Which chaos legions should get a supplement

[Sception]

If it was worth it, I wouldn't complain so much. I'd just take it every time, and pretend leaving it off wasn't an option to begin with. Sadly, that is not the case - it's overpriced on nearly everything, especially so on units that might actually care, like raptors, talons, chosen, and terminators. Sadly/Hilariously, trying to price it extra on 'close combat' units actually contributes to some of those units being worse at close combat than supposedly 'shooty' units. Check out raptors and bikes. Raptors are already slightly overpriced, and bikes slightly underpriced, but it's only more hilarious if you give them vets, which only cost one point on bikes since they're a 'shooty unit', but cost two points on raptors since they're a 'close combat unit'. And now we have bikes that are blatantly better than raptors at both shooting and close combat.

 

It's like Kelly was afraid of letting any of our melee units actually be capable of performing their job. Sure, some of our shooting or hybrid units are at least passable, and the baledrake is just ridiculous to the point of distorting the entire game, but most of our melee specialist units are pretty bad, and in an army with a supposed close combat leaning, that's petty sad.

[Brother Ambroz]

 

It's like Kelly was afraid of letting any of our melee units actually be capable of performing their job.

 

I think he was afraid of making anything too powerful. He succeeded with pretty much everything, except failing miserably with the drake.

 

Edit: Poked my head in the C:SM rumor thread and from the sounds of it, they'll likely be getting mini codex books for some of the chapters. Still just rumors though.

[daveNYC]

And supposedly there is a Tau: Farsight supplement.  Which can only mean that they're taking their time to make sure that the Chaos supplements are perfect.

[Kol Saresk]

I doubt that. More like they'll backtrack through the previously released Codices From oldest to newest, meaning we'll be last. Although they'll probably just skip over the DA, not much you can do their unless there's an aberrant Chapter I don't know about. Most likely, our Chaos Supplements will be repeats of the Index Astartes articles with something "new and exciting" thrown in since the Supplements are turning out to be very faction specific. We might actually end up seeing one for each of the Legions going by the pattern of one specific Craftworld and then one specific faction of the Tau, although what that will do for us, I have not a clue.

[Dam13n]

OK...

Legions that would benefit from a supplement and why:

- Thousand Sons/Tzeentch theme - underpowered in 6th - really could do with a boost

- Alpha Legion - no specific (special) character - Huron sort of works, but it's counts-as.

- Night Lords - no specific (special) character and no real way of truly representing them on the table (and no, I don't mean "Raptor Legion")

Legions GW would likely do a supplement for:

- Black Legion - because they are the default (generic) legion, much akin to the smurfs of chaos

- Alpha Legion - because the secondary army in the "picture section" of the codex is Alpha Legion

- Iron Warriors - dark-mech list to encourage people to buy more daemon engines and mutilators/obliterators

What I'd like to see personally, either:

- A campaign book, ideally centred around a joint Alpha Legion & Night Lords invasion of an imperial world, introducing a couple of special characters with unique warlord traits and some new undivided only psychic powers. All wrapped up in a nice narrative.

- A Legion based book, centred on the Thousand Sons, but including non-TS Tzeentch elements, ideally centred on the feud with the Eldar and the attempted invasion of the Webway. Could be used to introduce Sorcerer Cabals, Psychic Power tables based on the "Schools of Sorcery" and maybe a Warlord Trait that makes all Thousand Sons within 12" of the Warlord Relentless (instead of S&P).

- A book centred on the Word Bearers, linked to both Codex CSM and Codex CD introducing synergistic elements to further enhance them as a combined army. Could also be used to introduce undivided Daemon Princes, and re-introduce either Kor Phaeron or Erebus into the 40k universe, which would be cool.

The problem, as I see it, is that CSM are once again a high risk of being the "test codex" of 6th edition (just like we (sort of) were in 5th - released just before 5th in the format of a 5th edition codex, but soon found to be inadequate and left to rot). This could mean we languish in obscurity again. No supplement, no new models, no love ... until our next codex (I'm predicting just before 8th edition) hits, where we can be used as a test subject once again.

