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.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
It was outrageously overpowered, and people liked cheating other players. That's why.

I'm not understanding? Cheating by playing the game by the rules provided by the game company? Or not following every forum post (did GW still have their forum by 3.5/4th edition?), White Dwarf, website, or index astartes to track down the most recent FAQ - which were not as nicely collated and dated/marked like they are now?

Oh right, it was using the book that you had purchased, that had ZERO markings on it to indicate a new version - so, basically, a stealth reprint - and people "cheated" because they may or may not have known about updated rules. Please.

My two covers are identical. Unless I knew to check the print date inside, you'd never know.

 Eldarain wrote:
It's rich seeing Marine 2.0 players decrying 3rd editions version of their book.

Both Chaos 3.5 and SM 2.0 are examples of the way the rules should be. The fact they are outliers is the problem.

SM 2.0

Supplements

 Eldarain wrote:
It's rich seeing Marine 2.0 players decrying 3rd editions version of their book.

Both Chaos 3.5 and SM 2.0 are examples of the way the rules should be. The fact they are outliers is the problem.

Nononono, for as much Fun it was, truth is , it would've needed some severe balance patching.
The options should be there but on an ACCEPTABLE BANDWIDTH so basically the Designers and rules Team would've had To actually earn their wages via work
And yes sm players complaining now about something overpowered in the past should really Start checking their own books for abit and compare to other books.

 MinscS2 wrote:
It just hit me, why do we call the second CSM-codex in third ed. "3.5", but the second SM-codex in 8th ed. "2.0"?

Shouldn't it be CSM 3.5 and SM 8.5 respectively? :p

I like "8.5" much better

 DarknessEternal wrote:
It was outrageously overpowered, and people liked cheating other players. That's why.

That's a pretty bold statement that appears to go out of its way to actively ignore the points most people made about the book in this thread...

On the subject of the 4e codex, Gav Thorpe did write a piece on it -
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/15/the-glory-of-chaos/

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
Loyalists now have amounts of options on par with 3.5 codex due to all their supplements and doctrines and stuff.

You know it's not a bad comparison. On the one hand lots of options, on the other hand Iron Hands.
3.5 was the same. Lots of options, some of them Iron Hands.

A.T. wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
Loyalists now have amounts of options on par with 3.5 codex due to all their supplements and doctrines and stuff.

You know it's not a bad comparison. On the one hand lots of options, on the other hand Iron Hands.
3.5 was the same. Lots of options, some of them Iron Hands.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Gw just has something for Legions/chapters with "Iron" in their names.

A.T. wrote:
On the subject of the 4e codex, Gav Thorpe did write a piece on it -
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/15/the-glory-of-chaos/

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
Loyalists now have amounts of options on par with 3.5 codex due to all their supplements and doctrines and stuff.

You know it's not a bad comparison. On the one hand lots of options, on the other hand Iron Hands.
3.5 was the same. Lots of options, some of them Iron Hands.

I feel his Argument missed the point entirely in the first part about the not my job guv...
No seriously condesecending Way to start Off but sure let's roll with it.

Basically what he misses is the fact that a middle Way existed, has existed and does exist , however that would've been his former job to realise and work out especially if that is expected from him.
If i have to prop up my vanille icecream into a coup Romanov i need the Rest Of the ingredients not to mention that the vanilla flavour he Sold me is badly mixed in some cases to strong in other to weak so even if he specialises in vannila he failed through his own specialisation. Hence why the 4th es dex was an abomination.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
Loyalists now have amounts of options on par with 3.5 codex due to all their supplements and doctrines and stuff.

You know it's not a bad comparison. On the one hand lots of options, on the other hand Iron Hands.
3.5 was the same. Lots of options, some of them Iron Hands.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Gw just has something for Legions/chapters with "Iron" in their names.

Well they missed a great opportunity to name a Sororitas group/house? the Iron Maidens.

Edit: Order is the word I'm looking for.

