I don't want this to come off as whine, but I admit there is a bit. I know a good numbe of people who have said a number of the things I say here. I feel Chaos has an identity crisis. From a codex design stand point they used to have the trade off, where they had difficult to control units and sacrificed weapon options and techier vehicles of the loyalists for daemons, but now they don't have that.

This is not to say Chaos isn't good, but Chaos Marines and Daemons are much more restricted in the ways they can be competitive. They have the disadvantages still and fewer of the gains made as tradeoffs.

Chaos has gone through a number of itterations that have varied drastically between editions of 40k. From "Slaves of Darkness" to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Chaos has always found ways to dissapoint. Whether its the limited way of playing this edition, where the only question is "how many lash princes?" and "how many obliterators?" or last editions everything and the kitchen sink list or its orignial table ladden book that drowned the player in randomness, Chaos is in many ways too chaotic. I know, maybe its suppose to be chaotic but at some point the fact that 40k is a game has to over ride representing the self destructing tendencies of chaos.

With 4th edition "Chaos" was primarily represented by the shear volume of options that could be brought by the army. That unfortunately was to its detriment since other non-chaos players struggled to grasp the ruinous ways of it. The stripped down 5th edition codex stripped Chaos Marines of all their daemons and 90% of their configuration options. Yeah we got a daemon codex, but if you combined both books together you'd end up with something similar in size to the Loyalist marine's codex. As far as 5th ed. goes Chaos Marines is a very basic codex, few bells and wistles. Its sad when I hear about Chaos players using loyalist marine books to play simply because those are more "chaos". It shows a real shortfall.

Given the cycle GW goes through with codices now, whenever Chaos gets revisited they will likely see an influx of new units. Moving forward Chaos still remains stuck in the mind set of being treated as if it were just a third wheel to the loyalist marines. For example why hasn't Chaos ever recieved a Chaos Rhino that isn't SM rhino + bits; it be farely easy to model chaos ornamenation onto Rhino's and produce something more distinctive by having details integral to the model. I did Chapterhouse's Heresy-era Rhino bits, but why can't GW take a stronger aesthetic stance. What other army is really forced to used some other armies vehicle. SOB atleast have substantial add-ons and variants. I imagine will see GW retire more of the plastic-metal hybrids next time around, as well and hopefully they'll do more. All there effort for 5th was directed towards the Daemons which have been divorced from marines, leaving less distinction of chaos from loyalist.

Something tells me we won't see god-specific daemons reintegrated and will have to just live with the generic borrowed form. With an emphasis on Chaos Marines and less on "Chaos" as a monolithic entity, I think we're going to see daemonic elements brought in as more mortal constructs, daemon engines like the Defiler or Obliterators. I think one of the sad things about this edition is that a god-specific army is relegated to unit spamming or "count-as"-ing. It would be nice to see models like the Khorne Blood Slaugther or Nurgle Blight drones brought in as possible ways to supplement the codex. Foul mortal construct built to bind chaos to the material plane. I'm sure Tzeentch and Slaanesh could have equally interesting things as well. Or maybe in the least we can see some "Chosen Bezerker/PM/TS/NM.

I'd like to see GW move away from rules that kill your own models, while costing you more for it. Disadvantageous trade offs are fine as long as the gain is justfiable. Dreadnoughts that kill you, Enhanced Warriors that die, Possessed that are never what you need them to be, and Spawn that do their own thing at their own pace will never be used without rules being fixed. Can anyone think of a better approach?

I've just been mulling over this since Chaos Marines were redone and started really thinking on since I decided to take a break from my IG to revist my Emperor's Children. I thought it'd be interesting to see other peoples thoughts and hopes for a new direction.

CSM are legionaires and renegades, thus they have to use STC vehicles. STC = standardised design.
I doubt GW will spent time and effort on legion specific or chaos specific variants of common STC designs and just point to 3rd party
suppliers like FW.
You know, GW didn't provide BT/DA/SW vehicles. Only basic STC chassis and maybe a few FW bitz.

At best, GW finally adds a plastic chaos dread.

The split between demons, beasts and mortals in whfb could be done in 40k too.
=>Demons, chaos marines, mutants and heretics.

I wasn't saying GW give them a uniquely chaos STC. If you look at the artwork chaos vehicles have an aesthetic quality that doesn't translate to the models because of the limitations of having separate bits that get glued on. What I was insisting upon is that GW should try harder to attain the aesthetic they've portrayed in the artwork. The loyalist Rhino is denoted as the "MKII-A" Rhino... so obviously there are other variants. For example, why wouldn't the Chaos Legions and Renegades maybe use an older variant, like the MKI-C (pulling number out of nowhere). The approach of making Chaos use kits with some stuff tossed on is a stay over from a time when GW had fewer resources. They have more resources, so I think its reasonable to accept a bit more from them.

Let me put it this way. Chaos and Loyalists both have dreadnoughts, but Chaos isn't expected to use the loyalist dreadnought kits, so why should it with the Rhino and its variants. I'm not saying they redo all the variants but a Chaos Rhino would allow for the aesthetic to be carried through to the vehicle range. It could be as simple as giving the tracks a chaos look, adding sculpted wear and tear, and putting a similar embellishment to what the Defiler has (the raised boarders). Or it could be as simple as giving an alternate front panel and top hatch with incorporated chaos look. That's as much as BA got.

The other loyalists didn't get a change of Rhino, because they're loyalists with only iconographic and internal differences. Chaos has a more invasive aesthetic.

I don't think Chaos will get a unique kit, but I think it would be one more thing to move Chaos Marines away from being treated as a variant to the loyalist Space Marines and instead as a separate army.

I think your probably right about the worth while precedent of WHFB being used for 40k. Demons, Chaos Marines, Other mortals. It would certainly make people happy.

A lot of the chaos updates over the years have been somewhat manufactured. Usually through either a lack of models from GW (forcing Chaos players to convert their own or use outdated stuff) or a rushed codex. I can agree with the original poster that due to Chaos having been divorced from Daemons, there is less variety and flavour to distinct them fluff wise or gameplay wise from loyalists.

Back in the day it used to be Chaos = Loyalist - shiny technology + daemons and daemon technology. Now its Chaos = Loyalist - technology + Defiler. There is a current lack of an incentive to play chaos over loyalist MEQs other than fluff reasons. Model wise and gameplay wise, I think chaos could use with a new modern direction. Hopefully the next person who writes the chaos book is aware of the current complaints with chaos and knows how to rectify them when writing the book.

Thanks for being more concise than I was.

This is the same old thread, the Chaos Codex is boring as all hell. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it. Hopefully they do a better job next time.

Or someone will have hell to play *cracks knuckles*

candy.man wrote:A lot of the chaos updates over the years have been somewhat manufactured. Usually through either a lack of models from GW (forcing Chaos players to convert their own or use outdated stuff) or a rushed codex. I can agree with the original poster that due to Chaos having been divorced from Daemons, there is less variety and flavour to distinct them fluff wise or gameplay wise from loyalists.

Back in the day it used to be Chaos = Loyalist - shiny technology + daemons and daemon technology. Now its Chaos = Loyalist - technology + Defiler. There is a current lack of an incentive to play chaos over loyalist MEQs other than fluff reasons. Model wise and gameplay wise, I think chaos could use with a new modern direction. Hopefully the next person who writes the chaos book is aware of the current complaints with chaos and knows how to rectify them when writing the book.

I disagree, I rather like the way the models are right now.

What I think they need to do is, since the removed daemons, add in cultists and other such units. Also, we need better daemon weapons with mastery tests instead of this stupid "on a roll of a 1 you wound yourself and don't do anything". We should also be given our veteren abilities back, we are supposed to be older and much more vetereny than Nilla Marines, so let us spend some points to have them....

I could ramble on about how much I would change were I writing the book.

If this is about bitz and sprues and blisters, then all I can say is take the opportunity to "experience the hobby in full"...i.e. conversions, bitz buying, etc.

If this is a complaint about the Codex, well, then as Nitros14 said, same ol' same ol'. I think CSM are fine. So what if you need a cookie-cutter build? So what if it's lacking in creativity? Deal with it.

I think the models are definitely the best they've ever been, there's just so much more to be done. The plastic-metal hybrid kits: Thousand Sons, Plague Marines, and Noise Marines. The direction of making dynamically posed assault squads in plastic points to raptors. The dreadnoughts old and needs love.

Nitros14 wrote:This is the same old thread, the Chaos Codex is boring as all hell. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it. Hopefully they do a better job next time.

Its hopefully more than that. I wanted to go beyond what's wrong and look at conceptual directions. 4th ed was all about the legions, 5th about the renegades. Where will the emphasis go?

I think its going to emphasize what the Chaos mortals have made for themselves since the heresy. The different physical trappings used by mortals to bind daemons to the physical plane, from obliterator daemon virus, to daemon engines, to spawn, and daemon weapons. Without daemons these are the only ways to bring the daemonic back into the codex. From a thematic stand point it does stand to help de-emphasize the god-specific slant the previous edition took, focusing more on the undivided components of the list. If GW does produce plastics for Thousand Sons, Plague Marines, and Noise Marines it does balance that back out away from Chaos Undivided, and I could imagine GW doing something like bringing in Cult Chosen as a way to make further sales of those updates. Drop pods would be an easy but lazy addition. Seeing different types of daemonic possession of vehicles would also be another thing GW could do.

Random thought, blight drones, maybe in some other form would be a great thing for chaos marines, it takes the idea of a daemon engine and gives chaos a much needed additional fast attack choice that mirrors but maintains differentiation to the landspeeder of the loyalists.

I want to see a legions codex. I think old players need that bad.

Chaos has the potential to be, and probably should be, the most interesting aspect of the 40k setting. Back in the days of Slaves to Darkness, Chaos probably was the most interesting thing in 40k.

Sadly, although the quality of the models has certainly improved, I don't think the actual aesthetic has been maintained. It all seems a bit... meh. That is true of both Chaos Marines and Daemons. They no longer seem as different and weird as they should. That is not just because I am used to them either. They just look like they have had spikes added and pointy arrows drawn on. I recently purchased the Eye of Terror Codex form EBay, and the models in that were just about holding on to the old Chaos "feel", but since then I think it has been totally lost.

Quite a few people building armies here on Dakka manage to recapture that feel, but GW's own models have lost it.

As for the lists, I'd personally like to see Separate books for each Chaos God, with Legions, Daemons, Renegade Marine and Traitor Guard buildable from each God-specific list, but I am wise enough to know that will sadly never happen. As it is though, I think whatever book comes next needs to allow you to build viable single-God lists without the need for overdoing counts-as. I'd even like to see ICs who give you God-specific bonuses for your army, but only if you stick to the apppropriate unit types.

The line between Legions and Renegades is a difficult one, but I think both have a place. There is no reason that Nurgle Legions and Nurgle Renegades should not work together, even if there is friction. Then, it is logical to assume that they would fight alongside Nurgle Guard and Nurgle Daemons. A book each for Legions, Warbands (inc Renegades and Traitor Guard) and Daemons, plus ally rules to allow all three codices to work together would make sense to me.

I've only started in 5th so I don't know the old chaos codexes. I've read the CSM codex a few times and really like it, I wish my C:SM had that many troop choices

As for the models, this is what a friend ended up with

I think chaos will never be as good as it was in the previous codex. They had options, legions, renegades pretty much everything was covered. And I think that was a problem because no one else had such awesomeness.

I always felt 4th ed stuff like traits and vet skills was a really cool direction. Far more interesting and personalizable then special char + nifty rules shenanigans that go on now. (Though chaos is in that horrible jervis middle ground of lean and boring)

My best guess is that the conceptual future of chaos is more mechanical daemonic stuff, as this is the only thing unique thing that they still possess.

The other option is cultists inclusion. So things like stalk tanks, a range of cultist units plus all the space marine stuff they currently have. This would completely change the feel and honestly I would probably dislike such a focus cause I like elite armies with low model count.

Overall though chaos will never be that amazingly option focus army it use to be.

QUESTION: I can't remember but was chaos the last codex to get the plain jane Jervis approach?

Shrubs wrote:I've only started in 5th so I don't know the old chaos codexes. I've read the CSM codex a few times and really like it, I wish my C:SM had that many troop choices

As for the models, this is what a friend ended up with

To tell the truth, only model in that that I liked was the first one.

It pretty much was the last plane jane. Even the standard space marines book was less so.

I think everyone who played chaos loved the 4th edition book, it was everything and the kitchen sink. All the legions, the possibility forfull god-cult armies, daemons, and they even managed to squeeze in mere mortal chaos cultist.

Veteran skills allowed chaos to reshape its units to what it needed. Having played both as chaos and as imperial I can say it really wasn't sustainable. The Chaos codex was great but it was too flexible. It could be too many things. It was effectively multiple codices in one.

Going back in that direction would be nice but I think it'd be wasted effort. Any attempt to will only ever be as a collection of books rather than as a single book.

One thing that comes up, ever since the design staff said they were considering it: god-specific chaos codices. I don't think would be a good tjing. The chance that the one book would cover all 4 gods in the current codex format each as separate lists is rather unlikely, the prospect of having 4 separate book seems too much. It would get to the point where each detracted from the main Chaos Marine book, and GW in an attempt to push them could pull something like they did with daeons. You might end up without bezerkers in the main book, but something vaguely similar by taking the mark.

Shaman wrote:I think chaos will never be as good as it was in the previous codex. They had options, legions, renegades pretty much everything was covered. And I think that was a problem because no one else had such awesomeness.

I always felt 4th ed stuff like traits and vet skills was a really cool direction. Far more interesting and personalizable then special char + nifty rules shenanigans that go on now. (Though chaos is in that horrible jervis middle ground of lean and boring)

My best guess is that the conceptual future of chaos is more mechanical daemonic stuff, as this is the only thing unique thing that they still possess.

The other option is cultists inclusion. So things like stalk tanks, a range of cultist units plus all the space marine stuff they currently have. This would completely change the feel and honestly I would probably dislike such a focus cause I like elite armies with low model count.

Overall though chaos will never be that amazingly option focus army it use to be.

QUESTION: I can't remember but was chaos the last codex to get the plain jane Jervis approach?

To be fair the last codex was rediculously overpowered. Being able to take oblits as elites, basilisks, vindicators, infiltrate your whole army and have a demon prince that was nigh unkillable and could cut swathes through all of your opponents army was a little to much. They did the typical knee-jerk reaction and took out everything that made it too powerful, which was also the stuff that made it interesting.

The next one should at least be more interesting, demon engines would be nice, as would proper chosen, but since all the neew releases are booked up for the next few years, we'll have to wait a while.

Fifty wrote:Chaos has the potential to be, and probably should be, the most interesting aspect of the 40k setting. Back in the days of Slaves to Darkness, Chaos probably was the most interesting thing in 40k.

Sadly, although the quality of the models has certainly improved, I don't think the actual aesthetic has been maintained. It all seems a bit... meh. That is true of both Chaos Marines and Daemons. They no longer seem as different and weird as they should. That is not just because I am used to them either. They just look like they have had spikes added and pointy arrows drawn on. I recently purchased the Eye of Terror Codex form EBay, and the models in that were just about holding on to the old Chaos "feel", but since then I think it has been totally lost.

Quite a few people building armies here on Dakka manage to recapture that feel, but GW's own models have lost it.

As for the lists, I'd personally like to see Separate books for each Chaos God, with Legions, Daemons, Renegade Marine and Traitor Guard buildable from each God-specific list, but I am wise enough to know that will sadly never happen. As it is though, I think whatever book comes next needs to allow you to build viable single-God lists without the need for overdoing counts-as. I'd even like to see ICs who give you God-specific bonuses for your army, but only if you stick to the apppropriate unit types.

The line between Legions and Renegades is a difficult one, but I think both have a place. There is no reason that Nurgle Legions and Nurgle Renegades should not work together, even if there is friction. Then, it is logical to assume that they would fight alongside Nurgle Guard and Nurgle Daemons. A book each for Legions, Warbands (inc Renegades and Traitor Guard) and Daemons, plus ally rules to allow all three codices to work together would make sense to me.

GW is a biusness first and really only care about the game second. I dont think Chaos makes enought $$ for them to make a codex for each god or legion, i at LEAST would like to see 2 more codecies, one for the god spesific (World eaters, 1k sons, Death guard, Emp Children) and another for the nonspesific god legions (word bearers, night lords, iron warriors, alpha legion) I think the only army you can truly make for chaos now is red corsairs.

To me, Chaos Space Marines should be some of the meanest troops in the game. This idea I had earlier is one way of doing it, without increasing point costs or changing the statline.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/298083.page

One unit of Chaos Space Marines with the Icon of Chaos Glory would have the following stats, as long as they were surrounded by the (Very weak, very easily killed) Cultists:

WS: 4 BS: 4 S: 4 T: 4 I: 4 W: 1 A: 2 LD: 10 Sv: 3+/5++

Special Rules: Fleet, Feel No Pain, Furious Charge.

Something that would make any unit in the game, if everyone was working in the same office building, and if Chaos Space Marines came into the break room, everyone, except maybe Grey Knights would say "Hey guys, want to get the feth out of the break room?". It's not even really that overpowered, since the cultists are designed to die like flies and they are expensive to provide the buff.

CSM, in their next Codex, will be a lot closer to Blood Angels and Space Wolves, IMO: close combat gods with the ability to have lots of special rules added (FNP, counter-attack, etc.). I would expect the Marks to have more relevance, an overall price cut, and redefining of how daemons work. Chaos simply has too much character and relevance to the 40K universe to allow them to be relegated to limited-build, limited-power codexes. I'd be willing to bet they are one of the strongest codexes out there when they get redone.

@Slarg232: Well I think that would work for a renegade concept for Chaos. I think if GW were to have taken a more comprehensive approach to Chaos we would have seen something like this:

Chaos Renegades: Focusing on mutants and traitor guard, where Chaos Marines are present in the form of the pirates like Red Corsairs and infiltrators like Alpha Legion that are forced to make extensive use of the lesser devotees of chaos, to maintain their capability to wage war. The presence of IG style artillery could allow Iron Warrior styled lists.

Chaos Daemons: Focusing as it does on demons, but incorporating chaos marines like the Word Bearers who make a more extensive use of daemons and dark rituals.

Chaos Legions: Focusing on the different cults of Chaos Marines. Allowing a vanilla list but also god-specific cult lists, driven by the now common special character approach. Close to how it is now but with god-specific chosen, and the ability to give marks to summoned daemons to make them more similar to their stable counterparts. The god-cults would cover the big 4 legions, leaving Black Legion as the chaos undivided who mix and match cults and Night Lords who follow chaos undivided using no cults. In the future Chaos could see Raptors done in plastic, Night Lords could act as a driver for that. A night lord special character might allow Raptors as a troop choice.

This codex build would give chaos something on par with the loyalist with a reasonable amount of viable diversity and the other two lists would portray those other facets of chaos making trade offs in the lists for different types of options.

@Skarboy: I think you're probably right about them being brought in line with Blood Angels and Space Wolves, but I don't think we'll ever see the add on abilities we've seen in the past. I think as it is Chaos marks are pretty relevant in their ability to reshape the CSM profile. More could be done such as if god specific daemons were brought back tying in what type and how many to the number of marks of a particular god are used. I don't think we should expect, or want, the 20 different ways to upgrade the chaos marine squad. I also think the most basic csm squad should remain relative basic and fixed or else it runs the risk of being too narrow in what it represents.

YOUR RIGHT


only problem is the fact that GW is buisness oriented, and i feel as thought the old ways of grimdark and "oh your army is the good guys? let me explain to you why they're space nazis in power armor blah blah" it sucks but i feel like they wanna get younger games and go the route of "SM are the defenders of the galaxy buzz lightyear! we side with necrons to kill the tyranids"

Simply enough all three don't require much more then reworked books, characters, and one or two kits. The rest already exists.

Renegades would need big mutants and upgrade sprues for the traitors and human size mutants. Chaos Demons are pretty much settled but would have the addition of characters for the mortal component. Chaos marines, would just do well with plastic raptors and add on sprues for the three cults that metal-plastic hybrid kits.

aka_mythos wrote:This is not to say Chaos isn't good, but Chaos Marines and Daemons are much more restricted in the ways they can be competitive.

Its sad when I hear about Chaos players using loyalist marine books to play simply because those are more "chaos". It shows a real shortfall.

