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 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

Gree wrote:
I never particularly understood the bad rap CSM have. I keep on losing to a Chaos player who utilizes Noise Marines, Nurgle Mace Princes and Obliberators very effectively, despite using armies like Space Marines and Eldar against him. Blastmasters typically crack open my vehicles and the copious amount of AP2 and AP3 usually take out most of my army. That and he always seems to dominate the psychic phase with his spell familiars and twin Level 3 Psykers.

Similarly I've beaten Ravenwing with Chaos Marines before on a couple of occasions.

Aside from the Noise Marines (which are still pretty decent in of themselves), those are some of the bluechip units Chaos has left. Try asking him to build a Khorne-themed army without KDK and then see how well he fares

(yes I use to be a Khorne player. The successive nerfs to the blood balls have not been kind to us)

EDIT: Also, Experiment 626, we're not THAT bad yet. It could be worse, we could be SoBs

At least SoB's can still build lists that are somewhat accurate fluff wise. AND they get a faction specific thing in their faith powers and invul saves.

Yeah, my Iron Warriors miss the days where they could actually be called a siege company.

And Oldzoggy, when we get more than one flyer, some formations other than two dataslates (KDK is a different book remember), a line that isn't largely finecast, and an actual Decurion, then we can talk about "having options" Even the Tyranids at least got some boosts from the campaign books.

Face it your army doesn't suck and has lots of unique and fun units it just isn't as good as SM Eldar necon or tau.

Until GW gives us back Legion rules, and the ability to take all Legion upgrades on every viable unit entry in the book, including individual formations, special rules and Artifacts for every Legion; I refuse to acknowledge a job well done.

On the other hand, look at what Phil did with Orks in late 4th ed, Dark Eldar in 5th, and Daemons in 6th. ALL those books were/are great books that overall stood the test of time. Only Dark Eldar got hosed badly, and that was entirely due to the changes in the core rules from 5th --> 6th/7th.

Yea but he also wrote 7th ed Beastmen (Bad, monobuild), Warriors of Chaos (Bad, monobuild), Eldar 6th and 7th (which were great books except he can't figure out how to properly cost things points wise, *Wraithknight*). He's all over the place. He's like the Nicolas Cage of Codex writing. Is he good?Is he bad? I can't tell. The fact that he is consistently inconsistent makes me think he's terrible.

People place the 5th ed. Dark Eldar Codex in much higher stead than it's worth I think. The writing and fluff was fine, but lots of stuff wasn't good. It was at best an average codex, people were just taken back by the fact that Dark Eldar got a re-boot and an awesome mini line.

 oldzoggy wrote:


2. Compare it with top tier armies.
-> The fun thing about this is that there are hard numbers. Just take the rankings of a big a tournament and you are done.
Spoiler CSM are not top tier they are clearly worst then the top armies (Eldar, tau, necrons, space marines, skreamer star, mech war convol ) but also not the worst army around there.
They are kinda upper/mid tier of the lower tier armies. Being around or above Dark eldar, orks, tyranids, inquisition and sisters. So they are not fitted for cut throat tournament play but they should work great in casual play and or vs other lower tier armies. If you don't believe me check the LVO results CSM are not the lowest scoring army at all.

They very much are when they aren't a rump detachment to Daemons, which is primarily what those higher-placing CSM armies at the LVO are.

3. Look at the diversity of options on the codex.
CSM actually have tons of options. CSM players might disagree but damm they have tons of options in thee book. Really most ork warbosses would murder or this diversity of units, equipment and rules.

Which is sort of irrelevant when most of it is garbage in gameplay terms and likewise very poor in terms of fluff. It's effectively a rather lame copy-paste of the Fantasy concept of Chaos Warriors, rather than reflecting the Traitor Legions.

As noted, there's all sorts of weirdness where you can't have actual World Eaters Berzerker Terminators, just Terminators with a Mark of Khorne (Which is not the same thing, as CSM's with a MoK are not Berzerkers either, any more than MoT CSM's are Thousand Sons...who also don't have Terminator representation). The whole book is like that. There's a very tiny assortment of wargear and even fewer Chaos specific items, especially for a faction that's supposed to have access to the unbound imagination of the Dark Mechanicus and pre-heresy weaponry and an array of legions reknowned for their own unique wargear and fighting styles.

Sure you aren't sm but that isn't the point. It is proven that the army is a decent mid / low tier army and the huge diversity of options should make it fun to play.

Except...being a low tier army isn't decent, and the options are likewise either bad or insufficient. It's even worse in that things that CSM's used to have, Loyalists do now have.

