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So I read through the new Chaos Space Marines...and I have to say I'm a little bit disappointed.

I know that the trend has been slowly shifting to the idea that Chaos is an Undivided phenomenon and restricting yourself to only taking mono-God units is only crippling yourself - but surely GW can't ignore a sizable portion of the Chaos fan base that wants to play with certain units?

As a Thousand Sons player (or more specifically, Tzeentch-player since there is only one "Thousand Sons" unit in the book), I feel kind of worked over by this book. I love the idea of Tzeentch; manipulating, deceiving and out-magic-ing all other sorcerers and what not that exist. But Tzeentch in this book is literally represented by a 6+ invulnerable save. Nothing that Tzeentch gives in this book is related to sorcery or better psychic powers in any way. If I want to put the Mark of Tzeentch on my Chaos Bikers, it does nothing for them because their turbo-boosting save is a cover save. They get a 6+ invulnerable. If I want to give it to my Chosen, they get nothing but a 6+ invulnerable save to represent that they are the "Chosen" of Tzeentch.

Where is the "prescience" that it talks about when defining the Marks of Chaos?

Khorne's mark: "bestowed only upon those whose relentless rage..." = +Rage and Counter-attack

Nurgle's mark: "inhuman constitution" = +1 Toughness

Slaanesh's mark: "senses and reactions heightened" = +1 Initiative

Tzeentch's mark: "protection and prescience of the Master of Manipulation" = 6++ invulnerable save?? The Mark of Nurgle offers significantly better protection, give me a break.

I feel shoehorned into choosing units that are marked by Nurgle simply because they have the ability to reach toughness 5/6 on nearly every unit (which DRASTICALLY increases their survivability against nearly EVERYTHING) while my puny 6++ invulnerable save means I have a 1/6 chance to survive a lascannon wound while I'm standing in the middle of the battlefield. Yeah, that's really MANIPULATING the enemy right there.

Don't even get me started on why Ahriman and the chosen Aspiring Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons do not have access to Divination, any form of psychic defense besides an improved Deny the Witch save, or any form of immunity to mutation. Ahriman doesn't get a Spell Familiar or the Scrolls of Magnus? Okay Phil. And the Tzeentch discipline, the discipline strictly devoted to sorcery and manipulation, gets to shoot a fireball at people. Seems legit. I also can't tell you how many times the codex mentions that Ahriman cast a spell to protect his entire legion from mutation only for them to go right back to mutating themselves if they happen to beat on some sergeant in close combat.

Anyway...that is my long and sufficiently whiny complaint/rant/cry-fest. I still love Chaos, I still love my army, and I will still be playing with this new book. I just didn't think my chosen God would be shoved so hard to the wayside in favor of ANOTHER few years of Nurgle dominating the field with ridiculous toughness, blight grenades, feel no pain and drastically improved cultists for FREE...

As a guy who regularly plays codex: Plague marines, I have to say i'm not happy about the lack of other prominant units. nearly every chaos marines list I play is plague marines and Epidemus. with this new codex hoped there would be a little more variety to the units I get to fight, but nope. More plague marines and their uncle Cheesydemus. yay.

/buttsore-rant

I may not play chaos, however I did notice, playing against a thousand sons player. There was a complete lack of anything new being thrown against me. The only difference was a mauler fiend instead of a defiler. However I was surprised that he still had the 4+ inv save and ap3 bolters.

The chaos codex seems like they got minor upgrades to make the playable, however some things didn't deserved the nerfs they got while some buffs didn't make the units they were given to better.

GameFreak975 wrote:


Don't even get me started on why Ahriman and the chosen Aspiring Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons

If you're playing Ahriman, you won't have that problem anyhow, seeing how Ahriman is an outcast exiled from the Thousand Sons and roaming the Galaxy with either his own multi-god renegade force of the Prodigal Sons or tacking along with the Black Legion.

It would be quite unfluffy to play Ahriman and not having a few Plaque Marines or Khorne-marked bikers or whatever along to show his split from the Legion.

