NP, and if you're thinking that means you can't Outflank by RaW, then you're unfortunately right. Most people I've seen don't play that way though, giving some love to the possessed if they want to Outflank 1 in 6 games ;-) You're also right that the rest of the powers are far from horrible. It's just random abilities are no way at all to create a balanced game, nor are they fun for the player not knowing what to expect from his unit and its role. Plus, from a points cost there are better and more dependable options in the codex.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Relapse wrote:Is there anything in your group that prevents using the previous codex in friendly games?

It doesn't. But how does that help Mr. 8-Tournaments-A-Year and his Word Bearers? Or Mr. Plays-At-The-Local-Shop with his Death Guard?

Can't say it does for the tournament guy, in all honesty, but are the shops that anal about using a single power army?. At that point it has to be asked what percentage of the customer base is made of these types and if more people are made happier with a freshening of the rules than are not

H.B.M.C. wrote: Or Mr. Plays-At-The-Local-Shop with his Death Guard?

Plauge marines are T5 with FNP, they will survive almost any shooting from normal guns, and as long as the objectives are placed right they can still win. And the tournament guy with his word bearers....hmmm

but didn't you say you quit going to tournaments in your Space Hulk review H? You wrote love things like CoD and planetstrike that do the exact kind of unit mixing and campaign-making he talked about in the article.

Edit: I may have read wrong

The part of his argument where he says that if you don't like something, just modify it doesn't fly either. The group I play with is so large and diverse that trying to use anything that is not in the official rules and codexes would require hours of argument and explanation, and that's if it would not be met with an automatic response of "Well no, it's not official so of course not." Most people, gamers or not just are not that flexible or imaginative. They want everything laid out for them in a rigid framework. I blame video games for this.

Use multiple Force Organization Charts to represent legions.

Word Bearers: Chaos Space Marines & Chaos Daemons
Alpha Legion: Chaos Space Marines & Imperial Guard
Death Guard: Chaos Space Marines & Chaos Daemons

HBMC:

I'd say to put your objections straight to GW, but we all know how well they listen.

Frankly, that's why I'd say just adapt the old codex with the new, make Daemons similar to Grey Knights/Witch Hunters, etc.

But then again, I'm not a tournament player.

Nurglitch wrote:Use multiple Force Organization Charts to represent legions.

Word Bearers: Chaos Space Marines & Chaos Daemons
Alpha Legion: Chaos Space Marines & Imperial Guard
Death Guard: Chaos Space Marines & Chaos Daemons

You may as well just play Apocalypse if you're getting to the points values multiple Force Orgs are generally used at. Why not just introduce an Allies system like DH/WH to your club?

Just a general comment.

Why is it that the old players seem to always hate "the new codex" with burning fire from the bottom of hell and from the deepest corner of their heart...while the new players don't seem to have that problem?

starbomber109 wrote:Just a general comment.

Why is it that the old players seem to always hate "the new codex" with burning fire from the bottom of hell and from the deepest corner of their heart...while the new players don't seem to have that problem?

Because often the old players spent the time and money to buy, assemble, paint and play with an army which worked under the old codex but under the new codex some or all of the models are either unusable or have changed immensely.

Platuan4th:

I'm saying use multiple Force Organization Charts at regular points values (1000-2500pts). I'd avoid the allies rules precisely for reasons given, because trying to implement them is a cause of disagreements. By using multiple Force Organization Charts, you don't need to modify or otherwise suss out the rules, and you take the sportsmanlike route of taking the least advantage of the rules.

starbomber109 wrote:Just a general comment.

Why is it that the old players seem to always hate "the new codex" with burning fire from the bottom of hell and from the deepest corner of their heart...while the new players don't seem to have that problem?

Probably because the newer codexes reduce options and someone who never experienced those options would not mourn the loss of them.

I've been playing since Rogue Trader days and I think that the latest Codex is a big improvement on the previous one. So no, the newer Codex doesn't reduce options, and having experienced the previous options, I say "Good riddance".

Kanluwen wrote:But then again, I'm not a tournament player.

Neither am I, but I don't see how that makes any. Fething. Difference.

If someone's army was made invalid by the current Chaos Codex, then it doesn't matter if they're a fluff-gamer who loves his Night Lords or one of John's pet WAAC players playing his tweaked-out ultra-tuned Iron Warrior army - both their armies are just as invalidated as one another, and I'd say that the guy who follows the fluff rigidly would be just as annoyed as the guy who loved stomping on people at tournaments.

Look at Nurgy's list of FOC amendments. Because he and his group have those, they're essentially confirming what is wrong with the Chaos Codex. I've heard Gav's "all the last Codex did was present lists of restrictions" argument before - mostly from JohnHwangDD - and it holds as much water when Gav says it as it does when DD says it. The current Chaos didn't remove restrictions, it just removed all options. I used the example of ice cream a few threads back, so I'll do it again:

The 3.5 Chaos Codex was:
Chocolate Ice cream
Strawberry Ice cream
Rocky Road
Honey Comb

But say you can have any of those three, but you could never combine rocky road and chocolate, or take more than any two flavours at a time. That was 3.5.

The current Chaos Codex is:
Vanilla

Sure, you can take as much vanilla as you like, eat it in whatever method you see fit... but you've only got one flavour.

Compare that to, say, the current 5th Ed marine vs 4th Ed Marine.

As much as the Traits system was a joke, 4th Ed Marines gave you:
Chocolate Ice cream
Strawberry Ice cream
Rocky Road
Honey Comb

And the 5th Ed Codex gives you:
Chocolate Ice cream
Strawberry Ice cream
Rocky Road
Honey Comb

The difference? With 5th Ed you have to use a specific spoon (Special Character) to eat each flavour. So if you want Chocolate, you're going to have use the chocolate ice cream spoon to eat it with. You can still have Chocolate though, or Strawberry but Chaos... no. Doesn't matter what spoon I pick up, I've only got Vanilla. For Marines I can still play White Scars or Imperial Fists or Raven Guard using the rules provided, but for Chaos I've got Generic Daemons, Possessed I can't plan to use and Chaos Marines that forget what God they serve when the guy with the Icon dies. The Legions are now just different coloured ice cream tubs for my vanilla ice cream.

Now I've said that I hate the fact that special characters are such a big deal in current 40K, but given the alternative (current Chaos), I'd gladly stomach the need to bring Kharn or Lucius to every game if it meant I could have my Noise Marine Terminators/Marines/Havocs/Bikers and my fething Daemonettes back. Hell I'd even accept a Daemonhunter-esque allies system for Chaos Daemons. But right now the option isn't there. I am restricted by a lack of options. Sure, the previous options had restrictions, but the Codex itself wasn't restrictive.

But that's not the only fault of the Chaos Codex. It goes beyond that. I mentioned the Possessed that you cannot plan to use (and the all-too-ironic designer notes from Pete Haines that explained the reason they got rid of random Possessed was because you couldn't plan to use them and they weren't fun). I've mentioned Chaos Marines who forget what God they serve when the Icon dies (a cynical attempt by GW to make everyone buy new Icon models). But it's deeper than even that.

Daemons. I said in my post above that Daemons not being part of the Chaos Marine list is alien to Chaos. It's never been that way. Since their inception into 40K Daemons have been an intrinsic part of the Chaos Marine list (NB: I don't own any of the RT-era Compendiums or Compilations, only the Realms of Chaos books, so if this has ever been different anywhere, please let me know). Gav removed Daemons from Chaos for the first time. This is a major strike.

People comment on how the Chaos Codex is just 'spiky Marines' or 'Good Marines Gone Bad' and how the 'Chaos-y' aspects of the list had been removed. How is this best represented? Daemonic Gifts. Again, Daemon Gifts have been a part of Chaos since the very start. The RT books had D1000 tables for mutations and gifts. This Codex removed Daemonic Gifts - all the Chaos character options are the same as their Marine counter-parts, just more 'evil'. Daemon Princes get to choose Wings or no Wings and that's it!

Someone will no doubt chirp on about how people didn't use most of the options, but that has less to do with the fact that these options existed and more to do with the fact that Pete Haines et al. didn't write them very well in the first place. Removing them completely - and being the first writer to remove Daemon Gifts and Daemons from a (non-place holder) Codex - will be Gav's legacy.

He took the 'Chaos' out of Chaos Space Marines. That is why I hate it.

warpcrafter wrote:The part of his argument where he says that if you don't like something, just modify it doesn't fly either. The group I play with is so large and diverse that trying to use anything that is not in the official rules and codexes would require hours of argument and explanation, and that's if it would not be met with an automatic response of "Well no, it's not official so of course not." Most people, gamers or not just are not that flexible or imaginative. They want everything laid out for them in a rigid framework. I blame video games for this.

Are there no people at all in your group that would agree to modifications? In my own group and from I've read, in H.B.M.C's group, modification is the order of the day.
If you have a large group, I'd think there would be at least a few people that would modify the rules. Then again, I'm just going off my own experience.

As a player of Chaos, but also others, this Chaos Dex is better balanced internally. Daemons had to go to get a Daemons Codex. Good? Not really. Bad? Not that bothered myself. Sure, I loved Plaguebearers with Plague Swords, and Plague Knives on my PMs (yeah, I played Death Guard LONG before it was cool) but I'm happier with Oblits as they are. Troops rock. CSM need a land Speeder equivalent, need the return of the Infernal Device, and need a better mid-range supporting fire unit than the Chaos Predator. That's IT, and they're top tier, in the way SM and IG are. Well...Dreadclaws too. That'd be a lot better.

Nurglitch wrote:I've been playing since Rogue Trader days and I think that the latest Codex is a big improvement on the previous one. So no, the newer Codex doesn't reduce options, and having experienced the previous options, I say "Good riddance".

I'd like to hear your thoughts behind this. In what way does the newer codex not remove options? I could name a laundry list of options that are no longer available. Sure, you could represent some things passably with liberal use of counts-as... but then again you can do anything with counts-as. Oh sure, this isn't actually a tzeentch daemon weapon, it's a kai gun. My terminators with icon aren't really just marines with a banner that has 3 circles on it, they are plague marine terminators. Pay no attention to the fact that they do not get the same effects of being plague marines as my power armor plague marines.

Well said, H'. There have been suggestions flying around that Chaos characters should 'unlock' options for your army that let you emulate the Legions, but how does this make sense? I mean, how many Abbadons, Kharns, or Ahrimans are there? How many Chaos Lords wear Horus' lightning claw, how many Berzerkers are as skilled as Kharn, and how many Sorcerers have the same mastery of magic as Ahriman?

It's the same problem I have with the Space Marines codex; I like the codex itself, and the fun and varied options, but why should I have to take Vulkan for my Salamanders to play like Salamanders? Why do I need to take Pedro Kantor for my Crimson Fist veterans to be so powerful when that's always been their thing?

Elessar wrote:As a player of Chaos, but also others, this Chaos Dex is better balanced internally. Daemons had to go to get a Daemons Codex. Good? Not really. Bad? Not that bothered myself. Sure, I loved Plaguebearers with Plague Swords, and Plague Knives on my PMs (yeah, I played Death Guard LONG before it was cool) but I'm happier with Oblits as they are. Troops rock. CSM need a land Speeder equivalent, need the return of the Infernal Device, and need a better mid-range supporting fire unit than the Chaos Predator. That's IT, and they're top tier, in the way SM and IG are. Well...Dreadclaws too. That'd be a lot better.

The arguments against the CSM codex have nothing to do with its competitiveness.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

The Legions are now just different coloured ice cream tubs for my vanilla ice cream.

Eloquently explained. I agree completely as a night lords player who now has vanilla ass cream taste that won't go away.

Chaos being top tier has NOTHING to do with the codex taking away all its flavour, actually it does the opposite. Options (in a real sense) are making many viable choices to achieve the somewhat same result.

Nowadays those options simply aren't there and the person who gave us the choices that we now have must be able to accept criticism for it, or you can expect the same efforts in all projects they will be later involved in.

H.B.M.C. wrote:ice cream

And with this one example, you've explained why you hate the Guard Codex as well

I think I see your point now, but this seems to be the trend, to push for generically in armies rather than flavor (but I'm not sure if the new Wolf codex supports that theory or not...anyways) Something another member posted earlier holds true as well, Gav can't be the only person responsible for that codex. He just can't, that's not how game design works. The mistakes may or may not be his fault granted, but he wasn't the only one working on that rulebook.

starbomber109 wrote:Something another member posted earlier holds true as well, Gav can't be the only person responsible for that codex.

