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.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Hillarious, First off, we are talking about CSM, not the Faction. That the faction is bonkers due to soup thanks to the snowflake legions is no wonder.
Secondly, take a gander at those lists again shall you? Where's the damage done? Wheres the actual meat of the list. Either it's obliterators, or a supreme command of Thousand sons.
Lo and behold. they show up once in one detachment as MSU with the DP's . With a bunch of Obliterators, ofcourse only Slaanesh TM. --> which is in essence the usual suspects since the start of 8th sooo, What excactly did change? Rien, new models, only for the select few traits. Slowclap. The rest and the actual heavy hitters are either daemons, or the Thousand sons HQ spam.
Or a bunch of obliterators. Like excactly what we saw since the cultist nerf.

So I've provided a few CSM lists that are performing well and your complaint is that the lists have heavy hitters/meat that you disagree with? I don't understand your complaint, to be honest. I completely disagree with your statement that they are the usual suspects since the start of 8th. The start of 8th was Malefic Lord and Horror spam. Then cultist spam. This is nothing like those lists. Cultist spam lists do still exist and perform relatively well, FYI.

 Sersi wrote:
I doubt its a timing issue GW just doesn't care that much about Chaos; and it a repeating pattern. Space Marines got their new OP 7th edition codex in June of 2015, with Gladius, Chapter tactics, etc. Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons didn't even get a 7th codex despite being 1-2 years older that the Space Marines 6th Ed Codex! We finally caught up with the loyalists with Legions tactics in Traitor Legions in Dec 2016, 18 months later. Only to have our brand new book invalidated 6 months later in June 2017 with the 8th. Or how about Chaos not getting a 5th Ed codex either, and having to compete for 5 years with those Matt Ward abomination 5th Ed marine codices. Yeah, I know Orks had to wait 7 years. This is a pattern with GW and I'd say Chaos players are justifiably upset at being shafted yet again. If the pattern holds it'll be 2021-2022 before we get comparable rules to Space Marines; just in time for them to leap frog us again in power level.

Well this is ultimately where our disagreement lies I guess. I think it's a huuuuge push to say that CSM have been "shafted" this edition. I get your pain of prior editions (though, as an Ork player, cry me a river) but there's no point focusing on the past. You've had a ton, and I mean a metric TON of awesome new models. Any player of a Xeno faction would lose their gak if they had the same model support. CSM are one of only 2 factions to have 2 codexes this edition. CSM were the first to get a V2 codex. CSM had most of the Vigilus book 2 dedicated to them. CSM have been competitive throughout 8th and obviously, clearly, unequivocally more competitive than SM throughout the entire edition since their codex dropped virtually immediately after the SM codex. It remains to be seen if the buffs SM have received will raise them to the same level of CSM/Chaos. As of today, CSM are a far superior faction.

 Sersi wrote:
Tournament armies aren't real Chaos Space Marine armies. Most either break the lore or theme of the army. They either spam broken or under-costed units, or take units that wouldn't actually operate together in the fluff. But if you want to play an actual legion with the order of battle it would actually field according to it's lore you won't be placing in tournaments. So that's a poor comparison your making. Sure I could take 3 Disco lords, 90 Plaguebearers, and two Daemon Primarchs, or knights. But that's not what i'd call a "CSM army".

This is true of literally every single competitive list. You think it's in the lore for Orks to take mostly Grots and Artillery to the field? You think it's in the lore for every pure SM list to be Ultramarines with Bobby G? You reckon Eldar players dream of taking the super thematic army of 5 flyers + Wave Serpents/Grotesques? Every IG player is now Catachan or Cadia whether they like it or not. This point is moot, if you are building any army for maximum efficiency and competitiveness it is very unlikely you will focus on the theme or the lore, likewise typically the more thematic and "fluffy" you make your list the worse it becomes. I can attest to this as a proper Evil Sunz player who uses Bikes, Buggies and Koptas with no Mek Gunz and limited Grots/Boyz. It's a tough slog and I could literally make my list more effective if I sacrificed the theme.
Now I'm not suggesting that players shouldn't be able to compete with a thematic list and I wish we could, I hope that CA introduces fixes for every factions' best and worst performing units so we can see more thematic lists on the table top.

As a long term CSM player (I've been around since 5th ed) I think I've come to term with the fact that things are simply never going to get better. If you dare to complain, you'll be labled WHINER and you'll recieve a snarky comment about how CSM players never stop whining - how dare they whine, they were given a new codex (which wasn't really new it just added in new unit profiles, only one of which was of any value). But they also had the option to purchase a £30 book to gain three pages of rules, of which only one is really of any use (Red Corsairs).

People also seem fixated on the fact that Chaos recieved a bunch of new miniatues - which is great. It's unfortunate a vast majority are unsuable.

