Collaborative CSM Fandex for 9th?

[Jings]

Hey dudes. Looks like we're being shafted again. CSM are up in points, matching cost with Loyalists but with none of the toys or abilities that make them objectively better (and even then, not used in favour of their Primaris superiors). 

 

I've thrown this idea out before (and even wrote up a big list of potential changes) but I think now's the time to take matters into our own hands. I'm thinking we make a collaborative Chaos Space Marine fandex to fix what GW proper have demonstrated they're largely unwilling to - namely giving the entire army the Primaris Marine statline, writing rules and abilities that properly reflect the Legions proper and (most importantly) costing it appropriately and building a custom Battlescribe file for it. 

 

I know this probably won't cut it for the more competitively minded among us, but for the beer and pretzels crowd such as myself a project like this is probably the best we can get to have our armies feel and play as they should. I can provide a file that has a list of potential changes we can use as a baseline template. Anyone up for contributing? 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Jings

[Drudge Dreadnought]

We can just update the 3.5 dex for 9th.

[Lucerne]

Eh, 3.5 is badly outdated. The ideas are solid but at this point it'd be less an update and more a "remake".

 

I'd suggest by starting with a)traitor guard/ "legion cultists" and ways to both use mortals as "cannon fodder", sacrifices and competent troops. Maybe look to the eye of terror rules for inspiration. Mutant mob? Steal from codex: GSC?

 

For Chaos astartes, the current rules work as a "basic" cheap troop option. Rework veterans of the long war for the not-Primaris, and give em some form of ranged wargear option?

 

For "recent renegades", aka: "cannot take vets of long war", they should be able to steal the classic loyalist units and vehicles like GSC do guard units.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Lucerne

[Jings]

I think mining the fabled 3.5 dex for ideas is a really good place to start, even if only to get a good baseline on the flavour for the Legions.

 

There are problems with it though. The customization options are nice, but I think would have three main issues in adaptation: Difficulty in costing, exploitability and straying from the 8/9th edition standard of simplicity.

 

Renegades I think a simple keyword swap with Loyalists should be an option, although that might not be in the spirit of a fandex haha.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Jings

[Kain Mor]

I made an entire traitor legions codex a few months ago actually, I could post it but I didn’t think people would be interested. I stripped out a lot of the daemon engines and such and baked in most of the forgeworld units because I wanted to bring back the legion feel so the renegade chapter fans on this threat won’t find much to love.

 

My local playgroup (16-20 people) just treat it as an office codex. Myself and a handful of others play with it regularly but most everyone took it for a spin at least once to get a feel for it.

 

I was planning an update to 9E as well once more documentation and the point changes are out.

[MegaVolt87]

Look to HH legion rules, ideas from 3.5 dex and you would be on to something. I would go as far as saying even the RoW in HH could be detachments with some changes. 

[Doom Herald]

I've been thinking a good alternative to VotLW for Renegades would be a 1CP strat to take a SM unit and replace the appropriate keywords. Making certain units a troop for more legions than the 4 might be a good start too. Chosen for BL, Raptors for NL, Havocs for IW, Possessed for WB. AL, I'm not so sure about. It seems like the best for them would be a scout-like or sniper unit, maybe even actual scouts. Though I'm not sure how far-fetched that would be for them, new CSMs have to come from somewhere, right?

 

Storm shields should be a thing, even if restricted to Lords, Termies, and Chosen.

 

Marks of Chaos should actually do something. +1 attack for Khorne, +1 to advance/charge rolls for Slaanesh, improved invulnerable/6++ for Tzeentch (maybe improved AP on weapons instead?), and a DR save on all Nurgle would be ideas I'd have for it.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Doom Herald

[Lucerne]

I've been thinking a good alternative to VotLW for Renegades would be a 1CP strat to take a SM unit and replace the appropriate keywords. Making certain units a troop for more legions than the 4 might be a good start too. Chosen for BL, Raptors for NL, Havocs for IW, Possessed for WB. AL, I'm not so sure about. It seems like the best for them would be a scout-like or sniper unit, maybe even actual scouts. Though I'm not sure how far-fetched that would be for them, new CSMs have to come from somewhere, right?

 

Storm shields should be a thing, even if restricted to Lords, Termies, and Chosen.

