Has IA13 brought CSM back in the game

[Submarine]

First thing I should say is that I dont play against power players on those fielding the typical hardcore armies. We are a group of friends that regularly play and we are competitive but not crazy competitive.

 

I do face necrons a lot, but he doesn't play an ultra cheese necron list, usual stuff, arks, two flyer transports, lord in barge, etc. My other opponents are marines, BA and orks occasionally.

 

Anyway, I will get to the point. I am looking to start a marine army. I looked at SM, iron hands chapter, and then discovered iron warriors who sounded pretty cool and they were CSM. I also like the ease of their colour scheme as well as their background! 

 

I want a reasonably competitive army in that I will be rewarded for good tactics and not be at a significant disadvantage from the outset. With the release of the new IA13 book and the new unit options for CSM, are they now in a place where they are more competitve and playable? From reading posts in here there is a lot of negativity about them.

 

Personally I really like many of the models and imagery like the defiler, decimator, and blood slaughterer, and maulerfiend for example. But I want to make them work.

[Nehekhare]

yes, they are more competitive, but no, they are nowhere near the top of the game. If you plan on delving into chaos, better learn to accept negativity, because it will not go away.

[Submarine]

Oh, that's a shame. Why are people so negative about them?

[hushrong]

I like to think of playing chaos akin to playing Veteran/Legendary mode in a video game. It's hard as hell and you are going to die/lose a lot but when you win...oh man does it feel good.

[Scribe]

Oh, that's a shame. Why are people so negative about them?

 

There are a number of reasons, I'm staying in 'positive' mode as long as possible so wont get into it.

 

That said there are units, and combinations, through Forge World, Supplements (Helcults, Black Legion, Crimson Slaughter) and Allies to Daemons, there are way's to feel like you are running a CSM list and still be successful and have fun.

 

If you feel like running a 'legion' list, I will say you better prepare for a lot of counts as, or run a loyalist book or play 30K.

[Spaz431]

I've played very possible combination of CSM list. And now that I've got IA:13, I'm hopeful again. I've drawn up a spartan Khârn list to play against on of my friends who has started forge world supported tau. Dirty tricks will abound.

[Caustic63]

With the release of the new Blood Angels codex this coming Saturday, Chaos Marines will be the second oldest codex in the game above Necrons. Chaos Marines was released at the beginning of last edition when the mechanics of the 'new' game were poorly understood from a balance perspective by the designers, and it shows. The writers of the book (and Dark Angels for that matter which was written concurrently) were notably careful with many of their additions/changes and only partially restored the variety they took away in the previous edition.

 

That being said, IA13 is really a facelift for our struggling codex but it doesn't fix the core problems with the book. The ability to take Chaos Guardsmen, Legacies of Ruin, and lots of neat new vehicles (some of which are highly useful like the Sicarian and Relic Predator) is good and I've already taken to using some of the options contained within.

 

If you want to play 40K Iron Warriors (and don't want to try using the 30K Iron Warriors instead, who are a LOT better), then it seems IA13 is your book.

[Sheesh Mode]

Certain individuals in the faction feel the only proper representation of evil space vikings from hell is to equip them with powerful ranged weapons and super fast vehicles like skimmers and bikes. 

 

Certain individuals are suspiciously tall, thin, and extremely pliable when applied to my fences. 

 

Chaos is a high stakes game. You will win the glory of the Dark Gods against armies unprepared against the inexorable advance of millenium old veterans, or die like common scum from the massed firepower of mobile or heavily equipped enemies. Your forces are capable of unstoppable killing power just as they are susceptible to ignoble death much as the rest of the Galaxy. 

 

You decide. 

 

Certainly IA13 gives us much. We can now field trustworthy artillery alongside our bloody psychopaths, yet overall we are, and shall forever be, the foil to the Imperial war machine. What normal spacemarines can do we can do better. We are tough, hard hitting, assault happy, infantry centric with beefed up tanks as support. The current rule set does little to support the better fighting method, yet we shall continue to troll the loyalist fanbase with better strategies and tactics. 

