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But there is a valid point on the resources spent to basically print 5 minor variations of another book. Think about it. Individual chapters are supposed to be ~1000 strong. That's not even a drop in the bucket compared to the other races/armies. Yet GW spends months or longer on giving them their own book.

I think you could cut all SM chapters down to two books and make it work.

I would accept 2 books...
They are GWs poster boys however, they could emphasize the other races more IMO but i can understand why they push SM so much.

purplefood wrote:I would accept 2 books...
They are GWs poster boys however, they could emphasize the other races more IMO but i can understand why they push SM so much.

I totally believe in SM as the posterboys. However, you can still put them on posters and not give them 70% of the developmental resources.

Keep putting them on posters, and making them the video game protagonists, but bring the other races more in line when it comes to the actual game.

Fair enough...

I would love to see the SM books separated into two books... one battle rules, equipment, variations, etc... and then a big bad book of fluff... that's it. Make them both big books and only two of them. Then GW could hold off on making all the models for everything and trickle in the new models for 6th edition.

The fluff book could end each section with one new unit for each army (something fun, but not deal breaking)

SickSix wrote:

purplefood wrote:I would accept 2 books...
They are GWs poster boys however, they could emphasize the other races more IMO but i can understand why they push SM so much.

I totally believe in SM as the posterboys. However, you can still put them on posters and not give them 70% of the developmental resources.

Keep putting them on posters, and making them the video game protagonists, but bring the other races more in line when it comes to the actual game.

Once again: this is a fallacy. They don't get 70% of the "developmental resources".

As people point out time and time again--the books are similar. Do you really think they redo everything from the ground up every time?

2 important but VERY BAD reasons why SM are abundant

the other races suck visually compared to the cream of scifi thats out there ( daleks , facehuggers , eagle from moonbase alpha etc etc ) stickoids , sickleoids & heroic scale staright humans just dont do it for me

confusing rules , expensive books ....ill play vanilla SM to ease my pain , vanilla SM = far more WYSIWYG





ive only just started wh40k and i already hate SM , bought my first SM battle box this week JUST to get my head round things , the fact that common sense dictated vanilla SM (and not my desire ) forced me to purchase SM is due to GW many compounding errors....and the reason i hate SM allready , lol

i shall initially be fielding an army of 100% bolters ( as far as i legally can ) for the same reasons...just to get my head round things


why not Black reach ? well i dont wont to be the proud owner of of 25 redundant green cornflake packet pastiches....i have taste



biology form and function = WYTYGUG = what you think you get you get = massively reduced learning curve and head space for more exotic specials / or the odd complete side that is exotic



RANT OVER , im sure many may like how x side plays or y side looks but truth be told only some of the TAU vehicles have inherent beauty and class with a hint of continuity. If GW aimed for visual coherence , form and function on the non SM sides they would win many more customers and players....be honest how many peeps play a non SM side just because its not SM rather than playing non SM because solely because they are uber cool visually in their own right



Intrinsic beauty and coherence = enduring mass appeal = a solid green shoot from which orchids may sprout

Fashion and fanboys = Mondays cool and tomorrows cornflake packet Macgiveaway

GW is not all evil , but as the UK is home much of the worlds quality scince fiction they have gone Biork nor Beatles or Bohemian Rhapsody with their universe = global sales a mere 10% of what they could be

.

Kanluwen wrote:

SickSix wrote:

purplefood wrote:I would accept 2 books...
They are GWs poster boys however, they could emphasize the other races more IMO but i can understand why they push SM so much.

I totally believe in SM as the posterboys. However, you can still put them on posters and not give them 70% of the developmental resources.

Keep putting them on posters, and making them the video game protagonists, but bring the other races more in line when it comes to the actual game.

Once again: this is a fallacy. They don't get 70% of the "developmental resources".

As people point out time and time again--the books are similar. Do you really think they redo everything from the ground up every time?

Your right. So why then does it take 3-6 months to release a new SM variation codex? They should be able to knock them all out in ONE release cycle!

Now do you see the point/perception?

Vaktathi wrote:

Shayden wrote:Why? Everywhere I look people are hating on the Space Marines! I understand that they are very popular with newbies, but that doesn't seem like a very good reason. Are they just considered cheap? Is it because of Matt Ward? Help me out here!

Several reasons. Few people actually hate Space Marines, but rather the extent of their presence and the attention given to them.

