A bit of a controversial subject I know...

As it stands GW has 16 codexes to support:

Blood Angels
Dark Angels
Black Templars
Space Wolves
Space Marines
Imperial Guard
Orks
Necrons
Tau
Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Daemons
Tyranids
Eldar
Dark Eldar
Daemonhunters
Witch Hunters

I admit I don't know much about the 40k rumours, but presuming in the next year they don't increase the number of codexes (replacing daemonhunters and witch hunters with GK and SoB respectively), how many in the long term do you think they should support?

I read on warseer someone saying in the long term the plan was to split the CSM codex into 4...

The more books they have to do the longer it will be between updates...

It is a similar situation with Warhammer armies I guess.

All of them.

I thought they only sold Space Marines

I say a codex for every single official space marine chapter. Ever.
One for every ork klan. One for each hive of 'nids. Only one for tau and 'crons.
One for every Eldar...w/e they have. One for DE.
One for each special regiment of IG (including DKoK)
Each part of Witch Hunters and Demon hunters broken up into multiple codexs.
One for each CSM chapter that would need rules
One codex for each God of Chaos. (5 in total )

My personal pipe dream: 1 for the Inq, 1 for SOB, 1 for GK, 1 for Ad-Mech

Everything else can remain pretty much the same as long as they update frequently.

In fact I find it weird that Ad-Mech is only represented by the Enginseer in the IG dex.

Well, if someone had the ability to redesign the game from the ground up, ignoring everything that's come before and just going for the optimum number, I really doubt they'd have as many as 16 armies. I would guess the outer limit would be more like 12, probably closer to 8 or 10.

But history matters, and supporting existing races is very important, so we have 16 and we'll likely stay at 16.

sebster wrote:But history matters, and supporting existing races is very important.

Posting on behalf of the former Squat players that are sobbing uncontrolably right now: Supporting existing races is not "very important" to GW.

Supporting existing chapters on the other hand...I'd say that's extremely important to them.

The more the merrier.

If some have to wait a while between updates, so what? As a veteran Necron player, don't expect any sympathy from me if you don't think your Codex has been kept up to date properly.

One hundred and seventy-five thousand.

I think they need to do a "squats" and remove a few races.

I would like to see the following added:

Hrud
Demiurge
Adeptus Mechanicus
Squats
Craft Worlds
Chaos Cultists
Genestealer Cult
Cult marine lists

so add these in and I would be very happy!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ma55ter_fett wrote:I think they need to do a "squats" and remove a few races.

which ones would you like to see go?

Id say they should have as many armies as they can think of unique play styles and aesthetics for.

How many BOOKs they should maintain, is an entirely different question. I'd say dispose of these meager pamphlets they call Codices and replace the appropriate ones with absolute tomes full of variant armies, particularly for Space Marine Chapters, Imperial Guard Regiments, The Inquisition, Eldar Craftworlds and Ork Klans. I suppose they rest should be fine as is.

Gregthejuve wrote:Posting on behalf of the former Squat players that are sobbing uncontrolably right now: Supporting existing races is not "very important" to GW.

Considering the operating practices of a company to be the same now as they were 17 years ago seems very odd to me. Failing to consider that GW might have changed their practice as a result of backlash against dropping Squats seems even stranger. Particularly given the number of armies currently existing on life support, and the re-release of Dark Eldar, it seems pretty clear GW is unlikely to take the decision to squat an army as they had previously.

As many as they can make would be awesome, but they would be hard pressed to crank out more and still update things on a somewhat regular basis.

I think they've currently exceeded what they can adequately support.

Without getting into a GW bashing thread unless they overhaul their business drastically there is no chance to support much more than what they do.

They will have to recruit many more staff in order to offer the suport that gamers wish to see which invariably closes stores as they cannot afford to do both.

The way I see it, 5 could be "dropped" without much trouble, By drop I mean consolidating them into a single book.

Blood Angels
Dark Angels
Black Templars
Space Wolves
Space Marines
Imperial Guard
Orks
Necrons
Tau
Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Daemons
Tyranids
Eldar
Dark Eldar
Daemonhunters
Witch Hunters

Yeah, a bit of consolidation would not be a bad thing if they intend to bring out more. tbh I'm less concerned about the number of codex books they release as I am about the number of model lines they are supporting. I think they'd struggle to maintain the existing model lines if they choose to add more races.

I know it's nice to have some unique models for chapters like the Dark Angel and Space Wolves, but do they really need as many as they have when simple conversion sprues (as exist) could be used to convert simple tac marines into something fitting? Then it just comes down to having the specific codex to run them. Spend the effort on the character miniatures and leave the line troops alone. Maybe I'm just an old hold out who remembers when Space Wolves were just painted a different colour and had some fluff to differentiate them

I guess I'd also be happier if they brought back some of the groups that people used to like rather than add in new ones. I miss Squats, I miss Genestealer Cults, I miss Beastmen and penal legions with neck bombs

IIRC in 2nd ed BA & DA were in the one book

I'd like to see fully-customisable armies for the varied chapters, regiments, craftworlds, kabals, etc, beyond what they have for some (Chapter Tactics for example in the Space Marine codex. Would be great to see them expanded on further, becoming even more personalised.)

However, they don't have to be seperate codices like they are releasing them now. Releasing them as a 'tome of knowledge' style edition, with all the Space Marine chapters being in a single massive tome, would be rather awesome.

However, it's unlikey to ever happen, as it would be stupid from a marketing standpoint. New players already have to go buy the rules and a codex, then buy some models before they can get into the game (Not including Assault on Black Reach), upping the price for new players to get into this great hobby would decrease the amount that came in.

I know I certainly would be alot more hesitant to start up if the starting cost of the game suddenly jumped from $300 or so to 400, just because the codex jumped so much in price.

Only solution to that style of problem would be to offer both paper and electronic versions, and have the electronic version be drastically reduced in price. With how things are becoming digitalised, it's not as unlikely as it once would have been, and I know I personally would still buy the paper version just so I could lie down on the couch/bed/whatever with a pad, pen and codex, and scribble down rules/possible unit tactics that spring forwards in my mind.

Personally I would like to see the following:

"Chaos" - CSM + daemons all in one book with options for mixed and pure forces, also legion options. Also has legion of the damned + cultists + special renegade IG stuff (to be used in conjunction with the IG codex).

"Space Marines" - one codex with all the main SM armies included. A generic section with all the standard units, then chapter specific sections for small amounts of fluff and chapter characters/units/rules/etc. Possibly a second (or many) books with fluff etc.

Imperial Guard - as is. Also include the FW army units/rules where appropriate.

Armies of the Imperium - The misc Imperial armies; SoB, GK, etc, as well as rules for including other Imperial forces (Inq, SM, IG, etc).

Eldar - to include Craftworld specific sections

Then the rest of the codexes as current.

I hope even more, though, if they start releases anymore, I really dont know what direction they could go without it seeming redundant. I think they should support all o them though, I love the options!

SilverMK2 wrote:Personally I would like to see the following:

"Chaos" - CSM + daemons all in one book with options for mixed and pure forces, also legion options. Also has legion of the damned + cultists + special renegade IG stuff (to be used in conjunction with the IG codex).

"Space Marines" - one codex with all the main SM armies included. A generic section with all the standard units, then chapter specific sections for small amounts of fluff and chapter characters/units/rules/etc. Possibly a second (or many) books with fluff etc.

Imperial Guard - as is. Also include the FW army units/rules where appropriate.

Armies of the Imperium - The misc Imperial armies; SoB, GK, etc, as well as rules for including other Imperial forces (Inq, SM, IG, etc).

Eldar - to include Craftworld specific sections

Then the rest of the codexes as current.

This right here is the best idea so far.

1827635012630586213856123868462398.

Or the 16 we have, but better balanced and caught-up-to-date.

They can hardly keep what they already have updated, as of right now there is no need for any new armies, the crap dexes (CSM, necrons, inq) need to be addressed first.

to quote Stewie Griffin:
"Maybe you should enjoy this candy bar, before opening another"

I'd really like to see Space Marines go back into one book. Different Chapters can be represented by Chapter Tactics (e.g. if you choose Imperial Fists you get Stubborn) and Chapter specific units such as Death Company, Ravenwing etc can be covered in the back in a separate Specialist Chapter section. So if you played Space Wolves, you have access to Wolf Guard, Grey Hunters, Blood Claws & Long Fangs which replace Terminator Squads, Tactical Squads, Assault Squads & Devastator Squads respecitvely.

