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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Ned Flanders is a character from the Simpsons, known for being very religious and very friendly.

Well... there was that 1 episode....

Karol wrote:
Sanguinary Guard are not Venguard Veterans. I don't get where you get that from. They are distinct in both their arments and looks from regular assault veterans companies have. and DC are not an ad hoc formation. They are something of a daily occurance for all scions of Sanguinius. Dante almost went DC, if it wasn't for the Salamander guys helping him go through. They have gear which puts them at odds with ad mecha, non sanctioned engines for rhinos, razorbacks etc SW didn't have wulfen, outside of singular occurance per company, till the whole siege of Fenris thing. DC is part of BAs and their successors since their gene father died.

They said "Honour Guard" not Vanguard Veterans. BA used to have jump pack Honour Guard until SG came along. They are identical in terms of position within the Chapter - elite veteran unit picked form the best warriors of the Chapter. The BA ones just happen to have fancy armour and master crafted power weapons. That's different to other Chapters, but arguably not different enough that others wouldn't have such a unit.

DC are explicitly ad hoc. They're even noted as such in multiple organisation charts of the BA Chapter. Ad hoc in this case just means they don't have a permanent role as part of the Chapter's disposition of forces because there's no way to know how many DC will be available at any given time. Some battles will see dozens inducted into the DC while entire campaigns can go by with very few falling to the DC. As such the BA Chapter organisation is entirely Codex compliant - they're structurally identical to Ultramarines or any other Codex compliant chapter. there are minor differences in equipment and the names/roles of the Apothecaries, but that's not a structural change.

Karol wrote:
Same goes for other marine chapters, the DW and RW are not just dudes in termintor armour and dudes on bikes. RW aren't even a FA reserve company. And saying that SW or BT are practicaly the same as ultramarines just makes no sense, as GWs own material says that they are very much different. And you are right other chapters have "special" units too. RG have dudes that can use the shadow realm and teleport around, salamanders have their drakes etc. But it doesn't matter in game, because GW runs under the no model no rules. So until GW produces specific RG or Salamander kits the players don't have access to their special units.

So why not streamline things by making some of these special unit archetypes available to everyone? Then GW doesn't have to create specific untis for RG or Salamanders. they can simply highlight in the background that Salamanders or IH elites are often equipped with Terminator armour and you can use the not-quite-DW datasheet to represent them. Similarly, RG elites are probably equipped with jump packs. A SG-style datasheet could easily represent that.

GW shouldn't be trying to represent every last little nuance of every unit. That's how we get to the point of 100+ datasheets just in the regular SM Codex. They should be using archetypes to represent things. I'd argue the same is true of the sub-faction traits. UM may generally use one trait that best represents the Chapter as a whole, but I shouldn't be prevented from using the rules for Iron Hands, for example, to represent the UM Devastator company, or a specific UM formation that's been pushed to greater specialisation over the course of a long campaign.

Removed - rule #1

So why not streamline things by making some of these special unit archetypes available to everyone?

Because if everyone can have something it is no longer special. If everyone could just get 50kg of gold it would stop to be special.

BA used to have jump pack Honour Guard until SG came along.

And at the time other marines could not have them. When GW added veteran assault marines as an option to all marine armies, they also decideded that Blood Angels should have Sang Guard. A unit that did not exist before in rules. Which clearly points out that GW thinks that the whole jump pack warfare thing is crucial to the feel of Blood Angels. If they didn't they would not be wasting design space on making all those units for BA.

The BA ones just happen to have fancy armour and master crafted power weapons. That's different to other Chapters, but arguably not different enough that others wouldn't have such a unit.

With a name change you just said that GK are just fancy space marines with master crafted weapons, not different from other chapters.

DC are explicitly ad hoc.

It is not an ad hoc when it happens constaly. If in every war side X does Y, in a span of 800 years. Then the action stop being ad hoc, and become the sides modus operandi. In the case of BA the modus operandi is 10k years since the death of their primarch.

then GW doesn't have to create specific untis for RG or Salamanders.

Limited design space, lower popularity, low interest in designing them in the GW studio pick any you like. To give an example. Every GK ha a full suit of all armour accesible to GK. So there should be termintor armoured purfires, teleport jumping paladins and coresponding characters too. GW decided that GK are not popular enough to put in the effort to write the rules to do it. And by popular I mean that the potential change would not generate them enough money.

GW shouldn't be trying to represent every last little nuance of every unit.

And they don't. Some armies are more popular, have more funs/buyers. That is why BAs can get a plathora of unique units, while IF get a new special character , and crimson fist players are told to paint their models to look nice. There is a reason why the DG book is a DG book and not a plague marine book, and this is not a pun on how often actual pms are taken in DG lists.

Vatsetis wrote:
... just diferent flavours of incel like power fantasies...

For real?

Well aksually Loyalist Marines only have 2 codexes - Grey Knights and Space Marines - so there's no problem, the other books are just supplements.

So who is going to get the 3rd codex? Or are we counting Custodians as Marines now

Karol wrote:

So why not streamline things by making some of these special unit archetypes available to everyone?

Because if everyone can have something it is no longer special. If everyone could just get 50kg of gold it would stop to be special.

