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I agree with OP but I also think (or maybe hope) that it's temporary and once most of the primaris waves have come out, xenos, chaos and other imperial armies will have time under the spotlight.
Probably just wishful thinking, though...

Karol wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Unless a new supplement comes along, and bar a very small amount of required multi-part kits and character options, the space marine model line is now complete.

Other than the above, and maybe the odd SC character update and maybe a new general start collecting box, marine releases are done till the end of 2022 at the earliest.

I get the frustration, but this cash cow indirectly supports other less financially lucrative products.

There is still the whole csm line up to bring in line with the sm rule set.


To be honest I don't know what people would imagine to be an acceptable start to 9th ed. No space marine codex at the start was not going to happen. Extending each marine faction with all the primaris was a given.

What they could have done is what they almost did: Release decent, usable holdover rules for the minor marine factions, along with their chapter trait and 1 relic 1 strat 1 trait etc with full supplements to come later.

If the launch to 9th ed had been something like:

-Space Marines
(Holdover rules to make DW SW BA DA GK W2 base, update weapons, etc, with basic chapter tactics and support in the space marine book)
-Necrons
-Chaos space marines
(Holdover rules to make Tsons+DG W2 base, update weapons etc with basic legion tactics and support in the CSM book)
-Dark Eldar
-Genestealer Cults
-Tau
-Guard
-Eldar

^We could be where we are right now, but all the currently underperforming factions due to the nature of the release of 9th could already be updated and functional again. THEN you can make sure that space wolves have their 12 unique relics and their special psychic discipline and their crusade rules and whatever in addition to their basic chapter tactic, superdoctrine, new weapon stats and unit rules.

Were dark angels really so left out in the cold with their perma-transhumaned terminators that they desperately needed a codex before 40% WR imperial guard or Tau who just have no way to meaningfully participate in 9th?

 vipoid wrote:
I could be mistaken, but didn't Psybolt dreads only really become an issue in 6th?

When Hull Points were introduced (and so suddenly a few glances could auto-kill a vehicle).

Psyflemen were already in issue in 5th. Most relevant vehicles were AV12 or less, so a riflement dread with two autocannons and psybolt ammunition had 4 S8 shots that would pen them on a 5+.
GK just came out near the end of 5th, so the issue didn't exist for most of the edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:
Leafblower was a US Meta thing, in EU tournaments it never came up on top or being an issue in general
(I think mainly because of different scenarios or victory condition as tabling alone was not a victory)

main problem of 5th, same as with every other Edi, came up as GW changed their Codex design mid Edition

I've played against plenty of leafblower lists in 5th, and it was definitely causing problems. Mind you, not the 2500 point variant with daemon hunters and psykers, but there were chimera gunboats, manticores and hydras everywhere.

Dai wrote:
Well if we look to Aos there were have been three main waves of Stormcast before they started properly focusing on other factions (with the odd SC model cropping up). Fingers crossed this is the same for 40k. There is a little bit of design space left for marines if you ignore oldmarines I guess but it can wait!

That said I would probably like to see EC and WE, it just slightly bothers me they have done two of the specific God Legions and not the others!

Even right after launch, when SCE were getting a lot of attention, they still kept releasing battletomes in between for everyone else with new models. Sure, you got the Extremis book (which was folded into main SCE battletome soon after along with Vanguards), but you also got the fyrelslayers, ironjawz, beastriders etc. releasing alongside.

Space Marines get the equal appreciation cake. Just how it is.

Dont forget my favorite "Wait for a codex" in which of you pick Mordians are a regiment, in order to get their main trait beyond the leadership buff when bases are touching, you have to spend a cp to get their 5+ Overwatch.... of which they can only do once in the charge phase.

I knew when 9th was announced, it would lead to a wave of pure marine spam- a new edition always does, which is why I hate the practice of "Edition Reset." I'd rather play the worst edition of 40k forever than have to start all over again.

But we are now in the place I've been waiting for- when the immediate glut of Marines Marines Marines is finally slowing down.

The key to figuring out how well GW is going to address other armies will be the next 6-8 months. If we get news within that window that another faction will receive the Necron/ Marine treatment, we can breathe and be hopeful again. If not, we can complain about it on the Internet.

