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CSM players have every right to complain. I look at my SM codex, then at the CSM codex, and a little part of me dies. When I first got into the hobby I wanted to play CSM, but then I looked at the book.... Nope.

That being said, having all the CSM players complaining about the Loyalist players does get irritating, but it's at least partially warranted.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
What I can't stand is the belief that any Imperial unit should automatically have a Chaos version.

And yet almost all of the FW crutch units are Imperial units that FW also let Chaos have. Chaos-only stuff, especially out of GW proper, tends to be inferior. Almost like they're intentionally designed that way.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
I'm on the fence about the demand for Legion rules....per the fluff, most of the traitor legions are no longer functioning legions and haven't been for a long time

Last I checked NONE of the loyalist legions are functioning legions, and yet they all have chapter tactics for them and their successors for some reason.

 War Kitten wrote:
CSM players have every right to complain. I look at my SM codex, then at the CSM codex, and a little part of me dies. When I first got into the hobby I wanted to play CSM, but then I looked at the book.... Nope.

That being said, having all the CSM players complaining about the Loyalist players does get irritating, but it's at least partially warranted.

To be fair, Loyalist players in general have earned a reputation for being whiny, over-entitled spoiled brats over the past 8-9 years...
When they get new rules & new toys, it never seems to be quite good enough, yet when someone else gets a better toy, it's blatantly unfair that Marines don't have anything that's apparently remotely close in power level.

When there's an ability or weapon that can wholesale remove a Space Marine's save, it's automatically decried as OP/broken. Yet as long as those types of weapons are available en mass to Marines themselves, all's fair & balanced.

When Chaos occasionally gets a single useful toy, or can put together a single cookie-cutter list that can go toe-to-toe with Loyalists, then the game is broken beyond repair and Chaos players are nothing more than a bunch of scummy, WaaC's TFG's.


It's a vicious cycle, but Loyalists are equally a part of it. Chaos players take more offense to it, simply because every cool, characterful rule & toy that Loyalist players now enjoy used to be ours.
Instead, what's been left to us has simply been turned into a Loyalist -10 version.

Lets look at the bright side here. I've only had to buy one codex since 2012. Think of all the money I saved not playing the game competitively for the last 2 years.

You know, about the time every one started getting their 2nd codex update in 7th. But thank goodness our benevolent GW overlords decided that the first updated codex of 6th edition is perfect how it is and needs no sort of tweaking. You know, besides taking a nerf bat to the heldrake once it sold enough models.

Then again, I shouldn't be complaining, I could always just purchase a couple hundred dollars in FW books and models to be able to put up a moderate chance. Except forge world is not universally accepted everywhere like most standard 40K is. So i could be spending an excessive amount of money on models that I won't get to play with at all.

But at least they'll look good on my shelf.... right next to the incredibly outdated models of most of the CSM line. Thank goodness out benevolent GW overlords have decided that the models they created from God knows when are the best iteration they've ever made. It's best not to try to improve on perfection after all.

But most of all, thank you benevolent GW overlords for teaching me that my army is not designed to be played, but instead collected and displayed. They are a model company and not a rule company after all. They have no obligation to actually takes steps towards keeping their game's rule set from getting blown out of proportion. It's the models that matter. Why else would we want to spend more that double the cost of what other model company's offer.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 War Kitten wrote:
CSM players have every right to complain. I look at my SM codex, then at the CSM codex, and a little part of me dies. When I first got into the hobby I wanted to play CSM, but then I looked at the book.... Nope.

That being said, having all the CSM players complaining about the Loyalist players does get irritating, but it's at least partially warranted.

To be fair, Loyalist players in general have earned a reputation for being whiny, over-entitled spoiled brats over the past 8-9 years...
When they get new rules & new toys, it never seems to be quite good enough, yet when someone else gets a better toy, it's blatantly unfair that Marines don't have anything that's apparently remotely close in power level.

When there's an ability or weapon that can wholesale remove a Space Marine's save, it's automatically decried as OP/broken. Yet as long as those types of weapons are available en mass to Marines themselves, all's fair & balanced.

When Chaos occasionally gets a single useful toy, or can put together a single cookie-cutter list that can go toe-to-toe with Loyalists, then the game is broken beyond repair and Chaos players are nothing more than a bunch of scummy, WaaC's TFG's.


It's a vicious cycle, but Loyalists are equally a part of it. Chaos players take more offense to it, simply because every cool, characterful rule & toy that Loyalist players now enjoy used to be ours.
Instead, what's been left to us has simply been turned into a Loyalist -10 version.

I won't deny that some Loyalist players are like that. Heck, I've seen some of them on this very site! But lumping all of us SM players into that group is unfair to the ones who aren't that way

30k Word Bearers exist, who are far better at being CSM than the CSM themselves are.

The difference is so dramatic it is borderline comedy.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 War Kitten wrote:
CSM players have every right to complain. I look at my SM codex, then at the CSM codex, and a little part of me dies. When I first got into the hobby I wanted to play CSM, but then I looked at the book.... Nope.

That being said, having all the CSM players complaining about the Loyalist players does get irritating, but it's at least partially warranted.

To be fair, Loyalist players in general have earned a reputation for being whiny, over-entitled spoiled brats over the past 8-9 years...
When they get new rules & new toys, it never seems to be quite good enough, yet when someone else gets a better toy, it's blatantly unfair that Marines don't have anything that's apparently remotely close in power level.

