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So, I have noticed every thread that has any relation to power armor what so ever results in a conversation about Marines taking up too much design space. How sub-factions of marines shouldn't exist. Or how anything wearing power armor anywhere should be consolidated into a small amount of datasheets (wulfen can use Van Vet data sheets, TWC can use Biker datasheets and etc etc etc).

So I have decided to make this thread so people stop derailing other ones. Please, feel free to discuss and talk about Marines taking up too much design space here instead of making every other thread about this topic. It is frustrating to argue about why your faction or sub faction should even exist or why your new release should even exist in every thread instead of talking about the OP or thread topic itself. The arguments tend to be the same and counter arguments tend to be scoffed at.

I figure here, you can discuss and list all the reasons why marines take up too much design space, all your individual grievances with marines focus is taking away from your own faction and even how the preexistence of certain subfactions/factions alone will detract too much attention from your own faction

Enjoy this thread and discuss the problems with marines and their players here. I wont be participating much here. But with your own space for this topic we can keep it out of literally every single other thread that mentions power armor at all.

You may think this thread will throw water on it but instead it will act as an accelerant... or at least provide a distiller for more vitriol to spread.

All I will say on this topic is that I'd be far less objectionable to Marine's getting the lion's share of releases and design space if other armies weren't also half-arsed and/or completely neglected as well.

You can often see a clear gap in terms of a codex for an army that the writer plays and cares about, and an army that he has no interest in and may even dislike it.

Having an unfun army is often worse than having a weak army (though there can certainly be some overlap between them). And if an already half-arsed codex is left to stagnate while Marines continue to get supplement after supplement, it feels like adding insult to injury.

Likewise, I can accept Marines getting more releases than other factions (to be clear, I'm not saying that this *should* be the case, rather it's merely something I can tolerate).

However, when you have armies like Dark Eldar that have lost swathes of units due to the 'no model, no rules' policy, then to neglect their anaemic range for a decade whilst vomiting new (often redundant) Marine kits from every orifice certainly doesn't east any feelings of resentment one might hold towards Marines.

I think that the game needs far less power armor to have a healthy meta. However that is achieved is fine with me.

But the favoritism is clear and frustrating.

Post on the nuts and bolts subforum crying to the moderaters that someone is spamming the forum with all these toxic anti-marine posts in 5, 4, 3....

I think there are two factors at work. One is obviously sales. Marines sell more so they focus more on them. That can be sort of true but can turn into a self fulfilling prophecy. The other factor is harder to fix from outside even through an uptick in sales for neglected factions. It seems like there is more work given to Marines with both sculpting and writing but is that because of a company directive or is it because the sculptors and writers prefer sculpting and writing about Space Marines? I think that if people in studio were passionate about a xenos faction then that faction would get the same level of focus. How do you fix that though? Does it need to be fixed?

 Brotherjanus wrote:
It seems like there is more work given to Marines with both sculpting and writing but is that because of a company directive or is it because the sculptors and writers prefer sculpting and writing about Space Marines? I think that if people in studio were passionate about a xenos faction then that faction would get the same level of focus. How do you fix that though? Does it need to be fixed?

As to whether it needs to be fixed, it absolutely does. Because otherwise we end up in precisely this situation with all Marines all the time.

As to how to fix it, two possibilities come to mind:

1) Factor it into the hiring process for new sculptors and writers. I mean, if near enough your entire sculpting and writing team are only interested in modelling and writing Marines, then hiring yet more people who only want to model/write Marines seems rather redundant. It's fine for them to be interested in Marines - just so long as they also have a significant interest and enthusiasm for Xeno armies as well. Preferably for those Xeno armies that have seen nothing but neglect for years.

2) They could try making existing members of the team each take up a couple of Xeno faction. Have them read the relevant lore, assemble the models, play the armies etc. Hopefully some interest in those armies might rub off in the process.

Alternatively, if they find playing Xenos to be a dull and unexciting experience, maybe ask them how they think actual Xeno players feel?

 vipoid wrote:
All I will say on this topic is that I'd be far less objectionable to Marine's getting the lion's share of releases and design space if other armies weren't also half-arsed and/or completely neglected as well.

You can often see a clear gap in terms of a codex for an army that the writer plays and cares about, and an army that he has no interest in and may even dislike it.

Having an unfun army is often worse than having a weak army (though there can certainly be some overlap between them). And if an already half-arsed codex is left to stagnate while Marines continue to get supplement after supplement, it feels like adding insult to injury.

Likewise, I can accept Marines getting more releases than other factions (to be clear, I'm not saying that this *should* be the case, rather it's merely something I can tolerate).

However, when you have armies like Dark Eldar that have lost swathes of units due to the 'no model, no rules' policy, then to neglect their anaemic range for a decade whilst vomiting new (often redundant) Marine kits from every orifice certainly doesn't east any feelings of resentment one might hold towards Marines.

Yeah. Space Marines getting a lot of stuff is fine-but other armies need support too.

Hell, the current Space Wolves Index has 28 datasheets. (12 are unique characters.)
Nurgle Daemons have 15 datasheets. (3 are unique characters and 3 are generic Daemons capable of being taken as Nurgle.)

One would assume that the faction more in need of new datasheets would get them-but that's not the case, for GW.

It's frustrating. I hope you, Type40, can understand that and sympathize.

If the shootiest/sneakiest/fightiest/speediest armies in the game are marines in yellow, black, red, white armour, respectively, then they occupy too much of the rules design space.

The issue with forcing creative people to do something is you sometimes end up with a worse product. To really get a good codex or a good series of models is for the person doing them to really like the material and want to see good things happen with it. I read awhile ago that the person who did an older edition Tyranid codex really loved them and it showed in the rules. When it came time for a new codex it was given to someone that didn't like them and we ended up with a stripped down army that didn't feel like it should. Perhaps they should put out a call to sculptors and writers for specific projects and have them compete to get them.

 harlokin wrote:
If the shootiest/sneakiest/fightiest/speediest armies in the game are marines in yellow, black, red, white armour, respectively, then they occupy too much of the rules design space.

Honestly, the new Morkai dogs are basically what a WE Berzerk should be sans the pistol and more melee... but he

The Eradicators are just plainly better then SoB meltas or firedragons...

Why field an obliterator when aggressors or the former do it better for cheaper...

Veterans of the long war, this 10000 years and some bastards with every trick in the book bloated with corrupting power , nope intercessor.

Ranged combined arms warfare? Tau , don't be silly Marines!

Speedy transports and mobile warfare to the extreme? Dark eldar you say , Nope also marines btw the only transport to allow disembarking AFTER movement of it...

Durability ? DG or Necrons? NOPE Iron hands...

Not Online!!! wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
If the shootiest/sneakiest/fightiest/speediest armies in the game are marines in yellow, black, red, white armour, respectively, then they occupy too much of the rules design space.

Honestly, the new Morkai dogs are basically what a WE Berzerk should be sans the pistol and more melee... but he

The Eradicators are just plainly better then SoB meltas or firedragons...

Why field an obliterator when aggressors or the former do it better for cheaper...

Veterans of the long war, this 10000 years and some bastards with every trick in the book bloated with corrupting power , nope intercessor.

Ranged combined arms warfare? Tau , don't be silly Marines!

Speedy transports and mobile warfare to the extreme? Dark eldar you say , Nope also marines btw the only transport to allow disembarking AFTER movement of it...

Durability ? DG or Necrons? NOPE Iron hands...

Yeah, this is an associated problem in that Marines have now cannibalised so much design space from other armies - including even traits that were once the defining features of given races.

I think Catbarf talked about this in a different thread. Basically, a problem of there being no one willing to stick up for the Xeno factions and say 'hang on, this is a core part of our faction's identity - it shouldn't just be handed to Marines. Especially when they'll be able to do it even better than the Xeno faction'.

 vipoid wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
If the shootiest/sneakiest/fightiest/speediest armies in the game are marines in yellow, black, red, white armour, respectively, then they occupy too much of the rules design space.

