Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The thing about the Heldrake is that it, unlike other Daemon Engines, is a vehicle that has been possessed and warped so heavily that it no longer resembles its original form. Other Daemon Engines were purpose-built to be as such and then had daemons bound into them.

While I like the Forgefiend a lot (only with the plasma head), I agree that it could have been better. I love Defilers (and ultra-mechanical Daemon Engines), but I still don't own one. It'll take work to make it look how I want, like the Heldrake.

The issue I have with the Defiler is primarily that it's too large for what it is; pretty close to knight size by volume but representing something much less. It's foot print should be much closer to the other daemon engines or its rules should be improved.

I like its mechanicallyness and most of its details. I think the head on top is goofy and I think the silliness of the spikes from the chaos accessory sprue hurt it aesthetically.

The fact that chaos relied on that stupid sprue to distinguish its models from loyal marine vehicles typifies the laziness of GWs approach to chaos for so many years. You can look at the sprues for BA variants and SoB vehicles and see how much more thought was given to making more distinctive models.

 aka_mythos wrote:
The issue I have with the Defiler is primarily that it's too large for what it is; pretty close to knight size by volume but representing something much less. It's foot print should be much closer to the other daemon engines or its rules should be improved.

I like its mechanicallyness and most of its details. I think the head on top is goofy and I think the silliness of the spikes from the chaos accessory sprue hurt it aesthetically.

The fact that chaos relied on that stupid sprue to distinguish its models from loyal marine vehicles typifies the laziness of GWs approach to chaos for so many years. You can look at the sprues for BA variants and SoB vehicles and see how much more thought was given to making more distinctive models.

Well, the spiky sprue was kind of a limited resources thing, and a clever way to get multiple kits out of more or less the same sprues. When the release schedule was much slower, it made more sense. Now that a million things are coming out every week and so much stuff can get packed onto a sprue, it deems pretty limited by comparison. I'm not terribly familiar with the SoB kits, but the Blood Angels sprues came out way later than the Chaos ones.

In other words, Chaos has a model line that is still pretty stuck in 4th edition. The only heavy weapon they have in plastic is the heavy bolter; the rest are still Finecast for crying out loud!

I'd like to see them look more like Warriors of Chaos in Fantasy.



These things look stocky, relentless, and menacing. Chaos Marines just look like spikey versions of Loyalists with poor detail that hasn't stood the test of time.



Raz does Chaos Marines the way I'd like to see Chaos Marines done - thick, tough looking with brutal features. The fur capes really help bulk them out.

The basic CSM kit is outdated as hell. This also affects Havocs and Chosen since you basically have to kitbash those units from the same box.
I won't even start talking about Obliterators, they are hideous (not in a good way).

Basically CSM needs just one or two replacements and they would be fine. Just get the CSM box updated to look more like DV Chosen and the Raptors. And a plastic obliterator/mutilator dual kit. The vehicles are good, terminators are ok, spawn and bikers are fine. To cover the cult units, GW can carry on with providing upgrade kits but just redo them in plastic.

 aka_mythos wrote:
The issue I have with the Defiler is primarily that it's too large for what it is; pretty close to knight size by volume but representing something much less. It's foot print should be much closer to the other daemon engines or its rules should be improved.

There's no excuse for that AV12. It should be AV13, with either the ability to ignore Ordnance or swap out the battlecannon for something that actually allows it to make use of all those weapons you pay so much for (including the close combat ones).

The defiler is nowhere NEAR a knight X_X

Anyway, all it needs is a price brake, not changes. than the whole "does everything, but nothing too good" theme with the mess of different and conflicting weapons will work out for him.

 BoomWolf wrote:
The defiler is nowhere NEAR a knight X_X

Anyway, all it needs is a price break, not changes. than the whole "does everything, but nothing too good" theme with the mess of different and conflicting weapons will work out for him.

It's not Knight size, but it's definitely big enough to warrant some extra capability with that cannon in its chest. The ability to fire the cannon at full scatter on the move while firing its other weapons at BS3 could work (I think they could do that in 3rd, but I'm not sure). Unless it was made significantly cheaper, it really does need changed. It's just stupid that the Soul Grinder is better in every way, except for one weapon's extreme long range that is totally at odds with everything else. AV12 is still just plain silly on something so enormous and supposedly well-armoured, especially when Daemon abs are AV13 for less.

When I said it was larger I did say by volume. Meaning you take the giant span of the defilers legs and it's extra tall turret and the space they collectively encompass on the table. Imagine lying the Knight on its back and the two take up similar amounts of space.

