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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah I had a thing or two to say about that 'Chaos' Codex at the time.

Yup, that reads true even all these years later. All your unit balance predictions didn't quite come true (vanilla CSM were pretty decent, and plague marines were the stars, not noise marines. And Oblits were broken with lash). And a bunch of things that were out of step with Loyalists changed when loyalists got made more bland too. But overall you were able to tell what was going on based on an initial reading, something the authors were not able to do.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 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.

hey man, you had to give up TWO fast attack slots for that extra HS slot.

But as I mentioned earlier, as I was taking veteran Devastators as an Elites choice with loyalists, the IW bonus HS didn't look veey OP.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

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

Now that is a post. Good read too!

Now I'm trying to remember my 3.5E Iron Warrior's list. I think it was a squad of 5 terminators, 3 squads of 2 Oblits each, 3 TLLC/HB Predators, 3 or 4 squads of CSM's with a heavy bolter and plasma gun with Pfist champion, and a hilariously kitted out Terminator Lord with something like seven strength 8 power weapon attacks at I5 on a charge.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Now I'm trying to remember my 3.5E Iron Warrior's list. I think it was a squad of 5 terminators, 3 squads of 2 Oblits each, 3 TLLC/HB Predators, 3 or 4 squads of CSM's with a heavy bolter and plasma gun with Pfist champion, and a hilariously kitted out Terminator Lord with something like seven strength 8 power weapon attacks at I5 on a charge.

I remember the one I eventually settled on:

Lord w/Flight & Dark Blade
3x1 Oblits
4x 6-man CSM Squads w/Lascannons + Plasma Guns (regular CSMs had BP/Chainsword, so they could fight if when things got close)
2x 6-man Havoc Squds w/2 Missile Launchers + 2 Autocannons + Tank Hunters (S8 Autocannons + S9 Kraks rocked!)
2x Defilers

Some variants had 2 Lts rather than a Lord, and one version even had a Basilisk in place of a Defiler, but that list seemed to work well.

Lord flew around trouble-shooting, the CSM squads screened the Havocs, the Defilers killed everything, the Oblits did what was needed either as gunline or DS'ing. And if things got too close, the entire formation could hold its own in HTH combat.

I wouldn't be too harsh on Gav Thorpe for his terrible defense of the 4.0 Codex. It's his own book, of course he's not going to be able to talk about it with a reasonable level of detachment. It's expecting too much of the vast majority of people in the world to expect them to be able to look objectively at their own work and admit "yeah, I tried hard, but I failed." Especially not of the creative types who GW has traditionally relied on to write its rules (the folly of which is its own topic for another thread).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Now I'm trying to remember my 3.5E Iron Warrior's list. I think it was a squad of 5 terminators, 3 squads of 2 Oblits each, 3 TLLC/HB Predators, 3 or 4 squads of CSM's with a heavy bolter and plasma gun with Pfist champion, and a hilariously kitted out Terminator Lord with something like seven strength 8 power weapon attacks at I5 on a charge.

I remember the one I eventually settled on:

Lord w/Flight & Dark Blade
3x1 Oblits
4x 6-man CSM Squads w/Lascannons + Plasma Guns (regular CSMs had BP/Chainsword, so they could fight if when things got close)
2x 6-man Havoc Squds w/2 Missile Launchers + 2 Autocannons + Tank Hunters (S8 Autocannons + S9 Kraks rocked!)
2x Defilers

Some variants had 2 Lts rather than a Lord, and one version even had a Basilisk in place of a Defiler, but that list seemed to work well.

Lord flew around trouble-shooting, the CSM squads screened the Havocs, the Defilers killed everything, the Oblits did what was needed either as gunline or DS'ing. And if things got too close, the entire formation could hold its own in HTH combat.

