Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

liam0404 wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:Personally I would like to see the following:

"Chaos" - CSM + daemons all in one book with options for mixed and pure forces, also legion options. Also has legion of the damned + cultists + special renegade IG stuff (to be used in conjunction with the IG codex).

"Space Marines" - one codex with all the main SM armies included. A generic section with all the standard units, then chapter specific sections for small amounts of fluff and chapter characters/units/rules/etc. Possibly a second (or many) books with fluff etc.

Imperial Guard - as is. Also include the FW army units/rules where appropriate.

Armies of the Imperium - The misc Imperial armies; SoB, GK, etc, as well as rules for including other Imperial forces (Inq, SM, IG, etc).

Eldar - to include Craftworld specific sections

Then the rest of the codexes as current.

This right here is the best idea so far.

Got to throw my hat in with this idea as well.

The current 16 codices takes roughly 8 years to get through updating, sticking to a 6 monthly schedule. This means that there's not enough time to do all of them before a new edition is upon us. This doesn't even take into consideration doing 'core' codexes like Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Tyranids every edition while codices that need updating go to the end of the queue. Reducing it to a big 'Codex Space Marines', 'Codex Chaos', and 'Codex Inquisition' reduces it to 10 books. That's 5 years to get through them on a 6 monthly cycle.

Some of the bigger books would obviously take longer than 6 months, but they can get around that by developing them alongside the smaller codices. Like, while working on the big, collective Space Marines codex, they work on and release 2 xenos codices on that time frame. This would also, if they really want to release new armies like adeptus mechanicus, give them more comfort room in an edition cycle and not end up with things like Dark Eldar players waiting 12 fething years for their codex to get reviewed.

The downside is GW makes its money as a miniatures company, and while this is a more player friendly way of getting codices out every edition, it doesn't rake in the dollars that GW makes by releasing a Space Marine codex every year to let people power hop to. So it won't happen.

Ma55ter_fett wrote:I think they need to do a "squats" and remove a few races.

I agree.

Sisters of Battle need to go.

Kan - a big, IA-style consolidated book is what I'd love to see. I'd pay maybe £30 for a book like that.

Lots of army potentials, you might have to have some fairly complicatted rules within the book, but perhaps no more complicated than we have now (i.e. to take unit X you must first purchase an Inquisitor / Exodite Lord etc.)

I'm not so big on the idea of the three mega-books, as I think I'd be swamped with the idea of having Eldar, Slann, Genestealers and Tau all in one army/book. Unless some of the in-book rules prevent certain forces working together, that could work.

I disagree with the idea of "squatting" armies - a lot of these armies have a decent following - perhaps the answer is to include them in another book (hence the overlooked idea of the consolidated Inquisition book).

The Tau 'dex has some pretty random alien races in it already - that could be expanded by adding older races like Jokaero and Slann (OK the fluff would be at odds, but I'm sure a decent comprimise could be made).

As -Loki- said above, whilst more armies is certainly not the answer, more options for existing armies would be undeniable cool. It would mean a shedload of work on GW's part, but if you managed to whittle the books down to something like 8, you can easily knock one out every six months, giving you a turnaround of a new dex every four years. If the book sum was even lower, obviously the time would be even less than that.

But let's face it - Chaos can easily have one book (Silver's comments are great IMO). Myriad Xenos could have a book. I'm an Eldar fan so I want one book just for them (they're RT so are owed that much). Forces of the Imperium (whilst I'd want one, single volume so I disagree with Silver) could be split into two tomes. Tyranids could be expanded to include 'stealer cults.

I'm not one of these Second Ed. fanboys, but I love those old, BIG books. And as for expansion, Chapter Approved used to work IMO - now we have PDF content online there's no reason not to rely on it. Mini-updates could be brought out a year or more after each book with some exciting new stuff, to keep things fresh.

-Loki- wrote:
Got to throw my hat in with this idea as well.

The current 16 codices takes roughly 8 years to get through updating, sticking to a 6 monthly schedule. This means that there's not enough time to do all of them before a new edition is upon us. This doesn't even take into consideration doing 'core' codexes like Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Tyranids every edition while codices that need updating go to the end of the queue. Reducing it to a big 'Codex Space Marines', 'Codex Chaos', and 'Codex Inquisition' reduces it to 10 books. That's 5 years to get through them on a 6 monthly cycle.

