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For me, I like that BT have a separate dex. I think they are probably the more divergent than BA, DA, and SW. They are basically Codex: (Post-Nikaea) Space Marine Legion. It feels very "historical" if you take my meaning.

 Redbeard wrote:
Having (or not having) access to a handful of random pieces of kit could also be accomplished through the use of traits or special characters. If you take the Black Templar character, Land Raider Crusaders go from being 0-1 to being 0-3 (or dedicated transports, or whatever).

I'm fine with that. Codex Space Marines, if all of the others are rolled in, would be as big as the rules section of the current rule book!

Also something I'd be fine with.

Could drop the size a little but shifting the majority of the fluff into a separate supplementary book. Something like "Colours and Histories of the Adeptus Astartes" that's a pure fluff tome like the Liber Chaotica (Which, as the sticker on my copy proudly proclaims, won an Ennie).

 Redbeard wrote:
Having (or not having) access to a handful of random pieces of kit could also be accomplished through the use of traits or special characters. If you take the Black Templar character, Land Raider Crusaders go from being 0-1 to being 0-3 (or dedicated transports, or whatever).

Which adds unnecessary complications to a book (the Unified SM codex) that would end up roughly triple its current size. Plus there is no good economic reason to do this SW, BA, DA and GK players like our books and we pay for the privilege of using different books.

If GW had done 1 unified Sm book to begin with no one would have demanded a separate book. However they did flesh it out and now every month or so all the non-SM players come out and complain about it. I get it, we probably do have too many books when realistically back in 3rd they could have all been put together but think about how many units would have to be incorporated now to make this work.

GK Stormravens
Gk Strike squads
Interceptors
Purgation squads
Paladins
Gk Terminators
Purifiers
Henchmen
Baby Carriers
Death company
Baal predators
Sanguinary Guard
Deathwing Knights
Deathwing Command squads
Black Knights
Land Speeder Vengeance
Darkshorud
Darktalon
Nephilim
Deathwing Terminators
Ravenwing Attack squads (or you could give all marine bikers hit and run)
Grey Hunters
Long Fangs
Wolf scouts
Blood Claws
Thunderwolf cavalry
Fenrisian Wolves
Lone Wolves
Whatever the hell BT mixed squads are called.
Sword Brethern


Now in my personal opinion BT should go just so that their fans can stop suffering if you aren't going to release a book just let them back in to Codex: Space Marines.

But if they did condense all the sm into one book, GW could then have a £50 space marine book and we'd all have to buy it.
I like the individual dex's - it means I can just buy the rules I want for cheaper.

PredaKhaine wrote:
But if they did condense all the sm into one book, GW could then have a £50 space marine book and we'd all have to buy it.
I like the individual dex's - it means I can just buy the rules I want for cheaper.

Think about it with a book that would ba lot larger and a lot more expensive.

Even if a condensed SM book cost 75USD, that'd be awesome savings compared to the current 50USD for one codex.

 captain collius wrote:

Which adds unnecessary complications to a book (the Unified SM codex) that would end up roughly triple its current size.

I think you over-estimate how many alternate units really exist (and I'm not including GK, as they really are a different organizational structure). On the other hand, one book of triple the size is preferable than printing the same material 5 times over.

Plus there is no good economic reason to do this SW, BA, DA and GK players like our books and we pay for the privilege of using different books.

"Pay for"? If you mean in cash, you're saying that you should use a different codex because you paid for one. But you paid for one because it's currently released as a separate one. This is circular reasoning. If they changed it so that all marine books were consolidated into one, then you would no longer have paid for the different one.

On the other hand, if you mean you pay for it in points, well, that's kind of the issue, isn't it. The game isn't balanced when one codex pays 200 points for the identical models that a different codex pays 150 for.

... but think about how many units would have to be incorporated now to make this work.

Okay, but I'll cut out the GK one, as I don't think they belong in a unified codex.

Sanguinary Guard
Deathwing Knights
Thunderwolf cavalry
Black Knights
Nephilim
Land Speeder Vengeance
Darktalon
Darkshorud

If the argument is that you should get a unique book because of tradition, then Sanguinary Guard, Deathwing Knights and Thunderwolf Cav, fail this argument as these aren't traditional units, but very new introductions. There's no reason these shouldn't be more widely available to all astartes.

