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I've played a few games with the new codex. I'm feeling...underwhelmed with it. I know we have units everyone just goes nuts over, heldrakes oblits what have you. Maybe the way I'm playing the army isn't correct for the units I have?
I'm running units of 20 marines with a daemon prince with a squad of 20 cultists some termis some bikes and obliterators. I'm only playing at 1500 max atm, and I know that's a lower points value than 2k and 2k is where everything ramps up. But I feel like the units themselves are underwhelming. My last game I ran 2 heldrakes a maulerfiend 2 units of 2 obliterators a nurgle lord some rhinos and a bunch of plague marines. Had my dice almost not been perfect on both sides of offense and defense the tau player could have tabled me easily. Only a dirge caster saved me, which was poor target choice by my opponent. If I wouldn't have gotten that 1 5 point upgrade he would have either overwatched or intercepted every unit of termis oblits or even my heldrakes that came in. I never feel like I have a proper unit for the situation I'm in when every unit is designed to be a swiss army knife or that's the idea of the army. I feel like we're the orks of the MEQ world, we have everything but it only works because we're 10,000 yrs old and mad about it.

Does anyone else feel like you have to run power units at all times to even compete? I feel like our hq's (the named ones) don't even stack up, typhus challenges belial and man...belial ATE typhus. The guy even got a deny the witch roll for typhus's blast power. Am I just having a bad run of dice or is this army a little...underwhelming?

How does Belial beat Typhus? Typhus has a Force Weapon, Belial's sword isn't even AP2. What am I missing?

I'm having decent luck with the army. You just need to learn what has value and what doesn't. Things like the Boon table are a fun bonus, but should never be relied on, and the only time you should ever pay points for rolls on it is in an army built around Dark Apostles. I've been running a big blob of Marines, mobs of cultists, and the same Marines in Rhinos and Vindicators I used to run, and I'm doing pretty well. I pretty handily steamrolled my opponent tonight, and had him almost tabled by the end of turn 3. The new codices have been around the same power level, and while Chaos might have suffered a little from being first to the party, it's a good codex.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
How does Belial beat Typhus? Typhus has a Force Weapon, Belial's sword isn't even AP2. What am I missing?

The sword of silence? Something with fleshbane, like I said it could very well be some TERRIBLE dice rolls. I'm just...bleh lol I haven't seen a heldrake come in before turn 3 yet maybe even turn 4 =/


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brother SRM wrote:
I'm having decent luck with the army. You just need to learn what has value and what doesn't. Things like the Boon table are a fun bonus, but should never be relied on, and the only time you should ever pay points for rolls on it is in an army built around Dark Apostles. I've been running a big blob of Marines, mobs of cultists, and the same Marines in Rhinos and Vindicators I used to run, and I'm doing pretty well. I pretty handily steamrolled my opponent tonight, and had him almost tabled by the end of turn 3. The new codices have been around the same power level, and while Chaos might have suffered a little from being first to the party, it's a good codex.

I honestly feel like it has power and I see that, but it seems like if you're not playing everything nurgle or even marked with it you're handicapping yourself. I'm playing iron warriors and I'm looking at a very daemon engine heavy list and I played deathwing, just didn't feel like I could get enough high strength on the table to do anything to that army. I dunno, and I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but it feels like with this army if the dice are against you you are well and truly boned more so than my orks were.

 Gharron wrote:
I've played a few games with the new codex. I'm feeling...underwhelmed with it. I know we have units everyone just goes nuts over, heldrakes oblits what have you. Maybe the way I'm playing the army isn't correct for the units I have?
I'm running units of 20 marines with a daemon prince with a squad of 20 cultists some termis some bikes and obliterators. I'm only playing at 1500 max atm, and I know that's a lower points value than 2k and 2k is where everything ramps up. But I feel like the units themselves are underwhelming. My last game I ran 2 heldrakes a maulerfiend 2 units of 2 obliterators a nurgle lord some rhinos and a bunch of plague marines. Had my dice almost not been perfect on both sides of offense and defense the tau player could have tabled me easily. Only a dirge caster saved me, which was poor target choice by my opponent. If I wouldn't have gotten that 1 5 point upgrade he would have either overwatched or intercepted every unit of termis oblits or even my heldrakes that came in. I never feel like I have a proper unit for the situation I'm in when every unit is designed to be a swiss army knife or that's the idea of the army. I feel like we're the orks of the MEQ world, we have everything but it only works because we're 10,000 yrs old and mad about it.

