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 Wyldhunt wrote:

If this ever actually happens I expect him to say "I'm running these as a White Scars today." And I say, "Sure, whatever floats your boat, Mon-keigh."

Awesome. I would do the same. And if we're letting people use whichever rules best suit their army regardless of paint scheme, the next obvious step to me is to just officially separate the rules from the paint scheme. Which is what 10th (for all its flaws) has done.

Like, if people genuinely believe that players will never ever want to play an army type that doesn't fit with the stereotypes of their paint scheme, then the point is kind of moot. But if you allow for the possibility that sometimes someone will want to run green bikers, and if you don't want to like, tell them they're not allowed to do that, then you may as well just have the rules support that.

Like, we can all theoretically tell the green biker player that we refuse to play against him because his paint scheme contradicts our interpretations of the lore, but I suspect we all probably agree that would be a dick move. So if we're not going to enforce being dicks to the green biker guy... the natural next step is to just frame the rules in such a way that it's clear green bikes are allowed?

I don't get it, why do I keep seeing people say this? This has been the case for as long as I can remember. I've seen blue Calgars. I've seen other blue Calgars. Green, yellow, black, and purple Calgars. Paint scheme has never limited people to which chapter rules they used. The only rule was that if you use XYZ Chapter Epic Hero you have to use XYZ Chapter Rules.

I believe a lot of people want to run what I call "Black Sheep" armies. Imperial Fists Bikers. Gulliman Parking Lots. Etcetera. I believe they should still flavor with their chosen chapter. For the sake of being on the same page lets divide the army into two basic things: Theme and Flavor. The Dets are the "theme", chapter tactics would be the "flavor". I think a White Scars biker army is about screaming engines into sword range, I think an Imperial Fists biker is screaming bolters on the handlebars of the bike. I think if they want to play yellow White Scars Biker Armies they can do so, but they shouldn't be forced to - if they want to play yellow Imperial Fists Bikers that actually play like Imperial Fists they should be able to do so.

Re. The Salamanders bike debate.

It is both true that they typically don't use fast attack elements AND that they could cobble together a full army* from such elements if needed.

However, in pre-Primaris lore the reserve companies didn't have any assault squads and only the 3 battle companies and scout company could deploy bikes and landspeeders. The total number of fast attack elements is considerably limited compared to a fully codex-compliant chapter and probably amounts to ~60 Marines total (split between bikes and land speeders) + up to another 100(?) scout bikers across the entire chapter of ~900 Marines. That is plenty for a single 40k army, but it would be exceptional in the lore as it accumulates the assault elements from the entire chapter.

This is probably all different post-Primaris so lorewise the current situation is not the same.

*By this I mean a 40k sized army.

Point of clarification? When did a white dwarf article about fluff of a chapter become gospel? Lest we get into chromosomal politics again, I thought it was generally agreed that unless it was in a codex, WD "wasn't" a citable source for confirmed set in stone fluff. I fully admit to possibly being wrong on this, hence the question. But we site WD articles from the long long ago, and it's getting sort of reductio ad absurdum. "Well, this fluff from a single sentence over twelve years ago and six entire revisions ago, says this, and I claim it as gospel!" Hence the "WD is the weakest of canon sources".

*Edit for spelling mistakes

 Arschbombe wrote:

In the current environment space marine players have a lot of freedom in building their armies through the detachments, but this freedom erases the meaning in the choice of chapter. If everyone can run bikes equally well, then what value is there in choosing White Scars? Why would anyone continue to choose them if the only thing that makes them different is that painting white is a chore?

You like the culture and lore behind it. You like the white army scheme. You like bikes and enjoy seeing bikes represented in the fluff and in following that enjoy seeing your chose chapter represented. Honestly, "to gain a mechanical gameplay advantage" is the worst reason to force people to learn to paint white.

Flip to the Salamanders side, there's tons of appeal in that chapter and I can totally see someone who wants to put a bunch of flames all over their bikes, both in the paint scheme and shooting out the exhaust.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Point of clarification? When did a white dwarf article about fluff of a chapter become gospel? Lest we get into chromosomal politics again, I thought it was generally agreed that unless it was in a codex, WD "wasn't" a citable source for confirmed set in stone fluff. I fully admit to possibly being wrong on this, hence the question. But we site WD articles from the long long ago, and it's getting sort of reductio ad absurdum. "Well, this fluff from a single sentence over twelve years ago and six entire revisions ago, says this, and I claim it as gospel!" Hence the "WD is the weakest of canon sources".

*Edit for spelling mistakes

White Dwarf used to be an excellent source of 40k lore, often equivalent to the contemporary codices. The Index Astartes articles being referenced above was a regular White Dwarf feature which still forms the basis for most of the First Founding Space Marine lore and some other Space Marines to this day. They were also accompanied by official rules supplements to the Space Marine, Blood Angels, and Chaos Space Marine codices (depending on the featured Chapter/Legion and the time period) so were essentially codex supplements. The lore was collated and published over four Index Astartes volumes.

White Dwarf at the time had loads of equivalent lore pieces, such as a multiple page in depth look at the lore of the (then new) Chaos Defiler. There was also Chapter Approved for experimental and official rules.

The magazine degenerated into little more than a marketing pamphlet + catalogue followed by a bit of a renaissance in recent years, but the included lore has always been treated as "official" by GW. I'd generally favour White Dwarf lore over Black Library lore if there is a conflict, for example (obviously taking into account the wider context).

That said, 40k has had plenty of retcons and a major move forward in the timeline, so a lot of this older lore is either obsolete or only accurately refers to things prior to the Great Rift.

Arschbombe wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
Choosing Salamanders over WS if you like bikers might be slightly odd, but I don't think it's unheard of or unreasonable. Again, maybe they really like the nice-guy-marines thing. Maybe they started with a more conventional Salamanders army, but then they fell in love with the bike models or just really like the mental image of Salamander bikers for whatever reason.

I still don't think this actually happens this way.

Sorry, but unless you're claiming that there's NO WAY that a Salamanders player might like bikes, I'm sorry, but you're talking guff.

Once having made that choice for whatever reasons they tend to lean in to that choice with the intent of following the lore in their army construction and making their army different from everybody else's. So I don't think that a Salamanders player would ever really think of going bike heavy since he would have understood that in the lore the Salamanders don't do that. In the 4th edition codex with chapter traits the Salamanders were characterized by the drawback Eye to Eye. This limited them to only taking 0-1 Land Speeder squadrons, Attack Bike squadrons and Bike squadrons. In exchange for this they could take an extra flamer, plasma gun or meltagun in their tactical squads (in lieu of the heavy weapon) and they could also attempt to extend the game by one turn.

Not all players (and in fact, at this point, a minority) of players started with 4th. Players who started in literally any edition after 4th would have no reason not to field Salamanders bikers - and in 5th edition, there's no fluff in that book at all that implies that the Salamanders wouldn't want bikes.

Not everyone reads every scrap of the lore when they decide what colour they wanna paint their war dolls. And, lest I remind everyone, the lore literally SUPPORTS Salamanders bikers - it's *only* the 4th edition rules that mechanically restrict it. Again, for all this talk of "the Salamanders don't like fast vehicles and Land Speeders aren't common", in the 5th edition book, they literally have a Salamanders Land Speeder in their painting showcase.

Sorry, but again, this is not applicable beyond your own opinion.

At the end of the day, if someone shows up to the store with a bike army painted green, do you think it's good for the game/hobby/person in front of you for his army to be penalized for its paint scheme? As I said to Aphyon on the previous page:

A.) Should an army be allowed to have a Salamanders paint scheme/lore and field a list focused on/consisting primarily of bikes?