Some of the bigger books would obviously take longer than 6 months, but they can get around that by developing them alongside the smaller codices. Like, while working on the big, collective Space Marines codex, they work on and release 2 xenos codices on that time frame. This would also, if they really want to release new armies like adeptus mechanicus, give them more comfort room in an edition cycle and not end up with things like Dark Eldar players waiting 12 fething years for their codex to get reviewed.

The downside is GW makes its money as a miniatures company, and while this is a more player friendly way of getting codices out every edition, it doesn't rake in the dollars that GW makes by releasing a Space Marine codex every year to let people power hop to. So it won't happen.

I agree, as it stands, there are too many Codices, however I also think it would be unfair to 'lump' - for example - all the Space Marine Codices into one book. Not only would the price dramatically increase (benefiting GW I'll point out), but you'll be forcing people who only play one chapter to fork out a lot more for something they'd only use a 5th of. Despite our wishes for us to be treated better, this wouldn't be fair on the fan-base.
Similarly, many Space Marine codices are too divergent to be covered by a few special characters within the main Codex. Atm there are already many complaints about the reliance on special characters.

Games Workshop also makes the most money making the miniatures, which they are arguably the best at, which means I expect most of the development cycle is taken up by creating new miniatures (hence waves?)?
Arguably Codex production could be sped up by releasing Codices without even more model support!

However, I think some of the ideas presented in this thread have been very reasonable:
- Codex: Forces of Chaos (CSM/Daemons) - this could be a squeeze if people get their desired Legions Codex...
- Codex: Inquisition/ The Inner-Imperium (Grey Knights/Sisters/Inquisition)
- Less background within Codices

I'd refer to this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/246976.page so you can see for yourself how popular respect armies are. Roughly of course.

Compared to the likes of Chaos Daemons/Witchhunters/Dark Eldar who only about 4% play of each, 18% play Space Marines. This would be very unfair to therefore (in comparison) have Space Marines all in one Codex. If we went down the route that some have suggested of having 10 Codices, you could divide this to approximately 10% popularity each, therefore potentially:

- Codex: Eldar (Dark and Craftworld)
- Codex: Orks
- Codex: Imperial Guard
- Codex: Tau
- Codex: Tyranids
- Codex: Inner-Inquisition (Grey Knights/Sisters)
- Codex: Forces of Chaos (Daemons/ Chaos Space Marines)
- Codex: Astartes/ Space Marines (Non-Divergent/Space Marines/Blood Angels)
- Codex: Divergent Space Marines (Space Wolves/ Black Templars/ Dark Angels/ other divergent chapters?)
- Codex: Necrons (and maybe other forces, eg. LotD, Genestealer Cult, Kroot etc.)

Tek wrote:
I'm not so big on the idea of the three mega-books, as I think I'd be swamped with the idea of having Eldar, Slann, Genestealers and Tau all in one army/book. Unless some of the in-book rules prevent certain forces working together, that could work.

I disagree with the idea of "squatting" armies - a lot of these armies have a decent following - perhaps the answer is to include them in another book (hence the overlooked idea of the consolidated Inquisition book).

And as for expansion, Chapter Approved used to work IMO - now we have PDF content online there's no reason not to rely on it. Mini-updates could be brought out a year or more after each book with some exciting new stuff, to keep things fresh.

These ideas I also agree with, some of the others which I "snipped" not-so-much.

SilverMK2 wrote:Personally I would like to see the following:

"Chaos" - CSM + daemons all in one book with options for mixed and pure forces, also legion options. Also has legion of the damned + cultists + special renegade IG stuff (to be used in conjunction with the IG codex).

"Space Marines" - one codex with all the main SM armies included. A generic section with all the standard units, then chapter specific sections for small amounts of fluff and chapter characters/units/rules/etc. Possibly a second (or many) books with fluff etc.

Imperial Guard - as is. Also include the FW army units/rules where appropriate.

Armies of the Imperium - The misc Imperial armies; SoB, GK, etc, as well as rules for including other Imperial forces (Inq, SM, IG, etc).

Eldar - to include Craftworld specific sections

Then the rest of the codexes as current.

It would mean a whole bunch of thick codexes, but I'd actually like that more. How great it would feel to hold a book as big as the moon and know it contained all the rules I'd need to make every SM chapter EVER.

As far as I'm concerned a Marine Codex and a Guard Codex is enough for the Imperium. *Maybe* a Adeptus Mechanicus Codex, mainly due to the fact that they're independant from the Imperium. This way they can concentrate on making the game more up to date rather than just pumping out marines. Seeing Exodites will also be a pleasant change of pace.

