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In another thread ClockworkZion made an interesting claim - he said that most people on dakka would prefer a codex with fluff in them.
I'd like to put some data behind that claims, since I'm actually not too sure about whether he is right or wrong.

Of course, the implication is that codices would be cheaper without fluff, but we all know GW and it's not impossible that they would sell the codex for the same price despite not having fluff. So please try to keep money out of your decision.

Well, you should know the background of the Army and why you are fighting. So yes, I prefer fluff in my codex.

The fluff is nice to read once, i dont want a half a book of wasted space. In fact anymore i am tired of needing multiple different books. i want all the rules in a single book.

I'd certainly be OK if they separated the background from the rules.
But can you imagine how dry and uninspiring a codex without any background or hobby stuff in it would be? You might as well read a tax return

Didn't they try that with Gamer Edition codex's a few years back?

The problem is that fluff in 40k Codex (And now AoS books) sucks.

Is only a sucession of big battles with charts of units and formations (really I don't fething care about 4 pages with the unit composition of those Tau Hunter Cadres). I could understand that for Space Marines, but is very dissapointing with other races like Tau or Eldar. And don't make me start about those 20-30 pages of photos... what a filler. I mean, a couple are cool, but please...

Compare that with old Fantasy books. They where more like a history and sociological study about that specific race. I love my Ogre Kingdoms books, and the 6th edition Chaos Hordes book was something else: It totally make you felt inmersed in their culture. It made Chaos Warriors a proper culture, with their motivations, and not just a bunch of spiky barbarians.

You had timelines with battles, of course, and some small snipets, but it was much more centered around the race, his culture, etc...

 Jidmah wrote:
In another thread ClockworkZion made an interesting claim - he said that most people on dakka would prefer a codex with fluff in them.
I'd like to put some data behind that claims, since I'm actually not too sure about whether he is right or wrong.

Of course, the implication is that codices would be cheaper without fluff, but we all know GW and it's not impossible that they would sell the codex for the same price despite not having fluff. So please try to keep money out of your decision.

I didn't say most people on Dakka want fluff, I said:

Despite the more tournament heavy focus of Dakka most players like having the lore in the codexes, and it also serves as a way to introduce new players (or players who are just starting a new army with a faction they never looked at before) to a given faction. The lore tends to give people a bit of grpunding on what the units are, what they do for the faction and generally get a feel for why the faction operates the way it does.

My point was outside of Dakka's crunch bias there are plenty of people who want their lore.

Warmachine has gone without fluff books in a while because honestly they seemed to provide incredibly little value and with something of a return in Oblivion I'm surprised how much I missed them. I think the problem is just that for every game, reading them like an actual book is miserable. What happens isn't really meaningful and it gets repetitive rather quickly.

The thing is, that's not where the enjoyment comes. You flip through the book, see a random spot of art on a random unit, read up on it and get really attached to that unit. Most of the fluff in these books really doesn't matter, but the ones that matter to you make a huge difference, and which pages those are vary quite a lot person to person.

 LunarSol wrote:
Warmachine has gone without fluff books in a while because honestly they seemed to provide incredibly little value and with something of a return in Oblivion I'm surprised how much I missed them. I think the problem is just that for every game, reading them like an actual book is miserable. What happens isn't really meaningful and it gets repetitive rather quickly.

The thing is, that's not where the enjoyment comes. You flip through the book, see a random spot of art on a random unit, read up on it and get really attached to that unit. Most of the fluff in these books really doesn't matter, but the ones that matter to you make a huge difference, and which pages those are vary quite a lot person to person.

That's basically how I latched onto the beautiful insanity of the Exorcists tank.

The timelines do a lot to get the brain juices flowing too. I was very close to trying to make an Imperial Ghosts army because of the fluff in 6th edition about a planet of the honored dead rising up in spectral form to kick Chaos in the teeth.

I don’t mind something like the indexes, which were nothing but rules and stat blocks with maybe a paragraph of information about the faction as a whole.

At the same time, I do enjoy reading the lore in the existing Codexes, even if at this point it’s 90% cut and paste from the prior four editions.

The base rulebook, however, has gone too far - maybe 8 pages of rules and the rest is a model catalog and snippets of abbreviated lore from other books.

In the end, I’d be perfectly happy with books that were just rules and stat blocks - more index than codex. I can get the lore off the Lexicam or read a novel if I’m interested about the universe.

