Codex Chaos Space Marines MKII

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Over in Disqus (Larry Vela's CSM Editorial) I made a sweeping comment.
I said we should try and make an errata document that "fixed" csm! Big talk.
So I'm here, as promised to ask you all to take part, let's crowdsource this thing!
BOLS has put together lists before, what we're planning here is different. The idea is to adjust the framework of the codex to allow a more flexible codex that will cover all legions.
Here are my first 5 thoughts;
1.
Errata the Icon of Vengence to grant the unit a new USR
(I need help deciding which) and act as a teleport homer
2.
Add Mark of Chaos Undivided
10pts for an IC or 2pts/model
Grants the Bearer Fearless
And add Deamon of Chaos Undivided rule to Deamon Prince which allows him to act as a locator beacon for 15 pts.
3.
Allow any IC with a mark to make cult marines troops (including Deamon Princes)
4.
allow mutilators and warptalons to assault from deepstrike
5.
add the drop-pod to the dedicated transport list BUT with access to CSM vehicle upgrades where they'd fit as opposed to marine ones.

Thoughts, you own ideas, so-one. We'll combine the most promising bits together and see about making a simple PDF we can playtest!
Over to you BOLS crew, show the stuff that made this community what it is!

[Mr Mystery]

So back to just Spiky Marines then?

[Kaptain Badrukk]

So back to just Spiky Marines then?
You're missing the point here. The idea is to bring back the flavor. If we end up with "Spikey Marines" we've failed.
If you have better ideas then contribute then correct me, but sitting on the sidelines sneering only does you a disservice.
BOLS posters obviously care about this community and what it has to offer. Join in!
I want you (in a non-slaaneshi way)!
We all ***** and moan about things, well why not be proactive and try to make them better :)
Let this be a place for positive development, not negativity. Save that for Warseer.

[Siris Le Osiris]

Giving Chaos up to 6 units in a force org that could assault from deep strike would be utterly broken.
Every shooting army in the game would be auto toast.

[Obispal]

I think it really needed a special character from each of the other turned legions (Iron Warriors= Honsou, Night Lords= Talos etc.), with these unlock the old FOC bonuses from 3rd.

And believe that mark of chaos undivided should make a unit fearless and that the Chaos Relics need a serious overhaul, i mean only seen half of the list ever used

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Giving Chaos up to 6 units in a force org that could assault from deep strike would be utterly broken.
Every shooting army in the game would be auto toast.
Still not quite getting how this works, but ok.
How would you make them "worth taking" without breaking them then?
This is what we're aiming for, don't like something so propose how to fix it.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

I think it really needed a special character from each of the other turned legions (Iron Warriors= Honsou, Night Lords= Talos etc.), with these unlock the old FOC bonuses from 3rd.

And believe that mark of chaos undivided should make a unit fearless

Obispal! You GET IT!!!!
Ok so we agree on Mark of Undivided, good start.
We need statlines, rules and whotnot for Iron Warriors Characters.
I'd suggest staying away from novel characters (or at least major ones) as it can get pretty contentious as to the real "how they are".
But there are plenty of named guys out there who we could tweak and existing template to fit :)

[DrLove42]

Deamonic Possession giving some kind of a PotMS rule (so make Land Raiders a viable option, so it can move and shoot) would be good

The auto challenge thing is great and fluffy and should stay but does need some kind of tweak, i'm just not sure what

[Obispal]

I think for the Iron Warriors Character, make him a Warpsmith with+1 Wound,FNP 6+ (for his bionics),Hatred (Imperial Fists + Imperial Fist Successors),Stubborn. With the options for a conversion beamer, tank hunters and counterattack

And Unlocks a FOC trade, 1 fast attack for a extra Heavy support Choice

[Obispal]

Deamonic Possession giving some kind of a PotMS rule (so make Land Raiders a viable option, so it can move and shoot) would be good

The auto challenge thing is great and fluffy and should stay but does need some kind of tweak, i'm just not sure what


maybe a leadership check to not challenge

[eldargal]

Special Characters shouldn't change FOC, it was one of the things that made regular characters almost pointless in a lot of armies.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

LD test not to challenge sounds good, or maybe forced to challenge but you PICK who recieves/declines it.
Both are good!

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Good point EG. Suggestions for a fix?
How about Iron Warriors character shifts Havocs into Troops?
Not much different than shifting Chosen into troops, just more long range focused, and that also frees up hvy slots at the same time?

[DrLove42]

Fix - A character makes them scoring, but does not move slot. Eg you still need two normal troops choices

[eldargal]

What DrLove said. I love SCs for the background they bring but I hate that they get made to be intrinsically better than regular characters often. Less so in 6th thank god.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Fix - A character makes them scoring, but does not move slot. Eg you still need two normal troops choices
Could be our winner in terms of game mechanics, but if anything it removes the incentive to take power armor in your troops slots, which isn't very fluffy either.
Maybe 1 unit of Havocs as Troops Effectively gives an extra force org slot whilst allowing scoring havocs?
And of course incentivises at least one PA troop selection.

EDIT
We have a winner for our character name
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ferrous_Ironclaw#.UiW-mtKkq3k
minimal established fluff, and he's not dead!

[Obispal]

making one Havoc squad Troops is perfect i think, not op but fluffy

Maybe something similar for the Night Lords, or make them all able to be upgraded to have fear and Stealth?

[Kaptain Badrukk]

On the subject of causing fear, what do we think the ramifications are of removing the mark restrictions on the icons?
I feel it'd be a good way to allow things like Deathguard Havocs or fear causing Nightlords.
Any thoughts?

[Demonicsarge55]

It would make the Codex so much better if they just took a page from HH volume one from FW for making fluffy and bad *** options for chaos lords, Just like the Legion Centurion you could have a wargear list for options he could take and then just have a page of "Legion wargear packs". 35 Points for the night lord one to give him stealth, fear and hit and run for example. The Iron warriors one would be like 6+ FNP, Artificer armor, Tank Hunter and a servo arm. Alpha Legion could get infiltrate, a sabotage attack like scout bikers, and the ability to deny challenges. Word Bearers could be a fancy deamon weapon maul, zealot, hatred and some kind of fearless aura.

The Big Four and the Black legion would be super easy to do as well just bring the lords in like with the cult troops. Chain axes and weapon skill and attack buffs for World Eaters. FNP, blight grenades and poison weapons for your Death Guard and a man reaper(how did I almost forget this?). More physic powers and inferno bolts for your 1k sons, and EC get access to some sonic weapons. Not really sure how to get some cool stuff for the BL, maybe some kind of challenge buff or a slay the weak kinda deal.

[Obispal]

I like that option, nice and fluffy but not too op, one for each legion plus you can make restrictions on what else they can take per each wargear pack.

[Siris Le Osiris]

Still not quite getting how this works, but ok.
How would you make them "worth taking" without breaking them then?
This is what we're aiming for, don't like something so propose how to fix it.

I don't know the best way to fix it but potentially giving them the ability to charge / engage half the other persons army with the only possible defense being overwatch isn't the answer.

[Demonicsarge55]

I don't know the best way to fix it but potentially giving them the ability to charge / engage half the other persons army with the only possible defense being overwatch isn't the answer.

Any unit hit by their blind attack rule could be assaulted?

[Obispal]

Any unit hit by blind may not target the deepstriking unit?

[Polichronis Pepekis]

i believe deamons of each god should be avaible to the legion of the god also and from 1st time should have been 1 chaos codex that icluded both armies

[McKenzie James]

Ok, since the thread is pretty much just nila marines, I think a few simple changes.

-all CSM have VOTLW straight off the bat.
-Lucius, Typhus, Kharn and Ahriman should have eternal warrior. Pretty over guardsmen with meltas popping a 260pt special charactor.
-Ahriman should count as having a familiar, a Master 4 10,000 yr old psyker with the knowledge of Magnus isn't going to blow himself up, Eldrad is the baseline for lvl4 psykers.
-Khorne bezerkers should be 19 points each, get chain axes as standard, chances are, they won't make it to CC anyway, with armies like Tau.
-All loyalist vehicles should be present in the CSM list, minus their machine spirits.
-Dino-bots go to Codex Daemons.
-Thousand Sons 16 points each, the ability to crunch power armour does not mean they should cost as much as a sternguard.
-No teleport homers. Run the risk of Vanilla Dex.
-Dedicated AA unit that's not a dragon or flakk aka useless missiles.
-rules options for each legion similar to chapter tactics, simple ones, such as stubborn, infiltrate etc.
-2 up armour options that aren't just terminator armour, like in the 3.5 dex, I can live with the 4 up invul, but 25 points is steep exp. when compared to a storm shield at 30pts.
-Warlord Traits are useless, and the challenge rule should only count against other space marines.
-Spawnhood and daemonhood should not affect ANY special charactors.

Make more severe changes then this and you run the risk of becoming too much like Codex SM, and you may as well just play that.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

It would make the Codex so much better if they just took a page from HH volume one from FW for making fluffy and bad *** options for chaos lords, Just like the Legion Centurion you could have a wargear list for options he could take and then just have a page of "Legion wargear packs".
I Love the idea of legion (or maybe god) specific wargear packs. And if those included USRs that he confers to units he joins then that'd pan out real nice.


I don't know the best way to fix it but potentially giving them the ability to charge / engage half the other persons army with the only possible defense being overwatch isn't the answer.
How about this;
Mutilators CAN assault from deepstrike, because if someone really wants to use up all their elite slots to tie up 3 of my units in hth then go for it I say!
Warptalons get stealth and shrouded on the turn they arrive ONLY until the start of their next movement phase. Representing the longer range effect of the warp tear and meaning they're a bugger to kill on arrival.

[Polichronis Pepekis]

also the dont get why csm dont have drop pods or they forgot them when they turned so droppods should be in!

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Agree, it's in the first post :)

[Polichronis Pepekis]

about mutilator why the max 3 man squad 5 man why all other codexes get 5 doublewounded models e.g. paladins etc ok oblits its overkill but mutilator are meele plus remove snp from them what they cant run they fight in cc and cant run...

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Whilst I agree the major standing difference is points
5 man unit with marks would be 400pts plus. Which is WAY too much.
Maybe adjust the points down and the cap up? Make them pointed more like meganobz? Say 50pts each with a cap of 10?
Then no need for assault from DS shenanigans either.

[DrLove42]

-all CSM have VOTLW straight off the bat.

No. Cos the codex represents the difference between VotLW and recent traitors. maybe they should have the Ld buff to begin with, and VotLW do something else


-Lucius, Typhus, Kharn and Ahriman should have eternal warrior. Pretty over guardsmen with meltas popping a 260pt special charactor.

Maybe. very few people get Eternal Warrior, it should stay that way


Ahriman should count as having a familiar, a Master 4 10,000 yr old psyker with the knowledge of Magnus isn't going to blow himself up, Eldrad is the baseline for lvl4 psykers

Eldar, the Masters of all phsyic powers have no defence. Suck it up.


All loyalist vehicles should be present in the CSM list, minus their machine spirits

You can argue that someone from a recent traitor legion should have access. But for simplicity...there'd be too many (some Land Raider vareints from the Heresy would be nice - If Techpriests can modify new varients surely the dark Mech can)


-Dino-bots go to Codex Daemons.

Nope, I like them. You might not like the models. but they represent something that isn't done - warp vehicles


-Warlord Traits are useless, and the challenge rule should only count against other space marines

This is good though.

You contradict yourself a lot. You say you don't want a book that is just Loyal marines. And yet want the same stat line, you want all the same vehicles...want rid of the unique vehicles, want equivilent wargear....

[jgebi]

on the topic of night lords HQ I vote Decimus - Prophet of the Eighth Legion as there is very little to no lore for him but he becomes their unifer if you believe void stalker, so not sure what it would do though but he is a Prophet which would make for a neat power

[Polichronis Pepekis]

5 man cap so that its not op 10 man double wounded 2+ 5++ and mark is too much none whould play against that and the cost is ok 55 maybe a reduction on marks 2-3 pt per model on all marks so that its viable

[biteymcrunrun]

Heldrake +30pts, baleflamer upgrade +10pts

Warpsmith allows helbrute, maulerfiend, forgefiend, defiler to be taken as fast attack

Chaos Lord with jump pack allows one unit of raptors or warp talons to be taken as troops

Dark Apostle 1-3 per HQ slot

Chosen can take infiltrate or scouts for +2pts (or maybe more, not too sure)

Helbrutes cheaper

Champion of chaos- must either challenge or not fight in the combat at all (ambition vs self preservation)

Possessed count as beasts

Mutilators far cheaper

Thousand sons- two wounds but only 6+ inv, tzeentch sorceror increases this to 5+


All missile launche can take flak for +5pts

Mark of nurgle for obliterators =10pts, all other marks cheaper

[Kaptain Badrukk]

@Mckenzie
I won't beat you about the head with a repeat of DrLove's post, but here are some alternatives instead.

VOTLW
All CSM cost whatever they would have with VOTLW and have +1LD and Hatred(SM)
VOTLW - Gives Preferred Enemy SM and costs whatever VOTLW now costs.
That gets you what you think is right AND allows us to have some fairly badass veteran marines :)
Ahriman and other ICs
I'm with you on Ahriman's familiar, provided he costs 15pts more.
Eternal warrior on the other hand should be limited to 1-2 characters/dex so seems ok as is.
Taking Loyalist stuff / Ditching Deamon Engines
As far as possible we need to stay divorced from the SM codex. Hence the idea of characters driving legion list bonuses rather than army selection. This separates the two codecies, making marines "Chapter with a character focused" and CSM "Character with a warband focused" instead.
Warlord Traits and Challenges
I like the challenge mechanic, although I agree that all special characters should be proof against both ascension and spawnhood.
It was mooted earlier that maybe you should be able to issue challenges where you select the victim to balance out the impact a little. Or make auto challenge a VS IC only thing for your ICs. Call it "Beneath my notice!" or something equally contemptuous.
Legion specific warlord traits would be a good idea, they're definately going on the list!

@Polichronis
You can have ten man Meganobs with combis for 50pts a pop with 2+ 5++ (you need Grotsnik, but you can do it)
And you can 10 man 2+ 3++ termies.
I don't see why paying 500pts for this unit is so bad compared, but at the same time who'd ever bother?

[Kaptain Badrukk]

we are cooking with gas now people. When I get home from work tonight I'm going to scour this and turn it into a V1 document :)

[Demonicsarge55]

Heldrake +30pts, baleflamer upgrade +10pts

Warpsmith allows helbrute, maulerfiend, forgefiend, defiler to be taken as fast attack

Chaos Lord with jump pack allows one unit of raptors or warp talons to be taken as troops

Dark Apostle 1-3 per HQ slot

Chosen can take infiltrate or scouts for +2pts (or maybe more, not too sure)

Helbrutes cheaper

Champion of chaos- must either challenge or not fight in the combat at all (ambition vs self preservation)

Possessed count as beasts

Mutilators far cheaper

Thousand sons- two wounds but only 6+ inv, tzeentch sorceror increases this to 5+


All missile launche can take flak for +5pts

Mark of nurgle for obliterators =10pts, all other marks cheaper
I like some of those but the heldrake to be 210 points with a bale flamer? Really?

[Mr Mystery]

5 points for Flakk? Got an issue with Fliers by any chance?

[Kaptain Badrukk]

In fairness I always wondered why it was so expensive. 10pts for something you may never use, and which is the only potential AA in you codex always struck me as overly priced. And no, I don't have an issue with fliers :)

[Anggul]

Flakk Missiles should be 5pts in every codex. Their current cost is just far too much, you would never buy them right now, not with anyone.

Mutilators are going to be hard to get right because Terminators already perform the same role but can also have useful guns. There just isn't much point in them existing.

I think VotlW should stay the same. If it didn't give you an Ld bonus it would only help vs Space Marines, and thus you would never buy it because it would be a huge waste of points against anything else. As it is it's good against everyone, and better against Space Marines to give you the edge and make you less likely to be run down.

I think I've thought of a good way to make them a bit less susceptible to being run down but not as resistant as loyalists. After all they're much more likely to flee the battlefield out of selfishness rather than sacrifice themselves as loyalists would, but they're still going to be more determined in their cause than most. What if we gave them something similar to the old 'No Retreat' Know no Fear rules? They don't get completely routed, but if caught they take wounds equal to how much they lost by. This would represent some of them sticking around out of rage, pride etc., but some of them legging it out of self-preservation and not really caring what happens to their 'accomplices' left behind.

