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It's not so much just about differentiating for the sake of it, it's more whether GW give CSM players the tools to be able to play their choice of faction in a satisfying way.

If you are drawn to Iron Warriors, you clearly have a very different gameplay intention that someone who is drawn to World Eaters. It shouldn't just be seen as slight variations on a single theme (for instance people choosing Tau septs that are slightly more capable at melee etc).

Many of the Chaos Legions are fundamentally very different armies. To go back to World Eaters, the original CSM codex only gave them a single individualised strat to fight again, no ways to improve ability to get into melee or shut down interrupts, boost heroic interventions or consolidations etc. All the tricks you need to be able to really play a smart and effective melee army especially when sacrificing ranged and psychic attacks.

Oh, yes, I agree with that. They SHOULD be satisfying to play and differentiated to that degree.

But to be as differentiated as Space Marines probably isn't necessary. At that point it is just bloat.

I think we need to remember that the Dark Mechanicum is just as fragmented and desperate as CSM warbands are. The Deamon-Forge Sarum may be able to produce Land Raiders but Xana II, known for creating the Hellblade and Helltalon aircraft, might be incapable of producing tanks.
As someone has already mentioned as well, the Mechanicum often delves into technology and areas of study forbidden by the Adeptus Mechanicus including Dark Age or even Xenos technology.

GW has to decide whether they want CSM to be carbon copies of the 30k Legions with extra spikes or if CSM embraces the "C" and goes all-in with Chaos nonsense.
The current CSM Codex portrays none of the Legions very well IMO.
There aren't siege units for IW so they have to rely on Havocs and Daemon-Engines. Word Bearers have the worst Legion Trait and the Master of Possessions makes their Daemon buff rules worthless when anyone can do it anyway. Emperor's Children and World Eaters are defined by a single unit each and they don't really have much IMO that would set different sub-factions apart. IMO the Black Legion and Red Corsair traits should be swapped around focussing the literal pirate faction on rapid movement and encouraging the supposed "in charge" faction to actually use the codex namesake unit over Cultists.
I think the only Legion that can represent itself well so far is the Night Lords combining Icons with units like Raptors and Talons to fill the scary jump-pack army niche.
The fact that the Renegade Chapter rules are superior to almost every single Legion is just sad.

Xana II can absolutely produce tanks. In fact, they produced Ordinatus engines during the Heresy.

They just happen to also be the homeworld for a specific flyer-oriented cult of chaos (Eyrein Cults or whatever, I forget the spelling)

So Xana I was able to produce Ordinatus engines when it was supplied by the Imperial warmachine. It was also razed by loyalist forces during the Heresy.
Xana II is a different place and is now supplied by CSM warbands.
Massive warmachine capable of supplying half the Galaxy at the same time VS raiders who have to steal to survive.

Aash wrote:
I’ll always like the idea that CSMs are still fighting the Horus heresy and the warriors are by and large veterans of the original rebellion. I like the distinction between them and the loyalists, more so with the introduction of Primaris.

Completely agree, there's a lot of appeal to a faction that has never stopped fighting a war that started 10k years ago. It also brings about some great interactions where a CSM who's been alive since 30k will chastise a Black Templar since the Emperor never wanted to be seen as a God or divine.

When you compare Loyalists and CSM you would think that:

1. CSM would have better access to HH models and tech, since for those Veterans of the Long War, that's what they're used to using. They may also be attached to certain types as a reminder of the better days, especially those who see Chaos as a means to an end and abhor the daemonic infusions.

2. CSM would have strange and experimental versions of imperial tech. With the Dark Mechanicus not being restrained in the slightest, they can improve upon or modify STCs as much as they like.

Instead we get:

1. Loyalists have just as easy a time, if not easier, using HH models.

2. Imperium is rolling out new tech, new weapons, hover vehicles etc fast enough to put the Tau to shame. Meanwhile the Dark Mechanicus is still experimenting with how to combine a daemonic musk rat with a land raider while the legions are shaking their heads at the backlog of Drop pod conversions.