Space Marines are the smallest fighting force in the 40k universe, small enough that 99% of the Imperium's conflicts never see one, and that they are nothing more than a myth to most Imperial citizens. Yet they comprise half the army books. These books often share 80% or more of their units/weapons/wargear and one can easily move between these armies changing a dozen or fewer models, often none. There's a continual pressure to take the smallest diversions in SM armies and use them to make different books, even if they were adequately represented by mere army composition before, or use stuff like simple FoC or weapon swaps. You've got the Chaos Space Marine Legions, huge bands of marines no longer bound by Imperial dictates and probably the most varied group in the 40k universe all sharing one book while tiny Loyalist SM chapters with minor operational differences get their own army books. You have the Imperial Guard, the largest fighting force in the galaxy and another extremely varied fighting force able to produce many competitive and varied builds within one book yet they can't do the same for loyalist SM's. There's an oversaturation of Space Marines and this takes away efforts from other armies.

Each SM book that comes out takes development & marketing time, 4-12 months of release pipeline at least, meaning for each space marine book, you're looking at 10 months or more between non-SM books minimum generally and usually more. There's huge resources devoted to Space Marine marketing and advancement while it is often felt that other forces, that could be made just as popular if given the resources, are ignored. There were 17 Marine Codex books released from when DE got their first book to their update last year. *SEVENTEEN*.

Additionally, Space Marine fluff and background has, in many people's opinions (including my own) has been taking a steady decline in terms of quality for several years. There's a move away from the "cleanse/purge/kill the heretic" type Space Marine, who looks rather techy and brutal, towards more "knights in SPAAACE" spouting off "for the honorable glory of the gloriously glorious honor of glory!" or "wolfmcwolferson with his wolfbrethren riding his wolf while wielding wolfweapons" etc. There's much more of a 'bad internet fanfic' feel to much of the SM fluff of late.


So basically it's a combination of oversaturation, overexposure, decreasing fluff quality and neglect of other armies which further reinforces GW's efforts towards SM armies because the neglected other armies end up not doing well...because they're neglected because too much attention is given to SM's. Or at least that's what is felt.

(in before copy/paste "SPACE MARINES PAY FOR EVERYTHING ELSE" nonsensical response)


EDIT: Also, as others have noted, it's also annoying showing up to the store and of the 5 tables in play, 3 are Marines vs marines, and the other 2 are Marines vs Something Else.

This, basically.

Conceptually, I have no problem with them. Mutant supersoldiers in invincible power armor, used as the ultimate in force-concentrating shock troops to break hardened positions for conventional forces. That's cool, and makes sense. Mutant supersoldiers being given the authority of generals (despite acting solely according to the teachings of a book that was explicitly written with the goal of hamstringing them so they couldn't be a threat to the Imperium again, by a man who'd seen a scant handful of battles over the course of the couple of centuries the Great Crusade went on, all of which were won by swamping their enemies in tens of thousands of power armored supersoldiers...), while actively looking for tanks to punch, and who are treated as though ten could take an entire planet where tens of thousands of conventional troops failed, while being obsequiously praised in only the most nauseating of Mary-Sue tones in all their source material? Just thinking about it enough to write that made me feel nauseous.

With SM's, the development time issues are those associated with producing the book, not necessarily the rules but the pictures, stories that aren't cut/paste (for some reason every SM army needs its own description of the Predator...), layout, etc.

A big factor however is release/marketing pipeline time. GW never really has armies released closer than 5 months to each other, usually 6-10. That's to allow a release time to sink in and have its time to shine without being crowded out and cannibalized by another release and ensure product has time to move off shelves. Having 4 extraneous space marine books means an average of 24-40 extra months of marketing/release time required to get all the armies redone, making it impossible to do within the span of a single edition with GW's current business practices.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
This, basically.

Conceptually, I have no problem with them. Mutant supersoldiers in invincible power armor, used as the ultimate in force-concentrating shock troops to break hardened positions for conventional forces. That's cool, and makes sense. Mutant supersoldiers being given the authority of generals (despite acting solely according to the teachings of a book that was explicitly written with the goal of hamstringing them so they couldn't be a threat to the Imperium again, by a man who'd seen a scant handful of battles over the course of the couple of centuries the Great Crusade went on, all of which were won by swamping their enemies in tens of thousands of power armored supersoldiers...), while actively looking for tanks to punch, and who are treated as though ten could take an entire planet where tens of thousands of conventional troops failed, while being obsequiously praised in only the most nauseating of Mary-Sue tones in all their source material? Just thinking about it enough to write that made me feel nauseous.

Indeed, the fluff creep has gotten awful and crossed the line from "exaggerated enough to be awesome" to "awful fanfic/pulp comic/parody"

Ok Vaktathi, now I'm kinda confused. Are you with us or against us? In that Space marine releases/armies need to be condensed?

I don't really hate them, I just think they are boring when compared to other races, and their fluff awesomeness kinda ruin the grim dark setting IMO.

Polvilhovoador wrote:I don't really hate them, I just think they are boring when compared to other races, and their fluff awesomeness kinda ruin the grim dark setting IMO.