Stealth and Shrouded when Warp Talons appear sounds like a great call. I would probably also make them a little cheaper.

Revert the marks of Khorne and Tzeentch back to their previous incarnations, they were nerfed for no reason and left Nurgle and Slaanesh as clearly superior in almost all circumstances.

Let units other than the basic troops have the 'cult' rules, i.e FnP for Nurgle, Furious Charge for Khorne, SaP and Inferno Bolts for Tzeentch. Slaanesh don't really need it so much, the defining feature of Noise Marines is Sonic Weapons, and I think being able to take Havoc squads of Blastmasters would be a bit crazy. Doom Sirens for Lords and Raptors would be cool though. This is something pretty much everyone has wanted for years, and seemed a no-brainer, yet was still not done. For some reason Plague Marines in Power Armour have Feel no Pain, but gaining the great prestige of wearing Terminator Armour or hopping onto a Bike makes them unable to have it. Don't let Cultists have these things obviously, just the Chaos Marines. Maybe Cultist Champions, as they might be granted unholy strength or resilience. I don't really know what a Slaanesh Cultist Champion would have though, as he couldn't use Sonic Weapons. +1Ld due to sense-addled madness maybe.

Lucius could do with Rending so he at least stands a chance vs 2+ armour, having Shred means he's actually pretty likely to do alright, and maybe a 4+ invulnerable save.

Helbrutes need fixing like Dreadnoughts do. I've probably repeated my proposed fix to Dreadnoughts many times on BolS, so I won't do it again here.

Defilers should probably be AV13 like Soulgrinders, and reduce them by 25pts so that buying the Flails brings them up to their current cost. The Flails really make them so much better in CC.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

I'm hoping that Mark of Undivided, and a complete overhaul of VOTLW and its relationship to marines will re-jig it a big amount with minimal fuss.

[Mkvenner]

Thoughts, you own ideas, so-one. We'll combine the most promising bits together and see about making a simple PDF we can playtest!
Over to you BOLS crew, show the stuff that made this community what it is!

Eternal War: Every Legion has its own set of special rules. These can not be stacked and are determined either by SC or chosen by a Chaos Lord, Sorcerer, or Warsmith.

Word Bearers
Warp Tainted- Allows an extra allied FOC slot to FA, Troops, Elites, and HS when taking Chaos Daemon allies.
Special Issue: Dark Apostles (AoE 12" Zeal, Rage, Sacrifice) Daemons can be summoned off of any Aspiring Champion within 12".
Possessed can take an extra Warp Ability from any of the Warp Trees.

Alpha Legion
"It's quiet, too quiet... Where are they?!": Alpha Legionaries have Scout and Infiltrate. Vehicles with the type Tank can not benefit from this rule. Stealth (Ruins).
Special Issue: Sabotage- D3 units in your opponents zone before the game begins suffer D6+1 S6 AP4. Vehicles are hit on side armour. Affected units treat any terrain as difficult on their first turn. Also, Dangerous Terrain checks are immediately taken for any unit inside your opponent's deployment zone that are in terrain on the first turn.

Night Lords
Terror Tactics: Roll a D3. This is how many turns a Night Lords player can allow the Night Fighting rules during his opponents turns. Any unit wishing to move must take a LD check on 3D6. Units immune to Fear and Fearless units take it on 2D6. Night Lords units may run and shoot or shoot and run following an opponent's turn they used Terror Tactics.
Special Issue: Killzones- Enemy units suffer -1 to their cover saves when being shot at by more than one unit of Night Lords. This is not cumulative.

Iron Warriors:
Hellforged: Flame Weapons gain the Torrent(6") USR. Tank Hunters. May reroll difficult terrain checks.
Special Issue: Iron Soul- Maulerfiends and Forgefiends can be taken as Elites. Aspiring Champions can be warped into Obliterators for +20pts.

Black Legions:
Speartip: Can choose up to D3 units and place them into Reserves. (Write down which side they are going to deploy from and if they arrive on either turn 1 or turn 2).
Special Issue: Warmaster- Beginning of every player turn after the first turn the player can choose one of the 3 abilities listed below.
-Bombardment: S8 AP3 Heavy 2 Blast D6" scatter (direct hits use the arrow)
-Reinforcement: Replenish D6 models from up to D3 units of Infantry. Can not be falling back or replenished if destroyed.
-Support: Units can choose one from the following USRs and lasts until the beginning of the following turn (Night Vision, Fleet, or Interceptor).

Warp Trees:
Tier based- 10pts, 15pts, 20pts for the unit. Same for HQs.
Hellspawn- Damage based (Hammer of Wrath, Rage, Shred)
Shadowbeing- Movement based (Move through Cover, Fleet, Beast)
Warpmonster- Defensive based (+1 to Save, +1 to Invulnerable, +1 Wound)




I'll do the Pantheon next, but this is something I would have liked to see. It injects power and fluff.

[Denzark]

1. Rip up this codex.

2. Re-print 3.5 x 100000 copies.

3. Sell out within weeks.

[DWest]

==Incoming Wall of Text! You have been warned==
Rather than Legion-specific rules, I'd rather see reason-based rules, i.e. your special rules are based on why you follow Chaos. I have 3 doctrines in mind:

-Sin of Corruption: Recently turned to the Dark Gods, you have yet to be fully taken into their power, but temptations abound. All Daemon units are 0-1, and all other units gain Stubborn (there can be no mercy for traitors, so don't run now!). In addition, if any unit is under half strength and falling back at the beginning of your turn, you may wipe that unit out as a sacrifice to the Dark Gods and your Warlord may immediately roll on the mutation table; or you may immediately bring a squad of 2d6 Cultists in from your board edge as from reserves; or roll once on the Warp Storm table; or bring 1d6 Lesser Daemons in from reserve via deep strike.
-Sin of Damnation: These fallen wretches have given themselves over fully to the Dark Gods. All units who can be Marked must be so, with the following exceptions: You may not include any of the Mark opposing your Warlord. All models with the same Mark as your Warlord gain Fearless. Cultists are 0-1 (guess who goes to the knife first when it's sacrifice time?). All vehicles must be Daemonically Possessed.
-Sin of Perdition: For you the Long War has not, will not end until every last drop of Imperial blood is spilled upon the ground. All Astartes (including anybody in Power Armor or Terminator Armor, including demonically-mutated version thereof and Hellbrutes, but not Princes or Fleshmetal units) get VotLW for free. In addition, Champions are not forced to challenge non-Imperials, and winning a challenge vs. any Space Marine lets you re-roll the boon you roll on the mutation table. Daemon engines are 0-1.

Unit Changes:
-Hellbrutes get the Daemon type.
-Vehicles may now be Marked if they are Daemonically Possessed or Daemons. The Vehicle Marks are as follows:
--Mark of Khorne: The vehicle becomes an Assault Vehicle; or if it is an Assault Vehicle, models assaulting from it gain Hammer of Wrath and +1" charge range. Walkers instead gain Fleet and Hammer of Wrath.
--Mark of Nurgle: The vehicle gains +1 HP and Tank Shock/Fear is tested at -1 Ld.
--Mark of Slannesh: The vehicle gains Fast. Walkers move as Beasts and gain Assault Grenades.
--Mark of Tzeentch: Increase the Invulnerable save for Daemon to 4+.
-A Marked Transport automatically eats 1 model of the opposing Mark when they board, and on a 5+ eats a 2nd. It still only regains 1HP.
-Chainaxes have no AP, but instead confer Shred.
-Warp Talons, Mutilators, and Possessed gain Rampage. Warp Talons get +1 Inv the turn they arrive, to represent the lingering presence of warp upon them.

Special Units:
Each Sin comes with one "standout" unit for their type.
-Sin of Corruption: This is the tough one; I want to say you can purchase 0-1 vehicle from the SM Codex as an Elite, unless it's fast, then Fast Attack. Must be Possessed, but cannot be Marked.
-Sin of Damnation: Greater Daemonic Possession for vehicles; expensive, but +1 HP and an additional effect based on type.
-Sin of Perdition: Chosen and Hellbrutes have access to a small cache of Legionary weapons; things like Volkites, Rad Grenades, Destroyer tox weapons, grav suspensors.

Special Characters:
Right now we have the 4 god-iconic characters, Huron, Fabius, and Abaddon. So under my scheme, 4 Damnation, 1 Corruption, and 1 Perdition, and whatever Fabius is. Scratch him off the list, we need room for more specials.
-Typhus (being Damnation) increases Cultists to 0-3 if he is the Warlord.
-Kharn gains +1A, bringing him up to the magic number 8 on the charge.
-Ahriman gains a Familiar and a +10 pt cost increase (built-in gear always costs less).
-Lucius gains Rending with his sword, representing his ability to make a precise, perfect cut.
-A Word Bears Dark Apostle, representing Corruption; he turns doubters to Chaos. As his Warlord specials he would let you get +1d6 Cultists or +2 Daemons when you wipe out a unit for a summoning roll; his Artefact would be some sort of mutating weapon -- if he kills a SM character in challenge, the enemy squad loses the "turn and fight" benefit of ATSKNF, and if this results in a Sweeping Advance, immediately add 1d3 Possessed models to his squad as he forcibly turns the Astartes.
-An Iron Warriors Warpsmith, representing Perdition. Grants Mutilators scoring (to give those poor saps some value in life) and has access to a Bombardment of some sort along the lines of the SM Chapter Master ability.
-Imply that Huron is being aided by the Alpha Legion. Most of what makes the Alphas unique isn't really directly felt upon the table (a 40k game is a fair fight, and if Alpharius ever finds themselves in a fair fight, something went terribly wrong already), so this seems to me a reasonable compromise.
-For the Night Lords, a Perdition-based "super Warp Talon" -- Marked Khorne, and if attached to a squad of Talons, they may assault from Deep Strike, as the old Heroic Intervention.
-Finally, Abaddon permits 1 Chosen or Terminators unit to take the Mark of Chaos Ascendant; if Terminators, he must be part of their squad. Likewise, one Land Raider may take the Mark of Chaos Ascendent, but if it does Abaddon must begin embarked upon it.

[Mr.hardrada]

Did we agree upon giving CSM, Chosen and other Astartes units the option of being fearless? I imagine this would be a great way to represent Votlw. It could be something else entirely but I feel that fearless needs to be more than an icon. Also I feel that Alpha Legion rules should be similar to those from the first Siege of Vraks(options for sniper rilfes?, infiltrate). I believe Night Lords are a challenge but I feel that more Bikers/Raptors are great. Just my two cents. Has anyone ever tried to petition GW before and ask for a better codex?

[Defenestratus]

People need to get over this CSM codex complaining. Chaos is fine as is with maybe one or two exceptions (as seems to be the rule with many of the new books). Making massive amounts of marines fearless for 2ppm is laughably stupid.

Assaulting off of the deep-strike is dead as we know it. Vanguard vets are losing it - and there's absolutely no justification that you can provide for allowing any Chaos unit to be able to do it. Its the epitome of lazy game mechanics that has no downside to its use. Furthermore allowing squads en-masse to be able to do it? Yeah I think not.

[Defenestratus]

1. Rip up this codex.

2. Re-print 3.5 x 100000 copies.

3. Sell out within weeks.

And this is the crux of the matter. You people want your broken, idiotic, un-fun to play against book back. You will not ever get it back because it nearly ruined the game for everyone that DOESN'T play Chaos.

Get over the fact that your 3.5v book is *never* coming back. Just like I got over the fact a long time ago that the 2nd edition Eldar codex is never coming back. I long for the days when my Avatar could take on all 4 greater demons at once and win. I long for the days where the swooping hawk wings granted me a 36" move. I long for the days when my death spinners were heavy flamer templates.

Looking at your current book through the prism of past editions is only going to lead to disappointment. Its something that I've had to bitterly swallow as well with my new Eldar book.

[Bigred]

I think this can be a great priject that as usual will require a lot of pruning of ideas to get something clean and flavorful.

Here's my suggestion:

Leave the codex alone - they aren't gong to change it in any meaningful way for years.

Instead look at Black Legion/Farsight/Iyanden as guides and MAKE the 1-2 page of rules for each Legion.

So, for each Legion, you get 2-3 special army wide rules, or FOC swaps, a new warlord table, and 6 new pieces of wargear.

That is something we can collate together into something fun that the average non-competitive gamer would have fun playing on the tabletop.

[Mr.hardrada]

People need to get over this CSM codex complaining. Chaos is fine as is with maybe one or two exceptions (as seems to be the rule with many of the new books). Making massive amounts of marines fearless for 2ppm is laughably stupid.


Don't space marines get Atsknf for roughly 1-2 ppm? Fearless can already be taken as an option via icons but the whole, " We will fight to a man or until Bob drops the flag" just doesn't seem to fit. I think some of us came here to improve the book. No need for the inflammatory comments. Genetically engineered killing machines who have the potential to have been around for 10,000 years and are fighting alongside daemons may be fearless.

[Defenestratus]

Don't space marines get Atsknf for roughly 1-2 ppm? Fearless can already be taken as an option via icons but the whole, " We will fight to a man or until Bob drops the flag" just doesn't seem to fit. I think some of us came here to improve the book. No need for the inflammatory comments. Genetically engineered killing machines who have the potential to have been around for 10,000 years and are fighting alongside daemons may be fearless.

Fearless has been scaled back in use, and especially now that fearless has literally no drawbacks in 6th (other than not being able to go to ground, oh no...) then its a rule that should not be thrown around easily. I see fearless as a USR that should be as rare as FNP. Just because they're "old" marines doesn't mean they should be fearless - plus the "old" marine cliche is fulfilled by the legion-specific units that *are* fearless.

Hell my farseers are *really* old too, should they be fearless? :P

[DrBored]

Whew, where to start...

Lucius the Eternal: Make his whip an extra close combat weapon for the extra attack and give him Rending so he actually stands a chance in that challenge he's forced to take.

Dark Apostle and Warpsmith can take Bikes, Jump Packs, and other items from the wargear list.

Warp Talons gain Shrouded during the turn in which they Deep Struck. 2 point decrease in cost.

Heldrake +10 points.

Mark of Nurgle: +1 Toughness
Death Guard Legion: Gives Blight Grenades to all models with Mark of Nurgle. Plague Marines are troops.

Mark of Slaanesh: +1 Initiative
Emperor's Children Legion: Gives Rending to models with Mark of Slaanesh and a Close Combat Weapon. Noise Marines are troops.
-Sonic Blasters to Assault 3, 18"

Mark of Tzeentch: Re-Roll on the Chaos Boon table. Must accept the new result. Can be Spawn, cannot be Daemon Prince. Re-roll Invul saves of 1.
Thousand Sons Legion: +1 to Inv save for models with Mark of Tzeentch. Allows for purchase of Inferno Bolts. Thousand Sons are troops.
-Inferno Bolts have Soul Blaze as default.

Mark of Khorne: Furious Charge and Rage. Khorne Berzerkers can charge out of a STATIONARY or WRECKED Rhino, not an exploded one.
World Eaters Legion: Hatred (Everything). Chain Axes are default swap for Close Combat Weapons for models with Mark of Khorne. Khorne Berzerkers are Troops.

Alpha Legion: Cultists have Infiltrate. Assign your Warlord randomly among your selection of HQ's, Aspiring Champions, and Aspiring Sorcerers. If an Aspiring Champion or Aspiring Sorcerer, the MODEL gains the Warlord Trait and becomes an IC with +1 wound.

Night Lords: If your HQ is on a Bike, up to 2 Biker units can become troops. If your HQ has a Jump Pack, up to 2 Raptor units can become troops. Raptors and Warp Talons have the Infiltrate and Stealth special rules.

Iron Warriors: Havocs have Tank Hunter. 1 Vindicator, Predator, Land Raider, OR Defiler may be taken as an Elite option. If Imperial Guard are taken as Allies, the Ally chart is 1 HQ, 1-2 Troops, 0-1 Fast Attack, 0-1 Elite, 0-2 Heavy Support.

Word Bearers: Dark Apostle becomes HQ 0-3. HQ's, Aspiring Champions, and Aspiring Sorcerers may take an Icon of Chaos Glory that acts as a Teleport Homer for 10 points. Allied Chaos Daemon units can use this Teleport Homer as if they came from the same Codex. Cultists may take an Icon of Vengeance.

Veteran of the Long War: Hatred (Space Marines), +1 Leadership, Stubborn. This is really the only change I think needs to happen with this. It'll give people more Leadership without the shenanigans of Fearless.
-As an aside, I really don't understand why Stubborn isn't on more elite units. The elite of the elite and if they lose one little fight they flee for their lives...

