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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You don't have to homegenize them all. You only need to take care of Dark and Blood Angels. Space Wolves and Grey Knights should remain independent and Deathwatch should go into a basic Inquisition codex along with Sisters (where Grey Knights can optionally go as well). Bam, that's significantly less books with still tons of options.

Dark Angels and Blood Angels has enough units tho, they have something like 13-16 unique units, thats more than some other armies.

Is having more factions really hurting us tho? No, they are making the hobby more fun and gives players more variations of looks/style, play, rules etc.....

Heck i want more factions, give us Exodite Eldar, Corsairs back, etc.. I even want (not squats) Space Dwarfs (seen some cool conversions, tunneling race)

Blood Angels: Their Command Squads and Techmarines get Jump Packs instead of Bikes, they have Sanguinary Guard instead of Honor Guard, Furioso Dreads instead of Ironclads, so this really only leaves Death Company and Baal Engines. So really, only 2 unique items without appropriate analogues, unless giving Heavy Flamers to Tacsquads is their most unique feature. Their entire justification for 5th was to be "The Jump Marines," an "in-your-face" assault army meant to blitzkrieg. Only, such a build became increasingly unviable (especially combined with the changes to the 7e dex), ultimately resulting in them placing dead last at LVO 2014. They got a slapdash formation redux in Angel's Blade, hilariously with a core formation that effectively gave no bonus. And now that 8th has Outrider Detachments...why play Blood Angels again?

Dark Angels: Nephelim instead of Stormhawks, Heavy Landspeeders (shooty or sneaky), +1 Assault Terminators and +1 Bikes. Oh, but they can give their Terminators Plasma Cannons. Hell, Dark Angels almost played the same as vanilla Marines (both ran Bike Armies) from 5th to the first half of 7th, and their most successful 7th build was basically a Gladius that replaced Combat Doctrines with better Overwatch. So really, they have...4 unique units tops?

ya, know I kinda like soup, here's why: I want to create an Inquisition army. Inthat army I want to use facets of both the IG and mechanicum. maybe throw in some scions, couple SOB, perhaps a unit of GK. In 8th I can now do that, it's completely legal AND it's fluffy to boot!

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Blood Angels: Their Command Squads and Techmarines get Jump Packs instead of Bikes, they have Sanguinary Guard instead of Honor Guard, Furioso Dreads instead of Ironclads, so this really only leaves Death Company and Baal Engines. So really, only 2 unique items without appropriate analogues, unless giving Heavy Flamers to Tacsquads is their most unique feature. Their entire justification for 5th was to be "The Jump Marines," an "in-your-face" assault army meant to blitzkrieg. Only, such a build became increasingly unviable (especially combined with the changes to the 7e dex), ultimately resulting in them placing dead last at LVO 2014. They got a slapdash formation redux in Angel's Blade, hilariously with a core formation that effectively gave no binus. And now that 8th has Outrider Detachments...why play Blo9d Angels again?

Dark Angels: Nephelim instead of Stormhawks, Heavy Landspeeders (shooty or sneaky), +1 Assault Terminators and +1 Bikes. Oh, but they can give their Terminators Plasma Cannons. Hell, Dark Angels almost played the same as vanilla Marines (both ran Bike Armies) from 5th to the first half of 7th, and their most successful 7th build was basically a Gladius that replaced Combat Doctrines with better Overwatch. So really, they have...4 unique units tops?

This guy gets it. Even unique options like the Heavy Flamers for Tactical Squads should be available to everyone (and was in fact a option in the 5th edition codex!), and the fact their Techmarines and Command Squads get Jump Packs but Raven Guard and Fire Hawks don't is...silly beyond words. Otherwise, Sanguine Guard are trash and have been trash, Furioso Dreads are basically Ironclads with the option for a Frag Cannon, and an Assault Cannon option for their Predators.

Then Dark Angels have those trash fliers that you proxy for the regular Marine fliers, Deathwing Terminators (which never amounts to anything different because you specialize your squads, meaning the customization looks exactly like the regular Tactical Terminator and Assault Terminator squads barring super bizarre examples), Ravenwing Bikers which always functioned exactly the same besides Teleport Homers, and that just leaves the Knights for both those Wings, who are genuinely unique.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You don't have to homegenize them all. You only need to take care of Dark and Blood Angels. Space Wolves and Grey Knights should remain independent and Deathwatch should go into a basic Inquisition codex along with Sisters (where Grey Knights can optionally go as well). Bam, that's significantly less books with still tons of options.

