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The Best Codex Ever? 3rd Edition Chaos 40k Flashback

3 Minute Read
Apr 17 2016
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Is the Chaos 3.5 codex the best of all time, or is it more like Saturday morning cartoons you loved; worn out and tired? Let’s find out!

Sometimes we put on the rose colored glasses and think that the content Games Workshop was making back in the day was substantially better than the Dinobots of today.

But sometimes, like with 80’s cartoons, those memories aren’t all that amazing. So it’s time to hop in the way back machine and get our Chaos Codex 3.5 edition on!

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My Codex has been to Vegas, Adepticon, Orlando, Texas and all up and down the eastern seaboard. Back then the only thing that was in color inside the book was the “Hey, checkout these mini’s section”.

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But it was only 33.00 retail versus the 50.00 retail that we see today for hardcover. Page count wise, it’s 80-90 pages which is basically a supplement nowadays. Looks like you didn’t get as much back then as you did today, huh?

Moving on, it has the basic intro, I.E. why play Chaos, and it talks about the Horus Heresy, and more.

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Some of the artwork, like this, was all brand new. They where still developing things like the shattered legions. 12 years later it’s all been fleshed out; we know who the Primarchs are and what happened thanks to the Horus Heresy novels that started in 2006.

There’s a lot of great lore about Chaos. It’s a really good story line that alot of folks really like.

When you get the rules, you start to understand, it seemed like it was really well thought out. There was some loopholes but it seemed like that was designed in there. The biggest best things, like demon princes, or lascannons, weren’t overpowered and running amok like certain combo’s are now.

It had Chaos Psychic powers which used to be done in the shooting phase. Demonic Instability was always a thing. Demonic Summoning, you guys would come in on a 3+, 4+ and then Auto, exactly like using normal reserves today.

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There was a whole Chaos Armory, which lets you trick out your Chaos Lord with weapons, gifts, and daemon weapons, but you where limited on points. However, the restriction wasn’t too limiting because I had a guy running around on a bike, with an axe that swung at initiative. Sure there was some abusive things, but it wasn’t too over the top in my opinion.

In the video I go over all the daemon powers, like the rule that told a model could become a Prince but it had to be a certain height on a certain type of base, so if that’s something you want to see, checkout it out below.

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Those powers was really spicy, really innovative for its time. But then the dark times came, and the book after it was stripped of so much that Chaos players felt robbed.

So much imagination went into this book and then the following book was just so generic is was heart breaking.

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Author: Robert B
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