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Just give them marine profiles**.

The game is basically nothing but marine on marine anyway. People seem fine playing games of nothing but iron hands vs raven guard, or white scars vs blood angels. The rules are great, there are plenty of options

So why not just give every other army marine stats and just embrace it? It means people can buy the models they like without having to worry about the army functionality. GW can sell all their products based on personal aesthetic preference over how bad or good their rules are.


** only somewhat sarcastic. If I could go to a tournament using blood angels rules for a saim hann army, or space wolves for an ork army, I wouldn't mind so much. At least I know they'd be up to date with the best rules forever.

GW would be surprised how many people buy their other armies on looks if thy didn't have to worry about getting good rules...

They gotta sell the derpy marines models somehow, and it sure aint by making them cooler than Xenos or Chaos.

Like Bolt Action, where a heavy tank is a heavy tank is a heavy tank. I've heard worse ideas.

GW have spent the last 20 years stealing all the unique abilities of other armies to give to marines while expanding their army line massively.

So non marine rules are kind of already in the marine army.

GW have spent so much time trying to make marines varied and interesting in order to allow for marines to have interesting fights with each other, that they've basically built an entire marine on marine wargame ecosystem INSIDE 40k.

The marine codex is now larger enough to be its own wargame where no two armies need look the same and still be competitive. Which we see in the current tournament scene and casual play.


In order to keep this viable for customers they keep expanding the ecosystem inside the marine book so that two people can effectively use one book to build two armies to play.


so I figure it's probably easier all round if they just rolled all armies into that one book and then 40k would be more like classic historical games where you have one list to represent all factions.

It's less work for GW...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Newman wrote:
Like Bolt Action, where a heavy tank is a heavy tank is a heavy tank. I've heard worse ideas.

yeah pretty much. It sounds like bitter sarcasm, but as I outline, it's not that ridiculous.

The Newman wrote:
Like Bolt Action, where a heavy tank is a heavy tank is a heavy tank. I've heard worse ideas.

This is how the early pioneers of miniature gaming did it. They figured within a historical period and theater, it would pretty much all even out Thus Byzantine cataphracts are the same as their Sassanid Persian opponents, etcetera. However, adding special rules to historical games is easier than fantasy or sci-fi as we have a real-world baseline as a measurement.

So...we should all be playing 30k? I have no problems with this.

My favorite tin foil hat theory is that. GW will be squating all non SM and CSM armies to make 40k into 30k and give CSM primaris.

the real solution is readjusting the game around the primaris statline, switch to d10 & take current points values & double them. which I can actually see them doing.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
So...we should all be playing 30k? I have no problems with this.

The distinction here is that GW would still be selling their non marine models, so unless they retconned 30k to include aliens, that would not be what would happen.

guardians, guardsmen, gretchin would all be scout units (maybe scouts could be taken in larger squads and infiltration was an upgrade) and so on.

I mean...Chapter Tactics is and always was a "Marine" thing.
GW wanted to give Marine Chapters unique rules and so gave ALL factions <CHAPTER> in various forms.
Then that escalated to each Chapter getting a super Doctrine, because Marines have to have something special.

What the OP is asking for is an arms race, Codex creep, basically.
Every faction can have its own flavor without a mountain of rules.

 Galef wrote:
I mean...Chapter Tactics is and always was a "Marine" thing.
GW wanted to give Marine Chapters unique rules and so gave ALL factions <CHAPTER> in various forms.
Then that escalated to each Chapter getting a super Doctrine, because Marines have to have something special.

What the OP is asking for is an arms race, Codex creep, basically.
Every faction can have its own flavor without a mountain of rules.

Apart from the fact that there already is an arms race inside the marine list but also between marines and everyone else - that's not what I was saying.

I was literally saying use the marine codex for everyone. Change it to codex 'armies of the 41st millennium' and give us lists of what models represent what units.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I mean...Chapter Tactics is and always was a "Marine" thing.
GW wanted to give Marine Chapters unique rules and so gave ALL factions <CHAPTER> in various forms.
Then that escalated to each Chapter getting a super Doctrine, because Marines have to have something special.

