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So if I like the idea of a bunch of plains loving mongol guys and I happen to love painting white and red. I also see them as being a force who are defending the locals from invading forces, protecting their charges and fortress. I love dreadnoughts, I love marine firepower and I really hate painting bikes.

Now do I deserve to have a factually worse army for opting to not follow the flanderisation?

Black templars played a key defensive role on armageddon, holding the docks and defending the line - yet their rules do not represent this. They're one of, if not the premier void chapters, that fluff is not represented in rules and never has.

To spice it up, red corsairs are the hit and run equivalent to white scars, randomly they also now seemingly are the bike faction for chaos, but I don't recall them ever being "bike specialists" like their rules suggest.

Dudeface wrote:
So if I like the idea of a bunch of plains loving mongol guys and I happen to love painting white and red. I also see them as being a force who are defending the locals from invading forces, protecting their charges and fortress. I love dreadnoughts, I love marine firepower and I really hate painting bikes.

Now do I deserve to have a factually worse army for opting to not follow the flanderisation?

Black templars played a key defensive role on armageddon, holding the docks and defending the line - yet their rules do not represent this. They're one of, if not the premier void chapters, that fluff is not represented in rules and never has.

To spice it up, red corsairs are the hit and run equivalent to white scars, randomly they also now seemingly are the bike faction for chaos, but I don't recall them ever being "bike specialists" like their rules suggest.

I would say paint the army the way you like, take the rules you like and call the chapter whatever you want to call it. Don't call it White Scars though, because it clearly isn't.

And as for Corsairs, they aren't bike specialists RIGHT NOW because subfactions don't mean anything right now. RIGHT NOW Corsairs are whatever detachment their player wants them to be. They ARE hit and run when the use the hit and run detachment, but they're just as much duelists as the EC when they choose to use that detachment; they're just as much terror troops as Night Lords when they choose to do that detachment. They're just as daemony as Word Bearers when they choose to to use that detachment.

Yes tthis is flexible. Yes this makes you able to everything with Corsairs as good as anybody else can do it.

How it is that Corsairs can be so good at everything that they can be as good at what YOU want them to be good at as they are is another question entirely- I mean, in order to be able to be the best Terror Troops, they must devote much of their time to practice Terror Tacics, but of course, that would still leave them enough time to also be the Best Fast Attack, and of course even the amount of time they devote to become the best at those two things won't prevent them from having the time to also practice enough to be the best at Daemoning.

Being good at a particular type of battle used to be a defining characteristic of a subfaction, but this is no longer the case. Now, every subfaction is exactly as good at any type of combat as any other subfaction. The only characteristics that actually define subfactions anymore are the characteristics that don't affect what happens on the table at all- namely, colour choice and associated works of lore and fiction. With the exception that if either the lore or the fiction says they are particular good at anything, because again all subfactions can now do anything as well as any other subfaction can, even if lore says otherwise.

Even your White and Red dreadnought heavy defenders of territory YOUR DUDES- aren't any better at using dreads and defending territory than any NOT YOUR DUDES subfaction, because the second they decide to use the same detachment, any uniqueness you thought YOUR DUDES had is gone.

All DUDES are as good at being YOUR DUDES as YOUR DUDES now.

Oh.... Caveat: If you are a BA, DA, or SW, you can still have YOUR DUDES, so long as YOUR DUDES choose one of the BA, DA or SW detachments that other DUDES aren't allowed to choose. But if your DUDES happen to decide that they want to behave more like someone else's DUDES when they feel like it, then anyone can behave like YOUR DUDES again.

When everyone can be as good at anything as anyone else, being good at something is no longer a part of anyone's identity.

So Jake-for you, the rules and the lore are one and the same?

A (sub)faction identity that is being the best at something seems awfully fragile. It means no one in a galaxy sized setting is allowed to be as good at your "dudes" whichs seems awfully restrictive.

I guess it makes more sense if you limit it to Space Marines First Founding Chapters, but if you start including Successors there should be some that are as good as "your dudes".

