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EviscerationPlague wrote:

Charax wrote:
I literally quoted the part that says they still follow his preferences.

And fine, they don't explicitly have no jump packs, but they "gave little emphasis on specialised units using jump packs or bikes" and "The Death Guard had no dedicated Assault or Tactical squads"

Therefore, there should be decent access to Jump Packs. Thanks for proving my point.

How do you manage to misfire those neurons hard enough to join "little emphasis on using jump packs" to "yeah loads of them then"? I don't think the point you think you're proving is the one you're actually proving there.

IMHO most Loyalist Marines should be consolidated because they share like 90% of the same units.

A BA tactical is pretty much the same thing as an Ultramarine tactical. Even the Wolves are usually the same exact units but with names replaced with Wolfy McWolf.

Chaos actually has a much better argument for individual codexes.

 Tyran wrote:
IMHO most Loyalist Marines should be consolidated because they share like 90% of the same units.

A BA tactical is pretty much the same thing as an Ultramarine tactical. Even the Wolves are usually the same exact units but with names replaced with Wolfy McWolf.

Chaos actually has a much better argument for individual codexes.

I would agree with that sentiment entirely, but it only works if they put legwork into defining them further.

They need, in my eyes, to be mono god books with daemons in and then to have more unique units dropped in to better emphasise the gap. Having a smattering of standard marine tanks, a couple of shared daemon engines and 3-5 units doesn't cut it.

Karol wrote:

It's like half the imperial armoury is equipped with bombs that go off as soon as someone questions the Emperor. all the Speeders, all the grav tech, everything Primaris just explodes the moment the chapter starts to go Renegade.

I assume it is a religious basis. The post heresy gear and the Empire as a whole is ordered. Specific types of weapons, produced in specific ways. No mixing, build to specification, even if we could make it better, we don't because of uniformisation. Chaos runs on pre heresy stuff, where technicaly there were paterns and variants, but everything was being mixed and matched. A squad could have 5 dudes with 5 technicaly identical archeotech wrist mounted plasma weapons, but only in how their functioned. The range, fuel cells, cabling etc could all be unique. Very chaotic.

So I can imagine that chaos space marines in their insanity, can't just deal with the fact that some stuff is not spiky and chaotic. And new fallen chapters probably have to destroy their stock pile of auto canons, storm bolters etc in some sort of religious ritual. Before they get replacments of combi bolters and reaper canons etc

I'd think that the easier and more consistent explanation would be that, much as loyalist Space Marines rely on the Adeptus Mechanicus for their gear, the Chaos Space Marines rely on the Dark Mechanicum for theirs. That's been cited as the reason why renegades who don't go chaos don't last very long; maybe you don't care about worshiping the dark gods and making the meat become machine and the machine become meat, but the guy who repairs and replaces your tanks does.

I think my biggest issue with splitting up the chaos books is that it compartmentalizes their units, even though the faction has a strong element of mixing anything together.
Cult troops were previously always easily available to any chaos warband, now they are locked into separate books, making it harder to just mix them in.
Not only that, separating each book out forces GW to make drastic restrictions on units those cult legions can take, otherwise why even have a separate book? For example, if world eaters could take basic legionnaires, havoks, bikes, and raptors etc… wouldn’t that be very similar to the normal chaos book?

Fundamentally, when it come to chaos there’s always an easy justification for why wildly different legions and renegades are working together. Why wouldn’t Ahriman recruit basic legionnaire mooks as meat shields? Plague company #312 apparently doesn’t care about Mortarion’s opinion on heavy weapons and has Havoks working for them. A black legion warband will certainly use both berserkers and noise marines if it could.

It wouldn’t be chaos if it was orderly, right?

In any case, I doubt merging all the cult legions back into the main book would be any worse than what exists in the marine book.

 Tyran wrote:
IMHO most Loyalist Marines should be consolidated because they share like 90% of the same units.

That's what they are right now. All the shared units are in a single book, with the unique units in separate ones.

 Dysartes wrote:
Yes, the four Marked Legions should've been spun out - but they should've done a better job of it.

By which I mean that the insistence that CSM kits can't be used for TS/DG/WE units (at least in the short-term) is silly. DG Havocs, for example, or WE bikers.

Equally, both TS and WE need a wider array of Legion-specific unit entries (Berserker-Surgeons and Red Butchers for WE at a minimum, maybe WE Bloodcrusher Cavalry too).

I will say I'm less clear for TS on what makes sense to keep from the CSM book or add as new options - aside from maybe a Silver Tower LOW - but I'll let others that know the faction/lore suggest things there.

This is pretty much the thread here. They should be spun out, but they need the model support to do so. being given 5 unique kits is not enough.

Tsons was able to be played and felt like Tsons in 9th due the fact it had it's own bespoke army rules and datasheets balanced against it. Their playstyle and rules are unique enough that it would be much harder to have them rolled into CSM and feel right.

