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Apologies if this is in the wrong forum or if this has cropped up before (I couldn't find it when I searched for it).

I was thinking about the impending release of the new Grey Knights and this led me to think about how Imperial Guard armies could no longer field Ordo Malleus forces as (to my knowledge) the allies rules was going bye-bye. This then made me realise, maybe the allies rules could be re-instated, but for a different set of armies?

Yep, you guessed it, Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons. One of the complaints that I have often read on this forum about the current Chaos Marine codex is the lack of god specific daemons. I think this could be easily rectified by adding the allies rules for these armies, with specific conditions allowing you to take specific daemons. I reckon it would only make sense that Chaos Marines would get access to the basic lesser daemons (Plague Bearers, Pink Horrors etc) and the Greater Daemons (Keeper of Secrets and co), and this could be further restricted by only allowing daemons from a certain god to be unlocked when you use a HQ with a mark of that chaos god, ie you take a Khorne Lord you can now take Blood Letters and a Bloodthirster, you take a Tzeentch Sorcerer you can now take a Lord of Change and Pink Horrors, and so on and so on. Also I think it would be sensible to have a 0-1 greater daemon allie limit and a 0-1 lesser daemon per normal Chaos Marine troop choice limit. However I'm not sure how any of this would or could work with undivided forces.

So Dakka, what are your thoughts? Is this gak, or am I on to something?

I doubt the Allies rule will ever return beyond Apoc. GW has even phased it out for Fantasy (which made extensive use of Dogs of War and the allies between the three factions of Chaos). The best we can hope for though is for them to have cross-codex units, in the same vein as Harlequins in the two Eldar Dexes.

While it would be a nice idea..I dont think they will every do they will ever do the allies thing again for balance reasons.

I think just taking the basic lesser deamon then give them the option to upgrade them to each god for however many points. Khorne more attacks. Nurgle..more T or wounds..ext..ext

...That might make them like the current CSM, who are like watered down versions of cult troopers.

Unfortunately I think you're probably correct in your assumptions MechaEmperor, but it's nice to dream

Does anybody know what the thinking was behind behind separating the chaos armies in the 1st place? short of the cynical reason of money making

I remember them saying it was something they've been wanting to do for ages in the White Dwarf release mag, but I can't remember any other specifics. I'll have to see if I can dig out that issue from my box of White Dwarfs from back when I had a subscription. Fantasy side I also remember them saying that they wanted to have the freedom to focus on the mortal worshippers in the Chaos Warriors Army Book, but I can't remember if there was similar reasoning 40k side.
Personally I like the ability to field an all daemon force and after I have my current armies built to a suitable size I plan on starting one. I think the main problem was not necessarily the split, but more the lack of anything filling the void left in the CSM codex.

count_duckula23 wrote:Does anybody know what the thinking was behind behind separating the chaos armies in the 1st place? short of the cynical reason of money making

As Drruum said, it's largely because they wanted to focus on the various facets of chaos, and I'm sure alot of Chaos Players were actually hoping for the separation (I was, to a degree) as it allowed for fielding of "pure" forces. However we also assumed that they'd keep some sort of allies rule. To most of our horror, it came around the time of the massive generalization of Codexes and the starting phases of eliminating "allies", essentially neutering both resulting armies (as one became a horribly unpredicatable DS army which had to rely on a mixed force rather than a mono-god legion to actually function, and it just barely functions, while the other became Codex: Spiky Marines). Both loss much of the fluff in the process, while their actual lists had very little variation to them, as many choices are outright better than others (even more so if you want to play Mono-god, as the Daemons Codex literally has only one God-specific choice per FoC slot, with the exception of Nurgle who has two Troop Choices, but he lacks any FA choices altogether). This was around the time of Apoc and close to the 5th release, which coincided with the 7th edition release of WHFB and the Orcs and Goblins book, where the options for Dogs of War (essentially the generic Allies rule for Fantasy) was completely written out.

