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Made in ca
Hauptmann




Hogtown

I’d bet my life savings that no one in GW marketing or accounting knows wtf a “mark of chaos” is unless it comes across their desk as part of a brief or in a SKU name, let alone leverages that knowledge over the product side of the org.

More than likely the chaos gak show is a result of a lack of design vision and QA from GW’s insane release schedule. It’s a common problem in product companies.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/23 17:06:39


Thought for the day
 
   
Made in us
Ollanius Pius - Savior of the Emperor






Gathering the Informations.

There's definitely some hinting towards a World Eaters release in the first Octarius book. Some pretty cool art that I didn't recognize either of World Eaters rampaging.
   
Made in au
Slaanesh Chosen Marine Riding a Fiend




Australia

Yeah I agree. World Eaters have been associated with Octarius since the beginning of 8th ed but the hinting is pretty overt. That art piece is indeed new though, and it is absolutely stunning.

The Circle of Iniquity
The Fourth Seal
 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 Las wrote:
I’d bet my life savings that no one in GW marketing or accounting knows wtf a “mark of chaos” is unless it comes across their desk as part of a brief or in a SKU name, let alone leverages that knowledge over the product side of the org.

More than likely the chaos gak show is a result of a lack of design vision and QA from GW’s insane release schedule. It’s a common problem in product companies.


Its certainly not from the release schedule. The lack of design vision for Chaos (and tug of war over Undivided) has lasted more than 20 years.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/24 00:13:49


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
In all seriousness, I think there's a bit of a tug of war in gw about whether or not Chaos Undivided should be a thing.
Sure does.

When we were writing the various Black Crusade expansions, "Chaos Undivided" was not a thing. It was "Chaos unaligned", and that 'u' was not capitalised.

Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
"GW really needs to understand 'Less is more' when it comes to AoS." - Wha-Mu-077

 
   
Made in fr
Crazed Spirit of the Defiler






 Kanluwen wrote:
There's definitely some hinting towards a World Eaters release in the first Octarius book. Some pretty cool art that I didn't recognize either of World Eaters rampaging.


How nice ! Would someone be kind enough to tell me where I could find those ?

-"For the Ruinous Powers!" 
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

Really interesting about Chaos Undivided. Too close to Moorcock for comfort maybe? I think I am definitely in favour of consolidation, but the problem is once a power armoured faction gets their own book it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle. If you consolidate thousand sons and death guard, that is gonna suck for those players.

   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 Da Boss wrote:
Really interesting about Chaos Undivided. Too close to Moorcock for comfort maybe? I think I am definitely in favour of consolidation, but the problem is once a power armoured faction gets their own book it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle. If you consolidate thousand sons and death guard, that is gonna suck for those players.


or you consolidate propperly?
As in not needlessly culling the special stuff?
Instead just fold the equivalent units back together but allow for upgrades depending upon choice of legion?

that would also cut down on Ro3 bypass shenanigans aswell.
But that would hurt GW's bottom line due to less books sales.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

When you say folding back, do you mean folding Rubrics and Plague Marines back into "Chaos Space Marines" in the way they were in 3.5?

Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
"GW really needs to understand 'Less is more' when it comes to AoS." - Wha-Mu-077

 
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




The dark hollows of Kentucky

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 Gadzilla666 wrote:
In all seriousness, I think there's a bit of a tug of war in gw about whether or not Chaos Undivided should be a thing.
Sure does.

When we were writing the various Black Crusade expansions, "Chaos Undivided" was not a thing. It was "Chaos unaligned", and that 'u' was not capitalised.

Yeah, I remember my Night Lord character was "unaligned" . You've mentioned this before, did that come from gw or was it from Fantasy Flight? It seems kind of a semantic difference, as the description of "unaligned" was pretty similar to "Undivided" in 3.5.

Love those games btw. You guys did some great work.
   
Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Yeah, I remember my Night Lord character was "unaligned" . You've mentioned this before, did that come from gw or was it from Fantasy Flight? It seems kind of a semantic difference, as the description of "unaligned" was pretty similar to "Undivided" in 3.5.
I would have to assume it came from GW themselves, as they don't let anything happen without ok'ing it first. I just remember that it came up before I started writing for them, back when we were play testing Black Crusade. I made a note of 'unaligned' over 'Undivided', and had it explained to me that that was intentional.

