Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Has anyone tried running an unmarked army?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Well yes, true, but adding something like Traitor Guardsmen and Basilisks to the Codex is only 2 units but would add a lot thematically.

Wouldn't be necessary if IG were battle brothers with CSM. *grumbles*

 Yonan wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Well yes, true, but adding something like Traitor Guardsmen and Basilisks to the Codex is only 2 units but would add a lot thematically.

Wouldn't be necessary if IG were battle brothers with CSM. *grumbles*

Indeed... It would solve so many problems.

For some reason the mental image of a vast, swirling sea of IW traitor IG charging forth with Iron Warrior Astartes champions spread out in the horde, sticking up like pointy rocks in the ocean, pleases me.

While I agree with that, I think every codex can always be improved and I'd rather focus on the things that do work than the things that don't. IW doesn't have every option available in the fluff, however, it has many many options and looking at the CSM dex from the perspective of building IW, it works. I think a lot of the chapters aligned to a chaos god need a bit more flavour other than just random marks. Daemons codex works quite well, I think CSM dex could take a few pointers from it.

What do Iron Warriors offer though? The core part of an Iron Warriors army, should be the Iron Warriors. It should be all about the dudes in Power Armour, tearing down walls and slagging tanks. Instead we have the situation where the Marines are garden ornaments to sit pretty while the real IW units like Obliterators and Maulerfiends actually get the job done.

When we read Storm of Iron or Siege of Castellax, it isn't a story about a single Lord leading his merry band of Daemon Engines into the fray. It's about the Legion, it's about the Bolters and Chainaxes, and right now these are represented by a Tactical Marine without ATSKNF but is a point cheaper.
Nothing about the Legionaries says Iron Warriors, nothing represents an affinity for sieges, and all of the actual flavour comes from its fringe units.

People don't choose Iron Warriors for the Heavy Support slot, they play them for chevrons and bringing down citadels.

Agreed. When it comes down to it, the reason the IW is the absolute masters of siegecraft is not their artillery, not their commanders, not their swarms of meat shields. No, it is the Iron Warriors themselves. Few warriors are better to have in a siege assault.

I picked them for the Hazard Stripes

I do like my options as IW though.

If you like the options then you don't have a problem and all is right in your world. I mean that sincerely; if you can pick the army up and have a good time using it, then the book is at least partially successful and I wish you worlds of success.

However I am not in a similar position and it does not sound like I am alone. I don't want to play Chaos Marines as they are because it plays upon rotted, boring foundations that amount to bog-standard Tacticals with half the options stripped out, and then returning you the option to buy some stat increases back. Nothing about the unit says Legionary, nothing makes them scary or interesting or inventive, and they seem like a 'tax' that must be paid to unlock the units with flavour.
It seems that the Chaos Marines are an afterthought and a background piece, to bring the spotlight onto 'real' Chaos units like Daemon Engines and Possessed. The execution is obviously a bit sketchier, but I get a distinct feeling of the creators not caring about the fundamentals and expecting people to latch onto iconic units rather than the foundations.

I like this thread because it has helped me identify exactly what my problem with the current book is, and I think it's because I find the Power Armoured elements to be the iconic image of what Chaos means to me. That's not to say that I want spiky Loyalists, but rather that I want an army of fallen angels, using tech-heresy and ancient patterns of wargear and doctrines, to topple the empire they helped build. I don't want to need daemonic elements to pull the foundations forward. I want an army built of Legionaries to be a competitive, viable option and with enough thought and flavour invested into these options to make the army pop.

I like Possessed, I like Khorne and 'Fiends, I like Warp Talons and I like Obliterators. But I feel that these should be flavour pieces used to augment a core of rock-solid, bitter traitors rather than the selling points of the army. I don't want the Legionaries to be an afterthought among a circus of daemons and robots.

Mozzamanx wrote:

The Warsmith is supposed to be in command of Grand Companies, each of which is Chapter-sized and so you'd expect him to be roughly equivalent with a Chapter Master. Instead, we get a WS4, W2, A2 model who operates as a glorified Techmarine. This is assuming that the Warpsmith is an attempt at the Warsmith, because otherwise we get nothing at all to represent one beyond a Lord without notable armour or tech-abilities.,

Just a note here. The "Warpsmith" is basically a Chaos Techmarine. A WARsmith (no "P") is just the IW name for a Chaos Lord. Two different things entirely.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mozzamanx wrote:
However I am not in a similar position and it does not sound like I am alone. I don't want to play Chaos Marines as they are because it plays upon rotted, boring foundations that amount to bog-standard Tacticals with half the options stripped out, and then returning you the option to buy some stat increases back. Nothing about the unit says Legionary, nothing makes them scary or interesting or inventive, and they seem like a 'tax' that must be paid to unlock the units with flavour.
It seems that the Chaos Marines are an afterthought and a background piece, to bring the spotlight onto 'real' Chaos units like Daemon Engines and Possessed. The execution is obviously a bit sketchier, but I get a distinct feeling of the creators not caring about the fundamentals and expecting people to latch onto iconic units rather than the foundations.