I feel that the 40k Chaos Codexes have (and i know we're talking about daemons and daemon worshippers here) lost their soul. taking fluffy Chaos marine armies is less easy now Codex CSM is basically Codex Black Legion (although it works quite fluffily for Alpha Legion and Night Lords to I guess) and a few renegade chapters, I'd like to see a traitor legions supplement to expand on the other less well covered Legions.
My mate plays CSM and while he can create strong lists the book feels a little bland.

It's a combination of loosing the legion rules and the loss of God-specific Daemons. While I welcome the thought of generic daemons, we really do need some god-specific ones to really vary the armies. What made the 3.5 Codex awesome was that Legion rules and marks completely recreated your army. Armies with the Mark of Nurgle spammed special weapons like there was no tomorrow, and were good at it (perhaps one of the best rhino rush lists you could make). Iron Warriors could also field a ludicrous amount of armour, making it feel more akin to a power armored version of IG.

On top of that, it use to have a HUGE armoury, even compared to it's contemporaries (easily the largest, if not one of the largest). The Chaos Lord was incredibly fun to kit out, you could either go with a cheap lieutenant with minimal upgrades, or go full out with a T6 S6 Daemon Prince with 2+/4++ save, a Daemon Weapon that allowed it to ignore ALL saves, and flight. You could also really kit out Champions, making them feel less like unit seargants and more like true aspiring champions.

Then there was also the army-wide veteran skills, which really made them unique. Iron Warriors had Tank Hunter while Alpha Legion had Infiltrate.

As for what the codex represents currently, it's barely even Black Legion. The closest would be Renegade Chapters like the Red Corsairs.

If they just let you mark Daemons the same way you mark CSM squads it would go a long way.

Yeah, when I was making my CSM fandex (sig), I found simply porting the Daemons straight from one Codex into another to be way too powerful as it would eliminate their usual flaws (manoeuvrability, vulnerability etc. due to having to deepstrike and weather a turn of firepower).

Like SRM at least suggested, providing Marks seems to be much more balanced and saves on FoC IMHO.

As long as the marks aren't just the +1 A, +1T(kinda),+1 I, +1 Invul ones they give chaos marines.
I'd say
+1Ws, A
+1T(kinda), FNP
+1I, +1A, Defensive Grenades(musk)
+1 Invul, and some shooting attack

That would be about the minimum i'd find acceptable.

Honestly, I think that the Chaos Codii could be split again.

there are 9 Chaos Legions and trying to fit all of them + 4 types of demons + traitor guard into one book would be clumsy and unbalanced.

Here is how I would like to see it.

1) Chaos Demons- All they need is a little less randomness, reduced scatter on the first drop wave, and some more anti-tank options and they would be okay. A few more options would be nice as well, but I am not sure what else they would get. Maybe give some of the gods other than Tzeench some anti-tank shooting powers.

2) Chaos Legions- this would be a book in a similar vain to the rumors of the new GK book. A more elite marine book where your basic troops are 20-25 pts a model. A CSM book where everyone is dedicated to a specific god, and the special characters allow for a Mono-god army. The summoned demons would be slightly god specific, but not the exact one from the demon book. Legions represented: Black Legion, World Eaters, Emperor's Children, 1000 Sons, Death Guard.

3) Chaos Renegades- this would be the remaining four legions: Word Bearers, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, and Night Lord. The first three do use a lot of "normal humans" in their battle plans, so a mix of some traitor guard and siege artillery would be here as well. It would have a mix of power armor, sneaky people, and some hordes of Mutants/Cultists/Traitor Guard. All of the legions in this book worship Chaos Undivided and any demonic stuff would all be undivided.


Will anything happen? I am not sure. What books get re-done are more about the model ranges than the army rules I feel. If GW feels like they have the time for another 40K book, and can make enough money selling whatever models would go with that book, then I think we could see something like this. The CSM codex is probably the least liked at the moment, but the model range is decent. There are other model ranges that need an update way more then they do, (Necrons, Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle).


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MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
As for what the codex represents currently, it's barely even Black Legion. The closest would be Renegade Chapters like the Red Corsairs.

