The real problem with the Chaos Space Marines Codex

[Noctus Cornix]

And I think you're dead wrong.

 

So you're telling me you can't play an Iron Warriors army with the new codex or a Word Bearers army? Tell me what possible good could Legion Specific rules can give you that the codex can't do. The only thing that's not there anymore is the restrictions and ill be damned if some one dimensional codex tells me that I can't use half of the book if I want to play something. Every Legion is completely viable in the new codex without chaining people up with useless restrictions that didn't make sense in the first place.

[Noctus Cornix]

Sorry, accidental double post.

[Brother Ambroz]

Think what you want. I agree with Deus and Vesper. I don't want another 3.5, as great as it was. We do need legion specific rules though. The fluff may portray the majority of warbands coming from multiple chapters/legions but the truth is the vast majority of actual players have warbands from a single legion or chapter. Thus they also want rules to represent this (myself included) and the easiest way to do this I think would be to introduce Veteran skills. Maybe not all of them but a fair few Vet skills would differentiate each warband from one another enough to satisfy fans.

 

Edit:

And I think you're dead wrong.

 

So you're telling me you can't play an Iron Warriors army with the new codex or a Word Bearers army? Tell me what possible good could Legion Specific rules can give you that the codex can't do. The only thing that's not there anymore is the restrictions and ill be damned if some one dimensional codex tells me that I can't use half of the book if I want to play something. Every Legion is completely viable in the new codex without chaining people up with useless restrictions that didn't make sense in the first place.

 

Holy crap. You didn't have to play with the restrictions, you could've played the exact same codex we have now just playing your army as a counts as black legion.

 

How are Alpha Legion or Night Lords? Or TS (excluding the normal rubric marines)? As I just said earlier, an easy way to solve this would've been Veteran skills.

[Noctus Cornix]

So people like Deus (no offense intended good sir, simply using your circumstances as an example) can play his Alpha Legion army without taking a counts as Huron, which is one model, people who actually want to play, say Night Lords who actually use chaos basically have to counts our entire army? That seems rather illogical.

 

Alpha Legion and Night Lords are easily represented in the new codex being that there isn't much in the way of specialty to them to begin with. Alpha Legion can take characters with Master of Deception and cultists, if they so choose, and Night Lords have the opportunity to give basically all their men fear. Thousand Sons is easy, Rubric Marines and Sorcerers. That's all that's left of them anyway.

[Brother Amarel]

Alpha Legion and Night Lords are easily represented in the new codex being that there isn't much in the way of specialty to them to begin with. Alpha Legion can take characters with Master of Deception and cultists, if they so choose, and Night Lords have the opportunity to give basically all their men fear. Thousand Sons is easy, Rubric Marines and Sorcerers. That's all that's left of them anyway.

You seem to be applauding the homogenization of the Chaos Legions and suggesting that it's okay that the only way to represent the Alpha Legion is by using a 'Counts as' Chapter Master from a different Chapter and that Night Lords should all have the Mark of Nurgle so as they can have the Icon of Despair.

 

Can't say as I agree with any of that as a 'good direction' for CSM.

[Noctus Cornix]

In some ways, yes I am.

 

To be frank, I don't feel you need anything to represent any legion, I was merely giving rather rudimentary examples. Not all Alpha Legion use simply infiltration to do their bloody deeds and spend all those points just to get a somewhat useless rule like fear is a silly idea. Even the Alpha Legion cannot have the opportunity to infiltrate and outflank, particularly when they are forced into open warfare, which the basic 40k games often represent. If you're looking for a fluffy game that centers around hit and run guerrilla skirmishes or siege warfare, don't be afraid to sit down and chat with your opponents or friends to talk about rules and ideas. that's why they created books like Planet Strike and Cities of Death.

 

Chaos is a vast melting pot of limitless opportunities and the variety in warriors that march beneath its banners is equally limitless. So yes, I am one who applauds the homogenization of chaos because that is what I feel chaos truely is, supported by the fluff. It is merely my opinion of course but, it is an opinion I am very willing to defend.

 

 

But, I will drop the point as it is veering off topic. I agree completely with Idaho on his observation on the sheer mass of information and variety that chaos brings. However, I do not personally believe that making extra codexes will solve the problem and I feel that our current codex, along with the new allies system brings the variety many crave and does chaos justice.

[Verythrax Draconis]

I agree with noctus, and I think the main point isn`t if the rules are fluff or limiting, it`s perfectly possible to cover all legions (and cults and traitors) using this codex. the only real issue is the unit balance, that makes quite difficult to make strong builds restricting ourselves to legions.

