Hello all,
This review was posted on the DakkaDakka forums a week or two before the Chaos Codex was released in stores. I make no apologies for the biased nature of the review - it is my opinion after all - but I do try to look at some of the (very few) good sides to this Codex. It passed muster at Dakka, including their 'be polite' policies, and was the catalyst for Dakka's largest and fastest growing thread of all time.
Enjoy:
An Exercise in Futility –OR– Commissar Calgar’s review of Codex: Chaos Space Marines
Hello all,
That time is nearly upon us. Yes, it’s nearly time for a vibrant and colourful Codex to be reduced into a dull and lifeless husk of its former self thanks to the kind yet increasingly unimaginative souls at Games Workshop. That’s right children, the new Chaos Codex is only days away, and the clamouring hoards want to know one thing:
How badly did they fail?
I’ll answer that question over the course of this review, but I want everyone to know that I’m not just going to look at the rules itself, but everything from fluff, presentation, colour section, everything. Just like my Codex Guard review from a while back, this is a cover-to-cover review that do I as a service to the cynical and jaded members of DakkaDakka, and even those of us too blind to see just how much GW has screwed up (again!). I won’t be going through page by page, and will gloss over some sections, but I will highlight specific sections if they are deemed worthy (or too funny not to point out!). And yes, my often-rampant cynicism will colour this review, but I am positive about some points - not many, but some. And I can maintain an air of seriousness in some parts. I get pretty angry in the Daemon section - you have been warned.
So, as this is a cover-to-cover review what better place to start than with the cover!
The Cover:
I really like the cover of this edition of the Chaos Codex. The main object of the picture may not be Abaddon, but the picture is very similar to the old 2nd Ed Codex. For those of you that remember, the old 2nd Ed Codex saw fit to not only give us rules for different types of Daemons, but also gave us a list for Daemon World armies, meaning we didn’t have to wait 1-6 years to get rules to differentiate Bloodthirsters and Lords of Change.
Where was I? Oh yes. The cover.
I do like the cover. It’s a nice re-imagining for those of us who were around in the days of 2nd Ed. Colourful, vibrant, full of life – it’s everything this Codex isn’t, and as such makes a lot of false promises. More importantly, the cover also states that this is a Chaos Space Marine Codex. This is, of course, a lie, as there are very few things I’d call ‘Chaotic’ in this book.
So, onto the book itself.
Page 1:
I mention page one separately as it contains a large picture of a Chaos Star and, yep, a few skulls as well, but also contains the author’s names in very small text right at the bottom of the page.
The authors of this train wreck are Gavin ‘They Still Let Me Write Rules’ Thorpe, and Alessio ‘I Should Know Better Than This’ Cavatore. Interestingly my spellchecker knew the words ‘Alessio’ and ‘Cavatore’, but suggested ‘Failure’ as an alternative to ‘Gavin’ and ‘Thorpe’. Now I mention the authors because when I get to this end of the review I have a few things to mention on the full credits page, and because I found it funny that the author’s names were so small at the bottom, almost as if they were hoping someone wouldn’t see it was them who wrote it.
Page one has a scary, spooky boarder reminiscent of the old Realms of Chaos books. I assume this is their attempt to gain some credibility. Truthfully, they’ll need every shred they can get
Page 3:
Page three is your typical introduction page. I mentioned it only because a couple of the headings made me laugh:
1. Why Collect a Space Marine Army?
The immediate answer to that is ‘I want my loyalists to have more spikes’, as there’s nothing very Chaotic about this Codex.
2. How does this Codex Work?
I’m tempted to say it doesn’t. Heh.
Also has the obligatory link to GW online. Hopefully they’ll have some of their wonderful example lists up soon that usually contain things such as randomly selected units and Havoc Squads with 4 different heavy weapons…
Page 4:
Oooh! They are trying to do Realms of Chaos. Again with the spooky boarder surrounding some fluff about letting a galaxy be slightly singed or something similar.
This fluff piece is interesting as it really hits home what GW are attempting to do with this Codex. The Horus Heresy is not mentioned, and the formally abundant Traitor Legions have become the ‘Traitor Legions and Renegade Chapters’. They are obviously trying to abandon the Legions as what Chaos is represented by. There will be more on this later.
Page 5:
This is some new art that represents much of the art in the book. The last Codex had a very distinct theme – Chaos killing poor, hapless Cadians. This time it’s different – it’s Chaos killing Loyalists. And there are piles of dead Marines lying around. The Defiler art is nice, and I think the thing in the background it’s a Lord of Battle, for anyone who remembers that from Epic. I like it.
