User Comments - Duncan Wright

"I have to say, all these early pictures were pretty crappy. I think you might want to take a look at the new photos, cause I initially agreed until I saw the official pics on the site. In my opinion, they are an awesome new direction and you should definitely take another look."

Thanks Duncan for taking time to read this blog and respond, my apologies for having to 'publically post' a response, but the eternal war between Disqus and Blogger comments continue! I have the digital version of Whitedwarf magazine (which I actually like and have subscribed to!) and have had a close look at the new chaos range, and my standing point remains stronger than ever, you have however cited something very important in your statement and that is 'Direction'.While In some cases it cannot be disputed that the physical design and sculpt (or cut?) of certain figures such as the dragon and the Mauler Fiend are high (while others like the Maulers are simply crap on a stick), it is actually the concept/direction that does not sit well for me. For a lot of older gamers who played Chaos in the 'good ol days', these new designs do not fit into the vision of God centric Chaos created over the last 20-30 years, and this is completely Games Workshop's fault. 

Chaos has always been about the four Gods and were always an all inclusive entity; Daemons, Mortals and Beasts of were all mixed into one; which made for some visually stunning and atmospheric armies.When GW split the Chaos books into Daemons and Chaos Space Marines, it also split the design ethics and diluted the creativity by taking away links to the four Gods (God specific Daemonic troops); instead of Noise Marines with daemonettes, you now have Noise marines with and a liberal sprinkling of Obliterators, and this is ultimately generic-ism. It started with lesser daemons and more undivided cults and now points towards Daemon Forge creations. While you do indeed have Cult troops, by taking them as the core of your army you automatically neuter yourself  due to lore based limitations and no God specific Daemons to augment your force (outside of the allies matrix). With the four Gods background primarily in the Daemons book, what do Chaos Marines become? merely spikey Marines. 

As I said at the start while the new Chaos Dragon, Mauler Fiend and some of the new Chaos Marines are technically very fine models, they follow a trend of undivided additions that alienate Four Gods players, while it is possible for players to proxy/convert it still feels cheap to play something that is not part of your list - a reason why I can't play Nurgle Bloodcrsuhers or Slaanesh Berserkers. A big part of me feels that perhaps Chaos Marines should phase out God Cult troops completely (Khorne/Slaanesh/Nurgle/Tzeentch), as it will allow greater acceptance/freedom for the design team to implement generic/undivided entities. 

Perhaps Cult troops truly belong in the Daemon lists as Elite units.

Follow up comment:

"Thanks for taking the time to respond. I can defend the models, and even the undivided part, but daemons and chaos marines should be part of one army".

And I think this is truly the crux of the argument, while there is nothing wrong with having a undivided army at all, removing the God specific Daemons from the Chaos Marines felt like a massive punishment for wanting to play mono-God. While most of the new models are nice in their own way, stylistically and thematically they they do not cater to Mono-God players.

Thanks again Duncan and please, please grab yourself a  Disqus account so everyone can see the excellent points you raise without me having to create a post for it hehe

thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion