Hot Takes About Every Legion After 10 Games with the New CSM Codex

A new CSM codex means things are about to get busy at Warphammer.

I’ve already played a lot games with the new CSM codex (it’s really 12 games, but people like round numbers so let’s go with 10 in the title). Do I think I have it all figured out? Of course not. But I’ve now gotten enough reps in with the codex to start getting a really good feel for the army. Combined with my general experience playing 40K at a high level and love for CSM, and I think people are going to want to hear my impressions about every Legion in the new codex. Let’s have some fun with this.

Just a heads up: I’m going to use the real name for the Legion detachments, not the book names. This isn’t because I have an issue with the book names, but just because I like talking about different Legions. You’ve been warned, so don’t be confused when I talk about the Red Corsairs detachment instead of Renegade Raiders.

And one more even more important heads up: I’m going to give my honest opinions, whether they’re positive or negative. In particular, I think my rankings on Alpha Legion and Iron Warriors will be many tiers away from how I’m seeing everyone else rate them. If you disagree, that’s okay! As long as you’re not being rude, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments here or anywhere else.

Want to see your favorite Legion get a deep-dive from Warphammer? Me too! When I start my Legion guides soon, the order will be solely determined by Patreon members’ voting. The poll to determine which Legion gets its guide first will be up on Patreon in a couple days, so join today so you can influence future Warphammer content. It’s also a chance for you to support the best resource out there for combining high-level competitive insight with a love for the fluff of your armies and having fun on the tabletop.

Consider supporting Warphammer on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/Warphammer

Iron Warriors

Rating: D-

If the Fellhammer Siege-Host detachment was added to the AdMech codex, it would be the 5th best detachment in the 6 detachment AdMech codex. They’re that bad.

I think this detachment is abysmal. I’m really sorry. I never want to be the person dampening someone’s enthusiasm for playing with new rules, and I hope every Iron Warriors player out there has a lot of fun with this detachment!

You also know I’m not a generic “my rules changed, everything is ruined” doomer like 90% of 40K discussion online. In fact, I’m usually the opposite. For years, I’ve been polishing Chaos rules that everyone else thought was bad to get the best out of them.

But honestly, Iron Warriors are by far the biggest miss in the codex for me. I felt like I was going crazy when the codex was previewed and everyone was positive about it, but I feel a lot better after talking to a few other really good players and finding they share my sentiment. Let’s break down my issues with this detachment.

No Real Damage Buffs

First of all, let’s talk about the most glaring issue: There are basically no damage buffs! The “power fantasy” of Iron Warriors is a brutal gunline that methodically moves forward and blows up entrenched enemies. The big issue with the Iron Warriors detachment? There is nothing that will help you blow anyone up! Am I going crazy here, or did I get a different preview copy than everyone else? The only strat we have to buff shooting output triggers off of the opponent being “below half strength”. Whenever you see a rule that only works versus opponents “below half strength” in 10th Edition, you can basically just throw it in the trash.

The only real shooting damage buff is 1 enhancement which lets you ignore cover on a unit shot by your Character. This means you’ll ignore cover versus something you care about once or maybe twice per game. Cool?

Let’s say you’re little Timmy, a fluffy Iron Warriors fan. You want to run a themed Iron Warriors list, and your list’s goal is something like “I have a collection of Vindicators, Obliterators, and Daemon Engines, and I want to make them shoot as hard as possible regardless of how competitive my list is”. Awesome! This is just 101 level Iron Warriors listbuilding. The first place you’d turn to in a CSM codex would be the Iron Warriors detachment right? Completely wrong! Iron Warriors have the weakest shooting support of almost any detachment in the codex. Alpha Legion Vindicators somehow shoot harder than Iron Warriors Vindicators, to say nothing of Red Corsair, Word Bearers, Soulforged, or Black Legion Vindicators. What the hell is going on?

Okay, the more I think about Iron Warriors the more bothered I get. I’m going to update their rating in the middle of this writeup. I’m going to lower their rating once. Pray that I don’t alter it further.

Rating: F+

Let’s move on to my next issue.

Your Defense Only Works Versus Shooting

Let’s say you’re playing a game versus Green Tide or Bully Boyz. You have literally no detachment rule and almost literally no enhancements or stratagems.

