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ok so from my own experiences playing 40k at 3 different clubs in england and of youtube battle rep videos and visits to GW there seems to be an overwhelming majority of olayers who use some kind of space marine army.

Currently space marines have the most codexes and box sets etc in GW.

What could games workshop do to try and get more people to play other armies to diversify the armies that are used?

Would a new army be beneficial? or should existing armies just be updated so that they have more models? Could it be something as simple as changing the armies in the starter box to not include space marines?

Stop making stupid unbalanced rules so people dont start associating armies into waac categories and thus cause people to avoid it.

New armies arent needed. though id like to see a merc dex. to contain any race or army.

Really? at my place there's more nid players than space marine players.

Only army we see little of are the battlenuns and imperial guard actually.

I think a proper inquisitorial army should be released. We have inquisitorial henchemen in 3 codexes (SOB, GKs and inquisitor codex) yet there are a complete lack of models to buy to make the army eg warrior acolytes with bolters/stormbolters. Death cult assassins with different power weapons, Inquisitors with weapons that they can be upgraded with.

I am making an inquisitor army and converting METAL imperial guards with lasguns so that they have stormbolters instead is a nightmare.

Maybe making it so the other codexes have good internal balance. Right now, most the other races are "do this one thing and you win because all the rest of our units are useless!"

Space marines are the only codex without a useless unit. Not saying some aren't better than others, but just saying all space marines have a pretty defined role and are fairly costed for what they can do.

Look at Eldar. There are tons of worthless units, and some that scream "I am totally broken." You're not going to see a whole lot of people fielding Wailing Banshees that actually care about winning, for example, while you'll see people bring little tiny squads of Dire Avengers just so they can bring even more Wave Serpents. Kind of silly. Definitely out of whack.

Having armies that are cool looking and functional without relying on cheese is a good way to increase the player base. I have several friends who collect various Xenos armies and they rarely play with half their models simply because those units aren't any good. You don't see anyone employing more than a handful of Wyches anymore and that's just for their haywire grenades. You don't see people fielding Harlequins. You rarely see people fielding Orks (the entire race) anymore.

At my FLGS, we had an outcoming of DE. But overall, maybe only like 2 people play C:SM factions. Most of the SM armies are factions that have their own codex. Most of of SM armies are DA.

Our least played armies are Sisters, IG, and BA.

 SRSFACE wrote:
Maybe making it so the other codexes have good internal balance. Right now, most the other races are "do this one thing and you win because all the rest of our units are useless!"

Space marines are the only codex without a useless unit. Not saying some aren't better than others, but just saying all space marines have a pretty defined role and are fairly costed for what they can do.

Assault Marines. Chaplains. Scout Bikers. Sicarius. Shrike. Grimaldus. The Emperor's Champion. Terminator Captains. Techmarines. Tactical Terminators. Assault Centurions. Chronus. That's an awful lot of units that are more or less useless, and that's not getting into the units that are situational and/or require you to build an army around them.

We have one CSM player, one SM/IG player, one GK player, two Ork players, one Necron player, one incoming Eldar player and one Tyranid player.

That's not too much SM imho.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 SRSFACE wrote:
Maybe making it so the other codexes have good internal balance. Right now, most the other races are "do this one thing and you win because all the rest of our units are useless!"

Space marines are the only codex without a useless unit. Not saying some aren't better than others, but just saying all space marines have a pretty defined role and are fairly costed for what they can do.

Assault Marines. Chaplains. Scout Bikers. Sicarius. Shrike. Grimaldus. The Emperor's Champion. Terminator Captains. Techmarines. Tactical Terminators. Assault Centurions. Chronus. That's an awful lot of units that are more or less useless, and that's not getting into the units that are situational and/or require you to build an army around them.

But the spce marine codex is so balanced you can choose how you want to play eg if you want to be a shooting space marine army or a close combat army or a mixture or both, if you want to be a fast army eg with bikes or jet packs and loads of transports or a slow powerful army eg terminators. Other armies can't do that eg tryanids are for the majority a combat army, tau are a shooting army, orks are for the most part a combat army, imperial guard re a shooting army etc etc


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
We have one CSM player, one SM/IG player, one GK player, two Ork players, one Necron player, one incoming Eldar player and one Tyranid player.

