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Hello All,

Just wanted to pose the question how good was the Chaos Space Marines 3.5 Codex.
And I ask this seriously as a player that left the hobby about 10 years ago but has jumped back in about 3 years ago.

Since I've got back into the hobby I've heard of how good CSM 3.5 was. But no one has ever really gone into detail as to why.
Not in conversation or from what I've read. I just get this "3.5 maan those were the day" *looking up to the heavens*

Everyone knows Chaos are struggling nowadays (They are still viable, but only just). They just need a bit of the Vanilla marine love, just a little.
I'd love to see rules that allowed the original traitor legions to play in a different flavour of ways to the others and I'd love to see Tzeentch, Nurgle and even Slaanesh Daemonkin at some point.

But wishlisting is only so much fun. So I ask you the community please explain why CSM 3.5 was so good: was it tactics, variety, special rules, force org?
What specifically made it great, other than ahhhh what a codex???

Kind Regards,
a 40k Fanboy.

The 3.5ed Codex essentially allowed Chaos Marines to play with the same level of options & fluffy rules that Loyalists - especially Vanilla Marines, now currently enjoy.

Yes it had it's major faults, such as Iron Warriors being 'uberfied Gouda, and Sirenbombing being akin to kicking puppies to death, but overall, it was loved because it gave Chaos Marines a ton of flavour and allowed for a large number of insanely fluffy army lists. (and for each Legion to boot!)

More or less, the 3.5 Codex let you play CSM the way they were described in the fluff. Even if the internal balance was not great, the legions were all there, and the units all worked the way you would expect.

Each legion had their own small section that included special rules, FoC changes, unique wargear, and even some unique units. It went a step beyond chapter tactics - it was the equivalent of the rules and essential fluff from 9 of GW's paltry and overpriced new supplements, included in the codex for free.

Another example, daemon princes were not a separate unit. Instead, characters could purchase from a wide variety of mutations up to a certain threshold (50 points worth if I recall). If you purchased mutations past that, you were technically considered a daemon prince. Not only was it fun to have that much control over your character's descent to chaos (as opposed to the garbage random boon table), it reflected the fluff much better (there should be a continuous spectrum of rewards that eventually elevates you, it doesn't all happen at once).

There were also rules about animosity between gods - limitations on what you could and couldn't bring depending on which gods you were trying to mix and match.

Those are small examples, but indicative of the codex's approach as a whole. Give the players the options to do what's in the fluff, apply constraints as necessary to keep it fluffy.

Well, first you need to realize that most codexes did not have the wealth of options they now enjoy. There's so much more going on in the hobby now than there was during "3.5". Not to say 3.5 was bad; actually, the restrictions on many options made it hugely enjoyable. But it was to that environment that the CSM 3.5 codex was released.

To put it succinctly, CSM 3.5, along with the "Chapter Approved" articles from White Dwarf detailing each of the different Chapters and sub-Chapters, allowed you a wealth of choices. It could easily be an "enough rope to strangle yourself with" situation. They let you play any kind of Chaos Space Marine army you wanted, in almost any combination. Chaos Space Marines, the name sake of the codex, were fantastic units because they could purchase just about every special rule under the sun. This allowed CSM players to really play the army in the way THEY wanted to play it.

The main "downfall" of the codex is that options are powerful, and even though many of these options were quite expensive, the ability to mix and match as you saw fit allowed net-listers to create some lists that, for their time, were pretty broken. This was a time in 40k where the highest strength was 10 and the best AP was 2, making the 4x Iron Warriors Vindicator list one of the scariest things around. Most players would look at that now and laugh.

What you're kind of seeing now is other codexes being so much more powerful, that it feels like if you literally just took the 3.5 edition codex and used that, you'd end up with a more fun and well-rounded codex. The options presented in it would really allow players to thrive in the current meta without being broken at all.

It was just a lot of fun. Weird for a game, isn't it?

First and foremost, what CalgarsPimpHand said about the fluff - the mechanics matched very well the fluff. Chaos Marines were costly, but were skilled veterans of a long war. They had no ASTKNF, but thier insanity or the L9-10 (veterans) + undivided mark rerolls kept them in check. They really FELT like Chaos Marines 10k years old. Veteran skills. Infiltration.
Same with characters or units like Berserkers and Thousand sons. Vehicles dedicated to Slaanesh with sonic weapons. Customization of characters and psionic powers showing the variety of chaos, and the reason of why such slippery slope of corruption is so dangerous.