Early signs are not good; the DE need a lot, and the previews so far have indicated that while we're getting some stuff, it doesn't come close to going far enough. I'm an eternal optimist, so I maintain hope, but if Lelith is the only new model, it's bad news for everyone who isn't a marine player, because it means that whenever your turn comes, you're as likely to be underwhelmed as DE players.

If we get another unit or two in addition to Lelith and the dex is good, it's great news for everyone, because it would mean that even when all signs point to an underwhelming release, we still have the potential to be pleasantly surprised.

the_scotsman 796396 11062747 wrote:


Were dark angels really so left out in the cold with their perma-transhumaned terminators that they desperately needed a codex before 40% WR imperial guard or Tau who just have no way to meaningfully participate in 9th?

how are the codex that the different marines faction, no idea why you are persistent with calling them minor or subfactions, got this and last year different from an index? they only included the chapter specific rules(like index books did), and their specific special characters and units.
We didn't get the csm book update, but who knows what codex we should be on, if it was not for covid. We just got past DG, and definitly the DE are late, but if we remember what was told to us last year, DG should have been a december codex. Which means we could have easily be on a +1 or even a +2 codex, if it wasn't for the covid/brexit thing. And as much as GW loves its customers, they are not going to put out a book, they can't deliver to people around the world, or the models that come with it. We were shown that already, when the whole AoS tree faction thing happened. And a print factory going AWOL in China is nothing compared to covid.

But yeah GW could have done many things. They could put up the initial books, and then say something like, it is covid in the mean time this is our FREE app use it for all the other factions, some rules/stats were updated there. They could do it. But so could apple keep the same chargers for each new Iphone.

Karol wrote:

the_scotsman 796396 11062747 wrote:


Were dark angels really so left out in the cold with their perma-transhumaned terminators that they desperately needed a codex before 40% WR imperial guard or Tau who just have no way to meaningfully participate in 9th?

how are the codex that the different marines faction, no idea why you are persistent with calling them minor or subfactions, got this and last year different from an index? they only included the chapter specific rules(like index books did), and their specific special characters and units.
We didn't get the csm book update, but who knows what codex we should be on, if it was not for covid. We just got past DG, and definitly the DE are late, but if we remember what was told to us last year, DG should have been a december codex. Which means we could have easily be on a +1 or even a +2 codex, if it wasn't for the covid/brexit thing. And as much as GW loves its customers, they are not going to put out a book, they can't deliver to people around the world, or the models that come with it. We were shown that already, when the whole AoS tree faction thing happened. And a print factory going AWOL in China is nothing compared to covid.

But yeah GW could have done many things. They could put up the initial books, and then say something like, it is covid in the mean time this is our FREE app use it for all the other factions, some rules/stats were updated there. They could do it. But so could apple keep the same chargers for each new Iphone.

My point was mostly that the various astartes indexes that they did release, not theoretically could have released, did release for free, they could have kept those in place easily for months without needing to eat up codex release slots with 4 additional astartes codexes almost back-to-back-to-back.

Even assuming the same delay happened - dropping the codex release schedule from 2 per month to 1 per month as of last month - they could have gotten through every single faction that actually needs updates for 9th. Replace Deathwatch, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Dark Angels with Guard Tau Eldar and GSC, and you'd have been able to have all the worst factions currently in the game with new books redesigned to allow them to function properly in 9th.

The majority - the actual majority, not the made up majority claimed by people who like to pretend everyone plays marines even when their playrate numbers in the only data we have capped out below 50% even when they were absolutely competitively dominant - of 40k players are still sitting around waiting for rules actually designed for 9th, and that was a choice GW made when they released the codexes for the various marine factions immediately instead of letting them just use the index datasheets they'd already released.

That makes no sense, they make a lot more money by selling marines and marine books then updating any of the xeno or imperial factions. If it was not the case, then after an edition or two of promotions, marines would be treated like stormcast eternals. So yeah if it makes GW money and costs less to make then a non marine codex, GW making mulitple marine books back to back makes sense.
Plus GW doesn't like doing stuff for free. And as I said, the books BA/DA/SW/DW got are index books in everything, but name. And it was only done to force their players to buy two books.