Dark Angels and Blood Angels has enough units tho, they have something like 13-16 unique units, thats more than some other armies.

Is having more factions really hurting us tho? No, they are making the hobby more fun and gives players more variations of looks/style, play, rules etc.....

Heck i want more factions, give us Exodite Eldar, Corsairs back, etc.. I even want (not squats) Space Dwarfs (seen some cool conversions, tunneling race)

Exodites are unique enough like Dark Eldar to Eldar. Blood and Dark Angels are not. You aren't losing options and in fact theoretically gain more.

We've long since gone past the 'too many factions' point.

Way back in 3rd edition we were going in the right direction. All Space Marines were the same but you could play one of the specialized chapters which ultimately just had basic organizational swaps to provide some character. Since we've now come full circle again and every army has a special character it would be incredibly easy to go back to have a generic BA HQ that made Assault Marines troops, gave you a special Assault Marine Death Company retinue, and gave your rhinos an additional +2 movement or something. Each chapter could get something like that in conjunction with their tactics/strategems etc.

Every army was more or less like this until after 4th edition where GW decided they were no longer a game company but rather a model company. Instead of making changes for the betterment of the game they decided to come up with any justifiable reason to make a new plastic model regardless if the army needed something or not. And instead of redoing older models they seemed to prioritize making new units to ensure people bought them.

Now in 8th edition it's looking like GW has once again realized they have a game that goes along with their plastic crack addiction and are trying to make things more streamlined and easier for gamers to follow. But even with their first few releases in this edition we see that they're falling back on bad habits. Every book is once again getting an assortment of unique rules which will force players to have to memorize countless special rules and limitations depending on what they're playing against.

We're just going back to the days where people need to bring a library collection of books along with them to game.

Getting too much where core units are getting the "special snowflake" treatment.

I did not mind the Space Marine codex had a few little bits for my Black Templar: gave a flavor for them and continued on with all that is marine.

It seems silly to have to separate out CSM when they are the same core unit with a key stat change and some different gear: was done easily in the past and the current "basic" CSM codex is pretty good for that as well.
The old Codex below made it pretty clear how to make a "cult" army and has been echoed in lesser ways through the years (3rd edition update 2nd book was nasty garbage).


Feels like a missed opportunity with the Grey Knights: Could have done an Inquisition Codex and get them with the Death Watch all under one roof, maybe Sisters? That then covers Daemon, Xenos, Heretic opposing forces.
Page 21 was pretty good and clear on allies (SM, AM/IG, Sisters) in the old codex below.


They need to keep the books for the units themselves in as few books as possible and then flesh-out various detachments making up a specific flavor of force.
It would be neat to see say a "Codex" like we had in the past of Armageddon and create some specific formations and supporting details:


I think we will be on the right track if all the 4 flavors of Eldar are put under one book as an example.
They are another group of armies that may logically mix and match depending on the "story/justification" used.

By having units under a logical one-roof or grouping it will be easier to make changes without having to update like 3 books where we repeat ourselves.
If one of these "supplements" break something, then the book can be addressed and not a multitude of others.
6th and 7th were the only editions I did not get all the Codices: It just did not seem possible with the plethora of publications.

8th I am holding out hope it will be a bit more reasonable.
I would like a game again where it is possible to know your own army's rules as well as your opponents (most of them, not a select few).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

Chaos Space Marines have FAR more unique units and options that you couldn't do that. Same with Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and, to an extent, Deathwatch. Try again, please, but without the justification you could throw Orks in the same codex because you clearly can't get a point across without a terrible comparison/exaggeration.

If the comparison is terrible, then that is not my fault. It follows the same logic you do when you argue argue they could put Blood Angels into the SM codex. To fit BA or DA into the SM codex, you would need to make them less unique and more similar to SM. BA and DA only become similar enough to SM once you remove all of their unique stuff. So why single them out when CSM are just as similar to SM once you remove their unique stuff?

