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I disagree that the codex is well done. It lacks a lot of flavor that CSMs need. And I don't foresee GW adding Dreadclaws to the base codex, because their posterchildren would get jealous. Though, as much as I hate Drop pods, it would help them out a lot by having them.

They mainly just need a points drop across the board for most of their stuff, and I would personally love to see the addition of Legion tactics.

 Sillycybin wrote:
I feel like this Codex is well done...

I was at least some what with you until this part.

I don't believe the codex is well done at all. No flavor to be found really anywhere in the codex. No real options. No real way to run a mono-god army. Just a bunch of bleh, for lack of a better word.

Look back at the old 3.5 (or was it 3? I don't remember anymore... but still pretty sure it's 3.5) codex. That one was awesome. Sure it was overpowered on the table top, but there were so many options to personalize your army. For a faction that is supposed to be one of the more diverse ones, there really isn't a whole lot that separates one from another and almost nothing that separates two armies of the same god.

Nurgle? Obliterators, biker lords, spawn, plague marines
Slaanesh? Noise Marines... yeah Noise Marines
Tzeentch? Basically the codex tells you "Don't play Tzeentch"
Khorne? Berzerkers, Jugger Lords, Kharn

Throw in some Daemon Princes, Predators, and Heldrakes and that's basically every army. Where's my cult terminators? Where's my Juggernaught Cavalry? The Space Wolves got entirely newly fabricated nonsense like Thunderwolf Cavalry, and I can't get Brazen Knights? What gives? Give me back the god specific daemon weapons. Give me back the Daemons. Hell, just give me back the Book of Khorne and call it a day.

I think a decent low cost assault transport would go a long way to addressing CSMs. give CSMs an "open topped rhino" style transport, and they're in a much better position

I find the csm codex just fine. Before it was bad because of the 3-4 helldrake lists, now it is one of the few armies that I can have a normal game against.

CSM can get drop pods.
Except they are 100 points and are in a forgeworld book.

The 3rd edition version was probably the most fun.

Overpowered? Yep.

But it had all sorts of flexibility and keep with the character of Chaos and CSMs.

Rewards for using the magic number.
Dreadnoughts that may turn on their friends.
etc, etc.

Something like this would be best, but not so that we have an overpowered army.

Is Soul Blaze considered a bad rule? Its almost always paid off for me when I have that rule in an army list, even if its just a little bit.

Of course, I have Soul Blaze running with all my Tzeencht troops, as well as Warpflame Gargoyles on my vehicles (best 5 point upgrade in the codex IMO), so I do have alot of Soul Blaze shots going on, making it work through redundancy.

What I'd like to see is much more cult-specific stuff.

I am no expert at the fluff, but why don't, lets say, Emperor's Childern have Chosen squads and Terminators? Why don't Deathguard have Chosen and Terminators? What happened to these Legions to get rid of all their Veterans, Terminators, and Raptors? (Maybe there's an actual answer in the fluff I'm not aware of).

And why are there no special rules whatsoever for stuff like Iron Warriors, Night Lords, etc. They are beggin for special rules similar to Iron Hands, Ravenguard, etc.

I mean, this is supposed to be the IoM's main enemy, but rules-wise they seem sort of like an afterthought....not enough flavor. With SM, I can choose lots of different Chapter Tactics. With CSM, I can choose Elites squads as Troops depending on HQ selection, and that's it. Whoop-dee-do.

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I still have a converted dreadnaught with a noise marine cannon somewhere.

That was back when chaos was cool and zerkers were scary.
I remember before the newest space marine dex, people were saying "where's the special rules for legions?"
"Can't have them, that'd be OP and it would...like cost a billion points."
Then Space Marines Dex hits the shelves with everything CSM wanted. Good times.
The current dex lacks any real flavor and makes all Chaos Marines into scattered warbands with no sense of history or direction or even threat. They're just there.

Here's a couple more common sense changes I'd like to see:

1. Khorne Berserkers should get 2 base attacks (I believe you've already said this)

2. Psykers with a particular Mark should not suffer PoW on any doubles when summoning Daemons of the same God...only double 6's.

