Soul Reapers and the New Chaos Marine Codex part 1

I like everyone else have been waiting for the release of the new codex Chaos Space Marines for the last few months, I had really high hopes. Unlike your average chaos marine player on the planet I as y’all know, took matters into my own hands and created codex Soul Reapers to fix the problems I had with the last codex.

My hopes for the new codex were of the thought I could drop almost everything in my Soul Reapers codex and make it basically a character and a couple of special units for the Soul Reapers supplemental mini-dex.

Most of these hopes were dependent on what they did with the non-cult units in the codex and from early rumors I was really excited and thought that they finally realized that the basic Chaos Marine was over-priced compared to every other marine unit in 40k.

Well the codex is out and it seems it is business as usual at GW; the basic chaos marine is going to remain a poor cousin to every other marine in 40k. Now I am not saying that the Chaos Space Marine codex is bad, because it is full of options and that is a great thing.

On the other hand I really believe that having a large amount of options is not going to save you if you do not focus on cult troops or buying an expensive icon for Fearless that can be sniped. Without Fearless troops I honestly believe that you are going to struggle uphill in the late game.

Some of this is caused by the extremely background driven Champion of Chaos rule, but this is a case where background hurts the army in game. It also sets the sun on the Power Fist Champion, cause in a challenge you want to strike at initiative if you only have one wound.

Phil did get it right with the lowered cost on Raptors and Bikes, which is a real gem that finally makes Chaos fast attack choices worthwhile. I think we will see Bikes a bit more than Raptors because they are the clear winner choice in the codex in the points reduction department.

So with all that said I have decided to go with the minimalist approach for the Soul Reapers anyway. I will however allow any units to purchase the old Fear is for the Weak rule from the older versions of the Soul Reapers project.

Next time I will look at what will be remaining in the mini-dex, the additions to the Armory and revamped psychic powers.