B.) If so, is it acceptable/good for the game and player experience for such a list to be notably less powerful than a list with White Scars paint/lore? i.e. if the green bikes and the white bikes play Bob's orks 100 times each, the green bikes will win 30 games compared to the white bikes' 50 games because the green bikes' stratagems and special rules don't synergize with their selected units as well?

If this ever actually happens I expect him to say "I'm running these as a White Scars today." And I say, "Sure, whatever floats your boat, Mon-keigh."

Which is the correct response.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I started playing in 5th. Back then, there were no differences at all in how you played White Scars compared to Salamanders. Are you telling me that no-one played White Scars or Salamanders or Imperial Fists or Ultramarines or Crimson Fists or Iron Hands in 5th edition because they were all mechanically the same?

They weren't mechanically the same. Maybe you started 5th in the middle of the edition so you missed the transitions, but I was there was from the beginning.

I started when the Codex dropped. And yes, they were mechanically the same. Allow me to explain.

Here's what I saw. Codex Space Marines drops in September 2008. It says that more than half of all space marine chapters have Ultramarine geneseed. It says Ultramarines are pre-eminent amongst their brothers. You see blue marines everywhere. Rhinos and Razorbacks have dropped in points and the 5th edition rules no longer punish passengers so harshly. Mechanization takes hold of the meta as players realize that a 40 point Razorback is a good deal (it used to cost 70). Because of this trend melta supplants plasma as the special weapon of choice. You have to be able to open the tin can to get to the juicy bits inside. Then someone notices that if you take Vulkan He'stan, your flamers and melta weapons become twin-linked and suddenly those blue marines you saw everywhere started turning green. Choosing Vulkan made your army Salamanders and replaced the combat tactics rule with Salamanders chapter tactics. Combat tactics allowed any non-Fearless space marine unit to automatically fail any morale check it was required to take. Swapping the rules out based on changing your chapter makes a mechanical change to the army.

No, Vulkan didn't make your army Salamanders. It made a Space Marine army exchange Combat Tactics to have twin-linked flamers and meltas. Note that NOWHERE does it say that they're Salamanders.

Vulkan could be taken in the same list as Calgar, and every other Ultramarine leader. Vulkan could be taken alongside every other named character in that book, painted the same, even attached to the same unit. The book itself ENCOURAGED that! But NOWEHERE did it say "your marines are now Salamanders". If you took Vulkan in a list, but painted him blue, alongside all the other marines in that list, gave them greco-roman aesthetics and painted a bunch of Ultima symbols, and said that "this is Captain Numitor's taskforce of the Ultramarines", would they be Ultramarines or Salamanders? If you took Calgar in that list, is Calgar an Ultramarine or a Salamander? What about if you then dropped Vulkan from that list, but kept everything else the same? Are they Ultramarines or Salamanders? What if you then took that list I just mentioned, the whole army with Calgar but minus Vulkan, repainted them green and black, with flame iconography, and now called them Salamanders? Mechanically, they play exactly the same, but now they look like Salamanders - what are they? Now I add Vulkan back into the list, but Vulkan is still painted blue. Are they Ultramarines or Salamanders? What if I exchange Calgar for Shrike, and choose to have all my green and black and fire painted Marines to gain the Fleet rule? Are they Salamanders or Raven Guard? What if I drop Vulkan and Shrike, and replace them with a generic captain? What Chapter are they now?

The ONLY difference was tied to a series of special characters, who didn't even ALWAYS give you their boon. If your ONLY difference between Chapter relies on you taking a specific character, then you're not having mechanically differences between Chapters. You have mechanical differences between CHARACTERS, which you literally admit yourself:

There are of course problems with this approach. Many objected to having to take a special character in order to unlock their chapter's special trait especially since only a few month prior in 4th edition you couldn't even take a special character without opponent permission.

Exactly - they weren't unique CHAPTER rules. They were unique rules TIED TO CHARACTERS, characters who could be taken in *any* Chapter, and even together in the same list. Sometimes, characters were BETTER when using the rules that other characters gave them (Cassius in a list that had Vulkan).

Anyway, of all these chapter tactics rules Salamanders was the best and the most common.

Not Salamanders - Vulkan.

aphyon wrote:1.certain chapters have specializations. they are all marines yes but they do some things better than others. my conversation was with wyldhunt about if they should have rules that make them better than others.

And I think both Wyldhunt and myself disagree that they should be mechanically better. The question comes down to which is more important: the type of army, or the Chapter that fields that type of army.

Personally, I'm more in favour of 5th. Get rid of ALL bonuses.

2. i do not like the lore the new GW employees created as it goes directly against the original creators designs. great news i don't have to play any particular editon. i can also disagree with where they have taken the game in the last few editions.

You say "lore the new GW employees created", but the problem is that it's those same original creators who emphasised all those same quotes I've been repeating about how the Salamanders are "just as capable" of fielding bikes. You can't keep quoting "original creators" when it's their words that also disagree with yours!

3. you make a bunch of claims about how many generic fast units are assigned to each of the 7 companies, but when you go through the breakdown about what each companies job is and what combat doctrines they employ, none specialize in bikes, speeders or jump infantry.

I never claimed that ANY of them specialise - because they don't have to! You seem to think that the only way you should be allowed to take an army is if it's some kind of specialist detachment, and that's simply not true! I've never claimed that the Salamanders have a "specialist" Bike company - only that they have the capability and capacity to field a full bike army on tabletop, and if someone wants to create a fluff reason why the Salamanders have fielded such an army, they have my full support!

Again, I point again to the IA4 statement - that the Salamanders are just as capable of fighting on their bikes as other methods of warfare.

You're making one hell of an assumption by claiming that those people decreed that Thou Shalt Never Have More Than One Bike Squad If You Play Salamanders.

Call them up, ask them - if you're so keen on needing their validation to back up your argument (which you seem to be), ask them to support your claim.

I don't have to, you see they did a thing, they wrote it down and then published it in official sources. if you want to ignore that Because of the NU-lore then knock yourself out. your free to play the game however you like. the fact it exists cannot be disputed.

Again, I'm not basing my argument entirely off of Nu-Lore - I'm quoting the same articles that you are, from those same "original creators"!

Like, seriously, look are what my sources are - they're the same "original sources" that you're using!

but you've made some pretty damn stupid and shortsighted comments. Perhaps I was a tad too harsh on language, but my points all stand - you claim to cite lore, but you don't seem to recognise that it says PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE of what you claim!

Nice, you have an opinon and a right to it, i think exactly the same things about your position.

Sure, but you're still not addressing the fact that the sources you're claiming disagree with you.

You claim that "if you care about the lore, you'd only field X", when the lore makes it pretty clear that this simply isn't true, and instead of just admitting "okay, I messed up" or "I only care about lore from this time, and that means that my version of 40k is different from yours", you try and paint this idea of "One True Version of 40k", and that anyone who deviates from that is playing the game wrong. And that's kinda messed up.

They are not playing it wrong they are in fact playing a completely different game. they call it 40K but it is a different game. 3rd-7th were at least cross compatible. and most of the progressive mechanical improvements in the rules from 3rd-5th were obvious and mostly welcomed improvements of the same core system. what you have now is a "game" and it has rules and it appeals to some people. i will never consider it to be anything other than 40K in name only. that isn't messed up, it is an opinion and it is not forcing anybody else to do anything. the very nature of a real in person game that requires 2 or more players requires a certain level of agreement/permission on what the game is.

