Editing Chaos Space Marines (section)

===7th Ed: What the Fuck is this even===
Chaos Space Marines played similar to their loyalist counterparts, having access to most of the same wargear and vehicles, plus some unique stuff at the expense of all the stuff that makes loyalists remotely useful in a (completely vain) attempt to play up the [[RIP AND TEAR]] side in an edition favouring shooting. They have some of the same strengths and amplified weaknesses, expensive-to-overpriced units, are easily often outnumbered, but overall, they tend to play too aggressively to the point of carelessness. Thanks to all this nerf-slapping, their ranking amongst armies has tanked from the notably OP 3.5 days; the codex and army have since fallen into decline due to progressively weaker books in favour of the worst kind of fan-service for a handful of factions. CSM did get a release in the form of Khorne Daemonkin, but it just blended two books together with some new rules and wargear instead of fixing glaring problems with the units in them; they ''were'' weak due to their garbled 6E codex. Fortunately, 7E has been putting the screws to every single Codex released in 5th Ed while GW releases an unrelenting tide of half-assed pseudo-codices that don't even cover an FOC while adding bullshit mechanics like grav-spam, decurions or buffing the Eldar sky-high.

That lasted until the release of the Traitor Legions supplement. With the release of the supplement, CSM got legion specific buffs and abilites, for Fluffy builds. For example, Alpha Legion armies can't have any marks, but they get to pass on their warlord trait to a friendly character if the current warlord dies. Night Lords get Raptors as core, Iron Warriors get [[Derp|Mutilators]] and [[Awesome|Obliterators]], Word Bearers get Possessed, and so on. Ironically, it's now better to take Khorne CSM over berserkers, because they're basically the same unit, but one is cheaper. Overall, Death Guard and Emperor's Children seem to be the best options at the moment, followed by the Alpha Legion. Basic Emperor's Children marines with Icon of excess are 190 pts for a 10 man squad of initiative 5 marines, with 4+ FNP, Fearless, and a roll on the combat drug table, which can give them +1 WS, BS, S, T, A, I. Death Guard Marines, meanwhile, are incredible also (Likely even better than the EC ones), 170 pts for a 10 man squad of toughness 5 marines with 5+ FNP and fearless but with a -1 to initiative. Iron Warriors, while initially derided, can bring three pairs of Tank Hunter Obliterators and three Twinlinked Vindicators at 1850 points, with a team or two of fortification-camping, Fearless, Tank Hunter, ObSec Autocannon Havocs.

For the second half of 7th ed, it was safe to say that CSM were solid again. Could every Legion deal with Scatbike spam, Crisis/Markerlight shenanigans, or free DTs easily? Not exactly. But World Eaters could get to melee faster than anyone else. Black Legion could pull crazy alpha strikes and use 13-point marines with Rage, Counter-Attack, +1 strength if the charge roll is 8+, Ld9 (10 on the champ), Crusader, Fear, and Hatred (with permanent re-rolls to hit against Imperium). So we might not be quite as good as [[Cheese|Craftworld Eldar]], grav-spamming [[Smashfucker]] Loyalists or Guard and their absurd amounts of ordnance but CSM could fuck up the mid-tier Tau, Mechanicum and Necrons with ease again (the less said about the benighted Nids, Deldar and Orks the better; don't ask about the Sisters). We're calling that a result! It seems someone understood the risk-reward paradigm of the CSM (the risk in putting your eggs in a basket that would either collapse or rip and tear your opponent).

... and then 7th ed. ended. A minor loss but thank god that's over!