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I can see where people are coming from on both sides of the argument.

If you don't play one of those chapters, and you have been waiting forever for a codex update (Eldar, and Tau, and until they got theirs necrons players had this issue), it's easy to say "well they are close enough, just roll them in together, so I can get my new codex faster!".

If you do play one of these chapters, (as I will admit I play DA), it's a little harder to agree with that. After all, I have played both DA and C:SM for a really long time, and feel there is more difference than just "terminators and/or bikes as troops".

Having something like a codex in addition to C:SM for some chapters could work. Something like the old book they had for BA and DA, Angels of death, if I recall correctly (I swear I had it here somewhere). It would work better if that book were to be stand alone however, as having something like a mini dex add on I feel wouldn't do them justice. The problem then becomes a few things.

How many codex variants can we cram into one book. We don't want to invalidate people's armies. I spent a lot of time and money building my army, and I don't want any of my units to no longer be playable. I could see at max cramming DA, BA, and BT into one book.

Another is, I just bought my new DA book. If they did this any time soon, that would be a wasted $60 for me, plus the time and money building my army to fit the new dex. The BA dex is still fairly recent as well. They could just wait a long enough time until these codex need an update, and do them both at once, and it could work... maybe.

Cramming all them back into one codex just couldn't work, imho. The armies function too differently now. And simply saying "add a character that lets you take unit x as troops" doesn't really do justice to the rest of my armies. I play DA, but rarely do I field an army of terminators, as I prefer the synergy of DW and RW together. I like the more subtle differences. It's already annoying to have to take a named character to take bikes as troops, I don't want to have to take one to play my army at all.

*warning, the following paragraph contains some extremism, and does not reflect the views of the poster*
As far as just making the codex bigger to accommodate all the different rules, and just letting marine players foot the bill, well why don't we just do that with everyone then. Stuff Demons back into the C:CSM dex. Put Eldar and Dark eldar into one dex simply seperated buy fluff and units. Heck the argument could go on and on until it worked out that we just had two mega dexes. Who cares about fluff, I just want my dex updated faster, forget everyone else. Lets just have one big $200 dex for IoM, and another $200 one for xenos. Then everyone would get their book updated every two years. Obviously this is an exaggeration, but I mean it could be done. Would I like it, no, and I doubt many others would.

Even if they crammed the books into a smaller number, or even one big book, it would take longer to develop and balance. It's not as if cramming all that stuff together, sprinkling some special named characters unlocking certain units/rules/combos/ect, and printing it, is going to be much easier and take that much less time. A codex that large and complex would probably eat up two or more codex windows anyway. Would that really speed up the release of that one other codex enough to warrant the massive overhaul to the multiple armies? Then imagine they broke a few tings in that massive codex. God forbid matt ward write that mega dex, and it ends up really broken. Then you end up with super SM, DA, BT, and BA, and you have to wait until all the other codex are updated until that gets fixed. It would be much worse than just one army, for example Necrons (not saying I believe they are super OP, but I think many people would agree they are a bit over the top) being off, than a combination of four of arguably the most popular armies being broken.

Right now, to me at least, it seems GW is putting out new codex more often. Maybe in the next few years this won't be an issue. It seems this topic comes up every time a new marine codex comes out and someone else was hoping they would get their new codex instead.

Would I have them remove a few marine codex, probably not. Even talking this over many times with my many friends who don't play marines, including my necron friend before their new codex, and my tau friend last month, we all agreed it would be a bad idea. The core problem really is GW release schedule. At the same time, I think it would be awesome if they added another xenos race or two, but that's just me.

Well that's my two cents, of course YMMV.

The number of chapters are fine. Each chapter has its own unique traits.

If I had to pick one I would say Black Templars because many chapters have taken stuff from them that used to be unique to them. However that can easily be fixed with a new codex.

I could easily see GW in the future making all the other Marined Codices supplemental, in which they have their unique rules and characters, but don't include anything that is shared with the vanilla marines, so that you have to but the Vanilla codex as well. Would make them more money, and piss off much of the fanbase, but then when has that stopped them?

 Redbeard wrote:

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.

Codex-hopping happens simply because of power-creep.