Of course not, and don't get me wrong, I don't think for a second that he was the only person working on the Codex (or even that it was just him an Alessio). There are obviously a lot of behind the scenes stuff that goes into making a Codex. Liken it to the way most American TV shows are written - there will be a writing team, and although one person will write the script and get the credit (and very occasionally you'll see a separate story and teleplay credit), all the writers are involved in some level, and often go uncredited for that work.

But at the end of the day his name is on it, so if we are to direct our criticisms (valid or otherwise) somewhere, then it might as well be the person at the end of the 'Written by...' credit.

ph34r:

Let me put it this way: I get my Khornate Devastators (okay, "Havocs") back. Sure, they're only Havocs with Berzerkers helmets and an Icon of Chaos Glory, but I like that tabula rasa that the Codex presents.

I mean, if your problem is that Terminators of Nurgle are "just marines with a banner that has 3 circles on it", then I'm not sure what to say. They're also plastic (or metal) toy soldiers, rather than crazed devotees of the Lord of Pestilence. Some imagination required, I guess.

I think that the abstraction of some unit types, rather than giving each and every element of the fluff it's own rules and trying to balance them, is a strategy that pays off better. Well, to be honest it seems to have failed given that the equalities between various Elite choices seem opaque to some players, but in the previous Codex there actually were simply better units and if you didn't take them you were handicapping yourself.


It's something to remember the distinction between all options and live options here. Contra H.B.M.C, I think that the current Codex gives more live options, options that are equally competitive, than the previous Codex despite the previous one having more possible permutations. But part of the problem is one of legacy, of popular attitudes to the previous Codex, and the timing of the change-over - the latest Chaos Codex was designed with 5th edition in mind, and didn't really succeed in its design parameters in combination with the 4th edition rules. The community, in general, has this attitude that there's a particular unit in each FOC slot that's the best unit, and that unit has a best configuration, and that there's a best army composed of these units, and as mentioned that was true to a degree with the previous codex.

I think that the current Codex, with the edition change, ameliorates this, but gamers are slow to change. Look how long it took people to adapt to 5th edition, or to the Lash of Submission: People are still playing Chaos Dreadnoughts according to the 4th edition rules where they had a 360 line of sight.

I think that they were right to go with a more abstract approach because of the threat that the community would go with the "One True Way" approach to armies that attempts to represent irrelevant differences create: you don't need a rule to differentiate all the different types of Chaos Space Marine, for example, but you do need some rules so that players have variety. It's a question of fitting the background to the rules, or the rules to the background, and since players are anal about using official rules, but make up their own background all the time, I think that the new direction is the right one.

Speaking of representing Plague Terminators:

A while ago I estimated some points values for Possessed Marines, and found a system that could be used for estimating the points values of stuff like the Terminators you want to play with. Basically it's +/- one point for each stat increase/wargear option/special rule, +1 for each other stats and rules it interacts with, and on top of a base line.

For example, Chaos Space Marines are xpts. Noise Marines are x+5pts. The 5 points breaks down as Fearless, +1I. Fearless is 3pts, the Initiative bonus is 2pts. Fearless prevents pinning for 1, prevents morale tests for 1, and interacts with the initiative bonus for 1. The Initiative bonus is 1 and interacts with Fearless for 1.

A Chaos Terminator with Fearless, Feel No Pain, Blight Grenades, Mark of Nurgle, and -1I would have a minimum of +5pts.

Starting with Fearless, same as above (+1 vs pinning, +1 vs morale, +3 for combination), for a total of +5
Feel No Pain (+1, +3 for combination), total of +4
Mark of Nurgle (+1, +3 for combination), total of +4
Initiative (-1, +3 for combination), total of +2

This would mean that your Plague Terminators would start at 45pts.

Last night I fielded an army I allways wanted to field with the old Chaos Codex, but couldn't.

Black Legion 1500 points

Chaos Terminator Lord
5 Chaos Terminators
6 Noise Marines
7 Plague Marines
8 Khorne Berserkers
9 Thousand Sons
10 Chaos Space Marines

Personally I think the new CSM codex is perfect. It got rid of all the overpowered Daemon bombs and the players that stuck around afterwards were the true chaos fans. Ppl kept hiding behind fluff. Well if you liked Korn, then just use the models and summon damons that look like Korn. You do not need all these other abilities. He basically made it so that the REAL fluff fans stuck around and everyone that left after the new DEX was just a poser that bandwagon hops to whatever they perceive is the stongest army at the time. Before it was CSM was revised they were clearly the stongest army. Unless you fought a built-to fight marine army. He weeded out the posers and only the true chaos players were left.

They still are a strong army just not as strong as they were.

As for my I will always PLay IG and orks. I did since either of there more recent dexes came out because I love the models and fluff. The other army I have been toying with the idea of is Necrons. Also space wolves. Just because I think they are cool. ALthough I have problems enough going to bed that I do not need the thought of me, a grown man playing a space marine variant keeping me up at night.

You're a brave man smart_alex, may you weather the incoming assault well my friend.

Neconilis wrote:You're a brave man smart_alex, may you weather the incoming assault well my friend.

He plays guard orks and skaven, he can take anything

starbomber109 wrote:

Neconilis wrote:You're a brave man smart_alex, may you weather the incoming assault well my friend.

He plays guard orks and skaven, he can take anything

Neconilis wrote:You're a brave man smart_alex, may you weather the incoming assault well my friend.

No what he is is someone who continues to highlight just how inaccurate his user-title is.

And I don't respond well to ad hominems and strawman's such as Alex's, therefore I won't respond at all...

Eh, well they did say they were working on a Legion's Codex right?.....Right?.
If worse comes to worse Ill gave the EC a break and play some fantasy.

In all honesty I don't hate the guy that wrote it, I just really want to use a flavorful EC or atleast Slannesh army.
However I will totally argue he should of given the Legion player's what WE want.

Relapse wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:The part of his argument where he says that if you don't like something, just modify it doesn't fly either. The group I play with is so large and diverse that trying to use anything that is not in the official rules and codexes would require hours of argument and explanation, and that's if it would not be met with an automatic response of "Well no, it's not official so of course not." Most people, gamers or not just are not that flexible or imaginative. They want everything laid out for them in a rigid framework. I blame video games for this.

Are there no people at all in your group that would agree to modifications? In my own group and from I've read, in H.B.M.C's group, modification is the order of the day.
If you have a large group, I'd think there would be at least a few people that would modify the rules. Then again, I'm just going off my own experience.

I haven't tried with all three dozen or so players, but that's because I eventually got fed up and started an Ork army.

Nurglitch wrote:ph34r:

Let me put it this way: I get my Khornate Devastators (okay, "Havocs") back. Sure, they're only Havocs with Berzerkers helmets and an Icon of Chaos Glory, but I like that tabula rasa that the Codex presents.

You could mark havocs in the old book.

I mean, if your problem is that Terminators of Nurgle are "just marines with a banner that has 3 circles on it", then I'm not sure what to say. They're also plastic (or metal) toy soldiers, rather than crazed devotees of the Lord of Pestilence. Some imagination required, I guess.

The thing is, they don't have the same rules as plague marines. They're wannabes. If the icon bearer dies, then suddenly their diseased toughness vanishes and they become random renegades.

I think that they were right to go with a more abstract approach because of the threat that the community would go with the "One True Way" approach to armies that attempts to represent irrelevant differences create: you don't need a rule to differentiate all the different types of Chaos Space Marine, for example, but you do need some rules so that players have variety. It's a question of fitting the background to the rules, or the rules to the background, and since players are anal about using official rules, but make up their own background all the time, I think that the new direction is the right one.

Oh, so because some people on the internet might have been persuaded into using a particular type of good unit/strategy/list it is better to remove most options... so that there are less unused options! brilliant! Without a cornucopia of options to choose from, there will be far fewer options that don't get used because of those damn internet people. And the people who actually liked having fluffy, non-counts as armies? Acceptable losses.

I've taken on chaos players before. Singlehandedly. I've never swayed from my position, look at my posting history. Its no secret I do not like chaos in here. THey are the worst. THey claim they like fluff but then complain by saying the new codex nerf's fluff.

Fluff and rules are two separate things. Fluff is in your head and imagination.

No person has been able to tell me how the new dex affects fluff.

Keep in mind now that doctrines are gone, I have yet to observe IG players complaining about fluff. Tallern players still play tallern, Cadian players still play Cadians, Steel Legion still play SL, and Catachan players still play catachan. etc.. This shows the difference. The players who actually have skill and like chaos for the fluff still play them. What do rules have to do with fluff? Nothing.

People are just upset since the new CSm dex that they actually have to learn to play. The Chaos players that KNOW how to play are still kicking butt all over the place.

Get a clue and stop complaining. That new dex was the event that made people question why they would want to play an army that is stupid, and looks like a circus. It brought balance and got rid of the most broken army in the game. I even thought about starting a korne army after the new dex came out just because I LIKE THE FLUFF. All red models, out for blood. I would probably lose a lot but it would be highly themed.

Die Chaos scum in the name of the emperor!

Hmm, it's a shame I sold my World Eaters army as this codex makes them better than the ass wipe that was the 3.5 'dex.

So I'm sorry if I don't pity people for losing a unit or TWO, my entire army went from pretty cool in 2nd to better in 3rd to collecting dust on the shelf with 3.5 until I was able to sucker someone into buying them. LOL

Egads, maybe someday I'll do a Khornate army again JUST on the off chance they do release Legion codeciies but the new codex actually makes an all Khornate army viable again and not a joke. Although, IMO if it happens I only expect it to be the big 4. I don't really want to see 9 codeciies for Chaos.

The 3.5 codex had tons of restrictions... it was more restrictive than any other Chaos book, but it also helped shape many people's idea of what a Chaos army should look like. After the 4th ed codex was released, how many times did you hear someone bitching about "I can't believe he's running X unit with Y unit, it's totally against the fluff!!" Which actually kind of pissed me off, because I would run Black Legion with lots of berzerkers... and get comp hits because of it.

However... the 3.5 codex still had tons of options within the restrictions it presented. The 4th ed codex got rid of all the restrictions... but then destroyed all of the options as well.

Despite it's quickly declining competitiveness, the Eldar codex is a thing of beauty because it removed restrictions while maintaining options.

The CSM codex is an example of piss-poor game design because it removed restrictions while removing options.

@Ellesar: I actually agree with you that the Chaos Codex is not competitive against 5th ed lists designed from 5th ed codices... but you'll find little agreement here.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
People comment on how the Chaos Codex is just 'spiky Marines' or 'Good Marines Gone Bad' and how the 'Chaos-y' aspects of the list had been removed. How is this best represented? Daemonic Gifts. Again, Daemon Gifts have been a part of Chaos since the very start. The RT books had D1000 tables for mutations and gifts. This Codex removed Daemonic Gifts - all the Chaos character options are the same as their Marine counter-parts, just more 'evil'. Daemon Princes get to choose Wings or no Wings and that's it!

Someone will no doubt chirp on about how people didn't use most of the options, but that has less to do with the fact that these options existed and more to do with the fact that Pete Haines et al. didn't write them very well in the first place. Removing them completely - and being the first writer to remove Daemon Gifts and Daemons from a (non-place holder) Codex - will be Gav's legacy.

I might be VERY wrong here, and I could be misconstrued to be nitpicking, but I believe that the Chaos Marine Codex that was released just after the 3rd edition (the one with the head of a CSM on the front) failed to have daemonic gift options. Just wargear, with perhaps the odd option (wings instead of a jumppack; ala the current codex). I don't have the codex handy, but that is how I remember it.

It was as vanilla as the current one.
Which is why they released the IA articles in WD which, in conjunction with the 3rd ed. CSM codex, could be used to create god/legion specific forces.
These were the basis for the CSM codex that Pete Haines wrote.
Which was great and arguably the best codex GW has produced (although the T5 oblits that went to T4(5) was a knock). It had broken builds, but only as bad as the current one.
Correct

smart_alex wrote:I've taken on chaos players before. Singlehandedly. I've never swayed from my position, look at my posting history. Its no secret I do not like chaos in here. THey are the worst. THey claim they like fluff but then complain by saying the new codex nerf's fluff.

I like the fluff. The new book ruins the fluff by not adhering to it. Where is the problem for you? Logical trains of thought?

Fluff and rules are two separate things. Fluff is in your head and imagination.

Oh, okay. So it's normal when the rules don't follow the fluff at all?

No person has been able to tell me how the new dex affects fluff.

Oh really! Then let me be the first! It affects fluff by TOTALLY CONTRADICTING THE OLD FLUFF. Phew, that was easy! Cross that one off your list.

