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JohnHwangDD wrote:If / when Cypher comes back, he'll have a global effect like a SM SC: All CSM with MoCU gain ATSKNF.

Otherwise, all good.

And yeah, more named Daemon Princes would be nice. Along with a Spawn.

Cypher, I don't think ATSKNF is an appropriate effect. Stuborn or a USR seems more appropriate. CSM to a degree represent loyalst who've gone renegade, they don't retain ATSKNF. Fallen Angels aren't as much that, they actually are the same marines from the time of the Hersey. Fallen Angels that much more removed from the loyalist; it seems a bit misplaced for them to get that rule. For the marine gone rogue concept, they could represent to some degree that more idealic embodiement of marine pirates or GW could always expand their fluff and go into how surviving Fallen Angels make a more active attempt to corrupt loyalist marines. My point is they can do more with Cypher.

A spawn spawner seems appropriate.

And that is why Cypher isn't in the current CSM book. He's a romantic character, not corrupted like the other CSM.

In modern analogy, is America evil if we fight against someone based on false information by our leader? If you ask a Democrat / Liberal, he'll say no, of course not - it's all Bush's / Blair's fault. In the same way, the Fallen themselves are largely blameless unless they deliberately chose Chaos on their own.

The Fallen Angels have *tremendous* potential for Fluff and discovery, being isolated individuals, whether they succumb to temptation on their own, or whether they seek out their brethren for a higher cause.

The problem is that this doesn't fit well with mass battle 40k, nor with Chaos Traitor themes, nor with SM Loyalists themes, so the Fallen are relegated to the dustbin of obscurity, along with the Sensei and other interesting concepts.

aka_mythos wrote:"Crushington" The Demolisher, ability to call for off table artillery, master of ordinance style.

Crushington should get the techmarine fortify defenses ability. He's a siege master right?

Also, I think Kharn should be an upgrade character for Berzerker Chosen rather than an HQ choice. It just seems to fit his character better.

Lol... "Crushington" wasn't meant to be a character name just a place holder. I get what you're saying.

I will say this its always confused me why being a "siege master" equates to being good at both demolishing fortifications and building them. I never thought they necessarily had to go hand in hand. Back in the day before any real description was written I just took the Imperial Fist and Iron Warrior's siege specialties were not necesarily identical concepts that each was a different side of the same coin.

aka_mythos wrote:Lol... "Crushington" wasn't meant to be a character name just a place holder. I get what you're saying.

I will say this its always confused me why being a "siege master" equates to being good at both demolishing fortifications and building them. I never thought they necessarily had to go hand in hand. Back in the day before any real description was written I just took the Imperial Fist and Iron Warrior's siege specialties were not necesarily identical concepts that each was a different side of the same coin.

it went with CSM too... thought i think ion the older fluff it was stated that the Iron Warriors could lay seige pretty well as well as survive one. I felt as though Alpha legion and even world eaters could be good siege-layers!

CSM squads get a 'sergent'.A muntant serg with a mutation that you choose.

I think there is an idea there... I don't think it needs to just be mutations. I think the real thing is that CSM should have some more "chaos" upgrades. Right now they're just wearing "I betrayed the Emperor and all I got was this T-shirt" upgrade.

Chosen should be more like Wolf Guard. They should be one of the most customizable units in the game. Not the crap we have currently.

During the Great Crusade I fought beside Horus, and the False Emperor before he turned against us. On Istvaan III I cut down my erstwhile brothers for their lack of vision. On Istvaan V I massacred the loyalist dogs as they fought to last man, cut off from all resupply, all reinforcement, and all hope. And on Terra I watched as Angron stormed the breach in the walls of the Imperial Palace to bathe in the blood of his foes. I am a veteran of 10,000 years of war and death on worlds of unspeakable nightmare. As a result I can infiltrate and use a meltagun.

No.

They're one of the most customizable units in the codex at least. We're still largely dealing with the Chaos equivalent of the Loyalist veterans fromt their previous codex. The loyalist veterans were replaced mostly by Sternguard giving them a power and price jump. Something similar should happen to Chaos' veteran marine squad.

One thing I've always thought is why is their a distinction between possessed and chosen? Both possessed and chosen are suppose to be (for lack of a better word) gifted of chaos and so why do they have to be two separate units? No one really likes the randomness of possessed and making their possession and mutation an upgrade for chosen give the chosen a more corrupted feel and the upgrade options to differentiate them from less gifted members of their army, while giving them the options they need to compete with similar tiers of elite units.

