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 insaniak wrote:

kb305 wrote:
.

Actually, pointless fluff books are fine, and a great idea. Many players enjoy the background of the game, and would buy such things for the same reason they bought, say, the book of Jes Goodwin's random sketches.

What I have an issue with is a pointless fluff book that include two pages of extra rules for a faction that doesn't need them, as this forces people who otherwise wouldn't want to buy a pointless fluff book to pick it up if they want to stay current with the full rules of this game. Put the rules in the codex. Or if you must release supplements, include enough rules in them to make them a worthwhile purchase for those who aren't as interested in the background. As a 'Legions' supplement, this book might have been worth considering. As is? Not so much.

My sentiments exactly. I have never, and will never read a paragraph of "fluff" but am interested in the rules. Sell me a $7.99 download ro printout with the rules and il buy the ones I'm interested in. Sell the fluff books thru black library.

Yea, a Black Legion fluff book that was purely fluff could have been great. When it comes to rules, however, Codex: CSM pretty much covered everything you could want with a Black Legion army, really (and again, better than the supplement did, given that the supplement forces rules that actually go against the fluff, including the fluff in the supplement itself).

It'd be nice if we had pure fluff books for factions like the Orks got long ago. GW just doesn't seem to do that anymore :(

the only thing i can see from this mess is that i can run two drakes and two bikes/bikes+spawn/whatever.

Well, the wiki's updated with the fluff from the book. I hope there's more than that, cause frankly a Black Legion book only adding a little fluf fabout Abaddon's four, ONE Black Crusade, and some artefacts feels rather underwhelming.

Honestly, I'm not sure even why they did this in the first place. Black Legion has been the "default" Chaos army for at least two versions now, as they seem to have discouraged a mono-God list. I would have liked to see Renegade chapters more than this.

Because despite being the default they've been lacking fluff and character? Compare to the ultramarine presence in the current SM book? Because GW is specifically putting the subfactions that require the least amount of rules alterations first, to minimize the impact of the supplement line while they guage player reactions to them?

Seriously, the point has been raised and answered about two dozen times. At this point its no more significant or relevant than complaining whenever a new army book is released because 'wood elves needed it more'.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Honestly, I'm not sure even why they did this in the first place. Black Legion has been the "default" Chaos army for at least two versions now, as they seem to have discouraged a mono-God list. I would have liked to see Renegade chapters more than this.

Actually the default has been Codex: Renegades for these two versions, while you could make a passable Black Legion army in 4th, you couldn't in sixth due to the fact you now require a chaos lord to unlock so you can't use the full cults.

And even then they went with elites rather then that for 6th.. Who wrote this book?

 Malisteen wrote:
Because GW is specifically putting the subfactions that require the least amount of rules alterations first, to minimize the impact of the supplement line while they guage player reactions to them?

I'm not buying this idea.

You don't guage customer reactions to a new idea by deliberately downplaying that idea and releasing the crap stuff first, unless you're deliberately intending the idea to fail. You lead with good stuff to get people interested, and slot the more boring releases in amongst the good ones.

So either someone at the studio hates the supplement idea and is deliberately pushing the boring stuff out first in an attempt to have the whole thing canned due to poor sales, or they think that the supplements they have released so far are good enough to hook people... in which case there is no reason to expect them to get any better down the track. Either they'll sell anyway despite being over-priced rubbish (in which case there is no reason to improve them), or they won't and the beancounters will can them due to the poor sales.

So now I can have a Nurgle CSM lord with 5 wounds eternal warrior and using a sword that gives him the same initiative as a Slaneesh lord? Nice.

Did some playtesting over the weekend with the new BL list in a couple games vs MEQ. Focused on what I could do with the FOC moreso than the artefacts.

Several units stood out as being particularly effective in terms of what they did and the combos they set up. The core of my army looked like this:

1) MoN Chosen - took a 10 man squad, gave them 5 flamers and a Rhino. The flamers forced my opponent to stay away and try to shoot from distance. They eventually assaulted with 30 attacks on the charge.

2) NMs - took a 6 man squad of NMs with sonic weapons and a blastmaster. they stayed behind the flamers. All their shooting ignored cover, but they took cover from the MoN Chosen.

