Warhammer 40K: GW Needs to Make Every Chaos Codex Unique – Here’s How
Goatboy here with what GW needs to do to every upcoming 40K Chaos codex unique, to make the true villains of the Grimdark perfect!
The upcoming 40K 10th Edition Chaos codexes probably won’t have crazy Detachments but definitely need some updates to help them compete. Or at the very least, prove that the initial index Detachments might have been too good.
This has us looking at the following Chaos factions:
- Chaos Knights
- World Eaters
- Death Guard
- Chaos Daemons
- Thousand Sons
I won’t go hog wild and down into the weeds for each codex, but instead will take a top down big-picture look into these codexes. The idea here is to figure out what they are missing and give them something to help “create” a fun and unique experience with them. I don’t want armies to be busted but I want them to at least work well enough to play, beyond those try-hards looking for “best-of” category in a “bad” army book.
Chaos Knights – Into the Storm!
This army I feel needs to completely dump their Index Detachment and look at ways to influence the table with some kind of Storm action. I don’t think Chaos Knights need any new models, as they have a plethora of choices right now, and just need better rules beyond two very powerful units. I would love to see an actual “character” War Dog that isn’t just a Stalker and something a bit more unique. I don’t think we need actually named monsters as a lot of the time these things have a kind of faceless horror sort of feel.
I think making the storm/shadow/etc thing be something that makes them better if they are in its area of effect, is a much better option than just trying to cause Battleshock tests. This could be buffs like extra AP on their weapons, better protection against the enemy, or just some other kind of corruption method. Heck, it could be a sorta of we got three options you get to choose one per turn and can’t pick the same rule turn after turn? It could be as simple as they get +1 AP on all their weapons, get -1 AP versus any attacks back, and are -1 to hit for some kind of cool storm options.
On the detachment front we should see a Dark Mechanicus one, a crazy punch fest one, and most likely the fixed storm option like we talked about. Oh – and they need to make the Abominant good. I think just letting him give Storm auras and some kind of FNP to the War Dogs around him would be a good start.
World Eaters
I think this codex just needs more options. The World Eaters need another set of Characters with something for the Jakhals, something for the Berzerkers, and something for the Terminators. A simple Chaos Lord-like option would be great for the Zerks and Termys with a Dark Apostle for the Jakhals and we have the start of something fun and unique. I don’t think we need any more Daemon Engines. While I like the ones they have, the World Eaters are not known to go hog wild in that department.
It’s the same with the Detachments too as I expect to see three of them at most like the Dark Angels. I would expect a Berzerker heavy one, a Jakhal heavy one, and finally some kind of Red Angel daemon option one. All would just give bonus’s to those unit types and maybe some tweaked Blessings of Khorne to go with it. Heck, that would probably be the coolest thing is to just figure out ways to change that roll to better suit the army.
Death Guard
I think the biggest change would be how Death Guard interact with their plague aura. The book feels pretty good. While they are not as tough as they once were, they do seem in a good place. Points feel right and the units themselves feel pretty good. I do wonder if we could do more with the whole “marked” aspects they have with their Dreadnoughts.
I bet we get one more new “middle” character to add to the list of them with either some kind of Plague Priest option or maybe a more melee-heavy one. Something that goes all in on the close combat fight with cool Plague Serrated Blades. We call it Mr. Stabby and give him a sick plague mask.
Detachments-wise, I again think will see three with the current one and two others based on different plague options. We might see a Daemon Engine focused one too utilizing all the current pieces to help them out. I think the way the army works currently with picking your plague is powerful. Hopefully each of the options has a similar feel as well as I think those things are great for the game.
Thousand Sons
This is a weird one and I expect will see the most changes. The Thousand Sons do a lot right now that in the hands of a strong general can just feel pretty dang busted. Just the ability to throw out so much Mortal Wound damage, tricks to move around that table, and just rules that make you feel like you are not playing the same game.
They are also very hard to play and any mistake can knock you down very quickly. I expect we see tweaks to detachments and methods to make them feel like they are casting spells and feeling different. This means most likely different Cabal point spending and other fun things mixed with Enhancements to give an army a very unique feel that just works differently.
Or so I hope. Well just have to wait and see as I think this is one of the codexes that will do better with a longer run time to launching. I also wonder what will see model-wise if anything as the majority of the book is plastic and maybe will see something new in the crazy beastsman side of things for a character or two.
Chaos Daemons
We have the final one and probably the one I most care about currently. Right now I have been playing big smashy Chaos Daemons the most as it is a fun army that lets me do the things I like. Like crush things with my big fat Great Unclean One. It is also one of the few books I expect to see nothing really new added to it.
We didn’t get any of the new AOS characters from Slaanesh. We didn’t really get anything else new added as well and I expect it to stay the same. This means I think will see a very simple update in a few Dataslates with some rules that might not be completely broken now but don’t feel right in the current game. The whole weird Khorne stacking options is what I am looking at.
It also means I expect to see five Detachments based on each of the Chaos Gods and finally the Be’lakor detachment we kinda see right now. I don’t know what they will do to make all the other ones feel unique but maybe do some kind of weird Shadow thing that each god does something with. Things like better AP in the Shadow or tougher models for the Plague side of things.
What I really want to see is detachments that don’t need Be’lakor to work but we’ll just have to wait and see. I would love to see themes for the Chaos Gods in each of them all using and abusing the Shadow of Chaos. I think this style of controlling rule is pretty fun and can lead to neat things all within the themes of what the Chaos Gods want.
What do you think? What kind of stuff do you want for the other Chaos armies? What kind of fun things do you think would be cool, thematic, but not completely abusive?
