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There is no more fluff.

Old fluff is dead. Uber-power lists are the new fluff.

Do orks even have clans anymore? I know that they don't have madboys anymore. Why do demons have their own codex? Why does the space marine codex let you take any special character, paint him any way you want, with any painted (or even unpainted) space marine army, even "call" him a different name, but still use the SC rules?
If you want to play a game with fluff, I believe 2nd edition had some to spare(plus corresponding WDs).

And since you clearly stated that it was a rant in your opening post, rant away. I too miss playing my Death Guard and Iron Warriors armies, but they just don't exist anymore under the new codex.

Jayden63 wrote:The issue is age. Anyone of us who had a Chaos army prior to the newest codex see the newest codex as an abomination and total betrayal of what Chaos used to be.

Not so. Some of us go back to RoC: LatD and we find the new CSM to be just fine going back to the roots in the 40k3 Rulebook and initial 40k3 Codex.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I think it all comes down to self justification.

It doesn't have to. I'm not planning on a single Lash, nor Obliterator. I'm planning on Dread, 7-strong PM, along with 6-strong NM and 8-strong KBs backed by generic "counts as" Daemons.
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FoxPhoenix135 wrote:Now you get these bland generic demons that suck. That is a tragedy, in my opinion.

Not if you're a MoCU player like me. Not having to sign up with one (or more) of the Greater Powers to field Daemons is a great advantage in theme.
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Perturabo's Chosen wrote:Why do demons have their own codex?

Because the Chaos players complained that SM had so many Codices and they had only one, so GW split Chaos up in 40k following the WFB Mortals / Beasts / Daemons.

I'm still right Fraz.

Wow that's a nice question i can tel i loled hard.

ph34r wrote:

Polonius wrote:The only problem I have with this sort of thinking is that it treats Chaos differently than every other army. If you want to mix Harliquins with Dire Avengers, nobody thinks you're desecrating fluff. If you take lootas and trukk boys, Conscripts and Stormtroopers, or Scouts and Sternguard, nobody gives you a hard time about not playing the fluff. Feel like playing with an 8 man devestator squad? No problem. Want to field an IG army without a commissar? Who cares?

Mix two chaos gods, though, and it's a problem.

Sure, if they're taking a top notch POD list that's tweaked to stomp all comers, than the list is a tough one that's built to win. But not all combinations like that are that powerful, and I for one am not going to hold Chaos players to any standard more stringent than I hold anybody else.

The thing is, there are pages and books of fluff on how and which gods hate each other. There is no intense hatred between trukk boys and lootas, or harlequins and dire avengers, or scouts and sternguard.

Ahhh, you're talking about the past, during which there were also pages and pages of rules so that a Khorne heavy force didn't need help from slaanesh to compete. Now that the codex is designed for every cult to be includable in any given army, that fluff has gone.

My point with the other examples is that we don't hold other armies to old fashioned and frankly arbitrary fluff restrictions. Eldrad leads what are clearly Biel Tan mechanized aspect warrior armies. Half the space marine armies out there are built around any unit other than tactical squads. They're not exactly pilloried (well, the eldrad thing was pretty nasty for a while).

In short: the animosity of the gods was a fluff rule that was represented as a codex rule, but it was balanced by advantages given to single god lists. Both of those things are absent in 5th, and holding chaos players to any different standard is unfair. Now, if you're a fluff bunny that likes to play totally in the theme, than feel free to ask your opponent to follow those fluff rules, but you'd better have your own stuff in a freaking line.

Polonius wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I think it all comes down to self justification.

If your justification is that you wanted to write an extremely competitive and high powered list, then fair enough. It's a justification as valid as my own, but I don't think we'd necessarily enjoy a game against each other.

But just be honest about it. Don't go picking what others might call a beardy list, and then make up a tenuous 'theme' for it. Be proud if your competitive. Nothing wrong with it. There is a time and a place for all of it.

The only problem I have with this sort of thinking is that it treats Chaos differently than every other army. If you want to mix Harliquins with Dire Avengers, nobody thinks you're desecrating fluff. If you take lootas and trukk boys, Conscripts and Stormtroopers, or Scouts and Sternguard, nobody gives you a hard time about not playing the fluff. Feel like playing with an 8 man devestator squad? No problem. Want to field an IG army without a commissar? Who cares?

Mix two chaos gods, though, and it's a problem.

