I have heard here and there that Chaos got robbed in their latest codex, and while I am not a big Chaos player, nor have played against any Chaos armies lately, I was wondering why that is. Flipping thru it, they seem to have everything. Heavy hitting units, close combat troops with jump packs, lots of characters, and can have Daemons as allies for close combat madness. What else is there to ask for?

Was it because CC was tougher to do in 6th?

Has anyone dived deep enough into 7th to see how the new rules impact them?

For many of us, it can still be summed up as: no legions.

It is not the power level, it is the power balance.

Chaos is defined by it's sub-factions, possible more than any other faction in the game. It is defined by its Legions because they are the roots of the army. There are 9, there are extensive fanbases and novels for all of them, and they all have unique twists and characters.
The problem is that the Codex tries to represent all 9, plus recent turncoats, plus lab-grown warriors, plus the radical 'I only wanted to help' and just doesn't have the scope to represent all of them.
If you want a general smear of Chaos then the book works. You can have Plagues marching by Rubricae, with the Warpsmith and VotLW in tow, Where it fails is when you want to delve deeply into a single sub-faction, at which point the general smear lacks the detail to properly execute any of its sub-components.

Plague Marines bring a twist of the Death Guard, but the book doesn't have the Terminators, Chosen, Raptors or Daemon Engines that they should *also* have. We have a weird disconnect where the veterans are not Fearless, don't have poisons or Blight Grenades, don't have FNP and just don't represent the same Legion as the Plague Marines.
The same can be applied to any of the Legions.

On a more practical level, the book doesn't have a cohesive style. What should a Chaos army be good at? We have Eldar being lightning fast with psychics and firepower. We have loyalists being rapid strikes with elite infantry and special-issue wargear. We have Orks as a massed tide of inaccurate, cheap units that pack surprising power behind each blow when it connects.
But what are Chaos? They are a mishmash of melee-MEQs without any style beyond a specific unit. Are they fast? Are they shooty? They just seem like Marines, minus the toys and delivery mechanisms, with some Daemonic rules added to a handful of units. If you don't want to go down the Daemonic route, Chaos doesn't really have any unique units. Recent turncoats have nothing to distinguish themselves unless they plunge head-on into Possessed or Daemon Engines.
The book also suffers from especially high amounts of imbalance between units, with certain units being made utterly redundant by others within the army. If you want a Thousand Son warband and the one unique unit you have is utter drek, then you're out of luck.

My problem is that it tries to cover everything, badly. People aren't attracted by the mixed smear of Chaos, they identify with specific warbands and Legions and then the rules fail to cater for them.


As an aside, Legions are totally a real thing in 40k. We have several novels dealing with 'pure' warbands, we have Angron's Dominion of Fire and Armageddon, we have Codex: Black Legion and we have warbands bigger than the Imperial Fists 3rd Company, who are apparently big enough to qualify for unique rules.

There are a TON of problems with the CSM codex, starting with the fact that the Space Marines effectively have twice as much everything than Chaos is even hinted at getting.

No storm bolters. No grav guns. No storm ravens/talons (in fact, they gave us the Heldrake and when that was too good, it got its neck broke) 1k Sons cost too much. Khorne Berzerkers cost too much and die too easily. We get nothing with Sky Fire. We still scatter crazy when trying to deep strike and we don't even get Drop Pods. NO CHAPTER TACTICS/LEGION TACTICS. Most of the Marks are trash. WE DON'T EVEN GET THE SAME GEAR AS THE LOYALISTS.

Ex: Loyalists get "Twin-Linked Bolt Guns." 4 words.
CSM? Combi-bolters. Not even 1 word.

No plasma cannons in the CSM army. No ATSKNF. We have to pay for EVERYTHING that sets us apart from the Loyalists, the dumbest of which is Veterans of the Long War which is SO DUMB that Black Legion HAS to pay for it, regardless.

We had FMC's but then FMC's took a hit and take longer to get into combat, even though the Tau can't Markerlight Down FMC's anymore, but big whoop. We're not the only FMC's out there and what was taken away hurts Chaos especially.

Effectively, while other armies can get what their army is supposed to have and such, Chaos, for some reason, has to be balanced (and by that I mean out of balance [underneath]) against every other army.

In short? GW hates Chaos and Chaos players. We are get punished for EVERYTHING, including our damn Warlord Traits and Boon table.

Two more things Chaos has NOTHING to speak of without going Daemons or getting lucky on a Warlord Trait?

We get no Recon units. We get no Scouts. We get no Infiltrators. AT. ALL.

Hell, I'd argue that half the Special Rules are unavailable to CSM armies and the other half are designed AGAINST CSM armies (like Monster Hunter, Sky Fire, etc.).

In the end? Chaos Space Marines are the red-headed step child anchored to the bottom of the pool.

This disheartens me so much that I'm about to switch my CSM army over to Astra Militarum, then paint them in Chaos colors and go hunting Space Marine chapters because of bitterness and as a matter of fact that the genetic super warriors are now becoming anything but.

Seriously? When did IG transports start beating SM/CSM transports? Did I miss something? And when the hell did Space Marines become better armored IG? Wth is a Space Marine anymore anyways? And since that question has to be asked, you know that the CSM's are in even worse shape. Forget Daemon allies. I WANT MY DAMN CHAOS MARINES.

There is much foulness in the 40k universe.

The csm codex has a lot to like and good things in it the problem is that they don't have the things necessary to bring these things togeather to make them all really shine. As a result you have a fisjointed army with crude ugly mechanics that work against or independent of eachother. And that is its primary problem.

There are two issues

First and foremost, it doesn't "feel" right, it's like a "Chaos: Lite" or "Chaos Shareware". the loyalist books, even the main SM book, all go into much greater detail about the individual fighting methods and lore of each chapter, with specific in-game rules and often unique units and characters, while the massive Legions that have fought the Imperium for millenia get a quarter of a page of copy-pasted fluff and that's about it, with several formerly somewhat unique units becoming genericized. It's also got this very awkward split focus on loyalist traitors and Legions, so we get weird situations where "Berzerkers" get more benefits of being dedicated than their Terminator armored superiors, and a whole bunch of renegade warbands running around with ancient daemon engines and Heresy era wargear (like Reaper Autocannons, TL boltguns on termis, Havoc launchers, etc) and a complete lack of post-heresy equipment.

It doesn't feel like an army that brought the Imperium to its knees, it feels like "generic bad space pirates".

Second, with regards to gameplay, half the book is awful, while a couple units are/(were) completely over the top, basically acting as crutches (heldrake) that the rest of the army had to overly rely on. Furthermore, with regard to the functioning on the army, it still *FEELS* like an army stuck between 4th and 5th edition, with a vehicular emphasis on AV12 units (that worked great in 5th and died hilariously easy in 6th) and a heavy emphasis on elite heavy CC units that really work best when they can consolidate into new combats (not something done in the last 3 editions of the game) or at least from transports (which, barring the Land Raider, hasn't been possible since 6th).

TL;DR fluff and feel is bad, army has terrible internal balance, feels like a 4th/5th ed army, not a 6th/7th ed army.

As you can already see, it's mainly people who are butt-hurt that the current CSM codex isn't the old 3rd edition CSM codex which was hideously overpowered and had a few little fluffy rules that they used to use.

If you go into CSM not wanting stupid overpowered, for them to be space marines with different colored armor, or for them to be exactly the same as they were for a brief period in the 1990's, there isn't really much by means of objections.

In reality, you can do a bunch of different things in a bunch of different styles on the table top, and you still have a huge amount of different ways you can play a chaos army and still be fluffy. It's a fine army.

But that won't stop people who want you to feel bad try and convince you that you shouldn't be happy.

 Ailaros wrote:
As you can already see, it's mainly people who are butt-hurt that the current CSM codex isn't the old 3rd edition CSM codex which was hideously overpowered and had a few little fluffy rules that they used to use.

TL;DR "lets ignore the content of what everyone posted and project our own internal problems onto what they actually said instead"

Seriously, please stop putting words in other people's mouths here.

 Ailaros wrote:

In reality, you can do a bunch of different things in a bunch of different styles on the table top, and you still have a huge amount of different ways you can play a chaos army and still be fluffy. It's a fine army.

What are these styles?
As I see it, we have 6 troops options available; all of them are infantry, 5 of them are in power armour, and 5 of them can take Rhinos. Supplements add 2 more types of infantry. We can take a Land Raider to transport them. None of them are fast, infiltrate, scout, deep strike or indeed have any special movement options whatsoever. Crimson Slaughter Possessed come closest with a D3 roll. Whoopee.

For reference;
- Marines get 2.5 types of infantry with Crusaders. One of those can Infiltrate and Bikes are an easy port. Then you have Rhinos, Razors and Drop Pods to deliver them. Scouts get Land Speeders. You can branch out and take Stormravens or Land Raiders as well. You also have 7 Chapters, 2 Supplements and Forge World traits to spice it up.
- Eldar get infiltrators, Jetbikes and fleet infantry. You get 2 types of skimmer to cart them around. You get T6 superheavy troops.
- Tau get infiltrators, skimmers and jetpack-Battlesuits with Farsight. You can get deep strikes in here as well. Your HQ choices directly amplify the output of the squads they are with to provide Stubborn, Tank Hunter and run'n'gun.

We don't have Infiltrators, we don't have Scouts, we don't have transports outside Rhinos or Land Raiders and we don't have mobile infantry. We don't get Bikes, Jetbikes or Jump troops. We have low amounts of Deep Strike, and lack any homing equipment to deliver them.
Our one option for Infiltrate comes as a Warlord trait and even then, is randomised in how effective it is. We can Scout a single unit if we take a Lord with the right Mark and Steed.
There is an objective on the other side of the table, and I didn't take Huron or a Slaaneshii Lord. What are my options to claim it besides moving a maximum of 12" per turn over terrain?

What is our style? Because it looks like it is ambling up the field with infantry or Rhinos, and then all of the flavour comes from individual units rather than any cohesive style.

Personally it's a few things:

1) No Legions. The main appeal of Chaos was always the tragic cruelty of the Heresy, but Space Marines get Chapter Tactics while Chaos get nothing. The codex is fine at the surface for a generic RT-era "Chaos Renegade" warband that has a bit of everything, but not for mono-legion armies that have been more common since RT.

2) Underpowered. While power is subjective, CSMs don't get anything to make them seem like the 10,000 year old marines. There should be more plasma weapons, more weird technology that has been lost since the heresy (Volkite, for example), to set them apart and give equivalents to Space Marines. Hell I remember when the "Gets Hot" rule was specifically for Chaos only to represent old MkI plasma guns from the Herey; even with that being a detriment, it made Chaos feel *different* and archaic. Nothing about Chaos now conveys that imagery of 10,000 years of change. In 2nd edition, Chaos had a lot of combi-weapons (IIRC only characters would have it in Space Marine armies), MkI Plasma Guns, Plasma Cannons (I think, not 100% sure if Marines could have them too; I know for a fact only Chaos Dreads could have them), Autocannons in squads, Chainfists, Power Mauls, Chain Axes and the like. Most everything they had was different from Space Marines but similar, again giving that "precursor" feel to them.

3) Nurgle is good, everything else isn't as good. Going back to #1, if you want to a non-Nurgle army you're already at a disadvantage. Things like daemon engines are a neat idea but they could have actually included engines from Epic not created ridiculous (albeit cool-looking) things like the Forgefiend because Chaos needed another vehicle; how about giving them Heresy-era battle tanks instead that could be suitably corrupted/mutated?

4) Chaos has IMO lost its identity. It's basically just spiky marines with worse choices and daemons. There used to be much more depth to the army that made a Chaos army look and play distinctly on the tabletop. Right now, if you remove daemons Chaos has nothing that sets it apart.

Vaktath wrote: "lets ignore the content of what everyone posted and project our own internal problems onto what they actually said instead"

Seriously, please stop putting words in other people's mouths here.

Or, you know, actually read what other people are saying and see the obvious patterns.

For example, when I said:

Ailaros wrote:As you can already see, it's mainly people who are butt-hurt that the current CSM codex isn't the old 3rd edition CSM codex which was hideously overpowered and had a few little fluffy rules that they used to use.

What I was refering to was...

Tannhauser42 wrote:For many of us, it can still be summed up as: no legions.

Mozzamanx wrote:Chaos is defined by it's sub-factions, possible more than any other faction in the game. It is defined by its Legions because they are the roots of the army. There are 9, there are extensive fanbases and novels for all of them, and they all have unique twists and characters.
The problem is that the Codex tries to represent all 9, plus recent turncoats, plus lab-grown warriors, plus the radical 'I only wanted to help' and just doesn't have the scope to represent all of them.

Mozzamanx wrote:Plague Marines bring a twist of the Death Guard, but the book doesn't have the Terminators, Chosen, Raptors or Daemon Engines that they should *also* have.

Mozzamanx wrote:People aren't attracted by the mixed smear of Chaos, they identify with specific warbands and Legions and then the rules fail to cater for them.

Vaktathi wrote:while the massive Legions that have fought the Imperium for millenia get a quarter of a page of copy-pasted fluff and that's about it, with several formerly somewhat unique units becoming genericized. It's also got this very awkward split focus on loyalist traitors and Legions, so we get weird situations where "Berzerkers" get more benefits of being dedicated than their Terminator armored superiors

And when I said:

Ailaros wrote:If you go into CSM not wanting stupid overpowered,

What I was referring to was largely innacurate power level complaints, such as...

Mozzamanx wrote:They are a mishmash of melee-MEQs without any style beyond a specific unit. Are they fast? Are they shooty?

The book also suffers from especially high amounts of imbalance between units, with certain units being made utterly redundant by others within the army.

TheRedWingArmada wrote:Effectively, while other armies can get what their army is supposed to have and such, Chaos, for some reason, has to be balanced (and by that I mean out of balance [underneath]) against every other army.

