How are people adapting to the massive changes?

[Galron]

As we all know by now, the reboot of chaos is upon us and its the Rian Johnson version of the codex. They decided they do not want creativity and hobbyists having fun so essentially the squads across the board are stupidly nerfed. No more specializing your squads for reasons...

Tactical squads- despite standard marine squads never being that outstanding in the first place, now you have no ability to make an anti-armor team or an anti-power armor squad etc. You get one special or heavy weapon per five dudes but no doubling up. So are 5 man teams the way to go still since they disincentivize the use of larger squads?

Vet squads- aside from terminators, these were the most customizable squads we had, you could make an effective melee unit, you could make a special weapon support squad. Now you get accursed weapons and thats it. They are a pure light melee unit. I would ask how everyone is equipping them but I think everyone will be using them exactly the same. Oddly enough, my Emperors Children used a 10 man squad of Palatine Blades as vets prior to this and aside from one with a power fist, they actually carry over. Cant say the same for my Iron Warriors Vets.

Terminators- Formerly a staple specialized unit at least in my armies. The accursed weapon thing isnt as crippling as the combi-weapon thing. I am wondering if its worht bringing 10 so you can get 4 meltas and 2 plasma or keep them in groups of 5? I for now am doing the group of 5 thing and upgrading as many as can have chainfists. 

Lords- My night Lords have been neutered since all of my characters have to be totally redone, my other armies are not so bad off. So a Lord gets crap for upgrades and comes with a thunderhammer...yay. This then forces us to either run them bare bones or use daemon weapons which I believe count as relics but I could be mistaken, will suck bad if true given the new rules on command points and the general lack of gear to make them unique. So are people even bringing chaos lords or are they passing them over for terminator lords and daemon princes?

 

[lansalt]

The new limitations to Chosen and the Lords are really unwelcome and unnecessary to put it mildly. Specially the latter is just terrible when most CSM players run kitbashed lords since forever. Making all those illegal to use is totally unfair and against the hobby and fluffly side of the game.

[Bulwyf]

4 hours ago, Galron said:

As we all know by now, the reboot of chaos is upon us and its the Rian Johnson version of the codex. They decided they do not want creativity and hobbyists having fun so essentially the squads across the board are stupidly nerfed. No more specializing your squads for reasons...

Tactical squads- despite standard marine squads never being that outstanding in the first place, now you have no ability to make an anti-armor team or an anti-power armor squad etc. You get one special or heavy weapon per five dudes but no doubling up. So are 5 man teams the way to go still since they disincentivize the use of larger squads?

Vet squads- aside from terminators, these were the most customizable squads we had, you could make an effective melee unit, you could make a special weapon support squad. Now you get accursed weapons and thats it. They are a pure light melee unit. I would ask how everyone is equipping them but I think everyone will be using them exactly the same. Oddly enough, my Emperors Children used a 10 man squad of Palatine Blades as vets prior to this and aside from one with a power fist, they actually carry over. Cant say the same for my Iron Warriors Vets.

Terminators- Formerly a staple specialized unit at least in my armies. The accursed weapon thing isnt as crippling as the combi-weapon thing. I am wondering if its worht bringing 10 so you can get 4 meltas and 2 plasma or keep them in groups of 5? I for now am doing the group of 5 thing and upgrading as many as can have chainfists. 

Lords- My night Lords have been neutered since all of my characters have to be totally redone, my other armies are not so bad off. So a Lord gets crap for upgrades and comes with a thunderhammer...yay. This then forces us to either run them bare bones or use daemon weapons which I believe count as relics but I could be mistaken, will suck bad if true given the new rules on command points and the general lack of gear to make them unique. So are people even bringing chaos lords or are they passing them over for terminator lords and daemon princes?

 

I have two CSM armies, NL and EC. My NL is far worse with this codex than it was with 8th edition and psychic awakening rules.  The  leaked +1 to advance and charge rule for NL? Not there. The +1 to wound against units with LD6 which meant the worthless LD debuff traits NL always get would be actually worth it? Nope. Moved to LD5. Which considering almost every army in the game is LD8 OR HIGHER...means it is worthless. Two worthless legion traits. But wait, it gets even worse!

The warlord traits and relics are straight garbage. They are so putrid that since you now have to take CP to take a WL trait or relic you have zero reason to actually TAKE a NL warlord trait OR relic. For anyone doubting this go look at the numerous leaks and videos on the actual codex. The NL warlord traits and relics are laughably horrible. 

But wait, it gets even worse! Remember jump pack characters and dual LC terminators? Or dedicated units of Chosen and terminators to be either all melee or anti armor or anti horde? Gone. Removed. 