For example why hasn't Chaos ever recieved a Chaos Rhino

All there effort for 5th was directed towards the Daemons which have been divorced from marines, leaving less distinction of chaos from loyalist.

Something tells me we won't see god-specific daemons reintegrated and will have to just live with the generic borrowed form.

With an emphasis on Chaos Marines and less on "Chaos" as a monolithic entity, I think we're going to see daemonic elements brought in as more mortal constructs, daemon engines like the Defiler or Obliterators.

It would be nice to see models like the Khorne Blood Slaugther or Nurgle Blight drones brought in

I'd like to see GW move away from rules that kill your own models,

IMO, I'm glad CSM and Daemons split. Daemons were flat out better than Marines in 4E, which was completely stupid.

There are players fielding Green Marines instead of Dark Angels, too. Not a big deal.

Chaos Marines use Rhinos with spikes, and I'm OK with that. If somebody wants to Orteza it with a brick of GS & bitz, that's their business.

Chaos Marines have Cult options, which is a pretty big differentiator. Plus Daemon Engines, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised to see markable Daemons next edition. But they should have even lower GEQ base stats (and cost) as the price for being flavorable.

I agree that Chaos should get more Daemonic whatnots as their differentiator. The current Codex is excellent at what it does, and can use some filling in.

The real question is whether GW should further split CSM to create a Legions book with more Power-specific goodies. I say yea, bring it. I'm happy with more Codices and a slower update cycle, such that at least half of the Codices are at least one edition back.

Rule-wise, Animosity-type effects should go away, not because they're inherently bad (they're OK), but because they generate a lot of whining and suppress minis sales.



Of course, what I *really* want for Chaos is Chaos Guardmen with Mutants and Traitors and Renegades.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Of course, what I *really* want for Chaos is Chaos Guardmen with Mutants and Traitors and Renegades.

And Chaos Sisters!


But seriously, I don't want them to make 20 different Codices for Chaos, I would much rather have one slightly larger one. I would rather have Legions, Renegades, and Cultists all have rules in one book, so that you can field a specific Legion with cultists one game, and then play a non legion force next game, without having to lug around 3-4 different books. Just my 2-cents about it.

The old legion rules weren't bad except someone really loved Iron Warriors and gave them much better rules than everyone else while the same person really hated Thousand Sons and gave them awful rules.

They could do something similar but not game breaking. Put all the rules in the same book and have them just be minor variations on the same basic list.

Like the old rules were something like this:

I.E. Alpha Legion gets infiltrate on their marines and they can take cultist units. Can use only unmarked or undivided units.

Night Lords get night vision and cheaper Raptors and Bikers. Can use only unmarked or undivided units.

Word Bearers get cheaper summoned daemons and the Accursed Crozius daemon weapon. Can use only unmarked or undivided units.

Iron Warriors get siege specialists on their marines and Chaos techmarines. Can use only unmarked or undivided units.

Black Legion ignores 'Eternal Rivalry' and can mix units freely.

God specific Legions get +1 on reserves rolls and free Aspiring Champions for units with their God's Sacred number. Can only use unmarked or their God's mark units.

The 2nd 3rd Edition Codex for Chaos was fantastic. Perhaps a bit much for some players to handle and certainly very strong, so I would love if the next codex drifted back into a happy medium between this and that. I love all the options in the 3rd Ed codex, but that's not the way GW is making them any more, so it's unrealistic to hope for anything of that level of detail. But I would love if the Marines evolved more from the generic tripe they are now to more of a Chaos influenced squad of elite bad asses, with cultist support, the true cult marines being very much elite, and better selection of daemons and daemon engines. The Chaos SM codex to me thrives in that nebulous intermarriage of Marine, daemon, and machine, so I hope they expand that more.

Also, while I am thinking about it, I would like to add that the Chaos Dreadnaught would be perfectly fine with it's rage rule, with the following change: It starts out normal, but at the beginning of any of his turn, the Chaos Player may release the frenzy built up inside of the dreadnaught, causing it to be: 1-2: Blood Rage, 3-4: Act as Normal, 5-6 Fire Frenzy. This would keep it being flavorful and Chaos, and would make it one mean mother fether. Once you unleash the rage, it is like that for the rest of the game.

Slarg232 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Of course, what I *really* want for Chaos is Chaos Guardmen with Mutants and Traitors and Renegades.

And Chaos Sisters!

But seriously, I don't want them to make 20 different Codices for Chaos, I would much rather have one slightly larger one. I would rather have Legions, Renegades, and Cultists all have rules in one book,

The days of all-in-one Chaos are long gone, so I think it's a pipe dream to expect their return.

But it's also increasingly clear that GW is very busy fleshing out Codices in a big way, so one can expect more and more in each Codex, with more distinctive rules and so forth.

I'd be very happy with 4 Chaos Codices:
- Chaos Marines (Markable & Cult Marines, markable S3 T3 Daemons, generic Machines & Engines)
- Chaos Daemons (S4 T4 Daemons with all the chrome)
- Chaos Legions (4-in-1 book of Cult Marines, Cult Specialists, Cult Daemons, Cult Machines & Engines)
- Chaos Traitors (Traitor Guard, Tanks, Cultists & Mutants; markable S3 T3 Daemons; Markable CSM as HQ only)

I know it's a pipe dream, but still, Jimminy Cricket keeps telling me to wish upon a star

As for the 4 books, I highly doubt that there will be a Chaos Traitors codex. They are barely keeping up with the armies they have now, it would be foolish to add another one. Of course, I said that with Daemons, too.


All I have to say is if they break my army up to the point where I can't use half of my models, I am going to be pissed. No other army, not even the space marines, have had to buy units and then not be able to use half of them in the next codex. They are pretty much going to have to do a mega-dex, because to me at least, there is no way they would be able to split it into 3 different codices and not piss people off.

Slarg232 wrote:Also, while I am thinking about it, I would like to add that the Chaos Dreadnaught would be perfectly fine with it's rage rule, with the following change: It starts out normal, but at the beginning of any of his turn, the Chaos Player may release the frenzy built up inside of the dreadnaught, causing it to be: 1-2: Blood Rage, 3-4: Act as Normal, 5-6 Fire Frenzy. This would keep it being flavorful and Chaos, and would make it one mean mother fether. Once you unleash the rage, it is like that for the rest of the game.

I agree, something like that makes more sense from the rules perspective. It switches the rules from one that is self destructive to one that is beneficial, but unpredictably so. Its chaotic without being a bad thing.

Slarg232 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Of course, what I *really* want for Chaos is Chaos Guardmen with Mutants and Traitors and Renegades.

And Chaos Sisters!

But seriously, I don't want them to make 20 different Codices for Chaos, I would much rather have one slightly larger one. I would rather have Legions, Renegades, and Cultists all have rules in one book, so that you can field a specific Legion with cultists one game, and then play a non legion force next game, without having to lug around 3-4 different books. Just my 2-cents about it.

I don't think anyone wants to see them do 20 different books. Without having separation of different concepts you fall back into the problem of it being too many flavors in one book. You would have to expect something like the special characters of the SM dex, where most only make minor changes. Separate books allows more drastic distinctions.

If you bring traitors and mutants into the main Chaos Marine book you're back to the problem of over redundancy different daemons brought to the previous book. I think there is also a distinction between the generic cultist entry of 4th edition and the Chaos Guardsmen and Mutants of the LatD. Using my three book break down as a basis, each could have a little bit of every thing and yet emphasize one facet. Daemons could have generic traitor guard and Marines but all the daemon options, Chaos Marines could have all the Marines but only generic traitor guard and generic daemons, and Renegades emphasize traitor guard and mutants with the generic daemons and basic marines. In that way they all carry commonality but remain distinctive.

Nitros14 wrote:The old legion rules weren't bad except someone really loved Iron Warriors and gave them much better rules than everyone else while the same person really hated Thousand Sons and gave them awful rules.

They could do something similar but not game breaking. Put all the rules in the same book and have them just be minor variations on the same basic list.

To support all of the legions in a single book would require they be so much more simplified. Its clear you realize that the distinctions could only be minor, but all the examples you gave would be too complex for the structure GW currently takes with the codices. Lets look at the Loyalist Marine codex, each chapter represented is effective covered by one or two changes to rules without modifying point costs and only minor instances of changing the force org chart. Restricting unit selection and changing costs is an inherently unbalanced rule structure.

Realize that what you're proposing is something even the Space Marine codex couldn't really do. That codex represented 6 chapters of marines, you'd want the chaos codex to cover 9 maybe 10 different flavors. The size demands would end up too prohibitive to be realistic. You'd be looking at 4 more special charcters and more to explain them all.

GW's point with the direction they took the current codex was to show there is more to chaos than the legions, that they are very fractured. It is a contradiction and major reversal to go back to that. By having a couple of books some of the flavors can be spread out and allow each codex to touch on different legions and aspects of chaos. For example why could Word Bearers fit into the Daemon codex? Or why couldn't Alpha Legion and pirate marines who rely on traitors and mutants be a part of that renegade list.



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JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'd be very happy with 4 Chaos Codices:
(1)- Chaos Marines (Markable & Cult Marines, markable S3 T3 Daemons, generic Machines & Engines)
(2)- Chaos Daemons (S4 T4 Daemons with all the chrome)
(3)- Chaos Legions (4-in-1 book of Cult Marines, Cult Specialists, Cult Daemons, Cult Machines & Engines)
(4)- Chaos Traitors (Traitor Guard, Tanks, Cultists & Mutants; markable S3 T3 Daemons; Markable CSM as HQ only)

I think you could easily get away with (1) and (3) as a single book. The Codex Space Marine covered 6 flavors of marines, between your concept (1) and (3) you'd only need to expect 6 flavors of chaos with many fewer units. IF each chaos cult got 2 new units, say an elite form of its troop option and a daemon engine, you're looking at 8 new units. Adding that to the current codex still leaves it with less than codex space marine or even what chaos had before losing all the daemons.

For number (4) allowing groups like alpha legion who rely on traitors to be represented would be an easy way to go back to the fact LatD allowed allies. The list could just simply incorporate the basic chaos space marine troop entry from the chaos marine dex as an Elite option. Thus flavor and balance are maintained and while expanding the concept that are covered.

Slarg232 wrote:As for the 4 books, I highly doubt that there will be a Chaos Traitors codex. They are barely keeping up with the armies they have now,

there is no way they would be able to split it into 3 different codices and not piss people off.

Some of us don't care at all about "keeping up with the armies". We're in it for the long haul, so not having to shell out for a new book for 10 years is a GOOD thing!

I think you should take a good, long look at WFB Chaos now split into Beasts, Mortals, and Daemons.
____

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'd be very happy with 4 Chaos Codices:
(1)- Chaos Marines (Markable & Cult Marines, markable S3 T3 Daemons, generic Machines & Engines)
(2)- Chaos Daemons (S4 T4 Daemons with all the chrome)
(3)- Chaos Legions (4-in-1 book of Cult Marines, Cult Specialists, Cult Daemons, Cult Machines & Engines)
(4)- Chaos Traitors (Traitor Guard, Tanks, Cultists & Mutants; markable S3 T3 Daemons; Markable CSM as HQ only)

I think you could easily get away with (1) and (3) as a single book.

IF each chaos cult got 2 new units, say an elite form of its troop option and a daemon engine, you're looking at 8 new units. Adding that to the current codex still leaves it with less than codex space marine or even what chaos had before losing all the daemons.

For number (4) allowing groups like alpha legion who rely on traitors to be represented would be an easy way to go back to the fact LatD allowed allies. The list could just simply incorporate the basic chaos space marine troop entry from the chaos marine dex as an Elite option.

Could and should are two different things. The point of separating them into is so that Cult forces have ZERO access to Defilers and Obliterators, and are FORCED to make do with their Cult-specific units. In the same way general Marines would have ZERO access to Cult Terminators and "true" Daemons. Hard "cut-and-choose" army design forces stronger army themes and simplifies balancing.

With a proper 4-in-1 book, each Chaos Cult army could have 1 Special Character, 1 Elite, 1 Troop, 1 Fast, 2 Heavies, and 2 Daemons for a total of 8 distinct entries per Cult, tacked on to core generics (HQs, Rhino, Possessed) for a grand total of about 35-40 entries. That'd be pretty awesome, with no need for non-Cult stuff.

Alpha Legion Cult would be a single CSM Chosen squad (or two) as Army HQ leading a mass of non-CSM stuff, with no Allies needed. But they're not merely Elites - they're the HQ! No basic CSM at all, just the Chosen as the HQ. The hard limit of 2 CSM units forces the player to build around Traitors and Mutants for everything else, and keeps the design clean.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Slarg232 wrote:As for the 4 books, I highly doubt that there will be a Chaos Traitors codex. They are barely keeping up with the armies they have now,

there is no way they would be able to split it into 3 different codices and not piss people off.

Some of us don't care at all about "keeping up with the armies". We're in it for the long haul, so not having to shell out for a new book for 10 years is a GOOD thing!

I think you should take a good, long look at WFB Chaos now split into Beasts, Mortals, and Daemons.

I have probably had a longer look at the three than you, since I play Chaos in WHFB and own all three books and units from each.

I seriously don't want to have to go through that again.

And you might not care about "keeping up with the armies", but how many Dark Eldar players can say the same?

I feel strongly that we will see THE return of Chaos in the future iteration. With the most recent loyalist dexes as precedent, GW is no longer afraid of OTT stats, USR combos, nor deployment limitations.

The next Chaos dex will include some way of allying with the Chaos Demons Codex (logic and consumer demand); Special Characters providing army wide buffs and FOC changes (Co:SM); magnificently fluffy cult representations (Co:BA, e.g. FNP terminators and Rage & Furious Charge Troops); as well as highly customizable HQ options (Co:SW).

It may be a few more years before it actually releases but I have faith that we will not be disappointed.

Curious.... i sometimes feel a disconnect between GW and it's customers, maybe people sign a petition? try and contact?

What will become of them?

Well I've heard some whispers that Chaos are not going to be as core to 40K (and possibly even Warhammer) as they once were, and to expect far fewer updates for them in the future.

A frightening whisper to be sure...

H.B.M.C. wrote:What will become of them?

Well I've heard some whispers that Chaos are not going to be as core to 40K (and possibly even Warhammer) as they once were, and to expect far fewer updates for them in the future.

A frightening whisper to be sure...

I doubt it. Space Marines are the main protagonists (or at least, thats what GW would have us beleive) and all Protagonists need an antagonist/rival, which would be the Chaos Space Marines. Besides, if they cut down on chaos, they would have to cut down on Grey Knights. Not that the grey knights have been helped much by the metal models, but still.

I highly doubt a petition would help, Alex. I would be willing to sign it/fill out a survey, but I doubt it would do anything, Chaos Space Marines aren't Space Marines.

Slarg232 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Some of us don't care at all about "keeping up with the armies". We're in it for the long haul, so not having to shell out for a new book for 10 years is a GOOD thing!

I think you should take a good, long look at WFB Chaos now split into Beasts, Mortals, and Daemons.

I have probably had a longer look at the three than you, since I play Chaos in WHFB and own all three books and units from each.

I seriously don't want to have to go through that again.

And you might not care about "keeping up with the armies", but how many Dark Eldar players can say the same?

I played as BA in 3E, so I waited longer for my update than either of the remaining DE players left in the world.

And really, if they're playing a niche, screw 'em. They simply don't matter in the slightest iota as far as the long term health of the game goes. In the mean time, they should be thanking their lucky stars that they're still an Official army. Squats, Chaos Dwarves, and Dogs of War can't even say that. No pity.

Having gone through the WFB sundering, and seen that GW obviously sees this as a path to long-term financial gain, why didn't you simply sell your 40k Chaos stuff when the writing on the wall became clear?

and Sm are who they throw in the face of 12 year olds and thier parents to grab the kid into the game.


All im saying is that if they find enough Chaos players or people who support the the hurry up of chaos chodcies then they might go huh... maybe we shouldnt redo black templars just yet or some other SM chapter and maybe come out with something different?

i know tau and crons need an update badly and i dont expect any new chaos till they do but still....


i hate walking into a GW and only seeing kids... and they are all playing SM vs. SM

JohnHwangDD wrote:And really, if they're playing a niche, screw 'em. They simply don't matter in the slightest iota as far as the long term health of the game goes. In the mean time, they should be thanking their lucky stars that they're still an Official army. Squats, Chaos Dwarves, and Dogs of War can't even say that. No pity.

Having gone through the WFB sundering, and seen that GW obviously sees this as a path to long-term financial gain, why didn't you simply sell your 40k Chaos stuff when the writing on the wall became clear?

To the deleted part, you seemingly have multiple armies, and that makes you exempt from one of yours not being updated in forever. Not all people have multiple armies, nor can they afford multiple armies.

To the first part, I don't see how they "don't matter". Hardcore fans who still play as the Dark Eldar and pay to have the models should matter. If they love the game and their army to play with it for so long without an update, they should get a bone thrown to them.... I don't know, thats just me... Squats, don't know enough to say anything on them, but Chaos Dwarves were just Dwarves with different artillery and then Hobgoblins. Dogs of War became units that everyone can use, so they still have that going for them.


Why don't people dump girlfriends when they do something stupid? Why do people buy twenty xboxes after the first one RROD's? People do stupid things all the time, and I love the hobby. But I will not buy twenty books in the same edition to keep my army competitive, that is where I draw the line.

Slarg232 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:And really, if they're playing a niche, screw 'em. They simply don't matter in the slightest iota as far as the long term health of the game goes. In the mean time, they should be thanking their lucky stars that they're still an Official army. Squats, Chaos Dwarves, and Dogs of War can't even say that. No pity.

Having gone through the WFB sundering, and seen that GW obviously sees this as a path to long-term financial gain, why didn't you simply sell your 40k Chaos stuff when the writing on the wall became clear?

To the deleted part, you seemingly have multiple armies, and that makes you exempt from one of yours not being updated in forever.

To the first part, I don't see how they "don't matter".

Chaos Dwarves were just Dwarves with different artillery and then Hobgoblins.

Dogs of War became units that everyone can use, so they still have that going for them.

I will not buy twenty books in the same edition to keep my army competitive, that is where I draw the line.

If you see my signature, I can play at least a half-dozen armies for 40k alone, most with multiple options of playstyle. Ergo, it really is to my benefit when GW slows things down. Being properly selfish, all I care is that I have at least one competitive build amongst all of the stuff I own, and that GW remains in business. If others choose a niche, and then choose not to buy more, then that's their choice, and they should accept the realities of the consequences of their decision, rather than expect special treatment not justified by sales return.

If that's how you feel about Chaos Dwarves, then how are CSM anything other than SM with spikes and Daemons? How are Dark Eldar anything other than Eldar with spikes and uglier models?

Dogs of War are currently no longer official, so nobody can use them. If they're back on the GW site, I retract.


Methinks you exaggerate a tad. GW got you to buy 3 Army Books for WFB Chaos, they will get you to buy 3 or 4 for 40k, spread out over the next 5 years. Me? I'm nominally on hook for Eldar, IG, SM, CSM, BA, BT, SoB, and Inq. I don't think that to be excessive, as it's 1 or 2 books per year. If GW releases LatD & AdMech, I'll get those, too, probably even start an AM army. And really, if you don't get that the GW Hobby revolves around GW selling multiple armies to each player, perhaps you're in the wrong hobby...

H.B.M.C. wrote:What will become of them?

Well I've heard some whispers that Chaos are not going to be as core to 40K (and possibly even Warhammer) as they once were, and to expect far fewer updates for them in the future.

A frightening whisper to be sure...

This is troubling but it's also a good thing, and I'll tell you why.

Chaos should never have been a core component to WH40k, in my opinion at least. Hell it wasn't even originally part of Rogue Trader. There were just warp beasts and whatnot, and some sort of daemonic warp beings but it wasn't Chaos.
It is something that should play a role but it should never have been the Imperium vs. Chaos as the big matchup, it should always be Imperium v. Orks and Renegades as the big matchups.

The vibe I always got from RT is that Chaos was intensely powerful but it's just another threat. But hey, that's me.

I hope that Chaos has an overhaul. Sure maybe I'm being melancholic but I liked the old, creepy organic/twisted Chaos. Not the new "badass, spikes and evil hurrrr" Chaos. It's just a perversion of itself. Yes Chaos was evil but it was all very alien, in some ways more alien than the actual alien races! It was disturbing and off-putting. Not stereotypical evil.

