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 Mr Morden wrote:

This is what has bloated the Marine range beyond belief and destroyed the chances of many armies getting updates.

Speaking of entitled. that statement right there is the HEIGHT of entitlement. the idea that by focusing attention elsewhere, on more profitable lines, GW is taking away from updates "owed" to other armies. GWis a company they will make what SELLS. if an entire second line of space marines riding wolves with wolf clans and wolf sheilds with wolf hide head pieces outsells some xenos race. then guess what we're going to get? there's no sense of entitlement to say "yeah I like this, and I wanna buy it". Certainly far less entitlement then "HOW DARE GW MAKE THIS UNIT! GW SHOULD CATER TO ME!"

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Would you still collect your chapter if GW do away with all the flavour and make marines just standard primaris, with no TWC, DC, Ravenwing etc.

Absolutely. Primaris needs more units and more options, sure, but I'd welcome doing away the chapter specific stuff aside the visuals. Chapters were originally just lore and paint scheme and that was absolutely fine. There really is not need for all this flanderised nonsesnse and pointless restrictions for which chapters can have which units.

As long as I keep the options, if they are generalised for all chapters I have no problems. The problem is that by just counting only the named Special Characters a Codex with ALL space marines (Vanilla+BA/DA/SW/DW/GK) would be bigger than the Tyranid Codex.

 Galas wrote:
As long as I keep the options, if they are generalised for all chapters I have no problems. The problem is that by just counting only the named Special Characters a Codex with ALL space marines (Vanilla+BA/DA/SW/DW/GK) would be bigger than the Tyranid Codex.

You can really get rid of all the special characters except Guillima*. They're just Space Marines with some gear. Make the gear available to everybody (as relics, if needed) and then people who want can use those characters via normal character rules.

 Crimson wrote:

 Galas wrote:
As long as I keep the options, if they are generalised for all chapters I have no problems. The problem is that by just counting only the named Special Characters a Codex with ALL space marines (Vanilla+BA/DA/SW/DW/GK) would be bigger than the Tyranid Codex.

You can really get rid of all the special characters except Guillima*. They're just Space Marines with some gear. Make the gear available to everybody (as relics, if needed) and then people who want can use those characters via normal character rules.

I actually agree with making most special characters generic, and making the character creation rules much deeper. Why only Ultramarines can have a pilot or a scout sargeant? Or why only Dark Angels can have Terminator and Biker like chapter masters?

Of course GW won't ever do that because no models no rules but one can dream.

Nope. The bland lack of customizatoin is why I don't play Primaris already.

 Galas wrote:

I actually agree with making most special characters generic, and making the character creation rules much deeper. Why only Ultramarines can have a pilot or a scout sargeant? Or why only Dark Angels can have Terminator and Biker like chapter masters?

Exactly. Instead of 'Sergeant Chronus' have 'Space Marine Tank Commander' etc.

 Crimson wrote:

 Galas wrote:

I actually agree with making most special characters generic, and making the character creation rules much deeper. Why only Ultramarines can have a pilot or a scout sargeant? Or why only Dark Angels can have Terminator and Biker like chapter masters?

Exactly. Instead of 'Sergeant Chronus' have 'Space Marine Tank Commander' etc.

If I remember correctly in 3rd when the Codex was Codex: Ultramarines that was basically what they told you "This is Telion but is supposed to represent any Scout Sargeant in any Chapter you want". But we know how that ended.

the_scotsman wrote:
Nope, my fledgeling deathwatch project would be ebayed for a loss without question if I was forced into primaris marines. They are the exact opposite of every reason I thought deathwatch were a compelling faction.

^ this

 Galas wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Galas wrote:

I actually agree with making most special characters generic, and making the character creation rules much deeper. Why only Ultramarines can have a pilot or a scout sargeant? Or why only Dark Angels can have Terminator and Biker like chapter masters?

Exactly. Instead of 'Sergeant Chronus' have 'Space Marine Tank Commander' etc.

If I remember correctly in 3rd when the Codex was Codex: Ultramarines that was basically what they told you "This is Telion but is supposed to represent any Scout Sargeant in any Chapter you want". But we know how that ended.

they could do it again with minimal harm IMHO. Ultramarine players aren't going to complain if Sgt Chronus is reduced to a side bar on the "Space Marine tank commander" entry

 Mr Morden wrote:
[snipped for size in multiquote]

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
[snipped for size in multiquote]

The prompt for the first post of this thread was as such:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Would you still collect your chapter if GW do away with all the flavour and make marines just standard primaris, with no TWC, DC, Ravenwing etc.

