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I've been going through the main marine codexes (excluding wolves) and other then for fluff reasons I can't really see why we have 3 of them. This is being said as a marine player.

I've had a look through them and put together a rough list below of how most BA and DA units can fit into the standard codex and a few tweaks where units might clash.

This isn't necessarily and exhaustive list but here goes.

Troop
Tactical squads gain Heavy Flamers

Elites
Honour Guard and Command squads must be assigned a character (doesn’t have to join them)and can match there armour/movement – eg add options for Terminator Armour, Jump Packs and Bikes to both units. Also replace standard bolters with Angelus Bolter for Honour Guard only.

Add Bikes as an option to Venguard, who can upgrade to Plasma Talons. – Surely White Scars have veteran bikers too right?

Ironclade Dreadnought– Add Blood talons, Frag cannon and Magna- grapple, bringing the option to a similar level as normal Dreadnoughts.

Terminator squads gain Plasma Cannons

Fast Attack
Storm Talon 1-2 must be assigned a target to protect (eg stay within 24”/36” of it while on the board, improved reserve rolls if the target is no the table but cannot arrive before the target)

Nephilim – up the main cannon to Str7 (maybe drop ROF) and give it a cyclone missile launcher rather than one shot missiles and make it a Dog-Fighter (40K answer to the 30K Xiphon Interceptor)


Heavy support
Predators – add Flame Storm & Assault Cannon Turrets and Heavy Flamer Sponsons.

Vengeance & Dark Shroud Landspeeders – Again would fit with White Scars and the fact Dark Angles wouldn’t be the only Chapter to take relics to war (Black Templars)

HQ
Librarian Dreadnought – but add the ability to join units of Dreadnoughts.

Add a Chief Librarian option that isn’t a special character

Add Inferno Pistols to the armoury


Blood Angels and Dark Angles gain Scout Bikers, Landspeeder Storms, Storm Talons Centurions and Thunderfire Cannons.
Dark Angles also gain Storm Ravens.


Deathwing knights, Death company and Death company dreadnought join Crusader squads as chapter specific units, possibly opening things up for all Legion Blood lines to gain such a unit as I can see Crimson Fists using a similar set up to crusaders squads as they rebuild. Sanginary Guard would merge into Honour Guard

Add a Demi company option for each legion blood line + the Standard Gladius Demi company with possible 1 or 2 blood line formations (eg everyone can use it but only Raven Guard can include an assault wing in as part of a their strike force)

Give access to a Blood line specific (paid for) upgrade, eg, Baal pattern engines on rhinos, Shrouded Raven Guard Storm Ravens etc.

All Special characters retained but Telion and Chronos made examples so all blood lines can have tank commanders and scout masters (or add an option for these)
To make space for this make the Codex a 2 part like most campaign books, the fluff and the rules.

Overall benefit
Space marine players get a bit more choice

Non space marine players – nothing damaging here I can see (due to allies rules anyway) and only one Marine spam a cycle rather than 3.

GW - 1) codes would be cheap for people the buy then 3 but more people would buy that 1.
2) More kits open to more players so overall more money without having to find more shelf space.

Well, as a Blood Angels player who uses lots of scouts and terminators, I'd love this, as currently my scouts cost the same and are objectively worse, and my terminators are exactly the same and cost more. My basic 500 points BA force would be 35 points cheaper, AND have better scouts if I used the regular codex.

No. Last time this was done there stopped being a point to playing Black Templars from a rules perspective and the fluff got... special. I'm not going to advocate folding more Chapters until the last one gets fixed.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
No. Last time this was done there stopped being a point to playing Black Templars from a rules perspective and the fluff got... special. I'm not going to advocate folding more Chapters until the last one gets fixed.

I disagree with this.

Black templars have their own chapter tactics, special characters and troop choices.

It would be fairly easy to do this day and age with the current Marine codex, just do the same as Crusader Squads do. Ust make the chapter tactics for each unit restricted to BA/DA, and that vhapter Tactic also gives access to the current army wide rules like Hunt the Fallen or the Red Thirst for example. You could even just put in another few entries in the army list that say "Angelus Boltgun(8)" and (8) being "Blood Angels Command Squad only"

One sub-par Character, one decent and one that's a worse BB/AA Captain. A Chapter Tactics that is the only one that actively penalises the army. Worse at their supposed specialty than Ultramarines. A Chapter Tactics that doesn't allow you to use the signature unit in any of the myriad of formations that calls for Tactical Squads.

