Scouts!

[Vaz]

Reason Chaos Space Marines do not have scouts is because a Bolter is a Real Marines Weapon.

 

Truth be told, I doubt Chaos really gets into the fighting that much. I see Chaos Warriors being held back and directing traitor guardsmen, beastmen, etc. to do the tasks. Chaos marines may be involved with infiltration and scouting missions, but they do this with the utmost of stealth and care.

 

Chaos is not about fighting for a greater cause (humanity) such as the Space Marines do. If a space marine see's a heretic he is strongly compelled to charge out and bring death to him. A Chaos marine is more cold, careful and calculated. They will wait till they can massacre their opponents with far superior force. In "Storm of Iron" the Iron Warriors use wave after wave of slave and renegade warriors to ware down the imperial defenses ammo, warriors, etc. Saving Chaos Marines for the final push. Having Chaos Marines man lascannons, artillery and other key heavy support elements.

 

Chaos marines above all could be called selfish, they are not about heroic last stands. Surely so, If a CSM hates you enough he will rush out and attack, will fight reckless. All and all I see Chaos as more sadistic, thought out and ruthless.

 

CSM are created through various ways, some legions still have apothecarys (iron warriors do). Fabius Bile can create them, and no doubt the technology has spread throughtout the legions over the years. Some war bands (World Eaters, Emperors Childern) may be more into other methods of recruitment, but other more organized legions could be seen as having the assets to maintain a steady flow of recruits.

 

Heck, its even possible basic humans gain the favor of the gods and get filled with deamonic energy up to a point where their bodies can handle the implants without the hormone treatment.

 

Its also very possible Chaos is not afraid to experiment. Testing new methods of weapons, geneseed, etc. Where's the Imperium Techies may worship the machine spirit for hours, the Dark Mech and Associated Support Staff may be more into doing whatever the Dark Gods Will.

 

~

Vi

[Lay]

While a badly represented unit may also be an unpopular unit, "badly represented" does not equal "deleted".

Daemons are available. Cultists aren't.

Perhaps you would care to re-read my original statement:

 

"GW already made an effort (though very unwelcome) to take most of the "demons" out of the "Codex Chaos Space Marines", so there is no reason why traitor guard or cultists should be part of that army list."

I wrote this in response to your claim that daemons "were all but completely taken out of the Codex Chaos Space Marines", which isn't the case.

 

But for the new Codex GW decided to emphasise the "Space Marines" part more. That especially makes sense if they are planning to release seperate codices for the different army types of chaos, like they started with "Codex Chaos Daemons", as opposed to a single Codex for all things Chaos.

I don't think that anyone believes that the current representation of Chaos isn't a result of game design decisions - I actually mentioned that in my first reply to you:

This is, just like the exclusion of cultists, a mere game design choice.

However, my point is that not every representation does this army justice - such as the current one.

 

We can still complain that they are not giving us all in one, but at least it is not falsely advertised.

As if anyone ever complained anyone about this "false advertisement".

 

But it is a list for space marines, and it also is a game balancing decision, especially with the change from 4th (can shoot through enemy units) to 5th (units in the back get cover saves). No opponent should be forced to shoot at 3-4 point cultists before he can shoot at the berserkers behind them without them having a 4+ cover save.

Can't argue with theory hammer, can't argue against it.

[Lord_Caerolion]

No opponent should be forced to shoot at 3-4 point cultists before he can shoot at the berserkers behind them without them having a 4+ cover save.

What, you mean a system like in the Ork codex, with the Grot "cover screens"?

 

Now, if you read the Heresy novels (the early ones about the Luna Wolves), you see that even in the Crusade, Marines were used as the strikeforce, a sledgehammer blow to smash any and all coordination , which allowed the Imperial Army to land and attack. Sledgehammer tactics do not need snipers, and instead need scouts that do not get into fights with the other side. In fact, if the enemy detects the scouts for a sledgehammer assault, the operation has been blown and needs to be called off.