And the idea that GW are somehow stupid, and treat a minority of players with extra focus and care seems to be strange to me. GW knows their sells numbers, and how old the rules are doesn't seem to bother GW one bit.


As the not updating old rules goes. In 8th they made the GK book for something that was not 8th ed, maybe they would have worked in 3ed, Yet all GK players have to play an army with rules and more important point costs designed that way. CSM are like that too, and it does not seem to bother GW one bit. Now one could of course expect better treatment, and I did through out most of 8th ed, up until it was explained to me that GW does not that way. And if GW doesn't work that way, then expecting them to do, is just getting angry or upset for nothing.

Karol wrote:
That makes no sense, they make a lot more money by selling marines and marine books then updating any of the xeno or imperial factions. If it was not the case, then after an edition or two of promotions, marines would be treated like stormcast eternals. So yeah if it makes GW money and costs less to make then a non marine codex, GW making mulitple marine books back to back makes sense.
Plus GW doesn't like doing stuff for free. And as I said, the books BA/DA/SW/DW got are index books in everything, but name. And it was only done to force their players to buy two books.

And the idea that GW are somehow stupid, and treat a minority of players with extra focus and care seems to be strange to me. GW knows their sells numbers, and how old the rules are doesn't seem to bother GW one bit.


As the not updating old rules goes. In 8th they made the GK book for something that was not 8th ed, maybe they would have worked in 3ed, Yet all GK players have to play an army with rules and more important point costs designed that way. CSM are like that too, and it does not seem to bother GW one bit. Now one could of course expect better treatment, and I did through out most of 8th ed, up until it was explained to me that GW does not that way. And if GW doesn't work that way, then expecting them to do, is just getting angry or upset for nothing.

I am not under the impression that GW did not release the first few codexes of 9th with an eye towards maximising the amount of profit they could generate.

You asked "To be honest I don't know what people would imagine to be an acceptable start to 9th ed."

And I answered. A launch with the first few codexes actually providing a large number of factions with the rules they need to actually participate in the game, would have been an acceptable launch to me.

A launch where we are almost a year in now and the only factions with codexes are loyalist marines (not even all of them lol), Death Guard and Necrons is to me, at least not the best situation we could be in from a game health standpoint.

Obviously only a very tiny minority of players play Grey Knights. It would probably be maximally profitable for GW to not bother giving them a codex or any kind of holdover rules for months and months and months. From a game standpoint, that's idiotic - I don't think anyone could play a game of GK or CSM right now against loyalist marines and come away thinking "hey yeah, this is a good functional game that works and makes sense". 9th ed has basically had a "Pardon Our Mess While We Remodel" sign on it for 6+ months now, and it really obviously shows among the community. The amount of people going "welp, I'm playing old editions" or "welp, I'm making my own edition" have absolutely EXPLODED among every community I'm a part of - and its not because 9th is technically worse than 8th, it's because it seems incomplete and like a public beta you have to pay for.

PenitentJake wrote:
I knew when 9th was announced, it would lead to a wave of pure marine spam- a new edition always does, which is why I hate the practice of "Edition Reset." I'd rather play the worst edition of 40k forever than have to start all over again.

But we are now in the place I've been waiting for- when the immediate glut of Marines Marines Marines is finally slowing down.

The key to figuring out how well GW is going to address other armies will be the next 6-8 months. If we get news within that window that another faction will receive the Necron/ Marine treatment, we can breathe and be hopeful again. If not, we can complain about it on the Internet.

Early signs are not good; the DE need a lot, and the previews so far have indicated that while we're getting some stuff, it doesn't come close to going far enough. I'm an eternal optimist, so I maintain hope, but if Lelith is the only new model, it's bad news for everyone who isn't a marine player, because it means that whenever your turn comes, you're as likely to be underwhelmed as DE players.

If we get another unit or two in addition to Lelith and the dex is good, it's great news for everyone, because it would mean that even when all signs point to an underwhelming release, we still have the potential to be pleasantly surprised.

The thing is, it's NEVER been like this. Marines are always first (or one of the first) to get a new dex, but they don't ALWAYS get a massive wave released up front. Some editions, the "marine wave" did not come until later, and in others it was spread across the edition in the form of several smaller releases over time. The difference now is that it didn't start with 9th. It began in 8th and has only built momentum since. People use to deny this was a thing, but even the white knights have stopped trying to defend it, because I think most of the community realizes that it's just gotten silly at this point. Your DE example encapsulates this perfectly imo, and it's far from the only example.