Does anyone else feel like you have to run power units at all times to even compete? I feel like our hq's (the named ones) don't even stack up, typhus challenges belial and man...belial ATE typhus. The guy even got a deny the witch roll for typhus's blast power. Am I just having a bad run of dice or is this army a little...underwhelming?

Just because you lost a challenge/game doesn't mean the list/codex was bad... that's why there's dice in this game after all.

I run the following at 1500 for club play... its not optimized, yet still wrecks face and wins repeatedly

Huron
Level 3 Sorcerer with Familiar, Meltabombs (Telepathy)
24 Slaanesh Cultists with Flamers and 8 or so autoguns
10 Cultists with Heavy stubber and 5 autoguns
x2 Baledrakes
5 Tzeentch Terminators with a Landraider (dozer and combimelta)
1 Mutilator (stupid unit, but usually denies an objective behind the quad while I go take the others)
ADL Quad

Giggles and wins all the time... depending on my infiltrate rolls and whether I'm going first or not, Terminators, Cultist mob, etc can be coming from who knows where.

I've only used this 4 times, but all ended with a tabled opponent before the game ended on turns.

In my 2.5k games (normal for my club), I've ran BMace DP, JuggerLords with Spawn (awesome pairing), havoc campers, Defilers with an ADL, melta or PG raptors, all to great effect. There's some good lists in their son. 39 games without a loss against over 20 different opponents who weren't newbs can't be that bad of a book (played against every dex but the new Eldar and new Daemons).

I honestly feel like it has power and I see that, but it seems like if you're not playing everything nurgle or even marked with it you're handicapping yourself.

Well, at least you realize this now. There is a very good reason why I called this abomination of a book "codex: nurgle or go home" because nurgle will almost always be the best mark. At least you're not using 1k sons!

Hopefully forgeworld will release the forgeworld supplement with iron warriors so you can play something inspired instead of a hack job by a hack writer.

In the meantime just spam heldrakes and plague marines and you should be fine!

No Chaos Codex will likely ever again rivel the simple brilliance of the 4.0 Codex. 6th edition is clearly a more cluttered throwback to the atrocious earlier Chaos books.

That said, it does the "basic" 40K game (5 objective missions out of six) rather well by giving you cheap stuff to sit on your own (yes, Nurgle is the easy-choice to toughen up Cultists, but they are good without Nurgle too) and clear the troops from your opponents objectives (Heldrake, famously)

It's a Kelly Codex, so the internal balance is atrocious. It's not quite as bad as Space Wolves or Dark Eldar though, and the ability to take allies kinda helps hide Kelly's shortcomings as a Codex writer.

 Lobukia wrote:

 Gharron wrote:
I've played a few games with the new codex. I'm feeling...underwhelmed with it. I know we have units everyone just goes nuts over, heldrakes oblits what have you. Maybe the way I'm playing the army isn't correct for the units I have?
I'm running units of 20 marines with a daemon prince with a squad of 20 cultists some termis some bikes and obliterators. I'm only playing at 1500 max atm, and I know that's a lower points value than 2k and 2k is where everything ramps up. But I feel like the units themselves are underwhelming. My last game I ran 2 heldrakes a maulerfiend 2 units of 2 obliterators a nurgle lord some rhinos and a bunch of plague marines. Had my dice almost not been perfect on both sides of offense and defense the tau player could have tabled me easily. Only a dirge caster saved me, which was poor target choice by my opponent. If I wouldn't have gotten that 1 5 point upgrade he would have either overwatched or intercepted every unit of termis oblits or even my heldrakes that came in. I never feel like I have a proper unit for the situation I'm in when every unit is designed to be a swiss army knife or that's the idea of the army. I feel like we're the orks of the MEQ world, we have everything but it only works because we're 10,000 yrs old and mad about it.

Does anyone else feel like you have to run power units at all times to even compete? I feel like our hq's (the named ones) don't even stack up, typhus challenges belial and man...belial ATE typhus. The guy even got a deny the witch roll for typhus's blast power. Am I just having a bad run of dice or is this army a little...underwhelming?

Just because you lost a challenge/game doesn't mean the list/codex was bad... that's why there's dice in this game after all.

I run the following at 1500 for club play... its not optimized, yet still wrecks face and wins repeatedly

Huron
Level 3 Sorcerer with Familiar, Meltabombs (Telepathy)
24 Slaanesh Cultists with Flamers and 8 or so autoguns
10 Cultists with Heavy stubber and 5 autoguns
x2 Baledrakes
5 Tzeentch Terminators with a Landraider (dozer and combimelta)
1 Mutilator (stupid unit, but usually denies an objective behind the quad while I go take the others)
ADL Quad

Giggles and wins all the time... depending on my infiltrate rolls and whether I'm going first or not, Terminators, Cultist mob, etc can be coming from who knows where.