What's this? A CSM list that actually uses a lot of Chaos Marines? By the Dark Gods! How novel!

yukishiro1 wrote:
I wouldn't be too harsh on Gav Thorpe for his terrible defense of the 4.0 Codex. It's his own book, of course he's not going to be able to talk about it with a reasonable level of detachment. It's expecting too much of the vast majority of people in the world to expect them to be able to look objectively at their own work and admit "yeah, I tried hard, but I failed." Especially not of the creative types who GW has traditionally relied on to write its rules (the folly of which is its own topic for another thread).

I'm not harsh on him for the poor defense of the book so much as I'm harsh on him for the book in the first place

 Vaktathi wrote:
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.

This was pretty much thee issue with GW for a long time, too. Like, from probably ~4th edition all the way to 7th it was an issue.

As much as people hate on 8th/9th edition now, they need to remember that things were a lot worse insofar as GW's general attitude. The whole idea of "balancing" the game was a completely foreign concept- 40K was designed to be played fast and loose with The Boys over a couple beers and if a unit was too strong then just don't take it and if it was too weak who cares you're playing to forge a narrative. It's actually mind blowing, after the past 3 years or so, how arrogant and aloof GW was in regards to their rules writing up until 2017.

yukishiro1 wrote:
It's expecting too much of the vast majority of people in the world to expect them to be able to look objectively at their own work and admit "yeah, I tried hard, but I failed."

Enough people have done so that it really isn't, and in any case this thread could be 400 pages of yelling that Gav Thorpe is incompetent and should have been fired and it's not like it could actually hurt him any. Opinions on dakka are a fart on the wind.

yukishiro1 wrote:
I wouldn't be too harsh on Gav Thorpe for his terrible defense of the 4.0 Codex.

But his defence is otherworldly in its blindness to the issues.

Ultimately I don't blame him for the horrific "Generic Daemons" that showed up in the next book, because that wasn't his decision. It was an edict from on high when they were told that Chaos Daemons would be split off into their own book. The "Lesser" and "Greater" Daemons in that book were the best compromise he could get.

I wish they hadn't've bothered.

Oh, I'm not saying it makes any sense. It's downright delusional. But in my experience, that's how most people are when their work is criticized. It's the rare person who is comfortable enough in their own skin to admit "yeah, I screwed the pooch on that one." If you meet that person great, you're in the presence of one of the rare few. But you're setting yourself up for disappointment if you expect most people to be that way. Especially people who think of themselves as "creatives."

@Mixzremixzd

As it so happens a regular player at our FLGS just got into 40K a little less than a year ago. having only experienced 8th ed i bought him a copy of the 3.5 dex so he could experience what real 40K felt like to play chaos as he is a dedicated khorne/berserker/world eater player.

We use the core 5th ed rules (all 3rd-7th ed codexes are back compatible) with a few rules from other editions(like snap fire, overwatch and grenade throwing for examples) "house ruled" in to make the edition even better. as casual players who do not go to tournaments the lore based rules really bring out the game experience. including silly things like having his berserkers carrying the moveable single objective in the match be overcome by the butchers nails (blood frenzy rule for units with the mark of khorne) and be forced to move d6 inches closer to the nearest enemy unit...with said objective.

I have more on the topic here on dakka in my "old editions" thread where i post the battle reports and such.

When you play 40K with the right mind set it is a fantastic and enjoyable social experience. the 3.5 dex for chaos gives you that, just like the 3rd ed mini dex for dark angels (deathwing/ravenwing unique army lists) and the armageddon codex did for black templars and salamanders.

If you are looking at the game from a purely tournament mind set it is one of the worst game systems to play. every edition had broken rules and any veteran gamer could break pretty much every codex no matter the edition in about 30 minutes. which is why you kept seeing the same cookie cutter tourney lists show up.