I can almost asure you that if for example, a SW 'update' were released that does say;
- GH's increase in cost by 1pt/model
- Bloodclaws decrease in cost by -1pt/model
- Long Fang missile launchers cost 15pts each
You'd see alot fewer people simply playing 'counts as' because suddenly the 3 biggest costing issues aren't nearly as skewed.

Same goes for everyone who jumped to the BA bandwagon when they hit. If you fix the Assault Squad by removing the Melta/Plasma gun options which were utterly unnessessary to begin with and reduce the discount on their 'Fast' transport for removing Jump Packs, suddenly they're not an instant no-brainer that gets further buffed by scouting Baal Preds and army-wide FnP.


It's a helluva lot easier to fix under/over-costing issues across multiple books than it is to even try and concievibly balance a giant- tome the size of the BRB that has to somehow represent every single Chapter.
Traits sucked because there was no way to balance them properly while still giving players the chance to customize their army/chapter.

Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Black Templars could easily be represented with some minor options in the basic codex.

However, there's no way that happens, lol. Too much money to be made selling multiple books.

pwntallica- good stuff and agreed with a lot of the things you wrote.

Now on to my Problems with this theory, like pwntallica said its easy to think this is a good idea if you're not a player of one of the armies in question. First off some of the very people complaining would be furious if they rolled say the Eldar (my second army so I know) and DE together and used the same models and just said well paint them a different color and its ok BAM different unit.

Second Even if they could do this and do it well , and by well I mean not just one HQ choice for a chapter and a unit choice.... actually do it well so when you buy a C:SM you get a ton of choices to roll with. Even if they could do it there comes issues such as

1. The Codex being priced beyond belief
2. the Complaints that GW is price gouging again and making you pay for codex parts you don't wanna play
3. Armies look different BA have a very distinct look so do GK and DA and BT, So solution they sell bits boxes separately to "customize" your look
4. option 3 leads to complaints that GW is Price gouging again (these bits boxes wouldn't come cheap I'm sure)
5. with everyone having access to all SM chapters the strongest one would likely ALWAYS get played at tourneys etc. leading to even more SM Cheese complaints

I'm not against GW placing some good open choices to customize chapters so theres variety ( might make me buy a C:SM myself just to have some fun with) but there are larger flaws than "just throw em together" also add on that as was said GW seems to be putting out codexs at a pretty quick and balanced rate which basically fixes the original reason a lot of players would even want this done!

While the two-book approach seems like a good idea, I'd go more along the lines of VtM -- one core book for SM, then individual chapter books that define what's different. It's a waste of paper to have the same Tac squads in every book, but it's also a waste of paper to have all the chapters rolled into a single book, where a player may only want one or two chapters.

The only problem I see in the current format is that there's too much inconsistency-in-what-should-be-redundancy. Why do my DA marines cost less than C:SM marines, etc. Yeah, there are fluffy reasons for it, but mechanically it makes no difference, and could probably be summed up in a few lines in the DA 'dex, preceded by "For unit costs, see Codex: Space Marine."

All that said, it's REALLY nice to have everything I need for my single army in one book -- especially with the new format, with the foldouts 'n all that. The more we try to simplify-than-customize, the more we'll end up like a game of D&D, where to play your character you need to have seven books open in front of you. "Oh, crap, which book were the rules for this particular unit in?..."

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Black Templars could easily be represented with some minor options in the basic codex.

However, there's no way that happens, lol. Too much money to be made selling multiple books.

Pray tell, what would those minor options be?

While I'm in favour of rolling all the SM into one dex, I'm not sure it would be a good idea for new players. There's already a lot of confusing information out there, and with so many options in what would clearly be the most popular codex, it could stop even more people from joining the hobby. Something that I'm most definitely against.

When my baby brother saw my codices, he was drawn to the one with sullen men walking in snow, clad with wolf pelts. Not the one with anonymous space marine #443 shooting. Different people like different things, and one book cannot portray that inside there is the potential for multiple flavours of elite army. I think that the combining of the books would be a poor marketing choice for GW, and thus is highly unlikely to happen.

Wouldn't cut anything.

....sure we could axe everything and consolidate it into " The Imperium of Man" and " Adversaries of the IoM " ...

