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 warboss wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And, what, you'll think they'll let you add 'em back in with Marks?

This is 40K Chaos. They've been getting blander and blander with fewer options every damned edition since they killed the glorious 3.5 book. And to add insult to injury the one time they released a Legion-based supplement, it was for the most vanilla Chaos Legion of all!

The only thing they're going to add is pointless DLC.

That 3.5 codex was the most broken and unfair POS that Games Workshop published in the entire 3rd edition era (and it took A LOT to knock the Space Wolf book out of that spot!). There was a reason that it was replaced by another codex within IIRC 2-3 years and it was because it was grossly unbalanced and about as fun to play against as sticking fingers in a light socket. That book and the ccombos it allowed single handedly destroyed my local scene when two chaos players decided to place no limits on themselves when using it. I know you play chaos but lets call a spade a spade and not put that broken mess of easily abusable rules on such a revered pedestal.

That of course doesn't mean that I support turning cult troops into paid DLC for the codex. If anything, the chaos codex should be a super sized one like the vanilla marines with both legion rules and cult troops but that won't ever happen again. Still, paid DLC cult troops (if done correctly and not just PA ones but rather terminators and where applicable jump troops) is still better than no cult troops at all. That is, unfortunately, the only realistic choice the modern GW will give players.

I will agree that the chaos book was hard core but the 3rd ed Space Wolf book was a pamphlet that gutted the 2nd ed book I will wait to see what the future holds for chaos.

Since 4th edition, Chaos has been getting the nerf-hammer/bland-bat, and Wolves have actually gotten better and better with each edition, so that argument is invalid based on that surmise.

So is GW basically turning into Ubisoft.

Extremely lazy, releases unfinished games and broken games. Terrible player customization, having to pay for half the options. So the question is whether... if GW is becoming Ubisoft. Or Ubisoft is becoming GW...

In terms of rule writing, GW has thus far, fallen off their ass.

I wish GW was much better at rules writing.

The only way to fix GW is not to follow their rules and help your clubs make their own rules and standardize it and try to rebalance all the units so that they make sense XD

Oh well I hope GW makes better models though.

So basically the question is do I prefer the option filled, fluffy 3.5 codex with awful internal balance or the boring current codex with awful internal balance. Instead of the obliterator, basilisk iron warriors we now have plague bike hell turkey armies. Sure they're not as meta breaking as they used to be but that's what Taudar is for. Being ticked off about a GW rule set lacking balance is like me being ticked off at my dog for not being able to use the toilet. It would be great, but with every steaming pile I'm forced to endure I've accepted it's not going to happen.

 Arbitrator wrote:
I'm taking more salt with this than I did with the Fantasy 9th Edition rumours.

The Cult troops already HAVE models and they're pretty popular at that. Aged? Yes, but they actually exist. I just don't see it happening. The only way I could see it happening is if they rapidly put out say... "Codex: World Eaters" supplements.

That or they've finally lost all subtly when it comes to "Please, please, please, just play Loyalist Codex #135151 like the other kids! Look, more toys for them! Don't you wanna join in the fun too, Lil Jimmy boy?!"

Come 8th CSMs will be a bloody Chapter Tactic in Codex: Space Marines.

I could totally see this working.

All units with Chapter Tactics Traitors:

Gain fear

Soul Blaze for one weapon per squad at no additional cost (use random allocation rules to determine which model receives the Dark gods blessing)

Must always accept and issue a challenge when in close combat.

Remove atsknf and potms from profile.

Ah yes. Good point Unix. The idea that the 3.5 was bad because it was unbalanced and the current Chaos Codex or the 'Chaos' abomination that came after 3.5 was somehow not unbalanced... well that's just silly.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Ah yes. Good point Unix. The idea that the 3.5 was bad because it was unbalanced and the current Chaos Codex or the 'Chaos' abomination that came after 3.5 was somehow not unbalanced... well that's just silly.

Got it. As long as it is grossly unbalanced in your favor, the codex is glorious. If the balance pendulum swings the other way, it is an abomination.

 warboss wrote:
Got it. As long as it is grossly unbalanced in your favor, the codex is glorious. If the balance pendulum swings the other way, it is an abomination.

I never said that. You know I never said that. So cut it out right now.

I've already said that the 3.5 'Dex had balance problems. I'm not going to deny them, and I never have.

And I have made it painfully clear - for years - that the reason why the 'Chaos' Codex that followed the 3.5 'Dex as an abomination was because it utterly destroyed everything that made Chaos Chaos. No daemonic gifts. Generic daemons. No legions. And so on and so forth. I even wrote a massive fething thread on the whole affair when it came out.