Maybe it would be better if the lore in every codex and the pictures were of new stuff. I don't think many players are interested in reading the same stories they read for 3-4 editions and look at the same models they had in 2 or more books. The unit lore part could also be put on their site IMO, no one who already owns a codex wants to read for the 20th time what a tactical unit is, but new units or characters just being intreduced to the codex, should have both a lore and rule part.

this way they could easily shave off 30-40 unneeded pages from a codex. The rule books on the other hand seem to be perfect as far as layout and content is. Suck they get outdated fast, and that GW doesn't put out updated ones, but IMO the basic rule book for w40k is much better then most codex they made.

Karol wrote:
Maybe it would be better if the lore in every codex and the pictures were of new stuff. I don't think many players are interested in reading the same stories they read for 3-4 editions and look at the same models they had in 2 or more books. The unit lore part could also be put on their site IMO, no one who already owns a codex wants to read for the 20th time what a tactical unit is, but new units or characters just being intreduced to the codex, should have both a lore and rule part.

this way they could easily shave off 30-40 unneeded pages from a codex. The rule books on the other hand seem to be perfect as far as layout and content is. Suck they get outdated fast, and that GW doesn't put out updated ones, but IMO the basic rule book for w40k is much better then most codex they made.

Just because that isn't for the existing player doesn't mean it shouldn't be left in for new players. We shouldn't be catering solely to existing players.

The new player could read the same text on their site, under the model/unit description or at the GW online store.

And for stories they have the warhammer community site. They really don't have to add 50+pages of recycled stuff, specially when sometimes one can firmly see that the writer had to struggle to write anything about a unit or character.

hey why not put lore blurb on the data cards that are added to the models, instead of the copy of the box cover.

IF they sold a cheaper version of a codex with just rules I'd prefer that. While I like the fluff in the codexes it's largely the same thing repeated with a few tiny things added like art colours changed or more of those "Person appears and kills an army" snippets.

A codex with fluff is worth getting once.

 Galas wrote:
The problem is that fluff in 40k Codex (And now AoS books) sucks.

Is only a sucession of big battles with charts of units and formations (really I don't fething care about 4 pages with the unit composition of those Tau Hunter Cadres). I could understand that for Space Marines, but is very dissapointing with other races like Tau or Eldar. And don't make me start about those 20-30 pages of photos... what a filler. I mean, a couple are cool, but please...

Compare that with old Fantasy books. They where more like a history and sociological study about that specific race. I love my Ogre Kingdoms books, and the 6th edition Chaos Hordes book was something else: It totally make you felt inmersed in their culture. It made Chaos Warriors a proper culture, with their motivations, and not just a bunch of spiky barbarians.

You had timelines with battles, of course, and some small snipets, but it was much more centered around the race, his culture, etc...

You'd probably think differently if you were just starting the game and exploring the army.

Keep the individual army books, fluff and all.

Bring back Index Xenos/Imp/Chaos with just datasheets and statblocks. Can make it an annual release alongside, or instead of, Chapter Approved.

Keep the BRB in all its bigness.

Also print something like the small paperback rulebook that came in starter sets.

GW gets more books to sell. Players can go with their preferences.

 JohnU wrote:

GW gets more books to sell. Players can go with their preferences.

Bad business maintaining two SKUs with unknown demand per army. It could leave a lot of stock to rot.

All rules should be free. Codex should be a luxury product dedicated to fluff, painting, photos, concept art. Could also include collector's guide so you'd know where the hell does that Warlock with laspistol comes from.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


You'd probably think differently if you were just starting the game and exploring the army.

But that could end up even worse. A new player may read the fluff and expect that the army is going to work the way it is described in the book. If there was no or little lore in the books, they would have to either search or ask. Much better then basing an army on what one reads in a codex as a noob.

Karol wrote:
The new player could read the same text on their site, under the model/unit description or at the GW online store.

And for stories they have the warhammer community site. They really don't have to add 50+pages of recycled stuff, specially when sometimes one can firmly see that the writer had to struggle to write anything about a unit or character.

hey why not put lore blurb on the data cards that are added to the models, instead of the copy of the box cover.

A majority of new players don't buy their stuff from the online store.

 Shadenuat wrote:
All rules should be free. Codex should be a luxury product dedicated to fluff, painting, photos, concept art. Could also include collector's guide so you'd know where the hell does that Warlock with laspistol comes from.

Agreed.

Karol wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


You'd probably think differently if you were just starting the game and exploring the army.

But that could end up even worse. A new player may read the fluff and expect that the army is going to work the way it is described in the book. If there was no or little lore in the books, they would have to either search or ask. Much better then basing an army on what one reads in a codex as a noob.

The lore describes army roles, which is what the rules represent. It doesn't mean those units will be great at thkse roles, but no one who reads about Hormagaunts or Incubi is going to think the units are master snipers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadenuat wrote:
All rules should be free. Codex should be a luxury product dedicated to fluff, painting, photos, concept art. Could also include collector's guide so you'd know where the hell does that Warlock with laspistol comes from.