I think basic SM fluff is great. What you have to keep reminding yourself is that there are MILLIONS of human worlds and untold BILLIONS of humans in the 40k universe. There probably less than 150k space marines. So most humans have never seen and will never see a SM in their lifetime.

If you keep reminding yourself of that, their fluff is balanced. It's not like the pre-heresy days with grand fleets with thousands of marines in each fleet sweeping across the galaxy destroying everything.

SickSix wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

SickSix wrote:

purplefood wrote:I would accept 2 books...
They are GWs poster boys however, they could emphasize the other races more IMO but i can understand why they push SM so much.

I totally believe in SM as the posterboys. However, you can still put them on posters and not give them 70% of the developmental resources.

Keep putting them on posters, and making them the video game protagonists, but bring the other races more in line when it comes to the actual game.

Once again: this is a fallacy. They don't get 70% of the "developmental resources".

As people point out time and time again--the books are similar. Do you really think they redo everything from the ground up every time?

Your right. So why then does it take 3-6 months to release a new SM variation codex? They should be able to knock them all out in ONE release cycle!

Because the development cycle isn't just simply writing the codex, most likely.

And really---if we're going with that idea of they can just "knock them all out in one release cycle"--we end up with more codices like Tau Empire, Dark Angels, or Chaos Space Marines.

Love or hate Marines, it's stupid to encourage a "knock them all out" mentality. It does not end well for anyone involved.

Now do you see the point/perception?

No, because there's no truth to it in either case. There's just blind, unreasoning hatred and a deep seated envy.

SickSix wrote:

Polvilhovoador wrote:I don't really hate them, I just think they are boring when compared to other races, and their fluff awesomeness kinda ruin the grim dark setting IMO.

I think basic SM fluff is great. What you have to keep reminding yourself is that there are MILLIONS of human worlds and untold BILLIONS of humans in the 40k universe. There probably less than 150k space marines. So most humans have never seen and will never see a SM in their lifetime.

If you keep reminding yourself of that, their fluff is balanced. It's not like the pre-heresy days with grand fleets with thousands of marines in each fleet sweeping across the galaxy destroying everything.

~One million worlds, just over 32 thousand hives, between 20 and 60 quadrillion humans, and between six and twenty trillion in the Guard. Around 900K Marines. There are more titans on Mars, and more warships capable of leveling continents than there are Marines.

Of course, the numbers are a little inconsistent: there would have to be ten conflicts for every world in the Imperium at once for the Guard to be spread to the point of only having one hundred thousand fielded in any one campaign, yet that was the number afforded for an entire crusade (the Damocles Gulf Crusade), and they're generally portrayed as being fielded in the low tens of thousands in a theater. Thus, it stands to reason that either the one million worlds is a gross underestimate (it is only .2% of the theoretically habitable planets in the Milky Way, after all, and 40k fluff doesn't have the same restrictions that actual considerations do, meaning it's even less), or most of the Guard just sits around doing nothing. Or the one million worlds could be restricted to those with any sizeable population, with all other colonies or outposts going unmentioned. Who knows.

Kanluwen wrote:People aren't drawn in by the grunts in the mud dying to hold a tiny piece of ground. They're drawn in by the guys in the spotless armor, striding across the field and shrugging off fire while smiting the foe.

I have to disagree. Every writer worthy of the 'writer' title knows that, when conceiving a story, you flaw your heroes and perfect your villains. Those circumstances keep the reader captivated, wondering how the good guys are ever going to overcome their obstacles. When you do the opposite you get a dull, predictable story with no suspense. This concept is precisely why the fluff behind Draigo, Mephiston, etc. comes off as being just awful... It really is a deplorable quality of writing. As something of a writer myself, I cannot stress enough how amateur it looks.

This concept is the very reason why Dan Abnett wrote about Imperial Guard instead of Space Marines. Frankly, I believe it's why his IG books were so successful.

GW won't allow SMs to be portrayed in any circumstance of defeat. This is the root of problem that is the horrible fluff we've been seeing lately.

Archonate wrote:
GW won't allow SMs to be portrayed in any circumstance of defeat.

Except... they do. Plenty of times.

Really? Where can I read such a story and who wrote it??

They have been busily retiring or retconning famous SM defeats also.

The Sin of Damnation (where the Blood Angles lost their entire terminator company aboard the space hulk vs nids) gets no mention.

The Fall of Damnos has been rewritten from a hurried evacuation to a SM assault.

I'd not be shocked if the next codex up is codex- Lamenters, or Codex Scythes of the Emperor, with the fluff saying that they've never lost a single marine since the Horus Heresy.

It gets old, and the SM fanboys who take the heaily SM-slanted fluff (especially the mostly tepid BL books) as gospel get old quicker.


