Chaos Space Marines:

[Lanparth]

There are some people who like the current book. This thread was not meant to discuss how good/**** the book is, even if my opinion strongly falls towards ****.

Its to discuss how its affected the game, and how it has affected the number of players who play the faction. Though you guys can go OT if you want, I dun mind. I always love hearing how trash the book is

[brother drakist]

A friend of mine who had a beautiful Khorne army pretty much stopped playing. I understand being unhappy with the changes but I think it was a bit dramatic as well. Personally I understand the point of players who ran the Daemonbomb or cultist heavy army. Those armies pretty much became obsolete which is tough to swallow given the time and $$ people put into the game.

[Powerslave]

In my area, I saw a rise in numbers of Black Legion and Red Corsairs armies (which made me hate the Black Legion even more). I also saw a lot of "one-god dedicated" armies disappear from the scene (except for Death Guard which still is a strong choice and remains with quite a cult following). Unfortunately, almost everyone who used to play Alpha Legion or Iron Warriors vanished, or came back with Plague Marine - Lash Prince - Obliterator spam armies.

This codex did bring some new ways for interpretation, but at the same time it paved the road to absolute cheese lists which are so generic, universal and un-themed.

As an example, I am the only player who actually still plays Iron Warriors in my area (that means Vindicators, Obliterators, a Lord, one unidivided Prince, one Berzerkers squad, and regular Chaos Marines). Oh... and I keep my converted Chaos basilisk at home most of the time now-a-days.

I still try to crusade the whole "themed" argument, but so many players just want to go out there and play with power lists with complete disregard for fluff.

I think the old codex did impose restrictions - but a lot of those restrictions were good - they kept armies more unique and gave the feel that a Chaos army could actually be a sub-list of one of 9 Chaotic Legions. We have to keep in mind that sometimes restrictions are good and are needed, otherwise we would have utter Chaos, no pun intended.

[mountaincycle661]

Ive been hearing a lot of grumbling from those who used to play Alpha Legion and Iron Warriors. I can totally understand the frustration of having to give up your cultists and basilisks. However, its really not the end of it all...as a matter of fact, its quite the opposite.

Iron warriors used to bring a lot of obliterators and heavies to the board. Well, now you still use all of your oblits in a single game, and if you get up to 3000pts (not hard with chaos) then you throw in your basi and call it an apocalypse game. Or, if your opponent is cool, he'll let you use it anyways. I would. Instead of having a lord with servo harness, he counts as having a powerfist (its the same thing anyways haha). You can legally take vindicators still, so no problem there. I dont really see too much of a dramatic change from the old to new codex, to be honest.

Alpha legion....Again, if your opponent is cool, he'll let you use cultists even if they arent legal anymore. Or, get up to 3000pts, call it apocalypse and use guard rules. I used to play lost and the damned, and i have 60 mutants. They sucked...really bad...but now with the new guard codex out, im using them as penal legion! Im using my "big mutants" as ogryn now. I dont have enough models to put together a legal IG list, but in a small apoc game, having some traitor scum around is great.

I play thousand sons. The thousand sons rules suck. so instead of using thousand sons rules, i converted my sons to carry meltas, flamers and plasmas and i call them marines with the icon of tzeentch! I also used thousand sons bits with khorne berserker legs and possessed wings to make raptors! My oblits are painted in thousand sons colors. I converted the new fantasy chaos warrior horsemen to be my bikes...

My point is, if you feel your units or army has been swept aside by the new 'dex, just get creative and figure out a way around it.

[Sitnam]

Sorry, i deleted my post as it was going off topic

[Grabnutz]

Guys, guys, guys.... we still have The Lost and the Damned and the Vraks books from Forgeworld, which allow us Chaos players to run a really interesting (thought probably not tournament competitive) range of armies. There is also the Witchhunter enemies list. In all of these our dear cultists can be deployed alongside our Legions of Despair, along with lovely psykers...

A house rule I have is to allow cultists as troop choices in most CSM armies, though there must be an equal number of CSM troop units taken.

[boo_barr]

I've been playing CSM for a year; they were my first army and introduction to 40k. Not many people around my area play the army (I'm the only one I know of), but in my experience you can have 101 different lists with CSM and all of them be competitive. From the perspective of someone who hasn't had experience with the previous codex, this current one is completely awesome.

The one thing I do have a gripe about is Gav's philosophy of not wanting rules to be clearly defined, so that players are "encouraged" to play how they want. I understand that there's a large audience of people who play 40k in the same way you'd play Dungeons and Dragons, with a patience for the undefined and a desire to come up with the experience together. However, there is also the other half who want to play this game competitively; the half which I belong to. I see the two sides as so mutually exclusive in intent, that the only way to satisfy both crowds would be to have two books. For the time being, I feel the GW is doing a good enough job in balancing 5th edition codices against each other, and most of the codex poo-pooing doesn't amount to much. If someone can win BoLS-con with a seemingly "average" Tyranids list, then this is clearly a game of generalship above all else.

[Sneak V3]

Gav has now posted up a reply after going through the tons of comments people left. Makes for interesting reading!

[DuskRaider]

Alright... Well, there are still some Chaos players in my area, but not nearly as many as before. Is that good? Yes, and no. Truthfully, in 3.5 even if you were playing against another Chaos army, you still didn't know WHAT it could be. It could be one of the 9 Legions, it could be an mixed Gods army (which was possible in 3.5, I'm sick of hearing people say it wasn't), you never knew. With the advent of Mr. Thorpe's "masterpiece", they've all but vanished. Gone are the days where you had some beautifully themed armies who used rules loyal to their Legion. Now it's all a mish-mash of either ridiuclously powerful units or subpar slop, and to that extent no one really takes the useless ones anymore (Dreadnoughts, Possessed, Bikers, Spawn, Raptors to an extent).

I've played Chaos Space Marines since I started the hobby (8 years ago). I've played Death Guard that entire time. What changed in 4.0? I became more powerful, I began winning more games, but I lost all of my flavor. Gone were my great Nurgle options, my Cult Terminators Chosen and Havocs. Gone were my Plague Swords and Plague Knives, my Banners, my Psyker Powers, and my Daemon Prince with great options. What I was left with was a fallacy.

I'm sick to death of these 4.0 fanboys coming in and saying "use your imagination" or "just use counts-as". Bull. I shouldn't have to do such a thing to properly represent my Legion. And FYI, there's NO WAY to represent Death Guard Plague Terminators, Chosen, Lord, Sorcerer, Havocs, or a Daemon Prince. That is to say, where does it say I can give them MARK of Nurgle, not some ridiculous Icon? Where's their Fearless, their FNP, their Blight Grenades, their Aura of Decay? To those who are sick of the "whining"... Ignore it. If you don't play chaos, shut yer mouth. If you do and you like the new Codex, good for you. Doesn't mean we ALL do.

On to Mr. Thorpe. Is he to blame for all of this? Not completely. He's not the ONLY person who made this Codex, he's not in charge, and I have a feeling the need to "streamline" the new Codex came from higher up (Read: Jervis). In so many ways it reminds me of the embarassment of the 3.0 Codex. No fluff, no flavor, no fun. Gav doesn't deserve all of the flak he's getting, but to tell us it's our fault and we need to make our own rules is ludicrous. He's dodging a lot of the facts and problems with 4.0, and I'm guessing it's just to save face. Whatever, you can't win 'em all. As for a new 5th Edition CSM codex or Legions? Not for a long, long time. We still have 30 billion useless Space Marine Chapters to make codices for.

[boo_barr]

Actually, after Gav's latest reply, he's finally won me over to his side. I think all this time I've been interpreting his stance differently than what it is.