This is something that has bothered me for awhile, but one of the main things that bothered me about 6th was the addition of rule-lite Supplement "codexes," but the thing that bothered me more was the addition (or separation) of a bunch of smaller "factions." 7th edition added Harlequins, Admech (split into two armies because of 2 model releases), Deathwatch, Khorne Daemonkin, Custodes, Sisters of Silence and Genestealer Cults, while completely separating the Inquisiton and Assassins from the Grey Knight codex. 6th made Stormtroopers a "standalone army", and now 8th is separating Death Guard and Thousand Sons into their own codexes.

The debatable issue is: How many armies are too many, and should armies be capable of working as "standalone" armies? Harlequins in 7th were impossible to field in a CAD due to not actually having any HQ choices, while the Admech were "War Convocation: Final Destination." Deathwatch were competitively dead on arrival while Genestealer Cults at least had a few neat tricks and were rounded out that you could field them without allies. Of course, all-Custodes and all-Sisters of Silence aren't viable.

Call it if you will but the whole idea of separate Marine codexes needs to disappear. For all the talk about 7e or previous editions being bloated, I'm eagerly awaiting Codex: Marbo has a Case of The Mondays.

My larger issue is with factions that cannot possibly stand on their own. I'm fine with things like Deathguard if they are going to be fully fleshed out and stand alone. I'd rather see all armies built to stand on their own without "allies". For me the issue is largely imperial armies that are "armies" with 3 unit choices, these should have all just been rolled into a single faction or left out.

I don't see why there would be such a thing as too many factions, especially with the faction keyword system in 8th.
You say the separation of armies into multiple sub-factions bothers you, but you didn't really explain why.
The only problem I see is the number of books you need to buy/carry.

Well, some things are getting batched together now too.

Three different Codex were put into one, in Skitarii, Cult Mechanicus and Codex: Imperial Knights now being a single Codex release.

Going by how the Index also grouped these together, and seeing that the Index has done the same with Adeptus Ministorum, there's a chance that all of the armies under that will go into the same Codex. And that's pretty massive. That's:
Adepta Sororitas
Adeptus Astra Telepathica
Sisters of Silence
Officio Assassinorum
The Inquisition
Adeptus Custodes

That is a hell of a line-up if those are put in the same book, and I have a feeling they will be. The codex will be a sort of smörgåsbord of units for other armies to pick from. If it is designed to work on its own, it has to be built around the Adepta Sororitas as the bulk of the troops, which is not too bad either.

 Purifier wrote:
Well, some things are getting batched together now too.

Three different Codex were put into one, in Skitarii, Cult Mechanicus and Codex: Imperial Knights now being a single Codex release.

Going by how the Index also grouped these together, and seeing that the Index has done the same with Adeptus Ministorum, there's a chance that all of the armies under that will go into the same Codex. And that's pretty massive. That's:
Adepta Sororitas
Adeptus Astra Telepathica
Sisters of Silence
Officio Assassinorum
The Inquisition
Adeptus Custodes

That is a hell of a line-up if those are put in the same book, and I have a feeling they will be. The codex will be a sort of smörgåsbord of units for other armies to pick from. If it is designed to work on its own, it has to be built around the Adepta Sororitas as the bulk of the troops, which is not too bad either.

I will buy that book.

fresus wrote:
I don't see why there would be such a thing as too many factions, especially with the faction keyword system in 8th.
You say the separation of armies into multiple sub-factions bothers you, but you didn't really explain why.
The only problem I see is the number of books you need to buy/carry.

-For 6th in particular, the supplements were obvious cash-grabs. Codex Iyanden in particular stands out, as costing akin to a full codex for about 2 pages of actual rules (and Altar of War missions nobody would use). If it was something like 3rd ed Codex: Armageddon or Codex: Eye of Terror, that would be another story.
-Should souphammer be the norm?
-If multiple factions each have overlapping units with identical roles (Devestators vs Guard HWT vs Retributors), then only one will be "best" for a given soup role. Ergo, why bother with such units?
-

There are a couple of different issues here.

1) GW obviously can't or won't support the factions that exist now with either models or rules. Sisters are still metal, etc., etc. Large swathes of existing factions clearly exist now in a deprecated fashion, where, yes, technically GW is providing rules but they really don't intend for anyone to actually play with them. Look at Razorwing Flocks -- GW didn't spend any time thinking about these at all, and then when they turned out to be good they quickly got nerfed into oblivion. You weren't supposed to actually use them; they were just in the index because if they weren't then people would get mad that Dark Eldar lost a unit. This contributes to a lot of bloat as GW keeps including units without trying to make them playable.

But they're sort of stuck, because players who already own certain models would be really mad if GW did the best-for-the-game thing and drastically cut down on the number of things there are. And their business is built around selling new models, so they're pretty much always making this problem worse because they get more out of releasing a totally new model with new rules instead of refreshing older models or reworking old rules.

2) The problem of lots of books is mostly not a problem as long as souping is kept under control. Like, yes, it's a cash grab and you could probably have represented Death Guard just fine with 2 extra pages in the Chaos codex, but it's not clear that this matters all that much except to people who want to play Death Guard. Churning out these subfactions which are really just slightly modified versions of existing factions simply doesn't take much work, rules-wise. Obviously they put quite a bit into models for Death Guard, but most subfactions also require very little modeling work -- most of the Space Marine chapters are just a few bits different from Ultramarines.

Souping is of course a huge problem and is totally destructive of faction identity. But again they have this problem where now people have built armies where they're depending on being able to soup. They've sold a bunch of Celestines by promising that you can use her with your Imperium army. Nerfing Celestine probably only causes some grumbling, but telling people that they simply can't use their models anymore is really going to piss people off. It's a hard thing to unwind even if they wanted to.

I feel as though the subdivisions happening in 8th is just more of the supplement problem that plagued 6th and 7th. Supplements really killed the last edition with quick cash-grab formation and rules to work as patch jobs, and the nickel-and-dime business practice that went perfectly with the powercreep that seeped in.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

fresus wrote:
I don't see why there would be such a thing as too many factions, especially with the faction keyword system in 8th.
You say the separation of armies into multiple sub-factions bothers you, but you didn't really explain why.
The only problem I see is the number of books you need to buy/carry.

-For 6th in particular, the supplements were obvious cash-grabs. Codex Iyanden in particular stands out, as costing akin to a full codex for about 2 pages of actual rules (and Altar of War missions nobody would use). If it was something like 3rd ed Codex: Armageddon or Codex: Eye of Terror, that would be another story.
-Should souphammer be the norm?
-If multiple factions each have overlapping units with identical roles (Devestators vs Guard HWT vs Retributors), then only one will be "best" for a given soup role. Ergo, why bother with such units?
-

Soup has nothing to do with the number of factions. Even if you folded all the Imperium factions in like 5 factions only, you could still ally them the same way, because they would still be imperium.
Sub-factions are actually a good tool against soup armies, since you get (or will get when the proper codex will be out) bonuses for using more restrictive faction keyworlds.

It seems to me like what you want is the removal of the broadest faction keywords (such as Imperium or Chaos), which could only be viable by merging sub-factions together (otherwise many of them become unplayable). Is this why you associate the number of faction with soup-armies?

Imperium is the only keyword that covers too much currently to use in one detachment. So I'd be fine if it was limited to being the amry-wide keyword. Depending on how it unfolds in the future the same limitation may be necesary for Chaos/Aeldari

24. Or 36. In my ideal fantasy land, we'd see a new codex on a regular, fixed schedule, in 2-3 year cycles. (To a maximum of one codex a month.)

This isnt just a game, its also a hobby, has story, many players play narrative etc.. etc..

There will only be to many factions if it hurts GW business and ability to addess issues (they seem to be doing better now and we have more factions).

BUT, some of the factions you talked about NEED their own army and some even once DID have their own. Harlequins, DW, GSC, Admech all are great armies (some are lacking options but a few point changes and Stratagems could fix that, or just adding 1 more unit can as well, doesnt need to be a box unit just different version).

For you it might be to many for others its great, i never would have played CSM/Daemons in 6/7th it KDK wasnt released, b.c it was i now have a 5k army of KDK and i am waiting for the codex (if it becomes one).

Simple. If a faction does not have the fluff or unit/model line-up to be its own faction it shouldn't be. That's just a money grab and you end up with tiny armies which are one-trick ponies unless allied (something easier now with 8th). I'm happy to see more armies be compiled into fewer codices).

I think 40K has too many factions right now, simply because they do not support them well enough already - so adding more to the mix doesn't help things. However, my experience with GW managers and staff in the past has biased my opinion. GW is a business. They sell stuff by producing new and shiny plastic stuff that people want to buy. The game is very much secondary (though they've learned that some attention to it can pay off). I do think eventually 8th will end up in the same mess that 7th was with far too many books, far too many codices, and far too many factions.

GW has obviously done their own math, and through experience found that a new race of shiny plastic stuff will outsell actually supporting the existing races/ranges. In reality 3-4 races could support the entire game, just keep producing new and better kits - even if the wargear entries don't change. That, however, doesn't seem to make the same kind of profit.

The Deathwatch could be good if they dropped their unit prices. Honestly I would say there are two ways to look at this.

1. People love choice so there will never be an end. However the majority will never be super comp viable and they are made for options. Most armies likely to never see a big update unless popular.

2. There is a maximum they will never push past but every army will be super in depth.

Both have their appeal to me.

My problem is with things that aren't a real faction and can only be played in a soup army (IE Sisters of Silence and assassins). Stuff like the Death Guard release is perfectly fine by me.

I've always called for the disbandment of the Imperium, getting rid of the Faction Keyword seems a good start!

The smaller 'factionettes' should be rolled together into a true Faction, merged into existing Factions, or given new Units till they can stand as their own Faction.
Not against the choices all these Factions bring, it just seems a disservice to give an entire Faction 1 introduction page and 4 Units....

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Call it if you will but the whole idea of separate Marine codexes needs to disappear. For all the talk about 7e or previous editions being bloated, I'm eagerly awaiting Codex: Marbo has a Case of The Mondays.

Why? You don't like people having choice or variety? There have always been separate Marine codexes - we had four Space Marine lists in 2nd Ed (they rolled the Dark Angels and Blood Angels codexes into one big codex). How do additional factions hurt you? If you don't think a faction is either viable or attractive then don't play it.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Call it if you will but the whole idea of separate Marine codexes needs to disappear. For all the talk about 7e or previous editions being bloated, I'm eagerly awaiting Codex: Marbo has a Case of The Mondays.

Why? You don't like people having choice or variety? There have always been separate Marine codexes - we had four Space Marine lists in 2nd Ed (they rolled the Dark Angels and Blood Angels codexes into one big codex). How do additional factions hurt you? If you don't think a faction is either viable or attractive then don't play it.

Well, he's got one thread about how he wants choice and variety and another where he wants to remove a lot of it. When everything is wrong at once.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Call it if you will but the whole idea of separate Marine codexes needs to disappear. For all the talk about 7e or previous editions being bloated, I'm eagerly awaiting Codex: Marbo has a Case of The Mondays.

Why? You don't like people having choice or variety? There have always been separate Marine codexes - we had four Space Marine lists in 2nd Ed (they rolled the Dark Angels and Blood Angels codexes into one big codex). How do additional factions hurt you? If you don't think a faction is either viable or attractive then don't play it.