3) Plasma Chosen - took a 6 man squad, gave the Champion a plasma pistol and the others all had plasma guns.

In terms of tactics, I had the Flamer Chosen in a Rhino and popped smoke at the end of the first turn. The other guys ran up behind it. At the start of the second round, the Flamer Chosen set up as close as possible to the enemy and just took shots while the other units closed in.

 insaniak wrote:

 Malisteen wrote:
Because GW is specifically putting the subfactions that require the least amount of rules alterations first, to minimize the impact of the supplement line while they guage player reactions to them?

I'm not buying this idea.

You don't guage customer reactions to a new idea by deliberately downplaying that idea and releasing the crap stuff first, unless you're deliberately intending the idea to fail. You lead with good stuff to get people interested, and slot the more boring releases in amongst the good ones.

So either someone at the studio hates the supplement idea and is deliberately pushing the boring stuff out first in an attempt to have the whole thing canned due to poor sales, or they think that the supplements they have released so far are good enough to hook people... in which case there is no reason to expect them to get any better down the track. Either they'll sell anyway despite being over-priced rubbish (in which case there is no reason to improve them), or they won't and the beancounters will can them due to the poor sales.

Or they are introducing the more radical supplements slowly, so they have more feedback and can adjust the later books as needed to avoid the "flier problem." 5th edition fliers were directly ported into 6th, and the Helldrake was basically designed and written before 6th hit and the meta adjusted to fliers and found some to be way too strong. GW overreacted, and we got the dishwater DA fliers, before finally finding about the right balance with the Tau and Eldar planes- useful and dangerous, but not game-breakers.

Additionally, some of the purpose of supplements is to dripfeed attention to codices that are alread out to keep sales for older books and models up.

 insaniak wrote:

 Malisteen wrote:
Because GW is specifically putting the subfactions that require the least amount of rules alterations first, to minimize the impact of the supplement line while they guage player reactions to them?

I'm not buying this idea.

You don't guage customer reactions to a new idea by deliberately downplaying that idea and releasing the crap stuff first, unless you're deliberately intending the idea to fail. You lead with good stuff to get people interested, and slot the more boring releases in amongst the good ones.

So either someone at the studio hates the supplement idea and is deliberately pushing the boring stuff out first in an attempt to have the whole thing canned due to poor sales, or they think that the supplements they have released so far are good enough to hook people... in which case there is no reason to expect them to get any better down the track. Either they'll sell anyway despite being over-priced rubbish (in which case there is no reason to improve them), or they won't and the beancounters will can them due to the poor sales.

Exactly. I see some execs using this to say "the market for additional fluff and rules for CSM is poor, so we will just make more ultramarines"

The flier issue is exactly why they would want to start with the supplements of minimal impact to feel things out.

And there's also the issue that, with the accelerated codex & army book release pace, there isn't really time in their schedule to release new models with the supplements without delaying the normal releases, which they don't want to do. So supplements that actually demand new models, not just new rules, even if its something as minimal as a finecast conversion kit for cult terminators, have to wait until there's a gap in the codex release schedule, which won't come until all the 6e codeces are out.


And again, Codex: CSM IS NOT Codex: Black Legion already. The warpsmith is explicitly there for Iron Warriors. The Apostle is explicitly there for Word Bearers. The Warp Talons are there for night lords, and cultists for Alpha Legion. Red Corsairs have their own Special Character, which is all the Black Legion got. Cult Legions also each have their own special character, as well as themed troop units restricted to armies led by characters of their alignment, instead of just available to anyone regardless of commander like in the last book.

Black Legion only gets slightly more focus than any of the other legions in the fluff, mostly because of Abby's character write up, and gets significantly less than the renegade warbands spawned by that one failed incursion into the Eye.


People keep comparing the Black Legion to the Ultramarines of the current space Marine book, but while the Black might be intended to fill the same 'poster boy' role, they are not the central focus of their book the way the Ultramarines are in theirs (at least in the current book, the new book supposedly focuses less on them, from what I hear). Ultramarines have not one, but what? Three special characters? Four? And a unique unit? And the majority of the fluff in the book is either about them or from their perspective?

