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So, I was reading over my guard codex tonight, and was struck by something. In the fluff part where they're describing the unit, sometimes they make reference to how common something is "supposed" to be. For example, under the entry for Leman Russ, it says "It is rare indeed for an Imperial Guard force to engage the enemy without at least one of these fearsome machines in support", and in the section about comissars it says "At least one commissar is assigned to every regiment, and most will have several who remain with the regiment", while on the other hand, for the manticore it says "it is rarely fielded outside of dedicated artillery regiments", while storm troopers are given "rare" equipment, and stormies, ratlings, ogryn, rough riders, and sentinels - all more difficult units to use - also have the word "rare" used in describing how they fight.

I'm just kind of curious if this fluff talk is justified. Is the person who writes the codex (unlike, say, people who write for white dwarf) actually trying to subtly cue new players to the army as to what they should take for an effective build? If you actually follow the advice that the fluff gives, will you actually get a decently competitive army? In the case of the guard, it seems to be true, as the fluff steers you towards infantry platoons with commissars, some, but not too many chimeras, and points invested in LRBT's, basilisks, and collossuses, while steering away from guard elites and FA, which is actually a pretty solid guard list in the making that is straightforward to play.

I mean, if you only went by the fluff in your codex, would you be able to create a competitive list? An easy list for a beginner to play? Or is the fluff in your codex wrong or crazy or over the top in such a way where following its advice would make an army difficult to play with or way overloaded in certain places as to cripple the effectiveness of the list over all?

I play orks, so literally any list is fluffy

Start with the basic ork build, green tide, and add units to flavor. Want a dread mob? Throw in 2 big meks, 3 dreads, and 6 kans. Kult of speed? Bikers and trukkers should start replacing some of da ladz. The possibilities are endless, you just need to know how to model and paint the fun stuff.

-cgmckenzie

well, but what does the ork codex say? Does it say that all units are used all the time, or that some are rarer than others? If you were a brand new player who knew absolutely nothing about orks, what kind of army would the codex gently steer you towards?

It is fluff, it is irrelevant to game play. Tonight I played Game of Thrones Board game, did I attack because of the way it was in the books, NO, I attacked as was advantagous.

I'm certainly not implying that you HAVE to follow the fluff or else there's no way you can field a competitive list. I'm asking if the fluff guides you towards things that are competitive in your codex.

I play Eldar and feel that the craft world limitations lend themselves rather well to effective builds. Saim Hann with a JetCouncil mixed with GJBs, Falcons and Serpents with Stormies and Dragons. Or the Iyanden wraith wall. Both of those builds are guided by what is listed as common and likely to be found in the army and theyre both quite effective.

My Draigowing on the other hand...I cant find any way to excuse that many Paladins being in the same place at once. I just play it because it's fun. Crowe's Purifiers are supposed to be insanely rare as well. 40 in the galaxy if I remember Ward's stupid words correctly. Not even in my most bizarre dreams could I think either of those lists are fluffy.

I expect it depends on the codex and writer, but I don't know other armies as well and can't really comment.

I think with basically any 5th Edition Codex you can create a fluffy yet competitive list.

yeah, look at salamanders.

the catch is that just because something is rare, doesn't mean that featuring it in an army is going against the background.

To go with Grey Knights, using Purifiers for example as there is literally only a handful of them in the entire galaxy making them probably the rarest unit in existance, it's still fitting with the background to take as many as you want. They don't just sit in their halls on Titan all day, and given a suitably significant reason to fight I'm sure the entire Purifier Order would pack their bags and head off to war. The codex even states that their numbers are in constant flux, and a sudden increase in their numbers always heralds a significant battle just over the horizon.

However, not all items listed as "fluffy" and "common" are actually useful. For example, in the BA codex, it says that most commanders use whirlwinds. Now, the whirlwind can be good in vanilla marines, but it doesn't fit with most BA lists, as we have so many options that are so much better.

The ork book doesn't really give any information about the frequency of each unit's use. It points out when something notable happens, like how the first deff kopta got built, but the information about how many deff koptas are in use in a WAAAGH! is not there.

The closest it gets is saying that certain units are treated with suspicion because they need to do war in 'un-orky' means. Kommandos are sneaky, burna boyz use flamethrowers, and stormboyz use jump packs. However, it does list these all as elites or FA, so fielding them in conjunction with the green tide of ladz is still fluffy.

-cgmckenzie

JohnnoM wrote:yeah, look at salamanders.

vulkan in *every* army, dakka preds and land speeders?

Vindicators, dev squads,TH/SS termies in LRR, stern guard, no assault troops no land speeders!

