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What should Marks do?

Curious on people's thoughts.

Anyone who suggests 'just give them a keyword' will be executed by the Regimental Commissar!

Gad-
They're not gonna do that, they've already screwed the cp pooch. They have no incentive to do it. Smoke shouldn't cost cp, but does, Relic shouldn't cost cp, but does...

If it gives them more flavour do it. Otherwise I guess stick with gak play on tabletop and no chosen option, which is better???

Give an upside, and a downside, to make units act more like what the Chaos God they're marked by.
Maybe something like:
Khorne: Can advance and charge, but must always advance and charge towards the closest enemy unit.
Slaanesh: Can Pile in an extra 3" but can't consolidate.
Nurgle: Can fire Heavy weapons after moving with no penalty but can't fire Assault Weapons after Advancing.
Tzeentch: Can fall back and charge or shoot but can't perform actions.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
What should Marks do?

Curious on people's thoughts.

Anyone who suggests 'just give them a keyword' will be executed by the Regimental Commissar!

Honestly? Buggered if I know. I’m not even sure what base line special rules CSM have at the moment. Do they have an equivalent to SM’s Assault/Tactical/Devastator doctrine things?

In principle, I wouldn’t be against a base line benefit, but also Mark specific Stratagems and/or Actions.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Honestly? Buggered if I know. I’m not even sure what base line special rules CSM have at the moment. Do they have an equivalent to SM’s Assault/Tactical/Devastator doctrine things?

No lol, our 8th edition codex 2.0 was really just 1.1

our special rule is Death to the false emperor and Hatred assault

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I’m still keen on CSM squads of all stripes having a selection of Unit Champion options, representing that a given squad could be a warband unto itself, gathered under the banner of a stronger leader for mutual interest, however temporarily.

Combined with my suggestion of a wider choice of weapon load out, it’s then really in the hands of the player what their army looks like.

Is it a fragmentary remnant of the original Legions, maintaining some form of military discipline? Or is a loose alliance of rival Champions and their followers? Somewhere in between.

Kind of like the 8th Ed Dark Eldar book, but without the need to take multiple formations, as the decision can be made on a squad to squad basis.

This would help make Chaos more of an unknown quantity, as army composition might vary quite wildly from one player to the next.

I mean, consider Loyalist Astartes right now. Specific Chapters aside? Who knows what you might be facing. A pre-8th Ed Firstborn army? All Vanguard? A list with heavy infiltration capabilities? Dread horde? So many units, so many options.

CSM deserve the same depth of variety, and that needn’t involve lots and lots of new units. Just existing units have a wide selection of Killy things with which to make the foe dead in the face from not being alive anymore.

Will that CSM squad be a handful of hardened lunatics lead by someone with the stats of a SM Lieutenant? Is it instead gonna be 20 bog standard Goon Marines lead by someone just starting out on their own path to glory?

Agreed, again. I'm really hoping this gets done via whatever our 'Champion Upgrade" option is, like Deadly Pathogens for Death Guard and Legion Command for Thousand Sons. There should be some that buff just the Champion and some that buff him and his squad. Allow multiple if you don't take a Mark but only one if you do, just like Veteran Abilities in 3.5. Allow you to go big if you want, but make you pay for it. (With POINTS, not CP.)

H.B.M.C. wrote:What should Marks do?

Curious on people's thoughts.

Anyone who suggests 'just give them a keyword' will be executed by the Regimental Commissar!

They should be strong and change how the unit behaves, to show their dedication to their God. Think of The Books of Chaos from 3.5. A basic stat buff, and a special rule like what the Icons do now. But something more, I'm not sure what without stepping on the God aligned Legions toes, but something that really changes how they play, similar to those Legions rules. It would help if we had a clue what World Eaters and Emperor's Children were getting. But they need to do a hell of a lot more than just add a keyword.

And none of that stuff like they did in 3.5 and Traitor Legions where they basically said "Hey, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, and Night Lords. You see all of these cool Marks? Well you can't have those. Maybe we'll let the Word Bearers have them, but not you. These are for the Black Legion. Hands off". None of that.

Racerguy180 wrote:Gad-
They're not gonna do that, they've already screwed the cp pooch. They have no incentive to do it. Smoke shouldn't cost cp, but does, Relic shouldn't cost cp, but does...

If it gives them more flavour do it. Otherwise I guess stick with gak play on tabletop and no chosen option, which is better???