The 'new' CSM codex is, to frankly put it, terrible. While as one poster has pointed out that CSM are at the top of tournie lists, it's the case that one or two specific, completely unfluffy soup lists are dominating. Sure this it the case for every army, but this isn't a good thing what-so-ever. I'm glad to know that in order for my renegades to win, they have to bring a Knight or two, or maybe Ahriman or a trio of Daemon Princes. You want actual Chaos Space Marines? Sure, they just have to be Red Corsairs and not actually take part in the fighting - they have to exist to generate command points so you can make sure your Knight maintaints its 4++ or you can get a second shooting round for your Havo- oh sorry those are garbage as well. Plus I hope you bought the new Havoc models with Terminator sized bases - you better not be fielding the classic mins or conversions.

All of the major Legion traits are either bad or mediocre with the exception of the Alpha Legion or Black Legion trait, which doesn't really feel like an Alpha Legion trait at all. I heard the Iron Warriors could do decent but it was nothing to do with their garbage 'ignore cover', more it was to do with the 'Daemon Prince and fearless Cultists'.

People seem to be celebrating the idea that you can now get something like 5 attacks per Bezerker if you're playing World Eaters, but since 40k at this point vastly favours ranged combat over close combat, it doesn't matter because you're never going to reach combat. Got help you if you're playing against an actual dedicated gunline. Word Bearers are an embarrasingly bad army at this stage - the only army in the game to my knowledge who have a trait that can actually hurt them, and one that is invalidated by the Black Legion trait. Night Lords are also kind of garbage because morale bombs work in the void of mathhammer but when you actually play it in game you'll find that it's easier to simply kill the enemy rather than wait for morale to do the job.

You also have bizarre rules for the other niche groups, The Purge, The Flawless Host, etc. Instead of just making these generic traits for renegades with no God tied to them, they instead force you to pick specifc Gods. Why on earth would anyone want to do close-combat Slaanesh when the best Slaanesh stratagem is about ranged combat? Wouldn't it be better if The Flawless Host trait could represent martial skill focussed followers of Khorne?

But don't worry, if your traits aren't garbage your artefact just might be! Here's an ultra-specific weapon that works on almost no occasion but when it does work it might just do a bit better than it's generic variant! Props to the artefact weapon if it's a ranged weapon for an army focussed on Close Combat, or the classic '+1 to smite'.

Needless to say all these problems are problems not just of Chaos but all armies. Personally I'm beginning to feel that 8th edition is something of a major dissapointment - it's better than 7th, but that's like saying HIV is better than full blown AIDs.

 blood reaper wrote:
Needless to say all these problems are problems not just of Chaos but all armies. Personally I'm beginning to feel that 8th edition is something of a major disappointment - it's better than 7th, but that's like saying HIV is better than full blown AIDs.

Couldn't. Agree. More.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
Needless to say all these problems are problems not just of Chaos but all armies. Personally I'm beginning to feel that 8th edition is something of a major disappointment - it's better than 7th, but that's like saying HIV is better than full blown AIDs.

Couldn't. Agree. More.

What really brought the kettle to boil over was the obvious lack of any and all interaction between the rules team and coordination.

Leading to the effect that the csm codex 2.0'looks like a cheap cashgrab, whilest the sm one seems to atleast be put together competently.

So I've provided a few CSM lists that are performing well and your complaint is that the lists have heavy hitters/meat that you disagree with? I don't understand your complaint, to be honest. I completely disagree with your statement that they are the usual suspects since the start of 8th. The start of 8th was Malefic Lord and Horror spam. Then cultist spam. This is nothing like those lists. Cultist spam lists do still exist and perform relatively well, FYI.

Those are mostly soup lists without actually using really much of anything from actual Chaos Space Marines and mostly take from Daemons and Thousand Sons HQ's. How exactly is that hard to understand?

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
Needless to say all these problems are problems not just of Chaos but all armies. Personally I'm beginning to feel that 8th edition is something of a major disappointment - it's better than 7th, but that's like saying HIV is better than full blown AIDs.

Couldn't. Agree. More.

I may come to look at 8th that way, someday. But the biggest difference between 6/7th and 8th - you knew exactly how bad those editions were at all times.

Every game, every turn, every phase, every unit, every roll, there was something to remind you how uninspired and bloated the rules are.

With 8th, that never happens, because half of each army dies each turn. There's not enough there to consider.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

And what csm perform competitively?
I'll wait.

Oh and the argument is not sui generis against specialized sm forces that got shafted aswell.
Or the fact that the eldar aspect warrior line can go drinking with me in a bar. Which until recently we could aswell with the csm.

Ohh and on the timing bit.
The V2.0 codex fixed nothing for Chaos.
We got 2 new units, disco lord and the executioner.
One of which you will only ever see as a collectors item, the other only the daemonengine that out of exception for once bloody works.
The traits still gak, cultists are out, csm are all Corsairs now if you not skip them outright in favour of daemon battalions for CP and chaff.

I think you are being incredibly negative here and I disagree with your analysis of the new things.

