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 Platuan4th wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Right. So they're veteran CSM, like first company loyalists are. Except with CSM there is potential to be insanely more experienced than a loyalist would.

There's also the potential with CSM to be insanely less experienced because the boss really likes you on your first day. You could just tell really funny jokes and the Chaos Lord decides you're in his inner circle now. That's why making the comparison to Loyalist First Company is bad, because there's literally NO qualifications behind being a Chosen beyond "the boss picked you".

From CSM 3.5, page 24:

The Chosen are the elite of a Chaos Space Marine army. Drawn from the most experienced and capable warriors of the Traitor Legions, they have literally thousands of years of experience. These men have ruled planets, led armies and destroyed civilizations; they are the Chosen of the Chaos Gods and the bane of all that lives.

Emphasis mine.

Because "The boss picked you". Yeah right. Chosen are literally Veteran Heretic Astartes. The longest lived and most experienced. And allowing CSM to bring them as troops would go a long way to alleviating the problem of "Chaos sucking in 40k so much more than in the Fantasy universe". Because if those are the troops, what does the rest of the army look like......

The biggest issue I'm seeing is why bother with normal CSM if you can just take Chosen.

Chosen can be 10,000 year-old veterans, extremely corrupted Marines bloated with power, both, or possibly neither.

 Gert wrote:
The biggest issue I'm seeing is why bother with normal CSM if you can just take Chosen.

Why botter with tacticals if you have intercessors? A couple of different stratagems and equipement options goes a long way.

But I agree they are too close to be confortable with GW finding a proper place for both of them.

Yeah, but what different equipment do Chosen and CSM have? Intercessors are strictly Bolt weapons only, Tacticals can take heavy and special weapons. They might both be troops but the don't cancel each other out, especially now since Tacticals have the same wounds.
Chosen are just better versions of CSM already, throw them in a Troops slot and CSM become completely obsolete. Unless Chosen don't get <Core> but then that's just another unit in the Troops section that doesn't have ObSec.

 Crimson wrote:
This is you engaging in pointless semantics.

Say that over and over, it'll never be true. So give it a fething rest.

And Skarboy vs Beast Snagga isn't semantics either. They are literally different things in the fluff.

Well, it kind of is true. You're not alone in doing so, and I hear your point, but debating what label something should have, or the definition of what we think Chosen are/aren't is pointless semantics. It doesn't progress the discussion one iota.

Forget the labels, whether they refer to something we have currently, or not. Purely conceptually, what would you do, to give CSM options that represent both the 10K + year old veteran, and the 'standard' line Astartes that has defected or been created since.

Call them whatever you will, it's the crunch concepts that will progress discussion and are interesting - not label definitions.

It. Is. Not. Semantics.

Crunch should be informed by the fluff. In the fluff, Chosen =/= HH veterans where as Chaos Marines =/= the renegade friends we made along the way. The crunch should reflect this. Chaos Marines can be 10,000 year old Veterans, and they can be Loyalist Marines that gave the Emperor the middle finger last week. Ditto for Chosen. They represent different things within different forces of heretics.

Saying that Chosen are HH veterans and that's all they are is simply not true.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Why would a bunch of Renegades have better equipment than actual Veterans of the Long War?

Is that even a real question? It's been one of the biggest problems representing Renegade Marines in-game, because as soon as a Marine Chapter turns against the Emperor they have to give up all their Assault Cannons/Storm Bolters/Cyclone Launchers/Land Speeders/Land Raider variants/Razorbacks/Whirlwinds and Grav weaponry as they enter the EoT, all their Dreadnoughts go insane for some reason, and they get Reaper ACs, Combi-Bolters, and Daemon Engines in return.

A Renegade Marine force should be that, a Renegade Marine force, as opposed to Traitor Legions, which are a specific thing.

Chosen are veteran CSM, doesn't matter if they're Astartes who stormed the walls of Terra or the 1st Company of a Renegade Chapter. A basic CSM might still be old but they're not veterans, there needs to be a difference between the two.


That's just loyalist Space Marines though. You're not even playing CSM anymore.

And before Gad brings it up again...

The Chosen are the elite of a Chaos Space Marine army. Drawn from the most experienced and capable warriors of the Traitor Legions, they have literally thousands of years of experience. These men have ruled planets, led armies and destroyed civilizations; they are the Chosen of the Chaos Gods and the bane of all that lives.

