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During school I stopped following the 40k updates, but now that I'm home from college I'm starting a Necron army and catching up on the FAQ's. One in particular that bugged me was my own army's FAQ, Chaos Space Marines. I'm an average player I'd say, but I can normally do well against any army. However, the general consensus among myself, my friends, my opponents, and a lot of people online is that Chaos is pretty underwhelming compared to most other armies out there.

My question is, why did they nerf an army that absolutely not need a nerf?

Warptime is pretty much useless now, as rerolling everything is such a gamble. It's too expensive to justify.

I'm actually glad about the Dreadnought ruling, I made a topic on it long ago and debated with my gaming group, and they only begrudgingly accepted it because I was so insistent. Now it's official.

The ruling on 1k Sons not being able to move if they lack a sorc and affected by a difficult terrain thing that takes a die is dumb, let's make a mediocre unit worse.

Lash is pretty dumb now, I'd say. Now that it's a PSA AND you have to roll to hit, I can hardly see myself using it. All too common psychic tests can stop it and even if it passes you got a 1/6 of it passing. If you have a sorc in a squad, that squad won't benefit from Lash unless it's an assault squad or a range squad pushing it away. I just feel like it's hardly worth the effort now. It can't even move guys into weapon range anymore. What's the point?

Why would they do this to our army? Do they even care for us Chaos boys anymore? This recent ruling just seems frustrating and unnecessary.

i agree that they laid a major nerf down on a codex that didnt really need the nerf. Honestly them doing this really is puzzling. On the other hand. Chaos is rumored to be getting a new dex and this stupid faq wont last for long.

They still do well in tourneys tho (spellbound took second with his slaanesh csm at a gt not long back)

That may be good for tournament people, but it's really unfortunate for the average gamer, I'd say.

Zid wrote:They still do well in tourneys tho (spellbound took second with his slaanesh csm at a gt not long back)

That's a case of people succeeding in spite of something rather than because of something; The new Chaos FAQ pretty much stripped away a lot of options that helped them compete better, with the FAQ they've been dragged down to the same bottom tier depths as the Tyranids and Tau.

I still think the best assets of the codex are 10 man CSM squads with 2 meltaguns and a power fist. They're still the best troops unit in the game IMO (besides possible Ork Boyz).

Obviously people compare them to their cheaper brethren, Grey Hunters. But the advantage CSM have is they can take 2 meltaguns, a combi-melta, and power fist all in a ten man squad. They also are leadership 9 instead of leadership 8 which is pretty handy.

You forgot to mention that kharn can not hit vehicles on a 2+ anymore due to the faq

From the topic title I got a stirring in my loins thinking a new FAQ had come out for CSM, a little late but better than never...

When I realized we're talking about what happened to warptime etc, I quickly fell flaccid

I've been a little flaccid about my original army as well. That's why I'm doing Necrons now. They become Tomb Kings in space, and I'm a Tomb King player in Fantasy. Let's do the math. I'm giving my Chaos a respectful shelving until the new book comes out, which shouldn't be long.

We're a little underpowered, but mostly we're boring as frak.

That's my biggest gripe with the codex, not the power or lack thereof, just the sheer monotony of CSM armies. Vanilla marine armies have more variety than Chaos armies- their roles have been totally reversed.

If you're just playing friends casually, ask if they're cool with you ignoring some of the poor rulings (especially if they're running a mid- to high-tier Codex).

Justus wrote:During school I stopped following the 40k updates, but now that I'm home from college I'm starting a Necron army and catching up on the FAQ's. One in particular that bugged me was my own army's FAQ, Chaos Space Marines. I'm an average player I'd say, but I can normally do well against any army. However, the general consensus among myself, my friends, my opponents, and a lot of people online is that Chaos is pretty underwhelming compared to most other armies out there.

My question is, why did they nerf an army that absolutely not need a nerf?

Warptime is pretty much useless now, as rerolling everything is such a gamble. It's too expensive to justify.

I'm actually glad about the Dreadnought ruling, I made a topic on it long ago and debated with my gaming group, and they only begrudgingly accepted it because I was so insistent. Now it's official.

The ruling on 1k Sons not being able to move if they lack a sorc and affected by a difficult terrain thing that takes a die is dumb, let's make a mediocre unit worse.