Yeah, I get that, and it sucks. But the Big Leak (which becomes more and more confirmed with every release and preview) specifically told us we were getting new Chosen models, and now Valrak has confirmed them (along with the new Warpsmith), so Chosen aren't going away. So we don't need to pay CP for them, just points. And if they play up their status as "An entire squad of Aspiring Champions", then those "Champion Upgrades" could make them super customizable. And those cost points for Death Guard and Thousand Sons.

Considering how lame legion traits are compared to loyalist traits, let alone a legion trait compared to half of a chapter trait as they tend to get one to two mediocre to awesome rules and we get sort of fluffy but generally worthless rules, if they give us the overhaul I think we are getting for legion traits (at best on par with one of the two special rules loyalists get) I would say the writers could easily slide an extra rule or two in the mark of chaos options for free.

Based on that, they could conceivably give us an awesome special rule with each mark of chaos for free and we might be on par with chapter traits between our probably mediocre chapter traits and the one special rule from marks of chaos.

Khorne needs to reflect martial proficiency in all forms of warfare, so possibly an extra attack and that crappy black legion trait that allows firing rapid fire weapons as though they were assault (to represent a hard and aggressive combat style that does something for both range and combat that is far from game breaking).

Slaanesh is tricky, but perhaps an ability that neuters always strikes first combat abilities to reflect perfection, and to reward better maneuvering of your army. Maybe an extra inch to charge and run moves as well... someone else has to have a better idea for slaanesh.

Mark of Tzeentch could award a free re-roll once per game to represent mastering fate. Or once per turn... maybe to represent the fickleness of the changer of ways, rolls of 1 from the re roll could trigger a mortal wound or leadership test or something.

Mark of Nurgle could grant a 5++ feel no pain to represent the resilience of the army, and the ability to fire bolters and combibolters as though they didn’t move (so generally always having rapid fire range at 24 inches). That way you can have an army constantly creeping forward.

Undivided could grant a selection of several special rules decided at list building, from scout redeployment to benefiting from friendly auras an extra one or two inches away to demonstrate being a particularly disciplined unit, for example.

These mark abilities are generally simple to write as a rule, reward a broad selection of units, and synergize with many different play styles. And seem sort of fluffy. And possibly aren’t game breaking. Since each one equates to roughly half or one whole chapter trait and most chaos space marine legion traits are garbage anyways.
It also breaks stereotypes about chaos gods’ followers that aren’t necessarily true and degrading to the game.

Also, marks could unlock extra war gear.

Khorne can allow each model in a khorne marked unit to pay points to take one of a flamer, chainsword, chainaxe, etc. or some other cool piece of war gear

Slaanesh can allow each model to pay points to take combat drugs which should do something cool like +1 bs and ws for a turn, or a 6+ fnp...

Nurgle can grant access to plague knives, grenades. Maybe an upgrade that makes their plagued blood potentially cause wounds to enemies in a certain radius (one or two inches) when they die.

Tzeentch grants an upgrade to potentially make a champion a psyker, and some kind of unholy grenade of sorcery, which causes mortal wounds.

 Marshal Loss wrote:

Yeah, it's interesting to ponder. They've taken clear steps in the DG & TS books to reduce the focus on chaff, with varying degrees of success, so I'm surprised to see such a massive influx of mortals into the army. If human possessed were troops, then we'd presumably have cultists + renegade guard + gribbly humans all as non-marine troop options. If it worked in the same 1:1:1:1 way as DG/TS, that's potentially a lot of mortals per CSM choice, and even if only one/some/none of those get obsec, it's hard to imagine basic CSM being able to compete.

Can't wait to see what the possessed/possessed humans look like though, I adore both of the greater possessed sculpts so hopefully they're of comparable quality.

It's from a page back, but random thinking on the matter led me to post this:

It might be that the intention is to showcase how CSM are different from their Loyalist counterparts. Chapter Serfs and defense forces? They aren't under direct Marine control, where they exist.
Not so with CSM.

Maybe they're re-releasing the Forsaken kit, but for 40k.

The "human" stuff still looks like a return of LaTD to me, with the Possessed Humans filling in for Big Mutants.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Maybe they're re-releasing the Forsaken kit, but for 40k.