I accept that this would result in a slightly thicker book, but it would keep the number of Codexes down and more importantly elimate Codex Creep for Space Marine players. The occurence of different wargear and variable transport capacities is a big annoyance in this regard.

EDIT - Exactly the same could be done for Chaos Space Marines with Chaos Daemons moved into a Specialist Unit section.

This would take the total down to 10 Codexes (if Grey Knights also went into the Specialist Chapter section).

666 sounds like a safe, reasonable, and huggable number.

I think the number of codexes is a hindrance to 40K. The editions have a 5 year +/- life cycle. They release 4-5 books each year and have never updated the entire line in a single edition.

Gamble wrote:I think the number of codexes is a hindrance to 40K. The editions have a 5 year +/- life cycle. They release 4-5 books each year and have never updated the entire line in a single edition.

They did in 2nd Edition but at the expense of Squats (I don't think Grey Knights appeared either).

I'd be super-happy with one big kerchunga Forces of the Imperium codex. Imagine it - like 2nd edition. Space Marines, Guard, Inquisition, AdMech, GK, SoB, and maybe even wierder stuff like Navy... all in the same book!
I would imagine this crazy-big book would only cover vanilla SMs.
All other chapters could have mini-dexes with requisite wargear, units, fluff etc and refer to any shared to units (tacs, bikes etc) in the mega-dex. You could knock out 10+ mini-dexes if the changes were minimal enough.

Do the same for Chaos (again, ala 2nd ed).
A big old Eldar book with Craftworld, Exodites and Crone Worlds in it.
It would be beneficial to have DE separate IMO.

You're then free to have a dex each for the myriad alien races.

This is entirely unreasonable, and I know it, but I would pay good money for that Imperial mega-dex, if it meant I could run SM and Guard together - the way the game's supposed to be played!

I would love to see them consolidate, IF I thought they could do it without screwing it up. But hell, I'd love to see the codex idea itself gone on a huge diet. Leave the fluff to a fluffily seperate document that people can purchase if they so choose. They could consolidate all of 40k's rules and regs into a single document then for all I care.

Doubt we'll ever see that, but then doubt the mighty juggernaut that is GW is going to "waste the time" it would need to study the issue and figure out how it wants to approach it. They'll just try to sell us more models for the moment.

Yeah, In my ideal world we'd have

Forces of the Imperium
Marines
Guard
Adeptus forces (mech, arbites etc)
Inquisition and associated
Squats (for those folks with the bits laying about)

Orks
With details to let you play clans / speed freaks etc

Eldar
With craftworld specific sections

Chaos
Cultists, Marines, demons etc

Zenos
Tyranids, Genestealer cults, slann etc

The New Elements
Nekrons, DE, Tau.

That gives us 6 big ish tomes that can be tweaked from time to time. rather than piecemealed. They start now so at the next re-boot all the books are ready for release on day 1. then they start again ready for the next one

but I can see complaints from some folks "Why do I have to pay for stuff I'm never going to use"

I doubt they'd do away with the Codex system.

It's just too effective a sales catalog.

malfred wrote:I doubt they'd do away with the Codex system.

It's just too effective a sales catalog.

I don't know about that. Wouldn't a better sales vehicle be something like the following:

3 tomes:

Imperium of Man with every human army.

Xenos with every non-human army.

Worshippers of the Warp with CSM, Daemons, cults, etc.

What this would do is expand exposure of other armies to the individual player as they're reading the book and seeing what these other armies can do they think, "I could do this if I run out and buy another 20 models" or something. I would think it would be an increase in sales of GWs biggest cash cow, plastic army men.

Sure they make some money off the books now but they could charge an appropriately higher price for the combined books and still make some profit off of it whilst enjoying increased sales.

My 2 cents.

Consolidation is what i'd like to see. As it stands there are so many SM Chapters that have their own book AND the Vanilla SM book that updating is taking a noticable "SM-Other-SM-Other-SM" trend, which I think is ridiculous.

Why should other books suffer (DE, for example took years to get here, GK/SoB aren't here yet, and nor are Necrons, but we've had several incarnations of SM along the way) because BA or SW HAVE to have their own codex?

Whilst I don't think GW will do it (they had the chance with a combined Inquisition book, but it's clear from the more recent rumours that GKs are being released seperately again) for reasons unknown (extra costs? Not enough return? Because they don't wanna?), it seems like the only logical choice if we're to have:

A) Balance (My favourite army here are SW; whilst contemplating them myself, it's hard to get past their "Rune Priest, 3-4x GHs w/ WG + PF/Combi-melta in 3-4 Razorbacks w/ las/plas and 3x 6 LFs w/ 5 MLs + 3 las/plas Razorbacks" army structure that you see absolutely everywhere. It's not the player's fault that it's beastly effective, but for me it hints at GW's attitude to 5th edition; as do the lance spam lists DE have (although they do have more effective variety than SWolves). Anti-mech armies that are, you guessed it, mechanised.)

B) Regular updates. As it stands, there are still a few codices that require bumping up to at least a competative level, and other who just need introducing to 5th edition. Necrons, for example, are shells of their former selves. What can they do in 5th ed? Use a monolith. What are they then? Cheesy. What happens if they don't? They lose. That sounds pretty unfair to me.

Also, as a Tau player, I know that i'm still quite competative against some armies in 5th ed., but the codex is starting to show its age. I remember when I got my Tau book, read through it and tried to find what 'Target Priority' was in the 5th edition rulebook.

Tau and CW Eldar, possibly even CSM aren't going to see any codex revamps until at least 6th Edition at this rate. We're already deep into 5th and with DA and BT still to get re-done, GKs on the way, SoB to be done and Necrons to be done, it's going to be a while. If GW didn't have all the extra baggage, a lot of players would be happier.

I think the amount they have is just about right based on their army list/model line is structured right now.

What I WOULD like to see, however, is more codices that don't necessarily have a unique model line attached to it. So essentially I'd like to see sort of what we had in 3rd edition. New codices that can be used with the existing model line. Like the Craftworld Eldar codex or catachans.

From a business standpoint, I don't know how advantageous that would be for GW, though.

BUT, if it were, I'd like to see another Eldar themed codex (exodites, individual craftworlds, etc), Another IG, Tyranid Genesteeler Cults,etc

Flashman wrote:

Gamble wrote:I think the number of codexes is a hindrance to 40K. The editions have a 5 year +/- life cycle. They release 4-5 books each year and have never updated the entire line in a single edition.

They did in 2nd Edition but at the expense of Squats (I don't think Grey Knights appeared either).

Your statement is true, but mine is as well.

2nd edition introduced the army book concept to 40K and Black Templars, Dark Eldar, Tau and Chaos Demons weren't introduced/ separate books until later editions. Between 2nd and 3rd editions, they dropped 2 factions (squats and genestealer cults) and failed to update Grey Knights.

A random idea I had is that they rework the idea for SM lists a bit.

They produce lists with some gaps for models to fill at some point, but they DO release a codex for it.

The difference is that they would never 'update' the codex, ever again. This would instead be done by a rules pdf update on their website every 5 years or so, which they would draw people's attention to when they release models to fill the gaps.

This would enable them to expand the SM range indefinitely, as they wouldn't need to go back and write an updated book every 5-6 years.

It wouldn't work for other armies though.

It would take quite a lot of the existing armies out of the list, meaning the frequency of updated codexes would be better.

Avatar 720 wrote:Consolidation is what i'd like to see. As it stands there are so many SM Chapters that have their own book AND the Vanilla SM book that updating is taking a noticeable "SM-Other-SM-Other-SM" trend, which I think is ridiculous.

It's really not though. If that were true, we'd have seen a new Dark Angels and Black Templar book by now.

Why should other books suffer (DE, for example took years to get here, GK/SoB aren't here yet, and nor are Necrons, but we've had several incarnations of SM along the way) because BA or SW HAVE to have their own codex?

Fact-checking is important when you make ridiculous statements I hear.
Dark Eldar "took years to get here" simply because of them wanting to find a suitable hole in the release window/profit margins to make a release that could potentially completely bomb. It took alot for Dark Eldar to arrive because they weren't sure if the release would actually be well-received or a complete bomb.

