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This is 100% me just getting a wild hair up my butt and wanting to put my thoughts down. It is 100% my opinion but feel free to add in.

I want to remind people that, as we get into Arks of Omen, the number 1 faction at the heart of this is the Chaos Space Marines. While Abaddon was the mastermind, it was the Chaos Space Marines that did the work of busting open the Great Rift, taking on Vigilus, and now manning the Arks of Omen to secure empires around the Imperium Nihilus.

So why is it that, out of all the factions in Warhammer 40k, Chaos Marines feel so inconsistent, both in models and in rules?

Let's start with the most mutable part of the faction, the rules. I'm going to just throw out a hodge-podge of issues that remain with Chaos Marines on the tabletop in no particular order, mostly highlighting raw inconsistencies.

1. Raptors cannot take Lightning Claws on their leader, despite the bits being clearly in the box.
2. Chaos Bikers have all of the 'legacy' options, despite none of those bits being in the box.
3. Chaos Terminators have their weapons flattened to 'Accursed Weapons' while other units still get the normal profiles for various power weapons.
4. No more Jump Pack lord, despite there being a relic that can only go on a model with Fly... guess it's limited to the Daemon Prince.
5. A slew of confusing limitations based on what can take Icons, what can take Marks, and what can't take either or both.
6. Exalted Champion being incredibly limited in loadout, despite GW not even selling the model.
7. Chaos Legionaries can take things like Lascannons despite those not being in the box.
8. The whole book was entirely dependent upon Armor of Contempt that, now removed, has neutered the entire book.

There are more, but that's what stands out to my mind at the moment.

Then let's take a look at some of the model-range issues across the biggest, baddest faction of the Warhammer 40k universe...

1. Chaos Bikers are from 3rd edition and don't even come with the bits that you'd need to kit them out as the Codex allows
2. Rhino-chassis vehicles (Rhino, Predator, Vindicator) and Land Raider are all getting really old and have an even OLDER upgrade sprue. None of it matches modern aesthetic
3. Obliterators are stuck in a monopose box of 2 with the Venomcrawler, despite being able to take squads of 3 Obliterators
4. Daemon Engines like the Heldrake, Forgefiend, and Venomcrawler look completely at odds with the rest of the faction
5. Ancient Defiler kit...
6. Chaos Cultists can take ranged options, but you have to buy several of the Cultists of the Abyss mono-pose kit in order to actually get enough models to play a 10-man squad.
7. Chaos Terminators, as said above, have such a hodgepodge of weapon options that they had to flatten their profiles to "Accursed Weapons"
8. The only Chaos Lord (sans Terminator armor) kit available is the one from Blackstone Fortress with zero options
9. Haarken Worldclaimer exists
10. Chaos Spawn are ancient
11. Huron Blackheart, the Exalted Champion, the Master of Possessions, all MIA
12. They took away our Jump Pack Sorcerers and Lords.

There are other issues, but those are the ones that stand out to me as I browse my book and see my collection. It's frustrating. The entire army feels like a mess, with a third of it ancient kits from 3rd and 4th, another third the baroque new armor style which I actually like, and the last third a mess of daemon engines and dino bots that look at odds with the other two thirds.

You look at any other faction and you don't see some of these issues. Yes there are factions with old models like the Eldar and Astra Militarum and even the Space Marines have some really old kits... but the designs of those kits (aside from being scale crept) look CONSISTENT with their model ranges. Swooping Hawks and Striking Scorpions don't look completely different from an aesthetic standpoint from Howling Banshees and Dark Reapers. Tyranids, Orks, Adeptus Mechanicus, Sisters of Battle, all of these factions have the odd duck here and there, but otherwise look whole. Few units stand out as being completely ancient, horribly out of place in those armies.

It feels like the team has clear visions of what to do with every faction EXCEPT Chaos Marines, both from a model standpoint and a rules standpoint. Even when it comes to making new kits, there's inconsistency! Chaos Legionaries? Tons of options, from heads to weapons, able to kit them out with special weapons, melee or bolters, etc. Terminators? One of each weapon and you'll be thankful for it for some ungodly reason. These released at the same time! It's annoying at best!

