New Chaos 'Dex: THE FINAL VERDICT

[Dan296]

so, whats the general 40kTerran outlook on the new chaos codex?
vote+say why.

i like it.
deamons are generic, true, BUT they get a WHOLE NEW CODEX, which will add so, so much more in fluff, with more extensive backrounds in each god. the old one had less then half of a page on each god...

with a second look, spawn=actually useful! random, but fun and querky, as chaos should be.

legions will also probrobly be discussed in the new 'dex, as will LatD and other renegade forces.

what say you?

[Ides]

There's been a lot of talk over dropped options and so forth, but as a background to renegade warbands and such it works because I wouldn't expect them to have access to the same resources as the legions. Yes, daemons are generic, but I would imagine that your average warband would only have access to undivided daemons unless they were heavily devoted to a particular patron. And for all their bad points the renegades are tooled up like warriors fighting every day for their existance, which is prety good fluff as far as I am concerned.

As for the four gods, the paragraph or so devoted to them in the new dex is enough, as renegades or lesser commanders wouldn't really know more than that. On that score, I'll hold off until I see any potential legion codexes to judge the dumbing down.

[hairyyahoo]

well, having had more than a quick glance i am beginning to feel better about it. they fixed the wording on termie armour to allow them to shoot their combi bolters and then charge, so thats cool. the list can still be used to create cult armies as cult troops are a troops choice now so no problems there. true, all the legion specific rules are gone which does suck beans but as a black legion player i haven't lost much actually with the whole bolter, pistol and ccw thing i've gained quite a bit, but i do now have to remodel half my army!

i'm also not as narked about the possessed as i was, having looked at the entry in a bit of detail. sure their abilities being random is a bit of a downer but i no longer think they are unusable, you just have to think of them as normal marines and if they get something good its a bonus, and they can still have icons. and i love that the defiler now has fleet and can get two extra ccw arms. i can't see anyone wanting to keep the reapers and flamers on them now that they can scuttle accross the board in double quick time and give the enemy a good pummelling with 5-6 s10 attacks!!!

hmmm...i feel another modelling thread coming on

[Perturabo]

Its to early to say-Im dissapointed by some changes but excited by others, I will have to play test a few armies before I say yay or nay!

I never really played using Deamons so that change hasnt really affected me...!

[JoeGuardsman]

It is a 100% more powerful list in the end. Quite easy for players to make a very well balanced and themed army. I'm a little worried because the lists are looking much more like the lists of 2nd edition as they have been taking out restrictions and hoping every plays like good boys. As far as generic deamons go I say bring out undivided deamon models. I want to see the stuff of Chaos. Being a fluff novel reader not every deamon we've run into is a blood letter or plague bearer.

5 Aspiring champion terminators with lightning claws and an icon of khorne charging out of a 220 point land raider = 10 dead marines given standard logic.

[Lord Commander Erus]

Originally Posted by JoeGuardsman

It is a 100% more powerful list in the end. Quite easy for players to make a very well balanced and themed army. I'm a little worried because the lists are looking much more like the lists of 2nd edition as they have been taking out restrictions and hoping every plays like good boys. As far as generic deamons go I say bring out undivided deamon models. I want to see the stuff of Chaos. Being a fluff novel reader not every deamon we've run into is a blood letter or plague bearer.

5 Aspiring champion terminators with lightning claws and an icon of khorne charging out of a 220 point land raider = 10 dead marines given standard logic.

Why all asp. champs? Is the pts. hike worth it? You can give regular termies l. claws now. Is there something cool about the asp. champs i'm missing?

[JoeGuardsman]

Just to get the extra attack. Just saying if you want to logic bot yourself into an assured massacre of an entire Tactical Squad this is one of the fastest ways to do it. I don't play chaos, i don't logic bot things and I don't like over expensive high powered squads. I was just saying 30 WS 4 S4 re-roll no armor saves is cool coming out of three models.

[Ides]

I think ASp champ termies get 3 attacks as opposed to the 2 regular termies get...

[experiment 626]

i really like the new 'dex. it's gotten rid of all the old crap and sillyness of the 3.5ed 'dex such as those damned iron warriors w/4 heavy support choices and/or the daemon prince of 'uber doom with it's stupid 1st turn assault... the rules are alot cleaner and thus there's no more little kids, (or bloody adults!) showing up with an entire army of berkserkers all with 'feel no pain'... and best of all, 'siren' is dead!!! (though lash is hardly any kind of nerf sadly.)

there's alot more choice in the new codex in terms of units, and it's now much easier to build a better themed army than before. for example, why wouldn't an army khorne berserkers have a havoc squad or two all equiped with flamers?!! hell, kharn himself burned down a friggin' city during the legion's breakup!

iron warriors can now have dreads and oblits...

nurgle can have heavy weapons, which only really does fit in with the thought of inhumanly strong deseased nutters who would be able to easily lift the things!

slaanesh has recieved a good nerfing overall, making them a bit more predictable, and forcing players to start thinking tactically once more

alpha legion, okay so they've lost big time with the lack of infiltrate, but again, it was pure cheese when combined with the heavy min-maxing people did, so i'm not crying!

word bearers can now even more daemons than before!!!

black legion is still the same as ever... basically the 'codex' version of a chaos legion with all sides fairly equally represented.

overall, i think gav for once did a decent job on a codex, which is truely saying something!

cheers!

[Perturabo]

I have no complaints about the move of Obliterators to Heavy Support as Im not your usual Iron Warriors player as I tend not to use them and in a normal battle I would struggle to find space for the 4th Heavy suport slot anyway (and with the birth of Apocalypse thats all taken care of).

