Mr. Thorpe and the chaos codex redux :

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**reds8n**

Kudos to Mr. Thorpe for responding :

Woah! Thank you to everyone who has joined the discussion about Chaos armies in 40K. To say that my previous post sparked some interest would be like saying the Atlantic Ocean is ‘a bit wet’… To put things in perspective, here are a few stats from the last few days. My previous ‘best day’ came about from the Dark Elves Q&A, which generated about 800 visits in its best day. The day I posted ‘Differences of Opinion‘ brought in more than 1200 visits and I thought ‘That was busy!’. The next day that went up to 1400+ and I thought we’d peaked. Then last Sunday, there were more than 8,300 visits to Mechanical Hamster. Clearly 40K players like to do their web surfing on the weekend! Up until then, the most popular post on the site was Realism is Fake, an essay about dialogue that benefits from a link on TVTropes. It’s been up more than a year and has been beaten into second place in just four days!

Enough of the numbers, thank you all for the comments as well. Some of them are quite lengthy and detailed, but I have read them all. It isn’t practical to write a response to each and every one, so I’m going to pick up on the main themes raised and address them here.

Not My Job, Guv

First off, as some of you pointed out, I left the GW Design Studio and this discussion is purely as a former games developer not a current one. I have no influence in any way on the direction of future Codexes, this is just a debate on theory not a consumer feedback exercise. As such, I am also not privy to GW’s current thinking about Chaos, this is all hypothetical.

Ice Cream!

HBMC used the analogy of the ice cream store to represent the many different Chaos armies. I like ice cream, so let’s run with it. He described a store in which you could only buy vanilla ice cream. Well, vanilla is certainly the finest of the flavours (bonus points for knowing where that lyric is from) and one of its biggest strengths is its versatility. You can have it on its own, you can put sprinkles on it, or many flavoured syrups, or serve it with pie, or with cake (mm, cake). The problem with your cookie doughs and phish food flavours is that they’re ready-made. The shop is offering only the flavours they’ve created and not giving you any information about the cool stuff they’ve used to make them up. What if there were, say, five different ice cream shops, each one a flavour specialist? There’s the vanilla shop with all its versatility, but there’s also a shop dedicated totally to rocky road, with special rocky road-themed extra toppings, and it also served different types of rocky road, so that you can have it with extra marshmallow, or no nuts, or… I’m running out of things you can out into rocky road ice cream, but I’m sure you get my point. And next door is a special cookie dough shop that does the same with its ice cream. The other good thing about the multiple shops is that they don’t charge you for looking at other flavours of ice cream that you aren’t interested in. If you like all flavours of ice cream (as HBMC clearly does judging from his ice cream collection – er, I mean different armies!) you can visit as many shops as you like. If you’re all about the rocky road, the vanilla, cookie dough and tutti-frutti boys aren’t going to hit you up for some extra cash just to disinterestedly peruse over their wares.

Practical Issue

Er, this analogy is creaking, so let’s talk reality. The background and diversity of Chaos is big. As big as the Imperium almost. Let’s say we want to create the ‘perfect’ codex, that covers everything anyone would want. That means giving people proper amounts of background about the different types of armies, all of the troop types, pictures of models and so on. An army is more than just a few rules and an extra option or two of wargear, and if you’re just coming into the hobby there’s a lot of information to absorb which we can’t just skip over like the last Codex did.

Let’s start by combining the contents of Codex: Chaos Space Marines and Codex: Daemons. 192 pages of cool Chaos stuff. But we don’t have any god- or Legion-specific stuff yet. This is where any potential developer faces the first big decision, and there’s no right or wrong answer. The background of Chaos is divided along two separate yet overlapping themes.

You have the Traitor Legions on one hand, some of which are dedicated to a specific god, some of which aren’t. Like those loyalist scum, each Legion has a slightly different way of fighting. Are these presented as sub-lists (as they were in Index Astartes) or is everything rolled into one big list and players are given the background info to shape their armies for themselves? Let’s take Night Lords as a random example. Infiltration and terror tactics. Should Chaos Space Marine squads have an upgrade that represents the Night Lords? Or, should there be a separate army list entry, perhaps called Night Lords Squad? Or, should there be a separate entry for an infiltrating, terror-causing squad that could represent Night Lords but could equally be used for other infiltrating, terrorising squads devised by the players’ imaginations?

The end result in rules terms could be exactly the same, but the presentation of those rules has a profound effect on the way some players perceive them. Is it better to call them Night Lords and then have players change the names for themselves (such as using the Dark Angels for one of the other Unforgiven), or is it better to keep the presentation generic and let players know that using ‘Infiltrating Chaos Marines’ is how they can represent Night Lords on the table?

