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The issues of favouritism and support in the hobby are really tied up across a range of things.

I freely admit that marines are going to be the most innately likeable faction, due to wish fulfilment and badassery.

But that is one factor in the decision making process. They need enemies.to fight or they're just going to fight each other, they have invested in other ranges and they need to sell those too.

Continually pandering to marines through range expansion, overwhelming amount of fiction, more options, more regular updates, etc doesnt do the hobby any favours.

So if an army has few options, rarely gets new models, is ignored or even made fun of by the company selling them, gets its unique elements copied by marines, you've created an environment where there's no reason to leave the marine faction ever, except aesthetics or fluff.

You've not just made it really easy and accessible for players to play marines, youve actively made it comparatively harder for people to get into anything else. The effort required is higher and the sense of accomplishment less because there's no guarantee what you found unique in the army won't appear in the marine list.



My original point in the OP was effectively to take out one of the decision making factors in army choice that is tied up in the process a player goes through to pick an army.

It's mainly a thought experiment because we know they won't do it officially (even if they've basically done all they can for this to be the defacto truth of the gaming environment).

And it's basic experimental theory, you control for variables by removing one at a time to see the results.


My hypothesis is, if you remove the codex update neglect from the equation, then army choice isnt going to be as one sided as it currently is. If everyone used the same army list with different models and they all got tasty updates equally and together, the fluff and aesthetic factor that is currently pretty much the ONLY reason you choose a neglected faction becomes the most important reason.

Lets be real here... did space marines really need the quad bike, space bunker drop pod thingy and the support weapon platform not called support weapon platform. Like why? As mentioned its not just about the rules.. and its not just about the models. Its about both CONSTANTLY all of the time for at least a year.. The assumption on their podcasts that "ohh yeah everyone has a space marine army" which is of course nonsense.

Ever since I returned to the 40k the mid 8th edition its been nerf after nerf with practicaly zero new releases for me to enjoy.. No conversions to do.. Options being taken away.. While the most obviosuly OP stuff just being left alone. I guess those CHE kits must have been flying off the shelves.

Anyway.. its very tiresome and only the blind would shamelessly defend this as its certainly not good for the game as a whole. For one Im pretty much retiring from playing 40k for at least a year think and maybe revisit how things look. So already me and a couple more people are not partaking in local club events or tournaments in 40k coz why would we? Maybe when the new CWE codex drops Ill give it another spin and see if I can use some of my favourite units I poured effort into not suck..(real glad I painted those 40 guardians..) So Its probably modelling & painting for me from now on.

All I'm a say is that mierce & inffinity minatures look REAL good. I mean really good... Also thank god for vintage oldhammer.

yukishiro1 wrote:
I think everyone agrees the whines about space marines are tiresome. As someone guilty of it myself...believe me, I would like nothing better than not to have any reason to whine about space marines.

But when GW keeps Gee-dubbing it up with more and more new, usually overpowered Space Marine releases that continue to give Space Marines every single thing that used to be unique to other factions but better, what do you expect is going to happen? If you don't like Space Marine whines you should be mad at GW, not at the people reacting in a predictable way to GW's treatment of its game.

On a fundamental level, everyone but the most deluded of posters here agrees Space Marines get too much attention and are too powerful. So complaining about the complainers is really missing the point.

For my part I have no problem with posts that criticise this, it just gets a little much to read the forum when it's one post of one or two sentence snark after another. There's been some very good posts on this thread too expressing the sentiment of Marines being to much! Also I've no issue with the OP, even though I'd disagree with their solution. The huge diversity of the Warhammer IP's were a big part of what got me into the game.

 Argive wrote:
All I'm a say is that mierce & inffinity minatures look REAL good. I mean really good... Also thank god for vintage oldhammer.

N4 looking pretty smooth, I agree.