 

I lost four times in a row against three different armies. I won on the fifth battle because I learned from the first four, to be cautious, utilize all assets, and never to be afraid to act. No single model is as important as the final objective: victory. Sacrifice the warlord? Certainly, if that will secure success. Throw away the Lord of War? Of course! If that will mean glorious triumph against the heathen trash that infests the galaxy.

 

Chaos forces us to play dirty, so we do.  

[Vorenus]

Caustic63, another factor is that C:CSM did not see an update in 5th edition.  C:CSM was updated to 4th edition in September 2007, but never got a 5th edition codex (5h edition came out in 2008), and so when 6th edition came out and the C:CSM was updated to 6th, it had "jumped" an edition entirely.  Five years between editions, skipping over an edition entirely, and then with the sudden emergence of 7th edition after only 23 months from the release of 6th left the C:CSM once again painfully in the lurch.  At least, that's my opinion.

 

Source on edition dates and codex release dates:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_(Warhammer_40,000)

 

Despite that, I still really, really enjoy playing Chaos.  If you're interested on reading some of my thoughts on how Chaos can be a fun army to play AND how to win games while doing it, you can check out this thread:  http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/293238-how-to-winning-with-csm-in-7th/page-6 (my comments begin at post # 142 in that thread).

 

Don't be discouraged by the naysayers.  Chaos is fun to play, and you can and will win games.  Also, if you read any of the Black Library books, we've been getting some love lately.  Several books in the Horus Heresy series portray the Legiones quite well.  I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of the Iron Warriors in the book ANGEL EXTERMINATUS, and I absolutely loved the treatment of the World Eaters by ADB in BETRAYER.

 

v/r

 

--Vorenus

[Nehekhare]

Oh, definately fun to play, outrageously great to model, even greater to rant about ruleswise.

 

One thing I might add: "chaos" actually is a fluff/background notion, which means that, while there are codices and army lists that were designed to represent this notion on the tabletop (mainly Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Daemons, Renegades & Heretics and the associated supplements), you are in no way restricted to these and should explore as many ways as possibile to make your gaming experience worthwhile.

[Teetengee]

Also, I have some bad news on the painting front; hazard stripes are not the easiest thing to paint.

[Uprising]

Do what you love, chaos is not at the top, but !A 13 has help alot, if your willing to start another army because of allies(CD and Traitor guard are awesome!)

[Lucio]

Also, I have some bad news on the painting front; hazard stripes are not the easiest thing to paint.

Surgical tape is your saviour here, paint your yellow and leave to dry, score the tape down the middle to get a suitably thick strip and mask off the areas needed, then tear off alternate strips. Then paint in the black.

 

Should give a nice clean edge and if the tape is applied carefully, paralllel too.

[Teetengee]

 

Also, I have some bad news on the painting front; hazard stripes are not the easiest thing to paint.

Surgical tape is your saviour here, paint your yellow and leave to dry, score the tape down the middle to get a suitably thick strip and mask off the areas needed, then tear off alternate strips. Then paint in the black.

 

Should give a nice clean edge and if the tape is applied carefully, paralllel too.

 

I was more referring to the fact that getting a nice yellow can be difficult, and masking only works on certain shaped pieces. Totally worth it though.

[the jeske]

not realy my wifes uses something that looks like scotch[you know that see through tap thingy] but is white and was used in type writers, cuts them in to any shapes she wants with a scalpel.

 

 

Yellow on the other hand is a bitch to paint. But that can be said about any non metalic color.

 

As to the IA bringing back chaos in to the game, it probably depends on the definition of what the game is. It is a lot of models [which at least technicly is always good, for the possible options] and units. The good ones though are strongly not chaosy[wyverns, rapriers, the chaos raptor being in ways better then the loyalist ones where normaly it is always the other way around] and the chaosy ones[claws, demons, renegades, dreads, relics] kind of a suck.

 

Of course another thing is that the units aren't new. Raptors , chaos rapier batteries existed before the book came out. So for people that already used FW, they shouldn't be that much suprise.