10,000 years ago, fully half of the Space Marine Legions fell under the sway of Horus the Warmaster and an age of darkness started that would change the course of history. 10 Millennia later, Hosts of Traitor Legions and ravaging warbands alike pursue their Long War against the forces of the Imperium, bolstered by heretical powers and horrific daemon engines. Today, Codex Chaos Space Marines is up for pre order alongside 2 new sets each containing a new miniature. In this review we’ll be checking out the Codex itself, taking a look at what has changed and seeing if the forces of Chaos will be ascendant once again in the 10th edition of Warhammer 40,000.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a free review copy to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your 40k goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself 20% too?

So gather your warband as we delve into the arcane horrors of the Chaos Space Marine Codex

Codex Chaos Space Marines Review – 10th Edition

One of the things we have seen with 10th edition Codexes so far is that for the most part the core indexes released last year have stayed pretty intact – we might have seen some rules tweaked and some profiles changed, but in most cases the core army mechanics have stayed the same.

From a Army Rules point of view, Dark Pacts is the same as it was in the index – a unit can opt to make a Dark Pact in order to gain Lethal Hits or Sustained Hits 1 when they are selected to shoot or fight, however if they failed the Leadership test they take D3 mortal wounds as a price to the Dark Gods.

We do see the Emperor’s Children name checked as a full Codex (Though free downloadable rules are up on Warhammer Community until it arrives) with Noise Marines now joining the other Legion specific units such as Khorne Berzerkers, Rubric Marines and Noise Marines as something you can take 25% of your points from. Hopefully this means that Fulgrim and friends are not too far away on the horizon (Though realistically it could be next year they arrive on our tabletops!)

Like with all new 10th edition Codexes, the bulk of the new rules content are the new Detachments – we get 8 in total representing the various fighting styles of the Traitor Legions – Let’s take a look at how they play!

Veterans of the Long War

The first of the new Detachments are the Veterans of the Long War, representing the fighting style of the Black Legion (Though like with all the new detachments in 40k, there’s no requirement to paint your army in that colour scheme)

Their unique rule is “Focus of Hatred”, and this has you select an enemy unit in each of your Command phases, and grants your units re-rolls to hit until your next Command Phase – pretty nice, and a dark mirror of the Astartes abilities.

Enhancements are a mixed bag – Mark of Legend allows you to re roll one hit, wound or save each turn, Eye of Abaddon gives you 1CP each time to destroy your Focus of Hatred. Warmaster’s Gift has your Lord causing Critical wounds on a 5+ and finally Eager for Vengeance allows the model and their unit to fall back, shoot and charge, and while they do so they get both +1 to hit and +1 to charges against your Focus of Hatred. I think Eager for Vengeance is the best one here, as it allows you to do some Sons of Horus style spearhead attacks.

There’s some really good strats here too – in particular Let the Galaxy Burn gives a unit Ignores Cover and makes all Torrent weapons automatically cause 6 hits, and Black Crusade allows a unit to shoot when it advances or falls back, and gives all their Bolt weapons Devastating Wounds – this caps at a maximum of 6 wounds, but this can be quite scary when fishing for those wounds.

Deceptors

Next up we have the Deceptors, your Alpha Legion style force – and these focus as you would imagine around sneaky covert tactics – at the start of the game you pick a number of legionary units and a number of cultist units (This scales depending on the size of game, in an average Strike Force you can pick 3 of each) and they gain the Infiltrator rule.

Their Enhancements are suitably fitting with some really fun abilities. Falsehood is my favourite and works like the old Warhammer Fantasy Assassins. Your Lord is set up off the board, and in any of your Reinforcement steps you can choose to remove any Legionnaire or Chosen model and replace it with your Lord – he automatically becomes that squad’s leader, and you can even do this if the unit was already in combat with something!

Cursed Fang improves the AP of a weapon and gives it the Precision ability, and Shroud of Obfuscation gives the hero Stealth and Lone Operative.

The final Enhancement is another fun one – At the start of Command Phase you pick another Character from your army and your model gains all the Datasheet abilities they have and gains the Psyker Keyword – I am Alpharius indeed!

Strats are a little more vanilla here, you can make a Deadly Demise model automatically cause wounds, or make a unit move when the enemy gets within 9″ for example – there are a couple of fun ones though – From all Sides gives a target unit +1 to charge for each other unit that has charged that turn, and Scrambled Coordinates stops reserves from coming in within 12″ of a chosen unit.

Renegade Raiders

The Renegade Raiders represent the more piratical and rag tag warbands that fight with hit and run tactics. Every ranged model gets the Assault keyword, and you increase the AP of weapons by 1 when targeting something in range of an objective. I quite like this one, I just wish there were new bike models to fit the fast moving theme!

