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Ok, pardon the rant here.

I'm a big 40k Nurgle fan. Nurgle Chaos Renegades (originally built using the Lost and the Damned book) were my second 40k army and for a long time was my favorite. Last summer I repainted my Nurgle army and have been playing it quite a bit. Recently another player at the LGS was looking at my army and said "Cool, Nurgle! I play Nurgle too!". He proceded to show me an army that consisted of two Plague Marine squads backed up by nine oblitorators and two lash princes.
I'm sorry. That's not a Nurgle army. That's an army picked for maximum table top performance with no thought given to a theme. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for winning. No one goes into a wargame trying to loose and I believe to some extent or another we all tyr to win. But come on..

Mixing of chaos powers is an army is not automaticly a bad thing. It's been done since day one. But is it that hard to make a themed chaos army competative?

Mixing gods in an army REALLY steps over the line when you start putting the opposing chaos gods in the same force. (you know, Khorne and Slaanesh hate each other as do Nurgle and Tzentch) How do you defend that?
I recently observed a local tourny in which this was rampant. One CSM army had Plague Marines and Thousand suns (and not some "counts as" thing...they were painted in canon style) together, while another had a large force of Khorne Berserkers being lead by a Slaanesh sorceror with lash! :wtf: I actually asked the owner of the latter army "You do know that one of the first things the World Eaters did when they turned renegade was kill all their librarians. Why do you think they would tolerate the pressence of any sorceror..especially one from a power they are opposed to?" His answer was something along the lines of "Well, they are an effective combo!" :rolleyes: Another army from the same event was a Chaos Daemon army with a mix of Nurgle and Tzentch daemons. Yikes!

Had I played any of those forces I would have given them low scores for army comp as I consider mixing opposing chaos powers to be a WAAC move.

So as I asked in the title, do today's chaos players care about the long standing fluff of the game or do they just consider the units in the codex to be a meaningless collection of bits to make "mix and pick" armies?

TR

Don't blame the players for that. Blame Gav, Jervis and Alessio. They're the reason why Lucius can lead a unit of Berzerkers and why Fateweaver can lead an army of Plague Bearers.

I think part of the problem here (assuming that it's even really a "problem") is games workshop. The recent books don't seem to care what sort of mix of units/powers you use. The older books at least tried to some extent to limit or discourage this by limiting access to cult troops (they were elites in the last two books) and then giving ways to make them troops if you dedicate your army to a certain god. The system was not perfect but I thought the previous Chaos Marine book handled the cult armies pretty well while still retaining the option to run a black legion style mixed army.

Frankly though I wouldn't get too bent out of shape about the tournament crowd not caring about which marks/powers/gods they mix together. This has always been the case it's just that Games Workshop doesn't try to discourage it anymore.

Oh believe me. I know were the blame lies. You are correct.
However just because you can do it in the codex does not mean that a player should take that option.

TR

It's long standing fluff that's utterly lacking in the new codex, and they also in no way built the new chaos book for mono-god armies to be remotely complete.

Previous chaos books allowed for (admittedly thin) armies to be built around every god, complete with full support and having a theme that can actually succeed. Now, the cults are much more like Aspect warriors: specialists that need to be combined to have any success.

So, the old fluff restrictions were also gaming restrictions: they were the counterbalance to the insane diversity and power of the chaos book. Now, those fluff restrictions are just as quaint as arbitrary as any other fluff or theme based protocol.

Trench-Raider wrote:Oh believe me. I know were the blame lies. You are correct.
However just because you can do it in the codex does not mean that a player should take that option.

TR

well, and I think that players shouldn't take 20 nob bikers, or all assault terminators plus 10 scouts as a space marine army, but it happens.

The ancient enemies thing isn't in the fluff any more...Khorne and Slaanesh are buddies now

Pretty much. The good news is that the newer books offer a ton of choice. That means that you'll see some folks who will make choices based on how things perform or even just the fact that they like the models rather than looking at all at the fluff.

For instance, were I doing CSM's, there's a pretty good chance you'd see a Plague Marine and Thousand Sons army. My reasoning wouldn't have anything to do with the fluff. I just happen to think the models for those two cults are great.

