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I think I see what you're saying jreilly89. What should happen is that all the Space Marine Chapters codexes should be rolled into one codex with specific sections for each chapter. I like it.

GW could easily sell a marine codex the same size and cost of the core rule book.

Yes. Frankly the only army that can't be flavor covered by a Chapter Tactics or some unique characters is the Space Wolves, but they could just get a supplement to account for this.

And I am including Chaos Marines here. Lets be honest. They like Space Wolves, could easily be covered by a supplement with some special weapons, gear, marks, and units. Maintaining them as a full Codex army is kind of silly when they things that make them distinct from Codex Marines is mostly just war gear and a few special units.

no. it would piss off a lot of players. for every unit in the SM codex you now have, you will be giving up things like sanguinary guard, terminator knights, or the like. I think I better fix is to do some cross codex balancing, I.E. standardized costs for base units for all codexes (tacticals, reg. terminators, etc.)


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ALSO, they are doing this for things like elves and chaos in fantasy, and I feel like it would just lead to having every army be the same with 1 or 2 special units to "separate" the factions, leading to less variety and what not. either that or we merge them, then just end up with double the amount of supplements, going right back to square one.

I don't think thats necessarily the case Black Templars got their unique unit in the current books.

Cut out all the forge world chapters when discussing mergers of books, as those are forge worlds to play with and make rules/supplemental material for. A combined codex for space marines should include the current cast of c:sm, da, BA, SW. Nothing more.

 Brennonjw wrote:
and I feel like it would just lead to having every army be the same with 1 or 2 special units to "separate" the factions,

So, just like it is right now?

Blood Angels; Normal Codex Marines, except with fast vehicles. The only thing that really sets them apart is their access to FNP. Sanguinary Guard? Their just Honor Guard with fancy weapons and jump packs. Sanguinary Priests? Cheaper Chaplains with an FNP bubble. Death Company? Vanguard Vets with a special rule and FNP. Honestly, there is nothing about the army that couldn't be accounted for with a page or two in the main SM Codex. At the very least, reduce the BA to a supplement.

Dark Angels; This one is even more silly. Dark Angels could be covered by a character or chapter tactic that gives Termis a special rule and makes them troops. Bike Armies already exist, so having a separate flavor for Ravenwing is to me, ultimately more work than its really worth.

CSM; To me, the CSM are the only army that gives me pause on this, but I don't see how a supplement to cover their specialist troops, vehicles, and war gear can't see them fully represented as they are now.

SW: Is the only one that would be hard to represent as the wolves are not organized like an SM chapter. Even then though, they could still be covered almost in full by a supplement rather than a full rule book. A section for Wolf Guard, Thunderwolves, Grey Hunters/Blood Claws, and some cool war gear and it's basically covered. Long Fangs don't even need to be a unique unit. Just get some war gear that grants the same capability and we're done.

then just end up with double the amount of supplements, going right back to square one.

Except that a supplment would take much less time to develop than a full army, not mention allow for "balancing across Codexes" by making the cores that all these armies share compiled into a single rule book. Balancing becomes much easier because then you can just focus on the things that separate the armies which would be their own rules sections or minibooks.

We have three armies, that essentially share a significant amount of their roster of units with Codex SM. Come on, can't we save the rain forest just a little bit on this one?

 Brennonjw wrote:
no. it would piss off a lot of players. for every unit in the SM codex you now have, you will be giving up things like sanguinary guard, terminator knights, or the like. I think I better fix is to do some cross codex balancing, I.E. standardized costs for base units for all codexes (tacticals, reg. terminators, etc.)

Back in the day (third ed) none of those fancy units existed, and blood Angels were still blood Angels, dark Angels were still dark Angels and space wolves were still,space wolves.

BA were space marines with a 'on a 1, I go faster' rule, death co, and sang priests. None of the fancy malarkey they have now. Or bloodnouns. And thry were still BA.
DA were space marines with stubborn (back then it was semi-fearless). No darknouns. None of the fancy malarkey they have now, and they were still DA.
Space Wolves were a bit different. Blood claws, grey hunters, long fangs, wolf guard, wolf lords. Leman Russ exterminators, and Rules like true grit, acute senses and counter charge were there, but none of the stupidity of wolf riding marines and wolfy mc wulferson, and fang/claw/wolfnouns everywhere. And they were still space wolves.

 LordofHats wrote:
Yes. Frankly the only army that can't be flavor covered by a Chapter Tactics or some unique characters is the Space Wolves, but they could just get a supplement to account for this.

