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Incidentally, they already merged Deathwatch into the main marine 'dex in the form of Sternguard Vets.

H.B.M.C. wrote:So just include the archetypes. Duh. That way, if you want to play Salamanders, you just play Salamanders - give up Chapter Tactics and replace it with the stuff Salamanders currently get. Easy. Done. You can have your army led by a Chaplain or Librarian or basic Captain now rather than always bringing H'stan to every skirmish.

This is a little out there, but they could give you a choice of Chapter Tactics, and you just pick one before the battle. Maybe even assign them point values like the Black Templar Vows.

Chapter Tactics:
One IC HQ choice must purchase one of the following Chapter Tactics for the points indicated. All units noted as having Chapter Tactics get the appropriate benefits:
Fall Back! +50 points. Units may choose to fail any morale check.
Stand Firm! +50 points. Units are Stubborn (see USR).
Flames of Cleansing! +60 points. Units with Chapter Tactics have all melta and flamer weapons count as twin-linked. Units without Chapter Tactics do not benefit from this.
Swift as the Wind! +60 points. Units gain Fleet (see USR).
Night Fighters! +30 points. Units gain Acute Senses (see USR).

Although, I think part of the point is to make the Special Characters more limiting. If you want to play 'Salamanders', you have to fill an HQ slot with Vulkan, and he comes with a set of wargear. You can't take a Librarian and a Captain, you can take Vulkan and a Librarian or a Captain. Nothing says you can't play Salamanders without Vulkan, but it doesn't make sense that his troops lose the ability to Fall Back, and yet he somehow checks all the army's weapons before battle and makes sure they're working extra good. And without Vulkan, why are they now Green Marines and not Salamanders?

Overall, I think it works ok to have things keyed to the Special Character. It's not perfect, but it works.

dietrich wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:So just include the archetypes. Duh. That way, if you want to play Salamanders, you just play Salamanders - give up Chapter Tactics and replace it with the stuff Salamanders currently get. Easy. Done. You can have your army led by a Chaplain or Librarian or basic Captain now rather than always bringing H'stan to every skirmish.

This is a little out there, but they could give you a choice of Chapter Tactics, and you just pick one before the battle. Maybe even assign them point values like the Black Templar Vows.

Chapter Tactics:
One IC HQ choice must purchase one of the following Chapter Tactics for the points indicated. All units noted as having Chapter Tactics get the appropriate benefits:
Fall Back! +50 points. Units may choose to fail any morale check.
Stand Firm! +50 points. Units are Stubborn (see USR).
Flames of Cleansing! +60 points. Units with Chapter Tactics have all melta and flamer weapons count as twin-linked. Units without Chapter Tactics do not benefit from this.
Swift as the Wind! +60 points. Units gain Fleet (see USR).
Night Fighters! +30 points. Units gain Acute Senses (see USR).

The problem is, they tried that, and it was abused 8 ways to sunday. Points costs wont change that, and vows are still tied to one model. Not that the current system is any better mind

ChrisAsmadi wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Runepriests, Wolf Priests, Wolf Guard, Wolf Scouts, Grey Hunters, Blood Claws (and their various forms) and Long Fangs are unique. Some of them bare similarities, like Long Fangs to Dev Squads, but they are different. The only things they share are vehicles, and Wolf Lords are basically just Captains.

There are more similarities between Templars and Codex Marines than there are Space Wolves.

Took a look at a friend's space wolf dex...

*Rune Priests are not unique, they're just renamed Librarians.
*Wolf Priests would be covered by a stronger Apothecary HQ choice, same as Corbulo/Sanguinary Priests would be.
*Wolf Guard are just renamed Vet Sergents/Command Squads.
*Grey Hunters are just footslogging Assault squads, who would be covered by merging BAs in anyway.
*Long Fangs are just Devs with a special rule.

However, I will give you Wolf Scouts and Blood Claws as true uniques, and Leman Russ Exterminators as unique in space marine terms (eg, this is the only space marine dex they're in, even if they're shared with Guard).

Incidentally...

Dark Angel Uniques:
*Samael

Blood Angel Uniques:
*Corbulo
*Death Company
*Baal Preds
*Arguably Death Company/Furioso Dreads, but I don't think they count because now the base dex can have two 2 DCCW dreads anyway, so it's not unique.