So lore wise we get the opposite of what we expect. Imperium sells really well so Imperium gets new toys and tech. Meanwhile, Chaos is left floating rudderless. They were supposed to be the great big bad of 8th edition, this resulted in a lot of nice refreshes on models and some beautiful Death Guard sculpts but for new chaos models it was almost entirely Daemonic models. Oh well, at least they don't have to deal with Orktober being the prime time to debut another Primaris Lieutenant.

The main problem is that in order to give everyone what they want concerning chaos space marines, you'd end up with Warhammer:40 Different Space Marine Books.

 solkan wrote:
The main problem is that in order to give everyone what they want concerning chaos space marines, you'd end up with Warhammer:40 Different Space Marine Books.

i know, i know, and frankly i think the codex range needs trimming a little myself (fold most of the codex marines back into codex marines, so IF, WS, IH, RG, Sal, etc)

But CSM it could be done better, at least somewhat. Give the legions more distinction than they have now, where the Iorn Hands the Imp Fists, two chapters that cleve close to the Codex mainline, have more distinctness than the legions of two diametrically opposed gods (ie world eaters and emps children). give each legion more than just a single trait, a few strats and a relic or two, let them play with the basic structure of the list more (for example, world bearers get to bring in deamons without losing purity bonuses, the iron warriors can ignore the CP tax on HH relics, etc, renegades can take a single loyalist marine unit as a elites option). that way you encourage list diversity, and let these supposedly different legions feel less like black legion in alternate colour schemes.

 solkan wrote:
The main problem is that in order to give everyone what they want concerning chaos space marines, you'd end up with Warhammer:40 Different Space Marine Books.

considering we have that for the far less distinctive loyalists (excluding DW and GK for... well obvious organisational reasons...)

The thing is I don't think it needs a whole bunch of extra books, they just need to acknowledge and accept that if they want a single CSM codex to successfully represent 7 different legions then it can't be light on the rules.

The main loyalist marine codex has something like 70 pages of datasheets compared to CSMs half that so there's plenty of space for them to work with. How many pages of Faith and Fury was devoted to heretic Astartes legion rules? I think maybe 5 pages per legion and that included a name generator for each.

But as I said, I can't see us coming away from the 9th ed CSM codex with anywhere near the level of rules support we have right now, and I'm inclined to say that's not enough as it is...

Iracundus wrote:
While time in the Eye does not pass the same as the rest of the galaxy, the general depiction by GW is that it seems to pass more slowly in general as the CSM characters in the fiction report a longer subjective time in the Eye because all sorts of internecine wars are described. CSM may experience centuries for every year of realspace that passes, which is why they call themselves veterans of the Long War. Time enough for their weapons to break down, and their bodies and wargear to mutate, with some ascending to be daemon princes. The opposite cases where CSM experience a shortened subjective time has been the rarer depiction by GW. It wouldn't be the Long War if the majority of CSM had only experienced a few days or weeks since the end of the Heresy.

Let's be honest, some Chaos players just want to have their cake and eat it - they want to field these so-called "Veterans of the Long War", who have been kicking around for 10k years with a much reduced support structure, yet at the same time have them have all the gear they possessed when they fled Terra with their tails between their legs without those 10k years causing any problems - and that's before we get to the players that think they should also have access to all the SM gear the Imperium has (with or without Primaris, depending on player), and all the daemon engine stuff the crazies in the Dark Mechanicus come up with. All in one army list.

I know some people want to watch the world burn, but that's just ridiculous.

It's been said before, but there should probably be a split between Legion CSM and Renegade CSM. I'd even argue for each of the 7 Legions currently represented by the CSM book to get the same sort of support as the DG (and 1K Sons get a bit of a boost to the same level of model support). Bonus points if the Night Lords book makes use of lots of Daemons.

Not sure as to how I'd want a Renegade CSM book to be approached, though I know it shouldn't just be switching Imperium for Chaos in the keyword list of Codex: SM. I'd also have a rework of how the CSM units for FW are keyworded, with Legion ones maybe not having the 1CP additional cost they currently do - I'd want to hear the reasoning from the designers from a balance perspective on that one, first.

