codex crimson slaughter.... yup, GW really hates us.

[Rain]

The only problem with that is that it paradoxically leads to more pidgeonholing and blandness than the "restrictive" Legion rules. Reason being, is that everyone would take the Iron Warriors type traits on their Havocs, the World Eater type traits on their HtH squads, etc. By making there be real tradeoffs you are actually forcing people to choose a certain theme and making armies differ by incentivizing sticking to some given theme. This is why you currently have juggerlords escorted by spawn leading plague marines and robo-dragons. All. The. . Time. Restrictions can lead to deversity by introducing opportunity costs to powerful units and upgrades beyond bare points cost.

[A D-B]

See, I've long been a proponent of the idea of, in essence, purchasable "warband tactics" as a unit-by-unit thing. Don't tie them to any one warband, and don't make it so that you have to buy it for the whole army - give people the ability to customise their units. It'd make them distinct from Loyalist chapter tactics, provide the ability to make them into stereotypical "Legion armies" (without stuff like extra heavy support slots and "Iron Warriors can't take marks ever!", which are kind of bad ideas anyway), and would better represent how Chaos forces tend to be less of a cohesive whole.

 

I reckon this'd be near-perfect. Massive customisation, with the information available to make informed decisions on themes without it being directly homogenised from the get-go.

[Scribe]

The only problem with that is that it paradoxically leads to more pidgeonholing and blandness than the "restrictive" Legion rules. Reason being, is that everyone would take the Iron Warriors type traits on their Havocs, the World Eater type traits on their HtH squads, etc. By making there be real tradeoffs you are actually forcing people to choose a certain theme and making armies differ by incentivizing sticking to some given theme. This is why you currently have juggerlords escorted by spawn leading plague marines and robo-dragons. All. The. . Time. Restrictions can lead to deversity by introducing opportunity costs to powerful units and upgrades beyond bare points cost.

Yeah this is what I've seen countless times as the counter to free form trait systems like Vet Skills. :(

[Phoros]

But people take the most powerful options regardless of background anyway. If that's going to happen no matter what you do, why not at least make it easier for those who play fluff-based armies to do so and get their armies how they want them?

[Brother Ambroz]

Definitely agree with Phoros. Tournament and WAAC players will definitely do that as you guys are saying but fluffy/friendly games will be able to choose their own styles and won't necessarily pigeon hole like that.

[Kol Saresk]

For me, this "legions are dead, there are only warbands" is an lame excuse.

An excuse for this codex, which is again an epic fail. And for the supplements.

In turn, I find it sad that you are implying things that I never said. I don't approve of Legion rules. I don't think it belongs in the codex, and I find it to be utterly pointless. Period. That is all I ever said.

 

Does that mean I support the current codex? Absolutely not. It's bland, its boring, and it lacks variety. Legion rules, whether I agree with it or not, would be like putting a bandaid over a slit stomach with your intestines dripping out. It will make you feel better for a few minutes in your head and then you'll find something else to complain about. The variety intended for the faction comes from the Gods. That is what makes Chaos, the Chaos Gods. I give the 3.5 codex credit for atleast that in there was a host of options for the Gods and daemonic abilities, not the shoehorned Legion rules. A good Chaos Space Marines codex needs to be about Chaos, more variety and depth of connection to the Chaos Gods, opportunities to delve into Lesser Deities and demons for those who want to remain undivided, Alterations and abilities that promote the occult religion or ancient warrior pantheon, more powerful Chaos Space Marines and sense of actual power that has been bestowed upon you by the Dark Gods.

 

 

The Crimson Slaughter Supplement Codex is coming out and its shaping up from the rumors to be pretty stellar and a step up... And all you people can do is complain about how its not a Legion. I mean seriously, before you even open the thread, you can already see the childish complaint "yup, GW hates us." on the bloody title. This is a Chaos Warband GW is trying to promote for Chaos Space Marines, not Legion Space Marines. This is utterly pitiful.

 

 

 

It will be interesting to see how the Codex shakes out. Reserving judgement until then, but any Beasts of Annihilation players should be pleased.

 

On to the secondary discussion here, Kol, I think one reason people are upset at your dismissal is that there is no way to play half the legions or the renegades that imitate them.

Even leaving mono-god as representing the 4 dedicated forces (Where even then Tzeentch can represent neither TS or newly fallen well);

The only infiltrate/outflank option is an OK option on a character with a random number that you can't even plan for that well. No way to make you own guy to tell his story, you have to run the Pirate with a psychic parrot.