And just how flexible do we want players’ armies to be? Do we say that the Night Lords can’t have Khorne Berzerkers and leave it up to players to ‘break the rules’ if they want to represent a combined force of Night Lords and World Eaters? If the army list functionally allows you to represent forces from different Legions and Chapters, there’s nothing to stop someone (by the rules) painting their Khorne Berzerkers in Night Lords colours. At what point do the Codexes force players to adhere to the background and when do they inform them of that background and leave it to their discretion?

[I prefer the approach of informed freedom, the encompassing of many 'what if?' situations, since the purpose of the Codex is to allow players to collect a load of toy soldiers, paint them however they see fit, and then play a game with them if they want to. Is important whether a Chaos Space Marine is painted red or blue? It's an unanswerable question except with reference to our personal tolerances and preferences. One might say an WWII German army has too many Tiger tanks because there is historical fact. With 40K, everything is a) fictional, and b) deliberately written to allow hobbyists to come up with their own ideas and form their own opinions. World War II happened and is documented, 40K is a vast sandbox for players to create and explore.]

With regard to our physical Codex and its length, both ways of doing things will add about the same number of pages. Rules-driven guidance means more army list entries (and more pages in the Forces section), a flexible list might mean more options for generic troop types but more required in the form of background and sample armies to inform players choices if they want to pick a Legion-themed force.

For the sake of argument, lets say it take about 8 pages per Legion to do this justice – origins of the Legion and how they’re organised, extra or extended Forces pages to describe their troop types, additional army list entries and colour pages. That’s another 72 pages, bringing our book up to 264 pages. If there were actual full sub-lists for each I would expect this to be even longer.

The Gods Issue

The Legions are one of the two strands that Chaos players like to theme along; the other are the four Chaos gods. We come back to presentation issues. You want to collect Khorne, but not paint them in World Eaters colours? Should you be allowed Berzerkers or only Khorne-marked units (since Berzerker technology is known only to the World Eaters supposedly)? What about non-Emperor’s Children Noise Marines? The odd one in the mix are the Thousand Sons, who are not just ’super marked’ Marines but something entirely unique to that Legion thanks to Rubric and his hi-jinks. So, there’s an argument that there should also be some form of ’super-marked’ magic Marine for Tzeentch, in addition to Rubric Marines, like anti-Grey Knights or something. And then there’s all the Terminator Berzerkers, World Eater war engines, tank variants, Defiler types and whatever else we would need to make a proper World Eaters army. How much of that is transferable and how do we differentiate in the army list?

And then we get to the issue of cross-god armies. Have Thousand Sons and Khorne Berzerkers ever appeared on the same battlefield? Plague Marines and Emperor’s Children? We have the hardline view that such a thing would never, ever, ever happen. Or there’s the realistic view that the chances are at some point the goals of warbands and personalities dedicated to different gods have found common cause. We come back to the grey area of whether the separations are hard-wired into the rules (in which case players can play ‘outside the Codex’ if their opponents are happy with it), or if the army list allows it but the background makes a point of demonstrating how this might come about to give the army its proper context.

Let us assume that we’re going to allow non-named forces to be represented by some of the named troop types. This requires further information to be put in the book – examples of named ‘historical’ Khornate forces that weren’t part of the World Eaters, more examples of toy soldiers and armies. Let’s make it neat and tidy and say four pages for each god, a nice 16-page complete section to bring up our total page count to 280. Thats about two dozen pages short of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

All The Small Things

But wait! This isn’t Codex: Chaos, so far it’s only be Codex: Chaos Space Marines. We need mutants, renegade guardsmen, daemon-possessed psykers and cultists. I’m sure folks can see where I’m going next, so let’s just cut to the chase. To do this justice (that means more background, more Forces pages, more army list entries), let’s add a very conservative 32 pages.

So our awesome Codex: Chaos runs to roughly 312 pages (a little more than the rulebook). It contains everything every player would ever want out of Chaos. Okay, it’ll be a few quid more than a regular Codex, but look at everything you’re getting, right? Let’s not even worry about how long that would take the write, or issues caused by one book supporting a huge swathe of the miniatures range (cos we need miniatures for most of this cool stuff too, because they’re in the Official Rules now and you can’t expect people to convert everything).

A Many-splendored Thing

Or we can go back to our five different ice cream shops, by which I of course mean our five separate Codexes. Actually, maybe six if we did one regular Chaos Marine, one Daemon and one for each Chaos God (remember, not a definite plan, just discussion). A Codex is usually 80 pages long, sometimes 96 and for a few special cases more than that. Let’s just keep to that basic 80 pages. Over the course of six different Codexes, that means a whopping 480 pages of Chaos goodness, more even than our super-Codex.