In other words, no, the what if indicated there wouldn't be Ravenwing, or Death Company, or Thunderwolf Cavalry. There would only be basic Primaris Marines squads. Nothing else. No one gets to use any "generic ravenwing". Just your basic primaris squads. There's no indication they exist in lore any more, either. It would be one thing to say "all chapters get access to a variant of the unique units" and all. That'd be weird, but okay sure why not-- I wouldn't be upset if every chapter got a super-apothecary like the BA do, for example. But removing them entirely? That's just narrowing the game and making it less interesting.

You two need to learn how to read before you whine about entitlement in such smug, arrogant manners. It's like some people come here specifically so they can look down on others rather than have productive conversations...

 Mr Morden wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
As a Dark Angels player, not a chance. The Deathwing/Ravenwing flavours make the army.

Back to Entitlement

You don't loose flavour - Flavour is nothing to do with rules.

- you don't loose rules - others gain them

Why exactly do a few snowflake Chapters, in this case YOUR special snowflake Chapter need these special rules and the other 990+ (including other First Founding Chapters) don't.

Mr Morden,

You have a zero-sum view of the situation. While I get design/SKU opportunity cost, GW has put out plenty of forces while maintaining some distinct Chapters. Dark Angels, Blood Angels and Space Wolves have pretty much always had their own Codexes and models since 2nd Ed - heck I think that Space Wolves had the first actual Codex! The amount of variation from other Space Marines differed between editions, but their resilience should tell you something - folks like them! They look and play differently than the other Chapters, but from GW's and store owner's perspectives they can gain efficiencies from the commonalities with the mainstream Space Marines line.

In my local meta, Dark Angels are very popular (four out of forty players at our last local tourney), as are Blood Angels and Space Wolves. Why punish something successful?

 Mr Morden wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
As a Dark Angels player, not a chance. The Deathwing/Ravenwing flavours make the army.

Back to Entitlement

You don't loose flavour - Flavour is nothing to do with rules.

- you don't loose rules - others gain them

Why exactly do a few snowflake Chapters, in this case YOUR special snowflake Chapter need these special rules and the other 990+ (including other First Founding Chapters) don't.

Really hard to take you seriously. Also throwing the words "entitlement" and "snowflake" around makes you look like a jackass.

The Dark Angels are not Blood Angels, or Ultramarines, or Space Wolves etc. They have their own flavour along with rules to enhance that flavour. I didn't pick up the army to play generic space marines (what could be more boring?), I picked Dark Angels. I like that they have specialty units that other chapters don't get (Deathwing Knights, Black Knights, Dark Talons, their characters), I wouldn't have it any other way. If it were removed, I'd probably stop playing them. Sounds like you should stick to chess.

I just wish all the flavour units were condensed into one SM codex, because BA/DA/SW aren't the only ones who should get special units and rules like that. Why should Iron Hands have to play by the Vanilla rules when Dark Angels don't have to, despite them both being non codex compliant?

 Sir Heckington wrote:
I just wish all the flavour units were condensed into one SM codex, because BA/DA/SW aren't the only ones who should get special units and rules like that. Why should Iron Hands have to play by the Vanilla rules when Dark Angels don't have to, despite them both being non codex compliant?

This is where Index Astartes will hopefully close the gap. Unfortunately, some chapters just don't have the same historical precedence as the big 3 non compliant chapters (BA, DA, SW). Templars used to be there but somehow dropped off the wagon. I like what they did for the Crimson Fists and hope that continues with other chapters.

 bullyboy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
As a Dark Angels player, not a chance. The Deathwing/Ravenwing flavours make the army.

Back to Entitlement

You don't loose flavour - Flavour is nothing to do with rules.

- you don't loose rules - others gain them

Why exactly do a few snowflake Chapters, in this case YOUR special snowflake Chapter need these special rules and the other 990+ (including other First Founding Chapters) don't.

Really hard to take you seriously. Also throwing the words "entitlement" and "snowflake" around makes you look like a jackass.

The Dark Angels are not Blood Angels, or Ultramarines, or Space Wolves etc. They have their own flavour along with rules to enhance that flavour. I didn't pick up the army to play generic space marines (what could be more boring?), I picked Dark Angels. I like that they have specialty units that other chapters don't get (Deathwing Knights, Black Knights, Dark Talons, their characters), I wouldn't have it any other way. If it were removed, I'd probably stop playing them. Sounds like you should stick to chess.

