(Not including GK Or CSM).

It's not that hard. All you need to do is change the special rules into chapter tactics and cover special units and relics in supplements or dataslates. I'm confident that Blood Angels could be covered with dataslates, Dark Angels may need a supplements but could probably be covered by dataslates and Space Wolves would definitely need a supplement.

against, there's too many unique units in the DA BA and space wolf 'dexes. smooshing them together would result in something getting lost

gw consistently screws up dark angels, if they are part of the main codex
a. I won't have to wait nearly a decade for the next one
b. A supplement would easily cover the main dark Angel units and unique rules

That good enough reason for me

Definitely for. It would either be a big codex or some things would have to be cut, but there's no reason there should be that many books for one army, especially when Chaos, who's different factions are far more diverse, don't get the same. Also it would get rid of weird discrepancies between the different Marine armies.

I see no reason why BA & DA could not be merged with the main marine dex. They can still keep their flavor and unique models but actually gain the guff from the main dex.

I think Space Wolves and Grey Knights are too unique to be melded with the main dex. However I am biased as I run those two chapters!

Emphatically for.

The emphasis on increasing these chapters' "Special Snowflake" nature is the prime reason for the cheapening of their fluff and aesthetic. The wolf-wolf-murder-murder and Bloodliness of SW/BA in particular can be laid at the feet of "We must justify their seperate codexes" to the point where Blood Angels and Dark Angels, fluff-wise, Codex compliant chapters, feel as much like regular marines as Chaos, if not less so. It feels and looks absurd.

Even SW could be rolled in fair easily; yeah, all their units have different names, but in spite of being a non-compliant chapter, almost all their stuff are regular space marines with better/more flexibile rules. The only fundamental difference, mechanically, is the lack of organic sergeants and that ASM have scout statlines, and scouts have regular SM statlines. They feel more like a codex chapter these days than Blood Angels or Dark Angels, barring things like Wolf Wolfborn riding his giant hamster-lion-wolf with his wolf claws and wolf escort speaking wolf alongside, *shudder*, Murderfang.

They could keep pretty much all the special snowflakeness available at present in one book as the core units are so similar, and it'd result in at least one codex actually having decent value, and I wouldn't be overly upset if some of the dumber concepts were removed entirely with instructions to use said obscene models as their closest equivalent, with varying chapter-specific options to represent them (thunderwolf as bikes, for instance with access to storm shields).

But it'll never happen at this point. Only happened to Black Templars owing to a lack of sufficient snowflakeness, and losing nothing except choice of vows by being part of the main book, aside from the 4th ed fun stuff they still go to use for 5th that everyone lost.

The book would be the size of the rule book, but I'm for it. Would give more toys to everyone, and if they really don't want wolves to have Centurions, they can have a restriction like how Templars cant take librarians (example)

Da units

Deathwing terminators get rolled into normal terminators, with their deep strike abilities being rolled into chapter tactics. Deathwing Knight's flails are added into the assault terminator's repertoire. Command squads can take terminator armour.

(Alternatively, deathwing Knights can be a unique unit for blood Angels)

Ravenwing are space marine bikes. The entire squad can be upgraded to have plasma talons for x points. Rad grenade launchers join the special weapons list.

The special land speeders get rolled into the land speeder entry. Might make some of them more viable...

The Nephilim and seraphim can either be rolled up into one entry and allowed to choose between weapons more freely, or bloat the fast attack section a bit more.

Special characters stay in, like Black Templar.

BA:

Furiosos are rolled into the ironclad entry, with all upgrades and war gear added I to the ironclad entry.

Sanguinary guard are changed to a jump pack option for honor guard.

Death company are a unique entry for blood Angels, like crusader squads for Templars.

Sanguinary priests become a more generic apothecary selection any chapter can take.

Baals weapon options become upgrades to the standard predator.

All space marine rhino chassis vehicles can buy a fast upgrade.

All tactical squads can take heavy flamers. All assault marines can take melta guns. Hand flamers and infernus pistols are added into the wargear options.

Blood Angels psychic powers become part of their chapter tactics.

Special characters are kept.

SW (honestly, I feel they would lose the most flavour here, with their scout assault and bike troops, and marine statlline scouts...)

Thunderwolves are the unique unit for space wolves.

The planes are rolled into heavy support, anyone can use them.

Long fangs become devastator, drop down to four weapons.

tsctical squads are allowed to take two special weapons, and can buy a ccw for x points, or can exchange their bolt guns for free.

Wolf guard (veterans) made into one entry. Veterans with boltguns or combi weapons get specialist ammo, but you can mix and match close combat weapons and ranged weapons. Terminators would start with a power weapon for reduced points, but be able to upgrade to have the normal fists? Would interact weirdly with deathwing being rolled into the same entry...

Venerable dreadnoughts can upgrade to storm shields.

Rune weapons are upgrades for librarians for x points.

Special characters are the same.

Tempestus psychic powers are allowed to be take if someone takes space wolves or white scars chapter tactics.

(Break)

Honestly, a lot of flavour would be lost, and it would be tricky balancing 9 chapter tactics so they are viable and one isn't rediculously stacked compared to the others (unless they add restrictions with bonuses, ie the space wolf thing mentioned earlier).

Formations and detachments can be used liberally to represent and add rules that don't fit into the chapter tactics. Such as the +1 initiative on the Baal strike force. Would have to change some names, maybe having a deathwing army being a 'first company strike force', but since 7th dropped, all the codices being merged like that is more possible than ever, and they'd still be able to make it have a bit for everyone.

The book would almost double as a weapon, or a brick.

A lot of the 'flavour' that would be lost isn't really flavour though. It's just caricature. Things like SW riding giant wolves isn't flavour, it's because GW saw a quick buck and they have the word Wolf in their name. And even if you did want to keep it, it all fits somewhere. Thunderwolves could be an upgrade for bikers say. Sanguinary guard an upgrade for honour guard or vanguard vets. All the flavour added when the chapters got split just reads like a parody, and I'd be glad for that to be pared back.

Eh, like I said, sanguinary guard are just a jump pack upgrade for the honor guard.

Ideally they wouldn't squat anyone's models, so Thunderwolves need to stay in, but I don't think the why'd fit as a bike upgrade. If black Templar got a special snowflake unit in codex marines, I fogured it would t be a stretch for BA and SW atleast to have snowflakes.

I forgot femrisisn wolf squads. Maybe make them snowflake status aswell. Let characters with wolf tactics buy thunder wolf mounts... Etc.

Big SM fan but definitely for them all being rolled into one book or having 2 books: vanilla marines and other chapters in the next. Then both armies could have a few unique units.

I think GK should be kept separate though.

I used to be heavily against, but the last BA 'dex took a HUGE leap towards dulling their uniqueness down. I would not be surprised at all to find that my next dex is a sub chapter in a big marine book.

I won't like it, but I can at least see the logistics working now as opposed to before.

That being said, that book will still be the biggest 'dex by far.

And I'm sure there will be like, Dante and Astorath in the dex, and all the rest of the characters will be DLC. Because GW is literally run by Satan, or people with very similar moral compasses.

All marines should be in the same book.

Also one additional bonus is that if they do decide to fix something, like adjusting point values or stats of terminators (finally,) for example, all the marine variants would benefit immediately, instead of like when I played my BA for a year or more while they costed more than the core marines.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
But it'll never happen at this point. Only happened to Black Templars owing to a lack of sufficient snowflakeness, and losing nothing except choice of vows by being part of the main book, aside from the 4th ed fun stuff they still go to use for 5th that everyone lost.

The folding of the BT into the main Codex should probably work as a cautionary tale of what could happen though; gakky rules, loss of character, and a bunch of changed fluff that's controversial at best. It's not that it couldn't be done properly, it's that I wouldn't trust GW with it. I said as much before they folded the Templars, and look what happened.

I would like it, on one condition: No unit gets cut, lost, or folded into something else.

You have the 'main codex', the units available to everyone (all the non-unique stuff, and including the likes of TFC, LSS and Cents that some Chapters don't have at present). You then have sections for each Chapter, with some Chapters having multiple unique units or characters (Ultras, BA, DA, SW, BT), and the rest keep their current crop of SCs and some Chapter-specific Relics.

That way, nothing is lost, people who play multiple Marine armies only needs to buy one book (probably why GW won't do it), and no one can say they've lost out. This book would have to be about £40 by GW metrics, but it would almost be worth it.

 Paradigm wrote:
I would like it, on one condition: No unit gets cut, lost, or folded into something else.

You have the 'main codex', the units available to everyone (all the non-unique stuff, and including the likes of TFC, LSS and Cents that some Chapters don't have at present). You then have sections for each Chapter, with some Chapters having multiple unique units or characters (Ultras, BA, DA, SW, BT), and the rest keep their current crop of SCs and some Chapter-specific Relics.

That way, nothing is lost, people who play multiple Marine armies only needs to buy one book (probably why GW won't do it), and no one can say they've lost out. This book would have to be about £40 by GW metrics, but it would almost be worth it.

Nah, things like deathwing terminators, or sanguinary guard aren't so unique that they can't be represented by being folded into a base unit. Keep the diversity of choices they had, of course, but by folding weapon options and the likes into one unit means that games workshop can sell more plastic to more people.

No reason why the ultramarines player couldn't have a dreadnought librarian, or a blood Angels player having a Thunderfire Cannon.

There would be more options for everyone, and the only thing lost would be names. Space wolves can still call their librarians Rune Priests, and blood angels can still call their jump pack honor guard sanguinary guard. In the end, everyone still gains, and a few units whose fluff don't fit with any other chapters, such as death company or Thunderwolves, would be kept unique.

Not only would I be fine with it, I'd be thrilled if they did.

They won't, but its a nice dream.

As someone looking from the outside in with regards to chapter fluff/diversity, I can't help but feel their identities would be better served without the absurdity that is the new fluff/units the codices have to justify their snowflake existence.

For merging all but the Space Wolves who are just too different. There isn't enough difference in BA to justify more than a page or two of their special rules and units like the DC and Baals. DA the same, maybe four pages with their unique units, and have the special characters like in the current C:SM.

Col. Dash wrote:
For merging all but the Space Wolves who are just too different.

Marines in power armour with bolters who use rhinos and other vehicles based on the same chassis, supported by dreads, land raiders, boxy flyers, and other standard issue marine equipment, while using the same general squads and layouts (minor wargear differences aside) is too different from every other marine chapter?

No, Space Wolves could fit just fine. Frankly, it'd probably help their fluff so their less of werewolf vikings with a space marine theme, and more of a space marine army with a werewolf/viking theme.

 Crazyterran wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
I would like it, on one condition: No unit gets cut, lost, or folded into something else.

You have the 'main codex', the units available to everyone (all the non-unique stuff, and including the likes of TFC, LSS and Cents that some Chapters don't have at present). You then have sections for each Chapter, with some Chapters having multiple unique units or characters (Ultras, BA, DA, SW, BT), and the rest keep their current crop of SCs and some Chapter-specific Relics.

That way, nothing is lost, people who play multiple Marine armies only needs to buy one book (probably why GW won't do it), and no one can say they've lost out. This book would have to be about £40 by GW metrics, but it would almost be worth it.

Nah, things like deathwing terminators, or sanguinary guard aren't so unique that they can't be represented by being folded into a base unit. Keep the diversity of choices they had, of course, but by folding weapon options and the likes into one unit means that games workshop can sell more plastic to more people.

No reason why the ultramarines player couldn't have a dreadnought librarian, or a blood Angels player having a Thunderfire Cannon.

There would be more options for everyone, and the only thing lost would be names. Space wolves can still call their librarians Rune Priests, and blood angels can still call their jump pack honor guard sanguinary guard. In the end, everyone still gains, and a few units whose fluff don't fit with any other chapters, such as death company or Thunderwolves, would be kept unique.

But its ridiculous to roll things like Deathwing Terminators and Sanguinary Guard into other units when they have their own models. When you field Sanguinary Guard, GW doesn't want you to just field an honour guard with jump packs, they want you to buy the Sanguinary Guard kit. So I doubt they would ever just hide the Sanguinary Guard unit within the rules for Honour Guard.

If we're going to argue what would and wouldn't happen, the entire discussion would be over; GW would never roll the codices in together, period.

In the spirit of discussing rolling in as a theoretical possibility, it would also follow that the kits for Sang Guard and Deathwing would be purely aesthetic and follow the rules for basic termies and honour guard.

Id go with 2 books

Codex Marines and non Codex Marines

So you get to haev options such as riding beasts (thuderwolf cavalry) but also for other Chapters and to promote conversions.

It would stop the increasingly (IMO) silly attempts to make each Codex different usually be changing and (again IMO) overemphasing the often previously small differences.

 Orblivion wrote:

 Crazyterran wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
I would like it, on one condition: No unit gets cut, lost, or folded into something else.

You have the 'main codex', the units available to everyone (all the non-unique stuff, and including the likes of TFC, LSS and Cents that some Chapters don't have at present). You then have sections for each Chapter, with some Chapters having multiple unique units or characters (Ultras, BA, DA, SW, BT), and the rest keep their current crop of SCs and some Chapter-specific Relics.

That way, nothing is lost, people who play multiple Marine armies only needs to buy one book (probably why GW won't do it), and no one can say they've lost out. This book would have to be about £40 by GW metrics, but it would almost be worth it.

Nah, things like deathwing terminators, or sanguinary guard aren't so unique that they can't be represented by being folded into a base unit. Keep the diversity of choices they had, of course, but by folding weapon options and the likes into one unit means that games workshop can sell more plastic to more people.

No reason why the ultramarines player couldn't have a dreadnought librarian, or a blood Angels player having a Thunderfire Cannon.

There would be more options for everyone, and the only thing lost would be names. Space wolves can still call their librarians Rune Priests, and blood angels can still call their jump pack honor guard sanguinary guard. In the end, everyone still gains, and a few units whose fluff don't fit with any other chapters, such as death company or Thunderwolves, would be kept unique.

But its ridiculous to roll things like Deathwing Terminators and Sanguinary Guard into other units when they have their own models. When you field Sanguinary Guard, GW doesn't want you to just field an honour guard with jump packs, they want you to buy the Sanguinary Guard kit. So I doubt they would ever just hide the Sanguinary Guard unit within the rules for Honour Guard.

Currently, the only GW made honor guard kit is laden in ultramarines iconography and was originally In The 4th edition marines codex as ultramarines honor guard. Sternguard veterans were originally tyrannic war veterans and ultramarines only.

If it's because of the name on the box, they can rename it honor guard with jump packs. I bet raven guard players would love more options. For sanguinary priests being stand alone apothecaries, well, they even sell apothecaries separately on the web Store!

At the end of the day, sanguinary guards are honor guard with jump packs. Grey hunters are tactical squads switch two special weapons and sometimes chai swords.

I'm against it. Bloat thickest codex with possibly three more and raise the price so I have to pay for rules of armies I don't even want to play?
No thanks.

 Blacksails wrote:
If we're going to argue what would and wouldn't happen, the entire discussion would be over; GW would never roll the codices in together, period.

In the spirit of discussing rolling in as a theoretical possibility, it would also follow that the kits for Sang Guard and Deathwing would be purely aesthetic and follow the rules for basic termies and honour guard.

