My take on the new codex

[Dravenguild]

First off, this is not a flaming thread, nor is it a defending a particular version of the chaos codex.

Simply, the new codex has been a wonderful improvement on the infallible armies of previous chaos with its oversimplified layout and easy to understand and legible font.

Where it needs improvement-

I'm not entirely familiar with fluff, but aren't Chaos space marines of the original 9 traitor legions veterans and long lived?

Point- though the new codex focuses on "generic" and adaptable marines that can go against great odds and pull through, wouldn't the Chaos marine entry be able to at least choose one veteran ability? Or are all chaos space marines generic greenhorns that have witnessed no battles and still wet behind the ears? Newfish some might say?

If this codex sticks to fluff, the nine traitor legions and most of the renegade/corsairs should be able to master numerous battlefield techniques.

Isn't chaos good at running circles around loyalists? True even to now, though they should have retained the ability to charge ferociously, use special penetrator rounds against bunkers?

people will argue that vet abilities are reserved for chosen and god-aligned marines. This is a valid point as not to make CSM more broken, and i totally agree with that.

But my point, my opinion i should say, remains that chaos space marines are veterans of 10.000 Frickin years of combat!!! Does that mean anything at all?

So what if they have those silly nerfed marks of chaos, that doesn't make up for the loss of a great strategic abilities that can turn the tide of battle. Some will say it is a crutch that breaks the game, i beg to differ.

This recent shift towards renegades rather than full chaos legions is absolutely irresponsible.

Another point- In the codex it states that chaos marines are selfish and egomaniacal.

knitty- If Chaos marines are worried about self preservation and fulfilling their own selfish goals, why wouldn't a chaos lord surround himself with devoted followers that can take bullets for him?

(Mainly I point out that [i]all[i] Chaos marine HQ units are independent)

Also-

Chaos lords have obviously survived long enough to make themselves distinguishable from the rest of the fodder, so why is it that they cannot become true followers of their patron gods?

Example and point- Marks of chaos for lords is no different than the underlings that serve them. A lord that worships khorne gets +1 attack, while a khorne berzerker, a TROOP choice I might add gets furious charge.

Though not a big deal, why can't the lord they serve be able to use blight grenades and have feel no pain? Is typhus the only nurgle lord who is truly blessed by nurgle?

Or why a lord of slaanesh cannot wield sonic weaponry?

Even being able to use inferno bolts for tzeentch?

Being so old and worshipping a power one would have to think that chaos lords could learn to make blight grenades or pick up some slaaneshi tech.

Daemons i'm not worried about, since the new daemons codex is coming out.

My last statement is the zero involvement of customization for aspiring champions, raptors cannot wield combi-weapons, slaanesh champions (Noise marine champions) cannot wield a variety of weapons, etc...

Not to mention a daemon prince cannot even wield a daemon weapon...

Possessed suck, if i wanted to roll on a table I would've picked looted ork vehicles, which is exactly what possessed are, crap.

THE OLD CODEX

-made chaos into an unbeatable powerhouse.

-broken strategies (Daemonbomb, iron warriors cheese list, lash of torment)

-too many veteran skill options (I didn't say they were bad, but you could have a crapload, now i think one would suffice)

-Greater and lesser daemons were way overpowered

-Daemonic gifts were all too numerous.

-black legion did not function the right way.

Good things-

- Raptors were expensive but worth the points cost (Besides, who would want to buy more than one squad? a 10 man runs $90 plus tax)

- lots of useful vehicle upgrades.

- Marks made you into the preferred legion, though people will debate that it was worse for every rubric marine to be a thousand son. But on the other hand, what other legions cast the rubric of Ahriman up until this newest codex?

As far as i'm concerned, those four legions were the source of pure god marines until knock offs were put into the new codex.

- Lots of generic and god-specific daemon weapons.

- Legions! actual chaos legions and not just wierdo warbands!

(Though Iron warriors and night lords, meh they needed the nerf)


- unless you played a pure god army, you could have a max of 3 god-specific marine squads unless the lord had the same mark.

(Now if you wanted you could run 120 khorne berzerkers in a legal army, or 120 plague marines, etc...)


All in all, the two codexes should have been spliced with the best of both worlds.

Noth have their faults, and both have their strengths.

[Dravenguild]

I'm sure you might have some valid point to argue, keep in mind i have no reference at the moment because I'm loaning both the codexes to a friend.

So I'm going on what i remember at the moment.

Also to mock a certain person here playfully,

CHEERS!

[Drax]

wow, i thought we had got all these over and done with!

your points have some validity, but bear in mind that 10,000 years of attrition can take its toll on the legions, not to mention internal fractions and such. the point of this codex was to show that the more numerous face of Chaos Marines these days are the traitor Chapters. all the entries in the codex with the exception of ksons, khorne bezerkers, plague marines and noise marines are just supposed to be smurfs gone bad, so i see no issue with the apparent 'greeness' of them.

the codex is also so much simpler now and you don't need to keep referring to two or three pages at the back, further more all the options are exactly where the relevant model is in the list. a change for te better i would say.

