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.

Hey everyone - generally I prefer to love things in the hobby instead of hate them. And I know with codex Eldar fresh, and new Knights, and the Ad-mech we're all really busy reacting to other stuff. And, fluff is so subjective and up to each individual to choose to enjoy or reject, and the unreliable and shifting nature of 40k fluff lets players choose to make their own canonical worlds on the table top.

That said, could we take a moment to hate the Crimson Slaughter?

Sure, their sub-codex has been out a long time, and it gives Chaos some minor options that the base book doesn't provide, and so it shouldn't really be a topic worth discussing. But, looking at the Assassins boxed game, I was struck again by that tomato red paint scheme that now adorns the entire Chaos line, and that "Stop the sorcerer before he casts a spell that will end the whole Imperium!" plot that just so fits the type of stories from their codex. And it all came back to me: Crimson Slaughter is just the worst thing to come out of the Chaos Marines lore in a long time.

First, there's this problem:

"I hate those red Chaos marines." "You don't like the World Eaters?" "No, they're cool, I mean those red Chaos marines." "You mean the Word Bearers?" "No, no, the red marines who were loyalists until recently, they're post heresy." "Um, the Red Corsairs?" "No, no, those guys aren't red. I mean, they're Red Corsairs, but no... no, the other red Chaos marines..."

But, the fact we already have so many other, arguably better, Chaos factions for GW to focus on, there's loads more to hate about Crimson Slaughter - their inexplicable Heresy-era wargear and lack of modern equipment, in spite of only recently turning to Chaos. Their acceptance by Abaddon. Their Ragu color scheme.

But, there must be so many more reasons. How about you, how do you feel about this most recent addition to the Chaos marine family?

Meh, sometimes run the supplement codex with my Night Lords for the wargear.

You forgot the 3/4 red chaos marine warbands in the daemonkin book

With literally the exception of what has been written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, I find Chaos Marines to be the most ludicrous, nonsensical concept in the sea of unbelievable silliness that is 40k. Even CS Goto couldn't make them more ridiculous. Compared to the asinine, motivation-less, wooden garbage that is already CSM fluff, the Crimson Slaughter is just another drop in the bucket.

Oggthrok wrote:
Hey everyone - generally I prefer to love things in the hobby instead of hate them. And I know with codex Eldar fresh, and new Knights, and the Ad-mech we're all really busy reacting to other stuff. And, fluff is so subjective and up to each individual to choose to enjoy or reject, and the unreliable and shifting nature of 40k fluff lets players choose to make their own canonical worlds on the table top.

That said, could we take a moment to hate the Crimson Slaughter?

Sure, their sub-codex has been out a long time, and it gives Chaos some minor options that the base book doesn't provide, and so it shouldn't really be a topic worth discussing. But, looking at the Assassins boxed game, I was struck again by that tomato red paint scheme that now adorns the entire Chaos line, and that "Stop the sorcerer before he casts a spell that will end the whole Imperium!" plot that just so fits the type of stories from their codex. And it all came back to me: Crimson Slaughter is just the worst thing to come out of the Chaos Marines lore in a long time.

First, there's this problem:

"I hate those red Chaos marines." "You don't like the World Eaters?" "No, they're cool, I mean those red Chaos marines." "You mean the Word Bearers?" "No, no, the red marines who were loyalists until recently, they're post heresy." "Um, the Red Corsairs?" "No, no, those guys aren't red. I mean, they're Red Corsairs, but no... no, the other red Chaos marines..."

But, the fact we already have so many other, arguably better, Chaos factions for GW to focus on, there's loads more to hate about Crimson Slaughter - their inexplicable Heresy-era wargear and lack of modern equipment, in spite of only recently turning to Chaos. Their acceptance by Abaddon. Their Ragu color scheme.

But, there must be so many more reasons. How about you, how do you feel about this most recent addition to the Chaos marine family?

You know that hand-held motion sensor in Aliens that the marines used to detect the presence of the aliens?