I don't know enough about Deathwing, but the Sanguinary Guard kit has different equipment from Honour Guard because the unit itself is different from Honour Guard. They have different starting equipment, different upgrade options, no champion, no apothecary. It is actually a lot simpler to just let the unit have its own codex entry.

 Orblivion wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
If we're going to argue what would and wouldn't happen, the entire discussion would be over; GW would never roll the codices in together, period.

In the spirit of discussing rolling in as a theoretical possibility, it would also follow that the kits for Sang Guard and Deathwing would be purely aesthetic and follow the rules for basic termies and honour guard.

I don't know enough about Deathwing, but the Sanguinary Guard kit has different equipment from Honour Guard because the unit itself is different from Honour Guard. They have different starting equipment, different upgrade options, no champion, no apothecary. It is actually a lot simpler to just let the unit have its own codex entry.

We are going to have to agree to disagree then. Less snowflake units and more options for everyone else, the better. Also, honor guard have no apothecary... Unless you mean honor guard not having a sanguinary priest of some kind.

Aren't glaives encarmine simply relic blades? They can make an axe variant, easy. Angelus boltguns vs boltgun/bolt pistol is another thing, I suppose.

It wouldn't take nearly as much work to merge them as you are suggesting.

 Crazyterran wrote:

 Orblivion wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
If we're going to argue what would and wouldn't happen, the entire discussion would be over; GW would never roll the codices in together, period.

In the spirit of discussing rolling in as a theoretical possibility, it would also follow that the kits for Sang Guard and Deathwing would be purely aesthetic and follow the rules for basic termies and honour guard.

I don't know enough about Deathwing, but the Sanguinary Guard kit has different equipment from Honour Guard because the unit itself is different from Honour Guard. They have different starting equipment, different upgrade options, no champion, no apothecary. It is actually a lot simpler to just let the unit have its own codex entry.

We are going to have to agree to disagree then. Less snowflake units and more options for everyone else, the better. Also, honor guard have no apothecary... Unless you mean honor guard not having a sanguinary priest of some kind.

Aren't glaives encarmine simply relic blades? They can make an axe variant, easy. Angelus boltguns vs boltgun/bolt pistol is another thing, I suppose.

It wouldn't take nearly as much work to merge them as you are suggesting.

Apologies, I was thinking of the old Blood Angels Honour Guard (now Command Squad) that came with a Sanguinary Novitiate as well as a champion.

Glaives are worse than relic blades sadly, but they are always master-crafted. There is also Death Masks to think of.

But yes, overall we'll just have to agree to disagree. Logistically, it makes more sense to me for the unit to just have its own codex entry instead of putting in all these stipulations.

Ah yes, GW should reduce the flavour of the game and let it be so people don't have to buy another Codex to pla-

Oh, wait.

There is no problem with split up Chapter Codexes other than people bitching about their special-snowflake-cookie-cutter subfaction not getting such treatment, so everyone else should be shafted too, or perhaps, from a contextless perspective, to reduce the quantity of broken rules and Marines Dex +1 occurrences. But to be perfectly honest GW is releasing a boatload of rules, units and new dexes anyway all the time now so its hardly an exclusive thing. At least that Marines +1 effect means Marines of at least some flavour are still competitive the whole way through an edition.

People need to suck it up and understand this is the way its going to stay.

/thread

 Mr.Omega wrote:
Ah yes, GW should reduce the flavour of the game and let it be so people don't have to buy another Codex to pla-

Oh, wait.

There is no problem with split up Chapter Codexes other than people bitching about their specialsnowflake subfaction not getting such treatment, so everyone else should be shafted too, or perhaps, from a contextless perspective, to reduce the quantity of broken rules and Marines Dex +1 occurrences. But to be perfectly honest GW is releasing a boatload of rules, units and new dexes anyway all the time now so its hardly an exclusive thing. At least that Marines +1 effect means Marines of at least some flavour are still competitive the whole way through an edition.

People need to suck it up and understand this is the way its going to stay.

/thread

How many "special snowflake subfaction" Marine Chapters can you count? There is at least 3?

Is that the same "special snowflake subfaction" that means that minor differences between Codex organisation are blown and horribly bloated in order to justify new Codex's and models?

Reduce the Flavour: The fluff is being twisted and distorted to make them work with the retconned new models - wow that Space Wolf Sleigh is awesome.............not.

Flavour is fine - constantly producing slighty different marines or merely painting them a different colour and sticking a different name on them is not diversity.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

There is no problem with split up Chapter Codexes other than people bitching about their special-snowflake-cookie-cutter subfaction not getting such treatment, so everyone else should be shafted too

Man, I wish I had the ability to read minds and state these universal truths. It must be nice for you just know exactly what everyone is thinking all the time.

People need to suck it up and understand this is the way its going to stay.

I don't think anyone is assuming otherwise. This is a theoretical question. On a forum. Where people discuss things.

/thread

So edgy.

The ironic thing is that the basic, non subfaction marine book is the competitive one.

Absolutely for the merging of all Marine codices into one.. and before anyone accuses me of just 'wanting snowflake codices of my own', I'm quite happy running any Order out of the same Sororitas Codex, thank you, and my other armies have all the options they need already as well.

 Mr Morden wrote:



Is that the same "special snowflake subfaction" that means that minor differences between Codex organisation are blown and horribly bloated in order to justify new Codex's and models?

Nobody cares.

If you don't collect that army, you have no reason to complain. If you do, you should be grateful your army can now be far more varied and interesting than if it were in the vanilla book.

The fluff twisted and distorted to make them work with the retconned new models - wow that Space Wolf Sleigh is awesome.............not.

Bottom line is a fan of that Chapter will be open to new units. The fluff section in GW books isn't stellar anyway and the good stuff is recycled from the old days. GW also releases crappy looking models on a fairly-frequent basis, regardless of whether they're Marines. I'll direct you to the Taurox for instance.

Thousand times yes.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

There is no problem with split up Chapter Codexes other than people bitching about their special-snowflake-cookie-cutter subfaction not getting such treatment, so everyone else should be shafted too

Man, I wish I had the ability to read minds and state these universal truths. It must be nice for you just know exactly what everyone is thinking all the time.

People need to suck it up and understand this is the way its going to stay.

I don't think anyone is assuming otherwise. This is a theoretical question. On a forum. Where people discuss things.

/thread

So edgy.

You failed to complete the reading of one sentence that entirely collapses your first objection. Key word is "or."

Second objection: this question pops up frequently and just gets people sore and elitist over their toy soldiers. People should by all means continue to discuss it if they want but I reserve my right to laugh at them for getting emotionally overinvested in it.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:



Is that the same "special snowflake subfaction" that means that minor differences between Codex organisation are blown and horribly bloated in order to justify new Codex's and models?

Nobody cares.

If you don't collect that army, you have no reason to complain. If you do, you should be grateful your army can now be far more varied and interesting than if it were in the vanilla book.

The fluff twisted and distorted to make them work with the retconned new models - wow that Space Wolf Sleigh is awesome.............not.

Bottom line is a fan of that Chapter will be open to new units. The fluff section in GW books isn't stellar anyway and the good stuff is recycled from the old days. GW also releases crappy looking models on a fairly-frequent basis, regardless of whether they're Marines. I'll direct you to the Taurox for instance.

Oh do I love the Santa Sleigh for my Wolves nope - so your saying I should be grateful for crap like that - jeez
Oh do I love the Taurox for my Guard - nope - its awful

Wow guess we should be grateful that GW allows us to spend money with them - guess you like it as is then and everything is perfect - weird........ Guess your just Trolling this thread for no real reason since your so grounded in reality and such.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

You failed to complete the reading of one sentence that entirely collapses your first objection. Key word is "or."

Maybe you don't know what or means? That sentence had two different ideas/claims. The first is the one I'm taking objection to, the second I'm not.

No one was bitching, and no one thinks everyone should get shafted because their faction of choice doesn't have 6 minor variations.

My reading comprehension is fine, perhaps your argumentation needs work.

Mr.Omega wrote:

you should be grateful your army can now be far more varied and interesting than if it were in the vanilla book.

But there's nothing to say that everything in the current books (and I mean everything, from fluff and units to Traits and Relics) couldn't be in a much larger, consolidated book. It would have no drawback whatsoever, but have the bonus of all crossover units being updated at the same time, multi-chapter players only needed one book, things that should be available to all Chapters (TFC, generic fliers, LSS ect) would be.

I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that all Chapters be condensed into the book the size of a single Codex, just that they all be put in one larger book, a compendium if you like, for ease of access and consistency.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

You failed to complete the reading of one sentence that entirely collapses your first objection. Key word is "or."

Maybe you don't know what or means? That sentence had two different ideas/claims. The first is the one I'm taking objection to, the second I'm not.

No one was bitching, and no one thinks everyone should get shafted because their faction of choice doesn't have 6 minor variations.

My reading comprehension is fine, perhaps your argumentation needs work.

read minds and state these universal truths.

This gives the implication that you think in this first point I am stating a universal truth. Firstly, I was yes exaggerating for effect with the sense of "ultimately" in there and secondly, I cannot be stating it is a universal truth because an alternate idea is literally separated by one word. Or. I don't have to write a disclaimer for why I didn't say and/or, because I'm assuming the people I talk to are intelligent enough to come to that conclusion.

The bitching isn't overt and if it isn't in the thread yet it will be. And I frequently see people expect things like Catachan or Steel Legion or Deathwatch or whatever dexes.

 Paradigm wrote:

Mr.Omega wrote:

you should be grateful your army can now be far more varied and interesting than if it were in the vanilla book.

But there's nothing to say that everything in the current books (and I mean everything, from fluff and units to Traits and Relics) couldn't be in a much larger, consolidated book. It would have no drawback whatsoever, but have the bonus of all crossover units being updated at the same time, multi-chapter players only needed one book, things that should be available to all Chapters (TFC, generic fliers, LSS ect) would be.

I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that all Chapters be condensed into the book the size of a single Codex, just that they all be put in one larger book, a compendium if you like, for ease of access and consistency.

The problem is that GW can't be trusted to put the stuff back in the main book and keep the Chapter A) playable and B) as unique and flavourful as it was.

See Black Templars, and how they're now entirely terrible with insignificant differences to other Chapters, and those differences are mostly drawbacks.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

This gives the implication that you think in this first point I am stating a universal truth.

I'm mocking the tone, not that I actually believe it is one, or that you think it is.

Firstly, I was yes exaggerating for effect with the sense of "ultimately" in there and secondly, I cannot be stating it is a universal truth because an alternate idea is literally separated by one word. Or. I don't have to write a disclaimer for why I didn't say and/or, because I'm assuming the people I talk to are intelligent enough to come to that conclusion.

I know you were exaggerating for effect. It doesn't make it any less useless and antagonizing. You claim there is bitching, despite there being none, but what you write invites that into the conversation, acting as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You don't need a disclaimer at all if what you wrote wasn't unnecessarily abrasive. If you were to drop that entire first segment prior to the or, your point would remain unchanged and keep the conversation light, rather than insulting.

The bitching isn't overt and if it isn't in the thread yet it will be. And I frequently see people expect things like Catachan or Steel Legion or Deathwatch or whatever dexes.

Bitching by who? In most of these threads, I've found most of the bitching to come from marine players who bristle at the thought.

And yes, there are plenty of people who would like codices for their sub factions. There also people who would hate to see that. This discussion is about sharing your idea on whether or not you'd like that, and discussing the merits of the current system and a theoretical combined book.

For what its worth, your second clause after the or I generally agree with. Figured I'd mention that in the spirit of friendship and rainbows and what-not.

DA would be the easiest to roll in and should be. But I think that is it.

No. With GW's stupid business model rolling all of the Codices into one will only make everyone pay more money for rules they don't need. This game is already too expensive to get into. Why make it more so?

I'd say more like two books. A main codex that has all of the generic space marine rules, units and fluff. Then a second book devoted to special chapters. This book would have 10 - 12 pages devoted to the fluff and special units and rules for the top ten or so non astartes chapters.

One Marine Codex (which also includes CSM and GK) and then make supplements with the special things.

This would keep everything how it is except force you marine players to pay double the price!

The main thing I'd be worried about is losing all of my DA special rules. All of the codex marines seem to get 1 or 2 units that are unique, or just get the same units with different rules. If they push DA in, who have different rules for almost everything but their scouts, they'll probably lose a lot of stuff.

Right now my bikes have different rules, I have unique bikes, my terminators have unique rules, I have unique terminators.... they'd probably just say I get stubborn as chapter tactics and call it a day. As much as I hate them I have unique flyers. I have unique speeders. I'd probably lose my venerable land raiders. I'm just worried they'd pick one thing I have special and then fit the rest in as standard stuff.

And if I do get to keep my own rules, I'd probably be required to buy the base marine codex AND a dark angels supplement anyways, when I'd rather just have a single book I can buy.

I'm not philosophically opposed to fewer physical books, but I am opposed to fewer factions. Since there are distinct models for each faction, I wouldn't want to see any of them go.

For example, I wouldn't mind seeing 1 Codex with all non-vanilla factions, that was updated once a year -- as long as there was a separate section inside for BA, DA, GK, SW. It would be the same revenue (or more) for GW, since those 4 books are updated every 4+ years anyhow.

And, saying, for example, that Furioso, Ironclad, Ven Dred, etc. are "the same" is just not true. They are as similar to each other as Dark Eldar Reavers, Eldar Jetbikes, and Harlequin Starweavers.

I am not a fan of the Supplement system, as it simply leads to too many books. I'd rather they re-release the main book more frequently, and add a few pages -- or at maybe, give the option of either buying a "New" full price faction book, or a half-price supplement book.

I'm for the idea if it's done right. Forgeworld has proven, with the Legion list, that it is possible to create a single master army list, but still have great variety in play styles with a few faction specific rules, units, and wargear added on top.

I just don't trust the Games Workshop design team to get it right.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I'm for the idea if it's done right. Forgeworld has proven, with the Legion list, that it is possible to create a single master army list, but still have great variety in play styles with a few faction specific rules, units, and wargear added on top.

I just don't trust the Games Workshop design team to get it right.

Yeah if they did it like the FW list it would be great. Even if, like suggested, it was two books, one with the main list, and one with the chaoter specific stuff, like the FW red books are.

 Formosa wrote:
gw consistently screws up dark angels, if they are part of the main codex
a. I won't have to wait nearly a decade for the next one
b. A supplement would easily cover the main dark Angel units and unique rules

That good enough reason for me

I thought this when it was suggested BT would be rolled into the main codex. I've been disappointed so far...

Absolutely not...

Not only would it destroy most, if not all of the flavour of the other 'big 4' chapters, but there would be no chance in hell of ever properly balancing the thing.
In the end, anyone who plays the non-Vanilla Chapters would be unfairly punished just to please a vocal minority, while the power gamers would simply have a field day trolling opponents with a broken as **** pile of gak.

I don't see how the chapters being spread through different books makes it any more likely to be balanced.

Depends. Do 4e-style appendixes for all nine First Founding Chapters and the BT detailing one or two unique units for each and any Special Characters, make sure all the options available are still there instead of getting dumped (mixed melee/ranged Terminator loadouts, dual-special and melee Tactical squads, that kind of thing), and stick it all in one book instead of a book and nine supplements, and I'd be fine with it.