That's not too much SM imho.

Different clubs will have different players, on the whole it is about 50% of players who are SM.

champagne_socialist wrote:

[snip]
But the spce marine codex is so balanced you can choose how you want to play eg if you want to be a shooting space marine army or a close combat army or a mixture or both, if you want to be a fast army eg with bikes or jet packs and loads of transports or a slow powerful army eg terminators. Other armies can't do that eg tryanids are for the majority a combat army, tau are a shooting army, orks are for the most part a combat army, imperial guard re a shooting army etc etc
[snip]

Other armies can choose between shooty, assaulty, transport-heavy, armour-heavy, etc. But that doesn't necessarily make an army balanced. Using the Space Marines codex for a Close Combat-oriented army is borderline suicidal (their units are either really bad at it, overcosted, or both)--and even the traditional 'assaulty' marine codices are struggling with CC. Terminators are also pretty bad for any marine army that can't take them as troops (and even then they're usually not the best choice, too). Marines can be ok with standard shooting, but Tau, Eldar, Necrons, and Imperial Guard are going to blow them away (and they'll do this to assaulty lists, too). Biker marines spamming grav guns are competitive and Drop Pod lists can really screw with some opponents (but they'll flounder against others). So out of all the possible builds only two are actually good: bikers are great, and pods are, generally, pretty good if you build the list right. This does not make the codex balanced at all.

And most xenos books have just as many possible builds, many of which are better than the Marine builds. Eldar have Serpent Spam and Jetbikes and can also put together a pretty scary Monster Mash army. Then there are Wraithguard armies, which aren't top-tier but I'd say they're better than most marine builds. Necrons have a ton of builds which are all varying degrees of great. They can do a scary gunline (mech or foot), Flying Croissant Swarm of Death, a really scary assault build (Destroyer Lords and Wraiths anyone?), and can even put together a mean horde list. Imperial Guard can roll with huge blobs of guys or a bunch of mechvets; aerial cavalry or tank spam, and the book is jam-packed with a ton of options.

I've played most armies at one point or another, and not only do most non-marine books contain just as many possible builds as marine codices, but I'd say that the amount of good builds in *most* xenos books is greater than the amount in marine books.

...In short, I don't think army strength/viability is the problem with this whole '50% of players are MEQ players' thing. I think that people just like marines. GW also seems to lean towards encouraging marine kit sales, too, so that probably helps.

Likan Wolfsheim wrote:

champagne_socialist wrote:

[snip]
But the spce marine codex is so balanced you can choose how you want to play eg if you want to be a shooting space marine army or a close combat army or a mixture or both, if you want to be a fast army eg with bikes or jet packs and loads of transports or a slow powerful army eg terminators. Other armies can't do that eg tryanids are for the majority a combat army, tau are a shooting army, orks are for the most part a combat army, imperial guard re a shooting army etc etc
[snip]

Other armies can choose between shooty, assaulty, transport-heavy, armour-heavy, etc. But that doesn't necessarily make an army balanced. Using the Space Marines codex for a Close Combat-oriented army is borderline suicidal (their units are either really bad at it, overcosted, or both)--and even the traditional 'assaulty' marine codices are struggling with CC. Terminators are also pretty bad for any marine army that can't take them as troops (and even then they're usually not the best choice, too). Marines can be ok with standard shooting, but Tau, Eldar, Necrons, and Imperial Guard are going to blow them away (and they'll do this to assaulty lists, too). Biker marines spamming grav guns are competitive and Drop Pod lists can really screw with some opponents (but they'll flounder against others). So out of all the possible builds only two are actually good: bikers are great, and pods are, generally, pretty good if you build the list right. This does not make the codex balanced at all.

