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Sasori wrote:

nomotog wrote:Why do so many armies have to be neglected for so many years? There has got to be a way to pass out new units and models in between codex updates. Well there is kind of, Apoc added quite a few units for everyone. Maybe they could do more books like that.

Because a Marine dex has to be updated with every Xenos.

Not exactly what I was talking about. Sure it would be nice if they cut back on SM bla bla what ever, but it would still be quite awhile till your army got updated. I am thinking they could do something like expansion packs.

Maybe they release a book fulled with new units or wargear from all armies. (maybe following a them, like stealth units, or defense units.) It would help make sure no one is actually neglected because even if they don't get a codex, they will get a new unit. Many benefits to doing this. It helps old armies keep up with the power creep by giving them new units they can use in standard games. It also gives them testing grounds with new units they might want to introduce into the codex when it is updated.

Forge world seems to be almost like this, but they don't cover every army and most of there books only cover one or two armies not all of them.

Sasori wrote:Because a Marine dex has to be updated with every Xenos.

The problem with this complaint is that it assumes that, were Games Workshop to release more Tau (or whatever non-Imperial army is the present focus of contention), it would automatically follow that more people would play them, and the company's profits would remain unchanged. In fact, players enjoy playing (and thus buying) Space Marines, and unsurprisingly their release schedule represents that.

Edit: so I did. Sorry.

You need to be more careful when editing quotes. You took something that someone else said and put my name on it.

Tau would be so awesome if GW just said, "To hell with it," and took them in a new direction. Give Tau some infantry troops who use samurai swords or some Crisis battle suits with flags coming out the backs or some vehicles that don't look like fish for god's sake.

nomotog wrote:Why do so many armies have to be neglected for so many years? There has got to be a way to pass out new units and models in between codex updates. Well there is kind of, Apoc added quite a few units for everyone. Maybe they could do more books like that.

The designing and realizing process of a single model does take quite some time, and they can't focus on everything at the same time... Too keep things flowing, it's easier to focus on one thing at a time, even if that means having one army lack updates for 5 years.

CpatTom wrote:
The option to play with a Codex that came out in 2006? Yes, the Tau and the Eldar came out in the same year, so you could play a counts as army as the Eldar. The Black Templar have the option to play with a Codex that came out in 5th that look exactly like them, and like you said, share a large portion of the exact same units.

It could be a workable idea, and now I will have to look into it; however, that doesn't chhange the fact that the Templars shouldn't get an update before the Tau (and the Eldar, too)

I am answering your question with evidence contrary to your opinion, not whining. Please, for the sake of good discussion, recognize the difference.

Sorry, didn't mean to come across as targeting you personally, you do indeed back up your opinion in a good manner. The "stop whining" was supposed to target the general group that only complain about marines, but I messed up.

English Assassin wrote:

Sasori wrote:Because a Marine dex has to be updated with every Xenos.

The problem with this complaint is that it assumes that, were Games Workshop to release more Tau (or whatever non-Imperial army is the present focus of contention), it would automatically follow that more people would play them, and the company's profits would remain unchanged. In fact, players enjoy playing (and thus buying) Space Marines, and unsurprisingly their release schedule represents that.

Edit: so I did. Sorry.

It doesn't assume anything. When Dark Eldar got their new Codex, A LOT more people started playing them. It seems to be the same trend with the Necrons as well. So yes, when they release more updates for books, instead of letting them languish they get more players.

I don't think Tau are being neglected on purpose, but I believe they're going to slide alongside the Sisters and get a White Dwarf update. Once Black Templars get updated (because it seems to be that trend IoM>Xeno>IoM), the Eldar will probably be next to gear up for (if the rumors are true) the progression of 6th Edition's fluff. By that time everything will be gearing up for Chaos Legions and the Chaos Codex (or are they the same?) and then Dark Angels. Tau would probably be after Sisters in that regard.

But back to my original intent; Tau aren't being neglected on purpose. GW will probably focus on the Codex' that would be most affected by 6th Edition and Eldar seem the more logical choice over the barely registered Tau. They'll probably get a White Dwarf update before having a shiny new codex.

The Tau Codex needs a revamp for sure, but I'd be willing to wait if it's going to get the Dark Eldar/Necron treatment.

In the mean time I started a fully mechanized Blood Angels Army. I pretty much figure you may as well play a Marine / Xeno combo so as not to be codex creeped for years.

