From the foundations...

[Dammeron]

One of the things that Chaos has not had for a very long time (since 3.5, to be exact) is consideration paid to precisely what assumptions and essentials the army list should be founded on. How does Chaos differ from other armies? How can that be implemented in technical, codex terms? Some of the more long-toothed of you out there might recall an article in White Dwarf in which Pete Haines and Andy Chambers went into miniscule detail on what spurred their decisions to create the codex they did. Whilst the result was somewhat too ambitious for its own good (the legion army lists were somewhat redundant and overly proscriptive, given that the central army list was so variable) what they produced was something that is still beloved by Chaos players and harkened back to with a fairly wistful and nostalgic air.

 

I believe that the reason for this, after scanning through all of the various books written on Chaos (including the RoC and lamentable original third edition book) is fairly evident: options. Options, options, options. Not randomness; not something that determines the outcome of the game on the turn of a die, but options. Both RoC and 3.5 were crammed to the gunnels with options, not all of which were "useful" in a technical sense (Pandemic Staffs, Minor Psychic Powers et al) but all of which were fun and interesting and emphasised the role playing element of the game rather than the technical or competitive elements (the sad upshot of this was a set of combinations that proved ridiculously abusable, most notably certain Daemon Prince configurations, the Iron Warriors siege list and the Word Bearers "Daemon Bomb," the fallout of which has resonated throughout every book produced on Chaos ever since).

 

This seems to me to be the bedrock from which any book or army list designed to represent Chaos in all of its multifarious glory should be erected: options. Options in terms of army structure, individual model and unit options of insane volume and variety; the ability to customise characters beyond what any other codex provides. This is what Chaos should ideally be about (and ften has been in the past). Whereas loyal Space Marines are bound vy certain dictates and codes of conduct; notions of purity and proscription, Chaos Space Marines are not, nor are they limited by laws of physical probability. Even the Tyranids, as various and protean as they are by nature, are bound by physical law and the constraints of biology. With Chaos, even they hold no sway.

 

This does not mean Chaos should necessarily be unbalanced or "more powerful" (whatever that means). The price for this variety should come at a premium: high points cost, small numbers, highly elite forces. This is what once defined Chaos Space Marine forces in particular. Currently, we have a rather lamentable situation iin which we have all of the unbalanced points cost but none of the elite flair.

 

So, some suggestions:

 

- The background (particularly the Horus Heresy and BL novels) provide a fairly solid basis for how a Chaos Space Marine army list should bbe organised in terms of its base assumptions, and that comes in the form of cults. Every piece of background written on the Chaos Space Marines emphasises them operating in terms of small or wide scale cults; squads organised around particular principles or standards of belief; wider armies that conform to a similar principle. A situation in which you start out with a base unit (say, your baseline Chaos Space Marine squad) then apply your Mark of Chaos as per choice then have the option of upgrading your squad to a particular "cult" by selecting a "sin" from a parrticular list for a certain number of points per model. Along with those "sins" redolent of familiar cults (such as the Khorne Berserkers or Plague Marines) there could be a number that are redolent of (but not restricted to) the original traitor legions, as well as a few that are simply non-specific. For example, perhaps you could upgrade your unit with a "Night Stalkers" ability, which gives them the "fear," "stealth" and "night fighting" special rules, or perhaps you could upgrade them with the "Possessed" ability, in which instance, they count as "daemons" and gain a roll on a particular random chart every turn (thus allowing you to create actual armies of Possessed rather than having them as a distinct and far too niche unit). There could also be certain benefits if one purchases a "sin" that is aprticularly associated with a unit's chosen Mark of Chaos or that is shared by the army's warlord.

 

- Eternally Unbound: Chaos armies are...well, not to sound too redundant, somewhat chaotic; they conform to no proscribed standards and tend to be idiosyncratic based on a number of factors (auguries and omens; beliefs and visions). Perhaps to represent that, the FOC could be thrown out altogether and Chaos Armies could always count as "unbound." This would, of course, cause certain technical headaches on the tournament scene and provide a fair old basis for abuse, but it would certainly be redolent of the background.

