Splitting Up A Codex: How Would You Do It?

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**LeperMessiah**

incarna wrote:In my mind the library of 40k codexes should consist of the following:

Codex Space Marines
Codex Imperial Guard
Codex Eldar
Codex Dark Eldar
Codex Tyranids
Codex Tau
Codex Necrons
Codex Orks
Codex Chaos Space Marines
Codex Daemons
Codex Lost and the Damned
Codex Inquisition (Including Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, and Deathwatch)

Each codex should be built upon a core set of rules per faction but ALSO include a set of criteria and rules that allows players to not only build faction specific forces (such as Blood Angels, Craftworld Bel’Tan, World Eaters or even Farsight Sept Tau or Bad moon Orks) but criteria and rules for allying certain codexes with one another (Space marines with Imperial Guard, Chaos Space Marines with daemons, etc.)

This, in my mind, is the ideal way to avoid inconstancies across like-codexes; Stormshields behaving one way on one codex and another way in another codex for example. I think most players won’t mind paying a little more for a thicker, more comprehensive book, than waiting twenty years hoping for a codex update. At a reasonable rate of 2 codexes per year, GW could update all codexes every 6 years

This is closer to what I would prefer to see. 12 or so codices, 3-4 per year, perhaps a new rules set every 4-3 years as they complete just to refresh the game. I am not particularly down with the concept of "allies;" that can be special campaign or event rules where you partner with someone else. Muddies the waters in terms of codex balance too much when GW already struggles mightily with it.

Each codex could have several different force lists for running specialty marine chapters, craftworlds, ork clans, etc. with restrictions and adjustments for each.

The fluff side of the codices could be expanded in separate books, with the army list codices focusing on describing the rules, gear, and troops for a given army.

**Thor665**

Morgrim wrote:I liked how they did the kabal/cult variations in the DE codex. "Ok, do the standard and you can take anything you want. Change this, and these units all swap around, you can take more of this, but none of that." Expand that mechanism and it could work well for other codexes with niche variants.

This is probably closest to how I feel. I'd like to see less dexes with more ability to have variations within the army (like my aforementioned Dark Angels gripe - really that entire dex is just so you can have the all Termie or all Fast Attack SM army when you get right down to it. Those types of variations ought to be simple enough to work into a core SM Codex.) Other then murdering the concept of Lootas I think the Ork Codex did a pretty good job of this with some of the base HQs (not special characters - please take note Codex SM) allowing the army to change up its FOS slots in fairly dramatic and fluffy ways.

**Emperors Faithful**

@Manchu: Honestly, point 4) was my only serious point.

BTW, I collect Sisters of Battle and I find that they are very effective with Guard allies as a meatshield.

**Daba**

I would think that separating Sisters from the Inq. would be quite a sound idea.

They were their own codex in 2nd edition.

One thing that I was disappointed with was they were 'inferior' to Space Marines. This is probably due to the impression I got from Rogue Trader, where Sister Sin seemed bigger and more potent than the Space Marine she was firing on. Also, their role that included seeking out problems even within Space Marines suggested they would be more elite.

As they stand currently though, they should probably be their own special force (and Sister Sin should become a special character).

**Morgrim**

In that case, I'm fairly sure she also needs a name change, though, considering her army...