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pelicaniforce wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Chaos Land Raider variants instead of just the bad one.

If this Land Raider is so bad, why not get rid of it completely, and replace it with something good? Also, which one is "the bad one?" Is it the one that many thousands of people already own? Is it the one that has appeared in the background as an ultimate weapon system that fights entire wars by itself?

that's innovative x1,000,000

"The bad one" is the Phobos-pattern schizoid Land Raider (twin-linked heavy bolter, ten-model transport, two twin-linked lascannons) that can't decide what it wants to do and as a result isn't very good at anything. It's really expensive to try and use to kill things from a long way off, it can't carry a lot of folks into melee and doesn't have the frag assault launchers to help Terminators get in, and it can't soften up infantry worth a damn; compare to the Crusader, with sixteen-model transport, short-ranged guns, and frag assault launchers it's a dedicated and effective assault transport/close support vehicle, or the Redeemer, with its giant flamers it's an assault gun built to kill stuff with twelve-model transport and frag assault launchers to finish off whatever's left. From a mechanics perspective just giving CSM the option to take the Crusader and the Redeemer at the -20pts/no PotMS thing they did with the normal Land Raider would work just fine; from a lore perspective since Chaos doesn't have modern Imperial gear giving them their own variants (or just one, with twenty-model transport to accomodate big CSM squads, twin-linked heavy flamers for backup, and the option for some sort of evil corrupted noise thing that works like frag assault launchers but looks like screaming faces etched into the armour) would be a better approach. Just so long as it's not the Phobos.

I'm still confused. Is it the one that many thousands of people already own? Is it the one that has appeared in the background as an ultimate weapon system that fights entire wars by itself?

If this Land Raider is so bad, why not get rid of it completely, and replace it with something good?

Come on guy, be a human.

pelicaniforce wrote:
I'm still confused. Is it the one that many thousands of people already own? Is it the one that has appeared in the background as an ultimate weapon system that fights entire wars by itself?

If this Land Raider is so bad, why not get rid of it completely, and replace it with something good?

Come on guy, be a human.

I don't follow. Everyone and everything in the game has been presented as an ultimate weapon that fights entire wars by itself even when the rules are pure concentrated hruk dung. The Land Raider chassis is fine, the Phobos pattern that everyone assumes is the 'basic Land Raider' is bad. Rearm it to serve an actual function instead of trying to make a tank that does everything and ends up being bad at everything.

If I could change anything, it would be the troop selections. I find CSM to have one of the worse troop selections around.

Standard marines are too pricey when compared to loyalist marines. The 1 point difference between the two is nothing compared to the benefits of ATSKNF and chanpter tactics.

The special troop picks are again too pricey, and have some very lacklustre rules.
Plague marines are probably best off at the moment. They are durable, but pricey and not very killy for their points.
Noisemarines could use a big points drop.
Khorne berserkers need a cheaper dedicated transport than a landraider
Thousand sons need a lot of things, too many to go into.

I see many CSM players making lists with minimum troop requirements, and maxing out on the other stuff. This makes me a little sad.
I rarely see loyalist marines vs traitor marines. I am more likely to see loyalist marines vs chaos robot dinosaurs, with some cultists hiding behind a bush somewhere.

Edit: CSM have been behind loyalists in terms of landraiders ever since the crusader hit the shelves. I believe now though that CSM can get a spartan assault tank, so it is a little more even (even though they do not get PotMS).

 AnomanderRake wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
I'm still confused. Is it the one that many thousands of people already own? Is it the one that has appeared in the background as an ultimate weapon system that fights entire wars by itself?

If this Land Raider is so bad, why not get rid of it completely, and replace it with something good?

Come on guy, be a human.

I don't follow. Everyone and everything in the game has been presented as an ultimate weapon that fights entire wars by itself even when the rules are pure concentrated hruk dung. The Land Raider chassis is fine, the Phobos pattern that everyone assumes is the 'basic Land Raider' is bad. Rearm it to serve an actual function instead of trying to make a tank that does everything and ends up being bad at everything.

