So, CSM vs SM in the WD report. What you think? *SPOILERS*

[daboarder]

....but when its nothing but a catalogue rag they don't sell white dwarf.

[the jeske]

They do. Think who is this focus group. Parent comes in wants to buy something for kid. buys X and you give him "This awesome magazine which will show him how to paint/play/whatever".

[Dammeron]

Personally, I think it demonstrates one of the big, BIG problems in GW's design philosophy concerning rules at present as well as one of the BIG, BIIIIIIIIIIG problems developing within the gaming culture:

 

"See, see! It's not such a bad codex! You can win against one of the newer, shinier codicies with it!"

 

Yes. And? That misses the point entirely: most "bad" codicies you can get wins with. Some of the worst codicies of the past had potentially some of the most appallingly abusive army lists in existence (the last Chaos codex, for example, had its Dual-Lash Prince, Plague Marine Obliterator list). The point is not the potential to "win:" it's the evident lack of consideration that has been put into the reinterpretation of certain units and the army list as a whole when it comes to playing themed, characterful and workable armies on the tabletop.

 

Thousand Sons do not need to be occult apocalypse from turn one in order to be a workable and interesting army: they simply need to demonstrate a function in which they excel counter-pointed by evident, in built weaknesses along with a certain army-list wide synergy that allows them to be workable both as a core unit and as a potential support unit in non-Tzeentch themed lists. This is not difficult: there are any number of ways Thousand Sons andf other units (Warp Talons, Mutilators etc) could have been interpreted to provide function within the overall army list. As it stands, the core problem with our codex is that it is evidently a cut, copy and paste job: units tend to stand on their own in a very patchwork manner without much in the way of synergy with everything else and do not necessarily perform their purported functions very well in the first place. These are exactly the problems that the last codex had; they've just beenn elevated to a different level thanks to units such as the Heldrake, which is ridiculous: an army including two is extremely, extremely difficult to match for most comers, simply because the unit performs so ridiculously well in almost all scenarios. This has made the chaos army in general just padding for getting the Heldrakes into position.

 

This is the problem: we can look at other codicies, even those that many are complaining about (Dark Angels etc) and see some degree of consideration going into the army lists in terms of how units work together; how they are supposed to function in synergy on the table top. The Chaos Space Marine codex has a whole swathe of utterly redundant options and units (the Mark of tzeentch on anything that doesn't already have an invulnerable save, the Icon of Flame, Mutilators, Warp Talons, Helbrutes, Chosen etc etc) and a whole heap of no-brainers (Heldrakes, Obliterators, Plague Marines) that make the army list effectively worthless and leaves those of us who like to play themed and unusual armies with unworkable compositions.

 

And what's worse, they've had the temerity to do it to us TWICE now: the internet is bloated with fan codicies, critiques and suggestions of what could be done to improve the last effort. Clearly, not a jot of that has been taken into consideration. Not a jot. As I've said many, many times before: GW is lucky it has any Chaos players left whatsoever. Personally, owing to what the more recent codicies have made clear, I've almost entirely made the shift to Fantasy Flight RPG systems now.

[totgeboren]

 

 

Then he rolled dark apotheosis and said it was an immense boon, and I laughed and laughed....

 

Well, considering that he said his Lord was on his last wound and close to handing out 1VP if he was slain, I think in this case it was indeed an immense boon. Especially if you consider, that the extra VP for the SMs would've turned the game into a draw.

 

I attended a laid-back tournament last weekend, and one battle was against Orks. My Lord on a Disk with Brand went down to his last wound on the Ork turn two (he had first turn), but thanks to some extreme luck on my part, I survived getting charged by a ork warboss on bike, and not only that, I killed him. I then processed to get turned into a Daemon Prince, and even though I really wanted to keep the brand vs orks, that Prince just waded through the rest of the ork army. Because I was on my last wound, it was I think the second best result I could have got (best would have been full wounds), so it's not all bad all the time.