The Defiler has a number of rule problems. You look at the conversions GWs staff were building before the Defiler came out you'd see a bunch of conversions more representative of a Stalk tank than a Defiler; I think it's indicative of what it's rules then and even now are meant to represent. The Defiler presently it should be closer to a knight or land raider in terms of capabilities than it should be to the other Daemon engines. The most recent rules were obviouly written with the idea of putting all three daemon engines on relatively equal footing regardless of what actually make sense or what works.

Given that the defiler never had anywhere near the point cost or power level of a knight, nor was it represented as an equivalent to even a land raider in any other release outside of the tabletop-I find this in the realm of wild wishing.

The defiler is, and always was, a "Little bit of everything" tank, fitting with chaos' "I want MOAR" approach.
Its a battle tank, an artillery piece, a dreadnaught, a suppressor and a trench clearer in one box of madness-chose a job and he CAN preform, but never cost efficient, as it has too much resources spent into other tools.
Whoever invented the defilers (fluff-wise) was a loony and had no understanding of the meaning of "too much", and the defiler is clearly too much EVERYTHING, and that is it's problem.

You cant use them all at once not only because of the game rules, but because of basic logic, the battlecannon is used to the opposite of what the flamer and fists are for, and the autocannon is unrelated to anything.
This mess of guns are not designed to formed a single coherent unit to begin with
And if you ever played DoW (you should, its a good game even if not a great translation from tabletop), you would notice that the defiler is cataloged as an artillery unit, not a forward advance unit, not a siegebraker.
An artillery, that has some powerful self-defense abilities just in case.
So I'd take the havoc over the flamers, and let him sit back and blast away.

As long it has a battle cannon, it cannot be the beefy dreadnaut he is tooled up to be. as long it is a beefy dreadnaut he cannot be an effiecent artillery piece. unfortunately he is clearly both, and as such he is screwing himself over.
He should be buffed up to have soul grinder armor, but no more. he is to remain the "I'd can do EVERYTHING, but not quite effectively" that he is, due to the very nature of his construction.


As for your "stalker tank", I think you mean this:
http://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1370/72/1370725478018.jpg
Amazing conversion, and if I ever delve into chaos I'm making one.
But as cool as it is, it also does not look like he can advance, fight and fire that cannon all at once.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I'm kinda appalled at the horrible state the Chaos miniatures range still is - a lot of the range dates back to the early 2000s, if not late 90s unless I'm mistaken. It's painfully costly to build a full size legion marine squad, not to mention that they stil end up looking ugly as sin, and I don't mean that in a good chaosy way.

In fact even some of the newer models GW has released look hideously ugly - the biggest eyesore of them all being mutilators. I love the Chaos vehicles though. And cultists are also well done, as are most of the HQs especially the Warsmith. I love the aesthetics of the WHFB's Warriors of Chaos btw. Still...am I the only one or do the majority of Chaos players agree that CSM are in bad need of a major redesign?

It's a mix.
CSM have some great character models, some of them have aged remarkably well.
Some of my favorite models are old CSM models
like http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Chaos-Space-Marine-Emperor-s-Children-Lord

The plastics look pretty bad. The CSM kit, the Bezerker kit, the Vehicle upgrade kits. Lets add spikes and horns isnt a great idea. Particularly when the kits are old and the detail crap.

I'm sorry, but WHAT?

The CSM kit has good details for the bodies and legs, and if you are not a big fan of horns, there are 8 hornless heads in the kit, and 10 more with fairly easily removed horns.
There are also very little spikes.

I honestly don't understand some of you guys....
I mean, you don't want horns, spikes, or anything "evil looking" on your CSM, why are you not just getting a loyalist kit and paint it as your CSM than?
By not putting all these stuff you are making them look remarkably similar to their loyalist brethren-and at that point, what's the point of even having another kit rather than sharing with the codex marines?

Complaining that there is too much of an easily removable detail is odd....

Compare the differences between the basic chaos marine squad box set and the ones that come from the starter box. The ones in the basic set are admittedly by the sculptor just the Loyal marines box set with the chaos arrows and spikes sculpted on. It's been added to and no doubt reworked since it was originally done, but the notion and execution of chaos as loyalists with spikes and arrows is lazy. You compare those to the starter box and you see something much more distinctive, something that looks mutated and twisted by the warp. It was the prior lack of aesthetic distinctiveness that hurt chaos' model range the most. Some might argue its gone to far but I think distinctiveness will help GW treat chaos better than it has. Aesthetically chaos is the warped marines as opposed to being the marines with spikes.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Given that the defiler never had anywhere near the point cost or power level of a knight, nor was it represented as an equivalent to even a land raider in any other release outside of the tabletop-I find this in the realm of wild wishing.