Hell, let’s say you’re playing T’au. Oh boy, the anti-shooting detachment into a shooting army. Iron Warriors might be completely useless versus melee armies, but we’re definitely going to destroy this shooting army at least! Oh wait, we’re not at all. The detachment rule is largely useless versus Breachers, Riptides, and Sunforged Crisis, 3 of their main damage dealers. It’s not bad versus Hammerheads and Skyrays, I’ll admit that, but only the Vehicle with the 5+++ stratagem that phase has a good chance to survive concentrated fire.

I really wish either the -1 to Wound versus higher Strength or 5+++ FNP wasn’t locked to Shooting.

I also can’t believe that the “durability detachment” is one of the ones without Armour of Contempt. That would have made me feel a bit better about the Terminator Brick. Speaking of which…

The Unkillable Terminator Brick (TM) Is Way Overrated

“But Mike, you’re missing the real sauce of Iron Warriors. First, you take a brick of 10 Terminators. Next, you attach a Terminator Sorcerer or Lord. Then you give them the enhancement to blank 1 failed save every turn. So your Terminators are -1 to Wound, 5+++ FNP, and can blank a failed save every turn. They’re going to be completely unkillable! So many armies just can’t handle that!”

Let’s say in theory that you’re right, and Iron Warriors could make Terminators that are effectively unkillable to shooting. So your best case scenario is a 500 point unit of 5″ moving dudes with a total of OC 11 that shoot combi-bolters or combi-weapons and have a few power fists in melee? This is your plan to win games? What are we even doing here! This isn’t even a “we have Bully Boyz at home” situation. This is a “Frank and Charlie from IASIP found Bully Boyz under a bridge” situation.

No Way to Make Plays

Here’s my biggest issue from a competitive perspective: This detachment is almost purely reactive. There is no way to make “big brain” plays or extend any threat ranges.

Will Iron Warriors win games versus opponents who have no gameplan to handle a hard-to-kill Terminator brick besides throwing some shooting at it, or can’t pre-measure angles against slow-moving shooting? I’m sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if Iron Warriors have a 40%+ winrate. But there is basically nothing that excites me, or makes me feel like I have a chance against a worse player with a better army.

There is only one “dynamic” rule in this detachment, and that’s the Brutal Attrition stratagem. I actually really like that stratagem. If you can tag a bunch of weak units, you can force the opponent to make a lot of useless attacks that will trigger Mortal Wounds back to them. It’s situational, but that’s actually a tool that you can make plays with.

This detachment honestly pisses me off. What a huge missed opportunity. I actually have some Iron Warriors list concepts I vaguely like (Abaddon with 10 Chosen is really spicy in Iron Warriors), but have no motivation to play them. Let’s update the Iron Warriors rating one more time and then move on to real Legions with real 10th Edition rules.

Rating: F-

Soulforged Warpack

Rating: A–

Okay, sorry for all that negativity in the Iron Warriors section. Let’s move on to one of the my favorite detachments, and one that CSM players will have a lot of fun with: 10th Edition’s version of Cogs of Vashtorr, the Soulforged Warpack.

This detachment is just so much fun to play. It’s one of GW’s biggest successes in 10th Edition from a flavor perspective. If you have a lot of Daemon Engines and all you want them is for them to do cool Daemon Engine things, you’re going to get what you want.

I’ll get my small gripes out of the way early. First of all, the damage you start to take is very, very real. With Debt to the Soulforge and Tempting Addendum, you’re taking d3+1 MW 44% of the time. That’s no joke. I haven’t had the famed “Forgefiend detonates itself from full health in one activation” that some people have reported, but in my first game with Soulforged I did have a Forgefiend go from full health to bracketed in one activation. It was pretty hilarious, to be honest.

I also think the lack of access to Fall Back and Shoot or Advance and Shoot will hold it back a bit. Having an aura of Fall Back/Advance and Shoot is one of Ironstorm’s biggest strengths. But on the flip side, Soulforged might have been too good with access to that. It’s still early days, so I’ll see how significant that weakness is with more testing. It’s just a weakness you need to be aware of and account for in your listbuilding and gameplay. For example, 2 of my 3 Forgefiends have Autocannnons, because I don’t want too much of my damage output tied up in Blast guns with no access to Fall Back and Shoot.

But by the Dark Gods, Soulforged has the highest “it’s really fun rolling these dice and seeing what happens” factor in the game. The damage buffs approach outrageous levels, and you can have an answer for every defensive profile in the game somewhere in your list.