And I am including Chaos Marines here. Lets be honest. They like Space Wolves, could easily be covered by a supplement with some special weapons, gear, marks, and units. Maintaining them as a full Codex army is kind of silly when they things that make them distinct from Codex Marines is mostly just war gear and a few special units.

The thing there is though, CSM should have the level of representation that SM have. They're more varied that loyalist SM are if anything. I think you could have two biggish books, one for all the Loyalists, like how C:SM is now but with the DA, BA and even SW would fit, and then a Chaos SM one with 'chapter tactics' for each of the traitor legions.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Space Marines Ultramarines, Space Wolves, Angels of Death. All other marine armies (not counting Grey Knights, shudder) can easily be run as exceptions to the rules of each of those three books.

Fixed that for you.

No, I wrote it deliberately that way it because I never liked the name when it dealt with all codex compliant vanilla chapters (like BT and Salamanders were back then).

Perhaps.

But the way Ultramarines have since become "vanilla" and all the Ultramarine-specific units have been "vanillerised" (e.g. Tyranid War Veterans .-> Sternguard) is the main reason why there never should've been a "generic" Space Marines codex. Or if there is one, Ultramarines should get their own book outside of it.


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 Inkubas wrote:
Codex space marines.
Followed by supplements (with formations/fluff/datasheets/cards ) for the following:

Iron Hands
White Scars
Black Templars
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Imperial Fists
Ultramarines
Raven Guard
Red Scorpions
Carcharodons
Mantis Warriors
Raptors
Executioners
Astral Claws
Fire Hawks
Minotaurs
Star Phantoms
Red Hunters
Angels Revenant

That's a stupid idea.

If they do it this way, than people who want to play ... say ... Raven Guard or Fire Hawks, will have to buy (a) the Codex and (b) the Supplement.

Far better to make them all individual stand-alone Codexes. It's a minimal amount of repeat information (Rhinos, Landraiders, etc..) and a much sleeker approach.

How is it a minimal amount of repeat information? Basically every entry in each codex would be the same, with 3/4 unique entry's and a different chapter tactic.

 ImAGeek wrote:
How is it a minimal amount of repeat information? Basically every entry in each codex would be the same, with 3/4 unique entry's and a different chapter tactic.

And? Rules don't take that much space in a Codex anyhow (though, admittedly a bit more these days than they used to).

Either way, better than two separate books.

Wonderwolf wrote:
That's a stupid idea.

If they do it this way, than people who want to play ... say ... Raven Guard or Fire Hawks, will have to buy (a) the Codex and (b) the Supplement.

Do you mean like someone who wants to play Farsight enclave or Iyanden? Except in practice you do not have to buy the supplement. You can play Iyanden or enclave without it just fine, you will just not get some extra specific stuff.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
That's a stupid idea.

If they do it this way, than people who want to play ... say ... Raven Guard or Fire Hawks, will have to buy (a) the Codex and (b) the Supplement.

Do you mean like someone who wants to play Farsight enclave or Iyanden? Except in practice you do not have to buy the supplement. You can play Iyanden or enclave without it just fine, you will just not get some extra specific stuff.

Yes. Iyanden was a fantastic book. If they'd just added the Eldar Army list in the back, if only in the "short format", how many pages would it have taken? 8? Maybe 12? And you would've also been able to play Iyanden without the generic Craftworld Codex, at no "downside" compared to the status quo.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
How is it a minimal amount of repeat information? Basically every entry in each codex would be the same, with 3/4 unique entry's and a different chapter tactic.

And? Rules don't take that much space in a Codex anyhow (though, admittedly a bit more these days than they used to).

Either way, better than two separate books.

It wouldn't be just a few pages, it would be the majority of the bestiary type part, and most of the army list. Probably half the book.

I get what you're saying about having to buy two books, I agree with that part. But I think it could be done just as easily as one book, as like 4 for 4 different parts of the same army which are 70-90% exactly the same.

No, I wouldn't be happy with it.

I would have been happy if they were never separated in to their own codices to begin with, but since they have been, no, I'm not happy with them being rolled in to one.

The only way I might be happy for them to roll in to one is if the ENTIRE GAME were simplified greatly and as part of the great simplification I'd be happy enough to see them consolidated (along with a bunch of other stuff).

 ImAGeek wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
How is it a minimal amount of repeat information? Basically every entry in each codex would be the same, with 3/4 unique entry's and a different chapter tactic.

And? Rules don't take that much space in a Codex anyhow (though, admittedly a bit more these days than they used to).

Either way, better than two separate books.

It wouldn't be just a few pages, it would be the majority of the bestiary type part, and most of the army list. Probably half the book.

I get what you're saying about having to buy two books, I agree with that part. But I think it could be done just as easily as one book, as like 4 for 4 different parts of the same army which are 70-90% exactly the same.