Now try again, but this time with an actual argument for taking stuff away from people.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

Chaos Space Marines have FAR more unique units and options that you couldn't do that. Same with Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and, to an extent, Deathwatch. Try again, please, but without the justification you could throw Orks in the same codex because you clearly can't get a point across without a terrible comparison/exaggeration.

If the comparison is terrible, then that is not my fault. It follows the same logic you do when you argue argue they could put Blood Angels into the SM codex. To fit BA or DA into the SM codex, you would need to make them less unique and more similar to SM. BA and DA only become similar enough to SM once you remove all of their unique stuff. So why single them out when CSM are just as similar to SM once you remove their unique stuff?

Now try again, but this time with an actual argument for taking stuff away from people.

In all fairness, Blood Angels and Dark Angels are very similar to Space Marines already (for obvious reasons) that they could easily function on chapter tactics and a couple of pages of unique units and special characters. They certainly share a lot in terms of units, wargear, options and special rules anyways.

3 different space marines factions are too many factions.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Assassins, non-mechanicus Knights, Scions, Adeptus Ministrum, and Inquisitors should all be a single faction. Flavour wise, these are all the secondary, behind the scenes people who make the Imperium work. They're not frontline soldiers, their the agents of the god emperor's will.
[…]
Adeptus Mechanicus and Questoris Knights are just begging to be one faction. They need some more units (perhaps "Mechanicum" versions of existing vehicles, seeing as the AdMech are the sole source of Imperial Hardware, having special rules beyond their normal counterparts) but this one deserves to be it's own.

You got things wrong. Sisters of battle are frontline warriors. Adeptus Mechanicus is secondary, behind the scene people that make the Imperium work.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Is having more factions really hurting us tho?

Yes, more wait time between new release and balance problems and all. Of course you can't see the new release waiting time thing if you play marines when half of the new release are available for all marine factions…

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
3 different space marines factions are too many factions.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Assassins, non-mechanicus Knights, Scions, Adeptus Ministrum, and Inquisitors should all be a single faction. Flavour wise, these are all the secondary, behind the scenes people who make the Imperium work. They're not frontline soldiers, their the agents of the god emperor's will.
[…]
Adeptus Mechanicus and Questoris Knights are just begging to be one faction. They need some more units (perhaps "Mechanicum" versions of existing vehicles, seeing as the AdMech are the sole source of Imperial Hardware, having special rules beyond their normal counterparts) but this one deserves to be it's own.

You got things wrong. Sisters of battle are frontline warriors. Adeptus Mechanicus is secondary, behind the scene people that make the Imperium work.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Is having more factions really hurting us tho?

Yes, more wait time between new release and balance problems and all. Of course you can't see the new release waiting time thing if you play marines when half of the new release are available for all marine factions…

Seeing how fast codex's are coming out in 8th, i'd say thats not a valid argument, yes it takes longer than lets say 5 books, BUT they still take the "same time" to write, 1 codex is going to take the same amount of time as any other codex (well SM and CSM might be a little bit longer)

But then you are done..... you dont need to write another codex unless an edition changes (like 8th). the problem is we had 3 editions in a very short time. Where honestly an Edition should last a LONG time, not 2yrs.......
Hopefully 8th will stay for 5yrs+ this time and just have rules tweaks, everyone will get an updated codex and even some balance changes in the future.

So again. How is it hurting you?

One step forward, two steps back, to my mind. We had the Indexes (Indices, if you prefer) organized just how a "Space Marine" book ought to be ("here's the base list, then we're going to give you a bunch of appendixes with variant armies"), and now we're going straight back to too many books.

I don't think just keeping things in Index format is the answer, but having a wider range of stuff in one book is a better idea than trying to spread it out over a bunch of books with copy-pasted content the way it looks like they're doing, since you run into the Rhino problem (either you don't update the shared content at all, or the same thing has different rules in different books).

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Blood Angels: Their Command Squads and Techmarines get Jump Packs instead of Bikes, they have Sanguinary Guard instead of Honor Guard, Furioso Dreads instead of Ironclads, so this really only leaves Death Company and Baal Engines. So really, only 2 unique items without appropriate analogues, unless giving Heavy Flamers to Tacsquads is their most unique feature. Their entire justification for 5th was to be "The Jump Marines," an "in-your-face" assault army meant to blitzkrieg. Only, such a build became increasingly unviable (especially combined with the changes to the 7e dex), ultimately resulting in them placing dead last at LVO 2014. They got a slapdash formation redux in Angel's Blade, hilariously with a core formation that effectively gave no bonus. And now that 8th has Outrider Detachments...why play Blood Angels again?