Dark Mech should be their own book, same as Ad Mech currently is.

I get wanting to get rid of the insane monopoly SM have on the hobby but unless Firstborn get axed utterly then this isn't going to happen.


A couple of things here.
The Iron Hands don't stick to the Codex Astartes in fact they are noted for their radically different company and command structures as well as their tactics. The Imperial Fists and Ultramarines would be a better example but I'm just being picky.

Why do people keep saying "all the Legions are just BL but different colours"? Do any of you actually play BL because having played EC, IW, WB and BL in 8th edition they ain't the same. All the CSM sub-factions are just worse versions of their Loyalist counterparts. Don't be mad at BL, be mad at bad Codex balance. Be mad that the namesake of the Codex is a trash unit.


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As blunt as it is, I agree with Dystartes post (mostly).
There is no way in hell that the CSM Codex is going to be able to represent a 30k Legion force, an army of desperate raiders with broken-down gear, recently turned Renegades with all their normal SM stuff, and a full-on Caos corrupted army with Daemons and Daemon Engines galore.
There has to be a middle ground where some of it happens or one is picked and none of the rest gets represented. For CSM to work the same way as SM, it would have to be done the same way as AoS where the God-aligned armies (WE, DG, TS, EC) were put in the same books as their Daemon counterparts and Codex CSM represented the remaining factions (BL, NL, WB, IW, AL, Renegades).

I think in order to show plausible fresh Renegades it would have been cool to dedicate some (or one) page in Codex:SM to that. Being able to take a loyalist Army with Chaos keyword. With all the anti-soup rules around since 9th I don't think the problems dysartes mentioned would be that bad.

Then you dedicate Codex CSM to Legions and the crazier stuff, like warbands that are around a long time but not since the heresy. This could partly avoid the obvious logic questions of why Chaos doesn't have access to x.

Do the same for Renegade and Heretics in the IG Codex, Chaos Knights in the Knights Codex and Fallen in the DA Supplement.
Yes, there's always going to be someone who's saying, My Iron Warriors rely on sieges so they need all artillery since the HH, they also use Daemons as cannon fodder so they should be able to ally in Daemons but still get all Boni, they also had a pact with Bile who cloned some Primaris for them and they stole equipment from an Admech Forgeworld.
No rulebook can include all of that. Do some nice conversion work and use the rules you got.

Renegades should be done with codex space marine supplement: Renegade marines. Some of the characters like Huron black heart could be in there.

As I always say the current codex CSM should just be for the black legion and they can go to great lengths to explain that the black legion probably has more marines in it that have turned away from the imperium after the HH or newly made marines than original sons of horus, which would help Make sense of the current range of units.

Then traitor legions should have their own codex as 2 already do

I like your ambition but that's not a realistic goal IMO.
Renegades shouldn't be based on the SM Codex, at that point, you're just running SM and not CSM, and TBH Renegade Chapters have some of the strongest sub-faction rules so there's no issue there.
Yes, the God-aligned Legions should be expanded and mashed with Daemons to create what is essentially a Rotbringers/Hedonites style book where a player can run pure or mixed armies of the Gods.
One thing that needs to be clear about the Traitor Legions is that they are still fractions of their former strength. The Word Bearers aren't waltzing around with 100k Astartes anymore and the game should reflect that with the core of a CSM army represented with actual CSM with a couple of specialist units as well but the majority of support units should be dedicated to Cultists, Daemon Engines or other Chaos gribblies.
The rest of the Legions shouldn't have their own supplements. The Legion cultures haven't adapted as much as those of the SM have and the SM supplements are meant to provide rules to represent not only the Founding Chapters but their Successors as well. Any splinter of a Legion force is still going to be that Legion just with slightly altered colours. That isn't necessarily true for SM.

mrFickle wrote:
Renegades should be done with codex space marine supplement: Renegade marines. Some of the characters like Huron black heart could be in there.

