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WHAT FOLLOWS IS ME RANTING. SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM IF YOU HATE READING.

Games Workshop has been making all of their Chaos Space Marine releases centered around undivided armies. With no new model releases geared toward any individual god, and telling you to "mark" everything with whatever god you want, all of the units still look the same and still basically play the same. The only truly god-unique things in the codex is the Nurgle Daemon Prince and the cult troops. I can guess why they did this, but that doesn't mean I need to be happy about it.

Especially considering how weak the latest units are. I'm never going to get over that maulerfiend. Instead of a daemon engine you get an armored warbeast that was made so lazily its got giant cartoon monster teeth that they put what I can only refer to as a hastily-added gap in between the teeth so that they could add a tongue. It's downright painful to look at. Not to mention the fleshy parts look like crap as well, and that was supposed to be the highlight unit. The Mutilators are handicapped obliterators, and I'm talking fluff here. Obliterators were able to turn into melee weapons as well, but apparently not anymore? Is that too OP? I thought they were supposed to be OP? Well now they're not, they aren't, and you should buy more models now because Games Workshops brain hurt trying to think up something nice for this army. So now you have that. And as usual any power armored marines we see are wearing black legion attire that you need to ignore to play them as anything else. This is Games Workshop's way of telling us who this codex is really about. I'd be happy about them having black legion armor if we saw representations of anything else. Who designed these models, anyway? Jervis Johnson? Does he even like chaos?

I was happy to see the warpsmith and dark apostle. Their rules are hilarious in comparison to how they're depicted in fluff, but whatever. They have models now, and for me that's what really matters. The rules are just words on paper, official or not, and you can change them if you want, which I would without thinking twice. We have a Dark Apostle model! And a Warsmith model! Well, we had a Warsmith model before, but it wasn't that impressive, and it was in metal, and also it's out of print... And I like how they call it the War*p*smith so they can *technically* get away with calling it a chaos techmarine. Which works too, but honestly this type of model is long overdue. Just because it has stupid tongue-mouths on its mechadendrites doesn't mean I don't like it anyways! But the point is, they had to enter these as "Chaos Chaplains" and "Chaos Techmarines" to satisfy their boss (satan) and market it to all chaos players along with every other new model.

Chaos is about diversity more than any other army in the game. And while Codex: Chaos Daemons gave them no other choice, Codex: Chaos Space Marines has allowed them to go in the most generic direction possible. And so they have. This isn't the end of the world if you're playing anything but World Eaters, Emperor's Children, Death Guard, or Thousand Sons. But if you are, then you're either going up against the wall or breaking their identity somehow. Which, if I had to guess, is more likely the second option. I can't tell you how much I'm seeing Thousand Sons, Death Guard, and Emperor's Children fielding any and everything with their own respective colors and calling it theirs. I suppose this is what has drawn me to make this thread more than anything else. I seem to be one of the only people left who actually wants to see armies reflect some sort of identity as opposed to just a color. Why are so many people happy with just a color?


TL;DR

The four god-specific legions are turning into "Red Explosions, Blue Explosions, Green Explosions". And people don't seem to care.

GW is what doesn't care. We care. I haven't purchased models in years. Everyone dies sooner or later. In Jervis's case, we can pray for it to be sooner.

I think most people care. It's been happening for years.

How should we fix this? Boycott, hostile takeover, outright piracy, or even... the dreaded strongly worded letter?

It's GW's intellectual property to ruin. As long as they can turn a dime, they are going to do things with the least amount of effort no matter the quality. You don't have a lot of options about what to do here.

Plenty of people care, this has been a gigantic bugbear of the community for 7 years now. Players have screamed and moaned about it from the tail end of 4th edition, through 5th and 6th editions and now into 7th.

GW doesn't care. There are plenty of other people that care.

They could fix it if they wanted to. Very easily in fact. But they don't, so they haven't.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Plenty of people care, this has been a gigantic bugbear of the community for 7 years now. Players have screamed and moaned about it from the tail end of 4th edition, through 5th and 6th editions and now into 7th.

GW doesn't care. There are plenty of other people that care.

They could fix it if they wanted to. Very easily in fact. But they don't, so they haven't.

Pretty much.

I've gotten used to it sadly, infact I think that the whole undivided thing and lessening of options was just so they didn't have to make many more models and sprue's rather then outright malicious hatred, they are too lazy to create god options, too lazy to make cult models, too lazy to even update the basic CSM marine.

