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I always have trouble playing against CSMs due to things like Helldrakes, Maulerfiends, lvl3 sorcerers with spell familiars, daemon princes etc.

As a Tau and Blood Angels player their domination of the psychic phase in particular destroys me, summoning daemons is really annoying, and Helldrakes and Maulerfiends are just horrible, the former in particular.

So why are they always referred to as a terrible army?

Taffy17 wrote:
I always have trouble playing against CSMs due to things like Helldrakes, Maulerfiends, lvl3 sorcerers with spell familiars, daemon princes etc.

As a Tau and Blood Angels player their domination of the psychic phase in particular destroys me, summoning daemons is really annoying, and Helldrakes and Maulerfiends are just horrible, the former in particular.

So why are they always referred to as a terrible army?

Because they are.

They have nothing special that's sets them apart, either on the table or just within their own background & imagery. Every so-called specialist they have, everyone else has at least 1 unit that's hands down better in every single way.
There's far too much redundancy within the army list itself, for example, you have Berserkers, Possessed, Warptalons, Raptors & Spawn that are all dedicated assault units. Only 1 of those is ever worth actually taking though!

Every single unique rule/unit Chaos has, Loyalists have instead been given much better versions of, with the sole exception of the Daemon Engines.

While everyone else has been getting 'oodles of new toys, Chaos Marines are still stuck with the exact same basic upgrades that they had from day 1 of 3rd edition!!
Chaos Marines get nothing for free... No army-wide special rules such as ATSKNF. Instead, everything a Chaos Marine can take has to paid through the nose for; Marks, Icons, VotLW, wargear, etc... You get basic squads that are almost all universally overcosted to begin with, and then to make them capable of achieving anything of relevance, you get to pay even more pts just to bring them up to a basic level that's still slightly below everyone else.

Essentially, Chaos Marines are nothing except "Loyalist Marines -10" in every way.

Finally, they're essentially still just a 'Rhino Rush assault army'. Too bad that game style died out back in 5th edition, and is completely unplayable under 7th edition rules.



If you can't beat Chaos Marines as freaking Tau, then the problem isn't with your opponent.

Blood Angels need to work a bit more, but seriously, you have Death Company which are better than any melee unit CSM's can counter with, Grav is an auto hard-counter to everything in that book except Cultists & Spawn. Drop Pod MSU Tacticals/Assault Marines w/Meltas will ruin Maulerfiends. "Fast' type dedicated transports allow you to easily outpace everything in the army except for Helturkies...
And those Helturkies themselves can be dealt with by your own flyers.

Short answer:

1. Out dated codex (No decurion stuff, no free stuff, ...)
2. Overpriced units
3. No effective delivery systems for your assault troops
4. Old units, old weapons nothing to challenge the "current" meta (Imperial knights, grav guns, centurions, Eldar WK)

Dont get me wrong, CSM is fun to play... its just not competitive

Proof is in the numbers:

http://variancehammer.com/2016/02/19/number-crunching-the-lvo/

I am really, really hoping for a new codex soon. I hope they update it in 2016...

Taffy17 wrote:
I always have trouble playing against CSMs due to things like Helldrakes, Maulerfiends, lvl3 sorcerers with spell familiars, daemon princes etc.

As a Tau and Blood Angels player their domination of the psychic phase in particular destroys me, summoning daemons is really annoying, and Helldrakes and Maulerfiends are just horrible, the former in particular.

So why are they always referred to as a terrible army?

Helldrakes are nasty, but not anything near what they once were. Maulerfiends should be easily dispatchable, they're AV12 walkers, one of the most easy to kill things in the game currently, they're fast but that's about it, and if they get stuck in with anything equivalent (e.g. an MC of similar cost), they get killed very quickly and likely do relatively little back in return. Summoning Daemons isn't something just CSM's can do and they're not even the ideal army for this. Daemon Princes in a CSM army are not what they once were and cost a huge number of points.

