Please feel free to email me Steve or pm me with any specific disagreements or comments you have.

Please excuse the double post, I didn't want to throw both together.

Factions/daemons.

Firstly, daemonettes DO march hand-in-claw with bloodletters these days, even against other servants of slaanesh. Of course, the daemons fight amoung themselves as much as they ever did and there may well be a particular animosity between the hated factions, but there is no longer any suggestion that units on the same force will not fight together. The background has simply changed in this regard, and I'd like to stay true to the background as it is now, not as it was in the "good ol' days" regardless of people's preferences as to which is better. If people want convincing I'll quote you chapter and verse from the appropriate sources.

Now, that's daemons - if daemons can put aside their differences, what about the Black Legion itself? In many cases alignment is transient, the various great companies or smaller units don't always stick with one god. They all worship chaos. This has ALWAYS been the canon for the Black Legion - unlike others like the Emperor's Children and World Eaters, who really DO hate each other - the Black Legion owe their allegiance to the warmaster first. This has become even more apparent in the latest version of the Black Legion background. Noise Marine Black Legionnaires and Bezerker Black Legionnaires will fight together.

In any case, at the detachment level, this sort of effect is pointless. It's overcomplicating a complicated list, it is confusing, it is almost always forgotten about and it serves no game balance purpose I can discern other than slowing the game down and has absolutely ZERO founding in the current background.

Finally, daemons in the game. I still like the idea of generic daemons. At the epic scale, do we really need the distinction between little red daemons and little pink daemons, etc? There's no need. All you require are greater daemons, lesser daemons and daemon beasts. The list should be focussed on the Black Legion, not the specifics of the daemons which belong in the LATD or a true Daemon list. I'm not sure it was necessarily a good idea in 40K although I've come around to the idea. I think it's an excellent idea for epic. The differences are just not needed, a generic warp-spawn-filth unit would do fine and it would make modelling vastly easier.

Finally, daemons in the game. I still like the idea of generic daemons. At the epic scale, do we really need the distinction between little red daemons and little pink daemons, etc? There's no need. All you require are greater daemons, lesser daemons and daemon beasts. The list should be focussed on the Black Legion, not the specifics of the daemons which belong in the LATD or a true Daemon list.

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Grumble grumble... crappy new background! The Realms of Chaos books are the best things GW ever did and everything since has been an increasingly timid and poor rendition of Chaos.

Just to illustrate things used to be with a quote: “Khornate legions may never have a Slaaneshi daemonic contingent ... Slaanesh and Khorne are opposed Chaos Powers with nothing in common except their mutual hatred.â€Â

I always thought it would be more flavourful if hated Factions attempted to engage each other, if they failed an Action test... whether they belonged to the same army or not.

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I did love the Realms of Chaos too, but that's by the by. The new background attempts to make chaos more, well, chaotic, rather than disciplined ranks of colour-coded warriors from a single chaos god.

The Black Legion have always worshipped all four gods equally. Even from 2nd edition 40K and the first chaos codex, the Black Legion have a mixture of marks. These aren't Khorne or Slaanesh forces, they're Black Legion forces that happen to be currently aligned with Khorne or Slaanesh - and the Black Legion are somewhat unique in that they align themselves transiently (and get away with it). Unlike the Word Bearers who worship the pantheon and never align with any given god, for example. There really isn't much suggestion that Black Legion forces should suffer animosity due to proximity, particularly since a marine or a squad or a company might switch allegiance from Khorne to Slaanesh at any time.

So maybe daemon formations should have animosity, maybe not depending on the background you prefer. However, there are no pure-daemon formations in the Black Legion, and Black Legion formations shouldn't suffer animosity.

Look at it this way - each Chaos Lord is attended on by a retinue. The retinue always carry the same Mark as the Lord, no mixing of marks is permitted at all within a retinue. A retinue roughly corresponds to a 40K army, so it's like not allowing more than one mark in a 40K army - that makes it seem far more restrictive than 40K.