Dark Angels: Nephelim instead of Stormhawks, Heavy Landspeeders (shooty or sneaky), +1 Assault Terminators and +1 Bikes. Oh, but they can give their Terminators Plasma Cannons. Hell, Dark Angels almost played the same as vanilla Marines (both ran Bike Armies) from 5th to the first half of 7th, and their most successful 7th build was basically a Gladius that replaced Combat Doctrines with better Overwatch. So really, they have...4 unique units tops?

I am still not seeing the point of your argument. You asked how many factions was too many, but you haven't said why there would even be an upper limit. What is the problem with multiple factions? I think that natural selection would cause non-viable armies to eventually disappear over time.

Looking at Dark Angels and Blood Angels, for instance, they are both offer viable, add variety at low opportunity cost and are popular. I'll briefly explore each area.

The Dark Angels are absolutely viable on their own. I have played them through multiple editions (since 2nd Ed but I took a break from 40K for 7th) and even with the rather basic Index 1 they are solid. I don't play Blood Angels, but my son's Flesh Tearers are doing just fine and the local BA players are also doing just fine. Both stand on their own.

They both offer variety from normal Space Marines at low opportunity cost. You've dismissed the differences, but DA and BA certainly look, play and feel different that Ultramarines, Ravenguard or other SM lists. A Deathwing Terminator army, for instance, absolutely plays differently than a Space Marine Terminator army due to the squad options and morale rules. . Both DA and BA have access to unique units and lack access to others. They have special rules, special characters and their Librarians have different powers. Once the Codexes drop we should see even more variety. By low opportunity cost I mean that GW can have these addition factions without having too many SKUs. With the current plastic boxes it does not take many unique SKUs on the inventory to have a different faction with a wide range of models. The DA and BA, for instance, can use many of the standard kits from the SM range but still have a very different look and feel.

Finally, the BA and DA are enduringly popular. They have vibrant Tactics threads here on Dakka, and they certainly appear in the Battle Reports and the unscientific but interesting "We've Seen the ITC results, how about Dakka?" There are plenty of DA, BA and SW players in my local scene.

I fail to see the problem with variety. Just because an army doesn't appeal to me doesn't make me want to ban it. Perhaps you are really just complaining about so-called Imperial Soup?

There's nothing wrong with variety so long as the game evolves and grows because of it. There's something wrong with variety when all it does it add needless complexity to an already complex game.

That's the exact issue with the majority of Space Marine chapters. They don't play much different than they did 20 years ago when all they had different was maybe 1 unit each and some organizational swaps. Today they have a list of tactics, strategems, half a dozen unique units each with weird unique rules, and what did these armies gain? Nothing... their playstyle is the same it was 20 years ago and they swapped out old units that now sit on the shelf gathering dust in favor of the new units that overshadow other things in the book.

GW really needs to start questioning if they're adding variety or if they're just adding complexity.

Darsath wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

Chaos Space Marines have FAR more unique units and options that you couldn't do that. Same with Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and, to an extent, Deathwatch. Try again, please, but without the justification you could throw Orks in the same codex because you clearly can't get a point across without a terrible comparison/exaggeration.

If the comparison is terrible, then that is not my fault. It follows the same logic you do when you argue argue they could put Blood Angels into the SM codex. To fit BA or DA into the SM codex, you would need to make them less unique and more similar to SM. BA and DA only become similar enough to SM once you remove all of their unique stuff. So why single them out when CSM are just as similar to SM once you remove their unique stuff?

Now try again, but this time with an actual argument for taking stuff away from people.

In all fairness, Blood Angels and Dark Angels are very similar to Space Marines already (for obvious reasons) that they could easily function on chapter tactics and a couple of pages of unique units and special characters. They certainly share a lot in terms of units, wargear, options and special rules anyways.

