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English Assassin wrote:
Indeed. Dark Angels could have been amalgamated into the regular codex, but, given present rumour, that seems unlikely. In that light, Black Templars would be even less-likely candidates.

This could still be the case, with Dark Angels replacing the Ultramarines as the Codex Poster Boys.

Well in fairness, they are/were the 1st Legion. The true Angels of Death.

EDIT Such a good quote I RETCONN'D this in.

Omegus wrote:True enough. Shame their Primarch is such a shmuck.

QFT (A bit of René Barjavel and the grandfather paradox right there)

True enough. Shame their Primarch is such a shmuck.

Farseer Mael Dannan wrote:I would say that this would be bad and would not happen. They are not a Codex Astartes Chapter, why would they get lumped into the MOST diligent followers of Codex Astartes. The pure and simple fact that they have a fan base that wants to play BT and not SM makes me feel like they would not for money purposes as well.

What distinguishes them? Few enough things that they could fit one a page or two at most. Mix tacs/scouts in squads, add Emperor's Champion, and some vows. Done. One will notice the Iron Hands aren't exactly codex either, yet they use the basic SM codex too, despite being much more divergent than either BA's or DA's (which have both been described as codex adherent or close to it in their fluff).

Most people play BT for their visual and fluff, at least in my experience, not really for their rules. That does not require its own book.

I doubt that any codices will be rolled back into the main SM codex, because now, if you have (say) a Black Templars army but want to play Salamanders, most tournaments wouldn't let you; you'd need to buy a whole new army (nice £ for GW). If they're all just "Space Marines", tweaked slightly by virtue of special characters, suddenly no-one needs more than one MEQ army.

I play for their rules. Vanilla doesnt interest me. I want to run face first into war like an idiot with Black Tide. I also like the look on ppls faces "Uh wtf who plays BT anymore, um what are your rules?!?" Space Knights, thats what we do.

d3m01iti0n wrote:I play for their rules. Vanilla doesnt interest me.

The rules for BT's could be fit into the basic SM book in 1-2 pages fairly easily, in which case, what would the difference be? You mix tacs and scouts in squads, you've got Vows, and the Emperor's Champion. What else is really crucial to the BT's identity? Keep in mind much of this is also exactly the sort of thing that gets reinvented every edition (e.g. SM traits vs Chapter Tactics, CSM Legion rules vs Icons, IG Doctrines being mostly turned into general unit options, etc)

Ian Sturrock wrote:I doubt that any codices will be rolled back into the main SM codex, because now, if you have (say) a Black Templars army but want to play Salamanders, most tournaments wouldn't let you; you'd need to buy a whole new army (nice £ for GW). If they're all just "Space Marines", tweaked slightly by virtue of special characters, suddenly no-one needs more than one MEQ army.

Have you seen tournaments lately? 2011's Adepticon's turnout saw Space Wolves as the largest turnout, with 90% of them being "counts as" armies. This is already rather rampant.

J99Pwrangler wrote:

Only silver lining I see is that they Abhor the Witch, Destroy the Witch will add some more psychic defense since the vow and Deny the Witch are separate things. The chances of you denying the enemy power that way is 4/9 if I did my math correctly, which is almost as good as having a Mastery 2 Psyker use his hood. Only the EC doesn't need to be within 6".

So is this Vow pretty decent overall then? It sounds like phychic abilities will be more of a main focus for some armies in 6th, so I was thinking abou taking this over AAC.

Thoughts?

I'd say it's the best one (that does not mean awesome btw...) for those NOT rushing their men forward into the enemy lines. If you wanna go horde choppy SM, AAC is still pretty good.

For those that commit heresy ( )and play shooty BT, it'd provide a good defense against the new powers that are bound to be rampant.

And if you want to be a real dick, bring a SW ally with a Rune Priest for awesome psy defense. And if they target one of your units, you get the rune staff's 4+, the 5+ from Abhor the Witch, and a 6" from Deny the Witch.

IIRC Templars still have an ironclad rule against allying with any force including psykers.

Watch them get thrown in WD. Spread them through three issues, and you inflate your sales figures on a nigh worthless magazine, and make the same amount of scratch as if you printed a new codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
6 months later, print a codex, or make it available for download.

AngryMarine wrote:Watch them get thrown in WD. Spread them through three issues, and you inflate your sales figures on a nigh worthless magazine, and make the same amount of scratch as if you printed a new codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
6 months later, print a codex, or make it available for download.

I'll actually be surprised if they DON'T do this to at least one codec in 6th.

I fully expect both DA and BT to be rolled into the SM codex. Why?

Because Space Marines are their poster children. It simply makes more sense to put out all of the Space Marine stuff at once, rather than drag it out. If you release everything at once, people will buy more at once.

Though that makes sense, so GW probably won't do that.