(In short: Organize it just like the 30k Legions list and you're good)

Fair points on GW inevitably mucking up such a combined codex, but its not like the current ones are a beacon of balance, both internally or compared to one another. DA wallow in the pits of despair, while Vanilla marines roll around with bikes and cent-stars laughing their way to victory.

Balance issues aside, I don't think much flavour would be lost. As a Salamander fan boy myself, I don't feel that Sallies are 'vanilla', or lacking in flavour. There's a great fluffy CT and a bitchin' character, and plenty of fluff and additional material through FW surrounding the chapter without going full WolfWolfWolfWargear.

I've made this argument before, but I feel like a lot of people equate lots of special rules and minor wargear differences constitute flavour, when I feel that flavour is more of how you portray the fluff on the tabletop through bigger picture stuff. A Salamander player doesn't need a Dragon Hammer wargear for their terminators in order to model some cool drake themed hammers. They also don't need a specific entry for Firedrake Terminators in order to represent them on the tabletop. The same would apply to the Deathwing or Ravenwing. A paint job, some cool modelling, and playing to the fluff with wargear selection will do infinitely more for flavour than a rule entry stating your boltguns are slightly better, or restrictions on what you can and can't take in the army.

Outside of Unbound, a big book of marine would also spread all the units that really should be available to all marine armies; librarian dreads spring immediately to mind. Sanguinary priests are just slightly different apothecaries, and it would be fluffy and cool for every marine faction to have access to apothecaries. It would also make a lot of sense for all marines to share the same vehicle pool.

Really, the biggest loss (in a perfect world where the rules are written by competent designers) would be culling a number of characters from each book. Reasonably, I'd give all the loyalist chapters 1-3 characters, and 1-2 special/unique units only their CT could unlock.

The FW HH army list is proof of concept this idea can work, and work incredibly well. Admittedly, it would work best if the rules were sold separately and a specific chapter fluff book could be bought independently.

I will admit freely though that I strongly disagree with the idea of releasing specific vehicles (nephilim, the space wolf shoe box) only available to specific chapters. There is precedence for a chapter losing their sole claim to a vehicle though.

I guess there are differing concepts of flavour, but I feel that WolfWolfyCanusLupusWolferson Murder Murder isn't so much flavour as it is comic relief. Its why I would dread a Codex: Salamanders. The whole thing would be Drake This, and Drake That, and MagmaDrake Cavalry. Eugh.

Well, it was managed I thought rather well in CSM 3rd editon 1st codex. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Codex:_Chaos_Space_Marines_(3rd_Edition,_1st_Codex)
If they can do it once, they can manage it with Space Marines.
If you think of all the same equipment being listed again and again, the unique stuff would not be that hard to account for.
They like to supplement so it will be easy to make these books a little more unique and more exciting than a full codex.
I figure it is a big win for customer and GW.

 Blacksails wrote:
The same would apply to the Deathwing or Ravenwing. A paint job, some cool modelling, and playing to the fluff with wargear selection will do infinitely more for flavour than a rule entry stating your boltguns are slightly better, or restrictions on what you can and can't take in the army.

On a shelf, yes, my terminators look very Deathwing, kitted up with all their robes and pendents and whatnot. But on the tableop, they would not feel like they fit the fluff if they're just crappy normal terminators. We're the best of the best. We all show up at the same time, shooting who we want, when we want, where we want. We're fearless, and we beat the feth out of chaos marines. Take away these rules, and they're a bunch of smurfs in costumes, pretending to be real terminators, wishing they were deathwing. What's the point of painting them up to be different if they're the same as everyone else?

 Blacksails wrote:
Fair points on GW inevitably mucking up such a combined codex, but its not like the current ones are a beacon of balance, both internally or compared to one another. DA wallow in the pits of despair, while Vanilla marines roll around with bikes and cent-stars laughing their way to victory.

Balance issues aside, I don't think much flavour would be lost. As a Salamander fan boy myself, I don't feel that Sallies are 'vanilla', or lacking in flavour. There's a great fluffy CT and a bitchin' character, and plenty of fluff and additional material through FW surrounding the chapter without going full WolfWolfWolfWargear.

I've made this argument before, but I feel like a lot of people equate lots of special rules and minor wargear differences constitute flavour, when I feel that flavour is more of how you portray the fluff on the tabletop through bigger picture stuff. A Salamander player doesn't need a Dragon Hammer wargear for their terminators in order to model some cool drake themed hammers. They also don't need a specific entry for Firedrake Terminators in order to represent them on the tabletop. The same would apply to the Deathwing or Ravenwing. A paint job, some cool modelling, and playing to the fluff with wargear selection will do infinitely more for flavour than a rule entry stating your boltguns are slightly better, or restrictions on what you can and can't take in the army.

Outside of Unbound, a big book of marine would also spread all the units that really should be available to all marine armies; librarian dreads spring immediately to mind. Sanguinary priests are just slightly different apothecaries, and it would be fluffy and cool for every marine faction to have access to apothecaries. It would also make a lot of sense for all marines to share the same vehicle pool.

Really, the biggest loss (in a perfect world where the rules are written by competent designers) would be culling a number of characters from each book. Reasonably, I'd give all the loyalist chapters 1-3 characters, and 1-2 special/unique units only their CT could unlock.

The FW HH army list is proof of concept this idea can work, and work incredibly well. Admittedly, it would work best if the rules were sold separately and a specific chapter fluff book could be bought independently.

I will admit freely though that I strongly disagree with the idea of releasing specific vehicles (nephilim, the space wolf shoe box) only available to specific chapters. There is precedence for a chapter losing their sole claim to a vehicle though.

I guess there are differing concepts of flavour, but I feel that WolfWolfyCanusLupusWolferson Murder Murder isn't so much flavour as it is comic relief. Its why I would dread a Codex: Salamanders. The whole thing would be Drake This, and Drake That, and MagmaDrake Cavalry. Eugh.

I think in a merged codex, it would be only a few weeks before counts-as magma drake cavalry appeared. And, you know that doesn't mean only Thunderwolves, it could mean any silly thing.

You can observe with the different marks of chaos that any time you try to have choice in, to extend a metaphor, "seasoning," you will have problems. It is not a qu soon of balance, because economics or game theory can tell you there will be one or two clear leaders, a much larger group that is so bad it had might as well not exist, and a few choices that are ok but not great.

People may like to be fluffy, but they are also fond enough of their chosen armies that they want to make a decent showing, even if it means fielding nine Salamanders land speeders or a blue Vulkan He'stan.

Maybe you can say that the super-codex won't have Thunderwolves, and they can be somehow siloed from the main list, like a signature unit or a dataslate. However, I think you should consider why Thunderwolves came about as "flavor." It wasn't to make the space wolves distinct from the Dark Angels. Those two are unmistakable. It was to make them distinct from the generic marine codex.

I think what you have to do is throw out the generic codex. There are going to be a coue of different marine codexes, it would be dumb for there not to be. You have to get rid of the useless one. Salamanders can roll into one of the other books. Ultramarines honestly I think should become part of a Black Templar book.

I'd be for it.

Honestly, the meat of the "unique" rules for each codex can fit in a couple pages each, maybe a couple more for characters. The vast majority of it is stuff like turret/weapon swaps, wargear option differences, FoC swaps, etc.

Sub-factions like Space Wolves and whatnot have never really required their own book, and really should be the realm of Forgeworld or "Supplement" books (as opposed to tripe like Sentinels of Terra, Crimson Slaughter, or Champions of Fenris which are sub-factions of sub-factions...) as opposed to fully fledged releases on their own.


A lot of people opposed to such an amalgamation are far too wedded to specifics of these factions, specifics that can and do change with each iteration anyway (and sometimes are gained and lost with each iteration), and there's no reason relevant uniqueness couldn't all easily be generally handled in a combined book.


The core of the fluff for each marine section in the same and they all share 80%+ of the same fluff, units, wargear, etc. Also, given how poorly the background has been treated the last few years and in most of these Chapter specific books, along with how sparse stuff is in the 7E books anyway, it's difficult to see where a collection into one book is going to hurt anything.


Given that we're already paying $50 for books that were $20 seven years ago, when other companies have been doing fullcolor hardback books with twice the pagecount or more for years, it might actually make a GW codex worth the price.

And here we are again.

In order to have as much content as all the marine books put together, you're going to need to have a book that's nearly as long as all the marine books put together. You can do a tiny amount of consolidation (like not repeating the stat lines), but you're not going to have very much.

And so we have another thread asking if marine players should spend $250 for a super-codex and all the non-marine players saying yes and all the marine players saying no.

Again.

I'm all for it. Personally, I don't see any problems with it as long as the equipment and rules are maintained. We're not mixing Necrons with Chaos space marines, and to an extent, I see it already done with the SM codex as is. So, I don't understand why people feel that copying and pasting the DA, SW, and BA books into ONE book it would somehow make their army less unique.
Frankly, I think it makes more sense that certain traits become chapter tactics. I'd even considered making this space marine master dex if it wasn't for the fact that I wouldn't be able to post it without being CaD letter from GW threatening to sue me to kingdom come.

For, on one condition. All the SM get rolled in (DA, BA, SW, GK) or at least all the chapters and GK into an Inquisition book. Also, this would be assuming DA still get the same treatment as SM, as GW seems to like to screw the DA.

I really think it should be an all or nothing deal. I dont think SW or BA have enough unique units for the DA to be rolled in, but them not. I feel the same about GK, I think with a supplement or two they could also be rolled in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:
And here we are again.

In order to have as much content as all the marine books put together, you're going to need to have a book that's nearly as long as all the marine books put together. You can do a tiny amount of consolidation (like not repeating the stat lines), but you're not going to have very much.

And so we have another thread asking if marine players should spend $250 for a super-codex and all the non-marine players saying yes and all the marine players saying no.

Again.

Part of that could be trimmed by cutting out a lot of the regular weapon profiles (Bolters, Krak grenades) that are already in the BRB. I agree, the SM book would still be massive, but if meant that DA were actually good, I'd be for it.

Edit: I should also add, I doubt this will ever happen. GW makes too much off keeping DA, SW, and BA separate in terms of models and codices.

 Ailaros wrote:
And here we are again.

In order to have as much content as all the marine books put together, you're going to need to have a book that's nearly as long as all the marine books put together. You can do a tiny amount of consolidation (like not repeating the stat lines), but you're not going to have very much.

Almost all the vehicles, the overwhelmingly vast majority of weapons, most of the infantry and basic HQ types, all of the "what are space marines/history of the space marines" fluff, etc. The vast majority of it you can amalgamate.

And so we have another thread asking if marine players should spend $250 for a super-codex and all the non-marine players saying yes and all the marine players saying no.

And again, absolutely zero reason to believe this would be the case. Dozens of other gaming companies do $50 hardcover, full color books with 150-250 pages and have for years.

Why on earth a combined SM book would need to be $250, or even significantly more expensive than normal codex books (which have increased 250% in price in seven years anyway) is beyond me.

Or are we just assuming some sort of absurd insanity where GW would try to physically press all the existing books together and charge the same price as all of them individually?

I'm a marine player and I want this.

A general merge would make sense.
There are much more chapters out there than those given by the specific released codices.
I'd opt for a trait system which should allow to play any customized chapter.
Why should BA be treated differently as Bloodravens.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
And here we are again.

In order to have as much content as all the marine books put together, you're going to need to have a book that's nearly as long as all the marine books put together. You can do a tiny amount of consolidation (like not repeating the stat lines), but you're not going to have very much.

Almost all the vehicles, the overwhelmingly vast majority of weapons, most of the infantry and basic HQ types, all of the "what are space marines/history of the space marines" fluff, etc. The vast majority of it you can amalgamate.

And so we have another thread asking if marine players should spend $250 for a super-codex and all the non-marine players saying yes and all the marine players saying no.

And again, absolutely zero reason to believe this would be the case. Dozens of other gaming companies do $50 hardcover, full color books with 150-250 pages and have for years.

Why on earth a combined SM book would need to be $250, or even significantly more expensive than normal codex books (which have increased 250% in price in seven years anyway) is beyond me.

Or are we just assuming some sort of absurd insanity where GW would try to physically press all the existing books together and charge the same price as all of them individually?

On the size of the combined book I present my Space Marine army list. This is adapted from my rewrite and it's a little more granular than GW is ever likely to do but the combined book is absolutely possible (also some of this is homebrew brainstorm).

HQ (All characters are available with Jump Packs, Bikes, or Terminator armour in addition to the base power/artificer armour)
Command Character. Starts as a Force Commander (WS/BS5, 2 Wounds), Captain and Chapter Master are statline upgrades the same way the GK Grand Master is now. You need to be at least a Captain to have Relics.
Librarian. Starts as a Codicier with the current statline, the ML2 Epistolary is tied to a statline upgrade.
Chaplain. Starts as a regular Chaplain, Reclusiarch is a statline upgrade.
Techmarine. Starts with a two-wound specialist character statline, the Master of the Forge is a three-wound statline upgrade.
Character Dreadnaughts. Librarian, Chaplain, or super-Venerable (non-Special Character Bjorn/Murderfang, basically).
Command Squad/Honour Guard: Permit Bike/Jump Pack/Terminator command squads, but they have to be equipped the same as the character they're going with.

Troops
Tactical Squad. One heavy or special per five, let them specialize a bit more, and give them the 30k once per game shoot twice trick to make them more worth taking. Swap bolter for pistol/chainsword free for everyone, no bolter/pistol/chainsword.
Scout Squad. Pretty much unchanged.

Elites
Vanguard Veterans. Jump Packs, foot with transport, or Bikes, but always with melee weapons; two per five can have upgrade pistols or special weapons. If on Bikes they have Skilled Rider.
Sternguard Veterans. Pretty much unchanged.
Terminators. Let everyone mix and match melee and ranged weapons.
Dreadnaughts. Pretty much unchanged.
Centurion Assault. ...If you really want to...

Fast Attack
Assault Squad. Unchanged.
Land Speeders. Unchanged.
Stormtalon. Adjust its wargear so you can approximate the Nephilim.
Bikes. These do NOT have Skilled Rider.
Attack Bikes. I'm debating throwing open the doors and letting them have any heavy weapon on the sidecar because I can't think of a good reason they couldn't.
Scout Bikes. Unchanged.

Heavy Support
Devastators. Give them a better AA option than spending 25pts/gun on flakk missiles but otherwise unchanged.
Devastator Centurions. If you really want to.
Thunderfire Cannons. Should be accompanied by a revision to make the artillery rules less dumb but otherwise unchanged.
Predator. Put the relic loadouts in the core SM book, people might take it. Also give it some of the Baal Predator guns, we can't lose those entirely.
Whirlwind. More missile loadouts in the core book but otherwise unchanged.
Vindicator. Unchanged.
Hunter/Stalker. Yet again, if you really want to.
Land Raiders. The Helios at least should be in the core book, I can't be the only person who wants the Ares back, and the plain ordinary Godhammer needs some toy to make it workable.
Stormraven. Give it varying missile loads and we're pretty much there.

