Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: What Codex Space Marines Tells Us About Future Marine Codexes
Goatboy here with the hints that Codex Space Marines gives us about what the other Marine codexes will look like.
We have had two codexes now come out and it gives us a lot of thought on how the other books most likely will be. Well most of them anyway. There are a few of the books that might take a weird turn or two depending on how GW wants to split them apart. These of course are the “other” “famous” marine chapter codexes out there that use Codex Space Marines, and then their new codex set of rules and units. Let’s wax poetic a bit on what might be and see if we get lucky and guess some rules that the first one (Codex Dark Angels) will have.
The Big Question – Detachments
The big question I have is are the Dark Angels going to have sox new detachments or are they going to get “tweaked” versions of the main book ones? I ask this because it wouldn’t surprise me if we see the new books with a small caveat that state you can only use these detachments to make an army of Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Deathwtch etc. I say this as it would allow the GW Design Studio a bit more control in balancing these books and it lets GW truly “tweak” how they want the armies to be represented.
Think of how the “White Scars” detachment really fits a Thunder Wolf Cav heavy Space Wolf style of army. What if instead of saying they use the Stormlance Strikeforce it is now the Wolf Brother Thunder Party Force with relics that more match up Space Wolf stuff, tweaked Stratagems, but utilizing the same overall rule? It would feel a lot more fluffy and fun for a very easy tweak and change and something I hope GW does do.
Along those lines as well are they going to give them six detachments to pick from? Or instead, the take initial ones, tweak them, and then just say only X can use these? I worry about adding more on top of all the choices we already have. It already feels like the “other Marine” codexes ended up winning a heck of a lot more with that Space Marine book than Marines. This goes back to Gw needing to blance the whole issue of why play vanilla Space Marines when you can play totally awesome Space Vampire Space Marines?
Take the First Company detachment and how it would easily fit into an Inner Circle style detachment for Dark Angels with a few tweaks. Things that could easily be added at the top level to help out the army and make it unique. Maybe it’s just a Rule called Inner Circle that all units get like another Oath of Moment style thing. A game changing rule that isn’t just – you hate Chaos more than anything else. Things like giving it better LD for saves or some kind of bonus when picking their unit for Oath. Just a small thing to makes you want to take Dark Angels beyond just having better terminators.
Things We Don’t Want to See
I don’t want to see things moving to Battleline as it causes all kinds of weird stacking rules on top of Datacards that is annoying. I don’t want to add things to the cards and instead add things to detachments/armies as a whole. This isn’t a living card based game so the stacks have to be simple enough to remember for all your plastic dudesmen.
Alternaitvely, should GW make detachments only these armies can take with just the unique rules built inside the detachments? Enhancements that match up, relics that matter (So many Frost things!), and an encompassing rule that doesn’t break the game wide open. I’ve gota very bad feeling about that model of things and can see the broken combos from here. I just don’t want to see every Marine player going towards a Marine+ army because they can pick from 10+ different detachments.
What do you think? I can see tweaks on the basic Codex Space Marines detachments to make them more “Wolfy” but are we just going to see a ton for each army? Is it worth it to build a mini codex with some extra units, a bunch of rehashed fluff, some nicely painted miniatures, and maybe a small tweak to push the story forward? Do we want all the choices to let us make the most heinous counts as army out there?
How do you want to see detachments work for the other Space Marine codexes?