Do I think this detachment is busted? No. Do I think it’s a blast to play and quite strong? Hell yeah. Let’s get more fun Chaos rules like Soulforged and the Thousand Sons index and Death Guard Contagions, and less boring rulesets like Iron Warriors and…

Black Legion

Rating: C–

I thought the Veterans of the Long War detachment would be solid when I first read it. After a few games with it, I’m finding that it is less than the sum of its parts.

Most damningly, the Black Legion detachment commits the biggest possible crime a CSM detachment can commit: Being boring. Black Legion are basically Gladius Task Force without Doctrines or the good strats that synergize with them. It doesn’t feel dynamic on the table, and feels like playing a Space Marine army with fewer rules. That’s not what I got into Chaos Space Marines to play!

Seriously, am I going crazy? I feel like I’m missing a page of rules every time I look at this detachment. I keep re-reading it, looking for the rule that I missed on the 1st read (or 10th read) that makes me think “okay, now this is spicy”. Black Legion are Oaths of Moment, Armour of Contempt, a reactive move, and basically nothing else. I’m not a fan of just how much of Black Legion’s rules only work versus your Hatred target. It would be much better if the stratagem to choose a new Hatred target didn’t have such a limited range restriction (within 12″ of a Character model), wasn’t 2CP, or was at least a Battle Tactic.

Black Legion were one of my favorite armies to play in 9th Edition. In 10th Edition, I played 2 games with them and decided that was enough for a while. I’ll keep an open mind and try them again in the future, but early playtesting was disappointing from both a fun and strength perspective.

Red Corsairs

Rating: A

Playing the Renegades and Raiders detachment is some of the most fun I’ve had playing CSM ever. It’s only narrowly behind Soulforged in matching how the army feels on the tabletop to how its fans want it to feel.

I think Red Corsairs have been slightly overrated by the community out of the gate. There are some restrictions that people might have missed on first read or open up obvious counterplays to the opponent. But at the same time, 40K is fundamentally about objective control. If you’re going to have a gimmick, “killing opponents on objectives” is a very good gimmick to have.

Plague Marines and Warp Talons have been my Red Corsair MVPs in early testing, with Lords/Masters of Executions/Legionaries/Chosen/Predators also feeling like staples.

I’ve already seen some CSM players get angry at me for saying this elsewhere, but I think one interaction in this detachment needs an early nerf. Opportunistic Raiders shouldn’t work to trigger the Warp Talons’ datasheet rule. For those unfamiliar, Opportunistic Raiders lets you make a Fall Back move at the end of the Fight Phase. Warp Talons go back into Deepstrike if they’re not engaged at the end of the Fight Phase. Opportunistic Raiders removes the “fail condition” of the Warp Talons rule where you bit off more than you could chew and got stuck in combat, because you have a get-out-of-jail free card you can play.

Alpha Legion

Rating: A-

Alpha Legion are really good, and the Deceptors detachment has my vote for one of the most underrated detachments in the game. Every game I play, I discover a new play I can make. They do have a bit of a “screw your shenanigans, I’m just going to punch you in the mouth” problem, so the key is making sure you bring enough generic CSM damage dealers. You want them to over-extend because they think you’re just a bunch of cute tricks in a trenchcoat, and then you can remind them that you’re still fundamentally a Chaos Space Marine army.

I see people on discord or reddit keep talking about “the meta list will be 75 Cultists and 30 Legionaries infiltrating and putting opponents in jail”. It’s gotten to the point I’ve seen people wondering if its possible for Alpha Legion to win without running 75 Cultists and 30 Legionaries.

I’m going to say this in the nicest way possible: I think that’s nonsense, and will have too many glaring flaws for anyone who has played a lot of 40K before. Are people spreading misinformation to keep this detachment flying under the radar? I wouldn’t put it past Alpha Legion players!

The first 2 or 3 units you Infiltrate are really good. There are massively diminishing returns after that. If you’re trying to build a list that can compete in every matchup instead of “pray for a specific matchup, and then pray that I win the first turn rolloff”, don’t overinvest in the Infiltrating tricks.

Every single stratagem is great. Every single enhancement is at least interesting. The detachment rule is strong, although a bit polarized depending on matchups and rolloffs. The army has felt really strong in most of the games I’ve played with it (with the exception of a stomping versus all Dreadknight and Land Raider Redeemer Grey Knights, which just runs over most CSM profiles). And unlike some detachments that seem stronger on the surface, Alpha Legion give you the potential to make plays that aren’t super telegraphed and would actually work versus top level opponents. Part of that is personal playstyle preference, but to be honest a lot of my preference for Alpha Legion over “stronger” Legions is knowing I’ll be battling versus other high level players for podium spots and wanting a toolkit that still works versus opponents who can counter surface level plays.