I believe Unaligned with a capital shows up in Tome of Decay, but I put that down to editorial error... but that's a whole other story with that book.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Love those games btw. You guys did some great work.
Thanks. Spent the better part of an evening playing Black Crusade with some friends on Saturday. We got to learn what happens when you overkill a Defiler with a Bolt of Change. Turns out it nukes the area. 3 of our party died in the explosion. I'm a Nurgle Marine with a Toughness bonus of 12 and 33 wounds, so I shrugged it off.


Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
"GW really needs to understand 'Less is more' when it comes to AoS." - Wha-Mu-077

 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 Da Boss wrote:
Really interesting about Chaos Undivided. Too close to Moorcock for comfort maybe?


Moorcock, Modesitt, D&D, others. That's at least part of problem. Having specifically 'Tzeentch daemons' (as an example) that are specifically this, that or that other thing.... that's an IP that they can claim. General 'Chaos' in the mutating fantasy sense sailed before GW really got going, it was one of many things they brought into their 'not D&D' wargame from the pop culture at the time.

Anyway, between chaos, tyranids and craftworlds, it will be interesting to see what next year's design paradigm is. I hope we'll continue to see more willingness to mess with profiles to make things worthwhile; but not a 'mid-edition' paradigm overhaul.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






I get people wanting all their rules in one place, really I do, but the sheer size and unwieldiness of such a book seems pretty obvious to me.
Currently, we have the following datasheets for each Chaos army (removing duplicates):
Chaos Daemons - 59
Chaos Knights - 6
Chaos Space Marines - 54
Death Guard - 17
Thousand Sons - 10
Total - 146
The Space Marine Codex has 98 datasheets and it is a regular complaint that it is too large. It might be all well and good to have the rules in one place but it's only a perfect solution for people who specifically want to do whatever they want with Chaos armies. If you just want Tsons you need to wade through over 100 datasheets just to get your 10 unique units. Same with Chaos Knights.

The biggest problem I'm seeing 90% of the time here is for legacy CSM players who've been around since ye olde days when 40k was much much smaller than it is now. You want to be able to do whatever you want with whatever you want, and while that's cool and all, armies need to have structure to function and maintain a semblance of balance.
Death Guard are slow but that's balanced out with their toughness. If you could just add in fast units with no breaking of army rules or receive any negatives then those weaknesses might as well not be there.
I originally intended to write more and go into depth with people's discussions but I found myself basically saying the same things over and over.

As a last post in this topic from me, I genuinely hope this next CSM Codex does well for everyone and you get a semblance of what you want out of it.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/10/24 18:20:24


 
   
Made in us
Beautiful and Deadly Keeper of Secrets





Which is why people have been discussing other options beyond just one book as well as other things.

Do you have anything else to contribute besides that?
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






 Gert wrote:
I get people wanting all their rules in one place, really I do, but the sheer size and unwieldiness of such a book seems pretty obvious to me.
Currently, we have the following datasheets for each Chaos army (removing duplicates):
Chaos Daemons - 59
Chaos Knights - 6
Chaos Space Marines - 54
Death Guard - 17
Thousand Sons - 10
Total - 146
The Space Marine Codex has 98 datasheets and it is a regular complaint that it is too large. It might be all well and good to have the rules in one place but it's only a perfect solution for people who specifically want to do whatever they want with Chaos armies. If you just want Tsons you need to wade through over 100 datasheets just to get your 10 unique units. Same with Chaos Knights.

146 is a lot, but how many of those datasheets are really unique?

Sorceror
Sorceror in Terminator Armour
EDIT: Master of Possession too!
Plague Caster
Sorceror in green Terminator Armour
Exalted Sorceror
Blue Sorceror
Sorceror in blue Terminator Armour
Infernal Master
could all easily be covered in a single entry.

Lord
Lord in Terminator Armour
Exalted Champion
Master of Executions
Green Lord
Lord in Green Terminator Armour
Lord of Contagion
Lord of Virulence
Felthius?
could similarly all be one entry

Knights should really only be three entries - Dominus, Questoris, Armiger chassis.

Tzaangors, Cultists, probably Poxwalkers (also Traitor Guardsmen, Cultists of the Abyss) could all be consolidated.

