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I see a lot of issues with what appears to be GW spreading itself too thin with too many codicies.

If you were in charge, would you approve of putting some codicies together?

Some examples:

Maybe putting all the rules for Imperial Knights and Deathwatch into Imperial Agents?

Putting the AdMech Knights into the Adeptus Mechanicus codex?

Putting the Genestealer Cults with Tyranids?

Putting all the Space Marines together in a single codex (including Grey Knights)?

What do you think?

If they are going to put a half dozen DE units into the craftworld codex for ynarri, why not just roll all the elves together? And no, not kill DE and turn them into a footnote, but as equal partners

Knights can be condensed. Not sure if it should be to wrap the chaos/loyalist together in one stompy book, or into agents of xx books.

Marines could use consolidating. I think GK are unique enough to keep out. Although I’d be OK with them being the core of a demonhunter type book that wraps up some imperial agents stuff into one volume.

I’d like to see the imp guard book relaxed enough to cover everything from traitor guard, loyalist regiments, PDFs, GSC, etc. it’s a big ask, and would be murder to ballance. But would let you build so many flavorful forces.

 Nevelon wrote:
If they are going to put a half dozen DE units into the craftworld codex for ynarri, why not just roll all the elves together? And no, not kill DE and turn them into a footnote, but as equal partners

DE and Eldar will never be equal partners, any more than Chaos and Space Marines will.

That said, I'm not against putting them all in the same book. Eldar have already eaten all the allies and subfactions, so it's about the only way DE will see any. Also the only way DE will get HQs that aren't utter pigswill.

There is lots of condensing that could happen but it won't. For many companies, rulebooks are almost a loss-leader with the cost of printing a beautiful full-color book leading to only a small profit, but GW appears to be different.

By virtue of massive numbers of units sold, and/or higher prices commanded, and as evidenced by the sheer number of rulebooks they're putting out, it's a good bet that GW has found a way to make an effective profit on rulebooks. If the past is any indication we're only going to see more codices and sub-codices.

I'm not sure it would solve much, or at least there are other ways to solve the issue.

Take Knights for example: Sure, the Imperial Knights could potentially fit in the Adeptus Mechanicus codex. Alternatively GW could release 2 books and release them both in the same week, if they chose to do so.

Ultimately I don't think reducing the number of codices would solve much. Personally I think that lots of factions is fine, as long as GW are able and willing to support them all adequately (not necessarily equally).

One way to reduce codex churn is to have a wider gap between editions, say 5 years instead of 3 years. GW aren't likely to backtrack on this though, since more frequent editions means more opportunity to sell stuff to consumers.

To be honest, having always had the "Gak the detachments" casual mindset or allied detachments as an option, not on the other hand that armies may not be competitive because of thinner/ more monolithic rosters on their codicies,I have never been bothered with many codices.

I even actually like that many subfactions be explored on their own and playable on their own if you wish, and ally codices with one another for mixed armies.

Surely there is a way to go about that AND make bigger, condensed codicies, but more thinner codices doesn't bother me.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I see a lot of issues with what appears to be GW spreading itself too thin with too many codicies.

If you were in charge, would you approve of putting some codicies together?

Some examples:

Maybe putting all the rules for Imperial Knights and Deathwatch into Imperial Agents?

Putting the AdMech Knights into the Adeptus Mechanicus codex?

Putting the Genestealer Cults with Tyranids?

Putting all the Space Marines together in a single codex (including Grey Knights)?

What do you think?

I think the rules should be published as an index at the beginning of an edition (ok they already do); and instead of having "Codexes" per faction; we should just have narrative books focusing on about 4/6 factions every 3 months, with additional rules that do not overpower the factions but expand them (new detachments).

