By Dale Fyfe

Images copyright of Games Workshop, used without permission.

ne glance through this book and you know that there are quite a few changes. I am happy that doing this review allows me to get a good look at the hefty tome, and see how it all fits together, and how it is going to affect my existing Chaos Army.

First impressions are the imagery. There’s good artwork by Alex Boyd, and also some nice old pieces making an appearance from John Blanche. There’s something that smacks of the old Realms of Chaos books.

This codex is definitively divided into four major sections:

• Chaos Space Marines
• Forces of Chaos
• Glory to Chaos (Color Photo Section)
• Chaos Space Marine Army List

Chaos Space Marines
This time around Gav Thorpe and Alessio Cavatore have endeavored to introduce these rampaging psychopathic killers in a more understandable light. The vast majority of Chaos Space Marines were created as the ultimate defenders of Mankind, produced by the genius of the God-Emperor, and made as strong in mind as they are in their genetically engineered bodies. Once they are free of this deeply rooted indoctrination “like a Dam holding back a lake, when a Space Marine’s will finally breaks, the result is catastrophic as the whole edifice of his purpose and self being tumbles into disarray.” This new found independence is wondrous to one who has spent so long under the oppression of others, and the Marines realize that they are some of the most powerful warriors in the galaxy.

The concept is stronger of “individual space marines, squads, or entire companies and chapters that turn to Chaos for their own selfish reasons”.  The interests of these marines lie in the path of power, wealth and selfishness, not necessarily the downfall of the Imperium of Man.

The Army List is laid out in two sections, the first part, called Forces of Chaos, goes into great detail about each unit type, its purpose and special rules, including its statistics. The second version of the Army List is a game use/army list writing summary at the back of the book with the wargear rules, psychic powers and weapon summaries. Having everything organized like it is in the back of the book is really user friendly during games. The idea behind the Forces of Chaos section, I believe, is to help with army building, and to get a good idea how each of your unique unit types might fit together into the kind of force you are trying to design. You get a feel for the unit, and from a fluff perspective, are able to see if it is suitable to your needs.

So we all know you had the freedom to create a massively themed army in the last Codex, with a great deal of wargear and items to choose from. This is one of the things that made the Chaos list great. You could have an undivided army with mixtures of units, creating your own theme. You could take one of the Traitor Legions with various special rules and restrictions. Your general had so many options that you could design your own nightmare. You generally knew that if you were going up against a Chaos army, at least it wasn’t going to be the same thing over and over again. All this was also something that annoyed the crap out of opponents, not the least in big tournaments. Gav Thorpe made a point in WD #333 (Sept. 07) that this new book takes out the invisible rules that relate to units, one example is that once your Lord took so many Daemonic Gifts, he became a Daemon Prince. This was frustrating that it was not necessarily apparent on the table top. Another remark was made about the time it took to create an army list, let alone have an opponent decipher it.

This freedom of choice was what drew me to the army. I wanted one of the Traitor Legions, and all the history and fluff that went with it. I chose the Thousand Sons, and spent a lot of time fiddling and tweaking army lists and units, and gorging myself on the options that were available. Even after having the book for a long time I hadn’t quite got my amazingly expensive units of Possessed and Chosen tweaked just right. My Chaos Lord had a personal retinue from the wargear section that consisted of nine models (think lots of Chaos Hounds and Thralls etc). I was literally drowning in options, which is great, but it was hard (hey – I’m the indecisive type).

Wargear does not exist in this codex in the traditional sense that you see in the Space Marine Codex, but then, that’s exactly what the Chaos favours, powers, marks and weapons take the place of. Hmmmm.. This is something that I looked for out of habit when I made an army list, I wanted the extra bits and pieces I could get, but all the options for your squads are listed with the entry. Everything you can get for a squad are included in the entry in the Army List at the end of the book.  This seems like a good idea really, flicking backwards and forwards through the book all the time was pretty annoying, and whilst having a game with this book, the references were very easy to find, summaries, wargear effects and the army list are all in the last 20 pages of the book, which makes very easy access for forgetful gamers like myself. The main difference is that you simply don’t have the options that used to be available (though you have to bear in mind that these options took up 6 pages of the Codex!). This makes it very easy to make an army list, but if you have a convoluted theme, trying to fit it into this army list will take some work, and some sacrifices.

There is great freedom from the list to create a new Chaos Space Marine Renegade War band, which could be just about anything you want it to be, but for people with established Traitor Legion armies, then it seems that there is less focus on them, but enough allowances have been made that you can reasonably take a Traitor Legion army. Units of Noise Marines, Thousand Sons, Khorne Berserkers and Death Guard/Plague Marines all exist as regular troops choices. Each of these units has extra special rules, and is a little more expensive to compensate. This is different from before where you would buy a squad of Chaos Marines and then give them each a mark of Chaos. For example, I give each marine in a unit the mark of Tzeentch for 10 points each. This then changed the options that were available to the Chaos Marine Squad, meaning you had to go back and forth between the Books of Chaos section and the army list when writing a list. Now each Cult Troop has its own entry making it clear what the options are. Gav Thorpe said in WD 333 September 2007, “You should be able to create the themed army your after using the codex list.” Which you can, but it will take time with the codex to really see what you can make.
Let’s look at each section in more detail.

