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Before the any SW Codex there was Chapter Approved:If you can get a copy its well worth a look - espeically as its contains full army lists for many and varied forces - including a complete Rogue Trader force. In this we have a Space Wolf force - the only Wofiness is the code names of the squads.

Expanding the information in Campaign books is something that GW have done right I feel - especially seperating rules and fluff into seperate books - something that AOS would have beefitted from IMO.

tneva82 wrote:
You just proposed cutting down number of books AND models GW sells a lot...Ain't going to fly. Forget it.

Obviously GW is going to continue to milk the cash cow with zero-effort "codices" no matter how much it hurts the game, but my proposal is still the correct thing to do even if GW refuses to do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 IllumiNini wrote:
Also, in my experience, it's generally believed that Black Templars got boned by how they got treated when they got merged into the vanilla codex. If the others got treated the same way Black Templars did, that would be pretty bad.

Yes, it's believed by some Black Templars fanboys who are outraged that they don't get to be special snowflakes anymore. They're wrong. The only thing "unique" about the codex they lost was that it was so old that it still had some relics from an earlier era of marine rules (two missiles per 5-man terminator squad, etc) that would have been removed anyway in the next update. There was no reason at all for them to continue to have a separate codex.

I think the idea of limiting to the role of allies can be done without over-condensing them into oblivion.

There's really no over-condensing, other than stapling all the individual books together to make one larger book. For example, the inquisition "codex" is a page of rules at most, with only two units. Knights are a single page of rules with one unit. Nothing of value would be lost by consolidating all of those rules into a single book.

I agree with your reasoning - they suck in tabletop and in fluff, and that needs to be fixed on a massive level. But they shouldn't be removed because at their core, they're a decent idea and can be fixed if GW could ever be bothered making any fixes let alone the right fixes.

The problem is that Tyranids aren't a decent idea. Fluff-wise they're the least interesting faction and by a huge margin. Rules-wise they're just orks with different models, and the only meaningful difference comes from the fact that MCs/FMCs are better than vehicles in 7th. Salvaging anything remotely resembling an interesting faction from the current mess would involve a complete redesign of both the fluff and rules, and at that point why bother?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
It hurts nobody to have multiple codices for a single faction, especially if it is one where different elements of the faction play significantly different to one another.

And here's where you're wrong. It hurts the players because it means you have to spend a lot more money to get all the scattered rules for your faction. It hurts game design because it contributes to the bloated mess of rules 40k has. It hurts balance because it encourages power creep to show off how awesome the new "codex" is and why you should buy it even though you already have other rules from the same faction. It hurts model design because it encourages stupid looking special snowflake models (the wolf sled, etc) that exist to justify having a whole new codex instead of filling a necessary fluff role.

My idea:
Codex Imperium
Codex Chaos
Codex Eldar
Codex Orks
Codex Tau
Codex Necrons
Codex Tyranids

 Peregrine wrote:
Yes, it's believed by some Black Templars fanboys who are outraged that they don't get to be special snowflakes anymore. They're wrong. The only thing "unique" about the codex they lost was that it was so old that it still had some relics from an earlier era of marine rules (two missiles per 5-man terminator squad, etc) that would have been removed anyway in the next update. There was no reason at all for them to continue to have a separate codex.

Not completely factual. DA had fewer differences when 6th Edition launched, not counting Unique Characters. There were many differences which I argued then and I could argue now. Almost every unit had subtle differences from the 4th Edition Marines, while only a couple Dark Angel units had any real differences. And while many of those differences would probably have changed a little with 6th Edition's Challenge System

Rather besides the point, really, all said and done. I can still incorporate almost all the Angel stuff in Codex Marines just using how the Templars are treated.

Wolves, though... Wolves would be a challenge without removing too much of their character.

I guess 24 counts as "teenager" because I think old gramps logan and his christmas sleigh is badass. Archaic hover vehicles have been a thing in 40k for a while, and I dont see how its sillier than the melodramatic vampires we call Blood Angels. Or the Clown actor elves. Or anything ork. Heck even dreadnoughts are impractical.

Back on topic I think they need more stand alone books. We have KDK so make three for the other gods. Or more of the ork clans. Or Genestealer cults. Diversity is good, man.

