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In the context of the rest of my post.

LOL @ Melissa, she has gone over the top in this thread.

If any codex deserves to be dropped its the demon dex. The demons should be rolled back into the CSM dex and treated like the second edition book. For those that do not have it, there were chaos cult and demon world lists in addition to the main feature which was chaos space marines, legions and demons.

Chaos Daemons being separate from whiny marines with spiky shoulder pads is about the only reason I'd bother to get a chaos army at this point.

The game became a better place when Daemons were separated from CSMs.

 Melissia wrote:
Chaos Daemons being separate from whiny marines with spiky shoulder pads is about the only reason I'd bother to get a chaos army at this point.

The game became a better place when Daemons were separated from CSMs.

You are arguing against yourself now. In second edition you had the option of a separate demon army and a csm army in one book. Now it takes two books to accomplish even fewer lists (no cults) thus leaving fewer codex slots for what you want which is more xenos. The demon codex is such a failure they are only good for fluff allies for csm so they might as well be in that book.

JWhex wrote:
You are arguing against yourself now.

No I'm not.

Second edition wasn't all that great; remembering it as some obscure golden age is doing yourself a severe disfavor.

As a player who has always loved Chaos, I would have no problem with all the Daemon and Chaos Marine units being described and given rules in one Codex, with a couple of alternate Force Organiser Lists in it.

Mainly Daemon, Mainly Marine, Mainly Traitors and Heretics. Yup, sounds cool to me.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 schmoozies wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:


And Lost and Damned? Seriously? A book that hasn't seen the light of day since 1st edition? People say Chaos Marines are not at all dissimilar to regular Space Marines, but Renegade Guardsmen are extremely different from the Imperial Guard codex?

And Genestealer Cult? Where did that even come from? Are there actually large numbers of people anxiously awaiting these books?
ers of people anxiously awaiting these books?

Or you know the Lost and the Damned list that appeared in the Eye of Terror Campaign. Yes it would feature traitor guard fairly heavily, but you also get other choices like Beastmen, ans some more diverse cultist options.

No you really don't. Lost and the Damned was Guard with Chaos Marines.

I have Codex: Eye of Terror sitting right in my hands. I can also tell you that the people who I have played against who used C: EoT used it exactly in that way. Guard with Chaos Marines.

Genestealer cults were a viable army in 2nd edition and have been completly ignored by the design studio since. There are several fan dexs out their for them, and one even made it to print in the old Citadel Journal so yes I'd say their is interest.

Ignored with good reason. They're not a "real" army. They're Guard with some Tyranid units.

Plus if you don't llike those options fine how about Ad Mech. Its one of the most commonly requested factions that gets no love. Or the triumphant return of the Squats updated and retooled to get rid of the more silly aspects of the old model range and bring in the astetic that they established with the Epic releases.
Jon

You're NEVER going to see the Squats. Ever. Let them rest in peace.

Ad Mech is the same as Lost and the Damned or the Genestealer Cults:
They can easily be proxied using existing rulebooks.
Given that GW/BL/FW can't even make up their mind about what Skittari are (some descriptions are that they're cybernetically enhanced Guardsmen who retain their mental faculties while others have them being nothing more than Servitors without the grafted weapons), there's a bit of difficulty in finding the right book.

So if all these armies can be subbed using the Guard book with allies why do I need 5 different marine books to reflect the one or two squad difference that most marine chapters have?

Jon

Because space Vikings riding huge wolves is fething awesome.

 schmoozies wrote:

So if all these armies can be subbed using the Guard book with allies why do I need 5 different marine books to reflect the one or two squad difference that most marine chapters have?

Jon

Probably because those armies did not really have special rules or formations associated with them, while Marine Chapters do have such things.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


Ditch GKs as a Codex, bring in Codex: Inquisition, and be done with it.

This idea makes too much sense. Therefore, it won't happen.

Have an exalt, anyway.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 schmoozies wrote:

So if all these armies can be subbed using the Guard book with allies why do I need 5 different marine books to reflect the one or two squad difference that most marine chapters have?

Jon

Probably because those armies did not really have special rules or formations associated with them, while Marine Chapters do have such things.

Again that just having one rule for marines and another for other armies. Marines only have special rules because they have their own codexes - the basic SM codex gave characters for those "unlucky" Chapters to give them representation - the same could have bene done for most of the "Special needs" Chapters.

