Space Marines vs Chaos Marines

[Stormlord]

The next on my vs threads

Space marine Pros
- And They Shall Know No Fear - easily one of the best rules for any army
- Combat Tactics - very useful in the hands of a veteran player
- Combat Squads - while intended as a pro, i dont really see the use. 5 man squads just die too easily
- Machine Spirit - definately makes the space marine land raiders useful as hell
- Land Raider Varients - Redeemers, Crusaders. Yeah chaos marines would love to get their hands on these
- Units Chaos doesnt have - land raider varients, land speeders, attack bikes. This also includes weapons chaos cannot get (obliterators excepted). Plasma cannons, assault cannons

Chaos Marine Pros
- Leadership 10 - While they lack "And they shall know no fear" they have a better basic leadership than marines. They also have cult troops which are fearless and the Icon of Chaos Glory which gives them a re-roll
- Defilers - they are like dreadnaughts on steroids. They also add a battle cannon into the list
- Obliterators - they are cool and versatile units
- Daemons - whether they are generic or not, whether they are greater or lesser. The lesser daemons count as troops choices which is useful in objective missions. And what everyone forgets is they can assault on the turn they come in, which is really useful. Obviously they are not as good as they were in the old chaos codex and lack rending/power weapons. They all still have str4/toughness4 with a 5+ invulnerable and 2 base attacks and can assault when they are summoned. Dont forget to use your icons to help place them for the charge.
-Troops - 2 special weapons, alot of marine players would sacrifice their left testical for a 2nd special weapon in their troops choice. Dont forget that the basic chaos marine has 2 attacks base due to weapons load outs.
- Cult troops are fearless and have special abilities of their own.

So, when you compare and contrast them, what we get is this
--Chaos marines hit harder than space marines, but are more brittle. A space marine army can lose a combat or even a flank and with "and they shall know no fear" and combat tactics can still regroup and counter attack. A chaos army will hit harder and do more damage but has a greater chance of collapsing if things go badly enough for them.

--Marines dont have specialists, they have marines with weapons loads that allow them to handle a variety of jobs (Thunderhammer terminators, Devestators, assault marines)
--Chaos marines have specialists. Daemons of surprise strikes, Berserkers for speartips. Plague Marines/Thousand sons for objective holding
--Marines are superior long ranged and in mobility
--Chaos marines are superior short ranged and assault (yes i know thunderhammer terminators are rough, but its only one unit) with 2 special weapons and more attacks.

Marines have the advantage when it comes to delivering their assault troops. Their landraiders carry more models and have different varients and the machine spirit. This is one advantage that chaos doesnt seem to have an answer for though....Excepting the fact that chaos can bring more melta guns to the fight....

anyways, i am sure there are points for both sides i have missed
so, what says everyone else?

[Smackaelf]

Chaos codex was written by a goof.
Marine book was written for 5th (landraiders,thunderhammers, combat tactics)and better written overall.
Poor choas has 2 builds thats it Monster/lash or rhino spam.
marines have more options to more balanced list.

Gavin = suck ass codex

[fallenbob]

Gavin = suck ass codex

man speaks the truth!!!

[Stormlord]

so you dont think that any of the chaos marine pro's are worth a damn then?

you are going with the "it sucks, move along" thing without even going into depth about how and why it just doesnt compete/compare?

I mean, chaos marines never had And they shall know no fear, nor did they have all the vehicles that space marines did and they were still badass. What exactly do you think they lack exactly to make them viable in 5th?

also, consider this...
remember your history. Chaos 3.0 codex was considered crap on a stick, but the 3.5 codex was badass remember? Perhaps chaos will get another codex soonish (probably before inquisition codex) and they will learn from their mistakes and make it badass...again...

[fallenbob]

so you dont think that any of the chaos marine pro's are worth a damn then?

you are going with the "it sucks, move along" thing without even going into depth about how and why it just doesnt compete/compare?

I mean, chaos marines never had And they shall know no fear, nor did they have all the vehicles that space marines did and they were still badass. What exactly do you think they lack exactly to make them viable in 5th?

also, consider this...
remember your history. Chaos 3.0 codex was considered crap on a stick, but the 3.5 codex was badass remember? Perhaps chaos will get another codex soonish (probably before inquisition codex) and they will learn from their mistakes and make it badass...again...

i never said that, i just haven't had the time to discuss my points. along with that i do agree with smack on the fact that the chaos dex was poorly written

other then that i'll have some time later on tonight to write what i think of marine in comparison to chaos marine and vice versa

[Stormlord]

well, i am curious as to see what you have to say.
so, looking forward to your post then

[fallenbob]

everything that you mentioned stormy are all valid points on the individual armies strengths and weaknesses. honestly doesn't leave me much to say

the major problem with the chaos marines is that they don't have that many choices to dealing with a large array of enemies and to top it off some of their units are severely hampered because gw thought it would be fluffy add stupid rules to them (ie, chaos dreads shooting their own allies in the back).

another problem is that the current meta is mech and with the chaos marines not having much in the way of the mech department, it hampers them severely, now if the meta was more towards the infantry being kings of the battle fields then the chaos marines would have a better chance against most armies

i think another problem for the chaos marines is their lack of "shooty units" and comparing them to the marines and the fire power that they are able to field. with the current environment, i believe shooty armies on average do better then most cc armies. so with the chaos marines major strengths being more cc related they will suffer when it comes down to fire fights, especially mid range to long range firefights

btw, i know i'm beating a dead horse when i bring this up but in a game of chaos marines vs imp. marines, the following factors are big factors as to deciding the outcome of a game

- what each list has

- the terrain (how much los blocking terrain is on)

- how the armies are deployed

- who gets first turn

- individual player skill

[Smackaelf]

so you dont think that any of the chaos marine pro's are worth a damn then?


you are going with the "it sucks, move along" thing without even going into depth about how and why it just doesnt compete/compare?
1' Well sadly yes i personally got bored with chaos mainly feeling like i was roped off to few choices and ways to build my army.

I mean, chaos marines never had And they shall know no fear, nor did they have all the vehicles that space marines did and they were still badass. What exactly do you think they lack exactly to make them viable in 5th?

2' That was when the 3.5 had all the options to build what ever the hell you wanted the new codex is chocked full of really bad choices elites to be one the only elite worth a dam is chosen.......termies = overpriced runaway unit, Pos. = random chance crap and over priced,dread that will shoot your own stuff so 1 out of 4 in the elite section is good not goood at all

also, consider this...
remember your history. Chaos 3.0 codex was considered crap on a stick, but the 3.5 codex was badass remember? Perhaps chaos will get another codex soonish (probably before inquisition codex) and they will learn from their mistakes and make it badass...again...

3' they need the legion book to make chaos the threat it should be instead of Pirates in space

[legion]

well my 2 cents
i think chaos can make some good lists, and still do well in tournys, thing is yes we have lost deamons (that are worth a crap) and most of the units cost more yet get the same thing in comparison with reg marines (ie pred) or have some stupid quirk (dreads) that play along with fluff, in short i dont think they filled up the hole they created with taking away deamons atleast they could have made the marks work like they suppose to (like a lord getting feel no pain or furious charge, or termies).

all that being said i think yes you can still make a good list and do well, but reg marines have more options as far as what to build with fewer drawbacks, and heck some cheaper, i think the codexs are getting better the more they put out to what they want to sell, i hope they will go back and change some of the codexs (dark angels for one) to make it more flexiable like the new IG books and Reg Marines.

As far as me playing Chaos it is and always be my Fav, but like most 40K'rs i want to have more than one army and i think reg marines and eldar are gonna be my alts, like anything if you play one thing to long it gets stale