Order of the Iron Maidens
Order of the Iron Lady

A.T. wrote:
On the subject of the 4e codex, Gav Thorpe did write a piece on it -
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/15/the-glory-of-chaos/

Wow, that is some mind bending stuff right there.
TL;DR:
"All those options were too specific, and that constrained people, so we removed all the options to give you more choices."
"We didn't want to take away people's creativity to decide what the army meant for them, so now everything is just the same."
"Chaos is super diverse and has too much variety to represent, so we'll just not represent any of it."
"If we let you mix CSM and daemons in the same army, people might think there are no pure daemon forces, so we're removing it. But i'd still play you if you wanted to mix them in friendly games."

Honestly, I'm blown away.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

A.T. wrote:
On the subject of the 4e codex, Gav Thorpe did write a piece on it -
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/15/the-glory-of-chaos/

Wow, that is some mind bending stuff right there.
TL;DR:
"All those options were too specific, and that constrained people, so we removed all the options to give you more choices."
"We didn't want to take away people's creativity to decide what the army meant for them, so now everything is just the same."
"Chaos is super diverse and has too much variety to represent, so we'll just not represent any of it."
"If we let you mix CSM and daemons in the same army, people might think there are no pure daemon forces, so we're removing it. But i'd still play you if you wanted to mix them in friendly games."

Honestly, I'm blown away.

So i wasn't the only one thinking about gab winning Gold in the Olympics of mental gymnastics and acrobatics?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
Loyalists now have amounts of options on par with 3.5 codex due to all their supplements and doctrines and stuff.

You know it's not a bad comparison. On the one hand lots of options, on the other hand Iron Hands.
3.5 was the same. Lots of options, some of them Iron Hands.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Gw just has something for Legions/chapters with "Iron" in their names.

Well they missed a great opportunity to name a Sororitas group/house? the Iron Maidens.

Edit: Order is the word I'm looking for.

Order of the Iron Maidens
Order of the Iron Lady

I can see the strategems now. "Run To the Hills": fallback from anything, even when tri pointed, no downside. "Hallowed Be Thy Name": gain three miracle dice when target model is destroyed. Not sure about Aces High or Number of The Beast.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

A.T. wrote:
On the subject of the 4e codex, Gav Thorpe did write a piece on it -
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/15/the-glory-of-chaos/

Wow, that is some mind bending stuff right there.
TL;DR:
"All those options were too specific, and that constrained people, so we removed all the options to give you more choices."
"We didn't want to take away people's creativity to decide what the army meant for them, so now everything is just the same."
"Chaos is super diverse and has too much variety to represent, so we'll just not represent any of it."
"If we let you mix CSM and daemons in the same army, people might think there are no pure daemon forces, so we're removing it. But i'd still play you if you wanted to mix them in friendly games."

Honestly, I'm blown away.

So i wasn't the only one thinking about gab winning Gold in the Olympics of mental gymnastics and acrobatics?

The biggest take away is that, overall, he's essentially arguing that there is no way to write a true codex for Chaos, and that what 3.5 did both didn't work, and would be impossible. Even though it did work, was possible, and was well liked. "Do we represent X as an upgrade, or its own data sheet? We don't know, so we just won't represent anything!" No Gav, you could have done either. You could have done literally any of the options other than what you chose to do and it would have been okay. 3.5 just needed some more play testing. Its not this great epistemic problem to represent Chaos >_<

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

A.T. wrote:
On the subject of the 4e codex, Gav Thorpe did write a piece on it -
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/15/the-glory-of-chaos/

Wow, that is some mind bending stuff right there.
TL;DR:
"All those options were too specific, and that constrained people, so we removed all the options to give you more choices."
"We didn't want to take away people's creativity to decide what the army meant for them, so now everything is just the same."
"Chaos is super diverse and has too much variety to represent, so we'll just not represent any of it."
"If we let you mix CSM and daemons in the same army, people might think there are no pure daemon forces, so we're removing it. But i'd still play you if you wanted to mix them in friendly games."

Honestly, I'm blown away.

So i wasn't the only one thinking about gab winning Gold in the Olympics of mental gymnastics and acrobatics?

Definitely not.

I remember reading that years ago, and I had also PM'd him through Warseer to ask about the changes. He was reasonable enough, but seemed to be coming from a place that was entirely divorced from the way the game was actually played by people, and the ultimate product introduced as many problems as he ostensibly sought to solve (such as the aforementioned weird issues with non-troop Cult units disappearing, Marks not being the same as Cult status, renegades using HH era equipment, Lash, etc ad nauseum). I think he genuinely just never really understood Chaos Space Marines, and never understood that not everyone plays only with their besties in their basement where anything goes.