There are CSM lists performing;

https://www.40kstats.com/battleforthepeak
https://www.40kstats.com/barnyardbrawl

There’s a few. Take a look at the top 4 for other events - there are many others.

Chaos as a faction is the second highest performing faction only to Imperium I believe. Fortunately for you, if you feel you current force is lacking in any way it’s trivial to bring in an ally to sure up that weakness. Mono faction players don’t have this luxury. Their competitiveness lives and dies by a singular codex that may not be updated until another edition drops.

Slipspace wrote:

This isn't rocket science. It's because SM and CSM have always been almost-mirrors of one another and SM just got a whole bunch of extra buffs that should apply to CSM but GW's inability to plan out their design direction has screwed them over.

GW are actively trying to make SM and CSM more than just ‘almost mirrors’ of one another though aren’t they. CSM have access to things that loyalists don’t get - marks being the most obvious. Not to mention the raft of units specific to CSM. This is entirely within their design direction I suspect. Ork Gretchin unit’s don’t get the equivalent of chapter traits and GW have stated this is entirely intentional.

They're not making them different enough though as they're trying to make the codex a catch all for Legions and Renegades.

I don't think CSM are remotely in a bad place.

Its unfortunate that its all Flawless Host, Alpha Legion and then soup with wider chaos, but thats the meta I guess. No one complains that CWE are always Alaitoc. (Well I do, but so it goes.)

I just feel a bit irked that Word Bearers have the worst chapter tactic in the game, and GW have blanked them. Its very, very hard to think of any ability they could give which wouldn't be a buff.

 blood reaper wrote:
Plus I hope you bought the new Havoc models with Terminator sized bases - you better not be fielding the classic mins or conversions.

I suspect I've missed a "discussion" here - what's wrong with using older versions of Havocs?

 Dysartes wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
Plus I hope you bought the new Havoc models with Terminator sized bases - you better not be fielding the classic mins or conversions.

I suspect I've missed a "discussion" here - what's wrong with using older versions of Havocs?

Nothing, unless you play with people that "enforce" base size.

 chimeara wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
Plus I hope you bought the new Havoc models with Terminator sized bases - you better not be fielding the classic mins or conversions.

I suspect I've missed a "discussion" here - what's wrong with using older versions of Havocs?

Nothing, unless you play with people that "enforce" base size.

You need to use the most up to date version though.
Which is the T5 5 man squad.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 chimeara wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
Plus I hope you bought the new Havoc models with Terminator sized bases - you better not be fielding the classic mins or conversions.

I suspect I've missed a "discussion" here - what's wrong with using older versions of Havocs?

Nothing, unless you play with people that "enforce" base size.

You need to use the most up to date version though.
Which is the T5 5 man squad.

That's fair, I somehow forgot the 5 man limit.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
Needless to say all these problems are problems not just of Chaos but all armies. Personally I'm beginning to feel that 8th edition is something of a major disappointment - it's better than 7th, but that's like saying HIV is better than full blown AIDs.

Couldn't. Agree. More.

I may come to look at 8th that way, someday. But the biggest difference between 6/7th and 8th - you knew exactly how bad those editions were at all times.

Every game, every turn, every phase, every unit, every roll, there was something to remind you how uninspired and bloated the rules are.

With 8th, that never happens, because half of each army dies each turn. There's not enough there to consider.

My favourite part of 40k is losing dozens of models every turn with no capacity to respond and then being told in order to win I just have to bring that third knight at a 1,500 point game.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

Well this is ultimately where our disagreement lies I guess. I think it's a huuuuge push to say that CSM have been "shafted" this edition. I get your pain of prior editions (though, as an Ork player, cry me a river) but there's no point focusing on the past. You've had a ton, and I mean a metric TON of awesome new models. Any player of a Xeno faction would lose their gak if they had the same model support. CSM are one of only 2 factions to have 2 codexes this edition. CSM were the first to get a V2 codex. CSM had most of the Vigilus book 2 dedicated to them. CSM have been competitive throughout 8th and obviously, clearly, unequivocally more competitive than SM throughout the entire edition since their codex dropped virtually immediately after the SM codex. It remains to be seen if the buffs SM have received will raise them to the same level of CSM/Chaos. As of today, CSM are a far superior faction.

Model support isn't rules support. We got a few nice models with mostly garbage rules, and while its a personal opinion several of those kits were trash. CSM 2.0 is not a new codex it just consolidated rules that were scattered across in several books. It's not remotely on par with the re-work C:SM got. Vigilus book 1 was dedicated to primarily to who? Yep, C:SM. I don't get why you keep bringing up tournaments that virtually no one actually competes in. Probably more than 90% of players don't compete in said tournament, anyway. What CSM players want is parity. Sure C:SM and CSM are separate factions but they are all Astartes; and no matter how much some elements may differ there are and should still be allot commonality. For instance the new C:SM stratagem "trans-human physiology", can you honestly argue that CSM should have that as well? How abaout take multiple and more numerous relics for less CP and taking multiple Warlord traits. Does this strike you as fair?

