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 Jewelfox wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
40k unlike in the real world, inequality is a choice. You can change armies anytime you like. You can refuse to play anyone you don't want to. Or even join the ranks of TFGs and play Space Marines.

This is demonstrably untrue. There are a number of factors that keep people from switching factions, including the obvious (lack of time or money) and the less obvious (when you simply can't identify with C:SM). Besides that, why should people have to start all over with modelling and collecting, just because someone else doesn't like what they play? I think Space Marines are overrated and unfairly favoured, but I'm not going around telling SM players they need to just quit and play IG. They aren't the ones who caused the problem, and the fact that they play SM isn't itself a problem.

Also, you can refuse to play against people, but you can't stop them from being adversarial and intolerant, and making communities toxic for you.

I personally got very into the Tau and their models and characters. Then I came here to ask how I could make it more fun to play against them, since I want my gaming partners to enjoy themselves. Pretty soon Space Marine players were telling me I should burn my models, or play Infinity (but not 40k) with them, and that it's a profound injustice that pulse rifles are better than bolters. I am not joking.

No one is trapped in an army. You can change it any time you like. It may not be easy to do, but it can be done. You can put your entire army up on ebay or the swap shop and start over anytime you like.

When you choose an army you get all of the benefits and disadvantages that go along with it. I play Blood Angels. I started back in 3rd edition because I loved the Baal Predator. I got the benefit of the powerful "Rhino Rush" and the disadvantage of a lot of people assuming I'm TFG because Blood Angels. Every game I got to hear how broken and cheesy my army was while we set up the table. At one point there was a mob demanding a major nerfing or banning of my codex in the group. Its been up and down on the power scale ever since. 4th: Pity, 5th: Hate, 6th: Pity, 7th Pity.

When your codex is powerful people will hate you and make assumptions about your character. And when you are weak they will belittle you. Play the army you want to play, for whatever reason you want to play it. Other people opinions on the matter be damned. If you choose to respond to toxic behavior by being toxic yourself than that's on you and no one else.

Exactly. I use the CSM codex all the time and I revel in its horrendous writing.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Exactly. I use the CSM codex all the time and I revel in its horrendous writing.

lol, we of the ork faction share your feelings

Honestly if it wasn't for the Chaos Space Marines and maybe DE players the Ork players wouldn't have any fun matches to play where the results weren't already written in stone.

New Ork player here! Son's playing necrons atm.

I dunno the local meta well, I know a couple players who play SM and a tau player.

Most of my viewpoint is more from 'outside' the box, so to speak then. Looking in, yeah I see a whole lot of different SM. But it's also the (almost) only human faction there is, so it makes sense imo. Personally I have always been of the mind set why play human, even super human, when you can try alien? But I see the draw in others, to play humans, so I personally think that is a lot of the reason 40k = Space marines. I don't think it's so much about power, though for some people it definitely is, as much as it is about what they relate to.

This thread was original more about the lack of variety in the setting than about the power level of codexes.

In GENERAL it just stinks when if you're a marine player you look around the table at your gaming group and 8/10 guys all play loyalist marines as their main army. Le Sigh* :(

So a lot of games end up as SM vs SMs.... People have gone through entire tournaments with their Space Marine army playing only against other SM armies. LOL

GW stop promoting Space Marines so much!

I'd say it's only a problem for me when it's literally Codex Space Marine versus Codex Space Marine but... that is what I get. I'd love to have more than one other person here playing a marine army that's Angels, Wolves or Knights but nope.

Warhammer 40,000: A game about the heroic defenders of humanity, fighting against ... the other heroic defenders of humanity.

With differently-coloured armour.

 Jewelfox wrote:
Warhammer 40,000: A game about the heroic defenders of humanity, fighting against ... the other heroic defenders of humanity.

With differently-coloured armour.

Clearly banning SM players from playing other SM players is the only reasonable thing to do when faced with this!

The problem is that the support for the Astartes is huge compared to everything else and they have developed factions within the faction that now have to be supported by incresingly chnaging thier own fluff to make them stay unique and have flavoured units or uincresingly outlandishness.

Sadly there is a self fullfilling prophercy that Marines sell so they make more and more of them, reducing other stuff, which means Marines sell more so they make more of them and so on.

GW does not have infinite resources so it can only focuss on a few things - and more and mroe they tend to be Marines.

Another issue is that most marine things had alrady been done in some form or another, so they have to keep inventinig "new" marine things. Hence the vertiable flood of Marine flyers over the last few years.

Oh hey, Selym started a thread talking about a Space Marine player they know who has trouble empathizing with anyone that doesn't play C:SM.