And of course once you expand the scope outside Space Marines, subfaction focused rules just don't make any sense at all.

 PenitentJake wrote:
...How it is that Corsairs can be so good at everything that they can be as good at what YOU want them to be good at as they are is another question entirely- I mean, in order to be able to be the best Terror Troops, they must devote much of their time to practice Terror Tacics[sic], but of course, that would still leave them enough time to also be the Best Fast Attack, and of course even the amount of time they devote to become the best at those two things won't prevent them from having the time to also practice enough to be the best at Daemoning...

I wonder if this is where the disconnect is occurring. Why must it be something where all Corsairs are the best Terror Troops? Why can we not play a Corsairs sub-force that chooses or is forced to focus on bikes or daemons due to circumstances (a leader who's just super into that, accumulated experience from a long campaign where they couldn't do Terror Tactics and had to adapt or die, exposure to alternate tactics while serving under a different warband, etc)?

 waefre_1 wrote:

I wonder if this is where the disconnect is occurring. Why must it be something where all Corsairs are the best Terror Troops? Why can we not play a Corsairs sub-force that chooses or is forced to focus on bikes or daemons due to circumstances (a leader who's just super into that, accumulated experience from a long campaign where they couldn't do Terror Tactics and had to adapt or die, exposure to alternate tactics while serving under a different warband, etc)?

This also leans into the comment someone made earlier about '1000 marines doesn't give much scope for multiple specialisations'... except the general assumption back in 2nd edition was that games weren't just happening in the 'current' time period, but were in theory taking place anywhere in the 10000 year period between the Heresy and the 'current' time. That's how the game included a whole bunch of special characters who were canonically dead. So your force of twenty or thirty Ultramarine bike specialists isn't necessarily a part of the same troop pool as your force of twenty to thirty Ultramarine assault specialists.


And that's of course ignoring the fact that codex chapters have entire companies dedicated to different specific fighting styles... And that we even have examples in the Black Library books of Marine Captains choosing to eschew their chapters' normal combat methods in favour of adopting their personal style for their company.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So Jake-for you, the rules and the lore are one and the same?

It's the ideal I strive for; it isn't always possible, but I try to get as close as I can.

Games are interactive fiction for me; rules help me tell stories. In D&D, I roll my six stats- but then I come up with the story to explain why I have those stats, and then I think about the influence those stats would have on the character's behaviour.

Sometimes, I have to make up extra rules in order for it to work. So I'm running a GSC army through a campaign right now- there are 22 Purestrains stuck on a ship, and if they can figure out how to get to the surface, they have to find a territory where they'll hide, and they'll have to attack vulnerable Imperial Citizens to create brood brothers. Those brood brothers can fight, or they can sit battles out to to procreate the first wave of Acolytes... Who can than fight or sit out to create Neophytes, etc.

Obviously, GW's rules don't force a GSC to field only what it infects, steals or breeds.... But that's how I play. In truth, what I do is closer to Inquisitor 28 than 40k. And it was easy to do that with the amount of material we had in 9th, but it's way harder in 10th. How do you make an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor different from an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor in 10th?

You don't. Because you can't even make a Howling Griffin different than a Son of Medusa using 10th ed rules. Each is just as good at doing anything as the other. The only difference is paint and words that have no effect on the game whatsoever. Unless you're BA, SW or DA, why have subfactions at all? Just paint'em whatever, say they came from wherever and you're good, cuz none of it makes a lick of difference anyway. The only thing that actually matters in the game is what you choose to be best at for any given battle.

 PenitentJake wrote:
Unless you're BA, SW or DA, why have subfactions at all? Just paint'em whatever, say they came from wherever and you're good, cuz none of it makes a lick of difference anyway.

In a game at the scale of 40K, that's honestly seems the best approach to me. This is a game where the level of abstraction puts an ork boy and a human at identical levels of physical strength.

Subfaction specialisation is, IMO, better left for the likes of Kill Team.