Lash is pretty dumb now, I'd say. Now that it's a PSA AND you have to roll to hit, I can hardly see myself using it. All too common psychic tests can stop it and even if it passes you got a 1/6 of it passing. If you have a sorc in a squad, that squad won't benefit from Lash unless it's an assault squad or a range squad pushing it away. I just feel like it's hardly worth the effort now. It can't even move guys into weapon range anymore. What's the point?

Why would they do this to our army? Do they even care for us Chaos boys anymore? This recent ruling just seems frustrating and unnecessary.

People seem to often think that GW does (or should) make FAQ rulings based on 'nerfing' or 'improving' the power of certain units.

'Fixing' a unit's power level would/should be an errata and it is not something GW has shown absolutely any interest in doing. Their answers to FAQs seemed to be based on what they think the answer to the question should be, regardless of whether that makes a weak unit weaker or a powerful unit more powerful.

Obviously there are many who would love to have GW go through and 'fix' every weak unit's power-level, but then that basically means players *have* to start carrying around the FAQ as their printed codex will be pretty radically changed, which is something those players who don't frequent online forums, etc, like to have to care about.

This is why when GW produced errata to bring the wargear rules and points-costs for the Dark Angels and Templars to par with the SM/BA/GK codex rules and points levels people wondered why they only 'fixed' certain units. They were basically making a concerted effort to have all storm shields in the game behave the same, they were not trying to 'fix' the Dark Angels and Black Templars codexes...it just happened to be a nice side-effect of this initiative.


So to get back to your specific question: In their eyes, GW didn't 'nerf' what didn't need to be nerfed. They answered some frequently asked questions with the answers they felt were correct (for whatever reason), and these answers had the side effect of nerfing what didn't need to be nerfed.


But regardless, we have 6th edition right around the corner and then likely a new Chaos book soon after too, so it shouldn't be too long before Chaos gets a significant shake-up.

Yakface stole what I was going to say - the point of FAQs is not to nerf an army, it's to clarify the ruleset. Improving the power of an army in an FAQ would undermine the value of the codexes altogether, the power balance of your army would fluctuate pretty much at random whenever GW released FAQs.
It'd also create confusion between people who follow the FAQs and people who don't. My codex says one thing, but I'm playing against someone who's insisting the FAQ has changed the rule. How can I take his word on it when it's written in black and white in front of me?

I'll actually echo the sentiment that Chaos aren't a bad army, just a dull army. Lash isn't significantly worse, just arbitrarily worse (why does Lash roll to hit but JotWW doesn't?). Daemon Princes with Warptime were nerfed even before warptime got nerfed; it's called being a monstrous creature in 40k right now, and it sucks.

The core units below can make a decent list:

HQ: Lash Sorcerers or Kharn
Elites: Termicide or Chosen
Troops: CSM or Plague Marines (maybe even Khorne Berzerkers)
HS: Obliterators

Boring, you betcha. Still, it can be effective. GK and Dark Eldar are uphill climbs. You have good shot at most other opponents.

JGrand wrote:I
The core units below can make a decent list:

HQ: Lash Sorcerers or Kharn
Elites: Termicide or Chosen
Troops: CSM or Plague Marines (maybe even Khorne Berzerkers)
HS: Obliterators

Boring, you betcha. Still, it can be effective. GK and Dark Eldar are uphill climbs. You have good shot at most other opponents.

I agree you can still win most of your games with the chaos dex. It is just boring boring boring.

JGrand wrote:I'll actually echo the sentiment that Chaos aren't a bad army, just a dull army. Lash isn't significantly worse, just arbitrarily worse (why does Lash roll to hit but JotWW doesn't?). Daemon Princes with Warptime were nerfed even before warptime got nerfed; it's called being a monstrous creature in 40k right now, and it sucks.

The core units below can make a decent list:

HQ: Lash Sorcerers or Kharn
Elites: Termicide or Chosen
Troops: CSM or Plague Marines (maybe even Khorne Berzerkers)
HS: Obliterators

Boring, you betcha. Still, it can be effective. GK and Dark Eldar are uphill climbs. You have good shot at most other opponents.

I do agree with the part that CSM and Plague Marines are valid core units and the Termicide, Chosen as elite is great!
You don't have take blitz as heavy support I personally like the defilers with their str 8 ap 3 ordinance canon.

Kârn, no need to say his more than great!
But when it come to the part of Lash Sorcerers or Lash in any shape and for i hate it . I run a Nurgle prince and a couple of Raptors to support him, she IT!

To spice some things up you can always see what forge world stuff you can use! The dread claw is a nice access to the army and makes dreads useful