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I need someone to help a slow out. I picked up the SM codex today and I can't for the figure out how GW produced something like the SM codex, which looks pretty solid all the way around, after producing the junk that is the CSM codex. Well, maybe my initial impression was wrong, so I check various units in comparison to one another. In general, the SM units are cheaper or more effective at the same slot as the equivalent CSM unit. Am I overreacting or is the SM codex clearly better than the CSM codex? I also really feel for the Dark Angel guys who:

- Have to units of 5 or 10
- Have Land Raiders and Drop Pods who can only hold 10
- Have a base vindicator
- Have no Redeemer pattern Land Raider
- Have no scout transport speeder
- Don't get the Chapter Master

Think you have it about right sir.

Don't forget that Chaos Marines get a Bolter, a Bolt Pistol, and a Close Combat Weapon,
while regular Space Marines only get a Bolter and Bolt Pistol (and thus don't get an extra attack).

It depends on your purposes, which is "better"

The SM Codex is great if you like full-size Bolter squads with Transport. Aces, really.

But the DA (and BA) Codices allow for MSU-style play, as 5-man squads can still take certain upgrades. CSM can also be effective this way, esp. with their huge 20-man squads or Cult squads.

In no case should DA or BA (or CSM) be played as a Codex army, because the basic SM do that better. But if played like a DA or BA army, they'll do fine. Esp. BA.

Plaguemarines.

Techboss wrote:I picked up the SM codex today and I can't for the figure out how GW produced something like the SM codex, which looks pretty solid all the way around, after producing the junk that is the CSM codex.

Because GW, via their own admission (assuming those comments were accurate), do not care about internal consistency and they consider game balance a requirement only for evil dirty 'tournament gamers', who they see as a fringe society not worth their efforts. They also want you to come up with your own rules.

This is the new reality of GW - they write rules, care little who how they exist (a Codex exists in a vacuum to them), and if/when they screw up, they don't have to do anything about it because it's now up to the players to play how they want.

In light of that - play how you want. Use the old, real, Chaos Codex, not the current piece of bullsh!t we've got.

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote:Because GW, via their own admission (assuming those comments were accurate), do not care about internal consistency and they consider game balance a requirement only for evil dirty 'tournament gamers', who they see as a fringe society not worth their efforts. They also want you to come up with your own rules.

Cool and hence forth my army shall be know as the Chosen of all the gods. At the beginning of every turn, the CSM player rolls a D6, on a 2+ all the Chaos gods try to claim the enemy as theirs, tearing them asunder (effectively killing all the enemy models on the board). This ability costs 1 point.

Now you're getting it!



ASIDE: As it happens, if this is truly GW design goal now (or lack thereof), then I don't actually see it as a bad thing. I think their reasons for it are pathetic - internal consistency going in their 'too hard' basket when all it would require is to have Warrick of FW glory in charge of a document that lists all weapon stats, that way whenever they need one he can use his awesome powers of Copypasta to make sure it's consistent with the last book - but the idea of a more 'free' game is a good one. I've had endless fun with 40K ever since 4th Ed came out, not because we were playing 4th Ed, but because we took the best bits of 2nd, 3rd and 4th and made our own ruleset. A more open game is a better game, even if the genesis of such a line of thinking stems from a dev team too lazy or incompetant to write a decent ruleset.

BYE

The proof that the new Chaos dex is junk is the fact that they never do well at tounaments.

Eric

To me it wouldn't matter if the 'Chaos' Codex curbstomped every army it came up against - it fails because it's dull, not in any way 'Chaotic' and is about as lifeless as [something that completes my analogy].

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote:I think their reasons for it are pathetic - internal consistency going in their 'too hard' basket when all it would require is to have Warrick of FW glory in charge of a document that lists all weapon stats, that way whenever they need one he can use his awesome powers of Copypasta to make sure it's consistent with the last book - but the idea of a more 'free' game is a good one.

There doesn't seem to be any limit to the things GW finds too hard. Given how unimportant the games are, I wonder why we're not seeing more minis sculpted just for the hell of it, useless in the games.

Well we keep seeing previous of this (no doubt super-overpriced) collector's series, including dead Marines and cool Space Wolves with lightning claws, but no idea when they're coming out.