I still bemoan the loss of that kit.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Marshal Loss wrote:

Yeah, it's interesting to ponder. They've taken clear steps in the DG & TS books to reduce the focus on chaff, with varying degrees of success, so I'm surprised to see such a massive influx of mortals into the army. If human possessed were troops, then we'd presumably have cultists + renegade guard + gribbly humans all as non-marine troop options. If it worked in the same 1:1:1:1 way as DG/TS, that's potentially a lot of mortals per CSM choice, and even if only one/some/none of those get obsec, it's hard to imagine basic CSM being able to compete.

It might be that the intention is to showcase how CSM are different from their Loyalist counterparts. Chapter Serfs and defense forces? They aren't under direct Marine control, where they exist.
Not so with CSM.

A fact already represented by the existence of cultists as a unit for CSM with no equivalent in C:SM. It's not that there isn't thematic reason for there to be mutants and cultists and other heretics until the control of the Chaos Space Marines, it's that a massive wave of these units seems to only worsen what is arguably the army's greatest overarching problem - the lack of reasons to take C:CSM's titular unit. Loyalists struggle enough on this front already and they have better stats and weapons. At the end of the day, it's still Codex: Chaos Space Marines. Or maybe you're spot on and this is how GW views C:CSM going forward: as a core of traitor marines surrounded by the lost and the damned. That has its own appeal, but it's not the direction I would have chosen.

The sheer number of rumoured mortal units even looks large enough to be the core for an LATD release; maybe the rumours are slightly off and not all of these units are intended for C:CSM, or maybe this is just GW incubating the core of a future LATD book inside C:CSM, I haven't the foggiest. I'm not mad either, for the record - my vanilla CSM army of choice is the Word Bearers, this stuff looks right up my alley. Still seems a strange decision though.

 Marshal Loss wrote:
I still bemoan the loss of that kit.

You might be in rare company than. I seem to recall that everyone hated that kit. I liked 'em, 'cause they fit well with my kit-bashed Lost & The Damned, but I think I'm in the minority there.

 Marshal Loss wrote:
A fact already represented by the existence of cultists as a unit for CSM with no equivalent in C:SM. It's not that there isn't thematic reason for there to be mutants and cultists and other heretics until the control of the Chaos Space Marines, it's that a massive wave of these units seems to only worsen what is arguably the army's greatest overarching problem - the lack of reasons to take C:CSM's titular unit. Loyalists struggle enough on this front already and they have better stats and weapons. At the end of the day, it's still Codex: Chaos Space Marines. Or maybe you're spot on and this is how GW views C:CSM going forward: as a core of traitor marines surrounded by the lost and the damned. That has its own appeal, but it's not the direction I would have chosen.

I'm sure they'll 'fix' that in the rules - can only take one [Cultist] unit for every [Heretic Astartes] [Infantry] unit in your detcahment.

 Marshal Loss wrote:
The sheer number of rumoured mortal units even looks large enough to be the core for an LATD release; maybe the rumours are slightly off and not all of these units are intended for C:CSM, or maybe this is just GW incubating the core of a future LATD book inside C:CSM, I haven't the foggiest. I'm not mad either, for the record - my vanilla CSM army of choice is the Word Bearers, this stuff looks right up my alley. Still seems a strange decision though.

I agree that it seems like a lot for a Chaos Space Marine release, but at the same time a bunch of vaguely similar infantry kits seems a bit thin for a full LATD or Traitor Guard release.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Marshal Loss wrote:
I still bemoan the loss of that kit.

You might be in rare company than. I seem to recall that everyone hated that kit. I liked 'em, 'cause they fit well with my kit-bashed Lost & The Damned, but I think I'm in the minority there.

Really? Genuinely surprised. I thought that it was overwhelmingly popular, such an incredible array of bits and mutations. Guess that shows how well I know the community.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Marshal Loss wrote:
A fact already represented by the existence of cultists as a unit for CSM with no equivalent in C:SM. It's not that there isn't thematic reason for there to be mutants and cultists and other heretics until the control of the Chaos Space Marines, it's that a massive wave of these units seems to only worsen what is arguably the army's greatest overarching problem - the lack of reasons to take C:CSM's titular unit. Loyalists struggle enough on this front already and they have better stats and weapons. At the end of the day, it's still Codex: Chaos Space Marines. Or maybe you're spot on and this is how GW views C:CSM going forward: as a core of traitor marines surrounded by the lost and the damned. That has its own appeal, but it's not the direction I would have chosen.