Yes, it was the correct choice. I wouldn't have minded supplements, but since they getting their primarchs they need their own books.

Emperor's Children will should get their own codex in a couple years. And it will be glorious.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You want to consolidate everything. You are anti-fun.

Don't get annoyed because I'm right about you.

Sorry I don't think we need separate entries for garbage like Hounds of Morkai or Eightbound or three different Terminators because boxes for them exist. There's literally nothing wrong with eliminating redundant unit entries.

For someone that hated on Bespoke rules you're sure doing a lot to help defend that creating entirely new unit entries for the sake of them existing.

Dudeface wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
IMHO most Loyalist Marines should be consolidated because they share like 90% of the same units.

A BA tactical is pretty much the same thing as an Ultramarine tactical. Even the Wolves are usually the same exact units but with names replaced with Wolfy McWolf.

Chaos actually has a much better argument for individual codexes.

I would agree with that sentiment entirely, but it only works if they put legwork into defining them further.

They need, in my eyes, to be mono god books with daemons in and then to have more unique units dropped in to better emphasise the gap. Having a smattering of standard marine tanks, a couple of shared daemon engines and 3-5 units doesn't cut it.

Monogod books would work, but the more I think about that approach, the less I think it's the best way to go.

When I think about what I want from most of the legions/warbands, it's not stuff that really calls for its own book. Breaking it down a bit:

World Eaters - Just not very special. The standard CSM unit entries fit them pretty well. All I really want for them is a detachment ability that gives them their blood tithe points and maybe an option to let their units hit harder in melee in exchange for taking more damage in return (reckless offense). We don't really need unique data entries for red butchers or whatever for the same reasons we don't need a separate datasheet for space wolf long fangs and devastators. So that's like, 1 page of special rules tops. Two if we count datasheets for Kharn and Angron.

Thousand Sons - Mostly just want a detachment rule that turns my power/terminator armor guys into rubrics. So -1" Movement, maybe a defensive All is Dust rule, and the option to upgrade sergeants to psykers with force weapons for X points and give the squad inferno bolts for y points. Then slap on the Rituals as a detachment ability. Special termies can just be normal termies. Exalted Sorcerers can just be sorcerers. Toss mutalith vortex beasts and tzaangor in as units available to all CSM. So roughly 2 pages of special rules, a page for Ahriman and Magnus, and a couple more pages for the now-univerally-available tzaangors, vortex beasts, etc.

Death Guard - Are actually a pretty good counterpoint to my argument because they have so many decidedly plague-y units of their own. But if we wind back the clock to before they go their own codex, they could have basically been an upgrade to Plague Marines (+1 T, maybe FNP, and you gain a plague knife) for X points and a detachment rule for spreading disease around. So 1 page of special rules plus the entries for Typhus and Morty.

Emperor's Children - Unlock a noise marine dataslate, and give them a detachment rule for either combat drugs or having sonic weapons interact. So 1 page of rules for the detachment ability, and 1 page for Fabius and Noise Marines. Maybe expand on that to let vehicles have sonic weapons. Fabius and his boys would basically be their own faction that gets its own detachment rules.

I could go on, but you get the idea. There really isn't *that much* difference in the roster of units available to most warbands. It's more about slight tweaks to a basic profile (letting Thousand Sons treat their troop marines as rubrics) and changing up how existing units behave (letting WE attack more recklessly, letting AL be sneaky, etc.) I don't need an entire book to let Thousand Sons take rubricae and do magic. I don't need to buy a full splat to let WE chop things up more angrily than other marines. I just want a gimmicky mechanic and a couple pieces of detachment-locked wargear/unit upgrades.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Sorry I don't think we need separate entries for garbage like Hounds of Morkai or Eightbound or three different Terminators because boxes for them exist. There's literally nothing wrong with eliminating redundant unit entries.

That implies that they are redundant, something you haven't shown.

So go on then. Let's pick one at random: Eightbound.

Why shouldn't this unit exist? What should it be consolidated with? Wulfen? Death Company? Rough Riders? Land Raiders?

EviscerationPlague wrote:
For someone that hated on Bespoke rules you're sure doing a lot to help defend that creating entirely new unit entries for the sake of them existing.

You show a staggering level of misunderstanding to think that wanting unique units and disliking bespoke rules is somehow contradictory.

The rules are a base from which units are created. You use your codified, scalable and broad range of universal rules to make the unique units rather than trying to make everything "bespoke". How is this not obvious?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Sorry I don't think we need separate entries for garbage like Hounds of Morkai or Eightbound or three different Terminators because boxes for them exist. There's literally nothing wrong with eliminating redundant unit entries.

That implies that they are redundant, something you haven't shown.

So go on then. Let's pick one at random: Eightbound.