Blood Angels and Space Wolves were using two of the oldest Codexes, before the Space Wolves actually got their own Codex that didn't require you to use Codex: Space Marines and Blood Angels were using a White Dwarf published fandex for all intents and purposes.

Grey Knights are very very likely to be the next release(as in it would be ridiculous if we see something else), Sisters of Battle just started being worked on, and Necrons have been being worked on for quite awhile at this point in time.

Whilst I don't think GW will do it (they had the chance with a combined Inquisition book, but it's clear from the more recent rumours that GKs are being released seperately again) for reasons unknown (extra costs? Not enough return? Because they don't wanna?), it seems like the only logical choice if we're to have:

The reasons aren't actually "unknown". It's a simple thing, if you'd actually stop and think about it.
These "combined" books that people push for? They'd be the bloody size of an Imperial Armour campaign book with rules, fluff, and modeling sections.

A) Balance (My favourite army here are SW; whilst contemplating them myself, it's hard to get past their "Rune Priest, 3-4x GHs w/ WG + PF/Combi-melta in 3-4 Razorbacks w/ las/plas and 3x 6 LFs w/ 5 MLs + 3 las/plas Razorbacks" army structure that you see absolutely everywhere. It's not the player's fault that it's beastly effective, but for me it hints at GW's attitude to 5th edition; as do the lance spam lists DE have (although they do have more effective variety than SWolves). Anti-mech armies that are, you guessed it, mechanised.)

I don't think it hints at GW's attitude, but the players themselves. People(in my experience) are too obsessed with ignoring the ability to play linked campaigns, fun megabattles, and the like. They want tournaments where they win prizes or get bragging rights.

B) Regular updates. As it stands, there are still a few codices that require bumping up to at least a competitive level, and other who just need introducing to 5th edition. Necrons, for example, are shells of their former selves. What can they do in 5th ed? Use a monolith. What are they then? Cheesy. What happens if they don't? They lose. That sounds pretty unfair to me.

Necron players have always used Monoliths to be "super effective"(or at least from my memory). It's always been considered cheesy. This is not exclusive to 5th.

Also, as a Tau player, I know that I'm still quite competitive against some armies in 5th ed., but the codex is starting to show its age. I remember when I got my Tau book, read through it and tried to find what 'Target Priority' was in the 5th edition rulebook.

Again, the "codex starting to show its age" is not exclusive to Xenos codexes. Look at Codex: Dark Angels v. Codex: Space Marines.

Tau and CW Eldar, possibly even CSM aren't going to see any codex revamps until at least 6th Edition at this rate. We're already deep into 5th and with DA and BT still to get re-done, GKs on the way, SoB to be done and Necrons to be done, it's going to be a while. If GW didn't have all the extra baggage, a lot of players would be happier.

Hahaha, no they wouldn't. People would find reasons to whine about, even if GW was handing out money with every army you collect.

Kanluwen wrote:These "combined" books that people push for? They'd be the bloody size of an Imperial Armour campaign book with rules, fluff, and modeling sections

People say this, but to my mind it is untrue. Think of the quantity of overlap in units, generic fluff, etc there are in most SM codexes (for example). As has also been mentioned, perhaps a seperate "rules only" booklet could be used or included for ease of use if the "main" book were too unwieldy.

There's really not that much "generic fluff" that's in most SM codexes though. Unless you're trying to say we should ditch the special characters like Belial and Lysander and replace them with "Generic Marine Hero with Terminator Teleport Assaults".

The overlap of units is also a case where it really only shows up with the Dark Angels/Blood Angels in the "vanilla" list for the Codex.

Whilst he does lean toward overall defence of Games Workshop - no offence - many of the points Kan raises are right.

People keep forgetting GW is a business and therefore needs to operate effectively. If they had all the SM codices in one book, then GW would sell less books and the players would be pissed at having to pay extortionate amounts of money for a book they will only use a 5th of. If people would drop it with the constant Space Marine/Imperium hate then this could be a reasonable debate and thread.

I'd advise remembering that the Space Marines are the most popular army and that the Imperium effectively IS 40K. 40K is based around the woe and danger of the Imperium, it's set in Imperial Space (not that of the numerous other Ork or Tyranid worlds) and much of the background is about... Yep, the Imperium.
As human beings ourselves (I'd hope so anyway), we will naturally connect most with the Imperium and this is one of the reasons why so many people collect Imperial Guard.
Similarly, remember that almost all noted battles and campaigns that take place within 40K involve, yes, the Imperium. I can't recall ever hearing about a long-winded campaign of Tyranids Om Nom Nom-ing on Orks or Chaos invading Ork territory. The closest I can recall is the expansion of the Tau.

As it is, the number of codices is good IMHO. Most are on a similar level in popularity and such a level that their would be 'outrage' (edit: nerdrage) if one of the races was "squatted".
However, as was said earlier, it can be a very long Codex-renewal process. For a business, it makes no sense for GW to keep the codices constantly up-to-date or available on-line. However, many Codices are very old and still have a long time to wait for their updates. Also remember, that GW is also trying maintain WHFB at the same time.

There's REALLY not enough room for more armies (eg. Kroot, Admech) etc. however, Campaign-related (eg. EOT) or add-on books (refer to Codex ____) could work, create short-term popularity (Campaigns) and in the case of Admech, force the player to buy two books.

I believe that SOME Codices should be consolidated into slightly larger, but easier to update books, such as: Angels of Death - Dark Angels/Blood Angels (bit late now considering BA's have been redone) or Forces of Chaos etc.
As someone mentioned earlier, if the Codices were to focus more on supporting the army via list and models, rather than background, then this would also speed up the production process and possibly encourage more BL sales.


It's a tricky balance to maintain considering all the factors:
- Demand as a business
- Need to support WHFB
- Popularity of existing armies (except possibly Daemons)
- Diversity of 40K universe
- Dominance of Imperium
- Limited time/resources etc.

but as flawed as it really is, I believe the current system to be largely OK and/or the lesser of many evils. I do believe that more armies would really do more damage than good though, however add-on books could work well. Ultimately however, the Imperial Forces are too large and dominant to be forced into one codex.

I'd like to see them give a licence to some other manufacturer to produce an entire new 40k army, even as far as giving them a big say on the content of the codex.

Hell no to that.

How many SHOULD they have? I dunno. How many WILL they have? As many as they profitably can.

If people are sick of Space Marine variants getting so much attention, then play an army that ain't a Space Marine variant. Convince your friends to play an army that ain't a Space Marine variant. Convince everybody else who plays to play something that ain't a Space Marine variant. Space Marines are updated more than everybody else because they sell better than everybody else. If they thought releasing a brand new Space Wolf 'dex tomorrow would be better for sales in the long run than not, they'd do it.

Codex creep is, likewise, a sales strategy. They want the game balanced enough to play, but not so balanced that there's not a temptation to jump ship to the next big thing when a codex with cooler toys lands.

42

Seaward wrote:How many WILL they have? As many as they profitably can.

I think this is not necessarily straightforward. Are GW happy about the 10+ year gap between some armies getting an update? From what I gather they would have been happy squating dark eldar, leaving them forever without an update. The problem is though that if they added another 20 SM codexes to the list, all the other armies will suffer. It's why I anticipate after grey knights and black templars they will not release any more stand alone SM codexes.

Overall I'm getting the impression I'm getting is that the problem in the studio is convincing senior managers that any of the old armies are worth redoing at all.

Seaward wrote:
If people are sick of Space Marine variants getting so much attention, then play an army that ain't a Space Marine variant. Convince your friends to play an army that ain't a Space Marine variant. Convince everybody else who plays to play something that ain't a Space Marine variant.

As I said before, the more codexes they have to update the longer it will be for all other armies to be updated, unless they make a real effort to make sure the non SM lists are all redone within say 6 years.

There will be 40 000 armies. 39 995 of them will be Space Marines.

battle Brother Lucifer wrote:I say a codex for every single official space marine chapter. Ever.
One for every ork klan. One for each hive of 'nids. Only one for tau and 'crons.
One for every Eldar...w/e they have. One for DE.
One for each special regiment of IG (including DKoK)
Each part of Witch Hunters and Demon hunters broken up into multiple codexs.
One for each CSM chapter that would need rules
One codex for each God of Chaos. (5 in total )

so....1024 codexs? Fine by me.

keezus wrote:There will be 40 000 armies. 39 995 of them will be Space Marines.