I think it will happen to DA and BT. They don't even have their own sub section on GW's website. You click Sm, then they are in there. It won't happen to SW or BA. They are too different from regular marines.

Do Black Templars get their rage bonus if they use counter-attack? Just curious, as I haven't seen it addressed yet.

I'd thought about that.

I would think so,.

I can see useing it on terminators from now on instead of furious charge since you no longer get the int bonus. Make a mixed squad with a chaplain and you have a still decently killy unit.

Do litanies of hate work with counter charge?

Lobukia wrote:

AngryMarine wrote:Watch them get thrown in WD. Spread them through three issues, and you inflate your sales figures on a nigh worthless magazine, and make the same amount of scratch as if you printed a new codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
6 months later, print a codex, or make it available for download.

I'll actually be surprised if they DON'T do this to at least one codec in 6th.

Maybe as a White Dwarf 'Dex in 6th ed and rolled back into the SM's 7th ed?

The real question is,"Can GW get their marketing house in order to where they could spin such a roll back as a Deal?", and thus not alienate a portion of their customer base.

Many Players will complain that they don't want to pay for X # extra pages, but if GW had any marketing ability they could spin it as a 2 for 1 deal on the Codex.

Great White wrote:I think it will happen to DA and BT. They don't even have their own sub section on GW's website. You click Sm, then they are in there. It won't happen to SW or BA. They are too different from regular marines.

This is, of course, utter nonsense. Background-wise, BA are not at all different from codex chapters, and them putting super engines on their vehicles and having a separate squad of berserkers is no more deviant from the codex than the Dark Angels' weird organization. SW I can see, since they've always been described as a non-codex, although the biggest deviation that's readily apparent is that their stuff is simply Space Marines +1.

Captain Avatar wrote:

Lobukia wrote:

AngryMarine wrote:Watch them get thrown in WD. Spread them through three issues, and you inflate your sales figures on a nigh worthless magazine, and make the same amount of scratch as if you printed a new codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
6 months later, print a codex, or make it available for download.

I'll actually be surprised if they DON'T do this to at least one codec in 6th.

Maybe as a White Dwarf 'Dex in 6th ed and rolled back into the SM's 7th ed?

The real question is,"Can GW get their marketing house in order to where they could spin such a roll back as a Deal?", and thus not alienate a portion of their customer base.

Many Players will complain that they don't want to pay for X # extra pages, but if GW had any marketing ability they could spin it as a 2 for 1 deal on the Codex.

"By being rolled up into the vanilla codex, you are guaranteed to be updated every edition!"

"You aren't paying 50% more for the vanilla SM codex, you are getting the SM, DA and BT codexes bundled together for half-off!"

One thing you have to understand about having a Black Templar Codex is.... GW will make another 30+ USD off of all Templar players. Its just marketing on there end. How many Templar players bought the SM codex as well? Space Marines are the most popular army out there, so why not make BA, Space Wolves, Black Templars, DA, and yes, then they could even make more! People will buy them. It would make sense to have them all in one big book, but Chaos doesnt. Gaurd doest either. Further down the road in 6th ed maybe we would see some change, but i think GW is seperating them just to make an extra buck.

Lynata: yes, thats where I saw the Templars only had the 3 crusades.... well a crusade is a "unknowen" amout of marines, so we may have had a lot of guys there. Who knows...

Nevelon wrote:

"You aren't paying 50% more for the vanilla SM codex, you are getting the SM, DA and BT codexes bundled together for half-off!"

Out of all the kingdom of nerd-dom, only Space Marine players would find a way to be upset, or create a case for being upset, about getting a compilation book containing the rules for multiple forces they could use with the same collection of miniatures in a single book. This has never ceased to amaze me.

We're you all so honked off when GW decided to double their codex size from 3rd to 4th edition including more units, fluff, and pictures? Likewise again at the tail end of 4th when the switch to the 5E style books began and they did it again?

If you're worried about cost, well, you're playing the wrong game. The cost of codex books has increased 65% across the board, 106% in the case of the basic SM book, in the last 5 years. Even if that pace gets cut in half, in a few years they'll all be $50 anyway, might as well get your money's worth.

Besides, even if you did pay more, it's a one-time investment per edition, you're saying you wouldn't pay an extra $20 to have all the rules for all the SM books? Do people not buy codex books other than their own at all for reference/reading?

Great White wrote:I think it will happen to DA and BT. They don't even have their own sub section on GW's website. You click Sm, then they are in there. It won't happen to SW or BA. They are too different from regular marines.

If you remember back to early 5E, both SW's and BA's were still stuck under the basic SM section as well. BA's aren't all that different', 80% of their book is identical to C:SM and most of the rest is just weapon/equipment swaps. SW's aren't so different either that you couldn't fit them onto a couple of pages of rules as a modification to a basic SM list either.

