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Not including Knights and Militarum Tempestus, there are 15 distinct armies to collect in 40K. That means a bloated product line of 750ish kits, maybe a bit less, and that could well be one of the factors in GW's ill fortunes as of late.

So, if GW were to downsize 40K to 5 armies, including Space Marines, who would you keep? Why?

My four.
- Chaos Space Marines - where possible, include spikes with SM kits to dual build loyalist or traitor.
- Orks. - For me, the classic foe and primary source of fun in the 40K universe.
- Eldar. - I've never played them and I can't define why I like them, but I do.
- Imperial Guard - The human POV and an ally for the Marines.

The rest - model wise at least - I would send the way of the squats. People with BA, SW and DA essentially already have Space Marine armies

I think this has been rolling around in my head since I saw a program on TV the other day about how supermarkets are losing so much share to Aldi and Lidl because the latter two can undercut them by offering a much lessened range of products, cutting down on all the associated costs. Now that isn't necessarily the same deal in wargaming but I do feel that if GW could trim the fat in terms of the product range and deliver rules that had more focus and control over the 5 codexes they had to govern, we'd all benefit (although I know initial fallout would be huge, I think they could more easily engage new players).

You could cut down on the bloat by making all marine factions into just two; loyalists and traitors. You could then reasonably keep the rest of the line up just fine.

Though for your exercise in cutting down to 5, I'd agree with your list. Keeps the more iconic factions, in my opinion.

Hmm...

Eldar
Tyranids or Necrons... can't decide. Gotta have a mindless, cold blooded (or no blooded) killing machine.
Orks
Chaos (not necessarily marines, it could include some fallen Eldar or other minor races.)

Chaos - one big family, marines, demons, cultists, etc.

Orks - Iconic enemy has to stay.

Eldar - Dark Eldar go but the regular Eldar stay

Nids - Need the mindless beasts.


I picked Nids over Guard because I would roll the Guard into Space Marines like Cultists in Chaos and call the new army The Imperium of Man.

You want the various styles present, with a good-guy and a villain.
SM - Posterboy good guy
Chaos SM - Dramatic bad guy
Eldar - Enigmatic some-time ally
'Nids - Everyone's worst enemy
Orks - Comedic relief

This has mech, hand-to-hand, shooty, and narrative.

GW has no problem holding such a range of models, but they could overlap more.
Servitors appear in at least 2, with SM and IG. Priests in IG and Sisters.
Marine bodies are in lots, but they could cut back, and offer more accessories kits. They should have a shooty-vets upgrade kit, a hth kit, a heavy kit, and a boss kit. Add in a few SW/DA/IH, etc alternatives (which they have already), and you're set.

It depends on how you define armies. IF we are going codices what would work for me is

Space Marines (includes both Loyals and Traitors, break down with "Chapter/Legion Tactics.")

Eldar (Include both Craftworld, and Dark eldar again do some sort of rules per craftworld, and Dark to split things out)

Necrons- Good For being bad guys in fluffy stories

Imperial - (Make this Sisters + IG + Inquisition)

Orks - another good bad guy.

You also have some opposed factions here
Space Marine Book internally (SM v CSM)
Eldar Vs Necrons
Imperial Vs Orks.

- Chaos. Not just Punk Spikey Marines. Chaos.
- Orks.
- Eldars.
- Tyranids.

Hope I don't need to explain why Chaos and Orks are here.
Eldars are an interesting faction, with an interesting lore. Crunch wise, they're the highly specialized, highly mobile glass cannon. Model-wise, elegant, streamlined vehicles. A great faction.

Tyranids are here too, because while their lore is not as strong as say, Chaos or Eldar, it still has an interesting role: you can sell your soul to Chaos. You can ally with Orks. Tyranids just want to eat you. Crunch-wise, they incarnate the horde of claws and teeths led by a couple sentient creatures.
Model-wise, the bugs have always been a quite interesting faction.

I would definitely squat Taus, Dark Eldars, Necrons, Grey Knights and various colour of loyal Marines. Including Marines-with-boobs. (and I'm a SoB player). If I can't have the Chaos with all the good stuff because it would be "too much", keep the Daemons and just squat the punks.

Imperial Guard was a tough one, it would definitely be the fifth choice. Just like Chaos, mixing IG with Marines in an Imperium of Mankind faction wouldn't be such a bad idea. If it's not in the final four, it's mainly because it's another Imperium-related faction. And while somehow characterful, it's just not enough to compete with Orks, Eldars, Chaos or even Nids.

5 is a rough call.

SM, obviously.
Chaos (wrap demons back together with the traitors)
Eldar
Orcs
Guard.

Some armies could be kept on as picks in others. I could see SoB as an elite pick in a guard army, or GKs in a SM one. You’d loose a lot of their fancy toys, but if we’re cutting, something needs to go. If I could to save one more whole army, it would be nids.