The legions had a lot of flavour. It was a blessed period in which the designers did not have an executive breathing behind their neck, so there was often a "less is more" approach to armies. Nigh Lords could not have mark, the raptors were not 0-1 anymore (curse you GW to remove the 0-1) and appropriate veteran skills costed less. Done. Flavour and functionality.

Daemons were integrated with the codex. Ok, full power weapon units of Bloodletters were pehaps too much.. as if that Blood Angels did not have similar stuff. Daemons made sense. Loyalists had new tech, Chaos has dark powers in psionics and summoning. Felt balanced, barring few build that could have been fixed a codex later.

What could you do was amazing. Summon greater daemons with possession, infiltrate veterans with icons, infiltrate fast units, assault with bikes (flavour thing: chaos bikes had +1 attack and filled a similar role to assault marines - raptors were a rare disturb unit. You can find remains of these fine distinctions in the chaos terminators, a mix of loyalist termies and sternguard). Hold the line with Iron Warriors and indirect fire. Rhino rush assaulters.

I never abused the book and had so much fun with it. Nigh Lords vs Tau in urban scenarios, Khorne vs Space Wolves, Nurgle with Inquisition. Black Legion vs Blood Angels. From 4th, they just removed the soul of CSM. An army original and full of beauty (somehow, its own special beauty)... ruined.

Trying not to be nostalgic I recall it as being the best codex at implimenting lore into game mechanics. Units with the mark of a god got a free champion if they had the same ammount of models as was the gods favourite number in the unit. Being Tzeench: 9, Khorne: 8, Nurgle: 7, Slaanesh: 6.

They also had, at the time, the most ammount of gear. Their page for weapons, armours, spells, wargear, mutations, veichles uppgrades and so on was bigger then any other codexes, giving you an easy time to convert.

It was also before the deamoncodex so all the rules covering deamons was presented in this codex. Summoning worked diffrently, with greater deamon summoning being one of 40k most fun mechanics. At the time you had a greater deamon posses a character and roll a dice. He could chose to "resist" or "invite" the summon. He had all his basic stats except for str where the deamons was used. Once you rolled a certain number the model was removed as a casuality and replaced with a deamon that had full wounds and was rightly pissed. However if the host was killed the deamon got more unstable. each turn all deamons would have a instability check against their LD, removing wounds or models by a degree of failure. A greater deamon summoned from a broken host got a penalty to this check.

All arounds MEQs where slightly stronger back then so every choice in the codex mattered a bit more.

Psychic powers where not as developped in 3ed/4ed with every army having their own one. As I recall CSM had the most intruiging one with many intresting choices. All from powerfull magic missiles, buffs to some summoning spells. They where unique in this.

Every god unit, which is to say khorne berserkers, slaanesh noise marines, Nurgle Plaugbearers and Tzentch thousand sons, had very clear stats that separated them from marines. Plaugebearers got +1T, Berserkers had furious charge and feel no pain, Noise marines had unique range weapons that I think had ap 3, Thousand sons hit at I1 in combat but had slow and purposfull so could always shot ther bolters at 24" and I think their champion was a sorcerer. (Not 100% sure about the thousand sons)

At the time MC wheren't in abudance. Tyranids, Eldar, Necrons and Chaos where the armies that had them and, togheter with the land raider and monolith, they where the kings of the tabletop (where knights and super heavies hold that title now). so that greater deamon would be a truly terryfing thing and had almost unmatched stats with the exception of the nightbringer.

The army was basicly the marine codex with much more choices and fun things to play around with. It also added quite a bit of interaction with other armies, mainly the Inquisition and grey knights (which was the same army but whatever). See the inquisition had many units that specifically targeted deamons, making their instability check worse, got to shoot at them when they where summoned or could create a zone deamons could not pass through. However, in return all (non greater) deamon models got the "endless" special rule, making them come fresh from reserves once they where killed. In addition two new forms of "lesser" and "greater" deamons became available through the ordo malleus codex. these where cheap in points and had random stats (usually 1d3+2 for most stats for the lesser ones) and could be added by either side, making it an intresting way to get more demons into play. This in addition to the inquisition being the only army that could be used with other armies (the rules where quite extensive on how this worked) made sure any imperial player could pick up a unit or two from the inquisition and get special bons and cons vs deamons.