Honestly, the new Morkai dogs are basically what a WE Berzerk should be sans the pistol and more melee... but he

The Eradicators are just plainly better then SoB meltas or firedragons...

Why field an obliterator when aggressors or the former do it better for cheaper...

Veterans of the long war, this 10000 years and some bastards with every trick in the book bloated with corrupting power , nope intercessor.

Ranged combined arms warfare? Tau , don't be silly Marines!

Speedy transports and mobile warfare to the extreme? Dark eldar you say , Nope also marines btw the only transport to allow disembarking AFTER movement of it...

Durability ? DG or Necrons? NOPE Iron hands...

Yeah, this is an associated problem in that Marines have now cannibalised so much design space from other armies - including even traits that were once the defining features of given races.

I think Catbarf talked about this in a different thread. Basically, a problem of there being no one willing to stick up for the Xeno factions and say 'hang on, this is a core part of our faction's identity - it shouldn't just be handed to Marines. Especially when they'll be able to do it even better than the Xeno faction'.

Well most of the old 40k Guard left.. what we have with it right now is Corporatisation, hence the copyrightable names, the constant testing for how much people are willing to pay...
half of 2019 and now 2020 was basically marines with some Necrons minescule necrons.. that's it. Actually no, we lost another 2 factions which are technically MORE relevant as forces then any SM supplement we had just size wise and what they represented, all we got instead is another gak ton of design space encroaching primaris.
Heck half my local marine players just stopped buying rules because it became to much.. because literally all 6 months they should shell out for ANOTHER marine book...

The story of the space marines is THE central narrative of the 40K universe, starting with the emperor, the primarchs, the Horus Heresy, all the way up to the present.

This isn't to say that the other factions don't have their own important stories too, but space marines, and by extension the imperium of man, is the lens through which the entire universe is experienced. It's always been that way. And space marines miniatures sell because they are iconic and emblematic of the entire universe. They are likely the biggest initial point of connection players new to GW have - and that drives sales.

I guess I don't have much skin in the game - as I'm playing older editions of the game, not playing in GW stores and not playing in tournaments. I have and do use cut up counters as proxies for units all of the time. I'm not caught in GW's model buying, codex chasing, rat race. If I was, I would likely be more upset about how some model lines are left in an out-of-date or impartial state.

I'm also not thrilled that over the next 2 months 3 out of 4 books coming out are for armies I have. I have considered selling, trading, or converting models to another army to avoid more books. I accept that I am part of the problem with having 7 different marine armies each having their own book...

I would like to play my Orks or Tau sometime and I will restart my Craftworld Eldar as soon as they release plastic aspect warriors. At least I have my new plastic Sisters army. Sigh, I like everything in this game.

At this point only Dark Angels represent the truest Space Marine gameplay style of combined forced assault slighly specialized in shooting based around speed and striking hard and fast in meele with surgical strikes. And they don't even have super duper crazy bonuses for doing any of that like Blood Angels have with a ton of extremely potent (at least before the new index) for meele and mobility and deepstriking.

Maybe is because of that that they have been the worst marines for all of 8th.

One of the difficult things about the reason given for starting this thread:

Marine bloat is such a huge issue that it IS relevant to almost any other thread you can think of; isolating it here isn't going to change the fact that this topic has relevance to many, many other topics, and so you aren't going to be able to stop it from appearing in other threads when it's relevant... Which is almost always.

Now if GW fixes this by say severely limiting marine releases in 2021 and maximizing Xenos releases, maybe you'll see this come up less. Until that happens, I can't see the complaints going away.

 Brotherjanus wrote:
I'm also not thrilled that over the next 2 months 3 out of 4 books coming out are for armies I have. I have considered selling, trading, or converting models to another army to avoid more books. I accept that I am part of the problem with having 7 different marine armies each having their own book...