Again, for all your speaking of "it is an opinion" and acting like that's not just doubling down on exactly what I'm pointing out is the problem here - you might not be "forcing" your opinion, but it's certainly screaming out that you don't give two hoots about someone else's experience - and that's the messed up part.

Again, I don't care what YOU "consider" valid 40k, but the actual FACT is that it's still 40k. Same branding, same company, same name. You can disagree, and arbitrarily make up your own gatekeeping rules on what "real" 40k is, but the facts disagree beyond that. For someone trying to claim facts, you're not doing a good job citing them.

Again, you say "thematic", but only the themes that YOU have decided are valid. A Salamanders Bike army is not only canon,

except it isn't

Except it is. As I proved. The ONLY thing you have going for your argument right now is plugging your fingers in your ears and saying "nuh uh". This is exactly WHY I was combative - because you've shown you're not willing to discuss this in good faith while you continue to ignore the evidence of your eyes and ears.

and never was in the written rules published by GW up to a certain point.

In other words, "this wasn't allowed in the rules over a very specific period of time which I'm going to cherrypick from".

Rogue Trader didn't prevent it.
2nd didn't prevent it.
I don't know enough about 3rd and 4th to make a claim here.
5th didn't prevent it.
6th didn't prevent it.
7th didn't prevent it.
8th didn't prevent it.
9th didn't prevent it.
10th doesn't prevent it.

You're pointing to such a narrow section of 40k's mechanical history, and acting like it's the ONLY valid source. That's why your argument is so fundamentally flawed.

If YOU only want to consider that narrow band of time to be how YOU like to play, more power to you. But you ought to understand that YOU'RE the one who's choosing to be selective, and that the world is wider than your narrow horizon.

So Salamander bikers are less common than Vulkan or Adrax?
Because, to my knowledge, you have no issue with them showing up.

Myself? i never use them, 99% of the time i run a generic master of the forge ( have a thing for tech marines). and occasionally a terminator librarian, or Brey'arth because i also love dreadnoughts.

And you're more than welcome to run those. But you're dodging the question.

Also, I should point out that, in 5th, you *had* to take Vulkan if you wanted the """""Salamanders""""" rules. Were all Salamanders battles in 40k fought with Vulkan leading them? He's just one guy, after all - less common than Bike squads!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:
Re. The Salamanders bike debate.

It is both true that they typically don't use fast attack elements AND that they could cobble together a full army* from such elements if needed.

However, in pre-Primaris lore the reserve companies didn't have any assault squads and only the 3 battle companies and scout company could deploy bikes and landspeeders. The total number of fast attack elements is considerably limited compared to a fully codex-compliant chapter and probably amounts to ~60 Marines total (split between bikes and land speeders) + up to another 100(?) scout bikers across the entire chapter of ~900 Marines. That is plenty for a single 40k army, but it would be exceptional in the lore as it accumulates the assault elements from the entire chapter.

This is probably all different post-Primaris so lorewise the current situation is not the same.

*By this I mean a 40k sized army.

I believe that this is correct, and my original statement may have been incorrect (for pre-Primaris Salamanders) - however, as you point out, that's still at least 6 regular Bike Squads, at least 3 Land Speeders, and at least a squad of Scout Bikes and a Land Speeder Storm - assuming that there's only ONE of each per company, except Bike Squads, which form the two Assault Squads per Battle Company.

Again, more than enough for a game for 40k, and while exceptional, 40k is full of exceptional battles, such as ANY battle where Custodes, Grey Knights, or a Primarch show up at.

Vulkan's rules didn't say your army was now Salamanders, but the rule was called Chapter tactics (not Vulkan's tactics) and Vulkan's chapter was the Salamanders. In addition, if you had two heroes from different chapters which both had the Chapter tactics rule in your army, you had to pick which Chapter tactics your force would use (i.e. which chapter was in charge).

So the implication was pretty clearly that these rules were supposed to represent alternate Chapters with differing character and specialties from the default. I think it was a poor decision to lock that behind special characters but hey ho.

I want to point out this thread is in the lore subforum. Whilst discussing how game rules reflect the lore is part of this, IMO, I think it is important to point out that Salamanders are, as per lore, less likely to field fast attack and if the whole Chapter deployed for a single battle, probably couldn't deploy massed bikers and speeders in a fast attack role even if they thought it would be beneficial, unlike, say, the White Scars. At least up until the Great Rift, I don't think any lore contradicted this. With Primaris reinforcements they probably can deploy much more fast attack than before.

Whether that lore should carry over into game rules and to what degree is mostly subjective.

From a game design perspective I liked the 3rd edition approach of FOC combined with limiting some units even further (0-1 per list, 0-2 etc). Others do not. But that doesn't mean no Salamanders force ever fields more than one bike squad, it just means their typical force (at up to 2000pts in 3rd edition) routinely fields no more than a single bike squad. The rules of the time had explicitly ways to break this- a second detachment could be taken every 2000 pts with a new FOC, and 4th edition added Apocalypse with no unit restrictions for games >3000pts. There was also the option of just using the default Space Marine list and taking 3 bike squads. The lore at the time was simply that Salamanders rarely fielded many bikes in smaller forces.

You say "lore the new GW employees created", but the problem is that it's those same original creators who emphasised all those same quotes I've been repeating about how the Salamanders are "just as capable" of fielding bikes. You can't keep quoting "original creators" when it's their words that also disagree with yours!

These are not mutually exclusive things, they can be "just as capable" and they can also not field them for various reasons in large numbers or as a focus of the army. nobody said anywhere they didn't have them, just that that is not the fighting style the excel at/focus on. since the latter is clearly defined both in 3rd and 4th ed. a lore inspired salamanders player may bring a few bikes but they would not think "bike army" when looking at the chapter.

Sure, but you're still not addressing the fact that the sources you're claiming disagree with you.

Except they explicitly do not.

Again, I'm not basing my argument entirely off of Nu-Lore - I'm quoting the same articles that you are, from those same "original creators"!

Like, seriously, look are what my sources are - they're the same "original sources" that you're using!

Same as above you are choosing to ignore the parts you do not agree with.

In other words, "this wasn't allowed in the rules over a very specific period of time which I'm going to cherrypick from".

Rogue Trader didn't prevent it.
2nd didn't prevent it.
I don't know enough about 3rd and 4th to make a claim here.
5th didn't prevent it.
6th didn't prevent it.
7th didn't prevent it.
8th didn't prevent it.
9th didn't prevent it.
10th doesn't prevent it.

You're pointing to such a narrow section of 40k's mechanical history, and acting like it's the ONLY valid source. That's why your argument is so fundamentally flawed.

1 rouge trader/2nd had not even decided what the universe was yet, unless you think inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau from 1987 is still in the official lore after 3rd (he isn't) along with all sort of other things they decided were not in the official lore. that happened in 3rd.. so 3rd is where they created the setting and they continued it in 4th along the same lines-with the original design team still at the helm.

1998-2008 that's 10 years worth of the 40K franchise. nearly half of the time it has been a game with set lore. and while they may have dumbed down the restrictions to character unlocks in the generic space marine codex. the blood angels, dark angels and space wolf codexes maintained the restrictions, alt force org charts and specializations. that's at least 14 years worth of specialized rules and the lore remained virtually unchanged in the setting until about halfway through 7th with the gathering storm plot line. so since 1998 to 2017 the core lore remained virtually unchanged that's nearly 19 years of the entire lifespan of the game since the lore was established.

