First Impressions of 6th ed. Chaos Space Marine Codex

[Murphey]

So, I've had a chance to sit and really read the new codex through and digest it for a while, and I have a number of impressions coming away from it.

First off, I enjoy the codex. It's artwork is, overall, quite good. It has a ton of different options when compared to the previous codex, and it has an armory, which is a huge plus for me.

(Subnote on the art: There's two pieces that feature the Heldrake, one looks awesome because it looks nothing like the model (looks waaaaay more dragonesque) and another that looks lame because, well, it looks like the model. Dinobots, Go!)

Kelly did a great job of trying to give people the options to make diverse army builds all themed to certain gods. I'm disappointed there's no special rules for legions like in the 3.5 codex, but this is about the best we could expect from the current style of codices.

Mechanically, many things in the codex seem very high cost/overcosted. This might just be because of the insanely unbalanced point costs we've seen coming from codices by Ward (Or Cruddace's IG), but I do feel like many of the units are not that competitively costed for their capabilities. The heldrake in particular seems about 30 points over what it should be, mainly due to it's lackluster offense, especially when you look at vendetta gunships and the like.

Many of the new units seem to virtually lack any options, which is irksome to me. This is so heavily contrasted compared to other units that it's even more glaring. I feel like things like the fiends and heldrake really should have had more customizability.

Some of the icons are terribly overpriced for what they do. The Tzeentch and Nurgle ones are the most guilty of this. When you run the math with both of them, they're simply not worth the cost, in my opinion.

The demon princes are a bit of a head scratcher for me. They lack Eternal Warrior, have less leadership than what one would expect, and don't benefit from marks in the same way. They also get VERY expensive very quickly. Also, weirdest of all, they don't get to roll on the boon table when they kill enemy characters. I still plan on using one in my army, but that's more due to a thematic idea than anything else.

One thing that surprised me is the lack of solid anti-flyer options in the codex. Havoks can get flack missiles, but the math on them is hardly advantageous given the cost of the missile launcher and the upgrade. The Heldrake simply gets outclassed in flyer v. flyer combat by many things 50 points cheaper. I guess I just expected that, with how powerful, omnipresent, and cheap many flyers are in the game, that 6th edition codices would try and bring them better in line. A bit disappointing, but manageable. (My main is currently Tau, and it's not like they are overwhelmed with all their access to skyfire.)

Also, I'm a little surprised that they didn't really play up the allying with demons angle in this codex. There's no access to teleport homers or anything focused on synergizing with demons (overtly, anyhow).

Overall, I'm enjoying the codex, although I'm a little worried about the high costs of many of the units when compared to what they can do, and when compared to the current game context.

[Scammel]

I must say I'm feeling a tad disappointed. I'm comfortable with the power level (though 'balanced' in today's game really means 'a bit underpowered'), it's just that I don't really feel I'll be playing a different book to the previous one. I was hoping for a grand 'Kellification', where every unit has cool rules and unique weapons and options pouring out of their noses, but it strikes me that on a large number of units all we got were more icons and VotLW. A couple of the new units are pretty cool, but the ones that could have been really snazzy (the Daemon Engines) seem a little boring on the tabletop. The Drake is little more than a standard flyer with VS, the FF isn't much more than a boggo shooting platform and the MF, whilst awesomely fast, isn't much more terrifying than A.N.Other Dread. Heck, they actually cut back on the number of Daemon Weapons! I can't shake this feeling that I'll still be seeing the same armies, with roughly the same points, with roughly the same rules. There was an opportunity for a shake-up but it doesn't seem to have really happened.

[daboarder]

Personally I love the background, artwork and its a joy to read the book.

But it has Nid syndrome!

[Depulsor]

Well, this codex is MUCH better, than the last chaos codex.

But sadly, the writer seemed to be TERRIBLY afraid to make anything overpowered. Everywere it seems, were some random points added, just to make sure, its not too powerfull.
I mean... whats with all these AV12 vehicles that cost more than AV14 leman russes? Really???

