New Codex Chaos Space Marines

Pugsley

Just got my mitts on this, was surprised when they released ANOTHER 4th ed chaos codex (especially considering they STILL havent made an Ork one ), but on I went anyway.

Dear jebus these guys are broken, waaayyyy too powerful, the new noise marines can cut down literally dozens of smaller beasties every turn, was playing against tyranids and I had 20 of these guys with me, and they were killing 30-35 gaunts every turn, tyranids dont have a counter for that, 500 points being able to kill such vast numbers of their meat shield at decent range, they can even remain mobile when doing it (alas at a cost of 33% efficiency), and the new Plague Marines are just silly, toughness 5, feel no pain, blight grenades and only 23 points with bolter, bolt pistol + close combat weapon, very very tough front line. Then theres Thousand Sons, ap3 boltguns, slow and purposeful, and a 4+ invunerable save, with a sorcerer with assault3 AP3 doombolt, if you can get a space marine army that can withstand that I'd love to see your army list. I like what they've done with the Berzerkers though, their weapon skill 5 and furious charge make them a front line assault troops to contend with, even with the loss of the chain axe's their still a very dangerous melee troops against space marines, probably the most balanced of the mark of chaos troops. Oh yes and did I mention these are ALL troops choices?

Kind of dissappointed they remove the custom commander, used to be able to get some really silly ones, especially when you stacked stature, wings + speed against an army like tau or Necrons who just cant compete with super heavy melee troops, but the new deamon prince is very cost effective, and the new greater deamon (yes theres only 1, which sucks, no more bloodthirster), only 100 points for a WS8 S+T6 W4 A5 monstrous creature who you can put into any one of your champions when he arrives (dont need a deamon vassal anymore) not to mention that he also no longer takes up any room on your force organisation chart (but there is a limit of 0-1), quite fond of taking Khárn, Deamon Prince + Greater Deamon, very very hefty melee trio, comes it at only 375 points too, protect them until they get in close and they will make their value within 2 or 3 turns easy, especially against necrons or marines.

Love the new chosen marines, they can now have up for 5 special weapons (!!!) making a very dangerous flamer/plasma/melta squad depending on what you need, stack onto that infiltrate, bolt pistol + CC weapon and they make very effective early game troops to break up formations. Terminators are also rather tasty, you can give them all a pair of lightning claws now, add a Khorne icon (35 points for +1 A for the whole squad, very nice) and you can have 10 terminators with 4 lightning claw attacks each (before charging) for only 435 points, quite a big investment, but ludicrous heavy melee squad.

As for heavy support, love the new obliterators, they lost all their anti light infantry (no more heavy bolters or the like) and instead they just have super heavy anti tank/heavy infantry, with a choice of plasma cannon, multi melta + lascannon, and a few others they make short work of armoured units, although their 75 points each now, and only toughness 4, but still nice. The new defiler is also scrummy, you can now strip all its guns apart from the battle cannon and turn it into a pure melee troops (with a battle cannon!), 5 strength 10 attacks for 150 points, yes please, oh and it can fleet of foot. The addition of a vindicator is also kind of nice, and the predator is nice and cheap now, only 100 points for auto cannon + 2 heavy bolters [granted its now 165 for the full lascannon set up].

Overall I cant help but feel chaos are insanely powerful now, I've always played chaos as my main army, and they have been since 2nd ed (but have every codex and have played as every army a good few times using extreme 'count as', ie: I dont have a single tau but still have played battles up to 2500 points with them, very fun army). I still need to play more battles, only played 2 so far and got resounding victories both times (2000 point vs tyranids, I lost 1 noise marine, 1 plague marine, 6 terminators, 10 berzerkers and Khárn, about 700 points worth before complete wipe out). I also dislike what they done to the deamons, only a total of 2 real deamons, greater deamon and lesser deamon, thats it, no marks of chaos on any of them, although neither of them use up force organisation, which is kind of nice, chaos spawns also take up no room on it, and are quite a tasty unit. Love that they made the Zerkers, Pague Marines etc all their own unit now instead of just a marine with a mark of nurgle (which you can still do fine), although having such an obscenely versatile selection of specialists all in your troops choice is one of the main over powering factors of chaos now, you have uber tough front line (plague marines), heavy melee (Zerkers), anti light infantry (Noise Marines), and anti heavy infantry (Thousand Sons), which are all very very good at what they do, while not being very expensive.

[/ramble]

I should probably stop now, discuss

hairyheretic

I've been a chaos player since Rogue Trader. Up until 3rd ed, I didn't even have another army. Chaos is still my primary army, and I have 4 seperate chaos armies. When this codex comes out, I will be retiring at least 3 of them, because they have been neutered to the point that I do want to field them any more.

