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Undivided to me has always been the Word Bearer or Black Legion sense of it. You worship all of the Gods but don't stop your underlings from dedicating themselves as long as they keep the peace within the Warband, i.e the Khornates don't start fights with the sorcerers for kicks.
With the Iron Warriors, Chaos is definitely a tool but it varies from Warband to Warband about how they approach that tool. Some like Shon'Tu are fully into the worship of the Gods and actively make pacts with Daemons to bolster their forces, while others such as Honsou see Chaos as a weapon to be wielded but at a safe distance from oneself. You might ally with more devoted groups or even Daemons but you don't worship them.
The Night Lords I find are much the same but are also the go-to Legion for a less Warp shenanigans protagonist or antagonist.
Basically, being Undivided still makes you marked by the Gods but just not one in particular. An unmarked group would be something like the Relictors Chapter who are sort of maybe renegades, it depends on which source you go to, but categorically not CSM.

 Galas wrote:
Isnt Mark of Chaos Undivided the equivalent of having no Mark?
I always tought Chaos Undivided represents both extremes, Word bearers worshiping Chaos as a Whole and iron Warriors or kight lords kinda being there, using Chaos as a tool and just admitting his existence.

Depends on the edition. In 3.5 the Mark of Chaos Undivided allowed you to reroll morale checks, but you didn't have to take it if you were running one of the Legions that was limited to it. Instead you could skip it and take more Veteran Abilities, because if you took a Mark you could only have one, but if you didn't you could have multiple. So you could have a warband that didn't accept the Chaos Gods gifts, but instead leaned more heavily into their skills gained from being Veterans of the Long War. In later editions Undivided simply became "no Mark".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:
Undivided to me has always been the Word Bearer or Black Legion sense of it. You worship all of the Gods but don't stop your underlings from dedicating themselves as long as they keep the peace within the Warband, i.e the Khornates don't start fights with the sorcerers for kicks.
With the Iron Warriors, Chaos is definitely a tool but it varies from Warband to Warband about how they approach that tool. Some like Shon'Tu are fully into the worship of the Gods and actively make pacts with Daemons to bolster their forces, while others such as Honsou see Chaos as a weapon to be wielded but at a safe distance from oneself. You might ally with more devoted groups or even Daemons but you don't worship them.
The Night Lords I find are much the same but are also the go-to Legion for a less Warp shenanigans protagonist or antagonist.
Basically, being Undivided still makes you marked by the Gods but just not one in particular. An unmarked group would be something like the Relictors Chapter who are sort of maybe renegades, it depends on which source you go to, but categorically not CSM.

Not according to our codexes. Not taking a Mark has always been an option for CSM. In fact, taking one was usually an option you had to pay for.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Bring back Veteran Abilities. They could work like Dark Eldar Combat Drugs. A selection of optional bonuses that you can choose from or roll for. Or purchase with points.

Sounds perfectly reasonable. I hope GW puts something like that in the CSM codex.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Not according to our codexes. Not taking a Mark has always been an option for CSM. In fact, taking one was usually an option you had to pay for.

I was meaning in a background sense TBH. I know that Marks were a paid option back in 6th and 7th.

 Gert wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Not according to our codexes. Not taking a Mark has always been an option for CSM. In fact, taking one was usually an option you had to pay for.

I was meaning in a background sense TBH. I know that Marks were a paid option back in 6th and 7th.

Even in the background that isn't the case.
Iron warriors f.e. only worship chaos in fringe groups
Night lords overwhelmingly don't worship chaos.
Alpha legion: nobody has an idea of their doctrine, probably they themselves neither.

 Gert wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Not according to our codexes. Not taking a Mark has always been an option for CSM. In fact, taking one was usually an option you had to pay for.

I was meaning in a background sense TBH. I know that Marks were a paid option back in 6th and 7th.

But there are examples in the fluff of CSM who don't swear allegiance to the Chaos Gods, Talos and Zso Sahaal being two. And the fact that most Night Lords find anyone who worships anything to be weaklings and fools has been reiterated from codex to codex.

