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So, I've recently been seeing a lot of people arguing that, for whatever reason, GW hates Xenos armies and favors Imperial forces. This argument is wrong and silly, but it's quite popular on several 40k blogs and forums. I figured that it would be a help to the community if I did some work at debunking it.

First, and most obviously, GW doesn't hate Xenos armies because GW wants to sell models. Contrary to what various Internet conspiracy theorists would have you believe, GW would not sabotage their own product lines in order to make other product lines look better by comparison-- it just doesn't make sense. After all, every product line released constitutes substantial effort and production expenditures on GW's part. The idea that they would intentionally undermine some of those efforts is foolish at best.

This leads me to my next point, concerning the number of Xenos releases relative to the number of Imperial releases. Some claim that Marines in particular are unduly favored by the GW design process. First off, this is wrong-- the update schedule tends to go Marines/not Marines/Marines/not Marines (as we can see with the 5th edition releases: Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Space Wolves, Tyranids, Blood Angels, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, Necrons), so non-Marine armies get half the attention. This seems reasonable, given that the split between Marine and non-Marine armies is about fifty-fifty. That said, some argue that this is an undue amount of effort put into Marine releases as opposed to everybody else.

However, this is only superficially true. While Marine armies do enjoy a wide share of releases, Marine releases generally entail less effort and fewer new kits than non-Marine releases. Compare the effort involved with the Space Wolves release (a few new "chapter bitz" sprues and special characters, followed very late down the line by two new kits (Thunderwolves and Fenrisian Wolves) with the effort involved with the Dark Eldar release (literally every model in the range, aside from a few special characters, redone) or the Necron release (three major new kits, special characters, upgrade characters, with four more new kits soon after).

In this way, while Marine releases do occupy an unusually large space in the release schedule, it would be difficult to claim that they take an undue amount of the Design Studio's efforts-- indeed, I would contend that Marine releases provide a way for the Studio to give more time to other factions. The time that it takes to run off some new Chapter-specific sprues and a few new characters is much less than the time it takes to do the sort of large-scale redesign and upgrade that GW has been giving Xenos factions recently-- so in a way, each Marine release buys time for larger and more impressive Xenos releases.

Some point to the Codices that have yet to be updated for 5th Edition and say that Xenos armies get the short end of the stick. That's not really true-- Chaos armies get the short end of the stick, with both Chaos Dæmons and Chaos Space Marines desperately needing updates-- and even if you restrict the comparison to Imperial and Xenos armies, it's still not so clear. Yes, the Tau and Eldar could do with updates, but so could the Black Templars, Dark Angels, and Sisters of Battle-- the Sisters in particular are in a bad state, lacking both a real Codex and a boxed set for their basic troops!

Lastly, there is a claim that Xenos armies are generally weaker than Imperial armies. I don't think that's the case right now-- DE and Necrons can compete with the best of them, though Tyranids are more controversial-- and it certainly hasn't been true across the game's history, which one would need to show in order to establish any sort of serious bias on the part of the design studio. For instance, in the later days of 4th edition, mechanized Eldar and Nidzilla builds were almost completely dominant. Orks, despite their somewhat dated Codex, still make strong appearances on the tournament scene, and while the Eldar are languishing to an extent, they can still be deceptively powerful-- as shown by Dakka's own Reecius at Adepticon!

All in all, the argument that GW somehow hates Xenos and favors Imperial armies is difficult to sustain. Not only does it not make business sense, but one has only to look at the high amounts of design effort and amazing results produced by the recent Dark Eldar and Necron releases-- probably some of the most impressive GW releases to date-- in order to see that they clearly want Xenos armies to succeed as well. And why shouldn't they? When you get right down to it, in order to contend that GW hates Xenos, you have to posit that there is some sort of insane conspiracy on GW's part to make their own products sell worse, and that just plain does not hold water. Xenos armies and Imperial armies get much the same treatment from GW, and there's no good reason to claim otherwise.

You may have a tasty exualt with added awesome good sir. Well thought out

Well one could also hope that the Necrons and Dark Eldar Codexes would be good since they took 10 years to make.

Also in those 10 years of being current, IoM has had so many releases that I cant even count that high I dont think.