Phil Kelly just phoned in a codex because it's not his Eldar Poster Child and that he didn't care if CSM got better or worse.

Quarterdime wrote:The four god-specific legions are turning into "Red Explosions, Blue Explosions, Green Explosions".

That's the player's fault, not GW's. You can make a fully fluffy 1ksons almost as well as you ever could. All you're missing is cheesy W2 terminators, and that's it.

The only difference was that before you would take a certain army and GW would prevent you from taking anything else. Now they don't. Just because GW no longer prevents you from taking sorcerers in a khorne list or cultists with your iron warriors doesn't mean you're required to play with those units in those armies.

Before you were being saved from yourself. Now GW treats players like adults. You know, who can make their own decisions about stuff.

Is that really a problem?

I'm pretty fine with it... I play Nurgle so Rust colored everything is easy enough.

Rusted Heldrake? Nurgly, Rusted Forgefiend? Nurgly. Rusted Rhino, Nurgly. Rusted Weapons Battery? Nurgly.

It's not just Chaos. GW has been making a concentrated effort throughout 7th edition to streamline the mechanics in the game (despite what one might think, with all the stupid random tables).

Look at the new orks. Their new artillery guns, while mechanically decent, are all pretty damn boring. No real special effects beyond the traktor's grounding debuff. It's just, random dice roll for your AP or strength and call it a day.

It's becoming like that throughout all the codicies.

This has been happening over all the books since not long after I started. If it werent for 3rd party models the streamlining would end my 40k gaming. Lists are so bland along with most of the books from 5th edition on-wards.

As a guard player I feel your pain. The problem with the books, is they dont inspire anyone to take it further. Most players I know that have cool conversions, themes or play styles did not find that inspiration within any GW book of late. White Dwarf used to have cool ideas too, but now its gone.

GW is killing creativity and it sucks.

Ailoros mate you have laughably completely missed the point, what op is saying is that chaos is basically forced into a corner with its total lack of options and almost no character.

Codex space marines are all codex chapters and should have no variation in forces due to all being codex adherent, and yes that includes dark Angels etc.
And yet chaos that has no 2 forces alike are forced to take all the same options and have literally no variation in forces.

Bad codex writing full stop

Ailaros gets the point, but he's under the impression that Chaos has all the variation it needs. In his mind, the marks, cult elite choices and daemon engines give CSM variation on par with the levels of customization Space Marines get.

I disagree, but that's his stance.

Yeah. I mean, tell me what fluffy list you used to be able to build, that you can't build anymore.

Can you build a fluffy alpha legion list with cultists and infiltrating space marines and no vehicles? Yes. Can you build a fluffy khorne list with just khorne berzerkers, MoK terminators and some allied bloodletters? Yes. Can you build a word bearers army with a dark apostle and a bunch of demon engines and allied demons? Yes.

You can do everything you could do before, it's just now you can also do more stuff. More stuff is only less creativity for people who rely on restrictions to be creative.

Eh, I'm of the opinion that flavor comes from the player and not the rules but that's just me. I mean, if you have an army modeled and painted like a Khorne-dedicated force does the lack of god specific special rules make it any less Khorne? Or, on the reverse, does an army that is obviously made to look Nurgle made a Khornate army when it takes Khorne specific rules?

It's not like they don't have you covered in that department, anyway. They have a MoK and the option to give your guys a BP+CS to make Khornate troops. Other faction Codices would be lucky to get as much to represent lore specific groups.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Eh, I'm of the opinion that flavor comes from the player and not the rules but that's just me. I mean, if you have an army modeled and painted like a Khorne-dedicated force does the lack of god specific special rules make it any less Khorne? Or, on the reverse, does an army that is obviously made to look Nurgle made a Khornate army when it takes Khorne specific rules?

It's not like they don't have you covered in that department, anyway. They have a MoK and the option to give your guys a BP+CS to make Khornate troops. Other faction Codices would be lucky to get as much to represent lore specific groups.

Thats true, but what about when the army right next you is slaneesh but plays largely the same with a few cosmetic changes and one or 2 unit differences? Thats where rules come in to rely define the choice you made. If it rewards you for sticking to a theme thats even better.

I am part of the crowd that thinks its a good mix of both rules and players to really create themed lists.

I agree and Games Workshop already does this for you. They just need to balance the different cult troops/marks better so that they are more viable.

