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Why not play it and see for yourself. As is, you can win with csm and they have some solid units but overall it's just an outdated codex with all the problems that outdated codexes face. Fewer options that are weaker and more expensive, units that are mediocre at what they do yet cost a ton of points for no good reason.

CSM are pretty much a dedicated CC army. Pretty much everything in the book was built around this, the chaos boons, VotLW, the wargear, just everything really. The fire support elements were just that, support for the CC threats. CSM could beat the elite CC units of other armies with their CC troops. (Hatred for all Loyalists is win) But now the game has changed dramatically in a relatively short time. Now they just get shredded from a distance before they can even close in. This is bad design IMO. By all means certain elements of Chaos should be killer in CC (Khorne/Slaanesh), but Chaos should be about more than mindlessly charging into combat. Iron Warriors are siege specialists, Alpha Legion and Night Lords use stealth and finesse.

This is also probably why Ksons are so useless. They don't fit in with their own codex design.

 Delicate Swarm wrote:
CSM are pretty much a dedicated CC army. Pretty much everything in the book was built around this, the chaos boons, VotLW, the wargear, just everything really. The fire support elements were just that, support for the CC threats. CSM could beat the elite CC units of other armies with their CC troops. (Hatred for all Loyalists is win) But now the game has changed dramatically in a relatively short time. Now they just get shredded from a distance before they can even close in. This is bad design IMO. By all means certain elements of Chaos should be killer in CC (Khorne/Slaanesh), but Chaos should be about more than mindlessly charging into combat. Iron Warriors are siege specialists, Alpha Legion and Night Lords use stealth and finesse.

This is also probably why Ksons are so useless. They don't fit in with their own codex design.

Rubrics are useless because mathematically they lose to 10 Vanilla Marines with two Plasma Guns, and don't give out a lot of Warp Charges. Ten points more than the minimum squad gets me a new CAD with two units of Cultists and a Sorcerer.

So the general consensus is while it has some great units it also has a lot of useless ones and the codex doesn't properly represent how the army is portrayed in the fluff.

Is this about right?

The reason the Codex gets a bad rep is because its old, much like most of CSM in general.

I've played CSM since 5th, Love the army, but just gave up on playing them. I can still have some good games with my inexperienced friends mostly because of tactical mistakes, but once they start learning their armies, it gets harder. While i agree with everything everyone is saying here. The lack of synergy, overcosted models, poor transport options, built for an edition that isn't played, etc. Yet, we are glossing over one very big issue. Money.

CSM are supposed to be the BAD GUYS, and considering everyone in the 40k universe is technically bad guys. CSM are supposed to be THE bad guys. Which may have a contributing factor in the lack of love GW gives them. Space Marines are GW's posterboy for the game which is the main reason they get a lots of the love in forms of new sculpts, better gear, better rules, an exclusive online formation that will not be named, etc.. They're also marketed to new players.

Lore wise, Space Marines biggest enemy is CSM. If CSM is easy to beat, more new players can fight the bad guys and win. Meaning they will keep playing and buying more stuff and that means more money in GW pockets. We more or less have been reduced to the "Mob Army" for the newbies to fight. We are designed to die.

I firmly believe that the one of the main reasons that CSM is getting shafted so hard by GW is because they just are not seeing any profit in working on a codex. Hell, the ONLY reason khorne deamonkin was released was to sell the new bloodthirster model.Speaking of new models, How about a new standard CSM sculpt? I think out current on is 15 years old. I don't think i'll see one within my gaming lifetime. I mean, How long did it take for us to get cultists and helbrute kits after dark vengeance came out? Where is our Chosen kit? Dark Vengeance was released in 2012. It's been three years.

In the end, it all comes down to money. I think the cost to profit ratio to make CSM players happy is just to unrealistic for GW to commit to it. Between legion rulesets, new sculpts, new rules, etc, the amount of effort required by GW is just not something they'll put forth. By no means is CSM gonna go the way of sisters or get squatted, they're too big for that. They just won't get better. New codexes will continue to be mediocre. They are the bad guys after all, and the good guys need someone they can fight and beat.

/rant.

Edit: Spelling

Taffy17 wrote:
So the general consensus is while it has some great units it also has a lot of useless ones and the codex doesn't properly represent how the army is portrayed in the fluff.

Is this about right?

At release, yes.

Now, the codex has some mediocre units and the rest are terrible.

In general, you want to take the following;
Plague Marines
Cultists
Sorceror (no marks)
Nurgle Dp
Nurgle Bikers
Unmarked Termies with combi weapons
Nurgle Biker lord with brand
Heldrake

Everything else is pretty bad. You can make blastmasters work, but its performance will depend on enemy skill and who you are facing.