Chaos lords have to come from somewhere. Chosen should be thought of as the guys who each eventually try to strike it out on their own after attaining enough power. They be evil-er and more powerful as a result of their longer and greater exposure to chaos. Its like a whole squad of superhuman daemonically possessed proto-Hitlers.

Possessed are different, but rules-bad because they're not Chosen. GW just overdid it when nerfing them. Some SC out there should make Possessed Troops.

You don't need to get rid of possessed to improve Chosen in the way I described, I just think that a veteran CSM unit needs to move in the direction of having more abilities and options, but that those should be distinctly chaos and not just loyalist by a different name. I think Possessed need a complete overhaul, but their current rules can be used as something to improve the CSM Chosen squad. In the very least, let the chosen take even a single one of the possessed abilities as an upgrade.

Possessed should be alot scarrier than they are. Daemon prince is to Chaos Lord, what possessed should be to basic CSM, that really isn't the case. The basic cult units are more worth while than possessed. That makes me question why they're even an Elite choice when more basic units so drastically out shine them. Possessed should be a rending, fleeting, furious charging unit, let them cost more. Hell their daemonic give them feel-no-pain or an invulnerable save to. If thats too much or if GW still wants some sort of a random component, how about trimming back what I listed and giving them a random number of extra attacks. Without Daemons in our army any more, why not let what daemonic units are still around really shine?

I never said to get rid of them, only that they're deliberately worse than Chosen so as not to steal focus from Chosen Vets.

I said Possessed were over-nerfed, and agree they should be better. It's also why I said they should be available as Troops.

Instead of being a unit type "Possessed" really should have been a special rule. They should have made it work sort of like how greater daemon possession worked in the 3.5 codex, except instead of the daemon popping out and completely splattering your champion, you get a bunch of buffs (and possibly debuffs) that give you USRs and/or statline changes. In fact maybe you could even get to choose the type of possessing daemon (selected and purchased during list construction) and the effects (and pts cost) would be dependent on your choice. Your guy starts the game with his normal abilities and statline, but each turn you roll to see whether the daemon takes over (you can choose to resist or welcome the possession giving +1/-1 to the roll). So while there is still an element of randomness at play, it's not in the choice of abilities but in timing of their manifestation. After the daemon takes over, maybe you have to take mastery tests to control him or else run the risk of the possessing daemon going bonkers and maybe offing some of your own guys. If you want to make it really interesting, make is so that the more powerful the possessing daemon the more difficult the mastery test. The "Possessed" special rule could be purchased as an upgrade for Chosen, Aspiring Champions, and Chaos Lords.

Of course now that they have a plastic Possessed box set to sell, this approach is probably out of the question, though I guess you maybe could still have an actual "Possessed" unit, and just call the special rule "Daemonic Possession" so that people don't get confused. Possessed have the Daemonic Possession special rule as standard. Maybe they get to start the game with the daemons already manifest without having to roll.

I thought you were referring to their fluff-wise position. On that, I'd say chaos will keep growing until it dwarfs the imperium. Chaos is temptation incarnate,and people can't resist that.

I'll get to your actual question later ^.^

Given that Possessed have a box set, players should be able to buy:
- Flight / Scout / Rhino,
- Champion upgrades
- Icon

Fleet, Daemonic 5++ and Fearless should all be included.

Then roll a d3 before deployment for FNP / Furious / Rending.

Something like that. Unit becomes inherently good, fighty, and clearly usable.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:Chosen should be more like Wolf Guard. They should be one of the most customizable units in the game. Not the crap we have currently.

During the Great Crusade I fought beside Horus, and the False Emperor before he turned against us. On Istvaan III I cut down my erstwhile brothers for their lack of vision. On Istvaan V I massacred the loyalist dogs as they fought to last man, cut off from all resupply, all reinforcement, and all hope. And on Terra I watched as Angron stormed the breach in the walls of the Imperial Palace to bathe in the blood of his foes. I am a veteran of 10,000 years of war and death on worlds of unspeakable nightmare. As a result I can infiltrate and use a meltagun.

No.

HAhaHa,this made me laugh so hard.

Yeah,chosen are trash. They should be similar to the SM Command Squads. They need to be highly specified veterans that have good options and decent skills.

'Chaos Artificier Armor' would be cool too (as in,a daemon of your favorite god posesses your power armor,giving a respective bonus and a 2+ armor save) so that CSM could compare well to today's abundance of 2+ saves. I won't hold my breath though!

Some sort of S4 AP5 Assault2 weapon would be nice.Call it a chaos bolter or something,just give us them.

