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So, lots of people have been talking about the pics GW released of the upcoming unannounced codices and particularly the one that clearly looked like a Salamander for the expected SM 10.5 Codex. However, it got me thinking about another possibility that they could be going with. What if, to try to effect more balance to the game (and to make more versions of space marines for people to buy), they're (over the course of the next several additions) going to give each SM First Founding Chapter (and possibly the CSM ones as well) their own codex?

Recent releases of the World Eaters and Emperor's Children have shown that they don't seem to mind having armies in the game with very small ranges overall. There is also the generally held belief that GW is slowly going to be brining all the Primarchs back into the current setting of the game. (For better or worse). On that line, while I can't say I think it's more likely that a 10.5 codex, I certainly think that there's a non-zero chance that we could get a Salamanders codex with Vulkan (even though yes I know there aren't many rumors about him coming back soon, people then to think Russ or Jaghatai), as well as a few new chapter specific flame based unit for the army.

Would this be something that you'd like? I can see some pros and cons for it. On one hand, points could be distributed a lot better, for instance if Infernus Marines just become too good in Salamanders, they could get a points increase there, while all other marine players would be unaffected. You could also give each Chapter their own army rule rather than relying on the catch all Oath of Moment (or whatever generic one gets used in future editions).

The Downside is that it's a lot more marine content when we already have so much of that. Another possible downside could be certain units getting locked to certain chapters, for instance if only the Salamanders could take the Land Raider Redeemer. (I don't think that's likely, but it is possible, kind of like how the Chaos Legions lost out on a lot of the generic CSM line.

What do you think?

This is the future:

 Tawnis wrote:
So, lots of people have been talking about the pics GW released of the upcoming unannounced codices and particularly the one that clearly looked like a Salamander for the expected SM 10.5 Codex. However, it got me thinking about another possibility that they could be going with. What if, to try to effect more balance to the game (and to make more versions of space marines for people to buy), they're (over the course of the next several additions) going to give each SM First Founding Chapter (and possibly the CSM ones as well) their own codex?

Recent releases of the World Eaters and Emperor's Children have shown that they don't seem to mind having armies in the game with very small ranges overall. There is also the generally held belief that GW is slowly going to be brining all the Primarchs back into the current setting of the game. (For better or worse). On that line, while I can't say I think it's more likely that a 10.5 codex, I certainly think that there's a non-zero chance that we could get a Salamanders codex with Vulkan (even though yes I know there aren't many rumors about him coming back soon, people then to think Russ or Jaghatai), as well as a few new chapter specific flame based unit for the army.

Would this be something that you'd like? I can see some pros and cons for it. On one hand, points could be distributed a lot better, for instance if Infernus Marines just become too good in Salamanders, they could get a points increase there, while all other marine players would be unaffected. You could also give each Chapter their own army rule rather than relying on the catch all Oath of Moment (or whatever generic one gets used in future editions).

The Downside is that it's a lot more marine content when we already have so much of that. Another possible downside could be certain units getting locked to certain chapters, for instance if only the Salamanders could take the Land Raider Redeemer. (I don't think that's likely, but it is possible, kind of like how the Chaos Legions lost out on a lot of the generic CSM line.

What do you think?

Bad. I think that sounds bad.

With GW's current philosophy, that'd result in a lot less options, less customization, and more bloat.
I'd rather see a smaller number of big Codecs, with lots of options.

Not saying you're bad for bringing up the possibility, just... I hope you're not right.

A couple of years ago there was a rumor GW would bring Sanguinius back of all things. Can you imagine? It's as if they revived the Emperor in Star Wars, haha, we all know he died in Episode VI and could never come back!

To get closer to the topic:
Supplements are the usual loyalist way of doing things and honestly, with how sad the WE and EC Codizes look and even Death Guard having lost more units after 8th than gained... Chaos would have preferred the supplement treatment as well.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
A couple of years ago there was a rumor GW would bring Sanguinius back of all things. Can you imagine? It's as if they revived the Emperor in Star Wars, haha, we all know he died in Episode VI and could never come back!

To play the crazy conspiracy game, let's work through this.

1. Disney brought Palpatine back
2. Disney owns Marvel Comics
3. Marvel Comics cranked out a Marneus Calgar Comic.
4. Disney could bring Sanguinius back in comic form via Marvel Comics.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
A couple of years ago there was a rumor GW would bring Sanguinius back of all things. Can you imagine? It's as if they revived the Emperor in Star Wars, haha, we all know he died in Episode VI and could never come back!