Or 0.39995% of this post will be constructive...

It be best, in my opinion, to have one codex for the vanilla marines, with generic army choices and background, with teaser background towards another book with chapter specific stuff in it... That way, you can still play vanilla marines at a reasonable cost, and move on to another chapter if youre up to it..

I have no clue regarding the others..

snurl wrote:All of them.

Like Button

The king is dead. Long live the king.

The truth is Space Marines will continue being the only faction given any serious face time and marketing effort, everyone else will continue to get table scraps and face slaps.

What it should be is one Space Marine codex, one Imperium codex and possibly an Inquisition codex. Leave the development time and effort to races that actually have a different play style, not a different flavor of bolter/chainsword/power armor.

Maybe some space marine amalgamation to make one super space marine codex covering all the remaining loyalist foundings with variant lists. With custom chapter rules. Put chaos daemons and chaos marines back together but also add traitor guard and chaos cultists to really add variety. Could call it "Forces of chaos". This would cut back on a lot of duplication yet support varied lists. Also I would like Adeptus mechanicus and Ordo Xenos to get their own book ( Or a single Inquisition book containing options for fielding the 3 ordos.).

Grimstonefire wrote:

I read on warseer someone saying in the long term the plan was to split the CSM codex into 4...

Excuse me? Any official word to this? I seriously doubt it, unless they make it:

Thousand sons
Cultists
Chaos Space marines
Renegade space marines

or something...

Samus_aran115 wrote:

Grimstonefire wrote:

I read on warseer someone saying in the long term the plan was to split the CSM codex into 4...

Excuse me? Any official word to this? I seriously doubt it, unless they make it:

Thousand sons
Cultists
Chaos Space marines
Renegade space marines

or something...

You joking?
One codex for Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, and Nurgle

battle Brother Lucifer wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:

Grimstonefire wrote:

I read on warseer someone saying in the long term the plan was to split the CSM codex into 4...

Excuse me? Any official word to this? I seriously doubt it, unless they make it:

Thousand sons
Cultists
Chaos Space marines
Renegade space marines

or something...

You joking?
One codex for Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, and Nurgle

Well that doesn't make any sense at all. They only have one unit for each god, I seriously doubt they would donate an entire codex to each of them.

That's like games workshop making a codex for assassins, or making a codex for sanctioned psykers.

Squats anyone?

If it's done right i think it should look like this:
1 C:SM
1 C:Chaos (Including Chaos daemons and Chaos Spce Marines)
1 C:Eldar
1 C:Inq (Including all 3 ordos, GK and SoB)
1 C:SW
1 C:BT
1 C:Necrons
1 C:Orks
1 CE
1 C:IG
1 C:Tau
1 C:Tyranid
That's 12 in total. Have i missed any?
The 3 dfferent Space Marine codecii are because they are suppsed to show divergent chapter which BA and DA aren't (Both BA and DA could be done with special characters and a few more units though the SM codex would be big)

Samus_aran115 wrote:

battle Brother Lucifer wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:

Grimstonefire wrote:

I read on warseer someone saying in the long term the plan was to split the CSM codex into 4...

Excuse me? Any official word to this? I seriously doubt it, unless they make it:

Thousand sons
Cultists
Chaos Space marines
Renegade space marines

or something...

You joking?
One codex for Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, and Nurgle

Well that doesn't make any sense at all. They only have one unit for each god, I seriously doubt they would donate an entire codex to each of them.

That's like games workshop making a codex for assassins, or making a codex for sanctioned psykers.

they would make a bunch of new stuff, and put demons back with CSM

liam0404 wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:Personally I would like to see the following:

"Chaos" - CSM + daemons all in one book with options for mixed and pure forces, also legion options. Also has legion of the damned + cultists + special renegade IG stuff (to be used in conjunction with the IG codex).

"Space Marines" - one codex with all the main SM armies included. A generic section with all the standard units, then chapter specific sections for small amounts of fluff and chapter characters/units/rules/etc. Possibly a second (or many) books with fluff etc.

Imperial Guard - as is. Also include the FW army units/rules where appropriate.

Armies of the Imperium - The misc Imperial armies; SoB, GK, etc, as well as rules for including other Imperial forces (Inq, SM, IG, etc).

Eldar - to include Craftworld specific sections

Then the rest of the codexes as current.

This right here is the best idea so far.

Got to throw my hat in with this idea as well.

The current 16 codices takes roughly 8 years to get through updating, sticking to a 6 monthly schedule. This means that there's not enough time to do all of them before a new edition is upon us. This doesn't even take into consideration doing 'core' codexes like Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Tyranids every edition while codices that need updating go to the end of the queue. Reducing it to a big 'Codex Space Marines', 'Codex Chaos', and 'Codex Inquisition' reduces it to 10 books. That's 5 years to get through them on a 6 monthly cycle.

Some of the bigger books would obviously take longer than 6 months, but they can get around that by developing them alongside the smaller codices. Like, while working on the big, collective Space Marines codex, they work on and release 2 xenos codices on that time frame. This would also, if they really want to release new armies like adeptus mechanicus, give them more comfort room in an edition cycle and not end up with things like Dark Eldar players waiting 12 fething years for their codex to get reviewed.

The downside is GW makes its money as a miniatures company, and while this is a more player friendly way of getting codices out every edition, it doesn't rake in the dollars that GW makes by releasing a Space Marine codex every year to let people power hop to. So it won't happen.

Ma55ter_fett wrote:I think they need to do a "squats" and remove a few races.

I agree.

Sisters of Battle need to go.

Kan - a big, IA-style consolidated book is what I'd love to see. I'd pay maybe £30 for a book like that.

Lots of army potentials, you might have to have some fairly complicatted rules within the book, but perhaps no more complicated than we have now (i.e. to take unit X you must first purchase an Inquisitor / Exodite Lord etc.)

I'm not so big on the idea of the three mega-books, as I think I'd be swamped with the idea of having Eldar, Slann, Genestealers and Tau all in one army/book. Unless some of the in-book rules prevent certain forces working together, that could work.

I disagree with the idea of "squatting" armies - a lot of these armies have a decent following - perhaps the answer is to include them in another book (hence the overlooked idea of the consolidated Inquisition book).

The Tau 'dex has some pretty random alien races in it already - that could be expanded by adding older races like Jokaero and Slann (OK the fluff would be at odds, but I'm sure a decent comprimise could be made).

As -Loki- said above, whilst more armies is certainly not the answer, more options for existing armies would be undeniable cool. It would mean a shedload of work on GW's part, but if you managed to whittle the books down to something like 8, you can easily knock one out every six months, giving you a turnaround of a new dex every four years. If the book sum was even lower, obviously the time would be even less than that.

But let's face it - Chaos can easily have one book (Silver's comments are great IMO). Myriad Xenos could have a book. I'm an Eldar fan so I want one book just for them (they're RT so are owed that much). Forces of the Imperium (whilst I'd want one, single volume so I disagree with Silver) could be split into two tomes. Tyranids could be expanded to include 'stealer cults.

I'm not one of these Second Ed. fanboys, but I love those old, BIG books. And as for expansion, Chapter Approved used to work IMO - now we have PDF content online there's no reason not to rely on it. Mini-updates could be brought out a year or more after each book with some exciting new stuff, to keep things fresh.

-Loki- wrote:
Got to throw my hat in with this idea as well.

The current 16 codices takes roughly 8 years to get through updating, sticking to a 6 monthly schedule. This means that there's not enough time to do all of them before a new edition is upon us. This doesn't even take into consideration doing 'core' codexes like Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Tyranids every edition while codices that need updating go to the end of the queue. Reducing it to a big 'Codex Space Marines', 'Codex Chaos', and 'Codex Inquisition' reduces it to 10 books. That's 5 years to get through them on a 6 monthly cycle.

Some of the bigger books would obviously take longer than 6 months, but they can get around that by developing them alongside the smaller codices. Like, while working on the big, collective Space Marines codex, they work on and release 2 xenos codices on that time frame. This would also, if they really want to release new armies like adeptus mechanicus, give them more comfort room in an edition cycle and not end up with things like Dark Eldar players waiting 12 fething years for their codex to get reviewed.

