Graft the Demon codex into the Chaos Space Marine codex?

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**bravelybravesirrobin**

Skinnattittar wrote: you'll just have to accept and move on, do what you can with what you have, a codex that only limits the number of models you have on the board. Everything else you actually have control over, what they look like, which you choose, how you play them. All decisions for you.

In other words; okay.

Incidentally taken to its logical conclusion this argument means that nobody should ever complain about a codex ever for any reason.

"The artwork in the new guard codex is sub-par and its colour section is too small."
use your imagination

"The new chaos codex completely invalidates my army."
use your imagination, just have everything count as something else

" the new tau codex have completely removed crisis suits from the game, what do i do with all my crisis suits"
use your imagination, make them count as fire warriors

You appear to be arguing that the very notion of codecii is superfluous to the game. We may all as well play with marine rules but represent with models that look however we want them to look.

**JohnHwangDD**

bravelybravesirrobin wrote:
Skinnattittar wrote:psst, Bravely, you can still make a very fluffy Chaos army, ..., but that's up to the players to choose.

And players choose poorly.

Rules design should reward reflecting the backstory.

I'm annoyed at GW for making such a terrible codex that the player is guided towards that army.

You still can and there still are fluffy chaos space marine armies but there is very little guidance in the new codex for new players to produce such an army and no rules benefit for producing a fluffy army.

What was a perfectly fluffy and valid army is still fluffy but now has to be played as counts as to be legal on the tabletop. Not for balance reasons.

As for IG? Well doctines lost them some flavour I concede but doctrines was poorly implemented in the first place.

Eldar - the craftworlds as they were can largely be recreated in the new codex.
Powerful eldar builds reflect fluff with the exception of the overall eakness of guardians.

Indeed, players choose poorly, which is why CSM no longer have flavored Daemons, because too many Daemons were overshadowing the CSM.

Actually Backstory should be reflected in the Fluff and Theme. But 40k doesn't need a special rule or bonus for everything in the Fluff.

Perhaps only the WAAC Tournament players are guided to "that army". The rest of us are doing just fine, TYVM.

My CSM army doesn't plan on any Lash, nor Oblits. It's more of a Black Legion concept, and it's got its own Fluff. Interestingly enough, I didn't need GW to spoon feed me a Legion that I had to play as. I was able to make my own army, and thankfully, I'm not extra-penalized for not playing a particular list.

I don't see the problem. It's still an EC army, but it focuses on the NM CSM, rather everything else. Also, a lot of the changes were definitely for balance reasons in that GW can't balance so much stuff effectively.

IG lost the ability to effectively field the equivalent of "Cult" Platoons of Infiltrators / Drop Troops. All IG has for mobility is Mech. Doctrines were silly and stupid, but less so than Legions. And Doctrines could have been reimplemented in a good way, but GW chose not to.

Skittles Biel-Tan cannot be recreated effectively, because there is only one Troops choice. This was a mistake, and highlights why many Chaos complainers are such spoiled brats. You have 4 flavors of Fearless MEQ Troops, and nobody's satisfied?!?

Also, I thought Eldar dropped well off top Tier in 5E, no?

**bravelybravesirrobin**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
bravelybravesirrobin wrote:
Skinnattittar wrote:psst, Bravely, you can still make a very fluffy Chaos army, ..., but that's up to the players to choose.

And players choose poorly.

Rules design should reward reflecting the backstory.

I'm annoyed at GW for making such a terrible codex that the player is guided towards that army.

You still can and there still are fluffy chaos space marine armies but there is very little guidance in the new codex for new players to produce such an army and no rules benefit for producing a fluffy army.

What was a perfectly fluffy and valid army is still fluffy but now has to be played as counts as to be legal on the tabletop. Not for balance reasons.

As for IG? Well doctines lost them some flavour I concede but doctrines was poorly implemented in the first place.

Eldar - the craftworlds as they were can largely be recreated in the new codex.
Powerful eldar builds reflect fluff with the exception of the overall eakness of guardians.

Indeed, players choose poorly, which is why CSM no longer have flavored Daemons, because too many Daemons were overshadowing the CSM.

Actually Backstory should be reflected in the Fluff and Theme. But 40k doesn't need a special rule or bonus for everything in the Fluff.

Perhaps only the WAAC Tournament players are guided to "that army". The rest of us are doing just fine, TYVM.

My CSM army doesn't plan on any Lash, nor Oblits. It's more of a Black Legion concept, and it's got its own Fluff. Interestingly enough, I didn't need GW to spoon feed me a Legion that I had to play as. I was able to make my own army, and thankfully, I'm not extra-penalized for not playing a particular list.