It's great that some like CCS don't feel affected by it, but my group has a lot of players with armies that have been plunged pretty deeply into the type of disinvestment cycle we see DE going through, and I can't blame them for not being enthusiastic. I'm hoping we have everything pretty much out of the way at this point and will now see a steady stream of releases for other armies for a while before we go back to loyalist marines. That said, are all of their supplements out? Don't we still need one or two for that to be complete? Eh, at any rate, I'm hoping they're mostly done, and it will be everyone else's turn soon.

No. All Marine supplements are out (assuming they don't invent new ones).


The only (non-spikey) Marines left would be Grey Knights, who have their own Codex.


Until then, Marines should be mostly done until the 9.5, half-way-edition Shadowspear-style-box.

I am not under the impression that GW did not release the first few codexes of 9th with an eye towards maximising the amount of profit they could generate.

they made every BA/DA/DW/SW player buy 2 books instead of 1, on top of that they made it shortly after all those players bought their PA books, which were being invalidated by the not-codex books. The only way to maximize it even further would have been, if they also released the CA book at the same time with updated points costs and rules for all armies. Including the ones with 9th ed books.

And I answered. A launch with the first few codexes actually providing a large number of factions with the rules they need to actually participate in the game, would have been an acceptable launch to me.

A launch where we are almost a year in now and the only factions with codexes are loyalist marines (not even all of them lol), Death Guard and Necrons is to me, at least not the best situation we could be in from a game health standpoint.

If your main money source is marine players, and you have data how much non marine stuff generates how much sales in each editions, you know how many releases like Necron, SoB or Admecha GW thinks they need to do per year or per edition for their sells to work. I mean they are making more and more money each year. At least that is how it was through out all 8th ed, so something is working, and it is not like AoS is outselling w40k.

Obviously only a very tiny minority of players play Grey Knights. It would probably be maximally profitable for GW to not bother giving them a codex or any kind of holdover rules for months and months and months. From a game standpoint, that's idiotic

Well that is true. But from what I understand the founder of GW, and its owner, told multiple times. That the GW is, contrary to its name which kind of a did confuse me for a long time, not a game making company. They are a model selling company. Of course GW should have never made any codex bad, on purpose or not. Of course they should not make people playing any faction feel as if they are left out. But they clearly do that, can afford it, while making good money.

Now if marines, for what ever reason stopped making good money for GW, things would become a lot different. I did mention AoS and stormcast, they were clearly suppose to be the marines of AoS. But AoS players didn't want marines, so even with long time support GW kind of a let them go, and now supports all new factions in more or less the same degree. And it seems to work for people playing AoS, or at least they claim it so.

The amount of people going "welp, I'm playing old editions" or "welp, I'm making my own edition" have absolutely EXPLODED among every community I'm a part of - and its not because 9th is technically worse than 8th, it's because it seems incomplete and like a public beta you have to pay for.

My dudes are one of the bottom tier armies right now. Unupdate and effectivly marines double minus rules wise. And I still can't get my head around the idea how someone could consider 8th, better in anyway then 9th. Maybe only if the army they played was good in 8th and now is bad, like it is for tau. But aside of that, it just doesn't make sense to me. Marines have multiple different armies to play with, with different builds, sometimes with more build then one per codex. Which in 8th only eldar could do. There is ton of valid options for armies, and marines, which are fun to play, aren't even the best armies in the edition. Demons, harlequins or Custodes do just as good, or even better. Ton of armies sit on, or close, to the 50/50 win rate stats. That is great. Comparing 8th to that is just odd. 11 months of non stop castellan list domination, making vehicles that can't fly and a ton of whole armies practicaly invalid to play. 9th has its bad armies, I happen to play one of them, but it doesn't come even close to how bad 8th was.

To be fair, I was always going to buy 2 SM books. 3 actually as I have SW, DA, & Generic marines. All GW did was inconvenience me in how exactly I use those books.
Now instead of opening my SW codex I have to open both it & the general SM codex.

