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Bear with me Dakka, I've wanted to this for some time: My take on implementing a chapter tactics like change for the spiky marines!

I didn't go for elaborate FoC changes and different Warlord Traits or Artefacts lists since I believe the Space Marine Codex chapter tactics is a good example of how different sub-factions can be represented in one codex. I've shamelessly used the special rules from the Black Legion supplement to bring it into the fold.
Overall, I tried to keep it simple for each Legion. Haven't game-tested these (yet), so some might be too powerful, others might be too meh.
Most of the inspiration came from lore backgrounds for each legion.

Feel free to comment and criticise!

Black Legion:



Word Bearers:



World Eaters:



Death Guard:



Emperor's Children:



Thousand Sons:


Iron Warriors:


Night Lords:


Alpha Legion:

Man... aspiring champions should always be an upgrade available to cultists...

edit: This is kinda pushing the mono legion warbands. Mixed is often more fun.

I agree with Davenport, ACs should be an upgrade option for all Cultist squads not only AL.

I'm liking the Cult Legions so far but the undivided ones could need a bit more fleshing out. Especially the Iron Warriors as it's mostly FOC changes and the Black Legion seem a bit boring. IWs could have something buffing gunline play stile or the option to buy the Daemon usr for their vehicles and the BL could have access to the new god specific icons.

I'm not sure if I understand the WBs tactic right. Why are they forced to take a Mark?

Oh... IWs can buy additional fortifications, or get access to mines or something.

I think the Black Legion should be able to take Vets of the Long War either for free so it's not a penalty (especially since getting scoring Chosen is barely a buff and the reserve spearhead ability doesn't do that much for CSM short of Heldrakes since their deepstriking units who have no way to avoid scatter other than the crappy dimensional key) or have it also come with Stubborn alongside the Ld boost and Hatred (space marines). That way it helps deal with the lack of ATSKNF in combat to a decent degree without spending points on a snipable Icon of Vengeance.

 Shadox wrote:

I'm not sure if I understand the WBs tactic right. Why are they forced to take a Mark?

I thought that since they are zealots and fanatics, they ought to choose one god.
Needed a point sink for the added rules.
Shame there is no Mark of Chaos Undivided.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordDavenport wrote:
Oh... IWs can buy additional fortifications, or get access to mines or something.

Excellent idea.
I was not very happy with the IW myself.
Thanks!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimskul wrote:
I think the Black Legion should be able to take Vets of the Long War either for free so it's not a penalty (especially since getting scoring Chosen is barely a buff and the reserve spearhead ability doesn't do that much for CSM short of Heldrakes since their deepstriking units who have no way to avoid scatter other than the crappy dimensional key) or have it also come with Stubborn alongside the Ld boost and Hatred (space marines). That way it helps deal with the lack of ATSKNF in combat to a decent degree without spending points on a snipable Icon of Vengeance.

Agreed. I tried to stay in-line with the Black Legion supplement but did not take the added artefacts into account while doing it.
Hatred (Space Marines) is already included in VotLW and making it free for BL sounds good, thank you.
Would Preferred Enemy (Space Marines) be too much?

V2.0.

In short, the changes are:

Black Legion: VotLW now free. Chosen champions have Preferred Enemy (Space Marines).

Iron Warriors: Havocs have Tank Hunters and Objective Secured. No longer troops. CSM Squads can have special/heavy weapon and then another special/heavy at 10 models+. Warpsmiths no longer bring extra walkers. Additional Fortification slot.

Alpha Legion: Cultists have Scout and Stealth too.

The Black Legion:


Word Bearers:



World Eaters:


Death Guard:



Emperor's Children:



Thousand Sons:



Iron Warriors:



Night Lords:


Alpha Legion:

cbteom wrote:
V2.0.


Word Bearers

Spoiler:

Unholy Zeal: All units have the Zealot and Crusader special rules. All units that have the option to take a Mark of Chaos must take one.

Preachers of the Black Masses: Each Word Bearers Detachment must include at least one Dark Apostle as an HQ choice. Word Bearers psykers do not suffer Perils of the Warp on every double when using powers from the Malefic Daemonology discipline, but only on double 6's.

The part about perils is a little redundant, no? And Requiring players to take a dark apostle is a little restricting, as Dark Apostles are little more than a handicap in all but a few builds. Make Dark Apostles like the techmarine in the SM codex, where you can take one for every other HQ choice that isn't also a dark apostle, or move them to Elites in Word Bearers' Detachments.

Also, Alpha Legion Tactics make me wish this was official. Well done Sir.