So long as the faction stands entirely on its own then I'm fine. Some current factions fail this, though, since they don't feel complete.

I don't mind any number of factions, but i do think being able to combine factions with different strengths and weaknesses based on the arbitrary reason that they are a part of the same larger faction (chaos, imperium, etc), as this seems to make it much harder to balance things.

 Purifier wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Call it if you will but the whole idea of separate Marine codexes needs to disappear. For all the talk about 7e or previous editions being bloated, I'm eagerly awaiting Codex: Marbo has a Case of The Mondays.

Why? You don't like people having choice or variety? There have always been separate Marine codexes - we had four Space Marine lists in 2nd Ed (they rolled the Dark Angels and Blood Angels codexes into one big codex). How do additional factions hurt you? If you don't think a faction is either viable or attractive then don't play it.

Well, he's got one thread about how he wants choice and variety and another where he wants to remove a lot of it. When everything is wrong at once.

I would rather 5 fully fleshed-out armies with the ability to go "tall" with them than 20+ "factions" that are functionally (if not literally) only one unit. 40k doesn't have anything as silly as AOS's "Firebellies" (literally, only the Firebelly option from Ogre Kingdoms") but that's a pretty low bar.

fresus wrote:

The only problem I see is the number of books you need to buy/carry.

To me, that's the only real issue I see, too. I was just saying to somebody the other day, if they took Necrons out of Index: Xenos 1, it would have left them enough room to just make the damn thing a single Aeldari codex. Since their factions allow them to all run as one army, I don't see a real point to expecting people to have three different codices.

As a general rule any subfaction "army" should be deleted and reorganized into the main codex. This essentially means all variant marine armies and all chaos armies. Really, Chaos Armies should exist as a single book (with the addition of a few IG "traitor" items). This problem is really evident with variant marine armies, as their special units generally are "Super" versions of existing marine units (Death Company and Sanguinary Guard are basically super vanguards or honour guards. Deathwing Knights and Ravenwing Knights are super terminators and super bikers respectively). Hell even within generic marine armies there are some redundancies, like Centurions and Terminators.

So Chaos Legions and Space Marines

Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Assassins, non-mechanicus Knights, Scions, Adeptus Ministrum, and Inquisitors should all be a single faction. Flavour wise, these are all the secondary, behind the scenes people who make the Imperium work. They're not frontline soldiers, their the agents of the god emperor's will. Not to mention these units do actually support each other, which can allow them to make a relatively balanced force if mixed while still give the opportunity to run single "pure" forces.

So Imperial Agents

The Imperial Guard is good as-is. Some faction rules and they're juuuuust right. Probably the only Imperial faction that wasn't pimped to all hell in recent years.

IG, not hard.

Adeptus Mechanicus and Questoris Knights are just begging to be one faction. They need some more units (perhaps "Mechanicum" versions of existing vehicles, seeing as the AdMech are the sole source of Imperial Hardware, having special rules beyond their normal counterparts) but this one deserves to be it's own.

AdMech

Orks. They're Orks. Nothing else really to say.

Orks

Tau: this should be the "good" counterpart to Chaos Legions, as the Tau are known to recruit several Xenos into their ranks. I would be glad if they gave Kroot HQs, more Vespid-type units, introduced the Demigur, and gave rules for some limited imperial units as "Gue'Vesa". Like the "imperial agents", they should allow you to field a balanced mixed force or a harder to use, but more rewarding "pure" force and everything in between. Farsight Enclaves should be limited to faction rules rather than be a standalone faction.

Tau Empire/Federation

Eldar: They should be in one book, but three sections. While Harlequins should be able to be intermixed between the two, Craftworlders and Dark Eldar should not, as they have little overlap but cover each other's weaknesses pretty well (in essence, creating a mary-sue army if they did mix) And Eldar should be hard to play, regardless of which type. They should be one book solely to keep the Harlequins, which should be allies to both, consistent between them. But otherwise count as 2 factions. Also give the Archon back his jetbike!

1 Eldar book, 2 factions.

Tyranids should be in the same book as the Genestealer Cult. They should be able to intermingle like Chaos and Tau, but with a bit more restrictions (like, your warlord determined who would be in what slot or something like that).

Tyranid

Necrons: They're in a good place.

Necrons.


So that cuts it down to 10-11 from the 29 "factions" we have now.

I'd like to see more factions, like actual different races. In my mind there is only 8 factions so far. Imperium, Chaos, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Tau, Necrons and Tyranids.

I'd like to see this move to 12. It's cool to have different sub-factions and ways to play armies of whichever 'main faction' you choose (Such as marines, Guard, Admech etc for imperium) However, I'd like to see some genuinely new species and new smaller empires explored similar in scope and scale to the T'au. Not every faction needs to be all "We will control and destroy the entire Galaxy! MWHAHAHAHA!!"

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Call it if you will but the whole idea of separate Marine codexes needs to disappear. For all the talk about 7e or previous editions being bloated, I'm eagerly awaiting Codex: Marbo has a Case of The Mondays.

Why? You don't like people having choice or variety? There have always been separate Marine codexes - we had four Space Marine lists in 2nd Ed (they rolled the Dark Angels and Blood Angels codexes into one big codex). How do additional factions hurt you? If you don't think a faction is either viable or attractive then don't play it.

Well, he's got one thread about how he wants choice and variety and another where he wants to remove a lot of it. When everything is wrong at once.

I would rather 5 fully fleshed-out armies with the ability to go "tall" with them than 20+ "factions" that are functionally (if not literally) only one unit. 40k doesn't have anything as silly as AOS's "Firebellies" (literally, only the Firebelly option from Ogre Kingdoms") but that's a pretty low bar.

I agree in that we need playable factions, but we have plenty of fleshed-out armies. Space Marines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Orks, Eldar x 3, Imperial Guard, Tyranids, Chaos and Tau spring to mind. Genestealer Cults are fun but I recognize that they are somewhat boutique as are Deathwatch but they add some spice to the table. When I play GSC folks come over the to the table and say: "Cool - Genestealer Cults! How do they play?" I am not sure about AdMech but at they seem viable. SoB are on life support but I don't begrudge their being in the game. I even have some from 20 years ago. Custodes seem to be intended to be seasoning/spice for an existing IG or SM army. That does not bother me since its what Grey Knights were in 2d Ed.

I do see the problem of opportunity cost, but I really like variety and I'm not seeing the problem. My Dark Angels can be three very different lists on their own. I really like playing against a new list.

If you only want five factions play a WW2 game.

 Hollow wrote:
I'd like to see more factions, like actual different races. In my mind there is only 8 factions so far. Imperium, Chaos, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Tau, Necrons and Tyranids.

I'd like to see this move to 12. It's cool to have different sub-factions and ways to play armies of whichever 'main faction' you choose (Such as marines, Guard, Admech etc for imperium) However, I'd like to see some genuinely new species and new smaller empires explored similar in scope and scale to the T'au. Not every faction needs to be all "We will control and destroy the entire Galaxy! MWHAHAHAHA!!"

I'm assuming you didn't get the memo, but Eldar and Dark Eldar are besties now. Like the shared keyword Imperium they are now both keyword <Aeldari>. So by your count it should be 7.

Darsath wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Call it if you will but the whole idea of separate Marine codexes needs to disappear. For all the talk about 7e or previous editions being bloated, I'm eagerly awaiting Codex: Marbo has a Case of The Mondays.

Why? You don't like people having choice or variety? There have always been separate Marine codexes - we had four Space Marine lists in 2nd Ed (they rolled the Dark Angels and Blood Angels codexes into one big codex). How do additional factions hurt you? If you don't think a faction is either viable or attractive then don't play it.

So long as the faction stands entirely on its own then I'm fine. Some current factions fail this, though, since they don't feel complete.

What about Mercenaries for hire? nothing wrong with that.

Assassins SHOULD NOT be their own army, why would you have an army of assassins? You would field them when needed to be.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Call it if you will but the whole idea of separate Marine codexes needs to disappear. For all the talk about 7e or previous editions being bloated, I'm eagerly awaiting Codex: Marbo has a Case of The Mondays.

Why? You don't like people having choice or variety? There have always been separate Marine codexes - we had four Space Marine lists in 2nd Ed (they rolled the Dark Angels and Blood Angels codexes into one big codex). How do additional factions hurt you? If you don't think a faction is either viable or attractive then don't play it.

Well, he's got one thread about how he wants choice and variety and another where he wants to remove a lot of it. When everything is wrong at once.

I would rather 5 fully fleshed-out armies with the ability to go "tall" with them than 20+ "factions" that are functionally (if not literally) only one unit. 40k doesn't have anything as silly as AOS's "Firebellies" (literally, only the Firebelly option from Ogre Kingdoms") but that's a pretty low bar.

I agree in that we need playable factions, but we have plenty of fleshed-out armies. Space Marines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Orks, Eldar x 3, Imperial Guard, Tyranids, Chaos and Tau spring to mind. Genestealer Cults are fun but I recognize that they are somewhat boutique as are Deathwatch but they add some spice to the table. When I play GSC folks come over the to the table and say: "Cool - Genestealer Cults! How do they play?" I am not sure about AdMech but at they seem viable. SoB are on life support but I don't begrudge their being in the game. I even have some from 20 years ago. Custodes seem to be intended to be seasoning/spice for an existing IG or SM army. That does not bother me since its what Grey Knights were in 2d Ed.

I do see the problem of opportunity cost, but I really like variety and I'm not seeing the problem. My Dark Angels can be three very different lists on their own. I really like playing against a new list.

If you only want five factions play a WW2 game.

SOB are amazing actually, very strong army with lots of units for a metal range army that never been updated, good rules and many types of builds. Players are limited b.c its a costly army so you dont see it often. They are for sure the Weapons experts of Marines.
As a person with a LARGE SoB army, i've field 4 different styles in 8th (all my games i played them differently) and oddly, won all my games with them.

GSC also has large and viable play styles, sense some of their units are from IG kits they were easier to flush out.

So: Space Marines, Jump Pack Space Marines, Bike Space Marines, Infantry Space Marine, and Infantry Space Marines that trade half the Marine lineup for more Power Weapons. That sounds like quite a few distinct armies.

Orks are a monobuild army in 8th. Harlequins got a free pass in 8th because of Ynnari rules, but die otherwise.

Genestealer Cults were actually relatively well-rounded when they first came out, due to strong deployment strategies, cost-effective transports, a good psychic discipline, and incredible threat saturation/MSU (and a good meta-detachment and good Formations). Deathwatch...weren't. In fact, if you were to glance over the Deathwatch Formations, you could joke that they served the Ordo Xerox.

 Purifier wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
I'd like to see more factions, like actual different races. In my mind there is only 8 factions so far. Imperium, Chaos, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Tau, Necrons and Tyranids.

I'd like to see this move to 12. It's cool to have different sub-factions and ways to play armies of whichever 'main faction' you choose (Such as marines, Guard, Admech etc for imperium) However, I'd like to see some genuinely new species and new smaller empires explored similar in scope and scale to the T'au. Not every faction needs to be all "We will control and destroy the entire Galaxy! MWHAHAHAHA!!"

I'm assuming you didn't get the memo, but Eldar and Dark Eldar are besties now. Like the shared keyword Imperium they are now both keyword <Aeldari>. So by your count it should be 7.

I did get that memo. I burned it.

I know what you're saying and yes. If I were king of GW I would lay out codexs like this.

