What do you want in the next "Codex: Chaos Space Marines" ?

[Midgard]

Doesn't A D-B also make a Metallica reference in "Soul Hunter" (at least I presumed that's where the Thunderhawk's name came from)?

[Dràyhèn]

Also Abbadon needs a new model. Because Tiny Abby doesn't awe anyone, no matter the matter of the 2 mile top knot.

It may come a little expensive, but I for one was happy to pay 30€ for mine. Meaning that I bought the plastic multi-part Chaos Terminator Lord and Abe.

Then I just took the Talon, head and Drach'nyen and pinned them onto the plastic lord's body as I saw fit.

 

He now stands heads taller than terminators even, atop the mighty chaos-warped slab of stone that comes with the kit, Talon pointing onwards and his daemon-sword ready to skewer anyone coming too close. GW only needs to rip the essentials from the current Abaddon and stick them into same box with Terminator Lord. The look perfectly matches his stats now - menacing beyond belief.

[Shas'o R'Vre]

You want Iron Warriors? You take Legion/Robot Attack/Unending Punishment. You want Word Bearers? You take Legion/Massive Horde/Lord of Daemons. You want Night Lords? You take Legion/Sudden Death/Master of Tactics. Red Corsairs? Pirate/Sudden Death/Master of Tactics. Some sort of crazy DIY thing of your own? Deceived/Noble Warriors/Death From the Sky. Or Apostate/Heavy Metal/Unending Punishment. Aren't sure? Skip all of that and spend the points on more troops or vehicles.

 

If you string the different columns together, they start to sound like Metallica lyrics.

Be right back, off to write an Night Lord inspired song called "Master of Tactics"

[maverike_prime]

Also Abbadon needs a new model. Because Tiny Abby doesn't awe anyone, no matter the matter of the 2 mile top knot.

 

Ask and Ye shall receive! well, sort of. It's a conversion but still. New version of Abs for my army.

[subtlebrush]

Oh I've seen your Abaddon maverike_prime and it is EPIC! Want to see it painted man!

 

Mr.Malevolent

[Madcap]

I guess when it is all said and done, I want a Chaos Codex that is as cool, fluffy, and crunchy as the latest batch of codices. I want a codex that can be used to build a number of different, equally viable lists, instead of 2 DP 3 "Troop" 6-9 Oblit etc. Chaos bike army? Yes. Raptor legion? Sure. Terminator army? Why not.

 

In other words, something other than what we have now... 31 flavors, all vanilla.

[Rik Riorik]

I remember getting the Codex soon after its release having finally decided that I was going to do that Word Bearers force and dive head first into 40k having playe virtually only Warhammer Fantasy up until that point.

 

Without doing anything else than simply skimming the book I was underwhelmed. While there were some excellent new models in there the entire dex just oozed blandness without even reading it.

 

When I actually did read it and did start to do lists it wasnt more than a couple of months before I postponed my army plans for about two and a half years before getting the bug again.

[subtlebrush]

I remember getting the Codex soon after its release having finally decided that I was going to do that Word Bearers force and dive head first into 40k having playe virtually only Warhammer Fantasy up until that point.

 

Without doing anything else than simply skimming the book I was underwhelmed. While there were some excellent new models in there the entire dex just oozed blandness without even reading it.

 

When I actually did read it and did start to do lists it wasnt more than a couple of months before I postponed my army plans for about two and a half years before getting the bug again.

 

 

I'm in the same boat with you on that. I had the "Oh man its a new Codex awesome" mood then it went to "What the :P ....I...I...guess its.....ok...*grumble grumble*..." It took me a long time to finally say "Allright I'll just deal with it" and I have like 4 Chaos projects in the works now :jaw:

 

Mr.Malevolent

[Rik Riorik]

Yeah we are not alone. There is some solace to be had from that I guess :D. I eagerly thummed through my 3.5 dex in anticipation and was chomping at the bit to get hold of the new book and to say I was miffed is putting it mildly. I kind of felt forewarned by the Dark Angels codex that had preceded it but still. Miffed. No doubt. Why not more books were like the IG and Chaos 3.5s and SM 4th was and is beyond me.

