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I'm a newcomer to 40k & this forum, so apologies for my painfully novice questions...I asked previously about building up my first 40k army, using Kill Team as a stepping stone to understanding the game & the 'Get Started!' pack as my foundation for the army itself.

I wanted to field CSM as I like the lore & the models- but after doing some initial research, it seems that CSM aren't popular right now, are going through some sort of 'rough patch' in the evolution of the rules, and even have many poor unit choices compared to other armies. In brief, I feel like their glory days are passed and (for the time being, at least) they've been overtaken by others. Is this accurate?

So, bearing in mind I'm a total beginner, should I grit my teeth & carry on with my plan of collecting CSM? Or would it be wise for me to think about plan B (loyalist marines, most likely Ultramarines or another 'vanilla' chapter)?

Just don't want to waste time & money on an army that isn't good to play as a newbie, or is likely going to be totally overhauled in the near future.

Thanks!

If you are just starting I wouldn't go starting up any large armies or projects. We are very soon to what is rumoured to be an overhaul of 40k rules and armies, it would be a shame to learn all the 7e rules and build a sizable army only for the entire meta to change.

So for now? If you want to play 40k that bad; buy a starter pack, have fun playing the armies, have fun building and painting your models and wait to see want June next year brings.

I haven't played 40k recently or kept up on most developments, but I will say this with absolute certainty from my 15 years of off-and-on 40k gaming and also my 15,000 hours in World of Warcraft.

When it comes to selecting your army that you will invest your time into, do not concern yourself whatsoever with how powerful an army is. Select the army you like the most, by the criteria you use to determine your personal preferences. This can be the looks of the models, the background lore of the faction, literally anything whatsoever that you consider most important for your army to have, except how powerful it is.

The reason I and most other veteran gamers will urge you to ignore how powerful an army is, is because an army's power ranking is a temporary situation. Due to the ongoing updates to the game's rules, just because an army is powerful today, is no guarantee it will be powerful in the next update. And similarly, just because an army is weak today, is no guarantee it will be weak the next time the rules change. Buffs and nerfs come and go, but the aesthetics and the lore are fairly solid things that are unlikely to change. And, perhaps most importantly, the constantly shifting power rankings mean that if you always want to play the most powerful army, you will be buying a new army very frequently, which is a crazy-expensive thing to do in 40k.

So the simple answer is to play the army you like best, and do not concern yourself with how powerful it is. Frankly, as a newbie you are still learning the rules and will likely lose a lot of games regardless of how powerful your army is. Personally, I started playing 40k in 2001, and did not win a single game I ever played for my first three years.

 Pouncey wrote:
I haven't played 40k recently or kept up on most developments, but I will say this with absolute certainty from my 15 years of off-and-on 40k gaming and also my 15,000 hours in World of Warcraft.

When it comes to selecting your army that you will invest your time into, do not concern yourself whatsoever with how powerful an army is. Select the army you like the most, by the criteria you use to determine your personal preferences. This can be the looks of the models, the background lore of the faction, literally anything whatsoever that you consider most important for your army to have, except how powerful it is.

The reason I and most other veteran gamers will urge you to ignore how powerful an army is, is because an army's power ranking is a temporary situation. Due to the ongoing updates to the game's rules, just because an army is powerful today, is no guarantee it will be powerful in the next update. And similarly, just because an army is weak today, is no guarantee it will be weak the next time the rules change. Buffs and nerfs come and go, but the aesthetics and the lore are fairly solid things that are unlikely to change. And, perhaps most importantly, the constantly shifting power rankings mean that if you always want to play the most powerful army, you will be buying a new army very frequently, which is a crazy-expensive thing to do in 40k.

So the simple answer is to play the army you like best, and do not concern yourself with how powerful it is. Frankly, as a newbie you are still learning the rules and will likely lose a lot of games regardless of how powerful your army is. Personally, I started playing 40k in 2001, and did not win a single game I ever played for my first three years.

+1 for this sound advice

 Pouncey wrote:
Buffs and nerfs come and go, but the aesthetics and the lore are fairly solid things that are unlikely to change.

Unless it gets mattwarded.

