What are your expectations for a new Chaos codex? (rumors!)

[crucial]

I sorta expected a new csm sprue updated like the loyalist one. From a business perspective pretty much every csm player would be buying a few boxes of those. Keeping your older marines too of course.

 

Aside from that lots of huge formations.

[Lagrath]

I think people have given up on 3.5 when they saw how watered-down and streamlined the recent codexes have been, minus Tau and Eldar being too good.

 

Honestly, I think the formations for most armies have been very strong and flavorful. I wouldn't mind a generic codex so long as we get a few price drops + some nice formations, and I think that's exactly what most of the last year's codexes updates have provided. I am pessimistic like other chaos players, but in some ways we have nowhere to go but up.

 

I am wondering if Typhus will either get a points drop or eternal warrior...

[Scribe]

3.5 is no longer even remotely the design paradigm, and it doesnt need to be frankly. I've REALLY bought (the idea, I dont spend money on GW rules...) in to Supplements, Detachments, Formations and Dataslates, the issue is that outside the Helcult and Crimson Slaughter, Chaos ones dont really hold a candle to Imperial, Tau, or DE versions.

 

The design concepts however are imo very solid.

 

1. Basic basic codex design. A majority of it using nothing but key words and USRs. This is a win. It makes the game easier to learn, pickup, and play across a number of books.

 

2. Increasing options via supplemental (yet still official) product's. Packaging those around specific load outs of units is a fluff and crunch win, as long as things are done in a balanced manner.

 

If, and its a huge if, GW can keep it together for an edition, 7th could turn out better than all before it, as the design paradigm presently being used allows for a slow growth of complexity, while also providing a bare bones framework, if one so desires.

 

I hope CSM fall into the same realm. I dont expect a reboot, I dont expect much change if any honestly, beyond a simplified Gods Chart, and hopefully some homogenization across what Marks do (Marks->Cults->Elites->Lords).

 

Some minor price adjustments, and call it a day. If they can strike some actual internal balance between the 4 gods + unmarked, I'd consider it a good book.

[tdemayo]

My suspicion? GW is not going to revise any of the 6th edition codices. Anything with a full color hardback will remain the same until 8th. Whenever that is.

[MaliGn]

I expect possessed will continue to not be as good as they should be fluff wise.

[chaplain belisarius]

I'd like it if csm got cheaper by a bit.

 

Marks do the same all across the board. Don't get why a lords mark etc is different.

 

Cult terminators!!!

 

New cult troop plastics

 

Sort out thousand sons.

 

Drop pods? (Think of the fun that would be!)

[chaplain belisarius]

Also legion specific traits! Keep them simple and characterful!

 

And also. Put daemons back in the codex!!

[Forté]

Does anyone have anything to add that hasn't been said in any of the topics along these lines that appear every few weeks?

[MaliGn]

Of course we don't!

[Fibonacci]

I expect:

 

Like most I expect cult troops become Legion formations.

 

Someone will be made a Lord of War.  Abaddon maybe?  Be'lakor would fit the role better but it would not surprise me too much if Daemon Princes became LoW only.

[Lord Marshal]

Helturkeys nerfed completely into the ground.

Legion Tactics OR the total removal of unique Legion content. One extreme or the other.

Plague Zombies removed (no 'official' models, even with Vampire Count ones).

Plastic Sorcerer kit at £18.

 

 

TLDR: Can't upset the Imperial/Space Marine players too much.

 

Not that I'm cynical or nuffin'.

[incinerator950]

I keep low expectations for everything.

 

A) I do not like nickel and diming. Supplements and formations just accelerate problems whale gamers continually ignore.

 

B) I do not value our codex in its current state, nor do I like watering down everything into everything goes territory.

 

C) I will be more pleasantly surprised if they release a better or even good tier codex not having high expectations.

 

D) I have zero confidence in GW nor do I respect their business practices.

 

I expect another copy and paste, with some changes to make our army a little niche compatible while making allies more useful. I do not expect GW to get off the Renegades/BL boat so I expect all colors of Warbands to become more bland paintjobs. I also expect things that people want to be ignored, big name renegades and legion warband traits or chaos drop pods, for half assed formations and demon unicorns war engines that we "need" because they're so new and cool.

[Uprising]

Another codex that is streamline with lacking flavor, nerf to overpowered unit and boost to the new items to increase sales. 

[helterskelter]

(Doomrider)

[Lord Marshal]

I also expect Crimson Slaughter will take over as poster boys completely. Essentially, they'll trade places with the Black Legion in the current book: Prominent, runners up in terms of coverage, but they're not the ones getting the glossy page spreads.

[Chaeron]

Does anyone have anything to add that hasn't been said in any of the topics along these lines that appear every few weeks?

I can't imagine there will be - but then, maybe my earlier assessment was appropriate!

 

There is a lot of potential - I hope they utilise it. We all want Chaos Knights...