Out of all the kingdom of nerd-dom, only Space Marine players would find a way to be upset, or create a case for being upset, about getting a compilation book containing the rules for multiple forces they could use with the same collection of miniatures in a single book. This has never ceased to amaze me.

Because it'd be less a compilation, and more a "Here you go, a nice SC to placate the fact we squatted your army and all but one of your Special Characters!"

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Out of all the kingdom of nerd-dom, only Space Marine players would find a way to be upset, or create a case for being upset, about getting a compilation book containing the rules for multiple forces they could use with the same collection of miniatures in a single book. This has never ceased to amaze me.

Because it'd be less a compilation, and more a "Here you go, a nice SC to placate the fact we squatted your army and all but one of your Special Characters!"

That rather all depends on who is writing it and what the prevailing design philosophy is. A combined SM book in the spirit of the CSM 3.5 book would be awesome. As would another CSM book in that same spirit

The whole thing about SC's to differentiate armies has only been there really for one SM codex, which basically threw them in because they squat'd the various old 3E special campaign rules for a couple special chapters that took a couple of paragraphs.

Assuming that's what would happen for BT's/BA's/SW's/etc if they were combined is rather silly. The chapters that got that treatment hadn't really had anything of their own before aside from a couple special rules and that's pretty much what they got in return.

Vaktathi wrote:Out of all the kingdom of nerd-dom, only Space Marine players would find a way to be upset, or create a case for being upset, about getting a compilation book containing the rules for multiple forces they could use with the same collection of miniatures in a single book. This has never ceased to amaze me.

We're you all so honked off when GW decided to double their codex size from 3rd to 4th edition including more units, fluff, and pictures? Likewise again at the tail end of 4th when the switch to the 5E style books began and they did it again?

Actually I was pretty honked off that they doubled the size of Codex: Ultramarines at the expense of everyone else. Traits were cool, and the book was good; but page after page of an obvious attempt to make smurfs the only Codex army. the 5E code rectified that at the cost of the traits system...all in not a fair trade it needed non smurf ICs and Traits.

Do people not buy codex books other than their own at all for reference/reading?

I certainly do and the rising cost of codexes turned me off of it. Now I just go on scribd for armies I don't play instead of buying the actual codex.

Great White wrote:I think it will happen to DA and BT. They don't even have their own sub section on GW's website. You click Sm, then they are in there. It won't happen to SW or BA. They are too different from regular marines.

If you remember back to early 5E, both SW's and BA's were still stuck under the basic SM section as well. BA's aren't all that different', 80% of their book is identical to C:SM and most of the rest is just weapon/equipment swaps. SW's aren't so different either that you couldn't fit them onto a couple of pages of rules as a modification to a basic SM list either.

Codex: Space Marines has always been Codex: Ultramarines... trace back its lineage to 2nd Edition and the first codex books. Angels of Death (DA & BA), Space Wolves, and... Ultramarines. The name change to the more generic Codex: Space Marines was a marketing choice to make it easy for new players to know which book was the "basic" Space Marines army book. However, it's always been Codex: Ultramarines. The painting guides teach you how to paint Ultramarines (the 4th Ed which you loved for its Traits, the article was actually titled "Painting Ultramarines"). The majority of the Special Characters have been Ultramarines. The background section has always talked about Guilliman and the Codex Astartes.

It always cracks me up that the Space Wolves, Blood Angels, etc getting their own codex books is fine, but the Ultramarines getting their own somehow unfairly steals the limelight from other Chapters, haha.

AustonT wrote:Actually I was pretty honked off that they doubled the size of Codex: Ultramarines at the expense of everyone else. Traits were cool, and the book was good; but page after page of an obvious attempt to make smurfs the only Codex army. the 5E code rectified that at the cost of the traits system...all in not a fair trade it needed non smurf ICs and Traits.

The fluff was indeed awful, but in terms of actual army list, it's difficult to see where any other chapters lost out in terms of game mechanics, especially given the complete lack of restriction on SC's.

I certainly do and the rising cost of codexes turned me off of it. Now I just go on scribd for armies I don't play instead of buying the actual codex.

Right, wouldn't it be nice to just pay the extra $20 or whatever and get it all in one book than paying $33-41.25 (likely more in the near future) for each additional SM book? If the price is going to go up anyway, might as well get more content out of it.

I was a fan of the supplemental codexes for that very reason. DA and BA deserve their own fluff and flavor but not at the expense of the C:SM. I LIKED the parts of my BA codex that just said "See Codex:Space Marines" because it made sense.

