40k rules - what level of detail/granularity would you like to see?

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**jeff white**

Eldarain wrote:
I'd vastly prefer they zoom the minutia of the game back out to something that matches the scale of the conflict the model count has ballooned up to.

It should be far closer to Epic than Kill Team given the size of battle and breadth of unit type they are trying to represent.

Epic rules were really great. Elements of that game were in the early editions iirc E.g. 2nd. Ok, but 40k was supposed to be a different game. I wish that the granularity would be there but voluntary, so players choose to play at different levels of granularity… GW has the resources. Hard to chase the plastic crack through six layers of books and updates to books when all the answers are given well up front, so I guess that GW makes a decision not to support such a way to play.

**Just_Breathe**

Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.

read my mind.

**VladimirHerzog**

Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.

scale up instead of down

**Tyran**

Senseless scaling up is just power creep.

40k barely uses S/T stats below 3 so they are basically free real state for increased granularity.

**Just_Breathe**

Tyran wrote:
Senseless scaling up is just power creep.

40k barely uses S/T stats below 3 so they are basically free real state for increased granularity.

sorry I had to.

**nou**

catbarf wrote:
waefre_1 wrote:
BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'd say it's not that OT, because there's more to it than advertising. Lobster was a 'trash food' because preservation techniques to transport it did not exist and it starts to rot very quickly after death, so it could only be consumed in coastal areas and even then might be going off by the time it's cooked. Introduce canning (and lots of cheap butter- I suspect more Americans like butter than actually like lobster) and suddenly things change. So, improvements to ancillary factors around the product improved its appeal and practicality, shifting public perception from a subsistence food to a luxury good- even though the lobster itself is no different.

Factions with models literally old enough to drink, that force potential fans to deal with Finecast, or have been saddled with inconsistent and crappy rules for decades, are not particularly appealing. Newer, more consumer-friendly sculpts and better rules might be the ancillary factors that make a faction more popular. Maybe, much like prisoners rejecting day-old rotting lobster that was served boiled and ground up (shells and all), it's not the core concept that's being rejected, but the execution.

A reminder that:
-Drukhari went from a community joke to a strong faction with a massive reboot of their model line, and have continued to be popular with strong rules.
-Sisters of Battle were resurrected after a long hiatus, and GW was completely unprepared for their popularity.
-Tyranids have recently had a sudden renaissance as new rules make them viable, even as the lore and plastic model line remain unchanged.

For someone to look at those examples and conclude that Marines must be more popular because they're inherently more popular, and that it has nothing to do with their disproportionate rules support, massive modern plastic model range, and constant new content, is IMO incredibly short-sighted. Maybe superhuman space-knights really do have more broad appeal than space elf clowns or fungus hooligan monsters, but not to the degree that the current disparity implies.

Exactly. Competitive crowd will go to whatever the strongest builds are, you can easily steer that to your liking. Narrative players need enough fluff and background to work with, and here you can also easily steer demand by publishing enough stories/campaigns/warzones, regardless of factions involved (when looking at playerbase as a whole, not any particular player specifically). And collectors tend to be attracted to vast model ranges more than to tiny sets of just a couple of models. If Space Elves range would have 100 units and SMs had just a couple, obsolete resin models in an antiquated scale, and continued to have a relatable, tragic fluff GW themselves have a 100% control over while SMs were still depicted as fascist, genocidal, trigger happy tyrants, you would see exactly same disparity in sales volume, but in the opposite proportions.

It has been 30 years of feeding this SM focus by any and all means. Yes, currently the popularity of SM is "natural" in that sense, but it most definitely didn't have to be so if GW attention was divided more evenly. It is not even surprising, that GW had them ported into fantasy in the form of Sigmarines, since it is now so easy to milk that cow.

And in all seriousness, GW seems to realise that in a way and this is why we have all those recently resurrected factions. They had to re-release Marines once already, because they run out of units possible for a single faction. They can't simply release "Secondaries Marines" in a few years to keep increasing sales and revenue.

