Chaos players and Knights!

[daboarder]

Hey all,

So, Chaos Knights, a controversial topic at the moment, but one I think the community should look at.

I want to kinda highlight the thought processes of the majority of chaos players that I know as the release of the knights approached.

So first we started getting rumblings from rumours sources like 40k radio and whatnot, rumours of "Knights" to take the place of the marine super heavy in apoc and escalation. Most chaos players figure, "whatever, we've got plenty of options for apocalypse, and given that its apocalypse it doesn't really matter what ARMY gets official access to knights, we can take them too in apoc if they are nice enough"

All good, cautious acceptance, but mostly indifference due to the fact that apoc is a situational thing.

Then the rumours start coming that knights are a model for regular 40k, wow theres a bombshell marines are getting a "giant centerpiece walker". At this stage you'll find most chaos players start thinking "ahh well typical, no point really getting excited for the release I mean its of no benefit to us"

Then we find out that these things are going to be an army in their own right, made of SUPERHEAVIES, for regular 40k. Furthermore there are 3 types of knight, imperial households, mechanicum houses, and "mercenary" freeblades.......

Everyone starts thinking " oh my, freeblades, why would GW ever make those up, if not so that people can ally them into other armies....".
But chaos players, we've seen this before, and the pessimism starts to show. "it'll be eldar, tau and maybe crons at best, we won't get them". Optimistic hobbyists will assure us that we are being overly pessimistic and "whiney" and that GW wouldn't let an opportunity to take our money pass up as that would just be silly.
We are ridiculed for our low expectations.

Pictures of WD show up, and the models are GORGEOUS! and even better, THIS! appears in white dwarf



Chaos players start to get optimistic themselves, the internet lights up with ideas, potential and even background justification for the existence of chaos knights is shown. It really does appear that freeblades are the mechanism by which GW will justify wide ranging access to the new kit.

But still, disbelief and questions abound, GW reps, customer support, and managers are asked "Who can they ally with"

From: UK Customer Services
Date: 24 February 2014
To:
Subject: Re: Imperial Knights

Hi
Thanks for the email, the rules printed in this week's issue of White Dwarf state that "They may also be taken as allies; you can include up to three Imperial Knights as a single allied detachment for each primary detachment in your army" As such any 40k army can take them as a allied detachment.

Perhaps the persuasive nature of Slaanesh has convinced a Freelance household to work for Chaos, or maybe they just pay better than the Forces of the Imperium.

We hope this helps and that you enjoy the new Imperial Knights.

We are assured that the rules in WD are complete, jes brickman speaks up, and informs us of "additional rules" and suddenly chaos players hold their breath, waiting for the other boot.

Some clarification on the rules we presented in White Dwarf today for some folks here: the Imperial Knights don't occupy any force organisation slots, they are not Lords of War, they are an army unto themselves. Something we forgot to say is that all Imperial Knights are scoring units, and if you're playing 3-6 as a primary detachment, pick one as your Warlord.

Then the terrible happens, the rules from the codex leak like clockwork, and the optimism and hope turns to ash in the mouths of chaos players. Once again we are deprived for "reasons". Reasons that are never stated by GW as they refuse to acknowledge the community at large even exists. At this point most chaos players make peace with their lot.

Rumours of Forgeworld "Chaos knights" and "chaos knights from GW" abound, most chaos players have seen this before and shoot the rumours down, they remember the "legion codex" rumours, the "legion supplement" rumours and they KNOW how that turned out both times.

Then come the apologists, with their excuses, and their smart *** replies to everything. "Chaos knights are coming" "stop whining you'll get them" "They're called IMPERIAL knights (because IG allied to chaos isn't a thing)" "You never HAD them" And any dissent, any lack of enthusiasm for yet more GW imperial love is met with cries of "whine" and "troll". Such is the nature of the 40k "community"

So I ask you, what would it take for you to accept that chaos has been given a short straw?
Do you really believe that GW is working on a chaos variant?
What, given their past history, makes you think this?
And WHY if GW only cares for profit as you so commonly claim, would GW not want our money?

[url]http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/286894-the-knights/[/url]
[url]http://natfka.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/chaos-knights-and-more.html[/url]
[url]http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/02/40k-retro-chaos-has-knights-too.html[/url]

[Learn2Eel]

In case people don't get why Chaos players are aggrieved about this issue;

There are multiple instances in the background of Imperial Knights turning traitor, prominently during the Horus Heresy.

