++From Hatred We Were Born, Creation of a 7.5 Chaos Codex++

[Teetengee]

Thank you, I worked hard to get those right, as Slaanesh is tricky...

Also, daemons are all up now
Still need
LoWs, Formations, Unique Characters

[Teetengee]

 

Oh great Lord Slaanesh, send forth your servant, the Daemon Prince Doomrider!

 

Let our enemies tremble in ruptured awe before his fearsome visage!

 

Grant them an exquisite death, crushed beneath the flaming wheels of his chromium steed!

Slaanesh Characters and LoW up

Now onto formations and Summaries

[Teetengee]

slaanesh formations up

[Teetengee]

slaanesh summary up

[Teetengee]

Talos Valcoren has replaced Lucius in the main book.
That means that M2 of the main book and M1 of the four god dexes are all complete.

WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!

Time for playtesting (and working on the warmachines and auxiliaries, expect lots of vehicles from IA 13, Knights, Hereteks, Chaos Assassins, and Traitor Guard/upset civilians.)

Additionally, the main book will probably be getting Be'Lakor, but that will have to wait a bit.

[Teetengee]

Here is a short stepwise guide on how to use my codex, if you are concerned with jumping in all at once, because there are some pretty significant changes.
My basic advice is to play a few games while ignoring certain rules, and add those rules in later.

Game 1-2:
Do not use any of the Formations, play with the CAD alone. Do not use the Warp Legacy rules or the Veteran Skills. You will probably not want to play maelstrom or just not use the special Maelstrom objectives this game. Similarly, you may not want to use the Codex specific Warlord Traits or Psychic powers this game. Only use items that you are familiar with (although keep in mind that many rules have been tweaked or perhaps even significantly changed here and there). Perhaps you can try playing your regular list, but just with the new rules and point costs.

Game 2-4:
Add in all those Maelstrom objectives, Warlord Traits, and Psychic Powers. Try out a few of the new items/ units.

Game 3-6:
Use a Warp Legacy.

Game 4-8:
Try out putting a Veteran Skill on a unit or two, but I would suggest not going too hog wild, as they probably aren't worth it on every unit in any given list, see below for part of my design philosophy on point costs.

Game 5-10:
Try out a formation alongside a CAD, remember, they might have different Warp Legacies.

Game 6-12:
Use the full decurion type formation.



Advice for playing specific rules.
Several rules involve some sort of record keeping, however, I have made an attempt to provide colorful and helpful tokens, that you are all welcome to print out and use, although you may not sell them for cash or anything like that!

The single sided ones can just be placed near the unit that they are affecting so that you remember what is going on there.

The double sided ones will often be flipped at beginning or end of turn or phase.
Some of these will probably see the most use:

-Mark of Tzeentch: Put one near each unit or character with the Mark. Flip it colour side up at the beginning of each of your turns (or the end, it doesn't really matter, since you can only use it in your turn). Whenever you use the reroll, flip it to the greyed out depleted side. I have done this and it really helps me not forget to make use of them, and makes it much faster so I am not trying to remember which units have and have not used their re-rolls this turn.

-Rad Contamination: Place one of these full colour side up near any unit that is effected by them (or flip an existing rad token to full colour if that unit already has one, as their effects do not stack). At the end of each player's turn, flip each full colour rad token to its half colour state, and remove all rad tokens that were already in the half colour state. This will ensure that each unit that is at a reduced toughness stays so for precisely the right amount of time.

-Crowned tokens: You may notice that several of the tokens are double sided with a crown on one side, but are otherwise the same and full colour on each side. These represent bonuses that might apply to whole units or to single models but don't spread from one to the other. For their use, I suggest leaving the crown side up to mark characters, and the non crown side for units.

-Dice Tokens: If you roll these they won't be random. Just use them to mark the effects, not to determine them. (at least that is my advice, of course, feel free to do whatever you like, that's what I did when I made this, so it would seem pretty silly for me to take any stance but that on what you do!)



Design Philosophy Notes:
Warp Legacies are basically like chapter tactics, perhaps a little stronger, but chaos only has Stubborn and not ATSKNF, so I figured that is a fair trade off. Remember, these are chosen by detachment, but Special Characters can be freely used in detachments with different Warp Legacies, unlike the Loyalist codex, as Chaos is not so strict in its organization.

Point costs for upgrades were very much about two things, when possible, it should be pretty much at parity with the loyalist dex, since most units play similar roles. For other upgrades, the point costs should neither be so high that you would never consider taking them, nor so low that you will always take them. Ideally, they will only be worth their points in an army designed to really get the most out of them, so that they are effective, but not too easy to abuse.