There have been a few SM losses in the timelines of the various codecii (usually 1 per dex..)

They sually go like this...

'The entire (what every company of whatever chapter) foughrt their way to the center of (whatever) and before the last battlebrother breathed his last he (for some inexplicable reason) blows the place up/kills the bad guy/otherwise wins..

How about the ones where the marines get gunned down by superior firepower or outsmarted and captured/killed?

Codex Dark Eldar has a bit less of the Marines Rule! stuff, with heamonculi experimenting with SW initiates on fenris, and using the marines as cat's paws, but generally the marines get all the good press.

*edit for more text*

SickSix wrote:Ok Vaktathi, now I'm kinda confused. Are you with us or against us? In that Space marine releases/armies need to be condensed?

Oh I'm definitely on the side that they need to be condensed.

Kanluwen wrote:

And really---if we're going with that idea of they can just "knock them all out in one release cycle"--we end up with more codices like Tau Empire, Dark Angels, or Chaos Space Marines.

What was wrong with Tau Empire for when it was released? It got several new units and wargear items and was rather good for 4th ed. It doesn't work so well now, but that's primarily a result of core rules changes more than anything else.

Just because DA and CSM books aren't well liked doesn't mean they hurried through them as fast as possible with little thought or effort. They clearly spent a good deal of time on those two books, they were radical redesigns of previous Space Marine books with a very clear vision. It's very hard to take seriously that they were the result of a hurried mentality. They had lots of time and effort put into them to make them what they were, they just took the books in a direction that the majority of the playerbase was unsatisfied with. Those books are the results of a difference in design philosophy, not hurried development and release, there is absolutely nothing that I am aware of to support that they were in fact rushed. That year actually only had two full codex releases, Dark Angels and CSM's, with a BA mini-dex in between. They were the result of Alessio's...poorly thought out design plan, something that can still be seen in 5E between the core rules (e.g. defensive weapon rules and every major gun tank in the game except non-BA loyalist preds having some way to skirt or mitigate them) and newer codecies written by authors brought on after his departure.

Love or hate Marines, it's stupid to encourage a "knock them all out" mentality. It does not end well for anyone involved.

Except for armies that would no longer have to wait for 17 marine book updates before they get updated

Ascalam wrote:They have been busily retiring or retconning famous SM defeats also.

The Sin of Damnation (where the Blood Angels lost their entire terminator company aboard the space hulk vs nids) gets no mention.

Bull. I've got Space Hulk sitting right in front of me, page 1 of the Mission Book is about the "Disaster at Secoris" and the whole Sin of Damnation debacle.

The Fall of Damnos has been rewritten from a hurried evacuation to a SM assault.

We must be reading different books.

I'd not be shocked if the next codex up is codex- Lamenters, or Codex Scythes of the Emperor, with the fluff saying that they've never lost a single marine since the Horus Heresy.

Neither of those existed during the Horus Heresy, so...

It gets old, and the SM fanboys who take the heaily SM-slanted fluff (especially the mostly tepid BL books) as gospel get old quicker.

You know what else gets old? The SM haters who take every piece of SM fluff, even where Astartes die off pretty quickly like "Soul Hunter" and "Blood Reaver" and claim that it is somehow "heavily SM-slanted fluff".

Marines die plenty in fluff. You just actually have to read the fluff to understand that.

Archonate wrote:I have to disagree. Every writer worthy of the 'writer' title knows that, when conceiving a story, you flaw your heroes and perfect your villains. Those circumstances keep the reader captivated, wondering how the good guys are ever going to overcome their obstacles. When you do the opposite you get a dull, predictable story with no suspense. This concept is precisely why the fluff behind Draigo, Mephiston, etc. comes off as being just awful... It really is a deplorable quality of writing.

The fluff behind Draigo and Mephiston comes from the author being bad. There's plenty of Guard novels that are bad. There's also Henry Zou's "Emperor's Mercy" which is a fething atrocity.

As something of a writer myself, I cannot stress enough how amateur it looks.

This kind of statement always makes me laugh.
You don't need writing credentials to recognize that Ward has trouble writing coherent story arcs.

This concept is the very reason why Dan Abnett wrote about Imperial Guard instead of Space Marines. Frankly, I believe it's why his IG books were so successful.

And this flies in the face of Abnett's stated reasons for writing about the Imperial Guard.
He has said that the reason he wrote about the Guard rather than Marines is he finds the Guard easier for people to relate to. They make for more exciting stories,

GW won't allow SMs to be portrayed in any circumstance of defeat. This is the root of problem that is the horrible fluff we've been seeing lately.

I'd suggest picking up a book, because there's been plenty of them lately.
Most notably, you have Blood Reaver--the Marines Errant are not only beaten, but beaten within their own Chapter Keep and the keep desecrated.