This truly is the Disney Star Wars version of CSM. Horrible and just un fun to use. 

Edited June 30, 2022 by Bulwyf

[USNCenturion]

Really can’t understand some of the design decisions that went into this book. Would love for there to be a voxcast after each release with the developers to explain the reasonings behind changes and such. It seems something major happened between playtesting and book release, and it smells of an upcoming adjustment to the whole game that this book was the first to be geared towards (as CSM, of course it is). 
 

As it stands, I still love my Iron Warriors, am fairly happy with what I got (could have been much, much worse) and will continue to have hope for the future of the long war. Been fighting it this long, no sense to give up now. 

[Iron Father Ferrum]

While I appreciate the metaphor, I think it's unjust.  This is more....Phantom Menace than Last Jedi.

 

And look, I get it.  I've got wings and stuff on Lords & Sorcs and I've had to start literally re-arming Legionary squads.  I share the pain.  But if you're not a tournament player, does it really matter?  Talk to your gaming group about the wargear options that were pulled and see if they mind you using double plasma guns in your Legionaries, or if they'll let you take a jump pack on a Lord for 25 points or something.

 

I played one game so far with my Alpha Legion using a PDF that some enterprising individual cobbled together from pics and still-frames from YT vids.  The codex has play.  Black Rune Terminators on an objective doing the Subvert or For the Dark Gods secondary?  Very hard to shift.  Berzerkers are still super-killy.  Legionaries with bolters, a HB, MoT, Icon, and Daemon Shells were pumping out AP2 & AP3 shots with exploding 6s; I butchered a bunch of Infiltrators with that.

 

Again, I agree that the wargear restrictions are crappy.  I'm not arguing that.  I'm saying that the codex hasn't even been released yet.  Try it out.  Find some combos that work for your army and your playstyle before giving up on the book entirely.

[Kaiju Soze]

Adapting? Mostly by trying to find ways of building the new Legionary upgrades at the old scale so they don't stand out too much amongst their squadmates.

Otherwise, loss of combi weapons aside, most of the units I would be using have been improved, and if I understand the Slaves to Darkness rules correctly, my 10 Rubrics with warpflamers came out of it suprisingly well off.  Though, given the efforts involved in converting some of those champions with combi weapons, I probably won't be replacing the physical pieces on the models.

I won't lie, the loss of weapon options for characters and aspiring champions is really annoying for me as someone who loved the customisability of the 3.5 codex.  Not even for broken combinations, but because I was the person who'd happily convert a miniature up and then use it as a 60pt 1W squad leader because that's what the points worked out as.

[Bulwyf]

1 hour ago, Iron Father Ferrum said:

While I appreciate the metaphor, I think it's unjust.  This is more....Phantom Menace than Last Jedi.

 

And look, I get it.  I've got wings and stuff on Lords & Sorcs and I've had to start literally re-arming Legionary squads.  I share the pain.  But if you're not a tournament player, does it really matter?  Talk to your gaming group about the wargear options that were pulled and see if they mind you using double plasma guns in your Legionaries, or if they'll let you take a jump pack on a Lord for 25 points or something.

 

I played one game so far with my Alpha Legion using a PDF that some enterprising individual cobbled together from pics and still-frames from YT vids.  The codex has play.  Black Rune Terminators on an objective doing the Subvert or For the Dark Gods secondary?  Very hard to shift.  Berzerkers are still super-killy.  Legionaries with bolters, a HB, MoT, Icon, and Daemon Shells were pumping out AP2 & AP3 shots with exploding 6s; I butchered a bunch of Infiltrators with that.

 

Again, I agree that the wargear restrictions are crappy.  I'm not arguing that.  I'm saying that the codex hasn't even been released yet.  Try it out.  Find some combos that work for your army and your playstyle before giving up on the book entirely.

I am not trying to be contrarian but go look at the NL warlord traits and relics. They are laughable. I will definitely play the NL but now I feel Abby is an auto include just to have a chance to win a friendly game.

[Galron]

The codex hasnt been released? I got one yesterday at one of my stores when I had a free 30 minutes to stop in looking for some paint and eliminators.

 

I will say I like what they did to EC, now I just have to figure out what to do with them with the models I have, Currently 2 10 man noise marines and a 10 man vet plus some terminators that are in question. Printing up some more rhinos as I type. I really like the possessed models and I have a few daemon engines lying around. 

Thinking of taking my 25 terminators and grabbing an Abbadon and converting him up to be some kind of badass pre-daemon prince NL lord. Warp talons and a few tactical squads to fill out the remaining points. I honestly have no idea, terminators are supposed to have a job and they currently dont do anything particularly well. I havent dug through the general strats yet to see if there are any benefits there to termies. 

