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One of the ideas that frequently gets floated is the idea that many of the codices should be consolidated.

Example:

1. All marine armies should be in the same codex.

2. Sisters of Battle, Inquisition and Gray Knights should be in the same codex.

3. All chaos stuff should be in the same codex.

You get the idea.

Let's assume for a moment that this happened. Would you be more inclined to buy more models from "different" armies?

For example, if you run Tzeentch marines, would you be more inclined to buy tzeentch daemon models?

If you currently run Sisters of Battle, would you be more inclined to buy gray knights models?

The only issue I see with that is that if they wanted to come out with something new, or more specialized (as with Khorne Daemonkin and the rumored Thousand Sons Codex) they would have to reprint to include the new rules/units etc.

They could include them in White Dwarf, or Campaign books, but then you go about having too many books on hand (barring those who use ebooks and other electronic media).

But yes, yes I would.

 Carnikang wrote:
The only issue I see with that is that if they wanted to come out with something new, or more specialized (as with Khorne Daemonkin and the rumored Thousand Sons Codex) they would have to reprint to include the new rules/units etc.

Or they could just issue errata/faqs.

There's nothing in the KDK book that they couldn't have simply amended to a general CSM/Daemon hybrid codex as an errata/FAQ.

 Traditio wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:
The only issue I see with that is that if they wanted to come out with something new, or more specialized (as with Khorne Daemonkin and the rumored Thousand Sons Codex) they would have to reprint to include the new rules/units etc.

Or they could just issue errata/faqs.

There's nothing in the KDK book that they couldn't have simply amended to a general CSM/Daemon hybrid codex as an errata/FAQ.

True, but for the purpose of adding their own lore, army, unit lists/datasheets, and condensed army quick reference, they could just add those pages and reprint.

Or do what they have been doing with AoS and issue warscrolls on a free app instead of reprinting books. Overall, when they eventually redo the Grand Alliance books, they may include everything edited/reworked. So I suppose looking to AoS would actually be a better source of reference for this sort of business model.

Nice try GW.

They are, if I understand right, already going to do something like this with AoS. The General's Handbook has the points for all units in AoS and that's supposed to get updated on a semi-regular/annual basis.

EDIT: I also currently will only play 40k 3rd edition using the core rulebook lists. It's not perfect but it's a consolidated rules and army list source in one book.
Using counts as you can even pull off Necrons (Chaos Marines) and Tau (Eldar with lots of Rangers).

I might buy more models because I'm more invested in a game that doesn't suffer from absurd levels of rules bloat. Consolidating codices is just part of the process of getting there, consolidation alone does not directly translate into more desire to buy.

What about bringing all the IA stuff into the normal codices?

Like all the IG stuff (be it from Vraks or just IA and so on) all stuffed into one book

Or the SM IA stuff and all that and so on.

That would be lovely.

Adeptus Mechanicus book holds all the things... Like Titans, Knights and all that...


I would imagine "Codex: Imperium of Man" would be waaaaaaay to big though..

 Peregrine wrote:
I might buy more models because I'm more invested in a game that doesn't suffer from absurd levels of rules bloat. Consolidating codices is just part of the process of getting there, consolidation alone does not directly translate into more desire to buy.

Assuming they cut the rules bloat and consolidated, what are some models you would want to put with your IG?

Nah, I'd just spend less money overall. Rules and good looking models convince me to spend my money, but having the rules all in one place wouldn't change things one way or the other.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Nah, I'd just spend less money overall. Rules and good looking models convince me to spend my money, but having the rules all in one place wouldn't change things one way or the other.

Based on your avatar, I assume you play some chaos variant.

Let's assume that GW made a general chaos book that included:

1. Chaos marines
2. Chaos daemons
3. Renegades and heretics.

Would you be more inclined to purchase the chaos equivalent of imperial guard?

 Traditio wrote:

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Nah, I'd just spend less money overall. Rules and good looking models convince me to spend my money, but having the rules all in one place wouldn't change things one way or the other.

Based on your avatar, I assume you play some chaos variant.

Let's assume that GW made a general chaos book that included:

1. Chaos marines
2. Chaos daemons
3. Renegades and heretics.

Would you be more inclined to purchase the chaos equivalent of imperial guard?

It's hard to give you a fair answer, because I already have CSM/Daemons/Renegades armies. Assuming I had a small/no collection of minis, it would probably make me more likely to buy them, yeah.