So do not - DO NOT - accuse me of disliking a book only because of it's ingame power. I couldn't give two gaks about ingame power most of the time.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Got it. As long as it is grossly unbalanced in your favor, the codex is glorious. If the balance pendulum swings the other way, it is an abomination.

I never said that. You know I never said that. So cut it out right now.

Ahem... Regarding the book that was unbalanced in your favor...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They've been getting blander and blander with fewer options every damned edition since they killed the glorious 3.5 book.

and the one that was bland and less powerful you referred to as...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Ah yes. Good point Unix. The idea that the 3.5 was bad because it was unbalanced and the current Chaos Codex or the 'Chaos' abomination that came after 3.5 was somehow not unbalanced... well that's just silly.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me. In any case, the side track is starting to derail the thread so I'll drop it for another day when the same thing inevitably pops up.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Got it. As long as it is grossly unbalanced in your favor, the codex is glorious. If the balance pendulum swings the other way, it is an abomination.

I never said that. You know I never said that. So cut it out right now.

I've already said that the 3.5 'Dex had balance problems. I'm not going to deny them, and I never have.

And I have made it painfully clear - for years - that the reason why the 'Chaos' Codex that followed the 3.5 'Dex as an abomination was because it utterly destroyed everything that made Chaos Chaos. No daemonic gifts. Generic daemons. No legions. And so on and so forth. I even wrote a massive fething thread on the whole affair when it came out.

So do not - DO NOT - accuse me of disliking a book only because of it's ingame power. I couldn't give two gaks about ingame power most of the time.

Remember 4th edition chaos?

Back when we could have chaos daemon princes on bikes. Oh god 4th ed was one of my favorites. Especially compared to 3rd.

Remember when they had to FAQ the 100 points of wargear bit where it actually didn't count to the maximum points of the entire list? I actually won a tournament because of that, till they FAQed it and fixed it XD.

7th Ed looks like a riot.

The problem with the 3.5 dex is it didn't fit in with the design style of the other dexes for its time. Meanwhile the 4+ chaos dexes had the same problem, only in reverse. A paradox that seemingly cannot be fixed. Meanwhile if the 4+ dexes had been released in 3rd and the 3.5 in the 4+s, i think people would have been much happier.

This rumor makes me so very sad.

And H.B.M.C. is my personal hero.

Um just to weigh in on the debate between H.B.M.C. and w.arboss....

HBMC is right dude. And furthermore nothing in the game since it's Inception (okay it's 3rd edition dex') has been as OP as Necrons. (Grey Knights are the next OP once they were cleaved off the much better Daemonhunters dex.)

The 3.5 dex was fluffy but it was not OP, Dreadaxe was awesome and kinda beardy, but only in the hands of a daemon prince. Other then that everything was pretty balanced, and points per model made them on level with the Space Marines. And Space Marines had just as much OP junk as anyone else.

HBMC is a god among men.

First of all, it strikes me as being rather disingenuous (warboss) to suggest that someone, whether it be myself or H.B.M.C., or anyone else for that matter, is disappointed or dissatisfied with the current Chaos codex and the last merely because we're WAAC power gamers. How would you know, out of curiosity? Anyway, meh, for whatever reason there are segments of the community here and elsewhere that simply refuse to "get it", so no sense in entertaining any further discussion on that point.

In any case, Games Workshop's treatment of Chaos over the last three editions has been so incompetent, especially in the age of Chapter Tactics for every Loyalist and his dog, that I wouldn't be surprised if this came to pass. That in itself is a rather sad commentary. Hopefully they manage to do a decent job of it - I'm not going to hold my breath though.

Edit: At one point I had a Black Legion army, a Thousand Sons army and a Death Guard army. The former two were sold and traded respectively a few months ago. If Games Workshop continues consistently to illustrate that they have no idea what they're doing with Chaos, by making an already bland and uninspired codex even more so, I guess I'll be migrating to 30k permanently.

I'm disappointed with the current codex because it represents nothing. When you take a long list of varieties of chaos there isn't a single one properly represented by that codex. It doesn't give you anything that truly represents legion era chaos marines despite being the origin of many of the special characters and it doesn't really represent the recently turned loyalists goned traitor who magically found ancient tech and lost everything they had. It tries representing everything without representing anything.

GW seemingly wants what they see as a broader appealing more abstract representation of chaos, which is fine but you still have to give players something to work with. Chaos could still be better representative even if it had non-legion specific type chapter tactics yet it gets nothing.

 warboss wrote:
Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

Oh. I see how you've interpreted that. No, I was saying that they're all bad when it comes to balance, and that the idea that the 3.5 was somehow worse than the 'Chaos' Codex and the current Chaos Codex was silly, and how whining about it being unbalanced as if it were somehow a criticism unique to that book was silly because they're all unbalanced.