 Arkaine wrote:
Is no one going to mention that we've had the same seven guns since the beginning? While everyone else is getting new toys, what do we have?

Flamer, Meltagun, Plasma gun, Heavy bolter, Autocannon, Missile launcher, Lascannon.

Chaos feels ancient and outdated because it literally is. We've been using pre-Heresy weapons for the past 10,000 years.

Which is how it should be.

The current design studio is clueless and out of good ideas. The last time they caved in to people wanting new chaos toys allthey could manage was to give us lame "robo-space- dragon". This is 40k not Transformers...

In fact all they can seem to make these days is giant robots.

CSMs need to be made the ancient and powerful veterans of the long war that they should be: they should make modern marines crap their pants stat-wise. they should have veteran and legion abilities, they should get greater bonuses for themed l/marked armies.

They should have high points costs but be absolutly disgustingly powerful. The army should be a warband of insanse eternal killers with some associated toys. Instead we get marines with horns (cosmetic) and a collection of BeastWars Transformer rejects...

they should have dreadclaw droppods, better possessed vehicle options and a wargear/relic section that makes loyalists scream "Heresy!!!".

 CT GAMER wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:
Is no one going to mention that we've had the same seven guns since the beginning? While everyone else is getting new toys, what do we have?

Flamer, Meltagun, Plasma gun, Heavy bolter, Autocannon, Missile launcher, Lascannon.

Chaos feels ancient and outdated because it literally is. We've been using pre-Heresy weapons for the past 10,000 years.

Which is how it should be.

The current design studio is clueless and out of good ideas. The last time they caved in to people wanting new chaos toys allthey could manage was to give us lame "robo-space- dragon". This is 40k not Transformers...

In fact all they can seem to make these days is giant robots.

CSMs need to be made the ancient and powerful veterans of the long war that they should be: they should make modern marines crap their pants stat-wise. they should have veteran and legion abilities, they should get greater bonuses for themed l/marked armies.

They should have high points costs but be absolutly disgustingly powerful. The army should be a warband of insanse eternal killers with some associated toys. Instead we get marines with horns (cosmetic) and a collection of BeastWars Transformer rejects...

they should have dreadclaw droppods, better possessed vehicle options and a wargear/relic section that makes loyalists scream "Heresy!!!".

I never understood all the hate people seem to have for the daemon engine aesthetics. They're demon-possessed semi-organic death machines! How is that not awesome? Although I won't disagree about the Transformers comparisons as I am planning to literally use my dinobot toy as a maulerfiend soon.

Totally agree with the rest of your post though. "Real" chaos marines (as opposed to renegades) seem like their mechanical niche should be having unusually impressive and customizable characters and interesting/gimmicky wargear. I'm fine with the average Joe chaos marine staying pretty close to where he's at, but make that aspiring champion 2 wounds, WS5, 3 Attacks, and give him access to lots of cool purchasable gifts of chaos. A marine statline is (supposedly) still pretty impressive, but aspirin champions are, well, aspiring. They've fallen to chaos in exchange for power and/or are actively trying to earn more chaos power from their gods. The gifts of mutation thing is actually a neat idea, but I'd rather see it be the benefit for an optional formation or something rather than a core mechanic.

For competitive people it's a total failure. It's best units are mediocre and has some of the worst units in the game.
For fluffy people the dex fails miserably by not representing how chaos marines are in the fluff. No legions. Not good recent traitors. Not good ancient traitors. Just a smattering of weirdo sub groups that few people care about.

So, yeah, it has a well earned bad rep.

No legions. For any flavor at all beyond "Mark of God X" on everything, you need to buy a supplement, which is just as expensive as the codex itself iirc, or a brand new Daemonkin codex.

My answer is far simpler.


We have a close combat army, with overcosted combat troops. No reliable way to get into combat at speed. And no decent ranged support.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:
Is no one going to mention that we've had the same seven guns since the beginning? While everyone else is getting new toys, what do we have?

Flamer, Meltagun, Plasma gun, Heavy bolter, Autocannon, Missile launcher, Lascannon.

Chaos feels ancient and outdated because it literally is. We've been using pre-Heresy weapons for the past 10,000 years.

Which is how it should be.

The current design studio is clueless and out of good ideas. The last time they caved in to people wanting new chaos toys allthey could manage was to give us lame "robo-space- dragon". This is 40k not Transformers...

In fact all they can seem to make these days is giant robots.