And then you have the rules from 3.5 I just explained, that allowed you to create a warband with no Marks, not even Undivided. What do you think the writers of that codex were trying to represent with that?

Did peeps actually read what I wrote? I said it varied from Warband to Warband for the relationship with Chaos for the IW and NL. Krieg Abercus (?), Grendor Skraivok, and the Exalted are all examples of NL who embrace Chaos. Hell, even Talos is fine with Uzas and the Bleeding Eyes as long as they stay in line.
So even in GW publications "NL don't embrace Chaos" isn't a hard and fast rule and that should be represented by the rules. Let players use a baseline and work from there.
If you want to play with NL who are adverse to Chaos but someone else wants to play NL who have embraced the glorious slaughter worship of Khorne then both of those things should be options.

 Gert wrote:
Did peeps actually read what I wrote? I said it varied from Warband to Warband for the relationship with Chaos for the IW and NL. Krieg Abercus (?), Grendor Skraivok, and the Exalted are all examples of NL who embrace Chaos. Hell, even Talos is fine with Uzas and the Bleeding Eyes as long as they stay in line.
So even in GW publications "NL don't embrace Chaos" isn't a hard and fast rule and that should be represented by the rules. Let players use a baseline and work from there.

That I can agree with. You should be able to represent your dudes as YOUR DUDES. But can you agree that if doing so means representing them as not being sworn to the Chaos Gods, then that should be a viable option? Should you be able to run NO MARKS without hamstringing yourself?

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Did peeps actually read what I wrote? I said it varied from Warband to Warband for the relationship with Chaos for the IW and NL. Krieg Abercus (?), Grendor Skraivok, and the Exalted are all examples of NL who embrace Chaos. Hell, even Talos is fine with Uzas and the Bleeding Eyes as long as they stay in line.
So even in GW publications "NL don't embrace Chaos" isn't a hard and fast rule and that should be represented by the rules. Let players use a baseline and work from there.

That I can agree with. You should be able to represent your dudes as YOUR DUDES. But can you agree that if doing so means representing them as not being sworn to the Chaos Gods, then that should be a viable option? Should you be able to run NO MARKS without hamstringing yourself?

on the other hand chaos is tricky, you can actively try and avoid it and still end up marked because you're an unintentional tool of the gods anyway. there are more then a few stories about characters just like that. we see some good examples of those in the HH IIRC

BrianDavion wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Did peeps actually read what I wrote? I said it varied from Warband to Warband for the relationship with Chaos for the IW and NL. Krieg Abercus (?), Grendor Skraivok, and the Exalted are all examples of NL who embrace Chaos. Hell, even Talos is fine with Uzas and the Bleeding Eyes as long as they stay in line.
So even in GW publications "NL don't embrace Chaos" isn't a hard and fast rule and that should be represented by the rules. Let players use a baseline and work from there.

That I can agree with. You should be able to represent your dudes as YOUR DUDES. But can you agree that if doing so means representing them as not being sworn to the Chaos Gods, then that should be a viable option? Should you be able to run NO MARKS without hamstringing yourself?

on the other hand chaos is tricky, you can actively try and avoid it and still end up marked because you're an unintentional tool of the gods anyway. there are more then a few stories about characters just like that. we see some good examples of those in the HH IIRC

Yes, but at that point you could argue for marking anything Undivided. Plenty of good meaning Imperials have fallen into that trap.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

That I can agree with. You should be able to represent your dudes as YOUR DUDES. But can you agree that if doing so means representing them as not being sworn to the Chaos Gods, then that should be a viable option? Should you be able to run NO MARKS without hamstringing yourself?

Yeah I already agreed that would be ideal.

 Gert wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

That I can agree with. You should be able to represent your dudes as YOUR DUDES. But can you agree that if doing so means representing them as not being sworn to the Chaos Gods, then that should be a viable option? Should you be able to run NO MARKS without hamstringing yourself?

Yeah I already agreed that would be ideal.

Ah, I missed your edit. Good, we're making progress. Now, what about the question I raised in this thread: should you be able to represent your CSM as Ancient Warriors using archaic weaponry? Should CSM have greater access to Heresy era units and weapons than loyalists?