 Haighus wrote:
Vulkan's rules didn't say your army was now Salamanders, but the rule was called Chapter tactics (not Vulkan's tactics) and Vulkan's chapter was the Salamanders. In addition, if you had two heroes from different chapters which both had the Chapter tactics rule in your army, you had to pick which Chapter tactics your force would use (i.e. which chapter was in charge).

And yet that same book ALSO encouraged you to paint and redesign characters to be from the same Chapter if that was your prefence - ie, "Vulkan" could be remodelled as Captain Fabian of the Ultramarines 3rd Company. Lysander could be remodelled as Captain Agemman.

Sure, it *said* Chapter Tactics, but Calgar's also said "God of War" - was he a god? (Pedantic, but just to highlight that it was the name of a special rule - not conclusive proof in its own right, and that mechanically, which is what I was talking about, there was no difference between a Salamanders Space Marine and a White Scars Space Marine, because it was the character that granted army-wide rules, and that those characters could be taken in the same army if you really wanted to.)

So the implication was pretty clearly that these rules were supposed to represent alternate Chapters with differing character and specialties from the default. I think it was a poor decision to lock that behind special characters but hey ho.

And yet, that implication still never stopped all-bike Salamanders lists. There was no rule that prevented it, or even discouraged.

My statement stands - MECHANICALLY, there was no difference in Chapter.

I want to point out this thread is in the lore subforum. Whilst discussing how game rules reflect the lore is part of this, IMO, I think it is important to point out that Salamanders are, as per lore, less likely to field fast attack and if the whole Chapter deployed for a single battle, probably couldn't deploy massed bikers and speeders in a fast attack role even if they thought it would be beneficial, unlike, say, the White Scars. At least up until the Great Rift, I don't think any lore contradicted this. With Primaris reinforcements they probably can deploy much more fast attack than before.

*Less likely*, yes, I'll fully agree - but NOT impossible, and certainly not 0-1.

Salamanders would be UNLIKELY to below massed bikes, but importantly STILL COULD, and if a player wants to, they should be able to. Again, what's wrong with the scenario I mentioned earlier - a swarm of Ork Speed Freeks needing to be intercepted, the Chapter being unable to deploy aircraft or Drop Pods to intercept them due to storms, and the ground not being stable enough for troop transports like Rhinos or Land Raiders to deploy. The Salamanders, if they'd deployed to the warzone in Chapter strength (like Armageddon!), could muster all their fast moving troops onto Bikes and Land Speeders to engage the Orks.

From a game design perspective I liked the 3rd edition approach of FOC combined with limiting some units even further (0-1 per list, 0-2 etc). Others do not. But that doesn't mean no Salamanders force ever fields more than one bike squad, it just means their typical force (at up to 2000pts in 3rd edition) routinely fields no more than a single bike squad. The rules of the time had explicitly ways to break this- a second detachment could be taken every 2000 pts with a new FOC, and 4th edition added Apocalypse with no unit restrictions for games >3000pts. There was also the option of just using the default Space Marine list and taking 3 bike squads. The lore at the time was simply that Salamanders rarely fielded many bikes in smaller forces.

Rarely still doesn't mean never. And lest I repeat myself - EVEN THE LORE still stated that the Salamanders COULD do it, and their objection was purely because they liked fighting differently. There should be no mechanical reason to prevent them taking a perfectly lore-friendly formation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 aphyon wrote:

You say "lore the new GW employees created", but the problem is that it's those same original creators who emphasised all those same quotes I've been repeating about how the Salamanders are "just as capable" of fielding bikes. You can't keep quoting "original creators" when it's their words that also disagree with yours!

These are not mutually exclusive things, they can be "just as capable" and they can also not field them for various reasons in large numbers or as a focus of the army. nobody said anywhere they didn't have them, just that that is not the fighting style the excel at/focus on. since the latter is clearly defined both in 3rd and 4th ed. a lore inspired salamanders player may bring a few bikes but they would not think "bike army" when looking at the chapter.

Again, you're SO CLOSE to getting it!

No-one's claiming that they "excel" or "focus" on it, but simply that they CAN and DO take Bike formations! And then you turn around and say that "a lore inspired Salamanders army blah blah blah", which flies RIGHT in the face of that!

A "lore inspired Salamanders army" CAN STILL TAKE BIKES. It can even take a lot of them! To say that they CAN'T field a bike army is to miss the lore.

Sure, but you're still not addressing the fact that the sources you're claiming disagree with you.

Except they explicitly do not.

Explicitly, they state that "the Salamanders can fight in any theatre under any conditions" and "they are just as capable at other aspects of Space Marine battle doctrine".

Bikes are fine.

Again, I'm not basing my argument entirely off of Nu-Lore - I'm quoting the same articles that you are, from those same "original creators"!

Like, seriously, look are what my sources are - they're the same "original sources" that you're using!

Same as above you are choosing to ignore the parts you do not agree with.

I'm not disagreeing with anything EXCEPT this idea that they ONLY fight in a certain way! Go on, quote for me a section that says that they NEVER field bikes, or that they CANNOT do do.

Quote it for me.

In other words, "this wasn't allowed in the rules over a very specific period of time which I'm going to cherrypick from".

Rogue Trader didn't prevent it.
2nd didn't prevent it.
I don't know enough about 3rd and 4th to make a claim here.
5th didn't prevent it.
6th didn't prevent it.
7th didn't prevent it.
8th didn't prevent it.
9th didn't prevent it.
10th doesn't prevent it.

You're pointing to such a narrow section of 40k's mechanical history, and acting like it's the ONLY valid source. That's why your argument is so fundamentally flawed.

1 rouge trader/2nd had not even decided what the universe was yet, unless you think inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau from 1987 is still in the official lore after 3rd (he isn't) along with all sort of other things they decided were not in the official lore. that happened in 3rd.. so 3rd is where they created the setting and they continued it in 4th along the same lines-with the original design team still at the helm.

Oh, good! So you're admitting the lore has ALWAYS been in a state of change, and that things that were "original lore" get changed over time!

Good, we're on the same page.

1998-2008 that's 12 years worth of the 40K franchise. nearly half of the time it has been a game with set lore.

Lest I make you feel old, 2008 to 2024 is 16 years.

That's EVEN LONGER that 4th's been abandoned and moved on from.

If you wanna make an argument from longevity, you'd better remember that you're technically now in the minority time period.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Vulkan's rules didn't say your army was now Salamanders, but the rule was called Chapter tactics (not Vulkan's tactics) and Vulkan's chapter was the Salamanders. In addition, if you had two heroes from different chapters which both had the Chapter tactics rule in your army, you had to pick which Chapter tactics your force would use (i.e. which chapter was in charge).

And yet that same book ALSO encouraged you to paint and redesign characters to be from the same Chapter if that was your prefence - ie, "Vulkan" could be remodelled as Captain Fabian of the Ultramarines 3rd Company. Lysander could be remodelled as Captain Agemman.

Sure, it *said* Chapter Tactics, but Calgar's also said "God of War" - was he a god? (Pedantic, but just to highlight that it was the name of a special rule - not conclusive proof in its own right, and that mechanically, which is what I was talking about, there was no difference between a Salamanders Space Marine and a White Scars Space Marine, because it was the character that granted army-wide rules, and that those characters could be taken in the same army if you really wanted to.)

So the implication was pretty clearly that these rules were supposed to represent alternate Chapters with differing character and specialties from the default. I think it was a poor decision to lock that behind special characters but hey ho.

And yet, that implication still never stopped all-bike Salamanders lists. There was no rule that prevented it, or even discouraged.