Page 6:
Much like page 4, this introductory fluff piece goes into detail that this is a Codex about fallen Loyalists, not the Traitor Legions. To me, at least, it is interesting, as despite my ire with this book over the dropping of the Traitor Legion rules, the concept of Renegade Chapters and fallen Loyalists has never really been explored. We got a little bit of the Red Corsairs back in 2nd Ed, but haven’t had much more of that since then. As I said, I find it interesting and it’s just a pity that GW couldn’t find a balance between those of us who want to play the Traitor Legions, and those of us who want to play Naughty Ultramarines.
Pages 7-11:
This section details Chaos quite nicely. It talks about the creation of the Chaos Gods, the essence of Chaos, and the Champions of the Chaos Gods. We may make fun of Gav for a lot of things, and lot of them are justified as well, but one thing I’ve always liked is his writing style. I loved his Last Chancers books and, although not high literature or art, they were fun. The fluff in this Codex is also fun.
But I have to complain about something, otherwise I wouldn’t be who I am, so let’s pick on… Khorne.
‘Khorne embodies mindless and absolute violence, destroying everything and everyone within reach, slaying both friend or foe alike.’ – Codex: When Loyalists Go Bad, Page 9.
I really do long for the days when Khorne not only embodied mindless slaughter, but martial pride and prowess – skill and ability within combat in all its forms. I want Khorne to go back to being the bloodthirsty God of War, where power could be gained both through hacking off someone’s head with an axe and through blasting them with a massive gun.
Some of us must remember the old Khornate Daemon Engines of Space Marine, specifically the Great Cannon of Khorne. Sure, it was possibly one of the more silly models GW has made, ranking up their with their first attempts at making Thunderhawk Gunships models, but it was a representation of Khorne as a master of combat, no matter the type of combat.
All fiction is based around conflict, and internal conflicts are often the most interesting types. The dichotomy of Khorne – one part bloodthirsty killer, the other part proud and honourable warrior – has, to me at least, made him the most interesting God, even more interesting than the relationship between Nurgle and Tzeentch. To see the Blood God distilled over time to a maniac who just wants to kill everything is quite saddening. Anyway, moving on.
This section goes into some more depth with Chaos Warbands, and, like before, makes only the most fleeting of references to the Horus Heresy. They also talk about Spawndom and Daemonhood, including a nice picture of a Daemon Prince toppling a Marine Dreadnought.
Pages 12-15
Wow! A heading in big bold type – THE HORUS HERESY. We all knew they had to acknowledge it eventually. Let’s see how they do, hey?
It talks about the corruption of the Primarchs, Horus especially, and talks about the virus bombing of Istvaan III and the fighting that broke out between Loyalist and Traitor elements of the Death Guard, World Eaters and Emperor’s Children. They also talk about Captain Garro of the Death Guard and how he captured the Eisenstein and flew back to Terra to warn the Emperor.
This section is truly excellent and Gav goes into quite a bit of depth, from the arrival of Traitor AdMech units, the Drop Site Massacres including a little detail of the progression of the battle, starting with the assault on the Iron Hands main force before the Chaos forces moved onto wiping out most of the Raven Guard and Salamanders.
I must congratulate them on writing up new fluff rather than just copying and pasting old fluff from previous editions of the Chaos Codex. Yes, it’s all from the new Horus Heresy books, but it’s nice to see non-regurgitated text for a change.
The section also makes mention of ‘The Scouring’, the period immediately following the Horus Heresy where the Space Marine Legions and the Imperial Army reclaimed much of the galaxy. I heard a while back that this is to be covered in the novels as well, so that sounds like an interesting part of Imperial History not yet covered by the fluff in any great detail.
Pages 17-24:
This section goes back to Renegade Marines, and while it is interesting it’s the typical ‘vague’ GW fluff that gives you hints at events, but doesn’t go into detail as they’re designed to be plot-hooks for your own Renegade Army. Nevertheless, it is an interesting read, and presents a side of Chaos we don’t really know. The Traitor Legions aren’t completely forgotten, and their time in the Eye of Terror and their hatred for the Imperium is mentioned, so that’s good.
We do go into depth with one story about a Sergeant from the Sons of Guilleman’s 4th Company. It has some nice detail, and, like with the other fluff, it’s fun, so quite a welcome addition.
We also get a bit about the fanaticism of the Word Bearers and the insidious nature of the Alpha Legion. There’s a pretty cool story about the Alpha Legion infiltrating the Emperor’s Swords Chapter over a period of 300 years, resulting in the theft of their geneseed and the complete destruction of all Loyalist elements of the Chapter.