Consolidation of books would also allow for various forces to get access to units which they inexplicably can't take that the moment - what happened to the Death Guard's Havok squads? or their Vindicators? Are Thousand Sons really the only guys who employ giant warp spawns? It's a wonder that the Slaughterbrute doesn't already have 40K rules...

You could cover Chaos Marines, Plague Marines, Khorne Berzerkers, Noise Marines, Chosen in a single (admittedly larger) entry by expanding the rules for Marks and giving additional options.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/24 18:49:03


 
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




The dark hollows of Kentucky

Gert wrote:I get people wanting all their rules in one place, really I do, but the sheer size and unwieldiness of such a book seems pretty obvious to me.
Currently, we have the following datasheets for each Chaos army (removing duplicates):
Chaos Daemons - 59
Chaos Knights - 6
Chaos Space Marines - 54
Death Guard - 17
Thousand Sons - 10
Total - 146
The Space Marine Codex has 98 datasheets and it is a regular complaint that it is too large. It might be all well and good to have the rules in one place but it's only a perfect solution for people who specifically want to do whatever they want with Chaos armies. If you just want Tsons you need to wade through over 100 datasheets just to get your 10 unique units. Same with Chaos Knights.

The biggest problem I'm seeing 90% of the time here is for legacy CSM players who've been around since ye olde days when 40k was much much smaller than it is now. You want to be able to do whatever you want with whatever you want, and while that's cool and all, armies need to have structure to function and maintain a semblance of balance.
Death Guard are slow but that's balanced out with their toughness. If you could just add in fast units with no breaking of army rules or receive any negatives then those weaknesses might as well not be there.
I originally intended to write more and go into depth with people's discussions but I found myself basically saying the same things over and over.

As a last post in this topic from me, I genuinely hope this next CSM Codex does well for everyone and you get a semblance of what you want out of it.

Gert, who exactly are you arguing with? I just checked the last three pages of this thread, and the smallest number of proposed codexes for Chaos I could find was 3 from one poster. I couldn't find anyone arguing for one giant all encompassing Chaos Codex.

Do you just have a bone to pick with us "legacy CSM players"? Because the "everybody gets everything" approach started with the 4th edition CSM codex, which if you haven't noticed, we all HATE. The older books, like 3.5 which you can't stand us bringing up, were full of restrictions on who could take what. It still makes my skin crawl every time I see a Dark Apostle in anything but a Word Bearers army.
   
Made in us
Warp-Screaming Noise Marine




A single functioning book would be advocating for a return to the 3.5 codex which is every chaos players wet dream. I mean during those days you could have noise marine bikes.... and noise termis, bike smiths, etc. we could even make the codex more customizable than it was especially to consolidate the many different variations of death guard infantry and characters The down side is that the book had poor balance with itself and the rest of the game, but I would drool at the opportunity to have that level of customization of my forces again. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibilities to consolidate every lord equivalent to one lord entry (alright 3 because bikes and terminator armor) and make marks of chaos unlock war gear options and upgrade options to make a lord into a lord of contagion for example.
If we have problems with the legion and unit restriction why can’t we rewrite 3.5 WITHOUT that part? And balance things like oblits better? Or we can return to the days of units having restrictions, but I sort of feel like that’s what the different detachment types are for.
I am fond of this approach because it consolidates books, brings back ultra customization, and it would speed up codex release cycles for that reason.
That being said, it is incredibly unrealistic that GW would do any such thing because splitting the faction across more books means selling more books, artificially inflating a sense of diversity of factions and players, and most importantly, opens up more opportunities to sell more models with the more codices, because they seem to like using codex launches as the time to update models and release new ones (for admittedly obvious and fair reasons).
From a business standpoint there simply is not much to gain from that consolidation of books. I also think that the curse of chaos is that no one Chaos player’s vision of chaos will ever be captured on the table top, aside form fans of the god aligned legions.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/24 20:29:45


Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. -Kurt Vonnegut 
   
Made in jp
Boosting Space Marine Biker





Stuck in the snow.

 Las wrote:
I’d bet my life savings that no one in GW marketing or accounting knows wtf a “mark of chaos” is unless it comes across their desk as part of a brief or in a SKU name, let alone leverages that knowledge over the product side of the org.