HQ
You now have the option of a 3 wound Chaos Lord, a Chaos Sorcerer or a 4 wound Daemon Prince. In the last Codex these were combined into the All-In-Wonder Chaos Super-Dude, which as the designers have noted meant that your opponent never really knew what they were up against without rigorous dissection of your Army List. There is no HQ squad or retinue for your Commander, but because the Lord can join any unit, you can have any unit act as an HQ squad. The concept I think they are trying to get across by doing the list the way they have is that the whole army is the retinue of the lord.

Elites
There have been a few movements of units in and out of this section and it now consists of four unit types.
Chosen are now veteran Chaos Marines with a lot of upgrades. 5 out of a potential 10 marines can upgrade, with heavy weapons, power weapons, plasma pistols, etc etc.

Chaos Terminators are now a dedicated unit instead of being part of a Chosen Squad. Each Terminator may be given unique wargear, and upgraded to champion (3 attacks!), and for some reason the minimum unit strength is 3.

Possessed are quite different, still pretty strong and scary, but the daemonic ability is randomized, meaning when writing the army list, you can’t be totally certain on their purpose. This isn’t really much of a problem. At least they aren’t as expensive as they were, still have their invulnerable save and strength, and you can give them a Mark of Chaos for some flavor. Because they just have close combat weapons, the way you want to model them is totally open. This is reflected on the sprues that are released with the codex, with all the wings and claws and other gribbly bits and pieces.

The Chaos Dreadnought is now included in the Elites section, swapping places with Obliterators for the Heavy Support slot. It still has its random turn reaction, to the great delight of opponents all over when the rampaging monster opens up its guns on the closest friendly unit.

Troops
The Troops section has changed quite a lot. You have the normal Marines option, with usual weapon upgrades. Each Chaos Space Marine in this unit has a bolt pistol, close combat weapon and a Bolter. Your Aspiring Champion has the option to have a Combi-weapon, Power Weapon and a plasma pistol all at once. Now there is a swathe of wargear! Each marine only moves 4 inches in the movement phase as they have to carry all this gear around…. Naaaaa, just kidding. This is a new option, and not many units in 40k have this kind of flexibility. Aside from this, you are able to give the unit an Icon of Chaos, which effectively gives the unit the Mark of Chaos that is appropriate, but unlike the previous codex, this does not make them a Cult Army unit (Like Noise Marines or Thousand Sons). This way, for example, you can have a Tzeentch themed army, that doesn’t have to be Thousand Sons.

The other troops choices are taken up by Noise Marines, Khorne Berserkers, Thousand Sons and Death Guard Plague Marines. This means you can take any mix of these units in an army, which can be great for a War band type theme, but for fluff fanatics, we are wondering what happens between all this Chaos God enmity? It would be funny to see some kind of animosity rule, but then that would be putting in more of the convoluted crap they were trying to extinguish. These units have a points cost that include their marks and special rules, and all their wargear and options are laid out clearly.

Daemons and nurglings are removed from this section. Nurglings are in fact removed from this book all together, and we expect they will make a gooey re-appearance in Codex: Chaos Daemons.

Fast Attack
Here we have the usual Raptors and Chaos Bikes. Chaos Bikes have lost their extra attack. Raptors are now more like their normal Space Marine counterparts, losing their Daemon Kin rule, and they can no longer Hit and Run.

Again there are no Daemons, but the Chaos Spawn makes an appearance here. They take up no force organization slot, but are otherwise counted as a Fast Attack choice. They are also never count as scoring units. This unit seems to be the ultimate distraction. For minimal points, you get a three wound creature with formidable strength and toughness, and a random amount of attacks each turn (d6), meaning people are never really going to know what they are going to do, and with their new mindless rule, the Chaos player only has so much control too. Mindless basically means they move towards the nearest enemy unit at all times, so be careful where you set them up, so they do what you want them to do.

Heavy Support
The Heavy Support Section again has the most options, the main differences being the movement of Obliterators to this section (makes sense) and the addition of the Vindicator Siege Tank.

The Defiler has changed a bit, to bring it in line with its intended purpose I believe. Something that vicious looking should be more of a close combat monster. It comes with a couple of dreadnought close combat weapons, and you can replace two more of its weapons with extra close combat weapons, therefore giving it 5 attacks, and it still retains its Battle Cannon, though it has lost the indirect fire rule. As a bonus, it has gained the fleet rule. Well, it’s got a bunch of legs, it’s nice to see they are used for something besides holding the battle cannon steady while it does its famous basilisk impersonation. I think this unit will be used a lot differently than before, and is something even more fearsome because of it.

Summoned Daemons
Daemons now have their own slot, after a fashion, and in a way this is the biggest change to the list in anticipation of the new Daemon Codex. Daemons now only come in two flavours to the Chaos Space Marine List (basically because it is supposed to be a list of Chaos Space Marines, and not the many and varied faces of Chaos). Now we have Greater Daemons and Lesser Daemons that have static rules, meaning it is not dependant on the Chaos God of your choice. These Daemons also do not take up any force organization chart slots, so they are defined in their own section of Summoned Daemons. This may disappoint some Chaos Marine Players, but I think we can expect great things from the Daemon Codex, which will bring us many more options than we had before, and go a long way to explore the nature of Chaos in a manner totally different to that which is associated with the renegade Marine forces.

Conclusion
All in all I do like the new codex. Looking through I was worried about the flexibility that had been removed. While it has been simplified I think it is much better to use. I also think it is now a codex that has similar form to the others instead of seeming to stand out.

This new codex has also inspired me to look more closely at Renegade Space Marines and the kind of theme I can create with that…. And I can always subsume my existing Thousand Sons Army into it for bigger games…. Bigger games… The Apocalypse is coming….