waefre_1 wrote: Also, I'd like to point out that the correct way for GW to incentivize us taking non-meta options is to make those options worth taking. It's never going to be perfect since there will always be people who only take the "optimal" choices, and it does take actual work to pull off, but "work" is what they're (allegedly) being paid to do. Part of the reason the switch to free upgrades rubbed me wrong is that it felt like GW saw that trying to balance paid upgrades would take work, told an intern to fix it over their lunch break, and when the intern couldn't come up with a solution GW just threw their collective hands up and decided to burn it all down. That'd be bad from an indy studio running on a shoestring budget, it's contemptible from a company with GW's funding and reach.
it feels like just another symptom of not being able to deal with the competitive players breaking the game, so just giving up and acting as though everyone will do it. Just assume everyone always takes the best option and the "problem" goes away.
Same thing happened in world of warcraft; despite the best efforts players keep optimizing 100% of everything so rather than try to stop it or change that mentality, they just gave in and design around it as though everyone will do it.
The big difference is that GW wouldn't have as much of an issue if they didn't re-write their game every 3 years. They just start to get balancing properly and then BOOM it all gets thrown out the window for a new edition. If they actually stuck to a single core set of rules that were updated perhaps every 10 years; and then updated individual armies every 3 years with revised codex (updated with newly added models, FAQ/Errata etc...) then who knows
waefre_1 wrote: Also, I'd like to point out that the correct way for GW to incentivize us taking non-meta options is to make those options worth taking. It's never going to be perfect since there will always be people who only take the "optimal" choices, and it does take actual work to pull off, but "work" is what they're (allegedly) being paid to do. Part of the reason the switch to free upgrades rubbed me wrong is that it felt like GW saw that trying to balance paid upgrades would take work, told an intern to fix it over their lunch break, and when the intern couldn't come up with a solution GW just threw their collective hands up and decided to burn it all down. That'd be bad from an indy studio running on a shoestring budget, it's contemptible from a company with GW's funding and reach.
it feels like just another symptom of not being able to deal with the competitive players breaking the game, so just giving up and acting as though everyone will do it. Just assume everyone always takes the best option and the "problem" goes away.
Same thing happened in world of warcraft; despite the best efforts players keep optimizing 100% of everything so rather than try to stop it or change that mentality, they just gave in and design around it as though everyone will do it.
The big difference is that GW wouldn't have as much of an issue if they didn't re-write their game every 3 years. They just start to get balancing properly and then BOOM it all gets thrown out the window for a new edition. If they actually stuck to a single core set of rules that were updated perhaps every 10 years; and then updated individual armies every 3 years with revised codex (updated with newly added models, FAQ/Errata etc...) then who knows
Exactly. But then you couldn't sell overpriced rulebooks and codexes to people who just bought them...
I have no problem with GW deciding that Tacticals should have 1 special and 1 heavy weapon, or Scourges should have 4 special/heavy weapons as the standard loadout. It makes sense for some units to be configured that way. There are a couple of problems with the GW approach that make it utterly moronic, however.
1. You can either cost the unit as if it's taken the cheapest options and then charge extra for the better ones, or make all options equally valid so it doesn't matter which one you take from an in-game effectiveness POV. GW did the worst of both worlds here.
2. Some units simply can't work this way. DW Kill Teams - especially the Proteus one - are a great example. If units have too many options with wildly variable power levels you just can't condense that unit down into 1 cost. The Proteus Kill Team is paying for the ability to take multiple Terminators instead of just regular Veterans, even if you'd rather not take them. Worse still, the 5-man unit that can't even take Terminators is still charged as if it is.
3. Some units have "options" that are just clearly upgrades. This isn't even a case of something arguably being situationally better, it's literally just one option being literally superior at all times. Death Company with power swords and plasma pistols and Tomb Blades with shield vanes are the most obvious ones for my army. If you want evidence that GW half-assed the points system in 10th that's the most obvious example.
Bringing this back to the original question, I find a lot of the soul of the game has been lost in that points shift. There's not as much room for tinkering and experimentation in list building when it's so obvious that some options are just better than others, or some configurations simply don't work. On top of that, actually building lists is infuriating. My Emperor's Children list is frustratingly sat at 1960 points. I could just live with a 40 point deficit but that feels like a little too much to me. What about adding an Enhancement? Great idea, except I've decided to be fluffy and dedicate myself to a single god in my CSM list, so I only get access to a single Enhancement. Previously I'd maybe add a couple of combi-weapons, or maybe drop one Chosen to get another unit of Cultists, or downgrade a character's weapons to do the same. Now I have to cut entire units. You often can't even cut characters because they're now intrinsically tied to the units they were bought for, so you often end up thinking you might as well remove both. It's the same problem with my Deathwatch. When building lsits previously, or for other games, usually you get to the end and have to tinker a bit to add some things here or remove some things there. Now it just feels like a chore where you might have to abandon the entire concept of your army because you end up with 50-60 points free that you can't spend.
It's always been obvious what's best and what's bad. It takes one reading through codex and you know them. Well okay can't say about 1999 and before as I didn't play 40k then but since 2000 when I started 40k it's been easy enough to spot what's good and bad.
That's the whole point of it...GW makes damned sure you know what's good and what's bad. They are shouting it our with the sound of 155mm artirelly company firing at full speed
In Finland kids have learned all they need to sort out best by the time of 3rd grade bar english.
If you are looking at hard to spot good stuff in list building...Look at game from some other company.
tneva82 wrote: It's always been obvious what's best and what's bad. It takes one reading through codex and you know them. Well okay can't say about 1999 and before as I didn't play 40k then but since 2000 when I started 40k it's been easy enough to spot what's good and bad.
That's the whole point of it...GW makes damned sure you know what's good and what's bad. They are shouting it our with the sound of 155mm artirelly company firing at full speed
In Finland kids have learned all they need to sort out best by the time of 3rd grade bar english.
If you are looking at hard to spot good stuff in list building...Look at game from some other company.
Thanks for showing you either didn't read or didn't understand what I posted. It's not about spotting what's good and bad, it's about making different choices equivalent.
tneva82 wrote: It's always been obvious what's best and what's bad. It takes one reading through codex and you know them. Well okay can't say about 1999 and before as I didn't play 40k then but since 2000 when I started 40k it's been easy enough to spot what's good and bad.
That's the whole point of it...GW makes damned sure you know what's good and what's bad. They are shouting it our with the sound of 155mm artirelly company firing at full speed
In Finland kids have learned all they need to sort out best by the time of 3rd grade bar english.
If you are looking at hard to spot good stuff in list building...Look at game from some other company.
Thanks for showing you either didn't read or didn't understand what I posted. It's not about spotting what's good and bad, it's about making different choices equivalent.
You negated your whole point when you veered into hyperbolic nonsense about having to scrap your whole army concept because you couldn't spend the last 50pts or such.
And he's right: tnev completely missed the point, and posted something essentially unrelated.
This isn't about "best" and "worst". It's about options. It's about the fact that most of the weapon options in the game aren't sidegrades, and thus they are upgrades, and therefore should be paid for.
I don't want to always pay for Lascannon/2x Plasma Cannons on my Russes, especially when 26 out of my 30 Russ hulls don't have Plasma sponsons. I don't want to pay for double Baneblade sponsons when not a single one of my Baneblades has double sponsons. There should be a difference between taking 10 Death Company w/ BPs & CCWs vs 10 Death Company w/ Plasma Pistols & Power Weapons.
Whether someone "should" be taking naked squads is besides the point: You always had the choice, and taking better weapons meant you had to use points and sometimes sacrifice in other areas. This is also why the set squad sizes are bull gak as well. What good is my unit of 5 Inceptors w/Plasma Guns? I'm always paying for 6 to bring them. That's stupid.
... Sponsons should come with a penalty to save and/or thoughness (or AV if you prefer that)
You are basically adding a giant weakpoint to your armor by drilling a gun hole on it.
Point costs would still be needed to differentiate bolters from plasma cannons/lascannons, but I do prefer if options come with a downside beyond just points.
2. Some units simply can't work this way. DW Kill Teams - especially the Proteus one - are a great example. If units have too many options with wildly variable power levels you just can't condense that unit down into 1 cost. The Proteus Kill Team is paying for the ability to take multiple Terminators instead of just regular Veterans, even if you'd rather not take them. Worse still, the 5-man unit that can't even take Terminators is still charged as if it is.
The Proteus Kill team just shouldn't allow for 4 Terminators. None of the other KTs have a 4x option. Make Terminators 2x like the rest and cut the points significantly to reflect this and the options available become far more interesting.
Slipspace speaks truth. I was just fighting with a list 2 days ago and had about 60pts left over which you cant do anything with so I spent probably another 30mins trying to change my list enough that I can hit the points limit. Thereby taking stuff I didn't want to; not fun. GW can kiss my ass for removing the granularity from the points. List building now is more like playing tetris but every piece is an over sized S; nothing fits together. Also quick shout to the poor admech players. Looks like they got the strongest player in their clique to play test Admech vs the noobs playing the Space Marine book and decided they don't need buffs. The sheer amount of Ls admech players will accumulate (I hope I'm wrong) will be on par with Dark Eldar.
Gibblets wrote: Slipspace speaks truth. I was just fighting with a list 2 days ago and had about 60pts left over which you cant do anything with so I spent probably another 30mins trying to change my list enough that I can hit the points limit. Thereby taking stuff I didn't want to; not fun. GW can kiss my ass for removing the granularity from the points. List building now is more like playing tetris but every piece is an over sized S; nothing fits together. Also quick shout to the poor admech players. Looks like they got the strongest player in their clique to play test Admech vs the noobs playing the Space Marine book and decided they don't need buffs. The sheer amount of Ls admech players will accumulate (I hope I'm wrong) will be on par with Dark Eldar.
Slipspace does speak the truth, however most armies can fill 60pts with something if you feel aggrieved by it. The take on Admech however is the typical knee jerk sky is falling nonsense that has always been a negative around the game and does more to kill any excitement or discussion than having 3% of an army spare.
Okay, but Tactical Marines?? It baffles me that someone could see Tactical Marines and think "yep, this unit is designed to be barebones and no squad weapons". And I think that GW encouraging people to actually use the cool toys they have is great for that - shaping the idea of how they see the game being played. Not with barebones units and scrimping for points, but with cool upgrades and taking a variety of options. Now, of course, as players are oft to be, there's the idea of "disadvantage" if you're not taking full advantage of the ability to take what you like, but, well, that's a personal thing. GW could try and create a way where, say, all Sergeant weapons were balanced against eachother, and all upgraded weapons were all sidegrades of eachother, but actually TAKING upgraded squad weapons? Sorry, I believe that should be a given. Gone are the days of a barebones unit, and I think that's for the best. Again, YMMV.
Granted, tactical squads without any special weapons does seem slightly unusual. But I feel they're more the exception than the rule. Taking kabalites with just splinter rifles should be valid. Taking guardians without the support platform should be valid. Taking marine vehicles without hunter-killer missiles should be valid.
Pardon me for asking, but why? Why is there a difference between Tacticals being "meant" to take specials weapons and Kabalites not? Guardians without a support platform is simple - introduce a rule pertaining to the platform where it, say, prevents the unit moving. Or, have a compulsory support platform, but you choose which kind that best suits what you want.
If GW is saying "yes, this is what they're supposed to do and act like", then I don't have an issue with them making systems where that's what they have. In much the same way that Tactical Marines are supposed to have bolters, so they're armed with bolters.
In the case of tacticals, if the intention really, really is for them to always have 1 special weapon per 5 dudes, you could basically make the special weapons "package" I pitched earlier into a mandatory part of their unit. Basically, don't pretend a squad of 5 bolters is a valid way to build the unit if it really isn't. But also, my pitch above leaves it up to the player. If you *do* have a reason for wanting to field all bolters, you can do so without effectively wasting points. If you do spend the points on special weapons, they should presumably be valuable enough and costed appropriately to be a viable option.
I agree with the first part! If GW wants the unit's intention to be "hey, the special weapon MEANT to be part of this unit, so its a compulsory addition - now choose which weapon you want", then they should do it, and I'd prefer if they did! However, then you'd run into people complaining that they're "forced" into it - like right now.
I think ultimately that this is more a case of established players not liking that their weapon choices are sub-optimal from previous editions, and being resistant to that change.
I find it much more fun to have a Sergeant with an interesting weapon, even if it never really gets used, rather than "yeah, here's my fourth sergeant with barebones weapons because I was trying to make my points stretch".
See, I'm one of those guys who will put cool equipment on the sergeants even when it's not optimal, but I still like having the chocie of fielding a "naked" sergeant because it helps the other sergeants stand out more. My bolter sergeant is pragmatic and uses his bionic eye to get the most out of the humble bolter. My lightning claw + meltabombs guy is a little more of a reckless glory hound who relies on his squadmate's flamer to help thin the hordes he often throws his squad at. My power fist guy is also a glory hound but likes to go straight toward the biggest target on the battlefield with his meltagunner squad mate.
In 10th edition, a lot of that personality is soured by the knowledge that I'm being charged points for gear I'm not taking or for assumptions that I'm optimizing my squad's loadout when I'm not.
I'm just the same - all my Guardsmen sergeants only use chainswords and laspistols (or other CCWs that fit in for the chainsword), because they're not privy to the fancy toys for the higher ranks. I prefer them that way, as opposed to having plasma pistols and power fists on every one - but the difference is that I don't care about the fact I'm not taking the "optimal" option. GW has always had options that were more optimal, even with points. I don't see why this changes anything for me, personally.
Slipspace wrote:On top of that, actually building lists is infuriating. My Emperor's Children list is frustratingly sat at 1960 points. I could just live with a 40 point deficit but that feels like a little too much to me. What about adding an Enhancement? Great idea, except I've decided to be fluffy and dedicate myself to a single god in my CSM list, so I only get access to a single Enhancement. Previously I'd maybe add a couple of combi-weapons, or maybe drop one Chosen to get another unit of Cultists, or downgrade a character's weapons to do the same. Now I have to cut entire units. You often can't even cut characters because they're now intrinsically tied to the units they were bought for, so you often end up thinking you might as well remove both. It's the same problem with my Deathwatch. When building lsits previously, or for other games, usually you get to the end and have to tinker a bit to add some things here or remove some things there. Now it just feels like a chore where you might have to abandon the entire concept of your army because you end up with 50-60 points free that you can't spend.
On the other hand, not being able to field your army because it was 10 points over because you're actually playing WYSIWYG and you gave your models the cool weapons, even if they weren't the "optimal" ones, also sucks. Or, taking upgrades for the sake of it because you can't add any more units, even though you really don't care for taking them at all, and they probably won't change the trajectory of the game in any meaningful way.
Having awkward points has always been a thing. And, yes, when the numbers are too large that you can't add or remove anything without compromising your list, that SUCKS. But, well, there's always been an element of compromise. It's really just a case of what's considered acceptable.
Now, I wanna make clear, that's not me saying that you're overreacting or your concern isn't valid! But it is me saying that this has always been a factor - and that I feel that the reason it's been highlighted now is that now the way the game is now intended/designed now differs more drastically from what people have come to expect, and that's what's causing the conflict. How people have previously internalised the way the game works, and therefore is "supposed" to work, is now not matching how the game is currently "supposed" to work.
(And that's not a statement to endorse or condemn the state of the game)
H.B.M.C. wrote:Whether someone "should" be taking naked squads is besides the point:
Not really. If GW are trying to incentivise moving away from naked squads, then the point very much matters. Now, is this the BEST way to do it? No. But the point stands - I believe that GW are trying to encourage actually using the cool weapons on the sprues, instead of leaving players feeling like they can't use them without breaking the bank.
This is also why the set squad sizes are bull gak as well. What good is my unit of 5 Inceptors w/Plasma Guns? I'm always paying for 6 to bring them. That's stupid.
Just curious, but did you have the same issue with Guardsmen being locked into units of 10? Or Conscripts as units of 20?
Or would you have preferred if GW said you can ONLY bring units of 3 or 6?
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Pardon me for asking, but why? Why is there a difference between Tacticals being "meant" to take specials weapons and Kabalites not? Guardians without a support platform is simple - introduce a rule pertaining to the platform where it, say, prevents the unit moving. Or, have a compulsory support platform, but you choose which kind that best suits what you want.
If GW is saying "yes, this is what they're supposed to do and act like", then I don't have an issue with them making systems where that's what they have. In much the same way that Tactical Marines are supposed to have bolters, so they're armed with bolters.
Fair question. I think that removing the option to take cheaper, smaller versions of those units makes it feel like I've sorta kinda lost one of the units from my codex. Like, taking a 5-man kabalite squad with a single blaster or even just a dirt cheap naked kabalite squad for scoring purposes or to fill a transport, was a satisfying unit option that played very differently from a 10-man unit rocking multiple darklight weapons. I actually like the 10th edition version of kabalites (well, I like their sticky objectives rule), but it would have been so easy to just keep the option for a smaller, humbler squad without sticky objectives. Similarly, I used to enjoy running guardians without a platform to make them slightly cheaper and to save space in a wave serpent. Just making the platform an add-on that costs X points regardless of the gun on it would have been simple enough, so the absence of choice rankles.
Tacticals are slightly different in that, to my knowledge, it's pretty odd for a codex compliant chapter to carry around 5 bolters instead of mixing in a flamer or whatever.
In the case of tacticals, if the intention really, really is for them to always have 1 special weapon per 5 dudes, you could basically make the special weapons "package" I pitched earlier into a mandatory part of their unit. Basically, don't pretend a squad of 5 bolters is a valid way to build the unit if it really isn't. But also, my pitch above leaves it up to the player. If you *do* have a reason for wanting to field all bolters, you can do so without effectively wasting points. If you do spend the points on special weapons, they should presumably be valuable enough and costed appropriately to be a viable option.
I agree with the first part! If GW wants the unit's intention to be "hey, the special weapon MEANT to be part of this unit, so its a compulsory addition - now choose which weapon you want", then they should do it, and I'd prefer if they did! However, then you'd run into people complaining that they're "forced" into it - like right now.
I think ultimately that this is more a case of established players not liking that their weapon choices are sub-optimal from previous editions, and being resistant to that change.
I'm not sure that's quite accurate. As I mentioned, I tend to take sub-optimal choices for the sake of giving my units a little personality. I'll splurge on the melee weapon for a sergeant so I can imagine that they're a little more eager to get in close than their brothers. That sort of thing. With the new rules, I don't feel irritated that some of my sergeants are built suboptimally. Between my fist guy and my claw guy, one of them is probably straight up more efficient against targets I'd reasonably throw them at. But I'm not irked about the fist guy or the claw guy. I'm irked about the basic bolter sergeant.
Previously, it was suboptimal to give my fist and claw guys their toys, but I felt like I was getting something in return for that suboptimal investment. (Their improved offense.) If taking those toys had been optimal, then my basic bolter sergeant would at least feel like he was saving me points that I could put to use elsewhere. In both cases, there's a silver lining to my suboptimal build. In contrast, there's no longer a silver lining. I'm just playing at a disadvantage.
I think part of it is also that building optimally now means making your squad leaders look really same-y. Like, of course all my sybarites have blast pistols and grenade launchers and sybarite weapons because why wouldn't they? Previously, the minutia of having a grenade guy vs a rifle guy could be a source of personality for the models, and you'd save a few points for having those distinctions. Now, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you wish you had a blast pistol, you've screwed yourself if you didn't take one. You can't shrug and go, "Well, I put those points towards an upgrade for my raider." You're just getting punished for fielding variety.
I'm just the same - all my Guardsmen sergeants only use chainswords and laspistols (or other CCWs that fit in for the chainsword), because they're not privy to the fancy toys for the higher ranks. I prefer them that way, as opposed to having plasma pistols and power fists on every one - but the difference is that I don't care about the fact I'm not taking the "optimal" option. GW has always had options that were more optimal, even with points. I don't see why this changes anything for me, personally.
See above. Basically, the new system creates FOMO where the old system provided a silver lining for taking the suboptimal build.
Or would you have preferred if GW said you can ONLY bring units of 3 or 6?
Weirdly enough, I think I might prefer the stricter unit size. I'm in a similar position with several of the units I own. Not to make too big a deal of it, but fretting over whether to pay 5 models worth of points for 3 models worth of value is oddly stressful and doesn't feel great. So requiring a specific unit size would at least mean I wouldn't find myself considering the larger unit size at all when I sit down to list build. But maybe I'm wrong.
Personally fixed unit sizes are something I am 100% okay with. I always took either the min or the max (usually the max). Taking weird unit sizes like 7 guys in this one specific squad when all the other squads have 10 in them because I didn't have enough points to pay for dudes #8, 9, and 10 always felt icky to me and is not something I did. I usually silently judged others who were in the practice of doing so when I came across them. The fact that its been standard design practice since like 5th edition to base the number of weapon upgrades in a unit around the number of models in it meant that realistically the majority of players would only ever field units in fixed increments based on the ability to access those weapons. I'd prefer it though if GWs implementation was fixed (ie 5 models, 10 models, 15 models, 20 models) and not ranges (5 models, 6-10 models, 11-15 models, 16-20 models). I think theres a perception issue with folks looking at the option to field 6-10 models and going "well why the hell would I ever field anything less than 10 if it will cost me the same, this is fething dumb", whereas if GW was just honest about it and said "you can take 5 guys for y points, and 10 guys for z points" then that might be a bit less of a point of contention.
chaos0xomega wrote: The problem is that for so long they pushed the vision of "your dudes" and basically infinite customizability (which admittedly they have been reversing the last couple editions of the game), that people feel like they are basically having choices taken away from them, even though the system is really intended (hypothetically) to try to make it easier for players to enjoy the variety and customizations that GW has offered.
Do we think it's maybe a case of newer players being the focus of GW's attentions, and not already established armies?
Maybe. GW seems to be increasingly coming around to the idea of player retention, and not just recruitment which has been there modus operandi in the past. Their business model was previously built on the idea that they would draw x many new players in, and y of them would quit the hobby within z months or whatever, so they were all about trying to maximize that churn and get as many kids with mommy and daddy's money in through the door for whatever they could get, and then move on to the next. The shift to the short edition cycles and rapid fire release pace is an effort to keep players more engaged and interested and prevent them from falling out, as GW has evidently recognized that there is a way to keep customers long term and maximize their lifetime value to the company and get them spending more, etc. I think to some extent though they have pushed it too far to the point that I think they are alienating a growing number of customers because the pace of their release schedule and edition churn is unsustainable.
I also think, to some extent, its an overcorrection to complaints they likely received in feedback surveys. I know there were complaints about listbuilding building and the detachment system being confusing and to constraining and preventing people from fielding the army they wanted to play, etc.GW likely took that feedback too far and went beyond what most of the people complaining probably imagined they would do.
As for "your dudes", I personally find it easier to do "your dudes" when I'm not feeling like the "cool" option is gonna prevent me from taking the unit because the points don't match. I find it much more fun to have a Sergeant with an interesting weapon, even if it never really gets used, rather than "yeah, here's my fourth sergeant with barebones weapons because I was trying to make my points stretch". My guardsmen sergeants still use barebones kit, because that fits them much better for how I see them, but for my Space Marine sergeants, they have a variety of weapons because I see them as having the luxury to choose them - same for my Sybarites, Alphas and Sister Superiors. They feel much more "mine" then when I was encouraged to not really bother with upgrades on certain units. But, YMMV.
Thats a valid perspective, and one which I think a lot of casual players agree with. More competitive players, or those of us who are held hostage by competitive players, will probably tend to look at it kind of from the opposite perspective which is equally valid, wherein they can't field "your dudes" because their build is suboptimal and will make a difference in performance and potentially game outcome, and doing so will put them at a disadvantage vs their opponent who is trying to maximize value in their own list. For something minor like what pistol do you give a guard sergeant, it probably doesn't matter. If your'e fielding leman russes and "your dudes" don't use sponsons, but your opponents do, then you're in a bit of a pickle.
Okay, but Tactical Marines?? It baffles me that someone could see Tactical Marines and think "yep, this unit is designed to be barebones and no squad weapons".
Why not? Some chapters (and legions) are noted in the fluff for their over-reliance on the humble bolter, and their eschewing of specialist weapons in favor of focusing on massed bolter fire. Its a valid choice from a fluff perspective. Thats been the case for a long time and is nothing new, it was something that inspired me to start (and never finish) a space marine army many editions ago that was based on streamlined tactical squads only equipped with bolters,and then maxing out devastators and other units for heavier supporting fire.
waefre_1 wrote: Also, I'd like to point out that the correct way for GW to incentivize us taking non-meta options is to make those options worth taking. It's never going to be perfect since there will always be people who only take the "optimal" choices, and it does take actual work to pull off, but "work" is what they're (allegedly) being paid to do. Part of the reason the switch to free upgrades rubbed me wrong is that it felt like GW saw that trying to balance paid upgrades would take work, told an intern to fix it over their lunch break, and when the intern couldn't come up with a solution GW just threw their collective hands up and decided to burn it all down. That'd be bad from an indy studio running on a shoestring budget, it's contemptible from a company with GW's funding and reach.
it feels like just another symptom of not being able to deal with the competitive players breaking the game, so just giving up and acting as though everyone will do it. Just assume everyone always takes the best option and the "problem" goes away.
Same thing happened in world of warcraft; despite the best efforts players keep optimizing 100% of everything so rather than try to stop it or change that mentality, they just gave in and design around it as though everyone will do it.