CSMs need to be made the ancient and powerful veterans of the long war that they should be: they should make modern marines crap their pants stat-wise. they should have veteran and legion abilities, they should get greater bonuses for themed l/marked armies.

They should have high points costs but be absolutly disgustingly powerful. The army should be a warband of insanse eternal killers with some associated toys. Instead we get marines with horns (cosmetic) and a collection of BeastWars Transformer rejects...

they should have dreadclaw droppods, better possessed vehicle options and a wargear/relic section that makes loyalists scream "Heresy!!!".

I never understood all the hate people seem to have for the daemon engine aesthetics. They're demon-possessed semi-organic death machines! How is that not awesome? Although I won't disagree about the Transformers comparisons as I am planning to literally use my dinobot toy as a maulerfiend soon.

Totally agree with the rest of your post though. "Real" chaos marines (as opposed to renegades) seem like their mechanical niche should be having unusually impressive and customizable characters and interesting/gimmicky wargear. I'm fine with the average Joe chaos marine staying pretty close to where he's at, but make that aspiring champion 2 wounds, WS5, 3 Attacks, and give him access to lots of cool purchasable gifts of chaos. A marine statline is (supposedly) still pretty impressive, but aspirin champions are, well, aspiring. They've fallen to chaos in exchange for power and/or are actively trying to earn more chaos power from their gods. The gifts of mutation thing is actually a neat idea, but I'd rather see it be the benefit for an optional formation or something rather than a core mechanic.

In exchange for a loss of ATSKNF, we should get buffs out the buttcheeks on our dudes?

Because it's mediocre.

 Imposter101 wrote:
Because it's mediocre.

Mediocre implies it's in the middle. That's far too optimistic.

 welshhoppo wrote:
We have a close combat army, with overcosted combat troops.

I wish this was true. But what's close combat about our army that Space Marines aren't better at?

We have twin-linked Combi-Bolters, they have Assault 2 Storm Bolters. So our guys can't assault after firing while theirs can.
We have our Daemonic walkers, they have Dreadnoughts with Storm Shields. Feth your Daemons, I have a better Invuln.
We have Terminators, they have ASSAULT Terminators. With Storm Shields. And Thunder hammers. And Blackjack. And hookers.
We have Mutilators, they have Assault Centurions. Cents even carry a ranged weapon and their default melee is superior to every option the Mutes can choose from.
We have the Mark of Khorne on models we purchase it for, they have Chapter Tactics that apply to entire chunks of the army. For free.
We have Raptors, they have Assault Marines. Which even with Jump Packs taken (95 vs 85) are CHEAPER! (Raptors have Fear but Assault Marines have ATSKNF)
I mean granted, we have the Mark of Nurgle and Slaanesh. And we pay through the nose for both. But almost all of the Chaos benefits come from our HQ choices.

Along with the Mutation Lottery and mandatory challenge problem.

Know what we have for CC? A maulerfiend. A daemon ghost inhabited machine that pummels things with powerfists. A perfect poster boy for our entire army, surely!

Well we can also have assault terminators with lightning claws and a 4++, but no way of getting them into combat without a LR or deep striking, so no combat till turn three.

We have Khorne berserkers and noise marines, both are good at combat. Both are also too expensive, plague marines are short range combat troops too.

We have deep striking lightning claw equipped marine killers. But they are too expensive and can't attack enemy units in terrain.

Plus, combi bolters are better on charging terminators than Storm bolters.

We have a lot of things designed for combat, the best units in our army are bikes and spawn, close combat troops with a reliable way of getting into combat.

(Never mind, bad info)

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Because it isn't balanced, internally OR externally.

You have little to no reason to use units like Forgefiends, Mutilators, Warp Talons, Dark Apostles, most of the special characters, Berserker and Rubric Marines, etc. There's only TWO DT options, the Heldrake is harder to position now because screw having a 180 degree angle when you are a dragon.

Outside of that, the usable options are costly compared to what the Loyalists, Necrons, and Eldar are capable of. Remember what I said about the Heldrake earlier, Noise Marines paying 30 points for their best weapon, Plague Marines being stuck with Rhinos, etc.

Forgefiends wreck house, 3 S8 AP2 Small blasts will obliterate MEQ's and TEQ's while putting the hurt on MC's.
Mulitators are useful to some extent. If you deep steike a pack of them behind enemy lines, only a stupid person wouldnt start shooting them.
Warp talons + Gate of Infinity = everybody blinded

This is definitely fun in a non-competitive environment.

Taffy17 wrote:
So the general consensus is while it has some great units it also has a lot of useless ones and the codex doesn't properly represent how the army is portrayed in the fluff.

