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Brother SRM wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
When was BA the generic space marine chapter?

It was originally Crimson Fists, than vanilla marines, than Codex: Ultramarines.

Imperial Fists adhere closer to the Codex Astartes than anyone save the Ultramarines. Crimson Fists have fewer resources and more veterans, which is reflected with Pedro's rules that make Sternguard scoring. As someone who plays Crimson Fists, I can say there is no need whatsoever for their own codex. Black Templars are significantly different and can get a new one, but no other Marine variant chapters need to be made.

Brother SRM summed up my feelings on the Sons of Dorn quite nicely.

How about instead of demanding a plethora of books, which would just lead to even more being neglected and outdated we ask for a core of books ala vanilla SM book that simply have online pdf supplements? Hell, charge people for them... at least it is more likely to happen than 'Exodite Eldar' or 'Lost and the Damned'.

So much space is wasted in SM expansion books by listing stuff we should already know; a land raider entry, detailings of universal wargear, entries for tactical/assault squads, etc.

It'd be so much easier to just get a couple of sides of A4 that list entries for UNIQUE units and then have a note like 'the following units from Codex: Space Marines have the following special rules', etc. Literally have an add-on rather than a fully-fleshed new book and there might be more time to actually keep all the codices up to date as well as cater to our more niche needs with regards to alternate sub-factions.

They used to do something similar with Chapter Approved in White Dwarf. None of the changes were particularly huge though. Although occasionaly they had entire new army lists (IG Armoured Company is the one that sticks in my memory )

It would make sense if they started doing this again, but precisely because it makes sense is precisely the reason they won't do it

There are 2 things here:
1) If GW was able to release new dexes in quick time (no matter how many dexes there were) for each core rule edition than many races could justify having a few dexes because there is a lot of additional flavour that can be added and created for these different armies; however

2) GW cannot keep dexes updated (and fix problems with proper errata) at all with what they have so I do not want any new dexes added, regardless if it would be interesting to see a few Eldar dexes or Ork dexes or White Scars, etc.

The chapter traits idea in the last SM dex is the way to go IMO, for not only SM but other races. SO the new SM dex should allow a player to make an Imperial Fist force (that does not have to have Lysander for them to be Imperial Fists), and this can be doen with Eldar, Orks, Imperial Guard, etc.

Tibbsy wrote:They used to do something similar with Chapter Approved in White Dwarf. None of the changes were particularly huge though. Although occasionaly they had entire new army lists (IG Armoured Company is the one that sticks in my memory )

It would make sense if they started doing this again, but precisely because it makes sense is precisely the reason they won't do it

If they conned money out of you for them (for a pdf I am guessing GW would charge at least £5) it might work... but that's easily pirated I suppose.

Still... it can't be that expensive to produce cheap paperback 'Army Expansions' can it? Hell they could even jack up the price further if they did that.

I do find it odd that there are no expansion books, it seems a norm in other systems. I mean, I know the game system is expanded with stuff like Cities of Death, etc. but it seems like GW could drop a lot of standards legitimately if Marines had such a setup; they could neglect including fluff, as well as units that are already in the 'parent' book. Surely the end product would only be around twenty pages?

Diabolical13 wrote:I mean we have a blood angels codex,a DA and SW one why not give some for us Dorn guys?

White scars could pretty use one too with unique biker units. As for rules on the Dorn chapters (CF and IF and other secondary chapters), they could have power fists and not have the initiative penalty or something like that,a fists cannon perhaps too? lol

Well just wanted to share my thoughts with you guys about this.

BA, DA and SW never really needed their own books either. BT's didn't, and IF/CF's don't. There's no reason any of these armies require their own codex to be played faithfully that couldn't be incorporated into another book with a couple of pages of list modifiers. IF's are highly codex adherent so there's little to justify anything for them needing their own book. Most of the differences the existing books have arose as justification to keep their own books.

