Gav Thorpe on upcoming Chaos Codex

[Wendigo]

Original post on Dakka -- all I changed was some funky text formatting: Dakka thread (You'll have to scroll down a bit.)

 

Note the fourth paragraph, where he hints that dedicated Cult codexes may appear in the future...

 

Gav Thorpe:

 

The main shift has been to bring in the Chaos Renedages of the last ten thousand years rather than focus solely on the Traitor Legions and the events of the Horus Heresy. There is one army list, pretty flexible with the cult Marines such as Plague Marines and Berzerkers as Troops, so theming is still viable. Marks (represented by unit Icons) are available to a much wider selection of units. On the whole the aim was freedom not rules. Its Chaos, for crying out loud, it shouldn't be a mess of overlapping structures and restrictions!

 

Many of the more fiddly options have been removed as specific rules, allowing players to exercise their imagination in creating cool models and paint schemes rather than worrying whether that spiky bit on their Lord's helmet would cost them 5 points. In all, the viewpoint has been wound back so players are making decisions about their army on a more macro-scale, thinking about the mix of units and vehicles rather than inconsequential modeling details on individual members of their squads.

 

Daemons are generic, and are broken into Summoned Greater Daemons and Summoned Daemons. They have one profile for each type and can be considered almost like a spell effect. Codex: Chaos Daemons will be released several months after Codex: Chaos Space Marines for those who love their Chaos Daemons and want to field Daemonic Legions armies.

 

The army list represents a typical Chaos Space Marines army with a mix of Marks and Gods, although players still have plenty of options to theme if they desire. It was felt that to do proper justice to the cult armies (i.e. Khorne armies, etc) requires a specific Codex in its own right -- Codex: World Eaters, for example, just like Codex: Dark Angels for the loyalists. There's immense scope for really cool models, background and games within these armies and to reduce them to a relatively few options (not well represented by the miniatures range) and a page of background is bordering on the criminal. Why not have 20+ pages of history for Khornate warbands from and a full army list of cool Khornate-themed stuff like different types of Berzerkers squads to choose from? Now, there's no scheduled releases of this type yet, but by approaching Codex: Chaos Space Marines in the way we have, we have the option to do so without creating contradictions and confusion.

 

Also we've included lots of Colour schemes and background to inspire people on the painting side of the hobby, including over two dozen new colour schemes for various warbands. I'm really pleased with it. I think it's now possible to choose a Chaos army without succumbing to the madness of the warp, and the idea of creating your own warband is now as strong as the urge for loyalist players to create their own Chapters. The idea was to give that back to the players and allow them to decide what they want in their army and how it looks -- freedom not rules!

 

*Edit: grammar and clarity*

[Reaper31]

hmmmm, interesting.

 

Duno how I feel about the daemon legions army book thing...I just never imagined a hord of daemons attacking things. However I was hopping that they would do the cults as seperate army books liek they have done with the space marines. I wonder if it will be just the 4 cults(world eaters, thousand sons, death gaurd and emperors children), or will they inclued the others as well(word bearers, alpha legion, iron warriors and night lords). It would be awsom if they did.

 

Reaper31

[Kaemdar]

Yeah the cult dexs has been rumoured for a while now. but theres so much more important dex work to do first they'll be a long way off. The four god legion cults would make an obvios starting point, with khorne prolly being first since hes seems the most popular. I can see them wanting to do the other legions but i can also see ecenomic considerations getting in the way of that actually happening. Heck i can see money getting in the way of the four cult dex comming but like gav said thie've given themselves the option to go this route if they want too.

[Sception]

They're possible, but I doubt they'll ever actually happen. There are too many factions in 40k already, and too many marine factions in particular, to sustain 4 more marine codeces. Maybe White Dwarf codecex, a la blood angels, eventually collected into a single 'books of chaos' supplement, with all four codeces in it? That might be viable.

[Mutt-Man!]

Before this thread gets out of whack with personal comments that shove their views of how they dislike this and that, let me say one thing...

 

If things get simpler then having a rapturous standard reprinted 3 times wrong, then I gladly accept a new codex that doesn't have a player glance at my codex and point out 10 things he thinks is wrong and I have to explain why its not wrong. The new codex format is nice even getting used to it is quicker then usual. The generic take on things until things become official later with proper testing is a good idea with a new setup for chaos. Since chaos has so many factors to take in for balance 2 years of play testing is usually not enough for our codex I hate to say. For those who remember as 3rd edition chaos codex arrived after the simple one with all those rules, chaos set a standard and codexes got stronger and stronger because chaos codex set the standard. In the way they take things now, they've got a better balancing system to base things on and so chaos will get the same treatment.