I don't see the problem. It's still an EC army, but it focuses on the NM CSM, rather everything else. Also, a lot of the changes were definitely for balance reasons in that GW can't balance so much stuff effectively.

Alright thats a fair enough point. GW reduced the amount of options in order to help them balance those options. That's a reasonable thing for GW to do. It doesn't make me any more disposed to like the present chaos codex though because many of the options that were removed were underpowered or just fine and the present chaos codex is still unbalanced. If their aim was to better balance the codex one would have hoped they'd have balanced the damn codex.

I also understand that daemonbombs were too powerful, unfluffy and quite popular. But that doesn't necessitate the changes made to them in the present codex. Its pendulum GW at work again. Daemons were too powerful so now they suck. But they now suck conceptually in addition to their tabletop performance which is where the real hurt comes in.

40K doesn't need a special rule or bonus for everything in the fluff but I lean towards a preference for as much of the background being available on the tabletop as is possible to balance. Others have a different opinion which is fine. I feel bad for players who had viable forces that were made into "counts as" armies by the loss of these rules though. Not creating specific rules to distinguish between alpha legion and iron warriors is fine with me. But having created those rules in the first place to take them away and make iron warrior basilisks and alpha legion cultists into units no longer supported by rules, after the hard work players have put into making them, hurts.

Yes, there is apocalypse, which shouldn't be an excuse. IMHO Alpha Legion simply should have cultists.

AS for being guided towards that army? Well I don't play Chaos myself but I certainly have to play against a lot of lash based armies all of a sudden, even in gaming club play. Weirdly enough the only chaos player that doesn't have 2 lashes is the emperor's children player.
I don't think the old chaos codex was well balanced but at least all the chaos players I used to play had very different lists and some unusual units. The new codex is both unbalanced and dull.

It's nice that you have a balanced and fluffy army John.

Whilst this is an interesting and spirited argument (that seems to be boiling down to, some people like rules to reflect background quite closely and others don't care for it so much) I notice that nobody has yet said why they like the current codex better. There has been a lot of talk about why I'm wrong or overreacting or how it doesn't matter that options and units have been dropped but nobody has actually put forward an argument that the current codex is better than the previous one. I'd be interested in hearing it.

**JohnHwangDD**

This whole Chaos Fluff discussion is very much like the WAAC discussion, and boils down to one simple question:

- Just because the rules allow you to do something, that doesn't mean that you must, or even should do it.

Like the WAAC discussion, nothing in the rules forces one to go balls-to-the-wall hardcore against one's opponent, squeezing out every last point of power in the unfettered worship of extreme asskickery. Although, amusingly, the rules do explicity call out TMIR, to ensure that everybody is having fun...

Anyhow, WRT Chaos Fluff, the army list allows you to field a Fluff-bunny EC list or a WAAC Lash/PM/Oblit list. Nobody's forced to take either extreme, but players are allowed to do either. Should Lash be removed? Yes. Will that kill the Lash/PM/Oblit list dead? Yes. Do we have to wait 4 more years? Probably.

In any case, what we're seeing with the 5E Codices is GW starting to shrink Codex options down to something that they can do a reasonable job of balancing. Chaos, as the most complex Codex, is always going to be a problem.

And while I sympathize somewhat with any army losing units / models, I can't say that anybody should have been too surprised or upset when GW changed their mind after one ruleset. IG Basilisks have never historically been part of the SM or CSM, so IW players taking them did so at their own risk.

I expect the next round of Chaos to be pretty decent, actually.

But as far as "better" goes, for me, personally, the current Codex is better than the last one. I'm no longer forced to play as a mockery of particular Legion. I have *great* Troops choices. I have modeling freedom for my Daemons. I feel like I have great flexiblity in making a "counts as" army that I just didn't really have before. And not playing Lash or Legions, my opponents won't be giving me dirty looks when I play.

**Quintinus**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
But as far as "better" goes, for me, personally, the current Codex is better than the last one. I'm no longer forced to play as a mockery of particular Legion. I have *great* Troops choices. I have modeling freedom for my Daemons. I feel like I have great flexiblity in making a "counts as" army that I just didn't really have before. And not playing Lash or Legions, my opponents won't be giving me dirty looks when I play.

"Counts as" always struck me as a cheap way out, personally. If it works for you, great, but unfortunately for every one of you there's probably 5 other people whose armies have been totally invalidated.

I mean, we might as well have for all of Chaos:

WS:4 BS:4 S:4 T:4 W:1 I:4 A:1 LD:9 SV:3+

Hey, use your imagination! HURR!!!! These are your plague marines, your EC, your Berzerkers, and your TS. Have fun, d00ds!