On the side subject of the 3.5 iron warriors

My buddy still has his army. i remember it well
back then it was normal to play 1,750 points his list was
.war smith
.X2 las/plas chaos marine squads
.X9 obliterators
.X3 las/heavy bolter predators
X1 basalisk (we was mostly a guard player so that was a no brainer)

It was a tough list to fight back in the day, but that didn't mean it always won. i remember taking a melta themed ravenwing against it and beating it pretty hard. (well between attack bikes and land speeders rocking 10 assault cannons, 11 multimeltas, 4 melta guns and various bolters it was kind of a frightening counter army)

A.T. wrote:

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

Considering, that you strawmanned me per Definition i do wonder what your point is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah I had a thing or two to say about that 'Chaos' Codex at the time.

Yup, that reads true even all these years later. All your unit balance predictions didn't quite come true (vanilla CSM were pretty decent, and plague marines were the stars, not noise marines. And Oblits were broken with lash). And a bunch of things that were out of step with Loyalists changed when loyalists got made more bland too. But overall you were able to tell what was going on based on an initial reading, something the authors were not able to do.

most awesome hbmc, so much glorious snark

The best part about the 3.5 codex was how customizable it was. IIRC you could buy additional abilities for your Chaos Veterans (what Chosen became later) so they could, you know, actually, behave like 10,000-year-old veterans who had special roles in the Heresy.

Not only that but every legion felt different and unique. If you played Night Lords, you didn't play a thing like a Word Bearers, Iron Warriors or Alpha Legion player played. Every legion felt different.

Customizeable and lets face it its fun to be relevant and not jobbers for someone else to make them look good.

Balance has always been trash. Its not anywhere better in 8th or today than it was in 3 or 3.5.

Was the greater demon possession in the 3.5 codex? i remember that was a pretty cool mechanic where the model got to use its strength but if they died before summoning the demon then the greater demon starting hemorrhaging wounds like crazy.

I loved how customization characters and chosen were, oblits were great with their weapon choices, god how i miss 3rd edition.

Mostly because Chaos 3.5 was the most broken book in 40K history (though 8th Edition Space Marines 2.0 might be close).

People fondly remembering stomping all over everyone else thanks to the ridiculous power-disparity.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Mostly because Chaos 3.5 was the most broken book in 40K history (though 8th Edition Space Marines 2.0 might be close).

People fondly remembering stomping all over everyone else thanks to the ridiculous power-disparity.

As someone who didn't play the book but instead played against it, I remember it fondly in good part because it didn't stomp all over me.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Mostly because Chaos 3.5 was the most broken book in 40K history (though 8th Edition Space Marines 2.0 might be close).

It's almost like you haven't read the thread...

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Mostly because Chaos 3.5 was the most broken book in 40K history (though 8th Edition Space Marines 2.0 might be close).

People fondly remembering stomping all over everyone else thanks to the ridiculous power-disparity.

Yeah, no. I played tyranids against it and had fun, as did the guard players in the area and so on. It is remembered for a host of other reasons, which far outweigh anything to do with power level.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

What's this? A CSM list that actually uses a lot of Chaos Marines? By the Dark Gods! How novel!

Given modern Chaos, it is funny to consider that at the time many opponents really did not want a few dozen power armored Alpha Legion bodies infiltrating right on top of them.

 Alpharius Walks wrote:
Given modern Chaos, it is funny to consider that at the time many opponents really did not want a few dozen power armored Alpha Legion bodies infiltrating right on top of them.

When I played Alpha Legion with that book I'd sometimes take big units of infiltrating Marines (like 12-15 bodies). Surprised people how quickly the units were on top of them.

I wouldn't be too harsh on Gav Thorpe for his terrible defense of the 4.0 Codex. It's his own book, of course he's not going to be able to talk about it with a reasonable level of detachment. It's expecting too much of the vast majority of people in the world to expect them to be able to look objectively at their own work and admit "yeah, I tried hard, but I failed." Especially not of the creative types who GW has traditionally relied on to write its rules (the folly of which is its own topic for another thread).

