Of course, I would be remiss to mention what is now known as the legendary 3.5th edition Codex of Chaos Space Marines. The 3rd edition Chaos Space Marines was a very...how do I put it, sparse affair, with only like 47 pages or so, but this new codex came out before 4th edition hit - hence its famous moniker, 3.5. This new "3.5" codex expanded greatly on the Chaos Space Marine lore and added a lot of details to the Traitor Legions, which set the foundation for what we know about them today, 22 years later.
Despite this being an article on the 7th edition Traitor Legions Supplement, I should cover some details of the 3.5 codex because I think it provides a rich history for the Traitor legions supplement almost 15 years later. Also, you can read Goonhammer's excellent coverage here. But it did lay the foundations in terms of rules and how each Traitor Legion played. The Black Legion, funnily enough, got shafted here, for they were the "generic" Traitor Legion without any special rules. Aside from Abaddon the Despoiler (infamous for being the armless as his metal model was always losing his arms) being a special Character, they didn't have any generic rules.
Fabius Bile, who you will know as having his own Creations of Bile faction now, was an Independent Character back then as well. You could take him as a Chaos Lord for any Chaos Space Marine army, and he had this crazy stat table where you roll a D6, and depending on the result, you'll have to pick one of three different sets for the game. Also, if he's your Warlord, you could essentially "enhance" any number of Chaos Space Marine squads for +3 points per model. Again, at the start of the battle, you roll a D6, and depending on the roll, you get one of 3 abilities: Berserk Rage! (on a roll of 1), Stable Mutation, (2-5) or Created a Monster (6). Wild times.
Oh, Berserk Rage! has your Chaos Space Marines attack each other, meaning you make an armor save for each model, and those who fail...die. The survivors get +1 Strength. Stable Mutation gives your dudes +1 Strength and Initiative, while Created a Monster gives them +1 Strength, Initiative and Attacks, but they all count as being destroyed for Victory Points at the end of the battle. Heh.
Alpha Legion gets Chaos Cultists as Troops. They can't take Daemons except Daemon Princes and Possessed, and their power armor models can get Infiltrate in exchange for points. Chaos Cultists also have the option of taking either Move Through Cover and Infiltrate, Infiltrate and Furious Charge, or Infiltrate and Siege Specialists - for free!
Iron Warriors must be Chaos Undivided and can't take Daemons except Daemon Princes and Possessed, and every model is a Siege specialist for free. They also have no restrictions on the number of units of Obliterators they can take (aside from the Battlefield Roles in a Force Organization Chart), who usually are restricted to a maximum of 1 squad for other Traitor Legions, get an extra Heavy Support choice but two less Fast Attack choices (meaning 4 Heavy Support and 1 Fast Attack Choices), and take up to 1 Imperial Guard Basilisk and 1 Space Marine Vindicator as Heavy Support choices, plus servo arms to repair vehicles.
Night Lords also can't take Daemons aside from Furies, Daemon Princes and Possessed, and must be Chaos Undivided. They get Night Vision for free and only they get access to Stealth Adept (which improves their Cover Save by 1). They are the opposite of Iron Warriors, which means they get 4 Fast Attack and 1 Heavy Support choices, plus no restrictions on Raptors, who usually are restricted to a maximum of 1 unit for other Legions.
Funnily enough, Word Bearers must also only be Chaos Undivided. Unlike the other Legions, though, they can make use of any Daemon. Yay? They can also take Space Marine Chaplains, which count as Dark Apostles, allowing all non-Daemon units within 6" of them to automatically pass Morale checks. Also, if you want to take lots of Daemons (which are usually Troops), you can take up to 9 Troops Choices, but only 2 Elites, 2 Fast Attack and 2 Heavy Support choices.
World Eaters must all be upgraded with the Mark of Khorne, they get free Aspiring Champions, they can only use Khorne Daemons (duh), and you add +1 to your summoning rolls for said Daemons. The Mark of Khorne gives you Blood Frenzy, which means +1 Attack, Fearless, must charge an enemy within range. They must also make a D6 check during the Movement phase, and if you roll 1-2, they make a normal move plus D6" toward the nearest enemy instead of moving normally, and can't shoot. They must also make a sweeping advance when winning combat. No psykers or Sorcerers allowed, obviously.
Oh, and they are known as Berserkers of Khorne, but at this point, Khorne Berserkers don't exist as their own unit - so basically generic Chaos Space Marines with the Mark of Khorne in a World Eaters army are Berserkers.
