Book Bloat (and marine supplements?)

[Dark Shepherd]

GW said in the preview stream theres no more faction rules in campaign books due to community feedback (they got yelled at/sales were low/increased costs).

For me this is great

Less books, more in game balance (less chance of broken rules or combos), no day zero DLC type releases

But is also has me thinking if the CODEX COMPLIANT ie not SW DA BA marine supplements are dead tooo now? Very much looks like we are not getting them for 9th, reduces the workload for the design team as well as the general points above. And fits the new policy of not splitting faction rules across books

Edited October 10, 2022 by Dark Shepherd
confusion

[WARMASTER_]

It’s possible we just get one Massive codex

But I doubt we won’t see the marine supplements, It’s the only time I feel that players actually do want their own supplement, Players complained for years when their factions supplements get taken away and I wouldn't except it to change now

That being said I can only see the big 3/4 getting their own books SW/DA/BA/BT with the rest being folded in RG/IF/WS/UM/IH

[Emperor Ming]

It's fantastic news campaign books will no longer feature rules

Always disliked how one sentence in a campaign book could unbalance the current state of things

[MasterDeath]

The CSM style format for supplements is allright. I have rather one big book with all i need, instead of two books. Makes changing subfactions easier too

[Noserenda]

Not sure removing the marine subdexes would really solve book bloat though, sure you would technically have one less book but the remaining one might be three or four times the size?

[Special Officer Doofy]

I'm happy for no more rules in campaign books. This needed to happen.

[Dark Shepherd]

They can still do fun stuff in White Dwarf like Wolfspear rules or Crusade content for anyone

My wishful thinking is they expand the non codex compliant supplements (SW DA BA) to have subfaction rules there and exclude a lot of stuff that isnt datasheets from main marine codex

Templars codex probably nerfs a Fists codex too

If they pare down the SW DA BA stuff in main marine codex then that gives them a little more space.

Datasheet wise theyd have 20 that would need to go in main marine codex, half of them ultramarines. Not sure theyd put the poster boys in their own supplement but the rest

To make space theres a few unit datsheets that can be amalgamated. Phobos traits and powers could go. Halve the strats. And theres 86 pages of fluff and photos

Edited October 10, 2022 by Dark Shepherd
more info

[Subtleknife]

They specifically said campaign books didnt they. The supplements are not these. I think we will continue to get supplements. Maybe not on 9th due to the whole compressed timescale but I reckon we will get them in 10th. He'll they just released a black templars supplement. If that isn't a clue to GWs intention then I don't know what is.

[Emperor Ming]

1 hour ago, Subtleknife said:

They specifically said campaign books didnt they. The supplements are not these. I think we will continue to get supplements. 

Yep, that's correct

 

[Dark Shepherd]

6 hours ago, Subtleknife said:

They specifically said campaign books didnt they. The supplements are not these. I think we will continue to get supplements. Maybe not on 9th due to the whole compressed timescale but I reckon we will get them in 10th. He'll they just released a black templars supplement. If that isn't a clue to GWs intention then I don't know what is.

So much for writing codex compliant in all caps  :)

We will of course still get SW DA BA and now Templars supplements. The other founding chapters supplements look like they could be gone or every second edition. Maybe its a blip this year because Heresy took up all the marine focus

They might fold some of them into fewer books

Edited October 11, 2022 by Dark Shepherd

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

There is no reason not to publish new supplements for IF, IH, RG, UM and WS. SM in general have had a rough ride this edition - while other factions received OP codices ours was points increase and many nerfs from eighth edition. Stu Black stated Astartes are due some love in the last megawatch podcast.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

If it's any help, I understood your point the first time.

I could see how they'd go ahead and skip the "compliant" supplements this edition (I still have issues thinking of the Iron Hands as being "codex compliant" - it just makes zero sense for them to arrange their clan-companies according to the traditional chapter structure, no matter how much they want to bake it into the fiction via Black Library trilogies that are apparently cancelled two-thirds of the way in).

I mean, if Tenth IS going to be a hard reset as per the rumor and the earliest we'd be seeing supplements at this rate would be with less than six months left in Ninth, I for one would be happy to save money by not picking up a supplement that's going to be invalidated in a couple of months.

