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So, I was thinking about the chaos legions codex rumors, and I thought that maby GW should do the same with Imperial forces. Combine Sm and ig into one big codex. Is this any sort of a good idea?

That...would be massive. Unless you simply went standard Sm and IG anyhow.

No, since it will be about 300 pages long. Seriously, the amount of material that they would have to put in to do all of the factions of the IoM justice would be insane. You know how there are like 5 different SM codices? Well, that's how much they would have to put in. And that's not including the Ad Mech, the Arbites, the inquisition...you get the point.

By contrast, the Chaos Legions are significantly smaller; there are only a few of them, and they don't have that much material behind them I think. Sure, it would still be a big book compared to the other codices, but it would not be the length of say, a couple of IA books strapped together.

Even IG and SM would be a bit big, considering how you have all of the main chapters (UM, Sallies, IF, BT, BA, SW, GK, CF...you get the idea) as well as the IG regiments (Catachans, Cadians, all that background stuff on the Steel Legion, Mordians and so on) AND have to have rules to differentiate them to create a worthwhile monster of a codice. They will have to give them something special, since if they were all the same then no one would get it due to blandness, nerd rage at losing an army's "uniqueness" and any other various factors.

TL; DR, not going to happen, unless GW does what infinity do and make all of the codices free.

Trust me, this won't lead anywhere good.



That said, I think it's a bad idea because it'd reduce faction diversity by a lot. Everyone's already complaining about "too much marines!", imagine the blow diversity would take if everyone who played Space Marines and/or IG used the same Codex. Furthermore, such a tome would be massive, and people would be forced to pay for lots of rules they'll never use.

In reality they could be giving various chaos factions their codices as well if they wanted as well as there's plenty of supporting fluff as well as at least as much diversity in play style as some of the marine chapters, but IMHO we really don't need even more MEQs running around.

As for the original topic, I have to agree with the others. An Imperium codex would either be massive, or would have to cut down on tons of stuff in order to work. Both of these options would likely cause massive fan rage, so neither is particularly viable.

On the other hand just the Base IG codex with the standard Sm codex, could be interesting. You could not include all the SM codei, but just Vanilla marines would be cool.

Marines are completely independent in the fluff, and I think having them as a separate codex represents that well. I'd also like to keep the armies separated a bit, and having their own codices means they can each have more attention in their own rules instead of all getting shoehorned into one big book.

I suppose if GW wanted to make a sort of Pre-Heresy codex that allowed an army to be played as depicted in the PH books then a LIMITED IoM codex could be intriguing. Maybe with SM Jet bikes, gene battalions, IG in Rhinos, and maybe old tanks that were in WD or old 40k art that were never put in the game.
In the current 40k universe with so many codex already. Don't hold your breath.

I ment two codex in one. And bring back the old allies rule. And yes, JUST sm and ig. No blood angels or others.

There was Codex Imperialis back in 2nd ed, but I wouldn't really want a return to that. I like that everything's got a lot more content to it now. Also, If I had no interest in playing one army or the other, I wouldn't want to cart around a big heavy book where I only need half the content. Finally, there's a balance issue. The Guard's big weakness is that their troops are fragile and die quickly in hand to hand. Counteracting that by putting Marines in is kinda screwy for game balance, not gonna lie.

The codex Chaos Legions only represents the forces of the CSM and what follows them into battle, like slaves or cultists who happen to be there or daemons they summon. It's not all that Chaos has available.

And a codex formed from SM and IG wouldn't be that good of an idea.

Really it should be broken down to:
-Codex: Space Marines
-Codex: Grey Knights
-Codex: Sisters of Battle
-Codex: Imperial Guard

With supporting units able to attach itself to any Imperial army: Inquisitors, Retinue, Tech-Priest, Astropath, and Assassins.

There's already enough Imperial dex's out without another being piled in, Codex: Red Space Marines, Codex: Black Space Marines, etc. is annoying enough.