Overall, the army is still built to a 5th and even 4th edition ruleset. It wants to shoot like a 5E army and fight like a 4E army, and it just doesn't function well at all in 7E. They didn't even do well in 6E really except for Helldrake spam when they could still vector strike something with D3 hits and then Baleflamer anything with a 360* field of fire.

Tournament results bear this out, with CSM's repeatedly showing exceptionally poorly except as a rump detachment to an allied Daemon force.

They aren't bad at all. The codex is fun and has tons of different builds that work. It is just that half of the popular armies are insane good.

So it depends on who you compare them with. When SM is your reference they are bad of Orks or Guards are your reference these guys are great : D

 oldzoggy wrote:
They aren't bad at all. The codex is fun and has tons of different builds that work. It is just that half of the popular armies are insane good.

So it depends on who you compare them with. When SM is your reference they are bad of Orks or Guards are your reference these guys are great : D

Ummm, I disagree....

My girlfriend quit the game because she couldn't field a force that worked without spamming Heldrakes (which she didn't have/want). She fought against Nids, Necrons (extremely casual), SoB, Orks, ext. all of which to no prevail.

Also, all of the Chaos players at my store have stopping playing Chaos. They're essentially a dead army wherever I go. If someone is playing Chaos, it's either Daemons or KDK (just for fun, and even then our one KDK player doesn't play them anymore from what I've seen).

If there are numerous build that work, please enlighten us. The things that I know "work" are Invisible Spawn, Spell Familiar Summoning nurgle Daemon Prince (though very expensive), Heldrakes, and that's about it. And even then, I could field a casual Nid or Necron list and not fear their list in the slightest.

Yeah I used to play chaos. Now my 7k point army sits in a large cardboard box in my attic and I'm tempted to seek it off because I can't trust GW with the chaos army. So I might as well jump ship to forgeworld, at least they give me the legion army that I've been waiting for since 3rd...

OT, the Chaos army is bad for a number of reasons. We have quite a few poor units (Mutilators, Warp Talons etc.) and a few expensive units (The Defiler, which is about 75pts too expensive.) our basic troops are okay, but when compared to the loyalists they are shafted like a Slaaneshi Daemon at a party. Same price and without Know No Fear. Plus we have mandatory champions who must always engage in a challenge, and the reward is that terrible table. If they at least copied the table from WHFB it would have been better.

We also have no easy way of getting into combat. We have a rhino, which you can't assault out of, and only one land raider varient, the poor one.

We do have forgeworld, which really helps out with access to the deathclaw, but that still costs nearly three times a regular drop pod. And a bunch of excellent units including everything in IA13.

But then if you are going to forgeworld for Fire Raptors, Sicarians and Deathclaws. You might as well go full heresy because with Calth about it is actually cheaper to build a decent forge world army.

Imperial Guard are much stronger than CSM. I don't know if Orks are actually better, I feel they're really both as weak as one another.

Main issues with CSM:
1) High costs
2) Weak assault
3) Weak shooting
4) Average - weak survivability for cost
5) Weak, expensive characters
6) No formations
7) Army wide special rules are actually a drawback rather than a benefit
8) Inability to deal with meta threats: MCs, Fliers, Hordes, Mobility

Experiment 626 wrote:

Taffy17 wrote:
I always have trouble playing against CSMs due to things like Helldrakes, Maulerfiends, lvl3 sorcerers with spell familiars, daemon princes etc.

As a Tau and Blood Angels player their domination of the psychic phase in particular destroys me, summoning daemons is really annoying, and Helldrakes and Maulerfiends are just horrible, the former in particular.

So why are they always referred to as a terrible army?

Because they are.

They have nothing special that's sets them apart, either on the table or just within their own background & imagery. Every so-called specialist they have, everyone else has at least 1 unit that's hands down better in every single way.
There's far too much redundancy within the army list itself, for example, you have Berserkers, Possessed, Warptalons, Raptors & Spawn that are all dedicated assault units. Only 1 of those is ever worth actually taking though!

