Underwhelmed by Chaos Space Marine Models

[LotusCorgi]

I was looking over the CSM range recently on the GW website and I just could not summon up any interest. Almost all the other loyal chapters look the part better than the chaos space marines. Space wolves look more barbaric, dark angels look more macabe, blood angels look more gothic, etc. The troop kit is a great kit, good options, but the average chaos space marine trooper looks like a poseur stood next to a loyalist, even a smurf. They have guys with freaking halabards and gold eagle helmets and togas. A Chaos marine looks like a guy who welded a couple horns on his helmet and is now "evil". "Look how evil I am! I've horns on my helmet and some spikes! Grrrr!" Rumor has it we are getting a new codex and I am real excited, but I may have to take my army in a different direction if we don't stand out more visually as an army. I hope its not just "heres a floating dreadnought called a dragon. Enjoy." They need to put the Chaos back in Chaos on all levels. CSMs are not "bad" spacemarines. They are insane hellbound near-immortal cursed and damned bloodthirsty supersoliders back from hell to murder your planet. I would almost just rather play a fallen warband and use dark angels models...

[Ebon]

Opinions vary. Personally, I really like most of the current CSM models. I don't much care for the current Noise Marine or Plague Marine models but the rest look pretty cool to me, Possessed especially (shame their rules aren't as good).
OTOH, a Fallen warband would probably look very cool. I've been considering adding a unit of Fallen to my Black Legion army (nice thing about Black Legion, you can justify any addition).

[Askari]

Chaos Space Marine models are also generally much older than their Loyalist counterparts, Thousand Sons came out in... 2002 whereas the Space Wolf set you mention came out in 2009. I'm sure they'll look far more in-line with the new shiny models when the new book is released.

Of course, if you prefer the look of loyalist sets, why not just use them? I have a lot of Dark Angels robed bodies in my CSM army.

[samiens]

Personally the broader profile of a basic csm model appeals to me much more and aside from beakies I prefer csm helmets. Some of the cults ar a bit dated but that aside I don't think you can claim this as a universal opinion.

Its all about taste- the more Viking space wolves get the more I hate their range- doesn't make it abad range though- just not one for me

[unwanted]

FW "Historical" armour kits may be for you? With proper paintjobs and some (minor?) modifications, those models are so much more intimidating. Of course, this doesn't address your issues with the actual Chaos Marine plastics, which I completely agree look dated, and not at all intimidating. I actually think the older CSM-models captured the spirit much better, although they are of course OOP...

[totgeboren]

It really is a pity that the current CSM models are not based on mk.V and older armour (which is something I have been hoping for since 2:ed. Now I have FW at least). There is a quite noticeable difference between mk.6 and later and the ones before, with the old ones being all baroque and having cables and such, with the new ones looking a bit more sleek and high-tech.
Sadly many of the CSM armours are just new marks with spikes, except a mk.V chest piece, mk.3 shoulders and often mk.6 legs.
They could have thought the design through a bit more.
But I like the basic CSM plastics anyway. They just need a lot of battle gear around their waist, and an extra gun (pistol or bolter depending on what you give them in their hands). The horns goes in waves, sometimes I hate them, sometimes I like them. I never love them though.

[Kijamon]

Remember that the khorne berzerkers are ancient but still decent looking enough to be used on the table. They were the first of the dynamically posed marines to come out.

In an ideal world GW will just vomit an entire new kit, Chaos deserves it. The dark eldar models are just lovely and cover the evilness of that race perfectly. Let's put the chaos back in chaos!

[theJ]

The Terminator Lord kit is incredible, though. You can't take that away from them...

[Askari]

The Terminator Lord kit is incredible, though. You can't take that away from them...

Yeah.. so much so I bought 4 kits to make Abaddon and his retinue, the 5th is made from a Grey Knight Terminator

[sprugly]

They're ok, not the best marine models but with a little modding they're fine (check what I've done to them in my blog). But I see your point, really they should be awesome and evil without adding to them. And I'm not a fan of horns everywhere, I've taken them all off my marines.

Sprugly

[Ulrig]

I was looking over the CSM range recently on the GW website and I just could not summon up any interest. Almost all the other loyal chapters look the part better than the chaos space marines. Space wolves look more barbaric, dark angels look more macabe, blood angels look more gothic, etc. The troop kit is a great kit, good options, but the average chaos space marine trooper looks like a poseur stood next to a loyalist, even a smurf. They have guys with freaking halabards and gold eagle helmets and togas. A Chaos marine looks like a guy who welded a couple horns on his helmet and is now "evil". "Look how evil I am! I've horns on my helmet and some spikes! Grrrr!" Rumor has it we are getting a new codex and I am real excited, but I may have to take my army in a different direction if we don't stand out more visually as an army. I hope its not just "heres a floating dreadnought called a dragon. Enjoy." They need to put the Chaos back in Chaos on all levels. CSMs are not "bad" spacemarines. They are insane hellbound near-immortal cursed and damned bloodthirsty supersoliders back from hell to murder your planet. I would almost just rather play a fallen warband and use dark angels models...