It's quite a bit less than 70%. Just compare the current Blood Angels and Space Wolves Codex.

That said, even if it were 99% identical (say 99 out of 100 pages, with just one page difference), two stand-alone codexes would still be superior to 1 codex and 1 supplement. You'd still save on not having two books, two bindings, etc.. and you wouldn't notice the duplication, as you'd only have the one book for your army, instead of the book for your army AND the generic book you require on top of it.

Hell, even if 100% was identical, I'd still prefer stand-alone codexes over a codex-plus-supplement-system, if only for having to flip through one less book while playing/making army lists and the lower sticker-price of 1 book over 2 books (or 1 regular-sized-chapter-specific-book over 1 mega-all-space-marines-included-book)

There simply is no advantage whatsoever to not make stand-alone-codexes from a player-perspective (there is, of course, GW's incentive to sell you two books instead of one).

Well you obviously didn't read what I said because I said I was against a codex and supplement system too. And the 70-90% the same was between the main book and the different books, not the different books. Space Wolves is probably the most divergent.

And I don't think there's no advantage to having one book from a player perspective. For a start, you'd have access to everything in the main book, all the flyers, all the tanks etc. it would all be updated at the same time so no army (DA) would be left behind like they are now, and there would be more room in the release schedule to do other armies justice.

I will say though that I would also be against it if they made a massive book and charged like £60 for it, which I know realistically is how it would turn out, but it doesn't need to be that way, it could easily be done for the £30 a codex costs by pretty much any other company. So in reality it wouldn't be that great but hypothetically I would prefer one Space Marine book. And again, Forge World have basically got a system sorted that they could use for it.

A lot of players buy multiple rule books anyway. How many of us already own more than one SM codex? If anything, cutting the number of full armies down and moving the more specialized rules into supplements would be cheaper for most people, not more expensive.

Hell if it were up to me, I'd stop publishing the rule with the lore. Seriously we're paying a couple dozen bucks for 20 or so pages of rules and 30-50 pages of fluff and pretty pictures. I'd compile every army's basic rules into the BRB alongside the basic game rules and just call it a day. There's Black Library for fluff. In universe encyclopedias that we all know people will pay for.

Of course the smart thing won't be done because this is GW we're talking about, but threads like this are where we go to dream of better things

 jreilly89 wrote:



Considering I've seen the same users in different threads saying those things, it is hypocrisy.

How would you have GW produce them and how should they work? People already say that the game is overbloated with rules. If you're going to roll DA and the like into a big SM codex, then I think the supplements should be rolled in as well. I see no point in paying for a $100-200 codex that still requires dataslates and formations to complete the factions

There's a way to do supplements properly, and a way to do them poorly. Releasing a $60 book with 4 pages of crunch is not a good way to do supplements.

I'm also positive that these people you claim are hypocritical is simply a lack of understanding on your part in the difference between these people being okay with good supplements for fixing the marine issue, and people complaining about the idiocy of GW's current supplement system.

You want a good way that people wouldn't complain too much about? Free PDFs on their website. Download the ones you want, and you can check all the others whenever you need to find something out. Make them obvious and easy to find on the site. Or, alternatively, just put them in the big codex to begin with.


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 LordofHats wrote:


Hell if it were up to me, I'd stop publishing the rule with the lore. Seriously we're paying a couple dozen bucks for 20 or so pages of rules and 30-50 pages of fluff and pretty pictures. I'd compile every army's basic rules into the BRB alongside the basic game rules and just call it a day. There's Black Library for fluff. In universe encyclopedias that we all know people will pay for.

Also this.

You want a good way that people wouldn't complain too much about? Free PDFs on their website. Download the ones you want, and you can check all the others whenever you need to find something out. Make them obvious and easy to find on the site. Or, alternatively, just put them in the big codex to begin with.

This is also a good idea. Rule books are just getting so old hat (heh, get it?). Maybe instead of looking for ways to save its business model, GW should start looking for ways to renovate it, because I think it's long past the time where their crumbling market can really be ignored.

The money isn't in the game rules the money is in the models. Money in an industry with an ever increasing cost of entry for new players and an ever increasing cost to stay current for old. I doubt they're turning huge profits on their rule books anyway.

 LordofHats wrote:
A lot of players buy multiple rule books anyway. How many of us already own more than one SM codex? If anything, cutting the number of full armies down and moving the more specialized rules into supplements would be cheaper for most people, not more expensive.

I don't. I have the one Space Wolves Codex for the Space Wolves army I own.