 

So with all things considered, by all means post your thoughts.

[davidren2401]

If Codex:Daemons includes Lost and the Damned then I'll definately be buying it. The only thing that has stopped me doing LatD up until now was the fact that they aren't tourney legal. If it contains Daemons only I will be severely disapointed and wouldn't touch the book with a barge pole. Simple as. I don't know where GW got the idea daemonic legions would work in 40k. They released them in Warhammer Fantasy and out of all the WF players I know ONE SINGLE guy collected them and never plays them!

[Brother_Soulrot]

I don't know where GW got the idea daemonic legions would work in 40k. They released them in Warhammer Fantasy and out of all the WF players I know ONE SINGLE guy collected them and never plays them!

There's nothing inherently wrong with 'all-daemon' armies as a concept, although playing against them could prove a potential headache if the rules make them over-powered. However, what davidren2401 says is shown to be true by the results from almost every WH Fantasy tournament of recent years. Usually one or two in every hundred players fields a Daemonic Legion army.

 

Without wishing to be cynical, the plans for dividing generic and diverse daemons by making the CSM daemons less attractive and the diverse daemons a completely different army could be a sales strategy. For example, Khorne player has several packs of Bloodletters and doesn't like them becoming Generic Lesser Daemons. So he buys lots more Bloodletters and a Bloodthirster (a whole Daemon army in fact) so that he can field them as traditional Khorne daemons. Hey presto, GW has sold an extra load of models. Multiply this by the number of CSM players with daemon models who want to carry on using those models as Bloodletters, Horrors, Plaguebearers, Daemonettes and you can see the sales logic.

[Weird Al]

If the Codex: Daemons is Daemons-only (no Cultists/LatD) and not a supplement to Codex: CSM (like the Hordes/Beasts of Chaos in Fantasy), then I shall not touch it.

 

Demonic Legions make sense in Fantasy, Chaos is really strong, a part of day-to-day life. In 40k, the same cannot be said. Unless the battle is taking place on a Daemon World, a whole army of the smeggers makes no sense.

 

I don't think that the cults should be given full-out 'dexes. Thorpe mentioned 20+ pages, so 4 (the 4 powers) could be released as one normal-sized dex, with a WD dex for each of the non-Power cult legions. There're just too many Power Armour codices out there already to make another 4-9 reasonable without even the 10-year-old hordes spotting a cynical marketing ploy.

[Kaemdar]

Exactly more codexs dosnt automatically mean more players. But its does mean more cost from GW's end, mini's, shelf space and the ongiong support for said army that they've commented on previosly.

[Grimdarkness]

hmmmm, interesting.

 

Duno how I feel about the daemon legions army book thing...I just never imagined a hord of daemons attacking things. However I was hopping that they would do the cults as seperate army books liek they have done with the space marines. I wonder if it will be just the 4 cults(world eaters, thousand sons, death gaurd and emperors children), or will they inclued the others as well(word bearers, alpha legion, iron warriors and night lords). It would be awsom if they did.

 

Reaper31

 

 

Way off topic but this made me smile you forgot abbys bunch in the Black Legion.

 

Over two dozen new warbands cool.

[Sawtooth]

I was one of the three players in the world that played a Demonic Legions army :P Actually (to give hardcore credit to myself) I played an all demon army before the Demonic legion list came out, which was really really hard.

 

I'd prefer if they make demon-themed codex it would function similar to the way the two Chaos Fantasy army books work: picking units from both of them. I'd prefer such a book to include things like cultists and LAtD-style stuff. An entire army of demons appearing and functioning independently is kind of a rare thing. It only happens if there's some strong connection to the warp, perhaps through a massive warp storm or a warp-charged artifact/cult. Perhaps the army would be like the undead in Fantasy, tied magically to the general (demon prince, sorcerer, cult leader perhaps) and bound to his will. If he dies, the entire army begins to become unbound to the material world. Meh, wild speculation.

 

Still, if they did have an all or mostly demon army, I would most certainly play it. It's a pride thing, I played a demonic legion in fantasy, I'll do it in 40k :P

 

In case this hasn't been asked...as we are a power-armor forum, would we include discussions of such a codex if it included no chaos marines?

[Reaper31]

Grimdeath: With the rumours going around it sounds as if the new codex coming out willl be perfect for black legion. There really is nothing that makes black legion apart from the rest, as they are more or less "vanilla" chaos marines.