The siege specialists are ok, in that you can field a decent number of big guns, but get no bonuses over random joe with a vindicator. GW has apparently decided the long rivalry between the Imperial fists and the Iron Warriors firmly in the Fists favor.

The Deamon specialists no longer get bonuses to bringing in deamons. In fact the synergy has been stripped out of the codex. Our Battle Brothers operate effectively as allies of convenience.

The terror specialist, wither nightlords or the newer renegades you mention, Have NO WAY to show it. The only way to sneak in is to bring the Pirate, the only way to cause fear is to kneel to Nurgle.

 

So of the 8 non-Black Legions, even by your standards only 3 are good representations (Khorne/Nurgle/Slaanesh) of that specialization. There's a some half-hearted versions (Tzeentch, Infiltrate, deamon allied, siege) and one, the one who's followers you are arguing with the most, that can't even be represented in their speciality!

That is why people want the legions, even in a form as "Codex:Lords of Terror" or "Codex:Masters of Deamons". Because right now, all they got on the tabletop is some pretty paint.

 

Edit, just saw you post. I see you get it some, but you don't seem to get why they are frustrated.

I'm not saying use this Codex to do those things. Gods no, that's a horrible idea. I fully agree that things need to be redone. But since it is pretty much obvious "Legions only" is not going to happen, we should at least be accepting of the idea "Legions and Renegades" and that the easiest way to start breaking things, would be to make divergent army Codices. Or at least supplements that radically change the Codex to make those lists possible.

 

As for being frustrated, believe me, I understand that too. When I put Night Lords on the table, I want to point and proudly go "This is my Night Lords army!" and wave a Codex: Chaos Space Marines in the air. But honestly, even if I had been around back in 3.5, you never would have seen me doing that. "Whoopie GW. You made them a Fast Attack list." And yet, everyone is happy with a Fast Attack list being "Terror tactics". So, that is what I suggest. A Fast Attack list to be used for Terror Tactics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legion traits would make people happy. A lot of people. You don't have to use the trait. But you can. Easy enough. Even if it is just night vision for Night Lords. I've seen this discussion a million times and I know what your saying ADB, but traits would be cool. It wouldn't capture the complete blah blah of this legion and its varied warbands but who cares.

People who... like the lore? People who like the game? What you're literally saying is we should aim as low as possible and consider it awesome.

 

I love you ADB. But, If in the next codex Chaos Space marines, there were legion traits for each founding legion, people would be happier. You say traits are worthless and lazy but whats on offer now is even worse.

 

And as I've said a squillion times: "Don't take a criticism of a bad system as a rousing endorsement of anything else, or what we have now."

 

It's not black and white. You can point out something as a weak idea without saying the other side is excellent.

I'm with ADB on the fact that Legion Tactics as a system similar to the one in C:SM would be a bad idea.

 

Though I think there are other ways to make a Legion warband distinct from another Legion's warband, just not by a standard blanket rule across the board like in C:SM. Not all Night Lords have Night Lord geneseed, there will be warbands where none fought at terra or in the heresy...and so on...

Yeppers. This. Exactree. No more, no less.

 

Situational awareness.

 

EDIT: Phoros, we need to get you writing 6.5 for GW. ;)

[Rain]

It won't just be tourney and WAAC players. People don't like feeling like they are hamstringing their army, fluff or no fluff. Legion rules give you something in return for following a given theme, self imposed limitations never work as well, and punish people that want to build a themed army. In 3.5 if you wanted to play "World Eaters" you got free champions on squads of 8 and a bonus to summoning rolls on squads of 8 bloodletters, but you couldn't take obliterators. Or, you could use the base list and include oblits, but give up the free champs. That's a meaningful choice, what you propose would probably not be, it would just be "do I take the obviously optimal upgrade for this unit, or the highly situational one that fits army fluff? Nah I'll just change the fluff cause it's Chaos and Chaos is random blah blah"

 

Edit: alteranately, since GW hates limitations now (probably because it causes some kits to sell less--uhhh I mean for the good of the game) you could just have bundles of armywide USR or bonuses, and you can only pick one based on your general or something like that. No limitations per se, just opportunity cost. But allowing each squad to buy it seperately will just homogenize everything with everyone taking the same bonuses on the same units.

[Kol Saresk]

And if you wanted to play Night Lords, you played Raptors. Which has given rise to the uninformed view Night Lords = Raptors. To the point that some consider them such an easy fix that all you have to do is make Raptors Troops.

 

http://www.notefromlapland.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/q-icon-no.gif

[crimsonhand]

Im fine with it. Im going to play Word Bearers from that book. The rep that legion fine. 

