Its been one year tomorrow since I started releasing weekly updates for the community. One year ago the Codex progress became substantial enough to begin publishing our first Final Draft, the Imperial Guard. It has been a great journey with six Final Drafts ready for a tournament setting and 3 more completed ready for testing!
In addition to the line of Codexes in need of play testing (Squats, Dark Eldar, and Imperial Knights), we are now working on Chaos Undivided! This Codex will act as the main Codex due to the sheer volume of Chaos data entries. To allow all Chaos to function independently or mixed, supplements will be released the encompass all other Chaos units. This will include a minimum of a Supplement for each chaos god, Traitor Guard, and Chaos Knights. Each will be capable of standing alone or with the other supplements as needed.
Chaos has received a new construction and buffing mechanic to help bring about a more thematic feel for armies. Any unit without a specific allegiance can take a Mark of Chaos like all official editions of 40k have included. These work much in the same way, with some alterations to fit the internal conflict of the Chaos gods better. The Mark of Khorne gives A+1 and Furious Charge. Nurgle gives a 5+ Feel No Pain. Slaanesh gives I+1 and Counterattack. Tzeentch gives a 5+ Invulnerability Save or an improvement of 1 to an existing Invulnerability save that cannot get better than 4+. HQ and Advisors can take Undivided, which allows an army to include a Pure Blessing of (Chaos God) that would normally not be allowed.
This is where we took it a step further. Unique characters only come with the Pure Blessing of their god, which is an added bonus. Units that automatically come with a Mark of Chaos may upgrade to a Pure Blessing of (God), but there is a catch. Your army may only include a Pure Blessing of Chaos if your entire army has the Mark of the same god, or you have a Mark of Undivided for each Pure Blessing exception you are making. This format allows you to include a variety of characters, but makes power building more difficult and diverse at the same time.
The Pure Blessings stack with the Marks benefits. Khorne grants another A+1. Nurgle grants a Healing of 1 in each of your Command Phases, but if there are no wounded models it instead restores a slain one to life with 1 Wound. Slaanesh grants another I+2 and Fleet. Tzeentch makes the unit ignore the first Wound suffered in each phase after saves and Feel No Pains have failed. There is no Pure Blessing of Undivided, as there is no Undivided entity granting a focused blessing. Undivided is the benefit of playing well with others in its own right, which can be very powerful.
Lastly, each Mark of Chaos has its own spell list. Each is tailored to suit their flavour. This includes Khorne, which has its own Casting mechanic. Khorne contrary to some nay sayers does utilize his own form of magic. He despises the type of magic used by the other gods, but still uses Rituals in many, many lore references to create tears in reality and that kind of thing.
Khorne Rituals use the Sacrifice mechanic. Instead of Casting on 2d6+Psychic Mastery Level #, each Psychic Mastery Level starts the character with 1 Skull. Each spell requires Sacrifice # to cast, which Skulls are spent on. If needed, a Khorne “Psyker” can sacrifice friendly models within 6″ to fulfil the needs of a Skull requirement. This can get rather pricey point wise, but allows for an emergency Casting that normally could not happen.
To replenish Skulls, the Khorne Psykers gain one for each model they slay. There is no cap to how many skulls they can earn, allowing for very dangerous models such as the Daemon Prince to rack up an alarming number of Skulls and attempt to Ascend to stronger form! Lastly, as an added bonus to Sacrifice Rituals, Deny the Witch does not work on the blood magic!
Overall, Chaos includes some of the cheapest units to some of the most expensive. It is a massive conglomeration of forces and we wanted the army builds to be able to feel as Chaotic or as organized as you see fit. We are super excited to see this massive compilation get produced, but it is so massive it will take a lot of time building the Final Drafts and even more testing.
As always, if anyone is interested in helping us test we are happy to share the latest stages of the relevant resources and answer any questions you have. The rules will always be free and we just want to share our work with the community for those that prefer a more classic style of play that includes the newer units and some of the newer rules.
Happy wargaming, and happy 1 year of weekly posts!
Alternate 40k Rules 