The Enhancements really want you to push into your opponents deployment Zone – Despot’s Claim gives you an extra Command Point each turn on a roll of 5+ or 4+ if you are within 12″ of the enemy deployment zone and Dread Reaver allows you to reroll hits and wounds if you are within 12″ of the enemy deployment zone. Mark of the Hound gives the unit Scout 6″ and Tyrant’s Lash allows the unit to reroll advances and shoot after falling back. Feel these are a little less exciting than some of the other ones

The Stratagems however are pretty good, with one that allows you to charge after advancing, and another that allows a unit attacking a unit in range of an objective to reroll hits and wounds – combine this with the extra AP you get for targeting them and this can be pretty nasty.

Dread Talons

Next up is the Night Lord flavoured Detachment, and this one has any enemy unit that is below starting strength and within 12″ of any of your models take a Battle Shock Test at -1 in the Battle Shock Step – this is really nasty as you only need to cause a single casualty to start forcing battleshock!

This pairs well with some of the Enhancements – a great one is Eater of Dread – you roll a D6 in each Command Phase and add 1 for each battleshocked unit on the battlefield and on a 5+ you gain a CP. Warp Fueled Thrusters is another really good one – can only be used on a Jump Pack Lord – but at the end of your opponents turn you can remove him and his unit from the board and pop them into reserves.

Willbreaker makes a unit that suffers any hits from your model immediately take a battleshock test – this is a great way of trying your luck and nabbing an objective off the opponent as you only need a single hit to trigger it, and as your model is within 12″ they will take the test at -1 too!

Finally Night’s Shroud gives your hero Stealth.

The Strats all interact with this terror tactics vibe, with one that makes all enemy units within 12″ take battleshock when a character is destroyed, or increasing AP against a battleshocked unit, or allowing you to reroll hits and wounds against a battleshocked unit. And if you don’t already have enough ways to battleshock units Screaming Decent allows you to place a unit of Jump Packs from reserve 3″ away from an enemy unit and immediately force a battleshock test on them

I can see this being a strong detachment with lots of ways to jump around the board and shut down enemy units.

Fellhammer Siege-Host

This is your Iron Warriors themed Detachment, and they have a nice rule in Iron Fortitude – if an enemy models targets one of your models with a strength greater than your toughness then they have to subtract 1 from the wound roll, essentially getting around your lower toughness – tanks and daemon engines are going to be a pain to crack open in this one.

As you can imagine the Enhancements lean into this concept of your units being hard to kill or breaking through sieges. Bastion Plate allows the lord to change the damage of an attack that hits them to 0 once per battle round, WarpTracer allows your unit to deny the benefit of cover. Ironbound Enmity gives you +1 to wound when in range of an objective and Iron Artifice gives your hero Anti Vehicle 4+ and Anti Fortification 4+

They get some really nice Strats too here, with the ability to give a unit Feel no Pain 5+, reduce 2″ from enemy charge rolls or give all a target unit’s weapons the Pistol keyword, for them you really need to shoot someone at point blank range with a lascannon.

Pactbound Zealots

This is the original Slaves to Darkness Detachment given some tweaks – firstly, if you fail the Dark Pact Leadership roll you no longer get the additional abilities granted by the chosen mark, otherwise all the rules here are the same.

Enhancements are also the same, but the Liber Hereticus has been removed.

Most of the Strats are also the same, but we get a new one in Eye of the Gods which adds 1 to the Move, Toughness and Wounds, and increases their Attacks, Strength and Damage by 1 for the rest of the game when a character destroys an enemy unit – this is pretty nasty!

Chaos Cults

Want to run an army with lots of Cultists, Beastmen and Traitor Guard? This is the Detachment for you! All of your Damned units (This is a new keyword on all the mortal non-astartes stuff like cultists and guard) can take a Desperate Pact – this works in the same way as a Dark Pact but increases your movement and charge distance by 2″

They also unlock Traitor Guard as Battleline – sadly there’s no way of taking allied Astra Militarum vehicles etc still!

All of the Enhancements boost your Damned units in some way – Cultist’s Brand allows a Damned Unit to reroll advances and charges, the Amulet of Tainted Vigour allows you to return D3 Damned models (including characters!) to the bearers unit each command phase, the Incendiary Goad increases your Damned units strength by 1 will under starting strength, and their attacks by 1 when they are under half strength, and Warped Foresight gives the unit Scout.

The Strats as you can imagine revolve around making your Damned units fight harder, there’s one that can increase the attacks and strength of a unit that passes a Desperate Pact test in the Fight Phase, and one that increases Strength and AP in the shooting phase – making your units a little nastier! There’s also one that allows you to use Damned units as human shields – if an Astartes unit is shot but a Damned unit is within 3″, then the damned unit takes the wounds instead.

Soulforged Warpack

Finally we get Vashtorr’s subfaction – this revolves around Daemon Vehicles and allows them to Invoke a Contract when making a Dark Pact – you take the leadership test at -1, but can opt to gain +1 to wound for ranged weapons or +2 attacks on Melee weapons – I think this one is pretty good, especially if you chuck it on a Lord of Skulls or something!