Otherwise you are bsically saying non marines should always "make do" with what there is already is but Marines have to have their "special" rules, even if its just for the odd squad difference. Which is nonsense

I just don't get why people would want chaos removed! You don't want enemies in your war game?!

I would condense into

Space Marines (Codex Astartes)
(Basic marine codex)

Chaos Space Marine
(Basic Chaos Lists)

Inquisition
(Role Grey Knights into them add SOB as well)

Chapter Variants
(A separate codex listing all the unique traits of the individual chapters with added sections to create your own "custom" chapters)

I haven't read the other fifteen pages.

I wouldn't mind all the marine chapters in one codex, it would be better for people who might want to play space wolves and vanilla marines and so on, then again you could keep the vanilla codex and add the DA, SW, BT, and so on in another codex.

I have the BT codex and I could easily see taking some of the filler out and replacing it with other chapters.

 Rippy wrote:
I just don't get why people would want chaos removed! You don't want enemies in your war game?!

While I'm NOT arguing for the removal of all Chaos forces (even in my half-assed reference to combining all marine codices in to one book, I did not include Chaos Daemons, who are not Space Marines), the idea is that you'd represent chaos forces through imperial guard or space marines codices, perhaps allied with daemons.

Besides, CSMs are a tiny, insignificant portion of Chaos forces in the lore, especially compared to the forces colloquially known as "the lost and the damned". If you REALLY wanted to represent the forces of Chaos on tabletop you'd very likely play traitor guard allied with daemons anyway.

 Melissia wrote:

 Rippy wrote:
I just don't get why people would want chaos removed! You don't want enemies in your war game?!

While I'm NOT arguing for the removal of all Chaos forces (even in my half-assed reference to combining all marine codices in to one book, I did not include Chaos Daemons, who are not Space Marines), the idea is that you'd represent chaos forces through imperial guard or space marines codices, perhaps allied with daemons.

Besides, CSMs are a tiny, insignificant portion of Chaos forces in the lore, especially compared to the forces colloquially known as "the lost and the damned". If you REALLY wanted to represent the forces of Chaos on tabletop you'd very likely play traitor guard allied with daemons anyway.

Sure, Chaos Marines are so insignificant that they only led the complete fustigation of fething Cadia itself and it's surrounding sectors!
Backstory does not equal game rules...

If that were the case, then we'd be throwing out not only Marines, but also Eldar because let's face it, they're a dying race. And we wouldn't need Necrons either since they're only just starting to wake-up. And how often do the Tau *really* come into play in the lore since they're still just a tiny empire stuck waaaaay out on the edges of the Ultima Segmentum?!

Going purely by how many front-line forces there are in the backstory, then basically we may as well throw out everything bar Orks, Tyranids & IG because they outnumber everyone else...

 Melissia wrote:

JWhex wrote:
You are arguing against yourself now.

No I'm not.

Second edition wasn't all that great; remembering it as some obscure golden age is doing yourself a severe disfavor.

I never said 2nd was a golden age. I gave an example from 2nd simply to show that they had done it before and thus it was feasible to put multiple lists in a single codex.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Rippy wrote:
I just don't get why people would want chaos removed! You don't want enemies in your war game?!

While I'm NOT arguing for the removal of all Chaos forces (even in my half-assed reference to combining all marine codices in to one book, I did not include Chaos Daemons, who are not Space Marines), the idea is that you'd represent chaos forces through imperial guard or space marines codices, perhaps allied with daemons.

Besides, CSMs are a tiny, insignificant portion of Chaos forces in the lore, especially compared to the forces colloquially known as "the lost and the damned". If you REALLY wanted to represent the forces of Chaos on tabletop you'd very likely play traitor guard allied with daemons anyway.

Sure, Chaos Marines are so insignificant that they only led the complete fustigation of fething Cadia itself and it's surrounding sectors!
Backstory does not equal game rules...

If that were the case, then we'd be throwing out not only Marines, but also Eldar because let's face it, they're a dying race. And we wouldn't need Necrons either since they're only just starting to wake-up. And how often do the Tau *really* come into play in the lore since they're still just a tiny empire stuck waaaaay out on the edges of the Ultima Segmentum?!

Going purely by how many front-line forces there are in the backstory, then basically we may as well throw out everything bar Orks, Tyranids & IG because they outnumber everyone else...

