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I'm really loving the direction GW's been trying to take over the past month. The new FAQs are a breath of fresh air. However, already some people are pointing out how this crushes certain things and generally ruins their day. Often these were the people hardest hit by the changes, as they invested in stuff that they enjoyed, without realizing that it was just a temporary loop-hole. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, GW will release a new edition that fully incorporates all of these changes, and when they do so they'll re-release some new Ork and Dark Eldar codexes to bring them back to par, and heck, why not, Chaos too. In the meantime, what do you think is the most important part in making a good codex?

I've heard a lot of stuff in my many years. Some people want to change things up, others want things that are balanced, and a few even just want a codex that offers a really pleasant experience. Of course some just want a stronger army.

What do you feel?

External balance. I don't guy if my guys have no shooting or assault, but are tough as nails, or if I can shoot you off the table but I'm super weak. The key is having codices that are balanced against each other.

Several of these are things that SHOULD be descriptive of a "good" codex.

Seeing as how the game is generally army vs army, I would say the absolute most important is how the codex fits with all the other codices. Just fulfilling that criteria is not enough though, as I said above. Internal balance and flavorful play experience are right behind that in importance. If those 3 are all in, I'd say the codex is shiny.

Internally balanced, externally balanced, logical placement of units in the chart (and formations, I suppose), ability to easily represent and have an effective force that follows all the main sub factions described in the book while being open enough to promote for custom sub factions, while also having a good mix of the old art we know and love, and new awesome art, and same thing for fluff.

Finally, a good layout is important too.

Alternatively, GW could ditch the codex system and go to an e-format like free PDFs which include just the rules (basically the army list section) and I'd be happy if it was internally and externally balanced and made sense.

Having the likes of phil kelly and mat ward fan boy a faction to make them overpowered and make people buy new models.

They will never move away from the codex system to the e-format because believe it or not people actually buy the codex to enjoy reading the 90% fluff in every codex. I am not one of these people. Seriously people that is what a novel is for. If you want to read fluff buy a novel not a codex.

We shouldn't have to make only one choice, several propositions here are important for a good codex

Yah, can we have multiple choice?

Needs to strive for internal balance by having everything be equally good.
Needs to strive for external balance by offering tools to deal with older codexes.
Needs to offer a flavourful experience, regardless of whether playing with or against it.

I checked “other” but would have clicked all 3 of those.

Internal balance doesn’t need to be perfect, but there should be situations where everything has a place. Minimal “trap” choices, or places where two units do the same thing, but one is just better.

In an ideal world, external balance should mater. Obviously, some armies are going to do better then others in certain matchups. I expect a little RPS style pairings. But two players of rough equal skill should be able to take any codex and have a fun game. If there are going to be tiers of armies, the band should be a narrow as possible.

The game should be fun. I’d like to interact with my opponents army. I’d like to be able to look at it and get the theme and flavor. I’d like the fluff to be mostly consistent. The setting and the minis are huge part of the game, they should hold together.

Shame there's only one choice; internal and external balance are crucial, but the codex should also be fluffy and characterful, no-one wants a bland army.

The problem is the insistence that new units are always added; this is fine for armies that have major gaps in their lineup, but for stalwarts like Space Marines nothing totally new is needed at all, though I wouldn't mind chapter-themed tactical, devastator etc. boxes.

In fact, if everything were balanced there would essentially be no reason to not buy other armies, which is where existing players should be spending their money, rather than feeling they have to buy the latest toys for their existing army just to keep it competitive. Good balance also enables flexibility of choice; currently many codexes have different units fulfilling similar roles, but some are simply worse (or others are overpowered, usually because they're bigger and not scaled in cost/capabilities properly). This is where formations should be a good thing, to give bonuses for thematic forces that are over-specialised and thus likely have significant weaknesses, but GW doesn't seem to stick to any pattern like that when doing their formations, which makes them part of the problem as well.

This is particularly annoying for me as I have a pure Deathwing force I'd like to play but can't with agreement/house-ruling from my opponent, since GW decided to make both Deathwing options an auto-win for my opponent without taking something else, since I can't choose to deploy part of my force for some reason. The otherwise is the Wraith formation in the Craftworlds codex; I don't want to take a Wraithknight, yet the formation requires ones? Even if I hit my target of six units of Wraithguard/blades, I still would consider that too small to justify a Wraithknight, plus I prefer Wraithlords (with a bit of light conversion) so would prefer two or three of them. This is helped by the fact that Wraithlords aren't even close to the same value as a Wraithknight once you factor arming them into the cost (two Wraithlords with Bright Lances are 280 points, but aren't even close to the capability of one Wraithknight that costs 15 points more).


Sorry, bit of a rant there, but GW needs to realise that balanced codexes don't equal lost sales; the more balanced and flexible a list is, the more freedom of choice the players have to build the armies they want to build and to just go ahead and play, rather than trying to plan their army around what will actually work in game or make compromises. Having armies balanced against each other also means I'm free to collect whatever army I want without worrying that it'll be shelf-bound because it's no fun to play.