Is this about right?

Above average at best for the good stuff out of there.

 Kimchi Gamer wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Because it isn't balanced, internally OR externally.

You have little to no reason to use units like Forgefiends, Mutilators, Warp Talons, Dark Apostles, most of the special characters, Berserker and Rubric Marines, etc. There's only TWO DT options, the Heldrake is harder to position now because screw having a 180 degree angle when you are a dragon.

Outside of that, the usable options are costly compared to what the Loyalists, Necrons, and Eldar are capable of. Remember what I said about the Heldrake earlier, Noise Marines paying 30 points for their best weapon, Plague Marines being stuck with Rhinos, etc.

Forgefiends wreck house, 3 S8 AP2 Small blasts will obliterate MEQ's and TEQ's while putting the hurt on MC's.
Mulitators are useful to some extent. If you deep steike a pack of them behind enemy lines, only a stupid person wouldnt start shooting them.
Warp talons + Gate of Infinity = everybody blinded

This is definitely fun in a non-competitive environment.

I get the feeling that the book was written that way

I don't play CSMs,but from what I've seen of them they just seem to be 'marines without the best wargear, vehicles and special rules'.

And, whilst they get unique stuff of their own, it never seems to make up for what they lack - especially as marines basically one-up their stuff. e.g. Obliterators were pretty nice back in 4th and 5th, being able to switch between weapons to suit different situations. But, then marines got Centurions - which are similarly tough, but don't need to switch weapons because they have the best weapon in the game (Grav Cannons with Grav Amp). Being able to choose between lascannons, meltas and plasma cannons is pretty pathetic when your adversaries have guns that can mow down Wraithknights.

And, then there's stuff like SMs having 3 LR variants (whilst CSMs are stuck at 1), and SMs having Razorbacks and Drop Pods, whilst CSMs only have Rhinos. It might not be so bad if CSMs had their own transports to compensate, but no. They're just stuck with rhinos - which by itself denies them a hell of a lot of strategies.

Also, Marks of Chaos became less of a USP when SMs got given Chapter Tactics - which are basically Marks of Chaos that they don't have to pay for, and which don't restrict them in the same way Marks of Chaos do.

All that said, it hasn't helped that codices have been getting ludicrous buffs from Necrons onward.

GW can't decide on a design philosophy for the armies. Some are throwbacks to earlier editions and don't age well. Others are bland and average with everything. Others are mono-build or go home. And others are just bonkers super powered. The problem is that all of these codexes exist in the same game. You can have over priced Thousand Sons going up against Wraithguard and Wraithknights. It's almost like they're from completely different games sometimes.

All of this leaves CSM far behind in dust.

At least Vanilla CSM's can take two Special Weapons. It'll be their sole advantage over the Tactical Marine. Shame, as I don't WANT to use Grey Hunters.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
At least Vanilla CSM's can take two Special Weapons. It'll be their sole advantage over the Tactical Marine. Shame, as I don't WANT to use Grey Hunters.

On the other hand, the Tactical Marines can grab a Grav-gun that is likely to overperform both CSM's special weapons in many situations.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Warp talons + Gate of Infinity = everybody blinded

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
CSM's don't have accurate Deep Strike. THEN you have to roll to see if the enemy is blinded. Also, they aren't durable for the cost either. I ran numbers for them and Raptors a long while back I can show you. The ONLY thing they do better is attacking MEQ outside of cover. That's REALLY it. Plus Raptors can take Melta Guns.

May I point out that there is no reason to take Warp Talons to Blind people? Like, at all? If you want to do that, use Plague Marines and throw Blight Grenades. They partially count as defensive grenades... guess what those do?

I always forget Defensive Grenades do that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nareik wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Because it isn't balanced, internally OR externally.

You have little to no reason to use units like Forgefiends, Mutilators, Warp Talons, Dark Apostles, most of the special characters, Berserker and Rubric Marines, etc. There's only TWO DT options, the Heldrake is harder to position now because screw having a 180 degree angle when you are a dragon.

Outside of that, the usable options are costly compared to what the Loyalists, Necrons, and Eldar are capable of. Remember what I said about the Heldrake earlier, Noise Marines paying 30 points for their best weapon, Plague Marines being stuck with Rhinos, etc.

