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Right I am going to get flamed for this. I know that GW is well behind the Curve with its releases of Codices. I think that in 6th Edition there should be some changes to them and the SM codices should be consolidated to allow more time and resources to be dedicated to the other (and arguably less established races and allow them to expand, and increase these ranges. I want to see BAD MOONS expanded and all the brilliant old school Ork Units re-modelled, I want to see a better Chaos SM with better ideas like whole 1k Sons Armies and the fact that certain CSM won't work togther for historical / hatred reasons).

1. Codex Loyalists Marines (Imperial Fists/ Crimson Fists / Black Templars)
2. Codex Angel Marines (Dark Angels / Blood Angels)
3. Codex Feral Marines (Space Wolves / Ravenguard )
4. Codex Space Marines (All the solid Marines, like the Iron Hands, Ultra's, Howling Griffons e.g all the bog standard marines).

Then dedicate all the resources to all the other Codexes. These should be released in mirror image forms, e.g If Eldar is released, release the Dark Eldar simultaneously. If you release Codex SM release Codex CSM at the same time. The miniature studio can then focus on one body type (eg. Eldar Bodies) and adapt them to either range. Same with Renegade Guard and Imperial Guard. They need to scale back stupid Codex releases, a complete Codex Agents Imperialis (Arbites, Assassins, Sisters of Battle, inquistors etc) for example. I play Flames of War and it has started to change alot of its Books and started to consolidate them into large volumes (yes they cost a bit more, but you get alot of info in one EARTH & STEEL is good example).

The current idea of one group, one codex is time consuming and slow to release.

Putting three army lists into one book doesn't speed up development time... you still have to develop three armies.

If you're then going to team that up with developing an opposing book at the same time, all you're doing is increasing the development time even further.

insaniak wrote:Putting three army lists into one book doesn't speed up development time... you still have to develop three armies.

If you're then going to team that up with developing an opposing book at the same time, all you're doing is increasing the development time even further.

I don't think GW really cares too much how much time it takes to develop, they release them on their glacial 6 month schedule no matter what. 6 months should be enough to develop anything.

Look it shouldn't have to re-develop the Codexes that much. Do you really think they will overhaul the mechanics of 6th edition that much? They are not developing Armies, they have them already and their fluff etc. This should be an evolution, a refinement or minor corrections it will not be a radical change Tactical Squads won't go down to 5 men or something crazy. It's about tweaking not re-designing from the ground up.

Well, I guess since GW sees the rules only as a way to sell more miniatures they don't care about having the codices come out too fast.

I don't like the idea. All of the Marine Armies would loose their identities.

why would you put Dark Angels and Blood Angels together?

they have nothing in common aside from their name.


if anything, the following is what happens.


Codex: Space Marines with DA and BA folded in. Everything as before with the addition of Belial and Sammial as special characters who change the FoC. Chapter Traits are brought back, one of which allows Apothacaries as a 3 for 1 elite choice IC, but you have the BA flaw. another allows Assault Marines as troops.

Codex: Crusade Chapters. Black Templars mostly, but also represents Space Marine chapters on crusades or that are fleet based.

Codex: Space Wolves

Codex Astartes: All the marine chapters in one book, allowing you to build your list as one faction with bonuses or a mix.

Codex Chaos: All those CSM and demons and renegades. Same deal.

This would simplify the releases so much that they could actually keep everything up to date.

well, the 6th edition rumors say that the current chaos codex will become Codex: Renagades and they will also release Codex: Chaos Legions which will have cult troops and more deamonic things.

Personally, I think that the Blood Angels and Dark Angels should just be rolled in with the vanilla Marines. I would like to see the 6e Space Marine Codex with more of the Chapter Tactics characters, eliminating the need for some of the variant Codices.

I'd be happy for them to do a 'Chapter Tactics'-esque thing with other armies, allowing Orks to specialize in a specific tribe, or Chaos to specialize in a specific warband. It is a very nice mechanic that streamlines the game, and I hope they do more with it.

I'm a strong proponent of rolling Blood Angels and Dark Angels into a Codex: Angels of Death as per 2nd ed. With a few pages of special units they could be rolled into Codex: Space Marines though, and Blood Angels only had half their special stuff before the most recent codex. It would have been easier to do a year ago.

Space Wolves and Black Templars are too different to really roll into the standard codex, and some of your other ideas for split off codices (Crimson Fists? I play them and I still have to question that one) are fine in Codex: Space Marines as they are.