As I always say the current codex CSM should just be for the black legion and they can go to great lengths to explain that the black legion probably has more marines in it that have turned away from the imperium after the HH or newly made marines than original sons of horus, which would help Make sense of the current range of units.

Then traitor legions should have their own codex as 2 already do

There's definitely a tangible difference between a 'Chaos' Marine and 'Renegade' Marine in the fluff I think. Though seemingly you get a mix of both in a given Warband.

In the case of the Black Legion, things look very confused. Many players, and most of the lore focused wiki's have them as simply being The Son's of Horus rebranded. But that isn't really true. The most modern fluff has the SoH almost made extinct after being hunted down by the other Chaos/Renegade Legions post Heresy. While a core part of the Black Legion are the Son's of Horus that remain and were successfully recruited, you've got vast numbers of just about every flavour of Space Marine in there. Abaddon essentially went out of his way to take anyone who would flock to his banner - the Black Legion is literally an army at Legion strength because of that.

We don't see it on the table so much, but on the whole (there are exceptions) the other 'Legions' don't so much exist now. Independent Warbands with ties to those old Legions do.

In response to some of the other comments above. I think most people fully recognise that concessions have to be made to avoid bloat, and keep the game 'sensible' on the table top. I'm just laying out how the fluff functions (because there have been reboots of sorts in recent years), not making any demands that it be represented in a specific fashion in the rules.

I think the traitor legions have been replenishing their ranks over the years to some extent but I can’t site any evidence of this.

There some comment from GW where someone asked how many eldar there are and they said there will always be enough or something like that.

I think it’s true for the traitor legions, there will be some deus ex that keeps them in soldiers despite constantly loosing in the fluff.

Fabius came into ownership of a load of EC gene seed and was sorely tempted to rebuild the legion so there’s no reason why other legions haven’t been doing it. I bet mortarion is keeping the DG numbers up

CSM are certainly keeping their numbers at legitimate threat levels but even the smallest of the Traitor Legions was sitting at roughly 100k Astartes (100 Chapters worth). The losses they took in the Heresy were insane and then adding the Legion Wars on top of the that would leave them at a distinctly lower number than in their days as Imperials.
The Word Bearers Omnibus starts out with the 34th Host at roughly 200-300 Astartes but this is specifically noted as a rare situation.
Renegade Chapters will rarely even fill out the requirement for a Chapter of Astartes since the turning of an entire Chapter isn't going to either go:
A - Unnoticed
B - Unpunished

Rare high or rare low, Gert?

Rare high. The 34th's Dark Apostle took in another leaderless host (which said Apostle may or may not have killed) and groomed his own First Acolyte to take command of half the 34th when the time was right. Word Bearers hosts roughly follow the size of a Loyalist Company but depending on their standing they might be greater or lesser than this. For example, members of the Dark Council will likely have larger hosts than say a rank and file Lord or Apostle.
In the Storm of Iron we see a huge Iron Warriors force attack a planet but said force is made up of at least 4 Warbands/Companies plus Dark Mechanicum and Traitor Titan support.
To be a threat in open warfare a CSM force has to be facing a similarly small enemy (demi-company for example) or has to massively outnumber them.

DG is said to have larger numbers than during the heresy. That seems to be an outlier, though.
World Eaters were fractured at Skalathrax, Emperor's Children were hunted down during the Legion wars. I wouldn't be surprised if GW handwaved these losses away once they get their own Codex to legitimate them as complete factions
The Black Legion is said to have more than 200K Marines before the Fall of Cadia, I'd have to reread Vigilus to know if there's a more recent number.

The BL having such large numbers makes sense to me since their recruitment actively takes Astartes away from the other Legions/Chapters. Hell the initial founders of the BL were Abbadon, a couple of Tson's sorcerers, a WE lord, a WB Apostle, an EC lord, and a Dark Mechanicum Priest and her pet IW.