[Rain]

Yep. Because Raptors fit the NL theme worse than daemon engines. Seriously, the NL "Raptor only" thing is a canard. You could also play an all infiltrating stealth adept army with lots of plasma weapons. Sneaky, stealthy, deadly, Night Lordy. But sure, you could also run a Raptor list if you wanted, and it was pretty neat since Raptors had Hit and Run and Demonic Visage which was, understandably, a lot less fitting with the NL theme than plague marines and demonic centaur robots.

 

@Scribe I know the feeling. I don't buy directly from GW now on principle. I buy second hand stuff on ebay exclusively now, the revenue has already flowed to GW, nothing can be done about that, so I feel a bit better about myself buying it. Plus I don't have time to paint anymore so I usually buy people's already painted stuff (also helpful in that you can often get large numbers of pro-painted units for less than face value, I got about 1500-1750 points of really well painted Chaos for 400 bucks). So yeah, thanks GW, enjoy not having my money.

[Hellios]

And if you wanted to play Night Lords, you played Raptors. Which has given rise to the uninformed view Night Lords = Raptors. To the point that some consider them such an easy fix that all you have to do is make Raptors Troops.

 

http://www.notefromlapland.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/q-icon-no.gif

 

The real problem with Nigfht Lords is that the leadership system in 40K is so simple, and half of the armies ignore it... Fearless/Synapse/Mob rule/Stubborn/ATSKNF...

 

If 40K had a more complex leadership system and different levels of things like fear... I think fantasy has (I don't play fantasy enough..., but doesn't it have something like Panic/Terror) different levels.

 

+ Everyone knowa that NLs just = raptors anyway :P

 

I'm sure a select small group of B&C members (no more than 10), could improve not just the Chaos codex, but every codex, and the core rules as well. All within one year. Because we care. GW doesn't care... and will always come up with a lame excuse. They say they are a model company... but they won't sell the models without rules. I put forward that they are a game company... that makes most of their money from the sale of models (for their games).

[the jeske]

And if you wanted to play Night Lords, you played Raptors. Which has given rise to the uninformed view Night Lords = Raptors. To the point that some consider them such an easy fix that all you have to do is make Raptors Troops.

 

 

That was not true . in 3.5 you could have taken more raptors or bikes instead of hvy slots , but the schtick of NL in 3.5 was stealth and move through cover and demonic visage for asp champions[-1Ld]. And even if it somehow was true , what is bad in having 1 army out of 9+ being based on jump troops?

[TipsyTechPriest]

 

See, I've long been a proponent of the idea of, in essence, purchasable "warband tactics" as a unit-by-unit thing. Don't tie them to any one warband, and don't make it so that you have to buy it for the whole army - give people the ability to customise their units. It'd make them distinct from Loyalist chapter tactics, provide the ability to make them into stereotypical "Legion armies" (without stuff like extra heavy support slots and "Iron Warriors can't take marks ever!", which are kind of bad ideas anyway), and would better represent how Chaos forces tend to be less of a cohesive whole.

I reckon this'd be near-perfect. Massive customisation, with the information available to make informed decisions on themes without it being directly homogenised from the get-go.

I saw a fan collaboration a couple of days ago that does exactly this:

 

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?362595-Let-s-Do-Chaos-Space-Marines

 

It lets individual units buy the so-called legion traits as an upgrade to Veterans of the Long War, such as Night Vision and negative leadership to represent a squad of Night Lords, alongside a squad with Stubborn and Crusader to represent a Word Bearer unit, etc. I’ve just had time to skim read the whole thing so far, but they also wanted to make everything MUCH more customisable a la the books of Chaos in 3.5ed.

[Brother Ambroz]

@Rain, well I'm just going to say you have your opinion then and I have mine.

 

@Kol, you had the option to do that sure but as Rain already described, it didn't force you to take raptors. You could've taken the stealth adept and infiltrate or not even go with a legion and pick whatever marks/skills you wanted.

[the jeske]

See, I've long been a proponent of the idea of, in essence, purchasable "warband tactics" as a unit-by-unit thing. Don't tie them to any one warband, and don't make it so that you have to buy it for the whole army - give people the ability to customise their units. It'd make them distinct from Loyalist chapter tactics, provide the ability to make them into stereotypical "Legion armies" (without stuff like extra heavy support slots and "Iron Warriors can't take marks ever!", which are kind of bad ideas anyway), and would better represent how Chaos forces tend to be less of a cohesive whole.