Emphasis mine, this time. Because this refers to Traitor Legions. Renegade Chapters wouldn't have Chosen drawn from the most experienced of the Traitor Legions because they're not Traitor Legions!!!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Is that even a real question?

Of course it is.
Come on. This is just needlessly rude and belligerent.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

A Renegade Marine force should be that, a Renegade Marine force, as opposed to Traitor Legions, which are a specific thing.

Where is the specific fluff separation, because I don't see it. This has been gone over. The vast majority of Heretic Astartes operate out of independent Warbands, with little but token ties to a specific Legion. There are exceptions, those exceptions are few and far between in comparison.

You're much, much more likely to see a mix of old and new Astartes in any force you're representing on the table top, regardless of whether they share a legion colour scheme or not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And before Gad brings it up again...

The Chosen are the elite of a Chaos Space Marine army. Drawn from the most experienced and capable warriors of the Traitor Legions, they have literally thousands of years of experience. These men have ruled planets, led armies and destroyed civilizations; they are the Chosen of the Chaos Gods and the bane of all that lives.

Emphasis mine, this time. Because this refers to Traitor Legions. Renegade Chapters wouldn't have Chosen drawn from the most experienced of the Traitor Legions because they're not Traitor Legions!!!

You've missed the point of that paragraph (and this still gets us no-where). Of course they're from a Traitor Legion. Any HH vet would have been part of a Legion... That doesn't mean they haven't joined Warlord Spergleblarggh's Warband since, now does it?

Ok, this is from Codex CSM 8th Edition:

The most experienced and dedicated CSM are known as Chosen. Even at a glance, it is obvious that they are favoured amongst the bitter brotherhood of Chaos, for their baroque armour is embellished in forbidden runes and their grimacing helmets give them the aspect of raging Daemons. Equipped with the finest wargear a warband can provide, the Chosen are even more hard-bitten and callous than other CSM, and think nothing of sacrificing the lives of their comrades to increase their own standing with the gods.

So, from this, it is pretty clear that Chosen are the veterans of a warband.
Are we going to keep arguing this dumb point?

Hey! That doesn't match my fluff for my CSM Chosen based off of the 3.5 codex at all! Time to burn my collection, I guess.

(Last post got duplicated somehow - apologies. Please ignore.)

 Gert wrote:
So, from this, it is pretty clear that Chosen are the veterans of a warband.

Has that ever been in question?

 Gert wrote:
Are we going to keep arguing this dumb point?

The point is that I reject the notion that in a CSM army that Chosen represent HH vets where as regular CSMs don't.

 StrayIight wrote:
You've missed the point of that paragraph (and this still gets us no-where). Of course they're from a Traitor Legion. Any HH vet would have been part of a Legion... That doesn't mean they haven't joined Warlord Spergleblarggh's (will trade his rules for catnip) Warband since, now does it?

I haven't missed anything.

The paragraph is talking about what the Chosen are in an army made of Traitor Legionaries. It does not say that all Chosen are HH vets. What if your army isn't made of Traitor Legionaries like, say, I dunno... a Renegade Marine chapter/warband?

I mean one can be something for thousands of years and still be mediocre at it.

Regulars CSM can represent mediocre chaos marines (as mediocre as a space marine can be) even from the HH. They just didn't became notorious for any reason whatsoever.

Chosen could be all kind of elite cadres of chaos marine armies. From horus heresy veterans that are specially gifted for whatever reason (Even during the heresy your Abaddon or your Loken was not like your schmuk John McCurtys the 2420 space wolf legionary of the McDonald company), to more recent converted chaos marines that have gained power and chaos boons for their deeds, more recent veterans of renegade chapters, etc...

I have a question. The Long War is a thing, but it isn't explicitly the domain of the Legions. 10k years is a hell of a long time so there's nothing precluding a Renegade Chapter having VotLW in their Warband. Who is going to tell them "no you can't do that, only Legions can do that "? What if members of the Legions decide that they like the look of a Renegade Chapter over their Primarch's legacy?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gert wrote:
So, from this, it is pretty clear that Chosen are the veterans of a warband.

Has that ever been in question?

 StrayIight wrote:
You've missed the point of that paragraph (and this still gets us no-where). Of course they're from a Traitor Legion. Any HH vet would have been part of a Legion... That doesn't mean they haven't joined Warlord Spergleblarggh's (will trade his rules for catnip) Warband since, now does it?

I haven't missed anything.

The paragraph is talking about what the Chosen are in an army made of Traitor Legionaries. It does not say that all Chosen are HH vets. What if your army isn't made of Traitor Legionaries like, say, I dunno... a Renegade Marine chapter/warband?

