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So with the new codex dropping soon would anyone else love to see changes being made to the basic space Marine chapter master?
I mean as of now I have NEVER once seen one played That was customized to a chapter as opposed to a already named character. And everyone seems to hate on blue marines with Vulcan or Lysander in their forces... And I think their hatred is with good reason.

I would love to see new options for weaponry.. Such as Awsome artifact choices like the chaos marines have.
Now this is just an idea but how would people feel about every chapter master adding the eternal Waitor special rule to go along with his orbital bombardment.
This atleast makes him a bit better than the basic captain.. The only difference he has currently has is the OB and ability to take honor guard which I've never seen played anyways.. And he's 25 points more expensive.
However with the new EW rule and available weapon upgrades (for fair points of course) you add something along the lines of..

If your chapter master falls in battle, you immediatly forfeit one victory point to your opponent, and all units leadership have a -2 modifier for the following player turn.
To make things interesting and more realistic as you shouldn't bring a CM to every battle and your forces would certainly take his loss pretty tough on the battlefield.

Thoughts?

An interesting option would be to create Chapter Masters based on Chaplains, Librarians, or Techmarines; Kyras isn't necessarily a good precedent what with the whole idiotic Khornate Sorcerer Daemon Prince Thingy, but it stands to reason that with four different character archetypes (Captain, Librarian, Chaplain, Master of the Forge) not all Chapters' leaders would be of the Captain archetype.

Chapter Masters are usually former 1-st company or 2-4 company captains. Only few chapters allow non-captains to join a competition for Master chair, as it would be totally against Codex. And not like this rule is unreasinable - captains are battle tacticians, managing marine forces and command is their job, while librarians and chaplsins have other tasks to focus on and could not be as capable commanders as captains if only due to some congenital gift.
Though, there are chapters lead by non-captains in dire need, like the Mantis Warriors, after thir HQ was slaughtered by Carcharodons.

kind of following on from that

librarians with the Psyker
chaplains with usual chaplain boosts his units combat
basic chapter masters are really just carry better wargear
all 3 get a warlord trait.

Chapter masters are the leaders of the chapter and skilled strategists

id like to see
a generic chapter master can purchase new wargear like stated OR specific buffs to his troops to compete with the librarian
in the same way sicarius's battle forged heroes rule but treated as optional wargear
or even issue commands like imperial guard do
and tau ethereals get the elemental buffs why not CM's?

simply a choice of chapter tactics to start to define the chapter your playing
then add the buffs/orders/skills you want depending how you want to play

Yea, I would love to see any of those things.
All good ideas and it doesn't make much sense in the grand scheme of things that they don't do anything more than a captain besides one orbital bombardment per game. They aren't even better at combat.. Same WS/BS

I think wat SM CM/Captains really need is a way to boost their army in some way. Not by psy-powers of Zealot rule, like Librarians or Chaplains, but by modifying force chart, moving units to troops or giving units special rules.

For exampe, you can upgrade vanilla captain to the captain of the:
First company: More elites slots and/or moving termies/sterns/vanguards to troops.
Battle Company: Allow some specific (maybe byable) upgrades for Tacticals Sicarious style, maybe some bolterdrill rule like with Lysander of Tau Fireblade.
Assault Company: More FA slots or Assault Marines as troops, maybe some special rules to boost AM's, loke Captain could allow them to use jump pack in both movement and assault phases if he;s in squad.
Devastator Company: More HS, Devs in troops, heavy weapon for a Captain to buy, maybe some Tank Hunters/Monster Hunters rules as byable upgrades, bonus for Captain in a squad, or IG-order style
Reserve Company: ???
Scout Company: ???

As for CM, he may be boosted with some rule like GK Grand Srtategy to reptesent the fact that he's a super-tactician with a hunddreds of years of commander experience, and is more of a field commander than super-Marry-Sue warrior that strangle Avatars with his bare hands.

Maybe some special sniper rifle/boltgun and scouting gear for Scout captain?

I would love to field a scout company, but this could be how they are rolling so many chapters in to one codex

 Mantle wrote:
I would love to field a scout company, but this could be how they are rolling so many chapters in to one codex

Well, as far as I know, scout company almost never get deployed on it's own - much like the first company they mostly get split to provide their service to other companies.

I would like to see chapter master and captains as an supportive HQ role with the potential of making them badass is CC or Ranged by putting points into gear/artifacts.

I would love to see librarians, chaplains, apothecary's and techmarines as HQ choices not taking up any force organization slot (but each would be limited to one per HQ). These guys would be attachable to most squads (terminators, tacticals, scouts, devs).

The issues would be that you really end up with 2 real HQ choices, as well as a total re-balance of the librarians, chaplains, apothecary's and techmarines.

Potentially what you could do is split the libby's, techmarines, chaplains and apoth into "master" vs "student" role.

So a master of the forge would be a HQ but a techmarine a cheaper character with with worse stats/abilities, not taking a force organization slot.

For example:

Master of the Forge (50 pt) 4 4 4 4 1 4 1 8 2+
repair, bolster defences, servo-arm, may take lots of stuff, yada yada.

Techmarine (35 pt) 4 4 4 4 1 4 1 8 3+
repair, servo-arm. yada yada.

Master Apothecary (50 pt) 4 4 4 4 1 4 1 8 3+
Diagnostor Helmet, Reductor, Narcathium (5+), may take lots of stuff, yada yada.

Apothecary (25 pt) 4 4 4 4 1 4 1 8 3+
Diagnostor Helmet, Narcathium (6+), yada yada

Chaplain (80 pt) 5 4 4 4 2 4 2 10 3+
Rosarius, Crozanium arcanum, Zealot, may take lots of stuff, yada yada.

Chaplain Neophytes (35 pt) 4 4 4 4 1 4 2 10 3+
Crozanium arcanum, Zealot, may take jump pack + some CC, yada yada.

Librarian (65 pt) 5 4 4 4 2 4 2 10 3+
Physic hood, Force weapon, Psyker, may upgrade psyker level, may take lots of stuff, yada yada.

Librarian Aspirant (40 pt) 4 4 4 4 1 4 1 10 3+
Physic hood, Force weapon, Psyker, yada yada.

I'm pretty sure there will be some kind of artefacts system. also these points reductions are bonkers ^^ (and dont get me started on the stats)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
An interesting option would be to create Chapter Masters based on Chaplains, Librarians, or Techmarines; Kyras isn't necessarily a good precedent what with the whole idiotic Khornate Sorcerer Daemon Prince Thingy, but it stands to reason that with four different character archetypes (Captain, Librarian, Chaplain, Master of the Forge) not all Chapters' leaders would be of the Captain archetype.

It might be interesting game-wise, but heresy lore-wise.

Well I made a custom/6th Ed update to the 5th led codex. What I did was majorly alter the Captains rather than the CM, other than forcing the CM to be the Warlord.