I kind of feel that The Crimson Slaughter serve the same purpose: They help others detect those that need to be purged

Nothing says "Hey Im a troll and love to nerdrage about nothing" like those that get all sweaty and self-righteous about stuff like this ( ultramarine hate, now Crimson Slaughter).

Am I the only one that wants to stab someone when they start going on about "smurfs" and how they ruin the game (and the trolls life apparently)?

Ultramarine hate and Crimson Slaugheter ranting and similar noise always seems sort of forced tbh. Play with the toys you want to play with and I'll play with mine. Its really not all that important.

Toy soldiers people, toy soldiers...

I don't like Crimson Slaughter becuse that time and effort should have gone into an actual legion book.

 CT GAMER wrote:
Toy soldiers people, toy soldiers...

Totally missed the mark.

Chaos space marines are a dying faction in the dying game that is 40k, and Crimson Slaughter are just another symptom of the cancer. Bland, weak codex, nonsensical units and wargear, total lack of character, with a mishmashed aesthetic and some of the worst models in the entire game. People hate the Crimson Slaughter because it's such a huge missed opportunity. Instead of a legion supplement or even a real renegade supplement they made Supplement: Dark Vengeance models.

Then again, I'm starting to get the feeling GW only survives because some literally want toy soldiers with the highest price tag they can find - rules, back story, and aesthetics be damned.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I don't like Crimson Slaughter becuse that time and effort should have gone into an actual legion book.

How about Necrons, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Orks, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Marines etc etc, they all take time away from an actual legion book as well. I guess you just don't like 40k then. Anything that GW does takes away from legions.

No. Crimsion Slaughter did not take away from Legions. Capital L not a little l.

I actually like them. Just got finished painting twenty cultists and a Sorcerer as CS.

Their warlord traits chart isn't terrible. I run two detachments with their supplement, one being Crimson Slaughter, and one being Night Lords.

They have a horror movie appeal. Some of their altar of war and Planetstrike rules are pretty cool.

Plus I like painting red marines, but never liked World Eaters, Word Bearers, Red Corsairs, or Blood Angels.

Free fear has helped my Cultists win a few fights as well.

Kranon as a character is pretty meh...

I actually like the CS and their fluff but I agree, more red chaos marines is beyond confusing and generic.

I actually enjoy their fluff.

And amusingly enough I'm glad they became a supplement, because they didn't start doing good supplements till they started releasing formations instead of having odd things like cities of death and planetstrike stuff.

Had an actual legion been forced to have that stuff it would've just made it feel far worse later on without the actual good supplemental stuff.

I don't have a problem with crimson slaughter so much as I have a problem with what they represent. The same goes with daemon kin, although they got a new mechanic at the very least.

Both are signs of changes in what Chaos space marines seem to mean to Games Workshop. Only Forge World seems to remember what Chaos Space Marines represent, but even they barely produce any models for chaos, most of the IA 13 kits are loyalist only kits.

GW is turning chaos marines into faceless minions of evil, one more insane than the other. Khorne daemonkin are especially stupid. They pretty much die to a man every battle....since the Horus Heresy. They should have run out of marines ages ago. Should have been Codex: Khorne Sacrificial Lambs..

One thing I hate about loyalist turncoats, is that they just seem weak-minded in comparison to the legions. They Space Marines loyal to the emperor that just succumb to the offerings of chaos. They're all like drug addicts that tasted the rainbow.

Chaos Marines to me used to be the good guys, that made a deal with the devil for perceived slights. With the usual grimdark silly proportions of blowing things out of the water. They chose chaos willingly and then got corrupted over time, not the other way round.

Chaos marines are supposed to be traitors, but GW doesn't want to do legions, yet their renegades aren't traitors either, they're more lost and damned than traitors. Neither Supplement or Codex represents Renegades and neither does Legions.

The only models we got recently are dinobots and hell turkeys. Not exactly the image of ghosts of haunted past. Nor renegades for that matter.