The defiler is, and always was, a "Little bit of everything" tank, fitting with chaos' "I want MOAR" approach.
Its a battle tank, an artillery piece, a dreadnaught, a suppressor and a trench clearer in one box of madness-chose a job and he CAN preform, but never cost efficient, as it has too much resources spent into other tools.
Whoever invented the defilers (fluff-wise) was a loony and had no understanding of the meaning of "too much", and the defiler is clearly too much EVERYTHING, and that is it's problem.

You cant use them all at once not only because of the game rules, but because of basic logic, the battlecannon is used to the opposite of what the flamer and fists are for, and the autocannon is unrelated to anything.
This mess of guns are not designed to formed a single coherent unit to begin with
And if you ever played DoW (you should, its a good game even if not a great translation from tabletop), you would notice that the defiler is cataloged as an artillery unit, not a forward advance unit, not a siegebraker.
An artillery, that has some powerful self-defense abilities just in case.
So I'd take the havoc over the flamers, and let him sit back and blast away.

As long it has a battle cannon, it cannot be the beefy dreadnaut he is tooled up to be. as long it is a beefy dreadnaut he cannot be an effiecent artillery piece. unfortunately he is clearly both, and as such he is screwing himself over.
He should be buffed up to have soul grinder armor, but no more. he is to remain the "I'd can do EVERYTHING, but not quite effectively" that he is, due to the very nature of his construction.


As for your "stalker tank", I think you mean this:
http://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1370/72/1370725478018.jpg
Amazing conversion, and if I ever delve into chaos I'm making one.
But as cool as it is, it also does not look like he can advance, fight and fire that cannon all at once.

To put it another way for me there are 3 things the rules, the model, and the concept. All three are good and mostly fit chaos, but they aren't representative of each other. Based only on its rules you'd expect a smaller than the Defiler model. Based solely on the model you'd expect something more on the power level of a Land Raider.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Chaos has the problem of having all the very different types under one roof. If the Dark Angels had to use the same bits as Ultramarines, there'd be a problem there, but Chaos players of Tzeentch are expected to use the same Terminators and bog standard Marines or Cultists as a Khorne player. A Nurgle Obliterator is just painted greener than a Slanneshi Obliterator. There's no diversity apart from the Plague/Noise/Thousand Sons and Beserker range of Elite choices. Everything else has to be Forge World and a lot of players don't go through that hassle.

So yeah, they need an update to better show off the diversity available.

yeah, i agree with this. i like most of the CSM models, but the DV figures were something else. A redesign like that, or taking in a more heavily mutated aesthetic like the early rogue trader chaos renegades would be awesome. but i'm happy enough with most of them. i don't like the knorne berserkers though.

 daddyorchips wrote:

yeah, i agree with this. i like most of the CSM models, but the DV figures were something else. A redesign like that, or taking in a more heavily mutated aesthetic like the early rogue trader chaos renegades would be awesome. but i'm happy enough with most of them. i don't like the knorne berserkers though.

What I like most about the more twisted look to the Chaos marine armor on those minis is that they go together well with the different aesthetics of the different chaos gods and most legions. I don't think they necessarily work for Alpha Legion who try not to be too showy and Iron Warriors who are more utilitarian... To tie together everything else they're perfect. They sit well next to oozing nurgle, they look good with rune covered word bearers and sigil covered thousand son, they're flashy enough for slaanesh and suddenly the organic bits of obliterators don't seem so out of place.

Khorne Berzerkers like most of the cult marine miniatures are just antiquated. The Slaanesh and Nurgle ones are kinda compositionally incomplete. Thousand Sons lack any sort of detail showing they're magic soul trapped inside armor as opposed to just any other marine.

I really dont understand why you guys are asking for a points cost drop on the Defiler.

I think it is fair costed. You pay 45 more points for it than an IG player does for a LRBT, you lose 2 armor values up front and 1 on the sides, but you gain a 5+ invuln that no markerlight can remove, and on top of that you gain IWND.