Keep in mind now that doctrines are gone, I have yet to observe IG players complaining about fluff. Tallern players still play tallern, Cadian players still play Cadians, Steel Legion still play SL, and Catachan players still play catachan. etc.. This shows the difference. The players who actually have skill and like chaos for the fluff still play them. What do rules have to do with fluff? Nothing.

Oh, okay, only the skilled enough people still like chaos. Or was it that the internet people were ruining it for everyone? You anti-options people are all over the place.

People are just upset since the new CSm dex that they actually have to learn to play. The Chaos players that KNOW how to play are still kicking butt all over the place.

No. No no no. You are so wrong it is ridiculous. I'm sorry, but are you dense? The new book is MORE POWERFUL THAN the old book.

Get a clue and stop complaining. That new dex was the event that made people question why they would want to play an army that is stupid, and looks like a circus. It brought balance and got rid of the most broken army in the game. I even thought about starting a korne army after the new dex came out just because I LIKE THE FLUFF. All red models, out for blood. I would probably lose a lot but it would be highly themed.

Oh. Unfortunately I must inform you that the most broken army in the game was replaced by a boring, brokener army.

Sooo you are wrong on all points. Thoughts? Attempts at rebuttal?

And it was written by Jervis. Then Jervis leaves 40K. Then he returns some years later and what are the next two Codices we get?

Dark Angels
Chaos Space Marines

This is one of the reasons I don't completely blame Gav.

ph34r wrote:No. No no no. You are so wrong it is ridiculous. I'm sorry, but are you dense? The new book is MORE POWERFUL THAN the old book.

If you'll back me up I'll PM yak and lego about having Alex's user title changed to 'Ralph Wiggum' because I swear that's the voice I hear when I read his posts. To put it another way, you cannot argue with someone who doesn't realise that they're in an argument...

Jervis is the opposite of Gav in terms of game design.

Gav likes to build conservative.

Jervis likes to build over-the-top.

The fact that you have multiple codex authors with such different opinions of what makes a "good list" is one of the reasons why codex-to-codex balance is pretty poor.

Unfortunately, Codex: CSM, and Codex: Dark Angels were written while GW was having a balance swing towards more conservative. Then GW realized that they weren't selling models by hitting codices with the nerf hammer.

And then BOOM Orks/Daemons/Guard/Space Wolves.

Tyranids should be awesome. Different awesome, as the pendulum will probably be swung as hard with them as with Marines, but still awesome.

Well... they gave the newbie Guard... and he wrote a brilliant list (I know you disagree) but his rules writing was frustratingly bad.

If he can get his rules together (which I know GW cares little about) then I think the Tyranid codex will be great in his hands.

I don't think it was a bad list. My ire from the Guard Codex comes from the fact that it was a lateral step rather than a forward step and things that should have been fixed - like Ogryn and Storm Troopers - weren't fixed, all in favour of new units like Psyker Squads and Penal Legionaries.

The other thing is the lack of support from GW. The whole 'wave' concept has been a mess from the start, and with a Codex so full of units not represented by GW model kits (not counting FW), it sucks to be in a situation no army has suffered since... well... since the Tau came out. It's like 3rd Ed Orks, with half their stuff simply not existing in model form until 4th Ed Orks hit.

And the overabundance of Special Characters, but that's less a Guard problem and more a Jervishammer problem.

Well... there is at least one bright side for the orks: they can model for advantage like crazy because everyone is used to them building vehicles however the feth they want.

I think that for the most part I agree with H.B.M.C. I feel that the Blandhammer (Oooh, I wonder if I just coined a new phrase?) has fallen too harshly upon the spiky heads of our beloved chaotic marines. They used to be so ridiculously interesting... Sure, they were complicated as hell, but by the gods, they were SO FUN.

I have to agree with the comments about CSM becoming too bland and generic. While I havent been a long time CSM player and therefore my opinion doesnt count as much, I have noticed the difference between the current codex and previous iterations.

However, having read through Gav Thorpe's blog and reading some of the user submitted comments, I do feel sympathy for him. I wouldnt want my work to be publicly lambasted and pilloried, and I wouldnt want it to happen on my own blog (if I had one). There is a difference between being constructive and just being rude. Unfortunately the old adage always proves true:

Internet + anonymity = donkey-cave

smart_alex wrote:I've taken on chaos players before. Singlehandedly. I've never swayed from my position, look at my posting history. Its no secret I do not like chaos in here. THey are the worst. THey claim they like fluff but then complain by saying the new codex nerf's fluff.

Wait, we claim we like fluff and then complain when the new codex takes a hacksaw to fluff's genitals? There's no contradiction there, it's a basic follow-through. I like chocolate, thus I dislike it when the dairy stops selling chocolate.

smart_alex wrote:
Fluff and rules are two separate things. Fluff is in your head and imagination.

No, rules and fluff must work together in tandem in order to achieve a full gaming experience. What you're arguing is that if every army was but a renamed SM codex as far as rules go, it would be a fluffy army? No way. A fluffy army has veterans warriors who don't have less of the gods' favour than the average Joe soldier. A fluffy army gives options for multiple armies from the same dex. However you spin it, giving the seige specialists ordnance tanks was a fluffy move and removing them was an unfluffy choice. Taking the hordes of fleshed out, in depth daemons and replacing them with generic creatures weakens the fluff.

smart_alex wrote:
No person has been able to tell me how the new dex affects fluff.

Just to let you know, I'm a person. Now we've got that cleared up, the new dex affects fluff because it removes much fluff and adds nothing. We had whole pages dedicated to each god in the last codex. Rules aside, we don't have those any more. The fluffy information about each weapon was removed. Where is the history of the Kai Gun in the new dex? That's what fluff is, that's what the old dex had and that's what the new dex lacks. That is how the new Chaos Codex affects the fluff.

smart_alex wrote:
Keep in mind now that doctrines are gone, I have yet to observe IG players complaining about fluff. Tallern players still play tallern, Cadian players still play Cadians, Steel Legion still play SL, and Catachan players still play catachan. etc.. This shows the difference. The players who actually have skill and like chaos for the fluff still play them. What do rules have to do with fluff? Nothing.

I don't know too much about the IG dex, but can they still ally with DH/WH? Have they lost anything? Have their Leman Russ variants become more numerous? Have they gotten a whole new form of transport? Yes? Well if Chaos got the equivalent of that, perhaps we wouldn't be so upset. As it stands, the fluff lovers are angry because their fluffy, non competitive armies are gone and the power games are angry because their fluffy power armies are gone, and now they're stuck with Slannesh led Plague Marines who've hired a ton of obliterators for backup.

smart_alex wrote:
People are just upset since the new CSm dex that they actually have to learn to play. The Chaos players that KNOW how to play are still kicking butt all over the place.

No, this Chaos codex is more point and click than the last one. We can move enemy models! We've got plague marines! We've got the power-play, but we lack the fluff. The old dex was good because a fluffy, themed army was powerful. With this codex, you need to counts-as to the point of it being proxying simply to get a hollow shell of the themed armies of yore, and they can't hold their own against a good list.

smart_alex wrote:
Get a clue and stop complaining. That new dex was the event that made people question why they would want to play an army that is stupid, and looks like a circus. It brought balance and got rid of the most broken army in the game. I even thought about starting a korne army after the new dex came out just because I LIKE THE FLUFF. All red models, out for blood. I would probably lose a lot but it would be highly themed.

Newsflash: Chaos models didn't really change, so if they looked like a circus before, they still look it now. It killed balance and turned the broken army into a dull, unfluffy powerplay list. You thought about starting a Khorne army after the new dex comes out? Have you even SEEN the old codex? It gives you the ability to have the rules of your models actually represent what your awesome blood gatherers are. It ENCOURAGED you to make an army just like that. The new one makes your "highly themed army" difficult to build a list for, a pain to play and full of lost opportunities. Why should you as a fluff player, suffer? How is going from a codex that supports and recommends a fluffy army to a codex that has no sense of fluff at all (R.I.P. Ancient Enemies) a good choice?

smart_alex wrote:
Die Chaos scum in the name of the emperor!

Sorry, no chaos here, just ex-veteran spiky marines with no sense of fluff.

The part of his argument where he says that if you don't like something, just modify it doesn't fly either. The group I play with is so large and diverse that trying to use anything that is not in the official rules and codexes would require hours of argument and explanation, and that's if it would not be met with an automatic response of "Well no, it's not official so of course not."

I agree, the whole point of having rules is so you can get on with it and have an enjoyable game,

You don't wanna spend your whole night either arguing with someone or having to go over what rules each unit is using.

I'm most annoyed that he hasn't addressed the main problem many people have with the codex, moving the focus from the powerful 10k year old legions (one of the main reasons people collect chaos)

To focussing on new weak 'renegades' that only turned yesterday, huron blackheart possibly one of the worst special characters ever.

After reading this defense I had the terrible need to go to the bathroom. I highly recommend reading it if one has not had enough fiber recently.

Cheese Elemental wrote:Well said, H'. There have been suggestions flying around that Chaos characters should 'unlock' options for your army that let you emulate the Legions, but how does this make sense? I mean, how many Abbadons, Kharns, or Ahrimans are there? How many Chaos Lords wear Horus' lightning claw, how many Berzerkers are as skilled as Kharn, and how many Sorcerers have the same mastery of magic as Ahriman?

It's the same problem I have with the Space Marines codex; I like the codex itself, and the fun and varied options, but why should I have to take Vulkan for my Salamanders to play like Salamanders? Why do I need to take Pedro Kantor for my Crimson Fist veterans to be so powerful when that's always been their thing?

The reason for that the special rules you get make your army more powerful and need to be paid for. Buying the special character is a good way of doing that, or it could be done by some other way like making all Crimson Fist veterans 1 point more expensive or something.

Strange, last time Gav defended codex chaos he said that Alessio wrote the rules. With (3rd edition) Blood Angels he blamed Jervis.

Still it was nice to read his opinion on the subject and his attack on the people who disagree with him. I suppose he was only following orders (the brief).

Having read this I'd say that 'legion' codices are now a dead concept, probably because the chaos codex didn't sell well, probably due to people on the internet complaining. So we all know who to blame now, not Gav but HBMC!

Andy Chambers would never have stooped this low.

If Chaos didn't sell well because of lil' ol' me, then I'd consider that a win. Anything that hurts Jervis helps the rest of us.


And before any of you say anything I don't think that I have contributed in any way to the sales of Chaos (or possible lack thereof).

Hi all.
I may not agree with everything Gav said,(I do not,) but at least he responded.(Not many GW staff bother.)

And as Gav is paid by GW he has to follow thier instructions, or find another job.
The dev teams write the codexes primarily to help sell the new minature releases, and have to conform to the restrictions placed upon them.

He is accredited with writing the codex, but it was written to a design brief dictated by others.NOT the gamers but his bosses .(Jervis and the people who pay his wages.)

If you dont like the current rules for 40k , then simply find another rule set and use that.(I do.)

Pay your money and make you chioce.(There are far more choices than GW offer .)

TTFN
Lanrak.

I am sick to death of `house rule it' as Games Workshop's line. Out of all the places in the world where people play, what percentage actually takes this advice? You cannot in tournaments. You generally cannot in stores or clubs. Even most casual gaming groups seem to be pretty conservative around house ruling things. No matter how much they like to tout that line, it makes not one iota of difference. They really need to wake up and realise that the community they are speaking to is not the community in their imaginations.

As for the rest of the article, a load of rubbish. I am certainly not a critic of Gav's --- I think he has done some good work at times --- but that was really pathetic. The `arguments' were counter-intuitive and his own points on why the book is good where the very reasons why it is not. -6 points!

@Willydstyle: Thanks. Sadly, you're right.

@Elric of Grans: While I concur wholeheartedly with the first point, that's the way they've always been, and always will. However many of us tell them they aren't the majority, they think they are.

@Everyone else:

Let's split this up a bot here. There are (at least) two disparate groups who dislike the Dex -

1) People who hate their broken army (usually Iron Warriors) getting nerfed.

2) People annoyed that fluffy options are gone (Death Guard in Rhinos as Fast Attack, for example.)

People 1: Grow up. The Codex was too strong when it came out, and had to go. Next time it'll be too good again, it's how the game works. If you ahven't been playing long enough to see this cycle before then just STFU and wait.

People 2: Nonsense. Fluff isn't the same as rules - If I make something up, say a story that details an Order of Sisters being corrupted by Slaanesh, that has as much authority in fluff as someone who says it's impossible. Or a story detailing how Sebastian Thor was actually a Tyranid Vanguard Organism. The whole point is that the fluff is telling a story, I can do whatever the hell I want, and so can GW. Especially since it's THEIR fluff, you have no more right to it than anyone, and less than them. They can and will change anything they feel like changing - if you don't like it, tough.