 

But in the end I couldnt keep away and as long as the next codex has more variety of choice and better internal balance in it I will be happy. I can still make do with the one we have for now.

 

As for Maverikes Abaddon I had seen it before it being posted in this thread and I really think that is one heck of a model. If Abaddon had looked like that it would be a joy to use him or at least his model as Ive never been keen on using special characters having only ever used Valten in Fantasy when playing in the Storm of Chaos campaign.

[subtlebrush]

Yeah we are not alone. There is some solace to be had from that I guess :D.

 

And I do good sir I do. There is still some fight in this ugly bird of our Codex and I just hope the next Codex is at least as thick or thicker then the current Loyalist Codex. There is so much potential for a great big Codex full of evil, sadistic, daemon possessed, mutant, super humans with some awesome list builds and I just hope with my all of my black heart that GW goes the extra mile and gives it all it deserves.

 

Mr.Malevolent

[malika666]

New models for the special characters. Abaddon needs a new model like they did with Marneus Calgar! Khârn the Betrayer still looks superior to most models out there, he needs little or no change, same goes for Ahriman. Huron Blackheart needs a new model, match him more to the Forgeworld model!

[Rik Riorik]

New models for the special characters. Abaddon needs a new model like they did with Marneus Calgar! Khârn the Betrayer still looks superior to most models out there, he needs little or no change, same goes for Ahriman. Huron Blackheart needs a new model, match him more to the Forgeworld model!

 

Calgar is the benchmark when I think about a bettet model for Abbie. He is good and chunky, a fair size of model and he has got that dynamic about him that makes for a feeling of momentum that is sorely lacking in a lot of more static looking models giving the model a sense of purpose and life.

[Emperors Immortals]

Doesn't A D-B also make a Metallica reference in "Soul Hunter" (at least I presumed that's where the Thunderhawk's name came from)?

 

 

Not sure, but DoW2-CR has "Freyas and of sanity" as a special item.(Freyed ends of sanity)

 

Also, AFAIK the Black Crusades were numbered 12 in teh old days, with one led by Doombreed (the ghost war i believe - killed a lot of BA) and several led by other characters, but im not sure if it was retconned to be 12 led by The Don himself.

[Captain Tezdal]

New models for the special characters. Abaddon needs a new model like they did with Marneus Calgar! Khârn the Betrayer still looks superior to most models out there, he needs little or no change, same goes for Ahriman. Huron Blackheart needs a new model, match him more to the Forgeworld model!

 

Whoa...you really think Khârn is that great? I mean I love him to death, but his model is showing it's age, I'd love to see a new Khârn as cool looking as the newer FW WE stuff.

[Rik Riorik]

I think in the great scope of things given its age Khârn is an absolutely splendid model. Sure if it looked more sleak, as the art piece of him does and posed likewise like a Korsaro Khan of Chaos he would look even better. But, beating the by now surely undead horse to death yet again, he definetly looks better than Abaddon :huh:.

 

PS. I promise this is the last time Ill slag of poor Abbie.

[Lord Typhon]

Being realistic, what I'd want most in the next codex would be MARKS, not ICONS. You don't see "Banner of Blood Angels" that makes them lose all their bonuses the moment it dies, or Space Marine special characters that replace Chapter tactics suddenly dropping their replacement rule from the army the second they die; why should our CSM w/ Icon of Nurgle be any different and suddenly heal up, becoming easier to kill the second the Iconbearer has bought the farm? Can't the others pick it up or something?

 

CSM 1: Glory to Nur~ oh...Scalaex died, we no longer worship Nurgle! *Suddenly heals faster than someone paying thousands of £ a day into Private Healthcare*

CSM 2: Fear not, The Dark Gods shall still be with us! *goes to pick up icon*

CSM 1: No! Only Scalaex could hold the Icon...leave it where it fell...nurgle wasn't so cool anyways..let's just worship all four...For The Dark Gods!

 

As opposed to:

 

BA1: Rawww, we iz SpeceMahreens from Twilight films! For The Emprah!*BA3 carrying standard dies*

BA2: Oh well, we iz STILL SpeceMahreens from Twilight films! *sparkly sparkly charge maim tear*

 

Makes sense to anyone? No, me neither..