There are pods of ways GW can up the numbers of any legion, primarchs are genius level and could probably recreate the process of creating astartes. Deals with Fabius, cloning making loyalist chapters stuck in the dark imperium turn traitor and so on. Whatever you can imagine.

Back to the OP, sort of, in the Fabius trilogy the clone of fulgrim fixes up the manufacturing plant on board Fabius’s HH era ship which allows him to create tech that no one else running those machines could have created. Either old STC or stuff he invented. So it’s another rout to CSM being able to take HH gear that SM wouldn’t have access to

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
DG is said to have larger numbers than during the heresy. That seems to be an outlier, though.
World Eaters were fractured at Skalathrax, Emperor's Children were hunted down during the Legion wars. I wouldn't be surprised if GW handwaved these losses away once they get their own Codex to legitimate them as complete factions
The Black Legion is said to have more than 200K Marines before the Fall of Cadia, I'd have to reread Vigilus to know if there's a more recent number.

the tsons numbers are large-ish as well. The Rubic has basically fosslised their numbers, even if a rubric marine is shot to pieces, they can be raised agian with the right spells (hell, thier strategem "risen rubicae" is basically just this, the Tsons bringing a dead bunch of themselves back that happened to be on the battlefield). So, they are somewhere in the thousands, at whatever strength they were when the Rubric was cast. I THINK (but i may be wrong) they have a very limited recruitment of new sorcerers for leadership but i;m not 100% on that.

Like Elves in WHFB, there are exactly as many Chaos Space Marines as the story requires at that particular time.

Which, at the moment, is basically zero.

 Dysartes wrote:
Not sure as to how I'd want a Renegade CSM book to be approached, though I know it shouldn't just be switching Imperium for Chaos in the keyword list of Codex: SM.

That actually was the 2nd edition chaos codex. They could take anything in the chaos codex, plus anything in the marine codex at a mark-up (taking the right character removed the mark-up), plus all the daemons.

Early chaos though weren't presented as having heresy gear because it was better, but because it was the remnants of what they had managed to keep in working condition after being forced to flee into the eye of terror abandoning most of their production facilities and heavy equipment. Half of the 3.5 codex was 0-1 per unit, countless disparate warbands with whatever resources and warriors a given lord had managed to secure for himself. But times change.

Gert wrote:So Xana I was able to produce Ordinatus engines when it was supplied by the Imperial warmachine. It was also razed by loyalist forces during the Heresy.
Xana II is a different place and is now supplied by CSM warbands.
Massive warmachine capable of supplying half the Galaxy at the same time VS raiders who have to steal to survive.

Xana II produces Hell Blades, Hell Talons, and Thunderhawks from an actual STC template. Land Raiders shouldn't be a problem, considering the Legions took most of the STCs for Land Raiders with them from Anvillus IX. The Dark Mechanicus produces most of the Land Raiders for the Legions, using it as a bargaining chip with the Legions.

Gert wrote:I think the only Legion that can represent itself well so far is the Night Lords combining Icons with units like Raptors and Talons to fill the scary jump-pack army niche.

Just using Icons, and the Marks needed to get those Icons, means they aren't being represented well. Night Lords are the least "religious" of the Legions, and avoid pacts with the Chaos Gods and Daemons. And "scary jump pack army" is a massive flanderization.

Gert wrote:Why do people keep saying "all the Legions are just BL but different colours"? Do any of you actually play BL because having played EC, IW, WB and BL in 8th edition they ain't the same. All the CSM sub-factions are just worse versions of their Loyalist counterparts. Don't be mad at BL, be mad at bad Codex balance. Be mad that the namesake of the Codex is a trash unit.

Because all of the Undivided Legions currently function how Black Legion has traditionally. Mixing Marks and different Cult Marines willy-nilly was always Black Legion's "thing". The others were always locked to either only Undivided in 3.5, or none in Traitor Legions (Word Bearers could take multiple marks in Traitor Legions, but no Cult Marines). A "little bit of everything" was always Black Legion's special thing, because they accepted everyone willing to pledge allegiance to their cause. Black Legion should be mad that everyone else is using their shtick.



