Codex: Chaos Space Marines - First Impressions

So I sat down last night and had a good read through the new Chaos codex.

The set up is exactly the same as other recent codexes and army books - fluff, bestilary, hobby list. It is full colour so very pretty with a mix of old art and new art. Don't see any Easter Eggs in the model shots but I'll give it a closer look this weekend.

There is nothing too inspiring in the fluff but that's to be expected given the wealth of Horus Heresy background we now have. It seems they went through with a storyboard and made sure each of the Legions gets a post-Heresy mention in their timeline.

Obviously for most the meat is in the list. For me the list is a conduit to me playing 40k again (forseeable future in meaningful way). Certainly I can make armies from my model collection with the list included. I think it is an improvement on GTBC edition. I suspect the easiest Traitor Legion to make is probably the Iron Warriors and I think that there is considerable opportunity to build a themed list. One thing that has helped this is the move of Dreadnaughts (Hellbrutes) to Elites. This takes some pressure off the Heavy Support that was there in the last codex. The three HS slots are still at a premium with Havocs, Oblits, Daemon Engines, Vindicators and Predators fighting for the three spots.

Death Guard and Emperor's Children are more problematic given the dearth of Cult Troops apart from the Plague Marines and Noise Marines. The second hand market for Blastmasters fell faster than Facebook shares. The Death Guard list is more doable as you don't have the weapons issues that you have with EC.I can muddle through with MoN but I suspect long term it will be as satisfying as 99% Fat Free Milk.

For the Emperor's Children my guess is if I want to play them then I'll steer towards a messy hybrid Chaos with Daemon Allies list (or vice versa). I still hold that a Grey Knights list may still be the best approximation of EC.

Is the book likely to get me playing 40k more regularly? Probably not. It seems to be all a little bit harder and a little bit less satisfying than what I'd want. With limited hobby and playing time I guess I'm selfish enough to resent having to make do. I wanted the Chaos release to really rark me up and enthuse me to going out to play the game again. It hasn't, so far. Still I'm keen to see some 6th Ed games and see if that reignites the flame.

As it stands it's unlikely I buy the electronic version of the codex or any new models. And I'm a little bit sad about that