1. Grey Hunters are NOT assault squads. They fight with bolters and True Grit
2. Wolf Priests are chaplains with some apothecary mixed in, therefore unique

Also, their basic rules for HQ choices are unique and different from any other army.

Mad Rabbit wrote:Grey Hunters are NOT assault squads. They fight with bolters and True Grit
2. Wolf Priests are chaplains with some apothecary mixed in, therefore unique

Also, their basic rules for HQ choices are unique and different from any other army.

QFT.

If Dark Angels can get a Codex because they have an All terminator Armour 1st Company, Space Wolves are More than Deserving.
And all this crying about Marines having more than one codex is pointless anyway, GW will ALWAYS have separate Codex's for the Big Marine Chapters so no point in whining about it.

I'm just hoping the new Marine codeces have more then 6 pages this time. The old DA codex was pathedic.

I've never quite understood the anti-marine push from some of the fans, you'd think with the well known fact of how many marine armies there are, folks would want as much variety as possible in them so playing against them isn't boring.

That said I would have no problem with a big codex for Marines, if it were designed around making them a highly customizable force, but as noted GW track record on customization is poor.

Jack

H.B.M.C., yeah,i agree with you. The last Marine Trait system sucked. The Gaurd Doctrines were not as bad, but they still needed some work on them. I don't think that they ever should have made the selection of units a penalty, because like you said there are many units which people never use, and many of the restricted troops fall in to that catagory. But i really liked the Iron Disipline, Independant Comissars, Wargear doctrines, Hardened fighters, Close Order Combat Drill,... Things like that. and yeah, like suggested above, one doctrine should go by itself, It should have the advantages and disadvantages in it. for example a unit could gain 1 strength and become fearless, and with that would go a points increase, and maybe have like a -1 balistic skill. Idk, that wasn't exactly the best example, because if you want a unit to become better in CC, then they won't be doing much shooting anyways. But you get what i'm saying? Or, in like the marine case, they could make penaltys that actually penalized, I mean like seriously, 1/2 of them made no difference what so ever, and the other 1/2 were often so weak that you really didn't care.

But anyways, you can make a doctrine system that works well, and adds a lot of flavor and personality to the army. But the last two did not work at all because of the lack of any penalty to the player, while including a bunch of goodies

ok, i was going to talk about somthing else, but i completely forgot what that was so i guess i'll just leave off here

see you guys tomarrow

I agree with the first reply to this topic.
they would charge you a fortune for it though all the seperate codex's seem a bit like of a waste of time and effort
- ABH

The old Chaos 'dex system seems fine enough to me. Special rules can be purchased by squads (with certain limits)

Or, if you don't like that, you could take other rules as wargear for your HQ.

Example: I want a vanilla chaplain. I want to play white scars. So I buy a special rule for him that says "bikes are a troops choice: x points" If I want him to be more like Khan, I buy him a rule that says "Dedicated transports may outflank: x points"
Say I want Imperial Fists? I buy the Stubborn special rule for my army

Give a certain number of maximum rules and let the player pick and choose.

Mad Rabbit wrote:The old Chaos 'dex system seems fine enough to me. Special rules can be purchased by squads (with certain limits)

Or, if you don't like that, you could take other rules as wargear for your HQ.

Example: I want a vanilla chaplain. I want to play white scars. So I buy a special rule for him that says "bikes are a troops choice: x points" If I want him to be more like Khan, I buy him a rule that says "Dedicated transports may outflank: x points"
Say I want Imperial Fists? I buy the Stubborn special rule for my army

Give a certain number of maximum rules and let the player pick and choose.

To pick and choose freely leads to wierd combos and abuse.

For one "big book of marines", you'll need to care to get 9 different legions equally represented or someone will cry bloody murder about loosing his army.

Possible way to go:

1) one section of "standard units" available to all builds.
2) one section of "special units", available set is bound to the chosen legion.
3) one section of characters, either bound to a legion or available as " counts as" template.
4) one wargear section.
5) a huge fluff section, equally showing off every legion.
6) basic paint schemes for 9+X chapters.
7) a simple chart to explain the boundaries between "special unit/character" and "legion set"
8) most important: precise rules.

