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At the risk of asking one of the noobiest questions even:

It is generally an arguable fact that WH40K is more popular than WHF, so I've often wondered: Why is there so few choices of army in WH0K?

WHF has something, like, 16 armies to pick from, and they're fairly quite diverse in nature, but in WH40K, you have only 11 by my count (I'm not counting all he different Space Marine chapters that count as their own 'race'), and most of them are fairly similar, most being Imperium.

Okay, WHF's been out longer, but Warp, WH40K's been out since the '80s, surely by now there should be more choice of race?

Am I alone in this line of thinking?

if you read 30k stories it will explain why there isnt so much diversity.......... the bloody space marines killed nearly everything :(

Whilst some or many gamers might not perceive the various different SM Chapters as entirely different armies, I suppose GW sees it differently. Maybe it's just because Marines are selling so well and the powers-that-be are unwilling to risk an attempt to make other armies just as interesting, but regardless of the cause, it takes time to churn out all the different codices and design the different models. Time that, for better or worse, won't be available for a new unique army. :/

the bloody space marines killed nearly everything :(

There's more than enough alien species left in the galaxy. The 3E rulebook had a picture with some of them - and not even a third of those are currently represented in a Codex.

And this is before we tap into other Imperial ideas such as a Mechanicus Explorator force, or a Rogue Trader merc army, or even independent (non-Imperial) human colonies, etc.

 Tower75 wrote:
At the risk of asking one of the noobiest questions even:

It is generally an arguable fact that WH40K is more popular than WHF, so I've often wondered: Why is there so few choices of army in WH0K?

WHF has something, like, 16 armies to pick from, and they're fairly quite diverse in nature, but in WH40K, you have only 11 by my count (I'm not counting all he different Space Marine chapters that count as their own 'race'), and most of them are fairly similar, most being Imperium.

Okay, WHF's been out longer, but Warp, WH40K's been out since the '80s, surely by now there should be more choice of race?

Am I alone in this line of thinking?

According to GWs website there are 15 choices for each system (not including any FW stuff).

For 40k we have:

Adepta Sororitas
Blood Angels
Chaos Daemons
Chaos Space Marines
Dark Angels
Dark Eldar
Eldar Army
Grey Knights
Imperial Guard
Necrons
Orks
Space Marines
Space Wolves
Tau Empire
Tyranids Army

And dont forget, fantasy came first.

I'm honestly ok with the number of armies but I'd love to see more supplements. One regiment or a craftworld certainly does some things better than the others, much like Space Marine chapters. This would also mean more depth with fluff which is cool. And this would also mean that you have tactical flexibility when you choose an army simply because you love the models and the race.

40k has 15 different armies, not including supplements, and Codex: Inquisition is coming out soon, making it 16.

Fantasy has 15 different armies, which include Bretonnians and Wood Elves, which haven't been updated since the seventies.

40k also has a lot of FW stuff, Fantasy not so much.

"Development Time". It takes time to update all those armies and just adding more means more time spent updating armies which means longer and longer between books.

DarthOvious wrote:

 Tower75 wrote:
At the risk of asking one of the noobiest questions even:

It is generally an arguable fact that WH40K is more popular than WHF, so I've often wondered: Why is there so few choices of army in WH0K?

WHF has something, like, 16 armies to pick from, and they're fairly quite diverse in nature, but in WH40K, you have only 11 by my count (I'm not counting all he different Space Marine chapters that count as their own 'race'), and most of them are fairly similar, most being Imperium.

Okay, WHF's been out longer, but Warp, WH40K's been out since the '80s, surely by now there should be more choice of race?

Am I alone in this line of thinking?

According to GWs website there are 15 choices for each system (not including any FW stuff).

For 40k we have:

Adepta Sororitas (Imperium - woman Space Marines)
Blood Angels (imperium - Space Marines)
Chaos Daemons
Chaos Space Marines (Space Marines with spikes)
Dark Angels (Imperium - Space Marines)
Dark Eldar (Eldar with spikes)
Eldar Army
Grey Knights (Imperium - Space Marines)
Imperial Guard (Imperium)
Necrons
Orks
Space Marines (Imperium)
Space Wolves (imperium - Space Marines)
Tau Empire
Tyranids Army

True, but please see my additions. The addition of a few unique units in, say, Grey Knighs, or Chaos Space Marines doesn't make them a unique, stand alone race, well, it shouldn't anyway.

namiel wrote:And dont forget, fantasy came first.

