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I think people need to step back and read the topic of the thread again.

It does not say "OMGZ Chaos R the wurst evar."

It says they're "second tier."

While "tiers" are very arbitrary, I think that "second tier" can be reasonably construed as "good, but not the best."

And I think that fits chaos just right, compared to what's out there currently.

Cool. I disagree. I think that if you don't find Chaos Space Marines to be a top tier army, or you think they only have one competitive build, then you're not a particularly good player. They compare quite well to what's out there, but they just aren't shiny and new anymore.

Nurglitch wrote:I think that if you don't find Chaos Space Marines to be a top tier army, or you think they only have one competitive build, then you're not a particularly good player.

:slow golf clap:

/thread

And I think that if you think that Chaos is the best, then you're not playing against particularly good players.

Nurglitch wrote:Cool. I disagree. I think that if you don't find Chaos Space Marines to be a top tier army, or you think they only have one competitive build, then you're not a particularly good player. They compare quite well to what's out there, but they just aren't shiny and new anymore.

willydstyle wrote:And I think that if you think that Chaos is the best, then you're not playing against particularly good players.

So after trying to reconcile these two posts logically, I've concluded that you two only play each other and go roughly 50/50.

Right?


(Joke, ofc, no offense intended)

Haha, pretty much, I was just pointing out the absurdity of his post with some absurdity of my own.

Yes, because opinions that disagree with your own are absurd...

Nurglitch wrote:Yes, because opinions that disagree with your own are absurd...

You're putting words in his mouth. Your post was absurd, and definitely flame-bait; so is this one. Knock it off before a mod shows up.

It wasn't the disagreeing, it was the "you must be a bad player."

Darkhound:

How is it absurd to point out that the inability to make the most of the Chaos Space Marine Codex indicates that someone is not a particularly good player?

willydstyle:

Please explain how "not a particularly good player" means "bad player". Of course you're not a bad player, you're just not a particularly good one because you admit that you can't make the best of the Chaos Space Marine Codex. Surely your ego isn't so inflated that you find that insulting.

Nurglitch wrote:Darkhound:

How is it absurd to point out that the inability to make the most of the Chaos Space Marine Codex indicates that someone is not a particularly good player?

willydstyle:

Please explain how "not a particularly good player" means "bad player". Of course you're not a bad player, you're just not a particularly good one because you admit that you can't make the best of the Chaos Space Marine Codex. Surely your ego isn't so inflated that you find that insulting.

Alright, *my* point wasn't that Codex:Chaos Space Marines is uncompetitive. It's that it's boring. Sure, you can make a solid list with CSM, Havocs, and Raptors; in fact, they're solid options. It's just that if you're doing that, you might as well get C:SM and get nifty things like Speeders, Land Raider variants and Assault Terminators into the bargain. Furthermore, when the Space Wolf and Blood Angel codices both have mechanics that represent, say, World Eater armies better than their own codex, I think we can both recognise that something went wrong somewhere.

David Sirlin wrote: Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is another great way to get called cheap. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can't counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn't I be a fool for not using that move? The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. The game knows no rules of "honor" or of "cheapness." The game only knows winning and losing.

A common call...blah blah blah i'm a knob.

Honestly, playing the way you want is one thing, but douching on other people about the way they play is quite something else. I'm glad I don't know anyone like this dick.

Not a serious player? What serious players do or say is none of your fething business.

Not a casual player? What casual players do or say is none of your fething business.


As for the CSM Codex, competitivity doesn't really bother me, so the only issue I have with it is that it's got so much less personality and fewer options than the previous edition. I wanna see more options for the non-power traitor legions, LATD, more daemon weapons, back to the way the old daemons worked, etc etc. Nothing OP, just more chaosy and less like Bland Marines.

Legion wrote:

David Sirlin wrote: Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is another great way to get called cheap. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can't counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn't I be a fool for not using that move? The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. The game knows no rules of "honor" or of "cheapness." The game only knows winning and losing.