On the other hand, if GW came out with a Chaos rules set which encouraged (not shoehorned) players to follow the fluff a little more, I think that would be great. I've zero issue with folks getting a bonus of buff when playing those nice, themed armies. Couple that with the large amount of background GW has already done for things, it does make sense to use it.

Yup, the fluff has changed. Read the new codexes before making judgements of other's forces...

It's no more valid expecting someone to make an army that conforms to outdated fluff than it is to allow them to play using the outdated rules.

I really miss the old codex. The new one just doesn't make up for the loss of the ability to take a fully geared-up Chaos Lord that can rip up Termies and MCs.

By the way, does anyone else remember that super cheesy Nurgle plague sword? A power weapon that wounds on a 2+ and can be taken on ANY champion. Brutal.

Yea i remember i loved that weapon lol

Trench-Raider wrote:Oh believe me. I know were the blame lies. You are correct.
However just because you can do it in the codex does not mean that a player should take that option.

TR

Cry more.

Seriously.

In the 10 minutes it took you to post your OP, you could have been setting up a game against a Chaos army to figure out how to beat whatever it is you have a problem with this week.

inb4 son, kiddo, champ, tiger and cheif.

I'm sorry. That's not a Nurgle army. That's an army picked for maximum table top performance with no thought given to a theme. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for winning. No one goes into a wargame trying to loose and I believe to some extent or another we all tyr to win. But come on..

Here we go again with the "I don't like that people don't play thier armies the way I think they should whine.

It is a fraking game and everyone doesn't look at or play it the same way. Some people like fluffy little armies that they can make up all kinds of stories/background about and give cute names to all thier models. Others play competitive and build armies with the strongest units in the codex. Most however are somewhere in between.

Simple solution....play your army the way YOU want and let others do the same without having to listen to any whinning on your part.

My first army was Word Bearers from 2nd edition. You know, the same models/rules/etc as every other CSM legion, except for the paint job, and eventually being able to take 1 chaplain from the SM codex.

My army has evolved over the 3 editions of the game, and somewhere in the area of 7 printings of the various CSM codexes. However, I still don't use cult troops, or marked troops other than undivided. I do use Oblits. And Raptors. I also used to not like using marked Daemons, so the new "generic" daemons are great by me.

All that being said, my army has always been about chaos marines. Not vehicles, not cult troops, not daemons, so I'm probably less affected than others might be.

Now let's take a look at the current 5th ed codex:
1) chaos god animosity is now gone
2) cult armies (legions) are now gone - but can be replicated in some form
3) marked daemons are gone - replaced by generics
4) the focus of the book has gone from "chaos legions" to "chaos renegades" - moving closer to spiky marines than we've ever been before.

All of that, plus the emergence of the interweb as a place to get "the most effective army lists evar!" is slowly driving the nail into the historical fluff of armies in 40k. Hell, if I want to make a "dark apostle" for my Word Bearers, I need to take a Tzeentch marked lord to get the "rosarius invulnerable save". So even those of us who build fluff-based forces, not using all the best combos (never have, and never will use lash), have to cut some corners to make things work.

I also had someone show me the ropes when I got into the game in 4th edition whose primary teachings were 1) sportsmanship and fun matters at all times, and what the game is built around; and 2) fluff makes the experience more enjoyable. Both of which I believe and continue to follow 10 years later.

My .10 (inflation, you know )

*edit* @ Grotsnik - I agree, and which is why I play with a good group of like-minded players, and never play in FLGS or GW stores.

Like HBMC said, blame Gee-Dubya. They messed things up.


Personally, I have a hard enough time allying with Nurgle and Tzeentch when we do 3 on 3 battles with my friend.

It's ridiculous. Tzeentch I can kind of stand. But my friend who plays Tzeentch should be killing my friend who's Nurgle in addition to the other side.

I should be killing everyone. I play Khorne.

It's annoying. I know.

But in this case, don't blame the players. If they even want to win one game out of 100, they need to take a combo of units.

It's Gav's and Alessio's and Jervis' and Jervis' kid's fault.