I also think that you're being a drama llama but that's neither here nor there.

Regwon wrote:
To be fair the last codex was rediculously overpowered. Being able to take oblits as elites, basilisks, vindicators, infiltrate your whole army and have a demon prince that was nigh unkillable and could cut swathes through all of your opponents army was a little to much. They did the typical knee-jerk reaction and took out everything that made it too powerful, which was also the stuff that made it interesting.

The next one should at least be more interesting, demon engines would be nice, as would proper chosen, but since all the neew releases are booked up for the next few years, we'll have to wait a while.

Olits as elites [paying ridiculous amounts of points for insta-killable models], basilisks and vindicators, and all infiltrate with a daemon prince was broken?

How about BA taking 5 dreadnoughts as troops choices, 3 as elites, and filling HS and FA with 6 predators, led by Mephiston [better than a prince]?

Iron Warriors, typical: 9 obliterators, 2x 5-man troops choices with las/plas, a couple basilisks with a vindicator and an uber prince.

Let's think about that in 5th edition shall we? Where they need troops choices to win, Imperial Guard can take SQUADRONS of basilisks or demolishers, Dawn of War forces half their army off the board for a turn and their daemon prince can't consolidate into fresh units after combat. Do you really think they'd be that broken? Do you really think they'd continue to build armies with minimum troops choices that way? With the mechanized spam the way it is now, could they depend on only 9 models with lascannons to try and table their opponents?


5th edition would have solved a lot of the "problems" with the chaos codex by itself - unable to depend on just a couple troops to get things done, and knowing you need to capture objectives curbing just how much killy reaving that daemons could do, plus close combats not being able to lock you in [and being more decisive - most combats will see their opponents chased down into oblivion, meaning they'll be in the open] would have changed a LOT about the codex. Mechanized armies would have eliminated daemon bomb - bloodletters couldn't open tanks all too well. The change in rending would have toned down daemonettes. Later, codexes like basic marines with the Null Zone power would have spelled the doom of daemonbomb armies hands-down.

What has chaos lost instead of letting the edition change fix things, though?

Infiltrate on troops - given to regular SM if desired
Tank hunters - given to vulkan lists, essentially
Seige Specialists - given to techmarines in the form of bolster defenses
counterattack - space wolves
furious charge - space wolves and blood angels
Feel no Pain - once a khorne-only ability or Slaanesh banner ability, now given willy-nilly to command squads in SM codex and BA everything.
S5 power weapons - given to spacewolves
+2 S power weapon - given to basic SM
2+ save T6 S6 possibly S10 model with ridiculous initiative, high WS and lots of attacks with also psychic powers - given to Mephiston, but made better.
Deepstrike and assault daemons - deepstrike and assault vanguard veterans
Armor 13 dreadnoughts and defilers via mutated hull - AV 13 ironclads and furiosos


How exactly is the old chaos codex broken? I mean, broken apart and handed out to everyone else, maybe yeah but broken as in cheesy? Really?

Um, how many of those things you're complaining are tied to Special Characters or way expensive?

Infiltrate, "Tank hunters", and the T6 psychic guy are the only [the ONLY] things I mentioned tied to special characters. All the others are easily acquired from regular units in the army list.

While you've shown instances of SM having those different abilities unlike the old Chaos Codex, you can't take all or most in a single list.

What made it broken was that all those things were in a single book and could be min maxed and mixed and match so freely at a time few other lists could.

I think in the modern context a few of those being a part of Chaos is fine, but having all was a bit much.

GW really wants each codex to have a limited number of ways they can be played. Its a concept of limited diversity, where players playing against an army only need to expect a few different configurations.

I keep referring to the previous codex as the kitchen sink codex. It has everything in it. From GW's perspective, too much. There wasn't anything wrong with individual parts of the codex, its the sum total of having 9 different legions represented thus varying units, plus marks that could vary units, plus veteran upgrades to vary units and then their was all the redundancy of similar units to choose from.

A basic space marine squad at the time had 12 ways to be kit out based on weapon options, only some worth while. Chaos space marines, had just as many multiplied by marks, veteran upgrades, and the effects those 9 legions brought.... in the realm of 140+ possibilities. Now many more of those not worth while but the amount of variation allowed you to make them into almost anything. This is just an example of how there was no good way to characterize the old codex.

The current codex has the reverse problem and is as much a fault for it.

Going from 4th to 5th, after losing daemons, trimming either veteran skill upgrades or all the legion rules would have been enough, but just like GW always does with an either/or choice the choose both and go overboard.

You can actually take Vulkan and still have Shrike infiltrate with a squad of terminators and/or take Sicarius and have a tactical squad infiltrate.

(It's also worth noting that one of the restrictions on the 4th ed chaos infiltrate skill was no terminators - shrike apparently disagrees with such limiting factors)

As far as too many options before, not really. If you bought a mark, you could only buy one veteran skill - spacewolves can easily get furious charge added to any squad that comes with counterattack for free. The only way to combine veteran skills for chaos was to go unmarked - which was a significant tradeoff.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Um, how many of those things you're complaining are tied to Special Characters or way expensive?

Not many at all.

I think the current conceptual approach to CSMs is solid, it's just executed poorly in the latest book. With some tweaks we could have a really strong and interesting codex without having to split things out into half a dozen different books.

I'd prefer to see daemons nuked from the CSM dex entirely, and daemonishness permeate things more subtly through wargear and units like daemon princes, spawn and posessed, plus better and more specialsed vehicle posession rules. Any attempt to bring daemon units to a CSM dex is pointless while there's already a daemons book - i'd rather they dumped them and did better with the rest of the list rather than the half-hearted crap we have now.

As far as legions go, I think a decent fix would be to introduce, specialise or upgrade a particular unit depending on the legion focus. So:

Night Lords: Raptors
Alpha Legion: Cultists
Black Legion: Posessed
Iron Warriros: Vindicator
Word Bearers: Dark Apostles

Also, give chosen units (plus Lords and DPs) the ability to buy skills typical of the legion they represent - like the old veteran skills, but more specialised - positioning them (as well as the cult marines) as the marines that actually took part in the Heresy; and allow "normal" CSM units to represent the more renegade side of chaos, or those marines that have turned since the Heresy. Also, drop terminator units and just give chosen and cult marines the ability to upgrade to terminator armour.

That, plus a daemon engine or two, cult vehicle variants (even on just one vehicle type) and better marks - that is, the mark means something different depending on what kind of unit it's placed on - and I think the codex would be all set.

Anyway, just my tuppence.

Legion.

Slarg232 wrote:Space Marines are the main protagonists (or at least, thats what GW would have us beleive) and all Protagonists need an antagonist/rival, which would be the Chaos Space Marines.

Don't hold your fluff as sacred and untouchable. GW can, will and has changed things in the past.

Were they to decide tomorrow that the Orks were the greatest threat to mankind, and that Chaos was on the decline, it would be so.

Legion wrote:I think the current conceptual approach to CSMs is solid, it's just executed poorly in the latest book. With some tweaks we could have a really strong and interesting codex without having to split things out into half a dozen different books.

I'd prefer to see daemons nuked from the CSM dex entirely, and daemonishness permeate things more subtly through wargear and units like daemon princes, spawn and posessed, plus better and more specialsed vehicle posession rules. Any attempt to bring daemon units to a CSM dex is pointless while there's already a daemons book - i'd rather they dumped them and did better with the rest of the list rather than the half-hearted crap we have now.

As far as legions go, I think a decent fix would be to introduce, specialise or upgrade a particular unit depending on the legion focus. So:

Night Lords: Raptors
Alpha Legion: Cultists
Black Legion: Possessed
Iron Warriros: Vindicator
Word Bearers: Dark Apostles

Also, give chosen units (plus Lords and DPs) the ability to buy skills typical of the legion they represent - like the old veteran skills, but more specialised - positioning them (as well as the cult marines) as the marines that actually took part in the Heresy; and allow "normal" CSM units to represent the more renegade side of chaos, or those marines that have turned since the Heresy. Also, drop terminator units and just give chosen and cult marines the ability to upgrade to terminator armour.

That, plus a daemon engine or two, cult vehicle variants (even on just one vehicle type) and better marks - that is, the mark means something different depending on what kind of unit it's placed on - and I think the codex would be all set.

I agree with what you're concept is though I see problems with the examples of minimally representing the legions specific upgrades. For example, the vindicator for Iron Warriors, now that GW has given it to us all, I don't think they'd take it away just for the sake of giving one flavor a bonus with it. For example it seems if GW went this route they'd be more incline to put a unit like this in: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1040006&prodId=prod1170002 and make quantity limited to everyone but them.

The real thing is GW has moved away from restriciting any units appearing in a codex from the rest of the army. GW's stance is one of promoting certain units over others. Such as an Iron Warrior Warsmith special character granting squads siege specialists to a units of chosen as a bonus... or something like that. Raptors for night lords being scoring. Possessed as a troop choice. The dark apostle would likely be a special character rather than a new unit, though without daemons in the codex it makes the Word Bearers a lame duck.

Alpha legion with cultists would require they be in the book, it once again is a situation where your idea insists on GW including a unit that might be restricted from the rest of the list. I guess the simple realistic option would be if they were included a troop choice that cannot score, except when Alpha Legion is present, showing how Alpha can take an angry mob and turn them into an organized one.

Spellbound wrote:You can actually take Vulkan and still have Shrike infiltrate with a squad of terminators and/or take Sicarius and have a tactical squad infiltrate.
(It's also worth noting that one of the restrictions on the 4th ed chaos infiltrate skill was no terminators - shrike apparently disagrees with such limiting factors)

That's one army wide rule and then one squad. With the chaos codex you could have done that pluss two or three other combination on top of it. Also the fact SM can go beyond a rule CSM had has little to do with the volume of options.

Spellbound wrote:
As far as too many options before, not really. If you bought a mark, you could only buy one veteran skill - spacewolves can easily get furious charge added to any squad that comes with counterattack for free. The only way to combine veteran skills for chaos was to go unmarked - which was a significant tradeoff.

But a spacewolves is just a single option. Yes with the old codex you could approximate them, but its the fact that you could also approximate a blood angel, and some standard codex marine combos and some others all in one book and it was possible to do so within a single army list.

The fact that you have draw parallels to all the marine codices and not to just a single book, that is the inherent problem with the previous chaos codex. It was effectively 9 codices in one, which made it difficult to balance both with in the codex and with other armies. Any weakness CSM had versus the army it was about to fight could be washed out with options leaving the other player no idea what combination to expect.

Relative to other codices there were too many viable ways to play the list, this was GW's problem with the book. I accept the fact GW did too much tweaking back on the number of viable options, but I don't think its necessary to revisit old ground to bring additional play styles back into viability.

Slarg232 wrote:I know it's a pipe dream, but still, Jimminy Cricket keeps telling me to wish upon a star

As for the 4 books, I highly doubt that there will be a Chaos Traitors codex. They are barely keeping up with the armies they have now, it would be foolish to add another one. Of course, I said that with Daemons, too.


All I have to say is if they break my army up to the point where I can't use half of my models, I am going to be pissed. No other army, not even the space marines, have had to buy units and then not be able to use half of them in the next codex. They are pretty much going to have to do a mega-dex, because to me at least, there is no way they would be able to split it into 3 different codices and not piss people off.

he makes a good point. at worst a SM player only needs to really repaint his models.

What I really liked about the old chaos codex was that it had a short section covering every legion, & the 4 legions dedicated to specific gods had slightly larger sections.

It meant you could play an undivided legion & still have flavour, as well as one of the god specific legions.

The genericism in the new codex really annoys me. I dont want to play 'chaos space marines who happen to have Word Bearer colours', I want to play Word Bearers!

That said, I dont think chaos needs multiple codices, Id like to see it all in one book, with the ability to tailor your army to specific legions.

I loved the old codex, but I think GW's rationale was valid. This codex wanted to show the more fractured look at Chaos. With the old book the implication was that the chaos legions still largely follow the old organization of the pre-heresy era. That there was some sort of discipline. The new codex shows more of the concept that any despot with enough power and will can use the lures of chaos to to build a warband, that the chaos legions have fractured to varying degrees allowing offshoot groups of chaos marines; it also more thoroughly represents the loyalist marines that fall to the temptations of chaos. Those two things weren't covered by the old codex.

@somecallmejack: The difficulty is that if the old codex was too much, how does one expect GW to reconcile the quantity of variations the legions bring and the newer piratical slant without diluting one or the other and without giving so many options to chaos as to make them perceptively confusing or difficult to non-chaos players to interpret?

Chaos is more diverse than all the loyalist marines, but have to make due with less. It takes 6 books to represent about 11 flavors of loyalists; there are as many flavors of Chaos and seemingly people think they can be done justice in 1/6th the codex. I'm all for them being represented and even diluted to an acceptable level, but at some point the reality that something needs to fall to the way side, be diluted, or a separate book be done has to set in.

somecallmeJack wrote:What I really liked about the old chaos codex was that it had a short section covering every legion, & the 4 legions dedicated to specific gods had slightly larger sections.

It meant you could play an undivided legion & still have flavour, as well as one of the god specific legions.

The genericism in the new codex really annoys me. I dont want to play 'chaos space marines who happen to have Word Bearer colours', I want to play Word Bearers!

That said, I dont think chaos needs multiple codices, Id like to see it all in one book, with the ability to tailor your army to specific legions.

Dude GW is a company first and are looking for a profit. aside from everything mentioned previously of them not combining codexes they wanna get a buck out of you and me.

aka_mythos wrote:I loved the old codex, but I think GW's rationale was valid. This codex wanted to show the more fractured look at Chaos. With the old book the implication was that the chaos legions still largely follow the old organization of the pre-heresy era. That there was some sort of discipline. The new codex shows more of the concept that any despot with enough power and will can use the lures of chaos to to build a warband, that the chaos legions have fractured to varying degrees allowing offshoot groups of chaos marines; it also more thoroughly represents the loyalist marines that fall to the temptations of chaos. Those two things weren't covered by the old codex.

@somecallmejack: The difficulty is that if the old codex was too much, how does one expect GW to reconcile the quantity of variations the legions bring and the newer piratical slant without diluting one or the other and without giving so many options to chaos as to make them perceptively confusing or difficult to non-chaos players to interpret?

Chaos is more diverse than all the loyalist marines, but have to make due with less. It takes 6 books to represent about 11 flavors of loyalists; there are as many flavors of Chaos and seemingly people think they can be done justice in 1/6th the codex. I'm all for them being represented and even diluted to an acceptable level, but at some point the reality that something needs to fall to the way side, be diluted, or a separate book be done has to set in.

Well i get that C:CSM is more renegades ATM but you have to remember that the legions at least the big ones still use old legion organization. At least Word Bearers and the Black Legion absolutley do. And since all those chaos black library books are so popular why not being the legions back? renegades are cool and all but very very generic.

In the current slant GW has taken, the big 4 and black legion are the only ones that have really maintained a significant legion like structure the rest have become more fractured. Word Bearers may very well have as well but with Daemons divorced from CSM and not likely to return while Daemons have their own book, they don't have much place.

GW's stance on the legions is that there is more to chaos now than the legions. That the old means of representing all the legions was too much diversity for one list. So is it worth having to dilute them down so much to fit them in and force and restrict players into a then meaningless mold or is it better to have a generic list lets people be more open with how they conceptualize their army. GW believes the latter is more ideal.

While a lot of players will not be happy unless pure legion books were to be released, I think it is possible for an all in one book to be released assuming it follows the template of the current SM and SW books.

First of all, the think next chaos book should have some FOC modifiers attached to some ICs similar to SM (eg: bike lord = bike troops, Master of the Forge etc). This would allow certain legions to be played while not being broken.

Secondly I think that all units should not come with several USR like SM/BA/SW but rather be a blank slate that chaos players can pay extra points to customise (as long as this is balanced right it will be ok). Again this would allow certain legions/forces to be played while not being broken.

Lastly for fluff and gameplay reasons, chaos needs a cultist type unit (which would function like a cannon fodder type SM scout unit armed with las weapons and a weaker stat line) as well as some sort of customisable lesser daemons/lesser daemon differentiation. I think all of the above wouldn’t be ground breaking but allow most legions/chaos forces to be played but at the same time make chaos more equivalent to the other MEQs and less hodgepodge like it is now.

Realistically the above suggestions can be summarised via make C:CSM more similar to C:SM, as most of the legions can be represented very well using C:SM only (to a lesser extent certain legions such as world eaters and Night lords are better represented using C:BA/SW) so GW must be doing something right!

I don't think CSM should be more like the loyalists. CSM already suffer from not being as distinctive from the loyalists as they once were. CSM only lose out in the long run if they become more like the loyalists. If someone wants to play a more like loyalist CSM army, they should just use a loyalist codex. I know plenty of people who do. Making chaos less chaos isn't an ideal choice for improving them.

I like the idea of there being the 3 way split like in fantasy's Beasts, demons and mortals. In 40k we can have Traitor Legions, Demons and The lost and damned ( see what I did there! ).

Future Traitor Legion Codex's I think should try and focus on the fact that their organization and hierarchy come from a different age of how space marines did things. As well as reflect on how that chain of command and organization has been forced to change/warp either due to chaoses influence or the necessity/difficulties of not having access to the resources they once did. Meaning maybe having ornate/esoteric weapons that the loyalists no longer have access to/cant make any more. But have them be expensive/sometimes unpredictable due to time spent in the energies of the eye of terror. As well as new diabolical inventions that have been made to wage war in the Imperium.

JohnHwangDD wrote:If you see my signature, I can play at least a half-dozen armies for 40k alone, most with multiple options of playstyle. Ergo, it really is to my benefit when GW slows things down. Being properly selfish, all I care is that I have at least one competitive build amongst all of the stuff I own, and that GW remains in business. If others choose a niche, and then choose not to buy more, then that's their choice, and they should accept the realities of the consequences of their decision, rather than expect special treatment not justified by sales return.

If that's how you feel about Chaos Dwarves, then how are CSM anything other than SM with spikes and Daemons? How are Dark Eldar anything other than Eldar with spikes and uglier models?

Methinks you exaggerate a tad. GW got you to buy 3 Army Books for WFB Chaos, they will get you to buy 3 or 4 for 40k, spread out over the next 5 years. Me? I'm nominally on hook for Eldar, IG, SM, CSM, BA, BT, SoB, and Inq. I don't think that to be excessive, as it's 1 or 2 books per year. If GW releases LatD & AdMech, I'll get those, too, probably even start an AM army. And really, if you don't get that the GW Hobby revolves around GW selling multiple armies to each player, perhaps you're in the wrong hobby...

It might be to your benefit that GW slows down, however, that is was your choice when you decided to play multiple armies. I don't want to say your opinion is less valid than mine because I play exclusive Chaos, and would be hit pretty hard with such a split, and that you play twenty some armies (Yes, I do have a tendancy to exaggerate), and such a drastic change to one army wouldn't affect you, but my voice should be heard a little more than yours, since you will still be walking around with your amount of armies, whereas my spin would be snapped. There is no way I would be willing to spend $1000 dollars on my army and then have it changed so drastically that I can't use half of that. People who own multiple armies are not exactly in the top purview of having to worry about any one single army.....

Also, think of it this way: If one army based on one thing doesn't sell well, how are three? If one army based on Chaos is not justified by sales returns, how can they expect three to do it? That's like saying they should have made Chaos Squats, Pirate Squats, and then regular Squats.....

As for that Dwarves/Chaos Dwarves comment, I don't. I have always thought that they should get rules that differentiate them from their lighter counterpart, but not to the point where they tear the army apart in the process.

Probably, but until I get my own hobby up and have that spread around a little, I am kinda stuck with WH40K, and besides, I like the fluff and the models. And I also have invested way too much into my Chaos army to want to invest in any others. I'm not made of money, and these toy soldiers ain't cheap....

in regards to legions and CSM in general there DOES need to be more uniqueness.


i say since most CSM are way older than normal SM on average they bring back vet abilities, but only let chosen and select few be able to use them.

I also would be happy with a simple marked deamons, nothing like Codex deamons.