The point there's a lot of contempt is that you look at the available armies and you have:
Imperium of Man:
Black Templars / Blood Angels / Dark Angels / Grey Knights / Imperial Guard / Sisters of Battle / Space Marines / Space Wolves

Enemies of the Imperium:
Chaos Daemons / Chaos Space Marines / Dark Eldar / Necrons / Orks / Tyranids / Eldar / Tau Empire

That's 16 available Codexes, split evenly between IoM and EotM.

Of the 8 Imperial force, 6 are Space Marines, 1 is Sisters (which are basically fem marines.) Meaning fully one third of available armies are imperial space marines.

If you include SOB and CSM fully half of 40k is space marine books, while quite often EotI forces get left behind for a long, long time while they cycle through the imperial books.

If you even had a Space Marine codex, then an Expansion book for all the chapters it'd still tick over faster.

I mean I'm happy to wait, I'll work with what I have and I do it for giggles but I know exactly where peoples animosity comes from.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:The Tau Codex needs a revamp for sure, but I'd be willing to wait if it's going to get the Dark Eldar/Necron treatment.

You mean get a really nice codex that promotes play styles unique to the faction rather than a carbon copy Mech or MEQ list, and the allows multiple competitive builds? I.E. it'd be worth the wait? Or are you decrying those two codices you mentioned saying you'd rather wait than get one like that? I may have tipped my hand about how I feel about those codices in my first sentence there.

Ovion wrote:1 is Sisters (which are basically fem marines.)

*punch*

Otherwise, yes. I agree.

Sasori wrote:

English Assassin wrote:

Sasori wrote:Because a Marine dex has to be updated with every Xenos.

The problem with this complaint is that it assumes that, were Games Workshop to release more Tau (or whatever non-Imperial army is the present focus of contention), it would automatically follow that more people would play them, and the company's profits would remain unchanged. In fact, players enjoy playing (and thus buying) Space Marines, and unsurprisingly their release schedule represents that.

Edit: so I did. Sorry.

It doesn't assume anything. When Dark Eldar got their new Codex, A LOT more people started playing them. It seems to be the same trend with the Necrons as well. So yes, when they release more updates for books, instead of letting them languish they get more players.

Irrelevant. More sales =/= as many sales.

Durza wrote:
Because the Marines shouldn't have that many codices to start with. Some of the Ultramarine fluff in the Space Marine codex could have been cut out, leaving enough room for customisation options to use Blood Angels, Black Templars and Space Wolves, and without having two codices full of wolves and vampires.

And here we go again...

The differences between the armies of Chaos should be far larger than the differences between those of Marines following the codex astartes, but Chaos manages with one codex. (Of course, we're marines too... damn.)

Chaos Space Marines was supposed to be the first of two books. CSM focusing on 'Renegades'(hence why Red Corsairs featured so prominently, rather than the previous book which had Black Legion as the poster boys) with a follow-up book afterwards.
Why it never came to be, I don't know.

Seriously, would it really take more than a page of two to set down a few special rules and units for those three armies within the C:SM?

No and yes. The problem is that the two books(Black Templars and Dark Angels) which actually showed the most divergence no longer do. What made them special is now in the other books.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. They could easily cut it into four books which actually have substance and feature all of the Loyalist Legions and their 'Superduper Special Successor Chapters' and get rid of this pointless whining about how "YOU CAN JUST PUT ALL THE SPACE MARINES INTO ONE BOOK!".

Sure, you can do that. I can put all the Eldar into one book too, provided I cut the flavor and give them names like "Eldar Fighterguy", "Eldar Jetbikedude", "Scary Eldarconstruct", etc.

Just because you can do something does not mean you should. Games Workshop, thankfully, realizes that. The 'Five' Space Marine Codices(Space Marines, Black Templars, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Dark Angels) have come from being what amounted to a "supplement" to the main Codex: Space Marines (I don't have C: Armageddon where Black Templars were given their own list, so if someone does they can add the page count for that list) but here's how big they were previously:
Dark Angels and Blood Angels: 24 pages each.
Space Wolves: 32 pages.

Bear in mind: That includes very little of the current fluff and it included a hobby[read: collecting and painting] section in each book (7 pages for Dark Angels, 3 for Blood Angels, and 8 pages for Space Wolves).