So instead of 5 marine codex's there would be 4 but they would contain rules for at least 3 new (never had a complete ruleset before) armies?

I don't know if that would cut down on development time.

it would, because of TEAMWORK!!!


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and FRIENDSHIP!

mwnciboo wrote:1. Codex Loyalists Marines (Imperial Fists/ Crimson Fists / Black Templars)
2. Codex Angel Marines (Dark Angels / Blood Angels)
3. Codex Feral Marines (Space Wolves / Ravenguard )
4. Codex Space Marines (All the solid Marines, like the Iron Hands, Ultra's, Howling Griffons e.g all the bog standard marines).

Problems:
1. imperial fists and crimson fist are codex chapters (seeing as they are in C:SM thats obvious)
2. dark angels and blood angels are completely different, dark angels are far closer to the Codex astartes norm and although i love them they can be roled into C:SM
3. ravenguard follow the codex astartes (seeing as they are in C:SM thats obvious) and are not 'feral'

insaniak wrote:Putting three army lists into one book doesn't speed up development time... you still have to develop three armies.

If you're then going to team that up with developing an opposing book at the same time, all you're doing is increasing the development time even further.

Given that half the entries, at least, are identical, and you're not having to write new sections for each one (e.g. SW predator entry has to be written differently from DA predator entry currently, etc.), and the bigger deal is marketing/release pipeline. Each release needs 3-6 months of release time (usually about 5 monts) so as not to crowd other releases and ensure product gets sold and whatnot. So cutting several marine books from the release pipeline could cut the time required to get through all the books by a couple years.

That said, we really only need C:SM, C:CSM, C:GK. If the varied Legions of Chaos can, and always have, make do with one book, so can the far more homogenous and uniform loyalist marine armies.

Yawn. Same thread, same flawed arguments, different day.


If the idea is to "cut down on development time" but you're still creating the same amount of armies just putting them into one book...you're not going to be "cutting down on development time". It will be the same development time, just rather than being staggered over the course of years--it's all at once.

The argument constantly put forward that "Well if Legions of Chaos can do it then so can the Loyalist Marines" is flawed, to start off with. Cult/Legion armies have always been set up so that they have "signature" troops(for the Legion armies) or specific Marks that do something. To use an example: Thousand Sons. They have Sorcerers(HQ choices) and then they have the actual Thousand Sons unit entry. Same thing can go for Death Guard, where you have normal HQs with Mark of Nurgle and units of Death Guard, etc. It's a great irony that while it's said that "the Loyalist Marine armies are so homogenous"...and yet, Legion armies haven't really had too much in the way of variation themselves.

They can't necessarily do that for Dark Angels, where there's no such thing as a "Dark Angels Squad"--it's a Tactical Squad, base, but the army proper should have unique rules differentiating them from the standard Codex Marines.

If it were me, however, what I would do is archetypes. I've said it repeatedly before, and the main players in these threads know my ideas. For those who don't however, here's how it would work:

Codex: Sons of the Emperor--consists of the 'Codex Friendly' Legions/Chapters. Ultramarines, Imperial+Crimson Fists, etc.

Codex: Shadows of Wrath--Dark Angels, White Scars, Raven Guard. Why these three? They're very 'different' yet similar to Codex forces. They all have, at the core, of their battle plans the idea of "Precision" strikes. Whether it be Dark Angels and the interconnected nature of the Ravenwing and Deathwing operating hand in hand, the White Scars and their excellent skill at perfectly timed mechanized assaults, or the Raven Guard and their pinpoint precision Drop Pod strikes guided in by their Scout Squads--the idea should be stealth and precision. This should, at its heart, be a very 'surgical' book where if something goes wrong in timing--your game is thrown pretty heavily.

Codex: Wrath and Fury. Blood Angels and their Successors, alongside of the Black Templars, Relictors, and Salamanders.
Why these? They have another 'underlying theme' in that they are 'Codex but Not'. Whether it's the Death Company, the combined squads of Neophytes and Battle-Brothers, the Relictors' usage of captured Chaos weapons, or the Salamanders' expertise in slow and steady combat with an emphasis on master-crafted weaponry and flames pouring before them--it's a good 'un.

Codex: Savage Faith. This one is the last and always the hardest to put together. However, what it should come down to is the Space Wolves, Iron Hands, and Carcharadons. The overwhelming theme here should be the 'tribal' styled Chapters. "What? Iron Hands? Tribal? YOU'RE MAD!"--Nah. The Iron Hands are organized into kinds of 'mobile clans' with each being its own company---Very similar to the Space Wolves and their Great Companies.