The removal of 80%+ of the customisation of the codex irritates the hell out of me. The attempt to force certain configurations upon me does not sit well either.

Yes, the 4 big troops have come out of it quite well, but what about everyone else?

I'm happy for you that you are enjoying it, but to my mind, its a bad codex. It's bland. And it's made me lose the interest in fielding my chaos forces, because I can no longer field them as I have. I'll have to change them quite a lot, and they'll no longer play as they did, and frankly I have little enough time to play that I want to enjoy the games I do get. With this codex, I'm just not going to.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a weak codex. You can do hideously nasty armies with it. I have one that will tear through damn near anything. But it's an ugly army, and no fun to play with or against. I don't want to play like that, and this codex won't allow me to field my armies the way I've designed them, so I'll be concentrating on my other armies for the moment.

Edit - Forgot to mention, the Orkdex is rumoured for the end of this year.

Pugsley

Not really sure I like it yet, it has some nice touchs, but other units have suffered quite badly, Raptors especially are now just assault marines, except 2 points cheaper man for man (the cost of 'and they shall know no fear' i suppose), and the lack of various deamons and customisable Deamon Princes leaves a bit of a vacuum (my power weapon blood letters ).

But some units got the love they needed, chaos terminators are now far more customisable than the space marine ones and leave a lot of options, especially when the chaos icons come into it, and the Chosen Marines are so so flexible. The biggest fix though is probably the unique charecters, in the last one the only one I'd ever even look twice at was Khárn, but now most of them are fairly viable charcters, Abaddon, Ahriman, and Khárn are all especially nice, their a real force to contend with which.

Good new on the Orks though, go the green skins.

phonchoman

good first post!
although i dont really agree with all of it, considering im a BA player ,using the new WD rules , i feel GW have done a great job on chaos. yes it can abused, but its just being left up to players to play with theme or not. I use 20 tactical marines, no one else i know does that with BAs, but screw it, its fun and i like it . The GT was great here for people in the middle, but the top lot are pure cheese mongers , leave them be , any game can be "rushed" "abused" or just bearded out.
Indeed chaos are getting a few little things that annoy me , but over all I think its pretty well balanced and theory hammer is something i try to avoid.
some points worth considering here are:
escalation is huge part of game now, doesnt really suit a troop heavy chaos army.(deployment etc...)
some hard choices to make in the codex, just like eldar, we`ll see totally different armies , so no more "Greater Daemon+ Prince" nonsense.
Daemon codex on way (so relax)
Lots of armies have super cheap big units , Nids are still one of the best codex! no point in arguing about that one, the Nid gun line is nothing but evil!
with cheap big units!
thatll do

as for people retiring armies because of lists... I use guard and BAs(guard suck balls, and BA list is far from uber, but its hella fun), its a game... get over urself and play for fun ,and if u cant, then get another hobby.

Pugsley

Guard are a long way from sucking, a friend plays them and they have some great units, especially conscipts, tied best meat shield, along with spine gaunts (5 points, straight 3 stats, and immune to instant death and moral with synapse, yum), aswell as some seriously heavy fire power, you just cant beat an ogryn for a good aul' fist in the face.

I havent read the new BA rules in WD (stopped getting it years ago), but with marines I would always have 30 marines in my troops choice, 6 squads of 5, I love the flexibility of base marines with their wargear options.

Any release date on that Codex Deamons? not too fond of the idea of splitting the army in 2, but Ill have to have a look.

hairyheretic

phonchoman wrote:

good first post!
although i dont really agree with all of it, considering im a BA player ,using the new WD rules , i feel GW have done a great job on chaos.

Then you would seem to be in the minority. The overwhelming views I see on the forums and lists I'm on is negative.

phonchoman wrote:

yes it can abused, but its just being left up to players to play with theme or not.

Those who care about the theme and background of their forces won't take the abusive combinations.

Those who simply want to win, will. They won't care that the army flies in the face of established background, or that you're not going to have the slightest shred of fun playing them.

phonchoman wrote:

I use 20 tactical marines, no one else i know does that with BAs, but screw it, its fun and i like it . The GT was great here for people in the middle, but the top lot are pure cheese mongers , leave them be , any game can be "rushed" "abused" or just bearded out.

Knowing several of the people who are amongst that top lot, I can tell you they're not all cheesemongers. Some just happen to be very good players, with many years experience.

phonchoman wrote:

Indeed chaos are getting a few little things that annoy me , but over all I think its pretty well balanced and theory hammer is something i try to avoid.

