# What SM chapter deserves their own codex?



## jaysen (Jul 7, 2011)

What Space Marine chapter deserves their own codex?


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## Digg40k (Sep 7, 2008)

Do you mean beyond the ones that already do or are you questioning the necessity of the current ones?

In my opinion in the past Marines always had their stand out chapters which had a bit more character to them than the standard vanilla marines. SW, BA and DA specifically. So I would argue in the past that due to their more individual heritage/fluff etc they warrant their own dex

However, with the introduction of characters like He'stan, Khan and Kantor in the Vanilla dex who change the base rules of the army to work more like their specific chapter I'm not so convinced.

I'm now of the opinion of why should a chapter like the Salamanders with as much richness and depth of fluff as BA be restricted to the addition of one IC to your army in order to play them, they should be on equal footing with BA, SW and DA, which is difficult as then we start going down the road of a million SM dexes which would be ridiculous. I would advocate bumping all of the chapters down to the IC changes the way the army plays sort of style but it's not like we can just scrap all the current dexes out there.


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## Grokfog (May 4, 2009)

Angry Marines. 

Seriously though, I'm not sure what chapter has a divergent enough composition or enough unusual units to make it worthwhile. Possibly Raven Guard or Carcharadons...


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## jaysen (Jul 7, 2011)

Those are good points, but unfortunately are not within the scope of this poll. DENIED.

My vote is for Iron Hands, because they bring the most uniqueness to the game. If any chapter should have unique army list choices, it would be them.


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## The Boz (Aug 16, 2010)

I never liked the idea of a million SM books. Chaos has two, but you could easily do six. The "unique" non-vanilla SM books all differ by two units and a few wargear options at the most, so why not condense everything into a Superbook with a lot of HQ options, multiple deployment lists etc?


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## Digg40k (Sep 7, 2008)

jaysen said:


> Those are good points, but unfortunately are not within the scope of this poll. DENIED.
> 
> My vote is for Iron Hands, because they bring the most uniqueness to the game. If any chapter should have unique army list choices, it would be them.


My bad I actually replied to this before it was a poll. Or failed to notice the poll at all haha, I'll go vote by smashing my face on my mouse now. :so_happy:


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## The Boz (Aug 16, 2010)

On-topic: If there must be a new dex, I'd most rather have the Imperial Fists. Defense and siege specialists, plenty of unique tactical and strategic fluff there.


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## jaysen (Jul 7, 2011)

Yeah, this is basically disregarding the marketing and business aspects of the hobby. I'd like to see more codices strictly for the game options and codefied fluff. The 4th edition space marines codex went a long way with the chapter traits. I'm not sure why they got rid of those. They were great.


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

Out of those? None really, they are not unique enough in my opinion. I mean, they are no Blood Angels or Space Wolves really.


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## Grokfog (May 4, 2009)

Oops, didn't see the poll 

However, now I see it, I'm gonna say Iron Hands. I'm embarrassed to say I'd completely forgotten about them. How bad is that? A first founding chapter with amazing potential that has literally not been fleshed out (pun intended) to the point where they're practically forgotten. 

Iron Father HQ's, disdain for mortal flesh, reliance on bionics, close links to AdMech, reverance for the machine, and iirc, Terminator armoured sergeants?

Plenty of scope for a stand alone codex. Hell, they don't even have a character in the SM codex!


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

Here is an idea, why don't GW just bite the Bullet and bring out a Codex for each of the 1,000 chapters.

Easy Peasy.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

out of those options the only one that has legs is Iron Hands, the possibilities for a genuinely different codex from what we already have are definitely there.
I do think that the other chapters in the poll could have more available to them while still being part of the codex crew. 
But personally if we are talking about marines who need a codex the chaos legions need it far more, huge numbers of genuinely amazing units could be invented for chaos legions.


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

I would of said Salamanders before they decided to drop the whole being slow thing due to the gravity of their world in favour of just making them onyx black with red eyes. Anyway any of the first founding legions can be made into a codex, it just depends how radical you want to accentuate their differences. 

In some cases of course this would be easier but tbh they could drop the DA codex altogether and merged it with the SM codex by simply adding a couple of rules for a special character that allows for the create of the ravenwing and deathwing.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Really? None of them. Most chapters just aren't unique enough to warrent having their own codex... and with more SM chapters, means its longer before other races get updated.

