Chaos players and Knights!

[daboarder]

Hey all,

So, Chaos Knights, a controversial topic at the moment, but one I think the community should look at.

I want to kinda highlight the thought processes of the majority of chaos players that I know as the release of the knights approached.

So first we started getting rumblings from rumours sources like 40k radio and whatnot, rumours of "Knights" to take the place of the marine super heavy in apoc and escalation. Most chaos players figure, "whatever, we've got plenty of options for apocalypse, and given that its apocalypse it doesn't really matter what ARMY gets official access to knights, we can take them too in apoc if they are nice enough"

All good, cautious acceptance, but mostly indifference due to the fact that apoc is a situational thing.

Then the rumours start coming that knights are a model for regular 40k, wow theres a bombshell marines are getting a "giant centerpiece walker". At this stage you'll find most chaos players start thinking "ahh well typical, no point really getting excited for the release I mean its of no benefit to us"

Then we find out that these things are going to be an army in their own right, made of SUPERHEAVIES, for regular 40k. Furthermore there are 3 types of knight, imperial households, mechanicum houses, and "mercenary" freeblades.......

Everyone starts thinking " oh my, freeblades, why would GW ever make those up, if not so that people can ally them into other armies....".
But chaos players, we've seen this before, and the pessimism starts to show. "it'll be eldar, tau and maybe crons at best, we won't get them". Optimistic hobbyists will assure us that we are being overly pessimistic and "whiney" and that GW wouldn't let an opportunity to take our money pass up as that would just be silly.
We are ridiculed for our low expectations.

Pictures of WD show up, and the models are GORGEOUS! and even better, THIS! appears in white dwarf

http://image.bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/gallery/album_5904/med_gallery_45765_5904_33366.jpg

Chaos players start to get optimistic themselves, the internet lights up with ideas, potential and even background justification for the existence of chaos knights is shown. It really does appear that freeblades are the mechanism by which GW will justify wide ranging access to the new kit.

But still, disbelief and questions abound, GW reps, customer support, and managers are asked "Who can they ally with"


From: UK Customer Services
Date: 24 February 2014
To:
Subject: Re: Imperial Knights

Hi
Thanks for the email, the rules printed in this week's issue of White Dwarf state that "They may also be taken as allies; you can include up to three Imperial Knights as a single allied detachment for each primary detachment in your army" As such any 40k army can take them as a allied detachment.

Perhaps the persuasive nature of Slaanesh has convinced a Freelance household to work for Chaos, or maybe they just pay better than the Forces of the Imperium.

We hope this helps and that you enjoy the new Imperial Knights.

We are assured that the rules in WD are complete, jes brickman speaks up, and informs us of "additional rules" and suddenly chaos players hold their breath, waiting for the other boot.


Some clarification on the rules we presented in White Dwarf today for some folks here: the Imperial Knights don't occupy any force organisation slots, they are not Lords of War, they are an army unto themselves. Something we forgot to say is that all Imperial Knights are scoring units, and if you're playing 3-6 as a primary detachment, pick one as your Warlord.

Then the terrible happens, the rules from the codex leak like clockwork, and the optimism and hope turns to ash in the mouths of chaos players. Once again we are deprived for "reasons". Reasons that are never stated by GW as they refuse to acknowledge the community at large even exists. At this point most chaos players make peace with their lot.

Rumours of Forgeworld "Chaos knights" and "chaos knights from GW" abound, most chaos players have seen this before and shoot the rumours down, they remember the "legion codex" rumours, the "legion supplement" rumours and they KNOW how that turned out both times.

Then come the apologists, with their excuses, and their smart *** replies to everything. "Chaos knights are coming" "stop whining you'll get them" "They're called IMPERIAL knights (because IG allied to chaos isn't a thing)" "You never HAD them" And any dissent, any lack of enthusiasm for yet more GW imperial love is met with cries of "whine" and "troll". Such is the nature of the 40k "community"

So I ask you, what would it take for you to accept that chaos has been given a short straw?
Do you really believe that GW is working on a chaos variant?
What, given their past history, makes you think this?
And WHY if GW only cares for profit as you so commonly claim, would GW not want our money?

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/286894-the-knights/
http://natfka.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/chaos-knights-and-more.html
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/02/40k-retro-chaos-has-knights-too.html

[Learn2Eel]

In case people don't get why Chaos players are aggrieved about this issue;

There are multiple instances in the background of Imperial Knights turning traitor, prominently during the Horus Heresy.

That Chaos players cannot represent Traitor Knights, but Xenos such as Tau and Eldar can align themselves with Imperial Knights not only makes no sense whatsoever from a fluff perspective, but it is a betrayal of the fact that there are Chaos Knights.

[ElectricPaladin]

I've been thinking a lot about this issue, and even though I was initially a little more dismissive of your concerns, I'd like to give you a more nuanced answer here.

First of all, I want to bring up two games which I feel do a much better job with their releasing practices: Privateer Press and Spartan Games.

In both of these companies, the rule of the day is "balanced releases." Of course, there are imperfections - just ask a Hordes player to tell you what he thinks of the situation, but bring a book - but the idea is relatively simple, and usually well executed. Every faction has roughly the same number of things, and whenever a new thing is released, everyone gets one - and if they don't get one, they get something else. When a new book gives Faction A a new warcaster, say, it also gives one to Factions B, C, D, and E... and if Faction F doesn't get a new Warcaster, they do get, say, a new warjack or an awesome character solo. Spartan's Firestorm Armada has worked similarly. Everyone has the same basic kinds of ships, and then the game expanded evenly, with everyone adding destroyers and heavy cruisers and battle cruisers at roughly the same rate. When there are variations - the Aquans, for example, never got an R&D cruiser, but they got a battle carrier instead - parity was still ensured.

Personally, I think that this kind of policy is probably the best. It prevents hard feelings and it makes the "boom and bust" cycle a lot shorter. Are you sad because your faction is on the bottom? Well, fear not, because they probably won't be there for more than a year before Privateer has a new opportunity in the form of a new book to introduce stuff to put you back on top again. Spartan is even better at this, because they're willing to change the rules on the fly - they release a lot of free pdfs - and release new models constantly, rather than waiting for big book releases to give them an excuse.

It's probably too late for GW to adopt this kind of policy. There's already nothing even remotely like parity between the factions, and GW would have to radically alter the way they write and release books.

So, it's not going to happen, but the point I'm making is that this kind of release schedule creates a lot of unfortunate artifacts. Does GW "hate" the Tau? It doesn't look like it now, but it sure as hell did when I started them, and had for quite a while. I even remember people saying similar things to what you're saying now, about how the Tau were a bad idea, they were unpopular, they had been an effort to bring in the Japanese audience/teenage anime fans/whatever, and it wasn't paying off, and now GW thought the Tau were stupid and would squat them if they thought they could get away with it. Right now, some people - including, sometimes, myself - are saying the same things about the Sisters of Battle. While those who bemoan the current state of the Sororitas might have a little more ammo, the fact remains that it's all the same thing:

We are human. We see patterns where often there are no patterns. Don't assume malice when mere incompetence is also a valid explanation.

Now, below you also mention distaste for the "randumb" nature of the Chaos codex. I'm not a Chaos player and I haven't read your codex in any detail, but here I think it's important to remember that a disconnect between the creator's vision and your desires/expectation isn't the same thing as malice, or disliking the faction, or trying to make it suck. Oh, it's certainly really frustrating - possibly even a personal tragedy, if you love the property enough - but it doesn't mean that the creators are trying to hurt that product. They're just human, same as me and you, trying to express their ideas, and sometimes screwing up.

In response to your questions:



So I ask you, what would it take for you to accept that chaos has been given a short straw?
Do you really believe that GW is working on a chaos variant?
And if they are do you really think it wont be "randumb"?
What, given their past history, makes you think this?
And WHY if GW only cares for profit as you so commonly claim, would GW not want our money?


1. I would need to see systematic evidence of the deck being stacked against them at all times, rather than several instances of Chaos suffering from GW's uneven and sloppy release schedule and rules creation.

2. I do, because they exist in the fluff, and while the two models not rolling out together can be explained - see above re: GW's sloppy release practices - there would be no explanation for GW just leaving it out, except for a subtle and persistent anti-Chaos bias, which I don't see.

3. I have no idea if the Chaos version of the knight titan will adopt the random table aesthetic of modern Chaos that you dislike so much. We have no data, except for the latest Chaos releases, some of which are "randumb" as you put it, and others are not.

4. I think I've explained myself pretty well already.

5. Because despite the ways in which we bash them - and their genuine mistakes and fumbles - GW doesn't care just about profits. I think that the creative team really loves the game they've put together and the world that inhabits it, and they are struggling to do it justice while still seeing their baby grow up to be commercially successful... which is the goal of (almost) all artists. The fact is that while GW is certainly sometimes money-grubbing, sometimes does a bad job of communicating their vision, and sometimes screws up (like all artists do), we - despite all our conjecturing - don't really know which is which. We can rail against the Allies chart as a money-grab, but do we really know that it wasn't an effort to re-inject a little of the Rogue Trader setting, in which Orks worked as mercenaries and the Eldar were "devious and untrustworthy, but sometimes a nation you could negotiate" rather than "PURGE THE XENOS FILTH" all the time? We don't. We know that the Allies matrix exists - and we know it has problems - but we can't ever really know why it exists, short of Jervis Johnson himself coming on down to tell us, and us deciding to believe him. We don't know what we don't know.

I have two final points.

The first is that I don't know where you are, but your posting style leads me to believe that you - like me - are an American. Maybe I'm wrong, and hopefully I haven't insulted you. I think it's important to note that American and British wargaming culture are very different. While I don't really accept "we're a minis company, not a game company" as an excuse for shoddy rules, I do accept a certain amount of "we want to write a casual game, so stop trying to break it because nobody but a wanker would behave that way." I think it's entirely valid to write a game to be played with a certain spirit in mind.

Take roleplaying games. In Dungeons & Dragons, it's pretty much possible to win. You can make the hardest character who abuses the ever-loving poop out of the right rules and you can be the star of the party, kill all the monsters, and dominate any intra-party conflicts that arrive. And, in certain groups, this is more or less the right way to play, and everyone will be doing this.

Now, let's say you take the same attitude to a game of Amber Diceless Roleplaying. Holy moly, is that not going to be fun for anyone. In fact, it's going to be super lousy, and there will probably be innocent story-focused gamers struggling to hold back tears, and Mr. Win-Em-All is not going to be invited back.

I'm not denigrating either style of play, by the way. Both are valid - heck, both are fun - in the right context.

I think that British wargaming culture is a little more friendly towards a certain freeform playstyle. Have a beer. Blow some stuff up. Use the models you own and don't worry about it - make up a cool story for why. Do some conversions. I dunno. It's all a game with tiny plastic man-barbies, and we're all these completely bizarre combinations of armchair generals, gearheaded statistical analysts, and ******* tiny plastic Pablo Picassos. What the hell, I don't even understand it anymore, and it's one of my favorite things to do.

British wargaming - or at least the Warhammer 40k side of it - is more like Amber Diceless.

I feel that most American companies are much more interested in making games that are hard, focused, fair, and somehow "tournament ready." We want everything to be absolutely unambiguous, because we want the game to somehow mean something. We want to know who's better at the game, and for that to happen, the game needs to have a certain degree of perfection. We demand that perfection, that elegance, and sometimes we insist on it even when the creators tell us to stop because that's not the game they want to write.

And finally, I want to ask you a question:

You seem unwilling to explain away these failures with simple mistakes, an inelegant business plan, or a difference between what you want the game to be and what the creatures have decided it's going to be. You seem to want there to be something more... sinister? Devious? I get that you want to feel victimized - it beats the heck out of feeling unlucky - but what exactly do you think is going on. What's your actual theory?

Or are you just frustrated and looking to vent?

[daboarder]

NOW THAT!^ is a discussion.

I'm just going to provide a short few answers for now paladin, I want to let this thread go on its own for a bit before it gets bogged down on back and fort.

You'll note I have taken out the "randumb" comment from my original post, it wasn't in my first draft and I felt that adding it in detracts too much from the point I was trying to make, the power level of the knights and their viability on the table is not something I want to get sidetracked by. I'd like this to focus on why chaos players feel we got the shaft and why we are so commonly pessimistic these days.

as to where I am, I'm an Aussie, I wouldn't really know how to compare our "wargaming" culture internationally as there aren't a huge amount of us who are readily identifiable online. If I had to describe it I'd probably say that we like to play tight and competitive games, but because the community is fractures (due to populations centers and the like) and the culture of Australia itself, the competition doesn't often have a "that guy" edge.


You seem unwilling to explain away these failures with simple mistakes, an inelegant business plan, or a difference between what you want the game to be and what the creatures have decided it's going to be. You seem to want there to be something more... sinister? Devious? I get that you want to feel victimized - it beats the heck out of feeling unlucky - but what exactly do you think is going on. What's your actual theory?

Or are you just frustrated and looking to vent?

It's not so much GW I'm disappointed in, most of their behavior over the Knights release was par for the course, something I was trying to get through in the above post. After all it is the reason so many chaos players were pessimistic and jaded about the release.

Mostly I want to engage in a discussion about how chaos players at large are feelingly, as you say its very possibly an artifact, but whatever the cause the effect is there and to us there is no attempt being made to address our issues, and at worst, sections of the community appear to revel in every kick to the balls the army gets.

edit: People STILL use 3.5 as an excuse for being an weak book now. Telling us it serves us right. That was 3 editions ago! 3 editions of being one of the weakest armies with the least options, in the game

[White Tiger88]

In case people don't get why Chaos players are aggrieved about this issue;

There are multiple instances in the background of Imperial Knights turning traitor, prominently during the Horus Heresy.

That Chaos players cannot represent Traitor Knights, but Xenos such as Tau and Eldar can align themselves with Imperial Knights not only makes no sense whatsoever from a fluff perspective, but it is a betrayal of the fact that there are Chaos Knights.

Well after the last Chaos Codex and how daemons lost eternal warrior........I am not surprised we are getting screwed by the knight release.

[Rob Godin]

For me, as long as the Chaos player has modelled the knight in a cool, chaos way - then I will be more than happy to play them!

For me, the golden rule is the rule of cool.