 

Marks of Chaos should actually do something. +1 attack for Khorne, +1 to advance/charge rolls for Slaanesh, improved invulnerable/6++ for Tzeentch (maybe improved AP on weapons instead?), and a DR save on all Nurgle would be ideas I'd have for it.

Honestly, for renegades, they should probably start by getting the "GSC astra militarum" unit options, ie: trade keywords for some of the basic stuff like razorbacks and other vehicles, some of the HQs/troops...

 

Chosen are simply naughty LM veterans or up and coming newbies. Renegades should be trading off experience and that legacy of the Heresy for more recent wargear and maybe throwing yourselves to corruption/possession with abandon.

 

AL should have seekers/headhunters, ie: Chosen with wargear swaps and unique rules. They should have optional upgrades for their cultists/traitor guard to represent their operatives, ie: borderline Inquisition or at least Guard tier specialists that the Legion uses to stir up trouble.

 

Looking to the 30k units like Moriats, destroyers, etc and putting a Legion flavor on them would not be amiss.

 

The best approach for Legions is a mix of common sense units/rewrites (aka: why the hell don't they get the terminator armour variants, what happened to the AL headhunters and snipers...), 3.5's intent while massively expanding the actual options, and the FW 30K Legion rules with a 40k modernization.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Lucerne

[MegaVolt87]

Maybe a black crusade detachment for -3CP where if you have a BL warlord, you could mix legions + rules in the same detachment. eg- IW havocs, NL raptors/talons, AL chosen, BL troops, WB possessed etc. 

[Kain Mor]

Here's the link for anyone who is interested... 

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CDpjqNeMvkDotfQdDnZsWNPveXeNlry3/view?usp=sharing

 

Enjoy guys.

[Lucerne]

Maybe a black crusade detachment for -3CP where if you have a BL warlord, you could mix legions + rules in the same detachment. eg- IW havocs, NL raptors/talons, AL chosen, BL troops, WB possessed etc. 

Ehhhhhhhhh. Black Legion should focus more on having their own flavor- "first among equals"/chaos deathwatch, so to speak.

 

 

Here's the link for anyone who is interested... 

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CDpjqNeMvkDotfQdDnZsWNPveXeNlry3/view?usp=sharing

 

Enjoy guys.

 

Mind if I namedrop some of the character names/"faceless host" in my own homebrew?

 

Also feels like a trick was missed by using "chaos drop pod" instead of dreadclaw, and not having variations on the standard cultist to account for both "generic cultist"/ even less well equipped civilian cultists and "slightly more competent mortal minion".

Edited July 14, 2020 by Lucerne

[Kain Mor]

 

Maybe a black crusade detachment for -3CP where if you have a BL warlord, you could mix legions + rules in the same detachment. eg- IW havocs, NL raptors/talons, AL chosen, BL troops, WB possessed etc. 

Ehhhhhhhhh. Black Legion should focus more on having their own flavor- "first among equals"/chaos deathwatch, so to speak.

 

 

Here's the link for anyone who is interested... 

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CDpjqNeMvkDotfQdDnZsWNPveXeNlry3/view?usp=sharing

 

Enjoy guys.

Mind if I namedrop some of the character names/"faceless host" in my own homebrew?

 

Also feels like a trick was missed by using "chaos drop pod" instead of dreadclaw, and not having variations on the standard cultist to account for both "generic cultist"/ even less well equipped civilian cultists and "slightly more competent mortal minion".

 

 

My current homebrew project is a "codex supplement" to include the two flying dreadnoughts and all the forgeworld flyers. After that I was going to do a "renegade hosts" codex that leaned towards the daemons/daemon engines with a sprinkling of renegades & heretics stuff like the cultists you're talking about.

 

Not to mention that a key tenant of my codex was evening out some of the more annoying disparities between us and loyalists, thus the standard drop pod. 

 

You're free to re purpose anything you find useful.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Kain Mor

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

Here's the link for anyone who is interested... 

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CDpjqNeMvkDotfQdDnZsWNPveXeNlry3/view?usp=sharing

 

Enjoy guys.

Reading this just made me realize what an atrocity the CSM 2.0 codex was.  This codex is the work of someone that plays the army and loves the fluff.  

 

 

At times I've tried to imagine what a 9th edition CSM codex would be and I thought that CSM armies should be structured in 2 ways.  The first is for mono god armies that gain access to different stratagems if they are mono god.  The second was Chaos undivided which would have access to all the lower mono god stratagems but not the upper tier stuff.   So if you were World Eaters or any mono khorne army you would gain access to some really tasty abilties such as 3d6 charges or 6" pile ins or whatever.  