None of the SM chapters need their own dex. Put all the damn SMs into one dex, or at the very least do what Craftworld eldar did, put all the special gak onto one to two pages in one Dex and then let the Vanilla Marines have their regular dex. It's easily doable in a reasonable amount of pages if you cut out on all the poorly written "fluff" and excessive special rules.

The problem isn't that there are too many Space Marine Codices (crazy i know). It's that everyone else knows that they aren't going to get their special flavors of Codex also.

We can argue about them being more popular or w/e junk people love to say, but players who have something other than SM's want some love too. If you can sit here and say that the Space marines deserve several codices, but that all the other races don't, then you need to look at yourself and ask why you're being such a tool.

If one race can get by with one codex, even with the multitude of ways they can be played as (Chaos, Eldar, Imperial Guard, Orks) then the SM can deal with the same.

And no, I don't care they've had a book since second Edition, that doesn't change anything in the argument.

Til the other races get their flavors and lovin, there always always always will be hate, argument and frustration over one faction getting half the ing cake.

They already have one: Codex Space Marines.

It's Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Black Templars, and Space Wolves that did not deserve a codex.

It doesn't really matter how many "Codexes" there are. What matters is the players. To get the best possible, most diverse gaming environment, you need to aim for an ideal distribution where "roughly" each Codex is played by an equal number of players.

If 60% of 40K players play some form of Space Marines, than you need to have 60% of the available armies be Space Marines. If you don't, you have 60% of the player base sitting on just one book, while only 40% of the players split the rest between themselves.

That doesn't make sense from a business perspective. Neither does it make for a healthy gaming environment. Thus, the books that need to be "merged" or "dropped" are the books that attract the least amount of players (thus adding the least to the diversity of the gaming environment) and the books that need to be split or expanded with armies of similar appeal are the ones that are used by the most players. The latter tend to be Space Marines of some sort.

Another way to put it: If everyone wants to play as space marines you can't force them to do otherwise. People vote on their fun by buying the armies they like.

Henners91 wrote:How about instead of demanding a plethora of books, which would just lead to even more being neglected and outdated we ask for a core of books ala vanilla SM book that simply have online pdf supplements?

Excuse me for splitting hairs, but the topic wasn't on should something get a book, or even how poorly GW supports the existing books... the topic was "deserve a codex". Just because something show's a worthy quality, doesn't mean it exceeds the worthiness of other armies enough to be more deserving than the rest.

The question was do Imperial Fist "deserve" not do they deserve more than others.

To put it another way, its a question of thresholds, where the original question was a relatively low bar to satisfy.

Zweischneid wrote:

It doesn't really matter how many "Codexes" there are. What matters is the players. To get the best possible, most diverse gaming environment, you need to aim for an ideal distribution where "roughly" each Codex is played by an equal number of players.

If 60% of 40K players play some form of Space Marines, than you need to have 60% of the available armies be Space Marines. If you don't, you have 60% of the player base sitting on just one book, while only 40% of the players split the rest between themselves.

That doesn't make sense from a business perspective. Neither does it make for a healthy gaming environment. Thus, the books that need to be "merged" or "dropped" are the books that attract the least amount of players (thus adding the least to the diversity of the gaming environment) and the books that need to be split or expanded with armies of similar appeal are the ones that are used by the most players. The latter tend to be Space Marines of some sort.

If you follow that then where are all the Ork codex? (feth the plural) Or what about the Imperial Guard? Tons of people play those, but we don't have separate books for them.

How can you stress diversity when "60%" of the forces are just a form of Space Marine? If they wanted to give them more options then they should include them in the SM book, or kept things like the trait system.

People get tired of vanilla, no matter what you put on top of it.

THE same argument from Xenos players everytime..... WE don't get seperated why should you!... The answer is simple GW makes more on marines than any other army.

Lets take a look at the store i frequent. I will only list people who isee play. 1 necron 3 Tau 3 Orks 2 Dark Eldar 1 Eldar 1 Deamons 2 Imperial Guard 2 Tyranids 1 Sisters compared to 3 Space wolves 3 SM 2 Blood angels 4 Dark angels 2 Grey Knight 1 Black Templar 2 chaos 16non-pa -17sm and we are an older store with a lot of guys who are on their 3rd-4th army.

that factis SM's sell as many if not more seperate codicies so we deserve to have sperate entries

and bringing up old editions and saying we weren't dfferentiated then is ludicrous. We are diffentiated now.

