Warhammer 40K Hot Mess – Space Marine Legion & Chapter Flavor is Missing
Goatboy with today’s 40K Hot Mess. I want to talk about the missing bits of Space Marine Chapter flavor we have in the current 40K universe. Where’d it go?
Gone are the days when your custom Chapter/Legion/etc would dominate the battlefield. Instead, we have what kind of feels like Vanilla 40K. Just a world full of different colored stuff, but it all tastes the same. Heck, where is the rules hot sauce for all of these Space Marine & CSM armies?
With that little intro, let’s figure out ways we could spice up some stuff. I won’t delve into specifics as that is a lot harder to do and a much grander task than just a little Thursday article. Instead, I want to get into the idea of how you would build it. The nitty-gritty of the rules are better off for those designers/builders who work at GW even though I would personally love to try and build some of those. That would be a whole different mess I’d like to be a part of, but I digress. Let’s right the ship back into the messy world of sub-faction rules.
Creative Legion/Chapter Detachments
Yup, let’s build this in the way that 40K current seems to be going and just build detachments that represent these armies. I know it would mean you’d only have one “option” for your Salamanders – but wouldn’t that be better than zero options – like we have now. I think limiting it to one detachment per Chapter is an easy way to do it and would ensure the vision of how the option would work would be the best.
A Chaotic Example
This would also let you build the epic nature of the army into that detachment and just make sure it all fits. Let’s say something like Alpha Legion for CSMs. You would obviously use some of the basic rules for CSM with the whole Dark Pact set up. But instead of all the same options, you could “tweak” things a bit. Instead of having things like Lethal Hits and Sustained hits, you would shift it into options for taking out certain foes and granting weapons Anti options. That Alpha Legion is all about subterfuge and removing key targets, so shifting it in that way would be a cool way to ensure you keep the flavor of the initial army but still have something unique. At the same time, you might limit the Marks they can take, as it is pretty hard to hide the influence of Nurgle if you are trying to sneak into an opponent’s army.
About Those Chapters
At the same time, for Space Marine options, you would shift how each “doctrine” would work for each Chapter. Small tweaks would allow them to play differently and create unique choices. White Scars for example, would all be about speed and options, so all their Doctrines are how they would treat and engage the enemy. First turns might let you Reroll long bomb charges, and future fights would grant different kinds of close combat interaction. Small little things that would let the army feel different other than just something like – guess you can take a ton of bikes cuz they do more bike stuff.
Unique Enhancements
This is where you could really push some cool upgrades to Legions & Chapters to make them feel different. Things like Iron Hands having weird weapons that help out their army or upgrades for their Dreadnoughts. You could see Emperor’s Children having more Sonic options and chaining out powers. There is a ton of lore-based flavor to be added with enhancements and little equipment upgrades – beyond simple detachment rules and options.
Detachment Limitations
Create some limitations in the detachments too. I think having some options, just not available is probably better than not working with the rules. It is one thing to be told no you can’t take it. It’s a whole other thing when it just doesn’t work with your army. I know collections can be hard to build around. But having hard unit limits helps add to the idea that this is a different unique army. You could even have limits that set up with allies a bit more cohesively and create a really unique army like more Daemon Crazed friends and other fun options.
Overall I think there are a lot of awesome ideas available with simplifying some Legions & Chapters a bit with smaller pools of choices and abilities. It allows for some unique build styles that are less “jack-of-all-trades”. I think moving things into this direction where a detachment is your “Salamanders” build is just better than the issues we’ve had in the past – where too many options allowed for a chance to unbalance the game.
What do you think? Should they just go all in on making cool “Chapter” detachments? Would that be better than creating a whole little codex that we now have to carry around?
How would you handle Legion & Chapter Rules in 10th Edition?