Yeah CSM should have some older tech but at the same time not more than Loyalists as I believe CSM should have more of their own inventions. However, I am in the camp of GW brought far too much 30k stuff into 40k. The fact that so much of the Legion arsenal is available to modern 40k armies strikes me as lazy and a blatant attempt to boost FW sales. Why are things like Stormbirds, craft were specifically replaced by the Chapters because they were expensive to produce and maintain, available to use? And a CSM Warlord isn't going to sacrifice precious transport craft.

 Gert wrote:
Yeah CSM should have some older tech but at the same time not more than Loyalists as I believe CSM should have more of their own inventions. However, I am in the camp of GW brought far too much 30k stuff into 40k. The fact that so much of the Legion arsenal is available to modern 40k armies strikes me as lazy and a blatant attempt to boost FW sales. Why are things like Stormbirds, craft were specifically replaced by the Chapters because they were expensive to produce and maintain, available to use? And a CSM Warlord isn't going to sacrifice precious transport craft.

More daemon engines (and preferably more insane daemon engines) would be nice, but there's no reason we couldn't have both. The HH models and their rules already exist, so it wouldn't require any extra resources be used. And if gw had stuck with the direction fw was going with them they would have definitely been more "Chaos". Loyalists already have more available to them, we'd just have less restrictions on the ones we have. And Stormbirds are $1200, how many of those have you ever even seen?

Its more on principle than logic. Obviously people aren't going to have Stormbirds all over the place but IMO they're supposed to be so rare and valued that they should never see the battlefield. Same with certain other 30k units.

Chaos Undivided is a weird concept that has gone back and forth several times.

I know when I was working on Black Crusade stuff for FFG the word 'Undivided' was verboten. If it was't one of the four Chaos Gods, it was always 'unaligned' (lower case U) and there was no 'mark' for that.

GW, for whatever reason, had it in their head that the MoCU from 3.5 wasn't something that should continue in the fluff. Now they seem to be doing the opposite of that. As always, gotta change horse as often as possible to keep ahead in the race...

It's like how before there weren't Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, then there were, then there weren't. And how there were Genestealer Cults, then there weren't, and now there are again. Or how Hot Shot Lasguns became Hellrifles and then became Hot Shot Lasguns again. Or how the Inquisition was a big deal, and then suddenly got completely marginalised to the point of basically not existing (on the tabletop). A lot of this can be traced to the influence (and sudden lack of influence) of one Alan Merrit.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Now, what about the question I raised in this thread: should you be able to represent your CSM as Ancient Warriors using archaic weaponry? Should CSM have greater access to Heresy era units and weapons than loyalists?

At the very least they should have the same level access to HH units and weapons as Loyalists do. I'm in the camp of they should probably have more access, although that access might result in some strange technological upgrades.

I like Daemon engines I just don't think they should be the only defining flavor of chaos and that kinda seems like the schtick for the last couple years. It would be nice to see both weapons 30k and also the ones that were corrupted, twisted or 'upgraded' since then. More strange forbidden tech and weapons, I think we've got enough daemon vehicles at this point.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Or how Hot Shot Lasguns became Hellrifles and then became Hot Shot Lasguns again.

Wait are we back to Hot Shot Lasguns and Hell Rifles being different again?

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
Wait are we back to Hot Shot Lasguns and Hell Rifles being different again?

In all honesty I've lost track.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Yeah CSM should have some older tech but at the same time not more than Loyalists as I believe CSM should have more of their own inventions. However, I am in the camp of GW brought far too much 30k stuff into 40k. The fact that so much of the Legion arsenal is available to modern 40k armies strikes me as lazy and a blatant attempt to boost FW sales. Why are things like Stormbirds, craft were specifically replaced by the Chapters because they were expensive to produce and maintain, available to use? And a CSM Warlord isn't going to sacrifice precious transport craft.

More daemon engines (and preferably more insane daemon engines) would be nice, but there's no reason we couldn't have both. The HH models and their rules already exist, so it wouldn't require any extra resources be used. And if gw had stuck with the direction fw was going with them they would have definitely been more "Chaos". Loyalists already have more available to them, we'd just have less restrictions on the ones we have. And Stormbirds are $1200, how many of those have you ever even seen?