When Tau came out, I thought they were redundant. The part of the advanced alien race was played by Eldar. A lot of the way they did Tau I thought could have been done with the Eldar in the translation to 3rd. But then, I was still a little sore about handing SMGs to the civilians of a dying race and tossing them into the meatgrinder as ablative wounds for starcannons.

Nothing against Necrons, but they could be retconned into staying asleep without any major issues.

Dark Eldar could have a few thing wrapped back into the craftword codex, or just dropped.

On the subject of the poll, I do think it would be good to cut some armies, but probably not in the manner you are thinking. The latest trend for 1-2 unit armies, with full codex treatment, is crazy. Knights, Militarum Temestus, LotD, etc. don’t need their own books and armies. Some of the supplements are a little thin as well. I’d like to see them more meaningful, like when the BA and DA codexes were SM supplements in 3rd. Not a full priced fluff book with a warlord chart, handful of relics, and 1-2 special rules.

I would compile all power armor in one book, make another book for all other imperial stüf, put eldar and dark eldar in one book like the sm/csm book, keep orks, and keep nids. Make everyone allies of convenience and make bits packages.

Umm, I don't wanna see armies be cut down, except for the filthy Imperium armies. What is there, like, 4 Space Marine Codexes? They could have easily made those into 1 book, and made an Astra Militarum book that contained the Imperial Knights, and Militarum Tempestus.

Other than that, There's no armies that should be cut down. They all have cool things to add to the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nevelon wrote:

Nothing against Necrons, but they could be retconned into staying asleep without any major issues.

GW would no longer get my money if that happened.

While I wouldn't want them to cut their range, if it were the case that I should have to choose the 5 factions that stayed it would be SM, IG, CSM, Orks and Eldar

Cutting down the armies would be the death kneel signal to the players to abandon ship.

If it could only be five?

I'd keep it as close to the original few as possible, except that I'd merge IG and SM's


thusly

Codex: Imperialis (ala early 2E)
Codex: Tyranids
Codex: Orks
Codex: Eldar
Codex: Chaos (daemons and CSM's)

That said, really I think we'd just be better off consolidating all the loyalist books into one and calling it a day.

I don't think they should cut down now, but if there were only 5 I'd probably pick:

Space Marines
Chaos Space Marines
Orks
Eldar
Tyranids

No doubling up for races (so 1 human, 1 Chaos, 1 Eldar). I think of these as the "Big 5" armies who seem to have been around for as far back as i remember. I first became aware of the WH40K universe with Space Crusade in 1990 and that had SM, CSM, Orks, Genestealers and the"androids" (proto-Necrons perhaps, but hardly fleshed out in fluff).

I know others like IG have just as much history but I'm trying to keep the list somewhere between not giving too much weight to one "faction" (so no avalanche of Imperial armies) and keep it somewhat varied.

/\ The androids were chaos androids. They do look a lot like they could have been necrons though.



In no order

Eldar
Orks
Tyranids
Imperial guard
Chaos Daemons

would make 2+ and 3+ saves rare.

Yes, leave out Necrons, it's not like they're the anti-thesis to the entire universe.

So basically:

- Loyalist Space Marines
- Traitor Space Marines
- Imperial Guard
- Necrons
- Orks

blaktoof wrote:
/\ The androids were chaos androids. They do look a lot like they could have been necrons though.

Yes, I thought I could remember reading that before somewhere. I do wonder, though, if part of the design process for Necrons was someone remembering the Androids and thinking "wait a minute"...though it's more likely they'd just been to see Terminator.

I think someone that worked with milton bradely to make the chaos androids had a hand in the necrons..

I present proof that the necrons are secretly the spawn of chaos and not a real evil unto themselves.

Blaktoof: just wait for the expansion that lets Chaos Sorcerors summon Monoliths.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Yes, leave out Necrons, it's not like they're the anti-thesis to the entire universe.

That's a valid point. It doesn't help that the sheer number of armies makes some overlap unavoidable.

The reason I gave slot to Tyranids instead is because they covered the "unknowable omnicidal alien" niche and had their own style what with the organic tech. Meanwhile, the "high-tech" aspect I tried to cover with Eldar.

In the end I gave the slot to the bugs for those reasons, and I think them having been around longer had a hand in it too. But I acknowledge Necrons are still a strong contender for a place on the list.

I agree with most that more codexs on space marines is stupid feth the DA,BA,SW! They should have a codex just for space marines not a codex for all the "special" chapters and same with tempest they should be part of the guard....