Baal predators
Deathwing Terminators
Deathwing Command squads
Ravenwing Attack squads (or you could give all marine bikers hit and run)
Grey Hunters
Long Fangs
Sword Brethern
Whatever the hell BT mixed squads are called.

These are all nothing but glorified, renamed versions of codex marine entries. Deathwing Terminators do not need to be more special than anyone else's terminators, Ravenwing need not be different than other bikers, and Long Fangs need not be different than Devastators. These are the exact units that should be standardized for game balance reasons. Really, no other techmarine in the entire Imperium could figure out how to mount an assault cannon on a predator turret?

Death company
Wolf scouts
Blood Claws
Lone Wolves
Fenrisian Wolves

Ideal examples of units that could be unlocked with a special character. If you take the right Chaplain, you unlock the ability to take a death company unit, and so on. If you take wolf-rider guy, you can take fenrisian wolf squads.

 Manchu wrote:
Even if a condensed SM book cost 75USD, that'd be awesome savings compared to the current 50USD for one codex.

It's only a saving if you're planning on using all the special rule to make something from every chapter. If you're just using the bits you need, then you're being overcharged. I think the start up price cost would be enough to put people of playing space marines. Unless you made a Xeno dex and a chaos/demon dex for the same cost and gave people hobsons choice when it came to buying rules.
I know a lot of people that were put off by paying £70 for the heresy book - If the marine codex went up to that price, it would have a massive negative effect on the game, as most people seem to get marines first (though the starter sets like DV etc)

PredaKhaine wrote:
If you're just using the bits you need, then you're being overcharged.

We're talking about a scenario where you pay $25 more for ~$200 more content. Plus, with regard to the allies rules, you could use everything in the book. I don't know if that extra $25 is really that big of a barrier -- especially considering people are already spending $75 on the BGB. I think a $75 "BSMB" would sell.

Just as there is only One Csm codex there should be only One SM codex.

The CSM legions are far more diverse than the SM.

 Manchu wrote:

PredaKhaine wrote:
If you're just using the bits you need, then you're being overcharged.

We're talking about a scenario where you pay $25 more for ~$200 more content. Plus, with regard to the allies rules, you could use everything in the book. I don't know if that extra $25 is really that big of a barrier -- especially considering people are already spending $75 on the BGB. I think a $75 "BSMB" would sell.

Fair enough - if it was $25 more expensive, it wouldn't be that bad and I'd pay.

The cynical side of me thinks it would be more like $100 for the book.

Whenever I hear a SM player arguing for their special flower of a chapter needing its own dex I simply point to the imperial guard codex. Whether I model my guys as cadians, catatachan, steel legion, etc. they are still the same stat line and are given more of a fluffy feel by characters.

This needs to happen for SMs as DAs and BAs are just codex chapters with a few quirks, SWs can easily be fielded in a codex chapter with special rules, and BTs, well GW needs to figure out if they are a special snowflake chapter to begin with. One unified codex is plenty.

Another option I've heard is just combine all non codex space marine chapters into a book and call it "chapters of legend" or something similar and devote 5-10 pages for units, rules, fluff for any chapter GWs deems snowflake worthy.

 Redbeard wrote:
Many thing being snipped to save everyones time in havign to go through it all

All that you are telling me is "I'm going to throw my toys out of pram because i don't like the way things are."

Those unique units if they were widely available would make for some absolutely ridiculous combos.

Thos glorified renamed units all have special rules which cause them to operate differently. What you are saying is that long fangs are the same thing as Devestators they are not. That is the equivalent of say kabalites are the same thing as guardians. Its just not true.

So lets make these units only appear when you take a special character. Hello most everyone dislikes that. I would rather be able to take a generic DA Company Master put him in terminator armor and have him unlock Deathwing.

Also yes i was refering to the cost of the book because it is now $50/ 30 pounds for a codex if it goes up to $100 you won't see most new players buy it it will just be too expensive.