I really like most of this, very well put together.

I don't think the first extra weapon in a Thousand Sons squad should include heavies. The second can.

Powerfisting wrote:
The part about perils is a little redundant, no? And Requiring players to take a dark apostle is a little restricting, as Dark Apostles are little more than a handicap in all but a few builds. Make Dark Apostles like the techmarine in the SM codex, where you can take one for every other HQ choice that isn't also a dark apostle, or move them to Elites in Word Bearers' Detachments.

Also, Alpha Legion Tactics make me wish this was official. Well done Sir.

Well, Crusader and Zealot USRs make Word Bearers Fearless, Hatred (EVERYTHING) and roll 2d6 and pick highest when running. I tried to balance this by making them have to pick a mark.
Then I thought that alone would not be too fluffy, so I added the Daemonology bonus. You know how these guys looove their rituals and daemons. That called for another penalty and I thought "hey, why not make them have to take a DA?". I think it could be re-written so that they have to take a DA, but it doesn't use up an HQ slot. How would you find that?

And thanks!

Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:I really like most of this, very well put together.

I don't think the first extra weapon in a Thousand Sons squad should include heavies. The second can.

Thank you!
The reason I went for double heavies goes back to one of the principle problems of playing 1k sons squads: Slow and Purposeful. These guys are dependant on not-so-tough rhinos to get them where they can be of use. And if the Rhino gets shot off from under them, well then they are very static for the rest of the game. This way, they will still be moving 6" a turn but will be able to fire two heavy weapons the following shooting phase (Slow and Purposeful works both ways). Making them considerably better but not necessarily making them broken IMHO. Two specials or one special / one heavy (like the CSM squad) is a better addition to a close-range fighting unit, a role in which the 1k sons already excel thanks to their AP3 bolters.

cbteom wrote:

Powerfisting wrote:
The part about perils is a little redundant, no? And Requiring players to take a dark apostle is a little restricting, as Dark Apostles are little more than a handicap in all but a few builds. Make Dark Apostles like the techmarine in the SM codex, where you can take one for every other HQ choice that isn't also a dark apostle, or move them to Elites in Word Bearers' Detachments.

Also, Alpha Legion Tactics make me wish this was official. Well done Sir.

Well, Crusader and Zealot USRs make Word Bearers Fearless, Hatred (EVERYTHING) and roll 2d6 and pick highest when running. I tried to balance this by making them have to pick a mark.
Then I thought that alone would not be too fluffy, so I added the Daemonology bonus. You know how these guys looove their rituals and daemons. That called for another penalty and I thought "hey, why not make them have to take a DA?". I think it could be re-written so that they have to take a DA, but it doesn't use up an HQ slot. How would you find that?

The problem is at the moment you have literally no reason to take an Apostle because everyone gets Zealot. You could make them lvl 1 Psykers with only access to malefic powers and they could get the normal perils rule. If you make them pay around 15 - 20 points for that it should be ok and they would fulfill a role close to their fluff.

For your al legion tactics how about also:
I am Alpharius!:
Any time your warlord loses his last wound roll a d6 on a 4+
choose a champion and replace him with the warlord the warlord has 1 wound

hummus wrote:
For your al legion tactics how about also:
I am Alpharius!:
Any time your warlord loses his last wound roll a d6 on a 4+
choose a champion and replace him with the warlord the warlord has 1 wound

The scariest thing anyone ever said to anyone else in the entire HH book Series. Now I can say it to my friends


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadox wrote:

cbteom wrote:

Powerfisting wrote:
The part about perils is a little redundant, no? And Requiring players to take a dark apostle is a little restricting, as Dark Apostles are little more than a handicap in all but a few builds. Make Dark Apostles like the techmarine in the SM codex, where you can take one for every other HQ choice that isn't also a dark apostle, or move them to Elites in Word Bearers' Detachments.

Also, Alpha Legion Tactics make me wish this was official. Well done Sir.

Well, Crusader and Zealot USRs make Word Bearers Fearless, Hatred (EVERYTHING) and roll 2d6 and pick highest when running. I tried to balance this by making them have to pick a mark.
Then I thought that alone would not be too fluffy, so I added the Daemonology bonus. You know how these guys looove their rituals and daemons. That called for another penalty and I thought "hey, why not make them have to take a DA?". I think it could be re-written so that they have to take a DA, but it doesn't use up an HQ slot. How would you find that?

The problem is at the moment you have literally no reason to take an Apostle because everyone gets Zealot. You could make them lvl 1 Psykers with only access to malefic powers and they could get the normal perils rule. If you make them pay around 15 - 20 points for that it should be ok and they would fulfill a role close to their fluff.