I like this thread.

Mosg wrote:I think the best part was when he said that a Codex is just a rough guide that you should use to tell the story you want with your awesomely painted miniatures. This definitely cements my decision to transition over to Hordes and Warmachine permanently.

Well, I can see where he's getting with that. To be honest, that's the thing that I like most abput 40k. That is however no excuse for writing bad rules.

smart_alex wrote:Personally I think the new CSM codex is perfect. It got rid of all the overpowered Daemon bombs and the players that stuck around afterwards were the true chaos fans. Ppl kept hiding behind fluff. Well if you liked Korn, then just use the models and summon damons that look like Korn. You do not need all these other abilities. He basically made it so that the REAL fluff fans stuck around and everyone that left after the new DEX was just a poser that bandwagon hops to whatever they perceive is the stongest army at the time. Before it was CSM was revised they were clearly the stongest army. Unless you fought a built-to fight marine army. He weeded out the posers and only the true chaos players were left.

That is where you are wrong alex. Yes, Demon Power was a very powerful list. CSM 3.5 had a lot of stuff that was overpowered. But I don't like the new 'dex because it's less powerful. I started a Death Guard army with 3.5 which was the most perfect book to build something like that. Sure, it was pretty complicated and the army builder always screwed up the thing with the free champion, but there were real rules to play a Cult army. There were downsides like fewer units and options, but you got neat stuff as well. If you played a cult army, fluff in your army list was actually rewarded. The sacred number rule was really, really cool.
Sure, I didn't get bikes or havocs but it was a fluffy army. Now everything that was cool about this army is gone. Instead of fielding Khorne bikers and Slaaneesh Havos were back to the 3.0 version with a single unit dedicated to a god and all the others are like "well, I guess I like Tzeentch too, but not so much that I wanna end up like the core troops." That is just stupid.
I was a "true" Chaos player, but the new book appearantly didn't like that.

smart_alex wrote:I've taken on chaos players before. Singlehandedly. I've never swayed from my position, look at my posting history. Its no secret I do not like chaos in here. THey are the worst. THey claim they like fluff but then complain by saying the new codex nerf's fluff.

Fluff and rules are two separate things. Fluff is in your head and imagination.

No person has been able to tell me how the new dex affects fluff.

I just did up there. You actually got something out of using fluff. Some units and options were taken away, but you got other exclusive options instead. That is how fluff can effect the rules.

People are just upset since the new CSm dex that they actually have to learn to play. The Chaos players that KNOW how to play are still kicking butt all over the place.

I have absolutly no problem with getting beaten in 40k. I lose a lot, but I don't mind. I just miss the fun of the old book.

Die Chaos scum in the name of the emperor!

ehm....what?

Shelegelah wrote:I think that for the most part I agree with H.B.M.C. I feel that the Blandhammer (Oooh, I wonder if I just coined a new phrase?) has fallen too harshly upon the spiky heads of our beloved chaotic marines. They used to be so ridiculously interesting... Sure, they were complicated as hell, but by the gods, they were SO FUN.

I agree.

H.B.M.C. wrote:If Chaos didn't sell well because of lil' ol' me, then I'd consider that a win. Anything that hurts Jervis helps the rest of us.

What a ridiculous comment. I can only assume it was meant to be funny. Although it's not.

If you're really so fething angry about the Chaos codex, then why don't you go and respond to Thorpe's comments on his site? You can call him a liar to his face. I notice that several people have posted very critical comments there about the codex, without resorting to empty grandstanding and snide personal attacks.

Tailgunner wrote:What a ridiculous comment. I can only assume it was meant to be funny. Although it's not.

You ain't been around long, so you don't know what I'm like. I'm very often not serious, and most of my over-the-top attitude is done in a way that is meant to entertain. Snarkiness, cynicism, sarcasm - these are just some of the many tools I make use of to entertain the fair people of Dakka. And the fact that I keep showing up in so many sigs indicates to me that I'm doing something right.

When I am serious, it's most often obvious. Such as right.... now:

Tailgunner wrote:If you're really so fething angry about the Chaos codex, then why don't you go and respond to Thorpe's comments on his site? You can call him a liar to his face. I notice that several people have posted very critical comments there about the codex, without resorting to empty grandstanding and snide personal attacks.

I haven't been back to his blog, although I intend to. Actually getting to engage with the credited writer about his mess of a Codex (even if he ignores/deletes my message to him, which really would only strengthen my opinions) is something of a rare opportunity, one I intend to make use of (for good or for ill). What I have to do now is reduce what I would say into something that is both polite enough to be worth reading and not deleting immediately, but cutting enough as to eliminate the silly arguments and falsehoods he's brought up so far. And when I've done it, and posted it, you'll be the first to know Tailgunner.

Know your place tailgunner.
HBMC backs up every argument with a logical and reasonable answer.
He is not one to start shouting for the fun of it or to gain attention.

The new Dex has somewhat killed off the fun of playing chaos, your now left with an empty shell of the former list.
Yes, its possible to make alot of stronger builsd, but they are for people who tend to want a boring and cutter list.
For people who like thier fluffy armies this is a major kick in the bollocks to them, as its killed off any hope of making anything other than the failed (x13) black legion.

Elric of Grans wrote:I am sick to death of `house rule it' as Games Workshop's line. Out of all the places in the world where people play, what percentage actually takes this advice? You cannot in tournaments. You generally cannot in stores or clubs. Even most casual gaming groups seem to be pretty conservative around house ruling things. No matter how much they like to tout that line, it makes not one iota of difference. They really need to wake up and realise that the community they are speaking to is not the community in their imaginations.

This is a generalization, but they write their games based on the way they like to experience them. I bet the a lot of the criticism makes them pound their heads against the wall and say "WOULD YOU PLEASE JUST ADJUST THE RULES HOWEVER YOU SEE FIT?!?"

Of course, for everyone one of them doing that, there's X number of gamers pounding their heads against walls saying "WHY DO YOU KEEP WRITING THINGS SO LOOSELY...THAT'S NOT HOW WE PLAY!!!"

There are different world views at work here. Some gamers do ascribe to the studio's philosophy. Many others don't. And here's where my aggravation comes in.

The reason many gamers are anal-retentive about tightness and officiality is because GW helped create those attitudes. Older historical wargamers aren't hung up on what brand of models you use, they monkey with rulesets all the time, and tournament play isn't a big deal to them -- they're more about scenarios and narratives. It's GW that's pushed notions of GW models only. It's GW that introduced the "codex" format for official army lists. It's GW that created the GT and RTT scene. It's GW that pushed in-store demos and pickup games instead of basement gaming. And as it's been well-documented, now you're seeing historicals systems like FoW emulate GW's business approach.

I agree that the personal attacks against Gav are silly and out of line. But I'd have no problem telling him to his face that it's hypocritical to design based around one mindset, then market and sell the game with a completely different mindset. I've done rants about this before and this inherent hypocrisy is the one thing that really gets my back up re: GW.

Elessar wrote: Fluff isn't the same as rules - If I make something up, say a story that details an Order of Sisters being corrupted by Slaanesh, that has as much authority in fluff as someone who says it's impossible. Or a story detailing how Sebastian Thor was actually a Tyranid Vanguard Organism. The whole point is that the fluff is telling a story, I can do whatever the hell I want, and so can GW. Especially since it's THEIR fluff, you have no more right to it than anyone, and less than them. They can and will change anything they feel like changing - if you don't like it, tough.

I got class in an hour but I'll give this a shot.

Horus and the Emperor were actually the same person that used an extremely advanced Dark Age teleporter to appear as two different people. Now this teleporter was so advanced that it projected two versions of the Emperor, one from the past and one from present time. Horus was the past Emperor. When Emperor killed Horus he actually killed his past self which is why he sits in on the Golden Throne, which is an anti-paradox machine which keeps the fabric of reality together by keeping the Emperor in existence. However as a side effect it caused the Space Marine legions to go insane and caused the Horus Heresy because of the temporal effects reverberating into the past. Whenever something changes in the universe like Sensei or Malal disappearing it's the anti-paradox machine rewriting history to keep the Emperor alive. Cypher bears the keycode to the machine and is trying to reach the Throne so he can unwrite himself completely from history because he is the Emperor from the future, the reason he seeks to do this is because he wants to prevent Abaddon, who is the Emperor from the near future, from destroying the universe. But he must do this before he is erased from history, as he is being right now.

Elessar wrote: Nonsense. Fluff isn't the same as rules

That doesn't mean that they are mutually exclusive. It's like saying that there's no need for unit X to have a model because rules are not the same as miniatures.
And ultimately there is very little "need" for anything in the game as long as we're able to move chunks of plastic over a table - but that wouldn't be very exciting, would it? So why not mesh things a little?

Elessar wrote:The whole point is that the fluff is telling a story, I can do whatever the hell I want, and so can GW.

It is these stories that add considerably to an armies' appeal. Why would someone who likes Word Bearers stories (such as Dark Apostle/Disciple) take a generic Chaos Lord if he was offered a Dark Apostle entry? Why assume that someone who enjoys Alpha Legion fluff wouldn't want an option for allied cultists?

Elessar wrote:Especially since it's THEIR fluff, you have no more right to it than anyone, and less than them. They can and will change anything they feel like changing - if you don't like it, tough.

So when did the Alpha Legion stop using human agents? When did the Word Bearers stop being led Dark Apostles? When did the Iron warriors stop being siege masters?
This isn't about fluff having been changed, it is about rules not doing it any justice for absolutely no good reason.

The previous Codex may have been in need of streamlining and balancing, but that doesn't excuse the removal of so many options.

Definitely awesome that Gav Thrope responded to the seemingly onslaught of negative attention the Chaos dex has received over the interwebs although imo the large outcry against GW is overblown and overly emotional/irrational than anything else. Podcasters and other internet users seem to like this 'dex as well; and I really don't value HBMC's questionable posts since he's got a record of trying to put down people even though he's in the wrong in the first place (me being such a person before) - and he doesn't have the balls or common decency to say that he's wrong.

Not to mention whenever he's shared his guard dex thoughts its just nitpicking; just because he posts the most on Dakka doesn't mean he has THE opinion to hold. Just saying.

I smell a lock.

/puts marshmallows on sticks and settles into a deckchair to wait...

mmm, smores....

Smores are EXTRA heretical! To defile a perfectly good marshmallow... you sicken me to the core. To the core.

Elessar wrote:

People 2: Nonsense. Fluff isn't the same as rules -

until someone makes a ruling based on fluff.

I have replied:



Hmm... where to start. Ok, simple disclaimer.

Gav, I own the following Chaos armies:
Word Bearers (loads of Marines & Daemons – my first Chaos army, started in 2nd Ed)
Alpha Legion (loads of Marines & Cultists)
World Eaters (follows the fluff to the letter with Sacred Number units and so on)
Death Guard (7 units of 7 troops, all modelled very nicely, using a mix of 2nd Ed, 3rd Ed and even Forge World models - I like my Death Guard army)
Iron Warriors (filled with Havocs and siege weapons and bands of fire-support warriors)
Lost & The Damned (a mass of Mutants and Traitors backed up by Night Lord infantry, tanks and Defilers – I /really/ like my LatD army)

Now, looking at what armies I play you can probably guess that I am one of those people who have a few issues with the current 'Chaos' Codex. And by a 'few issues' I mean 'despise with a unyielding fury'. However, rather than spewing bile and personal attacks at you, I feel this discussion would be better served with an open look at exactly where my dislike of your Codex comes from (and I say ‘your’ because you are credited as the writer – I am well aware that there is much more that goes into a Codex than just what you write personally).

But before we do this, as in any great debate or discussion, I need to directly address a couple of areas in your words above where I disagree.

Daemons:

Specifically these words of yours - “They were only folded into the Chaos Space Marines in the previous version of the Codex.”

I’m sorry to say this Gav, but there are only three possible explanations for why you’d say what you said here:

A). You’re being forgetful.
B). You have a selective memory.
C). You’re lying.

Why? Well, your comment simply isn’t true.

What Chaos Codices/Army Books have included named God-specific Daemons as part of the Chaos Marine Army list?:
1. Realms of Chaos – Slaves to Darkness
2. Realms of Chaos – The Lost & The Damned
3. Codex Army Lists – 2nd Ed (can’t find my copy, but as the specific Daemon profiles are in Codex Imperialis, I have to assume that they were included in the place-holder Codex that came with 2nd Ed)
4. Codex Chaos – 2nd Ed
5. Codex Chaos – 3rd Ed (Jervis’ one)
6. Codex Chaos – 3rd Ed (Pete Haines’ one)

What Chaos Codices/Army Books have NOT included named God-specific Daemons as part of the Chaos Marine Army list?:
1. Your Codex.