Ideally:

Angels of Death Supplement (rules for variant Space Marine armies, with standardized equipment based off of C:SM, with a section explaining each variant, from BA to GK to SW)

Chaos Daemons

Chaos Space Marines

Dark Eldar

Deathwatch Supplement (rules for using Deathwatch, including allying them in to an Imperial army)

Eldar (with a reworked codex that allows for Craftworld variations)

Eldar Corsairs Supplement (rules for Eldar mercenaries as allies to other armies) *

Imperial Guard

Inquisition Supplement (rules for using Inquisition, including allying them into other armies)

Kroot Mercenaries Supplement (rules for using Kroot Mercenaries, including allying them into other armies) *

Lost and the Damned Supplement (rules for using LatD both independently and with CSM and CD armies)

Orks (with a reworked codex that allows for Clan variations)

Ork Freebootaz Supplement (rules for using Ork mercenaries as allies to other armies) *

Mechanicus

Necrons

Sisters of Battle

Space Marines

Tau Empire

Tyranids


* These could actually all be one book, a mercenaries supplement


Mind you, I doubt this will happen. Like, ever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:As far as I'm concerned a Marine Codex and a Guard Codex is enough for the Imperium. *Maybe* a Adeptus Mechanicus Codex, mainly due to the fact that they're independant from the Imperium. This way they can concentrate on making the game more up to date rather than just pumping out marines. Seeing Exodites will also be a pleasant change of pace.

So wait, you're worried about them "just pumping out more marines", and so you take away three non-Marine codices?

They should have five core Imperial dexes, six or seven Alien dexes and another five variant SM dexes for the youngsters.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Well that doesn't make any sense at all. They only have one unit for each god, I seriously doubt they would donate an entire codex to each of them.

They only have one unit each now, because the 4th edition codex sucks. There's about four daemons for each god, various cult troops like Rubric terminators, daemon engines...

That's like games workshop making a codex for assassins...

They've done it twice, once in 2nd edition and once in 3rd.

Kilkrazy wrote:They should have five core Imperial dexes

What should the fourth and fifth ones be?

Inquisition, Imperial Guard, and Sisters being the first three I guess. Certainly Mechanicus works well as a fourth.

AlexHolker wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:Well that doesn't make any sense at all. They only have one unit for each god, I seriously doubt they would donate an entire codex to each of them.

They only have one unit each now, because the 4th edition codex sucks. There's about four daemons for each god, various cult troops like Rubric terminators, daemon engines...

I think the main problem with it would be that there would be no representation of undivided in this Chaos. Not that the actual majority of the traitor Legions don't worship a specific god...

Codexaemons remains the single most unnecessary Codex in the line. It exists because of an upstairs decision by the beancounters and was not based on what was good for the game at all (if we are to believe Gav Thorpe, that is...).

I think what's needed is that GW needs to go back to including more than one list in a book. They did that in 2nd Ed quite a bit - Codex Angels of Death was a book for Dark Angel and Blood Angel players. Codex Tyranids had a Genestealer Cult list in it. Codex Chaos had a Daemon World and Chaos Cult army list in it as well as the Main Chaos army list.

Combining these sorts of things means that updates don't take as long (no need to wait 6 years to update the DA and the BA Codex is their Codex is one and the same), and it would cut down on problems with the rules.

Now, something as broad as, say, "Codex Imperium" including Guard, Inquisition and AdMech is probably a bit to 'grand', but I could see the following working quite well:

Codex: Space Marines (covers Codex Chapters)

Codex: Angels of Death (covers Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and includes rules for running Deathwing, Ravenwing and even a few variant Blood Angel formations like Flesh Tearers or even Death Company Armies)

Codex: Space Wolves (they've always been different enough to warrant a whole book)

Codex: Special Marines (I wouldn't call it that, but this would be the book for Crusading Marines (Templars) plus all the variant Chapters like Sallies, Raven Guard, and so on).

Codex: Imperial Guard (includes rules for Armoured Company, specialist Drop Troop formations, Light Infantry/Jungle Fighting formations, Mechanised/Steel Legion Armies).

Codex: Inquisition (includes rules for the Inquisition, Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (expanded), how to flavour your army to one of the three major Ordos, plus rules for all three Chambers Militant - Deathwatch, Sisters of Battle & Grey Knights - including enough depth to field them without standard Inquisitorial units).

Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (full forces of the AdMech, from Arch-Magi to Skitarii to Servitors to their freak of nature units and even Knights).