I want the whole tragic theme, reminders of a past they would rather forget. I wouldn't buy a proper renegade codex, but I would totally support it, and it totally makes sense.

Neither seems to be the image GW has, rather they seem to think of chaos marines as:

Codex: Pawns of Daemons

And if that's really what GW thinks of CSM? Well, then I'm out. I'm eagerly awaiting the next dameonkin codex to see what that's like.
But I'm not willing to play sacrifial lambs that ADDITIONALLY get little love from GW, going by the lack of potential new units they could have done with daemonkin.

Why are so many people wishing for legion codexes?

Seriously.

The only interesting Chaos legions are the ones who arent dedicated to a particular chaos god, i.e. Iron Warriors (machines galore), Word Bearers (cultists and daemonic summoning, heretical dark apostles), Night Lords (darkness, terror, batman), Black Legion (muh powah, muh dark crusades) and Alpha Legion (infiltration, impostoring, outwitting)

World Eaters are crazed berserkers who scream blood for the blood god and have little else going on in their addled brains, Thousand sons are powder encased in archaic suits of armor with silly egyptian hedgear and sorcerors leading them, Emperor's children are crazed psychopaths jamming to heavy metal concerts and death guard are shambling blobs of pustule ridden disease. You cant write an entire codex around what is basically one unit.

Crimson Slaughter were very much an odd release. But not the only odd one.

GW for some reason has consistently refused to make Legion books, which is odd because it would basically be a license to print money. They made Crimson Slaughter, which nobody asked for or cared about. They did Black Legion...when the core codex is already built entirely around the Black Legion. They'll do books for individual companies of individual loyalist Chapters. But they won't do Legion books.

It also doesn't help that most of these supplements are $50 for like two pages of rules, mostly just different wargear/relics or an FoC swap.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Why are so many people wishing for legion codexes?

Seriously.

The only interesting Chaos legions are the ones who arent dedicated to a particular chaos god, i.e. Iron Warriors (machines galore), Word Bearers (cultists and daemonic summoning, heretical dark apostles), Night Lords (darkness, terror, batman), Black Legion (muh powah, muh dark crusades) and Alpha Legion (infiltration, impostoring, outwitting)

World Eaters are crazed berserkers who scream blood for the blood god and have little else going on in their addled brains, Thousand sons are powder encased in archaic suits of armor with silly egyptian hedgear and sorcerors leading them, Emperor's children are crazed psychopaths jamming to heavy metal concerts and death guard are shambling blobs of pustule ridden disease. You cant write an entire codex around what is basically one unit.

That's already 5 very different playstyles, even before disagreeing on the some of the others. Even if they weren't so different, Black library keeps mentioning and writing stories about all the legions. Isn't that reason enough already? Basically the entire core of 40k is the struggle of the imperium of man, who are only struggling in the first place because of what happened. And those very guys responsible for the mess are still around and kicking. They're so iconic, I don't see how people DON'T ask for legions.

CSM need a total overhaul as a range.

The aesthetics are mismatched terribly.

Khorne Daemonkin could have easily been Codex: Word Bearers if they included all the four gods. The word Bearers are the original Chaos Legion, and I know that they are liked by a lot of Chaos Players for that reason. I'd happily buy Codex Word Bearers, but I haven't dropped a penny on 40k since 7th dropped.

I don't hate the Crimson Slaughter Supplement. For gaming, it did bring some more to the table than just hellturkey spam that we had seemed to be stuck with prior to this supplement. What does annoy me however, was that it felt like a missed opportunity by GW. I feel that with a few tweaks, it could have made a decent Word Bearers supplement, hopefully paving the way for 7 more legion supplements.

Ragumarines


Love it

 Sir Arun wrote:
Why are so many people wishing for legion codexes?

Seriously.

