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Hello everyone!

So as a rather disappointed CSM player (note: I've only started my CSM army when the new codex came out), I've decided to take my chances and "improve" the somewhat lackluster 6th ed CSM codex. I tried to add/modify things people miss/grumble about.

The rough list of changes:
- Champions of Chaos special rule buffed up: it gives +1 WS, I and A in challenges and the roll on the Boons table is not mandatory.
- Mark of Chaos Undivided added. It gives Adamantium Will and Night Vision. A character with the MoCU can join any units.
- Mark of Khorne changed back to flat +1 A.
- Mark of Tzeentch gives a 5+ invulnerable save.
- Renewed Psychic Disciplines. All Discipline has one of each basic power (one blessing, one malediction and one witchfire) and each God got an additional power depending on its "area of expertise" (Tzeentch - blessing, Nurgle - malediction, Slaanesh - witchfire). The Primaris powers are all associated powers.
- Undivided Chaos Psychic Discipline. It has the usual witchfire/malediction/blessing powers and its final power is a conjuration (you can summon extra units like Cultists, CSM and even Terminators!).
- There are some new wargear in the armoury, like cult weapons, lots of new Chaos Rewards and even more new Chaos Artefacts.
- Important to note that squad leaders may take itmes from the Chaos Rewards list, and some items are cheaper for them. The goal of this is to give champions an extra punch in challenges, so they could have a chance even against enemy ICs.
- I tweaked some stuff around the special characters too. Nothing major, mostly minor buffs.
- New special character: Tarraq Darkblodd the "your Raptors are Troops now" character and Night Lords representative.
- New special cahracter: Doom Rider. Yes, he can still do the "appear and disappear in the same turn" trick .
- You can now make Chosenwing with normal Chaos Lords too (MoCU unlocks Chosen as Troops).
- Daemon Princes now take Marks instead of those stupid "Daemon of X" upgrades. They are also characters and have the Champions of Chaos special rule.The can be upgraded to become Eternal Warrior too.
- Dark Apostles got a major buff. Beseech the Dark Gods is now kinda' awesome. It enhances the effects of the Marks, giving all sorts of additional buffs. DAs calso got additional wargear options (Terminator armour, steeds).
- Warpsmithes are slightly buffed, gained a Servitor escort and unlock "cult daemon engines". with the proper Marks.
- Chaos Terminators gained their own version of the Cyclone Missile Launcher - and they can take flakk missiles for it too!
- Mutilators can now dish out lots of pain. Other than a big increase in their damage output, only their maximal squad size (5 models) has changed.
- Helbrutes gained like, a bazillion new options.
- Khorne Berzerkers and Rubric Marines are buffed.
- Cult Terminators added ! Yay!
- New Cult Daemon Engines!
- Cultists got some new options, including unique upgrades.
- Dreadclaw added!
- Chaos Knights (CSM cavalry) added!
- Raptors gained Hit and Run.
- Warp Talons got some nice buffs, and their Warpflame Strike special rule now works like Heroic Intervention.
- Heldrakes are slightly changed.
- Decimator (artillery vehicle) added!
- Two new Land Raider varians added!
- Oh, and vehicles can take Marks too. Daemonic Possession synergies with Marks.

There are some special rules/wargear missing from this fandex. The missing stuff works exactly as in the current CSM codex.


Have fun!

I like it! It seems pretty balanced and if you want something cool you've got to pay for it.

As a Thousand Sons player myself, however, I would have to say that giving Inferno Bolts "Fleshbane" in addition to being AP3 would make them utterly devastating to anyone short of terminators who steps into their field of fire. Even Terminators would struggle to pass a decent amount of saves against 2+ wounding bolters. If you just let them be Relentless while the Aspiring Sorcerer is alive or a character with the Mark of Tzeentch is in the unit, it fixes them to a much more satisfactory level without making them too broken.

Other than that, though, I really like the flavorful options you've given out. I think most players were upset over the lack of options. If you want a daemon weapon, it has to be the black mace or the axe of blind fury (which is strictly Khorne anyway), so a lot of people felt cheated with the other marks. (Really, a 6+ invulnerable for Mark of Tzeentch? 2 Attack Berzerkers if they don't charge? No thanks, Kelly.)

Kudos to you!

Decimators are already a Chaos vehicle.

Also, this whole things reads like "I want better stuff but I don't want to pay any more points for it."

Bad worksmen always blames his tools!

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Decimators are already a Chaos vehicle.

I know. It is a super-heavy siege tank/artillery IIRC, sot the parallel is cool I guess.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Also, this whole things reads like "I want better stuff but I don't want to pay any more points for it."

