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It is really the way it should be and it wouldn't even have to cost GW money...it could in fact make them more money.

Imagine. Instead of a new codex with a few unique models to the specific chapter - you release a new unit that all space marine players can use. 4-5 times more people are interested in buying the model now. If you want to release the units in a book of some kind...go ahead....I'll freaking buy it.Plus - with the entire range be accessible by all chapters - it would be a lot more fun to play. Guess what I am never doing - buying into another space marine chapter...You'd think this would be pretty easy to understand.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
They're already quasi doing this with primaris marines.

This is gentrification of marines.

Sorry, couldn't resist. I have a mental image of a bunch of primaris hipsters opening up a bunch of breweries and coffee shops and pricing out all the regular marines with the rising rent in all the fortress monasteries.

Well, it was, of course, satirical. Primaris marines aren't a house in an urban area.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Not really. Marines play a lot more similarly to each other than Nids and Eldar, or Guard and Ad Mech.

So lets consolidate Tau and Astra Copywritum then, they are both shooty armies with weak melee.

We already have silliness like Black Templar exclusive units in the SM codex, there is no need to expand that 300fold.

Do the Tau and Guard books contain identical datasheets?

Create a digital subscription based app with the entire ruleset for all codexes, suppliments, etc and ditch print books all together. Leave 1992 and join 2019.

 Togusa wrote:
Create a digital subscription based app with the entire ruleset for all codexes, suppliments, etc and ditch print books all together. Leave 1992 and join 2019.

NO

some of us actually like to own physical product thanks

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Not really. Marines play a lot more similarly to each other than Nids and Eldar, or Guard and Ad Mech.

So lets consolidate Tau and Astra Copywritum then, they are both shooty armies with weak melee.

We already have silliness like Black Templar exclusive units in the SM codex, there is no need to expand that 300fold.

Do the Tau and Guard books contain identical datasheets?

Ding ding ding we have a winner!

If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

are you really claiming the existance of space wolves is why we have such a poor set of rules?!

BrianDavion wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Create a digital subscription based app with the entire ruleset for all codexes, suppliments, etc and ditch print books all together. Leave 1992 and join 2019.

NO

some of us actually like to own physical product thanks

I mean, there's nothing stopping them from printing the books too.

But yeah, a digital ruleset would be GREAT.

BrianDavion wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

are you really claiming the existance of space wolves is why we have such a poor set of rules?!

Actually, that's partly a reason. Mostly the reason for the Angels and the Vanillas being so terrible is because they're the same codex.

Space Wolves are at least designed differently enough that they feel like unique Marines, as much as I hate them. We really can't argue the same for Dark Angels and Blood Angels.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

^^^^^^This

Same thing with Catachans & Scions too, they never lost anything anyone care about when they get refolded into the main IG codex after their own respective codex books got replaced.

We've had consolidation of codex books and factions more than once before, with no greater losses or changes than one would expect of any codex or editon change.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Sophistry. Sure, there's nothing that inherently means you have to lose things from being consolidated, but in the real world that's what happens every damn time.

If there was nothing lost, how can it have taken up any additional design time? I'd argue that what was lost was design space. Black Templars as an army has suffered for 3 editions for being a melee faction shoehorned into a shooting Codex.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Sophistry. Sure, there's nothing that inherently means you have to lose things from being consolidated, but in the real world that's what happens every damn time.

If there was nothing lost, how can it have taken up any additional design time? I'd argue that what was lost was design space. Black Templars as an army has suffered for 3 editions for being a melee faction shoehorned into a shooting Codex.

Black Templars weren't a good melee army to begin with for their own codex. Everyone was doing what they're doing with Crusader squads now, and doing the multiple bought weapons in a squad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

^^^^^^This

Same thing with Catachans & Scions too, they never lost anything anyone care about when they get refolded into the main IG codex after their own respective codex books got replaced.

We've had consolidation of codex books and factions more than once before, with no greater losses or changes than one would expect of any codex or editon change.

Scions only really suffer from Rule of Three and kinda losing Commissars (in a pure list, anyway). That's somewhat a core rules issue for the former though. Latter is fixed with a quick errata.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Sophistry. Sure, there's nothing that inherently means you have to lose things from being consolidated, but in the real world that's what happens every damn time.

If there was nothing lost, how can it have taken up any additional design time? I'd argue that what was lost was design space. Black Templars as an army has suffered for 3 editions for being a melee faction shoehorned into a shooting Codex.

Black Templars weren't a good melee army to begin with for their own codex. Everyone was doing what they're doing with Crusader squads now, and doing the multiple bought weapons in a squad.

But the playstyle was majorly different from other Marine books. And sure, that was possible to replicate when GW folded BT into the Vanilla book but surprise, they didn't.

The sad thing is that this is exactly the same arguments I made before GW folded BT into the Vanilla book: "It's theoretically possible, but GW is going to feth it up". Lo and behold, they did. How has anything changed today?

Folding it into 1 book would result in killing off most chapters.
Saying that it can go in one book with all the options just won't happen.
It would be a £150 book with 500+ pages of just units and gear, let alone fluff ontop of that.

We all know then when GW forms multiple armies/chapters/groups together, it gets compressed and a lot of things just vanish completely.
This would damage profits as they would cut certain kits.
It would also piss off alot of players as they just got the squat treatment on a chunk of their army (for most, this wouldn't be the first time)

Its simply too much to fit into a single book, both in terms of rules and the actual model range.
Even if they did, this super book would be bloody huge and the cost would be insane, forcing players to pay a tax on a book they will only use a small part of.

Jackal90 wrote:
Folding it into 1 book would result in killing off most chapters.
Saying that it can go in one book with all the options just won't happen.
It would be a £150 book with 500+ pages of just units and gear, let alone fluff ontop of that.

We all know then when GW forms multiple armies/chapters/groups together, it gets compressed and a lot of things just vanish completely.
This would damage profits as they would cut certain kits.
It would also piss off alot of players as they just got the squat treatment on a chunk of their army (for most, this wouldn't be the first time)

Its simply too much to fit into a single book, both in terms of rules and the actual model range.
Even if they did, this super book would be bloody huge and the cost would be insane, forcing players to pay a tax on a book they will only use a small part of.

Are DA, SW, BA, and the main Marine dex even at 500 pages total right now?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Sophistry. Sure, there's nothing that inherently means you have to lose things from being consolidated, but in the real world that's what happens every damn time.

If there was nothing lost, how can it have taken up any additional design time? I'd argue that what was lost was design space. Black Templars as an army has suffered for 3 editions for being a melee faction shoehorned into a shooting Codex.

Black Templars weren't a good melee army to begin with for their own codex. Everyone was doing what they're doing with Crusader squads now, and doing the multiple bought weapons in a squad.

But the playstyle was majorly different from other Marine books. And sure, that was possible to replicate when GW folded BT into the Vanilla book but surprise, they didn't.

The sad thing is that this is exactly the same arguments I made before GW folded BT into the Vanilla book: "It's theoretically possible, but GW is going to feth it up". Lo and behold, they did. How has anything changed today?

Okay, so what went missing with it being consolidated?

 JNAProductions wrote:

Jackal90 wrote:
Folding it into 1 book would result in killing off most chapters.
Saying that it can go in one book with all the options just won't happen.
It would be a £150 book with 500+ pages of just units and gear, let alone fluff ontop of that.

We all know then when GW forms multiple armies/chapters/groups together, it gets compressed and a lot of things just vanish completely.
This would damage profits as they would cut certain kits.
It would also piss off alot of players as they just got the squat treatment on a chunk of their army (for most, this wouldn't be the first time)

Its simply too much to fit into a single book, both in terms of rules and the actual model range.
Even if they did, this super book would be bloody huge and the cost would be insane, forcing players to pay a tax on a book they will only use a small part of.

Are DA, SW, BA, and the main Marine dex even at 500 pages total right now?

no but codex space marines is at just over 200 pages, assuming that only the unique HQs made the change over and that each HQ gets a data sheet and a page of fluff, and that each chapter gets two pages of fluff the new codex would proably add a good 50-100 pages easily. a 300 page codex? they'd proably end up charging 75$ for it.

Jackal90 wrote:
Folding it into 1 book would result in killing off most chapters.
Saying that it can go in one book with all the options just won't happen.
It would be a £150 book with 500+ pages of just units and gear, let alone fluff ontop of that.

We all know then when GW forms multiple armies/chapters/groups together, it gets compressed and a lot of things just vanish completely.
This would damage profits as they would cut certain kits.
It would also piss off alot of players as they just got the squat treatment on a chunk of their army (for most, this wouldn't be the first time)

Its simply too much to fit into a single book, both in terms of rules and the actual model range.
Even if they did, this super book would be bloody huge and the cost would be insane, forcing players to pay a tax on a book they will only use a small part of.

LOL at the notion of the codex being too big. It is:
1. 2-5 pages of fluff for the Angels, maybe each
2. 1 page to make sure the Chapter Tactics aren't just squished on the same page
3. 5-10 pages for the special characters
4. Maybe 2 pages each for each of the 8 founding Chapters (and Black Templars) to have unique units
5. An additional page for Relics?

Please spare us that argument.

Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Black templars currently have four kits to buy, all of which are store exclusive. Three of them are HQ and 1 troop choice. No upgrade frames available either to convert other normal SM kits into black templar. I wouldnt say theyve had it very good since being consolidated

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Sophistry. Sure, there's nothing that inherently means you have to lose things from being consolidated, but in the real world that's what happens every damn time.

If there was nothing lost, how can it have taken up any additional design time? I'd argue that what was lost was design space. Black Templars as an army has suffered for 3 editions for being a melee faction shoehorned into a shooting Codex.

Black Templars weren't a good melee army to begin with for their own codex. Everyone was doing what they're doing with Crusader squads now, and doing the multiple bought weapons in a squad.

But the playstyle was majorly different from other Marine books. And sure, that was possible to replicate when GW folded BT into the Vanilla book but surprise, they didn't.

The sad thing is that this is exactly the same arguments I made before GW folded BT into the Vanilla book: "It's theoretically possible, but GW is going to feth it up". Lo and behold, they did. How has anything changed today?

Okay, so what went missing with it being consolidated?

The special rules that made the army play in a unique way in the first place. Mainly Righteous Zeal, but stuff like Vows as well.

And yes, I know that's because Games Workshop chose to remove those rules rather than an intrinsic effect of being folded, but what I'm arguing is that this is what happens when you consolidate armies. They're not going to make one Chapter Tactic much more complex than the others, so they took the chopping block approach instead.

EDIT: I'd also like an answer on Schrödinger's Design Process. How can the variant Codices clog up so much design time and simultaneously have very few differences? Make up your minds.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Sophistry. Sure, there's nothing that inherently means you have to lose things from being consolidated, but in the real world that's what happens every damn time.

If there was nothing lost, how can it have taken up any additional design time? I'd argue that what was lost was design space. Black Templars as an army has suffered for 3 editions for being a melee faction shoehorned into a shooting Codex.

Black Templars weren't a good melee army to begin with for their own codex. Everyone was doing what they're doing with Crusader squads now, and doing the multiple bought weapons in a squad.

But the playstyle was majorly different from other Marine books. And sure, that was possible to replicate when GW folded BT into the Vanilla book but surprise, they didn't.

Aside from "fall forward" when failing morale tests and mixing Scouts and Tacs in one unit, there wasn't much particularly unique about them or their playstyle remembering back to 4E/5E, they were just vanilla marines with an emphasis on CC and fewer unit options. Most of their differences with the basic SM codex were design paradigm shifts between codex releases rather than intended gameplay differences.

The stuff they lost they just as likely would have been lost or seen radically changed had they gotten their own unique update codex in later editions as design paradigms changed (stuff like vows and the relic holy hand grenade), and in exchange they got access to the full panoply of vanilla stuff they didn't have access to before.

Jackal90 wrote:
Folding it into 1 book would result in killing off most chapters.
Saying that it can go in one book with all the options just won't happen.
It would be a £150 book with 500+ pages of just units and gear, let alone fluff ontop of that.

Why do we assume this when it has never been the case in any other consolidation instance and completely outside the nature of GW's offerings (not even FW makes books that big and they have way more content than codex books so), particularly when 80% of the content is identical?

We all know then when GW forms multiple armies/chapters/groups together, it gets compressed and a lot of things just vanish completely.

People keep saying this, and yet it doesn't appear to have actually happened whenever factions got consolidated before...

72Canadian72 wrote:

Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Black templars currently have four kits to buy, all of which are store exclusive. Three of them are HQ and 1 troop choice. No upgrade frames available either to convert other normal SM kits into black templar. I wouldnt say theyve had it very good since being consolidated

This is an issue how? Everything else they had is basically another unit (you can't argue Sword Brethren functioned different than Vanguard), and in fact they gained even more tools (REGULAR Scouts, TFC, Centurions even if you hate them, etc.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's so easy to just fold all the variant Codices into the vanilla Codex, how can the variant Codices be draining everyone else's design time? You're assuming that the time GW spends on a variant Codex is enough that you could get something you'd rather have than Marines in that release slot if GW dropped that Marine book. If there's so much overlap, surely then it's just a case of copy-pasting a bunch of units, which means that a variant Marine Codex takes up nowhere near the same amount of development time as a non-Marine Codex?

The thing that's annoying Marine players is that it's essentially telling people who play one of these variant armies that you're fine with taking the risk that their army would get shafted because it'd mean there'd be a higher possibility of something you like filling that slot. Yes, we get it, in a perfect world it'd be possible to have a fantastic Marine Codex where everyone's playstyle is available and viable, and a bunch of Chapters that ought to have similar special units could all have them, but back in the real world what you get from doing stuff like this is Black Templars. We've already tried this. It's awful. Please stop.

It drains enough time from proper design theory. That's why we have basically three of the same codex and they're all terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Sophistry. Sure, there's nothing that inherently means you have to lose things from being consolidated, but in the real world that's what happens every damn time.

If there was nothing lost, how can it have taken up any additional design time? I'd argue that what was lost was design space. Black Templars as an army has suffered for 3 editions for being a melee faction shoehorned into a shooting Codex.

Black Templars weren't a good melee army to begin with for their own codex. Everyone was doing what they're doing with Crusader squads now, and doing the multiple bought weapons in a squad.

But the playstyle was majorly different from other Marine books. And sure, that was possible to replicate when GW folded BT into the Vanilla book but surprise, they didn't.

The sad thing is that this is exactly the same arguments I made before GW folded BT into the Vanilla book: "It's theoretically possible, but GW is going to feth it up". Lo and behold, they did. How has anything changed today?

Okay, so what went missing with it being consolidated?

The special rules that made the army play in a unique way in the first place. Mainly Righteous Zeal, but stuff like Vows as well.

And yes, I know that's because Games Workshop chose to remove those rules rather than an intrinsic effect of being folded, but what I'm arguing is that this is what happens when you consolidate armies. They're not going to make one Chapter Tactic much more complex than the others, so they took the chopping block approach instead.

EDIT: I'd also like an answer on Schrödinger's Design Process. How can the variant Codices clog up so much design time and simultaneously have very few differences? Make up your minds.

All the Vows were bad, and now you've had better ones always active instead. All a Vow is is a Chapter Tactic. No different than playing a different type of Marine depending what your opponent brings.

So keep trying, please.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Jackal90 wrote:
Folding it into 1 book would result in killing off most chapters.
Saying that it can go in one book with all the options just won't happen.
It would be a £150 book with 500+ pages of just units and gear, let alone fluff ontop of that.

We all know then when GW forms multiple armies/chapters/groups together, it gets compressed and a lot of things just vanish completely.
This would damage profits as they would cut certain kits.
It would also piss off alot of players as they just got the squat treatment on a chunk of their army (for most, this wouldn't be the first time)

Its simply too much to fit into a single book, both in terms of rules and the actual model range.
Even if they did, this super book would be bloody huge and the cost would be insane, forcing players to pay a tax on a book they will only use a small part of.

LOL at the notion of the codex being too big. It is:
1. 2-5 pages of fluff for the Angels, maybe each
2. 1 page to make sure the Chapter Tactics aren't just squished on the same page
3. 5-10 pages for the special characters
4. Maybe 2 pages each for each of the 8 founding Chapters (and Black Templars) to have unique units
5. An additional page for Relics?

Please spare us that argument.

5-10 pages for special characters is DRAMATICLY under estimating things. each special character gets a page for a dataslate and another page for some fluff.

Space Wolves have 11 special characters, Blood Angels have 8, and dark angels have 5. a combined adeptus astartes codex would, have to have 48 additional pages simply for special characters ALONE.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

72Canadian72 wrote:

Also Black Templars really didn't lose anything from being consolidated.

Black templars currently have four kits to buy, all of which are store exclusive. Three of them are HQ and 1 troop choice. No upgrade frames available either to convert other normal SM kits into black templar. I wouldnt say theyve had it very good since being consolidated

This is an issue how? Everything else they had is basically another unit (you can't argue Sword Brethren functioned different than Vanguard), and in fact they gained even more tools (REGULAR Scouts, TFC, Centurions even if you hate them, etc.)

Is that a serious question? As far as GW exists they dont exist anymore. As far an new players care they have no real ground to build a black templar army that actually looks like they are black templar unless they want to kit bash things to all living hell. The problem is any BT army is essentially now just Ultramarines painted black with a squad or two of sword brethern. With no hope of that changing anywhere on the horizon.

Just do it like the HH games does.

One big books with a big army lift section that has all the basic stuff most if not all SM chapters get including datasheets. Then do a small section for each chapter including their own unique army list that says which of those previously mentioned units they can use along with any unique ones they get, their chapter tactics, and their special stratagems, and their special psychic powers if they get any.

Space wolves for example wouldn't get scouts or tac marines or a lot of other crap. But they would get their own versions of those.

It's not really any different from the FW books listing the army list for Death Korps of Krieg. Here is all the units they can use. It's mostly all the IG stuff except for where it gets swapped for kriegs unique units.

BrianDavion wrote:

5-10 pages for special characters is DRAMATICLY under estimating things. each special character gets a page for a dataslate and another page for some fluff.

Space Wolves have 11 special characters, Blood Angels have 8, and dark angels have 5. a combined adeptus astartes codex would, have to have 48 additional pages simply for special characters ALONE.

And most of them are completely unnecessary, and we would be better served by more customisable generic characters that can then be used to represent these characters as well.

But who gives a flaming gak about gaining units that do nothing for the army's playstyle? It's like insisting that Grey Knight players should be excited for more Deathwatch releases. Scouts, Whirlwinds et. al. are great if you wnt to play a Vanilla Space Marines army, but they add little to nothing to support the playstyle people liked from the old book.

Like, imagine that GW added a "Rendtide Battlesuit" to Tau with a big honkin' chainglaive and optimised for melee combat. It'd be one more option for Tau, sure, but would it add to the traditional Tau playstyle?

BrianDavion wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Jackal90 wrote:
Folding it into 1 book would result in killing off most chapters.
Saying that it can go in one book with all the options just won't happen.
It would be a £150 book with 500+ pages of just units and gear, let alone fluff ontop of that.

We all know then when GW forms multiple armies/chapters/groups together, it gets compressed and a lot of things just vanish completely.
This would damage profits as they would cut certain kits.
It would also piss off alot of players as they just got the squat treatment on a chunk of their army (for most, this wouldn't be the first time)

Its simply too much to fit into a single book, both in terms of rules and the actual model range.
Even if they did, this super book would be bloody huge and the cost would be insane, forcing players to pay a tax on a book they will only use a small part of.

LOL at the notion of the codex being too big. It is:
1. 2-5 pages of fluff for the Angels, maybe each
2. 1 page to make sure the Chapter Tactics aren't just squished on the same page
3. 5-10 pages for the special characters
4. Maybe 2 pages each for each of the 8 founding Chapters (and Black Templars) to have unique units
5. An additional page for Relics?

Please spare us that argument.

5-10 pages for special characters is DRAMATICLY under estimating things. each special character gets a page for a dataslate and another page for some fluff.

Space Wolves have 11 special characters, Blood Angels have 8, and dark angels have 5. a combined adeptus astartes codex would, have to have 48 additional pages simply for special characters ALONE.

I can't be the only who finds it more than a little annoying that Marines have more unique characters than most armies have unit entries.