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Hey Folks thought I'd take a stab at some revised Legion traits for CSMs.

Alpha Legion: counts as in cover when more then 12 inches away, if in cover and infanty gets -1 to attack
Black Legion: add +1 to leadership, if the unit advances it may fire it's weapon as if it had not advanced
Iron Warriors: Ignore Cover and 6+ feel no pain. (iron warriors are known for their bionics and seige craft so I thought I'd go for almost a hybrid IH/IF)
World Eaters: take the trait as stands, add "add +1 to charge and advance distances"
Night Lords: take trait as stands... add something else to it.
Emperor's Children: I think fight first might be worth it eneugh, but not sure.
Word Bearers: Add X to demon summoning roll (where X equals a number that represents a decent improved chance of summoning something without being insanely OP) and reduce models lost from morale failure by -1 (to a maximum of zero)

EC's fight first is seldom worth it - 8th is generally so lethal that units rarely survive to a second fight phase. They have potential, with Slaanesh daemons such as fiends and contorted epitome denying fallback, but generally they're all dead by then.
Kinda annoying that Red Corsairs stole advance+charge, as that really should be an EC thing. RC trait should be: whenever there's a WD battle report involving chaos, Red Corsairs will always be in it.

BrianDavion wrote:
Hey Folks thought I'd take a stab at some revised Legion traits for CSMs.

Alpha Legion: counts as in cover when more then 12 inches away, if in cover and infanty gets -1 to attack

There is no reason to nerf the AL trait now that we play the trait + doctrine stacking game. Also AL only get's played in conjunction with soup and obliterators /terminators slaanesh.

Black Legion: add +1 to leadership, if the unit advances it may fire it's weapon as if it had not advanced

So basically, like now, except a bit better. Well actually still is just too bad.

Iron Warriors: Ignore Cover and 6+ feel no pain. (iron warriors are known for their bionics and seige craft so I thought I'd go for almost a hybrid IH/IF)

This one makes sense, and would be a great addition, however what to do about the stratagem? Add it on top instead? Could be iffy depending on targeted unit.

World Eaters: take the trait as stands, add "add +1 to charge and advance distances"

That one would really help WE, which might make it good enough to finally not needing pesky psykers to get a charge reliably. Probably needs still a bit more strength due to no psyker limitation but that one should only apply if mono built.

Night Lords: take trait as stands... add something else to it

There's the thing, LD shenanigans have 0 value atm in 40k, because ATM CP and Detachment systems basically dictate allways MSU. Also morale immunisation is just a hard counter. Reroll charges could be interesting, or added movement but that would turn them into better WE again. THis one is the most difficult to get right.

Emperor's Children: I think fight first might be worth it eneugh, but not sure.

Except nope. The trait is completely useless considering what the legions supposed strength is. Making it the most schizophrenic trait there is. A better thing would be an inate reroll of some kind to represent their perfectionism. Probably.

Word Bearers: Add X to demon summoning roll (where X equals a number that represents a decent improved chance of summoning something without being insanely OP) and reduce models lost from morale failure by -1 (to a maximum of zero)

Summoning is worthless, if done via the ritual.You can just soup in a daemon detachment AND get the actual interesting boni that way. Further morale is just irrelevant sadly so i'd would remain an issue.




Overall:WE and IW are the best suggestions.
AL can be debated, but if you intend to actually play CSM on the field in a marine meta, then you Need that -1 to hit to actually survive on the table sadly. It' s still a lazy trait imo but it works and is the only one that atleast can do something against the overwhelming frepower of AP-1 -2 spam that is there.

EC: is just plain wrongly interpreted. It's a schizophrenic trat for what the legion does.
WB: Need serious help. Would also still need serious help after your suggestion.

Night lords aren't difficult just look to hh.

A talent for murder works just fine with a couple tweaks to make up for the fact that they won't exist in a marine only meta like hh.