Dedicated Transports
Rhino. Unchanged, can be taken as FA empty.
Razorback. Unchanged, can be taken as FA empty.
Drop Pod. Maybe a slight price increase, can be taken as FA empty.
Land Speeder Storm (Scouts only). Can be taken as FA empty, maybe let you put more stuff in there to expand the options a bit. Fill one with allied Joakery and call it the monkey boat, you know.
Land Raiders (Terminators only). See Heavy Support for what happens when they're not a Dedicated Transport.

Chapter Supplemental Section
Every Chapter gets their Chapter Tactics, additional units, sometimes additional wargear, and their Special Characters. One formation unique to each
Ultramarines. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, some sort of special Ultramarines Honour Guard replace normal Honour Guard (everyone is a character for challenges, unique power axes, stuff like that). Battle company detachment that has the same FOC as a normal CAD but lets them use their Chapter Tactics more often instead of the Warlord trait reroll.
White Scars. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, elite bike unit replaces Vanguard Veterans (automatic hit and run success, power lances, surprise attack makes their first shot of the game better somehow, choose where they come on from outflanking). Special detachment that's got lots of FA and lets all Bikes in your army turbo-boost and assault in the same turn one turn per game.
Imperial Fists. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, unique Sternguard unit that's got special-ammo heavy bolters, option for boarding shields on power-armoured infantry. Special detachment that has additional Fortification slots and gains bonus VP if the other team does not have Linebreaker at the end of a mission.
Black Templars. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, unique Crusader Squads replace Tactical/Scout squads. They need some kind of buff to compensate for losing the fusillade on Tac Marines, maybe BT units can assault out of Rhinos. Special detachment that has lots of Troops slots and gives them the old fail-Morale-test-run-forward rule back.
Iron Hands. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, unique Immortals squad comes with better FNP, maybe Terminator-armour Sergeants. Special detachment that requires a lot of Dreadnaughts minimum and makes the FNP roll better.
Salamanders. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, unique Terminator squad that puts combi-weapons or twin-linked special weapons on folks. Special detachment that has a lot of Elites, lets master-crafted weapons reroll any roll to hit instead of just one, and gives Salamanders characters EW.
Raven Guard. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now plus across-the-board Night Fighting, unique Saboteur elite power-armoured sniper/infiltrator unit that has a pregame hits mechanic and minefields. Special detachment that lets the Raven Guard make it night for longer, impose penalties to enemy Reserves rolls, and force the other guy to reroll the scatter dice for Deep Strikers.
Dark Angels. Lots of stuff to approximate but I'll try. Across the board Stubborn, the Deathwing rules, and Scouts on all Bikes/Land Speeders would be the , Deathwing Knights and Black Knights are the unique units and are either Elites or replace Command Squads/Honour Guard. The stasis bomb on a Storm Talon to approximate a Dark Talon, the stealth bubble on a Land Speeder Storm to be the Darkshroud, and teleport homers on bike sergeants could work as wargear upgrades. Two formations instead of one, one Ravenwing granting turbo-boost/shoot once per game and the other Deathwing granting a bonus VP for slay the warlord, negative VP for not getting slay the warlord, and Precision Shots to Deathwing units.
Blood Angels. Furious Charge across the board is one part of the Chapter Tactics, the other is Descent of Angels (scatter 1d6 Deep Striking). Unique units are Death Company and Sanguiniary Priests, Vanguard Veterans and Jump Pack-equipped Honour Guard/Command Squads can have Angelius boltguns and Glaives Encarmine, and they get a formation that lets them start rolling Reserves turn one and imposes a penalty to shoot any BA unit that Deep Strikes.
Space Wolves. Counter-attack across the board is one part of the Chapter Tactics, not sure what the other would be but it's got to be something. Blood Claws (with the option to purchase bikes/jump packs and become Fast Attack) replace Bikes, Assault Marines, and Scouts, add Thunderwolves. The airplanes make more sense to me as wargear conversions on a Caestus or a Storm Eagle if we're standardizing, not sure where that puts them in relation to the normal book.

This is not all the way comprehensive and it's more likely GW would cut everyone back to just Chapter Tactics or cut Chapter Tactics back to one rule than giving everyone big Chapter Tactics plus adding extra units like this, but it's not an impossible problem and wouldn't result in a two-hundred-dollar bloated book (unless you're going to pay for the super-ultra-deluxe edition, of course).

Wow your suggestions for DA would really screw up my army lists and tactics. Gone are my maces gone are my banners and that's just to start with!

I love the fact that everyone spends their time complaining that the "special snow flake" chapters are not competitive and several people like to mock the Dark Angels specifically yet seem to have a problem with us having our own book. Why are you so threatened by this?

We pay the money for the codex, we pay the money for the lovely models and we pay the price for having a less competitive army. But despite all of that there are still loads of us. Why is there a need for my hobby to lose its flavour? what exactly are the advantages to other players?

Would GW make more money from this? Probably not if they don't have as many books to sell (yes I know we would all have to buy the combined codex but I know several players who play snow flake and non snow flake marines and have both books) and there would be much less incentive to buy specific model kits over generic ones.

I just can't understand why there is a problem with separate codex books...

Because half the release schedule, probably literally, is space marine Codexes being updated. If it was one book, other armies would have more room for releases. Also, Chaos factions are more different than the different SM chapters are, yet they get one book, while SM get what, 4? Why should they get special treatment like that?

To answer a question with a question, if they did it properly, you didn't lose many options, and they priced it reasonably, what would be the problem with one book...

 Jazzhands wrote:
Wow your suggestions for DA would really screw up my army lists and tactics. Gone are my maces gone are my banners and that's just to start with!

Who's to say all of that will survive another DA codex in the first place? The Banner of bolter-spam and Maces certainly aren't longstanding iconic DA wargear that have been there through multiple iterations of codex books and editions. Maces certainly weren't different from anything else for 14 years and a large number of editions before that. These things come and go.

It's exactly minutiae like this that people get over-fixated on when that might not survive a new edition or new codex intact anyway that make the conversation about combining Marine books far more frustrating than they need to be.

Lets face it Chaos need some love. The answer is not to take what little love other factions get (again thinking of DA) and reduce it but to bring out more for Chaos. it's not like GW wouldn't make money from it.

I can see your point about time for new stuff coming out but as GW seem to have moved up their release time scale they could easily fit it in.

Plus I don't mind if there are more chaos player to use my inner circle rules and special chaos smashing weapons against. They are supposed to be the arch enemy after all


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Jazzhands wrote:
Wow your suggestions for DA would really screw up my army lists and tactics. Gone are my maces gone are my banners and that's just to start with!

Who's to say all of that will survive another DA codex in the first place? The Banner of bolter-spam and Maces certainly aren't longstanding iconic DA wargear that have been there through multiple iterations of codex books and editions. Maces certainly weren't different from anything else for 14 years and a large number of editions before that. These things come and go.

It's exactly minutiae like this that people get over-fixated on when that might not survive a new edition or new codex intact anyway that make the conversation about combining Marine books far more frustrating than they need to be.

This is very true but with an individual codex there is much more room and chance that they will keep this flavour.
As the last time I played before 7th was 1st I have to admit coming back to the angels I was pleased with these additions. And while I accept that they might be new as regards codex updates I'm not keen on the idea they are streamlined out in a mega codex.

That said I wouldn't throw a table flipping huff and refuse to play my angels. They are my army and for good or bad I would play them. It all depends on what kind of game you are looking for. I played a super competitive player for the first time last week (3 necron flyers in a 1000 points game!) and had nowhere near as much fun as my fluff based games. I guess at the end of the day that is why I love my DA codex. it isn't competitive but its unique nature shines through. That is why I want to keep it.

The big advantage I see is if the books were merged, and done halfway decently, it would establish a precedent for more diverse codexes.

To be quite frank, if you're not playing SM you're avenue for variation and customization is extremely limited, especially those armies which are supposed to be very diverse like the Imperial Guard, Chaos Space Marines, Orks and so on. Marines get whole unneccesary books for subfactions (and books on subfactions of their subfactions), whereas the Guard have to be happy with a picture of regiments which aren't Cadians, same with Orks and Chaos gets marks which are supposed to represent the bewildering array of Chaos permutations.

Each individual Marine book, save the vanilla one, offers very little fluff-based customization, and very little to represent successors of these other chapters. They are very specifically for "Blood Angels," or "Dark Angels," with absolutely zero capacity to represent Lamenters, Guardians of the Covenant, or anything like that. Dark Angels are especially guilty of that, as the only way to play raven/deathwing is with Dark Angels specific characters; there's no bike captains, no generic deathwing leaders, on top of the lack of chapter masters or any kind of variance.

With a merged codex, as it is true, even if you include every single unique rule/wargear even at this state, it wouldn't take up more than a half-dozen pages in a codex, would allow a great deal more customization, and would, I hope, curb future ridiculousness. I would then hope that such a model could be applied to other armies; I know I'll never see the regiment builder again, but Guard could get a couple variants in the codex; Steel Legion, Tallarn, Mordian, etc with a few special rules and units unique FOC for them, do the same deal with Chaos; give the legions some love, give us some Ork Klans, etc.

Maybe then the codexes would actually have decent value, as the only one I own that I consider anywhere close to worth any money is the vanilla marine one. Also, amalgamated books, and developed books along these lines would provide excellent model fodder for GW; they're clearly running out of ideas for the codexes as is (Taurox, DJ speeder, Dinobots, Centurions, etc) and establishing a precedent for subfactions represented within the codex will give them all sorts of options; the old Guard lines, Legion-specific units, units for the other 1st founding chapters and so on without resorting to the incredibly dumb designs of late.

I would be happy to give up my DA codex if I could bring my 1980's Dinobots to the table.

Grimlock would kick ass!

That said I see all your points though I hope you can see why DA BA etc players are upset at the idea.

I think the sad truth is that GW will never be able to keep the customer satisfied and often don't seem to be even trying.

Against.
Luckily GW is never going to do this.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Absolutely not...

Not only would it destroy most, if not all of the flavour of the other 'big 4' chapters, but there would be no chance in hell of ever properly balancing the thing.
In the end, anyone who plays the non-Vanilla Chapters would be unfairly punished just to please a vocal minority, while the power gamers would simply have a field day trolling opponents with a broken as **** pile of gak.

Judging by the poll, it's not a "minority". There's no reason your snowflake Mary Sues have to stop being snowflake Mary Sues, either, or that they can't be balanced.

I'd personally enjoy seeing a central "power armor" book with supplements/formation dataslates for each chapter with some alternate unit swaps, a unique artifact table, some special characters, and stuff like that (like Farsight for Tau level of new stuff). I'd also like to see Chaos SM being done by supplement too honestly, that would help the problem of the loyalist space marines having all these "relics from the heresy" that the chaos marines somehow don't have even though they still use more heresy tech than the loyalists do.

Crazyterran wrote:I'm a marine player and I want this.

I like the whole IoM and I don't want this.

ImAGeek wrote:

If it was one book, other armies would have more room for releases.

Releases don't depend on specific codices. So far we have ..... in 7th ed... how many SM ?

ImAGeek wrote:Also, Chaos factions are more different than the different SM chapters are, yet they get one book, while SM get what, 4? Why should they get special treatment like that?

Points at 3rd ed SM vs 3rd ed CSM.
We could merge them too. A few rewrites and done.

ImAGeek wrote:To answer a question with a question, if they did it properly, you didn't lose many options, and they priced it reasonably, what would be the problem with one book...

This is 40k general discussion. The company to write and publish this would be Games Workshop. So.....


I'd prefer to wait and see how it goes for GW's Fantasy line of products before I'd guess if I was fine with them merging things.

 Jazzhands wrote:
Wow your suggestions for DA would really screw up my army lists and tactics. Gone are my maces gone are my banners and that's just to start with!

Unique relics for each army, and the Deathwing Knights were in the appendix section.

The banners are going to be first on the chopping block next book we get, you realize.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jazzhands wrote:
I would be happy to give up my DA codex if I could bring my 1980's Dinobots to the table.

Grimlock would kick ass!

That said I see all your points though I hope you can see why DA BA etc players are upset at the idea.

I think the sad truth is that GW will never be able to keep the customer satisfied and often don't seem to be even trying.

I am a DA player, I also play other armies and I think four separate Codexes with as much overlap as they have is a dumb idea.

 1hadhq wrote:

Crazyterran wrote:I'm a marine player and I want this.

I like the whole IoM and I don't want this.

ImAGeek wrote:

If it was one book, other armies would have more room for releases.

Releases don't depend on specific codices. So far we have ..... in 7th ed... how many SM ?

ImAGeek wrote:Also, Chaos factions are more different than the different SM chapters are, yet they get one book, while SM get what, 4? Why should they get special treatment like that?

Points at 3rd ed SM vs 3rd ed CSM.
We could merge them too. A few rewrites and done.

ImAGeek wrote:To answer a question with a question, if they did it properly, you didn't lose many options, and they priced it reasonably, what would be the problem with one book...

This is 40k general discussion. The company to write and publish this would be Games Workshop. So.....


I'd prefer to wait and see how it goes for GW's Fantasy line of products before I'd guess if I was fine with them merging things.

It's also a hypothetical discussion, it's never going to happen. Hypothetically, it could be handled well, in which case I don't see any problems with it. Forge World have proven it's doable. And there's no point pointing at what, 4 editions ago? Because that has very little bearing on the state of things as they are now.

 Jazzhands wrote:
Wow your suggestions for DA would really screw up my army lists and tactics. Gone are my maces gone are my banners and that's just to start with!

I love the fact that everyone spends their time complaining that the "special snow flake" chapters are not competitive and several people like to mock the Dark Angels specifically yet seem to have a problem with us having our own book. Why are you so threatened by this?

We pay the money for the codex, we pay the money for the lovely models and we pay the price for having a less competitive army. But despite all of that there are still loads of us. Why is there a need for my hobby to lose its flavour? what exactly are the advantages to other players?

Would GW make more money from this? Probably not if they don't have as many books to sell (yes I know we would all have to buy the combined codex but I know several players who play snow flake and non snow flake marines and have both books) and there would be much less incentive to buy specific model kits over generic ones.

I just can't understand why there is a problem with separate codex books...

Because they are jealous GW spends so much time on SPEHS MAHREENS

For the record, I had a Dark Angels army, my very first 40k army, and got rid of them with the advent of the 6th edition book. They had become caricature, in an effort to justify their unique codex. A local Space Wolves player since, well, forever, who had endured the Thunderwolf with stoicism and grace boxed away his army in shame with the advent of Murderfang and Logan Claus.

The books being separate isn't even really the main problem; it's the constant enforcement and expansion on the ludicrous, ridiculous and caricature to justify their seperate books, and that the byprouct of that is a release cycle dominated by Space Marines. If GW had let these marines variants be, and used their releases to release re-dos of various older kits and conversion kits, you know, smaller releases, rather than adding Murderfang, the Flying Shoebox, Logan Claus, Ravendeathdarkwing and so on, the fact that they had seperate books wouldn't bother me all that much, still a bit unnecessary, but not something which would actively irk me, especially when armies still desperately in need of some diversity, backed up and encouraged by decades of fluff get nothing, while Light Blue Marines and Red Marines and Bone/Black Marines (lord knows the current dex doesn't want you to play Green Marines that aren't the Dakkabanner) keep getting increasingly bizarre, nonsensical, ugly and unprecedented stuff "which was there all along," in an effort to make them more different.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
For the record, I had a Dark Angels army, my very first 40k army, and got rid of them with the advent of the 6th edition book. They had become caricature, in an effort to justify their unique codex. A local Space Wolves player since, well, forever, who had endured the Thunderwolf with stoicism and grace boxed away his army in shame with the advent of Murderfang and Logan Claus.