In short? GW hates Chaos and Chaos players. We are get punished for EVERYTHING, including our damn Warlord Traits and Boon table.

Two more things Chaos has NOTHING to speak of without going Daemons or getting lucky on a Warlord Trait?

We get no Recon units. We get no Scouts. We get no Infiltrators. AT. ALL.

Hell, I'd argue that half the Special Rules are unavailable to CSM armies and the other half are designed AGAINST CSM armies (like Monster Hunter, Sky Fire, etc.).

In the end? Chaos Space Marines are the red-headed step child anchored to the bottom of the pool.

Vaktathi wrote: with regards to gameplay, half the book is awful, while a couple units are/(were) completely over the top, basically acting as crutches (heldrake) that the rest of the army had to overly rely on. Furthermore, with regard to the functioning on the army, it still *FEELS* like an army stuck between 4th and 5th edition, with a vehicular emphasis on AV12 units (that worked great in 5th and died hilariously easy in 6th) and a heavy emphasis on elite heavy CC units that really work best when they can consolidate into new combats (not something done in the last 3 editions of the game) or at least from transports (which, barring the Land Raider, hasn't been possible since 6th).

TL;DR fluff and feel is bad, army has terrible internal balance, feels like a 4th/5th ed army, not a 6th/7th ed army.

And when I said:

Ailaros wrote: for them to be space marines with different colored armor,

I was referring to...

TheRedWingArmada wrote:No storm bolters. No grav guns. No storm ravens/talons (in fact, they gave us the Heldrake and when that was too good, it got its neck broke) 1k Sons cost too much. Khorne Berzerkers cost too much and die too easily. We get nothing with Sky Fire. We still scatter crazy when trying to deep strike and we don't even get Drop Pods. NO CHAPTER TACTICS/LEGION TACTICS. Most of the Marks are trash. WE DON'T EVEN GET THE SAME GEAR AS THE LOYALISTS.

Ex: Loyalists get "Twin-Linked Bolt Guns." 4 words.
CSM? Combi-bolters. Not even 1 word.

No plasma cannons in the CSM army. No ATSKNF. We have to pay for EVERYTHING that sets us apart from the Loyalists, the dumbest of which is Veterans of the Long War which is SO DUMB that Black Legion HAS to pay for it, regardless.

Mozzamanx wrote:They just seem like Marines, minus the toys and delivery mechanisms,

So, if you want, you can ignore what everyone else is saying, and decide to be mindlessly callous towards the person who can summarize everything more succinctly, but abstract reasoning skills doesn't make me some sort of brutal ogre that's crushing people's white-armor-clad opinions. Not everyone is a snowflake, and complaining isn't a sign of intelligence.

It's a lot easier for people to give up and complain about internal codex balance than to figure out how to use things correctly, but that doesn't mean CSM is bad, and it doesn't make other people feeling bad about something they want to like any more noble.

Thankfully we have an answer to legions... FW's Horus Heresy (aka 30K) is brilliant. Use it. it works and is as balanced against 40K armies as anything else in 40K.

If you want possessed heavy and mangled by the warp then go with C:CSM.

If you want recent turncoats just play counts-as C:SM.

 Ailaros wrote:

A very big quote series

1) Were the Legion rules a bad thing, is the Codex better for their removal, and would it be impossible for them to be implemented in a way that is balanced and fluffy? Because a lot of people are asking for them and it seems like it would please a lot of people to have them back.
2) Is it justified that in a Nurgle-dominated warband, that the base troops are the Fearless, FNP, Poisoned grenades crew while the Terminators are not? Or that Ahriman's Rubric was confined to the troops alone and all of his Terminators are just fine and dandy?
3) Is it tactically engaging to have minimal speed in your troops, 2 transport options of dubious effectiveness, and no scatter mitigation or Outflanking for the rest of the army? Is there a reason for this to be omitted?

At the risk of being aggressive, your battle reports are based on Huron infiltrating massed numbers of World Eaters. Is this evocative of the background to you? Is there any story behind the local space-wizard-pirate finding a bush big enough to hide 40 frothing Berserkers and 10 Terminators? Or is this the result of trying to make Berserkers work and the best alternative is to introduce a non-Khornate character with psychic powers to get them upfield before they get shot? Is it tactically engaging to roll a '3' for the number of infiltrators and have the entire game be a product of delivering power armour into combat rather than any actual decisions made? Would you have had the success you did if you rolled a '1' for the number of infiltrators?

 Ailaros wrote:

So, if you want, you can ignore what everyone else is saying, and decide to be mindlessly callous towards the person who can summarize everything more succinctly, but abstract reasoning skills doesn't make me some sort of brutal ogre that's crushing people's white-armor-clad opinions. Not everyone is a snowflake, and complaining isn't a sign of intelligence.

I'm not going to get into a massive quote-war here, but ultimately, no, you're intentionally mis-charaterizing what people wrote. You said "it's mainly people who are butt-hurt that the current CSM codex isn't the old 3rd edition CSM codex which was hideously overpowered and had a few little fluffy rules that they used to use." That's not what people were posting. They were bringing up issues with a confused theme and gameplay problems.

In fact, the 3E book wasn't mentioned until you mentioned it. People pointed out that the book tries to do multiple different things and does it poorly, while the loyalist CSM book gave a large number of chapters the exact kind of attention people wanted to see the Legions get.

Hell, most people probably playing CSM's today have not ever even seen the 3E book at this point.

It's a lot easier for people to give up and complain about internal codex balance than to figure out how to use things correctly,

And yet you're completely glossing over the fact that it *does* have an internal balance problem.

 Deuce11 wrote:
Thankfully we have an answer to legions... FW's Horus Heresy (aka 30K) is brilliant. Use it. it works and is as balanced against 40K armies as anything else in 40K.

If you want possessed heavy and mangled by the warp then go with C:CSM.

If you want recent turncoats just play counts-as C:SM.

30k isn't indicative of the legions post-Heresy, which is what most Chaos players want. Not during the Heresy, but afterwards.

Ok so maybe GW had plans to do additional codexes like they did with the Black Legion to go futher into things like the Emperor's Children, and so on. To be honest, the CSM codex could probably be the size of the full 40k rulebook if you fill it with everything that could make up a chaos army, which to me, could very well be everything under the Emperor.

I like the idea of the older Space Marine weapons, like the Plasma mk1 stuff. I always hated the Get Hot rule, but does make some sense with veteran marines I think. Maybe the renegade marines would use the newer stuff. I dont know.

I thought it had more to do with the actual rules behind the units, but this seems more of a fluff thing. Or I mean, rules reflecting the fluff.

I think the Chaos Marine box set, the normal chaos marines, is in a desperate need of an update. Like the Chosen from DV. All Chaos troops should look like that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I will say this, I remember the 3E codex... the one with having a champion turn into a greater demon, thus losing the champion. hated that. I think they released 2 codexes. Not sure which one everyone liked.

In my eyes, I don't want to go back to 3.5. I want a Codex built from 7th edition principles that provides buckets of tactical options, represents all 9 Legions alongside renegades and mixed warbands, and ideally does so with a unique CSM twist on things.

- Spawn move to the Troops slot. Bikes is stealing from Loyalists and Raptors are supposed to be rare.
- Units get cheaper the bigger they get. The first 5 cost you 75pts. The next 5 are 12pts each. Then the next are 10pts each, and the last 5 are 7pts each. If 20-man squads is a CSM thing, make it desirable.
- Introduce Legion 'Marks' on a squad-by-squad basis. For example, squad A can have Night Lord geneseed for +Xpts. This gives Fear and Night Vision, but suffer -1 for Blind tests. That way you please both Legionary splinters, but allow them for a mixed warband.
- Introduce Cult upgrades as a 'level 2 Mark'. If the Mark of Khorne was Rage, Butchers Nails would be Rage, Fearless and +1WS for example.
- Introduce wargear that isn't based on Chaos. Volkite relics, Rotor Cannons, vat-grown warriors as WS3/BS2 demi-Marines. Biological or chemical weapons for Havocs and Plagues that would be banned by the Imperium.
- Introduce what can only be described as the Chaos Battlewagon. High frontal armour, large capacity and open-topped. Cheap enough to be a delivery vessel.
- More mobility and deployment. Cultists can upgrade to Infiltrate, Possessed get Scout and Beast movement, Alpha Legion upgrade to provide Outflank. Icons get their DS mitigation back and Sorcerers can open portals to bring in reserves.

There is so much potential to the army but it remains untapped, and any attempt to discuss the list is met with complaints about a book written over a decade ago. 3.5 is dead and buried, nobody wants it back exactly as it was, but it had a whole host of options that have been utterly abandoned.

KTG17 wrote:
Ok so maybe GW had plans to do additional codexes like they did with the Black Legion to go futher into things like the Emperor's Children, and so on. To be honest, the CSM codex could probably be the size of the full 40k rulebook if you fill it with everything that could make up a chaos army, which to me, could very well be everything under the Emperor.

I like the idea of the older Space Marine weapons, like the Plasma mk1 stuff. I always hated the Get Hot rule, but does make some sense with veteran marines I think. Maybe the renegade marines would use the newer stuff. I dont know.

I thought it had more to do with the actual rules behind the units, but this seems more of a fluff thing. Or I mean, rules reflecting the fluff.

I think the Chaos Marine box set, the normal chaos marines, is in a desperate need of an update. Like the Chosen from DV. All Chaos troops should look like that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I will say this, I remember the 3E codex... the one with having a champion turn into a greater demon, thus losing the champion. hated that. I think they released 2 codexes. Not sure which one everyone liked.

What I think was rather telling is this: The 3rd edition Codex came out and was written by none other than Jervis Johnson himself, the man who for the longest time had a running joke in White Dwarf that, all due respect to him as a person with 20+ years tenure at GW, whatever army he played in a battle report would lose. When the 3.5 codex came out, Pete Haines and Andy Chambers wrote an article outlining all the issues with the 3rd edition Codex, how it didn't really reflect Chaos, and the like. Of course, it was strongly rumored that Big Pete made Iron Warriors OP because that was his army (having bought them off of Andy C). Ever since then, it's been downward spiraling. The 4th edition Codex undid most of the good parts of 3.5, going back to the lackluster 3.0 version. The 6th edition is roughly the same thing, with the same problems - Chaos got some new units but most of them aren't really good in practice and aren't really indicative of Chaos. The 3rd edition book had those very same problems (Raptors and Obliterators were largely unused) that the 6th edition book made, only this time there isn't 6.5.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

So, if you want, you can ignore what everyone else is saying, and decide to be mindlessly callous towards the person who can summarize everything more succinctly, but abstract reasoning skills doesn't make me some sort of brutal ogre that's crushing people's white-armor-clad opinions. Not everyone is a snowflake, and complaining isn't a sign of intelligence.

I'm not going to get into a massive quote-war here, but ultimately, no, you're intentionally mis-charaterizing what people wrote. You said "it's mainly people who are butt-hurt that the current CSM codex isn't the old 3rd edition CSM codex which was hideously overpowered and had a few little fluffy rules that they used to use." That's not what people were posting. They were bringing up issues with a confused theme and gameplay problems.

In fact, the 3E book wasn't mentioned until you mentioned it. People pointed out that the book tries to do multiple different things and does it poorly, while the loyalist CSM book gave a large number of chapters the exact kind of attention people wanted to see the Legions get.

Hell, most people probably playing CSM's today have not ever even seen the 3E book at this point.

It's a lot easier for people to give up and complain about internal codex balance than to figure out how to use things correctly,

And yet you're completely glossing over the fact that it *does* have an internal balance problem.

He just believes that CSM should really just be renegades and that's it, he will ad homenim and generally logical fallacy down any other argument. It's pretty much assumed by now.

I've seen 3.5, and yes I can sum up we've only gotten worse over the years, so I will say that I am biased for 3.5.

I didn't knew that chaos marines could take Land Raiders. Why aren't people taking them . A LR crusader seems like a perfect delivery unit for a melee zerkers or terminators , even noise marines could do ok a big 12 man squad supported by 2-3 HQs everything hiting at i5 on with FnP . They also help with anti tank , the machine spirit can fire the Mulit Melta after movment opening any transports.

Why weren't they used in 6th , was it because people were buying 3-4 helldrakes and had no points for land raiders left ?

Chaos marines only have access to the godhammer pattern; no redeemers or crusaders.

They also lack PotMS, but are cheaper.

Makumba wrote:
I didn't knew that chaos marines could take Land Raiders. Why aren't people taking them . A LR crusader seems like a perfect delivery unit for a melee zerkers or terminators , even noise marines could do ok a big 12 man squad supported by 2-3 HQs everything hiting at i5 on with FnP . They also help with anti tank , the machine spirit can fire the Mulit Melta after movment opening any transports.

Why weren't they used in 6th , was it because people were buying 3-4 helldrakes and had no points for land raiders left ?

1) We don't have Crusaders. We only have the Lascannon variant.
2) We don't have Machine Spirit on ours. To make up for it, they are a whole *20pts* cheaper!
3) Ours don't have the option for Multi-Meltas.

Just a few reasons.

I hereby christen us the Hobo Space Marines.

But that is stupid , why give chaos a land raider then , if no one will buy them .
Although it does explain why I never saw one played since 5th ed .

Was it ever explained why they don't have different land raiders w30k seems to be full of them .

Makumba wrote:
But that is stupid , why give chaos a land raider then , if no one will buy them .
Although it does explain why I never saw one played since 5th ed .

Was it ever explained why they don't have different land raiders w30k seems to be full of them .

Combination of factors. As per why add a choice nobody really uses, it's a problem for every army to varying degrees. It just kind of happens.