Personally I'm against generic Daemons, I don't see the need to follow something that G/W did out of expediency for the purposes of a self-contained Codex. Indeed, given their current tearing apart of established background in order to sell more models to kids I don't see the need to follow them much at all and cram loads of (for example) Land Raider variants into Epic.
On the list, I just want a single BL army that I can use at all times, without confusing both my opponents and myself. I've used the current playtest list quite a bit, it's certainly an improvement. I agree that there are some issues with the current official list, and would like to see these addressed and the changes accepted. I don't think the list is broken or massively over or under powered as it is, making the Death Wheel harder to get, fixing the AA (somehow, personally I'm past caring if it's fixing the Obliterators or introducing something new), changing a few points values and making the planes a little better would do, adding a Defiler formation and Vindicators would make me happy . However, I fear that the list might be going down the route of 're-development' rather than 'tweaking' to reach a more balanced state. Seeing some of the other lists go round and round for years I hope this isn't the case!

I too think the Hatred rules can go. But only for the Black Legion which is accustomed to field multi-god armies.
For eg the Lost and the Damned the Hated rule is just finde.

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Really?? I'd say the dead opposite - that they've steadily made them less chaotic! The original chaos was much more mutated, individual, varied, bizarre, corrupted and perverse that the current one. Today's chaos are more generic, samey, boring, toned down and kiddified and too often over-use a 'evil warriors with spikes' meme.

The original lists did let you take some of the other two power's followers too, plus spawn, daemons, beastmen and cultists and various monstrosities and weirdnesses. It simply prevented you taking two opposing powers in one army.

There really isn't much suggestion that Black Legion forces should suffer animosity due to proximity, particularly since a marine or a squad or a company might switch allegiance from Khorne to Slaanesh at any time.

I'm in favour of generic daemons in principle but think it's too late to shoehorn them into this list now; they're best left for lists like the Red Corsairs list (which really needs playtesting, updating and ERCing as the "codex" chaos list).

I'm definately in favour of losing the faction hatred though, it adds nothing at all to the game, needlessly complicates the game and army list writing and it no longer representative of the background.

In general I'm in favour of most of the proposed playtest changes with a few minor exceptions.

Obliterators don't seem worth it with the new stats at the new points cost. There was no need for them to go up in cost once they lost the AA.

I've not seen defilers in action enough to be sure, but they seemed to struggle the one time I have seen them used.

The hell talon bomber seems to suck in comparison to the hellblades. BP2 for the formation isn't good enough even with ignore cover. Up the BP and the cost possibly, or allow a formation of 3?

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My 2 cents:

- No need for generic daemons, the current ones are more or less balanced and work well

- Defilers (and Desecrators): Tried them a couple of times in mixed Armoured Companies, they are fire magnets and would be even in a dedicated formation, that´s just the way it is with expensive AVs that can be suppressed with a one BM, the only way to make a viable formation here is to add Leader somewhere

- HellTalons: They are worth 200 for 2 IMO, their strength lies in the versatility, they can shoot air transports from a save distance in a pinch and the barrage attack is quite valuable in the BL context which is lacking long-range BP options other than the Banelord, a points sink.

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That ignores Rule Two.

And thusly Jervis did spake: "Do the number of units in the formations and upgrades match the pack sizes?"

And they did, and it was good.

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What about a Formation of 4?
Thats 2 packs

(and why don´t you care about this rule in the Biel Tan List? Phoenix Bombers come in a Pack of 2 and the list has a formation of 3..., same with Nightwings)

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I think lists should be balanced what's best in the game, without concerning ourselves too much what comes in a pack/blister. There's always trading for excess ones.

And if you check the Specialist Games site you'll note that they both come in 3's.

The Forgeworld models aren't primarily intended for Epic, so their pack sizes often differ, but the former (pack sizes) should inform the latter (army list construction). So spake the Johnson.

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