That'll be a good start for now I think...

[Mr.hardrada]

@Defensestratus
I see your point. I actually agree with you as fearless should be rare in terms of who gets it. But if Atsknf is given to initiates in loyalist chapter I imagine of the "old" marines might be able to get it. If the mainstay units of the death guard, world eaters, 1k sons , and Emperor's Children get fearless I wish chosen could get it as well. This way we could represent the veterans from alpha legion and night lords and so forth. The rants and whines are very prevalent in the csm community. Maybe a popular fandex could accomplish something. I'm probably being too optimistic.

[GrauGeist]

I think it really needed a special character from each of the other turned legions (Iron Warriors= Honsou, Night Lords= Talos etc.), with these unlock the old FOC bonuses from 3rd.

And believe that mark of chaos undivided should make a unit fearless and that the Chaos Relics need a serious overhaul, i mean only seen half of the list ever used

The Legion-specific characters should appear in $50 Supplements. Pay GW $50 for your Iron Warriors Supplement, your Night Lords Supplement, etc.

I think GW can toss in the occasional bonus Relic or special Mark whatnot in the $50 Supplements as well.

[Apalosaa]

I would like to see some units be able to take Veteral abilities ala the 3.5 dex, yes they would have to buy VoTLW to "unlock" these abilities. Also would have to be restricted per Unit I.E. Havoks can take Tank hunter if they have already upgraded to VoTLW first, maybe 3 pts a model. Giving chosen being able to give Chosen monster hunter or infantry VoTLW stealth or maybe your other Flavor of "chapter Tactics to represent there Parent Legion. This would help to fix the Power armor Problem make the super soldiers super...

Allow the Talons to assault upon Deep Strike, allow Mutilators access to a land raider transport, maybe then they could get in and make it worth while.

Make the Mauler Fiend a Fast attack choice Armor 13 + 25pts
Make the Forge Fiend Armor 13.

I like the Dark apostle 1-3 Elite choice. Second From earlier.

Any HQ with Mark Upgrade Cult troops to Troops. Second From earlier.

Allow vehicle mark upgrades per Daemon Codex.

Make the option to Upgrade Helbrut to a daemon engine for +15 pts opening Damon mark upgrade and giving 5+ Invul and IWND.

[Apalosaa]

Oh and Chaos units that have made or accepted a challenge are fearless for the remainder of the fight sub phase, this will help those low leadership units to at least stick around when there champ falls ad do something if it is only to stall for a turn while they get cut down.

[DrBored]

I think this can be a great priject that as usual will require a lot of pruning of ideas to get something clean and flavorful.

Here's my suggestion:

Leave the codex alone - they aren't gong to change it in any meaningful way for years.

Instead look at Black Legion/Farsight/Iyanden as guides and MAKE the 1-2 page of rules for each Legion.

So, for each Legion, you get 2-3 special army wide rules, or FOC swaps, a new warlord table, and 6 new pieces of wargear.

That is something we can collate together into something fun that the average non-competitive gamer would have fun playing on the tabletop.

Actually this is better for a lot of reasons... the first being it'll be easier to push on FLGS's for casual games.

That said, here's what I'd like to see for the Emperor's Children...

Anything that can take an Autocannon or Reaper Autocannon can take a Blastmaster, and anything that can take a Combi-weapon or special weapon can take a Sonic Blaster for the same points as they are in the Noise Marine entry. Twin-linked options would similarly be Twin-linked Sonic Blasters or Blastmasters. Any Aspiring Champion or Chaos Lord can also take a Doom Siren.

Everything that can must take the Mark of Slaanesh.

Noise Marines are troops.

If Chaos Daemons are chosen as allies, Noise Marines and Chaos Marine HQ's are counted as having the 'Daemon of Slaanesh' special rule for purposes of joining or being joined by Chaos Daemon allies. These models and units will otherwise use the regular rules for Battle Brothers allies.

Wargear...
Lash of Excess: Str: User, AP: 3, Specialist, Concussive, Daemon Weapon, *Whiplash
-*Whiplash: Models in base contact with a model with a Lash of Excess that cause an unsaved wound against the bearer of the whip immediately take a str 3 ap 4 hit.

Noisemakers: Models equipped with Noisemakers are counted as having Defensive Grenades. Additionally, enemy models within 6" cannot declare overwatch against a unit that is equipped with Noisemakers. (They're too busy holding their ears!)

Bass Cannon: Str 7, AP 2, Large Blast, Ordnance 1, Blind - This weapon can replace the Demolisher Cannon on a Vindicator or Defiler, or can replace the turret weapon of a Predator.

[Demonicsarge55]

How about 15 point frag assault launchers on our Land Raiders?

[DrBored]

How about 15 point frag assault launchers on our Land Raiders?

How about any other type of Land Raider other than the Godhammer?

[Demonicsarge55]

How about any other type of Land Raider other than the Godhammer?

I would be cool keeping just the Godhammer pattern but could we get it with 12 transport?

[Archon]

Sorry for being late. And quoting the start-post, but I feel this five point are not very good. In general we could say each of us has different view of how can the codex be better (sadly after so short time and the Loyalist-Scum are not even out yet, but they will get the better "Legion-Rules").



Here are my first 5 thoughts;
1.
Errata the Icon of Vengence to grant the unit a new USR
(I need help deciding which) and act as a teleport homer

No to the first part, because CSM should NOT be fearless in general, the should get their higer moral back. What cool USR will it be, when you are not having any clue yet? Yes to the sec. part, goes for all icons (but personally i prefer teleport homers as a wargear).


2.
Add Mark of Chaos Undivided
10pts for an IC or 2pts/model
Grants the Bearer Fearless
And add Deamon of Chaos Undivided rule to Deamon Prince which allows him to act as a locator beacon for 15 pts.

The 3.5 MoCU was great (reroll leadership) but hey it is gone, it wasn´t there before and we don´t really need it. A neutral DP though is good thing and speaking of the DP, i don´t want it to shiny like a beacon, i want it to be Toughness 6!


3.
Allow any IC with a mark to make cult marines troops (including Deamon Princes)

yes

4.
allow mutilators and warptalons to assault from deepstrike

no way - none is allowed to charge after DS/reserve and the WTs are expensive enough

5.
add the drop-pod to the dedicated transport list BUT with access to CSM vehicle upgrades where they'd fit as opposed to marine ones.

yes i want the dreadclaw and i like droppods too but they should be a little bit different ... not that i can say how, yet.



I like this ones and will put my 2ct on it too:




Lucius the Eternal: Make his whip an extra close combat weapon for the extra attack and give him Rending so he actually stands a chance in that challenge he's forced to take.

a yes, its a whip!

Dark Apostle and Warpsmith can take Bikes, Jump Packs, and other items from the wargear list.

not necessary if you ask me ;-) but why not make both a HQ Choice that will NOT eat up a HQ slot like the current techmarine? They are support-chars, let them to that - support. For example one WS per Chaos General / DP.

Warp Talons gain Shrouded during the turn in which they Deep Struck. 2 point decrease in cost.

agreed

Heldrake +10 points.

I don´t feel its to cheap, i feel some flyers like the DA ones are too expensive ... but *looking at vendetta*
make the flamer upgrade 10 pts.

Mark of Nurgle: +1 Toughness
Death Guard Legion: Gives Blight Grenades to all models with Mark of Nurgle. Plague Marines are troops.

For DG I think something like "bolterdrill" for example: all boltweapon(parts)s (no heavy) from pleague marines have: pref. enemy (all)

Mark of Slaanesh: +1 Initiative
Emperor's Children Legion: Gives Rending to models with Mark of Slaanesh and a Close Combat Weapon. Noise Marines are troops.
-Sonic Blasters to Assault 3, 18"

Rending for all maybe a bit over. I think of somthing like: the urge of perfectionism - all champs / chars with MdS re roll to hit in CC or have Pref Enemy (all) in Challenges. Keep the 2 firemodes from sonics: simply get rip off "salvo" make it assault 12 2 shoots or 3 heavy when stationary.

Allow Sonicblasters for Champs, allow sonics for dreadnoughts and pred.

Mark of Tzeentch: Re-Roll on the Chaos Boon table. Must accept the new result. Can be Spawn, cannot be Daemon Prince. Re-roll Invul saves of 1.
Thousand Sons Legion: +1 to Inv save for models with Mark of Tzeentch. Allows for purchase of Inferno Bolts. Thousand Sons are troops.
-Inferno Bolts have Soul Blaze as default.

You are mixing the demon of .... rules in, i think there is a purpose from gw in keeping things different here (not sure ;). Soulblaze sounds good. But the have to be cheaper!

Mark of Khorne: Furious Charge and Rage. Khorne Berzerkers can charge out of a STATIONARY or WRECKED Rhino, not an exploded one.
World Eaters Legion: Hatred (Everything). Chain Axes are default swap for Close Combat Weapons for models with Mark of Khorne. Khorne Berzerkers are Troops.

Hmm yes to all but the charge thing. No one is allowed to do that, why berserkers. But out of wrecked n exploded ones yes i thing this is fluffy because they are really PO.

Alpha Legion: Cultists have Infiltrate. Assign your Warlord randomly among your selection of HQ's, Aspiring Champions, and Aspiring Sorcerers. If an Aspiring Champion or Aspiring Sorcerer, the MODEL gains the Warlord Trait and becomes an IC with +1 wound.

I like this one for AL: First the allway have the W3 infiltrat trait and second if the enmy is using alllies, he has to thread them as "deperate (housewifes)" own IG allies are "battle brothers".

Night Lords: If your HQ is on a Bike, up to 2 Biker units can become troops. If your HQ has a Jump Pack, up to 2 Raptor units can become troops. Raptors and Warp Talons have the Infiltrate and Stealth special rules.

yes - but all NL cause fear!

Iron Warriors: Havocs have Tank Hunter. 1 Vindicator, Predator, Land Raider, OR Defiler may be taken as an Elite option. If Imperial Guard are taken as Allies, the Ally chart is 1 HQ, 1-2 Troops, 0-1 Fast Attack, 0-1 Elite, 0-2 Heavy Support.

I think extra FoC Slots are old fashioned. What i want is, a Maulerfiend in the FA section (but this should be general). IW like to siege and make fortifications: Give them are extra Fortification, make them roll +1 to pen rolls vs. buildings, make havocs tank hunter with one-shot weapons and give them "ignore cover" with mulit-shoot weapons (they are trained to shoot enemys from the battlements). RA when charging models in or behind fortifications will be fine too and stubborn when they are in fortifications or behind them.

Word Bearers: Dark Apostle becomes HQ 0-3. HQ's, Aspiring Champions, and Aspiring Sorcerers may take an Icon of Chaos Glory that acts as a Teleport Homer for 10 points. Allied Chaos Daemon units can use this Teleport Homer as if they came from the same Codex. Cultists may take an Icon of Vengeance.

Make apostels non-slot-eating but HQ choice. Like the Icon-Thing.

Veteran of the Long War: Hatred (Space Marines), +1 Leadership, Stubborn. This is really the only change I think needs to happen with this. It'll give people more Leadership without the shenanigans of Fearless.
-As an aside, I really don't understand why Stubborn isn't on more elite units. The elite of the elite and if they lose one little fight they flee for their lives...

Give VotLW to Choosen by default (and give them infiltrate). Make it cheaper for termies and raptors.

That'll be a good start for now I think...

Anyone like terry pratchett? Chaos will win, because chaos is better organised!

Sadly this is not the case with this thread (me incl.) so maybe we go unit by unit? Weakpoint by weakpoint?

Hach I have to go to bed now ... :cool:

[Mr Mystery]

Sorry to be a fly in the ointment.....

But Lucius seems plenty hard as it is? Not massively expensive, attacks equal to opponent's WS (which will on average be at least 4) S5 AP3 flamer equivalent, shred, and reduces enemy attacks by one? 5+ Invulnerable save, and for each successful save, S4 AP2 on the enemy??? Really? He seems pretty rock to me.

[DarkLink]

Wait, who said that they thought the Heldrake wasn't underpriced?

Anyways, giving CSMs some leadership rule is basically a necessity. It's the very fact that a useful unit of CSM is more expensive than a loyalist unit, yet lacks chapter tactics, combat squads, and most importantly ATSKNF that forms the core problem with the can codex. Everything else is details. Give CSM some form of fearless/stubborn that you don't need a babysitting character for, and most of the problems with the codex work themselves out. There are still other things to fix, but that's the big problem.

[Mr Mystery]

And now for something constructive....

Veterans of the Long War.... I'd quite like to see Legion specific ones in their books, at least for all but the big four, who get their Cult Troops.

So for instance, Iron Warriors would get the regular bonus, but also something like Tank Hunter, to reflect their legion's specialisation. Word Bearers? Crusader/Zealot. It would be an extra cost, but would help to point out that they do recruit new Legionnaires, and only the core of original heretics would be fully Legioned up.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

honestly i believe what would be best for us is to have forge world do the chaos legions for us. GW can no longer be trusted do do chaos justice. if you let some one drop your baby one its an accident 2x its a trend do you really wanna see what happens to a baby who's been dropped 3x?

[Mr Mystery]

Cultists - Different varieties for each Legion perhaps? Regular ones can be marked by the gods after all to make them a bit more useful beyond happy objective campers who duck at the first sign of trouble.

All about flavour, not about power. Welcome to 6th Ed 40k!

And Son of Romulous....mind the hyperbole chum......

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Why its the best one to take... 3.5 was fun but hard to play with all the upgrades they could have slimmed it down and it would have been fine. instead we for 5.... which was spam this and spam this and ignore the rest of the book.... now we have 6 and its spam this instead of this and then still spam this and oh forget marines take cultists min maybe 2-3 units and heldrake and your done.. Me i know i am heavily invested in this game and in my legions.... I just have been continually let down by GW so let forgeworld have a shot with them and see what they can do.

[Mr.hardrada]

Has anyone tried to do a letter/petition to GW or forgeworld asking for a chaos redo? I'm curious if anything has been done outside of a fandex or whining.

[Mr Mystery]

Why its the best one to take... 3.5 was fun but hard to play with all the upgrades they could have slimmed it down and it would have been fine. instead we for 5.... which was spam this and spam this and ignore the rest of the book.... now we have 6 and its spam this instead of this and then still spam this and oh forget marines take cultists min maybe 2-3 units and heldrake and your done.. Me i know i am heavily invested in this game and in my legions.... I just have been continually let down by GW so let forgeworld have a shot with them and see what they can do.

As opposed to the spam and use of only a few choices we saw in 3.5? Sorry dude, but it's been, and gone. It was horribly overpowered. Many cult armies had absolutely *no* downside....

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

I honestly dunno. I know that at every Games day the guy i go with have always asked. We always ask after their Death guard and World eaters conversion packs we wanted to see Tson and children :) I just know that i've not been disappointed by their books yet. i mean my badab series was amazing not just the fluff but the new mission's the boat load of characters the list tweaks just make those list fun and unique and interesting to play and play against.

So i think if Forge world did rules for the traitor legions the fluff would be amazing the characters would be earth shattering and the rules would be incredibly balanced, and honestly yes forge world does do some op units but the majority are priced and ruled correctly.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

@ mr mystery

wow some one sounds like they didn't like playing against the 3.5 dex..... get over it an stop whining as you yourself have said... None of us are saying break the codex.... What has and will continue to be said was we want options we wan uniqueness we don't want to play the same list. i used to get my butt handed to me by my buddies iron warrior but you know what i loved the challenge it was fun for me to play and play against. the only issues i had with it was there were so many options i was hard to represent them all that was my gripe... and yes their were downfalls for each traitor legion go look at the book you lost things with each....

[Mr Mystery]

Au contraire chappy....got bored playing with it.

Iron Warriors. I took the same Daemon Prince as everyone else. Stature. Strength. Resilience. Wings. Blade of you don't get invulnerable saves. Tail for that extra attack.... I could sacrifice two fast attack slots to gain a fourth heavy support...sorry...fourth Defiler. And what a choice that was... Raptors were a must, but 0-1. The only other fast attack option, as I had no Daemon access, were Chaos Bikers. Total no-brainer. Oh, and I'll have 9 Obliterators as well, seeing as I don't have a cap other than elites. All paid for by two minimum sized CSM squads....

Rinse and repeat. Restrictions were outclassed by the perks.....