You got an unpainted lump of plastic you want to use with your chaos army - nope, it aint in your codex.
You got a nurgled khaos knight with puss cannon - Hell yeah! Let me get a pic before we start the game.

[Denzark]

Firstly, this failure to assign to Chaos is a fluff contradiction. Given that these seem like a license to print money, it seems slightly erroneous. This leads me to conclude MAYBE a FW conversion kit into a genuine Chaos Knight (such as Hell Knight or whatever) could be on the cards.

If Knights and their ally structure is purely financial thing, this surely must be the case.

If Knights are something else, ie the Imperial hard counter to giant mangabots and wraith jobbies, then arguably Chaos doesn't need them. Mebbe Chaos is seen as having the uber unit in the form of Heldrake.

The interesting thing for me is this. If they are 40K (not escalation) compatible, where does the 40K player without escalation rules, get the D rules and SH vehicle dam table from? Is it in the WD (I haven't got a copy yet)?

Or does it point to the inclusion of these rules in the 'Not 7th' that we are hearing about?

Because if SH/D are coming in non-escalation ie vanilla 40K, then I see Chaos already has a SH, D melee weapon carrying big boy. So maybe GW are thinking ahead to an iminent time where Imps run knights at this level and Chaos runs mr fat track.

Either way I don't feel Chaos is hard done by. And as to legion codexes, I got given a codex called Codex Black LEGION for Christmas. So it will come. If GW can stretch LotD into a codex they sure as shizzle will bring out more Chaos legion books if only to shut Daboarder up!

[ElectricPaladin]

Something I want to add re: the Legions which came in the latest episode of the (awesome) Independent Characters podcast.

A lot of Chaos players seem to cry out for more Legion-based content... but aren't the legions supposed to be broken up and divided among the many warbands of the Eye of Terror? I mean, as much as you want to play, say, a Thousand Sons list, isn't the idea meant to be that there's really no such thing anymore? There's a bunch of leftover Thousand Sons stuff, some Thousand Sons marines, some of those dusty guys, and... that's it. Instead of fielding the Thousand Sons, you are building the warband of one particular Chaos warlord, who may have brought over to his banner some Thousand Sons. Or maybe more than some - maybe he's decided to throw his lot entirely in with Tzeentch and the Thousand Sons and all his crap is painted blue and stuff...

But he's not one of the Thousand Sons. Most of his dudes aren't. Mostly, they're just rebel marines who happen to really like the Thousand Sons.

The same goes for the Iron Warriors, the World Eaters, the Night Lords, etc...

The new codex actually seems to do a pretty good job of giving a nod to players who want to invest heavily in a given legion's style. You've still got your rubric marines (Thousand Sons) and your berserkers (World Eaters) and your plague marines (Death Guard) and whatever - units who invoke the feel and could be painted to represent the membership of a particular legion of old - and with everything else GW has handed you, you've got even more options. Do you really want to play Alpha Legion? Invest heavily in cultists. Iron Warriors? Bring a ton of daemon engines and Ally in some IG with their tanks and heavy weapons.

I get it - you want something to exist that Games Workshop has decided shouldn't exist. That's a real shame, and it sucks, and I get it. But can we all agree - for the purposes of the conversation - to draw a line between "the stuff I want that I was never promised, but I'm annoyed that I'm not getting it anyway" and "the stuff I was promised, that I want, that hasn't shown up yet." Because while I'm willing to engage with a conversation about the latter, the fact is that while it's ok to vent your feelings once in a while, going on about the former at any length does seem whiny. Like the tourist who complains that he can't find the continental breakfast that his hotel didn't advertise was available.

[daboarder]

Something I want to add re: the Legions which came in the latest episode of the (awesome) Independent Characters podcast.

A lot of Chaos players seem to cry out for more Legion-based content... but aren't the legions supposed to be broken up and divided among the many warbands of the Eye of Terror? I mean, as much as you want to play, say, a Thousand Sons list, isn't the idea meant to be that there's really no such thing anymore? There's a bunch of leftover Thousand Sons stuff, some Thousand Sons marines, some of those dusty guys, and... that's it. Instead of fielding the Thousand Sons, you are building the warband of one particular Chaos warlord, who may have brought over to his banner some Thousand Sons. Or maybe more than some - maybe he's decided to throw his lot entirely in with Tzeentch and the Thousand Sons and all his crap is painted blue and stuff...

But he's not one of the Thousand Sons. Most of his dudes aren't. Mostly, they're just rebel marines who happen to really like the Thousand Sons.

The same goes for the Iron Warriors, the World Eaters, the Night Lords, etc...


PLEASE EP, DON'T PARROT THIS ****!

the legions are all throughout the background, yes they are warbands, but they range in size from a few hundred to thousands of warriors.

Angron reforged the world eaters after skalathrax and lead thenm on 300 years of slaughter, Mortarion still ravages sections of the imperium and Magnus even tried to sack fenris.

there is no reason to ever suggest that these warbands fight differently to the way they have for 10,000 years and the argument they don't is as stupid as the argument that the eye of terror only slows down time (it does both)

The legions have more "right" too unique rules than the space marine chapters ever will.

/rant

On a serious note, the lack of rules is one of those points of support you wanted, a perfect example of GW kicking the army in the teeth and the apologists finding anyway they can to "justify" it

Do we have them? No! But its not because of some made up concept of "the legions are broken" its because GW kicked us in the crotch when they took them away.


I get it - you want something to exist that Games Workshop has decided shouldn't exist. That's a real shame, and it sucks, and I get it. But can we all agree - for the purposes of the conversation - to draw a line between "the stuff I want that I was never promised, but I'm annoyed that I'm not getting it anyway" and "the stuff I was promised, that I want, that hasn't shown up yet." Because while I'm willing to engage with a conversation about the latter, the fact is that while it's ok to vent your feelings once in a while, going on about the former at any length does seem whiny. Like the tourist who complains that he can't find the continental breakfast that his hotel didn't advertise was available.

Are you talking about knights or legion rules? because they are both symptomatic of the neglect we get as an army. And really BOTH highlight the point I was making. There is NO logical reason for GW not to make chaos legion rules, there is no logical reason for GW not to give chaos players access to chaos knights, and the strung out "they are coming" bull**** we had to put up with for legion rules is the reason why chaos players are a pessimistic bunch of players who don't believe we are going to see chaos knight this side of a blue moon.

[Denzark]

As I understand it, the Primarch Daemon Princes from several if not most of the main traitor legions, when they got back to the Eye of Terror, took over a planet for their HQ. Also to replace their founding worlds which Rogal Dorn/Roboute were clearly visiting great doom upon.

As such, I have always considered that the forces from those worlds represent the exisitng Chaos Legions, even if in warband strength.

[daboarder]

As I understand it, the Primarch Daemon Princes from several if not most of the main traitor legions, when they got back to the Eye of Terror, took over a planet for their HQ. Also to replace their founding worlds which Rogal Dorn/Roboute were clearly visiting great doom upon.

As such, I have always considered that the forces from those worlds represent the exisitng Chaos Legions, even if in warband strength.

This^ Of course the traitors still include legionnaires from the original heresy

One caveat though, the legions typically burned their own homeworlds during the start of the heresy

[Tyrendian]

There is NO logical reason for GW not to make chaos legion rules, there is no logical reason for GW not to give chaos players access to chaos knights

how about the simple factor of Time? I know this is exactly the kind of "they are coming bull****" you mentioned - and I'm not saying that's not a valid point, even as a non-Chaos player I do feel your pain!
But as of now, GW are releasing new stuff at a simply staggering rate (basically an overhaul of an army per month, try to compare that to PP for instance... the argument may be made that PP do use that time to make plainly "better" rules... but that's more or less beside my point), and the guys in the Design Studio are all mere humans (as evidenced by their fallacies...) and as such, we can't really expect them to work 20h a day just to give us more plastic (or in this case paper) crack. Producing the Supplements takes time - there may not be a lot of rules in them, but there's an awful lot of fluff, that's for sure, and the presentation and physical quality of it all is certainly among the best in the industry (again comparing to PP, GW publishes what? five to six times more codex-equivalent books a year?). And I'm not sure Chaos players as a whole would be all that much happier were GW to publish half-***ed bad-quality mini-supplements for all the Legions, some maybe so badly thought out that they were completely broken either way.
And there have not exactly been many Imperial supplements either... one for you and one for ImpFists, with the Black Legion one at least making half a stir on the Tables, what with that amusing Nova artifact and Chaos needing the extra HQ and Fast Attack slot more than your typical marine list, so arguably rules-wise yours is kinda better there... May not be exactly what you were hoping for since the Black Legion feeling to the army list is rather limited, but did the Sentinels of Terra one even change anything about that? *honestly don't know - just didn't see that one making much of a stir...*

As to Knights, no I don't get that one either... probably just convert an epic Chaos Knight and play with the right people... that's one of the main joys of playing Chaos anyway isn't it? epic conversions etc... Definitely much better than an Eldar army having a bog-standard Imperial Knight casually strolling up in their ranks because "the rules say so"...

[lattd]

One the rule of cool is in the book so feel free to convert the knight into a chaos version.
Second imperial players didn't bemoan chaos when they got a super heavy with similar equipment to the knight last year.
Finally this is one week of release we haven't confirmed what the codex allies will allow we had a rumour! And the rumours are pointing that the rest of the month is chaos so please it has become chaos whine now I get it your upset but it's been nearly 2 years! You don't see black Templars moaning this much and they got shoved into another book, even tyranid players don't moan this much!

[Learn2Eel]

One the rule of cool is in the book so feel free to convert the knight into a chaos version.
Second imperial players didn't bemoan chaos when they got a super heavy with similar equipment to the knight last year.
Finally this is one week of release we haven't confirmed what the codex allies will allow we had a rumour! And the rumours are pointing that the rest of the month is chaos so please it has become chaos whine now I get it your upset but it's been nearly 2 years! You don't see black Templars moaning this much and they got shoved into another book, even tyranid players don't moan this much!

The Lord of Skulls gives Chaos players their own unique super heavy alongside the four Exalted Greater Daemons so that they didn't have to use "Chaos versions" of all the Imperial super-heavies.
As far as the Knight is concerned, however, Knights do turn traitor so it makes sense that Chaos Space Marines (but perhaps not Daemons) should be able to access them.

Personally I don't even touch my Chaos Space Marines anymore and I'm not going to get into all the other hot topics regarding them. However, it seems silly to me that Traitors can't take a Knight when everything in the fluff says they can. This is a big centre-piece model that could be used to great effect by an ailing codex/player-base, but Xenos get it instead?

[daboarder]

Templars also didnt have half their unique units ripped out to market a new book

[Learn2Eel]

Actually, that's something I want to touch on more. If I wrote a Chaos Space Marine Codex, I would very clearly distinguish Traitor Legionnaires from Renegades. Renegades would effectively be Loyalists minus the newest stuff (i.e. Centurions) and exchange ATSKNF for lower costs, but still retain a Chapter Tactic equivalent. Legionnaires would have restricted use to the newer stuff, but would get Legion-specific units such as increased Daemonic/Dark Mechanicum support depending on their alignment/allegiance. Thousand Sons wouldn't get stuff like Land Raider Crusaders or Warp Talons, but they would get Sorcerer Covens and Rubric Marine equivalents for all the generic Chaos infantry units. Their Legion Tactic can be that they can re-roll failed psychic tests and have a 5+ save against Perils of the Warp, while their status as Legionnaires would make them Fearless. Red Corsairs, on the other hand, would get all the newer stuff, but wouldn't be able to take the more exotic Daemons/daemonic engines. Their Chapter Tactic could be something like re-rolling failed reserve rolls and giving Outflank to Biker units, while they have the standard cheaper infantry to compensate for loss of ATSKNF. That would be a great codex IMO as it would clearly distinguish Renegade from Legionnaire.

[lattd]

And there is the problem it's not so much GW hate chaos it's the hardest balancing act in the game! You need to balance the renegades and the legions. You either go two books and have a really rubbish renegades book which is just codex marines light and legions which would be very popular. But then we have another marine book and everyone is unhappy.

[Sly]

1. I would need to see systematic evidence of the deck being stacked against them at all times, rather than several instances of Chaos suffering from GW's uneven and sloppy release schedule and rules creation.


The CSM book has as few or fewer deployment options than any other book, while SM has more than any other book.
The CSM book has fewer transport options than any other MEQ Codex, and just as many as SoB, which are a half-Codex.

The result of these two issues is that most CSM armies and/or detachments all look the same, and all deploy the same. It gets repetitive.

SM has more deployment options than any other book, and more transport options. The result is that SM armies have the most varied viable builds in the game.

Is there really any reason why SM SHOULD have so many more options in skills available (Scout, Outflank, Infiltrate) or in transports (3 Land Raiders, Razorback, LS Storm) or in troops (Bikes) while Chaos has no warbands that use any transports other than basic LRs and Rhinos, or enough Jump or Bike units to consider them as Troops? Conceptually, no. Fluff reasons, no. Balance reasons, no.

What reasons are left? Whatever they are, they can be quite accurately summed up as: "Because F**k Chaos". I'm sure that's not the REAL reason, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and can be cooked to make Peking Duck... I don't really care if it has a different scientific name.

GW treats CSM like a red headed stepchild with spikes, and feels that we should be glad to have the most modelling and converting opportunities (with Orks the only real competition), and we shouldn't bother complaining that we have Codices designed with limited imagination, and we should have a beer and a pretzel and shut up. Because, you know, F**k Chaos.

[jifel]

At least Tyranid players knew they wouldn't get knights from the get-go... Sadly, I'm a Nids AND chaos player, an I was ready to buy like 3 of these things. Now? I either have to play my IW as loyalists (ew) or just admit that I can't have knights. Darn it GW.

[Cactus]

Well, you can buy 5 Knights and have a new army, good news, right?

[TheyStoleMyName!]

I really wonder if the Lord of Skulls isn't the answer. it obviously wasn't hugely well received but I have to wonder with GW's push towards getting Superheavies included in 40k if they aren't purposely withholding things from Chaos players to try to push up sales of the big ugly mess? Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a good idea, and even without Chaos buying Knights they'll sell 20 of them for every Lord that goes out, and I bet every Chaos player that BUYS a Lord of Skulls would probably buy a Knight or two instead/as well....

