Howdy guys, life again has kept me from posting as often as i like but I finally found some time to hopefully keep this blog in a more "updated" state. Today I want to talk about the new CSM supplement that GW just released, the Crimson Slaughter. I like many other old school 40k players have a soft spot for the legions. No matter how many times we complain, bitch, and whine it seems that GW just doesn't get the hint that what we really want is legion rules to better reflect our cherished armies on the table top. We hold our breath every time a new set of CSM rules are released only to be disappointed by what we get. This is what happened when the black legion supplement was released and this is evidently happening again with the release of the Crimson Slaughter book. Now before I go any further let me say this, I actually enjoyed the subtle changes that the black legion book brought to Chaos especially in regards to the new relics and having Chosen as troops without the "Abby" tax. It also helped the whole morale issue a little by allowing you to take another HQ that could make another unit fearless. We all know that GW is a model company first or that is what they say anyways so I could see why they went with a Crimson Slaughter book instead of a legion book. Everybody including me have established chaos armies with little to no need to have to buy anything new. In order to generate sales, GW needed to bring out something new. Everybody knows that if GW brought out a supplement for an established legion, the only thing that will sell would be the supplement, i guess they see this as a bad thing. They want people to try there hand at a new chaos faction and even make it easy for you to do it by providing a new box set that can be combined with the starter box to get a decent Crimson Slaughter army. The new helbrute kit is just icing on the cake. Do I agree with this thinking , hell no as I definitely would kill for a Nightlords book, iron warriors book, etc. Lucky for me we have forgeworld putting out rules for legions in their 30K books so at least i could try to see if an opponent is cool with me running an army with these rules. Heres hoping that GW will see the light and makes us all happy with legion supplements in the near future.
Ok so after that long winded intro, let me get back to the topic of my post. I really like the Crimson Slaughter supplement. Bottom line, GW finally did something right with this one. Maybe its because it was written by Jeremy Veotok, maybe it was the fact that GW saw that the CSM codex is really lack luster compared to the other books, maybe they are finally listening to their fans, who knows, all I know is the 2 pages of rules that are in the book are great and add a lot of character to the army. Now the big draw about these supplements is the fluff (as 2 pages of rules isnt worth 50 bucks) and let me tell you, after reading it I almost wanted to go out and start a new Crimson Slaughter army. It was that good, the story of a noble space marine chapter that falls from grace not just because of their self rightousness and their strict adherence to the codex astartes but also due to an uncaring imperium who plays favorites. The supplement details their rise as the crimson sabres, how their fall happened as well as details on famous battles they took part in. Veotok does a great job of detailing this which grabs your attention and keep the story moving. All in all a good read. A lot of people buy these supplements for the rules and if you are dropping 50 bucks on books such as these just for that, you are really doing yourself a disservice. Read the fluff and you wont feel as ripped off. So lets get started with the rules. Again we are treated with 2-3 pages of rules however these for the most part are very good. Even the warlord traits are good with the best being the one that grants your warlord shrouded or crusader which also goes to the squad they are in. The relics are definitely game changing such as giving access to a 2 up save piece of armor, a power sword that goes to ap2 if you kill 3 models in combat to even an artifact that turns your hq into a possessed character. The gem of course is a piece of war gear that grants one sorcerer access to the divination table. I don't need to tell you how good this is, giving divination to chaos without the need of allying in daemons is pure win, game changing even. Will this make it a top tier army, probably not but it does give you more options to possibly make chaos a good army to take to a tourney and not feel like you are wasting your time. For those of us waiting for a legion book, there is nothing stopping us from using this book to better represent our legions on the table top. Nightlords, Thousand sons, etc can be represented pretty well with this book, all units causing fear, divination access not bad. The real winner here though is Word-Bearers, possessed as troops and even the ability to run a possessed chaos lord? Relic for dark apostles that grants zealot to all units within 6 inches of the relic? Whats not to love here. Guys if this is any indication on future chaos supplements, than i am truly excited for the future. I just hope we dont have to wait long on the fabled veterans of the long war book...
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