[Hellrender]

the problem is. people fall in love with the Alpha Legion because of their sneaky ways, and with the Night Lords because of their terror campaigns. Both of these traits are incredibly hard to put on the table top, as most of the Alpha Legion's wars are fought in the years/decades before the actual encounter, and the actual tabletop game is what.. 1 skirmish/battle that lasts a day or night.

 

The Night Lords have a slightly different problem, with the fear rule being both expensive, and near useless against half the enemies. Raven Guard, and other 'stealth' armies, have similar issues, as this rule can never be proper done, after all, both players see the actual models, the enemy will never guess where your night lords are, he already knows/sees it.

 

So what we have left, to sort of represent the feeling of these legions, is the count as Huron, the rather dull Shrike, and similar.

 

Now i would love to see proper legion rules, but i just dont think that would work very well in the game, and then we have the same people complaining ;)

[Prot]

My first concern here is with the polarizing and hardline negativity, this thread will be closed prematurely. Please try to realize that as a forum we're going to have different opinions.... please be more tolerant of each other here.

 

I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth but I know for myself what I feel is missing Legion wise could be very small. It seems we can't mention 3.5 without people reacting very strongly, BUT one little piece that I liked that came out of it was the IA articles. The IA articles that Graham, and Pete wrote (and others) is what really gave some flavour to the Legions (loyalist as well)!

 

Looking at the loyalist marine codex, for example, you can take some HQ choices that give a nice, little feeling of your chapter. This representation in some cases is very minor, or perhaps more significant.

 

Could you represent Imperial Fists, or Sallies or (fill in the blank) WITHOUT these characters? Sure, but it's a nice touch.

 

Remember that Chaos covers SEVERAL chapters/legions as the Loyalist codex would, however they still have Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Black Templars, Space Wolves, etc.....

 

I'm not even asking for that anymore (10 years ago I was). I would have loved the odd special character that just gave some traits that gave AND took some traits that helped define the army.

[Dallas Drake]

Added a jump pack option to possessed.

 

You mean wings & yikes how much would they run at? Circa 35 points?

 

PS: I think the real reason they didn't do it that way is because third party studios would get all the different cult terminators and lord options out before GW.

 

I agree, & that is the issue with GW right there. Forgeword could've handled upgrade kits for all the Legion stuff, heck some is already done. Seems to me sometimes that GW don't like earning more money.

 

Dallas

[Hellrender]

and there is the problem. Some legions are very easy to give a nice trait to. If it would have been the same format as C:SM, then f.ex World Eaters would get furious charge instead of combat tactics (just an example).

 

What do you give Night Lords? or Alpha legion? Infiltrate? Jump Troops? Fear? It's just very hard to balance out, as Fear, is not usable against space marines. Jump Troops is nto unique, as BA has it. Infiltrate... But again, we already got Huron, and more then D3 infiltrators is just OP.

 

Also, you want flavour for your legion.. i have seen more non-salamander armies with Vulkan, then actual Salamander armies. So much so, that end 5th a lot of people were specificly asking help to NOT make a vulkan list.

if you add rules for each legion, be it in whatever form, then people will use the best rules. Which is logical. Fluff is something that you give to your Legion.

 

Don't get me wrong, in a perfect world, i would have loved proper Fear rules for my Night Lords, or rules that could make Alpha Legion appear to be working for decades before a certain battle, but such things really dont capture well on a tabletop, simply because its not real battle.

 

Again, i whole heartily agree, they could have done a bit more effort in making more varied characters/HQ, but other then that, i dont think Legion rules would in the end, in this edition, in this world, have added anything other, then making more Count As (whole armies), and making things even more inbalanced.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

And I think you're dead wrong.

 

So you're telling me you can't play an Iron Warriors army with the new codex or a Word Bearers army? Tell me what possible good could Legion Specific rules can give you that the codex can't do. The only thing that's not there anymore is the restrictions and ill be damned if some one dimensional codex tells me that I can't use half of the book if I want to play something. Every Legion is completely viable in the new codex without chaining people up with useless restrictions that didn't make sense in the first place.

 

 

Oh, sure you can -- Iron Warriors and Word Bearers are easily represented because their tactical doctrines are built into the Codex (for Iron Warriors -- Vindicators, maybe some Oblits, Land Raider, daemon engines) and into the main rules (for Word Bearers -- ally in some C:CD daemons). But praytell, how do I accurately represent the tactical doctrines of the Night Lords or Alpha Legion?