Why shouldn't this unit exist? What should it be consolidated with? Wulfen? Death Company? Rough Riders? Land Raiders?

EviscerationPlague wrote:
For someone that hated on Bespoke rules you're sure doing a lot to help defend that creating entirely new unit entries for the sake of them existing.

You show a staggering level of misunderstanding to think that wanting unique units and disliking bespoke rules is somehow contradictory.

Rules are base from which units are created. You use your codified, scalable and broad range of universal rules to make the unique units rather than trying to make everything "bespoke". How is this not obvious?

Eightbound could've just been an alternative Possessed model since it's literally what they are.

Also the Guard codex did Rough Riders perfectly because they're not locked to a particular army whereas Marine calvary only exists if you're Space Wolves or a successor.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Eightbound could've just been an alternative Possessed model since it's literally what they are.

My preferred method of Chaos would be to do it the way the 3.5 'Dex did it: Rules are based on Chaos Marks. So a Mark of Khorne gives Y and Z USRs for +X Points per model, and you could turn Possessed into Eightbound that way. That way Eightbound still exist, but they're using existing rules rather than bespoke rules to achieve the same result.

Having said that, my thoughts on the current Legion books are framed from the perspective that GW aren't ever going to be that clever again, and will always separate things out, in which case, as I said right from the beginning: I'd rather have them than not have them. I know what it's like to live in a world where they don't exist. It's not fun.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Also the Guard codex did Rough Riders perfectly because they're not locked to a particular army whereas Marine calvary only exists if you're Space Wolves or a successor.

Perfectly? They're world-locked to Attlia. It's annoying. But that bit of nonsense aside (the current Guard Codex is a travesty with all its worlds-as-Aspect Warrior nonsense), what's wrong with the Woofs having access to Thunder Wolf Cavalry but no one else? It's a uniquely Space Wolf thing, so... what's the problem here?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Eightbound could've just been an alternative Possessed model since it's literally what they are.

My preferred method of Chaos would be to do it the way the 3.5 'Dex did it: Rules are based on Chaos Marks. So a Mark of Khorne gives Y and Z USRs for +X Points per model, and you could turn Possessed into Eightbound that way. That way Eightbound still exist, but they're using existing rules rather than bespoke rules to achieve the same result.

I like the idea of paying X points to upgrade an existing unit rather than having a custom bespoke datasheet.The thing about bespoke rules vs USRs is that you might want a benefit that isn't really widespread enough to warrant being a "USR". For instance, if we want to let people turn their CSM and havoks and terminators into rubric versions of those units, we'd probably want to give them options for psyker sergeants, some kind of All is Dust rule, and the option for inferno bolts (+x points to improve the AP of all "Bolt" weapons by 1.) A USR for "is a psyker who (insert All is Dust rule here) and can improve his AP for X points" is probably a little too niche to be considered a USR.

Simpler example: maybe you want to give Night Lords a bonus against Battle Shocked targets. That's cool and fluffy and easy to turn into an upgrade that costs points, but it isn't necessarily a rule that's going to be seen on a bunch of units throughout the game.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Also the Guard codex did Rough Riders perfectly because they're not locked to a particular army whereas Marine calvary only exists if you're Space Wolves or a successor.

Perfectly? They're world-locked to Attlia. It's annoying. But that bit of nonsense aside (the current Guard Codex is a travesty with all its worlds-as-Aspect Warrior nonsense), what's wrong with the Woofs having access to Thunder Wolf Cavalry but no one else? It's a uniquely Space Wolf thing, so... what's the problem here?

The issues with T-wolf cavalary as I see them are:
* They take up a release slot despite only being useful to players of a specific subfaction of marines.
* The concept of riding beasts probably doesn't need to be subfaction-locked. If your Raven Guard successors want to ride giant bird monsters, that seems valid.
* They could *probably* just be an upgrade for a bike unit. Take a biker squad. Pay x points to upgrade their bikes to T-wolves which basically just means you gain the "Fangs and Claws" melee weapon (Extra Attacks) and the <GOOD BOY> keyword.

That said, T-cav are distinctive enough that I have less isue with them than I do with, say, longfangs or skyclaws. Who are basically just devastators and assault marines respectively.

I think Thunderwolf Cavalry are one of the dumbest concepts in 40k.

To contradict the above statement, I think that GW's execution of that idea is excellent. I actually really like the models, even if the idea is pants-on-head stupid and just another step in the long-winding road of total Flanderisation of the Wolves.

And to contradict that statement, Canis Wolfborn aka. Wolfy "The Wolf" McWolfenwolf (who rides a wolf, wields wolf-claws, and has a wolf-belt), might be the worst Space Wolf model they've ever made.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Charax wrote:

All the cult legions should use the CSM codex as a base, and only omit units if there's a damn good reason to (Death Guard explicitly don't use jump packs or bikes, for example)

Incorrect, and frankly Mortarion hasn't done anything for thousands of years so his "preference" doesn't matter whatsoever.