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
This is true of literally every single competitive list. You think it's in the lore for Orks to take mostly Grots and Artillery to the field? You think it's in the lore for every pure SM list to be Ultramarines with Bobby G? You reckon Eldar players dream of taking the super thematic army of 5 flyers + Wave Serpents/Grotesques? Every IG player is now Catachan or Cadia whether they like it or not. This point is moot, if you are building any army for maximum efficiency and competitiveness it is very unlikely you will focus on the theme or the lore, likewise typically the more thematic and "fluffy" you make your list the worse it becomes. I can attest to this as a proper Evil Sunz player who uses Bikes, Buggies and Koptas with no Mek Gunz and limited Grots/Boyz. It's a tough slog and I could literally make my list more effective if I sacrificed the theme. Now I'm not suggesting that players shouldn't be able to compete with a thematic list and I wish we could, I hope that CA introduces fixes for every factions' best and worst performing units so we can see more thematic lists on the table top.

No, I'm right there with you I play Emperor's Children and I don't break theme either. But your making my point for me. The new C:SM books are far stronger that CSM if you play mono-faction and stay within your own codex. In fact it rewards them for not playing a Soup list. You'd be hard pressed to find much in the CSM codex that's superior to Ultramarines or White Scars if you select units solely from in the codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 blood reaper wrote:
As a long term CSM player (I've been around since 5th ed) I think I've come to term with the fact that things are simply never going to get better. If you dare to complain, you'll be labled WHINER and you'll recieve a snarky comment about how CSM players never stop whining - how dare they whine, they were given a new codex (which wasn't really new it just added in new unit profiles, only one of which was of any value). But they also had the option to purchase a £30 book to gain three pages of rules, of which only one is really of any use (Red Corsairs).

People also seem fixated on the fact that Chaos recieved a bunch of new miniatues - which is great. It's unfortunate a vast majority are unsuable.

The 'new' CSM codex is, to frankly put it, terrible. While as one poster has pointed out that CSM are at the top of tournie lists, it's the case that one or two specific, completely unfluffy soup lists are dominating. Sure this it the case for every army, but this isn't a good thing what-so-ever. I'm glad to know that in order for my renegades to win, they have to bring a Knight or two, or maybe Ahriman or a trio of Daemon Princes. You want actual Chaos Space Marines? Sure, they just have to be Red Corsairs and not actually take part in the fighting - they have to exist to generate command points so you can make sure your Knight maintaints its 4++ or you can get a second shooting round for your Havo- oh sorry those are garbage as well. Plus I hope you bought the new Havoc models with Terminator sized bases - you better not be fielding the classic mins or conversions.

All of the major Legion traits are either bad or mediocre with the exception of the Alpha Legion or Black Legion trait, which doesn't really feel like an Alpha Legion trait at all. I heard the Iron Warriors could do decent but it was nothing to do with their garbage 'ignore cover', more it was to do with the 'Daemon Prince and fearless Cultists'.

People seem to be celebrating the idea that you can now get something like 5 attacks per Bezerker if you're playing World Eaters, but since 40k at this point vastly favours ranged combat over close combat, it doesn't matter because you're never going to reach combat. Got help you if you're playing against an actual dedicated gunline. Word Bearers are an embarrasingly bad army at this stage - the only army in the game to my knowledge who have a trait that can actually hurt them, and one that is invalidated by the Black Legion trait. Night Lords are also kind of garbage because morale bombs work in the void of mathhammer but when you actually play it in game you'll find that it's easier to simply kill the enemy rather than wait for morale to do the job.

You also have bizarre rules for the other niche groups, The Purge, The Flawless Host, etc. Instead of just making these generic traits for renegades with no God tied to them, they instead force you to pick specifc Gods. Why on earth would anyone want to do close-combat Slaanesh when the best Slaanesh stratagem is about ranged combat? Wouldn't it be better if The Flawless Host trait could represent martial skill focussed followers of Khorne?

But don't worry, if your traits aren't garbage your artefact just might be! Here's an ultra-specific weapon that works on almost no occasion but when it does work it might just do a bit better than it's generic variant! Props to the artefact weapon if it's a ranged weapon for an army focussed on Close Combat, or the classic '+1 to smite'.

Needless to say all these problems are problems not just of Chaos but all armies. Personally I'm beginning to feel that 8th edition is something of a major dissapointment - it's better than 7th, but that's like saying HIV is better than full blown AIDs.

Accurate, and well stated. Allow me to summarize... Chaos was once again was shafted by GW's love of all things loyalist marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
I don't think CSM are remotely in a bad place.

Its unfortunate that its all Flawless Host, Alpha Legion and then soup with wider chaos, but thats the meta I guess. No one complains that CWE are always Alaitoc. (Well I do, but so it goes.)