Every single unique rule/unit Chaos has, Loyalists have instead been given much better versions of, with the sole exception of the Daemon Engines.

While everyone else has been getting 'oodles of new toys, Chaos Marines are still stuck with the exact same basic upgrades that they had from day 1 of 3rd edition!!
Chaos Marines get nothing for free... No army-wide special rules such as ATSKNF. Instead, everything a Chaos Marine can take has to paid through the nose for; Marks, Icons, VotLW, wargear, etc... You get basic squads that are almost all universally overcosted to begin with, and then to make them capable of achieving anything of relevance, you get to pay even more pts just to bring them up to a basic level that's still slightly below everyone else.

Essentially, Chaos Marines are nothing except "Loyalist Marines -10" in every way.

Finally, they're essentially still just a 'Rhino Rush assault army'. Too bad that game style died out back in 5th edition, and is completely unplayable under 7th edition rules.



If you can't beat Chaos Marines as freaking Tau, then the problem isn't with your opponent.

Blood Angels need to work a bit more, but seriously, you have Death Company which are better than any melee unit CSM's can counter with, Grav is an auto hard-counter to everything in that book except Cultists & Spawn. Drop Pod MSU Tacticals/Assault Marines w/Meltas will ruin Maulerfiends. "Fast' type dedicated transports allow you to easily outpace everything in the army except for Helturkies...
And those Helturkies themselves can be dealt with by your own flyers.

This is pretty true to be honest.

Lords; Captains can be Chapter Masters with better stats and gear
Vindis/Preds - Can squadron up to 3 and get bonus rules
Berserkers - Can't hurt PA
Mutilators - Assault Centurians
Obliterators - Gravturians
Thousand Sons - Sternguard are superior in every way except durability
Plague Marines - tougher, more expensive marines, Legion of the Damned have that 3++ and Ignores Cover
Noise Marines - Expensive Devs that use Elites
Terminators - LOL
Possessed - Legion of the Damned have 3++ and decent shooting
Helbrutes - all dreads suck, but at least vanilla can get AV13 Ironclads
Cultists - cheap but suck at anything except being cheap
Heldrakes - good, but as an all-round flyer for similar points, Stormraven can blow 2 of these buggers from the air every turn, and Stormtalon is much cheaper and can be set up to arrive alongside another unit, eliminating reserve rolls (and possibly arrive turn 1, can you assign them to escort Drop pods still?)
Forgefiend - Decent AA due to high ROF, Stalker is better, not great except for Triple Plasma TEQ killer
Maulerfiend - fast but not great
Land Raider -can can 10 guys, no variants, no 16 model Crusader
Chosen - somewhere between Vanguard Vets and Command Squads, inferior to both
Relics - Black Mace beats Shield Eternal, Shield Eternal beats AoBF and Murder Sword, Burning Blade beats lots of guys

Actually credit where credit is due, Chaos has better Terminators than Space Marines....


Mostly because we can take them in squads of three and give them all meltas for deep striking goodness.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Actually credit where credit is due, Chaos has better Terminators than Space Marines....


Mostly because we can take them in squads of three and give them all meltas for deep striking goodness.

Always look on the bright side of life!

 welshhoppo wrote:
Actually credit where credit is due, Chaos has better Terminators than Space Marines....


Mostly because we can take them in squads of three and give them all meltas for deep striking goodness.

You're maybe not counting Hammernators. After all, the idea behind Terminators is that they DON'T die. Plus SM can do that better via Drop Pod Sternguard or GSF Tacticals, for similar prices. I mean, a Tactical Squad with Meltagun and Combi-melta and drop pod comes to just 125 points, a Chaos Termicide squad is around 170 I think?

 Deadshot wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Actually credit where credit is due, Chaos has better Terminators than Space Marines....