The problem is 2 of the poster boy non-pa armies (eldar and orks) are very weak as soon as no codicies come out and codex SM is near the bottom (which it soon will be) the SM players will cry out. it just a cycle live with it

captain collius wrote:THE same argument from Xenos players everytime..... WE don't get seperated why should you!... The answer is simple GW makes more on marines than any other army.

Lets take a look at the store i frequent. I will only list people who isee play. 1 necron 3 Tau 3 Orks 2 Dark Eldar 1 Eldar 1 Deamons 2 Imperial Guard 2 Tyranids 1 Sisters compared to 3 Space wolves 3 SM 2 Blood angels 4 Dark angels 2 Grey Knight 1 Black Templar 2 chaos 16non-pa -17sm and we are an older store with a lot of guys who are on their 3rd-4th army.

that factis SM's sell as many if not more seperate codicies so we deserve to have sperate entries

and bringing up old editions and saying we weren't dfferentiated then is ludicrous. We are diffentiated now.

The problem is 2 of the poster boy non-pa armies (eldar and orks) are very weak as soon as no codicies come out and codex SM is near the bottom (which it soon will be) the SM players will cry out. it just a cycle live with it

Look, I'm not saying they have to be pushed into one book. thats never going to happen and we all know it. What people are arguing for is for equal screen time for the other races as well. And they can Differentiate all the other races just like they did the SM's, its just that they wont with people arguing that they deserve it more because they're so inherently different, or some crap.

God forbid that SM's sell so much because there is already such a large supply of them, or that there is always a push by GW to put them on new players.

If you think it doesn't matter then why bother joining the argument? What would there be to lose from giving the other races some more love?

P.S.(Not focused at you) There is no way someone can tell me that all those Marine players only have marine armies. What are the other armies they have? They just don't count since they mainly frequent SM's right?

Why would people have different armies if they were fine with all the flavors of marine and didn't care for the other armies? Maybe they would like to have some more options in their non-loyalist PA armies as well.

So here's a thought:

Why don't we create our own fandexes for the different factions in each race?

Codex: Orks could split into:
Flash Gitz
Speed Freekz
etc

Personally, I think I'd like to play an Alaitoc Eldar 'dex. I've always had a thing for the Eldar Rangers and Pathfinders.

I honestly have to wonder if the marine dominance isn't something of a chicken vs egg thing. How do we know that the reason 60% of players play SM isn't simply because 60% of the available material is marine-centric? It's a fair question, no?

captain collius wrote:THE same argument from Xenos players everytime..... WE don't get seperated why should you!... The answer is simple GW makes more on marines than any other army.

And why's that? Because the Space Marines have the most models available to use and the most codices, making it easier to switch between them at will. Maybe if they released more for another race, more people would start playing them rather than deciding to go with the army that actually gets new codices.

Lets take a look at the store i frequent. I will only list people who isee play. 1 necron 3 Tau 3 Orks 2 Dark Eldar 1 Eldar 1 Deamons 2 Imperial Guard 2 Tyranids 1 Sisters compared to 3 Space wolves 3 SM 2 Blood angels 4 Dark angels 2 Grey Knight 1 Black Templar 2 chaos 16non-pa -17sm and we are an older store with a lot of guys who are on their 3rd-4th army.

That fact is SM's sell as many if not more seperate codicies so we deserve to have sperate entries.

Space Marines sell more codices because there are more codices available with regard to them. They also have the reputation for being the most powerful armies in one form or another. If GW started giving some love to other armies, then more people would start playing them.

and bringing up old editions and saying we weren't dfferentiated then is ludicrous. We are diffentiated now.

