And the Supplement for CSM is....

[totgeboren]

I don't know how many turkeys they'll really sell though.  In casual games, I find my two turkeys are usually more than enough, I haven't been tempted to pick up even the third I could already take.  Though I suppose dual turkey plus two units of spawn or bikes might be nice.  I'd still probably rather run daemon allies.

 

If they really wanted to sell boxes to chaos players, they'd slap a spikey bit sprue in a drop pod box, with a white dwarf write up to make it a dedicated transport for our marine infantry.  I know I harp on this alot, but I bought all of two boxes from our codex release, and I'd buy twice that of drop pods alone if it were only an option, and I can't be the only one.

 

You are definitely not the only one. I been looking over the rules for Dreadclaws, and thinking of making my own, but they are inferior to drop pods in so many ways, not to mention hogging a fast attack slot and being really expensive. Just plain old Drop pods would be a godsend, and really help out a lot of our units that are struggling.

[Gree]

 

 

 

 

I'm surprised at the tone of the preview text, I admit. It's very black and white, no pun intended. Say what you want about the rules of the main codex on here, the lore and tone of the description matched all the IP chatter I've been part of, and the tone of Chaos a bunch of us seemed to agree with, going forward.

I have to admit I felt a bit empty handed when I read the lore of the CSM codex. A quick paragraph on each Legion, several pages on the Abyssal crusade (I felt it sould've been either expanded, by giving us more info on the fate of some chapters, or reduced, to include different pieces of background. Then, there's the timeline, which is great. But that's pretty much it, and, well, I wanted more.

Could you expand on that "black and white" part of your vision of the preview ?

 

 

 

The "Hounds of Abaddon" text, in its entirety. Bear in mind I have to be very careful with what I say here, as anything can be turned in a negative light, and that's not my intent.

 

A lot of people will love it because it's detail and structure from vagueness, and everyone craves detail. I crave detail. Crave it hard. If it comes down to tone, though - a lot of my posts on here plainly show what tone for Chaos I prefer and tend to run with. I wouldn't expect to see any Chaos Lords leading all Khorne-Marked or Tzeentch-Marked warriors in the Black Legion series, for example. From my understanding of Chaos, and the discussions I've been part of with other IP folks, it's just not that black and white.

 

 

I'm not expecting anything close to that either. To be fair, I was quite surprised by that Hounds of Abaddon thingy.

I think it might be a sacrifice to flesh out the command structure of the Black Legion. It's interesting to talk about how, within the Black Legion, antagonist cults manage (or not) to put aside their differences to serve a higher purpose. And that probably is also what happens at the head of the Legion.

I wonder if we'll have similar stuff for Tzeentch, Slaanesh and Nurgle.

I'm not exactly sure why that would be a problem. Why exactly would an all-God force in the Black Legion be unnecessarily unfluffy? After all the Black Legion is supposed to encompany all of Chaos? There are plenty of ways one could easily justify such a force in the Black Legion.

 

For example a Death Guard warlord growing tired of Mortarion and joining Abaddon. He brings with him his personal group of Plague Marines and proceeds to covert most of his other followers in his new warband into Nurgle worship. I can't imagine why that would be unfluffy.

 

Or perhaps an ex-SoH assault captain, one of the old guard who increasingly fell into Khorne worship along with the rest of his former company. When Abaddon acquired the service of the Berzerker-Surgeons he gleefully transformed his warband's elite into Berzerkers, sacrificing those who refused to follow Khorne.

 

Or perhaps a former Librarian from the Imperial Fists, having went renegade for the worship of Tzeentch, joins the Black Legion and deliberately seeks to form a warband of those who follow his patron God as part of a far-reaching prophetic vision he received. All part of one of Tzeentch's labyrinthine schemes.

 

I can think of all sorts of cool reasons why you would have a Mono-God force in the Black Legion. After all Abaddon's chief concern with the whole thing is that they follow him loyally. Other than that you have warbands of all sizes and compositions following Abaddon.

 

I don't want to put anyone's views in a negative light, but it seems like a rather narrow view to take of the Black Legion.