If they'd at least update some of the ancient kits, like the Defiler, Bikers, Spawn, and give us a Chaos Lord and Exalted Champion with more than 1 option, that would go a long way to making a cohesive force.
They could make a Kill Team of Chaos Terminators and add another sprue of weapon options in that kit to help ease the options-pain.
They could take the 30k vehicle CADs and design them with new baroque armor and upgrades to bring those vehicles up to date.

Those three things would cover SO MUCH and bring back the fear of the Chaos Space Marines as a scary bad guy. Rules are always mutable and I understand that the rules team just does their best with what they've gotten, but good lord do the entries for older units look uninspired, or even copy paste (chaos bikers) while others are just SAD (terminators/chosen).

I know none of this will happen any time soon, but I wanted to remind people of the issue of the major bad guy, and this is one of the reasons why I find it hard to care about the outcome of Arks of Omen. You can paint an awesome picture of a bad guy, but when your only option for a Chaos Lord to lead your warband is this doofus, it's hard for me to feel inspired by the way the game is going and the threat that the Chaos Marines actually present.

Also, for the love of god, please either fix the Leadership system or remove it entirely so Night Lords can get something better than a footnote.

Ah yes, a giant list of the things that made me take a look at HH, realize that it's just a better game and does the 8th Legion's rules infinitely better than 9th edition 40k, and therefore run straight into its welcoming arms.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Ah yes, a giant list of the things that made me take a look at HH, realize that it's just a better game and does the 8th Legion's rules infinitely better than 9th edition 40k, and therefore run straight into its welcoming arms.

Lord same.

"You mean I can take my Chaos Lord... I mean Praetor on a... jetbike? OR a jump pack? OR a regular bike? And I can give them any combination of weapons I want? AND I CAN MAKE HIS BODYGUARD JUST AS CUSTOMIZABLE???"

Yeah I'm doing Traitor Raven Guard and having a blast.

Raven Guard, eh? I'd have thought that you'd stick to the 8th, considering that we've been given the best ruleset that the Legion has ever had (even better than 3.5, IMHO). But hey, you do you. Hope you have lots of fun!

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Raven Guard, eh? I'd have thought that you'd stick to the 8th, considering that we've been given the best ruleset that the Legion has ever had (even better than 3.5, IMHO). But hey, you do you. Hope you have lots of fun!

Gotta shake it up or I get bored with the painting. I'll still build a Chaos Marines Night Lords army (and wait to fill out the rest of it for when bikers get updated) but then other factions I like to branch out.

Especially with 30k, Raven Guard are just so easy to paint, so doing 30-50 marines in the same mark of armor is a cinch.

I agree with a lot of the things that you point out needing to be fixed- I don't like load out limits any more than anyone else, and I think Chaos, being... well... CHAOTIC, actually have a better excuse than most for lots and lots of load out options.

But your post uses the concept of "consistency" pretty frequently. Sorry to be TFG and unpack semantics, but the concept of consistency is incompatible with chaos.

Consistency, as a concept, is derived from ORDER... as in the opposite of chaos.

Again, semantics, and sorry.

I don't think that the rhino chasis/ Land Raider look terribly out of place with the aesthetic of the army, and I actually worry about those being replaced by STOOPID hover tanks. Way rather stick with status quo than go down that rabbit hole.

Oh, and by the way, the missing jump-pack Cannoness which has NEVER had a model and has been universally begged for by every sisters player since the dawn of 8th says hi to your missing jump options in Chaos.

Semantics?

Semantically you are wrong penitent, because chaos in 40k =\= chaos in normal use of language.

And Jump Canoness' and Jump Chaos Lords aren't really in the same boat. As Jump Pack equipped Chaos Characters have been around since RT.......

They gotta sell those Haarkan models somehow!

EviscerationPlague wrote:
They gotta sell those Haarkan models somehow!

By removing the datasheet that is usefull for all of the faction demographic using that model as a conversion base to solely be a BL special charachter nobody?

....



I mean it' s so stupid it might indeed be gw's csm rulewriters thought Process.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
They gotta sell those Haarkan models somehow!

Haarkan is Black Legion. Do they have no interest in the money of the players of other Legions?

Not Online!!! wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
They gotta sell those Haarkan models somehow!

By removing the datasheet that is usefull for all of the faction demographic using that model as a conversion base to solely be a BL special charachter nobody?

....



I mean it' s so stupid it might indeed be gw's csm rulewriters thought Process.

Characters are $30. If you want a flying character too bad, pay $30!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
They gotta sell those Haarkan models somehow!

