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Aside from not enraging part of the community.

Is there any actual practical reason why GW would not make these "special" chapters a supplement?

It would tide up the marine faction very nicely and points would be armonized among them.

Thoughts?

Because GW released some unique models for them. A "supplement" is a Codex that has only unique character models, a "Codex" has unique units as well.

I think the reason is part "historically grown" and part "because money".

Dark Angels and Blood Angels had a shared army book in 2nd edition called "Angels of Death" and never since have been part of the vanilla Space Marine Codex. I haven't played 2nd edition, but I can't remember that there were any special units (not characters) available at that time that werent simply a different paint job to existing Space Marine units.

So since then you had Codexes that would stand on their own and of course you would continue that trend. From a business perspective Marine players had to buy two or three army books, if they wanted to play with different rules. Over time these stand alone books were filled with more unique looking models like Sanguinary Guard or Wulfen.

I don't know what would be a good thing to do by now. Consolidate all Space Marine books? That would mean with the current unit range the book will be bloated as frack and you would pay for pages that you don't want to or can't use in the end.
Maybe if unique units would go back to being a specific chapter's paint job would help with the bloat. Vanguard Veterans are the generic ones while Sanguinary Guard is the term for Blood Angels, but they would function the same rules wise and so on.

Orkimedez_Atalaya wrote:
Aside from not enraging part of the community.

Is there any actual practical reason why GW would not make these "special" chapters a supplement?

It would tide up the marine faction very nicely and points would be armonized among them.

Thoughts?

Legacy. Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Dark Angels have had their own codecies for a long time. I wouldn't be enraged if we became a supplement [hell, I'd be getting a piece of the broken-as-**** free goodies pie that is the supplements], there's just a lot of momentum behind them being separate books from before there were marine supplements planned.

As for GK, GK isn't really a marine army, we don't play like marines and don't really share the range in common. A GK supplement would just be a codex in it's own right. Being made with the same genetically engineered super soldier technology doesn't really have a bearing.

If you'd asked this question back in 3rd Edition,I expect you'd get a different answer. Back in the days of Index Astartes and (old) Chapter Approved, there were alternate rulesets floating around for every little derivative and homebrew.
Dark Angels, Blood Angels and Space Wolves had pamphlet-books that added a small slice of flavour and a couple of new units to the core Codex. Salamanders and Black Templars had new lists printed up for Armageddon that were also pretty deviant at the time.

However in 5th Edition, the decision was taken to *make* them different lists with lots of new units created to justify the separate book. They were no longer supplements, they were fully distinct armies.

Because fluffbunnies will hiss at the very thought of consolidation and GW knows it can milk them for money.

This is mainly because of personality.

These three Chapters from a fluff point of view and rules in some cases are VERY none codex compliant.

All the space marine supplements and such are still codex compliant for the most part.

However Space wolves and Blood Angels have genuine mutations and flaws with their gene seeds and have unique none codex compliant units and battle formations and in some cases entire companies. (Death Company)

The Dark Angels too, their first and second companies being none codex compliant.

This is also down to the fact lore wise again the Dark Angels are still kinda sorta a legion. When Azrael became Chapter Master, the first thing he did was call all the Chapter Masters from all the DA sub factions. Then in front of all of them basically said "I am the captain now, I am the Supreme Grand Master". So all the Dark Angels successor still answer to Azrael.

From a hobby perspective, flavour they have unique units, wolfen, death company, sanguin guard, libarian dreadnoughts, deathwing, ravenwing, darkshroud, nephilm the list goes on.

Orkimedez_Atalaya wrote:
Aside from not enraging part of the community.

Is there any actual practical reason why GW would not make these "special" chapters a supplement?

It would tide up the marine faction very nicely and points would be armonized among them.

Thoughts?

First of all from what I know GW is ultra secretive about stuff they do, for all we know next year there maybe supplements for some of those armies coming out. And second thing is, from what I understand, lack of staff to write and test the books. This why we sometimes get a book writen by someone who made a codex with good mechanics, which ends up with a top tier armies being picked out of it. While others get something like imperial fist, not bad per se, but very situational, just because someone at the studio decided that being a valid army is less important then lore. Which in itself is funny, because GW keeps changing the lore all the time, so only GW know why they aren't changing the lore to make better books to play with.

Because they haven't gotten around to re-re-doing those special snowflakes yet.

Well originally they were more distinct. Especially in 8th they've been blandified to the point where they really should be supplements and GW have worsened the vanilla end of the issue by spamming supplements.

Frankly as long as my wolves get no fluff attention and stop getting trashy rules I'm happy. Sadly these are lofty goals indeed.

Voss wrote:
Because they haven't gotten around to re-re-doing those special snowflakes yet.

they didn't even make a real codex for GK, the books is a copy of a index, which is a copy of a codex, which is a copy of another book that had most of it stuff removed. Kind of a hard to re do something like that. It is like trying to remodel a house that was burned to its foundation.

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:
This is mainly because of personality.

These three Chapters from a fluff point of view and rules in some cases are VERY none codex compliant.

All the space marine supplements and such are still codex compliant for the most part.