I ALSO would like to not only see more deamon engines, but more uniquness to the vehicles as a whole. you need to remember most of the legions do not produce thier own armor any

@aka_mythos
There is no other viable solution that does not involve multiple codices. Sure codex Renegades or Codex: World Eaters would be nice but GW would never do it as the market is not there (in their opinion anyway). As well as this, other factions like Moridian Iron Guard and Harlequins would want their own codex.

Structurally I think Chaos should be more like the Vanilla marines book as it currently allows a SM player to play a wide variety of very different armies (gun line, assault, biker army, Scout Army) and this would migrate very well for chaos (such as Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Alpha Legion). I agree there should be a distinction but this can be done with chaos specific units and upgrades (like the Defiler, Daemon Prince and daemon weapons) and a greater variety of them (the current CSM book has a small amount of units and upgrades). I should also add that the next CSM book should not mimic the SM book unit for unit, only its structure .

The current SM book is very well written in terms of structure, simplicity and variety. Sure the 3.5 dex and the 2nd edition chaos book had heaps of variety and rules but they were very hard to read and "mish mash" in terms of how they were written

Slarg232 wrote:It might be to your benefit that GW slows down, however, that is was your choice when you decided to play multiple armies. I don't want to say your opinion is less valid than mine because I play exclusive Chaos, and would be hit pretty hard with such a split, and that you play twenty some armies (Yes, I do have a tendancy to exaggerate), and such a drastic change to one army wouldn't affect you, but my voice should be heard a little more than yours, since you will still be walking around with your amount of armies, whereas my spin would be snapped. There is no way I would be willing to spend $1000 dollars on my army and then have it changed so drastically that I can't use half of that. People who own multiple armies are not exactly in the top purview of having to worry about any one single army.....

Also, think of it this way: If one army based on one thing doesn't sell well, how are three? If one army based on Chaos is not justified by sales returns, how can they expect three to do it? That's like saying they should have made Chaos Squats, Pirate Squats, and then regular Squats.....

As for that Dwarves/Chaos Dwarves comment, I don't. I have always thought that they should get rules that differentiate them from their lighter counterpart, but not to the point where they tear the army apart in the process.

Probably, but until I get my own hobby up and have that spread around a little, I am kinda stuck with WH40K, and besides, I like the fluff and the models. And I also have invested way too much into my Chaos army to want to invest in any others. I'm not made of money, and these toy soldiers ain't cheap....

A few points:
- The only opinions which really matter are those of Jervis, Tom, and the others in the studio. Whatever the rest of us might have to say matters not at all, aside from making our voices heard via our wallets.
- I own well over 25k pts worth of 40k models. If we're playing 1500-pt games as God himself (i.e. Jervis) intended, there is a pretty darned good chance I actually can field 20 armies.
- The only way your voice would be heard a smidgen louder is if you spent a *lot* more than me, say 200k worth of Chaos. But at that point, you've got every Legion and Power covered several times over, so you can play any flavor of Chaos in any game.
- Aside from my first few months starting out with Eldar, I never played exclusive to any army. I really started with 4 armies (Eldar, CSM, IG & SM), so that's just how I roll, and I've always enjoyed the variety, along with the option not to play a weak army if I don't want to.

- Between 40k and WFB, presumably, Chaos sells well enough, hence the very frequent updates - between the two systems, there are as many Chaos releases as SMs.
- If GW's strategy of fracturing things wasn't paying off for them, presumably, they'd have stopped it. Wet & Dry Undead, 3 WFB Chaos, 2 40k Chaos, 5 Loyalist SMs, 2 WFB Humans, 3 WFB Elves, and IG&Tau say this strategy reaps the most rewards.

- 40k is a lot of fun, but it takes money.

Anyhow, back to my first point, I've given up on trying to influence GW on rules. Whatever GW does, I'll adapt. If they're stupid, they get less money. Or I stop. Not a biggie. I can always trade or sell off as long as GW doesn't close up. I guess, the final point is that I've effectively reached 40k nirvana, in that I really don't need to care one iota what GW does anymore.

Well then... I think we should move on.

I think whether people side with the idea of multiple books or a single one, most everyone agrees it would be to chaos' benefit to see the 4 chaos cults expanded upon.

With the Bezerkers, Thousand Sons, Noise Marines, and Plague Marines as troop choices any expansion on them would rely on creating new units that sit in other areas of the FOC. I think the basis for it would most easily applied as more elite versions of each of the 4.

For lack of better names, I'll refer to the elite forms of each a Chosen-B, Chosen-T, Chosen-N, and Chosen-P.
These chosen version I think would need to exemplify the traits of each to a greater degree. Giving Chosen-B and Chosen-P better forms of their close combat weapons would be appropriate, a better chain ax and a better plague knife. Chosen-T could get terminator armor in addition to applying their special ammo to their combi-bolters. Chosen-N I think would be appropriate to see on bikes as a partial throw back to the Doom Rider, where they can still take advantage of the "heavy" stat lines even when moving around and its loud I think they'd like that.

I think thats some very basic ideas. What other crazy ideas would people think appropriate?

aka_mythos wrote:most everyone agrees it would be to chaos' benefit to see the 4 chaos cults expanded upon.

With the Bezerkers, Thousand Sons, Noise Marines, and Plague Marines as troop choices any expansion on them would rely on creating new units that sit in other areas of the FOC.

I think the basis for it would most easily applied as more elite versions of each of the 4.

For lack of better names, I'll refer to the elite forms of each a Chosen-B, Chosen-T, Chosen-N, and Chosen-P.

These chosen version I think would need to exemplify the traits of each to a greater degree.

The Cults should be expanded upon, but not in the basic CSM book. The Legions book is really BA / BT / DA / SW all rolled into one big book, while the CSM book is an analogue to the current SM book. There's easily enough source material to justify a Legions book, and cutting out the generic stuff like Obliterators, Defilers, and Vindicators makes room for Cult-specific items.

The lists should really be built as separate, standalone lists, clean sheet starting with the Cult Marines as Troops, with Cult Greater & Lesser Daemons, and adding Cult-specific stuff to fill out and balance. For example, the Cults should *each* have a Cult-specific Defiler variant (share legs) a la SM Dread variants. This gives a 4-in-1 boxed set to make any of 4 Cult Engines, kind of like a 4-in-1 Razorback or Pred. The focus shifts from Cult Dread to Defiler chassis as the iconic Walker of the army, and the Dread remains marginalized (due to its link back to SM). Make 4 Cult Engines, and the whining about no Chaos Dread goes away because the Cult Engines are way cooler and more distinctive.

Um, Chosen-N are Chosen-Nurgle, right??? Name-wise, I'd strongly suggest using the Power as the ID K for Khorne, S for Slaanesh, etc. *Much* easier for those who play Chaos.

I strongly disagree that the basis of differentiation should be limited to or based on Cult Chosen. That's too narrow and limited. Each Cult Chosen should start with AA, and have the option for TDA, while HQs can can upgrade to gain TDA or Chaos Armor. Adding MoS Bikes, MoK Juggers, MoS JPs, and MoT teleport would be nice differentiators.

Regardless, Cult-specific weapons and psyker upgrades should be key. Leave C: CSM with the watered-down Marked weapons & powers for mix-and-match players, moving all of "the good stuff" to C: Legions. For example, Lash can stay as-is as a MoS power, because it's only available within a pure MoS army context. Without Vindicators or Obliterators in the list, Lash is much less of a problem to balance.

I just hope GW doesn't go halvsies on Legions, whenever they get around to it.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:most everyone agrees it would be to chaos' benefit to see the 4 chaos cults expanded upon.

With the Bezerkers, Thousand Sons, Noise Marines, and Plague Marines as troop choices any expansion on them would rely on creating new units that sit in other areas of the FOC.

I think the basis for it would most easily applied as more elite versions of each of the 4.

For lack of better names, I'll refer to the elite forms of each a Chosen-B, Chosen-T, Chosen-N, and Chosen-P.

These chosen version I think would need to exemplify the traits of each to a greater degree.

The Cults should be expanded upon, but not in the basic CSM book. The Legions book is really BA / BT / DA / SW all rolled into one big book, while the CSM book is an analogue to the current SM book. There's easily enough source material to justify a Legions book, and cutting out the generic stuff like Obliterators, Defilers, and Vindicators makes room for Cult-specific items.

The lists should really be built as separate, standalone lists, clean sheet starting with the Cult Marines as Troops, with Cult Greater & Lesser Daemons, and adding Cult-specific stuff to fill out and balance. For example, the Cults should *each* have a Cult-specific Defiler variant (share legs) a la SM Dread variants. This gives a 4-in-1 boxed set to make any of 4 Cult Engines, kind of like a 4-in-1 Razorback or Pred. The focus shifts from Cult Dread to Defiler chassis as the iconic Walker of the army, and the Dread remains marginalized (due to its link back to SM). Make 4 Cult Engines, and the whining about no Chaos Dread goes away because the Cult Engines are way cooler and more distinctive.

Um, Chosen-N are Chosen-Nurgle, right??? Name-wise, I'd strongly suggest using the Power as the ID K for Khorne, S for Slaanesh, etc. *Much* easier for those who play Chaos.

I strongly disagree that the basis of differentiation should be limited to or based on Cult Chosen. That's too narrow and limited. Each Cult Chosen should start with AA, and have the option for TDA, while HQs can can upgrade to gain TDA or Chaos Armor. Adding MoS Bikes, MoK Juggers, MoS JPs, and MoT teleport would be nice differentiators.

Regardless, Cult-specific weapons and psyker upgrades should be key. Leave C: CSM with the watered-down Marked weapons & powers for mix-and-match players, moving all of "the good stuff" to C: Legions. For example, Lash can stay as-is as a MoS power, because it's only available within a pure MoS army context. Without Vindicators or Obliterators in the list, Lash is much less of a problem to balance.

I just hope GW doesn't go halvsies on Legions, whenever they get around to it.

Well that is certainly cynical.

When it comes to GW cynicism is healthy.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The Cults should be expanded upon, but not in the basic CSM book. The Legions book is really BA / BT / DA / SW all rolled into one big book, while the CSM book is an analogue to the current SM book. There's easily enough source material to justify a Legions book, and cutting out the generic stuff like Obliterators, Defilers, and Vindicators makes room for Cult-specific items.

I think that is justifiable and likely to produce some of the best options, I just think of all the options GW takes this might be the least likely.

I'm kinda balancing what I'm saying in the middle ground between what we have and what seems most likely. So the "ideal" notions are a little harder to fit in.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Um, Chosen-N are Chosen-Nurgle, right??? Name-wise, I'd strongly suggest using the Power as the ID K for Khorne, S for Slaanesh, etc. *Much* easier for those who play Chaos.

That was a poor choice on my part.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I strongly disagree that the basis of differentiation should be limited to or based on Cult Chosen. That's too narrow and limited. Each Cult Chosen should start with AA, and have the option for TDA, while HQs can can upgrade to gain TDA or Chaos Armor. Adding MoS Bikes, MoK Juggers, MoS JPs, and MoT teleport would be nice differentiators.

I like you're ideas, I just think we're looking at it from two different sides. I think you're ocming from a more idealized place while I'm trying to imagine the more disappointing reality GW is likely to give us. I think its atleast some what reasonable, speaking from the context of the current codex, that anything GW adds to the basic C: CSM would likely be designed to fill holes left by a lack of daemons.
Following on an assumption of a restricted CSM more similar to its current format, I think we could only see one or two new units per cult. I think seeing daemon engines would be key. GW could play some trikery their by making some as you recommend, Defiler variants, but also a variant on an inevitable Chaos Dreadnought kit. For example the imagery of Thousand Sons using dreadnoughts is common enough, so the notion that they'd bind daemons onto them turning them into daemon engines isn't too far fetched. In the hypothetical situation that we see that trickery used, the possibility of a unique model being made for atleast one cult seems likely. Bringing in something like Blood Slaughters or Blight Drones becomes more plausible if other engines don't require as much attention.

Now back to the other side and assuming only one extra unit for each, if the Chosen of Nurgle, Chosen of Tzeentch, Chosen of Khorne, and Chosen of Slaanesh became a reality and were to design to fill the vacated niche's left by the departure of daemons. I think Bike or cavalry style Noise marines as well as teleporting Thousand Sons would fill the need for mobile fast elements. If Chosen of Slaanesh had bikes the extra toughness would diminish the need for a terminator armor or chaos armor option. If Slaanesh had bikes I could see bezerker jugernaughts as a cavalry styled option, despite the current rules. I think it all leaves nurgle as the least straight forward. If they got their blight drone there Chosen of Nurgle unit could be something other than a mobile unit. I always thought it would be intereting to see what becomes of a Plague Marine when their swelling and everything goes further. Some offshoot of Obliterator or Possessed would seems appropriate. A plagued obliterator has a certain appealing imagery to it as an alternative to purchasing terminator armor or chaos armor, but so does a bunch of smaller great unclean one look alikes that are intermediates between possesed and daemon princes. Either option does paint an interesting opportunity for balance where by each of the 4-gods chosen improve their survivability by different means; slaanesh bike toughness bonus, Thousand sons termi-armor, and Khorne jugernoughts. Plague Obliterator/Possessed type thing could have either the better save or maybe just the improved volume of wounds on top of the normal bag of tricks. I think even in the Cult only book of your dreams, its appealing given how you proposed the removal of certain units.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The Cults should be expanded upon, but not in the basic CSM book. The Legions book is really BA / BT / DA / SW all rolled into one big book, while the CSM book is an analogue to the current SM book.

I like you're ideas, I just think we're looking at it from two different sides. I think you're ocming from a more idealized place while I'm trying to imagine the more disappointing reality GW is likely to give us.

I think its atleast some what reasonable, speaking from the context of the current codex, that anything GW adds to the basic C: CSM would likely be designed to fill holes left by a lack of daemons.

Following on an assumption of a restricted CSM more similar to its current format, I think we could only see one or two new units per cult.

I think seeing daemon engines would be key. GW could play some trikery their by making some as you recommend, Defiler variants, but also a variant on an inevitable Chaos Dreadnought kit.

the possibility of a unique model being made for atleast one cult seems likely. Bringing in something like Blood Slaughters or Blight Drones becomes more plausible if other engines don't require as much attention.

A plagued obliterator has a certain appealing imagery to it

I think even in the Cult only book of your dreams, its appealing given how you proposed the removal of certain units.

GW can take either of a couple paths here, one is to backtrack and re-expand CSM with cults and the various items that they expressly removed (tacitly admitting that they made a mistake), and the other is to give the knife a sharp twist and shove it in a bit deeper (proving that the players were wrong all along). I do like to think GW is proud enough and stubborn enough to push through with success no matter how much veterans might complain that their armies have been invalidated precisely because the changes ultimately drive more sales. So which is *really* more likely? Hard to say.

I see GW filling some holes in C: CSM, but that would be more due to the general expansion of army lists. Right now, GW has a fairly clean slate to work with. If I were GW, I'd address C: CSM by adding more MoCU options: a Word Bearer Dark Apostle who gives a bonus to Lesser Daemons, an Alpha Legion Leader who allows Cultists to be purchased as Troops, and so on. Kind of like Vulkan, Pedro, etc. do in C: SM.

I don't see GW adding any more Cult stuff in C: CSM, precisely because the role it plays as basic Chaos prevents this. And such Cult expansion actually prevents GW for producing the Legions book that they say they want to do.

As above, Dreads are for the corpse-follower. Defilers are for Chaos. It would be counter-productive for GW to make multiple Dreads, because they'd just be retreading the Chaos is Spikey. And quite frankly, there are so many SM Dreads, trying to carve out a Chaos-specific design space would be pointless. Just a basic, plastic "Chaos" Dread is all that is really needed or desired.

Quite frankly, Chaos Cults will do better with plastic Plague Marines, plastic Noise Marines, and plastic Rubric Marines than plastic Blight Drones. First things first. Tho I must say that a new-style "Blood Slaughterer" MoK Defiler variant would be very welcome.

Chosen Nurgle Plague Terminators are great, but the idea of Plague *Obliterator* kinda annoys me, because Obliterators are lightly tied to Iron Warriors, not Nurgle.

That Legions book is complement and contrast to the current CSM book. It trades flexibility for depth.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I see GW filling some holes in C: CSM, but that would be more due to the general expansion of army lists. Right now, GW has a fairly clean slate to work with. If I were GW, I'd address C: CSM by adding more MoCU options: a Word Bearer Dark Apostle who gives a bonus to Lesser Daemons, an Alpha Legion Leader who allows Cultists to be purchased as Troops, and so on. Kind of like Vulkan, Pedro, etc. do in C: SM.

I don't see GW adding any more Cult stuff in C: CSM, precisely because the role it plays as basic Chaos prevents this. And such Cult expansion actually prevents GW for producing the Legions book that they say they want to do.
...
Quite frankly, Chaos Cults will do better with plastic Plague Marines, plastic Noise Marines, and plastic Rubric Marines than plastic Blight Drones. First things first. Tho I must say that a new-style "Blood Slaughterer" MoK Defiler variant would be very welcome.

Chosen Nurgle Plague Terminators are great, but the idea of Plague *Obliterator* kinda annoys me, because Obliterators are lightly tied to Iron Warriors, not Nurgle.

That Legions book is complement and contrast to the current CSM book. It trades flexibility for depth.

GW I think has really shunned away from giving sublists a unique unit. A Dark Apostle I think would be an easy enough to do as a special character, but if its insisted that it be a generic unit entry, I think then it would be something available to everyone before it would tucked away as something special. The same can be said for cultist. I think Cultists could work in a CSM codex, but I think they should maybe be treated as a secondary choice. Something like, they're a non-scoring troop choice for everyone but Alpha Legion, who get them as scoring. Thus emphasizing their use of cultists without restricting others from using them.

My rational for GW doing some additional cult units, is because any time they do something new, especially something that self competes they tend to go over board and find a way to use the new sprues in multiple places. I think its always possible to see a mix. Only as an situational example, something like Noise Marines getting biked noise marines, and Khorne getting Blood Slaughters; that the contrast don't have to be one for one parallels.

With the Chosen of Nurgle, I was just using that as an example of different directions could be used to contrast each cult from each other. I don't really think nurgle should get obliterators, I was just using obliterators and possessed as an analog for the type of tougher daemon bonded unit of a smaller size... something in between the two.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
As above, Dreads are for the corpse-follower. Defilers are for Chaos. It would be counter-productive for GW to make multiple Dreads, because they'd just be retreading the Chaos is Spikey. And quite frankly, there are so many SM Dreads, trying to carve out a Chaos-specific design space would be pointless. Just a basic, plastic "Chaos" Dread is all that is really needed or desired.

I wasn't saying it would be a chaos dreadnought variant so much as daemon engine that uses some portion of kit. I just think that if GW were to go forward with additional daemon engines, it would be worth while to show how chaos can manifest daemon engines in different forms, that defilers aren't the only type. On some level it can be said chaos never really pursued new rhino or landraider variants or any of the other "new" post heresy STCs because they dumped their efforts into researching different daemon engines. Thus some low number of additional daemon engine can be justified as filling vehicular holes. It could be used to add flavors based on legion or affiliation, like a daemon cannon for Iron Warriors, or something more in the vein of the soul grinder.

ORLY? BT lack Sword Brethren, BA lack Sanguinary Guard, and Spaze Woofs don't ride Woofs?

So-and-So, Word Bearers Dark Apostle would obviously be a Special Character like Abby of the Black Legion or the big hand guy of the Red Corsairs. Special Alphy of Alpha Legion works like Fabius Bile, and simply unlocks cheap Scoring Cultists as part of his full-page entry; nobody else gets them.

After the SW and BA, I'd expect GW to make Noise Marines with NM TDA bitz, compatible with Bikers, and extra bitz for the Dread and Rhino. Same with other Cults. The Blood Slaughterer is just a new weapon set for the Defiler Engine, so easy.

I'm speaking within a codex. Those examples are specific units within there own codices, that as long as you're using that codex you can use those units. There are ways they can all be modified, but they are all immediately available.

GW is moving away from unlockable units. If a units in a codex it can be taken.

I think the closest thing to what you're talking about are FB's Enhanced Warriors and some of the more specialized bodyguard/command squad type units.

I really wish that GW hadn't divorce CSM and the Daemon codex.

Summoned Daemons are just a waste of points. The DH daemons are better and they're 3rd edition and have instability.

Though I have to say the Daemon codex is very good as a stand alone.