Now, if you read the Index Astartes articles, you'll find that all the Legions operated in different ways. Sure, the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus operated as a speartip thrust into the enemy. But what about the Iron Warriors, who fought in long, drawn-out seiges? The Alpha Legion, who fought wars of subterfuge and lies, rarely directly taking to the field? The Thousand Sons, who fought using sorcery from afar, rather than smashing into the enemy. The Marine Legions were the best of the best, but had no given modus operandii that they were expected to perform. Sure, they were expected to win, but how they won was up to them.

Now, if we look at the Alpha Legion, Night Lords (with their terror tactics) and Raven Guard, these Legions would definitely use Scouts, especially the Alpha Legion, what with their hundreds of operatives scattered around the warzones.

[Wander]

No opponent should be forced to shoot at 3-4 point cultists before he can shoot at the berserkers behind them without them having a 4+ cover save.

What, you mean a system like in the Ork codex, with the Grot "cover screens"?

 

Orks don't wear Power Armor, have BS4, Ld9, Bolters, or all the other goodies a CSM has; plus, an Ork only costs twice as much as a Gretchin. A "fair" cost for a mobile ablative squad for Chaos Space Marines would be ten points per "Gretchin" model at least; paying that much for such a poor-quality trooper would be balanced, but no Chaos player would ever field such a unit!

[Lord_Caerolion]

Well, a basic Ork may cost two Grots, but what about the more powerful Ork units, like a 2-wounds-each Nobz squad, or Burna Boyz? Cheap-as-all-hell shielding unit protecting powerful unit. Plus, if Chaos were to get a screening unit, I'd expect it to be on the level of Grots, for example a unit called Civilian Cultists. Merely there to try to bring glory to their Gods, and usually end up doing so by allowing others to not get shot up. Not intentionally of course, they think they'll massacre the enemy, until those lasguns cut them down like flies.

[Legatus]

I wrote this in response to your claim that daemons "were all but completely taken out of the Codex Chaos Space Marines", which isn't the case.

Now, I am not a native english speaker, but I was pretty certain that "all but" is the same as "almost", which seems to be an accurate description if the daemons went from 4 greater daemons and 8 minor daemons to 1 choice of each. And "counts my a**", but that's not as much daemons as it was in the previous codex.

 

However, my point is that not every representation does this army justice - such as the current one.

Which in the end is still a "Chaos Space Marine" army.

 

What, you mean a system like in the Ork codex, with the Grot "cover screens"?

Point was already made above. Orks are not Chaos Space Marines, where the cheapest model is 15 points (13, but does not start on the table) and there is not really anny cannon fodder available.

 

Now, if you read the Index Astartes articles, you'll find that all the Legions operated in different ways. Sure, the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus operated as a speartip thrust into the enemy. But what about the Iron Warriors, who fought in long, drawn-out seiges? The Alpha Legion, who fought wars of subterfuge and lies, rarely directly taking to the field? The Thousand Sons, who fought using sorcery from afar, rather than smashing into the enemy. The Marine Legions were the best of the best, but had no given modus operandii that they were expected to perform. Sure, they were expected to win, but how they won was up to them.

Now, if we look at the Alpha Legion, Night Lords (with their terror tactics) and Raven Guard, these Legions would definitely use Scouts, especially the Alpha Legion, what with their hundreds of operatives scattered around the warzones.

Eventuelly the Chaos Space Marines will take to the field, they are bred for combat after all (and most traitors seem to quite enjoy it). And if they do, that is when your Codex Chaos Space Marines comes into play and tells you how they fight.

 

You would also expect the Imperial Guard to make extensive use of ordnance (like, three days worth of of bombardmen for every 1 day of actual combat) whenever they get the opportunity, but the Codex Imperial Guard focuses on the ground forces when they are actually engaging the enemy.

 

Ther are actually ways to represent large scale battles where chaos marines fight alongside traitor guard forces. Either use allied detachments in a bigger game, or go directly to apocalypse.

