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Changes to Chaos Marines #3: Chaos Legions


Caustic63

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So this is perhaps the most important post of the series, since the previous two laid down the groundwork for this one... the return of unique Chaos Legions! This one also has the potential to be quite divisive, but I've put a lot of thought into it and gone with a similar format to Loyalist Space Marines in terms of Legion benefits.

 

Chaos Legions:

 

Before I list the upgrades for each legion, I must emphasize the following points:

 

- All non-vehicle models in a detachment with the Chaos Marines benefit from the Legions of Chaos special rule which is the topic of this section, unless specified otherwise in the following rules.

- Much like loyalist Space Marines, Chaos Marine armies of different Legions may ally with one another counting as Battle Brothers.

 

 

Renegade Chaos Warband

- No model in this detachment may have the Veterans of the Long War special rule, apart from Khorne Berzerkers, Thousand Sons, Noise Marines, Plague Marines and Daemon Princes.

- All non-vehicle models in this detachment gain the Stubborn special rule unless they are Fearless.

- Owing to their recent turn to heresy, these Chaos Marines may have access to more recent wargear not commonly seen in the older Chaos Legions. You may take 0-1 of one of the following units in your detachment: Land Speeder Squadron, Thunderfire Cannon, Whirlwind, Stormtalon Gunship, Stormraven Transport, Stalker, Hunter.

- Detachments using the Crimson Slaughter Supplement always use this Legion.

 

Black Legion

- All models in this detachment that can take it gain the Veterans of the Long War special rule for free.

- Chosen are Troops choices in this detachment.

- Harbingers of the Long War: Units with an Icon of Vengeance re-roll to Hit rolls in Close Combat versus Space Marines every turn instead of just the first as would normally be the case.

- Abaddon the Despoiler may only be taken in a detachment using these Legion rules.

- Detachments using the Black Legion Supplement always use this Legion.

 

World Eaters

- All models in this detachment that can take a Mark of Chaos must take a Mark of Khorne. No models with a different Mark of Chaos can be taken (including Huron and Fabius Bile even though they don't have Marks). Daemon Princes must be Daemons of Khorne.

- No models in this detachment may have the Psyker special rule.

- Khorne Berzerkers are Troops.

- Units in this detachment with an Icon of Wraith may add +1 WS or +1 BS (this must be noted on your army list prior to the beginning of the game)

- Walkers in your army may choose to purchase the Rampage SR for +15 points

 

Thousand Sons

- All models in this detachment that can take a Mark of Chaos must take a Mark of Tzeentch. No models with a different Mark of Chaos can be taken (including Huron and Fabius Bile even though they don't have Marks). Daemon Princes must be Daemons of Tzeentch.

- Thousand Sons are Troops.

- Units in this detachment with an Icon of Flame may reroll 1s to Hit.

- Helbrutes in your detachment may be upgraded to a Pskyer (Mastery Level 1) for +25 points, rolling on the Tzeentch table.

- Defilers, Forgefiends and Maulerfiends in your detachment may reroll 1s on Invulnerable saves for +15 points

 

Death Guard

- All models in this detachment that can take a Mark of Chaos must take a Mark of Nurgle. No models with a different Mark of Chaos can be taken (including Huron and Fabius Bile even though they don't have Marks). Daemon Princes must be Daemons of Nurgle.

- Plague Marines are Troops.

- Units in this detachment with an Icon of Despair upgrade their Bolt Pistols, Bolters, Combi-Bolters, Heavy Bolters, Autocannons and Frag Missiles to be Poisioned (4+)

- Walkers in your detachment may choose to purchase the It Will Not Die SR for +15 points

 

Emperor's Children

- All models in this detachment that can take a Mark of Chaos must take a Mark of Slaanesh. No models with a different Mark of Chaos can be taken (including Huron and Fabius Bile even though they don't have Marks). Daemon Princes must be Daemons of Slaanesh.

- Noise Marines are Troops.

- Units in this detachment with an Icon of Excess gain the Rending special rule in Close Combat and when firing Sonic Weapons.

- Obliderators in your detachment replace their Heavy Flamer with a Doom Siren, and their Plasma Cannon with a Blastmaster

- Havocs in your detachment may replace any Autocannon with a Blastmaster for +20 points.

- Walkers in this detachment may choose to purchase both Assault and Defensive grenades for +15 points

 

Iron Warriors

- No models in this detachment have a Mark of Chaos. Huron and Fabius Bile may not be included in your detachment even though they don't have Marks.