So bascially "I want my Dark Angels to have loads of stuff even if others can't" - would you not say thats entitlement - pure and simple. Are you one of those many many Wolves,and Angels player who wants all that AND all the codex marine stuff as well?

I know about the fluff of all theose armies - spoiler alert - I have Dark Angel and Space Wolf armies - however I don't see why we need the continual focus on a handful of Chapters. Why do you think the fluff of all the other Chapters including other First Founding ones does not matter as much as YOUR chosen army - you are making my argument for me - thanks

AGAIN the fluff stays the same - more MARINE armies get a larger variety of stuff and GW does not have to make Tac Marine, Terminator etc rules but make them weaker as a tiny number of chapters somehow HAVE to have Tac Marines+1 or Terminators +1.

Name one of the "unique" Marine units that would not be present in at least one other Chapter.....

From another recent thread:

I've recently been looking into building an Iron Hands army, and one part about them intrigued me, and that was their use of Terminators as squad sergeants. Now, this is currently impossible outside of space wolves from what I can tell, how would people feel if Tactical/Assault/Devastators could take Terminators as squad sergeants

But there's another chapter that also does that, The Iron Hands.

Space Wolves get an exception because they're just weird like that, but it makes no real sense in the fluff or has any impact on the game.

Why is the Fluff important to some people for Space Wolves but does not matter for Iron Hands.

 Mr Morden wrote:
[snipped for length]

You still haven't actually bothered reading the opening prompt.

There's a difference between "I don't want my options taken away" and "I don't want my options given to others". Many of the people here wouldn't mind, or at least would only be mildly bothered, if generic versions of unique units were given as long as they could still have the unique units. What they are hating is the idea, as mentioned in the original post, of losing the options entirely.

 Melissia wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
[snipped for length]

You still haven't actually bothered reading the opening prompt.

There's a difference between "I don't want my options taken away" and "I don't want my options given to others". Many of the people here wouldn't mind, or at least would only be mildly bothered, if generic versions of unique units were given as long as they could still have the unique units. What they are hating is the idea, as mentioned in the original post, of losing the options entirely.

Yeah IDGAF at all if all space marines got units with deathwatch SIA and deathwatch weapons. What I do care about is if I lose the ability to customize each member of my squad with his own individual weapon loadout, and instead I am now locked into the framework of

Your Fortis Pattern Kill Teams Must Have Five Intercessors
Each Intercessor Must Be Armed With One Of Three Very Similar Boltguns
You May Add One Aggressor
The Aggressor May Have One Of Two Very Similar Loadouts

Etc, etc etc.

You go from every guy having 100+ different options to every guy having 2-3 different options: This is not the army I signed up for.
you go from every guy in my codex having 100+ different options to every guy in every codex having 100+ different options: Great, more opportunity for other people to make their stuff as personalized as they want it!

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
As a Dark Angels player, not a chance. The Deathwing/Ravenwing flavours make the army.

Back to Entitlement

You don't loose flavour - Flavour is nothing to do with rules.

- you don't loose rules - others gain them

Why exactly do a few snowflake Chapters, in this case YOUR special snowflake Chapter need these special rules and the other 990+ (including other First Founding Chapters) don't.

Mr Morden,

You have a zero-sum view of the situation. While I get design/SKU opportunity cost, GW has put out plenty of forces while maintaining some distinct Chapters. Dark Angels, Blood Angels and Space Wolves have pretty much always had their own Codexes and models since 2nd Ed - heck I think that Space Wolves had the first actual Codex! The amount of variation from other Space Marines differed between editions, but their resilience should tell you something - folks like them! They look and play differently than the other Chapters, but from GW's and store owner's perspectives they can gain efficiencies from the commonalities with the mainstream Space Marines line.

In my local meta, Dark Angels are very popular (four out of forty players at our last local tourney), as are Blood Angels and Space Wolves. Why punish something successful?

Indeed, the fact is Space Marines account for 40% (or more) of games workshop total sales. that's a HUUGE percentage when you consider it includes the entire fantasy and 40k line up over all. they're the cash cow. consider Coca Cola. they produce a number of drinks, focusing purely on soft drinks they produce Coke, Barq's Rootbeer, Sprite, Fresca, and proably some other stuff I'm missing.

well, Coke produces a number of coke varients, coke, diet coke, coke zero, vanilla coke, cherry coke, a whole wackton of diet coke flavors. Why? because as their flagship best selling brand they can make a profit off it.

So bascially "I want my Dark Angels to have loads of stuff even if others can't" - would you not say thats entitlement - pure and simple. Are you one of those many many Wolves,and Angels player who wants all that AND all the codex marine stuff as well?