 Tyran wrote:
A (sub)faction identity that is being the best at something seems awfully fragile. It means no one in a galaxy sized setting is allowed to be as good at your "dudes" whichs seems awfully restrictive.

I guess it makes more sense if you limit it to Space Marines First Founding Chapters, but if you start including Successors there should be some that are as good as "your dudes".

And of course once you expand the scope outside Space Marines, subfaction focused rules just don't make any sense at all.

Yes, you're correct to a point. I focus my language in a debate to the point I'm responding too, so I haven't had a chance to talk about or address some of these ideas as clearly as I could.

So first, remember that I don't consider the words "good, better, best" to have much meaning. I say when I'm arguing with CB that Whitescars bikers should be better than the bikers of other chapters... But how that is expressed is still up for debate. Maybe your bestness at biking means you can advance and charge, while my bestness at biking means that I hit harder in melee from a bike than I do on foot, and maybe Dudeface's bestness at biking means that his bike units automatically pass battleshock tests. In all cases, these rules reflect background that includes bike specialization; all three units have bikers that can be better than armies who don't specialize in bikes.

As for the successor piece, that's kinda what I meant when I replied to Dudeface- go ahead, paint'em white and Red, fill your army with Dreads, don't include a single biker... Fine. Just don't call em Whitescars, cuz they ain't. They're maybe a Whitescar successor. Or maybe not- whatever.

And I object to the "outside of marines, subfaction focused rules don't make sense" - the issue is that those other factions haven't had decades worth of rules differentiation the way marines have. Ninth might have been the first time that you heard Dalyth Sept see their Kroot as equals; if Tau were space marines, you'd have been told about the uniqueness of Dalyth since the dawn of the Tau army; heck, in some editions, the Dalyth would have had their own dex or supplement, and maybe even a unique unit.

Another good example here is Sisters. Like, you can look at the detachment we currently have, and it REEKS of OoOML. The Martyrdom of Saint Katherine; the Martyrdom of those who died at Armageddon, or Sanctuary 101. OoOML has ALWAYS been associated with a cult of martyrdom, and these detachment rules reflect that perfectly.

But have we had more than an edition to figure out the character of the Ebon Chalice or the Sacred Rose?

The idea with all the subfaction identities we were given in 9th is that they were meant to be a starting point for other factions to become as developed as marines. Heck, if in 10th, instead of making subfactions meaningless, they had maybe given Sacred Rose and Bloody Rose a bespoke unit. Heck, maybe by edition 15, we'd have a stand-alone Age of Apostasy game- even that would be more inclusive than HH and LI.

But then GW blinked at the wheel, and made subfactions meaningless to all but a small selection of Loyalist Marine Chapters.

 insaniak wrote:

In a game at the scale of 40K, that's honestly seems the best approach to me. This is a game where the level of abstraction puts an ork boy and a human at identical levels of physical strength.

Subfaction specialisation is, IMO, better left for the likes of Kill Team.

That's reasonable, for sure. But keep in mind that the "scale" of 40k is a construct created mostly by stores and tournaments. Currently, the "scale" of 40k according to GW is 1k to 3k points... And that's because they invented Combat Patrol to replace the previous 500 point game.

In 9th, I played an Inquisitor leading a 5 man Fortis KT and a Watchmaster leading a 5 man Proteus KT. That was 4 units and 25 PL. It's not much bigger than a KT, but it's a playable army. Heck, these days, I could throw those both into a Blackstar since Primaris can ride in them now.

The game isn't 2k points. Stores and tournaments MAKE the game 2k points, and players go along with it because it's easier than swimming upstream trying to find or create players who are brave enough to break the orthodoxy.

 PenitentJake wrote:

As for the successor piece, that's kinda what I meant when I replied to Dudeface- go ahead, paint'em white and Red, fill your army with Dreads, don't include a single biker... Fine. Just don't call em Whitescars, cuz they ain't.