I just hate the D-riding of the DA,BA,SW they dont neeed a special codex for them just fatten up the space marine codex with thier crap! I also hate that there are more heroes for the SW then eldar orks combined! Like come on they are just one chapter of marines! And before you say it yeah I know they sell better then the xenos and my reponse is well they could maybe draw in players by adding more heroes to other races or keeping the ones we all loved *cough* zoggwort, Wazzdakka *cough*

Space Marines
Chaos (Demons + Space Marines in one army)
Tau
Orks
Imperial Guard

It's really hard to trim it down to 5. I'd do it based on playstyle using the armies that have the most interesting, different, and varied mechanics. All of them except Chaos are factions that are pretty well-toned right now. With Chaos, you'd need to combine the marines and demons into one book and do a better job.

 Davylove21 wrote:
Not including Knights and Militarum Tempestus, there are 15 distinct armies to collect in 40K. That means a bloated product line of 750ish kits, maybe a bit less, and that could well be one of the factors in GW's ill fortunes as of late.

So, if GW were to downsize 40K to 5 armies, including Space Marines, who would you keep? Why?

My four.
- Chaos Space Marines - where possible, include spikes with SM kits to dual build loyalist or traitor.
- Orks. - For me, the classic foe and primary source of fun in the 40K universe.
- Eldar. - I've never played them and I can't define why I like them, but I do.
- Imperial Guard - The human POV and an ally for the Marines.

The rest - model wise at least - I would send the way of the squats. People with BA, SW and DA essentially already have Space Marine armies

I think this has been rolling around in my head since I saw a program on TV the other day about how supermarkets are losing so much share to Aldi and Lidl because the latter two can undercut them by offering a much lessened range of products, cutting down on all the associated costs. Now that isn't necessarily the same deal in wargaming but I do feel that if GW could trim the fat in terms of the product range and deliver rules that had more focus and control over the 5 codexes they had to govern, we'd all benefit (although I know initial fallout would be huge, I think they could more easily engage new players).

Are we meant to cut models from the range of Products or just printed/digital material ?

It sounds like you aim for the first....and I disagree. Whoever deems the models more than just 'markers' is going to be very very unhappy

GW wouldn't survive that diet. And the 40k universe goes down the drain too.




PS: If I had to reduce the Armies to 5, there won't be less models afterwards..

The SM codex is already the largest in the game. I'm not paying $100 for a 200 page codex to get my SW stats along with useless stats for SM, DA, BA, Templars, all the chapter tactics, etc. Everyone crying about all the SM dexes needs to realize that is their bread and butter, the flagship of GW. You might as well complain that there are too many Jedi in star wars because the empire only has Vader and Palpatine. SW are a hero based faction, it's one of the things that really separates them from SM. Deal with it.

Toofast wrote:
The SM codex is already the largest in the game. I'm not paying $100 for a 200 page codex to get my SW stats along with useless stats for SM, DA, BA, Templars, all the chapter tactics, etc. Everyone crying about all the SM dexes needs to realize that is their bread and butter, the flagship of GW. You might as well complain that there are too many Jedi in star wars because the empire only has Vader and Palpatine. SW are a hero based faction, it's one of the things that really separates them from SM. Deal with it.

The issue is it just seems that there isn't enough of an overall difference for most of the chapters. We don't have to 'get over' anything. I understand SW in general deserves its own book due to highly unique units and characters. But most other chapters...their only 'difference' is their HQs, and the loadouts from their vehicles. In general, there are no major differences. Not enough to warrant their own book. They could be condensed into one larger book, which would save players money if they wanted to start a different chapter because...their one codex covers them all.

Toofast wrote:
The SM codex is already the largest in the game. I'm not paying $100 for a 200 page codex to get my SW stats along with useless stats for SM, DA, BA, Templars, all the chapter tactics, etc. Everyone crying about all the SM dexes needs to realize that is their bread and butter, the flagship of GW. You might as well complain that there are too many Jedi in star wars because the empire only has Vader and Palpatine. SW are a hero based faction, it's one of the things that really separates them from SM. Deal with it.

Except that it's only slightly bigger than everyone else's as is. Even then, it's half the size of hardcover books from other companies for the same price (e.g. Battlefront's Flames of War books that carry rules for dozens of formations from multiple nations, or FFG's RPG rulebooks, etc). Also, if Codex books keep increasing in price the way they have since 2007, you'll be paying $80-100 for a codex by 2020 anyway...


Only Space Marine players would complain about getting to use more armies and rules in their codex...

Seriously...what a bunk argument.

Would GW benefit from cutting down the number of armies?

Yes. But nowhere close to the extent you're talking about here.

Something like this would be better:

1. Codex: Space Marines

2. Forces of Chaos (CSM, Daemons, Lost and the Damned).

3. Marine Chapters (DA, BA, SW).

4. IG

5. Imperial allies (Knights, Mechanicum, Inquisition, GK, Sisters)

6. Eldar + Dark Eldar

7. Tau

8. Necrons

9. Nids

10. Orks

 Vaktathi wrote:

Toofast wrote:
The SM codex is already the largest in the game. I'm not paying $100 for a 200 page codex to get my SW stats along with useless stats for SM, DA, BA, Templars, all the chapter tactics, etc. Everyone crying about all the SM dexes needs to realize that is their bread and butter, the flagship of GW. You might as well complain that there are too many Jedi in star wars because the empire only has Vader and Palpatine. SW are a hero based faction, it's one of the things that really separates them from SM. Deal with it.