Likewise, while there's a point to be made that often unit selection and paint scheme will cover a lot that special faction rules don't necessarily need to (especially looking at you modern Space Marine books), gutting pretty much all the customization and glossing over the Legion fluff was a very poor way to handle that book.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

A.T. wrote:
On the subject of the 4e codex, Gav Thorpe did write a piece on it -
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/15/the-glory-of-chaos/

Wow, that is some mind bending stuff right there.
TL;DR:
"All those options were too specific, and that constrained people, so we removed all the options to give you more choices."
"We didn't want to take away people's creativity to decide what the army meant for them, so now everything is just the same."
"Chaos is super diverse and has too much variety to represent, so we'll just not represent any of it."
"If we let you mix CSM and daemons in the same army, people might think there are no pure daemon forces, so we're removing it. But i'd still play you if you wanted to mix them in friendly games."

Honestly, I'm blown away.

So i wasn't the only one thinking about gab winning Gold in the Olympics of mental gymnastics and acrobatics?

The biggest take away is that, overall, he's essentially arguing that there is no way to write a true codex for Chaos, and that what 3.5 did both didn't work, and would be impossible. Even though it did work, was possible, and was well liked. "Do we represent X as an upgrade, or its own data sheet? We don't know, so we just won't represent anything!" No Gav, you could have done either. You could have done literally any of the options other than what you chose to do and it would have been okay. 3.5 just needed some more play testing. Its not this great epistemic problem to represent Chaos >_<

So my assumption of him not putting in the work he got payed for was accurate and i didn't read that wrong.

Thank god he is gone.
But the playtesting remains an issue considering ih, scatbikers , wraithknights, taudar, FORMATIONS, skimmers , leafblower, deathstar.....
Ffs



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Definitely not.

I remember reading that years ago, and I had also PM'd him through Warseer to ask about the changes. He was reasonable enough, but seemed to be coming from a place that was entirely divorced from the way the game was actually played by people, and the ultimate product introduced as many problems as he ostensibly sought to solve (such as the aforementioned weird issues with non-troop Cult units disappearing, Marks not being the same as Cult status, renegades using HH era equipment, Lash, etc ad nauseum). I think he genuinely just never really understood Chaos Space Marines, and never understood that not everyone plays only with their besties in their basement where anything goes.

Likewise, while there's a point to be made that often unit selection and paint scheme will cover a lot that special faction rules don't necessarily need to (especially looking at you modern Space Marine books), gutting pretty much all the customization and glossing over the Legion fluff was a very poor way to handle that book.

I missed that Post at the time i Started around that time and remember the Day i bought the 4th ed dex afterwards just to basically Stop playing for 2 editions more or less respectively switching to orkz which then Ended in well that disaster train so i switched to renegades because lost and the damned were epic, well only for that to End again in a dumpster fire.
....feth me i guess

 Eldarain wrote:
It's rich seeing Marine 2.0 players decrying 3rd editions version of their book.

Both Chaos 3.5 and SM 2.0 are examples of the way the rules should be. The fact they are outliers is the problem.

The key difference is Space Marines 2.0 made every Chapter playable and Chaos 3.5 did not whatsoever and specifically favored a few Legions. It's garbage writing whether you want to admit it or not.

Not Online!!! wrote:
So my assumption of him not putting in the work he got payed for was accurate

He just didn't write what you hoped he would have.

It is still a start to finish re-write in the style of codex releases of the era, particularly Jervis Johnson and Andy Hoare's prior Dark Angels book. No matter who the author was things like the veteran skill lists and custom organisation rules were never going to survive - they were being cut from every faction.

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
So my assumption of him not putting in the work he got payed for was accurate

He just didn't write what you hoped he would have.

It is still a start to finish re-write in the style of codex releases of the era, particularly Jervis Johnson and Andy Hoare's prior Dark Angels book. No matter who the author was things like the veteran skill lists and custom organisation rules were never going to survive - they were being cut from every faction.

and yet for the Cut and balance it got worse.
Tell me if you hire a plumber to fix your toilet but the lad shows up half an hour too Late and when you come back your fridge is empty , your lavabo is destroyed now aswell and the toilet still doesn't work what else is it but lazyness and shoddyness?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The key difference is Space Marines 2.0 made every Chapter playable and Chaos 3.5 did not whatsoever and specifically favored a few Legions. It's garbage writing whether you want to admit it or not.