Face it your army doesn't suck and has lots of unique and fun units it just isn't as good as SM Eldar necon or tau.

Except...it does largely suck when it's not paired with Daemon allies acting as a massive crutch, and most of the fun/unique stuff is awful or physically absent.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Plague marines weren't any different in 6th than in 5th except I think 1pt cheaper? They werent ever on anything like the piwer level of stuff we see now. They were good, but the big thing was they min max'd really well, not that they were ultra strong units..

They got a few small buffs. They got poisoned weapons in assault. This means when you assaulted with them, they were wounding T4 8/9 of the time -- which make them actually quite good against unit's like wraiths.

They also counted as T5 for purposes of ID for their FnP. This means they started getting FnP saves from Krak and other high STR weapons. It takes a STR 10 shot to take them out -- which was pretty rare during that point of fifth.

Point for point, they were an amazing unit -- I used them as the core of my CSM army back then and won many games and local RTTs with them.
Sadly today they just fall flat when there are D weapon wraithknights out there and scat bikes.

Experiment 626 wrote:
3. 4th ed codex. The grand gutting of everything that made Chaos Marines special... Only to see literally every unique toy & rule we used to have, suddenly be handed out like candy from this point on to damned Loyalists!

You don't remember lash lists? Grouping up units together then blasting them with oblits? I have quite a few memories of being on the receiving end of that.

Experiment 626 wrote:
4. 6th ed codex. It was "top dog" for a couple months. Then Daemons/Tau/Eldar came along. And we went strait back to the dung heap alongside Dark Angels.

If by 'couple' you mean 11...then yes. Daemons did not take away from CSM, it was the Eldar that really did it.
Perhaps we are remembering things differently, but I very much remember helldrakes owning until Eldar wave serpents came into play.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Chaos has been a massive 'have not' army for well over 18 years now! We had one very glorious period between 2001-2006.

Even by your own statement, that's 5 years of 'glorious period'! How many years of 'glorious period' did Orks get? How about SoB? Dark Eldar? Dark Angels? Nids? IG? I'm not saying CSM are top tier, nor am I saying that they have spent most of their time at the top -- I am saying that many armies have had it far worse.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
Finally 6th came into being. And we got our new book. And lo, it was full of overcosted units, random tables and a complete lack of free rules. And the books that followed...the Dark Angels and Daemons were similarly...bland.

Once again we accepted our lot.

What?
Don't you remember the entire phase of "Helldrake does what helldrake pleases?"

When the 6th codex came out CSM were on the top with the helldrake, plague marines, 13 point CSM, and zombie cultists. The codex had some hard counters, but was overall awesome.

The reason the codex fell was when the Necrons and Eldar came out giving enough high STR weapons to make the nurgle marines not point efficent, and the helldrake being FAQ'ed back into reasonable levels (IE, not having a 360 degree breath)

CSM have had their day on the top, and they will again.

We were bland. CSM, DA and Daemons all were the same staple, bland 'BUY NEW UNIT' books. When Tau and Eldar came around the balance of power swung.

If a Codex is only 'viable' because of a single build then it's a bad codex. And CSM were that Codex. And in 7th the Heldrake got slapped down with the change to directional facings and flyers.

We've not had our day as a top tier Codex since the beginning of 4th edition.

The changes to the Assault phase, the re-introduction of Overwatch and the sudden influx of units and formations with improved overwatch has chipped away at any semblance of assault - a direct nerf to half the CSM book and to Tyranids in the same respect.

The Hull Point system pretty much spelled the death of AV 12 walkers - which is a good chunk of what we have as well.

The removal of Daemons into their own seperate book (forcing us into the ally system), the direct nerf to the ally matrix with Imperial Guard and the constant buffing of Imperial SMs (point reductions, new weapon types, increased transport capacities, squadron rules, formations, a decurion formation, improved ally matrix relationships, Chapter Tactics, the ability to self-ally in 6th) has basically pushed CSM so down the Power Armour ladder that it's not funny.

We've not had 'Legion' rules since 3.5 - SMs got Chapter Traits and then Chapter Tactics from 4th ed onwards.
We lost weapon upgrade options - no master crafting, no artificer armour, no ability to stack +1s onto attacks - SMs got all of those and more. Hell, half of them are FREE with the right chapter tactics.
Our 'good' units have become prohibitively more expensive - Plague Marines have steadily climbed in points - Imperial SMs have dropped in points...and what's more, Chapter Tactics! Free FNP across the board for Iron Hands anyone? Free FNP bubbles from Apothecaries or equivalents?