Codex: Craftworld Eldar (Standard Eldar, variants for the major Craftworlds, an Exodite list)

Codex: Dark Eldar (keep 'em separate, but throw the Harlequin list in here).

Codex: Orks (with Klan variant lists)

Codex: Chaos (Chaos Space Marines, Daemon World Lists, Lost & The Damned, variants for Undivided Legions)

Codex: Legions of CHaos (Deathguard, Emp's Children, World Eaters, 1KSons)

Codex: Tyranids (Tyranids & Genestealer Cults in the same book)

Codex: Necrons (not much to do here)

Codex: Tau (include Farsight Enclave sub-list and Kroot Merc list).


If we had more lists in each book, there would be more to play with, more to experiment with, and more reason to buy more models from the same book, rather than just making one army and sticking with that for 6 years.

I want to see less marines. I know it won't happen but in 5th it has gone Marines, not marines, Marines, not marines, marines, not marines. I think you could combine them all into one SM super dex with special characters changing the army play. (Big pipe dream i know)

Failing less marines I'd say drop WH & DH totally and just update the others more frequently.

Eh, I'm hoping they move away from special characters altering lists. I want special characters to go back to being rare, and altering lists with things like the old Space Marine traits. While they were abusable, who can say alterations from special characters aren't, with all those Vulkans and Kantors running around.

I'd like to see another race added to the tau, but the amount of armies they have now is good.

I agree with HBMC on Daemons, but only if I misquote it like this:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Codexaemons remains the single most necessary Codex in the line.

If I can't have a Chaos army without spiky emo gits (IE, CSMs), I have no desire to start a Chaos army.

CSMs are lame, but Daemons are cool.

A Black Ram wrote:One hundred and seventy-five thousand.

Really? Why not one hundred and seventy-six thousand? I mean, if we're gonna go into those high numbers 1 more shouldn't hurt

agnosto wrote:

malfred wrote:I doubt they'd do away with the Codex system.

It's just too effective a sales catalog.

I don't know about that. Wouldn't a better sales vehicle be something like the following:

3 tomes:

Imperium of Man with every human army.

Xenos with every non-human army.

Worshippers of the Warp with CSM, Daemons, cults, etc.

What this would do is expand exposure of other armies to the individual player as they're reading the book and seeing what these other armies can do they think, "I could do this if I run out and buy another 20 models" or something. I would think it would be an increase in sales of GWs biggest cash cow, plastic army men.

Sure they make some money off the books now but they could charge an appropriately higher price for the combined books and still make some profit off of it whilst enjoying increased sales.

My 2 cents.

It's not the books themselves I'm talking about at all. Each codex/army book is a
catalog. In your model, they're only updating three catalogs. However, the size of
the catalogs is such that they'd probably only update it every 5 or 6 years. With
their current system, they can update portions of their catalog every year.

GW can't play the five year long game. They have investors to answer to yearly.

Actually what I'd love to see even more than my suggestions above is one of these threads where every third post isn't someome complaining about Marines.

That'd be more awesome than an AdMech Codex.

There are nine Chaos legions that they need to represent. I would like to see them divided thus

Chaos legions: the people devoted to specifics gods.

-Black legion
-World Eaters
-1000 Sons
-Death Guard
-Emperor's Children
These legions focus more on only having marines in the army, it would be more elite marines/low model count. All units can take god specific upgrades

Chaos Renegades: The chaos undivided legions

-Word Bearers
-Night Lords
-Iron Warriors
-Alpha Legion
These are the legions that fluff wise make greater use of cultists/traitor guard and other "normal" humans so they would have some horde and artillery units.

I also think that there should be options in the regular SM book for renegade/chaos chapters. There should be a limited selection of wargear that is specific to either loyal or renegade chapters, (think demon weapons for Relictors). Taking an item from one list prevents you from taking anything from the other. This way you can play a "modern" chaos army that includes units like razorbacks and land speeders. (Think of any of the 21st founding chapters that went to chaos.)

The chaos demons are one of the few armies that has a very different feel to it. I would not want to see it bundled with another book that removed the unique play style it has with demonic assault. The CSM should have weaker demons because they loose the weaknesses of demonic assault. If they make the demons have marks that grant USR's that should be enough for a CSM book.