- Obliderators may be taken as both Elites and Heavy Support.

- Mutilators may be taken as both Elites and Fast Attack.

- Units in this detachment with an Icon of Vengeance gain the Tank Hunters SR.

- Walkers in your army may choose to purchase the Tank Hunters SR for +15 points

 

Night Lords

- No models in this detachment have a Mark of Chaos. Huron and Fabius Bile may not be included in your detachment even though they don't have Marks.

- Raptors are Troops choices in this detachment

- All non-vehicle units in this detachment reroll 1s to Wound in Close Combat, and have the Fear SR.

- Units in this detachment with an Icon of Vengeance gain the Scout and Stealth SRs.

- Walkers in your army may choose to purchase the Scout SR for +15 points

 

Alpha Legion

- No models in this detachment have a Mark of Chaos. Huron and Fabius Bile may not be included in your detachment even though they don't have Marks.

- All non-vehicle units in  your detachment gain the Infiltrate special rule.

- Units in this detachment with an Icon of Vengeance gain the Acute Senses SR and can reroll their reserve rolls.

- Walkers in your army may choose to purchase the Preferred Enemy SR for +15 points

 

Word Bearers

- No models in this detachment have a Mark of Chaos except Chaos Cultists and Chaos Spawns. Huron and Fabius Bile may not be included in your detachment even though they don't have Marks.

- All models in your detachment with the Psyker special rule can cast Malefic Powers normally, but cannot cast Sanctic Powers.

- Units in your army composed of models with the Daemon special rule can roll for reserves starting on the first turn as opposed to the second turn.

- Units in this detachment with an Icon of Vengeance gain the Hatred SR.

- Walkers in your army may choose to purchase the Hatred SR for +15 points

 

 

A fairly long winded post. Nonetheless take some time to think about it and provide your opinions!

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This is very interesting and fluffy rules I find ! Just one comment for the Alpha Legion : army wide Infiltrate at no additional cost is game breaking. I know it's fluffy, but from experience playing Raven Guard Scout already gives such tactical control over the battlefield that I know if Strike from the Shadows gave me Infiltrate, only for non-bulky units, I would win every single game without breaking a sweat.

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I like the work your putting into this, but how come pretty much all of the vehicle upgrades are designated to walkers? For the Nurgle one, only the Helbrute could benefit from that because all of the other Chaos walkers have IWND (and if you really wanted more than 1 Helbrute with IWND, you could simply take the Mayhem Pack formation and get even more bonuses than that for no charge). I think in every case these walker upgrades should be changed to "vehicle" upgrades instead.

 

Also I think Stubborn is also too much for "newly" arrived warbands where as the Black Legion simply gets VOTLW, not nearly as good as Stubborn, which I'd take over VOTLW any day. EDIT: maybe giving the warbands a re-roll to Leadership since that's what the Undivided Mark used to do, and giving the Black Legion Stubborn would make more since.

 

If anything, give all Chaos Marines this special rule:

Sanity is for the Weak: All models with this special rule ignore the Insane Heroism rule.

Still can get sweeping advanced, still can rally like they should be able to and isn't ATSKNF.

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Same for Alpha Legion. I am forever an opponent to bringing back the 3.5 style lists or trying to imitate the loyalists. A chaos warband isn't as a unified force as a chapter is. Lots of different wills and egos are pulling warbands in all sorts of directions, no matter how cool the lord is. The only thing keeping them together varies from warband to warband, but is nothing as easy or mundane as geneseed or colour of their armour.

 

I would center any legion rules on HQ and Elites units mainly. Warlord traits and artefacts and such...

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At this point...I'd take either. Want to do a World Eaters legion? Take Khârn. What to do a BL list? Take Abby. The issue comes with people wanting to use those or not. Hence why it was nice back in 3.5 where you could simply use either a special character such as Khârn or Typhus but also could simply make them mark specific.

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Really like the idea, however I feel like the legion rules are fairly unbalanced. Not in the sense that they are too good (except for the Alpha legion), but in the sense that some legions are just complete crap (MoT tax on all troops, big detriment), whereas others are fairly good (really like Emperor's children). 

 

To really make balanced legions, the marks need to be redone first. I'd also make it a little less strict on marks-yes the four mono god legions should have to have the marks, but in the others you can have a khorne iron warriors lord, or a tzeentch alpha legion sorcerer. Word Bearers would be an exception but they should have mark of chaos undivided to make up for it. 