Salamanders? Marines with more flaming weapons... Iron Hands? Bunch of bionics... Really alot of chapters could just be easily represented by an armywide rule such as a generic +1 to a stat, or a relaxed restriction on weapon types, or a short 'Replace X vanilla marine unit with y special unit' entry.


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## chromedog (Oct 31, 2007)

None of the above.

I don't believe ANY SM chapter should have its own codex.
They should all use the same one.

If you want a different 3+ codex, use the csm one.


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## Burden1 (Jan 9, 2010)

I wouldn't give any a separarte codex instead maybe do chapter tactics as an upgrade for all the generic hqs


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

chromedog said:


> None of the above.
> 
> I don't believe ANY SM chapter should have its own codex.
> They should all use the same one.
> ...


Why, we here in the CSM world don't want that Imperium Scum anywhere near our flawed Codex.


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

None of those to be honest. They don't really have enough different from a standard codex chapter to warrant their own chapter. Fists especially, being the no.2 adherents to the Codex Astartes and hence best suited to the vanilla codex.

Out of those listed Iron Hands would be the most worthy but even then you can make an Iron Hnads force fairly handily out of the current codex. Master of the forge, some extra dreadnoughts and bionics for asthetics (or as count as stormshield or ironhalos etc) and there you go. 

Really what would be best is either the old Index Astartes system, where each chapter/legion got a few tweaks to the standard book or the 4th ed traits system where you could represent the legions or your own chapter.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

As much as i agree that as things are at the moment those chapters listed can be made from the space marine codex, but i think with a codex of there own, some (if not all?) could be developed to be significantly different from other codex chapters, the iron hands for example have a very distinct look and feel with the bionics etc , but that could also be developed further to include units or vehicles specific to that chapter of marines (dont ask me what) 

Do we need another space marine chapter with its own codex? hell no! they already have enough codex, more focus on xenos races, guard regiments and chaos would be my choice, but in the poll would be iron hands


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## jaysen (Jul 7, 2011)

I love how all the non-space marine players gotta throw in a plug, just in case GW is trolling the website.

I guess it would be fair to say that all of those chapters could use some more unique fluff, characters, and possibly some chapter traits to make their armies distinct from the Ultramarines. Does that require a complete different book? No. But, it could be seen as a different army list. I hate, I mean absolutely HATE, how they allow any of the special characters from any chapter into any other chapter's list, as a "counts as".


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

Now different army lists contained in one big space marine codex, that i could get behind. Basically you have all the units, special rules etc in one codex but choose which chapter you are going to use which then unlocks certain units/ rules and limits others. 

Or at least a big book for all the 'codex chapters' which in turn has different army lists and rules for distinct chapters -eg white scars, ultramarines, iron hands etc.


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## jaysen (Jul 7, 2011)

Yeah, like a generic list at the first, then distinctive differences for individual chapters in the back. I could go for that again. I think it would entice more people to play different chapters other than BA and BT.


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## Caliban (Nov 27, 2010)

the traits were abandoned as they only made the army stronger than how a balanced dex should operate, due to the fact that the drawbacks section was too easy to avoid. however that could easily hev been amended so each positive trait had a direct disadvantage attached to it


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## Jace of Ultramar (Aug 2, 2011)

Personally, I'd like a bit more detail on the Crimson Fists. I think they look cool and would like to see that chapter receive some expansion on their part.


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## MetalHandkerchief (Aug 3, 2009)

None of the ones in your poll, and only half of the ones that already have (not BT and DA)


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## Moonschwine (Jun 13, 2011)

I'd buy all of them if there was one codex with associated fluff for each of the founding chapters (barring the missing ones). Otherwise I'd rather see the buddy-cop books of the old days like Angels of Death etc etc.

At present though Codexes just don't contain enough for me to warrant buying them simply to find out more about the Crimson Fists, Iron Hands etc organization structure.


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

They should return to the old Index Astartes articles that gave you additional rules.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Really I dunno why they can't do a 'Codex Astartes' as something of a suppliment book. You get a bit of blurb about there being so many chapters and so forth... Each one gets a few pages of fluff, a couple of special characters, and then some generic army rules and special units or organisation for each, and then a big ass gallery of sucessor chapters and so forth, with a 'refer to the SM codex for X unit or X rule'. May need to buy two books to play Salamanders, but at least you could play them.