That Chaos players cannot represent Traitor Knights, but Xenos such as Tau and Eldar can align themselves with Imperial Knights not only makes no sense whatsoever from a fluff perspective, but it is a betrayal of the fact that there are Chaos Knights.

[ElectricPaladin]

I've been thinking a lot about this issue, and even though I was initially a little more dismissive of your concerns, I'd like to give you a more nuanced answer here.

First of all, I want to bring up two games which I feel do a much better job with their releasing practices: Privateer Press and Spartan Games.

In both of these companies, the rule of the day is "balanced releases." Of course, there are imperfections - just ask a Hordes player to tell you what he thinks of the situation, but bring a book - but the idea is relatively simple, and usually well executed. Every faction has roughly the same number of things, and whenever a new thing is released, everyone gets one - and if they don't get one, they get something else. When a new book gives Faction A a new warcaster, say, it also gives one to Factions B, C, D, and E... and if Faction F doesn't get a new Warcaster, they do get, say, a new warjack or an awesome character solo. Spartan's Firestorm Armada has worked similarly. Everyone has the same basic kinds of ships, and then the game expanded evenly, with everyone adding destroyers and heavy cruisers and battle cruisers at roughly the same rate. When there are variations - the Aquans, for example, never got an R&D cruiser, but they got a battle carrier instead - parity was still ensured.

Personally, I think that this kind of policy is probably the best. It prevents hard feelings and it makes the "boom and bust" cycle a lot shorter. Are you sad because your faction is on the bottom? Well, fear not, because they probably won't be there for more than a year before Privateer has a new opportunity in the form of a new book to introduce stuff to put you back on top again. Spartan is even better at this, because they're willing to change the rules on the fly - they release a lot of free pdfs - and release new models constantly, rather than waiting for big book releases to give them an excuse.

It's probably too late for GW to adopt this kind of policy. There's already nothing even remotely like parity between the factions, and GW would have to radically alter the way they write and release books.

So, it's not going to happen, but the point I'm making is that this kind of release schedule creates a lot of unfortunate artifacts. Does GW "hate" the Tau? It doesn't look like it now, but it sure as hell did when I started them, and had for quite a while. I even remember people saying similar things to what you're saying now, about how the Tau were a bad idea, they were unpopular, they had been an effort to bring in the Japanese audience/teenage anime fans/whatever, and it wasn't paying off, and now GW thought the Tau were stupid and would squat them if they thought they could get away with it. Right now, some people - including, sometimes, myself - are saying the same things about the Sisters of Battle. While those who bemoan the current state of the Sororitas might have a little more ammo, the fact remains that it's all the same thing:

We are human. We see patterns where often there are no patterns. Don't assume malice when mere incompetence is also a valid explanation.

Now, below you also mention distaste for the "randumb" nature of the Chaos codex. I'm not a Chaos player and I haven't read your codex in any detail, but here I think it's important to remember that a disconnect between the creator's vision and your desires/expectation isn't the same thing as malice, or disliking the faction, or trying to make it suck. Oh, it's certainly really frustrating - possibly even a personal tragedy, if you love the property enough - but it doesn't mean that the creators are trying to hurt that product. They're just human, same as me and you, trying to express their ideas, and sometimes screwing up.

In response to your questions:

So I ask you, what would it take for you to accept that chaos has been given a short straw?
Do you really believe that GW is working on a chaos variant?
And if they are do you really think it wont be "randumb"?
What, given their past history, makes you think this?
And WHY if GW only cares for profit as you so commonly claim, would GW not want our money?

1. I would need to see systematic evidence of the deck being stacked against them at all times, rather than several instances of Chaos suffering from GW's uneven and sloppy release schedule and rules creation.

2. I do, because they exist in the fluff, and while the two models not rolling out together can be explained - see above re: GW's sloppy release practices - there would be no explanation for GW just leaving it out, except for a subtle and persistent anti-Chaos bias, which I don't see.

3. I have no idea if the Chaos version of the knight titan will adopt the random table aesthetic of modern Chaos that you dislike so much. We have no data, except for the latest Chaos releases, some of which are "randumb" as you put it, and others are not.