**Kid_Kyoto**

Needless to say I think no troops should have WS2 or higher. I can tolerate the mechanic on a few heroes and giant monsters but that's it. Certainly not on the most common infantry in the same.

Using IG as a baseline I'd make Marines S5, T5 instead.

**VladimirHerzog**

Tyran wrote:
Senseless scaling up is just power creep.

40k barely uses S/T stats below 3 so they are basically free real state for increased granularity.

it's not really POWERcreep, no.

It gives more room to differentiate between units.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Needless to say I think no troops should have WS2 or higher. I can tolerate the mechanic on a few heroes and giant monsters but that's it. Certainly not on the most common infantry in the same.

Using IG as a baseline I'd make Marines S5, T5 instead.

And nothing with BS/WS should get to reroll

**BrainFireBob**

nou wrote:
BrainFireBob wrote:
23 years next month. And the first mini I bought was an Eldar Ranger, but my first kit was a certain Black Templars starter. And I had every WD through 2006 or so, when I slowed.

And Marines had more showcases and more support back then, and people bitched about it, but Marines sold more, even when coverage was more even. If you claim Marines didn't have more support in 3rd, Index Astartes wants a word. In 2nd, Dark Angels and Blood Angels had their own supplement, as did Wolves. Methinks your memory needs a refresh

And you're on something if you think GW had any sort of longterm plan in those days.

Let's see, in 2nd ed Marines had 3 codices out of 10 and they described 4 main Marine colours. Eldar codex had fully fleshed rules for Craftworld and Harlequins, with single units for Exodites and Pirates. Tyranid codex had a large section for Genestealer Cults. That already makes a parity in factions with 3 vs 2 books and then you have Chaos and other Xenos and Imperial books on top of that. And Angels of Death codex featured four special characters per chapter, while Eldar had seven plus Avatar and Solitaire. That is way more equal treatment, especially since there was also way greater parity in model ranges.

And if you are wondering how you can push your playerbase towards a desired faction, just remember how the oldest and most iconic piece of Eldar lore, Rhana Dandra, got wasted to show how awesome some random Deathwatch captain is. SMs generate the majority of income, because GW is actively driving xenos players away and overly focusses on SMs.

This is called a "moving goalpost."

"Way more equal" does not mean "equal". They are different things.

You claimed Marines weren't favored in 2nd and 3rd. That is demonstrably false. You are now backpedalling, and claiming they weren't as favored.

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

catbarf wrote:
waefre_1 wrote:
BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'd say it's not that OT, because there's more to it than advertising. Lobster was a 'trash food' because preservation techniques to transport it did not exist and it starts to rot very quickly after death, so it could only be consumed in coastal areas and even then might be going off by the time it's cooked. Introduce canning (and lots of cheap butter- I suspect more Americans like butter than actually like lobster) and suddenly things change. So, improvements to ancillary factors around the product improved its appeal and practicality, shifting public perception from a subsistence food to a luxury good- even though the lobster itself is no different.

Factions with models literally old enough to drink, that force potential fans to deal with Finecast, or have been saddled with inconsistent and crappy rules for decades, are not particularly appealing. Newer, more consumer-friendly sculpts and better rules might be the ancillary factors that make a faction more popular. Maybe, much like prisoners rejecting day-old rotting lobster that was served boiled and ground up (shells and all), it's not the core concept that's being rejected, but the execution.

A reminder that:
-Drukhari went from a community joke to a strong faction with a massive reboot of their model line, and have continued to be popular with strong rules.
-Sisters of Battle were resurrected after a long hiatus, and GW was completely unprepared for their popularity.
-Tyranids have recently had a sudden renaissance as new rules make them viable, even as the lore and plastic model line remain unchanged.

For someone to look at those examples and conclude that Marines must be more popular because they're inherently more popular, and that it has nothing to do with their disproportionate rules support, massive modern plastic model range, and constant new content, is IMO incredibly short-sighted. Maybe superhuman space-knights really do have more broad appeal than space elf clowns or fungus hooligan monsters, but not to the degree that the current disparity implies.