We also have some of the most stupid MANDATORY rules that we never wanted either - our characters are FORCED to call out a challenge against anything they come across. Furthermore if they get lucky and don't die to the enemy HQ or uber-monster and somehow manage to kill it...we then get to roll on a random table which might give us nothing, might kill the character in question off for a chaos spawn or might give us a completely pointless or redundant USR that we didn't want or need. (OH BOY. +1 Initiative on the guy with the power fist. OH BOY shred on the guy with the Lightning Claws. OH BOY Eternal Warrior on a 1 wound champion!)

What's worse is that this applies to our named Special characters as well - you know, characters that sometimes you just want to focus on slaughtering the unit have to call a challenge out and have almost ALL their power soaked by either a 1 wound model or an enemy beefstick. And hey, if they succeed...there's a chance they could be made Spawn too! (OH BOY. KHARN IS NOW A CHAOS SPAWN. SO USEFUL).

We're an army with subpar equipment and upgrades that we have to pay for in order to even be on a level playing field with units that are already cheaper than us at base cost.

And thematically? CSM are a joke.

GW can't decide if they want Legions (hence the archaic weapons, the lack of access to 'newer' weapons like Multimeltas, Plasma Cannons, Assault Cannons, LR variants), 'Renegades' (hence the poor base stats across the board, the lack of ATSKNF, the lack of Cult Elites or general Elite statlines and USRs) or 'Dark Mechanicum' (daemon engines for everyone!).

However, at the same time they can not only crap out 5 different variants of SMs as core codices (some of which have even more options) but also 2 supplement mini-dexes and 3 supplement mini-factions.

CSM are literally trying to cram 9 Legions, 2 named renegade warbands, generic options and Lost and the Damned options into a grand total of 3 books, 2 of which are supplement mini-dexes.

It wouldn't be so bad if each Legion wasn't a specialist...forced to represent themselves in the confines of standard CADs most of the time while their imperial counterparts get formation after formation, detachment after detachment and even freebie rules that let them do the same more efficiently.

Yeah. What DarkStarSabre said! Seriously, hit the point on the head.

The silly thing about the challenge rule (to run with just one excellent point) is that it doesn't even fit the theme of the army! Chaos is EVIL, they're not noble, looking to challenge themselves against the best that their enemy has (except Lucius). Heck, in the Word Bearers third book (Dark Creed?), the Ultramarine captain demands that the traitor Dark Apostle fight him in one man combat, unless he's a coward. The Apostles Lieutenant steps up and asks to fight the captain, to which the Apostle declines. He doesn't accept the challenge, he turns his back on the Captain and denies him the honourable death he is searching for, opting to have his troops gun the Captain down with bolters. THAT fits the evil character perfectly in my mind, walking away to the howls of a defeated enemy. One of my favourite scenes in one of my favourite 40k books.

I thought the forced challenge thing was more about being a glory hog and trying to garner favor, but I can understand that viewpoint.

I mean, I LOVE the idea of forced challenges. However, the boons pretty much suck for the most part and therefore you don't want to have to roll on it.

 Drasius wrote:

Mutilators are absolute trash beyond providing target overload against bad armies.

Charge-out-of-deepstrike marines are a bad army? Have you even played against it?

 Vaktathi wrote:
Except...being a low tier army isn't decent, and the options are likewise either bad or insufficient. It's even worse in that things that CSM's used to have, Loyalists do now have.

Sure but pls lets change the claims in here from

We are the worst possible army in the game

to

We are not on par with 7.5 edition codexes and we hate it. -> This is a legitimate claim. There is noting wrong with raging against the power and choice differences between SM and CSM. But it is a different claim then the claim above. The claim above is " I wish my army would be as good as codex orks, sisters, inq or dark eldar because that gap is so big and they have so much more options in their codex that it is unfair."

Doesn't matter if you can charge out of Deep Strike if your list sucks. Just naming the type of list doesn't help your cause, especially when the real world applications show otherwise on the usage of Mutilators (AKA they aren't used for a reason).

The other issue with the codex is that the Cult Marines don't actually seem to represent their intended roles too well, and could use more flavoring.
1. Plague Marines have poisoned knives, but why not poisoned Bolters too? Hell, buffing them to Poisoned (3+) would be decent.
2. Noise Marines should be 19 points, but come with their extra CCW's standard and Sonic Blasters standard, with those being Assault 2.
3. Berserker Marines need Chain Axes standard and should have Rending in the first round of combat.
4. Rubric Marines need to be able to roll on another table IN ADDITION to the crummy MoT table.