But:
1. GW seems to speed up already. Evidence : release rumors. See News&Rumors.
2. its always up to the company to enlist personal to get it done. The amount of codices isn't stopping them...
3. GW is about minis. They push minis at you if you enter a store..not rules. They like to add to the model line. Fliers and MC: neccessary by rules or nice to have as models?
4. multiple codices using one basic model, the compatible line of power armor / TDA etc saves a lot of time and effort. Compared to dozens of different IG uniforms, or multitudes of really alien looking xenos, the easy to achieve release from time to time isn't going away.
5. the major flaw in these threads: a codex preventing another one . Who knows how many hours are spent at each 5th ed release? Maybe GW could axe optional stuff like "death from the skiies" or one off boxes like "dreadfleet", outsource the "Tolkien-verse" line or axe it too.

6. I don't want a complicated tome, something expensive and with a "finedetailed" manual just to understand how it shall be applied.
7. I've seen the threads at a new edition/codex and thus agree we need it clearly written and almost self-explanatory in layout.
8. some people are too fond of special characters. Maybe just until they become mandatory for their army to be " that ork klan" or "from this craftworld", or "a member of the xyz sept" or that "cron dynasty" etc pp.
9. Can I have Index Astartes back? I mean the poor IH got last time a single painted mini and thats all...

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
I could easily see GW in the future making all the other Marined Codices supplemental, in which they have their unique rules and characters, but don't include anything that is shared with the vanilla marines, so that you have to but the Vanilla codex as well. Would make them more money, and piss off much of the fanbase, but then when has that stopped them?

I don't see this at all. I think GW is going to drop armies in the future (SoB) and replace them with more MEQ's, such as Imperial Fists/White Scars/whatever.

Codex: Adeptus Astartes.

Include every unit all chapters can take but reduce the amount of chapter specific stuff.

Furioso dreads, Iron Clads, ect can all be under one entry... Dreadnought. Give all the upgrades or maybe make upgrade packs.

Vanguard Vets, Sternguard, Honour Guard, Death Company, Sword Bretheren could just be called Veterans.

Terminators should just be alloowed to kit themselves as they please.

Characters would determine the FOC.

Chapter traits would define everything. Example:

Blood Angels Chapter: May use X, Y and Z characters.May take X, Y, Z as troops, may take X, Y, Z as Elites... ect.

I don't see what makes all the different chapters so unique.

Sanguinary Guard? You mean Vanguard with artificer armour and a wrist mounted gun?

Furioso Dread? You mean a Dread with 2 CCW?

Templar Squad with scouts? You mean the reason Crusaders have a larger transport capacity?

I love it when this thread pops up every month, and BT gets trashed every time. Never seen one started by a mod though.

Keep all the books, or roll them all up. You dont like BT? Get over it. Theyve got the oldest book what do you expect? Go buy your overpowered cheese army, or your new shiny bandwagon dex, and dump your time and money and love into it. Its no different from what Templar players are doing, only we stick by our guns because we love the fluff and the tactics. The only difference here is that you guys got updates, we didnt, and GW can suck it.

Now back to our regularly scheduled flame poll, with generous helpings of "My toys are better than yours, your toys are pointless".

It is not about people not liking BT. I certainly like them. I just think that ultimately it would be better to have one big, flexible, regularly updated codex, than several inflexible ones that can go editions without an update.

I voted Black Templars. I just don't see the point of these guys. I don't see what sets them apart. The fact they're fanatical? What Space Marine or for that fact Imperial isn't?

 Crimson wrote:
regularly updated codex

Isn't that something of an oxymoron? I doubt having all the info in one book would change regular updates at all... it would just be a 4-year gap, like editions. In 2012, we got 6e, so in 2014 we'd get the next edition of Space Marine OmniDex, then in 2016 we'd get 7e, and 2018 we'd get the following OmniDex edition. Of course, we wouldn't KNOW it was coming, but we'd "know."

So, every 2 years the entire meta, worldwide, would change because every MEQ player would have to relearn rules for their army.

And to keep their regular sales going, they'll release the updated 'dex with a fistful of units without models, and then another Chapterhouse would jump in to fill that void and GW would sue the pants off them.