I

Edited June 30, 2022 by Galron

[Iron Father Ferrum]

5 hours ago, Bulwyf said:

I am not trying to be contrarian but go look at the NL warlord traits and relics. They are laughable. I will definitely play the NL but now I feel Abby is an auto include just to have a chance to win a friendly game.

Abaddon should not be seen in a friendly game at this point.  He is an absolute murder machine.  And Alpha WLTs and relics are nothing to write home to about either.  I have played a game against Ultramarines and I was winning when the store closed and we had to pick up.  I'm not telling you it's a meta-breaking army, I'm asking you to try a few games before you started claiming it's trash.

 

 

4 hours ago, Galron said:

The codex hasnt been released? I got one yesterday at one of my stores when I had a free 30 minutes to stop in looking for some paint and eliminators.

And I got my preorder today with a wink and nudge.  The general release isn't until Saturday, so no, it hasn't been released yet.  Those lucky few of us with a hard copy ahead of time are special.

[BitsHammer]

So I'm making my life harder by building my legion primarily as a HH army first and a 40k army second, so a lot of my mess is trying to figure out how I want to build my Legion then work out the best way to use as many of those models as possible in 40k (though I plan on adding in more corrupted 40k models to my NL too because I want to try and nail that flavor of a legion that's slowly slipping to Chaos but the less tainted look down on the more tainted that crops up in the books) so for me it's more figure out how I'm going to equip models for that then figure out how to represent that with the wargear options we can get.

I really think GW missed a trick by not either putting Lighting Claws into the Melee Wargear list, or putting Accursed Weapons into that list so we could model what we want without worry.

[Bulwyf]

1 hour ago, Iron Father Ferrum said:

Abaddon should not be seen in a friendly game at this point.  He is an absolute murder machine.  And Alpha WLTs and relics are nothing to write home to about either.  I have played a game against Ultramarines and I was winning when the store closed and we had to pick up.  I'm not telling you it's a meta-breaking army, I'm asking you to try a few games before you started claiming it's trash.

 

 

And I got my preorder today with a wink and nudge.  The general release isn't until Saturday, so no, it hasn't been released yet.  Those lucky few of us with a hard copy ahead of time are special.

It does not help that another legion is also terrible with the codex rules tbh. You will forgive me for someone that has played NL for many years to want to get actual good rules for once. The leaks on this thread about +1 to advance and charge and the +1 to wound to LD 6 actually gave me some hope despite losing jump packs and dedicated terminator and chosen units. Now I don't even have that. Nor does any other NL player. 

I can't comment too much on AL players or rules but yes, they look weak as well.

[Irate Khornate]

Kinda stuck in purgatory as my main army is World Eaters.

For the most part I see the reason why they streamlined so much in the codex, however I have to agree some of the choices made for streamlining are a bit much and oddly inconsistent. 

Given all the current information, I would actively avoid chosen and run possessed instead.

[BrainFireBob]

Hate the termy streamline, nearly left the game.

Hate losing bikes and jump packs.

 

Regarding HQs, then, "The Age of the Orc Daemon Prince with Wings has begun!"

I need to adapt my NL, BL, and IWs- my EC will be a painting project till their dex. I also picked up the HH box and special weapons box.

For my Legionaires, I basically ran 3 configs in all three armies:

 

2 meltas, powerfist, BP/CCW

2 Plasma guns, combi plasma, either a fist or power sword. Bolters

2 heavies (hvy bolter or autocannon), combi bolter. Bolters.

 

So the BP/CCW squads are easy- one meltagun becomes a chainaxe. I'd ordered a set from Pop Goes the Monkey to make a Termie squad, so that's quick. MoK 

 

The dual plasma guns, I'm torn. Option 1 is swapping with a heavy in the dual heavy squads. Option 2 is give them a chaincannon. I think a plasma gun, chaincannon, and balefire tome (smite) has nice range symmetry, need to look at points. MoT and icon if not too expensive. 

For my IWs, I'm thinking min size special raptors might be fun and in-character. Regretting I haven't gotten my tanks done yet, and seriously thinking about redoing my contemptor arms. I also have a cluster of Helbrutes I might test with a Warpsmith as anchor. Chosen, out with 4x plasma guns, in with Evilcraft combiplasmas. Might bust out the LRs- have enough pewter termies to slap out a couple squads. 

For my NL, it has to be leaning into raptors and Daemon Prince- ordered Pop Goes the Monkey's, and Fearsome stacks with the NL trait. 