As a final note I think this codex was the best at representing the lore with game mechanics that we've had. It also had many choices that really mattered and could be flavoured in many diffrent ways. Hence it was as diverse and intresting as the chaos gods themselves.

 Brother Claudio wrote:
Hello All,

Just wanted to pose the question how good was the Chaos Space Marines 3.5 Codex.
And I ask this seriously as a player that left the hobby about 10 years ago but has jumped back in about 3 years ago.

Since I've got back into the hobby I've heard of how good CSM 3.5 was. But no one has ever really gone into detail as to why.
Not in conversation or from what I've read. I just get this "3.5 maan those were the day" *looking up to the heavens*

Everyone knows Chaos are struggling nowadays (They are still viable, but only just). They just need a bit of the Vanilla marine love, just a little.
I'd love to see rules that allowed the original traitor legions to play in a different flavour of ways to the others and I'd love to see Tzeentch, Nurgle and even Slaanesh Daemonkin at some point.

But wishlisting is only so much fun. So I ask you the community please explain why CSM 3.5 was so good: was it tactics, variety, special rules, force org?
What specifically made it great, other than ahhhh what a codex???

Kind Regards,
a 40k Fanboy.

There was a variety of things that allowed CSM players to make some really great and fluffy armies.

Now, let me qualify that statement by saying that there absolutely was some insanely (for the time) broken stuff, and some atrocious internal balance. There were some very real balance issues with the book, but no more than from other armies in other editions. In a time when you could consolidate into new combats and LoS could be blocked entirely by area terrain quite easily, you could have entire armies infiltrate and get stuck in turn 2 and sweep through a line in two turns very easily, or get ~200pt combat characters with 7 S8 I6 attacks on a charge, or flying infiltrating Daemon Princes that ignore both armor and invul saves, or get insanely cheap Tank Hunting autocannons (in an era when tanks were very easy to kill and Tank Hunters added +1 to armor pen), or summon Daemons and have them assault out of deep strike and consolidate into a new combat. Meanwhile a Raptor IIRC was 27pts naked and a naked Biker was like 31pts I think

However, each Legion had it's own small section saying which units it could take, what special rules or bonuses and restrictions they had, some FoC changes, etc think basically about as much material (possibly more) as a Supplement Codex book has now in terms of gaming "meat", but really from just a few pages of rules in total. Cult Legions were *very* limited in unit selection, while the Undivided Legions either could not take Cult units at all or were limited to taking them only as Elites. Effectively this gave the CSM codex more variety than Vanilla SM's, Daemonhunters, BA, DA and SW's *combined*...in a single book.

There was a ton of upgrade/armory options. Veteran skills that could be purchased by units like Tank Hunters or Furious Charge and the like, and characters were insanely customizable. You could add to just about every possible stat a character had.

Additionally, the fluff of the book was excellently written, probably the best fluff GW has written for a codex along with "Waaagh!!! The Orks" from yesteryear. CSM's weren't just goofy cartoon generic villians, you really got a sense of both tragedy and true hatred, a sense that it was *they* who were betrayed and that their damnation was inevitable, and that the Cult legions were truly both insane and the "undivided" legions were willingly damning themselves to fuel their hate-filled war against the "great lie" that was the Imperium.

So basically, the book had great fluff that really was reflected in the army building options, could be very strong in the process (though yes, could also be insanely broken, and not all Legions were equally capable), with a huge variety of armies.

There was no less that 80-90 options in the wargear section, with usual weapons and gear, then mutations each with his own cost depending if it was taken on a 1Wound model or a multi wound model.

Daemonic aura that gave a 5++ for instance was something like 15pts for an HQ model and 10pts or so for a squad Champion.

Mutations ranged from highly functional EW like rule, 2+ armor, +1 to a stat, to more cosmetic/RP style mutations, like Daemonic talons, that gave you +1A, but couldn't equipe any weapons in your hands.