As I said, no rules reasons to play Templars.

Not being a SM player but having a BA fluffy army i disagree. I dislike there being a hundred and one imperial armies when there's not many xenos armies.

Yes that sounds contradicting but bare with me.

When i play BAs i know/feel my army is seperate from the spam, cheese and other glory supporting players. I have a few quirky rules, and my army stands up well with a fluff list, unlike my Nids. If i were to have a SM codex, even if my army were red (it's not) i'd feel all that judgement of being a SM player on my shoulders.

I don't care for grav, and i don't care to share my other goodies.

When someone says they're playing X army and they pull out some questionable allies or allies that are just being taken for power bonuses, i just don't like it.

What i'm basically saying is, there ain't enough different 40k factions and BAs is one that isn't represented much here so i can have a unique army.
Imo ofc

I don't disagree where balancing is concerned compression is good. But this IS 40k and GW

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
No. Last time this was done there stopped being a point to playing Black Templars from a rules perspective and the fluff got... special. I'm not going to advocate folding more Chapters until the last one gets fixed.

Honestly, this whining about Black Templars has got to stop. You're not missing anything from your old codex that one should be complaining.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
No. Last time this was done there stopped being a point to playing Black Templars from a rules perspective and the fluff got... special. I'm not going to advocate folding more Chapters until the last one gets fixed.

Honestly, this whining about Black Templars has got to stop. You're not missing anything from your old codex that one should be complaining.

Thank you for telling me how I am allowed to have fun, Great One! I seem to remember this little thing called Righteous Zeal, though, and something about Vows? Some stuff integral to how the army played that doesn't exist anymore?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
No. Last time this was done there stopped being a point to playing Black Templars from a rules perspective and the fluff got... special. I'm not going to advocate folding more Chapters until the last one gets fixed.

I get your point, that's why I suggested version of the Strike force for all Legion Blood lines (like Raven Guard and White Scars in the Tau campaign)

If the Codex was split in 2 there would be plenty of room for the 8 Legions so I can't see a reason for a 9th one for the Black Templars.

So Blood angles possibly have an extra assault squad in a Demi company, Imperial fists can include a unit of thunderfire cannons and Black Templar have a demi company based around 2 Crusader squads etc

I know some people get passionate about there army but please look at the whole post first not just it's name.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
No. Last time this was done there stopped being a point to playing Black Templars from a rules perspective and the fluff got... special. I'm not going to advocate folding more Chapters until the last one gets fixed.

Honestly, this whining about Black Templars has got to stop. You're not missing anything from your old codex that one should be complaining.

Thank you for telling me how I am allowed to have fun, Great One! I seem to remember this little thing called Righteous Zeal, though, and something about Vows? Some stuff integral to how the army played that doesn't exist anymore?

As an Iron Hands player, I feel your pain. And as an Iron Hands player, I would just like to say you got off easy compared to what has been done to IH. We have lost pretty much everything that made us unique and interesting and made into wannabe Ultramarines. Heck, even out chapter tactics suck a big one. I'm surprised my army is even in the codex at all.

I'd prefer if they did what they used to. Have a supplement with the unique units for SW, DA, and BA. The rest should be see codex space marine. I hate that we have different versions of the same unit running around such as BA scouts.

 NorseSig wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
No. Last time this was done there stopped being a point to playing Black Templars from a rules perspective and the fluff got... special. I'm not going to advocate folding more Chapters until the last one gets fixed.

Honestly, this whining about Black Templars has got to stop. You're not missing anything from your old codex that one should be complaining.

Thank you for telling me how I am allowed to have fun, Great One! I seem to remember this little thing called Righteous Zeal, though, and something about Vows? Some stuff integral to how the army played that doesn't exist anymore?

As an Iron Hands player, I feel your pain. And as an Iron Hands player, I would just like to say you got off easy compared to what has been done to IH. We have lost pretty much everything that made us unique and interesting and made into wannabe Ultramarines. Heck, even out chapter tactics suck a big one. I'm surprised my army is even in the codex at all.

The sad part is, you still have better CTs than BT.

Back on topic: there's no reason it couldn't be done, but based on GW's past track record it'd probably fail spectacularly, which is why I'm against it.

As a Blood Angels player the only thing I want from the marine codex is Land Speeder Storms and Storm Talons as well as the appropriate points and stats changes for Terminators, Scouts and Dreads. and tbh i'd rather have my fast tanks and HF Tac squads then Codex marine's unique units. We'll get our own decurion in time which will be nice.