The author who wrote C: CSM was forced to remove daemons, he apparently had to fight just to get the summoned daemons into the book. I don't think it would have been as annoying if we had gotten at least single new unit.

The hole thing just doesn't sit well with me. I think daemon prince should be an up grade for a chaos lord. I can't get why they would make a unit on it's own there isn't enough upgrades for the unit to make it worth having it separate.

And the Marks should give you access to more then one rule or power, even the daemon weapons come off as under powered.

I don't know. It's just when you look back at the CSM codex I always feel as if there should be so much more than whats there.

Well CSM have as many flavors as the loyalists, there are 11 flavors of Loyalists, 6 in C: SM and then the 5 other non-codex marine books. Chaos has 10 flavors of CSM and then Daemons and yet chaos only has 2 books to cover it all. This why our book has either been very big (RT), very full (4th), or very generic (2nd, 3rd, and 5th).

I think in the ideal setting where GW's main concern was veteran players we'd see a large super sized book, containing all Chaos in one big tomb another big book for Loyalist Marines, and thrid for all the other Imperium forces. Each about 200 pages. Where within the book you'd have all the units any sublist can take listed, with sections dedicated to a legion or faction with a break down of what units can be used, the FOC arrangement, and any other modifiers; layed out in more exacting detail. With a larger format they'd be able to place the types of restrictions necessary to keep things from going too crazy.

Chaos dreads should come in at least 2 varieties. In the fluff there seems to a distinction between the run-of-the-mill crazy dreads like the ones we currently have in the codex and honored ancients like Berossus from Dead Sky, Black Sun or the Warmonger from Dark Apostle who are much more lucid. So I'd like to see, in addition to regular dread with the frenzy rule, a "venerable" one which isn't subject to frenzy or at least has a much lower chance of it, maybe just suffering the effects on a failed Ld test (if he fails the test he gets "confused"). The regular dread should be attachable to a squad of Chaos marines which act as handlers. Every turn you could choose to devote some number of squad members to the task of keeping the dread under control. Maybe for every squad member that doesn't shoot or assault you can add/subtract 1 from the frenzy roll? The plastic Chaos dread kit could even include 2 or 3 sets of CSM arms holding chains which attach to the dread to represent this.

The codex should include a unit of cultists with the option to upgrade them to mutants. They could release a plastic box set which could also do double duty in the Chaos Daemons codex. In the CSM codex they would serve as cannon fodder, while in the Chaos Daemons codex they would act as summoning points for the daemons to use when they come in. They would not be scoring in either codex.

Also Alpharius should be available as a special character HQ choice. No, you don't actually get to take a primarch. In fact, you don't actually take anything - "Alpharius" has no statline and is never deployed. You simply pay some points, give up an HQ slot, and in return all your cultists become scoring and your unmarked CSM get ATSKNF - because your entire army is Alpharius. And yes, Alpharius can count as your mandatory HQ choice - cuz Alpha Legion don't need no lousy HQ!

I've kinda noticed the same thing with regards to dreadnoughts. The current rational for why they're crazy is because being locked in separates them from the heat of battle. I think from the stand point of distinguishing them, it could be something in the vein of the more venerated dreadnoughts recieve a blessing from chaos melding them daemonically to the machine in much the same way obliterators are melded to their suits.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The Cults should be expanded upon, but not in the basic CSM book. The Legions book is really BA / BT / DA / SW all rolled into one big book, while the CSM book is an analogue to the current SM book.

I like you're ideas, I just think we're looking at it from two different sides. I think you're ocming from a more idealized place while I'm trying to imagine the more disappointing reality GW is likely to give us.

I think its atleast some what reasonable, speaking from the context of the current codex, that anything GW adds to the basic C: CSM would likely be designed to fill holes left by a lack of daemons.

Following on an assumption of a restricted CSM more similar to its current format, I think we could only see one or two new units per cult.

I think seeing daemon engines would be key. GW could play some trikery their by making some as you recommend, Defiler variants, but also a variant on an inevitable Chaos Dreadnought kit.

the possibility of a unique model being made for atleast one cult seems likely. Bringing in something like Blood Slaughters or Blight Drones becomes more plausible if other engines don't require as much attention.

A plagued obliterator has a certain appealing imagery to it

I think even in the Cult only book of your dreams, its appealing given how you proposed the removal of certain units.

GW can take either of a couple paths here, one is to backtrack and re-expand CSM with cults and the various items that they expressly removed (tacitly admitting that they made a mistake), and the other is to give the knife a sharp twist and shove it in a bit deeper (proving that the players were wrong all along). I do like to think GW is proud enough and stubborn enough to push through with success no matter how much veterans might complain that their armies have been invalidated precisely because the changes ultimately drive more sales. So which is *really* more likely? Hard to say.

I see GW filling some holes in C: CSM, but that would be more due to the general expansion of army lists. Right now, GW has a fairly clean slate to work with. If I were GW, I'd address C: CSM by adding more MoCU options: a Word Bearer Dark Apostle who gives a bonus to Lesser Daemons, an Alpha Legion Leader who allows Cultists to be purchased as Troops, and so on. Kind of like Vulkan, Pedro, etc. do in C: SM.

I don't see GW adding any more Cult stuff in C: CSM, precisely because the role it plays as basic Chaos prevents this. And such Cult expansion actually prevents GW for producing the Legions book that they say they want to do.

As above, Dreads are for the corpse-follower. Defilers are for Chaos. It would be counter-productive for GW to make multiple Dreads, because they'd just be retreading the Chaos is Spikey. And quite frankly, there are so many SM Dreads, trying to carve out a Chaos-specific design space would be pointless. Just a basic, plastic "Chaos" Dread is all that is really needed or desired.

Quite frankly, Chaos Cults will do better with plastic Plague Marines, plastic Noise Marines, and plastic Rubric Marines than plastic Blight Drones. First things first. Tho I must say that a new-style "Blood Slaughterer" MoK Defiler variant would be very welcome.

Chosen Nurgle Plague Terminators are great, but the idea of Plague *Obliterator* kinda annoys me, because Obliterators are lightly tied to Iron Warriors, not Nurgle.

That Legions book is complement and contrast to the current CSM book. It trades flexibility for depth.

Oblits have a knack of kickin' it with the Iron Warriors, they are gneerrally undivided tho and nomadicaly move from legion to legion with their own agenda.

aka_mythos wrote:I've kinda noticed the same thing with regards to dreadnoughts. The current rational for why they're crazy is because being locked in separates them from the heat of battle. I think from the stand point of distinguishing them, it could be something in the vein of the more venerated dreadnoughts recieve a blessing from chaos melding them daemonically to the machine in much the same way obliterators are melded to their suits.

3rd ed codex for CSM staes hat the dreds are nuts because many have been locked in there for centuries too; and even some since the HH. Yeah i definatley think there should be an upgrade or stock for some venerableish action; but no other variants save iron warriors should have the rifleman option and emp. children should have sonic.

I think sonic weapons are cool and all, and I play EC, but if EC can take dreads with sonic weapons why can't TS dreads take heavy bolters with inferno shots? OR a dreadnought of Khorne with big cutty things or nurgl-ized with plague. When you start coming up with units like this either everyone gets it, or they get something like it, or it becomes a no brainer situation where it doesn't matter since there is only one "real" choice.

These type of restricted and specialized options is what GW wanted to get away from when they went to the newest codex. The options work in a codex devoted to those individual sub-factions but as a single book its burdensome for newbies and opponents.

aka_mythos wrote:I think sonic weapons are cool and all, and I play EC, but if EC can take dreads with sonic weapons why can't TS dreads take heavy bolters with inferno shots? OR a dreadnought of Khorne with big cutty things or nurgl-ized with plague. When you start coming up with units like this either everyone gets it, or they get something like it, or it becomes a no brainer situation where it doesn't matter since there is only one "real" choice.

These type of restricted and specialized options is what GW wanted to get away from when they went to the newest codex. The options work in a codex devoted to those individual sub-factions but as a single book its burdensome for newbies and opponents.

EC dreds are acceptable, none other IMHO.

MOK dred? the Marine is already flying rodent gak crazy; no difference
1k sons? had to have been pre rubric of arhiman, doubt it would get inferno.. unless it is like a librarian dred; but honestly a 1k sons dred probably wouldn't be using solid artillery.
Nurgle? The idea of rotting mech is just... idk just silly to me.
MOS: sonic weapons totally make sense to me, all im sayin'

Inferno rounds are all about enchanted ammo. You telling me a HB round is any more difficult?

A MoK dread would be something like: any fire frenzy roll is automatically counted as "rage".

For nurgle I was thinking more like spraying it all over the place. Think banewolf chem-channon on a dread.

I understand it so easy to say here's a weapon stick it on. I think those other choices work too, but my main point is why would only noise marines attempt to apply their gifts to their support units. Wouldn't the others? The answer is yes, but once you go down that road its a slippery sloap towards over emphasizing the cults in a list that isn't as much about a whole army of one god or another.

aka_mythos wrote:I think sonic weapons are cool and all, and I play EC, but if EC can take dreads with sonic weapons why can't TS dreads take heavy bolters with inferno shots? OR a dreadnought of Khorne with big cutty things or nurgl-ized with plague. When you start coming up with units like this either everyone gets it, or they get something like it, or it becomes a no brainer situation where it doesn't matter since there is only one "real" choice.

These type of restricted and specialized options is what GW wanted to get away from when they went to the newest codex. The options work in a codex devoted to those individual sub-factions but as a single book its burdensome for newbies and opponents.

Exactly so.

And that is why I suggest that GW will (eventually) follow-through with their plan to split Legions off the current mix-and-match CSM.

When there are separate Chaos books, this becomes a non-issue. Cult Chaos players will get to feel "special" and loved because they finally have their own book, just like BA and BT and DA and SW, even though this comes at the cost of slowing Cult updates down to a 10 year timeframe.

I think if GW does eventually split off cult armies from the rest it will be an edition or two away. After they've developed enough within Chaos Undivided to stand with watered down versions or without the cult units at all.

As far as the "next" book, I'm inclined to say they'll stay away from too many of the cult units. There will be some new ones I imagine, just not as many as allowing cult weapon option upgrades would imply. I think one step to that is bringing in some more undivided characters, ones that touch on the undivided legions, but without making it too legion driven. Take the character driven approach with legion flavor something like this:

"Such-n-such" the Dark Apostle, re-roll reserve rolls for daemons, may begin with a daemon unit on the table
"Blank-ity-blank" the Arch Heretic, cultist count as a scoring unit, cultist may outflank.
"Crushington" The Demolisher, ability to call for off table artillery, master of ordinance style.
"Batman" The Headhunter, Raptors count as a scoring unit and may re-roll for reserve.

Anything more it will suffer the pitfalls of a bloated codex.

Those would be in addition to Huron, Abbadon, Ahriman, Lucius, Typhus, and Kharn. Chuck Fabius in and you have 11 characters, as opposed to the 9 special characters and 2 upgrade characters in the Loyalist Codex. The chaos codex would gain substance, without pulling any tricks the would make GW's loyalist love feelings hurt. It also puts into place characters that can "stand up" and fill the void when Ahriman, Lucius, Typhus, and Kharn inevitably got pulled.

MOT dred i was talking about enchated ammo really is useless with like las/plas

A sonic weapon relative to other option seems to fair the same. It has an assault and heavy profile, but one doesn't even matter on a vehicle. It'd cost more than a lascanon as an upgrade. Would it really be worth all that while?

aka_mythos wrote:I think if GW does eventually split off cult armies from the rest it will be an edition or two away. After they've developed enough within Chaos Undivided to stand with watered down versions or without the cult units at all.

As far as the "next" book, I'm inclined to say they'll stay away from too many of the cult units. There will be some new ones I imagine, just not as many as allowing cult weapon option upgrades would imply. I think one step to that is bringing in some more undivided characters, ones that touch on the undivided legions, but without making it too legion driven. Take the character driven approach with legion flavor something like this:

"Such-n-such" the Dark Apostle, re-roll reserve rolls for daemons, may begin with a daemon unit on the table
"Blank-ity-blank" the Arch Heretic, cultist count as a scoring unit, cultist may outflank.
"Crushington" The Demolisher, ability to call for off table artillery, master of ordinance style.
"Batman" The Headhunter, Raptors count as a scoring unit and may re-roll for reserve.

Anything more it will suffer the pitfalls of a bloated codex.

Those would be in addition to Huron, Abbadon, Ahriman, Lucius, Typhus, and Kharn. Chuck Fabius in and you have 11 characters, as opposed to the 9 special characters and 2 upgrade characters in the Loyalist Codex. The chaos codex would gain substance, without pulling any tricks the would make GW's loyalist love feelings hurt. It also puts into place characters that can "stand up" and fill the void when Ahriman, Lucius, Typhus, and Kharn inevitably got pulled.

You've hit the nail on the head with a thunder hammer. This will more or less fix the chaos dex (from a gameplay and legion perspective) while putting chaos in line with other imperial books without anyone crying cheese at the same time. Basically do the above, rebalance existing point costs and rules, add some extra units and upgrades (such as a LR crusader equivalent, SS/TH termies, cult chosen) and you have an awesome 5th edition Chaos book without spending too much effort.

Strangely enough a new chaos codex wouldn't take long to write as the current one is a good "template". A few add-on rules such as the one mentioned above and some easy rebalancing (such as reducing bikes from 33 to 25 points) and you've got a good codex that would probably last a good while

aka_mythos wrote:I think if GW does eventually split off cult armies from the rest it will be an edition or two away. After they've developed enough within Chaos Undivided to stand with watered down versions or without the cult units at all.

As far as the "next" book, I'm inclined to say they'll stay away from too many of the cult units.

I think one step to that is bringing in some more undivided characters, ones that touch on the undivided legions, but without making it too legion driven.

Those would be in addition to Huron, Abbadon, Ahriman, Lucius, Typhus, and Kharn. Chuck Fabius in and you have 11 characters, as opposed to the 9 special characters and 2 upgrade characters in the Loyalist Codex.

The chaos codex would gain substance, without pulling any tricks the would make GW's loyalist love feelings hurt. It also puts into place characters that can "stand up" and fill the void when Ahriman, Lucius, Typhus, and Kharn inevitably got pulled.

GW could split Legions off at any time, although it'd be least disruptive to do this by releasing detailed Legions at the time of the next Chaos Codex, with expanded generic CSM to follow the year after.

I agree that GW should "save" the Cult Stuff for Legions, rather than confusing things in CSM. Once it goes in, it's hard to remove.

More MoCU characters would be welcome, indeed, bringing balance and playstyle variety.

4 MoCU Legions guys would be in addition to Abby, Horus, & Fabius, for a total of 7. Add a unique Defiler, and a unique Dread, and that's 9, same as SM.

When Ahriman, Lucius, Typhus, and Kharn go, they'll can be joined by Doomrider and a host of other (new, if needed) Chaos Characters, so the Legions book won't feel too thin.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
More MoCU characters would be welcome, indeed, bringing balance and playstyle variety.

4 MoCU Legions guys would be in addition to Abby, Horus, & Fabius, for a total of 7. Add a unique Defiler, and a unique Dread, and that's 9, same as SM.

When Ahriman, Lucius, Typhus, and Kharn go, they'll can be joined by Doomrider and a host of other (new, if needed) Chaos Characters, so the Legions book won't feel too thin.

Maybe even Cypher could come back. Upgrade one chosen squad to be fallen angels.... just saying since you brought Doomrider into this. A unique defiler could maybe be the original Defiler. I think dreads have been done to death with the loyalists, so I can't imagine what concept would be worth while.

When it comes to Fabius in an undivided codex I could imagine his Enhanced Warriors becoming a unit in and unto themselves.

In a cult-legion codex, it'd be a nice addition to see some named daemon princes in addition to the doomrider.

If / when Cypher comes back, he'll have a global effect like a SM SC: All CSM with MoCU gain ATSKNF.

Otherwise, all good.

And yeah, more named Daemon Princes would be nice. Along with a Spawn.

Doombreed would be a cool character to bring out, though he is apparently stonger than the deamon primarchs...


Also! really want to see different weapons and upgrades, less similar than SM. maybe different types of CCW? rending chainaxes back?

JohnHwangDD wrote:If / when Cypher comes back, he'll have a global effect like a SM SC: All CSM with MoCU gain ATSKNF.

Otherwise, all good.

And yeah, more named Daemon Princes would be nice. Along with a Spawn.

Cypher, I don't think ATSKNF is an appropriate effect. Stuborn or a USR seems more appropriate. CSM to a degree represent loyalst who've gone renegade, they don't retain ATSKNF. Fallen Angels aren't as much that, they actually are the same marines from the time of the Hersey. Fallen Angels that much more removed from the loyalist; it seems a bit misplaced for them to get that rule. For the marine gone rogue concept, they could represent to some degree that more idealic embodiement of marine pirates or GW could always expand their fluff and go into how surviving Fallen Angels make a more active attempt to corrupt loyalist marines. My point is they can do more with Cypher.

A spawn spawner seems appropriate.

And that is why Cypher isn't in the current CSM book. He's a romantic character, not corrupted like the other CSM.

In modern analogy, is America evil if we fight against someone based on false information by our leader? If you ask a Democrat / Liberal, he'll say no, of course not - it's all Bush's / Blair's fault. In the same way, the Fallen themselves are largely blameless unless they deliberately chose Chaos on their own.

The Fallen Angels have *tremendous* potential for Fluff and discovery, being isolated individuals, whether they succumb to temptation on their own, or whether they seek out their brethren for a higher cause.

The problem is that this doesn't fit well with mass battle 40k, nor with Chaos Traitor themes, nor with SM Loyalists themes, so the Fallen are relegated to the dustbin of obscurity, along with the Sensei and other interesting concepts.

aka_mythos wrote:"Crushington" The Demolisher, ability to call for off table artillery, master of ordinance style.

Crushington should get the techmarine fortify defenses ability. He's a siege master right?

Also, I think Kharn should be an upgrade character for Berzerker Chosen rather than an HQ choice. It just seems to fit his character better.

Lol... "Crushington" wasn't meant to be a character name just a place holder. I get what you're saying.

I will say this its always confused me why being a "siege master" equates to being good at both demolishing fortifications and building them. I never thought they necessarily had to go hand in hand. Back in the day before any real description was written I just took the Imperial Fist and Iron Warrior's siege specialties were not necesarily identical concepts that each was a different side of the same coin.

aka_mythos wrote:Lol... "Crushington" wasn't meant to be a character name just a place holder. I get what you're saying.

I will say this its always confused me why being a "siege master" equates to being good at both demolishing fortifications and building them. I never thought they necessarily had to go hand in hand. Back in the day before any real description was written I just took the Imperial Fist and Iron Warrior's siege specialties were not necesarily identical concepts that each was a different side of the same coin.

it went with CSM too... thought i think ion the older fluff it was stated that the Iron Warriors could lay seige pretty well as well as survive one. I felt as though Alpha legion and even world eaters could be good siege-layers!

CSM squads get a 'sergent'.A muntant serg with a mutation that you choose.

I think there is an idea there... I don't think it needs to just be mutations. I think the real thing is that CSM should have some more "chaos" upgrades. Right now they're just wearing "I betrayed the Emperor and all I got was this T-shirt" upgrade.

Chosen should be more like Wolf Guard. They should be one of the most customizable units in the game. Not the crap we have currently.

During the Great Crusade I fought beside Horus, and the False Emperor before he turned against us. On Istvaan III I cut down my erstwhile brothers for their lack of vision. On Istvaan V I massacred the loyalist dogs as they fought to last man, cut off from all resupply, all reinforcement, and all hope. And on Terra I watched as Angron stormed the breach in the walls of the Imperial Palace to bathe in the blood of his foes. I am a veteran of 10,000 years of war and death on worlds of unspeakable nightmare. As a result I can infiltrate and use a meltagun.

No.

They're one of the most customizable units in the codex at least. We're still largely dealing with the Chaos equivalent of the Loyalist veterans fromt their previous codex. The loyalist veterans were replaced mostly by Sternguard giving them a power and price jump. Something similar should happen to Chaos' veteran marine squad.

One thing I've always thought is why is their a distinction between possessed and chosen? Both possessed and chosen are suppose to be (for lack of a better word) gifted of chaos and so why do they have to be two separate units? No one really likes the randomness of possessed and making their possession and mutation an upgrade for chosen give the chosen a more corrupted feel and the upgrade options to differentiate them from less gifted members of their army, while giving them the options they need to compete with similar tiers of elite units.