For my BL, goodness, so many arms. My Termies- 5 combiplasma, 5 combimelta- need some love. Think I'll finally just build a Termie hammer around Abe. Chosen might just be out, so much work. Oblits with MoP, maybe. 

Exalted Champs I'll be exploring. Not sure on Apostle or Sorc or MoP in general. 

 

Irritated beyong words you are stuck with the Acolytes now. 

[Galron]

I am still in testing phase. I am thinking red corsairs might be fitting for me since I have had that as an email address from back when the red corsairs got to take both imperial and chaos equipment and I needed one in a hurry to make my first online purchase, yet for some reason I never actually made a RC army. The rules seem pretty solid in this edition, I am really digging the relic area. Looking at a converted Huron(thanks Pete the wargamer), a terminator lord or sorcerer with the terminator armor relic, 20 terminators in two ten man squads with no flamers and a couple chainfists/power fists, melta and plasma maxed out. Thinking a squad or two of outriders painted in RC colors as chaos bikers for objective grabbers. Not sure on the rest at this point.  

[Zeruel]

How am I adapting? Well I had the good sense to model my Night Lords as more or less uncorrupted veterans from the Heresy, using all HH plastic and resin as the base of my models with lots of converting of trophies. So I'm adapting my way right into the Horus Heresy 2.0 rule set. I won't be playing Chaos at all under this codex. My Daemon Prince and Warp Talons get to be cool looking display pieces until 10th edition I guess.

[techsoldaten]

13 hours ago, Iron Father Ferrum said:

Abaddon should not be seen in a friendly game at this point.  He is an absolute murder machine. 

He's also a very special bullet magnet. 

Played my first test game last night versus Grey Knights. First turn, Abaddon took 3 MW to smite, 3 wounds to shooting, then went down turn 2 before doing anything on the board.

Unlike other bullet magnets, he has a damage cap. My opponent knew it and spread his fire onto other units once the cap kicked in.

He's been built up so much, he's going to be a priority target.

[Khornestar]

Very excited about the new codex. Somewhat for my World Eaters, but moreso my Word Bearers.

The lost options do suck, not a whole lot else I can say about it. However, the book is the book. I’d rather focus on the fun new options than what was lost. Complaining won’t accomplish anything constructive, as opposed to just playing and having fun. That comment isn’t directed at anyone, but just my point of view. I think it’s normal to be passionate and emotionally invested in things to a degree with our armies, but for me, not so much that it’s going to shift the game into something negative.

Not everyone has multiple armies, but thankfully I do. I can try lots of different combos of units and wargear and I enjoy the variety. I also don’t particularly care about WYSIWYG, nor do I particularly care if someone doesn’t like that, so that aspect doesn’t bother me either.

No criticism or suggestions for anyone else, just a description of how I’m seeing things.

[Zeruel]

1 minute ago, Khornestar said:

The lost options do suck, not a whole lot else I can say about it. However, the book is the book. I’d rather focus on the fun new options than what was lost. Complaining won’t accomplish anything constructive, as opposed to just playing and having fun. That comment isn’t directed at anyone, but just my point of view. I think it’s normal to be passionate and emotionally invested in things to a degree with our armies, but for me, not so much that it’s going to shift the game into something negative.

My Night Lords are basically buggered in this codex. The lost options means of the dozen or so units I have built and painted, only 3 or 4 of them remain legal choices or even options at all in the codex. That said I am actually a fan of the Accursed weapon change (wish Chosen could still take fists and be consistent with Terminators but alas). I was in the process of building a Word Bearers army and though I'll need to juggle some Legionnaires weapon options to make the squads legal, I am enjoying a lot that the codex does have to offer them. I think the codex has some potential if you're starting the army from scratch, it's just bitter sweet because it basically completely invalidates the army I already own.

[Khornestar]

2 hours ago, Zeruel said:

My Night Lords are basically buggered in this codex. The lost options means of the dozen or so units I have built and painted, only 3 or 4 of them remain legal choices or even options at all in the codex. That said I am actually a fan of the Accursed weapon change (wish Chosen could still take fists and be consistent with Terminators but alas). I was in the process of building a Word Bearers army and though I'll need to juggle some Legionnaires weapon options to make the squads legal, I am enjoying a lot that the codex does have to offer them. I think the codex has some potential if you're starting the army from scratch, it's just bitter sweet because it basically completely invalidates the army I already own.

Do you play in an environment that expects you to only use the gear the models are armed with? I find that to be a bummer, though that’s the sort of thing other people feel differently about. If that’s the expectation of your local  pool of players, I can see why it would be an issue.