Okay, lets try this: Unholy Zeal is fine as is.

Preachers of Black Masses: Word Bearers Detachments may take one Dark Apostle for each Chaos Lord, Sorcerer, Daemon Prince etc in that detachment sans other Dark Apostles. They do Not take up any Force Org slot and can be upgraded to ML 1 Psykers for 25pts. Dark Apostles taken in this manner must join a friendly unit and remain in it for the entire game.

That has a few intrinsic restrictions, as they can't move between units, and if you want them to be pskyers you're looking at something like 85pts for one guy, which has "All my Eggs in One Basket," written all over it, so to be viable you have to take a few.

I'm a bit disappointed with the OP. He's just making themed builds with the current codex, which isn't built to represent the traitor legions. In fact, Codex: Chaos Space Marines is so geared towards a generic chaos army like Black Legion that when they made the Black Legion supplement, they went up against the wall rules wise. There is no reason for the Black Legion to be represented entirely by veterans of the long war. As the most active traitor legion, they have undoubtedly had the most new recruits. They should have changed the supplement name to reflect that fact that it's about Abbadon's forces. Like the Waaagh! Ghazghkull supplement. No calling that Supplement: Goff's Clan or anything. So even on their second try for Codex: Chaos Space Marines, they missed the mark. I'm actually a bit taken aback every time I think about how little Games Workshop seems to know or care about their own IP when it comes to Chaos Space Marines. Maybe they've spent so much time reading Horus Heresy books that they've forgotten that the traitor legions earned their namesake in 40k.

In any case, the OP isn't changing the rules so much as just writing his own lists within them. I like the spirit behind it, but there's simply too much restriction for the god-specific legions to make them worth running without either daemon allies or a unit outside of the cult troops that's completely unique to them. World Eaters can take the Lord of Skulls, that's big. They can also have a selection of Forgeworld walkers and a brass scorpion as well. So with that said:

-Black Legion is represented
-Word Bearers represented (Exception to Dark Apostle [no psychic powers, let alone unique powers])
-Night Lords represented (Many options to take non-mutated units / No space marines have night vision even though they can all see clearly in darkness. An issue both minor and not unique to them)
-World Eaters is represented (Berserker rules/forgeworld models)
-Death Guard is represented (Plague marine rules/forgeworld models)

-Thousand Sons lack representation in both models and rules outright. (No unique psychic powers / all they have is a small upgrade kit)
-Emperor's Children lack representation in both models and rules outright. (Emperor's Children surely have infantry types unique to them, not just Noise Marines / all the Noise Marines have is a small upgrade kit)
-Iron Warriors lack representation in rules outright. (Models covered. They're not a unit, they are unique CSM. An upgrade kit is appropriate.)
-Alpha Legion lacks representation in both rules and models. (They are the most unique legion and while they use every unit in the codex, they lack an upgrade kit and especially rules to represent them. Hydra Dominatus.)


How to fix the unsupported: House rules / Convert your emperor's children. It's a long road ahead there, but take inspiration from Dawn of War 2 Noise Marines and convert regular Space Marine helmets with organic growths. Also don't forget that they ditched purple for pink and black. Alpha Legion are likely to wear loyalist armor. Use loyalist Space Marines.

Responses appreciated.

 Quarterdime wrote:

In any case, the OP isn't changing the rules so much as just writing his own lists within them. I like the spirit behind it, but there's simply too much restriction for the god-specific legions to make them worth running without either daemon allies or a unit outside of the cult troops that's completely unique to them.

I wholeheartedly agree that the current CSM codex was not written with the Legions in mind and you obviously see that I tried to get more out of it with simple rules alterations.
The problem is, since the original traitor legions are so very different than one and another, each would need its own separate codex, let alone supplements. I, for one, sadly do not see that happening, ever. At least in 40k. An alternative approach that could be embraced by GW in the future is to write God-specific, Undivided and Non-Aligned codexes to represent the traitor forces. One book for Khorne, One for Tzeentch, one for Nurgle and one for Slaanesh. Another for Undivided and another for Non-Aligned or Renegade mortals. These books will cover both Daemons and their respectively aligned mortal Marine legions and an alliance table could be used for mix and match purposes. There could always be bonuses for playing mono-god lists to overcome difficulties in gameplay arising from each individual god's characteristics.

But, as stated, my goal was not doing this. This would take more time than I have, and more experience in writing and designing games that I will ever have.
I tried to work with what we already have