Chaos lords have to come from somewhere. Chosen should be thought of as the guys who each eventually try to strike it out on their own after attaining enough power. They be evil-er and more powerful as a result of their longer and greater exposure to chaos. Its like a whole squad of superhuman daemonically possessed proto-Hitlers.

Possessed are different, but rules-bad because they're not Chosen. GW just overdid it when nerfing them. Some SC out there should make Possessed Troops.

You don't need to get rid of possessed to improve Chosen in the way I described, I just think that a veteran CSM unit needs to move in the direction of having more abilities and options, but that those should be distinctly chaos and not just loyalist by a different name. I think Possessed need a complete overhaul, but their current rules can be used as something to improve the CSM Chosen squad. In the very least, let the chosen take even a single one of the possessed abilities as an upgrade.

Possessed should be alot scarrier than they are. Daemon prince is to Chaos Lord, what possessed should be to basic CSM, that really isn't the case. The basic cult units are more worth while than possessed. That makes me question why they're even an Elite choice when more basic units so drastically out shine them. Possessed should be a rending, fleeting, furious charging unit, let them cost more. Hell their daemonic give them feel-no-pain or an invulnerable save to. If thats too much or if GW still wants some sort of a random component, how about trimming back what I listed and giving them a random number of extra attacks. Without Daemons in our army any more, why not let what daemonic units are still around really shine?

I never said to get rid of them, only that they're deliberately worse than Chosen so as not to steal focus from Chosen Vets.

I said Possessed were over-nerfed, and agree they should be better. It's also why I said they should be available as Troops.

Instead of being a unit type "Possessed" really should have been a special rule. They should have made it work sort of like how greater daemon possession worked in the 3.5 codex, except instead of the daemon popping out and completely splattering your champion, you get a bunch of buffs (and possibly debuffs) that give you USRs and/or statline changes. In fact maybe you could even get to choose the type of possessing daemon (selected and purchased during list construction) and the effects (and pts cost) would be dependent on your choice. Your guy starts the game with his normal abilities and statline, but each turn you roll to see whether the daemon takes over (you can choose to resist or welcome the possession giving +1/-1 to the roll). So while there is still an element of randomness at play, it's not in the choice of abilities but in timing of their manifestation. After the daemon takes over, maybe you have to take mastery tests to control him or else run the risk of the possessing daemon going bonkers and maybe offing some of your own guys. If you want to make it really interesting, make is so that the more powerful the possessing daemon the more difficult the mastery test. The "Possessed" special rule could be purchased as an upgrade for Chosen, Aspiring Champions, and Chaos Lords.

Of course now that they have a plastic Possessed box set to sell, this approach is probably out of the question, though I guess you maybe could still have an actual "Possessed" unit, and just call the special rule "Daemonic Possession" so that people don't get confused. Possessed have the Daemonic Possession special rule as standard. Maybe they get to start the game with the daemons already manifest without having to roll.

I thought you were referring to their fluff-wise position. On that, I'd say chaos will keep growing until it dwarfs the imperium. Chaos is temptation incarnate,and people can't resist that.

I'll get to your actual question later ^.^

Given that Possessed have a box set, players should be able to buy:
- Flight / Scout / Rhino,
- Champion upgrades
- Icon

Fleet, Daemonic 5++ and Fearless should all be included.

Then roll a d3 before deployment for FNP / Furious / Rending.

Something like that. Unit becomes inherently good, fighty, and clearly usable.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:Chosen should be more like Wolf Guard. They should be one of the most customizable units in the game. Not the crap we have currently.

During the Great Crusade I fought beside Horus, and the False Emperor before he turned against us. On Istvaan III I cut down my erstwhile brothers for their lack of vision. On Istvaan V I massacred the loyalist dogs as they fought to last man, cut off from all resupply, all reinforcement, and all hope. And on Terra I watched as Angron stormed the breach in the walls of the Imperial Palace to bathe in the blood of his foes. I am a veteran of 10,000 years of war and death on worlds of unspeakable nightmare. As a result I can infiltrate and use a meltagun.

No.

HAhaHa,this made me laugh so hard.

Yeah,chosen are trash. They should be similar to the SM Command Squads. They need to be highly specified veterans that have good options and decent skills.

'Chaos Artificier Armor' would be cool too (as in,a daemon of your favorite god posesses your power armor,giving a respective bonus and a 2+ armor save) so that CSM could compare well to today's abundance of 2+ saves. I won't hold my breath though!

Some sort of S4 AP5 Assault2 weapon would be nice.Call it a chaos bolter or something,just give us them.

Thousand Sons need their own section of the codex. They are simply too diverse and can be elaborated greatly, they deserve better than what they have. McNeill left them relatively open ended,so making them more complicated shouldn't be too hard.

Daemon Primarchs for Apoc Games would be awesome, but I could see dudes like Mortarion being about 700 points,easily.

We need some sort of tank bonus system,ie:
Khorne- Gains assault vehicle rule,if it already has it,the models disembarking gain +1 attack -----50 pts.
Slaanesh-Assaults with the vehicle always hit front armor value -------55 pts
Nurgle- Enemy models within 3 inches of the vehicle must make a pinning test and a morale check -----75 pts
Tzeentch- Feel no pain for tanks;after the outcome on the chart has been rolled,roll a D6. If you roll a 4+,the result is ignored --90 pts



Raptors need to be able to take bolters. If you can take a meltagun,you can carry a bolter.

Chaos Dreadnoughts need to have the option to lose "crazed" for 30 points

Chaos Dreadnoughts need a "venerable" class,maybe in the form of a chosen chaos dreadnought,or a Dreadnought Psyker.

Well anyway,those are my thoughts,in no particular order

One of the things chaos could use is some sort of chaplain/icon/HQ ability to make a unit fearless. This would give players more options when deciding on a retinue/HQ escort.

Samus_aran115 wrote:...
Yeah,chosen are trash. They should be similar to the SM Command Squads. They need to be highly specified veterans that have good options and decent skills.

'Chaos Artificier Armor' would be cool too (as in,a daemon of your favorite god posesses your power armor,giving a respective bonus and a 2+ armor save) so that CSM could compare well to today's abundance of 2+ saves. I won't hold my breath though!

Some sort of S4 AP5 Assault2 weapon would be nice.Call it a chaos bolter or something,just give us them.

I think almost anything could be done to improve them. As they are, pretty much they're the troop CSM with a few more options and the ability to take more special weapons.

Storm bolters, is that what you're looking for?

Samus_aran115 wrote:
Thousand Sons need their own section of the codex. They are simply too diverse and can be elaborated greatly, they deserve better than what they have. McNeill left them relatively open ended,so making them more complicated shouldn't be too hard.

The other 3 cults are more diverse. I'm not saying TS don't deserve more just that they don't get to be singled out.

Samus_aran115 wrote:
We need some sort of tank bonus system,ie:
Khorne- Gains assault vehicle rule,if it already has it,the models disembarking gain +1 attack -----50 pts.
Slaanesh-Assaults with the vehicle always hit front armor value -------55 pts
Nurgle- Enemy models within 3 inches of the vehicle must make a pinning test and a morale check -----75 pts
Tzeentch- Feel no pain for tanks;after the outcome on the chart has been rolled,roll a D6. If you roll a 4+,the result is ignored --90 pts

Now it just sounds like you're trying to recreate the 4th edition codex. The codex doesn't need to be every single unit with 4 different special variations.

Samus_aran115 wrote:
Raptors need to be able to take bolters. If you can take a meltagun,you can carry a bolter.

They need more than that. They should be more than just generic jump troops. I hate drowning codices in special rules but they need to have something more.

Samus_aran115 wrote:
Chaos Dreadnoughts need to have the option to lose "crazed" for 30 points

Chaos Dreadnoughts need a "venerable" class,maybe in the form of a chosen chaos dreadnought,or a Dreadnought Psyker.

Well maybe they can be the same thing, where the "venerable" version loses the "crazed". I don't think chosen or venerable is really appropriate naming conventions. Dreadnoughts are used as a punishment by the CSM. So embracing the fact that they're more criminal or twisted than what normal CSM can accept; like where they were crazy before they went in, so it didn't mess them up any more.

Psyker dreadnoughts, I really don't know when GW changed the fluff... dreadnoughts were suppose to be so old, that the entombed marine was in a state of diminished capacity. Distant and disconnected. I'm not sure how that necessarily translates to the marine librarian/sorcerer being able to maintain mastery of the warp. I don't think these guys if they existed for chaos, would exist outside of a Thousand Sons option.

It is depressing how badly they raped Chaos for being overpowered, and now we live in a Sternguard/Vanguard/Thunderfire/Fast Everything/Thunderwolves ACTUALLY improve T/ Everything's Fleet/Twinlink X/ Flying Psyker Dred/ Mansizedmonstrouspsykerdeathcreature/ Deepstriking LR's right next to your AA autocannon mounts/ eleventy seven dreds/ relentless and furious charge/ 50 pt FNP and FC radius nonsense. I think a "hey, we made a mistake, use the old codex, but it is 0-1 of this, and you can't take this one thing with this other" update would be nice. I miss my khornate chainaxes and some veteran skills :( I still remember going through the codex like 4 times trying to find how I at least gave marks to my daemons.

The most galling thing about Chosen is that the Chosen Champion has no options for himself (unlike every other Champion). He just counts towards the number of people in the squad as a whole who can take special wargear. All you pay for with the Chosen Champ is +1A.

Lame (like most of that accursed 'Codex').

I think dreads need crazed removed because at the moment, a chaos dread with no right arm costs 90 points and a non crazy SM dread with an assault cannon is 105. What is that, a crazy dreadnaught with no assault cannon is worth a 15 points discount? The assault cannon alone is probably worth 15 points...

Seriously the next chaos book needs to be actually properly play tested on the table instead of rules being randomly written. More work should be spent on carving out a gameplay niche for chaos like the other specialised MEQ armies (DA, BA, BT, SW)

Also I would like to add that Chaos terminators should be able to achieve a 3++ armour save in the next book.

candy.man wrote:Seriously the next chaos book needs to be actually properly play tested on the table instead of rules being randomly written.

More work should be spent on carving out a gameplay niche for chaos like the other specialised MEQ armies (DA, BA, BT, SW)

Um, if you actually look at what GW considered core (CSM, Cult Marines, Defilers, Oblits), those units are very fair. The stuff that GW recognizes as non-core (Dreads, Possessed, Spawn) are deliberately overcosted. And along that spectrum are intermediate things like generic Daemons, Rhinos and Raptors. From a pure balance standpoint, GW did a very good job with the current CSM book.

Niche-wise, GW carved out CSM & Cult Marines - basically massed Specialist Veterans, if you will. Again, measured in terms of GW's internal design and balance goals, it's probably a pretty solid success.

In many ways, CSM are like Jervis' Epic 40k - very smooth, very clean, but fan-unfriendly to those who feel they need a lot of chrome.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Um, if you actually look at what GW considered core (CSM, Cult Marines, Defilers, Oblits), those units are very fair. The stuff that GW recognizes as non-core (Dreads, Possessed, Spawn) are deliberately overcosted. And along that spectrum are intermediate things like generic Daemons, Rhinos and Raptors. From a pure balance standpoint, GW did a very good job with the current CSM book.

Niche-wise, GW carved out CSM & Cult Marines - basically massed Specialist Veterans, if you will. Again, measured in terms of GW's internal design and balance goals, it's probably a pretty solid success.

In many ways, CSM are like Jervis' Epic 40k - very smooth, very clean, but fan-unfriendly to those who feel they need a lot of chrome.

Nice post but I respectfully disagree. One of the major flaws of the book is that they over analysed chaos' niche being cult troop spam and compared to what chaos gains versus what they loses in comparison to Codex Vanilla Marines, they come out short in terms of unit choice and point costs. They removed a large amount of upgrades and unit choices when counter balancing cult troops that the book is like a dry piece of bread with no condiments (can only be eaten one way, plain). All the upgrades they retain in the book are grossly over coasted as well but a small factor of this can also be attributed to codex creep.

The major flaw with Chaos is direction. It’s like they didn't know what direction to take, so they went with a quick and plain generic option and processed the book as quick as possible. When reading the book, you can see some areas with potential, but are grossly over coasted or gimped rule wise to be properly used, even when selecting a non optimised list. Most of these sorts of design flaws could have been caught with some more play testing.

All in all, the book might be remotely balanced but it grossly lacks direction and basic principles of interaction design. I suggest GW use some follow some interaction design principles when working on the next chaos project.

@candy.man: That's a fine counterpoint, but it misses the mark. C: CSM almost certainly meets all of the design goals it was supposed to. The fact that it fails to meet many veteran's wishes is completely beside the point.

Get over it.



BTW, if / when GW ever gets around to splitting Cult Legions off, at that point, CSM will have their direction back.

@JohnHwangDD
But the thing is that GW's design goals for what they intend Chaos to be is different from what the players expect. What if those goals are misguided? What if those goals were poorly planned or lacked research, player base testing and balance comparisons? Fulfilling goals does not necessarily mean the book completely fulfils its main objective. This is what planning and interaction design is all about. What Jervis or Gav Thorpe perceives may not be what the consumer wants.

Now this isn't coming from a person who is sitting in a crazy 3.5 dex cocoon but some who likes change and expects variety. Subjectively if you look at the dex compared to other books, there is so much creativity, strategy and variety missing. Creativity, strategy and variety are essentially the main factors of the 40k hobby. If we wanted a bland and plain hobby, we may as well play chess.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Also saying "get over it" isn't constructive to a discussion.

Off on another tangent i just realized: Is Chaos legions and warbands spend so much time in the warp or within warpstorms why don't they have any psy defences? You think they (if not only 1k sons) have some ability to null the enemies psi powers or prehaps force a perils test on them; at LEAST i think CSM should have a great resilience to anti psi defences if they are unable to negate any. Maybe they get to re roll things that negate thier powers like a psi hood or Runes of witnessing? Better yet they should be able to re roll their psi tests

JohnHwangDD wrote:The stuff that GW recognizes as non-core (Dreads, Possessed, Spawn) are deliberately overcosted.

...

From a pure balance standpoint, GW did a very good job with the current CSM book.

Say wha??? Is this some kind of bizarro proof by contradiction? Second statement does not follow from the first. Overcosted? And balanced? I don't think that word means what you think it means. I mean, I don't know if you realize this, but if something is overcosted then, it, you know, COSTS TOO MANY POINTS, BY DEFINITION(!), AND THUS IS NOT BALANCED.

JohnHwangDD wrote:C: CSM almost certainly meets all of the design goals it was supposed to.

Well yes, if it's design goal was to suck then mission accomplished.

candy.man wrote:@JohnHwangDD
But the thing is that GW's design goals for what they intend Chaos to be is different from what the players expect. What if those goals are misguided?

What if those goals were poorly planned or lacked research, player base testing and balance comparisons?

What Jervis or Gav Thorpe perceives may not be what the consumer wants.

Now this isn't coming from a person who is sitting in a crazy 3.5 dex cocoon but some who likes change and expects variety.

Subjectively if you look at the dex compared to other books, there is so much creativity, strategy and variety missing.

Of course it is different - GW's primary goal designed to sell models, not to cater to veterans wanting more power without spending more money. When a Codex is as broken as 3.5 was, anybody who didn't see the nerf sledgehammer coming a mile away was blind and deaf.

Given that Chaos allows for a variety of competitive armies and builds, I don't fault GW here. A lack of player imagination and creativity isn't GW's fault.

If that really is true, then Chaos sales would be vastly worse, but that probably isn't the case. For each non-buying moaning veteran, I'm sure GW gained 2 newbies who dropped big cash.

Chrome isn't creativity, strategy or variety. Really, the point is that there are multiple kinds of players, and some of us utterly despise chrome. For us, Jervis really is the god of game design, and the streamlined 3.0 and current Chaos books are vastly preferable to "kiddie" books like the 3.5 book. Of course, deep down inside, we'd be even happier going back to the BBB Rulebook lists, but that ship sailed a decade ago...

Get rid of huron blackheart. He sucks. The red corsairs are meh.

IronfrontAlex wrote:Off on another tangent i just realized: Is Chaos legions and warbands spend so much time in the warp or within warpstorms why don't they have any psy defences?

I think its that chaos embraces the twisted effects that the warp exerts on them as the will of chaos. Does it translate to them having resistance or defense? I dunno, but you can justify all that either way.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The stuff that GW recognizes as non-core (Dreads, Possessed, Spawn) are deliberately overcosted.
...
From a pure balance standpoint, GW did a very good job with the current CSM book.

Say wha??? Is this some kind of bizarro proof by contradiction? Second statement does not follow from the first. Overcosted? And balanced? I don't think that word means what you think it means. I mean, I don't know if you realize this, but if something is overcosted then, it, you know, COSTS TOO MANY POINTS, BY DEFINITION(!), AND THUS IS NOT BALANCED.

After many discussions with John, I think I know where he's coming from, even if I don't 100% agree with the perspective. Its all to do with how they GW balances the costs. Such that if Chaos gets relatively cheaper than standard veteran elite cults as Troop choices, then the other units in the army are over-costed to balance it out. I think space wolves is a good example, where their troops are probably cheaper than they should be, but its because their special characters are so pricey.

I think GW throws a dart at a board to establish point costs.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Get rid of huron blackheart. He sucks. The red corsairs are meh.

I think they should be reworked, because I think the idea of giving a focused representation of more recent loyalist going rogue is a worth while aspect of chaos to be represented. He does for chaos what the special characters in other codices representing 2nd 3rd 4th etc founding chapters do for their codex. They show the evolution of the faction. The ranks of the Space Marines have grown, or been maintained in the least, through the founding of new chapters. Chaos relies on the eventuality of loyalists falling from grace.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Get rid of huron blackheart. He sucks. The red corsairs are meh.

I think they should be reworked, because I think the idea of giving a focused representation of more recent loyalist going rogue is a worth while aspect of chaos to be represented. He does for chaos what the special characters in other codices representing 2nd 3rd 4th etc founding chapters do for their codex. They show the evolution of the faction. The ranks of the Space Marines have grown, or been maintained in the least, through the founding of new chapters. Chaos relies on the eventuality of loyalists falling from grace.

aka_mythos wrote:After many discussions with John, I think I know where he's coming from, even if I don't 100% agree with the perspective. Its all to do with how they GW balances the costs. Such that if Chaos gets relatively cheaper than standard veteran elite cults as Troop choices, then the other units in the army are over-costed to balance it out. I think space wolves is a good example, where their troops are probably cheaper than they should be, but its because their special characters are so pricey.

Well I suppose that could be balanced if the player was forced to take the overcosted stuff in additon to the undercosted stuff, but then again, if the player had no choice in the matter then that would pretty much eliminate the reason for having points costs in the first place. But that's all beside the point - the player does have a choice in what he takes, so if you make stuff deliberately overcosted then that just means no one will take it (unless they feel like putting themselves at a disadvantage).

I guess there's 2 ways of looking at the points system.

1. Point values are a measurement of an choice's effectiveness. The goal is to have equal points of one choice be as effective as equal points of another choice, to the extent that this is possible. Thus, all else being equal, two players fielding forces of equal points should have a fair match.

2. Point values are a system of reward and punishment. They provide a way for the game designer to reward players for taking choices he deems to be "good" and to punish players for taking choices he deems to be "bad". Thus if two players field forces of equal points they may or may not have a fair match depending on their relative aptitudes at figuring out which choices the designer was trying to get them to field, and ultimately, having done that, how willing they were to field those choices.

I don't see how method 2 qualifies as good game design. But more to the point, I don't see how method 2 can result in a balanced game.

Like suppose I am a Type 2 designer and my "design goal" is to emphasize Plague Marines (because I think they are awesomesauce) while de-emphasizing Thousand Sons (because I am a big fan of Space Wolves). So I go ahead and make Plague Marines cost, hmm... how many points should they cost? Like 1 pt each? Yeah, let's make them 1 pt each. And let's make Thousand Sons cost, like, oh I know... 1000 pts each. Get it? They cost 1000 points because they are Thousand Sons! Can you say fluffy? I know I can! Because the other purpose of points costs is to like, you know, make the list fluffier and stuff cuz dat iz da design goal! Ok, so now it's time to write some fluff for our codex. Hmm... oh I know! Like maybe this one time Typhus and his Plague Marines had a warbandz with Huron Blackheart and the Red Corsairs and they were fighting Necrons until the Tyranids showed up so they decided to make friends with the Necrons in order to fight the Tyranids and then... oh, look at the time! 3:00 already? Ok, time to start packin' it up. So what did agree on today? Oh yeah, 1 pt Plague Marines and 1000 pt Thousand Sons.