Haarkan is Black Legion. Do they have no interest in the money of the players of other Legions?

Obviously not, but did you really need to be told that explicitly.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
They gotta sell those Haarkan models somehow!

Haarkan is Black Legion. Do they have no interest in the money of the players of other Legions?

what other legions? You'll play Black legion and enjoy it, damnit

Or buy codices that have been flanderised too hell and warp.

.. WE, DG and TS.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
They gotta sell those Haarkan models somehow!

Haarkan is Black Legion. Do they have no interest in the money of the players of other Legions?

Obviously not, but did you really need to be told that explicitly.

Mmmm......honestly? The only message that I got from the 9th edition CSM codex was: "Go play HH instead", as detailed above.

And Haarkan still sucks, even for Black Legion.... ...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
They gotta sell those Haarkan models somehow!

Haarkan is Black Legion. Do they have no interest in the money of the players of other Legions?

what other legions? You'll play Black legion and enjoy it, damnit

That has been the message for the last (now ) 16 years. But again, HH......

Well, from my perspective Chaos Marines have been going sideways since 1998. The first actual Chaos Codex had a very different feel from the Imperial Marines - less vehicles, less technology, and a reliance on demons to carry the day.

So on behalf of all old-timers, it's been downhill ever since.

"Downhill" since 2007, actually. And with a serious "uptick", recently. At least as long as you're playing by the right rules.

As long as we can all agree that the state of Chaos Space Marines is weird and frustrating and sometimes really discouraging.

Doubt GW will figure it out any time soon. Doubt GW will get the message. I've sent e-mails before about all of the above, but even in making huge campaigns where chaos is ascendant, they can't figure out how to make that translate to the tabletop properly.

How's this for GW's Chaosisity- If you take Emp's Children and take 10 Legionaires with bolters and Chainswords give them the mark of Slaanesh and a plasma pistol to the champ it cost 195 pts.

Now take a unit of 10 Noise Marines give them bolters and chainswords and the champ a plasma pistol the cost is 215 points.

They have the same designation (Troops) and the exact same stat lines and weapon profiles. How do you think GW justifies the 20 point difference?

Daemonkin not being able to get Marks of Chaos is absolutely baffling, since if any units should be able to get marks, it's them. Also, not allowing Cult Marines to get access to Legion traits strikes me as needlessly punitive.

Chaos needs a proper re-work, rules and Codex wise.

For a start? Where are the hordes of mortals? Those Lost and the Damned, the Slaves to Darkness.

Powerful as CSM undoubtedly are, it’s the cults which are the greatest danger, as they spring up anywhere, and all but impossible to permanently erase or suppress.

The pirates, the renegades, the cultists, the mutants. They exist aplenty in the background, but barely represented in the rules.

Chaos forces needn’t be particularly regimented. I mean, the clue is in the name. It should be chaotic. A hodge podge of forces. Mortals, post-humans, Daemons. A cavalcade of entropy and anarchy, with no two forces ever being quite the same.

If we look to the Legion themed Codecies, we’re kind of almost there - but still quite far away.

If you want to lean into a particular Traitor Legion, I think it’s right and proper they shouldn’t simply be Standard Chaos Marines But Better At This Thing. Excel in one area, but having stuff excluded kind of makes sense.

But allow Chaos players to blend the various forces. Use a unique FOC if absolutely necessary.

Will some folk seek to abuse such a smorgasbord of choice? Oh I’m certain they will. People abused the VDR rules. People abused Imperial Soup. Some folk are just poor sports whose obsession with victory is placed before the game actually being a fun social meeting of two nerds.

But we can’t restrict ourselves to the hypothetical, if likely, misbehaviour of a minority. Not when the price of doing so results in one dimensional gimmick forces over folk being able to field riotous collections of Whatever They Consider Chaos To Be.

Chaos forces are held together by characterful and charismatic warlords. Their forces are reflections of their personalities and passions. But Chaos as it stands right now is entirely perversely completely devoid of personality and passion.

...
I agree on most accounts Mad Doc. Obviously.
But Chaos mortals are not just cults and insane people.
Chaos , again in the 40k sense isn't just chaos as normal language use would dictate.

You have armies and empires like the Blood Pact and the sons of sek, which were highly regimented and standardised forces.
You had the vraksian militia which very much had a PDF organisation at' it's core even in the last days of the siege.