Give them +1to hit in cc if they have greater leadership than their enemy and +1 to wound in cc if they outnumber them. That way you get the bonus to wound if you can outnumber elite opponents and +1 to hit more chaff units which they probably won't outnumber.

Not op and requires planning to pull off but fluffy.

A little breaking of the deep strike rules a la sm drop pods would help. No first turn ds but let them take more than 50% into reserves.

Of course this is assuming no doctrines equivalent so csm traits should be more multi tiered. The legions wouldn't be at all "compliant " with each other obviously.

And raptors count as troops obviously.

My thoughts:
Alpha Legion, Black Legion, Iron Warriors and World Eaters all make sense. Iron Shroud Sisters might feel a bit bad about Black Legion getting their trait + a second bonus, but in such a MSU-leaning meta, +1 Ld is so minor it's inconsequenctial.


Night Lords. After thinking over for what their other bonus could be, I thought about something tied to enemies Falling Back. Initially was just going to suggest the usual "on a d6, enemy can't fall back" that's fairly standard amongst units but that feel quite against flavour. Instead, something like "Enemies that Fall Back whilst within 1" of a unit with this ability suffer d3 mortal wounds." feels more in flavour. Not sure if that is strong enough on it's own though, since usually you'd want to leave no survivors.

Another option could be a payoff to their Ld debuffing, but then the question would be "why bother with the LD debuffing in the first place? Just go straight to the payoff."


Emperor's Children almost definitely need something more. Maybe borrow the Salamander's free re-rolls?


Your change to Word Bearers doesn't make WBs that appealing compared to the rest except as an allied Character Detachment, which is my biggest complaint. -1 to Morale Casualties is basically +1 Ld, but slightly worse in the 1% of cases Ld matters outside of morale, so not enough to carry the trait on its own. Probably best to steer clear of summoning for their Trait and save it for Dark Pact & Incursion (with Malevolent Covenant).

Instead I'd do something like this:

Profane Zeal: Units with this trait can never lose more than one model when they fail a Morale test. Furthermore, a model with this trait may re-roll To Wound rolls of a 1 in the fight phase.

Was initially going to make it re-roll To Hits of 1 to mirror Dark Zealoty, but To Wound feels better.
Even then, this trait is probably still on the weak-side. I'm just trying to be cautious as to not let my WB fanboy-ism take hold and make them too good.

That WB suggestion would make decent sense. It's however tied to melee. (Melee beeing inherently weaker beyond some Fire and forget charachter / units)


I think however that it could work, AND as an added bonus, the redundancy gained by it might actually make the difference for certain units like Possessed.

The emperor's children trait is quite possibly the worst in the game, even if it was a dedicated assault legion it would still be bad, but when you factor in that it's primarily a shooting based legion it gets even worse. In the few instances it could actually get used, it never does because when your opponents 1 of assault unit does charge you they get turn player priority to hit you first anyway.

1. Word Bearers get their current bonus + the ability to advance and charge
2. World Eaters get +2 attacks instead of one from Shock Assault. In addition, add +1" to Charge and Advance rolls.
3. Your Iron Warriors one is how I would've tackled it exactly.
4. Emperors Children have their current bonus, and units get an additional 1" to their movement value.
5. Night Lords have their current bonus and gain +1 to wound on the first round of combat.
6. Alpha Legion have their current bonus. In addition, if a unit of this Legion destroys an enemy unit, roll a D6 and on a 5+ you gain a Command Point.
7. Black Legion have all the same bonuses. In addition, a unit may fall back and either charge or shoot at a -1 to hit penalty (but not both).
8. Consolidated Death Guard have the same bonus. In addition units gain Disgustingly Resilient (6+). If a unit already has this rule, it rerolls rolls of one.
9. Consolidated Thousand Sons keep their current bonus. In addition, units conduct their Overwatch on a 5+.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. Word Bearers get their current bonus + the ability to advance and charge
2. World Eaters get +2 attacks instead of one from Shock Assault. In addition, add +1" to Charge and Advance rolls.
3. Your Iron Warriors one is how I would've tackled it exactly.
4. Emperors Children have their current bonus, and units get an additional 1" to their movement value.
5. Night Lords have their current bonus and gain +1 to wound on the first round of combat.
6. Alpha Legion have their current bonus. In addition, if a unit of this Legion destroys an enemy unit, roll a D6 and on a 5+ you gain a Command Point.
7. Black Legion have all the same bonuses. In addition, a unit may fall back and either charge or shoot at a -1 to hit penalty (but not both).
8. Consolidated Death Guard have the same bonus. In addition units gain Disgustingly Resilient (6+). If a unit already has this rule, it rerolls rolls of one.
9. Consolidated Thousand Sons keep their current bonus. In addition, units conduct their Overwatch on a 5+.