Thousand Sons need their own section of the codex. They are simply too diverse and can be elaborated greatly, they deserve better than what they have. McNeill left them relatively open ended,so making them more complicated shouldn't be too hard.

Daemon Primarchs for Apoc Games would be awesome, but I could see dudes like Mortarion being about 700 points,easily.

We need some sort of tank bonus system,ie:
Khorne- Gains assault vehicle rule,if it already has it,the models disembarking gain +1 attack -----50 pts.
Slaanesh-Assaults with the vehicle always hit front armor value -------55 pts
Nurgle- Enemy models within 3 inches of the vehicle must make a pinning test and a morale check -----75 pts
Tzeentch- Feel no pain for tanks;after the outcome on the chart has been rolled,roll a D6. If you roll a 4+,the result is ignored --90 pts



Raptors need to be able to take bolters. If you can take a meltagun,you can carry a bolter.

Chaos Dreadnoughts need to have the option to lose "crazed" for 30 points

Chaos Dreadnoughts need a "venerable" class,maybe in the form of a chosen chaos dreadnought,or a Dreadnought Psyker.

Well anyway,those are my thoughts,in no particular order

One of the things chaos could use is some sort of chaplain/icon/HQ ability to make a unit fearless. This would give players more options when deciding on a retinue/HQ escort.

Samus_aran115 wrote:...
Yeah,chosen are trash. They should be similar to the SM Command Squads. They need to be highly specified veterans that have good options and decent skills.

'Chaos Artificier Armor' would be cool too (as in,a daemon of your favorite god posesses your power armor,giving a respective bonus and a 2+ armor save) so that CSM could compare well to today's abundance of 2+ saves. I won't hold my breath though!

Some sort of S4 AP5 Assault2 weapon would be nice.Call it a chaos bolter or something,just give us them.

I think almost anything could be done to improve them. As they are, pretty much they're the troop CSM with a few more options and the ability to take more special weapons.

Storm bolters, is that what you're looking for?

Samus_aran115 wrote:
Thousand Sons need their own section of the codex. They are simply too diverse and can be elaborated greatly, they deserve better than what they have. McNeill left them relatively open ended,so making them more complicated shouldn't be too hard.

The other 3 cults are more diverse. I'm not saying TS don't deserve more just that they don't get to be singled out.

Samus_aran115 wrote:
We need some sort of tank bonus system,ie:
Khorne- Gains assault vehicle rule,if it already has it,the models disembarking gain +1 attack -----50 pts.
Slaanesh-Assaults with the vehicle always hit front armor value -------55 pts
Nurgle- Enemy models within 3 inches of the vehicle must make a pinning test and a morale check -----75 pts
Tzeentch- Feel no pain for tanks;after the outcome on the chart has been rolled,roll a D6. If you roll a 4+,the result is ignored --90 pts

Now it just sounds like you're trying to recreate the 4th edition codex. The codex doesn't need to be every single unit with 4 different special variations.

Samus_aran115 wrote:
Raptors need to be able to take bolters. If you can take a meltagun,you can carry a bolter.

They need more than that. They should be more than just generic jump troops. I hate drowning codices in special rules but they need to have something more.

Samus_aran115 wrote:
Chaos Dreadnoughts need to have the option to lose "crazed" for 30 points

Chaos Dreadnoughts need a "venerable" class,maybe in the form of a chosen chaos dreadnought,or a Dreadnought Psyker.

Well maybe they can be the same thing, where the "venerable" version loses the "crazed". I don't think chosen or venerable is really appropriate naming conventions. Dreadnoughts are used as a punishment by the CSM. So embracing the fact that they're more criminal or twisted than what normal CSM can accept; like where they were crazy before they went in, so it didn't mess them up any more.

Psyker dreadnoughts, I really don't know when GW changed the fluff... dreadnoughts were suppose to be so old, that the entombed marine was in a state of diminished capacity. Distant and disconnected. I'm not sure how that necessarily translates to the marine librarian/sorcerer being able to maintain mastery of the warp. I don't think these guys if they existed for chaos, would exist outside of a Thousand Sons option.

It is depressing how badly they raped Chaos for being overpowered, and now we live in a Sternguard/Vanguard/Thunderfire/Fast Everything/Thunderwolves ACTUALLY improve T/ Everything's Fleet/Twinlink X/ Flying Psyker Dred/ Mansizedmonstrouspsykerdeathcreature/ Deepstriking LR's right next to your AA autocannon mounts/ eleventy seven dreds/ relentless and furious charge/ 50 pt FNP and FC radius nonsense. I think a "hey, we made a mistake, use the old codex, but it is 0-1 of this, and you can't take this one thing with this other" update would be nice. I miss my khornate chainaxes and some veteran skills :( I still remember going through the codex like 4 times trying to find how I at least gave marks to my daemons.