SPACE MARINES
IMPERIUM OF MAN
CHAOS SPACE MARINES
DEMONS OF CHAOS
ELDAR
TAU EMPIRE
HIVE MIND
NECRONS
GREENSKINS

SoB are indeed strong on the table (when you see them), but their range seems on life-support. I'd be happy to see new releases for them.

I like my GSC, but they are really IG plus some Genestealers. Nothing wrong with that, but they are a bit niche when you take the IG away. Again, I have no issues with that!

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So: Space Marines, Jump Pack Space Marines, Bike Space Marines, Infantry Space Marine, and Infantry Space Marines that trade half the Marine lineup for more Power Weapons. That sounds like quite a few distinct armies.

Orks are a monobuild army in 8th. Harlequins got a free pass in 8th because of Ynnari rules, but die otherwise.

Genestealer Cults were actually relatively well-rounded when they first came out, due to strong deployment strategies, cost-effective transports, a good psychic discipline, and incredible threat saturation/MSU (and a good meta-detachment and good Formations). Deathwatch...weren't. In fact, if you were to glance over the Deathwatch Formations, you could joke that they served the Ordo Xerox.

My main army atm for 8th is Harlequins, they are very strong even without Ynnari, if you are looking at tournaments for result of a good army, Well if you take out IG from tournaments aka Conscript spam you would see a completely different meta.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
SoB are indeed strong on the table (when you see them), but their range seems on life-support. I'd be happy to see new releases for them.

I like my GSC, but they are really IG plus some Genestealers. Nothing wrong with that, but they are a bit niche when you take the IG away. Again, I have no issues with that!

For an army that never been updated, SoB range is larger than some other armies, i'm just saying they are not hurting in the range.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So: Space Marines, Jump Pack Space Marines, Bike Space Marines, Infantry Space Marine, and Infantry Space Marines that trade half the Marine lineup for more Power Weapons. That sounds like quite a few distinct armies.

Orks are a monobuild army in 8th. Harlequins got a free pass in 8th because of Ynnari rules, but die otherwise.

Genestealer Cults were actually relatively well-rounded when they first came out, due to strong deployment strategies, cost-effective transports, a good psychic discipline, and incredible threat saturation/MSU (and a good meta-detachment and good Formations). Deathwatch...weren't. In fact, if you were to glance over the Deathwatch Formations, you could joke that they served the Ordo Xerox.

What exactly are you arguing? Some lists are more powerful than others and it changes over time. I get that you don't like Space Marines. You don't need to play with them. That's my point - variety is good. Are you arguing that GSC are good? I agree with you. Go out and play with them! I do as a change from my Dark Angels and I am enjoying it. Do you think that Marine Chapters are making Orks "monobuild?" That is an Ork list problem (they have, in theory, several builds) and not an SM problem.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So: Space Marines, Jump Pack Space Marines, Bike Space Marines, Infantry Space Marine, and Infantry Space Marines that trade half the Marine lineup for more Power Weapons. That sounds like quite a few distinct armies.

Orks are a monobuild army in 8th. Harlequins got a free pass in 8th because of Ynnari rules, but die otherwise.

Genestealer Cults were actually relatively well-rounded when they first came out, due to strong deployment strategies, cost-effective transports, a good psychic discipline, and incredible threat saturation/MSU (and a good meta-detachment and good Formations). Deathwatch...weren't. In fact, if you were to glance over the Deathwatch Formations, you could joke that they served the Ordo Xerox.

What exactly are you arguing? Some lists are more powerful than others and it changes over time. I get that you don't like Space Marines. You don't need to play with them. That's my point - variety is good. Are you arguing that GSC are good? I agree with you. Go out and play with them! I do as a change from my Dark Angels and I am enjoying it. Do you think that Marine Chapters are making Orks "monobuild?" That is an Ork list problem (they have, in theory, several builds) and not an SM problem.

I play Chaos Space Marines. I believe there should be one, super-customizable Marine codex, and in theory you could roll up most CSM into it (or just make Chaos a "template" you apply on other armies, or do like 2nd/3rd and roll up all Chaos in one codex, rather than the 4e CSM/Daemon split). Extreme? Maybe, but Psyker-heavy Marines aren't unique (Hi Blood Ravens/Exorcists), nor are xenotech super-shooty Marines (hi Mentors/Silver Sharks).

I don't really do soup - I've got daemons with my CSMs but that's always been what Word Bearers are all about and I'm not really interested in adding renegades & heretics - and I've taken some harsh beatings from lists with Talons of the Emperor and a Knight and Scions - but I love how it's an option. We already had it to an extent - Orks always were a Grand Army, Harlequins first redebuted as allies to Craftworlds, Ad Mech and Navy units were just IG auxiliaries, Old One Eye could team up with the Red Terror, etc. What I would like to see is more granular benefits from detachment and even army purity - like an Adeptus Astartes Trait that you can have when taking an Ultramarines and Blood Angels list, but lose if you add a Basilisk and have to accommodate Mordians who aren't trained in the tactics and shorthand Space Marines use.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So: Space Marines, Jump Pack Space Marines, Bike Space Marines, Infantry Space Marine, and Infantry Space Marines that trade half the Marine lineup for more Power Weapons. That sounds like quite a few distinct armies.

Orks are a monobuild army in 8th. Harlequins got a free pass in 8th because of Ynnari rules, but die otherwise.

Genestealer Cults were actually relatively well-rounded when they first came out, due to strong deployment strategies, cost-effective transports, a good psychic discipline, and incredible threat saturation/MSU (and a good meta-detachment and good Formations). Deathwatch...weren't. In fact, if you were to glance over the Deathwatch Formations, you could joke that they served the Ordo Xerox.

What exactly are you arguing? Some lists are more powerful than others and it changes over time. I get that you don't like Space Marines. You don't need to play with them. That's my point - variety is good. Are you arguing that GSC are good? I agree with you. Go out and play with them! I do as a change from my Dark Angels and I am enjoying it. Do you think that Marine Chapters are making Orks "monobuild?" That is an Ork list problem (they have, in theory, several builds) and not an SM problem.

I play Chaos Space Marines. I believe there should be one, super-customizable Marine codex, and in theory you could roll up most CSM into it (or just make Chaos a "template" you apply on other armies, or do like 2nd/3rd and roll up all Chaos in one codex, rather than the 4e CSM/Daemon split). Extreme? Maybe, but Psyker-heavy Marines aren't unique (Hi Blood Ravens/Exorcists), nor are xenotech super-shooty Marines (hi Mentors/Silver Sharks).

But that doesnt lessen the factions just the books they are splint into, and now that 1 book is 150$, HUGE like the old FW ones, bloated with rules and fluff most players wont use.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So: Space Marines, Jump Pack Space Marines, Bike Space Marines, Infantry Space Marine, and Infantry Space Marines that trade half the Marine lineup for more Power Weapons. That sounds like quite a few distinct armies.

Orks are a monobuild army in 8th. Harlequins got a free pass in 8th because of Ynnari rules, but die otherwise.

Genestealer Cults were actually relatively well-rounded when they first came out, due to strong deployment strategies, cost-effective transports, a good psychic discipline, and incredible threat saturation/MSU (and a good meta-detachment and good Formations). Deathwatch...weren't. In fact, if you were to glance over the Deathwatch Formations, you could joke that they served the Ordo Xerox.

What exactly are you arguing? Some lists are more powerful than others and it changes over time. I get that you don't like Space Marines. You don't need to play with them. That's my point - variety is good. Are you arguing that GSC are good? I agree with you. Go out and play with them! I do as a change from my Dark Angels and I am enjoying it. Do you think that Marine Chapters are making Orks "monobuild?" That is an Ork list problem (they have, in theory, several builds) and not an SM problem.

I play Chaos Space Marines. I believe there should be one, super-customizable Marine codex, and in theory you could roll up most CSM into it (or just make Chaos a "template" you apply on other armies, or do like 2nd/3rd and roll up all Chaos in one codex, rather than the 4e CSM/Daemon split). Extreme? Maybe, but Psyker-heavy Marines aren't unique (Hi Blood Ravens/Exorcists), nor are xenotech super-shooty Marines (hi Mentors/Silver Sharks).

But that doesnt lessen the factions just the books they are splint into, and now that 1 book is 150$, HUGE like the old FW ones, bloated with rules and fluff most players wont use.

Let's be honest, there is a *lot* of copy-paste in the Marine armies. You could easily draw a Venn Diagram of the assorted Marine armies, and you could conclude that:

-Dark Angels are Vanilla Marines, with a +1 Bike unit, a +1 Terminator Unit, and a "Heavy Landspeeder." The Nephilim is a NotStormtalon with a few alternate rules, and less weapon variance. Whee.
-Blood Angels are Vanilla Marines, with a +1 Jump Pack unit, a "different" Ironclad, and a unique Predator loadout. Why not just go for "Assault Dread, Tactical Dread, Devestator Dread" or some other simple delineation, and give actual options between each kit. Oh right, because Magna Grapples are mutually exclusive with Assault Launchers are exclusive with shields. Because GW thinks "no options" drives sales.
-Black Templar got rolled into vanilla Space Marines because they arguably weren't unique enough, and their "uniqueness" came from being a holdover from 4th edition customizable rules. So now, they're just "that chapter that runs Scouts as meatshields." You know which other Chapter does this, but isn't known for religious fervor? The Iron Snakes. However, they're also known for Apothecary Sergeants, which obviously only the Red Scorpions are allowed to do.
-Space Wolves are a little trickier. Still, you could easily say they're "Chapter Tactics: Counterattack", let their Tacsquads buy Chainswords (but tbt, a tacsquad should just be a BP/Chainsword/Bolter grab-bag across the board. Far simpler that way), and they get some horses. So, add a codex deviation letting them run cavalry/hounds. Remember when they could crew a Russ Exterminator? Add a "trait" letting them "loot" Imperial vehicles at a point markup (think of it as a "cross-codex tax"). On a side note, I dunno about you ut I would definitely enjoy the idea of Hellhound Salamanders. Would make a LOT more thematic/fluff sense than having them in Landspeeders for one (especially given Nocturne is a heavy-G planet).
-Deathwatch are almost entirely "Elite Choices From Marines, and Special Ammo". Other than "mixed squads" (which you don't want to do), and the Corvus Blackstar, you could run a vanilla Marine Vanguard detachment and you wouldn't notice the difference, except for the fact Special Ammo was explicitly made Deathwatch-Only ("They're not armed with Special-Issue Ammo, they're using Special-Issue Bolters."). You'd think Special Ammo would be a purchasable option...except for the fact said ammo wasn't the reason you took Sternguard, so much as for the mass Combi-Meltas. So, rebalance the Special Ammo or other costs.
-So this leaves Grey Knights. "Power Armor & Storm Bolter Marines." Sure, whatever. Add some extra doctrines for superior equipment loadouts if you want, up costs accordingly. Maybe rules for a "Psychically Gifted" mutation or so. Let them *buy* this loadout, but it adds up. Then again, considering that "Grey Knight" armies nowadays boil down to "Draigo, some Interceptors, and Conscripts" or so...

Very broadly speaking, I'm a 'more the merrier' bloke.

The more factions, the more variety of opponents. And that means more challenges. My army might naturally ROFLstomp certain armies, but be the proverbial Red Headed Stepchild for other armies, who'll walk all over my dudes.