[crandall87]

I'm not an apologist but why are things like this being discussed before the Codex is even released? In the original post you mention how there's been a lot of false rumours and then complain that based on rumours you don't believe Chaos will get knights and you call BS on rumours to the contrary. I would love Chaos to be able to take Knights and regardless of whether they can or not I am going to convert one up as it would look pretty cool. I don't see the point in worrying until we know 100% whether Chaos can take them or not.

We're only a few weeks into GW's new weekly release scheduling and rules in White Dwarf which I thought would be better but instead we're left with a 1-2 week period of uncertainty and speculation over rules.

[zenjah]

Games Workshop seems to flip back and forth on how they want players to handle traitor versions of Imperial stuff.

Sometimes they act like it is expected and normal to use Imperial rules and just call it traitor stuff. (Statement that players should use Imperial Apoc units with Chaos armies, and the ability for IG to be allies with Chaos.)

Other times they act like that is exactly wrong, and that Chaos should use Chaos rules, and Imperials rules are off limits. (Prohibiting Inquisition and Knights from being allies with Chaos to count as traitor versions of them.)

Which is it, GW?

I actually don't care which of those options it is, I just want GW to be consistent about it.

[DrBored]

So I ask you, what would it take for you to accept that chaos has been given a short straw?
-I already know Chaos has gotten the short straw. The moment we found out that Phil Kelly wrote the CSM Codex as an 'homage' to the previous one, we got a kick in the kidney. That's all it took for the jade to start falling over my eyes. A few playtests and a few months later, and when we started seeing other Codices get big special things that Chaos wasn't getting, and still no sign of God-Specific... anything? Well. I'm there. I've been there, sitting in my corner whining like a little brat, like many of us have, since 4th edition.

Do you really believe that GW is working on a chaos variant?
-No, I don't. Forgeworld might be, but I doubt that too, and even if they are, we won't see it for a year or more, and by then there will be plenty of other things to complain about. If we're lucky, we'll FINALLY get our box of Chaos Chosen with the Helbrute release, but rumors aren't pointing that way and I'm not holding my breath.

What, given their past history, makes you think this?
-Look at what we already have. Space Marines get a new kit for their regular Tacticals, and we're stuck with finecast Plague Marines, Thosuand Sons, and Noise Marines, and Khorne Berzerkers as old as 3rd edition. Not to mention the crappy treatment of Obliterators, and the useless addition of Mutilators and Warp Talons. We also still don't have proper Cultists or Havocs. Instead, we get dinobots.

And WHY if GW only cares for profit as you so commonly claim, would GW not want our money?
-GW does care about money, and they show this in every way that they support the 'good guys', the Imperium. That's their bread and butter. Chaos is more like strawberry jam. Not everyone likes it, and it's not bread, and it's not butter, so it's really just an extra condiment that restaurants put at tables, but don't really expect anyone to take a lot of. They don't make as much money off of Chaos, so they invest more into the Imperium.
-The irony here is that if they DID invest more money into Chaos, they'd get more back. More people would go to Chaos to represent the bad guys and spice up the tables a little more. Chaos has more conversion potential than any other army, except maybe Orks, period. There's money there, but GW probably thinks it's some sort of 'risk', whereas Imperium is a sure thing.

[Lord Tothe]

Chaos has more conversion potential than any other army, except maybe Orks, period.
DA BOYZ LOOT EVERYFINK!

I can't afford a looted Knight though.

[Jamesknouse]

"I think that British wargaming culture is a little more friendly towards a certain freeform playstyle. Have a beer. Blow some stuff up. Use the models you own and don't worry about it - make up a cool story for why. Do some conversions. I dunno. It's all a game with tiny plastic man-barbies, and we're all these completely bizarre combinations of armchair generals, gearheaded statistical analysts, and ******* tiny plastic Pablo Picassos. What the hell, I don't even understand it anymore, and it's one of my favorite things to do."

You are my new best friend!

[zenjah]

Why did these freeform-playstyle-Brits create hard and fast rules that say you cannot ally certain factions together at all? (The Come the Apocalypse ally rule.) Especially for combos that make perfect fluffy sense, such as Fallen Inquisitors or Chaos Knights?

Is this something where Brits know that when they say "Simply put, this kind of alliance cannot occur" they really mean "go right ahead, mate, its all for fun anyway!"

[BigGrim]

You know what Chaos has that until now, Imperial Marines did not have? Access to a plastic Super Heavy. Chaos do. It's called a Lord of Skulls/Blood/whatever. So Chaos players really need to calm down.

[ElectricPaladin]

Why did these freeform-playstyle-Brits create hard and fast rules that say you cannot ally certain factions together at all? (The Come the Apocalypse ally rule.) Especially for combos that make perfect fluffy sense, such as Fallen Inquisitors or Chaos Knights?

Is this something where Brits know that when they say "Simply put, this kind of alliance cannot occur" they really mean "go right ahead, mate, its all for fun anyway!"

I'd need an actual legit Brit to confirm this, but I strongly suspect that they were giving us stick-in-the-butt Americans a rules set to do it because goodness knows we can't be trusted to just have fun with the game, what with our obsession with rules and stuff.

[daboarder]

Something people need to realise. This release isn't the space marine "superheavy" that balances out the baneblade, teeseract, khorne mobility scooter or so on.

This is a brand new, stand alone army. Its not relevant to poitnt o the mobility scooter, that has no bearing on the existance of this army or chaos access to it.




Personally I don't even touch my Chaos Space Marines anymore and I'm not going to get into all the other hot topics regarding them. However, it seems silly to me that Traitors can't take a Knight when everything in the fluff says they can. This is a big centre-piece model that could be used to great effect by an ailing codex/player-base, but Xenos get it instead?

Guys, When EEL is jaded, well that should tell you soemthing ;)

[Inquisitor Alex]

I already built three Traitor Knights that I was using the old Apocalypse datasheet rules for, which I can still do anyway - I never play GW events so it doesn't really matter. If we do eventually get updated rules for Chaos Knights, that'd be great but I'm not holding my breath.

Khorne Knight

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m216/Allykz666/40k%20Khorne/BerserkerKnightTitan001.jpg (http://s105.photobucket.com/user/Allykz666/media/40k%20Khorne/BerserkerKnightTitan001.jpg.html)

Nurgle Knight

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m216/Allykz666/Nurgle%2040k/ContagionKnightDone001.jpg (http://s105.photobucket.com/user/Allykz666/media/Nurgle%2040k/ContagionKnightDone001.jpg.html)

And the unfinished Slaanesh one.

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m216/Allykz666/Distortion%20Knight%20Titan%20of%20Slaanesh/DistortKnightSpeakers001_zpsfa26f56f.jpg (http://s105.photobucket.com/user/Allykz666/media/Distortion%20Knight%20Titan%20of%20Slaanesh/DistortKnightSpeakers001_zpsfa26f56f.jpg.html)

Nothing stopping anyone from having Chaos Knights, as long as you have gaming buddies who are cool with house rules.

[Lexington]

Yeah, I'm a little unhappy with the way the Knight has been marketed - either GW is just unbelievably ignorant when it comes to their customer base's behavior, or they deliberately left the "who can use 'em" question vague in order to boost pre-orders. I've got no problems with hype, and the Knights definitely deserve it, but the way they were introduced as possibly able to ally with anything was just this side of dishonest.

That said, when it comes to Chaos, I've got a feeling they'll have a Knight option of some sort soon. ForgeWorld has noted that their plans, re: the Knight kit won't be announced 'till "after Saturday," which leads me to believe that we'll be seeing kit mods within the week. A Chaos version seems pretty pretty likely in the near future, too. Remember that FW, for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, does pretty well by Chaos. Relic Predators, Storm Eagles, Spartan Assault Vehicles, Kharibdys Assault Pods, etc - they've got a habit of making sure their Heresy Era vehicles make it into Chaos hands as well.


The legions have more "right" too unique rules than the space marine chapters ever will.
Well, no, they really don't - and I say this as a guy who's had a Word Bearers army since the nineties. Whatever one thinks of the Legions/Renegades/mixed Warband split, the fact is that a mixed Chaos army has always been the standard. Even back in the legendary days of the 3.5 book, Legion rules were a few pages piggybacking on the large, unrestricted Chaos list.

Conversely, Space Marines ain't do that. When the Ultramarines go to war, they do it as a singular, coherent fighting force. Even when they're allied with other Chapters, a'la Armageddon, squads of Blood Angels and Space Wolves don't just hang around in the army like Plague Marines and Berzerkers do - those Marines have their own command structure to adhere to. There's no real analogue to this in Chaos - the Space Marines, so long as they're going to have Chapter rules, should have them at all times.

[jonsgot]

Knights can be used in any army in apocalypse. Knights are super heavy so can't be used in 40k without apoc or escalation.

Quite frankly the current Rules for allying make very little sense; to anyone but the design team. So throw then out, agree that you are playing with the aim of having fun, not being examed on following GW rules as closely as possible.

The rules are a guide not the law. If your opponant thinks otherwise I suggest they read the start of the rule book again.

I'll be using knight with every army I own, including Nids; thanks to my hypnotic brood lord and geanstealer cults.

[jonsgot]

I'd need an actual legit Brit to confirm this, but I strongly suspect that they were giving us stick-in-the-butt Americans a rules set to do it because goodness knows we can't be trusted to just have fun with the game, what with our obsession with rules and stuff.
Ok you got us Phill and I were having a chuckle about this in my Ferreira only a few weeks ago, just after sinking a few drinks at bugmans on the way to an "dancing establishment" in Nottingham, sorry Phil;)

[Kouran75]

Like you I'm a massive IW player back in 3rd/3.5 Ed, not been a fan of any of the CSM codex after 3.5 Ed but that maybe because it was such a strong codex. I also contemplated on buying 2-3 of the new knights even converting then to hold their weapons, but now looks like i will wait till the 8th of march and see what the codex says

[Chris*ta]

You know, I'd be more inclined to take this thread as something other than whining for its own sake if people waited until they'd seen the rules before they start complaining about them ...

[daboarder]

You know, I'd be more inclined to take this thread as something other than whining for its own sake if people waited until they'd seen the rules before they start complaining about them ...
I'd be more inclide to take this post as something other than apologist trolling for sake of trolling, If it wasn't such a cliche statement that has been proven inaccurate time and time again.:rolleyes:

[Vash108]

But the difference between the Knight and Chaos Lord of Skulls is that it uses a Force Org slot Lord of War and the knight doesn't. Then we would to at least hit 2000pts for an army, correct?

[Gir]

Knights are super heavy so can't be used in 40k without apoc or escalation.

They can be used in normal 40k just fine.

[Psyfer]

I've noted that there is a fair amount of (justifiable) rage from chaos players about their codex, and I agree, the last two Chaos codex have been... Bland... at best. Which is interesting, as when I started playing 40k (2nd ed) Chaos rated as one of the more broken factions (Space Puppies being the worst by far, Eldar and Chaos jostling for 2nd tier).

Why this is interesting is because a lot of the current game designers at GW would be around my age (34), and probably from a similar 'vintage' of 40k players. I wonder if the current Chaos Codex is a holdover from that, a lingering dread of watching Abbadon (or any suitably tooled up chaos lord) solo-kill half an army?

[Sly]

Why this is interesting is because a lot of the current game designers at GW would be around my age (34), and probably from a similar 'vintage' of 40k players. I wonder if the current Chaos Codex is a holdover from that, a lingering dread of watching Abbadon (or any suitably tooled up chaos lord) solo-kill half an army?

Any "professional" game designer who lets the memory of an unbalanced unit from several editions ago influence him to blandify and limit a current set of rules, does not deserve to be a professional game designer.

In other words, a perfect hire for GW.

[chrisloomis13]

I think what is at the core of the issue is that Chaos has not had a sturdy backbone ever. By which I mean, every time our codex is "updated" things are flipped upside down, at best. When I put the sarcasm quotes around 'updated' it was b/c the Chaos codex hasn't really ever been updated, it has just been changed. This is what I feel has created a lot of resentment in the Chaos crowd.

People often point to the 3.5 codex as the beginning of it all. That is partly true. In 3.5 Chaos had a ball. That ball was taken away, and Space Marines and Imperial Guard received what that ball had started. Chaos 4 was ball-less, and a lot of the crowd was let down when this latest incarnation came out. They wanted something to hearken back to 3.5. It didn't really happen. We did get something new, which is always a plus. But Chaos players are a bit jealous, as 6th edition has a lot of retrograde motion, and while [they perceive] everyone else is having fun with old things given new life, they have the Heldrake. And they dare not complain, as long as they have the Heldrake. As if they ever asked for a flying marine killer. They like the new, but wish they had the revitalization of what was.

Do any Chaos players remember 3? Not 3.5, but 3? If you do, you realize that 3.5 is the exception and not the rule. But if you remember 3, you probably remember the Index Astartes articles in White Dwarf. They were the beginnings of the Legion worship. Sure these legions have fractured and splintered, but when someone tries to convince me that they have fragmented to the point that it is unfluffy for me to assemble 40 marines or so on the table and say they are all of the same legion; I am speechless.

Also, let's not forget most the Chapters are of Ultramarine seed.

Let me get to the OP. I am much as you described. Hope has turn back to familiar pessimism. I was a fool to think we would get any piece of this release.

Lord of Skulls you say? FYI, it's a Khorne thing. What if your Knight was an Iron Hands thing? Sure you could field it, but how would you feel about that? Not to mention my Lord of Skulls cost more [points] than 2 Knights. Please try and prove to me that the Lord of Skulls is worth it. Oh, you couldn't field it if it was Iron Hands, b/c you play some other Chapter? Damn, I'll trade you our one size fits all for your special rules.

I suppose to sum up my own feelings, I wish the Chaos Marine book had received similar treatment to what I perceive the Space Marine book received. It's not that I don't appreciate the new, but I wish I had received as healthy a dose of the vintage as I see other books getting. The Space Marine book hearkens back to the original Legions, even though they have been split (see fragmented and splintered). Is it so wrong that I would expect half of that? How many Legions fell again?

If Chaos Space Marines of the 41st millennium are supposed to be a bunch of warbands, then why not leave the legions to Forgeworld and their Horus Heresy series? Why continue to mention them in the codex? Why is only one of our special characters a true renegade, not of legion background? Until these can really be answered you may as well ask how Black Templars feel.