The big difference is that GW wouldn't have as much of an issue if they didn't re-write their game every 3 years. They just start to get balancing properly and then BOOM it all gets thrown out the window for a new edition. If they actually stuck to a single core set of rules that were updated perhaps every 10 years; and then updated individual armies every 3 years with revised codex (updated with newly added models, FAQ/Errata etc...) then who knows
Agreed, we've never really been able to see a mature edition/meta in a long time because of the obsession with the edition cycle + the rapid fire pace of balance updates. It would be nice to have some time to experience an edition as a "complete" package before moving on to the next one and starting over.
tneva82 wrote: It's always been obvious what's best and what's bad. It takes one reading through codex and you know them. Well okay can't say about 1999 and before as I didn't play 40k then but since 2000 when I started 40k it's been easy enough to spot what's good and bad.
That's the whole point of it...GW makes damned sure you know what's good and what's bad. They are shouting it our with the sound of 155mm artirelly company firing at full speed In Finland kids have learned all they need to sort out best by the time of 3rd grade bar english.
If you are looking at hard to spot good stuff in list building...Look at game from some other company.
Thanks for showing you either didn't read or didn't understand what I posted. It's not about spotting what's good and bad, it's about making different choices equivalent.
You negated your whole point when you veered into hyperbolic nonsense about having to scrap your whole army concept because you couldn't spend the last 50pts or such.
Not being able to spend the last 50 points is a problem. its one of my biggest personal bugbears. Theres nothing to spend small sums of points on to make up a gap after you've built out your army with "your dudes" the way you want, and find that it fits awkwardly into a 2000 point game and theres no way to fill the gap without compromising your vision and dropping one unit to put a completely different unit in that will get you to 1990 points intstead of 1950. Maybe I'm just OCD or something, but up until I think 9th edition when they started the process of eliminating wargear points for many options, my listbuilding always got me as close to the points limit as possible, I was usually ok being within 5 points of the total if I fell short, more than that and I'd make those small tweaks to my list, often insignificant, to try to get me to 1998 or 1999 or 2000 so I wasn't leaving anything on the table. These days there are lists I have written where I come in 60, 70, 80 points under and theres no unit available to me that will fill that gap, and the enhancements available to me are too limited (don't meet specific model type prerequisites, or otherwise just don't have enough characters in the list to take more than 1) to sufficiently fill in the deficit.
Tyran wrote: ... Sponsons should come with a penalty to save and/or thoughness (or AV if you prefer that)
You are basically adding a giant weakpoint to your armor by drilling a gun hole on it.
Point costs would still be needed to differentiate bolters from plasma cannons/lascannons, but I do prefer if options come with a downside beyond just points.
I like the way you think. Problem is that this is probably a level of complexity beyond what GW wants in its rules, and it would be less complex to just... make the sponsons a points upgrade.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Pardon me for asking, but why? Why is there a difference between Tacticals being "meant" to take specials weapons and Kabalites not? Guardians without a support platform is simple - introduce a rule pertaining to the platform where it, say, prevents the unit moving. Or, have a compulsory support platform, but you choose which kind that best suits what you want.
If GW is saying "yes, this is what they're supposed to do and act like", then I don't have an issue with them making systems where that's what they have. In much the same way that Tactical Marines are supposed to have bolters, so they're armed with bolters.
Fair question. I think that removing the option to take cheaper, smaller versions of those units makes it feel like I've sorta kinda lost one of the units from my codex. Like, taking a 5-man kabalite squad with a single blaster or even just a dirt cheap naked kabalite squad for scoring purposes or to fill a transport, was a satisfying unit option that played very differently from a 10-man unit rocking multiple darklight weapons. I actually like the 10th edition version of kabalites (well, I like their sticky objectives rule), but it would have been so easy to just keep the option for a smaller, humbler squad without sticky objectives. Similarly, I used to enjoy running guardians without a platform to make them slightly cheaper and to save space in a wave serpent. Just making the platform an add-on that costs X points regardless of the gun on it would have been simple enough, so the absence of choice rankles.
Tacticals are slightly different in that, to my knowledge, it's pretty odd for a codex compliant chapter to carry around 5 bolters instead of mixing in a flamer or whatever.
Strong agreed on the removal of 5 man squads in units that could be both 5 or 10 models. Tactical Squads, Battle Sister Squads, etc - while I always took my Tacticals in 10 man units, having the option for a half-sized squad meant that I could take a small unit to fit into smaller transports or fit into my list better, if I happened to have just enough left over.
Again, I think maybe that's more a lack of 5 model units, as opposed to having special weapons in those units. Again, I want to say I'm not opposed to paying for *some* upgrades, especially ones that do drastically change the entire unit's operation (sponsons on tanks that have the option not to have one, support platforms, embedded heavy weapon teams, etc), but for things like sergeant weapons and squad special weapons, I think it's fair to assume that GW want those to be compulsory/encouraged. I would just hope that those options were all equally balanced around one another.
With the new rules, I don't feel irritated that some of my sergeants are built suboptimally. Between my fist guy and my claw guy, one of them is probably straight up more efficient against targets I'd reasonably throw them at. But I'm not irked about the fist guy or the claw guy. I'm irked about the basic bolter sergeant.
Previously, it was suboptimal to give my fist and claw guys their toys, but I felt like I was getting something in return for that suboptimal investment. (Their improved offense.) If taking those toys had been optimal, then my basic bolter sergeant would at least feel like he was saving me points that I could put to use elsewhere. In both cases, there's a silver lining to my suboptimal build. In contrast, there's no longer a silver lining. I'm just playing at a disadvantage.
I think part of it is also that building optimally now means making your squad leaders look really same-y. Like, of course all my sybarites have blast pistols and grenade launchers and sybarite weapons because why wouldn't they? Previously, the minutia of having a grenade guy vs a rifle guy could be a source of personality for the models, and you'd save a few points for having those distinctions. Now, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you wish you had a blast pistol, you've screwed yourself if you didn't take one. You can't shrug and go, "Well, I put those points towards an upgrade for my raider." You're just getting punished for fielding variety.
I think though that last paragraph could swing both ways. List building "optimally" in previous editions meant that there was no real need for certain upgrades because you were just wasting points. I mean, a plasma pistol on a Devastator Sergeant is very rarely going to be worth, well, anything. And you might well find yourself in a situation thinking "damn, if only I hadn't wasted those points on making my model look cool and have a personality, I should have just taken them with a bog standard chainsword and bolt pistol and give those points to a melta bomb, curse me for wanting my backfield sergeants to look cool".
It's just a different kind of "optimisation" now. Before, you were soft-encouraged not to bother with many upgrades. Now, you're encouraged to take them. And sure, there's a "best" option - but there was beforehand anyways. And people would spam that option if they wanted to.
The way I see it, for us who just want our sergeants to have fun unique wargear, we were always being "suboptimal".
I'm just the same - all my Guardsmen sergeants only use chainswords and laspistols (or other CCWs that fit in for the chainsword), because they're not privy to the fancy toys for the higher ranks. I prefer them that way, as opposed to having plasma pistols and power fists on every one - but the difference is that I don't care about the fact I'm not taking the "optimal" option. GW has always had options that were more optimal, even with points. I don't see why this changes anything for me, personally.
See above. Basically, the new system creates FOMO where the old system provided a silver lining for taking the suboptimal build.
I very rarely ever felt that silver lining, I'm afraid. And, as much as you say you feel disadvantaged now, I always felt disadvantaged for bringing fun weapons which rarely ever did anything different in the course of the game. Now, I finally feel like I can equip my models with the fun stuff now.
Or would you have preferred if GW said you can ONLY bring units of 3 or 6?
Weirdly enough, I think I might prefer the stricter unit size. I'm in a similar position with several of the units I own. Not to make too big a deal of it, but fretting over whether to pay 5 models worth of points for 3 models worth of value is oddly stressful and doesn't feel great. So requiring a specific unit size would at least mean I wouldn't find myself considering the larger unit size at all when I sit down to list build. But maybe I'm wrong.
Again, I think this is more a case of what people are "used" to. People have been used to the idea of taking units with one or two missing models to save on points, and perhaps this has been against what GW has intended. Whereas, with units which have had fixed sizes and so on, there's no such outcry, because people have been used to it.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: It's just a different kind of "optimisation" now. Before, you were soft-encouraged not to bother with many upgrades. Now, you're encouraged to take them. And sure, there's a "best" option - but there was beforehand anyways. And people would spam that option if they wanted to.
This is technically correct but completely missing the point.
If a laspistol is 0pts, a bolt pistol is 1pt, and a plasma pistol is 2pts, that's not good pricing and the optimization is straightforward. You'll probably see plasma pistols on most characters expected to shoot things, laspistols on characters that won't be fighting, and only WYSIWYG players will have bolt pistols.
And yet it's still better than when the laspistol, bolt pistol, and plasma pistol are all 0pts, and there is objectively no reason whatsoever not to take the plasma pistol on every model. The incentive for optimization is stronger, the actual diversity of unit compositions is reduced, and players who aren't seeking to optimize their lists are at a greater disadvantage.
You're making it sound like if points costs aren't perfect and can be optimized, then it's functionally equivalent if points just don't exist and everything is valued equally. That's a false dichotomy, and a pretty extreme one at that. Setting all costs to 0 isn't fixing the problem of points costs not accurately reflecting value, it's magnifying it.
Besides, letting your sergeants take fun toys was always possible under a points-based system if the costs were set appropriately. The problem highlighted with the Devastator plasma pistol example reflects GW's decision to give wargear items universal costs regardless of what utility they actually provide to the unit in question, but it didn't always work that way. A plasma pistol on a Dev sergeant has less utility than one on an Assault sergeant, so ought to cost less, and I'm sure you could find a non-zero cost where it's worth considering.
And you can certainly make the free-wargear system work through adjusting stats and introducing new rules to establish sidegrades, but it's an awful lot more difficult than adjusting points, and GW didn't even try. They threw the baby right out with the bathwater. For casual players who don't seek to optimize their lists it may not make a massive difference on the whole, but I've seen a tangible difference on the tabletop between armies assembled pre-10th and post-10th, and I now find listbuilding to be a frustrating and railroaded experience.
While true, the point is that when I am fielding suboptimal army lists (which I often do), I still try to maximize the potential of the army list within the theme and concept I'm building around, because I still like to win games occasionally.
If I wanted to field my lasgun infantry guard horde as I did in previous editions, I'm at a big disadvantage, because I am paying for the special and heavy weapons that I am not taking. This leaves me less points available for the heavy weapon squads and artillery units that I used to field alongside them. Before I would shave off/save points by not taking those weapon upgrades in my infantry units so I could field that horde of massed infantry while still fielding a few dozen missile launchers and lascannons via other sources - and sure it was a gakky army, but it was still fun to play. That same army is basically unfieldable now, because everything costs more than it should and I have no way of saving points from one unit to spend on another.
A simple way to fix the left over points issue is to create a small set of universal wargear. They don't even have to be particularly strong or impactful; it would just feel a lot better to get to spend those points.
5 points for +1 leadership on a unit. 10 points to reroll a single hit roll once per game. 15 points to reroll a single save roll once per game. Boom, done.
Agreed. Doesn't even need to be universal, could be a faction specific armory or whatever open to all detachments that has basic upgrades for smaller points costs, with the enhancements being the more expensive "premium" upgrades that are detachment specific.
It's also worth noting that paying points for wargear does not have to mean that taking wargear is discouraged. If you want a game where people err on the side of taking wargear over fielding 'naked' units, you can easily do that by making wargear cheap relative to the units themselves. Points are first and foremost a shaping mechanism for the designer to encourage particular army compositions, a resource for players to consider and make decisions around, not an objective measure of an item's relative value in all circumstances. It's okay if the designer puts their thumb on the scale a bit to ensure that kitted-up units are optimal over naked ones.
And even if the designer does tacitly encourage you to take wargear, having some cost means you still have to consider whether a unit will get any use out of a particular piece of gear, and armies that are built around naked squads can still have a fighting chance even if they're suboptimal.
It's at least more interesting than 'take everything, no downsides'.
You can also make wargear worth spending points on by writing rules which allow for weapons to have a measure of effectiveness that isn't "lethality". That allows for actual sidegrade options, not the "we say these are sidegrades but almost always one is objectively better" situation that we currently have.
Do you take the weapon that increases your damage to a single model, such as a plasma gun, or do you take the weapon that makes you more likely to suppress the enemy you are shooting at, reducing the game effectiveness of an entire unit?
Besides, letting your sergeants take fun toys was always possible under a points-based system if the costs were set appropriately. The problem highlighted with the Devastator plasma pistol example reflects GW's decision to give wargear items universal costs regardless of what utility they actually provide to the unit in question, but it didn't always work that way. A plasma pistol on a Dev sergeant has less utility than one on an Assault sergeant, so ought to cost less, and I'm sure you could find a non-zero cost where it's worth considering.
I'm not sure I agree. The crux of min-maxing is taking every spare point out of things so they can be spent elsewhere. Even in a 2000.0 point system, plucking every 0.2 point plasma pistol off of your Sgts and other situational bits to add up to the 3 points needed to give some character a combi weapon or such. The bigger issue though is that differentiating by points is so incredibly fragile because the value comparison is easily destroyed by any change to the army. It's not enough to be "worth your cost". You have to be the right cost to fit. This is true of any point system, but that's my issue with granularity. I think locking things to a point value you have in mind gives you a better idea of how it fits into the army and forcing you to make something worth taking at that cost results in forcing designers to provide more meaningful distinctions between similarly priced units. Also, just to be clear, I'd feel very different if Plasma pistols went on every model in the unit and not just a Sgt. Then the lesser weapon truly serves no purpose.
catbarf wrote: It's also worth noting that paying points for wargear does not have to mean that taking wargear is discouraged. If you want a game where people err on the side of taking wargear over fielding 'naked' units, you can easily do that by making wargear cheap relative to the units themselves. Points are first and foremost a shaping mechanism for the designer to encourage particular army compositions, a resource for players to consider and make decisions around, not an objective measure of an item's relative value in all circumstances. It's okay if the designer puts their thumb on the scale a bit to ensure that kitted-up units are optimal over naked ones.
And even if the designer does tacitly encourage you to take wargear, having some cost means you still have to consider whether a unit will get any use out of a particular piece of gear, and armies that are built around naked squads can still have a fighting chance even if they're suboptimal.
It's at least more interesting than 'take everything, no downsides'.
I feel like you and I have been opposite sides of this discussion in the past, if so I'm glad to see you've finally seen the light. You're spot on. Points only really exist in the context of the rules and the meta, etc. They have no intrinsic objective value of their own, and are instead set in a manner appropriate to create force compositions that fit the vision of gameplay intended by the designer (and then need to be adjusted when the playerbase inevitably skews it in directions that were never intended but are otherwise valid interpretations of how to play the game). Setting a points system that incentives tooling up is a 100% valid interpretation of how to properly use and balance a point system. There is an argument that to be had that "untooled units are underpowered because upgrades are too cheap", but if that was the intended design of the game, then thats a feature not a bug and its up to the players to either accept it and move on or the designer to cave to pressure and compromise their vision.
A Town Called Malus wrote: You can also make wargear worth spending points on by writing rules which allow for weapons to have a measure of effectiveness that isn't "lethality". That allows for actual sidegrade options, not the "we say these are sidegrades but almost always one is objectively better" situation that we currently have.
Do you take the weapon that increases your damage to a single model, such as a plasma gun, or do you take the weapon that makes you more likely to suppress the enemy you are shooting at, reducing the game effectiveness of an entire unit?
Yep, this is why I suggested previously that a unit with a bolt pistol maybe gets "always strikes first" in melee rather than a straight lethality buff as an example of something you can do in order to make it a more competitive choice vs the plasma pistol.
Another thought is that most units have some sort of a "Datasheet Ability" in their profile. Perhaps a simple fix to this whole thing is that if you designate certain upgrades (specifically those which are transparently not a sidegrade) as "special", and if you elect one or more special upgrades you lose access to that units Ability. Then it becomes a tradeoff - do I want to give this Leman Russ sponsons, OR do I want to be able to reroll my hit rolls with the basic weapons it is equipped with? You can of course math-hammer that all out and determine that you should always take the plasma cannon sponsons anyway because its better in most cases to have the extra guns than it is the reroll, or something, but its at least a tradeoff and like with any tradeoff there will always be some who will debate the optimization point and say "well, the re-roll is my solution for dealing with this specific corner case scenario that I often encounter in my local meta, so for me I'd rather have the Datasheet Ability than the extra plasma cannons".
GW still knows how to do this, as Enhancements cost points (which makes the limit of 3 really strange... the limit would make sense if they were free, but they're not).
chaos0xomega wrote: Personally fixed unit sizes are something I am 100% okay with.
...
Not being able to spend the last 50 points is a problem. its one of my biggest personal bugbears.
These two statements are in opposition to one another. Without fixed unit sizes, that leftover point problem wouldn't be a problem.
I could ditch a model or two from a unit and take something else, or maybe even use those last few points to bump a min-sized unit up a few models.
The other thing worth pointing out (again...) is that the strict unit size limitations are box based, and nothing else. It's why Spawn start in units of 2, and why Ripper "Swarms" now come in overwhelming max sized units of... 3.
Honestly I don't mind the whole limited unit sizes aspect*. That's not a huge issue to me. If anything yes it means you might get a few point gaps here and there, but if upgrades or at least weapon variety came back as a point based element that would easily balance that out without any qualms.
Honestly that change would have been welcome; it simplifies army building quite a lot and whilst it might cut down on some options; its more streamlining the army building process. Plus it in theory actually makes balancing out things like leader models a lot easier because now they will operate with fixed known sizes of units (in at least two or three unit sizes of fixed values).
*I do mind it when GW does daft things with it. Eg in AoS they use the same unit building format, but they have a strange way of dealing with banners and musicians. Instead of "1 per unit" its "1 per 10 models" with a unit being 10-30 models bought in blocks of 10. So you can end up with 3 banners and 3 musicians which just looks stupid to me (but only ever 1 leader!).
It's even worse for cavalry that come in sets of 5. Slaanesh seekers have an iconbearer; banner and muscian. Which means that at a full unit of 15 you've got:
This is why I hate it when product specifications or limitations impact gameplay.
1. Tons of options being removed from characters. This wasn't done for balance reasons. It was done because the models have one weapon combo, so that becomes the only weapon combo (at which point it ceases to be a 'combo' and simply becomes what the unit is armed with).
2. No multiples of special weapons in squads. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because that's what's on the sprue.
3. Squad sizes being fixed. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because of how they're boxed.
4. GW's "recommended" table sizes. This wasn't done because of any in-game reason (certainly none of that "average kitchen table size" nonsense people have tried to peddle). It was done because their standard box size couldn't fit 1'x1' (or 1'x2' etc.) tiles, so they just made something smaller and called that "standard" (and everyone fething bought it like GW were doing them a favour).
None of these are game-based. None of them have any place influencing the damned rules of the game.
Table size I completely blame ITC. It was specified as a minimum and then itc went and said it would be the tournament standard so it became the only standard
H.B.M.C. wrote: This is why I hate it when product specifications or limitations impact gameplay.
1. Tons of options being removed from characters. This wasn't done for balance reasons. It was done because the models have one weapon combo, so that becomes the only weapon combo (at which point it ceases to be a 'combo' and simply becomes what the unit is armed with).
2. No multiples of special weapons in squads. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because that's what's on the sprue.
3. Squad sizes being fixed. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because of how they're boxed.
4. GW's "recommended" table sizes. This wasn't done because of any in-game reason (certainly none of that "average kitchen table size" nonsense people have tried to peddle). It was done because their standard box size couldn't fit 1'x1' (or 1'x2' etc.) tiles, so they just made something smaller and called that "standard" (and everyone fething bought it like GW were doing them a favour).
None of these are game-based. None of them have any place influencing the damned rules of the game.
See I'm a bit torn
On the one hand I like the idea that what you get in the box WORKS and doens't require anything else. It's very newbie friendly and a far cry from the days when GW was even adding whole new unique models to armies and not actually adding models for years (Tyranids had 2 editions and codex and never saw any of the special character models that got added and heck we still don't have several of them even now!)
On the other I do agree that some of the limits are daft. Taking out twin devourers as an option on a hive tyrant for example. A very popular staple for probably over a decade. A very unfriendly choice for established players and honestly whilst it does mean that its an option that isn't "in the box" its not exactly hard to get a spare set if you are collecting the army itself. It's also something GW could have address with an updated model.
Now some of this I feel might be because GW is steadily moving most armies from toolbox to specialist models. Simply because armies are BIG now and many of the old toolbox models that could "do everything" are suddenly getting smothered by specialist models. I still hold out hope that the decimation of close combat options for Tyranid Warriors is because we'll see some models in that same class/segment (perhaps shrieks or winged warriors) which will fill those removed niches. Or maybe GW updated the Warrior sprue for later release and removed all the close combat weapons barring one set so that there was room for wings without adding another sprue .
But I do agree this wasn't really a balance or game choice it was something else. It's also something that in 3 years could flip head over heels and change back. 11th edition could suddenly go the other way and GW could swam and smother us with custom options.
H.B.M.C. wrote: This is why I hate it when product specifications or limitations impact gameplay.
1. Tons of options being removed from characters. This wasn't done for balance reasons. It was done because the models have one weapon combo, so that becomes the only weapon combo (at which point it ceases to be a 'combo' and simply becomes what the unit is armed with).
2. No multiples of special weapons in squads. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because that's what's on the sprue.
3. Squad sizes being fixed. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because of how they're boxed.
4. GW's "recommended" table sizes. This wasn't done because of any in-game reason (certainly none of that "average kitchen table size" nonsense people have tried to peddle). It was done because their standard box size couldn't fit 1'x1' (or 1'x2' etc.) tiles, so they just made something smaller and called that "standard" (and everyone fething bought it like GW were doing them a favour).
None of these are game-based. None of them have any place influencing the damned rules of the game.
This does bug me a lot. Partly because of its transparency, and partly because it makes rolling for the unit slower. Last edition, my kabalites generally only had to roll for 3 weapon groups: splinter rifles, blasters, and a dark lance. Now, they have to roll 5 because of the "optional" shredder and splinter cannon. Wracks are even weirder with their 4(?) different guns per 5-man squad. Not that that one impacts me given that my wrack models are all oldschool grotesques and thus aren't modeled with the guns they're paying for.
But yeah. Now when I get my kabalite models together, it's like, I don't have to field the shredder and splinter cannon and spend the time rolling separately for them, but I'm passing on free firepower if I do so.
H.B.M.C. wrote: This is why I hate it when product specifications or limitations impact gameplay.
1. Tons of options being removed from characters. This wasn't done for balance reasons. It was done because the models have one weapon combo, so that becomes the only weapon combo (at which point it ceases to be a 'combo' and simply becomes what the unit is armed with).
2. No multiples of special weapons in squads. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because that's what's on the sprue.
3. Squad sizes being fixed. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because of how they're boxed.
4. GW's "recommended" table sizes. This wasn't done because of any in-game reason (certainly none of that "average kitchen table size" nonsense people have tried to peddle). It was done because their standard box size couldn't fit 1'x1' (or 1'x2' etc.) tiles, so they just made something smaller and called that "standard" (and everyone fething bought it like GW were doing them a favour).
None of these are game-based. None of them have any place influencing the damned rules of the game.
I really feel this about the table size; I still laugh at the derps who cut their mats up. See all of this is slimy and is not narrative building. Unless the narrative you're building is going to your FLGS and buying plastic every week.
H.B.M.C. wrote: This is why I hate it when product specifications or limitations impact gameplay.
1. Tons of options being removed from characters. This wasn't done for balance reasons. It was done because the models have one weapon combo, so that becomes the only weapon combo (at which point it ceases to be a 'combo' and simply becomes what the unit is armed with).
2. No multiples of special weapons in squads. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because that's what's on the sprue.
3. Squad sizes being fixed. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because of how they're boxed.
4. GW's "recommended" table sizes. This wasn't done because of any in-game reason (certainly none of that "average kitchen table size" nonsense people have tried to peddle). It was done because their standard box size couldn't fit 1'x1' (or 1'x2' etc.) tiles, so they just made something smaller and called that "standard" (and everyone fething bought it like GW were doing them a favour).
None of these are game-based. None of them have any place influencing the damned rules of the game.
I really feel this about the table size; I still laugh at the derps who cut their mats up. See all of this is slimy and is not narrative building. Unless the narrative you're building is going to your FLGS and buying plastic every week.
I seriously think this is true. There are a few people @ FLGS whom embody this 1000%.
H.B.M.C. wrote: This is why I hate it when product specifications or limitations impact gameplay.
1. Tons of options being removed from characters. This wasn't done for balance reasons. It was done because the models have one weapon combo, so that becomes the only weapon combo (at which point it ceases to be a 'combo' and simply becomes what the unit is armed with).
2. No multiples of special weapons in squads. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because that's what's on the sprue.
3. Squad sizes being fixed. This wasn't done because of balance reasons. It was done because of how they're boxed.
4. GW's "recommended" table sizes. This wasn't done because of any in-game reason (certainly none of that "average kitchen table size" nonsense people have tried to peddle). It was done because their standard box size couldn't fit 1'x1' (or 1'x2' etc.) tiles, so they just made something smaller and called that "standard" (and everyone fething bought it like GW were doing them a favour).
None of these are game-based. None of them have any place influencing the damned rules of the game.
I agree with all of this, but I see a bit of nuance with number four.