In this 'rare' instance, it's not the player's fault. So please don't blame them.

I'm like 100% sure that if it wasn't for combining, they would lose every game.

Look, everyone understands that CSM are quite a powerful army, but that's not what we're talking about here. No-one is complaining about cheese, Bunker, so read posts fully and don't open your mouth until then,

We're complaining that the fluff for CSM (and other new codexes) no longer has any effect on thhe gameplay. In this dreadful era of 'counts as', we have ludicrous situations like Slaanesh psykers leading an otherwise Khornate army.

Vladsimpaler wrote:But in this case, don't blame the players. If they even want to win one game out of 100, they need to take a combo of units.

Gee, I don't know. I still use almost the same exact CSM list I did back in 3rd, and I still win more than 50% of my games. And that includes GTs. It might actually be the player in some cases, unless you're talking about Cult armies attempting to replicate the legions. My Word Bearers work just fine, although at this point, I might as well use the Marine Codex

Let's see:

Dark Apostle - Chaplain
Veteran CSM - sternguard
CSM Marines - tacticals
CSM Devs - Devs
Raptors - Assault Marines
Chaos Dread - Dread (plus venerable, etc.)
Vindi/Pred/LR all the same, or better.

I'd miss out on the generic daemons, but what does that matter

*edit* - oh yeah, I'd never do the above btw, but is an example of cheese elementals "counts as" era, which I also find sad.

Redbeard wrote:Yup, the fluff has changed. Read the new codexes before making judgements of other's forces...

It's no more valid expecting someone to make an army that conforms to outdated fluff than it is to allow them to play using the outdated rules.

QFT.

On a more personal note: I know it sounds cool to insist on ideas from a book that cannot be bought any more and that few people really have read. I did that myself. But I found that doing so does not say anything about the other people ignoring my rants but about me. Yet it still was kind of hard to stop. Until I read the older books again. And boy, I am quite happy that we are rid of that fluff. God, that was some gakky writing, combined with gakky ideas based on gakky rules that only people who had never thought beyond Chainmail could have come up with. Good riddance! Yay for the new, vague style that allows for players to actually create a personalized feeling for their army.

Notabene: I love how the GW staff make fun of their former ways. It is not as good as Terry Pratchett stating "yeah, it might have been the another Lord Vetinari [in the earliest books]. Because I described his looks and behaviours differently. Or maybe I was just a bad writer at that time". It is not as reflected as Stephen King writing long intros to every new revision of "The Dark Tower" begging for pardon that he improved while writing his books and that he dared to update them. But it is lovable.

-Tierlieb

Trench-Raider wrote: two Plague Marine squads backed up by nine oblitorators and two lash princes.
...snip...
Mixing gods in an army REALLY steps over the line when you start putting the opposing chaos gods in the same force. (you know, Khorne and Slaanesh hate each other as do Nurgle and Tzentch) How do you defend that?

plague marines, Nurgle
oblits i think are undivided
lash princes are Slaanesh right?

Nurgle and Slaanesh have no problems with eachother
Nurgle likes to cause disease and create new life, Slaanesh likes to create new life

Although i do agree with the rest of your points that one just confused me a little.

Yeah, well that's the new GW policy for ya. *beep* the fluff and sell more stuff. Unfortunately...
I was really into Chaos before this last codex which really killed the joy of it... Same with the ork dex a bit later...


//Edge

Cruentus wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:But in this case, don't blame the players. If they even want to win one game out of 100, they need to take a combo of units.

Gee, I don't know. I still use almost the same exact CSM list I did back in 3rd, and I still win more than 50% of my games. And that includes GTs. It might actually be the player in some cases, unless you're talking about Cult armies attempting to replicate the legions. My Word Bearers work just fine, although at this point, I might as well use the Marine Codex

Let's see:

Dark Apostle - Chaplain
Veteran CSM - sternguard
CSM Marines - tacticals
CSM Devs - Devs
Raptors - Assault Marines
Chaos Dread - Dread (plus venerable, etc.)
Vindi/Pred/LR all the same, or better.