Hence despite it's plethora of options, very few actually saw the battlefield. Codex was flawed.

[DarkLink]

Yeah, 3.5 had problems. I'd always take a Khorne Biker Lord who had a 2++ when he turbo posted, 4 wounds 2/4+ with FNP, and like 11 str 6 power weapon attacks on the charge, or something ridiculous like that, and he would eat entire armies.

[Kirsten]

disagree with all the leadership complaints. people say 'they are 10,000 years old they should be fearless' how about 'they are 10,000 old and want to stay alive'? self preservation and mistrust of allies, both pretty much guaranteed traits of a chaos veteran. it is not just helldrakes that make it good either, maulerfiends and defilers are both amazing, the ability to have marks and icons on loads of units is a big step up from the 4th edition book. The main issue I have with the current book personally is that undivided armies get screwed over, mono god builds don't do badly out of the whole thing.

[Kevlarshark]

I played bezerkers in 3.5. Loved every second of it. 3.5 did have some balance issues with some of the other codex at the time. But really even its most complained about lists are nothing compared to what many of the last few 5th edition codex can do.

[Power Klawz]

Fluffwise it makes a lot of sense that they wouldn't be "fearless" and would have a ton of self interest, I mean they're all trying to achieve a very direct sort of immortality via daemonhood, or at the very least stay alive long enough to see Abby stick the emperor's corpse on one of his spikey poles and dance around the Golden Throne like he's Lord of The Dance.

The totally wacked out (even for Chaos Marines) ones have all ready made their dark deals with the Chaos Gods and are so far gone that they probably don't even have the capacity for self preservation anymore. It makes sense that they're fearless, they eat spinal columns for breakfast and have 17 strains of hyper-ebola brewing in their distended bellies.

I really don't think the argument for fearless is coming from a fluff perspective, but from a "AHMAGERDZ, ATSKNF is OP DO WANT" perspective. But again, I often wonder what it all really boils down to in game terms. They all ready have high leadership, its highly unlikely they're going to spend more than the mandatory one turn falling back before they regroup, and they have plenty of dead hard fearless units to choose from anyways.

The likelihood they'll fall back from shooting casualties is very low absent any external modifiers, LD10 is everywhere in the army. The likelihood that they'll break from Close Combat is even more remote because they are CHAOS SPACE MARINES and beat in heads for a living, and have done so for 10,000+years. If you're losing combats with CSM you're doing it wrong in my humble opinion.

The main book doesn't really need "legion rules" in my opinion either. Its got chaos marks. Why does everyone treat chaos marks like they're yesterdays french fries? They turn basic marines into unkillable bullet sponges, raving psychotic murder-machines or drug addled speed freaks. (Ok tzeentch is a bit meh for some units, but 4++ is a sort of thing usually reserved for HQ choices, and you can get it on a fair cross section of unit types... ok stormshield terminators are a thing but again, this is less a fault with the CSM codex and more a fault in the fact that vanilla marines are blatantly overpowered by design.)

I mean all the flexibility you get out of your basic chaos space marine is unparallelled in any loyalist list. Tacticals and Whatever-Claws from Space Puppies simply can't be equipped to handle the breadth of battlefield roles a CSM squad can. You can outfit them to be tougher objective holders, for MEQ killing duty with MoS, to chew through hordes with MoK, and you can turn them into power armored hordes of 20 dudes. You can keep them slim points-wise and take only what you need to survive and hey, they're still space marines!

Loyalists get ATSKNF which is unarguably great, but not having it isn't unarguably terrible. They have access to drop pods and razorbacks as well, which are definite bonuses but I don't feel really have an impact on how CSM are used. Tactical squads are by and large static gunline troops designed to put out respectable mid-range firepower and be hard to kill and move off objectives. CSM can put out the same amount of firepower (same basic weapon options minus a few things) and are just as hard, if not harder, to kill. And hey, guess what? They're just as hard or harder to move off of objectives as well! ATSKNF does not keep you from taking morale tests and falling back! So arguably with VoTLW your CSM are harder to get off objectives than loyalists without an HQ pumping LD10 into them.

OK Dark Angels are probably harder to get off objectives due to stubborn, but that's their schtick and its not as if they're rocking a totally OP lists full of cheese so let them have it. None of this even begins to mention the fact that standard CSM squads can not only be tailored to hold objective, but to violently take them as well. Any other "tactical equivalent" squad is going to struggle in a fist fight with anything more fearsome than guardsmen (and we've all seen a few plucky guardsmen take down tactical squads on good rolls, don't lie.) CSM will RIP AND TEAR anything short of dedicated anti-MEQ assault units with the right load out, and if you bring enough dudes they'll even give some of those elite units a run for their money.

I think all the poo-pooing comes from a decidedly jealous place and an over-estimation of the value of ATSKNF.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

And who's fault is it that you became bored with it? The last 2 codocies have been boring to play for anyone who doesn't want to play black legion or renegades... the whole you can make your cult troops count as troops and bam you have a cult army is not a cult army its a band aid. i'm sorry i want my death guard to feel like death guard and i want my world eaters to feel like world eaters and not just some crappy black legion supplicants... and funny you ready any of the BL books and the legions still exist.... its the GW nobgobblers who claim they are dead and this is how chaos is....

[Power Klawz]

Is there really a necessity to call people "nobgobblers" in a discussion about plastic army mens?

Really?

[daboarder]

sigh, just sigh.

The biggest problem with chaos I find is actually discussing it with people.

A lot of people parrot internet wisdom when you start discussing it, thigns like "3.5 was the most broken evvar". They don't remember that 3.5 existed in an edition without objectives, or with min-maxed las plas squads, so while that daemon prince may have been tough he was facing down maybe an extra 3rd of the lasguns and plasmaguns that a list faces these days. Or that somehow having a basilisk broke Ironwarriors (because how do they explain IG?).

Easieast way to fix chaos? there isn't one, less than a year after its dropped the chaos codex need an overhaul somethign severe.

Hell given the space marine codex, the CSM should be like the following,

VOTLW: Fearless (maybe keep the hatred SM)

Marks (keep them the same)

Legion warcraft: basically CSM chapter traits

so Death guard: all models must take MoN, grants them FNP, but lowers their I by 1

Emperors children: any model may replace......heavy with blastmaster, boltgun with sonic, champions can buy doom sirens.

and so on and so forth.....

hell you should even go full wargear list and have legion wargear, vehicle upgrades and the like.

and you know what, give us a god damned dilivery method that doesn't suck.....raider variant for christ sake.

[Mr.hardrada]

sigh, just sigh.

The biggest problem with chaos I find is actually discussing it with people.

A lot of people parrot internet wisdom when you start discussing it, thigns like "3.5 was the most broken evvar". They don't remember that 3.5 existed in an edition without objectives, or with min-maxed las plas squads, so while that daemon prince may have been tough he was facing down maybe an extra 3rd of the lasguns and plasmaguns that a list faces these days. Or that somehow having a basilisk broke Ironwarriors (because how do they explain IG?).

Easieast way to fix chaos? there isn't one, less than a year after its dropped the chaos codex need an overhaul somethign severe.

Hell given the space marine codex, the CSM should be like the following,

VOTLW: Fearless (maybe keep the hatred SM)

Marks (keep them the same)

Legion warcraft: basically CSM chapter traits

so Death guard: all models must take MoN, grants them FNP, but lowers their I by 1

Emperors children: any model may replace......heavy with blastmaster, boltgun with sonic, champions can buy doom sirens.

and so on and so forth.....

hell you should even go full wargear list and have legion wargear, vehicle upgrades and the like.

and you know what, give us a god damned dilivery method that doesn't suck.....raider variant for christ sake. Those seem like some good ideas. I think Astartes are Astartes regardless of their alliance and fearless fits well. I don't want an uber powered codex, I just want a codex that will represent the Legions that have been fighting the long war. While the CSM can do that I still think a better job can be done.

[daboarder]

Yeah, haivng fearless as a buyable option allows you to make a legion or a renegade chapter as you see fit.

[Demonicsarge55]

How about if you buy VotLW and a mark you can get the cult Terminators or chosen or raptors. Can we get our World Eaters terrmies back?

[Power Klawz]

But it obviates an entire aspect of the game. 5th edition was really the peak of this, for some reason they included psychology and morale rules but then let the majority of armies ignore them for all intents and purposes.

ATSKNF is not fearless, it is great and in certain circumstances better than fearless, but it still allows leadership and morale to play a part in the game. If you shoot those dudes enough there's a chance they'll scarper off the super special ice cream truck that you really need for points and fudge pops.

Fearless has its place, but its place isn't in the troops section of 70%+ of the armies.

And if you can get it, you should have to pay through the nose for it.

I hope that Mob Rule gets a serious nerf when the new Ork dex hits as well. Make it pump leadership up to 10 maybe based on squad size, but fearless should be right out.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

For as much as i loathe to agree with daboarder his idea to fix the edition would have me shelling out money left and right. You make Chaos unique and not another point and click army and suddenly you have an army that makes GW a ton of money and is fun to play with an against. And yes i can say what ever i want @ my klaw.... Yes it is necessary because of all the Yes men out there. It wouldn't be necessary if when you have what a 60/40 or maybe 50/50 split me i personally say its 70/30 for those who despise this codex along with the last.

Alot of us spend alot of time and money on our armies and having them suck edition in and edition out makes ebay look all the better. If this book was as good as the Yes men say then why is it that you always see the same lists? wether at tournaments or at larger events?

When i saw CSM a the last tournement the first thing i asked myself was where are the marines? i see cultists i see nurgle oblits in every list and hell turkeys min 2.... its the same damn list as last edition except the lash prince has been replaced with the turkey....

Would anyone suddenly call CSM broken if they brought in some sort of legion traits or allowed you to upgrade things to carry legion specific options? hellbrutes with sonic weapons don't suddenly break the game or on a predator. if you did that i'd be giving you props and teling you that's a really cool conversion.

And another Huron blackheart has a model before you represent iron warriors night lords or alpha legion??? thats seriously messed up but i see why they did it i mean this and the last book are all about black legion and renegades..

Also look at what they did with the marks and the icon options... seriously they don't even remotely match up with what they should be doing and even the daemon upgrades seriously lack imagination...

Chaos is supposed to be chaos its not supposed to be point and click and done. This whole dumbed down codocie is just a waste of paper. There is nothing in it that screams chaos. It doesn't reflect even the big 4 correctly. Not to mention what it does the the legions. You have all of this background information and back story and then when you look at the actual product you are appalled.


This whole concept that they will fix the book with supplements is the same as chasing smoke. look at the eldar and tau books... did they fix their codocies? No they didn't they made each of them better changed how they worked but they weren't there to be a game changer. Chaos as it stands now needs to be squatted and replaced with a book thats actually good. No one designer take a group of them try open play testing for once. Actually ask us what we want and what we don't and then maybe the book won't be junk a year out....

[Power Klawz]

Its not a tournament game, its a narrative game.

All arguments coming from a perspective of tournament or "competitive [sic]" viability are null and void due to its very nature. Its a game about gluing things together and painting them up all pretty like, then giving them neato names and making them kill each other on the wartorn battlefield of the 41st millenium.

Min-maxing has no place in the game as intended, and as I've stated innumerable times before anyone trying to turn any Game-Workshop product into a down and dirty competitive system is vainly attempting to shove square pegs into round holes.

The majority of your arguments seems like entirely subjective waffling.

What does "Chaos is supposed to be chaos..." really mean anyways?

Objectively, very little. If you're attacking this from a mechanical balance perspective you might have some ground to stand on, but I've been addressing those repeatedly in this thread and no one seems to want to reply logically to those arguments. If you're approaching this from a tournament viability perspective see the above comments. If you're approaching this from an in-universe or "fluff" perspective then such issues can and hopefully will be addressed in future supplements.

I can agree that the individual legions and note-worthy warbands of Chaos deserve more fleshing out and uniqueness, and hopefully GW sees the blatantly obvious opportunity that such widespread hopes represent.

[daboarder]

It would be really nice, as a narrative game. IF I could play a Deathguard army.....

[Kirsten]

there is nothing stopping you playing a death guard army. everything can have a mark and icon of nurgle. you are never going to have assault plague marines, or devastator plague marines, or bike plague marines. you can have nurgle devastators. the only thing missing are the cult terminators, which may well turn up in supplements.

[Vangrail]

Id love to have kharn rush out of a drop pod with zerks. then the rest of my zerks would rain down.

[Power Klawz]

there is nothing stopping you playing a death guard army. everything can have a mark and icon of nurgle. you are never going to have assault plague marines, or devastator plague marines, or bike plague marines. you can have nurgle devastators. the only thing missing are the cult terminators, which may well turn up in supplements.

These are great and deep truths.

Deathguard on the table are more defined aesthetically than by crunch. If you want to model and convert an amazing Deathguard force the rules will put a skeleton underneath them. I don't really understand the desire for more rules for rules' sake.

[daboarder]

...and yet we USED to have those units, and therein lies the rub.

[Power Klawz]

...and yet we USED to have those units, and therein lies the rub.

Well I can't guarantee that you'll see them or their like again anytime soon, but the theoretical (if not entirely actual, as of yet) possibility exists within the framework of supplements.

I know I've said this before as well, but the way they've handled the Space Marine 'dex seems like they're not against bringing such minor army-wide rules tweaks back. They missed the boat with the initial CSM release, but that doesn't preclude the possibility in future supplements.

The 6th edition releases have really illustrated 2 things to me quite clearly. One that they didn't have all their ducks in a row when they rolled this thing out and two that they're not above making sweeping changes to the basic framework of how they release new content mid-edition. The state of the CSM codex is indicative of the first phenomenon, hopefully legion rules will be a byproduct of the second.

To address the main topic of this thread, I guesstimate that 90% of the ideas to "improve" Chaos Space Marines in this thread are completely broken and would do less to actually fix anything and do more to break it along lines its already broken, which is to say to promote a small handful of units to the exclusion of all others by making them obscenely overpowered.

[daboarder]

I'd be much more optimistic Klawz if black legion hadn't been a bomb, that looks like its made up of the random dregs that were left on the editors floor after the codex was released. I would be ecstatic with proper legion supplements but GW doesnt exactly have a good history with chaos.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Ok then let me try and break this up even more so Death guard and World eaters are both of the legion's I've invested god know how many hours and 1000's of dollars to build up. This codex as well as the last left them out in far left field and made it so that i should feel happy i got a single unit of cult troops and a character. Like that should be enough to make me happy and satisfy me... Funny look in to the ultra marines character selection and now we are up to what 6? Yet For the legion's of chaos we get 1 maybe 2 for each legion if they even get one.... (iron warriors word bearer's alpha legion nigh lords) Oh and all of those Legion's have more established fluff then a single chapter.....more history more unique leader's Yet they slap you with kharn and Zhufor... who is actually a fist converted over to chaos... so i don't even count him and i have him damn model...

Background alone brings in the option to run a plethora of unique characters and monstrosities. hell from a single book series you get stalker tanks blood pact and not to mention god knows what else they could have come up with. And those aren't even all dedicated to a single god.

What about Cult terminators? i know they've been talk to death already but seriously? making them fearless and having them do something for their parent legion is that so difficult? How about having marks do more then just add silly useless bonuses? does anyone even make cultist? i know i do and when i do i look at the points wasted to give them rage and counter attack.... Then i remembered this edition doesn't want you to assault. so i just wasted points to make my list feel more world eater light.


Don't even get me started on my poor Death Guard their even more heavily invested in with forge world then i would have preferred and they just fall flat when i look at what they could have been and compare that with what they are.

So yes i Believe Gw again crapped themselves and continue to make a product that no one really wants...

Few ideas cult armies... that are actually cult armies and not here take a mark and call it a day...

You like the fiends... ok here gimme actual dark mechanicus options that would open frigging Pandora's box when it comes down to chaos you could do anything and everything and still have more plastic crack to sell me 1000 years from now.

Daemon's codex roll it into one monster codex and call if Chaos with all of the rest of chaos... problem solved. They never should have been their own force anyhow. oh and for the love of god stop this mixing and matching of the damn chaos power's... thy hate each other... they are not friends they should not be allying with each other either...

[Power Klawz]

So your main complaint is that your entire army no longer has FnP?

They're still toughness 5 terminators man.

Black Legion is the only CSM supplement currently available, and the main backlash from the "community (or rather, people who spend a lot of time on the internet) is that it didn't replace the main CSM codex with the hobbyists equivalent of a chocolate flavored mixture of cocaine and Viagra.