Is it weird that I like the all VotLW rule? Not only is it fluffy, being the force that declared the long war, but I also prefer to run my units with it. I do agree that i is overpriced on the raptors and chosen, but my chosen will still usually end up with it.

I may grab this, if the rule boosts are good enough, even though I'm not planning to take the black.

I usually take it for the 1+ Leadership really. At least on my non-fearless units. Even if I'm not facing Space Marines, that 1+ Leadership has saved my hide countless times. It's probably overpriced and should have been incorporated into all of the units, but I consider it to be a worthwhile upgrade.

[Kol Saresk]

Part of being Undivided is that your force is literally undivided. No segregation whatsoever. A servant of Khorne is just as likely to be seen next to a soldier of Slaanesh while having small talk with a sorcerer of Tzeentch. Undivided isn't just an alignment in the Black Legion; it's a literal statement.

 

EDIT: That's not say they won't exist, but they'll in the relative minority.

[Gumo9]

I'm a bit dismayed about all the negativity. CSM is currently my favourite codex, really enjoying playing it and very excited to be getting a supplement as my models are all painted up as Black Legion.

 

I think VotLW as mandatory fits well with the feel of the legion. Yes I would obviously like a few nice benefits to go along with the "tax" but thinking about it, a unit 10 basic chosen is 50 points more than 10 chaos marines but you get 3 attacks per model in close combat rather than just 1. Shooty and choppy - I quite like the versatility.

 

I'm looking forward to trying them out on the table to see if I can make them work. Then again, I'm not a serious competition player so what do I know. I just enjoy the game because it's fun.

 

Roll on next Saturday.

 

G

[A D-B]

 

 

 

I'm surprised at the tone of the preview text, I admit. It's very black and white, no pun intended. Say what you want about the rules of the main codex on here, the lore and tone of the description matched all the IP chatter I've been part of, and the tone of Chaos a bunch of us seemed to agree with, going forward.

I have to admit I felt a bit empty handed when I read the lore of the CSM codex. A quick paragraph on each Legion, several pages on the Abyssal crusade (I felt it sould've been either expanded, by giving us more info on the fate of some chapters, or reduced, to include different pieces of background. Then, there's the timeline, which is great. But that's pretty much it, and, well, I wanted more.

Could you expand on that "black and white" part of your vision of the preview ?

 

 

The "Hounds of Abaddon" text, in its entirety. Bear in mind I have to be very careful with what I say here, as anything can be turned in a negative light, and that's not my intent.

 

A lot of people will love it because it's detail and structure from vagueness, and everyone craves detail. I crave detail. Crave it hard. If it comes down to tone, though - a lot of my posts on here plainly show what tone for Chaos I prefer and tend to run with. I wouldn't expect to see any Chaos Lords leading all Khorne-Marked or Tzeentch-Marked warriors in the Black Legion series, for example. From my understanding of Chaos, and the discussions I've been part of with other IP folks, it's just not that black and white.

 

>I'm not expecting anything close to that either. To be fair, I was quite surprised by that Hounds of Abaddon thingy.

I think it might be a sacrifice to flesh out the command structure of the Black Legion. It's interesting to talk about how, within the Black Legion, antagonist cults manage (or not) to put aside their differences to serve a higher purpose. And that probably is also what happens at the head of the Legion.

I wonder if we'll have similar stuff for Tzeentch, Slaanesh and Nurgle.

I'm not exactly sure why that would be a problem. Why exactly would an all-God force in the Black Legion be unnecessarily unfluffy? After all the Black Legion is supposed to encompany all of Chaos? There are plenty of ways one could easily justify such a force in the Black Legion.

 

Naw, that wouldn't be a problem, at all. That's not what I'm saying; in fact, quite the opposite, I've said so several times on here (and in my feedback to the codex itself), but I'm specifically talking about the Hounds of Abaddon text, and the example I used. Don't expect to see The Leader of All Black Legion Khorne Marines in the Black Legion series, because I struggle to see it working like that. At least that bluntly. These are the kind of broad, broad overview tropes that get subverted or interpreted in deeper, more involved writing.

 

That's what I mean. 

[Sception]

I don't see how the Hounds of Abbadon conflict with that.  The fluff says they're not a warband, they're just what the Legion's Khornate elite call themselves, regardless of which warband they're in.  Urkanthos is not the leader of the Black's only khornate army, he's the cult leader of the worship of khorne within the legion.  The other cults will have their own religious leader, but that doesn't mean the various aligned forces don't fight together in mixed warbands under their the legions various warlords.

 

 

As for VotLW being a requirement - that doesn't seem to fit the Black Legion on the whole to me.  Their membership is open to any marines willing to swear to abaddon, from ancient heresy vets to the youngest newly created chaos marines & most recent space marine renegades.  I suppose it would work for Abaddon's personal forces, the Legion Core of former sons of horus members.

 

I don't mind it so much, but it is a relatively costly requirement.  I'm just hoping it pays for something more than troop chosen, because troop chosen just aren't good, especially if they're required to spend two more points apiece for vets.  Hopefully there's more to it then that.

 

I'm not bitter about it though.  Worst case scenario, I just keep running lists out of the current book.  No big deal.  Again, it's the added 3 week delay for the ebook release that I'm actually bitter about.

[Gree]

Part of being Undivided is that your force is literally undivided. No segregation whatsoever. A servant of Khorne is just as likely to be seen next to a soldier of Slaanesh while having small talk with a sorcerer of Tzeentch. Undivided isn't just an alignment in the Black Legion; it's a literal statement.

 

EDIT: That's not say they won't exist, but they'll in the relative minority.

 

 

"After the death of Horus, proper structure within the squads and companies disintegrated, and their later dispersal in various spacecraft further fragmented the Legion. Now warbands of virtually any size and composition can be found following Black Legion Champions - ranking officers from older times or newly emerged leaders who have won favour through their violent deeds."- IA Black Legion.

 

Certainly the Black Legion as a whole is Undivided, but many warbands of any size or composition follow Abaddon. I fail to see why it would be unfluffy or even in a minority at that. Given that Abaddon is running a collection of warbands rather than a strictly organized military force, I'd say segregation is more common than you would think.

 

 

Naw, that wouldn't be a problem, at all. That's not what I'm saying; in fact, quite the opposite, I've said so several times on here (and in my feedback to the codex itself), but I'm specifically talking about the Hounds of Abaddon text, and the example I used. Don't expect to see The Leader of All Black Legion Khorne Marines in the Black Legion series, because I struggle to see it working like that. At least that bluntly. These are the kind of broad, broad overview tropes that get subverted or interpreted in deeper, more involved writing.

 

That's what I mean.

Oh, I see then. Thank you for the clarification.

[Kol Saresk]

Mali - On iBooks(I "liberated" my sister's iPad at the moment) it says that the Supplement is expected August 17. I'll try to screen shot it for you.

[Sception]

That is for the ipad only version.  At the top of the page it says 'available for ipad or on your computer on itunes, but if you look down the left column it specifies 'for ipad only', and the ebook version isn't out until september 7th.

[A D-B]

I don't see how the Hounds of Abbadon conflict with that.  The fluff says they're not a warband, they're just what the Legion's Khornate elite call themselves, regardless of which warband they're in.  Urkanthos is not the leader of the Black's only khornate army, he's the cult leader of the worship of khorne within the legion.  The other cults will have their own religious leader, but that doesn't mean the various aligned forces don't fight together in mixed warbands under their the legions various warlords.

 

I understand that. I'm obviously quite limited in what I can say, and that's a pretty big misunderstanding of what I'm saying, so I'm going to bow out right now. 

 

I'm saying, fairly directly, not to take that one section of preview text too literally in terms of seeing it in the Black Legion series. There are as many ways of interacting with the gods as there are Chaos Marines, and it's a nuanced, variable deal, spread across hundreds of warbands who live in a literal Hell, not always having much contact with one another. It's really, really not as simple as "Every Khorne-Marked Marine is all totally involved with The Khorne Guy".