Mainly the extra cost goes in the additional Hullpoint (which in turn makes IWND more effective) and your ability to defend yourself in cc where a LRBT would get wrecked just as badly as a Sentinel would.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
I'd like to see them look more like Warriors of Chaos in Fantasy.



These things look stocky, relentless, and menacing. Chaos Marines just look like spikey versions of Loyalists with poor detail that hasn't stood the test of time.



Raz does Chaos Marines the way I'd like to see Chaos Marines done - thick, tough looking with brutal features. The fur capes really help bulk them out.

My friend made his Chaos Marine army out of these.

These parts with 40k parts and they looked really cool.

But the army sucked so bad he sold them.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I really dont understand why you guys are asking for a points cost drop on the Defiler.

I think it is fair costed. You pay 45 more points for it than an IG player does for a LRBT, you lose 2 armor values up front and 1 on the sides, but you gain a 5+ invuln that no markerlight can remove, and on top of that you gain IWND.

Mainly the extra cost goes in the additional Hullpoint (which in turn makes IWND more effective) and your ability to defend yourself in cc where a LRBT would get wrecked just as badly as a Sentinel would.

Russes have a few things going for them that Defilers can't touch. First, 45 points cheaper is like a third of the cost. It's no trivial number of points. Second, Russes have much better armor. The jump from 12/12/10 to 14/13/10 is HUGE. Pissing across the table at AV14 is painful, and the majority of things that will eat a Defiler alive (Wave Serpents, things with Autocannons, etc.) can't even touch the Russ' front armor. Third, the Tank and Heavy special rules allow the Russ to ram targets at S10 so it's not exactly a slouch when it comes to hitting certain things at close range without its main gun. Finally, Russes can benefit from tank orders if you want to. All of this, and they're 45 points cheaper.

At its current points cost, the thing should be 13/13/11. Otherwise, a reduction to 150 pts like it used to be would be fine. Hardly anybody was spamming Defilers at 150 points, back when Fleet used to let you run AND assault, and I doubt anybody would spam them at 150 pts.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Compare the differences between the basic chaos marine squad box set and the ones that come from the starter box. The ones in the basic set are admittedly by the sculptor just the Loyal marines box set with the chaos arrows and spikes sculpted on. It's been added to and no doubt reworked since it was originally done, but the notion and execution of chaos as loyalists with spikes and arrows is lazy. You compare those to the starter box and you see something much more distinctive, something that looks mutated and twisted by the warp. It was the prior lack of aesthetic distinctiveness that hurt chaos' model range the most. Some might argue its gone to far but I think distinctiveness will help GW treat chaos better than it has. Aesthetically chaos is the warped marines as opposed to being the marines with spikes.

That's hardly fair.

First, the starter CSM are supposed to be "chosen", not basic marines. they are chapter veterans equivalent (in appearance and "rank", though not by power level) and not basic guys. Chosen does not have a box yet unfortunately, but you can compare DA veterans or the sternguard to regular marines to see the difference, veterans are more fancy. were these the regular CSM, how would the veteran look? like chaos lords?
Second, its far easier to make super-detailed models when posing is not an issue. boxed sets should always be more impressive than the multi kits.


The basic CSM are mostly representatives of recently recruited guys, they ARE "wonnabe chaos that were loyalists yesterday so they put on some spikes to look brutal"

The majority of chaos players don't want to play recently recruited guys. Even still that notion of Chaos marines isn't even represented that well on the the basic chaos marine minis.

There was a time when the basic Chaos marine minis did look as mutated as the chosen and it's only an improvement to move back in that direction. Its an aesthetic that could be done to a lesser degree for basic chaos marines and the result would be many times more interesting than what we get.

Even if we're stuck with recently traitored chaos marines as our core troop, regardless of the fact that a majority of Chaos a Marines are not that, their present portrayal is just boring. Why just arrows and spikes?-Why not more sculpted battle damage or cobbled together armor showing the reduced resources of renegades?-Or how about just simply having a greater majority of the kit portraying older armor patterns? Or why not have Chaos marines who have incorporated more unsanctioned modifications to their armor? If you look at FW's Horus Heresy minis you can see a good many different ways basic power armor can be made to look more interesting. Heck not even that, just look at the art in the codex and you can see far better depictions of where GW could go with the basic aesthetic.

What we have is laziness. GW literally converted the loyalist kit several years back and then sold it.

Also, crotch-skulls. Seriously.