Except that it's only slightly bigger than everyone else's as is. Even then, it's half the size of hardcover books from other companies for the same price (e.g. Battlefront's Flames of War books that carry rules for dozens of formations from multiple nations, or FFG's RPG rulebooks, etc). Also, if Codex books keep increasing in price the way they have since 2007, you'll be paying $80-100 for a codex by 2020 anyway...


Only Space Marine players would complain about getting to use more armies and rules in their codex...

Seriously...what a bunk argument.

Oh no! MOAR OPTIONS!? NOOOO-On a side note, speaking of options, where are my Ork Klan codecies!

 Thud wrote:
Would GW benefit from cutting down the number of armies?

Yes. But nowhere close to the extent you're talking about here.

Something like this would be better:

1. Codex: Space Marines

2. Forces of Chaos (CSM, Daemons, Lost and the Damned).

3. Marine Chapters (DA, BA, SW).

4. IG

5. Imperial allies (Knights, Mechanicum, Inquisition, GK, Sisters)

6. Eldar + Dark Eldar

7. Tau

8. Necrons

9. Nids

10. Orks

Throw in a Dogs of War codex with mercenaries for non-imperium (feral humans, hrud, etc.) and I think that'd be just fine.

Agreed cutting it to 5 armies only would cause lots of players to jump ship and even though my IG would still be there, I would lose a lot of interest with the hobby due to its lack of diversity, if they want to cut down on all the books:

-Codex Space Marines:

Standard Vanilla Marine Codex with all the standard chapters.

-Codex Space Marines:

Specialist Chapters: Put the Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights and Black Templars in here with their own unique Units, Warlord Traits ect. split into separate sections.

Putting all these guys in one book would make the book enormous and to big I feel so splitting it into x2 makes more sense. In regards to modeling kits cut down on the number of units for each army and make all as many kits able to build into ANY of the chapters. Leave certain specialist kits for the unique armies but overall condense it to save on cost.

-Codex Imperium:

Contains the Imperial Guard, Militarium Tempestus, Sisters of Battle, Inquisition and Imperial Knights would be about the size of the Space Marine books with a cut down model range and unit range.

-Codex Chaos:

Chaos Space Marines and Demons of Chaos.

-Codex Eldar:

Dark Eldar and Eldar in one book, like above listed in separate sections of their book with their own Warlord Traits, lists and FOC.

-Codex Tau:

Tau Empire and Farsight Enclaves, pretty simple.

-Codex Orks

-Codex Tyranids

-Codex Necrons

 gmaleron wrote:
Agreed cutting it to 5 armies only would cause lots of players to jump ship and even though my IG would still be there, I would lose a lot of interest with the hobby due to its lack of diversity, if they want to cut down on all the books:

-Codex Space Marines:

Standard Vanilla Marine Codex with all the standard chapters.

-Codex Space Marines:

Specialist Chapters: Put the Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights and Black Templars in here with their own unique Units, Warlord Traits ect. split into separate sections.

Putting all these guys in one book would make the book enormous and to big I feel so splitting it into x2 makes more sense. In regards to modeling kits cut down on the number of units for each army and make all as many kits able to build into ANY of the chapters. Leave certain specialist kits for the unique armies but overall condense it to save on cost.

-Codex Imperium:

Contains the Imperial Guard, Militarium Tempestus, Sisters of Battle, Inquisition and Imperial Knights would be about the size of the Space Marine books with a cut down model range and unit range.

-Codex Chaos:

Chaos Space Marines and Demons of Chaos.

-Codex Eldar:

Dark Eldar and Eldar in one book, like above listed in separate sections of their book with their own Warlord Traits, lists and FOC.

-Codex Tau:

Tau Empire and Farsight Enclaves, pretty simple.

-Codex Orks

-Codex Tyranids

-Codex Necrons

This, I think I like this option better. I do like the diversity of the 40K universe, and it would be better if they actually make the many 'special chapters' actually FEEL like special chapters, instead of artificial specialness with unique armor colors and only a few differences between units here and there and a few special rule differences. Thats what I'd like to see. I'd like it to feel like if I'm facing Blood Angels, it feels drastically different than facing Ultra Marines. And facing Dark Angels feels drastically different than facing Blood Angels.

SWs and Templars seem to have the most 'diversity', making them really stand out amongst their fellow Marine brothers. If those other Chapters can get the attention they deserve, it would be nice. More 'special' helmets my Warboss and Mek can add to their trophy racks!