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## exsulis (Jul 17, 2008)

The cursed founding chapters


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## D-A-C (Sep 21, 2010)

Space Marines should have one codex, in which, there are two - four pages of unique rules for special units, characters and army wide powers, for each individual chapter.

Games Workshop would theoretically lose money, but £50 for a mammoth codex Space Marines would make them a pretty penny and most players are for some chapter or another.

Black Templars, Crimson Fists, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves etc etc are all Space Marines, the only difference being their individual styles and their ratio of adherence to the index Astartes.

There is more difference between an Emperor's Children Warband and a Nurgle Warband, than between two loyalist Space Marine Chapters IMO. Even then, Chaos doesn't have individual codices (nor should it) so why do loyalists?

Its annoying, and if they removed a few of the seperate Chapter codices they could add two more xeno races or a mechanicum codex which is badly needed.

That's my opinion anyway.


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

I voted for the Salamanders. But in terms of how I actually feel, I would rather have one large hardback tome for all the SM Chapters and then saya 40- to 50-page supplement/expansion/whatever-you-want-to-call-it that would focus on a particular chapter.

For example, for the Salamanders, fully explain their seven company structure, have all the ICs (I only recently found out about a Chaplain Xavier limited edition figure--and I haven't been able to find out if he had rules), and for Emperor's sake, all the fluff from the now OOP books and magazines rewritten so they don't contradict one another.


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## andrewm9 (Aug 21, 2008)

Personally I don't think there should be any more space marine codices than there already are. Enough is enough. If I was forced to choose I would say Raven Guard, but seriously GW needs to devote more time to properly updating all of the other codices and developing models for them. (Sisters I am looking at you).


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## pylco (Jun 2, 2008)

all of them...with lot's of fluff, brings more flavour to the game


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## Uveron (Jun 11, 2011)

Dicrel Seijin said:


> I voted for the Salamanders. But in terms of how I actually feel, I would rather have one large hardback tome for all the SM Chapters and then saya 40- to 50-page supplement/expansion/whatever-you-want-to-call-it that would focus on a particular chapter.


It would do them all justice to have a single book, with unified rules. You have a fuff section that goes though the IA's of the founding Chapters, the stuff on how a chappter works, then the descriptions of the units, and the special.. then a the list/price structure, and then a appendix which lists which chapter has special units, units that change there place in the FOC. 

And then a short list of special Charters, two or three for each founding Chapter (though may be one of there successors) 

Job Done. 

Make it a Hardback and it would look cool...


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## jaysen (Jul 7, 2011)

The reason I picked the options on the pole is that those are the loyalist founding chapters that currently do not have their own codex.

I really like how the recent Imperial Armour books have thrown in some special characters and organization for more chapters. The Charcharodons Astra, Minotaurs, Mantis Warriors, Astral Claws, Executioners, Lamenters, etc... are all very interesting and have very cool looking paint schemes. And, the best part is they didn't require distinct books to themselves. You get quite a few chapters, plus a great story line, plus new rules, new Apoc Data sheets, and great fluff and art work all in one book.


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## Chris Guard of Mardat (Mar 6, 2011)

What I think GW should do is make a book for Ultramarines and their successors (plus whoever follows the Codex) and then make a book for the other Chapters instead with army wide for each main one and at least one special character for each so that you didn't have to take the Special Character to get the army wide rule (personally I don't like spending around 190 to get a special rule, but I do) so Raven Guard armies get Fleet and Assault Squads as Troops, White Scars can have Bike Squads as troops as standard and Outflank (without Captains on Bikes) Iron Hands get toughness 4(5) and cheaper Devastators and so on

If I had to choose one on the poll, I'd vote for Raven Guard


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## Alsojames (Oct 25, 2010)

jaysen said:


> The reason I picked the options on the pole is that those are the loyalist founding chapters that currently do not have their own codex.
> 
> I really like how the recent Imperial Armour books have thrown in some special characters and organization for more chapters. The Charcharodons Astra, Minotaurs, Mantis Warriors, Astral Claws, Executioners, Lamenters, etc... are all very interesting and have very cool looking paint schemes. And, the best part is they didn't require distinct books to themselves. You get quite a few chapters, plus a great story line, plus new rules, new Apoc Data sheets, and great fluff and art work all in one book.