------------------------------------------
on books and options and balance


The more options that they add into the army lists, the harder it will be to balance everything. If you made Ork clan rules for example. There would probably be one clan that got better/cheaper/more Battlewagons/Killa Kans and thus that clan would be far better and everyone would complain about how unbalanced it is. All of the Ork clans are playable at the moment, as are most of the craftworlds honestly, they are just not all super-competative. Both the Orks and the Eldar have a lot of variety in their troops choices allowing for a variety of different fluffy armies. (5 troops for eldar, 5 for Orks as well).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Codexaemons remains the single most unnecessary Codex in the line. It exists because of an upstairs decision by the beancounters and was not based on what was good for the game at all (if we are to believe Gav Thorpe, that is...).

I think what's needed is that GW needs to go back to including more than one list in a book. They did that in 2nd Ed quite a bit - Codex Angels of Death was a book for Dark Angel and Blood Angel players. Codex Tyranids had a Genestealer Cult list in it. Codex Chaos had a Daemon World and Chaos Cult army list in it as well as the Main Chaos army list.

Combining these sorts of things means that updates don't take as long (no need to wait 6 years to update the DA and the BA Codex is their Codex is one and the same), and it would cut down on problems with the rules.

Now, something as broad as, say, "Codex Imperium" including Guard, Inquisition and AdMech is probably a bit to 'grand', but I could see the following working quite well:

Codex: Space Marines (covers Codex Chapters)

Codex: Angels of Death (covers Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and includes rules for running Deathwing, Ravenwing and even a few variant Blood Angel formations like Flesh Tearers or even Death Company Armies)

Codex: Space Wolves (they've always been different enough to warrant a whole book)

Codex: Special Marines (I wouldn't call it that, but this would be the book for Crusading Marines (Templars) plus all the variant Chapters like Sallies, Raven Guard, and so on).

Codex: Imperial Guard (includes rules for Armoured Company, specialist Drop Troop formations, Light Infantry/Jungle Fighting formations, Mechanised/Steel Legion Armies).

Codex: Inquisition (includes rules for the Inquisition, Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (expanded), how to flavour your army to one of the three major Ordos, plus rules for all three Chambers Militant - Deathwatch, Sisters of Battle & Grey Knights - including enough depth to field them without standard Inquisitorial units).

Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (full forces of the AdMech, from Arch-Magi to Skitarii to Servitors to their freak of nature units and even Knights).

Codex: Craftworld Eldar (Standard Eldar, variants for the major Craftworlds, an Exodite list)

Codex: Dark Eldar (keep 'em separate, but throw the Harlequin list in here).

Codex: Orks (with Klan variant lists)

Codex: Chaos (Chaos Space Marines, Daemon World Lists, Lost & The Damned, variants for Undivided Legions)

Codex: Legions of CHaos (Deathguard, Emp's Children, World Eaters, 1KSons)

Codex: Tyranids (Tyranids & Genestealer Cults in the same book)

Codex: Necrons (not much to do here)

Codex: Tau (include Farsight Enclave sub-list and Kroot Merc list).


If we had more lists in each book, there would be more to play with, more to experiment with, and more reason to buy more models from the same book, rather than just making one army and sticking with that for 6 years.

This is what I would like to see. Fewer codexes, more variants within each one.

See, the reason I want to see more armies/lists in one book is I think it would promote the use of different lists.

If you buy a book which contains all of the SM chapters, you can then play any of those SM chapters; find the one with the best units/rules/playstyle for you without having to buy several different books (which, in my view is one of the bigger blocks on creative and interesting lists and armies that you rarely see people use).

It is the reason I don't agree with HBMC on splitting several of the codexes (especially the 2 chaos codexes he proposes) - you should have all the options for one force in one book.

I think that it desided that it would be better to combind the daemon and csm codexs, and it would be good to combined the hunter guys aswell. if you like you could shove adapticas macanicus in there aswell to make a special forces of the imperium codex.
As for the seperate space marines, i cant think of a way of dealing with the share number of them. they wouldent work on one book because of there size, there is simply to much infomation. the only way that I can think of to remove them is to boycot them so that GW gives up on them, and that would be very wrong and almost imposable to acheive without physic powers.

Idea. they dont need to all be in one book. make them into two or so books after removing a bit of fluff to free up pages. maybe two chapters a dex. Spit them up into the way they work. Mabie put jump pack marianes into one codex and give special charactors and maybe one elite choice to diferentate them.

IG are fine. They should definatly continue to hold there own codex.

The diffrent exos dont need changing. there fine as they are. most of the problem is the excess (<opinionated comment) number of imperium stuff.