This section contains a lot of colour photos of different Renegade Chaos Chapters. Sadly, all of the Traitor Legions are pigeon holed into this section, proving once again that all your wonderful Alpha Legion and Word Bearer armies are nothing more than a fancy paint job in this Codex.
But let’s have a little fun and pick apart some of these silly Chapter names:
Angels of Ecstasy – Almost as derivative as ‘Blood Ravens’, don’t’cha think?
Bleak Brotherhood – Do they cry themselves to sleep?
Brotherhood of Darkness – I take back my comments about the Angels, this Chapter is derivative.
Claws of Lorek – Cool colour scheme. It’s like tiger-stripe on black.
Company of Misery – These all sound like bad Emo band names. If the Legion of Bonham is in here, I’ll cry…
Death Shadows – Snore.
Disciples of Destruction – Gav has discovered alliteration!
Dragon Warriors – Aren’t they a Cursed Founding Chapter?
Iron Warriors – They look pink for some odd reason. I guess NMM’s don’t work on paper…
Knights of Blood – God…
Lords of Decay – Excellent. Why not call them the Guards of Death. Let’s have the Eaters of Worlds and the Warriors of Iron. How ‘bout the Bearers of Word?
Punishers – Who look like they’re dressed up for Halloween.
The Sanctifiers – Cool name for Traitors, I have to say.
The Reborn – Cooler name for Traitors.
Skull Takers – They look about as threatening as 1KSons in the last Codex.
Steel Brethren – Legion of Black! Legion Alpha! Children of the Emperor!
Unknown – HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!
Warriors of Mayhem – Fighters of Craziness. Troops of Insanity! Parabola of Mystery!
There’s a page about the Black Legion that is nice, including their Legion Banner that was held aloft over Castle Wernerstien. When I first read that I thought it said Castle Wolfenstein, then I had an image of Space Marines fighting Nazi’s. That would rule. The variant colour scheme for the Black Legion is also very cool.
There’s a bit about the Planet of Steel, currently occupied by the Iron Warriors. The Iron Warriors get a bit of fluff for themselves. No mention of Lord Petros Heinous and his legions of Heavy Support choices though.
And that brings the fluff to an end. Now we’re into the rules. It’s all downhill from here folks.
Pages 25-28:
We know the rules for Marks. They’re a gross simplification. No more Blood Rage, True Grit, or anything resembling interesting rules. They’re just +1A, +1I, +1T and some funky Invul rules for 1KSons.
We get stuff on Icons without any rules. Mentions of Havocs for some reason. There’s a whole paragraph on how Havocs love to use Rhinos. Umm… what? Stuff on Chosen and Chaos Bikers. Boring, boring, boring. Chosen can Infiltrate. Whatever. Terminators can always Deep Strike for some reason.
Page 29:
Possessed get their own special mention because of just how much they suck. How can you use a unit where you don’t know what they’re capable of until just before the battle? How can you plan to use them when you don’t know if they’ll be getting Scouts, Power Weapons or Fleet of Foot? Moreover, this is done after deployment, so you don’t even know how you’ll use them until after you’ve been forced to place them on the table. What if you placed them back and rolled Scouts? What if you placed them forward and scored Furious Charge?
This unit is hopeless. I love the new models, but they are unusable.
Pages 30-44:
Here we get the ‘Codex without the points’ part of the Codex, the bit where they give you all the rules, but none of the prices and none of the (extremely limited) options. And just like the Dark Angel ‘Codex’ and Codex: Falcon Grav Tanks, it’s as maddeningly useless as before. Chaos players had a complicated ‘Dex with the last edition, but now they have to flip back and forth to find out what a Bloodthirster… wait… sorry… Bloodthirsters don’t exist now. Let me start again. Now they have to flop back and forth to find out what rules their units have and then back to see what options they can get.
On the bright side, Chaos players that own Codex: Dark Angels can just keep the front section of that book open and the army list from the Chaos Codex. As Chaos and Loyalist are so utterly identical now, it should cut down time on flipping back and forth through the book.
Chaos Lords are WS6. Ok, doesn’t matter all that much. They have an inherent 5+(I) save. Sorcerers have Force Weapons, which I hate. I liked it when Force Weapons were something loyalists had. Wait! How could I be so stupid? This Codex is just When Loyalists Go Bad. By rights Razorbacks and Land Speeders should have been included in this book.
