Codex Chaos Space Marines MKII

[Kaptain Badrukk]

I'm hoping that Mark of Undivided, and a complete overhaul of VOTLW and its relationship to marines will re-jig it a big amount with minimal fuss.

[Mkvenner]

Thoughts, you own ideas, so-one. We'll combine the most promising bits together and see about making a simple PDF we can playtest!
Over to you BOLS crew, show the stuff that made this community what it is!

Eternal War: Every Legion has its own set of special rules. These can not be stacked and are determined either by SC or chosen by a Chaos Lord, Sorcerer, or Warsmith.

Word Bearers
Warp Tainted- Allows an extra allied FOC slot to FA, Troops, Elites, and HS when taking Chaos Daemon allies.
Special Issue: Dark Apostles (AoE 12" Zeal, Rage, Sacrifice) Daemons can be summoned off of any Aspiring Champion within 12".
Possessed can take an extra Warp Ability from any of the Warp Trees.

Alpha Legion
"It's quiet, too quiet... Where are they?!": Alpha Legionaries have Scout and Infiltrate. Vehicles with the type Tank can not benefit from this rule. Stealth (Ruins).
Special Issue: Sabotage- D3 units in your opponents zone before the game begins suffer D6+1 S6 AP4. Vehicles are hit on side armour. Affected units treat any terrain as difficult on their first turn. Also, Dangerous Terrain checks are immediately taken for any unit inside your opponent's deployment zone that are in terrain on the first turn.

Night Lords
Terror Tactics: Roll a D3. This is how many turns a Night Lords player can allow the Night Fighting rules during his opponents turns. Any unit wishing to move must take a LD check on 3D6. Units immune to Fear and Fearless units take it on 2D6. Night Lords units may run and shoot or shoot and run following an opponent's turn they used Terror Tactics.
Special Issue: Killzones- Enemy units suffer -1 to their cover saves when being shot at by more than one unit of Night Lords. This is not cumulative.

Iron Warriors:
Hellforged: Flame Weapons gain the Torrent(6") USR. Tank Hunters. May reroll difficult terrain checks.
Special Issue: Iron Soul- Maulerfiends and Forgefiends can be taken as Elites. Aspiring Champions can be warped into Obliterators for +20pts.

Black Legions:
Speartip: Can choose up to D3 units and place them into Reserves. (Write down which side they are going to deploy from and if they arrive on either turn 1 or turn 2).
Special Issue: Warmaster- Beginning of every player turn after the first turn the player can choose one of the 3 abilities listed below.
-Bombardment: S8 AP3 Heavy 2 Blast D6" scatter (direct hits use the arrow)
-Reinforcement: Replenish D6 models from up to D3 units of Infantry. Can not be falling back or replenished if destroyed.
-Support: Units can choose one from the following USRs and lasts until the beginning of the following turn (Night Vision, Fleet, or Interceptor).

Warp Trees:
Tier based- 10pts, 15pts, 20pts for the unit. Same for HQs.
Hellspawn- Damage based (Hammer of Wrath, Rage, Shred)
Shadowbeing- Movement based (Move through Cover, Fleet, Beast)
Warpmonster- Defensive based (+1 to Save, +1 to Invulnerable, +1 Wound)




I'll do the Pantheon next, but this is something I would have liked to see. It injects power and fluff.

[Denzark]

1. Rip up this codex.

2. Re-print 3.5 x 100000 copies.

3. Sell out within weeks.

[DWest]

==Incoming Wall of Text! You have been warned==
Rather than Legion-specific rules, I'd rather see reason-based rules, i.e. your special rules are based on why you follow Chaos. I have 3 doctrines in mind:

-Sin of Corruption: Recently turned to the Dark Gods, you have yet to be fully taken into their power, but temptations abound. All Daemon units are 0-1, and all other units gain Stubborn (there can be no mercy for traitors, so don't run now!). In addition, if any unit is under half strength and falling back at the beginning of your turn, you may wipe that unit out as a sacrifice to the Dark Gods and your Warlord may immediately roll on the mutation table; or you may immediately bring a squad of 2d6 Cultists in from your board edge as from reserves; or roll once on the Warp Storm table; or bring 1d6 Lesser Daemons in from reserve via deep strike.
-Sin of Damnation: These fallen wretches have given themselves over fully to the Dark Gods. All units who can be Marked must be so, with the following exceptions: You may not include any of the Mark opposing your Warlord. All models with the same Mark as your Warlord gain Fearless. Cultists are 0-1 (guess who goes to the knife first when it's sacrifice time?). All vehicles must be Daemonically Possessed.
-Sin of Perdition: For you the Long War has not, will not end until every last drop of Imperial blood is spilled upon the ground. All Astartes (including anybody in Power Armor or Terminator Armor, including demonically-mutated version thereof and Hellbrutes, but not Princes or Fleshmetal units) get VotLW for free. In addition, Champions are not forced to challenge non-Imperials, and winning a challenge vs. any Space Marine lets you re-roll the boon you roll on the mutation table. Daemon engines are 0-1.

Unit Changes:
-Hellbrutes get the Daemon type.
-Vehicles may now be Marked if they are Daemonically Possessed or Daemons. The Vehicle Marks are as follows:
--Mark of Khorne: The vehicle becomes an Assault Vehicle; or if it is an Assault Vehicle, models assaulting from it gain Hammer of Wrath and +1" charge range. Walkers instead gain Fleet and Hammer of Wrath.
--Mark of Nurgle: The vehicle gains +1 HP and Tank Shock/Fear is tested at -1 Ld.
--Mark of Slannesh: The vehicle gains Fast. Walkers move as Beasts and gain Assault Grenades.
--Mark of Tzeentch: Increase the Invulnerable save for Daemon to 4+.
-A Marked Transport automatically eats 1 model of the opposing Mark when they board, and on a 5+ eats a 2nd. It still only regains 1HP.
-Chainaxes have no AP, but instead confer Shred.
-Warp Talons, Mutilators, and Possessed gain Rampage. Warp Talons get +1 Inv the turn they arrive, to represent the lingering presence of warp upon them.

Special Units:
Each Sin comes with one "standout" unit for their type.
-Sin of Corruption: This is the tough one; I want to say you can purchase 0-1 vehicle from the SM Codex as an Elite, unless it's fast, then Fast Attack. Must be Possessed, but cannot be Marked.
-Sin of Damnation: Greater Daemonic Possession for vehicles; expensive, but +1 HP and an additional effect based on type.
-Sin of Perdition: Chosen and Hellbrutes have access to a small cache of Legionary weapons; things like Volkites, Rad Grenades, Destroyer tox weapons, grav suspensors.

Special Characters:
Right now we have the 4 god-iconic characters, Huron, Fabius, and Abaddon. So under my scheme, 4 Damnation, 1 Corruption, and 1 Perdition, and whatever Fabius is. Scratch him off the list, we need room for more specials.
-Typhus (being Damnation) increases Cultists to 0-3 if he is the Warlord.
-Kharn gains +1A, bringing him up to the magic number 8 on the charge.
-Ahriman gains a Familiar and a +10 pt cost increase (built-in gear always costs less).
-Lucius gains Rending with his sword, representing his ability to make a precise, perfect cut.
-A Word Bears Dark Apostle, representing Corruption; he turns doubters to Chaos. As his Warlord specials he would let you get +1d6 Cultists or +2 Daemons when you wipe out a unit for a summoning roll; his Artefact would be some sort of mutating weapon -- if he kills a SM character in challenge, the enemy squad loses the "turn and fight" benefit of ATSKNF, and if this results in a Sweeping Advance, immediately add 1d3 Possessed models to his squad as he forcibly turns the Astartes.
-An Iron Warriors Warpsmith, representing Perdition. Grants Mutilators scoring (to give those poor saps some value in life) and has access to a Bombardment of some sort along the lines of the SM Chapter Master ability.
-Imply that Huron is being aided by the Alpha Legion. Most of what makes the Alphas unique isn't really directly felt upon the table (a 40k game is a fair fight, and if Alpharius ever finds themselves in a fair fight, something went terribly wrong already), so this seems to me a reasonable compromise.
-For the Night Lords, a Perdition-based "super Warp Talon" -- Marked Khorne, and if attached to a squad of Talons, they may assault from Deep Strike, as the old Heroic Intervention.
-Finally, Abaddon permits 1 Chosen or Terminators unit to take the Mark of Chaos Ascendant; if Terminators, he must be part of their squad. Likewise, one Land Raider may take the Mark of Chaos Ascendent, but if it does Abaddon must begin embarked upon it.