I like my army being unique compared to marines.

While you're at it are you going to roll all 3 Eldar Codices in together?

The more I see this stuff the more I like 30ks system.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Back on topic: there's no reason it couldn't be done, but based on GW's past track record it'd probably fail spectacularly, which is why I'm against it.

Sooo...it sounds like your issue isn't with having all the loyalist marines in one book, its that you feel GW is terrible at writing rules.

That's fair, and I agree, but there's nothing saying an independent codex would have made things better. For all you know, a standalone BT codex would have had the same sub-par characters supported by the same lacklustre CT, with mediocre formations and restrictions that would have kept you in a middling to low tier army.

A combined codex makes sense, and GW's ability to write one combined dex isn't any different than their ability to write three independent codices.

Taffy17 wrote:
As a Blood Angels player the only thing I want from the marine codex is Land Speeder Storms and Storm Talons as well as the appropriate points and stats changes for Terminators, Scouts and Dreads. and tbh i'd rather have my fast tanks and HF Tac squads then Codex marine's unique units. We'll get our own decurion in time which will be nice.

I like my army being unique compared to marines.

While you're at it are you going to roll all 3 Eldar Codices in together?

As a player currently playing Blood Angels (and a collector who owns multiple space marine chapters), I like it as distinct armies too, from a couple of different aspects.

If they did it all as one book, when they show a tactical squad, should it be BA, DA, or Ultramarines? When they do the fluff and art section, should it be 3x longer (thus, 150+ pages), or should they cut out stuff from some of the factions? I happen to like all the unique artwork and background material from each codex, and there's nothing that I would like to see removed, except the text of the squads that are repeated, or nearly repeated. Like, I'd be fine with the ASM entry saying that BA can take XYZ, SM can take ABC, etc. However, I wouldn't want them to cut out the photography or artwork for any particular one.

That being said, there's nothing stopping you from taking DA or BA and playing them as a Vanilla successor chapter (Blood Knights! Dark Templars!). The models which are the most repetitive (bolter marines) are shared, as are many of the special weapons models, and most of the basic vehicles. And many of the heroes or generic characters may be reasonable proxies.

 Talys wrote:



If they did it all as one book, when they show a tactical squad, should it be BA, DA, or Ultramarines?

Or Salamanders, or BT, or White Scars, or Iron Hands, or Imperial Fists, or Crimson Fists, or Raven Guard, or the Marauders, or any of the hundred of other marine chapters.

That's such an incredibly minor issue and argument against rolling the marines together.

When they do the fluff and art section, should it be 3x longer (thus, 150+ pages), or should they cut out stuff from some of the factions?

No, you cut it entirely. Offer a book roughly 30pages long with the standard marine army list, then each chapter gets a page of special rules and characters and units. Then sell the fluff and artwork for the chapters independently, allowing you to get the best of both worlds.

Or, in a perfect world, GW offers all the rules for free via PDF and then offer pretty fluff books for the chapters. Everyone wins.

As long as its not an excuse to cut BA/DA uniqueness.

The big question would be, are all BA/DA/SW rules in the vanilla codex, or does the vanilla codex have the base rules, with all the rules for at least one chapter (UM), and additional supplements for each subfaction

Supplements could be done wrong ($50/book, for example), but it could also do right.

Perhaps the best would be if the Vanilla book became the base, the authority for all Codex Astartes goodies. Then, the BA/DA/SW etc books added on. Stuff like:
-BA CTs are "Furious Charge",
-BA Tactical squad entry: "See Codex: AA.. Also, may take HF and Infurnus...".

Best of both worlds then. Any update to Codex AA updates all AA units, as each supplement has the diff, not the full content.

Any AA content would, of course, have to note any Chapters that don't field it, either in the "Dataslate" ("BAs don't get this unit, because its actually useful"), or the Chapter suppliment (BT supplement would specify "No Librarians, cause fluff".).

Done right, it could be great. But it wouldn't be done right.

(SW needs to reign in the stupid. Santa Grimnar? Wulfen?. These variances should be limited.)

You picked the two Chapters i feel fully need their own Codexes. BA and DA have so many unique units and rules attached to basic units that you'd wind up reprinting half the Codex if they got a supplement. Heres how i see it:

Ultramarines, Imperial Fists, Ravenguard and White Scars: Base Codex
Black Templars, Space Wolves, and Iron Hands: Supplements
Blood Angels and Dark Angels: Separate Codexes

My reasoning for this is, that outside of a handful of unique units (Crusader Squads and Bloodclaws) the Suppliments group's difference is primarily mechanics. And there is a fairly large difference, but otehrwise they mostly use armies composed of standard SM options.