 Don Savik wrote:
I guess 24 counts as "teenager" because I think old gramps logan and his christmas sleigh is badass. Archaic hover vehicles have been a thing in 40k for a while, and I dont see how its sillier than the melodramatic vampires we call Blood Angels. Or the Clown actor elves. Or anything ork. Heck even dreadnoughts are impractical.

Back on topic I think they need more stand alone books. We have KDK so make three for the other gods. Or more of the ork clans. Or Genestealer cults. Diversity is good, man.

It's kind of hard to make Daemonkin for other Chaos Gods though. It only works well for Khorne.

 Don Savik wrote:
I guess 24 counts as "teenager" because I think old gramps logan and his christmas sleigh is badass. Archaic hover vehicles have been a thing in 40k for a while, and I dont see how its sillier than the melodramatic vampires we call Blood Angels. Or the Clown actor elves. Or anything ork. Heck even dreadnoughts are impractical.

Back on topic I think they need more stand alone books. We have KDK so make three for the other gods. Or more of the ork clans. Or Genestealer cults. Diversity is good, man.

At thirty I'm agreeing with you, mind you,I had a blast painting mine in red, green and gold. Nothing turns a match into a game faster than pulling 'Santa Claws' out of his box and putting him on from reserves. I even raided my Chrissie decorations to put antlers on each of the wolves.

pm713 wrote:
It's kind of hard to make Daemonkin for other Chaos Gods though. It only works well for Khorne.

Aside from Thousand Sons being the Cult Marines for Tzeentch, how so? Keep in mind, new models are not outside the realm of possibility.

sure while we're at it let's merge dark eldar and eldar, we can drop a handful of units no one cares about.

ohh and let's merge chaos marines and chaos deamons.

ohh I know we can merge Tau and Orks and call it "codex Xenos"

BrianDavion wrote:
sure while we're at it let's merge dark eldar and eldar, we can drop a handful of units no one cares about.

ohh and let's merge chaos marines and chaos deamons.

ohh I know we can merge Tau and Orks and call it "codex Xenos"

Yeah, because that's totally the same as "let's merge all the codices that are some variant of 'space marines with slightly different chapter rules' into a single space marine book".

I mean dark angels and blood angels aren't extremely different from the standard book, they just have a lot of unique models and units.

What I don't understand is stuff like:

"just remove the nephilim flier, landspeeder vengeance, death company, etc etc"

Why would anyone ever be for completely discontinuing models? I don't understand this logic of "well it wasn't in 5th edition so it shouldn't be in the lore". But we're ok with other factions getting new stuff? Here's a solution: you don't like a model? just don't buy it! Its so easy you literally do nothing!

 Peregrine wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
sure while we're at it let's merge dark eldar and eldar, we can drop a handful of units no one cares about.

ohh and let's merge chaos marines and chaos deamons.

ohh I know we can merge Tau and Orks and call it "codex Xenos"

Yeah, because that's totally the same as "let's merge all the codices that are some variant of 'space marines with slightly different chapter rules' into a single space marine book".

maybe on the other hand, blood angels dark angels etc have a decent number of unique units, merging them would be a bit of a screw job. I mean in an ideal world we'd not see all the seperate marine 'dexes no, instead what we'd see is seperate army lists.

 Don Savik wrote:
Why would anyone ever be for completely discontinuing models?

Because they're ugly and stupid models that never should have existed. I'll give you the death company models, but they're also just normal assault marines (or vanguard vets) with different decorations and don't require special rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
maybe on the other hand, blood angels dark angels etc have a decent number of unique units, merging them would be a bit of a screw job. I mean in an ideal world we'd not see all the seperate marine 'dexes no, instead what we'd see is seperate army lists.

They shouldn't have those unique units because the unique units only exist to justify giving them a separate codex. All of the models that have any real legitimacy fluff-wise can be represented just fine by the rules in C:SM. They don't need special snowflake rules in their own codex.

 Don Savik wrote:
I mean dark angels and blood angels aren't extremely different from the standard book, they just have a lot of unique models and units.

What I don't understand is stuff like:

"just remove the nephilim flier, landspeeder vengeance, death company, etc etc"

Why would anyone ever be for completely discontinuing models? I don't understand this logic of "well it wasn't in 5th edition so it shouldn't be in the lore". But we're ok with other factions getting new stuff? Here's a solution: you don't like a model? just don't buy it! Its so easy you literally do nothing!