The books being separate isn't even really the main problem; it's the constant enforcement and expansion on the ludicrous, ridiculous and caricature to justify their seperate books, and that the byprouct of that is a release cycle dominated by Space Marines. If GW had let these marines variants be, and used their releases to release re-dos of various older kits and conversion kits, you know, smaller releases, rather than adding Murderfang, the Flying Shoebox, Logan Claus, Ravendeathdarkwing and so on, the fact that they had seperate books wouldn't bother me all that much, still a bit unnecessary, but not something which would actively irk me, especially when armies still desperately in need of some diversity, backed up and encouraged by decades of fluff get nothing, while Light Blue Marines and Red Marines and Bone/Black Marines (lord knows the current dex doesn't want you to play Green Marines that aren't the Dakkabanner) keep getting increasingly bizarre, nonsensical, ugly and unprecedented stuff "which was there all along," in an effort to make them more different.

So GW put out some new models, you don't like it, therefore the separate codices have to go?

Seriously. SM will and always will be the best selling armies for GW, with variants being a close second. Don't get me wrong, I think the Logan Claus model is ridciulous, but I'd rather see them push out new ideas than keep rehashing old kits. I'm sorry you live in the past, but that's no reason to want to handicap current players.

Also, speaking of, what releases as far as BA and DA make them "caricatures and ludicrous"? Most people I know like the current DA and BA models because it adds some difference to the models rather than just having red or green marines.

Yes, *with* the caveat that there was a proper Trait System put in place for it.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
And here we are again.

In order to have as much content as all the marine books put together, you're going to need to have a book that's nearly as long as all the marine books put together. You can do a tiny amount of consolidation (like not repeating the stat lines), but you're not going to have very much.

Almost all the vehicles, the overwhelmingly vast majority of weapons, most of the infantry and basic HQ types, all of the "what are space marines/history of the space marines" fluff, etc. The vast majority of it you can amalgamate.

And so we have another thread asking if marine players should spend $250 for a super-codex and all the non-marine players saying yes and all the marine players saying no.

And again, absolutely zero reason to believe this would be the case. Dozens of other gaming companies do $50 hardcover, full color books with 150-250 pages and have for years.

Why on earth a combined SM book would need to be $250, or even significantly more expensive than normal codex books (which have increased 250% in price in seven years anyway) is beyond me.

Or are we just assuming some sort of absurd insanity where GW would try to physically press all the existing books together and charge the same price as all of them individually?

On the size of the combined book I present my Space Marine army list. This is adapted from my rewrite and it's a little more granular than GW is ever likely to do but the combined book is absolutely possible (also some of this is homebrew brainstorm).

HQ (All characters are available with Jump Packs, Bikes, or Terminator armour in addition to the base power/artificer armour)
Command Character. Starts as a Force Commander (WS/BS5, 2 Wounds), Captain and Chapter Master are statline upgrades the same way the GK Grand Master is now. You need to be at least a Captain to have Relics.
Librarian. Starts as a Codicier with the current statline, the ML2 Epistolary is tied to a statline upgrade.
Chaplain. Starts as a regular Chaplain, Reclusiarch is a statline upgrade.
Techmarine. Starts with a two-wound specialist character statline, the Master of the Forge is a three-wound statline upgrade.
Character Dreadnaughts. Librarian, Chaplain, or super-Venerable (non-Special Character Bjorn/Murderfang, basically).
Command Squad/Honour Guard: Permit Bike/Jump Pack/Terminator command squads, but they have to be equipped the same as the character they're going with.

Troops
Tactical Squad. One heavy or special per five, let them specialize a bit more, and give them the 30k once per game shoot twice trick to make them more worth taking. Swap bolter for pistol/chainsword free for everyone, no bolter/pistol/chainsword.
Scout Squad. Pretty much unchanged.

Elites
Vanguard Veterans. Jump Packs, foot with transport, or Bikes, but always with melee weapons; two per five can have upgrade pistols or special weapons. If on Bikes they have Skilled Rider.
Sternguard Veterans. Pretty much unchanged.
Terminators. Let everyone mix and match melee and ranged weapons.
Dreadnaughts. Pretty much unchanged.
Centurion Assault. ...If you really want to...

Fast Attack
Assault Squad. Unchanged.
Land Speeders. Unchanged.
Stormtalon. Adjust its wargear so you can approximate the Nephilim.
Bikes. These do NOT have Skilled Rider.
Attack Bikes. I'm debating throwing open the doors and letting them have any heavy weapon on the sidecar because I can't think of a good reason they couldn't.
Scout Bikes. Unchanged.

Heavy Support
Devastators. Give them a better AA option than spending 25pts/gun on flakk missiles but otherwise unchanged.
Devastator Centurions. If you really want to.
Thunderfire Cannons. Should be accompanied by a revision to make the artillery rules less dumb but otherwise unchanged.
Predator. Put the relic loadouts in the core SM book, people might take it. Also give it some of the Baal Predator guns, we can't lose those entirely.
Whirlwind. More missile loadouts in the core book but otherwise unchanged.
Vindicator. Unchanged.
Hunter/Stalker. Yet again, if you really want to.
Land Raiders. The Helios at least should be in the core book, I can't be the only person who wants the Ares back, and the plain ordinary Godhammer needs some toy to make it workable.
Stormraven. Give it varying missile loads and we're pretty much there.

Dedicated Transports
Rhino. Unchanged, can be taken as FA empty.
Razorback. Unchanged, can be taken as FA empty.
Drop Pod. Maybe a slight price increase, can be taken as FA empty.
Land Speeder Storm (Scouts only). Can be taken as FA empty, maybe let you put more stuff in there to expand the options a bit. Fill one with allied Joakery and call it the monkey boat, you know.
Land Raiders (Terminators only). See Heavy Support for what happens when they're not a Dedicated Transport.

Chapter Supplemental Section
Every Chapter gets their Chapter Tactics, additional units, sometimes additional wargear, and their Special Characters. One formation unique to each
Ultramarines. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, some sort of special Ultramarines Honour Guard replace normal Honour Guard (everyone is a character for challenges, unique power axes, stuff like that). Battle company detachment that has the same FOC as a normal CAD but lets them use their Chapter Tactics more often instead of the Warlord trait reroll.
White Scars. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, elite bike unit replaces Vanguard Veterans (automatic hit and run success, power lances, surprise attack makes their first shot of the game better somehow, choose where they come on from outflanking). Special detachment that's got lots of FA and lets all Bikes in your army turbo-boost and assault in the same turn one turn per game.
Imperial Fists. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, unique Sternguard unit that's got special-ammo heavy bolters, option for boarding shields on power-armoured infantry. Special detachment that has additional Fortification slots and gains bonus VP if the other team does not have Linebreaker at the end of a mission.
Black Templars. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, unique Crusader Squads replace Tactical/Scout squads. They need some kind of buff to compensate for losing the fusillade on Tac Marines, maybe BT units can assault out of Rhinos. Special detachment that has lots of Troops slots and gives them the old fail-Morale-test-run-forward rule back.
Iron Hands. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, unique Immortals squad comes with better FNP, maybe Terminator-armour Sergeants. Special detachment that requires a lot of Dreadnaughts minimum and makes the FNP roll better.
Salamanders. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now, unique Terminator squad that puts combi-weapons or twin-linked special weapons on folks. Special detachment that has a lot of Elites, lets master-crafted weapons reroll any roll to hit instead of just one, and gives Salamanders characters EW.
Raven Guard. Chapter Tactics pretty much as now plus across-the-board Night Fighting, unique Saboteur elite power-armoured sniper/infiltrator unit that has a pregame hits mechanic and minefields. Special detachment that lets the Raven Guard make it night for longer, impose penalties to enemy Reserves rolls, and force the other guy to reroll the scatter dice for Deep Strikers.
Dark Angels. Lots of stuff to approximate but I'll try. Across the board Stubborn, the Deathwing rules, and Scouts on all Bikes/Land Speeders would be the , Deathwing Knights and Black Knights are the unique units and are either Elites or replace Command Squads/Honour Guard. The stasis bomb on a Storm Talon to approximate a Dark Talon, the stealth bubble on a Land Speeder Storm to be the Darkshroud, and teleport homers on bike sergeants could work as wargear upgrades. Two formations instead of one, one Ravenwing granting turbo-boost/shoot once per game and the other Deathwing granting a bonus VP for slay the warlord, negative VP for not getting slay the warlord, and Precision Shots to Deathwing units.
Blood Angels. Furious Charge across the board is one part of the Chapter Tactics, the other is Descent of Angels (scatter 1d6 Deep Striking). Unique units are Death Company and Sanguiniary Priests, Vanguard Veterans and Jump Pack-equipped Honour Guard/Command Squads can have Angelius boltguns and Glaives Encarmine, and they get a formation that lets them start rolling Reserves turn one and imposes a penalty to shoot any BA unit that Deep Strikes.
Space Wolves. Counter-attack across the board is one part of the Chapter Tactics, not sure what the other would be but it's got to be something. Blood Claws (with the option to purchase bikes/jump packs and become Fast Attack) replace Bikes, Assault Marines, and Scouts, add Thunderwolves. The airplanes make more sense to me as wargear conversions on a Caestus or a Storm Eagle if we're standardizing, not sure where that puts them in relation to the normal book.

This is not all the way comprehensive and it's more likely GW would cut everyone back to just Chapter Tactics or cut Chapter Tactics back to one rule than giving everyone big Chapter Tactics plus adding extra units like this, but it's not an impossible problem and wouldn't result in a two-hundred-dollar bloated book (unless you're going to pay for the super-ultra-deluxe edition, of course).

I think a combination of what GW is doing and your idea is the perfect way to go.
A standard Space Marine codex like yours and the current one. About 3-4 special units per Chapter Tactic, and then we have the generic Relics. After that, we have supplements for additional units per Chapter Tactic, with different FOC's and all that special junk, and then additional relics for those.
It definitely can work, but the question is whether or not GW would out in that effort. I certainly would...

I think they had plenty of character in the books they had for 2nd edition. Space Marines, Space Wolves, Angels of Death. All other marine armies (not counting Grey Knights, shudder) can easily be run as exceptions to the rules of each of those three books.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Space Marines Ultramarines, Space Wolves, Angels of Death. All other marine armies (not counting Grey Knights, shudder) can easily be run as exceptions to the rules of each of those three books.

Fixed that for you.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
For the record, I had a Dark Angels army, my very first 40k army, and got rid of them with the advent of the 6th edition book. They had become caricature, in an effort to justify their unique codex. A local Space Wolves player since, well, forever, who had endured the Thunderwolf with stoicism and grace boxed away his army in shame with the advent of Murderfang and Logan Claus.

The books being separate isn't even really the main problem; it's the constant enforcement and expansion on the ludicrous, ridiculous and caricature to justify their seperate books, and that the byprouct of that is a release cycle dominated by Space Marines. If GW had let these marines variants be, and used their releases to release re-dos of various older kits and conversion kits, you know, smaller releases, rather than adding Murderfang, the Flying Shoebox, Logan Claus, Ravendeathdarkwing and so on, the fact that they had seperate books wouldn't bother me all that much, still a bit unnecessary, but not something which would actively irk me, especially when armies still desperately in need of some diversity, backed up and encouraged by decades of fluff get nothing, while Light Blue Marines and Red Marines and Bone/Black Marines (lord knows the current dex doesn't want you to play Green Marines that aren't the Dakkabanner) keep getting increasingly bizarre, nonsensical, ugly and unprecedented stuff "which was there all along," in an effort to make them more different.

THIS

So much THIS.

They've taken what was interesting and unique about the factions and run with it to the point of parody in the effort to justify their separate existence.


The Space Wolves are the best example of this. Ulrik's original claim to bad-assdom was that he killed three World Eaters in close combat by himself. It was impressive, reflective of his character, yet believable. Then they got into absurd crap like Space Wolves riding actual wolves, firing artillery by smell (then rushing forward said artillery to see the results, putting their artillery in danger and removing the point and purpose of said artillery), crashing Thunderhawks for giggles, etc.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Space Marines Ultramarines, Space Wolves, Angels of Death. All other marine armies (not counting Grey Knights, shudder) can easily be run as exceptions to the rules of each of those three books.

Fixed that for you.

No, I wrote it deliberately that way it because I never liked the name when it dealt with all codex compliant vanilla chapters (like BT and Salamanders were back then).

When it comes to BA and DA I think the similarities far out weigh the distinctions. Even if they were outright merged they could each be handled simply as supplements rather than standalone books and accomplish the same amount.

 aka_mythos wrote:
When it comes to BA and DA I think the similarities far out weigh the distinctions. Even if they were outright merged they could each be handled simply as supplements rather than standalone books and accomplish the same amount.

I find it funny people are all over the merges saying that BA and DA could be covered with supplements, considering that in other threads people hate the idea of dataslates and supplements. Hypocrisy much?

 jreilly89 wrote:


I find it funny people are all over the merges saying that BA and DA could be covered with supplements, considering that in other threads people hate the idea of dataslates and supplements. Hypocrisy much?

Are they the same people saying those two contradictory things?

If not, then its not hypocrisy.

Plus, that simplifies the discussion that could be had over how supplements should work, and how GW produces them.

Codex space marines.
Followed by supplements (with formations/fluff/datasheets/cards ) for the following:

Iron Hands
White Scars
Black Templars
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Imperial Fists
Ultramarines
Raven Guard
Red Scorpions
Carcharodons
Mantis Warriors
Raptors
Executioners
Astral Claws
Fire Hawks
Minotaurs
Star Phantoms
Red Hunters
Angels Revenant

Give a generic chapter tactic for space marines and reduce the cost of the main dex. Also reduce the cost of these supplements. So, I'd pick up the Space marines and decide to make a custom chapter. Keep the generic codex and paint my marines pink. If I wanted to pick up Dark Angels, I'd pick up the supplement and get more value for my buck because it'd include the formation, warlord trait, cards, dice, a full supplement worth of fluff, relics, and chapter rules.

 Blacksails wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:


I find it funny people are all over the merges saying that BA and DA could be covered with supplements, considering that in other threads people hate the idea of dataslates and supplements. Hypocrisy much?

Are they the same people saying those two contradictory things?

If not, then its not hypocrisy.

Plus, that simplifies the discussion that could be had over how supplements should work, and how GW produces them.

Considering I've seen the same users in different threads saying those things, it is hypocrisy.