I think you're still viewing Legions and Renegade Chapters as holistic entities that don't merge, split and recruit or absorb. This isn't how things work in the more recent fluff. But beyond that...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The point is that I reject the notion that in a CSM army that Chosen represent HH vets where as regular CSMs don't.

Great. I get that, and you've made that point. We all understand your stance on it. Now you've defined that label, can we please progress to addressing the actual issue, rather than attempting to define it the same way, again, using different evidence and prose that everyone will continue to disagree on? I'm not trying to be unkind, but at a certain point this isn't discussion, it's arguing fruitlessly for the sake of arguing. There will be no winner here. We could have a useful and dynamic discussion around the future of CSM, and how they could be, or we'd like to see them be, improved however.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:
What if members of the Legions decide that they like the look of a Renegade Chapter over their Primarch's legacy?

This is essentially what happens in a lot of cases.

Take the Red Corsairs as an example. Huron is a Renegade. He was never a member of one of the Legions. He however commands a mindbogglingly large number of CSM (in the broader sense). Enough that the size of his forces dwarf that of any of the existing Legions, Loyalist Chapters, CSM Warbands, save for Abaddon's Black Legion alone.

He has so many men, he gives them away for people to use, quite literally for little other reason than for sh*ts and giggles, because he can.

We know that the Astartes that wear his colours come from everywhere - the guy will take anyone. That includes any veteran of the HH, loyalist, or heretic, that decided that 'Pirate island' looked a hell of a lot better than where they were previously.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Why would a bunch of Renegades have better equipment than actual Veterans of the Long War?

Is that even a real question? It's been one of the biggest problems representing Renegade Marines in-game, because as soon as a Marine Chapter turns against the Emperor they have to give up all their Assault Cannons/Storm Bolters/Cyclone Launchers/Land Speeders/Land Raider variants/Razorbacks/Whirlwinds and Grav weaponry as they enter the EoT, all their Dreadnoughts go insane for some reason, and they get Reaper ACs, Combi-Bolters, and Daemon Engines in return.

A Renegade Marine force should be that, a Renegade Marine force, as opposed to Traitor Legions, which are a specific thing.

Figured that would be your answer. As Gert said: that's just loyalists. You can build that out of the loyalist codex.

H.B.M.C. wrote:And before Gad brings it up again...

The Chosen are the elite of a Chaos Space Marine army. Drawn from the most experienced and capable warriors of the Traitor Legions, they have literally thousands of years of experience. These men have ruled planets, led armies and destroyed civilizations; they are the Chosen of the Chaos Gods and the bane of all that lives.

Emphasis mine, this time. Because this refers to Traitor Legions. Renegade Chapters wouldn't have Chosen drawn from the most experienced of the Traitor Legions because they're not Traitor Legions!!!

Of course it does, because 3.5 dealt in Legions. But look at the currently highlighted sentence. Chosen are Veteran Heretic Astartes. Doesn't matter if that's veterans of the Heresy, or the most veteran members of a more recently converted warband. Moving them to the troops slot would give us a way to represent a warband, either of Heresy veterans or those more recently converted, made up of more veteran Astartes. Or one that isn't by not taking large numbers (or any) of them. If calling them Chosen bothers you so much, call them Chaos Space Marine Veterans instead. The point is to give us more options to represent the force we want to have.

 Galas wrote:
I mean one can be something for thousands of years and still be mediocre at it.

Regulars CSM can represent mediocre chaos marines (as mediocre as a space marine can be) even from the HH. They just didn't became notorious for any reason whatsoever.

Chosen could be all kind of elite cadres of chaos marine armies. From horus heresy veterans that are specially gifted for whatever reason (Even during the heresy your Abaddon or your Loken was not like your schmuk John McCurtys the 2420 space wolf legionary of the McDonald company), to more recent converted chaos marines that have gained power and chaos boons for their deeds, more recent veterans of renegade chapters, etc...

Time also passes differantly in the warp, IIRC doesn't the Nightlord's trilogy mention only a century (.. or was it a Decade?) had passed for them since the Heresy? If so then that means there where more experianced Loyalist Marines then they where. Also not ALL CSMs, even among the traitor legions are veterns of the Heresy. hey've kept recruiting. Honsou was a bloody chaos lord and wasn't a HH vet. in fact reading between the lines it sounds like being a vetern of the heresy is actually a rarish mark of distinction among chaos marines these days.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I mean one can be something for thousands of years and still be mediocre at it.