You're right, it absolutely was done because of the box size. This is undeniable.
However, that does not mean that:
a) breaking the market for 4x6 mats
b) crowding more players into massive tournament that require less terrain per table
c) being able to easily play on a kitchen table
d) having an easy and inexpensive tool for supporting escalation play
e) justifying price hikes/ claiming value-add on box sets for the inclusion of extra cardboard
didn't also happen as secondary effects of GW making a decision based on the size of their boxes.
A and B kinda go together; C was VERY well timed given Covid and many new players who might be intimidated by the need for a large, dedicated table; D is a thing I really enjoyed about 9th, but I'd have been just as happy with 500- 1000 on 4x4, 2000 on 4x6 and 3000 on 4x8. Having a smaller table size does make it easier for casual players to play at home with friends and family members, and it encourages people to use smaller armies.
c) is wrong as neither the old nor the new size fit a standard kitchen table
standard size is 90-100cm wide with 110cm being the "special" ones so only combat patrol fits a kitchen table, and that did not change over time as also the old 36x36 or 36x48 did fit
Maybe. GW seems to be increasingly coming around to the idea of player retention, and not just recruitment which has been there modus operandi in the past. Their business model was previously built on the idea that they would draw x many new players in, and y of them would quit the hobby within z months or whatever, so they were all about trying to maximize that churn and get as many kids with mommy and daddy's money in through the door for whatever they could get, and then move on to the next. The shift to the short edition cycles and rapid fire release pace is an effort to keep players more engaged and interested and prevent them from falling out, as GW has evidently recognized that there is a way to keep customers long term and maximize their lifetime value to the company and get them spending more, etc. I think to some extent though they have pushed it too far to the point that I think they are alienating a growing number of customers because the pace of their release schedule and edition churn is unsustainable.
my impression here is that the 3 year cycle and burning down the edition every 6 years is what they think is Z
like 3-6 years is what to expect from people to stay and spend a lot of money while starting over fresh again without need to care about what once was is easier and cheaper while at the same time they can keep the people engaged by "we get the problems and this time we solve them" as the majority does not even know that it is the same all over again
in addition the majority of the internet community does not play at all are collectors with the goal to have an army on the shelf were most of the problems the gamers have do not exist (the same 5 dynamic models all over again and each unit costing 50€ do not matter if you buy each unit only once and 2 units per year to slowly grow and paint an army)
so the long term customers are kept by ever releasing new models for the armies that sell to keep them collecting, hence re-stock of old models do not matter because the collectors just buy the new stuff
while the players won't stay for more than 2 editions in a row and might come back 1-2 editions later to a brand new game were all the problems they remember are gone
On the one hand I like the idea that what you get in the box WORKS and doens't require anything else. It's very newbie friendly and a far cry from the days when GW was even adding whole new unique models to armies and not actually adding models for years (Tyranids had 2 editions and codex and never saw any of the special character models that got added and heck we still don't have several of them even now!)
On the other I do agree that some of the limits are daft. Taking out twin devourers as an option on a hive tyrant for example. A very popular staple for probably over a decade. A very unfriendly choice for established players and honestly whilst it does mean that its an option that isn't "in the box" its not exactly hard to get a spare set if you are collecting the army itself. It's also something GW could have address with an updated model.
This is my take on things. The Deathwatch Vet kit has always been a standout to me. When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: It's just a different kind of "optimisation" now. Before, you were soft-encouraged not to bother with many upgrades. Now, you're encouraged to take them. And sure, there's a "best" option - but there was beforehand anyways. And people would spam that option if they wanted to.
This is technically correct but completely missing the point.
If a laspistol is 0pts, a bolt pistol is 1pt, and a plasma pistol is 2pts, that's not good pricing and the optimization is straightforward. You'll probably see plasma pistols on most characters expected to shoot things, laspistols on characters that won't be fighting, and only WYSIWYG players will have bolt pistols.
And yet it's still better than when the laspistol, bolt pistol, and plasma pistol are all 0pts, and there is objectively no reason whatsoever not to take the plasma pistol on every model. The incentive for optimization is stronger, the actual diversity of unit compositions is reduced, and players who aren't seeking to optimize their lists are at a greater disadvantage.
You're making it sound like if points costs aren't perfect and can be optimized, then it's functionally equivalent if points just don't exist and everything is valued equally. That's a false dichotomy, and a pretty extreme one at that. Setting all costs to 0 isn't fixing the problem of points costs not accurately reflecting value, it's magnifying it.
Besides, letting your sergeants take fun toys was always possible under a points-based system if the costs were set appropriately. The problem highlighted with the Devastator plasma pistol example reflects GW's decision to give wargear items universal costs regardless of what utility they actually provide to the unit in question, but it didn't always work that way. A plasma pistol on a Dev sergeant has less utility than one on an Assault sergeant, so ought to cost less, and I'm sure you could find a non-zero cost where it's worth considering.
And you can certainly make the free-wargear system work through adjusting stats and introducing new rules to establish sidegrades, but it's an awful lot more difficult than adjusting points, and GW didn't even try. They threw the baby right out with the bathwater. For casual players who don't seek to optimize their lists it may not make a massive difference on the whole, but I've seen a tangible difference on the tabletop between armies assembled pre-10th and post-10th, and I now find listbuilding to be a frustrating and railroaded experience.
I know I've tooted this horn many times, but this is precisely why I hated the transition from 8th to 9th.
Whatever it's other faults, 8th worked hard to give weapons and upgrades appropriate costs. While it probably didn't succeed with every single one (meltas remained something of an outlier) it made huge strides in terms of making a lot of different weapons and upgrades desirable. For example, Plasmaguns were 7pts on BS4+ guardsmen and 14pts on BS3+ guardsmen. Meanwhile, Grenade Launchers were just 3pts. While relatively weak, the marked difference in cost compared with the superior Plasmagun made them quite attractive - especially on BS3+ models. Similarly, Power Swords and Power Fists at (iIRC) 3pts and 6pts, respectively meant that you could justify them on Officers, Commissars etc. without feeling like you were being short-changed.
And then 9th came and threw all of that progress in the bin without a second thought. We were right back to weapons costing the exact same but one being objectively better. We were back to 40pt IG officers paying exactly as much for a Power Sword/Fist as a SM Captain with far better stats and combat abilities.
It just seemed such a complete waste. It's one thing to not bother trying to balance things but it's entirely another when you've already done the work and have the data, only to throw it all away and start from scratch regardless.
Sadly that's GW rules writing. I suspect even skilled writers of rules are likely depressed with the fact that, certainly for the main core games; no matter how much hard work they pour into the rules - they will get thrown out the window in 3 years time.
And not even with logical things but just different things and agendas and likely with a manger or two forcing a few things in (I could very well see the forced use of power level for 10th being a manager drive choice).
Honestly not only do I feel that some writers of rules at GW are too casual in their approach to the game to make good rules for a strong format; but GW itself at the management level doesn't setup their rules system for success. I suspect if editions were say 5 years apart and if edition changes were more refinements and cleaning up changes and printing updated content reflecting 5 years of updates and addendums - then at the very least we'd see progress and it would foster an atmosphere where quality does get to the rise to the top and where it can make improvements and respond to feedback in the long not just short term.
But GW is wedded to the edition cycle and despite the fact that the models are clearly what drives the BIG sales volume of new- editions and such; GW doesn't seem able to shed this need to reprint everything on a 3 year cycle for easy profits.
Overread wrote: Sadly that's GW rules writing. I suspect even skilled writers of rules are likely depressed with the fact that, certainly for the main core games; no matter how much hard work they pour into the rules - they will get thrown out the window in 3 years time.
And not even with logical things but just different things and agendas and likely with a manger or two forcing a few things in (I could very well see the forced use of power level for 10th being a manager drive choice).
Honestly not only do I feel that some writers of rules at GW are too casual in their approach to the game to make good rules for a strong format; but GW itself at the management level doesn't setup their rules system for success. I suspect if editions were say 5 years apart and if edition changes were more refinements and cleaning up changes and printing updated content reflecting 5 years of updates and addendums - then at the very least we'd see progress and it would foster an atmosphere where quality does get to the rise to the top and where it can make improvements and respond to feedback in the long not just short term.
But GW is wedded to the edition cycle and despite the fact that the models are clearly what drives the BIG sales volume of new- editions and such; GW doesn't seem able to shed this need to reprint everything on a 3 year cycle for easy profits.
Honestly, there is one advantage to the rapid fire pace of the release cycle - not to GW but to everyone else - rules experimentation. Theyve tried some interesting mechanical concepts with the rules over the past 3 editions or so, especially in 10th with the keywording being applied to weapons such as anti-, etc. If they keep doing stuff like that it will more adequately prime the market to accept a wider variety of rules styles and mechanical systems, while also providing amateur designers more and more inspiration to work with and more seasoned designers a wider variety of free market research that they can observe and parse to inform their own designs, etc. I expect in 10 years time we will be seeing OPR esque not-40k rulesets that are based on refinements to 10th edition style mechanics and stuff like that.
Honestly, there is one advantage to the rapid fire pace of the release cycle - not to GW but to everyone else - rules experimentation. Theyve tried some interesting mechanical concepts with the rules over the past 3 editions or so, especially in 10th with the keywording being applied to weapons such as anti-, etc. If they keep doing stuff like that it will more adequately prime the market to accept a wider variety of rules styles and mechanical systems, while also providing amateur designers more and more inspiration to work with and more seasoned designers a wider variety of free market research that they can observe and parse to inform their own designs, etc. I expect in 10 years time we will be seeing OPR esque not-40k rulesets that are based on refinements to 10th edition style mechanics and stuff like that.
That's true. I'm generally on board with GW trying new things out. It's just frustrating when they do get the game to a pretty good place but then botch it tossing out elements that were working. Or when a new edition drops and you see that they're still refusing to experiment with things a lot of us are calling for (alternating activations).
A new edition, used to be an event, something to get excited about. If they are going to continue this rate of release (for those who play both big systems it's a new edition every year and a half) I can definitely see them having to deal with a large amount of dropout in the near future.
Note I am not predicting The Death Of GWTM but I do think they may have to rethink this strategy in the not so distant future.
I think someone in the higher management had the idea to copy what video games do and they see edition changes as essentially a sequel and ultimately it isn't a bad idea within limit but they seem to be taking it way to far imo. Their are notable differences between video gaming and wargaming. Even the books for a new edition will come to more than a new AAA game right and that isn't even taking into consideration any new models.
Honestly, there is one advantage to the rapid fire pace of the release cycle - not to GW but to everyone else - rules experimentation. Theyve tried some interesting mechanical concepts with the rules over the past 3 editions or so, especially in 10th with the keywording being applied to weapons such as anti-, etc. If they keep doing stuff like that it will more adequately prime the market to accept a wider variety of rules styles and mechanical systems, while also providing amateur designers more and more inspiration to work with and more seasoned designers a wider variety of free market research that they can observe and parse to inform their own designs, etc. I expect in 10 years time we will be seeing OPR esque not-40k rulesets that are based on refinements to 10th edition style mechanics and stuff like that.
but this is not something new nor are there really any new mechanics in the GW systems
at least I have not seen anything in the past Edition that was not somehow already there before in a lesser known or older rules system
and given that OPR was there before 8th, it is more likely that we see 40k becoming more like OPR than OPR copy their mechanics back (and a lot of things in 8th were pretty close to some of the alternative SciFi games that developed during 7th out there)
new things GW try are only new to the GW bubble not in general and the actual new ideas are often coming from those who were never related to GW at all
Degrading profiles, the whole anti/devastating/lethal/critical hit/wound system, the weird crossfire mechanics GSC had last edition and a handful of other things are either fairly unique mechanics (or implementations of them) or only seen in more obscure and niche titles away from mass market, etc.
PenitentJake wrote: C was VERY well timed given Covid and many new players who might be intimidated by the need for a large, dedicated table; .... Having a smaller table size does make it easier for casual players to play at home with friends and family members, and it encourages people to use smaller armies.
The thing is, that was already happening with 4x6 recommended tables anyway. Those who had access to a 4x6 board used it, and everyone else played on their kitchen table. Whenever I've played on a smaller table over the years, we've just shrunk the deployment zones so that the engagement area remains the same, and I've been doing that quite happily for 20 years now. Nobody ever needed an official stamp to play on whatever table they have access to.
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Dai wrote: A new edition, used to be an event, something to get excited about. If they are going to continue this rate of release (for those who play both big systems it's a new edition every year and a half) I can definitely see them having to deal with a large amount of dropout in the near future.
Honestly, I don't know that edition churn is adding that much to the dropout rate at all. We had store staff a decade or more ago saying that the vast majority of customers don't stick with it for more than 5 years. It would be difficult without extensive market research to pin down whether that's due to people not wanting to buy new rules, or simply due to them getting bored with the game and moving on.
Hopefully that thing is delayed because they're making an extra sprue with all the weapons they remov... oh wait the rules only let it have a Storm Bolter and Sword...
VladimirHerzog wrote: oh ok, when you said options you meant an almost RPG-like amount of them, gotcha.
I'm not sure why you'd think that, given that that's not a normal thing in war games. Not even in older editions of 40k, except for the one edition where it was basically an RPG.
PenitentJake wrote: C was VERY well timed given Covid and many new players who might be intimidated by the need for a large, dedicated table; .... Having a smaller table size does make it easier for casual players to play at home with friends and family members, and it encourages people to use smaller armies.
The thing is, that was already happening with 4x6 recommended tables anyway. Those who had access to a 4x6 board used it, and everyone else played on their kitchen table. Whenever I've played on a smaller table over the years, we've just shrunk the deployment zones so that the engagement area remains the same, and I've been doing that quite happily for 20 years now. Nobody ever needed an official stamp to play on whatever table they have access to.
This is fair, and absolutely true, but once again, nuance:
It's been your experience, and it's been mine, and I'd estimate it's been the experience of many who post on Dakka.
But the person whose experience I'm writing about in that post is the family with 2-3 kids who had to make a decision about something to buy for their kids to keep them from going crazy during Covid. They're going to make the decision based on whether or not they perceive the game is stimulating for the kids, whether it encourages literacy and numeracy skills, whether or not it fits into their budget and lifestyle- including space.
They will not know there have been other editions. They will not know that the current edition has a max 3-year lifespan. Even if they did, they wouldn't understand viscerally what that means.
A game that is marketed as having a kitchen table mode as a core feature of the game will appeal to this customer. A game that is marketed exclusively as a 2k army standard on a purpose built 4x6 game table is less likely to do so. This customer wants kitchen table out of the box. They don't want to adapt a 4x6 to kitchen table size.
Obviously, players who care enough to post on forums will be comfortable making those adaptations- that's just not who I was writing about.
40K has never been marketed as a 2K standard army on a 4x6 table.
It's marketed as a miniatures game in which you can collect what you want, and those editions that mentioned the size of the table at all have generally also said that you can play on smaller or larger surfaces.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Have you played warcry? Because the armies and models aren't set.
Yes. Some of them have the option of two different weapons on the sprue. It still ain't Necromunda. It's what GW wishes Necromunda was though.
What a world it would be, then, if GW only had the power to make its own wishes come true. If only they could find the one in charge of Necromunda, hidden away as they are, and force them to enact the change they want.
Rihgu wrote: What a world it would be, then, if GW only had the power to make its own wishes come true. If only they could find the one in charge of Necromunda, hidden away as they are, and force them to enact the change they want.
And watch the Necromunda player base riot as their game is stripped down to nothing? No. Game Workshop are stupid, but they're not that stupid.
Changes would be incremental, not seismic. Look at Blood Bowl. That game was in the hands of the community. They didn't need GW for anything, and hadn't for literal decades. So what did GW do? Well they added a single new stat to the rules. Now none of the previous rules were compatible with the current rules, everything new was in their new format, and once again GW was the one in command of the game, rather than the community. It was a simple change, but it worked.
Necromunda wouldn't become Warcry or Combat Patrol overnight, much like First Born weren't dumped the moment Primaris Marines came onto the stage. These things take time.
Rihgu wrote: What a world it would be, then, if GW only had the power to make its own wishes come true. If only they could find the one in charge of Necromunda, hidden away as they are, and force them to enact the change they want.
And watch the Necromunda player base riot as their game is stripped down to nothing? No. Game Workshop are stupid, but they're not that stupid.
Changes would be incremental, not seismic. Look at Blood Bowl. That game was in the hands of the community. They didn't need GW for anything, and hadn't for literal decades. So what did GW do? Well they added a single new stat to the rules. Now none of the previous rules were compatible with the current rules, everything new was in their new format, and once again GW was the one in command of the game, rather than the community. It was a simple change, but it worked.
Question about BB: So if "the community" was happily doing thier own thing, and didn't need GW, why didn't they just keep on doing thier own thing?
Because people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom...
I somewhat suspect that you knew that already ccs, and were going for a "gotcha!". But look at the tournament scene. They'll drop whatever the current hotness is for the new hotness the moment GW gives Malibu Stacy an official new hat.
A problem is that the newer players that come from the new GW version will want to play that so to grow rather than split the community some of the people who would prefer fanmade or older versions transition over to the new official version.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Because people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom...
I somewhat suspect that you knew that already ccs, and were going for a "gotcha!". But look at the tournament scene. They'll drop whatever the current hotness is for the new hotness the moment GW gives Malibu Stacy an official new hat.
So apparently the community DID need/want something from GW....
And they were really just treading water while waiting on new content - be it revised rules, new models, increased interest from potential BB players due to the game being back on shelves, etc.
Anyways I asked because you seem oddly upset that GW, once again, made a new version of one of thier games. (It IS what they do you know.) And that people responded positively to them doing so.
Why are you holding that against them?
Are you going to be cranky when the day comes that BFG, Man-O-War, or something gets a refresh?
BTW, your claim that BB was unsupported & left in the hands of the fans for decades is incorrect. Looking it up?
The longest stretch looks to have been 7 years (2009-2016) when annual pdf update support for 4th ed was ended.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Because people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom...
I somewhat suspect that you knew that already ccs, and were going for a "gotcha!". But look at the tournament scene. They'll drop whatever the current hotness is for the new hotness the moment GW gives Malibu Stacy an official new hat.
So apparently the community DID need/want something from GW....
And they were really just treading water while waiting on new content - be it revised rules, new models, increased interest from potential BB players due to the game being back on shelves, etc.
Anyways I asked because you seem oddly upset that GW, once again, made a new version of one of thier games. (It IS what they do you know.) And that people responded positively to them doing so.
Why are you holding that against them?
Are you going to be cranky when the day comes that BFG, Man-O-War, or something gets a refresh?
BTW, your claim that BB was unsupported & left in the hands of the fans for decades is incorrect. Looking it up?
The longest stretch looks to have been 7 years (2009-2016) when annual pdf update support for 4th ed was ended.
Weren't the PDF's essentially a collab between Rick Priestly and fans? A real example of how Games Workshop could do things right imo.
LunarSol wrote: This is my take on things. The Deathwatch Vet kit has always been a standout to me. When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.
That's an interesting example - because storm bolters were Terminator weapons. They were always terminator weapons. There was a load of fluff as to why.
Deathwatch should never have got stormbolters as their standard submachine gun. Their thing was specialty ammo out of bolters, setting them apart from other marines. Giving them stormbolters ruined that somewhat. And then you have the model issue as well.
I was gung-ho on 9th ed Deathwatch, but without combat squadding and the capacity to take 5 of the alternate troops (ie. five termies, or jump troops or bikes in a Proteus team), I haven't given the index a second glance.
If you want me to put a bike or two into an infantry unit so that it can't move like a bike, or three jump troops, so that they can neither jump nor deepstrike, you've got another thing coming.
If I could take five bikes and combat squad, that gives me an actual reason to take bikes: they get to behave LIKE BIKES.
If I can't, there's no point to a Kill Team, and if there's no point to a Kill Team, there's no point to Deathwatch.
Indomitor and Spectrus KT's make more sense because the auxiliary types for those teams aren't as restricted by unit coherency. Sure, Inceptors might be restricted in the same way as Jump troops, but I think Inceptors are some of the worst models GW has ever made, and I wouldn't field them even if their rules were game breaking, their fluff was worthy of a Hugo award and you paid me to play them- so it's a moot point for me.
chaos0xomega wrote: or only seen in more obscure and niche titles away from mass market, etc.
everything except 40k is away from the mass market
but this does not change that GW was not innovative for a decade now but just combining random stuff from other (with the result that more often than not the combination does not work, or they don't understand why the rules were there in the original)
and the whole anti/devastating/lethal/critical hit/wound system is GW finally catching up with the 90ies, and with that speed 40k will use alternate unit activation in 2050 and than people will claim that GW invented these and it is something totally new
LunarSol wrote: When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.
LunarSol wrote: When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.
I mean, you didn't have to. You chose to.
You kinda did - the game was (vaguely) balanced for that sort of take the optimal option stuff. If you didn't you just got used to losing a bunch. My opponents back then were happy to accept my pre plastic kit deathwatch had stormbolters to keep the balance up, but no everyone would.
LunarSol wrote: When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.
I mean, you didn't have to. You chose to.
Exactly. I did the same thing, but fully aware the likelihood was GW would swing the pendulum back towards regular bolters, or some other combo at some point. If you chase the meta at any point you need to be prepared to have your choices reduced in effectiveness later. Of course, it would be nice if GW could find a middle ground between "this is currently broken-good" and "this now sucks" so all options were roughly equivalent, but it's a little disingenuous to say you had to find a bunch of storm bolters for your Deathwatch.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Because people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom...
I somewhat suspect that you knew that already ccs, and were going for a "gotcha!". But look at the tournament scene. They'll drop whatever the current hotness is for the new hotness the moment GW gives Malibu Stacy an official new hat.
So apparently the community DID need/want something from GW....
And they were really just treading water while waiting on new content - be it revised rules, new models, increased interest from potential BB players due to the game being back on shelves, etc.
Anyways I asked because you seem oddly upset that GW, once again, made a new version of one of thier games. (It IS what they do you know.) And that people responded positively to them doing so.
Why are you holding that against them?
Are you going to be cranky when the day comes that BFG, Man-O-War, or something gets a refresh?
BTW, your claim that BB was unsupported & left in the hands of the fans for decades is incorrect. Looking it up?
The longest stretch looks to have been 7 years (2009-2016) when annual pdf update support for 4th ed was ended.
No they weren't treading water, they weren't waiting for anything. But the owner of the game coming back into the scene throwing things around makes it more visible and disrupts the status quo. It's impossible for people to maintain fan communities in the face of that.
The options are, go extinct as the higher visibility of GW's new version directs all new blood, or step back into the GW ecosystem.
This isn't a positive outcome for the fan community. It's the equivalent of the End Times throwing out the old player's game and replacing it with a new one.
If GW had never come in with a new one, the fan community would have continued to thrive. But GW doesn't want that, it wants to control the ecosystem and player spending and this is how they do it. No fan community can compete with that, regardless of the quality of their offering.
On the topic of weapon options and 10e's choices regarding them, I feel like most of the problem is GW implemented this shift in the most ass backwards, dumbass manner imaginable compared to other wargames. Let's just look at the basic Tactical Marine squad for example here, in terms of weapons they have had over the years.
Spoiler:
Boltgun
Bolt Pistol
CCW Chainsword
Lightning claw
Power axe
Power fist
Power maul
Power sword
Thunder hammer
Grav Pistol
Plasma Pistol
Grav-cannon
Heavy bolter
Missile launcher
Multi-melta
Plasma cannon
Flamer
Grav-gun
Meltagun
Plasma gun
Combi-flamer
Combi-grav
Combi-melta
Combi-plasma
Storm bolter
Well that is an awful lot. Now we could be incredibly stupid and declare some of these weapons to be illegal, unsupported, or otherwise restrict what you can model. Or, using two braincells and trying to make a functioning wargame... what is the purpose of grav and plasma in the first place, or heavy bolters for that matter? You know what would trim down options, limit bloat, while maintaining modelling support and purposes for all of these weapons? Consolidate them into weapon roles with THOSE getting the rules. Why on earth are different models of bolters individually statted? They, Gauss Flayers, and any other gun punchier than small arms but not quite an HMG role should just get called a 'heavy small arms' weapon and have rules slapped on for that as a USR, no different than how all great weapons are great weapons in WHFB.
Thus you'd have a sensible trend of retaining options and support for everything, but removing the sheer minutia of largely meaningless details without quite doing something stupid like all combi weapons just critting on a 6 or something. Instead your Combi Plasma would just be AHI - 'Anti Heavy Infantry' weapon, or your Meltagun and Lascannon both being 'Anti Armor Armor Piercing' or something along those lines, with distinction and point cost based on the range difference of short and long. In addition to USR weapons you can also just have USR's for models that affect their weapons, such as Space Marines giving all heavy small arms rapid fire 1 or the like. Y'know, sensible rules.
That's an option certainly. The other one would have worked better before they switched to single-pose models for so much of the range... but releasing the troops as a basic set, and selling a sprue of upgrade weapons in a similar way to what they did for Necromunda, would have made it easier to keep all of the options accessible without having to cram 47 different weapons into each marine squad box.
When I started out, it was taken for granted that some options needed to be converted or built from scratch. Over the years, that's shifted to a desire to have everything usable out of the box to make things easier for newcomers or those who don't want to convert. And that's fine... but should have been accompanied by GW finding ways to make those options available to players rather than removing them and inconveniencing the players already using them.