When there's an ability or weapon that can wholesale remove a Space Marine's save, it's automatically decried as OP/broken. Yet as long as those types of weapons are available en mass to Marines themselves, all's fair & balanced.

When Chaos occasionally gets a single useful toy, or can put together a single cookie-cutter list that can go toe-to-toe with Loyalists, then the game is broken beyond repair and Chaos players are nothing more than a bunch of scummy, WaaC's TFG's.


It's a vicious cycle, but Loyalists are equally a part of it. Chaos players take more offense to it, simply because every cool, characterful rule & toy that Loyalist players now enjoy used to be ours.
Instead, what's been left to us has simply been turned into a Loyalist -10 version.

Out of curiosity, I'm a CSM player myself, but a newish one, I keep hearing that loyalists got our old stuff, maybe it's becuasr I started when 6th first started but what things did they take?

Legion rules ---> Chapter Traits/Chapter Tactics

Chaos used to be the undisputed masters of Deep Strike ---> super cheap Drop Pod + Drop Pod Assault (instead we get pods that are 3x more expensive and can eat the model(s) being transported, because... "feth Chaos!"

Dark Blade ---> Relic blade

Close combat Dread/Furioso ---> basic Dreads now 4 attacks

Oblits/Mutiators ---> Centurions

Jugger Lord ---> Thunderwolf Cav

Possessed ---> Wulfen

Inferno Bolts ---> Special ammo

Sorcerers ---> Librarius Conclave (it's literally a carbon copy of our old Apoc formation...)



Literally, every unique toy outside of our Daemon engines, Loyalists have a better version of, while ours has either been taken away entirely, (Legion rules/Dark blades), or else is a massively inferior version.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:

Out of curiosity, I'm a CSM player myself, but a newish one, I keep hearing that loyalists got our old stuff, maybe it's becuasr I started when 6th first started but what things did they take?

Chapter tactics were in chaos as legion rules is the one I know
I missed the days were SM were not flat out better i.e. SM auto cannons use to have a chance to jam compared to the reaper
I also miss buying powers for my psykers rather than RNG luck

Oldmike wrote:

 thepowerfulwill wrote:

Out of curiosity, I'm a CSM player myself, but a newish one, I keep hearing that loyalists got our old stuff, maybe it's becuasr I started when 6th first started but what things did they take?

Chapter tactics were in chaos as legion rules is the one I know
I missed the days were SM were not flat out better i.e. SM auto cannons use to have a chance to jam compared to the reaper
I also miss buying powers for my psykers rather than RNG luck

2nd ed was a dumpster fire.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Legion rules ---> Chapter Traits/Chapter Tactics

Chaos used to be the undisputed masters of Deep Strike ---> super cheap Drop Pod + Drop Pod Assault (instead we get pods that are 3x more expensive and can eat the model(s) being transported, because... "feth Chaos!"

Dark Blade ---> Relic blade

Close combat Dread/Furioso ---> basic Dreads now 4 attacks

Oblits/Mutiators ---> Centurions

Jugger Lord ---> Thunderwolf Cav

Possessed ---> Wulfen

Inferno Bolts ---> Special ammo

Sorcerers ---> Librarius Conclave (it's literally a carbon copy of our old Apoc formation...)



Literally, every unique toy outside of our Daemon engines, Loyalists have a better version of, while ours has either been taken away entirely, (Legion rules/Dark blades), or else is a massively inferior version.

In 2nd ed chaos space marines barely had any deep strike capability; that was a daemon thing. Terminator teleportation and jump packs were prohibitively expensive options. So from my perspective the 'deep strike specialists' thing was a blip.

Martel732 wrote:

Oldmike wrote:

 thepowerfulwill wrote:

Out of curiosity, I'm a CSM player myself, but a newish one, I keep hearing that loyalists got our old stuff, maybe it's becuasr I started when 6th first started but what things did they take?

Chapter tactics were in chaos as legion rules is the one I know
I missed the days were SM were not flat out better i.e. SM auto cannons use to have a chance to jam compared to the reaper
I also miss buying powers for my psykers rather than RNG luck

2nd ed was a dumpster fire.

Is 7ed just a dumpster then?

nareik wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Legion rules ---> Chapter Traits/Chapter Tactics

Chaos used to be the undisputed masters of Deep Strike ---> super cheap Drop Pod + Drop Pod Assault (instead we get pods that are 3x more expensive and can eat the model(s) being transported, because... "feth Chaos!"

Dark Blade ---> Relic blade

Close combat Dread/Furioso ---> basic Dreads now 4 attacks

Oblits/Mutiators ---> Centurions

Jugger Lord ---> Thunderwolf Cav

Possessed ---> Wulfen

Inferno Bolts ---> Special ammo

Sorcerers ---> Librarius Conclave (it's literally a carbon copy of our old Apoc formation...)



Literally, every unique toy outside of our Daemon engines, Loyalists have a better version of, while ours has either been taken away entirely, (Legion rules/Dark blades), or else is a massively inferior version.

In 2nd ed chaos space marines barely had any deep strike capability; that was a daemon thing. Terminator teleportation and jump packs were prohibitively expensive options. So from my perspective the 'deep strike specialists' thing was a blip.

I'm not very familiar with 2nd edition, but I've read through some of the third edition rules. The chaos marines themselves couldn't deepstrike, but they had tons of options that let their daemon pals (who were still part of the same codex) deepstrike in better. So maybe it's more accurate to say "chaos" was the undisputed master of deepstriking. But yeah. I miss daemon weapons. I genuinely forgot they were in the current codex for a while because they're so rare/hard to access.