What the OP is asking for is an arms race, Codex creep, basically.
Every faction can have its own flavor without a mountain of rules.

Apart from the fact that there already is an arms race inside the marine list but also between marines and everyone else - that's not what I was saying.

I was literally saying use the marine codex for everyone. Change it to codex 'armies of the 41st millennium' and give us lists of what models represent what units.

That wouldn't give Astartes players the feeling of effortlessly stomping a non-Astartes army, though, which is important. GW wants to reinforce purchasing decisions with overpowered rules.

 Hellebore wrote:
Just give them marine profiles**.

The game is basically nothing but marine on marine anyway. People seem fine playing games of nothing but iron hands vs raven guard, or white scars vs blood angels. The rules are great, there are plenty of options

So why not just give every other army marine stats and just embrace it? It means people can buy the models they like without having to worry about the army functionality. GW can sell all their products based on personal aesthetic preference over how bad or good their rules are.


** only somewhat sarcastic. If I could go to a tournament using blood angels rules for a saim hann army, or space wolves for an ork army, I wouldn't mind so much. At least I know they'd be up to date with the best rules forever.

GW would be surprised how many people buy their other armies on looks if thy didn't have to worry about getting good rules...

Have you considered just getting a new hobby? This one seems to make you kind of miserable.

 argonak wrote:


Have you considered just getting a new hobby? This one seems to make you kind of miserable.

Why would he stop minis gaming? It's GW that's the problem, not miniatures.

I myself am heavily leaning towards using my minis with Grimdark Future or something. Just sick of the roulette wheel of GW design. Great models and a cool setting but the rules aggravate me more than provide an enjoyable gaming experience.

 Eldarain wrote:
I myself am heavily leaning towards using my minis with Grimdark Future or something. Just sick of the roulette wheel of GW design. Great models and a cool setting but the rules aggravate me more than provide an enjoyable gaming experience.

Same. I play the FFG rpgs, but for minis gaming I play Infinity.

 argonak wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
Just give them marine profiles**.

The game is basically nothing but marine on marine anyway. People seem fine playing games of nothing but iron hands vs raven guard, or white scars vs blood angels. The rules are great, there are plenty of options

So why not just give every other army marine stats and just embrace it? It means people can buy the models they like without having to worry about the army functionality. GW can sell all their products based on personal aesthetic preference over how bad or good their rules are.


** only somewhat sarcastic. If I could go to a tournament using blood angels rules for a saim hann army, or space wolves for an ork army, I wouldn't mind so much. At least I know they'd be up to date with the best rules forever.

GW would be surprised how many people buy their other armies on looks if thy didn't have to worry about getting good rules...

Have you considered just getting a new hobby? This one seems to make you kind of miserable.

Alas that 40k got stamped into my brain at an age where these things stick. I stopped playing after 5th ed entirely because of Ward's marine fluff - the prices and miniatures while stupid I could deal with. But carving names into daemon prince hearts, wandering the warp walking into the physical manifestation of a god as a landscape and smashing it up, bloodthirsters being lifted up by a marine with a jumppack, the never ending Avatar whack-a-mole, was all so bad it made the last vestige of the game i liked terrible.

8th ed brought me back as it seemed to reign this in, despite also adding primaris.

but it really seems like the marine fetish is in hyperdrive now and while my space wolves are fine, my eldar look almost identical to what they did 10 years ago, just a decade older.

the universe and models are great, but they do make it very hard to be a fan if you aren't an imperial or space marine player...

There sure is a lot of hyperbole going on here! How quickly you all forget that almost the entire marine roster was noncompetitive and dysfunctional for most of 8th edition. Yeah yeah, Iron Hands are broken. And the new SM codex is a cut above everything else. But that's because it was the first generation of new design choices. We can now see from what's coming for Necrons that we're getting more army wide rules for other factions.