Mostly because we can take them in squads of three and give them all meltas for deep striking goodness.

You're maybe not counting Hammernators. After all, the idea behind Terminators is that they DON'T die. Plus SM can do that better via Drop Pod Sternguard or GSF Tacticals, for similar prices. I mean, a Tactical Squad with Meltagun and Combi-melta and drop pod comes to just 125 points, a Chaos Termicide squad is around 170 I think?

Nah, it's 105. Three termites with three meltas and power axes. Yeah they don't compare to Sternguard, but it's the little victories that count.


One of the only viable strategies that used to work was three termicide squads (because what else do we field from the elite slot?) three units of two obliterators and two heldrakes. With a ADL with a comma relay it meant that I had quite a good turn two..... If I could alpha hard I could often drag out a draw or a win.... It did rely on me doing edge deep strikes however.

As a CSM player I'm cheesed off that my friends get these insane formations in their new codexs and we got diddly squat :( I know formations are new but heck wait until the next round of codexs instead of missing out an army because it got revamped first.

I can beat them, i've beaten them a lot, but there's one guy who regularly brings lvl3 flying daemon princes and lvl3 sorcerers with spell familiars and at least one heldrake and a couple tac squads to be bound then uses psychic power's a lot to buff his units to very powerful levels.

Those first 3 units can outdo a lot of their loyalist equivalents surely?

The reason i mention this is only cause i see threads placing them as bottom tier army yet units like those I mentions mean i have a much harder time against them than say Guard or Orks.

Maybe it's cause i usually play 1000pt or less games, are they stronger at that level?

Smaller games would favor that type of list because it's harder for you to bring as much fire power/psychic defense to push through his powers. Are you sure he's staying at 1000 or less? That seems like a lot for that small a point limit.

Taffy17 wrote:
I always have trouble playing against CSMs due to things like Helldrakes, Maulerfiends, lvl3 sorcerers with spell familiars, daemon princes etc.

As a Tau and Blood Angels player their domination of the psychic phase in particular destroys me, summoning daemons is really annoying, and Helldrakes and Maulerfiends are just horrible, the former in particular.

So why are they always referred to as a terrible army?

You fought a min maxed list. His list is like the only viable way to win with CSM. Consider him your Asylum Daemon from Dark Souls. Or the Capra Demon...

That's probably it then.

While i do try to optimise my lists I also try to keep it thematic, so avoiding scout spam and stuff like that. The guy I'm referring to can be fairly ruthless with his lists.

 Ashley_Chaos wrote:
As a CSM player I'm cheesed off that my friends get these insane formations in their new codexs and we got diddly squat :( I know formations are new but heck wait until the next round of codexs instead of missing out an army because it got revamped first.

Don't worry, by the time the middle of next year rolls around and the new Chaos codex is set for release, GW will suddenly realise that things have been getting entirely out of hand, rules are too complex, and the game needs to be 'simplified back to its roots'.

Henceforth, Chaos Marines will get a "balanced" codex full of massively restrictive yet "fluffy" formations, (ie: Kharn + 8x squads of 8 Berserkers as the 'World Eater Gladiator Force'), that will leave us firmly behind everyone else.

And just as quickly, GW will up and abandon this new age of 'balance' after the complete gutting of the Daemons codex & following Tyranid codex, (which will still beat the living crap out of CSM's), and ramp everything back up to the nines just in time for the next Loyalist book.


Remember kiddies, Chaos isn't allowed to have nice things as a rule of thumb. This is our eternal punishment for being such naughty little WaaC's fethheads who obviously cheated big time when we actually won the Eye of Terror campaign!

Taffy17 wrote:
I can beat them, i've beaten them a lot, but there's one guy who regularly brings lvl3 flying daemon princes and lvl3 sorcerers with spell familiars and at least one heldrake and a couple tac squads to be bound then uses psychic power's a lot to buff his units to very powerful levels.

