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Kanluwen wrote:

Harriticus wrote:
I suppose I find it annoying that Orks, Tau, and Eldar are in desperate need for an update while we get more Codex: Red Space Marines, Codex: Green Space Marines, and so on. If GW played with the Space Marines a bit differently I wouldn't be so sick of them and so desperate for any scrap of xenos or Chaos.

Tau have had two books in the time it took for the Dark Angels to get their own, all to themselves book and for it to be updated.
Same with the Blood Angels and Space Wolves and Black Templars.

They are all on their "first" books all to themselves.

Not true.

Dark Angels had: 3rd, 4th Editions

Blood Angels had: 2nd, 3rd, 5th Editions

Space Wolves had: 2nd, 3rd, 5th Editions

Source: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Codices_%28List%29#.T62_dsUiyG4

Really. only Black Templars fits this category (1 4th Edition Codex) which makes the point fairly moot. On top of that there's also the 5 Vanilla Marine books and 2 Grey Knight books.

Not that it'd be very legitimate anyway as all of these armies are more or less the same thing thematically, ascetically, and in terms of models available.

At the end of the day.... Space Marines get everything.

Harriticus wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Harriticus wrote:
I suppose I find it annoying that Orks, Tau, and Eldar are in desperate need for an update while we get more Codex: Red Space Marines, Codex: Green Space Marines, and so on. If GW played with the Space Marines a bit differently I wouldn't be so sick of them and so desperate for any scrap of xenos or Chaos.

Tau have had two books in the time it took for the Dark Angels to get their own, all to themselves book and for it to be updated.
Same with the Blood Angels and Space Wolves and Black Templars.

They are all on their "first" books all to themselves.

Not true.

Dark Angels had: 3rd, 4th Editions

Minidex.

4th edition was the first book all to themselves.

Blood Angels had: 2nd, 3rd, 5th Editions

"Angels of Death" was Dark/Blood Angels.
3rd was a Minidex.
4th had a Minidex in White Dwarf.
5th is the first full Codex devoted solely to the Chapter.

Space Wolves had: 2nd

As I mentioned, I had forgotten about that one and said that it is in fact a full Codex.

3rd, 5th Editions

3rd edition was, again, a minidex. This was no different than the Craftworld Eldar book or the Catachan book.

5th edition

Is the first full Codex since 2nd edition.

Source: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Codices_%28List%29#.T62_dsUiyG4

Really. only Black Templars fits this category (1 4th Edition Codex) which makes the point fairly moot. On top of that there's also the 5 Vanilla Marine books and 2 Grey Knight books.

Not that it'd be very legitimate anyway as all of these armies are more or less the same thing thematically, ascetically, and in terms of models available.

This is wrong on so many levels and we've gone over this time and time again. Suffice to say that there is a difference between the FOTM players and those who actually stick with one book.

Black Templars had a list before the 4th edition Codex, in Codex: Armageddon.

Who cares if its a minidex or not? Is it still a usable piece of writing that you can use with your army?

YES? Then it counts as something.

FW release new rules for a Tau Tetra.... 1 unit with 1 stat line and a few lines of rules and the entire Tau player base goes "YAY!" why? Because of that little tid bit is SOMETHING.

Milisim wrote:Who cares if its a minidex or not? Is it still a usable piece of writing that you can use with your army?

YES? Then it counts as something.

"Who cares if it's a minidex or not?"
I care, because when you claim it is a "full Codex of their own" you're presenting a false argument to back your point of Imperial bias.
Dark Angels and Blood Angels were 24 pages each.
Space Wolves was 32 or so pages.

Those "full Codices" required you to purchase, own, and utilize Codex: Space Marines for the majority of your list.

FW release new rules for a Tau Tetra.... 1 unit with 1 stat line and a few lines of rules and the entire Tau player base goes "YAY!" why? Because of that little tid bit is SOMETHING.

Er, what?

Why are there 6? SM codexes and only one for everyone else?
(DA, SM, BA, SW, BT... I'm not counting GK)

And minidex vs codex - Really? A minidex is your evidence that there's no bias? Okay.