While your points are well thought out only in the last year has there been Xenos updates. Nids, DE and Necrons could all be called recent... leaving the previous 8 years of nothing really.

At the end of the day I personally believe that GW do in fact prefer to update and sell there #1 selling product. Space Marines.

Milisim wrote:While your points are well thought out only in the last year has there been Xenos updates. Nids, DE and Necrons could all be called recent... leaving the previous 8 years of nothing really.

Not quite-- the previous 8 years includes two updates to Codex: Tyranids (2005 and 2010), an update to Codex: Eldar and Codex: Tau Empire (both in 2006), a substantial update to Codex: Orks and a brand-new Codex: Chaos Dæmons in 2008, as well as the major DE and Necron revamps that we've seen in the past year or two. In other words, every Xenos army updated at least once, and Tyranids updated twice. The only armies that hasn't had a full Codex update in that timeframe is, ironically, an Imperial army-- the Sisters of Battle (though the Black Templars are pushing the edge there).

Milisim wrote:At the end of the day I personally believe that GW do in fact prefer to update and sell there #1 selling product. Space Marines.

As I pointed out, it's certainly true that GW releases Space Marines slightly out of proportion with their other lines-- Space Marines represent 7/16 Codices (SM, BA, BT, DA, SW, CSM, GK) but update about half the time. However, I believe that this is largely thanks to the relative ease of Marine releases in comparison to other releases. The design studio can run off a new Chapter-specific set of sprues and perhaps a new unique unit or two much quicker than they can do a large-scale revamp and redesign (or new army release, as with Chaos Dæmons). Thus, it makes sense for them to produce the comparatively easy SM releases more often, as this buys them time they can use for their less frequent but more comprehensive updates. If GW was all about the full-scale rereleases, the time in between releases would be much greater than it is now, likely to the detriment of sales.

I think you've gone through great pains to spell out the obvious. If anyone really thinks that GW 'hates' the alien races, they need to look up the meaning of the word in a dictionary. If they still think that, then no doubt they will stop doing so when they hit 16.

Pacific wrote:I think you've gone through great pains to spell out the obvious. If anyone really thinks that GW 'hates' the alien races, they need to look up the meaning of the word in a dictionary. If they still think that, then no doubt they will stop doing so when they hit 16.

Unfortunately a lot of people still don't get it. I've been preaching this for years, but never made a good, lengthy post like the OP about it. Space Marines pay the bills. Also, to anyone who didn't get to play against Orks in early 4th/3rd ed: you should have seen the sorry state of their model line. The only plastic kits were Boyz and the Gorkamorka trukks, buggies, and bikers. Those Gorkamorka kits were grossly out of scale and did not age well at all, while much of the range was made up of metal nightmare models like the old killa kans. The fact that Orks have almost a completely plastic range with some of the best plastics in GW history is wonderful.

Brother SRM wrote:

Pacific wrote:I think you've gone through great pains to spell out the obvious. If anyone really thinks that GW 'hates' the alien races, they need to look up the meaning of the word in a dictionary. If they still think that, then no doubt they will stop doing so when they hit 16.

Unfortunately a lot of people still don't get it. I've been preaching this for years, but never made a good, lengthy post like the OP about it. Space Marines pay the bills. Also, to anyone who didn't get to play against Orks in early 4th/3rd ed: you should have seen the sorry state of their model line. The only plastic kits were Boyz and the Gorkamorka trukks, buggies, and bikers. Those Gorkamorka kits were grossly out of scale and did not age well at all, while much of the range was made up of metal nightmare models like the old killa kans. The fact that Orks have almost a completely plastic range with some of the best plastics in GW history is wonderful.

Definitely. Orks went from essentially having only one good kit (Boyz) to having an entire line of awesome models. All that's left of the old stuff is the Buggies/Wartrakks (I think).

Brother SRM wrote:Space Marines pay the bills.

Because GW pushes Space Marines. And because most of the game revolves around Space Marines.

Fetterkey wrote:First, and most obviously, GW doesn't hate Xenos armies because GW wants to sell models.