ChaosReigns999 wrote:
First of all, it strikes me as being rather disingenuous (warboss) to suggest that someone, whether it be myself or H.B.M.C., or anyone else for that matter, is disappointed or dissatisfied with the current Chaos codex and the last merely because we're WAAC power gamers.

Well, "You only care about power!" is the "You're racist/sexist!" of the miniature gaming world.

To put it another way, it's the argument you make when you have no argument to make.

ChaosReigns999 wrote:
Edit: At one point I had a Black Legion army, a Thousand Sons army and a Death Guard army. The former two were sold and traded respectively a few months ago. If Games Workshop continues consistently to illustrate that they have no idea what they're doing with Chaos, by making an already bland and uninspired codex even more so, I guess I'll be migrating to 30k permanently.

I had Iron Warriors. And Word Bearers. And Alpha Legion. And Death Guard. And World Eaters. At a stretch I could do Emperor's Children (if I went heavy on the Daemons) or Night Lords (if I went heavy on the Furies). And I had enough Chaos stuff to do probably four of these armies at 3-5k points simultaneously. And a Lost & The Damned army on the side!

And he wants to talk about "power"? How 'bout the armies of mine that got invalidated. "Power" my left foot...

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...We've been demanding Cult Terminators since the 4e book dropped them. What's the catch?

I'm guessing $50 or so per dataslate covering one (1) Cult.

So for $50, you would get the rules for KB Termies *and* PA KBs, plus some fluff. Also, Khorne and Bloodletters and GDoK.

Then, for another $50, you could get the rules for PM Termies and PA PMs and Typhus.

And so on.

No?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...We've been demanding Cult Terminators since the 4e book dropped them. What's the catch?

I'm guessing $50 or so per dataslate covering one (1) Cult.

So for $50, you would get the rules for KB Termies *and* PA KBs, plus some fluff. Also, Khorne and Bloodletters and GDoK.

Then, for another $50, you could get the rules for PM Termies and PA PMs and Typhus.

And so on.

No?

whoah whoah whoah, are you crazy? $50 per unit, not per cult. What were you thinking?

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I don't think H.B.M.C. was praising it because of its OPness, more so because it was the last dex that actually accurately represent CSMs in all their glory.

The last few ones have been jokes option-wise compared to that one. The current one was better, but still terrible. We want to be able to play accurate representation of the warbands made up of the remnants of the Traitor Legions, not just Black-painted Evil Ultramarines with less flavour, Red-painted Evil Ultramarines that suck or Green-painted Evil Ultramarines that are pretty good but still just Evil Marines with +1T.

If the cult troops get removed from the dex and made day 1 DLC, that's more options (and the among the only flavourful ones) removed and that's insulting. Green-painted Evil Ultramarines will definitely be the only thing taken as the only thing saving Pink-painted Evil Ultramarines were their Cult troops...

What a fething crock of gak. The current edition of 40k allows one to field pretty much any combination of any units via "unbound" rules, so the current CSM Codex is, without a doubt, the one with the best tools to represent CSM in whatever "glory" one so desires via count as and so forth. The need for GW to spoon feed special rules is infantile and lacks imagination; further, it just exacerbates rules bloat in an edition with far too many special rules for their own good.

The only thing with the newer versions is a perceived reduction in power compared to what was clearly a top 2 Codex. That's the heart of the gripe. If not for the extra winning advantage, nobody would care.

Tell you what, you go play 3.5E but with a +50% cost penalty, and tell us how well it represents things. It's got the same Fluff and options, but would be completely uncompetitive in any gaming situation. Still gonna say how the OP-ness wasn't driving the train?

My money is on cults being detachments with special rules, just like everything else...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

Oh. I see how you've interpreted that. No, I was saying that they're all bad when it comes to balance, and that the idea that the 3.5 was somehow worse than the 'Chaos' Codex and the current Chaos Codex was silly, and how whining about it being unbalanced as if it were somehow a criticism unique to that book was silly because they're all unbalanced.

ChaosReigns999 wrote:
First of all, it strikes me as being rather disingenuous (warboss) to suggest that someone, whether it be myself or H.B.M.C., or anyone else for that matter, is disappointed or dissatisfied with the current Chaos codex and the last merely because we're WAAC power gamers.

Well, "You only care about power!" is the "You're racist/sexist!" of the miniature gaming world.