Those first 3 units can outdo a lot of their loyalist equivalents surely?

The reason i mention this is only cause i see threads placing them as bottom tier army yet units like those I mentions mean i have a much harder time against them than say Guard or Orks.

Maybe it's cause i usually play 1000pt or less games, are they stronger at that level?

Well, for the price of LVL 3 FMC, I can a squadron of 3 Stalkers which means not only am I pumping out 24 Str 7 Twinlinked Skyfire shots each turn at your DP, but they also have Ignores Cover so your jink save (and Nurgle Prince's shrouded) is gone, and unless you buy Power Armour upgrade, you're relying on your 5++ Daemon save plus maybe Invisibility.

Your level 3 Sorceror's are impressive but you either go no mark and are stuck with a 3+ or 2+/5++ and T4, or go Nurgle for T5 or Tzeentch for the extra ++ save, and lose out on actually good powers. Plus Imperium has allies like the GK and Assassins that can completely shut down your psykers through weight of warp charge generated or just generally being an ass for psykers to deal with. Again, Heldrakes will be shot down easily by SM AA tanks, and if you take both LvL3 DPs and Heldrake then Space Marines could take more Hunters and Stalkers, maybe even the formation that lets them be taken as a group, and gives them additional AA bonuses. Plus don't forget our own powerful flyers in the form of the Stormraven, who could quite frankly down a Heldrake with ease in one turn with the Anti-armour gear (MM and LC/AC) or even without, using just the missiles.

The other thing with that army is that you have just a handful of ObjSec units, space marines are masters of MSU spam right now, especially as the Tac Squad no longer needs 10 men to get special weapons. SM could easily just take a handful of battle-demi-companies with those free Pods, add in an AA formation and there's a super cheap GSF that hard counters your flying units and has too many ObjSec units for you to contend with.

@Deadshot: Any Chaos Sorcerer can take a basic 5++ through the Aura of Dark Glory gift, which is 10pts cheaper than Termie armour. Or else we can buy a 4++ (Sigil of Corruption) for the same cost as Termie armour.
The only way though for *ANY* Chaos character to gain a 3++ however, is to take a Sigil + Mark of Tzeentch, for a grand total of 40pts!!

Compare this to Loyalists who can take a Storm shield for what, 10-15pts for the miniscule drawback of not being able to claim the +1A for two CCW's...



Now compound this kind of double standard across the entire codex, while also not having any formations to boot.

Even Blood Angels, Tyranids and Orks have it better than us, as at least they get formations to boost their otherwise lackluster basic books.
We get, wait for it... Hellbrute formations!

And Cypher formations. Technically we get Daemonkin as well.... But all of them are at best 'Okay'.

Besides. Never mark your sorcerer, keep him unmarked so you can stay away from the poor god spells. Why can't tzeentch be good?

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, midway into 3rd edition's lifespan....GW decided to revise the Chaos Codex after all the popularity their IA articles got.

The result was 3.5 CSM. Unfortunately this was the victim of certain writers playing favourites with their personal armies, as well as the first 'official' minor psychic powers.

The result was Obliterator spam, Slaaneshi Daemon Prince infiltration and immunity spam and stacked Heavy Support spam.

Lo and behold, the playerbase spoke with wrath. And just at the end of 4th, right at the very beginning of 5th we got a series of toned down, rather bland and rather sad looking Codexes. Eldar. Dark Angels. CSM.

Unfortunately this version of CSM was very, very bland. But we accepted it. We acknowledged that this was our lot in life. We accepted GW were following a design pattern...everyone was to be bland and generic...

And then 5th ed SM came out...which was basically CSM 3.5 with Aquilas stapled to it.

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.

And then Eldar, Tau and Space Marines came about.

We are now a good chunk into 7th and even the Sisters of Battle have had a more recent update to their digital only book than we have.

But Chaos is never allowed nice things.