I could not agree more. I think the horns and such look like crap. I think even the spikes on the terminators look like crap. I recently started death guard and I am using nearly all forge world bits. The death guard torsos of course, but I am also using MK2 and MK3 bits to give them more of that 1000's of years old look.

This is how I would do it.
I think the whole current line should be scrapped and redone much like dark eldar were. They should look their age, the armour should at least be based off of early versions of space marine armour. Mark 3 is perfect in my opinion for this, it by far looks the best. Death Guard units aside, to add "chaos" to chaos armour and vehicles, they should look to what Reavers are in the short lived show 'FireFly'. So instead of having spikes attached to them, the spikes should be through the bodies and armour. As they are insane and they shove metal spikes through their own armour and bodies. Vehicles could go this way also. I am not talking slapping random metal together and make it look like orks. Just imagine if Hellraiser got ahold of the current line of tanks and had a wielder.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Remember though, not all Chaos Marines are the 10,000 year old Horus Heresy guys. I'd imagine that not even *most* of them are anymore. You'd imagine that battle casualties over ten centuries is going to whittle them down. It is probably far more realistic to say that the remainder are more recent recruits who have been turned in Marines by foul magics and medicine, or from traitors amongst more recent times. The leaders, the ancient champions, etc, might be bitter hold overs from the Heresy, but even with the distorted time of the Warp, there have been a lot of Black Crusades, lol. And their armor is going to have been salvaged from battles where they were victorious over loyalist forces, or manufactured themselves. While there's certainly no argument that says that older Marks of armor wouldn't still exist, it's entirely likely that the ratio of old parts to newer parts is probably only slightly higher than a loyalist legion. Chaos Marines are probably going to be more hodge-podge with scavenged and salvaged armor. Sort of like the Marines Malevolent have been described.

Model wise, though, I agree. The Chaos Marines look dated and silly. There has to be a way to capture "We're the Space Bad Guys" without ludicrously huge horns, and excessive spikes. Revamping the basic Chaos Marine models should give them more do-dads like helmets or skulls hanging from their belts, but more feasible and functional helmets like the normal Marines have. Less of the weird, archaic batman looking backpacks, and no more silly belt-fed bolters.

[samiens]

I actually really like the horns, especially on the terminators, and its the backpacks- and the broadened shape that makes me prefer them to loyalists. Guess ut just goes to show beauty is in the eye of the beholder

[Veteran Sergeant]

Well to be fair, a lot of the reason I think they look silly is just for how impossible it would make them to wear and how inconvenient and burdensome they would be to wear, especially in close quarters or tight spaces that a seven to seven and a half foot tall warrior is going to find himself in before he adds two foot horns to his helmet lol. Not to mention any place with hanging overgrowth and other vegetation.

[LotusCorgi]

Anyone got a link for the FW historicals?

[Beppo1234]

Well to be fair, a lot of the reason I think they look silly is just for how impossible it would make them to wear and how inconvenient and burdensome they would be to wear, especially in close quarters or tight spaces that a seven to seven and a half foot tall warrior is going to find himself in before he adds two foot horns to his helmet lol. Not to mention any place with hanging overgrowth and other vegetation.

That kind of logic doesn't belong in the 40k universe, a place where soldiers wear bright coloured armour, and don't wear helmets.

[KingDeath]

The current CSM set is quite bad, perhaps because of it's age. Especialy the metal trim at the legs tends to be badly cast. Add the general lack of detail of normal chaos marines bits ( the champion sprue on the other hand is quite good ) and you have the current, quite underwhelming, csm box.

[Veteran Sergeant]

That kind of logic doesn't belong in the 40k universe, a place where soldiers wear bright coloured armour, and don't wear helmets.

Maybe it doesn't belong in your 40K, youngin'. But, anyone who has read my project log knows that it belongs in mine.

[samiens]

No idea on the youngin' comment- they were horned when I started in 2nd ed and I expect them horned to this day- but to each their own!

I still really like the basic csm, the kits considerably younger than the plastic tacticals and to my mind is far more aesthetically pleasing

[bad dice]

That kind of logic doesn't belong in the 40k universe, a place where soldiers wear bright coloured armour, and don't wear helmets.

Most elite forces don't where helmets in real live. The freedom of moment wins out over the meagre protection provided. Then again the bright coloured armour does sound like a bad idea.