I don't think anyone argues that GW would "sabotage their own product lines." What they do argue is that GW places undue emphasis on SM and Imperial armies.

Fetterkey wrote:First off, this is wrong-- the update schedule tends to go Marines/not Marines/Marines/not Marines

Giving Marines half of the codex updates isn't giving them "undue favor[]"?

Fetterkey wrote:However, this is only superficially true. While Marine armies do enjoy a wide share of releases, Marine releases generally entail less effort and fewer new kits than non-Marine releases.

I think you'll find that this isn't generally true. Your comparisons to DE and Necrons are outliers. Those two armies have been in serious need of update. A better comparison would be the 'Nid codex.

Fetterkey wrote:Some point to the Codices that have yet to be updated for 5th Edition and say that Xenos armies get the short end of the stick.

They did. Before the latest releases, Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Tyranids were some of the oldest codices. Some armies had gone through several versions of codices in the time it took to update those. And in some cases (Dark Eldar), entire versions of the game passed them by.

Fetterkey wrote:All in all, the argument that GW somehow hates Xenos and favors Imperial armies is difficult to sustain.

Take a piece of paper. On the left side, write down all of the Imperial codices. On the right, write down the remainder. Compare the lists.

My only argument to that would be GreyKnights. But they kindda pwn every army, not just xenos....so maybe GW hates everything else

biccat wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Some point to the Codices that have yet to be updated for 5th Edition and say that Xenos armies get the short end of the stick.

They did. Before the latest releases, Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Tyranids were some of the oldest codices. Some armies had gone through several versions of codices in the time it took to update those. And in some cases (Dark Eldar), entire versions of the game passed them by.

Yes, and before those the Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves were using mini-codices which were tied to a Space Marine Codex which has been outdated by two editions.

Fetterkey wrote:All in all, the argument that GW somehow hates Xenos and favors Imperial armies is difficult to sustain.

Take a piece of paper. On the left side, write down all of the Imperial codices. On the right, write down the remainder. Compare the lists.

Just for you:

Imperial Codices.

Imperial Guard

Space Marines

Blood Angels

Dark Angels

Black Templars

Space Wolves

Grey Knights

Sisters of Battle

Non-Imperial Codices

Chaos Space Marines

Chaos Daemons

Necrons

Orks

Dark Eldar

Eldar

Tyranids

Tau Empire

There is no difference between "Non-Imperial" and "Imperial" codices, outside of update times. But if we're going off that...Dark Angels and Black Templars are desperately in need of updates, same as Orks, Tau Empire, and Eldar.

I also feel it relatively important to note (again) that prior to the Dark Angels book--the variant Chapters did not have their own full sized books(keywords there) devoted solely to them. They had mini-Codices which referred you to the main Space Marines codex.

GW makes many Space Marine models and codicies because that's what people buy. The armies that sell the most are Imperium so of course they like to work on them a lot!

Edit: You forgot Tau?

LlamaAgility wrote:GW makes many Space Marine models and codicies because that's what people buy. The armies that sell the most are Imperium so of course they like to work on them a lot!

Which is a weak comfort for those players who have to stick with ancient rulebooks and at times rather badly designed miniatures ( Firewarrior legs, constant issues with badly cast csm legs...).

LlamaAgility wrote:GW makes many Space Marine models and codicies because that's what people buy. The armies that sell the most are Imperium so of course they like to work on them a lot!

I'm really not too sure about this. Orks, Dark Eldar, and Necrons are reputedly selling quite well.

Edit: You forgot Tau?

What? I have no clue what you're referring to!
Good catch though. I'd originally had the lists in quotes but felt it was too messy and forgot about the Tau in the end.

KingDeath wrote:

LlamaAgility wrote:GW makes many Space Marine models and codicies because that's what people buy. The armies that sell the most are Imperium so of course they like to work on them a lot!

Which is a weak comfort for those players who have to stick with ancient rulebooks and at times rather badly designed miniatures ( Firewarrior legs, constant issues with badly cast csm legs...).

Do you know which army currently has the oldest rulebook?

blccat wrote:I don't think anyone argues that GW would "sabotage their own product lines." What they do argue is that GW places undue emphasis on SM and Imperial armies.