Daemon Princes do not need Daemon Weapons, they are monstrous creatures which bring their own combat advantages and disadvantages. giving them a Daemon weapon would be somewhat redundant, and the extra attacks could unbalence the model.

just my 2 cents

[GriplionGremlin]

i'm still mixed on this. there are some good points here but the biggest irritation for me is that gw is not willing to support rules for ANY chaos legion at this time. meanwhile they have 4!!! yes 4 individual codexes for CHAPTERS not Legions CHAPTERS of loyalist space marines all with thier own special rules, abliities and drawbacks.

now if gw turns around and does for the chaos legions what it did for the blood angels and creates thier rules and then posts them in a WD and/or online for everyone to have access to then that would be very nice.

personally i'm getting used to most of the changes in chaos and like a good few of them. but i will be angry and disappointed in/at gw for quite some time since i have 7500pts of nicely painted csm that used to be iron warriors but that i can use in a single force unless i'm playing apoc. yes i really did have 7500pts (single force org) of iron warriors.

on the flip side i'm very happy with the bump to 1000sons. my 1000s sons force is much more viable now than it was in 3rd ed.

i like having more choice in my army construction and while the new codex does still give lots of options i really liked having legion options too other than my paint sceme.

ok i'm done ranting here.......

[Lord Commander Erus]

Overall, i'm rather saddened. IT brings a lot to bear to the table for Chaos players in general. But to someone who plays a Legion specific force.. It's a big slap in the face, a kick in the balls, then being spat on as you roll around clutching your jewels in pain.

[GriplionGremlin]

Originally Posted by Lord Commander Erus

Overall, i'm rather saddened. IT brings a lot to bear to the table for Chaos players in general. But to someone who plays a Legion specific force.. It's a big slap in the face, a kick in the balls, then being spat on as you roll around clutching your jewels in pain.

[Ides]

could we ourselves try some experimental rules for playing legion specific troops?

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by Lord Commander Erus

Overall, i'm rather saddened. IT brings a lot to bear to the table for Chaos players in general. But to someone who plays a Legion specific force.. It's a big slap in the face, a kick in the balls, then being spat on as you roll around clutching your jewels in pain.

not really, here's my take on why the new codex outshines the old legion rules;

- world eaters: are more than simply 'berserkers'. true they could still use termies & possessed, but both were very expensive options on top of already expensive troops.
now you get access to raptors, chaos marines & havocs. as long as you stick to flamer & melta weapons, you'll still have a very "true" world eaters force!

- deathguard: 99% of the art shows plague marines wielding heavy bolters. but you couldn't take them before??!

- emp's children: were insanely over-powered nutters. (and you know full well they were even worse than IW's!!!) they've been brought back to something a little more sane now...
and again, not all emperor's children space marines have fallen into slaanesh's embraces to the same degree. so why does every marine have to able to wield sonic weaponry???

- thousand sons: are playable!!! while i agree that gav might have gone a bit too far, the thing to keep in mind when facing thousand sons is to always keep them at arm's length. those ap3 bolters only really show their stuff when they rapid fire...

- word bearers: take a 'mark of tzeentch' + power toy and count is as your 'acursed crozius'...
lesser deamons = even more daemon bombing goodness! word bearers are even nastier now as the daemons got cheaper and they no longer use-up a force org slot!

- night lords: are playable. before they had what? extra raptors which were nothing more than over-priced assault marines... now they can be competitive again.

- alpha legion: proved under the old 'dex just how broken an all infiltrating army could be... if you want lots of infiltrating, then just stick to chosen for your elites choices.

- iron warriors: can now use 'zerkers like they originally could!!! i'm not sure how many people recall that original organisation, but the iron warriors do have whole companies of berserkers for use as the 'forlorn hope'.

keep in mind too that the old codex was so horribly writen that you faced crap like the 40+ 'feel no pain' 'zerker armies, or the 1st turn summoning of bloodletters 12" from your troops.
i can safely say that this codex is much, much better and that the old one deserves to be put to rest.

cheers!

[Dravenguild]

Everything 626 said is agreeable, but still doesn't sate my anger against GW.

Also Deathguard plaguemarines can't take heavy bolters, only the models with the mark of nurgle.

(Tactical squad entry, not plaguemarine entry.)

[Sir James Bloodfang]

I don't like the changes made to the Khorne Berserkers. Well their chainaxes. Those things were awesome. Bring them back!!!!