People have this narrative that Xenos get totally neglected compared to marines, right after an edition where marines could barely field a tournament competitive list, and had their rules totally neglected. And now GW has been overhauling SM for awhile, and has started an overhaul of Necrons paired with one of the largest model range expansions we've ever seen. A lot of people's rules have been neglected for all of 8th. Chaos did too, and they're also marines, dontcha know! Heck, they got model releases and a new book and were STILL useless except for really whacky stuff like double primarch+brimstone spam because of their rules not getting addressed.

The problem isn't GW favoring marines over Xenos that much (i mean they do, but that's to be expected of their flagship faction and biggest seller. The issue is if they're favoring them more than they ought to be.) The problem is that 8th edition broke EVERYTHING. Units of all sorts from tons of factions kept mostly the same statlines in an edition where the core rules changed drastically. The fact that anything worked at all was a miracle. And a lot of things didn't. Large amounts of most faction's units were not worth fielding, and pretty much all competitive lists were unfluffy spam fests and silly.

And Marines were screwed up too, including the new Primaris, for a good 2 years! And now they're finally fixing that (and also fixing how badly they broke parts of it), and people are acting like this is the problem. The problem is that it was all so busted in the first place, not that they're fixing it. 8th edition codices essentially failed for everybody. They had terrible internal and external balance and consistency. Yes, the new SM codex+supplements were a lot more powerful and had some outliers (which have been mostly addressed). But its clearly the beginning of a new design philosophy, which is a good thing because the last one failed.

And now we're starting to see rumors of major statline changes for marine weapons and units. Which should be celebrated, because the lack of statline changes is what caused most of 8th's problems. Instead of complaining that marines are the test bed and get the changes first, you all should be happy that things seem to be moving in a better direction at all.

Ah yes, I'll wait for the day that we'll see a xenos faction receive non-stop supplements and releases for at least a year.

Thank you for that advice mr drudge.


Maybe, just maybe this frothing hatred for all things mehreen is a side effect of a large buy-in cost to the hobby, only seeing your time, passion and effort get put to the side for reasons.

Rules? Primaris weren't actually that bad compared to majority of troop options in the game, it's just that they weren't "the best" like they are now in every single category.

And acting like "Every competitive list is spammy and silly" is a strange point to make, as every competitive game is "spammy and silly". See Street Fighter IV: Elena was picked every game until it's closure, Tekken 7? Leroy. The only reason there's faction diversity in the competitive scene is because of the previously mentioned buy-in cost.

 Hellebore wrote:

 argonak wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
Just give them marine profiles**.

The game is basically nothing but marine on marine anyway. People seem fine playing games of nothing but iron hands vs raven guard, or white scars vs blood angels. The rules are great, there are plenty of options

So why not just give every other army marine stats and just embrace it? It means people can buy the models they like without having to worry about the army functionality. GW can sell all their products based on personal aesthetic preference over how bad or good their rules are.


** only somewhat sarcastic. If I could go to a tournament using blood angels rules for a saim hann army, or space wolves for an ork army, I wouldn't mind so much. At least I know they'd be up to date with the best rules forever.

GW would be surprised how many people buy their other armies on looks if thy didn't have to worry about getting good rules...

Have you considered just getting a new hobby? This one seems to make you kind of miserable.

Alas that 40k got stamped into my brain at an age where these things stick. I stopped playing after 5th ed entirely because of Ward's marine fluff - the prices and miniatures while stupid I could deal with. But carving names into daemon prince hearts, wandering the warp walking into the physical manifestation of a god as a landscape and smashing it up, bloodthirsters being lifted up by a marine with a jumppack, the never ending Avatar whack-a-mole, was all so bad it made the last vestige of the game i liked terrible.

8th ed brought me back as it seemed to reign this in, despite also adding primaris.

but it really seems like the marine fetish is in hyperdrive now and while my space wolves are fine, my eldar look almost identical to what they did 10 years ago, just a decade older.

the universe and models are great, but they do make it very hard to be a fan if you aren't an imperial or space marine player...

I think it's twofold, they're clearly trying to rush out the (hopefully) last chunks of the primaris line which can only end in the removal of small marines eventually which has created a slightly marine skewed release schedule, although it's potentially maybe no more than we used to have proportionally.