Vaktathi wrote:What was wrong with Tau Empire for when it was released? It got several new units and wargear items and was rather good for 4th ed. It doesn't work so well now, but that's primarily a result of core rules changes more than anything else.

It got several new units and wargear items...that were already present in the Taros Campaign book.
The only real 'new' thing in there was the Sniper Drones, Shadowsun, and the Ethereal character.

Just because DA and CSM books aren't well liked doesn't mean they hurried through them as fast as possible with little thought or effort. They clearly spent a good deal of time on those two books, they were radical redesigns of previous Space Marine books with a very clear vision.

Not really.

It's very hard to take seriously that they were the result of a hurried mentality.

...lol. Take the Dark Angels minidex. Now take the current Codex: Dark Angels. Come back and tell me that it wasn't a "hurried mentality".

They had lots of time and effort put into them to make them what they were, they just took the books in a direction that the majority of the playerbase was unsatisfied with. Those books are the results of a difference in design philosophy, not hurried development and release, there is absolutely nothing that I am aware of to support that they were in fact rushed.

Other than them coming two 40k books within the same year with a BA mini-dex in between?

That year actually only had two full codex releases, Dark Angels and CSM's, with a BA mini-dex in between.

Two full codex releases for 40k. You're neglecting the release of War of the Rings and some WHFB books.

They were the result of Alessio's...poorly thought out design plan, something that can still be seen in 5E between the core rules (e.g. defensive weapon rules and every major gun tank in the game except non-BA loyalist preds having some way to skirt or mitigate them) and newer codecies written by authors brought on after his departure.

Which is actually something that I've gone out of my way to point out repeatedly. Cavatore royally fethed the pooch and the only real way to get past those terrible rules was to make something considered 'overpowered'.

Except for armies that would no longer have to wait for 17 marine book updates before they get updated

Yeah, because clearly Dark Eldar and Necrons would have been done so much sooner if Codex: Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Blood Angels hadn't been done right?

Oh...right. They wouldn't have. Because both of those books have had to undergo stupidly complex redesigns.

Not unlike what Dark Angels really needs, actually.

This question is stupid? Who don't like Space Marines?
They are the very core of 40k, when I was first introduced to it I saw a Space Marines.
If the reason because the xxx people are playing with them then that is just lame excuse for hate. In the same logic I should ate McDonald's because xxxx people are buying there to eat?

Kanluwen wrote:

Ascalam wrote:They have been busily retiring or retconning famous SM defeats also.

The Sin of Damnation (where the Blood Angels lost their entire terminator company aboard the space hulk vs nids) gets no mention.

Bull. I've got Space Hulk sitting right in front of me, page 1 of the Mission Book is about the "Disaster at Secoris" and the whole Sin of Damnation debacle.

The Fall of Damnos has been rewritten from a hurried evacuation to a SM assault.

We must be reading different books.

I'd not be shocked if the next codex up is codex- Lamenters, or Codex Scythes of the Emperor, with the fluff saying that they've never lost a single marine since the Horus Heresy.

Neither of those existed during the Horus Heresy, so...

It gets old, and the SM fanboys who take the heaily SM-slanted fluff (especially the mostly tepid BL books) as gospel get old quicker.

You know what else gets old? The SM haters who take every piece of SM fluff, even where Astartes die off pretty quickly like "Soul Hunter" and "Blood Reaver" and claim that it is somehow "heavily SM-slanted fluff".

Marines die plenty in fluff. You just actually have to read the fluff to understand that.




'Bull. I've got Space Hulk sitting right in front of me, page 1 of the Mission Book is about the "Disaster at Secoris" and the whole Sin of Damnation debacle.'

Should have been more specific i guess. I was referring to the Blood Angels codex. You'd think something major like that would make it into the timeline, no?


'We must be reading different books.'


Does Fall of Damnos end with the Necrons sweeping the marines off the world, with the marines staging last minute, daring evacuations and finally retreating in the face of overwhelming Necron forces? No. It ends with 'we are coming, brother, with our big barge of tanks' and the Cryptek doing the *soon, we will destroy you...' routine. Meanwhile the marines have lost a few guys and the Necrons have lost several Lords and countless warriors. Does this sound like a Necron overwhelming victory to you? I guess I must be missing a few chapters from my copy, somewhere at the end, where the marines lose?

'Neither of those existed during the Horus Heresy, so...'


Which doesn't stop them from not having lost a marine SINCE the HH then, does it?



'You know what else gets old? The SM haters who take every piece of SM fluff, even where Astartes die off pretty quickly like "Soul Hunter" and "Blood Reaver" and claim that it is somehow "heavily SM-slanted fluff".

Marines die plenty in fluff. You just actually have to read the fluff to understand that.'