And most xenos books have just as many possible builds, many of which are better than the Marine builds. Eldar have Serpent Spam and Jetbikes and can also put together a pretty scary Monster Mash army. Then there are Wraithguard armies, which aren't top-tier but I'd say they're better than most marine builds. Necrons have a ton of builds which are all varying degrees of great. They can do a scary gunline (mech or foot), Flying Croissant Swarm of Death, a really scary assault build (Destroyer Lords and Wraiths anyone?), and can even put together a mean horde list. Imperial Guard can roll with huge blobs of guys or a bunch of mechvets; aerial cavalry or tank spam, and the book is jam-packed with a ton of options.

I've played most armies at one point or another, and not only do most non-marine books contain just as many possible builds as marine codices, but I'd say that the amount of good builds in *most* xenos books is greater than the amount in marine books.

...In short, I don't think army strength/viability is the problem with this whole '50% of players are MEQ players' thing. I think that people just like marines. GW also seems to lean towards encouraging marine kit sales, too, so that probably helps.

i used to play a very shooty ravenwing army that worked great. point is i can choose a sm codex i want to fulfil my role eg ravenwing for shooty, ba for combat eg death company even vanila are good at shooting with bs4 ap5 weapons. if i spam troop choices and have heavy bolters/lascannons ion the squads along with devestator squads and storm ravens and drop pods with special weapons that looks like a strong army that will outshoot most shooty armies or run them close.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Assault Marines. Chaplains. Scout Bikers. Sicarius. Shrike. Grimaldus. The Emperor's Champion. Terminator Captains. Techmarines. Tactical Terminators. Assault Centurions. Chronus. That's an awful lot of units that are more or less useless, and that's not getting into the units that are situational and/or require you to build an army around them.

Matter of opinion. I am not saying Assault Marines are great, but useless? Not really. Anything in 3+ armor with that kind of mobility can run around and tie up an awful lot of guys in combat rather easily. No one really brings squads of dudes to sit in their own half of the board with big enough weapons to reliably take out marines in close combat in my experiences.

Named characters are really bad a lot of the time across all codexes, so that's not unique to Space Marines.

Terminators in general aren't that great this edition but it's not because terminators are bad so much as there are just too many damn Ap2 weaponry floating around in every last codex, on the cheap, in large numbers.

Assault Centurions also club the hell out of anything they get in combat with. Codex Marines are about the only codex that can handle Very Bulky models with Slow and Purposful AND still manage to get them into combat with their assault vehicles.

My point being all of those guys serve their primary functions. Mandrakes right now? Can't win at the things they are supposed to win at. Kind of pathetic. That's what I mean. And they are the coolest looking DE unit too, so it's really sad.

To answer the OP, GW could roll all the current loyalist Marine codices into one book. Then make the Chaos codex worthy of being a solid legion and renegade book. GK are mostly fine, but I feel like the role in their book should be reversed; I'd like it as an Inquisition dex first and foremost.

Then GW would have to expand the options for the Xenos and other Imperial factions. Things like Chapter Tactics but for craftworlds and Ork clans would help make the Xenos feel a little more special in terms of fluff/customization options.

champagne_socialist wrote:

i used to play a very shooty ravenwing army that worked great. point is i can choose a sm codex i want to fulfil my role eg ravenwing for shooty, ba for combat eg death company even vanila are good at shooting with bs4 ap5 weapons. if i spam troop choices and have heavy bolters/lascannons ion the squads along with devestator squads and storm ravens and drop pods with special weapons that looks like a strong army that will outshoot most shooty armies or run them close.

The standard marine gets BS4; S4; AP5; 24"; Rapid Fire. This...is not all that good. Other armies' troops get:

-BS4; S4; AP5; 18" Assault 2; Bladestorm (pseudo-rending) (Eldar: Dire Avengers)
-BS4; 4+ Poison; AP5; 24" Rapid Fire (Dark Eldar: Kabalite Warriors)
-BS4; S4; AP5; 24" Rapid Fire; Gauss (auto-glance on a 6) (Necrons: Necron Warriors)
-BS3; S5; AP5; 30" Rapid Fire (Tau: Fire Warriors)