Maybe Dantes_Baals' suggestion would help? If people traded or proxied armies more often, it might make discussions about game balance and "OP" stuff a lot more productive. Especially when talking about smaller factions that aren't some flavour of Space Marine.

As an added bonus, people who play SM right now might find they like other factions' models and playstyles too, and diversify their collections, making the game more interesting.

Someone send this thread to GW customer service and ask to forward it to their design and marketing team?

I actually like the setting better if all of the surviving marines went over to chaos. I think it makes it more interesting.

A god emperor tried to create angels to shield his flock, but the angels turned on them and had to be cast down. For this hubris, mankind must battle these fallen heroes for eternity until finally being claimed.

It's an excellent story compared to now. Cypher would be even more interesting IMO, and Greyknights would be even cooler. Sisters would make a lot more sense as well.

i think way too many people play space marines, however I'm also part of the problem. My gaming group has a bunch of guys who have space marines, and whenever a new player shows some interest of starting, we all chip in a squad or so of guys to get them started into space marines. this has got us about 6 more SM players in the community. When 7-8 guys all give you a squad of space marines, suddenly you have a lot of points in space marines and it cuts a LOT of the work in half

Maybe try breaking from introducing by buying marines and instead ask them "hey, which of these armies interests you most?" and chip in a little bit each of that army. Maybe it's Marines, maybe it's not. Either way, seems more successful than always going the same army for everyone.

After 8th hits I hope the first codex will be Space Marines so Orks don't get the terrible first codex again

DorianGray wrote:
After 8th hits I hope the first codex will be Space Marines so Orks don't get the terrible first codex again

Then we get stuck with an even more OP SM codex. I nominate SOB for the sacrifice of first codex. Then they'll actually have one.

pm713 wrote:

DorianGray wrote:
After 8th hits I hope the first codex will be Space Marines so Orks don't get the terrible first codex again

Then we get stuck with an even more OP SM codex. I nominate SOB for the sacrifice of first codex. Then they'll actually have one.

I nominate Eldar. It's not like they could get any worse.

 Verviedi wrote:

pm713 wrote:

DorianGray wrote:
After 8th hits I hope the first codex will be Space Marines so Orks don't get the terrible first codex again

Then we get stuck with an even more OP SM codex. I nominate SOB for the sacrifice of first codex. Then they'll actually have one.

I nominate Eldar. It's not like they could get any worse.

I feel like they could somehow.

I nominate "Games Workshop takes their time to overhaul the system, and updates every faction at once and continues tweaking them as time goes on."

Warmachine may have spoiled me.

DorianGray wrote:
After 8th hits I hope the first codex will be Space Marines so Orks don't get the terrible first codex again

Don't worry. It will be Tyranids again.

I personally love Space Marines, they were what initially drew me into the game in 2001, and I still enjoy painting, collecting, and playing with them now. As far as versatility goes - does any faction do it better? Dark Angels, for example, have three very distinct styles to choose from (I have the models and an army list for all three) - Ravenwing (bikes and landspeeders), Deathwing (Terminators), and Greenwing (your basic Marine-style army, minus a few units that would be very nice to have access [Centurions, Stormtalon/Stormraven, Stalkers/Hunters]). I have an Ultramarine allied force to fill these exact holes in the DA army, and it's quite enjoyable.

Which only applies to your friends, unfortunately. I fail to see how you can apply your friends turning into "sperg lords" to the entire faction.

No it dosen't. I've mentioned them, but it dosen't mean that I'm playing with only my closest mates.

And this is where percentages kicks in.

Assuming that SM players aren't any more likely to be TFG than any other player, simply by having more people who play SM as a primary army would mean there are more TFGs who play Space Marines. It's like saying that, if there was a fully 50% male/female split, that because a larger country has more women, that country is more popular with women. Instead, it's because the size is bigger, leading to more women. There ARE TFG Tau, Guard and Nid players - I've met at least one for each. However, you see less compared to SM TFGs because there are so many SM players, and whilst the proportion may be the same, the larger faction size means that portion is larger than other factions.

If we really wanted to study "Does playing SM make you more TFG", we would take a randomly selected sample of each faction's player base, and measure levels of TFG-ness (if that were possible). That would give a correct answer.

You don't have to tell me that there are a-holes in every player base. I know that. Unfortunately most of them have a lot of power armour on their shelves.

Still anecdotes. This may have happened, but it doesn't allow for you to generalise. I could give countless anecdotes (sorry, FACTS) about SM players I know who aren't TFG, and are pleasant people to play. They're just as valid as what you've said.
Again, your "funny story" is only generalisable to your best mate - not to all SM players.