 Pouncey wrote:
I haven't played 40k recently or kept up on most developments, but I will say this with absolute certainty from my 15 years of off-and-on 40k gaming and also my 15,000 hours in World of Warcraft.

When it comes to selecting your army that you will invest your time into, do not concern yourself whatsoever with how powerful an army is. Select the army you like the most, by the criteria you use to determine your personal preferences. This can be the looks of the models, the background lore of the faction, literally anything whatsoever that you consider most important for your army to have, except how powerful it is.

The reason I and most other veteran gamers will urge you to ignore how powerful an army is, is because an army's power ranking is a temporary situation. Due to the ongoing updates to the game's rules, just because an army is powerful today, is no guarantee it will be powerful in the next update. And similarly, just because an army is weak today, is no guarantee it will be weak the next time the rules change. Buffs and nerfs come and go, but the aesthetics and the lore are fairly solid things that are unlikely to change. And, perhaps most importantly, the constantly shifting power rankings mean that if you always want to play the most powerful army, you will be buying a new army very frequently, which is a crazy-expensive thing to do in 40k.

So the simple answer is to play the army you like best, and do not concern yourself with how powerful it is. Frankly, as a newbie you are still learning the rules and will likely lose a lot of games regardless of how powerful your army is. Personally, I started playing 40k in 2001, and did not win a single game I ever played for my first three years.

Agreed but some armies are far safer bets for power gamers than others. Those being the big sellers. Space Marines and Eldar. Demons are a solid choice if you plan to summon spam but I have sinking feeling that isnt going to last into the next edition.

CSM are low on the power totem pole and they aren't particularly popular, but if you aren't playing in tournaments you usually won't care.

Weak armies in the abstract can field strong builds and be stronger depending on the matchup (ex. GK have a fairly weak book, but they can punch above their weight by min/maxxing to get more Purifiers and Dreadknights on the table), some armies are mediocre on their own but become much stronger with allies (Dark Eldar/Harlequins are much scarier together than they are separately). Some 'weak' armies are simply difficult to build and play well (Harlequins are probably the premier example here).

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with deciding you want to stick with Chaos, so long as you go in understanding what you're taking on. Your learning curve is going to be harder than someone who grabbed a powerful army out of the box; you won't have the luxury of grabbing scatterbikes (for instance) and having an always-useful point-and-click unit. You may have to ask opponents to play softer lists while you get your feet under you. You may not be able to declare yourself a purist who refuses to use allies/Forge World content/supplements.

If you're prepared for all that you're ready to play the underdog's game. You will lose games, you may even lose a lot of games. You will be fighting from the back foot, on the edge, in a corner, where every victory is hard-won and you can be confident that your skill brought you to victory in spite of the tools. If you're prepared to understand and believe that the only victory worth having is one you had to work for you will have a lot of fun with Chaos.

And if you're not happy with that state of affairs you can do a semi-tangential hop into Daemons, and play a CSM/Daemons army with a mix of Codexes that sits in a much higher power bracket.

So at the end of the day you haven't made things easy for yourself by picking CSM, but you can absolutely pick them up, play them, and have a good time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Table wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
I haven't played 40k recently or kept up on most developments, but I will say this with absolute certainty from my 15 years of off-and-on 40k gaming and also my 15,000 hours in World of Warcraft.

When it comes to selecting your army that you will invest your time into, do not concern yourself whatsoever with how powerful an army is. Select the army you like the most, by the criteria you use to determine your personal preferences. This can be the looks of the models, the background lore of the faction, literally anything whatsoever that you consider most important for your army to have, except how powerful it is.

The reason I and most other veteran gamers will urge you to ignore how powerful an army is, is because an army's power ranking is a temporary situation. Due to the ongoing updates to the game's rules, just because an army is powerful today, is no guarantee it will be powerful in the next update. And similarly, just because an army is weak today, is no guarantee it will be weak the next time the rules change. Buffs and nerfs come and go, but the aesthetics and the lore are fairly solid things that are unlikely to change. And, perhaps most importantly, the constantly shifting power rankings mean that if you always want to play the most powerful army, you will be buying a new army very frequently, which is a crazy-expensive thing to do in 40k.