Daemon Prince. Wow. How the might have fallen hey? Yeah, ok, inherent WS7 and S6 is nice, as are the 4th Wound & Attack. But talk about dull!
The Spawn is terrible. No armour save makes it virtually impossible to use. It doesn’t even have a 5+(I) daemonic aura save.
Raptors are just Assault Marines. They’re identical. There’s no ‘Chaos’ here.
Now Oblits are Techmarines. Ok, whatever. I really do not know why people think these are awesome units. They’re more expensive than they used to be, their stats have gotten worse and they’ve lost their Heavy Bolters and Autocannons.
Berzerkers, IMO, are actually under-costed. Sure, they lost their Chainaxes, but they removed that idiotic Blood Rage that made them so difficult to control, gave ‘em Frags and F-Charge as standard, and bumped their WS to 5, so they’re effectively hitting everyone on 3+. All for less points than your typical Berzerker from the last Codex (which came in at 24 w/Frags, F-Charge and Chainaxes).
With 1KSons it’s your typical GW pendulum swing, and they’ve swung it hard. What was once a 24-point Bolter Marine with 2 wounds has become an AP3 spitting Marine that shrugs off fully half the firepower you direct at them. They’re still slow.
Plague Marines may be tough, but damn are they expensive. These guys are good on paper, and probably good in game, but I think the ‘more men’ factor will eventually weigh against the Plague Marines, as you might be able to save points and buy more of the cheaper Noise Marines and leave dealing with enemy assault troops to Princes with the Lash.
The Sonic Blaster is still stupidly overpriced. 5 points each for a few more bolter shots isn’t all that special. Noise Marines are lucky as they’re probably one of the few units that can do a lot of things. It’s the I5 that does it, as their HTH abilities are increased significantly by their ability to swing before mostly everyone. They are also the only unit in the Codex that can be small with a heavy weapon. And speaking of the Heavy Weapons, Blastmasters are not worth 40 points. Not by anyone’s standards. True, even with the 40 point Blastmaster, it’s cheaper to buy 5 Noise Marines and a Blastmaster than it is 10 of useless CSMs and a single heavy weapon, but c’mon – 40 points for a blast Krak Launcher? How do GW honestly come up with these prices.
The Dreadnought rules ensure that no one will ever use one. The Fire Frenzy ensures that no one will ever give them decent guns if they do take one. Is it clear that these guys aren’t getting a new model? I’m sure if there was a new plastic Chaos Dread kit, it’d have totally roXx0r rules… but it’s the same metal one from 2nd Ed with the now-illegal Thunder Hammer and Power Scourge, so no, no good rules for it, only rules to ensure that they won’t sell any more. Pity the Forge World dreads are so pretty…
Oh, and I’d like to mention that the Chaos Dreadnought has access to one – count ‘em – one vehicle upgrade. Extra Armour. For 15 points. As I said above, no one’s gonna be bringing Dreads after this book hits.
GW wants to emphasise the HTH nature of the Defiler. To do this they gave the Defiler the same weapon skill as a Guardsman. They also made it BS3, so it’s as good a shot as a Guardsman. Thankfully you can replace its guns with close combat weapons for free, so it’ll have 5 attacks. That’s 6 on the charge, meaning it’ll hit 3 Marines, and kill two. All that for 150 points! What a bargain. And by bargain I mean ‘complete waste of time’.
Next up is the Dark Angel Rhino, now with added spikes to make it ‘Chaos’. 15 point Extra Armour never looked so good!
Next up is the Dark Angel Predator, also with lots of spikes. And 60 point Lascannons that it can’t fire on the move. GW, you sure know how to make a crap rule set…
The Land Raider is… well... it’s a Land Raider.
Chaos Vindicator. I think armies with 3 of these things, Possessed, will make for a scary force. This is also supposed to appease us Iron Warrior players for taking away all our rules. Wonder what the Word Bearer players get? Fancy new Daemon rules? Well, as it happens…
Page 61-63:
I’m skipping ahead a little here, because it’s time to discuss the single greatest tragedy with the Chaos Codex. No folks, I’m not talking about the author, I’m talking about the section entitled ‘Summoned Daemons’.
We’ll start with a quote from the fluff in this section:
‘Some Daemons are weak, flittering things created from base emotions, but with little personality or direction’ – Codex: When Good Marines Go Bad, Page 61.
I must say, ne’er a truer word has been spoken in a GW rulebook.
The Daemons in this Codex, both ‘Greater’ and ‘Lesser’ (although I’d argue that a more accurate description for both types would be ‘Less Than’) truly have ‘little personality’. And if we’re talking about the ‘base emotions’ that went into the design of these Daemons, I’d have to say that ‘boredom’ and ‘laziness’ would be my chief candidates.
