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As the release of the Grey Knight book draws near, we hit that ever loved part of the rumor cycle where screams of "Codex Creep!" echo throughout the boards. Everything is broken and will touch you in a bad place if you don’t start the new army (and even if you do it will probably still touch you in a bad place). The fact of the matter is that the codex won’t be as powerful as the rumors make it out to be, but it will be enough to change how the game is played. And this is a good thing.

I have never doubted that codex creep exists, but I have always wondered why it was considered a negative. When new books are released that allow army builds that disrupt the current power structure, and forces players to change how they run their armies. This keeps the game fresh and exciting. Yes a few players will bugger off and quit when a dreadknight mops the floor with their eighteen long fangs, but the majority of the players will change their lists and strategies to account for the new threat they may encounter. Which may, in turn, allow other armies to run units they would not have considered in the past now that the space wolf player has to concede that hard counters exist to his fangs. Most 5th edition codexes provide a variety of strong units that can be combined in a number of different ways, and the players will just have to come up with a new combination of tools to fight grey knights in addition to the other armies in the field. The alternative would be that the new army just sort of fizzles out, business carries on as usual, and the game gets a little staler. 40k players adapted to Guard, they adapted to space wolves, they adapted to tyranids, they adapted to blood angels, they are adapting to dark eldar, and they will adapt to grey knights. And while we figure out how to adapt the game will be more exciting.

Older codexes may have more difficulty adapting, but savvy players will find a way. They always do. Codex creep is good because it forces the game to evolve without a whole new rules set being adopted, and in doing so keeps it fresh and exciting. If you want a game without codex creep, where you do not have to worry about adapting to a changing game, I would like to point you to chess, checkers, tic-tac-toe, and rock-paper-scissors. They will never change on you, and you will always be assured of what your opponent is bringing to the table. But for more interesting and evolving gameplay, and for the joy of that “a-hah!” moment where I realize that a unit I didn’t use before is awesome now, and the joy of bringing it to the table for the first time, I’ll stick with 40k – codex creep and all.

I think you're making a mistake here, though. "Codex Creep" is when codexes get increasingly powerful with each new release (I know you know this, I'm just stating a definition).

What you're talking about, though, is a new codex that's competitive, and just as good as the others, and changes up the playing field because it's a new threat. That's good. I don't know if Codexes getting increasingly powerful is a good thing (Not saying that it's happening or isn't; I don't know enough to say).

I agree in part with Hans's view, A new codex which is in-line with the current ones creates a fresh look on the game, but I've always thought that the definition of codex creep meant that the new codex's power is statistically more unfair than the previous one, of course the motive is simply to increase sales, which as a business GW would want to do. This of course seems to be the current trend (think SW and BA), where each codex seems to be getting more and more outlandish and over-powered rules.


Of course the problem with creep is that like a Waaagh! once it starts it's very hard to stop, as at some point they need to release a codex that is statistically weaker than the current ones, which of course is a financial nightmare (e.g. imagine the new guard codex doesn't have punishers and melta-vet spam in it)

You're definitely describing codices with decent counters...

How the heck do my SM counter Blood Angels deepstriking onto the field and assaulting the turn they land? :(

From a historical perspective, players of other games have done without codex creep in Ancients, Mediaevals, Napoleonics, ACW and Moderns for decades, and the games were still exciting.

Codex creep is bad because it is in reality "functional obselence." GW wilfully renders older codices obsolete so players will purchase new armies.

All the fifth edition codices are about in line with each other- the older books sometimes have problems because the game they were designed for doesn't really exist anymore.

I would disagree, and that's coming from an orks perspective, that one can always find a way to adapt to a new threat such as a GK codex advancement. Orks have a few competitive builds for tourneys such as Nob Bikerz, Massed Battlewagons, kan wallz with kff, and the Loota elite choice.

Just because the new GK codex is coming out doesn't mean that Flash Gits will be any more cost effective, it won't give tankbustas a BS 4, and it won't make battlewagons have a smaller side profile. Now i'm not saying that as a negative thing, it's just that codices that aren't as tactically flexible will be more or less unchanged by the release of a new one. Unless of course, Grey Knights can ally with orks.