But we know there are issues with multi-Codex armies from much of the discussions that arise around the Imperial Space Marines. Why does the Reaper Autocannon have different rules for Khorne’s armies than for Slaanesh ones? Why does an Emperor’s Children Daemon Prince not have the psychic powers allowed to a generic Slaaneshi one? And so forth. The benefit of the one book solution is that at least it’s all in one place and gets updated in one swoop.

Another question comes back to the flexibility issue. Do we allow Chaos Space Marines to take units from the other books, particularly Daemons, or are they (as now) completely separate? Even if every single unit was perfectly fair and balanced within its own list, what are implications for cross-lists and game balance? Actually, this applies to any multiple-list format whether in one book or several.

Every entry has to serve not just one purpose (and on the evidence of some of the dislike for Dreadnoughts, Spawn and Possessed some feel even that hasn’t been achieved), but multiple purposes. At a fundamental level, an army that contains so much diversity, the ability to pick-and-mix from such a plethora of different troop types is going to have as many optimal, cookie-cutter builds as any other. Mixing cheap cultists with deep-striking Daemons, rockhard Terminators, and so on, will create an army that doesn’t have any weaknesses, and from that point of view it doesn’t have much gameplay character either because an army is as much about what it can’t do on the tabletop as what it can.

Yet another problem with multi-volume armies is that the information is not self-contained. Where, for example, does Codex: Space Marines tell you that they can be included in a Witch Hunters force? Having faced exactly this issue with Hordes of Chaos and Beasts of Chaos in Warhammer (not to mention ongoing issues with the Dogs of War), I can safely say that multi-volume armies are a pain in the arse. The purpose of a Codex is to contain everything you need to collect and game with the toy soldiers it covers. Imagine you’ve been collecting your Chaos army for a few months and then go to your first club night or tournament, only to find out the guy or gal on the other side of the table has got Daemons in their army.

‘How do you get those?’

‘They’re in this book.’

‘Another book?’

‘Actually, three other books, and there’s another one coming out in a few months’ time.’

‘Wah?’

So all the books have to be planned at once, because the first book in the series has to make reference to the future books (which I did in the Hordes of Chaos intro). Which is a commitment. Commitments are fine right until circumstances changes, or you have a better idea, and then they become a binding oath. What if the books are so great and so successful, there’s scope to do another one? You have to change all the references in the ones already published to make it clear there are now seven books tied together, not six.

Another problem is simple finances. Without getting into a discussion about pricing, nobody wants to feel that they have to buy all six books to keep their edge. With self-contained books buying more than one Codex is a choice players can make, out of interest, to collect mutiple armies or to get the lowdown on the opposition. Little Johnny walks into his gaming store of choice, says he likes the look of the Marines with spikes on and then is promptly told by the learned staff member that he has to read this, and this, and this, etc. Urk. Maybe those pointy ears with the flying tanks are cooler…

Lastly, there’s the time factor. You can’t release them all as a block (because all the non-Chaos players want some love now and then) so it would take years for the set to be complete. At least if each book is self-contained, it lives and dies by its own merits rather than simply being seen as part of an as-yet incomplete work.

In Summary

There ain’t no single foolproof answer to the questions posed. No easy-fix. Compromises will always have to be made due to the diversity of demands placed on a Codex by the many different hobbyists that will use it. Make it a cornucopia of Chaosness and the competitive players will complain that Chaos is broken; make it too restrictive and the more hobby-driven players will feel that they’re vision and creativity is being compromised. Put it in one book and depth and detail will suffer; spread it over a lot of books and it becomes complicated and hard to access.

The developers cannot legislate for every eventuality, though Pete made a valiant effort with his Codex on the rules front. This is where the choice and responsibility passes over to the players. Remember that for every player who sees 40K as a tactical challenge, there’s a collector who wants to theme an army around an obscure reference in the timeline. For every ‘fluff nazi’ (miaow-splat!) there’s the ‘what if?’ creator dreaming about the time Angron asked Fulgrim to repay that favour he did during the Flange IX Burning.

Wargaming isn’t ice cream; we get to make up whatever flavours we like; some of them follow specific recipes, others just throw a bunch of stuff into the freezer to see if it works. It’s usually worth giving them a taste to see what they’re like, because otherwise we might miss out on a great new flavour.

And Finally…

Again, thanks for the comments and discussion. However, this is a blog not a forum and isn’t really set up for ongoing debates between commentators. Please post your comments and your thoughts, I enjoy reading them (even the negative ones). Please also use the many fantastic community discussion boards for responding to each other, they are a far better place for it (incidentally, Bell of Lost Souls is winning with the redirects at the moment, with Warseer and Dakkadakka trailing in their dust).

Rules questions and debate. As with the Dark Elves Q&A, I’m not going to enter into detailed rules discussions or provide answers to specific questions. With the first, Codex: Chaos Space Marines was jointly written with Alessio and I’m not going to do him a disservice by second-guessing decisions he made whilst writing the rules or put words in his mouth. On the second point, I am not a games developer any more and answers I give may well end up being different to the FAQs issued by Games Workshop. Let’s not even get into the manbane thing again!

Thank you all for lasting this long. Have fun and happy gaming.

[Addendum - Daemons in the 2nd edition Codex. This was my poor memory playing tricks on me, but the point stands that not everything in the Daemonworld army list (including Trolls and beastmen! ) was also available to the Chaos Space Marines. Sorry for the confusion.]

linky

**Thorheim**

=( I stoped trusting Gav with 40k since the fiasco of Dark Eldar. "Oh dear I can do... 2 diferent army lists now! Both working allmost the same way! YAAAY!". Same goes for the recent Chaos and Chaos Daemon Codex, they are so "oh you can do that list and that list, but they wont be as effective as LashPrince+nurgle marines+obliterators" :(

A Codex is usually 80 pages long, sometimes 96 and for a few special cases more than that.

Wonder why they ever did 48 pages once? And "special cases" = MOAR SPEEJS MAREEENS!

Gav should never be let onto the 40k scene, ever again.

**notprop**

Seems like quite a concise measured response to me, addressed most of the general issues raised; this should diffuse this whole kerfuffle quite nicely I think.

Whats that Thorheim? Still not happy, oh dear! [puts flak jacket and helmet on, ducks]...... INCOMING!!

**lord_blackfang**

Looks like the Devs really do ask themselves all the right questions... just a shame they come to a different answer every 6 months.

**Frazzled**

If it looks like BS
If it smells like BS
Then is must be BS.

**George Spiggott**

Gav Thorpe wrote:[Addendum - Daemons in the 2nd edition Codex. This was my poor memory playing tricks on me, but the point stands that not everything in the Daemonworld army list (including Trolls and beastmen! ) was also available to the Chaos Space Marines. Sorry for the confusion.]

My book's at home so I can't check but IIRC the only thing you couldn't field in a 2nd CSM army field were the daemon princes, everything else was legit. He'as also conveniently forgotten (again) the Rogue Trader books.

Strangely this impossible book he describes existed, it was the 3.5 book. The new one just needed to be the same thing, minus the daemons and a bunch of Iron Warriors special rules. It didn't even manage that.

**Witzkatz**

I think he made some good points in there. Of course, other codices face the same problems and questions and some might be better than C:CSM, but to blame all and everything on Gav and Gav alone...

**Lord-Loss**

I feel cheated.

Just make two different codexs, CODEX: Renegades and
CODEX: Legions and LATD.

C:Renegades would basically be an improvement of the current codex, helping players making lists like the Night Lords, Berzerker force that he described.

C: Legions and LATD would be Demons, Legions and LATD. Be packed with fluff and chaosy goodness!

**JD21290**

His reasoning wasnt bad, and credit for him actually answering it rather than ignoring it.

but i just feel that if they can go to such lengths for space marines to give then such diversity, why can they not do the same with Codex: black legion .... i mean Chaos?

Lets look at this for a minute.
How the feth did templars get thier own dex? Correct me if im wrong, but there are just as many if not more iron warriors players out there than templars.
So by popularity it seems to make no difference.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Can someone do the math and tell me how many pages the combined Realm of Chaos books came to? Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned combined.

**Polonius**

It was a well written and well reasoned response. It's hard to argue with the main points he raises, and he lays out a really compelling argument for why he didn't remake Realms of Darkness.

If only that was the debate.

As far as strawmen rebuttals go, this was a very, very good one.

The real question isn't "why can't I field cultists in a dedicated Alpha Legion army anymore?" Nobody expects that, not in the brave new world. The real question is "why can every other army still build for flavor and flexibility while Chaos can't?" Knowing that sublists and doctrines and traits were going is a given to the discussion, what matters now is how well what remains allows for interesting and effective armies. Other codices have simply done much better than Chaos, IMO.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
OTOH, we should give him credit for explaining his reasoning. The poor guy has nothing to gain from talking about it, and only opens himself up to further flaming.

And never forget that the broad brush strokes were probably dictated from on high, and Gav simply did the best he could within those confines. GW staffers are known to be loyal to a fault, falling on swords rather than point out that the higher ups were idiots.

