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the point of this post is to make a constructive list of statement that illustrate the caracteristic of a good or bad codex, in the naive hope of influencing GW writer /online codex writer.

Good: A section describing all option/equipment

Bad: splitting the item description/ rule in various place in the codex, forcing the reader to run from one page to the other to understand what a caracter can or cannot do.

Solid fluff that is well written and interesting. The fluff should relate the codex's army to the rest of the 40K universe. The fluff should give a player the feel for the army and the flavor of its history. (Fluff isn't that important to me, but it is important to many players.)

The army itself should have a unifying theme, but not such a rigid theme that only a very small number of builds can be competitive; there needs to be something that sets this army apart from the rest of the armies.

Each codex needs to be able to produce 3+ noticeably different army builds that can be successful in a competitive environment. I find it really boring to face virtually identical builds of a given army every time I play it regardless of who is running that army.

There needs to be a legitimate game-play reason to take every entry in the codex, or why bother writing that unit's entry at all? If a sculptor went through the trouble of making a really cool new mini, that isn't enough reason to write horrible rules for it so that unit can be included; do the sculptor justice and make the rules good enough that people want to buy it for more than the basis for a conversion for some other unit.

Keep the codex organized so that it takes a minimum amount of time to use it. There really isn't any reason to not have all of the rules, force org chart placement, options and point costs for a unit on the same page or consecutive pages. Keep a single reference sheet page for all weapons available to the codex. Keep that reference page right next to a complete wargear section so that, during game play, only a couple of consecutive pages of the codex need to be handy. Make sure the editing is such that references to other pages are accurate. This might result in rules being printed for the same thing both in a unit entry's section and a unified wargear section, but that's fine by me. This repetition would make the codex, ultimately, more user friendly.

Give more options; cookie-cutter style unit building is boring. It's the reason I don't play War Machine.

Hrm...I could go on, but that's a start, I think.

Easy to understand rules and no typos.

That may be asking too much though

Balance of power within every unit in the codex. A unit with a multitude of possible roles (lootas) should not be better at tank hunting then a squad dedicated to anti tank (tankbustas). Those entries should also follow the fluff, so as not to anger the neckbearded.

Also place wargear descriptions randomly throughout the book using some sort of hidden mathematical algorithm. They should also be backwards and sometimes upside down. This is to spite the people that think they are being inventive or original by posting topics complaining about codex layout. Its plain to see that after the last billion or so they've gotten old.

To me, it should have a number of viable builds. Now, obviously with any endeavour like this, some will be more 'optimal' as I believe they are called, than others, and this is fine.

But I like a book which allows me free reign to create whatever theme tickles my fancy, without worrying about how much hard work it is going to be on the field just to have an enjoyable battle. I don't care if I never win with it, just as long as I can see winning is at least possible!

1) Well written and provacative fluff that can capture the readers' imagination and encourage them to collect the army.

2) Well organized sections that do not require the user to flip back and forth in order to find rules for one thing on two or more pages.

3) An INDEX would be fricking useful.

4) AT LEAST three equally viable competitive builds that offer the user a good variety for army building.

5) All units (even if those that share the same basic role, such as anti-infantry or anti-tank) are equally useful. If there is at least one unit that no one takes in a competitive environment, then that is a wasted opportunity for both the gamer to use a different unit and GW for selling a different model.

6) The Codex is not overpowered compared to other Codices.

pombe wrote:2) Well organized sections that do not require the user to flip back and forth in order to find rules for one thing on two or more pages.
3) An INDEX would be fricking useful.

Especially true

typos: I don't expect them to disappear, since they are errors. And errors occured. and will continu to do so

1. Good fluff and background - give players enough fluff to create their own clan/chapter, etc.
2. As everyone else has said - easy to read army list/rules section (no flippng back and forth)
3. Flexible builds with each unit having a viable place in the army list
4. Conversion ideas/simple painting techniques/color ideas - for beginners
5. No typos
6. No conflicting data with BRB
7. Do some playtesting before codex is released and have rulings on some major rules questions: ie. for the ork codex, Shoota boy Nobs can have PKs, Tanks can ram? Painboys offer FNP to any IC joining unit? GW should be able to anticipate these questions after some playtesting.

What makes a good Codex?

The complete opposite of this.

BYE

So you want Codex: Orderly Land-loving Girl Scouts?

(What IS the opposite of a Marine?)

As someone who's Lust Wing vanished when the new 'Chaos' Codex come out, you know full well what I meant Janthkin.

Janthkin wrote:(What IS the opposite of a Marine?)

Originality.

BYE

This is mostly on topic... But what about a dang codex that doesn't start falling apart 2 days after I get it?

H.B.M.C. wrote:As someone who's Lust Wing vanished when the new 'Chaos' Codex come out, you know full well what I meant Janthkin.

BYE

Yes, but why allow my understanding to interfere with a perfectly good opportunity to troll?

Putting Chaos Space Marines and Daemons of Chaos in the same Codex would be kind of cool

I like as much customizability in my army lists as possible. Tyranids and IG are a good example of this. I like to feel like my army is my own, and no one else's, power builds be damned.

Flashman wrote:Putting Chaos Space Marines and Daemons of Chaos in the same Codex would be kind of cool

It would be, yes. Right now we've only got Chaos Daemons. I cannot for the life of me work out why GW decided to drop Chaos Marines as a playable race in 40K. Quite strange given that they still sell the models, yet sell no real Chaos Codex.

BYE

Hurr hurr.

ShumaGorath wrote:Hurr hurr.

Yes, that can make a good Codex. Just look at the new Marine Codex. Full of hurr hurr. Wonderful book.

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Hurr hurr.