It wasn't meant to "fix" anything, its just there to describe in a bit more detail what the Black Legion is, and give you a few minor rules tweaks to represent that force on the table top more accurately.

There's nothing about it that precludes the possibility of Death Guard or World Eaters specific supplements. And hey, they changed the characteristics of some Black Legion terminators (which really seems to be a huge hard-on most people who complain about CSM have, they want better terminators.) so there's a useful precedent right there.

[daboarder]

So your main complaint is that your entire army no longer has FnP?

They're still toughness 5 terminators man.


wow just wow, way to just ignore everything that you yourself just said mate, its cool right, I mean so long as it "works" right? who cares about the background and playing a narrative game.......


/ridiculous


I mean really, this is the perfect example of why it sucks discussing chaos, people just run around and around it insanely aggravating nonsensical circles.

[Siris Le Osiris]

I Love the idea of legion (or maybe god) specific wargear packs. And if those included USRs that he confers to units he joins then that'd pan out real nice.


How about this;
Mutilators CAN assault from deepstrike, because if someone really wants to use up all their elite slots to tie up 3 of my units in hth then go for it I say!
Warptalons get stealth and shrouded on the turn they arrive ONLY until the start of their next movement phase. Representing the longer range effect of the warp tear and meaning they're a bugger to kill on arrival.

No offensive but assault from reserves would still be so broken even with 3 units being able to do it, you wouldn't be wasting an elite slot because unless your opponent spread the **** out you would be able to multi charge and likely kill all their vehicles and or a few units in 1 turn, and tie up more of the army.
Even accounting for scatter and mishaps the damage you would be able to inflict against most armies with no hard counter (We aren't all Tau with massive amounts of interceptor) would be crazy
It would be utterly devastating to most armies and probably would become the instant meta. (3 assault from deep strike muts / 3 heldrakes bleh)

[daboarder]

Nids have been doing assualt form reserves since...forever, hardly game breaking.

[Siris Le Osiris]

On a squad (a much softer and arguably less dangerous squad to boot), from a pre nominated piece of terrain which the enemy may or may not deploy next to and could move into killing your squad, and which is probably about to lose that ability.
Or in 5th from a board edge predictably and strategically possible to counter.
Hardly the same as multi units from deep strike anywhere on the board in an edition where no one else can do it.

[daboarder]

Blood angel vanguards are not game breaking either, neither were outlfanking anything or Ork stormboyz

[Learn2Eel]

On a squad (a much softer and arguably less dangerous squad to boot), from a pre nominated piece of terrain which the enemy may or may not deploy next to and could move into killing your squad, and which is probably about to lose that ability.
Or in 5th from a board edge predictably and strategically possible to counter.
Hardly the same as multi units from deep strike anywhere on the board in an edition where no one else can do it.

You realize Orks have cheap as jump infantry that can assault off of deep striking with a fleet re-roll if they call their Waagh? They may be removing assault-from-reserves but such units are hardly broken. If they were, we would see Ymgarls a lot more over Hive Guard and Zoanthropes + the Doom of Malan'tai.

I think a lot of people probably have ill memories of Genestealers in 5th, not that it was that hard to keep out of their Outflanking assault range or anything...
I dunno why some have a taboo against assault from reserves. Flyers can shoot from reserves and blow up Land Raiders or annihilate entire squads, why would assault units doing the same thing be unfair?

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

I mean apparently i'm a power gamer because i want my armies to function like armies.... i don't want them to just look like world eaters or death guard i want them to fight like them... i don't play war bands i play legion companies. i want to have units that are unique to them and not just here add a mark an be happy... i dont want a mark i'm more then willing to pay to actually have my armies do what i expect of them.... yet because i thin that what is out is now garbage i am put into a corner where my response goes to .... FNP army wide... yup really because that's what i spent that whole chunk of text begging for... frigging fanboys...

[Siris Le Osiris]

For BA vanguard to be as potentially damaging they would need to meet or exceed mutilators in points and they would still lack the 2+ 5++ (Unless they go for 75pt per model PF Storm shields) 2W and again, probably going to lose it (But we will see on the weekend since it will follow in line with the C:SM)
BA vanguard are scary but they are such a point sink in 5 mans squads at what really needs to be 75pts a model you dont see 3 of them

[Learn2Eel]

For BA vanguard to be as potentially damaging they would need to meet or exceed mutilators in points and they would still lack the 2+ 5++ (Unless they go for 75pt per model PF Storm shields) 2W and again, probably going to lose it (But we will see on the weekend since it will follow in line with the C:SM)
BA vanguard are scary but they are such a point sink in 5 mans squads at what really needs to be 75pts a model you dont see 3 of them

Why the focus on a two wound 2+/5++ model? Tau and Eldar in particular laugh at such saves in this edition. Often the best form of durability in an army list is actually the dude with one wound and a 5+ armour save.

[Siris Le Osiris]

If I only get to overwatch my Tau laugh at that, my Eldar would just be toasty.

Not come across orcs deep strike assaulting as of yet but I have been on the receiving end of Vanguard and the tactic is wave goodbye to the 1 - 2 units they charged and then try to kill them, never seen a player use 3 though. (likely due to the ~1.1k pts requirement whereas 9 marked Mutis would be sub 600)

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

i think what they are getting at is a way to make the mutilator work. Me i don't like them to be honest i would much rather have an oblit or in my case just take terminators... they can take a land raider or teleport in they can have more then 6 wounds and with the right set up can dish out some serious firepower. but even they aren't what i would want them to be...

[Siris Le Osiris]

I agree they need something just like banshees and Vespid :P, just with blanket assault from deepstrike tourneys would become 3 Heldrake 3 Nurgle Mutis why do I bother playing fests

[Power Klawz]

You can't discredit someone by saying they don't want something you do want and then screaming fanboy at the top of your internet-lungs. You want army wide fearless and FNP, or some other such unbalanced ruleset. That's an unreasonable request in the current meta without paying Gray Knight prices, and its eminently logical that they wouldn't put such builds into the basic codex.

Neither Da nor Son have made a cogent argument as to why Deathguard=FNP+fearless other than that's how it was at some point in the past and its what they personally prefer. You guys are literally just shouting that you want buffs for your dudes, honestly this is devolving into a World of Warcraft forum thread.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

wouldn't really change much... you'd still have 3 oblits some where and the drakes... just add in the multi's and cheap cultist wahoo..... :/

[Siris Le Osiris]

wouldn't really change much... you'd still have 3 oblits some where and the drakes... just add in the multi's and cheap cultist wahoo..... :/

Helldrakes though annoying are not uncounterable by tactics/ a quad or ILC will do far more to them then Mutis, but having to deploy to minimise those and try and counter deep strikes with positioning / sheilding units would be nigh on impossible.
Turn 2 would become a nightmare :P

[daboarder]

You can't discredit someone by saying they don't want something you do want and then screaming fanboy at the top of your internet-lungs. You want army wide fearless and FNP, or some other such unbalanced ruleset. That's an unreasonable request in the current meta without paying Gray Knight prices, and its eminently logical that they wouldn't put such builds into the basic codex.

Neither Da nor Son have made a cogent argument as to why Deathguard=FNP+fearless other than that's how it was at some point in the past and its what they personally prefer. You guys are literally just shouting that you want buffs for your dudes, honestly this is devolving into a World of Warcraft forum thread.


Because the basic Deathguard statline is as defined by GW

SW,BS,S 4 T5 W1 I3 A1 Ld9 FNP and fearless.....

But hey, go on, keep insulting people

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

You want reason's as to why.. hmm okay how about i just start to list all the reason's why death guard aren't death guard in this edition... nor in the last.

Death Guard are not plague marines... read your fluff not all plague marines are death guard. there is a difference between giving oneself over to nurgle and actually being death guard... who wouldn't you know are a functioning legion that regularly launches raids from the warp... ie typhus and the plague fleets. Would the game be broken if they introduced weapons and abilities that were more inline with Death guard fluff? i mean a zombie tide is not the only thing Death guard are known for...

Making a unit have FNP and fearless... you can already get those across the army simply by taking plague marines as troops... i don't see the world comming to an end then. Death guard marines are not renegades... they are the original traitors... They conquered the galaxy and then tore it asunder in an act of the greatest betrayal in history. Maybe if you would get you head out of your as* read some fluff read some of the info on lexicarium or 40k wiki maybe you would get a better feel for what it mean's to be a legionnaire and not some black legion boot licker....

Giving the death guard access to additional models and rules would go along way to fixing their copy and paste death guard lite army list that exists now. I don't hear you complaining that SM are going to now get army wide rules. From what i have read they are getting these rules for free.... So your gonna b*tch and moan about Death guard and how broken a list would be... But you don't gripe about the new marine dex?

Giving a unit the mark of nurgle does not make it a death guard unit by default... so why don't you sit down and shut your condescending mouth for once.

[Mr.hardrada]

You want army wide fearless and FNP, or some other such unbalanced ruleset. That's an unreasonable request in the current meta without paying Gray Knight prices, and its eminently logical that they wouldn't put such builds into the basic codex.

Iron Hands?

[daboarder]

But dude! those are marines, therefore its all just gravy...see perfect example of why you can't discuss Chaos with people, they ***** and moan and still walk funny due to what happened in 3.5, therefore they are unable to subjectively look at the army and actualy see its flaws, they'll just twist and quote fluff that either doesn't exist, or is taken so far outta context its useless all in the name of winning an internet argument.

Next argument proposed will be something like:

SM aren't T5........sure thing mate

Or

OF course marines get the good stuff, they are the poster boys....forgetting the fact that CHAOS used to be the big seller, and that this doesn't really justify anything with regards to balance.

I mean some of these people actually believe that the Adeptus mechanicus is better at innovation than the faction that was, ya know excommunicated BECAUSE it chose innovation......

[McKenzie James]

Ok, lets be honest here guys.

The codex dropped a year ago. Dark Eldar are already as outclassed and they won't see a new dex for a long while. Even with a petition, GW doesn't care. Phil Kelly is a fool, their entire writing staff needs to step off and get some new blood in, power creep is back and these are the gents responsible. I've been playing since 2nd ed and I feel I have a fair amount of exp. when it comes to judging dex's. They got it pretty right in several marine dex's, BA, SW, DA are all not bad. Yes, late 5th ed GK were rude, and Necrons as it stands are probably more broken then anything in the 3.5 codex. Yeah, unleash on that one.

BUT after all that, the argument is that all of us loyal followers of the Dark Gods look at the different space marine codex's and we know they have us very beat in terms of wargear and special rules. Basically they have all our units, plus some, and it grinds our gears.

GW probably made this call just so we don't appear too similar to the marine dex's, but the problem is, essentially, you can play marine dex's to do what chaos can't. GK for slaaneshi marines with psy(blastmasters)cannons, blood angels for bezerkers in drop pods, sternguard with pedro and tigrius for thousand sons etc.

Moral of this:

-don't just slap the fearless USR on units cos marines have ATSKNF.
-don't lust after 3.5, I loved it, I ran rubricae, but it's gone and it will stay gone.
-hellturkeys are the reason most chaos players win games, and they are how our dex will be judged, until they become useless, nobody will agree that our dex is essentially a rehash of the last.
-I am a competitve player with Legion specific builds, I even placed highly with an all thousand sons army, I'm top 30 in Australia, I don't run hell turkeys, I just have solid lists where every unit has a job, and the trick is making the other guy struggle to figure out what the hell to kill first.
-The slip up is that CSM isn't vanilla chapters. It can't compete with GK and Necrons in skilled hands. BUT it isn't a dead book, you just have to make the most of it.

Sorry if I offend everyone, but 20 years in the hobby and the better part of 40 grand on CSM, I need to get a few of my crazy thoughts off my chest.

[daboarder]

yes sadly that is true, may I just say, the only reason I suggest VOTLW gave Fearless was because that way you could construct a psuedo cult unit that way.

[DarkLink]

Is there really a necessity to call people "nobgobblers" in a discussion about plastic army mens?

Really?

He's the new orksorksorks.


Its not a tournament game, its a narrative game.


The only good article I've ever read on YTTH was precisely about this fallacy. There aren't tournament games and narrative games. Those are how we interpret and choose to play the rules. There are, however, games with high quality, balanced rules, and games with crappy, poorly balanced rules. As far as GW's rules go, they are mediocre at best. So when we say we'd like higher quality rules, it's nonsensical to offhandedly dismiss this as 'it's not a tournament game'. For one, plenty of people do, in fact, treat it as a tournament game.

GW might be too lazy to right high quality rules. That doesn't mean we can't ask for them.


On a squad (a much softer and arguably less dangerous squad to boot), from a pre nominated piece of terrain which the enemy may or may not deploy next to and could move into killing your squad, and which is probably about to lose that ability.
Or in 5th from a board edge predictably and strategically possible to counter.
Hardly the same as multi units from deep strike anywhere on the board in an edition where no one else can do it.

I wouldn't call ymgarl genestealers soft. Not by a long shot. More importantly, deepstriking close to the enemy is inherently a big gamble, and it's not like you're deepstriking in Paladins or something. You'll drop in, have decent odds of killing yourself from a Mishap, but if you survive you'll get to get into assault. Which would make all those terrible assault units no one takes anymore actually good. It would mean that some armies actually have a means of fighting, for example, Tau, who otherwise just shoot them off the table mercilessly.

You can talk about how assaulting out of deepstrike would be broken all you want, but history has shown that to be narrow-minded.


You can't discredit someone by saying they don't want something you do want and then screaming fanboy at the top of your internet-lungs. You want army wide fearless and FNP, or some other such unbalanced ruleset.

How is that unbalanced? I play Draigowing, my whole army has a 2+ armor save, Fearless, FNP, and always gets to reroll to hit, and if you target them with a psychic power you're at -4 Ld and I get at least a 5+ Deny the Witch, if not a 4+. On paper, ignoring context, yeah, that sounds pretty broken. Until you realize that I've only got like one unit in my whole army, so that one unit had better be really good.

I don't know why you're so adamant that Chaos players can't get what they want.

[biteymcrunrun]

Just some supplement musings:

Iron warriors:

Warlord traits: unchanged

-Warpsmith allows maulerfiend, forgefiend, helbrute, defiler
to be taken as fast attack
-Warpsmith and any squad he joins gains the tank hunters special rule
-replace Votlw with "Iron within, Iron without"- same price, confers stubborn + hatred space marines
- If taking imperial guard as allies,
the heavy support choice may be taken without the compulsory hq and troops

New wargear:
1- allows a single vehicle model in base contact with a warpsmith to use his BS
2- same as techmarine reinforce ability
3- bombardment- one basalisk shot, one use
4- powerfist- -2 intiative, daemon weapon
5- artificer armour
6- hidden defences- defensive greandes,
enemy count as charging through dangerous terrain
Night Lords:

Votlw- +1 leaderships, units cause fear

If a chaos Lord with jump pack is taken,
one unit of raptors or warp talons may be taken as troops

1- re-roll night fighting rolls
2- one use only- friendly units within 12" count as being under the effects
of night fighting when fired at, until the start of the next night lords turn
3- range 30", str 4, ap5, blind, poisoned (3+), assualt 1
4- pair of lightning claws, daemon weapon, +1str
5- The character, and any unit he joins,
have the outflank and acute senses special rules
6- range 18", str 4, ap 5, assualt large blast pinning




Alpha Legion:

Warlord traits: Instead of rolling may choose to take master of deception

Votlw: +1 leadership,
may re-roll leadership checks while aspiring champion is alive

Champion of chaos changed- must either challenge or sit out combat

Chosen may take infiltrate for +3pts each

Wargear/abilities:
1- Sabotage- after deployment, d6 enemy units take 2d6 dtr4, ap- hits.
Vehicles instead lost a hull point on a 4+
2- deceptive deplyment- gives d6 units the scout special rule
3- first strike- combat weapon- instead of normal attacks,
makes one attack with the following profile Str6, Ap 2, Shred, I10
4- multi headed hydra- warlord only- when the warlord dies, one randomly selected independent charcter
or aspiring champion becomes the new warlord (slay the warlord is not achieved, warlord trait transferred)
5- brainwashing- shooting phase-
one enemy unit within 12" of the bearer must pass a leadership check. If failed,
the alpha legion player controls their fire in the next shooting phase (may target enemy units)

[Vangrail]

Hmmm what has the most recent dreadclw rules? Also dont they take up a fast attack? :/

[daboarder]

dreadclaws are still a mess. They are fliers with hover, deepstrike and assualt ramps. As such the earliest an unit inside can get onto the field is T3. They still take up a FA slot, and they cost about the same as a pred.