Regulars CSM can represent mediocre chaos marines (as mediocre as a space marine can be) even from the HH. They just didn't became notorious for any reason whatsoever.

Chosen could be all kind of elite cadres of chaos marine armies. From horus heresy veterans that are specially gifted for whatever reason (Even during the heresy your Abaddon or your Loken was not like your schmuk John McCurtys the 2420 space wolf legionary of the McDonald company), to more recent converted chaos marines that have gained power and chaos boons for their deeds, more recent veterans of renegade chapters, etc...

Time also passes differantly in the warp, IIRC doesn't the Nightlord's trilogy mention only a century (.. or was it a Decade?) had passed for them since the Heresy? If so then that means there where more experianced Loyalist Marines then they where. Also not ALL CSMs, even among the traitor legions are veterns of the Heresy. hey've kept recruiting. Honsou was a bloody chaos lord and wasn't a HH vet. in fact reading between the lines it sounds like being a vetern of the heresy is actually a rarish mark of distinction among chaos marines these days.

300 years since the Heresy for 10th Company. 200 on Tsgualsa before being driven into the Eye of Terror, slightly over 100 after. Pretty sure fighting in the Crusade and Heresy counts for experience as well. Especially when fighting other Astartes. The Legions would have more experience in fighting other Astartes than any loyalists. They should be a loyalist Astartes worst nightmare.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Crunch should be informed by the fluff. In the fluff, Chosen =/= HH veterans where as Chaos Marines =/= the renegade friends we made along the way. The crunch should reflect this. Chaos Marines can be 10,000 year old Veterans, and they can be Loyalist Marines that gave the Emperor the middle finger last week. Ditto for Chosen. They represent different things within different forces of heretics.

Okay, so what about it?

The actual discussion is whether Chaos should have access to a more elite profile as a Troops choice. Are you saying Chaos shouldn't have that profile? Or they should but it shouldn't be labeled Chosen? Or Chosen and this hypothetical veteran profile should be two different things?

Help me understand what you're arguing beyond semantics.

The past few pages are all about what chosen are and what slot they should be in, when the people asking for chosen troops really just want a +1A upgrade and better wargear for regular CSM.

Because that's all you get for being a "veteran of the long war".

And honestly, veterans of any kind have no business being troops.

 catbarf wrote:
Help me understand what you're arguing beyond semantics.

Y'all can keep using that word 'til you're blue in the face. Won't ever make this a semantic argument.

You said this:

 catbarf wrote:
That's a good point that ties back to the idea of Chosen being Troops. It essentially gives you four core choices that shape your force:
-Cultists, being your GEQ chaff
-CSM, basic renegades
-Chosen, the actual veterans of the Heresy
-Cult Marines, amped up on their god's favor

You want Chosen to represent actual veterans of the HH, and regular CSM to be Rengegades and not veterans of the HH.

I reject this because it is basically saying that all veterans of the HH are Chosen, and that all the standard CSMs are not; they're just renegade Marines that joined as the decades went by. That's not how the fluff works, and I don't think that should be how the rules work.

 Jidmah wrote:
The past few pages are all about what chosen are and what slot they should be in, when the people asking for chosen troops really just want a +1A upgrade and better wargear for regular CSM.

Because that's all you get for being a "veteran of the long war".

And honestly, veterans of any kind have no business being troops.

Yeah sure jid so remove snaggas from orks and scions from guard troop slots?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Help me understand what you're arguing beyond semantics.

Y'all can keep using that word 'til you're blue in the face. Won't ever make this a semantic argument.

You said this:

 catbarf wrote:
That's a good point that ties back to the idea of Chosen being Troops. It essentially gives you four core choices that shape your force:
-Cultists, being your GEQ chaff
-CSM, basic renegades
-Chosen, the actual veterans of the Heresy
-Cult Marines, amped up on their god's favor

You want Chosen to represent actual veterans of the HH, and regular CSM to be Rengegades and not veterans of the HH.

I reject this because it is basically saying that all veterans of the HH are Chosen, and that all the standard CSMs are not; they're just renegade Marines that joined as the decades went by. That's not how the fluff works, and I don't think that should be how the rules work.

So why exactly you want ten-millennia old warp-powered eternal warrior to be equally competent than a fresh scrub? Why you want the CSM to be worse version of the loyalist even many of them have insanely more experience?