However Space wolves and Blood Angels have genuine mutations and flaws with their gene seeds and have unique none codex compliant units and battle formations and in some cases entire companies. (Death Company)

The Dark Angels too, their first and second companies being none codex compliant.

This is also down to the fact lore wise again the Dark Angels are still kinda sorta a legion. When Azrael became Chapter Master, the first thing he did was call all the Chapter Masters from all the DA sub factions. Then in front of all of them basically said "I am the captain now, I am the Supreme Grand Master". So all the Dark Angels successor still answer to Azrael.

From a hobby perspective, flavour they have unique units, wolfen, death company, sanguin guard, libarian dreadnoughts, deathwing, ravenwing, darkshroud, nephilm the list goes on.

Nonsense.

The Wolves are the most divergent but both the Angels are specifically noted as being manily codex compliant - esp the Blood Angels

There are plenty of equally non compliant chapters and most if not all "Unique" units would also be present in one or more Chapters.

But people like to pretend that these Chapters are very different and have unique units - whereas its mostly cultural.

Well originally they were more distinct. Especially in 8th they've been blandified to the point where they really should be supplements and GW have worsened the vanilla end of the issue by spamming supplements.

Frankly as long as my wolves get no fluff attention and stop getting trashy rules I'm happy. Sadly these are lofty goals indeed.

Hilarious as all have been hugely flandersised by having Wolf, Blood or Dark rammed in front of everything and the fluff for them in the last few editions for all of them has, IMO been shoickgly awful.

Plus salamanders aren't much of a codex chapter either, and they somehow did get a supplement. So there is nothing to worry about for BA/DA players.

TBH I was agaisnt putting them inside the vanilla Codex but with the new supplements, BA and DA at least could be a supplement without a problem. Just with more rules pages instead of the other supplements that are basically 85% superfluous fluff and 15% rules, so the supplements for BA and DA could be 60% of actual interesting fluff and not just telling me the composition of each of the 10 companies and 40% rules.

pure historical reason

The Angles have their own Codex as the already had one before the current fluff about chapters was a thing

Space Wolves came later as a Codex Supplement in 3rd.

But those just got a special treatment from the beginning and with each new Edition, new Units were created to justify their own book.


From the current point of view, there is no real reason why they should not be just a supplement

They probably should be pulled in. It would overall help them keep things in sync overall. If I was to redo "soup" under more strict lines, I'd probably do something like:

Space Marines - Astartes + Wolves/BA/DA
Inquisition - DW/Sisters/GK/Inquisitors/Agents
Imperium - Guard/Mechanicus/Custodes/Knights

So far, you have given me the exact definition of what is inside each supplement.

1- fluff and what makes each chapter special
2- units that are not generic. Whether they are characters or not.

Granted that theses would be bigger, but you would avoid duplicating units and general point values (like todays thunderhammers).

Honestly, I think they should have done a base Space Marine codex and each individual chapter as supplements, including BA, SW and DA (and maybe Crimson Fists and Black Templar’s). Use the supplements for a deep dive into the Chapters lore, and any special units or loadouts. They managed to put all the marine entries in one index, so obviously there’s a lot of overlap between the chapters regardless how “non-compliant” they supposedly are.

I think they left out Wolfe’s and the Angels because they just got Codexes fairly recently, and they didn’t want to upset those customers - who are now upset they didn’t get the marine buffs.

 kodos wrote:
pure historical reason.

Space Wolves came later as a Codex Supplement in 3rd.

Just so you know, the Space Wolves are the 1st chapter to ever receive a Codex. back in 2nd edition, 1994.
Ultramarines followed, and the combo Angels book followed that.

As much as it bugs me to wait for a BA Codex when other Marines get theirs... I am hoping that the BA codex is just one book, and not BA plus supplements for Flesh Tearers or other Chapters.

Really believe that all of the BA and their Successor Chapters can honestly be in a single book, and it would he nice to only need a single book instead of two like the "Codex Compliant" Chapters now need.

At this point, there's no reason for them to not simply have an identical supplement treatment. Even if it needs a few more pages than the others.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Dark Angels and Blood Angels had a shared army book in 2nd edition called "Angels of Death" and never since have been part of the vanilla Space Marine Codex. I haven't played 2nd edition, but I can't remember that there were any special units (not characters) available at that time that werent simply a different paint job to existing Space Marine units.

Blood Angels - 2nd edition had death company and their veterans could take jump packs.
A little variation through editions with the supercharged engine for rhinos, the alternate armament of the baal predator, and the furioso twin-cc weapon dreadnought by 4th. 5th edition saw all of their newer units added like the sanguinary guard and priest.

Dark Angels - 2nd edition had fearless terminators and skilled bikers. Beyond this and their characters they were extremely mundane until 6th edition, as demonstrated by most of their 3e book reading "See Codex: Space Marines"

Space Wolves - Were actually somewhat different in 2nd edition, including non-standard statlines and unit structures.

ccs wrote:

 kodos wrote:
pure historical reason.

Space Wolves came later as a Codex Supplement in 3rd.

Just so you know, the Space Wolves are the 1st chapter to ever receive a Codex. back in 2nd edition, 1994.
Ultramarines followed, and the combo Angels book followed that.