This would give us

C: Space marines
C: Imperial guard
C: Special forces of the imperium
C: Forces of chaos
C: Angles (blood and dark)
C: Crusaders of man (SW and BT)
C: Orks
C: Tyranids
C: Necrons
C: Elder
C: Dark Elder
C: Tau and friends (little lol)

That wraps it up for 12 codexs. a nice number. given 6 months each that would take only 6 years to make.

Thats my 1.54846 cents (lol for exchange rates)

H.B.M.C. wrote:Codexaemons remains the single most unnecessary Codex in the line. It exists because of an upstairs decision by the beancounters and was not based on what was good for the game at all (if we are to believe Gav Thorpe, that is...).

I think what's needed is that GW needs to go back to including more than one list in a book. They did that in 2nd Ed quite a bit - Codex Angels of Death was a book for Dark Angel and Blood Angel players. Codex Tyranids had a Genestealer Cult list in it. Codex Chaos had a Daemon World and Chaos Cult army list in it as well as the Main Chaos army list.

Combining these sorts of things means that updates don't take as long (no need to wait 6 years to update the DA and the BA Codex is their Codex is one and the same), and it would cut down on problems with the rules.

Now, something as broad as, say, "Codex Imperium" including Guard, Inquisition and AdMech is probably a bit to 'grand', but I could see the following working quite well:

Codex: Space Marines (covers Codex Chapters)

Codex: Angels of Death (covers Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and includes rules for running Deathwing, Ravenwing and even a few variant Blood Angel formations like Flesh Tearers or even Death Company Armies)

Codex: Space Wolves (they've always been different enough to warrant a whole book)

Codex: Special Marines (I wouldn't call it that, but this would be the book for Crusading Marines (Templars) plus all the variant Chapters like Sallies, Raven Guard, and so on).

Codex: Imperial Guard (includes rules for Armoured Company, specialist Drop Troop formations, Light Infantry/Jungle Fighting formations, Mechanised/Steel Legion Armies).

Codex: Inquisition (includes rules for the Inquisition, Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (expanded), how to flavour your army to one of the three major Ordos, plus rules for all three Chambers Militant - Deathwatch, Sisters of Battle & Grey Knights - including enough depth to field them without standard Inquisitorial units).

Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (full forces of the AdMech, from Arch-Magi to Skitarii to Servitors to their freak of nature units and even Knights).

Codex: Craftworld Eldar (Standard Eldar, variants for the major Craftworlds, an Exodite list)

Codex: Dark Eldar (keep 'em separate, but throw the Harlequin list in here).

Codex: Orks (with Klan variant lists)

Codex: Chaos (Chaos Space Marines, Daemon World Lists, Lost & The Damned, variants for Undivided Legions)

Codex: Legions of Chaos (Deathguard, Emp's Children, World Eaters, 1KSons)

Codex: Tyranids (Tyranids & Genestealer Cults in the same book)

Codex: Necrons (not much to do here)

Codex: Tau (include Farsight Enclave sub-list and Kroot Merc list).


If we had more lists in each book, there would be more to play with, more to experiment with, and more reason to buy more models from the same book, rather than just making one army and sticking with that for 6 years.

I think this is quite a reasonable idea, although it would be increasing the amount of Codices all together, I think it's a good idea with a variety of Codices. Although possibly too many for my liking.
I believe if you were to combine this with something akin to Melissia's 'mercenary' Codex, whereby the smaller, more add-on factions are included, such as additional rules for Ork Clans, Kroot, Genestealers, Harlequins etc. akin to Eye of Terror Codex for example...

H.B.M.C. wrote:Actually what I'd love to see even more than my suggestions above is one of these threads where every third post isn't someome complaining about Marines.

That'd be more awesome than an AdMech Codex.

Now this is a freakin' great idea. I completely agree. Fully. Wholeheartedly. [Insert synonyms here]

It's entirely unreasonable to suggest the Marines being in anything less than three Codices IMHO.

svendrex wrote:There are nine Chaos legions that they need to represent. I would like to see them divided thus

Chaos legions: the people devoted to specifics gods.

-Black legion
-World Eaters
-1000 Sons
-Death Guard
-Emperor's Children
These legions focus more on only having marines in the army, it would be more elite marines/low model count. All units can take god specific upgrades

Chaos Renegades: The chaos undivided legions

-Word Bearers
-Night Lords
-Iron Warriors
-Alpha Legion
These are the legions that fluff wise make greater use of cultists/traitor guard and other "normal" humans so they would have some horde and artillery units.

