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I think this question and poll is worded unfairly and addresses two issues, but condenses them down to one question.

I'm a big fan of factions getting their own shine, and unique codexes for subfactions and expansion of the game. I love the codex supplements, and that DA/BA/SW/GK/DW have their own books. I do think they should invest a little bit more time into the writing of some of them however.

However, the bottom line question, "is the marine codex bloated"? I hate saying we should have "less" stuff, but at this point... absolutely. There is so many units within that dex and so much redundant gak. For the most part, the old Marines need an overhaul, or GW just needs go ahead and push out Primarified versions of all the units they want to keep, and put the rest on the chopping block already if that's the plan - and that's from someone who much prefers the old Marines to Primaris. They just aren't being supported model or rules wise. anymore, and the dex and SM store page is an ugly mess because of it.

Well, if GW feels that no more books are sold or they get out of ideas, a new edition will loom.

I don't think anything in the truly vast Marine range needs to be gone - never been in favour of that, but so many datasheets are just very slight variations on each other and could be uincluded on one or at most two datsheets with no loss of options or models being unable to be used.

This includes many of the minor Chapter specific variations leaving room for supplements to cover actual unqiue units.

Other factions have had much less of this so far as they have had to be crammed into single books for entire races rather than single Chapters of a single Imperial subfaction.

I'd like to see the bigger army lists trimmed and streamlined, not necessarily removing options ( but I'd be ok with that) but definitely consolidating datasheets and entries where possible.

As mentioned above, the number of terminator entries for SM is a good example of this, and characters with or without specific wargear/armour/jump-pack/bike would be another.

I'm not familiar enough with most armies to know if there are similar datasheet duplication.

As for putting all the various types of SM into one book, I'd be all for that, including DA, SW BA et al. Whether you want to call it a codex or not doesn't bother me, but it worked for the
Indices.

I'd like to see a return to something much closer to the Indices than to the current ( and historic) Codices method of faction lists/rules.

Form reading this thread it seems a lot of people are in favour of adding more rules and ever increasing complexity. Personally I'd prefer to go the other way are reduce, streamline and simplify. Have comprehensive core rules that all the factions follow. Codices and army specific features shouldn't actually add any rules. but should dictate the units a specific faction can take and how they interact with the rules. New rules for their own sake are bad for the game as are rules purely for the sake of "flavour".

That's not to say that flavour and faction identity don't matter, they really do, but the GW approach to them isn't the right way to go as far as I'm concerned. From a business/profitability perspective maybe it is the better approach as is, but it isn't how I would choose to have it as an end-user.

 Kanluwen wrote:


If you got:
-Characters+special units/errata to grant keywords(ie: Intercessors or Tactical Squads could be given the 'Grey Hunters' keywords for SW for a pointed upgrade)
-Stratagems
-Relics
-Special Rules for a pure faction army.
Would you consider it a fair trade for being updated whenever the generic Marine book got updated?

Would other factions be interested in a similar treatment, if it's possible(the ones that immediately spring to mind are Aeldari, Drukhari, Chaos Marines[vanilla] and some of the Guard subfactions)?

I've added a poll to the top that will run for 5 days. Feel free to explain your vote choice.

So what you're proposing here is that eldar and drukhari get a shared base codex that includes all the units the two factions share, then a supplement with all the unique drukhari and craftworld stuff?

So the base book would have...no units in it? not a single one?

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
By playing Dark Angels I gain access to unique units but lose access to others (Centurions, Thunderfire Cannons, Vanguard Vets etc). I get something but I lose something. The game gains some diversity with an additional faction but with low opportunity cost.

You keep saying this like if having a separate Dark Angel codex was the only way for this to happen. If you get real "Make your own codex" rules that says "If you want veteran bikers, you lose access to centurions", "If you want bestial marines, you lose access to centurions", etc, then you do 100% fit with the "special chapters are just pre-generated custom chapters" mantra, AND you get to make a choice, that gains you access to specific units and the expense of other units.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Others have come and gone.

Like who, Black Templars?

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
The marketplace will ultimately decide - and its been doing so.

We can see how bad that works for actual important real-life things and shudder at this lol.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
We do not have a unit called biker veterans. We do have Ravenwing Black Knights which are one of our distinctive units.

Which are
- a pretty recent introduction to the lore and models
- really just bike veterans.
Other chapters should have access to bike veterans.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I don't see a problem with this: the Ravenwing are well established lore.

So are the Dragon's Claws. Yet only one of those can be represented on the tabletop.
You don't want for Dark Angels to be properly represented on the table. You want them to have access to things that others don't have. That"s really it. That's the core of what you are saying. You just want to prevent other chapters from getting stuff that would represent them better on the tabletop, because you believe it would make the dark angels less special. That's not very nice...

the_scotsman wrote:

So what you're proposing here is that eldar and drukhari get a shared base codex that includes all the units the two factions share, then a supplement with all the unique drukhari and craftworld stuff?

So the base book would have...no units in it? not a single one?

No. It would be that Aeldari and Drukhari got base codices of their own, then supplement books of their own.

I'm not necessarily sure how I'd do the Craftworlds side of things. Not sure how well received a book expanding the Aspect Warriors significantly would be, with the Phoenix Lords, the skills bits like what PA had in there while adding Exarchs as HQ options in the core book.

Drukhari feels like an easy one. Kabalite, Wych Cults, Covens each get a book with expanded rules & named characters(including adding/reintroducing characters) in there

So you think that the Dragon's Claws really need Ravenwing Black Knights to be properly represented? The Dark Angels are their own faction. They have stuff in common with the Codex Adeptus Astartes but they have their own stuff. It's kinda the point. You might think I'm not very nice for being OK with that and I guess I'm going to have to get over your censure. Do you think its not very nice that your custom chapter (that you don't even play) can't get units from other factions?

I don't pretend to have sales figures, but there are plenty of dedicated Dark Angels players out there who buy the product and keep the faction viable for GW. Will that always be the case? Who knows. The iron hand of business practice (SKU control etc) can hurt. Like I said earlier, other Chapters had Codexes and then lost them (and were sometimes reborn in a Supplement). If you think its bad that GW or any business have to follow the invisible hand of the marketplace you must find life very frustrating. I would certainly be sad if the Dark Angels got rolled into the Space Marines in the future, but I would need to get over it.

I will give you the last shot and wish you good gaming.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

So you think that the Dragon's Claws really need Ravenwing Black Knights to be properly represented? The Dark Angels are their own faction. They have stuff in common with the Codex Adeptus Astartes but they have their own stuff. It's kinda the point.

The issue is that it's not really all that "unique", it's a basic standard unit with a special rule swap or an extra plasma weapon option.

As far as DA being their own faction, sure, but the same could be said of tons of factions that don't have their own book or models or rules, and lots that have significantly more justification for it too, again, particularly with the Dark Angels ostensibly still being a "Codex Adherent" chapter. If the Dark Angels need their own book because their bikers get winged doodads and their Terminators have cool Company name, and they somehow figured how to stick a shield generator to a Land Speeder and have an extra stockpile of plasma weapons, there's a whole lot of other factions that have significantly more divergence to play with than that if they had their own book.

 Vaktathi wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

So you think that the Dragon's Claws really need Ravenwing Black Knights to be properly represented? The Dark Angels are their own faction. They have stuff in common with the Codex Adeptus Astartes but they have their own stuff. It's kinda the point.

The issue is that it's not really all that "unique", it's a basic standard unit with a special rule swap or an extra plasma weapon option.

As far as DA being their own faction, sure, but the same could be said of tons of factions that don't have their own book or models or rules, and lots that have significantly more justification for it too, again, particularly with the Dark Angels ostensibly still being a "Codex Adherent" chapter. If the Dark Angels need their own book because their bikers get winged doodads and their Terminators have cool Company name, and they somehow figured how to stick a shield generator to a Land Speeder and have an extra stockpile of plasma weapons, there's a whole lot of other factions that have significantly more divergence to play with than that if they had their own book.

The argument that the DA are an "ostensibly codex adherent chapter" is so stupid : it's entirely missing the point of the DA and their lore. They are "ostensibly", as in it is what they show, but they are not in reality ... it's the entire point of the chapter !
In reality, they effectively still function as a legion, and have various number of units (ravenwing, deathwing yes, but also all their flyers that are not pilotted by techmarines, because they would be affiliated to mars, etc.) and two full compagnies that are tailored to pursue a specific goal, a goal that partially define their identity. They also rarely deploy at the compagny level, unlike what the codex suggest, but in various strike forces that usually have half a compagny and semi-autonomous elements of DW and RW.

All in all, who cares ? Do you really think the core problem of 40K rules is that DA/SW/BA have their own codexes ? Who for real believe that ?

It's A problem, because I think the game has way too much emphasis on power armor. As I've said, I think GW should have killed off BA with the Nid invasion. I guess that's less models for them to sell, though. Taking out GK, BA, and DW would help clean up the codices quite a bit.

Martel732 wrote:
It's A problem, because I think the game has way too much emphasis on power armor.

And you think having DA/BA/SW in codex supplement and not in full fledged codex would change that ? Who are we mocking for real ? Can we discuss something meaningful to the game and not some drenched out topic that has no relevance whatsoever ?

Probably not, but removing some power armor factions entirely might.

No it would not. That's the game you play : the SM are the main focus of 40K, that's how it is.

 Kanluwen wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

So what you're proposing here is that eldar and drukhari get a shared base codex that includes all the units the two factions share, then a supplement with all the unique drukhari and craftworld stuff?

So the base book would have...no units in it? not a single one?

No. It would be that Aeldari and Drukhari got base codices of their own, then supplement books of their own.

I'm not necessarily sure how I'd do the Craftworlds side of things. Not sure how well received a book expanding the Aspect Warriors significantly would be, with the Phoenix Lords, the skills bits like what PA had in there while adding Exarchs as HQ options in the core book.

Drukhari feels like an easy one. Kabalite, Wych Cults, Covens each get a book with expanded rules & named characters(including adding/reintroducing characters) in there

This still doesn't really explain what would be in the base codex, then. Kabalites, Wych Cults and Covens share like...2 models between all three of them. I think it's ltierallly just venoms and raiders.

I'd much, much, MUCH rather have my whole army back together than have them fragmented into three microfactions. All combined Drukhari have fewer unit entries than a lot of factions do.

WhiteDog wrote:
No it would not. That's the game you play : the SM are the main focus of 40K, that's how it is.

Unfortunate because I've gotten very sick of power armor. On both sides of the table.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

So what you're proposing here is that eldar and drukhari get a shared base codex that includes all the units the two factions share, then a supplement with all the unique drukhari and craftworld stuff?

So the base book would have...no units in it? not a single one?

No. It would be that Aeldari and Drukhari got base codices of their own, then supplement books of their own.

I'm not necessarily sure how I'd do the Craftworlds side of things. Not sure how well received a book expanding the Aspect Warriors significantly would be, with the Phoenix Lords, the skills bits like what PA had in there while adding Exarchs as HQ options in the core book.

Drukhari feels like an easy one. Kabalite, Wych Cults, Covens each get a book with expanded rules & named characters(including adding/reintroducing characters) in there

This still doesn't really explain what would be in the base codex, then. Kabalites, Wych Cults and Covens share like...2 models between all three of them. I think it's ltierallly just venoms and raiders.

I'd much, much, MUCH rather have my whole army back together than have them fragmented into three microfactions. All combined Drukhari have fewer unit entries than a lot of factions do.

Again:

each get a book with expanded rules & named characters.

There'd be no stripping out of the units from the army. Just things like Lelith Hesperax and Urien Rakarth.

 Kanluwen wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

So what you're proposing here is that eldar and drukhari get a shared base codex that includes all the units the two factions share, then a supplement with all the unique drukhari and craftworld stuff?

So the base book would have...no units in it? not a single one?

No. It would be that Aeldari and Drukhari got base codices of their own, then supplement books of their own.

I'm not necessarily sure how I'd do the Craftworlds side of things. Not sure how well received a book expanding the Aspect Warriors significantly would be, with the Phoenix Lords, the skills bits like what PA had in there while adding Exarchs as HQ options in the core book.

Drukhari feels like an easy one. Kabalite, Wych Cults, Covens each get a book with expanded rules & named characters(including adding/reintroducing characters) in there

This still doesn't really explain what would be in the base codex, then. Kabalites, Wych Cults and Covens share like...2 models between all three of them. I think it's ltierallly just venoms and raiders.

I'd much, much, MUCH rather have my whole army back together than have them fragmented into three microfactions. All combined Drukhari have fewer unit entries than a lot of factions do.

Again:

each get a book with expanded rules & named characters.

There'd be no stripping out of the units from the army. Just things like Lelith Hesperax and Urien Rakarth.

Right, I'm just not understanding what you would have in the base codex. Would you have, as you have in the marine supplements, all the units, subfaction tactics for all the kabals and cults and covens, and strats, and then in the subfaction books , say the wych cult book, you'd have Lelith and...just like, relics, warlord traits, strats specific to wych cults?

If so, then...yeah, seems like unnecessary bloat to me. from a practical perspective GW would never do it because Drukhari have pretty much never been a top seller, but from a theoretical perspective I would resent the situation as much as anyone who plays one of the factions that now requires 3-4 books and supplements seems to resent it.

Plus, Dark Elder (among many other factions) should have more units.

For reference, at least according to Battlescribe, Marines have 7 unique Captain Entries and a total of 20 HQ entries, including FW but not Legends or unique characters.

Dark Eldar have 3 HQs total, and 29 total units (again, including FW, but not Legends or named characters).

An entire faction doesn't even have half again the numbers of HQs Marines have. Marines have more unique Captain entries than Dark Eldar have literally any force org slot, other than Elites, of which they have 8.

I get it, Marines are the sellers, they're the big boys on top, they're popular. But good lord, other factions need support too!

Marines should be the army with very few options. There just aren't that many of them.

WhiteDog wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

So you think that the Dragon's Claws really need Ravenwing Black Knights to be properly represented? The Dark Angels are their own faction. They have stuff in common with the Codex Adeptus Astartes but they have their own stuff. It's kinda the point.

The issue is that it's not really all that "unique", it's a basic standard unit with a special rule swap or an extra plasma weapon option.

As far as DA being their own faction, sure, but the same could be said of tons of factions that don't have their own book or models or rules, and lots that have significantly more justification for it too, again, particularly with the Dark Angels ostensibly still being a "Codex Adherent" chapter. If the Dark Angels need their own book because their bikers get winged doodads and their Terminators have cool Company name, and they somehow figured how to stick a shield generator to a Land Speeder and have an extra stockpile of plasma weapons, there's a whole lot of other factions that have significantly more divergence to play with than that if they had their own book.

The argument that the DA are an "ostensibly codex adherent chapter" is so stupid : it's entirely missing the point of the DA and their lore. They are "ostensibly", as in it is what they show, but they are not in reality ... it's the entire point of the chapter !
In reality, they effectively still function as a legion, and have various number of units (ravenwing, deathwing yes, but also all their flyers that are not pilotted by techmarines, because they would be affiliated to mars, etc.) and two full compagnies that are tailored to pursue a specific goal, a goal that partially define their identity. They also rarely deploy at the compagny level, unlike what the codex suggest, but in various strike forces that usually have half a compagny and semi-autonomous elements of DW and RW.

All in all, who cares ? Do you really think the core problem of 40K rules is that DA/SW/BA have their own codexes ? Who for real believe that ?

Its also the Lore as GW write it - their orgnaisation is built around the Codex with some minor naming conventions, a few fancy weapons and artefacts - just like ANY other major Astartes chapter

It just adds bloat - you know the whole point of this thread

Again how many times have the same datasheets been reprinted in Psychic Awakening taking up how many pages? Thats space thats been taken away from any other true faction.

Is its some kind of wierd status thing that some Angels and Wolves players have to have a Codex?

love these bits:

it's entirely missing the point of the DA and their lore.

unlike what the codex suggest,

so which is your primary source - the Codex or your own head cannon?

WhiteDog wrote:


The argument that the DA are an "ostensibly codex adherent chapter" is so stupid : it's entirely missing the point of the DA and their lore. They are "ostensibly", as in it is what they show, but they are not in reality ... it's the entire point of the chapter !

In reality, they effectively still function as a legion, and have various number of units (ravenwing, deathwing yes, but also all their flyers that are not pilotted by techmarines, because they would be affiliated to mars, etc.) and two full compagnies that are tailored to pursue a specific goal, a goal that partially define their identity. They also rarely deploy at the compagny level, unlike what the codex suggest, but in various strike forces that usually have half a compagny and semi-autonomous elements of DW and RW.

So there's two parts here, the first is that they still function as a Legion, and the second is that they're not really Codex Adherent.

Lets start with the latter, that they aren't really Codex Adherent. Well, just as you described, and and just as I stated earlier, this pretty much mostly boils down to a doctrinal difference in the way they deploy 2 companies of their chapter. That's it. They're still Space Marines on Bikes or in Terminator armor, they just deploy them as entire companies instead of breaking them up to support other companies. That's not a whole lot of deviation (does it matter who pilots their flyers? that doesn't make any difference on the table, and it's not like they *don't* have Techmarines), and far less deviation than many SM chapters that don't have their own book (to say nothing of say, Chaos Space Marines).

Outside of that, looking at the Chapter Organization descriptions and images in each DA codex over the various editions from 2E onward, they're bog-standard Codex Adherent. They're not the only ones to ever deploy their first company en-masse (the Ultramarines at the Battle of Macragge for example), nor the only ones to have elite bikers (white scars say hello) or other such things.

As for functioning as a full Legion, that's a relatively new fluff suggestion/intimation that came around loooong after they already had their own books for many editions (it's not in the first 3 or 4 DA codex codex books that I can see). Yeah they have their successor chapters that they work with, but so do lots of others (like the Ultramarines), and even then we're probably talking a combined personnel count lower than a typical IG regiment (of which there are literal billions, each composed of thousands or tens of thousands of troops, from a million+ different worlds), but more importantly, that doesn't really have any reflection on the table as we're not playing Apocalypse sized games with multiple companies of Deathwing on the table.

Most of this just isn't stuff that is relevant to tabletop gameplay needing its own rules source, particularly in 8E where army construction rules and FoC charts don't need special rules to allow for entire armies of Terminators or Bikes to be played.

I'll also reiterate another earlier point, in that we don't even really get Codex: Dark Angels, we get Codex:Raven/Deathwing, because practically nobody plays a "Greenwing" tactical company and anyone doing so has pretty much always better off just running the basic SM codex through the game's history.

All in all, who cares ? Do you really think the core problem of 40K rules is that DA/SW/BA have their own codexes ? Who for real believe that ?

I think the fact that we have a big group of trivially differentiated factions that share 80-90%+ of their background, units, weapons, profiles, units, etc take up a huge amount of the development space, marketing & release pipeline time, constantly cannibalize each other in multiple different ways, and drive tons of power and rules issues bloat, does contribute significantly to many issues 40k has and has had.

the_scotsman wrote:

Right, I'm just not understanding what you would have in the base codex. Would you have, as you have in the marine supplements, all the units, subfaction tactics for all the kabals and cults and covens, and strats, and then in the subfaction books , say the wych cult book, you'd have Lelith and...just like, relics, warlord traits, strats specific to wych cults?

If so, then...yeah, seems like unnecessary bloat to me. from a practical perspective GW would never do it because Drukhari have pretty much never been a top seller, but from a theoretical perspective I would resent the situation as much as anyone who plays one of the factions that now requires 3-4 books and supplements seems to resent it.

You'd have Lelith Hesperax, additional Relics, additional Warlord Traits, and additional stratagems specific to Wych Cults with perks added if you have an army being taken as a purely Wych Cult army.

The biggest problem that I keep seeing with regards to "the number of books and supplements", currently, is that people continually throw out misinformation about what is or isn't required. Telling people they need to carry Chapter Approved with them at all times, a Psychic Awakening book, and Vigilus with them at all times, alongside of all the possible supplements is just nonsense.

 Mr Morden wrote:

WhiteDog wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

So you think that the Dragon's Claws really need Ravenwing Black Knights to be properly represented? The Dark Angels are their own faction. They have stuff in common with the Codex Adeptus Astartes but they have their own stuff. It's kinda the point.

The issue is that it's not really all that "unique", it's a basic standard unit with a special rule swap or an extra plasma weapon option.

As far as DA being their own faction, sure, but the same could be said of tons of factions that don't have their own book or models or rules, and lots that have significantly more justification for it too, again, particularly with the Dark Angels ostensibly still being a "Codex Adherent" chapter. If the Dark Angels need their own book because their bikers get winged doodads and their Terminators have cool Company name, and they somehow figured how to stick a shield generator to a Land Speeder and have an extra stockpile of plasma weapons, there's a whole lot of other factions that have significantly more divergence to play with than that if they had their own book.

The argument that the DA are an "ostensibly codex adherent chapter" is so stupid : it's entirely missing the point of the DA and their lore. They are "ostensibly", as in it is what they show, but they are not in reality ... it's the entire point of the chapter !
In reality, they effectively still function as a legion, and have various number of units (ravenwing, deathwing yes, but also all their flyers that are not pilotted by techmarines, because they would be affiliated to mars, etc.) and two full compagnies that are tailored to pursue a specific goal, a goal that partially define their identity. They also rarely deploy at the compagny level, unlike what the codex suggest, but in various strike forces that usually have half a compagny and semi-autonomous elements of DW and RW.

All in all, who cares ? Do you really think the core problem of 40K rules is that DA/SW/BA have their own codexes ? Who for real believe that ?

Its also the Lore as GW write it - their orgnaisation is built around the Codex with some minor naming conventions, a few fancy weapons and artefacts - just like ANY other major Astartes chapter

It just adds bloat - you know the whole point of this thread

Again how many times have the same datasheets been reprinted in Psychic Awakening taking up how many pages? Thats space thats been taken away from any other true faction.

Is its some kind of wierd status thing that some Angels and Wolves players have to have a Codex?

love these bits:

it's entirely missing the point of the DA and their lore.

unlike what the codex suggest,

so which is your primary source - the Codex or your own head cannon?

I'd willingly answer to your question if you could understand the answer.

And no, DA/BA/SW do not create the bloat, unless you actually believe 30 page of reprint is the core of problem of v8 ????
That's just a dumb assertion, that's not the topic at all : a bit of objectivity could make you understand that easily. For exemple, I also play CSM : to play I effectively need the normal codex, the faith and fury PA, the last chapter approved and the vigilus ablaze book. So I need more book than when I play DA (only the codex and the ritual of the damned, not even need the chapter approved because all new point values are in the PA).

 Vaktathi wrote:

WhiteDog wrote:


The argument that the DA are an "ostensibly codex adherent chapter" is so stupid : it's entirely missing the point of the DA and their lore. They are "ostensibly", as in it is what they show, but they are not in reality ... it's the entire point of the chapter !

In reality, they effectively still function as a legion, and have various number of units (ravenwing, deathwing yes, but also all their flyers that are not pilotted by techmarines, because they would be affiliated to mars, etc.) and two full compagnies that are tailored to pursue a specific goal, a goal that partially define their identity. They also rarely deploy at the compagny level, unlike what the codex suggest, but in various strike forces that usually have half a compagny and semi-autonomous elements of DW and RW.

So there's two parts here, the first is that they still function as a Legion, and the second is that they're not really Codex Adherent.

Lets start with the latter, that they aren't really Codex Adherent. Well, just as you described, and and just as I stated earlier, this pretty much mostly boils down to a doctrinal difference in the way they deploy 2 companies of their chapter. That's it. They're still Space Marines on Bikes or in Terminator armor, they just deploy them as entire companies instead of breaking them up to support other companies. That's not a whole lot of deviation (does it matter who pilots their flyers? that doesn't make any difference on the table, and it's not like they *don't* have Techmarines), and far less deviation than many SM chapters that don't have their own book (to say nothing of say, Chaos Space Marines).

Outside of that, looking at the Chapter Organization descriptions and images in each DA codex over the various editions from 2E onward, they're bog-standard Codex Adherent. They're not the only ones to ever deploy their first company en-masse (the Ultramarines at the Battle of Macragge for example), nor the only ones to have elite bikers (white scars say hello) or other such things.

As for functioning as a full Legion, that's a relatively new fluff suggestion/intimation that came around loooong after they already had their own books for many editions (it's not in the first 3 or 4 DA codex codex books that I can see). Yeah they have their successor chapters that they work with, but so do lots of others (like the Ultramarines), and even then we're probably talking a combined personnel count lower than a typical IG regiment (of which there are literal billions, each composed of thousands or tens of thousands of troops, from a million+ different worlds), but more importantly, that doesn't really have any reflection on the table as we're not playing Apocalypse sized games with multiple companies of Deathwing on the table.

Most of this just isn't stuff that is relevant to tabletop gameplay needing its own rules source, particularly in 8E where army construction rules and FoC charts don't need special rules to allow for entire armies of Terminators or Bikes to be played.

I'll also reiterate another earlier point, in that we don't even really get Codex: Dark Angels, we get Codex:Raven/Deathwing, because practically nobody plays a "Greenwing" tactical company and anyone doing so has pretty much always better off just running the basic SM codex through the game's history.

All in all, who cares ? Do you really think the core problem of 40K rules is that DA/SW/BA have their own codexes ? Who for real believe that ?

I think the fact that we have a big group of trivially differentiated factions that share 80-90%+ of their background, units, weapons, profiles, units, etc take up a huge amount of the development space, marketing & release pipeline time, constantly cannibalize each other in multiple different ways, and drive tons of power and rules issues bloat, does contribute significantly to many issues 40k has and has had.

How can you say that "functionning as a legion" and "being codex adherent" are two different questions ? The codex was created to split up legion, that's the whole point.

And new lore, old lore, this is not an argument, you cannot just handpick what you want.

As for your last sentence, it is contradicting itself : if SM sub-factions are "trivially differentiated factions that share 80-90%+ of their background, units, weapons, profiles, units, etc" then that means that it is very easy for GW to produce content for those factions without having to utilize "development space, marketing and release pipeline time". In fact, look at what DA/BA/SW got for this ed. : one lieutenant, one special character each ? That's not a "ton of development space". And the benefit made out of those relatively easy to develop characters can be used to invest into whatever GW wants to afterwards - yes, even xenos factions.
And again, that's not the topic of the discussion : the discussion is about rule bloat, and the SM codex bloat. Now you're talking about GW marketing strategy.

I'd willingly answer to your question if you could understand the answer.

