Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Totally useless. Morale barely matters, you can't legally shoot assault weapons after advancing anyway RaW and a trait that only works against half the enemy armies is crap too.

Well, you're wrong on all three points.

First, it's not useless. Not by any measure.

Morale matters unless your opponent specifically builds to ignore it, not every army can do that, and the ones that do have to give things up in order to do it. For example, if you combat squad your tac marines you get to largely ignore morale. However, to do that you have to halve the effectiveness of buffer wound protection for your special and heavy weapon, and you make ATSKNF completely redundant. Since you're paying for ATSKNF, it means you're wasting points up front instead of risking them during play.

You can shoot Assault weapons when you advance. Might want to re-read that part of the book.

Finally, their warlord trait is balanced against the rest of their kit. Just like in the SM codex, and just like all the other previews we've seen. A codex sub-faction is a faction trait, a warlord trait, a relic, a stratagem, and sometimes a psychic power. They're balanced all together (at least the two traits and the stratagem are). When one part sucks, it's usually because one of the others is borderline OP.

Just look at the salamanders! Two die rerolls per unit per shooting AND fight phase? Are you KIDDING ME?

Then you read their warlord trait, and their stratagem...and you yawn. But it suddenly makes sense. The last two suck because the first is so good.

The BL stratagem is pretty good, all things considered. The black legion trait supports and is supported by it (large squads of CSM advancing up the board. Moving, advancing, and shooting with bolters that count as assault, that get to reroll all misses after taking their -1 to hit.) The only piece of cruff is their warlod trait, which is only a waste until you're fighting anything imperium (which is half the armies in the game).

In that little BL comfort zone, you take a sorcerer along with your chaos lord, and throw prescience into the mix. Now you're advancing up the board and firing assault weapons until you're ready to assault. Properly supported by daemons, raptors, whatever mobile unit you need to prevent a counter-charge or escape your 20-strong CSM squad is charging into combat, hitting on 2+, rerolling 1's, and getting extra attacks on a 4+ because prescience stacks with your warlord trait!

Feels pretty underwhelming. Though, if the codex brings some price cuts to csm, it might be a functional blacktide. However, i doubt it. Bolters are just not doing the job, really. Plasma spam...well, any legion can really do it with lords anyway. And as far as i'm concirned there are no open-topped vehicles to benefit the chosen squads that are 'out' of lord's range.

Well, it's not nothing but it's just very weak compared to what loyalists and world eaters get.

The only really good thing is +2 CP for Abaddon. However, too bad he has to take black legion alongside him.

I watched a video showcasing the full CSM Codex. Changed my impression of what the new rules mean.




So... each army can include multiple detachments. Each detachment must be made up of troops from a single Legion to get the legion traits.

With this in mind, the Black Legion rules seem to make more sense - and even some of the suggestions that have been floating around about 20 man CSM squads.

For example, one might have an army that consists of a Black Legion Vanguard Battalion detachment consisting of CSMs and a World Eaters Battalion Detachment consisting of Khorne Berzerkers and a Daemons Battalion detachment consisting of Horrors. Such an army would have serious shooting and assault threats, it would just not consist of a single unified force (but it would have the same number of command points as a full Bridage detachment.)

I can see Black Legion detachments consisting of a large number of CSM troops backed by Alpha Legion artillery or Night Lords deep striking assault troops being a threat. I could also see a World Eaters detachment deep striking in a Kharbdis Assault Claw paired with Black Legion troops as a threat.

Basically, the Black Legion detachment is going to be this presence that must be dealt with, but which may not be as horrible as some of the other threats that appear.

While I still don't particularly like the rules, I can now see their utility.

That's an interesting take on it, but what about black legion makes them worth taking as a detachment in a mixed CSM force? The answer I come back to is Abaddon and not much else. With that you can at least make a backfield artillery range, reroll hits on your vehicles with his aura and screen with the more reasonably costed cultists or CSM squads and enjoy morale immunity. But again, that's entirely Abby.

I suppose the leadership icon plus the bonus from BL is enough to make 10 man CSM squads feel safer in their own, and you get a small bit of mobility if you want them using plasma guns, but those are fairly marginal.

Honestly, I'd rather run my CSM as alpha legion and stay at five. Or go with IW, stick some heavy bolters on my 10 man CSM squads and have them cluster around las predators+warlord. I just don't feel like BL has any really usage outside of abaddon, in the same way I can't imagine someone running ultramarines without one of their special characters.

 Arandmoor wrote:
You can shoot Assault weapons when you advance. Might want to re-read that part of the book.

Without wishing to derail this thread by getting into the details, as-written the Assault rule is non-functional. RAW, you are not allowed to choose the unit to shoot with in the first place (regardless of whether or not it contains Assault weapons).

In effect, the Assault weapon rule should come into play at around Step 3 in the shooting phase (Choose Ranged Weapon). However, Step 1 (Choose Unit to Shoot with) prevents you from choosing the unit in the first place. so you never actually reach the step where the Assault rule would matter.

And yes, I'm fully aware that no one, no one in their right mind would ever play it this way because the intent is so obvious. However, that doesn't change the fact that the rule as-written simply doesn't work. And for a game that's in its 8th iteration with barely more than a pamphlet of rules, I don't think its unreasonable to expect the RAW to at least be functional.


Anyway, back on topic, do you guys think the Black Crusaders rule is useful? It looks a bit niche to me but I might well be missing something.

 vipoid wrote:

Anyway, back on topic, do you guys think the Black Crusaders rule is useful? It looks a bit niche to me but I might well be missing something.

Nope. The number of times on a normal table with normal deployment (and given the number of units that have close deployment options) that a unit (let alone an army) with 24" weapons will need to advance an extra d6 to shoot at -1 is vanishingly small.

If there is some really obscure circumstance that you want to or have to have 20 man chaos squads march in from the table edge, it might be marginally useful for a turn, but I can't think of any reason for that.

Given that the only real information on BL tactical doctrine comes from the Luna Wolves era, and is 'dogpile on the enemy's head,' it seems pretty unfluffy and irrelevant.

I did not get the names of all the strategems, but there is one where you can have the entire unit fire again.

Would not mind 80 rounds of bolter fire from a 20 man squad of Space Marines. Would not mind being able to advance and shoot to get this unit up there. The extra leadership means more of them will get there.

Alpha Legion - remind me again, isn't their legion trait being hard to hit at over 12 inches?

 vipoid wrote:
Anyway, back on topic, do you guys think the Black Crusaders rule is useful? It looks a bit niche to me but I might well be missing something.

It might be nice on bikes with flamers. With the point decrease, 3 bikers with flamers and a combi flamer cost 110 points and not that bad against mass infantry (if you take a whole outrider detachment filled with these)
But apart from that, I don't really see a way to profit from it.It might be the worst trait by itself.

Edit: Misread the rules!

The stratagem seems really good to me, especially because it's relatively cheap, CP-wise. Take big squads to maximize the value, and then some stuff to mitigate morale.

The Legion trait is only so-so, but I think it'll work well with big squads advancing on foot, shooting as they go. It seems like it's more for the times when you want to advance and it'll make advancing better, and not to add extra range to your guns.

SilverAlien wrote:
That's an interesting take on it, but what about black legion makes them worth taking as a detachment in a mixed CSM force? The answer I come back to is Abaddon and not much else.

Kinda like in the fluff.

I figured Death to the False Emperor was sort of so-so, and didnt pay much mind. But after my game today I'm thinking its pretty good, as I got a number of bonus attacks with my Terminators. Now Im thinking Abaddons Warlord trait is really, really nasty.

It's not against all armies, sure. But when it rains its gonna pour.