Sure, if they're taking a top notch POD list that's tweaked to stomp all comers, than the list is a tough one that's built to win. But not all combinations like that are that powerful, and I for one am not going to hold Chaos players to any standard more stringent than I hold anybody else.

Like all things, double standards are indeed rife.

However, the point I was trying to make was that it's entirely down to each player to self justify. Me, I prefer to keep the fluff in mind when designing a list, but I don't always let it limit me. For example, I have an entirely Savage Orc army for Fantasy. 2,000 points of turbo nutters. Including Big'Uns as a seperate unit, I make use of precisely 4 different units, and 2 types of character. Now this fine up to my current points, but beyond that gets very, very boring, and throws most chances of winning it's game.

Similarly, if I played Marines, I would have at least 3 full strength Tactical Squads as the backbone. But if someone else chooses to go min/max then fair play to them. I just won't play them but I'm sure many would.

Also the double standard comes mainly from Chaos players holding themselves to certain values rather than non-Chaos players.

I agree 800% with Polonius.

Back in the day it seemed like balanced, mixed lists were the norm (2nd ed, the gamestore that I played at being my only exposure to the game), and when someone wanted to make a "themed" list (mono-god, all aspect warriors, whatever) they did it for the "cool factor" and not because they had any specific bonuses for doing it.

Nowadays, it seems like many on the internet (thank goodness not in my local gaming community) expect all chaos lists to be single-god, or you're an utter cheddar-monger playing only to win and you're not doing it right.

I have a couple of problems with that idea.

As Polonius has mentioned, gamers often hold Chaos to a different standard than other lists. I think this is likely because of their very iconic place in the fluff. At a tourney one time, I was playing my Black Legion, but was using only Khorne-Marked, or Undivided-marked units (3.5 ed codex). I think I lost comp points against every player I was matched against, despite following all of the rules for army creation, and even following the fluff for the Black Legion in the codex: the book said that the main army list was representative of Black Legion forces... ergo I could take anything in the book I damned well pleased. One player complained that I "had all the benefits of a World Eaters list but none of the penalties." I thought that was funny because I sure didn't get the free aspiring champions or +1 summoning rolls, and I sure DID get troops that ran after rhinos instead of fighting things.

Secondly: there's nothing wrong with taking powerful units. It may be a design flaw of the Chaos Codex that there are so few units which are obviously good, and also that since you can't cover your metagame bases (anti-transport, multi-meltas, anti-infantry) with any FoC slot like Loyalists can Obliterators are the obvious choice because of their versatility. Since regular CSM are actually subject to running-the-F-away, and sturdy troops are the way to win objective-based missions, Plague Marines become obvious, and because chaos doesn't have fast transports, drop pods, good bikers, or any of the other ways that other armies gain initiative (meaning, being able to choose when to shoot and assault) or mobility, Lash is such an obvious way to shore up that weakness. People don't hate on other armies nearly so much for "taking the good stuff" as they do on Chaos.

I think that some people just won't be happy until there are 5 pre-written lists for Chaos: Nurgle, Slaanesh, Khorne, Tzeentch, and Undivided, and they all suck.

Remember: when you fight for Chaos, there are no prizes for conformity. Do what you want, not what others tell you is "appropriate."

JohnHwangDD wrote:Not so. Some of us go back to RoC: LatD and we find the new CSM to be just fine going back to the roots in the 40k3 Rulebook and initial 40k3 Codex.

The roots are 40K 2nd edition or earlier, not the crap that was put out for ALL armies at the start of 3rd edition. The initial run of codeces were aweful by almost all standards. That is why most of them were starting to get redone or updated with WD chapter approved near the end of 3rd edition.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Not if you're a MoCU player like me. Not having to sign up with one (or more) of the Greater Powers to field Daemons is a great advantage in theme.

Except for 2nd edition and maybe prior, you can summon any demon using an Undivided character/mark/icon. You do not have to have god specific troops in order to use demons. However, you do have to pick which demons you want to use, but you had FOUR choices of demons with differing abilities and points costs. If you had to have a generic demon, you could use furies, which were available in the 3.5 codex. Now players are stuck with ONE generic demon, ONE.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Because the Chaos players complained that SM had so many Codices and they had only one, so GW split Chaos up in 40k following the WFB Mortals / Beasts / Daemons.

Chaos players wanted the armies split into god specific codeces, not unit type codices. The equivalent would be removing all Land Raiders, Terminators and Dreadnaughts and making that one army, while the putting everything else in another codex and calling that SM. Chaos players wanted once codex for each god, such as.

