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Karol wrote:
Why do you think that reading the fluff is going to impact the unit choices of an army in any shape or form, besides maybe it being part of some big social thing that forces people to play specific units or even armies only in a specific way.

A new player that doesn't know, or care, about the lore will ask questions like what works, what is good etc. The one that read the lore, will ask the same questions, but the chance, that he sees lets say nobz on foot and thinks they are good, because they are described as better in the lore, is much bigger.

Letting lore impact unit choices, is like buying stuff based on advertisment, and think it is the truth.

When I started my army, I thought, that my dudes are going to be good, because they look good and because their codex said they are good, and had all those stories about the cool stuff they do. From time perspective, I would have rather bought something else. I probably would have had more luck and more fun, If I bought stuff at random to be honest.

Karol, you're posting with your butt. Stop that.

Narrative is important to a lot of people. It's why we pick the armies we do, latch onto special characters we like (not you Lysander, you're a ponce) and even gives the army it's flavor.

Now crunch can be better or worse, but that flavor is what sells the army to most players. And that's not even getting into narrative players. I talked about a concept army I've considered several times based on a blurb about the spirits of the sead rising up to fight Chaos. That's why this stuff exists though: to inspire players.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

okey, but it is still like saying that cautarization of a wound post amputation is better, then what was in the past aka patiant dieing without help almost every time. Now if GW updated their rules on a bimonthly basis, and I mean real changes not copy pasting changes they already implemented in other sources, then we could say they are doing a good job. Being less horrible, then really horrible, isn't good.

Bi-monthly is an unreasonable amount of updates every year. And we've talked about this: just because Grey Knights suck doesn't make the entire game bad.

Fluff is extremely important for me but I wish codexes actually advanced the storyline sometimes.

 Shadenuat wrote:
All rules should be free. Codex should be a luxury product dedicated to fluff, painting, photos, concept art. Could also include collector's guide so you'd know where the hell does that Warlock with laspistol comes from.

Do the GW finance reports break down mimi sale and other sales ?

I suspect they could go free rules and not really lose money as people would just buy more mini's

but what do I know, all my Warlocks do indeed have Las Pistols

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Fluff is extremely important for me but I wish codexes actually advanced the storyline sometimes.

We've been seeing that more in 8th. C:SM talks about the Rubricon and how Marines are volunteering by the metric tons to try and make the transition into Primaris, I found a chunk of lore in Ad Mech where they recently got wind of a planet said to have psychic STCs on it and sent a crud ton of Skitarii, and the stuff from Vigilus has been rolled into books (I assume we'll see the advancements from Psychic Awakening mixed into codexes going forward too).

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The problem is that fluff in 40k Codex (And now AoS books) sucks.

Is only a sucession of big battles with charts of units and formations (really I don't fething care about 4 pages with the unit composition of those Tau Hunter Cadres). I could understand that for Space Marines, but is very dissapointing with other races like Tau or Eldar. And don't make me start about those 20-30 pages of photos... what a filler. I mean, a couple are cool, but please...

Compare that with old Fantasy books. They where more like a history and sociological study about that specific race. I love my Ogre Kingdoms books, and the 6th edition Chaos Hordes book was something else: It totally make you felt inmersed in their culture. It made Chaos Warriors a proper culture, with their motivations, and not just a bunch of spiky barbarians.

You had timelines with battles, of course, and some small snipets, but it was much more centered around the race, his culture, etc...

You'd probably think differently if you were just starting the game and exploring the army.

How? It doesn't teachs nearly anything about how the race works, his true motivations, how would be for your army and his soldiers to live in that society. It makes you less inmersed in the narrative of your own faction. Unlike Fantasy, where you could pin poin the origin of your army, all of their motivations, their enemys, the geography that makes them what they are, etc...

 Jidmah wrote:
In another thread ClockworkZion made an interesting claim - he said that most people on dakka would prefer a codex with fluff in them.
I'd like to put some data behind that claims, since I'm actually not too sure about whether he is right or wrong.

Of course, the implication is that codices would be cheaper without fluff, but we all know GW and it's not impossible that they would sell the codex for the same price despite not having fluff. So please try to keep money out of your decision.