Did you not tead my remarks? GW is aggravating the situation, but Marines have always been the flagship faction. Claiming that's purely a marketing invention and not just seizing on momentum is a denial of agency on behalf of the public and assigning way more competence to GW than is merited

Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
catbarf wrote:
waefre_1 wrote:
BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'd say it's not that OT, because there's more to it than advertising. Lobster was a 'trash food' because preservation techniques to transport it did not exist and it starts to rot very quickly after death, so it could only be consumed in coastal areas and even then might be going off by the time it's cooked. Introduce canning (and lots of cheap butter- I suspect more Americans like butter than actually like lobster) and suddenly things change. So, improvements to ancillary factors around the product improved its appeal and practicality, shifting public perception from a subsistence food to a luxury good- even though the lobster itself is no different.

Factions with models literally old enough to drink, that force potential fans to deal with Finecast, or have been saddled with inconsistent and crappy rules for decades, are not particularly appealing. Newer, more consumer-friendly sculpts and better rules might be the ancillary factors that make a faction more popular. Maybe, much like prisoners rejecting day-old rotting lobster that was served boiled and ground up (shells and all), it's not the core concept that's being rejected, but the execution.

A reminder that:
-Drukhari went from a community joke to a strong faction with a massive reboot of their model line, and have continued to be popular with strong rules.
-Sisters of Battle were resurrected after a long hiatus, and GW was completely unprepared for their popularity.
-Tyranids have recently had a sudden renaissance as new rules make them viable, even as the lore and plastic model line remain unchanged.

For someone to look at those examples and conclude that Marines must be more popular because they're inherently more popular, and that it has nothing to do with their disproportionate rules support, massive modern plastic model range, and constant new content, is IMO incredibly short-sighted. Maybe superhuman space-knights really do have more broad appeal than space elf clowns or fungus hooligan monsters, but not to the degree that the current disparity implies.

Exactly. Competitive crowd will go to whatever the strongest builds are, you can easily steer that to your liking. Narrative players need enough fluff and background to work with, and here you can also easily steer demand by publishing enough stories/campaigns/warzones, regardless of factions involved (when looking at playerbase as a whole, not any particular player specifically). And collectors tend to be attracted to vast model ranges more than to tiny sets of just a couple of models. If Space Elves range would have 100 units and SMs had just a couple, obsolete resin models in an antiquated scale, and continued to have a relatable, tragic fluff GW themselves have a 100% control over while SMs were still depicted as fascist, genocidal, trigger happy tyrants, you would see exactly same disparity in sales volume, but in the opposite proportions.

It has been 30 years of feeding this SM focus by any and all means. Yes, currently the popularity of SM is "natural" in that sense, but it most definitely didn't have to be so if GW attention was divided more evenly. It is not even surprising, that GW had them ported into fantasy in the form of Sigmarines, since it is now so easy to milk that cow.

And in all seriousness, GW seems to realise that in a way and this is why we have all those recently resurrected factions. They had to re-release Marines once already, because they run out of units possible for a single faction. They can't simply release "Secondaries Marines" in a few years to keep increasing sales and revenue.

I disagree with this. Eldar don't have the mass market appeal of engineered super soldiers. You might have Eldar dominating the playerbase, but it would not be the big fish wargame.

And again, in 2nd-3rd: Marines did not have so much more or so much younger model support. Yet still were more popular. GW has just kept using marines as a cash cow, because demand was already there.

**catbarf**

WHFB was a pretty big fish and the last data I saw indicated that High Elves were the most played faction by a small margin. Granted it didn't have power-fantasy supersoldiers for them to compete against.

Keep in mind that in 2nd and 3rd, Marines were coming in the core box, and they were all over the marketing and branding in White Dwarf. GW has never actually had all the factions on a level playing field so all we can do is speculate.

**vipoid**

catbarf wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:
My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

Personally, I like having subfaction differentiation, but I dislike the way GW has done it.

The way 40K currently does it:

Army-wide freebie trait: Discourages using 'incompatible' units and makes the optimal ones significantly more difficult to balance.
Warlord traits and relics: Provides a single stereotypical option for each subfaction. You either take the one associated with your subfaction, or you take generic ones.
Unique stratagems: This is at least thematic and leverages existing systems well, but tied to the messy stratagem system.

So in practice, the differences between a Cadian army and a Vostroyan army are that one shoots marginally better stationary and the other can shoot in melee, and beyond that it's pretty much all just listbuilding choices that you could make with or without that subfaction bonus.

I'd rather see a system like:

Catachans
-Catachan Devils available as a unique Elites choice.
-Infantry units can take Heavy Flamers as a heavy weapon.
-Any infantry unit can be upgraded to Deathworld Veterans, which costs X points and provides Y benefit.
-1-2 Catachan-specific stratagems.

Notice how there are no free benefits, just additional options. If you want to do Catachan heavy armor you are free to do so and won't lose out on anything. If you want to lean into the rough-and-ready jungle fighters theme, then you have relevant upgrades, with appropriately balanced points costs. You don't get penalized for not sticking to the flanderised depiction of the regiment, and it doesn't throw the game balance out of whack with some units getting very relevant upgrades for free.

Late to the party but I just want to say that this is absolutely how I'd like to see subfactions handled, with the exception that I'd much prefer Stratagems be deleted entirely. They're an awful mechanic that are used as a justification to remove options and wargear, while adding many more awful mechanics into the game. Get. Rid. Of. Them.

**Kid_Kyoto**

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Needless to say I think no troops should have WS2 or higher. I can tolerate the mechanic on a few heroes and giant monsters but that's it. Certainly not on the most common infantry in the same.

Using IG as a baseline I'd make Marines S5, T5 instead.

Typo, that should be W2 or higher, not Weapon Skill

Looking at Marines and IG I would go with W1 for all troops, W3 for HQs, W5-10 for vehicles. And adjust damage for weapons accordingly.

How would we feel about W10 tanks and d2d6 for lascannons, bringing back the small possibility of the 1 shot kill?

**Tyran**

I half agree and half disagree. I like that there is a mechanic meant to represent tactical intelligence as there are units whose entire thing is their ability to mess around with tactical information: The Space Marine's and Tyranid's tendency to eat brains to gain their foes' knowledge, and tactical geniuses like Zhandrekh or Creed just to give a few examples.

Before CP, those abilities were quite boring as a simple "gain Preferred Enemy" or random buffs. Only Creed had a fun rule and even then it was mostly used as a meme.
Of course, the current Stratagem system doesn't work, but I would like to keep CPs around even without Stratagems. Maybe they could be used for a HH's reaction style rules?

**BrainFireBob**

catbarf wrote:
WHFB was a pretty big fish and the last data I saw indicated that High Elves were the most played faction by a small margin. Granted it didn't have power-fantasy supersoldiers for them to compete against.

Keep in mind that in 2nd and 3rd, Marines were coming in the core box, and they were all over the marketing and branding in White Dwarf. GW has never actually had all the factions on a level playing field so all we can do is speculate.

Wasn't big enough to not axe, nor am I sure it would have become as bog as it was without 40k behind it.

Largely, though, that's what started me down this path. In settings like D&D, elves and half elves are more common. Why? Humans plus. When you have literal humans plus, no need for uber refined humans for wish-fulfillment.

I always idly speculate the increased relative popularity of Chaos in Fantasy is they're not traitors- they're loyal to their own culture.

**CadianSgtBob**

BrainFireBob wrote:
Eldar don't have the mass market appeal of engineered super soldiers.

Given the popularity and sales numbers it's clear that genetically engineered super soldiers don't have the mass market appeal of giant anime robots, therefore Tau should be the face of the game instead of space marines.