The downside is GW makes its money as a miniatures company, and while this is a more player friendly way of getting codices out every edition, it doesn't rake in the dollars that GW makes by releasing a Space Marine codex every year to let people power hop to. So it won't happen.

I agree, as it stands, there are too many Codices, however I also think it would be unfair to 'lump' - for example - all the Space Marine Codices into one book. Not only would the price dramatically increase (benefiting GW I'll point out), but you'll be forcing people who only play one chapter to fork out a lot more for something they'd only use a 5th of. Despite our wishes for us to be treated better, this wouldn't be fair on the fan-base.
Similarly, many Space Marine codices are too divergent to be covered by a few special characters within the main Codex. Atm there are already many complaints about the reliance on special characters.

Games Workshop also makes the most money making the miniatures, which they are arguably the best at, which means I expect most of the development cycle is taken up by creating new miniatures (hence waves?)?
Arguably Codex production could be sped up by releasing Codices without even more model support!

However, I think some of the ideas presented in this thread have been very reasonable:
- Codex: Forces of Chaos (CSM/Daemons) - this could be a squeeze if people get their desired Legions Codex...
- Codex: Inquisition/ The Inner-Imperium (Grey Knights/Sisters/Inquisition)
- Less background within Codices

I'd refer to this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/246976.page so you can see for yourself how popular respect armies are. Roughly of course.

Compared to the likes of Chaos Daemons/Witchhunters/Dark Eldar who only about 4% play of each, 18% play Space Marines. This would be very unfair to therefore (in comparison) have Space Marines all in one Codex. If we went down the route that some have suggested of having 10 Codices, you could divide this to approximately 10% popularity each, therefore potentially:

- Codex: Eldar (Dark and Craftworld)
- Codex: Orks
- Codex: Imperial Guard
- Codex: Tau
- Codex: Tyranids
- Codex: Inner-Inquisition (Grey Knights/Sisters)
- Codex: Forces of Chaos (Daemons/ Chaos Space Marines)
- Codex: Astartes/ Space Marines (Non-Divergent/Space Marines/Blood Angels)
- Codex: Divergent Space Marines (Space Wolves/ Black Templars/ Dark Angels/ other divergent chapters?)
- Codex: Necrons (and maybe other forces, eg. LotD, Genestealer Cult, Kroot etc.)

Tek wrote:
I'm not so big on the idea of the three mega-books, as I think I'd be swamped with the idea of having Eldar, Slann, Genestealers and Tau all in one army/book. Unless some of the in-book rules prevent certain forces working together, that could work.

I disagree with the idea of "squatting" armies - a lot of these armies have a decent following - perhaps the answer is to include them in another book (hence the overlooked idea of the consolidated Inquisition book).

And as for expansion, Chapter Approved used to work IMO - now we have PDF content online there's no reason not to rely on it. Mini-updates could be brought out a year or more after each book with some exciting new stuff, to keep things fresh.

These ideas I also agree with, some of the others which I "snipped" not-so-much.

SilverMK2 wrote:Personally I would like to see the following:

"Chaos" - CSM + daemons all in one book with options for mixed and pure forces, also legion options. Also has legion of the damned + cultists + special renegade IG stuff (to be used in conjunction with the IG codex).

"Space Marines" - one codex with all the main SM armies included. A generic section with all the standard units, then chapter specific sections for small amounts of fluff and chapter characters/units/rules/etc. Possibly a second (or many) books with fluff etc.

Imperial Guard - as is. Also include the FW army units/rules where appropriate.

Armies of the Imperium - The misc Imperial armies; SoB, GK, etc, as well as rules for including other Imperial forces (Inq, SM, IG, etc).

Eldar - to include Craftworld specific sections

Then the rest of the codexes as current.

It would mean a whole bunch of thick codexes, but I'd actually like that more. How great it would feel to hold a book as big as the moon and know it contained all the rules I'd need to make every SM chapter EVER.

As far as I'm concerned a Marine Codex and a Guard Codex is enough for the Imperium. *Maybe* a Adeptus Mechanicus Codex, mainly due to the fact that they're independant from the Imperium. This way they can concentrate on making the game more up to date rather than just pumping out marines. Seeing Exodites will also be a pleasant change of pace.

Ideally:

Angels of Death Supplement (rules for variant Space Marine armies, with standardized equipment based off of C:SM, with a section explaining each variant, from BA to GK to SW)

Chaos Daemons

Chaos Space Marines

Dark Eldar

Deathwatch Supplement (rules for using Deathwatch, including allying them in to an Imperial army)

Eldar (with a reworked codex that allows for Craftworld variations)

Eldar Corsairs Supplement (rules for Eldar mercenaries as allies to other armies) *

Imperial Guard

Inquisition Supplement (rules for using Inquisition, including allying them into other armies)

Kroot Mercenaries Supplement (rules for using Kroot Mercenaries, including allying them into other armies) *

Lost and the Damned Supplement (rules for using LatD both independently and with CSM and CD armies)

Orks (with a reworked codex that allows for Clan variations)

Ork Freebootaz Supplement (rules for using Ork mercenaries as allies to other armies) *

Mechanicus

Necrons

Sisters of Battle

Space Marines

Tau Empire

Tyranids


* These could actually all be one book, a mercenaries supplement


Mind you, I doubt this will happen. Like, ever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:As far as I'm concerned a Marine Codex and a Guard Codex is enough for the Imperium. *Maybe* a Adeptus Mechanicus Codex, mainly due to the fact that they're independant from the Imperium. This way they can concentrate on making the game more up to date rather than just pumping out marines. Seeing Exodites will also be a pleasant change of pace.

So wait, you're worried about them "just pumping out more marines", and so you take away three non-Marine codices?

They should have five core Imperial dexes, six or seven Alien dexes and another five variant SM dexes for the youngsters.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Well that doesn't make any sense at all. They only have one unit for each god, I seriously doubt they would donate an entire codex to each of them.

They only have one unit each now, because the 4th edition codex sucks. There's about four daemons for each god, various cult troops like Rubric terminators, daemon engines...

That's like games workshop making a codex for assassins...

They've done it twice, once in 2nd edition and once in 3rd.

Kilkrazy wrote:They should have five core Imperial dexes

What should the fourth and fifth ones be?

Inquisition, Imperial Guard, and Sisters being the first three I guess. Certainly Mechanicus works well as a fourth.

AlexHolker wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:Well that doesn't make any sense at all. They only have one unit for each god, I seriously doubt they would donate an entire codex to each of them.

They only have one unit each now, because the 4th edition codex sucks. There's about four daemons for each god, various cult troops like Rubric terminators, daemon engines...

I think the main problem with it would be that there would be no representation of undivided in this Chaos. Not that the actual majority of the traitor Legions don't worship a specific god...

Codexaemons remains the single most unnecessary Codex in the line. It exists because of an upstairs decision by the beancounters and was not based on what was good for the game at all (if we are to believe Gav Thorpe, that is...).

I think what's needed is that GW needs to go back to including more than one list in a book. They did that in 2nd Ed quite a bit - Codex Angels of Death was a book for Dark Angel and Blood Angel players. Codex Tyranids had a Genestealer Cult list in it. Codex Chaos had a Daemon World and Chaos Cult army list in it as well as the Main Chaos army list.

Combining these sorts of things means that updates don't take as long (no need to wait 6 years to update the DA and the BA Codex is their Codex is one and the same), and it would cut down on problems with the rules.

Now, something as broad as, say, "Codex Imperium" including Guard, Inquisition and AdMech is probably a bit to 'grand', but I could see the following working quite well:

Codex: Space Marines (covers Codex Chapters)

Codex: Angels of Death (covers Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and includes rules for running Deathwing, Ravenwing and even a few variant Blood Angel formations like Flesh Tearers or even Death Company Armies)

Codex: Space Wolves (they've always been different enough to warrant a whole book)

Codex: Special Marines (I wouldn't call it that, but this would be the book for Crusading Marines (Templars) plus all the variant Chapters like Sallies, Raven Guard, and so on).