I just feel a bit irked that Word Bearers have the worst chapter tactic in the game, and GW have blanked them. Its very, very hard to think of any ability they could give which wouldn't be a buff.

How, is Chaos not in a bad place? You just basically admitted that only Flawless Host, Alpha Legion, or Chaos Soup were viable. That's just two out of the seven legions and five renegades chapters. Ten of which as you just said are bad. Compare that to what C:SM are getting none of those factions seem bad, and judging by the two supplements we've seen they're all getting a major boost.

 Sersi wrote:
How, is Chaos not in a bad place? You just basically admitted that only Flawless Host, Alpha Legion, or Chaos Soup were viable. That's just two out of the seven legions and five renegades chapters. Ten of which as you just said are bad. Compare that to what C:SM are getting none of those factions seem bad, and judging by the two supplements we've seen they're all getting a major boost.

Because turning up on top tables and winning games is enough.
The bulk of chapter tactics are not top tier. Almost every book I can think of has 1, sometimes 2 that are "good" and 90% of competitive lists involving that faction are from that chapter.

You may think all the SM chapters are not bad - and yes, they are clearly superior to Word Bearers. But give it a couple of months, and it will be clear that one or two are superior to all others.

 Sersi wrote:
Model support isn't rules support. We got a few nice models with mostly garbage rules, and while its a personal opinion several of those kits were trash. CSM 2.0 is not a new codex it just consolidated rules that were scattered across in several books. It's not remotely on par with the re-work C:SM got. Vigilus book 1 was dedicated to primarily to who? Yep, C:SM. I don't get why you keep bringing up tournaments that virtually no one actually competes in. Probably more than 90% of players don't compete in said tournament, anyway. What CSM players want is parity. Sure C:SM and CSM are separate factions but they are all Astartes; and no matter how much some elements may differ there are and should still be allot commonality. For instance the new C:SM stratagem "trans-human physiology", can you honestly argue that CSM should have that as well? How abaout take multiple and more numerous relics for less CP and taking multiple Warlord traits. Does this strike you as fair?

I keep bringing up tournament results because the primary complaint here seems to be (not necessarily by you personally by the way) that CSM have been "shafted" by GW who have allegedly given SM "much better rules yet again". My argument is twofold - one - that remains to be seen and two - CSM are performing well as is. Vigilus book 1 was dedicated to no particular faction, it was split between 6 factions - SM, Eldar, IG, Orks, GSC and Ad Mech who all received specialist detachments. CSM had rules for a named lord in there if i recall. No, I don't think for a moment that the split in GW's focus is fair or even. I would argue, pretty easily I think, that Imperium/SM and Chaos/CSM have had consistently more support than any other faction by far. This is not fair to me as a Xenos player. It is not fair to other Xenos players. CSM literally had the last major update just before this one. CSM have had a few datasheet updates to bring some of the SM rules to their datasheets with this update. That is enough, it's time for another faction to be thrown a bone now, right?

 Sersi wrote:
No, I'm right there with you I play Emperor's Children and I don't break theme either. But your making my point for me. The new C:SM books are far stronger that CSM if you play mono-faction and stay within your own codex. In fact it rewards them for not playing a Soup list. You'd be hard pressed to find much in the CSM codex that's superior to Ultramarines or White Scars if you select units solely from in the codex.

I think this remains to be seen but if it turns out that you're correct and SM have multiple, fluffy and competitive army lists then I think that will be a win for GW. They should try and make that the aim for every faction, in my opinion (and yours I think?). It would be bogus if they didn't bother trying to do this for other factions.

 Sersi wrote:
Accurate, and well stated. Allow me to summarize... Chaos was once again was shafted by GW's love of all things loyalist marines.

If you believe Chaos/CSM to have been shafted, how do you think players of CWE, DE, Nids, Necrons, Orks, IG and GK feel? GW's love for all things loyalist marines is nothing new. I reckon they've shown a lot of love to Chaos this edition too however. Death Guard, Nurgle Daemons, CSM and Slaanesh Daemons have all had releases so big that one of these releases individually is far larger than the entirety of what my faction received. And from what my faction did receive literally every one of the new models is competitively poor, one laughably so - at least some of your new models are usable.

It hardly matters that since codex marine tactics are superior to others when even the bottom of the loyalists are strict upgrades over the best chaos has to offer.

Chaos current has entire unplayable codcies. Take TS, the only thing they have that's worth taking is ahriman and princes, and loyalist marines just one upped by having even more spells and better psyker tactics in top of already having far superior stratagems.