 

After seeing the 2.0 codex i have zero faith that GW will write a good book for 9th.  It will likely be mid tier with the same boring uninspired trash and TONS of feelbadsies like legion traits not applying to vehicles.  

Edited July 14, 2020 by SanguinaryGuardsman

[Lord_Starscream]

Honestly, I don't think a fandex is the answer, as it doesn't really resolve the fact CSM are a shorter range army.

 

Even buffing them to W2 doesn't really solve their problems. They're a bad army.

 

Unless its a complete redo, with new profiles, and essentially new weapons, and what is essentially new models, I just don't see this solving the army's problems.

[Jings]

Honestly, I don't think a fandex is the answer, as it doesn't really resolve the fact CSM are a shorter range army.

 

Even buffing them to W2 doesn't really solve their problems. They're a bad army.

 

Unless its a complete redo, with new profiles, and essentially new weapons, and what is essentially new models, I just don't see this solving the army's problems.

 

New profiles is what I'm thinking, with expanded wargear options for squads/characters. It's not about making the army the *best*, it's about making them feel more in tune with how they're presented in the lore. 2A2W across the board for all Astartes units is the strongest place to start imo. 

 

None of this will require "new models". I don't know where you're getting that from. 

 

 

I stripped out a lot of the daemon engines and such and baked in most of the forgeworld units because I wanted to bring back the legion feel so the renegade chapter fans on this threat won’t find much to love.

 

See this to me is going too much in the other direction. For a start, like it or not, Daemon Engines are the primary vehicle units of the Chaos Legions these days. To say they aren't or are exclusively the domain of Renegades is headcanon, which is fine, but a bit too exclusionary for what I'm thinking. That said, I don't think they need too much in the way of buffs as things are outside of a couple of boosts to their weapons profiles and being able to utilize updated Legion tactics. 

 

I'll give your list a look though, always open to seeing what ideas people have come up with. 

 

 

Here's a link to my ideas (sorry for the ugly link, formatting is a nightmare) 

https://www.games-workshop.com/document/397270395/Chaos-Marine-Rule-Changes

Edited July 14, 2020 by Jings

[Lord_Starscream]

Bolters are still bolters.

 

Bolters are not bolt rifles. We can just say they aren't bolters, but that's a huge part of the problem. 

[Kain Mor]

Oh wow thanks for letting me know that my home brewed codex is headcannon. I had no idea!

 

I went so far as to completely remove the black ultramarines in favor of the sons of Horus. I know it’s headcannon. I made a codex for the army I want to play, and it does that.

[Jings]

Oh wow thanks for letting me know that my home brewed codex is headcannon. I had no idea!

 

I went so far as to completely remove the black ultramarines in favor of the sons of Horus. I know it’s headcannon. I made a codex for the army I want to play, and it does that.

I wasn't having a go mate, just pointing out that cutting Daemon Engines (and BL) wouldn't be in the spirit of what this would be, which is to say a more accurate to lore CSM fandex.

 

 

EDIT - Looking over your document (which is very well made) it looks like your list is more of an adaptation of 30K specialist units and more of a Scouring-era supplement. Definitely a useful resource. 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Jings

[MegaVolt87]

 

Oh wow thanks for letting me know that my home brewed codex is headcannon. I had no idea!

 

I went so far as to completely remove the black ultramarines in favor of the sons of Horus. I know it’s headcannon. I made a codex for the army I want to play, and it does that.

I wasn't having a go mate, just pointing out that cutting Daemon Engines (and BL) wouldn't be in the spirit of what this would be, which is to say a more accurate to lore CSM fandex.

 

 

EDIT - Looking over your document (which is very well made) it looks like your list is more of an adaptation of 30K specialist units and more of a Scouring-era supplement. Definitely a useful resource. 

 

 

No, no this fan dex would be great as a scouring era CSM dex for a self contained era along with a similar optioned old marine dex minus primaris obviously. I imagine something like this in the far future when FW is properly rolled into GW and plastics are done instead of resin. @ Kari Mor, I think you are far ahead into the future of the game with this, it will be years or if ever this happens. Self contained era's with either separate or current edition rules options and integrated FW plastics would be amazing. 