3. Night Lords should be able to take Raptors as troops.

4. Iron Warriors Warpsmiths should get the same buff available to their SM Iron Hands counterparts (can't remember what the specific rule is , I think its a plus 1 to repair rolls).

5. Word Bearers Lords and Sorcerers and possibly all Champions of Chaos in a Word Bearers detachment should have the Zealot special rule.

This keeps popping up, but yeah, the lack of internal balance and viable builds is a problem. The problems have been exacerbated with time though. I think there's rumours of a Legion supplement though.

 ChazSexington wrote:
I think there's rumours of a Legion supplement though.

Although a cash grab, I'd welcome this. The Black Legion supplement was somewhat of a dud. The Crimson Slaughter supplement was better, but that's a pretty obscure thing for them to have chosen to supplement, when 1k Sons, Deathguard, World Eaters, and Emperor's Children actually have models/upgrade kits to buy and are basically begging for a supplement.

I do believe this is how they will continue to make money from CSM players, just like Harlequin was used to keep Eldar players buying stuff.

Personally, nothing makes me hate this hobby more than constantly seeing CSM get the shaft.

If I could get anything, anything at all, it would be the following

Legion Tactics
Daemonic Resilience no longer reducing our WS to 3, BS 3 is fine though
Daemon Engines like Maulerfiends having more attacks base (lets say 4)
God Specific Cavalry - IE Slaneshi Noise Marines on Seekers, Nurgle Plague Marines on Rot Flies / Drones, Khorne Berzerkers on Juggernaughts, Thousand Sons on Discs.
Terminators that arent generically cheap throw away units. Give them the Cult options, Make Nurgle Terminators Shrouded or something, Khorne Terminators charge range increases (Charge D6 + 6" rolling 2 dice and taking the highest or something) Tzeentch Terminators are Psykers, Slaanesh Terminators can carry Sonic Weaponry.

Theres so much that they could have done to make the Dex better, or for that point, GOOD. Forgeworld made CSM GOOD with the new book but for allmighty, you shouldnt have to spend 59$ x 3 books (Dex and 2 Supplements) then drop another $140 on a Forgeworld book just to have competitive models on the board.

The current CSM codex has done a perfectly fine job of its main goal; namely, giving back unit choices across the board...
During the Great Divorce, (which, imho was a fabulous idea as it has allowed the daemonic aspects to be fully fleshed out), we lost upwards of a dozen plus unit options! The 4th ed codex gave us nothing to make-up for this, and we became the outright blandest codex at the time.
Enter our 6th ed book, we've not only gained a large number of unit & character options, including some long time & glaring ommisions, (Dark Apostle, Warpsmith & Cultists), but we also gained more of our own unique Daemon Engines, instead of just getting "Codex gear with spikes."

What we really need now however, is an expansion of the actual options & upgrades available across our various units...
Since the very beginning of 3rd edition, our squaddies have gained exactly 0 'new' options. Meanwhile, those Loyalist scum have regained across their various flavours, not only the return of Hand/Heavy Flamers, Inferno pistols, Multi-meltas, etc... but they've also been given a brand new category of gear through Grav weaponry!
We need the same... giving us back the likes of Hand + Heavy Flamers is a no-brainer. Havocs could easily do with the return of the Plasma Cannon. Our own unique chaotic gun wouldn't be amiss either, such as the Kai Gun or a Hellrifle, etc...
And by extention, a new 'chaos only' pattern of Land Raider & Predator would be nifty. (imagine for example, a Chaos Predator w/Hades Autocannon + Heavy Flamer sponsons! )



As for this BS nonsense that the 3.5 codex was some golden age of perfection... no, it wasn't. It was actually heavily restrictive, especially for Cult armies, as the only 'Cult of Khorne' was World Eaters. So you had nothing more than Lords/DP, Chosen, 'Zerkers, Bikers, vehicles & Khornate Daemons... no access to Havocs, or Raptors. No Cultists. No crazy MoK Techmarine or such.