Undivided -> Ultramarines
Khorne -> Blood Angels
Nurgle -> Dark Angels
Slaanesh -> Black Templars
Tzeentch -> Space Wolves

Techboss wrote:Chaos players wanted the armies split into god specific codeces, not unit type codices. The equivalent would be removing all Land Raiders, Terminators and Dreadnaughts and making that one army, while the putting everything else in another codex and calling that SM. Chaos players wanted once codex for each god, such as.

Undivided -> Ultramarines
Khorne -> Blood Angels
Nurgle -> Dark Angels
Slaanesh -> Black Templars
Tzeentch -> Space Wolves

And why not? Why is it that SM players feel the need to get all loud about having their 5 different codices, but why not just release all the requisite material into a single codex so that people stop getting all uppity about it?

Is it so wrong to ask for a complete product in terms of flavor and fluff?

Space marines are space marines are space marines. Powered armor and serving the emperor should about cover that aspect of it, plain and simple, let the codex actually have what you need to play in one place. Is it really that difficult?

I agree Dronze. But tell that to SMs who are downright convinced that their light blue space mariens play wholly differently from their red or green spacehams.

They'll try to convince you that it's as different as playing Eldar and Nids.

I agree with Willy D style....

Seriously... fluff changes. Orks used to be a shooting based army back in the day (way back!) then in 3rd they changed to Close combat....

How about we stick to the fluff and penalize anyone that takes marines? there are only supposed to be sooooo many of them right? therefore everyone takes marines so they all should be punished!

Hordini wrote:"Sergeant Cadmus knew in the depths of his pounding double heart that he would always stand behind his battle brothers. The support provided by his hot, pulsing plasma cannon had proved crucial in previous battles. This struggle would be no different."

sigged

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Not all Bezerkers are World Eaters, but all World Eaters are Bezerkers, the rest having left the Legion to found their own forces, complete with new name, and so on through the various Legions. Except as HBMC correctly pointed out for Thousand Sons, seeing as it's a tad tricky to get more of them.

And all Death Guard are Plague Marines. Only the EC couldn't decide if everyone was going to be in a band or not.

As far as 1ksons, why not a lesser form of the rubric?

In response to the OP without going through all the pages here I can only say this at the risk of repeating what may already have been said:

1. It's a game set in a made up universe in the far future. Nothing is set in stone.

2. You're talking about Chaos in this made up universe. Chaos means anything is possible.

Relapse wrote:Chaos means anything is possible.

Except Legion armies and non-Generic Daemons in Chaos Marine armies.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Relapse wrote:Chaos means anything is possible.

Except Legion armies and non-Generic Daemons in Chaos Marine armies.

Score!!! H.B.M.C!....In all seriousness Daemons as represented in the current codex(CSM) are just sad,daemons that cant have daemon wepons..Wha!!??
it's just..silly.
And,while I am happy with my Death Guard,it's obviously a cobbled army having to use the current dex.

Polonius wrote:It's long standing fluff that's utterly lacking in the new codex, and they also in no way built the new chaos book for mono-god armies to be remotely complete.

I have every Chaos codex printed and it is NOT 'long-standing fluff'. It was mentioned in the original Realms of Chaos books, but not enforced as a rule. And pretty much absent from each following book.

The usual studio armies always mixed their gods.

And besides this is CHAOS, it always struck me as odd that insane, drooling worshipers of mad gods would somehow be even more intollerant than the Imperium.

1. Is it noted at all in the Renegades (er Chaos Marine) Codex? If you're starting point is that codex then this whole argument is utterly alien to you.

2. The new Demon Codex notes the Big Four fight it out all the time. However, it also notes in direct fluff an utter mixed bag of demons going into the ampitheatre thing and dropping into battle. Thats pretty much official sanction of a mixed force.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:And pretty much absent from each following book.

It's been as long a standing fluff as I can remember. 2nd Ed Chaos Codex had animosity tests for opposed daemons that got too near to one another.

And it's not mixing Gods that is the problem, it's mixing the wrong Gods. You want a Tzeentchian lord leading a Khornate Legion? Cool. Just don't have a Slaaneshi Lord leading a Khornate Legion, or a Nurgle Guy trying to tell Tzeentchians what to do.

HB, you're always talking about having options for people in codices. You also like talking about fluff != rules. You acknowledge that fluff changes to suit GW's marketing whims.