And then Imperial Guard get tons of cheap lasguns (I've never seen boltguns, even when massed, out-shoot guardsmen. Even the Dakka Banner struggles to match IG dakka). Tactical Marines just aren't going to match the pure anti-infantry damage output of other types of shooty troops with their boltguns. And they're more expensive than all these troops. They can augment themselves with heavy/special weapons--often to give them the ability to engage vehicles and/or MCs better, which the non-MEQ troops don't do as well (save for Necrons, who do pretty well against vehicles). Unfortunately the boltguns aren't as efficient against vehicles/MCs and the Plasma/Melta guns aren't as efficient against non-MEQ/TEQ troops. So, ironically, most kitted-out tactical squads are most efficient at fighting normal marines. Spamming marine troops is not a good source of killing power, ranged or otherwise.

And I could get any build I wanted with the Necron codex alone. Shooty? Tons of warriors, barges, and assorted dakka. Assaulty? Scarabs, Wraiths, Destroyer Lords. Mechanised? There's plenty of vehicles. Fast? Bikes, Scarabs, Wraiths, and two types of fliers--one of which is very easy to spam. And that only takes one codex.

Marines have versatility, yes, but the other books do most builds better I'm afraid. If army strength was what makes people MEQ players then there would be more xenos armies now. People just like marines. So there will be marines.

Likan Wolfsheim wrote:

champagne_socialist wrote:

i used to play a very shooty ravenwing army that worked great. point is i can choose a sm codex i want to fulfil my role eg ravenwing for shooty, ba for combat eg death company even vanila are good at shooting with bs4 ap5 weapons. if i spam troop choices and have heavy bolters/lascannons ion the squads along with devestator squads and storm ravens and drop pods with special weapons that looks like a strong army that will outshoot most shooty armies or run them close.

The standard marine gets BS4; S4; AP5; 24"; Rapid Fire. This...is not all that good. Other armies' troops get:

-BS4; S4; AP5; 18" Assault 2; Bladestorm (pseudo-rending) (Eldar: Dire Avengers)
-BS4; 4+ Poison; AP5; 24" Rapid Fire (Dark Eldar: Kabalite Warriors)
-BS4; S4; AP5; 24" Rapid Fire; Gauss (auto-glance on a 6) (Necrons: Necron Warriors)
-BS3; S5; AP5; 30" Rapid Fire (Tau: Fire Warriors)

And then Imperial Guard get tons of cheap lasguns (I've never seen boltguns, even when massed, out-shoot guardsmen. Even the Dakka Banner struggles to match IG dakka). Tactical Marines just aren't going to match the pure anti-infantry damage output of other types of shooty troops with their boltguns. And they're more expensive than all these troops. They can augment themselves with heavy/special weapons--often to give them the ability to engage vehicles and/or MCs better, which the non-MEQ troops don't do as well (save for Necrons, who do pretty well against vehicles). Unfortunately the boltguns aren't as efficient against vehicles/MCs and the Plasma/Melta guns aren't as efficient against non-MEQ/TEQ troops. So, ironically, most kitted-out tactical squads are most efficient at fighting normal marines. Spamming marine troops is not a good source of killing power, ranged or otherwise.

And I could get any build I wanted with the Necron codex alone. Shooty? Tons of warriors, barges, and assorted dakka. Assaulty? Scarabs, Wraiths, Destroyer Lords. Mechanised? There's plenty of vehicles. Fast? Bikes, Scarabs, Wraiths, and two types of fliers--one of which is very easy to spam. And that only takes one codex.

Marines have versatility, yes, but the other books do most builds better I'm afraid. If army strength was what makes people MEQ players then there would be more xenos armies now. People just like marines. So there will be marines.

I disagree and I don't understand why you are using just marine troops with bolters as the basis of your argument. each tactical squad can have a heavy weapon. Also do not forget that marines have a 3+ armour which compared to most other races is a lot better so more marines will survive to fire back etc.

As I said marines cn use drop pods on the first turn and just drop tactical squads right in front of other squads and just rapid fire them to the ground. Then you have the shooting ability of bikes and land speeders and tanks and flyers and devestator squads and snipers from scouts.