Nope, the way to go would be to give the basic CSM codex its own form of 'Legion & Renegade Tactics' that focus on the non-aligned Legions of old, plus a few of the most well known Traitor Chapters such as the Red Corsairs, Crimson Slaughter, The Purge, etc...
Leave the Cult stuff to their own proper 'Book of Khorne' type supplements, where you can gain more God-specific Daemon weapons, Cult Termies, mixed lists w/out the requirement for an Allied Detachment and all that type of tasty stuff.

That way, you can play a 'traditional' CSM army that's potentially aligned to a specific power out of the main codex, but still have the full freedom of choice without being automatically shoehorned into 'all Tzeentch warbands are automatically 1ksons' like the 3.5 codex did.

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I've posted this before, but for posterity I'll hammer it out again. Disclaimer, I do not play CSM, but instead play against them heavily and have always considered doing an army, but have found the current crop of codexes (and models) very uninspiring. So this is something which would make me excited about Chaos, both as a regular foe I would like to see do better (and be more diverse) and as something I would like to play.

First and foremost, have the forces of Chaos divided up into three distinct armies within one larger book ala C:SM.

Traitors of the Dark Millenium; Very similar to current CSM with some additional rules for modern traitors like the Red Corsairs and such. Army relies on, for the most part, inferior quality SM in larger numbers with limited daemonic/outlandish support, though with greater access to "modern" equipment; assault cannons, land speeders and so on, but none of the older stuff, Kheres Autocannons and such. Includes multiple cultist-type units and basic Cult troops.

Veterans of the Long War: Chaos Grey Knights, in effect. The original traitor legions with extremely high individual combat power (multi-wound, loads of USRs, extremely diverse weapon options, nigh-unbreakable morale) but low model count. Relatively few core units, diversity provided via particular Legion; Black Legion focusing on standard troops, or a meld between the elite veterans and the "hordes" representing their regular influx of modern traitors, Death Guard being nigh-unkillable, World Eaters bringing new meaning to the term "blender of gore," and so on. Make them impressive, powerful but expensive and limited. It would be the perfect "starter" army due to lower cost and easier army construction.

Slaves to the Darkness: I heard you like daemons. General army idea is about making Daemons a much more fluffy army, and more mechanically interesting than "I have invuln saves and run at you while rolling random charts" General concept is you have a number of different means of summoning daemons; sorcerer coteries, sacrificial cult-type units and so on which then summon and maintain various daemon types on the field. Think of the Tervigon relationship in the old Tyranid book, where the spawner can pass certain USRs and such to created units (in this case it'd be different kinds of Daemons) but if the spawner dies, bad things happen. Fluff wise, one never beats a Daemon army by killing the daemons, one beats it by stopping whatever it is that allows them to exist on the material plane. Having hordes of powerful, unlimited (provided one doesn't blow oneself up while summoning) shock troops and a small corps of "mortal" forces would create a more interesting dynamic, and in theory be more interesting to play as or against.

If you heretics wanted all the fun toys from the Imperium, maybe you shouldn't have betrayed everything you stood for in the first place.

So, instead of the Mechanicum building you sweet-ass Land Raider variants and Storm Ravens, you get half-crazed Warpsmiths and Hereteks who would rather see what happens when you combine a flamethrower and a robot dog.


I'd like to see new Chaos Marine models though, regardless. The Chaos Marine kit has to be one of the ugliest troop kits that GW makes, if not the ugliest.

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I have seen like 5 of these threads pop up this year.

Your attitude is all wrong. CSM are the bad guys and suppose to die in droves. If you watch any of the fan made videos for any spacemarine chapter, you will see 5 men tactical teams Slay 500 chaos marines. They are depicted to be weaker than grots.

Here are my ideas that i have proposed before.

open top rhino.

A razorback version of chaos where they have 10pts Autocannons. Not twin linked. keeping it cheap is vital.

Remove Cult Marines
Reduce cost of standard marine. Increase upgrade costs. Marks are worthless when i hear people say," oh but you get to take marks..." Yeah but its not free like your chapter tactics and special rules.

Remove marks and replace with free daemon equivalents like nurgle shrouded, tzeentch reroll 1s, etc...

Allow 4 heavy or special weapons at increased cost per 10 men squads. So you can have 20 men with 8 hvy/spc guns. Give them similar rule to combat squad except you can only split a 20 man squad into 2 ten man squads.