Having a single book doesn't significantly change the amount of information that needs to be updated, and seems like it would actually cause more of a logistical headache.

I voted all the weird niche chapters, just have CSM vs C:SM or flesh the traitors out with something similar.

 d3m01iti0n wrote:
I love it when this thread pops up every month, and BT gets trashed every time. Never seen one started by a mod though.

Keep all the books, or roll them all up. You dont like BT? Get over it. Theyve got the oldest book what do you expect? Go buy your overpowered cheese army, or your new shiny bandwagon dex, and dump your time and money and love into it. Its no different from what Templar players are doing, only we stick by our guns because we love the fluff and the tactics. The only difference here is that you guys got updates, we didnt, and GW can suck it.

Now back to our regularly scheduled flame poll, with generous helpings of "My toys are better than yours, your toys are pointless".

But wouldn't it be awesome if you could have Predators with twin-linked assault cannons to go with your Land Raider Crusaders, thematically?

The smart people in this thread aren't saying "Get rid of Black Templars!", we're saying, "Make it so the options for Black Templars are in the Space Marine codex."

The problem with the current codex system is that it locks people into thinking "Only Black Templars train their scouts one on one" or "Only blood angels treat land raiders as APCs" or "Only Space Wolves make devastator squads out of veterans instead of newbies".

It really stifles creativity and the ability for players to design their own chapter fluff, which is the whole point of the Second+ Foundings. With out creativity, they may as well still be Legions.

I find it funny that a second founding chapter like Black Templars, when the Iron Fists (their founding Chapter) does not even have a codex. I think one book with separate chapters and army lists could be done in 1 book for all of them except the Gray Knights as I think that they are different enough. Though on that note I think that the inquisition, Gray Knights and Sisters of Battle could share a codex. But then GW would not be able to make as much money with their hard cover Codexes and special edition $90 codexes

Why on earth should Sisters share a codex with Grey Knights and the Inquisition? The only link is that the Ordo Hereticus and the Sisters are both tasked to keep an eye on the Ecclesiarchy to search for corruption.

SW, GK, and BA though have very different play styles. BA have baal predators, death company, special dreads, etc. SW does not focus on flyers, but instead has a focus on infantry. GK has psychic users, wields force weapons, and carries storm bolters. Playing these is like playing Ken, Ryu, and Sagat in street fighter. Sure they have the same basic moves, but they play very differently.

BT does not have any noticable units that cannot be folded into C:SM. They are 'Ken with a few tweaks'.
They have scouts that can join TAC squads, they have a special emperors champion, and trade in combat tactics for rushing into the jaws of oblivion. That's all they need.
They can easily be folded into C:SM

 Furyou Miko wrote:


The smart people in this thread aren't saying "Get rid of Black Templars!", we're saying, "Make it so the options for Black Templars are in the Space Marine codex."

With out creativity, they may as well still be Legions.

Smart people wouldn't try to alter BT until they are black painted UM...
Smart people would realize GW aims for models, not rules. GW wants a place to fit a new box in. A release, a codex. This " omni-dex" would stay the same and include just everything. Zero holes to fit new shinys in.

Legions. BT still crusade.

Matney X wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
regularly updated codex

Isn't that something of an oxymoron? I doubt having all the info in one book would change regular updates at all... it would just be a 4-year gap, like editions. In 2012, we got 6e, so in 2014 we'd get the next edition of Space Marine OmniDex, then in 2016 we'd get 7e, and 2018 we'd get the following OmniDex edition. Of course, we wouldn't KNOW it was coming, but we'd "know."

Yes, there would be a new dex in every edition. That's the whole point. How old is the current BT dex now exactly?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

But wouldn't it be awesome if you could have Predators with twin-linked assault cannons to go with your Land Raider Crusaders, thematically?

The smart people in this thread aren't saying "Get rid of Black Templars!", we're saying, "Make it so the options for Black Templars are in the Space Marine codex."

The problem with the current codex system is that it locks people into thinking "Only Black Templars train their scouts one on one" or "Only blood angels treat land raiders as APCs" or "Only Space Wolves make devastator squads out of veterans instead of newbies".

