Will we ever see individual Chaos Space Marine Legions?

[Samuell]

GW has put a strong emphasis on Space Marine Chapters lately, with the Space Wolves, the Blood Angels, the Black Templars and the Dark Angels all having their individual codices and model lines.

That makes me wonder, what's the chance of GW doing the same for the Chaos Space Marines? Would it be as popular? Are fans waiting for this?

Personally I'd love to see legions such as the Death Guard, the Night Lords, the Word Bearers get a specific codex, with rules that stress their particular styles and models that do the legions justice.

The possibilities are endless, but is this train of thought realistic? Did any of the GW big wigs ever say anything about chaos getting the space marine treatment? Do any of you insiders know anything us mortals don't?

[Erwos]

Realistically, even the most die-hard advocates of the undivided Chaos Legions know that they're not going to be seeing individual Legion codexes. Best case scenario is list modifications ala the 3.5E codex.

[Zweischneid]

No. Don't think so.

Also, this isn't, I think, a new phenomenon. Dark & Blood Angels and the Wolves had unique codexes for a long, long time. The Templars are perhaps the most recent addition.

And furthermore, and I hope no Chaos Marine player will be offended, but I believe the Chaos legion's unique flavour is much, much more 40k specific and less easily communicated to a broader audience.

Space Wolves have the whole Viking/Werewolf theme running.
Blood Angels the Vampire vibe.
Templars the Knight & Crusader analogies.
Dark Angels the gothic church/monastry stylings.

Those are all easy and obvious themes for anyone at least passingly interested into common fantasy/sci-fi tropes.

IMO, despite some bat-wing helms or slight egyptian styling, none of the Chaos legions really do have a strong (i.e. marketable) theme like that atm.

40K Chaos as a unified "Demon-worshipping-Space-Marines-from-hell" is a much stronger sell than any of the legions individually IMO.

[Mannimarco]

Nothing would make me happier than seeing legion books however its simply not going to happen.

What we are likely to see will be a chaos book where you can pick a lord and but him a mark, doing so will open up a list of stuff which will allow you to buy to add to a generic army.

it wouldnt take up a massive amount of space and would be easily implemented into the book

[DeeKay]

I'm not hoping for individual books for the chaos legions, since it would be far easier to achieve using a few USRs instead of marks to represent some of them, and a slight change in either equipment allowances or the crock of poo that is the icon system to represent the Cult Legions. More books to achieve what could be done in one would be senseless IMO, but this is GW we are talking about...

With regards,
Dan.

[aka_mythos]

Individual books is not likely, the differences between the 11 Loyalist marines GW represent is more significant than the chaos ones, with the exception of the big-4. Even if GW did do multiple Chaos marine books, it'd be the 4 god-specific legions first and then sn undivided book covering the rest. The simple solution would be to put the 4 god-specific legions in one book together, but there would be thematic cohesion problems with that. Of the ideas closest to reality, I think its the most favorable. By divorcing the big-4 from the codex and removing their special characters, you open up space for the other legions to get some attention without bloating the book or diverting to much from the idea of more recently turned loyalists.

When GW did the new book they could have fixed the bloated size by 1) cutting legions, 2) cuttting veteran skils, or 3) cutting daemons... they did all three when they could have been fine with just one or two of the options. It left this book lacking. GW's not likely to bring back Legions as they were but they're always willing to make new characters.

As I posted in a different thread I think its far more likely that we just see the special character approach that's been used again and again applied:

"Such-n-such" the Dark Apostle, re-roll reserve rolls for daemons, may begin with a daemon unit on the table
"Blank-ity-blank" the Arch Heretic, cultist count as a scoring unit, cultist may outflank.
"Crushington" The Demolisher, ability to call for off table artillery, master of ordinance style.
"Batman" The Headhunter, Raptors count as a scoring unit and may re-roll for reserve.

Anything more it will suffer the pitfalls of a bloated codex.

[Born Again]

We really don't need it. It has been hinted at by some people in GW, but I really don't think it's necessary. One cohesive CSM book is fine for me. Maybe there could be a Codex: Ruinous Powers or something, that could allow you to make an army from one of the Chaos Gods and the associated legion, ie; a Nurgle army featuring Death Guard, daemons, plague zombies, daemon engines etc, but doing a book for individual legions is a big mistake. Why? Because if you do one, they'll have to do all the others to stop the constant barrage of mail complaining that their legion of choice doesn't have a codex. And if they do all the Legions, we'll end up with no less than 15 power armoured forces in the game, or 10 if they just do the God-specific ones, which is beyond overkill. You would be looking at HALF the available armies being MEQ's. No, thankyou.

[DeviantApostle]

Yeah, best I think we can hope for is Legion Special Characters like the smurf book. Maybe a page for each in the Chaos 'dex tops.

Loyalists have had multiple codexes since 2e, starting with the Ultramarine 'generic SM' codex moving into SW, though they were more hesitant with DA and BA being combined into one 'dex.