To play the crazy conspiracy game, let's work through this.

1. Disney brought Palpatine back
2. Disney owns Marvel Comics
3. Marvel Comics cranked out a Marneus Calgar Comic.
4. Disney could bring Sanguinius back in comic form via Marvel Comics.

Books released between Return of the Jedi and the Disney takeover had established that Palpatine had Force-clones or some such and was able to possess them. Basically, a more fleshed-out explanation than Rise of Skywalker gave us. So bringing Palpatine back had precedent.

That said, I really hope that they don't bring Sanguinius back. His death is too important to just hand-wave away.

On the actual subject: I think the problem is that by using the current system, wherein your rules are no longer tied to your paint job, it makes all loyalist Marines effectively play the same way* - they all have the same army ability, they all have access to (mostly) the same pool of units, and they all have access to (mostly) the same pool of detachments. There's literally nothing stopping you from running a Blood Angels army and using the Black Templars detachments (you just can't use of any of the special Blood Angels units).

All this means that, on the table, there's no difference between Iron Hands and Salamanders. The question then becomes: does this need to change, and do people even want it to change? And how do you implement it without breaking the existing system? What would these supplements entail? The 8E supplement for Raven Guard only had a whopping ONE UNIT (Kayvaan Shrike).

*This also applies to five of the nine Traitor Legions.

Maybe its just because I feel really... disassociated from the on-going fluff (is there any?) but I don't really care about the Primarchs.

You'd think the Lion coming back would matter to the fluff - and frankly it hasn't. Would Vulkan coming back matter beyond there being another big(ish) Marine model on the table? Probably not.

Bringing back Sanguinius would seem a bit stupid - but I can't help feeling that 6 months down the line people would just shrug.

In much the same way we had Marine supplements in 8th edition. Its skewed by the fact they were completely broken and would make Marines OP for about a year. But I'm not really sure it sold a thousand ships - which is GW's primary consideration. I kind of feel "Marines" are very big. I think if you asked yourself how many Salamanders players there are, the answer would be not that many. Ditto for say Imperial Fists etc. Dark Angels, Blood Angels and Space Wolves are a little bit different - although I think to some degree that's due historical legacy. I don't know how popular they are for new players starting today.

Chaos is obviously a bit different, as Thousand Sons, Death Guard, World Eaters and Emperors Children sort of evolve towards being completely different armies (with much howling from certain quarters). I'm not sure if you did a specific Alpha Legion codex and a Word Bearers codex etc you'd have enough takers to make it worthwhile.

As odd as it is to think, the spinoff of Thousand Sons, Death Guard, World Eaters, and Emperor's Children is really a throwback to the infamous Codex Chaos Space Marines 3.5. These Four Legions had significant differences in their units (Marked units because Berserkers, Noise Marines, Plague Marines, and Rubrics over normal units) than those of the Chaos Undivided Legions and Black Legion.

The best way to represent these old differences in both a visual and rules way is via a completely separate codex. The only issue is that leaves some units behind until GW gets around to releasing new kits for them. I'm sure that Bikers (WE & EC) and Havocs (EC and DG) will return someday in some form.

This is a long way of saying, I don't think they will spend a lot of time rolling out Codexes and/or Supplements for Space Marines beyond the big divergent chapters (Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Black Templars). They even tried to roll back Deathwatch, but the pushback on that was intense.

It's a bad look when you make over half your army releases different versions of the same army - spikes or not.

1 chaos marines
4 cult marines

1 marines
10? loyalist marines (SW, BA, DA, BT, IF, WS, Sal, RG, IH, Ultra)

16 codexes for the same army split ideologically?

Might as well make 'Codex MOOK' and put every other army in that so we can concentrate on the main character syndrome armies.

 alextroy wrote:
As odd as it is to think, the spinoff of Thousand Sons, Death Guard, World Eaters, and Emperor's Children is really a throwback to the infamous Codex Chaos Space Marines 3.5. These Four Legions had significant differences in their units (Marked units because Berserkers, Noise Marines, Plague Marines, and Rubrics over normal units) than those of the Chaos Undivided Legions and Black Legion.

The best way to represent these old differences in both a visual and rules way is via a completely separate codex. The only issue is that leaves some units behind until GW gets around to releasing new kits for them. I'm sure that Bikers (WE & EC) and Havocs (EC and DG) will return someday in some form.

