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Hey All

So, i've been playing WH40K some 20 years ago. I'd like to start again, and been thinking about buying the Dark Vengeance starter pack.
As i understand you get 2 forces, Dark Angels and CSM (Crimson slaughter). To my understanding Crimson Slaughter is rather sub par, and GW recently released the Traitor Legion supplement stuff, which is a pretty nice buff for CSM. But Crimson slaughter cant use the rules from Traitor Legions.

So should i paint the models in Dark Vengeance as Crimson Slaughter or should i rather pick an Army from the Traitor Legions and use them instead?

There's nothing about the dark vengeance marines that makes them specifically crimson slaughter. Heck their big chapter buffs mostly revolve around possessed and you don't even get any in the box. Run your guys as Legion marines, they're way better. You'll probably want to take clippers and an xacto to most of the stuff in the starter set though. The chaos marines need swapped weapons as their loadouts are incredibly inefficient, and you can chaosify the dark angels with little effort.

Thanks for the answer. I'll probably keep the Dark Angels as Dark Angels. That way i have 2 armies and can play a bit with my son.

All signs point to a new edition (8th) in June, so be aware that the rulebook in there will be out of date in ~3 months or so. Might be worth waiting until the new starter comes out if you're looking to get into the scene. Having said that, if you really liked DA or CSM, then the models won't be invalidated and DV saves you a fair bit of cash, but otherwise, yeah, think about waiting a few months.

 Drasius wrote:
All signs point to a new edition (8th) in June, so be aware that the rulebook in there will be out of date in ~3 months or so. Might be worth waiting until the new starter comes out if you're looking to get into the scene. Having said that, if you really liked DA or CSM, then the models won't be invalidated and DV saves you a fair bit of cash, but otherwise, yeah, think about waiting a few months.

Hey buddy. Thanks for the heads-up. Well i should be waiting for the 8th then i believe. Theres just no guarantee that the new starter set will contain CSM though.

Another rather broad question is, how does a new 8th ed. rulebook affect the 7th ed. codice? Is there a topic or blog touching upon this?

Exardious wrote:
Another rather broad question is, how does a new 8th ed. rulebook affect the 7th ed. codice? Is there a topic or blog touching upon this?

Speculation, wild guesses, and some real information about that. There is a strong indication it will be (somewhat) backward compatible, so the 7th (and 6th) edition codices will not in invalidated completely, but there are a couple of confirmed changes and persistent rumours which need attention. The return of the Movement statistic and Armour Saving Throw Modifiers as opposed to the Armour Penetration system amongst them. Ample threads here and on the rest of the Inetrnet about all those changes, and even quite a few Youtube entries if you search for 8th edition WH40K or something like that.

It's incredibly unlikely that 8th will contain CSM as a starter, yes, but to be honest, the CSM start kit contents isn't that great anyway (for 7th). Krannon is useless, the chosen (while incredibly cool models) have a horrendous weapon loadout and cultists are only passable as min troops or for certain specific formations now that we have legion rules. The helbrute, while not total trash, suffers from being an AV12 vehicle in a str 6/7 spam meta that deals with Imperial Knights.

Again, everything might change in 8th and the starter set may become the best thing ever, but if you really want the starter CSM (and don't care that much about the DA), then grab them off ebay, assemble and paint them while you wait for 8th. If you're super keen, the 7th ed rulebook from the starter set goes for cheap on ebay as well but word is that there's going to be some massive changes to the rules, so reading up on 7th might only make it harder for you to get the hang of 8th.

As mentioned abve, there's a bunch of speculation on how the codecies are going to interact with 8th, but given that the base CSM book is 5 years old this year, I'd be staying away from picking it up until we know more about how things are going to work.

I'm in the same boat. I played a lot in 3rd edition, but moved on before 4th.

I'm getting in with Kill Team, and now Shadow War Armageddon.

I have bought 3 sets of DV and traded the DA models, i love the CSM models. They are some of the best looking models from GW imho. The chosen do have a bad loadout of weapons, but two of them are regular chosen with a boltgun, i usually bring naked champions to my csm, chosen and havoc squads, so those models are great. The one with two LC can be converted to a melta/plasma chosen if you clip of the arms, the power axe chosen is nice as a power axe champion, or it can be clipped of and replaced with one arm wielding plasma or melta. The mace chosen is a nice aposte. So there are options.

The cultists are cool too. They can be fielded in blobs as 35, or min squads to fill up troop slots in a CAD. You should try to make them fearless with an apostle or helcult if possible.

The lord is a beautiful model, but you dont see that loadout on a lord very often.

The other chosen can be easily modded to become standard ones with a few strategic cuts.

Or do what I do and tap into your inner converter and make them into possessed (or better yet, Gal Vorbek!)

I started Warhammer 40K with the Dark Vengeance box set only this year. As mentioned, there is nothing aligning the CSM stuff to any legion. I went with the Black Legion (which you can see in the footer below) and painted the Dark Angels as the Fallen (which are also below). I use the DA as their CSM equivalent except for the plasma cannon guy which is a count as plasma gun. I suppose you could try and convert the Dark Angels stuff, but it is going to be tough as the iconography is molded on.

I really like the Chaos Lord model. I even like his weapon loadout (although the plasma pistol is way over point cost). I am hoping that GW makes plasma pistols worth taking next edition.

The Chosen loadouts (save for the twins) are even worst than the chaos lord. Their weapons just about double the cost of an already price unit. However, they make decent Aspiring Champions for other squads save when grouped with the old CSM sculpts they make them look even worst in comparison.

I think Dark Vengeance is an okay place to start a CSM army so long as you have opponents that are okay with count as. And you don't care that much about having a strong list (your playing CSM it is going to be on the weaker side for the most part at the moment). The box set works much better playing Kill Team (especially the Harold's of Ruin version). Especially, since it gives you enough to choose between CSM or DA kill team. This works great for me as I like Kill Team more and mostly play my buddy who doesn't have any models.

However, as 7th edition rules are, I can't say there is much value in the set if you only want the CSM stuff or want to play at more common point totals like 1850 points. The cultists are pretty good (I don't like them as I want to play marines not Imperial Guard). I have already mentioned the CSM models. The hellbrute is okay for smaller games like under 800 points, but once real vehicles can be added to army lists, the brute is not good. Actually, a lot of the DA stuff makes better CSM units that the actual CSM models that are in the set.

The problem with the DV models, Chaos in particular, is that I think they were chosen to provide​ tutorials on different weapon / armour / vehicle types rather than to actually make an effective force. Having built up my army some, I don't use my DV stuff at all any more.

Just remember that the new edition is 2 months away, so all advice right now is only good for the next 2 months.

It might not be in two months, but it's highly likely. There's a general manager's meeting in may and they announced the upcoming edition already, so it's probably not 6 months out.