I have, believe me. Generally they take about a dozen equally or better statted creatures per death. There are incidents where a single marine stands of a horde, without somehow getting pulled down, for days... I grant you that usually it's a named character, but put Marneus Calgar alone vs a thousand plus Hormagaunts and i'll be betting on the nids. Thats assuming them having not having any support beasts etc.

Marines do die, yes, but usually one at a time to forward the storyline of a single squad doing what a whole battalion of (whoever) can't. A good example would be the fight with the wraiths in FOD. Three marines die, fighting dozens of wraiths (chapter 7). The wraiths were faster, stronger, as well armoured, insubstantial and stronger, but they only took 3 marines down? If this was a wierd and miraculous thing i could accept it, but this seems to be the norm for marine casualty ratio.

There have been occasional books that make the Marines out to be a little more vulnerable. The majority, especially the more recent offerings/codexes, have made them out to be damn near indestructable, even by thing that should be squashing tem like bugs.

Also if i hear the phrase 'would not be denied' again i'll retch

I don't hate Marines ( i actually thing certain chapters are damn cool) , but i'm damn tired of them hogging the limelight all the time, while their uberness keeps creeping up. At least with the Imperial Guard books you know that the characters might well die, and that a fair wodge of them likely will by the end of the book. Marines are supposed to be good, yes, and i can accept that they can take a lot of weaker oppenents with them without batting an eye, but when the enemy is just as strong, tough and well armed as you are you shouldn't have it all your own way.

There have been what, 2 books dealing with non-IOM as the hero?

Kanluwen wrote:
It got several new units and wargear items...that were already present in the Taros Campaign book.
The only real 'new' thing in there was the Sniper Drones, Shadowsun, and the Ethereal character.

It got a lot more than most other 4E books in terms of new stuff (hell, IG's previous book actually had *fewer* units than the book before it, they'd cut two Leman Russ variants and the Griffon entirely), and without those FW units being ported into the codex good luck getting to play with them half the time. As a Tau player, I though it was a marvelous step up from the previous book.

Not really.

Yes really. Not necessarily in great ways, but yes. Humongous redesign of codex layout, heavy emphasis on 10man squads and changes to options such that minimum sized squads could no longer carry the maximum amount of weaponry, across the board changes to weapons costs, almost every vehicle repriced and given additional equipment, changes to several major wargear items (e.g. extra armor) significant HQ changes, etc.

It's rather hard to stomach that they didn't put a lot of time into the DA book. The fact that it didn't turn out great doesn't mean they didn't devote a good amount of resources to it. Likewise with CSM's. Hell, these armies were actually rather competitive for a while. They took a bit of a hit when C:SM came out under Mat Ward's authorship, but it wasn't really until C:SW came out and did what both armies do but better that they really started to look outright bad. Blame Phil Kelly for that one.

...lol. Take the Dark Angels minidex. Now take the current Codex: Dark Angels. Come back and tell me that it wasn't a "hurried mentality".

I've got both books in front of me. While yes the 3E book was a rush job, all the early 3E books were rush jobs for every faction. Aside from some copy/paste fluff (that they've done in other marine books to the same extent and for good reasons, no need to re-write what was already good to go), I'm not seeing where the 4E book was hurried. not liking it != it was hurried.

If you want hurried, look at the Tyranid book. That's a rushed "get out the door quickly" book.

Other than them coming two 40k books within the same year with a BA mini-dex in between?

2007 wasn't exactly a year they rushed out a ton of stuff. They put out two full army books, a PDF and an expansion. In 2006 they put out 3 full army books and an expansion, In 2008 they put out a new edition and 3 full army books plus an expansion supplemental. 2009 was the next closest year about as slow, with only IG, Space Wolves, and an expansion and a half released, so the two most commonly accepted powerful armies

2007 was a relatively light year.

Two full codex releases for 40k. You're neglecting the release of War of the Rings and some WHFB books.

GW put out...2 WHFB books in 2007. They put out 2 and a new edition in 2006 and 4 in 2008. low-average year. IIRC 2007 wasn't exactly a banner year for LotR either...


So unless I'm totally misremembering 2007 as a gigantic year for LotR, 2007 was one of the slowest years GW has had in general.



I'm having a hard time seeing where these books were so "rushed".

Yeah, because clearly Dark Eldar and Necrons would have been done so much sooner if Codex: Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Blood Angels hadn't been done right?

In the time period it took to get Codex: Dark Eldar 3E out to Codex: Dark Eldar 5E, we had

Codex: Space Marines 3E
Codex: Chaos Space Marines 3E
Codex: Blood Angels 3E
Codex: Space Wolves 3E
Codex: Dark Angels 3E
Codex: Chaos Space Marines 3.5E
Codex: Daemonhunters 3E
Codex: Space Marines 4E
Codex: Black Templars 4E
Codex: Dark Angels 4E
Codex: Blood Angels PDF 4E
Codex: Chaos Space Marines 4E
Codex: Space Marines 5E
Codex: Space Wolves 5E
Codex: Blood Angels 5E

My apologies...only 15 Space Marine books.