Ailaros, you've missed my point. At the end of it I say that people don't care. I understand Games Workshop doesn't care, but they've given the players the same option and oh look at that they don't care either. People can run Death Guard with just the Forgeworld Plague Marines, Terminators, and some vehicles and that's it. But few people do, and I think that they internally make that choice based on the understanding that that's all they have if they make that choice. I'm sure that the Emperor's Children have some pretty unique daemon engines up their sleeves, but it'll be a cold day in hell before we even hear about them. Nobody even talks about that sort of thing because of how far from reality the concept is at this point.

Furthermore, my point with the releases is that they have the ability to do it SO EASILY! They could have even given the plastic sorcerer the option to switch his star of chaos with a god-specific icon. That would have taken almost NO effort on their part, but they didn't even bother. If you want a Slaaneshi sorceror, you paint him purple. If you want him to be nurgle, paint him green or go home. And people are happy to. "He's green, that means he's Nurgle!"

Yeah, but why should Chaos Space Marines get all of this cool stuff? Why not Eldar, Tau or Imperial Guard? Why can't we have whatever tank the Catachans invented to deal with jungle conditions or the special Battlesuit made by the Farsight Enclaves to fight other Tau?

Of course, it would be sweet if everyone got all of this cool stuff but that takes a lot of time. The answer to the question of why GW doesn't make more god specific stuff is the reason why other factions don't get faction specific stuff: It takes time and effort. And they would rather spend that time and effort making large new shinies to maximize short term profits.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yeah, but why should Chaos Space Marines get all of this cool stuff? Why not Eldar, Tau or Imperial Guard? Why can't we have whatever tank the Catachans invented to deal with jungle conditions or the special Battlesuit made by the Farsight Enclaves to fight other Tau?

Because this is a Chaos Space Marine thread, where Chaos Space Marines are the topic of discussion.

I'm sure if you made a thread for Eldar, or Tau, or Imperial Guard saying "do you think my faction would benefit from having more options?" The answers would almost unanimously be "yes".

 TheCustomLime wrote:

Of course, it would be sweet if everyone got all of this cool stuff but that takes a lot of time. The answer to the question of why GW doesn't make more god specific stuff is the reason why other factions don't get faction specific stuff: It takes time and effort. And they would rather spend that time and effort making large new shinies to maximize short term profits.

It's because they're lazy, and their business practices are stupid. They would make more money if they invested the extremely cheap amount of time required to make these things. They're not building a video game or a building, they're writing rules in a book. The costs to do that are man-hours in writing a few pages per codex, and the ink and paper required to jot it down. That's it. Meanwhile, they'd be raking in the cash from people losing their minds to buy these things.

Can you imagine how much money they would make if they released 4 CSM supplements giving four or five pages of extra mechanics for each God? The four of them would probably collectively outsell the Space Marine codex by a wide margin.

It should be standard across all armies or at the very least supplemental.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yeah, but why should Chaos Space Marines get all of this cool stuff? Why not Eldar, Tau or Imperial Guard? Why can't we have whatever tank the Catachans invented to deal with jungle conditions or the special Battlesuit made by the Farsight Enclaves to fight other Tau?

Of course, it would be sweet if everyone got all of this cool stuff but that takes a lot of time. The answer to the question of why GW doesn't make more god specific stuff is the reason why other factions don't get faction specific stuff: It takes time and effort. And they would rather spend that time and effort making large new shinies to maximize short term profits.

Well Imperial Guard is a good comparison, they suffer from this almost as much due to having such heavy implications to non-cadian regiments. Games Workshop still sells those horrible old metal guardsmen from other legions along with their just-as-terrible plastic catachans. I've never seen plastic kits so ugly.

But here's the difference: Those sub-factions can still use the same vehicles as the Cadians without any major inconsistancies (aside from the new Hydra/Wyvern kit which requires a cadian on display to man it)

Chaos runs on iconography. Let me put this in terms of Imperial Guard: Imagine if it was standard issue for every single vehicle to have the word "CADIA" imblasoned in thick etching on every single vehicle. And the only vehicles that the Catachans or any other regiments could field were vehicles that had THEIR name on it. The difference is bigger.