My main gripes about chaos marines are that they're A) just not fluffy and B) have a playstyle that's harder to find satisfying. Fluff-wise, it's hard to make an Alpha Legion army that feels sneaky. I've taken to using Raptor chapter tactics an loyalist rules for this. Thousand Sons mutate left and right despite the Rubric and are more limited in power selection than loyalist marines. Also, the rubric marines are relatively durable against anti-tank shots, but die just as easily as normal marines to small arms fire despite the opposite being true in fluff. You can't play a recently-fallen marine chapter either because all your drop pods, grav guns, etc. got lost when you turned traitor. Your dark mechanicum pals who went rogue in order to innovate and invent more freely seem to put out new tech a lot more slowly than the loyalist tech priests for some reason. Khorne marines don't melee as well as Space Wolves or even Blood Angels. Tzeentch Marines don't shoot or psychic as well as stern guard, librarius conclaves, or grey knights. Slaanesh and Nurgle marines are actually pretty fluffy, though the former have conflicted rules that hinder each other. You also can't really play up marines who have thrown themselves into the arms of chaos because they have so much trouble allying with daemons. Sure, my Slaaneshi marines can team up with daemonettes, but I can't stick him in a squad of seekers or have my herald lead a mob of cultists.

As for not being as satisfying in terms of playstyle... My eldar have flavorful rules that really capture the feel of the units. My dark eldar can dash across the table and launch lightning assaults. My imperial forces can roll up in metal boxes or deepstrike while calling upon fluffy/thematic chapter tactics to forge their own unique play styles. Even my genestealer heavy tyranids are at least interesting because they make my opponent sweat turn 1. The playstyle of chaos marines is basically just power armor marines (with all the problems that come with that) + some lolrandom tables that I find neither fun nor fluffy. Randomly mutating after a challenge is not particularly engaging to me (though it would be a neat optional rule). I'd much rather have legion tactics that let me play fluffy Alpha Legion or some way of delivering all my melee centric units.

I still have fun with my CSM! They're the army I turn to when I want to push a blob of FNP Slaaneshi marines across the table and don't mind losing. But they could be so much more flavorful and have so much more engaging of a playstyle. I wish I were more of a fan of Khorne because the daemonkin rules are fluffy and interesting!

Experiment 626 wrote:
By your own logic, then Loyalist players should no doubt suffer at least 10+ years of kneecapped, flavourless, garbage bin quality rules, since their 5th, 6th & now especially 7th edition rules are beyond obnoxious and have ruined the hobby for at least half the game's armies.
Remind me not to shed a tear when it's your army kicked to the curb and left to rot for over a decade if that's your attitude.

I already had that - I played tau through the tail end of third, fourth and the start of fifth edition. I saw its power and niche erode to the point where the codex was an utter irrelevance. Then I moved on to warmachine and infinity. The new tau codex - yeah, it didn't grab me, I'm afraid. I'd moved on by that point. Regarding marines though, you should look at dark angels - they had some terribly lacklustre codices for a long, long time. Same with blood Angels. I recommend them being the whipping boys for the game for a while too.

But FYI, regarding my 'attitude', you do realise I said I'd had enough of csm being out in the cold? You must have missed that part. The chaos codex ruined fourth edition and I was glad it got kneecapped in the end- overpowered codices ruin the game. And I'd say the same for any other overpowered nonsense that dominates as well-I have no issues with overpowered stuff getting reined in. If that's marines, then I have no issues with marines getting kneecapped.

So get off your soapbox please, it's not needed and frankly, it's out of place.

rosebuddy wrote:
The difference between Iron Warriors and other CSM forces was that IW had access to 0-1 vindicator and 0-1 basilisk in addition to lifting the 0-1 restriction on obliterators, with 4 heavy support slots if they gave up 2 fast attack slots. I recall mainly the obliterators being the problem and that's something that could've been solved through editing. The Siren minor psychic powers could have been handled easily as well. Only other things that stand out are the Word Bearer "daemon bomb" lists that relied on a handful of bikers rushing forward madly to drop an astonishing amount of daemons into assault range and the daemon weapon that ignored invulnerable saves only put into the hands of a monstrous creature.

The problem with fifth ed guard was underpriced/overpowered vendettas and Valkyries. It doesn't matter if it's 'just' one thing, if that one thing is spammed, and everyone and their monkey abuses it, then it's a problem. In this case, those iron warriors with their basilisks, 3x3 obliterators etc utterly dominated the game at the time to an extent nothing else could really match. And really,bit was pretty much all you saw.

Deadnight wrote:

It doesn't matter if it's 'just' one thing, if that one thing is spammed, and everyone and their monkey abuses it, then it's a problem.

If it is just one thing that is a genuine problem, "the rest of Pete Haines' ridiculousness" doesn't really exist. If the balance problems of the codex are limited to the one page that Iron Warriors got and the Siren minor psychic power then there's no point to throwing everything out to fix it. It's silly to bear a grudge against the entire codex because of the contents of one page that applied to one variant army. It's like hating rangers because wraithknights are so good.

Deadnight wrote:


I already had that - I played tau through the tail end of third, fourth and the start of fifth edition. I saw its power and niche erode to the point where the codex was an utter irrelevance. Then I moved on to warmachine and infinity. The new tau codex - yeah, it didn't grab me, I'm afraid. I'd moved on by that point. Regarding marines though, you should look at dark angels - they had some terribly lacklustre codices for a long, long time. Same with blood Angels. I recommend them being the whipping boys for the game for a while too.