 

 

What assumptions/bases do you think should inform a Chaos Marine army list, ideally? If you had the hance to design the codex from the foundations up, what assumptions/restrictions would you operate under? (NOTE: I'd be grateful if we could keep this from simply becoming a matter of wish-listing; I'm more interested in getting a feeling for what players and simply fans of the background assume and how they would see those assumptions manifested).

[Teetengee]

I originally intended to start chaos (back in 3.5) as a heavily elite army. Unfortunately that sort of army does very little effectively these days. I would love to see some of that again even if it means I only get to have a few models on the board. also this thread may be of some interest: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/293077-a-better-40k-chaos-codex-design/page-3?hl=%26quot%3Ba+better+40k%26quot%3B&do=findComment&comment=3745109

[Pandemicus]

After I read about the potential 10A of the new Space Wolf Dreadnaught (Murderfang? Whatever they call it), I was left wondering about this very issue...

 

Shouldn't a Khornate Helbrute have a lot of attacks too? Hmmm...

 

I know this is a tired remark, but I'd love for the 4 gods to get books / data slates. Then, each Chaos army could be very different, based on individual tastes, etc.

[incinerator950]

I dunno, I've barely skimmed the other race codexes, even pdfs, as of lately.

 

I've always attributed to balance deficiency and an utter washout of background, playable narratives, and options as from authors who have no care in the world, limited playtesting, and poor oversight with bad timing on introducing of new editions.

 

It took me until sixth to get over scattered Legion armies to be called Warbands, yet I have come to the conclusion that Warband is a generic moniker for rogue or chaos Chapters. So generalized because certain individuals do not wish to broaden the perception that there is more to Chaos Space Marines than evil, unorganized bizzaro twirly mustache astartes and demon hippies. Word Bearer Hosts, Alpha Legion Cells, Night Lord Murders, it's difficult to call everyone following someone a Warband, there is no synchronized army structure.

 

Honestly, I would like to bring back the God disorganization in the form of monogod bonuses. However, I do not wish to stick it to polygod marine and demon players simply for having opposing marks. Likewise, I'd love for a return of sacred numbers, Undivided Princes and demons, and non-aligned astartes.

 

I'd like to see psychic Null armies such as Khornate, Black Templars, and the likes of SoB get more anti-witch bonuses to counter spell spam. I'd like to return Chaos to the forefront of mid to close range superiority with better assault transports, our own variant flyer and super heavy carriers, and an update to expensive, clumsy units that just get grandfathered in.

 

Oh, and Plasma Cannons. It stopped being a gets x and b gets y with grav weapons. I can't fathom that Warlords within the Chaos factions cannot capture and reverse engineer loyalist tech. Yet we can get the newest fantasy uncorn demon engine.

[Tenebris]

Ahh the Chaos Space Marines fundamental principles,... how quaint... 

 

So which are this core principles, this raison d'etre of our megalomaniacs in power armour?

 

1. The Chaos Space Marines are at their very core the definition of a "shock" army. They come in, they come hard and they trample you under their ceramite treads. There is sheer aggression, brutality and directness, no mercy given and none expected. This is what the army is centred around, around a brutal impact, around a vicious first contact, either kill or die but always running forward. The "shock" doctrine is somehow implemented by our need to close to grips with the enemy, with the high number of attacks or spells, in the sheer ferocity of our offence and with actually very little defence in mind. So consider the Chaos Space Marine a very offensive, direct army which favours a highly aggressive style of gameplay. 

 

2. The Chaos Space Marines come in two stripes. Highly elite and specialized units in the form of cult troops or as a horde of power armoured nastiness bearing down on you, bolters blazing butts kicking. This are the two souls of the army, one super specialized to excel in a single method of war and the other generic, expendable and directly brutal. In game terms the Warriors of Chaos from Fantasy should be the actual meter, they are elite but they have also hard hitting hordes. They excel when specialized but they are also brutally indiscriminate when generic. The Chaos Space Marine has four cult units which provide the soul of the specialized aspect but this cult units are so diverse that not even in four editions and more we will have all four fully effective and working. Which is a big problem of ours at this stage. When comes to the generic brutal and direct way of waging a battle, we have hordes and we can amount numbers yet we suffer from a lack of small characters to boost this hordes, to enhance this massive units of either astartes or cultists and even daemons. 