IF they came as a dedicated transport, MAYBE they'd have a use, but the most crippling factor is still the compulsory late arrival.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Wow, I went to sleep and when I returned the anger had really come out!
To clarify to everyone;
The purpose of this thread was to collaboratively create either an errata OR as Bigred suggested a series of Iyanden style supplements which will allow players to field Legion Specific armies with some fluffy rules and wargear adjustments, the way they want to.
This is not a place to discuss if the codex works or not.
It's not a place to complain that we miss 3.5, which personally I don't.
It's certainly not somewhere to argue about things.
This is a place for positive thought and home brew rules suggestions, but it seems it's headed that way. So let's let it be.
In the meanwhile (could take a bit) I will compile the Supplement Fitting legion specific suggestions into 8 new threads (we'll leave Black Legion alone, they've got a supplement already).
And we can work on these as individual projects, in a spirit of co-operation and development please :)
It's time for the BOLS crew, and this former lurker, to show our stuff!
Watch this space.

[DrBored]

Has anyone tried to do a letter/petition to GW or forgeworld asking for a chaos redo? I'm curious if anything has been done outside of a fandex or whining.

Believe it or not, I did this. I sent them an e-mail the other day asking about the sonic blaster dreadnought weapon rules and point values, and also asking them to do something to fix Chaos Marines, or to at least pump out the Supplements faster.

Anyway, I agree with Badrukk here. There's been a lot of complaining. Several articles on various blogs all about gamers that love Chaos, but hate that Chaos isn't the glorious Codex that we've been waiting for. To non-Chaos players, it's easy to dismiss the complaining because we can still win games with Black Mace, Cultists, Helturkeys, and maybe some other bits and bobs thrown in. To long-term Chaos players, they don't get what us 'nooby' Chaos players are talking about because they have enough experience to make an army totally out of 20-man Thousand Sons squads and win.

And, as much as I'd love to see an update to the Codex, or at the very LEAST some more Supplements sooner rather than later, I don't think we're going to get it. It doesn't make sense to GW to invest any more into Chaos Space Marines right now. People are going to buy the kits that are currently out there, or they're going to convert stuff from the cheap Dark Vengeance box, or they're going to buy Forgeworld stuff and circumvent the cult troops anyway. The only way we're getting new kits is after everything else has been brought into 6th edition and GW is ready to update Chaos as the first codex to 7th, where we'll probably get similar treatment... Because simply put, Chaos Marines are just being lumped into the 'Non Space Marine' Codexes along with all the xenos and other heretics, where multiple factions within the book don't get represented. Tau and Eldar players should feel very lucky that they got great Supplements that exemplify different playstyles within that simple supplement.

As an aside... I personally HATE playing 'count-as' armies with other Space Marine dexes. If I had a loyalist Space Marine chapter, I might feel better about it, but Chaos is Chaos.

That said, I don't think we're going to get too far creating any largely-well-received homebrew rules for Chaos Marines to 'fix' them in any meaningful way. This is because the Chaos fandom is split into a few set people...

1. Non-Chaos players that keep poking their noses in and say "Why the heck are you complaining?"
2. WAAC Chaos players that are content with the current book and have no interest in fluff.
3. Fluff Chaos players that are content with the current book and have no interest in competition.
4. Chaos Purists that want a Legion book to be more true to the fluff.
5. Chaos Extremists that want a Legion book to be more competitive.
6. Chaos Nostalgics that keep wishing for 3.5 back, though it'll never happen like that.

We're too fractured, and everyone has their own desires for the kind of army they want to play. Black Legion, Death Guard, Emperor's Children, Night Lords, Iron Warriors... all the rest, plus various warbands that have their own tendencies... And all the way people will just keep telling us, "Well just convert, play counts-as, make your army *look* like that army and then play it however works." and so we'll never be taken seriously.

Now, I have heard that the Horus Heresy books have rules for the various legions that, if you remove the 'Lords of War' (Primarchs and titans and superheavies) options from the book, you actually get army lists that are very loyal to the different legions. It's a fluffy and satisfying way to put Chaos Marines back on the table. Yes they're expensive (but if you're like me, then there might not be a whole lot of expense at all...) but they give Chaos Marine players an option that GW wrote, that's actually decently balanced, and with a little bit of house-ruling, even FLGS's can accept it because it is an official product instead of some homebrew thing off the internet that, despite our best efforts, opponents are going to claim is full of cheese and totally unfair.

For now, I vote that we just calm down and try to find different aspects of the hobby to enjoy. I'm going to keep working on my Chaos Marines, I'm going to keep trying to play them as my Slaanesh army, and hopefully in a year or so the outlook wont look so bleak. If we can bide our time, like we have since 4th edition, then maybe eventually we'll come out on top.

And if not, there's all the other armies, there's Warhammer Fantasy, there's Warmahordes, there's X-Wing and Malifaux and Infinity and Bolt Action and Flames of War and Mechwarrior and a lot of other games that might just treat us better...

[Power Klawz]

Because the basic Deathguard statline is as defined by GW

SW,BS,S 4 T5 W1 I3 A1 Ld9 FNP and fearless.....

But hey, go on, keep insulting people

I actually haven't insulted anyone. I have simply stated that you have failed to formulate an objectively persuasive argument. If anyone has resorted to ad hominem its you and SON OF ROMULOUS (all caps) and its not just here where you resort to farcical aspersions. (you questioned my ability to read on a main forum post, in fact that seems to be your go-to burn.)

Its rather obvious that I can read sir, as if I could not I would not know what an unpleasant person you are.

Dark Link: I can understand wanting a more balanced ruleset, and I don't think anyone could argue with a straight face that 40k is in any real sense of the word balanced, and this is largely due to a refusal to move on from an ancient system that has roots in the wonkiest, clunkiest age of table top gaming. (Back when THAC0 was still a thing.)

This refusal probably has a lot to do with GW's business model and its fanatic unwillingness not to diversify its creative team.

What I find sad is that the first few dex's out the gate in 6th did really feel "balanced" at least by comparison to their 5th edition counterparts. When they dropped the abusive Tau codex it started to crumble the assumption that "6th is the edition of balance!". With the upcoming Space Marine codex it has become apparent that they've lost the thread, if they ever had it.

My point being that I felt the initial releases were good, were balanced, and were fun. I ignored that certain 5th edition codexes were still hiding in the bushes with abusive lists and looked forward to when they would be replaced, however simply because they have decided to re-introduce power creep and unbalance any equilibrium they might have been striving for does not mean the initial releases were bad, it just means the new one is bad.

From a pure playability perspective balance is good all around, but balance doesn't mean everyone gets everything they want because its "fun." In real terms balance is only achievable through extensive play testing to identify the faults in the system, something GW has never and likely will never do. Balance also means bringing everything down to a manageable level, and in most instances it means removing undo complexity. These aims go counter to what GW believes sells their product (other than model quality which is generally good to high for the price range) which is 'NEW! EXCITING! RANDOM!"

[Mr Mystery]

Never judge a book by it's rumours.....

We still know nothing about the Marine Codex, outside of the e-book preview.

Try not to throw out accusations based on no confirmation...

[daboarder]

Something like the following would go a long way to helping.


Deathguard: All units must buy MoN.

Gain: FNP, -1I

World eaters: All units must buy MoK

Gain: +1WS, Furious Charge

Emperors children: All units must buy MoS

non-vehicle Models able to purchase a heavy weapon may buy a
blastmaster (30pts)
non-vehicle Models may replace their boltgun, combi-bolter
with sonic blaster (3pts)
All characters may buy Doom Siren (15pts)

Thousand Sons: All models must buy MoT

Champions must become sorcerers for +35 pts
Units get Aura of Dark glory
All Bolt pistols, Boltguns, combi-bolters get inferno rounds (AP3)
All units have slow and purposeful
non-character, non-vehicle models may not buy special or
heavy weapons,

Maybe have compulsory VoTLW, This would allow you to make psuedo cult units buy paying through the nose to be fearless (Icon of Vengeance).....but would still maybe be worth it.

Then throw in rules for things like night lord, alpha
legion, IW's and Word bearers, closest thing to what we want without a complete
re-write.


As for you Klawz

EDIT: I removed my response, it detracts to much from what I am suggesting above, if of course you keep going then I will gladly re-post it.

[Bigred]

Keep the conversation civil everybody...

[Mr Mystery]

RE Terminators with FNP, just in general.....

Is there really that much point in it these days? After all, the number of AP2 weapons has taken a severe drop with the changes to power weapons, so you're getting your 2+ save far more often. And you still have the 5+ Invulnerable. Yes FNP would be nice, but it just seems far more limited on a Terminator in this edition than before.

[daboarder]

there is actually more shooting AP2 out there now than there ever was before.

Not only are more people taking plasma, but Eldar and Tau both have an insane volume of AP2 shooting to level at units.

[Mr Mystery]

True, but I've always seen Terminators as being best off lodged in combat :)

Wasn't a criticism, just a genuine query.

I still say people need to wait until the various Cult Codecies are released. Would make a lot of sense to specialise the army that way.

[daboarder]

I agree, the above was sort of just what I thought up as a quick fix. I kinda like it to be honest, seems an elegant solution to most peoples issue with the book.

I am skeptical about whether or not we are getting legion supplements, I know it would be easy money for GW, but then giving decent legion rules in the codex would have been easy money for GW too...

edit: as for terminators, they usually are better off in combat, but chaos doesn't get a good delivery system for them unfortunately.

[Mr Mystery]

On the easy money thing, you're right. However, core Codex and offshoots is more easy money than just a single central codex.

Cynical? Not at all. Just sound business sense!

I expect we will see them. At the moment we seem to be getting fairly central ones, possibly as an overall pilot. Just start writing in, requesting them.

Plus, according to the previous Codex's writer, Gav Thorpe, when he wrote it, it was with the intention and understanding the cult armies would be covered in separate volumes. This was said on Dakka I believe, and instantly called lies, on account clearly the scrotes of Dakka know more than not just someone who actually worked in the Studio, and was party to the book creation, but actually, you know, wrote the book....

[Tomgar]

So these are just so random ideas I quickly noted down so excuse me if the language could be a tad clearer. I wrote them from the point of view of a DA and Crimson Fist player who plays against Chaos 95% of the tie so I wrote what I thought would address some of the issues of C:CSM and also be fun to play against.

General Rule Changes
• Veterans of the Long War: 2pts per model, +1L, Reroll Failed Morale Checks, Hatred (Space Marines)
• Heldrake +10pts, Vector Strike no longer ignores cover
• Helbrute changes type to Daemon, can purchase vehicle marks
• Lords have access to Warp-crafted Power Armour, +2 save, 20pts
• Mark of Chaos Ascendant: Fearless, 3pts per model, cannot be taken unless using either Black Legion or Undivided Legion Traits
• Cultist Upgrade: Missionary of the Dark Gods, 10pts, once per game Cultist champion reads from an arcane tome of the Gods of Chaos, giving all Cultists in his unit FNP and Fearless until the start of the next turn
• Can take legion traits, work in similar way as C:SM Chapter Tactics.
• Marks work in the same way except new vehicle marks

Legion Traits
• Black Legion – There is Only War: Once per game all CSM, Havoc, Terminator and Vehicle weapons are twin linked until the end of the turn
• Alpha Legion – Masters of Trickery: before the game, roll a dice. D3 units gain the Infiltrate and Shrouded special rules
• World Eaters – Psychotic Bloodlust: Roll an extra d6 when making a sweeping advance and discard the lowest. Models with this trait can consolidate or make sweeping advances into another combat
• Deathguard – Born Of Pestilence: all models with this trait gain FNP but suffer a -1 to initiative. Cultists replaced with Plague Zombies
• Emperor’s Children – Decadent Rites: All models with this trait exude such a palpable aura of sickening decadence that even the most stubborn will cannot help but be repulsed. Models with this trait can force enemy units to re-roll their successful morale checks and CSM squads, Raptors and Warp Talons gain fleet
• Thousand Sons – Forbidden Lore: Bolt Pistols, Boltguns and Combi-Weapons all gain Inferno Bolts, all models with this trait gain Adamantium Will and Preferred Enemy (Space Wolves)
• All Other Legions – For the Dark Gods!: All CSM squads gain Veterans of the Long War at no extra cost, Chosen become Scoring units

Vehicle Marks
If a vehicle is Daemonically possessed, it can spend further points on Chaos Marks. Units marked by other gods cannot enter a marked vehicle
• Mark of Khorne: Vehicle becomes Assault Vehicle. If it already is an assault vehicle, models charging from this vehicle gain furious charge for the turn that they disembark (13pts)
• Mark of Nurgle: +1HP, can reroll Crew Stunned and Crew Shaken results but must accept the second result (15pts)
• Mark of Tzeentch: Daemonic Invulnerable Save increased to +4 (13pts)
• Mark of Slaanesh: Can move at full speed and still fire one weapon at full BS (10pts)

[Tomgar]

Sorry, double post.

[biteymcrunrun]

Word Bearers:

Possessed change their unit type to beast

Dark Apostles become 1-3 per HQ slot

Icon of Vengeance acts as a teleport homer

Instead of normal marks they instead can get Mark of Chaos Undivided- same points as MoS- +1 to deny the witch, Crusader

Wargear- 1- gives the bearer and unit the Zealot and Rampage USRs
2- If Chaos Daemons are taken as allies, one unit of daemons may be 'bound' to this item. The unit always starts in reserve, and reserve rolls are never made for it. At the start of any of the chaos players turn, the bearer may 'release' the daemons. The unit is placed anywhere within 6" of the bearer, using the deepstrike placement rules. The unit does not scatter. The unit may assualt on the turn it arrives, but counts as charging through difficult and dangerous terrain.
3- Any allied units from Codex: Chaos Daemons, obliterators, mutilators, or warp talons may add +1 to their reserve rolls if arriving from deep strike while the bearer is alive and on the table
4- While the bearer is on the table, at the start of any turn he may 'sacrifice' a unit of cultists. Any unit chosen is completely removed from the table, counting as being slain. For every full 5 cultists sacrificed, any one unit of allied troops choices taken from Codex: chaos Daemons recieves +d3 models
5- The bearer gains one randomly chosen lesser reward from Codex: Chaos Daemons per turn, determined at the start of his turn.

[Denzark]

And this is the crux of the matter. You people want your broken, idiotic, un-fun to play against book back. You will not ever get it back because it nearly ruined the game for everyone that DOESN'T play Chaos.

Get over the fact that your 3.5v book is *never* coming back. Just like I got over the fact a long time ago that the 2nd edition Eldar codex is never coming back. I long for the days when my Avatar could take on all 4 greater demons at once and win. I long for the days where the swooping hawk wings granted me a 36" move. I long for the days when my death spinners were heavy flamer templates.

Looking at your current book through the prism of past editions is only going to lead to disappointment. Its something that I've had to bitterly swallow as well with my new Eldar book.


I don't recall it being broken. I certainly don't recall anything ruining the game for everyone - although I have never had to club baby seals, maybe your chaos opponents were simply better than you. I was about to type up a massive response but you are being obtuse.

So, as not to yack on about 3.5, I can just say it allowed players to have a characterful and effective army, mono-god if desired. Therefore, along those lines would allow chaos players to do something other than Heldrake.

Y'all prefer Heldrake to 3.5, enjoy the first 4 heldrake lists with C:BL.

[daboarder]

I don't recall it being broken. I certainly don't recall anything ruining the game for everyone - although I have never had to club baby seals, maybe your chaos opponents were simply better than you. I was about to type up a massive response but you are being obtuse.

So, as not to yack on about 3.5, I can just say it allowed players to have a characterful and effective army, mono-god if desired. Therefore, along those lines would allow chaos players to do something other than Heldrake.

Y'all prefer Heldrake to 3.5, enjoy the first 4 heldrake lists with C:BL.



I think everyone expected the Warp Hunter to go back to a small blast with the advent of Distort weapons being S10 - then having it have a like Str 6 Torrent effect - but this was like getting kicked in the face.

I'm writing up my outrage to FW right now.

F*ck emailing. I'm on hold waiting to yell at them.


this

does

not

sate

my

rage.

People never remember their own anguish when the boot is on the other foot. Don't let it get you down Denzark its merely the grand hypocrisy that is humanity.

[DWest]

Back to the community modification, an idea for Alpha Legion -specific ability: Mark of the Rakshasa.