Just as much as you have the Mutant supremacy cult that is the Pale throng which is unorganised and basically "merely" anti-imperium.

What you'd need is a codex full of datasheets which are customisable...
Something that quite recently still existed.

One way, though I think it would need a change to unit rules (my rules knowledge these days is non-existent)?

Different levels of Champion for squads.

From Aspiring to Big Bob O’Blimey level.

There’s your Biker Lord, or Jump Pack Lord. See them lead their best buddies of the Long War, who share his passion for his chosen mount (including Daemonic Mounts, dammit!)

Really break the usual 40K mould. Show a war party is by no means a single, unified force. It can be, no argument there. But it can also be comprised of much smaller warbands, brought together for one mission or campaign.

For “mere” mortals? If you just want what are essentially Spiky Guardsmen? No problemo. But not at the exclusion of poorly equipped, barely if at all trained civvies gone insane, but they found a rusty Stub Gun, and worked out a weekly schedule for sharing it.

Put. It. All. In. All of it. I want a glorious, mind boggling embarrassment of options. I want it to be closer to that magnificent Imperial Armour volume. The one where the only way to remain sane was to consider “what sort of Chaos force is in my head”, and self-restrict to have it reflected in your army.

If that leads to super math hammered no-fun lists turning up? Who cares. The person running that was likely never gonna be fun to play against in the first place, some folk are just wired that way.

CSM needs the following to be remotely of interest to me as a Codex again:
- The 1/4 rule from AoS with regards to the God-Marked Codexes. Make them unaffected by Legion Traits to represent outsiders to the normal Warband structure.
- The removal of the dumb Cultist restrictions, just don't give them Obsec so they don't overtake actual CSM as the premier Troop unit again.
- Stick the basic Daemons in the book, Prince and the 4 Troops (6 if we count the splitting off for Horrors). Anything more should be an Allied Detachment IMO to represent a pact with a Daemonic Legion rather than just summoning weaker Daemons.
- Put the 4 OG Marked units back in. It was stupid to take them out.
- Custom Warband Traits. Such a pathetic exclusion from this dex when nearly every other army in the game has them.
- Everything can take Marks. Again, stupid that this isn't a thing.

For the God-Marked books:
- 1/4 units can be from the Daemon Codex and have to be aligned with the same God i.e. World Eaters and Khorne, to represent the more "enlightened" nature these forces have in relation to their patron God.
- Get some extra units in there that fit with the general theme of each army. World Eaters should have Raptors and Bikes while Death Guard should absolutely have Havocs and Obliterators. I mean the latter is literally made from a Virus.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
One way, though I think it would need a change to unit rules (my rules knowledge these days is non-existent)?

Different levels of Champion for squads.

From Aspiring to Big Bob O’Blimey level.

There’s your Biker Lord, or Jump Pack Lord. See them lead their best buddies of the Long War, who share his passion for his chosen mount (including Daemonic Mounts, dammit!)

Really break the usual 40K mould. Show a war party is by no means a single, unified force. It can be, no argument there. But it can also be comprised of much smaller warbands, brought together for one mission or campaign.

For “mere” mortals? If you just want what are essentially Spiky Guardsmen? No problemo. But not at the exclusion of poorly equipped, barely if at all trained civvies gone insane, but they found a rusty Stub Gun, and worked out a weekly schedule for sharing it.

Put. It. All. In. All of it. I want a glorious, mind boggling embarrassment of options. I want it to be closer to that magnificent Imperial Armour volume. The one where the only way to remain sane was to consider “what sort of Chaos force is in my head”, and self-restrict to have it reflected in your army.

If that leads to super math hammered no-fun lists turning up? Who cares. The person running that was likely never gonna be fun to play against in the first place, some folk are just wired that way.

I mean an optimised list can be fun. And in a competition lists should be.

A theme list that is optimised can be more fun.
A full on theme dedicated army though in the vein you could do with IA13... from dark mech tech thralls and twisted machines, too the unwashed hordes... now those were the days..

I miss IA13. I missed it so badly that i went and bought the 30k book with solar auxilia rules to relieve atleast partially that customisability and am patiently waiting for the miltia and cults PDF from gw.
Atleast there we can get some of the glory days back...
There we also got tanks that still have floor plates in their kit aswell...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
One way, though I think it would need a change to unit rules (my rules knowledge these days is non-existent)?