Biased much Alpharius?

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. Word Bearers get their current bonus + the ability to advance and charge
2. World Eaters get +2 attacks instead of one from Shock Assault. In addition, add +1" to Charge and Advance rolls.
3. Your Iron Warriors one is how I would've tackled it exactly.
4. Emperors Children have their current bonus, and units get an additional 1" to their movement value.
5. Night Lords have their current bonus and gain +1 to wound on the first round of combat.
6. Alpha Legion have their current bonus. In addition, if a unit of this Legion destroys an enemy unit, roll a D6 and on a 5+ you gain a Command Point.
7. Black Legion have all the same bonuses. In addition, a unit may fall back and either charge or shoot at a -1 to hit penalty (but not both).
8. Consolidated Death Guard have the same bonus. In addition units gain Disgustingly Resilient (6+). If a unit already has this rule, it rerolls rolls of one.
9. Consolidated Thousand Sons keep their current bonus. In addition, units conduct their Overwatch on a 5+.

Biased much Alpharius?

If it looks like bias do tell what seems biased. Based on you saying "Alpharius" I'm not sure how that one is particularly biased. They get the same bonus and then a situational rule to go with it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. Word Bearers get their current bonus + the ability to advance and charge
2. World Eaters get +2 attacks instead of one from Shock Assault. In addition, add +1" to Charge and Advance rolls.
3. Your Iron Warriors one is how I would've tackled it exactly.
4. Emperors Children have their current bonus, and units get an additional 1" to their movement value.
5. Night Lords have their current bonus and gain +1 to wound on the first round of combat.
6. Alpha Legion have their current bonus. In addition, if a unit of this Legion destroys an enemy unit, roll a D6 and on a 5+ you gain a Command Point.
7. Black Legion have all the same bonuses. In addition, a unit may fall back and either charge or shoot at a -1 to hit penalty (but not both).
8. Consolidated Death Guard have the same bonus. In addition units gain Disgustingly Resilient (6+). If a unit already has this rule, it rerolls rolls of one.
9. Consolidated Thousand Sons keep their current bonus. In addition, units conduct their Overwatch on a 5+.

Biased much Alpharius?

If it looks like bias do tell what seems biased. Based on you saying "Alpharius" I'm not sure how that one is particularly biased. They get the same bonus and then a situational rule to go with it.

Well al already have the best trait and now you want to give them a 33% shot at another cp everytime they kill something? Poor wb get their crappy old trait plus advance and charge?

Probably more than gw ever gives em I guess.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. Word Bearers get their current bonus + the ability to advance and charge
2. World Eaters get +2 attacks instead of one from Shock Assault. In addition, add +1" to Charge and Advance rolls.
3. Your Iron Warriors one is how I would've tackled it exactly.
4. Emperors Children have their current bonus, and units get an additional 1" to their movement value.
5. Night Lords have their current bonus and gain +1 to wound on the first round of combat.
6. Alpha Legion have their current bonus. In addition, if a unit of this Legion destroys an enemy unit, roll a D6 and on a 5+ you gain a Command Point.
7. Black Legion have all the same bonuses. In addition, a unit may fall back and either charge or shoot at a -1 to hit penalty (but not both).
8. Consolidated Death Guard have the same bonus. In addition units gain Disgustingly Resilient (6+). If a unit already has this rule, it rerolls rolls of one.
9. Consolidated Thousand Sons keep their current bonus. In addition, units conduct their Overwatch on a 5+.