Internal balance is my most important thing. If a faction ends up having one build and that one build is really really good but straying from means the list suffers by degrees, it's not a good codex. Tyranids is the prime example but I also lump in Space Wolves into the mix who most people consider to be higher ranked because of the TWC and only the TWC.

You require internal balance so people who like certain model aren't stuck with clearly sub-par choices and can play the models they like without being disadvantaged. This also means you don't have rediculously strong units that get the player labelled as TFG if s/he builds their army around them.

You need external balance so the army can compete against other codecies and remain competative, but not be so strong as to completely dominate the meta because it's blatently overpowered.

You need a flavourful dex, because an interesting story not only encourages the beginning of collection of the army, it also encourages expansion of the army. Many players have a rough idea of what they want out of an army (shooty, assault, armoured, footsloggers), but the individual flavour of how that codex goes about it is what seerates them from each other. This flavour and backstory is also what connects the player to their army and this helps with the whole forge the narrative thing that's a really good idea that's currently used in the wrong way.

When those three things are achieved, then you can worry about new and different (but not better) things, that's basically what the expansion packs supplement codecies are meant to be for.

All of these are important.

Also, of utmost impotance to me is that the codex needs enough variety, both internally and in interactions with allies, to provide a wide array of possible builds. If only one or two competitive builds are possible, the codex needs work.

Internal and External balance are crucial.

However I do not think a codex should "shake things up" by altering units. This fundimentally changes the way armies play and often forces people to buy new models, which is one of the problems with current codex updates. To let people get invested in their armies is to allow them to still utilize their armies regardless of which edition. Changing the basic mechanics (fine details can be swapped around) or outright taking stuff out can cause people to lose interest since they won't stick around for another edition if they know their stuff is going to be invalidated.

Also, codexes should have diversity from each other. One of the main problems with the 9 flavours of power armor is that, at the very core, each of them all boils down to the same gameplay mechanics, while armies like Tau plays very differently from Necrons despite both being ostensibly "shooty" armies.

I'd go as far as saying that it's literally impossible to make a good codex if you only consider one of these options to be truly important. You need to tick all the boxes pretty much, or it's not a good codex.

 godardc wrote:
We shouldn't have to make only one choice, several propositions here are important for a good codex

I know, that's why I wanted to restrict it to just one

1) Internal Balance. Within each "FoC Slot", the unit options should offer reasons to take one over another, but nothing that is an "auto-include". Some units would, obviously, be better-suited for particular playstyles (in keeping with the army's theme) or be better for specific mission-types, but there should never be a "never take these" or "always take these" option in any of the units.

2) External Balance. All other things being equal, the army should offer a roughly 50% chance of winning against any other army, provided the list is built to play to the mission.

3) Unit Synergy. Internally, the various units in the various slots should play to the strengths of the army, overall, and, further, work well with the other units in the army list. SC and IC should function well with the units they are attached to (i.e., a "Sergeant" unit that is part of a shooting unit should not be laden with CC buffs and rules). Adding an SC from your codex to a unit in your codex should not be a penalty.

Other.

A good codex need to be on the same power level as the top armies, and have good internal balance.

Of all those options, I think the most relevant one is external balance. Even is all units inside one codex are balanced between themselves, if none of them are good against outside threats, it'll be considered a bad codex.

That said, internal balance is very important, probably 2nd most. Taking some time to choose which unit to use for a list is much better than just cherrypicking some because I know which ones are good and which are not.

In 3rd place, flavour. A strong codex without 'personality' is just powergamer material. People should play with codexes they like the lore/visual/playstyle, not just because they're strong and top tournaments. Also, the rules should serve the lore - stats, equipment, abilities and powers should translate what we read in the codex, novels and other media.

4th, new mechanics. Things that make the army unique. People like the sense of exclusivity - that the enemy can't simulate what they can do.

I'm a big believer in asymmetrical balance. Make each faction unique, but keep each loose enough that numerous strategies will remain available to it.

Ultimately though, make sure everything is balanced, internally, externally, everywhere in the middle.

People should play with codexes they like the lore/visual/playstyle, not just because they're strong and top tournaments. Also, the rules should serve the lore - stats, equipment, abilities and powers should translate what we read in the codex, novels and other media.

Seconded

"Other" because balance is everything but only internal or only external balance is still nothing.

I think it was once said "a great movie is one with 2 or 3 amazing scenes, and no bad ones." Well, the same can (arguably) be applied to rule books: a good codex is one with 2 or 3 amazing parts (be they army wide rules that are fun and effective, or anything else) and no bad portions. Pair this with solid external balance, and you should in theory have a good codex.

The ability to create any theme in the army using any units available, Take that and have at least an even chance of winning against any other army.

Playtesting before publishing would be a good start for a decent codex.

Needs both good internal and external balance. In the codex no choices should just scream better or best in a slot and it needs to be balanced against other armies. Unfortunately, few have succeeded at this.

My vote for best in GW history was the 5th edition marine codex.