On an interesting side note, apparently some level of gamer dissatisfaction filters back to the Studio. In his comments, he specifically points to Spawn, Dreadnoughts, and Possessed as three units the community finds worthless. Interesting.

**whitedragon**

He makes good points, but the greater issue is why they can only release things very slowly, and why they got rid of Chapter Approved to take care of the things we lost or interesting fluff things.

For example, using the new Chaos dex as a guide, it works as Gav describes. Then a quick WD article could have made unofficial Chapter Approved detailing a Legion a month, or so, giving us a bone, and yet leaving the codex the way it is for people that want the full Chaos skittles list.

Just a case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing.

**Polonius**

I think we all can see the White Dwarf designers notes in 4 years when they interview the designer of the next Chaos Codex, and he says something along the lines of "Well want to return the focus in this Codex back to the Chaos, and back to the purest form of that Chaos, the Legions."

**usernamesareannoying**

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Can someone do the math and tell me how many pages the combined Realm of Chaos books came to? Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned combined.

roughly 575

**JohnHwangDD**

Not a bad response at all.
____

@Lord-Loss:
In all likelihood, one day, we will see Codex: Chaos Legions for the Big 4, just not immediately.
____

@Polonius:
Given that Chaos has the best Troops in the game, by far, and are really spoiled for choice, the comment that "other Codices have done better" appears to be false, at least if you look at the Codices on an individual basis. You have far more viable CSM options than, say, Tau Empire or Eldar or Dark Angels or Blood Angels. IMO, the only thing that the needs to be done is to remove Lash entirely - or errata it into nothingness (i.e. range 6"). That would force Chaos players to look at non-Lash-Oblit-PM builds.

But more to the point, why is it that Imperials are split across SM, BA, DA, BT, SW, SoB, Inq, & IG and that becomes a valid comparison point for a single book of Chaos? Limit the comparison between CSM and SM books only, with Daemons offsetting IG. Yes, Legions would be a hole to fill in lieu of BA, BT, DA, SW, & Inq (GK). And actually, that would be a possibility.

**voidfiend**

First of all, let me just disclose the fact that as a chaos player since the Rogue Trader Days, I hate the new CSM codex. Just want to get that out in the air.

Now as for Gav’s comments, chaos is indeed a large and diverse subject for a codex. In fact, I would say that of all the 40k army rules, chaos is by far the most difficult to write. It’s good to see Gav acknowledging that. Chaos encompasses renegade marines, demon armies, famous traitor legions and LATD/mutants.

Here’s the rub though. I would argue that every single codex prior to the current one has touched on most of these areas relatively effectively. I think Pete Haines did a fantastic job of meeting a nearly insurmountable challenge of bringing a lot of the fantastic background from the original Chaos hard cover books. In v3.5 we had generic CSM rules, daemon rules and a nice sprinkling of traitor legion rules. Yes, there were complex options, yes Thousand Sons sucked, yes Iron Warriors were broken but overall it was a fantastic product. I mean, people in my area actually started to care about a chaos god’s sacred number again.

Now in the new CSM codex, we have Space Marines with spikes. No traitor legions, minimal options and half a page on generic daemons. Raptors have the same rules as loyalist jump squads. We have vindicators. All we need are speeders, whirlwinds and drop pods and it’s basically loyalists with obliterators/defilers. It’s a good codex if you want to play loyalists that have turned from the Emperor but it pretty much ignores all the other areas of chaos background. From Gav’s comments, I get the feeling that they looked at this difficult codex, saw how hard it would be to do and just gave up by ignoring all these other areas.

Now I know we have a separate codex for daemons but I don’t see how this can ‘legally’ gel well with the CSM rules. It would have been a lot better if something in the daemon codex stated how it could be used with the CSM codex. Kind of like what they did with Grey Knights.

So I’m sorry gav, but IMO you (or who ever was responsible) failed. Sorry, it was a tough job, but the current codex just doesn’t cut it.

Help us Pete Haines, you’re our only hope…

**dietrich**

It's a good response. The problem is that there are five flavor stores for loyalist marines (OT - if Black Templars were an ice cream, what flavor would they be?), and only vanilla for Chaos. Combined with a loss of CA and a slowing release schedule, if you want Rocky Road, you're never going to see it.

I'm surprised that GW has not used APOC to try to fill some of the gap. For example,

Night Lords Terror Raid
250 points + models (I have no idea if 250 is right, but it sounds like a good start!)
1 Chaos Lord
2+ Chosen
2+ CSM
2+ Raptors
Models in the terror raid may only take MoCU.
Terror Raid: Any enemy models are at -1 Ld in the First Turn. All ranged weapons in the Terror Raid cause pinning in the First Turn.
Dawn Raid: First Turn is fought using Nightfighting rules
Acute Senses: Due to Nocturne's perpetual night, all models in the Terror Raid get Acute Senses.
Eliminate Communications: Night Lords are renowned for disabling enemy communications. Any 'off board' Ordnance weapons (MoO, Inquistor lance strikes, Chapter Master's ability, etc.)roll twice for scatter and take the worst result.