The Sins of Haines were too great. Apparantly the playerbase believes that ALL CHAOS PLAYERS WERE DIRTY IRON WARRIORS CHEESERDOGS. And so Chaos is forever to be remarkably underpowered, to avoid the outcry of the masses.

Well, I do remember how in the tactics forum for 3rd and 4th edition, every fourth thread was 'how do I beat Iron Warriors?' because that list was seriously broken and the IW were massively over represented on the table top.

I think the problem with later codices just extend from GW being terrible at codex writing.

 Bookwrack wrote:
Well, I do remember how in the tactics forum for 3rd and 4th edition, every fourth thread was 'how do I beat Iron Warriors?' because that list was seriously broken and the IW were massively over represented on the table top.

I think the problem with later codices just extend from GW being terrible at codex writing.

Not all Chaos players were Iron Warriors though.

I loved 3.5 because of how the Mark system worked - you took X mark, applied it to Y units and got your Cult units right there. It was beautiful. It was simple. It made some pretty nice armies. My local group had my Plague Host, a World Eaters player and a Sonic Emp. Children army complete with converted Terminators, Bikes and Predators....and when 3.5 was replaced and almost all those options and consistency gone...well, it all disappeared. The current CSM book isn't much better in that respect either.


3.5 - you bought a mark. The mark was permanent. It applied the same bonuses and penalties/restrictions across all units it was applied to. There were some flaws - the inability to stick MoK on havocs or ranged units was the big bugbear for a lot.

4th - you bought an icon. The icon gave the unit the mark. If the icon died the entire unit lost the mark. This was the most stupid version of the mark system so far. It came out just before 5th - which introduced a really bizarre casualty removal system which meant that icon bearers became a lot more vulnerable just from where they were standing (as apparantly no one else was smart enough to pick the damn thing up.) Cult units were seperate units...which meant that the Icon-Mark applied a different bonus. Whereas before your Plague Havoc had the same rules as your Plague Marines....now they had...different rules. Also, where the hell did the Sonic weapons go?

6th - you bought a mark. The mark is permanent. You can also buy an icon. The mark plus the icon pretty much gives you the equivalent bonus that the mark alone should really be giving you. The icon bearer can go splat so you can still lose that bonus. Cult units are still seperate units...still no sign of Sonic weapons...oh, wait, at least we can fix the dreadnoughts with IA 13.

Really I feel the mark system needs to revert a bit. If they want to keep a different between Plague Marines and Nurgle dedicated marines then give us the option to apply Greater and Lesser Marks.

Seriously, it feels really awkward and fething embarassing for my to use Nurgle Terminators...and to have a unit that is NOT Fearless and does not have FNP whereas the rest of my army does...even more so when you consider it's an elite unit at that.

 Bookwrack wrote:
Well, I do remember how in the tactics forum for 3rd and 4th edition, every fourth thread was 'how do I beat Iron Warriors?' because that list was seriously broken and the IW were massively over represented on the table top.

I think the problem with later codices just extend from GW being terrible at codex writing.

It's more the fact that GW won't stick to just a single codex design for an entire edition cycle!

Outside of the odd glaring hiccup, such as Chaos 3.5ed, GK's in 5th, and the massive ramping up from 7.1 vs. 7.5ed, balance within each set of codex 'editions' isn't too bad.

Look at the current state of things;
Necrons, Eldar, Tau, Vanillas, Dark Angels & now Daemons - hopefully SW's, are all on a fairly even footing. None of these armies tend to go into a game against another book from this level and end up 'auto-screwed'.
The worst match-up at this level is probably the GSF vs. Daemons, as Daemons in general really, really struggle to remove masses of vehicles.

Daemonkin are the only 7.5ed army that stands out as being on a marked level below everyone else, but then, that book was so badly rushed that it's not surprising. Nor did it address any of the problems faced by the Chaos Marine components, which are in general the half of the list that really drag the whole book down.