Part of the stuff with GW and "casual" vs. "competitive" play is very frustrating to me. GW has done this amazing job of creating a culture where they can abdicate their responsibility to make balanced or fun rules, and instead have players blame each other for GW's unbalanced mess. If you play CWE into Astartes and get creamed because their units are so much more efficient and powerful for their points cost than yours, your response shouldn't be to get mad at the other player for being WAAC (as long as they didn't cheat, were sportsmanlike, didn't play gotcha with the rules, etc), it should be to take a hard look at the rules and determine whether you're getting what you're paying for. The idea that *players* need to know the rules better than GW, and modulate their own listbuilding to account for GW's unbalanced profiles, or else they're unsportsmanlike is pathetic and scrubby. The idea that players need to wait years for their army to be playable and/or competitive is demeaning; in Infinity, people still win games with MRRF or Acon, which haven't been updated in almost an entire edition, because the power creep is so much less prevalent and there's occasional profiles dropped back into them.

And for those complaining that there's nothing for CWE to do in the lore - that's incredibly shortsighted. The setting needs to revolve around the Imperium in general and Astartes in particular less, and that means allowing room for non-human heroes. Fundamentally, I find orks more relatable than the Imperium. The idea of killing someone because they refuse to follow the right religion, or because they were born with six fingers or limbs that developed differently I find monstrous; conversely, loud music, fast cars, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and starting fights all seem much more fun. GW is dancing around the fact that the Imperium is about as morally justified as the Skaven were in Warhammer Fantasy, but they're sold as a glorious faction of unironic heroes more and more.

Dai wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
I think everyone agrees the whines about space marines are tiresome. As someone guilty of it myself...believe me, I would like nothing better than not to have any reason to whine about space marines.

But when GW keeps Gee-dubbing it up with more and more new, usually overpowered Space Marine releases that continue to give Space Marines every single thing that used to be unique to other factions but better, what do you expect is going to happen? If you don't like Space Marine whines you should be mad at GW, not at the people reacting in a predictable way to GW's treatment of its game.

On a fundamental level, everyone but the most deluded of posters here agrees Space Marines get too much attention and are too powerful. So complaining about the complainers is really missing the point.

For my part I have no problem with posts that criticise this, it just gets a little much to read the forum when it's one post of one or two sentence snark after another. There's been some very good posts on this thread too expressing the sentiment of Marines being to much! Also I've no issue with the OP, even though I'd disagree with their solution. The huge diversity of the Warhammer IP's were a big part of what got me into the game.

But that diversity is not really expressed anywhere in the game, A lot of it is fancy words saying there is without there really being functional ability for a lot of the factions to even play to there own Fluff very well.
Over exaggeration of power fantasy in marines have effectively taken anything a good deal of the factions could do to be unique in there own way.
It ends up feeling rather flat, Good Advertisement but in the end very shallow.

Hecaton wrote:

 Argive wrote:
All I'm a say is that mierce & inffinity minatures look REAL good. I mean really good... Also thank god for vintage oldhammer.

N4 looking pretty smooth, I agree.

Part of the stuff with GW and "casual" vs. "competitive" play is very frustrating to me. GW has done this amazing job of creating a culture where they can abdicate their responsibility to make balanced or fun rules, and instead have players blame each other for GW's unbalanced mess. If you play CWE into Astartes and get creamed because their units are so much more efficient and powerful for their points cost than yours, your response shouldn't be to get mad at the other player for being WAAC (as long as they didn't cheat, were sportsmanlike, didn't play gotcha with the rules, etc), it should be to take a hard look at the rules and determine whether you're getting what you're paying for. The idea that *players* need to know the rules better than GW, and modulate their own listbuilding to account for GW's unbalanced profiles, or else they're unsportsmanlike is pathetic and scrubby. The idea that players need to wait years for their army to be playable and/or competitive is demeaning; in Infinity, people still win games with MRRF or Acon, which haven't been updated in almost an entire edition, because the power creep is so much less prevalent and there's occasional profiles dropped back into them.