I wonder if that's the point. In the RT-era days that's basically what you had. a Chaos Warband was a bunch of mutants, daemons and the only models IIRC were for the cults ("Chaos Renegades") and I think there was a Black Legion RT-era list but no figures that I recall were ever done specifically for them. It was only in 2nd edition that they actually branched out the idea of having CSM being an army representing the Traitor Legions.

I agree 100% as well, being a Chaos player in 2nd and 3rd edition. The only reason I chose Chaos was because of the "evil Space Marine" archaic/corrupted flavor.

Personally what I think would be neat if Chaos had a lot more flexibility, to represent the Legions having more freedom. So while you can't do something as crazy as in 30k with a squad of 20 guys all with special weapons, maybe reduce the points of the regular CSM to say 10 but give them extra options. Like allow all of them to take jump packs, or upgrade a unit with some Possessed-like abilities (say only one ability, even if random); this basically removes Raptors but you keep Warp Talons (with improvements) as daemonically altered troops. Basically each kind of troop should have a regular and flexible version, and then a specialized version that's even more corrupted, mutated and daemonically altered. The basic concept would be that the player has to make a choice if they want slightly weaker units that offer more flexibility, or smaller more specialized units that are focused and stronger at a specific thing. Look at the flexibility of the HH Legions, and apply some of that to the baseline Chaos forces and then sprinkle in the daemon stuff for extra options for the crowd that wants to really have a band of daemonic mutant renegades.

Throw in more special weapons taken from the Heresy books (Volkite springs to mind), and put say an emphasis on versatility. So you have a less regimented force than Loyalist Marines with more individual flexibility that should counter-balanced the inherent tactical flexibility that Loyal Marines have (e.g. Combat Squads).

For example in RT here was a Black Legion "Tactical Squad":

0-10 Tactical Squads at 270 points Per Squad
10 Marines: 1x Missile Launcher, 1x Flamer

Up to D4-2 chaos Attributes for free

Could substitute flamer with other weapon
Could substitute missile launcher with other weapon
Could equip sergeant with extra weapon
Could equip all squads with jump packs, chainswords, melta-bombs, other RT-era grenades

The BL "Devastator" Squads had 2x ML and 2x Heavy Bolters and could upgrade those, while the assault squads have it looks like 2x Bolt Pistols and could be upgraded with Jump Packs and the like.

 Melissia wrote:
Irrelevant.

Internets won!

Seriously, you argued that people wouldn't want to quit 40k/CSM because:lore, then he said the gameplay didn't really reflect the lore, then you said you can still win because: tactics, then he pointed out that there's no pure CSM builds winning (the Daemons/CSM build was a FMC build with nothing but a bare bones sorcerer, cultists, and a heldrake), then.... IRRELEVANT! Brilliant.

If you're going to be that dismissive, then why even click on the thread?

 slowthar wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Irrelevant.

Internets won!

Seriously, you argued that people wouldn't want to quit 40k/CSM because:lore, then he said the gameplay didn't really reflect the lore, then you said you can still win because: tactics, then he pointed out that there's no pure CSM builds winning (the Daemons/CSM build was a FMC build with nothing but a bare bones sorcerer, cultists, and a heldrake), then.... IRRELEVANT! Brilliant.

If you're going to be that dismissive, then why even click on the thread?

Top 8 postings are Irrelevant clearly. Especially when the army is primarily from a different faction.

 slowthar wrote:
Seriously, you argued that people wouldn't want to quit 40k/CSM because:lore, then he said the gameplay didn't really reflect the lore, then you said you can still win because: tactics

No. I argued that the problems are exaggerated.

 slowthar wrote:
then he pointed out that there's no pure CSM builds winning (the Daemons/CSM build was a FMC build with nothing but a bare bones sorcerer, cultists, and a heldrake), then.... IRRELEVANT! Brilliant.

Are you stupid enough to claim that any army that isn't Eldar won't win?

Chaos Marines featured in two out of the top eight armies. Only Eldar featured more often. If Chaos Marines can't win because they aren't featured enough in the top eight armies, then that means that only Eldar can win, because no one but them was featured more than Chaos Marines in the top eight armies.