But answer the question. If this Land Raider is so bad, why not get rid of it completely? You say explicitly that it is "bad at everything." If people only "assume it is the basic Land Raider," it doesn't have any natural claim to legitimacy, so for what reason should it not be removed completely from the rules and removed from sale? Actually answer the question, I'm not using a rhetorical device. You think that variants to the chaos land raider are the answer to the existence of the current chaos land raider. Since the current Land Raider is so bad that it needs to be superseded, why would you allow it in your ideal codex to continue existing?

I think the Crusader is a pile of garbage. I think putting the crusader in the chaos codex is really stupid. The only way that the Land Raider is bad is in a value system that is weak.

You're evaluating "good" in an environment where equally powerful armies magically appear 26" away from each other and fight for six turns. Short range Land Raiders were invented for this bizarre environment, but on a realistic/fluffy game of 19 turns on a 10'x12' board, they'd be target practice, just hoping to make it to the one turn when the passengers can disembark.

Marine infantry units don't take lascannons. Guard infantry don't take lascannons. Leman Russ tanks don't upgrade their hull guns to lascannons. Predators take destructor autocannon turrets instead of annihilator lascannon turrets. You're in a proposed rules thread saying something is bad because it has lascannons. Barely any of the other units with options for lascannons prefer them, so fix that problem.

Competitive armies don't take an LR full of power-guys. They take guns. If they ever do take a land raider, it is for transporting grav-cannon centurions. Even in this nonsense schema of equally powerful armies magically appearing across 6'x4' boards from each other, Crusaders are still for chumps.

What you want to fix is unclear. It is clearly not that you have a Land Raider model that you love and would like to "fix" the play experience of. Are you trying to fix "the chaos army" as some kind of gestalt? Presumably your army is made of models. If you have a Land Raider model and you love it, then you should fix the rules for that. If you have a Land Raider model and you don't love it, what are you doing with a super expensive model that takes ages to paint well if you don't love it?

That's the purpose of the rules, to allow you to play with models you like.

I think what you actually want is rules for this chaos-crusader equivalent so that you can think about how cool it will be to buy. You don't actually want to have a good model, you want to have a consumerist experience of thinking about how powerful and amazing your army will be once you have designed the perfect list by buying enough things.

But no seriously, if Land Raiders are bad, why not delete them from the book? Why not melt the moulds for the models?

Try " I own a really nice chaos Land Raider and would like to use it in games, having stupid other variants doesn't allow that. If I were actually a space marine landing on a planet and trying to pacify a continent, I'd want my transport to take out tanks from a distance. Land Raiders Phobos are an amazingly persistent fixture of the background and there is no comparison when it comes to plastic crap churned out to make money and a chaos crusader would be even worse than the dinobots."

I'd like to know what you think though, that might not be it. What the hell possible reason would you have for not completely discontinuing the Land Raider and replacing it with something "good?"

* I'm evaluating a 'good' unit in the environment I'm given. It's all well and good if you want to evaluate its quality in a game of nineteen turns on a 10'x12' board, but that's not the game we're playing.
* I'm saying something is bad because it's schizoid. It's not cost-efficient in any role. If I wanted to say "it's bad because it has lascannons" I'm perfectly capable of typing that sentence.
* I'm not talking about what people do or don't do in tournaments. I'm comparing the Land Raider that is never worth taking in any environment to the Land Raiders that function in casual environments. If I were designing for tournaments there are much, much larger problems to go into in 40k than "the Codexes don't work right".
* I want Chaos variants of the effective Land Raider loadouts (Crusader, Redeemer, Helios, Ares, Achilles), all of which are functional because they have a focused design and aren't schizoid. I don't own a Land Raider of any pattern, I'm not planning on purchasing one. I'm not here because I want to make rules that cause me to win or because I want to buy cool stuff. I'm here because someone asked us all what we could do to make the Chaos Codex more functional and I'm giving my honest opinion of the answer from the perspective of the mechanics alone.
* I'd be totally fine with deleting the Phobos completely, but there's a first principle in 40k rules design that says "don't throw out stuff people bought models for". Throw it out and make space for the effective variants. Since this isn't a patchable game and we can't randomly up and ban crap a better solution might be to make the Phobos playable, probably by deleting the transport capacity/assault ramp and giving it a more effective battery of long-ranged guns. Oh, wait, you'd just be playing a Helios at that point.