This "funny story" does in fact concern my friend, but there are a ton of other, like that one. I'm just talking about my personal experience.

Welcome to a vocal minority. I've never seen anyone ask seriously for a Blood Raven CODEX - a supplement, maybe, a Chapter Tactic perhaps. Not a full codex.
I've never seen anyone advocate for EVERY Chapter getting a codex.
Again, never seen an SM player outright say "Screw X Faction because only SM should get codex updates. Most, if not all, SM players I know would be agreeing wholeheartedly with the Nid player that they should get their new codex.

You've been clearly playing with other people than myself. I've bumped into many SM players, who thought that their faction should have everything, even if it meant that other factions players would not recieve any updates.

These are not indicative of the SM playerbase as a general.

I've never said that all SM players are like that. Just a lot of them.

 Jewelfox wrote:
I nominate "Games Workshop takes their time to overhaul the system, and updates every faction at once and continues tweaking them as time goes on."

Warmachine may have spoiled me.

I second this....
And I blame Warlord Games for spoiling me.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 Jewelfox wrote:
I nominate "Games Workshop takes their time to overhaul the system, and updates every faction at once and continues tweaking them as time goes on."

Warmachine may have spoiled me.

I second this....
And I blame Warlord Games for spoiling me.

I nominate free-to-use fanon rules!

NetEpic may have spoiled me...

Of course it's too Space Marine centric. Other factions just don't get the same attention that Space Marines get, and I'd include CSM in that too because I don't see Codex: Iron Warriors or Codex: Word Bearers or anything like that.

It doesn't have to be that way either - back in the 3.5ed Codex there used to be special rules and wargear for each traitor legion but now if you want to run a World Eaters army for example, you're just gonna end up painting Black Legion in crimson.

Age of Sigmar has the Sigmarines GW is promoting as their flagship boys ... Will AoS end up with the same problem?

Yeah loyalist filth get way too much attention, in the time it takes any given codex to get one update there'll be at least three new Imperial marine updates. Not to mention all the extra supplementary rules they get compared to everyone else. When there's so much more stuff and that stuff is updated so much more often why wouldn't they be so much more popular?

So I wrote to GW customer support citing this thread and got the following response. If you guys want to help me write a good response I will send it over.

Here is how they responded:

"Thanks for writing in to us. We will forward your complaint to the appropriate parties as feedback for review. While the growing popularity of Forge World's Horus Heresy line may be contributing to this, how do you feel this has changed over time? Back in the mid 90's during 2nd Edition 4/5 of the loyalist Space Marine Armies were present: Ultramarines, Space Wolves, and Angels of Death (double edition with Dark Angels and Blood Angels). Grey Knights were also featured, but did not have a fully-fledged codex. Since then we have added one new Space Marine army (Grey Knights), but also Imperial Knights, two Adeptus Mechanicus factions, Tau Empire, Chaos Daemons, Dark Eldar, and Harlequins. Could you provide some examples of how you feel that their is too much focus and too many releases for Space Marine associated materials? Some concrete examples would lend weight to your concern for the proliferation of Space Marines by Games Workshop."

Most of the supplements have had some sort of extra focus on marines compared to whatever else was in the supplement vs them (i.e. angels of death gave SM only powers, formations, and I think brought some the HH units into 40k iirc, or fenris gave SW a great unit on par with TWC, and some good formations for them, while IIRC daemons got some okay stuff, but nothing amazing), along with every 2 player starter box since 5th ed at least I think.

Not to mention chaos has a dog gak codex since 5th when I started playing, and outside of maybe SoB, I want to say it's the oldest codex around. Meanwhile, SM main dex have never failed to get an updated 'dex every edition if not being the FIRST updated 'dex (iirc, please do correct me if I'm wrong obviously), along with most of the SM variant chapters getting an update fairly regularly too (I think). They also have more formations than any other army (maybe even several armies), along with some of the best rules in the game (free transports, grav, ATSKNF, drop pod assault/whatever the guidance rule is called)

Just some examples off the top of my head.

I would point out that while the Horus Heresy series did make Marines even more popular, the imbalance was already there even in the early days of 40k and the issue was actually exacerbated in 5th edition, where the standalone codexes (along with them being incredibly powerful) made marines dominate the game.

Also point out that, if taking every CURRENT marine special character and put them together, you have 35 unique special characters. Just Special Characters, that doesn't even include specialist units like Death Company, Sanguinary Guard, Wolf Scouts, Stormwolf, Deathwing Knights, Crusader Squads, etc. and that there are more marine special characters than there are units from whole factions! (and not just the tiny pamphlet dexes like the Militarium Tempestus ones either).