If anything being a cash-cow means that weapon packs could be very profitable! More so than weapon packs for Necromunda (which have already made it into being made in plastic not just resin!)
I'm actually surprised that over the years GW has never done an upgrade/addon/weapon/doodads expansion set for various factions. The absolute perfect way to customise bases and models even without considering tactical advantages.
I think the only time I recall them doing it was a bizzar expansion for 4 or 5 factions where each faction got 1 or 2 bits for a vehicle. I think it was for a narrative campaign GW were running, but even so it basically meant you paid for a full sprue where most people would have got 1 or 2 parts for the army they collected and a bunch of bits for other armies that they likely did not collect unless they were a massive player and collector.
Oh wait except for mountains of marine shoulder pads. GW sells those as upgrade parts, but not a whole lot else. Noise marines perhaps as upgrade parts, but those are super old and very likely to be retired as soon as GW does a big update for the Marine and Mortal followers of Slaanesh
H.B.M.C. wrote: I mean they're doing it for HH. What's stopping that from being done in 40k?
The models. 40k is moving towards completely monopose, where having a universal upgrade for all models isn't possible because even the weapon arms are highly specific to each model. It's a stupid reason, because it's a self-inflicted wound form GW, but that's the main difference between 40k and HH models.
Overread wrote: If anything being a cash-cow means that weapon packs could be very profitable! More so than weapon packs for Necromunda (which have already made it into being made in plastic not just resin!)
I'm actually surprised that over the years GW has never done an upgrade/addon/weapon/doodads expansion set for various factions. The absolute perfect way to customise bases and models even without considering tactical advantages.
I think the only time I recall them doing it was a bizzar expansion for 4 or 5 factions where each faction got 1 or 2 bits for a vehicle. I think it was for a narrative campaign GW were running, but even so it basically meant you paid for a full sprue where most people would have got 1 or 2 parts for the army they collected and a bunch of bits for other armies that they likely did not collect unless they were a massive player and collector.
Oh wait except for mountains of marine shoulder pads. GW sells those as upgrade parts, but not a whole lot else. Noise marines perhaps as upgrade parts, but those are super old and very likely to be retired as soon as GW does a big update for the Marine and Mortal followers of Slaanesh
Nooooooo
Just because it "would sell" doesn't mean that it'd make enough money opportunity cost wise. Cash cow means that you MILK the product / IP, and invest the bare minimum for maximum profit. Believe me but someone in accounting did the numbers and that is what is dictating if you get weapons access from how the sprues are designed to how many kits there are. New kit = expensive investment. Cash cow status means less likely that that happens.
Also someone in accounting did the numbers for what kodos called the z, or average player retention and decided that every 3 years we need a new edition.
Peachy had an interesting series of interview with a guy that was higher up in GW sales, and the dude said that if something doesn't generate at least 100k gain for GW, then GW is not going to be interested in the thing. And that goes for everything, models , books, tools etc.
H.B.M.C. wrote: And yet they made plastic weapon packs for Necromunda, a market far smaller than Space Marines.
And I'd also argue one that is far more used to using proxies.
The whole 100K thing doesn't sound too daft for a company of GW's size and market reach. I do wonder though if that came from the Kirby days. They gave a distinct impression that only high-selling items ever got attention. Current GW seems to be a touch more willing to invest into other lines and spread itself out a bit more. Without knowing individual model sales rates (which I don't think even get reported on much in the shareholder meetings barring one or two high fliers); its hard to know if that 100K value would have been an old value or a modern one.
Gw manufacturing capacity can only do so much. Basically, there are only so many sprues they csn make in a year. They want to sell as much of that for aa much as possible and leave as little lying around as possible.
Wouldn't suprise me in the least if they've done the math/statistics on thst manufacturing capacity/sales and figured the most costeffective/profitable compromise of cash cow stuff (ie MARINES!!!!!) and other niche lines that they have. I bet they wouldn't look at a project of its not estimated to return x amount, even if said project would be a lucrative goldmine in comparison for any other company.
(Like, marines are their big seller. But they can't just sell marine stuff. People will get bored, if for no other reasons. People want a break from marines. That's why we hsve other factions. And why other games exist if we need a break from 40k(plus, you know, deny the competitors a niche!). But yoy don't just sell necromunda and dark.eldar sprues for a year because they simply don't have the sellability of marines. Therefore the whole gig will be finding the right ratio of everything to ship out the door. And like I said, I bet they've hired a couple of statistician consultants to come in and do the math for them so they can maximise their value.
H.B.M.C. wrote: And yet they made plastic weapon packs for Necromunda, a market far smaller than Space Marines.
remember back in the day when GW had an official bits ordering service, and then when they took it away the war store broke down official kits into bits for the same purpose and GW sent him a cease and desist notice? there was a time where the gaming/hobby side was important to GW not just buy a separate kit to get primaris LT number 6s weapon loadout.
H.B.M.C. wrote: And yet they made plastic weapon packs for Necromunda, a market far smaller than Space Marines.
remember back in the day when GW had an official bits ordering service, and then when they took it away the war store broke down official kits into bits for the same purpose and GW sent him a cease and desist notice? there was a time where the gaming/hobby side was important to GW not just buy a separate kit to get primaris LT number 6s weapon loadout.
I really loved those days, back when it felt like gw was just a couple of nerds in an attic that were more passionate about the games they were making than they were about optimizing profit margins. Not that everything was perfect then (my glasses aren't that rose-tinted), but the feel of it was awesome.
Not Online!!! wrote: Bigger community,bad ip law experience and it's status as cashcow.
I don't see how any of those prevent 40k weapon packs for Marines.
I think in GWs view that's exactly what's happening with the Kill Team kits right now. You can have CSM without upgrade sprue, you can have them with a generic upgrade sprue and a Nightlords upgrade sprue is coming as well.
It's not a very customer friendly way of doing it and of course It's very unpredictable who is getting those sprues, but in the end the Nightlords kill Team is "40k weapon upgrades pack in 2023", seen from the eyes of GW management.
LunarSol wrote: When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.
I mean, you didn't have to. You chose to.
You kinda did - the game was (vaguely) balanced for that sort of take the optimal option stuff. If you didn't you just got used to losing a bunch. My opponents back then were happy to accept my pre plastic kit deathwatch had stormbolters to keep the balance up, but no everyone would.
That's a balance issue, specifically a failure to adequately design the game to support the kits. I mean, if people buy the kits and then have to cobble together bits from other units to make it functional in-game, then the designers have really screwed up.
And if you find that players are scrounging special weapons to fully equip a squad, and your options are:
1. Make the loadouts provided in the box useful and desirable
2. Just forbid players from using anything else
It seems pretty short-sighted to opt for 2.
I can think of a number of options over the years that weren't included in kits but also weren't necessary to field the unit. It wasn't hurting anyone that IG Veterans could take shotguns but no bits were provided, or that Termagants got legacy rules for spike rifles and stranglewebs. Someone up for a conversion could use those rules, or you could just field the unit with the bits provided in the standard kits. Nobody was missing out- unless, I guess, the mere existence of options that weren't exercisable out of the box was offensive on principle.
I had my disappointment from 10th edition, but I've spent a long time, trying to figure out the exact reasons of my frustrations and this thread helped me with realizations of my problems. I've decided to also repost my thoughts here, as it may help somebody to understand their frustrations as well.
Spoiler:
So, many people have been disappointed with 10th edition, including myself. I know, there have already been enough boring rant posts, but here is the catch: I had no idea why I was dissatisfied with 10th!
Before going into details, a couple of quick disclaimers:
Firstly, if you and your group are enjoying your experience with the current edition of 40k, good for you. I am not here to tell you that you're doing anything wrong.
Secondly, not my first language. Terribly sorry for any made mistakes, hope I could bring my thoughts clearly enough.
I'm not the old guard of 40k, but I've been actively playing the beginning of 7th edition, around 2015, so, I guess, I have enough experience to discuss this game. Over the years, I've generally been positive about 40k, I've enjoyed my time in 7th (despite it's being quite... bizarre), and always preferred narrative games, only stopping playing at the end of 9th, where I decided to take a break after our campaign ended, rules got bloated, and, you know, the whole real world tried to collapse.
So, the new edition came by, and I've rushed to test it. I had a couple of games and, to my surprise, it felt extremely off! Not because of balance issues or anything, I never cared about this stuff much, but something was definitely wrong with the game. I've been struggling to point the exact reason, so, okay, I though, it's a start of the edition, just wait for the first patches and releases, game would fix itself. And after a couple of months, I tried again and had the same results: the gameplay itself was fine, but playing it wasn't fun at all.
And then I started to think, what could cause such reactions. On paper, it should be the best edition ever, and I really want to have fun with it. But why did I find previous editions to be enjoyable, even the 7th, and not the 10th? No doubt, there was a problem in the game itself, in some aspect, that could be fixed. But the more I thought about possible core problems of 10th, the less they made sense! So, let's dive into them together.
"Obvious" problems of 10th edition:
Balance issues?
My main armies are three eldar factions, and I'm a narrative player. I have never been offended by the balance state of this game, so not my case. Next.
Gameplay issues?
There goes all the complaints about battle-shock being redundant, fly being broken, overwatch, etc. Nothing that can't be ignored, or fixed with simple home rules and it was much worse before. Stop whining about it. Next.
Missing loadout options, strict unit sizes and units moving to Legends?
Probably a painful topic for somebody, but, again, Craftworld's eldar never had wargear loadouts in the first place, and 90% of my stuff made into the index, so I'm also good here. Next.
Missions?
We literally now have the best version of mission deck ever. Next.
List building and wargear costs?
Here is at least something. Yes, I deeply dislike the current list building part of the game. It's unengaging, and shallow, but there is a small issue. The "list building" part of the game is not the "gameplay" I disliked, and, to be honest, you can play with mostly the same rosters as before, so, despite, in my opinion, being the weakest part of this edition, list building is not the issue, that drove me away. Next.
Removal of psychic phase?
Mages were an important part of my army, so you would think the loss of the phase, dedicated solely to my shenanigans, would hurt. But no, it's a big loss, but, at the end of the day, it's not that important. We lost many cool rules moving from 7th to 8th edition, and I still find 8th the most fun for me. You can have a cool game even without deep magic systems.
Factions losing their identity?
Okay, this may be it. Fluff is important to me, and factions being shallow and bland are not something I want to see. And, indeed, while playing 10th edition, I never felt like I was leading a "Eldar warhost of Ulthwe", but more like some random units from my shelf I've put together for a 2000-point list. And I cannot even point on indexes of 8th; they were also lacking, in comparison to the datasheets we've got in 9th, but even playing them, I had this deep inexplicable feeling of connection to my faction*.* But why? Is it because of a number of special rules, unique to this faction, and their absence from 10th? Maybe it's about characters and how they are more shallow and give less abilities to your army?
Let's look at one example: Chaos space marines, our favorite boys, that stayed almost the same for many, many editions. Currently, they have only one special rule, on top of the Dark pacts, it's the Veterans of the Long War, giving them some re-rolls in melee. Not very imaginative, right? Especially, comparing it to the long list of cool marines-only abilities in 9th.
But what if we venture back in time even more? How cool they were in 6th/7th? And the cool special rules they had are... None. Squad sergeant could have blessings, but for marines themselves? Nothing. All right, well, what about Chaos Lord? What cool interaction did he have with his squad? Surely, it's more interesting, than a free stratagem, that we have now?
He granted his squad a Fearless rule.
I have nothing to add there, it's not the lack of rules either, let's move on.
Nostalgia?
This is my last shot. I really don't have any other ideas, other than I had succumbed to the "it was better before" way of thoughts. At this point, I stumbled on a Horus Heresy rulebook, which I generally liked a lot, and, finally, had my revelation. It has one important rule, I want to quote here:
The Spirit of the game
(HH) may be somewhat different to any other game you have played. Above all, it's important to remember that the rules are just the framework to support an enjoyable game. Whether a battle ends in victory or defeat, your goal should always be to enjoy the game. What's more, (HH) calls on a lot from you, the player. Your responsibility isn't just to follow the rules, it's to add your own ideas, drama and creativity to the game. Much of the appeal of this game lies in the freedom and open-endedness this allows; it is in this spirit that the rules have been written.
The Spirit of MY game
With a sudden realization, I understood, that my problems with 10th lies not in the edition itself, which is fine on its own, but within myself, it was about my expectations, about asking the game to be something it isn’t. I was used to Warhammer, having it’s "spirit" as described above, but 10th edition is not that. It designed differently, with different goals in mind. It's not about freedom and open-endedness, as rules are extremely restrictive and have only one correct way to be interpreted. It does not burden players with the responsibility to add drama and creativity, the game provides everything you need, to have the intended player experience.
And 10th edition is not a framework to support your game. It's the "game" itself, with built-in ways to play and goals to achieve. It might be easier to understand, if you're used to playing tabletop RPGs, like DnD, where the rules are your instruments, and serve as a way to create your own goals and scenarios, in comparison to more similar to traditional board games, like Monopoly, where your goals and ways to interact with the game are pre-determined.
10th edition is designed to be played this way. This is why datasheets are not designed to solely reflect the fluff of the units, but instead what role they have in the game, and how they interact with missions, objectives and your army rule. Their own special rules are there not because they necessarily make sense from a lore perspective, but rather to make them unique from other datasheets in your codex/index.
The design philosophy of this edition changed. The Spirit of the game changed. I wanted rules, that support my storytelling. 10th edition gave me a predetermined goals and ways to interact with the game. Now scoring points is the intended way to play, and you "win" not by telling a good story with your opponent, but by playing by the rules, as any "roleplay" attempts would be considered funny, but silly and unimportant to the overall experience, or even disrespectful to your opponent, when you would make "narratively correct" decision, by charging your unit out from the objective, but it would obviously be incorrect tactical choice, that denies your opponent from having his fun of fairly outplaying you.
And this is why I couldn't engage with this edition.
So, is 10th bad?
Absolutely not! It's a great game, definitely better than 7th. It's (somewhat) balanced, tense, quickly patched, and allows much in terms of tactical decisions and the whole "competitive" side of play, that I'd never invested myself into. It works excellent as a game, and it’s much friendlier to the newer players.
But what do you do, if you, yourself, with your buddies, want to have a more of a narrative experience? In all seriousness, go play other editions or other games, they would handle this job better. New Horus Heresy is cool. I’ve heard that 3th edition was awesome. And Necromunda is even better. But what if you really, really want to play this edition?
How to fix 10th edition?
I believe, that with enough love and time, you can turn 10th into a good narrative playground. It's like D&D 4e once again, to be honest. It has a good foundation, and you should be able to build anything you want on top of it.
Other supplements
There are a bunch of 40k books out there on your shelves. It's time to check them out. Try cool old narrative missions, but with 10th rules. Find old "chapter approved" books with some pre-crusade stuff in there, like hero progression tables, and roll them before the game. There are tons of cool stuff to be rediscovered, and it's entertaining to see, how this edition could handle old missions and mechanics.
Add more structure to your games
List building is kind of broken and most of the times, for me, at least, army lists didn’t feel like “armies” of 40k, just a bunch of units. You can easily change it, by talking with your group and creating a set of rules for list building. Simplest solution would be to return to add some requirements, like having min 3 battle line units in army, or use older “detachments” rules to build forces. Also, make sure to use wysiwyg, everything is “free” now, so just play your models as they are. Surely, you didn’t just slap a hunter killer missile to your every Sentinel for advantage, right?
Find your way to engage with the game
For the last couple of years, 40k taught us to use only “correct” rules and models, that are written in obsessively jurisdictionally style. But it shouldn’t be this way. It’s your plastic dudes, at the end of the day, and as long as you and your opponents have a clear common understanding of rules of the game, you can do with them anything you want. So why shouldn’t you try something new? Wild 2v2 or FFA matches were always fun. Mix rules from different editions, use older warlord traits and relics. If you are a CSM player from 8th or later, you definitely should try Chaos Boons from 6/7th codex!
You need to understand, what exactly do you want from 40k and how to get it from 10th. For me, it was a storytelling experience, and a new homemade campaign with a bunch of old style rules on top would get the job done. And after you finally would find your fun from games, you would start to enjoy even other, normal games of 10th edition.
mrgusta wrote: I had my disappointment from 10th edition, but I've spent a long time, trying to figure out the exact reasons of my frustrations and this thread helped me with realizations of my problems. I've decided to also repost my thoughts here, as it may help somebody to understand their frustrations as well.
Spoiler:
So, many people have been disappointed with 10th edition, including myself. I know, there have already been enough boring rant posts, but here is the catch: I had no idea why I was dissatisfied with 10th!
Before going into details, a couple of quick disclaimers:
Firstly, if you and your group are enjoying your experience with the current edition of 40k, good for you. I am not here to tell you that you're doing anything wrong.
Secondly, not my first language. Terribly sorry for any made mistakes, hope I could bring my thoughts clearly enough.
I'm not the old guard of 40k, but I've been actively playing the beginning of 7th edition, around 2015, so, I guess, I have enough experience to discuss this game. Over the years, I've generally been positive about 40k, I've enjoyed my time in 7th (despite it's being quite... bizarre), and always preferred narrative games, only stopping playing at the end of 9th, where I decided to take a break after our campaign ended, rules got bloated, and, you know, the whole real world tried to collapse.
So, the new edition came by, and I've rushed to test it. I had a couple of games and, to my surprise, it felt extremely off! Not because of balance issues or anything, I never cared about this stuff much, but something was definitely wrong with the game. I've been struggling to point the exact reason, so, okay, I though, it's a start of the edition, just wait for the first patches and releases, game would fix itself. And after a couple of months, I tried again and had the same results: the gameplay itself was fine, but playing it wasn't fun at all.
And then I started to think, what could cause such reactions. On paper, it should be the best edition ever, and I really want to have fun with it. But why did I find previous editions to be enjoyable, even the 7th, and not the 10th? No doubt, there was a problem in the game itself, in some aspect, that could be fixed. But the more I thought about possible core problems of 10th, the less they made sense! So, let's dive into them together.
"Obvious" problems of 10th edition:
Balance issues?
My main armies are three eldar factions, and I'm a narrative player. I have never been offended by the balance state of this game, so not my case. Next.
Gameplay issues?
There goes all the complaints about battle-shock being redundant, fly being broken, overwatch, etc. Nothing that can't be ignored, or fixed with simple home rules and it was much worse before. Stop whining about it. Next.
Missing loadout options, strict unit sizes and units moving to Legends?
Probably a painful topic for somebody, but, again, Craftworld's eldar never had wargear loadouts in the first place, and 90% of my stuff made into the index, so I'm also good here. Next.
Missions?
We literally now have the best version of mission deck ever. Next.
List building and wargear costs?
Here is at least something. Yes, I deeply dislike the current list building part of the game. It's unengaging, and shallow, but there is a small issue. The "list building" part of the game is not the "gameplay" I disliked, and, to be honest, you can play with mostly the same rosters as before, so, despite, in my opinion, being the weakest part of this edition, list building is not the issue, that drove me away. Next.
Removal of psychic phase?
Mages were an important part of my army, so you would think the loss of the phase, dedicated solely to my shenanigans, would hurt. But no, it's a big loss, but, at the end of the day, it's not that important. We lost many cool rules moving from 7th to 8th edition, and I still find 8th the most fun for me. You can have a cool game even without deep magic systems.
Factions losing their identity?
Okay, this may be it. Fluff is important to me, and factions being shallow and bland are not something I want to see. And, indeed, while playing 10th edition, I never felt like I was leading a "Eldar warhost of Ulthwe", but more like some random units from my shelf I've put together for a 2000-point list. And I cannot even point on indexes of 8th; they were also lacking, in comparison to the datasheets we've got in 9th, but even playing them, I had this deep inexplicable feeling of connection to my faction*.* But why? Is it because of a number of special rules, unique to this faction, and their absence from 10th? Maybe it's about characters and how they are more shallow and give less abilities to your army?
Let's look at one example: Chaos space marines, our favorite boys, that stayed almost the same for many, many editions. Currently, they have only one special rule, on top of the Dark pacts, it's the Veterans of the Long War, giving them some re-rolls in melee. Not very imaginative, right? Especially, comparing it to the long list of cool marines-only abilities in 9th.
But what if we venture back in time even more? How cool they were in 6th/7th? And the cool special rules they had are... None. Squad sergeant could have blessings, but for marines themselves? Nothing. All right, well, what about Chaos Lord? What cool interaction did he have with his squad? Surely, it's more interesting, than a free stratagem, that we have now?
He granted his squad a Fearless rule.
I have nothing to add there, it's not the lack of rules either, let's move on.
Nostalgia?
This is my last shot. I really don't have any other ideas, other than I had succumbed to the "it was better before" way of thoughts. At this point, I stumbled on a Horus Heresy rulebook, which I generally liked a lot, and, finally, had my revelation. It has one important rule, I want to quote here:
The Spirit of the game
(HH) may be somewhat different to any other game you have played. Above all, it's important to remember that the rules are just the framework to support an enjoyable game. Whether a battle ends in victory or defeat, your goal should always be to enjoy the game. What's more, (HH) calls on a lot from you, the player. Your responsibility isn't just to follow the rules, it's to add your own ideas, drama and creativity to the game. Much of the appeal of this game lies in the freedom and open-endedness this allows; it is in this spirit that the rules have been written.
The Spirit of MY game
With a sudden realization, I understood, that my problems with 10th lies not in the edition itself, which is fine on its own, but within myself, it was about my expectations, about asking the game to be something it isn’t. I was used to Warhammer, having it’s "spirit" as described above, but 10th edition is not that. It designed differently, with different goals in mind. It's not about freedom and open-endedness, as rules are extremely restrictive and have only one correct way to be interpreted. It does not burden players with the responsibility to add drama and creativity, the game provides everything you need, to have the intended player experience.
And 10th edition is not a framework to support your game. It's the "game" itself, with built-in ways to play and goals to achieve. It might be easier to understand, if you're used to playing tabletop RPGs, like DnD, where the rules are your instruments, and serve as a way to create your own goals and scenarios, in comparison to more similar to traditional board games, like Monopoly, where your goals and ways to interact with the game are pre-determined.
10th edition is designed to be played this way. This is why datasheets are not designed to solely reflect the fluff of the units, but instead what role they have in the game, and how they interact with missions, objectives and your army rule. Their own special rules are there not because they necessarily make sense from a lore perspective, but rather to make them unique from other datasheets in your codex/index.
The design philosophy of this edition changed. The Spirit of the game changed. I wanted rules, that support my storytelling. 10th edition gave me a predetermined goals and ways to interact with the game. Now scoring points is the intended way to play, and you "win" not by telling a good story with your opponent, but by playing by the rules, as any "roleplay" attempts would be considered funny, but silly and unimportant to the overall experience, or even disrespectful to your opponent, when you would make "narratively correct" decision, by charging your unit out from the objective, but it would obviously be incorrect tactical choice, that denies your opponent from having his fun of fairly outplaying you.
And this is why I couldn't engage with this edition.
So, is 10th bad?
Absolutely not! It's a great game, definitely better than 7th. It's (somewhat) balanced, tense, quickly patched, and allows much in terms of tactical decisions and the whole "competitive" side of play, that I'd never invested myself into. It works excellent as a game, and it’s much friendlier to the newer players.
But what do you do, if you, yourself, with your buddies, want to have a more of a narrative experience? In all seriousness, go play other editions or other games, they would handle this job better. New Horus Heresy is cool. I’ve heard that 3th edition was awesome. And Necromunda is even better. But what if you really, really want to play this edition?
How to fix 10th edition?
I believe, that with enough love and time, you can turn 10th into a good narrative playground. It's like D&D 4e once again, to be honest. It has a good foundation, and you should be able to build anything you want on top of it.
Other supplements
There are a bunch of 40k books out there on your shelves. It's time to check them out. Try cool old narrative missions, but with 10th rules. Find old "chapter approved" books with some pre-crusade stuff in there, like hero progression tables, and roll them before the game. There are tons of cool stuff to be rediscovered, and it's entertaining to see, how this edition could handle old missions and mechanics.
Add more structure to your games
List building is kind of broken and most of the times, for me, at least, army lists didn’t feel like “armies” of 40k, just a bunch of units. You can easily change it, by talking with your group and creating a set of rules for list building. Simplest solution would be to return to add some requirements, like having min 3 battle line units in army, or use older “detachments” rules to build forces. Also, make sure to use wysiwyg, everything is “free” now, so just play your models as they are. Surely, you didn’t just slap a hunter killer missile to your every Sentinel for advantage, right?
Find your way to engage with the game
For the last couple of years, 40k taught us to use only “correct” rules and models, that are written in obsessively jurisdictionally style. But it shouldn’t be this way. It’s your plastic dudes, at the end of the day, and as long as you and your opponents have a clear common understanding of rules of the game, you can do with them anything you want. So why shouldn’t you try something new? Wild 2v2 or FFA matches were always fun. Mix rules from different editions, use older warlord traits and relics. If you are a CSM player from 8th or later, you definitely should try Chaos Boons from 6/7th codex!
You need to understand, what exactly do you want from 40k and how to get it from 10th. For me, it was a storytelling experience, and a new homemade campaign with a bunch of old style rules on top would get the job done. And after you finally would find your fun from games, you would start to enjoy even other, normal games of 10th edition.
Been popping in and out to follow this thread as it develops and I think my opinion has changed.
Even though I have near zero interest in the 10th edition and from what I've read there are myriad rules that I don't like, I don't think it's really the rules that make the "soul" of the game.