Excepting Siren it was all at least playable and functional and felt like it was rewarding you for being fluffy. 8.5/2.0 Space Marines feels like a marketing gimmick more than a rules supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:
]and yet for the Cut and balance it got worse.
Tell me if you hire a plumber to fix your toilet but the lad shows up half an hour too Late and when you come back your fridge is empty , your lavabo is destroyed now aswell and the toilet still doesn't work what else is it but lazyness and shoddyness?

You have to understand, there's a certain kind of player who hates CSM and hates that they had a codex they enjoyed. For them, an underpowered, un-fluffy codex is an improvement.

Indeed. It really does seem like a few people are just focusing on meme's to continue hating on 3.5 CSM.

I know but idc , because it is inherently Bad longterm for the whole game and community because it becomes blander more samey and less differing people get brought in through specific aesthetics and backgrounds.

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
So my assumption of him not putting in the work he got payed for was accurate

He just didn't write what you hoped he would have.

It is still a start to finish re-write in the style of codex releases of the era, particularly Jervis Johnson and Andy Hoare's prior Dark Angels book. No matter who the author was things like the veteran skill lists and custom organisation rules were never going to survive - they were being cut from every faction.

Yes, it matched the style of other terrible books of the era, much of which we've been stuck with for a long time.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Tell me if you hire a plumber to fix your toilet but the lad shows up half an hour too Late and when you come back your fridge is empty , your lavabo is destroyed now aswell and the toilet still doesn't work what else is it but lazyness and shoddyness?

Is there something beyond a strawman, where an arguement is so far removed from the original topic that it cannot be considered even superficially similar in nature?

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
So my assumption of him not putting in the work he got payed for was accurate

He just didn't write what you hoped he would have.

It is still a start to finish re-write in the style of codex releases of the era, particularly Jervis Johnson and Andy Hoare's prior Dark Angels book. No matter who the author was things like the veteran skill lists and custom organisation rules were never going to survive - they were being cut from every faction.

Yes, it matched the style of other terrible books of the era, much of which we've been stuck with for a long time.

Which doesn't really make it any better does it? "Please sir, don't take it personally that I spat in your sandwich. I spit in all the sandwiches ".

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Tell me if you hire a plumber to fix your toilet but the lad shows up half an hour too Late and when you come back your fridge is empty , your lavabo is destroyed now aswell and the toilet still doesn't work what else is it but lazyness and shoddyness?

Is there something beyond a strawman, where an arguement is so far removed from the original topic that it cannot be considered even superficially similar in nature?

Calling a metaphor an strawman got to be new heights of integrity and capability of discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
So my assumption of him not putting in the work he got payed for was accurate

He just didn't write what you hoped he would have.

It is still a start to finish re-write in the style of codex releases of the era, particularly Jervis Johnson and Andy Hoare's prior Dark Angels book. No matter who the author was things like the veteran skill lists and custom organisation rules were never going to survive - they were being cut from every faction.

Yes, it matched the style of other terrible books of the era, much of which we've been stuck with for a long time.

Which doesn't really make it any better does it? "Please sir, don't take it personally that I spat in your sandwich. I spit in all the sandwiches ".

no that's perfectly fine and dandy. Because it's equal..
Remind me when showed kirby up?

 Mixzremixzd wrote:
Just a pretty curious and harmless question because I have started to notice a pattern of many CSM players and R&H(?) on this sub always quoting 3rd or 3.5 as a mythical time for the chaos faction and wanting GW to emulate what happened then.

I started playing earnestly in 6th so I was wondering if someone could give me a comprehensive guide on whether it's just nostalgia coloured glasses, an oppressive meta or GW really did something amazing with CSM to be held in such high regard till this day.

Put simply: the 3.5 Codex is what got me back into 40k. I had been away from the game for a long time, and finally found a way back in when I was at university.