I guess it's a case of if they release a cool model, people will beg for rules for it. Maybe that's why we don't see it.

BYE

For some reason giving the orginal marines transports bigger capability seems like so slowed designing that it isnt true. Ofc. they should have some other units and rules then chaos but that rule on the same vehicle is just so wrong.

GW needs new leadership and a complete over haule of the development team and game testers, theres nothing wrong with the modellers or painters [and artwork people for that matter].

My votes are as follows:
Head of GW - Yakface
Head of Dev Team - H.B.M.C.
Head of Games Testing - JohnHwangDD

For fluffs sake thing about it this way:

Toyota makes the camry. The camrys sold in the USA, Europe, and Asia look VERY different from between the countries.

Same company. Same model car. Same year. 3 different designs. You are telling me between a chapter that lives on a asteroid, a chapter that has 11 (IIRC) planets that contribute to it, and a chapter that has a genetic rage defect that there WOULDN'T be differences between the gear? The differences are part of the real balance of the game. Yea it sucks sometimes but in other respects its gravy.

Squig_herder wrote:My votes are as follows:
Head of GW - Yakface
Head of Dev Team - H.B.M.C.
Head of Games Testing - JohnHwangDD

Nah I'd need people like Stelek and Mauleed to be the testers - find everything that's broken so I can (try) to fix it. BlandVanillaDD won't help me there.

BYE

The Grundel wrote:For fluffs sake thing about it this way:

Toyota makes the camry. The camrys sold in the USA, Europe, and Asia look VERY different from between the countries.

Same company. Same model car. Same year. 3 different designs. You are telling me between a chapter that lives on a asteroid, a chapter that has 11 (IIRC) planets that contribute to it, and a chapter that has a genetic rage defect that there WOULDN'T be differences between the gear? The differences are part of the real balance of the game. Yea it sucks sometimes but in other respects its gravy.

But consider the state of Technology in 40k. To the Imperium, it's something almost mythical. Nobody really understands what does what, but they know that it will only do it if you follow a strict set of instructions. Add in most Tech is at least derived from an STC, and things are suddenly surprisingly uniform. Sure, one chapter might favour say, Mahogany Interiors, whilst another prefers it to be stainless steel. Both would be fairly defining of the Chapter, but neither affects the ability of the vehicle. It's just adornments.

The Grundel wrote:For fluffs sake thing about it this way:

Toyota makes the camry. The camrys sold in the USA, Europe, and Asia look VERY different from between the countries.

Same company. Same model car. Same year. 3 different designs. You are telling me between a chapter that lives on a asteroid, a chapter that has 11 (IIRC) planets that contribute to it, and a chapter that has a genetic rage defect that there WOULDN'T be differences between the gear? The differences are part of the real balance of the game. Yea it sucks sometimes but in other respects its gravy.

The thing is, SM wargear is made according to standard template constructs. You would not get significant variations in wargear of the exact same type between chapters. You can't have one forge world spitting out land raiders that just happen to be an extra few feet long to fit in a couple more marines, while others produce normal length land raiders. Just because grey knights are grey knights doesn't mean their assault cannons are magically different from ultramarine ones.

Well, actually, the thing is that fluff has little to do with it. It's more about a thing costing X points in one book and doing one thing, and still costing X points in the other book and doing another.
There's also the confusion issue. They got rid of armouries and other fun stuff cos it was too complicated, now we have multiple statlines for the same item. How is that not confusing? There are definitely going to be arguments because of this in games. Definitely. And that's bad however you look at it.

Using the fluff to justify things being stupid in the rules is a cop out. I don't care if in our magical techno land that some Land Raiders might be different sizes. They need to be the same for rules consistency and understanding.

Well, Typeline, in Chess' magical techno land, giant towers can move faster than foot soldiers and old, cranky bishops walk in diagonals. Also horses can jump over people but have to turn during their charge.

I don't get it either, but the rules are consistent I guess.

I think any new marine book (not the specialist chapters) always indicates a bit of a reset where Codexes are concerned. Hence, what follows from this point will be a reflection of this new style. It's just a shame that the other races never get their own book in the same timespan like they do in Fantasy.