Sitting in front of me now I have a very old Games Workshop rulebook. Most of you here will probably have only heard of it, and chances are the closest you’ll ever get to seeing it is in a small thumbnail picture in an eBay auction. I am of course talking about one of the Realms of Chaos books – ancient tomes from which so much current fluff has been pilfered over the years. In this case it is the Slaves to Darkness book, the one detailing Khornate and Slaaneshi forces. This book goes into great detail about different types of Daemons, the nature of Khorne and Slaanesh, and includes rules that have ludicrous amounts of detail – there is a D1000 table in here, I kid you not. This book contains the first ever rules for the Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus, a new weapon called the Psycannon, and the Grey Knights army list. It also contains army lists for Black Legion, World Eaters and Emperor’s Children.
The book is insane. Bloodthirsters used to carry big axes that contained within them another Bloodthirster, who could pop out during the game. They cost 900 or so points of course, so it made sense. There were Fiends, and Daemonettes, Flesh Hounds and Juggernauts. There were rules for Daemon Princes that make the last Codex look like a ‘colour by numbers’ children’s book. As I said, this book is insane.
Now let’s jump back to the new Chaos Codex. What have we got?
Greater Daemons.
Lesser Daemons.
That’s it.
Admittedly, Greater Daemons do have a nice statline, and at 100 points they are an absolute steal, but these rules are supposed to represent all Greater Daemons, from Bloodthirsters to Keepers of Secrets, from Great Unclean Ones to Lords of Change.
It’s just wrong.
Does it not sicken anyone here that Games Workshop has seen fit to publish three different sets of Terminator Teleportation rules for three different Codex Astartes-following Space Marine Chapters (Ultras, Imp Fists, Dark Angels), yet there isn’t enough difference in their minds between a Bloodthirster and a Lord of Change to warrant even a different statline!!!
And then there’s the Lesser Daemons. This section represents:
Nurglings
Plague Bearers
Bloodletters
Flesh Hounds
Horrors
Flamers
Screamers
Daemonettes
Daemonette Cavalry
Furies
And how are these wonderful, characterful, colourful and completely and utterly unique units represented in this new Chaos Codex?
A 13 point model with WS4 S4 T4 A2, Fearlessness and a 5+ Invulnerable save. They’re Fearless Space Marine Scouts with +1A, a lesser saving throw, and no weapons. I can imagine every Word Bearer player going mad right now, Emperor’s Children players wondering what they’re going to do with all their Daemonettes, and players with bases of Nurglings thinking what to do with their pint-sized Daemons that now have the same rules as their friend’s Screamers and Horrors.
This section, more than the heavily and needlessly simplified rules, more than the complete lack of variety or flavour in the rest of the list, and more than the nonsensical pricing structure of limited upgrades – more than anything really – epitomises exactly what is wrong with not only the Codex, but the mindset of the bumbling buffoons writing it.
After reading pages 61-63 of the new Chaos Codex, I am left with only two words to say to Mr. Thorpe, Mr. Cavatore and Mr. Johnson:
F#%k. You.
This section is an insult to Chaos players. It is a directed attack levelled at the people who have been playing Chaos for years and those of us with hordes of different types of Daemons – expensive, metal Daemon models, I might add. I don’t care that in 6 months to 3 years we’ll be getting a ‘Daemons Codex’. That doesn’t change anything. This Codex was bad to begin with, but it collapses under the weigh of its own blandness and stupidity with this section.
Ok, enough about these so-called Daemons, let’s get back to where we were.
Pages 46-59:
This is the special character section. I love this section, if only because we get a decent amount of fluff about our beloved cliché characters, and a nice expansion on Mr. Huron Blackheart, the star of this show.
Starting with Abaddon, and straight away we can see that someone at GW said to themselves ‘Y’know, for being the master of all Chaos, Abby kinds sucks’. And then they went and gave him a huge 275 point price tag, and rules to match! Abby is just nuts! I am so stealing every word of his rules for my Abaddon entry in our group’s 40K Revisited Project. Reading these rules made me actually think ‘Yes, I’d use Abby with these rules’ for the first time ever. Not even his 2nd Ed Rules were this good.
So what are they?
Well, let’s start with the three things that stand out the most: WS7, S8, I6. Yes, you read that correctly. He’s swinging an S8 power weapon at I6, using a WS of 7. He has 4 base attacks, +D6 from the sword. He can re-roll failed To Wound rolls with it. That’s re-rolling S8!! He’s got a 4+ Invulnerable Save. He’s immune to Instant Death. He’s Fearless, and he has a Teleport Homer.