Nobody takes the Dark Angel fliers or the Vengeance, nor do people take most of the Blood Angel special units (Sanguine Guard are just one of the most garbage units created in the game).

Edit: Never mind

There are some DA and BA units that probably could be kept.

DC Dreadnought
Death Company
Sanguinary Guard (added as an Honour Guard with jump packs option)

Ravenwing and Deathwing as formations
Black Knights
The various Land Speeder types

Aside from that, I fail to see why BA are the only SM Chapter to have a Librarian in a Dreadnought, or a Predator with an Assault Cannon/Heavy Flamer. Their Sanguinary Priests can fit in as Apothecaries.

Why are DA the only Chapter to have Terminators as a Command Squad? Interrogator-Chaplain are basically just normal Chaplains.

There - now they all get access to the same Space Marine baseline, and the more Vanilla ones get a bit of stuff, or the BA/DA lose access to some stuff to prevent them being SM+1.

DC Dread always seems completely counter to the original fluff of the DC. They want to die, so you put them on permanent life support? But hey, snowflakes also got a psyker dread because reasons as well soooo.....

I actually find myself agreeing with Peregrine on almost everything (except Tyranids, but I dig races like Zerg/Arachnids etc). One other caveat though, include "Renegade Marines" in C:SM. Pandering to Huron fanboys is largely why the faction is such a disaster at present.

 MarsNZ wrote:
DC Dread always seems completely counter to the original fluff of the DC. They want to die, so you put them on permanent life support? But hey, snowflakes also got a psyker dread because reasons as well soooo.....

I actually find myself agreeing with Peregrine on almost everything (except Tyranids, but I dig races like Zerg/Arachnids etc). One other caveat though, include "Renegade Marines" in C:SM. Pandering to Huron fanboys is largely why the faction is such a disaster at present.

you don't put a death company member in a dreadnought, a death company dreadnought is what happens when a dread succumbs to the black rage. being tossed in a dread doesn't make a blood angel immune.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
DC Dreadnought

Dreadnought or venerable dreadnought with black paint.

Death Company
Sanguinary Guard (added as an Honour Guard with jump packs option)

Assault marines or vanguard vets with black paint and/or fancy decorations.

Ravenwing and Deathwing as formations

Easy to do with a formation in C:SM.

Black Knights

C:SM bikes with fancy decorations.

The various Land Speeder types

Awful models that should be removed from the game and forgotten. These are what I was talking about when I mentioned special snowflake models which only exist to justify having a separate codex. Remove them and nothing of value would be lost.

The Peregrine hates on Marines thread, eh? Maybe we should also remove anything that isn't Cadian from the Guard, including the FW stuff, roll all three types of Eldar together, and delete all of the supplements. It's just too much, after all!

 Crazyterran wrote:
The Peregrine hates on Marines thread, eh? Maybe we should also remove anything that isn't Cadian from the Guard, including the FW stuff, roll all three types of Eldar together, and delete all of the supplements. It's just too much, after all!

you forgot roll CSMs and chaos Deamons together!

 Crazyterran wrote:
The Peregrine hates on Marines thread, eh? Maybe we should also remove anything that isn't Cadian from the Guard, including the FW stuff, roll all three types of Eldar together, and delete all of the supplements. It's just too much, after all!

They pretty much already did that to the Guard, apparently so they could focus on more Marine stuff......the Guard lost all the special unique Regiment rules.

The Navy loses a flyer and guess which army gets yet another flyer? How many slightly different flyers do the Astartes have now?

The bloat of Marine Codex's just goes on and on and hurts the other codex's.

Having a comprehensive base Marine Codex or two would eliminate the increasingly desperate need to invent "Flavour" units like Santa Wolf and his Wolfy wolf sleighs.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Crazyterran wrote:
The Peregrine hates on Marines thread, eh? Maybe we should also remove anything that isn't Cadian from the Guard, including the FW stuff, roll all three types of Eldar together, and delete all of the supplements. It's just too much, after all!

They pretty much already did that to the Guard, apparently so they could focus on more Marine stuff......the Guard lost all the special unique Regiment rules.