And there is also a large amount of units, options, wargear and special rules that sets them apart. Far more than just a simple chapter tactics rule. Adding them to the SM codex without making them lose their unique flavour would almost double the size of the SM codex, and triple it if we also want to preserve their fluff. That is not something that anyone should be wanting.
Meanwhile, we lose nothing by them being in separate books. There is no need or incentive to put them into the SM codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
3 different space marines factions are too many factions.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Assassins, non-mechanicus Knights, Scions, Adeptus Ministrum, and Inquisitors should all be a single faction. Flavour wise, these are all the secondary, behind the scenes people who make the Imperium work. They're not frontline soldiers, their the agents of the god emperor's will.
[…]
Adeptus Mechanicus and Questoris Knights are just begging to be one faction. They need some more units (perhaps "Mechanicum" versions of existing vehicles, seeing as the AdMech are the sole source of Imperial Hardware, having special rules beyond their normal counterparts) but this one deserves to be it's own.

You got things wrong. Sisters of battle are frontline warriors. Adeptus Mechanicus is secondary, behind the scene people that make the Imperium work.

Try telling that to a Magos Reductor

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Darsath wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Enough... is never enough!
There is no such thing as too much factions. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I also have no problem with supplementary codices. I think the problem is with people viewing those as full 'armies'. A codex like 7th edition Militarum Tempestus or the Harlequins however was never meant to be a standalone army. They were meant to be used as supporting elements for existing armies.

As to the Marine codices, BA and DA could be rolled into the main SM codex, but this would be unnecessarily complicated as they both have a lot of special units and rules that need to be preserved and there would be less room for fluff and future developments. Also, it would bloat the size of the SM codex to the point where GW would probably need to make it more expensive, which would lead to all sorts of complaining.
SW and GK are simply too different, they only share a few units in common with the SM codex.

Blood and Dark Angels don't have enough special units to deserve their own Codices. You'd be able to keep 1-2 of their own units (Black and death knights, Death Company) and leave it at that (anything else can be represented by a different unit entry or the unit sucks so bad it doesn't deserve one). Then you turn a couple rules into a Chapter Tactic. Easy as that. Then we could allow sharing of wargear. It's silly nobody else's Terminators has access to Plasma Cannons, or that nobody's characters gets Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, and it's silly those chapters don't have the regular Fliers or Thunderfire Cannons or Centurions.

No. That is a laughably bad idea. What you are proposing is taking away the factions' unique flavour in order to make them fit into the SM codex. At that point we could also try fitting in CSM or even Orks into the SM codex, could we not? If leave them some of their units, bring the others in line with SM equivalents, take away most of their unique rules, share their wargear, then they'd fit in perfectly!
There is nothing to win by putting BA and DA into the SM codex. Only thing we'd get from that is 2 less factions. And a game is supposed to develop and grow, not regress and shrink. Less choice and less variety is never a good thing for a game.

Chaos Space Marines have FAR more unique units and options that you couldn't do that. Same with Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and, to an extent, Deathwatch. Try again, please, but without the justification you could throw Orks in the same codex because you clearly can't get a point across without a terrible comparison/exaggeration.

If the comparison is terrible, then that is not my fault. It follows the same logic you do when you argue argue they could put Blood Angels into the SM codex. To fit BA or DA into the SM codex, you would need to make them less unique and more similar to SM. BA and DA only become similar enough to SM once you remove all of their unique stuff. So why single them out when CSM are just as similar to SM once you remove their unique stuff?

Now try again, but this time with an actual argument for taking stuff away from people.

In all fairness, Blood Angels and Dark Angels are very similar to Space Marines already (for obvious reasons) that they could easily function on chapter tactics and a couple of pages of unique units and special characters. They certainly share a lot in terms of units, wargear, options and special rules anyways.

And there is also a large amount of units, options, wargear and special rules that sets them apart. Far more than just a simple chapter tactics rule. Adding them to the SM codex without making them lose their unique flavour would almost double the size of the SM codex, and triple it if we also want to preserve their fluff. That is not something that anyone should be wanting.
Meanwhile, we lose nothing by them being in separate books. There is no need or incentive to put them into the SM codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
3 different space marines factions are too many factions.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Assassins, non-mechanicus Knights, Scions, Adeptus Ministrum, and Inquisitors should all be a single faction. Flavour wise, these are all the secondary, behind the scenes people who make the Imperium work. They're not frontline soldiers, their the agents of the god emperor's will.
[…]
Adeptus Mechanicus and Questoris Knights are just begging to be one faction. They need some more units (perhaps "Mechanicum" versions of existing vehicles, seeing as the AdMech are the sole source of Imperial Hardware, having special rules beyond their normal counterparts) but this one deserves to be it's own.