Heck, even some of the "special toys" choas has are actually one upped by loyalists. Intercessors with the assault guns basically are superior noise boys for example

 Sersi wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

Well this is ultimately where our disagreement lies I guess. I think it's a huuuuge push to say that CSM have been "shafted" this edition. I get your pain of prior editions (though, as an Ork player, cry me a river) but there's no point focusing on the past. You've had a ton, and I mean a metric TON of awesome new models. Any player of a Xeno faction would lose their gak if they had the same model support. CSM are one of only 2 factions to have 2 codexes this edition. CSM were the first to get a V2 codex. CSM had most of the Vigilus book 2 dedicated to them. CSM have been competitive throughout 8th and obviously, clearly, unequivocally more competitive than SM throughout the entire edition since their codex dropped virtually immediately after the SM codex. It remains to be seen if the buffs SM have received will raise them to the same level of CSM/Chaos. As of today, CSM are a far superior faction.

Model support isn't rules support. We got a few nice models with mostly garbage rules, and while its a personal opinion several of those kits were trash. CSM 2.0 is not a new codex it just consolidated rules that were scattered across in several books. It's not remotely on par with the re-work C:SM got. Vigilus book 1 was dedicated to primarily to who? Yep, C:SM. I don't get why you keep bringing up tournaments that virtually no one actually competes in. Probably more than 90% of players don't compete in said tournament, anyway. What CSM players want is parity. Sure C:SM and CSM are separate factions but they are all Astartes; and no matter how much some elements may differ there are and should still be allot commonality. For instance the new C:SM stratagem "trans-human physiology", can you honestly argue that CSM should have that as well? How abaout take multiple and more numerous relics for less CP and taking multiple Warlord traits. Does this strike you as fair?

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
This is true of literally every single competitive list. You think it's in the lore for Orks to take mostly Grots and Artillery to the field? You think it's in the lore for every pure SM list to be Ultramarines with Bobby G? You reckon Eldar players dream of taking the super thematic army of 5 flyers + Wave Serpents/Grotesques? Every IG player is now Catachan or Cadia whether they like it or not. This point is moot, if you are building any army for maximum efficiency and competitiveness it is very unlikely you will focus on the theme or the lore, likewise typically the more thematic and "fluffy" you make your list the worse it becomes. I can attest to this as a proper Evil Sunz player who uses Bikes, Buggies and Koptas with no Mek Gunz and limited Grots/Boyz. It's a tough slog and I could literally make my list more effective if I sacrificed the theme. Now I'm not suggesting that players shouldn't be able to compete with a thematic list and I wish we could, I hope that CA introduces fixes for every factions' best and worst performing units so we can see more thematic lists on the table top.

No, I'm right there with you I play Emperor's Children and I don't break theme either. But your making my point for me. The new C:SM books are far stronger that CSM if you play mono-faction and stay within your own codex. In fact it rewards them for not playing a Soup list. You'd be hard pressed to find much in the CSM codex that's superior to Ultramarines or White Scars if you select units solely from in the codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 blood reaper wrote:
As a long term CSM player (I've been around since 5th ed) I think I've come to term with the fact that things are simply never going to get better. If you dare to complain, you'll be labled WHINER and you'll recieve a snarky comment about how CSM players never stop whining - how dare they whine, they were given a new codex (which wasn't really new it just added in new unit profiles, only one of which was of any value). But they also had the option to purchase a £30 book to gain three pages of rules, of which only one is really of any use (Red Corsairs).

People also seem fixated on the fact that Chaos recieved a bunch of new miniatues - which is great. It's unfortunate a vast majority are unsuable.

The 'new' CSM codex is, to frankly put it, terrible. While as one poster has pointed out that CSM are at the top of tournie lists, it's the case that one or two specific, completely unfluffy soup lists are dominating. Sure this it the case for every army, but this isn't a good thing what-so-ever. I'm glad to know that in order for my renegades to win, they have to bring a Knight or two, or maybe Ahriman or a trio of Daemon Princes. You want actual Chaos Space Marines? Sure, they just have to be Red Corsairs and not actually take part in the fighting - they have to exist to generate command points so you can make sure your Knight maintaints its 4++ or you can get a second shooting round for your Havo- oh sorry those are garbage as well. Plus I hope you bought the new Havoc models with Terminator sized bases - you better not be fielding the classic mins or conversions.

All of the major Legion traits are either bad or mediocre with the exception of the Alpha Legion or Black Legion trait, which doesn't really feel like an Alpha Legion trait at all. I heard the Iron Warriors could do decent but it was nothing to do with their garbage 'ignore cover', more it was to do with the 'Daemon Prince and fearless Cultists'.

People seem to be celebrating the idea that you can now get something like 5 attacks per Bezerker if you're playing World Eaters, but since 40k at this point vastly favours ranged combat over close combat, it doesn't matter because you're never going to reach combat. Got help you if you're playing against an actual dedicated gunline. Word Bearers are an embarrasingly bad army at this stage - the only army in the game to my knowledge who have a trait that can actually hurt them, and one that is invalidated by the Black Legion trait. Night Lords are also kind of garbage because morale bombs work in the void of mathhammer but when you actually play it in game you'll find that it's easier to simply kill the enemy rather than wait for morale to do the job.