I'd miss out on the generic daemons, but what does that matter

*edit* - oh yeah, I'd never do the above btw, but is an example of cheese elementals "counts as" era, which I also find sad.

Booyah, Codex Marines works better than codex Chaos for the original traitor legions. Night Lords led by Counts as "Shrike" for instance...

On another note, Polonius hit the nail on the head. The codex is now designed with Cult Troops as "Aspect Warriors" of the Chaos army, so that you can't really build a mono-power Chaos army and have the same flexibility as you used to in the older dex. (Oddly enough, Codex Demons has alot more powerful Mono-Power builds since each power gets its own units in each Force Org Slot. The same failing of the Chaos Dex can be said for the Eldar dex as well, where all the craftworlds disappeared.

Unfortunately, you can't "hate" on the newer players that don't know the old fluff, since they have no idea because the fluff doesn't appear in the books anymore. How are they supposed to know Khorne and Slaanesh hate each other? How do they even know about the Traitor Legions and Horus? It's barely mentioned in the new book. Hell, most of the fluff focuses on Huron Blackheart (BORING) boarding a space wolf ship.

corpsesarefun wrote:oblits i think are undivided

Obliterators are Obliterators, not Undivided. They belong to the Obliterator Cult(at least they used to, don't have my Codecii on me to check the newest fluff) and bear the Obliterator Virus instead of a Mark of Chaos.

Cheese Elemental wrote: we have ludicrous situations like Slaanesh psykers leading an otherwise Khornate army.

There is a story in an old Inferno with a Khorne army led by a champion of Khorne that had a voice that could influence people to do things...Sounds A LOT like what the Lash does...

It's less thearmy builds andmore nobody caring about fluff at all. Lots of people don't know anything about The chaos army, how they fight, or what they fight for. All they know is "this combo wins. Tragic past of Death guard.....Huh? Used to be the dusk raiders...what? And what does that leave us with, you ask. Bare bones battle reports lacking anything more than, Lash prince A lashes tact unit 2 for Oblit squad C to Plasma cannon.

Ask them why there are 2 daemon princes of slannech leading thier army, where did the oblits come from, and what are they fighting for? It's easy to come up with a back story, but most will not have bothered with that. And when something new comes out this army will end up on ebay like the Iron warriors and Khorne daemon princes of old.

My chaos lord has been battling the hated Emperor for 14 years, he's slain Titans, and been pulled down by grots. He's seen the rise of the necrons and the fall of the squats. All the campains he's been in has given him a rich back story. Last week he killed a nameless lash prince and it's nameless army. No kidding, I asked the guy and all he came up with was. Uhhhhh.

Rant over, Flame shield up.

Platuan4th wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:oblits i think are undivided

Obliterators are Obliterators, not Undivided. They belong to the Obliterator Cult(at least they used to, don't have my Codecii on me to check the newest fluff) and bear the Obliterator Virus instead of a Mark of Chaos.

Thanks for clearing that up
still my point stands oblits dont follow a rival god to slaanesh or nurgle.

I think that it depends on your point of view.

I started a WE army back in 2nd Ed, when I joined again in 4th Ed, I went back to them as I had the units. But man is it dull just charging on headlong! So with a bit of stripping my chaos force are now mercenaries and renegades, plynig the stars serving their dark masters whims, sometimes there's a Slaaneshi sorceror and some bezerkers, they know how to make use of the pansy princes servants to ensure khorne's cup of blood is full.

My Nurgle lord has a tzeenchian sorceror under his command, he knows he can not be trusted, and that the changer of ways has some scheme up his sleave, but for now they have their use, and will be used as tools in the war that consumes the stars.

i hate the way thigs are going now to..i play death gard, in my armey there is nothing with out the M.O.N and all my infantery are in squads of 7. the only thing i admit that is counter fluff is that my army is mostly maeckanised..but thats cuz i see the idear of a invading force of guys inhi matanese armor with out trasport stupid. and you know whar really got my goat? the fantasy army book..you can give a champion with a mark gifts from a rival god! damit!

Platuan4th wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:oblits i think are undivided

Obliterators are Obliterators, not Undivided. They belong to the Obliterator Cult(at least they used to, don't have my Codecii on me to check the newest fluff) and bear the Obliterator Virus instead of a Mark of Chaos.