I feel like they could still keep the rules in the books as well because most of us want printed rules in books instead of digital copies, but offering them free as well would be pretty good.

Rules should not be free, unless that's something GW wants to do. No one is entitled to a free product. Hell, no one is entitled to a cheap or reasonably priced product.

Fluff needs to be in the codex for one main reason: new players. Unless you sell datasheets/datacards separately, there simply must be a hook for new players to discover a new army, or a new part of the 40K universe, etc.

Karol wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


You'd probably think differently if you were just starting the game and exploring the army.

But that could end up even worse. A new player may read the fluff and expect that the army is going to work the way it is described in the book. If there was no or little lore in the books, they would have to either search or ask. Much better then basing an army on what one reads in a codex as a noob.

It could be worse. But a new player who's read the fluff is very different from a new player who hasn't.

On one end of the spectrum, a Guardian is one of the few surviving members of their Craftworld. They are rare and precious. Each loss is the loss of one of the last poets, philosophers, or basket weavers in the universe. They are in danger, because the stakes of this battle are so high that even that risk is not too high a price.

On the other end of the spectrum, a Guardian is a Guardsman with a shotgun and more skill, for twice the points.

It might not impact who winds up with more VP, but it's certainly impactful on the game. The fluff is what differentiates this game from flip-a-coin, chess, or DOTA (depending on tastes). The crunch is only a small part of the game (tiny compared to fluff to many players; both dwarfed by modelling to others; and all of that dwarfed by social aspects to yet another group).

I think my preference would be fluff in the physical codex, cheaper army rules available digitally that would be kept up to date with errata etc. In the days of constant faq I find it annoying to have multiple references for rules.

Why do you think that reading the fluff is going to impact the unit choices of an army in any shape or form, besides maybe it being part of some big social thing that forces people to play specific units or even armies only in a specific way.

A new player that doesn't know, or care, about the lore will ask questions like what works, what is good etc. The one that read the lore, will ask the same questions, but the chance, that he sees lets say nobz on foot and thinks they are good, because they are described as better in the lore, is much bigger.

Letting lore impact unit choices, is like buying stuff based on advertisment, and think it is the truth.


When I started my army, I thought, that my dudes are going to be good, because they look good and because their codex said they are good, and had all those stories about the cool stuff they do. From time perspective, I would have rather bought something else. I probably would have had more luck and more fun, If I bought stuff at random to be honest.

Breng77 wrote:
I think my preference would be fluff in the physical codex, cheaper army rules available digitally that would be kept up to date with errata etc. In the days of constant faq I find it annoying to have multiple references for rules.

We get 2 FAQs for any given army a year. That's hardly constant.

And that's way better than having a three year old faq for a six year old codex.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
You'd probably think differently if you were just starting the game and exploring the army.

I started with 3rd Ed. Those codexes really just had snippets of fluff- mostly quotes, small sections of fiction, and very short timelines, all integrated into the page layouts for the rules. They also had a lot more hobby material.

I thought it was fine. It was more than enough to whet the appetite for a new player. It gave theme and context to the rules, without involving page after page of dry exposition. If you wanted to really dive into the background for a faction, you had a wealth of other books available.

Breng77 wrote:
I think my preference would be fluff in the physical codex, cheaper army rules available digitally that would be kept up to date with errata etc. In the days of constant faq I find it annoying to have multiple references for rules.

well the thing is, GW is not going to put out just codex lore and art in the form they do it right now. The sells would be horrible. Right now, like it or not, a person that wants to use their models, have to buy the rules . this is minimum 1 book every year. On the other hand, you have to want to read the lore to be willing to buy it.
Plus there is that small thing, that if you download a BL or codex lore book, no one cares. But if you play at a store, your not going to be playing for a long time, if you waltz in with a print out of the rules or the rules in straight up digital form.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I think my preference would be fluff in the physical codex, cheaper army rules available digitally that would be kept up to date with errata etc. In the days of constant faq I find it annoying to have multiple references for rules.

We get 2 FAQs for any given army a year. That's hardly constant.

And that's way better than having a three year old faq for a six year old codex.

okey, but it is still like saying that cautarization of a wound post amputation is better, then what was in the past aka patiant dieing without help almost every time. Now if GW updated their rules on a bimonthly basis, and I mean real changes not copy pasting changes they already implemented in other sources, then we could say they are doing a good job. Being less horrible, then really horrible, isn't good.

Fluff is fine in a codex, but the amount of fluff could absolutely be lower. Otherwise I'd be all for two separate prints of codices, one with just rules and the other that most of these people like.