My statement stands - MECHANICALLY, there was no difference in Chapter.

I want to point out this thread is in the lore subforum. Whilst discussing how game rules reflect the lore is part of this, IMO, I think it is important to point out that Salamanders are, as per lore, less likely to field fast attack and if the whole Chapter deployed for a single battle, probably couldn't deploy massed bikers and speeders in a fast attack role even if they thought it would be beneficial, unlike, say, the White Scars. At least up until the Great Rift, I don't think any lore contradicted this. With Primaris reinforcements they probably can deploy much more fast attack than before.

*Less likely*, yes, I'll fully agree - but NOT impossible, and certainly not 0-1.

Salamanders would be UNLIKELY to below massed bikes, but importantly STILL COULD, and if a player wants to, they should be able to. Again, what's wrong with the scenario I mentioned earlier - a swarm of Ork Speed Freeks needing to be intercepted, the Chapter being unable to deploy aircraft or Drop Pods to intercept them due to storms, and the ground not being stable enough for troop transports like Rhinos or Land Raiders to deploy. The Salamanders, if they'd deployed to the warzone in Chapter strength (like Armageddon!), could muster all their fast moving troops onto Bikes and Land Speeders to engage the Orks.

From a game design perspective I liked the 3rd edition approach of FOC combined with limiting some units even further (0-1 per list, 0-2 etc). Others do not. But that doesn't mean no Salamanders force ever fields more than one bike squad, it just means their typical force (at up to 2000pts in 3rd edition) routinely fields no more than a single bike squad. The rules of the time had explicitly ways to break this- a second detachment could be taken every 2000 pts with a new FOC, and 4th edition added Apocalypse with no unit restrictions for games >3000pts. There was also the option of just using the default Space Marine list and taking 3 bike squads. The lore at the time was simply that Salamanders rarely fielded many bikes in smaller forces.

Rarely still doesn't mean never. And lest I repeat myself - EVEN THE LORE still stated that the Salamanders COULD do it, and their objection was purely because they liked fighting differently. There should be no mechanical reason to prevent them taking a perfectly lore-friendly formation.

I didn't claim they never fielded bike heavy forces either, I agree with you on that. All kinds of weird formations have existed in 40k lore, I'm not convinced they all need to be covered by options in the rules, especially if they are easy to "counts as" or sufficiently niche to be narrative game material where rules tweaking is much more prevalent. The 3rd War for Armageddon had a battle where Ork dreadnoughts faced off against dozens of Space Marine dreadnoughts from multiple Chapters, but a list for pure Space Marine dreadnoughts didn't exist. Easy enough to set up as a narrative game though.

The point of those variant lists was flavourful alternatives favoured by those Chapters in comparison to the standard list. You could still use the standard list without issue. Again, the 0-1 was at the scale of a 40k game in 3rd, basically a demi-company sized formation. The Salamanders could also only take 0-1 Land Raider Crusader (like every none-Black Templars Chapter). Does that mean they only had one in the entire Chapter? Probably not, but was a way of representing relative rarity compared to other options. Again, a narrative battle where a Chapter deploys their entire Land Raider complement could easily be houseruled, but it isn't a common occurrence (and Apocalypse covered those battles pretty well IMO). The lists were only supposed to represent typical deployments, not the be all and end all of how Salamanders or White Scars or Raven Guard etc. deployed.

Bear in mind that different types of mission also regularly played around with the Force Organisation Chart, it was used as a tool to vary army composition and create differing challenges in different scenarios.

Oh, and I agree the 5th ed Chapter tactics rules didn't represent Chapter tactics well, they were implemented as "xyz leader" tactics, but the rule name does suggest the intention even if it was realised poorly. There was a mechanical difference between Chapters... but only if you took their special snowflake leader. Like I said above, I think this was a bad way of doing this.

Also, counts as has always been an option for making your own character using the rules of a hero. I don't think that changes the lore to mechanics discussion. It just highlights how tying Chapter tactics to specific heroes makes for a poor representation of Chapter tactics.

I'm not disagreeing with anything EXCEPT this idea that they ONLY fight in a certain way! Go on, quote for me a section that says that they NEVER field bikes, or that they CANNOT do do.

Quote it for me.

Index astartes IV pg 21-22 sub section -organization- relative section-
"The conditions on nocturne are not conducive to training for high speed attack or using the anti-grav engines of land speeders, so the chapter employs relatively few of these specialized fast attack units"

Space marine codex 4th ed pg. 45 section-chapters of legend traits
sub section-salamanders-
cleanse and purify, never despair, eye to eye*

*eye to eye-
"Although the codex astartes includes extensive guidance on raiding, hit and run and guerilla warfare these techniques are not universally employed. The chapter main not be able to train in these tactics (due to lack of equipment or training facilities) or be temperamentally opposed to them. this drawback may not be selected along with be swift as the wind (the bike army option-added for clarification).

May only take 0-1 selection in total from the following list. land speeder squadron, attack bike squadron, bike squadron."

Again nobody ever said they never use them, but a player who chooses salamanders as a faction that is drawn to them because of the lore. would not think of them as a fast attack/bike centric force.

Oh, good! So you're admitting the lore has ALWAYS been in a state of change, and that things that were "original lore" get changed over time!

Good, we're on the same page.

Nothing of the sort, there was no "set lore" before 3rd. 3rd is where they set the lore. it did not change until the end of 7th. that is why prior to that time players constantly talked about when they were going to move the story forward because up till that time all the battles players were fighting were in the historical context.

"Employs relatively few," matters if you want to field the entire chapter.
It doesn't matter so much when you're fielding 20-60 models from 1,000+ Marines.

 JNAProductions wrote:
"Employs relatively few," matters if you want to field the entire chapter.
It doesn't matter so much when you're fielding 20-60 models from 1,000+ Marines.

This. Although the Salamanders were more like ~900 Marimes the point still stands

I still like the Index Astartes lists as archetypes though.

 Haighus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
"Employs relatively few," matters if you want to field the entire chapter.
It doesn't matter so much when you're fielding 20-60 models from 1,000+ Marines.

This. Although the Salamanders were more like ~900 Marimes the point still stands

I still like the Index Astartes lists as archetypes though.

Yeah-if you yourself only want to field what's more typical of a Salamanders' list, that's fine. No one should dictate to you how to enjoy your models. But the same is true of everyone else as well-if they want to play Salamanders Bikers, that's also fine.

Again nobody ever said they never use them, but a player who chooses salamanders as a faction that is drawn to them because of the lore. would not think of them as a fast attack/bike centric force.

I don't think anyone was claiming that fielding an army of green bikers was meant to imply that the chapter as a whole was brimming with bikers. Only that this particular force deployed to this particular battle happens to made up of bikers.

And whether you think it's *likely* someone will want to run Salamander bikers isn't really the point. Apologies if you already responded to this and I missed it, but:

A.) Should an army be allowed to have a Salamanders paint scheme/lore and field a list focused on/consisting primarily of bikes?

B.) If so, is it acceptable/good for the game and player experience for such a list to be notably less powerful than a list with White Scars paint/lore? i.e. if the green bikes and the white bikes play Bob's orks 100 times each, the green bikes will win 30 games compared to the white bikes' 50 games because the green bikes' stratagems and special rules don't synergize with their selected units as well?

i object to the entire premise of basing the entire point on win statistics. that's a 10th ed...well really the last 3 editions of GW catering to tournament mindset players.