Combine Space Marines, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Black Templars, Deathwatch

Combine Imperial Knights, Chaos Knights

Combine Chaos Space Marines, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, World Eaters, Emperor's Children

Remove Grey Knights, (Harlequins), Imperial Agents, Genestealer Cults and make them mini-lists primarily intended to be used as allies

Expand Sisters of Battle to include more Ministorum units, and Chaos Daemons to be a 40K army

I think the problem is less obvious than in earlier times since we already have seen a consolidation with Harlequins, Black Templars etc. Daemons right now return to CSM.
Knights would be an obvious one, put them all in one Codex. If you want, throw them together with Admech and allow stopgap Dark Mech rules by giving Admech the option to turn into Chaos.
Eldar combined into one? They had ally rules since 6th edition, there were ways to combine Harlies with either of them and Dark Eldar lose more units than they get so probably they don’t have a lot left...
Combined Inquisition(GK, SoB) + Agents + maybe even Talons could work.

Overall, just count the unit entries in the SM Codex and you know how much you can stuff into a Codex. Or look at CSM 3.5 to see how clever writing can make a book with 9 factions.

GW won't combine the Codicies for a simple reason: They don't want to sell a massive tome that you can only use part of for your army.

Think about it. How many models are in a typical codex that you can't use depending on the faction you take? The number is usually very small if not zero.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I see a lot of issues with what appears to be GW spreading itself too thin with too many codicies.

If you were in charge, would you approve of putting some codicies together?

Some examples:

Maybe putting all the rules for Imperial Knights and Deathwatch into Imperial Agents?

Putting the AdMech Knights into the Adeptus Mechanicus codex?

Putting the Genestealer Cults with Tyranids?

Putting all the Space Marines together in a single codex (including Grey Knights)?

What do you think?

Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it does not. Avoid reprinting dozens of datasheets and ensure that codexes are not missing out on newly released units they should have by putting Space Wolves and Blood Angels into the Space Marines codex? Me like.Splitting the Chaos Daemons codex into four and putting them with the god-aligned legion codexes? No, that would make it a hassle to play Daemon mixed armies.

Imperial Knights belong in the AdMech codex if anything, but what is being condensed, what time is being saved here? Do Imperial Knights lose their bespoke army abilitiies and detachmens? I don't know if that would be a good idea, Imperial Knights is always a tough one, I would definitely not like Grey Knights, Sororitas and Deathwatch sharing the same detachments and faction ability.

alextroy's point about not wanting to have excess things in a codex is great.

GW already tried condensing DW into Agents, and the backlash was so bad that six months later DW were their own army again. now imagine how bad the backlash would have been if it was an army that more than ten people play. irrespective of any economic reasons, people don't like it when their armies get squatted

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I see a lot of issues with what appears to be GW spreading itself too thin with too many codicies.

If you were in charge, would you approve of putting some codicies together?

Some examples:

Maybe putting all the rules for Imperial Knights and Deathwatch into Imperial Agents?

Putting the AdMech Knights into the Adeptus Mechanicus codex?

Putting the Genestealer Cults with Tyranids?

Putting all the Space Marines together in a single codex (including Grey Knights)?

What do you think?

Most of the Codex work wouldn't be solved by Condensing. The work required is mostly expanding. Most of the "new" factions didn't get a full rollout. Custodes, Voltron, Mono-God Chaos SM, etc run out of datasheets when you start looking at 2K Points. Mostly they need a "second half" release that just about doubles their specific Datasheets - meaning not the shared stuff like XYZ Predators and Helbrutes. In some cases that may be more Space Marines or Genestealers, in some cases that may be "Chaos Guard Cultists". World Eaters using and even chewing through their own Guard Cultists might be a hoot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

Knights would be an obvious one,

Knights are the special case. They're not designed for current game mechanics. As a faction they were built during the kill em all era, and the changes to objective based, multiplied by Terrain rules etc has just hamstrung them. Either add some grot level "support crew" to do objectives, or just turn them into an Allied Support unit.

Which could be as simple a unit as guard stat line named "household soldiery"

Breton wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

Knights would be an obvious one,

Knights are the special case. They're not designed for current game mechanics. As a faction they were built during the kill em all era, and the changes to objective based, multiplied by Terrain rules etc has just hamstrung them. Either add some grot level "support crew" to do objectives, or just turn them into an Allied Support unit.