Is balance? No. Demorez.

aka_mythos wrote:After many discussions with John, I think I know where he's coming from, even if I don't 100% agree with the perspective. Its all to do with how they GW balances the costs. Such that if Chaos gets relatively cheaper than standard veteran elite cults as Troop choices, then the other units in the army are over-costed to balance it out. I think space wolves is a good example, where their troops are probably cheaper than they should be, but its because their special characters are so pricey.

I think GW throws a dart at a board to establish point costs.

That's pretty much right, tho I think GW has a bit more nuance. As I see it, GW does something like this:
1. rigorously point-balance and playtest core army list elements for competitive effectiveness
2. assign additional cost to non-core / variant list elements depending on how non-thematic they are
This allows GW to have their cake and eat it too, by keeping the most competitive army builds in check, while expanding the army scope to allow players to field other armies and units for variant theme reasons. Points costing blends theme with effectiveness for balance within and across Codices.

For those who think that everything should be equally effective, I have to ask whether you want any army to be particularly good at anything compared to other armies. There's a reason why BA AM are clearly more effective to any other JP MEQs, while SMs have the best Tacs. And the flip side of that is that BA Tacs are poor, while SM AM are bad. It's how GW differentiates armies in 4E & 5E, rather than keeping armies bland because they all have the same stuff in different colors (2E & 3E).

JohnHwangDD wrote:Chaos Traitors (Traitor Guard, Tanks, Cultists & Mutants; markable S3 T3 Daemons; Markable CSM as HQ only)

I think that would be quite awesome, although I can see making CSM available as Elites. Basically, bring back LoD!

JohnHwangDD wrote:For those who think that everything should be equally effective, I have to ask whether you want any army to be particularly good at anything compared to other armies. There's a reason why BA AM are clearly more effective to any other JP MEQs, while SMs have the best Tacs. And the flip side of that is that BA Tacs are poor, while SM AM are bad. It's how GW differentiates armies in 4E & 5E, rather than keeping armies bland because they all have the same stuff in different colors (2E & 3E).

That's exactly the wrong way to do it. If you want BA to take more assault marines than vanilla SM then the way to do that is to simply let them take more assault marines than vanilla SM (through alterations to the FOC for example). If you want them to have better assault marines than vanilla SM then give them additional rules and upgrades (which they should pay pts for). Simply dropping the pts cost for an otherwise identical unit is exactly what NOT to do. If I spend 100 pts on something I should get 100 pts of effectiveness out of it and not be penalized because some designer doesn't think it's thematic. If I'm not supposed to take something then either restrict it or take it out of the list. Making stuff deliberately overpriced just clutters the list up with useless filler which serves only to take up space and give daft players enough rope to hang themselves.

Too bad, because Jervis and I both disagree with you, and of the three of us mentioned, the only one who matters is Jervis.

Traitor guard are an okay idea....Or not.

I'd assume the weak moral integrity of the IG would make cultists even worse than regular IG,and most likely less spammy. The Marines are already completely efficient, brutal killing machines with a mastery of weapons beyond that of any of the Imperial Guard. To be as efficient as regular IG would require them to have thousands of factories that make ammunitions,tanks,supplies and armor. The Imperium has these things,which makes the Guard effective.

Cultists and Traitor Guard lack the very things that make the imperial guard good. I doubt they would even have any advanced vehicles (like valkyries or baneblades,which are pretty rare). Tanks are the major boom-boom force for the imperial guard,and marines are too messy,they wouldn't be able to salvage them afterwards.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Traitor guard are an okay idea....Or not.

I'd assume the weak moral integrity of the IG would make cultists even worse than regular IG,and most likely less spammy. The Marines are already completely efficient, brutal killing machines with a mastery of weapons beyond that of any of the Imperial Guard. To be as efficient as regular IG would require them to have thousands of factories that make ammunitions,tanks,supplies and armor. The Imperium has these things,which makes the Guard effective.

Cultists and Traitor Guard lack the very things that make the imperial guard good. I doubt they would even have any advanced vehicles (like valkyries or baneblades,which are pretty rare). Tanks are the major boom-boom force for the imperial guard,and marines are too messy,they wouldn't be able to salvage them afterwards.

What about mutants? Slaves/zombies?

Deamon Engines? There are Dark admechs that went with horus you know!

maybe lesser deamons also, and maybe only for trator guard icons affecting vehicles
ICG: +1 AV or +1 BS
MON: Extra armor or +1 AV
MOT: 4+cover or +1BS
MOS: Vox casters or a Negative LD sound thing/sonic weapons
MOK: dozer bladde/Deffrolla thing


myabe more dangerous but unstable psykers as well?

Witch covens or something like that would be a cool sorta unit, and having a unit like it floating around just add to rationale of Witchhunter and SoB on the battlefield.

I think when it comes to a hypothetical Traitor/Renegade/Chaos mortal book it would be best to think of it as going beyond just traitor guardsmen. Traitor guardsmen would be a strong part of it, but if the book doesn't go beyond that the book will have all the same problems as CSM. That makes units like mutants and the similar fringe elements of humanity important in defining a codices character.

Traitor Guard form the core of any Traitor world force, supplemented by Cultists (which got the thing started), Daemons (summoned) and Mutants (from excesses).

But every world has Guard, and in the SM fluff, they're easily turned.

Covens and such are just a flavor of Cultist, perhaps an Elite version.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Traitor Guard form the core of any Traitor world force, supplemented by Cultists (which got the thing started), Daemons (summoned) and Mutants (from excesses).

But every world has Guard, and in the SM fluff, they're easily turned.

Covens and such are just a flavor of Cultist, perhaps an Elite version.

I like the coven as elites idea, maybe in a new CSM codex it could have supplkements for IG for a traitor guard thing? I also think dumming down CSM superheavies like thesilver tower would be kind of cool for traitorguard or more deamonic engines that aren't a defiler variant.

I'm sure that mutants are a very large part of the 40k universe. The ordo hereticus would have no reason to exist if they were'nt a problem.

It would make sense to include them in the Lost and the damned.

To sum it up, the lost and the damned should be the general enemies of the imperium corrupted by either malevolent forces, persecution by the imperium or chaos. It could easily become a viable army,as you would have a variety of options to choose from. It could consist of:
Fallen Angels
Mutants
Witches
Traitor Guardsmen
Mercenaries of various galactic-crime syndicates
Pirates (not DE or chaos space marine)

And really whatever enemies of the imperium GW could come up with. Even something like solitary eldar or rouge techpriests (not working for traitor guard) could fit in it. I could easily see people doing conversions for models, as you don't need too much to make traitor guardsmen or mutants. GW would make easy money off of this if they don't have to make too many models.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Too bad, because Jervis and I both disagree with you, and of the three of us mentioned, the only one who matters is Jervis.

And that's why we have a codex with Lash Princes and Chaos Spawn. Yeah, real balanced.

But back on topic, I don't think the focus of LatD should be traitor guard. I don't think traitor guard regiments typically last very long before they are either destroyed by imperial reprisals or subsumed into the hordes of cultists, mutants, slaves, and other unfortunates that serve under the traitor legions. When it comes to the forces of Chaos, the CSMs (and the Dark Mechanicus to a lesser extent) really do call all the shots, a holdover from the Great Crusade in which the Imperial Army was subordinate to the primarchs and their legions; this is in direct contrast to the Imperium in which the IG and Imperial Navy ultimately fall under the command of civilian authorities, independent of the SM. So, given that the probability of a Codex: Lost and the Damned ever seeing the light of day is practically zero, I don't it would too heinous a crime to represent them as entries in the CSM and Chaos Daemons lists. Just include a cultist unit as a troops choice in each list. Make them highly customizable with options to give them mutations, icons, and more advanced weaponry (to reflect PDF or traitor guard units). In the CSM list they could serve as cannon fodder and in the Daemon list they would provide icons for the daemons to summon off of. If the max unit size was large enough you could have the ability to field a real Chaos horde without needing a dedicated LatD list. Sure, it would be nice to have a dedicated LatD codex and I think that such a codex would have a lot of potential for interesting content, but if that's not practical cultist entries in the 2 Chaos codices (with an accompanying plastic cultist box set) would be a good compromise.

Now as for traitor guard, I view them more as a transitional form halfway between IG and cultist horde, and from a design perspective I don't think the focus of the core lists should be on "halfway" armies. If you really want to represent a traitor guard regiment which has just recently turned to Chaos and has yet to be crushed by the Imperium, swallowed up by a Chaos legion, or become the plaything of daemons, then I think the IG codex (with perhaps the aid of an Apocalypse datasheet) would be a more suitable fit. This is one of my problems with the current CSM codex's focus on "renegades" rather than the Chaos legions. "Renegade" SM chapters really should be halfway between a loyalist chapter and a traitor legion. The reason why the CSM list has equipment like combi-bolters and autocannons rather than storm bolters and plasma cannons is because such equipment is what was in use during the Heresy. It makes no sense for a chapter like the Red Corsairs to be outfitted like a Heresy-era legion, but that's what we get because the current Chaos codex is a confused mess that doesn't know what it's trying to be. If you're going to have a CSM codex that focuses on "renegade" SM chapters rather than traitor legions then there's no reason why it shouldn't include things like TH/SS terminators and attack bikes. Of course that's precisely the reason why the design direction of the current CSM codex is all wrong. The focus should be on the traitor legions rather than on renegade chapters because they are the furthest from the loyalist chapters.

So if I had my way the CSM would focus on the traitor legions (with cultist support). If you take Huron Blackheart then you can swap your combi-bolters for storm bolters and can upgrade your autocannons for plasma cannons.

Ha,I like that last sentence a lot. Even better, make Cultists part of the FoC, where you can take a certain number of cultist (or traitor guard, I use them interchangeably) units in addition to your standard CSM FOC. Making them a troops choice makes it compete with the marines,which isn't what we need.

I like this idea,let me clarify:
A section in the Foc, called "cultists"
In the section "cultists" it has several unit types to choose from. There could be 'cadian' equivalents, chimeras, leman russes,ogryns or whatever else GW deems appropriate for the cultists.

You can take a number of units from the "cultists" section equal to your CSM's army size divided by 500. For instance, a three thousand point army can have up to 6 units from the cultist section, while a 1500 point army can have three.

Either that,or you just have three,regardless of army size (like heavy support).

I don't know exactly how they would do it, but I think this could work if they tweeked it so that you couldn't spam Cultists without spamming CSM too.

Well, the current IG codex does allow you to represent a Traitor army, you just need to do a lot of converting/painting and counts-as.

Traitors? Platoon infantry squads.
Cultists? Penal legionnaires, conscripts.
Mutants? Ogryns, rough riders.
Witches? Psyker Battle Squads.
CSM? Allied GK (with appropriate uber stats for 10,000-year-old killing machines).

The only thing really missing are daemons (unless you convert your rough riders to be daemons).

Whilst I agree that the Nerfdom of the current Chaos Space marines Codex is a tad overdone. I'm just happy I don't have to deal with some of the cheesy lists I used to have to. Whilst base troops I think are okay. Definitely things need to be spiced up/rethought for elites, fast attack and Heavy support. If it could reflect the fact that the Chaos Legions organization/traditions come from a time of the Imperium that few living beings can remember ( subjectively if at all ) it would help give the codex its direction back. In the time since they rebelled the Imperium changed a lot. Especially the Loyalist chapters. This divergence in development as mentioned needs to be reflected in the army. And go a long way to making them have more of the sense about them of an ancient evil reminder of the Imperiums darkest times.

The current C:CSM may indeed be balanced. But it's boring. I don't know whether that is reflected in sales--probably not given that, thanks to the internet cheese-list-production line (see, the truth really does hurt sometimes), boring is the name of the game for some people. CSM have been fighting without being a part of the Imperium for 10,000 years. The fluff makes it clear that they're running low on material and what they do have has been scavenged a hundred times over. Additionally, they constantly rely on traitor guardsmen and/or daemons. Seems to me that calls for a new LotD could be justified if it could be re-worked into a C:CSM5th. The chief obstacle is keeping CSM front and center rather than producing a C:Traitor Guard or merely duping things out of C:CD.

Samus_aran115 wrote:I'm sure that mutants are a very large part of the 40k universe. The ordo hereticus would have no reason to exist if they were'nt a problem.

It would make sense to include them in the Lost and the damned.

To sum it up, the lost and the damned should be the general enemies of the imperium corrupted by either malevolent forces, persecution by the imperium or chaos. It could easily become a viable army,as you would have a variety of options to choose from. It could consist of:
Fallen Angels
Mutants
Witches
Traitor Guardsmen
Mercenaries of various galactic-crime syndicates
Pirates (not DE or chaos space marine)

And really whatever enemies of the imperium GW could come up with. Even something like solitary eldar or rouge techpriests (not working for traitor guard) could fit in it. I could easily see people doing conversions for models, as you don't need too much to make traitor guardsmen or mutants. GW would make easy money off of this if they don't have to make too many models.

I don't think Fallen Angels would necessarily be a generic unit. If they were in a codex like LatD I imagine they'd be treated in a similar way as Legion of the Damned in the SM; a "special character"-ish unit. Existing in the list but a bit distanced.

Other than that I think you have a good basis for the types of units that'd be present. I think the greatest difficulty with LatD will always be distancing it from IG without diminishing its viability. Its also important to remember the blood pact which were added as a elite veteran/storm trooper mixed up unit through White Dwarf. Veterans with carapce, though I imagine they'd get a mix of special rule/missions between the two IG units but with a chaos possibly god specific slant.

I imagine most of the IG tank variants would be gone, leaving only the most basic. Hellhound, Basilisk, Griffon, Leman Russ BT, and Leman Russ Exterminator. Spawn as fast attack. Generic daemons. Things like stalk tanks in addition to or in place of sentinels as well as defilers would be ways to bring more chaos in.

In the LatD list they allowed allied CSM, a LatD list would probably put them in as an Elite choice using basic CSM rules and a HQ choice for chosen. It'd represent those CSM that have to drastically rely on traitors to have a viable army.

Omegus wrote:Well, the current IG codex does allow you to represent a Traitor army, you just need to do a lot of converting/painting and counts-as.

Traitors? Platoon infantry squads.
Cultists? Penal legionnaires, conscripts.
Mutants? Ogryns, rough riders.
Witches? Psyker Battle Squads.
CSM? Allied GK (with appropriate uber stats for 10,000-year-old killing machines).

The only thing really missing are daemons (unless you convert your rough riders to be daemons).

Their is a difference between calling your army a traitor army and having actual rules for a traitor army. Many people want to see the latter and do the first as their last resort for having built an army that GW decided not to support beyond a campaign. The LatD had mutants and big mutants. Big mutants were ogryn stats. Mutants conscripts, but there were differences.

In actual LatD or Chaos Mortals style book, there would be many more chaos driven rules in a true traitor list. Such as Witches suffering a perils of the warp, have a chance of becoming spawn instead of the usual. Mutants and/or big mutants would probably have some rules that are a cross between penal legion and possessed CSM.

Despite the insistence of using the most graced marines to represent the Renegades marines, is just silly. Whether they're Alpha Legion or SM renegades recently turned chaos, they're not going to be on the same level as GK. Besides IG are inevitably going to lose that option when GK get redone, so then what?

Manchu wrote:The current C:CSM may indeed be balanced. But it's boring. I don't know whether that is reflected in sales--probably not given that, thanks to the internet cheese-list-production line (see, the truth really does hurt sometimes), boring is the name of the game for some people. CSM have been fighting without being a part of the Imperium for 10,000 years. The fluff makes it clear that they're running low on material and what they do have has been scavenged a hundred times over. Additionally, they constantly rely on traitor guardsmen and/or daemons. Seems to me that calls for a new LotD could be justified if it could be re-worked into a C:CSM5th. The chief obstacle is keeping CSM front and center rather than producing a C:Traitor Guard or merely duping things out of C:CD.

I think in many ways that running low on supplies should be one of the strongest defining aspect of the different CSM legions. Each legion and renegade group has compensated for that lack of supplies and reinforcements in different ways. To bolster their numbers Word Bearers turned to supplementing themselves with lots of daemons; Alpha Legion with cultist.; Black Legion with an open door policy letting others kinda joing up with them; Fabius Bile runs around creating pseudo marines; I'm sure thousand sons work their magic to bring back their rubric marines; Nurgle spreads its plague; slaanesh more than others probably takes a more pro-active attempt at temptation; Night Lords and Red Corsairs go raiding; Iron Warriors with the Dark Mechanicum creating obliterators... so I mean those different methods of maintaining fighting strength can be used as a defining nature of each. In the same way daemon engine represent the CSM's attempts to overcome the technological shortfalls of not being in the imperium, utilizing the daemonic resources they do have.

@aka_mythos: I agree very much--so doesn't the current C:CSm seem more like "Codex: Black Legion" to you?

Yeah... and about 4-5 paragraphs short of Codex: Chaos Undivided. With very little more it could cover all of undivided CSM and that would make the difference for me to appreciate it alot more. This codex really should have as much potential for variety as Codex SM, but really only covers that one flavor. Its kinda if GW had done Codex SM with only the Ultramarine characters. Yeah, C:CSM has cult special characters but they don't do anything for the army.

Lexx wrote:Whilst I agree that the Nerfdom of the current Chaos Space marines Codex is a tad overdone. I'm just happy I don't have to deal with some of the cheesy lists I used to have to.

The current 'Chaos' Codex wasn't nerfed compared to the previous one, it just had all the flavour removed. It's just as unbalanced and and full of abusive combos as any other Codex (why do you think Lash/Oblit/Plague Marine armies are so popular), it just lost all the character, charm and - yes - fun of the previous one.

aka_mythos wrote:Yeah... and about 4-5 paragraphs short of Codex: Chaos Undivided. With very little more it could cover all of undivided CSM and that would make the difference for me to appreciate it alot more.

Even if they had included options and/or special characters to represent the other undivided legions it still would have been a poor codex. Suppose for the moment we accept the decision to split daemons off and have the CSM codex focus entirely on CSM - and not even all CSM, but just generic Black Legion. Even at that the codex fails. Comparing it to the SM codex, the CSMs just end up looking like less elite versions of the SM who try to compensate for their deficiencies by carrying around magic icons.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:Even if they had included options and/or special characters to represent the other undivided legions it still would have been a poor codex. Suppose for the moment we accept the decision to split daemons off and have the CSM codex focus entirely on CSM - and not even all CSM, but just generic Black Legion. Even at that the codex fails. Comparing it to the SM codex, the CSMs just end up looking like less elite versions of the SM who try to compensate for their deficiencies by carrying around magic icons.

Well thats a different issue than the one I was discussing. We were discussing the representation of different chaos undivided legions. To cut it more finely that aspect of the conversation on representing or not representing; your issue is on the quality of the representation.

I've addressed my opinions on the quality of the representation earlier in this thread. GW thought the previous codex was too much and I agree it was. The biggest problem was redundancy. GW could have done any number of things to reduce the excess diversity: cutting veteran skills, cutting daemons, cutting legions. Rather than doing any one of those they did them all. The quality of representing legions diminished, even if legion rules and daemons were cut Veteran skills would have been enough to approximate legions, and would have gone a long way to improve the overall quality.

In a single book Codex Daemons and Codex CSM, are about the same size as Codex SM. The problem is that Daemons on top of whats in CSM do little to improve diversity since it'd really be throwing alot of redundant units around.

The way Daemons were done in Codex CSM, was fair. They probably should have recieved the ability to take marks, but all things considered what we got was better than them getting completely removed.

As far as representing Black Legion, I don't think the Black Legion do have much more than what is in the codex. The loyalist codex's diversity comes from technological units that chaos doesn't have access to. I've personally recommended new daemon engines and cult units to fill that void. Beyond those things there isn't too much more that really should be added, given the reality of Codex Daemons.