 

3. The Chaos Space Marines people are used to say allow you to play four different army types. This is common knowledge but to us of Chaos this is a mirage, a wish and an oasis in the desert to cling around. Every 40k player of some skill and knowledge knows that Khorne means hard hitting on the charge and many many attacks, Slaanesh means fast and usually ignore armour, Tzeentch means spells and magic things and Nurgle general nastiness with Poison and very resilient, tanky units. This are the fundamentals of the cult armies, this is this yet this also means that four units, four army entries in every CSM book should be the top options, our core, our cult troops, our soul... And we all know that this is sadly not so. So every Chaos player should first and foremost wish for solid cult troops.

 

4. Chaos is Individuality, the Chaos Space Marines is ambition and individuality, the CSM are be it in fluff as well as in the first incarnations of the army a "character" army. Call them Lord, call them Sorcerers, Aspiring Champions... but undeniably the backbone of every Chaos army should be found in the individual Character, the avatar, the supporter, the hard hitter, the magician. When one reads of Chaos Space Marines is it soon clear that the character of the individual, his standing in the eyes of the Dark Gods and his reputation in the warband are what defines every Chaos Space Marines. What this army needs, second to the done properly cult troops is a balanced Elite and HQ section with the option of 1-6 mini characters ala "old Wolf Guard". Characters which offset the lack of discipline, characters which boost the killing power or which boost mobility or resilience of an unit... in short bonuses and USR in the form of lieutenants.

 

5. The Chaos Space Marines are the faction of the wicked and the insane. There is no arguing here, be it Daemonic Engines, Daemon Weapons, strange powers, random charts... CSM are random, unpredictable, dangerous with every roll on some obscure table. To deny randomness to the CSM is to deny them their very soul, be it a d3 roll, a d6 or even a d66, this is mandatory for this army for even the player should feel trepidation before every roll, but the adversary should feel dread. I would love to see a d6 table named Insanity which would effect the opposing army. Here, I said it. 

 

6. Technoarcana is the way. The Chaos Space Marines from a marines only faction evolved into the representation of the "mortal" armies of Chaos, which means Cultists, Daemon Engines, Daemon Princes and so on. Our current book has some nice themes, the Maulerfiends, the Obliterators, the Cultists all are in line with the generic theme but a CSM warband should have options to actually use this variety of units and ideas in their army mechanics. An example? Allow to shoot into an unit locked in close combat with the Cultists... or enhance the damage output if the Daemon Engines go on rampage, even at the cost of some of our wounds or models. What about a greater variety of daemon weapons or artefacts which are as unpredictable as they are deadly. Again the core units could be used in so many creative ways that the book would actually have some sensate synergy between them all.

 

7. Which is the main weakness of the Chaos Space Marines? In fact the weaknesses should be two and only two. First the high cost for specialized, elite and cult units. Remember the cult marine is the absolute master in his field of war, it should come with a premium price, you pay premium points for premium damage and performance. On the other hand the Chaos Space Marine second weakness should not be the low discipline but randomness, but not stupid randomness in the form of the Helbrute table but in the form of the new Ork Mob rule. It is not potentially detrimental if you have to roll on a table, but it is detrimental if you roll 1 on a roll of d6, sort of this. Some competitive players scorn at the very mention of a random table but for example in the Spawn, in the Possessed and the likes it works, reliably somehow. Also how should an enemy army topple the Chaos Space Marines? Simple by forcing him to roll on said tables or perhaps by attacking the individual champions which act as a nexus of fortitude and discipline on the battlefield, much like in the fluff. As it is now, GW decided to "impede" the Chaos Space Marines with a lack of transportation, lack of discipline across the board and a loss of offensive power when an HQ is killed, effectively cutting the damage output by 1/4. All of this options are neither fluffy nor balanced, but most important than all, plain stupid and certainly do not portray the weakness of millennia old legionnaires. 

 

8. Integration with the Daemonic. CHAOS Space Marines, CHAOS people, CHAOS. One when hears the words Chaos Space Marines thinks of a space marine who has sold his souls to the daemons for temporal power and a chance at immortality and one also expects to see daemons as the third soul of a Chaos army. So return the rules which allow a synergy between this two factions. Coordinated deep strikes, summons, sacrifices,... anything to get more daemons on the board and to shift the balance of the battle in the favour of this "shock" army. No one expects and nor should, the Chaos Space Marine to sit back and camp with pew pew guns, they are killers, they are murderers close up and personal, they live for the thrill of mutilation and vicious combat, the bloodier the better. So why not allow the CSM player to sacrifice his cultists for some daemons, why not corrupt even further the daemonic engines, why not make this army insane and vicious as it deserves, it has been done in the past, it can be repeated nowadays. 