To put it another way, it's the argument you make when you have no argument to make.

ChaosReigns999 wrote:
Edit: At one point I had a Black Legion army, a Thousand Sons army and a Death Guard army. The former two were sold and traded respectively a few months ago. If Games Workshop continues consistently to illustrate that they have no idea what they're doing with Chaos, by making an already bland and uninspired codex even more so, I guess I'll be migrating to 30k permanently.

I had Iron Warriors. And Word Bearers. And Alpha Legion. And Death Guard. And World Eaters. At a stretch I could do Emperor's Children (if I went heavy on the Daemons) or Night Lords (if I went heavy on the Furies). And I had enough Chaos stuff to do probably four of these armies at 3-5k points simultaneously. And a Lost & The Damned army on the side!

And he wants to talk about "power"? How 'bout the armies of mine that got invalidated. "Power" my left foot...

As some who played in tournaments before during and after 3.5, it wasn't a big deal, this was around the same time as lists like Nidzilla, marine assault cannon spam, Tau Fish of fury and the immortal falcons lists. 3.5 chaos was a noob slayer the same as eldar is currently, bad generals cant deal with them and immediately call cheese as a crutch for their suckitude. The "I win" warriors lists weren't all that scary, this was in an edition where balanced all comers armies could and did beat the one trick pony "net lists" of the time before they eventually became nearly mandatory due to lack of cross balancing and lazy writing.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I don't think H.B.M.C. was praising it because of its OPness, more so because it was the last dex that actually accurately represent CSMs in all their glory.

The last few ones have been jokes option-wise compared to that one. The current one was better, but still terrible. We want to be able to play accurate representation of the warbands made up of the remnants of the Traitor Legions, not just Black-painted Evil Ultramarines with less flavour, Red-painted Evil Ultramarines that suck or Green-painted Evil Ultramarines that are pretty good but still just Evil Marines with +1T.

If the cult troops get removed from the dex and made day 1 DLC, that's more options (and the among the only flavourful ones) removed and that's insulting. Green-painted Evil Ultramarines will definitely be the only thing taken as the only thing saving Pink-painted Evil Ultramarines were their Cult troops...

What a fething crock of gak. The current edition of 40k allows one to field pretty much any combination of any units via "unbound" rules, so the current CSM Codex is, without a doubt, the one with the best tools to represent CSM in whatever "glory" one so desires via count as and so forth. The need for GW to spoon feed special rules is infantile and lacks imagination; further, it just exacerbates rules bloat in an edition with far too many special rules for their own good.

The only thing with the newer versions is a perceived reduction in power compared to what was clearly a top 2 Codex. That's the heart of the gripe. If not for the extra winning advantage, nobody would care.

Tell you what, you go play 3.5E but with a +50% cost penalty, and tell us how well it represents things. It's got the same Fluff and options, but would be completely uncompetitive in any gaming situation. Still gonna say how the OP-ness wasn't driving the train?

One of the best tools in the current edition? Considering the only other books we can use are Loyalist codexex that aren't chaos-y in any way or 30k list, yeah it is one of the best tools since there aren't really any other tools. "The need for GW to spoon feed special rules is infantile and lacks imagination"? So adding rules to make the book that lacks imagination a better representation of Chaos Space Marines lacks imagination? I'm guessing you think that Codex:Space Marines lacks imagination because it has Chapter Tactics?

In an age with Chapter Tactics, is it too much to ask to gain some Legion/Warband specific rules?

Tell you what, you go play 3.5E but with a +50% cost penalty, and tell us how well it represents things. It's got the same Fluff and options, but would be completely uncompetitive in any gaming situation. Still gonna say how the OP-ness wasn't driving the train?

So basically make an OP dex even less powerful than the current dex? Honestly some would complain and while playing an UP army would be annoying I'd still be happy that I could at least play with an army that plays like a Word Bearers warband, not just looking like one but playing like Dark Red-painted Evil Ultramarines -1.

And if you are saying that it has the same fluff and options as the current book... no it doesn't. It has a larger variety of upgrades and options.

I had Iron Warriors. And Word Bearers...

Amusingly, what got me to start playing 40k (besides the first Dawn of War game) when I was a kid was buying a copy of the 3.5 Edition Chaos Codex on a whim at my local comic/hobby shop. I was fascinated with the idea of a faction that had enough diversity to produce 9 sub-factions that would quite evidently play demonstrably differently - even if I didn't know much about 40k at the time. Times have sure changed.