And for those complaining that there's nothing for CWE to do in the lore - that's incredibly shortsighted. The setting needs to revolve around the Imperium in general and Astartes in particular less, and that means allowing room for non-human heroes. Fundamentally, I find orks more relatable than the Imperium. The idea of killing someone because they refuse to follow the right religion, or because they were born with six fingers or limbs that developed differently I find monstrous; conversely, loud music, fast cars, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and starting fights all seem much more fun. GW is dancing around the fact that the Imperium is about as morally justified as the Skaven were in Warhammer Fantasy, but they're sold as a glorious faction of unironic heroes more and more.

The imperium has always been shown and described as the shady self service empire on the brink of collapse, corralling its own populace through fear and forcing them into horrible lifestyles because life is cheap. They do have heroes that fight for the human race, but the setting is primarily from the perspective of the commoner in the imperium where a space marine killing 5 orks in front of them brands them a hero, they don't then see said marine berating the lowly chapter serf for polishing their shoulder plate anti-clockwise and then self flagellating in a chamber for 36 hours because they lost a tooth on a chainsword. The astartes are blind to how they're perceived both as frightening and as heroic simultaneously, but I think more viewpoint from lowly worker X is needed to get some of that darkness back.

Argive wrote:Lets be real here... did space marines really need the quad bike, space bunker drop pod thingy and the support weapon platform not called support weapon platform. Like why? As mentioned its not just about the rules.. and its not just about the models. Its about both CONSTANTLY all of the time for at least a year.. The assumption on their podcasts that "ohh yeah everyone has a space marine army" which is of course nonsense.

Ever since I returned to the 40k the mid 8th edition its been nerf after nerf with practicaly zero new releases for me to enjoy.. No conversions to do.. Options being taken away.. While the most obviosuly OP stuff just being left alone. I guess those CHE kits must have been flying off the shelves.

Anyway.. its very tiresome and only the blind would shamelessly defend this as its certainly not good for the game as a whole. For one Im pretty much retiring from playing 40k for at least a year think and maybe revisit how things look. So already me and a couple more people are not partaking in local club events or tournaments in 40k coz why would we? Maybe when the new CWE codex drops Ill give it another spin and see if I can use some of my favourite units I poured effort into not suck..(real glad I painted those 40 guardians..) So Its probably modelling & painting for me from now on.

All I'm a say is that mierce & inffinity minatures look REAL good. I mean really good... Also thank god for vintage oldhammer.

You've been playing 40k for 2 years give or take and crossing an edition barrier. I regret to tell you this is normal, marines always get a release with a new edition. What isn't normal is that every army got a codex inside of a 2.5 year window which has never happened before. They're turning stuff around faster than they ever have previously and whilst yes the eldar range needs a refresh more than marines need a turret, their time might come with their next codex update. Not every army gets something every year, likewise Eldar have spent a fair amount of time being far more competitively viable than most armies.

Dudeface wrote:
Not every army gets something every year, likewise Eldar have spent a fair amount of time being far more competitively viable than most armies.

There can be an ocean of difference between "competitively viable" and "fun to play" - and when your favourite units feel like an anchor around your neck when you use them, your faction probably fails at the latter, even if there is a build that satisfies the former.

GW created a problem here were they cannot get out any more

It is the same problem I ran into while writing optional rules/alterantive rules to be used instead.

people want all their shiny new toyes on the table
there is no way to get them into playing the game if there is not a 1:1 replacement for all possible Space Marine units, no matter how similar they are or if those are just different models for the same battlefield role

if you don't have all the units available, they are not even interested to try


there is hope that with the new Codex and all-Supplement stuff, GW take the chance to clean things up and remove not needed entries but I fear that it won't happen and the situation will get worse


yet, using the SM Codex to play every other Faction in the game is a viable option
there was never much difference between the factions anyway and with that many units/rules the SM now have there is a perfectly fine option for everything out there

 kodos wrote:
GW created a problem here were they cannot get out any more

It is the same problem I ran into while writing optional rules/alterantive rules to be used instead.

