Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey Guys,

Not new to GW and tabletop games but brand new to 40k... where the do I start????

Ok rulebook.. logical... but then things start getting messy.

Looking at chaos space marines.. probably emperor's children or alpha legion but not sure what codex I need, there are so many books out there I don't know which one I need and which one has the most/most up to date rules on the chapter I would like to play. Psychic awakening? chapter approved? codex heretic astartes? apparently there is Forgeworld stuff but can't see any books on their website

Thinking I could get the most up to date codex and do some reading to help narrow down which chapter I want to play although any advice would be appreciated.. the key for me is fun and fluff. Currently torn between as I understand them to be.. the sex fiends or the cia, I definitely prefer more infantry style with the odd dreadnought or tank than heavy vehicle orientated stuff.. I like the idea of having things to do in all phases, melee/ranged/psychic and not being truly horrible at any of them.

Thanks in advance.

Please do not circumvent the language filter - ingtær.

ignore forgeworld for now as they're currently completely shut down during the pandemic. In terms of where to start, the obvious answer is indeed Codex Chaos Space Marines. Make sure you buy the one with a little II on the cover

like this one here as thats the most up to date. for Emperor's Children of Alpha Legion stuff you'll almost certainly want Psykic Awakening: Faith and Fury but it is optional and you can skip that if you're on a tight budget. Vigilius Ablaze also has some CSM options but not terriably important (if you wanted to play Black Legion though it is IMHO more important)

Yeah, what BrianDavian said, you need the codex. Faith and Fury is optional, but it has some stuff that makes either of your legions of choice a lot better, so worth considering. New fw books are eminent, so the old ones aren't up for sale. Welcome to the Legions.

Between the two, Emperor's Children and Alpha Legion, you've got two different styles that are both pretty solid on the table and are a mix of all kind of different phases. You've made a good choice, there.

I'd go AL over EC if you look at the Slaanesh daemon range and go "ehhhhhh, nah. I probably wouldn't ever want to get some of these as allies."

If you think "You know, at some point, these look kinda fun..." then maybe lean towards EC.

The thing about EC is: There is HEAVY speculation that at some point near-future, we will see a dedicated Emperor's Children codex, much like we got one for Thousand Sons, and one for Death Guard. This will give an updated kit to their signature unit the Noise Marines, but unfortunately, if you have an existing army then there will PROBABLY be units you can take in codex CSM right now that don't make the leap to the codex.

For example, I had a few Thousand Sons units when the codex dropped, and I lost access to Raptors, Havocs, Chosen, and Lords, all of which I owned for that army at the time. My Helbrute, Maulerfiend, Sorcerors and of course Rubrics carried over, but other new units kind of "replaced" the old CSM units.

Thanks for the help peeps, I will head for that book and start there..

I am still torn which faction.. the demon thing doesn't really do it for me.. I don't mind the odd DP as I like mortarion and was pondering death guard also, love the death guard marines with scythes and stuff but pox walkers and bloat drones etc just don't float my boat.

I like the idea of a unified army and then with paint schemes that confused me with alpha legion if different units had allegiances to different chaos gods... but again I haven't read the book yet!

Yep, in alpha legion different units have different god allegiances.

Alpha Legion can also have plague marines as well. They are an elite choice. They dont get the scythe terminators though just the badic plague marines.

More and more it sounds like you want AL to me. Mixed paint schemes works great for them if you want that, since theyre kind of the sneaky CSMs, so they could be disguised. But there is an alpha legion color scheme - it's a blue-green with dragon scale pattern details (their emblem is a hydra, and they have kind of a similar shtick to hydra in the marvel comics universe, where youll never get their real leader because the hydra has too many heads! Or something.)

In terms of gameplay, AL are hands-down the best choice for chaos space marine codex legion, and a great many units work better as AL than any other legion.