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by Sir James Bloodfang

I don't like the changes made to the Khorne Berserkers. Well their chainaxes. Those things were awesome. Bring them back!!!!

those things were broken as hell and made no sense! why can they cleave through termie armour better than power armour, or come to think of it, fething ig flack armour??!
you still get WS5 marines who are also S5/I5 on the charge. that's pretty damn good. plus you're also fearless and the new 'zerkers are overall cheaper than they used to be.

my point to the nurgle marines having heavy bolters is just that; marked units able to take their iconic weapons... true plague marines are still limited to their special weapons, but you can now take for all intents and purposes, a 'deathguard' havoc squad w/4x heavy bolters.
plus, the icon has a tactical praticality over the true marked marines - same T5 but still I4!

cheers!

[Dragoon King]

Don't get me started, lol. I like the new dex, it's pretty good overall. I like the streamlining best of all. However, I do have some gripes:
1. Generic Daemons? Grrrrr!!!!! So a Bloodletter and a Daemonette don't have their own unique character now? I'll not type the profanity that runs through my head when I think of this...
2. Other than the 4 god-specific legions, the other legions got shafted. I speak particuarly of the Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion, the new dex basically destroyed them.
3. Daemonic gifts. Right, so I rarely used most of them, but they are a few I do miss.
4. My biggest gripe, loss of Parasitic Possession. I miss the ability of Chaos vehicles to repair themselves *sobs*
5.Veteran Skills. I don't miss them a whole lot, can live without them, but I did like Furious Charge and Counterattack.
6. Raptors and the Hit and Run. I never got to use this in battle, as it takes me forever to build a metal model, I almost had a Raptor squad finished when the new dex came out, this angered me to no end.
7. No Daemon Prince without Daemonic Stature. Self-explanatory.
I'll live with these gripes, but I don't have to be happy about it!

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by Dragoon King

Don't get me started, lol. I like the new dex, it's pretty good overall. I like the streamlining best of all. However, I do have some gripes:
1. Generic Daemons? Grrrrr!!!!! So a Bloodletter and a Daemonette don't have their own unique character now? I'll not type the profanity that runs through my head when I think of this...

- the cult daemons are coming in the daemonic codex... the chaos marine codex is for chaos space marines only! the lesser daemons are simply more or less to get-you-by untill the proper daemon book comes out, and as a new unit type for all those modelers out there who've always wanted to create their own unique gribbly monsters!

Originally Posted by Dragoon King

2. Other than the 4 god-specific legions, the other legions got shafted. I speak particuarly of the Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion, the new dex basically destroyed them.

- read the original index astartes article on the iron warriors. the new 'dex lets you now play iron warriors like you originally could back in 3rd edition!
(ie: you can finally use your berserkers again!)
alpha legion was just too powerfull when you combined min/maxing + infiltration. besides, you can still load up on chosen & bikers to make a swift and cunning alpha legion force...

Originally Posted by Dragoon King

3. Daemonic gifts. Right, so I rarely used most of them, but they are a few I do miss.

- i think everyone misses their easy choices of dreadaxe + stature + d.speed combo... but as you've pointed out, the only gifts you ever really saw were the broken ones!
on the other hand, things like the glaive for khorne armies were horribly miss-used which led to alot of hard feelings between players - especially when it came up in tournaments!

Originally Posted by Dragoon King

4. My biggest gripe, loss of Parasitic Possession. I miss the ability of Chaos vehicles to repair themselves *sobs*

- well, you'll just have to be a bit more carefull with your vehicles now!
however, v5 will make all vehicles more powerful so don't cry too hard...

Originally Posted by Dragoon King

5.Veteran Skills. I don't miss them a whole lot, can live without them, but I did like Furious Charge and Counterattack.

- if you really like FC, then just take a few units of berserkers! keep in mind that the blood angels have also had their free FC for their entire army removed as well, so it's not like there's a huge double standard anymore!

Originally Posted by Dragoon King

6. Raptors and the Hit and Run. I never got to use this in battle, as it takes me forever to build a metal model, I almost had a Raptor squad finished when the new dex came out, this angered me to no end.

- okay, hit-and-run was alot of fun and i think it's loss has made raptors a bit less special and turned them into nothing more than 'chaos assault marines'.
still, they do have much better upgrades over their imperial counter-parts so you still have an edge over loyalists!

Originally Posted by Dragoon King

7. No Daemon Prince without Daemonic Stature. Self-explanatory.

- er? i'm confused by this arguement... why would you want d.stature back when you now have mostrous creature + eternal warrior rules as base?!!
not to mention the daemon prince's stat-line got a helluva lot nastier too! (WS7 and BS6 compared to the old WS6 & BS3!)

Originally Posted by Dragoon King

I'll live with these gripes, but I don't have to be happy about it!

