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Is Chaos scary enough?


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I think our codex suffers from having an author who (judging from his battle reps in WD) doesn't have a clue on how to play the game.

 

And I have to disagree about the power fist thing. If power fists can rip open Leman Russes, a Defiler is fair game. Both in lore, and on the table top.

 

Well, a Russ is a metal box that doesn't hit you with claws larger than your body. If you get close to a russ, it would be a simple matter to jump on it and start shredding it. But a defiler is probably charging around like crazy and has tons of extra arms and legs. Its not really comparable.

I think our codex suffers from having an author who (judging from his battle reps in WD) doesn't have a clue on how to play the game.

 

OMG, I have written practically the exact same thing on this very forum. I didn't know how many members had been around long enough to remember his Bat Reps (or when the last time he did one was). But I think his bat reps definately show that he has a very limited understanding of how to play the game and what makes a good army. I think it does, in part, explain our "simplified" codex.

Looking back over our previous Codecies (is this the correct plural? - someone help!), I can see a marked downturn in our fluff, and their size.

 

Our 2nd ed Codex (written by Chambers and Johnson) stood at 144 massive pages, circa 1996. I remember when it arrived through the post on release day, taking it to school and all of my friends, whatever their own personal army, looking at me in fear when I declared that I was leaving the Greenskins behind and taking to the dark gods.

 

It was packed with fluff, told of long tales of war and detailed each legion who turned traitor in spectacular fashion. It had the daemons of each patron god in there. Following this were a series of "Index Astartes" articles in WD that allowed for more fluff to be used per legion, including a FOC for if you just wanted to make a warband from the one legion. Stuff like a swap of using FA slots for HS for Iron Warriors and vice versa for Night Lords, highlighting their very different style. You're army was able to be tailored to a point of madness. Hours were spent on devising lists to make them both effective AND fluffy.

 

3rd ed (written by Johnson in 1999), lacked the tome of a piece previously recieved. 48 pages. With the actual army list detail, fluff etc all finished by page 33 for pics and ideas of painting and modelling, which were a lot of the same models featured in the 'Eavy Metal section of the 2nd ed Codex. I remember thinking ";)!?" but needed it as the rules were written in formation with the new edition so dutifully bought it. Played with it twice but wasn't overly impressed.

 

Finally, before walking away, came our 4th ed codex (2002, written by Chambers, Haines, Hoare, Kelly & McNeill). Super-filled with fluff. Details of each of the original legions, how to play and to build them to good fluff levels. It seems complex and probably is to an extent, but it allowed everything to be balanced. I only really got out 1 battle with it but loved it, thought it worked and was easy to learn where I went wrong and put my loss right and keep to the fluff of my army.

 

Followed was my massive hiatus. I came back by being on a trip out last summer to find a copy of WD in a service station. It featured Codex Chaos Daemons. I thought that ths was a supplement to the Codex Chaos Space Marines and didn't realise till I finally went in to a GW store that actually, there were TWO sepparate armies. Now, I sort of understand this from a political economy point of view but for the lay person in the street buying this stuff, it then led to making a decision. Do I use my old daemon models as watered down, trashy "standard" greater or lesser daemons. Or do I now start a second army to get the full use of this?

 

I know that's a side issue but it comes back to the main point. Even though this is a Power Armour forum, a large part of any CSM army always was that you could take god-specific daemons to fit your army. Now they are dullards who barely look as if they could take down a Gretchin. Nothing is fluffy AND effective in battle anymore. Our codex limits the desire to take tanks, some of the most expensive models. It limits our desire to use Special Characters, and when Abaddon is currently £12 a time, I don't understand this.

 

Surely, the paroty allowed in previous editions allowed each amry collector the freedom to build from any unit available, accept their flaws and see that if you used them correctly then they could be of great benefit and a lot of fun. With this, it allows everyone to want to collect EVERY model in the range, allowing then for more money to be made by GW, and lets face it, that's what they are in it for.

 

They are in danger of making us all disinterested with the game as traitor collectors. In 5 years time, there will just be us playing with a randomly chosen Codex of our preference and a load of Loyalists playing against eachother. They'll have to rewrite fluff then to show how the Imperium is torn into it's 2nd civil war and makes it seem like the Imperium is on the brink of wiping itself out and their giant cash cow will be milked dry.