But......each has to have its own niche. If you add Army Q to armies A-P, there's no power not doing so if it offers the same experience as Army E.

It also falls flat if say, Armies A-D are all super flexible within their own book.

I'm more for difference in variety. I wouldn't mind if there was sa 20 factions that all played differently, but when you have 29 factions and at least 8 of them are some variant on the basic Bolter Marine with special rules from the remaining 21 mixed in, then it gets kinda repetitive.

Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I'm more for difference in variety. I wouldn't mind if there was sa 20 factions that all played differently, but when you have 29 factions and at least 8 of them are some variant on the basic Bolter Marine with special rules from the remaining 21 mixed in, then it gets kinda repetitive.

Not an unfair comment. But given Space Marines are and always have been popular, I find having various different flavours helps break up that monotony.

Many of the 'new' factions have been either unable to stand on their own, or have about three total unit types. It would make more sense to roll them together than to sell separate books for a faction of three choices, at least in my opinion.

It's an aesthetic thing for me, really. I like the Death Guard release because the Death Guard units are a fundamentally different aesthetic than baseline CSM; they're as different as Eldar and Drukhari are, in my view. I have a harder time justifying the various SM factions that look basically the same on the table (I'd probably give Deathwatch, Space Wolves and Grey Knights a pass on this but otherwise... eh).

On the other hand, I think the ship has sailed on factions like Blood Angels having enough things unique to them that trying to roll them back into the baseline codex would cause more issues than it solves.

I think making certain sub-factions (TSons, DG, major SM chapters) into their own, self-sufficient Codex armies is great. That is definitely assuming that they have enough unique rules and units to set them apart from their forebears, however.

Half measures that end up breaking apart armies into pieces that can barely function on their own, or that are extremely subtle variations on their vanilla parents, are horrible.

There are certainly plenty of examples of both the former and the latter.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So: Space Marines, Jump Pack Space Marines, Bike Space Marines, Infantry Space Marine, and Infantry Space Marines that trade half the Marine lineup for more Power Weapons. That sounds like quite a few distinct armies.

Orks are a monobuild army in 8th. Harlequins got a free pass in 8th because of Ynnari rules, but die otherwise.

Genestealer Cults were actually relatively well-rounded when they first came out, due to strong deployment strategies, cost-effective transports, a good psychic discipline, and incredible threat saturation/MSU (and a good meta-detachment and good Formations). Deathwatch...weren't. In fact, if you were to glance over the Deathwatch Formations, you could joke that they served the Ordo Xerox.

What exactly are you arguing? Some lists are more powerful than others and it changes over time. I get that you don't like Space Marines. You don't need to play with them. That's my point - variety is good. Are you arguing that GSC are good? I agree with you. Go out and play with them! I do as a change from my Dark Angels and I am enjoying it. Do you think that Marine Chapters are making Orks "monobuild?" That is an Ork list problem (they have, in theory, several builds) and not an SM problem.

I play Chaos Space Marines. I believe there should be one, super-customizable Marine codex, and in theory you could roll up most CSM into it (or just make Chaos a "template" you apply on other armies, or do like 2nd/3rd and roll up all Chaos in one codex, rather than the 4e CSM/Daemon split). Extreme? Maybe, but Psyker-heavy Marines aren't unique (Hi Blood Ravens/Exorcists), nor are xenotech super-shooty Marines (hi Mentors/Silver Sharks).

But that doesnt lessen the factions just the books they are splint into, and now that 1 book is 150$, HUGE like the old FW ones, bloated with rules and fluff most players wont use.

Let's be honest, there is a *lot* of copy-paste in the Marine armies. You could easily draw a Venn Diagram of the assorted Marine armies, and you could conclude that:

-Dark Angels are Vanilla Marines, with a +1 Bike unit, a +1 Terminator Unit, and a "Heavy Landspeeder." The Nephilim is a NotStormtalon with a few alternate rules, and less weapon variance. Whee.
-Blood Angels are Vanilla Marines, with a +1 Jump Pack unit, a "different" Ironclad, and a unique Predator loadout. Why not just go for "Assault Dread, Tactical Dread, Devestator Dread" or some other simple delineation, and give actual options between each kit. Oh right, because Magna Grapples are mutually exclusive with Assault Launchers are exclusive with shields. Because GW thinks "no options" drives sales.
-Black Templar got rolled into vanilla Space Marines because they arguably weren't unique enough, and their "uniqueness" came from being a holdover from 4th edition customizable rules. So now, they're just "that chapter that runs Scouts as meatshields." You know which other Chapter does this, but isn't known for religious fervor? The Iron Snakes. However, they're also known for Apothecary Sergeants, which obviously only the Red Scorpions are allowed to do.
-Space Wolves are a little trickier. Still, you could easily say they're "Chapter Tactics: Counterattack", let their Tacsquads buy Chainswords (but tbt, a tacsquad should just be a BP/Chainsword/Bolter grab-bag across the board. Far simpler that way), and they get some horses. So, add a codex deviation letting them run cavalry/hounds. Remember when they could crew a Russ Exterminator? Add a "trait" letting them "loot" Imperial vehicles at a point markup (think of it as a "cross-codex tax"). On a side note, I dunno about you ut I would definitely enjoy the idea of Hellhound Salamanders. Would make a LOT more thematic/fluff sense than having them in Landspeeders for one (especially given Nocturne is a heavy-G planet).
-Deathwatch are almost entirely "Elite Choices From Marines, and Special Ammo". Other than "mixed squads" (which you don't want to do), and the Corvus Blackstar, you could run a vanilla Marine Vanguard detachment and you wouldn't notice the difference, except for the fact Special Ammo was explicitly made Deathwatch-Only ("They're not armed with Special-Issue Ammo, they're using Special-Issue Bolters."). You'd think Special Ammo would be a purchasable option...except for the fact said ammo wasn't the reason you took Sternguard, so much as for the mass Combi-Meltas. So, rebalance the Special Ammo or other costs.
-So this leaves Grey Knights. "Power Armor & Storm Bolter Marines." Sure, whatever. Add some extra doctrines for superior equipment loadouts if you want, up costs accordingly. Maybe rules for a "Psychically Gifted" mutation or so. Let them *buy* this loadout, but it adds up. Then again, considering that "Grey Knight" armies nowadays boil down to "Draigo, some Interceptors, and Conscripts" or so...

Well everything is copy and past for the most part....

Look at Elite units compare to the equivalent non-elite ones, Veteran units, command units etc... so should we remove all those too?

What about the Venom vs Starweaver? they are basically the same them lets remove one of them.

Falcon compare to Wave serpent, they are almost the same, lets remove of them them too.

The Scout Speed and other Land Speeder, they are to similar, lets remove one.

Just b.c they have things in common doesnt mean they are the same, there are large differences that make players happy.
All the armies you said has there own looks to them as well, with upgrades for vehicles, different weapons, shoulders, heads and chest pieces many of the time.

This IS NOT just a game, its also a modeling and painting hobby.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So: Space Marines, Jump Pack Space Marines, Bike Space Marines, Infantry Space Marine, and Infantry Space Marines that trade half the Marine lineup for more Power Weapons. That sounds like quite a few distinct armies.

Orks are a monobuild army in 8th. Harlequins got a free pass in 8th because of Ynnari rules, but die otherwise.

Genestealer Cults were actually relatively well-rounded when they first came out, due to strong deployment strategies, cost-effective transports, a good psychic discipline, and incredible threat saturation/MSU (and a good meta-detachment and good Formations). Deathwatch...weren't. In fact, if you were to glance over the Deathwatch Formations, you could joke that they served the Ordo Xerox.

What exactly are you arguing? Some lists are more powerful than others and it changes over time. I get that you don't like Space Marines. You don't need to play with them. That's my point - variety is good. Are you arguing that GSC are good? I agree with you. Go out and play with them! I do as a change from my Dark Angels and I am enjoying it. Do you think that Marine Chapters are making Orks "monobuild?" That is an Ork list problem (they have, in theory, several builds) and not an SM problem.

I play Chaos Space Marines. I believe there should be one, super-customizable Marine codex, and in theory you could roll up most CSM into it (or just make Chaos a "template" you apply on other armies, or do like 2nd/3rd and roll up all Chaos in one codex, rather than the 4e CSM/Daemon split). Extreme? Maybe, but Psyker-heavy Marines aren't unique (Hi Blood Ravens/Exorcists), nor are xenotech super-shooty Marines (hi Mentors/Silver Sharks).

But that doesnt lessen the factions just the books they are splint into, and now that 1 book is 150$, HUGE like the old FW ones, bloated with rules and fluff most players wont use.

Let's be honest, there is a *lot* of copy-paste in the Marine armies. You could easily draw a Venn Diagram of the assorted Marine armies, and you could conclude that:

-Dark Angels are Vanilla Marines, with a +1 Bike unit, a +1 Terminator Unit, and a "Heavy Landspeeder." The Nephilim is a NotStormtalon with a few alternate rules, and less weapon variance. Whee.
-Blood Angels are Vanilla Marines, with a +1 Jump Pack unit, a "different" Ironclad, and a unique Predator loadout. Why not just go for "Assault Dread, Tactical Dread, Devestator Dread" or some other simple delineation, and give actual options between each kit. Oh right, because Magna Grapples are mutually exclusive with Assault Launchers are exclusive with shields. Because GW thinks "no options" drives sales.
-Black Templar got rolled into vanilla Space Marines because they arguably weren't unique enough, and their "uniqueness" came from being a holdover from 4th edition customizable rules. So now, they're just "that chapter that runs Scouts as meatshields." You know which other Chapter does this, but isn't known for religious fervor? The Iron Snakes. However, they're also known for Apothecary Sergeants, which obviously only the Red Scorpions are allowed to do.
-Space Wolves are a little trickier. Still, you could easily say they're "Chapter Tactics: Counterattack", let their Tacsquads buy Chainswords (but tbt, a tacsquad should just be a BP/Chainsword/Bolter grab-bag across the board. Far simpler that way), and they get some horses. So, add a codex deviation letting them run cavalry/hounds. Remember when they could crew a Russ Exterminator? Add a "trait" letting them "loot" Imperial vehicles at a point markup (think of it as a "cross-codex tax"). On a side note, I dunno about you ut I would definitely enjoy the idea of Hellhound Salamanders. Would make a LOT more thematic/fluff sense than having them in Landspeeders for one (especially given Nocturne is a heavy-G planet).
-Deathwatch are almost entirely "Elite Choices From Marines, and Special Ammo". Other than "mixed squads" (which you don't want to do), and the Corvus Blackstar, you could run a vanilla Marine Vanguard detachment and you wouldn't notice the difference, except for the fact Special Ammo was explicitly made Deathwatch-Only ("They're not armed with Special-Issue Ammo, they're using Special-Issue Bolters."). You'd think Special Ammo would be a purchasable option...except for the fact said ammo wasn't the reason you took Sternguard, so much as for the mass Combi-Meltas. So, rebalance the Special Ammo or other costs.
-So this leaves Grey Knights. "Power Armor & Storm Bolter Marines." Sure, whatever. Add some extra doctrines for superior equipment loadouts if you want, up costs accordingly. Maybe rules for a "Psychically Gifted" mutation or so. Let them *buy* this loadout, but it adds up. Then again, considering that "Grey Knight" armies nowadays boil down to "Draigo, some Interceptors, and Conscripts" or so...