[Wander]

Well, a basic Ork may cost two Grots, but what about the more powerful Ork units, like a 2-wounds-each Nobz squad, or Burna Boyz? Cheap-as-all-hell shielding unit protecting powerful unit. Plus, if Chaos were to get a screening unit, I'd expect it to be on the level of Grots, for example a unit called Civilian Cultists. Merely there to try to bring glory to their Gods, and usually end up doing so by allowing others to not get shot up. Not intentionally of course, they think they'll massacre the enemy, until those lasguns cut them down like flies.

 

It's just a "Troops" equivalency question. You have to take Troops, etc, and they tend to make up the bulk of your points. Nobz, etc, make up about the same proportion as Chaos Lords.

 

I'm not saying it's exact, but if your Troops units are MEQ, they don't deserve cheap shielding units.

[TheDarkApostle]

However, my point is that not every representation does this army justice - such as the current one.

Which in the end is still a "Chaos Space Marine" army.

(Bold from me) Unfortunately I think alot of Chaos Players (especially those from pre-5'th (4'th) 'Ed would disagree with it being a "Chaos Space Marine" army since there only place the codex really claims to be a Chaos Space Marines army is on the front cover. If you read through the opening lines of the Codex you'll find that the authors more or less has written out that the main focus of this Codex was the more recent renegade forces which would effectively make it "Codex: Renegade Space Marines" and not "Codex: Chaos Space Marines".

 

Also I'm pretty sure that most people here will agree that Chaos =/= Renegade.

 

But that's all besides the point and kind of off-topic.

 

Seems like a good enough answer has been given already, GW won't let Chaos have them since that would effectively, together with Land Speeders, Thunder Hammers, Drop-pods, Assault Cannons and whatever I forgot, make it a "Codex: Space Marines" clone with added goodness. Which completely would take away all reason to play a Space Marines army.

 

TDA

[Lord_Caerolion]

Yes, the Legion Marines would eventually take to the field, but the method in which they did so varied. Lion in the Stars made it seem like all Legion Marines would just eventually, no matter what their Legion, just mount in their drop-pods and go smash some heads.

Some Legions had more subtlety than that, and would perhaps gain their crushing victory by destroying the enemy supply lines, leaving the main army stranded from support, before appearing from the shadows, such as the Raven Guard.

Some would sow dissent amongst the enemy army, moving them to where the Legion wanted them to be, lowering morale and so on, like the Alpha Legion.

The enemies of the Thousand Sons would be struck down by spernatural events from afar, courtesy of the Legions sorcerous powers.

And the Night Lords rarely gave their enemies a chance to properly fight, having first begun a psychological terror war with the enemy. They seem to have run a shadow-war of their own, similar to the Alpha Legion, but more physical than subterfuge. After all, to quote the Night Haunter in Lord of the Night:

Kill a thousand men and let no man bear witness. What have you achieved? Who will ever know? Who will ever fear you? Who will ever respect or obey you?

But kill a single man, and let the world see. Hang him high. Cut him deep. Bleed him dry. And then…disappear.

Now. Who will ever know? Everyone. Who will ever fear you? Why, everyone! Who will, ever respect you, who will ever obey you? Everyone!

[Legatus]

Indeed, indeed. But most of those are not parts of the Warhammer 40K game. They are background, perhaps explaining how the two armies got to finally meet face to face. I completely agree that it would be really cool if every chaos army had some unique tactics in 40K, but as cool as that would be, it would not really be appropriate in most cases. A lot of what makes the legions unique happens before and after the game of 40K. When the Chaos Marines engage in battle with the enemy, there is not that much of a difference between a Night Lord, an Iron Warrior or a Word Bearer wielding that boltgun. And differences in combat doctrine can be represented by a different army selection. Most of the legions unique traits would only really come into play if you simulated longer campaigns, perhaps the battle for a world. During such a campaign, the actions and goals of the legions would vary greatly. But if a force of their marines would meet an enemy force in battle, it will not be so imensely different. It will be Space Marines fighting someone else. The Iron Warriors would probably bring heavy machinery and support units into position, the Night Lords would rapidly advance and strike an unprepared foe, the Word Bearers would perform rituals and summonings before engaging in combat, but in the moment of battle captured in the game of 40K, when the combatants are meeting each other, it will allways be space marines fightin.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Well, I'd say the Night Lord fear tactics would have a large part on the game itself, whatever.