Sadly, I have seen people actually claiming that GW makes non-Imperial armies worse on purpose so that Imperial players and armies can do better, and that Xenos/Chaos armies exist only to provide Imperials with punching bags. That this is an absurd conspiracy theory should of course be readily apparent, but the Internet can be a wacky place sometimes.

biccat wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:First off, this is wrong-- the update schedule tends to go Marines/not Marines/Marines/not Marines

Giving Marines half of the codex updates isn't giving them "undue favor[]"?

Since Marines are almost half (7/16) of the Codices and a Marine update can be produced more quickly than a non-Marine update, it indeed seems reasonable that Marines get half the updates.

biccat wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:However, this is only superficially true. While Marine armies do enjoy a wide share of releases, Marine releases generally entail less effort and fewer new kits than non-Marine releases.

I think you'll find that this isn't generally true. Your comparisons to DE and Necrons are outliers. Those two armies have been in serious need of update. A better comparison would be the 'Nid codex.

The Tyranid release contained 3 major plastic kits (Gargoyles, Raveners, Trygon/Mawloc) and multiple metal (now Finecast) units (Pyrovore, Hive Guard, Venomthrope), and was followed up by a wave that contained another two major plastics (Hive Tyrant/Swarmlord, Tervigon/Tyrannofex). Compare to Space Wolves, who got a new upgrade sprue and 2 new characters, followed by a wave with two plastic boxes and another character.

blccat wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Some point to the Codices that have yet to be updated for 5th Edition and say that Xenos armies get the short end of the stick.

They did. Before the latest releases, Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Tyranids were some of the oldest codices. Some armies had gone through several versions of codices in the time it took to update those. And in some cases (Dark Eldar), entire versions of the game passed them by.

Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Imperial Guard were all 3rd edition books as well. Black Templars and Sisters of Battle still are. Note that I'm not counting White Dwarf updates, as these don't come with model support and generally don't do much to revitalize the army relative to a full Codex release.

blccat wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:All in all, the argument that GW somehow hates Xenos and favors Imperial armies is difficult to sustain.

Take a piece of paper. On the left side, write down all of the Imperial codices. On the right, write down the remainder. Compare the lists.

It's not so much that GW hates or Xenos/Chaos or even that they favor the Imperium.

They main problem is that Space Marines are over represented.

6/16 of the playable factions are almost the same army, an army that then eats up production time for rules and models that should, in my opinion, be divied up to the rest of the Imperium and Xenos/Chaos.

In the old days of fluff, the Marines as a whole were more unified. With the modern, ie 5th edition books, they added all sorts of contrived new things just to differentiate them to justify a separate army. Do the Space Wolves really need, Wolf-tail Talismans, Wolf Claws, or Fenrisian/Cyber Wolf mounts? Do Blood Angels have to have Blood Talons, Blood Fists, or Bloodstrike Missiles?

They should have kept the old style of SM codex with a "general" C:SM and a few expansion books for the more outlier Chapters like Black Templar, Space Wolves, Grey Knights.

If it means anything, I play Tau and am in the process of building my Elysian Drop Troop Army. I also like the Dark Eldar codex and fantasized about making a Raptors Chapter all-infantry Infiltration force.

First off, I don't think GW hates Xenos, just read my last paragraph for my thought on the matter.

Fetterkey wrote:First, and most obviously, GW doesn't hate Xenos armies because GW wants to sell models. Contrary to what various Internet conspiracy theorists would have you believe, GW would not sabotage their own product lines in order to make other product lines look better by comparison-- it just doesn't make sense. After all, every product line released constitutes substantial effort and production expenditures on GW's part. The idea that they would intentionally undermine some of those efforts is foolish at best.

The idea isn't that GW intentionally undermines their own products, it's that the Space Marine marketing and plot armour comes at the expense of other factions. When you've got a conflict that's going to be resolved in 40K, you can't have both sides the winner, one side has to win (and that side is abnormally often the Space Marines). That's beside the point.