Probably a combination of, many people aren't actually playing 9th at the moment and the mechanics - regardless of whether or not they may be sufficiently balanced with respect to who wins and who loses - feel strange, disjointed and incomplete.

Moving overwatch from something you always got to something that costs 1cp and can only be done once per turn, Adding a whole "core" mechanic but then only adding it to marine armies, updating tons of weapons across the whole of the game including just straight tripling the average damage a multimelta does while not adjusting costs much or at all, leaving a couple minor factions and one really major faction with 1W MEQ infantry so that they basically can't ever hope to compete with the new 2W loyalists, the closest thing I can remember to this particular gamestate is the beginning of 6th edition, when GW introduced Flyers as a new class of unit.

Flyers could only be hit on a 6 except by anti-aircraft weaponry, and when GW launched flyers they did so by giving marines (obviously) a bunch of new flyer kits, and they retroactively updated several other existing flyers (Necron Scythes, IG Valkyries, and I think Dark Eldar had the Voidraven already as well). But a whole bunch of armies just...didn't have flyers, and didn't have any anti-air weapons, at all, period. The only thing that you could do, which technically now every faction had access to which was another new thing in 6th, was to take Aegis Defense Lines and arm them with the quad anti-air autocannon.

That was the solution that people were told to use if you played, for example, Tyranids. "Just take an Aegis line in your tyranid army."

That leads to a game state where you're paying for a beta version of the game. It's like if a brand new fighting game came out, and one of the characters had a move that made their model snap into a T-pose for a couple seconds, and another character could clip through the floor, and the developer tried to pretend all those mechanics were intended parts of the game you're just supposed to play around.

6th eventually got to a place where everybody had flyers and everyone had ways to deal with the new mechanics and most people had codexes, but then boom, the edition was just over, destined to be the one everyone just thinks back and goes "oh yeah.....6th....6th existed, and I vaguely remember not liking it much, but I don't remember why..."

People are looking further, to 5the I believe.

Honestly as well, Games Workshop is a game company trying its hardest to say it is a model company.

@OP
Don't lose heart mate. You don't have to rely on what GW releases. This hobby can be whatever you want to make it. I bet you could start a new, non-marine army project and make it unique and interesting, even just using the official models available, nevermind the huge amount of alternatives.

The problem with releasing kits for other factions: not many people buy them right now. New models will not change that.

Something about Space Marines is special. Came to terms with that a long time ago.

If that makes you want to walk away, HABA has a nice line of board games with wooden pieces. You might find them more interesting.

 techsoldaten wrote:
The problem with releasing kits for other factions: not many people buy them right now. New models will not change that.

Something about Space Marines is special. Came to terms with that a long time ago.

If that makes you want to walk away, HABA has a nice line of board games with wooden pieces. You might find them more interesting.

If I remember correctly, the Sisters box sold out as quickly as Indomitus, and I've seen another poster comment on how, locally, Necrons are outselling marines. I'm not saying that marines aren't the best sellers- clearly they are.

What I'm saying is that it's a chicken and egg scenario. Marines sell more models because they have more models to sell, because they have more developed subfactions which also have more models to sell, and because they are part of almost every box set ever made, so everyone already has some laying around somewhere. If any other faction had all of those things going for it, it might compete with Marine sales.

Until another faction makes it to that place, we'll never know whether or not marines. They're just omnipresent.

I buy that marines, as a whole, are vastly outselling other factions.

But Deathwatch?

Space Wolves?

Blood Angels?

Dark Angels?

I know, competitive play isn't size of the general playerbase, but I have a tough time believing that these factions that seem to consistently bring in Harlequin/GSC/Sisters/Drukhari play numbers at tournaments are secretly so massively outselling such factions as Imperial Guard and Chaos Space Marines that it was more of a priority to get their codex books out.

the_scotsman wrote:
A launch where we are almost a year in now and the only factions with codexes are loyalist marines (not even all of them lol), Death Guard and Necrons is to me, at least not the best situation we could be in from a game health standpoint.

7 months - in a pandemic no less. It seems quite likely that we'd have had DE by now. Literally all of the hated marines are out of the way at 7 months in. GK is the last man standing.