However this is also not taking into account additional lists/updates in Armageddon/Eye of Terror and the Index Astartes stuff.

Oh...right. They wouldn't have. Because both of those books have had to undergo stupidly complex redesigns.

Aside from witty comments, perhaps those armies would have gotten said redesigns a couple years earlier, or had an update in the meantime that could have served to reinvigorate the line and a couple redesigned kits instead of languishign for several years.

The big reason those armies need "stupidly complex redesigns" is that they went two editions without any support. Any army going that long without any support will need such a redesign with such a fundamentally changed playing field and advances in kit capabilities.

Not unlike what Dark Angels really needs, actually.

not gonna get into that here again, suffice to say, I find it very difficult to compare a an army that's always claimed to be very codex adherent that has gotten semi-regular updates (either as a result of being tied to C:SM or getting a new book or FAQ/Errata support that non-SM armies have never gotten) to an army that was released and almost immediately abandoned for nearly 12 years.

Kanluwen wrote:

Archonate wrote:...when conceiving a story, you flaw your heroes and perfect your villains. Those circumstances keep the reader captivated, wondering how the good guys are ever going to overcome their obstacles....
This concept is the very reason why Dan Abnett wrote about Imperial Guard instead of Space Marines. Frankly, I believe it's why his IG books were so successful.

And this flies in the face of Abnett's stated reasons for writing about the Imperial Guard.
He has said that the reason he wrote about the Guard rather than Marines is he finds the Guard easier for people to relate to. They make for more exciting stories,

I'm well aware of what Abnett said, and I fail to see how I'm contradicting it. He's citing the same basic rule of writing that I am. People are captivated by flawed heroes because they relate more to them. These make more exciting stories because the obstacles look more insurmountable.

Ascalam wrote:Codex Dark Eldar has a bit less of the Marines Rule!

I don't know, there was that infuriating piece about that captured Salamanders strike cruiser that escapes Commorragh. Remember what DE did to the Tau? I would have loved to read about them doing something just as cunning and atrocious to SMs, but GW would never allow it.

Simply put, everyone is a little bit of a hipster and hates at least one thing just because it is popular.

Space Marines are the poster boys of the game. I play Space Wolves. So basically I play the hairy, mutated off shot, space barbarians of the poster boy.

Archonate wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Archonate wrote:...when conceiving a story, you flaw your heroes and perfect your villains. Those circumstances keep the reader captivated, wondering how the good guys are ever going to overcome their obstacles....
This concept is the very reason why Dan Abnett wrote about Imperial Guard instead of Space Marines. Frankly, I believe it's why his IG books were so successful.

And this flies in the face of Abnett's stated reasons for writing about the Imperial Guard.
He has said that the reason he wrote about the Guard rather than Marines is he finds the Guard easier for people to relate to. They make for more exciting stories,

I'm well aware of what Abnett said, and I fail to see how I'm contradicting it. He's citing the same basic rule of writing that I am. People are captivated by flawed heroes because they relate more to them. These make more exciting stories because the obstacles look more insurmountable.

Ascalam wrote:Codex Dark Eldar has a bit less of the Marines Rule!

I don't know, there was that infuriating piece about that captured Salamanders strike cruiser that escapes Commorragh. Remember what DE did to the Tau? I would have loved to read about them doing something just as cunning and atrocious to SMs, but GW would never allow it.

Crippling or destroying two dozen strike cruisers, and cutting off all the guns of a battle barge, in addition to butchering in excess of 750 (500 active on the ground after suffering 50% casualties, less than a halfway point in the battle, and only some percent in excess of 50% of the survivors at the end managed to flee; so out of a thousand Marines, more than 75% were killed, all in the time it took the nearest neighboring noble houses (to differentiate from the ones they landed on top of) to realize something was going on) Marines in the span of a few minutes, is probably the most anyone is allowed to beat up on them. They are "everyone's" favorite little Mary-Sues, after all.

You guys are looking at this the wrong way. Every codex is written basically as propaganda for whatever army it is. Everybody's book tells about how awesome they are and how much everyone else sucks, etc.

"Here, the great hero Slab Bulkhead did smite a ULTRA SUPER HYPER CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION HIVE TYRANT 2, then when on to father 10,000 space majeen companies!"

And honestly, the whole 1000 dudes a chapter might not even be a real number. The space marines lie and obfuscate their motives ALL THE TIME. Christ, the Dark Angels kill Inquisitiors when it gets inconvenient for them and you don't think someone just stopped counting at 1000 when they sent their imperial census data in?