-BS3; S5; AP5; 30" Rapid Fire (Tau: Fire Warriors)

You seem to be just comparing guns when deciding which shooty army is the best. Space marines have BS4, armour 3+ and toughness 4 and a leadership of 8 (9 if veteran sergeant is in squd).

Tau have lower BS, a lower save and a lower toughness and I believe a lower leadership.

I was using just bolters because in one of your posts you seemed to stress that BS4 bolters are 'good'. They're average, at best. Also, other armies get just as many (if not much more) special/heavy weapon shots--they're just usually on much better platforms.

Bikers are damn good. I believe I mentioned that in my first post on this thread. And I said drop pods are generally good. I'm not trying to argue against those points. Most non-MEQ armies have at least that many really good builds, too. My main issue is that you made it sound like marines have more viable/competitive builds than non-MEQ books. Which they don't. There aren't really more ways to play Marines than there are to play Necrons, or Dark Eldar, Eldar, or even IG. That's the point I'm arguing against.

T4 and 3+ armour are nice in a vacuum. But You're paying more for that defence then you are for offence (and you pay even more to get better offence from special/heavy weapons). And in 6th edition damage > defence when it comes to getting the most for your points, generally. There is a ton of AP3 out there and a lot of it either ignores cover outright or has access to cover-ignoring shenanigans (I'm looking at you, Markerlights).

I play marine armies--SW, C:SM, GK...hell, I have over five-thousand points of DA! I love my power-armoured blokes, but I also play or have played pretty much all the other armies, too. Marines pay too much for the 3+ save which 6th has marginalised.

I just recently gave in to the times and updated my Eldar to 6th edition and I was blown away by how much better the vast majority of that codex is to the recent Space Marine codex.

By focusing less marketing on the Space Marine side.

Not enough Xenos in 40k already?

Oh.. Ok...

Give them Riptides! And let them eat cake!

 Melissia wrote:
By focusing less marketing on the Space Marine side.

This. Combine the marine armies into a single codex and stop using marines as the focus of 95% of the fluff. Marines are popular because they're the first thing every new player sees, and the first models they get in the starter set. Give a better balance of time to the other armies and space marines will no longer dominate.

The current starter box has 2 power armor armies in it. A couple of new players picking one up are going to naturally expand out into more power armor thanks to the overlap. On top of that, It's not very cheap to army hop at this point. Back when I started in 3rd swapping to say, Eldar or Tau was much easier on the wallet, though the Ally system helps alleviate this a little bit by making it easier to gradually shift.

Really though with the current balance, all of the power armor armies right now are poor to mediocre. Players looking to be competitive in a tournament environment will eventually gravitate towards Eldar/Dark Eldar, Tau, Demons, or Necrons (Orks are probably still mid-tier, and Tyranids looks to be a huge failure so far. IG is up in a month or so, we'll have to see what happens there).

Likan Wolfsheim wrote:
I was using just bolters because in one of your posts you seemed to stress that BS4 bolters are 'good'. They're average, at best. Also, other armies get just as many (if not much more) special/heavy weapon shots--they're just usually on much better platforms.

Bikers are damn good. I believe I mentioned that in my first post on this thread. And I said drop pods are generally good. I'm not trying to argue against those points. Most non-MEQ armies have at least that many really good builds, too. My main issue is that you made it sound like marines have more viable/competitive builds than non-MEQ books. Which they don't. There aren't really more ways to play Marines than there are to play Necrons, or Dark Eldar, Eldar, or even IG. That's the point I'm arguing against.

T4 and 3+ armour are nice in a vacuum. But You're paying more for that defence then you are for offence (and you pay even more to get better offence from special/heavy weapons). And in 6th edition damage > defence when it comes to getting the most for your points, generally. There is a ton of AP3 out there and a lot of it either ignores cover outright or has access to cover-ignoring shenanigans (I'm looking at you, Markerlights).

I play marine armies--SW, C:SM, GK...hell, I have over five-thousand points of DA! I love my power-armoured blokes, but I also play or have played pretty much all the other armies, too. Marines pay too much for the 3+ save which 6th has marginalised.