You got things wrong. Sisters of battle are frontline warriors. Adeptus Mechanicus is secondary, behind the scene people that make the Imperium work.

Try telling that to a Magos Reductor

Except there isn't that large an amount of those unique options like you claim, some of which should be in the main codex in the first place (Tactical Marines had Heavy Flamers in the 5th codex, and they lost them so...Blood Angels could keep them? fething stupid), and there's no reason they shouldn't have access to regular wargear either (so...Thunderfire Cannons just don't exist for them apparently. Not even their successors). You see the issue here?

Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

So, are you actually saying that the release schedule is the bottleneck here? They're just sitting on great, balanced Ork rules and plastic Sisters but Marketing won't let them put them out until they get through all of the Marine releases? I'm not sure I buy it.

Also note that they're releasing things at an unprecedented rate. They're already dumping minor factions with no releases with basically no build-up -- we got GKs simultaneous with Chaos and we're getting AdMech a week after Death Guard. If Codex: Blood Angels literally just means a one-week delay on Codex: Orks, it's hard to begrudge the Blood Angels players much.

Personally, I think the fact that they can pump out low-effort codices so quickly just goes to show that nothing like this was ever the bottleneck. It's coming up with new, balanced rules and new models that takes time, and it takes far more time than just packaging together some units from Codex: Space Marines and giving them a special Chapter Tactic.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

So, are you actually saying that the release schedule is the bottleneck here? They're just sitting on great, balanced Ork rules and plastic Sisters but Marketing won't let them put them out until they get through all of the Marine releases? I'm not sure I buy it.

Also note that they're releasing things at an unprecedented rate. They're already dumping minor factions with no releases with basically no build-up -- we got GKs simultaneous with Chaos and we're getting AdMech a week after Death Guard. If Codex: Blood Angels literally just means a one-week delay on Codex: Orks, it's hard to begrudge the Blood Angels players much.

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

So, are you actually saying that the release schedule is the bottleneck here? They're just sitting on great, balanced Ork rules and plastic Sisters but Marketing won't let them put them out until they get through all of the Marine releases? I'm not sure I buy it.

Also note that they're releasing things at an unprecedented rate. They're already dumping minor factions with no releases with basically no build-up -- we got GKs simultaneous with Chaos and we're getting AdMech a week after Death Guard. If Codex: Blood Angels literally just means a one-week delay on Codex: Orks, it's hard to begrudge the Blood Angels players much.

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

Businesses order projects from most likely to least likely to increase revenue. If GW are prioritising Marine factions, it's because they think those are the things which are most likely to make them money. Getting rid of high revenue releases to prioritise low revenue releases is terrible business.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Blood and Dark Angels don't NEED playtesting because there's that many redundant choices. Even then, Blood Angels are usually near the bottom because of the Vanilla choices they lack and the garbage they get in return. The bloat is unnecessary and bad. Homogenizing the two Codices is only good FOR balance. You can't do it with Grey Knights and Space Wolves, but you certainly can for the Angels.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

This isn't really engaging with my post. Yes, duh, they don't literally have plastic Sisters sitting around. But what I'm saying is that the things you want them to work on are much, much more work than the things that you're saying are taking up valuable slots. They can't just change over, unless right now they just have a ton of staff sitting around goofing off all day. Now, Death Guard, sure, obviously that's a lot of modeling work. That's a pretty major release. But that didn't really seem like the sort of thing being objected to, since obviously Death Guard aren't just a minor variation on the Chaos codex. Of course, they could have been one, and then instead of spending all that time on them GW could have done Orks or Sisters, but this isn't as much of a win-win as the other scenarios being discussed. Clearly people who like Death Guard lose big time in this case. The argument as I understood it was that you have things like Codex: Blood Angels where really you could have rolled them into Codex: Space Marines without really even making Blood Angels players worse off.

 Corrode wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Redundancy is one issue. Bloat another. Balance another. Hell, perhaps the most hilarious example of this was the 6th edition Codex: Legion of The Damned, which was literally unplayable by itself.