[Sception]

I view the most likely choices as the cults. One at a time, not all four in a single book. They're the strongest visually, with the most likely new models to tie in (new plastic cults have been rumored to be in the works for a while now). If GW were willing to take the whole subfaction thing a lot farther than they have with iyanden, you might even see cross-codex supplements that way including daemon & CSM options of a particular alignment, or at the very least a single faction book that included separate sublists for both books. They also cover a much broader range of groups of CSMs - after all, only the iron warriors are the iron warriors, but there's bunches of 'Slaaneshi warbands' apart from just the remnants of the Emperor's Children legion.

 

The other possible choice imo is Night Lords. Because they are seen as the raptor legion and we did get a new raptor kit, one that may possibly have sold less than GW might have liked due to being rather lackluster in the codex as is. Something as simple as 'the old lightning claw jump lord has been repackaged as a Night Lords supplement special character that gives a jump unit he joins heroic intervention and lets you take raptors as troops' would certainly sell a lot of us$50 supplement books, us$25 finecast blisters, and us$35 raptor/warptalon kits.

 

Or, let's face it, $35 finecast blisters and $40 raptor kits, because it's GW, right?

 

 

Of course, I'm still not convinced that this is likely at all, and not at all convinced that it's something I actually want to see, since those sublists are what gave us such stereotypes as 'night lords are the raptor legion' and 'iron warriors are the obliterator legion' in the first place. But whatever.

[Pariah Mk.231]

And here I was thinking Iron Warriors was the 'must take a basilisk' legion. Geeze, not only did I feel bad for not having a basilisk, now I feel bad for only having 3 obliterators.

 

I guess we can add not having a warpsmith to that list too (but that just comes down to being poor). Ah well, at least I have 3 vindicators to make up for my faction short-comings.

[Kol Saresk]

To be fully honest, I really kind of like Dam13n's idea of a campaign book with the Alpha Legion and Night Lords. Doubt it'll happen though. But no, I think they just do a reprint of the Index Astartes, if they do anything. It's already there, the fluff is better quality than some of the things that have come out recently, throw in some army pics and then make some 6th Edition rules. BAM! New Raptor Legion along with a new Obliter-Basilisk Legion.

[Ammonius]

Well, I think that if they were to release Iron Warrior-centric rules they wouldn't do Basilisks or Obliterators, because I already own plenty of both :)

[Iron_Within]

If they really wanted to do a Iron warrior focussed it would likely have like the Iyanden supplement some new wargear replacing old ones, and some special rules. What they wouldn't do is add unique models or restrict existing units.

I believe the logical step would be to have further upgrades for basic CSM units (Icons for specific Legions for example). I could only see them adding special wargear to give Lords the ability to call bombardments ala IG Command Squad. For individual equipment you'd see things that would be unique to Iron Warriors, Even the "obliterator virus" special upgrade to the ubiquitous requirement to return our beloved servo arms.

[darknightdrako]

If they really wanted to do a Iron warrior focussed it would likely have like the Iyanden supplement some new wargear replacing old ones, and some special rules. What they wouldn't do is add unique models or restrict existing units.

I believe the logical step would be to have further upgrades for basic CSM units (Icons for specific Legions for example). I could only see them adding special wargear to give Lords the ability to call bombardments ala IG Command Squad. For individual equipment you'd see things that would be unique to Iron Warriors, Even the "obliterator virus" special upgrade to the ubiquitous requirement to return our beloved servo arms.

 

Also adding flesh metal as an available option for a lord to buy would be nice.

[Pariah Mk.231]

That would indeed be nice. Fleshmetal on a Nurgle bikelord with the Sigil, or a Khorne Jugger-Axe lord, oh baby!