That is not why i play 40K, i play 40K for epic battles in the 40K setting. if i am playing salamanders in the typical way they are said to fight. and another guy runs the WS in the typical way they are said to fight. the win loss rate is never as important as the feel of the army and also if you had a good game.

tournament players tend to- win=good game

for me hard fought battle that could have gone either way based on my choices on the table with a thematic force that fights the way it is typically does in the lore=good game.

My game this last weekend was very much that-5th ed rules
4th ed "typical" black templar army VS my 3.5 dark angels "typical" army 2k points. narrow victory to my opponent=good game

If White Scars have more powerful bikers than Salamanders, you’re less likely to have a close game for one of those armies.
If Salamander bikers are reasonably balanced, White Scars are too strong. If White Scars bikers are reasonably balanced, Salamanders are too weak.

I too prefer to have a close and hard-fought game, win or lose, than a blowout where I stomp my foe with no issues. Painting everyone who has a different take than you as a poor tournament player isn’t just or accurate.

Haighus wrote:I didn't claim they never fielded bike heavy forces either, I agree with you on that. All kinds of weird formations have existed in 40k lore, I'm not convinced they all need to be covered by options in the rules, especially if they are easy to "counts as" or sufficiently niche to be narrative game material where rules tweaking is much more prevalent. The 3rd War for Armageddon had a battle where Ork dreadnoughts faced off against dozens of Space Marine dreadnoughts from multiple Chapters, but a list for pure Space Marine dreadnoughts didn't exist. Easy enough to set up as a narrative game though.

The point of those variant lists was flavourful alternatives favoured by those Chapters in comparison to the standard list. You could still use the standard list without issue. Again, the 0-1 was at the scale of a 40k game in 3rd, basically a demi-company sized formation. The Salamanders could also only take 0-1 Land Raider Crusader (like every none-Black Templars Chapter). Does that mean they only had one in the entire Chapter? Probably not, but was a way of representing relative rarity compared to other options. Again, a narrative battle where a Chapter deploys their entire Land Raider complement could easily be houseruled, but it isn't a common occurrence (and Apocalypse covered those battles pretty well IMO). The lists were only supposed to represent typical deployments, not the be all and end all of how Salamanders or White Scars or Raven Guard etc. deployed.

Bear in mind that different types of mission also regularly played around with the Force Organisation Chart, it was used as a tool to vary army composition and create differing challenges in different scenarios.

My opinion is that GW shouldn't have had 0-1 to represent flavour. If a player WANTED to create a flavourful army, they can choose what units they want to take in it. If Unit X doesn't fit the flavour, then the player should choose not to take it, because that's their flavour.

If GW want to create "typical deployment" lists, then I'm all for that, insofar as they do it like Combat Patrol or Formations - ie, here's a VERY restricted list of the units you can pull from, designed to fight against OTHER typical deployment armies.
I don't agree with the idea of "if you're playing XYZ Chapter, then you HAVE to use these rules". If people want to reflect relative rarity, or a Chapter preferring to use more or less of a unit than other Chapters, then take more or less of that unit in your army. You don't need the rules to force you to.

Oh, and I agree the 5th ed Chapter tactics rules didn't represent Chapter tactics well, they were implemented as "xyz leader" tactics, but the rule name does suggest the intention even if it was realised poorly. There was a mechanical difference between Chapters... but only if you took their special snowflake leader. Like I said above, I think this was a bad way of doing this.

Again, good or bad way of doing whatever they intended, my point stands - there was no mechanical difference between Chapters. Locking abilities behind a certain leader isn't "Chapter Tactics" as we know them.

Also, counts as has always been an option for making your own character using the rules of a hero. I don't think that changes the lore to mechanics discussion. It just highlights how tying Chapter tactics to specific heroes makes for a poor representation of Chapter tactics.

True, except the 5th ed book ACTIVELY encouraged it, with its own little popout that said as much. No book afterwards did that.

aphyon wrote:

I'm not disagreeing with anything EXCEPT this idea that they ONLY fight in a certain way! Go on, quote for me a section that says that they NEVER field bikes, or that they CANNOT do do.

Quote it for me.

Index astartes IV pg 21-22 sub section -organization- relative section-
"The conditions on nocturne are not conducive to training for high speed attack or using the anti-grav engines of land speeders, so the chapter employs relatively few of these specialized fast attack units"

"Relatively few" doesn't mean that they can't take them, or field a whole army of them in 40k terms. Remember - I said "quote for me a section that says they NEVER field bikes". This isn't that.

Try again.

Space marine codex 4th ed pg. 45 section-chapters of legend traits
sub section-salamanders-
cleanse and purify, never despair, eye to eye*

*eye to eye-
"Although the codex astartes includes extensive guidance on raiding, hit and run and guerilla warfare these techniques are not universally employed. The chapter main not be able to train in these tactics (due to lack of equipment or training facilities) or be temperamentally opposed to them. this drawback may not be selected along with be swift as the wind (the bike army option-added for clarification).

May only take 0-1 selection in total from the following list. land speeder squadron, attack bike squadron, bike squadron."

And as Haighus said, that was an abstraction on tabletop, not a rule that said "Salamanders only have 1 bike squad". Again, IN THE LORE, IA4 says that the Salamanders can just as easily fight on bikes. IN THE LORE, all the Salamanders Battle Companies have two Assault Squads, which are all capable of fighting on Bikes. Every Battle Company has Land Speeders.

This is a mechanical restriction, and what's more, a bad one. Plus, I can point at literally every OTHER edition, which has no such restriction or limitation. Aka, you're cherrypicking.

Again nobody ever said they never use them, but a player who chooses salamanders as a faction that is drawn to them because of the lore. would not think of them as a fast attack/bike centric force.

Except the lore ALLOWS for the Salamanders to have bikes! They might not be *typically* a bike force, but there's nothing that prevents them!

Oh, good! So you're admitting the lore has ALWAYS been in a state of change, and that things that were "original lore" get changed over time!

Good, we're on the same page.

Nothing of the sort, there was no "set lore" before 3rd. 3rd is where they set the lore. it did not change until the end of 7th.

That's not true, and you know it. Necrons changed, new Space Marine forces were included, Abaddon's motives changed, Eldrad died and was resurrected, the Grey Knights and Deathwatch went from small detachments and auxiliary units to being full out armies, Tyranids changed their entire shape, I don't even think Tau existed in 3rd, amongst many others - and that's still not even getting into that the SAME LORE that you say opposes Salamander bikers DOESN'T EVEN SAY THAT!

that is why prior to that time players constantly talked about when they were going to move the story forward because up till that time all the battles players were fighting were in the historical context.

Things still changed in that time period - all the above things I mentioned, for example. The TIMELINE didn't advance, but things within the setting certainly changed.

 aphyon wrote:
i object to the entire premise of basing the entire point on win statistics. that's a 10th ed...well really the last 3 editions of GW catering to tournament mindset players.

That is not why i play 40K, i play 40K for epic battles in the 40K setting. if i am playing salamanders in the typical way they are said to fight. and another guy runs the WS in the typical way they are said to fight. the win loss rate is never as important as the feel of the army and also if you had a good game.

tournament players tend to- win=good game

for me hard fought battle that could have gone either way based on my choices on the table with a thematic force that fights the way it is typically does in the lore=good game.

My game this last weekend was very much that-5th ed rules
4th ed "typical" black templar army VS my 3.5 dark angels "typical" army 2k points. narrow victory to my opponent=good game

For context, I haven't played in a tournament in years, and I very much prefer fluffy games with strong story elements over tournament style games/lists.