I just recently gave in to the times and updated my Eldar to 6th edition and I was blown away by how much better the vast majority of that codex is to the recent Space Marine codex.

we are gooing around in circles and repeating the same things, i dont want to spend a week debating the same ting over and over. I believe space marines can be built very good as a shooty army, you don't so fair enough, end of discussion. Don't need to argue til the cows come home.

 Melissia wrote:
By focusing less marketing on the Space Marine side.

Yep.

There's never been a boxed set that didn't come with a Space Marine force. That's obviously going to push people toward Space Marines.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
By focusing less marketing on the Space Marine side.

Yep.

There's never been a boxed set that didn't come with a Space Marine force. That's obviously going to push people toward Space Marines.

Well, Marines are sorta the 'core' of 40K (Even GW staff explicitly said they think so. Check latest WD). They'd undoubtedly be most popular anyway, which is why it makes sense to have them in the starter box, and they are without doubt the most 'defining' part of the universe.

I strongly suspect these very facts are why a few people are so vocal in their disapproval of them.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

Well, Marines are sorta the 'core' of 40K (Even GW staff explicitly said they think so. Check latest WD)

Space Marines and Genestealers, that's what 40k always centers on and boils down to for me.

Bringing it back to the Space Hulks and "Alien" versus superhuman story.

 Blacksails wrote:
Then GW would have to expand the options for the Xenos and other Imperial factions. Things like Chapter Tactics but for craftworlds and Ork clans would help make the Xenos feel a little more special in terms of fluff/customization options.

Exactly. What the other armies need is variety. With Space Marines, you have Red Scorpions, Imperial Fists, Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Minotaurs, etc., and they all have special rules, models, and extensive fluff written for them to appeal to a wide variety of players.

With Eldar, for example, you just have...Eldar. Whether it's Ulthwe, Saim-Hann, Alaitoc, etc., they're still all the same: same models, same rules; the differences are only in the colors and names.

One of the most brilliant design decisions GW ever made was the Space Marine shoulder pad. Slap a different emblem on that pad, and suddenly it's a visually different model from all the others. What is the equivalent of that for the other armies?

What?! Really?! Right now xenos are kings. I'd like to see the PA be a little bit more viable and definitely would like to see IG numbers get back up soon.

 Lobukia wrote:
What?! Really?! Right now xenos are kings. I'd like to see the PA be a little bit more viable and definitely would like to see IG numbers get back up soon.

I don't think anyone's talking about the power levels of the armies.

Its a discussion on the prevalence and focus on the marines vice the other races. Why do the marines have so many codices/supplements/other stuff while Xenos have very little in the way of extra options?

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Well, Marines are sorta the 'core' of 40K

Due to marketing only.

 Melissia wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Well, Marines are sorta the 'core' of 40K

Due to marketing only.

That's not really fair to say. It could be argued that the marketing is perpetuating that popularity, to the detriment of the other factions, but you can't say with any degree of certainty that 40K would be just as big as it is currently even without the draw of Space Marines.

My own experience in the last year or so tells me that Marine armies are on the decline right now anyways. Do we really need a plan to make them even less prevalent?

champagne_socialist wrote:
What could games workshop do to try and get more people to play other armies to diversify the armies that are used?

Would a new army be beneficial? or should existing armies just be updated so that they have more models? Could it be something as simple as changing the armies in the starter box to not include space marines?

Difficult, modern 40k fluff is very centered around mankind and the Horus Heresy making the Space Marines the stars of the setting. Giving Xeno races more of their own face would help imo. At the moment the Eldar and Tau are reflections of the future and past of IoM. The Newcrons and Orks are mostly space versions of fantasy races that seem just to exist for no particular reason. In addition making some ranges visually more attractive could help.

While not as as successful, WFB is more decentralized and I think 40k could benefit from more fluff outside of human-chaos dynamic. Tyranids are the one really alien race (they come from another galaxy and have no ties to the Old Ones/War of the Heavens) but we know so little about the hive mind and their origins. Would be interesting to make contact with a species/race from another galaxy that already fought/lost to them.

As for new armies, a space dinosaur force along the lines of the Lizardmen/Old Ones could help tie events together.