[Sception]

But why would adding fleshmetal make sense for a limited sub-faction supplement, apart from maybe for iron warriors? Why would nurgle get fleshmetal and not Slaanesh, or Tzeentch and not Khorne, since lets be frank, cult alignments seem by far the most likely supplement options for chaos?

 

I don't think we should be looking to, expecting, or even desiring supplement books to fix general problems in the core book.

[Sanctimonius]

I'm torn on the whole thing, really. I don't want to go the route that you *have* to get this or that unit to be considered a fluffy choice for your chosen legion, but I'm guessing the most likely option for a supplement will be the cult legions, as others have said. It's just too easy, and gives a lot of options for GW to bilk us. That said, who here would say no to the possibility of cult terminators, of really having a cult army at your disposal, extra units geared towards the specific cults.

 

Personally, I want to see the other legions properly represented. A few new choices would be nice - maybe a few hundred points from the IG codex for Alpha legion, some extra Imperial siege weaponry for the IW. But I want to see real differences between the basic legion chaos marines. A Night Lord is a different beast to a Word Bearer, and an Iron Warrior is not the same as a Alpha Legionary. I don't know how hard it would be to differentiate, but it would go a long way towards actually giving the character of the legions to our armies. 

[Sception]

Plus the cult legions let you cover both daemons and csms with a single supplement, and answers the complaint of not being able to run cults as troops in allied detachments. Just seems like the best choice, although it also means holding off on such supplements until new plastic cult troops are available. Or doing khorne first and sticking with the current 'zerkers, I guess. Probably repackaged in a 'sacred number' approved box of eight for the same price as the current box of twelve.

 

Of course, cult supplements would also be an ideal time to release new plastic greater daemons, which were also rumored to be in the works.

[Brother Ambroz]

If they ever do a cult supplement and decide not to do the "undecided" legions, I'd probably play my Night Lords as a Khornate cult. Guessing alot of other people would do the same, after all alot of us with undivided legions still lean towards one or two of the gods anyway.

[Sception]

Considering that the most you'd likely get out of such a Khornate supplement would be the ability to field berzerkers as troops regardless of HQ choice and access to khornate chain axes as a weapon option for HQs and squad leaders, at the cost of no marks apart from khorne, I'm not sure exactly what it is you'd think you'd be getting as a Night Lords player using a Khornate supplement? Chances of actual meaningful new units - like drop pods or skullcrushers - are virtually nil based on the Iyanden book.

 

On the other hand, while I'm not sure you'd really get anything out of it, the point you raise of some 'undevided' legion players leaning towards one of the four gods - Rust & corrosion or techno-virus themed Iron Warriors with Nurgle leanings come to mind - is another reason why cult supplements make more sense and are potentially of broader interest than legion-specific supplements, yeah.

[Brother Ambroz]

What would you get out of it? Why do you insist a cult themed supplement would only be berzerkers as troops? You're assuming things that we don't know about yet. How about cult terminators? Better CC options?

[Kol Saresk]

We know that Iyanden made it possible for a Wraith Knight(a single Wraith Knight) to act as Warlord. As far as units go, that's it. But, IIRC, the rest of the two pages of rules gave different wargear options and warlord traits. Not sure what exactly that entailed since I am not really paying attention to the discussions concerning it, but at the very least, maybe, just maybe, everyone might get the rending chainaxes they've been screaming about. And maybe an option to do something like "Upgrade one squad of Terminators to Berzerker-Terminators" or something like that. From a fluff standpoint since Terminators are supposed to be very rare and I imagine they'd be even rarer in Cults(specifically a cult whose followers are constantly dying in battle), I'd imagine they'd be even rarer. If done right, even with just those three things of "allow a single of one unit to do this", different wargear options and Warlord Traits could do a lot. Iyanden didn't make Wraith Guard standard troops. You still had to take a specific HQ to do that. And it was already an option in the standard Codex. I believe it was the Spiritseer which did it. So even if we just follow that little bit, we would still need Khârn or a Khorne Lord to unlock Berzerkers as Troops.