As per why CSM don't get them, arbitrary reasons to attempt to differentiate the two armies. The biggest problem with CSM is that... they represent so very much in reality. Legions, warbands both pure and mixed, old armies, new armies, veterans, hordes of beginners, siegers, close combat lovers, not even that chaotic, undivided, Tzeentchian and other gods, heavily chaotic, and more. One must be careful lest CSM become CSM+. It's a blatant and fluffy trap really. Well then, how do you avoid making them just SM+ and make them different? You try to move laterally with differing choices! Problem is this doesn't always work and, in fact, has lead to SM-. So how do you represent not only ancient warriors but also new recruits? Well, in the end you get a mess of a codex that can't represent anything properly besides a nurgle CSM army (but not the specific legion) and a mix of them yet not Black Legion

Makumba wrote:
But that is stupid , why give chaos a land raider then , if no one will buy them .
Although it does explain why I never saw one played since 5th ed .

Was it ever explained why they don't have different land raiders w30k seems to be full of them .

You have to remember, GW doesn't play the same game most people do. They'll take a Chaos Land Raider because it's cool, or because they have a nasty CC squad of Chosen with their Chaos Lord. That's always been the problem; GW creates units that they think is cool, without actually caring if they are cool with how they actually work in the game. Which is also why if you look through books, WD articles and past history you'll see GW playing what the competitive gamers dismiss as garbage, literally because they think it'd be cool to do. The way they play it's likely that none of them deliberately try to break anything, so you'd never for example see somebody field 3x Riptides outside of a specific scenario (see the final "real" White Dwarf with all the Riptides vs. Tyranid MCs) and you'd never see something like a Centurion Grav-star or whatever it's called against footslogging Berzerkers, but whether that's because the person playing SM just didn't realize that it's possible or knows that it wouldn't be a fun game is up for debate. I'd like to think that the designer aren't incompetent buffoons and purposely don't take OP combos because they know it's not going to make for a fun game, and they're playing friends/co-workers so why wouldn't you want your buddy to have fun?

The fluff has always been that most of the Chaos vehicles and the like broke down and were irreparable because the Traitor Legions had limited supplies after their retreat and were generally more concerned with saving their own hides than bringing all their equipment. This is why Chaos don't get things like Landspeeders (and before 3rd edition why they didn't have jump packs), so I assume it was extended to other LRs (although keep in mind originally there was just the "Godhammer" Lascannon LR and the Crusader was a relatively recent version make by the Black Templars, which were post-Heresy anyways so it wouldn't have existed during the HH). Which again goes back to the fact that the Chaos 'dex represents all possible permutations of a Chaos army (poorly, but still) which gets even sillier when you consider something like the Crimson Slaughter who are recent traitors and wouldn't have just left all their landspeeders and the like.

The problem has always been how to make Chaos feel like Space Marines without making them a carbon copy. They're more than just spikes, after all, but few if any edition of the Chaos Codex has ever really captured it and made the actual Traitor Legions feel like they were a threat from the past. Even the lauded 3.5 codex just made them strong, but other than legion rules didn't really add much to make them that unique. With the HH books I'd like to see Chaos get old, archaic weaponry that hasn't been seen since the Heresy, that would let them play similar to but not the same as Loyalist Marines, and they would still look like Marines but with differences.

But if it doesn't have machine spirit or a multi melta then it is not cool , it is a bad unit .

I don't get it Land Raiders are suppose to be super relic from legion times and in legion times tacticals were 20 man strong , how can the same tanks suddenly lose machine spirit and carry fewer dudes and become one variant , that was actualy fabricated post heresy.

One of my favourite "easy differentiations from Space Marines" would be to allow all unit champions to take Terminator armour.

I actually like the Chaos Champion rule and the Veterans of the Long War rule as they make Chaos Space Marines differentiate a lot from Space Marines loyal to the rotten corpse - the rules just need slight changes so they actually seem reasonable:

Chaos Champion rule: Chaos Champions may choose if they want to issue or accept challenges but only if a challenge is won when issued by the Chaos Champion himself, only then are you allowed to roll on the Chaos Boon table.

Veterans of the Long War rule: Needs bigger buff besides Hatred (Space Marines) and +1 Leadership. I would say the And They Shall Know No Fear rule should be added and maybe Adamantium Will.

Honestly I wish you could purchase mutations before the game. I always felt it silly how fast you could accrue mutations in a single game. Plus mutations always got reset.

KTG17 wrote:
I have heard here and there that Chaos got robbed in their latest codex, and while I am not a big Chaos player, nor have played against any Chaos armies lately, I was wondering why that is. Flipping thru it, they seem to have everything. Heavy hitting units, close combat troops with jump packs, lots of characters, and can have Daemons as allies for close combat madness. What else is there to ask for?

Was it because CC was tougher to do in 6th?

Has anyone dived deep enough into 7th to see how the new rules impact them?

apart from the lack of legion rules, which even if they were simple like chapter tactics and had one (probably black legion) that was clearly better than all the others, would make a lot of people happy let me try to answer this.

A lot of the units are just unplayably bad. Regular possessed, mutilators, warp talons, and thousand sons are just comically comically bad. 3 dedicated assault units, with no shooting, without grenades. Note that 2 of the 3 were new kits in 6th and that probably had something to do with people thinking CSM are bad

A lot of phoning it in. Forgefiends, maulerfiend, heldrakes, and cultists are all pretty chaoitc ununiform things and yet they have so few options. Daemon engines in theory should be able to show up to the battlefield in almost any configuration. Cultists also should be very customization. Nothing totally broken like the 3.5 rules, but some options would make them more interesting. Few units in the game have so few options.(I realize cultists can take marks, but seriously?)

Bad game mechanics. Things getting soul blaze and fear kind of defines the 6th CSM book. If these things were any good, maybe people would be happy. But the CSM codex is full of adding lazy USR that dont do much. The CSM god psykic lores are also full of it and just seem to be situational, underpowered, and limiting.

Limited Tactics. Champions of Chaos limits a player tactically. It takes a CSM player who might want to actually play the game and play his army tactically and forces him to yell Kill Maim Burn while running his troops head long into a slaughter. Forges a great narrative for anyone but the CSM palyer but really removes a lot of fun from the game. This kind of runs with the bad game mechanics. CSM pykers again are limited in the pskyic powers they can take compared to most armies. Tsons aspiring sorcerers particularly so.

Finally

Bookkeeping. The Chaos boon table was supposed to make the CSM codex. It was supposed to be awesome, the reason to get into combat. The high risk high reward chaos mantra. It was supposed to forge that narrative and make games super cinematic. Sadly few of the boons are worth anything. The 10 points you can pay or wound you can take to get a roll on the boon table is almost always better saved rather than take the horrible junk of the table. Because of bad game mechanics again and just plain awful rules it has been reduced to a bookkeeping chore. After getting across the table, being forced to challenge, probably being declined, else getting killed but occasionally actually killing an enemy character you get to roll on the boon table and find that your chaption without a ranged weapon has +1 BS, or that your WS7 beast is now WS8, or your guy with a power fist is +1 init, or that in the slim event that your guy passes a deny the witch roll you inflict a str 6 hit, or your bike now has fleet, or your fearless unit is now stubborn, or most likely that your character is now too far away or too late in the game to benefit from anything. You just have to jot things down that you will never use. It's not forging a narrative, it's not cinematic, it boring.

 Ailaros wrote:
As you can already see, it's mainly people who are butt-hurt that the current CSM codex isn't the old 3rd edition CSM codex which was hideously overpowered and had a few little fluffy rules that they used to use.

Let me just say there has never been a person I have disagreed more consistently with on all of dakka, and never a post I have disagreed more strongly with than this one.

The 6th edition CSM codex literally broke my 40k spirit. It may have taken me 14 months or so after that to finally quit the game, but there was never any question after I purchased and read that codex. It's not hyperbole. I never got over it, it was that bad.

Chaospling wrote:
One of my favourite "easy differentiations from Space Marines" would be to allow all unit champions to take Terminator armour.

I actually like the Chaos Champion rule and the Veterans of the Long War rule as they make Chaos Space Marines differentiate a lot from Space Marines loyal to the rotten corpse - the rules just need slight changes so they actually seem reasonable:

Chaos Champion rule: Chaos Champions may choose if they want to issue or accept challenges but only if a challenge is won when issued by the Chaos Champion himself, only then are you allowed to roll on the Chaos Boon table.

Veterans of the Long War rule: Needs bigger buff besides Hatred (Space Marines) and +1 Leadership. I would say the And They Shall Know No Fear rule should be added and maybe Adamantium Will.

Honestly, I would make VotLW incorporate some parts of ATSKNF, like they can roll to regroup even below half (ATSKNF still does that, right?). That way its not the same thing, as you don't get all the benefits, and you can still be destroyed in a Sweeping Advance, but you still get something to represent the training and the fact that facing the horrors of the warp (or a very angry Chaos Lord who got to his position by killing anyone who failed) doesn't work well for cowards. Also agreed with the challenge rule. Being forced to challenge is stupid and goes against the fluff.

It boils down to Chaos not having an identity. It's a bunch of random crap and some Marks and it's "Here's Chaos!" except it's nothing like Chaos should be.

The biggest thing for me is that the basic Chaos Space Marine is almost unusably bad. I didn't start playing Chaos with the idea that my options would boil down to Plague Marines or Cultists.

They are so bad that we have house ruled that they come with the following addition.

Mark of Chaos Undivided: This Mark grants the Stubborn USR.

And then they cost the same as SM that get so much for more

Here are some quotes from White Dwarf #199, August 1996, the issue when the 2nd edition Chaos Codex was released. Although it didn't have legion rules, IMO the 2nd edition Chaos codex captured the feel of chaos. Things like being limited with Reaper Autocannons, MkI plasma guns, chainfists, combi-bolters and the like still gave Chaos that archaic feel.

Andy Chambers wrote:
We wanted Chaos forces to have a strong theme so we looked at what had gone before and what people chose for their Chaos armies in the 1995 Warhammer 40,000 tournament. This gave us one overwhelming answer: Chaos Space Marines. Every army contained Chaos Space Marines and nearly all included daemons as well. Working with this we decided to make the main army list in Codex Chaos depict a raiding force of Chaos Space Marines from the Eye of Terror. ...

Andy Chambers wrote:
... The next things to worry about were how to make the Chaos Space Marines different from Imperial Space Marines: was it to be simply a case of different coloured power armour or something more than that? Obviously something more ...

Andy Chambers wrote:
To me the Chaos Space Marines needed to be characterised as a threat reaching back to the Imperium's past, a threat which had refused to lie down and become part of history. This is in part why the gods of Chaos are less pivotal in Codex Chaos; we felt that the motivations of Chaos Space Marines should remain their own, no matter how debased and vile. Though the corrupted Space Marines of the Traitor Legions make excellent champions for the gods of Chaos, they are not pawns and have their own agendas of vengeance, empire-building vindication or arcane study which gives them purpose.

Andy Chambers wrote:
Another interesting spin we came up with was to make Chaos Space Marine forces feel as if they had been exiled to the Eye of Terror ten millenia before the Imperium's "present" day. Though the technological advancement of the Imperium moves at the speed of an aged tortois, ten thousand years was bound to bring some changes. This suggested limiting the Traitor Legions' weaponry to some of the "older" types and making others dangerous, experimental precursors of the guns used by Imperial Space Marines. This, combined with the older patterns of power armour the designes have used, gives the Chaos Space Marine miniatures a dark, archaic feel which contrasts well with the clean, upright loyalist Space Marines.

Why are people not buying the Imperial Armour Horus Heresy for their Legion fix now?

You cried you wanted Legion rules. Now you have them. So what is wrong? Is it because Forge World is not "legal"?

(part 2)

Now here are some quotes from White Dwarf #274 (#273 in the US), dated October 2002, heralding the release of the 3.5 Chaos Codex, arguably an even better interpretation of the Chaos rules than the 2nd edition book.

The Codex formalizes the idea that there are nine entirely different Chaos Legions, each with its own strengths and weaknesses rather than a single homogenized force.
It had become clear to me that single-Legion armies were the preference of the vast majority of Chaos players, and the response to Index Astartes was all the confirmation that was needed.

I had already developed a clear view about whether to include Cultists and other Chaos-aligned troops, such as mutants and abhumans. The name of the Codex would be Codex: Chaos Space Marines, so the whole emphasis would be on the Traitor Legions themselves. Obviously, it would have to cover Daemons, as the Chaos Space Marines have the ability to summon them. However, i saw no good reason for including Cultists other than as an Alpha Legion options (and I made sure that these were quite specialized). Cultists work best as a separate army, and there is plenty of scope for a distinct Cultist army list to be developed further.

Obliterators and Raptors, troops types new to Third Edition Warhammer 40,000, had to be examined and moved forward. Clearly, the basis was there for two excellent troop types, but they had never quite caught on. In the case of the Obliterators, they lacked the endurance or firepower that their imagery (and points value) implied. Raptors were similarly very expensive in points for what they did.

Chaos Space Marines are all, to some extent, veterans. The long war has hardened them in a way only the oldest Dreadnoughts of the loyalist Legions could understand. The new Space Marines might have their Land Speeders, multi-meltas, and plasma cannons, but the Chaos Space Marinds have experience. That hs to count for something. To represent their experiernce, I detailed a number of Veteran skills drawn mainly from campaign experience systems but also from the special skill lists that have been developed to support the Index Astartes articles. ... In this way, any Chaos Space Marine can be fielded as a Veteran with something to show for his 10,000 years of experience beyond being able to infiltrate.

So, to sum up. THAT is what's wrong with the 6th edition Chaos Codex, and the 4th edition before it. They've lost their identity. It's no longer about the nine Traitor Legions, it's an amalgamation, a ragtag force of nameless, faceless thugs that exsist to get beaten up by the good guys. It's degenerated back to a "single homogenized force" with none of the character or flavor that lends itself to an army made up of twisted, corrupted superhuman warriors, some of which have seen 10,000 years of combat and exterminated entire species during the great crusade the likes of which will never be seen again, warriors that have fought alongside (or against!) Primarchs that are remembered only in memories of the oldest Dreadnoughts and in ancient texts.