It would still be special in the same way Howling Banshees are special - a unique unit only available to SM. That's how every other army in 40k defines a special unit. Just because GW has decided a subset of individual SM chapters are even more special, doesn't mean we have to agree with them.

Karol wrote:

BA used to have jump pack Honour Guard until SG came along.

And at the time other marines could not have them. When GW added veteran assault marines as an option to all marine armies, they also decideded that Blood Angels should have Sang Guard. A unit that did not exist before in rules. Which clearly points out that GW thinks that the whole jump pack warfare thing is crucial to the feel of Blood Angels. If they didn't they would not be wasting design space on making all those units for BA.

BA position as a "special" chapter is mainly historic. They were lucky enough to get a special unit back in 2nd edition, unlike Salamanders, so now they are treated differently in perpetuity. That was arguably fine when the game had around a dozen factions and they had a mini-Codex. When there are now 20+ factions and Codexes some streamlining may be in order. Also, back then, the obsession with sub-faction rules wasn't a thing. There would have been no problem with someone using the BA Codex to represent their own homebrew Chapter, even at official events.

And why can't the same unit represent any number of elite jump pack units? What's the problem with RG having something similar to Sanguinary Guard? Sure, the specific weapon types may be a little different, but - again - at the scale 40k is played at, are those differences really necessary?

Karol wrote:

The BA ones just happen to have fancy armour and master crafted power weapons. That's different to other Chapters, but arguably not different enough that others wouldn't have such a unit.

With a name change you just said that GK are just fancy space marines with master crafted weapons, not different from other chapters.

Sure, apart from the fact they have completely different organisation and share about 3 units, total, with regular SM. GK would definitely meet the threshold of "different enough" to warrant their own Codex.

Karol wrote:

DC are explicitly ad hoc.

It is not an ad hoc when it happens constaly. If in every war side X does Y, in a span of 800 years. Then the action stop being ad hoc, and become the sides modus operandi. In the case of BA the modus operandi is 10k years since the death of their primarch.

Dude, they are literally defined as an ad hoc formation in the Codex. Again, BA cannot rely on any number of DC being present for a battle because the numbers that fall range from 0-50% of a given force in the background. I don't know if this is a language issue, but you're simply wrong on this subject.

Karol wrote:

then GW doesn't have to create specific untis for RG or Salamanders.

Limited design space, lower popularity, low interest in designing them in the GW studio pick any you like. To give an example. Every GK ha a full suit of all armour accesible to GK. So there should be termintor armoured purfires, teleport jumping paladins and coresponding characters too. GW decided that GK are not popular enough to put in the effort to write the rules to do it. And by popular I mean that the potential change would not generate them enough money.

The point is, GW can have their cake and eat it. You have more generic units like specialisied Terminators or JP Honour Guard and all you need is a short description of the special Salamander Terminators or RG Honour Guard and players can represent that on the battlefield. They don't have to expend extra time and resource and players still get to represent some different aspects of their army.

Removed - rule #1

So far Vatsetis has compared 40k played to Incels and Alcoholics. Nice

Removed - rule #1

No they're not.

Go away.

For god's sake don't take the bait. Just report him and hope the Mods actually do something about it.

 Gert wrote:
For god's sake don't take the bait. Just report him and hope the Mods actually do something about it.

as if the mods were actually active for more than 2 hours per month

That is indeed true. In which case, ignore it because you know it's bait.

I apologise.. Do you prefer if I delete the messages?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Well aksually Loyalist Marines only have 2 codexes - Grey Knights and Space Marines - so there's no problem, the other books are just supplements.

So who is going to get the 3rd codex? Or are we counting Custodians as Marines now

Actually, I wasnt talking only about loyalust marines... On the chaos side we currently have three codexes with the Astartes key word, and another one on the line (World Eaters).

Thats 6, Astartes Codex.

Traitor Guard is the one thing I'd hope for.

As has been said though, more important would be scaling back the number of codex'. Each color of marine doesn't need its own freaking book. Rather you should have, at most, two marine codex'. One "main" one, and then a "Chapter's of Renown" book which has some slight rule switcheroos for each chapter, 1-2 units unique to them, and 2-4 named characters.

Sanguinary Guard and Death Company do not need to be their own units when Vanguard Vets exist; chapters with the Blood Angels alignment just need a different paint scheme and maybe an extra rule on that unit.

 morganfreeman wrote:
Death Company do not need to be their own units when Vanguard Vets exist;

Body horror and the brutality of being a high priced bullet catcher for the emperor has always been part of marine stuff in general. So to bag on marines a little bit more, I think it’s pretty important for generic and Ultramarines to have some kind of death company, dragon claw or wulfen style unit or army wide rule. It’s a natural consequence of super soldiers and it’s condescending to generic marine fans to allow them to dodge that consequence.

Vanguard veterans on the other hand are sad accident of history. They should in the background only exist for blood angels, and in the game not exist as a separate unit. In the first modern codexes assault squads could buy wargear, the option was only taken away for streamlining in third edition, and there’s absolutely no background reason for assault squads to not take a few power weapons. If you’re going to consolidate codexes and rules you had might as well delete vanguard vets to save space and just allow an unlimited number or assault marine models to become veteran sergeants with wargear options. Well, jump assault intercessors.