IMHO what GW should do with Chaos is look at the forge world HH stuff, sculpt a model that sort of resembles it but is clearly "mutated and changed" and make it a new deamon engine etc.

such as take the sdicarian tank hunter, and replace the gun barrel with some chaos deamony head, and have some clear fleshy mutations etc.

suddenly you've got a new and intreasting deamon engine, but is also something that you can look at and go "SO THATS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SICARIAN!"

Gert wrote:Its more on principle than logic. Obviously people aren't going to have Stormbirds all over the place but IMO they're supposed to be so rare and valued that they should never see the battlefield. Same with certain other 30k units.

See, that's the difference. Loyalists stick their Heresy era units in vaults in the bottom of their fortress monasteries and leave them there for millennia. CSM actually use theirs, because they have to use what they have. Even in the limited fluff in the Compendium the loyalist units are referred to as rare and rarely used, while the CSM units are said to have been being used for millennia, and are still being used. And something like a Stormbird should be rare, that's probably why they cost 1000 PPM, you'll only ever see them in larger games, not in typical 2000 point matches.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Chaos Undivided is a weird concept that has gone back and forth several times.

I know when I was working on Black Crusade stuff for FFG the word 'Undivided' was verboten. If it was't one of the four Chaos Gods, it was always 'unaligned' (lower case U) and there was no 'mark' for that.

GW, for whatever reason, had it in their head that the MoCU from 3.5 wasn't something that should continue in the fluff. Now they seem to be doing the opposite of that. As always, gotta change horse as often as possible to keep ahead in the race...

It's like how before there weren't Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, then there were, then there weren't. And how there were Genestealer Cults, then there weren't, and now there are again. Or how Hot Shot Lasguns became Hellrifles and then became Hot Shot Lasguns again. Or how the Inquisition was a big deal, and then suddenly got completely marginalised to the point of basically not existing (on the tabletop). A lot of this can be traced to the influence (and sudden lack of influence) of one Alan Merrit.

So, Merritt was the guy who wanted to downplay Chaos Undivided?

Couldn't say, but he's the one who didn't like GSC, and had a problem with Inquisi Stormies IIRC, and those things changed after he vanished. It's certainly possible.

Chaos Undivided manifests itself very in many, many ways. Lorgar and Perturabo, for example, are both Undivided daemon princes, but their approaches to serving Chaos are very different.

As for rules, I just hope that the non-Legion warbands get good, competitive rules. The Brazen Beast's rules are currently mediocre and don't much reflect their lore (heavy use of daemon engines) while the rules for the Crimson Slaughter are downright offensive.

Bryan Ansell has said that Chaos was modeled on the Death Dealer painting by frank frazetta, even more so than on moorcock. And that’s what chaos Undivided is. For example in the many sword & sorcery movies at the time, the buff main character has a lot of sex. It’s not debauched or slaaneshi, in fact it’s very conventional. Instead it’s a flex. It’s about how great the character is. He cuts off a lot of heads, not in a khornate way, but just because someone pumps into him or gets in his way.

You can say this is more of a Fantasy thing, but it’s totally the character of Horus. Even before Horus was poisoned on Davin, he and the legion were known for bullying their enemies, going mano a mano with the enemy hq, and then leaving behind a ruin that had to be cleaned up by someone else.

It’s IMO pretty straightforward. Someone with a mark is on or part of the path to glory. It’s been a game from GW, they’ve done multiple editions, they’ve adapted it to 40k as well. A champion can be on the path to glory and not do specific gods. he’s undivided.

A lot of this can be traced to the influence (and sudden lack of influence) of one Alan Merrit.

He seems so dysfunctional. He did that Insignium Astartes book that’s completely bloodless. It has these coloring book style illustrations, he copied and pasted the same text for multiple pages, quite deliberately. Everything has to be neat colors and 10x10 just to fit in neat boxes just because he likes neat colors and boxes.