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I think we'll have some semblence of an idea of what we want when we start agreeing on what can be used as helpful identifying qualities outside of a paintjob, and actual bonuses, formations, and skills. Some of us don't want to go back to archetypes, but artifacting and Warlord traits are still shortgaps in a problem that spans army identification. There is no effective solution to an army that suffers from trying to be generalist close quarters with a background puddle trying to beshallow enough to encompesse the everything goes approach.

 

Then the real problem will be GW trying to balance these issues, or even care. There response will be a formation of demon unicorn engines that replace maulerfiends and something that no one probably cares for.

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Oh I have no doubt in my mind that GW will make a mess of it as they always do. But this once again comes into play of what is the envisioned idea of the army. Do they want to do the stereotype or make them all special snow flakes?

 

Personally I'd rather see them do the stereotype with the possibility of adding something in to make it slightly snowflake in some idea, to give something towards the 'well...chaos' reasoning. But to completely make them snowflake in the aspect of "Well here I have my Thousand Sons Khorne Beserker Raptor Havocs" is a bit ridiculous.

 

That is partly why 3.5 was so well liked. It had that balance between the two however there was a cost. If they really wanted to get crazy it could go something like this...

 

Renegades take marks. Say, furious charge or +1 attack or what have you for Khorne, to represent their allegiance towards one of the gods (or none...). The lists are open and really allow for people to make those special snow flake armies. IE Having a Khorne lord with Thousand Son sorcerers but having plague marine troops with some Slanesshi elites of some sort. They aren't limited to certain units and work like one would expect for a renegade army. This would allow the snowflakes to take World Eaters or Plague Marines or any of the 'legion' troops or their own and mix it up.

 

Legions would have certain aspects that make it the Legion it is. Death Guard being limited on rhinos because they were the original foot sloggers. World Eaters hating the living snot out of psychics and being all about getting in your face as fast as possible. Alpha Legion infiltrating and doing foolish things of that nature etc etc. But to take these lists you would have restrictions but so long as you followed those restrictions you gained some sort of army bonus. Another way to do the points system to represent this is have some sort of 'army cost' for the levels of game play. 0-1500pts say 50pts to have a legion specific army. 1501-2k 75 pts etc etc so that there was some sort of cost to the bonus of the army if the restrictions on the units were light or no cost if the restrictions made the army a little harder to play with.

 

And no, please don't take 'snowflakes' as a bad thing. I get that some people want to make the army as unique to them as they can and I can get that. I'm just of the mind that not every army needs to be this way and that some people (myself included) want to play as close to the fluff as one can.

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No big thoughts as I like this idea - but I would cautious of not allowing 'Legion warbands' the full spectrum of marks. It's too limiting - and is in contravention of fluff, such as McNeil's Khornate Iron Warrior, ADB's Tzeentchian warlord in his Night Lords books, and how Chaos was concieved and possible in 2nd edition.

 

Also a work like Ahriman: Exile and Sorceror certainly presents the surviving Thousand Sons, as first commanded by Amon and then Ahriman, as not simpply Tzeentchian (or indeedly consciously in his patronage). Certainly it could be suggested that there is a lot more possibility in the Eye than a pale imitation of the Codex Astartes in 9 forms.

 

I guess I would prefer something like this plus the ability to create your own characteristics typical of the 4th edition Space Marines codex, the 3.5 guard codex and the 3.5(?) Tyranids one. Freedom to go weird and not weird, to emulate the Legions and to not do so.

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Just to nitpick, contrary to popular belief, Night Lords aren't non-chaotic, and rather it would not be surprising to find individual warbands worshiping Slaanesh, Khorne, Nurgle, or Tzeentch. And Warp Talons should be incluced with Raptors as a troops option as well.

 

Also IIRC, more recent fluff from the Word Bearers Omnibus has certain individuals to worship on chaos god specifically and end up with a mark because of it. Or at least I've heard such.

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I guess what I was seeing or at least envisioning was a variety as to what the chaos gods have gifted their devout followers. Recent gifties as it were would get something similar but perhaps not the exact same but it would stay within the bounds of the flavor of the gift as it were. Something more to represent a legionary who perhaps has followed N/K/S/T for the past ten thousand years verse some new chump who has been doing it for a fraction of the time.

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