4. I think I've explained myself pretty well already.

5. Because despite the ways in which we bash them - and their genuine mistakes and fumbles - GW doesn't care just about profits. I think that the creative team really loves the game they've put together and the world that inhabits it, and they are struggling to do it justice while still seeing their baby grow up to be commercially successful... which is the goal of (almost) all artists. The fact is that while GW is certainly sometimes money-grubbing, sometimes does a bad job of communicating their vision, and sometimes screws up (like all artists do), we - despite all our conjecturing - don't really know which is which. We can rail against the Allies chart as a money-grab, but do we really know that it wasn't an effort to re-inject a little of the Rogue Trader setting, in which Orks worked as mercenaries and the Eldar were "devious and untrustworthy, but sometimes a nation you could negotiate" rather than "PURGE THE XENOS FILTH" all the time? We don't. We know that the Allies matrix exists - and we know it has problems - but we can't ever really know why it exists, short of Jervis Johnson himself coming on down to tell us, and us deciding to believe him. We don't know what we don't know.

I have two final points.

The first is that I don't know where you are, but your posting style leads me to believe that you - like me - are an American. Maybe I'm wrong, and hopefully I haven't insulted you. I think it's important to note that American and British wargaming culture are very different. While I don't really accept "we're a minis company, not a game company" as an excuse for shoddy rules, I do accept a certain amount of "we want to write a casual game, so stop trying to break it because nobody but a wanker would behave that way." I think it's entirely valid to write a game to be played with a certain spirit in mind.

Take roleplaying games. In Dungeons & Dragons, it's pretty much possible to win. You can make the hardest character who abuses the ever-loving poop out of the right rules and you can be the star of the party, kill all the monsters, and dominate any intra-party conflicts that arrive. And, in certain groups, this is more or less the right way to play, and everyone will be doing this.

Now, let's say you take the same attitude to a game of Amber Diceless Roleplaying. Holy moly, is that not going to be fun for anyone. In fact, it's going to be super lousy, and there will probably be innocent story-focused gamers struggling to hold back tears, and Mr. Win-Em-All is not going to be invited back.

I'm not denigrating either style of play, by the way. Both are valid - heck, both are fun - in the right context.

I think that British wargaming culture is a little more friendly towards a certain freeform playstyle. Have a beer. Blow some stuff up. Use the models you own and don't worry about it - make up a cool story for why. Do some conversions. I dunno. It's all a game with tiny plastic man-barbies, and we're all these completely bizarre combinations of armchair generals, gearheaded statistical analysts, and ******* tiny plastic Pablo Picassos. What the hell, I don't even understand it anymore, and it's one of my favorite things to do.

British wargaming - or at least the Warhammer 40k side of it - is more like Amber Diceless.

I feel that most American companies are much more interested in making games that are hard, focused, fair, and somehow "tournament ready." We want everything to be absolutely unambiguous, because we want the game to somehow mean something. We want to know who's better at the game, and for that to happen, the game needs to have a certain degree of perfection. We demand that perfection, that elegance, and sometimes we insist on it even when the creators tell us to stop because that's not the game they want to write.

And finally, I want to ask you a question:

You seem unwilling to explain away these failures with simple mistakes, an inelegant business plan, or a difference between what you want the game to be and what the creatures have decided it's going to be. You seem to want there to be something more... sinister? Devious? I get that you want to feel victimized - it beats the heck out of feeling unlucky - but what exactly do you think is going on. What's your actual theory?

Or are you just frustrated and looking to vent?

[daboarder]

NOW THAT!^ is a discussion.

I'm just going to provide a short few answers for now paladin, I want to let this thread go on its own for a bit before it gets bogged down on back and fort.

You'll note I have taken out the "randumb" comment from my original post, it wasn't in my first draft and I felt that adding it in detracts too much from the point I was trying to make, the power level of the knights and their viability on the table is not something I want to get sidetracked by. I'd like this to focus on why chaos players feel we got the shaft and why we are so commonly pessimistic these days.

as to where I am, I'm an Aussie, I wouldn't really know how to compare our "wargaming" culture internationally as there aren't a huge amount of us who are readily identifiable online. If I had to describe it I'd probably say that we like to play tight and competitive games, but because the community is fractures (due to populations centers and the like) and the culture of Australia itself, the competition doesn't often have a "that guy" edge.