How would you have GW produce them and how should they work? People already say that the game is overbloated with rules. If you're going to roll DA and the like into a big SM codex, then I think the supplements should be rolled in as well. I see no point in paying for a $100-200 codex that still requires dataslates and formations to complete the factions


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inkubas wrote:
Codex space marines.
Followed by supplements (with formations/fluff/datasheets/cards ) for the following:

Iron Hands
White Scars
Black Templars
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Imperial Fists
Ultramarines
Raven Guard
Red Scorpions
Carcharodons
Mantis Warriors
Raptors
Executioners
Astral Claws
Fire Hawks
Minotaurs
Star Phantoms
Red Hunters
Angels Revenant

Give a generic chapter tactic for space marines and reduce the cost of the main dex. Also reduce the cost of these supplements. So, I'd pick up the Space marines and decide to make a custom chapter. Keep the generic codex and paint my marines pink. If I wanted to pick up Dark Angels, I'd pick up the supplement and get more value for my buck because it'd include the formation, warlord trait, cards, dice, a full supplement worth of fluff, relics, and chapter rules.

I'm sorry, but that sounds ludicrous. What would be in the codex SM, other than basic stats and weapon profiles? That and with people already complaining about the amount of time GW spends on SM, adding that many dataslates/formations would just exacerbate the amount of time. I'm sorry, I'd rather spend $150 for a codex Astartes than have a 1/4 inch book and have to buy supplements each time I want to try a new Chapter.

I think I see what you're saying jreilly89. What should happen is that all the Space Marine Chapters codexes should be rolled into one codex with specific sections for each chapter. I like it.

GW could easily sell a marine codex the same size and cost of the core rule book.

Yes. Frankly the only army that can't be flavor covered by a Chapter Tactics or some unique characters is the Space Wolves, but they could just get a supplement to account for this.

And I am including Chaos Marines here. Lets be honest. They like Space Wolves, could easily be covered by a supplement with some special weapons, gear, marks, and units. Maintaining them as a full Codex army is kind of silly when they things that make them distinct from Codex Marines is mostly just war gear and a few special units.

no. it would piss off a lot of players. for every unit in the SM codex you now have, you will be giving up things like sanguinary guard, terminator knights, or the like. I think I better fix is to do some cross codex balancing, I.E. standardized costs for base units for all codexes (tacticals, reg. terminators, etc.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ALSO, they are doing this for things like elves and chaos in fantasy, and I feel like it would just lead to having every army be the same with 1 or 2 special units to "separate" the factions, leading to less variety and what not. either that or we merge them, then just end up with double the amount of supplements, going right back to square one.

I don't think thats necessarily the case Black Templars got their unique unit in the current books.

Cut out all the forge world chapters when discussing mergers of books, as those are forge worlds to play with and make rules/supplemental material for. A combined codex for space marines should include the current cast of c:sm, da, BA, SW. Nothing more.

 Brennonjw wrote:
and I feel like it would just lead to having every army be the same with 1 or 2 special units to "separate" the factions,

So, just like it is right now?

Blood Angels; Normal Codex Marines, except with fast vehicles. The only thing that really sets them apart is their access to FNP. Sanguinary Guard? Their just Honor Guard with fancy weapons and jump packs. Sanguinary Priests? Cheaper Chaplains with an FNP bubble. Death Company? Vanguard Vets with a special rule and FNP. Honestly, there is nothing about the army that couldn't be accounted for with a page or two in the main SM Codex. At the very least, reduce the BA to a supplement.

Dark Angels; This one is even more silly. Dark Angels could be covered by a character or chapter tactic that gives Termis a special rule and makes them troops. Bike Armies already exist, so having a separate flavor for Ravenwing is to me, ultimately more work than its really worth.

CSM; To me, the CSM are the only army that gives me pause on this, but I don't see how a supplement to cover their specialist troops, vehicles, and war gear can't see them fully represented as they are now.

SW: Is the only one that would be hard to represent as the wolves are not organized like an SM chapter. Even then though, they could still be covered almost in full by a supplement rather than a full rule book. A section for Wolf Guard, Thunderwolves, Grey Hunters/Blood Claws, and some cool war gear and it's basically covered. Long Fangs don't even need to be a unique unit. Just get some war gear that grants the same capability and we're done.

then just end up with double the amount of supplements, going right back to square one.

Except that a supplment would take much less time to develop than a full army, not mention allow for "balancing across Codexes" by making the cores that all these armies share compiled into a single rule book. Balancing becomes much easier because then you can just focus on the things that separate the armies which would be their own rules sections or minibooks.

We have three armies, that essentially share a significant amount of their roster of units with Codex SM. Come on, can't we save the rain forest just a little bit on this one?

 Brennonjw wrote:
no. it would piss off a lot of players. for every unit in the SM codex you now have, you will be giving up things like sanguinary guard, terminator knights, or the like. I think I better fix is to do some cross codex balancing, I.E. standardized costs for base units for all codexes (tacticals, reg. terminators, etc.)

Back in the day (third ed) none of those fancy units existed, and blood Angels were still blood Angels, dark Angels were still dark Angels and space wolves were still,space wolves.

BA were space marines with a 'on a 1, I go faster' rule, death co, and sang priests. None of the fancy malarkey they have now. Or bloodnouns. And thry were still BA.
DA were space marines with stubborn (back then it was semi-fearless). No darknouns. None of the fancy malarkey they have now, and they were still DA.
Space Wolves were a bit different. Blood claws, grey hunters, long fangs, wolf guard, wolf lords. Leman Russ exterminators, and Rules like true grit, acute senses and counter charge were there, but none of the stupidity of wolf riding marines and wolfy mc wulferson, and fang/claw/wolfnouns everywhere. And they were still space wolves.

 LordofHats wrote:
Yes. Frankly the only army that can't be flavor covered by a Chapter Tactics or some unique characters is the Space Wolves, but they could just get a supplement to account for this.

And I am including Chaos Marines here. Lets be honest. They like Space Wolves, could easily be covered by a supplement with some special weapons, gear, marks, and units. Maintaining them as a full Codex army is kind of silly when they things that make them distinct from Codex Marines is mostly just war gear and a few special units.

The thing there is though, CSM should have the level of representation that SM have. They're more varied that loyalist SM are if anything. I think you could have two biggish books, one for all the Loyalists, like how C:SM is now but with the DA, BA and even SW would fit, and then a Chaos SM one with 'chapter tactics' for each of the traitor legions.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Space Marines Ultramarines, Space Wolves, Angels of Death. All other marine armies (not counting Grey Knights, shudder) can easily be run as exceptions to the rules of each of those three books.

Fixed that for you.

No, I wrote it deliberately that way it because I never liked the name when it dealt with all codex compliant vanilla chapters (like BT and Salamanders were back then).

Perhaps.

But the way Ultramarines have since become "vanilla" and all the Ultramarine-specific units have been "vanillerised" (e.g. Tyranid War Veterans .-> Sternguard) is the main reason why there never should've been a "generic" Space Marines codex. Or if there is one, Ultramarines should get their own book outside of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inkubas wrote:
Codex space marines.
Followed by supplements (with formations/fluff/datasheets/cards ) for the following:

Iron Hands
White Scars
Black Templars
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Imperial Fists
Ultramarines
Raven Guard
Red Scorpions
Carcharodons
Mantis Warriors
Raptors
Executioners
Astral Claws
Fire Hawks
Minotaurs
Star Phantoms
Red Hunters
Angels Revenant

That's a stupid idea.

If they do it this way, than people who want to play ... say ... Raven Guard or Fire Hawks, will have to buy (a) the Codex and (b) the Supplement.

Far better to make them all individual stand-alone Codexes. It's a minimal amount of repeat information (Rhinos, Landraiders, etc..) and a much sleeker approach.

How is it a minimal amount of repeat information? Basically every entry in each codex would be the same, with 3/4 unique entry's and a different chapter tactic.

 ImAGeek wrote:
How is it a minimal amount of repeat information? Basically every entry in each codex would be the same, with 3/4 unique entry's and a different chapter tactic.

And? Rules don't take that much space in a Codex anyhow (though, admittedly a bit more these days than they used to).

Either way, better than two separate books.

Wonderwolf wrote:
That's a stupid idea.

If they do it this way, than people who want to play ... say ... Raven Guard or Fire Hawks, will have to buy (a) the Codex and (b) the Supplement.

Do you mean like someone who wants to play Farsight enclave or Iyanden? Except in practice you do not have to buy the supplement. You can play Iyanden or enclave without it just fine, you will just not get some extra specific stuff.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
That's a stupid idea.

If they do it this way, than people who want to play ... say ... Raven Guard or Fire Hawks, will have to buy (a) the Codex and (b) the Supplement.

Do you mean like someone who wants to play Farsight enclave or Iyanden? Except in practice you do not have to buy the supplement. You can play Iyanden or enclave without it just fine, you will just not get some extra specific stuff.

Yes. Iyanden was a fantastic book. If they'd just added the Eldar Army list in the back, if only in the "short format", how many pages would it have taken? 8? Maybe 12? And you would've also been able to play Iyanden without the generic Craftworld Codex, at no "downside" compared to the status quo.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
How is it a minimal amount of repeat information? Basically every entry in each codex would be the same, with 3/4 unique entry's and a different chapter tactic.

And? Rules don't take that much space in a Codex anyhow (though, admittedly a bit more these days than they used to).

Either way, better than two separate books.

It wouldn't be just a few pages, it would be the majority of the bestiary type part, and most of the army list. Probably half the book.

I get what you're saying about having to buy two books, I agree with that part. But I think it could be done just as easily as one book, as like 4 for 4 different parts of the same army which are 70-90% exactly the same.

No, I wouldn't be happy with it.

I would have been happy if they were never separated in to their own codices to begin with, but since they have been, no, I'm not happy with them being rolled in to one.

The only way I might be happy for them to roll in to one is if the ENTIRE GAME were simplified greatly and as part of the great simplification I'd be happy enough to see them consolidated (along with a bunch of other stuff).

 ImAGeek wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
How is it a minimal amount of repeat information? Basically every entry in each codex would be the same, with 3/4 unique entry's and a different chapter tactic.

And? Rules don't take that much space in a Codex anyhow (though, admittedly a bit more these days than they used to).

Either way, better than two separate books.

It wouldn't be just a few pages, it would be the majority of the bestiary type part, and most of the army list. Probably half the book.

I get what you're saying about having to buy two books, I agree with that part. But I think it could be done just as easily as one book, as like 4 for 4 different parts of the same army which are 70-90% exactly the same.

It's quite a bit less than 70%. Just compare the current Blood Angels and Space Wolves Codex.

That said, even if it were 99% identical (say 99 out of 100 pages, with just one page difference), two stand-alone codexes would still be superior to 1 codex and 1 supplement. You'd still save on not having two books, two bindings, etc.. and you wouldn't notice the duplication, as you'd only have the one book for your army, instead of the book for your army AND the generic book you require on top of it.

Hell, even if 100% was identical, I'd still prefer stand-alone codexes over a codex-plus-supplement-system, if only for having to flip through one less book while playing/making army lists and the lower sticker-price of 1 book over 2 books (or 1 regular-sized-chapter-specific-book over 1 mega-all-space-marines-included-book)

There simply is no advantage whatsoever to not make stand-alone-codexes from a player-perspective (there is, of course, GW's incentive to sell you two books instead of one).

Well you obviously didn't read what I said because I said I was against a codex and supplement system too. And the 70-90% the same was between the main book and the different books, not the different books. Space Wolves is probably the most divergent.

And I don't think there's no advantage to having one book from a player perspective. For a start, you'd have access to everything in the main book, all the flyers, all the tanks etc. it would all be updated at the same time so no army (DA) would be left behind like they are now, and there would be more room in the release schedule to do other armies justice.

I will say though that I would also be against it if they made a massive book and charged like £60 for it, which I know realistically is how it would turn out, but it doesn't need to be that way, it could easily be done for the £30 a codex costs by pretty much any other company. So in reality it wouldn't be that great but hypothetically I would prefer one Space Marine book. And again, Forge World have basically got a system sorted that they could use for it.

A lot of players buy multiple rule books anyway. How many of us already own more than one SM codex? If anything, cutting the number of full armies down and moving the more specialized rules into supplements would be cheaper for most people, not more expensive.

Hell if it were up to me, I'd stop publishing the rule with the lore. Seriously we're paying a couple dozen bucks for 20 or so pages of rules and 30-50 pages of fluff and pretty pictures. I'd compile every army's basic rules into the BRB alongside the basic game rules and just call it a day. There's Black Library for fluff. In universe encyclopedias that we all know people will pay for.

Of course the smart thing won't be done because this is GW we're talking about, but threads like this are where we go to dream of better things

 jreilly89 wrote:



Considering I've seen the same users in different threads saying those things, it is hypocrisy.

How would you have GW produce them and how should they work? People already say that the game is overbloated with rules. If you're going to roll DA and the like into a big SM codex, then I think the supplements should be rolled in as well. I see no point in paying for a $100-200 codex that still requires dataslates and formations to complete the factions

There's a way to do supplements properly, and a way to do them poorly. Releasing a $60 book with 4 pages of crunch is not a good way to do supplements.

I'm also positive that these people you claim are hypocritical is simply a lack of understanding on your part in the difference between these people being okay with good supplements for fixing the marine issue, and people complaining about the idiocy of GW's current supplement system.

You want a good way that people wouldn't complain too much about? Free PDFs on their website. Download the ones you want, and you can check all the others whenever you need to find something out. Make them obvious and easy to find on the site. Or, alternatively, just put them in the big codex to begin with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:


Hell if it were up to me, I'd stop publishing the rule with the lore. Seriously we're paying a couple dozen bucks for 20 or so pages of rules and 30-50 pages of fluff and pretty pictures. I'd compile every army's basic rules into the BRB alongside the basic game rules and just call it a day. There's Black Library for fluff. In universe encyclopedias that we all know people will pay for.

Also this.

You want a good way that people wouldn't complain too much about? Free PDFs on their website. Download the ones you want, and you can check all the others whenever you need to find something out. Make them obvious and easy to find on the site. Or, alternatively, just put them in the big codex to begin with.

This is also a good idea. Rule books are just getting so old hat (heh, get it?). Maybe instead of looking for ways to save its business model, GW should start looking for ways to renovate it, because I think it's long past the time where their crumbling market can really be ignored.

The money isn't in the game rules the money is in the models. Money in an industry with an ever increasing cost of entry for new players and an ever increasing cost to stay current for old. I doubt they're turning huge profits on their rule books anyway.

 LordofHats wrote:
A lot of players buy multiple rule books anyway. How many of us already own more than one SM codex? If anything, cutting the number of full armies down and moving the more specialized rules into supplements would be cheaper for most people, not more expensive.

I don't. I have the one Space Wolves Codex for the Space Wolves army I own.

But even if I'd were to get a second Space Marines army, say, Dark Angels, it'd still be preferable to have Codex: Space Wolves & Codex: Dark Angels (2 books, 1 to carry for playing a given game with 1 of those armies) as opposed to Codex: Space Marines with the supplements Space Wolves and Dark Angels (3 books, 2 to carry for playing a given game with 1 of those armies).

Exactly, much of the bloat issues comes from two or three reasons; prices and availability, combined with location/ease of access. If all the rules were cheaper, people would be more inclined to buy all these supplements, mini dexes, and dataslates. If they were in easy to use files (or a number of different types of files), people would have even less of an issue (also making it more obvious on the website). Putting a pay wall up is just a hassle.