The only interesting Chaos legions are the ones who arent dedicated to a particular chaos god, i.e. Iron Warriors (machines galore), Word Bearers (cultists and daemonic summoning, heretical dark apostles), Night Lords (darkness, terror, batman), Black Legion (muh powah, muh dark crusades) and Alpha Legion (infiltration, impostoring, outwitting)

World Eaters are crazed berserkers who scream blood for the blood god and have little else going on in their addled brains, Thousand sons are powder encased in archaic suits of armor with silly egyptian hedgear and sorcerors leading them, Emperor's children are crazed psychopaths jamming to heavy metal concerts and death guard are shambling blobs of pustule ridden disease. You cant write an entire codex around what is basically one unit.

The exact same thing could have been said about Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Black Templar as back in the day none of these had more than 2 or 3 unique rules to set them apart from your standard Space Marine chapter. Over the years this was expanded to the point that each has unique models, rules, and can (arguably in some cases) justify having their own codex. Why should World Eaters only have berserkers? Why should Thousand Sons only have rubrics? Why should Empreror's Champions only have loud speakers?

You're right though... the only interesting legions are the Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, Night Lords, and Alpha Legion. Why? Because each of these have a codex that can make them. The other 4 have a larger identity that was never supported in the rules or models. Why can't each cult choice have a corresponding terminator/chosen entry that goes beyond an overpriced mark? Why give CSM Havoks when they could have given them a brotherhood of psykers that shot spells with the same weapon profile as bolters, las cannons, autocannons etc? The otpions are truly limitless and nothing is saying GW needs to make a book for each legion. Simply adding 2 or 3 more cult units to the book would do the trick.

A CSM book with a sorcerer lord, sorcerer chosen, rubric terminators, and an additional unit similar to the havok replacement I mentioned above in addition to all the vehicles already in the book and demon allies would give a Thousand Sons player more than enough to work with and could easily be done with each of the 4 main cults.

As to Crimson Slaughter, I don't even know why GW wasted their time. The CS could have very easily have been an Alpha Legion codex. Why didn't they just do that? Perhaps not to set a precedent? Who knows. But the one common thing that we've heard from the CSM community over the past 15 years is PLEASE expand on the cults/legions.

Crimson Slaughter themed models and colour artwork were in the 2nd ed codex (even if not identified by name).

I actually think they are a nice addition fluff wise.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Why are so many people wishing for legion codexes?

Seriously.

The only interesting Chaos legions are the ones who arent dedicated to a particular chaos god, i.e. Iron Warriors (machines galore), Word Bearers (cultists and daemonic summoning, heretical dark apostles), Night Lords (darkness, terror, batman), Black Legion (muh powah, muh dark crusades) and Alpha Legion (infiltration, impostoring, outwitting)

World Eaters are crazed berserkers who scream blood for the blood god and have little else going on in their addled brains, Thousand sons are powder encased in archaic suits of armor with silly egyptian hedgear and sorcerors leading them, Emperor's children are crazed psychopaths jamming to heavy metal concerts and death guard are shambling blobs of pustule ridden disease. You cant write an entire codex around what is basically one unit.

People (myself included) want Legion books in the hope that they'll become more than one dimensional wooden bad guys. KDK was awesome for the fact that we can finally mix daemons and CSMs, but nothing really changed. Bloodletters are still too fragile IMO (although taking them in transports really helps now). I'm not aware of any additional fleshing out of fluff. I'd love some new god-specific units for one thing and a themed supplement is a good excuse to introduce them.

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:
Toy soldiers people, toy soldiers...

Totally missed the mark.

Chaos space marines are a dying faction in the dying game that is 40k, and Crimson Slaughter are just another symptom of the cancer. Bland, weak codex, nonsensical units and wargear, total lack of character, with a mishmashed aesthetic and some of the worst models in the entire game. People hate the Crimson Slaughter because it's such a huge missed opportunity. Instead of a legion supplement or even a real renegade supplement they made Supplement: Dark Vengeance models.

Then again, I'm starting to get the feeling GW only survives because some literally want toy soldiers with the highest price tag they can find - rules, back story, and aesthetics be damned.