I find the idea of "recently turned CSMs" intriguing. Imagine collecting regular SMs, painting them in Ultramarines scheme, then painting bloodied Xs on all the chapter symbols and bloodying all the vehicles. A Chaos Space marine army painted this way would look unsettlingly scary

I think it comes down to marketing. Even though Chaos Marines are supposed to be just as varied as Loyalists, they are not put much emphasis on because they are one of many "bad guys." It's basically the Space Marine "good guys" and then there's the "bad guys" of Tau, Ork, Tyranid, Necron, Chaos, etc. It sucks in my opinion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Also, crotch-skulls. Seriously.

If i had just wrecked someone I hated... I think I would wear there skull on my crotch. Skull ing maybe?

 aka_mythos wrote:

Even if we're stuck with recently traitored chaos marines as our core troop, regardless of the fact that a majority of Chaos a Marines are not that, their present portrayal is just boring. Why just arrows and spikes?-Why not more sculpted battle damage or cobbled together armor showing the reduced resources of renegades?-Or how about just simply having a greater majority of the kit portraying older armor patterns? Or why not have Chaos marines who have incorporated more unsanctioned modifications to their armor? If you look at FW's Horus Heresy minis you can see a good many different ways basic power armor can be made to look more interesting. Heck not even that, just look at the art in the codex and you can see far better depictions of where GW could go with the basic aesthetic.

What we have is laziness. GW literally converted the loyalist kit several years back and then sold it.

I'll start from the last sentence.
Yes, it IS a modified loyalist kit. that's what its SUPPOSED to be. the two are not as different as some like (especially the chaos marines) to think.
They are not a whole new race. basic CSM are nothing more than traitor marines, not anything special. cult marines are specialized units that has their own distinctive appearance.


Now, listing what you brought up as options:

Battle damage? you do that yourself. use a nail and a hammer to (gently) make bullet holes, and a sharpy to make slashes, and if you are feeling REALLY like making a mess, a match can make melts. in-kit battle damage is silly, as you will end up with multiple models with identical battle damage, and that will be plain odd.

Cobbled armor? these are chaos marines, not orks. they HAVE resources because not only are not shy of looting, they also got their own production lines. there is no rational reason they will have cobbled armor and the only mentioned sub-faction that does I am aware of is the "failure" members of the black legion-that are specifically punished, a minor part of it that does not justify a real kit, just make damaged armor using the above methods, put on slightly less (only one shoulder pad to some, high lack of helmets, missing packpacks, not using the "generic gear" bits, low end upgrades on units...) and you get "cobbled unequipped guys"

Old pattern armors? covered by forgeworld in the HH units, BECAUSE that's the old armors. you can also mix these kits with "modern" kits to make hybrids. no need to be redundant. (and if the old armor was the CSM kit, where would you get loyalist old armor, or new renegade armor?) and if CSM had old armors to begin with, you could play legions fine, but will be in a pickle for the recently fallen (and even legions have quite a few up-to-date equipment. they DO have looting and production lines, as stated)

Unsanctioned modifications? you mean like spikes, blades, chaos symbols, chains, added layers of chainmail, skulls, horns, tusks. claws, mutations, trophies, rotted flesh, custom weapons, furbands, demonic insignia, god dedicated bitz, etc... that are scattered across the kits? what other "modifications" are you looking for that are not overly-specific and belong to personalized conversion realms? if you got one tell me, because I cant see what is missing.

Most things you mentioned are either covered already by other models and it would be redundant to have them twice, in the kits already, too specialized to justify a main kit, or strictly in the realm of conversions.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
Compare the differences between the basic chaos marine squad box set and the ones that come from the starter box. The ones in the basic set are admittedly by the sculptor just the Loyal marines box set with the chaos arrows and spikes sculpted on. It's been added to and no doubt reworked since it was originally done, but the notion and execution of chaos as loyalists with spikes and arrows is lazy. You compare those to the starter box and you see something much more distinctive, something that looks mutated and twisted by the warp. It was the prior lack of aesthetic distinctiveness that hurt chaos' model range the most. Some might argue its gone to far but I think distinctiveness will help GW treat chaos better than it has. Aesthetically chaos is the warped marines as opposed to being the marines with spikes.

That's hardly fair.

First, the starter CSM are supposed to be "chosen", not basic marines. they are chapter veterans equivalent (in appearance and "rank", though not by power level) and not basic guys. Chosen does not have a box yet unfortunately, but you can compare DA veterans or the sternguard to regular marines to see the difference, veterans are more fancy. were these the regular CSM, how would the veteran look? like chaos lords?
Second, its far easier to make super-detailed models when posing is not an issue. boxed sets should always be more impressive than the multi kits.

