Dawn of War Codex

Trying to draw some inspiration form the lore atm for Chosen CSM.

Atm i have them similar so Steurguard Veterans but instead of their ammo types doing damage to specific unit thier ammo type do a certain thing.

So each ammo type is "dedicated" munition of a specific chaos god.

Khorne: Increased melee damage the enemy on hit that stacks. Think of melee units hitting the enemy affected by these round have the effect bloodlust under them but to a lower degree. Making even melee or power melee a threat when under fire under these rounds. Does a descent amount of damage.

Nurgle: the round itself doesn't do too much damage but models hit take DoT. Units that die under the affect of the round become zombies.

Tzeench: Does vengeance_pvp damage and more DPS then the other ammo types. Couldn't think of anything else.

Slaanesh: Does practically no damage but does suppress the units hit by this ammo type.


Is there something i could do to change Tzeench? Or is this not lore accurate at all and should just make these CSM have tactical marine Options but they can switch out their loadouts? Because that is in the lore.

Khorne : Weapons have no cooldown and increased damage, but accuarcy decreased to 75% from 100%, or 60 even. No one said Khorne has to be good in ranged

Rest are good.

Well for Tzeentch: the models killed by the CSM explode on death, but it's mb a little bit OP

For slaanesh I would say; increase the fire rate and no reload but decreased accuracy, with mb inspiration or demoralization on kills.

and for khorne; swap your bolter for a chains axe (like the slaughter ability).

Other idea for tzeentch: make the bolts burn energy

SarDauk wrote:Other idea for tzeentch: make the bolts burn energy

lol OP

LOCALgHOST wrote:

SarDauk wrote:Other idea for tzeentch: make the bolts burn energy

lol OP

Well, it's just an idea, it's not me who will balance the squad ^^ (fortunately)

Black Relic wrote:Trying to draw some inspiration form the lore atm for Chosen CSM.

Tzeench: Does vengeance_pvp damage and more DPS then the other ammo types. Couldn't think of anything else.

Slaanesh: Does practically no damage but does suppress the units hit by this ammo type.


Is there something i could do to change Tzeench? Or is this not lore accurate at all and should just make these CSM have tactical marine Options but they can switch out their loadouts? Because that is in the lore.

Make tzeench rounds decrease accuracy of affected unit. Or decrease vision.

Some good stuff. But i am looking fora bit of uniqueness that provides practicality for use too though. There is no point in making ammo type or "mark" that people wont use unless its extremely niche. I want people to continually switch the weaponry around. So this is what i got so far.

Khorne: equip chainswords, and bolt pistols. Will increases their melee skill slightly (since they start at 65), but will NOT add a charge nor will it increase their health. Will help them skirmish a little behind enemy lines with t1 melee squads and win. Considering giving them an ability that increases their damage based on their HP. The lower the better the damage buff. Caz blood for the blood god.

Nurgle: Unchanged effect (creates zombies if the model dies) but damage lowered for more DoT. DoT was weak and lasted only 4 seconds. To put this into perspective now it will do that same DoT as PMs and their upfront damage will also be the same. If the chosen have this equip their infantry type changes to Plague Marine and their HP goes up at the cost of movement speed.

Tzeentch: The weapon simply changes their infantry type to Daemon and nothing else. Might add some punching power to it but i will see.

Slaanesh: I Realllly like Local's idea on lowering sight radius. Will be too niche (because units will give others the sight they need) if that's all it does so i decided infantry hit by the weapon have their reload and cool down time increased (it will by a multiplier modifier so the larger the reload or cooldown the bigger the impact). Have the unit shoot at the set up team so their burst gets lowered or target a dangerous range squad for the DPS to drop a fair amount. Think an increase of both of 25% - 40%. Makes more sense here than for Tzeentch i think since Noise marines do something similar with effecting range weaponry.


Sounds good? Any concerns for a weapon? Such as too OP?

Well sound nice like that, but of course the only to really how they does would be to test them.