So tell me, in a typical Imperial Knights army, how many pts do you imagine people spending on these "support crew"? How many units of them do you think would suffice?
What do you envision them being armed with?

Condensing codices wouldn't be difficult for both GW stuff and customers if they all went digital.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Which could be as simple a unit as guard stat line named "household soldiery"

Well almost as - you'd have to ding the Big Boys just a little on their value to reduce their points cost enough to add the infantry squad so everything still fits in 2,000 points - and probably create some rules making the infantry slightly/even worse than guard - Maybe give them pistols only? Flak Jacket coveralls for a 6+ but able to use a within 3/6"? Knight shield? Hatred vs their mirrors the Chaos Cultist Support Crews (and vice versa) would be entertaining and potentially fluffy but otherwise a throw away. So more than just a new unit tacked onto the end to do it right. They already tried it with Armigers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

Breton wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

Knights would be an obvious one,

Knights are the special case. They're not designed for current game mechanics. As a faction they were built during the kill em all era, and the changes to objective based, multiplied by Terrain rules etc has just hamstrung them. Either add some grot level "support crew" to do objectives, or just turn them into an Allied Support unit.

So tell me, in a typical Imperial Knights army, how many pts do you imagine people spending on these "support crew"? How many units of them do you think would suffice?
What do you envision them being armed with?

I think if you want to keep the flavor of the army - big Robot Dukes running around like they're in Top Gun - the support crew should be ridiculously useless at anything but capturing flags and action monkey stuff. I kind of forsee one squad per knight model - potentially one per TITANIC (and/or one per two Armigers) knight model now that Armigers are a thing.

As for their equipment - I was thinking Laspistols and Flak Vests (6+) with some sort of bonus defense from their Knight if they're close enough. The tough part is balancing making them inept at anything but their job, but also difficult to remove thus rendering the big bad knight armies impotent by your troops killing their troops with ease on turn 1 making it still impossible for the knights t to play the modern game.

Making them a token that can't be shot at, must remain within X inches of the knight model and OC20 for Titanic OC 10 for Armigers feels like it could be abused the other way but I dunno, that may be the better way to go. Probably some sort of shared visibility - if you can see the token you can see the knight (not that knights are hiding all that often)

Condensing like this will never happen for codices. Why. On earth would GW do something so stupid in a business sense? They aren't loss leaders they make a decent profit and that's what the aim of a business is to make profit.
Yes they make a decent turnover profit as is their right they aren't a charity. However they are reinvesting in new factories, machinery etc which leads to new toys for us to buy and use.
If they weren't making the sales they are would they have remade Necromunda, Blood Bowl and remade an epic scale game in LI.
As gamers we're spoilt for choice for models and now we have a new faction coming out for EC. If you don't want to buy the books then don't. Same goes for the models. Nobody is being forced to play these games, I'm just getting fed up with the constant moaning but people keep buying and playing, you can't have everything you want your way.

Emperor's Children aren't a 'new faction'. They're just a chunk of the larger Chaos Marine faction which has been chopped off and then had some arbitrary vestigial 'unique' elements grafted back on.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Emperor's Children aren't a 'new faction'. They're just a chunk of the larger Chaos Marine faction which has been chopped off and then had some arbitrary vestigial 'unique' elements grafted back on.

To be their own new faction. All the Mono-God Legions had this happen too. They went from being part of, to their own "new" thus why new was air-quoted. They're new to being their own thing. And they suffer the same problem as the other new factions. Space Dwarves aren't new, but they're new enough. Sisters weren't new, but they were newly reintroduced. Custodes are new to the tabletop etc. They just weren't released on their own with enough datasheets.

The main issue with them NOT consolidating is there are, what, 24 codexes now, maybe more, and we're on 3-year editions and 6-year hard resets based on what we've seen.

