My disappointments? Mostly stuff that is either still unusable or became unusable:
Lore of Tzeentch. Only decent power is WC2.
Demon Prince - The price hijack make it completely pointless. Unless you roll one as a boon.
Thousand Sons - My favorite legion still got the short stick. Still way too expensive, and the obligatory psyker Got Lore of Tzeentch.
Hellbrutes - Going Berserk is much better than the old chaos dread. However, you get screwed if you are already engaged.
Possessed - Way too expensive.
Mutilators - Whose bright idea was this? Melee terminators that cost the same as 2 terminators, have the same durability of those terminators, have half the combat ability of said terminators, have no shooting whatsoever and have rules that make it harder to get into melee on the first place. Oh, and come in numbers too small to handle a actualy combat unit.
Helldrake - Another case of 'why did this became this expensive?'
Defiler - Price increase why?
Forgefiend - again, would be a great model at ~140 points. As is? Gets outdone by triple las predator ( a tank that isnt very good to begin with ), or Havocs.
The other two things that bother me and dont have much to do with price are these:
Champions everywhere! Costing x points each. Yes, your obligatory Cultist Champion cost x points. He is so expensive in fact that the cultists cost as much as a IG platoon, and those come with better ld, better armor, guns that always work withing 24" and choice of better heavy weapons.
Lack of character on the gear lists. Basically, It is too marinei, too little chaosy. I would have expected more access to chaos stuff, warped stuff. Grey Knights have acess to more daemon weapons than CSM, for example. Fleshmetal could be a upgrade to some models. It Will Not Die could be a upgrade to vehicles that are chaos possessed. Things like this - that make the army more daemonic withouth stopping being marines.
Please don't post unit upgrade costs, it's against the forum rules - Iris.
I'm gonna have to seriously disagree with most of what you said here. The WC2 Power (Breath of Chaos) Is functionally Identical to the last dex, just written differently. Bolt of Tzeentch is effing insane. It's the same stats as it was in the last book, but now it's a BEAM which means it can tear through multiple targets. Boon of mutation, although unreliable, can be rediculous. The Primaris power is a little meh, but that's why it's the primaris power.
Demon Princes, although not great anymore, are still a decent choice, at least for a second detachment.
Thousand Sons are pretty much unchanged from the last book. And I've played against them. They make an INSANE tarpit. Wrecked my face.
Hellbrutes are freakin nuts. They can't hit our dudes anymore, and they only even go crazy if they get hurt.
Ok, Possessed are a bit pricey, but they can be as effective as some terminators, and they can fit into nice cheap rhinos rather than being carted around by a big block or ceramite and adamantium that's expensive on the table and the wallet.
Ok, Mutilators are literally twice as durable as terminators because they have twice the number of wounds as regular terminators. They actually fight BETTER than terminators because they always get the bonus attack for 2 weapons. And what exactly slows them down from getting into CC? If you mean slow and purposeful, re-read your rulebook. It doesn't slow down movement anymore. They can get to combat just as fast as any other infantry.
And the helldrake "became this expensive" compared to what previous incarnation? Second of all, considering what it can do, I think it's >200 point cost is more than fair, if not generous. It's a flyer made to kill the current meta of flyer spam. It exists simply to take out enemy flyers.
Ok, Defiler got an unnecessary points jump, but it gained "It will not Die" and can take more upgrades to increase its viability.
Forgefiends are unbelievable. To the tune of a couple hundred points (literally) you have 3 plasma-cannons at +1 strength compared to a regular plasma cannon. And it's incredibly durable thanks to it's invulnerable save and "It will not die" It is an amazing and appropriately costed gun platform.
In regards to the cost of cultists and whatnot? Yes, it sucks that we MUST take champions in every unit, but honestly, didn't most of us do that anyway? And cultists are fantastic. At 1 point less per model than guardsmen (plus the x points premium we pay for the obligatory champion) we have a cheap as dirt close combat unit. You want a shooty unit? Your cultists become the same price as guardsmen, we just have to pay for our unit commander.
And although our armory didn't get as much unique stuff as we would have liked, we still got more than the last book.
Overall, my only major gripe with the book is the lack of new special characters from the other traitor legions. I fully expecting something similar to "Chapter tactics" for night lords, Iron warriors, etc. And Cypher not being in the book was disappointing, however I can almost guaruntee he'll be in the new DA book. Think about it, back when he was in the book, he made your chaos marines function like regular means, going so far as to grant ATSKNF. His army didn't function like a chaos army. He's going to be in the Dark Angels book, because his army functions like a Dark Angels army. Sort of how Gabriel Seth's army functions just like the Blood Angels, even though the Flesh Tearers are only descended from them. I imagine he will be a mutually exclusive special character however, to prevent him from teaming up with Azrael and friends, because that would really be a breach in fluff.