[the jeske]

Yes. And? That misses the point entirely: most "bad" codicies you can get wins with

It is not about wins , it is never about wins . It is about being able to sell stuff. Let us look at the chaos codex and why it will never be good[where good is 3.5 legion extravaganza]. Legions limit the sales , unlike a generic marine codex for many chapters. A marine player will still buy bikes, speeders tanks, rhinos etc , because [commandir obviouse here] all marines use those. Now let us do the same with chaos . A DG player will buy DG stuff , he won't buy bikes/raptors or what ever he views as non DG[that is on top of liking\disliking units , powerful/weak etc]. Now GW could of course do a whole line for him . DG havock , DG FA unit etc but [and that was checked in 4ed times] the sales aren't good enough. There are just too few people playing 1ksons to make a huge investment of time/money to give them all those different model types . They could of course make rules for them and no models , but for that to happen we would have to travel back in time to the 80-early 90s. So what does GW do. The only sensible thing it encourages people to play armies with mixed units, so that everyone may want to buy both zerkers/1ksons and csm etc. Very good buissness policy . With only two problems . Two editions later it is still hard to make peope not want to play legions and there is a very big difference between how good certain choices are . If our[i am thinking non totaly new player here] choice of  taking a 1ksons and a PM , was closer to  l a marine players taking of dakka dread and a dakka LS , it would be a lot better. Sadly wer are kind of a forced in to certain units . Sad , but I doubt the new chaos codex will be any different[way way in the star of 7th].

[daboarder]

So why did they just give marines chapter rules?

 

the fact they have done that puts the lie to every excuse they ever gave for the chaos book.

[Captain Idaho]

The jeske has a point; each of the Chapter rules can take all options in the Codex, barring BT and Librarians.

 

Of course there's no excuse for them to make rule for Chaos Legion in a similar vein, which I guess is why we have the supplements coming.

[the jeske]

So why did they just give marines chapter rules?

 

the fact they have done that puts the lie to every excuse they ever gave for the chaos book.

because of two things. One is the one I mentioned. While a khan WS army will take more bikes then other sm armies , other armies will/may still take attack bikes , or a storm raven . Most if not all of them will run at least one tactical or a storm raven etc. If someone plays a 1ksons army, all the cult units and most of the csm options are dead [if he is a purist and doesn't do some wierd counts as thing] .And if an option is dead you don't buy stuff for it. Also a lot of the chaos stuff[zerkers, raptors, talons, maulers ,1ksons,EC etc] are very specialized and they force the taking of certain units[and no I don't mean a helldrake] , this again limits the models you buy , if you want to go pre Gav legion force [well non BL pre Gav force to be exact].

Second thing is a rule the marines have for themselfs. They can battlebrother ally with their own codex. Don't want to get locked in to Red Fists or Yellow fists or Flamer fists , but want to use lysander, cantor or some MM ? her ally in marines and they can use their own chapter tactics. Better yet use Ultramarine rules and be more flexible on which turn you use which company buff. 

[daboarder]

those options are only "dead" because there is no meaningful way to make the "cult" support options we have always wanted.

[Dam13n]

There really isn't any excuse to why chaos don't have a book of similar size to codex marines.

 

If GW have put chapter rules in the marine codex, why not do the same for chaos? Our legions/traitor forces are far more divergent from one another than codex marines. Similarly, why not include some more vehicle variants, a dedicated AA flyer etc.

 

The problem is that loyal marines get one massive codex with loads of options and 3 others for those GW deems divergent/important enough to warrant a codex of their own (DA, BA, SW).

 

Chaos get one standard size codex with insufficient support options and more than its fair share of poor options.

 

We are now looking a supplements being GWs answer to that substantial issue. Shame it will never compensate for a poor base codex. Reason being, that the supplements don't contain sufficient additional rules/units/options to overcome those shortfalls.

 

Now GW clearly want to make us believe that our codex is competitive (despite the fact that anyone with any gaming experience can tell it isn't after reading it for more than 5 minutes). They've started by letting us be seen to win a WD battle report. Sorry, not going to work... it'll take chaos doing well in a tournament or two to convince anyone that it's competitive - and that's unlikely to happen with the current book.

[the jeske]

those options are only "dead" because there is no meaningful way to make the "cult" support options we have always wanted.

For a BL legion player. For a DG or 1ksons player zerkers are dead , because they are not DG or 1ksons. They could be the uber bomb and a unit everyone wants to ally in and they still would be dead for them.