I don't follow your protest. Apparently my desire to see Chaos Land Raider variants is born from an irrational hatred of the lore? And I'm a consumerist munchkin who wants to sit around all day thinking about how cool my toys are? Because I claim the Phobos is a bad unit compared to other Land Raider patterns?

Just out of curiosity, is this making sense to anyone besides Pelicanforce?

Not really, no. I've pointed out to him before that he doesn't outline his main point very coherently at all. He never responded though.

pelicaniforce wrote:
If you have a Land Raider model and you don't love it, what are you doing with a super expensive model that takes ages to paint well if you don't love it?

Because it's the only assault troops transporter we have?

pelicaniforce wrote:

Try " I own a really nice chaos Land Raider and would like to use it in games, having stupid other variants doesn't allow that. If I were actually a space marine landing on a planet and trying to pacify a continent, I'd want my transport to take out tanks from a distance. Land Raiders Phobos are an amazingly persistent fixture of the background and there is no comparison when it comes to plastic crap churned out to make money and a chaos crusader would be even worse than the dinobots."

Or try

" I could own a really nice alternative chaos Land Raider and would like to use it in games. If I were actually a space marine landing on a planet and trying to pacify a continent, I'd want my transport to take out troops from close range before I disembark, being closer to the enemy"

No one is questioning it's depiction in the fluff. It's fine there.

Agree with the Dinobots though, I think they could have left them out and done some tweaking to the Defiler.

I'd like to know what you think though, that might not be it. What the hell possible reason would you have for not completely discontinuing the Land Raider and replacing it with something "good?"

Why discontinue it, it has its uses. But an alternative version, for up close assault armies, would be preferential to some people.

Giving it an equivalent to PotMS would help it.

AnomanderRake wrote:I don't own a Land Raider of any pattern, I'm not planning on purchasing one.

Oh.

Oh God, ew.

augh.

Stop posting so much about them, then.

Gross, dude.

I really encourage you to buy a Land Raider, like, a regular Chaos Land Raider, paint it like Thousand Sons, and put a squad of Thousand Sons in it. That blue and gold looks just really good. Play some games with it. It feels real nice.

BlaxicanX wrote:Not really, no. I've pointed out to him before that he doesn't outline his main point very coherently at all. He never responded though.

yeah, alright.

You have models. You want to have a pretend fights with them. Solution? Buy the codex.

This is pretty easy.

You have the model, and then get the codex. Don't make up codex entries for things that don't exist. There is no fiat of the codex, that causes units to exist because they are allowed by rules to exist.

This is like the SisterSydney threads. Ah, you have made rules for bike squads for sisters of battle, wonderful. This unit has one fatal flaw: they cannot draw line of sight between the target and their guns; their guns don't exist. Your thread has told me nothing, your rules for bike squads do not supply an actual ability to play bike sisters. You have created nothing.

What's your intention? That I conceive of and build these bikers myself? Still you have given me nothing! Without your rules, I may still have built biker sisters, as indeed some people have. The biker models then plainly existing before my eyes and on the table, there are no barriers to playing them, because the models' existence implies the existence of rules to play them.

I'm going to invoke this guy who doesn't own a Land Raider. He says: "I am here because someone asked us all what we could do to make the Chaos Codex more functional."

The function of the Chaos Codex is to furnish rules for models you already have. Making the Codex more functional means making it easier to play the models that are in the chaos army.

So you're problem is that many of the proposed rules in this section can't be visibly represented on the model without altering it?

For the OP, the problem is that GW continues to push CSM vs SM as anything but "Space Marines, only evil...". The problem is, at the end of the day, that really is what they are.

To elaborate, CSM legions were, at one time, able to be played in many different ways with the same models via the rules, not just painting them differently or adding a mark. A themed army of Iron Warriors used to get access to unique options you couldn't get playing as Night Lords. Nurgle had restrictions on vehicles and weapons, Khorne would never fight alongside Tzeentch, etc. Our options and abilities to field truly varied and unique CSM armies that actually played and felt like the army they represented have long since been gone. There is little to no flavor left, not even counting the supplements.

Imagine a world in which they did away with seperate Dark Angels, and just told you to play space marines and take this special character. Or if they did away with Blood Angels and just said "here, you can make these vehicles faster and take more jump troops".