The Death Guard, on the other hand, must all take the Mark of Nurgle, which gives them Fearless and Daemonic Resilience at the cost of being able to carry heavy weapons like lascannons, autocannons, missile launchers or heavy bolters. They gain True Grit, which gives them an extra attack in combat because their bolters count as bolt pistols (though you need to already have a second pistol or a close combat weapon to gain that bonus attack). However, they don't get the attack bonus on the charge (Horus Heresy players will know what I'm referring to). Vehicles spread Nurgle's Rot for a cost of 15 points, which means you roll a D6 for each unit within 6", and on a 6, they take a wound that Ignores Cover, but can make armor and invulnerable saves against it. Nurgle units are immune to it, though!
They also can only take Nurgle Daemons, add +1 to their summoning rolls for said Daemons, get free Aspiring Champions, and...for some reason, they are primarily infantry based, so you can't spam Rhinos. Only 2 squads of Plague Marines can take Rhinos, if you want more, they start counting as Fast Attack choices. Right, all Death Guard are known as Plague Marines.
The Emperor's Children, obviously, must take the Mark of Slaanesh. That makes them Fearless and gives them Warp Scream, which reduces an enemy's Initiative by 1 if locked in combat with them. Chosen, Chaos Space Marines, Havocs and Bikers can replace their normal weapons with sonic weaponry such as combi-bolters or twin-linked bolters for sonic blasters at 2 points, or a bolter for sonic blaster at 5 points. Autocannons and reaper autocannons can be swapped for blastmasters for free, and meltaguns can be exchanged for a doom siren for free. Their vehicles have Warp Amp, which give enemy units within 12" -1 Leadership, enemy units within 6" -2 Leadership, or -3 Leadership when in base contact.
Only Slaanesh Daemons can be used, and they get +1 to their summoning rolls. Free Aspiring Champion again, and Dreadnoughts get twin-linked sonic blasters in place of twin-linked heavy bolters, or twin-linked autocannons swapped for a blastmaster, and their flamer with a doom siren. For free, too! Predators also swap autocannons for a blastmaster and heavy bolters for sonic blasters for free!
By now, you know the drill. Thousand Sons must all take the Mark of Tzeentch, which in essence, turns all Independent Characters, Chosen and Possessed into Sorcerers, plus they automatically pass all psychic tests. Aspiring Champions - which they get for free - also become Sorcerers. The rest of the unit become Rubric Marines, which makes them Fearless, gives them Daemonic Essence and Slow and Purposeful. They are also immune to Gift of Chaos and Mass Mutation, meaning they can't mutate into Chaos Spawn, but they can't take any Veteran skills.
Slow and Purposeful remains unchanged - it allows you to fire heavy weapons without penalty (snap shooting), but in return, you get movement penalty (always counts as moving in difficult terrain), don't get the +1 attack bonus when charging, are Initiative 1 when fighting in combat, and can never perform Sweeping Advances.
Weirdly enough, they can't swap their bolters for anything (unless they're an Aspiring Champion), unless you upgrade them to Terminators, in which case, go wild. Their Vehicles get Coruscating Flame, which smacks enemy models in combat with them with Strength D6 AP4 hits before they can attack.
They also get the same "can use Tzeentch Daemons" and add 1 to summoning rolls for them.
That was the kind of the cool customizability and flexibility that you can tailor your playstyle to, which endeared the codex to so many Chaos Space Marine fans. Unfortunately, the next edition saw the customizability and character of the Chaos Space Marines cut, with the rules streamlined for presumed simplicity. Still, it was heralded as a flavorful ruleset, the kind of codex, lore and crunch that Games Workshop should aspire to.
Then came 7th edition, and almost 15 years later, the Traitor Legions codex supplement was released.
With it was all the lore about the 9 Traitor Legions, as well as brand new rules for fielding them, along with new datasheets (particularly for the Thousand Sons, who had new units added for them in the Wrath of Magnus campaign book). Those with access to Warhammer Vault can probably check it out - it's still there, but you'll notice that the "outdated" rules and unit datasheets have been removed. I'm sure there's plenty of lore videos about the Traitor Legions out there, so you can pick and choose whatever lore video you want. Instead, for this article, I'll be doing a Retrospective of the crazy Formation stuff that exemplified 7th edition as the...wild times.
First, we probably should consider the rules, and what are Formations. Back then, you built an army using Detachments. Battle-Forged Armies is probably the equivalent of Matched Play Armies today, and they didn't split Matched Play and Narrative back then.