As someone who was forced to play with said minidex.. (Deathwing player)

Ask Sisters of Battle players right now what it's like with a Mini-dex, the words usually uttered are. "It's better than being dropped." really is the only good sentiment there.

There used to be far more variety in 3rd/4th however, 5th seems to have dropped alot of writers as well as some of the fancier things.

I mean Craftworld Eldar, Harliquins, Additional ork tribe rules (Blood axe, Snakebite feral boyz, and someone else)

Chaos being a big book of everything.

Wait wait wait, Fetterkey.. So you are saying that there is absolutely no bias? It is OK to give SM 6x the attention it is given to Orks because there is already 6x more SM out there?
So something that most xenos players already consider as a unfair treatment (6x codex quantity) you consider to be a justification for different treatment? I call BS.

And FYI, any non-SM player would be thrilled and super hyped up if he could get official mini-dex, WD article or any source that gave him another set of rules for his army. BA, DA, SW minidex is infinity times better than absolutely nothing for Cadia, Ulthwe or Black Legion.
BT player can still use SM codex without any problem whatsoever. No non-SM player can come close to anything like this.

It's not that GW hates xenos, it however looooves it's SM and it's not even close to even treatment.

People saying "your Tau get more updates than my DA" are missing the point.

The point is that DA exists, along with SW, BA, and GK as separate entries from generic SM. There are no Ulthwe, Iyanden, Alaitoc codices.

Quark wrote:People saying "your Tau get more updates than my DA" are missing the point.

The point is that DA exists, along with SW, BA, and GK as separate entries from generic SM. There are no Ulthwe, Iyanden, Alaitoc codices.

This.

Quark wrote:People saying "your Tau get more updates than my DA" are missing the point.

The point is that DA exists, along with SW, BA, and GK as separate entries from generic SM. There are no Ulthwe, Iyanden, Alaitoc codices.

And you're missing the point of the statement "your Tau get more updates than my DA".

This entire thread is predicated upon the idea that "Games Workshop passes over Xenos armies to buff Imperial armies". That is not the case, clearly, if Dark Angels and Black Templars have not been updated yet.

And by the by, there was a minidex which had Ulthwe, Iyanden, and Alaitoc lists. It was the same size as the Dark Angels minidex available at the time.

Kanluwen wrote:

Quark wrote:People saying "your Tau get more updates than my DA" are missing the point.

The point is that DA exists, along with SW, BA, and GK as separate entries from generic SM. There are no Ulthwe, Iyanden, Alaitoc codices.

And you're missing the point of the statement "your Tau get more updates than my DA".

This entire thread is predicated upon the idea that "Games Workshop passes over Xenos armies to buff Imperial armies". That is not the case, clearly, if Dark Angels and Black Templars have not been updated yet.

And by the by, there was a minidex which had Ulthwe, Iyanden, and Alaitoc lists. It was the same size as the Dark Angels minidex available at the time.

And yet the DA became a real codex...

rigeld2 wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Quark wrote:People saying "your Tau get more updates than my DA" are missing the point.

The point is that DA exists, along with SW, BA, and GK as separate entries from generic SM. There are no Ulthwe, Iyanden, Alaitoc codices.

And you're missing the point of the statement "your Tau get more updates than my DA".

This entire thread is predicated upon the idea that "Games Workshop passes over Xenos armies to buff Imperial armies". That is not the case, clearly, if Dark Angels and Black Templars have not been updated yet.

And by the by, there was a minidex which had Ulthwe, Iyanden, and Alaitoc lists. It was the same size as the Dark Angels minidex available at the time.

And yet the DA became a real codex...

After the Tau had been introduced.

It's also worth noting that the majority of units which were introduced in C: Craftworld Eldar are actually in the current book. The only one missing off the top of my head is The Court of the Young King.

Kanluwen wrote:And you're missing the point of the statement "your Tau get more updates than my DA".