The Enhancements are all mostly about making your vehicles better – Tempting Addendum makes it so when you Invoke a Contract you can opt to suffer a mortal wound on the vehicle in exchange for rerolling hits, Forge’s Blessing let’s you give a vehicle a 6+ feel no pain in each command phase, Soul harvester gives you a CP on a 5+ every time a unit is destroyed within 12″ and Invigorated Mechatendrils gives a Warpsmith +4 movement, helping them keep up with your vehicles

With the focus on Daemon Vehicles you can probably guess what units are targeted with the Strats for this detachment – There’s some really cool ones too, Daemonic Possession allows you to give any vehicle the Daemon keyword, Unstoppable Rampage allows your Vehicles to move through terrain features as if they were not there and Glut of Souls allows a Daemon Vehicle roll a dice for every model it kills, and for each 5+ heal a wound.

Again, I think this is a fun one, and hopefully a precursor to Vashtorr getting his own Codex some day!

Datasheets

With a lot of Datasheets in this book, I’m not going to go into each one, but instead will be highlighting anything that has changed along with the new models added in the two new boxes up for pre order today

Abaddon sees some small tweaks, his Warmaster abilities now do not affect any Damned units, and his Dark Destiny ability now gives him 1 CP if the Dark Pact roll is a result of 7+

Vashtorr sees some considerable upgrades, now sporting a toughness value of 10 and a really nasty ability that gives any weapons that target him the Hazardous rule, which is a nice way of convincing units not to shoot him! his torrent is now Anti Vehicle 4+ and he now strikes in melee at S14 and sweeps at S8 – much better than he used to be!

Fabius Bile can now join Cultists and Accursed Cultists

Chaos Lord may have a nice new model, but he has left his bolt pistol at home, as has to take a plasma pistol now

Chaos Lord With Jump Pack is the other new model with this release, he’s pretty much the same profile as a Chaos Lord who can join Raptors and allows his unit to pile in and consolidate 6″

Master of Possession sees a small nerf, he no longer gives his unit Feel No Pain

Dark Apostle is now a little better with the range of his Demagogue ability extended to 12″

Cultist Firebrand is a new character option for your Cultists, He can be attached to Cultists and allows them to reroll leadership tests. He has a 12″ torrent with D6+3 hits at S1 and AP-1, this ignore cover and anything hit by it has to take a battle shock test

Cultists lose all their weapon options and are now just armed with pistols and brutal assault weapons

Accursed Cultists no longer return slain models (You’ll need the enhancement in the Cult Detachment for that now) however every time they are shot they may move D6 inches towards the unit that shot them

Fellgor Beastmen are now able to be set up from reserves in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd battleround regardless of mission rules, and they count the turn being 1 higher than it is.

Chaos Bikers get an upgrade, they are now +1 strength on the turn they charge

Warp Talons are now able to go into strategic reserves if they are no longer in engagement range at the end of the fight phase

Chaos Spawns have had a couple of changes – they are now OC 0, but they also reduce the OC by 1 for units within 3″ which makes them ace at comboing with another unit to take objectives

Hellbrute now gains +2 attacks for having duel melee weapons rather than twin linked

Defilers can now use the Counter Offensive Strategem for 0CP

Noctalith Crown has had a big nerf, if now increases leadership for nearby units instead of giving them an Inv save

All in all not that many changes, and while a couple of units have been hit there’s some interesting new stuff that should be fun to try out on the battlefield!

Crusade

The Crusade section in this book is very familiar as it retains a lot of the mechanics from the 9th edition book – essentially you are trying to manage 3 different tracks of Glory – The Warlord’s personal glory, the glory to the Dark Gods and the Warfleet Glory representing supplies and munitions – these tracks tick down by one after each game, and for playing games you get a currency that can be spent on increasing them – get a track high enough and you unlock some cool bonuses and abilities, but let a track fall too low thenthere’s a punishment that you have to endure.

It’s a really fun Crusade system and I’m glad to see it return in 10th edition.

We also get a chaos boon chart that models can opt to roll on – there’s 9 different abiltiies, all of them are really good and you are allowed to have as many as you like, however the catch is if you roll the same result twice then you are turned into a Chaos Spawn! It’s a fun risk/reward element and I’m sure I’m going to end up sending my characters down the path to damnation and spawndom!

Combat Patrol

Finally, I want to give a quick shout out about the new Combat Patrol as it looks a pretty good deal – you get a Master of Possessions, a unit of Possessed, a unit of Legionaries and a unit of Cultists. Bought individually this would cost £130, so looks like some good savings to be had and its units that new players will want to pick up for their army anyway.

Summary

After some Codexes that have seen some pretty big changes, the Chaos Space Marine Codex has got off pretty lightly, with a wide range of Detachments suiting a number of different play styles – I think they have all got fun elements, and someone with a varied collection of models will be able to lean into the different detachments and find what suits them best. I feel the Night Lord flavoured one is going to be pretty strong with all it’s Battle Shock causing shenanigans, but I’m also really looking forward to putting together both a cultist and traitor guard based army along with a Vashtorr Daemon Engine monster mash!

Codex Chaos Space Marines is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 25th May

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with a free copy for review purposes.