Codex: Imperial Guard (includes rules for Armoured Company, specialist Drop Troop formations, Light Infantry/Jungle Fighting formations, Mechanised/Steel Legion Armies).

Codex: Inquisition (includes rules for the Inquisition, Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (expanded), how to flavour your army to one of the three major Ordos, plus rules for all three Chambers Militant - Deathwatch, Sisters of Battle & Grey Knights - including enough depth to field them without standard Inquisitorial units).

Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (full forces of the AdMech, from Arch-Magi to Skitarii to Servitors to their freak of nature units and even Knights).

Codex: Craftworld Eldar (Standard Eldar, variants for the major Craftworlds, an Exodite list)

Codex: Dark Eldar (keep 'em separate, but throw the Harlequin list in here).

Codex: Orks (with Klan variant lists)

Codex: Chaos (Chaos Space Marines, Daemon World Lists, Lost & The Damned, variants for Undivided Legions)

Codex: Legions of CHaos (Deathguard, Emp's Children, World Eaters, 1KSons)

Codex: Tyranids (Tyranids & Genestealer Cults in the same book)

Codex: Necrons (not much to do here)

Codex: Tau (include Farsight Enclave sub-list and Kroot Merc list).


If we had more lists in each book, there would be more to play with, more to experiment with, and more reason to buy more models from the same book, rather than just making one army and sticking with that for 6 years.

I want to see less marines. I know it won't happen but in 5th it has gone Marines, not marines, Marines, not marines, marines, not marines. I think you could combine them all into one SM super dex with special characters changing the army play. (Big pipe dream i know)

Failing less marines I'd say drop WH & DH totally and just update the others more frequently.

Eh, I'm hoping they move away from special characters altering lists. I want special characters to go back to being rare, and altering lists with things like the old Space Marine traits. While they were abusable, who can say alterations from special characters aren't, with all those Vulkans and Kantors running around.

I'd like to see another race added to the tau, but the amount of armies they have now is good.

I agree with HBMC on Daemons, but only if I misquote it like this:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Codexaemons remains the single most necessary Codex in the line.

If I can't have a Chaos army without spiky emo gits (IE, CSMs), I have no desire to start a Chaos army.

CSMs are lame, but Daemons are cool.

A Black Ram wrote:One hundred and seventy-five thousand.

Really? Why not one hundred and seventy-six thousand? I mean, if we're gonna go into those high numbers 1 more shouldn't hurt

agnosto wrote:

malfred wrote:I doubt they'd do away with the Codex system.

It's just too effective a sales catalog.

I don't know about that. Wouldn't a better sales vehicle be something like the following:

3 tomes:

Imperium of Man with every human army.

Xenos with every non-human army.

Worshippers of the Warp with CSM, Daemons, cults, etc.

What this would do is expand exposure of other armies to the individual player as they're reading the book and seeing what these other armies can do they think, "I could do this if I run out and buy another 20 models" or something. I would think it would be an increase in sales of GWs biggest cash cow, plastic army men.

Sure they make some money off the books now but they could charge an appropriately higher price for the combined books and still make some profit off of it whilst enjoying increased sales.

My 2 cents.

It's not the books themselves I'm talking about at all. Each codex/army book is a
catalog. In your model, they're only updating three catalogs. However, the size of
the catalogs is such that they'd probably only update it every 5 or 6 years. With
their current system, they can update portions of their catalog every year.

GW can't play the five year long game. They have investors to answer to yearly.

Actually what I'd love to see even more than my suggestions above is one of these threads where every third post isn't someome complaining about Marines.

That'd be more awesome than an AdMech Codex.

There are nine Chaos legions that they need to represent. I would like to see them divided thus

Chaos legions: the people devoted to specifics gods.

-Black legion
-World Eaters
-1000 Sons
-Death Guard
-Emperor's Children
These legions focus more on only having marines in the army, it would be more elite marines/low model count. All units can take god specific upgrades

Chaos Renegades: The chaos undivided legions

-Word Bearers
-Night Lords
-Iron Warriors
-Alpha Legion
These are the legions that fluff wise make greater use of cultists/traitor guard and other "normal" humans so they would have some horde and artillery units.

I also think that there should be options in the regular SM book for renegade/chaos chapters. There should be a limited selection of wargear that is specific to either loyal or renegade chapters, (think demon weapons for Relictors). Taking an item from one list prevents you from taking anything from the other. This way you can play a "modern" chaos army that includes units like razorbacks and land speeders. (Think of any of the 21st founding chapters that went to chaos.)

The chaos demons are one of the few armies that has a very different feel to it. I would not want to see it bundled with another book that removed the unique play style it has with demonic assault. The CSM should have weaker demons because they loose the weaknesses of demonic assault. If they make the demons have marks that grant USR's that should be enough for a CSM book.


------------------------------------------
on books and options and balance


The more options that they add into the army lists, the harder it will be to balance everything. If you made Ork clan rules for example. There would probably be one clan that got better/cheaper/more Battlewagons/Killa Kans and thus that clan would be far better and everyone would complain about how unbalanced it is. All of the Ork clans are playable at the moment, as are most of the craftworlds honestly, they are just not all super-competative. Both the Orks and the Eldar have a lot of variety in their troops choices allowing for a variety of different fluffy armies. (5 troops for eldar, 5 for Orks as well).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Codexaemons remains the single most unnecessary Codex in the line. It exists because of an upstairs decision by the beancounters and was not based on what was good for the game at all (if we are to believe Gav Thorpe, that is...).

I think what's needed is that GW needs to go back to including more than one list in a book. They did that in 2nd Ed quite a bit - Codex Angels of Death was a book for Dark Angel and Blood Angel players. Codex Tyranids had a Genestealer Cult list in it. Codex Chaos had a Daemon World and Chaos Cult army list in it as well as the Main Chaos army list.

Combining these sorts of things means that updates don't take as long (no need to wait 6 years to update the DA and the BA Codex is their Codex is one and the same), and it would cut down on problems with the rules.

Now, something as broad as, say, "Codex Imperium" including Guard, Inquisition and AdMech is probably a bit to 'grand', but I could see the following working quite well:

Codex: Space Marines (covers Codex Chapters)

Codex: Angels of Death (covers Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and includes rules for running Deathwing, Ravenwing and even a few variant Blood Angel formations like Flesh Tearers or even Death Company Armies)

Codex: Space Wolves (they've always been different enough to warrant a whole book)

Codex: Special Marines (I wouldn't call it that, but this would be the book for Crusading Marines (Templars) plus all the variant Chapters like Sallies, Raven Guard, and so on).

Codex: Imperial Guard (includes rules for Armoured Company, specialist Drop Troop formations, Light Infantry/Jungle Fighting formations, Mechanised/Steel Legion Armies).

Codex: Inquisition (includes rules for the Inquisition, Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (expanded), how to flavour your army to one of the three major Ordos, plus rules for all three Chambers Militant - Deathwatch, Sisters of Battle & Grey Knights - including enough depth to field them without standard Inquisitorial units).

Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (full forces of the AdMech, from Arch-Magi to Skitarii to Servitors to their freak of nature units and even Knights).

Codex: Craftworld Eldar (Standard Eldar, variants for the major Craftworlds, an Exodite list)

Codex: Dark Eldar (keep 'em separate, but throw the Harlequin list in here).

Codex: Orks (with Klan variant lists)

Codex: Chaos (Chaos Space Marines, Daemon World Lists, Lost & The Damned, variants for Undivided Legions)

Codex: Legions of CHaos (Deathguard, Emp's Children, World Eaters, 1KSons)

Codex: Tyranids (Tyranids & Genestealer Cults in the same book)

Codex: Necrons (not much to do here)

Codex: Tau (include Farsight Enclave sub-list and Kroot Merc list).


If we had more lists in each book, there would be more to play with, more to experiment with, and more reason to buy more models from the same book, rather than just making one army and sticking with that for 6 years.

This is what I would like to see. Fewer codexes, more variants within each one.

See, the reason I want to see more armies/lists in one book is I think it would promote the use of different lists.

If you buy a book which contains all of the SM chapters, you can then play any of those SM chapters; find the one with the best units/rules/playstyle for you without having to buy several different books (which, in my view is one of the bigger blocks on creative and interesting lists and armies that you rarely see people use).