 

The reason we're all here stating all of our disgust at the current codex shows that we want a level playing field, a way of playing to a decent fluff level, allowing our army to be fun AND effective. I think even the power gamers want this. It would seem as if due to our Codex being quite old now, it could do with being updated sometime soon and if not, GW is coming close to alienating us all, becoming renegades within the hobby in more ways than one!

Drudge Dreadnought Posted Today, 01:03 AM

Another example of something that is just silly is defilers getting taken down by small things like powerfists. The rules just do not do their model or fluff justice.

And I have to disagree about the power fist thing. If power fists can rip open Leman Russes, a Defiler is fair game. Both in lore, and on the table top.

Well, a Russ is a metal box that doesn't hit you with claws larger than your body. If you get close to a russ, it would be a simple matter to jump on it and start shredding it. But a defiler is probably charging around like crazy and has tons of extra arms and legs. Its not really comparable.

 

Then surely it should be more difficult to hit the Defiler than the Russ, rather than it being harder to damage the Defiler? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that how it is anyway? Defilers have a WS value, no?

I think our codex suffers from having an author who (judging from his battle reps in WD) doesn't have a clue on how to play the game.

 

And I have to disagree about the power fist thing. If power fists can rip open Leman Russes, a Defiler is fair game. Both in lore, and on the table top.

 

Well, a Russ is a metal box that doesn't hit you with claws larger than your body. If you get close to a russ, it would be a simple matter to jump on it and start shredding it. But a defiler is probably charging around like crazy and has tons of extra arms and legs. Its not really comparable.

Pardon, but it's already case, as this model have up to 6 attacks that can kill you (you have to survive to hit it).

 

More difficult to hit ? Dont think so - it's not so fast - ergo hitting it depend upon powerfist bearer skills (hence ws vs ws table).

 

Imo it's about right - but io would like to see defiler as MC's, walker class is unnecesary imo (and grenades vs mc's need to be introduced - you can hit sentinel with melta bomb, but you cant do this against Carnifex ? B) ?

I'm in agrreance with Shamrockius. Only thing I want to point out to you, the "4th Ed. Codex" you mentioned was actually 3.5 Ed. Codex, and the best Chaos Codex to date IMHO. I REALLY feel bad for those folks who took to building up a massive Iron Warriors army using 3.5 Edition, and along comes 4th Edition and completely levels their collection. I had mourned them.
I still have 3.5, it was the first codex I bought, lol newbie. All seriousness if I didn't go into the Navy by that time I would've started an Iron Warriors army, or a plague marine army. Now I'm making a plague marine army, not much but it's still a little hurt in the heart region. :)
I'm in agrreance with Shamrockius. Only thing I want to point out to you, the "4th Ed. Codex" you mentioned was actually 3.5 Ed. Codex, and the best Chaos Codex to date IMHO. I REALLY feel bad for those folks who took to building up a massive Iron Warriors army using 3.5 Edition, and along comes 4th Edition and completely levels their collection. I had mourned them.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I just wasn't too pleased to come back to the hobby and find that the new codex sucked sooooo much more. I only recently reopened that codex and it was great. I was reading it thinking "how come this isn't..." and "what happened to..." and then thinking "what in the name of all that is dark and un-holier than thou happened to all the cool stuff?!"

 

It may have had 5 authors but it needed them to give serious attention to each of the original rouge chapters. The fluff, the detail, the intricacies all round were great. They all did a better job that the Orangutan with the crayon that did the newest one.

Without doubt. More thought put into it too.

 

It dawned on me this morning that as 3rd Codex and 4th Codex are more alike, maybe... just maybe, we are about to see a revised edition of 4 akin to how 3.5 was with more fluff, more detail and more equalising rules that will not seem stuff like IG seem so damned impossible to beat.

 

It may be a wild hope but it's a nice one to think is possible.

I highly doubt it. They did an errata on their website, but it didn't really change anything. Eventually I'm sure they'll release a 5th Edition codex, or perhaps do the separate Legion codices. They'd sell more, I'd think. Hopefully throw some Traitor Guard and actual God specific daemons (no daemon characters though... that'd be too much). Hey, if they just took 3.5, changed a few minor things around, and repackaged it as 5th Ed, I'd be ecstatic.
only the 1ksons players , but they suck as a pure army rigth now too . they sucked in 3ed and sucked like hell in 2ed[someone plays drain d6 of them had their souls sucked away ] , so they kind of a got used to that I think. all other armies were playable , even if not all were top tier [+the 1ksons that sucked].
If they took the Plague Marines and Rubrics from 4th, added to them to the 3.5 Ed, it'd be great. Because really they were the only ones who didn't get screwed by the new codex. Berserkers and Noise Marines were ten times better in their last incarnation. You know, when Berserkers actually WERE CC Monsters...