He really is the Master of Chaos, and damn is it about time!
I dislike these emphasis on Special Characters within the more recent Codices. I really dislike it. But at least they’re giving us some characters that are worth a damn. Abby is great! Apparently in Apocalypse you can field multiple special characters. I own two Abaddons… so good!
Oddly, in comparison, our good friend Kharn is a little subdued. He’s still dangerous, yes, but he lost his immunity to Instant Death. He lost his 2+ armour save. He gained a pip of strength, and with F-Charge his WS7 S6 I6 with lots of attacks but he’s just… dull. Sure he went down in points, but I really don’t know why you’d bring him.
For all the 1KSons players out there, I have some good news for you:
Ahriman found a power weapon!!!
It seems that after all these millennia of swinging his Black Staff ineffectually at anyone with an armour save greater than a Guardsman, Ahriman realised that there was an ‘On’ switch at the base of the staff. Now he has a Force Weapon! He’s forgotten how to cast powers automatically, and for that alone I think his price increase to 250 probably isn’t worth it, but at least he can finally kill stuff! Sadly his fluff mentions that he is searching for a way to get into the Black Library and makes no mention of the fact that he found a way into the Eldar Webway during the 13th Black Crusade.
I was surprised to see that the Enhanced Marine rules of Fabius’ were still in the Codex. I thought that in a world of optionless squads and generic Daemons, something like the ability to enhance Marines would have been very quickly cut in favour of some stock-standard, optionless ‘enhanced retinue’ that only Fabius could get. But no, the rules remain. They’re still no good, and I doubt anyone has ever used them, but they’re there! Sadly, all is not well with the Chaos Primogenitor. His cost has gone up dramatically, he still hasn’t found the ‘On’ switch like Ahriman, so his weapon won’t be ignoring Gaunt or Ork armour anytime soon, his pistol still sucks, he lost his Invul save for a Feel No Pain save, and generally just became more of a confused fighter. I wouldn’t bother. But at least his Enhanced Marine rules are still there. They’re probably one of the more Chaotic things in this Codex.
Lucius the Eternally Useless remains so. He’s lost virtually all of his special rules. His WS and Initiative have increased, but he lost a pip of strength, his Lash of Torment is just a Tyranid Lash Whip. His cost went down, but not enough to justify ever taking him. Thank God he isn’t required to make Noise Marines into Troops…
Typhus went down a few points, and gained a Force Weapon. He’s actually pretty good. Not very exciting, but a decent character.
Finally the star of our show – Huron Blackheart, Master of the Red Corsairs, formerly Lufgt Huron, Chapter Master of the Astral Claws. Sadly, his actual rules are really uninspired. He’s a base-line Commander with a normal commander statline; he has a power fist, a power weapon and one psychic power. The only cool thing about him is that he has a heavy flamer. Really disappointing.
Thankfully we get quite a lot of fluff on the Badab War and other Huron related items. We get a two-page look at a raid Huron made on a Space Wolf Strike Cruiser. What the Space Wolves were doing all the way over in the lower Eastern Fringe, I do not know, but, again, the fluff is fun, so I like it.
So that’s the end of the rules section. Now we get the colour section.
Pages 64-80:
The colour section is very… colourful. Can’t really say much more than that except that I found it amusing the single picture of Iron Warriors has what would be 3 Heavy Support choices in the old Codex. Y’know, rather than 4. Heh.
Alpha Legion have changed colour schemes once again. They look really odd. A made-up ‘Renegade Chapter’ called The Cleaved gets more coverage than any of the Traitor Legions. There’s a conversion of Lysander, but with Lightning Claws. He’s part of a group called ‘The Purge’, and they get more coverage than any of the Traitor Legions.
The Red Corsair models look terrible. I’m sorry, but they’re half Red Space Marines, half Death Company. They don’t look good. The red is too bright.
Their Vindicator picture includes some riveting ‘detail’ shots including the hatch and the… air vent... umm… yeah. Really exciting stuff here. AIR VENTS!! WOOO!!!!!
There’s a 1500 point sample list that contains your usual mixed assortment of random weapon choices and mismatched units. It’s the typical, par-for-the-course crap that we’re used to from GW.
After that comes a jarring picture with lots of the stuff the Studio has just painted, giving us a Chaos Legion that must be from the Renegade ‘Colours of Benetton’ Chapter.
Yeah, and that’s the colour section.