I'm sure they'll 'fix' that in the rules - can only take one [Cultist] unit for every [Heretic Astartes] [Infantry] unit in your detcahment.

The problem is that this restriction doesn't really work well at all - assuming it follows the same rules as C: DG or C: TS - when you have so many different units to draw from. Even if only Renegade Guard & Cultists are troops out of the large array of rumoured options, most armies only need to fill 3 troop slots, so there's really no reason to spend points on normal marines when you can fill your mandatory slots with chaff and then spend your points on Terminators/Chosen/whatever unit in the 9th ed book pumps out damage.

This hypothetical is still probably a better situation than what we have currently - players will be forced to take some marine units, even if they're not normal Chaos Space Marines - so maybe I'm just being overly pessimistic. The Death Guard book has this problem, where Plague Marines just don't do enough damage and aren't resilient enough for their points. Thousand Sons are in a much better position and Rubricae are often a mainstay of their early lists, that's a bit of a special situation.

Oh I never said it was a good solution (or even a solution ! ) just that that's what GW is mostly likely to go with given they've done it before.

This is one of the reasons why I like playing Red Corsairs. Like my Primaris White Scars, their main rules - advance and charge - is super easy to remember, but the other reason is that I get rewarded for bringing CSMs. I like CSMs anyway, meta be damned, but I get a bonus for taking them.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Marshal Loss wrote:
A fact already represented by the existence of cultists as a unit for CSM with no equivalent in C:SM. It's not that there isn't thematic reason for there to be mutants and cultists and other heretics until the control of the Chaos Space Marines, it's that a massive wave of these units seems to only worsen what is arguably the army's greatest overarching problem - the lack of reasons to take C:CSM's titular unit. Loyalists struggle enough on this front already and they have better stats and weapons. At the end of the day, it's still Codex: Chaos Space Marines. Or maybe you're spot on and this is how GW views C:CSM going forward: as a core of traitor marines surrounded by the lost and the damned. That has its own appeal, but it's not the direction I would have chosen.

I'm sure they'll 'fix' that in the rules - can only take one [Cultist] unit for every [Heretic Astartes] [Infantry] unit in your detcahment.

Ugh, that's exactly what I don't want. I'm not going to add that stuff into my Night Lords, they're a bad fit. But I'd love to run them by themselves, no Astartes. Probably the closest thing to R&H we'll get this edition. Want to take bets that they'll stick rules for pure LaTD in a DLC supplement?

Definitely. The best part will be they won't remove any of the repeated nerfings the cultists have taken. Just one more thing to "improve" CSM compared to their fodder

Here’s a crazy idea... incentivize taking chaos space marines with cultist/mortals by adding the sentence: this unit loses mere mortals as long as it is within 6 inches of a (key word for chaos space marines chosen terminators etc) unit.

Then you can sort of un-nerf mortals... or give them an extra close combat attack or rerolls to atttacks made in the combat phase or something.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Oh I never said it was a good solution (or even a solution ! ) just that that's what GW is mostly likely to go with given they've done it before.

This is one of the reasons why I like playing Red Corsairs. Like my Primaris White Scars, their main rules - advance and charge - is super easy to remember, but the other reason is that I get rewarded for bringing CSMs. I like CSMs anyway, meta be damned, but I get a bonus for taking them.

Missed the emphasis on 'fix', my bad but yeah you're totally right.

At least I'm sure the Word Bearers trait will be a trainwreck of such inglorious proportions that I may as well load up on normal CSM anyway.

After reading for the first time the traitor legions 7th edition rules.... Just do that, and Chaos IS fixed

I'd prefer one of two things -

Chaos Cultists are buffed being near CSM, act as quasi shields if the CSM unit is infantry (tau drones but only on like, 4+)

Or option to taken Chosen as troops.

 Galas wrote:
After reading for the first time the traitor legions 7th edition rules.... Just do that, and Chaos IS fixed

Yeah, aside from them not really knowing what to do with Word Bearers, the Traitor Legions book was pretty damn good. I have no idea why they just ditched it all in 8th edition just a few months later.

H.B.M.C. wrote:What should Marks do?

Curious on people's thoughts.

They should work by giving statline enhancements:

- Khorne: +1 attack
- Slannesh: +2 movement
- Nurgle: +1 toughness
- Tzeentch: +1 invul

The way they will work: access to Stratagems. I don't see that changing. And maybe actions.