No because rules are easy to come by in other ways

 Traditio wrote:
Assuming they cut the rules bloat and consolidated, what are some models you would want to put with your IG?

A couple of Valkyries and some veteran squads, maybe a couple more LRBTs.

It seems like they are going the opposite direction. They just split off Genestealers. They split out Harlequins from Dark Eldar. Deathwatch got its own codex. They seem bent upon making new supplements for different legions, like Crimson Slaughter and the Black Legion. I would not be surprised to see the Ravenwing and Deathwing get their own codices soon. I think they have announced their intentions to splinter off anything they can to get us to buy more books. I think they may be doing this just to milk us a for bit more cash before they reboot and make us throw away all of the shiny new books we have just bought.

In the real world, they could compress things a lot. Put Daemons and CSM back together, with any other chaos stuff that comes out. Put IG and the Tempestus back together and include Imperial Knights here. Put Harlequins and all Eldar in one codex. Put Mechanicus and Skitarii back together, Put Flyers back into the main rulebook. Put Inquisition, Grey Knights, Sisters and maybe Custodians all together. Make Deathwatch an "All Star" team within the Space Marine codex. Make a trio of small codices for Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves, as they have all become different enough from vanilla Space Marines to gain their own fanatical followings. One of the other advantages of recombining things a bit is it would help them clear up the allies situation. By putting all of the splinter factions back together, they can pretty much eliminate the need for allies and toss out anything beyond battle brothers. (In a lot of the fluff, the IG, Tempestus and Knights all were together etc...)

I like the fact that different factions have their own rules and flavor. I like the fact that my beloved Dark Angels look, feel and play differently than Space Wolves, or Ultramarines. If we lose that, then we lose a lot of the appeal of 40k. I am afraid that if we rolled the DA, BA, SW, and Grey Knights into the vanilla book, we would lose a lot of those players. Since there seem to be more players from these SM based factions than all other factions combined in our area, the rules differences keep most of our games from being "Mirror battles" When I face Blood Angels, I know I am in for some fast vehicles, close combat and heavy, short range stuff. My Dark Angels bring shooting, speed and terminators into the mix. When I face a Close Combat army, I have Grim Resolve to make them think twice about charging me. That fits the personality of the Unforgiven. Our differing formations, units and rules combine with the fluff to make the battles much more interesting than if we all fought from the same codex.

To me, that was the big issue with Sigmar. When they threw out the history, fluff, background and differences, it stopped making a difference what you played. All of the units and armies felt pretty much the same. I know they are trying to rebuild that part of AoS, but they never should have lost it in the first place.

The real trick for Eighth Edition is going to be finding some ways to deal with the rules bloat without destroying the unique feel of all of the factions. Even groups within the same codex can have a different feel to them if it is written correctly. When Harlequins were part of Dark Eldar, they had their own distinct style. White Scars are very different on the battlefield than Imperial Fists. These are the things that make players fanatical about their factions. It also make every battle unique and exciting. I hope GW condsiders this when they reboot the game. They really need to keep a balance between playability and the incredible depth that makes the game so enjoyable.

If they did combine some of the factions back together, I would probably buy some extra plastic. Cathie has Harlequins. We would probably buy some Dark Eldar reinforcements for her army. My Chaos Marine army would pick up some Daemons, appropriately, since they used to fight together in earlier editions. I can see Imperial Guard players grabbing some Tempestus stuff and Mechanicus and Skitarii players would cross over to expand their armies.

Whatever the do, they need to think it out and do it so that they don't leave most of the current players feeling abandoned. Maybe as they update the codices over the next few years, they can combine a few where appropriate, without eliminating any factions or making current armies obsolete.

Rule quality is my best priority.

Nonetheless, I found the splitting of Skitarii and AdMech of bad taste, and the Tempestus cool but unsupported.

If they want to keep this high volume of book production, AND have armies that re just not functional enough alone, AND updates like the campaign book, they have to lower the price or people will just give up and pirate the rules they need.

Furthermore, splitting CSM and Daemons could make sense if the CSM codex writer could give a snot and write rules for icons and whatnot helping summoning and synergies. They did something like that for KDK years later. Is just slow, sloppy, and needs too many books.