I've got some ideas for Chaos/Traitors as well, but the big thing always comes down to:
Codex: The Lost and the Broken--Night Lords, Alpha Legion, and the Emperor's Children come in here.

Why? Honestly, because they have some very close similarities and would have a few 'signature' units that would be very recognizable without needing entire army alterations overall.

Codex: Shattered Oaths--Red Corsairs, Black Legion, Thousand Sons, and what's more...the 'generic' Chaos forces come in here.
This is where you see the combinations of things like warbands and their mutant/human dreg/cannon fodder.

There would be a third book, which I have no good name for, which amounts to World Eaters, Death Guard, and generic 'cult' forces.

Kanluwen wrote:I've got some ideas for Chaos/Traitors as well, but the big thing always comes down to:
Codex: The Lost and the Broken--Night Lords, Alpha Legion, and the Emperor's Children come in here.

Why? Honestly, because they have some very close similarities and would have a few 'signature' units that would be very recognizable without needing entire army alterations overall.

Codex: Shattered Oaths--Red Corsairs, Black Legion, Thousand Sons, and what's more...the 'generic' Chaos forces come in here.
This is where you see the combinations of things like warbands and their mutant/human dreg/cannon fodder.

There would be a third book, which I have no good name for, which amounts to World Eaters, Death Guard, and generic 'cult' forces.

And of course Codex: Iron Warriors would be released as a stand alone.

Well, I figure Iron Warriors can either get put into Shattered Oaths or Lost and the Broken.

They're honestly the most difficult to 'fit' in.

Kanluwen wrote:
If the idea is to "cut down on development time" but you're still creating the same amount of armies just putting them into one book...you're not going to be "cutting down on development time". It will be the same development time, just rather than being staggered over the course of years--it's all at once.

Except that, again, they share upwards of 80% of the same units, so there's a lot of cutting down they can do. Additionally, as I noted above, there's the *marketing/release* time that each book release requires that would be massively cut down for the codex rotation as a whole.

The argument constantly put forward that "Well if Legions of Chaos can do it then so can the Loyalist Marines" is flawed, to start off with. Cult/Legion armies have always been set up so that they have "signature" troops(for the Legion armies) or specific Marks that do something. To use an example: Thousand Sons. They have Sorcerers(HQ choices) and then they have the actual Thousand Sons unit entry. Same thing can go for Death Guard, where you have normal HQs with Mark of Nurgle and units of Death Guard, etc. It's a great irony that while it's said that "the Loyalist Marine armies are so homogenous"...and yet, Legion armies haven't really had too much in the way of variation themselves.

The current book doesn't exactly do the legions justice, but it's hard to see where that's any less differentiated than the loyalist chapter books, half of which openly claim to be codex adherent. That said, both factions should be able to be fit in one book. If an army of sorcerors and automatons can exist in a book also meant to portray wildly psychotic sensory addicted freaks who utilize sonic weaponry and lobotomized bloodthirsty berzerkers, certainly one can fit Wolf marines and Angel marines in one book.



Leave the niche/specialized marine lists to the groups that were designed for that sort of thing, Forgeworld and White Dwarf. That's what every other faction has to do for its specialized/niche forces (e.g. drop troops, eldar pirates, ork mek lists, etc) and would cut down on the main release pipeline time to get out codexes for each faction.

Vaktathi wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
If the idea is to "cut down on development time" but you're still creating the same amount of armies just putting them into one book...you're not going to be "cutting down on development time". It will be the same development time, just rather than being staggered over the course of years--it's all at once.

Except that, again, they share upwards of 80% of the same units, so there's a lot of cutting down they can do. Additionally, as I noted above, there's the *marketing/release* time that each book release requires that would be massively cut down for the codex rotation as a whole.

And again, as we've said every single time, the units aren't necessarily going to be the same.

Grey Hunters aren't the same as Tactical Marines, no matter how you try to spin it. They're Sternguard equivalents.
Scouts for several of the 'Founding Legions' aren't going to simply be newbies--but will be veteran battle-brothers, etc etc.