 

For Alpha Legion, you say Master of Deception and cultists. Well guess what? The only documented case of an Alpha Legion force utilizing cultists as front-line combatants is Hunt for Voldorius. One. That's it. In fact, the quintessential Alpha Legion operation and the only one documented in the last two Chaos Marines codices, thus representing the standard modus operandi of the Legion as a whole is the fall of the Emperor's Swords at Ghorstangrad. And guess how many times "cultists" or "human auxiliaries" or "traitor Guard" are mentioned in the fall of Emperor's Swords. None. Not one. Zilch, zero.

 

Cultists do not an Alpha Legion army make. The hydra icon for the Legion represents their doctrine of striking from multiple directions at once. The rules, be they Codex or BGB, do not allow for this doctrine to be taken into account. Chaos has no way of rerolling/dictating reserves, asserting deep strike zones, outflanking from the enemy board edge, or infiltrating units on a large scale. So praytell, how do I accurately represent an Alpha Legion army on the table top?

 

The only answer is, I can't. The best I can do is field Huron or Ahirman and hope for the best on my d3 roll? That's garbage, especially compared to the Chapter-specific rules of say, the Salamanders -- granted by a Salamander HQ -- that benefits armies built around that Chapter's tactical doctrine.

 

Representing the Night Lords is even more challenging because their doctrine is based around psychological warfare, and threatening your opponent before the game begins with a Bowie knife is not only stupid, it's also illegal.

 

So tell me, Noctis, why I should NOT be arguing for Legion rules?

[Agerjag]

If they make 2 more books that a year more dev time at least in the cycle, I wish there was a 1k sons book as they are represented so poorly...as in they are bad, but no thanks to additional dev time.

 

I should also add that people who need special characters to represent their playstyle lack imagination. Both night lords and alpha legion as mentioned before do most of their work before battles and only fight stand up battles when they have to. Most of their battles are just slaughters after well done pre-planning. The battles represented in 40k are even in points to represent even engagements which RARELY happen in the fluff. Also 10 space marines fluffwise being able to take out a whole company of guard easily is not represented in the rules either. The only way you will be able to make battles like the night lords/alpha legion, is to make your own special mission and rules (the points will be skewed with the addition of rules and such) and run a full on story driven game. These are alot of fun as well. The 3.5 dex rules for alpha were super bland and did not really represent the legion at all.

[Vilicate]

As someone who has played with every iteration of chaos in the modern era (re: after 2nd ed), honestly the best book was the first one from 3rd with the IA articles. Sure, some of the units could have been buffed up a bit, but the foundation for creating cool armies was completely there with the IA articles. We got our first modern, updated look at the background for the various Chaos Legions, and it incited most everyone's obsession for the Heresy Era. Plus, many of them were incredibly good. I really enjoyed the 1ksons and World Eaters special units/rules, and of course my favorite Legion, the Iron Warriors. As I was rather fond of saying, I took Obliterators even when they were bad.

 

Now, that being said, I still like this book. Hell, initially, I was a complete fan of the last book, bland as it was. I love basic CSM, and my army featured them heavily. So when they got a great buff, I was completely excited for what the next books would bring as far as leveling the playing field. Then, however, Codex Space Marines were released and my hopes of a limited option system for everyone were completely dashed. You mean that Space Marines got special characters to help define how different chapters worked, but CSM did not? What kind of crap is that? Plus then add in all the special wargear, Storm Shields, new units and vehicles, and I was gutted. I played that codex for awhile, then returned to playing Eldar for the next couple years. I was incredibly disappointed.

 

Now, I see a book with more options, but we're firmly stuck in the age of the warband. GW has retcon'd the background so that the chaos legions are diffuse, taking in stragglers from other legions/renegade chapters to bolster their numbers, rather than the relatively 'pure' legion warbands that had existed previously. So, with that in mind, rather than pining for the days of the Legion to return, I feel like it just might be time to accept that we're not going to get differentiation from the Legions. They're all Chaos Marines.

 

It's disappointing and somewhat sad that they've effectively thrown out the all the cool background and fighting styles that made the different legions, well...different. The good news is that I don't feel bad about mixing up the units in my armies, Black Legion Style. So while I think I'll probably paint up my basic, unmarked marines as either Iron Warriors or Word Bearers (haven't decided yet), I'll be including marked/Cult Marines from the Flawless Host, World Eaters and Thousand Sons in the near future. And I won't feel bad about doing it. It's even a little liberating from my previous hard-line "no, I won't take plague marines because the Iron Warriors don't follow nurgle, and I'll have to convert my counts-as berserkers heavily so they fit in with my army."