The only Iron Warriors generals I have heard complain are the tournament power gamers out there, well boo hoo hoo for you, if you are playing Iron Warriors because of the background you dont care because its the fluff you love not the "benefits"


....though I do miss the servo arm (mainly because my generals have them, guess they will just count as "bionics now)...

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by Perturabo

....though I do miss the servo arm (mainly because my generals have them, guess they will just count as "bionics now)...

well, hopefully the stigma surrounding all iron warrior players will now vanish as those less desirable fools will look elsewhere for cheesey tactics!

anyways, you could always count that old servo arm as a power fist instead? sure he'll hit at I1, but at least he'll hit damn hard when he does! for added protection, you could give him the mark of tzeentch and simply call say a corrupted mechanicus protectiva as the iron warriors did have close ties to the adepts of mars??!

cheers!

[SteveBerenyi]

everytime a dex gets re-written, people complain, i actually want to play chaos for the first time since 2nd edition.
I'm Happy with it.

[MarksmanCypher]

I really like the Chaos Codex and what it's done to my armies.

Most of the Chaos players in my store have gone towards an Undivided legion now - undivided terminator lord, and then Death Guard, Thousand Sons, havocs, and using just about every unit they can fit into the list.

My Thousand Sons are enjoying a nice little boost - they are more afraid of bolters than they were in the last codex, but Defilers and Vindicators aren't quite as scary as they used to be. My ENTIRE army - with the exception of vehicles - now have 4+ invulnerable saves - my Daemon Prince, my Possessed, my Terminators, my Thousand Sons.

Defilers with extra close combat weapons - having 6 attacks on the charge! - with Fleet is powerful. They're able to absolutely devastate enemy units, and when you have three of them running in a line at a single enemy unit they'll panic and shoot it.

The new Psychic Powers are awesome - Bolt of Change is now AP 1 and 5 points cheaper, although Wind of Chaos is now 10 points more expensive. Also, I don't know if anyone noticed, but you don't get ANY saves against Gift of Chaos - so if you go up against Dark Eldar and there's that pesky lord with a Shadowfield who just won't fail his save, it's easy enough to cast Gift of Chaos and roll a 4+ to turn him into a mewling Spawn of Chaos.

Greater Daemons are an absolute bargain at 100 points and are perfect for another Monstrous Creature - although they're HQ, they don't COUNT as HQ, and so can be taken in conjunction to your TWO Daemon Princes.

Apocalypse is going to be one hell of a fun time for Chaos players everywhere.

[Dragoon King]

Well, at first I was very angry about some of the changes (In fact, I almost got kicked off this site I ranted so hard about it, just ask Lord Commander Erus!) but now I'm ok with it. Overall the changes were for the good. I really look forward to the Daemon dex, even though I rarely use daemons (except the Bloodthirster and some furies now and again), but I was hoping to add a squad of Daemonettes to my army, but I'm gonna wait for the dex. Hopefully daemons won't take up Force Organization slots, hehehe. The main thing I am irked about is the True Grit thing, cause I got 45 models to change now as I have no bolters in my army! I like the addition of Blackheart, although a little disappointed in the model. Familiars! Force Weapons, the ultimate True Grit, 20 man Raptor squads, Super-killy Bezerkers! Fleet Defiler (lets see my best friend deep strike his Landspeeders near my Defiler now, ha!) that can have 2 additional CC arms! Chaos Vindicators that people beside Iron Warriors can use! I mean, that's gotta make even the most jaded Chaos player smile a little. Ahh. It is a good thing to be a Black Legion player, right Hairy? I feel kinda bad for some of the other Legions, but oh well, better them than me! Seriously, I got some gripes with the new dex, but a perfect codex is a rare thing. All in all, it could have been worse.

[hairyyahoo]

darn tootin!

regarding the bolter thing, only change half to carry bolters and leave the other half as ccw and pistol. this should be fine for wysiwyg as they have all these weapons anyway and fitting all three on any one model is pushing it a bit.

[Dragoon King]

One thing I really like about the dex was the addition of the myriad renegade chapters. Some of them are a little lame, but man, some kick tail! Hey, what about the red and black chapter that says "Unknown" under it? What is the deal with that?

[hairyyahoo]

gw ran outa ideas

it's not the first time

it won't be the last!

[Dragoon King]

Fluff-wise though, shouldn't Plague Marines be the only ones with True Grit?

[masterofweirdness]

Originally Posted by hairyyahoo

gw ran outa ideas

it's not the first time

it won't be the last!

How do you think the lost legions started?

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by Dragoon King

Fluff-wise though, shouldn't Plague Marines be the only ones with True Grit?

mortarion may have trained his entire legion to use their bolters defensively in hand-to-hand combat, but he wasn't the only one to ever think of doing that... (he simply trained the largest body of troops in it's use!)
also, the very nature of chaos leads to division and friction within the ranks as egos and such come into play more between individual champions... so sometimes a champion might leave his legion to form a new warband, but he'll still train everyone and teach them his old legion's fighting techniques.

of corse, then there's the loyalist cpace marines who turn traitor for whatever reason/s... the space wolves for example have had a wolf lord or two in their past decide that he and his company might be better off on their own, and thus become renegades.

so the plague marines of the deathguard might be the largest body of chaos troops trained to use true grit, but they aren't in any way the only ones!

cheers!

[hairyyahoo]

where does it say that chaos marines have true grit? they just have a bolter which they use at range and then whip out the pistol and ccw when things get stabby. ok it works a lot like true grit but it ain't true grit...its better

[Ides]

I like what Gav Thorpe said about the new renegades, that they were Space Marines with their humanity back...