More than likely the chaos gak show is a result of a lack of design vision and QA from GW’s insane release schedule. It’s a common problem in product companies.


I think it's probably lack of vision as you said, but also GW painting itself into a corner with how the explanation of demons and Chaos itself has evolved. Because it seemed like as more and more was written about the warp and politics of the Big 4, the more the middle ground has been erased.

Iirc Belakor is implied in recent lore to be unique as an unaligned (all-aligned?) daemon prince because the big 4 are unable to cooperate so they refuse to uplift any more champions together. Ok, but then what about the Daemon Primarchs? I could maybe see Perturabo and Alpharius/Omegon (if they're alive) being mono-god but Lorgar certainly wouldn't make sense.

Ok, so maybe you have unaligned Chaos tapping into some B-list daemons? But what themes are even left that haven't been absorbed into the Big 4 already? Well Horus Heresy tried that with Samus, Drach'nyen, Madail, and the Daemons of the Ruinstorm... who are kind of interesting in their own right but not nearly as thematically evocative as the Big 4.

So that leaves the designers to try and make something unique and exciting out of a conceptual absence. Which is a much tougher ask than "it does the combat/durability/magic/finesse thing".

Just my 2 cents I guess.
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 H.B.M.C. wrote:
When you say folding back, do you mean folding Rubrics and Plague Marines back into "Chaos Space Marines" in the way they were in 3.5?

No, rubrics and plague marines are not Chaos marines.
Sorcs and other choices however could be easily one or two sheets with Upgrade options.

And technically yes you could fold PM and rubrics into the csm sheet, but i'd Reserve that for even closer analog but not quite Units.

If i had to consolidate that is.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/24 21:31:36


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

Oh right, I see what you mean.

I dunno... I go back and forth with whether Cult Marines should just be Marines + Marks, or their own unique units. On one hand, it means you have to wrap every possible special rule into the Mark + Legion, and when it comes to Rubric Marines that creates a whole litany of extra extra rules. On the other hand, it cuts down on the amount of different units which overall creates less repeated stat lines (but on the other other hand, then all Chaos Marines, Cult or otherwise, have the same stat line... and is that good?).

Right now I'm in the "separate entries" camp, as I think it just makes things cleaner overall, especially if the rules for Marks are consistent across the board.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Gert, who exactly are you arguing with?
I thought it was me, but he didn't even bother replying.

Guess there are clouds in my coffee...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/24 22:12:00


Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
"GW really needs to understand 'Less is more' when it comes to AoS." - Wha-Mu-077

 
   
Made in us
Warp-Screaming Noise Marine




At this point I don’t care what they do with chaos, as long as it works. Change happens and I am ready to let go of how I envision chaos and what fraction of the faction I care most about. Just do something... give us back the 3.5 codex. Give me a spiky loyalist codex. Give me something bizarre. A dozen codices to cover every angle (preferably not that...) Anything besides the bland mush that we’ve had for too long.
I mean besides axing undivided. And using daemon engines to basically carry the whole faction. Anything but that.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. -Kurt Vonnegut 
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Oh right, I see what you mean.

I dunno... I go back and forth with whether Cult Marines should just be Marines + Marks, or their own unique units. On one hand, it means you have to wrap every possible special rule into the Mark + Legion, and when it comes to Rubric Marines that creates a whole litany of extra extra rules. On the other hand, it cuts down on the amount of different units which overall creates less repeated stat lines (but on the other other hand, then all Chaos Marines, Cult or otherwise, have the same stat line... and is that good?).

Right now I'm in the "separate entries" camp, as I think it just makes things cleaner overall, especially if the rules for Marks are consistent across the board.


Otoh, a single entry might be beneficial if done with upgrade for pts for internal balance.

Structured propperly:
IF you pick a lord and make it a warlord from "exemple" death guard or purge (or DIYS chaos warband mono aligned to nurgle):

Unlock Plague marine Upgrade for CSM squad. Increase T, lower M, Access to plague weapons, -1 Dmg trait.

This way you could use the "raiding" force type of deal to mix, or allow for greater purity boni if all detachments are specific to one subfaction.

Then you basically only have to tie the specific legion specialist units to "pure" detachments and you'd have atleast the baseline structure for all chaos legions and warbands.
Honestly, i am still surprised that we didn't get a DIYS trait system for csm to this day, its like the absolute nobrainer change that GW could've done with some effort to make a lot of players happy i feel.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/27 11:13:23


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






I do wonder if Marks could be more closely linked to Unit Leaders?