A common call...blah blah blah i'm a knob.

Honestly, playing the way you want is one thing, but douching on other people about the way they play is quite something else. I'm glad I don't know anyone like this dick.

Not a serious player? What serious players do or say is none of your fething business.

Not a casual player? What casual players do or say is none of your fething business.


As for the CSM Codex, competitivity doesn't really bother me, so the only issue I have with it is that it's got so much less personality and fewer options than the previous edition. I wanna see more options for the non-power traitor legions, LATD, more daemon weapons, back to the way the old daemons worked, etc etc. Nothing OP, just more chaosy and less like Bland Marines.

Well, you can feel how you want, but the point of the little excerpt there (a point that is missed when you go TL;DR), is the following:

+ games may be more, not less, fun when they are played as no-holds-barred competitive matches instead of holding back - that is, "playing to win". The game might gain more depth and enjoyability at higher levels of play.
+ In order to play to win, you have to let go of mental stumbling blocks like the idea that "spamming moves/units" is "cheap". It's jus another tactic, and you have to figure out if it's good or bad.
+ He does note (in a later article) that "playing to win" and "playing to learn" are two different things, and that doing the latter can be more valuable to winning in the long term (hence, you should try out weird tactics / units even if people say they suck, to see what happens).

I know I have more fun trying to figure out how to beat a vulkan drop-pod player than walking all over some dude who only has one or 2 reliable anti-tank units at 2k because he's afraid of spamming. I'm not saying spamming is unconditionally good, but hell, you should try it at least to see if you like it.

AS for CSM, I think they are better than what some say about them. But I disagree about them being the best. They have good tools in that they have excellent troop choices, and any army with exposed infantry basically gives chaos an inflated charge range via lash, so objective missions - they're pretty good at them. On the other hand, it is a pain in the ass for the army to get meltaguns or any special weapons really that aren't in a chosen/havok squad (and we all know how awesome they are - no one uses them!) or an oblitorator squad. Aside from heavy support and lash princes, ... I almost never need to worry about any long range threats, even at 2k. There are definitely exploitable weaknesses showing up in the codex.

yet it can still win (as per the best general in the recently concluded adepticon blue tourney)...

As long as it is a "good" dex, then it has a fighting chance. Besides, there is no such thing as a sure win in 40k. Player skill does make a difference still, thank god.

Milquetoast Thug wrote:

Well, you can feel how you want, but the point of the little excerpt there (a point that is missed when you go TL;DR), is the following:

I got the point thanks; and I didn't say his views weren't valid, I just said he was a spanker.

People keep bringing up that a CSM player got the "Best General Award" people are making it seem that that makes the codex more flexible. It doesn't. That just means that that player is very good and has nothing to do with the codex. The player should be commended but it doesnt change the codex.

Sorry I had to point that out even though I do love the CSM codex. But I would love it more if there were legion differences. *coughcoughnudgenudgewinkwink*

Except that the Best General Award at Adepticon was simply the latest in a long line of successes that the Codex has seen recently, quite aside from the players.

The "best general" award just means the best win/loss stats doesn't it? What does a good general do, abstractly speaking? He takes a good army, takes advantage of it's strengths and minimizes it's weaknesses that can be taken advantage of. The rest is just smart maneuver and target priority decisions in my opinion (plus dice gods of course).

I think winning super-competative games has a lot to do with having a good army made to exploit its strong points, but yeah you have to not make stupid mistakes too, and have to know what strong points to exploit.

Every codex has some kind of 'cheese' or whatever you call it unit that is overpowered and underpriced, or really really good at one thing or another. They also all have weaknesses. For instance lacking heavy weapons troops (like the Space Wolves), having overpriced troops (like Eldar Guardians), not having all the Force Org slots you need for the really cool stuff (like Tau), the list goes on and on.