You can contrast his not liking Inq storm troopers with Dan Abnett, where everyone has their own storm troopers. That’s much more like real life. It makes sense that it’s messy. Did you know that the US parks service, bureau of land management, and postal service each have their own SWAT teams with helicopters? And that each of those kinds of agencies usually have their own Inspector General to investigate themselves internally, which usually have yet more swat teams so that the postal inspector general’s swat team can arrest the regular postal swat team? That’s how empires work. But no, Alan Merrit says everything has to be color coded, and you can’t have anything messy like a kind of chaos mark that isn’t assigned to red blue pink or green.

Well, chaos marines are in a pretty bad place on the roster. Just above xenos factions and far below imperial ones. Since they are the direct foil to the imperials plot means they can never perform more than mediocre on the tabletop. Why does this matter? Now, chaos is probably the top represented of the non-imperial factions and that means they get a bit of attention (just not in the current addition) and with that attention means a shift in book authors and artists. It was only a matter of time before they veered off the intended path.

Chaos players better hope they do not get a codex this edition because mark my words, it will do more harm than good. Expect to lose the combos that keep them even semi comp and also expect havoc squads to be gutted and left for dead. Judging by past editions, you wont get anything better for those loss's.

BrianDavion wrote:

Spoiler:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Yeah CSM should have some older tech but at the same time not more than Loyalists as I believe CSM should have more of their own inventions. However, I am in the camp of GW brought far too much 30k stuff into 40k. The fact that so much of the Legion arsenal is available to modern 40k armies strikes me as lazy and a blatant attempt to boost FW sales. Why are things like Stormbirds, craft were specifically replaced by the Chapters because they were expensive to produce and maintain, available to use? And a CSM Warlord isn't going to sacrifice precious transport craft.

More daemon engines (and preferably more insane daemon engines) would be nice, but there's no reason we couldn't have both. The HH models and their rules already exist, so it wouldn't require any extra resources be used. And if gw had stuck with the direction fw was going with them they would have definitely been more "Chaos". Loyalists already have more available to them, we'd just have less restrictions on the ones we have. And Stormbirds are $1200, how many of those have you ever even seen?

IMHO what GW should do with Chaos is look at the forge world HH stuff, sculpt a model that sort of resembles it but is clearly "mutated and changed" and make it a new deamon engine etc.

such as take the sdicarian tank hunter, and replace the gun barrel with some chaos deamony head, and have some clear fleshy mutations etc.

suddenly you've got a new and intreasting deamon engine, but is also something that you can look at and go "SO THATS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SICARIAN!"

*sigh* We've discussed this repeatedly in the past. If you want something like that, fine, but it can't be only that if you want to represent CSM warbands that don't swear allegiance to the Chaos Gods and don't use daemonic derived technology. We already have daemon engines, we already have Heresy era units, all we need is to get rid of the rules that actively punish you for using the latter.

Really, if you want what you describe, then we should bring back vehicle upgrades like Mutated Hull, Living Vehicle, Parasitic Possession, and just plain old Daemonic Possession. We had those in the past, I see no reason we couldn't have them back.

Table wrote:Well, chaos marines are in a pretty bad place on the roster. Just above xenos factions and far below imperial ones. Since they are the direct foil to the imperials plot means they can never perform more than mediocre on the tabletop. Why does this matter? Now, chaos is probably the top represented of the non-imperial factions and that means they get a bit of attention (just not in the current addition) and with that attention means a shift in book authors and artists. It was only a matter of time before they veered off the intended path.

Chaos players better hope they do not get a codex this edition because mark my words, it will do more harm than good. Expect to lose the combos that keep them even semi comp and also expect havoc squads to be gutted and left for dead. Judging by past editions, you wont get anything better for those loss's.

I'll gladly watch WOMBO COMBO go die in a fire. It's warped the army horribly.

And Havocs will be fine. Heavy weapons squads have escaped the new equipment limitations unscathed, see Retributors and Scourges. It's all of our other infantry units I'm worried about.....

I think there's some misunderstanding of how being 'Marked' works outside of the rules from what I'm reading in some replies. In addition to a certain level of further misunderstanding of how your average CSM views Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch etc.