BAM you gave them each defined roles and they aren't terrible.

Because Mary Sues need punching bags.

theyve been bad for two editions ow, there a CC army ham fisted into a shooting mans game for two edition, last edition they had the heldrake to hide their armies lack of anything meaningful in it, no joke in the right matchups heldrakes could carry your entire roster. now they dont even have that because air units took a nerf on the nose and stuff like the deredeo happened.

the chaos space marines need for cc to be better and they need for games workshop to stop shafting them at every turn in their own codex. and print a new abaddon model failbaddon has cursed them enough

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Doesn't matter if you can charge out of Deep Strike if your list sucks. Just naming the type of list doesn't help your cause, especially when the real world applications show otherwise on the usage of Mutilators (AKA they aren't used for a reason)

Care to prove your point? I doubt you'll be able to reliably put a mutilator list down unless you run obsec spam like gladius. What are the stakes?
I'm avaliable for a vassal match.

 ionusx wrote:
theyve been bad for two editions ow, there a CC army ham fisted into a shooting mans game for two edition, last edition they had the heldrake to hide their armies lack of anything meaningful in it, no joke in the right matchups heldrakes could carry your entire roster. now they dont even have that because air units took a nerf on the nose and stuff like the deredeo happened.

the chaos space marines need for cc to be better and they need for games workshop to stop shafting them at every turn in their own codex. and print a new abaddon model failbaddon has cursed them enough

We've been bad for 4 editions in a row now; 4th, 5th, 6th & now 7th.
Just because we had a single competitive list in 4th with dual Lash Princes + Nurgle & Friends didn't make us 'good'. That list was a complete & utter fluff abomination! Saying we were 'good' in 4th is akin to saying that Tyranids are a 'good' army right now because they can run 4-5 Flyrants.

We've been waiting for almost an entire decade now for even just a half-decent codex.
By the time our rumored new codex rolls around by the middle of next year, we will have waited as long as Dark Eldar & Ork players waited for new rules.

Meanwhile, the only 'unique' things that those filthy Loyalist scum haven't stolen from us are a bunch of overcosted Daemon engines.

We've been waiting for almost an entire decade now for even just a half-decent codex.
By the time our rumored new codex rolls around by the middle of next year, we will have waited as long as Dark Eldar & Ork players waited for new rules.

Boo fething hoo I hope You get the same buff as we did. Have fun being all high and mighty then. ; )

When I have to use crimson slaughter just to get a 2+ without termie armor.....
When a squad of seven plague marines and a rhino costs 203 point without upgrades........
When I have to play tzeench to get a 3++ save which costs 40 points.......
When GW made a khorne daemonkin and just ditch everyone else........
When a FW chaos army is a better ally then csm.......
When your psychic powers are also in the BRB and are better in the BRB .....

These could be taken in small amounts but its too much.

 koooaei wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Doesn't matter if you can charge out of Deep Strike if your list sucks. Just naming the type of list doesn't help your cause, especially when the real world applications show otherwise on the usage of Mutilators (AKA they aren't used for a reason)

Care to prove your point? I doubt you'll be able to reliably put a mutilator list down unless you run obsec spam like gladius. What are the stakes?
I'm avaliable for a vassal match.

If that were AT ALL true, people would actually do that and bring it to tournaments. Proof was already brought that they're mathematically bad, and ANY battle report that was presented was against a scrub list, where the Mutilators STILL struggle to perform.
Get your head out of your ass for one minute and realize the proof is literally in front of you. They aren't even brought to ITC, where they purposely make the rules more balanced for everyone to have a chance. CSM STILL makes no showing outside of being allies just to get Belakor.

What more proof do you want that Mutilators are a junk unit and CSM is a junk codex.

Other people have already said they're able to access Vassal. I've also already mentioned SEVERAL times I barely have a functional computer and make most of my posts on my phone.

How are you charging out of deep strike with mutilators? Link this thread please.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If that were AT ALL true, people would actually do that and bring it to tournaments. Proof was already brought that they're mathematically bad, and ANY battle report that was presented was against a scrub list, where the Mutilators STILL struggle to perform.
Get your head out of your ass for one minute and realize the proof is literally in front of you. They aren't even brought to ITC, where they purposely make the rules more balanced for everyone to have a chance. CSM STILL makes no showing outside of being allies just to get Belakor.

What more proof do you want that Mutilators are a junk unit and CSM is a junk codex.

My guess is that he thinks the tournament players are bad or 'dare not try Mutilators'.