 

Also, what would be wonderful is if Marks could have different effects for different levels (similar to how Grey Knights have Mastery levels on their Psyker rule as mentioned in the latest whitedwarf), even if it was something like;

Troops get +1T, +1W

Elites get as Troops, but also FNP

HQ get as Elites, but add <insert suitably Nurgle-y ability here, maybe Nurgle's Rot as it stands but Re-rolling the psychic test (if taking one at all)>

 

The reasoning behind the Mark levels is that a Chaos Lord has done much in the service of The Dark Gods, whereas a standard CSM will have done a lot, but nowhere near as much, therefore his benefits should not be as great...but right now it's;

 

Lord: I have served since the Heresey, sacrificed entire SECTORS to Nurgle, eaten babies with stagnant water and mushrooms and..

CSM1: I've just started worshipping Nurgle this morning 'cause i got a rash, and I have the same amount of attention from The Dark Gods as you..! xD

Lord: ;) !?! *facepalm*

 

edit reason: typos from Tzeentch.

[Prot]

Oh yea the 'icon' thing drove me friggin nuts..... You have a squad of hardened men, carrying the lollipop of Khorne, and if the guy carrying it gets killed, everyone drops their faith? Give me a break... Someone else picks up the lollipop and smashes an Ultramarine over the head with it. Next.

 

I have really thought about giving the entirety of Chaos a single codex. The only way I think it will work is to go off a theme some of you suggested, but for the entire Legions..... a sort of "trait" system similar to the older Marine dex.

 

I think Chaos lends itself to a trait system better than any other codex.... I mean if you want to play 'Brown Star Chaos Marines' you typically could be a deviation of the standard marines in anyway a trait system would allow you to. The traits would have to accurately represent nearly EVERY major legion, and some of the smaller 'war bands' or fragmented chapters.

 

Inevitably this means the REAL flavour of a fully fleshed out, established Legion will come from colourful characters. The new Chaos codex needs lots of VERY good characters for the chapters.

 

Another way of adding serious flavour is to bring back very malleable HQ's. That was a magic of 3rd edition they REALLY should consider revisiting. You could do some super colourful stuff with HQ's back then.

 

And for the sake of eye of terror, make Termie Lords usable. They must be the most terrifying looking marine unit in the game, that are utterly crap on the tabletop. Same goes for a 'lord'. Why is a lord and a termie lord utter crap? These should be some of the most terrifying units on the tabletop, period.

[Dark Disciple]

Personally I’d like to see a list along the lines of the new DE codex, that is something that shows the personality of the army through its rules.

Something along the lines of cheaper powerful wargear with a drawback. The Plague Marines are a perfect example of this, before you shoot me for heresy here is my thinking. The plague marines gain +1 toughness and feel no pain but their brains are rotted so -1 initiative. Mr Chaos Lord (who will now be referred to as Sven) kills loyalists and is rewarded with an extra arm ending in a big spike! Sven, seeing this as a good thing because he can now kill twice as many loyalists (+1A) wades into melee only to find his coordination isn’t as good (-1 WS).

 

Also Icons being the last thing to go in a unit should defiantly be a rule, if the icon falls the unit should turn into spawn! I love the idea of icons, they’re a great reminder of who has what plus they look cool. And a customisable daemon engine would be lovely.

 

In fact in a moment of sickness induced boredom I hashed together a rough list which could make a good start for the next dex.

 

If anyone’s bored and would like a look just let me know.

 

Disciple

[techsoldaten]

One thing this thread brings to mind is why there are not more Chaos Codexes.

 

Between MEQ, BA, SW, BT, and GK, GW has put a lot of effort into creating a rich set of options for SM players. Obviously, this is guided by market forces, the company is going to make what people are going to buy.

 

I always thought Chaos is one of the more popular armies, second only to SM. Is this not true? I don't play in tournaments anymore, but I have been to GW shops in DC, New York, Las Vegas, Copenhagen, Dublin, Paris and San Francisco. Every one of them had a prominent Chaos army on display and, when there were people playing at the tables, there was at least 1 Chaos army.