... Chaos Marines backed by tens of thousands of thrall-wizards, Traitor Guardsmen, Daemons, pirates, raiders, mercenaries, slave-soldiers, Dark Mechanicus Skitaarii, Warp-tainted Xenos, Daemons, mortal warbands, Chaos Orks, Ork Mercenaries, Daemons without number, Renegades and Heretics, and did I mention Daemons yet?

Just like their Loyalist counterparts, CSM are primarily shock-troops, not siege warfare specialists (with one notable exception). Just like the Loyalists, they win wars when they can maximize the battlefield to their strengths (mobility and overwhelming shock-and-awe tactics), but otherwise they are relegated to breaking open the foe's defenses, so that the Traitor Guard (or its equivalent) can exploit that weakness, just as the IG do with the Space Marines.

I would say all of the loyalist codex since And we shall know no fear is so retardedly overpowered.

I wouldn't cut any of the current spessmuhreen books simply because people spend much time and effort to create their favourite army and taking that away wouldn't be cool.
On the other hand i would hate to see any aditional spacemarine books. The current ones are certainly enough, especialy when there are still armies which currently get no love whatsoever.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Probably because those armies did not really have special rules or formations associated with them, while Marine Chapters do have such things.

The only reason the marine chapters have all those special rules is because they have a separate book and need content for the book. The only chapter that has a real claim to being a separate book and doing things completely differently than other chapters are the Grey Knights. Space wolves have a unique "overall" force organization, but in practice on the table it doesn't matter that much. Wolf lords, greyhunters, wolf scouts, blood claws and long fangs are just Captians, Tactical Marines, scouts, Assault marines and devastators and can be easily represented by those units in a rulebook. A single book gets rid of the cheaper, but better issues, the "we horde this blueprint" units to rationalize why only one chapter has access to a tank to help add another unique unit to that chapter book (baal predator, vengeance land speeder), and finally units and rules that make no sense to be limited to a specific chapter due to that chapter's history or something that they benefit from that other marines don't (librarian dreadnought, and long fangs). With all marines using the same unit entries there is no longer any reason to limit access to certain things from certain chapters either since they will no longer have the over the top advantages they currently possess. Finally those chapters that have truly unique and special units would see those units listed in the codex: Death company, wolf cavalry, ravenwing, but units like sanguinary guard would disappear except in name beacuse they can easily fit in as vanguard vets and don't need to be a unique unit.

Include a chapter selection requirement, and a table that alters force organization and unit availability based on chapter selected and you can cover every chapter.

For example:
Blood angels: Death company, assault marines as troops
White scars: Fast attack as troops
Black templars: Tacticals and scouts can form combined squads as a single troops entry (or some other method of representing the neophytes).
Crimson Fists: Sternguard as troops
Imperial Fists: All fortifications bought get +1 to cover save value (2+ max)

Etc, etc.

Skriker

 Skriker wrote:
For example:
Blood angels: Death company, assault marines as troops
White scars: Fast attack as troops
Black templars: Tacticals and scouts can form combined squads as a single troops entry (or some other method of representing the neophytes).
Crimson Fists: Sternguard as troops
Imperial Fists: All fortifications bought get +1 to cover save value (2+ max)

Etc, etc.

Skriker

Nah. That massively simplifies the variant codices.

And yet it does so while distilling the core of what they are.

For all of you who are saying that you would have the "basic" Sm codex and then another book for all the other chapters, at that point, why not just make it one book? I say this because if you buy the second book to play BA, DA, etc., won't you need the first for all the vanilla units anyway?

I think the main reason why GW does not do this is because they need a steady release of new books / models to last then over the years of the edition. If every single MEQ army came out day one of a new release, does that mean that they also have to have ALL the shiny new models out as well? By keeping them all spaced out, it keeps interest in their game and helps keep the game fresh / exciting over the life of the edition.

With that said I think there could be minor tweaks like combining DA and BA, GK and SoB, Vanilla and BT, and making rules to field the different armies in the same book. That way you still have plenty of books to show off new models while spacing it out and making sure that it isn't too long between codex editions.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Were I in charge they'd do one book with 'variant list' sections in the back like the Horus Heresy list for Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Inquisition (core Inquisition forces, Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Deathwatch), Chaos (including Daemons, CSM, and renegade Guard), Eldar (Craftworld, Dark, Corsairs), Tau, Necrons, Orks, and Tyranids and call it done, but I'm not in charge, so...

Plus that'd clump releases, which would damage GW's business model, which is probably the real reason they don't cut books once they exist.

