Do Chaos players even care about the fluff any more?

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.

**Leotilt**

I used to be an old school fluff puritan (or an elitist jerk depending on which end of the rant your staring down) but have eased up for a while now.

I mean where do you draw the line? At the badly photocopied sheets of A4 I used to get in the post from citadels games workshop before they even had brick and mortar stores? I can tell you the whole thing was utterly different in every way and I can see how it's grown both ruleswise and fluffwise since then.

See what I mean? You have to roll with the punches. It's cool to look back at the "golden days" (that really weren't that golden) but when you try forcing that onto other players all you achieve is making yourself look like an elitist jerk, this is the polar opposite of TFG and just as annoying. Sorry but that is how people will see you when you rant at them.

My whole view on chaos now is that you do what you want, if you want to win then build to win, if you want fluff then go for it, if you want both then abuse "counts as" and write a cool story. However you deal with it just deal with it. Or go and setup your own tabletop gaming company and call the shots yourself. Shoehorning your outdated views into a changing fantasy reality designed to make money and then moaning when you lose is an exercise in masochism that I feel guilty for putting myself through lol.

**DarkHound**

I think it's not abusing the "count as" rule the same way you abuse wound allocation. GW is endorcing it with the new SM codex, allowing you to use SCs to customize your force, and allowing you to mold the SCs to your own fluff.

**Leotilt**

Yeh, I phrased that badly

"make full use of" would be a better way to put it.

**Corpsesarefun**

DarkHound wrote:To say that fluff has entirely disappeared from Chaos, and 5th Edition to a greater extent, is beyond reason. I take offense when I hear the Deathguard (for example) don't exist because there are not rules for them. The fluff exists, and the tools to build a Deathguard army exist. I think this codex has opened up to a more 'build your own renegades' approach. Yes, we lost options in this codex, but we gained more creative freedom. Complaining about powergamers abusing that is as old as time, ironically enough. You make a new way to smelt iron to build a stronger plow, but someone uses it for a sword to kill that farmer. I can still make an army of stoic marines, marching across the battlefield shrugging off incoming rounds and returning them two-fold, as the sun sets on the battle. As far as it will ever matter, they are the Deathguard. It comes down to how you build and paint your models, which is the soul of the hobby. That is what determines what your army is, as much as any rule.

I see this is as an age of freedom of design, where count-as rule rules. The rules dictating what a unit is, are less concrete now. The entry for Thousand Sons is less about the actual Ahriman's Rubric Marines and more a ruleset for a unit, if you can graft it into your force. An Aspiring Nurgle Sorcerer obsessed with creating a new form of life sustaining spell spell for his warriors, loses control and looses a virus on his bodyguard, reducing them to mindless zombies in their armor. All the modelling required here is a Sorcerer baring Nurgle Icons and some CSM with boils, blown off limbs and a rather slouched stance. The modelling is used to show the story, without you having to say a word. A Slaaneshi Sorcerer uses a surgeon to tamper with his soldiers, resulting in monsters obsessed with cutting opponents in the most brutal fashions imaginable. Slaaneshi Sorcerer leading a unit with the Khorne Berserkers rules. With proper modelling this shouldn't feel unnatural to all but the most devoute followers of the text. Thinking inside the box of what things are is what restricts Chaos players for the most part and at the moment. There are even examples of how units of Khorne Berserkers and Plague Marines have come to be in other ways in the Codex. The fluff is alive and well, to me atleast, and you can utilise it without restriction with a silver tongue, a keen eye and a pack of green stuff.

There are players who won't make the effort in modelling or story telling to explain how this army came to be. I do truly feel sorry for them, as that is one of the most rewarding aspects of this game. To watch as your battles contribute to the story of this grim future is the most satisfying aspect of the hobby.

well ive been converted...
PRAISE THE LORD!!

**gennadius**

i thought i readed once somewhere that the chaos gods will work something if they want something very bad like the death of the emperor for example but after they archieved something like this they'll fight eachother

**ph34r**

To say that fluff has entirely disappeared from Chaos, and 5th Edition to a greater extent, is beyond reason. I take offense when I hear the Deathguard (for example) don't exist because there are not rules for them. The fluff exists, and the tools to build a Deathguard army exist.

So even though there aren't rules for them, you still consider them a part of the game as much as any other army, and that there isn't anything wrong with this?

**DarkHound**

There is something wrong with the fact that some of the Legions don't have their own codicies (Deathguard, Word Bearers, Nightlords and Iron Warriors are on the top of my list). GW loves their poster boys more than us however, so we have to make due. Like I said earlier, not playing them because there isn't a list with a bold-faced title of Deathguard is sad.