The other two differ drastically (all fast vehicles for BA, DA unique wargear) so they actually need their own books. Plus their supplements would also be big hey may as well make it a full codex

Note, im only advocating this if they would be written well, but then again GW has proved they can muck up anything.

If any marines codex needs its own book, its SW. The main reason being that it is the only SM chapter that doesn't use the codex astartes. They are the only chapter that doesn't have the same scouts, tacticals, devistators and all that shebang.

Every other chapter is the same cut and paste but with some small changes and special units.

Of course, I don't see how putting these 3 codex into a single book would do anything aside from over complicate things.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
If any marines codex needs its own book, its SW. The main reason being that it is the only SM chapter that doesn't use the codex astartes. They are the only chapter that doesn't have the same scouts, tacticals, devistators and all that shebang.

Every other chapter is the same cut and paste but with some small changes and special units.

Of course, I don't see how putting these 3 codex into a single book would do anything aside from over complicate things.

Except that the only units anyone actually uses from SW is Thunderwolves, Blood Claws and Wulfen. Thats it. Everything else is renamed base units and just different wargear, maybe with a unique rule.

Edit: Ya just checked the SW codex. Their only really unique units are Thunderwolves, Blood Claws, Wulfen, and Fenrisian Wolves. Long Fangs are just Devastators with a smaller minimum squad size and everything else is just renamed basic stuff with SW specific rules.

 Grimmor wrote:
You picked the two Chapters i feel fully need their own Codexes. BA and DA have so many unique units and rules attached to basic units that you'd wind up reprinting half the Codex
.

My point isn't to take away unique units it's to fit them better. Excluding Death Company, Death Company Dreads and Deathwing knights from this can you please explain why you think why these units should be unique to BA & DA?

Sanguinary guard - these are basically Jump Pack honour guard with a slightly better bolter and a worse close close combat option (2 hands for a re-roll verse +1A or S6) - Raven guard are pushed as mainly jump pack characters, so why wouldn't they any their successors give there body guards jump packs too? The same applies to Command squads.

Furioso Dreadnought - An Iconclade with different weapon option, both of which have far fewer options then the standard/Venerable Dreadnoughts.

Baal Predators - See my original post. While the weapons options become part of the standard Predator option each Legion Blood line should get a specific vehicle upgrade, eg Baal engines for BA

Tactical Marines with Heavy Flamers - These are so common even the IG can field tons of them. And how can BA hold claim to there over Salamander?

Terminator Command squad - so out of the 1000+(ish) chapter in the Imperium only a handful have thought to protect their 1st Captains with his own warriors (?) Why wouldn't the Ironhands or Imperial Fists do the same?

BlackKnights - which legion/chapter is renowned for it's bike formations on a chapter level? Why shouldn't White Scars have Veteran bikers too?

Vengeance Landspeeders fit white Scars too.

In regards to Fluff - Like I said, make it a 2 part book like the current Campaign Books. The Blood Angle Codex only has 28 pages of fluff. End Time: Rise of Nagash has 293 which would give all 9 Legions 30+ pages each.

Rules wise the main Codex is 112 page including wargear and formations. You only need to add about 25 pages to add all spacial character, unit which wouldn't be combined Relics and a Battle company formation for BA and DA. Add in 7 other battle companies and relics for the other legions and that's 151 page gaming book.

All of the Legion Blood lines are unique so why do BA and DA get the special treatment (SW are going more and more their own way) while the others are all stuck together?

 gwarsh41 wrote:
If any marines codex needs its own book, its SW. The main reason being that it is the only SM chapter that doesn't use the codex astartes. They are the only chapter that doesn't have the same scouts, tacticals, devistators and all that shebang.

Every other chapter is the same cut and paste but with some small changes and special units.

Templars?

The problem is that GW doubled down on trying to make BA and DA unique back in fifth and gave them additional unique units. I'm pro folding them together into one book, but that's harder now without invalidating peoples models.

ScarVet101 wrote:

 Grimmor wrote:
You picked the two Chapters i feel fully need their own Codexes. BA and DA have so many unique units and rules attached to basic units that you'd wind up reprinting half the Codex
.

My point isn't to take away unique units it's to fit them better. Excluding Death Company, Death Company Dreads and Deathwing knights from this can you please explain why you think why these units should be unique to BA & DA?