[Legatus]

But how much more than with Tyranids, or possibly Necrons? Perhaps we can just assume that those who are not outright deserting can put up a decent fight. And once the bullets (or laser bolts) start flying the soldiers might focus on the more imminent situation. But I do miss the daemonic visages.

[Lay]

However, my point is that not every representation does this army justice - such as the current one.

Which in the end is still a "Chaos Space Marine" army.

Just like the previous ones.

 

But most of those are not parts of the Warhammer 40K game. They are background, perhaps explaining how the two armies got to finally meet face to face. I completely agree that it would be really cool if every chaos army had some unique tactics in 40K, but as cool as that would be, it would not really be appropriate in most cases.

Funny how it's still appropriate for Space Marines.

Chapter Tactics anyone?

[Lord_Caerolion]

While the Tyranids and Necrons are valid for receiving "fear benefits", those armies implement their fear in a different way. The hosts of the Night Bringer, I can see them possibly deserving a fear bonus, but the other Necrons are just not understood enough by the common soldiery. They're just strange warrior-machines with powerful guns. Tyranids are along the same lines. The other side know they're going to die, but they're facing an enemy they can kill, albeit not truely effectively. Even so, they can take a stand, and that would help to alleviate their fear, like you said.

 

Night Lords on the other hand, deliberately fashion their campaign as to put the enemy completely at edge. While this campaign might not be as effective against xenos, I'll be assuming against an Imperial foe/world. One of the key tenets of the Night Lords terror philosophy, as stated in Lord of the Night, is to not be seen. As Sahaal says, the other guy's mind will make up a creature far, far worse tha what is really there. After all, it can't just be some Marines doing all that, can it? Sure it has to be some devil? The only time the prey gets to see what is hunting them is just before their death, and often then its used to further the fear of others ("Scream for me...").

 

It's an entirely different sort of fear. A personal fear. Each mind conjures their own worst nightmare and gives the Night Lords that form. After all, the only thing they know is that something arrived, then the sky went black with dust, and then the killings began. Noone saw the perpertrators, only the bodies, hung high from the buildings, their mutilations plain to see. Nothing human could have caused that, could it? They must be monsters! But what are these monsters? And so the mind fills in the blanks.

“These humans, their imaginations are strong. Kill a thousand men and they will hate you. Kill a million men and they will queue to face you. But kill a single man and they will see monsters and devils in every shadow. Kill a dozen men and they will scream and wail in the night, and shall feel not hatred, but fear.

This is a fear that goes beyond the simple horrors of the Necrons or Tyranids. After all, you can kill what you can see. You can clearly see it, see its size, that they aren't all towering monstrosities the size of houses. You can see their faces, knowing that they aren't twisted daemons, dredged from your worst nightmares. And most of all, you can see that they bleed. You can see that they die, just like anything else. The Night Lords remove that blessing from their prey.

[Wander]

Funny how it's still appropriate for Space Marines.

Chapter Tactics anyone?

 

GW has been dragging its feet way too long on treating the Traitor Legions like proper Sub-dexes.