EDIT: I suppose, though, if we got our own Legion PDFs, then Tau will want a Farsight PDF and Nids will want PDFs for the main Hive Branches, etc. and then we might as well not have main codicies. 'If you give a mouse a cookie...'

**JohnHwangDD**

@DH: That is what Special Characters are for, apparently...

Which isn't actually a bad thing, if GW hadn't been so ham-fisted about the whole thing, things could be a lot better.

For example, presume that each Legion gets a Special Character.:
- Night Lords could have a Chaos version of Shrike
- Iron Warriors might have a Lord who makes Scoring Havocs
etc.
- Word Bearers have a Lord with a Daemonic Crozius & Corrupted Rosarius

It wouldn't be the worst way to differentiate Legions and give a few more options.

But it would probably require the Marked forces to be split from the unmarked forces, or we'd have Special Character overload.

**Perturabo's Chosen**

OMG, scoring havocs!?! HAHAHA, You are done for as i have more heavy support units than i have trops and fast attack combined.

All your base are belong to Perturabo! We will set you up the bomb!

That might be the actually be a good way/the best way to bring back legion armies, SC that give army-wide special rules.

**DarkHound**

Sweet, a next edition consensus! Give us SCs like the loyalists, and some new options for gak's sake! We've not gotten any new units for two codicies! The SM and Ork codicies stressed changing your army through your HQs. That doesn't fit well with Guard, so they just gave them sheer options. I think this is a good turn for Chaos, when our new codex comes out eventually we should get an SC trait system too and some new units for once! This should force fluff legal lists back to being the only legal ones, as we are the only race that seems to have that problem.

**ph34r**

DarkHound wrote:There is something wrong with the fact that some of the Legions don't have their own codicies (Deathguard, Word Bearers, Nightlords and Iron Warriors are on the top of my list). GW loves their poster boys more than us however, so we have to make due. Like I said earlier, not playing them because there isn't a list with a bold-faced title of Deathguard is sad.

EDIT: I suppose, though, if we got our own Legion PDFs, then Tau will want a Farsight PDF and Nids will want PDFs for the main Hive Branches, etc. and then we might as well not have main codicies. 'If you give a mouse a cookie...'

The difference between Farsight and regular Tau is pretty small. It's not like they went out and developed their own technologies, weapons, etc. They are just Tau that happen to have killed all their Ethereals and like close combat. The Death Guard, on the other hand, have been sitting in the eye of terror for 10,000 years becoming different than your average renegade. In fact considering how all Space Marine chapters follow more or less Roboute Guilliman's big book of war, and the traitor legions never homogenized in this way, the traitor legions are more deserving of different rules than SM chapters. But that's not how things worked out, is it?

**da gob smaka**

the new codexes are going to adress this, you want nurgle you run a nurgle army, khorne a khorne army, if you dont want to run a dedicated army you get to play undivided. So, soon you wont see a squad of khorne berserkers being led by a tzeench champion on a nurgle steed with a slanesh banner (I know this is not a possible combination in 40K its just an example). The new codexes will make you chose a faction, so all the purists will be happy and all the uber gamers...who knows Im sure theyll find something.

**Frazzled**

ph34r wrote:
DarkHound wrote:There is something wrong with the fact that some of the Legions don't have their own codicies (Deathguard, Word Bearers, Nightlords and Iron Warriors are on the top of my list). GW loves their poster boys more than us however, so we have to make due. Like I said earlier, not playing them because there isn't a list with a bold-faced title of Deathguard is sad.

EDIT: I suppose, though, if we got our own Legion PDFs, then Tau will want a Farsight PDF and Nids will want PDFs for the main Hive Branches, etc. and then we might as well not have main codicies. 'If you give a mouse a cookie...'

The difference between Farsight and regular Tau is pretty small. It's not like they went out and developed their own technologies, weapons, etc. They are just Tau that happen to have killed all their Ethereals and like close combat. The Death Guard, on the other hand, have been sitting in the eye of terror for 10,000 years becoming different than your average renegade. In fact considering how all Space Marine chapters follow more or less Roboute Guilliman's big book of war, and the traitor legions never homogenized in this way, the traitor legions are more deserving of different rules than SM chapters. But that's not how things worked out, is it?

I call BS. Overroided freaks waving swords in skull enhanced green armor are identical to Overroided freaks waving swords in skull enhanced black armor to everybody else. They all get the artillery fire...