Take someone like Bjorn the Fell-handed, the Space Wolf dreadnought. He fought alongside Leman Russ, he remembers the days of the Heresy and is revered like a demigod for his vast knowledge and tactics. That kind of knowledge and memories are what every Traitor Legion marine has. An Iron Warriors marine fought in the crusade with the great Perturabo, massacared Imperial Fists and likely shot at Rogal Dorn himself during the Iron Cage. A Word Bearer remembers Lorgar or Kor Phaeron speaking the first catechisms that set them on the path of damnation so long ago. A Night Lord recalls the fear in the eyes of his victims as he slaughtered them alongside the Night Haunter, and a Black Legionnaire remembers the fateful day when the Warmaster was slain by the cursed corpse god of Man, and in his twin hearts burns a vengeance like an exploding sun that one day soon Abaddon will return to finish what was started and avenge their greatest defeat. That is what Chaos was about. The Traitor Legions. Not cultists, not daemon engines, hell not even daemons. Chaos players played Chaos because they wanted to finish the story of the Horus Heresy and bring the final doom of the Imperium.

What we have now is nothing like that. We have a ragtag bunch of misfits and mechanical monsters. The Great Enemy of Man is reduced to cartoon villains.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Davor wrote:
Why are people not buying the Imperial Armour Horus Heresy for their Legion fix now?

You cried you wanted Legion rules. Now you have them. So what is wrong? Is it because Forge World is not "legal"?

As many people have said, that does NOT represent the legions post-Heresy, which is what Chaos players want.

Because Chaos Marines suck.

Codex: Chaos Cultists and Heldrakes is pretty good

SarisKhan wrote:I hereby christen us the Hobo Space Marines.

+1. Have an Exalt, because that is exactly what we are. And we're not even that good at being hobo's apparently, because we still haven't stolen a damn plasma cannon that doesn't have to be mounted to a Helbrute.

Davor wrote:Why are people not buying the Imperial Armour Horus Heresy for their Legion fix now?

You cried you wanted Legion rules. Now you have them. So what is wrong? Is it because Forge World is not "legal"?

Here are a couple answers, but I'm going to start with mine first: I'm fuggin poor, bra. I don't have time or money to order sh!t from another country just so people in my local club can go "Uuuuh, dun think so." Aside from that I DON'T WANT TO DO WHAT GAMES WORKSHOP SHOULD'VE DONE FIRST. IT'S THEIR GDDMN GAME. I WANT TO PLAY SOME FRIGGIN CHAOS SPACE MARINES. NOT "Bad Guy fodder goes down again. PS - You're flying daemon engine can't bend it's neck because you were making your good brothers cry."

But want better reasons? Yeah, HH Legion tactics don't exactly equate to Post-Heresy Legions. That's another arm and a leg you are trying to foot, and then you'll need those models to make the book work worth a crap.

I digress.

No matter how you look at it; Old Legions or New Warbands, THESE ARE CHAOS SPACE MARINES. They are looting the Imperium supply lanes daily, but we're not getting a damn Battle Barge with a new Landraider on it? We're exterminating Shrine Worlds and going to war with Cadia, but the IG/Astra Dooflunkus get a whole new army to reinforce them? AND they are "Come the Apocalypse" with us? DID WE FORGET WHERE THE DAMN CULTISTS COME FROM?!

I'll tell you a secret: Cultists aren't grown on daemon worlds.

There is a metric ton of stuff that the Loyalists need to give up. And if we're going to have to have older Mk gear, then that gear should probably be stronger. For example, if Get's Hot was originally a Chaos implement, then lets let Chaos keep their Gets Hot, but then make the shot S 10 AP 1 or something, for the cost of blowing off your own arm. GIVE US SOMETHING TO WORK WITH.

Something besides a bunch of random tables and the quote "The Gods are Fickle!" Yeah, about everything else. They're pretty consistent with the CSM's, even when they are sticking a tongue in their belly button.

I don't want to see a "balanced" Chaos Codex anymore. No one else is balanced. They all play to a strength. D/Eldar are fast. Space Marines are precision strike monsters. Orks are Green Tide Hordes that can cripple you when they land those hits. Chaos? We're magical. That's about it. We should be melee monsters and a lot are, but there isn't enough to compliment the melee we have and make it effective.

The 30k army lists are better Chaos lists than the CSM codex.

Let that sink in and you'll see why people are pissed.

It always bothered me that there are a half dozen loyalist space marine chapters with books and the LEGIONS of Chaos did not have them.

"Here is a book detailing the special rules for the 1200-1500 Space Wolves."
"Oh so they're basically Space Marines with a few unique units and renamed wargear."
"Hey, you don't say that!"

"Here is a book not dealing the special rules for the tens of thousands of Night Lords."
"Shouldn't they get a book."
"Nope, because Chaos is so chaotic and disorganized that it's pretty much just an incoherent mess."
"Oh. That sounds stupid."
"Oh believe me, it is."

Davor wrote:
Why are people not buying the Imperial Armour Horus Heresy for their Legion fix now?

You cried you wanted Legion rules. Now you have them. So what is wrong? Is it because Forge World is not "legal"?

1. The current HH Legion Crusade army lists do not yet represent the full influence of Chaos upon the Legions. It represents the Legions at the start of the Heresy, when a few have only just begun to "dip their toes into the pool of Chaos." Eventually, perhaps, but we're not at that point yet.
2. For some people, the legality really is an issue. in my group, we have no problems with Forgeworld, but I do know of others where just using an alternative Forgeworld model (but still using Codex rules for it) gets negative reactions.

Let me be clear: I do not desire any sort of overpowered Legion rules. I do not, for example, want the return of Basilisk-spam Iron Warriors (I didn't even play Chaos back then). Ironically, I don't even play a Chaos Legion: I play Astral Claws/Red Corsairs under Huron. If GW can throw out some simple Chapter Tactics for all those Space Marine chapters within that Codex (Hell, Forgeworld even did some Chapter Tactics for the Astral Claws), why is it so hard to just throw the Legions a bone and give them a little something?

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
For many of us, it can still be summed up as: no legions.

THIS!!!

A whole lot of THIS!!!

And the fact that it has no power in it compared to other armies.

7th just made them worse.

Wow WaynetheGame you sure did convince me they blew it. I played 2nd edition but only played with Chaos a little. I can see how veteran players would hate the CSM. Then again, I am in the camp that believes Chaos is Chaos and it all should be in one book, including Daemons. Guess its GW thinking they would make more money if Chaos players bought BOTH codexes.

That being said, I always thought it was odd CSMs didnt have whirlwinds and whatnot, but at the end of the day I guess you have to make the armies unique. Its got to be tough for GW to figure out what to include and what not to. There are allies tho, so if you wanted to add extra stuff like a Leman Russ and some imperial guard as cultists and call them a renegade unit, cant you?

Oh wait that is what 7th is about. Guess they cleared that up lol.

Davor wrote:
Why are people not buying the Imperial Armour Horus Heresy for their Legion fix now?

You cried you wanted Legion rules. Now you have them. So what is wrong? Is it because Forge World is not "legal"?

Combination of things. One, Forge World is still debated. Second of all, it's still not a joke cheap. Worth the price? Yeah but it's still a big chunk of money. Finally, and most importantly, it doesn't represent the legions we want. Does it represent CSM better than CSM themself? Yes. That said, it's still flawed. Death Guard really haven't hit the nurglified point, Black Legion is entirely different post Heresy, KSons aren't rubricate, there is very little in the way of chaos still. Finally, not all legions are even out yet.

I have always said there needs to be at least a third kind of Space Marine book for those that don't fit under the Imperium or under Chaos.

Barring that, I would like to see specific Legion books for Chaos/Traitor legions that work fundamentally different than your run of the mill Chaos. Alpha Legion, and the Night Lords aren't like the other legions, not by a long shot and if the Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Dark Angels all get their own codices, the other traitor Legions do as well.

I have also said that there should be a Thousand Son codex that works similar to the Grey Knights for Chaos. There are still Thousand Sons that are with Magnus that weren't apart of the Rubric and could function with a Codex on themselves in a similar fashion that they set up the GK codex except their units are defined by which Discipline they adhere to. That would make an awesome codex.

If they would do this a create Legion specific codices where it wasn't just "vanilla" Chaos like it is in the CSM then I probably would pick them up in a heart beat, especially a Thousand Sons one.

Mozzamanx wrote:
What are these styles?
As I see it, we have 6 troops options available; all of them are infantry, 5 of them are in power armour, and 5 of them can take Rhinos. Supplements add 2 more types of infantry. We can take a Land Raider to transport them. None of them are fast, infiltrate, scout, deep strike or indeed have any special movement options whatsoever. Crimson Slaughter Possessed come closest with a D3 roll. Whoopee.

Oh I think it's worse than that. You're clearly counting our four special elites plus regular troops and cultists, but we also have Chosen, Warp Talons, Raptors, and Havocs that are all essentially identical space marines with a gimmick each that makes them a special snowflake. Heck, our Terminators at least have different armor as do our Obliterators, but aside from that and better weapons they're basically space marines. Variety for CSM only comes in the form of machine-daemon hybrids that are mostly close combat.

My old CSM army had a ton of variety and options because of the Legions and upgrades that used to be available. Now the army is very homogenized and you either like spamming troops or you don't.

Davor wrote:
Why are people not buying the Imperial Armour Horus Heresy for their Legion fix now?

You cried you wanted Legion rules. Now you have them. So what is wrong? Is it because Forge World is not "legal"?

FW HH armies represent the Space Marines as they fought during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, not as they are in the 41st millenium, and these are *very* different things.

Also, basically FW came right out and said that those lists were designed to play against each other, generally at higher than normal pointed games (2k-3k instead of 40k's more typical 1.5k-2k), and not were not really designed with the 40k armies in mind, and had what amounts to the 7E FoC back at the dawn of 6th.

It's actually funny and sad that GW and FW have finally expanded the Horus Heresy beyond myths and legends. You can actually PLAY the old Legiones Astartes and renact the greatest betrayal the galaxy has ever seen, when for a small period of time it looked like the Imperium would be torn apart by civil war. Remember, it was only through luck that the Emperor defeated Horus; he came dangerously close to losing that fight and if he had, humanity would have been plunged into an eternity of darkness.

And in the present day, there's all this crap about it being the end times and the final days of the Imperium, and the timeline is frozen on the eve of the 13th Black Crusade, the one that's supposed to actually reach Terra and bring about the end of days, cast down the Imperium and reduce it to dust.

It's all been built up to Chaos as the great archenemy, the ultimate evil, the unstoppable inevitable end of all things poised to strike a final deathblow at the empire of man and cast humanity into Hell, but nothing reflects that in the game, and that's the most disappointing thing of all.

WayneTheGame wrote:
It's actually funny and sad that GW and FW have finally expanded the Horus Heresy beyond myths and legends. You can actually PLAY the old Legiones Astartes and renact the greatest betrayal the galaxy has ever seen, when for a small period of time it looked like the Imperium would be torn apart by civil war. Remember, it was only through luck that the Emperor defeated Horus; he came dangerously close to losing that fight and if he had, humanity would have been plunged into an eternity of darkness.

And in the present day, there's all this crap about it being the end times and the final days of the Imperium, and the timeline is frozen on the eve of the 13th Black Crusade, the one that's supposed to actually reach Terra and bring about the end of days, cast down the Imperium and reduce it to dust.

It's all been built up to Chaos as the great archenemy, the ultimate evil, the unstoppable inevitable end of all things poised to strike a final deathblow at the empire of man and cast humanity into Hell, but nothing reflects that in the game.

Nonsense read the 7th edition rulebook? It's absolutely hilarious. It goes on about how doomed the Imperium is yet, leading up to the 41st milennia, it's just a row of Imperial victories over and over. To add insult to injury, it removed things such as the Night of a Thousand Rebellions.

Games Workshop hates Chaos. -__-

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
Games Workshop hates Chaos. -__-

The current WOC army book says you're wrong.

So they like the Chaos Vikings, but not the Chaos Space Marines....

I wish the CSM's had a bit more of the WoC in them. WoC are much better defined within WHFB, they've got the biggest, scariest characters, sorcerors that are as fighty as they are casty (and expensive to boot) and highly killy meat shields along with super killy and super hardy troops, and their cavalry is ace, but bring relatively little to the table for shooting (if anything) and (aside from Marauders) are all very expensive. Their "champion table" makes a lot more sense given the way the army works (most Chaos heroes and Lords are character killers, it's their job to go out and find the other guy's heroes and kill them).

Meanwhile 40k CSM's are basically spiky loyalists with less cool wargear and some Tac-equivalent variants.

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
As you can already see, it's mainly people who are butt-hurt that the current CSM codex isn't the old 3rd edition CSM codex which was hideously overpowered and had a few little fluffy rules that they used to use.

Let me just say there has never been a person I have disagreed more consistently with on all of dakka, and never a post I have disagreed more strongly with than this one.

The 6th edition CSM codex literally broke my 40k spirit. It may have taken me 14 months or so after that to finally quit the game, but there was never any question after I purchased and read that codex. It's not hyperbole. I never got over it, it was that bad.

See? This is why I haven't put Ailaros on ignore: I don't want to miss gems of wisdom such as this.

"Legions are too hard for us to do so you're out of luck"

2 months later

"Check out the new feature: Chapter Tactics, pick up your limited edition (and 100% more expensive) copy of Codex: Space Marines today!"

Another way to look at the disappointment that is the 6th edition Codex is that there are too many broken units and rules. There are a lot of things that would be cool were it not for some fatal flaw. this is the way it's always looked to me:

- Eye of the Gods - this would be cool were it not for the fact it benefits to few in so few situations. It's actually pretty hard to get into close combat in the first place, where you could slay the things that would let you roll here.