So the simple answer is to play the army you like best, and do not concern yourself with how powerful it is. Frankly, as a newbie you are still learning the rules and will likely lose a lot of games regardless of how powerful your army is. Personally, I started playing 40k in 2001, and did not win a single game I ever played for my first three years.

Agreed but some armies are far safer bets for power gamers than others. Those being the big sellers. Space Marines and Eldar. Demons are a solid choice if you plan to summon spam but I have sinking feeling that isnt going to last into the next edition.

The Scions of the Warp update has made Daemons into a much stronger, more reliable, and more flexible army; summon-spam and Grimoire deathstars probably won't last into the next edition, but they can do a lot more things than that today.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
CSM are low on the power totem pole and they aren't particularly popular, but if you aren't playing in tournaments you usually won't care.

Weak armies in the abstract can field strong builds and be stronger depending on the matchup (ex. GK have a fairly weak book, but they can punch above their weight by min/maxxing to get more Purifiers and Dreadknights on the table), some armies are mediocre on their own but become much stronger with allies (Dark Eldar/Harlequins are much scarier together than they are separately). Some 'weak' armies are simply difficult to build and play well (Harlequins are probably the premier example here).

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with deciding you want to stick with Chaos, so long as you go in understanding what you're taking on. Your learning curve is going to be harder than someone who grabbed a powerful army out of the box; you won't have the luxury of grabbing scatterbikes (for instance) and having an always-useful point-and-click unit. You may have to ask opponents to play softer lists while you get your feet under you. You may not be able to declare yourself a purist who refuses to use allies/Forge World content/supplements.

If you're prepared for all that you're ready to play the underdog's game. You will lose games, you may even lose a lot of games. You will be fighting from the back foot, on the edge, in a corner, where every victory is hard-won and you can be confident that your skill brought you to victory in spite of the tools. If you're prepared to understand and believe that the only victory worth having is one you had to work for you will have a lot of fun with Chaos.

And if you're not happy with that state of affairs you can do a semi-tangential hop into Daemons, and play a CSM/Daemons army with a mix of Codexes that sits in a much higher power bracket.

So at the end of the day you haven't made things easy for yourself by picking CSM, but you can absolutely pick them up, play them, and have a good time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Table wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
I haven't played 40k recently or kept up on most developments, but I will say this with absolute certainty from my 15 years of off-and-on 40k gaming and also my 15,000 hours in World of Warcraft.

When it comes to selecting your army that you will invest your time into, do not concern yourself whatsoever with how powerful an army is. Select the army you like the most, by the criteria you use to determine your personal preferences. This can be the looks of the models, the background lore of the faction, literally anything whatsoever that you consider most important for your army to have, except how powerful it is.

The reason I and most other veteran gamers will urge you to ignore how powerful an army is, is because an army's power ranking is a temporary situation. Due to the ongoing updates to the game's rules, just because an army is powerful today, is no guarantee it will be powerful in the next update. And similarly, just because an army is weak today, is no guarantee it will be weak the next time the rules change. Buffs and nerfs come and go, but the aesthetics and the lore are fairly solid things that are unlikely to change. And, perhaps most importantly, the constantly shifting power rankings mean that if you always want to play the most powerful army, you will be buying a new army very frequently, which is a crazy-expensive thing to do in 40k.

So the simple answer is to play the army you like best, and do not concern yourself with how powerful it is. Frankly, as a newbie you are still learning the rules and will likely lose a lot of games regardless of how powerful your army is. Personally, I started playing 40k in 2001, and did not win a single game I ever played for my first three years.

Agreed but some armies are far safer bets for power gamers than others. Those being the big sellers. Space Marines and Eldar. Demons are a solid choice if you plan to summon spam but I have sinking feeling that isnt going to last into the next edition.

