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There's often talk about GW having too many Astartes codices. So which if any would you cut? Would you add any? You can chose multiple options in the poll.

Chaos Marines shouldn't be on there, for the same reason I presume Grey Knights didn't make it. They might be in power armour, but they're a totally different beast to the glut of Space Marine chapters.

I wouldn't want any cut, for the same reason I wouldn't want Tyranids cut - people have the army, and cutting the codex, even rolling it into another codex, is like a big kick in the pants from GW. Just get better/faster/both at updating everything.

Ah, I forgot GK.

Again, Chaos Marines and Grey Knights shouldn't even be on there. While they are power armoured armies, they're completely different to normal Space Marines. They're entirely different armies. The only logic behind this list is 'Is it in power armour'. You might as well throw Sister of Battle in there.

Black Templar, Blood Angels, and Dark Angels could all be easily rolled back into a standardized loyalist codex, but expanded to fit more variant chapters.
I don't necessarily like the Space Wolf codex, but it's just barely different enough to stand on its own.

Grey Knights should be scaled back and folded into a greater (and this time, fully functioning and independent) Inquisitional codex.

A Raven Guard codex would be cool, as the generic codex I don't think represents their way of war very accurately.

Though I think the IoM is already over-represented in 40k codices.



Edit-after-the-fact: Totally agree with what Fafnir said above.

All of them except SW (which are barely interesting enough to save) and CSM (which will be combined with demons into a single chaos book).

BT have no reason to exist at all, even GW doesn't care about them anymore.
DA can be replaced with a single "terminators as troops" character in C:SM to represent deathwing.
BA can be replaced with a single "assault squads as troops" character in C:SM.
GK have no reason to exist as a full army, replace them with a single "GK strike force" unit in an allies supplement.

 -Loki- wrote:
You might as well throw Sister of Battle in there.

SoB are not SM.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greg0985 wrote:
A Raven Guard codex would be cool, as the generic codex I don't think represents their way of war very accurately.

How so?

I own a few thousand dollars worth of minis and the vast majority of them are Templars....sadly, I kinda feel like gw needs to either update them or fold them into the c:sm codex, waiting for them to do something when I am already using the regular codex anyway is getting old. ..even if it's just new models that look sexy, or a standard codex space marines with mechanics and units rolled in for all chapters (like a point system for certain traits)

 Peregrine wrote:
All of them except SW (which are barely interesting enough to save) and CSM (which will be combined with demons into a single chaos book).

BT have no reason to exist at all, even GW doesn't care about them anymore.
DA can be replaced with a single "terminators as troops" character in C:SM to represent deathwing.
BA can be replaced with a single "assault squads as troops" character in C:SM.
GK have no reason to exist as a full army, replace them with a single "GK strike force" unit in an allies supplement.

Spoken like a true hipster, bored with even his own hobbies.

The Space Marine codexes are fine as they are.

I've long advocated for a two book approach to most of the marine books. Have one core codex for Marines that has all the rules for generic space marines and Ultramarines. Use the Chapter Tactics rule to establish a marine base line.

Than do a second supplement book that features the divergent chapters. Chapter tactics change to reflect the different tactics of each group and you can have a special rule that may swap the locations of certain units in the force org chart (assault marines to troops for BA, Bikes to troops for White Scars etc) a few pages for any units unique to the chapter (Ravenwing for DA, Death Company for BA etc) and characters.

I figure each chapter needs 5 pages of Fluff, 5 pages for characters and 2 for units, plus the appropriate unit entries to match the main codex. You could cover each sub codex in 15-20 pages and wind up with a solid 120 -150 page book covering Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Salamanders, White Scars, Imperial Fists, Iron Hands and Raven Guard. Add Black Templars as a "Crusading" chapter and your good to go.

The only ones who in my mind are structurally different enough to warrant their own books in mind are Space Wolves given their pack structure and tendency to avoid heavy weapons in non dev squads, and Grey Knights (who I do agree really shouldn't be a separate army but included in some sort of Allies of the Imperium book along with Cult Mechanicus, Inquisition and Assassins.

I would not like to see GK cut. I really dont like em and hate when my cousin plays them.....however......they are stand out enough just like SW to me that they should easily get their own codex.

Otherwise i completely agree with the main dex plus sub dex. The only thing i would want is that the sub dex contains all the rules to play that way you dont have to own both of the sm codexes if you want to play one of the chapters other than ultramarines

so the argument boils down to codexes that people don't care about or that people just don't like playing against.

this is why GW doesn't ask us for our opinion.

Fold the BT rules into the SM codex. There is no reason not to have a variant list in one codex, it is just an arbitrary decision by GW.

Ere We Go was several hundred pages and had several clan lists. That is what a hardback codex should look like, not this thin crap we get now for $50.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
so the argument boils down to codexes that people don't care about or that people just don't like playing against.

this is why GW doesn't ask us for our opinion.

QFT.