If they put out 5 more before the anniversary they will have covered 19 out of 30 codex-able factions in 1 year with four of those able to take a delay (Sister, Harlies, Custodes, Daemons).

 techsoldaten wrote:
The problem with releasing kits for other factions: not many people buy them right now. New models will not change that.

Something about Space Marines is special. Came to terms with that a long time ago.

If that makes you want to walk away, HABA has a nice line of board games with wooden pieces. You might find them more interesting.

Who would think that releasing new stuff and rules for an army? This comment is ridiculous.

Assuming we aren't still looking at 9th reskins of the other 6 First Founding Supplements.

 Eldarain wrote:
Assuming we aren't still looking at 9th reskins of the other 6 First Founding Supplements.

Always possible but entirely unnecessary unless they desperately want to sell a couple character kits. Note that Ultras just picked up a character with no new book.

Is there bespoke Crusade and secondary objectives content for the remaining 8th Supplement factions in the core 9th Codex?
(Legitimately asking, as if there is there isn't as much need from GW's way of thinking)

4th edition Infinity is pretty awesome. Free rules with a wiki, free army builder with frequent updates, gorgeous minis, non-depressing lore, and no faction favorites!

 Eldarain wrote:
Is there bespoke Crusade and secondary objectives content for the remaining 8th Supplement factions in the core 9th Codex?
(Legitimately asking, as if there is there isn't as much need from GW's way of thinking)

Nada

Nothing is going to change. The guys with the purse strings will obviously look at how profitable Marines are, now more than ever, and laugh in the faces of anyone who recommends they tone down on it. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

That's why I think some kind of Imperial Civil War would do wonders for tables, because it does get a bit silly when 70% of tabletop battles are some variety of Imperial (most likely Marine) versus Imperial (most likely other Marines). At least if there's a reasonable suspension of disbelief as to why a faction would fight itself it salves the wound of one faction being overplayed considerably.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It's actually in GW's interest for every player to play the same faction. Because that way every kit GW puts out to that faction sells to everyone.
Why spend design resources making a Dark Eldar sculpt and sell to 5% of the playerbase when you can spend less resources (due to commonality of sculpts) and sell to 50% of the playerbase?

That's why I'm so shocked they left Horus Heresy to rot, it seems like a dream situation for GW - Marines, Marines, Marines and a couple of other armies who can be allied in with Marines. They don't even need to make spiky Marines barring a few special units for one Marine Legion.

stroller wrote:
OK.. I get losing interest in space marines...

and I get "why can't *I* have a new shiny?"

but.... just PLAY why don't you? OH! THAT pandemic....

GW has more models on sale than I will ever buy (and I have a lot) even ignoring marines completely....

OP is in the US, which has a lot of gaming stores and tables actively playing.

I agree.
I can only suppose that they didn't want it stealing 40k's playerbase?
Plus I'm sure a large number of people playing older rules because they felt those were better wasn't a good look and wouldn't be encouraging to new players.

Maybe they just wanted to keep it as Forgeworld's thing, and Forgeworld has really been struggling, even before Covid they were culling huge chunks of their store.
I imagine 3d printing has given people the power to turn their nose up at Forgeworld's supreme prices for mediocre products.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I agree.
I can only suppose that they didn't want it stealing 40k's playerbase?
Plus I'm sure a large number of people playing older rules because they felt those were better wasn't a good look and wouldn't be encouraging to new players.

Maybe they just wanted to keep it as Forgeworld's thing, and Forgeworld has really been struggling, even before Covid they were culling huge chunks of their store.
I imagine 3d printing has given people the power to turn their nose up at Forgeworld's supreme prices for mediocre products.

Most of the people you see screaming Horus Heresy should move to 9th and getting gleeful everytime there's bad news about Forge World are the ones who were playing their Legion armies against 40k ones anyway. At the end of the day it's all money going into the exact same hands - it's why people saying they were sick 40k going into 30k during 7th was kind of funny.

Maybe there isn't any logic behind it really. GW only really pulled off 8th because people were so desperate for literally any reason to return to their fold - the 'balance' of Index's only lasted for a few months after all. 30k was arguably as doomed as other non-GW systems for that reason, although having 8th/9th rules for Legions might've helped it survive a bit longer, although everybody - even the loudest detractors - going over to Primaris-only probably sealed their fate.