totgeboren

I.... don't think we should be all that happy about it, since it might give GW a reason to nerf our list. As someone who still tries to make CSM lists which contains actual CSM units, like CSM, Raptors, Havocs and Chosen, I am struggling mightily to compete with other 'fluffy' lists (that I play WB isn't helping I guess). But this could as well be more of an issue with the core rules. I don't think we will ever see any list with a heavy Tactical marine presence in the top either, unless they do like in 7ed and give such armies massive amounts of free units.

It could be a reference to South Park too, GW have after all done stuff like that quite a few times. :)

Looking pretty great so far! :)

Well, being eaten/absorbed by any of the Gods would probably suck, but the entirety of Eldar culture, be they dark, craftworld or exodites, all center around the threat of Slaanesh, and avoiding the worst of worst fates of being eaten by him/her. They could all be wrong, and it being equally bad to be eaten by any God, but they would not know that. To swear alligance to any of the others as a desperate means of protection from Slaanesh sounds rather reasonable. As you said, that the god of unrestrained excess would hold off from eating an Eldar, her absolute favorite thing ever, sounds incredibly out of character.

I'm happy they did not make the DE into chaos Eldar. I like that they are instead really the personification of Eldar arrogance and hubris. About chaos Eldar. I think followers of all the gods except Slaanesh would make sense. Just as the Laughing God can protect an Eldar soul from being devoured by Slaanesh upon death, so can the other gods. Especially Khorne I would imagine. But Slaanesh Eldar sounds a bit odd to me? Why would they not die right away? I guess you could do some convoluted plan where the Eldar gets to live in order to bring more Eldar to Slaanesh. But Slaanesh is the constant threat, the drain on every Eldar. They all know at an intuitive level that Slaanesh is the worst thing that could happen to them. Much worse by far than any of the other Gods.

You misunderstand me. It's not about what people may or may not face. First of all, in casual settings (like I usually play), you can always discuss with your opponent what rules you want to use/change/ignore/add. In many ways, having a discussion like this thread about rules is entirely pointless if we are not talking about tournament-like settings, since they are the only time house-rules and discussions beforehand isn't feasible. If GW changed the rules for CP and detachments tomorrow, people who play casual are much freer to simply agree to use the old rules. People who participate in competitive settings can't really do that (of course, the organizers can, but the more house-rules you implement as a organizer, the more people you will alienate from your event). If you want to attend a tournament, you use the rules there or you don't attend. Secondly, my point was that I think GW tried to write rules that would reward armies that field a wide variety of units, instead o spam. I base this on the progression of the Patrol-Battalion-Brigade detachments, where you get a larger "reward" in the form of CP if you field an army that contains a bit of everything, and a lot of Troops. But they obviously didn't want to punish armies that were themed, like bike armies and such, so added some extra detachments for them. But the end result of all this is that you receive the highest reward in the form of CP if you pick the cherries from the cake and spam optimal stuff from many different sources. It's not a question of if people do this in casual settings. It's an issue of the rules-as-written rewarding the exact opposite of what they were intended to reward. How could the rules for detachments and CP be written so that well-rounded and themed armies receive a handicap in the form of extra CP, while and one-trick-pony-spam armies don't? Because that is obviously the intent. I think it would make more sense to have something like: "1 CP per X pts. -1 CP for each duplicate unit in the army except Troops. +1 CP per extra Troop above Y mandatory units. -3 CP per Codex used." That was a rough suggestion, where X could be say 200 pts, and Y 1 per 500 pts or something. So a 2000 pts army would get 10 CP base and need 4 mandatory Troops. Dunno, I don't think Detachments as written are fulfilling the role they were interned for. Back when they were introduced in 3ed, the idea was to get people to take Troops and not just spam special stuff, and kinda worked when you only had a single Battalion. I mean, this was on the heels of 2ed, where armies of only Terminators and unkillable characters were the norm. It was a step up. But the basic idea doesn't really work now that we have so many detachments.

I basically never attend tournaments, but the way CP is handled is obviously a problem, even if you just play casual. The idea behind CP simply cannot be that armies that pick the best/most useful unit from each codex, min-max and spam should also be the armies that receive the widest access to Stratagems and the most points to spend on them. That is exactly how the rules are currently written, but by looking at the formations, it was obviously the idea that themed or well-rounded armies should receive more CP to offset their handicap. The rules as written promote the exact opposite of what was intended, and that is of course a problem.