Just one thing; nothing for undivided ? Something like giving them suppression resistance or increased ranged and better damage against vehicles but less fire rate mb ?

I dont think ill be adding an "undivided" option. In my experiance there is such a thing called "too many options."

There are a reasons for that too. Having too many options runs the risk of each option overlapping with each other causing some to become obsolete. Plus with an abundance of options makes the unit too versatile and gives them no clear counter other than "dakka it down."

I wanted the Chosen to have options to certain situations and less vs Armor types while trying to make sure the unit is not a required unit in each match up.

Luckly i play vs Atlas awhile back and found and nerf them already because they could adapt too fast. But the unit is pretty solid. They can do range damage (although i should change damage type from vengance), they can hold their own vs t1 melee squads (t2 melee squads if the melee squad doesn't have their leader with them and the Chosen do), they can become anti-melee, and they save a way to "tank" suppression and act as a plague marine squad when under suppression.

Imo with all that said i dont think they need another option to deal with a different situation.

Although my last post has somethings that i never implemented. But i am looking into the squad a bit. Just i am more focused on the Bloodcrusher squad (since i increased their model count to two) and did the same to the Tyrant Guard.

Black Relic wrote:Tzeentch: The weapon simply changes their infantry type to Daemon and nothing else. Might add some punching power to it but i will see.

Slaanesh: I Realllly like Local's idea on lowering sight radius. Will be too niche (because units will give others the sight they need) if that's all it does so i decided infantry hit by the weapon have their reload and cool down time increased (it will by a multiplier modifier so the larger the reload or cooldown the bigger the impact). Have the unit shoot at the set up team so their burst gets lowered or target a dangerous range squad for the DPS to drop a fair amount. Think an increase of both of 25% - 40%. Makes more sense here than for Tzeentch i think since Noise marines do something similar with effecting range weaponry.

Sounds good? Any concerns for a weapon? Such as too OP?

swap slaanesh and tzeench effects?

my last post mentioned I changed what tzeentch does. There was too much overlap to Nurgle.

Plus they didn't have a range damage option. Tzeentch is that. Since it's Vengance_pvp damage its good vs all targets. But the range is slightly lower than 35 instead of 38 because tzeencth would be too god otherwise imo.

Khorne is a melee option without a charge, but allows them to stand up to even t2 melee so long as they are not power melee infantry and don't have their leader.

Nurgle, increases HP and act as plague marines under suppression and their weapons do DoT. No more zombies on kill.

Slaanesh, no damage, can suppress their targets and lowers their sight radius.

Keeps it really simple. Each one has uses in certain situations in fights. Makes players want to switch, although tzeentch will me the most used I believe.

But again you cant instantly switch anymore to face a new target immediately. That made the squad broken beyond belief.

it's just a detail, but what would be their starting config ?

I will be a tad bit more specific. But my mod and Elite are VASTILEY different.

Ok so Chosen CSM are limited to one per player and are available in t1. Their cost 375\30 for 3 models. Keep in mind however that squads sizes have been increased for MOST squads. CSM have been increased by one by comparison. Reinforcement costs for all power armor races are 75% btw.

Each models pop is 5 (the max pop is 200 though and pop threshold starts at 80). The upkeep cost for each model is 0.855 (each pop equals 0.171 in upkeep. Lowered that due to increase army pop. Still thinking on this but for now this is a good way to start imo) the XP they give off when they die is 350 (XP required to level up has gone up in my mod too by 500).

Their Hp pool per model is: 605 of Heavy Infantry Armor.
Melee skill is 70
and Speed is 5.
The squad caps 50% faster than normal.

They can have a Leader be Purchased. Same Stats.

The Chosen Marines can switch their loadout once ever 15 seconds.

Khorne: The powerswords do 35 damage per hit with power_melee_pvp damage. The bolt pistols do 15 piercing per hit. Increases squads speed by 1. They cannot charge however.