In point of fact, I've seen him deliver really great critiques of his own work in the past. Really solid ones. Most creative professionals thrive on being able to self-critique. It's one of the baseline factors you need for success. I think what happened with this book is that he truly thought it was what it needed to be, and could NOT understand the vitriol. Especially not when most of it came in the form of verbal abuse rather than constructive criticism. I think it's a case where a designer really thought they nailed it, but in reality, missed the mark by so wide a measure, that they literally can't see what went wrong. Gav was on a different planet at the time from all the actual CSM players.

For me, this was the first time I remember thinking that maybe, just maybe, the GW team don't look at, or play their game in the same way a good chunk of their customers do. A theory that has borne itself out many more times since.

You see something similar happening with the Phil Kelly 6th ed book where he gives somewhat similar justifications, but can't seem to understand why a character like Kharn becoming a Demon Prince and getting WORSE is not fun, or why the 7th ed Demon book was just a nightmare of random, dice, more random, and ALL THE BOOK-KEEPING ...

You also see it a lot when they say "Chaos is so big! As big or BIGGER than the Imperium! There's no way anyone could ever represent something that large!" and you can almost see them looking you in the eye while surreptitiously trying to shut the door behind them that leads to the room where they've literally done just that with all the Imperium stuff.

Not just that CSM codex but that Daemon one too...terrible randumb all around.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Mostly because Chaos 3.5 was the most broken book in 40K history (though 8th Edition Space Marines 2.0 might be close).

It's almost like you haven't read the thread...

It's funny how every 20 posts or so someone stumbles into the thread, says this, promptly walks into a telephone poll, then scampers. You'd think they'd learn from seeing the previous four people do the same thing...

yukishiro1 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Mostly because Chaos 3.5 was the most broken book in 40K history (though 8th Edition Space Marines 2.0 might be close).

It's almost like you haven't read the thread...

It's funny how every 20 posts or so someone stumbles into the thread, says this, promptly walks into a telephone poll, then scampers. You'd think they'd learn from seeing the previous four people do the same thing...

IMHO it's drive-by sniping; the idea that a codex could both be fluffy and competitive with lots of options disproves the notion that you have to reduce options to achieve balance, so there's incentive to shut down the discussion before that conclusion (that everyone knows already imo) is reached.

Sunny Side Up wrote:Mostly because Chaos 3.5 was the most broken book in 40K history (though 8th Edition Space Marines 2.0 might be close).

People fondly remembering stomping all over everyone else thanks to the ridiculous power-disparity.

I never played with it (I got in to Chaos Marines in the 4th Ed Blue Codex, and left just prior to the 6th), but I owned it one point. I remember it because of its customizability, which became more marked by what replaced it.

Sherrypie wrote:Yeah, no. I played tyranids against it and had fun, as did the guard players in the area and so on. It is remembered for a host of other reasons, which far outweigh anything to do with power level.

I remember Tyranids having similar power of customization around that time, though it was far more restrictive in many ways. As the codices progressed, that dropped faster than a lead ball on Jupiter. It wasn't as drastic or as bad as what happened to the CSM, but it still has been quite bad.

Tycho wrote:

I wouldn't be too harsh on Gav Thorpe for his terrible defense of the 4.0 Codex. It's his own book, of course he's not going to be able to talk about it with a reasonable level of detachment. It's expecting too much of the vast majority of people in the world to expect them to be able to look objectively at their own work and admit "yeah, I tried hard, but I failed." Especially not of the creative types who GW has traditionally relied on to write its rules (the folly of which is its own topic for another thread).

In point of fact, I've seen him deliver really great critiques of his own work in the past. Really solid ones. Most creative professionals thrive on being able to self-critique. It's one of the baseline factors you need for success. I think what happened with this book is that he truly thought it was what it needed to be, and could NOT understand the vitriol. Especially not when most of it came in the form of verbal abuse rather than constructive criticism. I think it's a case where a designer really thought they nailed it, but in reality, missed the mark by so wide a measure, that they literally can't see what went wrong. Gav was on a different planet at the time from all the actual CSM players.