You also have bizarre rules for the other niche groups, The Purge, The Flawless Host, etc. Instead of just making these generic traits for renegades with no God tied to them, they instead force you to pick specifc Gods. Why on earth would anyone want to do close-combat Slaanesh when the best Slaanesh stratagem is about ranged combat? Wouldn't it be better if The Flawless Host trait could represent martial skill focussed followers of Khorne?

But don't worry, if your traits aren't garbage your artefact just might be! Here's an ultra-specific weapon that works on almost no occasion but when it does work it might just do a bit better than it's generic variant! Props to the artefact weapon if it's a ranged weapon for an army focussed on Close Combat, or the classic '+1 to smite'.

Needless to say all these problems are problems not just of Chaos but all armies. Personally I'm beginning to feel that 8th edition is something of a major dissapointment - it's better than 7th, but that's like saying HIV is better than full blown AIDs.

Accurate, and well stated. Allow me to summarize... Chaos was once again was shafted by GW's love of all things loyalist marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
I don't think CSM are remotely in a bad place.

Its unfortunate that its all Flawless Host, Alpha Legion and then soup with wider chaos, but thats the meta I guess. No one complains that CWE are always Alaitoc. (Well I do, but so it goes.)

I just feel a bit irked that Word Bearers have the worst chapter tactic in the game, and GW have blanked them. Its very, very hard to think of any ability they could give which wouldn't be a buff.

How, is Chaos not in a bad place? You just basically admitted that only Flawless Host, Alpha Legion, or Chaos Soup were viable. That's just two out of the seven legions and five renegades chapters. Ten of which as you just said are bad. Compare that to what C:SM are getting none of those factions seem bad, and judging by the two supplements we've seen they're all getting a major boost.

Your comment is contradictory because you are arguing that GW love loyalist marines and that model support without rule support is not true support but.... SM units/primaris have had gakky rule for a long long time now. There are primaris units that are totally unusable - Reaver anyone ? - and many are just meh (most HQ are bad and just gives reroll bubbles).

I play both CSM and DA so I kinda understand your points but I don't think SM are the cause of CSM status. It is GW inability to balance out their game, from one codex to another, but also in each codexes, that leads to stupid list building.

The core issue here is that the basic rules don't really work and the way Codexes and Armies are structured don't work either.

Honestly at this point the game needs to be purged and re-organised; this is of course, not going to happen.

 blood reaper wrote:
The core issue here is that the basic rules don't really work and the way Codexes and Armies are structured don't work either.

Honestly at this point the game needs to be purged and re-organised; this is of course, not going to happen.

The question is : do you think the core rules are responsible in any way, or is it just the codexes rules, faction by faction, that needs a change ?

Tyel wrote:


You may think all the SM chapters are not bad - and yes, they are clearly superior to Word Bearers. But give it a couple of months, and it will be clear that one or two are superior to all others.

That's because, when presented with a list of options in a competitive environment, there is ALWAYS one or two that are the strongest option. This is the same for any game, because it's basically impossible for every combination of rules to be perfectly and identically balanced.

A good recent example of this is Smash Bros. In the old Melee game, there were one or two characters that were insanely overpowered compared to the rest of the roster (They are the "Alpha Legion", vs the rest being Word Bearers). And so they'd always be played. In the current Ultimate game though, while there are still 2 or 3 "top tier" characters (the Iron Hands, or Ultramarines), the balance is so much closer that even if you picked one of the 'worst' options (say... raven guard), you'd still have a good chance of being competitive.

The Space Marine legions are now all pretty close. One or two will end up at the top of the pile, but they're all valid options. Chaos... You have maybe 3 options, at best, and the rest are just garbage or an actual handicap.

So yeh, your point here is completely invalid. You're saying it like it's a bad thing, but it's how things always shake out in a competitive environment. The point should be -how close- the best and the worst are, and the space marine codex seems to be doing well with that. The chaos codex isn't.

Anyone bringing up Tournament results for anything not Eldar needs to be reminded of the ghastly Tyranids 6th edition codex performing well.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Anyone bringing up Tournament results for anything not Eldar needs to be reminded of the ghastly Tyranids 6th edition codex performing well.

Oooooffffffff.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

The bottom line is, trying to get some of these twits to comprehend why you're pissed, much less agree with it, is futile. You will be buried with whataboutisms until the end of days.

Well, that seems to be the case.

Lol you guys can continue your pity party all you like but let's not pretend you're ignoring the fact that your faction is one of the most dominant competitively, it has the second most up to date codex and gets the second most attention from GW in terms of model support, only beaten by the poster boys themselves.

Every other faction excluding SM has more right to complain.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Lol you guys can continue your pity party all you like but let's not pretend you're ignoring the fact that your faction is one of the most dominant competitively, it has the second most up to date codex and gets the second most attention from GW in terms of model support, only beaten by the poster boys themselves.

Every other faction excluding SM has more right to complain.