 
The only problem with that is IA is pretty much all Apoc stuff, and nobody plays apoc.


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

where my none of the above option, we need more Xeno races, not more retard marine races


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## jaysen (Jul 7, 2011)

KhainiteAssassin said:


> where my none of the above option, we need more Xeno races, not more retard marine races


You make an interesting point, but unfortunately that is not the correct answer. FAIL!


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## jaysen (Jul 7, 2011)

Alsojames said:


> The only problem with that is IA is pretty much all Apoc stuff, and nobody plays apoc.


The data sheets are Apoc, but the army lists, special characters, and special vehicles can be used in regular games. I might be building a second army when I return, and if so, will probably do one of the chapters from the badab war.

BTW, lots of people play Apocalypse in my area. There are several clubs dedicated to apoc and have events several times per year. Plus, we play Apoc at my local GW store at least once a month.


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

jaysen said:


> You make an interesting point, but unfortunately that is not the correct answer. FAIL!


sorry but any thread asking about MORE imperium Codecies is fail all in itsself, HALF of the game practically is already imperium, why the fuck would any aspect be deserving enough to force us into more imperium BS? any more Imperium books and we may aswell call this imperium 40k, in which the imperium is the only race and everyone plays imperium.


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

Im still a little confused about why people are still bitching that this codex or that codex has not yet been produced. Almost all xenos races now have replacement codexes with the release of Necrons coming up. Only Eldar and Tau have pre 5th edition codexes, and of those only Tau are uncompetative. Sisters needs a revamped figure range and a proper codex, making 3 new codexes needed before the next edition. Orks codex is 5th edition released early so you cant complain about that one. 

Personally I would not want an individual codex for any of the chapters but I would like them to do something similar to the trait system, but in a more balanced way, but then again none of the recent codexes, with the exception of DE, have been balanced so I dont see why marines should be handicapped in this way.


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

humakt said:


> Im still a little confused about why people are still bitching that this codex or that codex has not yet been produced. Almost all xenos races now have replacement codexes with the release of Necrons coming up. Only Eldar and Tau have pre 5th edition codexes, and of those only Tau are uncompetative. Sisters needs a revamped figure range and a proper codex, making 3 new codexes needed before the next edition. Orks codex is 5th edition released early so you cant complain about that one.
> 
> Personally I would not want an individual codex for any of the chapters but I would like them to do something similar to the trait system, but in a more balanced way, but then again none of the recent codexes, with the exception of DE, have been balanced so I dont see why marines should be handicapped in this way.


Tyranids you mean, as they were underpowered. DE are quite balanced thankyouverymuch. they are stupidly strong, but stupidly fragile.


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

I didn't think nids to be a recent codex as it is almost 2 year old. They are not underpowered, but the preponderance for mech lists does leave them with issues and against certain armies they can have problems, but this is the way it should be. All armies should have an achillies heel or 2. The recent unbalanced lists have less difficult to beat enemys which balanced codexes tend to have.

I agree DE are very balanced and probably the best codex produced in the last 3 years.


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## r9a9g9e (Aug 31, 2008)

Iron hands, and tie in the mechanistic aspect to Mars and all the crazy robots that inhabit it(kinda like GK and the Inquisition).

I think the idea of a few different chapters is good, but any more than what is already out their is flat stupid. Already their is way too much imperial floating around the Galaxy that is supposed to be over run with all types of xeno variants. my FLGS has about 15-20 people in their monthly tournament and 15+ are imperial. Sad times


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## jaysen (Jul 7, 2011)

Well, they need to make the Xenos books ultra-competitive. I don't think Eldar have EVER been accused of being OP'd, same with Tau.

I'd love to see players' armies more evenly distributed, but the fact is Space Marines are the most attractive army out there. Half the games I play, we have to say that it is a training exercise with simulated weapons because my opponent is playing imperial also.


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## The Ebon Flight (May 14, 2011)

Given the options listed, I went with Iron hands ... cause they'd be shiny.