But even if I'd were to get a second Space Marines army, say, Dark Angels, it'd still be preferable to have Codex: Space Wolves & Codex: Dark Angels (2 books, 1 to carry for playing a given game with 1 of those armies) as opposed to Codex: Space Marines with the supplements Space Wolves and Dark Angels (3 books, 2 to carry for playing a given game with 1 of those armies).

Exactly, much of the bloat issues comes from two or three reasons; prices and availability, combined with location/ease of access. If all the rules were cheaper, people would be more inclined to buy all these supplements, mini dexes, and dataslates. If they were in easy to use files (or a number of different types of files), people would have even less of an issue (also making it more obvious on the website). Putting a pay wall up is just a hassle.

I'd even just take more content in the supplements. There's just so little crunch in them. You could put every marine chapter supplemental rules into a single book called 'The Big Book of Marine Chapters', and be done with it. You'd have to buy 'The Marine Codex', but with those two books you'd have every single marine chapter captured in all their snowflaky goodness.

The point being, the current system is about the worst of all possible options. Its expensive, its scattered, and its on multiple platforms.

 Blacksails wrote:
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 LordofHats wrote:


Hell if it were up to me, I'd stop publishing the rule with the lore. Seriously we're paying a couple dozen bucks for 20 or so pages of rules and 30-50 pages of fluff and pretty pictures. I'd compile every army's basic rules into the BRB alongside the basic game rules and just call it a day. There's Black Library for fluff. In universe encyclopedias that we all know people will pay for.

Also this.

It's not going to happen though because GW would rather sell a $50 book with fluff and rules to everyone than a $30 rulebook to everyone and a $30 fluff book to the people who only want that.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's not going to happen though because GW would rather sell a $50 book with fluff and rules to everyone than a $30 rulebook to everyone and a $30 fluff book to the people who only want that.

Of course, but if this discussion was about what GW would or wouldn't do, we wouldn't make it past the first post.

 Blacksails wrote:
The point being, the current system is about the worst of all possible options. Its expensive, its scattered, and its on multiple platforms.

I've long felt that having multiple marine codices is the least of 40k's problems and squishing them in to one would not be of benefit in the current GW climate. Fact is, either 1 big book or multiple little books or even supplements COULD theoretically work fine, if the release cycle was better, the rules writing was better and the prices were lower.

ImAGeek wrote:
It's also a hypothetical discussion, it's never going to happen. Hypothetically, it could be handled well, in which case I don't see any problems with it. Forge World have proven it's doable. And there's no point pointing at what, 4 editions ago? Because that has very little bearing on the state of things as they are now.

You want to discuss if a hypothetical companies hypothetical product could be merged based on your take on this hypothetical companies ability to do this right??
Sorry, I had expected a serious reply.
Didn't want to bother your hypothetical world .
Again Sorry.

jreilly89 wrote:

 Jazzhands wrote:
Wow your suggestions for DA would really screw up my army lists and tactics. Gone are my maces gone are my banners and that's just to start with!

I love the fact that everyone spends their time complaining that the "special snow flake" chapters are not competitive and several people like to mock the Dark Angels specifically yet seem to have a problem with us having our own book. Why are you so threatened by this?

We pay the money for the codex, we pay the money for the lovely models and we pay the price for having a less competitive army. But despite all of that there are still loads of us. Why is there a need for my hobby to lose its flavour? what exactly are the advantages to other players?

Would GW make more money from this? Probably not if they don't have as many books to sell (yes I know we would all have to buy the combined codex but I know several players who play snow flake and non snow flake marines and have both books) and there would be much less incentive to buy specific model kits over generic ones.

I just can't understand why there is a problem with separate codex books...

Because they are jealous GW spends so much time on SPEHS MAHREENS

Possibly.
Its a very small circle who is part of all of these threads.

aka_mythos wrote:GW could easily sell a marine codex the same size and cost of the core rule book.

Or a forces Imperialis book, making more sense and covering all branches of the IoM at once. No one left behind anymore!

ImAGeek wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Yes. Frankly the only army that can't be flavor covered by a Chapter Tactics or some unique characters is the Space Wolves, but they could just get a supplement to account for this.

And I am including Chaos Marines here. Lets be honest. They like Space Wolves, could easily be covered by a supplement with some special weapons, gear, marks, and units. Maintaining them as a full Codex army is kind of silly when they things that make them distinct from Codex Marines is mostly just war gear and a few special units.

The thing there is though, CSM should have the level of representation that SM have. They're more varied that loyalist SM are if anything. I think you could have two biggish books, one for all the Loyalists, like how C:SM is now but with the DA, BA and even SW would fit, and then a Chaos SM one with 'chapter tactics' for each of the traitor legions.