Except we know that a bikeless WS force is still a WS force.
They existed (mostly in pictures) before, and after, the WD article that brainwashed you all into thinking the ONLY way to play WS was as a biker force.
Even within that Index Astartes article you are told that WS DO use dreads & non-bikers.

ccs wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:

As for the successor piece, that's kinda what I meant when I replied to Dudeface- go ahead, paint'em white and Red, fill your army with Dreads, don't include a single biker... Fine. Just don't call em Whitescars, cuz they ain't.

Except we know that a bikeless WS force is still a WS force.
They existed (mostly in pictures) before, and after, the WD article that brainwashed you all into thinking the ONLY way to play WS was as a biker force.
Even within that Index Astartes article you are told that WS DO use dreads & non-bikers.

Yes, you're right. It was JUST a White Dwarf article that convinced us of that.

It wasn't the edition where they could take more bikes than FOC allowed other units. It wasn't the bike on the cover of every WS supplement I ever saw. To be fair, the WS traits in 9th weren't specifically bike related, but they were hit and run themed. Again, I don't play marines, and I didn't play in either 6th or 7th... But I'm sure they've had rules that exemplify speed in more than two editions.

I mean, here's the second paragraph of the chapter's description in the Warhammer Wiki:

Known and feared throughout the Imperium of Man for their highly mobile way of war, the White Scars are considered the masters of the lightning strike and hit-and-run attack and are particularly adapted to the use of the Astartes Assault Bike as their mechanical steeds and their forces contain an unusually large number of Bike Squads compared to other Chapters.

And here's exactly what the Lex says about their use of dreads:

Many outsiders have made the claim that the White Scars did not use Dreadnoughts. This is not true. Those they maintained were rarely seen in battle and were few in number, but they did exist and held a strange position within the Legion. As a warrior society uniquely bound to the fierce joys of battle and the simple pleasures of a physical existence, the eternity of silence and separation endured by those incarcerated within a Dreadnought chassis held a particular horror for the White Scars. Despite this revulsion, to be assigned to live on in a Dreadnought shell is seen as neither punishment nor as an honour, but rather somewhere in between. Dreadnoughts among the White Scars were known as the Uhaan Solban, the Guardians of the Morning and Evening Stars in the Chogorian tongue. This poetic title is typical of the Legion’s tendencies, and hid a rather more practical purpose. It was only the Akoghlanlar, the apothecaries, and the Iron Khans of the armoury who sought them out, both to perform maintenance and for ritual reasons tied closely to their own obscure creeds.[40a]

Dreadnoughts are viewed in the White Scars with something resembling both pity and awe. Some of their Dreadnoughts undergo the Tseverle, or re-branding. This discards their old name and takes up a new one to represent their rebirth as a towering Dreadnought. These warriors chose their own names from the great arch of the Baatarbish, a monument to the Undying Heroes of the Chapter.[59b]

Yep. Just a WD article.

 PenitentJake wrote:

ccs wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:

As for the successor piece, that's kinda what I meant when I replied to Dudeface- go ahead, paint'em white and Red, fill your army with Dreads, don't include a single biker... Fine. Just don't call em Whitescars, cuz they ain't.

Except we know that a bikeless WS force is still a WS force.
They existed (mostly in pictures) before, and after, the WD article that brainwashed you all into thinking the ONLY way to play WS was as a biker force.
Even within that Index Astartes article you are told that WS DO use dreads & non-bikers.

Yes, you're right. It was JUST a White Dwarf article that convinced us of that.

It wasn't the edition where they could take more bikes than FOC allowed other units. It wasn't the bike on the cover of every WS supplement I ever saw. To be fair, the WS traits in 9th weren't specifically bike related, but they were hit and run themed. Again, I don't play marines, and I didn't play in either 6th or 7th... But I'm sure they've had rules that exemplify speed in more than two editions.

I mean, here's the second paragraph of the chapter's description in the Warhammer Wiki:

Known and feared throughout the Imperium of Man for their highly mobile way of war, the White Scars are considered the masters of the lightning strike and hit-and-run attack and are particularly adapted to the use of the Astartes Assault Bike as their mechanical steeds and their forces contain an unusually large number of Bike Squads compared to other Chapters.