PredaKhaine wrote:
The cynical side of me thinks it would be more like $100 for the book.

The cynical side of you is being very generous to GW!

AL-PiXeL01 wrote:Just as there is only One Csm codex there should be only One SM codex.
The CSM legions are far more diverse than the SM.

Not to mention the many different Imperial Guard regiments.

In my opinion, there should be the following:
- C:SM
- C:CSM
- C:GK
... and that's it.

Narrowing it down to the above would bring the advantages of easier balancing between the armies as well as shorter release schedules for everyone. GW could then still release small "add-on" articles on different Chapters providing special rules and make them available as PDF and/or White Dwarf articles, just like they did with Codex: Catachans. The vanilla Marine 'dex could also bring back the rules for creating custom Chapters with a selection of special rules to pick from, like it already existed in 4E, with the known Chapters simply featuring a specific combination of them thus making homebrewn Chapters just as fun and successful to play as the newest named Chapter 'dex.
This is something that I feel should be available to CSM and IG, too (the Guard had doctrines once).

Of course, none of that is ever likely to happen. They sell too well, as much as the rest of the franchise may suffer from it.

 Manchu wrote:
I think a $75 "BSMB" would sell.

Being a true son of Slaanesh, I approve of this book.

Oh wait ... wrong letters

You're thinking of the right letters for 40k generally, however.

 captain collius wrote:

All that you are telling me is "I'm going to throw my toys out of pram because i don't like the way things are."

I don't think I said this at all.

Those unique units if they were widely available would make for some absolutely ridiculous combos.

I note the complete lack of examples.

Thos glorified renamed units all have special rules which cause them to operate differently. What you are saying is that long fangs are the same thing as Devestators they are not. That is the equivalent of say kabalites are the same thing as guardians. Its just not true.

Right, Long Fangs can split their fire, and no one else can. I think they're the only unit in the entire game that can, and, what's more, they don't even pay a premium to do this. They're unbalanced because they're super-special and not treated like the devastators they should be. They're power-armour guys who sit in the backfield and shoot heavy weapons, and to deny this and pretend that they're anything more than that is either being naive or deliberately misleading. More than any other unit in the game, they're why all marines should be drawing from a unified list, not re-writing the wheel for every colour of armour they can think up.

 Lynata wrote:

AL-PiXeL01 wrote:Just as there is only One Csm codex there should be only One SM codex.
The CSM legions are far more diverse than the SM.

Not to mention the many different Imperial Guard regiments.

In my opinion, there should be the following:
- C:SM
- C:CSM
- C:GK
... and that's it.

Narrowing it down to the above would bring the advantages of easier balancing between the armies as well as shorter release schedules for everyone. GW could then still release small "add-on" articles on different Chapters providing special rules and make them available as PDF and/or White Dwarf articles, just like they did with Codex: Catachans. The vanilla Marine 'dex could also bring back the rules for creating custom Chapters with a selection of special rules to pick from, like it already existed in 4E, with the known Chapters simply featuring a specific combination of them thus making homebrewn Chapters just as fun and successful to play as the newest named Chapter 'dex.
This is something that I feel should be available to CSM and IG, too (the Guard had doctrines once).

Of course, none of that is ever likely to happen. They sell too well, as much as the rest of the franchise may suffer from it.

That would be nice, although I don't think a GK one is necessary on its own, I know certain aspects of the Inquisition have changed over the years, but wouldn't that have been an idea or maybe something along its lines. That way Sisters would be kept up to date nicely, you could have the assassins all in the book, Deatwatch etc.

I really hope that start to do stuff with White Dwarf again, I can't bear to buy it as it is currently.

 Manchu wrote:
You're thinking of the right letters for 40k generally, however.

Blue squidgy marine book, yep

 Redbeard wrote:

 captain collius wrote:

All that you are telling me is "I'm going to throw my toys out of pram because i don't like the way things are."

I don't think I said this at all.

No that is the attitude you are projecting.

 Redbeard wrote:

 captain collius wrote:

Those unique units if they were widely available would make for some absolutely ridiculous combos.

I note the complete lack of examples.