This is a long way of saying, I don't think they will spend a lot of time rolling out Codexes and/or Supplements for Space Marines beyond the big divergent chapters (Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Black Templars). They even tried to roll back Deathwatch, but the pushback on that was intense.

Emphasis mine.

I really disagree with that. The 3.5 book did a great job of fitting those legions in there along with all the other stuff CSM had to offer (and Daemons, at the time) in a book that was maybe half the size of a modern codex. From a player standpoint, having it all in one book meant I got to peruse and experiment with so much more than when the armies are split up, and from the business perspective, it incentivized many players to gradually expand their collections in order to build those enticing variations on theme, or mix and match other models of interest as the rules allowed.

Given the way things are formatted these days, the exact same Codex from 3.5 would take a lot more pages to do.

But, if GW moved to digital releases for free, that wouldn't be an issue. Have a hefty tome and you can just print the pages you need.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Bad. I think that sounds bad.

With GW's current philosophy, that'd result in a lot less options, less customization, and more bloat.
I'd rather see a smaller number of big Codecs, with lots of options.

Not saying you're bad for bringing up the possibility, just... I hope you're not right.

Seconded. Or thirded or fourthed or whatever. Marines are worse off for being split into a bunch of books, and so is the game/hobby in general.

Individual books has given us things like EC/DG/WE that are missing a lot of the generic options they used to have thus pidgeonholing the faction and generally cutting down on the ability to customize an army and make it yours. Currently, it also means that some marine players are getting forced to buy one or more extra books so they can field the handful of bespoke units they have access to. (Even though half those units are really just generic units with extra glazing or genuinely different units that should probably be available to all marines.)

In contrast, I like being able to field different types of armies out of the same codex. That's what the whole point of detachments should be: rules to let you play your army in different ways. My sneaky marines are defaulting to using the vanguard detachment, but if I want to tell the story of them digging in to defend an important base, I can use the not-Imperial-Fists detachment instead.

From a primarily xenos perspective, marine players getting excited about extra books for each chapter feels like a weird case of brainwashing.

"Run my collection in lots of different ways using a single book? No thanks! I want to spend an extra $50 for every possible army theme. Don't forget to give me super special and unique terminators that are different because they inflict -1 on to-wound rolls instead of decreasing damage or whatever. And of course I need you to include Chapter Master Bespokian. He's just like your generic chapter master except he's better because reasons. You thought your chapter master was good in melee? That's cute, but also he's just mathematically worse at stabbing things than Bespokian because Bespokian's relic sword is super duper special instead of just generic brand "super" special. It has a name, you see. So it has better AP and Damage."

Lots of good points made. Seems I didn't think quite hard enough on how that many actual codices would mess with release schedules. I'd more figures, we'll if they're going to keep pumping out marine models anyway, maybe they'll just spread them around more. I mean, after they update the last batch of the older SM kits, where are they going form there? Updating the 8th edition kits?

If you look at EC as an example though, they got 3 new characters and 3 new units, plus 2 refreshes and being propped up by 1/4th of the Deamon codex. For something like Salamanders, they don't even need that much, Vulkan, a flame based generic character, and a new unit, like Pyroclasts in plastic or something. Then leaning on the remaining SM stuff and done.

Not to say that this couldn't just be done in the generic SM codex, but that's going to lead to more bloat and rules overlap My thought was, that, they're going to release a mountain of more marines over the years anyway, that's inevitable. However, the more they shove into generic SM, the more it's going to feel this way anyway, a unit points costed based on the one detachment where it's the strongest vs all the other "chapters" where it's fine or bad. Splitting this up could lead to more diversity between all the SM players.

Still not really sold on the idea myself, I'd rather just less marine releases and more focus on updating all the other ranges that need it, but this is GW we're talking about and we know how many marines they're going to crank out.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Given the way things are formatted these days, the exact same Codex from 3.5 would take a lot more pages to do.

Well, there's half yer problem right tharr!

I don't own a 10th ed book, but I assume it's one unit per page? (Front and back of card format?) I'm just going by the indexes and assuming it's kinda the same.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Given the way things are formatted these days, the exact same Codex from 3.5 would take a lot more pages to do.

Well, there's half yer problem right tharr!

I don't own a 10th ed book, but I assume it's one unit per page? (Front and back of card format?) I'm just going by the indexes and assuming it's kinda the same.