So yes, less books would be the best, or at the very least, better written books.
Still, the models that I am painting now or painted recently are Eldar and converted Scions, acquired because of the aesthetic.
True that they were each from one book. I generally use ebay, as with Lotr. I bought Eldar from the local GW but I am not going to do it again.
I will probably use Anvil Industries for my next human project mixed with old better taste GW minis like Armageddon Steel Legion (ebay). I just feel less and less give money to GW in general.

Inb4 "b-but with Roundtree changed!" . Is a meme. And even if partially true, is too little, too late.

I wouldnt really no.
The things that stop me fro buying from GW are the insanely high prices for sub-standard kits and the terrible lack of balance and awful rules.
So no, consolidating the codexes would not make me purchase anything from GW.

No, unless they provided a way to take subfactions without pointless tax units. One of my biggest pet peeves in 5th was I could take a generic inquisitor unless I took grey knights.

If I played current 40K, yes. As Peregrine mentioned above rules bloat is definitely influenced by the surge for 25+ army books/codices. Cost also would be a factor. I would never buy 4-5 books (particular at GW's pricing structure) in order to play a game or army.

I have branched out, but mostly to other parts of the game.
Eldar and Harlequins,
SM and IG, plus Imperial fortifications,
Ad Mech.
This lot would be in 2-3 books, not the 5+1 they have now.
But, I have little want to go much further.

 Traditio wrote:
One of the ideas that frequently gets floated is the idea that many of the codices should be consolidated.

Example:
2. Sisters of Battle, Inquisition and Gray Knights should be in the same codex.

I would not like this at all. Being just ask black templar players how "fun" it is to lose your own codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My inquisitors do have nothing in common with those puritan extremists. I want to be able to wield daemon swords, and field daemon host. I do not want my army to be reduced to a unit in a flavourless codex.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pls stop trying to steal my codex because you don't like other players to have a diversity of toys to choose from.

I’d be more prone to buy more things. Although as my hobby desires for my primary army outstrip my budget already, this would not affect sales much.

I’ve got guard and BA on the shelf. Old minis from RT/2nd ed. I refuse to commit to bringing them up to modern playable sizes due to the cost of the rules. It’s bad enough maintaining the core rules and the two codexes I currently keep up on (vanilla SM, Eldar). I’m as susceptible to shiny model syndrome as the next guy. When I see cool new releases, I am tempted. But it’s not just the cost of the codex now, but the next one they release if I want to keep playing. It was only an influx of hobby cash when I sold my old M:tG cards that let me bring my Eldar up to a modern standard.

I don’t begrudge GW cash for cool looking minis. I am loath to shell out for rules that are going to be obsolete in a few years. Especially when they burned me with the 2 year turnaround recently. investing for ~4 years worth of use out of a book was a lot easier to justify.

I’m also morally opposed to the one unit codexes. Scions, Imp. Knights, LotD. These rules-thin books designed as an ally force at best. If you can be boiled down to 2-3 datasheets, an armory/rules page and a formation, you should be in a WD, not a 40-50 buck hardcover.

Consolidation would also help with consistency. Why do vanilla dreads get 4A, while BA’s get 2? They erratad it, but that kind of thing. I honestly think most of the loyalist marine books could be wrapped together and then use supplements to keep their unique flair. The only proble with wrapping them all together into one book would be the size of the tome it would result in.

 Traditio wrote:
One of the ideas that frequently gets floated is the idea that many of the codices should be consolidated.

Example:

1. All marine armies should be in the same codex.

2. Sisters of Battle, Inquisition and Gray Knights should be in the same codex.

3. All chaos stuff should be in the same codex.

You get the idea.

Let's assume for a moment that this happened. Would you be more inclined to buy more models from "different" armies?

For example, if you run Tzeentch marines, would you be more inclined to buy tzeentch daemon models?

If you currently run Sisters of Battle, would you be more inclined to buy gray knights models?

Lets ask a few questions ?
1: What is your main army ?
2: Do you use allies now, and if not why not ?
3: If you did not use allies, would you use the same units if they would be inserted in your codex and the fluff of those units hasn't changed ?
4: Do you have a thematic idea what your army should be ?
5: How would you feel if your main army was suddenly rolled into an other factions codex, you lost all army specific rules, was forced to play units that don't matched your idea of what your army really is and you gained army wide inappropriate rules.

