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Cryonicleech wrote:It's a good codex if they release the Legion Codexes.

It's a bad codex if they don't.

Seconded. I actually might get into chaos if I can make an army that isn't "Plauge Marines and a lash dude....oh and abbadon"

This poll is useless because the majority of people voting dont even play Chaos Space Marines, or they didnt play them before the new codex and this is all the know. If you want a better representation, go to a certain space marine forum under a certain Chaos board, youll see plenty of hate there.

starbomber109 wrote:The discussion leads me to suspect that NOONE can write a good chaos codex....

Honestly, the problem is that the forces of chaos are just as diverse, if not as fleshed out, as the forces of the imperium. The imperium has 3 major codexes (IG, Marines, Sisters) with five more variants knocking about. To treat chaos as simply one book was hubris. Even the old 3.5 book didn't have LatD, those were in a sublist.

The cuts they made did result in a tighter, more focused book. Even so, it's still half "renegades" and half "cults."

Keeping the codex they released as a template, I would do the following:

Add Cult terminatos as an option. Plague termies would be fearless, T5, I3, with FnP, etc.

Give all demons rending, and allow them to buy an icon. Include a special character (dark apostle) that can take demons as core troops.

Include an alpha legion character that allows outflanking, a night lord biker that allows bikes as troops, and an Iron Warrior character that can take a defiler as fast attack or something.

It's not perfect, but it's closer than before.

For obvious reasons, I had no choice but to vote "bad".

All gone, like tears in rain...

Polonius wrote:
Add Cult terminatos as an option. Plague termies would be fearless, T5, I3, with FnP, etc.

Actually I was thinking about this, and I like the idea, but expand on it.

Only the big Chaos Legions should have any kind of TDA, so instead of "Terminators" you have "Legionnaires" wearing Tactical Dreadnought armor, that have special rules relevant to the chaos legion they came from. (So, your Plauge Termies would be "Death Guard Legionnaires" and they would have the FnP T5 and all that)

Alpharius wrote:For obvious reasons, I had no choice but to vote "bad".

All gone, like tears in rain...

Well, if it makes you feel better IG have Four units that can always scout (one of them a troops choice), another that can infiltrate, stormtroopers that can do both, a special chracter that allows a full platoon to outflank, and a special chracter that allows any one unit to scout. Toss in sly marbo, the Pyschic Battle Squad, and we've got all kinds of psychological terror tricks up our sleeve.

Alpha legion have chosen squads and a cool paint job.


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starbomber109 wrote:

Polonius wrote:
Add Cult terminatos as an option. Plague termies would be fearless, T5, I3, with FnP, etc.

Actually I was thinking about this, and I like the idea, but expand on it.

Only the big Chaos Legions should have any kind of TDA, so instead of "Terminators" you have "Legionnaires" wearing Tactical Dreadnought armor, that have special rules relevant to the chaos legion they came from. (So, your Plauge Termies would be "Death Guard Legionnaires" and they would have the FnP T5 and all that)

Well, renegades could still have terminator armor, so there is that.

You could simply have four chosen squads, one for each cult, and allow an upgrade to terminators that way.

Ah,
But the loss of upgrades is one of the gripes I have,
adding this sort of simple stuff would take this codex to another level (beyond bad).

But the fact they didn't is the problem.

The loss of upgrades is a reaction to a perceived (actual?) flaw in the previous codex of overly complex lists, with invisible and easily forgettable wargear. I respect the intent for streamlining, but I think they oversimplified.

There is no reason why DP's cant be more differentiated or take Deamon weapons. lesser + greater deaemons made way for Codex deamons - I understand that - but you should be able to add marks (ie reflect the benefits of an icon) to these models (ie lesser daemon + mark of nurgle has T4(5) for a cost). this would help the word bearers (who can take infinite daemons according to Gwar!s recent list). Adding an 'extreme lesser daemon/creature' option (weaker, lower cost) would give access to some horde/cultist style dudes.

Appropriately costed vet skills would be all that is needed to get Alpha Legion & Night Lords working to everyone's satisfaction.

I think the codex is fundamentally good - but everything can be improved.

The fact that I can't take Daemonic Mutation or Daemonic Rune any more doesn't bother me - it's the fact that there are no Daemonic upgrades at all.

I said it on Gav's blog - the daemonic effects of the Warp and the various whims of the Chaos Gods has always been a central part of Chaos. From the D1000 tables of the Realms of Chaos books to the Daemonic Gifts cards of 2nd Ed to the fantastic (if not completely balanced) system of the 3.5 'Dex, this has been a core part of what makes a Chaos army a Chaos army.