- CSMs - would be cool but for the fact they have no reliable transport. They don't have the ability to deal with ranged threats.

- Khorne Berzerkers - they would be cool if they came with axes standard. As it is, they are not worth the upgrade price. Plus my point about it being hard to get into cc.

- Noise Marines - would be cool were it not for the salvo rule. Having an effective shooting range of 12 inches when you move is simply awful game design.

- Thousand Sons - would be cool were it not for the Tzeentch psychic powers table, and the fact you don't have much of a chance of getting a useful powers.

- Possessed - are cool in theory but rarely useful on the tabletop.

- Land Raiders - are cool except for the cost and the fact they can only target one thing at a time. Without POTMS, they are just not worth the points.

- Heldrakes - were cool before the turret nerf.

 StarTrotter wrote:
Honestly I wish you could purchase mutations before the game. I always felt it silly how fast you could accrue mutations in a single game. Plus mutations always got reset.

Yh, try "forging the narrative" when:

Game 1: Lord Pyros of the Death Guard gets +1 Str, +1 Toughness
Game 2: Lord Pyros has no such bonuses. Does nothing all game.
Game 3: Lord Pyros becomes a DP.
Game 4: Lord Pyros becomes a spawn.
Game 5: Lord Pyros gains EW.

EDIT: And that time Typhus became a DP, and you died on the inside, as he just became weaker.

Abaddon the Murderinator now becomes a chaos spawn or daemon prince for doing what he does best: killing things.

Strongest HQ becomes stupid DP with no goodies. WTF?

I was told that Any Chambers made chaos powerful , because he was playing them and like Phill Kellys eldar , he was just making his chance to win higher.

Has anyone played a pure Daemon army in 40k? Or seen one played? Was wondering how that turned out...

KTG17 wrote:
Has anyone played a pure Daemon army in 40k? Or seen one played? Was wondering how that turned out...

Yep, heck we just had another last night. Daemons tied up the field devoting most turns to Daemon slaughter while even more daemons were circling to all the objectives. Game won purely through attrition, mainly because Daemons were able to IGNORE attrition. They're endless.

Playing a Daemon army is like playing a self-healing army. Unless your opponent has sufficient Damage Per Turn to take you out, you eventually win just through body count.

So then CSM + Daemons seems like a great bet.

I always thought Chaos of being CSMs + Daemons. Thats what gives them all their color. I think pure CSM is boring. And I guess it justifies not giving CSMs all the fun stuff regular marines get, since after all, CSMs can fight alongside daemons.

KTG17 wrote:
So then CSM + Daemons seems like a great bet.

I always thought Chaos of being CSMs + Daemons. Thats what gives them all their color. I think pure CSM is boring. And I guess it justifies not giving CSMs all the fun stuff regular marines get, since after all, CSMs can fight alongside daemons.

They are... they totally are.

My old Chaos list had Bloodthirsters alongside Tzeentch sorcerer LORDS with a retinue of sorcerers throwing out doombolts and winds with Thousand Sons and Berserkers supporting the line... We don't even have a dreadnought... they gutted this army hard and buffed imperium yet again. My guess is not enough people buy Chaos. Start buying more Chaos, damnit!

Makumba wrote:
I was told that Any Chambers made chaos powerful , because he was playing them and like Phill Kellys eldar , he was just making his chance to win higher.

Considering that there was eight writers for the Chaos book, Phil Kelly included...

KTG17 wrote:
So then CSM + Daemons seems like a great bet.

I always thought Chaos of being CSMs + Daemons. Thats what gives them all their color. I think pure CSM is boring. And I guess it justifies not giving CSMs all the fun stuff regular marines get, since after all, CSMs can fight alongside daemons.

I just can't believe that they didn't include CSM as an army that doesn't get the full "any doubles on summoning = perils" penalty. I mean, if Grey Knights are supposed to be the paragons of non-Choas, wtf are CSM supposed to be?

We do get a few things in our favor though....

Spell Familiars make our Sorcerers strong spellcasters, so while they aren't pure Daemon blood, they are resistant to the Warp.
Daemon Princes are actually Daemons, so they don't suffer double perils at all. We CAN get no perils, you just need pure daemon blood to do it.

We're not pure daemons after all, Chaos has ALWAYS suffered perils because of warp stuff.

Kyutaru wrote:
We do get a few things in our favor though....

Spell Familiars make our Sorcerers strong spellcasters, so while they aren't pure Daemon blood, they are resistant to the Warp.
Daemon Princes are actually Daemons, so they don't suffer double perils at all. We CAN get no perils, you just need pure daemon blood to do it.

We're not pure daemons after all, Chaos has ALWAYS suffered perils because of warp stuff.

Despite having the knowledge of how to summon daemons, which even khorne followers knew how to do even without psyker assistance.

Also Daemon Princes do suffer perils, just on the normal double 6.

It would have been nice if it was something like Marked Psykers suffer only suffer perils on double 6s while summoning as long as the summoned unit is of the same god as the mark. Summoning a unit of a god different from their mark results in perils on any doubles, as normal.

 erick99 wrote:
Also Daemon Princes do suffer perils, just on the normal double 6.

It would have been nice if it was something like Marked Psykers suffer only suffer perils on double 6s while summoning as long as the summoned unit is of the same god as the mark. Summoning a unit of a god different from their mark results in perils on any doubles, as normal.

I like this alot....may introduce it to my group as a potential houserule.

 erick99 wrote:
Also Daemon Princes do suffer perils, just on the normal double 6.

It would have been nice if it was something like Marked Psykers suffer only suffer perils on double 6s while summoning as long as the summoned unit is of the same god as the mark. Summoning a unit of a god different from their mark results in perils on any doubles, as normal.

While nice and all, what about for those on the Khorne side of things.

Are there any Khorne dudes that are Psykers to begin with?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 erick99 wrote:
Also Daemon Princes do suffer perils, just on the normal double 6.

It would have been nice if it was something like Marked Psykers suffer only suffer perils on double 6s while summoning as long as the summoned unit is of the same god as the mark. Summoning a unit of a god different from their mark results in perils on any doubles, as normal.

While nice and all, what about for those on the Khorne side of things.

No idea.

 jasper76 wrote:
Are there any Khorne dudes that are Psykers to begin with?

Khorne doesn't have psykers. That's why I'm having a hard time thinking of a fix for Khorne that stays fluffy(ish).

I still like your idea...I just think it would mean that noone (xcept other Daemons) could summon Khorne daemons without taking the full perils of the warp risk.

That in itself is kinda fluffy, isnt it? I mean, those guys are supposed to hate Psykers, and be generally full to the brim of rage rght? So it'd be like taking a big risk by summoning the most hate-filled kindof daemons.

Yeah, it probably is the best fit fluff wise. It'd be nice if GW would FAQ/errata something like this into the codex. It would remove one of my complaints.

I find myself gradually replacing more and more CSM units with units from the Daemon book. They are better at psychic powers and close combat, and if I want to shoot stuff, I'll bring out my Traitor Guard.

When putting together an army list, I never even consider a large part of the Chaos Codex, there is just such a long list of units that are incredibly overpriced and useless, (Warp Talons, Non-crimson slaughter possessed, Mutilators, 1k sons, Berzerkers, Fabius, Lucius, Ahriman*, Defiler) or just "meh, might work for fun"-level and easily outclassed by other units in the same codex (Land Raider, Chosen, Vindicator, Chaos Space Marines, Raptors, Terminators).

And not having any delivery system outside of a Rhino is a really limiting factor for an army that leans so heavily towards close combat. Daemons get Scout/Invulnerable saves/multi-wound units (and all for cheap!), Loyalists get Drop Pods, CSM get... the option to take Huron as your Warlord. We have the Alpha Legion and the Night Lords, we should be able to reach combat.

It is just outshined by every other updated codex (except Dark Angels) and lack the tools to be competitive in the current meta (no fast troops, no reliable "star"-combos)

*Might change in 7th **Does work well for hiding Be'Lakor out of LOS at least...

I'll keep playing Chaos, but it won't be Chaos Space Marines. My lists have lately featured around 1 model in power armour.

If only Doomrider was a special character who unlocked bikers as troops...

 jasper76 wrote:
I still like your idea...I just think it would mean that noone (xcept other Daemons) could summon Khorne daemons without taking the full perils of the warp risk.

That in itself is kinda fluffy, isnt it? I mean, those guys are supposed to hate Psykers, and be generally full to the brim of rage rght? So it'd be like taking a big risk by summoning the most hate-filled kindof daemons.

I would say you can use psykers in a Khorne list. Who says they are casting powers? Maybe the test is to see if enough blood has been shed that Khorne turns his gaze on the battlefield this turn and blesses the "champion" with demonic assistance (summoning)? Or any other "spell" effect? Hell, you wouldnt even have to model it as a psyker, really.

 Samurai_Eduh wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
I still like your idea...I just think it would mean that noone (xcept other Daemons) could summon Khorne daemons without taking the full perils of the warp risk.

That in itself is kinda fluffy, isnt it? I mean, those guys are supposed to hate Psykers, and be generally full to the brim of rage rght? So it'd be like taking a big risk by summoning the most hate-filled kindof daemons.

I would say you can use psykers in a Khorne list. Who says they are casting powers? Maybe the test is to see if enough blood has been shed that Khorne turns his gaze on the battlefield this turn and blesses the "champion" with demonic assistance (summoning)? Or any other "spell" effect? Hell, you wouldnt even have to model it as a psyker, really.

You can of course, use psykers in a khorne list. What he was mentioning though was that my proposed fix for summoning by sorcerers only benefits marked sorcerers, and no sorcerers can take the MoK.

Of course they can't take Mark of Khorne, he doesn't bless psykers. If you wanted something like a war chant, you'd need something akin to the boon table. That's exactly what Chaos gods are... a random roll on a random table for a random effect that may make you god or nuke you into dust.

Honestly though, if I were making the codex I'd allow Khorne to have psykers but they only generate warp charges through killing things. Blood for the Blood God, bitch.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
As you can already see, it's mainly people who are butt-hurt that the current CSM codex isn't the old 3rd edition CSM codex which was hideously overpowered and had a few little fluffy rules that they used to use.

Let me just say there has never been a person I have disagreed more consistently with on all of dakka, and never a post I have disagreed more strongly with than this one.

The 6th edition CSM codex literally broke my 40k spirit. It may have taken me 14 months or so after that to finally quit the game, but there was never any question after I purchased and read that codex. It's not hyperbole. I never got over it, it was that bad.

See? This is why I haven't put Ailaros on ignore: I don't want to miss gems of wisdom such as this.

lol. Same here. The other day he was arguing that the 40k rulebook was worth paying for because it was comparable to a college education.

And hats off to CalgarsPimpHand, you just gave me a total epiphany, that's exactly what I did!

I spent months beating the piss out of that codex, trying to get my Khorne army to work, or at least desperately trying to get anything besides Nurgle HQ/Plague Marines/Zombies/Cultists/Heldrake to work reasonably. NOTHING. Every list you make, you'd be better off getting rid of anything without MoN, and it's painfully obvious. Khorne berserkers? Horrible because they're impossible to get in to melee. Terminators? Forced to scatter because for some stupid reason they took that ability off Chaos icons. CSM? Why, I can get 2/3rds the number of plague marines for the same cost and they'll be twice as good. Raptors? Again always scatter and get blown off the table unless they have MoN.

So finally, after months and months of trying and not being able to find an army that felt like it had an ounce of synergy compared to my DA, nids, or my friends BA, Orks, and Tau, I just said screw it, eBayed all my Nurgle stuff, and gave up on 40k shortly afterwards because my other choices were Ravenwing, which worked well but weren't really my cup of tea, or nids, which I already played so well I could sweep most opponents off the table without even trying (with the 5e codex... spored Zoanthropes FTW).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kyutaru wrote:
Honestly though, if I were making the codex I'd allow Khorne to have psykers but they only generate warp charges through killing things. Blood for the Blood God, bitch.

...that would actually be a pretty awesome mechanic if melee were more prevalent in the game. Kill a dude in melee, unleash RAAAAAAGE!

Cons:

Point costs.

Dinobots.

Lack of viable legion tactics.

Essentially sub-par SM.

Pros:

Not as bad as BA.

Black Legion and Crimson Slaughter supplements.

Helbrute dataslate.

It's been mentioned loads, but it does come down to the flavour and somewhat ridiculous point costs and balance for Berzerkers, Dark Apostles, Chosen, Thousand Sons etc. The Helbrute dataslate dropped the price and improved the Helbrute unit immeasurably, which has made them useful again. The addition of the dinobot made the codex better, but it was fluff-wise awful. SMs get Chapter Tactics and other codices to added specialisation (DA, BA, Imperial Fists, SW, Grey Knights, Clan Raukaan), while we get the Black Legion and Crimson Slaughter codices and the Fallen Angel and Helbrute dataslate. Almost nobody plays Black Legion or Crimson Slaughter (but for those few it was good) and it leaves everyone else with a poorly designed codex. Hell, part of the fluff got butchered with Chaos Undivided being retconned out. Part of the poor design is due to being the first codex of 6th edition and that 6th edition made CC less good, but Hell, I know of Alpha Legion players who use the Ultramarine or Raven Guard tactics instead of the CSM book.

What I'm hoping for in a new codex

Fix point costs.

SM options/Get rid of dinobots.

Legion/God-specific units and tactics a la SM.

Bring back Chaos Undivided.

This obviously harks back to 3.5, but I'm not talking about getting an overpowered codex but rather a codex that has internal unit balance.

The current codex isn't the weakest, but if you want to play a Legion-specific style you are fethed.