But FYI, regarding my 'attitude', you do realise I said I'd had enough of csm being out in the cold? You must have missed that part. The chaos codex ruined fourth edition and I was glad it got kneecapped in the end- overpowered codices ruin the game. And I'd say the same for any other overpowered nonsense that dominates as well-I have no issues with overpowered stuff getting reined in. If that's marines, then I have no issues with marines getting kneecapped.

...You were glad the 3.5 Chaos codex was kneecapped when the Orks, 5th ed. SM codex and Grey Knights came out afterwards and did more damage than any Haines induced nightmare could possibly have dared to dream of?

You were glad that a single Legion's rules and a single Minor Psychic Power that you effectively had to buy 6 rolls on a table to guarantee were removed at the cost of every other Legion's rules and the generification of a Codex on a scale yet to be seen again (only for all the options and half the weapons to reappear with 'Imperial' names a few months later in the 5th ed. SM codex.

Oh, wait, I forgot. You blatantly stated that the Chaos Codex ruined 4th edition. Not the Ork codex that came out before with glorious Biker spam. Not the SM codex with Chapter Traits (that were horrendously easy to exploit). Not the Tyranid codex with TMC Eternal Warrior spam.

And your justification was 'I played Tau.'

'Hey guys, I played an army that was entirely firepower reliant in an edition that actually had favourable assault rules. As such I blame a strong assault army for ruining the edition for me by forcing me to have to deal with my army's inbuilt weakness - almost like our obscene firepower was balanced around us being wet paper bags in assault, eh?'

Of course, now in 7th ed. the firepower army that is Tau has BETTER multiwound heavy infantry, better mobility and better Monstrous and Gargantuan creatures than Tyranids or Daemons. You know, the two armies that you'd probably consider heavy 'monster' infantry and monster specialists.

Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that the army's inherent weakness (which you were expected to learn to play around and your opponents were expected to exploit) has been beaten into the ground by the core rules themselves to the extent that the assault armies (Tyranids, Daemons, Orks, Chaos) are being forced to become ghetto firepower armies to just be viable.

Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that the army's inherent weakness (which you were expected to learn to play around and your opponents were expected to exploit)

People did play around it, it was called "Fish of Fury" and everyone hated it.

 Sidstyler wrote:

Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that the army's inherent weakness (which you were expected to learn to play around and your opponents were expected to exploit)

People did play around it, it was called "Fish of Fury" and everyone hated it.

But clearly that didn't RUIN 40K FOREVER like 2 pages of the 3.5 CSM codex did otherwise he would have said, right?

Lets please not turn this to a Tau vs CSM "who suffered more" sludge fest.
I'm tau, I think that person (deadnight) is an idiot for having the stance that CSM deserve their blandness, or that they at any point "ruined the game" at any point. I played tau in 5th as well, it was full-on hardcore difficulty, the game evolved and now we are top tier and CSM are garbage, move on, fix what is, not what was.

We always had obscenely powerful armies around, once upon a time it was CSM, it also used to be GK, IM, SW and necrons at other points in time, and Eldar being a repeat offender.
The fact at one point CSM was overpowered has no bearing on its current status, and its current status is being amazingly bad. conventional wisdom says tactical marines are meh, and CSM are a few good levels under them. in fact half the CSM lines are a downgraded version of a loyalist unit that is considered meh to begin with.

Wyldhunt wrote:


I'm not very familiar with 2nd edition, but I've read through some of the third edition rules. The chaos marines themselves couldn't deepstrike, but they had tons of options that let their daemon pals (who were still part of the same codex) deepstrike in better.

In 2nd ed if you were facing a Chaos army and wanted to DS anything you had to roll to see if your unit was replaced by a Daemon on the way in. That included Warp Spiders making their short range teleports.

Also this thread is full of useless hyperbole like "all SM players are entitled children" and "all CSM players are whining children". Not a huge surprise considering who authored the thread.

 MarsNZ wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:


I'm not very familiar with 2nd edition, but I've read through some of the third edition rules. The chaos marines themselves couldn't deepstrike, but they had tons of options that let their daemon pals (who were still part of the same codex) deepstrike in better.

In 2nd ed if you were facing a Chaos army and wanted to DS anything you had to roll to see if your unit was replaced by a Daemon on the way in. That included Warp Spiders making their short range teleports.

Also this thread is full of useless hyperbole like "all SM players are entitled children" and "all CSM players are whining children". Not a huge surprise considering who authored the thread.

There's no denying thought that whenever Chaos of any flavour gets a cool, powerful, sometimes legitimately broken toy, it causes the most uproar compared to any other army getting the same.

When IW's & Siren were "ruining" the game entirely?
Sure they were busted as feth, but Eldar were still the kings of the game, and SW's were also a thing. Power Necron lists at the time were also nearly impossible to put down, and then the early 4th ed books brought the likes of Vanilla Marines, Tau & Tyranids up to similar levels.

While the 4th ed codex was a complete travesty, there were unending whinefests regarding the one thing Chaos actually had going for it - Lash of Submission.
Didn't matter that Chaos lost all it's flavour, or that to even stand a chance Chaos players were forced to field what was a fluff travesty of a list, it was kool to hate-on anyone playing a Lash list and treat them like the biggest TFG in the room.

Look at when the Helturkey came out. Everyone and their mother decried it the game barely playable at that point.
Even despite it now being nerfed into the ground, there's still moaning & groaning about how we have a S6/ap3 template that can remove Marines!

7th Comes around and Chaos finally gets a leg up with the new Psychic phase & Summoning? Every other topic it seemed was aimed at how to neuter the ever living feth out Daemons especially.



From the perspective of someone who's been around since 3rd ed, it does seem like we're not allowed to have toys that are equal to everyone else, as there's always been a consistent level of moaning about Chaos being OP.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:


I'm not very familiar with 2nd edition, but I've read through some of the third edition rules. The chaos marines themselves couldn't deepstrike, but they had tons of options that let their daemon pals (who were still part of the same codex) deepstrike in better.

In 2nd ed if you were facing a Chaos army and wanted to DS anything you had to roll to see if your unit was replaced by a Daemon on the way in. That included Warp Spiders making their short range teleports.

Also this thread is full of useless hyperbole like "all SM players are entitled children" and "all CSM players are whining children". Not a huge surprise considering who authored the thread.

There's no denying thought that whenever Chaos of any flavour gets a cool, powerful, sometimes legitimately broken toy, it causes the most uproar compared to any other army getting the same.

Eeem, tau would like to have a word with you. we get called out to be OP even when we are bottom tier. (been a while from then, but still)

 Xenomancers wrote:
Chaos Fire raptor...I rest my case.

Great point!

Lets just invest 200 dollars into the book for its rules, then another 150 for the model, then 75 dollars for combined shipping. HURRAY!

 GoliothOnline wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Chaos Fire raptor...I rest my case.

Great point!

Lets just invest 200 dollars into the book for its rules, then another 150 for the model, then 75 dollars for combined shipping. HURRAY!

Its an 66 USD book, Where you are you getting 200 from?

What I think is far worse: my main army was Chaos space marines, I really cannot be bothered to complain.
What is the point?
Instead I move-on to other games that have models I like that I can play and <gasp!> be competitive.
Think real hard if you are tempted to say "Good! didn't want you anyway." That is what makes for an eventual dead game.

Rosebuddy wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

It doesn't matter if it's 'just' one thing, if that one thing is spammed, and everyone and their monkey abuses it, then it's a problem.

If it is just one thing that is a genuine problem, "the rest of Pete Haines' ridiculousness" doesn't really exist. If the balance problems of the codex are limited to the one page that Iron Warriors got and the Siren minor psychic power then there's no point to throwing everything out to fix it. It's silly to bear a grudge against the entire codex because of the contents of one page that applied to one variant army. It's like hating rangers because wraithknights are so good.

The Rangers/wraithknight comparison doesn't really work I'm afraid.

the rest of the codex being relatively OK (which, generally it was) would have been fine, its just it was never seen – that 1 page of iron warriors was literally all that got taken by a huge portion of the player base.
:

DarkStarSabre wrote:
...You were glad the 3.5 Chaos codex was kneecapped when the Orks, 5th ed. SM codex and Grey Knights came out afterwards and did more damage than any Haines induced nightmare could possibly have dared to dream of?

I was glad it got kneecapped, yes. It was a terribly balanced codex that was severely overpowered for its era, and a lot of armies and players (and variety) of that era suffered hugely. As to GKs, 5th ork bikers and the fifth SM codex, (and don’t forget IG leafblower too!) I didn’t play during fifth, but rest assured, I was shaking my head with it and very much disagreed with them as well. By the time they were released though, I wasn’t playing 40k, so didn’t have a dog in the fight. If I was playing, I’d probably be saying the same thing as you. The grey knights moaning of fifth reminded me so much of what was said about iron warriors back in fourth.

DarkStarSabre wrote:
You were glad that a single Legion's rules and a single Minor Psychic Power that you effectively had to buy 6 rolls on a table to guarantee were removed at the cost of every other Legion's rules and the generification of a Codex on a scale yet to be seen again (only for all the options and half the weapons to reappear with 'Imperial' names a few months later in the 5th ed. SM codex.

I said I was glad it got kneecapped, and had its power level reined in, yes. That single legions rules upended fourth edition. I had no real issues with the generification of the following codex at the time – remember, for a while GW went with a ‘back to basics’ approach to codex design (dark angels were written in a similar manner as well) so considering that, I thought it was fair game. That said, For what it's worth – when the next chaos codex was released, I bought it, read it and sold it. First time I’ve ever done that- I was actually very, very disappointed with its quality and its utter lack of character and overall blandness. I felt it was just one diemensional and kind of kiddie, really. I stopped buying codices after that and didn’t really get any hands on involvement with the rest of fifth.

DarkStarSabre wrote:
Oh, wait, I forgot. You blatantly stated that the Chaos Codex ruined 4th edition. Not the Ork codex that came out before with glorious Biker spam. Not the SM codex with Chapter Traits (that were horrendously easy to exploit). Not the Tyranid codex with TMC Eternal Warrior spam.

Yes, my memories of fourth ed pretty much put the chaos codex at the pinnacle of everything that was wrong with that edition. SM, even with chapter traits were a diet version of the CSM codex. Worst they really did was 6 man las/plas and assault cannon spam. Chapter traits were nothing on the legion rules. Orks weren’t really a thing for most of fourth until the nob bikerz list towards the very end (and that was really a fifth ed codex).