[Lord Pariah]

better Vet of the long war would be nice.... hatred (SM) is nice (*sarcasm*) but i would have wanted something akin to ATSKNF(?) 

 

MoN needs a nerf... too much of an auto include

MoT is... a useless unless on a character.... 6++, Wow

Mos is fine

MoK rage and furious charge? counter attack is too much crouching tiger for blood thirsty madmen for my liking.

 

for cults... maybe a re-working, thousand sons are cool but expensive, never complain about plastic stuff

Plague marines... are fine?

Bezerkers need to be better, something like the new BA?

Ive never used noise marines... heard they are fun...

 

More tank options, yes, IA13 has taken the rains but hey.

 

Oblits need to be more inline with the centurions, T5, grav weapons etc... in fact a reworking of Oblit weapons would be nice, even if it stays the same but i fire two weapons like the aforementioned centurions 

 

I would say a reworking of the Rewards but i really don't want to temp fate and they get rid of the Spell familiar.... that is the s--t now and a mandatory 15pts upgrade on anything with a psyker...

 

A dedicated cultist box would be nice, like the one for cadians, but FW will have a say but one can pray to the dark powers of GW codex team

 

Maybe they take some pages from IA;13 and add devotions to your warlord?  look, i'm focusing on R&H so i'm sitting up here with a fire extinguishers

[Lord Pariah]

oh... and psychic powers.... something that resembles something i dont' just want to make... i dunno, just not as much a mess.

 

and more discipline options for the Sorcerers.. divination should be a no brainer

[Warsmith Aznable]

I expect Cult Troop kits that come in 5 man boxes.

 

The Cultist boxes will not be changed.

 

I expect formations that utilize the named characters and their cult troop type.

 

Bonus formation for Warpsmith involving lots of expensive kits. Another one for the !Chaplain that buffs cultists.

 

Defiler to get boost to sell more models.

 

Heldrake made cheaper, Baleflamer reduced to AP4 but with some kind of random chance to be AP3.

 

Attempt to fix Possessed that fails as miserably as every other iteration has.

 

Mutilators and Warp Talons will inexplicably remain unchanged.

 

Abaddon moves to LoW, maybe even gets a cool rule for fluff (that is initially overpowered and quickly FAQed into uselessness.)

 

Psychic powers will be so fluff based that none of them will actually be useful on the table.

 

Mark of Nurgle will still be the best Mark.

 

Plastic kits for the steeds that Lords/Sorcerers can take. Will be awesome, but extraordinarily expensive.

 

So I have written, let it be known.

[Skallagoose]

I would expect the codex to be in line more with Space Wolves in the scope of its release. BA had a shorter release, while Orks and Dark Eldar and Space Wolves got a longer release. I would expect 2-3 new models/kits with a week of white dwarf for each new release. I would expect the codex to go down the line of adding more daemon stuff to the mix. I don't mean to say combining the codex at all, but rather adding more aspects of the daemons to the book to give it more zest (example; blood angels got a lot more "blood" and wolves got a lot more "wolfy")

 

I would expect a slight change to the marks. MoN is overused while MoT is underused.

I would expect cult troops overhaul- not a complete change but an overhaul. Turning them into elites i think would be a given.

 

I would expect two-three initial release books (bundle it up again). One for the main codex and another devoted to just formations (formations are mark and army variants).

 

A complete revamp of psyker powers and maybe a boost to Psykers of Chaos. 

 

Sorry guys- but spell familiar will either cost more, be nerfed or be removed. 

 

Abbaddon the harmless will go to LoW in accordance with the other books changes.

 

I really expect even a chaos supplement that would include a new "BIG" thing being released in between this and Daemons (whenever daemons would be) which would act similar to Imperial Knights. Get chaos players on that ban-wagon!

[Caustic63]

Games Workshop is changing so quickly these days with the rapid pace of their release schedule, there's no telling what the new Chaos Marines codex will look like when it arrives.  If releases like the Orks, Grey Knights, Dark Eldar, Space Wolves and Blood Angels are anything to go by it seems like they are getting to the point where they are running out of good ideas and going with the 'safe' but stale approach. This is in stark contrast to the Eldar-Tau-Space Marines peak of 6th edition, where they were putting out exciting and dominant codices on a regular basis.

 

However, the recent Chaos Marines codex was released at the dawn of 6th edition, when the mechanics of the new edition were poorly understood (like how powerful the new flyers were). They, along with Dark Angels, were the 'safe and stale' books of 6th edition. What I'm saying is that since these books are already bland, making them worse would mean essentially terfing the army (like what happened to Sisters of Battle) which from a model sales point of view makes no sense since Chaos Marines have a large player base and a broad and detailed range of plastics.

[Scribe]

"safe and stale" really misses the mark in my opinion.

 

There's no need for 6 versions of rending, or slightly different rage/rampage conditions. Consolidation and streamlining of rules shouldnt really be the issue here.