Love me shenanigans. Love me big brain plays. Hate boring stat checks. Simple as.

Word Bearers

Rating: A-

I’m disappointed from a fun perspective that Word Bearers return as just the “index detachment but nerfed”. And from a tabletop perspective, I’m really disappointed by the lack of Possessed or Dark Apostle or Daemon ally support if the index detachment was meant to be the Word Bearers detachment. But from a tabletop perspective, running back one of the best detachments in the game with almost all of the same strengths it had before is a fine thing.

Now that the detachment has received several big nerfs (and most of the nerfs they received were codified into the rules, like the Dark Obscuration and Profane Zeal nerfs), I’d like to see the Transport Mark restriction nerf reconsidered. If Word Bearers keep their Dataslate nerf to Transport Marks, it’ll be the only instance I can think of where a detachment had it’s rules pre-nerfed before a codex released. I won’t be mad either way, but it would be cool to see.

My one big gripe is how useless the new Character upgrade stratagem is. This feels like a Crusade rule that got accidentally pasted in the main ruleset. Why not include some Possessed specific stratagem instead? Something like in your Command Phase, select a Possessed unit. Until your next Command Phase, they get +2″ Move, +1 Attack, and a 6+++FNP. It would give Possessed a clear home in the Word Bearers detachment. Instead, Possessed feel like they don’t really have a home anywhere this codex, which is a huge shame for one of the most iconic CSM units.

Night Lords:

Rating: C+

The Dread Talons detachment is the reverse Black Legion, in that I thought they’ve felt a bit stronger than I expected in playtesting.

As I predicted from my experience with Chaos Knights, I’ve found the army rule of “12 inch aura of Battleshock tests below Starting Strength at -1” to actually be pretty damn impactful. It’s a really solid detachment rule!

My main issue is that all of the strats and enhancements have too many limitations. There are a lot of conditions which I feel should unlock a better version of the stratagem, not the stratagem itself. For example, the +1AP versus battleshocked/below half-strength enemies in melee. I would have preferred the stratagem to be “+1AP in melee, with an additional +1AP if you’re a Jump Pack unit targetting a Battleshocked unit”. That way the stratagem has some general utility, but if you’re a Night Lords player doing Night Lord things (hunting terrified units with Jump Pack units), you get another reward.

I really like Obliterators in Night Lords because they can hunt battleshocked or wounded units with the full rerolls strat out of deepstrike. If they get their points reverted to a more reasonable level, a Night Lords list built around Raptors, Warp Talons, and Obliterators could be really spicy. And if Battleshock as a rule gets a gamewide buff, this detachment will be legitimately good.

Night Lords are currently in a rules/points change waiting room, but they’re better than people think in the meantime.

Lost and the Damned

Rating: Meme

Let’s get real about this detachment. If you’re running Chaos Cults, you’re there for a good time, not a long time. You just want a run a horde of rabble screaming their devotion to the Dark Gods as they clog up the enemy’s guns with their bodies. That’s really cool! I hope you have an amazing time with it.

Despite being a “competitive player”, I don’t think everything has to be viewed through a competitive lense. At Warphammer, I’m happy to appreciate a fun ruleset for what it is. I feel it’s taking the piss a bit to judge this detachment competitively. That’s clearly not its goal, so I won’t judge it as a failure or success based on that.

At some point I’ll give this detachment a deeper dive, but for now I’m just happy to see all of the underappreciated Traitor Guardsmen and Cultists get some love. If we had 4 detachments in the codex and one of those slots was “wasted” on a complete meme, that would have been a bit disappointing. But with 8 detachments? We have room for a funny meme.

And hey, let’s give the Lost and the Damned detachment credit. It knows its a meme and doesn’t pretend to be something else, unlike the Iron Warriors detachment.

Final Thoughts

A new CSM codex means things are about to get busy at Warphammer. Make sure to check back often as we unlock the secrets to waging the Long War together.

Since you already joined the Warphammer Patreon to start voting in a couple days on which Legions will get writeups on Warphammer first (link here, in case you somehow forgot to sign up earlier: https://www.patreon.com/Warphammer), the only other piece of advice I can give you is to join the Warphammer discord. I’ve never seen a community that combines friendliness with competitive insight like the Warphammer community, and I look forward to seeing you there! https://discord.gg/UjZqxrSw