It requires even less playtesting than GW normally does, gives the fluff players something, and adds a bit of character back into the game.

Some of the other Legions could even be easier:
Iron Warriors
May select Techmarines as per C:SM, but are +1 Leadership and lose Combat Tactics and ATSKNF.
May select Artillery Batteries from C:IG. These remaining BS 3 since they are crewed by slave labor.

Word Bearers
May replace Summoned Daemons with suitable entries from C: Daemons.

I'm sure that both could be more fleshed out, but if I can invent this on the fly, I dont' understand why the Dev Team hasn't adopted it. APOC seems to be the great compromise of 40k. It doesn't have to be well balanced, because it's 'just for fun'. It doesn't require GW to produce or create any models. It doesn't require any long-term support. And they don't even have to print the things - just put 'em on their website!

editted for some typos!

**niceas**

On the whole, I think that his response sums up for the most part the situation in which he found himself - constrained by the bean counters, and required to produce a list that would adequately cover CSM.

To the person who stated that they should have included the alternate army lists: GW has been staying away from the sublists for a while now, likely since Armybook: Skaven IIRC. The reason for this is that the sub-lists aren't as thoroughly playtested, and as such tend to be broken. For reference, see SAD lists.

To the person who suggested that they should have released two codices: that is not something that was within his control. Likely he was told something to the effect of: You have xx pages for Codex: CSM. Jam all this stuff in, and get rid of the sub-lists. As a company we are moving away from cross-codices, so you won't be able to rely on Codex: DoC, and because we want that list to be truly and fully separate, you can't use the traditional Daemons - instead we want generic daemons so that they are well and truly separate from DoC.

Whether we like the direction that Games Workshop is going with their Armybooks/Codices or not, there has been a clear move to eliminate access to other lists and to make each one purely self contained. Likewise, GW is clearly moving to eliminate sublists contained within a given codex/armybook, likely in an effort to improve game balance (YMMV though).

GW has had a few successes in list design of late, and my honest hope is that they will build upon them. As I don't play 40k, I can't come up with an example on that side of the pond, but from my own gaming experience Armybook: Dark Elves is something they should strive towards as a goal - in the local metagame, there are a number of Dark Elf players, all of whom have different playstyles and different lists, all of which (thus far) are proving to be viable.

Anyways, I'm going to get off the

before I get myself in trouble.

**Snord**

Whatever you think about the codex or his reasoning, it's a pretty good example of how to deal with criticism (and I bet he got some very hostile messages). There should be more of that here. Instead of this kind of comment:

Frazzled wrote:If it looks like BS
If it smells like BS
Then is must be BS.

An ex-Studio person goes to the trouble of trying to explain why he did what he did (and remember he can only say so much without breaching his confidentiality clauses), fields a huge number of responses, posts many of them (including very critical comments) on his site, then goes to the trouble of writing a long and reasonably thoughtful response for no apparent personal gain. Or so it seemed to me - obviously I don't see things as clearly as you do

whitedragon wrote:He makes good points, but the greater issue is why they can only release things very slowly, and why they got rid of Chapter Approved to take care of the things we lost or interesting fluff things.

Because they got as much flak for CA as they do now for not having it. There were endless arguments about it here, as well as complaints about having to look through multiple WD's for rules and clarifications. As for why they release 'things' (by which you presumably mean codexes) slowly, I think it's clear that their rules writing resources are stretched. It seems to be easier for them to crank out high quality plastic models than it is to produce army lists. But they they've always been a miniatures company first and rules writers second (or third).

Polonius wrote:As far as strawmen rebuttals go, this was a very, very good one.

The real question isn't "why can't I field cultists in a dedicated Alpha Legion army anymore?" Nobody expects that, not in the brave new world. The real question is "why can every other army still build for flavor and flexibility while Chaos can't?" Knowing that sublists and doctrines and traits were going is a given to the discussion, what matters now is how well what remains allows for interesting and effective armies. Other codices have simply done much better than Chaos, IMO.

Nice use of the back-handed compliment! Although 'strawman' has become one of the most hackneyed expressions on Dakka - and doesn't seem particularly appropriate here.