I know about the fluff of all theose armies - spoiler alert - I have Dark Angel and Space Wolf armies - however I don't see why we need the continual focus on a handful of Chapters. Why do you think the fluff of all the other Chapters including other First Founding ones does not matter as much as YOUR chosen army - you are making my argument for me - thanks

AGAIN the fluff stays the same - more MARINE armies get a larger variety of stuff and GW does not have to make Tac Marine, Terminator etc rules but make them weaker as a tiny number of chapters somehow HAVE to have Tac Marines+1 or Terminators +1.

Name one of the "unique" Marine units that would not be present in at least one other Chapter.....

How about Thunderwolf cavalry? Thats completely unique to the Space Wolves, as until recently they didnt even have a single successor chapter. Or how about the Darkshroud for the Dark Angels, a unique landspeeder that has a literal part of the Dark Angel homeworld attatched to it. What use would these units be to a non DA or SW player? Heck how would you even explain it lore wise for say Ultra marines to be riding around on wolves with a piece of caliban?

If anything the other First Founding chapters should get their own unique models as well, something that allows them to be unique and feel different. If I didnt have units like Fallen, Darkshroud, Dark talon, Deathwing Knights etc, I would have never played Dark Angels, bought the codex, or invested any money into them. Why do you think its so crazy that people who were marketed a semi unique army, want the army they invested in, to remain semi unique. Its not just having "different rules" for some model types, its also about having unique sculpts, and lore, that make an army actually feel like its own thing. If Games Workshop removes the unique rules for units, what incentive do they have to keep producing the unique looking models? Its more expensive, and in terms of gameplay they are no different, so they would likely just standardize everything to a single sculpt with maybe an upgrade sprue. After all if this wasnt the case, there would be no reason Salamanders for example would be forced to use generic ultra marine termies that are just painted up in a different colour scheme.

Hell I would be perfectly happy if other space marine factions had similar rules as say ravenwing bikers (would make for a fun time for White Scar players eh?), but when you advocate for everything to be generic, than GW has no incentive to spend money making specialized looking units, when they know only a small % of the market is going to ever use them. Why have 10 terminator sculpts where only 10% of the market uses 1 sculpt each, but they all play and act the same, when you can just have a single sculpt. Lack of return on investment would pressure them to drop the more unique sculpts, until eventually everyone has to use the same thing. Thats why people react negatively to posts like these. Not because they dont want others to share the fun of these units, but because of the valid fear of these unique models losing their value in GW eyes and thus being squatted.

Ok, so you want a space marine force that equally has access to black knights, TWC, sanguinary guard, Deathwing knights, and literally every other option in all of the current SM books? Bloat much?
What a ridiculous idea.

Still don't understand your entitled point. GW has given options for my army and taken away others. I embrace that. Where do you find me saying I want DA options and everything else?

 bullyboy wrote:
Ok, so you want a space marine force that equally has access to black knights, TWC, sanguinary guard, Deathwing knights, and literally every other option in all of the current SM books? Bloat much?
What a ridiculous idea.

I really don't see why other chapters couldn't have Elite Bikers, Jump Pack Honour Guard or Terminator Honour Guard. Because aside the name, that's what those things are. Granted, beast riding Space Marines might be somewhat rarer, but it is hard to believe that SW would be the only chapter to do it.

If the lines were reduced to generic units (Tacticals, Devastators, Suppresors, Bikers, etc.) And the difference was in paint jobs, lore and (maybe) chapter-type rules, it wouldn’t bother me at all. If only primaris survived the purge, wouldn’t much bother me with - I’d like to actually see the mind-boggling options cut down to an either-or level loadout.

These options not being universal for marines bother me:
-Melta guns on assult marines
-Heavy flamer in tactical squad
-Inferno pistols and hand flamers on sergeants
-Plasma cannon on terminator
-baal predators

Look at what black templars did. We invented land raider crusader and instantly shared the tech to all other chapters. This does not bother templar players, yet the very thought of sharing options seems to drive current special chapter players furious

Gitdakka wrote:
These options not being universal for marines bother me:
-Melta guns on assult marines
-Heavy flamer in tactical squad
-Inferno pistols and hand flamers on sergeants
-Plasma cannon on terminator
-baal predators

Look at what black templars did. We invented land raider crusader and instantly shared the tech to all other chapters. This does not bother templar players, yet the very thought of sharing options seems to drive current special chapter players furious

There was also briefly a time when all chapters could have Emperor's Champions. I miss that, it was cool. The lore was that it was a tradition that originated with the Templars, but had spread to other chapters.

 bullyboy wrote:
Ok, so you want a space marine force that equally has access to black knights, TWC, sanguinary guard, Deathwing knights, and literally every other option in all of the current SM books? Bloat much?
What a ridiculous idea.