For the record, I'd actually like to see maybe one more SM Codex: The Ironhands. I've always assumed their robo-arms made them relentless or have some other special rule unique to them. That and their love of machines means techmarines/dreadnoughts/vehicles in general would play a bigger role...

JWhex wrote:
Fold the BT rules into the SM codex. There is no reason not to have a variant list in one codex, it is just an arbitrary decision by GW.

Ere We Go was several hundred pages and had several clan lists. That is what a hardback codex should look like, not this thin crap we get now for $50.

Templars, unlike a lot of codex marines, have a rather unique order of battle and combat theory. There is no reason for them to be rolled in to the vanilla book.

 schmoozies wrote:
I've long advocated for a two book approach to most of the marine books. Have one core codex for Marines that has all the rules for generic space marines and Ultramarines. Use the Chapter Tactics rule to establish a marine base line.

Than do a second supplement book that features the divergent chapters. Chapter tactics change to reflect the different tactics of each group and you can have a special rule that may swap the locations of certain units in the force org chart (assault marines to troops for BA, Bikes to troops for White Scars etc) a few pages for any units unique to the chapter (Ravenwing for DA, Death Company for BA etc) and characters.

I figure each chapter needs 5 pages of Fluff, 5 pages for characters and 2 for units, plus the appropriate unit entries to match the main codex. You could cover each sub codex in 15-20 pages and wind up with a solid 120 -150 page book covering Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Salamanders, White Scars, Imperial Fists, Iron Hands and Raven Guard. Add Black Templars as a "Crusading" chapter and your good to go.

The only ones who in my mind are structurally different enough to warrant their own books in mind are Space Wolves given their pack structure and tendency to avoid heavy weapons in non dev squads, and Grey Knights (who I do agree really shouldn't be a separate army but included in some sort of Allies of the Imperium book along with Cult Mechanicus, Inquisition and Assassins.

I absolutely agree with this idea. Basically something along the lines of Index Astartes but adding even more rules, army composition requirements and special characters. It could simultaneously add a lot more variety to marines while opening up a ton of studio effort and space in the release schedule for other armies.

Imho both BTs and BAs can be nicely represented by the current Chapter Tactics system (DA probably too if you consider that C:SM gets bikes as Troops already). Just give Captains/Chapter Masters the ability to enable Troops dependent on their equipment like Chaos Lords do already. This would even make Captains way more attractive again.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
so the argument boils down to codexes that people don't care about or that people just don't like playing against.

No, it boils down to the fact that GW is apparently incapable of keeping up a decent update frequency, and having several marine books that are virtually identical is not a good use of their limited resources. When you have armies like Eldar that haven't had an update since 4th edition there's no reason to waste resources on a DA codex that could easily have been replaced by a single page in C:SM without losing anything of any value.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Templars, unlike a lot of codex marines, have a rather unique order of battle and combat theory. There is no reason for them to be rolled in to the vanilla book.

Nonsense. Their entire divergence from C:SM, outside of a few 4th edition relics (like two-per-five terminator heavy weapons) that will not be included in a new codex, consists of two things: their special "charge the enemy when we get shot" rule, and having scouts and tactical squads mixed together. The former is easily given by a single special character in C:SM, while the latter is something nobody cares about. All BT need rules-wise is a single page in C:SM, just like Salamanders/White Scars/etc.

As for the fluff, who cares. Give them a few pages in C:SM just like all the other marine chapters.

I'd wrap em all into codex:Codex astartes and codex:Non codex astartes.

Put the wolves, gk, DA, etc one one side, and the BA, SM, etc on the other

I thought the 3rd edition way of dealing with this worked pretty well (aside from Space Wolves, that is). Have the main Marines book covering your core units and with its own special characters, then release a smaller Codex for separate Chapters containing just the extra units, wargear and special characters, and a couple of army "shake-ups" (like Combat Tactics replacement and Troops rearrangements).

It was a nice compromise. The Chapters felt different, but without having lots of full size Codexes. It would also cut down a bit on development time.

(added) When I say Space Wolves, that's the only one in 3rd set up this way that in my opinion didn't work. It wouldn't do any good for Chaos or Grey Knights in 6th.

I wouldn't cut any. I'd add more as they are big sellers.

Plus add chaos dedicated god ones.

To quote Peregrine: "BA can be replaced with a single "assault squads as troops" character in C:SM"... That totally makes sense. Its not like the Blood Angels have any other unique aspects, like Death Company, Death Company Dreadnoughts, Sanguinary Guard, Sanguinary Priests, Baal Predators, Furioso and Furioso Librarian Dreadnoughts, Red Thirst, all Fast Vehicles (although the last 2 could be from a character). And all Blood Angels players would just love having to always take one character, instead of the 5 or so they have atm, plus the 3 generic choices...

BlackSanguinor wrote:
To quote Peregrine: "BA can be replaced with a single "assault squads as troops" character in C:SM"... That totally makes sense. Its not like the Blood Angels have any other unique aspects, like Death Company, Death Company Dreadnoughts, Sanguinary Guard, Sanguinary Priests, Baal Predators, Furioso and Furioso Librarian Dreadnoughts, Red Thirst, all Fast Vehicles (although the last 2 could be from a character). And all Blood Angels players would just love having to always take one character, instead of the 5 or so they have atm, plus the 3 generic choices...