[Doctor Perils]

From reading different Black Library fiction, it always feels to me like Chaos armies are generally warbands formed around a strong central leader, but each unit is undermanned, if sometimes more powerful than their counterparts on an individual basis.

 

Therefore, it's always somewhat weird that one of CSM's few unique things compared to loyalists is their ability to take massive units.

 

How would you guys feel about an ability for Chaos to take multiple smaller detachments (in a similar fashion to the Dark Eldar), but CSM units being only 3-10 in size, with a stronger statline and a much stronger statline for characters?

 

Potentially the possibility of a generic Chaos Prince/Duke/Supreme Lord/Anarch with the Supreme Commander keyword?

[Jings]

From reading different Black Library fiction, it always feels to me like Chaos armies are generally warbands formed around a strong central leader, but each unit is undermanned, if sometimes more powerful than their counterparts on an individual basis.

 

Therefore, it's always somewhat weird that one of CSM's few unique things compared to loyalists is their ability to take massive units.

 

How would you guys feel about an ability for Chaos to take multiple smaller detachments (in a similar fashion to the Dark Eldar), but CSM units being only 3-10 in size, with a stronger statline and a much stronger statline for characters?

 

Potentially the possibility of a generic Chaos Prince/Duke/Supreme Lord/Anarch with the Supreme Commander keyword?

 

See I've got thoughts on this from similar discussions I've had in the past. One thing people have said is that, similar to what you're saying, is that Chaos is meant to be a Character-focused army with larger hordes of mooks. To that end, I think an approach of keeping both the current profile for CSM (with some alterations to make them more effective) as 10-20 man Renegade (?) squads, with another separate profile for Long War Legionaries. This would cover both ends, really - providing both a Primaris equivalent with the stronger statline in the Long War Legionaries while allowing a basic, cheaper but larger squad to use as an almost Power armoured Horde unit to represent the many nameless mooks. 

 

Buffing characters would be good too, though I think that would be better done through optional purchasable upgrades than it would by just flatly improving their statlines (beyond the army-wide stat improvements we'd be dishing out anyway). 

 

I really like the idea of expanding Cultists too to give options from disorganized throngs of zealots (for the likes of Word Bearers) to trained insurgents (Alphas) or even professional standing mortal armies (IW). 

Edited July 15, 2020 by Jings

[MegaVolt87]

From reading different Black Library fiction, it always feels to me like Chaos armies are generally warbands formed around a strong central leader, but each unit is undermanned, if sometimes more powerful than their counterparts on an individual basis.

 

Therefore, it's always somewhat weird that one of CSM's few unique things compared to loyalists is their ability to take massive units.

 

How would you guys feel about an ability for Chaos to take multiple smaller detachments (in a similar fashion to the Dark Eldar), but CSM units being only 3-10 in size, with a stronger statline and a much stronger statline for characters?

 

Potentially the possibility of a generic Chaos Prince/Duke/Supreme Lord/Anarch with the Supreme Commander keyword?

 

A patrol system like DA would be welcome. Would be another way to represent black crusades/ mixed warbands. Wold be good to generate nice crunch to DIY lore. 

[Doctor Perils]

Ooh, rather than restricting that detachments rule to just patrols, perhaps there could be a system for Obliterator Cult Spearheads, or Host Raptorial Outriders, things like that?

 

That might mean making a kind of Obliterator character too ;)

[MegaVolt87]

Ooh, rather than restricting that detachments rule to just patrols, perhaps there could be a system for Obliterator Cult Spearheads, or Host Raptorial Outriders, things like that?

That might mean making a kind of Obliterator character too ;)

Those could be new detachments on their own down the line, the DE style patrols rules would be more a core codex thing in my mind.

[Jings]

 

Ooh, rather than restricting that detachments rule to just patrols, perhaps there could be a system for Obliterator Cult Spearheads, or Host Raptorial Outriders, things like that?

That might mean making a kind of Obliterator character too

Those could be new detachments on their own down the line, the DE style patrols rules would be more a core codex thing in my mind.

 

 

For Black Legion sure, but I can't see that being particularly fluffy for most others. Maybe make it part of the Black Legion suite that they can forego some or all of the usual BL trait (whatever that may be) and replace it with (some or all of) the trait of another Legion/Renegade if they're in a Patrol detachment while keeping the usual Black Legion keywords? 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Jings