Gav Thorpe responds to Codex Chaos Marines detractors

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**grizgrin**

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

**Anung Un Rama**

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

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

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

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

**olympia**

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

**whatwhat**

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

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

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

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

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

**MeanGreenStompa**

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

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

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

**dogma**

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

Implication is a hell of a mistress.

whatwhat wrote:
without laying out their own beliefs

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

**whatwhat**

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

**wuestenfux**

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

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

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

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

**grizgrin**

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**whatwhat**

grizgrin wrote:It was the only one you addressed, and the tone of your post indicated that changing things would be the reason to continue dialogue with him.

erm, no.

whatwhat wrote:Of course if someone were to ask him a genuine question of why Gavin put such and such in the codex, without laying out their own beliefs of why they think he did it before hand, he will probably make an effort to answer.

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

Get over yourself.

**grizgrin**

Get over myself? But why? Was only tryin to help you out.

**whatwhat**

grizgrin wrote:Well, looks like you might have been on the same track as me. Speaks highly of you.

Again, don't flatter yourself.

edit: oh look now you've edited your post.

**grizgrin**

Your answer got misdirected by an edit of mine, so it doesn't really fit now but I see what you meant given what was there.

**dogma**

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

You know, I wouldn't find these openings if you actually bothered to put thought into your posts. That said, it has nothing to do with you. I see poor reasoning and attempt to correct it , you just seem to reason poorly more often than most.

**whatwhat**

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

You know, I wouldn't find these openings if you actually bothered to put thought into your posts.

What opening, you claimed I was implying that changing the codex was the only concern, which it wasn't.

I see poor reasoning and attempt to correct it , you just seem to reason poorly more often than most.

Does that include calling me utterly stupid for saying alcohol made for better sex, when I did nothing of the sort. And calling me an antisocial dick when I aired my own views on tipping?

**dogma**

That was the implication of your post. If you want to discuss this further, I suggest you PM me rather than derail this thread.

**whatwhat**

lol don't put that on me.

**Kilkrazy**

Both of you!

**H.B.M.C.**

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

What you'll find is that if you post at Dakka enough, you gain EXP. You gain enough EXP, you can pick new skills. I'd suggest you head down the 'reading comprehension' skill tree, that way you'd see that no one is complaining about the power of Chaos. You've put too many skill points into 'strawman attack', and really, but the time you reach my character level, that kind've attack has no effect.

**Elessar**

What HBMC says is true, no-one has said anything about the loss of power in this Dex compared to the last one since I cut that argument up, oh, 4 pages ago or so. Gutted that this thread is reopened, actually, since it was locked while I typed a post I then had to publish on my blog instead.

**H.B.M.C.**

"...since I cut that argument up..."

Eh?

**Elessar**

Elessar wrote:
1) People who hate their broken army (usually Iron Warriors) getting nerfed.
...
People 1: Grow up. The Codex was too strong when it came out, and had to go. Next time it'll be too good again, it's how the game works. If you haven't been playing long enough to see this cycle before then just STFU and wait.

Voila.

**H.B.M.C.**

And Lash/Oblit/Plague Marines isn't 'too good' now? That doesn't 'have to go'?

The current Chaos Codex didn't make them weaker, it just changed what was powerful from several powerful (or overpowered) lists to one powerful (or overpowered) list.

And it also seems that you and I have different definitions of what an argument looks like when it's 'cut up'...

**Elessar**

Lash isn't broken. It's pretty good, but there's far too much Psychic Defence to call it broken, even ignoring the fact that DPs become very one-dimensional with it, and that Mech is immune.

Oblits are awesome, PMs are pretty damn sweet, Kharn is great, Defilers are okay, Chaos Dreads are nicely cheap.

Then we have a modern Codex, such as SM, IG or SW, and nothing but Oblits and PMs would even get considered for one of their armies. Everything else is either cheaper or just better in their alternatives.

**FITZZ**

The real point isn't so much "is lash broken",it's is the current CSM codex bland and limiting,the simple fact that so many people seem to choose Lash as their "power build" should reflect just how limiting the Codex is.

**Anung Un Rama**

What I can't stand are people who have twin lash in an army which consists mostly of Khorne units. Something like that should not be allowed!

**olympia**

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

What you'll find is that if you post at Dakka enough, you gain EXP. You gain enough EXP, you can pick new skills. I'd suggest you head down the 'reading comprehension' skill tree, that way you'd see that no one is complaining about the power of Chaos. You've put too many skill points into 'strawman attack', and really, but the time you reach my character level, that kind've attack has no effect.

So this is a QQ thread whinging about fluff?

**willydstyle**

Anung Un Rama wrote:What I can't stand are people who have twin lash in an army which consists mostly of Khorne units. Something like that should not be allowed!

Hmmm... I remember being able to mix Khorne and Slaanesh pretty freely in the 2nd ed book. Maybe you shouldn't base all of your ideas of fluff off of one codex.

**olympia**

This thread is remarkable for the sense of entitlement shown by the most vociferous CSM players. You never hear the poor Tau players whinge as much as this about having a piss poor codex.

**Polonius**

Arguing that Lash isn't as good as Iron Warriors is a bit of a difficult thing. Neither won every tournament, and both have strong foils.

I think the point that's being made isnt' that Lash is or isn't good, but that it's clearly the best build in the book. All chaos armies that are built to compete are going to be built around a core of mechanized squads, usually plague marines or zerkers but sometimes noise marines or even stock CSM, with a few extras tossed in. Some run three possessed vindicators or landraiders instead of oblits. Others take havocs or outflanking chosen. Regardless, Mechanized cult troops are the name of the game.

And that's not all the fault of the Codex. Even if the old book were legal, the lists would look differently due to the changes of 5th edition. IW gunline wouldn't be as good simply because lascannons aren't that good anymore, and nobody wins games with two six man troops choices.

The criticism, and I think the best one, is that unlike both the old Chaos Codex and the codices that preceeded and followed it, there is list diversity in play styles, in army archetypes.

Look at the old csm book: you could field rhino rush, demon bomb, gunline, all infiltrating horde, or a combindation. Look at the Eldar book: bike horde, ranger gunline, aspect swordwind, or even Eldarzilla are all viable, if not top teir, options. Orks have green tide, Kult of Speed, nob bikers, loota spam, and the kan wall. The current Chaos book has variations on Dudes in Rhinos with stuff supporting.