But all in all, I think its a codex, which is OK. Could have been much more, but its not horrible.
And it has some nice options, synergies and little gems.

[daboarder]

eh, If anything I'd say its merely on par with the old one.

Old options are gone and new ones are in. The drastic problems have been fixed but other's have taken their place...

for example, the spawn or daemon boon is basically jsut going to kill your model more often than not as if it can't be placed "within 3"" it is removed. and even if it does get placed it is then "unengaged".

[Rovient]

Lots of good stuff, lots of bad. One that hits me as being just a real let down is being unable to re-roll your Gift on the D66 table if a model already has that ability or power (such as fearless or Eternal Warrior etc). That roll is just lost!

I guess that's why you take a dark apostle?

Dark Apostles aren't as bad as I initially thought - their 3+/4++ could actually make them more survivable in general (assaults in particular), especially if you drop the pts on mark of Tzeench too to give him a 3+/3++. However, if you've taken his already high standard pts cost, add on an artifact like the Black Mace, and then a mark, then a gift to roll for at the start of the game, we're talking near 200 pts for a 2W character.

[Col. Dash]

So, legion rules are out? Does this mean Khorne armies made up of all berserkers are out? What about the silly retcon that has Night Lords having mass raptors? Are cult terminators in, as in do I have a purpose again for my highly customized sonic terminators?

[daboarder]

NOPE! nothing zip nilche, what was rumoured in the last couple of weeks was pretty much the whole codex.

[bad dice]

I am a little sad about it

I can't believe some of the choise they mad

i mean a defilers is 195 points? come on that is just insanely over priced for what is basicly a dreadnought whit a battle cannon.
Sure it got a lot better than it was but a 30% price increase.

Also I hate all the none wierd changes

Ah marines got 2 points cheaper but lost their combat weapon ah and you can get that back for 2 points. Oh nice.

Ok now you can play them as normal marines for less if you want. But if you wanted to do that why not just use the normal marine codex?

It also pisses me off as a alpha legion player that there is no way to get infiltrate on any unit.
We went form all infiltrate to no infiltrate in 2 versions of the book. Nice

Not to mention that the army as a whole realy realy realy did not need the chosen to change into a combat unit. It's not like there is not enough choice for that already.

OH and OMG are bikes undercosted compaired to normal marines

lets pay 5 points to get my weapon twinlinked a impact hit double movement and +1t hell yes.

Also I hate how the hid all the old runes in the new special rules.
Sure oblitorators are still 2+/5++ but only if you realise that they are deamons and deamons get a 5++ save.
Could they not at least print it in the unit entry?


Overall I feel
This version took away some options
Added a lot of needles complexion, and realy pushes the new deamonengine models cause they are awesome
And i gues they wanted to sell more bikes

[Omegon]

I disagree on the point of everyone taking the same army, I think the opposite will take effect (bar some exceptions; everyone will take a black mace). I think peoples army lists will become more diverse if anything due to the large number of options available. There are some very nice options. I am still really annoyed about the Terminators being nerfed (the nerfing itself isn't annoying it's having to remodel centre piece models to make them WYSIWYG that infuriating).
Daemon Princes.... yeah bit of a head scratcher, but hey! No more Telekinesis instead they get Biomancy; WIN!
With things being overcosted, which basically is the Icons IMO. I think why these are so expensive is that they favour the large unit. Take a particular one that grants Fearless. for a 10 man unit it adds 2.5 points per model, a unit of 20, 1.25, much more respectable.

To summarize I think the winners in this new codex are thus: Spawn, Bikes, Raptors Hell lets just say fast attack, Havocs, Lords, Cultists, Psykers (ish)

Spawn: Seriously Spawn... They're winners?! yes... yes they are shockingly enough. No more Mindless, no more Slow and purposeful. Instead they they get Rage and Fear and able to get to T6 for 6pts more. They are now an effective tarpitting unit with a potential 9 poisoned S5 attacks potentially able to engage anything 24" away. Shame they're competing in the FA slots because....