[totgeboren]

Chosen as troops I get. The BL have it good, they are well supplied and and have a large cadre of ferocious warriors. But why must they all be veterans of the long war when just a page before it says that the BL are open to anyone, traitor legionarre and recent renegade alike? The BL might be the legion where such a requirement makes the least amount of sense.

[Kol Saresk]

Ah, it kept taking me straight to iBooks so I wasn't seeing that. My apologies.

[Sception]

Ack, sorry, didn't notice who I was responding to, there, pls ignore me, don't duck out.  :O

[A D-B]

Ack, sorry, didn't notice who I was responding to, there, pls ignore me, don't duck out.

I have to, purely because of how little I can contribute and say without getting in trouble.

You taught me to paint black, by the way. Which I love you for.

[Sception]

!!!as;ldkfsdfajs;dfljksdf!!!

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

Part of being Undivided is that your force is literally undivided. No segregation whatsoever. A servant of Khorne is just as likely to be seen next to a soldier of Slaanesh while having small talk with a sorcerer of Tzeentch. Undivided isn't just an alignment in the Black Legion; it's a literal statement.

 

EDIT: That's not say they won't exist, but they'll in the relative minority.

 

 

"After the death of Horus, proper structure within the squads and companies disintegrated, and their later dispersal in various spacecraft further fragmented the Legion. Now warbands of virtually any size and composition can be found following Black Legion Champions - ranking officers from older times or newly emerged leaders who have won favour through their violent deeds."- IA Black Legion.

 

Certainly the Black Legion as a whole is Undivided, but many warbands of any size or composition follow Abaddon. I fail to see why it would be unfluffy or even in a minority at that. Given that Abaddon is running a collection of warbands rather than a strictly organized military force, I'd say segregation is more common than you would think.

 

 

I didn't say it wouldn't exist. And I didn't say they would be uniform either. Undivided does not mean "Everyone is the same and Unmarked". Following the "any composition" it means "everyone will be different but they will work together and not try to rip out each other's throats" is all that I'm saying. And in that respect, a solely Khornate Black Legion Warband would be in the relative minority(which given the Black Legion's sheer size and number, still translates to quite a few of them) following that specific line of thought.

 

Variety, uniqueness and individuality is a given. No two Black Legionnaires will be the same and as such, nor will any two warbands. But a warband that is primarily Khorne will not walk up to a warband that is primarily Slaanesh and just start shooting. At least not in the Black Legion. That is non-segregation. And that is why the Black Legion is so terrifying: there is no recorded infighting. They are truly Undivided.

 

They are Legion, the many who are one.

[Gree]

I didn't say it wouldn't exist. And I didn't say they would be uniform either. Undivided does not mean "Everyone is the same and Unmarked". Following the "any composition" it means "everyone will be different but they will work together and not try to rip out each other's throats" is all that I'm saying. And in that respect, a solely Khornate Black Legion Warband would be in the relative minority(which given the Black Legion's sheer size and number, still translates to quite a few of them) following that specific line of thought.

 

Variety, uniqueness and individuality is a given. No two Black Legionnaires will be the same and as such, nor will any two warbands. But a warband that is primarily Khorne will not walk up to a warband that is primarily Slaanesh and just start shooting. At least not in the Black Legion. That is non-segregation. And that is why the Black Legion is so terrifying: there is no recorded infighting. They are truly Undivided.

 

They are Legion, the many who are one.

I should have posted the rest of the quote.

 

"At times, such warbands rally together under the banner of a greater Champion or even Abaddon himself, for a major raid or incursion into the hated Imperium. However, loyalty to differing Chaos gods often leads to internal politics and conflict."-IA Black Legion

 

Note the last sentence. They are certainly not free of infighting, like any other Chaos Legion.

 

But that's not my point. I was pushing against the implication that there was only a handful of mono-God warbands. When I use the term ''segregation'' it's not to describe infighting, but rather the existence of separate Mono-God warbands in the Black Legion. I.e Warband A is a different composition than warband B. I think you misunderstood my original point.