The Scions of the Warp update has made Daemons into a much stronger, more reliable, and more flexible army; summon-spam and Grimoire deathstars probably won't last into the next edition, but they can do a lot more things than that today.

sorry but your premise that if you dont play tournaments they are fine, is a joke. Unless your opponents are agreeing to take subpar lists everygame, you will absolutely be behind the eightball even in fun games vs your opponents 90 percent of the time. The books/units/formations avialable (outside the cabal) are not good. I have close to 10,000 points of chaos space marines, i love the lore, they are my first army. I havnt played them in over 2 years because they are so completely uncompetative vs 90 precent of the armies in the game that its simply not worth it. If i can only play one game a week or a couple a month, im not gonna showup and use an army i know should lose the game before a single dice is even rolled.

Always pick the army that appeals to you, background lore and visually. After all, youre going to be spending more time collecting, assembling, painting, and storing these miniatures than just playing the game with another person.

But to answer why Chaos is in a tight spot right now, it comes to a high points cost per unit (compred to other factions), lack of "freebie" special rules and gimmicks, low shooting output (in a shooty edition of gaming), random unreliable risks and buffs, and a strong push towards Assault style play, all of which other armies can accomplish cheaper, better, and more reliably.

The Chaos faction is richer in its background than its table top performance.

Still, Chaos is my first army (great for beginners), and I always enjoy playing them.

CSM right now are pretty fething terrible. They got marginally better with Traitors Hate etc.

But remember that 8th is going to drop next year. Who knows, it might be a good game or it might be AOS (in which case I will be quitting). We don't actually know how its going to turn our or how it will affect your army.

Also note that most of CSM miniatures are over a decade old and about half of the stuff is Failcast. There is going to probably be one hell of a large update to their miniature catalogue in the future like the Dark Eldar had in 2010. So if you like that miniatures now, then go for it. But if you don't mind waiting to see the new stuff, then I would suggest waiting.

A TL;DR is that the CSM army is fundamentally a 4E/5E army in how it wants to operate and play, and thus they dont really function terribly well in the madness of 7E.

Daemons are in a far better spot, but end up usually being very gimmicky and have lots of internal balance issues, and as such often isnt very fun to play with or against.

Additionally, theyve kinda massacred much of the CSM fluff.

Well, the reason for the poor reputation is that almost any unit that is comparable to a loyalist marine is inferior in power, while costing practically the same.

Add the fact that random effects you got no control over are rather common, and it's a codex simply not fit for heavy tournaments, and that's what people focus on (because when casual, anything goes really)

So, if you are into chaos -regular- marines, codex space marine rules is better.
Where CSM has its own value is in the unique chaos stuff like cult marines, deamon marines, daemon engines, etc.

I own Necrons (a pretty competitive army) and Nid (a very much not competitive army) but actually enjoy playing my nids far more.

As has been suggested, look at what you think you personally will have fun with over the general power level. Especially if your intent is to play casually with friends instead of at tournaments and such. I picked my armys by reading a 40k time line and choosing the ones I enjoyed the stories for most.

I personally steer clear of space marines and the imperium in general because they are the generic good guys. A lot of my opponents are some various color of space marine. I like the xenos races for more variety.

PyrhusOfEpirus wrote:
(Quote truncated for brevity)
sorry but your premise that if you dont play tournaments they are fine, is a joke. Unless your opponents are agreeing to take subpar lists everygame, you will absolutely be behind the eightball even in fun games vs your opponents 90 percent of the time. The books/units/formations avialable (outside the cabal) are not good. I have close to 10,000 points of chaos space marines, i love the lore, they are my first army. I havnt played them in over 2 years because they are so completely uncompetative vs 90 precent of the armies in the game that its simply not worth it. If i can only play one game a week or a couple a month, im not gonna showup and use an army i know should lose the game before a single dice is even rolled.

Correction/update: "they're fine if you're not playing in tournaments" could be more accurately rendered as "it depends on the competitiveness of your meta."

Secondary point: This actually goes and illustrates my broader point somewhat. Pyrhus is a CSM player who loves the models and lore, doesn't get to play frequently, and wants to have an army that works easily out of the box, so he's not going to have a great time showing up for pick-up games against people who build an infrequent-pick-up-game all-comers list and show up for a quick game. One of the strongest players at my FLGS back home has a CSM army; he plays frequently, goes to tournaments, has the time and energy to spare to work at it, and keeps them on the table (at least in part) because he enjoys the challenge of trying to achieve a reasonable win rate with a subpar army.