Really, codeci could be like 20 pages if we did this. 15 could be about how spiky the marines are. And 3 could be the nice pictures for Jervis' son.

Oh, and uh...charge $40 per codex, because uh, printing is expensive amirite?

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

JohnHwang shouldn't get involved in these conversations for three reasons:

1. He immediately calls anyone who disagrees with him a WAAC player, vilifying them and placing himself upon a moral high ground that allows him to talk down at everyone.
2. He thinks that 'Counts As' is a valid 'proposed rule'.
3. The bulbs need changing, as they're a little dim, if you get my meaning.

It's more amusing when he goes on about his previous Dogs of War losing their Codex, or how bad Guard are now, yet turns around and yells at Chaos players for having the audacity to want their daemons back.

I'm a Word Bearer player. When the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex came out in the mid 90's that was the force I chose, and stuck with. Over the years I have built up a World Eater, Deathguard, Alpha Legion and Iron Warrior Force. Oh, and a large Lost & The Damned army. None of these armies exist any more, replaced with tired bland options and generic-fething-demons.

I have no problem with those who want to play Daemon-only armies, nor do I have a problem with those who just want to use CSMs (I had just CSMs for many years before I got any Daemons - I've only owned Daemon models since '06). What I can't stand however is people who don't want the two to be mixed, especially when mixing them wouldn't affect them in any way. We don't care if they want to continue playing the way they're playing, so why stop us?

And the excuse of "Oh people will just cherry pick the best of botth worlds" is a pathetic excuse. People do that anyway - people are always going to take the best and leave the rest - why would Chaos have to suffer though with many people unble to use armies they've collected over the years just because Jervis and his merry band of utter feth-ups can't right a decent Codex?

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

Lord Double Dee wrote:I'm no longer forced to play as a mockery of particular Legion

What does that even mean???????

The standard list allowed you to field virtually any unit in (almost) any combination. You didn't have to use the Legion rules, and in most cases they were a list of restrictions and bonuses given for flavour more than anything else.

**dancingcricket**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
I have no problem with those who want to play Daemon-only armies, nor do I have a problem with those who just want to use CSMs (I had just CSMs for many years before I got any Daemons - I've only owned Daemon models since '06). What I can't stand however is people who don't want the two to be mixed, especially when mixing them wouldn't affect them in any way. We don't care if they want to continue playing the way they're playing, so why stop us?

Unfortunately, I don't see it that way. If someone wants to play CSM, great. More power to them. I want to play daemons. Straight up, nobody in power armor. At all. I'm trying to figure out how I want to model up a daemon prince so that I don't have to buy the one they have out now, as I hate, yes hate, the way the power armor looks, and it's the only thing available for a daemon prince. I don't want humans, I don't want space marines. I do want to play daemons. I really don't see them recombining the books, and allowing me to play just daemons, and not have a single space marine in the force. The fluff screams chaos = traitor marines. There'd barely be a mention of chaos in the fluff if it hadn't been for the Horus Heresy and all the marines turning to chaos, it's one of the defining things for the 40K background. Trying to tell me that they'd recombine the codii and still allow me to field a pure daemon force, that has effective options, and plenty of them, for each FOC slot, without having a single guy in power armor, is patently ridiculous.

Now, I'm not against the idea of CSM codex or errata allowing daemons to be taken as allies. Heck, I'd even try to make it more fluffy for you. You can only summon a daemon that you bear the gods mark of. There you go, wearing mark of khorne? Not getting horrors, plaguebearers, or daemonettes. Undivided, heck, roll randomly, there's chaos for you. But don't combine them.

**Alpharius**

GROUP - I'd love a Legion Based Chaos Codex too. Heck, I'd settle for something closer to what we used to have.

BUT, having said that, if you disagree with something brought up in another user's post, attack the POINT, not the POSTER.

Or something like that.

**bravelybravesirrobin**

dancingcricket wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:
I have no problem with those who want to play Daemon-only armies, nor do I have a problem with those who just want to use CSMs (I had just CSMs for many years before I got any Daemons - I've only owned Daemon models since '06). What I can't stand however is people who don't want the two to be mixed, especially when mixing them wouldn't affect them in any way. We don't care if they want to continue playing the way they're playing, so why stop us?