The 'competetive' game usually sees those exceptional units used, and the weaker ones kind of ignored in army building. Lash + Obliterators is a great example, as are Space Wolf Njal, Eldrad, drop-and-pop fire dragons, Ork Nob Bikers with a painboy, HUGE boyz mobs + Gaz, SMurfs loaded out with assault terminators in land raiders... and so on. They are no-brainer 'win' units and every army has a few of them. Chaos has theirs too. I don't play chaos but I have played against it several times and I understand what to look out for and what to worry less about (there actually isn't much of the latter), and my store games are usually pretty one-sided slaughters because one player makes a 'competative list' while the other one makes a 'fun list'... however you want to call it. There's the 'just take models that look cool and moosh 'em all together' attitude , and then there's the 'take the best most efficient stuff I can from my codex' attitude. Both are fun ways to play in my opinion, but CSM are perfectly capable of playing either kind of game IMO.

cheers guys.

The Best General award goes to the person with the highest battle point total.

In other words, the army that pantsed it's opponents the worst.

Gotcha. Doesn't that mean taking a seriously well streamlined army and just knowing how to use it well and avoid dumb mistakes? That will win you games but perhaps not points in other categories like 'army design' or 'sportsmanship' and all that other wierd subjective stuff... but hey it will win you games.

To tell you the truth, I think it's kind of UNsportsmanlike to rig the results on army composition by making an uncompetative 'fun' army that judges will give you points for, specifically because you know it's a competition, and therefore should try to be competative.... because that's what your challenger will expect at an event where prizes and honors and such are awarded.

I would love to see the worst stupidest, but fun and gimmicky player win a tournament just because I like rooting for underdogs, but it just isn't going to happen so long as people streamline their armies to perfection, and CSM are perfectly capable of being streamlined if the player knows how to build a 'not-fun-but-kicks-ass' list. Actually I can't think of any Codex that doesn't have that possibility. Some Codex make it easier to do that than others, the no-brainers like SM and SW, but all of them have the capability. (sorry no offense to SM players, but the Codex does make it a bit easier to build a wicked army without having to worry too much about details - since they're all good at everything and it practically plays itself - go go GW that's why we love you...)...

But... back on topic... I think all of the Codex have the possibility to be 'competative', it's just a bit harder to figure out the combos and exploitations for some armies compared to others. Don't get discouraged, get creative.

Addicted to Bleach wrote:People keep bringing up that a CSM player got the "Best General Award" people are making it seem that that makes the codex more flexible. It doesn't. That just means that that player is very good and has nothing to do with the codex. The player should be commended but it doesnt change the codex.

Sorry I had to point that out even though I do love the CSM codex. But I would love it more if there were legion differences. *coughcoughnudgenudgewinkwink*

Well, as this post is about CSM being 2nd tier, it's pretty dang relevant that best general at adepticon went to a CSM player.

People who are dissappointed with the construction on CSM legions using this codex are simply failing on the hobby end, and that's NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT the fault of the codex. Personally I'd like each legion to have it's own codex too, but I'd also like to win the lottery. People are always crying about their lost legions, but typically just use that as an excuse to powergame and it's pathetic. I think everyone who is immersed in the hobby to a moderate extent know a guy or two who runs competitive and fluffy legion armies. There are perfectly thematic and highly competitive builds available for virtually every CSM legion, if you know what you are doing. I began writing a short article in the army list section on this topic last week but have decided to write this up as an in depth look at all the original traitor legions and how they are made to work in the current dex. I'll put up a note in this thread when it's done.

40kenthusiast wrote:Ok, a few pages back I posted pointing out the fact that the Pro CSM folks were posting evidence and the anti-CSM folks were posting theory. This was about the time when the UK GT results came out. I figured that shut down the debate, but lo and behold it continued.

Fine, said I, they want yet more proof. Lo and Behold, Adepticon was a very convenient setting for this. It was this weekend. Pro and Anti- CSM would have a platform to air their respective beliefs.

CSM did just fine.