Going from that to a full Codex? That's a Big Deal. If you rip the additional stuff out or just make it another case of "Refer to C: Space Marine" or "Use generic units with special rules" and think that's somehow acceptable because "Space Marine players don't deserve special armies"--I don't know what to tell you.

GW will release a wave of Tau articles when their new codex is released sometime in the next few months, all in order to market the new dex.

Of course GW has a noted IoM bias, and within this Imperial bias lies an even more striking Space Marine bias. I guess it makes sense given that SM's represent a majority of GW's sales, though I think it's circular logic as if they showed a bit more love to xenos or Chaos you'd see them get more popular.

Though of course for whatever reason, the SoB are not only excluded from their Imperial bias but also are the most neglected army in 40k. They don't even have plastic models yet or packs with more then 3, making them extremely difficult to accumulate. If GW got their act together with them you'd see them getting more popular I'm sure, especially among the rare female player.

Kanluwen wrote:Text

Thank you, this is exactly what I'm getting at; cutting the already existing Codices into the C:SM would either drop a lot of the flavour of the armies or make the C:SM a gigantic tome way too big for practical play.

Harriticus wrote:GW will release a wave of Tau articles when their new codex is released sometime in the next few months, all in order to market the new dex.

Of course GW has a noted IoM bias, and within this Imperial bias lies an even more striking Space Marine bias. I guess it makes sense given that SM's represent a majority of GW's sales, though I think it's circular logic as if they showed a bit more love to xenos or Chaos you'd see them get more popular.

Though of course for whatever reason, the SoB are not only excluded from their Imperial bias but also are the most neglected army in 40k. They don't even have plastic models yet or packs with more then 3, making them extremely difficult to accumulate. If GW got their act together with them you'd see them getting more popular I'm sure, especially among the rare female player.

You mean like the love they showed to Dark Eldar and Necrons at their release, which have been doing fairly well sales-wise?

The idea that it's "circular logic" isn't really substantiated. There's a perception of it--but the only real logic you can use is that whichever book is new gets attention from Games Workshop; and whatever book is new and/or "the most powerful" gets attention from the community at large.

There's always going to be an oldest codex. And lets face it, 5 years isn't the longest that anyone has waited. DE had a 12 year break for example. BA were waiting the same, not including the WD edition. GK and SOB had been waiting for 8 years.

So, neglected? I think not. It just takes time.

Castiel wrote:There's always going to be an oldest codex. And lets face it, 5 years isn't the longest that anyone has waited. DE had a 12 year break for example. BA were waiting the same, not including the WD edition. GK and SOB had been waiting for 8 years.

So, neglected? I think not. It just takes time.

To be fair:
I do consider "Codex: Tau Empire" like I did the old minidexes.

It really wasn't a full effort. Hardly anything noticeable changed between the two books, and something needs to be done about it.

I'm more than willing for my Dark Angels to wait their turn while Tau are given the Dark Eldar treatment.

But I do want my Dark Angels to actually be given something freakin' unique again. Mortis Dreadnoughts are a good start (for some reason, they weren't actually included in Codex: Dark Angels. Why? No idea), but I've got some more ideas if Games Workshop would listen.

Yeah, I'm not saying they don't need updated, just that I don't think they've been neglected. There were just others that were due for an update more.

Did Dark Eldar become more popular when the DE 'dex landed? Sure. Did the Necrons when their book came out? Sure.

Did they become popular enough to warrant Games Workshop devoting more time and resources to the development of xenos armies? Only GW can answer that, and it seems that they have, time and time again.

At the end of the day, if you have a problem with Games Workshop's "Space Marine" bias - it's actually a profit bias, by the way - then your problem isn't really with Games Workshop, it's with everybody who owns a Space Marine army.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Sorry, didn't mean to come across as targeting you personally, you do indeed back up your opinion in a good manner. The "stop whining" was supposed to target the general group that only complain about marines, but I messed up.

Then I misinterpreted your post, and thus, I am just as responsible for the breakdown in comm.

Lots of interesting theories on how to consolidate the SM into less releases. Those adherent to Ghillie Suit's organizational template, and those not was one of the better efforts to solve the Space Marine population control issue. That still comes with any number of issues that need to be considered as well, and I'm sure there is a thread dedicated to all that as well.