See OP.

Tower75, it doesn't matter what you think should or should not make them count as separate factions, they are. They have unique characters, models, units and rules specific to just their army even if they are a part of the Imperium as a whole, thus we count them separately. If GW rolls them then they get rolled but until then they are separate and have to be counted as such when considering how much "choice" is really there.

 Tower75 wrote:

True, but please see my additions. The addition of a few unique units in, say, Grey Knighs, or Chaos Space Marines doesn't make them a unique, stand alone race, well, it shouldn't anyway.

In that case, how many does Fantasy have?

1. Bros: regular bros, bros who like horses, short bros with beards, fat bros, dead bros, ethnic dead bros.

2. Elves: pompous elves, naughty elves, hippie elves.

3. Chaos chaps: regular chaos chaps, daemons, chaotic cows.

4. Green dudes.

5. Household animals: Pets, and exotic pets.



So, five then.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Tower75, it doesn't matter what you think should or should not make them count as separate factions, they are. They have unique characters, models, units and rules specific to just their army even if they are a part of the Imperium as a whole, thus we count them separately. If GW rolls them then they get rolled but until then they are separate and have to be counted as such when considering how much "choice" is really there.

That is true, and cannot be argued, but doesn't it get old that the vast majority of the races are Space Marines in some form or other? You don't find half the races in WHF are Dwarves, do you.

I just find it odd, that if WH40K is GW's most popular game, why are there so little choices to pick, as opposed to, say, WHF? Unless I'm looking at this the wrong way, and it's a case of 'give 'em what they want. If the masses want Space Marines, give 'em Space Marines!'


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Thud wrote:

 Tower75 wrote:

True, but please see my additions. The addition of a few unique units in, say, Grey Knighs, or Chaos Space Marines doesn't make them a unique, stand alone race, well, it shouldn't anyway.

In that case, how many does Fantasy have?

1. Bros: regular bros, bros who like horses, short bros with beards, fat bros, dead bros, ethnic dead bros.

2. Elves: pompous elves, naughty elves, hippie elves.

3. Chaos chaps: regular chaos chaps, daemons, chaotic cows.

4. Green dudes.

5. Household animals: Pets, and exotic pets.



So, five then.

Hahaha... Erm, what?

 Tower75 wrote:

True, but please see my additions. The addition of a few unique units in, say, Grey Knighs, or Chaos Space Marines doesn't make them a unique, stand alone race, well, it shouldn't anyway.

Just because you think something does not gurantee it either correct, nor particularly well-informed.

One thing to also consider is the fact that there is the newly announced inquisition codex coming out and FW has been working on the heresy mechanicum.

These may not "count", but they are two unique armies that appear to be getting fleshed out.

As was implied above, if Chaos Marines aren't different enough from Codex Marines, then Bretonians aren't different enough from Empire.

If you take another pass at Fantasy, several factions are at least as close to each other as any two 40k factions.

What I'd rather see from supplements, even more than individual Craft worlds, would be sub- or alt- lists, like AdMech, Renegades, a PDF or two, Exodites, or an updated Corsairs

Side note - the Elder codex release really was the Iyanden release. Plastic Wraith guard, Spirit seer, two near wraith-nouns? I hope (but doubt) they'll add plastic Aspects when they do Biel Tan...

That's why I like the idea of a combined codex, so you spend less time updating the dexes one at a time and spend more time on releasing more models

Thud wrote:

 Tower75 wrote:

True, but please see my additions. The addition of a few unique units in, say, Grey Knighs, or Chaos Space Marines doesn't make them a unique, stand alone race, well, it shouldn't anyway.

In that case, how many does Fantasy have?

1. Bros: regular bros, bros who like horses, short bros with beards, fat bros, dead bros, ethnic dead bros.

2. Elves: pompous elves, naughty elves, hippie elves.

3. Chaos chaps: regular chaos chaps, daemons, chaotic cows.

4. Green dudes.

5. Household animals: Pets, and exotic pets.



So, five then.

This totally makes me want to paint up an army with Sunglasses, Popped Collars, and Frosted Hair.