Scorpiodragon wrote:
I may not play chaos, however I did notice, playing against a thousand sons player. There was a complete lack of anything new being thrown against me. The only difference was a mauler fiend instead of a defiler. However I was surprised that he still had the 4+ inv save and ap3 bolters.

The chaos codex seems like they got minor upgrades to make the playable, however some things didn't deserved the nerfs they got while some buffs didn't make the units they were given to better.

^ This. Some weird parts of the book got nerfed (Tzeentch sorcery comes to mind... ) but otherwise our units seem to have gotten copy-pasted with a few snips here and there. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - it's just a shock when so many other armies have such major updates. My Thousand Sons LOST rules rather than gained them. The Aspiring Sorcerer is also Slow and Purposeful? What happened to The Sorcerer Commands?

I've made many lists that use every god as mono god except slanessh. They are all excellent lists that can handle the current meta just fine.

A Tzeentch list gets many boons, better oblits, better terminators and possessed, and cheaper thousand sons, plus balling sorcerers with spell familliars and that boss scroll of magnus.

Sadly, arhiman is overshadowed by a sorcerer of tzeentch being able to get a 3+ invul but arhiman being stuck with a 4+.

 juraigamer wrote:
I've made many lists that use every god as mono god except slanessh. They are all excellent lists that can handle the current meta just fine.

A Tzeentch list gets many boons, better oblits, better terminators and possessed, and cheaper thousand sons, plus balling sorcerers with spell familliars and that boss scroll of magnus.

Sadly, arhiman is overshadowed by a sorcerer of tzeentch being able to get a 3+ invul but arhiman being stuck with a 4+.

Spell familiars can be taken by sorceres of any persuasion. In addition, Ahriman's coveted invulnerable save is a 4+...easily replicated by a SIGIL of Corruption, and his Mastery Level of 4 is almost duplicated by such easy access to ML3 pskyers. Tzeentch doesn't even grant an extra level of warp charge. The sorcerer who is known for divination and seeing the future just gets 3 chances to shoot lightning at some poor squad. Yay.

I guess you missed the massive butt hurt an allied unit of screamers and flamers can put out? Tzeentch is fine if you use your allies.

Fateweaver or LOC. Screamers, flamers, heavy support prince or soul grinder, and a small unit of horrors.

Add those to your nice terminators and make thosand sons your troops.

You can tzeentch up the dragon flyer or daemon engines just fine. Your bikers are a little weaker than nurgle or slaanesh, probably the only unit you would have a need to play "counts as".

 Zweischneid wrote:

GameFreak975 wrote:


Don't even get me started on why Ahriman and the chosen Aspiring Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons

If you're playing Ahriman, you won't have that problem anyhow, seeing how Ahriman is an outcast exiled from the Thousand Sons and roaming the Galaxy with either his own multi-god renegade force of the Prodigal Sons or tacking along with the Black Legion.

It would be quite unfluffy to play Ahriman and not having a few Plaque Marines or Khorne-marked bikers or whatever along to show his split from the Legion.

Ahriman has attracted a large number of Sorcerers converted to Tzeentch and with a large force of his own that he took with himself, consisting of Thousand son sorcerers and Rubric Marines.

He is not suddenly "becoming pals" with an enemy gods troops, except in the case of the Black Crusade in the Black Legion, but that's because everyone at the time gets along just long enough thanks to Abbadon.

I guess you missed the massive butt hurt an allied unit of screamers and flamers can put out? Tzeentch is fine if you use your allies.

Fateweaver or LOC. Screamers, flamers, heavy support prince or soul grinder, and a small unit of horrors.

Is it so much to ask a book to be able to stand on it's own two feet then need allies?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


Is it so much to ask a book to be able to stand on it's own two feet then need allies?

I'd say so if for some daft reason you intentionally limit yourself to only 1/4th of the available units in that book.