Well everything is copy and past for the most part....

Look at Elite units compare to the equivalent non-elite ones, Veteran units, command units etc... so should we remove all those too?

What about the Venom vs Starweaver? they are basically the same them lets remove one of them.

Falcon compare to Wave serpent, they are almost the same, lets remove of them them too.

The Scout Speed and other Land Speeder, they are to similar, lets remove one.

Just b.c they have things in common doesnt mean they are the same, there are large differences that make players happy.
All the armies you said has there own looks to them as well, with upgrades for vehicles, different weapons, shoulders, heads and chest pieces many of the time.

This IS NOT just a game, its also a modeling and painting hobby.

I would be cool with Eldar having a single Sky-Chariot platform that has "one underslung weapon, one turret weapon, which may be swapped out for transport capacity" or some open-ended customization along that line. You know, akin to a more limited VDR.

Ditto a "Daemonforged Flyer of Chaos" that could be customized to be a Heltalon, Heldrake, Doomwing, Blight Drone, etc. It would still allow for options, while theoretically dodging any explicit issues regarding mini copyrights.

 Luciferian wrote:
I think making certain sub-factions (TSons, DG, major SM chapters) into their own, self-sufficient Codex armies is great. That is definitely assuming that they have enough unique rules and units to set them apart from their forebears, however.

Half measures that end up breaking apart armies into pieces that can barely function on their own, or that are extremely subtle variations on their vanilla parents, are horrible.

There are certainly plenty of examples of both the former and the latter.

Ain't that the truth

But, we need only look at the (current, hopefully temporary) difference between Thousand Sons and Deathguard.

Thousand Sons? Well, for a pure force I get Sorceror Lords, Magnus, Ahriman, Rubricae, Scarab Occult and Tzaangors. Army does of course look fantastic on the field, but not a great many units.

Death Guard? Well, I'm not yet familiar with their full force and the unit names, but they've got more than Thousand Sons! Just taking their unique units, you don't really need to fallback on 'Deathguard Havocs' or similarly 'whack a mark on it and call it Deathguard' stuff.

I currently live in hope that my Thousand Sons will get some reinforcements

New factions are ok, and they would never be enough. New allied to the imperium forces would be a completely different matter, since they're already too many.

To be honest I'd prefer some new units for those already existing armies that haven't got a lot of choices like SoB, harlequins, gen cult, deathwach... If GW really wants to add new imperium stuff just re-pack the SoB catalogue with plastic kits.

I'm just gunna quote my response to another thread:

Spectral Ceramite wrote:
I think they will split the last edition Imperial agents into 2:

1. Will be Astra Ministorum Codex (Like in the index: Priests etc & SoB)
2. Will be Imperial Agents (everything that can be infused into existing imperium armies): Inquisition, Assassins, SoS, Adeptus Custodes, LoTD. I would say maybe knights, however, they probably give them their own codex.

I would say knights because of the lack of rules for <Household> so probably get their own codex?

If say my Book 2 can be integrated into any imperium army will that disadvantage xenos? Yes, in the context that they have more options and diversity. In regards to utility and rules? Depends on the units released in the various codex's (both xenos and imperium). They could release all the rules for existing models and 3/4 of the Imperium models could be useless in comparison to your main Imperium army (eg like inquisitors atm). They could be good as well but.

In regards to so many factions, I think the diversity sits well. Granted Imperium has an advantage in numbers (that's because people gravitate more to hero's they can relate to, google scholar it for research).
I personally would like to see a mercenary race for the 'xenos only' created (not available to Imperium) to bring in a balance of numbers and some diversity, but it comes down to cost of development etc (depends how well this year goes I suppose in sales).

I missed the Squat . Oh well I love them as a Faction. When I plat them a long time ago.

DEZOAT wrote:
I missed the Squat . Oh well I love them as a Faction. When I plat them a long time ago.

You can still use the models. I use my squats as ratlings. Squats live on even in death

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

I say nay. Warhammer does not have too many factions. Also bear in mind that there are factions within factions within factions. Here are a few examples.

Imperium/Astra Militarum/Regiment
Aeldari/Asurmen(Spelling)/Craftworld
Tyranids/Hive Fleet

Obviously, to build any army, it must include at least 1 common Faction key word. The only exception to this is in the GSC list. However, I have not looked directly at the Orc part of the index to see if the can include looted wagons yet.

A lot of the buffs are key word faction specific. As a perfect example, The Officio Prefrectus, have Commissars. All of their buffs only effect units with the key word Astra Militarum.

I like the current state of affairs. It is circles within circles.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Ain't that the truth

But, we need only look at the (current, hopefully temporary) difference between Thousand Sons and Deathguard.

Thousand Sons? Well, for a pure force I get Sorceror Lords, Magnus, Ahriman, Rubricae, Scarab Occult and Tzaangors. Army does of course look fantastic on the field, but not a great many units.

Death Guard? Well, I'm not yet familiar with their full force and the unit names, but they've got more than Thousand Sons! Just taking their unique units, you don't really need to fallback on 'Deathguard Havocs' or similarly 'whack a mark on it and call it Deathguard' stuff.

I currently live in hope that my Thousand Sons will get some reinforcements

The new Death Guard codex is, in my opinion, a great example of how to make a fully fleshed out and self-sufficient subfaction. They have all the units they need, they have great rules that promote synergy, and it seems like there are multiple ways to go about building a viable list. I wouldn't be surprised if the TSons got a similar treatment in the future.

Now if they can only do that to the rest of the Factions....

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

People trying to justify putting BA, DA, SW, DW and GK into SM codex are like Simpson's Stan Lee putting The Hulk into the batmovile.

 Galas wrote:
People trying to justify putting BA, DA, SW, DW and GK into SM codex are like Simpson's Stan Lee putting The Hulk into the batmovile.

Not exactly an accurate analogy, considering they're from two separate IPs from two separate holding companies. A more accurate analogy might be trying to give the Butcher of Khardov the Mark of Khorne, or to give Dominar Rasheth the Mark of Slaanesh.

In all seriousness though, a good answer to "too many factions" is when said factions are not "standalone viable", or they have a "faction calculus" equation that overlaps too much with other factions. Starcraft wouldn't have been half the game it was, if every Faction was Terran, and the only difference was "which" unit got the +1. (You "could" argue that Age of Empires II was able to pull off such a trick despite all armies using the same tech-tree, due to civ bonuses, restricted techs, and unique techs/UUs, but Korea was tournament-banned prior to Forgotten patches, so...). Create a "DIY" chapter system, whether it's akin to Kharadron skyports, or a full-on "trait" system akin to 3.5 Guard or the Deathwatch RPG, make certain choices "mutually exclusive" based on fluff & balance (A chapter that uses "radical" tech, be it Baal Engines or Helfrost weapons will have a much tougher time getting sanctioned to wield Centurions after all...), and make it easier to customize your own "Marine +1" units. That's where the majority of functional differences between Marines lie anyway, the Elites.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

Chaos Space Marines have FAR more unique units and options that you couldn't do that. Same with Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and, to an extent, Deathwatch. Try again, please, but without the justification you could throw Orks in the same codex because you clearly can't get a point across without a terrible comparison/exaggeration.

Dionysodorus wrote:
They were just in the index because if they weren't then people would get mad that Dark Eldar lost a unit. This contributes to a lot of bloat as GW keeps including units without trying to make them playable.

If only there were a way that GW could have all of these variant models around, but not have them bloat up the rules. For example, back in 2E, GW had lots of rules for Power Swords distinct from Power Axes and other Power whatnots. If only there were some sort of precedent for how GW could simplify the rules while still allowing those various models to be playable in the edition. If only...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

GW has done this before, and it'd be great! I'm all for the homogenizing of Space Marines.

Or at least requiring them to pay $100 for the core SM Codex and another $40 for their extra-special Faction Codex.

You don't have to homegenize them all. You only need to take care of Dark and Blood Angels. Space Wolves and Grey Knights should remain independent and Deathwatch should go into a basic Inquisition codex along with Sisters (where Grey Knights can optionally go as well). Bam, that's significantly less books with still tons of options.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You don't have to homegenize them all. You only need to take care of Dark and Blood Angels. Space Wolves and Grey Knights should remain independent and Deathwatch should go into a basic Inquisition codex along with Sisters (where Grey Knights can optionally go as well). Bam, that's significantly less books with still tons of options.

Dark Angels and Blood Angels has enough units tho, they have something like 13-16 unique units, thats more than some other armies.

Is having more factions really hurting us tho? No, they are making the hobby more fun and gives players more variations of looks/style, play, rules etc.....

Heck i want more factions, give us Exodite Eldar, Corsairs back, etc.. I even want (not squats) Space Dwarfs (seen some cool conversions, tunneling race)

Blood Angels: Their Command Squads and Techmarines get Jump Packs instead of Bikes, they have Sanguinary Guard instead of Honor Guard, Furioso Dreads instead of Ironclads, so this really only leaves Death Company and Baal Engines. So really, only 2 unique items without appropriate analogues, unless giving Heavy Flamers to Tacsquads is their most unique feature. Their entire justification for 5th was to be "The Jump Marines," an "in-your-face" assault army meant to blitzkrieg. Only, such a build became increasingly unviable (especially combined with the changes to the 7e dex), ultimately resulting in them placing dead last at LVO 2014. They got a slapdash formation redux in Angel's Blade, hilariously with a core formation that effectively gave no bonus. And now that 8th has Outrider Detachments...why play Blood Angels again?

Dark Angels: Nephelim instead of Stormhawks, Heavy Landspeeders (shooty or sneaky), +1 Assault Terminators and +1 Bikes. Oh, but they can give their Terminators Plasma Cannons. Hell, Dark Angels almost played the same as vanilla Marines (both ran Bike Armies) from 5th to the first half of 7th, and their most successful 7th build was basically a Gladius that replaced Combat Doctrines with better Overwatch. So really, they have...4 unique units tops?

ya, know I kinda like soup, here's why: I want to create an Inquisition army. Inthat army I want to use facets of both the IG and mechanicum. maybe throw in some scions, couple SOB, perhaps a unit of GK. In 8th I can now do that, it's completely legal AND it's fluffy to boot!

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Blood Angels: Their Command Squads and Techmarines get Jump Packs instead of Bikes, they have Sanguinary Guard instead of Honor Guard, Furioso Dreads instead of Ironclads, so this really only leaves Death Company and Baal Engines. So really, only 2 unique items without appropriate analogues, unless giving Heavy Flamers to Tacsquads is their most unique feature. Their entire justification for 5th was to be "The Jump Marines," an "in-your-face" assault army meant to blitzkrieg. Only, such a build became increasingly unviable (especially combined with the changes to the 7e dex), ultimately resulting in them placing dead last at LVO 2014. They got a slapdash formation redux in Angel's Blade, hilariously with a core formation that effectively gave no binus. And now that 8th has Outrider Detachments...why play Blo9d Angels again?

Dark Angels: Nephelim instead of Stormhawks, Heavy Landspeeders (shooty or sneaky), +1 Assault Terminators and +1 Bikes. Oh, but they can give their Terminators Plasma Cannons. Hell, Dark Angels almost played the same as vanilla Marines (both ran Bike Armies) from 5th to the first half of 7th, and their most successful 7th build was basically a Gladius that replaced Combat Doctrines with better Overwatch. So really, they have...4 unique units tops?

