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Hi guys today I had my first propped read through the chaos codex and its SOOOOOOOO much better than the loyalist one !!

The only thing I will miss is thunder hammers THAT'S IT!!

Am I missing something ??

Chaos have no real way to deal with eldar or tau whereas loyalists have drop pod sallys and white scar grav bike armies to fight them, all csm have are nurgle and hellturkeys with the occasional belly and black mace DP

It isn't better. It's generally seen as worse, but if you ask me it's just different.

Yes there is a lot of bad stuff in there but the good bits are seriously good.

And I refuse to take a helldrake !!

You lose out on Storm Shields, gravguns, Chapter Tactics, Drop Pods, Thunderfire Cannons...

Things worth noting:
Chaos Marines that fail morale are at a substantial disadvantage compared to loyalists and do not recieve a proportional discount or benefit(ATSKNF and Chapter Tactics are easily worth more than 1ppm). They have limited ability to protect characters from challenges and can be swept if they lose.

A point tax on having options is baked into the underlying cost of every model, then those options are mediocre and overcosted. The sheer quantity of options is deceptive, as few are ever actually useful. Options equivalent to Chapter Masters or Artificer armour don't even exist. The apparent depth of the book is a deception created by the huge number of useless and overcosted options bloating every unit entry. The few that aren't useless become more or less mandatory, like Mark of Nurgle on Obliterators.

The most potent swiss army knife unit, the Obliterator, gets a 'fluffy' restriction slapped on it that has never previously existed. Most of the other Chaos-specific units are just garbage, see Warp Talons, Mutilators, Possessed, and Defilers.

The Heldrake is a high mark that little of the rest of the codex really approaches.

Multiple Landraider variants, better standard (troop) marines and not having a boon table with the attached champions of suicide rule.

Chaos is good when you run a plaguemarine/heldrake combo. Most other marks are not up to the MoN standard. Want to run an IF or Salamander army? Here you go, want to run Sons or Zerkers? Have fun with your uphill battle. C:SM at least makes theming an option without handicapping yourself.

brother marcus wrote:
Hi guys today I had my first propped read through the chaos codex and its SOOOOOOOO much better than the loyalist one !!

The only thing I will miss is thunder hammers THAT'S IT!!

Am I missing something ??

What? Have you been smoking and not sharing? The Chaos Space Marine Codex is terrible compared to the Loyalist one, and removes rules for legions. Terrible customization compared to the loyalist codex.

Do the thousand sons still get a 4++? If so I can not ever see calling them "bad". I played a friend last week who was using the old codex and took 20 of them with Ahriman... I could not kill that dang blob of beef.

(Disclaimer that was at apocalypse points level with no superheavies, I never said that was the best use of 750 points)

Is the OP being sarcastic or is he serious?

 MWHistorian wrote:
Is the OP being sarcastic or is he serious?

I hope he's joking.

Almost had a heart attack when I read the title.

Lucarikx

 dementedwombat wrote:
Do the thousand sons still get a 4++? If so I can not ever see calling them "bad". I played a friend last week who was using the old codex and took 20 of them with Ahriman... I could not kill that dang blob of beef.

(Disclaimer that was at apocalypse points level with no superheavies, I never said that was the best use of 750 points)

you know that they die to normal fire like any other meq? a unit of missilsides or some waveserpents don't care if they shout at 200pts csm or 300+pts 1ksons.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Do the thousand sons still get a 4++? If so I can not ever see calling them "bad". I played a friend last week who was using the old codex and took 20 of them with Ahriman... I could not kill that dang blob of beef.