When you've got a limited marketing budget, any decision to promote one army is going to negatively affect the marketing potential of all other armies. With Space Marines receiving a very large portion of the marketing budget, this means that most, if not all, of the attention and oomph that 40k attracts is going to be focused on the Space Marines. I.e. the problem some of the less hateful people have is that they think Space Marines get a too big portion of the marketing cookie. This doesn't mean they undermine their own products intentionally, but they may do it unintentionally.

This leads me to my next point, concerning the number of Xenos releases relative to the number of Imperial releases. Some claim that Marines in particular are unduly favored by the GW design process. First off, this is wrong-- the update schedule tends to go Marines/not Marines/Marines/not Marines (as we can see with the 5th edition releases: Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Space Wolves, Tyranids, Blood Angels, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, Necrons), so non-Marine armies get half the attention. This seems reasonable, given that the split between Marine and non-Marine armies is about fifty-fifty. That said, some argue that this is an undue amount of effort put into Marine releases as opposed to everybody else.

And there you go. You even acknowledged it youself. More than half of all 40k releases (depending on how you count SOB and GK) are Space Marine releases!

However, this is only superficially true. While Marine armies do enjoy a wide share of releases, Marine releases generally entail less effort and fewer new kits than non-Marine releases. Compare the effort involved with the Space Wolves release (a few new "chapter bitz" sprues and special characters, followed very late down the line by two new kits (Thunderwolves and Fenrisian Wolves) with the effort involved with the Dark Eldar release (literally every model in the range, aside from a few special characters, redone) or the Necron release (three major new kits, special characters, upgrade characters, with four more new kits soon after).

And here you touch on what the problem is for the "Xeno" players. I, as a Xeno player, have to wait 8 years between Codex releases that are compatible with my models and something like 4 years between model releases. If I were a Space Marine player I would receive one or two codex releases per year and a constant stream of new model releases where a large portion of the models are compatible with my codex.

There's a reason why "plastic grey" Space Marines exist as an army description.

In this way, while Marine releases do occupy an unusually large space in the release schedule, it would be difficult to claim that they take an undue amount of the Design Studio's efforts-- indeed, I would contend that Marine releases provide a way for the Studio to give more time to other factions. The time that it takes to run off some new Chapter-specific sprues and a few new characters is much less than the time it takes to do the sort of large-scale redesign and upgrade that GW has been giving Xenos factions recently-- so in a way, each Marine release buys time for larger and more impressive Xenos releases.

This feels like the old conservative argument "if the people on top get more money, the money will be spent and will enrichen the people further down". While that argument is so laughably untrue, the above quote can't be discarded quite so easily. I simply don't know if it's true or not, but I will say that regardless of what at no point will spending creative effort on one project grant more time on another. It will give the company more money, yes, but the risk is that relatively low effort to produce large gain may result in decidedly riskier and heavy projects (like, for instance, updating Tau models) is put on hold or cancelled entirely.

Some point to the Codices that have yet to be updated for 5th Edition and say that Xenos armies get the short end of the stick. That's not really true-- Chaos armies get the short end of the stick, with both Chaos Dæmons and Chaos Space Marines desperately needing updates-- and even if you restrict the comparison to Imperial and Xenos armies, it's still not so clear. Yes, the Tau and Eldar could do with updates, but so could the Black Templars, Dark Angels, and Sisters of Battle-- the Sisters in particular are in a bad state, lacking both a real Codex and a boxed set for their basic troops!

Unfortunately, Dark Angels can perfectly adequately field an army that is true to their chapter using the Codex: Space Marines, while on the other hand it requires a huge stretch of the imagination for Craftworld Eldar to pick up the Dark Eldar codex and do the same. Imagine how it is for Tau...

I find it even more tragic that Sisters of Battle suffered such a fate. Unlike a Space Marine codex they provide a unique FOC with no carbon copies from the Father Codex, have units that have a distinct aesthetic besides their colour and provide a mixed unit type (if we view Sisters of Battles in the Inquisitorial light). I mean, OK, you could pick up the Blood Angel codex and say "Girl Marines! Yay!" but it feels wrong.