So, here's my take:
I would rather buy a big book of 170 pages of black-and-white datasheets and rules for than a full-color hardback codex with 80 pages of fluff and 70 pages of rules, because I know the fluff and just want to know my stratagems, rules, and would rather buy a $20 index that services half of my armies than 5 $40 codecies.

As for your assertions about keeping money out of it: the Indecies were $20 IIRC, and the Codecies are $40, so that validates the assumption that black and white softbacks with minimal art and lore and maximum rules density are in fact cheaper than codecies.

Even if rules-only single-faction books were each $20, I would still take them over the fancy codecies.


However, I may not care about the fluff section and full color artwork, but prospective new players and people picking up the faction do. The Codex is also an advertising book for the units you could be buying, so it's certainly better to produce them in full color with a lot of a fluff rather than in just index form.

I would prefer that they did two books, Lore and Rules.

But yes I want the lore - sadly alot of the dexes have become just the same old same old recyled.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I think my preference would be fluff in the physical codex, cheaper army rules available digitally that would be kept up to date with errata etc. In the days of constant faq I find it annoying to have multiple references for rules.

We get 2 FAQs for any given army a year. That's hardly constant.

And that's way better than having a three year old faq for a six year old codex.

Did I say it wasn’t better? I said it was annoying to have multiple sources so one updated document would be great. Heck I’d pay a subscription cost for one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Karol - I’m saying if you want a hard copy of the rules it would be a coded like right now, if you are going for a digital option you can get rules only with no fluff. As I said I could even see this being a yearly subscription thing where for $10 (or some value) per year you get all the updates in one place inst as of buying and carrying all the other books.

Karol wrote:
Why do you think that reading the fluff is going to impact the unit choices of an army in any shape or form, besides maybe it being part of some big social thing that forces people to play specific units or even armies only in a specific way.

The entirety of my army is based on fluff and has been since the start.

I certainly didn't pick up a Captain and some Tacs/Devs/ASM when I started due to how they'd perform on the table. And I certainly wasn't "forced" to pick those units - they're what I wanted to take.

I certainly didn't order Eldar in 6E before their book came out due to performance. They were crap at the time.

Crunch is only part of the game. A different size part for different players.

Rules change constantly, fluff generally doesn't.

Buy/play the army you like, whether it's for rules or fluff. But then dont complain about either/or being wrong.

Sigmar's got a pretty good organization for a modern game. Datasheets that are both free and sold as a pack of reference sheets. Army rules that are included in the book, points separated out to be updated later. It's not perfect, but outside of digital solutions its one of the better I've seen. 40k struggles to adopt it simply due to organizational issues created by weapon configurations.

fluff is definatly important, yes tom who only focuses on gameplay and tourny crap and has never read a 40k novel in his life might not care about it, but GW shouldn't cater exclusivly to Tom.

the complaint about repeated fluff is valid (though everyone starts somewhere) but generally there is new stuff in each codex too.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Fluff is fine in a codex, but the amount of fluff could absolutely be lower. Otherwise I'd be all for two separate prints of codices, one with just rules and the other that most of these people like.

I agree with this.

Have one, cheap codex (probably paperback) with just the rules, and MAYBE a few pictures.
Have a second, full price codex with fluff and lots of pictures and the rules and everything else.

Is it weird to think "Maybe there should be fewer rules in the codex"?

I would imagine this game would be a lot better if they dropped all the CTs (and rebalanced accordingly). Lots of stratagems and some special rules also could probably be dropped. You'd save only a little space, but it'd greatly reduce the cost:balance quality ratio, make the game much more intuitive, and probably make it a lot more fun.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Fluff is fine in a codex, but the amount of fluff could absolutely be lower. Otherwise I'd be all for two separate prints of codices, one with just rules and the other that most of these people like.

I agree with this.

Have one, cheap codex (probably paperback) with just the rules, and MAYBE a few pictures.
Have a second, full price codex with fluff and lots of pictures and the rules and everything else.

Personally i would rather they just kept updating the Indexes and released glossy tabletop Imperial Armour type books for the Campaigns....but that ship sailed immediately

For those who want "just the rules" an expanded datacards box would be better. If they laid them out a bit better 9 especially on those with huge empty spaces and included points on them.

The 8th ed Codexes are mostly better as the story has expanded - some of the 6th/7th were very copy and paste from previous codexes.