Discount heavy bolters to 5ppm or incorporate free rending similar to SoB special hb rule. Or make inferno and malefic ammo purchasable like psy bolt ammo. Also option to replace bolter for sonic blaster. Sonic blaster cost 2ppm, inferno bolter ammo cost 3ppm and malefic heavy bolters cost 10+3ppm.

Have possessed actually possess enemy my Space Marines after deployment but before 1st turn.

give chaos predator option to replace turret with a quad heavy bolter free. give Malefic ammo for 3x6=18pts (2 side sponsons hb and the 4 for the quad).

Make inferno ammo and malefic ammo available like grey knight psybolt ammo.

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Abaddon the Despoiler? More like Abaddon the failure! 13 crusades that failed!

The Champion of Chaos is a huge gimp! They should include free fearless to the squad until they die!

If not, possessed should all have free Champion of Chaos and come with free gift of Mutation.

Thank you for liking my ideas. Now if only we can make it happen.

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 Filch wrote:
I have seen like 5 of these threads pop up this year.

Your attitude is all wrong. CSM are the bad guys and suppose to die in droves. If you watch any of the fan made videos for any spacemarine chapter, you will see 5 men tactical teams Slay 500 chaos marines. They are depicted to be weaker than grots.

Here are my ideas that i have proposed before.

open top rhino.

A razorback version of chaos where they have 10pts Autocannons. Not twin linked. keeping it cheap is vital.

Remove Cult Marines
Reduce cost of standard marine. Increase upgrade costs. Marks are worthless when i hear people say," oh but you get to take marks..." Yeah but its not free like your chapter tactics and special rules.

Remove marks and replace with free daemon equivalents like nurgle shrouded, tzeentch reroll 1s, etc...

Allow 4 heavy or special weapons at increased cost per 10 men squads. So you can have 20 men with 8 hvy/spc guns. Give them similar rule to combat squad except you can only split a 20 man squad into 2 ten man squads.

Discount heavy bolters to 5ppm or incorporate free rending similar to SoB special hb rule. Or make inferno and malefic ammo purchasable like psy bolt ammo. Also option to replace bolter for sonic blaster. Sonic blaster cost 2ppm, inferno bolter ammo cost 3ppm and malefic heavy bolters cost 10+3ppm.

Have possessed actually possess enemy my Space Marines after deployment but before 1st turn.

give chaos predator option to replace turret with a quad heavy bolter free. give Malefic ammo for 3x6=18pts (2 side sponsons hb and the 4 for the quad).

Make inferno ammo and malefic ammo available like grey knight psybolt ammo.

I still can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
If serious, I disagree with the fundamental concept of CSM being weaker. The opposite should be true, from a fluff and narrative standpoint.
(villains should be a real threat.)

It's not sarcasm; it's consistent with a certain kind of post history.


There are very definitely chaos marines who are cruddy. There are also very definitely chaos marines who are older than time and have killed scores of loyalists each, and many more lesser rivals in the eye of terror.

You have to have two separate troop units. One with two attacks and 2+/6++ armor, and a different one with bs3 and ld7.

Oh forgot to add in the warband squads. By splitting 20 men into 2 ten men squads you can put 4 hvy or spc guns on to the back field team and have the other team in a rhino drive up full of bolters.

Ah, but see: no you did not forget.

 jasper76 wrote:
Is Soul Blaze considered a bad rule? Its almost always paid off for me when I have that rule in an army list, even if its just a little bit.

Oh God yes. It's one of the most useless rules in the entire game.

50% of the time, it literally does nothing. The other 50% of the time, at best you get 3 bolter hits that ignore cover.

If it's a bonus provided for free to something, okay sure whatever. If I have to pay points for it, NOT EVEN ONCE. It's so, so, so bad. It is not worth spending points to get.

I think the most probable transport option that gw would go with is drop pods, they would just use the sm spru then have an additional spru with spikes (because that's all that differentiates chaos apparently)

I'd love too see legion rules, also zombies at T4.

But I think that is a pipe dream.

Doesn't typhus transform cultist into t4 fearless fnp z zombies for free?