And here's exactly what the Lex says about their use of dreads:

Many outsiders have made the claim that the White Scars did not use Dreadnoughts. This is not true. Those they maintained were rarely seen in battle and were few in number, but they did exist and held a strange position within the Legion. As a warrior society uniquely bound to the fierce joys of battle and the simple pleasures of a physical existence, the eternity of silence and separation endured by those incarcerated within a Dreadnought chassis held a particular horror for the White Scars. Despite this revulsion, to be assigned to live on in a Dreadnought shell is seen as neither punishment nor as an honour, but rather somewhere in between. Dreadnoughts among the White Scars were known as the Uhaan Solban, the Guardians of the Morning and Evening Stars in the Chogorian tongue. This poetic title is typical of the Legion’s tendencies, and hid a rather more practical purpose. It was only the Akoghlanlar, the apothecaries, and the Iron Khans of the armoury who sought them out, both to perform maintenance and for ritual reasons tied closely to their own obscure creeds.[40a]

Dreadnoughts are viewed in the White Scars with something resembling both pity and awe. Some of their Dreadnoughts undergo the Tseverle, or re-branding. This discards their old name and takes up a new one to represent their rebirth as a towering Dreadnought. These warriors chose their own names from the great arch of the Baatarbish, a monument to the Undying Heroes of the Chapter.[59b]

Yep. Just a WD article.

So, a White Scars force with three Dreadnoughts, three squads of Devastators, a Terminator Captain, a brick of Terminators, and a few squads of Intercessors. Is that list wrong? Do White Scars not have three Dreads, twelve heavy weapons, and eleven suits of Terminator armor?

Wearing flanderisation as a badge of honour for an army is IMO depressing.

40k was at its best when it was more than planet of hats.

 JNAProductions wrote:

So, a White Scars force with three Dreadnoughts, three squads of Devastators, a Terminator Captain, a brick of Terminators, and a few squads of Intercessors. Is that list wrong? Do White Scars not have three Dreads, twelve heavy weapons, and eleven suits of Terminator armor?

It isn't "wrong," it is just uncharacteristic of what the chapter would send to a battle according to their lore as written. Certainly, the Chapter HAS Dreadnoughts and heavy weapons, and yes, they usually send some to every battle, but they do tend to send at least some mobile units in addition to those units.

There are narrative reasons to field a force like this... But the very fact that they are units who don't typically benefit from the tactics most typically employed becomes a part of the narrative. Like their mobile forces get drawn out by a convincing decoy force and then the base assault units arrive from reserves, and now this somewhat a-typical White Scars force must hold out until the mobile forces can double back.

In the modern version of the game, it's just: "Oh, the forces which made it advantageous for us to be a swift assault detachment have been drawn out and distracted. I guess we're a heavy siege detachment now; without our bikes we're as good at this as the Iron Warriors are!"

So honestly dude, is it flanderization, or just a better story?

In no version of the rules where White Scars got mobile assault or bike enhancements would the force you described have a penalty. In 9th, in fact, the WS bonus would have at least some applicability- they could declare charges even if they advanced or fell back. They would be able to fire Assault weapons without penalty even if they advanced. In the bike rules (in 3rd I think they had something called "born to the saddle" and "hit and run" and then I think they lost those and picked up the rule that let them make bikes troops), the units you've mentioned wouldn't benefit from the rules, but that isn't the same as having a penalty. When you don't have a bonus, you aren't fighting anyone at a disadvantage unless they DO have a bonus. If you had an actual penalty, you would be worse than other units that merely lacked a bonus.

So under the system I prefer, you get a bonus if you choose to play your faction according to it's lore, but if for some reason you choose not to do that (Your Dudes!), that's fine, and while your choice may not make the most of the available bonus, it doesn't incur a penalty either. Games have narrative appeal, because sometimes the missions or the force I'm up against will allow may to exploit my specialism and sometimes it won't.