Going by the ork codex, I would have a large mob of boyz, (Self explanitory) With about 2 trukks with boyz as well. (Stated in codex that one should always invest in a few trukks so that a portion of the ladz can get close) One mob of grots should be there, (grots are always present to take hits for the ladz and distract killy things) and there ought to be at least one biker mob or similar fast thing like buggies or koptas. (Because the kult of speed is the biggest band of boyz) There is a warboss, and he is either on a bike, or in a wagon. There are nobz, and they often have a similar ride. Add elites to taste, most likely not more then one of the same.

Sounds like a pretty lousy list, if you don't mind me saying.

Snickerdoodle wrote:It is fluff, it is irrelevant to game play.

Sadly this is often true.

I like to consider fluff when I build lists, create scenarios and plan campaigns.

I prefer playing games that feature logical fluff based matchups.

I also know that I am in the minority...

If IG codex were fluffy Guardsman would suck against Guardians and Firewarriors, lasguns wouldn't work, you'd need to buy 500 tanks to do anything, and political-infighting rolls would kill off half your army.

Isn't there a passage about Obliterators being extremely rare and unique to the point where whole wars were waged to get some old-tech for them? And yet there was a time where 9 were usually walking around in any given skirmish

Fluff IG would be platoons with individual squads, a smattering of grenade launchers, maybe one veteran squad (with rubbish weapons).
Forget about any non-officers getting power weapons, too. Those things are rare as Hen's Teeth.
In Gaunt's Ghosts, Gaunt didn't even have a power weapon, despite being an experienced commissar. I can't even think of any officers who had any actually.
And yeah. Probably about 90% of their artillery would be Basilisks so you could probably take a few of them.

Joey wrote:Fluff IG would be platoons with individual squads, a smattering of grenade launchers, maybe one veteran squad (with rubbish weapons).

What in the codex would lead you to believe this?

I haven't read the codex fluff I was going on the novels.

Joey wrote:Fluff IG would be platoons with individual squads, a smattering of grenade launchers, maybe one veteran squad (with rubbish weapons).
Forget about any non-officers getting power weapons, too. Those things are rare as Hen's Teeth.
In Gaunt's Ghosts, Gaunt didn't even have a power weapon, despite being an experienced commissar. I can't even think of any officers who had any actually.
And yeah. Probably about 90% of their artillery would be Basilisks so you could probably take a few of them.

Nah, Guard regiments only field one type of equipment or soldier, so your army would be all infantry, all tanks, all artillery, or all cavalry with some Ogryn or Ratlings for the infantry regiment.

In the BA codex, there is an inventory of various vehicles possessed by the chapter. If memory serves me correctly, it's something like 15 or so Baal Predators and about the same number of Predators, but 40+ Land Raiders. Plus, of course, there are a total of 18 Assault Squads in the entire chapter, in comparison to 44 Tactical Squads. Then there's the completely insane stuff. like the statement about Whirlwinds, or a claim that Devastators are given priority in deciding which squads get Land Raiders. It's pretty obvious that the fluff is not a good plan for an effective Blood Angels army, and I would wager that ends up being true for pretty much any MEQ army.

In fact, in a more general sense, the fluff suggests that Space Marine forces are known for their ability to handle anything, which of course means diversity. For example, the section on Devastators states that most commanders prefer a mix of weapons so the squad can cover all contingencies. This is of course a great recipe for a crappy army on the tabletop, but it does fit the whole idea of Space Marines as ultra-elite commando types.

In the Necron codex it talks about every Tomb World being assigned some Triarch Praetorians, but from what I've seen they're pretty bad. It also talks about Lychguard being right at the centre of every battle, but they'd be swamped pretty easily in a game! I think most of the Necron fluff would fail in a game - like using Royal Courts as a retinue, etc.

Harriticus wrote:If IG codex were fluffy Guardsman would suck against Guardians and Firewarriors, lasguns wouldn't work, you'd need to buy 500 tanks to do anything, and political-infighting rolls would kill off half your army.

Citation needed.

Every fluff ive read about guard they are extremely professional soldiers. The lasgun easily mows down humans or orks and even nids. Chainswords literally saw through armor and guardsman hold their own in assult. Even with out a commissar. The leman russ in the fluff is a brutally effective tank. Nothing else its size has as much armor or firepower. Fluff wise the Guard is a very good fighting force. Now the PDF.... Not so much.

Edit: The PDF is concidered to be horrible for the same reason guardsman are fodder. The PDF make the IG look better. So actually the PDF is pretty competent, its just to have an IG story you need an incompetent PDF. Which means the IG are extremely competent, its just the writer has to slaughter them to make mahreeens look better.