[Deadlift]

I already built three Traitor Knights that I was using the old Apocalypse datasheet rules for, which I can still do anyway - I never play GW events so it doesn't really matter. If we do eventually get updated rules for Chaos Knights, that'd be great but I'm not holding my breath.

Khorne Knight

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m216/Allykz666/40k%20Khorne/BerserkerKnightTitan001.jpg (http://s105.photobucket.com/user/Allykz666/media/40k%20Khorne/BerserkerKnightTitan001.jpg.html)

Nurgle Knight

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m216/Allykz666/Nurgle%2040k/ContagionKnightDone001.jpg (http://s105.photobucket.com/user/Allykz666/media/Nurgle%2040k/ContagionKnightDone001.jpg.html)

And the unfinished Slaanesh one.

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m216/Allykz666/Distortion%20Knight%20Titan%20of%20Slaanesh/DistortKnightSpeakers001_zpsfa26f56f.jpg (http://s105.photobucket.com/user/Allykz666/media/Distortion%20Knight%20Titan%20of%20Slaanesh/DistortKnightSpeakers001_zpsfa26f56f.jpg.html)

Nothing stopping anyone from having Chaos Knights, as long as you have gaming buddies who are cool with house rules.

Those are bloody awesome, really just fantastic. What a great first post Inquisitor Alex. I'm a bit disappointed that the other posters are too busy debating to actually stop and look what you've done. Too busy to remember it's our game and we can do what the hell we like with it, rules and all. Bravo on your creativity mate :D

[Chris*ta]

You know, I'd be more inclined to take this thread as something other than whining for its own sake if people waited until they'd seen the rules before they start complaining about them ...


I'd be more inclide to take this post as something other than apologist trolling for sake of trolling, If it wasn't such a cliche statement that has been proven inaccurate time and time again.:rolleyes:

Not trolling. We have no confirmation, not even a firm rumour that Chaos won't have access to Knights, and people are already
And I have no idea which statement you think I made that was inaccurate.

And issues with the Chaos Codex are beside the point.

[mysterex]

And there have not exactly been many Imperial supplements either... one for you and one for ImpFists,

By my count it's three/one to codex space marines:
- Sentinels of Terra
- Clan Ruakaan
- and now Legion of the Damned.

I've had CSM army since I started playing in early 3rd edition. While it's been used in games maybe twice in the last three years I probably model new figures for it just as often as the SM army I've played with through most of 5th and 6th just because the modelling opportunities are that much more interesting. The truth is I'd much rather be playing my CSM army but have really disliked the "boring, power armour light" builds you end up with (unless you like nurgle) if you want to be vaguely competitive.

In some ways it seems that some of the design decisions had been an excuse to find a use for models. For example icon bearers made some sense as a beacon to summon daemons but make no sense as a core unit design feature in a SF game. I also particularly dislike the dinobot aesthetic of the last CSM codex.

I don't believe that the problems with the CSM codex over the last few years have been intentional. More a combination of the Imperium being GW's poster boys and a lack of care.

[jonsgot]

They can be used in normal 40k just fine.

While there is not a stated restriction within White Dwarf. There are no rules for super heavy walkers in 40k at present. You need the rules from apoc or escalation.

A real gentleman always checks before using his super heavy. I certainly won't just be assuming I can bring a super heavy with a D weapon to a knife fight.

[jonsgot]

I've noted that there is a fair amount of (justifiable) rage from chaos players about their codex, and I agree, the last two Chaos codex have been... Bland... at best. Which is interesting, as when I started playing 40k (2nd ed) Chaos rated as one of the more broken factions (Space Puppies being the worst by far, Eldar and Chaos jostling for 2nd tier).

Why this is interesting is because a lot of the current game designers at GW would be around my age (34), and probably from a similar 'vintage' of 40k players. I wonder if the current Chaos Codex is a holdover from that, a lingering dread of watching Abbadon (or any suitably tooled up chaos lord) solo-kill half an army?

Jervis signs off every codex.

[Al Shut]

While there is not a stated restriction within White Dwarf. There are no rules for super heavy walkers in 40k at present. You need the rules from apoc or escalation.

A real gentleman always checks before using his super heavy. I certainly won't just be assuming I can bring a super heavy with a D weapon to a knife fight.

I just imagined someone bringing along an Imperial Knight as an ally and then complaining about the enemies Stompa because they didn't agree to use Escalation. That would be way beyond silly.

That said, I think it was in the actual Imperial Knight rumors thread, were someone said that, based on a preview video, the Codex would also include those rules.

[Denzark]

While there is not a stated restriction within White Dwarf. There are no rules for super heavy walkers in 40k at present. You need the rules from apoc or escalation.

A real gentleman always checks before using his super heavy. I certainly won't just be assuming I can bring a super heavy with a D weapon to a knife fight.

This is the elephant in the room. If these are 'Vanilla' ie non-escalation, where be the rules? Do we need 'not 7th', hmmm?

[daboarder]

This is the elephant in the room. If these are 'Vanilla' ie non-escalation, where be the rules? Do we need 'not 7th', hmmm?

They are in the codex, you can see them in the youtube video

[Anggul]

You would have to be a bit of a dick to refuse to let someone use Knights with chaos. There are very few Imperial things that aren't fair game for chaos fluff-wise. There are chaos titans, there are chaos knights, these points are completely indisputable canon. Any decent player will let you use them anyway.

As for codices, I think talking purely legions is a mistake. The important thing that the chaos marine codex is missing is widespread 'cult' rules. The only cult troops that are legion-specific are the Thousand Sons. The other cult troops could be any follower of that particular god, and it's ridiculous that you can't have 'Plague Havocs', 'Berserker Raptors', 'Noise Terminators', and so on. Simply give all marked units the ability to also buy Fearless and that cult's special rules (Feel no Pain+Blight Grenades, +1 WS+Furious Charge, Sonic Weapons, Inferno Bolts+Psykers). That would make the codex so much better. Legion rules for the other Legions like Night Lords are a good call too, but I think the most important thing is the ability to make any infantry 'cult'.

Bear in mind I don't play chaos. I'm saying what I think they should have from an unbiased viewpoint.

[ElectricPaladin]

As for codices, I think talking purely legions is a mistake. The important thing that the chaos marine codex is missing is widespread 'cult' rules. The only cult troops that are legion-specific are the Thousand Sons. The other cult troops could be any follower of that particular god, and it's ridiculous that you can't have 'Plague Havocs', 'Berserker Raptors', 'Noise Terminators', and so on. Simply give all marked units the ability to also buy Fearless and that cult's special rules (Feel no Pain+Blight Grenades, +1 WS+Furious Charge, Sonic Weapons, Inferno Bolts+Psykers). That would make the codex so much better. Legion rules for the other Legions like Night Lords are a good call too, but I think the most important thing is the ability to make any infantry 'cult'.

Well, yes. By that logic, we should also be able to have sternguard veteran bikers and everyone could have plasma cannons on their land speeders, like they used to. No, this is evidence that GW has a limited capacity to mess around with their own design space, not that they have a bias against Chao.

I feel like there are seriously mixed feelings complicating this conversation. I've said it before and I'll say it again: "I wanted X and didn't get it, even though I wasn't promised it" ≠ "I was promised X and didn't get it." I think that we can all agree that we were promised a more-or-less balanced system in which we could play whatever we wanted to play and have at least a fighting chance of winning. We weren't promised an infinitely flexible system, we weren't promised playable Chaos Legions, and we weren't promised release parity (as good an idea as that would be). I get that you want those things - they're good things to want, I suppose, at least as good as anything else - but you weren't promised them, and you didn't get them, and that's a shame, but it's hardly evidence of abiding bias.

I'd rather stick to the things that are more objective. Is Chaos weaker than the other factions? Do they have fewer releases over time? Not, does Chaos contain elements that you don't like, but is it objectively bad? So far, this has not been established to my satisfaction.

[daboarder]

I'd rather stick to the things that are more objective. Is Chaos weaker than the other factions? Do they have fewer releases over time? Not, does Chaos contain elements that you don't like, but is it objectively bad? So far, this has not been established to my satisfaction.

Have you SEEN our HQ options, dark apostles and warpsmiths can't even get bikes, terminator armour or jumppacks (understanable for the WS), thats standard kit!

To those of you professing that only a dick would not let you play chaos knights.

I thank you, I really do, that attitude is a fantastic one.

But to me it begs the question of WHY, why if they are so easily accepted by the community is it so hard for GW to change a single text line?

[jonsgot]

I think the studio believes that chaos have so many demon engines, that it's good to keep some things imperial only. I think someone else has mentioned that chaos having knights will impact the sales of The Lord of skulls. That kit was a big investment for GW so they won't want to risk damaging it sales.

I do think we will see lots of Chaos Knights. I know I would.

[DarkLink]

The CSM codex is terrible. I, and like a dozen other people I know, including every single CSM player I know, can rant all day long about how terrible the codex is. Chaos players may be whiny, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. Anything in that book with power armor, other than the Daemon Prince, is terrible for one of a wide number of reasons. Most of the cult troops have suffered from the Howling Banshee treatment. Basic CSM are completely outshone in basically every possible way by standard Space Marines, and a lot of standard SM units aren't even all that good (Tac Marines are very mediocre, Assault Marines are terrible, but both are still better than most of the CSM Marine options). Most the daemonic engines like the Helbrute are pretty pathetic.

But, hey, they've got Heldrakes at least.

Oh, wait, this thread is about Imperial Knights. Never mind ;).

[daboarder]

I think the studio believes that chaos have so many demon engines, that it's good to keep some things imperial only. I think someone else has mentioned that chaos having knights will impact the sales of The Lord of skulls. That kit was a big investment for GW so they won't want to risk damaging it sales.

I do think we will see lots of Chaos Knights. I know I would.

I wont ever buy a Lord of skulls,

1) it looks like crap in my opinion
2) I play a nurgle army
3) its rules are terrible

I WOULD HAVE however bought a minimum of 2 knights, likely expanding that to an army of 4-5 over time.

Now I wont.

anecdotal, yes, but most certainly not an uncommon opinion.

edit: As to number of daemon engines? we have less tanks and daemon engines combined than the imperials have dreadnought and raider variants. And thats excluding FW

[DrBored]

I wont ever buy a Lord of skulls,

1) it looks like crap in my opinion
2) I play a nurgle army
3) its rules are terrible

I WOULD HAVE however bought a minimum of 2 knights, likely expanding that to an army of 4-5 over time.

Now I wont.

anecdotal, yes, but most certainly not an uncommon opinion.

Same. I will never get a Lord of Skulls. It looks like a Khorne Tonka Tractor.

I'm a follower of Slaanesh. Where's my Subjugator?

However, if Knights could have been allied with Chaos, I would have bought at least one. Now, I probably won't.

[ElectricPaladin]

The CSM codex is terrible. I, and like a dozen other people I know, including every single CSM player I know, can rant all day long about how terrible the codex is. Chaos players may be whiny, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. Anything in that book with power armor, other than the Daemon Prince, is terrible for one of a wide number of reasons. Most of the cult troops have suffered from the Howling Banshee treatment. Basic CSM are completely outshone in basically every possible way by standard Space Marines, and a lot of standard SM units aren't even all that good (Tac Marines are very mediocre, Assault Marines are terrible, but both are still better than most of the CSM Marine options). Most the daemonic engines like the Helbrute are pretty pathetic.

Sure... but as I've said before, there was a time that this was true of the Tau. Right now, this is more or less true of the Blood Angels, unless you're willing to play them as Red Marines, at which point they are still outshone by Codex Marines. A single weak release is not the same thing as a consistent pattern.

[daboarder]

Sure... but as I've said before, there was a time that this was true of the Tau. Right now, this is more or less true of the Blood Angels, unless you're willing to play them as Red Marines, at which point they are still outshone by Codex Marines. A single weak release is not the same thing as a consistent pattern.

hardly, I play BA, did they get smacked by 6th? Sure they got hurt but that happens when an edition changes.

Do I ever feel like BA's have been deliberately kicked in the balls?

NO, not by a long shot, not even when we had a WD codex. The BA codex doesn't fight me when I try to make a list, it doesn't tell me that those cool ideas and concepts are not allowed, it doesn't feel like it is significantly lacking in options.

[DarkLink]

Sure... but as I've said before, there was a time that this was true of the Tau.

No, no there wasn't. They had an outdated codex, which sucks, but nothing unusual there. It wasn't that bad of a codex, either, actually. Chaos had a good codex, then GW released a codex everyone absolutely despised, and then when they updated that codex they didn't fix any of the things that players had been complaining about for years.

[DrBored]

No, no there wasn't. They had an outdated codex, which sucks, but nothing unusual there. It wasn't that bad of a codex, either, actually. Chaos had a good codex, then GW released a codex everyone absolutely despised, and then when they updated that codex they didn't fix any of the things that players had been complaining about for years.

This, and this some more.

Chaos players get a lot of flack for whining and moaning too much, but the people that accuse us of doing that aren't loyal Chaos players. At best, they pick up cultists and a Sorc so they can add a Heldrake to their Necron army or something.

Chaos players that are really into the faction (notice how I didn't say something like 'true chaos players') understand the complaints. How are we supposed to represent the Legion or God that we want to, with the options available?

Ugh. I've ranted and raved and raged so many times about this. I'll just let my CSM gather dust and wait for the 7th edition Codex, and just pray that GW gets their tongue out of the Imperium's backside between now and then.

[daboarder]

Que the argument that "chaos isn't structured, Its in the NAME"

You know, despite not actually understanding the idea of chaos either in game or theory.

[jonsgot]

I wont ever buy a Lord of skulls,

1) it looks like crap in my opinion
2) I play a nurgle army
3) its rules are terrible

I WOULD HAVE however bought a minimum of 2 knights, likely expanding that to an army of 4-5 over time.

Now I wont.

anecdotal, yes, but most certainly not an uncommon opinion.

edit: As to number of daemon engines? we have less tanks and daemon engines combined than the imperials have dreadnought and raider variants. And thats excluding FW

I don't blame you The Lord of blood/skulls (bulls) does look awful. I think the epic model was better. Good conversions are possible but you shouldn't have too. (GW did put out a lot of S@&t last year).
Although I don't play Chaos I'll moan as loud as the next person. The guy who hosts most of the games in our group, faced with playing with his Orks or Chaos in 6th (now possible the Armies with the worst core in the system) has surprisingly stopped gaming. As a result my gaming group has stopped playing.