So, if I said that I wanted to create an army out of nothing but Penal Legion Squads, and then lamented how it wouldn't be awesome, because everything else in my codex is better than Penal Legion, how would that differ from this?

 daedalus wrote:
So, if I said that I wanted to create an army out of nothing but Penal Legion Squads, and then lamented how it wouldn't be awesome, because everything else in my codex is better than Penal Legion, how would that differ from this?

That's not what I'm saying. I don't just want to take Thousand Sons. I want my core troop choice to have the same level of competitiveness that the other core troop options have, but I really have no problem with the basic Thousand Sons as they are - minus the fact that the Aspiring Sorcerer is limited to like 2 powers. My complaint is more so that Ahriman is not nearly up to par with what he should be (one of the most powerful and knowledgeable Psykers of all time has no way to reliably cast his powers if someone screws with his leadership or what not) and that if I want to mark anybody else with the Mark of Tzeentch the benefit is...meh.

I love 4+ invulns on termies and obliterators - that's awesome. But the Mark gives no benefit to Psykers (the main POINT of being Tzeentch in the first place...magic...) and merely a 6++ to anybody else who wants it.

Daemons is a fun alternative, but now we don't even have icons to guide them. That's more of a general complaint though, so I'll stick with my other guns.

GameFreak975 wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
So, if I said that I wanted to create an army out of nothing but Penal Legion Squads, and then lamented how it wouldn't be awesome, because everything else in my codex is better than Penal Legion, how would that differ from this?

That's not what I'm saying. I don't just want to take Thousand Sons. I want my core troop choice to have the same level of competitiveness that the other core troop options have

Get in line. There will always be units (or core troop choices, if you will) that don't cut the mustard compared to other units in their codex, or other codeci for that matter. Take for instance the DE elites section (I know you're speaking mainly about core troops, but hear me out). Do you think that Incubi & Mandrakes are the same level of competetiveness? And they're in the same codex - written by the same author I might add. They're both Elites; they're both exclusively CC units, but the Incubi outclass the Mandrakes so far they may as well not even be in the book. Tzeentch lists may have taken a back seat in this codex, but you're deluding yourself if you believe they were much better in the 5th ed codex. The Sorc's were slightly better, but more expensive. Their choice of powers was also a bit better, but again, you paid for them. Now, your Sorc is cheaper & you get your powers for FREE (tho I will grant that compared to the other two disciplines, they are severely outclassed).

I will also tend to agree w/ you that Ahriman's (& Tzeentch sorc's in general) inability to access the Divination discipline is somewhat boggling, but honestly there are quite a few things in this particular book that are boggling.

~Vryce

In short. No.
Arguably the best power in the book is the blessing that lets a character roll on the table up to three times per turn! Throw in a dark apostle....
You have souped up characters all over the place.

I have no idea why people view the boon table so negatively, its chaos roll it baby!

juraigamer wrote:A Tzeentch list gets many boons, better oblits, better terminators and possessed, and cheaper thousand sons, plus balling sorcerers with spell familliars and that boss scroll of magnus.

Overcosted units and lesser Sorcerers are not boons. Tzeentch Oblit are not better than Nurgle Oblits who are still tactically gimped by their new rules. Terminators are outclassed by too many other units and Possessed are just plain not worth it ever (26pts ppm for a unit with no shooting?). As for the 'boss scroll of magnus', what's so boss about paying points to get a power that on average won't help you each turn in exchange for taking 2 wounds on average per game from your Sorcerer?

Being better is not the same as being good.

Just make it so Fateweaver gives his saves to my men. For the love of Tzeentch! Epidemus gives his tally marks to ANYONE with the mark of Nurgle! But noooooo, Fateweaver's 6" bubble is too much.

Kevlar wrote:
I guess you missed the massive butt hurt an allied unit of screamers and flamers can put out? Tzeentch is fine if you use your allies a different codex.

Fixed it.

Haha, I play Death Guard. Sucks for you.

But yeah, hopefully the next Codex will have more Tzeentch stuff. Of course, that means yer gunna hafta wait awhile.