It's not even remotely sustainable to have so many factions when you're running a churn-and-burn scam with the game.

Wayniac wrote:
The main issue with them NOT consolidating is there are, what, 24 codexes now, maybe more, and we're on 3-year editions and 6-year hard resets based on what we've seen.

It's not even remotely sustainable to have so many factions when you're running a churn-and-burn scam with the game.

The most sensible thing is to change the nature of the 3 year cycle rather than compress armies. Even if you compress them that doesn't reduce the workload in producing the codex unless you also strip out large chunks of the armies. If anything it actually makes the work harder because now you've armies with WAY more models in one force so either you're segregating them (might as well just print multiple codex) or you're linking them up and now your Space Marine army has 10 different tactical squad choices alone!


I do agree the 3 year cycle has huge issues, GW simply has to change that. A longer cycle period; a shift from new rules to evolving a single rules set etc... There are a LOT of things they CAN choose to do to resolve it.
The least desirable is to compress factions into fewer books; to remove model lines and ranges that they've spent the last years growing and remove choices. That would be the worst choice - it means unhappy customers; the same if not worse workload and reduced sales potential becuase now all those models they've stripped out won't be selling so that means less return on those investments.

 Overread wrote:

The least desirable is to compress factions into fewer books; to remove model lines and ranges that they've spent the last years growing and remove choices.

Reducing the number of factions/books is fundamentally unrelated to the existence of models.

Emperor's Children could have got a new Lord, and new Legionnaires, without having to get a new book which prevents them from taking Cultists, for example.
Similarly, Night Lords don't need bespoke rules just so that their not-Legionnaires can take lightening claws on one dude...

The only way condensed rules would be a good option is if 40k rules went fully digital and IMO that's not a good choice.

I've never trusted digital rules, they're too easy to edit and change (it happened quite often at our club where people used online rules that were altered or incorrect, the most egregious being a Titan having BS10 and never missing shots ever).

And if someone is going to challenge a rule they're not being handed my phone to scroll through and find it.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

Similarly, Night Lords don't need bespoke rules just so that their not-Legionnaires can take lightening claws on one dude...

Does the same apply to the Kroot or Death Korps units, or is it just Space Marine subtypes that shouldn't be allowed things?

 Gert wrote:

Does the same apply to the Kroot or Death Korps units?

Yes.

So in your opinion, should Kill Team not exist?

Should we not have side games where units that might not otherwise get a chance at a main release can be slotted in?

 Gert wrote:
So in your opinion, should Kill Team not exist?

What does that have to do with rules/faction bloat in 40K?

Wayniac wrote:
The main issue with them NOT consolidating is there are, what, 24 codexes now, maybe more, and we're on 3-year editions and 6-year hard resets based on what we've seen.

It's not even remotely sustainable to have so many factions when you're running a churn-and-burn scam with the game.

Then the solution is fix the three year cycle part, not the 24 codex part.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

What does that have to do with rules/faction bloat in 40K?

Kill Team is 40k, the two are intrinsically linked.

If your argument is that the Nemesis Claw shouldn't have rules because they're not different from Legionnaires does the same logic apply to the likes of Berzerkers?
Berserkers are just CCW armed Legionnaires with axes instead of swords. Should Berzerkers be ditched because they're not different enough?

We're not talking 8th Ed SM with a double stuff Codex and 9 supplements to go along with it, its one additional troop unit for each armie at most.
Heck SM didn't actually even get any new units out of Kill Team just updated kits for two existing units.

 Gert wrote:


If your argument is that the Nemesis Claw shouldn't have rules because they're not different from Legionnaires does the same logic apply to the likes of Berzerkers?
Berserkers are just CCW armed Legionnaires with axes instead of swords. Should Berzerkers be ditched because they're not different enough?

Yes.

Berzerkers should be what happens when you give a Chaos Marine unit the Mark of Khorne. That way you could have Berzerker Havoks, Berzerker Bikers, Berzerkers with bolters, etc. as well. MORE options in fact!