I would like to play my Orks or Tau sometime and I will restart my Craftworld Eldar as soon as they release plastic aspect warriors. At least I have my new plastic Sisters army. Sigh, I like everything in this game.

see that is another part of the issue, GW frankly ignores swathes of their universe by not actually asking the question as to why a range doesn't sell.

GW needed an wakeup call from the community to bring sisters into plastic...
And you see this all the bloody time, take the rules updates for R&H in 6th-7th with IA 13 and how many renegades armies that spawned in variations because finally there was an ruleset worth a damn?
How many CSM players jumped over because they could actually start a customizable force again...

Orks have allways been riddled with lopsided rules.
Dark eldar and Eldar, either languish without support, or get rules support that is just ridicoulus but models are stoneage or half the HQ selection get's wiped...

There is NO bad concept for a (large aka complete) faction in 40k there0s just also a bunch of factions that should've never left supplementary stage ...

 Mezmorki wrote:
It's always been that way. And space marines miniatures sell because they are iconic and emblematic of the entire universe. They are likely the biggest initial point of connection players new to GW have - and that drives sales.

No, it hasn't always been that way. I'm old enough to remember that - also, them driving sales is a feedback loop that just will result in Astartes being a cancer on the rest of the setting.

Just in terms of core game mechanics, here's the space loyalist marines take up:

By my count, space marines have roughly 60% of the psychic powers in the game, with 78 currently, which will jump to 84 if Deathwatch get a power list (currently the only major subfaction not to have one that can take librarians.)

Compare to: Tzeentch, Chaos God of Magic, 6 powers.

Craftworld Eldar, the xenos faction with the most lore dedicated to being great psykers, 18 powers.

All of Chaos, including all daemons, 48 unless DG got some new ones in PA - didnt pay much attention to their PA release.

Marines have 6 of the 8 units that can deploy outside of their controlling player's deployment zone.

Marines have the only unit that can break deep strike army composition restrictions and the only unit that can deep strike turn 1 - which is a transport that enables a vast number of units to do that.

The idea of having religious leader units able to cast Prayers was first given to CSM with 11 options for prayers, then to Loyalist Marines with 37 optional prayers. This type of ability was not given to any other faction with religious leaders who pray for divine interventions, i.e. ministorum priests, sisters of battle, daemons of any god, DG or Tsons, Harlequins, Genestealer Cults, etc.

The idea of an army having a special rule that kicks in when they don't bring any allies was first added to Loyalist Space Marines with the 2.0 codex over a year ago. Since then, only 2 other factions have received a comparable rule, making it an advantage loyalist marines continue to enjoy over nearly everybody essentially for free. Of course, loyalist marines have the choice of 12 variations of this special rule.

Loyalist marines were the first faction granted access to customize their army-wide faction traits with the release of Marines 2.0. Multiple factions still have not been given that capability including all of the Chaos factions, and loyalist marines remain the only ones who can choose to powergame their subfaction traits and still retain all the other subfaction bonuses of any core codex subfaction they choose.

Marines were the first faction to receive the ability to permanently upgrade their generic characters via some stratagem or ability to perform as a higher tier of character. This ability has been upgraded, redesigned, and expanded 3 times, in 2.0dex, PA Faith and Fury, and 3.0dex. To my knowledge only Harlequins, Daemons, Orks and possibly now Necrons have had a similar ability added. To reiterate again because they're always just the best example: GW has had time to update and redesign and expand the ability from just captains to Chaplains, Librarians, Company Champions, Techmarines, and Apothecaries but still NO CHAOS SPACE MARINE character can be upgraded to an "exalted lord" or "arch-sorceror" or "Dark Prophet"

This is what people talk about when they talk about "taking up design space". Marines continuosly have followed this pattern throughout the time I've played: GW comes up with some new concept, like making Flyers and Anti-Air units a huge part of the game, or making "super formations" that give triple layers of bonuses, or giving bonuses based on your choice of subfaction, or whatever else, and by the time GW finishes slowly implementing them for loyalist marines and every loyalist marine offshoot, whoops, looks like it's time for another loyalist marine core codex and we have to come up with another idea for rules for loyalist marines to make people buy it!