The problem is 2 of the poster boy non-pa armies (eldar and orks) are very weak as soon as no codicies come out and codex SM is near the bottom (which it soon will be) the SM players will cry out. it just a cycle live with it

What do you mean by that last statement? Orks aren't actually weak, and Eldar are still running a 3rd or 4th ed codex, so of course they're at a disadvantage. And it's not a cycle for the Space Marines, they get an update near the start of every edition. Everyone else seems to get one every second one.

captain collius wrote:THE same argument from Xenos players everytime..... WE don't get seperated why should you!... The answer is simple GW makes more on marines than any other army.

Lets take a look at the store i frequent. I will only list people who isee play. 1 necron 3 Tau 3 Orks 2 Dark Eldar 1 Eldar 1 Deamons 2 Imperial Guard 2 Tyranids 1 Sisters compared to 3 Space wolves 3 SM 2 Blood angels 4 Dark angels 2 Grey Knight 1 Black Templar 2 chaos 16non-pa -17sm and we are an older store with a lot of guys who are on their 3rd-4th army.

that factis SM's sell as many if not more seperate codicies so we deserve to have sperate entries

I've made a pair of space marine armies in my many years playing the game (out of 24 total 40k armies I have built through the years), but in my current playing group we have the following armies represented:

2x Orks
1 Tau
1 Nurgle Marines
1 Slaanesh Marines
1 Khorne Marines
1 Chaos Renegades/Lost and the Damned
1 Chaos Daemons
1 Dark Eldar
2 Tyranids
1 Imperial Guard
*1* Space Marines

So in my corner of the world the armies are skewed a lot more strongly away from marines and towards just about everything but regular Space marine chapters, and the main chaos player, me, can create unique and interesting armies just fine using a single CSM codex for all of the powers at the same time. Having only a single book doesn't stop me from buying chaos stuff all the time. It is, after all, what I like to play with on the table top. So those marine players will still happily play marines even if they only have a single book to build them out of too. Marines are the *best* force in the game for consistency and all around good capabilities. They have solid armor, weapons and vehicles. They have "shall know no fear" and other rules. Even with just one book they will still have plenty of a following just like they did *before* they started making separate marine codex books for them. In the past chapter was used to guide your build from the lists and to determine the colors you painted your army. Now it is to be able to have the best special rules possible...

Skriker

Are there more SM Codices because there are more SM players... or are there more SM Players because there's more SM Codices?

Psienesis wrote:Are there more SM Codices because there are more SM players... or are there more SM Players because there's more SM Codices?

Space Marines have always been popular. They were the first ever plastic mini set available from Citadel and have never looked back. They are the iconic face of Warhammer 40k. I think it is a mixture of both things you asked. Popularity breeds the market for more and more SM codecies, and more and more SM codecies leads to more SM armies cropping up and so on and so on in a wonderfully cyclical fashion.

Skriker

I don't think the game needs anymore marines. Its bad enough that Marines are what's mostly played. Imperial Fists strictly follow the Codex Astartes thus making it pointless to make another codex for them. The codices that are not in Codex: Space Marines is because they do not adhere to the Codex Astartes very strictly or in some cases not at all.

Skriker wrote:

Psienesis wrote:Are there more SM Codices because there are more SM players... or are there more SM Players because there's more SM Codices?

Space Marines have always been popular. They were the first ever plastic mini set available from Citadel and have never looked back. They are the iconic face of Warhammer 40k. I think it is a mixture of both things you asked. Popularity breeds the market for more and more SM codecies, and more and more SM codecies leads to more SM armies cropping up and so on and so on in a wonderfully cyclical fashion.

Skriker

So, by that logic, more Xeno Codices should lead to more Xeno players, right? After all, there's definitely Ork, Tyranid and Tau fans.

Psienesis wrote:So, by that logic, more Xeno Codices should lead to more Xeno players, right? After all, there's definitely Ork, Tyranid and Tau fans.

There are the same number of Xenos codex as SM codex. So under this assumption, there should be an equal number of SM and Xenos players. I find that unlikely.