Er, WHAT? Berserkers are STILL HtH monsters, but now you can actually use them tactically. Sure, in the old codex you could give them chainaxes and furious charge, but put those (or any other set up) against equal points of new bersekrers, both under 5th ed rules... you'll see the new ones are better, point for point, unless the target has a 2+ armor save.

The main thing that was better about 3.5 berserkers was the champions; free in WE sacred number units, cheaper powerfists, extra attack from 2ccw w/ fist, daemonic mutation = 6 fist attacks on the charge for less than you now pay for 4.

I miss all the Power Weapons the Berserkers used to have. They were pretty much Bloodletters with a 3+ Armour Save, how they should be. I'm sorry, I just don't think the 4th Ed Berserkers can hold a candle to 3.5 Ed Berserkers (or Bloodletters, for that matter).

It still is, imho. Chaos might not be the glorified representation of the Chaos Legions that you remember, but it has been simplified to allow gaming to be a lot more simple. The armies can still be amazingly unique. I've seen armies that vary from taking the very minimum of troops as CSM and massing on Vindicators/Defilers for mass templates, Oblits/Lash Princes, Khorne lists with Berzerkers coming out of every end with or without Khârn, Noise Marine lists that simply annihilate everything power armored, the list goes on! Even my personal list, I have not seen one person use anything akin to it. And the best part is that the list is no longer limited to one power. It can be, if you so choose it. There's nothing stopping you from making a SUCCESFUL 1ksons list (maybe the money, but that's it) that can hold objectives and take the opponent's. Ever heard of Rhino's to combat Slow and Purposeful? Not to mention Plague Marines. They are monsters. That fnp and toughness (5) is a pain in the arse to deal with, not to mention the defensive grenades. I don't know what they were like back in the days of the Legions, but I know that right now, the Death Guard are still an army to be rightfully feared.

 

Now I also hear people complaining about lack of options and fun. I happen to think that one of the most fun things about the current Chaos Army is its unpredictable and hysterical nature! Daemon Weapons and Dreadnoughts in particular. They reflect the nature of Chaos (just like the Eye of the Gods table in whfb) fairly well. In the previous edition, could you field a Chaos Lord with up to 18 strength 5 attacks? How about a Lord that's toughness (6) with a Daemon Weapon that wounds everything on 4+? What about a Dread that could have a potential 18" move?

 

Chaos is still fun, but it now has drawbacks, like its meant to. This is called balance. I'm sorry that you can't field whole squads of infiltrating Cultists with power weapons that move like beasts. I'm sorry that you can't use basilisks any more. But imho, the new Chaos list is definitely much more viable and a lot easier to work with. I am almost positive that once you made a list in the old book, you'd almost never change it due to the complexity of such a thing. Right now, I've played with three different lists in the space of a week (two weekends, rather).

 

And believe me, I am very doubtful that the "new Gen" chaos players are complaining about anything with the book, except the stupid rules involving Icons, where if the bearer goes, so does the mark. I know I'm not. My Dread went insane twice in one game, killing a Rhino (my own) that I set up just for that purpose AND charging an enemy rhino the very next game. I was cheering the little guy on the whole time!

 

Maybe it's time that you guys stopped bashing GW and appreciate the fact that they're trying to make this game fun and not restricted by the fluff. And honestly, if you want to field the older lists, why not just ask your friend if you can, I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you had the Codex. I know I wouldn't. I just played a game against Space Wolves today and found myself having a great time watching my opponent struggle holding 105 dice in two hands and then rolling them! Old Codices haven't ceased existing, they are still viable to use if you want to play a game against a friend and get a blast from the past.

 

I will ask you again, can you do half of the stuff in the previous edition that you could in this one? Could you field the ridiculous Chaos Lord + D/W combos that you can now? Could you field squads of 20? Could you put your Berzerkers in a Land Raider to give 'em a 20" charge? How about a Dread that just shot a Plasmacannon twice at your opponent's Terminators that deep stroke right beside it? Could you take Bikers that are toughness (6)? Could you take Bikers with 4 attacks a pop on the charge or I5? How about Terminators with 3 attacks base or I5 or 4+ invulns and no SaP? The list goes on, my fellow villains.

 

My point agrees with those made earlier. Stop concentrating on what you can't do any more and concentrate on what you can.

 

~David the Despoiler

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