There was never "special unique Regiment rules". There were Doctrines which could apply to literally any Guard force.

The Navy loses a flyer and guess which army gets yet another flyer? How many slightly different flyers do the Asartes have now?

The Navy "lost a flyer" that was literally something that could have been part of the Valkyrie entry, since it was a "slightly different" Valkyrie.

The Vendetta never should have existed as its own entry; much less as a codex entry with a FW conversion kit.
The Vulture Gunship should have gotten the slot that the piece of crutch garbage Vendetta took up.

The bloat of Marine Codex's just goes on and on and hurts the other codex's.

Having a comprehensive base Marine Codex or two would eliminate the increasingly desperate need to invent "Flavour" units like Santa Wolf and his Wolfy wolf sleighs.

Yes, because Logan Grimnar was created strictly to sate their "desperate need to invent flavour units".

Nope - sorry you are wrong

There were indeed general doctrine rules which you could use - but then the more storied Regiments had specifically more or extra rules than a generic Regiment.

quoting directly from the Codex:

We have included sme famous regiments and the Doctrines which represent their typical organisation in battle. You will notice that some regiments have more than five Doctrines; this a reflection of their glorious history

So it lost a flyer?

The Marines gained a flyer - again?

Logan Grimnar the Character - fine

Logan Grimanr on a Wolf Sleigh pulled by wolves - yes a perfect example of a desperate need to invent flavour units.

IMO, I don't think $40 of fluff most gamers don't care about and like 20 pages of army rules is a bit rediculous. Maybe GW could just make an "Army List Booklet" for like $20 for those people who read all the fluff on Lexicanum and keep the 'Dexes for people who just really like the lore (keep the army rules in it of course)

On Topic though, I think compressing the neglected armies into one book like GK, SOB, and Inquisition is a really good idea since they're one in the same in the novels any way. Plus, Inquisition would be WAAAAAAY cooler to bring as an ally.

 Chaos Spawn wrote:
My idea:
Codex Imperium
Codex Chaos
Codex Eldar
Codex Orks
Codex Tau
Codex Necrons
Codex Tyranids

I would go further.

Codex Order
Codex Chaos

If people really want to go crazy I could add in

Codex Destruction

But not even I could justify

Codex Death

 Mr Morden wrote:
Nope - sorry you are wrong

There were indeed general doctrine rules which you could use - but then the more storied Regiments had specifically more or extra rules than a generic Regiment.

quoting directly from the Codex:

We have included sme famous regiments and the Doctrines which represent their typical organisation in battle. You will notice that some regiments have more than five Doctrines; this a reflection of their glorious history

Either quote the whole thing or don't quote it at all:

On pages 58 to 61 we have included some famous regiments and the Doctrines which represent their typical organisation in battle. You will notice that the some regiments may have more than five Doctrines; this is a reflection of their glorious history. In practice five Doctrines is plenty to give a regiment a distinctive slant. Again, there is no requirement to use the Doctrines rules for fielding any particular regiment.

Out of the 12 Regiments listed, seven(Tallarn Desert Raiders, Armageddon Steel Legions, Kanak Skull Takers, Harakoni Warhawks, Catachan Jungle Fighters, Savlar Chem-Dogs, and Terrax Guard) utilized 5 Doctrines. Two Regiments(Cadian Shock Troops and Tanith First & Only) utilized 7 Doctrines. The last three(Death Korps of Krieg, Mordian Iron Guard, and Valhallan Ice Warriors) utilized 6.

In any regards, none of that changes the fact that there were never special unique Regiment rules. Any and all Guard forces could utilize up to 5 Doctrines, in any legal combinations. The only exception was that if you wanted to, you could opt to use the book's take on any of the 5 Regiments that were given more than 5 Doctrines--and at the time, they also made it relatively clear that if you wanted to run those as non-Cadians, Tanith, DKoK, MIG, or VIW? You should go for it.

So it lost a flyer?

First of all, the Guard did not "lose" the Vendetta. It is still in C: Astra Militarum. The only place it is NOT present is in "Death From the Skies". And why would it be? Nothing about it changes beyond the transport capacity(halved) and the armament(3x TLLCs). It wouldn't change Agility or Pursuit values.