First, 'worship' of any of these entities is a stretch. It's not common. They aren't even typically viewed as 'gods'. Members of your average warband are people who live in and around the warp, they have a better understanding than most of how it operates. There are entities in the warp, some are inconsequential, some are vastly powerful. Few describe them as 'gods'. Where we see this, I think is more in lore being written from an Imperial perspective - they're a deeply religious society. The original CSM's are from the exceedingly secular period of the Horus Heresy. (Word Bearers aside here, obviously).

Secondly, just because you're marked, doesn't mean you chose to be, or that you sought it. It's not necessarily a voluntary thing, and is as likely to be inflicted on you, as it to be gratefully received.
Abaddon, for example, carries all four marks. He also hates the ruinous powers. He considers bowing to them to be the mistake Horus made, and one he has no intention of repeating.

There's a wonderfully interesting passage in one of ADB's novels, where Iskandar Khayon (one of Abaddons closest confidents and commanders) explains how much this infuriates K, N, S & Z - it makes them want to possess him more. He explains how the crusades themselves have become a dance where Abaddon achieves a certain amount of success, before they deliberately frustrate his efforts in order to force him to bow. It's a cycle that Abaddon is well aware of, and seeks to break.

Again, there is little going on that is as simple as 'CSM worship chaos', 'CSM get a mark from worshipping 'x' god'.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

Spoiler:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Yeah CSM should have some older tech but at the same time not more than Loyalists as I believe CSM should have more of their own inventions. However, I am in the camp of GW brought far too much 30k stuff into 40k. The fact that so much of the Legion arsenal is available to modern 40k armies strikes me as lazy and a blatant attempt to boost FW sales. Why are things like Stormbirds, craft were specifically replaced by the Chapters because they were expensive to produce and maintain, available to use? And a CSM Warlord isn't going to sacrifice precious transport craft.

More daemon engines (and preferably more insane daemon engines) would be nice, but there's no reason we couldn't have both. The HH models and their rules already exist, so it wouldn't require any extra resources be used. And if gw had stuck with the direction fw was going with them they would have definitely been more "Chaos". Loyalists already have more available to them, we'd just have less restrictions on the ones we have. And Stormbirds are $1200, how many of those have you ever even seen?

IMHO what GW should do with Chaos is look at the forge world HH stuff, sculpt a model that sort of resembles it but is clearly "mutated and changed" and make it a new deamon engine etc.

such as take the sdicarian tank hunter, and replace the gun barrel with some chaos deamony head, and have some clear fleshy mutations etc.

suddenly you've got a new and intreasting deamon engine, but is also something that you can look at and go "SO THATS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SICARIAN!"

*sigh* We've discussed this repeatedly in the past. If you want something like that, fine, but it can't be only that if you want to represent CSM warbands that don't swear allegiance to the Chaos Gods and don't use daemonic derived technology. We already have daemon engines, we already have Heresy era units, all we need is to get rid of the rules that actively punish you for using the latter.

Really, if you want what you describe, then we should bring back vehicle upgrades like Mutated Hull, Living Vehicle, Parasitic Possession, and just plain old Daemonic Possession. We had those in the past, I see no reason we couldn't have them back.

Table wrote:Well, chaos marines are in a pretty bad place on the roster. Just above xenos factions and far below imperial ones. Since they are the direct foil to the imperials plot means they can never perform more than mediocre on the tabletop. Why does this matter? Now, chaos is probably the top represented of the non-imperial factions and that means they get a bit of attention (just not in the current addition) and with that attention means a shift in book authors and artists. It was only a matter of time before they veered off the intended path.

Chaos players better hope they do not get a codex this edition because mark my words, it will do more harm than good. Expect to lose the combos that keep them even semi comp and also expect havoc squads to be gutted and left for dead. Judging by past editions, you wont get anything better for those loss's.

I'll gladly watch WOMBO COMBO go die in a fire. It's warped the army horribly.

And Havocs will be fine. Heavy weapons squads have escaped the new equipment limitations unscathed, see Retributors and Scourges. It's all of our other infantry units I'm worried about.....