Soul comes from the gamers. Maybe really bad rules can be soul-crushing, but after nearly 30 years as a wargamer, almost regardless of how good or bad the rules are, the Soul in my wargaming has almost always come from how the players incorporate scenarios, write/adapt/embrace fluff, paint and customize their miniatures, create great terrain, etc, etc...
In my experience, that magical stuff that elevates a game to an experience is rarely mostly due to the rules themselves, it's almost always the rest of the elements that the players bring to the table.
Thank goodness I have a club of like minded gamers who don't give a poop what GW's latest offering is. However, I reckon that if I had to move to a place where I could never get a game other 10th Edition 40k, I'd still be able to learn the rules, find some good players and through the elements described above, inject some great soul into our gaming.
I have been thinking about mrgustas post. "The most important rule" or The Spirit of the Game were oft mocked things back in the day but ultimately I did think it affected how both the designers and players approached things.
Now we have a game, possibly a good game I don't know. But I just think I prefer the social, sandbox approach personally so that is what I look for and rarely play current editions of GW games.
Eilif wrote: Been popping in and out to follow this thread as it develops and I think my opinion has changed.
Even though I have near zero interest in the 10th edition and from what I've read there are myriad rules that I don't like, I don't think it's really the rules that make the "soul" of the game.
Soul comes from the gamers. Maybe really bad rules can be soul-crushing, but after nearly 30 years as a wargamer, almost regardless of how good or bad the rules are, the Soul in my wargaming has almost always come from how the players incorporate scenarios, write/adapt/embrace fluff, paint and customize their miniatures, create great terrain, etc, etc...
In my experience, that magical stuff that elevates a game to an experience is rarely mostly due to the rules themselves, it's almost always the rest of the elements that the players bring to the table.
Thank goodness I have a club of like minded gamers who don't give a poop what GW's latest offering is. However, I reckon that if I had to move to a place where I could never get a game other 10th Edition 40k, I'd still be able to learn the rules, find some good players and through the elements described above, inject some great soul into our gaming.
See this is a view you can only have, if you have been in wargaming for 30 years. A new players, especialy a young teen or kid, who started this edition does not care, which army has to be "punished" for being too good in X edition and which faction gets favoured treatment from the design studio. They spent a no small amount of money and they expect to have fun playing the game. They don't want to be told that they have to wait X years, so that maybe GW will fix the problems of their army. Or that they need learn to like side activities or else they are going to have a really bad time. A 35-40y old players with tens of armies, for different systems, may find w40k faction bad, or an edition, to be an annoying thing. But it pales in comperation to teen who saved for 2-3 years, bought an army, and had it legended or has it been unfun to play. For a game focused old player being told he need to update his army or switch an army, is something he can do. For someone who has 2000pts, telling them that now in order to keep playing, and not necessarly have a good time, they now have to spend 200-300$, paint it etc can be a huge barrier. The so called "extra elements" are only important, when the basic stuff is no longer a worry. And for new players, the main problem is not that, potentialy, their opponents can be "mean" or that the game requires basic math. Their problem is stuff like, I bought and painted a WS army and now I can't use them, or I bought 30 custodes guard and now I can't use them. People first being made to buy 4-6 boxes of a unit to make a working army, intended to run in their army by GW, to have them nurtered 3-4 months later. Now I understand that someone with a yearly income of 100k $ probably won't care much, especialy if he has no wife or kids. But someone with a regular salary does, even a western one. And for everyone outside of the west, GW policy, the way it is now, pro activly encourages people to use recasts. Because playing w40k on a 500-550$ monthly salary, as an adult, just does not work with what GW expects from players to field and play with.
Eilif wrote: Been popping in and out to follow this thread as it develops and I think my opinion has changed.
Even though I have near zero interest in the 10th edition and from what I've read there are myriad rules that I don't like, I don't think it's really the rules that make the "soul" of the game.
Soul comes from the gamers. Maybe really bad rules can be soul-crushing, but after nearly 30 years as a wargamer, almost regardless of how good or bad the rules are, the Soul in my wargaming has almost always come from how the players incorporate scenarios, write/adapt/embrace fluff, paint and customize their miniatures, create great terrain, etc, etc...
In my experience, that magical stuff that elevates a game to an experience is rarely mostly due to the rules themselves, it's almost always the rest of the elements that the players bring to the table.
Thank goodness I have a club of like minded gamers who don't give a poop what GW's latest offering is. However, I reckon that if I had to move to a place where I could never get a game other 10th Edition 40k, I'd still be able to learn the rules, find some good players and through the elements described above, inject some great soul into our gaming.
See this is a view you can only have, if you have been in wargaming for 30 years. A new players, especialy a young teen or kid, who started this edition does not care, which army has to be "punished" for being too good in X edition and which faction gets favoured treatment from the design studio. They spent a no small amount of money and they expect to have fun playing the game. They don't want to be told that they have to wait X years, so that maybe GW will fix the problems of their army. Or that they need learn to like side activities or else they are going to have a really bad time. A 35-40y old players with tens of armies, for different systems, may find w40k faction bad, or an edition, to be an annoying thing. But it pales in comperation to teen who saved for 2-3 years, bought an army, and had it legended or has it been unfun to play. For a game focused old player being told he need to update his army or switch an army, is something he can do. For someone who has 2000pts, telling them that now in order to keep playing, and not necessarly have a good time, they now have to spend 200-300$, paint it etc can be a huge barrier. The so called "extra elements" are only important, when the basic stuff is no longer a worry. And for new players, the main problem is not that, potentialy, their opponents can be "mean" or that the game requires basic math. Their problem is stuff like, I bought and painted a WS army and now I can't use them, or I bought 30 custodes guard and now I can't use them. People first being made to buy 4-6 boxes of a unit to make a working army, intended to run in their army by GW, to have them nurtered 3-4 months later. Now I understand that someone with a yearly income of 100k $ probably won't care much, especialy if he has no wife or kids. But someone with a regular salary does, even a western one. And for everyone outside of the west, GW policy, the way it is now, pro activly encourages people to use recasts. Because playing w40k on a 500-550$ monthly salary, as an adult, just does not work with what GW expects from players to field and play with.
Glad to see you changed your mind on punishing armies for past successes.
Lord Damocles wrote: The previewed Bretonnian rules for The Old World absolutely dunk all over 10th ed. 40k's army building.
I'm sort of on the fence, I think 40k is too flat and simple, but after this long in the game I'm stuck with wondering why some units are arbitrarily 1 per whatever. Either they're aimed at fluff players or the limited units are logically OP by intent, also not a fan of troops taxes again either.
Kinda hoped they'd back away from allies/mercs to begin with and instead get the lay of the land rock solid first for old world, then do an allied/mercs supplement later.
Then again maybe old world is in it for the fluff and fun whereas I'm now too conditioned to 40k trying to be a tournament thing.
I’m not sure they are putting in a troops tax. Did you look at that Man-at-arms units rules? Chaff infantry that can stop the hardest charging unit in its tracks if you don’t destroy it.
There's actual army structure, limitations, and points values. It's fething wild what GW can do when they put rub their scant few brain cells together.
Gibblets wrote: Fantasy has the statlines, upgrade list and army building structure that I crave for 40K. Officially gotta switch my gaming system now.
And all of those 25 year old minis 40k has phased out, but it is a very different sort of game, glad if you've found something that jives for you.
I have had zero interest in 40k for a few months now. I'm pretty sure it's due to the completely sterile way 10th edition is. It feels hollow, lifeless. Still can't point to a specific reason though.
I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
It's also because in 10th unit loadouts aren't really a thing any more.
GW stripped a lot of upgrades, which honestly was fine some were getting a bit silly with it; but ontop of that they basically put 10th onto power-levels instead of points. So your fully kitted out marine unit costs the same as a barebones one.
Layer that with lost weapon options on some models
Layer that with units now bought in groups instead of individual models
Add it all up and you've a much more army building blandness.
Some of those things are not bad; some are pretty good honestly; and some (like forcing power level approaches) are just dull/bad/take out whatever semblance of balancing was being put into hte game.
So there's a lot of changes, some not asked for nor desired; and in true GW style they've taken an approach and then gone so overboard that what they aimed to gain is now creating problems of its own
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
Could be I don't actually know. I know that I played an eighth edition during the index period and it was a lot more enjoyable than the way 10th is right now. I'm not exactly sure what the reasoning for that was
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition.
More rules isn't necessarily more good.
I look at unit datasheets and lose interest as soon as I can't remember which of the four different special rules each of the colours of Chaos Cultists has now, or which one arbitrarily doesn't have the weapon options of the others.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition.
More rules isn't necessarily more good.
I look at unit datasheets and lose interest as soon as I can't remember which of the four different special rules each of the colours of Chaos Cultists has now, or which one arbitrarily doesn't have the weapon options of the others.
They're completely different units, why shouldn't they have different rules/options?
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition.
More rules isn't necessarily more good.
I look at unit datasheets and lose interest as soon as I can't remember which of the four different special rules each of the colours of Chaos Cultists has now, or which one arbitrarily doesn't have the weapon options of the others.
They're completely different units, why shouldn't they have different rules/options?
Green Cultists, Blue Cultists, and Black Cultists aren't different units though. They're literally the same box of models with the same weapons which fulfil the same role in their respective armies. Red Cultists are different in that... they have chainswords and can take a big guy (get rekt Firebrand).
There is absolutely no good reason for Green Cultists not having the autogun/pistol & CCW option which Blue and Black ones do.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition.
More rules isn't necessarily more good.
I look at unit datasheets and lose interest as soon as I can't remember which of the four different special rules each of the colours of Chaos Cultists has now, or which one arbitrarily doesn't have the weapon options of the others.
They're completely different units, why shouldn't they have different rules/options?
Green Cultists, Blue Cultists, and Black Cultists aren't different units though. They're literally the same box of models with the same weapons which fulfil the same role in their respective armies. Red Cultists are different in that... they have chainswords and can take a big guy (get rekt Firebrand).
There is absolutely no good reason for Green Cultists not having the autogun/pistol & CCW option which Blue and Black ones do.
I think this is where the big divide is, tbh.
The grognards look at cultists and wonder wtf happened; with every color getting their own flavor and also having highly arbitrary restrictions, such as aforementioned pistol, which makes absolutely no sense. A cultist is a cultist and CSM (or the gods) couldn’t care less whether they live or die, let alone what weapons they show up with or how they organize. And yet we’re to believe that Nurgle apparently personally makes goop out of anyone cultist who shows up with a pistol and club.
Then the flip side are people who say they’re completely different units with different data sheets, so it doesn’t make sense why someone would be offended by the idea that their green cultists can’t have an option the others have. That’s what the dataslate says, why question it?
It’s this kind of thing which contributes to the sterility of 10th ed over all. Sure individual units have more rules (because that’s what makes a good game…) but army building is both absent of restrictions and absent personalization. This squad comes in this size and has these guns. That squad comes in another size and has a different load out, because they’re a different color. So on and so forth.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition.
More rules isn't necessarily more good.
I look at unit datasheets and lose interest as soon as I can't remember which of the four different special rules each of the colours of Chaos Cultists has now, or which one arbitrarily doesn't have the weapon options of the others.
They're completely different units, why shouldn't they have different rules/options?
Green Cultists, Blue Cultists, and Black Cultists aren't different units though. They're literally the same box of models with the same weapons which fulfil the same role in their respective armies. Red Cultists are different in that... they have chainswords and can take a big guy (get rekt Firebrand).
There is absolutely no good reason for Green Cultists not having the autogun/pistol & CCW option which Blue and Black ones do.
So your mental stumbling block is that 1 kit can be used to make several different units. Whose exact loadouts differ based on the army your building them for.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition.
More rules isn't necessarily more good.
I look at unit datasheets and lose interest as soon as I can't remember which of the four different special rules each of the colours of Chaos Cultists has now, or which one arbitrarily doesn't have the weapon options of the others.
They're completely different units, why shouldn't they have different rules/options?
Green Cultists, Blue Cultists, and Black Cultists aren't different units though. They're literally the same box of models with the same weapons which fulfil the same role in their respective armies. Red Cultists are different in that... they have chainswords and can take a big guy (get rekt Firebrand).
There is absolutely no good reason for Green Cultists not having the autogun/pistol & CCW option which Blue and Black ones do.
I think this is where the big divide is, tbh.
The grognards look at cultists and wonder wtf happened; with every color getting their own flavor and also having highly arbitrary restrictions, such as aforementioned pistol, which makes absolutely no sense. A cultist is a cultist and CSM (or the gods) couldn’t care less whether they live or die, let alone what weapons they show up with or how they organize. And yet we’re to believe that Nurgle apparently personally makes goop out of anyone cultist who shows up with a pistol and club.
Then the flip side are people who say they’re completely different units with different data sheets, so it doesn’t make sense why someone would be offended by the idea that their green cultists can’t have an option the others have. That’s what the dataslate says, why question it?
It’s this kind of thing which contributes to the sterility of 10th ed over all. Sure individual units have more rules (because that’s what makes a good game…) but army building is both absent of restrictions and absent personalization. This squad comes in this size and has these guns. That squad comes in another size and has a different load out, because they’re a different color. So on and so forth.
THIS grognard looks at it, shrugs, & says, "Eh. Now GW wants cultists to be slightly different depending on what flavor of Chaos you want to play...."
Being generous I'll assume they did this to differentiate each force fluff wise. To show their flavor, etc etc etc.
Being cynical I'll assume they did this so people like Damocles can't just have one big blob of cultists that they use in 3 different armies. Now Damocles has to pony up the $ to run cultists in multiple Chaos forces as how he's glued his weapons doesn't work for 2/3 forces,.
Wayniac wrote: I have had zero interest in 40k for a few months now. I'm pretty sure it's due to the completely sterile way 10th edition is. It feels hollow, lifeless. Still can't point to a specific reason though.
Stripping away the fluff. The Wolfy Wolf Squad of the Wolfy Space Wolves is a step too far. Taking away Chapter Tactics and their assorted parallels removed a lot of style from the play.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
Discussing only 10th, I see very little theme and a whole lot of rule. Many of the unit special rules read as something given to differentiate them from another unit, not because they innately should have that ability. That they gave them thematic names doesn't do anything to legitimise the rule.
This edition is very much a rules first approach. Every unit must be mechanically distinct from one another in order to create army list choice. Every unit must have exactly one unique rule, whether warranted or not.
The rules don't convince me they are representing 40k units. They look more like a set of rules that were then skinned with 40k language.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
Discussing only 10th, I see very little theme and a whole lot of rule. Many of the unit special rules read as something given to differentiate them from another unit, not because they innately should have that ability. That they gave them thematic names doesn't do anything to legitimise the rule.
This edition is very much a rules first approach. Every unit must be mechanically distinct from one another in order to create army list choice. Every unit must have exactly one unique rule, whether warranted or not.
The rules don't convince me they are representing 40k units. They look more like a set of rules that were then skinned with 40k language.
I think that's a fair stance to take and, for me, this is where comp play eventually leads to as all armies need to have XYZ for parity and all units exist distinctly in different niches to stop "why would I take A when B is 5% better value in the same role". Apart from some armies, they're not allowed full ranges ofc.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
Discussing only 10th, I see very little theme and a whole lot of rule. Many of the unit special rules read as something given to differentiate them from another unit, not because they innately should have that ability. That they gave them thematic names doesn't do anything to legitimise the rule.
This edition is very much a rules first approach. Every unit must be mechanically distinct from one another in order to create army list choice. Every unit must have exactly one unique rule, whether warranted or not.
The rules don't convince me they are representing 40k units. They look more like a set of rules that were then skinned with 40k language.
^ This is exactly my issue as well.
From a rules/mechanics perspective, it's cool that each unit does something unique and allows them to have unique roles in an otherwise shallow system.
From a fluff/narrative perspective, I don't understand why swapping the turret weapon on a Leman Russ has any effect beyond what turret weapon is on a Leman Russ.
And the fact that nearly everything has a special rule, which often has no apparent direct thematic relevance to the unit, makes it hard to remember who does what.
Overall I think the special rules are a huge step in the right direction of giving models different use cases other than raw efficiency. You can definitely tell though that there are inspired choices in this regard and places where they slapped the rule on to fill a quota. It's something I'd loved to see improved going forward, but GW is more likely to just replace it with something else entirely that is equally inspired in some places and phoned in elsewhere.
LunarSol wrote: Overall I think the special rules are a huge step in the right direction of giving models different use cases other than raw efficiency. You can definitely tell though that there are inspired choices in this regard and places where they slapped the rule on to fill a quota. It's something I'd loved to see improved going forward, but GW is more likely to just replace it with something else entirely that is equally inspired in some places and phoned in elsewhere.
Well put.
Discussing only 10th, I see very little theme and a whole lot of rule. Many of the unit special rules read as something given to differentiate them from another unit, not because they innately should have that ability. That they gave them thematic names doesn't do anything to legitimise the rule.
This edition is very much a rules first approach. Every unit must be mechanically distinct from one another in order to create army list choice. Every unit must have exactly one unique rule, whether warranted or not.
The rules don't convince me they are representing 40k units. They look more like a set of rules that were then skinned with 40k language.
I totally get what you mean. But on the other hand, there have historically been a lot of units competing for space where their stats and wargear alone meant that there were obvious winners and losers because math said that one unit simply did their job better than the other. Special rules can be a good way to give those units a clearer role. The problem, I think, is when...
A.) The unit doesn't really need a special rule. Maybe its stats or USRs make it good enough at what it does already. Or...
B.) The special rule doesn't feel like it's telling the unit's story/giving you a tasty, flavorful ability but instead just checking some boxes. The uninspired rules that LunarSol refers to.
I like the general direction they're going with using special rules to give each unit a niche. I just think there's room for improvement.
Not Online!!! wrote: How about a deeper core mechanic system instead of just slapping in special rules band aid?
I think to discuss the relevance what would you want for "deeper core mechanics" to replace the special rules?
A good example could be make core stats matter more.
In MESBG for example most models are M6 and cav is M10 while a few flyers are M12. Terrain can easily halve movement or more. Some heroes and models can call heroic marches that increases movement speed by 3"/5" (3 for infantry and 5 for cav/fly) and expensive drum models can do the same and the 2 stack.
There are 2 legendary legions for Isengard that have the main benefit be that all the Uruk Hai Scouts, including heroes, in the list become M8 base for "free"(you can't have anything else than low armoured uruk scouts in the list). This change of going from M6 to M8 is quite massive due to there being no random charge distance so if you are outside of 6" most infantry just can't charge you so if you have good movement and a lot of bows you can skirmish really well. You can't shoot a bow if you move over half your movement distance but if you are M8 and have spent a lot of points on a drum and heroes with march you can move 14" a turn with your infantry and still move half, 7", and shoot while keeping out of charge range from infantry most of the time.
This trade off in getting extra move on the entire list while forsaking lots of options totally changes how you can play Isengard. It is only a 2" move bonus (that you could always get on 1 hero and up to 12 scouts in regular Isengard) but it does a lot without having to give an unique special rule to all models since the game mechanics care a lot about the basic stat line of models.
Any change to any stat is quite relevant in that game. There is no automatically wounding on 6+ so any increase in Defence value is relevant. With enough Defence the opponent needs to roll 2 6s in a row to wound or even be unable to wound at all. The lack of rerolls and modifiers for most models also mean that any increase in Strength is a huge deal since most models wound other models on 5s or 6s (Dwarves or ghost is even 6+/4+, 1/12, even to wound for most models). Just having a bad ass hero have +1S and +1D over the other heroes in a list make him stand out a lot without giving him any extra special rules at all. Even having high courage is very relevant in mesbg and the difference between a C2 goblin and a C3 Uruk is big. Uruk Hai Berserkers being C7 (Only the strongest elf lords are at this value) is what gives them the most value even over their increased melee capabilities and special rules due to how relevant of a stat it is.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
Discussing only 10th, I see very little theme and a whole lot of rule. Many of the unit special rules read as something given to differentiate them from another unit, not because they innately should have that ability. That they gave them thematic names doesn't do anything to legitimise the rule.
This edition is very much a rules first approach. Every unit must be mechanically distinct from one another in order to create army list choice. Every unit must have exactly one unique rule, whether warranted or not.
The rules don't convince me they are representing 40k units. They look more like a set of rules that were then skinned with 40k language.
See this is a view you can only have, if you have been in wargaming for 30 years. A new players, especialy a young teen or kid, who started this edition does not care, which army has to be "punished" for being too good in X edition and which faction gets favoured treatment from the design studio. They spent a no small amount of money and they expect to have fun playing the game. They don't want to be told that they have to wait X years, so that maybe GW will fix the problems of their army. Or that they need learn to like side activities or else they are going to have a really bad time. A 35-40y old players with tens of armies, for different systems, may find w40k faction bad, or an edition, to be an annoying thing. But it pales in comperation to teen who saved for 2-3 years, bought an army, and had it legended or has it been unfun to play. For a game focused old player being told he need to update his army or switch an army, is something he can do. For someone who has 2000pts, telling them that now in order to keep playing, and not necessarly have a good time, they now have to spend 200-300$, paint it etc can be a huge barrier. The so called "extra elements" are only important, when the basic stuff is no longer a worry. And for new players, the main problem is not that, potentialy, their opponents can be "mean" or that the game requires basic math. Their problem is stuff like, I bought and painted a WS army and now I can't use them, or I bought 30 custodes guard and now I can't use them. People first being made to buy 4-6 boxes of a unit to make a working army, intended to run in their army by GW, to have them nurtered 3-4 months later. Now I understand that someone with a yearly income of 100k $ probably won't care much, especialy if he has no wife or kids. But someone with a regular salary does, even a western one. And for everyone outside of the west, GW policy, the way it is now, pro activly encourages people to use recasts. Because playing w40k on a 500-550$ monthly salary, as an adult, just does not work with what GW expects from players to field and play with.
Those are fair frustrations that you list.
However 30 years of experience tells me they're not fundamentally different difficulties than the sort that have always plagued 40k players:
-Armies/units that get nerfed/un-funned or just eliminated.
-Massive power imbalances between armies.
-Spending alot of money and finding that your army is now crap or illegal.
-Long waits for new codices (some which never come) or editions of the rules.
These are part and parcel of the GW experience and have been for at least 30 years (When second edition came out).
I don't want to downplay your accurate critiques. Just to say that longevity in the hobby doesn't merely convince me to look to gamers for my gaming satisfaction. Longevity also shows me that todays complaints are unfortunately nothing new. Todays new 40k gamers are getting on the same train, running down the same rickety track it's been rolling on for three decades.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition.
More rules isn't necessarily more good.
I look at unit datasheets and lose interest as soon as I can't remember which of the four different special rules each of the colours of Chaos Cultists has now, or which one arbitrarily doesn't have the weapon options of the others.
They're completely different units, why shouldn't they have different rules/options?
Green Cultists, Blue Cultists, and Black Cultists aren't different units though. They're literally the same box of models with the same weapons which fulfil the same role in their respective armies. Red Cultists are different in that... they have chainswords and can take a big guy (get rekt Firebrand).
There is absolutely no good reason for Green Cultists not having the autogun/pistol & CCW option which Blue and Black ones do.
So your mental stumbling block is that 1 kit can be used to make several different units. Whose exact loadouts differ based on the army your building them for.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition.
More rules isn't necessarily more good.
I look at unit datasheets and lose interest as soon as I can't remember which of the four different special rules each of the colours of Chaos Cultists has now, or which one arbitrarily doesn't have the weapon options of the others.
They're completely different units, why shouldn't they have different rules/options?
Green Cultists, Blue Cultists, and Black Cultists aren't different units though. They're literally the same box of models with the same weapons which fulfil the same role in their respective armies. Red Cultists are different in that... they have chainswords and can take a big guy (get rekt Firebrand).
There is absolutely no good reason for Green Cultists not having the autogun/pistol & CCW option which Blue and Black ones do.
I think this is where the big divide is, tbh.
The grognards look at cultists and wonder wtf happened; with every color getting their own flavor and also having highly arbitrary restrictions, such as aforementioned pistol, which makes absolutely no sense. A cultist is a cultist and CSM (or the gods) couldn’t care less whether they live or die, let alone what weapons they show up with or how they organize. And yet we’re to believe that Nurgle apparently personally makes goop out of anyone cultist who shows up with a pistol and club.
Then the flip side are people who say they’re completely different units with different data sheets, so it doesn’t make sense why someone would be offended by the idea that their green cultists can’t have an option the others have. That’s what the dataslate says, why question it?
It’s this kind of thing which contributes to the sterility of 10th ed over all. Sure individual units have more rules (because that’s what makes a good game…) but army building is both absent of restrictions and absent personalization. This squad comes in this size and has these guns. That squad comes in another size and has a different load out, because they’re a different color. So on and so forth.
THIS grognard looks at it, shrugs, & says, "Eh. Now GW wants cultists to be slightly different depending on what flavor of Chaos you want to play...."
Being generous I'll assume they did this to differentiate each force fluff wise. To show their flavor, etc etc etc.
Being cynical I'll assume they did this so people like Damocles can't just have one big blob of cultists that they use in 3 different armies. Now Damocles has to pony up the $ to run cultists in multiple Chaos forces as how he's glued his weapons doesn't work for 2/3 forces,.
This grognard is on the why tf are we removing options from cultists/any units side again.