It's not so much the descrepancy in detail as the general aesthetic difference. The newer stuff looks warped, changed beyond what it was to something new, and is, in the truest sense of the word, chaotic. I'm not saying there should be as much detail on regular CSM, but there's just so much difference in the whole look.

As for not being able to replicate that look in multi part, I'll just direct you to the Raptor kit that does just that!

I agree that the infantry models at least, look crummy (though the maulerfiend looks great, and the re-done hellbrute isn't as bad as the DV one). I take the other route, though, and say that they've gotten WORSE, not better over time.

The new ultra-cluttered, dipped-in-glue-then-dipped-in-bits-and-frills-bag is two big steps in the wrong direction. The biggest problem with CSM models in the first place was that they were too cluttered (note how many people ditch the trophy racks on terminators, for example), and what they did was to take models that were too cluttered and made them MORE CLUTTERED.

It feels like they didn't know what direction they wanted to take CSM, so they decided to take them in every direction simultaneously. The results are about as bad as you'd expect from that kind of compromise.

Someone gave me the idea of kit-bashing CSM 1:1 with regular SM models, which is what I think I might do going into the future.

well, every army could use some updating here and there, personaly I like the chaos models.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Now, listing what you brought up as options:
...

I'm talking about the weak composition of Chaos Space marines, so arguing these types of detail item by item misses the point. I'm saying that if GW doesn't want to redo the Chaos Marine kit with some stepped down form of the details on those chosen marines, that GW needs to thoughtfully use some combination of all these other things to create a cohesive aesthetic that goes further to better represents Chaos marines.

As it is, there are fewer aesthetic differences between Chaos Marine and tactical marines than there are between the different loyalist chapters with codices. Beyond colors there are more visual cues and better visual cues with each of the Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and Grey Knights armies. We should expect GW to make chaos marines such that their look should be as distinctive as those different marine chapters.

As much as it is an aesthetic problem it is also a conceptual problem GW needs to address going forward. They don't want to limit players to pre-established warbands drawn from the Heresy era legions so they have Renegades and give chaos this weird mix of rules where the majority of the book doesn't make sense for a chapter that's been renegade for even 100 years let alone more recently. At the same time they don't give enough to represent the legion originating chaos marines. I feel the miniatures are pulled in different directions in much the same way.

 BoomWolf wrote:

I'll start from the last sentence.
Yes, it IS a modified loyalist kit. that's what its SUPPOSED to be. the two are not as different as some like (especially the chaos marines) to think.
They are not a whole new race. basic CSM are nothing more than traitor marines, not anything special. cult marines are specialized units that has their own distinctive appearance.

I understand what they did when they designed that kit, but making them too much of a blank slate has left it lacking. Just because they are "supposed to be" the way they are does not mean the way they are is good or representative. Just because intent is fulfilled doesn't mean the best intent nets the best result.

By making a kit that's representative of Loyalists turned traitors, you ignore those traitors from the Legions who aren't cult troops or chosen. My point is that it doesn't even represent the recently Renegades that well; Renegades are on the run and even if they're lucky enough to find a sanctuary it isn't as if they should have the resources to ornament their armor and if they did ornament their armor wouldn't it be more than this very minimal amount.

The Chaos Marine kit is somehow meant to represent both types of Chaos marines, but really represent neither. It seems silly that going to chaos is simply represented by such superficial details. Look at the Chaos cultist miniatures, those are normal humans that have gone to chaos and there should be as much difference between loyalist marines and chaos marines as there are between those and every other normal human miniatures GW does.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

If I were a chaos marine my skull cod piece would have even more skulls on that skull.

aka_mythos wrote:As it is, there are fewer aesthetic differences between Chaos Marine and tactical marines than there are between the different loyalist chapters with codices.

A agree with much of the rest, but what are you talking about here? That's just crazy.


I mean, come on:



Plague marines look much different than DA tacs do from ultramarines. CSM vehicles borrowed from SM at least have more than literally just a change in color scheme, and no version of light-side terminators comes festooned with combi-weapons AND spike racks AND demonic ornamentation AND skull masks AND walk around with autocannons and icons.

The core of the CSM aesthetic - they look like space marines, except they've been corrupted in some way - is actually pretty solid. They do look like space marines, which they should, and they do have a bunch of different stuff. They've hit a good spot with the same-but-different, the problem is their choice of different, not the level of difference.