With that in mind, the reason I value balance/"win rate" (for lack of a better term) is that too large a gap in power can diminish the overall game experience. Even for those of us who are more focused on the narrative, consistently losing a lot isn't much fun. Especially when you know part of the reason you're losing so much is that you're weakening your list as a side-effect of trying to run a fluffy list. So if a green biker player looks over at a white biker player and sees all these rules and abilities that would fit his army well and let him have closer games if he used them... it's rough to feel like you're not allowed to use those rules because of your paint scheme.

It's easier to have a close game when both armies are given similarly useful rules to support their armies. If you want an army full of bikers to do biker things and have close games, I'd think you'd want them to have access to the do-biker-things rules regardless of paint scheme.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Haighus wrote:I didn't claim they never fielded bike heavy forces either, I agree with you on that. All kinds of weird formations have existed in 40k lore, I'm not convinced they all need to be covered by options in the rules, especially if they are easy to "counts as" or sufficiently niche to be narrative game material where rules tweaking is much more prevalent. The 3rd War for Armageddon had a battle where Ork dreadnoughts faced off against dozens of Space Marine dreadnoughts from multiple Chapters, but a list for pure Space Marine dreadnoughts didn't exist. Easy enough to set up as a narrative game though.

The point of those variant lists was flavourful alternatives favoured by those Chapters in comparison to the standard list. You could still use the standard list without issue. Again, the 0-1 was at the scale of a 40k game in 3rd, basically a demi-company sized formation. The Salamanders could also only take 0-1 Land Raider Crusader (like every none-Black Templars Chapter). Does that mean they only had one in the entire Chapter? Probably not, but was a way of representing relative rarity compared to other options. Again, a narrative battle where a Chapter deploys their entire Land Raider complement could easily be houseruled, but it isn't a common occurrence (and Apocalypse covered those battles pretty well IMO). The lists were only supposed to represent typical deployments, not the be all and end all of how Salamanders or White Scars or Raven Guard etc. deployed.

Bear in mind that different types of mission also regularly played around with the Force Organisation Chart, it was used as a tool to vary army composition and create differing challenges in different scenarios.

My opinion is that GW shouldn't have had 0-1 to represent flavour. If a player WANTED to create a flavourful army, they can choose what units they want to take in it. If Unit X doesn't fit the flavour, then the player should choose not to take it, because that's their flavour.

If GW want to create "typical deployment" lists, then I'm all for that, insofar as they do it like Combat Patrol or Formations - ie, here's a VERY restricted list of the units you can pull from, designed to fight against OTHER typical deployment armies.
I don't agree with the idea of "if you're playing XYZ Chapter, then you HAVE to use these rules". If people want to reflect relative rarity, or a Chapter preferring to use more or less of a unit than other Chapters, then take more or less of that unit in your army. You don't need the rules to force you to.

I think it complemented the FOC nicely, and isn't any different to, say, attacking forces getting less heavy support for raid missions. I get that some folk disagree but I think it made for nicer and more varied forces.

I also don't agree with "you have to use XYZ rules" even if the name is slapped on (in the same way as homebrew versions of characters discussed below), but I appreciate some folk gatekeep that stuff.

Oh, and I agree the 5th ed Chapter tactics rules didn't represent Chapter tactics well, they were implemented as "xyz leader" tactics, but the rule name does suggest the intention even if it was realised poorly. There was a mechanical difference between Chapters... but only if you took their special snowflake leader. Like I said above, I think this was a bad way of doing this.

Again, good or bad way of doing whatever they intended, my point stands - there was no mechanical difference between Chapters. Locking abilities behind a certain leader isn't "Chapter Tactics" as we know them.

I mainly started playing 40k in 5th, so this was Chapter tactics "as I knew it" and even at the time I thought it was a poor mechanic for what it was supposed to represent. Bit of "no true scotsman" here.

Also, counts as has always been an option for making your own character using the rules of a hero. I don't think that changes the lore to mechanics discussion. It just highlights how tying Chapter tactics to specific heroes makes for a poor representation of Chapter tactics.

True, except the 5th ed book ACTIVELY encouraged it, with its own little popout that said as much. No book afterwards did that.

I also cannot think of any since, but I can think of examples prior to 5th edition, such as the popout in Codex: Craftworlds explaining these are archetypes and not strictly locked to each Craftworld, or the blurb for mechanised companies in Codex: Armageddon stating that Armageddon is not the only world to raise mechanised companies. I think GW shifted during and especially after 5th to making forces more unique and rigid.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
i object to the entire premise of basing the entire point on win statistics. that's a 10th ed...well really the last 3 editions of GW catering to tournament mindset players.

That is not why i play 40K, i play 40K for epic battles in the 40K setting. if i am playing salamanders in the typical way they are said to fight. and another guy runs the WS in the typical way they are said to fight. the win loss rate is never as important as the feel of the army and also if you had a good game.

tournament players tend to- win=good game

for me hard fought battle that could have gone either way based on my choices on the table with a thematic force that fights the way it is typically does in the lore=good game.

My game this last weekend was very much that-5th ed rules
4th ed "typical" black templar army VS my 3.5 dark angels "typical" army 2k points. narrow victory to my opponent=good game

For context, I haven't played in a tournament in years, and I very much prefer fluffy games with strong story elements over tournament style games/lists.

With that in mind, the reason I value balance/"win rate" (for lack of a better term) is that too large a gap in power can diminish the overall game experience. Even for those of us who are more focused on the narrative, consistently losing a lot isn't much fun. Especially when you know part of the reason you're losing so much is that you're weakening your list as a side-effect of trying to run a fluffy list. So if a green biker player looks over at a white biker player and sees all these rules and abilities that would fit his army well and let him have closer games if he used them... it's rough to feel like you're not allowed to use those rules because of your paint scheme.

It's easier to have a close game when both armies are given similarly useful rules to support their armies. If you want an army full of bikers to do biker things and have close games, I'd think you'd want them to have access to the do-biker-things rules regardless of paint scheme.

If you are fine with sacrificing one for the other and your fellow players are of the same mind set it should not be a problem.

However i see it as part of the fun of playing old hammer that i can put anything i want on the table under the legal FOC for that faction and still have a chance to win even if my force is "weaker" in some areas. being a good general in playing the objectives, using the terrain and the strengths of my force makes the game much more enjoyable, winning is just icing on the cake.

Some of us are focused on the lore and like the "paint scheme" lock for armies because we love those factions for a reason. GW already gave a way around the entire thing by allowing you to "create your own". it was always a thing from 3rd-7th. and since it was your original paint scheme changing chapter rules from week to week isn't a problem when you feel the need to switch it up.

One of the guys at the store for example runs pseudo iron hands list in his own color scheme and since we play oldhammer he has tried a variety of codexes including the "everything is cheaper and more bling" 7th ed codexes but he went back to the 4th ed marine codex trait system because he likes how the army feels better than just raw win/loss or power level ratings.

It is also the same reason every single oldhammer chaos player at the store uses the 3.5 chaos codex.

Some of us are focused on the lore and like the "paint scheme" lock for armies because we love those factions for a reason. GW already gave a way around the entire thing by allowing you to "create your own". it was always a thing from 3rd-7th. and since it was your original paint scheme changing chapter rules from week to week isn't a problem when you feel the need to switch it up.

The key distinction here, I think, is that a more permissive approach like 10th's doesn't prevent you from imposing limitations on yourself. It just means that people with a different interpretation than yours aren't also beholden to those same limitations. So if *your* Salamanders never use bikes, that's fine. But your friend's Salamanders do, and they're allowed to use the bike rules to do bike things.