As to number of demon edginess, yes I'm not allowing for all the variants. I'm looking at lord of bulls, defiler, the forge fiend and hell brute.

Listen GW if you make peoples armies suck they don't buy a new army or models. They sell the one that they have, rage quit and poison the water. Flooding ebay with cheap models so You sell less new ones. If you introduce good looking models like the knight for players who feel positive about there armies they buy them. Rant over.

If Chaos players buy knights and play with them at Warhammer World. GW will change the the rules just like they did with the Storm Raven.

[Anggul]

Well, yes. By that logic, we should also be able to have sternguard veteran bikers and everyone could have plasma cannons on their land speeders, like they used to. No, this is evidence that GW has a limited capacity to mess around with their own design space, not that they have a bias against Chao.

I feel like there are seriously mixed feelings complicating this conversation. I've said it before and I'll say it again: "I wanted X and didn't get it, even though I wasn't promised it" ≠ "I was promised X and didn't get it." I think that we can all agree that we were promised a more-or-less balanced system in which we could play whatever we wanted to play and have at least a fighting chance of winning. We weren't promised an infinitely flexible system, we weren't promised playable Chaos Legions, and we weren't promised release parity (as good an idea as that would be). I get that you want those things - they're good things to want, I suppose, at least as good as anything else - but you weren't promised them, and you didn't get them, and that's a shame, but it's hardly evidence of abiding bias.

I'd rather stick to the things that are more objective. Is Chaos weaker than the other factions? Do they have fewer releases over time? Not, does Chaos contain elements that you don't like, but is it objectively bad? So far, this has not been established to my satisfaction.

That doesn't follow my logic at all. Sternguard and Biker are two different roles filled by two different ranks and positions in the chapter organisation.

When it comes to, for example, Plague Marines, a Plague Marine could gain sufficient strength and influence to acquire a suit of Terminator armour. He then for some reason loses Feel no Pain. Also consider that the loyalist equivalent of marks and cult rules are Chapter Tactics. Those affect the whole army. To continue the train of thought of Nurgle, it's stupid that you can have your troops with Feel no Pain, but when they become more veteran and even get Terminator armour they lose it. There's no reason for that. As long as you're paying more points it isn't overpowered or anything, no-one (sensible) would complain about any infantry, whether standard troop Chaos Marines, Havocs, Chosen or Terminators being able to pay out for cult rules such as Feel no Pain for Nurgle or +1WS and FC for Khorne. Chaos armies are arranged on a pecking order basis, and various marines will gain various rewards for how well they do. If a marine does well enough he may become Chosen, and may even acquire Terminator armour. There's no reason he would then lose his increased skill or toughness, but they do.

Again, I don't even play chaos, I'm saying this for the benefit of those who do. I want everyone to be able to play a cool, fluffy army, and when the options for the army are so inconsistent it ruins that immersion. When your troops can ignore wounds or make use of bizarre sonic weaponry but your Chaos Lord, leader of your fell warband cannot, it's ridiculous. Imagine if only your troops could use your Chapter Tactics. It would suck, yes? The immersion would be broken when, for example your Tactical Marines have Bolter Drill, and your Sternguard do not, yes? Silliness.

[Defenestratus]

I said it in the rumors thread and I'll say it here.

Anyone who doesn't agree to a game with you, a chaos player, because you're fielding a knight or three that have been converted up with dead bodies and spikey bitz then they are a turd unworthy of your time.

Simple enough.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Word.

[ElectricPaladin]

That doesn't follow my logic at all. Sternguard and Biker are two different roles filled by two different ranks and positions in the chapter organisation...

I'm not sure that's true at all. You take the sternguard veteran... and you put him on... a bike. Or you give the heavy flamer to the tactical marine. Or you hand the tactical sergeant a locator beacon instead of a teleport homer. Done. Guilliman rolls over in his stasis field, but really who cares? The point is that you or I or anyone can make statements about how the game should be and why it doesn't make any sense the way it is... but we're just talking out our butts.

Maybe your argument is better than mine about why your plague marine can't do this thing you want them to do, maybe it isn't. I could probably formulate a rebuttal - something about how cult troops are meant to be monomaniacal and obsessed with their god's way of making war and no longer possess the human flexibility of thought needed to put on a different kind of armor or use a different kind of weapon - but that's really not here nor there. The point is that almost every codex has some kind of inconsistent limitation because - for good or for ill - that's how GW writes codices.

Some codices are better, some are worse, but the veterans tell me that there was a time that the Codex: Chaos Space Marines kicked all the butts. It's a real shame that they've missed the mark twice in a row, but Sisters players have it even worse than you.

I guess my ultimate statement is: we play in a game that has an extremely uneven history, a release strategy that has not aged well, and a serious disconnect between the way the game is imagined by the creators and the way it's played by its fans... we all deal with it. We all take our turn at the bottom of the pile. It's a shame that it's been your turn for two releases. It's not fair, but then again, it wasn't really fair that the Tau went a whole edition without an update and the Sisters of Battle got a pitiful excuse for a release and haven't had any new models in decades. They dealt with it, they're dealing with it, and ultimately all you can do is either deal with it... or leave.

[Anggul]

You keep saying 'you'. I've said multiple times, I don't play chaos. I'm saying these things because I want people who do play chaos to be able to play a good, fluffy army.

Sternguard not being given bikes is a lot less intrusive than models that randomly lack access to rules for no reason that in the fluff they should have. At least in the fluff it explains that Assault Marines are used as bikers and Sternguard are used for other purposes. When it comes to chaos marines, there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't have wider access to cult rules. It's part of their backstory and play style, but only the basic troop versions have it.

Again, it's like loyalists only having Chapter Tactics on Tactical Marines. It would be pointless and make the codex worse. If that were the case, you wouldn't be best pleased. Pointing out how poor GW at keeping things balanced doesn't make it okay, it's still perfectly reasonable for chaos players to be annoyed at it, and pretending there's no problem just because it isn't your army is foolish. Most of their units are clearly inferior to the loyalist equivalents, and I say this as someone who has loyalists and not traitors.

The worst thing is when people say that things like Heldrakes make the suckyness of other things okay. The fact that they often need Heldrakes to win just proves how poor the other stuff is. There are a few good units, and everything else isn't necessarily awful, but clearly worse than the loyalist equivalents. Not just different, point for point worse.

[DarkLink]

for good or for ill - that's how GW writes codices.

Which is exactly what we are complaining about.

I started 40k with a Khorne Berzerker army. Even back then in 4th, Khorne Berzerkers were pretty terrible. They've only gotten worse. Same thing with Thousand Sons. Plague Marines are decent, but not that good, and Noise Marines are terrible at everything except sitting still and hoping something is dumb enough to walk into their small little threat range, or that they aren't facing something which can ignore bolters.

All the cult options are terrible, but good cult units is exactly what most CSM players want out of the codex. They don't want heldrakes and cultists, they want Chaos ****ing Marines. And for multiple editions now, GW has utterly failed to provide that. Don't try and apologies for them. They can apologist for themselves by not giving us a terrible codex. Phil Kelly obviously doesn't know what he's doing, I don't think there's a Chaos player who doesn't hate every single one of his Chaos books, so have someone else do it.

There's also a lot of room for expansion that is blatantly obvious, yet has been completely ignored by GW. CSM player want cult Terminators. We haven't had them for a very long time now. We want legion rules, but they don't exist. We want units that aren't completely outshone by mediocre SM units.



Some codices are better, some are worse, but the veterans tell me that there was a time that the Codex: Chaos Space Marines kicked all the butts. It's a real shame that they've missed the mark twice in a row, but Sisters players have it even worse than you.

That Chaos isn't the only codex that has these problems doesn't mean the problems suddenly don't exist. Two wrongs don't make a right, they just mean that GW writes crappy rules.



I guess my ultimate statement is: we play in a game that has an extremely uneven history, a release strategy that has not aged well, and a serious disconnect between the way the game is imagined by the creators and the way it's played by its fans... we all deal with it. We all take our turn at the bottom of the pile. It's a shame that it's been your turn for two releases. It's not fair, but then again, it wasn't really fair that the Tau went a whole edition without an update and the Sisters of Battle got a pitiful excuse for a release and haven't had any new models in decades. They dealt with it, they're dealing with it, and ultimately all you can do is either deal with it... or leave.

So we're not allowed to voice any negative opinion or ask GW to fix any of the massive issues that their game has? That because, somehow, because GW does an even worse job at keeping their rules updated than we've been accusing them of, we're supposed to say "oh, well in that case if other players are suffering with us, it's no problem"?

[ElectricPaladin]

You keep saying 'you'. I've said multiple times, I don't play chaos. I'm saying these things because I want people who do play chaos to be able to play a good, fluffy army.

Well, I'm not talking just to you, personally. It's a public conversation. :D


Sternguard not being given bikes is a lot less intrusive than models that randomly lack access to rules for no reason that in the fluff they should have. At least in the fluff it explains that Assault Marines are used as bikers and Sternguard are used for other purposes. When it comes to chaos marines, there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't have wider access to cult rules. It's part of their backstory and play style, but only the basic troop versions have it.

Again, that's your judgment. It's a perfectly reasonable judgment, but I don't see why it's "right" or "wrong." Like I said before, I can make a fully fluffy argument against the ability to change the wargear of cult troops, just like you can make an argument against putting sternguard on bikes. I don't see a difference.


Again, it's like loyalists only having Chapter Tactics on Tactical Marines. It would be pointless and make the codex worse. If that were the case, you wouldn't be best pleased. Pointing out how poor GW at keeping things balanced doesn't make it okay, it's still perfectly reasonable for chaos players to be annoyed at it, and pretending there's no problem just because it isn't your army is foolish. Most of their units are clearly inferior to the loyalist equivalents, and I say this as someone who has loyalists and not traitors.

I think you're taking my statements out of context.

I'm not arguing that this situation is ok. I'm arguing that GW doesn't have a secret bias against Chaos, because everyone gets the shaft now and again.

The situation is absolutely not ok, but what I'm saying is that it also wasn't ok for the Tau players to go an entire edition without an update and the Sisters of Battle players to be where they are right now. There are a lot of things that aren't ok.

What I'm saying is that it's a damn shame that the Chaos codex has been a miss twice in a row, but that's not the same thing as an evil conspiracy to make that faction suck, for some reason. GW is going to swing and miss. They have historically bad communication with their customers, so they swing and miss a lot. What I'm saying is that in the context of the game's history, what Chaos players are dealing with right now is unfortunate, but kind of how things go in this game. Dealing with GW's insensitive policies and nonsense release practices is part of the price of doing business with them.

The only way to change that it is to vote with your wallet and go play something else. Nothing else is ever going to work.

[ElectricPaladin]

Here's my question:

Has the suffering of Chaos players been particularly bad, or are they just suffering along with the rest of us?

When I read these arguments, I see a certain sense of entitlement. There is an undercurrent of "I think this thing is cool and I want it to work this way." That's fine, you've got a right for it to work that way. And you know what? There's a huge population of Tau players who really wish that you could play an all-Kroot army. There are Sisters of Battle players who haven't had a proper codex in years, let alone a proper codex that kind of sucks, and no new models at all. There are Eldar players who are frustrated that they can't make Harelquins work.

I'm not saying that these things are fine - I'm trying to put this conversation in a context. When I do, I see a situation in which every army is abused at one time or another because GW has a stupid release policy. That context is a world away from a context in which Chaos's suffering is unique and especially bad. That's all I'm saying.

Once we understand the context in which this problem occurs, we have a better idea what to do next. Because I see the context as "GW sucks at balancing their factions because they have terrible old-fashioned release practices," I don't see a lot of hope for changing it except by voting with your wallet and walking away (or at least picking another game to play as well and taking a step away). If I saw the context as "Chaos is suffering particularly," then I might feel differently.

[DarkLink]

They've been treated similarly to the Sisters. Dark Angels and Blood Angels are good comparisons as well. Technically, they've gotten lots of books. But the vast majority of the units are Howling Banshee analogs, they're terrible, and they have been for a long time, and everyone knows it, yet GW didn't do anything about it. They get a bone thrown to them every once in a while, like the Heldrake, but just like DA, BA, or Sisters, they're just straight up outclassed by virtually everything else in the game. And it's happened multiple times.

There also happen to be a lot of Chaos players. You don't hear Sisters complaining much, because no one actually plays Sisters. But there are a lot of Chaos players, and GW has made a habit of screwing them over for multiple editions now. The community has been very open and very vocal about what it wants, and GW seems to intentionally ignore it and gives them something completely different. Meanwhile, other armies, like Space Marines, get the exact treatment that CSM is asking for, yet not receiving for who knows what reason.

[DrBored]

Here's my question:

Has the suffering of Chaos players been particularly bad, or are they just suffering along with the rest of us?

When I read these arguments, I see a certain sense of entitlement. There is an undercurrent of "I think this thing is cool and I want it to work this way." That's fine, you've got a right for it to work that way. And you know what? There's a huge population of Tau players who really wish that you could play an all-Kroot army. There are Sisters of Battle players who haven't had a proper codex in years, let alone a proper codex that kind of sucks, and no new models at all. There are Eldar players who are frustrated that they can't make Harelquins work.

I'm not saying that these things are fine - I'm trying to put this conversation in a context. When I do, I see a situation in which every army is abused at one time or another because GW has a stupid release policy. That context is a world away from a context in which Chaos's suffering is unique and especially bad. That's all I'm saying.

Once we understand the context in which this problem occurs, we have a better idea what to do next. Because I see the context as "GW sucks at balancing their factions because they have terrible old-fashioned release practices," I don't see a lot of hope for changing it except by voting with your wallet and walking away (or at least picking another game to play as well and taking a step away). If I saw the context as "Chaos is suffering particularly," then I might feel differently.

Let me start off by saying that... Yes, we are entitled whiners. There are a couple reasons you can't go comparing Chaos Marines to other armies like Tau and Sisters of Battle. Let's just go through a few quick points...