I'd even just take more content in the supplements. There's just so little crunch in them. You could put every marine chapter supplemental rules into a single book called 'The Big Book of Marine Chapters', and be done with it. You'd have to buy 'The Marine Codex', but with those two books you'd have every single marine chapter captured in all their snowflaky goodness.

The point being, the current system is about the worst of all possible options. Its expensive, its scattered, and its on multiple platforms.

 Blacksails wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:


Hell if it were up to me, I'd stop publishing the rule with the lore. Seriously we're paying a couple dozen bucks for 20 or so pages of rules and 30-50 pages of fluff and pretty pictures. I'd compile every army's basic rules into the BRB alongside the basic game rules and just call it a day. There's Black Library for fluff. In universe encyclopedias that we all know people will pay for.

Also this.

It's not going to happen though because GW would rather sell a $50 book with fluff and rules to everyone than a $30 rulebook to everyone and a $30 fluff book to the people who only want that.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's not going to happen though because GW would rather sell a $50 book with fluff and rules to everyone than a $30 rulebook to everyone and a $30 fluff book to the people who only want that.

Of course, but if this discussion was about what GW would or wouldn't do, we wouldn't make it past the first post.

 Blacksails wrote:
The point being, the current system is about the worst of all possible options. Its expensive, its scattered, and its on multiple platforms.

I've long felt that having multiple marine codices is the least of 40k's problems and squishing them in to one would not be of benefit in the current GW climate. Fact is, either 1 big book or multiple little books or even supplements COULD theoretically work fine, if the release cycle was better, the rules writing was better and the prices were lower.

ImAGeek wrote:
It's also a hypothetical discussion, it's never going to happen. Hypothetically, it could be handled well, in which case I don't see any problems with it. Forge World have proven it's doable. And there's no point pointing at what, 4 editions ago? Because that has very little bearing on the state of things as they are now.

You want to discuss if a hypothetical companies hypothetical product could be merged based on your take on this hypothetical companies ability to do this right??
Sorry, I had expected a serious reply.
Didn't want to bother your hypothetical world .
Again Sorry.

jreilly89 wrote:

 Jazzhands wrote:
Wow your suggestions for DA would really screw up my army lists and tactics. Gone are my maces gone are my banners and that's just to start with!

I love the fact that everyone spends their time complaining that the "special snow flake" chapters are not competitive and several people like to mock the Dark Angels specifically yet seem to have a problem with us having our own book. Why are you so threatened by this?

We pay the money for the codex, we pay the money for the lovely models and we pay the price for having a less competitive army. But despite all of that there are still loads of us. Why is there a need for my hobby to lose its flavour? what exactly are the advantages to other players?

Would GW make more money from this? Probably not if they don't have as many books to sell (yes I know we would all have to buy the combined codex but I know several players who play snow flake and non snow flake marines and have both books) and there would be much less incentive to buy specific model kits over generic ones.

I just can't understand why there is a problem with separate codex books...

Because they are jealous GW spends so much time on SPEHS MAHREENS

Possibly.
Its a very small circle who is part of all of these threads.

aka_mythos wrote:GW could easily sell a marine codex the same size and cost of the core rule book.

Or a forces Imperialis book, making more sense and covering all branches of the IoM at once. No one left behind anymore!

ImAGeek wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Yes. Frankly the only army that can't be flavor covered by a Chapter Tactics or some unique characters is the Space Wolves, but they could just get a supplement to account for this.

And I am including Chaos Marines here. Lets be honest. They like Space Wolves, could easily be covered by a supplement with some special weapons, gear, marks, and units. Maintaining them as a full Codex army is kind of silly when they things that make them distinct from Codex Marines is mostly just war gear and a few special units.

The thing there is though, CSM should have the level of representation that SM have. They're more varied that loyalist SM are if anything. I think you could have two biggish books, one for all the Loyalists, like how C:SM is now but with the DA, BA and even SW would fit, and then a Chaos SM one with 'chapter tactics' for each of the traitor legions.

Could have bet you post this.
Maybe, someday the CSM fanbase realizes the "loyalists" aren't to blame.
GW had a Index Astartes series. 4 Softcovers / 18 Legions. Before the found their love for small bits at not so small prices.

Blacksails wrote:Exactly, much of the bloat issues comes from two or three reasons; prices and availability, combined with location/ease of access. If all the rules were cheaper, people would be more inclined to buy all these supplements, mini dexes, and dataslates. If they were in easy to use files (or a number of different types of files), people would have even less of an issue (also making it more obvious on the website). Putting a pay wall up is just a hassle.

I'd even just take more content in the supplements. There's just so little crunch in them. You could put every marine chapter supplemental rules into a single book called 'The Big Book of Marine Chapters', and be done with it. You'd have to buy 'The Marine Codex', but with those two books you'd have every single marine chapter captured in all their snowflaky goodness.

The point being, the current system is about the worst of all possible options. Its expensive, its scattered, and its on multiple platforms.

Partially agree.

A reason I'd like to add:
The main advantage of Space Marines is compatible plastic kits.
- Rhino - Land raider - Land speeder - Dreadnought - scout -PA - TDA -
Add a few options and you have lots of multipart kits to sell. You can easily spot this if you build some of them and many bitz follow GW's beloved copy and paste scheme.
It may work for IG vehicles too. But the Infantry?


Bloated may have been the case. I think it already exploded...
Availability is becoming a problem, at least here, since GW isn't supplying their whole line of Products everywhere. Digital only stuff . English only. And more.... temporarily available products.
Splintering content to follow a buisness model of another part of the gaming "industry". Dataslates, Supplements , BL novellas, etc. Plan to keep track of your spending? Good luck.
And limited edition variants of everything.

Blacksails wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's not going to happen though because GW would rather sell a $50 book with fluff and rules to everyone than a $30 rulebook to everyone and a $30 fluff book to the people who only want that.

Of course, but if this discussion was about what GW would or wouldn't do, we wouldn't make it past the first post.

The first post asked if we: "would be fine with.."
It didn't say we have to keep the current Management...
To make it a few pages in is possible. If we keep the facts straight. Models exist physically, so people should be honest and say if they want to keep them around, squat them, change them, or whatever.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
The point being, the current system is about the worst of all possible options. Its expensive, its scattered, and its on multiple platforms.

I've long felt that having multiple marine codices is the least of 40k's problems and squishing them in to one would not be of benefit in the current GW climate. Fact is, either 1 big book or multiple little books or even supplements COULD theoretically work fine, if the release cycle was better, the rules writing was better and the prices were lower.

The release cycle is pretty fast. So if getting a slot in the release cycle was the problem, there are so many now everyone should get his stuff. Remember, the back seat of releases is taken by ?? SoB ?? alone, right now IIRC. Doesn't look crowded...

 1hadhq wrote:
The release cycle is pretty fast. So if getting a slot in the release cycle was the problem, there are so many now everyone should get his stuff. Remember, the back seat of releases is taken by ?? SoB ?? alone, right now IIRC. Doesn't look crowded...

Well an ideal release cycle to me wouldn't be one where we have a wave for each army and if your wave sucks you just wait for the next one which may not even come.

 Inkubas wrote:
Codex space marines.
Followed by supplements (with formations/fluff/datasheets/cards ) for the following:

Iron Hands
White Scars
Black Templars
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Imperial Fists
Ultramarines
Raven Guard
Red Scorpions
Carcharodons
Mantis Warriors
Raptors
Executioners
Astral Claws
Fire Hawks
Minotaurs
Star Phantoms
Red Hunters
Angels Revenant

Give a generic chapter tactic for space marines and reduce the cost of the main dex. Also reduce the cost of these supplements. So, I'd pick up the Space marines and decide to make a custom chapter. Keep the generic codex and paint my marines pink. If I wanted to pick up Dark Angels, I'd pick up the supplement and get more value for my buck because it'd include the formation, warlord trait, cards, dice, a full supplement worth of fluff, relics, and chapter rules.

WAYYYYYY too many supplements! A dataslate could cover BA+DA. The only chaoters that I would think about giving a supplement are the Space Wolves, The Iron Hands and maybe the Raven Guard (Screw SoT)

Not only all loyalist marines must be combined into one codex (with unification of units), but also all chapter tactics must be unified into special rules for specific units (bikes are useless without white scars CT, jump troops without raven guard CT, wehicles without IH, tacticals and terminators need all rules they can get e t.s.).

All "flavour of chapters" can be preserved with the list of formations in the end of the book with 1-2 special rules for each.

I'd like it done FW HH style. 1 Vanilla Space Marine book and 1-2 books that add SCs and unique units and rules to layer on/replace things from the main book.

For. There are too many Imperial armies as is.

 MWHistorian wrote:
For. There are too many Imperial armies as is.

How would this fix that though? There'd still be just as many people playing them.

 aka_mythos wrote:
I don't think thats necessarily the case Black Templars got their unique unit in the current books.

No, what we got was Tacticals with a weapon swap with scouts. All the army-wide rules that made BT play differently were removed and replaced with sub-par replacements.

Well I was commenting on the fact there was precedent for a chapter specific unit; the quality of that unit is a different argument that doesn't invalidate a unified singular codex format.

If we were in 6th edition, I'd be against. I dont play marines but bought dark angels codex just for the style (ornaments on pages), same time I didnt buy vanila sm. I was really looking forward to seeing the style of blood angels and space wolves.

Now since all codieces look the same except images which btw get progressively worse, I dont care. Some new images in necron codex look cheap and plain bad imo.

Also people pls no more suggestions of rolling csm into sm, it's ridiculous. At that point we can just make a single book for all armies containing only stats and special rules (which is not a bad idea btw).

GW will do what they always have done: make different codex's and "common" gear will change with different points cost and abilities over time.
Each SM will have their own special snowflake Rhino and Drop-Pod among other things.

I am sure we can make it like branches of a tree: Core book codex Space Marine: then a Blood Angels special supplement with a Flesh Tearer's supplement so you need all three books to play! Genius! Great way to bring in the money how Kirby likes.

Yes, a merge would be the proper way to do it and separating out all the special stuff for each group is not that hard when so much kit is common.
I keep pointing back where a chaos space marine codex covered all the various gods and some pirate types with all kinds of special things for each with still enough room for fluff: not that big a deal.

I agree, trying to differentiate is becoming a caricature: The wolf rider of wolves! The robed angels of unforgiving death! The bloody angels of scarlet death! The black chained Templar of charging! The I-only-miss-on-2's fists of shootiness! Bah, I am sure there is more but really? I bit of flavor goes a long way, beating over the head is stupid.

Blood Angels
-Dataslate Death Company, Sanguinary Guard, Relics & The Sanguinary Discipline
-Give Everyone Apothecaries As A HQ
-Chapter Tactics: Everyone Has Furious Charge, Apothecaries Give +1WS

Dark Angels
-Dataslate Deathwing Knights, Black Knights & Relics
-Move Azrael To LOW (And Make The Sword Of Secrets AP2)
-Chapter Tactics: Everyone Is Stubborn, Bikes Have Skilled Riders, Terminators Have Deathwing Assault

Space Wolves
-Some Units (Grey Hunters, Long Fangs) Can Be Covered In The Codex, But SW Would Need A Supplement
-Chapter Tactics: Everyone Has Counter-Attack & Acute Senses

So currently 72% of people think that some sort of merger is acceptable.

I don't think GH would need their own entry. Just give their gear options to the generic Tac squad and have a chapter specific list of wargear.

Wow. There really are a lot of marine haters out there. I'm suprised at the poll especially after merging Black Templars into the main codex and how much they failed to do them justice by. Merging them well just reduce their unqueness making them even more blander as marines.

 CrownAxe wrote:
Wow. There really are a lot of marine haters out there. I'm suprised at the poll especially after merging Black Templars into the main codex and how much they failed to do them justice by. Merging them well just reduce their unqueness making them even more blander as marines.

I would suggest there's a difference between "hating marines" and thinking there's an unnecessarily large number of distinct marine books and that such a situation creates long term problems for the game. As for BT, who knows what they might have ended up like as their own book, they may not have been any different, and they gained a lot, most of the stuff people complain about likely wouldn't have survived (or survived in the form they wanted) either way, particularly due to edition differences.

 CrownAxe wrote:
Wow. There really are a lot of marine haters out there. I'm suprised at the poll especially after merging Black Templars into the main codex and how much they failed to do them justice by. Merging them well just reduce their unqueness making them even more blander as marines.

I think it's less of a hating and more just that at this point, it should be an all or nothing. Either leave the codices as is, or roll all the SM into one big Codex: Astartes. Don't half ass it and roll BA or DA in and leave SW out.

Contrary, I love the Space Marines. As far as over the top grim dark epicness goes, I think they're the best.

I just think that the situation with the rule books is stupid.

I don't hate the Space Marines, I hate the splitting up of rulebooks and the fact that there is a spotlight/poster army. The Space Marines are fine. Spread the limelight out a bit, stop making me reference more and more and more rulebooks, and I'll stop being grumpy.

natpri771 wrote:
Blood Angels

Dark Angels
-Dataslate Deathwing Knights, Black Knights & Relics
-Move Azrael To LOW (And Make The Sword Of Secrets AP2)
-Chapter Tactics: Everyone Is Stubborn, Bikes Have Skilled Riders, Terminators Have Deathwing Assault

You forgot DW termies have Split Fire, and I for sure want them to have it still.
Having stubborn as a CT is fluffy and all, but by far it's the worst chapter tactics there is, even if DA would be rolled into regular SM codex no one but most die hard DA fans would play it..
And where's our unique land speeders (and planes)?

Split Fire is the type of thing that comes and goes from one codex to the other. It wasn't something they had before may not be something they retain even in another DA-only codex. It's nice, but it's not a defining lonstanding unique DA special rule, and, combined codex or not, is exactly the kind of thing one shouldn't expect to retain from one book to the next, and not something that should prevent someone from considering the concept of a combined codex.

Less pages wasted on photographs would be nice. The unit entries used to be full pages of fluff and rules with maybe a little piece of artwork. Now it's just... half a page of stock photograph, ugh.

TBH if GW took each SM book as it was unedited and put them together in one big book people might buy it.

like persay...

chapters one - vanila SM (army list, special rules, equipment)
chapter 2 - DA (army list, special rules, equipment)
ch.3 - BA (army list, special rules, equipment)
ch.4 - SW (army list, special rules, equipment)

each codex would exist as a whole but they would simply be compiled into one book.

 fox-light713 wrote:
TBH if GW took each SM book as it was unedited and put them together in one big book people might buy it.

like persay...

chapters one - vanila SM (army list, special rules, equipment)
chapter 2 - DA (army list, special rules, equipment)
ch.3 - BA (army list, special rules, equipment)
ch.4 - SW (army list, special rules, equipment)

each codex would exist as a whole but they would simply be compiled into one book.

That's pretty much what you'd get if you removed the Badab War fluff from the FW books, cut it down to one book, and put the existing SM chapters in.

 fox-light713 wrote:
TBH if GW took each SM book as it was unedited and put them together in one big book people might buy it.

like persay...

chapters one - vanila SM (army list, special rules, equipment)
chapter 2 - DA (army list, special rules, equipment)
ch.3 - BA (army list, special rules, equipment)
ch.4 - SW (army list, special rules, equipment)

each codex would exist as a whole but they would simply be compiled into one book.