Lastly, there is a claim that Xenos armies are generally weaker than Imperial armies. I don't think that's the case right now-- DE and Necrons can compete with the best of them, though Tyranids are more controversial-- and it certainly hasn't been true across the game's history, which one would need to show in order to establish any sort of serious bias on the part of the design studio. For instance, in the later days of 4th edition, mechanized Eldar and Nidzilla builds were almost completely dominant. Orks, despite their somewhat dated Codex, still make strong appearances on the tournament scene, and while the Eldar are languishing to an extent, they can still be deceptively powerful-- as shown by Dakka's own Reecius at Adepticon!

Nah, it's just GW's inability to properly relate a race's supposed technology when it comes to the table top. Due to the high release rate on Space Marine codexes, ideas that surface for non-Marine armies tend to be adopted by Marines at a much higher rate than non-Marine armies get the same treatment.

Reecius hasn't shown that the Eldar army is good, up to date or powerful, all he has shown is that he can win with it.*

All in all, the argument that GW somehow hates Xenos and favors Imperial armies is difficult to sustain. Not only does it not make business sense, but one has only to look at the high amounts of design effort and amazing results produced by the recent Dark Eldar and Necron releases-- probably some of the most impressive GW releases to date-- in order to see that they clearly want Xenos armies to succeed as well. And why shouldn't they? When you get right down to it, in order to contend that GW hates Xenos, you have to posit that there is some sort of insane conspiracy on GW's part to make their own products sell worse, and that just plain does not hold water. Xenos armies and Imperial armies get much the same treatment from GW, and there's no good reason to claim otherwise.

As I've shown, the argument is there, it's certainly valid, but myself I'd argue it has nothing to do with hate or love. We do know that there are several individuals in GW whom are passionate about their products and whom have armies in greater esteem than the Space Marines, but at the end of the day, your average teen picking up a 40k model will choose a Space Marine.

Space Marines generate profit, and I do not at all think it would be strange if the best way to make profit from the franchise is to give Space Marines the entire cookie jar. You're entitled to your opinion that 50% attention for 12% of the product line is means that the other 82% get the same amount of attention. I'm more of a mind that GW is paying 50% attention to the 12% of the product line that's bringing in 50% of the profit - but I wish the other 82% were more profitable.

* It should be noted that 4th edition Eldar broke from that edition's metagame and to some extent brought the 5th edition metagame out early, and this is what has kept the army alive when compared with certain other armies whom have still not had a codex.

Fetterkey wrote:Sadly, I have seen people actually claiming that GW makes non-Imperial armies worse on purpose so that Imperial players and armies can do better, and that Xenos/Chaos armies exist only to provide Imperials with punching bags. That this is an absurd conspiracy theory should of course be readily apparent, but the Internet can be a wacky place sometimes.

That's not sabotaging their product line. The Space Marine codices are easy to use and easy to win with because they appeal to younger gamers. This is by design.

Fetterkey wrote:Since Marines are almost half (7/16) of the Codices and a Marine update can be produced more quickly than a non-Marine update, it indeed seems reasonable that Marines get half the updates.

Only if the non-marine update is wholly different than current codices. How long would it take to produce a Craftworld: Eldar codex? Chaos Legions? Feral Orks?

All of these updates could be supported with current product lines, and wouldn't require more models. There's no reason to have 7 Marine codices and 1 Eldar codex other than bias towards Marines.

Fetterkey wrote:The Tyranid release contained 3 major plastic kits (Gargoyles, Raveners, Trygon/Mawloc) and multiple metal (now Finecast) units (Pyrovore, Hive Guard, Venomthrope), and was followed up by a wave that contained another two major plastics (Hive Tyrant/Swarmlord, Tervigon/Tyrannofex). Compare to Space Wolves, who got a new upgrade sprue and 2 new characters, followed by a wave with two plastic boxes and another character.

So SW got 5 updates and 'Nids got 5 updates. Seems to torpedo your comment that SM updates require less models.

Fetterkey wrote:There's a fifty-fifty split, with Imperials having eight Codices (Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Grey Knights, Imperial Guard, Sisters of Battle, Space Marines, and Space Wolves) and other factions having eight as well (Chaos Dæmons, Chaos Space Marines, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Necrons, Orks, Tau Empire, Tyranids). Further, the non-Imperial Codices are much more diverse than the Imperial Codices.