people want all their shiny new toyes on the table
there is no way to get them into playing the game if there is not a 1:1 replacement for all possible Space Marine units, no matter how similar they are or if those are just different models for the same battlefield role

if you don't have all the units available, they are not even interested to try


there is hope that with the new Codex and all-Supplement stuff, GW take the chance to clean things up and remove not needed entries but I fear that it won't happen and the situation will get worse


yet, using the SM Codex to play every other Faction in the game is a viable option
there was never much difference between the factions anyway and with that many units/rules the SM now have there is a perfectly fine option for everything out there

Trust me I am so close to just counts as my chaos space marine army as loyalists for the plain better rules and access to Heresy era terminators... Only thing I a, trying to figure out is what my defiler is going to be. I always loved that crab Walker...

macluvin wrote:

Trust me I am so close to just counts as my chaos space marine army as loyalists for the plain better rules and access to Heresy era terminators... Only thing I a, trying to figure out is what my defiler is going to be. I always loved that crab Walker...

use it as the new SM Bunker (just needs more weapons)

or add in an AdMech Detachment to be used for all kind of Demon-Engines and Kultists

 Dysartes wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Not every army gets something every year, likewise Eldar have spent a fair amount of time being far more competitively viable than most armies.

There can be an ocean of difference between "competitively viable" and "fun to play" - and when your favourite units feel like an anchor around your neck when you use them, your faction probably fails at the latter, even if there is a build that satisfies the former.

Aye, this, just play CSM dex from 4th edition. It was outright broken centered around 3 units, but it wasn't fun to play much less having a charachter to it that was identifyable or moldable. ( it also was not fun to play against, because yay, i got my extremely nice new unit painted and it's gone because lash into vindicator, etc....)


Also, CWE beeing comptetive is the same thing, every edition they play roulette which unit will work this time, in many ways making certain subaspects or even large swaths of the book basically not workable.

And in regards of actual new releases, well, i guess we don't need to talk about that...

Apple fox wrote:

Dai wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
I think everyone agrees the whines about space marines are tiresome. As someone guilty of it myself...believe me, I would like nothing better than not to have any reason to whine about space marines.

But when GW keeps Gee-dubbing it up with more and more new, usually overpowered Space Marine releases that continue to give Space Marines every single thing that used to be unique to other factions but better, what do you expect is going to happen? If you don't like Space Marine whines you should be mad at GW, not at the people reacting in a predictable way to GW's treatment of its game.

On a fundamental level, everyone but the most deluded of posters here agrees Space Marines get too much attention and are too powerful. So complaining about the complainers is really missing the point.

For my part I have no problem with posts that criticise this, it just gets a little much to read the forum when it's one post of one or two sentence snark after another. There's been some very good posts on this thread too expressing the sentiment of Marines being to much! Also I've no issue with the OP, even though I'd disagree with their solution. The huge diversity of the Warhammer IP's were a big part of what got me into the game.

But that diversity is not really expressed anywhere in the game, A lot of it is fancy words saying there is without there really being functional ability for a lot of the factions to even play to there own Fluff very well.
Over exaggeration of power fantasy in marines have effectively taken anything a good deal of the factions could do to be unique in there own way.
It ends up feeling rather flat, Good Advertisement but in the end very shallow.

Agreed and this is an issue with the current ruleset I feel, through the game becoming more "board gamey". In my amateur opinion.

Dai wrote:

Apple fox wrote:

Dai wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
I think everyone agrees the whines about space marines are tiresome. As someone guilty of it myself...believe me, I would like nothing better than not to have any reason to whine about space marines.

But when GW keeps Gee-dubbing it up with more and more new, usually overpowered Space Marine releases that continue to give Space Marines every single thing that used to be unique to other factions but better, what do you expect is going to happen? If you don't like Space Marine whines you should be mad at GW, not at the people reacting in a predictable way to GW's treatment of its game.