They do have less overall if you look at it the right way in 40k, but they've also done a lot of rearranging. Dwarves used to be a unique race in the game, and there are other races such as ogryn and ratlings in the game, they just added them onto the IG. Over time they've been adding races though, when I first started playing there were no Tau or Necrons, and it was a huge deal when they came onto the scene. I think they're just slowly building up, and with switching everything to plastic, and releasing new units they simply don't have the time or capital(in their minds at least) to release a new faction.

Well form what you are saying than really Fantasy only has what 9 choices
Skavan, Dwarf, Ogre, Beastmen, Undead, Humans, Elves, Demons)

Humans, Well no matter who they are they all have knights, footman, archers and use magic (Empire, Brit, Warriors of Chaos)
Elves what is difference they all have pointy ears so some are evil some are noble and some live in the woods an elf is an elf (High/Dark/Wood)

When in fact this is not true.

It is really no difference in saying a Space Marine is a Space Marine

 Makutsu wrote:
That's why I like the idea of a combined codex, so you spend less time updating the dexes one at a time and spend more time on releasing more models

Agreed it would be great if there were less codexes but more variety in the such as

Forces of Chaos
- Chaos marine
- Chaos Demons
- Traitor Guard/Lost and the Dammed

Forces of the Imperium
- All Flavours of Space Marines
- Imperial Guard
- Ad Mech

Forces of the Inquisition
- Grey Knights
- Sisters of Battle/ Ecclisiarchy
- Inquisitors
- Death Watch

Eldar - The Dying Race
- Eldar
- Craftworld Eldar
- Dark Eldar
- Corsairs
- Harlequins
- Exodites

Xenos Forces
- Orcs
- Tau
- Necrons
- Tyranids

Just an idea - and make these pretty big and pretty fleshed out to cover things like sub lists and how to interact with the other books, ie tau - using indoctrinated humans - using the Forces of the Imperium list with certain alterations etc

But I get what you mean, there are less factions in 40k ( Imperial, Chaos, Ork, Tau, Eldar, Tyranids, and Necrons) than there are in Fantasy, however there is technically more choice in 40k in terms of differing lists especially with the supplements and variety in lists available.

There are quite enough armies in 40k in my opinion. While they've picked up the pace in 6th considerably, previously they've been having more than enough trouble keeping codices up to date even with this "low" number of armies. And even now they utterly fail at keeping codices balanced. Introducing even more armies certainly wouldn't help with that. Though I'm not sure if it could further hurt balance either.

And how many races do you have in Warmahordes? How many races do you have in a standard RTS computer game? 15 unique factions is actually quite a lot.

I agree with those that said if you are grouping all the SM factions together then you can do that in fantasy too. As far as Group 40k Codices together I think the above is a bit much but I could see doing the following.

Imperial Guard
Space Marines (Include Templar, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels...release supplements covering different units in these factions.)
Space Wolves (Don't really Share much in common with other Marine books, most of their units are different)
Codex Inquisition (Sister, GK, Inquisitorial units...sisters seem to lack the breadth of units to be a full book)
Codex Eldar
Codex Dark Eldar
Codex Necrons
Codex Tyranids
Codex Tau
Codex Forces of Chaos (CSM + Daemons)

Then use supplements to build on units for various factions etc.

Alpha 1 wrote:
Well form what you are saying than really Fantasy only has what 9 choices
Skavan, Dwarf, Ogre, Beastmen, Undead, Humans, Elves, Demons)

Humans, Well no matter who they are they all have knights, footman, archers and use magic (Empire, Brit, Warriors of Chaos)
Elves what is difference they all have pointy ears so some are evil some are noble and some live in the woods an elf is an elf (High/Dark/Wood)

When in fact this is not true.

It is really no difference in saying a Space Marine is a Space Marine

This was my first thoughts after reading the OP. If the OP groups all Space Marines together, then yes there's not a lot of differences; however, as Alpha pointed out, that's like grouping all Elves and Humans together in Fantasy. While there are more SM chapters represented than Humans and Elves separately, each codex has a unique play style and flavor.

Now - in spirit, I agree with the OP in that for "good guys", you play Guard, a SM chapter,Sisters, Eldar...perhaps Tau. If you play "bad guys" you have Nids, Crons, Chaos, Orks, Dark Eldar, and Daemons. There's so much Imperium that it leaves something of true variety to be desired to a certain extent for some players. For example, every Space Marine Chapter can take the same tactical squad. While you usually don't have to take it, it still doesn't change the fact that 1 squad works within 5-6 different codices. Rhinos is another example of this. I think the OP is trying to say that when you look at 40k...you see marines and then a little bit of everything else. It's not as scattered mythos and general vibe as fantasy seems to be.