Cultists! In 2ed I tried to make a Chaos Cult using the appendix list at the back of the Chaos codex, but I didn't really have enough models. In 3ed, we got the Chapter Approved 2001 compilation, which contained rules for cultists, and I often fielded around 50 of them in my WB army. Then 4ed and 5ed came by, and finally in 6ed, my cultists could return from their hiding places again! In 7th, I played a R&H list (1750 pts) with ~240 infantry models and 3 Leman Russ tanks. My childhood dream of a massive Chaos Cult was realized at last.

Don't think so, since what it punishes is mainly their big sellers...

Fixed that. ;) But seriously, the FAQ was written to clarify the rules. The only successors affected by the FAQ are successors that have rules. If you are playing a Chapter that does not have rules, you will probably want to count them as a Chapter that does have rules. If you pick a Chapter that is a successor chapter (like the BT), you have to use their rules. You can't also use the Imperial Fist rules. If your DYI successor chapter are of IF decent, you will either play then using your own keyword (<GREY GUYS>), and then you can't use any IW stuff (since you have the wrong keyword), or you play them with the <IMPERIAL FISTS> keyword, and then all their stuff is open to you, since you are playing IF according to the rules.

I think the intent is that from a rules perspective, you need to pick one and only one Chapter. If you want to use any specific UM rules, you will need to count your entire Chapter as UM, even if you yourself think you are playing the Star Seaguls successor chapter. This is relevant because for example the Black Templars are a Successor Chapter to the Imperial Fists. This means that you do not have access to IF stuff when playing the BT, even though they are a successor chapter. When you pick a chapter keyword, that's what you get, the background plays no part. *edit* Essentially, since the FAQ is strictly about rules, what the Q&A says is: "Q: Can successor Chapters that have rules use the Warlord Traits of their founding Chapter? A: No." Since you by default would want to use the rules of a Chapter that have rules, even if you make up your own successor chapter. And then you either count-as a Chapter that is a founding Chapter, or a successor Chapter that already have rules.

I think reading the background sections in the rulebook is a good place to start. I got sold on my Word Bearers by reading their half-page long background section in the 2ed Chaos codex. Then they got an article in a White Dwarf fleshing out their background quite a bit and I have never looked back since. :)

As a primarily CSM player I think Endless Cacophony needs to either be nerfed, or to be disconnected from the MoS (with something else taking its place). It's just so massively potent that it messes up the balance between the marks. Why would you ever not give all your shooty units the MoS? Veterans of the Long War could be reserved for units without a Mark, to make that option less of a strict downgrade. Basic CSM and Chosen really needs to be buffed, at the very least give us our bolter, bp and ccw back! It was mandatory gear in previous editions, all the Chosen models from DV have them, and even SW have the option now so there is no reason why all our models should suddenly not follow WYSIWYG. By priority I think that covers it: 1. Give CSM access to bolter, bp and ccw. Making basic CSM a solid and useful core for CSM armies would be nice, but probably a bit too much to hope for. 2. Either nerf Endless Cacophony or make it available to all marks. 3. Give Unmarked units something other than the ability to pay CP for a mark, which the player could have given them for free anyway... *edit* Come to think of it, I think they should remove the mark requirement for all the Stratagems. A player that runs a Khorne-themed force will have little use for the "shoot twice" Stratagem or extra psychics, but by the same token, did not Khârn himself have the effect of "Grandfathers blessings" cast on him after the Battle of Terra? The protective hand of the Gods have been at play for characters following all the Gods, surviving things that should have killed them, be it through guile, instant healing, 'magic' or some other means. It would be a super-easy way of leveling out the playing field between the marks, and also not punish players excessively who want to field their armies without marks. (Which is an issue for many IW, WB, AL and NL players in particular.) Oh, and as a WB player, it makes me a bit sad that "reroll Morale" is strictly worse than +1 LD with the BL gets, and they get a (weak) second ability on top! At the very least change the WB trait to be "Roll twice and pick the lowest when rolling for Morale". It's no fun being the worst of the bunch, with no redeeming qualities. :(

Ah, linked from the wrong site. There is a "Photobucket Hotlink Fix" add-on for both Chrome and Firefox, forgot that it was still an issue. :p

Haha, yeah back in the days all the boxes and blisters said "Space Orks". Dunno why, but it just felt so silly. http://www.solegends.com/citrt2/rtb13spaceorks/SpaceOrkBox1x-01.jpg