I'm not here to make judgements over which approach is better, and I'm aware I'm ascribing motives to Pyrhus that may or may not be accurate (if they aren't I will apologize and invent a character with the necessary qualities to replace him in this example). The point is that if you're looking to 40k as a relaxing exercise where you can show up, push models, roll dice, and have a good time CSM are a bad choice of army. If you're the sort of person who goes into a game with a subpar army because you want to be the deciding factor of your own victory and you're prepared to fight an uphill battle to get to the point where you can overcome the handicap, they're a much better option.

I'm going to approach this issue from another direction to try and illustrate it more concretely. I play Craftworld Eldar. They were my first army; I've been an elf player in every game that let me ever since I started playing games. I liked the aesthetic, I liked the lore. I can't play them today. Any time I put them on the table I'm either up against a casual player who didn't sign up for needing to fight an uphill battle into the strongest book in the game (which translates to bad times for everyone), or I'm up against a more competitive player and I end up in the insidious mental space wherein I don't know if I won because I'm any good or because I had an overpowered army as a crutch. Any situation, any matchup, ends up with some kind of bad emotional outcome for me, my opponent, or both.

At the end of the day whenever any of us tries to play a game we do so expecting to hold the key to the outcome within ourselves and our decisions. Poor game balance takes control away from the players; people playing or playing against very strong or very weak armies get frustrated because the outcome is determined by decisions the game's design team made, not by decisions they're making while playing. Trying to play pick-up games (where the goal is close games and a good time, as opposed to tournaments where the goal is victory at any cost) a strong army can play down towards the middle by using their weaker options, a weak army can play up towards the middle by turning a tournament player's mindset towards it.

And for a lot of us it's too much to ask that we not only buy and paint our expensive toy soldiers but that we also play designer, comp-system-writer, and rules judge to the game as well. There's nothing wrong with that. This isn't an MMO or an XBox FPS here, we don't (or at least most of us don't) heap abuse on people who play less than we do. There are no consequences for taking the army that's going to work well as advertised straight out of the box. There are no consequences for complaining that many armies don't work well as advertised straight out of the box.

If you're aware of the situation, however, and you'd still like to play CSM, then we will offer our respect for choosing to shoulder the challenge, our advice as you proceed, our grumbles that the army doesn't work the way we'd like, and the house rules we use sometimes if you feel like borrowing them. We're here to help.

Kinda off-topic, but as someone who is coming back after a couple of years off (last time I played was in 5th), I'm confused by all the Traitor's Hate stuff floating around. How many CSM-specific supplements are there? Is that where all the god-specific stuff from the old 3.5 dex went, or is that stuff still gone?

No, that stuff is gone.

Traitor's Hate is a bunch of bland looking Black Legion formations designed to get you to buy more models (like most formations), some of which supposedly offer a boost in power.

 odorofdeath wrote:
Kinda off-topic, but as someone who is coming back after a couple of years off (last time I played was in 5th), I'm confused by all the Traitor's Hate stuff floating around. How many CSM-specific supplements are there? Is that where all the god-specific stuff from the old 3.5 dex went, or is that stuff still gone?

instead of updating and fixing the CSM codex, GW put out another $50 book of formations for CSM's. Same codex weve been using for 4 years, but the "fix" is freebies for taking X models in Y quantity.

 odorofdeath wrote:
Kinda off-topic, but as someone who is coming back after a couple of years off (last time I played was in 5th), I'm confused by all the Traitor's Hate stuff floating around. How many CSM-specific supplements are there? Is that where all the god-specific stuff from the old 3.5 dex went, or is that stuff still gone?

The god-specific stuff from 3.5 is pretty much gone right now. The 3.5 book had undivided Marines and marked Marines as the only two divisions, the 4e book split marked Marines into Cult Marines (that get more bonuses along the lines of the 3.5 Marks but are only available as infantry units) and ordinary marked Marines (that get a smaller bonus but can be any variants (Havocs, Raptors, Bikes, et cetera)) and the 6e book has followed that pattern. Marked vehicles, interesting wacky Daemon weapons, and most of the Gifts have been either turned into special character rules/unique items or dropped.