1. Chaos Space Marines are supposed to be IMPERIUM THREAT NUMERO UNO. They are supposed to be the biggest bad that ever evil'd up a bad. They are not only the antithesis to everything that the Space Marines tried to build, they are more. They are the darkness that resides in every Imperial (and even Xenos) citizen. They take what they want, they slaughter, they maim, they torture, and they don't follow the rules. They aren't constrained by ancient practices of purity. These guys are supposed to be the Joker to the Batman here.
-So... why don't they feel that way? You put Chaos Marines on the tabletop versus Space Marines and... it doesn't feel like ancient enemies are going to war. It feels like the privileged upper-class child (Space Marines) is using its money and influence to bully the kid that sometimes eats his boogers (Chaos Marines). Viable lists in the CSM Codex tend to involve lots of Cultists and dinobots, and few Chaos Marines at all! Black Legion was a joke of a Supplement, making everything more expensive and less worthwhile to take! In no subsequent 6th edition release have so many new entries come about, supplied with new kits, only to be totally worthless (Helbrute, Warp Talons, and Mutilators! That's three new kits that ended up being total crap!).

2. Tau are not the big bad. They are just this side-note xenos race. They exist in a tiny portion of the overall galaxy and are pretty much just the new kid on the block to keep things interesting.

3. Sisters of Battle are just another Imperium army. After Space Marines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Imperial Guard, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and now all of the supplements, data-slates, and now Imperial Knights? Yes, all we need is another Imperial army. Now, I love the idea behind the Sisters of Battle. I WOULD LOVE TO GET NEW MODELS for this army. I would LOVE plastic sisters. But at the end of the day, it's just another faction on the Imperial side, which is already excessive as is.

4. Chaos HAS been updated. Poorly. Yes, Tyranids had a bad rap in 5th edition, but Chaos has been systematically updated poorly since the end of 3.5. That glorious 3.5th edition codex was beautiful! It HAD options. It HAD different ways to make god-devoted armies. It HAD artifacts and crazy wargear and all sorts of things to make the army that you wanted and not feel punished for doing it! Then the nerf bat came along on 4th edition.
-And 4th edition sucked. We got nerfed HARD. Options, gone. Flavor, gone. Yes, we were rocking for a good long while there since Daemon Princes and Plague Marines were pretty much the toughest sauce out there, but that didn't last too long. Few other armies got such an incredible nerf from 3 to 4.
-And then, most other armies got an update between 4 to 5. Not Chaos Marines. Even Dark Eldar and Necron and Grey Knights, three armies thought long dead, got updates in 5th, and GREAT updates too. They were rocking, and they still do!
-And then 6th comes along.. and what happens? Well, yes, we are the first to get an update... AN 'HOMAGE' TO 4TH EDITION. An homage to the crap that Chaos Marine players have been complaining about SINCE ITS INCEPTION.
-Every other 6th ed. Codex has been fantastic, full of flavor and new options and VIABLE options.. Chaos? The thing that's supposed to be the big bad? The crazy villain? The Joker to the Batman? We get the same flavorless crap that we've been complaining about for nearly a decade. Plus dinobots.

So yes. We feel entitled. We feel like it's OUR TURN to take it to the Imperium. Meanwhile, what happens? The good guys keep getting new toys. This isn't Joker versus Batman, this is snot-nosed child versus Batman and the whole Justice League.

You see where we're coming from?

[ElectricPaladin]

I see some value in what you're written, but I think you've made one big mistake: you're assuming I care about Chaos.

The fact is that everyone's army is the most important army to that player. You have a lot of fancy arguments for why Chaos should be bigger and nastier and why it's more of a tragesty that it isn't, but the fact is that if this were two years ago and we were typing about Tau, you'd hear Tau players making very convincing arguments about why the Tau, with their superior technology, ought to have more options on the tabletop, and why are they only BS 3 when they are supposed to be an elite shooting army, and why do they only have one transport option, and if they're an empire with dozens of member races, why is there only one Kroot option, one Vespid option (which is practically useless, by the way), and that's it?

When your argument for why Chaos should be better requires you to crap all over someone else's army, it really isn't doing yourself any favors. It really does make you sound spoiled and entitled. You love Chaos and you're frustrated that it sucks right now, and that's fine... but your army isn't special - at least not any more special than anyone else's. Sure, Chaos is Imperial Enemy Numero Uno... but the Tau are supposed to be Up and Coming Race Numero Uno, and the Dark Eldar are Nasty Sadistic *******s Numero Uno, and the Sisters of Battle are The Army of the Freaking Church, one of the most powerful institutions in the Imperium...

Every army has got a reason to be interesting and badass. Every. Freaking. One of them. Unless you can argue that your book is particularly bad - any worse than any other bad book, which we all have to agree is a thing that happens once in a while in this game - or you need a better argument for why you deserve more that doesn't make you sound like an entitled whiner.

[Ankhalagon]

Word Bearers. Started 3rd edition. Stopped 5th edition. All codices since 3.5 where crap. Including that 6th edition thing with this Helldrake.

[Lord Krungharr]

The only thing regarding the Knights I am grateful for (besides a really nice model!) is that they have no ranged D weapons, at least not so far.

[DWest]

Here's the problem with Chaos. In the beginning, there was Chaos, and it was Good (well, Evil, technically). And people who liked the "evil, fallen hero" motif, or just liked Marines with spikes and axes and guitars flocked to the army. And then came the infamous 3.5 codex, and it was *the* power book of the day. What we now call the "WAAC" crowd flocked to it. So along comes their successor book, and the book got hammered into the ground. Well, okay, fair enough, that which is OP needs to be reigned in, but they did so by severely gutting the iconic units of the book, rather than just toning down the scary stuff. And it was done very imperfectly-- Lash Princes were powerful, but they got that way by being extremely annoying to the other player. So by the end of 4th ed, Chaos was reduced to having a single build that worked well, but was hated by everyone who played against it, the worst of both worlds.

Now along comes 6th, and we get a template for how things might go, in the form of the Dark Angels; nifty old tech from the Rogue Trader days comes back, units have fun and useful interactions with each other on the table, and they try to make multiple builds work in the book. And then Chaos gets . . . a re-tread of the loathed 4th edition book, which doesn't revitalize different builds, which doesn't bring out fun stuff from the "back catalog", and which once again gives us a single unit (the Heldrake) which keeps the army playable but generates an enormous amount of ill will from across the table.

And then we hear Mr. Kelly speak bits of lunacy, like "This is an homage to the 4th edition Chaos book", which is pretty much the one single thing the Chaos community *didn't* want, and that's when the feeling changes from "this has been a string of bad luck" to "please stop kicking me in the ribs".

[DrBored]

I see some value in what you're written, but I think you've made one big mistake: you're assuming I care about Chaos.

The fact is that everyone's army is the most important army to that player. You have a lot of fancy arguments for why Chaos should be bigger and nastier and why it's more of a tragesty that it isn't, but the fact is that if this were two years ago and we were typing about Tau, you'd hear Tau players making very convincing arguments about why the Tau, with their superior technology, ought to have more options on the tabletop, and why are they only BS 3 when they are supposed to be an elite shooting army, and why do they only have one transport option, and if they're an empire with dozens of member races, why is there only one Kroot option, one Vespid option (which is practically useless, by the way), and that's it?

When your argument for why Chaos should be better requires you to crap all over someone else's army, it really isn't doing yourself any favors. It really does make you sound spoiled and entitled. You love Chaos and you're frustrated that it sucks right now, and that's fine... but your army isn't special - at least not any more special than anyone else's. Sure, Chaos is Imperial Enemy Numero Uno... but the Tau are supposed to be Up and Coming Race Numero Uno, and the Dark Eldar are Nasty Sadistic *******s Numero Uno, and the Sisters of Battle are The Army of the Freaking Church, one of the most powerful institutions in the Imperium...

Every army has got a reason to be interesting and badass. Every. Freaking. One of them. Unless you can argue that your book is particularly bad - any worse than any other bad book, which we all have to agree is a thing that happens once in a while in this game - or you need a better argument for why you deserve more that doesn't make you sound like an entitled whiner.

1. I said right off the bat that we are entitled whiners.

2. I said right off the bat that players that ARE into the faction understand, and those that aren't, don't.

3. You go try to make a proper list with the Chaos Marine Codex. If you find a winner, please let us all know so we can stop complaining so much.

[ElectricPaladin]

1. I said right off the bat that we are entitled whiners.

2. I said right off the bat that players that ARE into the faction understand, and those that aren't, don't.

While I'm sympathetic, if those two points don't make you want to reconsider your position, I'm not sure what will...


3. You go try to make a proper list with the Chaos Marine Codex. If you find a winner, please let us all know so we can stop complaining so much.

Actually, the thing is that I totally agree that your codex is frustratingly crappy. For a while, I had this idea of trying to run my Knights of Blood out of either codex (since there's this funny thing in the fluff where the Knights of Blood are alternately referred to as a Khornate warband and a frenzied, but loyal and actually kind of polite, renegade chapter. I spent about half an hour wrestling your codex before giving up.

The question isn't "does Chaos have a bad codex" but rather "is this a 'throw up our hands in disgust and give up because GW hates us and our suffering is especial' situation."

[DarkLink]

It wouldn't actually be terribly difficult to revamp Chaos. Most of the problems are issues with the traditional core CSM units.

Basic CSM simply need an ATSKNF equivalent. That fixes like 95% of their problems. Some of their upgrades are overpriced, but if they got, like, Fearless, then basic CSM would be solid. CSM Terminators would be great.

Chosen suffer the same issues as units like Vanguard Veterans, massively overpriced for mediocre offense and they're ultimately just 20+pt Marines that die like any other Marine. An ATSKNF equivalent, a revamp of their unit and upgrade costs, and they could be solid.

How Cult troops function needs to be fundamentally revamped. Currently, they're a unique unit entry, and there's only one per god, and it's all Power Armor. If you want Veteran Berzerkers, or Terminator Plague Marines, or anything like that, well, sucks to be you, you can't have it. So instead of having unique unit entries, Cult troops needs to become an upgrade. So, for example, Plague Marines gain FNP and T5, Blight grenades (defensive grenades), Fearless, and I think one or two other things. So you should be able to upgrade Cultists, Chaos Marines, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Terminators, etc, to Plague Cultists/Marines/Chosen/Terminators, gaining FNP/T5/etc for X points.

The bonuses for each cult should be improved. Plague Marines are decent, but Khorne Berzerkers are just kind of sad, TkSons are terrible, and Noise Marines are kind of almost good if you squint, but when it comes down to it they have mostly Salvo weapons and Salvo is terrible on anything that isn't Relentless, so they're pretty much terrible. If they tweak what Sonic Weapons do, they'd be decent. If Khorne Berzerkers gained a second CCW in the form of a Khornate Chainaxe, and it gave them Rending or something, they'd be decent. TkSons just need to be completely reworked.

Those couple of changes would suddenly makes the majority of the codex significantly better. There would be a few other tweaks to make, such as buffing Chaos Lords to be more like SM Chapter Masters as opposed to crappy versions of the SM Captain, making Helbrutes and Forgefiends and Defilers better, and you'd have a pretty awesome codex.

[DrBored]

It wouldn't actually be terribly difficult to revamp Chaos. Most of the problems are issues with the traditional core CSM units.

Basic CSM simply need an ATSKNF equivalent. That fixes like 95% of their problems. Some of their upgrades are overpriced, but if they got, like, Fearless, then basic CSM would be solid. CSM Terminators would be great.

Chosen suffer the same issues as units like Vanguard Veterans, massively overpriced for mediocre offense and they're ultimately just 20+pt Marines that die like any other Marine. An ATSKNF equivalent, a revamp of their unit and upgrade costs, and they could be solid.

How Cult troops function needs to be fundamentally revamped. Currently, they're a unique unit entry, and there's only one per god, and it's all Power Armor. If you want Veteran Berzerkers, or Terminator Plague Marines, or anything like that, well, sucks to be you, you can't have it. So instead of having unique unit entries, Cult troops needs to become an upgrade. So, for example, Plague Marines gain FNP and T5, Blight grenades (defensive grenades), Fearless, and I think one or two other things. So you should be able to upgrade Cultists, Chaos Marines, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Terminators, etc, to Plague Cultists/Marines/Chosen/Terminators, gaining FNP/T5/etc for X points.

The bonuses for each cult should be improved. Plague Marines are decent, but Khorne Berzerkers are just kind of sad, TkSons are terrible, and Noise Marines are kind of almost good if you squint, but when it comes down to it they have mostly Salvo weapons and Salvo is terrible on anything that isn't Relentless, so they're pretty much terrible. If they tweak what Sonic Weapons do, they'd be decent. If Khorne Berzerkers gained a second CCW in the form of a Khornate Chainaxe, and it gave them Rending or something, they'd be decent. TkSons just need to be completely reworked.

Those couple of changes would suddenly makes the majority of the codex significantly better. There would be a few other tweaks to make, such as buffing Chaos Lords to be more like SM Chapter Masters as opposed to crappy versions of the SM Captain, making Helbrutes and Forgefiends and Defilers better, and you'd have a pretty awesome codex.

I agree with you on most parts here, but I don't think the issue is Fearless, or ATSKNF. The issue is being just as expensive as Space Marines WITHOUT having ATSKNF. GW really underestimates what that does. Chaos Marines took a hit to Leadership (the whole Codex did, honestly) and with nothing to replace that, they're just worse Space Marines.

The other upgrades you mentioned, while nice, don't even need to be that potent. Here's what I would want to see...

Chaos Marines - Bring them back up to Leadership 9 (10 with champ) and give them a 'veteran' type upgrade that gives them re-rollable leadership or something.
Cult Options - Apply them to EVERYTHING. Every unit, every vehicle, everything should have an option to worship a god, to make mono-god viable and to give people more options on the table
--Khorne: Chainaxe CCW (AP 4), Furious Charge, Rage
--Nurgle: FnP, Blight Grenades (note: The reason Plague Marines end up being so potent is BECAUSE of the +1 toughness. Let's stop making that a thing. Taking out the +1 toughness will bring Nurgle back in line with the other gods)
--Slaanesh: +1 Init, access to Sonic Weapons (Blaster: Assault 2, Str 4, AP 4, Ignores Cover, 18" - Blastmaster: Heavy 1, Str 8, AP 3, Ignores Cover, Blast, 36" OR Assault 2, Str 6, AP 4, Ignores Cover, 24")
--Tzeentch: +1 to Invul save, access to Inferno Bolts, may replace Champion with Sorcerer

Give Fearless back to Obliterators, then give it to Terminators and Chosen.
Give Chosen access to better armor and more options.
Just drop Mutilators. Nobody wanted them, nobody wants them, nobody will want them.