So only a few hundred pages...

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Discuss.

Yes. +1000.

Mad Rabbit wrote:Say I want Imperial Fists? I buy the Stubborn special rule for my army

Give a certain number of maximum rules and let the player pick and choose.

They already did that, and it did not work. Adding arbitrary Points values wont change that. Not to mention very few people will like the idea of buying something with no tangible results.

Gwar! wrote:
yeah... there is a reason why Codex's are all separate. 1) Cost. 2) It's because I don't want to be forced to buy rules for Blood Angels or Ultramarines if I only want to Play Space Wolves (Terrible example I know but its being fixed).

Rules cost a small amount of time to make and a small amount of paper (a few color pages?). Cost has little to do with it. If they wanted to, they could have little tickets in the boxes where when you get 5 "Space Wolf" tickets (found in Space Wolf models) you get the codex for free. Just a random idea.

Let me cut & paste my ideas on this issue from another forum...

I may earn some ire with this opinion but...

I think that the 'Vanilla Marines' book should be the standard Marine Codex. Period.

To add divergent chapters with significant alterations to weapon, force or trait selections they should publish either a 'Divergent Chapters' codex itself (a big book, probably worthy of being hardbound) OR a small 'Chapter X Addenum' (ala Blood Angels official codex) for each of the divergent chapters. These should be published in time with the release of 'Codex Space Marines'. And that is that.

All of the divergent chapters of yore are worthy of their own play rules and variations but they should still be recognized as VARIATIONS of an already existant codex and use the base rules already written within.

Let them spend an entire 'codex-writing cycle' on the 'Divergent Chapters' big-book or the multitude of 'pamphlet-style' codicies for each chapter. Let them make a beautiful, lush, art-filled tome of Space Marine love...
But GET IT DONE ALREADY & MOVE ON!

Space Marines are the bread & butter of 40k. I don't play them but I certainly acknowledge their importance & the need for their variety represented already in fluff. We need to see that on the tabletop as well, just don't languish over which chapter gets a book and where it should fall in the cycle and so on thus shuffling other, stand-alone races out of the cycle for getting a book THIS EDITION.

But really, I think devoting a single book to all the divergent chapters is really a nice way to handle it. Selling each section of that book individually so that a player could only get what they want would also rock! (IMHO)

My suggestion is to have a 'Vanilla Marines' Codex AND a 'Divergent Chapters' Codex (two separate books) where the divergent chapters each have their own distinct section in the second tome. Each section could also be sold out as a stand-alone supplement to the 'Vanilla Marines' Codex so that if a player wanted to save money they could buy just the chapter variants they wanted.

Now in this 'Divergent Chapters' Codex you could basically make any changes necessary to have a chapter stand out from the vanilla Ultramarines chapter. Detailing the units, wargear & force org. choices as much or as little as necessary to distinguish the chapter itself from the rest. Perhaps the 'Blood Angels' or 'Dark Angels' sections would be relatively thin with a few characters & tweaks to the force org. chart, weapons selections & a painting guide. On the other hand you may have a large section describing the 'Space Wolves' & 'Black Templars' due to the level of their divergency... but it could still all be done in one book.

After all, the base rules book for the game itself weighs in at 304 pages, only 99 of which (including the index and quick reference pages) are dedicated to the actual RULES of PLAY. It seems reasonable to me that a book of similar size, quality & cost would be an excellent offering for the 'Divergent Chapters' Codex and provide plenty of room for all the necessary changes and representations, no matter how 'divergent' a particular chapter may be.

In fact I think it would be very cool to have the BRB, Codex: Space Marines & Codex: Divergent Chapters so well produced & represented. It's arguably MORE respectful to do it this way than to just leave folks hanging for years on end because of scheduling other projects. If they tackle the base rules, base marines codex & divergent marines codex all together & with primary focus & resources on getting them pushed out as the spearhead of any new edition... well that would just be much more sensible to me.