This entire thread is predicated upon the idea that "Games Workshop passes over Xenos armies to buff Imperial armies". That is not the case, clearly, if Dark Angels and Black Templars have not been updated yet.

And by the by, there was a minidex which had Ulthwe, Iyanden, and Alaitoc lists. It was the same size as the Dark Angels minidex available at the time.

Yes, this may be one of OP points. I fully agree that this far fetched theory is dumb but it is also pretty rare to show up and gets shot down even by other xeno players.
However it's not the only issue that OP mentioned. OP gives the impression that there is no difference in treatment between xenos and an SMs (IoM).
A quote:

First off, this is wrong-- the update schedule tends to go Marines/not Marines/Marines/not Marines (as we can see with the 5th edition releases: Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Space Wolves, Tyranids, Blood Angels, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, Necrons), so non-Marine armies get half the attention. This seems reasonable, given that the split between Marine and non-Marine armies is about fifty-fifty.

This basically states that it's OK for SM to have more attention BECAUSE they had more attention in the past. Xenos players state that this attention in the past is in itself is bad. Now instead of balancing, for example by giving some additional rules to xenos and sacking some SM rules it's the opposite.
SM minidex evolves into full codex (DA). Xenos minidex is sacked (Eldar). Some xenos never even had a minidex to talk about. Sisters are much more unique than BT or DA but they get lousy two-parter in White Dwarf while those two will get their codex eventually. Even faster than the worst codex now - Tau. But everything is apparently OK because SM already got more so they are allowed to be getting more.

TL;DR: Secret "I hate xenos" GW departament - false. Xenos treatment = SM treatment - false.

This thread is full of hilariously bad arguments. GW give more attention to the imperium than any other faction. The only reason that there can even be an argument to the contrary is through the dishonest and sophistic categorisation of all the other non chaos factions as "Xenos" as if they were some monolith entity.

I would love it if GW could take a leaf out of PP's book and have a more unified release schedule, however, I realise that will never happen.

Also, I love the justification that SM sell better. Every time GW has done a Xenos release properly, it has sold extremely well for them. It's there in the financial reports. SM are easier and more reliable, and lower risk. This does not mean they are better for the playerbase.

But whatever. The arguments in this thread are so lacking in logic that I really doubt I'll get much satisfaction from the answers.

Maybe it's because SM take less effort to release?

Da Boss wrote:This thread is full of hilariously bad arguments. GW give more attention to the imperium than any other faction. The only reason that there can even be an argument to the contrary is through the dishonest and sophistic categorisation of all the other non chaos factions as "Xenos" as if they were some monolith entity.

And yet you categorize all the Imperial factions as "Imperium" as if they were some monolithic entity.

Da Boss wrote:Also, I love the justification that SM sell better. Every time GW has done a Xenos release properly, it has sold extremely well for them. It's there in the financial reports. SM are easier and more reliable, and lower risk. This does not mean they are better for the playerbase.

Certainly not-- but because, as you point out, they are easier and more reliable, they allow GW to fill the release schedule while saving resources and effort that can be put into developing larger-scale Xenos releases.

What would happen if they gave some other codex the SM treatment? Like rather then releasing purple SM they went and released purple tau or purple orks.

nomotog wrote:What would happen if they gave some other codex the SM treatment? Like rather then releasing purple SM they went and released purple tau or purple orks.

There would be more armies in the game, I suppose? This has been done before with Codex: Craftworld Eldar, the White Dwarf Kroot Mercenaries,list, etc. Some rumors indicate that GW is currently in the process of doing this with Chaos-- there used to be only one Codex for Chaos forces as a whole, but now there is Codex: Chaos Space Marines and Codex: Chaos Dæmons. Many say that a Codex: Chaos Legions is upcoming that will constitute a third Chaos book, though some say it will replace the existing Codex: Chaos Space Marines.

there used to be only one Codex for Chaos forces as a whole, but now there is Codex: Chaos Space Marines and Codex: Chaos Dæmons.

Which ironically enough, is hated by near everyone. Word bearers froth at the mouth if you discuss this in range.