The 4th Ed Codex took that away, so while the loss of any specific option isn't all that crucial, the loss of the mutations/gifts/etc. system completely is a major blow to the core of Chaos as a race in 40K (and that's not hyperbole Ozy, or for anyone else who might want to jump on that line alone). A Chaos Lord now is just a Spiky Marine Captain with a few slightly different weapon options (no Storm Bolter, TH/SS, can get a generic Mark).

Night Lords wrote:This poll is useless because the majority of people voting dont even play Chaos Space Marines, or they didnt play them before the new codex and this is all the know. If you want a better representation, go to a certain space marine forum under a certain Chaos board, youll see plenty of hate there.

Sadly True.

I did not have the pleasure of playing under 3.5.

P.S. HMBC, I agree with you. The Chaos Codex is too bland.

I voted Bad.

Now, I enjoy this codex, and while I haven't played under the old one, I've built lists with it. The new codex has no restrictions on what you can take, but only offers a single (although very general) way of playing. The "flavour" units are generally too expensive, which enforces that single style of play. It allows you to do more things, but then makes those things not matter. With some points rebalancing, added more variety to our deployment and daemon allies it could be a great Renegade Codex, but as it stands not so much.

starbomber109 wrote:
(So, your Plauge Termies would be "Death Guard Legionnaires" and they would have the FnP T5 and all that)

See, this is one of the problems that the 3.5CSM codex created.
Cult Marines are not all Legionnaires, and legionnaires are not all cult Marines,
All World Eaters are not Berserkers, All Berserkers are not World Eaters, etc.

Before the 3.5 dex you could create a unit that followed Khorne, but wasn't Berserkers.
Now the current book does the same thing, and players call it boring and vanilla.

I think that if a guy is a raving Berserker, he is never going to have the coherent thought to lead a raid. He's a rabid dog straining at the leash.
You need the guy that follows the more martial aspect of Khorne to play huntsmen for the 'zerkers. That is your Lord w/ Mark.
If you really need a 'zerker leading, you have Kharn.

3.5 funneled all the legions into being synonymous with the cults. That was a problem. All the fluff points out that within any legion, there would be followers of specific gods.
The book "Storm of Iron" highlights this well. Berserkers are mentioned. They are not World Eaters. They were Iron Warriors that had went down that road too far, and were unable to be anything else. The fluff for Word Bearers alludes to this tyoe of thing as well.

Even Thousand Sons could be looked at this way. If you include non-Rubric marines, they must be new recruits. So they fit in.
Going back to Storm of Iron again, it is hammered home that Honsou, the IW character, was not a Heresy era original Iron Warrior.

Therefore you should be able to create a list for a legion, and not be constrained to a cult list. Because they should not have been the same thing.

The mix-n-match of units that is allowed in the current list is clean and simple. but allows unit choice flexibility where the 3.5dex didn't.
3.5 had great wargear and cult lists. Plus the fleshing out of the "other" legions was good. But I think it dropped the ball with the Big 4 legions.

Complaints about loss of Daemons is pointless, because we all know they were pulled for their own book. And I dislike that decision as much as anybody.

This was covered in the 3.5 Codex, specifically in the Black Legion section, where they talked about 'Berzerkers' that weren't anything to do with the World Eaters. And this is the issue - the last Codex covered both extremes. You could have Berzerkers that weren't World Eaters, you could have World Eaters that were on Bikes. In the current Codex, there is just Berzerkers, the squad, and that's it. No choice, no options. A Berzerker Squad is always a Berzerker Squad and that never varies, where as the last Codex Berzerkers could be anything with the MoK, or nothing with the MoK, depending on what Legion you were playing. The Black Legion allowed for mix'n'match of just about everything.

You also have to remember, there was no 'Khorne Berzerker' entry, they were just what ever unit you chose with that Mark applied to them. The main benefit was that the rules were consistent between each unit - the Mark of Khorne always did the same thing, and you never forgot what God you served when a single guy in the squad died.

You could have Slaaneshi Marines in the last Codex that weren't 'Noise Marines' because you didn't have to give them Sonic Weapons. There was no 'Noise Marine' entry, because Noise Marines could be anything or nothing your army. Now Noise Marines are a specific unit type, and everything is are just waving a banner to remind themselves who they serve.

The only one that is specific is Thousand Sons Marines... because they're actually called 'Thousand Sons Marines'. But 1KSons were done very poorly in the last Codex - something that is universally acknowledged - so that's probably a bad example.

open your 3.5 codex to pg 29. they are all right there. As soon as something has a Mark, it is in the cult.

edit to add more.