Mixing Deathwing with thunderwolves. Sanguinary guard with long fangs. Etcetera

 Redbeard wrote:

 captain collius wrote:

Those glorified renamed units all have special rules which cause them to operate differently. What you are saying is that long fangs are the same thing as Devestators they are not. That is the equivalent of say kabalites are the same thing as guardians. Its just not true.

Right, Long Fangs can split their fire, and no one else can. I think they're the only unit in the entire game that can, and, what's more, they don't even pay a premium to do this. They're unbalanced because they're super-special and not treated like the devastators they should be. They're power-armour guys who sit in the backfield and shoot heavy weapons, and to deny this and pretend that they're anything more than that is either being naive or deliberately misleading. More than any other unit in the game, they're why all marines should be drawing from a unified list, not re-writing the wheel for every colour of armour they can think up.

I will admit LF's are under costed however a single helldrake tends to ruin their day. More importantly Deathwing have 3 usr that regular Terminators do not. Longfangs have a usr that others do not.

As far as biker go i wouldn't mind them giving all marine bikers hit and run.

Also it seems that your entire argument is based around you opinion rather than fact.

Fact:

Marines make up half the army books.

Marines are the most common army you will see.

Marines are the best selling items.

WHy would you kill the golden goose.

 kronk wrote:
I have 10,000 points of painted Black Templars, including a pair of super heavy tanks. It was my first army, and it will be the army I continue to add to until I can't paint anymore.

I love the lore of the Black Templars. I loved our old codex (until the most recent FAQs). I love the book Helsreach by AD-B. You can say I'm a fan, I think.

All of that said, I have no problem with them rolling my Templars back into the Codex:Space Marines. The Blood Angels have taken the role as the "crazy assault army" and are faster than the Templars will ever be. The Space Wolves are more "shooty" than the Templars are, even though you can build some shooting focused Templar lists. The Dark Angels can drop down more terminators, bikes, or speeders than the Templars can hope to field. Both DA and BA are "Chaplain rich", which I always thought was the Black Templar thing.

Khorne and Space Wolves are better anti-psychers than they'll ever be.

What niche is left for them? Mixed PA and Scout squads? 20-man assault squads? The Emperor's Champion's Vows? What?

We can all argue which is the more Codex-Divergent between the Black Templars and Space Wolves until we're blue in the face, but what's the point? If they're rolled into the Codex: Space Marines, we'll at least get an update every edition. That's a fair trade off!

As for Chaos Space Marines, I would like to see a codex for the original legions and one for renegade space marines that haven't fallen to Chaos. The Legion book could have Terminator and PA rules and units for each legion, be crammed with special characters, and so on. The Renegade Book could have...dunno. Perhaps just use the Codex: Space Marines for Renegades or something. Perhaps that's a bad idea.

Agreed, except for the following points:

Templars could claim the Drop Pod niche. It'd even be fluffy.

I don't want GW rolling BT into the Vanilla Codex because I've yet to see a good suggestion for how to make it happen aside from "add Special Characters hurr!". After the treasure-trove of missed opportunities that is the CSM Codex, I'm sceptical.



On a closing note, why is it that Space Wolves are often considered too divergent and Templars aren't? They've got pretty similar divergences, after all.

I think that they could easily combine everything into one bigger SM codex. There is not so many different models between each of the codexes - just different rules/configurations.

They could then just add army rules for them - like if you run them as Dark Angels - you get X, Y, Z and T unit costs +/- D. Could even mark a unit as only taeable in an army with W rule or something....

In all honesty - it is not something that would happen - cause you would have to only buy one dex and all the models are slightly different...but...it is what it is

 Redbeard wrote:

Right, Long Fangs can split their fire, and no one else can. I think they're the only unit in the entire game that can, and, what's more, they don't even pay a premium to do this. They're unbalanced because they're super-special and not treated like the devastators they should be. They're power-armour guys who sit in the backfield and shoot heavy weapons, and to deny this and pretend that they're anything more than that is either being naive or deliberately misleading. More than any other unit in the game, they're why all marines should be drawing from a unified list, not re-writing the wheel for every colour of armour they can think up.