The way i see it, Blood angels, space wolves, dark angels and black templars could do fine with just a mini-dex supplement. They just aren't different enough to warrant a whole new codex. GW added a whole lot of different units in order to justify giving them a whole new codex. Really, a mini-dex can introduce the differences of those codexes just fine.

BA-
2 new special characters
assault marines as troops
army-wide furious charge
fast vehicles
priests that grant fnp bubbles

Didn't need to add blood talons, furioso dreads, storm ravens, those terminators with rage, different devestators or baal preds.

With space wolves, just add characters, acute senses and counter attack, and one new unit. Done.

Templars? characters, perferred enemy, better termies, and one new unit.

And so on. If you really got down to it, they are barely different from some of the better-represented SM chapters. I could write up a white scars codex that made bikes troops, added assaulty bikes, terminators on bikes, made my vehicles fast, and added a special landspeeder and a better rhino, as well as giving everyone fleet or something. Boom! New codex!

Same with Salamanders. Give vehicles more armor, give more master-crafted stuff across the 'dex, add a sort of "Forge Gaurd" assault terminator, some super iron clad, and add cool drop pods with melta weapons that could re-deploy. Again, boom, new codex. I literally made both of those up on the spot.

But the main point is that they don't NEED a new codex. You could do the exact same thing with, say, the ork evil sunz klan. I'll do it right now.

Bikes are troops, and make them fearless. Add in a really shooty buggy that has a small troop capacity for transporting nobz. Make nob bikers a bunch meaner, and add some super-powered ultra fast trukk. Give the boyz a better waaagh! If they just got out of a transport. Add fast battlewagons. Throw in a fighta bomba, some more special characters, and a new HQ choice called "Speed kings." Boom, new codex.

But, i could have easily made a speed freaks army without such rules. One HQ makes it easy, and it's quite doable without that, even. Just like most marine codexes. You wanna play Black templars? Pimp out your terminators, and add in some vangaurd marines and call 'um sword bretheren. Blood angels? Take lots of preds and assault marines, and paint them red. Space wolves? This one is more a modeling thing... Pimp out your HQ's, add some pimped scouts and call your terminators wolf gaurd. Then paint them light blue and add lots of greenstuff pelts and beards.

The tools are right there. These marine dexes just aren't unique enough, imho, to warrent a whole codex.

I don't think they should take away their codecs. That would just be mean. (They should just work on making them more and more different)

nomotog wrote:I don't think they should take away their codecs. That would just be mean. (They should just work on making them more and more different)

Isn't that however counter-intuitive or more accurately: bad design?
When two armies are very, very similar, are the same race, have the same equipment in fluff, very similar warfare style and you make them into two separate entities you end up with two outcomes:
- You make two similar armies. Why is there a need for this? Isn't it better to spend time for something unique? Why clog release schedule, work -power and -time for army that can be accurately and fluffy used with already existing book? If fluffy army can be deployed by using one of 2-3 books it's really, REALLY something wrong with game design.
- You make the second one much different to the original. Now this is just changing something to justify the new book. This is not bad in itself, because more variety is always good. However, if there are many concepts and armies that are already much different and unique why introduce something new? If already existing armies are obsolete why waste work -power - time on something that doesn't exist? If you think about it this is also not good for newly introduced army. If release between already existing armies is more than 5 years do you think new army is going to be updated sooner? Updates already take forever, something new increases this time and from the start is condemned to similar fate. Spending time to make two almost same things different also "steals" ideas from existing different concepts.

@Fetterkey

Are you seriously saying that you never noticed the two headed Imperial Eagle in Warhammer 40.000 logo?



This should answer your question on GW most favorite faction.

And like it was debated many time: GW is simply making that witch is most popular and sells the best ( aka Space Marines ). Most people love crusading knight in space and to please them GW is making much material for them while simply lowering the production for other factions. They don't hate their creations ( except Squats, but that was also explained ), and you can bet that if Eldar were more popular then Adeptus Astartes they would have several codex's while the Marines would have only one, probably not even this edition to.

nomotog wrote:Maybe it's because SM take less effort to release?