 

 

9. Marks of Chaos. The Marks are the core upgrade in our army, the backbone of our rules, the marker by which the book is measured and which is typified in the cult troops. Is it really Nurgle just +1 to toughness, is it really Tzeentch just a +1 to Inv. I think not. Where is our mark of Chaos Undivided, where is the bonus to psychic powers which should come as base for Tzeentch, where is the true rage given form with the Mark of Khorne. I would stomach them to even cost 5 points per model, but they should portray the dedication of a soul to a Chaos God. 

 

10. Traitor Legions. Ah the eternal question since the glorious days of CSM 3,5. We have an elite shock army, now why not make it even more hyper specialized in proper old legion ways. Even if we pay for doctrines, even if we have to sacrifice options to get this feeling of fielding a traitor legion, we are entitled to it. In the end it is our loss, it is we who choose to super specialize our army, it is we who decide to play a focused army which is easy to hard counter, but it is also we who play and we want to play in this way. There is no arguing here, no argument warband vs legion, no FW vs GW histories and no nostalgia, it is the core, it is the theme, the background and the main soul of this army, its vibe, its mojo for lack of better term and thus every book without this options is and always be a pointless, bland and unfit book in our eyes. 

 

 

How to correct this things, how to return this army to its fundamentals?

 

1. Option 1-6 Aspiring Champions with an allowance of max 50 points of wargear per model.

 

2. Crossbalancing the Cult Troops and a final decision on their role and focus. 

 

3. Synergy between the army list entries. Allow us to shoot into our cultists when they are in close combat. Allow our Daemonic Engines to go on a rampage in a frenzy. Place switches which trigger special effects as long as some synergy is viable between the units. 

 

4. When devising the CSM consider the Chaos Daemons and viceversa. Allow the CSM to exploit Daemons, allow the Daemons to abuse the CSM. Example. Sacrifice a cultist, roll a d6, 1-5 you summon a lesser daemon, on 6 you summon a herald... Crossarmy deep strike, evocations... buffing.

 

5. Anchor the discipline and the hardhitting weaponry across the army with the Aspiring Champions, increase the value of a single CSM to exceed every loyalist one, enact a premium price for this. Offset with random tables or the need of a character.

 

6. Assault transports. Matters not the form (probably a big kit since GW needs money). 

 

7. Tzeentch is the de facto psychic army, Khorne the assault army, Slaanesh the fast/ignore armour army, Nurgle the resilient/poison army. AND MAKE THEM WORK as standalone armies.

 

8. Impose a random table (Corruption, Insanity) on the adversary. With both beneficial and damaging results. Like the Warp Storm but in proper CSM way. It works, it helps, it is fluffy and above all it is mind wrecking since actually makes the adversary (and the player) feel like that they are playing with or against he true bad guys.

 

9. Evilness... need I say more? More evil is more fun. Evil nowadays comes in forms of Instant Death, Ignore Cover, Fleshbane, Armourbane... let them fear us in a healthy and balanced way, but make it unpredictable, dangerous... evil. 

 

10. Restyle the marine part of the army. The marine stats are not going to change but a revisiting of our options to differentiate us from the loyalists is mandatory. Volkite weapons, Daemonic Weapons, Daemonic armour and upgrades, all those funky and vicious weapons with which FW wets our insane dreams, provide them to the Chaos Space Marines. Link them to the HH in a grounded, veritable way.

 

 

Glory to the Dark Gods! Death to the False Emperor!

[incinerator950]

My problem with added synergy to demons is shoehorning a requirement to do certain functions by making it mandatory to have them.

 

Another problem with raising the price. The reason why no one wants to use marines is because power armor bodies cost too much, and don't put enough damage out. We don't need a premium now, they need to get buffed. Vanilla undecided and undivided should be the contemporal equals to loyalists. Cult and specialists should be unique and flavorfully good. You can't polish a turd and expect it to be great with heavy words. We need to make power armor affordable in a meta where high strength or bucket dice of shooting won't wash over us, because rolling insanity doesn't stop being shot in the face. Ignore cover still outweighs indurpability.