The other side is the community on here is instantly prodded and whipped up into a frenzy by the mention of anything marine related, to an utterly irrational level. This thread ironically is a fantastic example, rather than opening with "give generic balanced unit profiles" you had to try and target it at marines because you know it's what gets people worked up. Your suggestion immediately has merit on a pure balance level but by throwing that tasty marine shade on it, you've catered to a self-sustaining marine-centric community


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Ah yes, I'll wait for the day that we'll see a xenos faction receive non-stop supplements and releases for at least a year.

Thank you for that advice mr drudge.


Maybe, just maybe this frothing hatred for all things mehreen is a side effect of a large buy-in cost to the hobby, only seeing your time, passion and effort get put to the side for reasons.

Rules? Primaris weren't actually that bad compared to majority of troop options in the game, it's just that they weren't "the best" like they are now in every single category.

And acting like "Every competitive list is spammy and silly" is a strange point to make, as every competitive game is "spammy and silly". See Street Fighter IV: Elena was picked every game until it's closure, Tekken 7? Leroy. The only reason there's faction diversity in the competitive scene is because of the previously mentioned buy-in cost.

But do you really want a range of Eldar Craftworld supplements? Do you really want 6 months of Ork Klan books with 1-2 kits for them every month (tbh I can't remember how many klans there are)? You'll be waiting for the exact same problem for some other faction you don't care about.

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Ah yes, I'll wait for the day that we'll see a xenos faction receive non-stop supplements and releases for at least a year.

Thank you for that advice mr drudge.

We both know we're not going to see that much content for a specific xeno race, as none have large enough model lines to support it. Perhaps after we see an Eldar range refresh, then we could see supplements for each craftworld. But Eldar is stuck in a catch-22: its not popular because the models are old, and they aren't in a hurry to give it new models because its not popular. That's a bigger reason these factions get neglected. And yes it does suck, but its not directly the fault of marines.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

Maybe, just maybe this frothing hatred for all things mehreen is a side effect of a large buy-in cost to the hobby, only seeing your time, passion and effort get put to the side for reasons.

Hey, i know plenty about buy-in costs and dissatisfaction. I have Chaos Marines with a focus on Legions (which have been meh since 3.5, and dead in 8th), Dark Eldar cabal (which has been between useless and whacky all of 8th, and is pretty dead now), Khorne and Slaanesh daemons (lol), and a blood angel all jump Dante list made of sanguinary guard and assault marines (how do ya think that's been doing in 8th?). And I know that none of it is getting fixed until Primaris and Codex Marines are in a good spot.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

Rules? Primaris weren't actually that bad compared to majority of troop options in the game, it's just that they weren't "the best" like they are now in every single category.

Don't forget that Primaris is more than intercessors. For large amounts of 8th, competitive lists favored scouts over Intercessors, and the rest of the range was pretty meh. Now Intercessors are too efficient for some chapters and broken for others. But lets be honest: when people complain about space marines, its not suppressors and inceptors that they're upset about.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

And acting like "Every competitive list is spammy and silly" is a strange point to make, as every competitive game is "spammy and silly". See Street Fighter IV: Elena was picked every game until it's closure, Tekken 7? Leroy. The only reason there's faction diversity in the competitive scene is because of the previously mentioned buy-in cost.

Those are other games, so its a bad comparison. A better comparison would be previous editions of 40k. Some had very few A+ lists, but I'm talking about list composition. In those fighting games everyone may be playing the same character, but are they only spamming 1 move? That'd be the equivalent. And if they are, its bad for those games too. In past editions, we weren't seeing silly things like hive tyrant spam. Or 2x Nurgle Princes and 10x crawlers. Or Double Super Heavy + Brimstones. Many of 8th's competitive lists don't even remotely resemble the sort of army composition that the game is supposed to have. In previous editions there were obvious includes, but it wasn't anywhere near this bad. And just look at stuff like the Loyal32 and 3x shield captains that were showing up in so many lists.