This guy gets it. Even unique options like the Heavy Flamers for Tactical Squads should be available to everyone (and was in fact a option in the 5th edition codex!), and the fact their Techmarines and Command Squads get Jump Packs but Raven Guard and Fire Hawks don't is...silly beyond words. Otherwise, Sanguine Guard are trash and have been trash, Furioso Dreads are basically Ironclads with the option for a Frag Cannon, and an Assault Cannon option for their Predators.

Then Dark Angels have those trash fliers that you proxy for the regular Marine fliers, Deathwing Terminators (which never amounts to anything different because you specialize your squads, meaning the customization looks exactly like the regular Tactical Terminator and Assault Terminator squads barring super bizarre examples), Ravenwing Bikers which always functioned exactly the same besides Teleport Homers, and that just leaves the Knights for both those Wings, who are genuinely unique.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You don't have to homegenize them all. You only need to take care of Dark and Blood Angels. Space Wolves and Grey Knights should remain independent and Deathwatch should go into a basic Inquisition codex along with Sisters (where Grey Knights can optionally go as well). Bam, that's significantly less books with still tons of options.

Dark Angels and Blood Angels has enough units tho, they have something like 13-16 unique units, thats more than some other armies.

Is having more factions really hurting us tho? No, they are making the hobby more fun and gives players more variations of looks/style, play, rules etc.....

Heck i want more factions, give us Exodite Eldar, Corsairs back, etc.. I even want (not squats) Space Dwarfs (seen some cool conversions, tunneling race)

Exodites are unique enough like Dark Eldar to Eldar. Blood and Dark Angels are not. You aren't losing options and in fact theoretically gain more.

We've long since gone past the 'too many factions' point.

Way back in 3rd edition we were going in the right direction. All Space Marines were the same but you could play one of the specialized chapters which ultimately just had basic organizational swaps to provide some character. Since we've now come full circle again and every army has a special character it would be incredibly easy to go back to have a generic BA HQ that made Assault Marines troops, gave you a special Assault Marine Death Company retinue, and gave your rhinos an additional +2 movement or something. Each chapter could get something like that in conjunction with their tactics/strategems etc.

Every army was more or less like this until after 4th edition where GW decided they were no longer a game company but rather a model company. Instead of making changes for the betterment of the game they decided to come up with any justifiable reason to make a new plastic model regardless if the army needed something or not. And instead of redoing older models they seemed to prioritize making new units to ensure people bought them.

Now in 8th edition it's looking like GW has once again realized they have a game that goes along with their plastic crack addiction and are trying to make things more streamlined and easier for gamers to follow. But even with their first few releases in this edition we see that they're falling back on bad habits. Every book is once again getting an assortment of unique rules which will force players to have to memorize countless special rules and limitations depending on what they're playing against.

We're just going back to the days where people need to bring a library collection of books along with them to game.

Getting too much where core units are getting the "special snowflake" treatment.

I did not mind the Space Marine codex had a few little bits for my Black Templar: gave a flavor for them and continued on with all that is marine.

It seems silly to have to separate out CSM when they are the same core unit with a key stat change and some different gear: was done easily in the past and the current "basic" CSM codex is pretty good for that as well.
The old Codex below made it pretty clear how to make a "cult" army and has been echoed in lesser ways through the years (3rd edition update 2nd book was nasty garbage).


Feels like a missed opportunity with the Grey Knights: Could have done an Inquisition Codex and get them with the Death Watch all under one roof, maybe Sisters? That then covers Daemon, Xenos, Heretic opposing forces.
Page 21 was pretty good and clear on allies (SM, AM/IG, Sisters) in the old codex below.


They need to keep the books for the units themselves in as few books as possible and then flesh-out various detachments making up a specific flavor of force.
It would be neat to see say a "Codex" like we had in the past of Armageddon and create some specific formations and supporting details:


I think we will be on the right track if all the 4 flavors of Eldar are put under one book as an example.
They are another group of armies that may logically mix and match depending on the "story/justification" used.

By having units under a logical one-roof or grouping it will be easier to make changes without having to update like 3 books where we repeat ourselves.
If one of these "supplements" break something, then the book can be addressed and not a multitude of others.
6th and 7th were the only editions I did not get all the Codices: It just did not seem possible with the plethora of publications.

8th I am holding out hope it will be a bit more reasonable.
I would like a game again where it is possible to know your own army's rules as well as your opponents (most of them, not a select few).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

Chaos Space Marines have FAR more unique units and options that you couldn't do that. Same with Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and, to an extent, Deathwatch. Try again, please, but without the justification you could throw Orks in the same codex because you clearly can't get a point across without a terrible comparison/exaggeration.

If the comparison is terrible, then that is not my fault. It follows the same logic you do when you argue argue they could put Blood Angels into the SM codex. To fit BA or DA into the SM codex, you would need to make them less unique and more similar to SM. BA and DA only become similar enough to SM once you remove all of their unique stuff. So why single them out when CSM are just as similar to SM once you remove their unique stuff?

Now try again, but this time with an actual argument for taking stuff away from people.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

Chaos Space Marines have FAR more unique units and options that you couldn't do that. Same with Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and, to an extent, Deathwatch. Try again, please, but without the justification you could throw Orks in the same codex because you clearly can't get a point across without a terrible comparison/exaggeration.

If the comparison is terrible, then that is not my fault. It follows the same logic you do when you argue argue they could put Blood Angels into the SM codex. To fit BA or DA into the SM codex, you would need to make them less unique and more similar to SM. BA and DA only become similar enough to SM once you remove all of their unique stuff. So why single them out when CSM are just as similar to SM once you remove their unique stuff?

Now try again, but this time with an actual argument for taking stuff away from people.

In all fairness, Blood Angels and Dark Angels are very similar to Space Marines already (for obvious reasons) that they could easily function on chapter tactics and a couple of pages of unique units and special characters. They certainly share a lot in terms of units, wargear, options and special rules anyways.

3 different space marines factions are too many factions.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Assassins, non-mechanicus Knights, Scions, Adeptus Ministrum, and Inquisitors should all be a single faction. Flavour wise, these are all the secondary, behind the scenes people who make the Imperium work. They're not frontline soldiers, their the agents of the god emperor's will.
[…]
Adeptus Mechanicus and Questoris Knights are just begging to be one faction. They need some more units (perhaps "Mechanicum" versions of existing vehicles, seeing as the AdMech are the sole source of Imperial Hardware, having special rules beyond their normal counterparts) but this one deserves to be it's own.

You got things wrong. Sisters of battle are frontline warriors. Adeptus Mechanicus is secondary, behind the scene people that make the Imperium work.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Is having more factions really hurting us tho?

Yes, more wait time between new release and balance problems and all. Of course you can't see the new release waiting time thing if you play marines when half of the new release are available for all marine factions…

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
3 different space marines factions are too many factions.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Assassins, non-mechanicus Knights, Scions, Adeptus Ministrum, and Inquisitors should all be a single faction. Flavour wise, these are all the secondary, behind the scenes people who make the Imperium work. They're not frontline soldiers, their the agents of the god emperor's will.
[…]
Adeptus Mechanicus and Questoris Knights are just begging to be one faction. They need some more units (perhaps "Mechanicum" versions of existing vehicles, seeing as the AdMech are the sole source of Imperial Hardware, having special rules beyond their normal counterparts) but this one deserves to be it's own.

You got things wrong. Sisters of battle are frontline warriors. Adeptus Mechanicus is secondary, behind the scene people that make the Imperium work.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Is having more factions really hurting us tho?

Yes, more wait time between new release and balance problems and all. Of course you can't see the new release waiting time thing if you play marines when half of the new release are available for all marine factions…

Seeing how fast codex's are coming out in 8th, i'd say thats not a valid argument, yes it takes longer than lets say 5 books, BUT they still take the "same time" to write, 1 codex is going to take the same amount of time as any other codex (well SM and CSM might be a little bit longer)

But then you are done..... you dont need to write another codex unless an edition changes (like 8th). the problem is we had 3 editions in a very short time. Where honestly an Edition should last a LONG time, not 2yrs.......
Hopefully 8th will stay for 5yrs+ this time and just have rules tweaks, everyone will get an updated codex and even some balance changes in the future.

So again. How is it hurting you?

One step forward, two steps back, to my mind. We had the Indexes (Indices, if you prefer) organized just how a "Space Marine" book ought to be ("here's the base list, then we're going to give you a bunch of appendixes with variant armies"), and now we're going straight back to too many books.

I don't think just keeping things in Index format is the answer, but having a wider range of stuff in one book is a better idea than trying to spread it out over a bunch of books with copy-pasted content the way it looks like they're doing, since you run into the Rhino problem (either you don't update the shared content at all, or the same thing has different rules in different books).

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Blood Angels: Their Command Squads and Techmarines get Jump Packs instead of Bikes, they have Sanguinary Guard instead of Honor Guard, Furioso Dreads instead of Ironclads, so this really only leaves Death Company and Baal Engines. So really, only 2 unique items without appropriate analogues, unless giving Heavy Flamers to Tacsquads is their most unique feature. Their entire justification for 5th was to be "The Jump Marines," an "in-your-face" assault army meant to blitzkrieg. Only, such a build became increasingly unviable (especially combined with the changes to the 7e dex), ultimately resulting in them placing dead last at LVO 2014. They got a slapdash formation redux in Angel's Blade, hilariously with a core formation that effectively gave no bonus. And now that 8th has Outrider Detachments...why play Blood Angels again?

Dark Angels: Nephelim instead of Stormhawks, Heavy Landspeeders (shooty or sneaky), +1 Assault Terminators and +1 Bikes. Oh, but they can give their Terminators Plasma Cannons. Hell, Dark Angels almost played the same as vanilla Marines (both ran Bike Armies) from 5th to the first half of 7th, and their most successful 7th build was basically a Gladius that replaced Combat Doctrines with better Overwatch. So really, they have...4 unique units tops?

I am still not seeing the point of your argument. You asked how many factions was too many, but you haven't said why there would even be an upper limit. What is the problem with multiple factions? I think that natural selection would cause non-viable armies to eventually disappear over time.

Looking at Dark Angels and Blood Angels, for instance, they are both offer viable, add variety at low opportunity cost and are popular. I'll briefly explore each area.

The Dark Angels are absolutely viable on their own. I have played them through multiple editions (since 2nd Ed but I took a break from 40K for 7th) and even with the rather basic Index 1 they are solid. I don't play Blood Angels, but my son's Flesh Tearers are doing just fine and the local BA players are also doing just fine. Both stand on their own.

They both offer variety from normal Space Marines at low opportunity cost. You've dismissed the differences, but DA and BA certainly look, play and feel different that Ultramarines, Ravenguard or other SM lists. A Deathwing Terminator army, for instance, absolutely plays differently than a Space Marine Terminator army due to the squad options and morale rules. . Both DA and BA have access to unique units and lack access to others. They have special rules, special characters and their Librarians have different powers. Once the Codexes drop we should see even more variety. By low opportunity cost I mean that GW can have these addition factions without having too many SKUs. With the current plastic boxes it does not take many unique SKUs on the inventory to have a different faction with a wide range of models. The DA and BA, for instance, can use many of the standard kits from the SM range but still have a very different look and feel.

Finally, the BA and DA are enduringly popular. They have vibrant Tactics threads here on Dakka, and they certainly appear in the Battle Reports and the unscientific but interesting "We've Seen the ITC results, how about Dakka?" There are plenty of DA, BA and SW players in my local scene.