Forgefiends wreck house, 3 S8 AP2 Small blasts will obliterate MEQ's and TEQ's while putting the hurt on MC's.
Mulitators are useful to some extent. If you deep steike a pack of them behind enemy lines, only a stupid person wouldnt start shooting them.
Warp talons + Gate of Infinity = everybody blinded

1. At 24" for 200 points on a platform that isn't durable for 200 points. Small Blasts suck anyway.
2. Ah yes, on the backfield where they will get to the enemy when thanks to SaP being a useful rule for a melee squad.
3. CSM's don't have accurate Deep Strike. THEN you have to roll to see if the enemy is blinded. Also, they aren't durable for the cost either. I ran numbers for them and Raptors a long while back I can show you. The ONLY thing they do better is attacking MEQ outside of cover. That's REALLY it. Plus Raptors can take Melta Guns.

Why are you replying as if he implied these units have absolutely no draw backs? Most units, have pros and cons, which really is as it should be.

If anyone wants to use these units I suggest running them on a smaller board. Makes it harder to get away from shorter range/slower things.

These are units that HAVE no pros because whatever they do is better done elsewhere. ZERO pros. Count them.

Clearly there are pros, even if the balance falls on the side of cons.

Are you being intentionally hyperbolic? I honestly don't understand how you could mean they have no pros.

You can't seriously say having Ap2 blasts isn't a pro? Yes, there are disadvantages to it, but taking a forgefiend isn't the same as just not using the points at all. When I use obliterators one of my favourite weapons to chose is the plasma cannon, but then I am limited to firing only every other round, so there is a pro for forgefiends off the bat!

65 points for a deepstriking chainfist that can't be killed by a single lascannon/melta wound (and odds on survives two such wounds) isn't useless, even if it has to spend 2 or 3 turns waiting to be able to assault. Being a single model unit vastly mitigates deepstrike scatter (which CSM don't have many ways to control). The only thing that competes for a cheap/throwaway sucker punch is the obliterator, but they aren't anywhere near as good in combat, not having a chain fist, extra attacks, a decent initiative to flee escape combats, are higher target priority, more competitive slot selection. I always loved using mutilators in my previous chaos army, so much so when I started a new chaos army I once again use mutilators!

Warp talons I won't defend as I have no experience with them, and haven't given them much thought.

CSM is bad because to to rise to a semi-competitive level you HAVE to really weight your choices and do some serious list building.

I like Chaos Marines but wish their book made any sense in a balance, fluff, or mechanics standpoint. It fails in all 3.

Deadza wrote:
CSM is bad because to to rise to a semi-competitive level you HAVE to really weight your choices and do some serious list building.

And ofc, the best performers my CSM mate has been throwing on the table have only 1-6 actual CSM. The Sorcerer and maybe five Chosen as bodyguards for him if my mate feels like gimping himself a bit more. The book should be called "Codex Chaos Space Marine and his friends".

 CT GAMER wrote:


The current design studio is clueless and out of good ideas. The last time they caved in to people wanting new chaos toys allthey could manage was to give us lame "robo-space- dragon". This is 40k not Transformers...

Ironic that you say that, my csm ARE transformers... I play a Tzeentch only list.

God of Change... Big Giant Robots.. Decepticon theme just makes sense...


Here's my Megatron, (Helbrute), check the kneecap yo

I honestly don't get the hate for the Helldrake and the Fiends... Chaos players had been crying for ages about how we're nothing more than "Marines with spikes", with no identity of our very own, and more Daemon engines has been a pretty common wish among players.
Sure the GW paint schemes make them look more toy'ish, but honestly, the models themselves really aren't that bad, especially with a proper non-GW super bright scheme. They actually look pretty damn mean when given a darker scheme!

What I'd really love to see from a new codex would be;
1. More upgrade options. Some new chaosy guns that can fulfill the roles of things like Grav/Assault cannons/Multi-melta/etc... And the return of old school options such as a PA Heavy flamer please!

2. A Rhino & Land Raider varients of our very own. If Loyalists get Razorbacks and Crusaders + Redeemers, than we should damn well have our own unique transports as well. An assault Rhino that's loaded with twin-linked template weapons + frag launchers would be ace!

3. More Daemon engines. A re-worked Defiler would be nice, as well as a new medium sized engine that's in between the size of a Hellbrute vs. Maulerfiend.

Experiment 626 wrote:
I honestly don't get the hate for the Helldrake and the Fiends... Chaos players had been crying for ages about how we're nothing more than "Marines with spikes", with no identity of our very own, and more Daemon engines has been a pretty common wish among players.
Sure the GW paint schemes make them look more toy'ish, but honestly, the models themselves really aren't that bad, especially with a proper non-GW super bright scheme. They actually look pretty damn mean when given a darker scheme!.

It's the asthetics. They just clash with the rest of the model lines. If they looked more Daemonic, they'd fit in better.