Then add in a few other pieces of wargear and upgrades depending on unit type and you've got yourselves the Codex that Chaos Marine players really want.

[daboarder]

disagree with the nurgle, +T is our stick, remeber it also comes with -1 I, everybody always forgets that. if it was just access to FNP, I'd have caved and use my BA codex years ago for my nurgle army

[DarkLink]

I agree with you on most parts here, but I don't think the issue is Fearless, or ATSKNF. The issue is being just as expensive as Space Marines WITHOUT having ATSKNF. GW really underestimates what that does. Chaos Marines took a hit to Leadership (the whole Codex did, honestly) and with nothing to replace that, they're just worse Space Marines.


Po-tae-to, po-ta-to.

[Ankhalagon]

Sadly nothing will happen. But hey! The next lol-crimson-slaughter-"codex" is coming. Just great! More renegades!

[Chris*ta]

When it comes to, for example, Plague Marines, a Plague Marine could gain sufficient strength and influence to acquire a suit of Terminator armour. He then for some reason loses Feel no Pain. Also consider that the loyalist equivalent of marks and cult rules are Chapter Tactics. Those affect the whole army.

It's unfair to compare Chapter Tactics and Cult units like this. With Chapter Tactics, you have to pick one rule to cover your entire army, with Cult rules, you can take one or more Unit of each Ruinous Power in the same army if you wish.

[DrBored]

It's unfair to compare Chapter Tactics and Cult units like this. With Chapter Tactics, you have to pick one rule to cover your entire army, with Cult rules, you can take one or more Unit of each Ruinous Power in the same army if you wish.

I would be content with one army-wide set of rules for a Legion or God.

It would be better than what we have currently.

[daboarder]

Yeah you effectivy tied to know e cult anyway. They are only troops if your lord has ft he rigbt mark.


But.....crimson slaughter.....???? oO

[DrBored]

Yeah you effectivy tied to know e cult anyway. They are only troops if your lord has ft he rigbt mark.


But.....crimson slaughter.....???? oO

It's a supplement.

Maybe there will be something nice in there, maybe not. I don't see it doing well, but sites like BOLS and Faeit and Warseer will hype it up enough as the next way to break something.

[daboarder]

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l47/hsojvvad/CSMIK_zps9f41dd15.jpg

Not being able to do THIS and be guaranteed use of it is the reason why we are bitter.

[Anggul]

It's unfair to compare Chapter Tactics and Cult units like this. With Chapter Tactics, you have to pick one rule to cover your entire army, with Cult rules, you can take one or more Unit of each Ruinous Power in the same army if you wish.

And that's the thing, you should be able to cover your entire army with the cult rules if you so wish. A Chaos Lord leading Plague Marines when he himself does not have FnP is silly.

[jonsgot]

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l47/hsojvvad/CSMIK_zps9f41dd15.jpg

Not being able to do THIS and be guaranteed use of it is the reason why we are bitter.

As I see it the rules in White Dwarf are good for allies for any army, you just can't access the knight codex as an allied detachment apart from in apoc. If you have a whole knight army I don't see how anyone can stop you painting and converting them however you want to.

[daboarder]

I find it funny that people claim only a git would disallow such models in a gae, I ask then what does that make Games Workshop? As they have effectively stated that when they could easily have not.

[George Labour]

Can you provide evidence of them specifically disallowing knights with chaos iconography in their stores, and or tournaments run specifically by them?

[Charon]

Can you provide evidence of them specifically disallowing knights with chaos iconography in their stores, and or tournaments run specifically by them?

Allied to a CSM or Daemon army?

[DrBored]

Can you provide evidence of them specifically disallowing knights with chaos iconography in their stores, and or tournaments run specifically by them?

Well, you could do that, but you couldn't ally them with Chaos Marines or Daemons. You could have a 'Chaos' Knight list that's just a bunch of Chaos Knights, but that's as far as it goes in terms of a GW-store or tourney legal army.

[DarkLink]

Can you provide evidence of them specifically disallowing knights with chaos iconography in their stores, and or tournaments run specifically by them?

Can you provide evidence that Chaos is allowed to take a Knight?

[George Labour]

Can you provide evidence that Chaos is allowed to take a Knight?

Daboarder made the claim that someone would not be permitted to field their Knight model in a GW store and or sponsored game due to its bearing of Chaos Iconography. There was a heavy implication that this made the entirety of the Games Workshop corporate entity into a 'git'. I asked for evidence that such a thing has occurred so as to accertain the veracity of his statement.

I made no claim as to rules letting this or that do that or this and am not seeing as to how that is relevant to my request for him to substantiate an otherwise hysterical claim.

[Charon]

You can bring what you like, even a bottle of orange juice with a chaos star on it. They still wont allow you to ally with your Daemon/CSM army, which was the core of the statement.
But I guess the chance for a cheap shot was too hard to resist.

[George Labour]

Actually I asked a simple question, and have yet to receive an answer from the person it was put to. Instead I've gotten some hostile attempts to drag me onto a separate subject instead of providing the information requested. I'm fairly certain that does not qualify as a 'cheap shot'.

[Charon]

As this is the "Chaos Players and Knights" Thread im pretty sure you can figure out yourself what the guy wanted to say. and still you decide to argue about the wording.
No. they wont ban a knight because of chaos icons. And you know that damn well.
So let me ask a question in return: Will they allow you to play your Daemon/CSM army with Chaos Knight allies at their tournaments?

[DarkLink]

Daboarder's main complaint is that GW is not allowing Knights to be taken in a Chaos army. Conversions like the one above are not legal, as a result, not if you want to have an army that looks coherent and themed. Additionally, GW stores are notoriously dickish about disallowing models that aren't "proper". There's a thread right now about a cool converted Ork/IG army that they're not allowing

[George Labour]

While that may be (I'll go find that thread in a minute) it's worth mentioning that the look of an Imperial Knight army should be of such a unique aesthetic that it will not have the same issue as a force made up of models meant for two very different army books. But as I don't have the right information on just what that army is I really can't comment on its suitability as an answer to my question.

Have there been any incidents of pure Imperial Guard armies modelled as traitor or rogue IG being disallowed? With pure meaning not using lots of parts from other army lines, and not including a large assortment of allies to further muddy the water. If so, then that would potentially be evidence enough to substantiate the worry of chaosified Knights meeting with a similar fate. If they are being allowed then those wanting to run a pure knight list can be assuaged.

[daboarder]

As others have said and I was addressing posts such as...


If Chaos players buy knights and play with them at Warhammer World. GW will change the the rules just like they did with the Storm Raven.


You would have to be a bit of a dick to refuse to let someone use Knights with chaos. There are very few Imperial things that aren't fair game for chaos fluff-wise. There are chaos titans, there are chaos knights, these points are completely indisputable canon. Any decent player will let you use them anyway.


For me, as long as the Chaos player has modelled the knight in a cool, chaos way - then I will be more than happy to play them!


While such posts are heartening and it is good that the community is so open minded.

I would like to know why this should be the best we can hope for. Why it is apparently OK to all these people for GW to turn around and NOT include the line of text in the knights codex that makes all the above do able without running into gamers with the right attitude.

so the question is, if only a dick would disallow a chaos allied knight, does that make GW design team dicks? simple really, YES, yes it does.

[George Labour]

Hrmm stray thought but might you be able to ally them into a Vraksian Renegades list and or a Tyrant's Legion list from Forgeworld? Those are both Chaos lists but I am unfamiliar on if they count as being from a specific codex or not.

[daboarder]

they count as being an IG codex, but again the problem is that your jumping through hoops when you shouldn't have to be.

edit: this is wrong, they are CSMs

[George Labour]

True enough. But now there is a way to get not just spiky marines, and some daemons, but also various items that are not available to pure Imperial forces.

[daboarder]

fine but WHY in this case, WHAT logical reason is there for GW NOT to want to sell as many knights as possible.

Its certainly not because they want Chaos not to be spikey marines, as the current codex is more "spikey marines" than chaos was in 3.5.

Furthermore these aren't "Marine superheavies" they are an army in their own right.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

At the risk of being a bit of a downer, Vraks Renegades are treated as Chaos Marines for allying purposes, and Tyrant's Legion may only ally with Space Marines and Imperial Guard.

[George Labour]

NM. Found the PDF for the allies thing after a bit of Derping.

And..there went that idea.

[daboarder]

You want this one

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/a/allies.pdf

[George Labour]

Yeah that's the one. I couldn't find it for a few amidst all the other lines of blue.

As for your earlier question I'm afraid that's not something I am qualified answer, and I'm not fond of putting words/ideas/sharp pointy sticks into the mouths of people I don't know. All I can say is that I don't see it as a huge issue myself, and that I'd much rather find a 'work around' than reduce my enjoyment of my hobby. In essence, the time I'd spend getting disgruntled is time I could spend painting up more Knights.

[Packe]

I'd just like to share a thing that might cheer up you chaos players.

I asked GW in Stockholm, Sweden, if I could field a Converted Knight with my Chaos army. They gave me a thumbs up. But then again GW in Stockholm really follows the Rule of Cool quite hard.

But then you know, even in some GW's you are allowed to use a Knight with your Chaos army, as long as it fits the part.

[ToHitMod]

GW are in favour of anything that sells them models, they will be happy to let chaos players use Knights in games if they can make it cool.

[ToHitMod]

And they've probably made the ally chart so that they don't have to change it later when they come out with a Chaos Knight

[Mr Mystery]

Yup. Rules are a framework. Ask your opponent!

[ToHitMod]

If someone had a well painted Chaos painted Knight with a great backstory they'd made up, then its great, and I'll look forward to having a game, however if they rock up with a bare plastic one that they want to use because they think their army is underpowered, then I'd tell them to do one and go play someone cool.

[DarkLink]

Yup. Rules are a framework. Ask your opponent!

And if your opponent says no?

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

your opponent always has the option to say no... how many gaming groups ostracize the cheater? or that guy? as someone who regularly uses forge world i can tell you that people will and do say no if its something they don't understand or if they listen to the interwebs and believe everything is broken and op. took me ages to even get to use commander cullen let along chapter master cullen in friendly games. but hard work perseverance and explaining to your opponent what your doing tends to help. worse comes to worse you can always tell him that he is welcome to quit midgame if he isn't having any fun. it happens you just need to be ready to hear the word no... Now i know your all a bunch of adults and can take being told no right???? :)

[Charon]

The Knight is quite an investment for a simple "no".
Its harder to say "no" to something that is in the rules then to something most ppl dont even have the proper books to check.

I can truly understand guys who say "Sorry. Dont want to play against 4 Helturkeys" thats something we can mutual agree is an unfun list.
Forgeworls really depends on the unit. And most player tend to not want to waste time with an unfun game.
Personally I wont play vs Knight Lists containing more than one of them. Cant see how my Darkeldar (despite 12+ Lances) could ever come out on top of this...

And so most ppl wont allow Chaosknights. Could be as "fun" as Heldrake + Cultist spams.

[George Labour]

So you're just going to be close minded and obstinate when you refuse to play because someone else isn't bringing what you want them to? You're also going to do this before you even try to play against this type of army for a few games, and when all the (non core) rules required are easily accessed in a handful of pages in your opponents codex?

If that's so then I'm really glad that your claim of sharing the mindset of the majority of other players is simple hubris. Because rudeness of that level may work when your screaming at people on your Xbox but it's most certainly not a good mentality to take into war games where you have to interact on a more immediate level with others.

[DrBored]

Look, bending the rules for a particular faction just so you can play a different model is akin to asking your opponent, "Hey, you don't mind if I replace my Bishops wit more Knights, do you?"

If your opponent wants to play a game by the rules that were written, that's his right. If he doesn't want to play a game of chess where you have 4 knights and he only has 2 and 2 bishops, then that's up to him. He may unknowingly have the advantage if his opponent has those extra knights, but he wants a game by the rules.

That's part of the motivation behind the complaints. Chaos players don't want the world and the rules to just bend to their favor, they want rules that are open for them just like they are for the Imperium. Is that so hard to accept?

[George Labour]

I was replying to Charon's 'I just refuse to ever play anyone who uses knights and everyone else will too' comment Drbored. So if your comment was directed my way I'm afraid your analogy was misdirected.

[daboarder]

I think at this point some people need to go back and read the OP

There is no evidence or precedence to support the belief that GW is going to give chaos players the equivalence of a chaos knihgt kit and codex. Its likely not going to happen so don't make claims that is what they are waiting for in some attempt at superiority.

[Charon]

So you're just going to be close minded and obstinate when you refuse to play because someone else isn't bringing what you want them to? You're also going to do this before you even try to play against this type of army for a few games, and when all the (non core) rules required are easily accessed in a handful of pages in your opponents codex?

If that's so then I'm really glad that your claim of sharing the mindset of the majority of other players is simple hubris. Because rudeness of that level may work when your screaming at people on your Xbox but it's most certainly not a good mentality to take into war games where you have to interact on a more immediate level with others.

Who is gonna force me to play I game I dont want to play? IF you bring your shiny 5 Knights army vs my DE Splinterrifle and a few lances I will simpy refuse. I dont even need to start the game to tell you. "Congratulations, you won. You are a great player." Hope that helped your ego.
Im not gonna bent my armies fluff and im not gonna start tailoring lists just because someone need an ego boost.

[George Labour]

So why not then mention you'd like a moment to rethink your list and ask them for permission to run a few non WYSIWIG things to make things worthwhile for your person? Are you in an area where other players will always say 'sorry no, you have spinter cannons and raiders and they can't be used as bright lances or ravagers LOLZAPWN'? Are you somehow being locked into using the same army list over and over and over by some weird local house rule that refuses to let you change things?

If so, it's obvious that the issue is not one inherent to the system itself but instead one of unsociable sorts acting...like unsociable sorts.