So really, the inclusion of Daemons as part of the Chaos Marine list isn’t recent, or just something that happened in the last Codex (Pete Haines’ Codex). It’s all of them – except yours. Even in Jervis’ original very thin and very uninspired 3rd Ed Codex (a Codex that has bears several striking similarities to yours), where the Daemons were a single entry, there were rules that allowed you to modify their statline to show the different types of Daemons.

Now, yes, the 2nd Ed Codex – a glorious style of book that we can only wish GW would go back to – did have a Daemon World list in it, but it wasn’t the only list to have Daemons, it was simply the list you used to represent Daemons World Armies. The Codex also had a Chaos Cult army list. Can you imagine if, say, 4th Ed Tyranids had rolled around and Genestealers had been removed from the book, only to emerge in a Genestealer Cult Codex 8 months later, and the reason by the writer given was ‘Oh, they had their own list in another addition, so including Genestealers with the main ‘Nid list is more of a recent thing’? Tyranid players would have gone crazy. The same thing applies to Daemons.

To put it another way - you took something away from Chaos that they had always had. Think about that.

Restrictions vs Flexibility:

As someone who has been quite vocal about my distaste for the ‘Chaos’ Codex, I have often come across the argument that the previous Codex was too restrictive and that this new Codex removed those restrictions therefore giving us more flexibility. This line of thinking is /technically/ true, but is actually quite disingenuous.

How can I best explain this? I know: With ice cream!

Say rather being a book with different Legions, it’s actually an ice-cream store with many different flavours. Say the flavours are:

1. Chocolate ice cream.
2. Strawberry ice cream.
3. Honeycomb ice cream.
4. Rocky Road ice cream.

Mmm… sounds good, don’t it? And so much choice! But say that you could only have one flavour at a time. Aww! No fair. That’s so restrictive. But, at the very least, I can have all the different types, just not all at the same time.

Now let’s say your Codex is also an ice cream store. The flavours you have are:

1. Vanilla.

But there’s no limit on how much vanilla I can have. I can have a little bit of vanilla, I can have a lot, I can have two scoops in two different bowls, three in eight bowls – any combination of vanilla that I want.

But it’s still only vanilla.

If I want Chocolate I can’t, and while I might have been restricted to only having one flavour at a time, at least I had the choice. Now I only have one choice. And having only one choice is the same as having /no/ choice. To extend the metaphor, all the Legions are now are different coloured tubs for vanilla ice cream.

The idea that the old Chaos Codex was ‘restrictive’ and that the new one ‘frees up’ players and gets them away from proscribed gaming simply doesn’t hold water. I have always been of the opinion that fluff and rules should be congruous, and for the most part, Haines’ Codex got that right. It wasn’t balanced – not by any means, but what GW Codex is? – but the rules stuck to the fluff quite well, and so an army that followed the fluff made good use of the apparently ‘restrictive’ rules. Essentially I think you’re looking at it backwards. You’re trying to say that the old Codex forced you down a certain path – you play World Eaters hey, then you /must/ play this way and this way only!!!!! – but that wasn’t the case. It was often a case of I want to play World Eaters, what is their fluff, oh, they have that sort of formation do they, what do the rules say, oh, the rules are set up in such a way as to let you play as the fluff describes.

And then, at its core, the previous Chaos Codex had the standard list which had no restrictions on units other than the rivalries between the Chaos Gods. You could have an army that had Plague Marines, and Thousand Sons in it, or Noise Marines and Berzerkers just by playing the standard list. At no point where you ‘forced’ or ‘restricted’ to play a specific Legion – the Black Legion covered everything!!!

Your Codex doesn’t free anyone up or somehow release them from proscriptive or restrictive gaming. Why? Because it removed all the options. It’d be like being a star athlete who’s been confined in a small room and is finally let out, only to have his arms and legs cut off. In other words, what good is a lack of restrictions if there’s no choice to be had – you can have any flavour you like as long as it’s vanilla?


So with that out of the way, I want to look at a few specific items within the Codex (and I’ll leave Daemons alone as they’ve been covered already).

I’ve written ‘Chaos’ Codex a few times, rather than Chaos Codex, and the bunny-ears are intentional. The reason for that, as mentioned when I talked about Daemons, you have taken away things that Chaos has never or should never have lost.


Daemonic Gifts are a good example.

I know what you’re probably thinking – “Half the Daemonic Gifts weren’t even being used!” or perhaps “The system of limitations on gifts was too complex”.

But you took Daemonic Gifts away from Chaos. You made them into Loyalist Marines with a Wargear List and nothing to make them Chaos besides a generic Daemon weapon and Marks. This isn’t a case of “there’s no rules for that axe” it’s a case of “there’s no way to represent the corruption inherent in worshiping Chaos… I just have all the same options a Loyalist Marine Captain has – what about this makes me a Chaos Commander?”.

Daemonic Gifts, and the mutations/boons/curses given by the Chaos Gods has been part of Chaos since their inception – you know this, I don’t need to tell you. Realms of Chaos had D1000 – Dee-One-Thousand FFS – tables for mutations. Now I’m certainly not saying that we need or even should go back to such a level of granularity but consider Gav – you took one of the very things that makes Chaos /Chaos/ away! They’re not there any more. They’re gone. Hence ‘Chaos’.

Your argue that you should need rules for various mutations etc.. I argue that mutations etc. are part of the fluff, and the rules should follow the fluff, therefore there should be rules for mutations etc.


Marks vs Icons

Why do squads of Marines forget whom they worship when the guy with the Icon dies? Why are there no Cult Terminators/Havocs/Bikers/Chosen? Why, if your aim was to remove restrictions, did you remove the options that had been previously restricted? Why does a Deathguard army now consist of some actual Plague Marines, and some Marines who may or may not forget what God they’re dedicated to?

What was so bad about the Marks system? And is it too cynical to say that the reason it was changed to Icons was because the new Chaos Marine kit included a nice new plastic Icon and GW wanted people to buy said kit for said Icon ie. the models drove the rules in this instance?


Possessed

I very keenly remember Pete Haines’ designer notes in White Dwarf describing that the change to Possessed came about as people didn’t like the random nature. I thought it was a great idea – made Possessed instantly viable. Then we get the new one and they’re back to random again. Why?

And, while we’re on the subject of Possessed please, Gav, tell us all – why do you roll /after/ deployment? Did you not ever stop and think that maybe rolling before deployment might be the better option, y’know, let plays have an inkling of what their Possessed are going to be able to do before they set them down on the table? Yes, no, maybe?


Daemon Princes

Now I saw your comment above that maybe you went too far, but why are the glorious veterans of thousands of battles, the champions of the Gods who have ascended to Daemonhood through their vile acts of slaughter limited to… wings or not wings. They can’t even get Daemon Weapons for crying out loud! It goes back to my ‘taking the Chaos out of Chaos’ thing, and why it’s a ‘Chaos’ Codex.

I think a lot of people celebrated what could be done with Daemon Princes in Haines’ Codex, as it was such a big relief from the mono-dimensional boring choices from Jervis’ original 3rd Ed Codex. Then we get yours and it’s very similar to Jervis’ original entry. Was that by accident?


Defilers

WS3? They’re as skilled as Guardsmen in HTH are they? I’ve never understood this. Please explain it so I know.


Lash of Torment

I think you’ve probably heard enough on this subject, but really, how was the power of this… power… not caught in play testing?


I realise now that I’m nitpicking, but those last two were something I had to ask. Getting back to my main point:

The legacy of the current Chaos Codex is that it took the Chaos out of Chaos Space Marines. ‘Loyalists w/Spikes’ or ‘When Good Marines Go Bad’ is about the best way to describe the current Codex. You can better represent the various Legions using the current Loyalist Marine Codex than you can the ‘Chaos’ one, and that to me is a huge problem.

Daemons are gone. You have to play a different army to have them now. Having a group that allows the mixing of Codices isn’t a way to explain away this problem either – not all groups are flexible, some groups are very large and need the structure of proscribed rulebooks to avoid arguments, and tournaments and leagues certainly can’t have custom armies.

Daemonic Gifts and all those very Chaos-y upgrades and choices are gone.

Legions are gone, reduced to paint schemes and fluff.

/Chaos/ is gone.

Being restricted to one of four options is better than having unlimited choice with one option.

Cane wrote:Definitely awesome that Gav Thrope responded to the seemingly onslaught of negative attention the Chaos dex has received over the interwebs although imo the large outcry against GW is overblown and overly emotional/irrational than anything else. Podcasters and other internet users seem to like this 'dex as well; and I really don't value HBMC's questionable posts since he's got a record of trying to put down people even though he's in the wrong in the first place (me being such a person before) - and he doesn't have the balls or common decency to say that he's wrong.

Not to mention whenever he's shared his guard dex thoughts its just nitpicking; just because he posts the most on Dakka doesn't mean he has THE opinion to hold. Just saying.

Ah, good. You're just a big ol' walkin' talking' logical fallacy aren't you? Let's see we've got hasty generalisations, golden means and a great big ad hominem to cap it all off!

Yes, go on, attack me and not my arguments. That's the internet way!

Nice one HBMC
Argument was polite yet to the point, all key issues were in there, along with some others.
allthough, why the feth use ice cream as a comparison?

Cane, i like the way you use an opinion to define him as wrong, then launch a personal assault to try and make up for lost time.


This discussion and the guard one is about picking fault with either the rules, type or items in a dex.
Lets face it, people are not happy with it, they are now staking thier opinions.

Modquisition on, lets get away from the personal invectives people.

Please stay on topic frazzled

Oh Fraz be specific!!! You know who you're warning. I quoted their post...

"Generic Warnings" are almost as bad as "Generic Daemons".

H.B.M.C. wrote:Oh Fraz be specific!!! You know who you're warning. I quoted their post...

"Generic Warnings" are almost as bad as "Generic Daemons".

OK Cane quit the personal sniping
HBMC asked and answered ,so no further personal bit back to Cane et al needed. Good blog post. We'll see if there's a response.

JD21290 you're just jealous because your country has haggis and ours is blessed by its absence.

JD21290 you're just jealous because your country has haggis and ours is blessed by its absence.

Hey, im nowhere near scottish
i dont go near the gak.
Allmost as bad as taking the piss and comparing the yank accent to the canadian one

Whoa, whoa... wait... there's a difference between Americans and Canadians?


*runs*

Whoa, whoa... wait... there's a difference between Americans and Canadians?

Yea, one has a slightly more camp sounding accent
and after watching a film (of a cartoon) ive been advised to blame canada all the time.

But if you're blaming Canada... can you also blame Jervis?





Sorry, we're drifting way OT now. I apologise and will now stop.

But if you're blaming Canada... can you also blame Jervis?





Sorry, we're drifting way OT now. I apologise and will now stop.

I guess i could
Now, back to topic at hand lol
I think legions are still possible, but they would have to be pre-heresy using the ultrasmurf dex :(

Id love to see gav respond to your post HBMC.. I dont hate things like you but I hope to one day. (thats not an attack I like HBMCs posts, I even spell his name right)

avantgarde wrote:
Horus and the Emperor were actually the same person that used an extremely advanced Dark Age teleporter to appear as two different people. Now this teleporter was so advanced that it projected two versions of the Emperor, one from the past and one from present time. Horus was the past Emperor. When Emperor killed Horus he actually killed his past self which is why he sits in on the Golden Throne, which is an anti-paradox machine which keeps the fabric of reality together by keeping the Emperor in existence. However as a side effect it caused the Space Marine legions to go insane and caused the Horus Heresy because of the temporal effects reverberating into the past. Whenever something changes in the universe like Sensei or Malal disappearing it's the anti-paradox machine rewriting history to keep the Emperor alive. Cypher bears the keycode to the machine and is trying to reach the Throne so he can unwrite himself completely from history because he is the Emperor from the future, the reason he seeks to do this is because he wants to prevent Abaddon, who is the Emperor from the near future, from destroying the universe. But he must do this before he is erased from history, as he is being right now.

Genius!

Lets get back to the the topic people. Anyone picturing further marine "mano o mano" will be billed for the lunch I just heaved up.

Please let us know when (OK, if) you get a response.

This will be interesting, if it happens!

I will.

Lurker wrote:Which is why they released the IA articles in WD which, in conjunction with the 3rd ed. CSM codex, could be used to create god/legion specific forces.
These were the basis for the CSM codex that Pete Haines wrote.
Which was great and arguably the best codex GW has produced (although the T5 oblits that went to T4(5) was a knock). It had broken builds, but only as bad as the current one.