Actually, I think a more apt comparison is that the lore described the Catachans, Cadians and Valhallans as having all of these cool tanks unique to each regiment but only giving you the tanks that are common to all of them. And that each regiment has this awesome fighting style but you have to use the same stats and rules for each of them with only wargear choices to give you comfort.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Actually, I think a more apt comparison is that the lore described the Catachans, Cadians and Valhallans as having all of these cool tanks unique to each regiment but only giving you the tanks that are common to all of them. And that each regiment has this awesome fighting style but you have to use the same stats and rules for each of them with only wargear choices to give you comfort.

No, as valid a comparison as that is, it's is very much less apt. The point I made about the iconography still holds, and it is a bigger deal since this hobby seems to be full of people who are willing to paint a cadian red and call him a vostroyan.

 Quarterdime wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yeah, but why should Chaos Space Marines get all of this cool stuff? Why not Eldar, Tau or Imperial Guard? Why can't we have whatever tank the Catachans invented to deal with jungle conditions or the special Battlesuit made by the Farsight Enclaves to fight other Tau?

Of course, it would be sweet if everyone got all of this cool stuff but that takes a lot of time. The answer to the question of why GW doesn't make more god specific stuff is the reason why other factions don't get faction specific stuff: It takes time and effort. And they would rather spend that time and effort making large new shinies to maximize short term profits.

Well Imperial Guard is a good comparison, they suffer from this almost as much due to having such heavy implications to non-cadian regiments. Games Workshop still sells those horrible old metal guardsmen from other legions along with their just-as-terrible plastic catachans. I've never seen plastic kits so ugly.

But here's the difference: Those sub-factions can still use the same vehicles as the Cadians without any major inconsistancies (aside from the new Hydra/Wyvern kit which requires a cadian on display to man it)

Chaos runs on iconography. Let me put this in terms of Imperial Guard: Imagine if it was standard issue for every single vehicle to have the word "CADIA" imblasoned in thick etching on every single vehicle. And the only vehicles that the Catachans or any other regiments could field were vehicles that had THEIR name on it. The difference is bigger.

Hmmm, ish.

A Cadian for example is fine. The codex seems to be written for them. BUT then you have Catachans who clearly arent wearing any armour but must have a 5+ armour save. Infact they wear less armour than many units in the game but have a better armour save. Much like the Icons should effect chaos (I think?) the appearance of a guardsmen should in SOME ways at least effect how they are used.

Much like how each chaos alignment effects not only what they take but how they play, guard regiments are the same. You wont see Tallarn lined up firing in ranks, much like you wont see Valhallans jumping out of aircraft onto their targets.

Each regiment is meant to be defined by styles of warfare but by playing by those styles you are being punished. Much like how playing as one of the Chaos Gods as they do in fluff, can many times only harm your force rather than both define, help and hurt your army.

So when my Praetorians line up in ranks and fire at the enemy, im being punished as blast weapons murder me and cover is hard to get in. But I get no reward besides looking cool for doing it. If GW had given me doctrines again for example, then I would at least get a bonus for playing the way they where meant to in the fluff. Its exactly the same as the Chaos issue but at least you can be thankful you have options. We dont get any say in it besides some gear and aesthetics. You have Icons and so on.

There is nothing worse than the fluff kill in the Imperial Guard Codex. The other regiments all combined have little to no mention in the book either.

So yes it applies to all books, some more than others.

Swastakowey wrote:Thats true, but what about when the army right next you is slaneesh but plays largely the same with a few cosmetic changes and one or 2 unit differences?

That's the player's fault. One of you isn't playing a fluffy list, and pretending like they are.

Plus, it's not like we've moved away from some golden age where no two CSM armies ever looked the same. Was I not the only one who noticed the old Iron Warriors rhino rush, or the everyone-has-a-lash-prince-and-oblits armies of yore?

The test of creativity and variability isn't how well a codex prevents lots of people from taking the same list. People who only want to run the most powerful list will always do that regardless. The test is if someone can choose to do something different. Which they can in the current codex, very, very easily.

 Ailaros wrote:

Swastakowey wrote:Thats true, but what about when the army right next you is slaneesh but plays largely the same with a few cosmetic changes and one or 2 unit differences?

That's the player's fault. One of you isn't playing a fluffy list, and pretending like they are.

Plus, it's not like we've moved away from some golden age where no two CSM armies ever looked the same. Was I not the only one who noticed the old Iron Warriors rhino rush, or the everyone-has-a-lash-prince-and-oblits armies of yore?