4 per page, 2 front, 2 back, they just compact the card a bit. TBH, they could get away with printing half the cards they do, if they used that format for them.

 Tawnis wrote:
Lots of good points made. Seems I didn't think quite hard enough on how that many actual codices would mess with release schedules. I'd more figures, we'll if they're going to keep pumping out marine models anyway, maybe they'll just spread them around more. I mean, after they update the last batch of the older SM kits, where are they going form there? Updating the 8th edition kits?

If you look at EC as an example though, they got 3 new characters and 3 new units, plus 2 refreshes and being propped up by 1/4th of the Deamon codex. For something like Salamanders, they don't even need that much, Vulkan, a flame based generic character, and a new unit, like Pyroclasts in plastic or something. Then leaning on the remaining SM stuff and done.

Not to say that this couldn't just be done in the generic SM codex, but that's going to lead to more bloat and rules overlap My thought was, that, they're going to release a mountain of more marines over the years anyway, that's inevitable. However, the more they shove into generic SM, the more it's going to feel this way anyway, a unit points costed based on the one detachment where it's the strongest vs all the other "chapters" where it's fine or bad. Splitting this up could lead to more diversity between all the SM players.

Still not really sold on the idea myself, I'd rather just less marine releases and more focus on updating all the other ranges that need it, but this is GW we're talking about and we know how many marines they're going to crank out.

Honestly, constantly cranking out new marine units kind of creates its own problems. In addition to clogging the pipeline and feeding into the vicious "more marine support means more marine sales means more marine support" cycle, it also risks running into the Storm Cast problem. That is, the storm cast line in AoS is younger than the entire(?) drukhari model range. Yet they recently had to legends a lot of datasheets because they'd pumped out *so many* of them in a short amount of time that they were starting to bloat the faction.

My understanding is that eldar sales have been pretty solid since our line got a refresh. Sisters seem to be selling just fine ever since they finally got plastic models and a proper codex. It seems like the marine support/sales cycle is a thing. All of which is to say that the smart play might be to finally start giving love to other factions; even if the simple/safe move is to just keep cranking out more of your best sellers over and over. If putting out new kits/units for a faction results in proportionately good sales (as per eldar/sisters), then investing in non-marine factions means they can boost sales without running into the stormcast bloat issue. And look at all the factions out there with a tiny number of datasheets or aging model ranges.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:
Lots of good points made. Seems I didn't think quite hard enough on how that many actual codices would mess with release schedules. I'd more figures, we'll if they're going to keep pumping out marine models anyway, maybe they'll just spread them around more. I mean, after they update the last batch of the older SM kits, where are they going form there? Updating the 8th edition kits?

If you look at EC as an example though, they got 3 new characters and 3 new units, plus 2 refreshes and being propped up by 1/4th of the Deamon codex. For something like Salamanders, they don't even need that much, Vulkan, a flame based generic character, and a new unit, like Pyroclasts in plastic or something. Then leaning on the remaining SM stuff and done.

Not to say that this couldn't just be done in the generic SM codex, but that's going to lead to more bloat and rules overlap My thought was, that, they're going to release a mountain of more marines over the years anyway, that's inevitable. However, the more they shove into generic SM, the more it's going to feel this way anyway, a unit points costed based on the one detachment where it's the strongest vs all the other "chapters" where it's fine or bad. Splitting this up could lead to more diversity between all the SM players.

Still not really sold on the idea myself, I'd rather just less marine releases and more focus on updating all the other ranges that need it, but this is GW we're talking about and we know how many marines they're going to crank out.

Honestly, constantly cranking out new marine units kind of creates its own problems. In addition to clogging the pipeline and feeding into the vicious "more marine support means more marine sales means more marine support" cycle, it also risks running into the Storm Cast problem. That is, the storm cast line in AoS is younger than the entire(?) drukhari model range. Yet they recently had to legends a lot of datasheets because they'd pumped out *so many* of them in a short amount of time that they were starting to bloat the faction.

My understanding is that eldar sales have been pretty solid since our line got a refresh. Sisters seem to be selling just fine ever since they finally got plastic models and a proper codex. It seems like the marine support/sales cycle is a thing. All of which is to say that the smart play might be to finally start giving love to other factions; even if the simple/safe move is to just keep cranking out more of your best sellers over and over. If putting out new kits/units for a faction results in proportionately good sales (as per eldar/sisters), then investing in non-marine factions means they can boost sales without running into the stormcast bloat issue. And look at all the factions out there with a tiny number of datasheets or aging model ranges.