You seem unwilling to explain away these failures with simple mistakes, an inelegant business plan, or a difference between what you want the game to be and what the creatures have decided it's going to be. You seem to want there to be something more... sinister? Devious? I get that you want to feel victimized - it beats the heck out of feeling unlucky - but what exactly do you think is going on. What's your actual theory?

Or are you just frustrated and looking to vent?

It's not so much GW I'm disappointed in, most of their behavior over the Knights release was par for the course, something I was trying to get through in the above post. After all it is the reason so many chaos players were pessimistic and jaded about the release.

Mostly I want to engage in a discussion about how chaos players at large are feelingly, as you say its very possibly an artifact, but whatever the cause the effect is there and to us there is no attempt being made to address our issues, and at worst, sections of the community appear to revel in every kick to the balls the army gets.

edit: People STILL use 3.5 as an excuse for being an weak book now. Telling us it serves us right. That was 3 editions ago! 3 editions of being one of the weakest armies with the least options, in the game

[White Tiger88]

In case people don't get why Chaos players are aggrieved about this issue;

There are multiple instances in the background of Imperial Knights turning traitor, prominently during the Horus Heresy.

That Chaos players cannot represent Traitor Knights, but Xenos such as Tau and Eldar can align themselves with Imperial Knights not only makes no sense whatsoever from a fluff perspective, but it is a betrayal of the fact that there are Chaos Knights.

Well after the last Chaos Codex and how daemons lost eternal warrior........I am not surprised we are getting screwed by the knight release.

[Rob Godin]

For me, as long as the Chaos player has modelled the knight in a cool, chaos way - then I will be more than happy to play them!

For me, the golden rule is the rule of cool.

You got an unpainted lump of plastic you want to use with your chaos army - nope, it aint in your codex.
You got a nurgled khaos knight with puss cannon - Hell yeah! Let me get a pic before we start the game.

[Denzark]

Firstly, this failure to assign to Chaos is a fluff contradiction. Given that these seem like a license to print money, it seems slightly erroneous. This leads me to conclude MAYBE a FW conversion kit into a genuine Chaos Knight (such as Hell Knight or whatever) could be on the cards.

If Knights and their ally structure is purely financial thing, this surely must be the case.

If Knights are something else, ie the Imperial hard counter to giant mangabots and wraith jobbies, then arguably Chaos doesn't need them. Mebbe Chaos is seen as having the uber unit in the form of Heldrake.

The interesting thing for me is this. If they are 40K (not escalation) compatible, where does the 40K player without escalation rules, get the D rules and SH vehicle dam table from? Is it in the WD (I haven't got a copy yet)?

Or does it point to the inclusion of these rules in the 'Not 7th' that we are hearing about?

Because if SH/D are coming in non-escalation ie vanilla 40K, then I see Chaos already has a SH, D melee weapon carrying big boy. So maybe GW are thinking ahead to an iminent time where Imps run knights at this level and Chaos runs mr fat track.

Either way I don't feel Chaos is hard done by. And as to legion codexes, I got given a codex called Codex Black LEGION for Christmas. So it will come. If GW can stretch LotD into a codex they sure as shizzle will bring out more Chaos legion books if only to shut Daboarder up!

[ElectricPaladin]

Something I want to add re: the Legions which came in the latest episode of the (awesome) Independent Characters podcast.

A lot of Chaos players seem to cry out for more Legion-based content... but aren't the legions supposed to be broken up and divided among the many warbands of the Eye of Terror? I mean, as much as you want to play, say, a Thousand Sons list, isn't the idea meant to be that there's really no such thing anymore? There's a bunch of leftover Thousand Sons stuff, some Thousand Sons marines, some of those dusty guys, and... that's it. Instead of fielding the Thousand Sons, you are building the warband of one particular Chaos warlord, who may have brought over to his banner some Thousand Sons. Or maybe more than some - maybe he's decided to throw his lot entirely in with Tzeentch and the Thousand Sons and all his crap is painted blue and stuff...

But he's not one of the Thousand Sons. Most of his dudes aren't. Mostly, they're just rebel marines who happen to really like the Thousand Sons.

The same goes for the Iron Warriors, the World Eaters, the Night Lords, etc...