Unfortunately, I don't see it that way. If someone wants to play CSM, great. More power to them. I want to play daemons. Straight up, nobody in power armor. At all. I'm trying to figure out how I want to model up a daemon prince so that I don't have to buy the one they have out now, as I hate, yes hate, the way the power armor looks, and it's the only thing available for a daemon prince. I don't want humans, I don't want space marines. I do want to play daemons. I really don't see them recombining the books, and allowing me to play just daemons, and not have a single space marine in the force. The fluff screams chaos = traitor marines. There'd barely be a mention of chaos in the fluff if it hadn't been for the Horus Heresy and all the marines turning to chaos, it's one of the defining things for the 40K background. Trying to tell me that they'd recombine the codii and still allow me to field a pure daemon force, that has effective options, and plenty of them, for each FOC slot, without having a single guy in power armor, is patently ridiculous.

Now, I'm not against the idea of CSM codex or errata allowing daemons to be taken as allies. Heck, I'd even try to make it more fluffy for you. You can only summon a daemon that you bear the gods mark of. There you go, wearing mark of khorne? Not getting horrors, plaguebearers, or daemonettes. Undivided, heck, roll randomly, there's chaos for you. But don't combine them.

Hey dancingcricket.

Most of us that want daemons back in the chaos codex would be perfectly happy to let daemon players keep their stand alone codex too so they can field an all demon army.

Personally I don't feel that an all daemon army makes a lot of sense but having produced one it would be a dick move for GW to invalidate it now. That's actually the core of the argument against the new codex, it invalidated a lot of the old models. We wouldn't want that to happen to daemon players.

**JohnHwangDD**

dancingcricket wrote:I want to play daemons. Straight up, nobody in power armor. At all.

I'm trying to figure out how I want to model up a daemon prince so that I don't have to buy the one they have out now, as I hate, yes hate, the way the power armor looks, and it's the only thing available for a daemon prince.

You can only summon a daemon that you bear the gods mark of. There you go, wearing mark of khorne? Not getting horrors, plaguebearers, or daemonettes. Undivided, heck, roll randomly, there's chaos for you. But don't combine them.

Fair enough...

Belakor is solid, assuming you can still get him. Also, there's a new WFB Daemon prince out there (coming soon?) - well-detailed.

I'm OK that Marked units should only summon their own, but "roll randomly"? No thanks. Undivided should summon anything.

**kid_happy**

bravelybravesirrobin wrote: Sure it was sometimes unbalanced but I'd much rather have unbalanced but fun, varied and dare I say it, chaotic than unbalanced and dull as hell.

This seems to be the crux of the argument. I'm definitely on the other side of the fence on this.

Give me balanced rules and when I'm playing with friends we can play with mixed lists or modified troops.

If I'm playing a stranger in a store or at some clubs room I don't want to waste my afternoon because someone *has* to win and unbalanced rules gives them that out. Tournaments suffer when some armies are inherently better or poorly designed.

Sure, it sucks that the Daemons lost their flavour but I'd rather see people using them even as generics instead of seeing 90% of the lists using two or three of the dameons and the rest get shelved because they aren't as good, have no role, or are overcosted. 10 troop choices? We expect GW to get those balanced so they are all *equally* viable? There are a bunch of guys working on a home grown version of 40k. It's interesting and kind of nostalgic to see all the Tzeetnch armoury and psychic powers listed but after a couple of nights you start thinking "why the hell would I take unit/item/power a,b, or c when d is incredible especially when combines with this obscure item on this dude. Do they know this, why use these other things?"

The other legions, they were cool, always nice to have some meat added to the Chaos legions but I think we all agree the rules led to serious abuse. I don't see them losing their specials rules as much of a loss. Those rules were in what, one codex? If they bring rules back for them, I want them to work, not to add flavour....

All in all, I would love to see all the Chaos stuff in one meaty book, so long as it is balanced and playable. I think that is asking too much from GW (or any company) for all the content that would need to be included and tested.

btw. a bit off topic, but I'm glad the new codex allows me to play models with the MoT without having them turn into Rubric marines. The orginal rules had Tzeetch armies getting more mutations, not fewer.

Cheers,

kh

**FoxPhoenix135**

I voted no. Combining codexes would make each of them loose a little bit of flavor. You can't mash the two together without having to trim them down to fit. I.E., 4th edition, but worse because GW can't keep up with them anymore.

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

FoxPhoenix135 wrote:Combining codexes would make each of them loose a little bit of flavor.

Are you trying to be ironic?

**Cheese Elemental**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
FoxPhoenix135 wrote:Combining codexes would make each of them loose a little bit of flavor.

Are you trying to be ironic?

I don't think this gentleman has read the old CSM codex.

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

All of the codices lost their huge armories, it's not a Chaos specific thing. It shouldn't be an encyclopedia imo, it should be an army list with options.