It is the reason I don't agree with HBMC on splitting several of the codexes (especially the 2 chaos codexes he proposes) - you should have all the options for one force in one book.

I think that it desided that it would be better to combind the daemon and csm codexs, and it would be good to combined the hunter guys aswell. if you like you could shove adapticas macanicus in there aswell to make a special forces of the imperium codex.
As for the seperate space marines, i cant think of a way of dealing with the share number of them. they wouldent work on one book because of there size, there is simply to much infomation. the only way that I can think of to remove them is to boycot them so that GW gives up on them, and that would be very wrong and almost imposable to acheive without physic powers.

Idea. they dont need to all be in one book. make them into two or so books after removing a bit of fluff to free up pages. maybe two chapters a dex. Spit them up into the way they work. Mabie put jump pack marianes into one codex and give special charactors and maybe one elite choice to diferentate them.

IG are fine. They should definatly continue to hold there own codex.

The diffrent exos dont need changing. there fine as they are. most of the problem is the excess (<opinionated comment) number of imperium stuff.

This would give us

C: Space marines
C: Imperial guard
C: Special forces of the imperium
C: Forces of chaos
C: Angles (blood and dark)
C: Crusaders of man (SW and BT)
C: Orks
C: Tyranids
C: Necrons
C: Elder
C: Dark Elder
C: Tau and friends (little lol)

That wraps it up for 12 codexs. a nice number. given 6 months each that would take only 6 years to make.

Thats my 1.54846 cents (lol for exchange rates)

H.B.M.C. wrote:Codexaemons remains the single most unnecessary Codex in the line. It exists because of an upstairs decision by the beancounters and was not based on what was good for the game at all (if we are to believe Gav Thorpe, that is...).

I think what's needed is that GW needs to go back to including more than one list in a book. They did that in 2nd Ed quite a bit - Codex Angels of Death was a book for Dark Angel and Blood Angel players. Codex Tyranids had a Genestealer Cult list in it. Codex Chaos had a Daemon World and Chaos Cult army list in it as well as the Main Chaos army list.

Combining these sorts of things means that updates don't take as long (no need to wait 6 years to update the DA and the BA Codex is their Codex is one and the same), and it would cut down on problems with the rules.

Now, something as broad as, say, "Codex Imperium" including Guard, Inquisition and AdMech is probably a bit to 'grand', but I could see the following working quite well:

Codex: Space Marines (covers Codex Chapters)

Codex: Angels of Death (covers Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and includes rules for running Deathwing, Ravenwing and even a few variant Blood Angel formations like Flesh Tearers or even Death Company Armies)

Codex: Space Wolves (they've always been different enough to warrant a whole book)

Codex: Special Marines (I wouldn't call it that, but this would be the book for Crusading Marines (Templars) plus all the variant Chapters like Sallies, Raven Guard, and so on).

Codex: Imperial Guard (includes rules for Armoured Company, specialist Drop Troop formations, Light Infantry/Jungle Fighting formations, Mechanised/Steel Legion Armies).

Codex: Inquisition (includes rules for the Inquisition, Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (expanded), how to flavour your army to one of the three major Ordos, plus rules for all three Chambers Militant - Deathwatch, Sisters of Battle & Grey Knights - including enough depth to field them without standard Inquisitorial units).

Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (full forces of the AdMech, from Arch-Magi to Skitarii to Servitors to their freak of nature units and even Knights).

Codex: Craftworld Eldar (Standard Eldar, variants for the major Craftworlds, an Exodite list)

Codex: Dark Eldar (keep 'em separate, but throw the Harlequin list in here).

Codex: Orks (with Klan variant lists)

Codex: Chaos (Chaos Space Marines, Daemon World Lists, Lost & The Damned, variants for Undivided Legions)

Codex: Legions of Chaos (Deathguard, Emp's Children, World Eaters, 1KSons)

Codex: Tyranids (Tyranids & Genestealer Cults in the same book)

Codex: Necrons (not much to do here)

Codex: Tau (include Farsight Enclave sub-list and Kroot Merc list).


If we had more lists in each book, there would be more to play with, more to experiment with, and more reason to buy more models from the same book, rather than just making one army and sticking with that for 6 years.

I think this is quite a reasonable idea, although it would be increasing the amount of Codices all together, I think it's a good idea with a variety of Codices. Although possibly too many for my liking.
I believe if you were to combine this with something akin to Melissia's 'mercenary' Codex, whereby the smaller, more add-on factions are included, such as additional rules for Ork Clans, Kroot, Genestealers, Harlequins etc. akin to Eye of Terror Codex for example...

H.B.M.C. wrote:Actually what I'd love to see even more than my suggestions above is one of these threads where every third post isn't someome complaining about Marines.

That'd be more awesome than an AdMech Codex.

Now this is a freakin' great idea. I completely agree. Fully. Wholeheartedly. [Insert synonyms here]

It's entirely unreasonable to suggest the Marines being in anything less than three Codices IMHO.

svendrex wrote:There are nine Chaos legions that they need to represent. I would like to see them divided thus

Chaos legions: the people devoted to specifics gods.

-Black legion
-World Eaters
-1000 Sons
-Death Guard
-Emperor's Children
These legions focus more on only having marines in the army, it would be more elite marines/low model count. All units can take god specific upgrades

Chaos Renegades: The chaos undivided legions

-Word Bearers
-Night Lords
-Iron Warriors
-Alpha Legion
These are the legions that fluff wise make greater use of cultists/traitor guard and other "normal" humans so they would have some horde and artillery units.

I also think that there should be options in the regular SM book for renegade/chaos chapters. There should be a limited selection of wargear that is specific to either loyal or renegade chapters, (think demon weapons for Relictors). Taking an item from one list prevents you from taking anything from the other. This way you can play a "modern" chaos army that includes units like razorbacks and land speeders. (Think of any of the 21st founding chapters that went to chaos.)

The chaos demons are one of the few armies that has a very different feel to it. I would not want to see it bundled with another book that removed the unique play style it has with demonic assault. The CSM should have weaker demons because they loose the weaknesses of demonic assault. If they make the demons have marks that grant USR's that should be enough for a CSM book.


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on books and options and balance


The more options that they add into the army lists, the harder it will be to balance everything. If you made Ork clan rules for example. There would probably be one clan that got better/cheaper/more Battlewagons/Killa Kans and thus that clan would be far better and everyone would complain about how unbalanced it is. All of the Ork clans are playable at the moment, as are most of the craftworlds honestly, they are just not all super-competative. Both the Orks and the Eldar have a lot of variety in their troops choices allowing for a variety of different fluffy armies. (5 troops for eldar, 5 for Orks as well).

This is also a very reasonable suggestion, I agree with his ideas about the Chaos Space Marines and the Craft-world/Clan lists. I believe such lists could damage the potential for hybrid or homemade or more diverse armies. You can still make fluffy armies without them IMHO. Less emphasis on Special Characters would still be good however.

SilverMK2 wrote:See, the reason I want to see more armies/lists in one book is I think it would promote the use of different lists.

If you buy a book which contains all of the SM chapters, you can then play any of those SM chapters; find the one with the best units/rules/playstyle for you without having to buy several different books (which, in my view is one of the bigger blocks on creative and interesting lists and armies that you rarely see people use).

It is the reason I don't agree with HBMC on splitting several of the codexes (especially the 2 chaos codexes he proposes) - you should have all the options for one force in one book.

What I struggle with this is, not only would people end up buying a Codex which they'd use less of, the Codices would be overly large, unwieldy and take a long, long time to come out.
For example, I collect Space Wolves and although I'd love to collect Codex Marines as well, I wouldn't wish to pay for the entire book containing all the Space Marines chapters.
I would have my Space Wolves but I wouldn't play them as Dark Angels/Codex Marines/Blood Angels or anything because it wouldn't look right. At all.
If I wanted to play another army, I'd buy another Codex. I wouldn't like to pay much more for a book I'd only use a 5th of. It wouldn't make sense for the player of Games-Workshop either, unless there were people that could afford lots of different armies and one huge book AND would be using a lot of 'count as'.

That's what I think anyway.