Galas wrote:After reading for the first time the traitor legions 7th edition rules.... Just do that, and Chaos IS fixed

They were onto something with that book, along with Traitor's Hate.

Crispy78 wrote:Yeah, aside from them not really knowing what to do with Word Bearers, the Traitor Legions book was pretty damn good. I have no idea why they just ditched it all in 8th edition just a few months later.

Money. Releasing a book 6 months before a new edition is hard to justify any other way.

I figure they started work on a 7th ed Chaos Codex before 8th was on the horizon. It never fit into a release window, so they repackaged it into this.

I've been thinking about Marks for a good part of the day, including yet another daily walk spent working out how I'd do it, or coming up with ideas.

I like a lot of what I'm seeing here, but one thing that struck me was that I like to use as few rules as possible (hence my advocating for USRs), and I wondered if it wouldn't be possible to combine Marks and keywords. Basically a tiered system, with those closer to the Chaos Gods gaining more benefits.

Essentially:

Mark of X - Anyone who has the Mark of X gets Effect X (could be as simple as a stat change, or a USR, or whatever). This would cover CSMs, most characters, and most vehicles.
Mark of X (Daemonic) - Anyone who has the Mark of X and the 'Daemonic' Keyword gets Effect X and Effect Y. This would cover Daemons themselves (mitigating the need for similar-but-different rules, and creating consistency) as well as the units that have opened themselves up to Chaos more, like Possessed, Daemon Princes, Daemon Engines and the like.
Mark of X (Exalted) - Anyone who has the Mark of X and the 'Exalted' Keyword gets Effect X, Effect Y and Effect Z. This new Keyword would be applied to Greater Daemons, Heralds, Daemonic Primarchs.

Marks could cost points, and in some cases be baked into the unit cost (like Daemons).

On top of this, there's a concept I played with many years ago back in the days of 4th/5th when we were doing out own rules. Inspired by Abaddon's 'Mark of Chaos Ascendant', I thought of an idea for Greater Marks of Chaos.

In our rules, these were represented by 5 items:

1. Mark of Chaos Ascendant (unaligned)
2. Talisman of Burning Blood (Khorne)
3. Shrieking Soul (Slaanesh)
4. Tainted Charm (Nurgle)
5. Prismatic Amulet (Tzeentch)

These were one per army on your main HQ upgrades, and acted as Marks+; something special for your Chaos Lord, Sorcerer Lord or Daemon Prince. Now I was lucky in that I got to write four of the above items into the rules for the Black Crusade RPG, but I've always liked the idea of using them again in 40k. Given that we have points-based upgrades again in 9th, they seem like an interesting idea. In this instance, the Greater Marks would have their own rule, plus give the bearer the 'Exalted' Keyword for the purposes of Marks of X.

Again, this is all from around 45m of brainstorming as I trudged around my suburb, so none of it is fully formed (don't even know what the Marks themselves would do!), but I kinda like the idea.

 techsoldaten wrote:
- Khorne: +1 attack
- Slannesh: +2 movement
- Nurgle: +1 toughness
- Tzeentch: +1 invul

The Invul and Movement ones worry me, and the Attack one seems kinda 'blah'. Not that these are bad - a good first step, really - but I'm worried that extra movement could be quite dangerous and extra Invul could ruffle a lot of (multi-coloured) feathers and bring back memories of invincible Tzeenchian death stars.

Having said that...

 techsoldaten wrote:
... And maybe actions.

Now that's an idea! You could even call them 'Glorifying Acts', and allow units with Mark of X to perform a God-specific one for a benefit of some kind. That's a very cool idea!

 techsoldaten wrote:
They were onto something with that book, along with Traitor's Hate.

I never ended up getting Traitor's Hate. Very expensive very thin books.

Can you elaborate on what was good in there?

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
Chaos Cultists are buffed being near CSM, act as quasi shields if the CSM unit is infantry (tau drones but only on like, 4+)

'Dark Inspiration'. Another interesting idea.

 Galas wrote:
After reading for the first time the traitor legions 7th edition rules.... Just do that, and Chaos IS fixed

Thanks. I just spent 20m tearing my apartment apart looking for my copy. I hope you're happy!

j/k

I was thinking: wouldn't it be simpler to also fuse the respective icons with marks ? Remove the cost of icons and make them automatic effects.
It would be easy to tweak them so it's not too strong and would simplify the matter quite a bit, no ?