 

Lastly, not everyone who is a Chaos Marine is a prolific raving psychopath whose every action is to gain demonic gratitude. We cannot be hamstringed as super mutated CS models, or chaos UltraLegion like in 4th. The entire problem is centered not only a distinct lack of focus on our material being a mess, but the distinct void of multiple avinues of success. There should be Demonmancers, rogue pirates, Dark Crusaders, frothing madmen and Powerful Sorcerers seeking truth and power for that sake. Our forces have unlimited potential to draw dark anti-heroes, pitiless savages, lunatics and madmen from every denomination from the Emperor's finest falling to Bile's or Honsou's second hand progeny, to Caustos' mercs or Huron's pirates falling just to survive.

[Teetengee]

Perhaps splitting off into rengade space marines(nonworshipers) vs chaos space marines(those seeking favor) would do something to avoid too much versatility unbalancing a codex.  The two would play very differently I imagine.

[incinerator950]

True, but it's still a differentiation that is different then renegades who fall under the loyalist dex.

[Teetengee]

Very true! I see renegades as covering the night lords/ iron warriors/ alpha legion (i know a huge difference amongst those, but I think that putting them together in a single codex might work fairly well and wouldn't be too unbalanced.) style chaos armies.

[Trevak Dal]

Well, it seems like the easiest solution is to just Squat Chaos Space Marines as a actual faction.  It's unnecessary, when many of the games are going to be Marine vs Marine anyways, Chaos being the "Hordy power armor" army, a bastard between orks and space marines, why not just admit that this can't work out-and put more money into loyalists?  GW can't, or won't come through, because the logistics of the Chaos faction is that there IS not definable cohesiveness.

 

IF they try and make say, legion lists, that's making things a bit too narrow, see the endless rants on how Nightlords are't the "Raptor legion", etc.

 

The long and the short of my personal view is this:  I want a good, fast, and nasty close combat army that uses the Space Marine statline, because my Tau do...just about anything else.

 

Alpha Legion trickery?  There aren't any rules that I've seen or heard of (forgeworld included) that can preform the fluid gameplay that my Tau can.

 

What's nurgle besides the cover camping "LOL I'm basically a ground pounding biker army with Feel No Pain and less initiative".

I think it would just be better if they (GW) dropped Chaos full-stop, because then we could be integrated with the other books and get "The Good Stuff" without having to sacrifice "To be Different", which when you contrast and compare-there's a lot of things that are sacrificed for the sake of "Being Different" from other PA codices, which are all pretty Samey.

Would I like for them to make things right?  Heck yeah-but that's not likely to happen...ever, so it'd just be easier if they just euthanized the faction instead of keeping it limping around.

Now, if there was something where in a Marine Vs. Marine game, both players HAD to roll off, and then one of them was nominated "Chaos" and had all our...lovely rules like ACCEPT ANY CHALLENGE, NO MATTER THE ODDS! with the Boon Table, Lost ATSKNF, dreds became crazy etc. maybe the Loyalists would feel our frustration a bit more.

[Forté]

The most basic way I can put it is...

 

The rules as they are for Chaos have no chance to represent the basic Legions let alone the vast variety Chaos brings. A Slaanesh Lord looking to indulge some whim would attack in a completely different way to another Slaanesh Lord. And there is no scope currently for that amount of variety.

This, personally is a huge shame. Coming from the original Realms of Chaos books, through all the various Codex, to the current edition has been a constant streamline with less and less available. Don't get me wrong, I do miss the sheer lunacy of having a Bloodthirster wielding a daemon weapon with a bound Bloodthirster inside (very nasty) but it just all took far too long.

 

Personally, I would welcome the following:

- Warband/Legion tactics: like the Imperial Chapter Tactics. Just to give a bit more character to your army. Nothing too extreme either.

- Few more Daemon weapons and Chaos equipment. Same again, nothing too game breaking and unique too. One per army (not detatchment.

 

But, we've all been crying out for it and many have just bitten the bullet, given GW the two fingered salute and just made the most amazing looking armies on a table.

