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Well I finally got a chance to read over the new Iyanden supplement and the long-standing Chaos player in me (19 years and counting) couldn't help but at least want to attempt to make a supplement book for Chaos Space Marines which details the various Traitor Legions/Chapters employed by the forces of Chaos.

I'm starting this as a community project in the hopes of creating a well-balanced, well-defined set of supplemental rules for Codex: Chaos Space Marines. With that said, I have a few rules I would ask people to follow when posting:
* Please keep all comments and feedback constructive and helpful.

* No "road blocking." If you don't like an idea or think an idea is flawed or a rule is broken, please say why and attempt to offer some suggestions in order to fix the problem.

* Please no inquiries as to why I'm doing this project, it isn't constructive and only seems to derail things. I'm doing it because I'm a Chaos Space Marine player, a fan of Warhammer 40,000, and a fan of homebrew rules. However, if you have a specific "why" related question to a particular rule or a particular part of a rule, myself (or any other forum poster, if they're feeling up to it) will gladly be able to explain the method to the madness, but I ask you please be specific with what you have an issue with.


Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to lay down some guidelines for this (and any of my future) supplements, which are as follows:
* I would like to try to avoid new units unless those units are simple upgrades/conversions to units currently available in Codex: Chaos Space Marines or have models still readily available and in production by Games-Workshop or Forge World..

* I don't want each Legion/Chapter to be bogged down with rules, the rules should be simple and easy to reference. In other words if the Special Rules (excluding Warlord Traits and unique Relics) takes two pages to detail with standard 40k font/font-size then they probably have too many rules or need to refine the rules they have.

* Each Legion/Chapter should have between 4-6 unique Relics each.


The following is the stuff I'm going to need help with, any contributions are welcome and anyone who contributes rules or relics to the project will receive full credit in the PDF as one of the file's writers:
* Adding to and fleshing out each Legion's/Chapter's special rules. I have ideas for some of them already, but they are far from set in stone and at this point are mere suggestions and, depending on feedback and testing, may not even make it into the final rules.

* Warlord Traits. For some reason I'm not the greatest with coming up with new Warlord Trait tables and we need a new Warlord Traits table for each Legion/Chapter in the supplement.

* Relics. We need quite a few Relics (4-6 for each Legion/Chapter), so any help or contributions in this area would be awesome.

UPDATES



Alright, now that all of that stuff is out of the way let's get to why everyone is here: the WIP rules for each Legion/Chapter! Oh and if you want to see an official, established Chapter added feel free to offer some suggestions as to what said chapter's special rules would be, more Chapters are always welcome.

BLACK LEGION


ALPHA LEGION


IRON WARRIORS


NIGHT LORDS


WORD BEARERS


WORLD EATERS


EMPEROR'S CHILDREN


DEATH GUARD


THOUSAND SONS


RED CORSAIRS

Quite nice. Well about Iron Warriors, I would change Siege Lord. It should that single Chaos Lord can be nominated to Warsmith. Warsmiths are lords of chaos not warpsmiths. Warpsmiths are part of Dark Mechanicum. They like each other but no. Also I would change additonal D6 for +1 to all penetrations(both buildings and vehicles) in a maybe 10" bubble?

* Justaerin Terminator Squads: Any number of Chaos Terminator Squads can be upgraded to Justaerin Terminator Squads at a cost of 10 points per model. In addition to the normal rules for Chaos Terminator Squads, Justaerin Terminator Squads have the Furious Charge, Rage, Stubborn, and Veterans of the Long War special rules. In addition, your Justaerin Terminator Squads are scoring units if Abaddon is your Warlord.

This is way under costed at the moment, you get a whole bunch of extra power for 10 points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

* Justaerin Terminator Squads: Any number of Chaos Terminator Squads can be upgraded to Justaerin Terminator Squads at a cost of 10 points per model. In addition to the normal rules for Chaos Terminator Squads, Justaerin Terminator Squads have the Furious Charge, Rage, Stubborn, and Veterans of the Long War special rules. In addition, your Justaerin Terminator Squads are scoring units if Abaddon is your Warlord.

This is way under costed at the moment, you get a whole bunch of extra power for 10 points.

Chaos lords already are fearless, paying for the upgrade seems a bit much

For World Eaters, I'd recommend that you take a leaf out of the Horus Heresy book and allow any model with a close combat weapon to replace it with a Chainaxe for 1 point. (3 points is way overpriced)

Obviously only units with the Mark of Khorne would be allowed and Khorne Berserkers would be troops and only Khorne Daemons.