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

Every chapter you listed in the poll are loyal adherents to the codex astartes, therefore none of them need their own codex, as the SM one allows them all the scope they need. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only one of them that doesn't have an IC entry in the codex that allows their chapters to fight as their fluff dictates is the IHs. Years ago a gap like this would be filled with an article in WD, but considering that has become nothing more than a product catalogue, that'll never happen.

If you want to bring out a new SM codex, why not for something interesting that hasn't really been covered before, like a Cursed Founding codex? Bring on the Black Dragons, Minotaurs and Sons of Anteus.


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## Nicholas Hadrian (Mar 20, 2011)

Uveron said:


> It would do them all justice to have a single book, with unified rules. You have a fuff section that goes though the IA's of the founding Chapters, the stuff on how a chappter works, then the descriptions of the units, and the special.. then a the list/price structure, and then a appendix which lists which chapter has special units, units that change there place in the FOC.
> 
> And then a short list of special Charters, two or three for each founding Chapter (though may be one of there successors)
> 
> ...


Here's a better idea. And one that is a bit more reasonable coming from GW.
Get ALL the Space Marine fluff, even a bit of a passing mention, Chapter traits like 4th ed, only now a bit more well thought out and allowing for force org reorganization, no specific IC's but instead 7-8 "general" IC types, like a Chapter Master you can help define and give upgrades , like a basic chapter master is now, but give special rules for points, a Reclusiarch, a Chief Librarian, a close combat captain, a shooty captain, a tank commander, ect. They already kinda got it now, but half the Ultramarines ones either suck or are just uninteresting.

I'm sick of counts as damn it! :angry:


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## gally912 (Jan 31, 2009)

The only additional Imperial codex I would like to see is Admech. But, I'd also like to see them bring back lost and the damned and a kroot mercenary company. 

Generally, the codex choices are pretty marine heavy as it is.


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## Imp Blackheart (Nov 29, 2010)

in a perfect world GW would sit there and make a fluff compendium of optional chapters and rules to play them. IH would be awesome because you would be looking at upgraded stat marines due to their bionic enhancements and possible list upgrades for units attached from the adeptus mechanicus, or possible HS options being taken as elites for IF chapter, and yes more melta upgrades for salamanders, white scars has always been based on more bikes then anything so tweek the current rules for DA ravenwing and spill out some fluff for them. as far as raven guard goes, i really dont know much about them so fill in as you please. then you can fill in some other succesor chapters such as crimson fists(but as i understand them they are vanilla SM possible at odds with IP) or novel chapters like Soul Drinkers. honestly i want to see individual CSM codexs, which GW could follow the same deal and create a compendium. but thats a perfect world, and for franchising purposes wont happen


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## chromedog (Oct 31, 2007)

jaysen said:


> Well, they need to make the Xenos books ultra-competitive. I don't think Eldar have EVER been accused of being OP'd


Well, NOT in the current incarnation of the game.

They were kinda godlike in 2nd ed though.

Skimmers doing 'pop-up' attacks, using Crystal targeting matrices to move-shoot-move, vectored engines to increase number of turns they could make (how fast you moved determined how many turns you could make during the move) and auto-healing wargear for vehicles (crystalline spider symbiotes).


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## Nicholas Hadrian (Mar 20, 2011)

chromedog said:


> Well, NOT in the current incarnation of the game.
> 
> They were kinda godlike in 2nd ed though.
> 
> Skimmers doing 'pop-up' attacks, using Crystal targeting matrices to move-shoot-move, vectored engines to increase number of turns they could make (how fast you moved determined how many turns you could make during the move) and auto-healing wargear for vehicles (crystalline spider symbiotes).


IDK, I hear alot of complaints about old Vyper lists I beleive it was? Hear they were nasty.


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## C'Tan Chimera (Aug 16, 2008)

None of them. Stop hogging up all the release sections and stuff them all into one uber codex.


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## PhrycePhyre (Oct 31, 2011)

None of the above, there are too many already, I would also say that BT, DA and BA, maybe even SW shouldn't have codices of their own.


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## Coldshrike (Sep 9, 2011)

I voted Raven Gaurd just because they're damn awesome. A stronger emphasis on stealth and the seperatist nature of the chapter.


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