Biased much Alpharius?

If it looks like bias do tell what seems biased. Based on you saying "Alpharius" I'm not sure how that one is particularly biased. They get the same bonus and then a situational rule to go with it.

Well al already have the best trait and now you want to give them a 33% shot at another cp everytime they kill something? Poor wb get their crappy old trait plus advance and charge?

Probably more than gw ever gives em I guess.

You can only ever get one extra CP in a given turn, it isn't automatic (you'd have to kill on average 3 units to get it), and the Word Bearers gain a pretty darn good bonus (as advance + charge is awesome for Loyalist Scum White Scars and they're still primarily a shooting army).

Well you didn't put the one per turn limit in there.

And I still say legions should be 3 tiered because we shouldn't have doctrines because the legions shouldn't behave the same. And maybe drawbacks like hh.

I'd take a form of nostroman blood if it got me my proposed rules for night lords.

World Eaters have the same problem Black Templars had until the new Vanilla book: no viable delivery methods. +1" to charge/advance is a start, but it'd have to be coupled with other stuff like Apostle prayers and/or stratagem. Maybe a move twice prayer that mimics Warptime just for World Eaters to compensate for not having psychic powers.

Actually, that's an idea: how about all Khorne Daemon Princes get to choose a prayer instead of a psychic power? One attack is hardly worth the loss of psychic powers, but a prayer and an attack instead of a power and a deny sounds more fair.

I'll try my hand.

Emperor's Children - Flawless Perfection: A unit with this trait can re-roll a single to hit roll and a single wound roll each time it shoots or fights (including overwatch). (Same bonus as Salamander's original benefit, which is really quite good. Represents that these guys strive for perfection. If they absolutely needed something else on top of that, also make it that Emperor's Children count as having 1 additional model whenever checking how many models in their unit are holding an objective.)

Iron Warriors - Siege Masters: Enemy units attacked by units with this trait do not receive the benefit to their saving throws for being in cover. In addition, you can re-roll any failed wound rolls for units with this tactic when they are targeting a BUILDING or VEHICLE. (The trait is honestly a good one, but just failed to bring up vehicles. Being able to better kill vehicles should've been a staple of this.)

Night Lord - Terror Tactics: If a unit loses at least one wound to an attack made by a unit with this trait, that unit's WS, BS, and Ld are reduced by 1 until the start of your next movement phase. (Encourages spreading out attacks and damage, rather than grouping them together. Hitting lots of enemies with these attacks will make enemies run and hide).

World Eaters - Butcher's Nails: Models in units with this trait have +1A. Units with this trait may be chosen to fight if there is an enemy model within 3" of them during the Fight Phase, and CHARACTERS with this trait may declare a heroic intervention if there's an enemy CHARACTER within 6" of them. (Just being close to these guys is dangerous. A this range, it's like every model has Heroic Intervention.)

Word Bearers - Monuments to Glory: A unit with this trait replaces <Mark of Chaos> with Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch. (Hey, these guys can now summon any daemon, and benefit from any god-specific stuff. It's almost like they have a better connection with daemons!)

Alpha Legion - Fighting Shadows: Units with this trait receive the benefit of cover against attacks made by enemies more than 12" away, and if they are already receiving the benefit of cover those attacks have a -1 penalty to their hit rolls. (Subbing in the Raven Guard tactic because it helps stop this trait from totally shutting down people, and makes you want to stick in cover far away like sneaky little gits).