I bought the big Chaos Army Box that had just been released. It had the 3.5 Codex and tons of new minis (3 of the big new metal Oblits, the new Raptors, etc.). The amount of different forces you could represent with that book was amazing. You could do everything (not everything well, mind you... some of the units just sucked), and never play the same list twice if you wanted to. So much variety, such a great way of repping all the Legions as well as Renegade Marine forces. And then we added the Lost & The Damned list from the EoT book and it got even better (Hordes of Mutants, plague Zombies, traitor guard, etc.).

Golden age of Chaos, IMO. You could play it as you wanted.

Then came the 4th Ed 'Chaos' Codex, with "Generic Daemons" and no Legions and... those days were dark. Very dark.

 Insectum7 wrote:
IW could get one extra Heavy Support, and they could take one Basilisk that remained at BS3. They could also take one Vindicator, which wan't in the Chaos army yet. It wasn't really that powerful.

The Vindi and Basilisk? Yes, they weren't that powerful. Basilisks were nice, but not the be-all and end-all unit. But Iron Warriors were very powerful, giving up a FA slot you were never going to use for another HS slot was immensely unbalanced. Fun though.

Not Online!!! wrote:
considering starcannons also existed....

Heh. Ain't that the truth.

Not Online!!! wrote:
... but the juxstaposition with the dex folloing 3.5 chaos dex up, yeah, that hurt. And csm never recovered from that in regards to options and faction feel.

Yeah I had a thing or two to say about that 'Chaos' Codex at the time.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Yeah one of the greatest things about the book was the spectrums it offered. You could go from a barely-touched space marine captain to a daemon prince, or from 10,000 year old veterans of the Heresy to a band of space marines that just turned rogue last year. It really nailed the idea of chaos being a creeping force rather than a binary on/off switch.

And then to that you could add the Lost & The Damned list from the Eye of Terror Codex, and you could basically represent any type of Chaos force in the fluff in game. It was a truly majestic time to be a Chaos player, as finally the game represented the fluff and vice versa.

Unless, y'know, you played Thousand Sons. Poor Thousand Sons...

A.T. wrote:
On the subject of the 4e codex, Gav Thorpe did write a piece on it -
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/
https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2009/09/15/the-glory-of-chaos/

He sure did. I took him to task on the book. He failed to understand a basic analogy to flavours of ice cream.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Calling a metaphor an strawman got to be new heights of integrity and capability of discussion.

And calling a strawman a metaphor in order that you might make an ad hominem attack isn't even an attempt at integrity or discussion.

Given this topic has now descended into comparisons with being spat on and destructions of toilets it is clearly long past the time to abandon thread.

I fell all the good and bad points of 3.5 have been brought up but I still miss rolling an enemy with my siren (psychic power) EC biker sorc.

I feel like the 7th traitor legions supplement was the closest they've come to really making chaos feel unique since the 3.5 dex. But that got nearly no play as it was at the tail end of 7th and was replaced entirely by 8th a few months later.

PA didn't give me much hope that they've nailed how they want CSMs to be. Are the veterans of the long war? Are they renegades with crappier equipment? Are they a bunch of daemon hybrids? Etc etc etc.

 buddha wrote:
I feel like the 7th traitor legions supplement was the closest they've come to really making chaos feel unique since the 3.5 dex. But that got nearly no play as it was at the tail end of 7th and was replaced entirely by 8th a few months later.

The book didn't even last 9 months.

 buddha wrote:
PA didn't give me much hope that they've nailed how they want CSMs to be. Are the veterans of the long war? Are they renegades with crappier equipment? Are they a bunch of daemon hybrids? Etc etc etc.

It seems like GW wants them to be renegade marines, just worse versions of loyalists, and players want them to be traitor legions.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 buddha wrote:
I feel like the 7th traitor legions supplement was the closest they've come to really making chaos feel unique since the 3.5 dex. But that got nearly no play as it was at the tail end of 7th and was replaced entirely by 8th a few months later.

The book didn't even last 9 months.

Yeah, they're was some really great stuff in that book, like actual Legion traits, and making certain units specialist troops for some of the Legions.

It also had formations (I feel dirty just typing it). Maybe we'll get something like that again. Faith and Fury was good, maybe there's more where that came from.

Liked the old review of the 4th ed codex H.B.M.C., funny in retrospect, but I didn't find that book funny at the time.