Maybe it is a matter of perspective? We only have the end product, not a list of everything they wanted to address with the book. This was in the beginning of the Blue Period where Dark Angels could have only 5 or 10 models in their squads, not 6 or 9, so it may have been more about how much he could keep in the codex with all these concepts and restrictions put on him rather than making a truly creative piece like the previous codex was. Add on to that, Chaos Daemons were to be separated in to their own codex at some future point as well.

It was probably about equal with SM 2.0 itself. Nowhere near as broken as the IH supplement on release, however. I stopped playing after the end of 4th until 8th, but I can't recall anything in the time I did play that was anywhere near as broken as the IH supplement.

I would say it was actually weaker than Marines 2.0. By a long shot. Marines 2.0 essentially allows marines to ignore any weaknesses they might have, and any rules which might hurt them. It's actually surprisingly hard to create a truly "bad" list, and even then, you still have a fighting chance in most cases. While the CSM 3.5 book had some really strong builds (and one actually broken build), it also had a lot of trap choices and really terrible builds. A poor list builder could sit down with Marines 2.0 and still cobble together something decent pretty easily. CSM 3.5 was always a learning experience if you weren't as good at the list part. CSM 3.5 also still pretty much played by the same rules of the edition as everyone else. Marines 2.0 were playing 10ed at the end of 8th. lol

I think the reason for that is that when the question of past power-lists come up you never seen a group of eldar players endorsing the characterful nature of invunlerable falcons or taudar. Nobody chimes in on the immense flavour of how overpowered the 5e GK book was.

Nobody posts asking about why the Iron Hands were held is such high regard as a fluffy, best ever made codex, and people don't reply to that with 'yes, it was, and not at all overpowered'.

That's largely because A. "Invulnerable Falcons and Taudar" actually AREN'T fluffy, and also because B., CWE get a shiny new broke book almost every edition. It's also utterly silly to compare the 3.5 book to Iron Hands - They're not even close to one another. IH may be the most broken thing GW ever made. Plus, the rules in that book could actually reward you for playing in an "unfluffy" manner, where as the 3.5 book was a really good example of playing your army the way it runs in the fluff and actually being rewarded for that. Always shocks me how hard a concept that is to grasp for some people. It's like ... did 3.5 kick your mom or something? lol

CSM players talk about fluffy that book was because it's literally the one and only codex we ever got that actually represented our army. There have been supplements like Traitor Legions that approached it, but by and large, every single one of our books has completely and utterly failed at representing the army well. 2nd ed wasn't bad as a first try though, so there's that I guess, but yeah, if you're trying to suggest that the 3.5 book was on par with IH then ... pretty much ... lol

As long as people are listing their 3.5 Chaos armies, my 1000 sons army was something like this:

Daemon prince (flight, mutation, spiky bits, ccw, master crafted CCW, stature, Mark of Tzeench, winds of chaos) modeled as a giant CSM on a 60mm disc of Tzeench.

9 Rubric Terminators (Champion with power fist and winds of chaos)

9 Flamers

9 Rubric marines (champion with powerfist, pistol, winds of chaos, thrall) Rhino

9 Rubric marines (champion with powerfist, pistol, winds of chaos, thrall) Rhino

9 Rubric marines (champion with power sword, pistol, bolt of change, 4 thralls)

Predator (triple Lascannon, Daemonic possession)

It was fun when the 4th Ed 'Chaos' Codex took away your fists, was't it?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It was fun when the 4th Ed 'Chaos' Codex took away your fists, was't it?

Especially with Powerfists being so essential to functional marine lists in 5th ed. The fist champ/sarge hiding behind 9 ablative wounds usually did most of the squad's damage.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It was fun when the 4th Ed 'Chaos' Codex took away your fists, was't it?

Especially with Powerfists being so essential to functional marine lists in 5th ed. The fist champ/sarge hiding behind 9 ablative wounds usually did most of the squad's damage.

just as much fun when gw decided to reintroduce these factions as seperate dexes which suddendly lacked lovingly converted options invalidating another slew of armies or forcing people to buy even more seperate books.