 

I would be interested in knowing if there are any actual sales figures around Chaos, and some reason for not having Codexes for at least some of the legions.

[Midgard]

In a perfect world, I would want to see Codex: Chaos Daemons and Codex: Chaos Space Marines spread into five (you've read it right, five) Codices - one for the forces dedicated to each Chaos god, and one for Chaos Undivided. Each Codex would include options for creating an army that is solely dedicated to that god, including Marines, Daemons, and Lost and the Damned forces. While the Undivided Codex would have some overlap with the others, and would be able to take lower-tier cult units (and perhaps some characters), the god-specific Codices would have more specialized/higher level units that would only serve champions following their god of choice. As a result, an Undivided army would be able to include units like Thousand Sons, Plague Marines, and so on, with an occasional sorcerer and some Chaos Daemons (although the god-specific Daemons would end up with more generic stat-line, and without some of their god-specific abilities). A god-specific Codex would be perhaps less balanced (and have fewer builds), but would have some god-specific goodies that an Undivided army would not have access to.

 

Or, the five Codices could also be rolled into two, one for Undivided, one for all Chaos gods. That might be a better decision, commercially speaking, although it does mean that each of the four gods will not get the in-depth treatment of a stand-alone Codex. The underlying mechanics, however, would be closer to the above.

 

I don't know if GW would consider something like that, but I think it would work for both the fluff affictionados and the players seeking to field more specific types of forces (be they Legion remnants, god-specific warbands, or anything in between).

[Smurfalypse]

In a perfect world, I would want to see Codex: Chaos Daemons and Codex: Chaos Space Marines spread into five (you've read it right, five) Codices - one for the forces dedicated to each Chaos god, and one for Chaos Undivided. Each Codex would include options for creating an army that is solely dedicated to that god, including Marines, Daemons, and Lost and the Damned forces. While the Undivided Codex would have some overlap with the others, and would be able to take lower-tier cult units (and perhaps some characters), the god-specific Codices would have more specialized/higher level units that would only serve champions following their god of choice. As a result, an Undivided army would be able to include units like Thousand Sons, Plague Marines, and so on, with an occasional sorcerer and some Chaos Daemons (although the god-specific Daemons would end up with more generic stat-line, and without some of their god-specific abilities). A god-specific Codex would be perhaps less balanced (and have fewer builds), but would have some god-specific goodies that an Undivided army would not have access to.

 

Or, the five Codices could also be rolled into two, one for Undivided, one for all Chaos gods. That might be a better decision, commercially speaking, although it does mean that each of the four gods will not get the in-depth treatment of a stand-alone Codex. The underlying mechanics, however, would be closer to the above.

 

I don't know if GW would consider something like that, but I think it would work for both the fluff affictionados and the players seeking to field more specific types of forces (be they Legion remnants, god-specific warbands, or anything in between).

 

 

Ive always been kinda against having different books for the different gods. It would all feel a bit clunky in my opinion, i would prefer one large book with all references there. To be honest it doesn't take much to get everything into one book, they did it with marines and managed to incorporate multiple chapters into one book in an "ok" manner. Same could be done with the chaos dex.

 

Just personal preference.

[Lord Typhon]

In a perfect world, I would want to see Codex: Chaos Daemons and Codex: Chaos Space Marines spread into five (you've read it right, five) Codices - one for the forces dedicated to each Chaos god, and one for Chaos Undivided. Each Codex would include options for creating an army that is solely dedicated to that god, including Marines, Daemons, and Lost and the Damned forces. While the Undivided Codex would have some overlap with the others, and would be able to take lower-tier cult units (and perhaps some characters), the god-specific Codices would have more specialized/higher level units that would only serve champions following their god of choice. As a result, an Undivided army would be able to include units like Thousand Sons, Plague Marines, and so on, with an occasional sorcerer and some Chaos Daemons (although the god-specific Daemons would end up with more generic stat-line, and without some of their god-specific abilities). A god-specific Codex would be perhaps less balanced (and have fewer builds), but would have some god-specific goodies that an Undivided army would not have access to.

 

Or, the five Codices could also be rolled into two, one for Undivided, one for all Chaos gods. That might be a better decision, commercially speaking, although it does mean that each of the four gods will not get the in-depth treatment of a stand-alone Codex. The underlying mechanics, however, would be closer to the above.