The wombo combo is one of the few things keeping the faction semi-comp. With it gone well be at the bottom. And I dont think well get much to make up for it.

Table wrote:

Spoiler:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Yeah CSM should have some older tech but at the same time not more than Loyalists as I believe CSM should have more of their own inventions. However, I am in the camp of GW brought far too much 30k stuff into 40k. The fact that so much of the Legion arsenal is available to modern 40k armies strikes me as lazy and a blatant attempt to boost FW sales. Why are things like Stormbirds, craft were specifically replaced by the Chapters because they were expensive to produce and maintain, available to use? And a CSM Warlord isn't going to sacrifice precious transport craft.

More daemon engines (and preferably more insane daemon engines) would be nice, but there's no reason we couldn't have both. The HH models and their rules already exist, so it wouldn't require any extra resources be used. And if gw had stuck with the direction fw was going with them they would have definitely been more "Chaos". Loyalists already have more available to them, we'd just have less restrictions on the ones we have. And Stormbirds are $1200, how many of those have you ever even seen?

IMHO what GW should do with Chaos is look at the forge world HH stuff, sculpt a model that sort of resembles it but is clearly "mutated and changed" and make it a new deamon engine etc.

such as take the sdicarian tank hunter, and replace the gun barrel with some chaos deamony head, and have some clear fleshy mutations etc.

suddenly you've got a new and intreasting deamon engine, but is also something that you can look at and go "SO THATS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SICARIAN!"

*sigh* We've discussed this repeatedly in the past. If you want something like that, fine, but it can't be only that if you want to represent CSM warbands that don't swear allegiance to the Chaos Gods and don't use daemonic derived technology. We already have daemon engines, we already have Heresy era units, all we need is to get rid of the rules that actively punish you for using the latter.

Really, if you want what you describe, then we should bring back vehicle upgrades like Mutated Hull, Living Vehicle, Parasitic Possession, and just plain old Daemonic Possession. We had those in the past, I see no reason we couldn't have them back.

Table wrote:Well, chaos marines are in a pretty bad place on the roster. Just above xenos factions and far below imperial ones. Since they are the direct foil to the imperials plot means they can never perform more than mediocre on the tabletop. Why does this matter? Now, chaos is probably the top represented of the non-imperial factions and that means they get a bit of attention (just not in the current addition) and with that attention means a shift in book authors and artists. It was only a matter of time before they veered off the intended path.

Chaos players better hope they do not get a codex this edition because mark my words, it will do more harm than good. Expect to lose the combos that keep them even semi comp and also expect havoc squads to be gutted and left for dead. Judging by past editions, you wont get anything better for those loss's.

I'll gladly watch WOMBO COMBO go die in a fire. It's warped the army horribly.

And Havocs will be fine. Heavy weapons squads have escaped the new equipment limitations unscathed, see Retributors and Scourges. It's all of our other infantry units I'm worried about.....

The wombo combo is one of the few things keeping the faction semi-comp. With it gone well be at the bottom. And I dont think well get much to make up for it.

And that's a bad thing. You shouldn't have to stack strategems and psychic powers on a unit just to make it work, it should work by itself. And if you've been paying attention, that's what they've been doing in the 9th edition codexes. You can buff something with a stratagem, but you don't have to, the units can function just fine on their own. We should have that as well, instead of wombo combo.

Completely agree, needing a stratagem or psychic power to make a unit useful really sucks for game balance. Since if the game is balanced with "let's assume this unit is already buffed" then if you don't apply a psychic power or stratagem then the unit will more than likely suck.

I'm hopeful with the next few codexes we'll see units be useful on their own with stratagems be a slight improvement. Same for psychic powers since both CSM and Eldar have some units that are overly reliant on them.

Wombo combos are fun with friends but I hope we don't get shackled to them in the future.

I do not defend the wombo combo. I simply state that with GW's track record on Chaos Marines we should expect a pretty bad codex in 9th. Id LOVE to be wrong about this however. But for now. Doom and gloom. And as I have said. Losing the wombo combo is going to hit us harder on a comp level than anything they will give us. And we were already doing pretty bad outside DG. Poor poor Thousand Sons...on the way to squating.