For me, the biggest issue with the 6th ed Chaos book is that it was written for a 4th/5th ed paradigm. It's really just a 5th ed book disguised as a 6th ed book. The newer USRs it gave CSM (such as Champions of Chaos) actually penalize the player for using the codex and tend NOT to synergize well with the 6th ed rules. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, but in an edition where you can't assault from reserves/deep strike, and in an edition where you have random charge distance, overwatch, and in a CSM book with no practical way to prevent deep strike mishaps, we were given a unit in Warp Talons that is costed on a 5th ed level and relies on accurately deep striking to get into CC. Warp Talons would have been AMAZING in the previous two editions. As it is now, they make ZERO sense. Don't even get me started on Mutilators ....

Basically, the book is a random collection of units that don't play well with one another, has had zero thought put into it and is just one huge example of missed opportunity. It's almost as if they randomly selected one person per unit and said "design unit x" but don't read the 6th ed rules or talk to the other people who are designing the other CSM units" and then just jammed them all together.

Common retorts to CSM complaints are, "But Sisters have it worse, you just want 3.5 back, stop beeing a WAAC player, and my personal favorite: Your army is fine because tactics", but none of these address the points I made above.

 erick99 wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 erick99 wrote:
Also Daemon Princes do suffer perils, just on the normal double 6.

It would have been nice if it was something like Marked Psykers suffer only suffer perils on double 6s while summoning as long as the summoned unit is of the same god as the mark. Summoning a unit of a god different from their mark results in perils on any doubles, as normal.

While nice and all, what about for those on the Khorne side of things.

No idea.

 jasper76 wrote:
Are there any Khorne dudes that are Psykers to begin with?

Khorne doesn't have psykers. That's why I'm having a hard time thinking of a fix for Khorne that stays fluffy(ish).

Tie it to a Dark Apostle?
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Sanctified#.U43nw01t3cs

Here is what I'd like to see in a chaos codex, mind you I'm saying chaos instead of chaos marine codex.

More troops, cultists, normal chaos marines, legion marines with options for infiltrate, stubborn etc.

Other transports, drop pods, new open topped vehicle for cultists.

New spawn unit, have option for big spawn ( lose beast, gain mc, more wounds)

Chaos lords more options, flesh metal armour would love to have, buy a particular ability like infiltrate, go back to codex 3.5 where you could also buy +1t, +1ws.

Current daemon engines and helbrutes should have marks, remember its daemons in machines, who did daemons belong to.

Are there any Space Marines players here?

Aren't you utilizing the rule of the Power of the Machine Spirit quite often? Especially when fielding Land Raiders?

I'm trying to make the Chaos Space Marines codex work and thought about 20 Daemons in a Spartan Assault tank when I saw that the Non-Chaos version only costs 10 more points for Power of the Machine Spirit? But maybe this rule isn't used that often? Is it a fair price?

What about the 25 points for Daemonic Possession for lowering the BS to 3, killing the models inside which hopefully only happens when Hull points are lost and the 2+ Ignore Crew Shaken and Stunned result?

Chaospling wrote:
Are there any Space Marines players here?

Aren't you utilizing the rule of the Power of the Machine Spirit quite often? Especially when fielding Land Raiders?

I'm trying to make the Chaos Space Marines codex work and thought about 20 Daemons in a Spartan Assault tank when I saw that the Non-Chaos version only costs 10 more points for Power of the Machine Spirit? But maybe this rule isn't used that often? Is it a fair price?

What about the 25 points for Daemonic Possession for lowering the BS to 3, killing the models inside which hopefully only happens when Hull points are lost and the 2+ Ignore Crew Shaken and Stunned result?

Yeah, isn't that a hilarious one? Instead of PotMS, which lets you shoot an additional weapon at a different target with full ballistic skill, for a net of +15 points, we can take an ability that might randomly kill a 40 point model inside, makes the vehicle WORSE at shooting, but hey, we can ignore the effects of the most ineffective rolls on the damage table. Good times.

But there's a simple solution to all this: tactics.

Chaospling wrote:
Are there any Space Marines players here?

Aren't you utilizing the rule of the Power of the Machine Spirit quite often? Especially when fielding Land Raiders?

I'm trying to make the Chaos Space Marines codex work and thought about 20 Daemons in a Spartan Assault tank when I saw that the Non-Chaos version only costs 10 more points for Power of the Machine Spirit? But maybe this rule isn't used that often? Is it a fair price?

What about the 25 points for Daemonic Possession for lowering the BS to 3, killing the models inside which hopefully only happens when Hull points are lost and the 2+ Ignore Crew Shaken and Stunned result?

I use PotMS often when I use my non-chaos Land Raiders, and I feel it is worth more than the 20 point discount CSM get for not having it, especially on the standard land raider. The Godhammer's main issue is its lack of focus: being an assault transport, you want to get it in close to let your troops get into combat. With lascannons, you want to hang back and pop tanks. And that TL Heavy Bolter isn't bad against infantry, but is near worthless against most vehicles. PotMS helps Land Raiders get over that by letting you shoot at the tanks and infantry.

I haven't found Daemonic Possession to be worth it for land raiders, especially as you often put expensive units int them.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Deuce11 wrote:
Thankfully we have an answer to legions... FW's Horus Heresy (aka 30K) is brilliant. Use it. it works and is as balanced against 40K armies as anything else in 40K.

If you want possessed heavy and mangled by the warp then go with C:CSM.

If you want recent turncoats just play counts-as C:SM.

30k isn't indicative of the legions post-Heresy, which is what most Chaos players want. Not during the Heresy, but afterwards.

Do you have the books? Because as they move forward in time the traitors get increasingly chaotic. Emporer's Children already have noise marines and Word Bearers have super possessed marines for example.

 slowthar wrote:

Chaospling wrote:
Are there any Space Marines players here?

Aren't you utilizing the rule of the Power of the Machine Spirit quite often? Especially when fielding Land Raiders?

I'm trying to make the Chaos Space Marines codex work and thought about 20 Daemons in a Spartan Assault tank when I saw that the Non-Chaos version only costs 10 more points for Power of the Machine Spirit? But maybe this rule isn't used that often? Is it a fair price?

What about the 25 points for Daemonic Possession for lowering the BS to 3, killing the models inside which hopefully only happens when Hull points are lost and the 2+ Ignore Crew Shaken and Stunned result?

Yeah, isn't that a hilarious one? Instead of PotMS, which lets you shoot an additional weapon at a different target with full ballistic skill, for a net of +15 points, we can take an ability that might randomly kill a 40 point model inside, makes the vehicle WORSE at shooting, but hey, we can ignore the effects of the most ineffective rolls on the damage table. Good times.

But there's a simple solution to all this: tactics.

Ooo ooo rate my tactics build! It's exactly 2000 points!

HQ - Sorcerer - 75 w/Spell Familiar + Summoning
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

HQ - Sorcerer - 75 w/Spell Familiar + Summoning
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

HQ - Sorcerer - 75 w/Spell Familiar + Summoning
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

HQ - Sorcerer - 75 w/Spell Familiar + Summoning
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

HQ - Sorcerer - 60 - Sad Panda
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

How to play:
Cultists - Tarpit
Sorcerers - Summon Tarpits
Obliterators - Murder Death Kill

 slowthar wrote:

Chaospling wrote:
Are there any Space Marines players here?

Aren't you utilizing the rule of the Power of the Machine Spirit quite often? Especially when fielding Land Raiders?

I'm trying to make the Chaos Space Marines codex work and thought about 20 Daemons in a Spartan Assault tank when I saw that the Non-Chaos version only costs 10 more points for Power of the Machine Spirit? But maybe this rule isn't used that often? Is it a fair price?

What about the 25 points for Daemonic Possession for lowering the BS to 3, killing the models inside which hopefully only happens when Hull points are lost and the 2+ Ignore Crew Shaken and Stunned result?

Yeah, isn't that a hilarious one? Instead of PotMS, which lets you shoot an additional weapon at a different target with full ballistic skill, for a net of +15 points, we can take an ability that might randomly kill a 40 point model inside, makes the vehicle WORSE at shooting, but hey, we can ignore the effects of the most ineffective rolls on the damage table. Good times.

But there's a simple solution to all this: tactics.

And remember: we have to test when embarking this tank and even at the start of the game where it surely haven't lost a Hull point yet My solution is much more simple: don't play or buy until fixed - this frees up so much money for hifi.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 erick99 wrote:

Chaospling wrote:
Are there any Space Marines players here?

Aren't you utilizing the rule of the Power of the Machine Spirit quite often? Especially when fielding Land Raiders?

I'm trying to make the Chaos Space Marines codex work and thought about 20 Daemons in a Spartan Assault tank when I saw that the Non-Chaos version only costs 10 more points for Power of the Machine Spirit? But maybe this rule isn't used that often? Is it a fair price?

What about the 25 points for Daemonic Possession for lowering the BS to 3, killing the models inside which hopefully only happens when Hull points are lost and the 2+ Ignore Crew Shaken and Stunned result?

I use PotMS often when I use my non-chaos Land Raiders, and I feel it is worth more than the 20 point discount CSM get for not having it, especially on the standard land raider. The Godhammer's main issue is its lack of focus: being an assault transport, you want to get it in close to let your troops get into combat. With lascannons, you want to hang back and pop tanks. And that TL Heavy Bolter isn't bad against infantry, but is near worthless against most vehicles. PotMS helps Land Raiders get over that by letting you shoot at the tanks and infantry.

I haven't found Daemonic Possession to be worth it for land raiders, especially as you often put expensive units int them.

The odd thing is that the Spartan with it's much more powerful sponsons only costs 10 points more.

But still, if there's Space Marines players who also don't play Chaos and who disagree, then please speak up as this is keeping me from buying and playing...

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
So they like the Chaos Vikings, but not the Chaos Space Marines....

Just look at the fluff and you'll see why WOC have always been more favorable than CSM. Badass dark knights who with a few exceptions were never loyal to the Empire. They travel the world looking for a little fun, serving their gods who want to destroy it.

On the other hand, every other word out of a Chaos Space Marine's mouth is ANGST. That's all they say. Abaddon just says ANGST to the ANGST ANGST!

And apparently, the CSM players have adopted that to be their official language.

Kyutaru wrote:

 slowthar wrote:

Chaospling wrote:
Are there any Space Marines players here?

Aren't you utilizing the rule of the Power of the Machine Spirit quite often? Especially when fielding Land Raiders?

I'm trying to make the Chaos Space Marines codex work and thought about 20 Daemons in a Spartan Assault tank when I saw that the Non-Chaos version only costs 10 more points for Power of the Machine Spirit? But maybe this rule isn't used that often? Is it a fair price?

What about the 25 points for Daemonic Possession for lowering the BS to 3, killing the models inside which hopefully only happens when Hull points are lost and the 2+ Ignore Crew Shaken and Stunned result?

Yeah, isn't that a hilarious one? Instead of PotMS, which lets you shoot an additional weapon at a different target with full ballistic skill, for a net of +15 points, we can take an ability that might randomly kill a 40 point model inside, makes the vehicle WORSE at shooting, but hey, we can ignore the effects of the most ineffective rolls on the damage table. Good times.

But there's a simple solution to all this: tactics.

Ooo ooo rate my tactics build! It's exactly 2000 points!

HQ - Sorcerer - 75 w/Spell Familiar + Summoning
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

HQ - Sorcerer - 75 w/Spell Familiar + Summoning
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

HQ - Sorcerer - 75 w/Spell Familiar + Summoning
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

HQ - Sorcerer - 75 w/Spell Familiar + Summoning
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

HQ - Sorcerer - 60 - Sad Panda
10 Cultists - 50
10 Cultists - 50
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76
1 Obliterator w/MoN - 76

How to play:
Cultists - Tarpit
Sorcerers - Summon Tarpits
Obliterators - Murder Death Kill

Strategy Rating: 10

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
In short? GW hates Chaos and Chaos players. We are get punished for EVERYTHING, including our damn Warlord Traits and Boon table.

at least you have a printed codex with models designed this century

Sincerely

every Sisters of Battle player

tremere47 wrote:

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
In short? GW hates Chaos and Chaos players. We are get punished for EVERYTHING, including our damn Warlord Traits and Boon table.

at least you have a printed codex with models designed this century

Sincerely

every Sisters of Battle player

tremere47 wrote:

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
In short? GW hates Chaos and Chaos players. We are get punished for EVERYTHING, including our damn Warlord Traits and Boon table.

at least you have a printed codex with models designed this century

Sincerely

every Sisters of Battle player

At least you have a dedicated Codex.

Sincerely

every Black Templars player.

Thanks guys for answering my question about "why not use HH for CSM". I understand now.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

tremere47 wrote:

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
In short? GW hates Chaos and Chaos players. We are get punished for EVERYTHING, including our damn Warlord Traits and Boon table.

at least you have a printed codex with models designed this century

Sincerely

every Sisters of Battle player

At least you have a dedicated Codex.

Sincerely

every Black Templars player.

At least you have an existing army.

Sincerely

both Squats players

Waaaghpower wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

tremere47 wrote:

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
In short? GW hates Chaos and Chaos players. We are get punished for EVERYTHING, including our damn Warlord Traits and Boon table.

at least you have a printed codex with models designed this century

Sincerely

every Sisters of Battle player

At least you have a dedicated Codex.

Sincerely

every Black Templars player.

At least you have an existing army.

Sincerely

both Squats players

I think we have a winner here

They've got great minis. But the current codex ballance and ruleset make them an overall weak army with just a couple of capable units like biker indep + nurgle spawns.

 StarTrotter wrote:

Davor wrote:
Why are people not buying the Imperial Armour Horus Heresy for their Legion fix now?

You cried you wanted Legion rules. Now you have them. So what is wrong? Is it because Forge World is not "legal"?