A very good insight. When you improve a codex what is "famed" for its mediocrity, and its single-list builds, you can't really increase points. Or if you do, you should power stuff up into the infinity and beyond. Because the other route is "I want the same stuff but cheaper." what equals to lazy codex improvement.

Bad worksmen always blames his tools!

Sorry boy, you misunderstand me. Yeah, I won battles with my CSM. Or... wait... I won battles with my Nurgle units and Baledrakes! God forbids me if I want to field anything else! I wanted to change this.

I kind of like the idea, but the CSM are already pretty good in 6th. What I like is the Mark of Undivided, the Mutilators, the Helbrute. and the Warp Talons. Oh yeah, and all of the new units. That's pretty cool also. But to me, it seems sort of pointless to upgrade a pretty good codex.

Hmm, seems to me like your Codex didn't touch on many of the things I personally found wrong with the Codex. All in all here are the things I found wrong with the GW Chaos Space Marine book.

- Spawnhood effecting HQ units and Spawnhood and Dark Apotheosis effecting special characters.

- Mark of Tzeentch's invulnerable save being absolutely negligible and not worth the points cost on units which do not already have an invulnerable save. Units without invulnerable save needed to have the Mark of Tzeentch be cheaper or the Mark should have provided a 5+ invulnerable save instead.

- Chaos Lords not being able to unlock Thousand Sons.

- Chaos Sorcerers not being able to unlock Plague Marines or Noise Marines.

- Daemon Princes simply being too frail for their points cost, something that could have been partially or entirely resolved by giving them Eternal Warrior.

- Possessed having a randomized table again. I remember back when they had a randomized table for their mutations and GW got rid of it in the next iteration of the Codex because people weren't risking spending that much on a unit which has a fluctuating spectrum of uses. Them going back to this randomization has left be a bit confused as to just what their design philosophy is anymore, but whatever it is they've made this unit pretty worthless again. This was something you did not address in your fandex.

- Mutilators just needed to be a teeny tiny bit better. Giving them Rampage, as you have done with this fandex, would have been that tiny nudge into being a useful and interesting unit.

- Warp Talons need an entire reworking. Lore-wise their such an interesting unit yet rules-wise they're just bland and uninteresting, not to mention not worth their ridiculous points cost. This is easily my biggest beef with the Codex, is just how boring and over-costed this unit is. You've addressed it somewhat with an Attacks increase, which does make them a bit better in terms of Points vs Usefulness, but they're still pretty boring given their lore.

- Helbrutes need reworking. On the most basic level they at least need to have Fire Frenzy reworded so they don't Immobilize themselves when in close combat. At the heaviest level they shouldn't just be "we gave Chaos Dreadnoughts a new name and look" and have done much more to make them a more unique unit.

- Huron Blackheart should automatically be able to use the Psychic powers his pet generates, as he himself is not Psychic and it doesn't make sense to me why he'd suffer Perils of the Warp when he's not the one casting the ability.

- Ahriman should have at least had access to all of the Disciplines in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook. Obsessed Chaos Sorcerers worshiping the Chaos God of Sorcery should not have a more limited access to disciplines than a Vanilla Marine army, that doesn't make any sense to me. You did address this in your fandex though so thank you for that.

- Typhus needs a rework. He's far too expensive for what he does and The Destroyer Hive is far too destructive to your own side of the table to be of any use. Had Destroyer Hive not effected units with the Mark of Nurgle he might have been a bit better and at least worth taking, but as he stands right now he's just nowhere near worth his points cost.

- I don't agree with Fabius being able to enhance any unit, that part of his special rule was fine. However he should have been able to enhance other CSM squads but at a points increase to that squad. That and maybe a very slight points decrease and he would be a bit more worth it in my books.

- Demonic Possession, as it is in the codex, was worthless. There's no reason to take it if the vehicle is a transport, none, it does more damage to your own forces than any positive effects it has. So on that note I have to say thank you for changing it as it was one of the biggest beefs with the GW codex.

- This is not a problem with the GW codex, but yours: Why the buff to Lucius? He's easily the best named characters in the Codex right now, did he really need to be buffed?

 Marik Law wrote:

- This is not a problem with the GW codex, but yours: Why the buff to Lucius? He's easily the best named characters in the Codex right now, did he really need to be buffed?

I buffed Lucius because you can make a 'Lucius+++' Chaos Lord with the new options (Chaos Lord + MoS + Blissgiver + Chaos Armour + Sigil of Corruption + Doom Siren). And unlike the old Lucius, this Chaos Lord can shrug off AP3 attacks, can dish out more 'oomph' and only 15 points more expensive.

Oh, and thanks for the positive (I guess?) feedback! I1m gald that most of your problems with the CSM codex are fixed in my revised edition !

Way too powerfull...

Heldrake with a 4++ save for 195...