 

I don't know if GW would consider something like that, but I think it would work for both the fluff affictionados and the players seeking to field more specific types of forces (be they Legion remnants, god-specific warbands, or anything in between).

 

They could easily do the Five Codices of Doom in all honesty Midgard, look at Space Marines...how many codices do they have? Each chapter and it's dog has a codex, so why can't we have god-specific ones, they'd be brilliantly made with loads of fluff, and room for including some awesome god-specific goodness.

 

Plague Marines, Plague Terminators, Land Raider Contagion varient (my own idea, Land Raider with chem-throwers and the ability to spawn Nurglings. No apoc sheet yet), chem-throwers instead of flamers, vehicle upgrades, Nurgle Daemons, all sorts of goodness could be included in each 'dex without any trouble.

[Brother Ambroz]

I think we should definitely have something more like our 3.5 dex. Our codex (don't shoot me here) isn't necesarily horrible. It is just EXTREMELY limiting as to what we can play as far as competitive games. We got cheap units instead of our one army HQ's that we used to have in 3.5, but really that's what chaos is all about isn't it? I mean we're 100,000 year old veterans, well most of us anyway (pansy renegades aside), and we should have something to really represent that. We need more viable lists other than 3x3 oblits, 2 DP, 3 troops etc - I think is what we can all agree on.

[maverike_prime]

They could easily do the Five Codices of Doom in all honesty Midgard, look at Space Marines...how many codices do they have? Each chapter and it's dog has a codex, so why can't we have god-specific ones, they'd be brilliantly made with loads of fluff, and room for including some awesome god-specific goodness.

 

Plague Marines, Plague Terminators, Land Raider Contagion varient (my own idea, Land Raider with chem-throwers and the ability to spawn Nurglings. No apoc sheet yet), chem-throwers instead of flamers, vehicle upgrades, Nurgle Daemons, all sorts of goodness could be included in each 'dex without any trouble.

 

 

The biggest problem with doing multiple Chaos Codexes is the cost vs profit. I'm far from a Space Maraine poster boy, but even I have to admit to Space Marines in all their varied forms being the single most widely played army in the franchise. Personally I feel it's due to the ammount of character that GW has poured into the armies under the Space Marine title.

 

I mean Look at the Ultramarines. They have.. what? 6 characters in the current codex? Entire book series dedicated to them? They're on the Boxes of More 40k product then you can shack a stick at. A considerable amount of their history is fleshed out and expanded into real stories.

 

The Dark Angles have a very strong character design around them. They are self-destructive out of shame for their past sins. Plus they have some cool rules that give people interesting tactical options.

 

Space Wolves... They're about the most human of the loyalist marines. They love to drink, eat, have huge parties. They don't worry about those silly little words in the Codex like squads and captain. People love playing the barbarians.

 

The Blood Angles, Psycho Vampires. Nuff Said.

 

 

Lets look at Chaos.

 

World Eaters: Psychos with Axes. Okay. Good strong theme but they've only very recently started to expand on the World Eaters beyond that concept.

 

Death Guard: Arguable the most developed of the Traitor Legions. They have a very strong character. This gives people a very strong foundation for playing a Death Guard Army.

 

Thousand Sons: Weather by design or accident, the Thousand Sons have effectively been crippled from the prospect of an army level concept. Even though they had some great character in their back ground, something like 9 out of every 10 Thousand Sons marines are nothing but a pile of dust in their armor.

 

Emperors' Children: Their defining idea has been the Noise Marines and I'm sorry, but I still don't understand how they came to the obsession with sound. It's like Bile started tinkering with the brains during the Heresy and they were like "Hey Sounds affects the brain."

 

Night Lords: We know they're a bunch of thugs and gangsters who rule through terror, but they've never really give us the ability to run an army of them that reflected that concept. So they're little more then a paint scheme and a name.

 

Iron Warriors: I have to give credit to Storm of Iron for the popularity of this army. Nuff said.