Coorperate sterility is the very antithesis of what makes the setting of 40k great.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
Discussing only 10th, I see very little theme and a whole lot of rule. Many of the unit special rules read as something given to differentiate them from another unit, not because they innately should have that ability. That they gave them thematic names doesn't do anything to legitimise the rule.
This edition is very much a rules first approach. Every unit must be mechanically distinct from one another in order to create army list choice. Every unit must have exactly one unique rule, whether warranted or not.
The rules don't convince me they are representing 40k units. They look more like a set of rules that were then skinned with 40k language.
Not Online!!! wrote: How about a deeper core mechanic system instead of just slapping in special rules band aid?
I think to discuss the relevance what would you want for "deeper core mechanics" to replace the special rules?
A good example could be make core stats matter more.
In MESBG for example most models are M6 and cav is M10 while a few flyers are M12. Terrain can easily halve movement or more. Some heroes and models can call heroic marches that increases movement speed by 3"/5" (3 for infantry and 5 for cav/fly) and expensive drum models can do the same and the 2 stack.
There are 2 legendary legions for Isengard that have the main benefit be that all the Uruk Hai Scouts, including heroes, in the list become M8 base for "free"(you can't have anything else than low armoured uruk scouts in the list). This change of going from M6 to M8 is quite massive due to there being no random charge distance so if you are outside of 6" most infantry just can't charge you so if you have good movement and a lot of bows you can skirmish really well. You can't shoot a bow if you move over half your movement distance but if you are M8 and have spent a lot of points on a drum and heroes with march you can move 14" a turn with your infantry and still move half, 7", and shoot while keeping out of charge range from infantry most of the time.
This trade off in getting extra move on the entire list while forsaking lots of options totally changes how you can play Isengard. It is only a 2" move bonus (that you could always get on 1 hero and up to 12 scouts in regular Isengard) but it does a lot without having to give an unique special rule to all models since the game mechanics care a lot about the basic stat line of models.
Any change to any stat is quite relevant in that game. There is no automatically wounding on 6+ so any increase in Defence value is relevant. With enough Defence the opponent needs to roll 2 6s in a row to wound or even be unable to wound at all. The lack of rerolls and modifiers for most models also mean that any increase in Strength is a huge deal since most models wound other models on 5s or 6s (Dwarves or ghost is even 6+/4+, 1/12, even to wound for most models). Just having a bad ass hero have +1S and +1D over the other heroes in a list make him stand out a lot without giving him any extra special rules at all. Even having high courage is very relevant in mesbg and the difference between a C2 goblin and a C3 Uruk is big. Uruk Hai Berserkers being C7 (Only the strongest elf lords are at this value) is what gives them the most value even over their increased melee capabilities and special rules due to how relevant of a stat it is.
I feel like this is more of a detachmente-level set of rules than a unit-specific thing. We sort of had something similar last edition with the build-a-bear army traits, right? The right trait could potentially give you a flat bonus to movement, Strength, AP, saves, etc.
I think part of the reason GW is moving away from that is that they've realized just how tricky it is to balance one-size-fits-all rules like that. They don't necessarily want you to have easy access to +1 to-wound or +1 to saves because they've seen how easy it is for players to put those buffs on specific units and end up with a hyperlethal or deathstar unit. Plus, they seem to be trying to let people field whatever models they want in a given army with specific detachments serving to support certain units rather than banning others. That is,40k detachments would give your uruk scouts the extra movement, but they'd still let you mix a troll into your list; they just wouldn't give the troll the extra movement.
Back to unit-level rules, the point of special rules is to make it easier for units to have niches without either adding in new subsystems or trying to differentiate units purely on their statlines. I don't know MESBG very well, but say you had Uruk-Hai and normal orcs and they both did essentially the same thing except one was slightly more lethal for its points. The less efficient unit kind of wouldn't serve a purpose, right? Now say you gave that weaker unit a sticky objectives rule or the ability to... idk... up their OC equivalent while war drums are on the table. This allows you to leave the more lethal unit lethal but also makes the weaker unit relevant in other ways.
Of course, the argument could then be made that the more lethal unit doesn't necessarily need its own special rule at that point. And it would be weird if the special rule you gave the weaker unit was something out of character for them like healing or whatever.
I can sort of agree - but I'm not sure its a bad thing.
There are clearly examples where GW have gone "this army should have ability X, lets give it to unit Y so its in the codex" regardless of the fluff. I think there's also been a more deliberate effort to go "this unit is for X, it should be good at X". Now there are obviously gradient on points efficiency - but there are I think fewer and fewer trap units that bedevilled older editions. I.E. "this is an assault unit that sucks at assault, never take this".
And I do think you get a bit of rose-coloured glasses. Late 9th edition for example at the competitive end had the widest range of armies and the widest range of units in those armies, appearing in top lists, of any era of 40k. And if you rated it that way, I think 10th would be pretty high up there. 5th, 7th? Really not the case. I can do my "3rd was balanced if you were 12 and collected armies like the ones you saw in White Dwarf". With a more optimising mindset, the edition fell over fast.
But yes, arguably this is a mechanical function. The quasi-mystical process by which you might conceive a fluffy or Johnny style list does seem to have faded. This is why I think there is a lot less interest in army building as theoretical process. (There's also the issue of optimising your secondaries, which is harder to do in pure theory I think. You need to play the list and see where it lands.)
Although arguably I think this is a process. There are more options I think with say Tyranids, Marines, Necrons and even Ad Mech (maybe) now. The rest are stuck with one dimension. Which in a way I think indicates how important subfactions are to encouraging list variety. We saw this with those factions stuck with an 8th edition index for a long time and for those of us who were there, ravening hordes in 6th edition Fantasy. Its was arguably the most balanced time in WHFB - but also dull because you didn't have much choices and those you took didn't seem to matter due to being a fairly balanced game...
I see a lot of people getting exciting/complimenting the army build rules they've shown for TOW. Partly I wasn't surprised - I mean its glorified WHFB 9th edition, how could it ever be anything else. But with my competitive hat on - this is a very liberal regime for allowing you to take whatever is the current hotness. Which I think people will do - and have done, at this point for decades. The game will depend on GW getting balance roughly right across the whole range of armies and units. And that seems like a difficult challenge even in a world where they update points every few months.
And I do think you get a bit of rose-coloured glasses. Late 9th edition for example at the competitive end had the widest range of armies and the widest range of units in those armies, appearing in top lists, of any era of 40k. And if you rated it that way, I think 10th would be pretty high up there. 5th, 7th? Really not the case. I can do my "3rd was balanced if you were 12 and collected armies like the ones you saw in White Dwarf". With a more optimising mindset, the edition fell over fast.
But yes, arguably this is a mechanical function. The quasi-mystical process by which you might conceive a fluffy or Johnny style list does seem to have faded. This is why I think there is a lot less interest in army building as theoretical process. (There's also the issue of optimising your secondaries, which is harder to do in pure theory I think. You need to play the list and see where it lands.)
You jogged a thought, Tyel. Something I've been noticing (somewhat in 8th and 9th, but even moreso in 10th) is that there often seem to be mechanical incentives to *not* take too many copies of a given unit. This in turn, I think, makes a lot of lists end up feeling less obviously themed.
For instance, it used to be that eldar players could field a bunch of bike units, and those bikes could all move-shoot-move, and if you showed up with such an army, it felt like you were playing a fluffy Saim-Hann list that was supported by the rules. Now, you can only move-shoot-move a single one of those units every turn (using CP), so if you want to keep them alive, you probably don't want to have more than 1 or 2 windrider units in your army. And there aren't currently really any rewards for leaning into the biker theme to make up for it.
Or an even more obvious example. I like Phoenix Lords a lot, and one of my go-to ways of making a casual list in past editions was to pick a PL, spam their aspect, and do a list themed around that. But now if I want to take, say, Maugan Ra, I feel like I get diminishing returns after the first squad of reapers. I can't make a sniper unit with an exarch power and an attached Mark of the Incomparable Hunter autarch. I can sort of buff them with a farseer, but the farseer can't join their squad. I can't take smaller squads that focus on the tempest launcher exarch firing from behind terrain. I have to bleed CP to hide the units if I want to keep them alive.
Idk. This train of thought is a little half-baked, but I do feel like I've been having a harder time putting together a list that feels like it's expressing its fluff through my choice of units. My 'crons feel somewhat better in this regard post-codex, so maybe I'll feel differently once my space elves get their books. Then again, 'crons do sort of feel like their detachments are basically a pre-approved list of what units I can field...
As a consumer, I'm MUCH happier needing to buy and paint a variety of cool looking things than needing to spam one thing over and over. Honestly, 90% of the reason I mostly only toe in to 40k is simply because I don't feel like the feeling that I need to have so much stuff that works in such a limited framework that is so easily invalidated. I don't really trust GW to stay the current course, but I'll say the current paradigm, which really rewards a good breadth of a faction has me a lot more excited to collect a 1-2 of everything and bounce around playstyles within "my" army.
As a consumer, I'm MUCH happier needing to buy and paint a variety of cool looking things than needing to spam one thing over and over.
On the whole, I am too. But I am starting to see some drawbacks. Ex: My 'stealers being subject to the rule of 3 and having fewer options for squad size and wargear means that my Vanguard detachment has to include some newer or weirder options that I don't necessarily associate with my faction's vanguard-y tactics as much. Or the aforementioned mechanical drawbacks to spamming windridres (which used to be a Troop unit for eldar).
Not Online!!! wrote: How about a deeper core mechanic system instead of just slapping in special rules band aid?
I think to discuss the relevance what would you want for "deeper core mechanics" to replace the special rules?
Actual equipment differences and options being relevant through a decent cover system and terrain mechanics, aswell as returning to armor values.
Soooo you want 7th ed 40k and consider it mechanically deep? I do not share the opinion sadly, most of what you want is either already represented, could be easily represented as is or simply renaming some of the problems. But to give an example:
You mention armour values rather than the vehicle damage chart, which is I assume a "can't be hurt by small arms" measure, which you can put in place with a keyword for some weapons that means they can never harm monsters/vehicles, or a minor tweak to the wound table to disallow wounds if T is more than double S or something. I wouldn't consider it adding deeper mechanics though.
Decent cover system, well 40k has never had one of these but I'd wager you mean an abstract LOS system that grants a form of modifier or ancillary save, neither of which are a million miles from what exist now really, apart form TLoS vs abstract, which isn't more depth imo.
Lastly taking off "random rules plaster" to reintroduce "lots of wargear that add rules to the unit" isn't adding core depth, just options to armies likely to replace some of what they have already.
I will say that I agree there's room for some extra mechanics in the core rules. I think there's probably a way to bring back hiding, maybe add spotter rules, add some flanking and/or crossfire rules, etc.
I got excited when I saw the plunging fire rule for ruins and was mildly disappointed that there wasn't more stuff like that sprinkled through the edition.
Wyldhunt wrote: You jogged a thought, Tyel. Something I've been noticing (somewhat in 8th and 9th, but even moreso in 10th) is that there often seem to be mechanical incentives to *not* take too many copies of a given unit. This in turn, I think, makes a lot of lists end up feeling less obviously themed.
I think this is true.
I think certain players have said "make the best lists more like a toolbox, and less spamming a skew".
But as you say - GW have done this by creating a situation where its good to have a unit (maybe 2 for redundancy) that will benefit from strategems/synergies - but not to have many multiples.
But as you say - there's a downside. Once you have an army with unit A, B, C, D, E etc - it looks much like everyone else's list with A, B, C, D and E. You aren't getting that "I love jetbikes, so I'm running Saim Hann with all of them, which, despite being drawn from the same book, is a very different list (mechanically, fluffwise, just general idea) to my friend who also plays Eldar, but is playing Iyanden because he loves Wraithguard." Even before say 3rd edition gave these armies specific bonuses/options.
I don't know how it feels to someone starting out in 10th though. You won't miss what you never had.
The deeper mechanics I would group with Armor Values are:
1: The hard weapon effectiveness cutoffs (S6 can't hurt AV 13+)
2: Flanking (So that S6 weapon could maneuver to be effective)
3: Damage chart (so that a vehicle could be damaged or suppressed in order to maneuvre more effectively against it.)
Bonus mechanic:
4: Better grenade rules (So Infantry without high powered AT weapons could still have an effect against said vehicle, suppress, damage or kill)
Plus, each of those things make more sense than Intercessors spray-and-praying/running up to a tank and simply pounding on it with their fists.
Insectum7 wrote: The deeper mechanics I would group with Armor Values are:
1: The hard weapon effectiveness cutoffs (S6 can't hurt AV 13+)
2: Flanking (So that S6 weapon could maneuver to be effective)
3: Damage chart (so that a vehicle could be damaged or suppressed in order to maneuvre more effectively against it.)
Bonus mechanic:
4: Better grenade rules (So Infantry without high powered AT weapons could still have an effect against said vehicle, suppress, damage or kill)
Plus, each of those things make more sense than Intercessors spray-and-praying/running up to a tank and simply pounding on it with their fists.
I don't think a weapon cutoff adds depth per-se but can understand why it might be wanted/needed, but if you add in a vehicle damage chart and a monster equivalent that's good. I'd argue movement in general needs to be better encouraged, lower movement values for infantry, make guns worse if the user moves generally, have passive defensive rules for moving certain speeds. Some form of crossfire, or as mentioned spotter rules as core mechanics would be good. There's a lot of stuff that's been in 40k previously in some format that could be included and have a home, but I don't think just flicking the clock back to 7th ed (which I know you haven't said but that's where the mind goes) is going to fix much, it would still need a massive overhaul.
Wyldhunt wrote: You jogged a thought, Tyel. Something I've been noticing (somewhat in 8th and 9th, but even moreso in 10th) is that there often seem to be mechanical incentives to *not* take too many copies of a given unit. This in turn, I think, makes a lot of lists end up feeling less obviously themed.
I think this is true.
I think certain players have said "make the best lists more like a toolbox, and less spamming a skew".
But as you say - GW have done this by creating a situation where its good to have a unit (maybe 2 for redundancy) that will benefit from strategems/synergies - but not to have many multiples.
But as you say - there's a downside. Once you have an army with unit A, B, C, D, E etc - it looks much like everyone else's list with A, B, C, D and E. You aren't getting that "I love jetbikes, so I'm running Saim Hann with all of them, which, despite being drawn from the same book, is a very different list (mechanically, fluffwise, just general idea) to my friend who also plays Eldar, but is playing Iyanden because he loves Wraithguard." Even before say 3rd edition gave these armies specific bonuses/options.
I don't know how it feels to someone starting out in 10th though. You won't miss what you never had.
I suspect that'll come back when they get their detachments though, it's likely there'll be a "bikes/jump"-centric one and wraith one.
As a consumer, I'm MUCH happier needing to buy and paint a variety of cool looking things than needing to spam one thing over and over.
On the whole, I am too. But I am starting to see some drawbacks. Ex: My 'stealers being subject to the rule of 3 and having fewer options for squad size and wargear means that my Vanguard detachment has to include some newer or weirder options that I don't necessarily associate with my faction's vanguard-y tactics as much. Or the aforementioned mechanical drawbacks to spamming windridres (which used to be a Troop unit for eldar).
Always drawbacks and always tradeoffs. I think I just prefer this set of drawbacks because I'm finding its resulted in competitive lists that closer align with my relatively casual collection where previous editions have felt like the competitive lists pingpong between massive skews that require a massive investment for something that will drop off relatively quickly.
Simple solution is to make use of the "anti-<thing here>" traits, or to give vehicles and monsters a FNP vs "small arms".
Well, FNP vs small arms would reduce the amount of damage vehicles take from such weapons. The thing is, small arms already aren't doing much against vehicles. Heck, in 10th, the changes to vehicle Toughness have maybe taken small arms to the point of not being worth the time it takes to roll their attacks against tanks. When discussing this topic in the past, people who want to make vehicles immune to small arms often don't do so because they think bolters are killing too many rhinos; it's that they just don't want small arms to be able to interact with vehicles on principle.
Personally, I kind of liked where small arms vs tanks landed in 8th and 9th where bolters and such could contribute enough to matter but were generally still terrible at killing vehicles on their own. I'm not sure how I feel about the current state of small arms vs vehicles in 10th. All my vehicle kills have been with lances this edition.
As a consumer, I'm MUCH happier needing to buy and paint a variety of cool looking things than needing to spam one thing over and over.
On the whole, I am too. But I am starting to see some drawbacks. Ex: My 'stealers being subject to the rule of 3 and having fewer options for squad size and wargear means that my Vanguard detachment has to include some newer or weirder options that I don't necessarily associate with my faction's vanguard-y tactics as much. Or the aforementioned mechanical drawbacks to spamming windridres (which used to be a Troop unit for eldar).
Always drawbacks and always tradeoffs. I think I just prefer this set of drawbacks because I'm finding its resulted in competitive lists that closer align with my relatively casual collection where previous editions have felt like the competitive lists pingpong between massive skews that require a massive investment for something that will drop off relatively quickly.
Totally get that. While I liked that leaning into not-super-competitive units meant I could easily field a fluffy list with a clear identity, I also hated seeing three riptides (or whatever was hot in the meta at the time) waiting on the other side of the table. Even if a list with variety is more OP than a spam list without variety, it does weirdly feel less frustrating to lose against a variety of units instead of one unit spammed 3 times.
Insectum7 wrote: The deeper mechanics I would group with Armor Values are:
1: The hard weapon effectiveness cutoffs (S6 can't hurt AV 13+)
2: Flanking (So that S6 weapon could maneuver to be effective)
3: Damage chart (so that a vehicle could be damaged or suppressed in order to maneuvre more effectively against it.)
Bonus mechanic:
4: Better grenade rules (So Infantry without high powered AT weapons could still have an effect against said vehicle, suppress, damage or kill)
Plus, each of those things make more sense than Intercessors spray-and-praying/running up to a tank and simply pounding on it with their fists.
I don't think a weapon cutoff adds depth per-se but can understand why it might be wanted/needed, but if you add in a vehicle damage chart and a monster equivalent that's good. I'd argue movement in general needs to be better encouraged, lower movement values for infantry, make guns worse if the user moves generally, have passive defensive rules for moving certain speeds. Some form of crossfire, or as mentioned spotter rules as core mechanics would be good. There's a lot of stuff that's been in 40k previously in some format that could be included and have a home, but I don't think just flicking the clock back to 7th ed (which I know you haven't said but that's where the mind goes) is going to fix much, it would still need a massive overhaul.
I appreciate that you aknowledge that I didn't say "return to 7th", because 7th as a whole is definitely not something I'd advocate for. But there are good reasons why that AV paradigm is missed in particular, and I'd certainly say it provided more depth and verisimillitude than the current setup.
I'm open to alternatives. I'm just not expecting GW to deliver.
The 10th ed rules seem to be written to be a set of balanced game mechanics, from a purely game based perspective.
This is distinct from say a set of rules being a faithful translation of a setting into numerical values (somewhat subjective). A faithful translation may include redundant choices and subpar units. Because not everyone fits into a perfect jigsaw. Not every unit has a special ability.
To use an analogy, 10th is a digital system that makes everything fit neatly, but it has somewhat trimmed and added to units to make them fit a role in that system. A setting-first ruleset would be more analogue, all overlapping.
The 10th ed rules had decided each unit must have a discrete role and have shaped their rules to fit that, even when that unit in the setting is not so narrow.
10th ed looks more like it used RTS design philosophy. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think the focus on the mechanics creates a bit of a disconnect with what they are supposed to represent.
Not Online!!! wrote: How about a deeper core mechanic system instead of just slapping in special rules band aid?
I think to discuss the relevance what would you want for "deeper core mechanics" to replace the special rules?
Actual equipment differences and options being relevant through a decent cover system and terrain mechanics, aswell as returning to armor values.
Soooo you want 7th ed 40k and consider it mechanically deep? I do not share the opinion sadly, most of what you want is either already represented, could be easily represented as is or simply renaming some of the problems. But to give an example:
You mention armour values rather than the vehicle damage chart, which is I assume a "can't be hurt by small arms" measure, which you can put in place with a keyword for some weapons that means they can never harm monsters/vehicles, or a minor tweak to the wound table to disallow wounds if T is more than double S or something. I wouldn't consider it adding deeper mechanics though.
Decent cover system, well 40k has never had one of these but I'd wager you mean an abstract LOS system that grants a form of modifier or ancillary save, neither of which are a million miles from what exist now really, apart form TLoS vs abstract, which isn't more depth imo.
Lastly taking off "random rules plaster" to reintroduce "lots of wargear that add rules to the unit" isn't adding core depth, just options to armies likely to replace some of what they have already.
Honestly HH with a better cover systen. And no the current system was less deep and for that matter baseline functional in all it's iterations since the Big switch of 8th. And no i am not in favour of detachment type deals that 7th has had or the current unlimited System.
And equipment very well is a deeper system if you have f.e. a decent cover system in place, better terrain mechanics including area denial of chemical weaponry f.e. and functioning surpression, such equipment actually would Start to play a massive role.
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Insectum7 811846 11622337 wrote:
I'm open to alternatives. I'm just not expecting GW to deliver.
Which Part of gw? The HH side of things comes eerily close. Bit more work on the cover system like making it a dual system that benefits heavy and light infantry, aswell as more weaponry that can interact with cover and you pretty much have a foundation on the mechanical side that would be awesome.
10th ed looks more like it used RTS design philosophy. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think the focus on the mechanics creates a bit of a disconnect with what they are supposed to represent.
Example: Storm Guardians. Have been pretty bad since I started playing in 5th. In 10th, they have a bit more of a niche in that they have sticky objective control. But why they have this particular rule isn't especially clear. I *think* the idea is that they're supposedly shock troopers, so they're leaving objectives behind rather than stopping to defend them. But in practice, this means that I want to deploy them on top of an objective cover be darned, then spend the game advancing them towards uncontested objectives for the turn or two it takes them to do. Not very shock trooper of them. Not very eldar to be throwing their lives away for a land grab either.
A fluffier take on them was the Black Guardian rules they had at the tail end of 7th where they pop up out of the webway close enough to shoot you with their short-ranged special guns as soon as they arrive... Was that the first instance of the deepstrike mechanics of 8th edition onward? Anyway, much more shock-troopery. Played out like you were using them to sucker punch the enemy and maybe have a chance of keeping them alive rather than having them jogging toothlessly around the table until your opponent can be bothered to kill them.
So in 10th edition, they have a niche, and that's nice. The niche just doesn't feel very fluff-appropriate. They'd maybe be better served by just giving them deepstrike instead of sticky objectives or by lowering their squad size to 5 so that they become a cheap source of special guns that can share a wave serpent with someone. (And thereby avoid dying as they jog towards objectives. )
Insectum7 811846 11622337 wrote:
I'm open to alternatives. I'm just not expecting GW to deliver.
Which Part of gw? The HH side of things comes eerily close. Bit more work on the cover system like making it a dual system that benefits heavy and light infantry, aswell as more weaponry that can interact with cover and you pretty much have a foundation on the mechanical side that would be awesome.
The 40k part. I think because it's the cash cow it probably gets more attention/interference by coorperate types, and/or because it gets tourney attention it gets influenced heavily by "tight-competetive" types.
You don't need an AV system in a game where certain Toughness levels cannot be damaged at all by lower strength values. If 6's didn't always wound, this would no longer be an issue.
Dudeface wrote: Soooo you want 7th ed 40k and consider it mechanically deep?
You cannot ask people want they want, and then just gak over everything they say when they give you a reply.
Which is true, but won't happen. Because for some reason people at GW think that just because one dude wins one in 100 games, because of an above avarge roll string, somehow balances out the other 99 games.
HH rules are very nice though. And don't have a lot of the problems regular w40k has. I think it would be nice, if it had the old apocalypse rule that removes deaths at the end of both players turn. But nice doesn't mean good for the game, and I have zero ideas how this could be implemented.
So in 10th edition, they have a niche, and that's nice. The niche just doesn't feel very fluff-appropriate. They'd maybe be better served by just giving them deepstrike instead of sticky objectives or by lowering their squad size to 5 so that they become a cheap source of special guns that can share a wave serpent with someone. (And thereby avoid dying as they jog towards objectives. )
I don't think that giving eldar more CP, more teleportation and more anything is good for the game. If anything, in order to make the game fun for a lot of field, eldar should start losing rules and maybe units. And probably start getting 0-1 limitations of units too. Because right now with the buckets of re-rolls per game, setting dice to values they need and mind blowing powerful rules on units, it doesn't really matter if a unit of guardians even has a rule. Against most armies the unit could not even be deployed, and the eldar player still has an edge.
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Dudeface 811846 11622313 wrote:
Lastly taking off "random rules plaster" to reintroduce "lots of wargear that add rules to the unit" isn't adding core depth, just options to armies likely to replace some of what they have already.
Or adding stuff they should have had as an option from day one of index. There is 0 reasons for rules and gear choices GW did for some armies. The game would for sure not explode, if lets say thunder hammers became a weapon option on something else then just a single special character for GK. Or if the dropping of the ball with eldar dev wounds, didn't somehow result in multiple units and one army losing a core special rules.
In fact for my dudes I would love start seeing stuff old books had, gear wise, that GW removed. Special types of grenades, relic weapons and armours , special ammo for range weapons, so that not all armies are running with a +2sv when playing vs GK.
I don't think that giving eldar more CP, more teleportation and more anything is good for the game. If anything, in order to make the game fun for a lot of field, eldar should start losing rules and maybe units. And probably start getting 0-1 limitations of units too. Because right now with the buckets of re-rolls per game, setting dice to values they need and mind blowing powerful rules on units, it doesn't really matter if a unit of guardians even has a rule. Against most armies the unit could not even be deployed, and the eldar player still has an edge.