Of the remaining 7.1ed books, Blood Angels, Shield of Baal Tyranids, Dark Eldar/Heamy Covens, Ad Mech, Orks, Grey Knights, non-updated-as-yet Wolves - all of them against playing just against each other are again, pretty close in terms of their power scale.

The huge imbalance issues are only present because currently we have almost half the armies playing at the newest 7.5ed level, plus another 3rd or so of the game's armies playing at their 7.1ed level, with a couple of hybrid 6th/7.5ed armies, and one army still stuck playing late 3rd/4th edition with 5th ed points costing!

As much as I try to defend CSM with respect to non competitive gaming, there is no doubt that they are the bottom of the barrel now.

Virtually everything they have is overcosted save for the odd exception. And most units aren't even good to begin with. Even those that are cheap, are usually only good for no other reason than being cheap. Which is ok for a cultist I guess, but our super veteran badass terminators? They're good because they're cheap enough to throw away, but don't you dare equip them. Which despite being good, is kind of a failure at the same time.
Even adding forgeworld to the mix doesn't really change anything, since like 85% of the stuff csm have access to now? SM ALSO get, except they also get power of the machine spirit on like ..everything. And for the stuff they don't get? They get like two units for each unique thing we have. That's not even including the massive choice of allies. Though I suppose in terms of allies, neither of the non imperial factions do very well. At least we HAVE allies... poor nids lol.
Still, taking our equivalent of IG as allies severely hamstrings them as they really want to be the primary detachment. Suddenly you can't even take like half the army.

Also CSM along with sisters are now the only factions that don't have formations as far as I know. (Do grey knights get formations?) Even assassins have a formation XD. Either way, formations make a huuuge difference. Not only are they fluffy for the most part, but they're usually pretty powerful. Which compounds the problem that everything CSM have, SM have too except better and/or cheaper.

So not only are csm weaker than marines in almost every way, they're also less fluffy. And that's not even considering how they don't have any decent faction shtick. Unless you count the whole blessings of the gods thing, which is trolltastic at the best of times. SM are often better before you even consider the while chapter tactics angle. We get nothing comparable to that.

And that's not even going into our model range. Some of which haven't changed since I started playing in 3d edition. Which says a lot, seeing as how that is like the only redeeming factor of the army.
I mean, you play CSM because...they're friggin CSM. *cue guitar riff* And modeling opportunities and that's about it. CSM are bad on every other front.

Sure, a S6 AP3 torrent flamer will do some damage, but it can't make up for the rest. Not by a long shot. And even less so if you refuse to that particular unit.

Because they are Space Marines -10. Also, do decent formations, yet.

If our next codex is just a rushed re-jiggling of our current, and our model doesn't see an overhaul, then screw it, I'm done "playing by the rules."

I'll just go ahead and model the Tzeentch + Khornekin armies I'm currently holding back on they way I want to... That'll include fluffy things such as Heavy flamers & Hand flamers out the wazoo, Sorcerer Cabals, Kai guns, flamer-armed Predators/Land Raiders, etc...

My feeling & personal reasoning? It's Tzeentch - he burns EVERYTHING!, with the entire rainbow to boot!!
Because that's what happens when he's contemplating where to hide his Lucky Charms between breakfasts.

Experiment 626 wrote:
If our next codex is just a rushed re-jiggling of our current, and our model doesn't see an overhaul, then screw it, I'm done "playing by the rules."

I'll just go ahead and model the Tzeentch + Khornekin armies I'm currently holding back on they way I want to... That'll include fluffy things such as Heavy flamers & Hand flamers out the wazoo, Sorcerer Cabals, Kai guns, flamer-armed Predators/Land Raiders, etc...

My feeling & personal reasoning? It's Tzeentch - he burns EVERYTHING!, with the entire rainbow to boot!!
Because that's what happens when he's contemplating where to hide his Lucky Charms between breakfasts.

Just play them as Space Marines.