 

I just doubt they'll go back in the future to this book and allow variant army lists; those are way too hard to police and make balanced (something they're clearly doing a better job of so far in this edition and as well in WFB).

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Verythrax Draconis]

For Alpha Legion, you say Master of Deception and cultists. Well guess what? The only documented case of an Alpha Legion force utilizing cultists as front-line combatants is Hunt for Voldorius. One. That's it. In fact, the quintessential Alpha Legion operation and the only one documented in the last two Chaos Marines codices, thus representing the standard modus operandi of the Legion as a whole is the fall of the Emperor's Swords at Ghorstangrad. And guess how many times "cultists" or "human auxiliaries" or "traitor Guard" are mentioned in the fall of Emperor's Swords. None. Not one. Zilch, zero.

 

Cultists do not an Alpha Legion army make. The hydra icon for the Legion represents their doctrine of striking from multiple directions at once. The rules, be they Codex or BGB, do not allow for this doctrine to be taken into account. Chaos has no way of rerolling/dictating reserves, asserting deep strike zones, outflanking from the enemy board edge, or infiltrating units on a large scale. So praytell, how do I accurately represent an Alpha Legion army on the table top?

 

Index Astartes talks a lot about Alpha Legion using cultists - it even show rules on using them <_<

[Noctus Cornix]

Umm... Deus? I'm sorry but I think you're taking my words out of context.

 

I never said that cultists and infiltrate are the end all be all representation of the Alpha Legion. I was merely giving basic examples that relate to the Legion rules of the 3.5 codex that you promote.

 

As Hellrender put so well, the Alpha Legion and the Night Lords are two legions with very distinct traits that do not translate into the game itself. That being said, simply adding Legion rules won't achieve the flavor for your army you so desire. They never did.

[Azekai]

I feel like it just might be time to accept that we're not going to get differentiation from the Legions. They're all Chaos Marines.

 

It's disappointing and somewhat sad that they've effectively thrown out the all the cool background and fighting styles that made the different legions, well...different. The good news is that I don't feel bad about mixing up the units in my armies, Black Legion Style. So while I think I'll probably paint up my basic, unmarked marines as either Iron Warriors or Word Bearers (haven't decided yet), I'll be including marked/Cult Marines from the Flawless Host, World Eaters and Thousand Sons in the near future. And I won't feel bad about doing it. It's even a little liberating from my previous hard-line "no, I won't take plague marines because the Iron Warriors don't follow nurgle, and I'll have to convert my counts-as berserkers heavily so they fit in with my army."

I am glad that works for you, but very few of us want to play with Codex: Black Legion. The 'happy chaos family' is something that I always thought was silly, almost a loyalist misrepresentation of chaos than anything else. In reality, we hate each other. Our time in the Eye is spent murdering each other. Short of a very powerful guy like Abaddon leading the charge, mixed-god warbands are really rare (outside of the trite examples in the codex); which makes sense. Why would Death Guard and Thousand Sons join forces? Their goals are completely different, as are their methods and theological views.

 

It would be like Aleister Crowley and the Pope teaming up.

[Verythrax Draconis]

I think this vision is exaggerated. it`s not just because it is all in the same code that it means that `we love each other`. It`s just presented that way cause it use Chaos Undivided as the base - what is very logical from a design standpoint. What to focus on one god cause you hate the other - You can. If you want to play BL you can as well.

 

All the flavor is there and it`s very possible to bring it up - the problem is that most units suck if you rely on them that way.

[Brother Ambroz]

So Noctus, for Night Lords if we want fear you're basically saying its ok to give them MoN/Fear Icon and count it as something else, but its not alright to use the army as a counts as BL? For Alpha Legion yeah they're not as specific, but they do have their niches which people want reflected in the rules. TS is mostly rubrics but what about raptors, havocs and terminators for example? You can choose not to use them but it limits you. Just a few examples. Those that play these legions want to be special. They want their things that differentiate their chaos marines from their friends chaos marines.

 

Really if they want to satisfy the vast majority of players (which they'll never satisfy everyone, as evidence ^^) I think they need to give some of the old legion rules again or just give us the option to customize more with veteran skills.

[Xenith]

Oh, sure you can -- Iron Warriors...tactical doctrines are built into the Codex (for Iron Warriors -- Vindicators, maybe some Oblits, Land Raider, daemon engines) and into the main rules (for Word Bearers -- ally in some C:CD daemons). But praytell, how do I accurately represent the tactical doctrines of the Night Lords or Alpha Legion?