Then you had Veteran Skills, units could take Veteran Skills for a PpM cost highest was 5pts and it was infiltrator, units that where unmarked could take two skills, marked units could take only one, Skills had things like tank hunter, Furious charge, Stealth etc.

Then the Gods Wargear, with each having a Banner or two, weapons, like Axe of khorne for Khorne, some wargear and unique vehicles options, and not to Forget Daemon Weapons.

Then the "unmarked" Daemon weapons, with a wide variety at different points costs, with the dark Blade that was a power sword with +2 Str, Warp Staff that could fire in the shoothing phase as a flamer with AP3 if irc, and the well named Dread Axe, that ignored Invul saves.

And a wider vehicle options, with things like parasitic possesion that could repair a weapon destroyed or immobilized damage on a 4+, mutated hull that could give you +1 to a vehicle armor( up to 14).

Land Raiders had the Infernal engine rule, wich was just the PotMS.

Dreads Crazed table was better, either 2 shots with all weapons and no move, or move+run+assault if in range and double his base attacks when assaulting that turn, 2xCCW Khorne dedicated Dreads where really dreadfull at the time, 9 Str 10 A at init 4...

You had acces to Lords, who could be fully equiped up to 150pts of wargear in wich no more then 100pts could be for mutations, if you passed the 50points of mutations, you where automatically considered a DPrince and had to use the appropriate model.

Or you could keep it cheap, even buy a Chaos Lieutenant wich would be the equivalant of todays Sm Captains but with 2Wounds and for 45pts.

Chosen and termies where one and only unit, Termies where actually chosens that you bought thermie armor for them, all of them could be nominated Champions, and they could have a Vets skill for free.

Chosen where limited to the size of the army, if you wished to field 10 Chosen, then you could only do it in an army of 1500-2000pts, 20 Chosens where for games of 2000+pts games.

You divided the Chosen between PA chosen and termie chosen, so given the pts of the game, if you took 10 chosen, 5 could be PA and 5 Termies, they would be separate units, but where limited to 10 in total.

Could of course take chosen to be a bodyguard unit to an HQ model and it would witch as one HQ choice.

Sorceror and Sorceror Lords had acces to a wider range of Psy powers, at the time there was the Psy power of the codex, and there was the Minor Psy powers in one Chapter Approved, they weren't as powerfull as the Major powers, but they where varied in utility and they where cheaper in points.

Deamon Princes where scary like real scary, even khorne DPrinces, wanted something vast and that hit hard?, Lord transformed in a DPrince, with Daemonic speed, that made him move like cavalery, Berserker glaive; Daemon weapon of Khorne that doubles the attacks of the model and gave him a 4++, FnP for 10pts( at the time FnP was Khorne thing, not Nurgle or Slaanesh), models with the Mark of Khorne had the usual +1A and the Blood Lust rule; much like BA's Black Rage of the time, for each unit you roll a die, on a 1, they move their full move towards the closest ennemy in sight, then would move an extra D6 in the shoothing phase and won't be able to shoot, and then they could assault.

So that DPrince with Daemonic speed could move 6+D6 and assault 12"( at the time only beasts/cavalery could assault 12", everything else was 6").

it was fast, durable and hit like a truck, even if the points where something like 220-240pts, but compared to todays DPrinces for the same cost, the 3.5 Dprinces rips the new ones apart without even pulling a sweat, only advantage that todays DPrince have is their Init8 while Dprince back then where 5-6.

Also in 3rd/3.5 Ed sweeping advance into contact with another unit, counted as assaulting that unit, so you where locked in combat, and you could assault out of any kind of vehicle provided that they din't move at the start of the turn.

Defilers where kinda weaker in CC with only a WS and init of 2, but theyr where cheap, 150pts fpr +25pts they could fire like barrage weapon with their battle cannon.

There was also a lot of restrictions, for instance the units that could take certains Marks where limited, Havocs, raptors, oblits couldn't take the MoK for instance, while bikers,Raptors couldn't take the MoN and so on.

If you played a Black Legion style list, you could take and mix any units with different marks, but if you played a World eater list for instance, then you had no Havocs/Oblits/Raptors, since you could only take units that can buy the MoK.

While the Big Four Legions rules was rested heavely on Marks, the other 5 Legions (excluding BL) had other rules to compensate the lack of Marks.