Cover yourself, Karol. Your hate-on is showing.
We weren't discussing whether or not storm guardians or their parent faction is OP; I was using them as an example of a unit whose special rule doesn't do an especially good job of capturing their lore and presenting ways that a different non-bespoke rule or even a simple change to their unit size might do a better job of giving them a niche/reflecting their lore than the bespoke rule they were given.
H.B.M.C. wrote: You don't need an AV system in a game where certain Toughness levels cannot be damaged at all by lower strength values. If 6's didn't always wound, this would no longer be an issue.
Dudeface wrote: Soooo you want 7th ed 40k and consider it mechanically deep?
You cannot ask people want they want, and then just gak over everything they say when they give you a reply.
I don't have to agree with an opinion and I gave a clear and lengthy response as to why. I won't lie I did expect something a bit more nuanced than simply pointing at stuff old editions did a little differently when asking for expanded depth in the core rules.
Or adding stuff they should have had as an option from day one of index. There is 0 reasons for rules and gear choices GW did for some armies. The game would for sure not explode, if lets say thunder hammers became a weapon option on something else then just a single special character for GK. Or if the dropping of the ball with eldar dev wounds, didn't somehow result in multiple units and one army losing a core special rules.
In fact for my dudes I would love start seeing stuff old books had, gear wise, that GW removed. Special types of grenades, relic weapons and armours , special ammo for range weapons, so that not all armies are running with a +2sv when playing vs GK.
Adding wargear options does not increase the depth of the core rules, because they're not core rules by definition of being included as options in a codex. Grey Knights have always and continue to suffer from being half an army, they need units adding, not gizmos adding to try and shape a small number of units into doing everything all at once.
We weren't discussing whether or not storm guardians or their parent faction is OP; I was using them as an example of a unit whose special rule doesn't do an especially good job of capturing their lore and presenting ways that a different non-bespoke rule or even a simple change to their unit size might do a better job of giving them a niche/reflecting their lore than the bespoke rule they were given.
I don't think I need to cover myself, and it is not a question of hate. GW , again, gave eldar bonkers rules. 30+ re-rolls per game, game skiping mechanics. Capturing the "lore" of eldar seems like a secondary problem, when there are factions that have botched core rules. If guardians and other eldar units would start getting even more rules, then where would it bring us? The early 10th again, or maybe a more casual 60% win rate eldar. The eldar autarch has more weapon options and load outs then my entire army. GW raced to fix the problem of some load outs existings as models, but not as rules. Well my dudes have thunder hammers, but GW decided that those are , aside for one special character with bad rules, cosmetic only. Index eldar right now, are beating the living snot out of armies that have codex right now. GW gave them enough rules, they don't need more. Lore accurate or non role accurate. And through my 3 edition expiriance I somehow came to the conclusion that niche eldar rules, somehow turn out to be non niche and somehow it ends with eldar double taping, being the "glass canon" faction, but somehow on the table being more resilient then marines etc. Instead of thinking about eldar rules GW should, maybe ,rewrite the ad mecha codex and try really hard to not release similar side grade/down grade books for other factions. Because 10th starts to look like index hammer, isn't just the entry to 10th, it is what you get.
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Dudeface 811846 11622402 wrote:
Adding wargear options does not increase the depth of the core rules, because they're not core rules by definition of being included as options in a codex. Grey Knights have always and continue to suffer from being half an army, they need units adding, not gizmos adding to try and shape a small number of units into doing everything all at once.
That is an interesting point of view. Because I would think that a melee army being unable to engage opponents is melee, because of share lack of weapons, combined with the inability to do any damage from range, which has rules in core rules and stats of the army, very much impacts the game play. You can even say it is crucial to those armies working. Plus we could make some thought expermints regarding gear. Would csm be as good as they are now, if their lords lost the option to have weapons with a higher strenght then accursed weapons? If GK could drop opposing units T by 1 and/or get a first strike option or lock out option through grenades, they could actualy engage other armies and not be the soliter non interaction army. Would getting Company champions in terminator armour, Cpts (which are GK Lt) with rules like other marine Lts, terminator purfires and other lore accurate units (swarms of melee servitors) be nice ? Of course, but that is asking for a whole model line reset, and GW ain't going to do it. What GW can do it, is at least to follow their own rules. Give units the weapon options that are in the box. Treat GK characters the same way they did marine ones. Explain to us what they were thinking making GK rules once per game, and why they didn't change them, even after their change the rules to what a free stratagem can be. etc
That is an interesting point of view. Because I would think that a melee army being unable to engage opponents is melee, because of share lack of weapons, combined with the inability to do any damage from range, which has rules in core rules and stats of the army, very much impacts the game play. You can even say it is crucial to those armies working. Plus we could make some thought expermints regarding gear. Would csm be as good as they are now, if their lords lost the option to have weapons with a higher strenght then accursed weapons? If GK could drop opposing units T by 1 and/or get a first strike option or lock out option through grenades, they could actualy engage other armies and not be the soliter non interaction army. Would getting Company champions in terminator armour, Cpts (which are GK Lt) with rules like other marine Lts, terminator purfires and other lore accurate units (swarms of melee servitors) be nice ? Of course, but that is asking for a whole model line reset, and GW ain't going to do it. What GW can do it, is at least to follow their own rules. Give units the weapon options that are in the box. Treat GK characters the same way they did marine ones. Explain to us what they were thinking making GK rules once per game, and why they didn't change them, even after their change the rules to what a free stratagem can be. etc
So, you're confusing 2 points, the first being core depth of the ruleset, alongside the depth of tools available to an army via supplemental rules i.e. codex.
The core rules do not care if your strike squad has minor variations of force weapon, or that you have strike squads, or what guns you have. The depth of the core rules are what govern the interactions you have on the tabletop at the fundamental level, your struggles with grey knights are down to the army not the core rulebook, hence the difference here.
I don't need a thought experiment to respond to the rest though, world eaters are a viable melee army with comparable if not less movement options, fewer guns and no real wargear options to speak of. They tick fewer boxes than grey knights do. I don't think chaos marines would care much if lords lost their hammer overly on the whole (beyond the complaint of a lack of options), it's not the singular point propping the army up and they're not waltzing around destroying tanks with them. To that end every time there are a slew of weapon options available with minor variations (halberd, falchions in this case) there's always been a right or wrong choice and people grumble about how GW swaps them to make you change your minis.
GW will 100% redesign the entire grey knight range at some point, the terminator redesign basically forces them to and it's naive to think they won't get the primaris treatment eventually. They would 100% rather sell you more boxes to fill your army than let you snap a wrist off or add invisible wargear.
In short, none of your complaints will be fixed by having a bunch of S8 hammers in your units suddenly, which in turn is absolutely nothing to do with the topic of depth of the core rules.
H.B.M.C. wrote: You don't need an AV system in a game where certain Toughness levels cannot be damaged at all by lower strength values. If 6's didn't always wound, this would no longer be an issue.
Dudeface wrote: Soooo you want 7th ed 40k and consider it mechanically deep?
You cannot ask people want they want, and then just gak over everything they say when they give you a reply.
I don't have to agree with an opinion and I gave a clear and lengthy response as to why. I won't lie I did expect something a bit more nuanced than simply pointing at stuff old editions did a little differently when asking for expanded depth in the core rules.
I gave an opinion, you went with arguing that i want 7th which i don't. The only reason i have to even look at 7th would be to field my R&H in a heavily curated match. I pointed to it, enough but i can expand on it:
Regardless of how you make it , if you reimplement armor values or deny certain treshholds of S to wound, that denies already the tendency for certain mono weapon favouritism IF gw can controll the urge to not over do the Shot amounts on AT. Templates were a good fix to that aswell because they only always had a 3rd chance for a hit. So it made the system granular.
The coversystems GW always had were bad. Either favouring solely light infantry or beeing inefectual in general. Static coversaves were a good thing, if they'd also had increased the armor of heavy infantry. In the same way it would open a place for weaponry that always was never considered, like Nade launchers.
At the same point, area denial was funnily done in HH and is very usefull. And surprise surprise the bigger table make transports usefull even if they aren^'t massivly underpriced laden with Special rules spam.
H.B.M.C. wrote: You don't need an AV system in a game where certain Toughness levels cannot be damaged at all by lower strength values. If 6's didn't always wound, this would no longer be an issue.
Dudeface wrote: Soooo you want 7th ed 40k and consider it mechanically deep?
You cannot ask people want they want, and then just gak over everything they say when they give you a reply.
I don't have to agree with an opinion and I gave a clear and lengthy response as to why. I won't lie I did expect something a bit more nuanced than simply pointing at stuff old editions did a little differently when asking for expanded depth in the core rules.
I gave an opinion, you went with arguing that i want 7th which i don't. The only reason i have to even look at 7th would be to field my R&H in a heavily curated match. I pointed to it, enough but i can expand on it:
Regardless of how you make it , if you reimplement armor values or deny certain treshholds of S to wound, that denies already the tendency for certain mono weapon favouritism IF gw can controll the urge to not over do the Shot amounts on AT. Templates were a good fix to that aswell because they only always had a 3rd chance for a hit. So it made the system granular.
The coversystems GW always had were bad. Either favouring solely light infantry or beeing inefectual in general. Static coversaves were a good thing, if they'd also had increased the armor of heavy infantry. In the same way it would open a place for weaponry that always was never considered, like Nade launchers.
At the same point, area denial was funnily done in HH and is very usefull. And surprise surprise the bigger table make transports usefull even if they aren^'t massivly underpriced laden with Special rules spam.
Fair play, the leap to 7th edition was mine by interpreting the items you requested as being things that last existed in 40k in 7th edition, it's the nearest jump off point in the games history that had a different cover system, armour facings and expanded wargear options.
I'd agree all the GW cover systems are a problem, no argument there. Given that HH is also larger games in general at 3k, does the same propensity to have too many boots on the ground not also kick in? I've little experience with HH as I've no drive to get sort yet another marine army to that size with the expensive FW bolt ons and have an army bigger than a 40k one.
I preferred 40k at 1500 on a 6x4, so I'm on board with you regards making movement more important and having more limitations against units that move.
We weren't discussing whether or not storm guardians or their parent faction is OP; I was using them as an example of a unit whose special rule doesn't do an especially good job of capturing their lore and presenting ways that a different non-bespoke rule or even a simple change to their unit size might do a better job of giving them a niche/reflecting their lore than the bespoke rule they were given.
I don't think I need to cover myself, and it is not a question of hate. GW , again, gave eldar bonkers rules. 30+ re-rolls per game, game skiping mechanics. Capturing the "lore" of eldar seems like a secondary problem, when there are factions that have botched core rules. If guardians and other eldar units would start getting even more rules, then where would it bring us? The early 10th again, or maybe a more casual 60% win rate eldar. The eldar autarch has more weapon options and load outs then my entire army. GW raced to fix the problem of some load outs existings as models, but not as rules. Well my dudes have thunder hammers, but GW decided that those are , aside for one special character with bad rules, cosmetic only. Index eldar right now, are beating the living snot out of armies that have codex right now. GW gave them enough rules, they don't need more. Lore accurate or non role accurate. And through my 3 edition expiriance I somehow came to the conclusion that niche eldar rules, somehow turn out to be non niche and somehow it ends with eldar double taping, being the "glass canon" faction, but somehow on the table being more resilient then marines etc. Instead of thinking about eldar rules GW should, maybe ,rewrite the ad mecha codex and try really hard to not release similar side grade/down grade books for other factions. Because 10th starts to look like index hammer, isn't just the entry to 10th, it is what you get.
You are missing all of my points in your eagerness to rant about a faction being OP. I wasn't commenting on how powerful storm guardians are. I was discussing whether or not their special rule did a good job of representing their lore. Whether or not storm guardians and eldar as a whole are OP is a completely different discussion. I'm not saying we should give storm guardians deepstrike or lower their squad size because they need to be buffed; I'm saying that doing either of those things (in place of giving them a bespoke sticky objectives rule) would do a better job of representing their fluff and giving them a niche than the sticky objectives rule does.
If anything, the min squad suggestion would be advocating for giving eldar *fewer* special rules. I was trying to provide an example of how simpler changes that don't rely on bespoke rules can sometimes be more effective for giving units niches.
I could be making the same point with a non-eldar unit. It's just that eldar are what I have the most experience with in 10th, and storm guardians were the first unit that came to mind.
FWIW, I'm not a huge fan of our free rerolls or the Strands of Fate mechanic and would prefer rules that change unit behavior (something like battle focus) rather than just making units more lethal. But again, that's a completely different topic.
Fair play, the leap to 7th edition was mine by interpreting the items you requested as being things that last existed in 40k in 7th edition, it's the nearest jump off point in the games history that had a different cover system, armour facings and expanded wargear options.
I'd agree all the GW cover systems are a problem, no argument there. Given that HH is also larger games in general at 3k, does the same propensity to have too many boots on the ground not also kick in? I've little experience with HH as I've no drive to get sort yet another marine army to that size with the expensive FW bolt ons and have an army bigger than a 40k one.
I preferred 40k at 1500 on a 6x4, so I'm on board with you regards making movement more important and having more limitations against units that move.
TBF HH 2.0 was 7th.
HH has some other issues, boots only are one if you play militia. My own full army is 2500 approx, so yeah space is an issue especially for them. And realistically even marines can get clogged. Honestly the board could go to 8x4 and would be perfectly well off at 3k. That said, i don't see as many 3k games and my own table is 8x4.
i do think 40k had it right at 1500 for a 6x4 field with the points at the time.
i do think 40k had it right at 1500 for a 6x4 field with the points at the time.
I have often felt that 1500 points is where you stop adding new stuff into a list and start finding stuff to take a 3rd copy of. I've been rather impressed that 10th has me feeling less of this, but I find games are snappier at 1500 regardless.
i do think 40k had it right at 1500 for a 6x4 field with the points at the time.
I have often felt that 1500 points is where you stop adding new stuff into a list and start finding stuff to take a 3rd copy of. I've been rather impressed that 10th has me feeling less of this, but I find games are snappier at 1500 regardless.
Agreed. A 1500 point list has enough points to play into a theme and cover your bases while still retaining some characterful weaknesses. Beyond that, you usually just start adding redundancy to the list or sprinkling in a big centerpiece model. It's more fun to take down your opponent's heavy-hitter and feel like you accomplished something rather than knowing that there's still an exact copy of that unit right around the corner.
I feel like point arguments are tricky because each edition the values of units jump around. Sometimes units are priced way above or below in general so the relative value of a fixed point level - eg 1500 - can end up meaning quite different things to different people.
Personally I'm more of a fan of bigger armies because they allow you far more potential diversity to put models on the table. I think that if GW went for more alternating activation by units this would be reinforced even more. Right now the big downside to bigger armies is the potential to lean more and more into a specific single tactic and get a powerful alpha with that tactical approach to obliterate a good chunk of your opponent's force from the table in one go.
Smaller point games on decently large tables tends to reduce that a little because objectives can be more spread out so you've got to spread out a bit more and can't quite so easily (or shouldn't be able to at least) just concentrate in one spot.
Points are definitely subject to... kind of a reverse inflation. Point cuts tend to result in armies from the end of an edition being notably larger than they were at the start.
LunarSol wrote: Points are definitely subject to... kind of a reverse inflation. Point cuts tend to result in armies from the end of an edition being notably larger than they were at the start.
GW uses long term shrinkflation of both points and bank balances. I honestly hate it when people clamour for point cuts in the balance passes for this reason, make them worth their cost, not make them cost less.
Yeah I always feel a unit should have a rough points value they should be at based on fluff and then the rules and stats should be worked around that rather than the other round. Otherwise you just get some very weird stuff like elite troops as hordes.
Dai wrote: Yeah I always feel a unit should have a rough points value they should be at based on fluff and then the rules and stats should be worked around that rather than the other round. Otherwise you just get some very weird stuff like elite troops as hordes.
The problem is most armies don't translate well from the fluff.
Take Marines VS Tyranids - if you were any where near close to the fluff you'd be putting down 5 tactical marines VS 2000 Gaunts in a 2K match. That's the kind of numbers disparity that you're looking for if you're leaning toward the Lore.
Not to mention that elite can be such a variable term. An elite unit doesn't always mean small in number, it might just mean specialist. The army could still have a LOT of them fielded and just be a very specialised force in that particular area. Marines might actually be the only army that could be translated due to their technical cap of warriors. Meanwhile every other faction is basically totally open numbers wise as to what they have. +
One one level I like the idea of many Tyranids vs very few Marines. On another I want Tyranids to be able to complete a turn without taking 1-2 hours; and I want the Marine player to be able to bring more of their awesome models to the table. In the end more model diversity on the table is a good thing and more models is a boon for a wargame where most factions are fairly large and diverse. If you're only getting 1-2 games a week "some weeks" then I'd rather sacrifice "lore authenticity" for a chance to put more models and diversity down per game
Dai wrote: Yeah I always feel a unit should have a rough points value they should be at based on fluff and then the rules and stats should be worked around that rather than the other round. Otherwise you just get some very weird stuff like elite troops as hordes.
The problem is most armies don't translate well from the fluff.
Take Marines VS Tyranids - if you were any where near close to the fluff you'd be putting down 5 tactical marines VS 2000 Gaunts in a 2K match. That's the kind of numbers disparity that you're looking for if you're leaning toward the Lore.
Not to mention that elite can be such a variable term. An elite unit doesn't always mean small in number, it might just mean specialist. The army could still have a LOT of them fielded and just be a very specialised force in that particular area. Marines might actually be the only army that could be translated due to their technical cap of warriors. Meanwhile every other faction is basically totally open numbers wise as to what they have. +
One one level I like the idea of many Tyranids vs very few Marines. On another I want Tyranids to be able to complete a turn without taking 1-2 hours; and I want the Marine player to be able to bring more of their awesome models to the table. In the end more model diversity on the table is a good thing and more models is a boon for a wargame where most factions are fairly large and diverse. If you're only getting 1-2 games a week "some weeks" then I'd rather sacrifice "lore authenticity" for a chance to put more models and diversity down per game
That's all fair enough and obviously there has to be some abstraction, particularly as 40k games have only ever really portrayed pitched battles between equally powerful forces (in theory). It'd be silly if we were at a point where the gaunt was more points than the marine though, if you'll forgive the slippery slope.
Dai wrote: Yeah I always feel a unit should have a rough points value they should be at based on fluff and then the rules and stats should be worked around that rather than the other round. Otherwise you just get some very weird stuff like elite troops as hordes.
The problem is most armies don't translate well from the fluff.
Take Marines VS Tyranids - if you were any where near close to the fluff you'd be putting down 5 tactical marines VS 2000 Gaunts in a 2K match. That's the kind of numbers disparity that you're looking for if you're leaning toward the Lore.
Not to mention that elite can be such a variable term. An elite unit doesn't always mean small in number, it might just mean specialist. The army could still have a LOT of them fielded and just be a very specialised force in that particular area. Marines might actually be the only army that could be translated due to their technical cap of warriors. Meanwhile every other faction is basically totally open numbers wise as to what they have. +
One one level I like the idea of many Tyranids vs very few Marines. On another I want Tyranids to be able to complete a turn without taking 1-2 hours; and I want the Marine player to be able to bring more of their awesome models to the table. In the end more model diversity on the table is a good thing and more models is a boon for a wargame where most factions are fairly large and diverse. If you're only getting 1-2 games a week "some weeks" then I'd rather sacrifice "lore authenticity" for a chance to put more models and diversity down per game
I have this vague notion of a Combat Patrol sized game that plays quickly enough to give multiple games in in the same time it currently takes to play a 2k game of 40k. Probably with "detachments" that basically define the starting point for your list and have options balanced around that starting point. So 'nids might have a detachment for running one MC with some little bug support, a detachment for an endless horde, a detachment for elite bugs, one for sneaky bugs, etc. Each with some room for customization, but the detachment defines the basic shape of your army.
By zooming in, you create room for some of the lore-appropriate rules that get messy in larger-scale games. So instead of putting 2000 gaunts on the table at once, you maybe have 20-40 running around at a time and include rules for respawning them in strategic reserves to give the impression of an overhwhelming tide coming in piecemeal. Or you could flesh out some cool biomorph rules for your warriors or add some detailed terrain destruction and "weak point"/"called shot" rules for dealing with the MC.
Basically, fewer units at a time, but more games in the same amount of time, and you have more space for flavorful rules during each game.
Dai wrote: Yeah I always feel a unit should have a rough points value they should be at based on fluff and then the rules and stats should be worked around that rather than the other round. Otherwise you just get some very weird stuff like elite troops as hordes.
The problem is most armies don't translate well from the fluff.
Take Marines VS Tyranids - if you were any where near close to the fluff you'd be putting down 5 tactical marines VS 2000 Gaunts in a 2K match. That's the kind of numbers disparity that you're looking for if you're leaning toward the Lore.
Not to mention that elite can be such a variable term. An elite unit doesn't always mean small in number, it might just mean specialist. The army could still have a LOT of them fielded and just be a very specialised force in that particular area. Marines might actually be the only army that could be translated due to their technical cap of warriors. Meanwhile every other faction is basically totally open numbers wise as to what they have. +
One one level I like the idea of many Tyranids vs very few Marines. On another I want Tyranids to be able to complete a turn without taking 1-2 hours; and I want the Marine player to be able to bring more of their awesome models to the table. In the end more model diversity on the table is a good thing and more models is a boon for a wargame where most factions are fairly large and diverse. If you're only getting 1-2 games a week "some weeks" then I'd rather sacrifice "lore authenticity" for a chance to put more models and diversity down per game
That's all fair enough and obviously there has to be some abstraction, particularly as 40k games have only ever really portrayed pitched battles between equally powerful forces (in theory). It'd be silly if we were at a point where the gaunt was more points than the marine though, if you'll forgive the slippery slope.
Oh I agree and I don't think we'll ever hit that. That said if you go and look at much earlier editions of the game things like Gaunts were taken in 8s and perhaps 16s so not honestly all that far from a tactical squad at 5 and 10. Gaunts have gone up and down; same as AoS infantry blocks. GW went through some very BIG infantry blocks in both games and have pulled back from that a bit. It's a tricky balance because long term customers do end up with big collections and wnat to use them; whilst at the same time you don't want games so vast that newbies are put off and where the game can take too long (for the average person) because of so many things to move around. Even the board can get too chock full of models to be properly fun.
It's a tricky balance but I think honestly GW has a decent handle on that. Of all the ups and downs of their balance I'd say they are "generally" good with the visual side of things. The only time I really feel they fall down is with AoS and their whole "1 in 5 or 10" wiht banners and musicians which makes infantry blocks look silly and Cavalry can look outright daft (the best example is Seekers of Slaanesh which end up with more command units than troopers, even when in a full 15 unit block)
In contrast I feel like One Page Rules is undersized for their army variety and model sizes. That said its a newer game and in its growth period so more like GW of 2nd edition where its more important to get games under belts than it is to have big impressive battles.
The problem is most armies don't translate well from the fluff.
Take Marines VS Tyranids - if you were any where near close to the fluff you'd be putting down 5 tactical marines VS 2000 Gaunts in a 2K match.
I mean . . . What fluff are we talking about there? 5 Marines vs 2000 Gaunts in an open field, the Marines should lose hard. If the Marines aren't just running away they should be overrun in no time.
If the scenario involves some sort of chokepoint and they go at it 300 style, then I could see them lasting quite a while. But how much ammo does a Marine carry anyways?
The problem is most armies don't translate well from the fluff.
Take Marines VS Tyranids - if you were any where near close to the fluff you'd be putting down 5 tactical marines VS 2000 Gaunts in a 2K match.
I mean . . . What fluff are we talking about there? 5 Marines vs 2000 Gaunts in an open field, the Marines should lose hard. If the Marines aren't just running away they should be overrun in no time.
If the scenario involves some sort of chokepoint and they go at it 300 style, then I could see them lasting quite a while. But how much ammo does a Marine carry anyways?
As much as the plot requires, of course.
Also, with regards to the length of turns for the 2k Gaunts - I feel like there would be ways to smooth things over at least a little (movement trays/multi-unit bases, perhaps?). There'd definitely be a floor to how efficient you could be, but it might be doable enough for an occasional try.
The problem is most armies don't translate well from the fluff.
Take Marines VS Tyranids - if you were any where near close to the fluff you'd be putting down 5 tactical marines VS 2000 Gaunts in a 2K match.
I mean . . . What fluff are we talking about there? 5 Marines vs 2000 Gaunts in an open field, the Marines should lose hard. If the Marines aren't just running away they should be overrun in no time.
If the scenario involves some sort of chokepoint and they go at it 300 style, then I could see them lasting quite a while. But how much ammo does a Marine carry anyways?
As much as the plot requires, of course.
Also, with regards to the length of turns for the 2k Gaunts - I feel like there would be ways to smooth things over at least a little (movement trays/multi-unit bases, perhaps?). There'd definitely be a floor to how efficient you could be, but it might be doable enough for an occasional try.
Thing is movement trays means changing the game style to compensate. For example with 40K you can (or at least used to be able too before baneblades and such appeared) have fairly dense terrain. Even now with bigger things you can still have things fairly dense. With movement trays comes formation movement which means having much more open board design. Have too much terrain and units can't wheel or turn properly or they end up getting bogged down with it; or you're always changing the movement type to fit through gaps and such.