Nurgle: Bolters do 14 damage per hit of piercing and for 5 seconds do 0.75 damage per second of piercing that stacks. Allows the Chosen Marines to shoot normally while under suppression. Increases their Hp and Hp regen, but lowers their speed by 0.5.

Tzeentch: Bolters do 32 damage per hit of Bolter_Vengance damage. With Slightly less range. Means they can be used a slight damage vs vehicles but by no means are good vs them.

Slaanech (not going to bother correcting it atm): Bolters do 2 damage per hit and to 35 courage damage per hit. Meaning model loses make it hard for the squad to suppress their target. They can only suppress one target. Now if they Chosen Marines switch targets the suppressed squad will become unsuppressed the next second(or around there).

The Chosen Marines are going to be your skirmisher squad and a unit that can support a push of help defend/ hold the line. The 4 options they have can drastically change how the squad fight and allows a player with a lot of tactical flexibility since they can be anti-melee with slaanech round, counter initiation/skirmish with Powerswords and Bolt Pistols. They can be a ranged superiority unit with Tzeentch round and skirmisher (shoot enemy with Tzeentch than switch to power swords). They are good in a prolonged fight if supported will with the Nurgle Load out and a damage sponge especially in green cover, not to mention they can deal damage if they are suppressed making them decently effective and dealing with set up teams.

While there are things about the squad that could be change (I don't want to put them t2 since then they will probably never see any action since there are better options in t2 than the Chosen Marines). But I think there are in a good spot atm until I get more pvp things going on.

I am working on an update for the mod for tomorrow so I can MAYBE play with Atlas to try out and test a new Eldar hero. I might post that.

Wait, so you have to choose a mark or can switch???

They switch. Think of sternguard but instead of combating a certain armor type the Chosen change their unit role.

Why not make Slaanesh bolters deal normal damage and disable enemy ranged fire, like noise marines?

Then they could easily counter set up teams with little effort involved (think of tzeeentch worship or khorne worship and how easy it would be to shut down set ups or suppression, these guy would also shut down range termies and flash gits etc with relative ease), other than a bit of flanking or taking advantage of the AI. This would also make the round, imo, OP since its a weapon that does decent pricing damage and disables ranged weaponry at a longish range. There is no down side to the weapon other than being a damage type that has no scaling.

I like the suppression thing mainly because it allows the squad to somewhat become a anti-melee platform but with no way to force of the suppressed squad unless something else is around to deal the damage. They fill the role of melee heretics with a doomblast, but with no damage allowing the heretics to either be a second platform for anti melee with on demand suppression or dedicate the unit to worship.

There is a counter initiation weapon option even to further allow a chaos player (that likes to rely on worship) the ability/freedom to do so however he will not have the doomblast like ability to offer the control among other things.

I wanted the squad to fit certain roles a chaos player is lacking rather that combat an armor type like sternguard. But to do so they have to be mediocre, but good enough, at filling that role although, i would not recommend having the unit be dedicated specifically to that role for too long. But it allows the roster imo much needed on demand tactical flexibility that is not locked behind weapon upgrades.

Slaanesh bolters should shoot their allies with warp cocaine for small damage but buff their damage, suppression resistance, speed or melee skill.

Interesting suggestion. But how much damage should the bolters do say same as CSM (which the dps value of is the same from Elite)? Since you would need to out weigh the negative of doing decent damage to your own targeted unit for a buff. I could see suppression immunity a possibility but that would be the ammo lack luster in a sense that the unit would just die on approach due to focus fire from the set up team and the own Chosen Marines depending on the damage they deal.

How long would the buff last for since the weapons will need to reload.

If it is damage buff then how much it too much? If I was doing good damage to my own units i would want 30% minimum. Most of the my CSM roster is similar to Elite in that focus fire from even one CSM squad is ALOT of damage coming in.

The hit units could go berserk after taking focus fire after a bit. Or after a certain number of hits from the bolters the target auto retreats??