Then what reason, other than Marine/Imperial bias, is there for not releasing upgrades or variations to the non-imperial codices? I'm sure players would love a Chaos: Legions, Craftworld Eldar, Feral Ork, Tau Allies, or Hive Fleet Leviathan codex, even without new models. There is no reason to have fully half of the army choices be Imperial other than bias towards Imperials.

Sure, they don't 'hate' xenos. But they DO love their poster boys, Space Marines.

Sorry to thread-jack, but I think/hope it's just a quick question.
What exactly is "wrong" with the Tau line? I've bought 2 boxes of Fire Warriors and the seem fine to me. The only real problem I've ever experienced is matching up the arms and getting them to fit right.

biccat wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:The Tyranid release contained 3 major plastic kits (Gargoyles, Raveners, Trygon/Mawloc) and multiple metal (now Finecast) units (Pyrovore, Hive Guard, Venomthrope), and was followed up by a wave that contained another two major plastics (Hive Tyrant/Swarmlord, Tervigon/Tyrannofex). Compare to Space Wolves, who got a new upgrade sprue and 2 new characters, followed by a wave with two plastic boxes and another character.

So SW got 5 updates and 'Nids got 5 updates. Seems to torpedo your comment that SM updates require less models.

To reiterate, 'Nids got three plastic kits and three Finecast units in their initial release, plus two more plastic kits, for a total of eight updates. Space Wolves got an upgrade sprue and two characters, then two plastic kits and another character, for a total of six updates. Further, the 'Nid updates were more substantial than the SW updates-- full plastic kits are bigger changes than single character models.

Mahtamori wrote:The idea isn't that GW intentionally undermines their own products, it's that the Space Marine marketing and plot armour comes at the expense of other factions. When you've got a conflict that's going to be resolved in 40K, you can't have both sides the winner, one side has to win (and that side is abnormally often the Space Marines). That's beside the point.

Every faction wins in its own books. Except the Imperial Guard.

Mahtamori wrote:Nah, it's just GW's inability to properly relate a race's supposed technology when it comes to the table top. Due to the high release rate on Space Marine codexes, ideas that surface for non-Marine armies tend to be adopted by Marines at a much higher rate than non-Marine armies get the same treatment.

Such as? The iconic Xenos abilities (such as Waaagh! for Orks, Lances for Eldar and Dark Eldar, We'll Be Back/Resurrection Protocols for Necrons, and Synapse for Tyranids) don't seem to have made it into any Marine codices that I've seen.

Since when do guard not win in their codex? I'm pretty sure they have significantly more wins than losses in their codex. It's tyranids that don't win in their own codex. They couldn't even beat tau.

Surtur wrote:Since when do guard not win in their codex? I'm pretty sure they have significantly more wins than losses in their codex. It's tyranids that don't win in their own codex. They couldn't even beat tau.

Guard "wins" are generally horribly Pyrrhic at best, since they are the "normal guys" and are often used as fodder to show just how strong the latest menace of the day is.

Myth busted.

GW doesn;t "hate" non-Space Marines, and shoving Space Marines down everyone's throats is certainly motivated by an understandable desire for profits. However that doesn't mean I will accept that Space Marines after Space Marines after Space Marines isn't making the franchise far more boring.

Yes, the split is about 50/50 with Space Marines and non-Space Marines. However you got to keep in mind that this is just 1 faction, taking up half of everything for this huge and rich universe.

I suppose I find it annoying that Orks, Tau, and Eldar are in desperate need for an update while we get more Codex: Red Space Marines, Codex: Green Space Marines, and so on. If GW played with the Space Marines a bit differently I wouldn't be so sick of them and so desperate for any scrap of xenos or Chaos.

Harriticus wrote:
I suppose I find it annoying that Orks, Tau, and Eldar are in desperate need for an update while we get more Codex: Red Space Marines, Codex: Green Space Marines, and so on. If GW played with the Space Marines a bit differently I wouldn't be so sick of them and so desperate for any scrap of xenos or Chaos.

Tau have had two books in the time it took for the Dark Angels to get their own, all to themselves book and for it to be updated.
Same with the Blood Angels and Space Wolves and Black Templars.