I would like to see all codexes become free online downloads that can be updated very quickly if a new games edition came out and to stop Codex creep. GW make the money on the models and if they see that brilliant models are gak in games so are not selling i.e. Chaos Possesed they could change the Codex with minimal cost and interuptions to increase sales on the model. Providing they only changed the Codex's every 18 months (for example) then people could be up to date with the rules and see their armies develop. I know the idea of GW making anything free is ludicrous however.

It's entirely unreasonable to suggest the Marines being in anything less than three Codices IMHO.

Amusingly enough, that's how many I suggested...

How dare an SM player agree with Melissia. YOU HEATHEN!

Just Dave wrote:What I struggle with this is, not only would people end up buying a Codex which they'd use less of, the Codices would be overly large, unwieldy and take a long, long time to come out.

I'm not really seeing why they would take longer to come out. Most of the information is already written. And as has been said previously, with the mix of big and small codexes that would be created through amalgamation, larger codexes can be worked on in conjunction with the smaller ones and keep up a fairly fast release pace. Added to which if it is all redone at the same time we might see less creep and inconsistencies.

I also don't really see that the codex would be huge either - I personally would love to see one come out with where there is minimal fluff and simply contains rules, etc, with a seperate book (or books) which contains fluff.

And again, I would love it if a codex had multiple army lists and so on within it - I may not use a lot of it often, but having it there ready and waiting for me to get bored of playing whatever army list I run is a good thing. Also may promote newer players to branch out and experiment with what they play.

If I wanted to play another army, I'd buy another Codex. I wouldn't like to pay much more for a book I'd only use a 5th of. It wouldn't make sense for the player of Games-Workshop either, unless there were people that could afford lots of different armies and one huge book AND would be using a lot of 'count as'.

Think of it as the foundation stone for your future armies

But in seriousness, I see where you are coming from but I don't agree with your assessment.

That's what I think anyway.

I think that we think differently. I think...

SilverMK2 wrote:It is the reason I don't agree with HBMC on splitting several of the codexes (especially the 2 chaos codexes he proposes) - you should have all the options for one force in one book.

I agree. Each force should be in one Codex, and you shouldn't need two books to field one force. The difference is, I don't regard Chaos to be one homogenised force (one of many reasons why I detest the current 'Chaos' Codex so much). My idea of splitting Chaos in two doesn't mean people would need two Codices - Khornate, Slaaneshi, Nurglesque and Tzeentchian units would still be in the 'Undivided' book, because the Black Legion ('Vanilla' Chaos) can field them. You wouldn't need the book with the World Eater rules to know what Berzerkers did in your Black Legion army.

Yes, that means duplications of unit entries, but we already have that (and GW are bad at it - how many different versions of the Land Raider is there? The Storm Shield?) so I don't see it being too big a problem.

Just Dave wrote:I believe if you were to combine this with something akin to Melissia's 'mercenary' Codex, whereby the smaller, more add-on factions are included, such as additional rules for Ork Clans, Kroot, Genestealers, Harlequins etc. akin to Eye of Terror Codex for example...

I don't mind the idea of a 40K 'Dogs of War', but I wouldn't put sublists that rely on parent Codices into it (like Klanz, Kroot Mercs, Genestealer Cults). Those types of things should be sublists within their own Codex. One should not need the 'Dogs of War' book and the Tau Codex to field a Kroot Merc army. The Kroot Merc army should just a whole entity, not reliant on multiple books, which is why putting it in the main Tau book makes the most sense. Ditto for Klanz, ditto for Genestealer Cults and so on.

And assuming the lists aren't of the "Look at the Chaos Codex for these rules" and are completely divorced from their parent Codex (eg. the Lost & the Damned list just reprints several units from the Chaos Codex in full) then you end up with a very big and mixed up book. Say there was this 'Dogs of War' 40K book, and it had Kroot Mercs, Genestealer Cults, Lost & The Damned and Harlis (again, just an example). Then you'd have Harli players only getting use out of 1/4th of a book, Kroot players only getting a quarter of a book. It's a waste. For some (like Angels of Death) it makes sense from a thematic perspective (they're the two 'Angel' 1st Founding Legions/Chapters), and because so many of the units are the same (a Blood Angel Tactical Marine and a Dark Angel Tactical Marine have the same stats - their special rules is what defines them, Predators are the same in both lists, just with different rules, and so on). But having a full Kroot list in the same book as a full Genestealer Cult list? Nah. Keep like with like as much as possible. It's a far more efficient way of writing Codices (not to mention releasing model kits - could you imagine GW releasing a book that had Kroot/Cult/LatD/Harlis and also doing a release for that book that didn't confuse players, especially new ones?).

^The other side of the coin os you get to field fantasy allied-style armies in 40k. Whilst I understand the amount of people who buy the big Eldar book just to run the Harlie list would suffer, it would allow greater flexibility for, let's say a half Salamanders, half Ultramarines army, combining units from each with unique traits.

Or having a part Saim-Hann force, backed up by an Ulthwe contingnency. That's cool enough to warrant "Big Books", eh?

I honestly don't think Chaos need more than one book. You can fit both of your proposed books in one, bigger tome. Like the comments above; a big book would feel great, and even at a higher cost and would probably yield a higher feeling of value for money.

AdMech could slot nicely into an existing army book. Whilst perhaps not with the level of detail the AdMech fans would like, it could still be a little more than a Techmarine, or an Enginseer.
Imagine my big imaginary Imperium book. Taking a MotF then unlocks entries in the book for you to take Skitarii (sp?) troops, or crazy spider-tanks or something.
Taking an Inquisitor allows you to take Assassins, or taking a Master of the Fleet allows Imperial Navy fliers to be used in game.

I would not mind seeing 1 more army that is less humanoid like Tyranid but not quite so far. I'm not a big fan of humans and elves or the anime race. Necrons are to washed out and uncolorful. I currently play Orks and they are fairly cool, though I am not a fan of the fungus fluff. Having said that picking a 40k army was very hard for me and I don't think I could play anyone but Orks, but on the fantasy end there are a lot of armies that appeal to me, Ogres, TK, Goblins, Lizardmen, WoC.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Actually what I'd love to see even more than my suggestions above is one of these threads where every third post isn't someome complaining about Marines.

That'd be more awesome than an AdMech Codex.

Like

How would everyone know that someone is a super hip non-conformist if they don't constantly harp on the "poster boys" though?

I would like a Traitor Guard Codex, personally. It would be nice to see my evil cousin >.>

I was think to myself why do tau have kroot ect in there codex. Its simple. they only have 13 units that are actulay tau, giving them 15 in total in the codex. Chaos has 24ish. The "extra" units are there to fill in gaps so to give better options. Who would pick up a dex if they only had one troop choise. Bit sad.

The point of this^ is that there should not be new codexs. Some factions had problems coming up with a desent number of choices let alone taking them out and putting them in a sepcial dex for kroot or something dum

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Just Dave wrote:I believe if you were to combine this with something akin to Melissia's 'mercenary' Codex, whereby the smaller, more add-on factions are included, such as additional rules for Ork Clans, Kroot, Genestealers, Harlequins etc. akin to Eye of Terror Codex for example...

I don't mind the idea of a 40K 'Dogs of War', but I wouldn't put sublists that rely on parent Codices into it (like Klanz, Kroot Mercs, Genestealer Cults). Those types of things should be sublists within their own Codex. One should not need the 'Dogs of War' book and the Tau Codex to field a Kroot Merc army. The Kroot Merc army should just a whole entity, not reliant on multiple books, which is why putting it in the main Tau book makes the most sense. Ditto for Klanz, ditto for Genestealer Cults and so on.

And assuming the lists aren't of the "Look at the Chaos Codex for these rules" and are completely divorced from their parent Codex (eg. the Lost & the Damned list just reprints several units from the Chaos Codex in full) then you end up with a very big and mixed up book.

Sorry, I didn't mean something along the lines of each being mercenaries mixed one one Codex, I meant a Codex akin to the Eye of Terror or Armageddon Codex. Whereby they are sublists. I personally don't mind sublists, but I can see why you don't, but as a business, it makes sense for GW to allow armies that require you to have two Codices (meaning they sell more) and personally, I'd be willing to pay that little extra for the extra customisation/choice. Although I can see why you wouldn't like it.

Maybe it's just me, but I really don't mind too much having to look in another Codex for some rules. When it comes to smaller factions anyway, I wouldn't mind this extra 'cost' for the flexibility and choice.