I also think that there should be options in the regular SM book for renegade/chaos chapters. There should be a limited selection of wargear that is specific to either loyal or renegade chapters, (think demon weapons for Relictors). Taking an item from one list prevents you from taking anything from the other. This way you can play a "modern" chaos army that includes units like razorbacks and land speeders. (Think of any of the 21st founding chapters that went to chaos.)

The chaos demons are one of the few armies that has a very different feel to it. I would not want to see it bundled with another book that removed the unique play style it has with demonic assault. The CSM should have weaker demons because they loose the weaknesses of demonic assault. If they make the demons have marks that grant USR's that should be enough for a CSM book.


------------------------------------------
on books and options and balance


The more options that they add into the army lists, the harder it will be to balance everything. If you made Ork clan rules for example. There would probably be one clan that got better/cheaper/more Battlewagons/Killa Kans and thus that clan would be far better and everyone would complain about how unbalanced it is. All of the Ork clans are playable at the moment, as are most of the craftworlds honestly, they are just not all super-competative. Both the Orks and the Eldar have a lot of variety in their troops choices allowing for a variety of different fluffy armies. (5 troops for eldar, 5 for Orks as well).

This is also a very reasonable suggestion, I agree with his ideas about the Chaos Space Marines and the Craft-world/Clan lists. I believe such lists could damage the potential for hybrid or homemade or more diverse armies. You can still make fluffy armies without them IMHO. Less emphasis on Special Characters would still be good however.

SilverMK2 wrote:See, the reason I want to see more armies/lists in one book is I think it would promote the use of different lists.

If you buy a book which contains all of the SM chapters, you can then play any of those SM chapters; find the one with the best units/rules/playstyle for you without having to buy several different books (which, in my view is one of the bigger blocks on creative and interesting lists and armies that you rarely see people use).

It is the reason I don't agree with HBMC on splitting several of the codexes (especially the 2 chaos codexes he proposes) - you should have all the options for one force in one book.

What I struggle with this is, not only would people end up buying a Codex which they'd use less of, the Codices would be overly large, unwieldy and take a long, long time to come out.
For example, I collect Space Wolves and although I'd love to collect Codex Marines as well, I wouldn't wish to pay for the entire book containing all the Space Marines chapters.
I would have my Space Wolves but I wouldn't play them as Dark Angels/Codex Marines/Blood Angels or anything because it wouldn't look right. At all.
If I wanted to play another army, I'd buy another Codex. I wouldn't like to pay much more for a book I'd only use a 5th of. It wouldn't make sense for the player of Games-Workshop either, unless there were people that could afford lots of different armies and one huge book AND would be using a lot of 'count as'.

That's what I think anyway.

I would like to see all codexes become free online downloads that can be updated very quickly if a new games edition came out and to stop Codex creep. GW make the money on the models and if they see that brilliant models are gak in games so are not selling i.e. Chaos Possesed they could change the Codex with minimal cost and interuptions to increase sales on the model. Providing they only changed the Codex's every 18 months (for example) then people could be up to date with the rules and see their armies develop. I know the idea of GW making anything free is ludicrous however.

It's entirely unreasonable to suggest the Marines being in anything less than three Codices IMHO.

Amusingly enough, that's how many I suggested...

How dare an SM player agree with Melissia. YOU HEATHEN!

Just Dave wrote:What I struggle with this is, not only would people end up buying a Codex which they'd use less of, the Codices would be overly large, unwieldy and take a long, long time to come out.

I'm not really seeing why they would take longer to come out. Most of the information is already written. And as has been said previously, with the mix of big and small codexes that would be created through amalgamation, larger codexes can be worked on in conjunction with the smaller ones and keep up a fairly fast release pace. Added to which if it is all redone at the same time we might see less creep and inconsistencies.

I also don't really see that the codex would be huge either - I personally would love to see one come out with where there is minimal fluff and simply contains rules, etc, with a seperate book (or books) which contains fluff.

And again, I would love it if a codex had multiple army lists and so on within it - I may not use a lot of it often, but having it there ready and waiting for me to get bored of playing whatever army list I run is a good thing. Also may promote newer players to branch out and experiment with what they play.

If I wanted to play another army, I'd buy another Codex. I wouldn't like to pay much more for a book I'd only use a 5th of. It wouldn't make sense for the player of Games-Workshop either, unless there were people that could afford lots of different armies and one huge book AND would be using a lot of 'count as'.