Wait, so we can still use IA to build Legion specific armies?

Not all tournaments will accept IA rules or books, so that one is simply for friendly / large scale games only.

JD21290 wrote:Not all tournaments will accept IA rules or books, so that one is simply for friendly / large scale games only.

Yeah, so why would anyone base a codex around them? That's silly....but you were talking about the old codex...weren't you?

@ H.B.M.C.

I may be being obtuse, but I can't seem to see your reply to Gav Thorpe's blog on his site?

It's not hard to tell who likes and dislikes the current chaos book: it's simply a matter of whose vision of a chaos army was better served. The people that hated the restrictsions (no Khorne havoks) love the new book, the people that loved the old options (cult terminators/bikers) hate the new book.

While the loss of daemons might have been inevitable, comparing the chaos book to IG, Marines, Orks, and Eldar in terms of ability to build a really interesting and convincing sublist is really pretty shocking. Yes, you can use icons and squint and call terminators with T5 plague terminators, but compared to the options available to other codices, it got a bum rap.

Let's not forget, the original 3rd edition bland-o-rama codex was the first codex to be replaced, IIRC before even the Witchhunters and Demonhunter books.

Posts need to be 'moderated' before they appear, which either means:

1. Gav will be honest, allow it and either respond or not respond.
2. Gav will not be honest and not allow it.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Posts need to be 'moderated' before they appear, which either means:

1. Gav will be honest, allow it and either respond or not respond.
2. Gav will not be honest and not allow it.

Ah I see..... this internet thing is strange and confusing to me....

Best to leave it now then, before it destroys your soul! It's too late for us, but not too late for you!

Polonius wrote:Let's not forget, the original 3rd edition bland-o-rama codex was the first codex to be replaced, IIRC before even the Witchhunters and Demonhunter books.

Exactly...and 3.5 was created to fix that "mistake." And then 4 fixed that "mistake." Or so we're told in each case.

Which suggests that the GW swinging pendulum may be as much business-driven as vision-driven.

What about space wolves... they're having a pendulum swing from "good" to "better."

I think the problem is that some codex writers know how to make a book that people actually want to buy models for an go out and play.

Some codex writers write a book to try to force players to play the way they see the game. This is not conducive to sales.

I'm pretty sure there's a reason that Gav no longer writes codices... and that reason is the fact that I have not seen a Dark Angels army for a really long time... and they used to be one of the more popular marine armies.

Elric of Grans wrote:I am sick to death of `house rule it' as Games Workshop's line. Out of all the places in the world where people play, what percentage actually takes this advice? You cannot in tournaments. You generally cannot in stores or clubs. Even most casual gaming groups seem to be pretty conservative around house ruling things. No matter how much they like to tout that line, it makes not one iota of difference. They really need to wake up and realise that the community they are speaking to is not the community in their imaginations.

( Hugs Elric ) My sentiments exactly! I couldn´t have said it better.

Also waiting the fate of H.B.M.C`s comment with interest.

HBMC's comment has been posted, but not responded to, on the weblog.

Point one I'd like to make: what is this "responsibility" getting put back in my hands? Not to make an army broken? Not to make one that's unfluffy? What exactly is it? Now every gamer has a right to bitch about someone not being "responsible" and use Toolbox McGee as backup.

Point two: Being a total hypocrite, Dual Lash + Plagues is fluffy now. Gav said so.

H.B.M.C. wrote:I will.

I have just read your post on his blog ... boy is it long. I thought it was well written except for a few elements that were a bit too much of a dig at him. Funny how GW designers forget history. When you read the all posts on the blog you would swear blind that there are two codices being reviewed not one. It is amazing how two sets of people can get such distinct strong feelings from one book.

Responsibility to show respect for your opponent perhaps?

Gav was very open in his reply I felt, and even states that opinion is one thing, but dressing up your opinion as fact is wrong and unfair to the author.

He explained the consideration behind the Codex, and then goes on to explain that he cannot guarantee things are still being thought in the same way, as he no longer works for the Studio.

But hey, if you don't agree with him, then he is clearly wrong, a complete berk and should be shot at your neasest convenience.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Responsibility to show respect for your opponent perhaps?

Gav was very open in his reply I felt, and even states that opinion is one thing, but dressing up your opinion as fact is wrong and unfair to the author.

He explained the consideration behind the Codex, and then goes on to explain that he cannot guarantee things are still being thought in the same way, as he no longer works for the Studio.

But hey, if you don't agree with him, then he is clearly wrong, a complete berk and should be shot at your neasest convenience.

Are you still trying to get hired on at GW?

And yes, it is only my opinion, by Gav's whole tone (I know, I know) in his 'defense' was not really the best, and certainly not one to put an end to anything, really...

Alpharius wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Responsibility to show respect for your opponent perhaps?

Gav was very open in his reply I felt, and even states that opinion is one thing, but dressing up your opinion as fact is wrong and unfair to the author.

He explained the consideration behind the Codex, and then goes on to explain that he cannot guarantee things are still being thought in the same way, as he no longer works for the Studio.

But hey, if you don't agree with him, then he is clearly wrong, a complete berk and should be shot at your neasest convenience.

Are you still trying to get hired on at GW?

And yes, it is only my opinion, by Gav's whole tone (I know, I know) in his 'defense' was not really the best, and certainly not one to put an end to anything, really...

It isn't that he is wrong per se, is my issue. Fine, if he intended the codex to turn out the way it did - that is ok but the logic behind his defence actually makes very little logical sense.

gorgon wrote: the GW swinging pendulum may be as much business-driven as vision-driven.

Only to the extent that the vision itself is business...

Alpharius wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Responsibility to show respect for your opponent perhaps?

Gav was very open in his reply I felt, and even states that opinion is one thing, but dressing up your opinion as fact is wrong and unfair to the author.

He explained the consideration behind the Codex, and then goes on to explain that he cannot guarantee things are still being thought in the same way, as he no longer works for the Studio.

But hey, if you don't agree with him, then he is clearly wrong, a complete berk and should be shot at your neasest convenience.

Are you still trying to get hired on at GW?

And yes, it is only my opinion, by Gav's whole tone (I know, I know) in his 'defense' was not really the best, and certainly not one to put an end to anything, really...

Nah. I got hired last Saturday (I actually did. WOOT!).

But I feel sorry for Gav in this. As I said, he was fairly open, and one would assume honest, about the intentions behind the Chaos Marine Book. He even put it into context of a larger plan whereby Gods/Legions get their own specific books. His whole point that Interwebs Diatribe is rarely based on anything than someone's opinion, and he set out to clarify what he considers to be the facts behind it. He's not asking you to agree with him. He's not demanding you change your mind because of the work that went into it. He's just trying to better inform the consumer, and I tip my hat to him.

starbomber109 wrote:

Ironhide wrote: Don't like it? Don't buy it.

And make GW even more money. I think that was the problem a lot of people had with this book. They had alread bought it, and now the stuff they bought over the past years is useless or not as useful as it used to be. Apparently though, CSM is not the only codex to inspire hatred in the player base, I saw one guy who quit playing Orks (and 40K) totally after the new ork codex came out.

How are you making them more money? You've got two options: Don't play CSM and play another army(if you've been in the hobby as long as me you've got to have several), or take a hiatus till the next CSM codex comes out. Hell, CSM will probably get another codex in a year or two. And if it follows suit with all the other new codexes, you'll be able to play your army like you used to as long as you take certain special characters.

Gavin may have been credited for the codex, but I still blame whoever was GW head of games development at that time. At the time I was considering getting the CSM codex, until I saw they took away the flavor and heard a new rulebook was coming out.

Hey, I respect the guy that admits he's the person that puked all over the porch. I"m still mad because, you know, there's vomit all over my porch.

Polonius wrote:Hey, I respect the guy that admits he's the person that puked all over the porch. I"m still mad because, you know, there's vomit all over my porch.

It was nice of him to blame the porch too.

Bleh, stupid thread. My brain is trying to figure out how I would 'fix' it. I can't make it stop

Someone make it stop!

AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

The one thing I'll say about Gav is this...

Waaaaaaaaaaaay back when the Wraithlord went from being a vehicle to being a huge critter with T8, there was a WD article in which Gav (as writer of said change) swore up and down that this wasn't overpowering in any way, being immune to St4 weapons was no big deal, yadda yadda yadda.

The delicious bit, though, was when he admitted, "Of course, I do use three wraithlords in my Eldar Army... but that's just because they suit my playing style..."

CatPeeler wrote:The one thing I'll say about Gav is this...

Waaaaaaaaaaaay back when the Wraithlord went from being a vehicle to being a huge critter with T8, there was a WD article in which Gav (as writer of said change) swore up and down that this wasn't overpowering in any way, being immune to St4 weapons was no big deal, yadda yadda yadda.

The delicious bit, though, was when he admitted, "Of course, I do use three wraithlords in my Eldar Army... but that's just because they suit my playing style..."

Seriously?

Reminds me of Pete Haines making Iron Warriors one of the most powerful lists in CSM 3.5

Oh cool so i can just show up to the next Games Day with my chaos army and have some imperial guard squads in there as well.


Guess this means my dream of playing Lost and Damned in hard boyz is cool too.


Alright!!!


Yeah this is his argument:


My rules are not poorly written this is a generalist list if you want to do something else make it up yourself.



Oh Okay I guess that means I dont need to buy the fething codex at all then. Cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I dont think they are going to post my comment but regardless

willydstyle wrote:HBMC's comment has been posted, but not responded to, on the weblog.

Nor have any of my four comments, although I literally just got a raft of emails telling me there are new comments, will check in a sec.

JD21290 wrote:Please stay on topic frazzled

This was the new funniest post I've ever seen on Dakka, although it seems unfair that the reign of

avantgarde wrote:I got class in an hour but I'll give this a shot.

Horus and the Emperor were actually the same person that used an extremely advanced Dark Age teleporter to appear as two different people. Now this teleporter was so advanced that it projected two versions of the Emperor, one from the past and one from present time. Horus was the past Emperor. When Emperor killed Horus he actually killed his past self which is why he sits in on the Golden Throne, which is an anti-paradox machine which keeps the fabric of reality together by keeping the Emperor in existence. However as a side effect it caused the Space Marine legions to go insane and caused the Horus Heresy because of the temporal effects reverberating into the past. Whenever something changes in the universe like Sensei or Malal disappearing it's the anti-paradox machine rewriting history to keep the Emperor alive. Cypher bears the keycode to the machine and is trying to reach the Throne so he can unwrite himself completely from history because he is the Emperor from the future, the reason he seeks to do this is because he wants to prevent Abaddon, who is the Emperor from the near future, from destroying the universe. But he must do this before he is erased from history, as he is being right now.

was so short... :( Truly an awe-inspiring post.

As for your counter-'arguments' Digganob...

1) No, not really. In fact, it's a silly comparison, especially given many things with rules have no models (Deathstrike Missile Launcher, anyone?)

2) Because Cultists are crappy civilians. I'd sooner have generic CSM than T3 guys with no armour and a CCW, thanks. Cultists have to be made as good as Traitor Guard to be playable (-ish) and I contest that is less fluffy than simply not using them. Maybe this is, (shock) a different part of the battle raging for kilometres either side. Every time.
If you want to play purely for fluff reasons, do what Gav says and make it up. If you want to paly competitively, then you don't care about the pathetic excuse for a list LatD would be in 5th.

3) I can easily call my Kharn counts-as a Dark Apostle. He has 'The Blasphemous Rod' a counts-as Gorechild. His religious fervor and fury fuels his considerable combat abilities. He has a Plasma Pistol with which he killed 23 Imperial Fists at the Siege of the Emperor's Palace, before a Titan fell on him, and he was carried from the field.

The Chaos Codex is inferior to most of it's contemporaries, by a SLIGHT amount, and inferior to ones since - but so is everything else.

STOP ACTING SURPRISED WHEN NEW CODICES TRUMP OLD ONES!!!!! Please...

After reading and rereading Gav Thorpes responses,It IMO sounds like so much CYA (cover your a**),despite his opinions concerning codex CSM,no matter how eliquently put,still do not adress how he or GW justifies nuking so many Chaos players armies,which regaurdless of all the rebudles of counts as,make your own fluff,blah blah blah,is exactly what happened.
Mr. Thorpe may see the current codex as "less restrictive"...I however simply see it as less.

No, not really. In fact, it's a silly comparison, especially given many things with rules have no models (Deathstrike Missile Launcher, anyone?)