Early on I suggested giving CSM players a choice in what rank their squad leader is, again to reflect my preferred concept of lots of smaller warbands working together.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Rough example?

Slaaneshi Marked CSM. Their unit leader might be focussed on Martial Perfection, granting the squad a boost or re-roll on to hit rolls. Or they might instead get Always Strikes First type stuff.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/25 12:11:42


   
Made in us
Warp-Screaming Noise Marine




My biggest issue is the nightmare of keeping track of which squad that’s marked with what god does what. I think it would be best IF WE WANT a customizable mark like that, to be basically one option that applies to every mark. For example, maybe slaanesh can either confer exploding 6’s in close combat and with bolt weapons, or offer always strikes first.
I thought of marks unlocking multiple rules upgrades but you quickly run into the same sort of issue as proxying like a jerk, except it’s supported by the rules this time.
Loyalists get 2 special rules from their chapter traits. Maybe chaos should get one from legion and war and traits and one from marks of chaos.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. -Kurt Vonnegut 
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




The dark hollows of Kentucky

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Oh right, I see what you mean.

I dunno... I go back and forth with whether Cult Marines should just be Marines + Marks, or their own unique units. On one hand, it means you have to wrap every possible special rule into the Mark + Legion, and when it comes to Rubric Marines that creates a whole litany of extra extra rules. On the other hand, it cuts down on the amount of different units which overall creates less repeated stat lines (but on the other other hand, then all Chaos Marines, Cult or otherwise, have the same stat line... and is that good?).

Right now I'm in the "separate entries" camp, as I think it just makes things cleaner overall, especially if the rules for Marks are consistent across the board.

I'm in the "separate entries" camp as well. Mostly because a CSM with Mark (X) shouldn't be the same as Cult Marine (X). You're not a Berzerker without the Nails, but you can be dedicated to Khorne without them. You're not a Rubric Marine unless you're a Thousands Son, but you can be dedicated to Tzeentch without being a Thousands Son etc, etc.

Also, although I do want Marks to be impactful and available to everyone, I don't want them to be the end all to how we can improve our Marines. I want my Veteran Skills back. If that's tied to our squad Champions, fine. But please, throw an old Night Lords player a bone and let going Godless be a viable option again.
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






There is already icons for marked units that need a bit of extra flavour and icon of vengeance for unmarked units. I do think marks can be too important, like if certain units cannot have marks or becomes terrible for having the wrong one. I'm not sure how I feel about giving CSM Exarch powers, I think it could be a good idea. I'm a little concerned about every unit getting it though, that seems like a lot of extra things to keep track of and might be best suited as a Crusade mechanic.
Not Online!!! wrote:
Honestly, i am still surprised that we didn't get a DIYS trait system for csm to this day, its like the absolute nobrainer change that GW could've done with some effort to make a lot of players happy i feel.

Do you mean like SM successor chapters?
 Gert wrote:
I get people wanting all their rules in one place, really I do, but the sheer size and unwieldiness of such a book seems pretty obvious to me.
Currently, we have the following datasheets for each Chaos army (removing duplicates):
Chaos Daemons - 59
Chaos Knights - 6
Chaos Space Marines - 54
Death Guard - 17
Thousand Sons - 10
Total - 146
The Space Marine Codex has 98 datasheets and it is a regular complaint that it is too large. It might be all well and good to have the rules in one place but it's only a perfect solution for people who specifically want to do whatever they want with Chaos armies. If you just want Tsons you need to wade through over 100 datasheets just to get your 10 unique units. Same with Chaos Knights.

The biggest problem I'm seeing 90% of the time here is for legacy CSM players who've been around since ye olde days when 40k was much much smaller than it is now. You want to be able to do whatever you want with whatever you want, and while that's cool and all, armies need to have structure to function and maintain a semblance of balance.
Death Guard are slow but that's balanced out with their toughness. If you could just add in fast units with no breaking of army rules or receive any negatives then those weaknesses might as well not be there.
I originally intended to write more and go into depth with people's discussions but I found myself basically saying the same things over and over.