I've only used this 4 times, but all ended with a tabled opponent before the game ended on turns.

In my 2.5k games (normal for my club), I've ran BMace DP, JuggerLords with Spawn (awesome pairing), havoc campers, Defilers with an ADL, melta or PG raptors, all to great effect. There's some good lists in their son. 39 games without a loss against over 20 different opponents who weren't newbs can't be that bad of a book (played against every dex but the new Eldar and new Daemons).

I mean, I see that the list works and I get it, but it just seems like every other army has the ability to build a certain list for a certain playstyle and it seems...difficult to find an all comers balance. I feel like if I feel a ton of this I'm going to run into an army that uses a ton of that and then it's an uphill battle and god help you if the dice go badly. I'm not trying to gripe, just say I'm...confuzzled as to where the ideas for this army came from...

I have really been enjoying the New Chaos Book, and I don't even use Nurgle or Heldrakes. I focus mainly on Slaanesh, and theme my list around that. I will say that I play Eldar when I want to be more competitive (even before the update ), and I also am currently boycotting Heldrakes because I believe that they are stupid and over centralizing. Even still I usually win with my CSM although its often a close affair.

if you are curious, my 1850 list usually looks like this. Its not tournament worthy or anything, but its a very fun list that plays pretty well against most opponents. It won't do well vs double or tripple drake, but whatever. Thats not why I built this army, I built this army because honestly its the most fun I've had playing warhammer since I first started.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

Well, at least you realize this now. There is a very good reason why I called this abomination of a book "codex: nurgle or go home" because nurgle will almost always be the best mark. At least you're not using 1k sons!

You're talking about the previous codex, right? Noise Marines are excellent, and the Slaanesh psykers/Lords are pretty solid. Khorne Berserkers aren't terrible, but their chainaxes are overpriced. Thousand Sons are better than they used to be, but that's not saying a whole hell of a lot.

And "abomination" is an awful strong word for a codex that's slightly lower on the power scale than you were hoping and doesn't have quite the options you want. It's not perfect, but you can do a lot of different things with it.

 Zweischneid wrote:
No Chaos Codex will likely ever again rivel the simple brilliance of the 4.0 Codex. 6th edition is clearly a more cluttered throwback to the atrocious earlier Chaos books.

That said, it does the "basic" 40K game (5 objective missions out of six) rather well by giving you cheap stuff to sit on your own (yes, Nurgle is the easy-choice to toughen up Cultists, but they are good without Nurgle too) and clear the troops from your opponents objectives (Heldrake, famously)

It's a Kelly Codex, so the internal balance is atrocious. It's not quite as bad as Space Wolves or Dark Eldar though, and the ability to take allies kinda helps hide Kelly's shortcomings as a Codex writer.

That horrid 4.0 dex should disappear, along with gav thorpes name from Chaos. Those 4.0 Dex's were a blight on the game itself.

It should return to earlier chaos, where at least we didn't look as similar as Space Marines! Heck, I'd rather it return to the Original 3.0 (not 3.5) Codex then retain any of Gav Thorpes misgivings.

I wouldn't say that it is neccessarily underwhelming or a weak force. The problem is there only seem to be a few really viable army list options for us to take. There are a lot of rubbish options in the book that only the fluffiest of lists could justify taking.

 Brother SRM wrote:

You're talking about the previous codex, right? Noise Marines are excellent, and the Slaanesh psykers/Lords are pretty solid. Khorne Berserkers aren't terrible, but their chainaxes are overpriced. Thousand Sons are better than they used to be, but that's not saying a whole hell of a lot.

And "abomination" is an awful strong word for a codex that's slightly lower on the power scale than you were hoping and doesn't have quite the options you want. It's not perfect, but you can do a lot of different things with it.

He is talking about Codex: Chaos Space Marines (not an abomination, but not a satisfying army either).

You are talking about Codex: Nurgle and Baledrakes (this thing is awesome, though boring).

In other words: after a certain amount of Baledrakes and Nurgle stuff, even Thousand Sons are decent .

I run a slaneesh army and find it quite competitive. I also hate the hellturkey and refuse to buy one and it doesn't cause any problems with winning.

