The Problem with Chaos

I finally got a copy of codex chaos space marines, and the chaos players have been screwed with their codex releases and their combat patrol boxes too. They have four full codices, well they are meant to be full codices. Because three of them are awfully light. If we compare the chaos books to the loyal space marine books. It doesn’t look good for the traitor players.

First the two main codices, space marines and chaos space marines. The loyalist book is a whopping 208 pages, the chaos one 25 pages lighter at 183 pages. The reason for this if you want to field the cult marines that aren’t noise marines you’ll need their dedicated codex and that is the only data sheet you can use from that codex. So if you want plague marines in your black legion army you’ll have to pay for another full codex and not a supplement. Also, there is only rules for 8 warbands, in the loyalist book? Rules for 13 different chapters even though they are not as in-depth as the 8 in the chaos book. In the loyalist book the rules are shared amongst the loyalist chapters, except a few warlord traits, and chapter tactics. With more chapters covered in the loyalist book the battle forged rules are it has 24 pages less than the chaos one. This is because the battleforged rules focuses on the 8 warbands. As for the number datasheets there is 32 pages of them in the chaos space marine codex, compared to the 71 pages in the loyalist book. You could argue that there is the primaris and first born marines in the loyalist book. The chaos book has dropped the plague marines, rubric, and berzerkers from 8th edition as well as the various daemons that 8th had as well. If we add the unique datasheets from the other traitor codices you’d have the same amount of datasheets as the loyalist book.

Lets talk about the loyalist supplements and the other warbands codices. First is the size of the books. The loyalist supplements smallest page count goes to the deathwatch supplement at 64 pages and the largest goes to the space wolves at 88 pages. The rest are all 80 pages. Remember these are supplements and have a far cheaper price tag than full codices. Talking of which the chaos ones, the biggest two are thousand sons and death guard at 95 pages each. The smallest is world eaters at 88 pages. 88 pages the same number as the space wolves supplement.

At best 31 page difference at worse 0 pages for almost double the price. I do have to mention that you don’t need the chaos space marine codex for traitor books, you do need the loyal space marine book for the supplements. So you are paying 50 pounds for a comprehensive rule set, this not a great way to do things and they should have done a full codex for each of the loyalist ones. Back to the chaos books, they are on the small size for a full codex. If we look at the other imperial codices every single one has more pages than the death guard codex. The closest being the adeptus custodes codex at 104 pages. The largest being the astra militarum at 57 pages more than the death guard. The daemon codex has an equal page count to the astra militarum. Chaos knights is 24 pages slimmer than imperial knights. So from smallest to largest in page count for full codices not the supplementary ones. Are world eaters, death guard, thousand sons, Adeptus custodes, grey knights , chaos knights , adeptus mechanicus adepta soritas, chaos daemons, astra militarum, chaos space marines, and finally space marines. Chaos are on the bottom range, even books that are directly comparable the imperium wins out every time. Unique chapter full codices grey knights beats all three of the chaos books. Imperial knights beats chaos knights. Of course loyal space marines out strip their chaos counter part. Even the aeldari codex is bigger than the chaos space marine book. Which means the biggest bad guys of the galaxy comes in third at codex size.

This is because the new codex chaos space marine book is stripped down. The 8th edition chaos space marine codex has six more pages of datasheets. These are the four daemon units, the three cult marine units, and kharn the betrayer. So of course, the new codex was going to lose kharn due to the world eater codex. The reason to remove the other units? No idea as thousand sons, death guard, and daemons all had codices during 8th and their traitor marines were still included. What is the answer, easy free pdf of their rules. Also have them not lose their legion trait for being dedicated to certain god. Only rubric marines are from a single legion the thousand sons. The others can be post heresy recruits or brand new converts to their chosen diety. If your are chaos undivided it would make sense to add these units, but not at the expense of a whole new codex.