 

 

 

 

 

If GW have put chapter rules in the marine codex, why not do the same

for chaos? Our legions/traitor forces are far more divergent from one

another than codex marines

 

chaos divergent stuff doesn't sell good enough . GW tried it and more or less the only brand that can support multiple variation of the same thing are the loyalist marines , because of how much stuff overlaps each other. I know that for players , legions and having different forces is important , but chaos will not get a sm like codex , unless they get a designer realy interested in chaos[like both H-man and Chamber were] and GW will know the new/old way of making chaos will boost sales. Otherwise we will always get some version of the gav dex.

[daboarder]

....bikes would be no more dead for a death guard player (if I could MAKE death guard bikes) than centurians are for a raven guard player.

[Pariah Mk.231]

 

Now GW clearly want to make us believe that our codex is competitive (despite the fact that anyone with any gaming experience can tell it isn't after reading it for more than 5 minutes).

 

 

I was going to dispute that claim since I did rather well with my Chaos lads in a tournament on sunday, but remembered that I walked right over the other 2 Chaos Marine players I came up against it. So yeah, I'll agree that it's not very competative, but that won't stop me taking my boys to more tournaments and aiming for a top 3 position, I just have to outplay my opponents rather than relying on a superior list.

[the jeske]

I don't think that ,aside for the old times of Chambers and H-man,actual playbility[when playability is ability to compet with other armies on the same level] was  ever the goal of GW.

[daboarder]

Jeske, during late 3rd about 2/3rds- 3/4qtrs of all armies where chaos armies, so unless you saying that 2/3rds of all sales cant support variation that makes no sense.

[the jeske]

The legion specific bits were selling bad ,at least some of them . And again am pointing out that it would take too much of an investment to make , lets say a 1ksons specific Heavy/FA/elite option and there would be too few that would want to buy them . The best what GW can do is make some of the options realy good[helldrak, plaguemarines etc] and make most chaos players want them.

There are no such problems with marines . An IF player may buy a dev squad and a IH player may by a dev squad . Even if there are bad choices in the new dex[well some were always bad] like Assault marines , they are the same kind of a bad for all. Either all people buy them or non. And if some stuff may not sell that good , GW creates nishe armies to gather those players who may want to use them [terminators DA, jump units BAs etc]. With chaos you don't get that a 1ksons player will not take 3 cult units , won't take csm , he locks himself out of most of the codex if he wants a 1ksons army. He can of course take those unit , but if he does he will soon end up with Ahriman being his only 1ksons in the whole list[and probably by the he will change him out for huron].

 

This does generate problems of different kinds to chaos players , the marine players. A RG player who may not like the new rules , may just jump ship to BAs . A 1ksons player can't do such a thing[well unless he plays counts as PM], because 1ksons are bad for all chaos players[if you would want to use just one squad] and ultra freaking bad for 1ksons players. They limit not just the list with their high cost [there were armies with high cost models which were awesome . journal era harlis , draigowing] , but what the list can do and what support unit it has to take . That is the problem with chaos . I take an HQ and my army is premade , more then in warmachine .

[Emperors Immortals]

I kind of think the idea is that the creativity of legion rules just wont pay to be published in print. If I was sitting on the CSM IP Id want to save it back for an appropriate time where I could use the relatively new digital supplements to make more choices available for gamers at a low cost for the company, assuming I cared at all about CSM. When the company then leaves the project lagging its out of my hands and I just have to hang in there till it comes to pass. Thats if I was a developer for GW. Which im not. Yet. ;)

 

I have full faith that GW had originally planned a series of suppements to patch 6th ed into a 6.5 ed and weve only started to see teh beginnings of a throttled campaign. At this rate the y couls easily make th releases last 2-3 years - annoying fo rus but great for (parts of) GW.

 

I heard once the only true conspiracy of humanity is complacency. You can add investor oriented corporate strategy to the list.

 

@DAboarder, thats the problem though, if 2/3 of sales are CSM then 1/3 of all product wont shift. Horrible for the company as they have to pay to manufacture and then distribute that stuff from warehouses. At present Id guess about 80% of stock sells very well, just how they want it.

 

 

 

TLDR; I urge you all to sign the petition to bring back Andy Chambers. He will lead us to the glorious golden age of 40k. Again.

[daveNYC]

I suspect that GW thinks that the Forgeworld Heresy series will keep CSM players happy enough.

