Editing Chaos Space Marines (section)

==A "Meta-History" of Sorts==
I suppose we should [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|start at the beginning]]? So, back in the day, Chaos introduced in the tome Slaves To Darkness, which was effectively an expansion to Rogue Trader. That's right,
the original 40k didn't have Chaos, although it did have Warp Demons. In the original Rogue Trader narrative, the Emperor was encased in the Golden Throne because he was thousands of years old and he needed life force from psykers in order to survive. Once Slaves to Darkness and its sister book Lost and the Damned were introduced, it was revealed that there was this event called the Horus Heresy, and Horus was a primarch that rebelled and nearly killed the Emperor. Talk about a pretty hefty background update!

Crunchwise, the CSM were just marines with some different wargear selection, as well as the ability to get Chaos mutations. It gets really confusing from there (Can you say, D1000 chart with 100+ mutations?) so the less said about the First Edition days, the better. The first, most important thing to remember is that Chaos was effectively a WHFB expy, so it included beastmen, daemons and renegades [[Awesome|all rolled into one]].

===2nd Ed: First Age of Whoop-Ass===
Hoo-boy... I want you to picture it, if you can, a codex wherein Chaos Lords had no stats under 5, daemons could be freely taken in any FO slot (or the equivalent for 2nd Ed) and everything, ''everything'' could push a loyalist's shit in. The CSM received a promotion in the fluff to primary antagonists after getting retconned into the reason as to why the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne (via Horus traitorous ways and that mortal wound). Those were the days of 2nd edition; that's when Chaos was a unified front led by an interesting character on a 10,000 year quest for bloody vengeance. These were the days when a [[Bloodthirster]] would use an [[Avatar]] as a speedbump, and yet the only trump against CSM were the Eldar (And to a lesser extent the Tyranids when they evolved beyond Genestealer cults). Your characters could equip a Bloodletter's sword if you so chose to do so, as well as Chaos Terminator armour that could save on a 2d6 roll of 2+. Noise Marines, Thousand Sons, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines all got their start here, and they started out as ''Troops'' (or rather, their second ed equivalent). You could also take [[Foulspawn]], a special character Nurgle [[Chaos Spawn|Thing]]/[[Daemon Prince]] with 19 wounds (!) that stole wounds from his kills and could regenerate lost wounds every turn. And guess what? You could field beasts, renegades and daemons in your army. It was also possible to give Chaos Marines equipment and vehicles that only their loyalist equivalents get nowadays (including [[Dude, Where's my Land Speeder?|assault cannons, storm bolters, cyclone missile launchers, and various support vehicles]]), in order to accurately represent the equipment used by Renegades from later Foundings. However, they had to pay an extra 50% traitor tax in order to take them.

Yeah, it sounds fucking insane and the coolest thing ever, and it was. Arguably, things were a bit nascent because in spite of all the other extras, they were still very much just space marines with other armies rolled into it. They had the same stats and many of the same rules and wargear as their loyalist counterparts.

===3rd Ed: Roller Coaster into [[Awesome]]===
Third edition started by screwing everyone: the rules were fucked up to try and shift the balance of power towards infantry and away from characters (so sayeth GW, anyway). Regardless, this is one of a few times that GW actually dialed back the power creep inherent in their game systems to such a degree that all existing armies got hosed (worst of all, Eldar) and CSM were no exception. The Codex pumped out was a hackneyed shadow of its former self that needed constant reference checks to the main rules because all the rules for your stuff got printed there instead of your codex. This first release however brought about the much-loved [[Obliterators]], [[Possessed]] and [[Raptors]] and GW did make rules for entire cult armies available for download on their website at the time, which was a thing GW used to do.

Halfway through its life-cycle, GW introduced [[Tau]] and [[Necrons]], breaking the game with [[Fish of Fury]] and just simply existing, respectively. [[List of 40K Cheese|In the midst of this renewed cheese surge, the CSM got a second lease on life]], cranking their competitiveness to second place behind the dreaded third ed 'crons. These were the days of the 200+ point CSM lord that could out-punch fucking ANYTHING! We're talking about a wargear sheet noticeably larger than any other faction, which also included the curious ability to make your aspiring champions psykers. You could load up a squad with stacks of veteran skills, sneaking them into position, moving through cover and then finishing with a furious charge. [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets its big introduction as a monstrous creature AND a walker! These were the days when you ''bought'' as opposed to rolled for the powers your Possessed had; where you could dedicate vehicles to the Gods, and that gave you certain options (thus creating the Sonic Dreadnought... and Predator). You could take a Slaaneshi psyker and give him and his unit immunity from shooting attacks with a well rolled minor psychic power. Best of all, these were the days of fielding Traitor Legions - ridiculously unbalanced lists that would either fall flat on their faces and cost way too much (Thousand Sons) or tear the fucking table in half (Iron Warriors).

Games Workshop tried valiantly to dial back the cheese by releasing Imperial Assassins, Daemonhunters and Witchhunters but once the Eye of Terror campaign hit and the official (and also cheesy) Lost and the Damned rules were out, third ed was firmly [[Cultist-chan|captoored by chaoz.]]