[Montford]

So far in my list building things seem fine. I'll know more after a few games.

[MegaVolt87]

I am incredibly disappointed with the new CSM codex. While there have been welcome changes and buffs, its overshadowed by walking back things like loadouts and cut options. The cut options and restricted loadouts are a sore point as many newer armies retain their ability to customize and require builds outside their unit boxes. Also, the mortals have supplanted CSM as I predicted months ago. The book overall feels like a side grade as a result with the changes, but not as far as labelling it as putting lipstick on a pig, - its about one level below that. At least with the last book I had a window open to build out past melee + demonic units, now GW shut that down and I feel like I am being pointedly directed to that door in the new book. Undivided legions wise, WB, BL and AL are the big winners with the mortal units inclusion thematically, while those that like a more pure legion experience have largely had that taken away by not being as effective in comparison to a blended list of those elements. The effective lists will look like the old lost and the dammed lists with CSM as basically a minority/ basically allies in their own codex. 

Points wise, we look right for what we can potentially do on paper, but in practice we should be less points, more so in the new CP starved comp environment. Quite a few units are a step away from greatness also. An example is obliterators. if the gun ranges were 24/36/48 and the AT profile was D3+1 shots at unchanged points they would be perfect. As a CSM vet since 3rd ed, this book also has an odd design that seems to want to encourage accessibility and new players due to its simplicity. However new players have difficulty painting the new CSM range, due to the detail they have now. In comparison to loyalist SM, I prefer their toolbox of build options vs a few mechanics changes we got in essence. People say loyalist SM are a starter army, CSM now feel like the stepping stone or alternate starting fore now to complement loyalists. The more I think about it and elaborate, I would have rather spent my money on a loyalist 2.0 codex that only had 6-12 months of shelf life before the edition changes than buying the new CSM codex. If the HH revamp didn't happen, I would definitely be taking another absence from the 40k hobby for a few years. 

[Slave to Darkness]

Im adapting by continuing to play 1st edition, so far there hasnt been a reason for me to play 9th, fingers crossed the Guard dex is decent. 

[Iron Father Ferrum]

@MegaVolt87 I'm afraid I don't understand your comments on mortals taking over the codex.  There's an expanded range of them coming, yes, but in general they're not that good.  Mobs are still useful chaff, but Legionaries have so many options that Mobs aren't going to be taking over as the Troops of choice like in 6th & 7th.  The Cultist units also have severe restrictions in their rules like no traits, and fewer strats and relics available to them.

 

Looking at the lists coming out in other media, it looks to me like Terminators and Possessed are providing a significant amount of the punch we'll see early on.

[Cheex]

I'm running World Eaters, so I'm in a bit of a holding pattern for now - I've bought the codex, but don't intend to buy anything else until we get our own book.

My three unfortunate Jump Lords are retired, though I can always hope they might return as a Legends option.

My 10 painted Terminators were luckily assembled with a legal loadout, so I'm happy about that. They have CORE, so there's plenty I can do to buff them (so far, my favourite thing is to give them the Black Rune relic to help them survive).

My Berzerkers lost all the weapons on their champions, but in all honesty, their new weapons are better than most power weapons were before, and power fists were always disappointing to me. Their attacks are now much, much quicker to resolve, and their damage output is no worse than before against most targets.

There are some amazing combos available in this book. Just about any playstyle has something going for it, which I like. I'm even eyeing the standard Space Marine vehicles again - something I would've have even considered a month or two ago.

Overall, while I don't agree with the "micro" design decisions (i.e. semi-kit-restricted options), I'm pretty happy with the "macro" design decisions and am keen to get a few more games under my belt.

[Lord Abaia]

I'm in a weird position where I recently sold off all of my painted and converted Night Lords I had used in 7th/8th edition. The only thing I kept was my metal Daemon Prince and the unbuilt CSM sprues from Shadow Spear, with the intent to start again with a DIY warband. From this POV, I think the new codex looks pretty neat. I'm still trying to figure out which legion best reflects how I want my warband to play (I'm between Word Bearers and Black Legion now).

However in the alternate timeline where I had kept my old army... I'd be pretty upset. The Night Lords trait doesn't look like it's going to do much at all. I would have to completely re-arm my flamer Chosen squad and my combi-plasma Terminators, and I guess my custom jump-pack Lord would be relegated to Raptor/Warp Talon champion. Not a pretty picture.

I've recently moved to a larger university in a larger city for grad school and I am hoping to join a more active gaming club and play some fairly regular narrative campaign games. So I'd say I'm feeling pretty good about the new codex, but I recognize that it is in large part due to my circumstances.