Bikes:They are competing with Bikes! They're now 20 points a model and they still have base 3 attacks on the charge, and marks are quite cheap for them. a 5 man unit for 110 points is a nice little sucker punch.

Raptors:Same as bikes, not much new (save fear) but they are simply costed correctly now. A unit of 10 with a powerfist in will cost you 205 points rather than 242. Plus Marks and Icons are the winners here.

Havocs: Again, like Raptors and Bikes, they are simply costed far better. Autocannons now only cost 10pts making my inner IW happy as they sit pretty in a Bastion blasting away with entrenched H.Bolters and firepoint Autocannons. The only rather disappointing expensive is a flakk launcher weighing in 25pts total... I guess I understand when compared to the AV10 of most flyers (it's just IG and Crons who like to take the **** with their high AVs).

Lords: They are where they should be now, at the top. They weigh in cheap so if you want a dirt cheap HQ who makes a unit fearless for only over twice the cost of the Icon of Vengeance, he's your man. Equally if you want a killing machine at 210 points that have 2+/3++ save, 13 attacks on the charge and killing everything in base contact on a failed toughness test, he is equally your man.

Cultists:I was ambivalent about these guys as frankly they aren't as good or cheap at tarpitting at the Spawn (seriously, I'm talking tactically about Spawn), nor are they is as good in combat as dedicated units. What they are though are a total game changer for CSM. for 300-320 points (depending on upgrades) your army has 70 extra bodies to deal with... who are scoring, who all have 3 attacks on the charge, that's naked. Stick a lord in there and a unit is fearless. Stick a Dark Apostle in there and they all have Ld 10, and one unit has hatred. Those anti MEQ armies will pee themselves. If an enemy doesn't deal with them they will simply be swamped in bodies.

PsykersWhiles its a mixed big (Kelly why are Sorcerers BS4 now?!?!), Our psykers have lost Telekinesis (OH NOES! *sarcasm) and gained Biomancy... So now the Prince can mess with himself like Flyrants, then Hulk smash a large unit of grunts (Black Mace+Prince+wings+Biomany=Butthurt)

So yeah, I will post later what isn't so good, though everything seems at first glance solid.

[daboarder]

the defiler is tricky to place,

It has gained 2 power fists without losing its shooting,
iWnD
5++
Fear

not sure if its worth the inccrease....but its close, gonna take a lot of firepower to put one of those down.

[Haravikk]

I've only had a chance to quickly look over some of it but it's about what I expected to be honest; it seems they're going the same route with the 40k hard-backs that they are with the fantasy ones, with greater balance overall. Unfortunately this means that the early codexes are likely going to be severely outclassed by the massively unbalanced books we've had during 5th edition. With fantasy they seem to be addressing this by bumping up some of the most broken books on the todo list, which likely means some of the most broken books will be getting rewarded with updates fairly soon and leaving the older ones languishing even further, which may mean Tyrannids getting stuck with a White Dwarf update, though if all books are being toned down then they may find themselves on a more level playing field in spite of a lack of an update.

One of the things it seems to have done is made everything a bit uncertain, which sounds weird but is actually a good thing as it means there are very few things you will automatically want to take. This is good since it means that in theory you can just take what you want and make a decently viable list out of it, but given the current state of the other 40k armies it's not quite that simple.

[daboarder]

The stupid thing is if they'd kept to the 5th ed level (baring the stupid GK codex) they would be ballanced, as they are pretty much all completely over the top (baring Nids)

[bad dice]

@daboarder

You do know that getting the extra attacks form the 2 extra close combat weapons now cost points

It also already had two powerfist but they where called dreadnought close combat weapons

What it really gained was

5++
fear
it will not die
and deamon engine

Those are all nice.

But I seriously doubt they are worth the point increase.
Not to mention that whit
oblitorators, havocs and the other engines . Heavy support is crowded ass all hell already.