===4th Ed: The Sudden Betrayal===
That rat-bastard, pointy-eared fuck! In 4th ed, [[Gav Thorpe]] raped Chaos and left her to die in a fucking gutter. Those broken-as-hell traitor legions lists? Instead of fixing them for players that liked the other legions, they were removed. Veteran skills? Gone. Wargear? Toast. Lost and the Damned? More like "lost-a la vista," amirite. Daemons? Worst of all, Thorpe figured they needed their own, super-shitty codex. CSM players were ''pissed'' at the "streamlining" their armies got, but they endured it because at the time there were a few nifty silver linings. You could still technically have your cult army/legion/whatever and they were all not bad; that is to say the codex was at least internally balanced. During this time, the Eldar got pumped from worse than last place to playable, Tyranids got an update that was fair as well, Fish of Fury got pulled from the Tau Codex and the loyalists got a decent buff in the 4th ed SM codices. Nothing spectacular, but everything felt fair; it felt like we could have fun with each other and save our bitter sniping for the rightly-deserving Necron players and their totes OP 3E rules. For a brief period of time, the rules system was stable and there was hope that this trend might continue...

===5th Ed: Abandon (the Despoiler) Ship!===
[[Matt Ward|And then this happened.]] GW, in a moment of clarity and business acumen, summoned Matt Ward from the pit to turn the 40K metagame on its larynx through its asshole to promote sales of their most popular line, Space Marines. [[Dawn of War]] had just come out and Relic/THQ made the Space Marines really good (and Imperial Guard, and Eldar, [[Dawn of Eldar|especially the Eldar]] but they would have to wait until 6E to get their cheese on). CSM didn't get a release in this edition because GW decided instead to dedicate their time to fanboy service while throwing a bone to the Dark Eldar and Orks. This was when the 4th ed. rules were used to create the well-known CSM mono-build for 5th ed (Lash Prince, Plague Marines, Termicide, Obliterators and ''maybe'' a Chosen squad for guiding deep strikes). However, once the 5th ed Grey Knights landed, Chaos was truly on its ass. These were the days all the jokes made against Chaos finally made it to the internets and the forces of Chaos shifted from that terrifying adversary feared across the galaxy to the Imperium's punching bag ''du jour''. Many were the veteran players who simply left in disgust.

===6th Ed: A New NOPE!===
Rumours started pouring in furiously when 6th ed was nearing release. Close combat will have AP values? Oooo! What's this - CSM will be the first codex out the gate? Hot damn! New models? BITCHIN'! Revamped rules to finally reclaim some of the fucking glory we lost in the last two goddamn editions? Hallelujah!

So, 2013 has come and gone along with that release and I think we can all say how disappointing that truly was. Of the few bright spots was [[Helldrake|a new flyer with a *AHEM* ''gigantic exhaust port'']]. ("Gaze into the Eye of Terror!" and "Glory to the Goatse of Chaos!" were only some of the reactions.) Many lulz were enjoyed by /tg/ of its... ahem, questionable design aesthetics. This however says nothing of the fact that crunch-wise it is arguably the cheesiest flyer in all of 6th ed - praise the dark gods, indeed?

Aside from the Heldrakes however, the codex had a lot of questionable design choices. Well, not really because there was a lot of dead weight and questionable mechanic design in that book; unlike their loyalist counterparts, the Chaos Army could not properly run MSU builds, since "all its shooting" was in the Heavy Support section, and "all of its speed" was in the Fast Attack section; this contrasted drastically with Marines being able to do ranged threats in their entire FOC via Rifleman Dreadnoughts, Sternguard, Land Speeders and Razorbacks, or their ability to apply pressure via Bike Troops & Drop Pods. In theory, 6th edition was supposed to compensate for this overspecialization by doubling FOCs at 2000 points, [[Rage|but most tournaments ran at either 1850 points or "1999+1 points"]].

Speaking to questionable design, [[Mutilators]] and [[Warp Talons]] reeked of lazy design, while mathhammer and an emphasis on "disembarked troops" holding objectives meant that many tournament armies became little more than a tide of Cultists and Heldrakes, leading to a paradoxical consensus that the [[fail|best way to with with Chaos Space Marines was to not actually take any Chaos Space Marines]]. [[Rage|Needless to say, this did not go well with many players]].

When it comes to the traitor marines themselves, /tg/'s opinions were divided. Some praised the new design for its focus on intricate trims and warp-induced mutations (eyes, tentacles), whereas others disliked it for its lack of [[Grimdark]], claiming it looked too cartoonish and too playful. Crunchwise, as if we haven't said it enough, this book was well and truly fucked. We really tried to like it, but any list that requires supplements and/or Forgeworld models/books to fill strategic gaps in the codex is a pretty bad list.

===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!

===8th Ed: Time to hope once again?===
The Traitor Legions book was a decent step forward in the era of 7th edition and 8th edition was certainly full of changes. Traitor lists largely remained although they were nowhere near as wild as the last edition. Thankfully, a lot of the garbage from 6th and 7th has been thrown out with them. No more "randomness because Chaos, guys!" as pretty much ''all'' the random tables from all over 7th are scrapped as are the Decurions. This is a big step forward although a curious step into the mists of time, harkening back to 2nd.

For a moment, CSM could still ally seamlessly with Daemons and Renegades until GW patched out soup lists. There were some issues with the index but Vigilius Ablaze brought us new units and models, which then found their way into the Codex. Said book not only patched the problems with the index, but added Legion Traits that help the Traitor Legions excel in their fluff-based specialties. The Thousand Sons and Death Guard also received their own Codexes with their own special flavor of nastiness.

===9th Ed: The Galaxy Ablaze Once Again===
Things are getting HOT! There's a new codex around the corner with updates to Death Guard and Thousand Sons. CSM are slated for a release in early 2022. Which is good because our book is old and NOT doing well. In fact [[RAGE|GW has failed to FAQ Chaos Marines to 2 Wounds yet]] (They are waiting for the codex). However their new previewed datasheet points to them having better stats than [[Awesome|Primaris Marines.]] They are slated for a new range of models including a variety of cultists and chaos marine models. Shit, it looks like Renegades and Heretics got rolled into the CSM book, so that's interesting.