Ryder said:

Its not going to just be, Generic Legion Dude. Its going to be iconic members of that legion. So for Thousand Sons, its the Sorcerer. For Word Bearers, it'll be the Nega-Chaplain. And its valid to want a Dark Chaplain or whatever they're called to be something special, as they're the only Chaplain type to have survived their legion intact, and are the ones that define the Word Bearers.

All of the loyalist founding chapters and several successor types deserve their own writeups, so all the chaos legions deserve their own specialty things. They should have abilities that are serious business.

Deinos said:

Thousand Sons Sorcerer

Alpha Legion Infiltrator

World Eaters Berserker

Iron Warriors Warsmith

Death Guard Plague Marine (might get a rename)

Emperor's Children Noise Marine

Night Lords Raptor

Word Bearers Dark Apostle

Black Legion Failure

Seems like our final list.

Plushy said:

Okay that actually is a fair list, I forgot about the Dark Apostles. Personally I would rather have something like a Fallen Dark Angel instead of the Night Lords but it still works.

Black Legion failure! LOL!

H.B.M.C. said:

I agree exactly. The notion that the Black Legion is some kind of failure is as unfounded as tiresome.

Gurkhal said:

They lack any particular niche, and their fluff really boils down to 'a lot of failed Black Crusades.'

Looking forward to this - I've always been a Khorne fan!

Plushy said:

Their niche is that they are the leaders of the Long War. And the Black Crusades are mostly stopped, according to what the Imperials thinks of it. If I'm not mistaken its said that Abbadon reached every objective with each Black Crusade he launched. I can agree that its entirely possible that the first and second Black Crusades were actually stopped. But beyond them the goal have always seemed to have been more limited in scope and more successful than not.

Gurkhal said:

Failure just isn't how you're going to put it.

Relentless Black Legionary sounds more like what we're going for.

(Unrelenting/Unyielding would be alternatives but typically you want to keep prefixes out of titles)

Tomatoe, tomah-toe.

Plushy said:

They lack a niche? They were the absolute first group of chaos dudes to go "Hey, well, we can serve different gods while working together."

If they seem boring or generic, it is only because the Black Legion's style of cooperative chaos has become the gold standard. Black Crusade, and Chaos in both WHFB and 40k, are largely patterned off the Black Legion's schtick of differing alignments cooperating together.

Chaos Marines towards the end of the 40k timeline barely ever seem to be a threat unless its the Alpha Legion (who are #1 at operating in imperial space), the Word Bearers (who, I have heard, are the only Legion that still cooperates and functions like a Legion still), or if the Black Legion has instigated an alliance.

I've always thought an Unaligned book was going to happen anyway, and since someone mentioned The Fallen earlier, it occurs to me they'd make a good Legion Archetype to include alongside the Black Legion.

I've also come around to mind that the 'advanced Archetypes' aren't the end-all be-all representation of the Legions. And there's no reason you can't be an Alpha Legion Renegade, or a Thousand Sons Chosen. What we see in Tome of Fate can quite certainly be taken as an example of an eminent member of the Legion. Certainly not everyone from Q'sal is some master sorcerer.

What wouldn't be bad is to have a way to 'buy in' to one of them. Just something shorthand. And whether it would be alright to keep the original Archetype ability, for the hassle.

I'm eager for Iron Warriors and Word Bearer rules. Daemon Princes, too.

The new Chaos dex adds nice stuff. The Warpsmith and Warp Talons both seem like solid Archetypes, and I can't wait for new Daemon Engine beasties.

A Thousand Son Chosen would be mildly odd, as they do not begin with sorcery and they do not begin as a pile of dust… only thing I could think of a Thousand Son Chosen as representing, would be if they stuck their geneseed into a non-psyker.

I forget which Horus Heresy book it's in, but one of the Thousand Sons willingly purposefully cuts himself off from the Warp. A Chosen could potentially be going about the whole bit to gain the favor of Tzeentch and once again delve into Immaterium, regaining his psychic abilities.

It's not as if the "psyker" trait is sacrosanct, any idiot can dabble in sorcery (and most of those idiots rightly go up in a ball of flame) nonetheless. And in a game that people are always gushing over being so much better cause it's free-form and classless (a matter of personal opinion, I find that I like the systems different, for different games, accross the board), I'm certainly not going to sit back and let the Archetype I chose at the begining determine whether or not I can eventually get some psychic powers. Especially since in Black Crusade, actual sorcery and psykery aren't differentiated, like they are in.. well, I guess Dark Heresy is the only one with Sorcery, but moving on…

Now you're a member of the Pavoni, or one of the other more martial schools of psychic discipline that was concieved by Magnus. Your lesser psychic ability a result of your school's focus on a variety of martial pursuits, as opposed to the more esoteric disciplines, that involve seeing the future or telepathy, rather than smashing things with telekinesis or lighting them on fire (still hard, I know).