[Kol Saresk]

Yeah, I think I did. I never noticed that line before show actually thank you for showing that quote to me.

 

I think where I was misunderstanding you was that I was using segregate as:

 

seg·re·gate (sgr-gt)

v. seg·re·gat·ed, seg·re·gat·ing, seg·re·gates

v.tr.

1. To separate or isolate from others or from a main body or group. See Synonyms at isolate.

2. To impose the separation of (a race or class) from the rest of society.

[Vesper]

 

As for VotLW being a requirement - that doesn't seem to fit the Black

Legion on the whole to me.  Their membership is open to any marines

willing to swear to abaddon, from ancient heresy vets to the youngest

newly created chaos marines & most recent space marine renegades.  I

suppose it would work for Abaddon's personal forces, the Legion Core of

former sons of horus members.

Hatred : SM is because they... hate SM and the Imperium. They're crusading against it, after all.

+1 Leadership is all about their sense of purpose, the fear of Abaddon's wrath.

Problem solved.

[Punk possum]

I'm looking forward to this supplement. Most of what I've heard so far sounds OK I'm interested by the Fluff, I think it should be taken with a pinch of salt though after all this is meant to be a creative hobby and as such I'm a bit wary of prescriptive approaches to the fluff. I like my armies to have a story within themselves and as such I try to make forces that fit my vision i.e. my Night Lords are all unmarked I have no Demon engines, no possessed, no icons and yet all my elites have Votl. To me they are the hard bitten remnants of the 21st they aren't fighting Abbadon's long war they are following what they see as the last command from their Primarch. So the arguments about fluff seem to me a case of every one arguing from a position of absolute right, because every one has a vision of the Black legion and that vision is totally right for them.

Anyhow back to the supplement, I'm not a competition player so to me every one with Votl seems good and Chosen as troops seems good. After all they are only 1pt per chap more expensive than standard CSM's with additional CCW and Votl yet they are much more customisable and have an extra attack. I personally think it would have been nice if terminators and Chosen came with Votl as standard and perhaps they do? Though I think this is a bit unlikely.

So I've been toying with the idea of making a Black legion war band so that I can free my self imposed limitations and play around with spawn, possessed, demon engines and perhaps most significantly Helldrakes as none of these things fit my vision of my Night Lords so none of them feature in my Chaos arsenal yet... If I l like the Suplement then Black legion it is if not maybe Iron Warriors.

[Sception]

Chosen (with votlw) are six points more per model than CSMs (with votlw).  The chosen have ubergrit by default, though, and they're only four points more per model than CSMs with vets and ubergrit.  And chosen don't pay extra for their champ, so if you're taking units of 10, then they're three points more a model once you spread the cost of the required CSM champ out over the unit.

 

But three points a model is a lot.  That's 30 points for the unit.  And these days, the running theory is that ubergrit isn't even worth it on CSMs, so drop that out, but still count the champion, and that's 50 points a unit.  You can buy your CSMs a rhino for 15 points less than it costs to upgrade them to chosen.  Sure, chosen can take power weapons, but they're ridiculously expensive, such that a unit of chosen with as many power weapons as you can take is approaching 100 points more than you would have spent on a like number of CSMs.  And they are no more durable than CSMs, and have no good delivery method.  Maybe if they had a decent dedicated assault transport... but they don't.

 

Alternatively, you can give the chosen extra special weapons, but then you run into the same kinds of cost issues as with power weapons.  Yeah, five plasmaguns is better than two, but it isn't 95 points better than two.  Likewise five meltaguns isn't eighty points better than two.  Maybe if they could take drop pods... but they can't.

 

Of course, you can take fewer chosen and still get your full number of specials - but if you do that you've completely undermined their advantage in attacks, for whatever little that's worth, and severely magnified their weakness in durability.

 

 

One could maybe argue for dragon squads - min size chosen with just a lascannon - as backfield scorers?  But that's, what, 130 ish points with vets as a requirment?  A bit more then that?  Rather pricey for five dudes.  Dragon squads were great in 3.5 because they cost barely more than 100 points.  Costing 1/3 more than that isn't very pretty.