The SM book is focused on the Ultramarines, to the degree that you could reasonably call it codex: ultramarines. The same is just not the case for Black Legion and chaos. The picture on the cover isn't even a black legionnaire.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Did some playtesting over the weekend with the new BL list in a couple games vs MEQ. Focused on what I could do with the FOC moreso than the artefacts.

Several units stood out as being particularly effective in terms of what they did and the combos they set up. The core of my army looked like this:

1) MoN Chosen - took a 10 man squad, gave them 5 flamers and a Rhino. The flamers forced my opponent to stay away and try to shoot from distance. They eventually assaulted with 30 attacks on the charge.

2) NMs - took a 6 man squad of NMs with sonic weapons and a blastmaster. they stayed behind the flamers. All their shooting ignored cover, but they took cover from the MoN Chosen.

3) Plasma Chosen - took a 6 man squad, gave the Champion a plasma pistol and the others all had plasma guns.

In terms of tactics, I had the Flamer Chosen in a Rhino and popped smoke at the end of the first turn. The other guys ran up behind it. At the start of the second round, the Flamer Chosen set up as close as possible to the enemy and just took shots while the other units closed in.

I am a big pro flamer chosen guy. But what about BL makes them better. So they can be taken as troops without abby, but they have to have VotLW making them 10% more expensive....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Malisteen wrote:


And again, Codex: CSM IS NOT Codex: Black Legion already. The warpsmith is explicitly there for Iron Warriors. The Apostle is explicitly there for Word Bearers. The Warp Talons are there for night lords, and cultists for Alpha Legion. Red Corsairs have their own Special Character, which is all the Black Legion got. Cult Legions also each have their own special character, as well as themed troop units restricted to armies led by characters of their alignment, instead of just available to anyone regardless of commander like in the last book.

Not arguing your point, the dino bots are Iron Warriors, Possessed have always been word bearers, oblits and mutes are also iron warriors, master of deception really fits alpha legion.

I just dont know if warp talons are Night Lords. I always bought into the fluff that night lords didnt worship chaos and werent daemonically possessed.

 Malisteen wrote:

And again, Codex: CSM IS NOT Codex: Black Legion already. The warpsmith is explicitly there for Iron Warriors. The Apostle is explicitly there for Word Bearers. The Warp Talons are there for night lords, and cultists for Alpha Legion. Red Corsairs have their own Special Character, which is all the Black Legion got. Cult Legions also each have their own special character, as well as themed troop units restricted to armies led by characters of their alignment, instead of just available to anyone regardless of commander like in the last book.

The Black Legion has Warpsmiths. It's WARsmiths that are exclusive to Iron Warriors, not WarPsmith.

The Black Legion has Dark Apostles. They've been retconned to no longer be Word Bearers exclusive.

The Blacksmith has Warp Talons. They aren't exclusive to the Night Legion.

The Black Legion has cultists. It's not emphasized very much but they do.

As stated in several other sources before the supplement and within the supplement itself, the Black Legion has EVERYONE, with no particular tendency towards anything. Just like what Codex: Chaos Space Marines allows you to build. Supplements are supposed to be for the specialized factions, such as how Lyanden specializes in dead ghost things and how Farsight has various limitations after being split off from the Tau Empire, and a special hatred for Orks.

Black Legion has no specialties. Instead, it has everything, which is what Codex: CSM was. Even the supplement states this!

For crying out loud, the own supplement ends up contradicting itself by forcing a specialty on the Black Legion! Again, the whole idea of everyone being a veteran of the long war goes against the established fluff and the fluff within their own supplement! If they were going to ADD a new specialty that they never had before, they should have done it like the Ultramarines with the Tyrannic War Veterans coming about because of a new development in the story, not force a specialty on them that actually goes against fluff within the supplement itself.

When the original Codex does something better than what the supplement does for representing the faction, then yes, peoples' assertions that they didn't need a supplement because the original codex was more than enough for them has plenty of validity.

The only thing the Black Legion was sorely lacking was fluff (I consider special characters to be fluff-based), unlike the Ultramarines who get their own novels and movies and tons of fluff cases throughout Imperium history as well as a bajillion special characters. Sadly, this book doesn't even seem to have delivered very well on that, though it was better than nothing with what it gave. ...it doesn't have any new special characters either.

I'm just happy I can use all 20 of my chaos spawn now since this is yet another book which allows allies with itself (why bother having allies, but whatever).. Now I can ditch the demon models I don't own and can use full CSM!