Different levels of Champion for squads.

From Aspiring to Big Bob O’Blimey level.

There’s your Biker Lord, or Jump Pack Lord. See them lead their best buddies of the Long War, who share his passion for his chosen mount (including Daemonic Mounts, dammit!)

Really break the usual 40K mould. Show a war party is by no means a single, unified force. It can be, no argument there. But it can also be comprised of much smaller warbands, brought together for one mission or campaign.

For “mere” mortals? If you just want what are essentially Spiky Guardsmen? No problemo. But not at the exclusion of poorly equipped, barely if at all trained civvies gone insane, but they found a rusty Stub Gun, and worked out a weekly schedule for sharing it.

Put. It. All. In. All of it. I want a glorious, mind boggling embarrassment of options. I want it to be closer to that magnificent Imperial Armour volume. The one where the only way to remain sane was to consider “what sort of Chaos force is in my head”, and self-restrict to have it reflected in your army.

If that leads to super math hammered no-fun lists turning up? Who cares. The person running that was likely never gonna be fun to play against in the first place, some folk are just wired that way.

Looks like you're aiming for something like WHFB 5th edition 'Realm of Chaos' box set / system where you built your army by selecting heroes/champions and adding their personal retinues, which could range from a single blob of skirmishers for the lowest-level dudes to entire armies for extremely powerful chaos lords. No idea how you'd begin to make that conform to todays army selection, detachment and force organization system - or if you'd even need to. It might work if you'd make a distinction between chaos forces with 'agency' that form an active part of e.g. an incursion, i.e. Legionnaries, Cult Forces and so on, and hanger-ons like cultists, spawn, beasts and such that are not in allegiance to any specific lord but follow the army.

No, he is pretty much aiming for the mortal part of chaos for the Renegades & Heretics list within IA13 (or it's equivalent in 30k the Militia & Cults).

Now that was a list that was awesome. Fun fact it counted as CSM in regards to allies and treated CSM as battle brothers during 6th and 7th and whilest these editions were horrific due to GW having 0 self controll left cue formations... it was still awesome enough.

That list had a "trait" like system tied to it's HQ choice which was highly customisable and made the core list units even more customisable.
Marks unlocked units and options and the "demagogue devotions" did (the equivalent of traits nowadays)

Does every army have to use the same force selection rules though? Not having a pop at you, but I feel that needn’t be the case.

And yes. That era of WHFB was great.

For those who missed such glory, WHFB Chaos armies had unique army selection rules.

First, you chose a character. You could equip them more or less as you wished, including mounts, weapons, magic items etc. You then selected a retinue (probably not the correct term) which had to be of at least the same points value.

So you could, for a 2,000 point game have just the one super hard Lord of 1,000 points. Or, you could take four less individually potent characters of up to 250 points each. Provided each character had its obligatory retinue, you were good to go.

For 40K I propose simply that unit leaders not be solely restricted to one option. No need for “if you spent X on that model, you must spend X on their unit”.

You wanna get really wild and unwieldy? Tie unit weapon upgrades to the Unit Leader’s level.

For instance, Aspiring Eric allows a standard two picks for his dudes. But aforementioned Big Bob O’Blimey? They can have more picks, because when Big Bob O’Blimey and his Boys want your fancy gun, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Does every army have to use the same force selection rules though? Not having a pop at you, but I feel that needn’t be the case.

If we take into account that that whole force-org stuff has been watered down to the point that it barely even matters anymore outside of the weirdest edge cases imaginable and everybody that could be reasonably hindered by it got a special rule to avoid that anyway, i have absolutely no problem with alternative org systems or even a return to a very basic Core-Special-Support system or something like that It mostly matters for tournament play anyway, in more friendly or fluff-based groups it barely ever becomes a problem.

drbored wrote:
So why is it that, out of all the factions in Warhammer 40k, Chaos Marines feel so inconsistent, both in models and in rules?

Because at one time or another they have been given access to just about everything under the sun, whether or not there was a model for it, and because they tend to get more releases than most inbetween the big rebuilds (like the current guard change).

Aside from the flagship marines (who get new models by the bucketload) pretty much every other faction is locked into a relatively tight selection of gear - they still have stuff go missing but had less to lose to begin with.