Black Legion - Black Crusaders: Units with this trait do not count as having moved for purposes of shooting. Units with this trait that advanced instead count as having moved, but not as having advanced. [i](Changing guns into "Assault" is cute, but man is their current one the worst version of every similar one. This one becomes more similar to Sautekh, but since you don't count as having moved, Bolter Discipline is always in effect for these guys.)

Gadzilla666 wrote:
Well you didn't put the one per turn limit in there.

And I still say legions should be 3 tiered because we shouldn't have doctrines because the legions shouldn't behave the same. And maybe drawbacks like hh.

I'd take a form of nostroman blood if it got me my proposed rules for night lords.

That's part of a core rule at this point so I didn't bother to outline that.

I'm fine not being at 3 tiers as CSM should be more powerful individually and Space Marines simply being more disciplined. Ergo the Doctrines make sense for them if we get Vet stats at minimum for everything like we should.

I'll give it a go why not. Itll need some finetuning for actual rules language but I think you'll get the point
Black Legion Crusaders Gotta Crusade:Same as everyone else. Update it so its all moving and shooting or something along those lines. (Chosen as troops)
Iron Warriors Your Fortress will be Your Tomb: Ignores cover and rerolls misses against infantry that would've been in cover. (Havocs or Terminators as troops not sure)
Night Lords A Real Horrorshow: Same leadership penalty, units that lost models against Night Lords must use their base leadership and cannot positively modify their morale rolls. A real horrorshow (Raptors as troops)
World Eaters Too Angry to Die:World Eater Models that would be removed in the charge or fight phase are instead removed at the end of the fight phase. Literally too angry to die. (zerker troops)
Word Bearers Devout Followers: Word Bearers and their allied daemon units may add or subtract 1 whenever they make a morale test. Word bearers may take daemons without breaking detachment bonuses. (May take daemon troops or possessed troops also not sure )
Alpha Legion [REDACTED]: Fine as it, maybe make it match raven guard. (1 free troop infiltrate per detachment)
Emperor's Children Perfection at any cost : EC models may reroll any hit, wound, charge, psychic test dice, but if they reroll and fail they take a mortal wound. (noise marines as troops)

Some of these might be a bit too strong and would require fine tuning their power level. Either way the idea is plain cookie cutter csm are generally weaker, but chaos has better access to ancient/daemon gear.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
Well you didn't put the one per turn limit in there.

And I still say legions should be 3 tiered because we shouldn't have doctrines because the legions shouldn't behave the same. And maybe drawbacks like hh.

I'd take a form of nostroman blood if it got me my proposed rules for night lords.

That's part of a core rule at this point so I didn't bother to outline that.

I'm fine not being at 3 tiers as CSM should be more powerful individually and Space Marines simply being more disciplined. Ergo the Doctrines make sense for them if we get Vet stats at minimum for everything like we should.

Yeah I could see just getting the a talent for murder trait if we get votlw back.

Forget about "primaris " csm. Blech.

I actually wrote something up for CSM, but I must have deleted it at some point. I think it might have been because it was shortly before the CA19 leaks and I figured it'll be a while until we find out what is fair so anything I suggested would be mostly fluff-based. I think CSM vehicles and Cultists should get Legion Traits.

BrianDavion wrote:
Alpha Legion: counts as in cover when more then 12 inches away, if in cover and infanty gets -1 to attack

I like this change for AL and Alaitoc but without some kind of other buff I don't think it's fair.

Black Legion: add +1 to leadership, if the unit advances it may fire it's weapon as if it had not advanced

This is pretty bad and not at all anything like how the Black Legion fights. You can see where they tried and sneak in small justifications for this rule in the fluff by saying they lay down a withering storm of fire while advancing, but they also take out weak enemy flanks with melee. I call BS.

Black Legion units should be able to fall back and charge and they should add 1 to charge rolls.