 Tower75 wrote:


True, but please see my additions. The addition of a few unique units in, say, Grey Knighs, or Chaos Space Marines doesn't make them a unique, stand alone race, well, it shouldn't anyway.

Well fantasy isn't really that much different in that regard either. Three of the races are Elves (Wood, High, Dark), 3 of the races are Human (Brets, Empire, WoC), 2 races are Undead (TK, VC). In fact Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings originated from the one book originally.

I believe that there are more than enough Army choices to choose from. I would go as far to say that some Army lists should be consolidated. Such as what they did with the BT to Space Marines codex. It is always easier then to release an update for a more specific style of Army within a codex.

I truly think GW is getting this part right. Why have 24 different armies to be played/printed, if folks are only going to "buy into" 12 to 15 armies worth. It does not make sound business sense to over expand in that way.

But to the OP, I do have a question. If it seems there are too few opposing armies to fight against, have you thought about expanding your travel to see more varied army builds?

There may be fewer armies, but each army has more different units, each unit is a little more versatile, and since there are squad size caps you usually have more different units on the battlefield in 40k.

SYKOJAK wrote:

But to the OP, I do have a question. If it seems there are too few opposing armies to fight against, have you thought about expanding your travel to see more varied army builds?

Apologies, but can you explain? Sorry, I'm being a douche, I just don't get the question.

Also, apologies to all if I've come across as a prat, it's not in my nature to be a shitzzy, forum douche. I was genuinely just voicing my opinion that I just find it odd that most races seem to be Space Marines. I just find it strange.

 Tower75 wrote:

SYKOJAK wrote:

But to the OP, I do have a question. If it seems there are too few opposing armies to fight against, have you thought about expanding your travel to see more varied army builds?

Apologies, but can you explain? Sorry, I'm being a douche, I just don't get the question.

Also, apologies to all if I've come across as a prat, it's not in my nature to be a shitzzy, forum douche. I was genuinely just voicing my opinion that I just find it odd that most races seem to be Space Marines. I just find it strange.

While the idea that a marine is a marine is a marine may have been a bit true back in the 3rd and 4th editions, 6th edition is really striving to make the different factions play very differently, with many unique units and special rules. Heck, even the vanilla marine codex has special rules for 7 different chapters that dramatically change the play style.

i generally just group it into 2 groups
fun to play:soritas, daemons, eldar, dark eldar, imperial guard, ORKS, wolves and tyranids
Boring to play: everything else
as you can see i find power armour boring '
but da orks iz da best

 Tower75 wrote:

SYKOJAK wrote:

But to the OP, I do have a question. If it seems there are too few opposing armies to fight against, have you thought about expanding your travel to see more varied army builds?

Apologies, but can you explain? Sorry, I'm being a douche, I just don't get the question.

Also, apologies to all if I've come across as a prat, it's not in my nature to be a shitzzy, forum douche. I was genuinely just voicing my opinion that I just find it odd that most races seem to be Space Marines. I just find it strange.

I think he believes you are upset with there being too many Space Marine players, when you're bothered by the fact there are too many Space Marine codexes.

The space marine and equivalent stat line (Meq) is to 40k what the WS3, T3/5+ stat line is to fantasy. Fantasy seems to have a more even spread of players across it's armies, with Chaos Warriors and Skaven being slightly more popular, whereas 40k is extremely marine heavy. If someone doesn't play marines currently, they used to play marines, or have them as a second army. Because they are so popular, GW markets heavily towards them, so it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy because marines are popular they get more releases, so they are more popular....etc. I've heard that a few years ago GW sold more space marine kits than they did Fantasy kits in total.

All that said, at the moment the power armor demographic is garbage, and the game is ruled by Tau, Eldar, Demons and Necrons on the competitive side of things.

Most of the 40k armies are direct descendants of their Fantasy counterparts. Back in the late 80s/early 90s the 40k and Fantasy "worlds" were linked. Hell, rumor of the day was the Sigmar was one of the Emperor's Primarches, and the Slann were the remnants of the Old Ones.