Apostle granting Tzeentch armies a 2+ to shut down psychic powers...(the best otherwise is on one character and it is a 3+, and he is more than 200 points)

Psychic powers are way too good, way better than anything already in the game.
I can take level 3 sorceres and be guaranteed ot summoning units to the table,
Warp time allowing re-rolling all rolls,
Tzeentch, negate Jaws, etc
, oh I can make all my havocs interceptor and skyfire
Boon of mutation effecting a squad of 30 orks or 50 guardsman....against the guard blob that realisitically kills 25 guys with one psychic check.

Doom risder is 135 and has tons of special rules...

points largely unchanged for Thousand sons and they get better way better (sorcerer can take amazing tzeentch powers...)

Just too much wish listing.

i know its not a matt ward codex.
if a GK ( /spit ) has a force weapon and a storm bolter with 2 Attack base.
Then all Khorne Berzerkers should have Power weapons for 19pts . I cant remember if Thousand Sons has Relentless but if they don't they should have. Noise Marines need rending and CSM should be 12pts and have a bolt pistol and ccw and can swap the ccw for a bolter for free

Plague Marines are the only unit that was ok and that just because of the new FNP rules 5+ when you hit with a battle cannon and they get melta guns

 yorkskargrimironklaw wrote:

if a GK ( /spit ) has a force weapon and a storm bolter with 2 Attack base.
Then all Khorne Berzerkers should have Power weapons for 19pts.

First of all, a Grey Knight has 1A base, not 2. Secondly, you don't see anything wrong with 4 WS5 S5 PW attacks per model on the charge for 19 points?

-Champion of Chaos- you should make a roll on the Boons chart, not only when killing ennemies IC's or Squad leaders, but also MC's and Walkers.
-Chaos Boons, SPecial Named Character should A) reroll Spawnhood/DeamonHood results, or B) Keeping their rules&gear when getting Deamonhood, and only Change their profile and Unit type.(B should be appliable to other HQ's)
-Dark Apostles and Techs should be Elite Choices, 1-3 per Elite Slot OR HQ's that doesn't Count has HQ's slots.
-A Vehicle with Deamonic Possesion, should really count as a Deamon, 5++ save and cause Fear, after all in the GK codex they are listed as counting has deamons for their Deamon killing rules/gears.
-Maulerfiends, should be WS4, Init 4, Front AV 13.
-Their should be a "Common" Deamon Weapon option for +30pts, and you use a Chart similare to the GK's Deamon Weapon Chart, or make 2 rolls on the Boons chart.
-Land Raiders could exchange their weapons: Sponson Ectoplasma canons/ Hades Autocanons, Hull Mounted 2x Reaper AC/ TL Baleflamer.
-Deamon prince comes with 3+ save base and EW, their stats can be a bit lowered, like Init to 6.
-A Termi Lord/Sorceror/Abbadon could take a Termi squad as a bodyguard unit, the Lord and Termis would count as One HQ choice.
-A Lord/Sorceror/Named Character(In PA) can take a Chosen squad has bodygaurd unit, the Lord and Chosen unit count as One HQ choice.
-Termies and Chosens should be able to choose one Veteran Skill; Tank Hunter, Rampage, Divid Fire(Termies ), Infiltrator( Chosen)
-Chaos Dread should be able to take Deamonic Possesion, hades Autocanon and Baleflamer, Could be also Promoted Ancient Renegate and see his Ws and BS get +1.
-Add Dreadclaws to dedicated transports to all units who have acces to a DT, add the Drop Pod Assault rule.
-Add various Gods specific Wargears; Axe of Khorne, Power Axe with rerolls to hit&to wound OR POwer Axe with no Init penalty, Collar of Khorne, units counts has having the Adamentium Will rule, Chaos Banners; only Termies or Chosen Squads can take those, comes with various effects given the Mark of those who bears it, and in general permits to reroll Morals and such.
-2 Zerkers in a Zerker squads can take the following options; Plasma Pistols, Flamers, Melta, Power weapon, Eviscerators.
-Mark of Khorne gives A) +1 A , and Counter attack OR B) Rampage, and counter attack.
-Rhinos can be upgraded to Assault Rhinos, they are open-topped tanks for +5pts
-Chaos Bikers can exchange their Bikes with a Deamonic Mount if they have the appropriate Mark for an Appropriate cost.
-Warp Talons exchange their Blind rule with " Un-" Heroic Intervention.
-Defilers see their cost brought down to 180pts, and the Powerflail options costs 10pts, they also can change all their weapon for extra Powerfists for free.
-Heldrakes Hades Autocanon are Twin Linked.
-Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Deamons are fully fledged Battle Brothers, meaning that their respectives IC can join a squad from their allies, but they can only do it after the Chaos Deamons have arrived on the table after their DS.