- i think if you look past the gimmicky upgrades that have been dumped and compare unit for unit the changes you'll be more than pleasently surprised!
iron warrior players especially can now dust off a bunch of the old stuff that's been sitting neglected on their shelves for 4 years!

i know that the only thing preventing me from building a chaos army now is;
a) time!
b) way too much damn choice and all the cool themed forces that are now available!

cheers!

[word bearers 81007]

i will happily stand up and defend the new codex. i like it a whole lot better. the demon thing does suck but it will just get you by until the new codex come out.

[Lord Commander Erus]

I suppose so long as something along the lines of daemonic gifts and/or cult daemons is fixed, I could like the new codex, But as it is... It lacks definition for the powers.

[Dragoon King]

Again Stitch, thank you for your wisdom. Oh, by the way, I meant I miss the DP you could use WITHOUT the Daemonic Stature, in other words the size of a normal CSM.

[GriplionGremlin]

stitch -
i think most of your arguements were very valid and while i still harbor resentment for lossing my iron warriors rules (you've seen my list, zerkers i didnt need, nor have i ever played with them, yuck), i am living with the new dex and as mentioned do like certain sections of it.
i however fail to see your point about alpha legion when i turn around and look at a generic vanilla marine force which can drop pod its whole entire flippin army (to include ac/hvy flammer armed dreads!!!) into my backfield or anywher else on the table from turn 2 on and wont die by scattering into my forces. that for generic force without needing any special rules or losses to a basic force to gain those benifits is much more powerfull than infiltrating.

and if you can please explain your take on why chaos lords/sorcerers cannot have a ret when you have a sm force with either a power armor or terminator command squad???? and if sm can do it and the new csm dex represents why do the new csm not have every option for units and weapon choices that loyalists do? if a newly turned sm force takes its dread with it they in effect strip off the ac to give it some thing else???? WTF!!

sorry but that really bugs me.

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by GriplionGremlin

i however fail to see your point about alpha legion when i turn around and look at a generic vanilla marine force which can drop pod its whole entire flippin army (to include ac/hvy flammer armed dreads!!!) into my backfield or anywher else on the table from turn 2 on and wont die by scattering into my forces. that for generic force without needing any special rules or losses to a basic force to gain those benifits is much more powerfull than infiltrating.

the space marine fix is coming and like the dark angels & blood angels 'dexes, the 'codex' chapters will also pay more pts for those drop pods in their new 'dex.
also, the librarian powers will be dumbed waaaaaaay down so hopefully no more drop poding librarians going BOO! in the middle of your army!

chaos marines can still take the dreadclaw pods - the only downside being that they are forgeworld rules... still, if a smurf player using one their 'abomination' lists won't let you use your own pods, then they are simply very poor sports and not worth your time imho!

Originally Posted by GriplionGremlin

and if you can please explain your take on why chaos lords/sorcerers cannot have a ret when you have a sm force with either a power armor or terminator command squad???? and if sm can do it and the new csm dex represents why do the new csm not have every option for units and weapon choices that loyalists do? if a newly turned sm force takes its dread with it they in effect strip off the ac to give it some thing else???? WTF!!
sorry but that really bugs me.

the only thing the loss of the actual 'retinue' does is make escalation missions a bit harder on your IC's if you want them being transported or deep strike with another squad...
again, the newer rules don't require your commander to join his honour guard/retinue. (note too that the command squad now also counts as a seperate unit entirely so dark/blood angel players need to make those seperate rolls just like you do!

as for the no ass-can/land speeder/other loyalist tech... well, tough! chaos can't have absolutely everything can they?! (they'd be too good in that case.)
loyalist marines get their, (abeit broken), ass-cans & speeders. chaos instead get access to cult troops, summoned greater & lesser daemons, possessed marines and cool upgrades like daemon toys & possessed vehicles.

cheers!

[Dravenguild]

So 626 how bad exactly are loyalists getting hit?


I need some prior knowledge to revise my lists...
(I have a feeling my command squad will no longer be able to take an IC or artificer armor)

What i don't get now is what will a custom chapter be able to take now that they are eliminating vet skills? what will set them apart form other custom chapters? chaos have their marks obviously, but what will i get?

No chapter specific heroes, honor guard, special units, deathwing armies or anytihng they'll deprive me of vet skills.

Just another ultrasmurfs knockoff...

[experiment 626]

think along the lines of codex dark angels... so combat squads and all your marines coming with bolter + bolt pistol + frag & krak grenades.
again, min/maxing will be gone compleatly! (ie: you'll need 10 men to take a heavy weapon in tactical squads) also, librarian powers will be reworked so they're not game-breaking...

the traits as they currently are will be gone... i haven't yet heard if there's a new system that will take it's place though. gav had hinted at the designers trying to find some way to create alternate organisations however.
the problem is, the current system just doesn't work as it is totally broken and leads to 'abomination' style lists.

cheers!