Quote:
Originally Posted by
YorkNecromancer
Which is why the Codex should reflect this; CSM shouldn't be the 'awesome melee' marines; they should be the 'disposable' marines. Forge World's 'Tyrant Legion' list did this whole thing perfectly.
Problem with disposable marines is that you cant assign any realistic point costs to them. The spectrum is too narrow.
Quote:
Exactly why there should be a point drop for twenty man squads. You should be fielding hundreds of marines, of whom, maybe ten make it out of the battle alive. Where did those hundreds of marines come from? Well, they're not Veterans Of The Long War; they're victims, recruited and forcibly modified into Chaos Marines, through tainted marine organs.
Even if you drop their points in groups of 20 they are still weaker than a marine force of equal points. Not because of their stats but just because you have a big clumped up unit that can get no mission objectives done, is easy to break and cant get anywhere on the table.
Quote:
The Veterans of the Long War rule should be significantly more powerful to represent this, and it should increase the unit's points significantly. Basically, it should go:
VOTLW>Astartes Veterans=Chosen>Loyalist Marines>CSM, who are roughly = in power terms to Loyalist Scout Marines>Guard>Cultists
Regular CSM should be closer to SoB in terms of power, while VOTLW should be waaaaaaay beyond regular veterans.
Remember my whole thing about how one army is competent at the top and crap at the bottom? I get the feeling you only heard the bad part of that. Chaos Marines who survive should be utterly, utterly beyond regular marines for that exact reason.
Does not translate into tabletop. Veterans are shunned for the same reason. You can have an ungodly WS10 I10 S10 T5 A10 chaos space marine vet for just 40 points per model. Dirt cheap. He also dies as fast to a plasma gun as an imperial solider. Elites do not work in this game - every weapon is an equalizer.
Thats also the reason why big squads do not work. Difference between a 20 men CSM squad and 4x5 men CSM squads? A wyvern battery can kill the former in one turn while it needs 4 turns to kill the latter. 20 CSM waste a lot of shots when they try to get rid of these 5 IG vets, 4x5 do not.
It does not matter how you price them (unless you price them extremely unreasonable low) small squads will ALWAYS come out on top even if they are far more expensive pointwise.
Quote:
You didn't pay attention. I said that the elites keep the best stuff for themselves. So yes, the standard CSM get nowt... But the Terminators get it all.
What I would propose is that Chaos Termintor shooting should be exactly as terrible as it currently is. However, their melee ability should be ungodly. I would propose two ways to solve the fact it's not. Either:
a.) They can assault from Deep Strike (which in this case is daemonic power, rather than teleporters or
b.) Land Raiders as dedicated transports for Terminators ONLY. Because that's what Land Raiders should be for. It's fluffy, and it fits with the theme of 'the bosses keep the best stuff for themselves'.
As I pointed out Elite Versions of units do not work in this game. Take a look at Darkangels.
LR is a dedicated Transport for Terminator. But as Chaos does only get the standard LR (same price but no PotMS) you cant even put in more than 5 amazing terminators.
Quote:
As it should be. As I've stated, I don't believe bog standard Chaos Marines should be the equal of the Astartes; they lack the tools and the training, so they compensate with numbers, and should coss less points.
Chaos Marine veterans should UTTERLY outclass regular marines, because of the power and experience they have accumulated.
Both of these ideas fit with my initial statement. I think the thing here, is that you believe regular CSM are the equal of regular Loyalists and I don't, for the reasons outlined in my initial post. I think if regular CSM became the equal of regular Loyalists, it would kind of ruin the army, because Chaos should be an army of extremes, due to its highly Darwinian nature.
It shouldn't need stating, but they follow CHAOS: they shouldn't be standardised across the whole army! :)
As I already said, does not work out.
Quote:
Again, which is an issue of the codex.
Although, that does make a final, interesting moral to the whole idea of pursuing that goal: that losing all your humanity actually does diminish you. Taking Voldemort as the example again (because he's a useful parallel), he's phenomenally powerful, and in his essentially 'ascended' form (no nose, no sign of humanity, seven Horcruxes = effective immortality), he's still not that powerful.
It's probably why Abaddon never went daemon prince; he can achieve more damage as he is.
Actually he is THAT powerful. And a daemon prince is an awful lot more powerful than any mortal around. Thats why they want to ascend. True immortality and nearly godlike power.
Nobody knows why Abaddon has not ascended yet and its not his choice. No CSM can ascend or deny it just by choice, Chaos decides if you are worthy which can be rather... hmm.. chaotic. You can turn a daemon prince for slaugthering 3 farmers on a backwater planet because your god did like the number and how their clothing and blood matched with the color of the soil and you can get ignored despite having enslaved a whole sector and singlehandedly slain 20 SM chaptermasters at once because it was so... mundane.