[Malagant the Deceiver]

Well the black legion could do most of the stuff that this new codex is proposing, such as taking berzerkers etc as troop choices. Only new thing is that they can now use vindicators (which I may invest in to replace my oblitorators, IF the rumour that they're loosing projectile weapons is true - I used oblitorators as an advancing firing line to shred heavy infantry from afar with heavy bolters and frag missiles, and wipe out the occasional HQ with LAS).

[Colonial Rifle]

I will add my 2 penny in the vague hope that someone in GW actually reads our forums and pays attention to what people say.

 

An all-deamon codex is a waste of time - make the Deamonic Legion list the new LatD.

 

It's the equivalent of foregoing Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus and making Codex: Servo-skulls instead! I'm increasingly suspicious of the rumours coming out about this codex, it's all so vague and simply no-one on the design team will come out and say "it will have cultists in there", which would be a simple way to allay everyone's fears. Who on earth thought an all-Daemon army was desirable when you have established LatD players out there?

 

I played LatD and still have quite a few left - bring out a new list and I will buy more and I wouldn't be the only one. My interest in fielding my Alpha Legion has diminished greatly since the loss of cultists, so I'm looking to this other chaos codex to save my current army.

[Penmarch']

Absolutely agree, Colonial Rifle!. A fresh start for LatD would be one of the best things that could happen. It could even prove to be a serious winfall for GW, but then again I'm afraid GW is run by people unconnected to the hobby itself nowadays.

[Sawtooth]

I agree with Colonial Rifle. Fluff-wise, demons are not known to frequently appear in real space without some tie to the warp involved.

 

I think this rumored codex should function the way the Chaos army books in fantasy function, in that you can pick from both. There's already a 40k precident in the Inquisition Codices. This would also allow much greater flexibility to create things like the Alpha Legion or Word Bearer forces once again.

[Wildfire]

Its Chaos, for crying out loud, it shouldn't be a mess of overlapping structures and restrictions!

 

How ironic.

[Malagant the Deceiver]

I popped into GW when I was in Newcastle this afternoon, and I was having a chat with the Games Workshop goons (many of them in that store play chaos) about the new codex. They've read it and looked at the unit lists comming out and they say it balances everything out and makes it all VERY clear. They were a bit dubious at first but now they're alright with it, just took a little getting used to, but all changes are like that. So whilst I still have a few niggling doubts in my mind I'm not as dubious about it. Besides, the new codex is aimed more at creating fallen chapters more than the exiting legions it seems, which will probably be touched on in the Ruinous Powers codex coming out later. Well, thats what the GW chappies said anyway, and theres going to be more info in next editon of White Dwarf.

 

And as a side-note: even though the vindicator hasn't been announced on any of the unit lists for Chaos yet, there's a chaos vindicator model release date for november (I think they said November anyway).

 

Oh yeah, and going off topic, plastic Baneblade kits are going to be released for apocalypse (the guys said for around £60 as apposed to the £160 resin ones from Forgeworld) and there might be Chaos conversion sprues for it. If so I'm so buying one!

[Brother_Soulrot]

It's the equivalent of foregoing Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus and making Codex: Servo-skulls instead!

Codex Servo Skulls would be fantastic. The cheapest, easiest-to-paint, best-at-hiding-in-cover 40K army ever. The only disadvantage of an army consisting entirely of model skulls on flying bases is that if someone sneezed, the whole damn lot would probably fall over. :wacko:

[Sception]

There is some sense to the idea of a Codex: Daemon Legions. The sense goes like this:

 

The existance of Daemon Armies are a long standing tradition in Warhammer Fantasy. The Daemonic Legion variant list showed that daemon armies can even be reasonably popular if they get good rules, and the only thing holding them back is lack of models, especially plastics.

 

So, along come plastic daemon sprues, the perfect time to revise the Fantasy Daemon army rules, and release other supporting models. Make it a full army book release. So, if we've accepted the idea of a fantasy all-demon army book, here's the jump.

 

Daemons also exist in 40k. The same daemons, even. So, if a full range of fantasy demons is being released, enough to populate an entire army book, then it's a simple matter to release a 40k rulebook for these models that are going to be released anyway, and basically, from a production standpoint, get a 40k codex with a 'free' model line. Awesome (again, from a production perspective).