I fail to see the problem with variety. Just because an army doesn't appeal to me doesn't make me want to ban it. Perhaps you are really just complaining about so-called Imperial Soup?

There's nothing wrong with variety so long as the game evolves and grows because of it. There's something wrong with variety when all it does it add needless complexity to an already complex game.

That's the exact issue with the majority of Space Marine chapters. They don't play much different than they did 20 years ago when all they had different was maybe 1 unit each and some organizational swaps. Today they have a list of tactics, strategems, half a dozen unique units each with weird unique rules, and what did these armies gain? Nothing... their playstyle is the same it was 20 years ago and they swapped out old units that now sit on the shelf gathering dust in favor of the new units that overshadow other things in the book.

GW really needs to start questioning if they're adding variety or if they're just adding complexity.

Darsath wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

Chaos Space Marines have FAR more unique units and options that you couldn't do that. Same with Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and, to an extent, Deathwatch. Try again, please, but without the justification you could throw Orks in the same codex because you clearly can't get a point across without a terrible comparison/exaggeration.

If the comparison is terrible, then that is not my fault. It follows the same logic you do when you argue argue they could put Blood Angels into the SM codex. To fit BA or DA into the SM codex, you would need to make them less unique and more similar to SM. BA and DA only become similar enough to SM once you remove all of their unique stuff. So why single them out when CSM are just as similar to SM once you remove their unique stuff?

Now try again, but this time with an actual argument for taking stuff away from people.

In all fairness, Blood Angels and Dark Angels are very similar to Space Marines already (for obvious reasons) that they could easily function on chapter tactics and a couple of pages of unique units and special characters. They certainly share a lot in terms of units, wargear, options and special rules anyways.

And there is also a large amount of units, options, wargear and special rules that sets them apart. Far more than just a simple chapter tactics rule. Adding them to the SM codex without making them lose their unique flavour would almost double the size of the SM codex, and triple it if we also want to preserve their fluff. That is not something that anyone should be wanting.
Meanwhile, we lose nothing by them being in separate books. There is no need or incentive to put them into the SM codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
3 different space marines factions are too many factions.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Assassins, non-mechanicus Knights, Scions, Adeptus Ministrum, and Inquisitors should all be a single faction. Flavour wise, these are all the secondary, behind the scenes people who make the Imperium work. They're not frontline soldiers, their the agents of the god emperor's will.
[…]
Adeptus Mechanicus and Questoris Knights are just begging to be one faction. They need some more units (perhaps "Mechanicum" versions of existing vehicles, seeing as the AdMech are the sole source of Imperial Hardware, having special rules beyond their normal counterparts) but this one deserves to be it's own.

You got things wrong. Sisters of battle are frontline warriors. Adeptus Mechanicus is secondary, behind the scene people that make the Imperium work.

Try telling that to a Magos Reductor

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Darsath wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

Chaos Space Marines have FAR more unique units and options that you couldn't do that. Same with Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and, to an extent, Deathwatch. Try again, please, but without the justification you could throw Orks in the same codex because you clearly can't get a point across without a terrible comparison/exaggeration.

If the comparison is terrible, then that is not my fault. It follows the same logic you do when you argue argue they could put Blood Angels into the SM codex. To fit BA or DA into the SM codex, you would need to make them less unique and more similar to SM. BA and DA only become similar enough to SM once you remove all of their unique stuff. So why single them out when CSM are just as similar to SM once you remove their unique stuff?

Now try again, but this time with an actual argument for taking stuff away from people.

In all fairness, Blood Angels and Dark Angels are very similar to Space Marines already (for obvious reasons) that they could easily function on chapter tactics and a couple of pages of unique units and special characters. They certainly share a lot in terms of units, wargear, options and special rules anyways.

And there is also a large amount of units, options, wargear and special rules that sets them apart. Far more than just a simple chapter tactics rule. Adding them to the SM codex without making them lose their unique flavour would almost double the size of the SM codex, and triple it if we also want to preserve their fluff. That is not something that anyone should be wanting.
Meanwhile, we lose nothing by them being in separate books. There is no need or incentive to put them into the SM codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
3 different space marines factions are too many factions.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Assassins, non-mechanicus Knights, Scions, Adeptus Ministrum, and Inquisitors should all be a single faction. Flavour wise, these are all the secondary, behind the scenes people who make the Imperium work. They're not frontline soldiers, their the agents of the god emperor's will.
[…]
Adeptus Mechanicus and Questoris Knights are just begging to be one faction. They need some more units (perhaps "Mechanicum" versions of existing vehicles, seeing as the AdMech are the sole source of Imperial Hardware, having special rules beyond their normal counterparts) but this one deserves to be it's own.

You got things wrong. Sisters of battle are frontline warriors. Adeptus Mechanicus is secondary, behind the scene people that make the Imperium work.

Try telling that to a Magos Reductor

Except there isn't that large an amount of those unique options like you claim, some of which should be in the main codex in the first place (Tactical Marines had Heavy Flamers in the 5th codex, and they lost them so...Blood Angels could keep them? fething stupid), and there's no reason they shouldn't have access to regular wargear either (so...Thunderfire Cannons just don't exist for them apparently. Not even their successors). You see the issue here?

Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

So, are you actually saying that the release schedule is the bottleneck here? They're just sitting on great, balanced Ork rules and plastic Sisters but Marketing won't let them put them out until they get through all of the Marine releases? I'm not sure I buy it.

Also note that they're releasing things at an unprecedented rate. They're already dumping minor factions with no releases with basically no build-up -- we got GKs simultaneous with Chaos and we're getting AdMech a week after Death Guard. If Codex: Blood Angels literally just means a one-week delay on Codex: Orks, it's hard to begrudge the Blood Angels players much.

Personally, I think the fact that they can pump out low-effort codices so quickly just goes to show that nothing like this was ever the bottleneck. It's coming up with new, balanced rules and new models that takes time, and it takes far more time than just packaging together some units from Codex: Space Marines and giving them a special Chapter Tactic.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

So, are you actually saying that the release schedule is the bottleneck here? They're just sitting on great, balanced Ork rules and plastic Sisters but Marketing won't let them put them out until they get through all of the Marine releases? I'm not sure I buy it.

Also note that they're releasing things at an unprecedented rate. They're already dumping minor factions with no releases with basically no build-up -- we got GKs simultaneous with Chaos and we're getting AdMech a week after Death Guard. If Codex: Blood Angels literally just means a one-week delay on Codex: Orks, it's hard to begrudge the Blood Angels players much.

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

So, are you actually saying that the release schedule is the bottleneck here? They're just sitting on great, balanced Ork rules and plastic Sisters but Marketing won't let them put them out until they get through all of the Marine releases? I'm not sure I buy it.

Also note that they're releasing things at an unprecedented rate. They're already dumping minor factions with no releases with basically no build-up -- we got GKs simultaneous with Chaos and we're getting AdMech a week after Death Guard. If Codex: Blood Angels literally just means a one-week delay on Codex: Orks, it's hard to begrudge the Blood Angels players much.

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

Businesses order projects from most likely to least likely to increase revenue. If GW are prioritising Marine factions, it's because they think those are the things which are most likely to make them money. Getting rid of high revenue releases to prioritise low revenue releases is terrible business.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Blood and Dark Angels don't NEED playtesting because there's that many redundant choices. Even then, Blood Angels are usually near the bottom because of the Vanilla choices they lack and the garbage they get in return. The bloat is unnecessary and bad. Homogenizing the two Codices is only good FOR balance. You can't do it with Grey Knights and Space Wolves, but you certainly can for the Angels.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

This isn't really engaging with my post. Yes, duh, they don't literally have plastic Sisters sitting around. But what I'm saying is that the things you want them to work on are much, much more work than the things that you're saying are taking up valuable slots. They can't just change over, unless right now they just have a ton of staff sitting around goofing off all day. Now, Death Guard, sure, obviously that's a lot of modeling work. That's a pretty major release. But that didn't really seem like the sort of thing being objected to, since obviously Death Guard aren't just a minor variation on the Chaos codex. Of course, they could have been one, and then instead of spending all that time on them GW could have done Orks or Sisters, but this isn't as much of a win-win as the other scenarios being discussed. Clearly people who like Death Guard lose big time in this case. The argument as I understood it was that you have things like Codex: Blood Angels where really you could have rolled them into Codex: Space Marines without really even making Blood Angels players worse off.

 Corrode wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

So, are you actually saying that the release schedule is the bottleneck here? They're just sitting on great, balanced Ork rules and plastic Sisters but Marketing won't let them put them out until they get through all of the Marine releases? I'm not sure I buy it.

Also note that they're releasing things at an unprecedented rate. They're already dumping minor factions with no releases with basically no build-up -- we got GKs simultaneous with Chaos and we're getting AdMech a week after Death Guard. If Codex: Blood Angels literally just means a one-week delay on Codex: Orks, it's hard to begrudge the Blood Angels players much.

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

Businesses order projects from most likely to least likely to increase revenue. If GW are prioritising Marine factions, it's because they think those are the things which are most likely to make them money. Getting rid of high revenue releases to prioritise low revenue releases is terrible business.

But they're only terrible sources of revenue because they get no attention. It's a Catch-22. Marines get the attention, so they get all the money, so they get all the attention. The Dark Eldar re-release in 5th likely rescued a struggling faction from the dustbin of history, and increased revenues. Celestine's re-release probably sold a TON of copies of her (though it's hard to tell because of the way she was boxed).

But in general, I think GW won't lose much by folding Blood Angels (for example) into Codex: Space Marines. Only the most ridiculous players will quit the game over something so pedantic. While re-releasing Sisters in a brand-spanking new redux faction with their own playstyle and fluff would probably bring in more money than yet another Blood Angels (or Space Marines -1, as Martel is fond of saying) re-release for seventh time or whatever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

This isn't really engaging with my post. Yes, duh, they don't literally have plastic Sisters sitting around. But what I'm saying is that the things you want them to work on are much, much more work than the things that you're saying are taking up valuable slots. They can't just change over, unless right now they just have a ton of staff sitting around goofing off all day. Now, Death Guard, sure, obviously that's a lot of modeling work. That's a pretty major release. But that didn't really seem like the sort of thing being objected to, since obviously Death Guard aren't just a minor variation on the Chaos codex. Of course, they could have been one, and then instead of spending all that time on them GW could have done Orks or Sisters, but this isn't as much of a win-win as the other scenarios being discussed. Clearly people who like Death Guard lose big time in this case. The argument as I understood it was that you have things like Codex: Blood Angels where really you could have rolled them into Codex: Space Marines without really even making Blood Angels players worse off.

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

Too many faction is bad, simple as that.

From a logistical standpoint, it's bad:

1) Codices and books get stretched out...meaning power creep, gaps in playability and most importantly - increase cost when you pair off tiny factions into their own books (for no reason)
2) Model releases become scant, and factions can go 3-4-5+ years without any worthwhile models or kits. Keep in mind some races still have 25+ year old models.

The main issue is simple. The rules for 40K are simple. Perhaps too simple. Even with increased statlines, the variety of units is pretty slim. This, unfortunately is already leading back to characters with an entire page of special rules. Essentially the rules themselves can't cover the increasingly wide model range without GW pushing into more and more ridiculous territory (because the 40K community insists on special snowflake rules for every single unit in all of their 25+ armies). The more special rules and the more bending of core rules which becomes necessary to "separate" units and factions and give them identities....the more convoluted and complex the game becomes, and not in a good way. Balance goes out in the window. Creating a new race or a new faction? You need to now make special rules for 30+ units which somehow interact properly with the other 1500+ units spread across the game.