 

So. You just pigeon-holed the Iron Warriors horrendously.

 

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the Emperor and other Primarchs did, and Peturabo wasn't too happy about it. We all know how that ended.

 

The Iron warriors are Legion, and not every IW army will be defined by using all three heavy slots, for example what would a breach holding iron warriors force look like? What would a Night Lords siege army look like?

 

If you really want to make you Night Lords perform on the table like they do in the fluff, you have to phone your would be victim opponent every night at 3am and breathe heavily down the phone. Then steal his phone. Kill his cat, then crucify it on his front door. Kidnap him, leave him in a dark room for 3 days, then finally shove his army in his hands and tell him he has 5 mins to make a list.

 

I do believe that more variety could be added, but probably at the risk of more codexes. Which is a bad thing. I play IW and TS. I don't want to have to buy 2x £30 books to use them together.

 

I like this book, it has added more flavour. And my Iron Warriors will be making heavy use of range finders cultists. That doesn't make it an unfluffy army.

[Captain Idaho]

Personally I'd like a return to variant lists, as a means to flesh out the hobby without GW forking out resources it can't sustain.

 

Early in the edition yet but I have a good feeling GW will release a whole host of supplements.

[Agerjag]

@Xenith man, that could be night lords or alpha legion framing night lords. Win Win for this crowd.

[Xenith]

@Xenith man, that could be night lords or alpha legion framing night lords. Win Win for this crowd.

 

Nah, if you want to go Alpha Legion, you need to mess with their facebook account.

[Vilicate]

I feel like it just might be time to accept that we're not going to get differentiation from the Legions. They're all Chaos Marines.

 

It's disappointing and somewhat sad that they've effectively thrown out the all the cool background and fighting styles that made the different legions, well...different. The good news is that I don't feel bad about mixing up the units in my armies, Black Legion Style. So while I think I'll probably paint up my basic, unmarked marines as either Iron Warriors or Word Bearers (haven't decided yet), I'll be including marked/Cult Marines from the Flawless Host, World Eaters and Thousand Sons in the near future. And I won't feel bad about doing it. It's even a little liberating from my previous hard-line "no, I won't take plague marines because the Iron Warriors don't follow nurgle, and I'll have to convert my counts-as berserkers heavily so they fit in with my army."

I am glad that works for you, but very few of us want to play with Codex: Black Legion. The 'happy chaos family' is something that I always thought was silly, almost a loyalist misrepresentation of chaos than anything else. In reality, we hate each other. Our time in the Eye is spent murdering each other. Short of a very powerful guy like Abaddon leading the charge, mixed-god warbands are really rare (outside of the trite examples in the codex); which makes sense. Why would Death Guard and Thousand Sons join forces? Their goals are completely different, as are their methods and theological views.

 

It would be like Aleister Crowley and the Pope teaming up.

 

I think you're over generalizing. I would argue that most folks at this point don't even know the previous fluff. Remember that the amount of people who actually are passionate about the hobby enough to read/participate on online forums is relatively small, so a sampling from our forums is probably not really accurate. From my experience in the past working as a seller of nerdery at several different game stores, I can attest to this from personal interactions.

 

All of that stuff that's been written in the past doesn't matter anymore. It's no longer relevant in the current environment. If you want to remain a purist, you're more than welcome to. You have the option in the book to create lists that have cult troops choices. I would not assume that people are going to recognize that Nurgle's sacred number is seven or that the DG mostly organized their squads in sacred numbers, or that Iron Warriors favored squads in multiples of three or Word Bearers twelve. That just isn't pertinent to the rules or even really even existent in the background anymore.

 

If you want to theme your list, you're absolutely able to. I'll still be using sacred numbers in all my cult squads, and most all my marked units, if it's allowed.

 

So all and all, I'd argue that the current state of the background is how it exists to the general public - in this case I'd argue that there's more people who see chaos as fragmented and spaced out, but with a common goal of destroying the Imperium; rather than an ultra divided and separated, rigidly-organized groups of traitors who share the same father and have extreme bonds of brotherhood. Heh, the example I just thought of is chaos is more like a paper plate with all the Thanksgiving foods tossed on willy-nilly, rather than put into a Styrofoam tray with the separators so that your food doesn't touch. Sometimes the peas get into the gravy, and you eat those in one bite, but it's still good; Phil Kelly is an excellent cook, after all. :P

[Azekai]

I am afraid we are just going to have to agree to disagree Vilicate. I hate mixing my mashed potatoes, turkey and stuffing. :P