As for the balance issue, and the desparity between what the loyalists get and what the crazed do, it is not worth the effort. From drop pods to land raiders, combat squads to ATSKNF, it does not make sense. Until you remember that SM are the GW poster child, and cannot be worse off than their spikey evil counterparts.

pelicaniforce wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:I don't own a Land Raider of any pattern, I'm not planning on purchasing one.

Oh.

Oh God, ew.

augh.

Stop posting so much about them, then.

Gross, dude.

I really encourage you to buy a Land Raider, like, a regular Chaos Land Raider, paint it like Thousand Sons, and put a squad of Thousand Sons in it. That blue and gold looks just really good. Play some games with it. It feels real nice.

For the record I'm posting so much about the Land Raider because you fixed on that sentence of a dozen possible changes I originally suggested and have been chasing it like a bloodhound.

Your logic is slightly circular here; I can claim a model is bad without needing to spend eighty dollars on a bad model. I'm not disputing it's prettiness, I'm disputing its effectiveness compared to everything else,

 BlaxicanX wrote:
So you're problem is that many of the proposed rules in this section can't be visibly represented on the model without altering it?

My problem is designing units primarily based on what rules would be useful in a game. If you think that way, you can put assault ramps on Rhinos. It's a thing, the posts are there on the internet. Set aside the problem that the conventional Rhino has engines and a driver where the assault ramp would go. The problem is that if the rules didn't happen to prevent assault out of moving transports, the motivation for this suggestion would disappear. The Land Raider has an assault ramp because the model was built with one.

You and I were posting in another thread where people were objecting to a custom character with lightning claws on a bike. You didn't sympathize with the complaints because people play Chaos Lords on bikes with power fists and lightning claws all the time. Using the existence of that option to validate power fists/lightning claws on bikes means you are treating the rules as a set of guidelines on what models you are allowed to build.

This is completely crazy. This model powerfist/lightning claw model, with which there is ostensibly no problem, looks preposterous. If you have a model riding a bike and brandishing a power-glove, it does not appear to be able to reach over the body of the bike to hit anyone while the model is mounted on the bike. It seems very much as though the model is just a stick figure with lines attached to indicate wargear, instead of a miniature model of a full-size functioning inhuman monster. It also makes clear that if the rules were different (ap6, strength user - 1, gets hot!) the model's owner would not have built it.


My army is a Chaos Land Raider. A large part of the reason for playing the game is using this specific miniature model of a full-size Land Raider. Please, make this specific chaos army better.

Some people play competitively, some people play for the fluff. There is more than one way to play, and by extension more than one line of thought when people envisage what new/changed models should become.

Competitively, the CSM landraider is not good. It is taken in lists because it is the only assault transport in the codex. Or because people are making a fluffy list.

Personally I'd like to see CSM landraiders become more customisable.
I want noise marine 'raiders with sonic weaponry.
I want plaguemarine 'raiders with poison template weapons.

CSM should be about options, as they are an irregular force ungoverned by rules and regulations. I find the landraider as it is now to be boring and too generic.

pelicaniforce wrote:
My problem is designing units primarily based on what rules would be useful in a game. If you think that way, you can put assault ramps on Rhinos. It's a thing, the posts are there on the internet.

I am so glad the first thing people think when I suggest anything is "you must be a munchkin out to design unbeatable models, there's no way you could possibly have any professional integrity as a designer".

I have got a radical approach. I feel that CSM should have different army rules.

Needs a rule to ignore brb rule such as being able to fire into a mob that are locked in combat. Being able to shoot and drop pie plates on your own units that are in melee with the enemy. With the hopes of killing more of theirs than yours. The best part is no cover saves for either side as each unit is too busy to duck and cover as they are skirmishing around fighting each other. This will allow csm to use their better armor saves against stuff that rely on shoddy invul or cover saves.

Needs a rule that allows suicide bombing instead of overwatched and assault. Squad of 10 csm charge enemy, all 10 or less activate frag or krak grenades. Templates are placed over the holding model that are in base contact without scatter. If only 4 reach the enemy in base contact then 4 frag goes off on those 4. Those 4 are removed with no saves allowed. All units including the remaining csm caught under the template will suffer wounds with armor and invul saves but no cover saves. Krak grenades or other with out a blast template instead causes wounds to models in base contact of the holder.

