Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is balance? No. Demorez.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What about mutants? Slaves/zombies?

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

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


myabe more dangerous but unstable psykers as well?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IMO BL are more Fluff Possessed than Termies.

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

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

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

Some of us like to roll our own.