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 Dysartes wrote:
Bonus points if the Night Lords book makes use of lots of Daemons.

Funny Dysartes.

Not sure as to how I'd want a Renegade CSM book to be approached, though I know it shouldn't just be switching Imperium for Chaos in the keyword list of Codex: SM. I'd also have a rework of how the CSM units for FW are keyworded, with Legion ones maybe not having the 1CP additional cost they currently do - I'd want to hear the reasoning from the designers from a balance perspective on that one, first.

Martial Legacy doesn't have anything to do with balance. It isn't applied to any other faction's fw units, only marines. And the units affected were already adjusted to be in line with codex units. Point me to one that would be unbalanced at its current price without the 1CP tax.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Xana II produces Hell Blades, Hell Talons, and Thunderhawks from an actual STC template. Land Raiders shouldn't be a problem, considering the Legions took most of the STCs for Land Raiders with them from Anvillus IX. The Dark Mechanicus produces most of the Land Raiders for the Legions, using it as a bargaining chip with the Legions.

The Hell-planes were an entirely new invention of the Dark Mechanicum, not an STC. The ability to produce fighter craft and gunships doesn't mean Xana can also produce sophisticated equipment such as Land Raiders. You wouldn't ask Lockheed to build an Abrams.

Just using Icons, and the Marks needed to get those Icons, means they aren't being represented well. Night Lords are the least "religious" of the Legions, and avoid pacts with the Chaos Gods and Daemons. And "scary jump pack army" is a massive flanderization.

The first Traitors on the wall at the Siege of Terra were NL jump troops and one of their two special units in 30k is a jump pack unit, it also says in the CSM Codex that many Raptor and Talon cults find refuge within the NL who value their abilities as terror troops. What I meant with my post was that you can accurately and easily field a NL army that uses morale modifiers on most, if not all of its units while also fielding units known to be present in large numbers within the Legion.

Because all of the Undivided Legions currently function how Black Legion has traditionally. Mixing Marks and different Cult Marines willy-nilly was always Black Legion's "thing". The others were always locked to either only Undivided in 3.5, or none in Traitor Legions (Word Bearers could take multiple marks in Traitor Legions, but no Cult Marines). A "little bit of everything" was always Black Legion's special thing, because they accepted everyone willing to pledge allegiance to their cause. Black Legion should be mad that everyone else is using their shtick.

So your fix for CSM is to disallow certain sub-factions access to specific units? Hardly fair is it. Traitor Legions was good in the sense that the Legions got rules but at the same time adding restrictions for no real reason just so the God-aligned Legions were artificially inflated for choice was a bad move. IW Plague Marines could be represented by heavy use of bionics, WB dedicate themselves to the Gods so why wouldn't some fall farther than others, NL Noise Marines might record the screams of their victims and turn it into a weapon. Restricting options, especially when those options are some of the strongest units an army has access to, isn't the way to make an army have character. Marks in the 8th system only serve to give access to certain strats/psychic powers/relics. A favourite of mine when running IW is to give my Havocs the Mark of Slaanesh and use the double shooting strat to represent IW heavy weapons teams being more effective.
As for how the unaligned Legions function, an IW list is served better with Obliterators/Havocs than a BL list because IW get buffs to shooting and strats that benefit these units. It's not a whole lot and I would absolutely love to see the Legions each expanded upon with better rules that actually suit their character but I could easily build a list that would work for each undivided Legion and each would play differently while also maintaining the character of the Legion.

 Gert wrote:
The Hell-planes were an entirely new invention of the Dark Mechanicum, not an STC. The ability to produce fighter craft and gunships doesn't mean Xana can also produce sophisticated equipment such as Land Raiders. You wouldn't ask Lockheed to build an Abrams.

They produce Thunderhawks using a STC, not the Hell-planes. And Xana II isn't Lockheed Martin, it's an entire planet producing arms and supplies for the forces of Chaos.

