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Neronoxx wrote:
Redoing the current Chaos Codex, incorporating the 9 legions, and recent renegade chapters, is not a job i would wish upon anybody. You are expected to fail, and the standard to 'pass' is so impossibly high even if you do make it a good set of rules, it'll still be perceived as GW giving chaos players the 'thick stick'.
my 2 cents.

The thing is if they were to even acknowledge chaos legions in 40k (and they probably won't) it definitely wouldn't be like that. Space Marines don't get everything in one book. You have Codex Space Marines sure, but you also have Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, the Warzone Kauyon and the latest supplement.

If they were to represent the 9 legions it wouldn't be through some return to the 3.5 era but rather through a mass release of supplements like Black Legion & Crimson Slaughter. I don't really know how viable selling books that contact a bit of fluff along with new warlord traits, relics & formations but GW is churning them out like no tomorrow (especially in AoS) so I assume they are making money out them. And if Tzeentch Daemonkin is unlikely then I think its safe to say "Codex: Night Lords" is probably not on the cards.

Fundamentally they are not going to give this all for free (or rather in one £30-35 book) when they can charge for it seperately.

Moreover If they redo CSM I fear it won't be the rebalance people want. The reason is that they will want you to buy the few new kits they release with the codex rather than pile into the old stuff.

To pick an obvious example Warp Talons have been and grow ever more stupidly over costed. Many years ago they were paying the "oh no they might beat a tactical squad tax" if for some reason they forgot to shoot them. Given the new Wulfen however such tax seems to have long since been got rid of.

The thing is GW won't want you to go and buy boxes of Warp Talons they released 4-5 years ago for £21. They will want you to buy "Angry Chaos Pogo-stick riders" at £35.

So really it comes down to what people want and hope for.

1. A complete re-write giving them the full Space Marine treatment, with nearly a dozen "factions" of Chaos all with special characters, formations and so on.
2. A complete re-write of the current Codex so most units are vaguely worthwhile for their points (the Eldar option)
3. Just one competitive build that would lift the army from bottom tier even if it remains full of units no one has any excuse to use beyond their own weird obsessions.

The third option is not so unrealistic. I fear 1 & 2 however are fantasies which will never be realised.

You don't need to represent all 9 Legions within the basic CSM codex. The 4 God aligned legions can get enough flavour by having the option to take the core of their force from their relevant Cult unit, and then adding on suitable extras & upgrades.

Sure, no Cult Termies is still annoying, but it's not really the end of the world. (despite some who will always claim that WE/DG/EC/TS's are 100% unplayable just because no cult termies...)
Add in a proper armoury that gives relevant upgrades for each God, (ie: Tzeentch marked IC's can choose to take Inferno Bolts, Khornate characters can take the Butcher's Nails, etc...), and it's close enough that those Legions are now fully playable without the need to devote additional Legion/Chapter Traits. (let's face it, Marks are in fact, part of our version of CT's!)
Finish off with a fluffy formation dedicated to each God, and while not perfect, it's still giving the God-specific Legions a helluva lot more than the current gakfest.

Thus, you can leave the page devoted to 'Legion Legacies/Traits/Ancestry/whatever', to the likes of;
Iron Warriors
Night Lords
Alpha Legion
Word Bearers
Black Legion
Red Corsairs
Since overall, there is literally NO current representation for undivided/non-marked Legions.

You could even add-in stipulations, such that the only mark allowed within Iron Warriors is the MoK, while no marked models may be taken within Night Lords or Alpha Legion forces.
That leaves Black Legion, Word Bearers, and the Red Corsairs (who can ably be used as the template for "Renegade Chapters") to freely mix and match marks & cult units however players want.

Neronoxx wrote:
They can't dare overshadow Vanilla Space Marines because then everyone who doesn't play chaos gets a giant rage-boner every time someone so much as mentions heldrakes.

This one is the killer. The entire CSM rules paradigm since 4th edition can be summed up in 1 word: timid. I believe this is entirely due to the 3.5 codex. Pete Haines wasn't afraid to make CSM good. Everyone after him has been scared to death. You can see it in every release all the way up to and including this latest crapfest.

Strangely enough this only seems to apply to the space marine part of Chaos. Daemons are good and Renegade Knights are even better than the Imperial ones (1 datasheet with all the options > 5 separate codex entries, a rare example where laziness actually worked in our favor). I think this phenomenon may be due to CSM's unfortunate status as archnemesis of the game's golden boys. Since their units are often directly analogous to SM it's very easy for the designer to keep them strictly worse by simply making them cost more for the same stats or by replacing special rules with substitutes that are subpar/more expensive.

Pete Haines didn't make CSM good.

He made his Iron Warriors brokenly good.
Everything else in the book was okay to good.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Pete Haines didn't make CSM good.

He made his Iron Warriors brokenly good.
Everything else in the book was okay to good.

I didn't say he made CSM good. Thousand Sons for instance most certainly did not have a lot going for them. What I said was he wasn't afraid to make them good. The current studio is afraid and this fear comes across in everything they do. That's why the best Black Legion formation is a copy of a SM formation but with worse rules.

As these are now out further discussions can take place in the relevant board.