I recall reading somewhere that the intent of the current CSM codex was to focus more on the Renegade Chapters, and less on the Legions. I think that the Horus heresy books have made the Legions more popular than GW was expecting.

Hmm I think Black Legion should also be in the second book as they are pretty much undevided (Abaddon is pretty much the Archaon of 40k) they should however be able to have specialist recruits from the other fractured legions perhaps as elites rather than the troops they would be in the other books.

svendrex wrote:

I recall reading somewhere that the intent of the current CSM codex was to focus more on the Renegade Chapters, and less on the Legions. I think that the Horus heresy books have made the Legions more popular than GW was expecting.

This is basically their intention from what I can gather, also that the majority of the Chaos Legions are now split into various warbands rather than one coherent fighting force, with the exception of maybe the Word Bearers and Black Legion.

svendrex wrote:
2) Chaos Legions- this would be a book in a similar vain to the rumors of the new GK book. A more elite marine book where your basic troops are 20-25 pts a model. A CSM book where everyone is dedicated to a specific god, and the special characters allow for a Mono-god army. The summoned demons would be slightly god specific, but not the exact one from the demon book. Legions represented: Black Legion, World Eaters, Emperor's Children, 1000 Sons, Death Guard.

This would be good but I think they would have to do it so that the options would be pricey and like you say elite - to represent my comment above, that they are more Warbands than Legions now. After Skallathrax there are no World Eaters

svendrex wrote:3) Chaos Renegades- this would be the remaining four legions: Word Bearers, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, and Night Lord. The first three do use a lot of "normal humans" in their battle plans, so a mix of some traitor guard and siege artillery would be here as well. It would have a mix of power armor, sneaky people, and some hordes of Mutants/Cultists/Traitor Guard. All of the legions in this book worship Chaos Undivided and any demonic stuff would all be undivided.

I like this idea as well - Maybe Codex: Chaos Undivided would be a better representation?

Also they could have Codex: Chaos Renegades much like the existing book but maybe make things cheaper and more inline with the Space Marines codex to represent them turning after the Heresy. They would have access to more the more modern weaponry and their Dreadnoughts wouldn't be crazy

Just Dave wrote:my CSM fandex

Is very good and I would recommend all chaos players to have a gander

Pilau Rice wrote:
This is basically their intention from what I can gather, also that the majority of the Chaos Legions are now split into various warbands rather than one coherent fighting force, with the exception of maybe the Word Bearers and Black Legion.

I was under the impression that the Black Legion was relatively fragmented, with lots of them dead due to their obsession with possession before their sorcerers worked out a safe way to do it, and most of them went their separate ways and now lead their own warbands of renegades or in their own small warbands? Or has this been ret-conned to bring them into line with a more generic spiky marines look, akin to Ultramarines but bad? I thought the only time they worked as a single large coherent force was when Abaddon calls upon them Black Crusade style.

svendrex wrote:there are 9 Chaos Legions and trying to fit all of them + 4 types of demons + traitor guard into one book would be clumsy and unbalanced.

See, I would hate for it to be split - I'd rather every faction had as few codexes as possible. Take out all the fluff and painting guides and the like, fold in like units and you could easilty fit Legions, Renegades and Daemons into a single book and allow a combination of any of the 3 groups or anything in between.

Add in a couple of cultist units that allow you to take options from the IG codex and you could also then include renegade IG, or even use renegade IG as their own force.

Drruum wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:
This is basically their intention from what I can gather, also that the majority of the Chaos Legions are now split into various warbands rather than one coherent fighting force, with the exception of maybe the Word Bearers and Black Legion.

I was under the impression that the Black Legion was relatively fragmented, with lots of them dead due to their obsession with possession before their sorcerers worked out a safe way to do it, and most of them went their separate ways and now lead their own warbands of renegades or in their own small warbands? Or has this been ret-conned to bring them into line with a more generic spiky marines look, akin to Ultramarines but bad? I thought the only time they worked as a single large coherent force was when Abaddon calls upon them Black Crusade style.

And you would be right Drruum!

