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I was wondering what everyone thinks of both of these. I've seen some people on here that say they house rule certain stats, and I've also seen a few people who really do not care for custom (as in non-GW) codices.

Is there something about custom codices that makes them so undesireable? I understand it isn't made by GW, but in a friendly game (whether with friends or at a FLGS if someone were to roll up and ask if they can play an army using a codex they wrote), is it really an issue?

I'll play custom rules/codices/units with my friends, and I'll certainly provide my honest opinions and thoughts on any rules posted here.

The biggest problem I have is a combination of glaringly incorrect and super snowflake fluff combined with more often than not super awesome snowflake rules that break the game.

The amount of marine characters I've seen with S5/T5, 12 wounds, Feel No Pain and Eternal Warrior is staggering. For a lot of people, making their custom characters/codices becomes an exercise in vicariously living through your plastic models, and therefore, most people want to have the best stuff. The concept of "Oh I'll just make it expensive" does not create balance, and a lot of people don't see that when creating their uber units.

That being said, there have been some downright fantastic codices, rules, and units posted on these boards that I dream of playing in competitive play. Go read through Just Dave's version of the Chaos Marine codex, its truly a thing of beauty (I should leave a comment telling him that now that I think of it...).

The biggest I'll tell anyone, is that your character/unit/codex needs to lose, and it will die. Otherwise, its just not fun for the other party playing against you and Super McCheese Lord of the CheeseChapter Marines.

If you're wondering what makes custom codices undesirable, it's pretty obvious. A lot of people will make codices with no eye for balance, or invent undercosted/overpowered/flat out silly units that don't fit into the game at all. Meanwhile, some people like JustDave write excellent fan codices (read his Chaos codex) but they are in the vast, VAST minority. As much as people complain about GW's rules writing abilities, your average Joe is probably worse at writing rules than anyone in the GW design team.

In a pickup game with a random stranger, I would probably say no to a fan-dex. I'm not terribly competitive, but I wouldn't want to play against it unless I knew the person and what they were like. If a longtime gamer buddy said "Hey, want to play my custom codex?" I'd be down.

Houserules are another kind of situation. Personally, I let Raveners come up through Trygon holes, because it's thematic, pretty obviously intended, and they even do it in the battle report in that month's WD. There's also occasionally some silly houserule that gets brought up for the fun of it, like the Bio-Lion pits on Dirt Planet or whatever.

If I'm allowed a look at the codex first, I'll consider it. Or if it has JustDave's name on it.

Me and my friends have house rules about special codexs

1. It can not be about the army you play most, so you get your friends to write it and they normal balance it out.

2. you must have play tested it with most of the people in a gaming club(my gaming club is quite small as i live in Australia)

McNinja wrote:is it really an issue?

Yes, in that whenever I've encountered someone who wanted to plonk down their custom chapter master/primarch/daemon lord/c'tan/entire codex/whatever it is they're about to revile, very rarely are they appropriately priced or balanced. The most egregious I can think of offhand was a warboss with super customized forcefield, that gave him a 2++ save, supposedly balanced by only having a 4+ armor save and always striking at I1. Too bad he had a power klaw.

There are a few good unofficial codecies out there, but just remember that 80%-90% of fan created material is crap, so you always have to sift through crap. Also note that several of them are formatted for older editions and will not have the same balance in this edition (also true of GW products).

Some general advice, never build an army for a custom codex that can't be fielded as a GW published army, unless you want to carry to armies. You may have a supercool admech codex, but you should probably also be prepared to run it as "counts as X", in case your opponent says no.

I'm have to be ok with playing a non-gw codex since I myself play one now.

Of course tournies are something completely different but in a friendly gam as long as I get a quick glance I'll be fine with playing against one.

Armless Failure wrote:just remember that 80%-90% of fan created material is crap, so you always have to sift through crap.

I'd put that more in the 95%-99% range honestly.

Portugal Jones wrote:

McNinja wrote:is it really an issue?

Yes, in that whenever I've encountered someone who wanted to plonk down their custom chapter master/primarch/daemon lord/c'tan/entire codex/whatever it is they're about to revile, very rarely are they appropriately priced or balanced. The most egregious I can think of offhand was a warboss with super customized forcefield, that gave him a 2++ save, supposedly balanced by only having a 4+ armor save and always striking at I1. Too bad he had a power klaw.

Sputter. Were you able to explain to him how changing the armor save really doesn't do a bloody thing as far as balancing out the invuln save? That's 100% derp.

I would rather my opponent find an existing stand-in or counts as codex for their army. As much as people joke about GW not playtesting the codecies, I'm pretty sure the units in the published codecies were reviewed prior to publication.

Just my preference.

Brother SRM wrote:

Armless Failure wrote:just remember that 80%-90% of fan created material is crap, so you always have to sift through crap.

I'd put that more in the 95%-99% range honestly.

I was being generous.