[daboarder]

yes and unless I'm mistaken there is no way to get more attacks, just because you swap out the reaper for a powerfist doesn't give you an extra attack as you already have 2 CCW's

[bad dice]

I've only had a chance to quickly look over some of it but it's about what I expected to be honest; it seems they're going the same route with the 40k hard-backs that they are with the fantasy ones, with greater balance overall. Unfortunately this means that the early codexes are likely going to be severely outclassed by the massively unbalanced books we've had during 5th edition. With fantasy they seem to be addressing this by bumping up some of the most broken books on the todo list, which likely means some of the most broken books will be getting rewarded with updates fairly soon and leaving the older ones languishing even further, which may mean Tyrannids getting stuck with a White Dwarf update, though if all books are being toned down then they may find themselves on a more level playing field in spite of a lack of an update.

One of the things it seems to have done is made everything a bit uncertain, which sounds weird but is actually a good thing as it means there are very few things you will automatically want to take. This is good since it means that in theory you can just take what you want and make a decently viable list out of it, but given the current state of the other 40k armies it's not quite that
simple.

I doubt they will be remakeing Necrons soon. But if this is what 6th is going to look like
Necron players are going to have a great time

[Rovient]

the defiler is tricky to place,

It has gained 2 power fists without losing its shooting,
iWnD
5++
Fear

not sure if its worth the inccrease....but its close, gonna take a lot of firepower to put one of those down.

And daemonforge, useful re-roll to wound or pen once per game. Nice when you manage to catch a 10 man strike squad of GK out in the open and you want to guarantee every model that's hit is killed!

[Haravikk]

yes and unless I'm mistaken there is no way to get more attacks, just because you swap out the reaper for a powerfist doesn't give you an extra attack as you already have 2 CCW's

Don't vehicles get +1 Attack for each close combat weapon after the first, rather than just a flat +1 Attack?
To be clear, are the options for Power Fists or Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons? If the former then it seems like a mistake as they can't get additional attacks due to the Specialist Weapon rule I think, and also strike last due to Unwieldy.

[orkmiester]

I've only had a chance to quickly look over some of it but it's about what I expected to be honest; it seems they're going the same route with the 40k hard-backs that they are with the fantasy ones, with greater balance overall. Unfortunately this means that the early codexes are likely going to be severely outclassed by the massively unbalanced books we've had during 5th edition. With fantasy they seem to be addressing this by bumping up some of the most broken books on the todo list, which likely means some of the most broken books will be getting rewarded with updates fairly soon and leaving the older ones languishing even further, which may mean Tyrannids getting stuck with a White Dwarf update, though if all books are being toned down then they may find themselves on a more level playing field in spite of a lack of an update.

One of the things it seems to have done is made everything a bit uncertain, which sounds weird but is actually a good thing as it means there are very few things you will automatically want to take. This is good since it means that in theory you can just take what you want and make a decently viable list out of it, but given the current state of the other 40k armies it's not quite that simple.

exactly...

until other codexes are released, the chaos codex is the elephant in the room. Really we cant say "its meh" until other 6th ed books are released, and if GW decide to tackle some of the "broken" books then GK and IG* will feature in there somewhere.



*though in my opinion all GW really need to do is nerf the cost of vendettas and nerf the vets in someway- other than that the codex is ok

[daboarder]

Don't vehicles get +1 Attack for each close combat weapon after the first, rather than just a flat +1 Attack?

Oh thats nice, was a little worried. in that case I think the CC defiler is still a decent choice, not as fast but can fire support on the way in still and really wont go down easy.

exactly...

until other codexes are released, the chaos codex is the elephant in the room. Really we cant say "its meh" until other 6th ed books are released, and if GW decide to tackle some of the "broken" books then GK and IG* will feature in there somewhere.



*though in my opinion all GW really need to do is nerf the cost of vendettas and nerf the vets in someway- other than that the codex is ok

Chaso has been stuck in the "toned down" paradigm twice now and last time the idea was dropped shortly after leaving us in the lurch, with the experience of the nid codex I expect nothing but the regular GW head in the sand