Second of all, even if they did "lose" the Vendetta, who cares? It should have always been a variant loadout for the Valkyrie. End of story.

The Marines gained a flyer - again?

The Marines gained a variant on a flyer--exactly like what you're whining about the Vendetta losing; except the Stormhawk Interceptor actually is a variant that has justifiable reasons

Logan Grimnar the Character - fine

Logan Grimanr on a Wolf Sleigh pulled by wolves - yes a perfect example of a desperate need to invent flavour units.

Right, because it's not like Space Wolves have had a long history of having wolves as wargear options right?

If you were talking about Dark Angels suddenly getting Dark Riders mounted on Dark Bikes firing Dark Cannons, I'd be a lot more receptive to your complaints. But you're talking about the one Chapter where these little "shoehorned flavour units" actually fit in pretty well.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
DC Dreadnought

Dreadnought or venerable dreadnought with black paint.

No, I do think it should have that distinction. Why should it not, as an entry? A la A Dreadnought in a detachment using Blood Angels Chapter Tactics may be upgraded to a Death Company Dreadnought , and receives (x) for (y) points.

Death Company
Sanguinary Guard (added as an Honour Guard with jump packs option)

Assault marines or vanguard vets with black paint and/or fancy decorations.

Disagreed. The role of Sanguinary Guard more fits that as Honour Guard. Give ALL Honour Guard the option of jump packs, and problem solved.

Death Company are a far more special beast, as they can have JPs, or on foot, and have a multitude of weapons. Keep them as a whole separate unit, a la Crusader Squads.

Ravenwing and Deathwing as formations

Easy to do with a formation in C:SM.

Yes, as long as it's a DA exclusive one.

Black Knights

C:SM bikes with fancy decorations.

So, what about the plasma weaponry and corvus hammers?

The various Land Speeder types

Awful models that should be removed from the game and forgotten. These are what I was talking about when I mentioned special snowflake models which only exist to justify having a separate codex. Remove them and nothing of value would be lost.

Agreed, they should not have existed in the first place. But will you refund everyone who now can't use them because of a lack of inclusiveness? I thought not.
Unless you're willing to find a use for those models, I disagree with deleting units.

Also, as I forgot to mention infernus pistols and hand flamers, I think they should be rolled into the standard Codex. Why can't Salamanders have them? Or the Fire Hawks? Or the Fire Lords?

I think there needs to be something said about what the typical player of 40k is interested in.

Many of the above arguments point to units being bad on the tabletop. My questions is why does that matter? Not everyone is playing in tournaments. In fact I would guess the majority of 40k games are buddies playing in their basement just having fun. Because of this cool fluffy units sell and they see table time in places where cool fluffy units are fun. Non competitive environments.

I just started playing BA. People always talk about how bad they are but guess what. I didn't pick them because I want to win Adepticon. I picked them because I like their fluff and I like the models GW has created for them. I will have fun playing them based on that alone. I am positive I am not the only one who feels this way about the other books.

Sure they could combine a bunch of books and get rid of a bunch of kits but that would destroy the game. At least the aesthetic part of the game. If you only play to win tournaments and dominate every game you ever play then all of this is irrelevant as well because your only playing the best books possible so why do you care if there are more books that are crappy or have models you don't like. You are only playing to win. GW will continue with what sells and I don't think they are wrong in doing so.

If we stand back a bit and look at what has been going on...

Game companies will focus on releasing expansions for all factions at the same time , so all forces remain balanced and interesting to play.
(As each expansion can be play tested against the units in the expansion , and the units already released.)

GW plc are in the business of selling little bits of plastic for as much money as possible.
So they want the minutest difference in detail to have extra special rules to help promote sales.

Space Marines have been promoted above all other factions .Every time GW needed a cash injection, they just added some different 'gribble' to the Space Marine sprue, Print a new Space Marine faction Codex with extra special snowflake rules, and count the cash as its come rolling in.

To sort this mess out, it really needs a re-write of the rules, and the poorly implemented and restrictive F.O.C needs to be replace with some thing that achieves what detachments and formations do.But in a much more straight forward and user friendly way.

If the game play had more tactical depth units could shine at the various in game roles they should have.Without having to resort to a bunch of special rules to make them special!