Think of it as the foundation stone for your future armies

But in seriousness, I see where you are coming from but I don't agree with your assessment.

That's what I think anyway.

I think that we think differently. I think...

SilverMK2 wrote:It is the reason I don't agree with HBMC on splitting several of the codexes (especially the 2 chaos codexes he proposes) - you should have all the options for one force in one book.

I agree. Each force should be in one Codex, and you shouldn't need two books to field one force. The difference is, I don't regard Chaos to be one homogenised force (one of many reasons why I detest the current 'Chaos' Codex so much). My idea of splitting Chaos in two doesn't mean people would need two Codices - Khornate, Slaaneshi, Nurglesque and Tzeentchian units would still be in the 'Undivided' book, because the Black Legion ('Vanilla' Chaos) can field them. You wouldn't need the book with the World Eater rules to know what Berzerkers did in your Black Legion army.

Yes, that means duplications of unit entries, but we already have that (and GW are bad at it - how many different versions of the Land Raider is there? The Storm Shield?) so I don't see it being too big a problem.

Just Dave wrote:I believe if you were to combine this with something akin to Melissia's 'mercenary' Codex, whereby the smaller, more add-on factions are included, such as additional rules for Ork Clans, Kroot, Genestealers, Harlequins etc. akin to Eye of Terror Codex for example...

I don't mind the idea of a 40K 'Dogs of War', but I wouldn't put sublists that rely on parent Codices into it (like Klanz, Kroot Mercs, Genestealer Cults). Those types of things should be sublists within their own Codex. One should not need the 'Dogs of War' book and the Tau Codex to field a Kroot Merc army. The Kroot Merc army should just a whole entity, not reliant on multiple books, which is why putting it in the main Tau book makes the most sense. Ditto for Klanz, ditto for Genestealer Cults and so on.

And assuming the lists aren't of the "Look at the Chaos Codex for these rules" and are completely divorced from their parent Codex (eg. the Lost & the Damned list just reprints several units from the Chaos Codex in full) then you end up with a very big and mixed up book. Say there was this 'Dogs of War' 40K book, and it had Kroot Mercs, Genestealer Cults, Lost & The Damned and Harlis (again, just an example). Then you'd have Harli players only getting use out of 1/4th of a book, Kroot players only getting a quarter of a book. It's a waste. For some (like Angels of Death) it makes sense from a thematic perspective (they're the two 'Angel' 1st Founding Legions/Chapters), and because so many of the units are the same (a Blood Angel Tactical Marine and a Dark Angel Tactical Marine have the same stats - their special rules is what defines them, Predators are the same in both lists, just with different rules, and so on). But having a full Kroot list in the same book as a full Genestealer Cult list? Nah. Keep like with like as much as possible. It's a far more efficient way of writing Codices (not to mention releasing model kits - could you imagine GW releasing a book that had Kroot/Cult/LatD/Harlis and also doing a release for that book that didn't confuse players, especially new ones?).

^The other side of the coin os you get to field fantasy allied-style armies in 40k. Whilst I understand the amount of people who buy the big Eldar book just to run the Harlie list would suffer, it would allow greater flexibility for, let's say a half Salamanders, half Ultramarines army, combining units from each with unique traits.

Or having a part Saim-Hann force, backed up by an Ulthwe contingnency. That's cool enough to warrant "Big Books", eh?

I honestly don't think Chaos need more than one book. You can fit both of your proposed books in one, bigger tome. Like the comments above; a big book would feel great, and even at a higher cost and would probably yield a higher feeling of value for money.

AdMech could slot nicely into an existing army book. Whilst perhaps not with the level of detail the AdMech fans would like, it could still be a little more than a Techmarine, or an Enginseer.
Imagine my big imaginary Imperium book. Taking a MotF then unlocks entries in the book for you to take Skitarii (sp?) troops, or crazy spider-tanks or something.
Taking an Inquisitor allows you to take Assassins, or taking a Master of the Fleet allows Imperial Navy fliers to be used in game.

I would not mind seeing 1 more army that is less humanoid like Tyranid but not quite so far. I'm not a big fan of humans and elves or the anime race. Necrons are to washed out and uncolorful. I currently play Orks and they are fairly cool, though I am not a fan of the fungus fluff. Having said that picking a 40k army was very hard for me and I don't think I could play anyone but Orks, but on the fantasy end there are a lot of armies that appeal to me, Ogres, TK, Goblins, Lizardmen, WoC.