There are a lot of random effects or abilities with drawbacks, although most of them are on optional upgrades. That is very much what chaos is, high risk, high reward. If you want a nice stable gunline that does the same thing each game, go play tau or imperial fists . That being said, I understand that random can be frustrating, which is why I did not force most of these random effects on you, if you don't want them, don't use them!

Chaos to me represents a very martial codex, by and large chaos should be engaging the enemy at close range, where they can really feel the fear they inflict, and the gods can elevate the worthy from the chaff. This sort of martial prowess explains much of why you will see the occasional +1WS boost to many things, without out it, they would have been killed by an underling and never made it to the battle to begin with! Additionally, this is why many of the weapons have ranges that are 18" and closer, not for chaos is the waiting for the enemy to come to you. I feel this, along with the other principles, should still divorce chaos enough from the other PA armies (although some, such as Wolves and BAngels should rightfully be similar in their own ways) so that it really has an identity of its own, that isn't just Loyalists +/- 1 as it has been many times in the past.

As a final note, this was never about making the codex I think chaos should be, but about making a codex that could mesh well with what exists in other codices and could bring chaos to a competitive spot while still adhering largely to the design philosophy of GW. The goal was to write an example of what a 7.5 Chaos system could look like, to bring it to a power level around the current codices (somewhere around Necron/Vanilla/Dark Angels was my hope, a little below Eldar ideally, as eventually my friends and I are going to get around to adjusting those other codices, but I feel the Decurion/7.5 ethos is really seen in best use in those examples, problematic though they may be.). Were I to create a chaos codex that fully divorced itself from previous iterations, I would leave renegades to an altered allies matrix for the loyalist dex and create an army of the bitter and powerful veterans of the long war surrounded by their auxiliaries and monsters. But, that was not this project's plan, if it does end up happening I am sure I will let you know, . In any case, please let me know what you think about the codex, particularly anything you see that you believe may have been unintentional for good or ill.

[Khornestar]

Commendable effort as well as perseverance, brother. If more players give homebrew a chance, they will love your books far more than the silly nonsense GW gave us.

[Teetengee]

So, Jeske mentioned that spawn having the ability to buy warp legacies seems a bit weird.
My thought was that warp legacies represent not just the legion origins but also just the general strategies that different warbands tend to employ. I figured that spawn, being rather temporary, would not benefit from the first, but might from the second. However, are spawn mindless enough that they wouldn't really benefit from either (and if so, should I then remove the warp legacy option from spawn?)

[Khornestar]

*shrug*

 

I personally see no reason they shouldn't have the ability to benefit from such rules, but perhaps have some sort of other option if the upgrade is taken away?

[Teetengee]

Nurgle Heralds, they have Shrouded. Shrouded is a rule that spreads to joined units. Is this a problem? or is the opportunity and point cost of HQ slots make up for this, even in light of the Herald Rule?

[Teetengee]

Changed Phosphor Cannons to assault, because otherwise they just don't really work on certain platforms.

[Teetengee]

Fixed Demagogue so it works across the whole chaos faction

[Thedarkprincesnun]

Wow i love this book id love to try this out wont be able to.use it where i mainly game though but ive got a friend who.im teaching to play though

[Teetengee]

added headers and page numbers

[Teetengee]

Chaos Assassin

HQ: Chaos Assassin

Chaos Assassin__________________ 100 Points

WS 8

BS 8

S 4 

T 4

W 3

I 7

A 4

Ld 10

Sv -

 

Unit Composition: 1 Chaos Assassin (Infantry, Character)

Wargear:
Sigil of Corruption

Bolt Pistol
Poisoned (4+) close combat weapon

Frag Grenades

Krak Grenades

Special Rules:

Independent Operative

No Escape

Fearless

Infiltrate

Deep Strike

Fear

Move Through Cover

Stealth
Murder

Options:

May select from the Close Combat Weapons, Special Weapons, and/or Gifts lists.

May take one of:
Aberration: Gains Psychic Aberration and Preferred Enemy (Psykers) 35 pts

Tech-Assassin: Gains Feel No Pain, Fleshmetal, and Malefic Ammunition for all weaponry 45 pts

Death Oath: Gains Possession, Furious Charge, Rage, Rampage, and Hatred for 40 pts

Manipulator: Gains Precision Strikes and Shots, Disruptor, and access to Heavy Weapons 35 pts

May take one of:
-Mark of Tzeentch 15 points

-Mark of Khorne 12 points

-Mark of Nurgle 20 points

-Mark of Slaanesh 5 points

Independent Operative: This character may never join a unit or be joined by any models. It never has a Warlord Trait.