Why are Orks, for example, more flexible than Chaos? You can build an army around any of the clans' fluff, or use other themes, but there's nothing inherently different about the composition of the codex, is there? Note the point Thorpe made about painting the models to give them the character you want them to have, as distinct from giving them special rules. This seems to get overlooked in all the arguments about 'lost flavour', and it's not just 'BS' as Frazzled so eloquently put it. You can add all the special rules you like, but it it's a bunch of indifferently painted models chosen to maximise those rules then you're not going to convince anyone that it's true to the spirit of anything. Also, the history of special rules for variant lists hasn't been a happy one, because one variant list's rules are always more powerful than the others and then that's all you see on the table. Meanwhile, someone who wants to field a particular chapter/clan/craftworld can't use a particular unit because the special rules forbid it, even though he's probably got a good fluff reason/modelling angle that makes it work. Or he's stuck with a unit he hates because it's compulsory under the special rules.

I'm not disagreeing that other codexes have been done better than Chaos, incidentally. But then we only have 2 true 5th Edition codexes, Marines and Guard. Even the Ork codex (released shortly before 5th Edition) is partially inconsistent with the 5th Edition rules. Personally, I think that's a much bigger issue than any flaws in the Chaos codex.

**Frazzled**

People going into detail to cover their keisters are, at the end of the day, still just covering their keisters.

**JohnHwangDD**

dietrich wrote:I'm surprised that GW has not used APOC to try to fill some of the gap.

The reason that GW hasn't pushed Legions to Datasheets is because GW probably has a Legions Codex in the works. If GW releases Datasheets for FREE, then there is less incentive to buy a $35+ Chaos Legions Codex to get the special rules for one's particular pre-made flavor of ice cream.

If one looks at the timing, with CSM out, Daemons out, it is timing-wise a good time to release Legions as the next Chaos book. Legions can pickup the Big 4 Special Characters and Marked Daemons, while removing non-Cult things like Chosen, CSM, Raptors, and Obliterators, with 4 distinct lists that don't mix.

Then the next CSM book can focus on the MoCU units, with Abbadon and Blackheart.

**Witzkatz**

Excuse me, Frazzled, but first you and everybody scream at Gav Thorpe, curse him over the internet and now that he gives a polite, friendly answer to that you insult him for it?

Is he not allowed to talk back or what? I mean, he did it definitely more polite than you are at the moment.

**Platuan4th**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
dietrich wrote:I'm surprised that GW has not used APOC to try to fill some of the gap.

The reason that GW hasn't pushed Legions to Datasheets is because GW probably has a Legions Codex in the works. If GW releases Datasheets for FREE, then there is less incentive to buy a $35+ Chaos Legions Codex to get the special rules for one's particular pre-made flavor of ice cream.

They did kind of do it with 1(2 if you count the TS War Coven) Legion: Emperor's Children.

**Polonius**

Tailgunner wrote:

Polonius wrote:As far as strawmen rebuttals go, this was a very, very good one.

The real question isn't "why can't I field cultists in a dedicated Alpha Legion army anymore?" Nobody expects that, not in the brave new world. The real question is "why can every other army still build for flavor and flexibility while Chaos can't?" Knowing that sublists and doctrines and traits were going is a given to the discussion, what matters now is how well what remains allows for interesting and effective armies. Other codices have simply done much better than Chaos, IMO.

Nice use of the back-handed compliment! Although 'strawman' has become one of the most hackneyed expressions on Dakka - and doesn't seem particularly appropriate here.

Strawman wasn't the best term, but he's clearly cherry picking his response to deal with the weaker criticism. There are, IMO, two main lines of criticism against the chaos book. The first is that this got rid of demons and legions and untold options and that should not have happened. The second is that even in an environment with streamlined and integrated archtypes, the chaos book does a poor job. The first is the more fun argument, but as Gav showed is actually pretty readily argued. I think that GW should have done a massive CSM book, with a Demon book and a LatD book to follow, but that's just me.

Why are Orks, for example, more flexible than Chaos? You can build an army around any of the clans' fluff, or use other themes, but there's nothing inherently different about the composition of the codex, is there? Note the point Thorpe made about painting the models to give them the character you want them to have, as distinct from giving them special rules. This seems to get overlooked in all the arguments about 'lost flavour', and it's not just 'BS' as Frazzled so eloquently put it. You can add all the special rules you like, but it it's a bunch of indifferently painted models chosen to maximise those rules then you're not going to convince anyone that it's true to the spirit of anything. Also, the history of special rules for variant lists hasn't been a happy one, because one variant list's rules are always more powerful than the others and then that's all you see on the table. Meanwhile, someone who wants to field a particular chapter/clan/craftworld can't use a particular unit because the special rules forbid it, even though he's probably got a good fluff reason/modelling angle that makes it work. Or he's stuck with a unit he hates because it's compulsory under the special rules.