Most Craftworld Eldar models are 14 years old.
Some are 26 years old now.
A lot have never made it to plastic.

Marines are currently rounding out they second complete plastic army.
To replace their already complete plastic army.

Its this type of thing that rubs me the wrong way.

I'm not bothered about Marines getting the most support.
But when some armies get almost nothing, it starts getting absurd.

The reality is that, as the Primaris and Manlet Marines become closer in profile, the consolidation of statlines will help streamline bloat issues. I legit don't think anyone is going to think Intercessor statlines getting access to Grav or Plasma Cannons will break anything, nor would the fact that people have been clamoring for A2 baseline with the basic Tactical Marine anyway. Simply put, the Intercessor getting access to outside weapons is a great starting point for this project.
As well, you wouldn't even need an Assault Marine entry if you go the route of allowing Assault Intercessors Jump Packs as well. Hell, we need a LOT of that consolidation. Does anyone need four separate entries for Terminators when we could just make one profile? Do the two Centurions really need different entries? They don't, none of them do.

Next part is how many Marines need a codex? Loyalist Scum from the Angels don't warrant it at all. Dark Angels losing access to Sternguard just because, even though you can equip their Vets almost the same exact way but strictly being inferior for the price because of Sternguard guns, or the fact literally nobody but Dark Angels and their successors somehow were the only ones EVER with Plasma Cannons on their Speeders? They're such artificial wargear differences that there's really no problem with generalized access to these things outside the whole "My chapter and just their Successors only had Thunderfire Cannons, sorry Blood Angels!" or "Sorry just my Dreads get Frag Cannons sorry Iron Hands!"

Consolidation of Space Wolves is a lot trickier but as the eventual consolidation happens it CAN be done with minimal effort. Originally I wanted them separate but once again there's a lot of silly differences for no reason but just because.

Now for unique units, I don't think each Chapter should have access to more than 4-5 outside Special Characters. In my mind it would be along the lines of whole different post I'll have to make.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Now for unique units, I don't think each Chapter should have access to more than 4-5 outside Special Characters. In my mind it would be along the lines of whole different post I'll have to make.

You mean 0?

Lets look at the new super special Space Wolves unit

Time, money and effort was spent on yet another unit for an already hugely bloated sub-sub faction rather than a new unit for another faction
There is already a dedicated anti psyker army in the Imperium which is crying out for development but instead this is given to....Space Wolves
There is now eve less reason to bother creating stuff for Sisters of Silence liek a HQ or special characxter because the Wolves now "need" a character anti psyker.

sad sad days.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Lets look at the new super special Space Wolves unit

Time, money and effort was spent on yet another unit for an already hugely bloated sub-sub faction rather than a new unit for another faction
There is already a dedicated anti psyker army in the Imperium which is crying out for development but instead this is given to....Space Wolves
There is now eve less reason to bother creating stuff for Sisters of Silence liek a HQ or special characxter because the Wolves now "need" a character anti psyker.

sad sad days.

actually that is untrue, a investment into the SoS would've forced GW to MAKE a model, unlike with these reivers which they just needed to creat moronical rules for and sell with an upgrade sprue for more money..
it's corporatistic minimalist investment..

Yeah I'm not really convinced the Hounds took all that much effort or money to create.

It's literally a Reiver box with the existing SW upgrade sprue.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The reality is that, as the Primaris and Manlet Marines become closer in profile, the consolidation of statlines will help streamline bloat issues. I legit don't think anyone is going to think Intercessor statlines getting access to Grav or Plasma Cannons will break anything, nor would the fact that people have been clamoring for A2 baseline with the basic Tactical Marine anyway. Simply put, the Intercessor getting access to outside weapons is a great starting point for this project.
As well, you wouldn't even need an Assault Marine entry if you go the route of allowing Assault Intercessors Jump Packs as well. Hell, we need a LOT of that consolidation. Does anyone need four separate entries for Terminators when we could just make one profile? Do the two Centurions really need different entries? They don't, none of them do.