A nice example of fluff not fitting with other fluff - so what did we have? Only the 4 chaos gods, several Chaos gods, only lesser gods. Where did that Obliterator virus thing come from? From an attempt to make up an explanation why you couldn't fit Oblits into a cult army. Because of game-balance reasons. Now the game-balance thing is gone and we still consider the idea fluffy.

One more point for going the vague way. Or for separating the what (rules) from the why (fluff).
It's a lesson role-playing games learned earlier.

So while it may hard to explain having a Slaneesh-marked sorcerer leading PM and Obliterators, having a Preacher of Nurgle (with a seducing voice, simulated by LOS) lead the same Plague Marines and those infected former terminators (hmmm... Obliterator virus - sounds like Papa Nurgle had a good idea there, that's much more interesting than this bubonic plague thing the last time - if you ask me at least) sounds good.

It's less thearmy builds andmore nobody caring about fluff at all. Lots of people don't know anything about The chaos army, how they fight, or what they fight for. All they know is "this combo wins. Tragic past of Death guard.....Huh? Used to be the dusk raiders...what? And what does that leave us with, you ask. Bare bones battle reports lacking anything more than, Lash prince A lashes tact unit 2 for Oblit squad C to Plasma cannon.

Ask them why there are 2 daemon princes of slannech leading thier army, where did the oblits come from, and what are they fighting for? It's easy to come up with a back story, but most will not have bothered with that. And when something new comes out this army will end up on ebay like the Iron warriors and Khorne daemon princes of old.

My chaos lord has been battling the hated Emperor for 14 years, he's slain Titans, and been pulled down by grots. He's seen the rise of the necrons and the fall of the squats. All the campains he's been in has given him a rich back story. Last week he killed a nameless lash prince and it's nameless army. No kidding, I asked the guy and all he came up with was. Uhhhhh.

Good one! That I would care about. Stories. Not army builds. To me story, modelling and gaming are equal parts of the hobby.

Sometimes people need help with one or the other. How about we start finding some helpful questions for the story thing?
I'll begin with simple stuff:

What is that warband named?
Who is their leader(s). Why?
How are they based?
Since when have they been around?
How did they come to be?
What did they do since then?
Why did they do it?

Of course these stories may change (changing HQs, increasing size...). Hopefully they'll incorporate parts of older stories.

EDIT:

i hate the way thigs are going now to..i play death gard, in my armey there is nothing with out the M.O.N and all my infantery are in squads of 7. the only thing i admit that is counter fluff is that my army is mostly maeckanised..but thats cuz i see the idear of a invading force of guys inhi matanese armor with out trasport stupid. and you know whar really got my goat? the fantasy army book..you can give a champion with a mark gifts from a rival god! damit!

So of all the possible plot hooks and stories from those old codices, you managed to get away with counting models up to a certain number and sticking to giving them a certain special ability?

-Tierlieb

Fluff does not equal rules.

Fluff changes with every codex.

Therefore, what you think is fluffy has no bearing on what other people should bring to the table.

corpsesarefun wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:oblits i think are undivided

Obliterators are Obliterators, not Undivided. They belong to the Obliterator Cult(at least they used to, don't have my Codecii on me to check the newest fluff) and bear the Obliterator Virus instead of a Mark of Chaos.

Thanks for clearing that up
still my point stands oblits dont follow a rival god to slaanesh or nurgle.

Haha, this is hillarious, obliterators arent even infected marines with the obliterator virus anymore, the fluff has changed! They are now dark mechanicus-alikes, who work for armies in return for tech/slaves/candy etc.

corpsesarefun, tzeentch likes new life and change, nugle likes death and stagnation. thats why they fight.

Yes, when not fighting the imperium, the chaos factions fight amongst eachother, and even then, champions of the same god fight amongst eachother.

chaos is chaos. you seem to getting worked up about the fact that peoples armies dont comply to a set of arbitrary rules that you deem appropriate, thereby attempting to bring order to chaos?

If you do that and make armies comply, is it still chaos?