It's simply unnecessary. Statlines are easy to balance - you can do this mathematically for most things. You're just creating the same giant morass which swallowed up 7th.
_____________________________________________

However...

None of this matters. It's about selling new pretty models to consumers and GW can still produce anything and people will buy it. They have to ride this train as far and as long as they can.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

You missed my point. If they have a free week coming up in 3 years, they can start right now, and get the big stuff done in 3 years. That free week will only arrive, however, if they stop the eternal cycle of eleventybillion Marine Codecies.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

You missed my point. If they have a free week coming up in 3 years, they can start right now, and get the big stuff done in 3 years. That free week will only arrive, however, if they stop the eternal cycle of eleventybillion Marine Codecies.

No, I think you're the one still just assuming that they have a ton of staff sitting around doing nothing all day as-is. Surely you see that this "big stuff" is actually harder work than churning out another Marine codex, or at least this was what MagicJuggler was saying explicitly and is what I was responding to when you chimed in. What do you think they do all day?

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

You missed my point. If they have a free week coming up in 3 years, they can start right now, and get the big stuff done in 3 years. That free week will only arrive, however, if they stop the eternal cycle of eleventybillion Marine Codecies.

No, I think you're the one still just assuming that they have a ton of staff sitting around doing nothing all day as-is. Surely you see that this "big stuff" is actually harder work than churning out another Marine codex, or at least this was what MagicJuggler was saying explicitly and is what I was responding to when you chimed in. What do you think they do all day?

I think they churn out the next marine codex. So if you put that 1 inch of effort in per day on a new thing, then perhaps (one day) you can instead reach that 1000 inch milestone you need to reach to release the stuff.

But in order to start that work, you need a release slot open in 1000 days.

So you have to decide (now, when you're reallocating your resources) to take someone off of churning out the next marine codex, fold it into codex Marines, and eventually make that deadline.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

You missed my point. If they have a free week coming up in 3 years, they can start right now, and get the big stuff done in 3 years. That free week will only arrive, however, if they stop the eternal cycle of eleventybillion Marine Codecies.

No, I think you're the one still just assuming that they have a ton of staff sitting around doing nothing all day as-is. Surely you see that this "big stuff" is actually harder work than churning out another Marine codex, or at least this was what MagicJuggler was saying explicitly and is what I was responding to when you chimed in. What do you think they do all day?

Besides think of new ways to churn out Space Marine codexes?

There are Space Marines (with Space Marines inside Space Marines), Viking Marines, Vampire Marines, Mysterious Marines, Ghostly Marines, Operator Marines, Mageknight Marines (with a bigger Space Marine inside a Space Marine), Space Marine Space Marines, Spiky Marines, Dusty Magic Space Marines, Plague Marines, and Space Marine Space Marines. Sir-Not-Appearing-With-A-Codex Space Marines thankfully lost their codex (though alas they lost their Holy Hand Grenades) to hang out with the regular Space Marines.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

You missed my point. If they have a free week coming up in 3 years, they can start right now, and get the big stuff done in 3 years. That free week will only arrive, however, if they stop the eternal cycle of eleventybillion Marine Codecies.

No, I think you're the one still just assuming that they have a ton of staff sitting around doing nothing all day as-is. Surely you see that this "big stuff" is actually harder work than churning out another Marine codex, or at least this was what MagicJuggler was saying explicitly and is what I was responding to when you chimed in. What do you think they do all day?

Besides think of new ways to churn out Space Marine codexes?

There are Space Marines (with Space Marines inside Space Marines), Viking Marines, Vampire Marines, Mysterious Marines, Ghostly Marines, Operator Marines, Mageknight Marines (with a bigger Space Marine inside a Space Marine), Space Marine Space Marines, Spiky Marines, Dusty Magic Space Marines, Plague Marines, and Space Marine Space Marines. Sir-Not-Appearing-With-A-Codex Space Marines thankfully lost their codex (though alas they lost their Holy Hand Grenades) to hang out with the regular Space Marines.

Well, to be fair, other armies get some cool stuff too. I mean you have "the most diverse fighting force in the galaxy," and that's a direct quote from the 5e codex. Surely the Imperial Guard have plenty of diverse units and rules to match. I mean you get rambo guard, and Colonial Marines guard, and...

... oh.

 Elbows wrote:
Too many faction is bad, simple as that.

From a logistical standpoint, it's bad:

1) Codices and books get stretched out...meaning power creep, gaps in playability and most importantly - increase cost when you pair off tiny factions into their own books (for no reason)
2) Model releases become scant, and factions can go 3-4-5+ years without any worthwhile models or kits. Keep in mind some races still have 25+ year old models.

The main issue is simple. The rules for 40K are simple. Perhaps too simple. Even with increased statlines, the variety of units is pretty slim. This, unfortunately is already leading back to characters with an entire page of special rules. Essentially the rules themselves can't cover the increasingly wide model range without GW pushing into more and more ridiculous territory (because the 40K community insists on special snowflake rules for every single unit in all of their 25+ armies). The more special rules and the more bending of core rules which becomes necessary to "separate" units and factions and give them identities....the more convoluted and complex the game becomes, and not in a good way. Balance goes out in the window. Creating a new race or a new faction? You need to now make special rules for 30+ units which somehow interact properly with the other 1500+ units spread across the game.

It's simply unnecessary. Statlines are easy to balance - you can do this mathematically for most things. You're just creating the same giant morass which swallowed up 7th.
_____________________________________________

However...

None of this matters. It's about selling new pretty models to consumers and GW can still produce anything and people will buy it. They have to ride this train as far and as long as they can.

This is a pretty good summary of the problems that arise with more factions. It's usually a more short-sighted issue. Short term gain (from people buying new models for Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Imperial Agents etc) but long term loss (having to keep the rules updated and "unique" enough, Long spans between rules updates, more cluttered release schedules). Personally, I feel that the rules for units in 40k are already not unique enough to be considered different, and some factions such as Blood Angels and Dark Angels are really just off-shoot subfactions of the Codex: Space Marines and could be included in that book instead.

Sadly I think this is just going to be the trend. I wrote up an article on reddit about GW's obsession with neophilia - releasing new things instead of shoring up the old.

The big problem that they're facing now, esp with Death Guard and Thousand Sons, is that now people want the rest of the collection. Where's World Eaters and Emperor's Children? But releasing those means putting more marines into an already marine-saturated environment. It's progress that we're getting Eldar split up into three factions to help round out xenos, and Genestealer Cults was definitely needed, but then what? Are Kroot going to get their own codex? How about Vespid?

I can't wait for Codex: Grots.

Faction isn't defined the same way it was in 7th.
Take dark eldars for instance. While dark eldar does correspond to a specific keyword, it's a subset of Aeldari, and is further divided into sub-factions (mainly kabals, wych cults, and covens). A wych cult army is unlikely to be viable by itself, does it mean we should get rid of the dark eldar sub-factions and keep dark eldar as the lowest-level keyword? I really don't see the point…
I suppose most people in this thread mean codex when they say faction; that too many factions mean to many codex. But splitting an army between multiple books doesn't have the same impact it did in 7th, since it doesn't mean different detachments anymore. It just mean more books to buy.

Also, it is possible that more factions will disappear in the future. 8th is supposed to be a live edition, and GW already said that some units that are in the index will not get updated rules in codex format. It's now a lot easier for them to completely stop supporting a faction/model line, as there will always be legacy rules that are compatible with current 40k. The factions they want to actively support will keep getting new codex once in a while, while the others will just stay un-updated forever.

People are just jealous and think "if there is another faction, it will take away from my faction" but it really isnt like that and they dont want others to have something for a stupid fear.
.

fresus wrote:
Faction isn't defined the same way it was in 7th.
Take dark eldars for instance. While dark eldar does correspond to a specific keyword, it's a subset of Aeldari, and is further divided into sub-factions (mainly kabals, wych cults, and covens). A wych cult army is unlikely to be viable by itself, does it mean we should get rid of the dark eldar sub-factions and keep dark eldar as the lowest-level keyword? I really don't see the point…
I suppose most people in this thread mean codex when they say faction; that too many factions mean to many codex. But splitting an army between multiple books doesn't have the same impact it did in 7th, since it doesn't mean different detachments anymore. It just mean more books to buy.

Also, it is possible that more factions will disappear in the future. 8th is supposed to be a live edition, and GW already said that some units that are in the index will not get updated rules in codex format. It's now a lot easier for them to completely stop supporting a faction/model line, as there will always be legacy rules that are compatible with current 40k. The factions they want to actively support will keep getting new codex once in a while, while the others will just stay un-updated forever.

I think the consolidation seen in the Indexes was great for the game. It didn't remove any factions, but it made them significantly better unified and consolidated. The return of Codexes has felt like a step backwards overall, IMO.

For me I see the faction dilemma as two distinct issues:

1) GW as a company has to keep selling kits, which dictates that new releases will be the primary driver for the hype and sales. For me, anecdotally, even though I own three armies, I am always on the cusp of buying into the new releases on the strength of the models and fluff alone. Although it's rare to buy into it, I do every few years start a new force to keep things fresh. This is when GW gets most of my and allegedly most of your money. Buying into a new force is when you spend a good $500 - $1000 on new models over a year or two. If an updated model comes out for an army I already own, I buy that model and GW gets my $50-$100 for the year. From that standpoint it makes sense to keep releasing new factions as any player investing has to buy in completely. This is why I think we will keep seeing a lot of new factions and a lot of re-done ranges. (Primaris Marines say hi)

2) The balance between all the armies becomes incredibly difficult to maintain as you get more and more factions, and each new faction gets unique rules that fundamentally alter game mechanics. It's like a game of rock-paper-scissors which gets a fourth or a fifth option brought in. How do you balance it? The answer is, you really can't unless you have a dynamic play-test-driven rule set which is constantly updated based on some kind of group consensus. This is impossible with printed codecies which are released once a year. This could be an easy fix; Print the fluff and artwork in the codex, and release all the stats/costs/options in a free constantly updated electronic format. If GW were smart they would do this, so they can buff/nerf certain factions and mechanics. They are attempting to do something about balance through FAQ's, but it's a far cry from what is needed.

My ideal solution would be for there to be several "templates" for each force which describes how it functions and lets its units function in specific capacities such as "horde army", "elite CC army", "elite mobile army" to which you can fit every faction, and then you can sprinkle in faction specific rules to make them feel different. At the moment each faction is so different that it's not really a question of balance, just a matter of exploiting the most OP combos and buffs of once force versus those of another.

As with most things on earth, it's not the idea that's bad, it's the implementation.
There is nothing inherently wrong with more factions. But it requires some work.

1. Ballancing
Any strategy-based game needs decent ballance. Ideally, every faction and unit should be viable in a certain way. 8th did a quite nice reset, but I don't know how well everything is ballanced. Knowing GW, the result is probably half-assed at best.

2. Sensible pricing
A codex that features 5 units and 3 pages of fluff shouldn't cost as much a 250-page rulebook. The indexes were fairly priced, but it remains to be seen how much GW is going to screw that ballance with more codices.