[Tenebris]

On the theme of the traitor legions we must be ready to have a compromise if we ever want them. We all know that the Iron Hands are not just FnP, IWND and the sorts but those are their rules, this is what GW elected for them to be (+ Clan Raukaan fiasco) but if we ever wish for the return of the traitor legion we must be willing to compromise on several things.

 

Are the Night Lords a Raptor legion? No, but most probably the current incarnation would be Raptors as Troops, Fear, Acute Senses/Night Vision and perhaps a Warlord Traits table to roll on. Add four or five artefacts and this would effectively be it. It is neither fluffy nor effective on the board but that is the nature of the compromise. I really doubt that we will ever see the legion traits ala Forge World since they are written with a different army list and rule setting in mind.

 

I also agree that the CSM are not maniacs or Dr.Mustache like but again we must set to a compromise. What is and how should be played a Khorne Berzerker, how should be implemented a Mark of Chaos and what does such an army need to be viable (not competitive, but viable) and fluffy. We know it needs an Assault Transport as a Dedicated Transport, we know that it needs a reroll on the charge and we know that needs a better priced loadout of melee weapons, we also know that needs to work in concert with the rest of the codex entries... By knowing all this we also come to realize that we need to have a compromise on which rules should be part of such an army and how should the models move around. The compromise is also compared to the basic troop choices, in the relation between specialist and generalist unit.

 

Now what about the Renegades, the less corrupted armies, the pure strains? Well again a compromise should be found by either allowing codex SM units or granting a modicum of astartes rules to the fold. But then why not play loyalists... I think that the Renegades should be left out of the discussion for in fact they are better represented by the codex SM.

 

How about the generic Chaos Space Marine? How should be fielded, what differentiates him from a loyalist marine and which options he should be given. Well here will be also a compromise for the idea is of big squads, the MSU not figuring in the generic image of the CSM, or tactical level squads but again what should be actually given to them in order to make them unique. Extra CCW? No, the Space Wolves have them. Marks? Not that impactive unless done right. Veteran options? An idea but requires too much finetuning and would shift the balance to the generic CSM instead to the cult unit... See compromise, compromise, compromise...

 

The main problem with bringing us back to our roots is the sheer volume of themes which cannot easily be solved with some USR or Traits, lets see those themes:

 

- Traitor Legions, aka 9 different army themes, countless army lists

- Cult Armies, 4 different army setups, not tied to the traitor legions

- Daemon Engines, aka Dark Mechanicus and technoarcana 

- Horde Army, in the form of masses of PA CSM or Cultists

- Undivided Armies, countless options, a mix of the above or a no Mark army,

- Elite Army, in the form of Chosen, Lords, few models high damage output, Veteran skills,

- Renegade, in the form of Red Corsairs or Abyssal Crusade armies, recent converts to Chaos,...

 

Now GW has to clamp all the above in a single book, inefficiently named Codex: Chaos Space Marines. We agree that should be a focus on the power armoured chaos space marines, that is a given but the question is how to implement the core rules, the basic concepts of all this armies in a single book, a book which can be efficiently expanded via supplements, dataslates, formations... It...cant be and it cant work without massive amounts of compromise which will see our mouths ashen and our eyes cold every time we will get a new book. 

[Dam13n]

I'm actually on the side of allowing customisation, at a price.

 

The basic Chaos Marine should be comparable to any other Power Armoured Space Marine.  Either by having improved rules, or reduced cost.

 

ATSKNF being the big culprit in where this imbalance appears.

 

Now, GW have offered up a Chaos replacement in VotLW, although it's been poorly implemented IMO.

 

So let's say that both a loyal, vanilla space marine and a traitor, vanilla space marine have the same base points cost of #pts/model.  In this case, the traitor needs something of equivalent value to ATSKNF to make this "fair".  Now, what options do we have:

- Fearless ............... they live in the eye of terror / maelstrom, so there's little that should actually scare a Chaos Marine.

- +1 Leadership ...... fits OK

- Stubborn .............. actually works for me quite well.

- Hatred (loyalists) .. a little limited in effectiveness.

etc.

 

Currently, VotLW offers Hatred (marines) and +1 Ld.

 

Personally I'd rather have two rules:

- Veterans of the Long War - Hatred (Forces of the Imperium) - upgrade, priced at 1pt/model for units, 5pts/model for ICs / Monsters.