Combination of things. One, Forge World is still debated. Second of all, it's still not a joke cheap. Worth the price? Yeah but it's still a big chunk of money. Finally, and most importantly, it doesn't represent the legions we want. Does it represent CSM better than CSM themself? Yes. That said, it's still flawed. Death Guard really haven't hit the nurglified point, Black Legion is entirely different post Heresy, KSons aren't rubricate, there is very little in the way of chaos still. Finally, not all legions are even out yet.

just to quickly mention. forgeworld is 7th ed legal.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/598459.page#6898932

it came up and there is page references saying use any gw publication to find the rules etc.

now 30k Vs 40k. that i can see being a stickler.. its not too far off but yeah just throwing it out there

Mozzamanx wrote:
In my eyes, I don't want to go back to 3.5. I want a Codex built from 7th edition principles that provides buckets of tactical options, represents all 9 Legions alongside renegades and mixed warbands, and ideally does so with a unique CSM twist on things.

- Spawn move to the Troops slot. Bikes is stealing from Loyalists and Raptors are supposed to be rare.
- Units get cheaper the bigger they get. The first 5 cost you 75pts. The next 5 are 12pts each. Then the next are 10pts each, and the last 5 are 7pts each. If 20-man squads is a CSM thing, make it desirable.
- Introduce Legion 'Marks' on a squad-by-squad basis. For example, squad A can have Night Lord geneseed for +Xpts. This gives Fear and Night Vision, but suffer -1 for Blind tests. That way you please both Legionary splinters, but allow them for a mixed warband.
- Introduce Cult upgrades as a 'level 2 Mark'. If the Mark of Khorne was Rage, Butchers Nails would be Rage, Fearless and +1WS for example.
- Introduce wargear that isn't based on Chaos. Volkite relics, Rotor Cannons, vat-grown warriors as WS3/BS2 demi-Marines. Biological or chemical weapons for Havocs and Plagues that would be banned by the Imperium.
- Introduce what can only be described as the Chaos Battlewagon. High frontal armour, large capacity and open-topped. Cheap enough to be a delivery vessel.
- More mobility and deployment. Cultists can upgrade to Infiltrate, Possessed get Scout and Beast movement, Alpha Legion upgrade to provide Outflank. Icons get their DS mitigation back and Sorcerers can open portals to bring in reserves.

There is so much potential to the army but it remains untapped, and any attempt to discuss the list is met with complaints about a book written over a decade ago. 3.5 is dead and buried, nobody wants it back exactly as it was, but it had a whole host of options that have been utterly abandoned.

I like these ideas a lot. Would be so sweet to have marks like "Rubric" Terminators, Helbrutes, Havocs, chosen can replace their champion with a minor Sorcerer and the rest become automatons like the current 1k Sons squads. In fact a Thousand Sons Dread (Helbrute) Could be really interesting, either make it an ex sorc and give it psychic abilities, or make it one of the dusted rubricae, loses the chance of going crazy but becomes slow and purposeful.

Add in some kind of animosity between different God specific units. Perhaps, all Khorne models must be deployed 12 from a Slaanesh one, same for Nurgle-Tzeentch, unless the army is lead by an Undivided HQ. This would actually give some benefit to having an undivided leader as in the fluff it usually them that hold mixed warbands together, but doesn't restrict a Mono-god warband from containing other cult troops.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Envihon wrote:


I have also said that there should be a Thousand Son codex that works similar to the Grey Knights for Chaos. There are still Thousand Sons that are with Magnus that weren't apart of the Rubric and could function with a Codex on themselves in a similar fashion that they set up the GK codex except their units are defined by which Discipline they adhere to. That would make an awesome codex.

The whole Legion was affected by the Rubric, even those that stayed with Magnus so I disagree on the Thousand Sons getting their own book, or any legion for that matter, because it's already been proved before in 3.5 that Legions can be made to work in one codex.

Seeing some of the suggestions in this thread, such as the ones above, make me wish someone would rewrite the core 40k rules and codecies. Make something based off the current game mechanics but just... put in love and effort instead of pumping out another book to make some quick cash.

I like the idea of the Veterans of the Long War rule as this suggests that we can field newly turned Space Marines and elite veterans - what options would you say a newly turned Space Marine squad should have and what should the Veterans of the Long War actually imply? If you're full of ideas which would take an entire day to write, then try another approach like giving the point-costs of the two different units.

Also if we were given a really elitist squad of Chaos Space Marines which satisfied all of us, what should the difference be between that squad and a Chosen squad? I hate that the major difference from a Chosen squad to a normal Chaos Space Marines squad is that Chosen have access to more wargear - to me the difference should be more special rules and/or difference in their stats like the 2 attacks they have already.

Chaospling wrote:
I like the idea of the Veterans of the Long War rule as this suggests that we can field newly turned Space Marines and elite veterans - what options would you say a newly turned Space Marine squad should have and what should the Veterans of the Long War actually imply? If you're full of ideas which would take an entire day to write, then try another approach like giving the point-costs of the two different units.

Also if we were given a really elitist squad of Chaos Space Marines which satisfied all of us, what should the difference be between that squad and a Chosen squad? I hate that the major difference from a Chosen squad to a normal Chaos Space Marines squad is that Chosen have access to more wargear - to me the difference should be more special rules and/or difference in their stats like the 2 attacks they have already.

I think chosen should be the veteran squad like they where back in the.. I wanna say 3rd ed dex? Extra wargear, extra special rules and moved into the troop slot to act as legionary marines while the basic squad gets renamed as renegades and become the cheaper option.

Chaospling wrote:
I like the idea of the Veterans of the Long War rule as this suggests that we can field newly turned Space Marines and elite veterans - what options would you say a newly turned Space Marine squad should have and what should the Veterans of the Long War actually imply? If you're full of ideas which would take an entire day to write, then try another approach like giving the point-costs of the two different units.

Also if we were given a really elitist squad of Chaos Space Marines which satisfied all of us, what should the difference be between that squad and a Chosen squad? I hate that the major difference from a Chosen squad to a normal Chaos Space Marines squad is that Chosen have access to more wargear - to me the difference should be more special rules and/or difference in their stats like the 2 attacks they have already.

My own preference?

Army-wide rule: Broken Brothers. All models with this special rule Hate loyalist Space Marines. All Loyalist Space Marines Hate models with this special rule. Make it free for the whole army.

Chaos Marines- Same stats as now. Points are 15/12/10/7 as the squad gets bigger, so a full squad of 20 would be 220pts (11 each).
Champion Ld10 by default, all others are 8. Champion has access to Melee & Ranged wargear.
5-man squad: One model may take a Melee weapon. A second model model may take either a Special weapon or a Melee weapon.
10-men: One more model can take a Melee, Special or Heavy weapon.
15-men: One more model can take a Melee, Special or Heavy weapon.
Whole squad can take Marks and/or Legacies, where the Legacies represent Heresy-era veterans and Legion rules.

Chosen- Same stats as now. Same access to Special and Melee weapons that they have now.
Whole squad has access to special wargear including Daemonic Steeds, Bikes, Jump Packs and Sigils of Corruption.
Champion can take Terminator Armour, Psychic Mastery levels and Artefacts.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Seeing some of the suggestions in this thread, such as the ones above, make me wish someone would rewrite the core 40k rules and codecies. Make something based off the current game mechanics but just... put in love and effort instead of pumping out another book to make some quick cash.

They have rwritten the chaos codex, right down to the rubric terminators. I can't link it since I found it on a site with non-fan materials, but it was really well done. "Fandex Chaos Space Marines - 6th ed.pdf" it was called.

 Yonan wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Seeing some of the suggestions in this thread, such as the ones above, make me wish someone would rewrite the core 40k rules and codecies. Make something based off the current game mechanics but just... put in love and effort instead of pumping out another book to make some quick cash.

They have rwritten the chaos codex, right down to the rubric terminators. I can't link it since I found it on a site with non-fan materials, but it was really well done. "Fandex Chaos Space Marines - 6th ed.pdf" it was called.

And this is what will happen to Chaos, 40K and GW's sales. All of the Chaos players are going to have had enough, say "Deuces!" and start playing however the hell they want. In fact, I'm of that mind that I'll start buying models from other companies and calling them K-OS for private battles and things of the sort. Screw waiting on Games Workshop. Oh, and on that note of "Screw Games Workshop?" Yeah. I'm not playing Chaos Space Marines anymore. They are now going to be called K-OS Soldiers and Monsters. Because I can be lame too. lol

I think folks are treating Aileros a bit too harshly. He might be slightly zealous in his defence of the current codex, but to be fair, he's got a point if you compare it to the previous book.

Seriously, the 5th edition Chaos codex was absolutely awful. We didn't even have marks, spawn were useless, there was ONE specific build that we could use...

I honestly think it was the worst of the bunch.

I agree that the new one is better, but that says more about the 4th Edition book than it does the current. The frustrating part about it is that many of the problems with this book were present in the last one and remained uncorrected.
It also hurts because the 4th Edition book was written at a time when the game was being simplified and toned down, and there was hope that the bland style was simply a symptom of that which might be removed once we went back to the crazy 5th Edition style. Unfortunately it was an evolution of that book rather than the return many people wanted, and so I expect any further books to be in the same style unless GW gets a new author who approaches it with a different vision.

What happened with 4th was Chaos was selling too many models. GW had made them too awesome in the previous edition. What happens when a model starts selling like crazy? They nerf it (poor broken neck Heldrake). 4th through 7th is their way of saying "YO! We've got all these Sisters of Battle here! Buy them instead!".

The new book might be better but the problem is that a lot of the Chaos forces are too diverse to be lumped into one book and by them doing that, it turns other players off from playing an army they might otherwise would have.

That is where I stand, I don't like most CSM but I do like some like the Alpha Legion. I wouldn't mind playing Alpha Legion at all but I still have to use that book to generate the army and they play nothing like most CSM.

The diversity in the Imperium gets rewarded. The Dark Angels (I still don't think they are diverse enough to have their own codex, and think that they should be rolled into the SM codex and just given their own models but that is my opinion), Blood Angels, Space Wolves and technically the Grey Knights (I don't lump them in with normal SM because they are SM but were designed by Malcador and are no where the same) all have their own Codices because it was recognized that even though they are SM, their tactics deviates enough from the other SM to warrant their own Codex. Not only that but Chapter Tactics within the SM codex allows you to further customize and diversify a SM army from all the other SM armies.

CSM has none of that even though there is a huge amount of diversity in it. A Legion like Thousand Sons, okay, I can understand to reducing them to one kind of unit but the rest don't deserve that treatment. I understand a lot of what the CSM players are saying when they look at Imperial armies and ask for a bone to be thrown their way. And not a Black Legion supplement either, that was just stupid. The Black Legion is the Ultramarines of the CSM and therefore detailed enough in the parent codex.

Kyutaru wrote:
What happened with 4th was Chaos was selling too many models. GW had made them too awesome in the previous edition. What happens when a model starts selling like crazy? They nerf it (poor broken neck Heldrake). 4th through 7th is their way of saying "YO! We've got all these Sisters of Battle here! Buy them instead!".

Apart from the "buy moar SoB", this isn't too far from how things actually work at GW.

squidhills wrote:

Kyutaru wrote:
What happened with 4th was Chaos was selling too many models. GW had made them too awesome in the previous edition. What happens when a model starts selling like crazy? They nerf it (poor broken neck Heldrake). 4th through 7th is their way of saying "YO! We've got all these Sisters of Battle here! Buy them instead!".

Apart from the "buy moar SoB", this isn't too far from how things actually work at GW.

Exactly. GW doesn't remember that SOB exist.
"The who? Sisters of what?"

.

a fat guy wrote:
I think folks are treating Aileros a bit too harshly. He might be slightly zealous in his defence of the current codex, but to be fair, he's got a point if you compare it to the previous book.

Seriously, the 5th edition Chaos codex was absolutely awful. We didn't even have marks, spawn were useless, there was ONE specific build that we could use...

I honestly think it was the worst of the bunch.

Yes in many ways it's an improvement, but that's not saying much given how lame the previous book was. It did relatively little to address the primary issues people had with the previous codex and perpetuated many of the original issues people had with the 4E book. Ultimately, it just didn't deliver what many, if not most, were looking for out of it.

I still say "Give everyone a Fandex." Ends the problem right there. Or better yet, let whoever rights the damn codex's actually give more than a crap about the armies they are writing for.

I don't want a Space Marine player writing a Codex for Chaos. That would be like letting a terrorist (if you believe in such things) be in charge of the presidents security detail.

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
I still say "Give everyone a Fandex." Ends the problem right there. Or better yet, let whoever rights the damn codex's actually give more than a crap about the armies they are writing for.

I don't want a Space Marine player writing a Codex for Chaos. That would be like letting a terrorist (if you believe in such things) be in charge of the presidents security detail.

That terrorist would be awesome at identifying suicide bombers. Let him have the job, damnit!

The diversity in the Imperium gets rewarded. The Dark Angels (I still don't think they are diverse enough to have their own codex, and think that they should be rolled into the SM codex and just given their own models but that is my opinion), Blood Angels, Space Wolves and technically the Grey Knights

Not really, BA are pretty much codex: Adherant, and the Space Puppies are just renamed units with slightly different wargear outputs.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

The diversity in the Imperium gets rewarded. The Dark Angels (I still don't think they are diverse enough to have their own codex, and think that they should be rolled into the SM codex and just given their own models but that is my opinion), Blood Angels, Space Wolves and technically the Grey Knights

Not really, BA are pretty much codex: Adherant, and the Space Puppies are just renamed units with slightly different wargear outputs.

Whaaaaa?

B.a used to be "pretty much codex adherent" not anymore, yes they have more non codex units than actual codex units and.even one of those codex units doesn't use codex equipment (assault marines), space wolves even less so.

 Formosa wrote:


Whaaaaa?

B.a used to be "pretty much codex adherent" not anymore, yes they have more non codex units than actual codex units and.even one of those codex units doesn't use codex equipment (assault marines), space wolves even less so.