Thus, it's a bit irrelevant that they are only a minor feature. Tournament results are always skewed and weird, as are competitive players' views on balance.

Consistent high level tournament placing are the only real non-subjective measure we have. They may not be definitive but they are certainly more relevant than anything else that we have to go on.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Consistent high level tournament placing are the only real non-subjective measure we have.

No they aren't.

As in, they aren't non-subjective.

Too small a sample size, and they choose their armies for reasons other than competitiveness.

And for the record, slowthar, I wasnt' the one that brought them up.

Mozzamanx wrote:

However I am not in a similar position and it does not sound like I am alone. I don't want to play Chaos Marines as they are because it plays upon rotted, boring foundations that amount to bog-standard Tacticals with half the options stripped out, and then returning you the option to buy some stat increases back. Nothing about the unit says Legionary, nothing makes them scary or interesting or inventive, and they seem like a 'tax' that must be paid to unlock the units with flavour.
It seems that the Chaos Marines are an afterthought and a background piece, to bring the spotlight onto 'real' Chaos units like Daemon Engines and Possessed. The execution is obviously a bit sketchier, but I get a distinct feeling of the creators not caring about the fundamentals and expecting people to latch onto iconic units rather than the foundations.

I like this thread because it has helped me identify exactly what my problem with the current book is, and I think it's because I find the Power Armoured elements to be the iconic image of what Chaos means to me. That's not to say that I want spiky Loyalists, but rather that I want an army of fallen angels, using tech-heresy and ancient patterns of wargear and doctrines, to topple the empire they helped build. I don't want to need daemonic elements to pull the foundations forward. I want an army built of Legionaries to be a competitive, viable option and with enough thought and flavour invested into these options to make the army pop.

I like Possessed, I like Khorne and 'Fiends, I like Warp Talons and I like Obliterators. But I feel that these should be flavour pieces used to augment a core of rock-solid, bitter traitors rather than the selling points of the army. I don't want the Legionaries to be an afterthought among a circus of daemons and robots.

And that's why I am currently thinking about fielding my Alpha Legionaires as a C:SM army. A much broader choice of armour, my Havocs would get plasma cannons and ride razorbacks, power armour would be fun and the whole demonic aspect can go to the warp as far as I am concerned. Really, if you aren't fielding one of the demon-infested legions, you have a pretty hard time to make your army fluffy. That's a problem not only for Iron Warriors, but also for Alphas, Night Lords and, to some degree, Thousand Sons.

I think there may be some intent, as the whole heresy aspect is covered by FW and the fallen, demon-ridden CSM of the 41st millenium are the focus of GW. So, play a 30k list I guess?

 Kosake wrote:


And that's why I am currently thinking about fielding my Alpha Legionaires as a C:SM army. A much broader choice of armour, my Havocs would get plasma cannons and ride razorbacks, power armour would be fun and the whole demonic aspect can go to the warp as far as I am concerned.

And I would whole-heartily recommend you to do so. This mentality does not exist because the Chaos codex is weak or lacks bite, it exists because if you are starting an army under the assumption that Chaotic elements are not wanted then the book has nothing to offer you, because all that is left are bog Marine statlines with none of the special rules attached. The Marines are supposed to be front and centre as indicated by the name. But the reality of the book is that they range between a necessary tax (Marines) to gimmicky-spam units that just happen to be more efficient than other choices (Bikes, Chosen). The remainder are rarely seen because they don't fill an important role, nor are they creative or fun enough to be justified.
We are left with the obligatory HQ, Cultists and then working units, not because they are fluffy but because there is no place for the defining units. I want Marines to take the centre-stage as they did in 3.5 rather than be the supporting characters to hardcore Chaos units. I want to build an army of mortals, of Heresy-veterans and Heresy-equipment, with mortal-crewed guns and mortal-crewed tanks, beating the enemy up with old-school Bolters and hate. But under the current book it's not viable because there is an assumption that your army begins and ends with Cult units, Daemon allies and Belakor.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Read Storm of Iron for info on how the current Iron Warriors do things. They are very much chaos worshippers they just don't devote themselves to a single patron. Heck, their warsmith turned into a daemon prince and they are very much into daemon engines.

I remember in 4th edition (or 3.5?), the Iron Warriors list dropped a lot of the Daemon units (like Raptors and Possessed), but Daemon Engines were fine, and you could run a Daemon Prince because it was just a Lord who had X number of mutations added on. The problem is, if you go by that prior restriction of no marks (because they don't worship a single god), you can't take a DP now, because they must be marked. I believe Storm of Iron was written at the same time as the 3.5 book was still relevant.

Too many alerts.