 

But Daemon armies don't have a standing tradition in 40k. Rewriting fluff is easy enough, but how to get people interested to begin with? Well, the other chaos codex is overcrowded with far too many units. Easily enough for two books already. Also, daemon armies are too powerful, distract from the marines, and bring cries of cheese. So why not just pull the demons out wholesale, and put them in the other book? No more cheesey daemon bomb, 12 or so units get pulled from the way-overcrowded CSM book, and anybody who still wants to play their fancy aligned daemons will have to buy the new book! Three birds in one stone!

 

But the players will be bitter, especially if they don't buy the new book. Plus we aren't sure whether we want to allow mixing between the two books (which brings back the overcrowding and hard to balance issues, and adds new 'two codex, one army' issues to boot), but we don't want to pull daemons entirely out of the marine book, so lets throw a couple generic daemon units into the new book in an attempt to pacify those who would be unhappy with the new situation, and let marine players still use daemons in their armies even if they don't buy the new book. But we can't make them too good or too interesting, lest they distract from the shiny new daemon codex that was half the reason for all this.

 

 

And there, in my mind, is the logic behind this, and the reason there won't be any LatD stuff in the new codex, only daemons. The whole point is to make a 40k codex entirely with models that they were already making for fantasy, anyway.

[Lady_Mournival]

Until They give the world eaters a dex I'll just be sticking with some of the current stuff for them, for it sounds like the new csm dex isn't gonna make them as distinguished from every other legion as they should be.

[Gman]

If Codex:Daemons includes Lost and the Damned then I'll definately be buying it. The only thing that has stopped me doing LatD up until now was the fact that they aren't tourney legal. If it contains Daemons only I will be severely disapointed and wouldn't touch the book with a barge pole. Simple as. I don't know where GW got the idea daemonic legions would work in 40k. They released them in Warhammer Fantasy and out of all the WF players I know ONE SINGLE guy collected them and never plays them!

 

 

Agreed. Here are my desires for the Demon codex.

1. has LatD

2. Has cultists akin to Alpha Legion style

3. had our cult demons such as bloodletters, demonetes, flamers etc

4. can be mixed with Codex Chaos Space Marines, to make an army contain any and all of the above with chaos marines

 

Number 4 is the big part I'm afraid might not be. Sure, maybe a pure demon army might be interesting and some players may try it. But what about us guys with an old Word Bearers or Undevided or really any chaos army, where we have 1-3 units of demons in it for flafor? Are we just supposed to shelve those demon models we have because a mixed demon and chaos marine army is no longer an option? This is my fear, and frankly it would be totally BS.

[captainwhizz]

Agreed. Here are my desires for the Demon codex.

1. has LatD

2. Has cultists akin to Alpha Legion style

3. had our cult demons such as bloodletters, demonetes, flamers etc

4. can be mixed with Codex Chaos Space Marines, to make an army contain any and all of the above with chaos marines

 

I'm hoping for that plus the Witch Hunters Adversaries rules- those HQ choices would be fun.

 

I think that the Daemon codex with cultists, traitors, mutants etc must be the way to go- I can't see them making a whole codex from just the daemons. Also, with the human/ mutant elements, it will be possible to make Alpha Legion and Word Bearers armies a bit more interesting again.

[Lord Humongous]

Choas Marine armies with cheap fodder elements have a bad history for potential abuse. Such mixes would need to be carefully done. LATD handled them decently, but there was a reason LATD could take CSM allies and not the other way around.

I don;t see that being any obstacle in this case though. If they introduce new versions of old deamons, they can just say "CSM armies can use these in place of generic deamons". Since they don't even take up a FOC slot, its really not much concern.

But, cultists and the like probably WOULD take up a FOC slot, so using them in a CSM army gets a bit trickier.

 

But what about us guys with an old Word Bearers or Undevided or really any chaos army, where we have 1-3 units of demons in it for flafor? Are we just supposed to shelve those demon models we have because a mixed demon and chaos marine army is no longer an option?

I think we are supposed to use them as generic deamons, or maybe as chaos hounds. Which is pretty bland, but there it is.

[captainwhizz]

well it seems to work ok with the Inquisition army lists as allies to Marines/ Guard.

 

if they don't work out the second Chaos 'dex like that I will be very disappointed.

 

my Alpha Legion list it totally wrecked- I had cultists and daemon packs as Troops choices.

I won't mind having to take chaos marines as my compulsory Troops choices as long as I can get cultists back when the second book comes out.

 

with regards to the other point- I think we're meant to use all the current daemons as undivided daemons until the next book comes out