For example suppose you played SM and you suddenly got rolled into codex Imperial guard. Space marines lost chapter tactics and relics but gained imperial guard commands but you had to take at least 1 command squad and 2 infantry platoons to unlock space marines.

 oldzoggy wrote:
I would not like this at all. Being just ask black templar players how "fun" it is to lose your own codex.

I would. This was how it used to be.

My inquisitors do have nothing in common with those puritan extremists. I want to be able to wield daemon swords, and field daemon host. I do not want my army to be reduced to a unit in a flavourless codex.|

The old Inquisition Codexes were consolidated, and not only did they have plenty of flavour but the Inquisition units they contained were actually effective. I used to run a "Radical" Daemonhunters list with a Daemonblade Inquisitor Lord, 3 Daemonhosts, some Stormtroopers, and an Allied Space Marine contingent; it wasn't a "competitive" army by any stretch of the imagination but it kicked plenty of butt and was a blast to play.

The way things are now, I think they should either consolidate the Inquisition units into some other Codex, or just get rid of them entirely. They're a sad shadow of what they used to be.

BBAP wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
I would not like this at all. Being just ask black templar players how "fun" it is to lose your own codex.

I would. This was how it used to be.

My inquisitors do have nothing in common with those puritan extremists. I want to be able to wield daemon swords, and field daemon host. I do not want my army to be reduced to a unit in a flavourless codex.|

The old Inquisition Codexes were consolidated, and not only did they have plenty of flavour but the Inquisition units they contained were actually effective. I used to run a "Radical" Daemonhunters list with a Daemonblade Inquisitor Lord, 3 Daemonhosts, some Stormtroopers, and an Allied Space Marine contingent; it wasn't a "competitive" army by any stretch of the imagination but it kicked plenty of butt and was a blast to play.

The way things are now, I think they should either consolidate the Inquisition units into some other Codex, or just get rid of them entirely. They're a sad shadow of what they used to be.

I think we already talked about it already but is on topic.

How the warp they managed to put all that good stuff and flavour in one single codex like happened to Daemonhunters and CSM?
What happened? Why everything became so dysfunctional and bloated?

I would probably buy a lot more models if codeices were free like Age of Sigmar. As is, I collect a fairly wide range of models, but I have held back from buying things like Admech, GSC, Dark Eldar etc.

You guys know that the new AoS "codexes" are neither free nor convoluted right ? Sure they started by resetting everything and supplying those rules for free. But....

Every WfB army is slowly being pulled appart into multiple Factions that get their own battle tomes that cost 33$ each and all units not in those new books slowly become useless & oop



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also note that GW isn't suddenly going to have less book releasing new books with cool new rules is one of the best ways to convince us to buy more mini's.

So if you limit the codexes by merging all sorts of factions you will just be getting more supplements, making the whole thing even cluttier.

Better yet, free PDFs of just rules for whatever number of factions. If people want a nice book with pictures and fluff, a pretty book with pictures and fluff could be made for each faction for the collectors. Everyone else has free and nearly instant access to all the rules needed.

Best of both worlds.

Ideally, even the PDFs would be consolidated so we don't have nonsense like stormtroopers getting their own codex when they fit perfectly within the Guard book, or Ad Mech being split in two for no good reason.

I don't think it'd particularly affect my purchasing habits one way or the other.

As a Dark Angels player, I'd have actually been better off for most of the period from 4th ed till now, and even now we DA players are probably only about even with SM players.

Thing is, I don't see how the variant SM armies can keep the units that have been introduced since 5th ed without either some kind of supplement or having an extremely bloated Codex: Space Marines. If GW went the supplements route, we'd really have the same number of publications we've got now, but people playing BAs and DAs would require two sources for their armies instead of the one we have now. That said, we wouldn't have our armies left in the dust they way DA players had from 4th ed till our 7th ed dex, and the way BA players are now. GW is not very likely to produce a Codex: Space Marines that sucks.

About the only way being in one combined dex might induce me to buy more models would be if I got access to some vanilla units that DAs don't currently get - chief among them being the Thunderfire Cannon.

I would certainly be in favor of a lot of consolidation. Having all the Chaos stuff in one book would be great for example. Most stuff can be consolidated very easily, especially with armies like SW's and BA's sharing the overwhelmingly vast majority of units and wargear with C:SM, you could get away with a combined SM book being only a couple dozen pages longer than what it is now and not lose a thing.


That said, until they clean up the rules, I'm not buying nuffin.