And you'll notice this little caveat, which was how everyone basically went wild back then.
The traditional way of building an army would be to use what we call the "Combined Arms Detachment," but as you'll see above, you can theoretically include any number of Detachments, as long as you took the compulsory choices. Which...made things a little crazy...and this was before Formations - whoops, we'll get to that in a bit. For now, the "normal" way to build an army was to use the options provided in a Combined Arms Detachment. You'll notice it's similar to the Primary Detachment in the Horus Heresy system.
If you don't really want to take two Compulsory Troops, and just want to add Allies for maybe a single squadron of robots/Meks/tanks that aren't available in your Primary Detachment, you can try to cut corners with an Allied Detachment.
Again, it's exactly the same as the Allied Detachment from Horus Heresy - and just like in Horus Heresy, you can take as many Allied Detachments as you want, so long as you fit within the points limit.
However, the really crazy stuff is the Formations - which was what most people complained about back in 7th Edition. People rarely used the Combined Arms Detachments and Allied Detachments because there was simply no value in doing so, aside from being forced to take "Troop Taxes."
As you can see, Formations are a "special type of Detachment," which means you can take as many of them as you want, and without restrictions...and they count as Battle-Forged, which means you can bring them to tournaments. Because they are legal, and Battle-Forged. Matched Play at its finest.
This was where you had the insane "Taudar" combinations, where you combined powerful Eldar Formations with triple Riptides without needing to take the HQ and Troop taxes in the form of Ethereals and Fire Warriors. Just take the strongest unit (cough, Riptide, cough), combine them with, maybe Wraithknights - which you can take as a Formation too.
So...where does Chaos Space Marines come into this?
To be fair, this Chaos Warband - the first Formation in the Traitors Legion supplement - seems thematic. You don't just spam a single overpowered unit. It seems pretty balanced, requiring you to take either Terminators or Chosen or Possessed, Chaos Space Marines, Raptors or Warp Talons or Chaos Bikers, and Havocs or Helbrutes. Seems like it perfectly fits the Combined Arms Detachment, and it does! It's a fluffy, thematic list that stipulates that you take a balanced list, plus give you a decent benefit, such as extra Chaos Boons, and this gives all your models in the Formation Objective Secured, whereas only Troops Choice in a regular Combined Arms Detachment gets Objective Secured. Wow. Not bad. Pretty strong, nothing crazy, right?
But then you'll notice the other Formations are just...spamming a certain type of units.
"Hmm? What's the problem?" You might wonder. After all, the main Chaos Warband doesn't have any option for taking Heldrakes or Daemon Engines. Taking these Formations in addition to your core Chaos Warband to give them much needed heavy firepower or air cover seems thematic, right? Plus they aren't compulsory, so you're not forced to take them. Seems pretty cool?
Until you remember the rules from earlier. You can take as many Detachments as you want in a Battle-Forged army, and Formations count as Detachments. Meaning...you can literally just spam Heldrakes until you have 2,000 points of nothing but flying chickens. Or you can just take an army of nothing but Heldrakes, Maulerfiends, Forgefiends and maybe a couple of Warpsmith tax, plus get these benefits. Or maybe you're playing, I dunno, Imperial Guard, and you don't like Valkyries, so you decide to grab Heldrakes to cover your Basilisks or something. In any case, the spam was real.
I mean, just look at this, you can theoretically get up to 10 units of Obliterators and have them all shoot twice at their targets, bypassing the normal restriction of 3 Heavy Support choices...and without needing Troops tax (though you'll need to drag along a Warpsmith).
Anyway, this isn't going to be a whine article, I'm simply pointing out why people found Formations so egregious, and the kind of balance problems that plagued the notorious 7th edition. As much as I sound critical of it, I actually find the whole thing funny, and enjoy looking back at the history. Ah, how nostalgic.
Back to the Traitor Legions rules, though. I brought up the 3.5 codex because we had customizability and flavor return to the Chaos Space Marines at the tail end of 7th edition. Formations aside, we had a bunch of really flavorful rules that made building your Chaos Space Marine and chosen Traitor Legion enjoyable again. For example, Black Legion finally had their own special rules that made them distinct from the other Traitor Legions. They were no longer the vanilla Chaos Space Marines - there was a benefit to building an army of Black Legionnaires!