As if making these models would be unwelcome or unnecessary.
If they make a mini for it, people will use it. Same with the rules - people got their Warsmith & Dark Apostle entries and they used them.

And regardless of how 'silly' my comparison was, my point still stands: fluff and rules are not mutually exclusive. Yes, yes really.

Because Cultists are crappy civilians. I'd sooner have generic CSM than T3 guys with no armour and a CCW, thanks. Cultists have to be made as good as Traitor Guard to be playable (-ish) and I contest that is less fluffy than simply not using them.

What nonsense. My 'crappy civilians' did just fine, thank you.

If you want to play purely for fluff reasons, do what Gav says and make it up.

After all, the Codex doesn't deliver.

I can easily call my Kharn counts-as a Dark Apostle.

You're missing the point. The only reason to resort to counts-as here is because they removed the option to have a Dark Apostle in the first place.
If they were still available, actual Dark Apostles would still be chosen over any counts-as unit - not that you couldn't stick to Kharn if you chose to.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:But hey, if you don't agree with him, then he is clearly wrong, a complete berk and should be shot at your neasest convenience.

Leave the hyperbolic strawmen out of this Grotsnik... Jesus...




Not too many responses since mine it seems, although I will say that Ellesar's insistence that comparing one Codex to another is like comparing applies to oranges (not his exact works) is false.

As is his 'counts as' mantra.

Wouldn't need to 'counts as' if the options weren't taken away in the first place...

I don't think Mad Doc Grotsnik is raising a hyperbolic straw man so much as satirizing your colourful mode of expression.

I tend to base my responses on historical precedent, and in this instance no, I find the idea of Grotsnik attempting satire to be... unlikely.

smart_alex wrote:

Fluff and rules are two separate things. Fluff is in your head and imagination.

No person has been able to tell me how the new dex affects fluff.

I would have to say that My Tourny WordBearers Army will be disagreing with the secound part of your statment there.
Yes, Fluff and Rules are seprate things, except of course for the fact that if there was no Fluff, there would be no rules.
With the removal of the WordBearer Fluff, you can no longer feild a WordBearer Army. Ohh yes I can create a close proxy of the army that I spent quite a bit of time, effort and money to build, customize and paint, along with my own Fluff, I created to tell the story of my personal war-band. But it is no longer a WordBearer army, since in the world of GW Codexes, WordBearers no longer exist.

Spoiler is just my rant about WordBearer fluff loss if you dont actually care dont read it.


The only reason any of us have chosen GW Brand Hobby Games is due to the Fluff. We like the back story they have given us. We like the ideas and reasons they laid down, so we would spend our hobby dollars on their products. If they had NO Fluff... I think we would all be playing Warmachine, or one of the many Napolionics(real world fluff is pretty cool), hell even GURPS has fluff. So you tell me if you really think Fluff dosent affect Dex's? If there was no Fluff, we would be playing grey army vs green army, todays grey army has claws and rending talons and green army has assault rifles and flamethrowers, tommorow it will be laserguns and tanks vs blade shooters and mental powers.

I have played a Chaos army since RT days. I have had a fair number of diffrent chaos armys. I liked the fluff/backstory for them. I still do. Yes in the last edition, we had some clunkyness and some options that were really downright silly and no-one ever took or used them(unless they were trying to be silly or ironic). We also had the options to create our very own/unique army that suited the indaviduals(wow I spelled that really wrong) taste and playstyle. These days, with this dex, we all basicly play the same army with diffrent quality paint jobs, at least that is how it feels to me.

HMBC is right, this Dex is Spiked Vanilla Marines, and we can have all the Vanilla we want.

Now I dont hate this new dex, I wish it had kept some of the better options from previous dex's. But most of all, I wish it had left me all the Fluff. I like the Fluff. The Fluff is what gets me really excited about creating a new army. One little fluffy things any off I go spending wads of cash on mini's, paints, tools(if I dont have it or need a replacement), bits, GS and all the other carp I need to make it.
I have a great Idea for a new army right now, the reason I am not in a frenzy of building and creation, is beacuse I am not inspired by the fluff right now and that sortof saddens me.

The Word Bearers being pivotal to the corruption of Horus is a 3rd edition innovation. They were pretty irrelevant in the 1st and 2nd editions, except being mentioned in the 2nd edition Codex. If you really want flexibility and richness of background, the 3.5 edition Codex pales beside the 2nd.

I'd also object to the notion that Chaos Space Marines are "Spiky Marines". They're no more Spiky Marines than Necrons are Boring Marines.

I think that the differences between the armies are quite clean in 5th edition: the Space Marines are reliable and synergistic, while the Chaos Space Marines are high-risk and independent. While both armies depend on balancing three qualities (flexibility, synergy, and redundancy), they do so in different ways.

The lack of And They Shall Know No Fear makes Chaos Space Marines behave differently on the battlefield, and more like groups of individual rational agents rather than groups of fanatical battle-brothers. As such they need to be played aggressively, straight-forwardly, and using flexible independent units. They do better with redundancy across units rather than interior to them, and with synergy between models in units. They're not a "Multiple Small Unit" army.

Background-wise I think it would be something to distinguish the armies by calling the Space Marines what they are, and calling the Chaos Space Marines "Chaos Marines", to better align them with the notions of well-organized interdependency and selfish me-firsters.

When I got back into 40k I built a Marine army with the intention of it being compatible with both the Blood Angel and Chaos Space Marine books, and I was struck by the difference in tactics that had to be employed using that one army in both ways. That army has since split into Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines as 5th edition made the differences even more apparent, and I wanted to exploit what I perceived as the different strengths of each army.

In terms of catering to the fans they could also do with more special rules, simply because players like special rules, and with the new system of renaming universal special rules or groups of universal special rules, this would help the off-the-shelf people get some character into their Internet-cribbed lists.

But they work rather nicely. As I've mentioned I got back into 40k because this Codex (and Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Eldar, etc) showed that GW could strike a nice balance between the over-detailed 4th edition books and the under-detailed 3rd edition books. In fact, it is the differences between the two armies that makes me want to start new armies: Tau and more Chaos Space Marines, and I think it's going to be Chaos Space Marines when I find the time and the budget because I'm not satisfied with the Tau miniatures (don't like the Crisis suit, although my plan is to substitute converted XV-22s, and the Pathfinders need to be plastic), and the Daemon-Bomb army could be all-plastic.

I know that this is probably really naive,

What would happen if the community was to petition for a Legion Codex, and I mean like a proper effort maybe even something as extreme as writing letters (like real ones with paper you know), and not just a list of internet pseudonyms.
Would GW respond? I mean even if they came right out and said no it's never going to happen wouldn't that be better? I would imagine in business if you have a large amount of customers actually telling you why they are upset or what they want it usually illicts some kind of response.

Sorry for going a little off topic, but has anything like this ever been done has GW ever responded?

It's interesting as an ex-WoW player there was always a certain level of communication between the game developers and the customer base. I personally feel that this made the game overall a better than just some developers sitting in a room by themselves.

PS: I also understand a lot of other armies are really hurting right now, and if it was to happen it would be a while

Nicorex wrote:The only reason any of us have chosen GW Brand Hobby Games is due to the Fluff.

I have played a Chaos army since RT

These days, with this dex, we all basicly play the same army with diffrent quality paint jobs, at least that is how it feels to me.

Um, some of us got in because of the minis.

Cool!

If you've played since RT, then wouldn't you have to agree that, up until the 3.5 Codex, Chaos armies were basically all the same except for the paint job?
____

Nurglitch wrote:I think that the differences between the armies are quite clean in 5th edition:

Of course, that is because GW finally got it into their heads that largely interchangeable MEQs have no personality of their own, so the various flavors need some distinct flavoring from one another. Hence, Mech Tac MEQs; Termie/Bike MEQs; JP MEQs; Hero MEQs; and Spiky MEQs
____

grimz wrote:What would happen if the community was to petition for a Legion Codex, and I mean like a proper effort maybe even something as extreme as writing letters (like real ones with paper you know), and not just a list of internet pseudonyms.

I wouldn't imagine it'd hurt, but I wouldn't count on it being any more effective than anything else.

That said, if people were to undertake a letter-writing campaign for Chaos Legions, one might expect a counter-campaign in favor of Codex homogenization, alongside competing campaigns for LatD, Ad Mech, Pan Fo, etc.

okay to make it clear there are only 3 problems with the csm codex 3 alright THREE!NOT A WHOLE BOOK ONLY THREE!!!
1)codex csm and codex chaos demons should be one codex...i mean the statement"that's too much stuff for one codex" is bs...look at the 150+ pages for the spezz mehriehnss
2)demon princes should have demon weapons from their patron gods in the same way as lords do, also theyre WAY too cheap at least 180pts for one imo
3)the chosen need the ability to choose their special skill not just the INFILTRATE one...thats just sad

THERE ARE NO MORE PROBLEMS>>>you can still play whatever legion you like...it's not very restricting the only restricting codex out there is the NECRONS one...

grimz wrote:What would happen if the community was to petition for a Legion Codex

Jervis has said on more than one occasion that they are bringing out one or more Codices later in fifth edition to cover the Legions. No need to petition, just wait (and wait, and wait). Then we will have even more needless MEQ books, where a single, combined book was clearly insufficient!

the_emperors_renegade wrote:THERE ARE NO MORE PROBLEMS

*facepalm*

Poor little CSM--dual lash not cheesy enough for ya?

olympia wrote:Poor little CSM--dual lash not cheesy enough for ya?

*double facepalm*

Under his logic, why bother writing a fething codex at all? Really?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I mean, should we just call it Codex:MakeupyourowndamnrulesPanFoHOOOOOOOOO!

the_emperors_renegade wrote:okay to make it clear there are only 3 problems with the csm codex 3 alright THREE!NOT A WHOLE BOOK ONLY THREE!!!

I'm right and you're wrong! If I say nothing is wrong then NOTHING IS WRONG! DON'T ARGUE WITH ME!

Yeah, there are more than 3 problems with the codex by the way, and I highly doubt you're going to convince anyone otherwise.

olympia wrote:Poor little CSM--dual lash not cheesy enough for ya?

There's about 6 pages of thread you forgot to read, methinks.

Mod: Clearly it's impossible for this topic to be debated further without shenanigans, so I'll lock it.

If people want to seriously discuss the CSM Codex or its author, please start another topic and stay on it rather than spiralling into ad hominem posts.

Actually, if it is OK, I'd like to re-open this thread so that H.B.M.C. can report in it IF Gav ever responds to his post in his Blog.

So, having said that, I'll be keeping a close watch on this thread.

Any violations of Dakka's rules will be dealt with.

Harshly.

Or you can simply read Gav's blog and let H.B.M.C continue his crusade in another thread.

But Nurglitch, the world stops for h.b.m.c.

Exactly Kilkrazy, exactly.

Nurglitch wrote:Or you can simply read Gav's blog and let H.B.M.C continue his crusade in another thread.

I suppose I could do that, but I'd rather have happen what I've already outlined.

'k?

Considering everyone of HBMC's questions are worded either rhetorically or antagonistically, I can't really see why he would bother to respond.

edit: To make myself more clear. Gav Thorpe is no longer part of the GW studio team, hence talking with him isn't really going to achieve anything as far as actual change is concerned, so it starts to become more of a 'I'm right, you're wrong' conversation, which I doubt he will entertain on his own blog if at all. Of course if someone were to ask him a genuine question of why Gavin put such and such in the codex, without laying out their own beliefs of why they think he did it before hand, he will probably make an effort to answer. Now to me HBMC's comment, and to be fair a few others posted there, didn't really seem to do that. Rather, they made clear what they thought was right then asked Gav why he did it differently. Do you honestly think he's going to even bother trying to prove them wrong? Do you think he even wants to? I don't think he's that stupid. I would imagine he already knows that 'nobody ever makes anyone change their mind on the internet' and if he knows the slightest thing about HBMC he will certainly know he can't change his mind. So the point of him replying would be?

How much do you think Gav reads these blogs? He posted more than a couple of links to dakka in his OP. Are there any known BL authors or GW cronies that post here?

Lint wrote:How much do you think Gav reads these blogs? He posted more than a couple of links to dakka in his OP. Are there any known BL authors or GW cronies that post here?

*Cues the reminiscing of Paul Sawyer's brief stay at Dakka*

Didn't it last around an hour?

Ah, sweet rage.

Mithrax wrote:

Lint wrote:How much do you think Gav reads these blogs? He posted more than a couple of links to dakka in his OP. Are there any known BL authors or GW cronies that post here?