[Mr.hardrada]

Did we agree upon giving CSM, Chosen and other Astartes units the option of being fearless? I imagine this would be a great way to represent Votlw. It could be something else entirely but I feel that fearless needs to be more than an icon. Also I feel that Alpha Legion rules should be similar to those from the first Siege of Vraks(options for sniper rilfes?, infiltrate). I believe Night Lords are a challenge but I feel that more Bikers/Raptors are great. Just my two cents. Has anyone ever tried to petition GW before and ask for a better codex?

[Defenestratus]

People need to get over this CSM codex complaining. Chaos is fine as is with maybe one or two exceptions (as seems to be the rule with many of the new books). Making massive amounts of marines fearless for 2ppm is laughably stupid.

Assaulting off of the deep-strike is dead as we know it. Vanguard vets are losing it - and there's absolutely no justification that you can provide for allowing any Chaos unit to be able to do it. Its the epitome of lazy game mechanics that has no downside to its use. Furthermore allowing squads en-masse to be able to do it? Yeah I think not.

[Defenestratus]

1. Rip up this codex.

2. Re-print 3.5 x 100000 copies.

3. Sell out within weeks.

And this is the crux of the matter. You people want your broken, idiotic, un-fun to play against book back. You will not ever get it back because it nearly ruined the game for everyone that DOESN'T play Chaos.

Get over the fact that your 3.5v book is *never* coming back. Just like I got over the fact a long time ago that the 2nd edition Eldar codex is never coming back. I long for the days when my Avatar could take on all 4 greater demons at once and win. I long for the days where the swooping hawk wings granted me a 36" move. I long for the days when my death spinners were heavy flamer templates.

Looking at your current book through the prism of past editions is only going to lead to disappointment. Its something that I've had to bitterly swallow as well with my new Eldar book.

[Bigred]

I think this can be a great priject that as usual will require a lot of pruning of ideas to get something clean and flavorful.

Here's my suggestion:

Leave the codex alone - they aren't gong to change it in any meaningful way for years.

Instead look at Black Legion/Farsight/Iyanden as guides and MAKE the 1-2 page of rules for each Legion.

So, for each Legion, you get 2-3 special army wide rules, or FOC swaps, a new warlord table, and 6 new pieces of wargear.

That is something we can collate together into something fun that the average non-competitive gamer would have fun playing on the tabletop.

[Mr.hardrada]

People need to get over this CSM codex complaining. Chaos is fine as is with maybe one or two exceptions (as seems to be the rule with many of the new books). Making massive amounts of marines fearless for 2ppm is laughably stupid.

Don't space marines get Atsknf for roughly 1-2 ppm? Fearless can already be taken as an option via icons but the whole, " We will fight to a man or until Bob drops the flag" just doesn't seem to fit. I think some of us came here to improve the book. No need for the inflammatory comments. Genetically engineered killing machines who have the potential to have been around for 10,000 years and are fighting alongside daemons may be fearless.

[Defenestratus]

Don't space marines get Atsknf for roughly 1-2 ppm? Fearless can already be taken as an option via icons but the whole, " We will fight to a man or until Bob drops the flag" just doesn't seem to fit. I think some of us came here to improve the book. No need for the inflammatory comments. Genetically engineered killing machines who have the potential to have been around for 10,000 years and are fighting alongside daemons may be fearless.

Fearless has been scaled back in use, and especially now that fearless has literally no drawbacks in 6th (other than not being able to go to ground, oh no...) then its a rule that should not be thrown around easily. I see fearless as a USR that should be as rare as FNP. Just because they're "old" marines doesn't mean they should be fearless - plus the "old" marine cliche is fulfilled by the legion-specific units that *are* fearless.

Hell my farseers are *really* old too, should they be fearless? :P