My only dislike of the current dex is that all cult troops are way overpriced to base an army around -except plague marines and noise marines. .

 Brother SRM wrote:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

Well, at least you realize this now. There is a very good reason why I called this abomination of a book "codex: nurgle or go home" because nurgle will almost always be the best mark. At least you're not using 1k sons!

You're talking about the previous codex, right? Noise Marines are excellent, and the Slaanesh psykers/Lords are pretty solid. Khorne Berserkers aren't terrible, but their chainaxes are overpriced. Thousand Sons are better than they used to be, but that's not saying a whole hell of a lot.

Spoken like somebody who hasn't used khorne berserkers or attempted to use a khorne army. And thousand sons are worse now that their overpriced sorcerer is stuck with the worst psychic lore in the game.

And "abomination" is an awful strong word for a codex that's slightly lower on the power scale than you were hoping and doesn't have quite the options you want. It's not perfect, but you can do a lot of different things with it.

Ah this is my favorite part; where people assume what I want. I play casually and khorne is garbage and unfun even then. It's probably the least enjoyable book I've played and that's saying a lot. There's a good reason why you only ever see nurgle and the occasional slaanesh army.

And I'd never thought I would say this but I agree with Zwei about phail being a crap author. Though the 4 th edition book was even worse and he basically copypasted a bunch of units over from it.

I had similar issues. I played chaos space marines for 2 years, and won 5 games. In the space of 3 months playing with wytch heavy rush based dark eldar army - I am yet to lose a game. This might just be down to the DE suiting my play style though, as I know loads of players who have no issue with Chaos

The book has some very strong options, but not an overly large number, and it rapidly drops off into proof that GW doesn't actually try to sell every new model with a codex release (poor mutilators). FA and HS are reasonably populated, but Elites suffer badly. I think this is really the core of the complaint, though. For a book that ostensibly covers the infinite diversity of Chaos, your competitive lists largely come down to 'Nurgle-oriented Renegades' and 'Death Guard that absorbed a few other elements.' All of the eggs are in the Plague Marine and Heldrake basket.

The Noise Marine list kind of needs the sorcerer to be really good, but then you're buying two HQs to make them score. Plus they get hilariously short-ranged with sonic weapons.

Berzerkers don't have a cost-efficient way to quickly cross the board and get stuck in, and punching people is all they're any good at.

I did a ton of blogging on the new Chaos codex, specifically the Cults. After doing those games and that work, i would say Chaos is definitely a pretty good codex.

Now you dont just show up and win because: codex. that doesn't happen despite all the rumors. EVERY codex requires YOU to be good.


So dont blame the codex. Look to what else might have contributed to losses. imbalanced lists are almost always what I see as the problem. Too heavy into one thing and then they hit an opponent who simply doesn't get hurt as bad by it. Net result: uphill battle.

They will most likely release some expansion codexes now that Iyanden is doing well.

I really think that was the plan, build a basic flexible codex so that later they can release some supplemental codexes. Most likely we will see the big 4 IE
1000 Sons
World Eaters
DeathGuard
Emperors Children

although personally I would prefer
Iron Warriors
Night Lords
Word Bearers

and of course I would mark out for
Sons of Malice
Red Corsairs

I hope they don't just do the typical GW of "meh screw it let Forgeworld do it", not that I don't like Forgeworld but the Meta around me does not seem to appreciate it

I really think that was the plan, build a basic flexible codex so that later they can release some supplemental codexes. Most likely we will see the big 4 IE
1000 Sons
World Eaters
DeathGuard
Emperors Children

Unless Thousand sons gets some drastic point changes, it's not gonna be good even with a few new rules.

World Eaters also needs a cheaper assault vehicle.

I'm finding the opposite with the new Codex. I've played Nurgle for years and every model with MoN makes them tough to put down.

One opponent uses a 1000 Son heavy list that is tough to shift too, and a couple of Defilers deal a lot of damage.

I feel it's mainly the new units that are underwhelming but haven't used or come across the Helldrake as my group don't use flyers.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

I really think that was the plan, build a basic flexible codex so that later they can release some supplemental codexes. Most likely we will see the big 4 IE
1000 Sons
World Eaters
DeathGuard
Emperors Children

Unless Thousand sons gets some drastic point changes, it's not gonna be good even with a few new rules.

World Eaters also needs a cheaper assault vehicle.

I thought beserkers were going to have a cool rule that they treat all vehicles as assault vehicles.