**Augustus**

Perturabo's Chosen wrote:All your base are belong to Perturabo! We will set you up the bomb!

What you say? For great justice take off every Zig.

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

Just because you follow old stories doesn't make you right, or someone to respect; I can run Dual Lash because the rules say so. I swear, people run other lists that are good, but Dual Lash just gets under their skin for no apparent reason. If you don't like my books powers being used on you, try playing with it yourself. Otherwise SHUT UP, I'm buying models and painting them just like you.

**Ad Meliora**

I'm not sure where all this “fluff is dead” and “GW don't care about fluff” comes from. The last few army books have been crammed with great fluff, as was the 5th ed core book. Yes sometimes it changed old fluff but we'd all be complaining if they just reused old fluff in new books.

I left wargaming years ago and returned only recently and I really enjoyed catching up on all the changes. I love the fact that the golden throne is failing, that Gazellekull returned to Armageddon and converted it into ork heaven, that the Zoats are back in cannon (if only as fluff in the Tyranid codex). It's all crazy fun and shows the GW writers and designers are just as invested in the fluff as the rest of us.

As for the complaints about army builds and fluff, well I recall the exact same arguments being made back when I used to play 2nd and 3rd edition. It's the nature of the hobby I suspect.

**George Spiggott**

JohnHwangDD wrote:...But it would probably require the Marked forces to be split from the unmarked forces, or we'd have Special Character overload.

They could rework the ones we have... Kharn leading every Khorne army FTL.

**Augustus**

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Just because you follow old stories doesn't make you right, or someone to respect; I can run Dual Lash because the rules say so. I swear, people run other lists that are good, but Dual Lash just gets under their skin for no apparent reason. If you don't like my books powers being used on you, try playing with it yourself. Otherwise SHUT UP, I'm buying models and painting them just like you.

Taken a little personal?

Try to consider it from a 3rd person perspective. Theres a convention that generally the cult marines have been lead by cult characters or perhaps one of the great unalligned leaders of chaos, but seeing a sudden change in the army composition structure that contradicts that, in the last year, at least from the perspective of players with many years of history seems a travesty.

IMO, if it's a legal list, you should play it, absolutely. But, there is a melancholy sadness when the rules leave an obviously advantageous combination that seems to contradict cannon. Can you at least see that perspective?

To change the example, today the new IG dex is out and it is going to create a similar situation, probably an oversight, where Imperial officers can give orders to friendly units, say, allied grey knights and let them have the power of orders, like twin linking and rerolled target cover saves etc!

Book RAW legal: sure.
Looks cool: sure.
Tacticly Advantageous: You Betcha!

But an IG officer issuing orders to allied Grey Knights? Absurd in the fluff, and also a new precident from this new codex that is, questionable. Please understand, this is not picking on Chaos players, or IG players, it's an argument about bad codex structure that contradicts years of GW cannon. (At least from my, and possibly others perspective.)

**asugradinwa**

I only started playing 40k 10 months ago and after buying and learning with Tau I decided to buy some space marines when the new codex came out and really liked the Salamander shoulder pads icons. I read through the fluff section of the book and really liked the parts of Salamanders helping people where others thought it was hopeless so I decided to base my army around them.

Once I got into army design I really liked the idea of a Space Marine Captain taking up the quest to find the lost treasures of his chapter. So I went with Vulkan as my army master. Only after playing around with lists did I find how powerful he could make an army.

In a recent tournament I got knocked on the bringing 2 fast attack units in my Salamanders army. Due to the way the scoring sheet was laid out I lost 3 points under sportsmenship for NOT having a fluffy list. Every squad either had a flamer or a melta, my terminators with thunderhammers had the forgeworld shoulder pads for Salamanders, and my rhinos & land raiders had the Salamander doors yet because I took 2 land speeders with multimeltas and heavy flamers I get docked.

However, in the 4th edition codex (which I DO NOT own) it gives Salamanders a limitation on fast attack. So therefore I got knocked with being unfluffy.

Funny thing is that the knock came from a player with Eldrad. Should I have knocked him for bringing a DEAD CHARACTER?

On one hand I like playing themed lists. If the guy I'm playing actually has a reason the two lash deamon princes are leading some plauge marines with a unit of krone zerkers being support by 9 oblitorators then I'm all for it. However, I havn't come across a good reason yet.

If farsight shows up in the next Tau codex and allows people to take 2 hammerheads are players going to get knocked because they arn't being true to the previous codex's rules?

**Augustus**

Ouch sorry to hear that.

