The Problem of the New Space Marine Codex, Part Two

Posted by Ranillon on 19. October 2008 23:31

In my last post on this subject I pointed out what a giant leap the new Space Marine codex represents over what went before.  But, you say, all new army books have new toys, things to make other armies potentially envious.  So what if the new book has more than usual?

One problem is that it represents a fundamental shift from before.  The previous flavors of Space Marines books were all clearly closely related, with one being essentially much like the other with a few different formations or units.  Point is that one could easily argue that each was merely variations on the theme and therefore all the same general power level.

The new codex represents a departure from this policy.  It’s a quantum leap over the old books, filled with all sorts of new and upgraded items.  It suddenly makes all the other SM books outclassed – and obviously so.

Yet, far worse is how it does this – in many cases it is by changing rules for units and wargear!  It’s not just a matter of new toys, but also old toys transformed into better ones.  Now you can have different forces supposedly using the same wargear and units, but employing different rules.  This has two main effects.

One, it makes the advantages of the new book even more glaringly clear than would otherwise be the case.  You can compare the exact same thing against the exact same thing.  If, say, a new unit comes out for a completely different 40K race it’s hard to judge comparative power levels.  It’s apples and oranges.  With the new marine codex, it’s apples to apples.  You only need ten minutes of reading to realize that the new book is superior to the other related books.

The second problem is worse for the simple reason that Games Workshop has stated (through designers speaking at conventions) that it is not going to offer FAQs upgrading the old marine books to the new wargear/units.  This is not only a slap in the face to an entire group of players, but is guaranteed to produce all sorts of arguments.  For instance, before I read about this policy my de facto assumption was that I could look forward to playing my Dark Angels with the improved wargear of the new book.  After all, storm shields and Land Raiders (among a lot else) are all standard issue, right?  If I hadn’t come across these reports I could have easily faced the awkward instance of walking into a game with an army list that was in fact illegal without knowing it.  Ironically, the fact that I do will have the opposite effect – how can I use the old rules against the new without feeling shortchanged?

This GW policy makes the old Space Wolf codex a rules disaster.  Because GW hasn’t updated the SW book this century it still tells you to refer to the “space marine codex” for the rules of at least half their available units.  This means that unlike Black Templars, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels Space Wolves get to use many of the new rules and units.  Well, sort of – because the book is so out-of-date you can interpret things in a number of potential ways.  For instance, does having access to Land Raiders mean you can get access to Land Raider Redeemers as well (the SW FAQs implies that you can)?  What about wargear mentioned in both the old SW book and the new SM codex?  Which has precedence?  Can there be any doubt that playing Space Wolves or against Space Wolves is practically an invitation to arguments and/or hard feelings?

What’s sad is that problems like these would have been fairly easy to avoid along as GW had just done things with a little more marketing savvy….