If people keep predicting the death of something long enough eventually they will be right.

I've been listening to "wise men" predicting the death of 40k every year since I started playing in early nineties.

Keep trying...

I actually like the story. I briefly toyed with starting a Crimson Slaughter army because I had read Dark Vengeance (the novella) and then read Crimson Dawn, and I found the fluff to not be that bad, it's a good example of how a Space Marine Chapter falls to Chaos, and the fluff in the supplement actually explained (however contrived I thought it was) how they go from clean power armor to warped Chaos stuff.

I wasn't a really big fan of the Possessed gimmick though, I would have preferred something more like limited access to SM weaponry. Also there are discrepancies between the novella and the codex (e.g. in the novella, Draznicht the Chosen Champion is 1st Company Captain, in the codex he's been retconned as a Veteran Sergeant, I guess to put his statline more in line with what it is as Chaos). Also I found the history part funny as they basically trolled other Chapters by pointing out all the minor things they did that were against the Codex Astartes.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Crimson Slaughter were very much an odd release. But not the only odd one.

GW for some reason has consistently refused to make Legion books, which is odd because it would basically be a license to print money. They made Crimson Slaughter, which nobody asked for or cared about. They did Black Legion...when the core codex is already built entirely around the Black Legion.

How do you figure that? Because it includes a single Black Legion named character? By that logic it's just as much Codex: Red Corsairs.

IMO every CSM supplement faction is garbage, following the theme of the parent codex. GW just doesn't care about CSM as much as a lot of the other factions.

MarsNZ wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Crimson Slaughter were very much an odd release. But not the only odd one.

GW for some reason has consistently refused to make Legion books, which is odd because it would basically be a license to print money. They made Crimson Slaughter, which nobody asked for or cared about. They did Black Legion...when the core codex is already built entirely around the Black Legion.

How do you figure that? Because it includes a single Black Legion named character? By that logic it's just as much Codex: Red Corsairs.

Because Black Legion has always been the vanilla legion and that's what the codex was, a little bit of everything and not enough of anything.

 MWHistorian wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Crimson Slaughter were very much an odd release. But not the only odd one.

GW for some reason has consistently refused to make Legion books, which is odd because it would basically be a license to print money. They made Crimson Slaughter, which nobody asked for or cared about. They did Black Legion...when the core codex is already built entirely around the Black Legion.

How do you figure that? Because it includes a single Black Legion named character? By that logic it's just as much Codex: Red Corsairs.

Because Black Legion has always been the vanilla legion and that's what the codex was, a little bit of everything and not enough of anything.

Does that make the Black Legion the spiky Ultramarines?

 Mumblez wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Crimson Slaughter were very much an odd release. But not the only odd one.

GW for some reason has consistently refused to make Legion books, which is odd because it would basically be a license to print money. They made Crimson Slaughter, which nobody asked for or cared about. They did Black Legion...when the core codex is already built entirely around the Black Legion.

How do you figure that? Because it includes a single Black Legion named character? By that logic it's just as much Codex: Red Corsairs.

Because Black Legion has always been the vanilla legion and that's what the codex was, a little bit of everything and not enough of anything.

Does that make the Black Legion the spiky Ultramarines?

That was the basic idea.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Mumblez wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Crimson Slaughter were very much an odd release. But not the only odd one.

GW for some reason has consistently refused to make Legion books, which is odd because it would basically be a license to print money. They made Crimson Slaughter, which nobody asked for or cared about. They did Black Legion...when the core codex is already built entirely around the Black Legion.

How do you figure that? Because it includes a single Black Legion named character? By that logic it's just as much Codex: Red Corsairs.

Because Black Legion has always been the vanilla legion and that's what the codex was, a little bit of everything and not enough of anything.

Does that make the Black Legion the spiky Ultramarines?

That was the basic idea.

Hmm. That makes a surprising amount of sense, actually. Now my only question is: if Marneus Calgar is the Spiritual Liege, what is Abaddon's fancy-pants title?