After the death of Horus, proper structure within the squads and companies disintegrated, and their later dispersal in various spacecraft further fragmented the Legion. Now warbands of virtually any size and composition can be found following Black Legion Champions

But I think they have retconned that as you have said, later articles seem to imply that they are all under Abbadons control now.

Maybe just give lesser and greater Daemons marks.

And the marks add sight changes to the weapons.

Pilau Rice wrote:

Just Dave wrote:my CSM fandex

Is very good and I would recommend all chaos players to have a gander

*hugs*

... Sorry, but the damn thing appears to have barely any views!



I think the Chaos Space Marines could be split into 2 Codices, however I do also think they can manage it in one. Nonetheless, I'm not sure which is optimal but I'm pretty confident this isn't the place to discuss it.

While it would be ideal to split them more (then again, every army would benefit from this) GW has proven that a single, unified codex can be done and has been done in 3.5. The only reason to split it up is not for more content (the SM codex is HUGE. 3.5 gave you much more for much less pages) but for GW to make you buy more models and more books. Ideally the only two Chaos Codexes should be Codex: Chaos Space Marines (with Legion rules) and Codex: Lost and the Damned. Daemons, being such a common element of chaos, but largely a shoehorned army, should be common units to both dexes, like the Harlies, with both books being able to field all-Daemon Armies (such as having Heralds that do not require possession, leaving that to the GDs).

svendrex wrote:Honestly, I think that the Chaos Codii could be split again.

there are 9 Chaos Legions and trying to fit all of them + 4 types of demons + traitor guard into one book would be clumsy and unbalanced.

Here is how I would like to see it.

1) Chaos Demons- All they need is a little less randomness, reduced scatter on the first drop wave, and some more anti-tank options and they would be okay. A few more options would be nice as well, but I am not sure what else they would get. Maybe give some of the gods other than Tzeench some anti-tank shooting powers.

2) Chaos Legions- this would be a book in a similar vain to the rumors of the new GK book. A more elite marine book where your basic troops are 20-25 pts a model. A CSM book where everyone is dedicated to a specific god, and the special characters allow for a Mono-god army. The summoned demons would be slightly god specific, but not the exact one from the demon book. Legions represented: Black Legion, World Eaters, Emperor's Children, 1000 Sons, Death Guard.

3) Chaos Renegades- this would be the remaining four legions: Word Bearers, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, and Night Lord. The first three do use a lot of "normal humans" in their battle plans, so a mix of some traitor guard and siege artillery would be here as well. It would have a mix of power armor, sneaky people, and some hordes of Mutants/Cultists/Traitor Guard. All of the legions in this book worship Chaos Undivided and any demonic stuff would all be undivided.


Will anything happen? I am not sure. What books get re-done are more about the model ranges than the army rules I feel. If GW feels like they have the time for another 40K book, and can make enough money selling whatever models would go with that book, then I think we could see something like this. The CSM codex is probably the least liked at the moment, but the model range is decent. There are other model ranges that need an update way more then they do, (Necrons, Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
As for what the codex represents currently, it's barely even Black Legion. The closest would be Renegade Chapters like the Red Corsairs.

I recall reading somewhere that the intent of the current CSM codex was to focus more on the Renegade Chapters, and less on the Legions. I think that the Horus heresy books have made the Legions more popular than GW was expecting.

GW has a hard enough time keeping up with all the codii that are out, they don't need to add another to it when they could just write a bigger book for one of them.

Well, if the new WFB Orc army book is any sign, we will be getting a bigger book for everything in the future. GW only knows if it will actually contain more information or is just written in a bigger font to increase the page count.

Hmm, maybe a book for each legion, and one for renegades. If they can turn grey knights into an entire army, why not all the chaos factions? Then we can have like 6 power armor books for every non power armor one. I can see it now, zerks with another zerk on their shoulders standing on two other zerks, swinging two other zerks with chainaxes around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I dub this creation Zerktron, Blood for the Blood God-der of the Universe.

Just Dave wrote:
... Sorry, but the damn thing appears to have barely any views!

I had the same problem when I tried to throw some ideas around .. maybe had 2 replies ...

You try to give Chaos some love and no ones cares