I do suspect you will see a shift over the nex few years personally, I spose you can never say never but it seems like SM are reaching a point were theres not that much room left for lots of new releases and pushing CSM does seem like the obvious alternative. Seems to have already been pretty sucessful with Death Guard so I wouldn't be surprised to see the World Eaters and Emperors Children get similar focus, maybe even the Iron Warriors offering more of a shooting focused CSM choice?

 Crimson wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Help me understand what you're arguing beyond semantics.

Y'all can keep using that word 'til you're blue in the face. Won't ever make this a semantic argument.

You said this:

 catbarf wrote:
That's a good point that ties back to the idea of Chosen being Troops. It essentially gives you four core choices that shape your force:
-Cultists, being your GEQ chaff
-CSM, basic renegades
-Chosen, the actual veterans of the Heresy
-Cult Marines, amped up on their god's favor

You want Chosen to represent actual veterans of the HH, and regular CSM to be Rengegades and not veterans of the HH.

I reject this because it is basically saying that all veterans of the HH are Chosen, and that all the standard CSMs are not; they're just renegade Marines that joined as the decades went by. That's not how the fluff works, and I don't think that should be how the rules work.

So why exactly you want ten-millennia old warp-powered eternal warrior to be equally competent than a fresh scrub? Why you want the CSM to be worse version of the loyalist even many of them have insanely more experience?

In fairness, I don't think this is what he's saying. H.B.M.C.'s issue, to my understanding, seems to revolve around the 'Chosen' unit, specifically, being the unit that is considered the 'HH Veteran' Heretic Astartes. His view (if I've understood his argument correctly), is that there is nothing to say a non-'chosen' CSM isn't a HH vet, and he wouldn't want to be forced into taking 'Chosen' to represent that role.

Fine. I don't think it get's us anywhere, but I don't have an issue with that opinion.

I just think (and I hope we're all on the same page here), that we need to be able to differentiate a HH veteran Astartes, from a newly minted 41st millennium defector or renegade. Right now, we can't. Actually, our basic Astartes is far, far poorer than the Loyalist equivalent. Access to a (admittedly good) strat with 'veteran' in the name, doesn't address that.

This is the problem we really need to be discussing and working on. Arguing as to whether we improve a unit that's labelled 'chosen' or not to achieve this, doesn't address that one bit. Sadly.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Help me understand what you're arguing beyond semantics.

Y'all can keep using that word 'til you're blue in the face. Won't ever make this a semantic argument.

You said this:

 catbarf wrote:
That's a good point that ties back to the idea of Chosen being Troops. It essentially gives you four core choices that shape your force:
-Cultists, being your GEQ chaff
-CSM, basic renegades
-Chosen, the actual veterans of the Heresy
-Cult Marines, amped up on their god's favor

You want Chosen to represent actual veterans of the HH, and regular CSM to be Rengegades and not veterans of the HH.

I reject this because it is basically saying that all veterans of the HH are Chosen, and that all the standard CSMs are not; they're just renegade Marines that joined as the decades went by. That's not how the fluff works, and I don't think that should be how the rules work.

I want a more elite profile than basic CSM to be available as a Troops choice and don't particularly care what it's called. Call it Chaos Marine Veterans then. Or Chaostouched Warpwarriors. Or Mr Potato Head. Doesn't matter. If you're quibbling on that label, then that's semantics.

Such a profile could- regardless of what it's called- be used to represent an army composed of hardened veterans from the Heresy. Even if that's not precisely what the Chosen profile is 'meant' to be. You seeming to get hung up on that label is why everyone is telling you you're arguing semantics.

If you have a more substantial disagreement with this concept you're not articulating it well.

I'm unclear why whether this or that CSM can remember the Siege of Terra or happened to turn traitor last Tuesday matters to the mechanics of the game. It just seems like some strange internal-chaos fight that's run and run for 25 years. (See also: "make Marks flavourful and impactful"/"but my army shouldn't have to be dedicated to the Chaos Gods to work".)

I'm afraid I'm also unclear why Chaos Intercessors (i.e. CSM in the troops slot with +1 attack) are going to shake up the faction in any meaningful way. I guess you could argue for blinging them out with lots of Plasma guns and power weapons, but I'm still not seeing it (and odds are GW would insist on a new kit without these features). GW could for instance in their mercy just give CSM the Intercessor statline (cries of "but muh tacticals" can be met with "buy Primaris noob").

But would it matter? See the general minimisation of Marine Troops in Marine armies.