As a last post in this topic from me, I genuinely hope this next CSM Codex does well for everyone and you get a semblance of what you want out of it.

Index Imperium 1 had 200ish datasheets, there is nothing legacy about 8th edition, splitting Chaos into 8 indexes risks some CSM having 2 wounds and others not having it which is really freaking dumb, it's a totally valid option if GW is willing to errata profiles when it is appropriate (like 12 months ago when CSM should have gotten their second wound).

Balancing soup can be done through CP cost, internal synergy, Chapter Tactics and Combat Doctrines, those can be shoved into Chapter Approved along with Relics, Strats and WL traits. Just because CSM, CK, DG, TS, CD and R&H are in the same index does not mean they cannot have the faction keywords and list building restrictions and rewards of today. You can already build mono-god Detachments, a Great Unclean One leading Nurgle Cultists backed up by Plagueburst Crawlers for example. Death Guard have plenty of moderately fast units, giving them M14 Plague Bikers wouldn't make them much stronger if the unit had an appropriate cost.

Would this weigh a lot more? Index Chaos was shorter than Codex CSM is and you only need one Chapter Approved per table, the latter being larger isn't a big deal I don't think, so in total it might weigh less. Would you have to flip through more pages to get what you are looking for? Not if fluff, dioramas and art was exorcised from rulebooks to be their own dedicated products.

I'm working on a different format for a fandex I'm writing at the moment that could compact rules a lot which would be ideal for printed material, it's also way easier to write than trying to copy GW's datasheet format. I think the datasheet format is more ideal for a digital format using hyperlinks and getting online pts updates when relevant.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






 vict0988 wrote:
Death Guard have plenty of moderately fast units, giving them M14 Plague Bikers wouldn't make them much stronger if the unit had an appropriate cost.

It's amazing that everyone seems to have forgotten that only a few years ago most Death Guard armies were full of bikes and mechanised infantry...
   
Made in us
Ultramarine Chaplain with Hate to Spare






 Lord Damocles wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:
Death Guard have plenty of moderately fast units, giving them M14 Plague Bikers wouldn't make them much stronger if the unit had an appropriate cost.

It's amazing that everyone seems to have forgotten that only a few years ago most Death Guard armies were full of bikes and mechanised infantry...
^Yah. Chaos gets pulled in all sorts of directions because of a combination of changing design philosophies and wavering thematic guidance, it seems.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Gadzilla666 wrote:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Oh right, I see what you mean.

I dunno... I go back and forth with whether Cult Marines should just be Marines + Marks, or their own unique units. On one hand, it means you have to wrap every possible special rule into the Mark + Legion, and when it comes to Rubric Marines that creates a whole litany of extra extra rules. On the other hand, it cuts down on the amount of different units which overall creates less repeated stat lines (but on the other other hand, then all Chaos Marines, Cult or otherwise, have the same stat line... and is that good?).

Right now I'm in the "separate entries" camp, as I think it just makes things cleaner overall, especially if the rules for Marks are consistent across the board.

I'm in the "separate entries" camp as well. Mostly because a CSM with Mark (X) shouldn't be the same as Cult Marine (X). You're not a Berzerker without the Nails, but you can be dedicated to Khorne without them. You're not a Rubric Marine unless you're a Thousands Son, but you can be dedicated to Tzeentch without being a Thousands Son etc, etc.

Also, although I do want Marks to be impactful and available to everyone, I don't want them to be the end all to how we can improve our Marines. I want my Veteran Skills back. If that's tied to our squad Champions, fine. But please, throw an old Night Lords player a bone and let going Godless be a viable option again.
Either separate entries or super-bonus like 3.5. But yeah, MoK shouldn't mean Berzerker.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/25 20:46:08


And They Shall Not Fit Through Doors!!!

Tyranid Army Progress -- With Classic Warriors!:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/743240.page#9671598 
   
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What is a non-Rubric Tzeentch-marked Marine then? Aside from Sorcerers and Possessed?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/25 22:49:35


Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
What is a non-Rubric Tzeentch-marked Marine then? Aside from Sorcerers and Possessed?

A CSM that's dedicated to Tzeentch enough to recieve a blessing.

And They Shall Not Fit Through Doors!!!

Tyranid Army Progress -- With Classic Warriors!:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/743240.page#9671598 
   
 
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