Iron Warriors: Ignore Cover and 6+ feel no pain. (iron warriors are known for their bionics and seige craft so I thought I'd go for almost a hybrid IH/IF)

Iron Warriors aren't particularly well-knowing for bionics. They are known for suffering heavy losses, using heavy weapons and feints.

Iron Warriors should keep their current ability but they should also get the ability to fall back and shoot.

World Eaters: take the trait as stands, add "add +1 to charge and advance distances"

Did you know the butchers nails helps WEs ignore pain? A big design propblem with WEs is that they are glasscannons, either a sufficient amount of them make it in and they obliterate everything or they all get shot into oblivion.

WEs should keep their current +1 A once per Fight phase if they charged and also get a 6+ FNP.

Night Lords: take trait as stands... add something else to it.

+1 to hit on the charge or something.

Emperor's Children: I think fight first might be worth it eneugh, but not sure.

It's definitely not enough. I think they should get some kind of re-rolls ala Salamanders to represent them going for perfection, but those kinds of mechanics drags games out.

Word Bearers: Add X to demon summoning roll (where X equals a number that represents a decent improved chance of summoning something without being insanely OP) and reduce models lost from morale failure by -1 (to a maximum of zero)

Summoning is never going to be insanely OP as long as it costs pts. I don't think they need more summoning shananigans. I think giving them either CP or Reserve Pts when they kill and/or are killed would be best. Dark prayers of vengeance the last things to leave their lips or dedicating the slaughter of their enemies to the dark gods.

Did you just really state that iron warriors are not known for bionics?

Sure, not enough that it needs to be mentioned in any of the codexes at least. It might be really common in the BL books. In pretty much every codex it is mentioned they love dragging their opponents into killing fields, I thought falling back and shooting would feel like that.

 vict0988 wrote:
Sure, not enough that it needs to be mentioned in any of the codexes at least. It might be really common in the BL books.

iron warriors explicitly use bionics to surpress mutations. In big quantities.

The killing fields make sense though.

+1 to hit on the charge or something?

Honestly why does everyone switch to "phone it in " on night lords?

It's so easy the traits right there in hh.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Sure, not enough that it needs to be mentioned in any of the codexes at least. It might be really common in the BL books.

iron warriors explicitly use bionics to surpress mutations. In big quantities.

The killing fields make sense though.

Source?

 vict0988 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Sure, not enough that it needs to be mentioned in any of the codexes at least. It might be really common in the BL books.

iron warriors explicitly use bionics to surpress mutations. In big quantities.

The killing fields make sense though.

Source?

Lexicanum.

https://wh40k-de.lexicanum.com/wiki/Iron_Warriors

They deem it as a weakness.

So many cool things they could do with Word Bearers.

Blood Sacrifice: Every unit of Cultists destroyed wholly within 12" of a Word Bearers character have their points converted to reinforcement points.

Devotion to the Eightfold path: Word Bearers Cultists gain Saviour Protocols but it only procs on 6s (or better, power levels are getting stupid again).

Troop Daemons don't break Detachment purity.

Possessed as Troops

The veil is thin: Roll a D6 everytime an enemy psykers manifests a power. On a 6 they take a mortal wound.

Or you know, Reroll Morale. That totally does them justice.

Blood Sacrifice: Every unit of Cultists destroyed wholly within 12" of a Word Bearers character have their points converted to reinforcement points.

Erm no,no no no.

I don't want summoning festivals back like some edition back that Shall not be named.

Meh. They broke the game again so anything should go now.

 Eldarain wrote:
Meh. They broke the game again so anything should go now.

I believe this would be the point of absolutely no Return.
You realize that?

Would it really be a bridge too far? It's not infinite and it's still tied to the mostly terrible summoning mechanics which have counter play opportunities through dispels and character killing. You only get points for cultists killed near characters when ours need to be upfield doing most of the heavy lifting these days.

Doesn't sound any crazier to me than the insane free buffs upon buffs Marines are running around with.