All models with the Mark of Khorne gain Blood Rage, which allows them to Run in the shooting phase and charge afterwards. However they must consolidate towards enemy units if they win combat.

I know that you want to keep this rules-lite, however a cool thing for the god-aligned legions would be a Sacred Number rule where if they have a unit composition equal to their aligned god, one Champion of Chaos in the unit gains a free Gift of Mutation. Simple yet rewarding.

A Chaos Lord with the Mark of Khorne may be upgraded to a Lord of Slaughter for 20 points. A Lord of Slaughter is WS7 and has the Crusader Special Rule.


World Eaters Relics:

Axe of Slaughter (20 pts)
Range: Melee Str: User AP: 2, Blood Frenzy

Blood Frenzy: For every to-hit roll of 6, this model gains an additional attack. These additional attacks may also generate additional attacks.

Broly33 wrote:Quite nice. Well about Iron Warriors, I would change Siege Lord. It should that single Chaos Lord can be nominated to Warsmith. Warsmiths are lords of chaos not warpsmiths. Warpsmiths are part of Dark Mechanicum. They like each other but no. Also I would change additonal D6 for +1 to all penetrations(both buildings and vehicles) in a maybe 10" bubble?

Sounds reasonable enough. However, apart from a bubble effect, what else would make a Warsmith unique from a Chaos Lord? In older CSM supplements, a Warsmith could have a servo-arm (as could most any Character unit), so maybe we could work that in as well?

Though they definitely need a new name, Warsmith sounds confusingly close to Warpsmith.

Eldercaveman wrote:
* Justaerin Terminator Squads: Any number of Chaos Terminator Squads can be upgraded to Justaerin Terminator Squads at a cost of 10 points per model. In addition to the normal rules for Chaos Terminator Squads, Justaerin Terminator Squads have the Furious Charge, Rage, Stubborn, and Veterans of the Long War special rules. In addition, your Justaerin Terminator Squads are scoring units if Abaddon is your Warlord.

This is way under costed at the moment, you get a whole bunch of extra power for 10 points.

Yeah, a lot of the points costs are place-holders and pre-playtesting costs. I'll mark it up a bit.

Ceann Fine wrote:Chaos lords already are fearless, paying for the upgrade seems a bit much

Thanks for pointing this out, oversight on my part while writing this. It shall be fixed.

Vladsimpaler wrote:For World Eaters, I'd recommend that you take a leaf out of the Horus Heresy book and allow any model with a close combat weapon to replace it with a Chainaxe for 1 point. (3 points is way overpriced)

Obviously only units with the Mark of Khorne would be allowed and Khorne Berserkers would be troops and only Khorne Daemons.

All models with the Mark of Khorne gain Blood Rage, which allows them to Run in the shooting phase and charge afterwards. However they must consolidate towards enemy units if they win combat.

I know that you want to keep this rules-lite, however a cool thing for the god-aligned legions would be a Sacred Number rule where if they have a unit composition equal to their aligned god, one Champion of Chaos in the unit gains a free Gift of Mutation. Simple yet rewarding.

A Chaos Lord with the Mark of Khorne may be upgraded to a Lord of Slaughter for 20 points. A Lord of Slaughter is WS7 and has the Crusader Special Rule.


World Eaters Relics:

Axe of Slaughter (20 pts)
Range: Melee Str: User AP: 2, Blood Frenzy

Blood Frenzy: For every to-hit roll of 6, this model gains an additional attack. These additional attacks may also generate additional attacks.

Great suggestions for the World Eaters, also nice to see the original Axe of Khorne reworked into the game as something else, always loved that weapon though it was seriously powerful before, so how about the following take on it:

The Blood Drinker: Range: Melee, S: User, AP: 2, Melee, Bloodlust
Bloodlust: When using this weapon, all To-Wound rolls of 6 in close combat will always wound (regardless of the target's Toughness) and will generate an additional attack (these additional attacks must roll To-Hit as normal and may generate further additional attacks). If the number of additional attacks exceeds the character's Attack value, place a Bloodlust counter beside him (this counter is removed at the end of your next turn). While a character has a Bloodlust counter, all To-Hit rolls of 1 will instead hit the closest friendly unit and is resolved as if the friendly model hit was an enemy model.