I fully support the "if it's legal play it"

I would not doc someone for sportsmanship, when they are playing a codex legal list, whatever combo that is.

Despite my feelings on theme, tournament play is different:

asugradinwa, I say you were injustly robbed, sorry.

*EDIT* This is also a problem with allowing options that go against the fluff, what happens in say, 2 years with a chaos dex rewrite where HQ models have to be marked to lead cults as troops, then what are all the players who were new with Lash/Plague going to say? (Hey but chaos is generic, this is wrong... See?)

**Leotilt**

I find comp scores annoying as hell because anyone with a case of sour grapes can find fault (even in a tame list) and dock you points.

Lash prince working with plague marines seems simple to me just use your imagination. Small band of nurgle marines are stalking a space marine patrol, there champ hears a whisper in his mind and a pair of slaaneshi princes materialise. They offer the plague marines a simple offer to help with the attack and use there slaaneshi charms and mind tricks to bring the nurgle lads into the fold alongside the obliterators who are there in exchange for there pick off the loot. The plague marine champs order there lads into the fight knowing that if they didnt they would have two powerfull princes to deal with, better to let them think they are calling the shots... For now.

Jobs a good'un. Makes as much sense as the elite of the elite spaz mareenz been the most common thing in 40k and then the elite of the elite of the elite sterngaurd making up 50% of that number.

**asugradinwa**

Leotilt: See I'd have NO problem if someone said it like that. The problem is when I ask for the story they look at me and then talk about how they heard about how great this list was on the internet.

**Leotilt**

Yeh there is no avoiding that and it's not a chaos specific thing

The chaos fluff is changed in current codex, we don't have to like it but it is there to support builds. Maybe powergamey lists should be posted with terrible fanfic like I just wrote to support there comp scores

**Augustus**

asugradinwa wrote:Leotilt: See I'd have NO problem if someone said it like that. The problem is when I ask for the story they look at me and then talk about how they heard about how great this list was on the internet.

Yea, I got nothing...

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

Not taking it personally, just sick of being accused of the same crap over and over. It gets really, really old. I play fairly original lists, but it shouldn't matter to anyone whether I do or not.

**sugna the repairible**

DarkHound wrote:There is something wrong with the fact that some of the Legions don't have their own codicies (Deathguard, Word Bearers, Nightlords and Iron Warriors are on the top of my list).

[b]HELL YEAH!!!!
I play Iron Warriors, ALL my men are painted in the LEGION'S heraldy. So that would rock to have a codex for them. More heavy support please, and can I have three vindicators to a choice as well?

**sugna the repairible**

Sorry, still new at posting. :(

**sugna the repairible**

Any way, send me an PM to hear my army's story it is to long to post I think. Unless...

**DarkHound**

Welcome to the Forum Sugna, but if you have things to add to your post, just edit them in. It looks really noob if it takes four 3 posts to get half a paragraph in. I do mean that as gently as possible.

The problem I have with Dual Lash is it is blatently WAAC, and in a tournement where sportsmanship matters, they should get marked down. Dual Lash is the one top tier WAAC list that has no previous examples in the fluff. That sounds lame, but when you can chalk Nob Bikers up to being in a Kult of Speed and it feels right, and where the fluff you put together for Dual Lash doesn't, something is wrong. It's natural that Nobs in a Kult of Speed would take bikes, even if the rest of the army isn't part of the Kult of Speed (which is acceptable fluff). Dual Lash combines vastly contrasting elements of Chaos. Ascended warriors of decadence go and lead soldiers who thrive on decay and have no intention of serving the god you are dedicated to (so much so that you have risked your soul to him), instead of other like minded soldiers? Then a massive Obliterator cult is lulled by Slaanesh to join the Princes? It's a lot of effort on the part of the Princes for no fluff gain. (Alright, Obliterator Cults are always a gain, but my point still stands.)

When GW makes stories in the codex, examples on how certain units band together, it makes doing so feel more natural. They did this very well in this codex, showing how splintered warbands have become a force and how it comes down to individual squads of a force being represented. When GW says that any ork can be part of the Kult of Speed (I keep coming back to this example because it is a good one) and still be in his own clan, it feels very kunning and fluffy when you choose to utilize this fluff. I'm probably just jaded against it, but at this point I can't think of a fluff tangent that would make Dual Lash kunningly fluffy without almost blatently encouraging WAAC gaming.

**RustyKnight**

DarkHound, did you even read Leotilt's short story up there? It does a great job of explaining how a dual Fzorgle+Death Guard+Oblit Cult could work together for a short period of time. That's all a game of 40k is, a short period of time.