Could have bet you post this.
Maybe, someday the CSM fanbase realizes the "loyalists" aren't to blame.
GW had a Index Astartes series. 4 Softcovers / 18 Legions. Before the found their love for small bits at not so small prices.

Blacksails wrote:Exactly, much of the bloat issues comes from two or three reasons; prices and availability, combined with location/ease of access. If all the rules were cheaper, people would be more inclined to buy all these supplements, mini dexes, and dataslates. If they were in easy to use files (or a number of different types of files), people would have even less of an issue (also making it more obvious on the website). Putting a pay wall up is just a hassle.

I'd even just take more content in the supplements. There's just so little crunch in them. You could put every marine chapter supplemental rules into a single book called 'The Big Book of Marine Chapters', and be done with it. You'd have to buy 'The Marine Codex', but with those two books you'd have every single marine chapter captured in all their snowflaky goodness.

The point being, the current system is about the worst of all possible options. Its expensive, its scattered, and its on multiple platforms.

Partially agree.

A reason I'd like to add:
The main advantage of Space Marines is compatible plastic kits.
- Rhino - Land raider - Land speeder - Dreadnought - scout -PA - TDA -
Add a few options and you have lots of multipart kits to sell. You can easily spot this if you build some of them and many bitz follow GW's beloved copy and paste scheme.
It may work for IG vehicles too. But the Infantry?


Bloated may have been the case. I think it already exploded...
Availability is becoming a problem, at least here, since GW isn't supplying their whole line of Products everywhere. Digital only stuff . English only. And more.... temporarily available products.
Splintering content to follow a buisness model of another part of the gaming "industry". Dataslates, Supplements , BL novellas, etc. Plan to keep track of your spending? Good luck.
And limited edition variants of everything.

Blacksails wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's not going to happen though because GW would rather sell a $50 book with fluff and rules to everyone than a $30 rulebook to everyone and a $30 fluff book to the people who only want that.

Of course, but if this discussion was about what GW would or wouldn't do, we wouldn't make it past the first post.

The first post asked if we: "would be fine with.."
It didn't say we have to keep the current Management...
To make it a few pages in is possible. If we keep the facts straight. Models exist physically, so people should be honest and say if they want to keep them around, squat them, change them, or whatever.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
The point being, the current system is about the worst of all possible options. Its expensive, its scattered, and its on multiple platforms.

I've long felt that having multiple marine codices is the least of 40k's problems and squishing them in to one would not be of benefit in the current GW climate. Fact is, either 1 big book or multiple little books or even supplements COULD theoretically work fine, if the release cycle was better, the rules writing was better and the prices were lower.

The release cycle is pretty fast. So if getting a slot in the release cycle was the problem, there are so many now everyone should get his stuff. Remember, the back seat of releases is taken by ?? SoB ?? alone, right now IIRC. Doesn't look crowded...

 1hadhq wrote:
The release cycle is pretty fast. So if getting a slot in the release cycle was the problem, there are so many now everyone should get his stuff. Remember, the back seat of releases is taken by ?? SoB ?? alone, right now IIRC. Doesn't look crowded...

Well an ideal release cycle to me wouldn't be one where we have a wave for each army and if your wave sucks you just wait for the next one which may not even come.

 Inkubas wrote:
Codex space marines.
Followed by supplements (with formations/fluff/datasheets/cards ) for the following:

Iron Hands
White Scars
Black Templars
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Imperial Fists
Ultramarines
Raven Guard
Red Scorpions
Carcharodons
Mantis Warriors
Raptors
Executioners
Astral Claws
Fire Hawks
Minotaurs
Star Phantoms
Red Hunters
Angels Revenant

Give a generic chapter tactic for space marines and reduce the cost of the main dex. Also reduce the cost of these supplements. So, I'd pick up the Space marines and decide to make a custom chapter. Keep the generic codex and paint my marines pink. If I wanted to pick up Dark Angels, I'd pick up the supplement and get more value for my buck because it'd include the formation, warlord trait, cards, dice, a full supplement worth of fluff, relics, and chapter rules.

WAYYYYYY too many supplements! A dataslate could cover BA+DA. The only chaoters that I would think about giving a supplement are the Space Wolves, The Iron Hands and maybe the Raven Guard (Screw SoT)

Not only all loyalist marines must be combined into one codex (with unification of units), but also all chapter tactics must be unified into special rules for specific units (bikes are useless without white scars CT, jump troops without raven guard CT, wehicles without IH, tacticals and terminators need all rules they can get e t.s.).

All "flavour of chapters" can be preserved with the list of formations in the end of the book with 1-2 special rules for each.