In fact, if it weren't for Formations, gamers will be remembering this as one of the best Chaos Space Marine supplements ever. Alas, because the tragedy of overpowered Formations and unit spam overshadowed everything, we'll miss this level of customizability and flavor. I mean, just look at the Special Rules. Black Legion gets Veterans of the Long War for free, and they can take Terminators and Chosen as Troop Choices. In 10th edition, that will mean they are Battleline, but I'm sure those who played 8th and 9th would appreciate having them as Troops. Also, if you're a Horus Heresy player, you'll be enjoying this as a type of Rite of War. Unfortunately, unlike here where they get Objective Secured, even if you take them as Troops in Horus Heresy, they lack Line (unless the Rite of War grants it to them).
Still, this is just...really cool.
However, nobody ever takes these...do you know why? Because of Formations. Not only that, there was something known as a Super-Formation - basically a special combination of selected Formations that give you even more bonuses for taking a supposedly thematic army. Here's an example. The Black Legion can take something known as the Black Legion Speartip Detachment. What's that, you say?
So what are the Formations you need?
Yeah, that's kind of...insane, right? But this is still fairly tame, actually, when you compare it to the Gladius Strike Force that gives you free Dedicated Transports (Rhino and Razorback spam), or even the Aeldari one. Good lord. Those were the times. But I do think the Black Legion is fairly thematic and not too outrageous.
The Alpha Legion also seems pretty cool. If you recall, in 3.5, they have Cultists as Troops, and basically all get Infiltrate. Here...
That's actually pretty cool! You'll see that there's not much changes - their infantry have Infiltrate, you can take Chosen as Troops, which is an improvement, plus the Warlord thing that wasn't in 3.5. Not bad. Also, the same Chaos Undivided applies - you can't take any units with Mark of Chaos or give them Marks of Chaos. So no Plague Marines, Rubric Marines, Noise Marines, Khorne Berzerkers, etc.
Their super-Formation, Insurgency Forc I'mes, is pretty tame, but still very thematic.
Sadly, they don't get as many options as the Black Legion, but they do get Shrouded for non-vehicles and you can keep sending in the next wave of Cultists on a roll of 4+, which is pretty on point for them.
Iron Warriors obviously no longer have Siege Specialists, but they get a 6+++ Feel No Pain and re-roll armor penetration rolls against Buildings and a bonus to the Building Damage table rolls in return, though, and they can take Obliterators and Mutilators as Troops, a callback to when they ignore the 0-1 Restriction on Obliterators in 3.5! Even better, these guys and Havocs now have Tank Hunters! Whoa!
No Marks of Chaos, though, which is another callback to 3.5.
Their super-formation is the Grand Company, which is pretty on point for them.
Now hold on a second, you may cry. Yeah, you might have noticed...the list is exactly the same as the Alpha Legion one, aside from having an extra "Strongholds of Chaos" that gives them 1-3 Fortifications (because Iron Warriors). Aside from the super-formation benefit, there really isn't much of a difference. It's almost like they cut and paste. I kind of prefer the special rules to the weird Formations stuff, because at least that emphasizes the difference and composition of your army, as opposed to saying, hey, "you get this special rule for everyone!"
Night Lords used to be the opposite of Iron Warriors, but now they get Raptors for Troops! Again, a callback to when they had no restrictions to the 0-1 Raptors option.
They actually get Night Vision and Stealth, like in 3.5, but also Fear now! That's very interesting. They also apply penalty to Leadership tests when locked in combat. Also, you can't take any Marks of Chaos, which is a callback to the old 3.5 (meaning they must be Chaos Undivided).
Also, we get Murder Talon Detachments now, and thank the Dark Gods, we finally get something different for a change. You'll notice that we have a new option for Core choices. Introducing the Raptor Talon to you!
Remember when Word Bearers are the only ones who can take Chaplains from the Space Marine codex, also known as Dark Apostles? Pepperidge Farm remembers...ahem. Anyway, it's back in the form of giving Zealot to any units within 6" of your Dark Apostles! Also, to drive home the whole Daemon thing, you can have Possessed as Troops and +1 to your summoning rolls whenever you cast a Daemonology conjuration psychic power. Well, well.
On the other hand, you can upgrade units with Mark of Chaos, though you can't take Khorne Berzerkers, Noise Marines, Plague Marines and Rubric Marines. That's a Black Legion only thing, sorry.
The Word Bearers get the Grand Host, which like the Night Lords, actually offer you an alternative option to the boring Chaos Warband.