*Cues the reminiscing of Paul Sawyer's brief stay at Dakka*

Didn't it last around an hour?

Where are the manuscripts? I must scry this with extreme prejudice...

According to his blog he Googled the Dakka links.

whatwhat wrote:... Gav Thorpe is no longer part of the GW studio team, hence talking with him isn't really going to achieve anything as far as actual change is concerned,...

So what? Who says "actual change" is the only concern? Prehaps gaining a further insight into a former designer, and therefore possibly into the process GW uses, would be reason enough to bother with it.

Alpha opens the thread, and within two posts we have people coming after me. Such a charming place this can be...

Whoa, I was looking for a topic in the 40k boards about this and just saw this now from the main forum. 6 pages already, jeez.

Anyways, I would just like to "tag" this topic as Im sure I will forget and I too would like to see a reply to HBMC's comment.

H

Should ease off a little. There is no way that Gav Thorpe was individually and solely responsible for the CSM codex.

I agree that it was a vast disappointment after the "cultural riches" of the Haines dex.

But company decisions of this nature are made by the studio heads, Gav was the errand boy who needed to write it but he wasn't the one who decided to make a seperate set of Demon codex's, which was the real decision behind the new CSM dex.

The big mistake was creating a vague commitment to do Chaos legions sometime in the future, so Chaos players ended up with two new codexes which between them destroyed every army list ever assembled in the service of the dark gods,

And then bring out a set of rules which at present still offers no serious options to play any of the Chaos legions, Night Lords, Iron Legion or anything else anyone ever wanted to field.

It is an absolute design fiasco!

Complete fething stupidity!

And it was motivated by the greedy logic that offering fairly broken power play in a demon codex would be a better way to sell models.

So they created broken Demon lists, and then just invented one of the most ridiculous inprovised and disgusting rules of all time: That half the demon army was in reserve and came in from reserve! So much for the player having to use tactics and strategy! Lets have a dumb-assed rules that makes the biggest tactical decisions for you. Its just a way to water down a list that can take like 4 Major demons HQ!!!!! If they didn't invent broken lists in the first place they wouldn't need to add slowed "apology to your opponent" rules like that! THe Hain's Dex tended towards broken builds, but some astute editing would have been better than what they did.

The Demons codex is a true abortion, and the blame for CSM becoming a rudderless, cultureless orphan of the great Hain's dex is all about how we were supposed to feel good about Demons!

What a farce!

The brains trust: (and you have to blame Jervis if anyone, since he probably has the seniority to make the call) : made a right mess of it.

The real and obvious answer in terms of culture and gaming was to bring out 5 Chaos codexes:

One for each power and one for Chaos undivided.

Obviously they were crippled by their culture of gradual product evolution from making the hard choice of doing it right.

The business model trumped the cultural need.

In this case a mistake!

The problem is that there is actually so much fluff and there are so many established army conventions that they could easily make 5 chaos codexes with a 100 pages each.

That is how much chaos gaming culture they have accumulated over the years.

Those 500 (missing) pages are what the chaos players are pissed off about.

And now back into the gradual release of product, it will be 7th edition in 2020 that would be the time line for Chaos done right.

Our only hope is that legions comes out sometime before 2015 and restores something that was lost.

But computer games keep getting netter, who knows maybe by then, most of us would have finally grown up and escaped the hobby, or moved on to other things.

OTG.

Kilkrazy wrote:

<3333333!!!

Ease off a bit? Why? To what end? If people want to write lengthy diatribes then a word-based medium is perfect for it. And just because you don't want to read it doesn't mean others feel similarly.

How's about you easin off, then?

Am I the only one who doesn't think there's anything wrong with HBMC's post? Okay, maybe he could have written one or two things differently but you're making it sound like it's nothing but one big personal attack, and that he's frothing at the mouth with rage at Gav when I just don't see it.

I think his argument makes sense and I'd really be interested in seeing what Gav has to say about it, even though we pretty much know what he's going to say already...he'll either ignore it entirely because, as some people here would have you believe anyway, any opinion that runs counter to your own is obviously "trolling" and thus worthy of no response, or he'll just repeat the same argument over again and tell HBMC to just write his own rules.

There is no way that Gav Thorpe was individually and solely responsible for the CSM codex.

First of all, we know this already. Second, it doesn't really matter because if he was the only guy working on the codex or not. Gav obviously can't take all the blame, but his name is still on the codex, and as long as he's trying to defend said codex I think everyone has a right to form a counter argument. You can't just dismiss everyone's opinion because Gav has someone else to share the blame with.


And who the hell is that woman, god damn.

Sidstyler wrote:Am I the only one who doesn't think there's anything wrong with HBMC's post? Okay, maybe he could have written one or two things differently but you're making it sound like it's nothing but one big personal attack, and that he's frothing at the mouth with rage at Gav when I just don't see it.

I think his argument makes sense and I'd really be interested in seeing what Gav has to say about it, even though we pretty much know what he's going to say already...he'll either ignore it entirely because, as some people here would have you believe anyway, any opinion that runs counter to your own is obviously "trolling" and thus worthy of no response, or he'll just repeat the same argument over again and tell HBMC to just write his own rules.

No,I also belive that the majority of H.B.M.Cs post are accurate concerning both codex:CSM and Gav Thorpse replys to it's "detractors",and I honestly don't see how any one could mistake the points he ( H.B.M.C ) has attempted to convey as a personal attack at Mr. Thorpe.

Frazzled wrote:After reading this defense I had the terrible need to go to the bathroom. I highly recommend reading it if one has not had enough fiber recently.

Truly? Because I felt like I was the toilet and he'd just had a ton of fiber. That's why I spent a weekend building powerklaws for my Orks, and that's why I put Space Wolves on my Xmas list. My chaos marines are going to the realm of cobwebs.

Let's be totally honest here: I'd rather use the original 3rd edition Chaos codex than the current one.

If that sounds sad, it's because it is.

I find nothing wrong with Daemon codex. It's a "FUN" army but I guess "fun" has nothing to do with things.

To the person who said you can have 4 GD HQ's. Perhaps you should do your homework a bit before spewing bile. It's 2 Greater Daemons, NOT 4.

If you think playing Daemons is such a newb thing because OMG 1/2 THE ARMY DEEPSTRIKES THUS MAKING YOUR TACTICAL DECISION FOR YOU!!! than maybe you out to play it a few times instead of jumping to such grandiose conclusions.

Current Chaos dex: Fine 3.5 Codex: Used it as toilet paper to clean up after my dogs. LOL.

I find nothing wrong with Daemon codex. It's a "FUN" army but I guess "fun" has nothing to do with things.

Fun has everything to do with it. That's why a lot of people are still bitching and moaning about the CSM codex, because playing an army with no soul isn't fun.

Sidstyler wrote:

I find nothing wrong with Daemon codex. It's a "FUN" army but I guess "fun" has nothing to do with things.

Fun has everything to do with it. That's why a lot of people are still bitching and moaning about the CSM codex, because playing an army with no soul isn't fun.

I know many CSM players who have a lot of fun ripping through their enemy with Abaddon.

Well I know tons more CSM players who have a lot of fun ripping through their enemy with 3.5. Like 50 guys and they're all 6'5" and jacked like truckasaurus rex. What? You want some? I'm a mad dog. Rur! Rurr! Rur! Rurr! Rur!

Easy boy. Easy. No, the men in white coats are here to help. That syringe? It's candy! Yeah, candy. This won't hurt a bit...

I will also side with H.B.M.C. in this thing here. Mainly because I despise what 4.0 made out of my Death Guard.

Sidstyler wrote:

I find nothing wrong with Daemon codex. It's a "FUN" army but I guess "fun" has nothing to do with things.

Fun has everything to do with it. That's why a lot of people are still bitching and moaning about the CSM codex, because playing an army with no soul isn't fun.

Wait, isn't the "no soul" thing the last difference between them and normal Marines

The CSM is competitive--top tier in fact--and plenty of fun to play. If you're sad about the fluff go reread the Horus Heresy.

grizgrin wrote:

whatwhat wrote:... Gav Thorpe is no longer part of the GW studio team, hence talking with him isn't really going to achieve anything as far as actual change is concerned,...

So what? Who says "actual change" is the only concern? Prehaps gaining a further insight into a former designer, and therefore possibly into the process GW uses, would be reason enough to bother with it.

When did I say "actual change" was the only concern?

Sidstyler wrote:he'll either ignore it entirely because, as some people here would have you believe anyway, any opinion that runs counter to your own is obviously "trolling" and thus worthy of no response, or he'll just repeat the same argument over again and tell HBMC to just write his own rules.

Or maybe he will just ignore it because HBMC has already made clear what his beliefs are, and the only point a response would achieve is proving him wrong. Which I doubt he cares for.

olympia wrote:The CSM is competitive--top tier in fact--and plenty of fun to play. If you're sad about the fluff go reread the Horus Heresy.

It's not fluff, it's viable army builds, it's 2xlash and maxxed oblits and plague marines as a premium build. Taking the same gak to the party every week gets old fast. I don't even play chaos and I empathise with the problem faced.

To use a colour analogy, it's taking away red, blue, yellow, green and purple and leaving us with 'brown', now you can get a pretty wide range of brown but it remains brown and if you don't want brown, well you are advised by the company to mix the various browns to get yellow or blue, truth is it just remains brown.

whatwhat wrote:
When did I say "actual change" was the only concern?

Implication is a hell of a mistress.

whatwhat wrote:
without laying out their own beliefs

As soon as you introduce subjective belief you also introduce matters of concern. In your post you effectively discounted any possible inquiry towards any former GW designer as a valid point of reference. That might not have been your intent, but its what you said.

Oh look dogmas found another chance to contradict me and he pounces. Leave off will you. I have already addressed grizgrins alternate concern in my original post. So how I implied that was the only concern is beyond me.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

olympia wrote:The CSM is competitive--top tier in fact--and plenty of fun to play. If you're sad about the fluff go reread the Horus Heresy.

It's not fluff, it's viable army builds, it's 2xlash and maxxed oblits and plague marines as a premium build. Taking the same gak to the party every week gets old fast. I don't even play chaos and I empathise with the problem faced.

To use a colour analogy, it's taking away red, blue, yellow, green and purple and leaving us with 'brown', now you can get a pretty wide range of brown but it remains brown and if you don't want brown, well you are advised by the company to mix the various browns to get yellow or blue, truth is it just remains brown.

This is exactly the problem with the CSM codex.
Only a very limited unit selection ("brown") will provide a top tier list.

whatwhat wrote:

grizgrin wrote:

whatwhat wrote:... Gav Thorpe is no longer part of the GW studio team, hence talking with him isn't really going to achieve anything as far as actual change is concerned,...

So what? Who says "actual change" is the only concern? Prehaps gaining a further insight into a former designer, and therefore possibly into the process GW uses, would be reason enough to bother with it.

When did I say "actual change" was the only concern?

olympia wrote:The CSM is competitive--top tier in fact--and plenty of fun to play. If you're sad about the fluff go reread the Horus Heresy.

whatwhat wrote:Oh look dogmas found another chance to contradict me and he pounces. Leave off will you. I have already addressed grizgrins alternate concern in my original post. So how I implied that was the only concern is beyond me.

It was the only one you addressed, and the tone of your post indicated that changing things would be the reason to continue dialogue with him. I was pointing out that there could be other reasons to maintain dialogue, and gave an example. There may, indeed be others since I hardly regard myself as the sum total of human knowledge (gasp!). You implied it by addressing ONLY it, and then shooting down the concept of communicating with him as therefore worthless since it would not serve that goal. Do you enjoy playing word games that do nothing to advance the discourse at hand, or is that merely a secondary effect of "the interdweebs" only being worth so much time and effort? You would not be the only one for either answer, assuredly.

OT, to be honest, it is not the "loss" of competitiveness that rankles so much, I think. I personally believe it is the loss of options. On the one hand if you cannot see the loss of options moving from the last edition to the current codex then you have an issue. On the other hand, Pete Haines DID say that writing that book, with all it's complexity, damn near killed him and he would never do it again. I think a bit of him died in that book, and we sadly cannot expect to see anythign of it's depth and quality again. Which is a damn shame.

And as far as dogma, shame. You should be ashamed. For offering an opinion, just who the hell do you think you are? Whatwhat, I think you will find this board a happier place if you thicken that hide of yours a bit. Sometimes we can be brusque, sometimes we can be jerks (see polonius' commentary on that, someone here has it sigged and it is damn worht the 3 seconds ot read!), but we are nothing to get bent over.

edited because that was just a bit too selfish.
edited again for a little cleaning up. sorry, sid.