**Insectum7**

Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.

Well back in the day those other Daemons were T4, with the exception of Plaguebearers which were T5. It's the Daemons who have taken the hit through the years, and should be pushed back up again (and Space Marines brought back down.)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

**Just_Breathe**

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

I think maybe the fact that us here on Earth, right now, are humans, drives the pointer in that direction, if not by a little bit.

**BrainFireBob**

Insectum7 wrote:
Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.
Well back in the day those other Daemons were T4, with the exception of Plaguebearers which were T5. It's the Daemons who have taken the hit through the years, and should be pushed back up again (and Space Marines brought back down.)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

Correlation, yes, but not solely causal. Other factions would sell better with more support. No one is denying that. I am pushing back against the idea that the *sole* reason Marines are more popular is that they had a product-agnostic advertising push. I'm asserting that Marines were selected for that push when the company had more limited resources (zero sum support options) because they already were the best seller.

Marines went plastic first because they had the best ROI. They didn't have the best ROI because they went plastic first. That's a feedback effect, not a primary driver

Edit: You're arguing with me arguing against a guy who claims that GW marketing is the only reason Marines are a popular faction, and any faction would be just as big with the same resource. My stance is they were chosen to promote because they were already more popular with the same level of support

**nou**

BrainFireBob wrote:
Insectum7 wrote:
Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.
Well back in the day those other Daemons were T4, with the exception of Plaguebearers which were T5. It's the Daemons who have taken the hit through the years, and should be pushed back up again (and Space Marines brought back down.)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

Correlation, yes, but not solely causal. Other factions would sell better with more support. No one is denying that. I am pushing back against the idea that the *sole* reason Marines are more popular is that they had a product-agnostic advertising push. I'm asserting that Marines were selected for that push when the company had more limited resources (zero sum support options) because they already were the best seller.

Marines went plastic first because they had the best ROI. They didn't have the best ROI because they went plastic first. That's a feedback effect, not a primary driver

Edit: You're arguing with me arguing against a guy who claims that GW marketing is the only reason Marines are a popular faction, and any faction would be just as big with the same resource. My stance is they were chosen to promote because they were already more popular with the same level of support

You do know, that there was a clear faction focus in GWs marketing since RT, right? The disparity wasn't so huge in 2nd, but the clear focus was already there at the very introduction of 40k and it only got worse along the way. There was never "same level of support", only less disparity, and SM were not chosen to be poster boys because they were already popular, they were engineered to be so since inception.

**BrainFireBob**

nou wrote:

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have.

This is my point of dispute.

**nou**

BrainFireBob wrote:
nou wrote:

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have.

This is my point of dispute.

Go over to T3 or any other tournament aggregate, note down faction popularity numbers (T3 goes back nearly two decades) and then go to GW website and compare those numbers to model range sizes.

All major xenos armies are more popular than snowflake chapters and Eldar come third despite all those years of neglect. So I stay by that quote - xenos would pay equal share with equal model ranges. We simply do not have anything new to give our money to GW for after a relatively short time of collecting our chosen factions.

**catbarf**

Tyran wrote:I half agree and half disagree. I like that there is a mechanic meant to represent tactical intelligence as there are units whose entire thing is their ability to mess around with tactical information: The Space Marine's and Tyranid's tendency to eat brains to gain their foes' knowledge, and tactical geniuses like Zhandrekh or Creed just to give a few examples.

Before CP, those abilities were quite boring as a simple "gain Preferred Enemy" or random buffs. Only Creed had a fun rule and even then it was mostly used as a meme.
Of course, the current Stratagem system doesn't work, but I would like to keep CPs around even without Stratagems. Maybe they could be used for a HH's reaction style rules?

Not to go off on a tangent, but an activation system other than basic boring IGOUGO provides an inherent mechanism to model command and control, and then you have lots of ways to implement those concepts.