Errr, which units are not non codex? All I see are death company.

The rest are name changes on existing roles and functions. Maybe Sanguinary guard, but the rest is really just variants or name changes on other codex units.

Space Wolves are a little different, but still functionally the same.

I've never bought in to the idea that any marine chapter has irreconcilable differences that couldn't be made apart of a better written, all encompassing loyalist marine codex.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Formosa wrote:


Whaaaaa?

B.a used to be "pretty much codex adherent" not anymore, yes they have more non codex units than actual codex units and.even one of those codex units doesn't use codex equipment (assault marines), space wolves even less so.

Errr, which units are not non codex? All I see are death company.

The rest are name changes on existing roles and functions. Maybe Sanguinary guard, but the rest is really just variants or name changes on other codex units.

Space Wolves are a little different, but still functionally the same.

I've never bought in to the idea that any marine chapter has irreconcilable differences that couldn't be made apart of a better written, all encompassing loyalist marine codex.

Personally the only chapters I considered to be different enough were Wolves and Black Templars (and ironically it was deemed that they weren't different enough). BA used to be a regular chapter with DC, and now have a bit more unique things but IMO not enough and some things they have (Librarian Dreadnoughts?) should be available to everybody else too.

DA should have nothing different (all Terminator and all bike should be allowed for anybody) beyond names.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Formosa wrote:


Whaaaaa?

B.a used to be "pretty much codex adherent" not anymore, yes they have more non codex units than actual codex units and.even one of those codex units doesn't use codex equipment (assault marines), space wolves even less so.

Errr, which units are not non codex? All I see are death company.

The rest are name changes on existing roles and functions. Maybe Sanguinary guard, but the rest is really just variants or name changes on other codex units.

Space Wolves are a little different, but still functionally the same.

I've never bought in to the idea that any marine chapter has irreconcilable differences that couldn't be made apart of a better written, all encompassing loyalist marine codex.

Personally the only chapters I considered to be different enough were Wolves and Black Templars (and ironically it was deemed that they weren't different enough). BA used to be a regular chapter with DC, and now have a bit more unique things but IMO not enough and some things they have (Librarian Dreadnoughts?) should be available to everybody else too.

DA should have nothing different (all Terminator and all bike should be allowed for anybody) beyond names.

In all honesty, Space Marines really just fight slightly differently. I mean you could have instead multiple DE books about the cults, kabals, and homunc groups, Chaos with all its vastly different tech even between groups, not counting LOTD and pure legions who actually do have different things from each other, even Eldar and Orks should instead have multiple books.

By comparison, SM don't have much enough to differentiate each other compared to some vast differences in the same book for different xenos/chaos armies, even IG would have far more due to it's massive groups.

Even Sanguinary Guard are a variant unit - Honour Guard.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


By comparison, SM don't have much enough to differentiate each other compared to some vast differences in the same book for different xenos/chaos armies, even IG would have far more due to it's massive groups.

This is it for me.

I just don't see how having a unit with a different name and a minute variant in wargear option constitutes having a distinct codex.

It'd be like justifying a separate IG codex because your infantry squads can take two special weapons instead of a special + heavy, and your HWS are four teams instead of three.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Formosa wrote:


Whaaaaa?

B.a used to be "pretty much codex adherent" not anymore, yes they have more non codex units than actual codex units and.even one of those codex units doesn't use codex equipment (assault marines), space wolves even less so.

Errr, which units are not non codex? All I see are death company.

The rest are name changes on existing roles and functions. Maybe Sanguinary guard, but the rest is really just variants or name changes on other codex units.

Space Wolves are a little different, but still functionally the same.

I've never bought in to the idea that any marine chapter has irreconcilable differences that couldn't be made apart of a better written, all encompassing loyalist marine codex.

I would argue that what both C:SM and C:CSM/Caemons need are just larger books, perhaps comparable to the BRB. Before people go "GOOD GOD MAN! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING?!" HEAR ME OUT FIRST, PLZ K-THX!

Obviously, the largest factions currently are Imperium and Chaos, taken strictly from fluff and the game itself. We can go into "Oh, what about all the Ork Warbands" and "Oh, the Necrons have X-number of dynasties," but that's not what I'm talking about. Just look at the Horus Heresy. There is an entire series some 30+ books long that is detailing the sturggle between the Imperium and Chaos. As I keep pointing out, Chaos is called "The Great Enemy" for a reason. We're practically half the damn story.

So it would stand to reason that these two factions should probably have a bit more attention paid to them and their codex's be scaled accordingly. Now, I know the BRB is something like 500+ pages long, and I don't mean to make those Codex's that long, but long enough to encompass things like the Individual Legions/Chapters, their individual tactics and the things that make them different, respectable specific armories for those factions and things of the sort.

I would love a Chaos dex where the first half of the book talks about the Chaos Gods and Cult Legions, and then it moved onto say the Undivided Chapters, and then on to Traitor Guard, Mutants, and all the other mites and such that roll with the Chaos carpet. And I wouldn't mind paying more for it either!

It would suck that other armies like the Tyranids or Eldar could have a cheaper book, but look at how much more you would get with something like I depicted above? And if these new editions I'm detailing were successful and grew the business and the game respectfully, could you imagine if other armies ended up in similar boats?

ORK PLAYERS! You're getting a new codex (or already have) soon, right? Would "Ork Tactics" sound good to you? Because I know the Warbands all have their own styles as well (Speed Freeks painted Red Go Fasta!!)?

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:

I don't want a Space Marine player writing a Codex for Chaos. That would be like letting a terrorist (if you believe in such things) be in charge of the presidents security detail.

I'm willing to bet this is how we got awful renamed loyalist units like warpsmith, dark apostle, and nerfed statline of the sorcerer.

JubbJubbz wrote:

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:

I don't want a Space Marine player writing a Codex for Chaos. That would be like letting a terrorist (if you believe in such things) be in charge of the presidents security detail.

I'm willing to bet this is how we got awful renamed loyalist units like warpsmith, dark apostle, and nerfed statline of the sorcerer.

It is pretty much why the Chaos Lord went from being one of the most customizable units with the ability to become a psyker into a captain expy, why CSM lost all matter of uniqueness with veteran traits for all etc.

As stated a few times- the csm problem is the lack of mobility of the troops. Rhinos are about as good as it gets. If you cant move em much you can't respond to the opponent you have to make all your tac decisions in deployment and then just play em out. People have made csm work fine but i haven't seen csm troops ever be the thing to turn the tide of a game or surprise an opponent. Its.. not that fun...

I like the boons and even that champion of chaos rule which is a massive nerd stick but at least its chaosie. I think there could of been more of this. The lords and the sorcs + supplements special wargear was cool- potential but it never seemed to work unless you put it into a squad of spawn or bikers and then it was like.. but these don't score/aren't that fun/everygamehingesonthisoneunit….

Wishlist- a randomised warp deployment option that had a real risk/reward chart- not drop pods, not razorbacks but something way sicker (chaosier). I guess thats like deamons but… yeh i think it'd be cool to have csm actually using the warp right? I kinda thought lords should of been able to make 2 units join- like 20 cultists and 5 chosen and a lord…

Hay what about deamon engines that let csm make warp tunnels like nydas canals in sc? vehicle deamons that give mobility without being transports…Also i miss defilers- they were kinda cool. Heldrakes are stupid. If you think of vehicles as just transports or shooting platforms your doing it wrong imo. Csm fortifications like warp beacons or something… Man making a codex would be easy...

I play csm for the looks, i think the models are the coolest stuff gw produces. I am under no illusions that i am going to be competitive with them however. In a shooty edition, they are an assault army with precious little ways to get your champion, mutilators, bezerkers, possessed etc into combat. I'm sticking with them and am slowly evolving into the somewhat obligatory nurgle build, even though i started off tzeentch, which at least takes longer to die to taudar.

Ways to fix csm:
Legion tactics
Give forgefiend purchasable skyfire and twinlinked.
Non fw drop pods.
Cult terminators
Larger non fw transport (all csm squads can be taken as 20, yet you cant transport them).
Warp talons and mutilators assault from deep strike.
Bonus to them rolling for daemonology, i mean c'mon why would they be as skilled at summoning daemons as the friggin smurfs??
Bezerkers need free chainaxes and one more attack or strength.

Those are just my thoughts.

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:


I would argue that what both C:SM and C:CSM/Caemons need are just larger books, perhaps comparable to the BRB. Before people go "GOOD GOD MAN! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING?!" HEAR ME OUT FIRST, PLZ K-THX!

Obviously, the largest factions currently are Imperium and Chaos, taken strictly from fluff and the game itself. We can go into "Oh, what about all the Ork Warbands" and "Oh, the Necrons have X-number of dynasties," but that's not what I'm talking about. Just look at the Horus Heresy. There is an entire series some 30+ books long that is detailing the sturggle between the Imperium and Chaos. As I keep pointing out, Chaos is called "The Great Enemy" for a reason. We're practically half the damn story.

So it would stand to reason that these two factions should probably have a bit more attention paid to them and their codex's be scaled accordingly. Now, I know the BRB is something like 500+ pages long, and I don't mean to make those Codex's that long, but long enough to encompass things like the Individual Legions/Chapters, their individual tactics and the things that make them different, respectable specific armories for those factions and things of the sort.

I would love a Chaos dex where the first half of the book talks about the Chaos Gods and Cult Legions, and then it moved onto say the Undivided Chapters, and then on to Traitor Guard, Mutants, and all the other mites and such that roll with the Chaos carpet. And I wouldn't mind paying more for it either!

This I could get behind. Add Dark Mechanicum too! A better ally system would also work wonders.

Have CSMs, then warband, Legion, and Chaos Undivided and god-specific rules, then Traitor Guard, Dark Mechanicum and Daemons. Wanna field a homebrew Khornate warband? There are functional rules for that! Wanna make a Traitor Guard army led by one and many Alpharius or Word Bearers? The rules are there! CSM-sorcerer led force of daemons and traitor guard? No problem!

It would make oh-so-much-sense, but we're never gonna get it. Hell, make it hardback, cost 40-50£... They could do the same for the Loyalists.

IoM could have the major SM chapters (Black Templars, SW, BA, DA, UM etc) and their tactics, special characters, unique equipment and tactics, then add special characters and tactics for later foundings, e.g. Carchorodons, Sons of Medusa, Minotaurs, maybe even include rules for Renegade chapters (or slap them in the Chaos codex). Then add in Grey Knights and Deathwatch. Then follow up with IG/AM (with optional rules for DKoK, Catachans, Mordian Iron Guard etc) and their characters, Inquisition, Mechanicum and Knights. Oh, and you could even include ork mercenaries in there!

Hell, you could do this for Craftworld Eldar, DE, Exodites and Corsairs too. The fluff for all the factions could all be put in one part and as long as the rest is well written (Key here) they could keep the crunch relatively short. WH40K books are notoriously verbose imho.

It would allow GW to work out a MUCH better allies matrix and get internal balance done... and gets to charge for 2 codices instead of 1, and save shelf-space in store. But this is pure mental masturbation, it won't ever happen.

I'd argue their business model simply has to fall in line. Considering how expensive this game is and the demands of the fan, I don't see it unreasonable for people to spend $100 on a Codex Tome, seeing as how people pay thousands for full battleforces, and then the BRB's are up in the 70's range anyways, if not more. The biggest problem I see with that idea though is updates, but then in the digital age (seeing as how digital is cheaper anyways), I also think they should invest more in digital copies that can be updated automatically without having to throw down another $50 every year or so when something new comes out. And better than that? Why not GW have a membership program? You pay a flat rate, say $10 a month or something, or maybe even a one time rate of $100, or even an annual rate or something, and you get whatever GW puts out digitally, for free.

The only reason why this doesn't fly is because their business model doesn't allow it to fly.

pax_imperialis wrote:
I play csm for the looks, i think the models are the coolest stuff gw produces. I am under no illusions that i am going to be competitive with them however. In a shooty edition, they are an assault army with precious little ways to get your champion, mutilators, bezerkers, possessed etc into combat. I'm sticking with them and am slowly evolving into the somewhat obligatory nurgle build, even though i started off tzeentch, which at least takes longer to die to taudar.

Ways to fix csm:
Legion tactics
Give forgefiend purchasable skyfire and twinlinked.
Non fw drop pods.
Cult terminators
Larger non fw transport (all csm squads can be taken as 20, yet you cant transport them).
Warp talons and mutilators assault from deep strike.
Bonus to them rolling for daemonology, i mean c'mon why would they be as skilled at summoning daemons as the friggin smurfs??
Bezerkers need free chainaxes and one more attack or strength.

Those are just my thoughts.

I like these additions (with the exception to maybe Berzerkers getting the + attack or + strength. They already get some pretty horrendous attacks and strength buffs from their mark now, but then perhaps it could be better expanded. Larger transports though?

I am absolutely in favor of open-topped war buggies the likes of which the Orks have. Why the hell hasn't this happened?

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
I'd argue their business model simply has to fall in line. Considering how expensive this game is and the demands of the fan, I don't see it unreasonable for people to spend $100 on a Codex Tome, seeing as how people pay thousands for full battleforces, and then the BRB's are up in the 70's range anyways, if not more. The biggest problem I see with that idea though is updates, but then in the digital age (seeing as how digital is cheaper anyways), I also think they should invest more in digital copies that can be updated automatically without having to throw down another $50 every year or so when something new comes out. And better than that? Why not GW have a membership program? You pay a flat rate, say $10 a month or something, or maybe even a one time rate of $100, or even an annual rate or something, and you get whatever GW puts out digitally, for free.

The only reason why this doesn't fly is because their business model doesn't allow it to fly.

I could see GW moving towards a system similar to Steam once 3D printers become common. You have an account and pay 5£ for "Khorne Berzerkers," then 1£ per Khorne Berzerker you print.