The current book still allows and in fact encourages the mix'n'match.

But under 3.5 you could never have WE Havocs. That is one of the restrictions that I have a problem with.
It seems the current book deals with the Cults as Eldar Aspects.
You still have MoK all over the army. But they are not as specialized as the Cults.
I don't have any issue with that approach.
Also, I do not see it as "and you never forgot what God you served when a single guy in the squad died."
i see it as "Oops we lost the icon, now Khorne is ignoring us."
Same end result, but different perspective.

I think 3.5 would have been a better book without the specialized Legion lists. But it does have more crunchyness than the current. I do not dispute that.
Looking back throuhg it just now reminds me of what a pain it was to actually use, though. Took a bit to find the WE list section.

Rules or fluff?

Both.

I just checked the page. 'Every member of the World Eaters Legion is a Berzerker, although not every Berzerker originates from that Legion."

No, no, it's not a case of 'Have Mark = Cult'. Having a Mark didn't make you a WE. In fact, the fluff states the exact opposite of that.

Khorne was very much 1-dimensional and has lost the 'Martial Prowess' aspect in favour of the 'RAR! TAKE SKULLS' aspect, but that's not an issue with the 3.5 Codex, that's an issue with the Chaos fluff. I'd argue that it's even more 1-dimensional now, given that there is only one type of Cult unit.

skrulnik wrote:But under 3.5 you could never have WE Havocs.

And now you can't have WE anything, as WE don't exist as an army, and there is only one pre-defined 'Berzerker' unit. You don't have WE Havocs, you have Havocs holding a Khorne Banner.

Alpharius wrote:For obvious reasons, I had no choice but to vote "bad".

All gone, like tears in rain...

Time to die.

H.B.M.C. wrote:And now you can't have WE anything, as WE don't exist as an army, and there is only one pre-defined 'Berzerker' unit. You don't have WE Havocs, you have Havocs holding a Khorne Banner.

Point made on the quote. I skimmed the top, read the 2nd paragraph. My fault.

The 3rd ed codex allowed for the Martial aspect. The fluff and rules combo after that pushed the "Rar, Skulls."

Ok, so an army painted in WE colors, where every unit is either MoK or Berserkers, is by your definition NOT World Eaters?
So, in other words, if GW doesn't give you special rules, they don't exist. That is your argument?


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BTW, someone needs to add World Eaters to the Glossary for WE. Who does that?

And to think all this time that I thought you were talking about Wood Elves.

My bad

I played Death Guard with 3.5. An army truly dedicated to the lord of Decay in every way. Now I have Plague Marines a bunch of units carrying their dirty underwear on a stick. So, I voted for baaaaaaad.

FITZZ wrote:

Makaleth wrote:Poll options limited to get a result,
otherwise the shades of grey would consume us all I imagine.

Or would you have preferred.

1) Best Codex GW has made
2) Good Codex and better than last version
3) Good Codex and same as last version
4) Good codex but worse than last version
5) Bad Codex yet still better than the last
6) Bad Codex but the same old swill for Chaos
7) Bad Codex and worse than than the last one
8) An abomination, and all who disagree need to write a thesis on why they are so stupid
9) I can't answer, the pain... it's just too much...

Or something like that.

I would like to officialy change my vote to option #8

Forget what I said above, I vote for #9.

skrulnik wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:And now you can't have WE anything, as WE don't exist as an army, and there is only one pre-defined 'Berzerker' unit. You don't have WE Havocs, you have Havocs holding a Khorne Banner.

Point made on the quote. I skimmed the top, read the 2nd paragraph. My fault.

The 3rd ed codex allowed for the Martial aspect. The fluff and rules combo after that pushed the "Rar, Skulls."

Ok, so an army painted in WE colors, where every unit is either MoK or Berserkers, is by your definition NOT World Eaters?
So, in other words, if GW doesn't give you special rules, they don't exist. That is your argument?

Please try not to start another discussion about the contents of said book.

Polonius wrote:

Alpharius wrote:For obvious reasons, I had no choice but to vote "bad".

All gone, like tears in rain...

Well, if it makes you feel better IG have Four units that can always scout (one of them a troops choice), another that can infiltrate, stormtroopers that can do both, a special chracter that allows a full platoon to outflank, and a special chracter that allows any one unit to scout. Toss in sly marbo, the Pyschic Battle Squad, and we've got all kinds of psychological terror tricks up our sleeve.