In the system that you imply you prefer, nobody's better at anything than anyone else, regardless of what the lore that ostensibly made you choose the subfaction you're playing says to the contrary. There's no situation that poses a greater challenge to you than any other situation, because all you do to deal with any situation is just switch the detachment you're using. Where IS the narrative in that? Where's the risk? Where's the dramatic tension?

 PenitentJake wrote:

So under the system I prefer, you get a bonus if you choose to play your faction according to it's lore, but if for some reason you choose not to do that (Your Dudes!), that's fine, and while your choice may not make the most of the available bonus, it doesn't incur a penalty either. Games have narrative appeal, because sometimes the missions or the force I'm up against will allow may to exploit my specialism and sometimes it won't.

In the system that you imply you prefer, nobody's better at anything than anyone else, regardless of what the lore that ostensibly made you choose the subfaction you're playing says to the contrary. There's no situation that poses a greater challenge to you than any other situation, because all you do to deal with any situation is just switch the detachment you're using. Where IS the narrative in that? Where's the risk? Where's the dramatic tension?

In the system you prefer the opportunity cost (points) for the rules are baked into the profiles of the units for the army. If I build a list that doesn't benefit from those perks (and yes white scars had mounted/bike relics/traits/strats as well), I am by definition at a disadvantage and penalised for my choice if another arbitrary set of rules would have been 100% beneficial.

But with regards marines, the entire point of them is they're good at everything. I don't think the beleaguered guard regiment holding back the nids will have written their chances off because a force of foot intercessor white scars piled out a repulsor instead of some fists.

This is how it goes in my head:

I like the detachment system. I think a Marine should go back to being a Marine - and any advantages are a function of equipment/organisation.

In the context of "ur-Marines", then sure, BA may be stabbier, White Scars swifter, Raven Guard stealthier and Ultramarines better organised. But 40k isn't just a game of Marines - or a D100 RPG system. When you run a D6 based system from Grots to Titans, these variances disappear. How much more stabby is a Blood Angel compared not with say an Ultramarine, but with a Genestealer?

I guess to go back to the topic. This system might have worked better in 2nd - where armies were smaller, and there wasn't much out there bigger than what is today a fairly modest tank. I don't think it works today. There are a range of issues I didn't like in 3rd-7th - but as a system for running larger armies, with diverse and expanding rosters, I think it was pretty good.

Dudeface wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:

So under the system I prefer, you get a bonus if you choose to play your faction according to it's lore, but if for some reason you choose not to do that (Your Dudes!), that's fine, and while your choice may not make the most of the available bonus, it doesn't incur a penalty either. Games have narrative appeal, because sometimes the missions or the force I'm up against will allow may to exploit my specialism and sometimes it won't.

In the system that you imply you prefer, nobody's better at anything than anyone else, regardless of what the lore that ostensibly made you choose the subfaction you're playing says to the contrary. There's no situation that poses a greater challenge to you than any other situation, because all you do to deal with any situation is just switch the detachment you're using. Where IS the narrative in that? Where's the risk? Where's the dramatic tension?

In the system you prefer the opportunity cost (points) for the rules are baked into the profiles of the units for the army. If I build a list that doesn't benefit from those perks (and yes white scars had mounted/bike relics/traits/strats as well), I am by definition at a disadvantage and penalised for my choice if another arbitrary set of rules would have been 100% beneficial.

But with regards marines, the entire point of them is they're good at everything. I don't think the beleaguered guard regiment holding back the nids will have written their chances off because a force of foot intercessor white scars piled out a repulsor instead of some fists.