Nature vs Nurture - They're built with his genetics.

I always find the 'Death Guard don't use bikes!' hilarious. Everyone just memory holed 6th edition.

The 3.5 codex put no restrictions on Death Guard bikes - despite putting restrictions on Rhinos. They couldn't take Raptors; although that was because they could only take the Mark of Chaos Undivided.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The 3.5 codex put no restrictions on Death Guard bikes - despite putting restrictions on Rhinos. They couldn't take Raptors; although that was because they could only take the Mark of Chaos Undivided.

Bikes couldn't take the Mark of Nurgle.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The 3.5 codex put no restrictions on Death Guard bikes - despite putting restrictions on Rhinos. They couldn't take Raptors; although that was because they could only take the Mark of Chaos Undivided.

Bikes couldn't take the Mark of Nurgle.

They could take the Mark; they just couldn't benefit from Daemonic Resilience.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The 3.5 codex put no restrictions on Death Guard bikes - despite putting restrictions on Rhinos. They couldn't take Raptors; although that was because they could only take the Mark of Chaos Undivided.

Bikes couldn't take the Mark of Nurgle.

They could take the Mark; they just couldn't benefit from Daemonic Resilience.

How about we stop just saying things at each other and just consult the actual book?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I think Thunderwolf Cavalry are one of the dumbest concepts in 40k.

To contradict the above statement, I think that GW's execution of that idea is excellent. I actually really like the models, even if the idea is pants-on-head stupid and just another step in the long-winding road of total Flanderisation of the Wolves.

And to contradict that statement, Canis Wolfborn aka. Wolfy "The Wolf" McWolfenwolf (who rides a wolf, wields wolf-claws, and has a wolf-belt), might be the worst Space Wolf model they've ever made.

Fenris fauna includes woolrhinos the size of rhinos, even bigger mamoths , gigantic elk and gene moded humans that reverted to being animals, wolves to be specific, after some genius forgot to tell the Emperor that Fenris population gene moded themselfs after a comet struck the planet.

Ok, and? It's still dumb.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
They could take the Mark; they just couldn't benefit from Daemonic Resilience.

As shown above, no they couldn't.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I always find the 'Death Guard don't use bikes!' hilarious. Everyone just memory holed 6th edition.

The 3.5 codex put no restrictions on Death Guard bikes - despite putting restrictions on Rhinos. They couldn't take Raptors; although that was because they could only take the Mark of Chaos Undivided.

Death guard players in 6th, were largely just the power game chasing meta people. T6 bikes were the hotness at the time and people abused them. That doesn't mean it makes sense fluff wise or has an in-setting explanation. It doesn't even mean it was the right choice from the rules team.

Dudeface wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I always find the 'Death Guard don't use bikes!' hilarious. Everyone just memory holed 6th edition.

The 3.5 codex put no restrictions on Death Guard bikes - despite putting restrictions on Rhinos. They couldn't take Raptors; although that was because they could only take the Mark of Chaos Undivided.

Death guard players in 6th, were largely just the power game chasing meta people. T6 bikes were the hotness at the time and people abused them. That doesn't mean it makes sense fluff wise or has an in-setting explanation. It doesn't even mean it was the right choice from the rules team.

Exactly this. GW forgetting their fluff doesn't mean the rest of us have to

Charax wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The 3.5 codex put no restrictions on Death Guard bikes - despite putting restrictions on Rhinos. They couldn't take Raptors; although that was because they could only take the Mark of Chaos Undivided.

Bikes couldn't take the Mark of Nurgle.

They could take the Mark; they just couldn't benefit from Daemonic Resilience.

How about we stop just saying things at each other and just consult the actual book?

Wich book is that?

Chaos 3.5.

Based on GW's track record, optional bolt-on special rules for units are a bad idea. They simply never get them balanced at a power to points level and they allow for too much optimization. We've seen what happens when they tried to do it at a detachment level and allowed multiple detachments. Players put units benefiting from Rule A into Detachment A while those benefiting from Rule B went into Detachment B. The result was unbalanced units. Let's not pretending doing that at a unit level will go any better. As untasteful as it is, better to do it at the Codex level so that units are properly balanced at that level.

Their execution does not make them a bad idea.

"They got it wrong so let's give up!" is also a massively defeatist attitude.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Their execution does not make them a bad idea.

"They got it wrong so let's give up!" is also a massively defeatist attitude.

it's also rather untrue, considering that codex balance has been even more shoddy in the past as has detachment balance. Cue 6/7th edition R&H to codex nonsense in that time period.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Their execution does not make them a bad idea.

"They got it wrong so let's give up!" is also a massively defeatist attitude.

"They got it wrong the last six times, maybe GW will get it right the seventh time!" might not be an objective stance to take either.