A smaller number of consolidated factions with distinct playstyles, rather than "Marines with a slant", means focusing on actually attempting to balance out other armies. But hey, let's go for Codex: White Scars, Codex: Crimson Fists, Codex: Codex...

Again, this seems like a false choice. Your argument comes across as incoherent -- on the one hand you want to say that all of these Marine chapter codices are just minor variations on Codex: Space Marines and so could easily all go into the same book, but on the other you claim that an advantage to doing this is that GW would be able to spend more time on other armies. You can't have it both ways. Part of why GW does a lot of Marine subfactions is that they're very easy. If Blood Angels are just Codex: Marines with Vanguard Veterans+1, they barely need any playtesting, and likewise since they're all just tactical Marines with slightly different patches there's very little modeling work required; it's hard to see how the work GW does in releasing them separately is supposed to be taking away from efforts to balance other armies.

Release slots.

If you release something once a week, you can release 52 things a year. If you make 6 or 10 of those things into 1 thing, you can then release 52 things a year but 5-9 of them can be brand new.

So, are you actually saying that the release schedule is the bottleneck here? They're just sitting on great, balanced Ork rules and plastic Sisters but Marketing won't let them put them out until they get through all of the Marine releases? I'm not sure I buy it.

Also note that they're releasing things at an unprecedented rate. They're already dumping minor factions with no releases with basically no build-up -- we got GKs simultaneous with Chaos and we're getting AdMech a week after Death Guard. If Codex: Blood Angels literally just means a one-week delay on Codex: Orks, it's hard to begrudge the Blood Angels players much.

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

Businesses order projects from most likely to least likely to increase revenue. If GW are prioritising Marine factions, it's because they think those are the things which are most likely to make them money. Getting rid of high revenue releases to prioritise low revenue releases is terrible business.

But they're only terrible sources of revenue because they get no attention. It's a Catch-22. Marines get the attention, so they get all the money, so they get all the attention. The Dark Eldar re-release in 5th likely rescued a struggling faction from the dustbin of history, and increased revenues. Celestine's re-release probably sold a TON of copies of her (though it's hard to tell because of the way she was boxed).

But in general, I think GW won't lose much by folding Blood Angels (for example) into Codex: Space Marines. Only the most ridiculous players will quit the game over something so pedantic. While re-releasing Sisters in a brand-spanking new redux faction with their own playstyle and fluff would probably bring in more money than yet another Blood Angels (or Space Marines -1, as Martel is fond of saying) re-release for seventh time or whatever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

No? That's not how businesses work. They don't build stuff and then just go "oh, crap, no time to release it."

They plan out their releases. They say "oh, we've got X stuff to release, and 52 weeks. These few things (insert eleventybillion space marine codecies) are top priority. These other things (insert newshiny armies like admech and deathguard and 1k sons) are second priority. These other things (insert plastic SOB, balanced ork rules) are probably not going to fit into the 52 slots this year, so don't bother working on them."

If you shorten the list at the top, the stuff at the bottom suddenly fits into those 52 slots and work can begin. If you keep the first 52 things the same 52 things (eleventybillion marine codecies and newshiny) from year to year then there's no reason to actually invest in anything else.

This isn't really engaging with my post. Yes, duh, they don't literally have plastic Sisters sitting around. But what I'm saying is that the things you want them to work on are much, much more work than the things that you're saying are taking up valuable slots. They can't just change over, unless right now they just have a ton of staff sitting around goofing off all day. Now, Death Guard, sure, obviously that's a lot of modeling work. That's a pretty major release. But that didn't really seem like the sort of thing being objected to, since obviously Death Guard aren't just a minor variation on the Chaos codex. Of course, they could have been one, and then instead of spending all that time on them GW could have done Orks or Sisters, but this isn't as much of a win-win as the other scenarios being discussed. Clearly people who like Death Guard lose big time in this case. The argument as I understood it was that you have things like Codex: Blood Angels where really you could have rolled them into Codex: Space Marines without really even making Blood Angels players worse off.

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

Too many faction is bad, simple as that.

From a logistical standpoint, it's bad:

1) Codices and books get stretched out...meaning power creep, gaps in playability and most importantly - increase cost when you pair off tiny factions into their own books (for no reason)
2) Model releases become scant, and factions can go 3-4-5+ years without any worthwhile models or kits. Keep in mind some races still have 25+ year old models.

