Hey everyone! Adam here, from TFG Radio, to talk about how the new edition, and the rules previews we have been seeing, will affect Chaos Space Marines (CSM). As always, for more tactics articles, check out the Tactics Corner!
Now, for those that don’t know, I have been a chaos player for a long time, since Rogue Trader. I have been through the good and the bad of the various Chaos Codexes. I mainly play Black Legion, but I will be talking about the effects of NewHammer, at this point, on the general forces of Chaos. Other authors will provide their opinions on how NewHammer will affect specific legions, like Thousand Sons and Death Guard. This will be a multi-part article as new parts of the game are revealed.
Unit Profiles
Seeing the Space Marine profiles actually gives us a good look at what the CSM profiles will be. Bringing back the movement value is nice, as I haven’t seen it since 2nd edition. Keeping the 6” movement gives them a little more speed than the normal human but will, obviously, still be slower than units that have been, historically, faster . Just a straight hit value for weapon and ballistic skill is nice and will help new players quickly adapt. Not quite sure if the leadership value will be lowered, just like the space marines, but we will see, either as a tease or on release.
Anyone who listens to our podcast knows that we have been very vocal, although not the only ones, in giving terminators more wounds. Combined with the new weapon profiles, and how the AP system works, it makes terminators much more survivable.
The Strength/Toughness chart is still there, but with the stats being able to go above 10, we will be able to see units that are more unique. The ability for anyone to hurt anyone, no matter how long the shot, gives some hope to the poor bloody cultist to be more than just meat shields.
The change to vehicles brings us a larger selection of tools that are available to us. With things like rhinos, dreadnoughts, maulerfiends, and heldrakes now getting the monstrous creature treatment, we will see a lot more of them on the table since they won’t be one shotted. The extra durability will make units we haven’t seen in a long time dusted off and brought to the tabletop. This doesn’t even take into account all the wonderful forgeworld models that are available to us. I’m looking forward to see how my Dreadclaws and Fire Raptor will work.
Weapon Profiles
The new weapon profiles are a big change and now we will have to adjust some of our tactics. The flamer hitting D6 models is huge. Rolling up with a unit of chosen with flamers can decimate a lot of armies. I’m really excited to see the Heldrake’s Bakeflamer profile in the new edition.
The change to the Armour Penetration (AP) stat is also a big change. Even if it’s a slight chance, the ability to get a save from a weapon that, in the current system, you would be unable to, will give your troops a better chance to do what they are there to do. For example, if your terminator is hit by a Lascannon, they are a -3 to their save, which gives you a 5+ save, instead of just being dead because, in 7th edition, it was AP2. In addition, even if you fail to save, your terminator could still survive if your opponent rolls a “1” on the number of wounds inflicted.
Those generals that took a Multiple Small Units (MSU) approach to the game. Like myself, may have to rethink that strategy if flamers become the new hotness (see what I did there). It may be more advantageous to take more bodies to soak up wounds and maybe unlock more of the special or heavy weapons.
Well, that’s all for now. As I mentioned earlier, I will have more articles as more info is released. I hope you enjoyed the article, leave your comments below, and give my podcast a listen. In the mean time, I have a bunch of terminators, obliterators, and land raiders to put together and paint!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
I for one am simply most excited that NewHammer will finally give CSM a chance to be something other than “like regular marines but worse.” One of my biggest pet peeves was looking at my units compared to loyalists and seeing the fact that they were barely cheaper (especially if you factored in mandatory veteran) but so much worse. No chapter tactics. No combat squads. No drop pods. Less weapon choices (in general).
I don’t want CSM to be a carbon-copy of loyalist Marines. They should have their own flare that makes them feel like warp-corrupted Marines who have been stewing for 10,000 years. I just want them to not feel like “different” means “worse.”v
They should at least get drop pods dang it, and I know why the only reason they didn’t back in day is because GW didn’t want to just include a spiky vehicle upgrade sprue( I used to work for GW back then)
Screw chaos drop pods. I want my Chaos marines to pop out of the warp.
I actually love my current CSM range, I just want them to be a slight bit better… well for my thousand sons maybe a lot better.
When I play my Nurgle units now I always grumble because they are slow… but they are supposed to be. They just need better shooting. Having a heavy bolter dude in a squad of CSM should be cool darnit! Now is the chance for that to shine.
For my Thousand Sons, well psychic phase with 7th is not good. I actually challenged my friend to play my TS vs his Eldar using our 6th edition BRB (the edition we both started with) and hot damn wasn’t TS the hottest piece of ass I had ever seen. I didn’t even bother with the old invisibility because it was a world of prescience, levitation, and shriekmageddon. Smites were pretty good too. I think 8th psychic phase is going to be truly enjoyable (and yes I play AoS).
khorne berserkers may become slightly more playable… but khorne will always be flesh hound and jugger spam. Those units just move in so hard and fast to kick ass and chew skulls… and they are fresh out of skulls!
They already commented noise marines will ignore cover save modifiers, but that is like only a +1 or 2 modifier… so meh. No initiative bonus, but they hinted that daemonettes will have a rule to help them from striking last if they got charged… maybe noise marines will get something as well?
There is still quite alot to see. For all we know a Defiler + Lord of Skulls may be the new best thing in the universe.
Yeah, don’t get me wrong – I love the idea behind most of the current CSM units. A lot of them just don’t stack up.
Tsons are too expensive for what they do. But with the new rend system if their guns are rend -1 or rend -2 that’s actually really strong compared to “AP3” since it can work against any armor/cover save. And maybe their psychic power system won’t be terrible.
Khorne Berzerkers got a lot better in the world eaters detachment but outside that it was way too hard to get them into combat and they were really just S5 marines once they got there.
The idea behind slow, relentless Nurgle is cool but the firepower wasn’t there to make it worthwhile.
Noise Marines were similarly gimped due to a range that was way too short for a Salvo weapon. But if their guns get slightly buffed in NewHammer or the fact that moving only causes -1 to hit instead of snap shots, that could work well for them. And I think Ignores Cover may be even better now than it was before. Before if a marine sat in cover they didn’t do anything to him. Now they will prevent him from improving his 3+. Regular weapons won’t do that.
What’s really got me thinking about Noise Marines is the Weapon statlines we saw, specifically the Bolter being Rapid Fire 1. Salvo Weapons were always described fluff-wise as being heavier versions of Rapid Fire Weapons, even tho their Rules actually worked totally differently. What if they’ve used this to get rid of the Salvo category, and the Sonic Blasters are now just Rapid Fire 2? That could be pretty sweet.
Glad I equipped four of my Dark Vengeance converted Chosen with flamers.
Now, terminators already have a 5+ save against a hit by a Lascannon. It’s called invulnerable salve.
And I’m not very excited with the new flamers. We have to see if you only can hurt models inside the weapon’s range. And as they have lost the AP, even guardsmen now have a +5 save against them.
This is under the assumption that, in NewHammer, Invulnerable saves are different than in 7th, or not a thing at all as it was written before the showing of the psychic phase so we weren’t sure if invulnerable save were in the game or not.
I saw a bat rep and Rubric marines had a 3++ when unit sorcerer performed a blessing. While expensive, that seems to be cheaper than a 65 PT thunderwolf cavalry space marine.
I am really optimistic for Newbammer and I appreciate all this info and discussion.