What sounds more heroic: 1000 Ultramarines defended their crappy planet from a hive fleet or (what probably actually happened) 100,000 Ultramarines defended said crappy place from a hive fleet?

Here's an amusing story, it should be SFW but read at your own risk:http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Who_Watches_Them

Vaktathi wrote:

Shayden wrote:Why? Everywhere I look people are hating on the Space Marines! I understand that they are very popular with newbies, but that doesn't seem like a very good reason. Are they just considered cheap? Is it because of Matt Ward? Help me out here!

Several reasons. Few people actually hate Space Marines, but rather the extent of their presence and the attention given to them.

Space Marines are the smallest fighting force in the 40k universe, small enough that 99% of the Imperium's conflicts never see one, and that they are nothing more than a myth to most Imperial citizens. Yet they comprise half the army books. These books often share 80% or more of their units/weapons/wargear and one can easily move between these armies changing a dozen or fewer models, often none. There's a continual pressure to take the smallest diversions in SM armies and use them to make different books, even if they were adequately represented by mere army composition before, or use stuff like simple FoC or weapon swaps. You've got the Chaos Space Marine Legions, huge bands of marines no longer bound by Imperial dictates and probably the most varied group in the 40k universe all sharing one book while tiny Loyalist SM chapters with minor operational differences get their own army books. You have the Imperial Guard, the largest fighting force in the galaxy and another extremely varied fighting force able to produce many competitive and varied builds within one book yet they can't do the same for loyalist SM's. There's an oversaturation of Space Marines and this takes away efforts from other armies.

Each SM book that comes out takes development & marketing time, 4-12 months of release pipeline at least, meaning for each space marine book, you're looking at 10 months or more between non-SM books minimum generally and usually more. There's huge resources devoted to Space Marine marketing and advancement while it is often felt that other forces, that could be made just as popular if given the resources, are ignored. There were 17 Marine Codex books released from when DE got their first book to their update last year. *SEVENTEEN*.

Additionally, Space Marine fluff and background has, in many people's opinions (including my own) has been taking a steady decline in terms of quality for several years. There's a move away from the "cleanse/purge/kill the heretic" type Space Marine, who looks rather techy and brutal, towards more "knights in SPAAACE" spouting off "for the honorable glory of the gloriously glorious honor of glory!" or "wolfmcwolferson with his wolfbrethren riding his wolf while wielding wolfweapons" etc. There's much more of a 'bad internet fanfic' feel to much of the SM fluff of late.


So basically it's a combination of oversaturation, overexposure, decreasing fluff quality and neglect of other armies which further reinforces GW's efforts towards SM armies because the neglected other armies end up not doing well...because they're neglected because too much attention is given to SM's. Or at least that's what is felt.

(in before copy/paste "SPACE MARINES PAY FOR EVERYTHING ELSE" nonsensical response)


EDIT: Also, as others have noted, it's also annoying showing up to the store and of the 5 tables in play, 3 are Marines vs marines, and the other 2 are Marines vs Something Else.

I just wanted to say what a great post this was, and how much I enjoyed reading it.

I have built a few armies over the years including Orks, Squats, Eldar and Genestealer Cult... At the moment I'm working on Blood Angels army, so yeah I guess I am yet another marine player. I think I have good reasons for it though. Blood Angels have always been my favourite Marine Chapter since I was young. Oddly though I never built a BA force... This might sound strange but it was mainly down to the fact that when I collected marines BA didn't have rules out, or any special characters. I ended up buying Ragnar, and later Calgar and painted up all my marines to match them. By the time the first BA Codex came out I had already started to lose interest in GW and wasn't willing to spend any more or time or money on more marines.

Last year I got back into 40k. I had never owned a box of the new plastic marines because I quit before 3rd edition and they were something I really wanted to have a play with. When it came to choosing a colour it was a no brainer for me, especially with the new BAdex having just come out. So my BA army was born, I guess in some ways I'm kind of fulfilling the dream Marine army of my childhood now.

The fly in the ointment however is that so far half the people I've played so far were also playing BA or SW . It might sound hypocritical but even I as marine player get kind of fed up with all the other marine players. I really want to try out my army against Guard or Nids but they just aren't as common. Marines fighting marines just doesn't seem as interesting.

SickSix wrote:

purplefood wrote:I would accept 2 books...
They are GWs poster boys however, they could emphasize the other races more IMO but i can understand why they push SM so much.

I totally believe in SM as the posterboys. However, you can still put them on posters and not give them 70% of the developmental resources.

Keep putting them on posters, and making them the video game protagonists, but bring the other races more in line when it comes to the actual game.

+1

No hate of SM, but do bring balance to the game.