Thank you for proving my point.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Lol you guys can continue your pity party all you like but let's not pretend you're ignoring the fact that your faction is one of the most dominant competitively, it has the second most up to date codex and gets the second most attention from GW in terms of model support, only beaten by the poster boys themselves.

Every other faction excluding SM has more right to complain.

It's like you completely dismissed my point about the 6th edition Tyranid codex

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Lol you guys can continue your pity party all you like but let's not pretend you're ignoring the fact that your faction is one of the most dominant competitively, it has the second most up to date codex and gets the second most attention from GW in terms of model support, only beaten by the poster boys themselves.

Every other faction excluding SM has more right to complain.

Que?

That isn't even remotely true, or do you missremember the age of basic CSM kits that only just now got an update?

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Lol you guys can continue your pity party all you like but let's not pretend you're ignoring the fact that your faction is one of the most dominant competitively, it has the second most up to date codex and gets the second most attention from GW in terms of model support, only beaten by the poster boys themselves.

Every other faction excluding SM has more right to complain.

All kinds of wrong in this, but I'll focus on the one main thing.

"it has the second most up to date codex"

Nope. The codex may have been reprinted recently, but it was written/released in August 2017. It's actually the oldest codex out of all of them, only matched by the Grey Knights.

All they did was include some (not even all) Chapter Approved changes to the existing codex. Nothing else was updated or changed. It's a 2017 codex.

So it's currently the oldest codex out by several months, and when the Xenos get their codex updates this year/next year, it will be the oldest codex by over 2 years.

UNLESS the xenos also only get copy/paste codex releases. Then they'll all be old codices, and only Space Marines will have a 'new' codex. This is very possible, but I suspect at least Elder and Tyranids will get a release more in line with space marines than the chaos one. Orks too probably.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Lol you guys can continue your pity party all you like but let's not pretend you're ignoring the fact that your faction is one of the most dominant competitively, it has the second most up to date codex and gets the second most attention from GW in terms of model support, only beaten by the poster boys themselves.

Every other faction excluding SM has more right to complain.

Que?

That isn't even remotely true, or do you missremember the age of basic CSM kits that only just now got an update?

No man but I'm talking about this edition. The age of basic CSM kits needing an update is now over. GW gave them and more an update for you guys. And what's more - the day the new CSM models were previewed there were a ton of people screaming (and I mean screaming) for new Berserker and Noise Marine kits. Unbelievable.

Niiru wrote:
All kinds of wrong in this, but I'll focus on the one main thing.

"it has the second most up to date codex"

Nope. The codex may have been reprinted recently, but it was written/released in August 2017. It's actually the oldest codex out of all of them, only matched by the Grey Knights.

All they did was include some (not even all) Chapter Approved changes to the existing codex. Nothing else was updated or changed. It's a 2017 codex.

So it's currently the oldest codex out by several months, and when the Xenos get their codex updates this year/next year, it will be the oldest codex by over 2 years.

UNLESS the xenos also only get copy/paste codex releases. Then they'll all be old codices, and only Space Marines will have a 'new' codex. This is very possible, but I suspect at least Elder and Tyranids will get a release more in line with space marines than the chaos one. Orks too probably.

The last CSM codex was released this year. It was updated with points changes, datasheet changes and datasheets for entirely new units. That's more than any other faction has had. CA will not change the datasheets in my codex that desperately need updating and if you think other factions are guaranteed anything at all let alone anything like the SM release I respectfully disagree. Finally, you're ignoring the second Vigilus book that gave your faction a ton of new stratagems and relics. Much more so than Vigilus book 1 did for any faction.

I'd love to hear what else you believe to be wrong, but I'm not in here for a fight.

Let me make myself clear - I understand and to a degree sympathise with the complaints of you CSM players. I just believe that other factions have more right to these feelings and I think it's pretty entitled to moan for more updates when there are factions in a far worse position (both in terms of rules and model support) and you've recently been the beneficiary of a substantial update.

You'll no doubt get another significant update before Orks, Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids or Tau get anything. I suspect a proper R&H release is on the way which will be yet another element to add to the Chaos soup and will provide yet another boost to the power of the overall faction.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Lol you guys can continue your pity party all you like but let's not pretend you're ignoring the fact that your faction is one of the most dominant competitively, it has the second most up to date codex and gets the second most attention from GW in terms of model support, only beaten by the poster boys themselves.

Every other faction excluding SM has more right to complain.

Que?

That isn't even remotely true, or do you missremember the age of basic CSM kits that only just now got an update?

No man but I'm talking about this edition. The age of basic CSM kits needing an update is now over. GW gave them and more an update for you guys. And what's more - the day the new CSM models were previewed there were a ton of people screaming (and I mean screaming) for new Berserker and Noise Marine kits. Unbelievable.

I can understand Noise Marines, given they're a Finecast upgrade set designed for the old plastic CSM set.

And if we're talking Noise Marines, then screaming is kinda appropriate, don't you think?