Sure. Servo arm is auto include. Also there should be option for Artificier armour.And i'll stick to Warmsmith.
Got idea for something like Chaos Artifact:
Vox caster: Each turn(provided Warsmith didn't move) character can call off-board artillery, with 2 profiles. Either S9AP3 TL barrage ordinance large blast or D3+1 Heavy mortar(S6 AP4 barrage large blast) shots. Mutually exclusive for Warsmith. Cost like 50-60 points. Why So many Heavy Mortar shots? Because F*ck You Guard! That's Why!

Broly33 wrote:
Sure. Servo arm is auto include. Also there should be option for Artificier armour.And i'll stick to Warmsmith.
Got idea for something like Chaos Artifact:
Vox caster: Each turn(provided Warsmith didn't move) character can call off-board artillery, with 2 profiles. Either S9AP3 TL barrage ordinance large blast or D3+1 Heavy mortar(S6 AP4 barrage large blast) shots. Mutually exclusive for Warsmith. Cost like 50-60 points. Why So many Heavy Mortar shots? Because F*ck You Guard! That's Why!

How does this sound:

Grand Siege Engine: Lord of Sieges only. During the Shooting phase. Blast templates from this wargear always scatter the full rolled amount, the character's Ballistic Skill does not reduce the scatter distance.
Cluster Bombardment: Range: 48", S: 6, AP: 4, Ordnance D3, Barrage, Blast
Bunker Buster Range: 48", S: 9, AP 3, Ordnance 1, Barrage, Blast

I'd change Grand Siege Engine. Sounds, well weird. Also Heavy mortar is Large blast. Because F*ck the guard. Also there should be special Dread as HQ and i'll write something if i get some ideas.

Posting this as a reply before I add it so I can get people's thoughts on the idea I had for the Night Lords.

* Masters of Fear: Any unit without a Mark of Chaos upgraded to have Veterans of the Long War gain the Fear special rule instead of the Hatred (Space Marines) special rule. In addition, enemy units do not benefit from And They Shall Know No Fear against any Night Lords units with the Fear special rule.


I'm thinking of experimenting more with the whole swapping out Hatred (Space Marines) from Veterans of the Long War with unique rules motif, it seems pretty simple and uses an already established rule.

Thanks for the feedback Marik! I do like the idea of the Hatred being replaced with the Legion ability.

Also I like the Bloodrinker axe. If it is a Relic and only one model can have it, I'd recommend it being 15 pts or so.

As for Legion Abilities:
Deathguard: replace hatred with Relentless.
World Eaters: replace hatred with Bloodthirsty (the renamed Blood Rage I mentioned earlier)
Emperors Children: replace hatred with Stubborn
Thousand Sons: replace hatred with soulblaze (loljk). They could replace Hatred with Feels No Pain 6+

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
Thanks for the feedback Marik! I do like the idea of the Hatred being replaced with the Legion ability.

Also I like the Bloodrinker axe. If it is a Relic and only one model can have it, I'd recommend it being 15 pts or so.

As for Legion Abilities:
Deathguard: replace hatred with Relentless.
World Eaters: replace hatred with Bloodthirsty (the renamed Blood Rage I mentioned earlier)
Emperors Children: replace hatred with Stubborn
Thousand Sons: replace hatred with soulblaze (loljk). They could replace Hatred with Feels No Pain 6+

Hmm, not sure about Stubborn for Emperor's Children. What about a special rule where they can always hit and wound things in close combat on a roll of 6? Representing veterans' focus on martial skill and pride.

 Marik Law wrote:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
Thanks for the feedback Marik! I do like the idea of the Hatred being replaced with the Legion ability.

Also I like the Bloodrinker axe. If it is a Relic and only one model can have it, I'd recommend it being 15 pts or so.

As for Legion Abilities:
Deathguard: replace hatred with Relentless.
World Eaters: replace hatred with Bloodthirsty (the renamed Blood Rage I mentioned earlier)
Emperors Children: replace hatred with Stubborn
Thousand Sons: replace hatred with soulblaze (loljk). They could replace Hatred with Feels No Pain 6+

Hmm, not sure about Stubborn for Emperor's Children. What about a special rule where they can always hit and wound things in close combat on a roll of 6? Representing veterans' focus on martial skill and pride.

That sounds good, I was referring to older editions of the game where Emperor's Children had higher Willpower. Perhaps they will always hit on at least a 4+ in close combat and will always wound on a 6? That would be powerful but not necessarily better than anything else in the game.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

 Marik Law wrote:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
Thanks for the feedback Marik! I do like the idea of the Hatred being replaced with the Legion ability.