Long Fangs have no ablative wounds to soak-up casulties, they will almost certainly lose their 'split fire' rule as soon as you kill the first guy in the squad (because it will be the Pack Leader), AND they provide the only infantry-carried heavy weapons for the entire army!
They also lose out on Combat Tactics & the Signum and instead gain Counter-attack, Acute Senses and a ccw.

Devastators on the otherhand can still effectively 'split fire', (go-go-gaget combat squads!), which btw cannot be nullified with a single casulty. They also get ablaitive wounds making it harder to pick-off the big guns AND their squad leader gets to give one model BS5.
While they're not as good in assaults as Long Fangs, Devs also can't be locked in combat, (thanks to Combat Tactics) and they maintain their heavy fire far more effectively than 'Fangs due to those 5-6 ablaitive wounds the bolter chumpies provide.

The only problem right now between the two are that C:SM Devs are over-costed while Long Fangs' weapon upgrades are under-costed.
If Long Fangs for example had to pay 15pts/rocket launcher like SM's/DA's currently do, then there would be a helluva lot less constant bing about them.



All marines drawing from a single book would simply put us back into the dark ages of ungodly cheesed-out BS like we saw with the 4th ed codex. (ie: all those Ultrasmurfs with tank-hunting IF-trained Devs who also served time as infiltrating Blood Ravens just because you could... )

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

Right, Long Fangs can split their fire, and no one else can. I think they're the only unit in the entire game that can, and, what's more, they don't even pay a premium to do this. They're unbalanced because they're super-special and not treated like the devastators they should be. They're power-armour guys who sit in the backfield and shoot heavy weapons, and to deny this and pretend that they're anything more than that is either being naive or deliberately misleading. More than any other unit in the game, they're why all marines should be drawing from a unified list, not re-writing the wheel for every colour of armour they can think up.

Long Fangs have no ablative wounds to soak-up casulties, they will almost certainly lose their 'split fire' rule as soon as you kill the first guy in the squad (because it will be the Pack Leader), AND they provide the only infantry-carried heavy weapons for the entire army!
They also lose out on Combat Tactics & the Signum and instead gain Counter-attack, Acute Senses and a ccw.

Devastators on the otherhand can still effectively 'split fire', (go-go-gaget combat squads!), which btw cannot be nullified with a single casulty. They also get ablaitive wounds making it harder to pick-off the big guns AND their squad leader gets to give one model BS5.
While they're not as good in assaults as Long Fangs, Devs also can't be locked in combat, (thanks to Combat Tactics) and they maintain their heavy fire far more effectively than 'Fangs due to those 5-6 ablaitive wounds the bolter chumpies provide.

The only problem right now between the two are that C:SM Devs are over-costed while Long Fangs' weapon upgrades are under-costed.
If Long Fangs for example had to pay 15pts/rocket launcher like SM's/DA's currently do, then there would be a helluva lot less constant bing about them.



All marines drawing from a single book would simply put us back into the dark ages of ungodly cheesed-out BS like we saw with the 4th ed codex. (ie: all those Ultrasmurfs with tank-hunting IF-trained Devs who also served time as infiltrating Blood Ravens just because you could... )

Not if the rules were much simpler and mutually exclusive.

I.e. Armies led by a captain marked as 'Blood Successor' may take the following but may not take the following.

For each divergent chapter, they can have their special tag. Heck, there's a big page for the marks of the chaos gods in C:CSM.

I think they should scrap them all, put all Chapters in one large 2-3" giant codex charge $135 for it and call it a day. Have a small 4-5 page section for every chapter. Concentrate on a little fluff for those fluff addicts, have several chapter symbols players can choose from ie FW but on a larger scale available and be done. And have 1 or 2 Characters available from said Chapters. Not everyone is a BA,DA,BT,SW, or GK player. Expand into some of the 2nd and 3rd tier chapters and I think they would have more success. I'm a huge Blood Raven fan but there is little to go on in the dex more so from the video game.

Rustgob wrote:

Not if the rules were much simpler and mutually exclusive.

I.e. Armies led by a captain marked as 'Blood Successor' may take the following but may not take the following.