Yet you say you don't want slaanesh-khorne or nurgle-tzeentch armies. Wut. Seriously, wut?

stonefox wrote:HB, you're always talking about having options for people in codices. You also like talking about fluff != rules. You acknowledge that fluff changes to suit GW's marketing whims.

Yet you say you don't want slaanesh-khorne or nurgle-tzeentch armies. Wut. Seriously, wut?

Yet another example of players holding Chaos to a different, and more restrictive standard than other armies.

willydstyle wrote:

stonefox wrote:HB, you're always talking about having options for people in codices. You also like talking about fluff != rules. You acknowledge that fluff changes to suit GW's marketing whims.

Yet you say you don't want slaanesh-khorne or nurgle-tzeentch armies. Wut. Seriously, wut?

Yet another example of players holding Chaos to a different, and more restrictive standard than other armies.

Arbitrary Restrictions are Arbitrary.

Dronze wrote:
And why not? Why is it that SM players feel the need to get all loud about having their 5 different codices, but why not just release all the requisite material into a single codex so that people stop getting all uppity about it?

Is it so wrong to ask for a complete product in terms of flavor and fluff?

Space marines are space marines are space marines. Powered armor and serving the emperor should about cover that aspect of it, plain and simple, let the codex actually have what you need to play in one place. Is it really that difficult?

This. I like my ultras, but I never understood how different colors = new army. What? Isn't UM, DA, BA, SW, BT, etc. just a theme and comp choices (IE BA take lots of assault troops/azcanz, DAs take lots of plasma, SW don't like jump troops but do like fighty squads with tooled characters, BTs like a command squad with banner and champ + cc scouts, etc.)? Heck, I thought the old trait system was a great way to reflect changes from the standard. But I guess GW won't sell as many codex that way.

Depends how you look at it.

Space Marines are far and away GW's biggest seller. So how dull would gaming be if all the armies came from a single Codex. At least with variants, you have a touch more variety, however tenuous you might feel the differences between them to be.

Now, Dark Angels I could agree with you on. Barring their Special characters and the options they open up, the differences are more or less cosmetic. But, Black Templars and Space Wolves have more pronounced differences. BT have mixed squads and the vows, plus their fetish for HTH. This is a fair difference from normal SM. Same with Space Wolves. The differences between these two are fairly slim (well, for the moment until the Wolves get their own book).

And rumour still is that their will be cult Codecies released at some point.

Redbeard wrote:Yup, the fluff has changed. Read the new codexes before making judgements of other's forces...

That entirely depends on -which- fluff you mean.. if you limit yourself to just the codex, but GW's extended their fluff sources considerably, with their fiction line and the rivalry between the powers is still present there...

As for making judgements, I say go ahead.. if someone's gone and dug though the old books and thought out the theme of his army and in correspondance too the old fluff, sure as heck I'll look up to them more than somone who's just min maxed through the rulebook before making their army. You -have- to follow the rules, following the fluff is optional, but if you do so,you'll get browine points..

Lanceradvanced wrote:

Redbeard wrote:Yup, the fluff has changed. Read the new codexes before making judgements of other's forces...

That entirely depends on -which- fluff you mean.. if you limit yourself to just the codex, but GW's extended their fluff sources considerably, with their fiction line and the rivalry between the powers is still present there...

In the fiction line a Guardsman can kill terminators and dreadnoughts.

Lanceradvanced wrote:
As for making judgements, I say go ahead.. if someone's gone and dug though the old books and thought out the theme of his army and in correspondance too the old fluff, sure as heck I'll look up to them more than somone who's just min maxed through the rulebook before making their army. You -have- to follow the rules, following the fluff is optional, but if you do so,you'll get browine points..

I'm curious, but what did you think of the 9-oblit + bassie iron warriors and rhino rush blood angels lists?

I'm glad this article was brought to my attention, I've never come across any one who took offense at combining chaos powers, so was unaware that there was any kind of issue there!

I've always been keen on fluffy, in fact it used to be that I would refuse to play an army unless I could write a story of at least 3000 words that made sense and kept the reader interested. The WAAC way of playing revolts me, as it should any true war-games player, that's why so many tournaments have scores for army themes as well as wins/losses.

If I went against this fellow you and he gave me a bad score for army composition (because I had a non-fluffy army), I'd give him a low score for sportsmanship, because he has a very closed mind to what is and isn't, fluffy. The idea of war games is to follow the fluff, but not to follow it like it's godamn law, be creative, make strange army lists, if we all followed the specific given text to the letter, everyone would have pretty much the same armies, games would be boring to say the least!