On a fundamental level, everyone but the most deluded of posters here agrees Space Marines get too much attention and are too powerful. So complaining about the complainers is really missing the point.

For my part I have no problem with posts that criticise this, it just gets a little much to read the forum when it's one post of one or two sentence snark after another. There's been some very good posts on this thread too expressing the sentiment of Marines being to much! Also I've no issue with the OP, even though I'd disagree with their solution. The huge diversity of the Warhammer IP's were a big part of what got me into the game.

But that diversity is not really expressed anywhere in the game, A lot of it is fancy words saying there is without there really being functional ability for a lot of the factions to even play to there own Fluff very well.
Over exaggeration of power fantasy in marines have effectively taken anything a good deal of the factions could do to be unique in there own way.
It ends up feeling rather flat, Good Advertisement but in the end very shallow.

Agreed and this is an issue with the current ruleset I feel, through the game becoming more "board gamey". In my amateur opinion.

I mean, all it takes is a cursory glance at what the rules used to be like to see that this has always been an issue. Armies in 2nd felt MUCH more similar to one another than they do right now IMO.

The problem comes from the fact that you've got the following situation:

Faction A's thing is that they're super speedy and fast, so they get to advance and still shoot, and their models move 1-2" more than other factions' equivalents.

Faction B's thing is that they shoot real good, so they get a free shooting attack that hits on 6s when you charge them.

Faction C's thing is that they pray for miracles, so they roll 1-3 dice at the beginning of the turn, and they get to substitute the results of those dice for random rolls they make during the turn.

Faction D's thing is they're real hard to kill, so they get to roll an extra dice before they die, and on a 5+ they don't take the wound.

Faction E's thing is that they're super hyper mega-elite and best at everything so they reroll morale, all their squads get to split into 2 when they deploy them if they want, they get more relics more stratagems more warlord traits and a unique psychic power for every subfaction, they get an extra -1AP on one category of weapons each turn, they get +1A on turns they charged or got charged or heroically intervened or their player yelled 'for the emperor', they get special better versions of every weapon that they share with other factions, they can spend CPs to make all their HQs into upgraded versions, they get to pick custom subfaction traits and still get all the unique stuff from one of the base subfactions, they can double tap rapid fire weapons if they stand still, each one gets a special extra trait on one turn category...

About a year ago GW decided Space Marines were missing something, some...je ne sais quoi, some small element that other factions had. So, they decided, best way to make sure we give them that is to throw ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING AND THE KITCHEN SINK AT THEM and you know, maybe some of it works, maybe some of it doesn't, CERTAINLY we won't be able to balance all of it, they'll have more rules content crammed into them than nearly every other faction combined, but hey, we'll sell models, so who cares?

Part of the change 40k went through going from 7th to 9th (and to some extent fifth to seventh) was a loss of emergent gameplay.

To provide an example of what I mean:

Back in the day (4th/5th) the Rhino and Chimera were different vehicles. Same total armor value, but one was weighted to the front. The Chimera was better armed, though not outrageously so being BS3. The Chimera had 2 more firepoints, but the models inside weren't as good.

So far so good - essentially, there were tiny differences between those vehicles. But the attributes mentioned here combined to result in totally different mechanized playstyles:
Marines relied on their infantry. 3-4 rhinos full of marines moving up the board was scary not because the rhino was AMAZING but because marines within 12" hopping out of a truck was actually pretty intimidating, especially when it's 30 or 40 with meltaguns, etc. Meanwhile, the Chimera's thinner side armor and greater firepoints saw it used more as a maneuverable asset with extra gun, the infantry almost taken as an upgrade for the tank rather than hopping out until they had to. Then you had Fish of Fury Tau, who utilized their skimmers totally differently than either army here despite being mechanized...

Two/three totally different mechanized playstyles, emerging from a couple shuffled armor points and a couple fire points. And skimming.

Now? They're basically identical in form and function, and "mechanized armies" in general play very samey.