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I just posted in the "How Good was CSM 3.5. Like seriously?" when something that's been bugging me since 5th struck me so I decided to start a thread about it.

If people recall back in 3.5-4, there was an emphasis on "flavour" for each army, to make every player able to make their armies unique. To better explain what I'm talking about I'm gonna write down what I recall here:

Space marines: Codex doctrines. Advantages and disadvantages. chose 1-2 advantages and 1-2 disadvantages, depending on which advantages where chosen. Similar advantages/disadvantages where not allowed
Advantages: Tactical marines may swap bolters for CC weapons and bolt pistols, give your assult marines and tactical marines furious charge for +3p/model, Upgrade your sergeant to an apothacary for +25p, Tech marines may be chosen as HQ (from being elite), Dreadnought may be chosen as Heavy support (from Elite), All marines get a 6+invo but does not recieve coversaves, Give devastators and tactical marines Infiltration for +3p/model, Play an extra turn after the game ends on a 4+, tactical squads may chose 2 assult weapons but may not chose heavy weapons.
Disadvantages: May not use drop pods, enemy may call for an extra turn after the game ends on a 4+, Cover saves may not be taken, no unit may use the infiltrate special rules, Librarians may not be chosen.
Major Disadvantages: the following becomes 0-1: Terminator squads, dreadnoughts, terminator assult squads +Terminator armour may not be taken as wargear. The following becomes 0-1: Bike squads, attack bikes, land speeders, land speeder storms. The following becomes 0-1: land raiders, land raider crusaders, predeators, whirlwinds, vindicators.

Imperial Guard: Regimental doctrines. A player got 5 choices from the following list but no abhumans where counted part of the standard codex.
Combat doctrines: If every model in a squad is in base to base contact they get +1I and +1WS, Every lasgun miss roll of a 1 may be re-rolled, if within 12" of an officier the LD test for losing 25% of your squad to enemy fire may be re-rolled, Commissars are independent characters instead of attatched to squads, Ogryns may be taken, Rattlings may be taken, Storm troopers may be chosen as troops but lose their infiltrate/deepstrike special rule, All models may take carpace armour for 2p/model, all models may take camo gear for 2p/model, all units may swap their lasguns for a laspistol and a close combat weapon for free, all units may chose a chimera transport, Sentinels may deep strike, Sanctioned psykers 0-3 number limit removed, Veterans 0-1 limit removed.

Eldar: Not quite remmembering eldar as I owned the codex but didn't play the army but something akin to:
Wraithguard may be taken as troops but all aspect warriors become 0-1, Shining spears and Vipers may be chosen as troops, Guardians get +1I, +1WS and +1BS but aspect warriors become 0-1, Aspect warriors may be taken as troops.

Tyranids: Evolutions: Various upgrades for points to the entire hive.

Necrons: None that I can think of.

Tau: Farsight enclave. If you play commander farsight then the following changes are made to your army:
No Kroot or Vespids may be taken. Hammerhead, devilfish and pirahna becomes 0-1, two squads of fire warriors must be taken, Battlesuits becomes troop choices.

Dark Eldar: didn't get a 3.5-4ed codex.

Chaos space marines: Had more stuff to chose from then you could shake a chainsword at. Seriously, go read this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/688382.page this codex was awesome.

Ordo Malleus (Grey knights):Had so many rules it was insane. Might elaborate if I get bored.

Ordo Hereticus (Sisters of battle): The faith mechanic.
Each squad of sisters added a faith point to a faith pool. Theese could be activated by rolling a check against the numbers of models left in a squad. If passed the unit could get diffrent buffs like saving throw becoming invo, 2x str, fearless and so on.

Orks Clans:Diffrent ork clans got diffrent rules.

Obviously I play the Imperials so those are the ones I remmember. Writing this stuff took a while and if people are up for it then a reminder for eldar, orks and tyranids speccs would be appreciated. Now the point I'm trying to make is that the game was set to give your army a certain theme you could chose from. Doyou want an all carpace armour guards, you can do that. Doyou want an infiltration space marine force? Quite possible. All the famous guard regiments and space marine chapters had a setup that followed these rules, in addition to some special characters.

In 5th we saw the special characters taking on the same role. You pick a special characters and he gives your army a buff off some kind. Like allowing your army to outflank or give you re-rolls. The drawback of this in a flavour perspective was that you could not design your own characters but had to stick to the gear and setup of one previously written. Of course you could re-fluff them but you couldn't really re-flavour them.

Now in 7th we see a return to form. We have formations that are specific for certain lore armies and space marines have chapter specific tactics. This gives a bit of more flavour but doesn't quite encourage you to freestyle how your army functions. So what are peoples thoughts on this? Have we grown in a positive direction or was it better when your army could pick specific doctrines? Doyou prefer the character that boosts the army or the ability to pick some flavour for yourself?

EDIT: If anyone could remind me of the stuff I have left up above I'll edit it in.