The problem is that really all their flavor came from FoC swaps and a few characters, which really could be built into one book. I totally get where you are coming from here, but the way GW does their releases, if half the book says "see another book" then it really shouldn't have it's own book, especially if other, far more varied armies, can fit within one book. If the entirety of humanities vast armies from every culture in the Imperium, everything from feral world savages to high tech mechanized elite troops and airborne regiments can be encapsulated within Codex: Imperial Guard, surely relatively codex-adherent chapters don't need their own book to be properly portrayed on the gaming table.


Personally, I wouldn't be opposed to such stuff if it came from Forgeworld, it'd leave GW's main studio and marketing more time for major core race releases, it'd make FW much more legitimate in the eyes of many gamers and we'd likely see it finally accepted at major events, and we'd get more specialized content in general while giving GW more time to actually make it to each faction within the span of a single edition. Besides, I think FW would manage it a lot better

They deserve their own special books and models if nothing else by the continuation of tradition.

Hrm, dunno if that's really a good enough reason, especially considering that each release takes marketing pipeline time, meaning 3-6 months where no other book can be released (otherwise they crowd and cannibalize each other the way GW has chosen to do their releases) stretching out how long it takes GW to get through all the books, and currently they can't even manage that within the space of a single edition.

These are well established 2E armies. BT not so much. People tend to forget that BT and the Emprah's Champion where in C:SM and that they were a codex army first.

That they do.

The expansion in WD and C:Armageddon made them more fun and different but at heart they remain a minorly divergent codex army who ding ding ding, have 90% of the same units as C:SM especially now that the crusader is a vanilla vehicle.

Yup.

I wouldn't mind a return to supplemental codexes or a compilation codex if it did justice to the armies within. I think Space Pups will always get a stand alone codex because in a way they really are different from other SMs the base models aren't but they really need a return to using a Leman Russ variant ( I mean FFS it has their name on it) and an option to play Wulfen (non 13th Co) among other things but the Wolves constitute a significant divergence that should be celebrated.

Eh, most of it is really just special rule swaps with certain units swapping WS4/BS4 to 3 in exchange for an extra charge attack. Yeah it was kinda interesting for them to have Russ tanks given that it's named for their Primarch but it's not a Space Marine tank, it's a Guard tank that cramped even for Guardsmen much less 8ft tall supermen in power armor, it was in there for one edition and was and never really fit as part of the army, had it not been for the name (which was originally from RT, before Leman Russ was a Primarch) would never have been conceived as being a good/necessary addition to the army. The Wulfen are a different matter but were really just a 3rd ed niche list that (IIRC) has no roots in anything 2E, while 13th Co really aren't something that would be part of a normal SW playable army anyway

We all know that no codex will ever be rolled back, but it's cute we think it will.

also true

All they need is an update and some more special characters/vehicles and theyre good to go.

Any word officially on a 6th Edition Space Marine Codex or will it be an FAQ / Errata for 5th Edition for the next 12 months? I desperate to see the Iron Hands get some love.

mwnciboo wrote:Any word officially on a 6th Edition Space Marine Codex or will it be an FAQ / Errata for 5th Edition for the next 12 months? I desperate to see the Iron Hands get some love.

You won't get any official word about a new codex until it posts on the GW site or in the White Dwarf. If that had happened, there would be a 300 page thread about it in the News and Rumors section overnight, amiright?

No word yet, mwn.

XV8 Crisis Suit wrote:

Reivax26 wrote:I wouldn't be shocked if they do get rolled back into the SM codex to be honest.

If the next SM dex has a page for each main Chapter of Marines that has a detailed description of how their force organization chart changes and rules that apply to certain chapters then I am all for them being absorbed back into the dex. I think that White Scars, Raven Guard, Iron Hands, Imperial Fists, Crimson Fists, Templars, Ultramarines and Dark Angels should all be in one book with pages for each one describing combat doctrines for each and how the chart changes for each one.

My 2 cents

Black Templars are too different from normal Marines IMO.
Emperors Champion, vows, the Neophytes/Initiates system.

How would you be able to keep those unique if they're rolled into Codex: Smurfs?

Something akin to the old IG doctrine system (heard marines had something similar in 3rd edition or something). So perhaps you would be given an option to select a chapter (like UM, BT, IF, RG) and get access to units and special rules that other chapters can't or pick out specific traits giving you bonuses. Eg. a trait could be called 'Assault Specialists' and give the bonus of taking vanguard marines as a elites and troops, or a trait called "Guerrilla Warfare" that lets them take special veteran scouts (WS and BS 4, and probably some special rule or the ability to replace their snipers with stalker bolters like Telion has).

Not exactly likely since it is pretty complicated sounding, but with the changes that 6th edition has brought on regarding rules (hull points, CCW AP, command and psychic powers, challenges) it wouldn't be too extreme to think that they might do something like that.

I am known as something of a Anti-Black Templar person.

But even I know this is effing ridiculous none of these books are getting rolled into anything its just a silly idea.