Goatboy’s 40K – Chaos Space Marines – NOW WHAT!?
Goatboy here again and I want to chat about the red headed step child of 6th edition – the Chaos Space Marine codex.
We had such high hopes for the book and even with the initial offerings and grumbling we tried to make it work. Now don’t get me wrong it can be a strong choice for a tournament but the pieces that make it strong don’t have anything to do with Chaos Space Marines.
Reece had a good breakdown on why the Marine choices out of the book are bad and I won’t rehash that. Just know that point for point they are just not worth it when you compare them to the crappier but much cheaper Cultist. Should the book be called Chaos Cultists and Mechanical Burninators? CCMB? It is a frustrating experience to look at your awesome Chosen models and question why you would ever use them for more then conversion fodder.
So this leaves us on where the CSM is at? The new Black Legion supplement doesn’t add a whole lot and just continues to bring to the forefront of Chaos Space Marines just not being worth it. No matter how Chosen by the gods they are it just can’t cut it. I wished that Veterans of the Long War meant they were fearless instead of +1 leadership. Could you imagine that? You would see a ton more CSM’s on the table top.
So I digress – the point of the Black Legion right now for competitive CSM is to give you the really annoying ability to run 4 Heldrakes. Lord does that sound awfully boring. I think the more interesting options would be to run 3 crazy DP’s with nutty artifacts and 2 – 3 dragons. That still sounds boring but we have to work with what we have to keep it straight CSM. So let’s look at what this gets us. I only have the small bits that have posted online and don’t have the true point costs. I still think Black Legion can take cultists so there is your default troop choice. If not pipe up in the comments.
CSM Main – The Dingle Berry Fallen Chapter (Original the Face Punchers)
HQ: Warlord – DP, MoN, Wings, Armor, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar, Burning Brand
HQ: DP, MoN, Wings, Armor, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar, Black Mace
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
FA: Heldrake, Baleflamer
FA: Heldrake, Baleflamer
Fortification: Imperial Bastion (good place to hide DP’s behind)
1260 pts so far… time to add the secret sauce…
Black Legion Ally –
HQ: DP, MoT, Wings, Armor, Lvl 3, Nova Power Artifact, Spell Familiar, New Daemon Sword
Troops: Cultists X 10
FA: Heldrake, Baleflamer
585 pts – (maybe) – depends on what the two artifacts end up costing.
Still this army is going to come at you, get involved, and punch the crap out of stuff till you or it is dead. It has the same type of power level the Daemon Flying circus has but it loses out its Fateweaver bonuses and some of its massed damage the other army can do. But basically you are going to fly up close, burn things and nova blast stuff and hope things die. The Bastion makes it easier to hide from your opponent and keep you from losing some cultists quickly. I really hate the troop choices but man the CSM book is very limited in making a lean and mean list.
Now this goes into the whole idea that you could drop some so called “WAAC” muscle to get some weird options in there. In fact do that as this is just a shell of an idea. I would not want to play 3 dragons anyway because:
1). It isn’t fun to play with for you and your opponent
2). Who wants to travel with those asshats (I redesigned one to be easier but I loathe to paint more dragons – I am at 11 now).
3). Did I say that many Dragons made you look like a dbag?
I know you are asking then why the heck did I write up that list? I just wanted to see if I could find a kernel of awesome with the new “CSM” rules. I think the book can make some basic “winner” lists but it isn’t exciting. In fact I will just continue messing around with Daemons. I sold off one of my Dragons and only have the one super converted one and a broken one. I plan on rebuilding it to make it easier to fly with but I just don’t feel like it right now.
If I had a chance to write up the book I would have looked at Cult options for the Terminators and most likely some extra War Machines. Heck here is a list of what I would have changed.
1). Veterans of the Long War = Fearless. No more Icon crap. We got excited when the marks were no longer an Icon so it should have stayed that way with Fearless. I think the Icon system that is set up is fine and we just need to tweak those initial options.
2). Cult upgrades for terminators. I know the Black Legion is not really known for it but wouldn’t it be cool to have BlastMaster terminators? Or some kind of Tzeentch Bullets? Or Nurgle Rot bullets that are poisoned? Khorne guys get some kind of rampage options? These simple add ons would just add more to the book. Of course we would have to test the options to see what the right point costs would be but hey we can all dream.
3). Fix the Helbrute. We could give it some Marks to help make it more worthwhile. Mark of Nurgle gives it Shrouding so we have a decent cheap weapon platform at Elite. Mark of Slaanesh would get fleet so you could make a super assault one. Khorne would have more attacks etc. and get covered in blood so it would be gross. Tzeentch could maybe have some kind of psychic bullets or something?
4). Cheaper Forge Fiend – or at least make them Armor 13. Heck make both of those Fiends Armor 13 and call it a day.
5) Some way to make Raptors troops – so you can do a Night Lords army. Same with the Bikes to make a bike… lord… whatever army. Will call it a Zoom Zoom in your Boom Boom army. Their legion icon would be a fist punching a butt with a tire on it.
6). Why aren’t Obliterators Fearless? Leadership 8 is bunk so make them like Daemons. DO IT!
7). Nore weird Chaos Artifacts. Just more random weird stuff that is cool. The Axe of Khorne was awesome and it would be cool to have it back. I am glad we have new ones in the Black Legion book and they look alright. Nothing bonkers but hell the more choices we have the better.
8). Possessed need some work. First- they need to cost less, be a troop option with some special HQ choice, or at least have better mutations. I have always liked them but they just need to be more for how much they cost. They sit at Elites and Elites suck right now.
9). Make a Space Goat Legion – that has the rule where you get a reroll every turn based on how long your sideburns are (I call this the Phil Kelly rule). Hooray for Wishlisting!
10). Give Chaos cool hats? Half the point of worshiping a Chaos God is for the funky hats! Who doesn’t love Terminators with Chaos hats?
So there you go a bunch of random ideas that could make an interesting codex. The biggest miss I feel right now is how the War Machines look chaos like but just don’t feel Chaos like. They just feel meh when you compare them to the other options in other books. A few small things would just make things cooler and create a table top that isn’t covered in cultists/zombies. The HQ choices are actually pretty good and it is just the actual business end that needs to get fixed.
Have you thought of other lists to combine two CSM into one mean list? I am thinking 4 Maulerfiends might be fun too. It isn’t too expensive and you could still have Dragons with it. Gawd I hate that when you like of CSM you automatically figuring in your Dragon Tax. You don’t pay it your opponent does in groans and grimaces.
Hit it my fellow Chaos Warlords – what’s your best take on the CSM list with its new Black Legion buddies?