DarkStarSabre wrote:
And your justification was 'I played Tau.'

No, my comment to experiment 626 was less ‘justification’ and more a response to the notion that I should sit with my army and suffer for years with a terrible codex. My counter point was that I did precisely that.

DarkStarSabre wrote:
'Hey guys, I played an army that was entirely firepower reliant in an edition that actually had favourable assault rules. As such I blame a strong assault army for ruining the edition for me by forcing me to have to deal with my army's inbuilt weakness - almost like our obscene firepower was balanced around us being wet paper bags in assault, eh?'

Spare me the melodrama. And if you are going to put words in my mouth, please try and be accurate about it.

You do realise iron warriors were a shooty build, right? With some brutal cc elements. Hilt in – read up on the first turn charge ‘nike lords’ of that era. Infiltrate, moved as cavalry, and with daemonic visage would force -2 to ld checks-they would easily roll up a flank. And lets be clear, im not sure what you’re exposure to tau in fourth or fifth edition was, but ‘obscene’ wasn’t really the word to describe it. Tau for the most part were quite mediocre even in firepower stakes – plenty armies could outshoot them with no effort at all, and while they had a relatively decent build at the start of fourth edition that had aged terribly by the end of it, and by fifth, they were essentially an irrelevance.

For the record, I had no problem with tau being terrible at cc. I was quite happy to work around it. I was one of the first to embrace mech-tau when it was a thing back then. Its just the tau ‘strengths’ weren’t really that strong, and they aged very poorly as the edition continued.

DarkStarSabre wrote:
Of course, now in 7th ed. the firepower army that is Tau has BETTER multiwound heavy infantry, better mobility and better Monstrous and Gargantuan creatures than Tyranids or Daemons. You know, the two armies that you'd probably consider heavy 'monster' infantry and monster specialists.

Yes?

And I don’t play 7th ed, but if you want me to say that current era tau have some ridiculous stuff, I’ll fully agree with you. Personally, I stopped caring about tau the second the riptide was released. Tau of 4th edition would have laughed at the silliness of the riptides and those fugly stormsurges and the rest of the giant mech muck GW have going on now (my opinion of course). But with the tau 5th ed codex, Gw started turning tau into something I really didn’t enjoy, and that was partly the reason why I shelved 40k at that point. but that’s a response for another topic.

DarkStarSabre wrote:
Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that the army's inherent weakness (which you were expected to learn to play around and your opponents were expected to exploit) has been beaten into the ground by the core rules themselves to the extent that the assault armies (Tyranids, Daemons, Orks, Chaos) are being forced to become ghetto firepower armies to just be viable.

Youre talking past me here. This refers to the current edition?

It was a combination of things back in fourth. Like I said, tau were mediocre, and only got worse whilst chaos was so far ahead of that era’s firepower that it was ridiculous. And I pretty much played around my armies weaknesses whatever extent I could. Didn't make much difference when you came up against chaos, which invariably meant iron warriors sadly enough.

DarkStarSabre wrote:
But clearly that didn't RUIN 40K FOREVER like 2 pages of the 3.5 CSM codex did otherwise he would have said, right?

Trust me, there was a huge difference between what a fish of fury could accomplish and what iron warriors did. Bring objective about I, Fish of fury was a nice trick, with a very hefty pricetag (12 firewarriors, with sergeant in a devilfish with the obligatory decoy launchers, disruption pod and targeting array was just shy of 250pts), took ages to get there (thry wouldn't be doing anything until turn two or three), wouldn’t do much (1 round of rapid fire?), could be countered very easily and again, compared to the CSM’s codex with things like a squad of havoks with their tank hunting autocannons and infiltrate, nike lords, plague marines and then,the legion rules it really fell short of the mark. Especially as fourth edition progressed, it really stopped being a thing. To be honest, it never even really was.

BoomWolf wrote:
Lets please not turn this to a Tau vs CSM "who suffered more" sludge fest.

Im not. I only brought it up because experiment 626 decided to taunt me with a quote, whilst standing on her soapbox along the lines of
'Remind me not to shed a tear when it's your army kicked to the curb and left to rot for over a decade if that's your attitude. '

Then there's folks like you with playground taunts and petty juvenile 'idiot' insults that are past the pale, to be perfectly blunt.

Like I said, I played that army that was kicked to the curb for three editions.

BoomWolf wrote:
I'm tau, I think that person (deadnight) is an idiot for having the stance that CSM deserve their blandness, or that they at any point "ruined the game" at any point.

I’d be right though. I played through that era and I saw it with my own eyes. Iron warriors were a cancer on fourth edition. And FYI, I never said CSM deserved their blandness, I said they deserved to have their power reined in. that said, the ‘back to basics’ approach was fine, and would have been so had everything else gone that way as well. But as I said elsewhere, chaos has been out in the cold for ten years now. That’s long enough (and before anyone misconstrues this, that’s another way of saying they deserve a bit of a boost, chaos players have been suffering for a long time now, they need some new shinies)

BoomWolf wrote:
I'm tau, I think that person (deadnight) is an idiot…

Oh, and its one thing to disagree with me. Its one thing to even put words in my mouth. But please, lets leave the schoolyard taunts and petty insults and names aside. And congratulations, you’re being reported for this doozy.

Experiment 626 wrote:
There's no denying thought that whenever Chaos of any flavour gets a cool, powerful, sometimes legitimately broken toy, it causes the most uproar compared to any other army getting the same.