As I've said before, that would put you in the minority, but since you say you're not a chaos player, that may partially account for why.

Oh, and my observations aren't simply theories. I happen to be one of the people that playtested that book.

phonchoman wrote:

some points worth considering here are:
escalation is huge part of game now, doesnt really suit a troop heavy chaos army.(deployment etc...)

Depends on the missions you play.

phonchoman wrote:

some hard choices to make in the codex, just like eldar, we`ll see totally different armies , so no more "Greater Daemon+ Prince" nonsense.

You think not? I expect to see something along these lines dominating the next tournament or two

2 x DP of Slaanesh with Lash
2 x 1k Sons squads
3 pie plates (Defilers and possessed vindicators: I favour a 2:1 mix)
2-3 dreads depending on tournament size.

For an army not specifically designed to counter it, that will rip apart pretty much anything you can set against it. I've seen it do it, to a tournament winning army in the hands of a good player.

phonchoman wrote:

Daemon codex on way (so relax)

As of right now I don't know that there's any info out about when this will be out, or what it will do. Didn't Jervis say something about next year in that WD article?

phonchoman wrote:

as for people retiring armies because of lists... I use guard and BAs(guard suck balls, and BA list is far from uber, but its hella fun), its a game... get over urself and play for fun ,and if u cant, then get another hobby.

Ok, let me give you an example of one of my armies then that is being badly affected by this codex.

Currently:
24 world eater bikers, in 3 squads of 8
Squad of bloodletters
Bloodthirster

Under the new codex
24 khornate bikers, until someone kills the icon bearer, at which point they revert to being CSM bikers
Budget white label deamons
Budget white label greater deamon

All the time and effort I went through in creating that army is now wasted, because it no longer is the army I created.

Now, you can spare me the line about still using the models. I've heard it already.

My other chaos armies are equally affected. I've lost units, skills, the customisation that allowed me to make the armies mine.

The most important thing that this codex has removed is my desire to field the armies. And I know I'm not alone in this regard.

Warmaster

HairyHeretic: I have to disagree with you on most of your points, first of all Phoncho is not in the minority take a look at warseer. There's a reason every chaos thread goes on for 20 pages it's because there's big disagreement as to whether it's good or bad. I think it's good.


As for the list you suggested would be the Gt norm....that list would get eaten alive I don't know why anyone would take it. Lashes aren't as good as everyone makes out and a few powerfists would end him.

As for the icons thing there are very few things in the game that can single out a model and pick him off so I wouldn't worry about that.

hairyheretic

Warmaster wrote:

HairyHeretic: I have to disagree with you on most of your points, first of all Phoncho is not in the minority take a look at warseer. There's a reason every chaos thread goes on for 20 pages it's because there's big disagreement as to whether it's good or bad. I think it's good.

I haven't looked on warseer in a week or two, but the last time I went through the chaos threads I'd say it was about 4:1 disliked the codex. On the chaos mailing list I'm on I've seen maybe 1 or 2 say they like it, a couple adopting a wait and see attitude, and anyone else commenting was doing so negatively.

Perhaps we're simply looking in different places at different times, but every chaos player I personally know, and a few other local 40k players I've spoken to have all expressed dissatisfaction with the shape of this codex.

YMMV of course.

Warmaster wrote:

As for the list you suggested would be the Gt norm....that list would get eaten alive I don't know why anyone would take it. Lashes aren't as good as everyone makes out and a few powerfists would end him.

In testing I never lost with that army.

How do you figure on getting those powerfists near me? I've got 2-3 multimelta armed dreads to pop your rhinos and play roadblock, 3 pie plates from the defilers and vindicator, then AP3 bolter fire, and the lashes hitting you at 24"

I lash you, and you're all nicely clustered up for an ordnance round. Get close, and I simply lash you back out of range again.

If you do reach the DP, a single powerfist will be very lucky to take him down in one round. He's faster, stronger, better WS. He'll kill 2-3 marines a turn, you'll get 1-2 fist wounds .... probably about 1 per turn without the charge bonus.

Trust me, this is a nasty army.

Warmaster wrote:

As for the icons thing there are very few things in the game that can single out a model and pick him off so I wouldn't worry about that.

Vindicare assassin
Mind war
Micromanagement of H2H by using the killzone of an IC to restrict their woundable targets to include the one (icon, sgt etc) that you want to kill.

If you know you can serious degrade the effectiveness of a unit by killing 1 model, you telling me you won't come up with some way to do it?

mc nuggets

I really dont like this new codex, the only things that really make this anyway good is the fact that there will be a codex daemons next year and some of the artwork is nice...

BTW the new Alpha Legion colour scheme is fugly:mad: