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Back in summer 2010 when I began playing 40k as the all powerful Chaos, I was introduced by my friend to the previous codex of Chaos. Enthralled by all of the unknown numbers and rules that I didn't understand and the nine mighty Legions, I agreed to play 40k as Chaos. My thoughts were spinning on whether to play as the shifty Night Lords, the arcanely gifted Thousand Sons, or the orgasmically awesome Emperor's Children. Shortly after I went to a hobby store and bought a box of Chaos Space Marines and a Rhino. A month went by, my models built and primed, games heavily proxied with toy soldiers and tanks, and I was having the time of my life. Then it happened. My friend showed me the correct codex.

Last week I acquired that PDF file once more and decided to look at the previous codex to Chaos, now that I actually know what everything means and I can grasp an effective army list. I liked it. I saw a lot of easily abusable combos, one of which was making every possessed a Psyker. I knew possessed were bad now, but I didn't know they broke their legs that hard... I also liked how a Chaos Lord became a Daemon Prince simply by virtue of how many upgrades you have him. Everything just seems more customizable, more suitable to the flavor of the player. Dreadnoughts could craze and potentially shoot you, but they weren't guaranteed to molest you on any given turn. Iron Warriors reeked OP.

Another thing that I loved were marked vehicles. A Slaaneshi leadership deathbomb fought in my hand, things tank-shocking with a -4 leadership modifier! Meanwhile Blastmasters from every direction would be pounding the enemy. Thousand Sons seemed kind of mediocre to me, but maybe there was something I was missing. I just thought that they were cool. Not so much them , but Tzeentch. Back when I first started and even now I still think Raptors are the coolest models ever (I just bought Finecast Raptors, sue me). Night Lords embodied this love of mine, and even though I didn't see the value of +1 to cover then I now realize how cool it would be now.

However, there was one thing that I didn't like. I can understand restrictions for certain legions, but blanket Raptor blockage in the Big 4 pissed me off. Even though they aren't great I still think they are ultimate cool. I like restrictions like in @JustDave's codex much more (props to open-topped Rhino if you read this, I love that idea of bringing Chaos much needed speed without making them spiked vanilla marines).

Those are the initial reactions that I had upon reading this aged manuscript. They took away lots of flavor. The Chaos Lord, for example, is just a worse Captain that costs more and is only really different with a Mark and a Daemon Weapon. Why would they take away gifts to actually build your Lord how you want him to be? Some things just don't make sense to me. No more indirect fire on Defilers, worse Dreads, more bland HQ's, actual Daemons, and cooler vehicle upgrades, among other things. I can see why people were so outraged, and why our current codex just screams Oblit spam if you want a serious game. Does anybody have any thought on the codex change or more particularly observations on what I have noticed?

Your observations are quite a few years old. Just wait for HBMC to come in here and spew his justified bile over the current codex. The current Chaos Marine codex came during a brief period in late 4th ed where GW was trying to streamline codices and simplify things too much. Gav Thorpe gets a lot of the blame, but Alessio Cavatore said it was more his fault than Gav's. The Chaos Marine, Dark Angels, and White Dwarf Blood Angel codices all had this philosophy about them. Thankfully, GW backed away from that decision fairly quickly with the release of the Orks codex. I can't recall if Eldar was before or after these.

It's pretty clear that something akin to Justdave's codex or somewhere between the current and previous Chaos codex would be ideal. I'd really rather not be getting turn 1 charged by two Nurgle daemon princes with flight and infiltrate thank you very much.

I know people are going to think this is old and the like, but I just plain wasn't around then. Thank God that philosophy isn't around anymore, hopefully the next book turns out better. For now I'm fielding JustDave's as much as possible, his feels much more Chaos to me, rather the Space Marines with no razorbacks or combat squads. One of my friends asked why I don't use Space Wolves to represent my Chaos boys, and I honestly had no real answer.