Now if it so happens that Grey Knights perfectly counter the battlewagon spam, Nob Bikerz or Green Tide armies would become more prevalent. If it just so happens that GKs perfectly counter bikerz, the other few competitive builds would simply become more prevalent.

The way that an ork player would be made to adapt would be if GKs stomped every competitive ork build out there currently. Then we would have to either close our codex, or find some other way to successful field an ork army. And given are choices for troops and elites, there isn't much wiggle room.

Just some food for thought, don't mean to sound like a negative ned.

I think Codex Creep is a bit overrated.

If you look at codexes released starting in 4th edition, there's no clear continuous path to more and more powerful. For those intested, the codex release schedule was as follows:
SM, Tyranids, BT, Tau, Eldar, DA, BA, CSM, Orks, Daemons, Catachan

There's some strong codexes in there, but there's also some weak ones. And, they don't appear to be moving from weak to strong with any pattern.

In the 6 codexes released for 5th edition, I have a hard time seeing a pattern for creep.

SM - First release. Decent, nothing broken. Competitive codex that takes advantage of the rules changes, but isn't "OMG"
IG - OMG! This is awesome! It embraced the rules changes for 5th edition and ran with them. Very powerful units and very powerful codex. Undisputedly the best codex in the game at it's release.
SW - OMG! This is also awesome! It gives IG a run for it's money. But, it's not really "better" than IG. It's as broken, not necessarily more broken.
Tyranids - Ummm... I thought 5th codexes were meant to be awesome. This isn't terrible, but it's not good.
BA - Wow! Excellent codex, but really OTT fluff. A few broken units, but more just dumb than OP. It's competitive with IG and SW, but not quite as good as either one.
DE - Really interesting. Does a great job of resurrecting an almost dead army. Seems rather balanced. Also, seems to be designed specifically to screw Tyranids.

I think the whole "GW is going overboard with codex creep" mentality came across with those first 3 releases in 5th. Codexes were getting more powerful, but Nids and DE seem to throw a wrench in that theory.

Maybe it's not "Codex creep" as much as it is "IoM creep"

Hmm, seems like all the new 'power' armies are Imperial, and 2/3 are Space Marines.

It strikes me that if these variants simply did not exist we would have a reasonably balanced game with some hiccups (IG costing issue) and some lows (Tyranids, mostly thanks to costing again).

Slick wrote:All the fifth edition codices are about in line with each other- the older books sometimes have problems because the game they were designed for doesn't really exist anymore.

Seconded. Whilst there is some level of Codex Creep, I don't think it's as serious or game-changing as some make it out to be. If anything, the 5th edition meta seems to be changing fluently and the GK Codex looks set to continue this change in the meta (E.g. Much few Meltaguns being used these days).

The (apparent) top 5 Codices competitive wise are all 5th edition which should be no surprise, but assuming it's [IG>SW>BA>Nids>Dark Eldar] then it's in fact gradually getting weaker...

The codex creep is like the dinosaurs. They began an arms race of size, and though some evolved creative adaptations, it was moslty just stay larger than your enemy. Eventually they became so large, that when things changed, they were too big. The codex creep is the same thing, just becoming more powerful than everything else, with a few creative strategic things added once in awhile.

Just Dave wrote:The (apparent) top 5 Codices competitive wise are all 5th edition which should be no surprise, but assuming it's [IG>SW>BA>Nids>Dark Eldar] then it's in fact gradually getting weaker...

No...just the Xenos codices. As was pointed out, all of the Imperial dexes released so far in 5th have been balanced to OTT, while the Xenos dexes have been balanced to meh. BA came out after Nids and was certainly a more powerful dex overall. Of course with only six true 5th edition dexes out, it's hard to make an acurate judgement call. I'm interested in seeing what happens with GK and the probable Necron dex after that.

General Codex creep is defined as something that is statistically superior in every way (including point cost). Compare the BT rhino to the DA rhino. The DA rhino has much of the same equipment, but is just 15 points cheaper. Prior to the FAQ update, DA was completely left in the dust as they pay the same cost for Stormshields, but get a 4+ Invul only in close combat. That's the type of Codex Creep people talk about, and it's not really changing the game, but making it incredibly skewed towards the newest (marine) army.