Fundamental difference between SM and Chaos

[BioTaq]

Let me start by saying that this is not one or the other is OP. I hold the personal belief that the mod is well balanced and people who complain that a certain unit or race being completely broken should take the stick out of their butt. But I digress.

I'm mainly asking this for my own personal curiosity in that I'm not sure what the basic fundamental difference is between space marines and chaos. They both share a large number of units (tacs, devs/havocs, asm/raptors, dreads, termies, Land Raider variants, Predators) and while I'm sure their statistics are different, I just don't know in what way. I suppose my question is, what do these races excel at and what do they fall short on? and What are the fundamental differences between these 2 armies.

Again, not a balance thread, more of a fluff question I suppose.

[enasni127]

Ok, my main faction is IG so I know both factions from the receiving end and like to share my thoughts.

the starting unit makes a bit difference imo cause heretics fill a completely different role than scouts. This means everything you let follow will be different cause you already have one role filled and don't need that anymore. also chaos seems to have a bit more aoe on t1 (nade tics, noise marines and wargear etc) and they are also very good at countering setup teams (nade barrage, raptors, infiltration, teleport, noise marines(with a bit luck/tactic))
in the past the csm were more like a specialized fighting unit for range OR melee combat - nowadays they have slaughter and are just cheaper and better than sm tacs in my opinion. you can field them for less money so have a bigger army earlier and then can upgrade csm multiple times to make them absolutely amazing fighters vs infantry. sm tacs are more versatile, they can cap faster and switch between special weapons whenever they need to PLUS have and anti vehicle weapon option.

in general i would say sm relies on a good mixture of troops and synergy while chaos seems to be easier to play especially for newer players. chaos usually has strong range units which are also quite useful in close combat or have things like noise marines which completely shut down range fire, disables abilities to counter them AND counter melee units AND deal crazy aoe that destroys power farms in seconds. I don't know but sometimes it feels like chaos is and easier to player space marine with more damage and less costs to me and i've always thought they have received too much love and new stuff in this mod compared to other factions - maybe this is cause caeltos played/plays chaos alot -.-'

[ChrisNihilus]

Space Marines are in chapter format.
They are flexible, their units can change role and none is truly specialized.

Chaos Space Marines are legions.
Their units are unflexible and most of them (expecially T2) lack upgrades, but they have a greater number of them, and have several rendudancies.

Generally Space Marines are more forgiving, while CSM are easier to use but you need to choose what you build carefully.

That fits the lore... until the last CSM codex in 6th edition, that made the Legion not a thing anymore.
But we have the new codex this month it seems, so maybe we return to the legion concept.

[Dark Riku]

Space Marines are more versatile, bit more durable with less direct and upfront damage, needs synergy and resolves around buffing themselves,
have no real dedicated melee (bar FC).
Chaos is more specialised, less durable but with more direct and upfront damage, designed more to debuf the enemy.


Adding a quote from Caeltos on race designs:

Space Marines
Space Marines are generally the most durable faction in the game, and are a very highly adapative faction, rather than try to force the hand of the opposing player. Players are dependant to think & react fast to threats, and figure out the best possible solution to tackling with what's thrown at them. Once you've master that aspect of the faction, which is a very tough curve to learn might I add, they're very very potent and powerful. They are considered quite the generalist faction due to their upgrades and wargears, coupled with their army composition potential.

Chaos
Chaos are all about delivering alot of high-on-demand damage output, alongside with having a very powerful counterattack potential that comes along through their heretics and army composition build-ups. Their commanders shift their on-approach gameplay, say - the Chaos Lord provides with good engagement potential, whereas the Chaos Sorcerer thrives on control and being abit more on the generalist side, whereas the Plague Champion thrives on NOT making the hasty actions, and being fully optimized for countering attacks thrown at him, and having good sustain potential. You want to make players hurt, both economically through their early-game agression, and then punish them when they engage you in the mid-late game through their units and abilities.

[Paradise Lost]

I find their most important difference to be daemons and worship. It's a completely unit facet of Chaos in this mod, and SM have nothing like it. Also, SM seem to be more versatile while Chaos has one of the strongest AoE in the game. Chaos play is pretty straightforward, you just pick the right units and let them to their work (which is probably why they're so easy to play) while SM are more about synergy and more ability-intensive.

Also ChrisNihilus, did the codex come out already? Is Chaos still hideously underpowered compared to SM, GK and Eldar?

[Nurland]

Riku's post is pretty much sums up the difference.

As mentioned previously it starts from heretics, the worship mechanic and daemons are probably the biggest difference. Other that, it is mostly that Chaos has more upfront damage, but a little less hp and versatility. Chaos is more prone to bleed but has lower upkeep to compensate for that compared to SM. SM relies a lot on buffing your own units (inspiration from Termies, Lib and Dreads + stuff like Battle Cry, Heals, Stims, VoT and FTE) while Chaos has mostly debuffs and control (Visage, Termie demoralisation, Chains, Plague Marine aura, Malignant Blindness, Curse of Tzeentch etc .

[saltychipmunk]

one is evil, and one is extremely evil,

I slightly disagree about cael's opinion on sm, they are reactive and adaptive . but they can most certainly be used very aggressively once t2 hits and by extension force the opponents into being reactive .they can also choose to sacrifice that adaptability to achieve some pretty brutal focus in terms of build combos.