I say that because it could be argued that some permutation of all the different variations in the base & special rules are addressed in the various Space Marines chapters. CC heavy lists, Ranged specialists, Armor, Skimmers, Transports, hard & soft infantry, special characters, weapons with specific effects, stealth, psykers... pretty close to every special condition in 40k, aside from Monstrous Creatures, have a representation in the various Marines chapters. So put out these books, complete and first... then you really have a major sampling of the rules in living example & the bread & butter of the game (Marines players) are handled right out of the gate.

Sure it's too late (probably) for this in 5th edition... but it doesn't appear to be the end of the game line & there's always hope GW will change its ways and learn from the past complaints of players.

And there you have it.

Rockit wrote:Let me cut & paste my ideas on this issue from another forum...

My suggestion is to have a 'Vanilla Marines' Codex AND a 'Divergent Chapters' Codex (two separate books) where the divergent chapters each have their own distinct section in the second tome. Each section could also be sold out as a stand-alone supplement to the 'Vanilla Marines' Codex so that if a player wanted to save money they could buy just the chapter variants they wanted.

Isn't that basically what we have today? You buy only those Divergent Chapter Codiex sections that you want, as they come out?

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Rockit wrote:Let me cut & paste my ideas on this issue from another forum...

My suggestion is to have a 'Vanilla Marines' Codex AND a 'Divergent Chapters' Codex (two separate books) where the divergent chapters each have their own distinct section in the second tome. Each section could also be sold out as a stand-alone supplement to the 'Vanilla Marines' Codex so that if a player wanted to save money they could buy just the chapter variants they wanted.

Isn't that basically what we have today? You buy only those Divergent Chapter Codiex sections that you want, as they come out?

It is, but apparently "Stand Alone Supplement" is meant to make sense (which it doesn't). The Space Wolf Codex and the other 3rd edition Codex's are what Supplements are. Newsflash: They Tried it, didn't work.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Rockit wrote:Let me cut & paste my ideas on this issue from another forum...

My suggestion is to have a 'Vanilla Marines' Codex AND a 'Divergent Chapters' Codex (two separate books) where the divergent chapters each have their own distinct section in the second tome. Each section could also be sold out as a stand-alone supplement to the 'Vanilla Marines' Codex so that if a player wanted to save money they could buy just the chapter variants they wanted.

Isn't that basically what we have today? You buy only those Divergent Chapter Codiex sections that you want, as they come out?

Hahah, well sort of... the key there is the part where you put 'as they come out'... the rest of my post talks about the 'when' part!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gwar! wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Rockit wrote:Let me cut & paste my ideas on this issue from another forum...

My suggestion is to have a 'Vanilla Marines' Codex AND a 'Divergent Chapters' Codex (two separate books) where the divergent chapters each have their own distinct section in the second tome. Each section could also be sold out as a stand-alone supplement to the 'Vanilla Marines' Codex so that if a player wanted to save money they could buy just the chapter variants they wanted.

Isn't that basically what we have today? You buy only those Divergent Chapter Codiex sections that you want, as they come out?

It is, but apparently "Stand Alone Supplement" is meant to make sense (which it doesn't). The Space Wolf Codex and the other 3rd edition Codex's are what Supplements are. Newsflash: They Tried it, didn't work.

If you read 'stand alone suppliment' literally, of course that doesn't make sense. If you take it in context it certainly does. The portion of the supplimental codex (Divergent Chapters) which describes each detailed chapter can be separated from the Codex: Divergent Chapters and thus 'stand alone' (from all the other divergent chapters sections) as a suppliment to the Codex: Space Marines.

Also I'd argue that not having any codex updates for a chapter suposedly worthy of its own codex accross multiple changes to the core rules really doesn't work either. This would be much better in that each chapter would be playable and adapted to the CURRENT rule set.

Well I started this so I may as well chime in.

A lot of the 'unique' units are very, very minor variants of normal units and have some shaky special rules to differentiate them.

In fact it's these special rules the result in some of the unbalanced or unusable units in the game. Look at the early versions of the BTs for a good example.

Blood Claws and BT sword bretherern are just tac sqauds with a pistol CC. They could become a normal unit with chapter specific banners or wargear to bring back some of their old special rules. A banner that allows counter assault or one that give 'fall forward' would eliminate the need for a separate unit.

Long Fangs are unique? Really? They're not just devs who can split fire?