Still don't understand your entitled point. GW has given options for my army and taken away others. I embrace that. Where do you find me saying I want DA options and everything else?

Because thats exactly what gets asked as soon as anything new comes out for Marines - where is the DA/SW/DA - "why don;t we get it" - plus everything else.

Bloat is having mutiple codexes with tiny rule differences for the majority of the units and a few flanderised units that would be present in other codexes - Marines riding other creaures - fine, Wulfen - Black Dragons and other Chapters have mutants.

You cut down on the bloat by not having various pretend unique units.

You have Tac Marines with all the options - so chainswords, weapon load outs - eveything, special rule options
You Have Terminators with all the options - not half a dozen identikit units with a special rule or two and a single different weapon.

Which DA/SW/BA special rules could not be folded into either expandedChaper tactics or as a unit option? Unfortunately we have to currently suffer the tyrany of pandering to three Chapters - DA/SW/BA and IMO its hurting not only other options but making those Chapters look pathetic.

@ Melissa - the OP's question is not whats happening, unfortunately at the moment we have the worst of all worlds - Gw has three entire seperate production efforts focussed on Marines, each wth multiple sub facions - 30k marines, 40k marines and Primaris and its a bloated mess.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Would you still collect your chapter if GW do away with all the flavour and make marines just standard primaris, with no TWC, DC, Ravenwing etc.

I'd be far more excited about Space Marines if they ditched the color-coded-51-flavors-special rules and went back to basics.

 Mr Morden wrote:
@ Melissa - the OP's question is not whats happening

It's the topic of discussion.

All you're doing is making strawman arguments and it's frankly borderline trolling. The original post posed a "what if" question, don't pretend like people are answering some other question just so you can be a snob and feel better than them.

Because thats exactly what gets asked as soon as anything new comes out for Marines - where is the DA/SW/DA - "why don;t we get it" - plus everything else.

Bloat is having mutiple codexes with tiny rule differences for the majority of the units and a few flanderised units that would be present in other codexes - Marines riding other creaures - fine, Wulfen - Black Dragons and other Chapters have mutants.

You cut down on the bloat by not having various pretend unique units.

You have Tac Marines with all the options - so chainswords, weapon load outs - eveything, special rule options
You Have Terminators with all the options - not half a dozen identikit units with a special rule or two and a single different weapon.

Which DA/SW/BA special rules could not be folded into either expandedChaper tactics or as a unit option? Unfortunately we have to currently suffer the tyrany of pandering to three Chapters - DA/SW/BA and IMO its hurting not only other options but making those Chapters look pathetic.

So you want everyone playing a space marine chapter to use the exact same unit. Everyone buys the same terminator box. How many sprues would that terminator box need though to have all the weapon options, as well as aesthetics represented by all the current terminator lines? Ya not realistic. Even if it did include every weapon option available, you and I both know it wouldnt include all the unique aesthetics. Aesthetics are half the reason anyone buys anything. I buy a box of Deathwing Knights because they look like cool crusader scifi knights, not because they have a unique power mace that I dont want other chapters to have. Your solution would remove the reason I and many others even buy these kits.

P.S. You single out DA/SW/BA, but GK and DW players ask the same question every time. Before they got regulated to the annuals of history Black Templar players would do the same thing. They got absorbed by the main codex though. Remind me, when was the last time anything for the black templar line got made? You cant even buy an upgrade sprue to get the unique appearance or aesthetics. But why stop with space marines? Whats the point of having Deathguard and Thousand Sons as independent armies. Get rid of Blightlord terminators, everyone can just use normal chaos terminators instead, just give em the same weapon options, that's all that's need eh? Hell if you stretched enough you could apply the same argument to chaos daemons, after all bloodthirsters, fate weavers and greater unclean ones are all just greater daemons right? Just have one greater daemon kit with all the weapon options, thats sure to be just as appealing! Not trying to be rude, but you act like the existence of unique models or rules that add variation and flavour to the game, some how hurt it. If you dropped BA/DA/SW/GK/DW, Thousand Sons, Deathguard, all the various chaos daemons, you drop a large chunk of the game.

I sure as hell don't want non-ultramarine space marine armies to go the same way as non-cadian guard have. I'd rather just have the non-cadians back.