**kid_happy**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm a Word Bearer player. When the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex came out in the mid 90's that was the force I chose, and stuck with. Over the years I have built up a World Eater, Deathguard, Alpha Legion and Iron Warrior Force. Oh, and a large Lost & The Damned army. None of these armies exist any more, replaced with tired bland options and generic-fething-demons.

If you were playing a Word Bearer army in 2nd, how was it any different than say your AL, or IW force? The rules back then only supported the four main Legions and it wasn't until the previous codex they got their special rules. What made them the "unique, little snowflake" back in 2ed, that you don't have today?

**kid_happy**

Vladsimpaler wrote:
Generic daemons? Simplified marks? Daemon weapons that kill you? In all, it's an incredibly boring codex, and that's putting it lightly.

Saying it's packed with options and abilities and flavor does a disservice to those who lost entire armies. Had a human sized Daemon prince? Sucks to be you!

Daemon weapons could kill you in the last codex (test for perils of the warp if you inflicted a wound). Looking at the two Tzeentch DW I'd take the current over the last.
Generic Daemons are bland but at least we can use all or models instead of "horrors sux and plague bearers rox!"

Vladsimpaler wrote:
Play Word Bearers? Sucker!

Play Night Lords or Alpha Legion? Might as well do counts-as SM. At least then you can infiltrate and still be good.

About as much of a sucker as I am for using my custom vanilla SM force? Or my White Scars w/o their bikes? Seriously, those three armies you listed have had special rules in one of the four chaos codexes and you're getting bent out of shape saying they're unusable. Honestly, put me in contact with one of your buddies that can't use his CSM anymore. If I find the models I'll trade him my squat army... Let's see who get more use...

**Grunt_For_Christ**

I still want to see 4 different codexes for Khorne, Nurgle, Slannesh, Tzeench, 1 for the Daemons, and then Chaos Undivided. Imagine how many more models they'd sell if they had dedicated lists. I think they should be separate.

**BloodofOrks**

I voted no. If I wanted to play marines, then I would have bought marines. I care more about modeling and painting then I do about playing (though I do play of course.) I like the daemon models a lot. I have never been a fan of marines. Not bashing them; they're just not my thing.

**deviant cadaver**

I play chaos and i have no problem with the CSM getting a few daemons maybe a unit of elites or a greater daemon for higher point games.

The problem i have with combining the two codex's is , yes i could still play daemons then , but it would not be daemons it would just be only playing daemons out of the CSM codex.

At this point it would feel like combining the IG and SM codex's

I sympathize with you for what GW have done to the fluff , but killing off a codex so you can have more units ...

**Skinnattittar**

In all honesty, I would see no problem in combining the Space Marine and Imperial Guard into one "Imperials" Codex. It has been my opinion that Space Marines are more of an elite strike force of the Imperium, rather than an army of their own. Obviously, only a small few agree with this idea, but from a logical point of view from the state of the Imperium, and the state of the Space Marines, using them as a front line force doesn't make much sense.

**aka_mythos**

I think this is a Yes and No, sort of thing. I thing some of the daemons codex should be merged back into the Chaos Space Marine book. Minimally the god specific lesser daemons should be there in such a way as to add flavor.

I also think that the Daemons codex does offer a unique avenue for more interesting gaming. I think they need more variety and really should be expanded more.

In an ideal world I'd like to see some sort of "Codex: Powers of Chaos" that would be a book of supplemental rules. Honestly each Chaos God's respective legion only needs 2 or 3 pages of additional rules in addition to the chaos codex to get what they'd need. And for the same amount of space, an undivided supplement could be written that does something similar to IG to produce LatD.

**Wehrkind**

I rather agree with Mythos. A large "Slaves of Darkness" type codex would be great. 100 pages, hardcover, with a list for CSM with big 4 Legion support, Lost and the Damned and Daemon armies. With all the armies in one book they could write rules for allies that would not become broken or unusable when a new codex came out (like Inquisition and IG now) and balancing their interplay would be a lot easier.

I suppose that will never happen, but it would be excellent.

Working with what we have currently, I don't know that I see a problem mixing CSM with the current daemon codex. Perhaps I would limit generic daemons to assaulting out of deep strike, or perhaps only allow assault if coming in off an icon, but I don't think it would be too terrible.

**RustyKnight**

I never played the last Chaos edition, only the current CSM codex. From my limited standpoint, I would love some more Thousand Sons options (I'm a sucker for psykers, entire reason I went for Chaos Space Marines was psyker squad leaders), but not neccesarily (I think I misspelled that, I ned the slep) Daemons. I'm going to vote yes, but only for a Inquisitorial "Allies" type situation.

**Augustus**

A split vote so far, very interesting indeed!

EDIT: 34:33 at the time of writing