The argument constantly put forward that "Well if Legions of Chaos can do it then so can the Loyalist Marines" is flawed, to start off with. Cult/Legion armies have always been set up so that they have "signature" troops(for the Legion armies) or specific Marks that do something. To use an example: Thousand Sons. They have Sorcerers(HQ choices) and then they have the actual Thousand Sons unit entry. Same thing can go for Death Guard, where you have normal HQs with Mark of Nurgle and units of Death Guard, etc. It's a great irony that while it's said that "the Loyalist Marine armies are so homogenous"...and yet, Legion armies haven't really had too much in the way of variation themselves.

The current book doesn't exactly do the legions justice, but it's hard to see where that's any less differentiated than the loyalist chapter books, half of which openly claim to be codex adherent. That said, both factions should be able to be fit in one book. If an army of sorcerors and automatons can exist in a book also meant to portray wildly psychotic sensory addicted freaks who utilize sonic weaponry and lobotomized bloodthirsty berzerkers, certainly one can fit Wolf marines and Angel marines in one book.

Kanluwen wrote:
And again, as we've said every single time, the units aren't necessarily going to be the same.

Grey Hunters aren't the same as Tactical Marines, no matter how you try to spin it. They're Sternguard equivalents.

How are they Sternguard equivalents? They're the SW's equivalent of the basic Tac marine, out of their equivalent of the Neophyte stage. They're just *better* for the sake of being better, but certainly not Sternguard, that'd be Wolf Guard.

Scouts for several of the 'Founding Legions' aren't going to simply be newbies--but will be veteran battle-brothers, etc etc.

which isn't represented in any book but SW's currently, a combined book could do that.

And here we come to the point that you're always missing and seemingly unable to comprehend.

Hooray ad-hominem attacks again!

'Codex Adherent' isn't some kind of trait that can be applied to a force. It's an organizational method.

codex adherent covers organization method and operational methods. The codex states not only how things are organized but how they should be done. I'm not seeing what's so off here about the idea that codex adherent forces that share 80% or more of their units and wargear really don't need distinct books to be properly played.

For that matter, your argument of "an army of sorcerers and automatons can exist in a book also meant to portray wildly sensory addicted freaks who utilize sonic weaponry and lobotomized bloodthirsty berzerkers" as usual is skewing the point.

how so? If chaos space marine book can encompasse all the varied forces of the Legions of *CHAOS*, certainly a combined SM book could encompasse the slight differentials between marine books that have far more in common with each other than the Traitor Legions do. It's very difficult to see where Black Templars are so different from the Imperial Fists and Ultramarines that they *need* their own book for instance when the Night Lords and Emperor's Children, or World Eaters and Thousand Sons, all far more varied from each other than the BT's to C:SM, all have always successfully shared a book.

The Thousand Sons, as they stand, can be represented in the Renegade book. Not in the same way that the previous one could, but given that the majority of the Traitor Legions have since been splintered into dozens of warbands and rarely field 'entire armies' of themselves--it's a nonissue.

only for Troops and HQ's, not really for much else. The book doesn't have Rubric terminators for instance, it's got Tzeentch terminators, but they aren't really the same thing and that's pretty widely accepted, however that's besides the point as they *could*, and have been in the past, been reasonably portrayed, along with Berzerker Terminators and Slaaneshi Noise Havocs and all sorts of other wildly varied units. If such things can be portayed within a single book, what's the problem with doing the loyalist marines in a single book?

Not sure how any of the OPs ideas would save time, but I would like to see the Space Marine books are rolled together again with a handful of special rules to change unit selections and perhaps some special unit types for some of the more popular chapters primarily to avoid the crap like we see now. The separate chapter marine books are a stupid escalation of power levels with so many special rules and fiddly bits that it just gets annoying after a while. There was a time where the primary difference between the marine armies was that they had different color armor. Some were hand to hand focused Blood angels) in the fluff, while others were geared towards siege tactics (Imperial Fists), and things like the thirst and blood rage of the blood angels were fluff or a detriment to the force in some way. Nowadays the blood rage is a super special ability of the blood angels ultimately making them stupidly powerful in hand to hand combat fighting, when just being able to choose assault marines as troops would have gone a long way towards bringing out the hand to hand character of the force. We also end up with stupid concepts like the baal predator. Mind you I like the model and the predator variant, but since the gear comes from the mechanicum why can't other chapters use them?? Yeah the Iron Fists are geared more towards long range pounding of enemies, but at some times they need to assault that line they were pounding and a vehicle like the baal predator would support such an assault just as well for them as for the blood angels.