It really stifles creativity and the ability for players to design their own chapter fluff, which is the whole point of the Second+ Foundings. With out creativity, they may as well still be Legions.

Yes, exactly! A big flexible dex with traits would not only allow creating BT and BA, it would also allow mixing and matching to create new chapters with their own flavour.

Sure there would still be space for new boxes.

More, in fact. RAther than making a box for Black Templar Crusader Squads and a box for Tactical Marines, you could have a box for BTCS and a box for TM, then realise, hang on, the "Basic SM Infantry' rules also allow for a squad of mixed Scouts and Marines with all ranged weapons, so lets release a new box for... lets call them Imperial Fist Disciple squads.

No new book required, just flexible rules that let you build Tac squads or Crusader squads from the same unit entry that then provide more options for kits.

 Eiluj The Farseer wrote:
I find it funny that a second founding chapter like Black Templars, when the Iron Fists (their founding Chapter) does not even have a codex.

It's the Imperial Fists, not the Iron Fists. The Imperial Fists are extremely rigid to the Codex Astartes and follow it to the letter, so it really isn't funny at all that they would use the Codex: Space Marines. They aren't a variant chapter by any use of the phrase.

 pwntallica wrote:
As far as just making the codex bigger to accommodate all the different rules, and just letting marine players foot the bill, well why don't we just do that with everyone then. Stuff Demons back into the C:CSM dex. Put Eldar and Dark eldar into one dex simply seperated buy fluff and units. Heck the argument could go on and on until it worked out that we just had two mega dexes. Who cares about fluff, I just want my dex updated faster, forget everyone else. Lets just have one big $200 dex for IoM, and another $200 one for xenos. Then everyone would get their book updated every two years. Obviously this is an exaggeration, but I mean it could be done. Would I like it, no, and I doubt many others would.

That's completely missing the point. The problem here is very simple:

Marine armies are 90% the same. You start with a core of tactical/devastator/assault/terminator squads and then add in a few army-wide special rules and maybe a special unit or two. Obviously you can do more than this and make, say, long fangs special instead of just generic devastators, but that is NOT something inherent to the concept of long fangs. Long fangs could be represented perfectly well by a standard devastator squad painted in SW colors. The only reason to give them their own special rules is that you've decided you want to have another marine codex and you need to add different rules for the sake of having different rules. Therefore it would be very easy to combine most (or even all) of the marine armies into a single book. Just like White Scars function just fine as C:SM with a special character BA would function just fine as C:SM with a special character (or a generic "BA Captain" HQ choice).

Non-marine armies are NOT 90% the same. For example, there is pretty much zero overlap between Tau and Tyranids, and a combined Tau/Tyranid codex would just consist of the two separate books stapled together. Same with trying to put IG and C:SM into the same "IoM" codex. It's no longer about cleaning up redundancy and making the game more efficient, it's combining things just for the sake of having fewer (but heavier and more expensive) books.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I like my DA, but roll em all back, SW aint even unique enough to matter for that.

I really hope you're bein' sarcastic or something, 'cause the SW are the MOST divergent of the Chapters, along with the BT, from the Codex Astartes. SW have pack structure, their scouts are ELITE 'cause they are Grey Hunters who preferes to stand alone, Blood Claws are the "meatshield", and they are "promoted" from BC to GH etc etc etc by non-standard ways.
And more, a lot more.

Add DC into C:SM, bam, there's Blood Angels done. Special Bikes/Terminators for DA, slight FOC change for SW. Don't see why they need 3 codicies worth $50+ each just to cover a couple niche units. The World Eaters Legion is represented by a single elite choice and a special character. Even worse is the marine fanboys who cry for more specials in their own homebrews /facepalm

MarsNZ wrote:
Add DC into C:SM, bam, there's Blood Angels done. Special Bikes/Terminators for DA, slight FOC change for SW. Don't see why they need 3 codicies worth $50+ each just to cover a couple niche units. The World Eaters Legion is represented by a single elite choice and a special character. Even worse is the marine fanboys who cry for more specials in their own homebrews /facepalm

Notice the part where pretty much every World Eater player hates it? Or, you know, the part where your suggestions would completely gut BA?

I'd add a Salamanders codex.