 

No Escape: Look Out, Sir tests taken against wounds dealt by a model with this rule have a -2 penalty.

 

Psychic Aberration: All models within 12” of a model with this rule subtract 3 from their leadership to a minimum of 2 and suffer Perils of the Warp on any double when attempting to manifest a psychic power.

 

Malefic Ammunition: A weapon with Malefic Ammunition gains the Rending rule.
 

Disruptor: Enemy armies must reroll successful Reserves roll as long as this model is on the board

Do you guys think it should have access to a. Relics, and b. Daemon of rules?
Also, points costs for these various abilities look about right?

[Teetengee]

did some mathhammer: reduced aetaos rau keres to two rolls on tzeentch and one each on its other lores, as 2 chances for iron arm seems a bit too powerful

[Khornestar]

Chaos Assassin

 

HQ: Chaos Assassin

Chaos Assassin__________________ 100 Points

WS 8

BS 8

S 4 

T 4

W 3

I 7

A 4

Ld 10

Sv -

 

Unit Composition: 1 Chaos Assassin (Infantry, Character)

Wargear:

Sigil of Corruption

Bolt Pistol

Poisoned (4+) close combat weapon

Frag Grenades

Krak Grenades

Special Rules:

Independent Operative

No Escape

Fearless

Infiltrate

Deep Strike

Fear

Move Through Cover

Stealth

Murder

Options:

May select from the Close Combat Weapons, Special Weapons, and/or Gifts lists.

May take one of:

Aberration: Gains Psychic Aberration and Preferred Enemy (Psykers) 35 pts

Tech-Assassin: Gains Feel No Pain, Fleshmetal, and Malefic Ammunition for all weaponry 45 pts

Death Oath: Gains Possession, Furious Charge, Rage, Rampage, and Hatred for 40 pts

Manipulator: Gains Precision Strikes and Shots, Disruptor, and access to Heavy Weapons 35 pts

May take one of:

-Mark of Tzeentch 15 points

-Mark of Khorne 12 points

-Mark of Nurgle 20 points

-Mark of Slaanesh 5 points

 

 

 

Independent Operative: This character may never join a unit or be joined by any models. It never has a Warlord Trait.

 

No Escape: Look Out, Sir tests taken against wounds dealt by a model with this rule have a -2 penalty.

 

Psychic Aberration: All models within 12” of a model with this rule subtract 3 from their leadership to a minimum of 2 and suffer Perils of the Warp on any double when attempting to manifest a psychic power.

 

Malefic Ammunition: A weapon with Malefic Ammunition gains the Rending rule.

 

Disruptor: Enemy armies must reroll successful Reserves roll as long as this model is on the board

 

 

Do you guys think it should have access to a. Relics, and b. Daemon of rules?

Also, points costs for these various abilities look about right?

 

I like him as-is. Point costs and options all seem appropriate.

 

did some mathhammer: reduced aetaos rau keres to two rolls on tzeentch and one each on its other lores, as 2 chances for iron arm seems a bit too powerful

 

I think paying 999 points for a unit who is only partially under your control should entitle the bastard to some very powerful options, personally. Especially since you're still rolling for the powers and could not get Iron Arm even with 2 dice.

[Teetengee]

perhaps, I will switch it back for now, but I really need to playtest it to see how it works

[Khornestar]

Yeah I guess it goes for anything. I think you're the best judge for that sort of thing, that's just my knee-jerk reaction.

[Teetengee]

this comes down to the
"How do I balance this Gargantuan Unique thing?"
'Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........................................."
problem

[Teetengee]

Updated the Legion Warband so Elites choices only have to be 5 models, not necessarily 10, as it makes such the formation incredibly hard to use otherwise.

[Teetengee]

actually, i would love some advice on that formation, as right now, I think the points cost to run it is probably too high
which restrictions should I let up on?
size?
vet skills?

or is vets of the long war too expensive? (perhaps the base cost is about right, but it should not scale with unit size? a 5 man unit spending 15 points on it doesn't sound bad, but a 20 man spending 60 is way too much, perhaps 15 for any size unit? (obviously adjust the number for different types of units)

[Teetengee]

I think the problem was Vets
I changed it to a flat cost on most units, and reduced it to 3ppm on the units that came stock with power weapons

[Teetengee]

removed the requirement for a vet skill on the legions warband

[Khornestar]

Sorry if it's considered spam, I thought this thread could use a bump.