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Does anyone feel that unit entries are a bit bloated in codices? I was looking at the space marine codex for kicks and giggles and it has so many entries, many of which seem redundant. It's like they have in some cases several units that all have an almost identical profile, aside from minor differences that could have easily just been upgrades on the most basic version of that unit. Do other codices seem to have the same problem? And am I crazy for thinking this?

.....but we are Marines !

Depends. Marines are the poster boys and need to account for loooooooads of units that were released over the year.

Other factions have a lot fewer units. Orks and Chaos have been around for a comparable time and have a lot fewer because they aren't as focused on.

Go to the GW website and check the filters. Space Marine have 138 entries as opposed to IG at 79, Orks at 55, CSM at 69 and Eldar at 58. I know some of them are duplicate entries or special edition models etc but it just shows how much more SM have available to them than regular armies.

Well, the codeces is just a list of "paper-doll" configurations.
You have your base model or profile, then most units are broken up by the various gear, less so by the model type.

SM's are pretty much always 4 toughness and then 3+ save across the board until they slip on terminator armor or some "special" armor for the various HQ units.
It only got exciting recently with the Primaris marines being a bit more fancy.
Same with the Rhino, a bunch of other vehicles based on the same chassis (Hey, 3+... vehicle space marine)..
Land Raiders are pretty much the terminator equivalent (complete with 2+ save).

I am unsure about the "bloat", most of the armies have the base unit and just kit them out accordingly for their role.
The duality of the Primaris marines would account for a great deal of that bloat... I really am wondering where they go with this other than a full space marine replacement.

The problem is that they want to structure it as easily as possible with no unneeded information on the datasheet.
Thats why we have 4 Datasheets for basically the same guy:
Captain
Captain in TDA
Captain on bike
Captain in cataphractii armour
+ Primaris Captains in severl configurations

Back in the day that was 1 entry with different options. And thats for each and every character.

I think that it is an IP control move. Sez as much that gw didn't include some classic configs because they aren't making the model just that way anymore so they have a separate data sheet for each one they make or plan to make I would guess... So they can say that they own it. Just my read. Maybe I am wrong and it is just a consequence of a general dumbing down to a paint by numbers ruleset or a combo of the two but either way... Customizability is reduced and player input reduced. Now it is all about showcasing plastic for the wins.

Ragnar69 wrote:
The problem is that they want to structure it as easily as possible with no unneeded information on the datasheet.
Thats why we have 4 Datasheets for basically the same guy:
Captain
Captain in TDA
Captain on bike
Captain in cataphractii armour
+ Primaris Captains in severl configurations
Back in the day that was 1 entry with different options. And thats for each and every character.

Good point.
That may be a necessary break-up due to allowing "power levels" as another means of costing out units rather than points.

 jeff white wrote:
I think that it is an IP control move. Sez as much that gw didn't include some classic configs because they aren't making the model just that way anymore so they have a separate data sheet for each one they make or plan to make I would guess... So they can say that they own it. Just my read. Maybe I am wrong and it is just a consequence of a general dumbing down to a paint by numbers ruleset or a combo of the two but either way... Customizability is reduced and player input reduced. Now it is all about showcasing plastic for the wins.

on the other end, we currently have another frivolous ~30 million dollar lawsuit opening up against GW alleging that they stole elements from other IPs like Aliens, Star Wars, etc because of the Chapterhouse precedent. Infinitesimally unlikely to succeed, but when someone says "I want thirty million bucks from you, see you in court" you probably tend to take notice.

Losing any lawsuit is like getting a cut in a murky south american river. In any legal proceeding, precedent is king, and any company that doesn't immediately take steps to lock that gak right down is asking for serious trouble. I know if I were GW, I would not include rules for any non-kit options that don't have an accompanying "official conversion guide" for how to make it from other existing kits.

I probably would still include characters on bikes, I would just pay one of my painting dudes to do a quick "here's how you take a space marine bike kit, cut the torso off a captain, and put him on there" guide.

 Talizvar wrote:

Ragnar69 wrote:
The problem is that they want to structure it as easily as possible with no unneeded information on the datasheet.
Thats why we have 4 Datasheets for basically the same guy:
Captain
Captain in TDA
Captain on bike
Captain in cataphractii armour
+ Primaris Captains in severl configurations
Back in the day that was 1 entry with different options. And thats for each and every character.

Good point.
That may be a necessary break-up due to allowing "power levels" as another means of costing out units rather than points.

That's probably exactly what it is. If these were one datasheet they'd all be the same power value unless they start having power value upgrade costs which defeats the whole point of power levels.

I mean there are like 8 different breeds of veterans and there's not a huge difference between them.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:

Ragnar69 wrote:
The problem is that they want to structure it as easily as possible with no unneeded information on the datasheet.
Thats why we have 4 Datasheets for basically the same guy:
Captain
Captain in TDA
Captain on bike
Captain in cataphractii armour
+ Primaris Captains in severl configurations
Back in the day that was 1 entry with different options. And thats for each and every character.

Good point.
That may be a necessary break-up due to allowing "power levels" as another means of costing out units rather than points.

That's probably exactly what it is. If these were one datasheet they'd all be the same power value unless they start having power value upgrade costs which defeats the whole point of power levels.

It also makes it easier for them to include wargear that gives things stat changes and have those actually be reflected on the data sheet. For instance captain on a bike gets +1 T and W , and +8" M. Which you could just say in the wargear for bike but then the data sheet is no longer accurate for your unit. In this edition they really seem to want (almost) all relevant information for a unit to be easily accessible on the data sheet for a unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

macluvin wrote:
I mean there are like 8 different breeds of veterans and there's not a huge difference between them.

Part of that is that it makes units more restricted, if there were just veterans and they could take all the options available to any of the various vet squads it would be harder to balance things.

It's a counter move to 7th where you could easily have your rules spread out over 6 pages in 3 books for 1 squad or a rule referring to a page to another to another page. It made for an almost impenetrable beginner experience (tough not as bad as fantasy's wich I think killed the game but that's another topic).