Or you could just keep them as separate books and release them all at the same time (or in the same 1 to 3 month window). I'd be happier if they were separate, 40k rules are already too expensive and a pain in the arse to navigate without putting in a whole bunch of stuff I'm not going to use. Though if GW books weren't so expensive I'd probably care less.

Make it one codex and issue supplements for the snowflake chapters.

As a collector of Dark Angels, Blood Angels and Space Wolves all proposition of this thread are wholefully denied. i won't share a book with inferior codex adherant brother.

Blood Angels are codex adherent...

 ImAGeek wrote:
Blood Angels are codex adherent...

Tell them that when Dante pull a Dark Angels and unify all of their succesor under them when the End Times comes... For Baal! For Sanguinius!

...They'd still be codex adherent...

Just, you know, fighting together.

I am split when it comes to this topic. I understand the reasoning but sometimes like they aren't all in one codex. Recently though, it does seem like all the Marine books have come into line with each other except for a couple of unique units and characters, all except the GK who although have a complete different structure, still doesn't seem enough to fill a codex and I am a GK player.

I am indifferent really. I wouldn't want to loose the unique style of the SW, BA and DA but everyone is so close to basically being the same that it does seem kind of pointless to have all these separate codices. I have Imperial Fists and honestly, the Sentinels of Terra supplement is enough for me to really get that Imperial Fist flavor and distinction so I definitely could see the same being done for SW, BA and DA. My biggest problem is that the role of SW and BA armies are so similar that there are few differences between them now. BA are a little faster and SW hit a little harder but both are fundementally an assault based army with proper heavy fire power to be able to back it so they aren't gimpped like the GK are.

Merge them all but leave GKs out as they are ridiculously cheesy and broken as they are.

Talizvar wrote:
I am sure we can make it like branches of a tree: Core book codex Space Marine: then a Blood Angels special supplement with a Flesh Tearer's supplement so you need all three books to play! Genius! Great way to bring in the money how Kirby likes.

C: Astartes Blood Angels + C: Astartes Blood Angels successors Flesh Tearers + C: Astartes Blood Angels successors Flesh Tearers supplementicus assaulticus transportus.
Ye shall download them all! Free access code in every box!

CrownAxe wrote:Wow. There really are a lot of marine haters out there. I'm suprised at the poll especially after merging Black Templars into the main codex and how much they failed to do them justice by. Merging them well just reduce their unqueness making them even more blander as marines.

Its not even a zero sum game. No one won, everbody lost.

LordofHats wrote:Contrary, I love the Space Marines. As far as over the top grim dark epicness goes, I think they're the best.

I just think that the situation with the rule books is stupid.

AnomanderRake wrote:I don't hate the Space Marines, I hate the splitting up of rulebooks and the fact that there is a spotlight/poster army. The Space Marines are fine. Spread the limelight out a bit, stop making me reference more and more and more rulebooks, and I'll stop being grumpy.

kronk wrote:Make it one codex and issue supplements for the snowflake chapters.

What we may get this year:
From the news&rumors ( 40k releases )
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/210/629061.page#7600499

75hastings69;7385810 wrote:

No it doesn't. There's no bad marines codex, I'm specifically referring to the renegades in the HH box set. One guy asked if there would be CSM, I said that technically yes, as the renegades from the HH are technically CSM *even if very early on the road to being CSM)

YAY!!!!!

AFAIK a kill team type thing, all the types of assassins in plastic. Not sure of any other contents or specifics. Like I say 40k isn't my thing.

Just like the spoof Countdown where the words coming out were like OMETHINGS etc and the guys were declaring words of 4 and 5 Think that's was noel Edmunds gotcha type thing, poor old madeley didn't know what to do with himself.

So from the list we have:-

Admech Codex & models (full release)
**** Codex & models (Harlequin sized release already mentioned on thread)
**** Codex & models (Harlequin sized release already mentioned on thread)
HH Standalone box game, on sale for a few months, then models become part of 30k range.
Assassins Standalone box game, on sale for a few months, then models become part of the 40k range.

There 1 release of another Imperial Faction ( full release )
Plus 2 smaller releases, 2 boxed games whose models may find a way into 40k too.
Where is this release slots argument now? Dead? or undead?

Why would one merge 1000 Chapters into 1 dex if we have really small organizations of the 40k verse running around with their own dex?
You know, like Tempestus Scions, IK, etc

Furyou Miko wrote:Less pages wasted on photographs would be nice. The unit entries used to be full pages of fluff and rules with maybe a little piece of artwork. Now it's just... half a page of stock photograph, ugh.

Codices were fine without beeing "warhammer visions" in hardback.

OtoH, if everything is available digitally, the visual side of things will be strong.

natpri771 wrote:
Blood Angels
-Dataslate Death Company, Sanguinary Guard, Relics & The Sanguinary Discipline
-Give Everyone Apothecaries As A HQ
-Chapter Tactics: Everyone Has Furious Charge, Apothecaries Give +1WS

Endresult: Blood Angel players have to buy an additional Dataslate and get their Priests stolen as a unique trait.
Well, luckily they are never ever going to do this.

I've been at the forfront advocating this for years.
The majority of the chapters have a set of "stock" units that they all share. These stock units make up the majority of the units.
You could have a page or two of fluff for each chapter (there could be a 2nd book full of nothing but expanded fluff for those who want it). This is where you put in special rules that match the chapters. For example black rage.
Then a listing of all of the units/weapons/equipment whatnot. Just put in a caveat of what goes with each chapter. For example, Death Company- Blood Angels only. Or Wolf Guard- Space Wolves Only.

Don't care.

Martel732 wrote:
Don't care.

Martel732 wrote:
Don't care.

I don't care that you don't care.

I wouldnt be against it since im play imperial fists. da most vanilla.

Enough spam in here to feed Hawaii for a year.
On topic, I think if done correctly, GW would most likely crank up the price to $75 or so. Even so, I think it would be the better deal for most players. I dont think I am alone in that I like to have the rules for armies I dont play just so I'm less likely to be taken by surprise.
Could also help players in terms of the use of allies and multiple detatchments.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Less pages wasted on photographs would be nice. The unit entries used to be full pages of fluff and rules with maybe a little piece of artwork. Now it's just... half a page of stock photograph, ugh.

So much this.

I want a codex, not a catalogue.

 vipoid wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Less pages wasted on photographs would be nice. The unit entries used to be full pages of fluff and rules with maybe a little piece of artwork. Now it's just... half a page of stock photograph, ugh.

So much this.

I want a codex, not a catalogue.

Yeah. The first tau codex had all these little stories in it, no we don't have anything.

I think all the loyalist PA dexes should be roled into one except GK, BA, and SW.

I am happy BT are in the tomb and it is time to absorb DA.

At this point I would not even mind if they just stopped supporting the DA codex and said "use either the 6th Ed. DA or the C:SM dex at your leisure"

Nope. I like having all my Wolf fluff, and don't want it condensed into a couple little footnotes, and I don't want to have to pay half again as much for a bigger book (since they'd still have to include all the chapter specific models), when I have absolutely no interest in playing any of the other marine armies.

AnFéasógMór wrote:
Nope. I like having all my Wolf fluff, and don't want it condensed into a couple little footnotes, ...

Unfortunately, that's what the new Codices appear to be devolving into. The Necron Codex has 80% of the content stripped out and replaced with footnotes for each unit. The Harlequins Codex has very little as well. I remember when I could spend a whole day reading and studying all the lore within a Codex. Now I'm done with it in a hour.

Against.

Where was the option for pulling the Black Templar out and giving them their own codex again?

A separate codex is not needed, just sufficient material applied to make that special snowflake marine force.
The other marine codex's just seem to add a ton of filler to justify the price and get an OK sized book.
They were able to do it for Chaos Space Marines: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Codex:_Chaos_Space_Marines_(3rd_Edition,_1st_Codex)

I LIKE space marines and play Black Templar, the prior codex they did have was a fine example of when common wargear does not match their common counterparts in points or capabilities.

To emphasize the core things that make a marine and then the various window dressings after that, I feel is important.

I am still grumpy that I could only put a power fist on a normal guy so only got one attack with a power fist... the new marine codex in many ways was an upgrade for BT.

I agree that in terms of gameplay, getting rolled in was a boost.

But it's always nice to imagine what could have been if the codex was updated.

For, definitely. The shear amount of C:SM offshoots at this point is just nuts. Roll everything into the same book, and then cut most of the pictures, artwork, and lore from the codices to open up more space for extensive rules (so the Black Templar problem isn't repeated). The Black Library and Imperial Armor covers the lore, leave it to them. The Codices should be rulebooks, nothing more.

Would you be fine with a merge of all codexes? Super ballance.

 Wyzilla wrote:
For, definitely. The shear amount of C:SM offshoots at this point is just nuts. Roll everything into the same book, and then cut most of the pictures, artwork, and lore from the codices to open up more space for extensive rules (so the Black Templar problem isn't repeated). The Black Library and Imperial Armor covers the lore, leave it to them. The Codices should be rulebooks, nothing more.

Noooo, I like collecting the codices for the lore because they tend to be concise and more reliable. If you get rid of the lore then you'll just end up with the bloated lore supplements that get sidetracked describing all the individual warbands. Basically the End Times books for WH Fantasy. It's impossible to find anything useful in there because they basically flood you with useless fluff.

 koooaei wrote:
Would you be fine with a merge of all codexes? Super ballance.

Sold

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
For, definitely. The shear amount of C:SM offshoots at this point is just nuts. Roll everything into the same book, and then cut most of the pictures, artwork, and lore from the codices to open up more space for extensive rules (so the Black Templar problem isn't repeated). The Black Library and Imperial Armor covers the lore, leave it to them. The Codices should be rulebooks, nothing more.

Noooo, I like collecting the codices for the lore because they tend to be concise and more reliable. If you get rid of the lore then you'll just end up with the bloated lore supplements that get sidetracked describing all the individual warbands. Basically the End Times books for WH Fantasy. It's impossible to find anything useful in there because they basically flood you with useless fluff.

And the difference between lore and fluff is?

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
And the difference between lore and fluff is?

None, I'm using them interchangeably. What I mean is there's such a vast amount of it in the supplements but it's all of varying quality and usually of a rather narrow focus. It's better to have the concise codex fluff as a base, then to branch out from there, especially for people just starting out with the hobby.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
For, definitely. The shear amount of C:SM offshoots at this point is just nuts. Roll everything into the same book, and then cut most of the pictures, artwork, and lore from the codices to open up more space for extensive rules (so the Black Templar problem isn't repeated). The Black Library and Imperial Armor covers the lore, leave it to them. The Codices should be rulebooks, nothing more.

Noooo, I like collecting the codices for the lore because they tend to be concise and more reliable. If you get rid of the lore then you'll just end up with the bloated lore supplements that get sidetracked describing all the individual warbands. Basically the End Times books for WH Fantasy. It's impossible to find anything useful in there because they basically flood you with useless fluff.

Have you seen the most recent Codex - the fluff is steadily declining in size and quantity - we will soon just have stats books with pics of the models......

The best thing about the recent Shield of Baal and End Times books was the separation of fluff and rules - so I could read the great stories and look at the pics but the rules are in a smaller easier to use book.

I think the current Codex books are a massive retrograde step in terms of quality and the campaign books the opposite.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Have you seen the most recent Codex - the fluff is steadily declining in size and quantity - we will soon just have stats books with pics of the models......

The best thing about the recent Shield of Baal and End Times books was the separation of fluff and rules - so I could read the great stories and look at the pics but the rules are in a smaller easier to use book.

I think the current Codex books are a massive retrograde step in terms of quality and the campaign books the opposite.

You have a point there. I don't own any of the 7th codices but I did flip through the 7th ed Dark Eldar codex and was surprised by how much more I liked the 5th ed codex. It was also a lot more expensive so I ended up not getting it.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Have you seen the most recent Codex - the fluff is steadily declining in size and quantity - we will soon just have stats books with pics of the models......

The best thing about the recent Shield of Baal and End Times books was the separation of fluff and rules - so I could read the great stories and look at the pics but the rules are in a smaller easier to use book.

I think the current Codex books are a massive retrograde step in terms of quality and the campaign books the opposite.

You have a point there. I don't own any of the 7th codices but I did flip through the 7th ed Dark Eldar codex and was surprised by how much more I liked the 5th ed codex. It was also a lot more expensive so I ended up not getting it.

I used to but pretty much all the codex's - but the prices and content in 6th and 7th has pretty much stopped me............the Dark Elder were one of my fav armies and then the 7th Ed Codex hit and I couldn't be bothered once I had looked through it.

I would be for it if it was done like in 3rd, using the main codex and having supplements for each chapter. That way the chapters can retain their unique units and feel, but could be limited on certain units they can get. I don't want to lose my fearless everything and pretty much never having to worry about losing a morale test ever.

Somewhat off topic, I don't get people that are saying the 6th ed DA codex made then caricatures. As someone ho has been playing DA for 12~ or so years, the 6th codex is, in my opinion, such an awesome codex with the flavour of it, the rules are super awesome fluffy (not super competitive, oh well) and the art work is awesome.

No way, GW would charge twice the price (At least £30 for base codex then £30 for the supplement)!

 Mr Morden wrote:
I used to but pretty much all the codex's - but the prices and content in 6th and 7th has pretty much stopped me............the Dark Elder were one of my fav armies and then the 7th Ed Codex hit and I couldn't be bothered once I had looked through it.

Same here, the 5th ed DE codex is hands down my favorite codex so I had my hopes up for the 7th ed one.

 Very Superstitious wrote:
Somewhat off topic, I don't get people that are saying the 6th ed DA codex made then caricatures. As someone ho has been playing DA for 12~ or so years, the 6th codex is, in my opinion, such an awesome codex with the flavour of it, the rules are super awesome fluffy (not super competitive, oh well) and the art work is awesome.

Yea, the 6th ed DA codex is really great, my favorite one after the 5th ed DE codex. I think the 7th ed is where the quality has really declined. Some of the 6th ed codices were a step up but I didn't read enough of them to say anything conclusively.

Also, maybe it's just me but it seems like the art is becoming a lot more cartoony and somehow "clean." It's lost a lot of the grittiness from 5th ed. I don't mind the style but I don't think it fits 40k as well.

^ Agreed. I like the picture/art/style and structure of the DA codex. I just think that the rules can be done with a bit more umph.

I would much prefer the fluff to be sold separately to the rules and F.O.C.

Sell resource books with the new minature releases to inspire the new minature sales.Art background conversion and painting guides etc.

And just release the actual rules and F.O.C for each faction as a FREE P.D.F. This can be updated as and when required.
Done like this the extra rules for specific Chapters, Craftworlds, Hive Fleets, Klans, Regiments etc.Could be covered in a few additional pages.

The codices can be easily separated from the fluff. A seperate fluff book could give the fluff fans a lot MORE fluff in a separate book than they could ever get by putting it in the codex.
This way, fluff nuts could get exactly what they want and then some and the non-fluff nuts would not have to pay for fluff they do not care about.

What is all of this nonsense about people actually liking the DA book from 6th? You guys forget about winning games against yours buds? has it been that long?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

Yes I like this, with supplements for all the special chapters