Speculation on the future of SM & CSM

[Tawnis]

So, lots of people have been talking about the pics GW released of the upcoming unannounced codices and particularly the one that clearly looked like a Salamander for the expected SM 10.5 Codex. However, it got me thinking about another possibility that they could be going with. What if, to try to effect more balance to the game (and to make more versions of space marines for people to buy), they're (over the course of the next several additions) going to give each SM First Founding Chapter (and possibly the CSM ones as well) their own codex? 

 

Recent releases of the World Eaters and Emperor's Children have shown that they don't seem to mind having armies in the game with very small ranges overall. There is also the generally held belief that GW is slowly going to be brining all the Primarchs back into the current setting of the game. (For better or worse). On that line, while I can't say I think it's more likely that a 10.5 codex, I certainly think that there's a non-zero chance that we could get a Salamanders codex with Vulkan (even though yes I know there aren't many rumors about him coming back soon, people then to think Russ or Jaghatai), as well as a few new chapter specific flame based unit for the army. 

 

Would this be something that you'd like? I can see some pros and cons for it. On one hand, points could be distributed a lot better, for instance if Infernus Marines just become too good in Salamanders, they could get a points increase there, while all other marine players would be unaffected. You could also give each Chapter their own army rule rather than relying on the catch all Oath of Moment (or whatever generic one gets used in future editions). 

The Downside is that it's a lot more marine content when we already have so much of that. Another possible downside could be certain units getting locked to certain chapters, for instance if only the Salamanders could take the Land Raider Redeemer. (I don't think that's likely, but it is possible, kind of like how the Chaos Legions lost out on a lot of the generic CSM line.)

 

What do you think? 

[AenarIT]

If they stick to the current 3-year cycles for editions, I just don't see them adding 10+ (how many exactly?) codices to the pile of books to be written, designed, playtested, manufactured, shipped around the world and most importantly shoved in their own release window. 

Not if they intend to renew all codices every edition, more or less. And they don't seem to be willing to change a business model that worked well so far.

 

I agree with the pros you mentioned and I think it would be great. But I don't really see it happening.

Edited Wednesday at 08:38 PM by AenarIT

[Emperor Ming]

Exactly, and do people want more codex's in the churn to slow releases down even more?

 

I certainly don't

[gaurdian31]

Honestly, I hope that doesn't happen. Both sets of marines already have so much out already and you know that people will complain if their chapter doesn't get models that are unique to them. Also with the way GW supports Chaos I doubt they would give our non-god specific legions their own codexes just to spite us. Also they have a game that does that and it is called the Horus Heresy, which is what Warhammer would turn into. I'm not saying other factions aren't popular but Marine factions are defiantly the most popular so GW would probably just start supporting them and just drag along all the other factions with little 1 model releases into the future instead of updating them.

[Lord Abaia]

I expect more primarchs to return over the coming years. At least Russ, but probably also others. But I don't expect further Balkanization of the Space Marine or Chaos Space Marine factions. If Vulkan, Corax, or Khan come back, I expect them to be included in the main book. Same with Lorgar or Perturabo. I am mostly interested in chaos, so I will look at it from a chaos perspective. 

 

The cult legions each had one iconic unit which was removed from the main codex with an allowance for including it in your army (without your army rule). Would this pattern continue with Iron Warriors claiming havocs or obliterators, with Night Lords claiming raptors or warp talons, with Word Bearers claiming Possessed, with Alpha Legion claiming [REDACTED]? That would leave a pretty thin (and mortal heavy) selection of infantry for Black Legion and renegade chapters.

 

Of course the undivided legions might not follow the same pattern as the cult legions. They could get the supplement treatment like the big 4 codex divergent chapters. That would require a handful of unique units/characters for each Legion. So far we have Nemesis Claw for the Night Lords and nothing else. All of our named characters are either Black Legion (Abaddon and Haarken), a renegade loyalist (Huron Blackheart) or a legion-less free agent (Cypher, Fabius Bile, and Vashtorr). I just don't see GW investing that much into CSM. They didn't even make Red Butcher models, for Khorne's sake! The most I can imagine for CSM is maybe a Daemon Primarch or two returning, possibly some more kill team upgrade sprues, and hopefully some damned named characters. I don't see 2-3 units as enough to warrant a supplement book.

 

That said, I would have never expected the range to look like this back in the days before Magnus popped out of the bin, so I can't really speculate on what it will look like in another 10 years. We may have 4 supplements for the main Votann mining corporations after the runaway success of the 20 novel Squat Saga from Black Library.

[Tokugawa]

That would cause super rules bloating, which is completely opposite to 10th trends.

 

[Tawnis]

6 hours ago, Tokugawa said:

That would cause super rules bloating, which is completely opposite to 10th trends.

 

I was originally going to list that as a con, but the more I thought about it, I'm not sure it would. IF they did intend to bring all the Primarchs back anyway, and you know they're not going to stop making more marine models as the years go on, eventually, the generic SM codex is going to get even more bloated than it already is. This would help even it out if the new units were more chapter specific. 