Baal preditors are BS only for now, but LR Crusaders were originally for Templars and honor Guard were originally UM only.

Obviously a Big Book O'Marines means an end of a lot of picky special rules but is that a great loss to the game?

When I look at everything the IG lost between 3rd edition and now it's at least as many army lists and special units as Marines would lose. but no one complains since honestly a lot of what went away was stuff no one used.

In the old Index Astres books GW could give a whole chapter special rules in like, a paragraph. Throw in some unique characters or wargear and most chapters can be covered in a page or two.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:In the old Index Astres books GW could give a whole chapter special rules in like, a paragraph. Throw in some unique characters or wargear and most chapters can be covered in a page or two.

The same can be said about Nids, or Eldar. Hell I am sure Chaos Marines or Tau or any other army can be done in 5 pages:
1 HQ unit with Options
1 Elite Unit with Options, 1 Elite vehicle With options
1 Troop Unit with Options, 1 transport vehicle With Options
1 Fast Attack Unit with Options, 1 Fast Attack vehcile with Options to Modify it into any Vehicle
1 Heavy Support Unit With Options, 1 Heavy Support vehicle with Options to Modify it into any vehcile you want.

Codex's are much more than just 5 Pages of rules. They are the Fluff, the pictures etc etc and all that other stuff. THAT is why Varient marine Chapters get codex's. Not for the the Rules, but for the fluff. The Rules are an Added bonus.

Gwar! wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:In the old Index Astres books GW could give a whole chapter special rules in like, a paragraph. Throw in some unique characters or wargear and most chapters can be covered in a page or two.

The same can be said about Nids, or Eldar. Hell I am sure Chaos Marines or Tau or any other army can be done in 5 pages:

The sub lists can, and they're one of the things I miss about 3rd edition. Sure most of the lists sucked but the creativity of those old WD and CJ lists added a lot to the game.

Codex's are much more than just 5 Pages of rules. They are the Fluff, the pictures etc etc and all that other stuff. THAT is why Varient marine Chapters get codex's. Not for the the Rules, but for the fluff. The Rules are an Added bonus.

I think the rules and units take up a lot more. We've already seen that GW is not that good at cutting and pasting from one book to another, point values or stats change from time to time. So why not put all the rules in one central place and leave the art and fluff for art and fluff books?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:In the old Index Astres books GW could give a whole chapter special rules in like, a paragraph. Throw in some unique characters or wargear and most chapters can be covered in a page or two.

The same can be said about Nids, or Eldar. Hell I am sure Chaos Marines or Tau or any other army can be done in 5 pages:

The sub lists can, and they're one of the things I miss about 3rd edition. Sure most of the lists sucked but the creativity of those old WD and CJ lists added a lot to the game.

Correction: ALL OF THE LISTS SUCKED. ESPECIALLY the Blood Angels one. I say Good Riddance to the hell hole that was 3rd and never look back.

I think the rules and units take up a lot more. We've already seen that GW is not that good at cutting and pasting from one book to another, point values or stats change from time to time. So why not put all the rules in one central place and leave the art and fluff for art and fluff books?

As I said, GW WILL charge you £50+ for that book, something No-one is willing to pay, especially if I don't want to use 90% of the book. If I just want to Play Space Wolves, why must I buy the Rules for Dark Angels, Black templars, Blood Angels and all the other Marines? You don't see someone who wants to play Tau having to buy the Necron, Tyranid and Eldar codex's to play them do you? Tell me, why are you so adamant about having all the marines in one book? Why can't we have all the Xenos in 1 book? How would you like it if you were forced to spend £50+ on a book you will only use 10% of?

Not to detract, but I'm pretty sure it has more with being able to sell multiple Dex's than anything else.

It could easily be said that ALL armies should just be in the main rulebook, or have an "Armies" rulebook supplement that contained everything.

But with the way GW markets their product, bringing about these waves of rule set releases coupled with some accompanying models seems to be their moneymaker.

Thing should be alot of ways, like GW should do solid playtesting before releasing rules and promptly Errata any oversights. However that doesn't make money, selling separate codexs for each marine flavor does though.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

If GW just stepped up on the FAQs and Errata, then it would be golden.