The one thing I've never liked about Chaos...

[Sception]

A mutation sprue does not cover that look.  Mutation sprues were tried many times, and they were all basically awful failures.  You either have the aesthetic incorporated into the model's weapons and armor or you don't.  Spikey bits can be tacked on, but DV style mutations cannot.

 

How about instead the GW chaos marines get the DV look, FW heresy models give people the archaic-but-not-chaos tainted look, and people can use what they want from there?  From what the rumors are saying, there's hardly going to be any distinction between buying from GW and buying from FW pretty soon.  There's already little cost difference.

 

I would hate to see new CSM models that were simply redundant, inferior rehashes of an aesthetic FW had already done better.  If the horus heresy line didn't exist that would be one thing, but it does, and it's fantastic, so IMO GW designers should feel free to let 10,000 years of influence from the warp define the aesthetic of their own CSM line, allowing it to finally really step and become its own thing, instead of something that could easily have been replicated by a couple spikey bits sprues for loyalist boxes.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I prefer the look of the current CSM models. They are ornate in a way that suggests they are from an age where there was enough power and resources to be so casually decadent with their wargear. That appeals to me in a "pride before the fall" type of narrative. The horns and spikes I don't care so much for, but those are avoidable with the current kit.

 

To me the mutations are something that can be applied with minimal effort, and aren't necessary for the distinctive look. The problem with converting loyalist models is that they don't have that same feel as the current CSM. Here and there in the army it's OK, but I love the trim and decoration of the CSM, and you can always tell when I've cut off Aquilas. Which is an even bigger problem with the newer loyalist models, since they're now getting more detailed with Imperial icons and bric-a-brac too.

 

The Horus Heresy range redefines and replaces that older "throwback" aesthetic, but for the most part is a little bland. On top of that, it's more expensive to collect. And it's resin, and I really prefer working with plastic. But I guess at least it remains as an alternative if GW resculpts the basic CSM before I get my Grand Company completed.

 

The new aesthetic introduced with the Dark Vengeance set and Raptor/Warp Talon kit is more mutated than ornate. The lines are jagged and asymmetrical, and not in a naturally pleasing way. They do a good job of looking like warped, mutated, evil marines, but they have a less "Traitor Legion" feel and more of a daemonic feel to them. To many people, obviously, that's a good thing. To another, apparently numerous sample of the population, that's not a good thing.

 

I agree with Rasclomalum about why I prefer the more human look. I like the tragedy of the fallen Legions. I like the idea of sympathetic villains and tragic anti-heroes. I like the nostalgia for a misremembered and idealized past, and the longing for what could have been. I DO have a small Death Guard force that I'm going full-on Nurgle-y Chaos with. They're a secondary army and not my main interest, but I do also like the irredeemably corrupted angle of Chaos Marines. I just think that it's vastly easier to add corruption to a model than it is to remove it, hence my reluctance to embrace the new aesthetic direction.

[Trevak Dal]

Chaos armor, when you De Horn and de-spike it is basically Mk4/5 armor.

 

Realistically, Chaos Power Armor is a constant state of "Mark 5" armor, as it's a combination of marks cobbled together to work, even if they have newer pieces of Mk6/7/8, it would still be considered mk5 I think.

 

I don't care for the 'wings' on the power packs either, so I cut them off, reattached the vents to where they point up in the air (opposite of loyalists).  My models look different from Loyalists, and I segregate elements like my beserkers with a different paint scheme (PH World Eaters scheme sprayed with blood)

 

 

[Trevak Dal]

Truth be told there one thing I am missing most in the looks and kits of the Chaos Space Marines, esoteric trinkets. The Chaos Space Marines fight as much with bolter and chainsword as they do with curses, fetishes and totems, both in the physical realm as well as in the metaphysical. I miss vials, potions, scrolls, totems, skulls fetishes, runic icons and chains of devotion, ritual knives as well as arcane tomes, everything magical, alchemical and runic would be much welcome. 

 

While the loyalist frown upon such trinkets, a Chaos Space Marine is freed from such notions and readily embraces all kinds of arcane things to improve his performance. Healing potions, droughts of daemonic blood or from other magical components, cursed scrolls, talismans of Tzeentch to improve the sprit of the bolter, icons of Chaos to whisper thanks to the Dark Gods, totems of Khorne adorning the armor, skins of rare beasts to honor Slaanesh... those are the things missing on the CSM...

 

Look at the model of Huron, he has vials on his belt, a sinister creature at his side, icons of chaos and eldar runes... all it readily employed by a Chaos Space Marine and I think we should have more items such as that in our kits. 

 

 

Hmmm.  Chaos Space Marines with Pulse Carbines, Bolt pistols and Khornate Chain Axes would be a glorious thing...

[Tenebris]

I agree with Mal, as the HH books progress so will the kits to upgrade the armor with more and more chaotic elements, the Sons of Horus kits are a start which shows clearly how FW plans to take on the iconography and the character of the traitor legions. But remember one cardinal thing, we speak of M41, the End Times, when Chaos spills forth in its last and most devastating Black Crusade, the time when evil walks the earth once again and thousands upon thousands of souls are lost to Chaos every day. We speak of Chaos Space Marines who by now have at least a few centuries of Warp time spent in the Eye on their shoulders, they are no longer angels of death, they literally are fallen angels, there is no returning back, no glory to be had, no new Great Crusade, all has gone to hell and the chaos space marines are the literal avatars of that realm we call Warp. 

 

If people want cleaner CSM than FW is covering that, but I want to field the Traitor Legions as they look and act in M41, where my bolter speaks with me, when my armor is seared and bound to my flesh, when I have tentacles and spikes all over my armor and when my souls is no longer the one of an astartes but that of a champion of Chaos incarnate, an extension of the will of the Dark Gods. Not a HH era legionnaire with just some spikes on my helmet. 

[Forté]

 

ADB's Night Lords aren't a good example of an uncorrupted Traitor force, seeing as they were led by a Possesed, First Claw had one Astartes that worshipped Khorne and another that was touched by Slaanesh, and then there's the Bleeding Eyes...

But you get a cross section. Talos for example and stripping the Blood Angels dead to replace damaged equipment.

[Akylas]

The Exalted's company is a good example that not every Chaos Marine is covered in tentacles and bound to his armor. Hound obviously suffers from some form of mutation as does the ship to an extent but aside from the Exalted himself you don't see a lot of visible mutations or get the impression many of the Night Lords on the Covenant are bonded to their armor or anything like that. Cyrion and Uzas' taint is entirely internal. Stick Uzas in Mark VII armor and paint him blue and you might mistake him for an Ultramarine until he starts drooling and trying to cut your head off (Although if you painted him grey instead you might have a passable Space Wolf :P). He's the most obviously tainted member of the original company we meet aside from the Exalted. The Bleeding Eyes were later additions to the company. Perhaps if they spent more time kicking back on a daemon world rather than being on their ship or in real space we might see some tentacles...

 

That said I would enjoy seeing more Chaos Marine units go in the direction of the Dark Vengeance models. Forge World does do the earlier marks of armor better (much as it pains my wallet as I buy parts for my Iron Warriors). As things are now the main way my wife can tell if I'm painting "good guys" or "bad guys" is that the latter are ever so much fancier with all their spikes and trim.