GW produces minis and publishes rules to field them.
The easiest to do are the Marines, because PA and TDA is standardized and compatible. Look at the sprues. Lots of identical bitz , just different markings on them.
So basically they focus on the product they can make without taking up more manpower. SM provide a base model to work from.
The new double purpose kits of the necrons also show a course set on a small basis of kits instead of a wide range of metal/finecast models. And GW didn't give up on DE or Crons. It may take a while until the ranges are completed. Others have the "most is plastic kits" treatment already and I for one welcome it and expect them to move the rest towards this.
Just accept they don't write rules and sculpt minis, as the design team stated again and again minis are sculpted and rules are written to field these and the rules are altered if they don't fit the model. A codex is a theme, with models and rules to use them IMO.


No, GW does not hate xenos. But they focus on the main actor of their series, the IoM.
I'd suggest the BRB and the pages spent on the human species in the 40th millenium is a hint on who is the main actor, if GW wanted an open universe where humans are just one faction of equally represented factions, the book would have as much background as the humans now have of each of them.

Quark wrote:People saying "your Tau get more updates than my DA" are missing the point.

The point is that DA exists, along with SW, BA, and GK as separate entries from generic SM. There are no Ulthwe, Iyanden, Alaitoc codices.

Or Tallarn, Valhallan, Catachan, etc etc................

@1hadhq - Sure, I know that the SM bias is sales driven. Doesn't mean I have to like it. I still maintain that if any other race got the same amount of hype that SM do, that they would match SM sales.

don_mondo wrote:

Quark wrote:People saying "your Tau get more updates than my DA" are missing the point.

The point is that DA exists, along with SW, BA, and GK as separate entries from generic SM. There are no Ulthwe, Iyanden, Alaitoc codices.

Or Tallarn, Valhallan, Catachan, etc etc................

Used to be, but you can blame Cruddance for it, as the way the old IG used to represent things, rather like 4th edition Space Marines, was the Tactics thing (Can't remember name) allowed them to have different selections of tactics to represent factions.

Sure not an entire codex, but hey, it worked.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

don_mondo wrote:

Quark wrote:People saying "your Tau get more updates than my DA" are missing the point.

The point is that DA exists, along with SW, BA, and GK as separate entries from generic SM. There are no Ulthwe, Iyanden, Alaitoc codices.

Or Tallarn, Valhallan, Catachan, etc etc................

Used to be, but you can blame Cruddance for it, as the way the old IG used to represent things, rather like 4th edition Space Marines, was the Tactics thing (Can't remember name) allowed them to have different selections of tactics to represent factions.

Sure not an entire codex, but hey, it worked.

'Doctrines.'

Sort of half represented by the Veteran Squad upgrades, but not really to the same extent. I miss my old drop guard.

don_mondo wrote:I still maintain that if any other race got the same amount of hype that SM do, that they would match SM sales.

I wouldn't bet on "any".
There is a certain preferance of humans. Some people like me would refuse to buy models of more than half of the possible armies for various reasons. SoIGmay have the chance to rise , but space orks, space elfs , space demons , space bugs, or small groups like SoB?
Maybe space robots/undead and space cows could equal the sales of SM if you combine theirs.

Shiny knights in space, or cool badass soldiers kicking alien butts, are themes that attract customers and are common and you don't need to transport them with your own publications as much as orkz, elfs , bugs ,demons , etc would. Necrons could ride on the terminator wave
( but they moved on to undead in space.. ) and Tau could use the 'suit' / sci-fi from asia wave to ride on.
The ones I can't see a great chance to grow sales that much, are either based in fantasy and thus less known or typical opponents and thus stuck in the Adversary role.

I admit my view is a regional and not a worldwide one, as I never ventured beyond Europe and somewhere else those races have the potential to be the big seller. Locally the spotlight is in GW-stores on 40% WHFB, 20% LoTR and 40% 40k if the placement in stores means something.....

The SQUATS have had their Codex/Army List type of a thing! (2nd Edition) Which is an Imperial one!