I dunno about that. I think there is more than enough codex envy to go round the 40k community. Game breaking things generally cause uproar. Iron warriors, siren prince, leaf blower, taudar, etc etc

Experiment 626 wrote:
Sure they were busted as feth, but Eldar were still the kings of the game, and SW's were also a thing. Power Necron lists at the time were also nearly impossible to put down, and then the early 4th ed books brought the likes of Vanilla Marines, Tau & Tyranids up to similar levels.

Space wolves were never really that much of a thing back in fourth - their heyday was third (rhino rush) and fifth (long fang spam). Thry kinda got put on the back burner a lot during fourth and they paid far too much for abilities that they didn't get much use out of. The old necron codex again was nothing on what they are now. Tau struggled, but most armies could put down enough pie plates and firepower to force them to phase out quite quickly (I saw it numerous times in a single turn). Eldar - yeah, the Holofield Falcons were quite ridiculous (and gave no end of headaches), but I do remember for all that, it was still a step down from the starcannon spam, alaitoc disruption table, crystal targeting matrices and ulthwe seer councils of third. For all their nastiness, it was as much skimmers moving fast that pushed their vehicles over the line.

I do miss nidzilla though. Had a few fun games against spammed carnifexes.

Experiment 626 wrote:
While the 4th ed codex was a complete travesty, there were unending whinefests regarding the one thing Chaos actually had going for it - Lash of Submission. Didn't matter that Chaos lost all it's flavour, or that to even stand a chance Chaos players were forced to field what was a fluff travesty of a list, it was kool to hate-on anyone playing a Lash list and treat them like the biggest TFG in the room.
Look at when the Helturkey came out. Everyone and their mother decried it the game barely playable at that point.

No offense, but I saw imperial guard players get shouted out of the room for taking Valkyries in fifth, taking space wolves made you an automatic tfg, all you had to say was 'I have two riptides' or field marker lights to earn an opponents undying hatred if you played tau. Chaos didn't get it any worse.

Lash was, honestly deserving of criticism. But not because of its power, but rather because it let someone else control your army. I think that annoyed a lot of people and I don't necessarily disagree with them.

The thing with the helturkeys was as much about gw's forcing a shift towards 'buy the new Flyers' as much as anything else. That was around the 'summer of discontent' wasn't it, or am I mixing up my dates here in my old age?

Experiment 626 wrote:
Even despite it now being nerfed into the ground, there's still moaning & groaning about how we have a S6/ap3 template that can remove Marines!

40k players complain? I've seen folks complain about Thei opponents putting their marines in rhinos. I had a guy, straight faced, tell me back in fifth how tau were broken because although they were terrible at cc, you could put them in transports to try to avoid it.

Experiment 626 wrote:
From the perspective of someone who's been around since 3rd ed, it does seem like we're not allowed to have toys that are equal to everyone else, as there's always been a consistent level of moaning about Chaos being OP.

Could it be thoug that maybe chaos just doesn't have any 'champions' on the design team any more? Or could it be a deliberate push to make space marines the go-to army, with csm' being the archetypal opponent that exists to fail and be gunned down? Maybe, partly it's that they couldn't figure out how to do 'ancient bitter veterans of the long war' in a way that translated to something cool on the table top?

Moaning about chaos in early fourth was justified - let's be clear. The codex was ridiculous. But there is plenty other stuff out there now. Ten years is a long enough time to be waiting. I'll agree with you there.

Iron Warriors in 3rd were no more obnoxious than Eldar or SW's or nigh unkillable Necrons. Eldar still won the most tournaments overall of any army.
Also, later printings of the 3.5 codex fixed the Oblits to their proper T4(5), meaning they were suddenly a good deal easier to simply double-out with S8. Yes, Iron Warriors were obnoxious, but they were no more toxic to the game than what Eldar (especially the Craftworld codex!) were, while SW's, Necrons and even the newly arrived Tau were readily capable of playing on the same level.

Tau 'fish of fury' was strong throughout almost the entire lifespan of 4th, and "ruined 40k" for just as many people as IW's "ruined 40k" for people in 3rd.
Meanwhile, once Vanilla's got their 4th ed codex with the Chapter Traits system, they easily came up to the same level as IW's, between min/maxed Las/Plas Tacticals, and Infiltrating Devastators.


Chaos has had one, lonely moment of glory since the beginning of 3rd ed. Only Dark Angels can claim to have been equally as woeful, though at least they've gotten a new book that let's them play with the big boys. (and being Space Marines, their model line is the among the best in the game!)
Overall, we've been among the worst armies in the game for nearly 20 years now... (1st half of 3rd, 4th, skipped over in 5th, 6th, now 7th/7.5ed)

And our model line is in an even worse state than freaking Sisters! Sure their models are expensive and harder to get a hold of. But at least GW produced pretty much every possible upgrade available for their various squads! Not to mention they look ace, despite their extreme age.
Chaos on the other hand is still missing about half our basic upgrades, with the majority of our line looking like it was designed as an afterthought by a bunch of rejected trainees.

You're exaggerating on their model line being worse than Sisters.

I mean, it isn't great, but the Sister models are frickin METAL. There's hardly any ability to customize (metal is a pain to work with) and everything is more expensive.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You're exaggerating on their model line being worse than Sisters.

I mean, it isn't great, but the Sister models are frickin METAL. There's hardly any ability to customize (metal is a pain to work with) and everything is more expensive.