Sisters of Battle are not Inquisition. This really needs to be said so often.

Once upon a time there were three Ordos of the Inquisition (the Ordo Hereticus, who fought heretics and rogue psykers; the Ordo Malleus, who fought daemons and daemon cults; and the Ordo Xenos, who fought aliens). They each had an Order Militant to carry out their will (Sisters of Battle for the Ordo Hereticus, the Grey Knights for the Ordo Malleus, and the Deathwatch for the Ordo Xenos). Then Matt Ward came along and decreed that the Grey Knights were awesome enough to do everyone's job with only eight hundred Marines, which I find kind of silly.

Sisters of Battle are strictly speaking their own organization, but given significant thematic and historical ties to the Ordo Hereticus I would still go back to the pre-5e GK fluff on the Orders Militant if I were in charge.

Note also the key phrase in all of this is "If I were in charge." Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I'm actually not.

I think the main reason why GW does not do this is because they need a steady release of new books / models to last then over the years of the edition

This most assuredly is not the entire case, because if it was they wouldn't leave armies basically dead for ten to fifteen years.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Sisters of Battle are strictly speaking their own organization, but given significant thematic and historical ties to the Ordo Hereticus I would still go back to the pre-5e GK fluff on the Orders Militant if I were in charge.

The Sisters were never a part of the ordo hereticus, unlike the Deathwatch/Ordo Xenos and Grey Knights/Ordo Malleus.

Even in C:WH, Sisters were not actually a part of the Inquisition-- merely allies.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Were I in charge they'd do one book with 'variant list' sections in the back like the Horus Heresy list for Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Inquisition (core Inquisition forces, Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Deathwatch), Chaos (including Daemons, CSM, and renegade Guard), Eldar (Craftworld, Dark, Corsairs), Tau, Necrons, Orks, and Tyranids and call it done, but I'm not in charge, so...

Plus that'd clump releases, which would damage GW's business model, which is probably the real reason they don't cut books once they exist.

Sisters of Battle are not Inquisition. This really needs to be said so often.

Once upon a time there were three Ordos of the Inquisition (the Ordo Hereticus, who fought heretics and rogue psykers; the Ordo Malleus, who fought daemons and daemon cults; and the Ordo Xenos, who fought aliens). They each had an Order Militant to carry out their will (Sisters of Battle for the Ordo Hereticus, the Grey Knights for the Ordo Malleus, and the Deathwatch for the Ordo Xenos). Then Matt Ward came along and decreed that the Grey Knights were awesome enough to do everyone's job with only eight hundred Marines, which I find kind of silly.

Sisters of Battle are strictly speaking their own organization, but given significant thematic and historical ties to the Ordo Hereticus I would still go back to the pre-5e GK fluff on the Orders Militant if I were in charge.

Note also the key phrase in all of this is "If I were in charge." Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I'm actually not.

Even the book itself calls the Sisters of Battle the "Fighting arm of the Ecclesiarchy".
The problem is that the Order Militants are actual, separate groups with their own rankings. While they would help, they were their own fully functional groups. They are not "Fully linked" with the other, though it would make sense to have them still together.

 Melissia wrote:
And yet it does so while distilling the core of what they are.

Only if we ignore the majority of what they actually are.

Either way, not happening. GW's not going to cut their profitable lines in favor of expanding on stuff that doesn't sell nearly as well.

Ultimately, the profitability of Marines and Marines +1 mean they're always going to have a bunch of different codexes. I'm still all for the super-large Marine codex with really in-depth customization and all sorts of special units for different variant chapters, but it's never, ever going to happen.

What they're doing is profitable; marines make money, and while I don't imagine a pair of Marine dexes (GK and SM, not discussing CSM, as they have no business being rolled in) with lots of customization and special units for specific chapters and their successors would negatively affect ales, but the chance that it might harm GW's single most profitable line, and complicate logistics as people buy other armies means they'll never change the current setup.

What is possible, I think, is an Inquisiton Codex. People like the inquisition, and customizable ordos warbands with the various ordos militant, all producible with current model ranges, but with room for expansion would seem a decent business and gameplay move. Especially after all the WAAC spending on GKs in 5th tapered off, they might view it as a way to increase the sales of the GK line, and yet another marine variation they can sell; Deathwatch.

I'd cut Space Wolves because I don't like them.

Not to mention they upset the inquisition enough to have them threaten to annihilate Fenris. There's enough of a back story there to have them taken out.by the inquisition.