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Just a idea I had in my head last night. I know nothing will come of it, but just want to get it out there for some Critique!

In the trend of codexes nowadays, have it so the Marks that the HQ choices have affect how the FoC plays out.

Firstly replace this stupid "Icon" business with proper marks at either x/model or a flat cost, as it is beyond idiotic that if one guy happens to die everyone stops being nurgly.
Every unit with a Mark has a Special Rule which for now I am going to call "Rare". Unit's that are "Rare" take up 2 FoC Selection instead of one. So for example, taking 2 Units of Noise Marines will use up 4 Troops FoC selections and 3 units would take up all 6 Troops FoC slots. But before you Nerd Rage, see the next paragraph!

Marks of Chaos have the same effect no matter what unit takes them, but on HQ's they gain an additional effect. A Mark of Chaos (Khorn, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, Nurgle or Undivided) on an HQ unit means that "Rare" units with the same mark no longer count as "Rare" but take up 1 FoC slot/unit as normal. Thus, the aforementioned Noise Marines, if taken in an Army where an HQ unit has a Mark of Slaanesh, only take up 2 Troops FoC slots, as normal and 3 will take up 3, as normal.

So, as a starting point, you would have the 5 Troops Choices, Khorne 'Zerkers, Slaanesh Noise Marines, Tzeentch "Thousand Sons", Nurgle Plague Marines and Undivided Chaos Space Marines, each with the appropriate Mark. Using a Khorne HQ means that you could take 3 Units of Zerkers and 1 Undivided (for a total of 5 Troops FoC used), or 2 Zerkers, 1 Plague Marines and 1 Noise Marines (for a total of 6 Troops FoC used).

Each HQ would have the mark of Undivided By Default with an option to replace it with something else. It would be permitted to take 2 HQs with Differing marks or even Opposed Marks, as arbitrary limitations such as not allowing a Khorne HQ and Tzeentch HQ just piss everyone off.

"Rare" could also apply to things like Land Raider Crusaders, as they are Post-Heresy Technology, thus allowing Chaos players to get their Shiny new toys but at a cost of FoC slots, to balance out the Chaosy goodness they get that nillas don't. Perhaps Razorbacks could be made a "Rare" Fast Attack Choice too rather than a Dedicated Transport, or perhaps just allow only 1 unit to take a Razorback, or something.

Any thoughts are welcome of course!

Normal CSM shouldn't be rare, but I like where this is going. I don't like being outright denied to take a certain combination of units, nor do I enjoy being heavily discouraged. But this seems like a nice, balanced, and overall good idea.

Meaning that GW will never use it.

But that's besides the point.

You idea is sort of justifiable in fluff, but from a game perspective it doesnt add anything. All you've done is made CSM worse by restricting the number of good troops choices they can field with no benefit. For many armies your idea would mean that they can only use three troops choices or two elite/fast attack choices. There arent any glaringly obvious broken issues with CSM troops choices so you must include something positive to blance the restrictive parts of your rule. It seems that you have just made CSM effectively opperate on a smaller FoC than the rest of the game.

It also goes against what seems to be GWs current trend for writing army books, where you can field a much wider range of units with fewer restrictions, but with fewer army wide special rules as well. Thats why we have seen the disappearance of all the legions in the CSM codex in favour of being able to use berzerkers/noise marines and 1Ksons/plague marines next to each other with impunity. Similarly in the eldar, SM and ork codicies you have a much wider ranger of unit choices available to you than you would have done in previous codecies, but it comes at the cost of losing some special rules.

In summary you are just making CSM worse for no real benefit.

Regwon wrote:In summary you are just making CSM worse for no real benefit.

I think H.B.M.C. would like to have a few words with you regarding the impossibility of that statement

But yeah, I was editing it when you posted, so have another quick look because it may or may not have changed while you were typing your post! :( Sorry!

Every unit with a Mark has a Special Rule which for now I am going to call "Rare".

I take it that this statement would mean that, considering only troops choices come with marks ATM, this would only apply to Troops. Unless Gwar means any unit that can take a mark. In that case, that would be just downright silly.

EDIT: Just read Gwar's changes, I like it!
DOUBLE EDIT: I just found a flaw: The draw-back has absolutly no effect in Apocalypse.