Sisters still look a heck of a lot nicer than CSM's, have far fewer miscast issues going for them, and don't have to and loot 2-3 other army's model lines just to build their own basic upgrades.
Besides, I'd easily jump for joy to see every last one of our multitude of Finecrap models go back to metal! At least it's possible to get a proper cast come out of those molds!

If Sisters were all Fineco$t, I'd agree that their model line is the absolute worst. Lucky for them, they're still metal. (though it's still infuriating & absolutely criminal that GW refuses to re-launch them in plastic.)

Experiment 626 wrote:
Iron Warriors in 3rd were no more obnoxious than Eldar or SW's or nigh unkillable Necrons. Eldar still won the most tournaments overall of any army.
Also, later printings of the 3.5 codex fixed the Oblits to their proper T4(5), meaning they were suddenly a good deal easier to simply double-out with S8. Yes, Iron Warriors were obnoxious, but they were no more toxic to the game than what Eldar (especially the Craftworld codex!) were, while SW's, Necrons and even the newly arrived Tau were readily capable of playing on the same level.
.

Good thing I'm talking about fourth edition, not third.

Third ed was silly. Rhino rush or shoot the rhino rush. Craft world eldar were a whole other level - I'll agree with you there. They could do some ridiculous things. That said, the fourth ed eldar codex did give them a good kneecapping in a lot of ways, and while holofalcons were still obnoxious, it steadily eroded. Fourth edition eldar (as nasty as some of their stuff was) was a far cry from what thry could do in third. There was a great cheer from non-eldar players when that codex was released and killed starcannon spam.I remember when hull points came in and Falcons could be glanced to death, it made me smile as well, but that was much later in the history of 40k. (I really wish I had one game against those brutal fourth ed vehicle builds p, but with hill points. Just to exorcise the bitterness. )

You're wrong about space wolves though. For most of fourth they were just overpriced marines in an era when their signature build was six man las plas and assault cannon spam. They were solid in third with rhino rush (my first ever models were space wolves, I've had a soft spot for them for the longest time. Until Santa grimnar came and ruined it with his flying bath tub) and their fifth ed codex was extremely competent, but for most of fourth, they weren't really a thing I'm afraid.

And with respect, space wolves, necrons and tau certainly were not capable of playing on the same level as iron warriors. You are flat out wrong on that one I'm afraid. Tau had a modest reputation at the start of fourth (buoyed by skimmers moving fast and the independent character rules mainly, and fish of fury was a nice trick) but it did not age well - by the end of fourth the power of the tau codex was a shadow of what it claimed at the start of the edition, and in fifth it faded entirely.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Tau 'fish of fury' was strong throughout almost the entire lifespan of 4th, and "ruined 40k" for just as many people as IW's "ruined 40k" for people in 3rd.
Meanwhile, once Vanilla's got their 4th ed codex with the Chapter Traits system, they easily came up to the same level as IW's, between min/maxed Las/Plas Tacticals, and Infiltrating Devastators.
.

Thst iron warrior list dominated for four years of fourth edition as well I'm afraid. Saying it ruined 30k for folks in third is not being entirely accurate. It pretty much was the de facto 'fourth edition' codex (but let's call it 3.5).

Tau fish of fury wasn't so much 'strong' as 'used frequently', because to be fair, tau didn't really have much beyond that, the single tau build of the time was three hammerheads, loads of kroot and one or two devilfish with squads inside, backed up by two shas'els who abused the independent character rules (can't be shot unless they were the closest unit). Like I explained earlier it was a horrendously expensive way of delivering a low accuracy (remember as well, pathfinders were never taken in fourth ed) rapid fire unit. And while it took two or three turns to get there, it could be blasted to bits. Tau weren't all that dakka heavy in the grande scheme of things, and pretty much everyone else could outmanoeuvre them. Fish of fury could be mitigated, and to be brutally honest, it's bark (and the online reputation of its bark)was far worse than its bite (which was surprisingly tame. Almost like a hug).

Space marine traits were OK, but I remember at the time that people pointed out how it was a lite-version of chaos legions. Nowhere near the same number of veteran skills or customisation at the end of the day- no Nike lords, basilisks or daemon princes. biggest 'abuse' of the traits system was taking 'we stand alone' as the downside. I never had the issues with marines that I had with iron warriors I'm afraid - they were a cut above.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Chaos has had one, lonely moment of glory since the beginning of 3rd ed. Only Dark Angels can claim to have been equally as woeful, though at least they've gotten a new book that let's them play with the big boys. (and being Space Marines, their model line is the among the best in the game!)
Overall, we've been among the worst armies in the game for nearly 20 years now... (1st half of 3rd, 4th, skipped over in 5th, 6th, now 7th/7.5ed)

And our model line is in an even worse state than freaking Sisters! Sure their models are expensive and harder to get a hold of. But at least GW produced pretty much every possible upgrade available for their various squads! Not to mention they look ace, despite their extreme age.
Chaos on the other hand is still missing about half our basic upgrades, with the majority of our line looking like it was designed as an afterthought by a bunch of rejected trainees.

Yeah, I'll agree with you here - chaos models are a bit lacklustre. Last codex had that Huron black heart abomination, mutilators, warp talons and the dinobots - I really wasn't that impressed with it. I didn't like the whole 'the warp makes their army spiky lolz' approach that the codex took. There's far better ways of doing ancient, bitter war ravaged and gritty veterans and I think more interesting ways of representing them on the tabletop too.