And MAYBE it'd mean we'd see the next round of supplements(*) earlier than year three of the next edition.

 

(* Again, that's *codex-compliant chapter* supplements. Angels, Xenos Hunters, and Furries will no doubt be out earlier. Not sure about Templars).

Edited October 11, 2022 by Lord Nord

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Why would no rules in campaign books mean no more supplements?

one is DLC that will be overwritten in 6 months or less by another book, the other is a codex in its own right…not even remotely the same.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Geedub has not released any information that correlates to a hard reset. It seems to be a movement coordinated by certain content creators. In fact there were rumors from this ilk that last weekend geedub was going to announce 10th edition. My philosophy is think for yourself, ignore the coolaid. 

[Wulf Vengis]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Why would no rules in campaign books mean no more supplements?

one is DLC that will be overwritten in 6 months or less by another book, the other is a codex in its own right…not even remotely the same.

I had a really long post ready to go but decided not to kick any hornets nests with my personal opinions. Instead I'll summarize it like this:

The 9th edition non-compliant marine books were not full codecies. They were more of supplement books, though for players of those factions they were as necessary as the compliant marine codex. The 3rd edition mini-dexes were more of a full codex than these 9th edition supplements.

 

I would rather each army have their own full single codex with every unit in it than deal with this abomination again. I'd hope they would release said books early in the edition (say within the first year of an edition). If GW wants to expand on those codecies after an armies release that's fine, release whatever explanations/white dwarfs/etc they want. But maybe in the last year of an edition release a supplement for each faction that includes all the new gear acquired throughout the edition.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

A single codex per Chapter would be a step backwards… there will duplicate data sheets again.

[Wulf Vengis]

There would be duplicates in the sense of things that are shared across more than one chapter yes; like tactical squads or intercessors (among others of course) being in two or more codecies. Is that a bad thing? I know I would prefer it, my wallet, bookshelf and gaming bag would too. I know I would rather have all of my armies units in one book rather than some dropped into the compliant codex like litter on the streets, whilst the others are in a seperate "codex". Furthermore separating these factions would reduce user error and make tracking special rules less cumbersome.

 

Sometimes you have to go backwards to move forward.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Wulf Vengis

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

The same set of rules appearing in more than one book is the definition of rules bloat… just saying.

[Wulf Vengis]

You're not entirely wrong and I won't argue that it isn't bloat. But having half of a non-compliant chapters units listed inside the compliant marines codex is also bloat.

[Felix Antipodes]

It wouldn’t be bloat if they actually showed a difference between Chapters as there should be for the non-codex/sorta follow the codex Chapters.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I don’t know… an Intercessor squad is an Intercessor squad, right? I can’t think of any meaningful differences. Seeing that Black Templars got one I don’t see them going back now.

[Toxichobbit]

4 hours ago, Wulf Vengis said:

The 3rd edition mini-dexes were more of a full codex than these 9th edition supplements.

 

Not really relevant, but that is demonstrably untrue. It was just as unplayable without the Marine Codex and had significantly less in the way of lore and unique rules for the Wolves. Wolves needed less stuff from the Marine Codex, sure, but that's because Primaris have substantially increased the amount of reliance divergent Chapters have on the main Marine range because there is very little in the way of Chapter-specific Primaris units, unlike Firstborn.

 

50 minutes ago, Wulf Vengis said:

But having half of a non-compliant chapters units listed inside the compliant marines codex is also bloat.

 

It's more than half the units. I'll use Space Wolves as an example, as they are arguably the most divergent (and I'm guessing the Chapter you're concerned with). There's 92 datasheets in the Space Marine Codex, of which Space Wolves loose access to 6. So the Space Marine Codex gives you 86 datasheets. Plus Stratagems, Warlord Traits, Relics, Secondary Objectives, Crusade rules and in the case of some supplements, Chapter Command upgrade options. Whether this supports your view or not is up to you. There's no denying that having to reprint this 6+ times would massively increase rules bloat and the problems that come with it, but would at the same time reduce book bloat for individual players. So some good and some bad.