Iron Warriors where allready discussed, they could sacrifice 2 AR slots for an extra HS slot, and could take ONE Basilisk from IG codex or/and ONE vindicator from Sm codex.

They all had the Vet skill Tank Hunter, couldn't use any Daemons units, thematically DPrinces and Possesed traded their mutations for cybernetics, while in game it din't change anything.
And Oblits who where a unit limited to 0-1 in an army had their limitation lifted, so they could take 3 units of Oblits.

There was a rule that prevented a list to have more Daemon units then CSM units, Word Bearers had a rule that lifted this restrictions, they could summon any type of Daemons and as many as they could.

Wich gave birth to the "Daemon army lists".

Night Lords had the restriction of 0-1 on Raptors lifted, could trade 2HS slots for 1 extra AR slot, each model had Stealth and i think there was also a -1 to LD on moral checks Vs models from a Nightlord army, not sure.

Alpha Legion got cultists, they where essentially a copy of guards infantry units and could be specialised in a role, either Saboteurs, wich gave them move through cover and infiltrator and another 2 sets of skills wich i can't remember right now.


3.5Dex was highly tailored and flavourfull, choke full of different tactics and playstyles, even if the internal balance wasn't top notch it was still pretty good.

people who played IW lists ,wher people that liked the IW legion or where competitive, but IW list wasn't played becauseit was the only viable one, all the lists could be competitive given the list building.

i've won tourneys and placed well in others with a World Eaters army, a feat nearly impossible now outside of KDK.

It was good. It (and the Index Astartes articles before it) gave each CSM Legion their own slightly unique playstyle. The Iron Warriors didn't play like the Night Lords or the Word Bearers, they had their own type of gameplay that made legion choice matter in the same way as a Space Wolf player doesn't play the way a Dark Angels player does. Your choice of legion spoke about who you were, not just bland "random generic warband" kind of crap like you had today. Sure some stuff was OP, IW being able to take a corrupted Basilisk and 4 Heavy Support for example, but it was incredibly fluffy.

Imagine if there were no special chapters for Marines, it was all just codex and the only difference was basically thematic. Blood Angels in the fluff were not-vampires but didn't get any special rules. Dark Angels were just robed Marines, Space Wolves were just not-Viking Marines with no unique characteristics. That's what Chaos is today, basically.

I only played the 3ed ed codex but I'd imagine 3.5 also still had homing icons?

Having spent most of 3rd edition playing against Choas... I remember it being broken as heck haha.

The old Iron Warriors were like today's Eldar... the extra heavy stuff wouldn't make any difference today but back then it was devastating.

But really it was about flavor.

It was just so easy to customize and basically play 'chaos legions'. There is so much 'rose colored glass' covering the communities' look back to that codex, but we did lose the ability to field the legions properly... add that to the very weak power-level codex we have now and you see why CSM players are always crying.

If any of the above sounds crazy confusing, they made it all make sense with a page spread for each god. The god specific artifacts were there as well as explaining what effect the mark had and who could take it.

A sorcerer with the mark of tzeentch would autopass psychic tests, which at the time was a LD test with chance of perils.

Rubrics were two wound, I1 marines lead by a sorcerer and you could get rubric terminator squads too.

At the time, the rubrics were used as expendable wounds to protect the sorcerer- the most common choice was to give him a powerfist- force weapons weren't available, having been thrown down the same hole CSM threw their landspeeders.

Equipping a character was lots of fun. It all added up of course but mutations could boost strength, toughness, attacks and be modeled in a variety of interesting ways.
Veteran skills helped you theme how a force would play.
The wealth of options usually required a kind of show and tell- its not immediately apparent if a weapon is a daemonic darkblade or just a power weapon, in the same vein that you might point out whether a marine captain had artificer armour or just fancy power armour.



The defiler's battle cannon could be fired indirectly- making it far more threatening than it is today. It was firepower enough and resilient enough (with possession) that you could force the other player to close and deal with it- something chaos hasn't had since.

Havoc missile launchers fired two shots IIRC which was helpful, as it was a secondary defiler weapon in case the main gun got taken out. Together with a heavy flamer it made the defiler a threat to any unit on the board.