8th was a bad edition that caused lots of problems. Xenos will get fixed after marines are fixed and in a good place, and ought to get similar sorts of things. So seeing progress being made on that front should have us all optimistic about the future. Has it taken way too long to happen? Yes. But you should be made about 8th edition and to a lesser extent the whole Primaris idea, not mad at marines in general.

If someone wants to play marines on marines they can play 30k. I don't like marines so i don't play 30k but if 40k turns into 30k 2.0 i am out and i think a lot of people will also leave. I think GW needs to be very careful with how much they buffed marines and how they release more kits for marines than all other armies combined.

Horus Heresy: 40k edition

 nordsturmking wrote:
If someone wants to play marines on marines they can play 30k. I don't like marines so i don't play 30k but if 40k turns into 30k 2.0 i am out and i think a lot of people will also leave. I think GW needs to be very careful with how much they buffed marines and how they release more kits for marines than all other armies combined.

They've always released more marine kits than for everyone else, done them reasonably well for 30 years now. They've also not released more marine kits than everyone else combined, that's straight up hyperbole.

 nordsturmking wrote:
If someone wants to play marines on marines they can play 30k. I don't like marines so i don't play 30k but if 40k turns into 30k 2.0 i am out and i think a lot of people will also leave. I think GW needs to be very careful with how much they buffed marines and how they release more kits for marines than all other armies combined.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Horus Heresy: 40k edition

People have such short memories. Less than 2 years ago, people were complaining that 8th had turned into the 'edition of Xenos' because marines were so uncompetitive. Then the new marine releases came, and now a new edition. And now people are acting like this is both unusual, and the end of the world. We've been going through cycles like this at least as long as I've been in the hobby (13 years), and probably before. This cycle isn't new, and it isn't going away. What's new was 8th edition breaking everything, and pushing the cycle back so much.

See balance should be a scale, not a pendulum, but as drudge said , gw follows the pendulum approach, but even that tehy don't realy do because they can't contain themselves and rather push the pendulum again to see it swing.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:
If someone wants to play marines on marines they can play 30k. I don't like marines so i don't play 30k but if 40k turns into 30k 2.0 i am out and i think a lot of people will also leave. I think GW needs to be very careful with how much they buffed marines and how they release more kits for marines than all other armies combined.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Horus Heresy: 40k edition

People have such short memories. Less than 2 years ago, people were complaining that 8th had turned into the 'edition of Xenos' because marines were so uncompetitive. Then the new marine releases came, and now a new edition. And now people are acting like this is both unusual, and the end of the world. We've been going through cycles like this at least as long as I've been in the hobby (13 years), and probably before. This cycle isn't new, and it isn't going away. What's new was 8th edition breaking everything, and pushing the cycle back so much.

I think people forget that Marines are what likely pays GW's bills. they're a safe bet, marine stuff is garnteed to sell well. this ensures a basic level of profit for GW that allows them to task risks, such as specialist games, Sisters of battle. and other things that might make the bean counters they answer too nervous.

Threads and attitudes like this really add a nasty toxic smog on the hobby. Its sad really.

GW will always put marines releases first since it accounts for around 50% of their entire revenue. However as we are now seeing, they are using that boost to revamp other factions. Necrons are getting new everything. Most if not all models are getting redesigned, new rules etc. Now GW has two factories its not a coincidence that two faction are getting big new releases. And im willing to bet my entire warhammer collection that we will see revamps for most if not all factions over the course of the next 5 or so years.

People also forget, GW is not a large company. Until earlier this year they had A SINGLE factory supplying dozens of countries and all the customers that go with it. Patience is required with this hobby. They cannot pump gak out like Apple or Microsoft. They have neither the man power or infrastructure to put stuff out any faster than they are now.

Now balance is another matter, but there is a issue at the very core of this game. Warhammer is based on an unbalanced universe. So you either have this semi balanced game that feels kinda like its supposed to from a lore perspective, or you have a game thats more basic, better balanced, doesnt connect with the lore. TBH if i wanted to play a perfectly balanced game, i would just play chess, and use warhammer models as the pieces.