-Background: the Alpha Legion is known to be one of the least outwardly affected of the Chaos Legions, and it has been stated that mutated Alphas often hide their true nature to be revealed to the enemy at the most opportune moment. The Rakshasa in the original Hindu myth is a beguiling, evil shape-shifter, and those who bear the Mark of the Rakshasa likewise take on another's form to do their evil deeds. The Mark of the Rakshasa permits the mutated Legionaries to perform a tactical version of one of the most infamous treacheries of the Heresy; the Dropsite Massacre.

-Rules: The Mark of the Rakshasa is an upgrade which can be taken for Possessed or Warp Talons, at a cost of 2 pts/model. You may choose to deploy a unit with the Mark of the Rakshasa as normal or leave them in Reserve, in which case they may not be joined by an Independent Character. A unit of Possessed with the Mark of the Rakshasa may still purchase a Rhino as a Dedicated Transport, provided you upgrade it with Daemonically Possessed, and the Mark of the Rakshasa (Vehicle) for +10 points.
If the unit is in Reserve, do not roll for them to arrive as normal; instead when the opponent brings a unit in from Outflank or Reserves (for Possessed Rakshasas) or Deep Strike (for Warp Talon Rakshasas), after the opponent has marked where his unit is to arrive you and the opponent each roll 1d6 and add the respective unit's Leadership (vehicles count as Ld 10) for this purpose.
If the Rakshasas equal or exceed the target unit's roll, replace the targeted unit on the table with the Rakshasa unit, deployed in accordance with the usual rules for the indicated type of Reserve deployment. In either case, the losing unit rolls 1d6 and consults the Deep Strike Mishap table to determine how they are affected.
If the unit of Rakshasas outnumbers the targeted unit, add +1 to the Rakshasas' Ld for the roll, and -1 to the target's roll on the Mishap table (if any). For this purpose, Vehicles count as having a unit size equal to 3x their HP. A unit of Rakshasa Possessed embarked on a Rhino counts as adding +3 to their unit size to represent the Rhino.

-Rationale: the Dropsite Massacre was supposedly orchestrated by Alpharius himself, and on a tactical level, having the mutated Legionaries use the Mark of the Rakshasa to impersonate an enemy unit and turn their hoped-for reinforcements into their very demise fits with the scheming and disruptive nature of the Alphas. On the tabletop, a large unit of Possessed or Warp Talons has a decent chance to displace an enemy unit and possibly even destroy them by the Mishap table. The Mark of the Rakshasa is available only to the Daemon Marines as their bodies have already been made malleable by the Warp, and so can undergo the polymorphing required to imitate an enemy unit.

[Defenestratus]

People never remember their own anguish when the boot is on the other foot. Don't let it get you down Denzark its merely the grand hypocrisy that is humanity.

Cute.

Fact of the matter is that the Warp Hunter and the Chaos books are totally different situations. It went from the one of two viable HS options in a 7 year old book to collecting dust next to the banshees on the shelf (although I'd still use it - but its certainly lost a lot of lustre). You cannot really compare a whole book edition change to a change made to one unit.

Chaos 3.5 allowed for all types of broken Chaos lord options. It was terrible to play against since you had a lord with broken wargear options cruising up the field on a disc of Tzeench and basically, single handedly hand you your ***. I wasn't a great player in 3rd edition - I'll admit, but neither were my opponents and the game would be over in the matter of minutes. It actually pushed me out of the hobby for a while. This was also before the advent of "the internet meets my wargaming hobby" so I don't remember any community reaction to the book - but I know how it was received in my little group at the time and it was universally loathed except by the players who (ab)used it.


This whole, sad travesty of a thread is nothing but rampant wishlisting that will *never* *ever* happen. Personally I like the current Chaos book and had it not been for the fact that I'm already 40k rich, I would be starting a khorne/world eaters army.

[daboarder]

Of course they are. You own multiple warp hunters!


Furthermore, Wish-listing and idea suggestions was kinda the point of this entire thread. So if you read that and you know that, why on earth did you still feel the need to comment?

oh and as to you opinion of 3.5, well you know what they say about opinions and everybody having one....:p

[Siris Le Osiris]

Of course they are. You own multiple warp hunters!


Furthermore, Wish-listing and idea suggestions was kinda the point of this entire thread. So if you read that and you know that, why on earth did you still feel the need to comment?

oh and as to you opinion of 3.5, well you know what they say about opinions and everybody having one....:p

Great thing about warp hunters is they shipped with prism / nightspinner turrets, I've not actually heard to many Eldar players whining about then IRL except that they wont use them. (I also own 3 and now with magnetised turrents can be whatever :P)

And what are the Forgeworld Chaos options like? Do they fill any any of the codexes weak spots?
I don't own any of the books with their rules in them.

[daboarder]

Unfortunately not really, the dreadclaw comes closest but do to its unique nature its rules are kinda the worst parts of fliers and drop pods combined. It also eats a FA slot.

The blood slaughterer, decimator and contemptor are all cool, but nothing dreads and fiends cant do already really.

and the Blight drone is ok but 1 you need Plague marines to unlock them and 2 the drake is still a drake.

and they dont offer a single chaos raider variant,or access to the other FW ones....

[Demonicsarge55]

I think I really speak for every chaos player here, we are tired of being given a codex with no flavor, bad war gear, poorly thought out new units, and silly auto includes. (Lash Princes and Drakes come to mind.) While when the regular SM dex comes out they have all sorts of cool rules and tweaks they can apply to their armies and we look at that and we think "well hell if they can do that for regular marines why not us?"

[daboarder]

BUT BUT BUT,

The legions don't exist anymore (despite the Primarchs leading them on realspace raids.....), and it makes more sense for the unfettered, uncountable hordes of chaos warbands out there to all work EXACTLY THE SAME.....

Just like it makes perfect sense for those 10000 year old veterans to be worse than their 300 year old counterparts...senility and all that.

And finally this all ties in with the fact that despite being excommunicated for innovation the dark mechanicus can't figure out how to change up the weapons on the standard raider/rhino....whereas their ritula bound brothers in the regular mechanicus crank out different variants every couple of thousand years....

/stupid logic

realistically theres not much we can do except hope that it gets fixed in another 7 years....maybe, if any of us could be bothered with this **** anymore.

[DWest]

And finally this all ties in with the fact that despite being excommunicated for innovation the dark mechanicus can't figure out how to change up the weapons on the standard raider/rhino....whereas their ritula bound brothers in the regular mechanicus crank out different variants every couple of thousand years....


Actually, the Dark Mechanicum *have* been innovating . . . they've developed several innovative ways to shove daemons into metal shells and make them dance and do tricks (see: Defiler, Forge/Maulerfiend, Decimator, etc.). That isn't the kind of innovation you want, but it is innovation, and it's pretty much been the way of the Dark Mechanicum from day 1. Go re-read Mechanicum itself; their method of innovation was pretty much "let's mainline raw Chaos from a rusty needle, and see what happens!"

Furthermore, the new Land Raider/Rhino variants were not designed by the Mechanicum, they were designed by the Space Marines themselves. The Mechanicum later "decided" to sanctify the designs, rather than see how well holding a feud with the premier assault forces in the Imperium would work. All the major "innovations" were developed to overcome specific battlefield problems. It makes sense that the Traitor Legions haven't developed similar designs, because when faced with an intractable military obstacle, they either a) smack their heads into the obstacle until something gives (World Eaters), or call upon the Dark Gods for assistance. This has not translated well to the tabletop, but that is a failing of mechanics, not lore.

Back on the subject of how to fix Chaos, the first thing that is needed is to nerf ATSKNF. Make it a re-roll of failed Morale perhaps, or a one-turn-per-game Fearless, but as it stands, the Fear USR is entirely pointless, as there's almost nothing which can be affected by it, and those units that can (I'm looking at you, Fire Warriors), we already don't need the help to kill them in melee. The current leadership woes of Chaos wouldn't be nearly as bad if everybody else was in roughly the same boat. The other main fix would be some form of different deployment and/or a better transport. Currently, Chaos Space Marines have one of the worst selections of ways to get from where we are to where we want to be. In the meantime, I plan to keep painting and playing Chaos, because I still like my faction, even when it's forced to wear a "kick me" sign.

[daboarder]

I was talking more about the fact that we're still using reaper autocannons and heavy flamers as state of the art.....as opposed to daemonic equivalents or alternatives.

As to land raider, chaos needs one that works, plain and simple, a pitiful discount for not having PotMS is ridiculous, and furthermore the background has Chaos using Land raiders just as much as loyalists, stick some reapers or ectoplasm cannons on the side, tear out the generator and stick a deamon inside granting more space, wah lah, a chaos raider that doesnt suck

[DarkLink]

Land Raiders in general are overpriced. They're one of the many units that GW refuses to update.



Back on the subject of how to fix Chaos, the first thing that is needed is to nerf ATSKNF.

WTF? Making loyalist Marines suck won't make CSM any better. Nor would making everyone Fear CSM make CSM very good.

[DWest]

The problem is, ATSKNF is just so powerful, and so autopilot, that it warps the entire function of Morale. You get arguments like "since CSM can't get Know No Fear, we need Fearless instead to compensate." Morale measures are so common among some armies, that it no longer feels like a benefit to have a buff such as ATSKNF, but a huge penalty not to. That situation needs to change one way or another.

[DarkLink]

That's... not the point that people like me are trying to make when we say that.

Space Marines aren't even particularly good as they are right now. Yes, ATSKNF is really good, but Marines pay a lot of points for it and it doesn't protect them from being killed outright. In fact, as expensive as Marines are, it only means that your very expensive unit won't spontaneously become useless because you failed a leadership test. It doesn't matter that much if a 60pt unit of Eldar Jetbikes fail a morale check and run, they're only 60pts. When your 200pt unit of Marines fails a test and instantly dies, or at the least becomes completely useless for a turn, that one morale test just took an eighth of your army out of the game.

That's the problem with CSM. They're expensive, but one failed morale check and your massive points investment just became completely useless. The morale system might be skewed, but it's certainly extremely punishing on expensive units. I play Grey Knights, and even ATSKNF isn't always good enough. Sometimes a lost combat means you run when you don't want to and your opponent gets a chance to shoot you when you'd be better off in assault. Or sometimes you fail a morale check and you roll a 12 and your unit runs off the board. It's games like those where a single set of dice rolls loses you the game, regardless of player skill.

Space Marines are pretty well protected by it. But CSM? They get massively screwed by failing any morale checks. That lack of reliability is the fundamental reason no one ever takes any non-Fearless, non-Cultist CSM units competitively. Those units simply aren't reliable. Your opponent kills a couple, and you fail a morale check, and you might have just lost the game. Or your opponent challenges, you can't hit him, your suicidal champion gets himself killed, you fail the morale check, and your opponent just sweeping advanced you.

Nerfing ATSKNF does absolutely nothing to fix any of this. All it would do is make Space Marines just as susceptible to it, except that Space Marines don't have good enough non-Marine units to build a competitive army around. Instead of fixing CSM, you'd just be killing competitive Space Marines.

Now, of course, that's assuming you pretty much completely remove ATSKNF. If you just, say, made it so they no longer ignored Fear checks, or something minor like that, it really wouldn't be that big of a deal. Similarly, you don't have to make all CSM Fearless. Just give them something. Make up their own version of ATSKNF. I dunno.

[daboarder]

Stubborn and a moral reroll would help


For no extra pts.

[Mr.hardrada]

Would it be too much to give CSM stubborn? I would say ATSKNF as I feel that an Astartes is an Astartes but that's just me.

[DWest]

Okay, let me try again: The consensus sounds like "in order to be considered playable, a unit needs to be protected from the Morale rules." That indicates severe problems with the Morale system. What I would like to see is the default being "you can be affected by Morale, but you have tools to help compensate" instead of "if you can be affected by Morale, you stay on the shelf".

I do not like ATSKNF as it is currently written, because it turns off whole sections of gameplay. It's like the argument surrounding Assault Grenades -- if every unit had them, then you might as well strike the entire section about assaulting through cover from the book. I would prefer a game where generally speaking, everybody was affected by every section of the rules every turn, and things which let you reduce or ignore a hindrance were perks, rather than necessities. Do I think I will get my way? Only if I rewrite the entire BRB myself and then convince my local gaming group to play by my rules.

[Daemonette666]

I have not read this thread, or been on this site for weeks as I have been working on projects, for Dystopian wars and my Battletech Tournament, but now I am back for a short while - as I have a new full-time job as a Telco Rigger.

My contribution to this thread is as follows. Of all the original Chaos Legions that fled to the Eye of Terror and other warp storms, only a few have maintained any resemblance to their original great companies. Many have utterly broken down into squabbling war bands, but others are still large enough to be considered a Chapter or Space Marine Company size unit.

Nightlords have a few company sized warbands. Iron Warriors are the most organised with a central body of Warlord type Iron Priests who might fight amongst each other, but also work together to take on other foe. They, in particular have formed a close bond with the dark Mechanicus. The Black Legion is huge and well organised particulary because they take in newcomers from the recently renegade Space marine units, and because they have Abaddon keeping them in check.

Of the rest, the only other Legion to have maintained a hierarchy of command and council body of leaders are the Word Bearers. They do have their large disparate warbands and they all have their own individual goals, and even fight amongst each other at times, however they have enough organisation to group together to perform combined warband operations for a single goal. The World Eaters can not get themselves organised enough to work together, as they will fight amongst their own warband, as well as other Khornate warbands. The Death Guard are a little more organised, but still have age old hatreds between some of their warband leaders, and some have fallen from Mortarians grace. The Thousand Sons are a right off. The best they can do is covens of Sorcerers with a Sorcerer Lord leading them and their Rhubic Marines, and a large amount of cultists. Emperor's Children are more interested in experiencing every emotion and pain possible, and tend to involve themselve3s in war as a distraction or to get more slaves to torture. They might have a few medium size warbands, but no central command or body of warband leaders. The Alpha legion is a mystery, and has never operated in large numbers (not openly), and many of their number are in imperial space acting as spies as is their usual tactic. They might be in squad/ squads leading Imperial Guard or cultists, but it is not really their thing to field full companies of marines.

So of these I would be making legion army lists for Nightlords, Iron Warriors, Death Guard, Black Legion, and Word Bearer's. As to special rules for particular chaos gods, marks, etc. I like the idea of a Mark of Chaos Undivided giving Fearless.

I also love the idea of a drop pod that can get Chaos Vehicle upgrades. I think Mutilators should get something like a biomorph shoulder mounted grenade launcher, or dirge caster type device that acts as assault grenades, and stops enemy within 6" from overwatching (it would make them worth their points then). I think Possessed are not worth the points. Have them given the assault from transports rule, or something lie the Dirge caster/assault grenades to make them useful. Have a few different weapons options for the Landraider. Maybe a Str 6 AP 3 Flamer on the sponsons, Plasma Cannon in the front turret, etc.

The Warp Talons assaulting from deep strike is a good option, but they should get assault grenades as well. As to noise weapons, I would change the Sonic Blaster to being Assault 2/ Heavy 3 Pinning ignores cover and increase the points cost to 5 points. I would also upgrade the standard CSM so that they got their LD 9 base, and all others had their LD increased by +1 to max 10 to bring them back in line and on a par with ATSKNF which is too powerful now. I would also give the standard CSM unit get their additional CCW back as standard.

If you take an Iron Priest as your HQ and declare it is an Iron Warriors force, then all units CSM ans non cultist squads should get fearless, relentless, tank hunters, replace the additional CCW with a combi-bolter, which can then be upgraded to a combi-weapon. They should also have access to a higher ammount of special weapons, and allow Havocs to be taken as both troops and heavy support.

Similar things can be done with the different Chaos Powers and for Legion specific lists. Night Lords - Nightvision, Infiltrate, fear and raptors can be troops as well as fast attack. Word Bearers must take a Dark Apostle, but he gets +1 attack and wound, and makes all cultists fearless.

A few more Daemon weapons that are generic, and carrying on from GWs trend towards tables and pre-game dice rolls, you get +D6 attacks as usual, but their is a D6 roll to determine the additional effect the weapons has - +1 Strength, rending, instant death, poisoned 4+/2+, fleshbane/armourbane, and re-roll and take 2 options ignoring additional rolls of 6. These would be 35 points each to get, and make the game interesting.

Give Obliterators a different version of slow and purposeful that allows them to overwatch. Also increase their max squad size to 5.