They are all on their "first" books all to themselves.

Kanluwen wrote:

Harriticus wrote:
I suppose I find it annoying that Orks, Tau, and Eldar are in desperate need for an update while we get more Codex: Red Space Marines, Codex: Green Space Marines, and so on. If GW played with the Space Marines a bit differently I wouldn't be so sick of them and so desperate for any scrap of xenos or Chaos.

Tau have had two books in the time it took for the Dark Angels to get their own, all to themselves book and for it to be updated.
Same with the Blood Angels and Space Wolves and Black Templars.

They are all on their "first" books all to themselves.

OK, maybe I'm misunderstanding this. But BA, SW and DA are none of them on their 'first' book all to themselves. Not counting the current codexes, I have two previous SW, one DA, one BA (plus the BA WD 'dex), and the combined BA/DA Angels of Death codex. And that of course doesn't include all the SM chapters they've done over the years in various publications and then dropped. And all these for what is supposedly the smallest (numerically) force of all those in the game. Course, ya know, if they pushed Ig as much as they push marines, gave IG 5 or 6 different codexes and stole everyone's special rules for IG the way they steal everyones rules for Marines, well, maybe then IG would be their biggest seller. Just sayin'...............

I have the BA codex from 3E. It isnt still the same one in use today... so they have had more than 1 single chapter based codex.

And lets not forget that DA, BA, SW and all them are 1 chapter.

Tau gets 2 books in 10 years. they are an ENTIRE RACE, not just a 1000 Space Marine chapter.

So RACES should be more supported than breakaway factions etc.....

Once ALL Races have been updated I have no issue with releasing specialty books... but getting a new DA codex before Eldar or Tau is a blatant slap in the face for all Xenos players.

don_mondo wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Harriticus wrote:
I suppose I find it annoying that Orks, Tau, and Eldar are in desperate need for an update while we get more Codex: Red Space Marines, Codex: Green Space Marines, and so on. If GW played with the Space Marines a bit differently I wouldn't be so sick of them and so desperate for any scrap of xenos or Chaos.

Tau have had two books in the time it took for the Dark Angels to get their own, all to themselves book and for it to be updated.
Same with the Blood Angels and Space Wolves and Black Templars.

They are all on their "first" books all to themselves.

OK, maybe I'm misunderstanding this. But BA, SW and DA are none of them on their 'first' book all to themselves. Not counting the current codexes, I have two previous SW, one DA, one BA (plus the BA WD 'dex), and the combined BA/DA Angels of Death codex. And that of course doesn't include all the SM chapters they've done over the years in various publications and then dropped.

Since you are misunderstanding this, I will explain it quite simply.
Of those you mentioned?
The two previous DA and Blood Angel books were not "all to themselves". They were pamphlets, requiring the primary Space Marine Codex to be used in conjunction.
The preceding edition's Space Wolf codex was the same.

Angels of Death was a combined book, with both Blood Angels and Dark Angels in there.
You are correct though in that the Space Wolves book at the same time was a full book.

And all these for what is supposedly the smallest (numerically) force of all those in the game. Course, ya know, if they pushed Ig as much as they push marines, gave IG 5 or 6 different codexes and stole everyone's special rules for IG the way they steal everyones rules for Marines, well, maybe then IG would be their biggest seller. Just sayin'...............

Yeah, and people would still be complaining about bias for the Imperial Guard.

Like some actually are now, incidentally.

Where you are saying by them not being a solo book etc... its just your view on it.


I see anything that comes out even be it WD article as being something released.

White Scars got some WD love like 10 years ago... to me that is a SM release.

so to me..... IoM dominates the releases ALL the time and Xenos gets the old cold shoulder.

I dont rem seeing a ton of Tau Sept world special rules... Oh your from Viorla? Well take a look here at all these cool rules only you can use..... oh wait right even in my main book I dont get a sept breakdown.

Here is your Vanilla Tau book and since you arent cool like Space Marines, you will NEVER get a seperate Tau Sept book.

So while you have had 2 books in ten years as Tau you should shut up and bask in GW's love for your Tau as the DA only got 1 book in 10 years... ???? Obviously the Tau are over done with codexes!