The new codex actually seems to do a pretty good job of giving a nod to players who want to invest heavily in a given legion's style. You've still got your rubric marines (Thousand Sons) and your berserkers (World Eaters) and your plague marines (Death Guard) and whatever - units who invoke the feel and could be painted to represent the membership of a particular legion of old - and with everything else GW has handed you, you've got even more options. Do you really want to play Alpha Legion? Invest heavily in cultists. Iron Warriors? Bring a ton of daemon engines and Ally in some IG with their tanks and heavy weapons.

I get it - you want something to exist that Games Workshop has decided shouldn't exist. That's a real shame, and it sucks, and I get it. But can we all agree - for the purposes of the conversation - to draw a line between "the stuff I want that I was never promised, but I'm annoyed that I'm not getting it anyway" and "the stuff I was promised, that I want, that hasn't shown up yet." Because while I'm willing to engage with a conversation about the latter, the fact is that while it's ok to vent your feelings once in a while, going on about the former at any length does seem whiny. Like the tourist who complains that he can't find the continental breakfast that his hotel didn't advertise was available.

[daboarder]

Something I want to add re: the Legions which came in the latest episode of the (awesome) Independent Characters podcast.

A lot of Chaos players seem to cry out for more Legion-based content... but aren't the legions supposed to be broken up and divided among the many warbands of the Eye of Terror? I mean, as much as you want to play, say, a Thousand Sons list, isn't the idea meant to be that there's really no such thing anymore? There's a bunch of leftover Thousand Sons stuff, some Thousand Sons marines, some of those dusty guys, and... that's it. Instead of fielding the Thousand Sons, you are building the warband of one particular Chaos warlord, who may have brought over to his banner some Thousand Sons. Or maybe more than some - maybe he's decided to throw his lot entirely in with Tzeentch and the Thousand Sons and all his crap is painted blue and stuff...

But he's not one of the Thousand Sons. Most of his dudes aren't. Mostly, they're just rebel marines who happen to really like the Thousand Sons.

The same goes for the Iron Warriors, the World Eaters, the Night Lords, etc...

PLEASE EP, DON'T PARROT THIS ****!

the legions are all throughout the background, yes they are warbands, but they range in size from a few hundred to thousands of warriors.

Angron reforged the world eaters after skalathrax and lead thenm on 300 years of slaughter, Mortarion still ravages sections of the imperium and Magnus even tried to sack fenris.

there is no reason to ever suggest that these warbands fight differently to the way they have for 10,000 years and the argument they don't is as stupid as the argument that the eye of terror only slows down time (it does both)

The legions have more "right" too unique rules than the space marine chapters ever will.

/rant

On a serious note, the lack of rules is one of those points of support you wanted, a perfect example of GW kicking the army in the teeth and the apologists finding anyway they can to "justify" it

Do we have them? No! But its not because of some made up concept of "the legions are broken" its because GW kicked us in the crotch when they took them away.

I get it - you want something to exist that Games Workshop has decided shouldn't exist. That's a real shame, and it sucks, and I get it. But can we all agree - for the purposes of the conversation - to draw a line between "the stuff I want that I was never promised, but I'm annoyed that I'm not getting it anyway" and "the stuff I was promised, that I want, that hasn't shown up yet." Because while I'm willing to engage with a conversation about the latter, the fact is that while it's ok to vent your feelings once in a while, going on about the former at any length does seem whiny. Like the tourist who complains that he can't find the continental breakfast that his hotel didn't advertise was available.

Are you talking about knights or legion rules? because they are both symptomatic of the neglect we get as an army. And really BOTH highlight the point I was making. There is NO logical reason for GW not to make chaos legion rules, there is no logical reason for GW not to give chaos players access to chaos knights, and the strung out "they are coming" bull**** we had to put up with for legion rules is the reason why chaos players are a pessimistic bunch of players who don't believe we are going to see chaos knight this side of a blue moon.

[Denzark]

As I understand it, the Primarch Daemon Princes from several if not most of the main traitor legions, when they got back to the Eye of Terror, took over a planet for their HQ. Also to replace their founding worlds which Rogal Dorn/Roboute were clearly visiting great doom upon.

As such, I have always considered that the forces from those worlds represent the exisitng Chaos Legions, even if in warband strength.