[incarna]

The emphasis on individual Space Marine chapters is not new. As long as I’ve been a part of this hobby there has been some special rule, White Dwarf, mini-dex, etc. supporting individual chapters. With the Horus Heresy series, GW now has a large body of lore upon which to base the development of individual legion codexes.

To be honest however, as much as I like Chaos, and feel they deserve equal treatment to Space Marines, I do believe GW has unnecessarily over-emphasized specific Space Marine chapters. I believe the best solution would be to have a single generic space marine codex and a single generic chaos codex (chaos including traitor guard, mutants, and other lost and the damned forces). Along with these “core” codexes would come 2 supplemental codexes giving Space Marine players the ability to field ANY chapter of their choosing (from Iron Hands to Blood Angels) and giving Chaos players the ability to field ANY traitor legion of their choosing (from Night Lords to Thousand Sons).

This is how I think things should be done. I don’t run GW and I don’t think my vision will ever be realized. I think the best thing Chaos players can hope for is a codex that outlines all traitor forces, including Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Night Lords, and Black Legion and a second codex outlining World Eaters, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, and Emperors Children.

[aka_mythos]

I think most veteran players would embrace big all in one books. The problem is GW doesn't want it because its an impediment to a player getting into the game to purchase the large sized books neccessary to fit all marine loyalist and all the CSM in any meaningful way. It would certainly be nice it just goes against their current business model.

Books with supplements are even worse for them for all the same reasons.

[Jonny_N]

I would very much like to see Codex: renegades for the chapters and Codex: Traitoris Extremis for the legions.

[Brucopeloso]

I hope not (and I am a CSM player)! Is bad enough to have books for specific chapters...... I like to see some xeno or non marine stuff now and then

[RampagingRavener]

I hope to god not. GW already struggles to keep all their Codexes relatively up to date, and I dread to think what would happen if four new Codexes are dumped into the schedule, forcing other races to wait even longer for some attention. And that's even before you get onto what would happen with four more colours of Space Marines With Spikes stagnating the metagame even further with new MEQ armies.

With any luck, the only new Chaos-related Codex we should ever see added to the game should be a Lost and the Damned book.

[GrogDaTyrant]

IMO, yes and no. Yes... GW should devote some time to sub-armies such as the Legions, Clans, Craftworlds, Regiments, etc. No it shouldn't be in codex form (indeed, I don't believe any of the SM Chapters should have been codices at all, either). What GW should do, is just make downloadable PDFs for the various sub-lists that don't get represented in their parent codex. Well, that's my thought anyways.

[aka_mythos]

Or even just a compendium call it "40k Advanced" that is just a book of alternate sublists. Something that just modifies the existing list in the most basic ways. Couple pages for fluff a couple pages explaining how it modifies basic codices, maybe a special character. Where units wouldn't necessarily be modified just how they fit into the FOC with the special character being the driving factor in it. 5-6 pages each. Make it cover 4 Legions, 4 Clans, 4 Craftworlds. If people are overly concern just put a statement "not for tournements" or something to make it clear that its status is somewhere between the free rolling of Apocalypse and Standard 40k. It would be a good way to promote the game as more friendly and less about the tournament scene, which is something GW's really been trying to do.

[jtw1n]

I think it is much more likely to see something simular to Imperial Guard or the New Space Marines Codex where the Special Character HQ's allow you to take different style lists. I could see Legion Specific Characters taken to alter the way the basic Chaos list works. Maybe even giving something simular to the Icons army wide.

[Vaktathi]

I highly doubt we'd see individual Legion books. At most you'd see Legions and Renegade books. GW mentioned it once or twice, but really, it's not going to happen at this point I'd venture.

That said, I don't think they need individual Legion books, just as there isn't really any point to individual Chapter books. One well designed book with some sublists or just solid, flexible, effective army lists would work, they just need to accomplish that.

[Bathawk]

Doubt it. Remember that the "alternative" Space Marine Codexes are variants of the standard Codex Astartes. Hawk Lords, Aurora Chapter and Salamanders aren't unique enough (or popular) to warrant their own books...they're just too similar to the Ultrasmurfs

More likely we would probably see a traitor guard book

that being said I would like to see more CSm unique characters, we essentialy have one each for each follower of on of the chaos lords, plus abaddon and fabius bile....need more variety in there. After all i'm pretty sure Kharn isn't the last worn for a champion of khorn right??

[Erwos]

Only way it would happen is if they switched to releasing 6+ updated 40k codexes a year. As it is, they only release 3 (or 4 in a good year). I've said it once, I'll say it again: GW is not committing enough development resources to 40k, given the amount of armies they need to support.

[Max Jet]

Yeah.. right, they should make individual Chaos Codicies, just like individual Space Marine Books.
Then they could toss Chaos Legion Codicies between their Space Marine Books (every second one now).
In that case they would FINALLY have Warhammer 40k... Horus Heresy!!! No stupid Xeno Races in between!

*rolls eyes*