 

Now...the fluff side is suffering in 7th. One only needs compare 5th Dark Eldar with 7th Dark Eldar, and you see that edits and cuts have been made so more (poorly painted oddly enough) images of models can be in the book. There are enough of these cuts that something meaningful is lost actually...

 

There's really not a lot 'over the top' about the Eldar book, other than some rules interactions. Internal balance is not profoundly above anyone else, while Tau just shoot all together too well, and their Supplement is powerful.

 

Marines, eh, I dont really know other than Centurion-stars, what they run thats all that good. Bikers I suppose?

 

Either way, I like the crunch side of the 7th edition codex releases so far, I just hope GW can stay the course for once.

[*Furyou Miko]

Nurgle will be powerful. Tzeentch will be nerfed. Because that's how it works when I like something.

[Tenebris]

I expect a "streamlined" product. What this means?

 

As we have seen with the new releases the books are relatively solid, not overly powerful and with a strong theme locked in formations, dataslates and the new campaign books. In our case and due to our recent theme of Crimson Slaughter vs Dark Angels I expect the two books to be developed simultaneously and we should also be cognizant of another thing, game development. If say Necrons are other books in February this leaves our book with little more than two months worth of playtesting for the developers, so it is only understandable that they will play it safe. The point is to sell new kits, so the majority of the work for our book will not be a work of rules but a work of new graphics, art, background and the modelling of new kits, which leaves the rules development... lacking.

 

I think that our new book will have the same feel and vibe of our 6th edition codex, with minor corrections here and there and which will be reliant on formations to supplement the lack of thematic or special rules. We can expect more formations in line with Khârn's Butcherhorde which will have the job to help a new player to build an army and a collector to pool his models into "thematic" units.

 

The single unit entries will receive almost no updates if we take in consideration the recent books. Some points shuffling, a remake of the psychic disciplines more in line with the rules of the 7th, a tone down in terms of wargear and customization but an increased pool of artifacts and a revamp of the warlord table.

 

Unlike the new books the new chaos book has to play nice with the Crimson Slaughter and Black Legion supplements so we can expect either similar rules or a very similar mechanic to our army as we had for the past two/three years. I don't think we will gain new units (maybe a new flyer or big kit) but we will certainly get a codex, a formation book supplement and an integration either via downloadable files from the BL or a reprint of the Crimson Slaughter and Black Legion books.

 

Another thing is that the Chaos Space Marines as a book do not exist in a void. We are closely tied with the Chaos Daemons so it is understandable that GW would like to bank in some cash also on those terms. 

 

A thing worth to mention, which went overlooked so far is the following. If GW makes new cult troops models then we are screwed. Why? Because the kits of five will not be enough to make the formations which as we have seen so far will inevitably demand many more models per unit, so we can be sure that we are looking at another 200-300 eur worth of models which we will have to invest quite soon. Just a warning. The same thing happened with the Space Wolves if you recall, with the new flyers and all. The jump from our old book to our new book, whenever it will happen it will cost us much, between the campaign box, the campaign first and second book, the codex, the supplement, the new kits and so on, we are looking at a quite expensive 2015 for us of Team Chaos. So do not call the devil too soon. 

 

Another thing is our hero range. Most of our HQ models are slowly closing 20 years of active service so expect the future Kharns, Ahrimans and other big names to be quite strong heroes, but also they will carry a prohibitive price tag of 30+ eur per model should they be cast anew... So are we really that excited now?

 

Following all said until now. The Chaos Space Marines are an iconic faction with iconic units but we lack an iconic approach to the battle. GW things that the faction tactical objectives (hence another 10 eur in objective cards) are a way to supplement this lack of our but we all know that it is far from being an efficient solution. The main question should be, or rather questions, how should a CSM army play, how will a CSM player use his psychic phase, are the CSM a melee army, which should be our iconic rules and so on...

 

As it is we know several things for a fact. The Mutilators are useless, the Thousand Sons and the Tzeentch Psychic Discipline are useless, the Warp Talons are useless and our Troops, the CSM and Cultists are still undecided in their role in our army, for while they are universal a better rephrasing would be that they are universally lacking.

 

If I have a dream for the faction I love is a solid remake of the Thousand Sons, here I have said it. Yet if there is something I would add to my vision of chaos is a return to a character heavy army which is on par with the Space Wolves in numbers of HQ and Elite slots for single characters. 

 

And please gods of GW ... make the Kai Gun an artifact once more. 

 

 

On a side note, as a mod it is my job to say that while we of the moderati do like to see such topics in the Chaos board we are especially attentive of them. We all recall the "long night" of the Chaos forums all to vividly so I will simply say that we are watching the topic with ... great interest. 

[WarriorFish]

A new Marine box is surely due in the next update? The newer Chaos models have a great selection of bits such as heads so it'd be reasonable to expect that. I would love to see the Thousand Sons get something as they're my next favourite after Slaanesh, again that feels like something that is overdue.