 

I suspect they're right.  Though if I pick up HH IV and there's a single freaking mention of the Thousand Sons getting an improved invuln save, I will travel to Great Britain and burn the entire country to the ground.  And that's a pretty soggy country, so that should show how serious I am about it.

[Trevak Dal]

So why did they just give marines chapter rules?

 

the fact they have done that puts the lie to every excuse they ever gave for the chaos book.

 

Because they don't like us I guess.  Or maybe "LOL Chaos, too random and chaotic to have cohesive rules, roll on the boon table"

[Shifte]

I suspect that GW thinks that the Forgeworld Heresy series will keep CSM players happy enough.

 

I suspect they're right.  Though if I pick up HH IV and there's a single freaking mention of the Thousand Sons getting an improved invuln save, I will travel to Great Britain and burn the entire country to the ground.  And that's a pretty soggy country, so that should show how serious I am about it.

 

Hey, leave Scotland out of this. 'kay?

 

Edit:

 

Legion rules would be especially easy to implement for the non-cult legions. Here's me spending 2 minutes quickly typing random ideas-

 

Night Lords: Fear and Night Vision.

 

Word Bearers: Possessed become troops & Buffed Dark Apostle stats.

 

Iron Warriors: A buff to blast/large blast weapon accuracy and buffed Warpsmith stats.

 

Alpha Legion: Cultists and Chosen can infiltrate.

 

Black Legion: Chosen are a troops choice & one unit gets free 'Veterans of the Long War'.

 

I'm sure paid professionals could come up with better stuff than that, too.

[Dam13n]

Jeske - why wouldn't that same philosophy work for Chaos?

 

What we have from the supplement:

Black Legion Rules making Chosen troops (at the cost of having to take VotLW on all units that can)

 

What could so easily have been inserted into the book on 1 page!!

- Night Lords Rules making Raptors troops and allowing them to take Fear for Xpts/model (non-cult only)

- Word Bearers Rules allowing them to take Fearless for Xpts/model (for example) (non-cult only)

- Alpha Legion Rules allowing them to take Infiltrate for Xpts/model (non-cult only)

- Iron Warriors Rules giving them Stealth: Ruins for Xpts/model (non-cult only)

- World Eaters Rules giving all Berserker units Hatred: All

- Emperor's Children Rules making Sonic Blasters Assault 3 Weapons instead of Salvo (for example)

- Death Guard - Could have made it so only Death Guard Plague Marines have Poisoned Weapons

- Thousand Sons Rules swapping Slow and Purposeful for Relentless so long as the Aspiring Sorcerer is alive.

 

There are so many ways they could have encouraged us to take certain units without compromising others. This took me but a few minutes. Lets say they expanded so each legion had 2 or 3 such rules/options.

 

I'm sure they could add in something like "Legion Tactics - Dark Mechanicus Affiliation" as a purchasable option that boosts all the Hel-type vehicles and also boosts Defilers and Mutilators (and Obliterators, not that they need it).

 

Lets also say that they'd bothered to create a Night Lords style non-special character and an Alpha Legion style non-special character (to add to the Warsmith and Apostle).

 

Lets also say that they added in the Helblade Fighter aircraft, new Predator and Land Raider Variants, an AA tank (possibly based upon the Whirlwind that Chaos has had access to in the fluff for ages, yet not had access to gameplay-wise ever!)

 

We'd end up with a codex that has the same level of flexibility as the new Marine book seems to have, and they could sell more vehicles (which appeal to all armies) whilst providing more reasons for people to buy the infantry models. I mean who buys Raptors? when there is no current reason to include them instead of Bikes or Spawn (or the Heldrake).

 

A multi-part plastic kit could have been devised to allow you to make either an Apostle, Warsmith, Talon Master or Insurrectionist. Which would therefore leave loads of cool options for converting the standard Chaos Marines to create Chosen or Unique Champions etc. That box would sell to every Chaos army.

 

- - - - -

 

DaveNYC - could you please restrict your burning to our countries horrid council estates, thanks.

[AekoldHelbrass]

Well, that was a lot of flame out here, after pretty small battle report from 2 random employees of WD team.

 

I don't even want to start adding to all the dirt you've already put onto our "beloved" codex. I'm just switching to HH, because it gives me what I want: themed army of brutal warriors, instead of dinobots horde.

[the jeske]

 

Jeske - why wouldn't that same philosophy work for Chaos?