And if that's not enough for you, check a lot of the recent fluff that's been out, and how often it clashes with past fluff! Don't hate the hobbyist, hate the hobby! You can blame foolish people for only ready most of the current fluff and not having a comprehensive knowledge of all past and present data on their specific army, but all your doing is ruining a perfectly fun game by limiting it's potential creativity. If some guy want's to put Khorne warriors in the same army as a Tzeentch Sorcerer because he thinks his army needs bloody warriors and scheming cultists, then let him, it's classic D&D style flavor, just because it doesn't fit some of the GW specific text doesn't mean it makes the guy a WAAC player, or some other lesser form of hobbyist!

I mean seriously, post up your 'perfect' army lists so I can have the opportunity of tearing it apart, how some certain trooper shouldn't have a heavy weapon, or carry a power fist, or how an army of that size should have more fast attack or less elites!

I hate to flame, but the fluff nazi is the lowest form of gamer, I'd rather face a WAAC player for a challenge in strategy and intense gaming than play some guy who says he depises me for having an army that isn't cookie cutter!

Perturabo's Chosen wrote:Why does the space marine codex let you take any special character, paint him any way you want, with any painted (or even unpainted) space marine army, even "call" him a different name, but still use the SC rules?

I'm one of those people, but that's because I started with the 4th ed. SM codex that had specific rules for Divergent Chapters. I'm a big fan of customization and creative creation. It's what drew me to 40k to begin with. When the new codex was released, it killed my Torch Bearers (had the Cleanse & Purify and Purity Above All rules). What did I do? I repainted my army as a Salamanders successor, using a counts-as He'stan. What of it? I also have a counts-as Khan since I wasn't happy with my Tac squads any more and wanted to try out a list that included bikes. The whole bloody thing is rife with meltas and flamers, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Not because of the rules, or because meltas are the new candy, but because I like fire. A lot.

My roommate plays chaos, and has every god but Nurgle present in his army. It's a great army, doesn't use Lash, and has an evolving fluff that's actually quite entertaining (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/235121.page). I'm actually starting my own chaos army that's going to be completely fluff-based - my own, mind you, not a traditional legion - and will probably lose every game.

I have no idea what the point of my post was. Maybe an illustration that it's all about WHY you play the game, not HOW. Or something.

stonefox wrote:You also like talking about fluff != rules. You acknowledge that fluff changes to suit GW's marketing whims.

Just because they don't doesn't mean they shouldn't.

GW does whatever takes their fancy in order to keep selling kits, hence the sudden invention of things like Sternguard or Land Speeder Storms and other things that didn't exist up until the most recent books. But there's no reason fluff cannot = rules.

Platuan4th wrote:Arbitrary Restrictions are Arbitrary

Except these are not, and have never been, arbitrary restrictions. An arbitrary restriction would be "Slaaneshi models cannot be taken in a Khorne-led." and that's it. No explanation as to why. But it's not, it's "Slaaneshi models cannot be taken in a Khorne-led army because of [extremely long fluff explanation]." It is the complete opposite of arbitrary - it's fully explained and justified.

willydstyle wrote:...Back in the day it seemed like balanced, mixed lists were the norm (2nd ed, the gamestore that I played at being my only exposure to the game), and when someone wanted to make a "themed" list (mono-god, all aspect warriors, whatever) they did it for the "cool factor" and not because they had any specific bonuses for doing it.

Nowadays, it seems like many on the internet (thank goodness not in my local gaming community) expect all chaos lists to be single-god, or you're an utter cheddar-monger playing only to win and you're not doing it right.

I have a couple of problems with that idea....

It's happened because Chaos Elites became troop choices. Explain to me why Deathguard, Berzerkers, Noise Marines and Thousand Sons are troops when Firedragons, Scorpions, Banshees, Dark Reapers and Swooping Hawks are not?

Of course it makes more sense to take fearless, FNP, blight grenades and T5 for 3 (I think) more points than regular Chaos Marines? Also Cult marines special powers don't magicly go away when the banner gets killed. It's a bad (poorly balanced) codex entry.

The Chaos dex is obviously written with a different permissive paradigm in mind, and there is a huge double standard in the game (from the player base and the creators' perspectives) caused by codexes witten in different contexts like this.