I really don't have a problem with the number of Marines, just, when asked if I want what I consider an update to a more unique faction in favor of one that has so many resemblances to so many others, then I am going to fall on the side of the unique faction. BT nd DA are my favorite SM chapters, some of those that have gotten updates instead, are not so much, but c'est la vie.

I think the BT will unfortunately get to wait for that MMO, because from the looks of it BT are going to be the SM faction running around online there. This is of course completely unsubstantiated, and might make to much sense.

nomotog wrote:They seem to ignore anyone who isn't a SM, but I don't think the tau have it the worst. They have a massive collection of forger world models and there own imperial armor book.

I also wonder, Do tau reall sell the least? They aren't the most popular, but they are hardly the least popular. People talk less about the eldar then they do about the tau.

You'd be surprised how muchbetter the eldar sell than the tau. In my FLGS, there is a spot for XV8s, a battleforce, and a sopt for FW. That's it. The rest needs to be ordered.

CpatTom wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Sorry, didn't mean to come across as targeting you personally, you do indeed back up your opinion in a good manner. The "stop whining" was supposed to target the general group that only complain about marines, but I messed up.

Then I misinterpreted your post, and thus, I am just as responsible for the breakdown in comm.

Lots of interesting theories on how to consolidate the SM into less releases. Those adherent to Ghillie Suit's organizational template, and those not was one of the better efforts to solve the Space Marine population control issue. That still comes with any number of issues that need to be considered as well, and I'm sure there is a thread dedicated to all that as well.

I really don't have a problem with the number of Marines, just, when asked if I want what I consider an update to a more unique faction in favor of one that has so many resemblances to so many others, then I am going to fall on the side of the unique faction. BT nd DA are my favorite SM chapters, some of those that have gotten updates instead, are not so much, but c'est la vie.

I think the BT will unfortunately get to wait for that MMO, because from the looks of it BT are going to be the SM faction running around online there. This is of course completely unsubstantiated, and might make to much sense.

That wouldn't be that "unfortunate" IMHO. I'd rather have a proper 6th ed 'dex than a "made for 6th but in 5th" one. As I said, our current 'dex works, it'd just be nice to get some new stuff. My main beef is with the general "Marines deserve to wait because!" attitude, which you do not display. Nice to have a civilized conversation on the Internet for once.

New armies are always going to sell well because tons of people are waiting for the update. I hate SM's in general but I love templars. I'm going to wait until the update. I used to collect tau forever ago and would love to start again but I would not do it just to get outdated models and have them replaced. I'll wait for the new codex. I've been waiting for necrons for a long time. Thats just how it goes. I dont get this whole bandwagoner thing.

im2randomghgh wrote:

nomotog wrote:They seem to ignore anyone who isn't a SM, but I don't think the tau have it the worst. They have a massive collection of forger world models and there own imperial armor book.

I also wonder, Do tau reall sell the least? They aren't the most popular, but they are hardly the least popular. People talk less about the eldar then they do about the tau.

You'd be surprised how muchbetter the eldar sell than the tau. In my FLGS, there is a spot for XV8s, a battleforce, and a sopt for FW. That's it. The rest needs to be ordered.

My flags has 2 Tau, 5 SM (different kinds I think), 1 IG, 1 demon. the model wall is Mostly IG Tau and SM. I don't even think they have any eldar.

That dose bring up a question. How do you gauge the popularity of different armies? I don't think GW releases detailed reports about model sales. How can we measure this?

Companies with several brands/lines of competitive product, keep precise sales figures pretty hush hush, since if such and such line is considered unpopular it can discourage further sales, since group mentality dictates alot of peoples sles views, i.e. no one wants to buy a loser product, so telling the general population such and such does not sell well, is like shooting that line in the foot.

Marketing is pretty arcane sometimes.

About the black templar thing: You guys did get the FAQ. That really helped bolster your army (as well as dark angels). If they would only give kroot a 6+ save in an FAQ

More patience, less crying.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PraetorDave wrote:About the black templar thing: You guys did get the FAQ. That really helped bolster your army (as well as dark angels). If they would only give kroot a 6+ save in an FAQ

How dare you mention DA in that regard. The FAQ didn't in any way, shape or form make up for the bland, boring lacklustre pile of gak that is the DA codex.

forruner_mercy wrote:GW cares a ton about the IoM.

Thats what I think.

I remember one of their employers saying: "I am serving my Emperor from day I joined this company."
plus, they have giant aquila on their main building. That should be enough for you to understand.