 Kirasu wrote:
I'm just happy I can use all 20 of my chaos spawn now since this is yet another book which allows allies with itself (why bother having allies, but whatever).. Now I can ditch the demon models I don't own and can use full CSM!

now you need to adjust to playing 2000 point games where you will need 35 chaos spawn.

Based on her review sounds pretty 'meh' and way overpriced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnHR6_aVEiA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

TiamatRoar wrote:

 Malisteen wrote:

And again, Codex: CSM IS NOT Codex: Black Legion already. The warpsmith is explicitly there for Iron Warriors. The Apostle is explicitly there for Word Bearers. The Warp Talons are there for night lords, and cultists for Alpha Legion. Red Corsairs have their own Special Character, which is all the Black Legion got. Cult Legions also each have their own special character, as well as themed troop units restricted to armies led by characters of their alignment, instead of just available to anyone regardless of commander like in the last book.

The Black Legion has Warpsmiths. It's WARsmiths that are exclusive to Iron Warriors, not WarPsmith.

The Black Legion has Dark Apostles. They've been retconned to no longer be Word Bearers exclusive.

The Blacksmith has Warp Talons. They aren't exclusive to the Night Legion.

The Black Legion has cultists. It's not emphasized very much but they do.

As stated in several other sources before the supplement and within the supplement itself, the Black Legion has EVERYONE, with no particular tendency towards anything. Just like what Codex: Chaos Space Marines allows you to build. Supplements are supposed to be for the specialized factions, such as how Lyanden specializes in dead ghost things and how Farsight has various limitations after being split off from the Tau Empire, and a special hatred for Orks.

Black Legion has no specialties. Instead, it has everything, which is what Codex: CSM was. Even the supplement states this!

For crying out loud, the own supplement ends up contradicting itself by forcing a specialty on the Black Legion! Again, the whole idea of everyone being a veteran of the long war goes against the established fluff and the fluff within their own supplement! If they were going to ADD a new specialty that they never had before, they should have done it like the Ultramarines with the Tyrannic War Veterans coming about because of a new development in the story, not force a specialty on them that actually goes against fluff within the supplement itself.

When the original Codex does something better than what the supplement does for representing the faction, then yes, peoples' assertions that they didn't need a supplement because the original codex was more than enough for them has plenty of validity.

The only thing the Black Legion was sorely lacking was fluff (I consider special characters to be fluff-based), unlike the Ultramarines who get their own novels and movies and tons of fluff cases throughout Imperium history as well as a bajillion special characters. Sadly, this book doesn't even seem to have delivered very well on that, though it was better than nothing with what it gave. ...it doesn't have any new special characters either.

Not trying to butt in or anything but wasn't the point of this supplement more that it was Abbadon's more elites forces then the usual random mishmash. I understand people dont like the VOTLW Tax instead of the Abbadon tax, especially if you end up taking Abbadon anyway but doesn't VOTLW actually make sense on chosen I mean Chosen are supposed to be THE Veterans of the Long War, isn;t it more of a problem that in the core book they DON'T require it or should get it automatically. I don't think the book adds specializations to the black legions, just reflect a more elite and pure Black Legion force.

danp164 wrote:

Not trying to butt in or anything but wasn't the point of this supplement more that it was Abbadon's more elites forces then the usual random mishmash. I understand people dont like the VOTLW Tax instead of the Abbadon tax, especially if you end up taking Abbadon anyway but doesn't VOTLW actually make sense on chosen I mean Chosen are supposed to be THE Veterans of the Long War, isn;t it more of a problem that in the core book they DON'T require it or should get it automatically. I don't think the book adds specializations to the black legions, just reflect a more elite and pure Black Legion force.

People hate the VotLW tax because VotLW is overpriced. It averages 10% on most models. It gives you +1 Ld half the time. Chosen should come with it stock for 18 points. Regular CSM should probably come with it stock for 13 points, but have options to swap it for other things.

Another reason is VoTLW compares really badly to ATSKNF - I think it works out that its more expensive too?

If VotLW was to replace ATSKNF, then it should have being in the base cost of the models and directly incorporated into the models rules.

But instead of +1 LD, make a reroll for LD tests.