All non-vehicles get Crusader! And you get the option of selecting Cultists as a Core - meaning you can just spam Cultists instead of needing Terminators, Chaos Space Marines and the like. You do need a Dark Apostle to lead them, though! Aside from that, it's the generic Auxiliary options, but I think the Core is really what you need to make your Chaos Space Marine Army stand out from the others. Giving all the Auxiliary options are fine, the important thing is the Core, as I said.
Now...to the monoGod Legions. This will be fun.
It's mostly the same as 3.5, but you do get Khorne Berzerkers as Troops, and they actually exist as a unit now! They also get Adamantium Will, and Fearless and Furious Charge, but they no longer have the Blood Frenzy stuff. I'll take that!
They also get the Butcherhordes, which is...something.
Now you'll notice that the World Eaters do get a special Core - the Maelstrom of Gore, which focuses on Khorne Berzerkers! They also get an additional Auxiliary option, which is the Trinity of Blood! Meaning...well, three Lords of Skulls. Enjoy. Heh.
Thousand Sons...ah, my favorite Legion. Where do I even begin? I'll go in more detail when I finally do an article on Wrath of Magnus, but for now, let's say the Thousand Sons were in a weird spot back at the end of 7th edition. They had new plastic models, new Rubric Marines, Exalted Sorcerers, Tzaangors and Scarab Occult Terminators, plus a whole new slew of rules. However, unlike in 8th edition, they have yet to receive their own codex, so you either relied entirely on this Traitor Legions supplement or Wrath of Magnus to play them, or you can grab the Chaos Space Marine codex and apply the above rules to them.
As you can see, it's not that much different from 3.5, except that you don't turn all of your Characters into Sorcerers. Rubric Marines (and Scarab Occult Terminators) are their own units and datasheets now, with their own Aspiring Sorcerers or Scarab Occult Sorcerers. And they come in-built with the Slow and Purposeful rule anyway, which is obviously a callback to the old 3.5. What is great is that they improve their invulnerable save by 1 if you cast a blessing on them, improving their durability. This was great, because you can usually get a 4++ invulnerable save on them reliably. Also, you no longer auto-pass psychic tests anymore, but given the number of psykers/Sorcerers you can take, and their psychic mastery (level 2-3), you can generate a massive pool of warp charges.
Don't ask, 7th edition psychic phase was and still is a complete mystery to me, which was why I never bothered with Thousand Sons in Horus Heresy 1.0. Like hell I'll try to navigate the bewildering warp charges pool and rolling them just to cast a single psychic spell or something.
Also, Rubric Marines are Troops. Yay!
Behold the Grand Coven, which was first introduced in Wrath of Magnus. The Super-Formation unique to the Thousand Sons, and actually the most flavorful and thematic of the bunch! Okay, maybe I'm biased, but back then, this was a really big deal because it allowed you to build a truly unique Thousand Sons force without having to rely on the generic Chaos Space Marine units from the regular codex. Aside from the vehicles and daemon engines, of course. You'll notice that it's completely different from all the other Traitor Legion super-Formations.
First off, you'll notice that you can take a War Cabal filled with Rubric Marines, or a Sekhmet Terminator-themed Formation as your Core. If you want more psykers, you can take Exalted Sorcerers, or even Ahriman himself, surrounded by other Exalted Sorcerers - and each box has 3 Exalted Sorcerers, so yeah! That's a lot of warp charges. The Formations themselves, such as the Rehati War Sect, War Coven and Ahriman's Exiles, give you bonuses to psychic tests, allowing you to harness warp charges on a 3+ instead of the usual 4+. The Sekhmet Conclave increases the Toughness of its units, especially the Terminators.
And you'll notice that you don't need a Warpsmith tax to include any Daemon Engines or tanks in your army. Plus you can re-roll Perils of the Warp and cast more psychic spells.
Truly Thousand Sons, indeed. Fun times. Really fun times. I never played this (I only had Thousand Sons in 8th and 9th, and sold them before 10th, focusing instead on Horus Heresy), but I can definitely see the appeal.