So, Anti-CSM posters. Please provide evidence of how bad CSM are. Not theory. Not "they need spam to win". None of that noise. Point to an upcoming GT. Predict the codexes that will do better than CSM.

Or let this thread die.

In fluff and soft score tourneys, they (and any list) can do just fine, except for power lists.

In 'Ard Boyz environments, they (meaning CSM) don't have many options to be competitive.

Adepticon does pairings arbitrarily. GT's are can be dominated (and certianly influenced by) soft scores.

Just like folks stated before last year's 'ard boyz finals how good orks were, until they got to the top table and most of them got smoked.

I think CSM could do will in Ard' boyz, an example list

Abbadon & a squad khorne LC termies LR
Slaaneesh sorc w/ lash in a rhino w/ berzerkers
2 3 man combi-melta termicide teams
2 3man DS oblits
squad O' plague marines in rhino
1ksons in rhino
2 squads of 10 daemons

Around 2500 points, pretty dang ard'

imweasel wrote:In 'Ard Boyz environments, they (meaning CSM) don't have many options to be competitive.

yeah that list is pretty blunt man. I think that kind of ferocity and stubborness on a table could pretty much prove anybody wrong about whether chaos is competative.

Tier 1... Tier 2... Tier 3... those sorts of ambiguous terms just seem silly to me. Guard used to suck back when you could follow up, now they kick ass with the 21 lascan salute, just because players haven't figured how to counter it. Eldar and Tau used to rock, but now they are weaker due to the changes of rules, c'est la vie. Adapt people, adapt, and any army can kick some ass. I believe the above posted list is a good example.

In an evironment where winning matters tiers are never to be ignored no matter how much they "Don't matter".

They do not matter nearly as much here because of threads like this.

A well build chaos list can beat any list you can come up with. Not just dual-lash-9-oblit spam. Fluffy Khorne can be competitive, fluffy nurgle can be awesome, the list goes on.

Just because it is beyond the capacity of yourself and your peers to construct a valid, effective chaos army does not automatically make chaos a "tier 2" army; you *could* be a tier 2 PLAYER!

Kungfuhustler wrote:There are perfectly thematic and highly competitive builds available for virtually every CSM legion, if you know what you are doing.

Usually this involves plague marines, berzerkers, and liberal doses of "counts-as".

Terminus wrote:

Kungfuhustler wrote:There are perfectly thematic and highly competitive builds available for virtually every CSM legion, if you know what you are doing.

Usually this involves plague marines, berzerkers, and liberal doses of "counts-as".

Plague marines for a nurgle themed army, berserkers for a khorne themed army - I am seeing a pattern here - use troops specific to a god when building a fluffy list around a god.


Yup, most good chaos marine lists use some of the good troop choices out of that codex. I don't understand it...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think I am probably coming off as an ass and i don't mean to. I just get irritated when people don't understand how to use a tool so they deduce that the tool is faulty.

The chaos marine codex is still a solid performer.

Chaos has an advantage in that all four chaos powers are in the same Codex, so you can take a bit of this and a bit of that and fling it all together taking advantage of each power's strongpoint. Imperial players do not get the option to take Blood Angels assault squads, Space Wolf Psyker and wolf guard, Ultramarines tactical squads with IG tanks all led by Inquisitor lords or Marneus or something. Chaos, however can do the whole 'chaos undivided' paraadoxical approach (how can chaos be united? It's friggin CHAOS for christsake! but oh well... I digress...) and toss in khorn berserkers with nurgle plaguemarines and tzeentch sorcerors and slaanesh princes. In that regard, I think the codex is actually really flexible and forgiving for crazy mishmashes of play style.

While you can mix and match gods and their unique units the choices for units are severely limited. This is a big downfall as units like Tsons are overpriced and from a competitive stance unusable. And the book written as it is, seems to encourage the mixing of chaos gods due to such limited variety. Which is just not fluffy and really disappointing, but probably isnt enough to lower Chaos to a tier 2 army.