Aside from achieving parity with loyalist Space Marines and fleshing out all the varieties of daemons, it also was great in terms of feel. The 13th Black crusade was imminent and it really felt like CSM were this powerful resurgent threat. (Contrast heavily with the feel of the next dex which had tiny renegade chapters all doing their own thing, razing worlds no-one cared about and following lolrandom agendas rather than 10,000 year old vendettas)
The models were new and shiny and crisp and the daemons were the best they have ever made.

Some minor balance issues aside, they really knocked it out of the park. It wasn't perfect but most of the time it was good fun.

Gotta wonder if people would allow you to play the 3.5 in this edition; probably have to clean up point costs and have the units/models cost the same as they do in the current codex, whether that's up or down....items that are the same cost the same, and keep everything that didn't make the switch as the same cost in the 3.5. Wonder how it'd go.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Gotta wonder if people would allow you to play the 3.5 in this edition; probably have to clean up point costs and have the units/models cost the same as they do in the current codex, whether that's up or down....items that are the same cost the same, and keep everything that didn't make the switch as the same cost in the 3.5. Wonder how it'd go.

Many things would still not be priced "right" compared to the current meta. The best option would be someone who cares taking the best of the two books (old as a base, and then the new pricing for some of the stuff), and throw in some original idea (like the poster here in Dakka that, some time ago, brilliantly suggested that the Possessed should use mechanics similar to the Obliterators - change, but not randumb. That would be great).

In regard of pricing, I advocate different pricing for different models. Even across armies: the fact that a SM captain and an guard sergeant pay the same 25 points (correct me if I am wrong) for a Power Fist is crazy.

 Yarium wrote:
making the 4x Iron Warriors Vindicator list one of the scariest things around.

Fun fact time.

Did you play against an Opponent during 3.5 who fielded 4 Vindicators?

Then you played against a dirty cheat. Vindicators and Basilisks were both 0-1 choices.

Where Iron Warriors were a bit more broken was the fact they sacrified 2 FA slots for 1 extra HS slot.... AND removed the 0-1 restriction on Obliterators.

The Iron Warriors cheese list was generally....

1 Vindicator
1 Basilisk.
2 Defilers

3 Obliterator units.

EDIT: My bad - Oblits were Elites. Derp.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, people, do not forget that Chaos 3.5 existed in the same overlapping timescale as the following.

Craftworld Eldar - Alaitoc Pathfinder chart spam, Saim Han Starcannon Spam (back when they fired 3 shots, not 2) and Ulthwe Seer Council Doomblobs.

Tau Fish of Fury - rose in 4th ed with the change to the assault rules. Mass Rapid Fire firing freely through their skimmer tanks, but unable to be assaulted because of said Skimmer tanks being in the way.

Tyranid EW Carnifex Spam.

SM Chapter Traits - punishing you by preventing you from taking allies. In a game system where allies weren't even a thing and no supplements or books had introduced them as a concept. Basically the something for nothing 'flaw'.

This should be an indicator...



Unfortunately a list this size meant that a lot of players were building illegal lists and likely contributed to the 'Chaos = WAAC' image. Not to pick on people specifically but the quote of 4 Vindicators mentioned earlier, is a perfect example because Vinidicators were 0-1 even for the Iron Warriors. Similarly Obliterators used to be Elites and so you might see 3 units of Obliterators, a Vindicator, and 3 Defilers.

I'd also like to point out Chosen as unit that has been broken in time, because they used to have Wargear access. It was entirely within the rules to have an entire unit of them riding Juggernauts, wielding Axes of Khorne and trampling people into dust behind Daemonic Armour and Furious Charge. You could have a Cabal of Tzeentchian Sorcerers riding their Disks and sacrificing their Thralls to power their Sorcery.
Now they are Havocs who trade Heavy access for +1A. The difference stings, to say the least.

It's also especially troubling because of the Codex that followed, which you may remember as the Lash of Torment / Plague Marines / Obliterators book. It hurts because despite scything out the wargear page and reducing it to a skeleton of the former book, it was still obnoxiously overpowered and just as cheesy as the worst Iron Warriors list.

Mozzamanx wrote:
because Vinidicators were 0-1 even for the Iron Warriors.