Icon and marks I think work for chaos, though I think explanations are a bit backwards. A unit has a mark of a chaos god because their "religious" zeal has earned them faovr with their deity. Icons are used to draw a more direct attention from their respective god. The basic CSM are about as elite, they are only less elite because of their lack of formal discipline. Chaos is diverse and not all its marines are elite or veterans or 10,000 years old. The way to think of it is that any CSM that have really lasted that long are either protected by being chosen, or are devoted to a Chaos god or have being warped and possessed. Those are the elite veteran units. The abundance of the veteran units is in the form of CSM being able to take cult units as troops. So I think that aspect is pretty well covered.

Almost every major short coming of the current codex has been pointed out in this thread. From the reliance on one real army list with the limited choices of "how many obliterators?", "how many plague marines?" and "how many lash princes?" to the unreliable units (dreanought and possessed), to the lack of fast attack choices, to the point imbalance reltive to similar units in other lists.

The discussion here is what can GW do to CSM to improve it, without back tracking too heavily? There have been reccomendations for legions, for more cults, for more chaos mortals/traitors.

Manchu wrote:@aka_mythos: I agree very much--so doesn't the current C:CSm seem more like "Codex: Black Legion" to you?

Yes,but 'Codex: Space Marines' is basically 'Codex:Ultramarines', and 'Codex:Imperial Guard' is basically 'Codex: Cadians', so I think the black legion is a good choice in displaying every single unit of the army in a single legion. It doesn't make you feel obliged to make random decisions (like putting khorne berserkers in your nurgle army, or thousand sons in a raptor army) when you can just throw them all together and not really worry about it fluff-wise. That's about the only reason that the black legion exists!

All the armies you named are basically without a defining characteristic from a fluff perspective for the sake of those who don't want to worry about such things. From a game standpoint that critical, before you should start worrying about specialized groups.

Funny enough, I don't think the current book really represents Black Legion properly either as a true fluffy Black Legion army, would have some kind of elite terminator/chosen of Abbadon type unit. The current dex, from a fluff perspective, seems to better represent some kind of random unnamed chaos warband.

I was thinking it would be cool if Abbadon had some kind of logan-wing ability where terminators or something could be taken as troops. This fits in with Black legion fluff about Abby being a terminator commander.

This being said, I would like to see more FOC modifiers attached to the special characters/chaos HQs

IMO BL are more Fluff Possessed than Termies.

candy.man wrote:Funny enough, I don't think the current book really represents Black Legion properly either as a true fluffy Black Legion army, would have some kind of elite terminator/chosen of Abbadon type unit. The current dex, from a fluff perspective, seems to better represent some kind of random unnamed chaos warband.

Actually judging by the way they are presented in the new codex, Black Legion is now pretty much synonymous with "random unnamed Chaos warband". In fact, Chaos is now synonymous with "random unnamed Chaos warband" (or, "Chaos Skittles", as I like to call them). It's as if they decided that the rules were going to represent bland no-flavor vanilla warbands and then retconned the fluff so that Chaos is now almost entirely comprised of bland no-flavor vanilla warbands to the exclusion of everything else.

But come on guys who doesn't want to play random generic vanilla warband instead of the Chaos Legions with years of history and effort put into them?

Some of us like to roll our own.

But with only one type of tobacco, it seems.

The fact that games workshop has 8 imperium codexs (5 being space marine and freinds) why cant they have 3 chaos codexs: codex Legions, codex Renegades, and codex Chaos Daemons.
With codex Legions representing the 10 traitor legions
Codex Renegades representing cultists, traitor guard, mutants, and renegade space marine chapters.
and Codex Chaos Daemons representing the hordes of the ruinous powers
any one else with me *waits for standing ovation*

@LoB: the problem is that Legions still covers too much ground between Cult and unaligned.

Lord of battles wrote:The fact that games workshop has 8 imperium codexs (5 being space marine and freinds) why cant they have 3 chaos codexs: codex Legions, codex Renegades, and codex Chaos Daemons.
With codex Legions representing the 10 traitor legions
Codex Renegades representing cultists, traitor guard, mutants, and renegade space marine chapters.
and Codex Chaos Daemons representing the hordes of the ruinous powers
any one else with me *waits for standing ovation*

JohnHwangDD wrote:@LoB: the problem is that Legions still covers too much ground between Cult and unaligned.

Well here my interpretation of a legions book:

Black Legion: csm with access to squads of regular cult marines and generic daemons
World Eaters: cult troops with khornate daemons, machines, and weapons
Thousand Sons: same thing only tzeench (sp)
Death Guard: same thing only nurgle
Emperor's Children: same thing only slaannesh
Word Bearers: frenzied troops, cultists, and generic daemons
Iron Warriors: artillery, obliteraters, heavy weapons
Alpha Legion: cultists, scout, infiltration
Night Lords: fast troops, terror tactic rules (or something along those lines)
Something like that maybe

I still think the biggest problem is fitting all that in a single book. The minimum would be to split it between the big-4 cult legions and the undivided.

The big-4 just need too many specialized units to work.

We can always hope....

Simple Split

C:Chaos Space marines: Word Bearers, Night lords, Iron warriors, Alpha legion

C: Chaos Legions: 1k sons, World Eaters, Death guard, Emperors children

I think GW would have one big problem with a singule book covering the big-4 cult legions. There is no thematic cohesion, its thematic exclusion. You'd have 4 self contained armies with little or no overlap and a ton of exclussivity. Each army would really only have one way to play.

I'm fine with the idea of a book like this, I just don't think GW would be.

JohnHwangDD wrote:@LoB: the problem is that Legions still covers too much ground between Cult and unaligned.

Step 1: Codex with flavourful units, such as Veteran Marines, Possessed that aren't random, Spawn that can be taken as familiars, Lords that don't kill themselves, etc.
Step 2: One of ten armywide rules can be taken. These affect all units in the army, and restrict choices that can be made. One armywide rule allows you to use models following rules from other armywide rules, but they come with a point setback.
Step 3: Create a flavourful unique unit for each of the ten armywide rules. Each unit can only be taken by its repective armywide rule.
Step 4: Create a flavourful unique character for each of the ten armywide rules.

So on par with Blood Angels in terms of interesting new units (because there is no reason for an army trapped in the warp for millenia to be more vanillia than another chapter).

If it's too much for a single codex, release the codex with only the four main legions and their unique unit+character+armywide rule, then release PDF add-ons for the remaining legions.

aka_mythos wrote:You'd have 4 self contained armies with little or no overlap and a ton of exclussivity. Each army would really only have one way to play.

I'm fine with the idea of a book like this, I just don't think GW would be.

As I outlined earlier, you overlap the HQs, Spawn, Rhinos, Drop Pods.

I'd be perfectly happy with it, too.
____

Pika_power wrote:Step 1: Codex with flavourful units, such as Veteran Marines, Possessed that aren't random, Spawn that can be taken as familiars, Lords that don't kill themselves, etc.
Step 2: One of ten armywide rules can be taken. These affect all units in the army, and restrict choices that can be made. One armywide rule allows you to use models following rules from other armywide rules, but they come with a point setback.
Step 3: Create a flavourful unique unit for each of the ten armywide rules. Each unit can only be taken by its repective armywide rule.
Step 4: Create a flavourful unique character for each of the ten armywide rules.

That's fine if GW shrinks the core down, and rips out the crutches in the process:

Legion-unique units:
- BL get Possessed as Troops
- WE replace gLDs with Bloodletters
- EC replace gLDs with Daemonettes
- DG replace gLDs with Plaguebearers
- TS replace gLDs with Horrors
- IW replace Termies with Oblits
- AL gets Cultists
- WB gets Markable gLDs
- NL gets JP Chosen
- RC get Razorbacks

Something like this?

Yeah, that'd work.

I'd be comfortable with CSM not being able to take cult-specific daemons as long as they gain some flavor back.

I think the SM forumal works well enough to at least give soem variety. By taking character xyz, then your army gets this special rule. Kind of like how the oldcodex was. If you were iron warriors you could have 4 heavy supports, but only 1 fast attack. If you were nightlords you could have 4 fast attacks but 1 heavy support. etc.

I don't think it needs to have the infinite amount of options that book gave, but at least some strong choices that allow you to play your army differently and not be handicapped for doing so. Even if each legion just had 1 extra unit thatd be fine (tech priests for IW, cultists for AL, blood slaughterer for WE). One unit that emphasizes the direction of that legion along with a flavor rule or two.

aka_mythos wrote:I think GW would have one big problem with a singule book covering the big-4 cult legions. There is no thematic cohesion, its thematic exclusion. You'd have 4 self contained armies with little or no overlap and a ton of exclussivity. Each army would really only have one way to play.

I'm fine with the idea of a book like this, I just don't think GW would be.

Why not? They did this with Chaos Daemons - daemons from different gods fight in the same army all the time now. Sure, they had to ride roughshod over the old fluff in order to make this happen, but as we all know fluff can be changed to whatever they want it to be in order to justify how they choose to sell their models. I mean, isn't that the whole reason why all of a sudden Chaos doesn't fight as legions anymore, but rather seems to be composed almost exclusively of mixed warbands each of which apparently have a squad for every traitor legion and renegade chapter to turn since the Heresy? So if they want to sell plague marines and Thousand Sons with one codex, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't make up some (admittedly stupid) new fluff about how Death Guard and Thousand Sons have set aside their pre-heresy differences and are now frequent allies. I mean, it's not like they're Necrons and Blood Angels...

@Abby: Technically, they're not DG / TS. They're Plague Marines and Rubric Marines in a warband with multiple loyalties.

JohnHwangDD wrote:As I outlined earlier, you overlap the HQs, Spawn, Rhinos, Drop Pods.

Thats only a little overlap, but lets not forget Landraiders... I think all 4 would have them at their disposal even if they didn't always use them.

I think on some level it'd be appropriate and kinda funny if the big-4 could take basic CSM squads as a generic non-FOC troop units. Much like the standard list allows daemons to be taken. Showing their willingness to use renegade marines as fodder. I like that irony, but realize its unnecessary.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's fine if GW shrinks the core down, and rips out the crutches in the process:

Legion-unique units:
- BL get Possessed as Troops
- WE replace gLDs with Bloodletters
- EC replace gLDs with Daemonettes
- DG replace gLDs with Plaguebearers
- TS replace gLDs with Horrors
- IW replace Termies with Oblits
- AL gets Cultists
- WB gets Markable gLDs
- NL gets JP Chosen
- RC get Razorbacks

Something like this?
Yeah, that'd work.

That's pretty good.... one tiny thing. I like the idea of Cultist being available to all legions, but where the Alpha legion ones would actually count as troops and score, while for everyone else they wouldn't. Alternative to that would be to have a unit called "Mutants" that are treated like how Spawn fit into the list. I think mutants could have the cultist profile but roll on the similar table as possessed. While cultists would have more fixed abilities like infiltrating or scout.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:Why not? They did this with Chaos Daemons - daemons from different gods fight in the same army all the time now.

True. But that isn't a good codex.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:overlap the HQs, Spawn, Rhinos, Drop Pods.

Thats only a little overlap, but lets not forget Landraiders... I think all 4 would have them at their disposal even if they didn't always use them.

I think on some level it'd be appropriate and kinda funny if the big-4 could take basic CSM squads as a generic non-FOC troop units.

Doh! Landraiders would fit, too!

Non-Markable CSM? Like Eldar Guardians, even basic CSM are just inherently too valuable to serve as fodder. I understand the desire for volume, but that really challenges the very Legions concept of being uber-Cult with all-Cult CSM *and* all-Cult Daemons, supported by Cult vehicles. I see Legions as Purist and extreme.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Legion-unique units:
- BL get Possessed as Troops
- WE replace gLDs with Bloodletters
- EC replace gLDs with Daemonettes
- DG replace gLDs with Plaguebearers
- TS replace gLDs with Horrors
- IW replace Termies with Oblits
- AL gets Cultists
- WB gets Markable gLDs
- NL gets JP Chosen
- RC get Razorbacks

I like the idea of Cultist being available to all legions, but where the Alpha legion ones would actually count as troops and score, while for everyone else they wouldn't. Alternative to that would be to have a unit called "Mutants" that are treated like how Spawn fit into the list.

I think mutants could have the cultist profile but roll on the similar table as possessed. While cultists would have more fixed abilities like infiltrating or scout.

I think having broad access to Cultists (even as non-Scoring Troops) overlaps too much with Traitor Guard / LatD, in the same way previous C: CSM have had too much Daemon focus. As my base concept has standalone Daemons and Guard, CSM really should minimize it. Plus, it reinforces the uniqueness of AL.

I agree with your Cultist / Mutant differentiation, although I would prefer to keep them in the LatD book.

Wait a second here. Now why do Chaos have less technology than Space Marines? They were around before the Dark Age, and don't have any qualms about using any and all tech. If anything, they should have ancient, forbidden technology, like the Dreadclaw, or Jetbikes.

Its more the fact that Chaos marines have not had the means of maintaining and repairing the more complex technology since the Heresy.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I think having broad access to Cultists (even as non-Scoring Troops) overlaps too much with Traitor Guard / LatD, in the same way previous C: CSM have had too much Daemon focus. As my base concept has standalone Daemons and Guard, CSM really should minimize it. Plus, it reinforces the uniqueness of AL.

I agree with your Cultist / Mutant differentiation, although I would prefer to keep them in the LatD book.

I was kinda speaking on the assumption that GW might never give us a LatD codex. So just imagine the qualifier "if GW 100% for sure isn't going to give us a LatD codex."

aka_mythos wrote:Its more the fact that Chaos marines have not had the means of maintaining and repairing the more complex technology since the Heresy.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I think having broad access to Cultists (even as non-Scoring Troops) overlaps too much with Traitor Guard / LatD, in the same way previous C: CSM have had too much Daemon focus. As my base concept has standalone Daemons and Guard, CSM really should minimize it. Plus, it reinforces the uniqueness of AL.

I agree with your Cultist / Mutant differentiation, although I would prefer to keep them in the LatD book.

I was kinda speaking on the assumption that GW might never give us a LatD codex. So just imagine the qualifier "if GW 100% for sure isn't going to give us a LatD codex."

Not all legions do at least.. which is kind of BS if you think about it. The only CSM armies that should have low tech resources are renegades, custom chapters, maybe some legions.

Examples against lack of resources:
Black legion: Faildon should be able to requisition whatever he needs
1k sons: repair spells?
Alpha Legion: steal tech from loyalists
Iron Warriors: C'mon here people! they used to be the legion that could use basalisks! Iron warrior controlled worlds have to be veritable forge worlds... and did everyone forget that some admech also turned traitor during the HH?
Word Bearers: look through the fluff; not only are the word bearers the most organized and traditional of the legions but they also have 2 main bases: one in the eye where the primarch is and 1 in the maelstrom where they MANUFACTURE tech/armor/ect.

After reading this thread and giving it some thought, it seems to me that the only reasonable way forward with CSM is to follow the SM methodology and put them into five books, in spite of the problems it would cause for the codex release cycle.

Codex: World Eaters
Codex: Thousand Sons
Codex: Deathguard
Codex: Emperors Children
Codex: Chaos Space Marines

With the Black Legion being the "chosen" legion of Chaos; in the same way as the Ultramarines are the "chosen" loyalist marines.

The definition of the army would/could/should be based on the presense of special characters. For example by including Krieg Acerbus in your army, your focus is Night Lords, and raptors become a troop choice.

I think that's what would make CSMs fun again for all the fans, whether cult lovers or undivided; and would give plenty of scope for new units and things for GW to release and get their hands on our precious shinys.

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Abby: Technically, they're not DG / TS. They're Plague Marines and Rubric Marines in a warband with multiple loyalties.

I was speaking in terms of a hypothetical Chaos legions codex covering the Big Four. Yes, in the current CSM codex tehy iz warbanz.

aka_mythos wrote:I was kinda speaking on the assumption that GW might never give us a LatD codex. So just imagine the qualifier "if GW 100% for sure isn't going to give us a LatD codex."

GW will never do a LatD codex. They were never going to do a Chaos legions codex either. When they cut the Big Four down from whole armies to single unit entries it was just part of the streamlining process wherein Chaos went from being 9 types of legion to 1 type of warband. They wanted the CSM codex to be basically Codex: Black Legion and that left no room for the Big Four (or the other legions) to remain as their own armies. They refocused the fluff to de-emphasize the legions as separate fighting forces and recast them as elements in mixed warbands. Hey kids, tired of painting all your CSM black? Why not throw in a squad of Night Lords? They fight for the Black Legion too! (Buy more Citadel paints!)

Jervis made some remarks about how it would be nice to do a legions codex to give the Big Four back some of what they had lost (namely their entire armies), and some people thought this meant a legions codex was in the works, but that was all just pie-in-the-sky BS. Of course the really galling part was when they reversed course just in time for Codex: Space Marines to have options out the wazoo.

IronfrontAlex wrote:
Not all legions do at least.. which is kind of BS if you think about it. The only CSM armies that should have low tech resources are renegades, custom chapters, maybe some legions.

Examples against lack of resources:
Black legion: Faildon should be able to requisition whatever he needs
1k sons: repair spells?
Alpha Legion: steal tech from loyalists
Iron Warriors: C'mon here people! they used to be the legion that could use basalisks! Iron warrior controlled worlds have to be veritable forge worlds... and did everyone forget that some admech also turned traitor during the HH?
Word Bearers: look through the fluff; not only are the word bearers the most organized and traditional of the legions but they also have 2 main bases: one in the eye where the primarch is and 1 in the maelstrom where they MANUFACTURE tech/armor/ect.

This one reason I'm a strong advocate of of daemon engines. They fit the limited technology aspect of chaos and show why the chaos legions might not necessarily care if a stolen basilisk broke or bother building any. This is purely my interpretation, but I believe chaos doesn't use all the imperium's stuff because they don't think they need to. If you can make a Defiler, why wouldn't those same dark rituals be used to bond daemons to other things. On some level, daemons are their unique technology that they have chosen in favor of the Imperiums. I can imagine that some of the Imperium's stuff chaos would like on occaison to use but lack the STC's or the warped STC's facilities have difficulty producing that equipment.

As far as renegade looting the Imperiums equipment. I'm sure it happens a lot but the scale to which it would have to occur so that a vehicle or weapon be tossed into the CSM codex would be a bit much. Modern weapons have to be cleaned after use, I'm sure its true of the ancient 40k weapons. Chaos has every reason to have plasma cannons in their havoc squads, they don't despite there being a picture of an infantry portable one in the book.

I'll point out one last thing. Back in 2nd edition GW had rules in the Chaos Codex to cover the sort of things you want. Chaos was allowed to take any imperial vehicle or weapon not in the chaos codex for 1/3 more points. That would obviously fly in the face of how GW does things now, but its a possible solution. It was also one reason GW never bothered adding things to Chaos at that time, they just assumed anything they gave Imperium would find its way to chaos.

I don't buy the non-working tech deal. If something stops working, stick a stronger Daemon in it. Holding a tank together via psychic power works for Orks, there is no reason the same concept can't be applied to Chaos on an individual basis.

Actually, only the more complex tech is powered by the Ork gestalt psychic field. One does not need to be an Ork to use their trukks, buggies, shootaz, and so on. Though you might need it to use their choppaz. Very complex and versatile technology, there.

Pika_power wrote:I don't buy the non-working tech deal. If something stops working, stick a stronger Daemon in it. Holding a tank together via psychic power works for Orks, there is no reason the same concept can't be applied to Chaos on an individual basis.

Well we don't know how daemon engines work. If you bound a daemon to a vehicle, would you use a previously damaged one that had to welded back together or a more structurally sure one thats less likely to let the daemon break out.

I'm just giving a more logical reason for why Chaos wouldn't use imperial vehicles in a wide spread way.

Orks use their looted vehicles because they think their stuff is better. Chaos would either have a similar rational or just not have it available. The way chaos makes tech work probably varies a bit. Chaos would probably have some sense of hubris, "I don't need that pathetic loyalist wreck!"

Chaos doesn't have sophisticated supply lines unlike the imperium, if something breaks down if a particular warband has no way to fix it they'd have to abandon it. While a thousand son Sorcerer maybe able to repair a tank, not every legion has access to sorcerers and not every sorcerer would necessarily be able to. That said even for a powerful sorcerer it could be a matter of divided attention he can either focus his will on keeping that tank working or his rubric marines, not necessarily both, unless he's giving up his option of using powers in a battle. This is another reason why it could be unappealing to chaos.