 

I can fully understand the desire to have all of your units in one book, not separated out into a core Codex and a secondary supplement. It's a pain in the arse using supplements, because it means having to buy two books, taking two books with you to games, having to switch between referencing two books in a game, having two sets of datacards, etc. But I think it's important to recognise the advantages it brings, such as only one datasheet to FAQ, only one datasheet to adjust for points changes, only one datasheet to add new rules to, less stuff to be printed (meaning less resources used on physical books) and more unit options for divergent Chapters than ever before. There's probably more than I'm not thinking of.

 

Could GW use their online FAQ system to keep all the books up to date with the same rules - sure. Will they? Unlikely, at least not completely. I don't know what arcane formula GW use to decide what updates should be applied to all relevant datasheets and what updates should be a "have & have not" situation, but it's still going strong. Some stuff gets applied universally, other stuff doesn't. Case in point, 3 years of 1W Chaos Space Marines while all Loyalists had 2W. If Space Wolves had a separate Codex in 9th instead of a supplement, you too could have enjoyed your 1W Marines for a year or two longer - just ask Chaos players how fun that was ;). And currently Chaos Land Raiders & Predators just being better than Loyalist ones. They've been doing this for decades, with different Codexes having different rules for the same (or equivalent, in the case of Chaos & Imperial) units and show no signs of stopping anytime soon.

[Halandaar]

I've been vocal previously about my distaste for faction supplements being hidden away in campaign books, so the general principle here is a big win in my book.

 

Regarding Marine Supplements though, I think those are a fair compromise between bloat and allowing those chapters to retain a good amount of their unique identity without requiring them all to have a standalone Codex. Sure they could be rolled back in to the main Codex, but that just changes the nature of the bloat from being "divergent chapters have rules across 2 books" to "one £40+ Codex the size of the core rules which contains a significant amount of content most Astartes players won't use".

 

The change from standalone book to Codex+Supplement for the likes of BA, DA and SW brings the aforementioned benefits of it being much simpler to update every chapter at the same time; for example changing a profile, rule or stratagem in Codex Space Marines affects every army, rather than requiring 6 separate updates for all the "divergent" chapters. Equally, a new Codex Space Marines updates every chapter in one swoop, as opposed to the old model where basic Marines got a big boost and then the likes of Blood Angels had to wait 1.5 years for their standalone Codex to get the equivalent upgrade.

 

Now all that said, I do think the only chapters that actually warrant their own supplement are the ones which have them now; BA, BT, DA, DW and SW. All the others can comfortably exist within the main Codex; not because they aren't interesting or divergent enough, but simply because they don't have a lot of unique units with datasheets which require their own book. Most of them have 1-2 special characters and that's it, and those can easily fit in the main Codex just like every other faction in the game accommodates all it's characters from different sub-factions in the same book. If we start seeing unique units added for the likes of White Scars or Salamanders (which would be great!) then by all means, give them a supplement at that point. 

[Captain Idaho]

This is a subject I've agonised over. The game is full of bloat in my view, however I want theme and fun!

 

Drawing the line and getting it right is a difficult thing... but maybe it's where the bloat resides?

 

So rolling it back a little, I've been considering that the reason we have quite a glut of rules that a proportion of the community feel are too much is because the game doesn't seem to know which direction to take their ruleset and just did it all.

 

What I mean by this is the game could have had the theme and variance in the datasheets and special rules in the Strategums, or had the theme and variance in the datasheets, or they could have had much more variance in the stats and weapons and not needed the Strategums and datasheets... but GW went with all of these at once. (Except the stats really. HH has more variance in the stats and 40K could have gone a lot further like spreading the stats of the army over 20 instead of 10 but anyway that's digressing)

 

Coming back to the Supplements, if GW had reduced the bloat in that context above, then I don't believe Supplements themselves create needless bloat that damages the game. If GW consolidates the game into less Strategums or less unit special rules (one or the other basically) then any Supplements can follow that trend.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

Great. Now for the rest of the day I'm going to be hearing Rowdy Roddy Piper sadly declare that he's all outta Strategum.