- Sons of Darkness - Stubborn, Immune to Fear - army-wide basic special rule.

 

Moving on from the basic marine, we have Marks.  These are fine to a certain extent, but don't quite encompass the variety of Chaos as well as I would like.

 

So we could break each Mark down into 2 or 3 different upgrades.  Each one representing a different aspect of each patron god.  Though this gets quite complicated.  Or we could add multiple different Cult upgrades on top of each mark, which also gets quite complicated (I know, I tried it in my Homegrown).

 

So another track... Veteran Skills.  Yes, I know, it's a horse that received more than it's fair share of floggings, but they would allow us personalisation, for a price:

- Berserkers - Mark of Khorne, Skilled Fighters (+1 WS), Fearless, Furious Charge (with Chainaxes being a "Khorne only" upgrade in the wargear list).

- Noise Marines - Mark of Slaanesh, Fearless (with Sonic Weapons being "Slaanesh only" upgrades in the wargear list).

- Plague Marines - Mark of Nurgle, Feel no Pain, Fearless (with Plague Knives and Blight Grenades being "Nurgle only" upgrades in the wargear list).

- Thousand Sons - Mark of Tzeentch, Ashes and Dust (5++), Fearless (with Inferno Bolts being a "Tzeentch only" upgrade in the wargear list).

Add in some Champion specific ones as well.  Like "Aspiring Sorcerer" etc and personalisation is there.

 

The Mark, and each subsequent Veteran Skill, would add pts to the overall cost of the model.  With the result being a fairly costed model.

 

This would allow players to fully customise their units from the ground up.  Whilst maintaining balance through increased cost.  The "original" cult units are still easily constructable, but there would be allowance for creating your own as well.

 

Of course this is also complicated, and could allow for abuse if not done correctly.  There would therefore need to be some form of limitation across the board to stop such abuse.  This could be achieved through making certain veteran skills god-specific, or (my preferred way) by introducing the concept of themes to the list.  Based upon the proclivities of the HQ choices, certain upgrades would become available, representing an organic theme-ing of the warband to the tastes of their leaders.  Alternatively, a limit on the number of different upgrades that can be taken across the warband might work equally well (say 5 different veteran skills per 1000pts being played, for example).

 

The ownership of the list would ultimately fall on it's creator.  Much like the theme of 7th as a whole.  Yes, you can be a cheese-monger make something horrible (and you'll never get a game), or you can be a decent person and use the rules to create a flavourful, fun list.

[incinerator950]

I agree we need compromises, despite it relying on a company who no longer cares what it vomits to make a profit, and previously having codexes that did do it. Unfortunately, FW has been doing Legions. We already know GW is dead set on never returning to Legion facsimiles like 3.5 (every edition feels like someones punishment for being so good), so now we have to re-devise the concept of Warbands. Maintain some true concepts but broaden the spectrum. World Eaters, EC, and Night Lords are practically scattered cults and Warbands.

 

Where as someone like the Word Bearers still maintains a loose Legion like configuration in their specific Warbands being Hosts, still having their Primarch. Where as the Black Legion... you get it after the their supplement.

[Pandemicus]

My problem (as a usually either mono-Bezerker or mono-Plague Marine player) is that they are overcosted for what they do as it is.

 

Bezerkers just can't get into CC. They get shot up (regular and overwatch) on their way- especially since they can't assault out of Rhinos. And getting +1S only on the charge isn't really that good.

 

Plague Marines are hugely expensive. But squads of 5 still die quite easily. Couple of Grav shots and splat. They are more survivable as bigger squads, but if you go bigger you will quickly find that you can't afford to buy anything else. 120 for 5--- add in spec weapons, stuff for champion... they are not cost effective, sadly.

 

I love Chaos. I don't want to win all the time, but I have been frustrated lately. It galls me that the new SW Dread is getting a ridiculous amount of attacks while the Maulerfiend only has 3? Yes, I know hes moves fast, but hes only WS 3 and I3... How many times he's been killed by I4 Krak grenades or Dreadnought powerfists  before he can even strike I can't even count...

[Pandemicus]

I don't mean to whine... Its just that I've played a dozen or so games of 7th and I may have won like 2. I'm not usually THAT bad...