GW doesn't make rules for non existing models.

 

There aren't enough people that play specific chaos legions.

 

There is a low interchangability of chaos models between factions.

 

There are no people in the DT that would want to make a 3.5 style[as in legion] codex.

 

Could they added those rule in the chaos book ? yes. But they would rather make a suplement dex [preferably e-book only. to check if printing them is worth the investment] and make people buy 2 dex instead of 1.

 

 

I don't know if people remember it , but back when codex csm came out . I said that it's biggest flaw is not the power level , but how boring and pre made it is . That lots of stuff doesn't make sense under 2k pts [forgefiends , a lot of HQs , double bikers , spawn etc] , when we get a second FoC. And we just got that . It is a bit late considering that tau or eldar doen't need to ally to have divergent lists without allying with themself, but a lot better then it was in the start.

[Dam13n]

Well they are a model making company - I'm sure they can make more... then make rules for them. :P

 

Most chaos players I know play either a single legion or a strongly themed traitor chapter.  The only ones that don't are the little kids who don't really know how to play the game, so throw temper tantrums when they are caught cheating or lose (or both).

 

The only units that are forbidden from certain themed lists are the cults.  Everything else is pretty easily interchangeable.

- True the fluff would tell us that Death Guard Raptors go against their standard warfare tactics, but with the current fluff of everything breaking up into warbands, someone could say that they are using a Warband derived from a Death Guard assault company.  The visage of modified Jump Packs that allow them to hover menacingly over the battlefield wielding scythes as their close combat weapons is very "grim reaper" like, which fits with Mortarions aesthetic nicely.

 

I agree, the DT seemingly lacks a writer who is a proper Chaos fan and player.  Which is a big negative in a company whose Sci-fi universe revolves so heavily around the fight between the mortal races and the hellish immaterium (with a healthy dose of alien threats to further the desperate picture that the forces of order find themselves in).  If they lack a writer to give gaming credence to the faction that arguably birthed the 40k universe we know, that is a major failing in the design team that cannot be justified.

 

I agree, the power level isn't necessarily the issue, its the depth of choice we have when it comes to competitive choices that's disappointing.  Unlike some of the newer codices which have some variety of interesting builds Chaos hasn't, again!

 

It's not quite - Double Flying Lash Princes, 3x Obliterator units (or a mix of Obliterator units and Vindicators), then as many 5 PMs with 2 specials in Rhinos as it takes to hit the points limit - which we had in 5th (as you so regularly used to point out during those (slightly) dark(er) days).

 

My point really boils down to the fact that when it comes to Imperium vs Chaos, both sides had the same number of Legions (9) during the Heresy, and there was just as much if not more variation in the organisation and fighting styles on the Chaos side than the imperium, yet the Imperium get more toys and more codices than Chaos.  This shouldn't be the case IMHO - both sides should be given at least equal treatment.  Especially as they've put Chaos in the starter set.

 

Now we are likely to see this equal treatment from the Heresy series, unfortunately 30k army lists don't line up against 40k ones because the Heresy lists have deliberately not been written to balance with the 40k lists.  They are a separate game using the same basic rules.

[zyl-]

The only models that aren't interchangable are cult models, and that's ONLY Becasue there is a plastic kit to plant that idea into your head. I've painted a plain ass power armored guy green, and he's a plague marine just like that. I bet I could do the same with red, blue, and purple. The argument that [unit] does not travel well from [legion] to [legion] is mostly because people are putting dudes on maggots and saying they are bikers. Of course they are nurgle bikers, and don't translate well! The absolute truth is that if you want bikers to fit into any army at all, it's just a paint job away, the same as any marine chapter. You don't need the [legion] conversion kit with new rhino doors, shoulder pads, heads, bolter casings, and base scenery to make a plastic kit fit to nearly any legion. It does make it look nicer, and people will want them at additional cost, but that is what Forgeworld is for (useless overpriced upgrade sprues). GW has absolutely no model sales rueason on this earth to not have made legion rules in our codex. It could mean that Night Lord players buy more raptors and talons, and it could mean that Iron Warriors buy more havocs, but those models EXIST and are still purchasable to all armies for use. The fact that Night Lord raptors may get 2 bonus rules that makes them actually good does nothing to the models themselves other than make people want to buy them. Again, they exist, so that can happen.