Can also work for being charged in overwatch- you let them charge and get into base contact and the front line explodes! Causing wounds to both sides. No cover saves in either situation but armor and invul is allowed. This will allow CSM players to punish enemy Death Stars!

Also would like a rule to allow plasma gets hot to be activated at will and used as a plasma bomb. The plasma bomb would be the same as a plasma cannon shot. S7 AP2 Small blast template. Now that is a suicide bomb you can use like I described above.

Now we can have suicide plasma bomb chosen! Along with suicidal CSM, frag, krak, and meltabomb champions.

These suicide rules should come free and to all units with access to grenades in the csm. Now if we can get Cultist to be suicide bombers! Then that will be worth the rhino they travel in.

Instead of the useless boon table, just give all champs the helbrute rule of being frenzied. More attacks, and shots even at friendly. or Instead of boon, the champ can opt to sacrifice himself to summon daemon. Roll a single d6- Rlls of 1&2 remove the model-it died horribly no saves allowed. Roll of 3&4 failure, no sacrifice, but suffers a S4 wound with saves allowed. 5= spawndom. 6= greater daemon summon! 2/3 chance to die and 1/3 to get benefits.

Why doesn't all csm have free fear? These guys in evil power armor should automatically cause fear.

Csm really needs an open top version of the rhino. Hell can we get a larger capacity transport that's not a land raider? We can have 20 csm but only carry 10? The top hatch should open and close durring the shooting phase but must stay opened or close until next turn so enemy has a chance to shoot in. Also allow CSM rhinos to buy more smoke grenades 2pts per or 5pts for unlimited use.

Also they should just allow the jury rigging of 2 rhinos to join side by side to create a 20 man apc. Then you can finally transport a 20 marines squad.

Also, what if CSM can get some GhettoBacks? Its a rhino but with a Chaos Marine with a heavy weapon shooting out of the top hatch!
How about some LineBacks? Its a rhino with no transport capacity designed to move 12" or more every turn. It will ram into other units or mobs of units and discharging several large blast templates. It should carry a max of any combo of 5 demolisher shells or battle cannon shells. Point price of either shell should be adjusted.

AnomanderRake wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
My problem is designing units primarily based on what rules would be useful in a game. If you think that way, you can put assault ramps on Rhinos. It's a thing, the posts are there on the internet.

I am so glad the first thing people think when I suggest anything is "you must be a munchkin out to design unbeatable models, there's no way you could possibly have any professional integrity as a designer".

The Land Raider Redeemer and Flamestorm cannons were invented specifically with the premise that if its flamers were ap4, it wouldn't be popular. There is nothing about that that doesn't make everyone involved slimy and crude. The Adeptus Mechanicus don't know that "ap3" is some kind of golden threshold, and they don't know that the most common enemy of Space Marines is Space Marines. The land raider redeemer makes me feel like I am the fourth person someone asked to the dance, and the three girls who turned him down have missing teeth and an array of social diseases.


Essentially any other approach would be less sleazy (all flamestorm cannons are tl-heavy flamers and Chaos get redeemers, Loyalist flamestorm cannons are ap3 but Chaos have a jury-rigged a redeemer out of heavy flamers that are ap4, or Chaos only use the phobos-pattern because that is the true and faithful pattern)

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
If I could change anything, it would be the troop selections. I find CSM to have one of the worse troop selections around.

Standard marines are too pricey when compared to loyalist marines. The 1 point difference between the two is nothing compared to the benefits of ATSKNF and chanpter tactics.

The special troop picks are again too pricey, and have some very lacklustre rules.
Plague marines are probably best off at the moment. They are durable, but pricey and not very killy for their points.
Noisemarines could use a big points drop.
Khorne berserkers need a cheaper dedicated transport than a landraider
Thousand sons need a lot of things, too many to go into.

I see many CSM players making lists with minimum troop requirements, and maxing out on the other stuff. This makes me a little sad.
I rarely see loyalist marines vs traitor marines. I am more likely to see loyalist marines vs chaos robot dinosaurs, with some cultists hiding behind a bush somewhere.

Edit: CSM have been behind loyalists in terms of landraiders ever since the crusader hit the shelves. I believe now though that CSM can get a spartan assault tank, so it is a little more even (even though they do not get PotMS).

Thank you Big Blind Bill. That is the reason why I am quiting.