This is how it goes in my head:

Spoiler:

"Hey Dave, reinforcements! White Scars no less!"
"On bikes Tim?"
"No on foot, they've all god the big guns too!"
"Oh... we're gonna die Tim"
"Why? They're astartes, the emperors angels!"
"Because they don't have bikes"
"I don't see why that matters, they're still walking tanks and headshotting with every round?"
"You see Tim, they're only better than anyone else on a bike, what we needed to survive is the fists"
"BUT THEY'RE MARINES DAVE!"
"Ah yes Tim, but these guys are specialists at... *checks notes* falling back. The Imperial Fists would have been 16% better with a bolter"
"They're great at... running away..."
"That's right Tim, so unless they're larping as another chapter today, we're dead"
"COMMISAR! WATCH FOR THE WHITE SCARS FALLING BACK!"

I get that this is a joke, but lorewise it does make a difference which Marines turn up to a given battle. A lot of Guard units would be pretty wary if it was the Marines Malevolent or Flesh Tearers who turned up- the battle might be won but chances are the Guard units get extra minced in the process... Many Marine Chapters liaise poorly with allied Guard units and they suffer as a result.

Anyway, I think subfactions only work if better units have meaningful drawbacks that mean they don't form better armies, like costing more points. This isn't how the current paradigm has worked for what, 3 editions? So I agree detachments are better in that context.

Also, why does this topic always return to White Scar bikes? No one seems to talk about much more entrenched subfactions. If we go this route, why should Deathwing Terminators get different rules to normal Terminators, for example? Yet they have for 9 editions of the game. Many of those editions had a higher points cost to compensate, which I personally think was fine.

Well it is hard to be a White Scar player. An army can be powerful, but not lore accurate or it can be weaker/weak and lore accurate. When it becoms both weaker/bad and is not lore accurate, you are not going to find many players talking about the army.
I mean what, after the sm codex leak, is there to say about WS. Bikes, bike characters and all things that make people want to play WS for the lore is gone, and powerwise they are bad too. Their special character is cheap, but meh. And their "detachment" has zero synergy with the army rules. Space Wolves do better then WS out of the WS detachment.

Deathwatch is the same. Horrible set of rules and GW pro activly punishing DW players for sharing a codex with "marines". Which by the way is core part of the problem. It is impossible to balance a bike/terminator/etc army when multiple armies use the same units. Only some , like lets say BT, have much better rules.

My view is that no space marine subfactions should really exist, and certainly not with different rules.

If you want your Space Vikings, model them that way. Want to run an all terminator force or an all bike force? Just do it.

Make the core book relatively flexible (things like letting bolt pistol and close combat weapon equipped squads be troops) and you've got most bases completely covered, and everything else is aesthetics.

I obviously understand why this will never happen, but I think I'd like 40K more if it worked that way.

Dudeface wrote:


But with regards marines, the entire point of them is they're good at everything. I don't think the beleaguered guard regiment holding back the nids will have written their chances off because a force of foot intercessor white scars piled out a repulsor instead of some fists.

In years gone by, if someone picked a force whose lore they liked, and they came up against a mission or an enemy who minimized the advantages provided by their sub faction choice, that was seen as part of the narrative and it was understood that not every force was good at everything. Heck, people used to whine about secondaries because they said the game was too predictable when you got to choose their own victory condition.

These days, if YOUR DUDES aren't able to be super optimized for every situation, you whine and complain that your being persecuted. You get three squares a day, and once upon a time that was fine, but now if you don't get caviar every meal, all food sucks. It's fething ridiculous.

Did you like 2nd better than 10? Guess what- 2nd had subfaction bonusses (at least for marines)
Did you like 3rd better than 10? Guess what- 3rd had subfaction bonuses.
Did you like 4rth better than 10th? I know this will shcock you, but their were subfaction bonuses
Did you like 5th better than 10th? A cynic would say there's a fething pattern here
Did you like 6th better than 10th? Well, I honestly can't say for sure, cuz 6th gutted sisters so I disappeared
Did you like 7th better than 10th? Well not 100% sure about this one either, cuz I had one dex and it seemed that the rules came from formations.

I won't ask about 8th and 9th, but maybe you get the point.