As rain said that would end up with people playing only DG oblits[because those have +1T and don't die from str 8 like all other oblits].

Markless IW were part of the trade . People had to pick what they wanted 4 hvy slots and 9 elite oblits  , but no marks  or 3 hvy slots and 1 unit of oblits , but mix and matching of marks[and those were important not just for troops , but for leaders too. without MoK one couldn't have a glaive DP] .

Rules should make people want to play army X .If playing army X makes no sense , because army Y does the same only better[ I played EC in 5th , GK did everything EC did only for less points and with better rules] , playing army X is not fun at all .

 

 

Also please no fear. make it -1Ld in melee 3" or something . Fear is an univeral rules that doesn't work on most of the armies in w40k and when it does it doesn't matter.

[Trevak Dal]

 

See, I've long been a proponent of the idea of, in essence, purchasable "warband tactics" as a unit-by-unit thing. Don't tie them to any one warband, and don't make it so that you have to buy it for the whole army - give people the ability to customise their units. It'd make them distinct from Loyalist chapter tactics, provide the ability to make them into stereotypical "Legion armies" (without stuff like extra heavy support slots and "Iron Warriors can't take marks ever!", which are kind of bad ideas anyway), and would better represent how Chaos forces tend to be less of a cohesive whole.

As rain said that would end up with people playing only DG oblits[because those have +1T and don't die from str 8 like all other oblits].

Markless IW were part of the trade . People had to pick what they wanted 4 hvy slots and 9 elite oblits  , but no marks  or 3 hvy slots and 1 unit of oblits , but mix and matching of marks[and those were important not just for troops , but for leaders too. without MoK one couldn't have a glaive DP] .

Rules should make people want to play army X .If playing army X makes no sense , because army Y does the same only better[ I played EC in 5th , GK did everything EC did only for less points and with better rules] , playing army X is not fun at all .

 

 

Also please no fear. make it -1Ld in melee 3" or something . Fear is an univeral rules that doesn't work on most of the armies in w40k and when it does it doesn't matter.

 

If I could take the Irridium Armor upgrade on ALL my Crisis suits...I would.  Mostly because that would hammer out three things I've always wanted:  A Jump Army (technically jetpack, but yeah) a 2+ save army, and an army that would be very, very hard to kill.

 

My God...that would be glorious, 18 s5, t5, 2+ suits with multiple weapon systems-some with 4+ invulnerable saves or FNP even.  With that army, I'd glass every world in the 40k galaxy...

[Minsc]

Yes, the 'fear' rule is really underwhelming.

if shooty-units get's feared it usually doesn't matter. Those Firewarriors/Guardians/IG will die to your fearcauser(s) anyway.

On the flip side, most units you actually want cause fear in (other melee-units) either have really high Ld or (more commonly) ignore fear altogether:

*Space Marines have ATSKNF.

*Orks have Mob Rule and Bosspoles.

*Chaos Daemons ignore it.

*Chaos Marines are fearless for the most part.

*Tyranids are fearless for the most part.

*Tau and IG doesn't "care" about fear, since they will be hit on 3+ and then die most of the time anyway. They also lack melee-units for the most part.

*Sisters are like Tau/IG, except they actually have melee units (Repentias/Flagellants)...which are fearless. Herpaderp.

This leaves Necrons, Eldar and Dark eldar as armies who actually have melee-units that you can cause fear in, however;

*Necrons have Ld10 across the board. Have fun trying to cause fear in them.

*Eldar actually have Ld8 and Ld9 for the most part. If only they didn't have a bunch of fearless wraith constructs and the freaking 12" fearless bubble from the Avatar!

This leaves Dark Eldar, as the only army where fear actually can do something, since they don't have alot of fearless, and mostly Ld8-Ld9.

One army...one freaking army with melee-units that are susceptible to fear.

Yay...

Might as well get rid of the stupid rule and decrease pointcosts on those unfortunate units who happen to have (and most likely also pay points for it) Fear.

[Rain]

A really awesome NL rule would actually be something like "Overwhelming Force - Any unit that loses in Close Combat against this squad takes additional wounds equal to the amount by which the Chaos models in the combat outnumber enemy models, if Chaos models do not outnumber enemy models, this effect is ignored". This would represent the NL love of pushing an unfair advantage and killing those that they outnumber. Flavorful, and useful, and would reward overwhelming assaults just like in NL fluff.