The first Traitors on the wall at the Siege of Terra were NL jump troops and one of their two special units in 30k is a jump pack unit, it also says in the CSM Codex that many Raptor and Talon cults find refuge within the NL who value their abilities as terror troops. What I meant with my post was that you can accurately and easily field a NL army that uses morale modifiers on most, if not all of its units while also fielding units known to be present in large numbers within the Legion.

And that's the flanderization. Using morale modifiers is something from 8th edition. The Legion wasn't "scary" before that. Most Night Lords armies were characterized by more veterans and jump troops than most, using little to no daemons and Marks, and being less disciplined than other Astartes.

So your fix for CSM is to disallow certain sub-factions access to specific units? Hardly fair is it. Traitor Legions was good in the sense that the Legions got rules but at the same time adding restrictions for no real reason just so the God-aligned Legions were artificially inflated for choice was a bad move. IW Plague Marines could be represented by heavy use of bionics, WB dedicate themselves to the Gods so why wouldn't some fall farther than others, NL Noise Marines might record the screams of their victims and turn it into a weapon. Restricting options, especially when those options are some of the strongest units an army has access to, isn't the way to make an army have character.
As for how the unaligned Legions function, an IW list is served better with Obliterators/Havocs than a BL list because IW get buffs to shooting and strats that benefit these units. It's not a whole lot and I would absolutely love to see the Legions each expanded upon with better rules that actually suit their character but I could easily build a list that would work for each undivided Legion and each would play differently while also maintaining the character of the Legion.

It's how they were handled in 3.5, generally regarded as the best codex CSM ever had, and one of the best codexes ever. It worked because each Legion got other things in compensation: Iron Warriors got Vindicators and Basilisks, Alpha Legion got Cultists, Night Lords had their own Veteran Ability that no one else could have, etc. And it was all done in 80 pages. Differentiating the Legions doesn't require massive bloat.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

They produce Thunderhawks using a STC, not the Hell-planes. And Xana II isn't Lockheed Martin, it's an entire planet producing arms and supplies for the forces of Chaos.

Their manufacturing capability is still going to be much less than a Mechanicus Forgeworld that has the backing of the Imperium. Regardless CSM shouldn't get a free pass on things like Laser Destroyer Vindicators or Sicarans because they're old, these same weapons are going to be difficult to maintain for a Loyalist Chapter with access to the secrets of Mars let alone a CSM Warband who may or may not have a pact with Mechanicum Forges.

And that's the flanderization. Using morale modifiers is something from 8th edition. The Legion wasn't "scary" before that. Most Night Lords armies were characterized by more veterans and jump troops than most, using little to no daemons and Marks, and being less disciplined than other Astartes.

I must have missed the part where Konrad Curze turned his Legion into the ultimate terror weapon that would have planets surrendering merely at the mention of the NL. I must have missed the part where the NL adorn their armour and equipment with flayed skin, severed heads and body parts to incite terror in their enemies. The entire culture and tactics of the NL is based around fear and terror, pretending otherwise shows you have no idea what they are about.

It's how they were handled in 3.5, generally regarded as the best codex CSM ever had, and one of the best codexes ever. It worked because each Legion got other things in compensation: Iron Warriors got Vindicators and Basilisks, Alpha Legion got Cultists, Night Lords had their own Veteran Ability that no one else could have, etc. And it was all done in 80 pages. Differentiating the Legions doesn't require massive bloat.

Its how they were handled 6 editions ago in an entirely different game. Units that might have once been exclusive such as Vindicators and Cultists are freely available to any Legion or Chapter that wants them. I want to go back to my point as well. Why should the WB not get access to Plague Marines? Why should the IW not get access to Berzerkers? IW love sieges and breaching the walls and slaughtering the defenders within is a highlight of that. What if some CSM love the slaughter so much they dedicate themselves to Khorne to make that slaughter better?
I've never used the 3.5 Codex and I've only seen people on the internet rave about how it was perfect in every way. I'm going to take that with a grain of salt just like I take all opinions I see online.
However, if your solution to giving the Legions character is to strip choice from the player then your solution is bad.