(Disclaimer that was at apocalypse points level with no superheavies, I never said that was the best use of 750 points)

They still have the 4++. That being said, they are rife with internal problems. To start with, they cost 150 for the aspiring sorcerer and 4 thousand sons. Every additional Thousand Son costs 23 points. The icon of flame is soulblaze that isn't worth 15 points, and the only other options to customize is 10 points for gift of mutation which might spawn your aspiring sorcerer or do nothing or melta bombs. They have a 4++ invuln but with cover being a 4+ or 5+ this doesn't really mean all that much and they still die to ap4, 5, 6 like any other marine and D weapons blow them off the map. They have ap3 bolters but are slow and purposeful meaning they can't overwatch and the aspiring sorcerer is forced to roll upon the worst psker table in the game. He is only permitted to roll on the lore of Tzeentch. One roll can't be taken (2 warp charges), the primaris is unreliable and bad (it is a blast that is random d6+1S and some extra rules), the boon of mutation can only be used on characters 2" from your sorcerer and has 1/6 chance of doing nothing and possibly makes them into spawn and is a toughness test if failedd you take a wound, the only decent one is the doombolt of tzeentch so you better hope you get that. Along with that, they are only unlocked as troops if you take a Sorcerer of Tzeentch which forces 1 of their 1-3 spells to be rolled on the lore of tzeentch psyker table which is generally bad. Oh and they can't run so slow and purposeful really hoses them. They aren't the worst option in our codex but they are nowhere near even decent level. Playing them is an uphill battle.

 Brother SRM wrote:
It isn't better. It's generally seen as worse, but if you ask me it's just different.

I was going to say, that's what I generally hear too... definitely doesn't blow the loyalist one away, that's for sure.

The only edge Chaos has over C: CSM is the Heldrake, which invalidates a lot of what Space Marines can bring to the table.

But everything else Space Marines have just crap all over everything Chaos has.

I haven't heard anything but complaints about it since it came out.

That being said, it seems to perform about as well as any other codex in actual games.

I'm going to expand into it eventually. Thousand Sons look too tasty to ignore!

I could probably write my English Essay on how bad the CSM codex is, but I'll just sum it up in 4 points:
1) Fluffwise: the codex is terrible, there is no way to individualize your men as a warband or legion besides taking centric units that every legion/warband has. The cult legions can only be represented by their troops and anyother unit can only take a Mark. Not to mention GW outright lied by saying Legion tactics would be to difficult to balance (like GW does that anyway) and then turns around and gives C:SM Chapter tactics
2) Gamewise: so many units are hilariously bad it's not even funny. When playing casual games with CSM you are limited to either taking the 5 best units and being "that guy" or bringing something else and getting stomped. Competitively we have 1 maybe 2 lists that can compete and they get blown away by all other 6E codices (except for DA) using competitive lists. For uber fluffy play only 1 of the non cult legions has ANY representation at all in the form of Abaddon. The Cult legions are limited to 1 SC and spamming cult troops.
3) Playstyle: in the CSM codex we have 1 way of playing: lining up and charging/shooting. Every other army has some sort of other play style except for CSM
4) GW ignoring us: this isn't related to the codex but dang it, we whined for 4 YEARS to GW about the crappy 4th ED codex about Legion rules and all we got were second rate power ranger robots.
5) All the stuff SM has that we rightfully deserve: (not about Chapter Tactics) for some reason, we do not get tons of units that were developed during the heresy that we don't get even though we have more HH tech than they do.

Well this post got a good laugh from me.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Well this post got a good laugh from me.

Yeah, no kidding. do you mean the troll, or those feeding him?

I mean, seriously?

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
I could probably write my English Essay on how bad the CSM codex is, but I'll just sum it up in 4 points:
1) Fluffwise: the codex is terrible, there is no way to individualize your men as a warband or legion besides taking centric units that every legion/warband has. The cult legions can only be represented by their troops and anyother unit can only take a Mark. Not to mention GW outright lied by saying Legion tactics would be to difficult to balance (like GW does that anyway) and then turns around and gives C:SM Chapter tactics
2) Gamewise: so many units are hilariously bad it's not even funny. When playing casual games with CSM you are limited to either taking the 5 best units and being "that guy" or bringing something else and getting stomped. Competitively we have 1 maybe 2 lists that can compete and they get blown away by all other 6E codices (except for DA) using competitive lists. For uber fluffy play only 1 of the non cult legions has ANY representation at all in the form of Abaddon. The Cult legions are limited to 1 SC and spamming cult troops.
3) Playstyle: in the CSM codex we have 1 way of playing: lining up and charging/shooting. Every other army has some sort of other play style except for CSM
4) GW ignoring us: this isn't related to the codex but dang it, we whined for 4 YEARS to GW about the crappy 4th ED codex about Legion rules and all we got were second rate power ranger robots.
5) All the stuff SM has that we rightfully deserve: (not about Chapter Tactics) for some reason, we do not get tons of units that were developed during the heresy that we don't get even though we have more HH tech than they do.

Actually, I think I'd like to hear the long version.
I think my dislike for the Chaos Codex can be described with two words: "complete disgust."

Makumba wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Do the thousand sons still get a 4++? If so I can not ever see calling them "bad". I played a friend last week who was using the old codex and took 20 of them with Ahriman... I could not kill that dang blob of beef.

(Disclaimer that was at apocalypse points level with no superheavies, I never said that was the best use of 750 points)

you know that they die to normal fire like any other meq? a unit of missilsides or some waveserpents don't care if they shout at 200pts csm or 300+pts 1ksons.

Just want to point out that they come in units of 20. 20 3+ saves will take a long time to chew through with weight of fire, especially when it's backed up with a 4++ so your regular anti armor can't even get you a few "easy kills". So yes, you can kill them (just like anything else in the game if you shoot at it enough), but it takes way too many shots for something you really don't want to be shooting at since there's more pain coming your way.

By about turn 5 I finally managed to deplete it down to ~5 models, then he jumped Ariman into the 15 plague marines a foot away.

You know, come to think of it I really should do a writeup of that battle. 3v3 with 3,000 points a player and i took pictures...

Consider for less points you can get 20 PM who are considerably more durable than Tsons and use the same FOC slot you'll start seeing where people who actually play Chaos are coming from.

Also Ahriman cannot join PM, another nifty little bonus of our book. Mark your characters and they can only join units with that mark (or unmarked). Neat huh?

 dementedwombat wrote:

By about turn 5 I finally managed to deplete it down to ~5 models, then he jumped Ariman into the 15 plague marines a foot away.

Just for future reference, he can't do that. The differing Marks prevent Ahriman joining the squad.

Also, after seeing large squads of thousand sons get rocked by devourer gants and hormagaunts, I'm not impressed by 23 point MEQs that die like 13 point ones. (Look I can throw up anecdotal evidence too!)

Interesting note about the conflicting marks. I did not actually know that.

I can only comment on what I've experienced, not being a chaos player or having much familiarity with the army. In my experience they were an incredibly annoying "pull your hair out trying to kill them" brick of pain. And those ap3 boltguns on a squad you really don't want to devote the massive amount of resources it takes to remove can sneak up on you.

I'll just stop talking while I still sound like I might vaguely know what I'm talking about.

1Ksons good? 23 point good? No. Sure, they have staying power, but no killing power. You know what else does that for a quarter of the cost? Cultists.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
You lose out on Storm Shields, gravguns, Chapter Tactics, Drop Pods, Thunderfire Cannons...

Don't forget: Sternguard
Razorbacks
Multiple Land Raider Variants
and (I personally think this) Better unique artifacts for HQs

I feel like CSM is very underwhelming (with the exception of a few units). Its turned into my fun army.

Pity not the traitor

Hahah sorry guys the festive drinking is still happening BUT some of the things in the codex are so much better

Yes you lose ATSKNF but I don't care because I would never use normal marines many would you when you can have plague/ noise and Khorne berserkers as troops ??

Nor do I care about the enourmous bullet magnet that is land raiders

Yes raptors and warp tallons suck but so does almost every cc unit in 6th

Havocs can have special weapons why aren't SM allowed to do this ??

Also I greatly consider demonic boon to be better than the space marine armoury. Yes it's completely based on chance but you could come out with something face destroying

Demon princes rock although very expensive

And I actually think defilers are good!! Especially seen as though they can regen their lost hull points

Demon Princes don't have Eternal Warrior, so they can be one shotted.
Khorne zerkers kinda suck.
The Havocs are good, I'll give ya that.
Defilers are grossly expensive for what little they offer. They pay premium points for weapons they can't really use. Forge Fiend would be better, and that's not saying a lot.

Yes a demon prince can be one shoted but with wings if its not in cc it will be moving so fast you can't really hit him

And ws5 and 3 attacks on the charge and furious charge sucks?? It's considerably better than the cc elite known as vanguard