Thoughts on Marines and Chaos…
UPDATE: This just in from GW: “I just checked with Andy Hoare, who is as close as we have to a rules guru, and he has said that units cannot use Locator Beacons, Chaos Icons, or Teleport Homers from the opposing army. He is going to have the studio consider that question for the next round of FAQs.”
~ Look at that, a quick rules dispute turned around within 48 hours!
So, I’ve been going over the new Space Marine Codex with a fine tooth comb over the last few days, and working out various thoughs in my head. As I’ve done this, I keep going back to my large and ever expanding CSM army and running some numbers.
Here are some of my initial take-aways…
MARINES
For the marines, there is heck of a lot of sexy bling in that codex. A level of concentrated coolness that we really haven’t seen since the days of the previous edition of the CSM codex with its 10-pages of wargear & gifts. I have a feeling that six months from now, just as with the old CSM codex, 90% of that “coolness” will be permanently discarded in favor of a tiny number of the new units that are reliably useful.
Lets take a look at the new SM veterans for a moment. Those Vanguards seem really game changing for a moment, until you read the fine print and realize that no one will ever try a Heroic Intervention without a locator beacon nearby to ensure your incredibly pricy unit doesn’t plunge to its death, taking your chances of victory with it.
Now one could say, hey its no problem, I can just pepper my army with locator beacons, until you realize that they are particularly useful for many ENEMY UNITS who can use them to slam right back into your forces with perfect accuracy as well. Add to that the always difficult issues of trying to synchronize different units reliably (ask any Eldar player, its harder than it looks) and you have a recipe for uneven tabletop performance.
Now compare them to Sternguard; a unit that is easy to field, position, and that allows you to custom tailor your ammo for almost any foe from turn to turn. One of these two units is a recipe for a reliable, flexible unit, one is not. Things like this pop up all over the codex, and my feelings so far are that in general, just like with the previous CSM codex, with so many sexy options, very few of which make the army any harder to kill than the older SM codex does, will leave only the self-disciplined list builders with a leg up. Its going to be very easy to go overboard with the new SM codex and get left with an army as brittle as the Eldar, unable to take a solid punch to the stomach and easily recover.
CHAOS MARINES
Now let me return to the “terrible” CSM codex. As I’ve said I keep runing the numbers and I think that codex despite its simplicity offers some spectacular values in 5th. In particular: 30pt Termys, 150pt Close Combat Defilers (giving you a 12/12/10 battlecannon that fleets, ignores stunned/shaken and has 6 attacks on the charge!), and summoned deamons (in particular the major who is one of the best bargains in the game at 100pts). None of these units are sexy, but they are stuningly effective for their cost if used en masse. My current head is trying to wrap itself around an effective list that will provide the “connective tissue” from the rest of the CSM codex (in particular its sterling Troops options) that will tie these bargain units together into a cohesive whole.
~I’m positive there is something there, but my finger isn’t quite on it yet. I’d love to hear your thoughts on constructing armies with the two codices and your battlefield experiences.