And no, DA/BA/SW do not create the bloat, unless you actually believe 30 page of reprint is the core of problem of v8 ????
That's just a dumb assertion, that's not the topic at all : a bit of objectivity could make you understand that easily. For exemple, I also play CSM : to play I effectively need the normal codex, the faith and fury PA, the last chapter approved and the vigilus ablaze book : I need more book than when I play DA (only the codex and the ritual of the damned, not even need the chapter approved).

I own and can play all Armies Mate - for objectiveity's sake. Including Dark Angels

Given that only one of us is arguing for super special treament for a sub-sub-faction - what does that say about you?

So reprinting those data sheets over and over again helped the bloat how exactly?

On the subject of not understanding answer were there too many hard words for you in the excellent and thoughtful response in Vaktathi as you donlt sem to have understood it at all?

And new lore, old lore, this is not an argument, you cannot just handpick what you want.

Yiour previous post

unlike what the codex suggest,

So again which is it?

As for your last sentence, it is contradicting itself : if there are "trivially differentiated factions that share 80-90%+ of their background, units, weapons, profiles, units, etc" then that means that for GW it is very easy to produce content for those factions without having to utilize "development space, marketing and release pipeline time". In fact, look at what DA/BA/SW got for this ed. : une lieutenant, one special character each ? That's not a "ton of development space".

Good so its agreed a Supplement at most would cover them.
They got as much or more than most actual Factions. They also clogged up the so called campaign books with all those reprinted datsheets. All those wasted pages.....sad really

And new lore, old lore, this is not an argument, you cannot just handpick what you want.

Yiour previous post

unlike what the codex suggest,

So again which is it?

You have a hard time understanding : I'm not talking about the codex Dark Angels, but the codex astartes, written by Guilliman. The idea that the DA effectively function as a legion is implied in the codex DA (the idea that they name themselves the "Unforgiven" and that they oftentime function together is actually old, as it was already the case in the 3rd edition). On the other side, the codex astartes is written to split legion and limit the growth of SM chapters.
But you should know that if you play all armies (and by the way you say that everytime you criticize DA/SW/BA, that doesn't make you more legitimate).

Good so its agreed a Supplement at most would cover them.
They got as much or more than most actual Factions. They also clogged up the so called campaign books with all those reprinted datsheets. All those wasted pages.....sad really

If DA were in a supplement what would happen :
- I would need SM codex + supplement + PA + CA to play ;
- the DA supplement would effectively be twice the size of any other supplement (except SW and maybe BA).
That's not intelligent, that's just stupid : you're adding to the bloat.

Stop referencing Psychic Awakening as mandatory. There is every indication that we will be seeing a new edition or codices within the next year or so.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Stop referencing Psychic Awakening as mandatory. There is every indication that we will be seeing a new edition or codices within the next year or so.

Stop talking out of your ass, you don't know anything about that. And to effectively play a game nowadays you need PA.

I say it everytime because apparently people like you forgot or ignore it and start claiming about objectivity or hating a speciic Chapter. maybe don;t make that argument and i wont need to counter eh?

So how do you play DA now: Oh yeah you need a so called Campaign book and a Codex. So totally different to having to have a Codex and supplement. How exactly?

No the supplement would need very little space to add the actual rules changes to make the DA function exactly as they do now. How can you play an army and not know how little rules difference there actually are.

 Mr Morden wrote:
I say it everytime because apparently people like you forgot or ignore it and start claiming about objectivity or hating a speciic Chapter. maybe don;t make that argument and i wont need to counter eh?

So how do you play DA now: Oh yeah you need a so called Campaign book and a Codex. So totally different to having to have a Codex and supplement. How exactly?

No the supplement would need very little space to add the actual rules changes to make the DA function exactly as they do now. How can you play an army and not know how little rules difference there actually are.

Tell me : do you really think it would change anything for 40K (as in less rule bloat, more sunlight for xenos armies, etc.) if DA/BA/SW were in a supplement ?