 

If I were to do it, I'd go with a multiple-Codex system for all Power Armor armies, each codex reaching the 144-page standard the current Loyalist Codex does. Part of the precedent the Loyalist codex is seems to be setting (telegraphed by the indication that FAQs will not be released to update sub-dexes like Blood Angels) is that Loyalist chapters that deviate from the Codex Astartes won't be doing so as much in terms of new troop "types" (Death Company, Ravenwing, Baal Predator, etc) but rather in terms of organizational "rules"

 

For example, rather than stating for Blood Angels: Assault Squads are Troops, Scouts are Elites, BA Honor Guard may have jump packs, you have a special variant of Predator/Dread, here are the Death Company special rules, etc, etc, and doing it all over again every time you want a new Loyalist Chapter, instead a BA sub-dex would read:

 

"Blood Angels are Assault-oriented and a flavorful BA army takes Vanguard Vets, TW-AC armed Predators when possible, and CC-oriented Dreads. One of your Units must be a Death Company, which is a Rhino-equipped Assault Unit that has the Universal Rules Rage, FNP, Furious Charge and Rending. This unit is added to in the following manner..."

 

And

 

"These are the rules for Dante, etc, etc, who grant the following Chapter Tactics, etc, etc to your army."

 

Dark Angels would essentially read: "Dark Angels are Stubborn, Ravenwing Armies are always led by Bike-mounted Captains (meaning they automatically get Bike units as Troops, bada-bing bada-boom Ravenwing), and Deathwing Armies only use Terminator troops" and "Here are the DA characters"

 

That way, the "rules" for creating a Blood Angels army are almost 100% contained within the larger Codex: Space Marines and Rulebook; the unique organization the Blood Angels/Dark Angels/Whatever employ is a matter of the player to adhere to; obviously in tournaments, highly flavorful BA lists get those points, but nothing precludes a "Red Ultramarines" sort of Blood Angels Army. It's not longer necessary to devote a codex to reordering the unit classifications and sorting out unique unit types and wargear for a single Chapter.

 

This means the Chapter-specific sub-dexes would become much less expansive; with all the rules, loadouts, wargear and whatnot contained in the main Codex, the sub-dexes could become not Chapter-specific, but flavor-specific. Instead of Codex: BA, you have Codex: Angels of Death, covering all the CC-oriented chapters, Codex: Bringers of War, covering the ranged-oriented chapters, and Codex: Defenders of Humanity, covering the really variant Chapters, like Space Wolves or Black Templars, who actually have markedly different force organizations.

 

It also means less confusion as wargear gets updated and deviates from sub-codex to sub-codex; it all relies on the same codex, instead.

 

If that's the direction the Loyalists are going, it's past time the Traitors got the same treatment.

[Legatus]

Just like the previous ones.

Not 2nd Edition. That was "Codex Chaos". Which established the combinated use of Chaos Marines and Daemons, which was continued in Codex 3rd and 3.5. Now they changed it.

 

Funny how it's still appropriate for Space Marines.

Chapter Tactics anyone?

Loyalists have nothing of the kind put forward by Lord_Caerolion. "Stubborn" or "Fleet" for everyone has nothing to do with special battle preparations. Icons compare to those quite well. The only chapter tactic that could be compared to the things Lord_Carelion mentioned is the all flanking khan force, but that is not completely exclusive, as every army has some flanking units. One might rightfully ask why not more enemy foces use such exensive flanking whenever they get the chance, but then again flanking has been a treat of the White Scars ever since their Index Astartes, so they would deserve that more than the Night Lords or the Alpha Legion.

Still, I am not happy about a lot of the decisions made in the new Codex Space Marines, and the use of special characters to change army composition is one of them.

 

If I were to do it, I'd go with a multiple-Codex system for all Power Armor armies, each codex reaching the 144-page standard the current Loyalist Codex does

That works for half of the first founding chapters, who were never well documented. But the most space in a Codex Dark Angels or Codex Space Wolves would be taken up by the chapters background. Those chapter have a huge amount of background since the 2nd Edition, and most of that would have to be omitted if GW was to put all of them into one single Codex. Perhaps it really is not fair that certain loyalist chapters get their own codex, while no chaos legion does, but that is a traditional thing.

(Not that GW cares as much about tradition as I would like to, but appearently multiple loyalist codices are still paying off.)