Incidentally I've always wanted a Word Bearers army. They're my favourite Traitor Legion. I'm honestly not sure why anyone would undertake to build a fluffy Word Bearers army under the current rules though - it seems like it would be an exercise in self-punishment. No greater affinity for daemons than any of the other Traitor Legions anymore, apparently every Traitor Legion (and plenty of Renegade Chapters) have Dark Apostles now, the Mark of Chaos Undivided has been removed. It's also difficult to tell from their very short entry in the current Chaos codex whether they've been retconned to "they each venerate one" Chaos God, or whether that's a typo and "each one venerates" the entire pantheon. In conclusion, what are Word Bearers then? Just a colour scheme, sadly. I hope Games Workshop hasn't been surprised by the popularity of the Legiones Astartes rules in 30k. Anyway, that's enough of me ranting about stuff no one cares about.

Frankly, I would not be impressed if these supposed dataslates ended up having nothing more than Cult Marines and Cult Terminators. That's price gouging the players for content included in the previous codex, and for units that could very easily be added to the codex via a brief "You may equip the entire squad with Terminator Armour for X points per model. Cult Terminators replace their default weapons/wargear with a power weapon and a combi-bolter and may only take upgrades available to standard Chaos Terminators. The Champion may only take upgrades from the Terminator Weapons section" and wherever else the designers please. Obviously that's not exactly how it should be written, but the gist is easy enough to grasp, I think.

If they want to charge $50 a pop, let it be for fully fledged Cult Legion supplements.

What a fething crock of gak. The current edition of 40k allows one to field pretty much any combination of any units via "unbound" rules, so the current CSM Codex is, without a doubt, the one with the best tools to represent CSM in whatever "glory" one so desires via count as and so forth. The need for GW to spoon feed special rules is infantile and lacks imagination; further, it just exacerbates rules bloat in an edition with far too many special rules for their own good.

Okay.

The only thing with the newer versions is a perceived reduction in power compared to what was clearly a top 2 Codex. That's the heart of the gripe. If not for the extra winning advantage, nobody would care.

Okay.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
What a fething crock of gak. The current edition of 40k allows one to field pretty much any combination of any units via "unbound" rules, so the current CSM Codex is, without a doubt, the one with the best tools to represent CSM in whatever "glory" one so desires via count as and so forth. The need for GW to spoon feed special rules is infantile and lacks imagination; further, it just exacerbates rules bloat in an edition with far too many special rules for their own good.

Typical DD nonsense. "Unbound" is not the answer and never will be the answer. You can't have an Unbound pick up game. Most tournaments will never be Unbound. Unbound is something that might be feasible between friends who organise beforehand. Just showing up with an army full of Plague Marines and Plague Bearers and going "Hey bro, Imma playin' my Death Guard, dat coo daddy-o?"* ain't gonna cut it.

And you damn well know that John. You're just being your typical wall-ish self. And here I was hoping you'd mellowed.



*People still talk like that, right?

If you're a 70's pimp, they sure do.

The thing is, the most recent chaos codexes still had power builds. Plague marines + heldrakes were pretty brutal. What they lacked was competitive options and theme for the non-power players.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
What a fething crock of gak. The current edition of 40k allows one to field pretty much any combination of any units via "unbound" rules, so the current CSM Codex is, without a doubt, the one with the best tools to represent CSM in whatever "glory" one so desires via count as and so forth. The need for GW to spoon feed special rules is infantile and lacks imagination; further, it just exacerbates rules bloat in an edition with far too many special rules for their own good.

Typical DD nonsense. "Unbound" is not the answer and never will be the answer. You can't have an Unbound pick up game. Most tournaments will never be Unbound. Unbound is something that might be feasible between friends who organise beforehand. Just showing up with an army full of Plague Marines and Plague Bearers and going "Hey bro, Imma playin' my Death Guard, dat coo daddy-o?"* ain't gonna cut it.

And you damn well know that John. You're just being your typical wall-ish self. And here I was hoping you'd mellowed.



*People still talk like that, right?

To expand on this.. You could always play the game anyway you wanted with your friends. Unbound is a completely useless option and to give it legitimacy is disingenuous unless you're completely new to the game.

Oh noes, plague marines will be troops without taking the lord tax if this is right! Especially if they do the old mark system!

Oh wait, I have grav weapons now. Continue.

Oh, I'm sorry, but we're actively ignoring what the rulebook says about what players can field?

Riiight...

Total fething crock o gak.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 Malika2 wrote:
I'm not buying this rumour...

What! you now also have to pay for GW rumors?! Unbelievable!

In all fairness, if GW would install a feature on their page where you can pay some money and receive a random rumour that may or may not be true, that might actually give them quite a lot of revenue