The most galling thing about Chosen is that the Chosen Champion has no options for himself (unlike every other Champion). He just counts towards the number of people in the squad as a whole who can take special wargear. All you pay for with the Chosen Champ is +1A.

Lame (like most of that accursed 'Codex').

I think dreads need crazed removed because at the moment, a chaos dread with no right arm costs 90 points and a non crazy SM dread with an assault cannon is 105. What is that, a crazy dreadnaught with no assault cannon is worth a 15 points discount? The assault cannon alone is probably worth 15 points...

Seriously the next chaos book needs to be actually properly play tested on the table instead of rules being randomly written. More work should be spent on carving out a gameplay niche for chaos like the other specialised MEQ armies (DA, BA, BT, SW)

Also I would like to add that Chaos terminators should be able to achieve a 3++ armour save in the next book.

candy.man wrote:Seriously the next chaos book needs to be actually properly play tested on the table instead of rules being randomly written.

More work should be spent on carving out a gameplay niche for chaos like the other specialised MEQ armies (DA, BA, BT, SW)

Um, if you actually look at what GW considered core (CSM, Cult Marines, Defilers, Oblits), those units are very fair. The stuff that GW recognizes as non-core (Dreads, Possessed, Spawn) are deliberately overcosted. And along that spectrum are intermediate things like generic Daemons, Rhinos and Raptors. From a pure balance standpoint, GW did a very good job with the current CSM book.

Niche-wise, GW carved out CSM & Cult Marines - basically massed Specialist Veterans, if you will. Again, measured in terms of GW's internal design and balance goals, it's probably a pretty solid success.

In many ways, CSM are like Jervis' Epic 40k - very smooth, very clean, but fan-unfriendly to those who feel they need a lot of chrome.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Um, if you actually look at what GW considered core (CSM, Cult Marines, Defilers, Oblits), those units are very fair. The stuff that GW recognizes as non-core (Dreads, Possessed, Spawn) are deliberately overcosted. And along that spectrum are intermediate things like generic Daemons, Rhinos and Raptors. From a pure balance standpoint, GW did a very good job with the current CSM book.

Niche-wise, GW carved out CSM & Cult Marines - basically massed Specialist Veterans, if you will. Again, measured in terms of GW's internal design and balance goals, it's probably a pretty solid success.

In many ways, CSM are like Jervis' Epic 40k - very smooth, very clean, but fan-unfriendly to those who feel they need a lot of chrome.

Nice post but I respectfully disagree. One of the major flaws of the book is that they over analysed chaos' niche being cult troop spam and compared to what chaos gains versus what they loses in comparison to Codex Vanilla Marines, they come out short in terms of unit choice and point costs. They removed a large amount of upgrades and unit choices when counter balancing cult troops that the book is like a dry piece of bread with no condiments (can only be eaten one way, plain). All the upgrades they retain in the book are grossly over coasted as well but a small factor of this can also be attributed to codex creep.

The major flaw with Chaos is direction. It’s like they didn't know what direction to take, so they went with a quick and plain generic option and processed the book as quick as possible. When reading the book, you can see some areas with potential, but are grossly over coasted or gimped rule wise to be properly used, even when selecting a non optimised list. Most of these sorts of design flaws could have been caught with some more play testing.

All in all, the book might be remotely balanced but it grossly lacks direction and basic principles of interaction design. I suggest GW use some follow some interaction design principles when working on the next chaos project.

@candy.man: That's a fine counterpoint, but it misses the mark. C: CSM almost certainly meets all of the design goals it was supposed to. The fact that it fails to meet many veteran's wishes is completely beside the point.

Get over it.



BTW, if / when GW ever gets around to splitting Cult Legions off, at that point, CSM will have their direction back.

@JohnHwangDD
But the thing is that GW's design goals for what they intend Chaos to be is different from what the players expect. What if those goals are misguided? What if those goals were poorly planned or lacked research, player base testing and balance comparisons? Fulfilling goals does not necessarily mean the book completely fulfils its main objective. This is what planning and interaction design is all about. What Jervis or Gav Thorpe perceives may not be what the consumer wants.

Now this isn't coming from a person who is sitting in a crazy 3.5 dex cocoon but some who likes change and expects variety. Subjectively if you look at the dex compared to other books, there is so much creativity, strategy and variety missing. Creativity, strategy and variety are essentially the main factors of the 40k hobby. If we wanted a bland and plain hobby, we may as well play chess.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Also saying "get over it" isn't constructive to a discussion.

Off on another tangent i just realized: Is Chaos legions and warbands spend so much time in the warp or within warpstorms why don't they have any psy defences? You think they (if not only 1k sons) have some ability to null the enemies psi powers or prehaps force a perils test on them; at LEAST i think CSM should have a great resilience to anti psi defences if they are unable to negate any. Maybe they get to re roll things that negate thier powers like a psi hood or Runes of witnessing? Better yet they should be able to re roll their psi tests

JohnHwangDD wrote:The stuff that GW recognizes as non-core (Dreads, Possessed, Spawn) are deliberately overcosted.

...

From a pure balance standpoint, GW did a very good job with the current CSM book.

Say wha??? Is this some kind of bizarro proof by contradiction? Second statement does not follow from the first. Overcosted? And balanced? I don't think that word means what you think it means. I mean, I don't know if you realize this, but if something is overcosted then, it, you know, COSTS TOO MANY POINTS, BY DEFINITION(!), AND THUS IS NOT BALANCED.

JohnHwangDD wrote:C: CSM almost certainly meets all of the design goals it was supposed to.

Well yes, if it's design goal was to suck then mission accomplished.

candy.man wrote:@JohnHwangDD
But the thing is that GW's design goals for what they intend Chaos to be is different from what the players expect. What if those goals are misguided?

What if those goals were poorly planned or lacked research, player base testing and balance comparisons?

What Jervis or Gav Thorpe perceives may not be what the consumer wants.

Now this isn't coming from a person who is sitting in a crazy 3.5 dex cocoon but some who likes change and expects variety.

Subjectively if you look at the dex compared to other books, there is so much creativity, strategy and variety missing.

Of course it is different - GW's primary goal designed to sell models, not to cater to veterans wanting more power without spending more money. When a Codex is as broken as 3.5 was, anybody who didn't see the nerf sledgehammer coming a mile away was blind and deaf.

Given that Chaos allows for a variety of competitive armies and builds, I don't fault GW here. A lack of player imagination and creativity isn't GW's fault.

If that really is true, then Chaos sales would be vastly worse, but that probably isn't the case. For each non-buying moaning veteran, I'm sure GW gained 2 newbies who dropped big cash.

Chrome isn't creativity, strategy or variety. Really, the point is that there are multiple kinds of players, and some of us utterly despise chrome. For us, Jervis really is the god of game design, and the streamlined 3.0 and current Chaos books are vastly preferable to "kiddie" books like the 3.5 book. Of course, deep down inside, we'd be even happier going back to the BBB Rulebook lists, but that ship sailed a decade ago...

Get rid of huron blackheart. He sucks. The red corsairs are meh.

IronfrontAlex wrote:Off on another tangent i just realized: Is Chaos legions and warbands spend so much time in the warp or within warpstorms why don't they have any psy defences?

I think its that chaos embraces the twisted effects that the warp exerts on them as the will of chaos. Does it translate to them having resistance or defense? I dunno, but you can justify all that either way.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The stuff that GW recognizes as non-core (Dreads, Possessed, Spawn) are deliberately overcosted.
...
From a pure balance standpoint, GW did a very good job with the current CSM book.

Say wha??? Is this some kind of bizarro proof by contradiction? Second statement does not follow from the first. Overcosted? And balanced? I don't think that word means what you think it means. I mean, I don't know if you realize this, but if something is overcosted then, it, you know, COSTS TOO MANY POINTS, BY DEFINITION(!), AND THUS IS NOT BALANCED.

After many discussions with John, I think I know where he's coming from, even if I don't 100% agree with the perspective. Its all to do with how they GW balances the costs. Such that if Chaos gets relatively cheaper than standard veteran elite cults as Troop choices, then the other units in the army are over-costed to balance it out. I think space wolves is a good example, where their troops are probably cheaper than they should be, but its because their special characters are so pricey.

I think GW throws a dart at a board to establish point costs.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Get rid of huron blackheart. He sucks. The red corsairs are meh.

I think they should be reworked, because I think the idea of giving a focused representation of more recent loyalist going rogue is a worth while aspect of chaos to be represented. He does for chaos what the special characters in other codices representing 2nd 3rd 4th etc founding chapters do for their codex. They show the evolution of the faction. The ranks of the Space Marines have grown, or been maintained in the least, through the founding of new chapters. Chaos relies on the eventuality of loyalists falling from grace.