Codex Review - Chaos Space Marines

So to begin with the codex is in hardcover of comparable rigidity to the fantasy books but with some embossed lettering to go along with the shiny artwork. The binding looks solid, it isn't a huge book, and the paper quality has also improved from previous 40k codexs'. The blood gorgon on the front is a cool piece of artwork and if they continue in this style it will be a ton better than the fantasy ones, which while I enjoy them, are hardly everyone's cup of tea. Particularly the vampire counts with the apparently angry vampire annoyed at scooby and the gang for thwarting his plan and the fact his bat sidekick puked blood all over his hand. 

Anyway lets get stuck into it. We have pretty much the same initial fluff we have had for years. Horus was the best Primarch became disillusioned and injured on davin, decided to get some of his brothers who had their own problems with the emperor to punch up on the other brothers. We also have the vague explanation of what chaos is which to be fair is hard to condense down without sticking to the old paradigm of Khorne=angry, Slaanesh=porn addict, Tzeentch=wishes he didn't know what Slaanesh was doing etc. 

We then transition straight into the Traitor Legions

This was the biggest problem many had with the old codex as the fluff was light in the field and close to non existstant in the army list. Now the fluff doesn't really make a huge showing but it is more comprehensive in explaining the motivations even through the quotes below the names. Phil Kelly deserves a ton of praise for managing to condense these disparate and uniquely motivated forces into a paragraph that somehow doesn't feel shallow. Next we have the bane of the previous codex and that is the renegades. They are always cool but I don't know many people who have bothered beyond maybe a unit or two or a pet project to their main army and the persistence in providing arguably more fluff is perplexing. Sure the corsairs will probably gain a surge due to the badab war and the tyrant making some bad arse cameos but still. The new poster boys the crimson slaughter get a big write up and it also deals with the corsairs, the cleaved, the purge, the flawless host, company of misery, blood disciples and the scourged. A half decent spread of different factions and gods as well as style which is really nice. 

Then we progress into the fluff proper  with the Abyssal Crusade, I really enjoyed this even though it is very renegade focused and has some odd actions. I'm sure I've read this somewhere before the sixth edition rule book but apparently not. In any case basically a cardinal becomes something of a living saint and says the nearest hundred chapters around him could be tainted. They are investigated and thirty found wanting. To clear their name these chapters enter the eye of terror and generally have a shit time. Pretty much all of the chapters turn to chaos after suffering big casualties. The few that do survive after 800 years return and focus out previous cardinal was actually a chaos worshipper so they smash his shit up. There are some fluff inconsistencies here as some of the chapters that are now rebel were helping up until the black crusade so obviously someone forgot to really do their research. 

So the fluff probably is hovering around the 6 to 7 out of 10. It does its job and has some good bits. I should state that a five is a pass and I'm happy with it buy not blown away. It will be rare to see a 10. 

Now into the meat and potatoes the actual army list. It will become tedious to hit every unit but I will focus on my top five in no order as well as my five miss steps

1) chaos boon table. Feels like the old 3.5 deck but sticks with that random element 

2) chaos lord. He feels tough and is insanely cheap and takes the edge in my mind due to the price point and efficiency and the fact the daemon prince doesn't have eternal warrior. And the daemon prince is nuts expensive

3) warpamith. I think this will make a few lists but just the fact it feels like a tech marine but is its own distinct entity is just so much win 

4) chaos bikers. Have become cheaper and will probably replace the old termicide unit 

5) cultists. They fill a unique roll and you can have something of that old lost and the damned army

Now the downers

1) Dark Apostle. Doesn't manage to pull of the warpamith maneb pure and feels way to close to the loyalist version

2) Terminators are unable to take combi weapons and powerfists. Just confusing

3) Mutilators/Obliterators. Essentially the same unit they just aren't worth the point really

4) The Hellbrute. It's just not very viable and a lot of options are missing from the old dread

5) Warp Talons. They are bad. To use their special rule you have to deep strike within six inches of a unit. This is bad because if you can land there you get shot up or they have a mishap. The only way to get them to work is to take a lord with the key daemon aefiact to ensure they land where needed but its a lot of hoops to hop through to make a below average unit just average. 

The characters are all pretty ok but my favorite again is typhus. Such bad arse artwork. However the one wtf in character is that Ahriman is the favored  son of tzeentch but can only roll half his psychic powers from the tzeentch psychic power table

We will skip the basic warhead and instead talk about the artifacts of chaos mother are cool but six isn't enough. There isn't even one for each god which is pretty lame but the ones there are flavor some and very cool. Even have the choice of taking kharn the betrayers flamer! 

So the main army list gets a 7/10 for the choices and 8/10 for the potential viable army builds

I really can't score the artifacts cause the ones there are easily eights but the fact many gods were snubbed is really poor

Overall the book with its presentation and huge step forward make it a 7.5/10 overall. 

The reasons for the score are that it picked up the pieces of the previous codex and managed to head in the direction without being the wreck of the previous book by keeping the feel and little fluff and rules that make it a unique force

It lost points for a number of  fluff oversights, spelling and grammatical errors, odd choices in some rules and equipment but its hardly a write off

The best thing I can say is even though I found the release just awful this book has still made me want to sit down at the table and bash out some lists and that is really exciting that GW has managed that again

So I hope you enjoyed that especially the man child that is Randy