Marine
GK
BA
SW
SM
CSM
DA
BT

Xenos
DE
Tyr
Chaos Daemons
Orks
Eldar
Tau
Necrons

Imperial
IG
SOB

Joey wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:When was BA the generic space marine chapter?

2nd Edition 40k.

'twas the first edition I played ( though was about 8 at the time so didn't really understand it)

Because they were on the box? The 2nd ed vanilla codex was called Codex Ultramarines. BA had their own codex.

I think that for all the codex astares (imperial fist, white scars, salamnaders, etc...) they should get a page or two in the vanilla codex with special rules for them, and maybe a special character or 2 which also have special rules, but not their own codex.

For instance, Salamanders could have higher strength, but lower initiative. Reinforced ceramite (sp?) on their tanks but they can't take land speeders or assault marines. Plus we'd still get vulkan and his goodness. That way your salamander army would ALWAYS be salamanders without the need for vulkan, but if you use him he does make your army better.

You really don't need a codex for that, just a couple pages, or even a WD article would do, AND it would be easy to do this for every codex that comes out in the future so you could have Ork speed freaks and what have you.

Mongooli wrote:
You really don't need a codex for that, just a couple pages, or even a WD article would do, AND it would be easy to do this for every codex that comes out in the future so you could have Ork speed freaks and what have you.

They stopped doing that about a decade ago.

This was roughly the same time people stopped buying White Dwarf.

Coincidence?

I don't understand why anybody would need any more fething Space Marine Codexes.

IcedAnimals wrote:I think space marine books would be great if they at least TRIED to play a little different from each other.

Vanilla book. Jack of all trades but doesn't excel at any one.
Blood Angels. Fast assault based army.
Dark Angels. Elite, small numbers.
Space Wolves. Ranged list combining heavy weapons and psychic powers.
Black Templars. Horde based marines.
And finally Grey Knights which should focus on having "the best marines" but filling in your army with inquisition.

Two issues.

One, you have Space Wolves and Dark Angels mixed up.

Dark Angels should focus on ranged combat with higher tech flavour, while Space Wolves should be a smaller, elite army (you know, a small band of heroes doing the impossible people will tell stories about), supported by the occasional horde of Blood Claws and some ranged support.

Two, Grey Knights shouldn't even be included with the list of Space Marine codexes.

Two issues.

One, you have Space Wolves and Dark Angels mixed up.

Dark Angels should focus on ranged combat with higher tech flavour, while Space Wolves should be a smaller, elite army (you know, a small band of heroes doing the impossible people will tell stories about), supported by the occasional horde of Blood Claws and some ranged support.

In fluff, yes.

In practice? No, thanks to kelly's screwup at making gray hunters the same cost as blood claws.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:In fluff, yes.

In practice? No, thanks to kelly's screwup at making gray hunters the same cost as blood claws.

Um, I know?

His original post was about how they should play. I was correcting him because he had Dark Angels and Space Wolves mixed around. I know fully well Space Wolves do not play like that at the moment.

pretre wrote:

Psienesis wrote:So, by that logic, more Xeno Codices should lead to more Xeno players, right? After all, there's definitely Ork, Tyranid and Tau fans.

There are the same number of Xenos codex as SM codex. So under this assumption, there should be an equal number of SM and Xenos players. I find that unlikely.

Marine
GK
BA
SW
SM
CSM
DA
BT

Xenos
DE
Tyr
Chaos Daemons
Orks
Eldar
Tau
Necrons

Imperial
IG
SOB

Chaos Daemons aren't really Xeno, but whatever. Do you notice the problem there? One *specific* type of army (the Marine or MEQ) has nearly as many codices as every other style of army in the game combined! That's the problem, and that's why Xeno players feel slighted. They get one army, one book, and unless they want to play a whole lot of games with their Xeno figures as "counts as", they're SOL on trying something new. SM players? Well, crap, I got a whole box of guys right here, let me just slap some grey paint on them and, look, my UM are now SW... slap some red on them and now they're BA... green and be DA... greenstuff spikes and metallic black, and now I'm fielding the Black Legion.