Rule 1 guys, keep it polite

If Codex: Chaos Space Marines were a heavy weapon it would be Str 7 AP4. Can't pierce 3+ and can't instadeath T4. Purposefully dialed 1 step back.

Ha that would be perfect to kill eldar

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
If Codex: Chaos Space Marines were a heavy weapon it would be Str 7 AP4. Can't pierce 3+ and can't instadeath T4. Purposefully dialed 1 step back.

You forgot to add it's made of finecast and is only available from GW direct order.

And it's over a decade and a half old.

EDIT: Also, I think the reason Chaos is most pronounce is because, at one point, we were THE top dog of the game. We could field fluffy armies AND still win games without breaking a sweat. Then all the other factions started putting their finger in our pie and then taking a slice.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Ha that would be perfect to kill eldar

It's also Heavy 1, costs 50 pts and Gets Hot!

And sometimes it shoots your own guys too.

This thread almost completely ignores IA:13, which is the single best way to make CSMs a powerful faction.

Take 2 Sicaran Battle Tanks and a Fire Raptor, then pick anything else on a CSM list and you have a pretty good army.

We could start a pretty good salt mine in this thread.

 techsoldaten wrote:
This thread almost completely ignores IA:13, which is the single best way to make CSMs a powerful faction.

Take 2 Sicaran Battle Tanks and a Fire Raptor, then pick anything else on a CSM list and you have a pretty good army.

ssst don't mention the good units.

 techsoldaten wrote:
This thread almost completely ignores IA:13, which is the single best way to make CSMs a powerful faction.

Take 2 Sicaran Battle Tanks and a Fire Raptor, then pick anything else on a CSM list and you have a pretty good army.

Some people may not be willing to throw money at a ForgeWorld book and at several (expensive) FW kits after spending their money in their CSM codex and the units that are in that codex.

IA13 is always used as an excuse to somewhat justify the gakky spot CSM are in right now. It should not be. 40k codices should be playable on their own. And this is from someone who sees nothing wrong with employing FW units. FW should be an option to further customize your army, not a mandatory requirement to make it able to win a game once in a while.

A proper answer to the topic title has already been provided here several times (and it's provided every time a thread like this gets started) but again I'll add my two cents: the current CSM are an army stuck in 4/5th edition units (save Hellturkey), points costs and mechanics, while the world around them has changed drastically. They're supposed to be close combat specialists, but lack affordable and widely available means to get into close combat. In short, they're an assault army that can't assault, and when they get to assault, they aren't that good at it anyway. While the codex offers quite a reasonable variety of choices, most of such choices have a pretty terrible quality/cost ratio. Take Chosen as a prime example: they're mostly basic CSM with an extra attack and the ability to pick a bunch of special weapons. They pay such advantages dearly in terms of points cost, while at the same time dying as easily as basic CSM, and having no reliable way to get into assault (and make good use of that extra attack) outside the Land Raider.

The fact that GW couldn't care less about CSM is the very Khorne Daemonkin codex so many people seem to love: none of the main (and known) issues of the CSM codex were addressed. Examples? Berzerkers are still overcosted and have no reliable and affordable delivery method. That close combat specialist unit that should make (almost) everyone else in the game crap their pants at their mere sight... and in all likelihood they won't be assaulting anyone until turn 3. If they're still alive by then (spoiler: they won't).

For the sake of comparisons, imagine if Tau core troops had no markerlights and were stuck with 6'' S2 AP- Assault 1 weapons. And then Crisis suits had their same statline and gear but for the jumpacks and +1A. And the Riptide could be blown up by a single AP2 shot.

 oldzoggy wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
This thread almost completely ignores IA:13, which is the single best way to make CSMs a powerful faction.

Take 2 Sicaran Battle Tanks and a Fire Raptor, then pick anything else on a CSM list and you have a pretty good army.

ssst don't mention the good units.

Units that would require a specific HQ to take, since they all have the Infernal Relic rule.

Daemonology Sorc is the best (least horrible) choice of the 3, and summoning a unit where he'll probably perils on any double is of limited use. Or he can waste at least 25 points getting access to better powers, where he'll lose access to the primaris of either discipline.

Abaddon is too expensive.

Warpsmith is cool, but not all that worthwhile.

No denying that Sicarans and Fire Raptors are good, though. Either one in isolation is decent, but the rest of the army isn't going to magically perform better. If only the rest of the units in IA:13 were on a similar level. They would be if they weren't all so horribly overpriced, like almost everything else in our faction.