Another question, would you also refuse to play an Imperial Guard player who brought six to nine russes and infantry all in chimeras? Because that would also prove nigh invulnerable to your theoretical list of excessive splinter weapons and little else.

Third question. If a Tyrannid player saw your army and said 'naw you're obviously just tooling up to supah pwn. Hope that helped your ego.' Would you think kindly of this individual?

[DarkLink]

You know what I think would make my Grey Knights better? Eldar Hornets. They're pretty awesome. But I don't want to have to spend the points to make it an ally army. So why don't you just let me play the Hornets as a GK Fast Attack choice? No big deal, right. You're an open-minded guy. I mean, not that you can bring anything except what's actually in your codex, mind you, but for me, it's perfectly acceptable. You're not the sort of player that's going to be "that guy", right?

George, trying to guilt trip your opponent into playing a game they don't really want to play, and/or trying to twist words around to make them look like a bad person for it is incredibly douchey. Get off your high horse.

[Charon]

So why not then mention you'd like a moment to rethink your list and ask them for permission to run a few non WYSIWIG things to make things worthwhile for your person? Are you in an area where other players will always say 'sorry no, you have spinter cannons and raiders and they can't be used as bright lances or ravagers LOLZAPWN'? Are you somehow being locked into using the same army list over and over and over by some weird local house rule that refuses to let you change things?

If so, it's obvious that the issue is not one inherent to the system itself but instead one of unsociable sorts acting...like unsociable sorts.

Another question, would you also refuse to play an Imperial Guard player who brought six to nine russes and infantry all in chimeras? Because that would also prove nigh invulnerable to your theoretical list of excessive splinter weapons and little else.

Third question. If a Tyrannid player saw your army and said 'naw you're obviously just tooling up to supah pwn. Hope that helped your ego.' Would you think kindly of this individual?

WSYSIWYG is something I want to play. Also my armies are fully painted and not some grey heap of stuff thats actaully something else.
I run a very general list, I dont tailor lists to specific armies and I dont min-max. If this is a problem please let me know, in my experience that makes way better games than "Here is my list. It contains 4 Heldrakes and a few cultists" or "Oh you are playing X? Let me just get more of Y to demolish your army".
I gladly play an IG player with lots of tanks. More targets for my lances. To be honest I have bigger problems against mass Infantry IG with lots of autocannons. But its funny cause this question shows that you really dont know whats the deal with knights and why they are soo much better than ordinary vehicles.

And to your tyranid player: If he doesnt WANT to play we WONT play. Simple as that. I can and will not force him to do something which he believes to be UNFUN for him. Thats the essence FUN.

[George Labour]

You know what I think would make my Grey Knights better? Eldar Hornets. They're pretty awesome. But I don't want to have to spend the points to make it an ally army. So why don't you just let me play the Hornets as a GK Fast Attack choice? No big deal, right. You're an open-minded guy. I mean, not that you can bring anything except what's actually in your codex, mind you, but for me, it's perfectly acceptable. You're not the sort of player that's going to be "that guy", right?

George, trying to guilt trip your opponent into playing a game they don't really want to play, and/or trying to twist words around to make them look like a bad person for it is incredibly douchey. Get off your high horse.

I don't see where I'm saying anything of that sort. All I've done in the last few posts is try to nail down Charon's rather inconsistent attitudes in how he chooses his opponents. Before that I discussed the fact that GW stores are very unlikely to not permit people to use Imperial Knights in their stores just because they're sporting chaos Livery. At no point have I taken the 'screw the rules and anyone who says otherwise sux' stance on army building.

That being said you are correct in that my back and forth with Charon is a major divergence from the original intent of the thread, and I shall reign in my discussion on the matter.

[DarkLink]

I find it ironic that while you're trying to give Charon a hard time because you seem to think that no one should ever refuse a game or... something, over on Frontline Gaming you were rather critical of AbusePuppy using a Dreamforge Titan to represent a Warhound in a game. Besides, Charon's philosophy seems pretty simple. "Am I going to have fun? If yes, I'll play, if no, then I won't."

Edit: Oh, and you accused someone refusing to play a game of being closed-minded and obstinate. Insulting your opponent into getting a game in is, as I said earlier, incredibly douchey.

[George Labour]

As you have already requested I try to steer away from off topic matter I will ask that if you want to discuss that matter further perhaps a separate topic or even messaging should be arranged.

[LCS]

If you've converted you Knight to Chaos, then I don't mind you using them in friendly games. However, I hope you don't mind me using Storm Ravens with my Dark Angels as part of my army so I can put my Deathwing in them. Or Centurions, I would love to use all my SM models with the army I've been playing for 16 years. Something about calling my DA successor chapter generic iron and green Space Marines rubs me the wrong way. Also I hope you don't mind me taking Wraithknighs in my Dark Eldar army without using allies to take the Eldar HQ and troop options.

And I know that it's not the same (or what you Chaos players want), but Chaos already has a super heavy Knight-like unit. They got it before anyone else did, other than Orks. I do hope that in the future they put out rules and a FW conversion kit for Chaos Knights. They are in the fluff and would probably look really cool. Honestly do you really need Knights? I for one would hate to fight 3 or 4 Heldrakes backed up by a Knight surrounded by cultists. That doesn't sound like a of fun to me, especially not in a casual game.

[BrianDavion]

I just hope that GW realizes from the excitement surrounding IKs, that there is a clear and obvious intrest in what they represent.

which are "reasonable small scale super heavies suitable for use in a standard game"

I mean any super heavy beyond 500 points or so is getting a bit much for a conventional game

[Eberk]

I for one would hate to fight 3 or 4 Heldrakes backed up by a Knight surrounded by cultists. That doesn't sound like a of fun to me, especially not in a casual game.

The problem in that battle isn't the converted Chaos Knight. It is the WAAC, rules-exploiting player who takes 3-4 Helldrakes with Cultists for troops. With our without the Knight that army won't be fun to play against.

[Anakzar]

I played against two knights in a 2k friendly game with blood angels backing them up. I had the new tyranids Flying hive tyrant, crone, harpy, some zonanthropes a mawlok(who died in hand to hand but took some hull points off of one knight). Game ended with Mesphestain(talk about an OP model) in CC with a ton of termagants surrounded by most of my army. Zoanthropes and Venomthropes absorbed most of his large blast attacks while he tried to shoot down my flying stuff with his heavy stubbers. He did stomp on a group of termagants but took that knight two rounds to kill a group of 15.

The knights have to be shot to death they don't really have much defense against air attacks. Just heavy stubbers(I made all but one grounding test). The knights only have one big gun each, granted its nasty but their real threat is the Big D sword. So just stay out of CC or toss expendable models at them to slow them down... they do move at 12" so that can be a challenge. And shoot them to death.

Going to play him again this Sunday but this time with just 2 Knights VS 750 points of tyranids... bringing 3 FMC: Tyrant, Crone and Harpy... termagants and zonanthropes to round out the army. I fully expect the ground troops to die early... then we will see how well my grounding tests go this time ;)

Anyhow my point is they are not as powerful as the hype and have some serious vulnerabilities so should be played with other models, they need some anti-air support badly.

[Charon]

How do you hold objectives when he removes your ground troops?
Getting 15 Termagaunts in 2 rounds (4 combat subphases) must be a case of extremely bad luck. Thats 12 templates which will hit 2 or 3 gaunts on average (per template!) as you are forced to clump up with your pile in move.
Or do you mean 2 subphases? That would be reasonable but its hardly a "weakness" as even a Daemon prince wit a daemonic weapon rolling max attacks will need AT LEAST 2 subphases (while 3 is more realistic, even with max attacks from the weapon)

[DarkLink]

As you have already requested I try to steer away from off topic matter I will ask that if you want to discuss that matter further perhaps a separate topic or even messaging should be arranged.

There's not much to discuss, but it is on topic. The topic is whether or not there should be Traitor Knight rules. The proposal that you should just play with them even though there aren't rules to support this is a direct logical extension, and discussion of the reasons why people might not accept house rules on the issue is similarly on topic. Grilling Charon for his personal philosophy is probably getting a little off topic, but I'm merely rebuking a judgmental statement about anyone who isn't willing to play by your arbitrarily defined house rules.

The point is, not everyone is going to accept arbitrarily allowing CSM to take Knights, even if there's fluff to support it. That does not make them bad people. Hopefully, GW releases actual Traitor Knight rules, but GW's not exactly known for putting out much support for what the community wants.

[George Labour]

Should there be traitor knights rules? Yes and the codex itself makes mention of them but emphasises their rarity. So here's hoping they're just splitting them up the way they do loyalist and chaos space marines.

However if I'm reading the knightly allies rules correctly then you can take imperial guard as your primary, use your ally detachment for chaos astartes. Then you can attach a knight force to the imperial guard as well.

page 61 third paragraph if anyone else wishes to reference the exact text.

[Gleipnir]

I think most players absent any rules descriptions for how it is handled otherwise take Come the Apocalypse to mean the two codex armies may not both be in the same army.

Personally though Id suggest if someone wants a Daemon Knight detachment, they should just model one and ask their opponent to allow for it as at least an ally of convenience. Its hardly game breaking.

[Jin'thal]

Should there be traitor knights rules? Yes and the codex itself makes mention of them but emphasises their rarity. So here's hoping they're just splitting them up the way they do loyalist and chaos space marines.

However if I'm reading the knightly allies rules correctly then you can take imperial guard as your primary, use your ally detachment for chaos astartes. Then you can attach a knight force to the imperial guard as well.

page 61 third paragraph if anyone else wishes to reference the exact text.

You will be hard pressed to find a chaos player anywhere that is going to get their hopes up over the possibility of actual rules for Chaos variants of Knights. GW cant even be bothered to finish up the reboxing of the current minis, or to give us a plastic kit for Oblits or havocs before they branch into the new IG dex and kits. I have always found it amusing how we get trolled so hard for being "whiney" about topics such as these when GW has demonstrated time and again they have no intention of putting the kind of work into chaos that they do into the imperials. Out of all the new recent releases chaos has gotten pretty much nothing of real value....Black legion dex is barely mediocre, the crimson slaughter dex is a frakkin joke, possesed squads with nasty new rules for melee in a game that has evolved into 90% shooting....they did put out a gorgeous new hell brute model but then that is made moot by the fact that its a hell brute model. really when you look at the overall selection of CSM in general there are a hand full of things that are classified as "good"... like heldrakes for example. But then if someone fields 3 to 4 of them they complain about them. (which is ridiculous in in its own right since snap fire into their rear armor can bring them crashing down in a single dice roll) Chaos is an acquired taste... and if you play them you just have to resign yourself to the fact that you will always receive the shaft when it comes to new goodies or just love what they are and accept that GW doesn't give a frak about you as the player and consumer of their product.

Like many other Chaos players I was hopeful that the rules for knights would allow them to be fielded with my followers of the ruinous powers... it would have made sense... their was fluff for it and to GW it was just more money to be made. Knights wouldn't have been that bad of a creation if they didn't allow them to be allied with any of the current armies and just let them be a stand alone force. They could have went as far as presenting Lords of War rules for them and priced them accordingly for those who could take them.... The bottom line is Knights are a undercosted super heavy with a Strength D weapon that explodes in a apocalyptic blast for core 40k and they just don't have any place in current regular 40k setting as they stand right now as allied detachments. The current super heavies allowed required their own special set of rules in the form of escalation (Lord of war slot). I am sure I will field against them at some point but it will be a game where all parties involved are cool with super heavies being present so that armies can be adjusted in preparation for them.

This is your lot in life chaos players, this is what its like to play CSMs. They can win games if you are a skilled enough player but you will always and forever be the red headed step child of 40k. Accept it or sell your minis and choose another army. GW's mantra for us has been "F@#k chaos" for a long time and there is no sign of change for that in the near future. Don't hold your breath waiting for chaos knights, or legion rules or any of that stuff... love it for what it is or don't play them. Period.

[LCS]

I think most players absent any rules descriptions for how it is handled otherwise take Come the Apocalypse to mean the two codex armies may not both be in the same army.

Personally though Id suggest if someone wants a Daemon Knight detachment, they should just model one and ask their opponent to allow for it as at least an ally of convenience. Its hardly game breaking.

Letting powerful armies have a new powerful unit might actually be game breaking. I don't know if it is, but it could be.

[daboarder]

Letting powerful armies have a new powerful unit might actually be game breaking. I don't know if it is, but it could be.

What are you smokin' bro?

Can I have some? It sounds good

[LCS]

What are you smokin' bro?

Can I have some? It sounds good


CSM is kind of middle of the pack right, still strong against some but not the best. Daemons do very, very well. Maybe not against Eldar with 2++ shenanigans or 5 Riptides, but then again who does? I can see Daemon armies with all these tough to kill units now having access to another tough to kill scoring unit being pretty strong. Same goes for CSM armies. Probably wouldn't be game breaking, but we really don't know until we'll see them in action after a few events. I haven't played against them, but I can definitely see how they would be useful in both armies.

[DarkLink]

Daemons are a distant third to Tau and Eldar, and their strongest builds preclude the points required to take near-400pt Knights. It would weaken the army, not make it stronger. Plus, the Knights aren't all that special. They're not something that's likely to suddenly dominate the tournament scene. They're decent, not great.

[LCS]

Daemons are a distant third to Tau and Eldar, and their strongest builds preclude the points required to take near-400pt Knights. It would weaken the army, not make it stronger. Plus, the Knights aren't all that special. They're not something that's likely to suddenly dominate the tournament scene. They're decent, not great.

You're right, but I can't really take people seriously when talk about armies not being up to par with Eldar and Tau. The reason isn't because armies aren't as good as them or are bad (though some certainly are), it's just because Eldar and Tau are stupid good. I think people need to stop wanting their armies to all be as good as Eldar and Tau, and want those armies to be more in line with everything else. Now I know that will never happen, but it would be nice.

[jonsgot]

You're right, but I can't really take people seriously when talk about armies not being up to par with Eldar and Tau. The reason isn't because armies aren't as good as them or are bad (though some certainly are), it's just because Eldar and Tau are stupid good. I think people need to stop wanting their armies to all be as good as Eldar and Tau, and want those armies to be more in line with everything else. Now I know that will never happen, but it would be nice.

At the current rate that might only take 6-18 months depending on what happens with 7th ed.