I missed that one completely and did not know about it. but I also did not cared a lot about 40k during 2nd and start of 3rd
thx for the info

weight of tradtion as well as more varied rules.
Grey Knights deserve to have their own codex seperate from Marines, they have as much in common with Marines as sisters of battle from a rules POV (a few shared transports and thats it) but these chapters have a lot of differances, let's look at space wolves for a moment and go over it shall we. There are some space wolf units which could be simply "ok you modify your tac squads like so..." and some new stuff, let's go over how signfcigent it'd be?


Units that need modification:

Tac Marines/Grey Hunters - you'd need to change this so that grey hunters could take a second special weapon and not a heavy, you'd also need to give them chainswords.
Devestator/Longfangs: some definate differances here, longfang pack leaders can take a plasma gun and the squad gets a free re-roll of 1s.
Scouts - moved to the elite slot.
Dreadnought - fair number of changes and some options made unavaliable, such as no ironclad dreads.
Terminators - no assault squads, the termy squad having more weapon options.
Bikes - you'd need to adjust the BS
assault marines - likewise need to adjust the BS
chaplains would needed to be tweeked to wolf preists

New units added:
Wulfen Dread
Wulfen
Stormwolf
Stormfang
thunderwolf Cavalry
Fenrensian wolves
cyber wolves
Blood Claws
11 characters

assuming they can fit the changes to the unit entry sheets in one page, and manage to squeeze 2 datasheets on a page you're looking at about that's about a dozen pages at least of data sheets. then you assame each unit and character gets a page describing it. thats 19 pages or so.. asuming GW'd want to describe grey hunters, long fangs wolf preists, and bikes (which have a new name) a bit to explain how they differ from a codex compliant chapter and you've proably got ~23 pages.

then you've got the useal lore pages, which would be 2 of intro history a 2 page spread for Fenris, 14 pages describing the chapter's companies and command structure (if the space wolves got a supplement it should follow the outline of a supplement) and some in depth history etc. we'll assume space wolves get shift thrift like Imp Fists did and just get a short timeline, thats's another 2 pages.

You then get 1 page of warlord traits, 2 pages of relics 1 page of psyker spells, 1 page detailing the chapter rules and doctrines, 2 pages of stratigiums, 1 page of tactical objectives, 12 pages of an army showcase.
throw in a page with points values for the special units and another with the Space Wolf Specific war gear and 1 page of space wolf names, then some pages for introduction, and some art spreads


All told you're looking at proably a little over 85 pages. now the ultramarines supplement is 80 pages so it's not like this is grossly too big, and it could be done, but I think the benifits would be too small to be worth while. there'd be a lot of weird exceptions etc for various marine units that it'd be easier just to add another 30 pages or so and make it stand alone.

Now that said IMHO GW should take an approuch of "these are stand alone space marines supplements" and try and release them in a timely fashion after marines designed around marines etc. no waiting a year only to get a codex that is barely differant

I look at it from the other end of the telescope.

Instead of codex plus supplement... just make a Codex for each subfaction of Marine. Most if not all units are identical, but then you can have your CT built into the units. If a given tactic is obviously more powerful... add a point per model for infantry. Or 10 points to a vehicle.

Just sayin’. If you’re buying two books, why not just make each chapter / legion it’s own thing?

I'd not be too suprised if we heard that these supplements where GW testing the waters to see if there'd be sufficant demand for them to consider giving some of these chapters a codex. if supplement white scars, for example sells really really well GW could then consider putting out a codex for them in 9th

I'm still in the boat of "dividing sub-Factions into individual Codexes seems unnecessary and bulky." One of the top complaints around here is rules bloat, so why aren't we championing less rules? I mean, it ain't like Tau got a bunch of Codexes for their sub-Factions. Or Orkz. Or really anyone aside from the Imperium. I kinda get that not every Imperium army is the same (it'd be awfully weird to have Ad Mech and Sisters of Battle in the same book), but at the same time if you CAN streamline, I feel like you should.

My point was more along the lines of, “I you release sub-faction supplements, and still need to buy a core codex, why not just make codeci with the core + supplement in one?”

Aside from squeezing every last dime.

For example, BA, DA, DW, GK, SW all get core + supplement in one book, if you catch my drift.

I think all sub faction rules should go away. You can build a fluffy army through unit choice and play style. Grinds my gears it does.

I agree. It ain't like Tyranids are releasing a Codex then passing out Supplements for Hydra or Jorg. I'd much rather a "one stop shop" deal, where I can buy a Codex and it will have everything I need for the Faction, including options for the sub-Factions underneath it. You know, like how 90% of the Xenos Codexes work.

It's really just too much bloat. GW could easily have done a consolidation (the separation of several units and upgrades is ridiculous and makes super little sense). Then you get for each Chapter:
1. 3 unique Warlord Traits
2. 4 unique units
3. 4 unique relics (probably one Range, one Melee, one Armor, one Buffer/Support)
4. 5 unique Stratagems

Suddenly you have flavor without as much bloat that's being justified by the fluffbunnies and GW.