The material for a Codex Dark Angels is there. The material for a Codex Night Lords would pretty much have to be written from scratch.

[Lay]

Not 2nd Edition. That was "Codex Chaos". Which established the combinated use of Chaos Marines and Daemons, which was continued in Codex 3rd and 3.5. Now they changed it.

Was there something to establish? CSM and Daemons could be combined ever since Slaves to Darkness irc.

 

Loyalists have nothing of the kind put forward by Lord_Caerolion. "Stubborn" or "Fleet" for everyone has nothing to do with special battle preparations. Icons compare to those quite well. The only chapter tactic that could be compared to the things Lord_Carelion mentioned is the all flanking khan force, but that is not completely exclusive, as every army has some flanking units.

Regardless of what Caerolion said, Chapter Tactics are (as the name implies) Chapter specific benefits. The +1 Icons of Chaos are barely comparable to that.

 

(Not that GW cares as much about tradition as I would like to, but appearently multiple loyalist codices are still paying off.)

Makes me wonder, how do we determine what "tradition" is?

Should we discount combining CSM and diverse Daemons because of two (let's count them: 3.0, 3.5) "falsely advertised" codices?

[Legatus]

Was there something to establish? CSM and Daemons could be combined ever since Slaves to Darkness irc.

Perhaps I could habe gotten even further back, but I did not have my Slaves to Darkness at hand to check the army list. Both in 1st and 2nd Edition the respective source book was about "Chaos", and not specifically about "Chaos Space Marines". In 3rd Edition that changed (IIRC, I can't seem to find my 3rd Edition Codex), but there still was a decent selection of daemons available to take with your marines. It was a source book focusing on a different army, but it was modelled after the previous "everything chaos" books. In the 4th Edition Codx they reduced the non-marines part.

 

It is as if there was a "Codex Space Marines", but in the next edition there would instead be a "Codex Ultramarines", which would still include rules for other chapters. But then in the next codex, the other chapters would be greatly reduced. Of course people might be rightfully upset that there were fewer generic space marines, but then the new book is called "Ultramarines", so it is not like it would be unexpected or unjustified.

 

Regardless of what Caerolion said, Chapter Tactics are (as the name implies) Chapter specific benefits. The +1 Icons of Chaos are barely comparable to that.

Disagree. The special characters are really available for everyone, though I would hope that people can restrain themself in their use. As I said, I am not really happy with that ruling. However, what it amounts to is that you take a certain HQ choice and all your units exchange one of their special rules for a different one. That is not really that much different from chaos Icons. Every unit can get additional rules. The difference is that loyalists have to buy a special character for it, and then all units are upgraded automatically, while chaos has the option to upgrade individual squads. Fleet for everyone is nice, but so is +1 toughness or +1 attack. Stubborn for everyone is nice, but so is re-rolling your LD10 tests. In both cases it is special bonuses for your units, but the way they are optained is different.

 

Makes me wonder, how do we determine what "tradition" is?

Should we discount combining CSM and diverse Daemons because of two (let's count them: 3.0, 3.5) "falsely advertised" codices?

No, but the distinction is visible and comprehensible. I understand if anyone misses his daemons, but he is playing chaos space marines. Imagine if GW had put the inquisitorial units in every marine codex and would later drop them. People would understandably be upset about the loss, but they are playing space marines, not "space marines and inquisition forces". You can complain that GW does not give you daemons on top of your chaos space marines anymore. But you cannot complain that it is a horrible mistake that they are not featured that much in the codex chaos space marines and that GW fu**ed up the codex for limiting them.

[TheDarkApostle]

Once more, whether Daemons have a place in Codex: Chaos Space Marines or not is not the point of this topic. The purpose of this topic is to answer the question of why Chaos don't have Scouts. ^_^

 

No more off-topic in here please, if you'd like to continue the discussion tho you are most welcome to make a new thread. :P

 

TDA