Pages 81-88:
This is the section that Jervis decreed must be in all Codices so his son knows what’s what. Yes, it’s the wargear section, filled with lots of pretty pictures of Bolters with Spikes and huge canons with blade attachments. Thanks to this section we can all feel safe in the knowledge that Jervis’ 5 year old knows the difference between a Chainsword and a Reaper Autocannon.
Only thing of note is that Chaos Terminator Armour doesn’t give you +1 Attack, yet Space Marine Terminator Armour does. Go Loyalists! Oh, and anyone with wings can now Deep Strike. Page 87 does have a pretty nifty picture of a Chaos Dread.
Psychic Powers come at the end. Doom Bolt’s AP3 now. Warp Time is a lesser Veil of Time. Gift of Chaos is the same. Wind of Chaos is the same. Lash of Submission is the single most unfair thing in this Codex. Nurgle’s Rot sucks. Bolt of Change is AP1.
Pages 89-102:
And now we finally reach the army list. I’ve gone over most of what I feel about the units within the rules section that you can all flip back and forth between when you finally buy this train wreck of a Codex, but there are a few things here I’d like to point out, mostly to do with points and comparisons.
Daemon Princes, as everyone knows by now, have reverted back to the Daemon Princes from the really boring 1st Edition Chaos Codex from the start of 3rd Ed. They have only 3 options, Wings or no Wings, Mark or No Mark, and Lash of Submission or no Lash of Submission. That’s pretty much what it boils down to. Take two of ‘em.
All the Daemonic Gifts are gone in this Codex. Completely gone. Vanished. No show. The Chaos Lord still has loads of options, but they’re all weapon options, and they’re all extremely dull. Do I take one Lightning Claw or two? Terminator Armour or a Bike? Snore-fest or Nap-Time? The Marks are all ludicrously priced. 20 for +1T that doesn’t even help against Instant Death? 15 points to increase the Invul Save. Only Slaanesh is worthwhile, at 5 points for +1Init.
Sorcerer is up next. He’s got a Force Weapon, and has to take at least one power. Unlike Space Marine Librarians, Chaos Sorcerers have been working in the Eye of Terror for the Chaos Gods and therefore cannot get two ultra-cheap powers. Instead they have to pay 30 points for things like Wind of Chaos and Gift of Chaos. To get two powers, the Sorcerer needs to spend 30 points on the Mark of Tzeentch. Ouch…
This page also has the rules for Daemon Weapons. The normal one is bad. The Undivided one gives you +1A, the Khorne one makes it easier to kill yourself, the Nurgle One is useless except against Wraithlords and ‘Zilla lists, the Tzeentch one gives you a different way of killing yourself and the Slaanesh one is a super-force weapon without the need for a test. Overall the Slaaneshi one is the best. It causes more damage without increasing the chances of killing yourself. Still, for 40 points, what a waste… Daemon Princes cannot get Daemon Weapons. Go figure…
Chosen are still 18 points and still only have 1 attack each. They can get a single Champion, who appears to have no options of his own, so when it says up to 4 in the squad may take certain items, I’d have to assume he is one of those four. So, effectively, you pay +10 points for an extra attack. Otherwise everything else is already available to the squad, including 15 point power weapons and 25 point power fists. Rip off…
Chaos Termies are cheap at 30 points. Anyone can be a Champ. They adhere strictly to the Codex Astartes though, so only one heavy weapon for every full 5 Termies. It’s good to be Chaotic!
Possessed are 26 points each, and as mentioned earlier in this review, you cannot plan at all what they will do during the game, making them impossible to use. Thankfully they can get a Rhino…
The Dread, yeah, already mentioned. Avoid! Avoid! Avoid! Wait for a shiny plastic kit in 6-10 years, and then we’ll get good rules again.
Now we come to Chaos Marine Squads. I truly do not know why you’d take Chaos Marines. It’s 170 points for a squad with a Lascannon. The Icons are priced so that you won’t take them (50 for the Nurgle one for God’s sake, and you don’t even get FNP!). The Cult Troops are just so much better. Avoid these jokers. It seems that Chaos Marines have no place in a Chaos Marine army…
Also, when I see ‘Mark of Chaos Glory’, I see ‘Mark of Morning Glory’. I can’t take them seriously any more.
For 50 points you can have a Rhino with Extra Armour or for 55 points you can have a possessed Rhino. Unfortunately you can no longer ‘fake’ a Razorback with two combi-weapons and a Havoc Launcher. Now you get your Combi-Bolter and one other option. What does GW have against options?