The test of creativity and variability isn't how well a codex prevents lots of people from taking the same list. People who only want to run the most powerful list will always do that regardless. The test is if someone can choose to do something different. Which they can in the current codex, very, very easily.

I dont really care that some random tournament players in some random country played pretend fluff lists. They can do what they want to as they always have.

What matters is that each army should be rich with flavor and choices to mark your army unique both in units, play style and look. At the moment you get rewarded for playing a style (which is practically the only choice for many armies) with certain units that look like whatever you want. Which pushes people away from creativity beyond looks. The only real freedom you have is looks.


If its so easy, make me a Mordian List that doesnt get punished for playing line infantry with nearly no armour. That fight in lines, move in lines and have a rigid order system. You will suffer for that choice with no benefit.

 Ailaros wrote:

Swastakowey wrote:Thats true, but what about when the army right next you is slaneesh but plays largely the same with a few cosmetic changes and one or 2 unit differences?

That's the player's fault. One of you isn't playing a fluffy list, and pretending like they are.

Plus, it's not like we've moved away from some golden age where no two CSM armies ever looked the same. Was I not the only one who noticed the old Iron Warriors rhino rush, or the everyone-has-a-lash-prince-and-oblits armies of yore?

The test of creativity and variability isn't how well a codex prevents lots of people from taking the same list. People who only want to run the most powerful list will always do that regardless. The test is if someone can choose to do something different. Which they can in the current codex, very, very easily.

Uhm... Hello... You kind of ignored my post... the one I was aiming directly at you... even said your name....

....

Honestly, I don't see it. The Chaos Legions still seem pretty distinct to me. Never been a super-duper fan of Chaos Marines until relatively recently, so maybe I just haven't been paying close enough attention.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Honestly, I don't see it. The Chaos Legions still seem pretty distinct to me. Never been a super-duper fan of Chaos Marines until relatively recently, so maybe I just haven't been paying close enough attention.

Really it's a problem with all the factions to varying extents. The closest to it working is SM and even then it has kinks. The problem is you can't really make the legions. Want to play KSons? Ummmm... I guess you can play Ahriman and just load yourself up with Ksons as troops? Want to play Word Bearers? I guess you can.... ummm bring an apostle that has few options and then just kinda grab some cultists and some standard csm that are still cowardly. Oh and toss some chaos daemons that have no synergy to your army. Just because you get a mark doesn't mean you become that warband. Being a mark of tzeentch doesn't make you a KSon just as much as the Mark of Khorne doesn't equate to you being a Berzerker. It's very good at representing recent warbands that have fallen to chaos that ally in a variety of forces but that's really where it reaches its peak. To add to that, a lot of the options are the illusion of choice with two of the icons being horrid (fear and soul blaze come to mind) and the marks are of varying qualities with one being almost always useless. It'd bland and really lacks flavor.

That said, this can be said for armies at large. Guardsman, Eldar, Orks, etc. could all use with some thematical rules to benefit a certain playstyle. The themes don't even necessarily need to mean one group. Instead, it can simply be a representation of a grand theme. Call the obviously designed for siege regiments "Lord of the Siege". You know that it's for CSM-Iron Warriors/IG-Blahblahblah but it's vague enough that it isn't as glaring.

 StarTrotter wrote:
Guardsman, Eldar, Orks, etc. could all use with some thematical rules to benefit a certain playstyle.

Or to distinguish the factions. I think if we're talking about codexes that lack variety in the different subfactions, Chaos Space Marines are almost at the bottom of the list. (With really only Dark Angels, Dark Eldar, Blood Angels, Daemons, and Codex: Space Marines ranking lower than them.)

Orks, Tau, IG, Eldar, Space Wolves, Necrons, Sisters, Grey Knights, and Tyranids each just one big homogenized lump in their respective codexes. (At least, more so than CSM are.)

Well, we used to have noise marine dreadnaughts. That was pretty dang cool. Tzeentch used to be the masters of sorcery, now they kind of stink at it.
Iron warriors used to have cannons. Give Nurgle something besides plague marines. All chaos armies are really starting to look the same.
The CSM dex is just generic and boring, which is a shame because it's friggin' chaos. It's supposed to be oozing with character. Now we just have a few marines, dino bots and olbiterators. (I never felt that oblits fit the fluff, but that's a personal thing.)


I'm not asking for a lot, just SOMETHING to add some character.