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 MagicJuggler wrote:

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.

Well, to be fair, other armies get some cool stuff too. I mean you have "the most diverse fighting force in the galaxy," and that's a direct quote from the 5e codex. Surely the Imperial Guard have plenty of diverse units and rules to match. I mean you get rambo guard, and Colonial Marines guard, and...

... oh.

 Elbows wrote:
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.

This is a pretty good summary of the problems that arise with more factions. It's usually a more short-sighted issue. Short term gain (from people buying new models for Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Imperial Agents etc) but long term loss (having to keep the rules updated and "unique" enough, Long spans between rules updates, more cluttered release schedules). Personally, I feel that the rules for units in 40k are already not unique enough to be considered different, and some factions such as Blood Angels and Dark Angels are really just off-shoot subfactions of the Codex: Space Marines and could be included in that book instead.

Sadly I think this is just going to be the trend. I wrote up an article on reddit about GW's obsession with neophilia - releasing new things instead of shoring up the old.

The big problem that they're facing now, esp with Death Guard and Thousand Sons, is that now people want the rest of the collection. Where's World Eaters and Emperor's Children? But releasing those means putting more marines into an already marine-saturated environment. It's progress that we're getting Eldar split up into three factions to help round out xenos, and Genestealer Cults was definitely needed, but then what? Are Kroot going to get their own codex? How about Vespid?

I can't wait for Codex: Grots.

Faction isn't defined the same way it was in 7th.
Take dark eldars for instance. While dark eldar does correspond to a specific keyword, it's a subset of Aeldari, and is further divided into sub-factions (mainly kabals, wych cults, and covens). A wych cult army is unlikely to be viable by itself, does it mean we should get rid of the dark eldar sub-factions and keep dark eldar as the lowest-level keyword? I really don't see the point…
I suppose most people in this thread mean codex when they say faction; that too many factions mean to many codex. But splitting an army between multiple books doesn't have the same impact it did in 7th, since it doesn't mean different detachments anymore. It just mean more books to buy.

Also, it is possible that more factions will disappear in the future. 8th is supposed to be a live edition, and GW already said that some units that are in the index will not get updated rules in codex format. It's now a lot easier for them to completely stop supporting a faction/model line, as there will always be legacy rules that are compatible with current 40k. The factions they want to actively support will keep getting new codex once in a while, while the others will just stay un-updated forever.

People are just jealous and think "if there is another faction, it will take away from my faction" but it really isnt like that and they dont want others to have something for a stupid fear.
.

fresus wrote:
Faction isn't defined the same way it was in 7th.
Take dark eldars for instance. While dark eldar does correspond to a specific keyword, it's a subset of Aeldari, and is further divided into sub-factions (mainly kabals, wych cults, and covens). A wych cult army is unlikely to be viable by itself, does it mean we should get rid of the dark eldar sub-factions and keep dark eldar as the lowest-level keyword? I really don't see the point…
I suppose most people in this thread mean codex when they say faction; that too many factions mean to many codex. But splitting an army between multiple books doesn't have the same impact it did in 7th, since it doesn't mean different detachments anymore. It just mean more books to buy.

Also, it is possible that more factions will disappear in the future. 8th is supposed to be a live edition, and GW already said that some units that are in the index will not get updated rules in codex format. It's now a lot easier for them to completely stop supporting a faction/model line, as there will always be legacy rules that are compatible with current 40k. The factions they want to actively support will keep getting new codex once in a while, while the others will just stay un-updated forever.

I think the consolidation seen in the Indexes was great for the game. It didn't remove any factions, but it made them significantly better unified and consolidated. The return of Codexes has felt like a step backwards overall, IMO.

For me I see the faction dilemma as two distinct issues:

1) GW as a company has to keep selling kits, which dictates that new releases will be the primary driver for the hype and sales. For me, anecdotally, even though I own three armies, I am always on the cusp of buying into the new releases on the strength of the models and fluff alone. Although it's rare to buy into it, I do every few years start a new force to keep things fresh. This is when GW gets most of my and allegedly most of your money. Buying into a new force is when you spend a good $500 - $1000 on new models over a year or two. If an updated model comes out for an army I already own, I buy that model and GW gets my $50-$100 for the year. From that standpoint it makes sense to keep releasing new factions as any player investing has to buy in completely. This is why I think we will keep seeing a lot of new factions and a lot of re-done ranges. (Primaris Marines say hi)

2) The balance between all the armies becomes incredibly difficult to maintain as you get more and more factions, and each new faction gets unique rules that fundamentally alter game mechanics. It's like a game of rock-paper-scissors which gets a fourth or a fifth option brought in. How do you balance it? The answer is, you really can't unless you have a dynamic play-test-driven rule set which is constantly updated based on some kind of group consensus. This is impossible with printed codecies which are released once a year. This could be an easy fix; Print the fluff and artwork in the codex, and release all the stats/costs/options in a free constantly updated electronic format. If GW were smart they would do this, so they can buff/nerf certain factions and mechanics. They are attempting to do something about balance through FAQ's, but it's a far cry from what is needed.

My ideal solution would be for there to be several "templates" for each force which describes how it functions and lets its units function in specific capacities such as "horde army", "elite CC army", "elite mobile army" to which you can fit every faction, and then you can sprinkle in faction specific rules to make them feel different. At the moment each faction is so different that it's not really a question of balance, just a matter of exploiting the most OP combos and buffs of once force versus those of another.

As with most things on earth, it's not the idea that's bad, it's the implementation.
There is nothing inherently wrong with more factions. But it requires some work.

1. Ballancing
Any strategy-based game needs decent ballance. Ideally, every faction and unit should be viable in a certain way. 8th did a quite nice reset, but I don't know how well everything is ballanced. Knowing GW, the result is probably half-assed at best.

2. Sensible pricing
A codex that features 5 units and 3 pages of fluff shouldn't cost as much a 250-page rulebook. The indexes were fairly priced, but it remains to be seen how much GW is going to screw that ballance with more codices.