 Slayer le boucher wrote:
If VotLW was to replace ATSKNF, then it should have being in the base cost of the models and directly incorporated into the models rules.

But instead of +1 LD, make a reroll for LD tests.

even reroll Ld test isnt as good as ATSKNF (which basically = I pass or ignore every significant morale test failure)

i know, but we can't have ATSKNF or we might have something similar but chaosy-ish?..

the problem is i have no idea what we could have in place of ATSKNF, that would make all peoples happy...

 SickSix wrote:
Based on her review sounds pretty 'meh' and way overpriced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnHR6_aVEiA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Really wouldnt call this a review... sounded like the ramblings of a drunk muppet...

 Slayer le boucher wrote:
i know, but we can't have ATSKNF or we might have something similar but chaosy-ish?..

the problem is i have no idea what we could have in place of ATSKNF, that would make all peoples happy...

They could have called it No Mercy, No Retreat or something grimdark like that and kept it exactly the same.

But Chaos can't have that. Even the Land Raider is sub-par compared to Imperial ones with PotMS....

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

 Slayer le boucher wrote:
i know, but we can't have ATSKNF or we might have something similar but chaosy-ish?..

the problem is i have no idea what we could have in place of ATSKNF, that would make all peoples happy...

They could have called it No Mercy, No Retreat or something grimdark like that and kept it exactly the same.

But Chaos can't have that. Even the Land Raider is sub-par compared to Imperial ones with PotMS....

Or they could just change ATSKNF, and make it less OP.

Only immune to sweeping advance if they contain more models or they take a sweeping advance, but only lose X models (feel free to suggest how many) to retreat. They don't have to take a LD test to regroup, but can only fire within 6" or something, heavy weapons can only be snapfired.

Fear rules changed to be stronger, and with marines able to resist weaker levels of it, a space marine will feel fear against a gigantic bloodthirster whose daemonic warp washes over them like the tide of blood. Or just make it so that MEQ get +1 against fear. NOT IMMUNE TO IT.

 Malisteen wrote:

And again, Codex: CSM IS NOT Codex: Black Legion already. The warpsmith is explicitly there for Iron Warriors. The Apostle is explicitly there for Word Bearers. The Warp Talons are there for night lords, and cultists for Alpha Legion. Red Corsairs have their own Special Character, which is all the Black Legion got. Cult Legions also each have their own special character, as well as themed troop units restricted to armies led by characters of their alignment, instead of just available to anyone regardless of commander like in the last book.
.

Well, it's very easy to argue that the new CSM codex doesn't quite represent any chaos faction particularly well, except perhaps for Iron Warriors and that's a stretch. It's more like Codex: Weird Dinobots.

Or let me put it this way, when I started chaos it was using the 4th Ed. codex and I made a Black Legion force because I wanted one of everything in my army. If you are doing World Eaters, you can't very well have Noise Marines in your army, can you? That is the purpose of Black Legion for chaos. When the new book came out, my army was still generic enough that I didn't need to buy anything to field a force, I had basic CSM's, Rhinos, Abaddon, A daemon prince, Tanks, Etc. The basic stuff.

I play against my brother a lot who plays new Tau. If I fielded that army I will tell you what is going to happen. After his first shooting phase I will have no transports alive, I will be lucky to have half my army standing. Any unit that is lucky to get into assault will be gunned down by overwatch shots coming from multiple units at normal ballistic skill or rerolling misses.

So I can use this new supplement now, and that whole army will pretty much just get more expensive and useless due to being forced to take the VOTLW upgrade, Thanks GW.

Played a friendly game against chaos today with a armoured battlegroup list.
If that artifact that fires a large blast works by inflincting d3 autopenetrating hits to armored targets, then there is something wrong here. I have no trouble losing tanks but a shot that ignores both cover AND your armour value on a BS5 unit sounds like a tenyear's old dream come true. No more walls AV14 to hide the Chimeras behind.
I know i might sound a bit harsh but that thing is the final nail on the coffin of many mechanised armies.

Isn't the rumour that it's a single use item ?

If so it may be great for taking out a single unit (or more if the target doesn't space out their units smartly),

but a list with lots of armour should still have plenty of stuff to fight on afterwards. It seems more geared to taking on lists with a single high value target