ONLY for the Iron Warriors. No one else could use a Vindicator or Basilisk in 3.5. I'm amazed people don't ever seem to ask to see where something's rules are if they think it's fishy. If I think my opponent is pulling a fast one or I'm just gobsmacked by how dumb something's rules are I ask if I can look at the book and the entry for it. If your opponent is legit they have no reason to hide it. And to be fair, if you catch them out a lot of the time your opponent will go 'My bad, sorry' and correct it.

I'd also like to point out Chosen as unit that has been broken in time, because they used to have Wargear access. It was entirely within the rules to have an entire unit of them riding Juggernauts, wielding Axes of Khorne and trampling people into dust behind Daemonic Armour and Furious Charge. You could have a Cabal of Tzeentchian Sorcerers riding their Disks and sacrificing their Thralls to power their Sorcery.
Now they are Havocs who trade Heavy access for +1A. The difference stings, to say the least.

Chosen were on par with Wolf Guard for the same reasons. Please also note most command squads in the game had similar rules - access to the armoury. CSM just had a bigger armoury than most.

It's also especially troubling because of the Codex that followed, which you may remember as the Lash of Torment / Plague Marines / Obliterators book. It hurts because despite scything out the wargear page and reducing it to a skeleton of the former book, it was still obnoxiously overpowered and just as cheesy as the worst Iron Warriors list.

The codex that followed was a sad and sorry mess. It turned one of the most flexible build armies in the game into a monobuild or lose army. Every CSM army became Slaanesh Sorc/Plague Marines/Oblits...or faded into obscurity. I quit playing 40k for close to 2 editions because of that sad and sorry mess of a book. No army should be forced into a Monobuild or Lose situation and that is EXACTLY what happened with CSM. Plague Marines got a direct nerf mere months after that book as well - 5th ed came out and dropped FNP from 4+ to 5+ which dropped their resilience. For all of about 3 months Plague Marines were amazing then they became somewhat overcosted - especially when you compare that book to the Ork and SM books that came out a few scant months after it. The amount of sprinkled bubble FNP was insane and so much cheaper.

For me, customisation, legions represented as intended and no dinobots made it a great codex. Agree Iron Warriors were a bit OTT but not game breaking. Basilisks aren't the be all and end all.

You know, the one thing I really missed about "old" Chaos wasn't even the codex. It was the original Alpha Legion, who were basically terrorists. They would infest a world in secret, start uprisings, encourage cults and then show up to take credit and sow discord. They were literally space terrorists. Now they're like.. who even knows, are they good guys? Are they bad guys? It's a secret, we won't tell... yeah, no. I don't like that Alpharius/Omegon nonsense where maybe the AL are loyal Marines still, maybe they aren't.

But yes, it was not that OP. It was super flavorful too, it allowed enough customization to really make CSM feel like 10,000 year old veterans who saw entire species wiped out of existence, fought at the side of names that are remembered only in legends, and in general made them out to be the ultimate nemesis of the Imperium. Nowadays, Chaos is a joke, bad Saturday morning cartoon villains who handily get defeated after talking a lot of trash and sent packing to the Eye of Terror with their tails between their legs, blurting out how next time they'll get those meddlesome Space Marines.

Basically... CSM players want to be Thanos, Galactus or Apocalypse, instead they got Cobra Commander or Team Rocket. Abaddon is a prime example of that. The dude is supposed to be essentially the most powerful supervillain in 40k, the heir of the Warmaster who killed Sanguinius and mortally wounded the Emperor. Instead, he's basically a bad cartoon villain "I'll get you next time!" while shaking his fist, and next week he has a new wacky scheme that needs to be thwarted. It just subverts the entire setting in a way that only campy 90s cartoons can do, where the bad guys are supposed to be so powerful, but the good guys beat them and their zany plans every week constantly.

It was absolutely great. The best codex ever. The dreadaxe allowed no save at all. Ouch

Half the reason it was so good is -- every CSM codex since has been a flavorless 'Black Legion and spikes' book... nobody wants to play the Black Legion.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

SM Chapter Traits - punishing you by preventing you from taking allies. In a game system where allies weren't even a thing and no supplements or books had introduced them as a concept. Basically the something for nothing 'flaw'.

Actually, Daemon Hunters and Witch Hunters had rules for using them as allies during this period.