The fight to make each subset of a force so *unique* and uberawesome has just gotten out of control with the space marines. With chaos marines depending on who you are marked by your stats and abilities are a little different, but each traitor legion doesn't have its own full codex book with a ton of special rules and special equipment that only that force can use to make it uberhard and so super keen cool that everyone now has to play the army. Until Codex: Next chaos legion to get its own book is released and is just that much better than the previously released chaos legion codex...

If all of the chaos marine legions can co-exist in a single list then all of the Space marine chapters can do it too.

I've long been yearning for all the loyalist marine chapters to be rolled into one book, I don't think it would be anywhere NEAR as complicated as most loyalist fans make it out to be. About 80% of all the marine books contain the same equipment and units, is it really so stupendously hard to imagine a single codex that has the 20% of unique gear for each chapter included? In the army list you'd have all the units that are shared, and then following that you'd have a few pages per chapter for their unique units and gear, and bullet points for units those chapters would NOT be able to take, like no scouts for Black Templars, no Storm Ravens for Space Wolves, etc.

It really wouldn't be hard... sure, it would be a thick codex, but totally doable. Frankly I think the space marines are the least deserving army for multiple dexes. The regiments of the Imperial Guard are far more diverse.

I see your point, i think all SM chapters should be rolled into one really large dex.

also, 1000th post!!!

I really don't see the massive problems with this. Every marine codex has exactly the same core units, with slightly different special rules and some extras here and there, but essentially every unit is 90% the same throughout the codex. A lot of additional units are essentially re-skinned basic Marine choices +1. When half of all codices are devoted to the least numerous (fluffwise) faction, people will won't like it when there 10-year old 'dex is delayed because GW decide to roll out yet another marine colour.

creeping-deth87 wrote:I've long been yearning for all the loyalist marine chapters to be rolled into one book, I don't think it would be anywhere NEAR as complicated as most loyalist fans make it out to be. About 80% of all the marine books contain the same equipment and units, is it really so stupendously hard to imagine a single codex that has the 20% of unique gear for each chapter included? In the army list you'd have all the units that are shared, and then following that you'd have a few pages per chapter for their unique units and gear, and bullet points for units those chapters would NOT be able to take, like no scouts for Black Templars, no Storm Ravens for Space Wolves, etc.

This.

Also bring back Chaos Marines and Daemons into one Codex.

Point.
- developement time.

If nothing is cut out, what will save time? balancing combined codices takes more effort than what we have now, and still people claim there are more than 50% of units "not worth it" in 5th ed codices. Perhaps reduce the lists to these deemed worth taking elements of "copy&paste lists" would save a lot of time. What? we lost variety? Who needs such thing ?

But maybe developement time is split between 3 systems and a limited amount of employees?
Maybe a company loves to do expansions instead of codices?

Point.
- release window.

So this flavor of the quarter is an argument now?
Can see the use of a release getting its time in the spotlight, but certainly everything on the shelf should be sold until its out of production. One group rolled into a single book would achieve a singular success in selling one range of products.
And the rest of the live-cycle of that edition is filled with risky attempts of selling armies of +- 60% finecast.....

The release window is shared. Its not pure 40k.
However, it could be possible to do all 3 systems paralell. But thats a real improvement and we can't have that...

Point.
- more love for the "others"

oh wait, they "obviously" transfer everything to plastic, no matter if this means to waste money on things that never will earn the investment back since these kits are not compatible in their very nature. Seems the reason why swappable parts and 1 style of basic model is an advantage these "others" may lack completly is lost on some.

The company focused on our money is "surely" going to combine codices they can easily produce "new kits" for just to be able to discontinue existing kits and forfeit an option to add to this codex...

Didn't they offer kits of 5 where 10 are what people may want?
Didn't they nearly ignore some factions in 5th ed fluff? ( like non- renegade chaos ...)
Didn't they take down news and advance orders?

No love for the fanbase...........no matter what they play...

Why have less codices from a business standpoint? Those fethers cost 30 USD.

Because they could focus more time on the specialist games and move away from the Core Warhammer and 40k arenas. Blood Bowl 2, Necramunda, Space Crusade 2, etc there is lots of IP they haven't used (and yes Milton games was a joint collaborator Space crusade I am sure GW could cut a deal).

And again, compiling a bunch of army lists into one giant book wont' cut down on development time. In fact, since this plan involves fleshing out MORE marine chapters, it will INCREASE development time.


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Also, Iron Hands aren't codex marines.