Despite their reputation, it's not like every Thousand Son (whose not an empty suit of armour) is a master sorcerer extroidinaire. As a group they're the best, but with every group you find members all along the bell curve. Ahriman and his cabal would be at one end, while most everyone else would occupy the middle. And I'd hardly consider a starting character's (albeit a 6,000 xp one) place on that curve to be an accurate measurement of their power, or its limits. Though it seems likely that they'd always be a step behind any full sorcerer.

All that said, you're right. It's all the more likely that the 'typical' Thousand Sons sorcerer would be represented by the standard Archetype, with the true masters by the one found in the book.

*Asoral prepares a blasphemous ritual of Necromancy*
BY THE BLOOD GOD, AWAKEN!

Sooo…. Did it work? Anyone gotten their hands on the book yet? I would be beyond thrilled to hear about all the new goodies and especially the new archetypes

Well it's out now so we can talk about what's in it.

Archetypes:
Khorne Berzerker
Night Lord Marine
Xurunt Frost Father
Chem-Hunter of Messia


New Ranged Goodies:
Boiler Cannon
Thresher Gun
Combi-Weapons (multiple flavours)

New Melee Goodies:
Bonecrusher Mace
Chain Greataxe
Chain Hammer
Chan Spear
Ironfang Chainsword
Bladehands
Kursian Heavy Shield
Kursian Trident
Slivernet (evil metal net made of rusted metal that breaks off in your skin!)
Sickle Sword
Lance-Goad
Pit Net
Runesword
Runesheild
Rune Weapons are what becomes of a Daemon Weapon that has had the Daemon removed. Very rare, and have the Tainted Quality.
Wailing Axe

Daemon Weapons (lots in this book):
Berzerker Glaive (from the 3.5 Codex)
Bloodfeeder (from the 4th Ed Codex)
Dreadaxe (3.5 Codex)
Firestorm Blade (my personal fav)
Forgewhip
Gorewhip
Great Axe of Khorne (from Realms of Chaos - yes, it has a Bloodthirster in it that can pop out and attack you the moment the wielder is killed)
Heart-Ripper (Daemonic Reaper Autocannon)
Soulfire Lance

Other goodies:
Harness of Rage
Khornate Crest (armour upgrade)
Mental of Hate
Skinhidden Plate (armour upgrade)
Talax Hide Armour
Infernal Star (force field)
Messian Sky-Splitter (force field)
Bloodskull Pendant
Collar of Khorne (one not given by Gifts)
Horn of Chaos
Icons of Endless War
Skull Mask of Ang'Grath (that's the big Bloodthirster Forge World makes)
Skull Totem
Talisman of Burning Blood
Venic Noose

New Minions:
Bloodcaller
Brass Harbinger

And that's all the new stuff!

BYE

THis is out? Since when?

It's not in Europe, as Esdevium don't have it listed at all!.

Although they never had Outer Reaches listed either. Are FFG having shipping problems?

H.B.M.C. said:

All of this looks awesome, but what really surpised me was that the Night Lord Marine was put into this supplemant. I was kind of expecting Iron Warriors or Black Legionnaires, but I guess I was wrong. Of course it would have been a disgrace if the Berzerker wasn't there.

Could anyone tell anything about the two human archtypes?

Gurkhal said:

The Chem-Hunter is all about getting more than normal out of drugs. He has a special ability that increases the positive effects of any drug he takes, and also has a special drug only he can take.

The Frost Father is all about being the kind of hero that they sing songs about. His special abilities are all about getting rewarded for doing very hard stuff in combat and killing huge critters.

Lack of Iron Warrior here gives me hope that after the God-Tomes we will get this inclouded in Tome of Dark Mechanicus or something similiar.

I think Iron Warriors will end up in the Slaanesh Book, because they seem to working on a theme here. In BoC we had Alpha Legion, who are tricky so it fits. In this we have Night Lords, crazy, blood thirsty, flaying space pirates that wear folk.You know terror and blood. Slaanesh is the god of perfection, but we all know this and Iron Warriors are going for perfection in siege warfare. So thematically it could work. I donno who legion wise would share co-booking with Death Guard. I would like to see a Chaos Undivided book with Black Legion and Word Bearers.

Mtkrishna said:

I was really thinking we would see World Eaters and Iron Warriors in Tome of Blood, then Death Guard and Night Lords (Intimidate is aligned to Nurgle in BC) in Tome of Rot(?), and then Emeperor's Children and Word Bearers (because they're social) in Tome of Excess(?).

What the hell is chain hammer, and chain spear? How do they differ from chain axe, and chain halberd?

Well… one’s a hammer, the other is a spear. Neither of them are axes, and neither of them are halberds.

The hammer is a 2d10+something Rending Tearing Concussive thing that you need SB4 or higher to use one-handed. The Chainspear is a spear with Tearing. It may have something else. I forget.