For the CSM enthusiast not aware of the current state of the game, a brief index of where your rules are:

Codex: Chaos Space Marines. This is the one you actually need to play, and if you're so inclined you can stop here. Anything further is optional.

Supplements:
Black Legion: This one's a bit outdated, it does very little for you (Chosen in Troops, pretty much). Feel free to bypass it if you aren't on a completionist bent.
Crimson Slaughter: A Possessed/Daemon Engine-focused supplement. It makes Possessed actually useful (moves them to Troops and gives them a better random ability table), if you weren't planning on using them it doesn't do much.
Traitor's Hate: Your weird 7th-edition meta-detachment is here. It lets you squadron Predators/Vindicators for the same benefits Loyalist Marines get this edition by doing so, I can't comment extensively on the toys the formations offer but they look interesting at a glance. The psychic powers are copy-pasted from the Angels of Death supplement with different names, but they're all quite good.

Allies and Alternate Forces:
Chaos Daemons: A stronger standalone Codex than yours, but you complement each other well. (Note: The 'Daemonic Incursion edition' includes a supplement that adds a few new units, updates the psychic powers (and improves them dramatically), and gives them their own set of formations and new relics, it's well worth it.)
Khorne Daemonkin: If you like Khorne so much you're willing to drop all the other Chaos Gods and play just his stuff this is a book mixing CSM and Daemon units with their own unique and interesting formations and mechanics.

Forge World:
Imperial Armour 13: The big one. This collects all your Forge World units under one happy Dark Mechanicum umbrella, where you'll find Chaos versions of almost every 30k vehicle, a few Flyers, and some wacky Daemon Engines besides. Also contains the Lost and the Damned (Traitor Guard) army list.
Imperial Armour 5: There's a variant set of Traitor Guard rules in here, including a detachment that's got Traitor Guard and CSM units freely mixing (Nurgle-only).

(Yes, Chaos really has this many books today.)

Choosing your army can be hard...

GW says: play the army with the models that looks the coolest to you...

In the past, some of the best looking models got total crap ruling (The dark eldar mandrakes, Chaos space marines mutilators (i tought they looked cool lol), Space Marines centurion assault squad, etc...)

You will waste a ton of money on figs you'll never use...

My suggestion are:

1) Find an army with a general look to your liking, as opposed to specific models, ie.: you like the robotic look of Necrons, the army style of the Astra militarium, you're a big fan of mech and gundam so Tau are looking great, etc...

2) Look into the lore of the army, the background stories, if you like what you're reading, getting the codex at this point is the right thing, read the rules and look online for inspiration and advice on how to build your army.

3) Get some basic componnent, a squad or two of troop choices, perhaps a HQ too, build them and paint them.

4) Play a low point game with a good friend that has no benefit in utterly smashing you for no reasons, you're learning the game at this point.

5) Expand your army around a list to your liking; your first goal should be 1000 pts.

This might be the best way IMO to pick a new army; it's what I do personaly.

Chaos isn't bad, it's not the best in current tournament but it's fun to play for the versatility it offers.

In the past, some of the best looking models got total crap ruling (The dark eldar mandrakes, Chaos space marines mutilators, Space Marines centurion assault squad, etc...)

Aside from Mandrake.. The rest are universally reviled, unless I certainly missed something, most people hated those models looks with the mutilator just looking plain terrible and the centurion being mocked as the marine in a marine.

Yea...most people really hate mutilators and Centurions.

Although to fair, Centurions are salvageable with proper conversions.

Centurions remind me very, very strongly of New Conglomerate MAX suits in Planetside 2. Especially the Ultramarines ones.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 odorofdeath wrote:
Kinda off-topic, but as someone who is coming back after a couple of years off (last time I played was in 5th), I'm confused by all the Traitor's Hate stuff floating around. How many CSM-specific supplements are there? Is that where all the god-specific stuff from the old 3.5 dex went, or is that stuff still gone?