Next part is how many Marines need a codex? Loyalist Scum from the Angels don't warrant it at all. Dark Angels losing access to Sternguard just because, even though you can equip their Vets almost the same exact way but strictly being inferior for the price because of Sternguard guns, or the fact literally nobody but Dark Angels and their successors somehow were the only ones EVER with Plasma Cannons on their Speeders? They're such artificial wargear differences that there's really no problem with generalized access to these things outside the whole "My chapter and just their Successors only had Thunderfire Cannons, sorry Blood Angels!" or "Sorry just my Dreads get Frag Cannons sorry Iron Hands!"

Consolidation of Space Wolves is a lot trickier but as the eventual consolidation happens it CAN be done with minimal effort. Originally I wanted them separate but once again there's a lot of silly differences for no reason but just because.

Now for unique units, I don't think each Chapter should have access to more than 4-5 outside Special Characters. In my mind it would be along the lines of whole different post I'll have to make.

In terms of legitimately unique special units that exist in plastic that you'd have to either account for, or give their options to the marine codex at large, you've got:

-Deathwatch Vets. Personally I'd be fine with incorporating their 4 unique options into a single "Marine Veterans" datasheet.
-The unique stealth bomber flyer
-Watch Master
-Fenrisian Wolves
-Wulfen
-TWC
-2x SW flyers
-Black Knights
-2x Specialboy Land Speeders
-2x DA Flyers
-Deathwing Knights
-Sanguinary Guard
-Baal Pred
-Furioso Dread

 Bosskelot wrote:
Yeah I'm not really convinced the Hounds took all that much effort or money to create.

It's literally a Reiver box with the existing SW upgrade sprue.

More resources than the Sisters of Silence got - or anyone else. Yet again.

An d of course there will be more - waits for the anti psyker Super wolf character or group of units.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Yeah I'm not really convinced the Hounds took all that much effort or money to create.

It's literally a Reiver box with the existing SW upgrade sprue.

it still did take up time for a much needed rule update for any of these factions:

GSC because ambushing experts not working in ambush is genius.
Tau: Riptide and Shield drones is for a mechanised army that should also have a combined arms theme going and auxilia really limiting..
Orks: 5ppm grots, for no apparent reason.
Guard: erm, conscripts? erm a whole slew of units that are just meh or bad? Doctrines and customizability also dead?
Ynnari: Still missing maskless banshees and all of the 3 HQ's that make that faction up could've deserved a look at.

FW:
R&H: in the same time someone could've propperly made the command vox and enforcer marauder interaction fixed up... Watch gw feth that up in legends aswell, mark my words! also check pts cost and profiles?
Elysians: Same as above, could've used proofreading and some look at pts cost, as above.
Corsairs: Erm could've wrote an HQ entry with some of the former dedications?

 Bosskelot wrote:
Yeah I'm not really convinced the Hounds took all that much effort or money to create.

It's literally a Reiver box with the existing SW upgrade sprue.

More thought was put into their datasheet than any anti-psyker unit currently existing in the game, possibly barring the culexus assassin, so there is that.

Every other anti-psyker unit: "I dunno maybe a DTW? Maybe -1 or -2 to psychic powers within x"?"

Fangs: +1 to hit, +1 to damage, ignore Look Out Sir, -1 to cast within 12", -2 to cast within 6", can't be targeted for psychic powers unless the closest, 4++ vs mortal wounds in the psychic phase.

Damn!

Good thing we didn't need any of those new anti-psyker rules for

-Sisters of Silence
-Necron Gloom Prisons
-Khorne
-The entire ordo hereticus
-Some thing the Drukhari could have that helps them hunt down and kill every psyker born in the black city
-Tyranids, the army that makes every psyker on the planet start to go crazy by showing up