The main issue is simple. The rules for 40K are simple. Perhaps too simple. Even with increased statlines, the variety of units is pretty slim. This, unfortunately is already leading back to characters with an entire page of special rules. Essentially the rules themselves can't cover the increasingly wide model range without GW pushing into more and more ridiculous territory (because the 40K community insists on special snowflake rules for every single unit in all of their 25+ armies). The more special rules and the more bending of core rules which becomes necessary to "separate" units and factions and give them identities....the more convoluted and complex the game becomes, and not in a good way. Balance goes out in the window. Creating a new race or a new faction? You need to now make special rules for 30+ units which somehow interact properly with the other 1500+ units spread across the game.

It's simply unnecessary. Statlines are easy to balance - you can do this mathematically for most things. You're just creating the same giant morass which swallowed up 7th.
_____________________________________________

However...

None of this matters. It's about selling new pretty models to consumers and GW can still produce anything and people will buy it. They have to ride this train as far and as long as they can.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

You missed my point. If they have a free week coming up in 3 years, they can start right now, and get the big stuff done in 3 years. That free week will only arrive, however, if they stop the eternal cycle of eleventybillion Marine Codecies.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

You missed my point. If they have a free week coming up in 3 years, they can start right now, and get the big stuff done in 3 years. That free week will only arrive, however, if they stop the eternal cycle of eleventybillion Marine Codecies.

No, I think you're the one still just assuming that they have a ton of staff sitting around doing nothing all day as-is. Surely you see that this "big stuff" is actually harder work than churning out another Marine codex, or at least this was what MagicJuggler was saying explicitly and is what I was responding to when you chimed in. What do you think they do all day?

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

You missed my point. If they have a free week coming up in 3 years, they can start right now, and get the big stuff done in 3 years. That free week will only arrive, however, if they stop the eternal cycle of eleventybillion Marine Codecies.

No, I think you're the one still just assuming that they have a ton of staff sitting around doing nothing all day as-is. Surely you see that this "big stuff" is actually harder work than churning out another Marine codex, or at least this was what MagicJuggler was saying explicitly and is what I was responding to when you chimed in. What do you think they do all day?

I think they churn out the next marine codex. So if you put that 1 inch of effort in per day on a new thing, then perhaps (one day) you can instead reach that 1000 inch milestone you need to reach to release the stuff.

But in order to start that work, you need a release slot open in 1000 days.

So you have to decide (now, when you're reallocating your resources) to take someone off of churning out the next marine codex, fold it into codex Marines, and eventually make that deadline.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if they folded Blood Angels into Codex: Space Marines and had a free release slot, they just wouldn't put anything there?

They wouldn't put a major release there, no. Like, maybe right now when they're in "churn out as many low-effort codices as possible" mode you end up moving things forward by a week -- though again I really doubt that this is about the release schedule given that they're willing to release things simultaneously, as with Chaos and Grey Knights -- but in general you'd expect it to get replaced with something that requires a similar amount of effort behind the scenes. Having much bigger releases means that they'd need a lot more staff to keep up the same pace. Maybe they just drag out multi-week releases over slightly more time, putting out only one new model each week instead of two some weeks. It's not like filling the time is that hard.

You missed my point. If they have a free week coming up in 3 years, they can start right now, and get the big stuff done in 3 years. That free week will only arrive, however, if they stop the eternal cycle of eleventybillion Marine Codecies.

No, I think you're the one still just assuming that they have a ton of staff sitting around doing nothing all day as-is. Surely you see that this "big stuff" is actually harder work than churning out another Marine codex, or at least this was what MagicJuggler was saying explicitly and is what I was responding to when you chimed in. What do you think they do all day?

Besides think of new ways to churn out Space Marine codexes?

There are Space Marines (with Space Marines inside Space Marines), Viking Marines, Vampire Marines, Mysterious Marines, Ghostly Marines, Operator Marines, Mageknight Marines (with a bigger Space Marine inside a Space Marine), Space Marine Space Marines, Spiky Marines, Dusty Magic Space Marines, Plague Marines, and Space Marine Space Marines. Sir-Not-Appearing-With-A-Codex Space Marines thankfully lost their codex (though alas they lost their Holy Hand Grenades) to hang out with the regular Space Marines.