The god-specific stuff from 3.5 is pretty much gone right now. The 3.5 book had undivided Marines and marked Marines as the only two divisions, the 4e book split marked Marines into Cult Marines (that get more bonuses along the lines of the 3.5 Marks but are only available as infantry units) and ordinary marked Marines (that get a smaller bonus but can be any variants (Havocs, Raptors, Bikes, et cetera)) and the 6e book has followed that pattern. Marked vehicles, interesting wacky Daemon weapons, and most of the Gifts have been either turned into special character rules/unique items or dropped.

For the CSM enthusiast not aware of the current state of the game, a brief index of where your rules are:

Codex: Chaos Space Marines. This is the one you actually need to play, and if you're so inclined you can stop here. Anything further is optional.

Supplements:
Black Legion: This one's a bit outdated, it does very little for you (Chosen in Troops, pretty much). Feel free to bypass it if you aren't on a completionist bent.
Crimson Slaughter: A Possessed/Daemon Engine-focused supplement. It makes Possessed actually useful (moves them to Troops and gives them a better random ability table), if you weren't planning on using them it doesn't do much.
Traitor's Hate: Your weird 7th-edition meta-detachment is here. It lets you squadron Predators/Vindicators for the same benefits Loyalist Marines get this edition by doing so, I can't comment extensively on the toys the formations offer but they look interesting at a glance. The psychic powers are copy-pasted from the Angels of Death supplement with different names, but they're all quite good.

Allies and Alternate Forces:
Chaos Daemons: A stronger standalone Codex than yours, but you complement each other well. (Note: The 'Daemonic Incursion edition' includes a supplement that adds a few new units, updates the psychic powers (and improves them dramatically), and gives them their own set of formations and new relics, it's well worth it.)
Khorne Daemonkin: If you like Khorne so much you're willing to drop all the other Chaos Gods and play just his stuff this is a book mixing CSM and Daemon units with their own unique and interesting formations and mechanics.

Forge World:
Imperial Armour 13: The big one. This collects all your Forge World units under one happy Dark Mechanicum umbrella, where you'll find Chaos versions of almost every 30k vehicle, a few Flyers, and some wacky Daemon Engines besides. Also contains the Lost and the Damned (Traitor Guard) army list.
Imperial Armour 5: There's a variant set of Traitor Guard rules in here, including a detachment that's got Traitor Guard and CSM units freely mixing (Nurgle-only).

(Yes, Chaos really has this many books today.)

Good lord, that's a lot of sh*t. I've been reading through the 6th ed. CSM book and I was surprised how similar it is to the last one, just seems so basic.... kind of a bummer.

My view is simple:

Chaos Marines have some good units, and many of their units are not that much worse off compared to their loyalist counterparts. The real issue they have is one of bad FOC design:

-All their long-range units are in Heavy Support.
-Alll their "faster than infantry" units are Fast Attack.

And that's it. While Marines can get Bike Command Squads or Vanguard Veteran Elites, EVERY CSM Elite "moves like infantry". Likewise, no Bike troops (though the Daemonkin Gorepack is nice). While Marines can get Razorback transports, Sternguard can take 2 Heavies or Marine Dreads can "rifleman" (dual TL Autocannons), Chaos doesn't get a real analogue in Troops or Elites.

If sticking to CAD on CAD, Chaos doesn't get the ability to diffuse their threats the way loyalist Marines can.

Thankfully the Black Crusade lets you circumvent this some.

Don't forget all the special rules C:SM get just for being part of a chapter. I mean sure we can pay for rules but they get many rules just for free while everyone else argues you don't need special rules to represent CSM.

But yes besides the strange points costs for units, the movement thing is something I've begun to notice much more lately.

 odorofdeath wrote:
(Quote truncated for brevity)
Good lord, that's a lot of sh*t. I've been reading through the 6th ed. CSM book and I was surprised how similar it is to the last one, just seems so basic.... kind of a bummer.

On one hand it means GW's updating things more frequently, on the other hand it means you need more books.

On the bright side you'll usually be using two or three books for most armies, even with allies (CSM + Traitor's Hate + Daemons, CSM + IA13, Daemons + IA5, et cetera).

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 odorofdeath wrote:
(Quote truncated for brevity)
Good lord, that's a lot of sh*t. I've been reading through the 6th ed. CSM book and I was surprised how similar it is to the last one, just seems so basic.... kind of a bummer.

On one hand it means GW's updating things more frequently, on the other hand it means you need more books.

On the bright side you'll usually be using two or three books for most armies, even with allies (CSM + Traitor's Hate + Daemons, CSM + IA13, Daemons + IA5, et cetera).

No. The update cycle isn't more frequent. GW releases a book which mirrors previous releases just with new names (new CSM psychic stuff) with some copy-paste formations. You just paid for something you probably already own. Or you get the Eldar/SM/Tau effect where popular powerful books are reprinted for an extra cash injection.

I don't see how hauling 3-5kgs of books with me along with a sizeable army, then having to cross-reference between the various sources during a game is a `bright side`.

Well, CSM is a nice army to model and paint.
At the competitive level, CSM is at the lowest tier. But this doesnt matter if you dont plan to attend tourneys atm.
A kill team is a good starting point as is the starter box for CSM.

SaltySeaDog wrote:
I'm a newcomer to 40k & this forum, so apologies for my painfully novice questions...I asked previously about building up my first 40k army, using Kill Team as a stepping stone to understanding the game & the 'Get Started!' pack as my foundation for the army itself.

I wanted to field CSM as I like the lore & the models- but after doing some initial research, it seems that CSM aren't popular right now, are going through some sort of 'rough patch' in the evolution of the rules, and even have many poor unit choices compared to other armies. In brief, I feel like their glory days are passed and (for the time being, at least) they've been overtaken by others. Is this accurate?

So, bearing in mind I'm a total beginner, should I grit my teeth & carry on with my plan of collecting CSM? Or would it be wise for me to think about plan B (loyalist marines, most likely Ultramarines or another 'vanilla' chapter)?

Just don't want to waste time & money on an army that isn't good to play as a newbie, or is likely going to be totally overhauled in the near future.

Thanks!

I said no to 40K for ten years while my friends yammered on about it. I wasn't interested. I played D&D pretty hard core and that hasn't changed even now.

Then at some random point I looked at a Tau Codex and saw the Tau Stealthsuits. I was instantly hooked and I now boast what can only be termed a completely unnecessary amount of 40K. Lol.

Whatever fires your imagination the most is what makes it worth playing. I dont think new rules will be out until 2018 at the earliest. So I wouldn't worry about it too much.

If the Chaos Space Marines fire your imagination, I say do it. Death to the False Emperor.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 odorofdeath wrote:
(Quote truncated for brevity)
Good lord, that's a lot of sh*t. I've been reading through the 6th ed. CSM book and I was surprised how similar it is to the last one, just seems so basic.... kind of a bummer.

On one hand it means GW's updating things more frequently, on the other hand it means you need more books.

On the bright side you'll usually be using two or three books for most armies, even with allies (CSM + Traitor's Hate + Daemons, CSM + IA13, Daemons + IA5, et cetera).

No. The update cycle isn't more frequent. GW releases a book which mirrors previous releases just with new names (new CSM psychic stuff) with some copy-paste formations. You just paid for something you probably already own. Or you get the Eldar/SM/Tau effect where popular powerful books are reprinted for an extra cash injection.

I don't see how hauling 3-5kgs of books with me along with a sizeable army, then having to cross-reference between the various sources during a game is a `bright side`.

The "bright side" is "yes, there are eight books you could use, but you aren't actually going to need more than two most of the time (and can get away with using only one if you need to)".

And the update cycle looks more frequent to me. When I started playing having armies skip over editions without getting updated was fairly normal, through 4th and 5th about half the game was using a Codex one or two editions old at any one time. Right now there are 25 'Codexes' sitting around, and of those 6 are 6th edition. Of those six (Tyranids, MT, Inquisition, AM, Sisters, CSM) three (Tyranids, AM, CSM) have received large-scale overhauls in supplements.

So we've gone from leaving 30-50% of the game out of date in 4th/5th to leaving about 12% of the game out of date right now. I'd call that an improvement.