 

Word Bearers: Very strong theme, but no real way to represent them on the table. the 3.5 codex had a good method, but with the transition to the 4th Edition, the Demon Bomb army quickly became over powered so it got scaled back to it's current incarnation. With is you proxy everything and just say your lord is your Dark Apostle and the generic demons are... well... generic demons.

 

Black Legion: With the exception of Abaddon they're just the basic fud-fud Chaos Legion.

[Midgard]

I think mavericke_prime sums up the point I was trying to make really well, in that five Codices for Chaos would be fun, but probably not a very sound commercial decision. I don't know the exact numbers, but presumably most Chaos players would end up with the Undivided Codex, and perhaps with one of the god-specific ones they favor. As a result, from GW's perspective (since they are a for-profit business, and I wouldn't expect them to think differently about it), they would incur the expense of printing and distributing five books, with the knowledge that an average player would only end up with one or two.

 

The below is pure conjecture, as I don't know the exact sales details, production costs, distribution costs, etc associated with the books and their direct impact on miniature sales, however, it could be somewhat descriptive of GW's thought process (and perhaps an argument that could be made towards revising their Chaos range).

 

Currently, there are two Chaos books (Daemons and Marines), and as far as I can tell, Marines are more popular. There is some unit overlap between the two (i.e. most Troops units from Daemon Codex could represent generic Summoned Daemons, while Daemon Princes and Greater Daemons could be used with either Marine or Daemon army), which leads me to believe that the Chaos Daemons Codex probably does not drive huge amounts of miniature sales by itself - in fact, the Marine Codex probably drives some Daemon miniature sales (or it would, if the Summoned Daemons were a bit more useful on the tabletop).

 

As a result, an average player interested in Chaos will probably buy one book, with a fraction of Chaos players buying a second one. I would imagine that most Chaos players will end up with a Chaos Marine Codex, with the second largest group in possession of both Marine and Daemons Codices, and a small minority in possession of only the Daemons Codex. GW incurs the costs for creating, printing, and distributing two Codices, along with associated miniature ranges, some of which might have more limited appeal.

 

Now, suppose the Daemons Codex was rolled into the Chaos Space Marines Codex, allowing for an army using both, or using one over the other. Simultaneously, the greater Chaos Codex is split in five - Undivided, and four god-specific Codices.

 

The problem is, most players will probably not buy all five books. While GW probably gets good quantity discounts at printers, and is able to utilize the economies of scale, distributing printed materials could still be expensive, which means that a certain level of sales, a "break-even point", must be reached in order for the books not to be a net loss. Furthermore, as corporation, GW is obligated to provide a desired level of return on equity to its shareholders, meaning that simply "breaking even" is not enough. There is also a concept of opportunity cost - when all other things are equal, a company will always choose the most profitable project.

 

Let's recap - here, the company will incur the costs of generating and distributing five Codices, with some miniature ranges that are exclusive to each Codex. While the Undivided Codex will probably sell fairly well, the other Codices individually will probably not be big sellers - in full, they would probably match or exceed the unit sales of the Undivided Codex, but not to the extent where fixed and variable costs associated with printing and distributing them would improve the overall profit margin. And then, there are also miniatures, some of which will only be useful for niche Codices - which means those miniatures would have to be priced high in order to make limited runs cost-efficient, which, in turn, would drive some of the players away from these niche Codices.

 

Now, an Undivided Codex with basic options for fielding some cult units (similar to current C:CSM) would probably be a good seller - with another Codex, let's call it Codex: Chaos Cults, allowing god-specific armies, probably a good seller as well. The miniatures that go with it would be useful across a broad range of armies - at least eight armies, possibly twelve that could be done with Chaos Cults (four Marine armies, four Daemon armies, and possibly four Lost and the Damned armies), plus three types of armies from a main Undivided Codex (Marines, Daemons, LatD). Something like that could prompt greater number of miniature sales, which, as we know, are GW's commercial lifesblood, while prompting a greater number of players to acquire miniatures they would not have otherwise considered. Thus, commercially, this is probably the best choice, as it would have the best ratio of cost versus profit.

 

Then again, it is up to GW to decide what they do and do not want to do. Ultimately it will probably end up being a business decision, and hopefully someone out there is making the above argument and it is not falling on deaf ears.