Chaos Sorcerors should be made fearless, in fact all Chaos Lords, no matter what they are should be fearless.

Chaos Marks should be changed a little.

Slaanesh - fearless, +1 iniative, and FNP rolled up at the start of the game and successful on a 3+ (combat drugs, and stimulants), but if your roll a 1 or 2 you remove a random model from the unit because of a drug overdose.

Nurgle - 1 Initiative, a new form of slow and purposeful specifically made for them that allows them to overwatch, FNP, attack and defensive grenades, plague knives, fearless.

Khorne - fearless, rage, furious charge, counter attack, and option to take AP 4 chain axes.

Tzeentch - fearless, must be led by a low level aspiring sorcerer, 4+ invulnerable save, 3+ for the champion.
max 3+ invul save for any chaos model. Unit gets the Psychic choir rule as an upgrade option with the aspiring sorcerer as the focal point which increases the units level to a level 2 psyker. If the champion is killed off, then they become level 1, or if he is on his own, he reverts back to level 1. They should also get Psychic familiars as a squad upgrade.

Undivided - cheapest of the marks fearless, unit icon allows both Allied Daemons and friendly deep striking units from the same army to use the icon as a locator beacon.

Most of what I have mentioned will make them a bit over powered, but this can be balanced by making the points cost for units or chaos marks a little higher. Because you are trying to design a legion or mark specific army list, you will get benefits against certain types of enemy, but still be vulnerable to others. I.E. an Iron warriors list would be great against vehicle heavy formations, and armies that have lots of MCs and terminators, but hordes will just rip them apart. Emperor's Children will rule over infantry/ horde based armies, but vehicle and flier heavy armies will kick their butts. and so on. Add to this the fact that the CSM armies will be more expensive, they will have less models, unless you want to spam cultist pr use cultist to pick the numbers up.

I know others will not like my ideas, but everyone is allowed to have their opinion. So do not start picking on anyone who disagrees with me, but do not start picking on my ideas and going off your head about it. Use logical reasoning and discuss why they would not be suitable (if you think they are too OP).

[daboarder]

genius!

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Hey guys, sorry i've been out of touch on this for the last few days, glad to see some people still giving it their all.
Based on people's suggestions I am preparing a series of .doc versions of the 2 page rules sections as seen in the published supplements.
The intention is to have one for each legion other than BL, who are already covered.
Having seen the Farsight one i've had a re-think or two so they're not quite ready yet. When they are I'll publish them on a new thread and invite people to take them away and write lists and playtest them etc. Once that has been done, we can look to revise them somewhat and re-publish. I figure two rounds of iterative testing like this should do the trick enough for us to bash out some basic pdfs.
I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to contribute with positive ideas and well thought out plans. Naturally no two of us will agree on everything and it's been great to get lots of ideas in.
As for a community errata for Codex:CSM, well..... we could argue that for all of time. So I'll hold off, and leave the published material alone. I can reprise it if the supplements are well received, or if someone else wants to take on the challenge and publish it on here go for it!

[lattd]

How about an update for the demon USR called warp horror, units attempting to over watch a model with this rule must pass an unmodified leadership test before they could fire.

Simple rules could just be, terminators with a mark of X god can be upgraded to cult terminators, for 5 ppm, a cult terminator gains VOTLW, +1 attack and can purchase the following weapons, chain axes if cult of khorne, inferno bolts if cult of tzeentetch (spelling), poisoned weapons for cult of nurgle, and sonic weapons for cult of slaneesh.

[Mr Mystery]

This dude (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440207a&prodId=prod1710100a) as a Champion Level unit upgrade, open to non-cult troops, instead of the Aspiring Champion.

Many issues solved.

[daboarder]

that'd do it, maybe make him a little cheaper say 80 pts and let him buy terminator armour, and take different power weapons

but remove IC status.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup. Even just make him a one wound wonder.

That way, you have the option of portraying units of recently turned Marines, with their own personal Erebus-a-like.....

[daboarder]

mmm I'd hesitate to make him a single wound, that way you have the option to buy a character that has a decent chance of walking away from a challenge with a marine sergeant or eldar exarch, and therefore actually give the boon table a purpose.

and comparing him to sanguinary priests...80 points would be an alright buy for 2 wounds and a power weapon, especially with the drawback of not being able to leave the squad.

[Mr Mystery]

True dat.

[daboarder]

I wish they'd added Erebus as a special character, can't wait till FW release him and Kor pheron.

[phreakachu]

Heres what i got:
Daemon weapon: 10 pt for independant characters, 15 for Champions.
Weapon upgrade. Weapon retains its type, S/AP, gets +1d3 attacks, roll 2d6 and apply on the table.
2: Enraged Occupant:Furious at its imprisonment, the bound deamon lashes at the wielder of this weapon. take a S10, AP- hit with the ignores cover rule.
3: No Bonus
4: + 1 AP
5: +1 Str
6: Gains Armorbane and Fleshbane
7: MELEE: Gain +1 Attack. RANGED: +1 shot. Rapid Fire weapons shoot 2 shots @ full Range, 3 @ 1/2 range
8: MELEE: +1 Initiative, or remove Unwieldy if Present. RANGED: Weapon is now BLAST
9: Shred USR
10:Melee: Whenever a 6 is rolled to hit, Controlling Player may choose what model takes the hit. RANGED: This character chooses what model is hit on a 5+ on the attack roll.
11:Whenever this model kills an enemy model, roll a d6: on a 5+, this model regains a lost wound.
12: Roll Twice on this table, rerolling duplicate results.

In addition, if the character has a Mark of Chaos, you may spend +5 Points for the following upgrade. IF Enraged Occupant, ignore this upgrade.
Khorne: @ the start of the Assault phase, you may choose to replace the Rage USR with Rampage
Tzeench: Counts as a Force Weapon. If Character is not a Sorcerer, gives 1 Warp Charge per turn. If a Sorc, roll 1 additional power.
Nurgle: FNP 3+.
Slaanesh: whenever this model kills an enemy model, gain an Ecstasy Token. You may spend an Ecstasy token to gain +1 Initiative this turn.

Stormraven
Replace Plasma Cannons With Ectoplasma Cannons, Assault Cannons with Hades Autocannon, Hurricane Bolters with Heavy Bolters, Missile Launcher may be replaced with Havoc Launcher. May Carry Hellbrute. When the Hellbrute takes a hit, Auto glancing hit on the 'Raven. May take Demonic Possession, Dirge Caster, Warpflame Gargoyles
Drop Pod, replace Assault cannon with Heavy Bolters, Missile launcher with Havoc Launcher. May take Dirge Caster, Destroyer blades. (Ive always hated the ' auto relocate if youre hitting an enemy unit rule on D-pod deepstriking. Really, i think the unit should GTFO of the way, so 'Striking Pods should count as tanks when they land)

Chosen and Terminators with a God Appropriate mark should get the benefit of their cult counterparts: Fearless/Chainaxes for Khorne, FNP for Nurgle, Sonic Weapons for Slaanesh, Rubric, Sorc Champ and Warpfire bolts for Tzeench.

Chaos needs some Raider variants.
Example: I Nurgled a raider out after getting the hull second hand from a kid @ my FLGS. I mase the sponsons out of 'Nid Guns and greenstuff, added the Autocannon turret from the Defiler. I plan on adding a couple of barrels from the scenery kit to the sponsons, and running the Raider as having 2 TL'd Puscannons (straight off the Blight Drone) and a Reaper Cannon.

Finally, id like to see a Stolen Vehicle option for Chaos, much like the OLD looted vehicle option for Orks. Increase the PTS cost for Loyalist Vehicle slightly, and replace POTMS with Possession. However, instead of the 'We dont know what the hell were doing' rule the Orks had, make the Warpsmith's Repair ability unable to fix "Weapon Destroyed" results (Ive never worked on this type of thing)
so who thinks what?

[Chris Copeland]

Troops, what happened to Big Red's original article on this? I feel like I just read it a couple of days ago on the front page of BoLS. I thought it was well written and I was suggesting the article to a friend. Now I can't find it? Would one of you fine fellows post a link to the original "Mark 2 Space Marines" article so that I can pass it along to a friend? Thanks in advance. Cheers. Cope

[Chris Copeland]

I'm referring to the article that suggests using the new Space Marine codex to represent CSM... suggests that the Iron Hands chapter traits would nicely represent the Iron Warriors... says ok, we'll lose some units that we mostly don't care about but will gain more good things... it might have even started "I really wanted to like the CSM codex. I really did." Have I lost my mind? I swear, I just read this article!

[Chris Copeland]

I just figured it out. I'd read two excellent articles recently: Big Red's and the one on Spikey Bits. They made many of the same points. The Spikey one can be found at http://blog.spikeybits.com/2013/09/c...egion-wtf.html (http://blog.spikeybits.com/2013/09/chaos-codex-2-legion-wtf.html)... it goes hand in hand with Larry's article. I'm glad I'm not losing my mind! Keep up the good work, Bigred! Cheers. Cope

[daboarder]

yeah I've completely dropped the power armour from my list, still running the terminator plate and daemonic equivalents, but I don't know if that will last with grav guns being tailor made to pulp us at a fraction of the cost (centurion devs)

I do run a pair of drakes, but its a mother****ing dragon whats not to love. To me its like having an a-10 warthog in the list, and I just keep getting the image from reign of fire where the dragon strafes the tank column in my head...AWESOME!

[phreakachu]

i cant stand the hellturkey, and i play chaos. the damn model is great looking if you like a completely static, multipart model. i like the stat line, but hate the model i should sa\y

[daboarder]

thats why I converted mine.

[Mr Mystery]

Rampant specumalation time!!!!

So, the Marine Codex presents the Chapter Tactics which are cool, without being bent. They add flavour to a given chapter, and present a reward of sorts for picking a primogenitor Legion.

Do you reckon we'll see something broadly similar in the (apparently) forthcoming mini-dexes for CSM? If so, what do you reckon we'll see?

[phreakachu]

i assumed we'd see something like odd marks, perhaps, where you'd pay x points to get a mark that would be mandatory for the legion youre playing.
idk what to expect: the farsight supplient had my hopes up as far as the books go, but it seems the BL book really dropped the ball. Then again, BL is the Ultrasmurfs of the Spikey Mareenz.

My favorite traitor legion thats not given over to a specific god would be the night lords. I'd LOVE to see them have fear (useless as it is) as a Army wide addition. A NL specific rule that makes Units taking a morale check due to shooting from a unit that appeared from deep strike take penalties for lost models like in the assault phase: i think a rule like this would accurately represent the night lords 'ambush and terror' tactics without going to Tau levels of breaking the rules, as well as bypassing without nerfing ATSKNF. In short, my unit lost 4 models this shooting phase from deep striking unit x, so its morale is taken @ -4 penalty, as opposed to on normal leadership.
I would also allow NL units to deepstrike if otherwise unable, with a different mishap: representing the ambushes, while still forcing Termies and Raptors to come in via teleport and swooping in respectively. for instance, A unit of Night Lord CSMs could deep strike, effectively waiting in ambush. when you drop the unit, you place and scatter normal: if you scatter off the table, remain in reserves and lose deep strike (we screwed up the ambush, walk into the battle), if you scatter into an enemy unit, that those units are now locked in close combat and the Ambushing unit strikes this round @ initiative 1 (they stumbled on us) Otherwise, avoid impassable terrain, and no casualties for difficult/dangerous.
Finally the night Lords would get +1 attack in cc whenever attacking a unit with a lower leadership: NL's prefer to attack weaker enemies whenever possible.

[Drunkencorgimaster]

Me like.

[Mr.hardrada]

On a sidenote Forgeworld released a video that showed the Night Lords Legion traits, pretty awesome.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Bumped to point out this;
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?35591-Night-Lords-Home-brew-Supplement-Beta-Version-0-1/page2
I'm still working on the other three non-cult legions and then I'll hit up cults.

[phreakachu]

Revert the marks of Khorne and Tzeentch back to their previous incarnations, they were nerfed for no reason and left Nurgle and Slaanesh as clearly superior in almost all circumstances.

I agree with Tzeench... But IMO the Mark of Khorne got better: Rage AND Counterattack? you mean my bolter marines with CCW get 4 Attacks when YOU charge ME?!?!?!? You mean my Lord on a Juggernaut with Axe of Blind Rage can still pour out up to 12 attacks?!?!?!
And keep in mind that Berzerkers in effect have BOTH the old version MoK and the new.
Assaulting from Deepstrike should be a Khorne ability, IMHO, but it should be a Disorderd Charge: IIRC, you get the Weapon bonus but not the Charge Bonus, yeah? so, for example, a group 10 Khorneate Termies with twin LC's would get 3 Attacks a piece. Add in 'Pass a LD check first' and i think it would be balanced.

To grant balance of effect to the other marks, perhaps granting FnP 6+ to Nurgle units, and bonus to Tzeench units Invuln save when massed in multiples of the old 'Sacred Number'.

Then F*** Slaanesh. He's weak. in truth idk.

Looted Imperial Vehicles would be a great addition to the Chaos Repertoire, just make them immune to the 'master of mechanisms' or whatever rule. Drop-pods should have been included in the standard dex.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

as some one who plays a mono khorne list..... your dead wrong. In this edition and with the cost of my berserker's they are horrible. honestly i put thousand son's above them when it comes to power level...
At what point does it make sense that CSM with MOK are the better more practical option then actually taking a cult troop choice... a disordered charge makes my berserkers very expensive marines that are slightly better in combat. berserkers are supposed to be the most vicious assault marines in the galaxy. Instead they are over costed bullet catchers. i went from running 4 units of berserkers in 5th to a single unit of them now with kharn in a land raider to maintain some semblance of fluff... the rest got swapped out for CSM with mok and cultists... its a sad sad day to play world eaters.

[daboarder]

To be fair Romulous that's less to do with the MoK (which is pretty good, and definitely better than tzeentch) and more to do with the core rules punishing assault units this edition AND an almost complete lack of effective delivery options being available to CSM's.

[phreakachu]

^agreed^

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

@deadboarder i can agree to that. i had to bite the bullet go out get a land raider and forge world doors just to be able to consistently deliver kharn and his unit of World Eaters. Its a sad day when you have to wonder if you really did put kharn in a land raider with a squad would there even be a squad left alive?
But ya i look at them and in their current set up the berserkers ride in a land raider the CSM with MOK ride in a rhino so that they can take advantage of shooting and then assault if they are alive and able to do so. I know that for a standard unit the CSM are a hard toss up every time for me when it comes to me wanted to play as much as a i can with my berserkers and then realizing that i do not want to watch the forge world conversion marines get shot to pieces and never see an assault phase... thus kharn stole a land raider and forced a group of berserkers inside as gunpoint.

[daboarder]

sounds similar to a list I'm thinking of, but its a nurgle lord with mace and a pari of muti's backed up by a pair of MoN CSM in rhino's. Let me know how the raider rhino rush been works for you?

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

It has always been mixed results for me so far. the rhino's always give up first blood i have discovered but usually it gets balanced out with line breaker. what i have found works for keeping them alive is that my World eaters are heavily meched up. so i provide you will a boat load of targets to shoot at all of which want to kill you.

basic list has been this so far might get tweaked not sure yet.

7 khorn bikers 2x plasma power weapon
chaos lord mok biker sigil AOBR

kharn
7 berserkers
land raider (kitted so dirge and dozer)

2xcsm rhino dirge 2x plasma and pw champ

2 pred ac/lc
2 baledrakes

its played at 2k. its got alot of units that can hurt you and when played aggressively it gets in your face and does a lot of damage from turn 1.

once the drakes come in its basically a free for all which chaos seems to thrive in. so what i've been doing is from turn 1-2 i tend to focus my AT weapons against things that will hurt the drakes. most opponents either go for the biker and lord or for the berserkers. its really a toss up. usually turn 1 everything jumps up 18 that's mech potentially the bikers while the pred's hunt for anti air options. this puts the pressure on my opponents from turn 1. i can use the raiders and rhinos as LOS blockers for the bikers who come turn 2 are going to be in position to cause serious havoc. when you get into it body wise threes 30 odd marines and 8 bikers on the table supported by Armour it does a ton of damage. the previous list had 8 khorn bikers which i dropped along with several combi weapons to get the axe. honestly the ws5 doesn't seem to bother me the ap2 attacks and str bonus at initiative are just wicked. and with it being a daemon weapon who cares i will run the risk of killing myself.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Bumped because this http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?36186-Iron-Warrior-Homebrew-Rules&p=358228#post358228