I find stratagems to be just as clunky at that purpose, because so many boil down to 'spend points, gain Preferred Enemy for a turn'.

Just_Breathe wrote:
BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

I think maybe the fact that us here on Earth, right now, are humans, drives the pointer in that direction, if not by a little bit.

Major human factions include Imperial Guard, Sisters, Space Marines, Custodes, CSM, AdMech, Knights, and Chaos Knights. That's plenty of human factions to go around. If GW were to throw their marketing weight behind grizzled Guardsmen- with Space Marines relegated to surgically enhanced turbofascist child soldiers, not noble self-insert space knights- how sure are we that Guard as a concept would be any less popular than Marines are now? I mean, it's easy to say 'no, they're not superhuman like Marines are', but Marines aren't superhuman like Custodes are and still seem to be doing fine, and elements like Scions tap into the massive popularity of tacticool aesthetic that GW was clearly angling for with Phobos.

From a meta standpoint, Marines are a good entry point for newcomers because they're easy to paint, don't need a ton of models to play, and offer a lot of opportunity for personalization. But I can't help but feel like that logical start point for newbies has snowballed into them dominating the franchise.

**Just_Breathe**

Just_Breathe wrote:
BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

I think maybe the fact that us here on Earth, right now, are humans, drives the pointer in that direction, if not by a little bit.

Major human factions include Imperial Guard, Sisters, Space Marines, Custodes, CSM, AdMech, Knights, and Chaos Knights.

I think this supports what I thought.
Which of all the human factions is the *coolest* ?
Spess Marines.

**JNAProductions**

That’s a weird way to spell Chaos Knights or Ad Mech

**Insectum7**

Just_Breathe wrote:

I think this supports what I thought.
Which of all the human factions is the *coolest* ?
Spess Marines.

It's possible you think that because of the sheer amount of air time.

**johnpjones1775**

I don’t need a lot of detail or granularity, but I do wish vehicles would top out at T10 or 12 and a rule stating if a T value is more than double an S value that the weapon cannot cause damage to that unit.
This would end things like lasguns and flamers wounding the super heavies, while allowing for more distinctions between vehicles, and weapons.

**vipoid**

Just_Breathe wrote:

I think this supports what I thought.
Which of all the human factions is the *coolest* ?
Spess Marines.

[Citation needed.]

**TheBestBucketHead**

Coolest human faction is Admech. The sheer customization you should be able to do with a single tech priest alone is enough to out customize most factions. The Mechanicus video game, were you choose mechadendrites and armor pieces and guns, is only a small taste of the customization.

But, for my friend, Imperial Guard are the coolest. They're mere mortals facing the cosmic powers that be. They fight until they win, or die holding the line. Guardsmen should be another extremely customizable human faction.

For my other friend, the coolest are Space Marines, as they are barely even human, storming into the dangers of the galaxy, bolters in hand, ready to fight unimaginable power.

For my other other friend, it's the Inquisition, who keep track of wrongdoings and guide the Imperium gently, or forcefully if required. They can be anything from a lone man in the politics game, looking for criminals, to a psyker in terminator armor with a power hammer, seeking to destroy the foes of the Imperium.

I could go on, but I don't view Marines as the coolest faction for Humans. They are cool, and I don't think anyone would deny their mass appeal, but other factions, given similar marketing, would probably compete with Space Marines, though probably not beat.

I have a friend who only knew about Space Marines for 40k, but after being exposed to more factions, came to prefer T'au and Tyranids.

**Jidmah**

Coolest human faction is sisters.

I'm never going to play them or buy a single model, but if someone asked my what fully painted army they should gift me for my display case, it would be them.

**Blackie**

SM are not the coolest (which is an entirely subjective concept), just the easiest to play and paint.

Guard, sisters, ad mech require way more models on average than marines, and both mech and sisters are quite harder to paint. They're also all much more unforgiving compared to SM in terms of gameplay.

Knights are also as easy as marines but they're an extreme army concept and models wise, which doesn't appeal many people.