Imagine, if you will, the sheer overpoweredness of Leman Russ tanks supported by TH/SS termies. Add a couple of blobs of guard, for model density, keep the termies back for counterassault. Nothing is going to want to charge that. Nothing.

Midnightdeathblade wrote:So, I was thinking about the chaos legions codex rumors, and I thought that maby GW should do the same with Imperial forces. Combine Sm and ig into one big codex. Is this any sort of a good idea?

Never happen. Space Marines sell models which means they can sell more books.

Harriticus wrote:Really it should be broken down to:
-Codex: Space Marines
-Codex: Grey Knights
-Codex: Sisters of Battle
-Codex: Deathwatch
-Codex: Imperial Guard

With supporting units able to attach itself to any Imperial army: Inquisitors, Retinue, Tech-Priest, Astropath, and Assassins.

There's already enough Imperial dex's out without another being piled in, Codex: Red Space Marines, Codex: Black Space Marines, etc. is annoying enough.

Fixed. Ordo Xenos needs some lovin' too.

I don't care about the rest of the Imperium, I just want to have one big Book of the Inquisition covering Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Deathwatch, and general Inquisition units.

AnomanderRake wrote:I don't care about the rest of the Imperium, I just want to have one big Book of the Inquisition covering Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Deathwatch, and general Inquisition units.

That works too. Just one big book including SCs from every branch of the inquisition, SoB, Grey Knights, Deathwatch, and Inquisitorial Storm Troopers.

Oh yeah, a book on the inquisition should be fine. They are a fairly mysterious organization, so they are allowed to not have a ton of fluff in there. I think that they should have done that to begin with.

This will lead to Leafblower Purifiers *shudder*

This is stupid. I don't not want a 300 page book just where 80% of it I won't use. It would probably lead to HUGE fluff massacres.

I don't noramlly agree with AlmightyWalrus but here yeah this is completly stupid the book would be huge it would be so large you would need a case for it.

Why is it that people always wasnna take the imperial codicies and combine them into one book keep in mind

Imperium:largest force in galaxy
Orks: 2nd largest but disorganized in the extreme
Eldar: the float around on cityships mostly.
DArk Eldar: they raid they don't fight protracted wars
Tau: Small fish Huge Pond
Nids:space borne attackers
Necrons: the Old largest force coming out of their slumber
Chaosangerous

none of these are as big and therefore could support the diversity of codicies in the fluff and then sales just make it a given.

captain collius wrote:I don't noramlly agree with AlmightyWalrus but here yeah this is completly stupid the book would be huge it would be so large you would need a case for it.

Why is it that people always wasnna take the imperial codicies and combine them into one book keep in mind

Imperium:largest force in galaxy
Orks: 2nd largest but disorganized in the extreme
Eldar: the float around on cityships mostly.
DArk Eldar: they raid they don't fight protracted wars
Tau: Small fish Huge Pond
Nids:space borne attackers
Necrons: the Old largest force coming out of their slumber
Chaosangerous

none of these are as big and therefore could support the diversity of codicies in the fluff and then sales just make it a given.

The Eldar and Chaos forces have just as much, if not more diversity than the Imperium, especially Chaos since not only do they follow different tactics to begin with, the power the gods give them separates them even more. As has been said many times, if GW actually devoted their time to a force other than the Imperium, more people would be likely to buy those armies.

The book wouldn't be huge. If they've managed to cut down the awesome diversity of the Imperial Guard to one codex, the copy-pastes that are the Space Marine armies wouldn't even need much work beyond deciding what characters no longer deserves an entry.

Let's face it, the fact that we've got, what is it? 9 Space Marine codexes isn't that there's diversity among the Space Marines (there isn't), but rather that there's a large player base for specifically Space Marine models.
What other race of codex can you point at nearly any given model and refer to units in Codex: Space Marines for an adequate explanation?

But, like I wrote, it's a fan service. Blood Angels, Space Wolves, etc have no reason to have a codex except that sufficient people buy them.
I just idly wonder if there would be such a large player base if the difference in models were more than merely their colour.