For each divergent chapter, they can have their special tag. Heck, there's a big page for the marks of the chaos gods in C:CSM.

The sheer amount of rules exclusions & exceptions you'd need to prevent the supreme douchbaggery a single marine 'dex would be capable of would require a secondary book in it's own right!

captain collius wrote:
Mixing Deathwing with thunderwolves. Sanguinary guard with long fangs. Etcetera

I fail to see how either of these are horrendously unbalanced. If you simply mean picking the most underpriced units from each codex and using them, then yes, that would happen (it happens with all other books, right) - of course, you can run some of the combos you mention simply by using allies too, so I'm not entirely sure what the big change here would be.

More importantly Deathwing have 3 usr that regular Terminators do not. Longfangs have a usr that others do not.

Okay. Should they? Why, exactly, are Deathwing terminators better trained than Ultramarine's First Company terminators? Doesn't make sense. What's more, let's say I want to play an Ultramarine 1st Company army. What codex do you think I'd have to use to do that today? Oh, the Dark Angel one. So, in reality, my theoretical Ultramarine First Company terminators already have those three USRs too.

Also it seems that your entire argument is based around you opinion rather than fact.

Yes. The title of this thread is "which if any SM codex of codices would you cut?" - responded which ones I would cut, and what my reasoning is. That's kind of the question that has been asked.

Fact:

Marines make up half the army books.

Marines are the most common army you will see.

Marines are the best selling items.

WHy would you kill the golden goose.

Are you trying to be comical, or is it unintentional? You really think Marines would sell worse if they had unified rules? You really think that people would stop making new marine armies if they had unified rules? And, are you actually arguing that it's a good thing that marines are the most common army and make up half the books? Maybe, marines are the best selling because they're pushed the hardest, because they get five releases to every other army's one. If GW released as many IG armies, don't you think they'd get a larger market share?

You're describing a chicken-egg scenario, and there's no implied causality between any of the facts that you presented.

Experiment 626 wrote:
All marines drawing from a single book would simply put us back into the dark ages of ungodly cheesed-out BS like we saw with the 4th ed codex. (ie: all those Ultrasmurfs with tank-hunting IF-trained Devs who also served time as infiltrating Blood Ravens just because you could... )

As opposed to the enlightened glorious days we have now, where people glue goat heads onto generic marine bodies and have them switching to whatever the codex of the moment that gives them the best rules is? Adjusting traits is no better or worse than codex-hopping with the generic marines.

Only the Grey Knights are unique enough to truly warrant their own codex. Everything else is just re-hashing the same army over and over with a different color. GW should release a supplement or release Chapter armies in WD. No need for 40k to get bogged down by one MEQ release after another.

Everyone else (including CSM) are fine.

I think GW should go back to the 3rd edition method of space marine codexes and have one main book with a supplement book (which only cost £4 at the time!) for each variant like blood angels, space wolves etc.

This could easily be done and would stop the same information being printed in 4 or more different places (as each book would say to refer to the main book for a units rules unless there is a change i.e. space wolves have grey hunters instead of tactical marines).

To me, this would make far more sense than having several different marine codexes for armies that are not that different from the norm (codex sm) and therefore do not warrant a seperate full sized book. All they would need would be the main sm book plus their mini book for their unique rules, units, psychic powers and wargear.

The only exception to this would be grey knights imo as they don't field much of what is in codex sm. But those guys should go back to being one or two units available as allies to the Imperium armies.

This method would then ensure that all versions of identical units are priced the same (e.g. devastators/long fangs heavy weapons) and that every army gets updated in every edition (unlike the 2 edition old eldar, tau and templar codexes).

While we are at it, I would also fold chaos daemons and csm into the same codex and just call it codex:chaos. Sure it would be a big codex, but I doubt chaos players would complain. I would also include a few pages of unique rules and units for each Traitor Legion (which would refer to the main CSM rules unless there was a difference).

Of course, this is pure conjecture as GW will never do it again.


More marine codexes (which require more unique units to pad the books out) = more marine armies.

More marine armies = more sales = more profit for GW.