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cuda1179 wrote:I played with, and against, the 3.5 Chaos codex. Here is what I found a little over powered:

1. Free Aspiring champion upgrades. If you took the right number of models in a unit the Champion was free.

2. Many of the "downsides" of the Legion rules were things that didn't bother the players of those legions. It really wasn't that big of a deal killer.

The aspiring champions were only free if you were playing with the Legion rules, not just having the right number, and those rules did have some actual trade-offs. I wasn't terribly happy about not being able to take raptors or bikes or heavy weapons on havocs for my Death Guard. They weren't ''deal killers'' but the "free champs" did come at the cost of units and options I would have otherwise liked to take.

wuestenfux wrote:It was really a great time to play the 3.5 ed CSM codex. The 3rd ed was not bad either.
Today, I'm really sad that we have a gimmick rule set.

Third ed. had a mostly solid ruleset, there were some weird blindspots in the core rules, but the codices were a mixed bag when it came to flavour. On the one hand books like Space Marines were really bland, whereas Speed Freaks were flippin' meals on wheels all stops to Flavourtown.

The first 3rd ed. Chaos book had some nifty things, Doomrider, Cypher, Possessed with a useful random powers chart (better base stats than the 4th ed. book helped), the utterly mad way obliterators worked and All is Dust. Cult Terminators with All is Dust were a particular brand of fun.

The best period was late 3rd edition and early 4th, where GW's codexes started becoming really experimental. The Tyranid Codex, 3.5 Chaos Dex and 4th ed Space Marine Codex all came from this era and are more fondly remembered for it.

The Eldar Craftworld codex was awesome too.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The best period was late 3rd edition and early 4th, where GW's codexes started becoming really experimental. The Tyranid Codex, 3.5 Chaos Dex and 4th ed Space Marine Codex all came from this era and are more fondly remembered for it.

The Eldar Craftworld codex was awesome too.

The Eldar codex was really strong. I remember Alaitoc's disruption table. It was a pain in the a** to play against this army when you had lots of infantry.

This is interesting because I never felt that the CSM 3.5 was broken, so much as was a really good codex. There were a few things in it that were definitely overboard especially for the time. As people said getting that extra heavy slot when the FOC was so rigid for most armies was a pretty big advantage. And the dread ax wielding Deamon prince (ignored all saves) was pretty killey, but you could only take one, and smart opponents knew the shoot him first. I don't think that the CSM 3.5 was broken, as much as it was one of the few codex that had any flavor during that time. People forget though that other codex at the time had some really good builds/units. Necron destroyers were brutal with 3 St6 AP3 against marines, and the wraiths were always good. Eldar had star cannon spam that was brutal, especially with their shoot and scoot units. I played IG at the time as well as chaos and I actually won more with my Steel Legion Mechanized company our of codex Armageddon (man I wish I did not sell that army) than with my chaos, although I did not play iron warriors and did not spam lots of the best units. I don't think CSM 3.5 was broken in the way that Necrons 5th(going into sixth) and grey knights 5th were. (That grey knights codes was so infuriating playing against as it was so OP).

 wuestenfux wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The best period was late 3rd edition and early 4th, where GW's codexes started becoming really experimental. The Tyranid Codex, 3.5 Chaos Dex and 4th ed Space Marine Codex all came from this era and are more fondly remembered for it.

The Eldar Craftworld codex was awesome too.

The Eldar codex was really strong. I remember Alaitoc's disruption table. It was a pain in the a** to play against this army when you had lots of infantry.

I ran Biel Tan Aspect Warriors.

"Yolo" didn't even come close to describing it.

 xeen wrote:
This is interesting because I never felt that the CSM 3.5 was broken, so much as was a really good codex. There were a few things in it that were definitely overboard especially for the time. As people said getting that extra heavy slot when the FOC was so rigid for most armies was a pretty big advantage. And the dread ax wielding Deamon prince (ignored all saves) was pretty killey, but you could only take one, and smart opponents knew the shoot him first. I don't think that the CSM 3.5 was broken, as much as it was one of the few codex that had any flavor during that time. People forget though that other codex at the time had some really good builds/units. Necron destroyers were brutal with 3 St6 AP3 against marines, and the wraiths were always good. Eldar had star cannon spam that was brutal, especially with their shoot and scoot units. I played IG at the time as well as chaos and I actually won more with my Steel Legion Mechanized company our of codex Armageddon (man I wish I did not sell that army) than with my chaos, although I did not play iron warriors and did not spam lots of the best units. I don't think CSM 3.5 was broken in the way that Necrons 5th(going into sixth) and grey knights 5th were. (That grey knights codes was so infuriating playing against as it was so OP).

You played Chaos, and didn't feel that the Chaos book was OP? Shocking.

I'm pretty sure the most imbalanced codex style book GW has ever written was the 7th Edition Daemons of Chaos book for Warhammer Fantasy.

For 40k, it's probably either 6th or 7th Eldar, though some of the older Grognards can probably tell me about some Rogue Trader/2nd Edition Shenanigans. I started playing in 3rd, so...

I'd say the most broken codex, in context of it's time, would be the 5th Edition Grey Knight codex. Combined with the inquisition and assassins, there was basically no build that the GKs could do that wasn't just flat out more powerful than a comparable build another army could make. Necrons, at the very least, still had non-viable builds (even if their more effective builds outclassed the GK).

Eldar's 7th edition Scatbike Spam and Wraithknights are only notable because of how disproportionally powerful they were; without them and the upgrade to D Weapons, the codex would have been another Mehfest.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:The best period was late 3rd edition and early 4th, where GW's codexes started becoming really experimental. The Tyranid Codex, 3.5 Chaos Dex and 4th ed Space Marine Codex all came from this era and are more fondly remembered for it.

The Eldar Craftworld codex was awesome too.

Not by everyone. Craftworld Eldar was another log on the fire that was OP codices. For it's part, the Tyranid Codex wasn't so much OP as it was the start of the whole customizable stat line craze. The only people who speak well of that time are the people who ran those codices. And as far as most imbalanced, I haven't met a Black Templars Codex that I didn't hate.