Alpha legion have chosen squads and a cool paint job.

Strangely enough, that does not make me feel better!

ph34r wrote:

Alpharius wrote:For obvious reasons, I had no choice but to vote "bad".

All gone, like tears in rain...

Time to die.

Ha! Good follow up quote - and appropriate too, as my Alpha Legion force is currently collecting dust in the garage, so, close enough to 'dead' yes?

Blade Runner was a gak movie...

Gak yes,
but I litany of absurd quotes has enlightened us all.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Blade Runner was a gak movie...

Well H.B.M.C.,you've finaly posted a statement I disagree with,Phfft had to happen sooner or later.

Skrulnik does raise a valid point with regard to design of any given chaos codex, which is the distincition between legions, cults, marks, and allegiances.

The old book had all member of a legion in a cult, but not all cult members were part of the legion. All marked models were in the cult, and there was no way to show allegiance outside of the marks, which made you a cult, which the rules didn't require but tended to shove you into a legion pigeonhole.

the current book has cults, and has allegiances (the icon system), and Marks (for leaders), but no way to really distinguish cults outside of the basic troops, and of course no legions at all.

For things like Bikes and raptors, I think Icons do all right, but Cult Terminators are a really, really cool idea.

H.B.M.C. wrote:If you're coming into the game with no knowledge of Chaos and how it was prior to the anal violation then it is a perfectly serviceable Codex with its only major failings being it's boring power-list (Lash/Oblit/PM's) and generic daemons (which are just deep-striking Marine Scouts with no weapons).

If you're a Chaos player for any length of time (RT downwards) and especially if you a large Chaos army (or multiple large Chaos armies), then this Codex is a directed insult, a book written by a committee of idiots. Eldar lost their Craftworlds and Guard lost their Doctrines - but Chaos lost its soul.

The book is worse than bad - it's a travesty.

This explains it perfectly. I remeber when i first had the thought to play 40k which was about a month before the current codex came out. I looked at the then current chaos codex and thought it was awesome. There was so much flavor to it. So many options. Then the new now current codex came out. Like many others have said...its just very bland. You really dont have any options. All your choices are very generic and boring. With nothing special outside of the cult troops which really. Being able to have cult troops and cult troops alone while all of your other options still being generic.

I think alot more people would understand more if that when the new SM codex came out. THey took out all the chapter codexs and didnt include any of there special chars and just gave them "chapter" troops. So outside of there blood angels/black templars/dark angles/ect/ect "chapter" troop choices all there other options were just the same generic crap that the current codex has. Which is really what they did to the chaos codex.


Also haveing a dreadnought that is worthless doesnt help ether. Dreadnoughts are something i have always really liked and with the current codex there pointless to use.

Imagine for a moment, Codex: Space Marines.
You have a special character for about every major chapter. Some chapters have their own codex, because they are that unique.

Remove all the special characters except for Calgar, Lysander, and Maybe vulkan.
Then remove the Bike option from captains. Also remove scouts and non-godhammer land raiders.
Then remove all the other Marine Codices.
Then remove the alliance rules for DH and WH armies.
Now try to play a flavorful white scars or raven guard army.

That is what Codex: Chaos Space Marines is like.

If I have to stretch to look for ways the Codex is good... it's bad.

As others have so eloquently pointed out when compared with past incarnations of itself Codex:CSM is crap.

Can you make a competitive army with it? Sure.
Is it a *GOOD* Codex. No.

Polonius wrote:

starbomber109 wrote:The discussion leads me to suspect that NOONE can write a good chaos codex....

Honestly, the problem is that the forces of chaos are just as diverse, if not as fleshed out, as the forces of the imperium. The imperium has 3 major codexes (IG, Marines, Sisters) with five more variants knocking about. To treat chaos as simply one book was hubris. Even the old 3.5 book didn't have LatD, those were in a sublist.

The cuts they made did result in a tighter, more focused book. Even so, it's still half "renegades" and half "cults."

Keeping the codex they released as a template, I would do the following:

Add Cult terminatos as an option. Plague termies would be fearless, T5, I3, with FnP, etc.

Give all demons rending, and allow them to buy an icon. Include a special character (dark apostle) that can take demons as core troops.

Include an alpha legion character that allows outflanking, a night lord biker that allows bikes as troops, and an Iron Warrior character that can take a defiler as fast attack or something.

It's not perfect, but it's closer than before.

I agree with all of this. It kind of sums up my thoughts. The book isn't bad, but it certainly could have been better. I think learning some of the lessons of the SM codex will make the 5th ed Chaos dex much better.