Also I like the Bloodrinker axe. If it is a Relic and only one model can have it, I'd recommend it being 15 pts or so.

As for Legion Abilities:
Deathguard: replace hatred with Relentless.
World Eaters: replace hatred with Bloodthirsty (the renamed Blood Rage I mentioned earlier)
Emperors Children: replace hatred with Stubborn
Thousand Sons: replace hatred with soulblaze (loljk). They could replace Hatred with Feels No Pain 6+

Hmm, not sure about Stubborn for Emperor's Children. What about a special rule where they can always hit and wound things in close combat on a roll of 6? Representing veterans' focus on martial skill and pride.

That sounds good, I was referring to older editions of the game where Emperor's Children had higher Willpower. Perhaps they will always hit on at least a 4+ in close combat and will always wound on a 6? That would be powerful but not necessarily better than anything else in the game.

Here's a few ideas:
Emperor's Children
* Martial Pride: Any Emperor's Children units with Veterans of the Long War have the Crusader special rule and receive +1 to their invulnerable saves in close combat so long as the unit is equipped with close combat weapons or power swords (if the unit doesn't already have an invulnerable save, they gain a 6+ invulnerable save instead). These rules replace the Hatred (Space Marines) special rule and the +1 Leadership which Veterans of the Long War normally provides.

Death Guard
* Weapons of Death: Any unit may upgrade all of their flamers, combi-flamers,and baleflamers to have Chemical Sub-munitions at no additional points cost. A weapon with the Chemical Sub-munitions special rule has the Gets Hot and Shred special rules. In addition, any power fist in the army may be replaced with a power scythe at no additional points cost.
Power Scythe: Range: -, S: +1, AP: 2, Melee, Two-handed, Sweep Attack, Unwieldy
Sweep Attack: The wielder of a power scythe may choose to have his Attacks equal the number of enemy models in base contact with him instead of using his normal Attacks value.

* Remorseless: Any units with Veterans of the Long War are Fearless and have the Move Through Cover special rule instead of gaining +1 Leadership and the Hatred (Space Marines) special rule. (( Would replace the Rot and Decay special rule I have there now. ))

Necro'ing this because I missed Marik posting this and also because now I think this is needed even more with the new Space Marine book coming out and blatantly flipping the bird to legion players, hahaha

With that in mind, I think that there should be new special rule for CSM.

Chaos Space Marine: A model with this special rule cannot be caught in a Sweeping Advance.

Then, there are the 9 Legions and also Renegade.

For example, Abaddon would be a Chaos Space Marine (Black Legion), Kharn would have the Chaos Space marine (world eater) rule. Honestly the best way to put it is again like the Horus Heresy book.

Emperors Children should get the Charnabal Sabre. It would be exactly like the one from the Horus Heresy book. So two-handed, rending. But I'd make it master crafted and AP 3 to balance it.

Also all Legion weapons should be available to Champions. So any Death Guard Champion could have a power scythe.

I like how you are trying to use Veterans of the Long War as the template for diversifying the various Legions.

Would you consider replacing Veterans of the Long War for World Eaters with Rampage?

For a year now I've been saying that all Night Lords needed was Fear to give the army flavor. However, I don't see a Codex Space Marine ever being truly afraid of anything. Perhaps they would merely suffer a negative -1 to leadership tests to signify the discord of being around NLs?

I would change lord of sieges as follows since +1 to armour pen is incredibly powerful and alters the balance profoundly e.g. autocannons can glance land raiders. Seems like he should be better at repairing stuff too if he is the super warpsmith.

* Lord of Sieges: A Chaos Lord without a Mark of Chaos may be upgraded to a Lord of Sieges for ?? points. A Lord of Sieges has a servo-arm as well as the Shatter Defences and Master of Mechanisms special rule, however he may only repair (at +1?) and may not curse when using Master of Mechanisms. In addition, the Lord of Sieges, and give a single friendly unit within 12" tank hunter during the shooting phase.

Night Lords removing "And They Shall Know No Fear" is also incredibly powerful (hello sweeping advances) and maybe balanced at a higher points cost but certainly not fun (especially for your opponent). Remember that new rules should add something new and interesting to the game rather than take something away. Maybe instead:

A chaos (night) lord may be upgraded to X and gains the Fear USR, in addition infrantry models with Fearless or ATSKNF must make a leadership test or be reduced to WS 1 for the duration of the Fight Subphase (this replicates the Fear aspect but does not allow for sweeping advances). Maybe make it a wargear item.