Yes, that can make a good Codex. Just look at the new Marine Codex. Full of hurr hurr. Wonderful book.

BYE

Well, for one thing, I hate all of the "options" that some codexes have.

They just give me a headache; why can't they just limit it to one or two weapons. Thank god they got rid of that big chart where you have to buy stuff. Do you know how much math you had to do? It was like adding a bunch of numbers! I thought games were supposed to be fun.

Also, it's really annoying to have to choose between a bunch of different HQs. I wish they would just allow you one type, or at least make one type so good that it's easy to know which one you're going to take. It would be even cooler if they could like, make your enemy do things or something. Then you could pwn their guys without anything they could do about it!

I really like it when codexes have super-powerful choices that you can find by going on the internet. However, I think it's fair to put some really bad choices in the codex too, so that the codex will be balanced.

Also, it's totally unfair that GW thinks people should be able to play with those weird "fluffer" lists and still do as good as people who take a bunch of all of the best things. That wouldn't happen in a real war.

Plus, does anybody else get really annoyed when a codex doesn't have a bunch or army names, and they want you to come up with one yourself or something? It's way better when a codex has all sorts of cool armies listed in it with bad ass names like "Death Shadows," and "Kill-Mongers." Those names are sweet!

It will take six thousand bhuddist monks praying for six months to wash this thread out of my memory.

I'm going to have to start making calls.

Why would buddhist monks pray?
They don't worship god.
They worship "Muhammad"

That doesn't make any sense.

Orkeosaurus wrote:Why would buddhist monks pray?
They don't worship god.
They worship "Muhammad"

That doesn't make any sense.

OK.

This time I know I missed something. . .

While good for including more Fluff, I despise the current Marine Codex for the ridiculous amount of page-flipping needed during play. Is it too much to have all the rules in one place rather than - see this, see that?

kirsanth wrote:

Orkeosaurus wrote:Why would buddhist monks pray?
They don't worship god.
They worship "Muhammad"

That doesn't make any sense.

OK.

This time I know I missed something. . .

Not really. Just spouting my mouth.

I really hate it when the wargear section of a codex tells you to go find the entry for that unit.
Why even have a wargear section? Is it really so hard to copy-paste the frickin' entry?

Orkeosaurus wrote:I really hate it when the wargear section of a codex tells you to go find the entry for that unit. Why even have a wargear section? Is it really so hard to copy-paste the frickin' entry?

Aside from Special Characters being the new black, this is by far the worst part of all current Codices. Why have a Wargear section if the half the entries tell you to look elsewhere? Worse, and this is true for a unit like Sternguard, why have their special ammo types except one of them appear there. Why not all of them? The Eldar Codex also has a great one, where a generic item (Plasma Grenades) have their rules in the Swooping Hawk section (WTF?) rather than in a general wargear list.

I get that Jervis wanted a wargear list, with pictures, so that new players would be able to easily identify what a weapon is and all the rules would be collated in that one area. That's cool and it's a fine idea (until they changed horses mid-race and decided to give Marine weapons different rules to Dark Angel weapons without changing the name or aesthetics - good going JJ, I guess you're son isn't confused any more, so you can go back to doing whatever you feel like at the time!!), but then to have all these different entries telling you to go to other places in the book.

Sternguard require you to look at 3 or 4 pages for their full rules - their unit entry, their army list entry and then the wargear section which tells you to look at another unit's unit entry for the other bit of rules they use. Oh, and the army special rules section. So 4-5 different pages for a single damned unit. What is so hard about havig one unit with its rules, all its weapons and equipment in one section (using a Wargear section as an actual fing wargear section), and then an army list entry that summarises the unit entry plus gives points values.

What's so hard about having a single army list that gives everthing in one go? God knows we've been doing it for almost 10 years, why did they stop when Eldar came out? I still hold that 3rd Ed Marines, the BT Codex and the Tau Codex are the best designed Codices in years. Each unit entry was logically layed out, you got a cool little picture themed to the army - everything was right there. The wargear list was universal (rather than redundantly printing the same thing a dozen times over for every unit choice in the Codex), and the wargear section contained all the rules.

That's a good Codex, one that's easy to use.


Shummy - Your pic is a little red X, although when I looked at its URL I see that it is from the Encyclopedia Dramatica, so I'm assuming it's a 'face palm' or some other tired meme that you like to tout around because you think being a 'chaner is cool.

BYE

Being a Chaner is a horrible thing. Its the life destroyer.

M_Stress wrote:the point of this post is to make a constructive list of statement that illustrate the caracteristic of a good or bad codex, in the naive hope of influencing GW writer /online codex writer.

A good game.

Barring that, a good codex has character. 40k and Warmachine achieve character in
different ways.

Warmachine adds character through characterful units. Generic units have some kind of
crazy backstory or role in an army. The options in Warmachine that characterize an army
don't come from equipment selection but rather from your choice of HQ and the tactics
you plan to field using the various abilities of the units.

40k adds character through generic and faceless armies done up to your specifications. It
seems like this is changing in both FAntasy and 40k as I'm seeing many special characters
being taken in lists (Eldrad, Korhil, Teclis, Space Marines), however individual units and HQs
are ciphers for your own imagination to place something on.

I think a Codex should go like this:

Introduction
Fluff
Wargear and equipment fluff and details
Wargear and equipment List
Unit discriptions and fluff
Army list
Quick reference/summary
Index


I like how the current IG codex is put together, but 60% of the rules are redundant, or just plain suck.

My favorite codex is the first third edition guard codex. Everything layed out simply, great art, and very accessible.

Adding an index, more color, and 50 pages of fluff, would make it absolutely perfect.

Unfortunately the newer codexes are about as far from that as you can get, getting back to the 2nd edition sprawl.