Plague Marines are 23 points each, and whilst good I just see Noise Marines as the superior unit due to cost. The Champ’s Power Fist is also 25… such a rip off.
140 points gets you 5 Fearless Noise Marines with a Blastmaster. 40 points is still overpriced.
Berzerkers are cheap as chips at 21 points each. They’re nice.
1KSons I’ve been over. Sorc has a Force Weapon. All you 1KSons players out there better start removing those power fists from your Champions.
Chaos Bikers have gone down by one point, and lost an attack. I guess the lack of new model means they got ignored. They really suck now with base A1 rather than A2.
Chaos Raptors, as I’ve said, are now just Loyalist Assault Marines but with access to Plasma Guns and Meltaguns. They can have Icons, but they’re so overpriced you wouldn’t bother.
Spawn are 40 points each. With no armour save you wouldn’t bother.
Havocs, unlike their Loyalist counter-parts, cannot get Tank Hunters. They pay stupid prices for their guns as usual and… and this made me laugh… can buy an Icon of Khorne. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That’s hilarious.
I’ve been over Oblits.
Chaos Predator with lotsa Lascannons costs 20 points more than the old version. It’s not a better shot, it’s no more mobile, and it’s no more durable. Nothing’s changed, much like GW’s writing abilities. Oh, you can get Possession and lose a point of Ballistic Skill if you like. Good one Gav.
Vindi is 125. Possession makes it 145. Bring on the trios of Vindis!
Defiler is 150. No more indirect. Bad statline, more CCWs. What a waste. Seriously, who honestly thought that giving the Defiler a few extra attacks and Fleet yet keeping the Defiler at WS3 would make it into a HTH monster? It misses MEQs half the damn time. How is that useful?
Land Raider is still 40 points too expensive. Possessing it might be a good idea, as you don’t lose to much – all the guns are twin-linked anyway.
And the less said about Generic Daemons the better.
Page 104:
This is the summary page. I only mention this as it contains the full credits at the bottom. It has a few interesting things.
Written By: Gav Thorpe
Additional Text: Alessio Cavatore
What’s that? Alessio did ‘additional text’. What does that mean? I guess he showed up at the office each day, and between his half an hour coffee break and 3 hour lunch he looked over Gav’s shoulder, shook his head and thought to himself ‘Maybe I’ll fix it before we go to print… or maybe I’ll just take a 4 hour lunch today’.
The other interesting thing about the credits is not something that’s written there, but something that’s not written there. What’s missing?
Jervis’ name.
He’s not even mentioned in the special thanks section. Actually, I assume the special thanks section is Gav saying thankyou to all those people for not firing him years ago after he wrote the 3rd Ed Blood Angel Codex.
So yeah, Jervis is actually not mentioned at all in this book. Funny how things happen.
Conclusion:
I titled this review ‘An Exercise in Futility’ not so much because of the content of this particular Codex, but more as a commentary on GW at the moment. What we all have to realise is that despite the good rules in this Codex, and despite the ‘fun’ fluff that I enjoyed quite a bit, nothing we do or say will make GW change their current trend.
Options will vanish. Variety will go out the window. Entire armies will be invalidated or heavily nerfed, all despite the long-forgotten promises before 4th Ed that ‘nothing would change’. And we can’t do squat about it… sorry… I mentioned Squats. Pun… let’s say it was intended.
Think of this part of 40K’s development history as the Ecclesiarchy’s Reign of Blood. Maybe Rick Priestly will come back to play out the role of Sebastian Thor to Jervis’ Lord Vandire. We can only hope!!!
So your three options are keep playing, stop playing, or do what our group has done and re-write 40K to make it into a game we have fun playing.
As for this Codex, well, as I said, it’s a train wreck. It’s so full of… blandness… that it makes me sad. The Legions are gone – in fact, they’re hardly mentioned. The Horus Heresy plays a supporting role in this Chaos Codex. The Daemons are an insult. The points costs don’t make sense. The list itself is dull.
We spent a lot of time making fun of Pete Haines, but the truth is I miss him. He might have demonstrated the subtlety of an Imperator Titan when he made his personal Iron Warrior army awesome and 1KSons suck, but he made a Codex that we all enjoyed. Yes, it could be abused. Yes, it was near impossible to balance. But damn it, it was fun. Having a page of tiny, 3-columned text for the Wargear section was fun. Having all those options and all those Legions was fun.
This new Codex isn’t fun, and truly fun is what 40K is about. If a Codex is no fun, it is a failure.
Lord Vandire – you have failed.
BYE
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