Consider that we have had 3 Space Marine Codexes since 3rd Edition. Other races are as follows;

Chaos Space Marines - 3
Imperial Guard - 2
Eldar - 2
Orks - 2
Tyranids - 2
Tau - 2
Dark Angels - 2
Blood Anges - 1.5
Space Wolves - 1
Necrons - 1
Dark Eldar - 1
Chaos Daemons - 1

Unfortunately, this somewhat haphazard release method means that they will never achieve much consistency, across the full range if they continue in this manner.

stonefox wrote:Well, Typeline, in Chess' magical techno land, giant towers can move faster than foot soldiers and old, cranky bishops walk in diagonals. Also horses can jump over people but have to turn during their charge.

I don't get it either, but the rules are consistent I guess.

Yeah at least Black's king doesn't get to move 2 extra squares while whites Bishops can only move 4. It's consistent for all the armies.

Flashman wrote:I think any new marine book (not the specialist chapters) always indicates a bit of a reset where Codexes are concerned. Hence, what follows from this point will be a reflection of this new style. It's just a shame that the other races never get their own book in the same timespan like they do in Fantasy.

Consider that we have had 3 Space Marine Codexes since 3rd Edition. Other races are as follows;

Chaos Space Marines - 3
Imperial Guard - 2
Eldar - 2
Orks - 2
Tyranids - 2
Tau - 2
Dark Angels - 2
Blood Anges - 1.5
Space Wolves - 1
Necrons - 1
Dark Eldar - 1
Chaos Daemons - 1

Unfortunately, this somewhat haphazard release method means that they will never achieve much consistency, across the full range if they continue in this manner.

Lets be fair, the SM codex was first out in the editions... thus while SM have three codexes, and Eldar and Orcs have two for example, they aren't behind, they're just waiting their turn. The only folks with a gripe about getting skipped are Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Wolves.

Breton wrote:

Flashman wrote:I think any new marine book (not the specialist chapters) always indicates a bit of a reset where Codexes are concerned. Hence, what follows from this point will be a reflection of this new style. It's just a shame that the other races never get their own book in the same timespan like they do in Fantasy.

Consider that we have had 3 Space Marine Codexes since 3rd Edition. Other races are as follows;

Chaos Space Marines - 3
Imperial Guard - 2
Eldar - 2
Orks - 2
Tyranids - 2
Tau - 2
Dark Angels - 2
Blood Anges - 1.5
Space Wolves - 1
Necrons - 1
Dark Eldar - 1
Chaos Daemons - 1

Unfortunately, this somewhat haphazard release method means that they will never achieve much consistency, across the full range if they continue in this manner.

Lets be fair, the SM codex was first out in the editions... thus while SM have three codexes, and Eldar and Orcs have two for example, they aren't behind, they're just waiting their turn. The only folks with a gripe about getting skipped are Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Wolves.

And WH/DH, they have a gripe too.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Well we keep seeing previous of this (no doubt super-overpriced) collector's series, including dead Marines and cool Space Wolves with lightning claws, but no idea when they're coming out.

I guess it's a case of if they release a cool model, people will beg for rules for it. Maybe that's why we don't see it.

BYE

I am starting a petition for rules for the dead marines.

I'm sure there was a dead Marine model in the original metal series in the late 80s. I think I've got one somewhere.

The only folks with a gripe about getting skipped are Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Wolves.

While we gripe about being gibbed.

Breton wrote:Lets be fair, the SM codex was first out in the editions... thus while SM have three codexes, and Eldar and Orcs have two for example, they aren't behind, they're just waiting their turn. The only folks with a gripe about getting skipped are Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Wolves.

Squig_herder wrote:GW needs new leadership and a complete over haule of the development team and game testers, theres nothing wrong with the modellers or painters [and artwork people for that matter].

My votes are as follows:
Head of GW - Yakface
Head of Dev Team - H.B.M.C.
Head of Games Testing - JohnHwangDD

Heh, that's pretty funny.

The problem is that I'm not particularly good at doing testing because it just doesn't interest me.

I'm a Systems Architect, so I'm pretty good at designing how pieces fit together and group up into blocks. Or rebuilding things from the ground up.

But looking for holes in other people's stuff? Not so much.

So I'd have to decline the appointment.