Great points all around, I didn't think of how it would change the current codex release schedule by adding 6-8 more codices. 

[Emperor Ming]

9 hours ago, Tokugawa said:

That would cause super rules bloating, which is completely opposite to 10th trends.

 

and with all the 30+ pages of faq and dataslate bloat, we are getting to the bloaty feeling again I think

 

adding extra abilities to datasheets didn't help with this is my personal opinion, it just added bloat

[HeadlessCross]

25 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

and with all the 30+ pages of faq and dataslate bloat, we are getting to the bloaty feeling again I think

 

adding extra abilities to datasheets didn't help with this is my personal opinion, it just added bloat

It's really not as bloated as you're making it to be. Yeah there's several FAQs, because there's several codices. If you only play 3 armies, that's the 3 erratas, Munitorum, core rules clarifications, and maybe 1-2 miscellaneous after that. 

[gaurdian31]

1 hour ago, HeadlessCross said:

It's really not as bloated as you're making it to be. Yeah there's several FAQs, because there's several codices. If you only play 3 armies, that's the 3 erratas, Munitorum, core rules clarifications, and maybe 1-2 miscellaneous after that. 

The core rulebook FAQ is 35 pages by itself currently. You also need the Balance Dataslate, Legends, Imperial Armor, Grotmas Detachments and Other Rules depending on your army on top of everything you listed. That seems like a lot to me. Now I will say that I do like that GW is actually FAQing things more frequently unlike when they did in the past, but it is a lot to keep track of. Not to mention the articles that get printed in White Dwarf, like the monthly missions, which again I do appreciate.

[Tawnis]

21 minutes ago, gaurdian31 said:

The core rulebook FAQ is 35 pages by itself currently. You also need the Balance Dataslate, Legends, Imperial Armor, Grotmas Detachments and Other Rules depending on your army on top of everything you listed. That seems like a lot to me. Now I will say that I do like that GW is actually FAQing things more frequently unlike when they did in the past, but it is a lot to keep track of. Not to mention the articles that get printed in White Dwarf, like the monthly missions, which again I do appreciate.

 

It is a lot. If only there was a place where all of this was conveniently corelated in a single location, that you could reference with a click of a button. A free Warmamer rules wiki if you will. I'm sure the right person could even manage it all by their lonesome to save on costs. I don't think it's that wild of an idea. 

Edited yesterday at 06:42 PM by Tawnis

[gaurdian31]

16 minutes ago, Tawnis said:

 

It is a lot. If only there was a place where all of this was conveniently corelated in a single location, that you could reference with a click of a button. A free Warmamer rules wiki if you will. I'm sure the right person could even manage it all by their lonesome to save on costs. I don't think it's that wild of an idea. 

The whole point was that there is a lot, Access to the information, whether paid or free, doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of changing or added information, a kind of bloat if you will.

[HeadlessCross]

2 hours ago, gaurdian31 said:

The core rulebook FAQ is 35 pages by itself currently. You also need the Balance Dataslate, Legends, Imperial Armor, Grotmas Detachments and Other Rules depending on your army on top of everything you listed. That seems like a lot to me. Now I will say that I do like that GW is actually FAQing things more frequently unlike when they did in the past, but it is a lot to keep track of. Not to mention the articles that get printed in White Dwarf, like the monthly missions, which again I do appreciate.

That's really not bad. Keep mind I already listed army erratas and the Munitorum, and you don't even need all the Grotmas detachments unless you're playing all 30 armies. So that's MAYBE 3 extra documents, but you don't need to bring all three with you anyway, especially if you don't like your Grotmas Detachment (RIP Space Wolves players).

 

Also not every army has IA or Legends datasheets, let alone probably doesn't use them due to the fact GW explicitly says they shouldn't be used for matched play and the fact that they don't get updated to work with new books. 

[One Paul Murray]

Personally I am very averse to the idea of adding more and yet more units to the ranges. It's been discussed previously, but if we assume that all Space Marines are pretty baseline similar then it doesn't make much sense to have one chapter with a greater strength or more attacks etc.

 

If you were to do it then my strong preference would be for unique units to just be iconic wargear choices. So, for example, a Sanguinary Guard analogue for the Raven Guard with the same basic stats but with dual lightning claws (so attacks might change, lose some weapon strength, etc). As a general rule of thumb though I don't like the idea of "their flames flame flamier because they're Salamanders".

 

Much happier with that for the CSMs though, where general warp tomfoolery can be used to justify much greater diversity. I think differentiating more would be no bad thing, to a point.

[Antarius]

When it comes to bloat and/or keeping track of changes, it's not just your own army, though. I actually kinda-sorta like 10th (and it's definitely better than 9th and 7th when it comes to bloat), but keeping track of your opponents' armies is definitely also a factor when it comes to cognitive load and the amount of stuff you need to be on top of.
Not because I think people are going to pull a fast one or anything like that, but simply because it's difficult to impossible to make informed decisions during a game if you don't know what the opposing army can do.