Bharring wrote:
I certainly didn't pick up a Captain and some Tacs/Devs/ASM when I started due to how they'd perform on the table. And I certainly wasn't "forced" to pick those units - they're what I wanted to take.

I certainly didn't order Eldar in 6E before their book came out due to performance. They were crap at the time.

Crunch is only part of the game. A different size part for different players.

My Guard army's original purchasing order wasn't premeditated, but typically responsive to my group's then escalating arms race bringing new and better capability into our armies. I don't buy a lot of Guard stuff now except on impulse buy. I need to acquire a few more Basilisks to really satisfy what I want to have in my collection, but I can't impulse buy basilisks.

My Sisters army was carefully planned, in bi-yearly installments bringing it up from an initial 500 points designed to form a coherent minimum FOC up to 2000, after which it has entered a unscripted state of diversification to have as many options and be able to field any given unit I feel like I want to have in a list.

My Space Wolves army was neglected from the time I got it, but I recently bought shadowspear because I liked the models, and then went in a broke up a lot of my HQ's and Terminators to fit them for modern play.

My Custodes was entirely impulse, because I split Prospero and then bought Talons of the Emperor. Some time after Bike Captains came out, I bought a squad of them too. Some of the original stuff still isn't completed because I don't know what to do with it.

Now, I'm starting Grey Knights, and have a planned purchasing structure up to 1000 points over about a year, which is planned out accounting for a desire to grab a few Space Wolf tank units and new Sisters stuff.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Fluff is fine in a codex, but the amount of fluff could absolutely be lower. Otherwise I'd be all for two separate prints of codices, one with just rules and the other that most of these people like.

I agree with this.

Have one, cheap codex (probably paperback) with just the rules, and MAYBE a few pictures.
Have a second, full price codex with fluff and lots of pictures and the rules and everything else.

Personally i would rather they just kept updating the Indexes and released glossy tabletop Imperial Armour type books for the Campaigns....but that ship sailed immediately

For those who want "just the rules" an expanded datacards box would be better. If they laid them out a bit better 9 especially on those with huge empty spaces and included points on them.

The 8th ed Codexes are mostly better as the story has expanded - some of the 6th/7th were very copy and paste from previous codexes.

I wish they had the same dataslates for all of the factions like those included in shadowspear. Similar to the APOC19 cards. easier to carry than a codex.

Fluff in the codex/battletome is essential.

Very few gamers actually go to read the Black Library novels and of them not all races are equally represented in the lore of the game through those novels and many of the background books (like Libre Chaotica) are one time printings - so essentially one-off productions.


As a result the codex/battletome is the FIRST port of any gamers call for a general immersion in the background of their faction. It makes units warriors and fights; leaders into heroes and builds concepts and ideas into the player for the narrative of the game.
Otherwise all they are is numbers on a page.

If you take out the lore and the story and put it somewhere else there's a very high chance that players wouldn't read it. New players would budget for more models, experienced wouldn't consider it worth investing etc... Basically it would become optional and easily overlooked.



And that would be a huge problem.So many of us get inspiration and enjoyment from even the light lore in the codex/battletome. Often you read of people saying "Yeah the game isn't perfectly balanced, but I love the models and the lore" or "Hey I just made my goblin skyhunter team based off that short bit of story in the battletome" etc...

The codex is a catch all of lore, painting, a bit of modelling, a showcase of the model range and the rules of the game.


I tend to see the "I don't need lore" or "the lore is rubbish now" only from those who have generations of battletomes/codex behind them within one army (or several). So they start to think the lore isn't essential because they already know much of the lore of their faction. However even they get some value from it and in the end the Codex/battletome is there for all - from the highly experienced through to the total novice all the way down to that guy or gal who is just showing a passing interest (for now) and picks up the book to flick through - perhaps even just as far as a store copy. At least until lore, fluff, artwork, painted models, a few alternate paint schemes and such all draw them in.



The codex/battletome, just like the BIG rulebook - works its absolute BEST when its a catch all document. GW can then refine it down with apps and also the smaller printed rulebook for those who purely want the rules. Making the "rules only" optional is far better.