Buttons wrote:

Joey wrote:Fluff IG would be platoons with individual squads, a smattering of grenade launchers, maybe one veteran squad (with rubbish weapons).
Forget about any non-officers getting power weapons, too. Those things are rare as Hen's Teeth.
In Gaunt's Ghosts, Gaunt didn't even have a power weapon, despite being an experienced commissar. I can't even think of any officers who had any actually.
And yeah. Probably about 90% of their artillery would be Basilisks so you could probably take a few of them.

Nah, Guard regiments only field one type of equipment or soldier, so your army would be all infantry, all tanks, all artillery, or all cavalry with some Ogryn or Ratlings for the infantry regiment.

Yeah but the codex explains how your army would have a mixture of tanks, artillery, infantry, etc. Support regiments like armored companies and artillery batteries, are often broken up into smaller units and sent to support infantry divisions. Valkyries and vendettas are from the Imperial Navy, and are attached to Imperial Guard regiments at times as well, where they'll answer to the commander on the ground for the duration they are there. And in the black reach book, they mention an IG campaign in the fluff section, where it shows various regiments working together in various battles. There are often multiple infantry, sentinel, tank, and airborne companies, all working together in unison.

That's why we have things like an officer of the fleet and the master of ordinance, as they are technically advisors who work with these more specialized forces. The book not only mentions this, but encourages it, both fluff and gameplay wise. It mentions several mixed regiments, as well as combined ones, like a combined catachan and elysian regiment that specializes in airborne fighting on jungle planets. If anything, if you were wanting to be fluffy, all your infantry would be from one regiment, your tanks and chimeras from another, and your artillery from a third.

As for how effective a fluffy list would be, thats a tossup. It mentions several basic army types in the codex, from the Armeggedon steel legions where every infantry unit has a chimera transport, would reflect the opinion that "leafblower" lists can be fluffy. Other armies, like the chenkov style of mass infantry and mass artillery though, are probably more for fun than anything.

Now for orks on the other hand, pretty much any army you felt like fielding could be considered fluffy, provided you painted your units correctly for the given group the worked with. Most green tide would be "Goffs" and would be dressed in black armor and would have simple, no nonsense vehicles. Cult of speed type armies would have everything, even their infantry, painted red, along with flames and other decorations. Anything fast would fit in a kult of speed list, and even a few mobs of boyz are allowed, as they are explained as being boyz who are saving up to buy a vehicle of their own.

Ailaros wrote:So, I was reading over my guard codex tonight, and was struck by something. In the fluff part where they're describing the unit, sometimes they make reference to how common something is "supposed" to be. For example, under the entry for Leman Russ, it says "It is rare indeed for an Imperial Guard force to engage the enemy without at least one of these fearsome machines in support", and in the section about comissars it says "At least one commissar is assigned to every regiment, and most will have several who remain with the regiment", while on the other hand, for the manticore it says "it is rarely fielded outside of dedicated artillery regiments", while storm troopers are given "rare" equipment, and stormies, ratlings, ogryn, rough riders, and sentinels - all more difficult units to use - also have the word "rare" used in describing how they fight.

I'm just kind of curious if this fluff talk is justified. Is the person who writes the codex (unlike, say, people who write for white dwarf) actually trying to subtly cue new players to the army as to what they should take for an effective build? If you actually follow the advice that the fluff gives, will you actually get a decently competitive army? In the case of the guard, it seems to be true, as the fluff steers you towards infantry platoons with commissars, some, but not too many chimeras, and points invested in LRBT's, basilisks, and collossuses, while steering away from guard elites and FA, which is actually a pretty solid guard list in the making that is straightforward to play.

I mean, if you only went by the fluff in your codex, would you be able to create a competitive list? An easy list for a beginner to play? Or is the fluff in your codex wrong or crazy or over the top in such a way where following its advice would make an army difficult to play with or way overloaded in certain places as to cripple the effectiveness of the list over all?

You have a very good point (as always), I'm trying out an army based more on fluff (well, dawn of war) and so far its done a far bit of good.

Depends on the codex but yes some of them do give you clues. Like the grey knights you don't wan t to go overboard with purifiers or dreadknights (unless you making a build around them).

Hmm, Templars, eh?

Either an orbital strike force, with Terminators, Drop Pods and Land Speeders, or an armoured spearhead with Razorbacks, Rhinoes, Razorbacks, Land Raiders, Razorbacks, Land Speeders, Razorbacks, Bikes, Razorbacks and Vindicators. Interestingly enough, that's 2 out of 3 Templar builds that are generally considered decent.

Also, being able to tell someone that your Razorspam army is fluffy with a straight face is amazing!