And yes, certainly the hype is that "marines are good at everything" but that is not a good story or an interesting faction, and 10th's power by detachment system doesn't just apply to marines. All orks are as good at everything as every other Ork too. All nids are as as good at everything as all other nids.

Again, I get your point. It's valid. I see why many people prefer it. You don't have to be wrong for me to be right.

Neither system is better or worse.

Yours is more flexible. Mine is more characterful. Both are acceptable, and both can be fun.

I just created an Order of Sororitas for a challenge on another site. I wrote a detailed history, and then I thought about how that Order would be different than other Orders. Essentially, their story is they are Fiery Heart Sisters who got cut off from the Imperium before the Martyrdom of Saint Katherine, so they never had to deal with that grief; they never experienced the aftershock of the slaughter at Armageddon or Sanctuary 101, and they never developed the cult of Martyrdom that we see in Order of Our Martyred Lady.

So I looked in my 9th ed dex and I picked 6 strats that weren't included in the one detachment sisters currently have, I came up with a dteachment rule and four enhancements. And now my sisters can fight like the background says they should... But it's stupid to me that because it's a detachment, it has to be available to all the other Orders too, even the Order of Our Martyred Lady (whose flavour rules this detachment was spefifically designed to replace). This seems like a flaw to me- again, because I play narratively. The issue for me isn't whether the Sisters of Saint Katherine's Aegis are more or less powerful than either their opponents or the Order of Our Martyred Lady... It's about whether or not they can do the things on the battleground that the lore implies that the do, and that they don't do things on the table if the lore suggests they don't typically do those things.

Whether or not they are powerful or balanced against this opponent or that opponent isn't relevant to me- I only care that they empowered to behave on the table in a way that is consistent with their lore. Against some opponents, in some missions, they may be weaker than their opponents, and against other opponents in other missions they will be weaker, and that's just a part of the story.

The subfaction system is nominally O.K. from a lore perspective. While marines are supposed to be (and broadly are) good at everything, I can get behind nominal bonuses based on who they belong to, such as Raven Guard being able to infilitrate better, Ultra Marines being all-rounders, and Black Templars being extra stabby. With that said these bonuses should really be small and primarily on the unit side. White Scars having an elite biker unit with falchions to target-market, so on and so forth.

That said I think that the current iteration, detachments, is vastly superior to what we used to have. As has been stated marines are supposed to be good at everything, so it makes no sense to punish a UM player for playing bikes by making it so white scar default bikers are just better. Likewise, as has been stated, it's absurd to force guard players into catachans to specialize in explosives.

I unironically think HH has marine subfactions right. The legions draw 99% of their roster from the same generic list supplemented by a couple of unique elite units, some unique wargear, topped off with one or two small situational buffs as their legion effect. This differentiates the legions, and what they specialize in, but they can still field identical lists (baring their elite unit or two) and those lists are, in all but the most extreme cases, at equal strength.

What really differentiates the legions are their RoW, which modifiers what can be taken and confers much larger bonuses. However each legion has not only its own couple of rites, but also access to a large shared pool. So ultra-marines can absolutely run a bike heavy company and excel at it, just as WS can, only their excellence is going to come in a somewhat different area. Different, but equal, strengths.

Unfortunately this sort of design takes actual time, brain power, and care. All things which GW has made clear it will not dedicate towards modern 40k.

Well, there’s a fine balance. And consistency is the key.

Consider Blood Angels and Dark Angels.

In 2nd Ed, they had some special “us only” units and maybe an extra rule or two. Other than that, they really weren’t massively different to Ultramarines.

In 3rd Ed?

Dark Angels found their previously unique Landspeeder loadout not only heavily nerfed, but shared with other Chapters. Ravenwing could re-roll difficult terrain and gained a 6+ save due to Jink. Deathwing were Unbreakable, but arguably most useful could mix combat and ranged options in a single squad.

Blood Angels? Well you’re faster than other Marines, charge better than other Marines. Sometimes your troops are just improved because reasons, and we’ve made your vehicles faster because reasons…..