Personally I'd have even more lore and artwork thrown in. Sure I'd love if GW produced two books - one many more pages on pure background, art and fluff and the other on pure rules; but I know that the games fanbase would steadily weaken as more generations would come in without any narrative connection to the game. We could end up with ork players who don't know the importance of the colour RED. Or marine players who don't really believe in the Emperor!

Lore is essential. More modelling/hobby content like days of yore would be good too. “Rules-only” omits so much of the hobby that it’s not something GW will do.

Honestly at this point I have been reading the same copy and paste fluff in most codexs for 20+ years and they main attempts to produce new stuff resulted in the Ward era and Primaris fluff so frankly I would happily go without.

Background info is neccessary. Call it fluff if you want.
Could live with less "marketing-pictures" and I don't need every single unit sold to me per fluff. But the general background of the "Army" should be in and i Heard its possible to get Quality instead of....

Yes. I remember the alternative with pretty much no fluff. They were terrible.

That said, I wouldn't mind army lists set up like the Indexes or Ravening Hordes. Far superior than nickle and diming with trivial differences selling books.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
Is it weird to think "Maybe there should be fewer rules in the codex"?

I would imagine this game would be a lot better if they dropped all the CTs (and rebalanced accordingly). Lots of stratagems and some special rules also could probably be dropped. You'd save only a little space, but it'd greatly reduce the cost:balance quality ratio, make the game much more intuitive, and probably make it a lot more fun.

Definitely not weird. Rules bloat has gotten way out of hand (again). I'd be happier with units with 0-1 special rules, and armies with 0-2 special rules. That each little thing is a massive list of special snowflake nonsense is just exhausting to keep track of.

When GW did the Knight datacards, I was hopeful we would get them for all the units eventually. In fact, it baffles me that they have the AoS warscrolls available for free on their website, but not the 40K datasheets. I mean, they already give you the datasheets in the instructions for each kit.

If they would sell datasheet packs, say with a model picture/art and small lore blurb on the back, I’d snap them up. They could still have the full codex for those who are new or want the full lore, but I’ve been around this game for upwards of 30 years, and I don’t need it - I just want the damn rules.

I'd switch those pages with fotos of units with more fluff. Or more special characters. Or narrative missions for the Army like in lotr books. Codizes can't have too much fluff.

Strictly speaking, no.

Would I be happy if they cut the fluff? Also no.

Bharring wrote:
Is it weird to think "Maybe there should be fewer rules in the codex"?

I would imagine this game would be a lot better if they dropped all the CTs (and rebalanced accordingly). Lots of stratagems and some special rules also could probably be dropped. You'd save only a little space, but it'd greatly reduce the cost:balance quality ratio, make the game much more intuitive, and probably make it a lot more fun.

Not exactly weird. I mean, I already found a way to cut down two unnecessary codices (the Angels) and keeping Relics/Units/Strats in check. It isn't hard like people pretend it is.

Hell I would want to consolidate Space Wolves if it were just as easy. Hell, one of the parts of their traits (the characters consolidation ability) made it into the Successor Abilities you can choose for a custom chapter.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Is it weird to think "Maybe there should be fewer rules in the codex"?

I would imagine this game would be a lot better if they dropped all the CTs (and rebalanced accordingly). Lots of stratagems and some special rules also could probably be dropped. You'd save only a little space, but it'd greatly reduce the cost:balance quality ratio, make the game much more intuitive, and probably make it a lot more fun.

Not exactly weird. I mean, I already found a way to cut down two unnecessary codices (the Angels) and keeping Relics/Units/Strats in check. It isn't hard like people pretend it is.

Hell I would want to consolidate Space Wolves if it were just as easy. Hell, one of the parts of their traits (the characters consolidation ability) made it into the Successor Abilities you can choose for a custom chapter.

I feel like rolling most of the Marine books under the C:SM book and putting the special stuff in supplements is the way to take the game in the future. Like I get that people want their separate books, but since most of the shared stuff is in one book that means that keeping that part of the game balanced and updating stuff for all those groups just means updating a single book, while most of the supplement stuff can be left alone as long as they aren't directly putting something into that supplement itself.

There needs to be fluff for a codex to exist, but no. For rules there does not need to be bluff.

I'd prefer they kept the fluff and army lists in separate books, so that I don't have to buy a reprint of fluff to get a new army list