Sanguinary guard - these are basically Jump Pack honour guard with a slightly better bolter and a worse close close combat option (2 hands for a re-roll verse +1A or S6) - Raven guard are pushed as mainly jump pack characters, so why wouldn't they any their successors give there body guards jump packs too? The same applies to Command squads.

Furioso Dreadnought - An Iconclade with different weapon option, both of which have far fewer options then the standard/Venerable Dreadnoughts.

Baal Predators - See my original post. While the weapons options become part of the standard Predator option each Legion Blood line should get a specific vehicle upgrade, eg Baal engines for BA

Tactical Marines with Heavy Flamers - These are so common even the IG can field tons of them. And how can BA hold claim to there over Salamander?

Terminator Command squad - so out of the 1000+(ish) chapter in the Imperium only a handful have thought to protect their 1st Captains with his own warriors (?) Why wouldn't the Ironhands or Imperial Fists do the same?

BlackKnights - which legion/chapter is renowned for it's bike formations on a chapter level? Why shouldn't White Scars have Veteran bikers too?

Vengeance Landspeeders fit white Scars too.

In regards to Fluff - Like I said, make it a 2 part book like the current Campaign Books. The Blood Angle Codex only has 28 pages of fluff. End Time: Rise of Nagash has 293 which would give all 9 Legions 30+ pages each.

Rules wise the main Codex is 112 page including wargear and formations. You only need to add about 25 pages to add all spacial character, unit which wouldn't be combined Relics and a Battle company formation for BA and DA. Add in 7 other battle companies and relics for the other legions and that's 151 page gaming book.

All of the Legion Blood lines are unique so why do BA and DA get the special treatment (SW are going more and more their own way) while the others are all stuck together?

Your also missing the legion of unique HQs and special characters both Chapters have. And while some special weapons (the Heavy Flamer comes to mind) should be more prolific, people will start wondering why Ultramarines or White Scars cant have Fast Predators too.

Really they should be separate, or at minimum a supplementary Codex. If only because a 200 page book is freakin huge.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
One sub-par Character, one decent and one that's a worse BB/AA Captain. A Chapter Tactics that is the only one that actively penalises the army. Worse at their supposed specialty than Ultramarines. A Chapter Tactics that doesn't allow you to use the signature unit in any of the myriad of formations that calls for Tactical Squads.

As I said, no rules reasons to play Templars.

They also took out one of the best reasons to play Templars, the Holy Hand Gren- er Orb of Antioch! That kind of flavour and badassery that were the Templars are sadly gone thanks to GW's laziness. Being reduced to chapter strength (rather than the estimated potential 6000) wasn't enough, now we apparently love Imperial psykers.

About the only thing they got right-ish was the Emperor's Champion which they screwed up in their first iteration in the 6th edition SM codex.

While I personally would like marines to be more streamlined, I don't think BA/DA should be fused into SM. BA/DA together maybe given they have their angel-name tie-in and the fact that both represent slightly deviant chapters as well as historical precedent of being together in one dex.

ScarVet101 wrote:

And as I've said twice - Flamestorm and Assault cannons get added to the STANDARD Predator unit. Each Legion then gets a specific vehicle upgrade, eg Baal Engines for BA = Fast Tanks for BA only

And in terms of page count, the current SM codex is 200 pages long anyway, add in 115 for BA and about the same for DA and the 2 book option I've suggested is gives you a Gaming book lighter then the current SM codex and more fluff per Legion Blood line, even If you split the Black Templar from the Other Imperial Fist chapters.

 Grimmor wrote:

 gwarsh41 wrote:
If any marines codex needs its own book, its SW. The main reason being that it is the only SM chapter that doesn't use the codex astartes. They are the only chapter that doesn't have the same scouts, tacticals, devistators and all that shebang.

Every other chapter is the same cut and paste but with some small changes and special units.

Of course, I don't see how putting these 3 codex into a single book would do anything aside from over complicate things.

Except that the only units anyone actually uses from SW is Thunderwolves, Blood Claws and Wulfen. Thats it. Everything else is renamed base units and just different wargear, maybe with a unique rule.

Edit: Ya just checked the SW codex. Their only really unique units are Thunderwolves, Blood Claws, Wulfen, and Fenrisian Wolves. Long Fangs are just Devastators with a smaller minimum squad size and everything else is just renamed basic stuff with SW specific rules.

Ok, so how would big would this codex be? How hard would it be to navigate, and how much would it cost?

Again, what would the point of combining these 3 separate armies into one book be?