Oh, 100% agree. Long term health of the game, that is absolutly the way to go. Just not sure if GW's actually going to do that.

I don't know a single marine players who has caught up with the whole primaris refresh yet. Hardly anyone owns everything new.

I think they could get away with doing drop-pod style releases for a long time now, toss in an update for predator with a new turret weapon so everyone who wants it needs to rebuy and they are good to go.

Imo the supplements need to go for loyalist - they're too difficult to balance fairly, eat up a huge portion of the release quota and kit quota.

As noted by others, they need to stop inventing new ways to skin an intercessor, it's getting silly.

Chaos are in a weird state, DG are largely about right to me, they're ok as a stand alone book and supported enough to feel like a full army, the others need pulling up to that level.

On paper I'm not against more smaller armies, I do not however trust them to do that concept justice

Yeah. An example of one of the "smaller armies" is harlies who became their own semi-independent faction in 7th, then proceeded to never get a single new model after the initial release. In index 10th, they got sort of rolled back into craftworlds (which actually meant they were less available to drukhari than they had been since pre-codex 5th edition), and also their rules were generally agreed to be weird/unfluffy. (They were weirdly slow, mostly being used as a tanky unit in combination with yvraine.)

Post codex 10th, they've basically been given the kroot treatment (one detachment in the eldar book, but you can take them in other detachments), and the units all got buffed to be significantly better on their own.

So in other words, no model support, lost a ton of options and special rules over time, but they've at least been getting occassional shots in the arm to keep them from fading entirely?

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Yeah. An example of one of the "smaller armies" is harlies who became their own semi-independent faction in 7th, then proceeded to never get a single new model after the initial release. In index 10th, they got sort of rolled back into craftworlds (which actually meant they were less available to drukhari than they had been since pre-codex 5th edition), and also their rules were generally agreed to be weird/unfluffy. (They were weirdly slow, mostly being used as a tanky unit in combination with yvraine.)

Post codex 10th, they've basically been given the kroot treatment (one detachment in the eldar book, but you can take them in other detachments), and the units all got buffed to be significantly better on their own.

So in other words, no model support, lost a ton of options and special rules over time, but they've at least been getting occassional shots in the arm to keep them from fading entirely?

Conversely most of the chaos marine subfactions, votann, GSC and Admech even for a fair while were and in some ways are quite small yet get updated rules and models support.

Let's be honest, you could bundle up the wolves unique stuff with say 10 units from codex space marines into their own book and they'd be a perfectly functional and well rounded army, even compared to those above.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
As odd as it is to think, the spinoff of Thousand Sons, Death Guard, World Eaters, and Emperor's Children is really a throwback to the infamous Codex Chaos Space Marines 3.5. These Four Legions had significant differences in their units (Marked units because Berserkers, Noise Marines, Plague Marines, and Rubrics over normal units) than those of the Chaos Undivided Legions and Black Legion.

The best way to represent these old differences in both a visual and rules way is via a completely separate codex. The only issue is that leaves some units behind until GW gets around to releasing new kits for them. I'm sure that Bikers (WE & EC) and Havocs (EC and DG) will return someday in some form.

This is a long way of saying, I don't think they will spend a lot of time rolling out Codexes and/or Supplements for Space Marines beyond the big divergent chapters (Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Black Templars). They even tried to roll back Deathwatch, but the pushback on that was intense.

Emphasis mine.

I really disagree with that. The 3.5 book did a great job of fitting those legions in there along with all the other stuff CSM had to offer (and Daemons, at the time) in a book that was maybe half the size of a modern codex. From a player standpoint, having it all in one book meant I got to peruse and experiment with so much more than when the armies are split up, and from the business perspective, it incentivized many players to gradually expand their collections in order to build those enticing variations on theme, or mix and match other models of interest as the rules allowed.

Noooo! My World Eaters aren't World Eaters if I have the option of taking bokes and/or cultists!

Dudeface wrote:
Conversely most of the chaos marine subfactions, votann, GSC and Admech even for a fair while were and in some ways are quite small yet get updated rules and models support.

Didn't the Admech originally get released as two armies, with Skittari as a separate book?

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Noooo! My World Eaters aren't World Eaters if I have the option of taking bokes and/or cultists!

1: Heh
2: "Bokes"?

The rumors I’ve seen said they’re most likely just upscaling some generic units.