It just seems silly to me to be okay with your opponent painting his army green with dark skin and red eyes and letting him run them as bikes so long as they're called "Palamanders" instead of "Salamanders." But heaven forbid he replace that P with an S.

I still don't understand why this is such a uniquely Marine thing. Other factions started decoupling subfactions from rules in 9th, and didn't provoke this sort of backlash.

 aphyon wrote:
Some of us are focused on the lore and like the "paint scheme" lock for armies because we love those factions for a reason.

So what is that reason? Because unless it's 'I get special rules and nobody else is allowed to be as special as me', I don't see how it affects you or your enjoyment of, say, White Scars bikers that Salamanders can play bikers credibly too.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Point of clarification? When did a white dwarf article about fluff of a chapter become gospel? Lest we get into chromosomal politics again, I thought it was generally agreed that unless it was in a codex, WD "wasn't" a citable source for confirmed set in stone fluff. I fully admit to possibly being wrong on this, hence the question. But we site WD articles from the long long ago, and it's getting sort of reductio ad absurdum. "Well, this fluff from a single sentence over twelve years ago and six entire revisions ago, says this, and I claim it as gospel!" Hence the "WD is the weakest of canon sources".

*Edit for spelling mistakes

I have a hard time excluding White Dwarf because that's occasionally where you get alternate rules systems like Warbands for Fantasy - and that time they used White Dwarf to publish a codex they weren't going to otherwise. But I'd also apply a recency bias.

 catbarf wrote:
I still don't understand why this is such a uniquely Marine thing. Other factions started decoupling subfactions from rules in 9th, and didn't provoke this sort of backlash.

 aphyon wrote:
Some of us are focused on the lore and like the "paint scheme" lock for armies because we love those factions for a reason.

So what is that reason? Because unless it's 'I get special rules and nobody else is allowed to be as special as me', I don't see how it affects you or your enjoyment of, say, White Scars bikers that Salamanders can play bikers credibly too.

Notice the topic of this thread. we are not talking 9th edition in particular. from much earlier editions the game started with factions that had sub factions of the armies, not just space marines, with thematic lists. the focus on space marines in this topic is simply because marines are the poster boys for the game and the company that had the most attention in this area. the point specifically is that with the original rules and game designs all the various armies played differently through FOC manipulation or special rules that reflected the factions particular way of fighting. it added flavor and draw to the universe. The OPs point was that such things are basically gone in the current version of the game because everybody can take the same things and all the armies tend to be very samey it just ends up being the same list/detachment that is the current meta and playing specific chapters of legend or any other paint scheme you like makes no difference generally.

It just seems silly to me to be okay with your opponent painting his army green with dark skin and red eyes and letting him run them as bikes so long as they're called "Palamanders" instead of "Salamanders." But heaven forbid he replace that P with an S

That's a very disingenuous example. you know very well what we have been discussing. were back to the everybody can do everything so nobody is special VS this army prefers to fight this way or that. represented by build structure (specifically in the original FOC selections) and army wide special rules/restrictions. when a player says i am playing a *enter well known faction* and then they bring something that is completely opposite of what that faction should be doing. not one that is the said faction in every way with a slightly different homebrew name. to put it in stark representation...on one side you have Mongolian style cavalry and the other is a bunch of dwarven blacksmiths. saying they should both be good at the others job is where the rub is.

There has been a bunch of goal post moving anyway. the original point of contention was wanting to run a bike centric list for salamanders and if they should be as good as white scars who specialize in it. not do salamanders have bikes at all or use them from time to time.

I don’t believe the difference in skill between a white scars biker and a salamander biker is really enough to justify a stat difference, considering that a baseline human is S3, while a super soldier sits at S4. There’s just not enough space for it IMO.

Dandelion wrote:
I don’t believe the difference in skill between a white scars biker and a salamander biker is really enough to justify a stat difference, considering that a baseline human is S3, while a super soldier sits at S4. There’s just not enough space for it IMO.

It wasn't a stat difference like 10th does with the +1/-1

If you look at what i posted previously for the WS they had an entire page of special rules for their bikes as well as a alternate FOC structure.

I see. Well, from that perspective, I don’t see much value in locking those restrictions and bonuses behind a paint scheme. The reason being that I value the freedom of tailoring one's army to their own tastes and not necessarily what the standard could be. Modeling>rules

Dandelion wrote:
I see. Well, from that perspective, I don’t see much value in locking those restrictions and bonuses behind a paint scheme. The reason being that I value the freedom of tailoring one's army to their own tastes and not necessarily what the standard could be. Modeling>rules

That was also addressed by GW previously the 4th ed codex allowed you to build your own advantages and restriction through the trait system and paint it however you like. all the other editions from 3rd-7th while not having the trait system did have a "build your own" system in place.

this is one of the marine armies a guy runs at the shop who does just that-his own scheme + the trait system from 4th ed for our oldhammer games.

aphyon wrote:The OPs point was that such things are basically gone in the current version of the game because everybody can take the same things and all the armies tend to be very samey it just ends up being the same list/detachment that is the current meta and playing specific chapters of legend or any other paint scheme you like makes no difference generally.

Yeah - and I assure you, if the "White Scars" FOC chart was the meta option, those people would take it now. You'd see a bunch of people taking the "White Scars" rules, no matter how their models were painted or built, because it was the meta.

The situation isn't gonna change - if people want to chase the meta, they'll just do that. If people want to play a "specific Chapter of legend", they can and will.

Again, you've said yourself that you support people picking and choosing whatever fits their army best (the Palamanders example and your Iron Hands friend, as well as your own group picking and choosing which edition to play from) - so why does it matter to you if "any other paint scheme you like makes no difference generally"?

If YOU want to take a certain list, you don't need the game to handhold you into it.

It just seems silly to me to be okay with your opponent painting his army green with dark skin and red eyes and letting him run them as bikes so long as they're called "Palamanders" instead of "Salamanders." But heaven forbid he replace that P with an S

That's a very disingenuous example. you know very well what we have been discussing. were back to the everybody can do everything so nobody is special VS this army prefers to fight this way or that. represented by build structure (specifically in the original FOC selections) and army wide special rules/restrictions. when a player says i am playing a *enter well known faction* and then they bring something that is completely opposite of what that faction should be doing. not one that is the said faction in every way with a slightly different homebrew name. to put it in stark representation...on one side you have Mongolian style cavalry and the other is a bunch of dwarven blacksmiths. saying they should both be good at the others job is where the rub is.

There it is again!
You seem to be fixated on this idea of what people SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be doing with their armies. That's completely nonsense, ACCORDING TO THE LORE YOU'RE FALLING BACK ON! You say that Salamanders being on Bikes "is completely the opposite" of what they "should" be doing, but according to Index Astartes, there's no reason they can't do that. You'd likely claim that Raven Guard fielding a Terminator strikeforce "is completely the opposite" of what they "should" be doing, but the Raven Guard HAVE Terminators! You'd also likely cite that the White Scars don't field Fire Support units, but they have a 9th Company full of them!

Yes, the White Scars being Mongolian inspired is correct, but they're not ALWAYS cavalry! To say that they are is blatantly incorrect and reductive. The 40k universe is much more engaging and interesting when there's depth and detail beyond "lol all white scars are bikers".

not do salamanders have bikes at all or use them from time to time.

Except that you are ALSO saying that this is "completely opposite what that faction should be doing" - so which one is it?

aphyon wrote:all the other editions from 3rd-7th while not having the trait system did have a "build your own" system in place.

Pardon, but what was this system in 5th?