[Trevak Dal]

 

 

See, I've long been a proponent of the idea of, in essence, purchasable "warband tactics" as a unit-by-unit thing. Don't tie them to any one warband, and don't make it so that you have to buy it for the whole army - give people the ability to customise their units. It'd make them distinct from Loyalist chapter tactics, provide the ability to make them into stereotypical "Legion armies" (without stuff like extra heavy support slots and "Iron Warriors can't take marks ever!", which are kind of bad ideas anyway), and would better represent how Chaos forces tend to be less of a cohesive whole.

I reckon this'd be near-perfect. Massive customisation, with the information available to make informed decisions on themes without it being directly homogenised from the get-go.

I saw a fan collaboration a couple of days ago that does exactly this:

 

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?362595-Let-s-Do-Chaos-Space-Marines

 

It lets individual units buy the so-called legion traits as an upgrade to Veterans of the Long War, such as Night Vision and negative leadership to represent a squad of Night Lords, alongside a squad with Stubborn and Crusader to represent a Word Bearer unit, etc. I’ve just had time to skim read the whole thing so far, but they also wanted to make everything MUCH more customisable a la the books of Chaos in 3.5ed.

 

Been looking over that.  If I could post a FAQ to GeeDubs site and not have it detected...I'd post that almost in its entirety.

[temneb]

The only problem with that is that it paradoxically leads to more pidgeonholing and blandness than the "restrictive" Legion rules. Reason being, is that everyone would take the Iron Warriors type traits on their Havocs, the World Eater type traits on their HtH squads, etc. By making there be real tradeoffs you are actually forcing people to choose a certain theme and making armies differ by incentivizing sticking to some given theme. This is why you currently have juggerlords escorted by spawn leading plague marines and robo-dragons. All. The. . Time. Restrictions can lead to deversity by introducing opportunity costs to powerful units and upgrades beyond bare points cost.

How about having disciplines, close combat, stealth, etc.

If you want traits you need to pick a discipline and are restricted to traits listed for that discipline.

Close combat would be restricted to Khrone worshipers, and wouldn't be able to take shooting based traits.

Stealth would be open to all marks, and wouldn't be able to take heavy vehicle's.

Again, I'm not down on the lore so these are just examples.

This sort of thing would result in many unique lists that don't allow cherry picking traits.

[Kol Saresk]

@Rain, well I'm just going to say you have your opinion then and I have mine.

 

@Kol, you had the option to do that sure but as Rain already described, it didn't force you to take raptors. You could've taken the stealth adept and infiltrate or not even go with a legion and pick whatever marks/skills you wanted.

No, it didn't. Even if you still took the extra FA slot, you could just fit in bikes instead of Raptors. But instead, the Night Lords were pigeonholed because so many people took advantage of the no restriction on Raptors that three editions later, all anyone remembers is "Night Lords = Raptors". So personally, I'd rather avoid the system that breeds such narrow thinking. But as I recall, that is taboo amongst the Chaos Community.

[Wade Garrett]

My First Captain is Zso Sahaal. Your complaints are irrelevant.

[Brother Ambroz]

 

@Rain, well I'm just going to say you have your opinion then and I have mine.

 

@Kol, you had the option to do that sure but as Rain already described, it didn't force you to take raptors. You could've taken the stealth adept and infiltrate or not even go with a legion and pick whatever marks/skills you wanted.

No, it didn't. Even if you still took the extra FA slot, you could just fit in bikes instead of Raptors. But instead, the Night Lords were pigeonholed because so many people took advantage of the no restriction on Raptors that three editions later, all anyone remembers is "Night Lords = Raptors". So personally, I'd rather avoid the system that breeds such narrow thinking. But as I recall, that is taboo amongst the Chaos Community.

And you've become biased against it because of that. Not many people consider raptors anymore when they think of Night Lords, at least not many here on the B&C. Well except for maybe GW (not BL just GW).

 

@temneb- that's kind of a cool idea, just shouldn't have restrictions; ie no heavy support for stealth or no fast attack for siege specialists. That's the sort of thinking that people hate about the 3.5 codex.

[Kol Saresk]

That isn't the only reason Tanith. I ain't lying when I say I don't see Legion traits, only Rites of War. The Legions weren't represented: they were used as archetypes to build certain lists and everyone was happy because the list had Legion So-so in the name. It was a narrow view of a narrow concept and was restrictive beyond belief and yet here we are, asking for creativity and variety and yet wanting to run back to those same nine lists.

[Brother Ambroz]

As I said before dude, it wasn't perfect but we'd be better off with veteran skills to represent each different squad of marines in the warband and purchasable daemonic gifts. It was so great because of all the customization. They were still better represented then than now and like I said before you didn't have to use the "legion" lists.