I know I may get some flak for this but Matt Ward may butcher all of your favorite fluff but he sure knows how to make the game fun with interesting rules. Kelly for fluff, Ward for gameplay. Every Dex please.

I know it's been said, even I said it. But man if you're not playing nurlge you're doing it wrong. Khorne is over priced and with sixth's assault changes you never really know what you're going to get with them. I had orks last year for 5th ended up with more boys than I could put on the table but they were all sluggas. 6th comes and I have to completely drop that list. To much shooting not enough boys making it across the table. It feels like that with this codex. You have to kite out most combats because we just don't have anything to stand up in combat. Then, when you end up playing a shooting heavy army (guard or tau) you really end up in a bad way because you have nothing combat oriented. I'm not really sure where I can go with this army lol I'm trying to think of everything I can but heldrakes and plague marines are just to good to not have (because everything else is so lackluster) granted I haven't tried noise marines but I know short range and price...kind of a big thing...

 Goat wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

I really think that was the plan, build a basic flexible codex so that later they can release some supplemental codexes. Most likely we will see the big 4 IE
1000 Sons
World Eaters
DeathGuard
Emperors Children

Unless Thousand sons gets some drastic point changes, it's not gonna be good even with a few new rules.

World Eaters also needs a cheaper assault vehicle.

I thought beserkers were going to have a cool rule that they treat all vehicles as assault vehicles.

I know I may get some flak for this but Matt Ward may butcher all of your favorite fluff but he sure knows how to make the game fun with interesting rules. Kelly for fluff, Ward for gameplay. Every Dex please.

He also makes some interesting gameplay rules.

Nurgleis pretty good. It was definitely AWESOME in the former codex in 6E, because of the ally rules, and continues to be beefy in 6E with a new codex, really. Tallymaster thing was ridonculous before...

2x210 wrote:
They will most likely release some expansion codexes now that Iyanden is doing well.

Unlikely. Chaos missed the boat this edition. Maybe they'll get expansions next edition if GW is still doing them at that point, but the pendulum swings fast...

I love my Khorne Lord on Juggernaut. There's nothing more fun than smashing into units with silly amounts of attacks and ripping them to shreds. I definitely think the CSM codex got better; just look at your options for cheap Chaos Marines; you can field a lot of bodies if you want, with the options for cc weapons, or swapping out Bolters even (if you want). That's pretty epic in the way of customizabiliy.

Im loving the noise marines, assaulting them is a bad bad idea, 3 shots per sonic weapon, 2 from the blast master, D3 from the Doom Siren, then swinging at I5. nurgle for your bigger units (oblits) Tzeench for you DP

but yes poor 1ksons :( they need a supplement then i will be truly happy...

As much as I've been successful with my khorne chaos, I definitely wish my berserkers got more bang for their buck. If chainaxes dropped by a point i'd be happy. If they stayed at current, but gave an extra attack I'd be giddy.

But from a more semi-constructive sense, if apostles dropped in points by 10-15, warpsmiths gest the DA techmarine treatment, and both get options for bike or jump pack, the HQ section would be largely shored up.

The cost on icons needs to go down SIGNIFICANTLY. Effectively paying 3ppm for fearless that can be sniped, while loyalists get ATSKNF for less?

Thousand sons with a sorc should lose slow & purposeful, and allow said sorc to pick tzeench OR a rulebook power.

Plagues are fine. Noise are fine. CSM are largely fine, though allowing them to be 1 special/5, 1 heavy/10 would be nice.

A quick easy fix for helbrutes is to put a little not at the end of the crazed results. for the "stay still and shoot", not that if it has no ranged weapons, aside from ones built into PF, it does the fleet/rage/no shooty version, and vice versa. No PF? then no ROAR RUN UP AND HIT IT! mode, just dakkadakkadakka.

And lastly, even though every single version that I've come up with has been put off as "OMG UEBER OP" by anyone who has read them, cult terminators need to be a thing. Like, now...ish


PS Can tyranids have their 5-6 missing models soon? please? pretty please??.. .... ........

Hardly underwhelming. Maybe compared to shiny new Tau or Eldar they seem less shiny, but they're still a great codex.

There are so many options (Barring a few atrocious ones) and allow you a lot of flexibility. I couldn't have asked for more from a codex. It has enough competitive and interesting units to keep me trying new combinations til the next one comes out. You just gotta get a handle on it. Terminators, Bikers, Huron, Spawn, Juggerlords, Maulerfiends, Havocs, Obliterators, Cult Troops. There's a plethora of stuff. Use it all before you go out and say the codex is underwhelming.