Death Guard...they haven't changed much since 3.5, keeping Fearless, but now having Feel No Pain (I wonder if Daemonic Resilience is the same? Since it became Disgustingly Resilient in 8th edition), and Relentless. Their Troops, Plague Marines, also became their own thing, but they are Toughness 5, having their own datasheet. At this point, they didn't have their own codex and plastic models - those will come later in 8th edition, shortly after Thousand Sons were released, and they had an expansive range that's actually the largest when compared to the other mono-God factions released so far. They do reduce their Initiative by 1, and no longer gain an extra attack when fighting...no "bolters as bolt pistols" nonsense. In exchange, they can take heavy weapons now! Plus they benefit from taking as many heavy weapons as possible because of Relentless. If I'm not mistaken, many lists started fielding Death Guard Havocs, and there was an outcry when Death Guard received their own codex, and all of these Relentless Havocs were invalidated. Hah!
Aside from Plague Colony, which they get as Core, they appear to play the same as other Chaos Space Marines...just tougher, have Feel No Pain, and have Relentless (Havocs). This was one of the few cases where it was simply better to take Chaos Warband over the Plague Colony because Plague Marines just weren't very good. Also, Stealth benefitted the Chaos Warbands (again, especially Havocs) more than Plague Marines, who want to be up close because apparently Plague Colony reduces WS and Initiative of units locked in combat with them. Uh...yeah.
Funnily enough, they have the option to take a Raptor Talon, which...is very un-Death Guard. They certainly are no longer "primarily infantry-based" and can take Rhinos without restrictions. If anything, that has been rectonned to Death Guard having quite a bit of armor and artillery, especially the Plagueburst Mortars and Plagueburst Crawlers. Strangely enough, you'll notice that the Helforged Warpack and Daemon Engines are conspicuously missing from the list. Huh? I guess they already had one eye on the new upcoming Death Guard codex and knew that none of the Daemon Engines will make it in (aside from the Defiler). That said, the Heldrakes are still in there somehow, despite being replaced by the Fetid Blightdrones in 8th edition.
Emperor's Children...ah. As of this writing, they are no longer in the Chaos Space Marine codex despite being in there for the longest time, and is the last of the four Mono-God Factions to receive their own standalone codex. They have an Index for now, but that's a subject for much better gamers (like Goonhammer) to tackle. Instead, I'll just point out that they are very different from 3.5. Yeah, they retain Fearless, but now - just like Death Guard - they get Feel No Pain too! Also, they get to Fight on Death once. And Noise Marines, which are now their own datasheet, are Troops. No plastic model (except the single special edition one from a few years ago), but for obvious reasons, they are just over the horizon. Most likely next year. Just be patient, Emperor's Children players! The time for excess is nigh!
The Rapture battalions, huh? Like the Death Guard and World Eaters, the Emperor's Children can take the generic Chaos Warband (boring), or they can take the Kakophoni as their Core...in other words, lots of Noise Marines.
Not much to say here because, as you can see, the Auxiliaries are practically a repeat of every other Legion (except the Thousand Sons), though strangely enough the Combat Drugs became a Drukhari thing, and Emperor's Children Fights First in 8th and later editions.
This Traitor Legions codex supplement was released in December 2016, and I think it was well received by everyone. I suspect it would be better received and more fondly remembered - perhaps just as much as 3.5 - if it weren't for the silly Formations overshadowing it. Even more amusingly, the Traitor Legions codex supplement was only legal for just 6 months, before 8th edition dropped in the summer of 2017 and its rules and datasheets were invalidated. That was...sad. And also, it was quite sad for those who paid money for it, only to not be able to use it a mere six months later.
The lore in the book is pretty cool, though, and again, it's available in Warhammer Vaults if you're a subscriber. I believe plenty of loretubers have also covered them - I don't think Arbitor Ian has done a video on it, but surely Luetin09 or Oculus Imperia or one of the others have covered it. Me, just doing a bit of 7th edition history and weaving a narrative about the crazy Formations. So when you're wondering what that oldtimer is talking about when he's complaining about Formations or whatever, here's a bit of background!
The main takeaway, though, isn't the Formations, but how the rules of the Traitor Legions have remained consistent and flavorful. Putting the Formations and super-Formations aside, having these special rules apply to each Legion, giving them unique Troops choice and applying army-wide special rules such as, say, Tank Hunter to Havocs and Obliterators, giving specific Infantry Infiltrate, or Fear, Stealth and Night Vision, or bonuses to summoning Daemons! Furthermore, each of these bonuses remain flavorful and thematic to the kind of Legion that receives them, a callback during 7th edition to the old 3.5 codex! If only we could have focused on these instead!
On the other hand, these have probably returned in some form via Rites of War in Horus Heresy. That, though, is another topic to cover. Until such a time...cough, never mind. Till then!