Warhammer will never be perfectly balanced and still maintain its true essence.

Finally, to me, and i think the majority of warhammer hobbyists out there, gak doesnt need to be perfectly balanced because its never been a "competitive" game for us. We dont try and min/max lists, or find all the most efficient combination of rules and stratagems to create deathballs. We dont try and be little gakkers by going out of our way to find tiny inconsistencies in the wording of rules to find an advantage. Warhammer has always been about meeting up with some like minded friends, building an awesome army, and having some beers and a laugh. Nerding out over each others latest additions to their armies or paint job, appreciating the hard work and how fething badass they all look on the table.

I feel sorry for those who never had this with this hobby or dont want that. Life is to short for all this pent up toxic moaning. Beerhammer for life yo.

30k is in an even worse situation for non marine armies.
Militia get shredded by sheer volume of fire.
Custodes are just too much of a small elite army so get shot to pieces.

Mechanicum though, they drew the short straw.
Worse saves than marines, despite being robots in suits of armour.
Massive fear of instant death weaponry as EW is impossibly rare for them.
Low numbers.
Add that together and they are at a loss against just about every 30k army.




The idea of streamlining by default profiles is a thing that many games used to do though as it works.
But I feel it would drain a lot out of the game.


Kind of funny though since previously, IG, Tau, Eldar and even orks (nob bikers) have dominated the meta.

Dudeface wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

 argonak wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
Just give them marine profiles**.

The game is basically nothing but marine on marine anyway. People seem fine playing games of nothing but iron hands vs raven guard, or white scars vs blood angels. The rules are great, there are plenty of options

So why not just give every other army marine stats and just embrace it? It means people can buy the models they like without having to worry about the army functionality. GW can sell all their products based on personal aesthetic preference over how bad or good their rules are.


** only somewhat sarcastic. If I could go to a tournament using blood angels rules for a saim hann army, or space wolves for an ork army, I wouldn't mind so much. At least I know they'd be up to date with the best rules forever.

GW would be surprised how many people buy their other armies on looks if thy didn't have to worry about getting good rules...

Have you considered just getting a new hobby? This one seems to make you kind of miserable.

Alas that 40k got stamped into my brain at an age where these things stick. I stopped playing after 5th ed entirely because of Ward's marine fluff - the prices and miniatures while stupid I could deal with. But carving names into daemon prince hearts, wandering the warp walking into the physical manifestation of a god as a landscape and smashing it up, bloodthirsters being lifted up by a marine with a jumppack, the never ending Avatar whack-a-mole, was all so bad it made the last vestige of the game i liked terrible.

8th ed brought me back as it seemed to reign this in, despite also adding primaris.

but it really seems like the marine fetish is in hyperdrive now and while my space wolves are fine, my eldar look almost identical to what they did 10 years ago, just a decade older.

the universe and models are great, but they do make it very hard to be a fan if you aren't an imperial or space marine player...

I think it's twofold, they're clearly trying to rush out the (hopefully) last chunks of the primaris line which can only end in the removal of small marines eventually which has created a slightly marine skewed release schedule, although it's potentially maybe no more than we used to have proportionally.

The other side is the community on here is instantly prodded and whipped up into a frenzy by the mention of anything marine related, to an utterly irrational level. This thread ironically is a fantastic example, rather than opening with "give generic balanced unit profiles" you had to try and target it at marines because you know it's what gets people worked up. Your suggestion immediately has merit on a pure balance level but by throwing that tasty marine shade on it, you've catered to a self-sustaining marine-centric community

Oh I freely admit to throwing some shade. On the other hand, this is all self inflicted shade - nothing said is untrue. GW Have done all the things described, and while pointing them out sarcastically is shady, the bad behaviour is still on them, not me.

And the rules are a small part of the picture - without a constant need to cycle through codex releases, and everyone using a single one, they aren't slaved to the cycle for releasing new models for everyone else.

You solve a lot of neglect problems.


There is zero chance of this happening of course.