They did that once upon a time. If the Icon died your squad forgot what God they were dedicated to.

Those were dark times.

Well if you're not holding a huge banner with a specific symbol on it how are you supposed to remember whose side you're on?
Are we the Skull Munchers, the Skull Eaters, the Skull Takers, or the Skull Throwers? It's all so confusing.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
- Khorne: +1 attack
- Slannesh: +2 movement
- Nurgle: +1 toughness
- Tzeentch: +1 invul

The Invul and Movement ones worry me, and the Attack one seems kinda 'blah'. Not that these are bad - a good first step, really - but I'm worried that extra movement could be quite dangerous and extra Invul could ruffle a lot of (multi-coloured) feathers and bring back memories of invincible Tzeenchian death stars.

Having said that...

So you get the idea, statline changes to models bearing Marks should (gently) mess with the mechanics of the game.

While the specifics could vary, the main thing we lost with 8th edition Marks was tactical versatility for CSM. The benefits of do-something Marks were never terribly useful, but there were times they would make a difference.

You're right about the extra movement. But it would be in keeping with other themes related to Slaanesh.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
... And maybe actions.

Now that's an idea! You could even call them 'Glorifying Acts', and allow units with Mark of X to perform a God-specific one for a benefit of some kind. That's a very cool idea!

GW could take that a lot of ways. Have a Khorne squad build a hill of skulls, have a Slaanesh squad suck the vitals from a fallen opponent to make drugs later.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
They were onto something with that book, along with Traitor's Hate.

I never ended up getting Traitor's Hate. Very expensive very thin books.

Can you elaborate on what was good in there?

Sure.

First off, I was not a fan of 7th and didn't play it much. Traitor's Hate addressed a lot of concerns I had about the game.

The big one was armored squads, it let you field 3 Predators / Vindicators as a single Heavy Support choice. So there was this appeal to running a Chaos armored column, where half your army was tanks and opponents didn't have the tools to deal with them plus Obliterators and DPs.

Then there were the new Psychic Disciplines. It's been a while, so I don't remember all of them. But one let Sorcerers move terrain around the table, which was very useful when you were fielding an armored column. I would put a building in front of my opponent's heavy antitank weapons, make them move a turn before they could shoot again. Then I would put some rocks in front of them to block LOS completely.

It also had datasheets for Renegade Knights. I was running a Fire Raptor along with one, together they would just chew up opponents very turn.

 Galas wrote:
After reading for the first time the traitor legions 7th edition rules.... Just do that, and Chaos IS fixed

Traitor Legions was great, but I don't think we want that exactly. Remember: it allowed NO MARKS for Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion, and Night Lords. Word Bearers could have Marks, but couldn't take units that ALREADY HAD A MARK. So basically, Marks were for the God aligned Legions, Black Legion, and Word Bearers, and Cult Marines and any God aligned daemon engines were only for the God aligned Legions and Black Legion. So if you have any Iron Warriors Berzerkers, Alpha Legion Noise Marines, or Night Lords Plague Marines, they'd be out. I don't think people want their models invalidated. It isn't very fun (looks at converted Chaos Contemptor with dual Butcher Cannons).

Yeah, the no marks for certain Legions was dumb when we've had specific examples of those Legions using Marks and Marked units. Storm of Iron had a whole Grand Company dedicated to Khorne, the Word Bearers 34th Host had Berzerkers, and I'm fairly certain there were Astartes in the Night Lords trilogy that were either marked or came very close to it.

Definitely agree with statline enhancements for marks, they should have a decent cost and provide a decent modification to the unit in order to let you really diversify the basic CSM unit.

If you look at loyalists they have 6 different marine troop options ranging from 18 to 28pts per model intended to fill a reasonable variety of different roles.

Assault intercessors are a good example of why low cost, minor changes to the stats for the unit aren't really enough to make them interesting.

It would be nice to have khorne marked csm be genuinely scary on the charge so i'd be tempted to suggest strength, attacks and ap boosts, obviously for the right price per model.

Would say a 3ppm (21pts) upgrade to give chainsword CSM 4 attacks at S5 -2ap be reasonable? It would basically make them no more powerful than blood angels assault intercessors in assault doctrine but you're paying a couple of points extra per model for the greater variety of options...



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually blood angels get another attack with their super doctrine