 

 

 

In the end, chosen need deployment options.  It's the same thing they've needed since they lost infiltrate with the new book.  Huron giving them infiltrate does more for them then Abby making them troops or this new book making them troops either, assuming it even does (the paragraph could have been talking about the option to make them troops with abby, after all).  It's the same thing most of our book has been needing for ages, and has been crying out for since the advent of 6e.  We need drop pods, and we need an affordable assault transport.  Until then, the power armored elements of our list - apart from arguably bikes and havocs - are just sort of filler.

[hornywingythingy]

I don't know how many turkeys they'll really sell though. In casual games, I find my two turkeys are usually more than enough, I haven't been tempted to pick up even the third I could already take. Though I suppose dual turkey plus two units of spawn or bikes might be nice. I'd still probably rather run daemon allies.

 

If they really wanted to sell boxes to chaos players, they'd slap a spikey bit sprue in a drop pod box, with a white dwarf write up to make it a dedicated transport for our marine infantry. I know I harp on this alot, but I bought all of two boxes from our codex release, and I'd buy twice that of drop pods alone if it were only an option, and I can't be the only one.

Yup, and there's always the precedent of the apok fortifications with rules in the box, but we both know it isn't going to happen, or they'd have done it already.

 

As to heldrake popularity, 2nd favourite army at etc this year in some form or another, I'd bet most of those have 2+ heldrakes, and there's always the tryhards who will buy multiples. (for the record, I have one, it was the only new csm release I bought, I'd buy more cos I like the kit, and I like the rules, but I still haven't painted the first one fully yet!)

[Punk possum]

Sorry I managed to miss read the points of chosen (in a fit of stupid I glanced at the costing's and managed to get the 15pt plasma pistol upgrade and additional chosen costing's mixed up ) and yep 20pts with Votl is pretty steep when compared to 16pt Votl CCW CSM's my mistake. I whole heartedly agree on the deployment options, you do have to wonder how CSM's get onto the planets they have decided to strike, do they just jump out of their space ships and hope that most of them survive?

So I think having looked back through this topic we can all agree we will rip GW's hand off to buy this supplement if they have just put drop pods in as an option?

Just out of interest why is ubergrit not the in way of doing things? I have found that setting up decent second turn assaults following a decent first turn peppering from bolters (sadly usually just out of rapid fire range) can do wonders. I concede that it is a bit of a go big or go home type tactic but it fits with how I imagine marines go about their business. I like to put flamer/ melta or double melta on my squads to support this aggressive style. Also I don't use drakes (a self imposed restriction because they are too demon-y for my very secular N.L.s) I don't play in competition's so maybe I get away with a "sub par" methodology but still I'm going to wait and see what Supplement B.L. has in it before I make my mind up about weather C:CSM is irredeemably broken or just jolly challenging to play.

Who know maybe there will be a renegades supplement coming along one day....

[Warsmith Aznable]

I've been doing Chosen plasma spam already anyway, points inefficiency be damned. Not having to take Abaddon to do it would be great for me personally, though I completely understand the objections listed above. I normally play 1250 to 1500 point games, and use one really tooled-up unit to do my heavy lifting while a cheap unit fills out my FOC requirement, and then something like a Heldrake flight or Chaos robot force to support my one decent unit. This Black Legion supplement would allow me to run my expensive Chosen unit that I normally only take in 2000 point games in these smaller games, and that would make me happy.

[Gree]

I haven't read or played against the Farsight or Iyanden codices but their changes are pretty good right? I seems like the Black Legion supplement might be a bit of a dud in comparison to that, although most of us will be buying it for the fluff anyway.

 

Overall, Chosen as troops without Abaddon is not a terribly bad idea for friendly games, but cheaper Chaos Marines might be better and of course Plague Marines are more or less considered the best Troops choice in this Codex.

 

Now if the Black Legion allowed you to take all Cult units as troops without having to take a Marked lord then I could see possibilities.