 Gunzhard wrote:
Half the reason it was so good is -- every CSM codex since has been a flavorless 'Black Legion and spikes' book... nobody wants to play the Black Legion.

No, it's worse than that. Every CSM codex since has been "play a random warband of Chaos dudes", with the legion mattering nothing beyond the colors you paint them. I mean granted, the 2nd edition CSM book didn't have specific things for legions (but IIRC neither did anyone other than Space Wolves, who were just better at everything), but they were the focus (and I have a White Dwarf with IIRC Jervis Johnson and Andy Chambers talking about it) by design. Then 3.0 came (written by Jervis) and kind of made them bland as hell. 3.5 made them a powerhouse, according to legend because Pete Haines who wrote it played Iron Warriors and wanted them to be badass, and ever since it we back to 3.0 style bland generic spiky guy warband.

The problem is Chaos deserves more. Just like Orks should have "Clan traits" that make your Goffs different from your Bad Moons who are different from your Evil Sunz. Just like Eldar need "Craftworld Traits" because Iyanden doesn't play like Ulthwe who doesn't play like Alaitoc or Biel-Tan. Just as your Ultramarines don't operate like Dark Angels, so too do Word Bearers behave differently to Night Lords or Iron Warriors.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

SM Chapter Traits - punishing you by preventing you from taking allies. In a game system where allies weren't even a thing and no supplements or books had introduced them as a concept. Basically the something for nothing 'flaw'.

Actually, Daemon Hunters and Witch Hunters had rules for using them as allies during this period.

My bad. The flaw was still pretty much a non-flaw though. I can count the number of Marine players who wanted to use Witch Hunters or Daemonhunter allies on one hand. One hand that belonged to a blind butcher.

WayneTheGame wrote:

No, it's worse than that. Every CSM codex since has been "play a random warband of Chaos dudes", with the legion mattering nothing beyond the colors you paint them. I mean granted, the 2nd edition CSM book didn't have specific things for legions (but IIRC neither did anyone other than Space Wolves, who were just better at everything), but they were the focus (and I have a White Dwarf with IIRC Jervis Johnson and Andy Chambers talking about it) by design.

Legion lists were already around in the RT era, they just also had access to beastmen and various random monsters. You could have manticores and dragons in your chaos list if you wanted to! But the legionnaires themselves were definitely the focus at first with the first three army lists being Black Legion, EC and WE, built around a common structure but with differences to set them apart. The 2nd edition book just moved the focus back to marines and left the cultists and minotaurs to optional lists in the back of the book.

"muh 4 vindicators".

Every. Bloody. Time.

CSM 3.5 codex was OP... because hearsay

to give flavour, you should not only give bonuses, but limitations as well. Problem being, the executives are scared by 0-1 and limitations because is supposed to scare people into buying less puppets.

Once i played in a tourney with 2 Lieutanants on bikes with 9 minor psychic powers each. At the start of each game you have to roll on a table to get Siren. If so, the bikers couldnt get charged or shot. The plan was to move the bikers forward aus fast as possible and summon the Daemonettes asap. 30 Daemonettes and 6 on steeds. They were able to charge upon arrival. It worked great in all three games and i won it. Did i mention that my opponents wanted to kill me right before the tourney started?

 wuestenfux wrote:
Once i played in a tourney with 2 Lieutanants on bikes with 9 minor psychic powers each. At the start of each game you have to roll on a table to get Siren. If so, the bikers couldnt get charged or shot. The plan was to move the bikers forward aus fast as possible and summon the Daemonettes asap. 30 Daemonettes and 6 on steeds. They were able to charge upon arrival. It worked great in all three games and i won it. Did i mention that my opponents wanted to kill me right before the tourney started?

You only needed 6 to get Siren...

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
"muh 4 vindicators".

Every. Bloody. Time.

CSM 3.5 codex was OP... because hearsay

to give flavour, you should not only give bonuses, but limitations as well. Problem being, the executives are scared by 0-1 and limitations because is supposed to scare people into buying less puppets.

Except you could only have one.

It's an example of 3.5 being wonderful in theory but needing polish around the edges; nothing ever said that you rerolled Minor Powers if you got duplicates.
There was never a guarantee of knowing Siren, players simply had to invest as many points as they felt comfortable with to get some kind of likelihood.