The legion lists (and the Craftworld eldar lists, and the clan lists, and doctrines and traits) allowed more than just flavor, they allowed genuinely differenty army archtypes. A saim hain army wasn't just a different paint scheme: it was built around jet bikes and vypers. A Kult of Speed had more bikes, trukks, and buggies than another army.

In the modern Ork book, you can build many different army archtypes that play very differently based on the core troops chosen. Green Tide, Kult of Speed, Battlewagon Spam, Biker Horde, Kan Wall, and loota spam are all very different builds, and they play very differently.

There is plenty of options in the Chaos book, but find me a list that isn't "Marines in rhinos plus stuff." There's plenty of different marines, and lots of extra stuff, but it's a pretty narrow range of army builds. So, yeah, I think there are some differences.

I'm not disagreeing that other codexes have been done better than Chaos, incidentally. But then we only have 2 true 5th Edition codexes, Marines and Guard. Even the Ork codex (released shortly before 5th Edition) is partially inconsistent with the 5th Edition rules. Personally, I think that's a much bigger issue than any flaws in the Chaos codex.

I'm not sure what you mean, but let me put my opinion of the Chaos book out there: as a variant Marine book, it's interesting and reasonably well executed. For Renegades, it does a yeoman's job. As the sole non-daemon chaos book available? It's far too limited.

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Witzkatz wrote:Excuse me, Frazzled, but first you and everybody scream at Gav Thorpe, curse him over the internet and now that he gives a polite, friendly answer to that you insult him for it? Is he not allowed to talk back or what? I mean, he did it definitely more polite than you are at the moment.

When a person is polite and friendly in explaining why they screwed something up while taking no real responsibility or admitting any possibility of error it's ok to point out that it's still just spin.

When the emperor is naked, the fact that he's a nice guy does not change the rights of fools and children to point out that he is, indeed, wearing no clothes.

Of course, as they say, the emperor remains an emperor and the fool remains a fool.

**Cane**

Great response by Gav. On another note I'm one of those creative "what-if" people that was mentioned with the Night Lord Khorne Beserker example; I'm all for making my own fluff and paint schemes since thats one of the biggest things I love about this hobby.

**Haunted_Undead**

Never read so much kak in my entire life as that

**Frazzled**

Witzkatz wrote:Excuse me, Frazzled, but first you and everybody scream at Gav Thorpe, curse him over the internet and now that he gives a polite, friendly answer to that you insult him for it? Is he not allowed to talk back or what? I mean, he did it definitely more polite than you are at the moment.

1. I don't give a

if he's polite or not.
2. he can talk back
3. He's still covering his butt
4. I'd be ok if he just said "yea they told me to do this. I'm just doing what I was told." It doesn't cover that even looking at the marine portion only, the dex is flavorless tripe.
5. He could be honest and said that this one was meant to be generic as GW was contemplating breaking chaos into 3-4 dexes (legions, demons etc). I'd but freaking way ok with that.

CYA CYA CYA.

**JohnHwangDD**

Polonius wrote:There is plenty of options in the Chaos book, but find me a list that isn't "Marines in rhinos plus stuff." There's plenty of different marines, and lots of extra stuff, but it's a pretty narrow range of army builds. So, yeah, I think there are some differences.

And yet, isn't that the defining nature of a Marine list of any flavor?

**Haunted_Undead**

Lastly, there’s the time factor. You can’t release them all as a block (because all the non-Chaos players want some love now and then) so it would take years for the set to be complete. At least if each book is self-contained, it lives and dies by its own merits rather than simply being seen as part of an as-yet incomplete work.

This made me laugh very loud considering what Imperial Space Marines get

**Polonius**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Polonius wrote:There is plenty of options in the Chaos book, but find me a list that isn't "Marines in rhinos plus stuff." There's plenty of different marines, and lots of extra stuff, but it's a pretty narrow range of army builds. So, yeah, I think there are some differences.

And yet, isn't that the defining nature of a Marine list of any flavor?

Less than you'd think. Ignoring the sublists (Which actually add options to any marine army, now that GW dropped the color=rules law of 3rd edition), Codex: Space Marines can drop a pretty interesting range of lists. You've got your basic codex rhinos and stuff (with the spice of having razorbacks), Pedro's Sternguard, all bikers, all outflanking, dreadnought heavy, whatever. The addition of Crusaders and 3++ storm sheilds make both terminator heavy and landraider spam more viable.

Finally, I think the fact that many of the legions can be better built out of the SM book than the CSM book illustrates that the potential is there, it was just not utilized. Iron Warriors as a Master of forge with ironclads, Nightlords as either biker horde and/or shrike led assault force, Alpha legion as outflanking Khan force. It doesn't take much.