What's your point? Are these really essential attributes of BA? Or could, for example, death company be represented by C:SM vanguard veterans painted with black armor?

The answer, of course, is no. BA are defined by one thing: assault marines forming the core of the army. The other things are part of this execution of the BA concept, but it's very easy to imagine an alternate universe in which BA never got their own codex, and BA players happily play red-painted C:SM with assault marines as troops and maybe 1-2 special units/characters, just like all of the Salamanders/White Scars/etc happily play C:SM with a single character. And nothing really would be lost, the C:SM-variant BA would be just as fluffy and enjoyable as the current codex.

And this is of course the fundamental problem here: you could easily make dozens of marine chapters, each with a codex full of "unique" units, but you don't need to do that. In fact, GW just did that with the DA codex, turning a codex that had nothing special besides terminators as troops into a full army full of "unique" units. But that's just bad design. It's making new rules just for the sake of having more rules, and I really don't see why every marine chapter needs a dozen new units while non-marine players have to wait years to get even small amounts of attention from GW.

Vanguard Veterans painted black will totally be the same as Death Company!!! And of course the only essential attribute of Blood Angels are the Assault squad troops. It's not like that is more Raven Guard than Blood Angels. I mean everyone knows the Blood Angels don't follow the Codex Astartes at all *sarcasm*. Also your idea might have worked if it was implemented first. However now that Blood Angels have all those other unique aspects, cutting it back like that just wouldn't work. Its established fluff. This might confuse you a bit, but a lot of people play Blood Angels because they like their unique units and the unique flavor of the army, something they won't get with your suggestion. I think a large Space Marine codex could work, however it would have to have several different armies for the more unique chapters, or something like what Super Ready mentioned.

BlackSanguinor wrote:
To quote Peregrine: "BA can be replaced with a single "assault squads as troops" character in C:SM"... That totally makes sense. Its not like the Blood Angels have any other unique aspects, like Death Company, Death Company Dreadnoughts, Sanguinary Guard, Sanguinary Priests, Baal Predators, Furioso and Furioso Librarian Dreadnoughts, Red Thirst, all Fast Vehicles (although the last 2 could be from a character). And all Blood Angels players would just love having to always take one character, instead of the 5 or so they have atm, plus the 3 generic choices...

Give Honour Guard (I mean the C:SM version) the option to take Jumppacks, give Dreads the option to take 2 dccws (Ironclad anyone?), make Apothecaries an IC like it's done with the priests, give Predators the option to take tl acs (This is nothing you need an STC for. And the Preds could really need more options anyway) and make Fast for the Rhino chassis a purchasable upgrade, probably bound to an IC.

I like my DA, but roll em all back, SW aint even unique enough to matter for that.

Right, so then they get Honour Guard with Jump Packs (same) but no Furious Charge, Baal Predators don't have their signature weapon (Flamestorm Cannon) and are in HS, not FA and then BA have to pay more for one of their signatures? Dreads can't get Talons. My point is, its too late to roll back BA. They are too established with enough very different units. Though I do agree the Pred needs more options.

GK and CSM are SM

JWhex had a good point about this. All the chapters referred in the poll have enough character as to have their own background story and particular units and rules. The comeback of the trait system would also help to have a basis to build different chapters beyond the fluff and commanders dependence. A big book with several sections on particular fluff and one big army list with variants and restrictions could perfectly work (c'mon people is not that stupid as to not being able to use such a book). Really, if you get each and every codex referred to in the poll and put their background together, separated in due sections (and striping it of completely excess and superfluous pieces -yes I'm looking at Ward), and you consolidate the army lists incorporating due restrictions and options, you'd get a great book. Of course it would be more expensive, but by spending about 75 $ you'd have the info contained in codexes adding up to 150$ or more.

BlackSanguinor wrote:
Right, so then they get Honour Guard with Jump Packs (same) but no Furious Charge, Baal Predators don't have their signature weapon (Flamestorm Cannon) and are in HS, not FA and then BA have to pay more for one of their signatures? Dreads can't get Talons. My point is, its too late to roll back BA. They are too established with enough very different units. Though I do agree the Pred needs more options.

The signature weapon of the Baal is not the Flamestorm Cannon it was not even there till the plastic kit was released.

What I tried to demonstrate was that it's nowhere near as 'Can't roll them back, too many options already' it's just a matter of the options and in the case of BA and DA it's way more likely that some of these options that make the chapters unique are spread under others chapters as well as there are successors and probably they gifted some of their equipment to other chapters they have good relations to. In the case of BTs and SWs most of the unique stuff is either bound to the Homeworld (Fernisian Wolves) or persistent believe (EC or the SW psy defense (don't have the name in mind right now)) but even then it's debatable if this could not be done by other Chapters as well (Did I just defended Space Wolves? )