So movement trays can most certainly help, but only if you change some fundamentals of the game to include them.
Plus even with movement trays 2K gaunts is a daunting prospect to buy and build let alone paint, transport and field. Yes its an extreme example; but again its good to consider that you have to have practical limits in games. Yes sometimes you'll play an apoc game with loads more models on the table. But those are rare and limited events for most people and clubs. So by and large you've got to consider transporting, building, painting, playing and more. Plus in the end does the Marine player also want their army so small? In the end the game is about models on the table and that's why you see elite armies like Marines fielding "too many" and swarm armies like guard and Tyranids fielding "too few". They are real world compromises.
Sometimes you can get a more "real" feel with a different scale. 8mm Tyranids and you could field a LOT more on the table more affordably. Or the other extreme, 75mm and you can have some super detailed models, but you won't field many per side
I think too many people get shlocky prose mixed up with lore and thus we get plot armour marines seen as the standard for all marines.
Movie Marines were never supposed to be real marines. They were larger than life action hero marines.
On an open field 5 marines would be killed by 50 gaunts - they wouldn't have enough ammo apart from anything else. In a bunker firing out, 5 guardsmen with enough ammo and guns can take on 20,000 gaunts.
The ability to represent something accurately is subjective. Should a marine be T5 because a bullet shot from 100 metres away won't go through their fused ribs?
Or should they be t1 because a pistol held to their eye socket will put a bullet through their brain?
The same thing is true when shooting their chest armour vs their neck re save value.
The game completely ignores the assymetry advantage marines have as one of the key reasons they survive so well.
Space marine forces could be t3 w1 and be balanced if their army rules said:
Only half the opponent's force can be deployed. The rest come on in round 3.
The marines get to deploy wherever they wish no restrictions.
Marines get the first turn.
Imo far too much of marine power is being shifted to their statline.
A marine force caught in a trap that negates their advantages should be highly vulnerable, not be able to deflect missiles off their abs.
Fair play, the leap to 7th edition was mine by interpreting the items you requested as being things that last existed in 40k in 7th edition, it's the nearest jump off point in the games history that had a different cover system, armour facings and expanded wargear options.
I'd agree all the GW cover systems are a problem, no argument there. Given that HH is also larger games in general at 3k, does the same propensity to have too many boots on the ground not also kick in? I've little experience with HH as I've no drive to get sort yet another marine army to that size with the expensive FW bolt ons and have an army bigger than a 40k one.
I preferred 40k at 1500 on a 6x4, so I'm on board with you regards making movement more important and having more limitations against units that move.
TBF HH 2.0 was 7th.
HH has some other issues, boots only are one if you play militia. My own full army is 2500 approx, so yeah space is an issue especially for them. And realistically even marines can get clogged. Honestly the board could go to 8x4 and would be perfectly well off at 3k. That said, i don't see as many 3k games and my own table is 8x4.
i do think 40k had it right at 1500 for a 6x4 field with the points at the time.
Same difference, but HH 2.0 is what 7th edition *should* have been. Which is to say very similar, but with a lot of the absolutely pants-on-head-insane game design stripped out and tossed in a ditch to die. Making it an actual improvement on the previous ruleset.
I'd still say it's far from perfect, and it shows GW's trademark lack of comprehension for mechanical depth vs complexitiy, but it's at least a functional wargame which plays alright and does a decent job of representing what it sets out to.
morganfreeman wrote:Same difference, but HH 2.0 is what 7th edition *should* have been. Which is to say very similar, but with a lot of the absolutely pants-on-head-insane game design stripped out and tossed in a ditch to die.
HH2.0 is an improvement in many ways, but they've doubled down on the byzantine mess of special rules to patch up mechanics that don't fundamentally work. You shouldn't need a special rule for an autocannon just so that it can sometimes pierce armor. You really shouldn't need a special rule for an artillery shell so that it can do enough damage to kill a veteran.
40K's gone down the same road with mechanics like 'anti-X' for the same reason: the core rules don't work for what they want them to do. The core mechanics aren't impactful enough to make units behave how they should, or for weapons to have the appropriate targets, so these abilities are used to shortcut or magnify mechanics in lieu of the actual directly relevant attributes.
It's a mix of keyword soup and CCG-esque bespoke abilities that makes the games hard to learn and imposes significant cognitive load in gameplay. MESBG is a good example of a game that doesn't need all this bloat to function, and GW's done plenty of others in the past. Just look at Epic: Armageddon or Battlefleet Gothic, and you'll find games where units can function completely differently without any special rules at all, simply as a result of impactful and sufficiently deep core rules.
The problem is most armies don't translate well from the fluff.
Take Marines VS Tyranids - if you were any where near close to the fluff you'd be putting down 5 tactical marines VS 2000 Gaunts in a 2K match.
I mean . . . What fluff are we talking about there? 5 Marines vs 2000 Gaunts in an open field, the Marines should lose hard. If the Marines aren't just running away they should be overrun in no time.
If the scenario involves some sort of chokepoint and they go at it 300 style, then I could see them lasting quite a while. But how much ammo does a Marine carry anyways?
As much as the plot requires, of course.
There's a point where we just call it bad writing.
At least pre-primaris Marines could theoretically raid a PDF stockpile for more standard ammo like Bolter (Storm Bolters being a common accessory on tanks) Heavy Bolter, Lascannon etc.
In my view it's the novels that are "wrong" and not the tabletop. I think 5 Marines being able to take on 2000 gaunts is obviously ludicrous, and a function of them being the protagonist faction in schlocky pulp novels (which I also enjoy).
Going by the novels, a single squad of Guardsmen should also be able to take down a squad of Chaos Space Marine veterans with no losses. Taking the novels as literal truth is not a good idea, because certain factions will never get a novel from their POV, especially Tyranids.
And on MESBG, I agree it's currently my favourite GW ruleset, but actually, it is quite bloated these days with the special rules added during the Hobbit and all the Legendary Legions nonsense they've been adding recently. It was better when it was the Big Blue Book mostly written by Rick Priestly in my opinion, most other writers have glued rules to it that are not needed.
I think 5 Marines being able to take on 2000 gaunts is obviously ludicrous,
Hence the WD movie marine article with stats-
1,500 point army -hero, sarg, 4 marines and a razorback. the basic marine is 100 points each with T6, 2 wounds a 3++ save BS5 and his basic bolter is a 36" assault cannon with rending. the rest of the stats are even more out there for the other units.
The issue with armies not translating well from the lore is less about numbers for me and more about simple things like stats and abilities. Take the Tyranid book for example. Read the lore about a Norn Emissary and then explain to me why its melee attacks cap out at S9? The same strength as a Hive Tyrant despite the Norns being the apex predators of the Hive Fleets? In fact, why are most Tyranid monsters capped at S9? Why are carnifexes only hitting 50% of the time? I can absolutely accept that, for the game to work, you cannot have 100% lore accurate models and rules but some of the rules writing this edition baffles me.
Necronmaniac05 wrote: The issue with armies not translating well from the lore is less about numbers for me and more about simple things like stats and abilities. Take the Tyranid book for example. Read the lore about a Norn Emissary and then explain to me why its melee attacks cap out at S9? The same strength as a Hive Tyrant despite the Norns being the apex predators of the Hive Fleets? In fact, why are most Tyranid monsters capped at S9? Why are carnifexes only hitting 50% of the time? I can absolutely accept that, for the game to work, you cannot have 100% lore accurate models and rules but some of the rules writing this edition baffles me.
The strength cap is a bit of a problem for nids in general, can't argue that, but why does anything hit on a 4+? A carnifex is meant to be a bit of a lumbering brute that's not exactly quick or skilled, but instead just applies brute force, it's always been low initiative before and the base WS has gone up and down over the years.
My one want for every future edition of 40k - people need to stop wanting everything to be efficient at everything. Hitting on a 4 should be normal, it should be acceptable, 3+ should be above average.
I'd say part of the problem is we only have 6 numbers to work with. It's one of the reasons people have argued that the game should shift to the use of D10 where you have more numbers, more of a scope of variation and you can have more break up of unit stats.
Of course its not a be-all and end-all solution and could result in extremes. For example a D10 could end up with everything being in the 5-10 range so functionally still squashed back into a small effective range of values. Or you could end up with a bit of the situation that aircraft had when they first came out in that if you didn't specifically take the hard counter to them (AA) then you couldn't deal with them which made them very easy to be overpowered in one game and underpowered in another. Making it very hard to balance their stats into the game
Monsters capping at S9 has nothing to do with the D6 and I doubt Carnifexes hitting on a 6+ on a D12 would have players saying 'finally, the lore-accurate 58% hit rate we always needed!'.
Weapon Skill in its current incarnation is a poorly designed mechanic and a perfect example of needing special rules (or inflated stats elsewhere) in order to actually represent a combatant being particularly skilled in melee combat. Hyperfocusing on granularity of such a transparently shallow mechanic is completely missing the forest for the trees; the problem isn't that there aren't enough increments between 50% and 83%, it's that hitting 50% of the time or 83% of the time is not enough to differentiate a conscript with a rusty spoon from the best swordsman in the galaxy.
And so you wind up with a character hitting on 2+ with eleventy million attacks that do bonus hits on 6s and a 5+ invuln save because they're so good, all instead of just, yknow, giving the character a high Melee Fightin' Stat because they're good at Melee Fightin' and having the core rules elegantly translate that into gameplay effects.
I have to agree with Catbarf. There are a few issues with 10th edition ( balance issues aside as I really don't want to get into any of that here) and most of them are not really related to the D6 system. I do feel like 40K should move to a D8 or D10 based system but I don't feel like this is the route of its problems. I feel like they have introduced a lot of concepts which I personally do not like or at least I do not like the way the concept has been implemented, such as devastating wounds and Anti weapons. Neither is necessarily bad on its own but combined together and especially when combined with things like fate dice (another, IMO, terrible mechanic as currently implemented) or the insane amount of re rolls in the game they become...unfun for want of a better word.
Another issue is they clearly pivot in their design philosophies even midway through the edition. Take the 'free strats' point, last night I had a game where I had an overlord in my necron army. Rule as written in the codex is I can target his unit with a stratagem for 0CP but post balance data slate it has to be a battle tactics stratagem. Problem is the Hypercrypt legion doesn't have any, because when the codex was written it didn't matter because that's not how the rule worked. A bit like how when the Necron codex came out in 9th edition a D6 damage weapon was awesome but 3 months down the line they had clearly canned that idea and decided that flat damage weapons like damage 3 or damage 2 were better. They never bothered to go back and fix the early codexes though just like Tyranids will be stuck now for the whole of 10th with no real effective method of dealing with T12 and above units.
catbarf wrote: Monsters capping at S9 has nothing to do with the D6 and I doubt Carnifexes hitting on a 6+ on a D12 would have players saying 'finally, the lore-accurate 58% hit rate we always needed!'.
Weapon Skill in its current incarnation is a poorly designed mechanic and a perfect example of needing special rules (or inflated stats elsewhere) in order to actually represent a combatant being particularly skilled in melee combat. Hyperfocusing on granularity of such a transparently shallow mechanic is completely missing the forest for the trees; the problem isn't that there aren't enough increments between 50% and 83%, it's that hitting 50% of the time or 83% of the time is not enough to differentiate a conscript with a rusty spoon from the best swordsman in the galaxy.
And so you wind up with a character hitting on 2+ with eleventy million attacks that do bonus hits on 6s and a 5+ invuln save because they're so good, all instead of just, yknow, giving the character a high Melee Fightin' Stat because they're good at Melee Fightin' and having the core rules elegantly translate that into gameplay effects.
Out of interest, do you have any proposals for how a Melee Fightin' Stat would work to better represent good fighters?
catbarf wrote: Monsters capping at S9 has nothing to do with the D6 and I doubt Carnifexes hitting on a 6+ on a D12 would have players saying 'finally, the lore-accurate 58% hit rate we always needed!'.
Weapon Skill in its current incarnation is a poorly designed mechanic and a perfect example of needing special rules (or inflated stats elsewhere) in order to actually represent a combatant being particularly skilled in melee combat. Hyperfocusing on granularity of such a transparently shallow mechanic is completely missing the forest for the trees; the problem isn't that there aren't enough increments between 50% and 83%, it's that hitting 50% of the time or 83% of the time is not enough to differentiate a conscript with a rusty spoon from the best swordsman in the galaxy.
And so you wind up with a character hitting on 2+ with eleventy million attacks that do bonus hits on 6s and a 5+ invuln save because they're so good, all instead of just, yknow, giving the character a high Melee Fightin' Stat because they're good at Melee Fightin' and having the core rules elegantly translate that into gameplay effects.
What is a high melee fighting stat if not a large number of attacks with high accuracy? Ultimately however you define your core rules, the base stats you give your models are still going to in effect result in having more of these traits.
That's not to say there aren't other ways to simulate melee combat; I mean... I play Bushido, but more attacks at higher accuracy is generally what makes a character effective in melee regardless.
catbarf wrote: Monsters capping at S9 has nothing to do with the D6 and I doubt Carnifexes hitting on a 6+ on a D12 would have players saying 'finally, the lore-accurate 58% hit rate we always needed!'.
Weapon Skill in its current incarnation is a poorly designed mechanic and a perfect example of needing special rules (or inflated stats elsewhere) in order to actually represent a combatant being particularly skilled in melee combat. Hyperfocusing on granularity of such a transparently shallow mechanic is completely missing the forest for the trees; the problem isn't that there aren't enough increments between 50% and 83%, it's that hitting 50% of the time or 83% of the time is not enough to differentiate a conscript with a rusty spoon from the best swordsman in the galaxy.
And so you wind up with a character hitting on 2+ with eleventy million attacks that do bonus hits on 6s and a 5+ invuln save because they're so good, all instead of just, yknow, giving the character a high Melee Fightin' Stat because they're good at Melee Fightin' and having the core rules elegantly translate that into gameplay effects.
Out of interest, do you have any proposals for how a Melee Fightin' Stat would work to better represent good fighters?
Well put, catbarf.
@Vipoid: I feel like we could go back an opposed WS roll. Maybe shrink the range of WS values and/or simplify the comparison so that newbies don't get intimidated by a table they constantly have to look up. So something like:
* You have a WS value such as 3 or 4. (Not 3+ or 4+.) Edit: This probably has to go back to being a unit stat instead of a weapon stat so we know what value to compare against in the case that you have multiple melee weapons.
* When you attack an enemy unit in melee, compare your WS to theirs. If your WS is higher, you hit on 3+. If it's the same or higher, you hit on a 4+. If their WS is at least double your WS, you hit on 5+. Could optionally hit on 2+ if your WS is at least double theirs. This isn't quite as easy to remember as the current to-wound rules, but it's pretty close and doesn't require a table for reference.
* This means that being good at Melee Fightin' both makes you better at hitting enemies and makes you harder to hit. So when you throw your solitaire or Lelith hesperax, they're not getting hit by most of the attacks tossed out by guardsman Bob or ork boy #7.
Basically, the biggest problem with the old compared WS thing was that having an extra comparison table to look up was intimidating to new people. We can fix that without tossing the baby out with the bath water.
The idea of comparing WS was good, the issue is that the implementation was kinda awful.
It was a large table except the large majority of the game only used values 3-6, it could have easilly been condensced.
While at it also create an "Evasion" stat and add a BS vs Evasion to hit table for shooting. Cover and distance would improve evasion and large units like monsters and vehicles would usually have low evasion stats.
The strength cap is a bit of a problem for nids in general, can't argue that, but why does anything hit on a 4+? A carnifex is meant to be a bit of a lumbering brute that's not exactly quick or skilled, but instead just applies brute force, it's always been low initiative before and the base WS has gone up and down over the years.
Lore wise Carnifexes also were know to pick up speed as they charged, which usually was represented as to hit bonuses when charging.
Also there is the Enhances Senses biomorph that was a +1 to hit when shooting, but that is part of the whole issue of Nids losing biomorph upgrades... again.
My one want for every future edition of 40k - people need to stop wanting everything to be efficient at everything. Hitting on a 4 should be normal, it should be acceptable, 3+ should be above average.
For generalist units that's fine, but speciallist units should be efficient at their niche.
A Tyrannofex hitting on 4s never made much sense as it supposedly was a long range specialist.
The hard part about something like evasion is that its very difficult to make it effective without making blink tanks dramatically more survivable than heavy armor. 40k technically already has this with Invul saves and its a notable issue as is.
Ultimately for what 40k is trying to be, I think the melee works fine. It could probably use more things like a melee only invul or some minor modifier special rules like we have with stealth, but it serves the "cut through swarms of henchmen" about as well as anything. Honestly, most of my issues with it are just how its the one area where they try to make positioning really matter and stuff like the pile in rules create weird advantages in how to reposition models that mess with other game elements.
While at it also create an "Evasion" stat and add a BS vs Evasion to hit table for shooting. Cover and distance would improve evasion and large units like monsters and vehicles would usually have low evasion stats.
I always like the idea of an Evasion stat. Where I get a little hung up is in deciding who gets what Evasion values specifically. Like, pretty much all non-wraith eldar would probably be pretty evasive, so are we functionally just giving all space elves -1 to being hit? Doable, but definitely a big change that would call for a significant points increase. Are marines fast/trained enough compared to guardsmen to warrant a difference in their Evasion stats? Are orks less evasive than guardsmen and marines? Do we end up basically just giving everyone a +1 to hit against orks or necrons? Again, doable but a pretty major thing.
I do really like the idea of cover and distance (and the speed you moved last turn?) factoring into how well you hit things though.
While at it also create an "Evasion" stat and add a BS vs Evasion to hit table for shooting. Cover and distance would improve evasion and large units like monsters and vehicles would usually have low evasion stats.
I always like the idea of an Evasion stat. Where I get a little hung up is in deciding who gets what Evasion values specifically. Like, pretty much all non-wraith eldar would probably be pretty evasive, so are we functionally just giving all space elves -1 to being hit? Doable, but definitely a big change that would call for a significant points increase. Are marines fast/trained enough compared to guardsmen to warrant a difference in their Evasion stats? Are orks less evasive than guardsmen and marines? Do we end up basically just giving everyone a +1 to hit against orks or necrons? Again, doable but a pretty major thing.
I do really like the idea of cover and distance (and the speed you moved last turn?) factoring into how well you hit things though.
Battletech tries to do all of this and its just kind of a slog. It's kind of like complex terrain rules. I like them in theory, but in practice I find myself more engaged with abstracted terrain rules that lets the terrain look cool and the models be placed naturally around it. I'm generally wildly in favor of modifiers in general, but how you lay them out matters a lot. For example, Alpha Strike and Warmachine effectively use the same combat engine, but it feels more cumbersome in Alpha Strike because of how they divided individual actions across multiple models. Notably, remaining stationary provides a to-hit buff to you and anyone shooting at you rather than simply providing you a to-hit buff and a defense debuff. It's a minor difference, but one where you go through a checklist every attack that you really shouldn't have to.
Automatically Appended Next Post: On a side note, I think the main issue right now with the 40k engine is that while I consider the SvT check fairly easy to work with, it creates a weird situation where its pretty rare to be rolling for 4+. 2+,3+,5+,6+ all have bands of T values that you tend to fall into, but 4+ only happens against specific targets and that's definitely a more noticeable issue after the (much needed) expansion of the Toughness stat. Not sure the best way to fix it, but its definitely something I regularly notice in 10th far more than 8th or 9th.
vipoid wrote:Out of interest, do you have any proposals for how a Melee Fightin' Stat would work to better represent good fighters?
Like Wyldhunt said, the opposed roll is a simple and clean way to handle it. Just so long as you do it better than how 40K did it in old editions, where you basically never hit on worse than 4+.
HH2.0 has improved the mechanic by making it 'steeper', ie you reach 5+ to hit in relatively common scenarios, but you could even go a step further and roll in some of those bonuses like exploding hits. Like, maybe when the expert swordsman fights conscripts, he hits on a 2+ with bonus exploding hit on a 6, while the conscripts need a 6 to hit him back. This gets you a six-to-one ratio of hits inflicted to hits received (functioning as both an offensive and defensive stat), so even if that master swordsman has exactly the same strength and attacks and everything as the conscripts, he'll still be able to take on several at once and expect to win.
That's just one way to do it, using a stat that has always existed in the game. There are other ways...
LunarSol wrote:What is a high melee fighting stat if not a large number of attacks with high accuracy? Ultimately however you define your core rules, the base stats you give your models are still going to in effect result in having more of these traits.
That's not to say there aren't other ways to simulate melee combat; I mean... I play Bushido, but more attacks at higher accuracy is generally what makes a character effective in melee regardless.
...and this brings up my other complaint with how 40K currently handles statlines, which is stats that step all over each other's toes. I mean, with WS vs Attacks you at least have some thematic difference between 'precise and measured' (high WS, low A) and 'violent and uncontrolled' (low WS, high A). But in the current implementation, A2 at 3+ comes out to the same average as A4 at 5+ in all circumstances. So in most cases, all WS or BS is being used for is a more granular way to control offensive ability than the jump from A1 to A2. Their function is identical, better number = more hits against all targets.
It gets worse with defensive stats, where T, W, and Sv are used seemingly interchangeably. It used to be that most things were W1, so T defined how tough you were while Sv defined armor (and of course vehicles were their own thing), but over time that's been eroded. Now this suit of armor gives you more T, this one gives you an extra Wound, this one boosts your Save. What does it mean, in terms of what it's simulating? Dunno. Is a battle tank's armor represented as its Save, which is barely better than that of a Stormtrooper, or its Toughness, which is comparable to big flesh lump daemons that aren't armored at all? How do you define a good anti-monster weapon when a monster's defensive profile isn't especially different from a tank or an airplane or a walker or a demigod?
Well, you make a kludgy Anti-Monster USR so that a weapon doesn't need to actually be uniquely good against monsters, you can just shortcut the attack process to declare it so. We've got these nitpicky stats that define weapons in terms of strength, armor piercing, actual damage done, but because they haven't built a coherent model out of these stats it all goes out the window in favor of Kills Monsters Good (3+). And on top of that you get weird stuff like meltaguns that are described as anti-tank weapons, go right through tank armor (high AP) and do devastating damage (high Dam), but 2/3 of the time they hit they don't do anything (wound on 5+). What does that mean? What's it actually modeling? Why is the attack process with a meltagun so different from the attack process with a chainfist?
I'm fine with either an effects-focused keyword-based design approach, or a simulation-focused stat-based design approach. It's the inconsistent mix on top of quasi-redundant stats that makes the game so unnecessarily complex, despite GW's attempts to streamline and simplify. You have all these fiddly stats to track, and then you also have to remember the bespoke abilities and USRs as well. It's a lot, and I think it's really telling when I can go back to 3rd-5th and get a game going with a newbie more easily than I can with 10th.
The strength cap is a bit of a problem for nids in general, can't argue that, but why does anything hit on a 4+? A carnifex is meant to be a bit of a lumbering brute that's not exactly quick or skilled, but instead just applies brute force, it's always been low initiative before and the base WS has gone up and down over the years.
Lore wise Carnifexes also were know to pick up speed as they charged, which usually was represented as to hit bonuses when charging.
Also there is the Enhances Senses biomorph that was a +1 to hit when shooting, but that is part of the whole issue of Nids losing biomorph upgrades... again.
My one want for every future edition of 40k - people need to stop wanting everything to be efficient at everything. Hitting on a 4 should be normal, it should be acceptable, 3+ should be above average.
For generalist units that's fine, but speciallist units should be efficient at their niche.
A Tyrannofex hitting on 4s never made much sense as it supposedly was a long range specialist.
I disagree that specialists need to be hitting on 3s. They just need to be capable in their role at the end of their Hit-Wound-Save chain. Nobody expects Ork Shootas to be hitting on 3s, the solution for them isn't high accuracy but high number of shots. 4+ to hit is fine if the weapon is capable.
You are right in that it is a bit weird that if you have a S8 weapon you roll 2+ vs T2-4, 3+ vs T 5-7, 4+ only against T8, 5+ against T 9-17!
The range is 3 values for 2+, 3 values for 3+, 1 value for 4+ and then it is 7 values for 5+.
With a lower S it moves around a bit but you always get a weird distribution. Adding or removing 1 S can do nothing against certain T but also greatly change how well it performs against models with very low or very high T.
They should probably have done the old formula or one like MESBG in that it is fairly linear how S and D interact so it doesn't immediately becomes easy (3+) or hard(5+) to wound just by shifting S +- 2 when it is a scale with over 20 values on it while at some times adding 2 or more S does nothing into its preferred target even if it already wasn't wounding better than 5+. This messes a lot with modifiers as well.
Sometimes getting +1 to wound is equal to getting +1 to S but at other times it is the same as getting +5 to S. Due to the wounding table and S/T breakpoints in 8th and 9th and the +1 to wound from Blood Angels chapter tactic +1 to S were many times the same as getting another +1 to wound. BA getting +1 to S in 10th is not nearly as good as getting +1 to S in the 2 previous editions.
In mesbg +2 to strength is for most, 95%+ of models in most scenarios about the same as +1 to wound. (+1 S is a bit more situational due to the wounding table working in increments of 2 but valuing it at half the value of 2 extra S or +1 to wound is close enough for most purposes) It is slightly worse in pure damage potential but extra S has a few extra bonuses when interacting with Monster, Magic and Siege special rules. Doesn't matter if it is a 5pt goblin, decent 100pt combat hero/monster or one of the best and expensive fighters at 200pts. +2 to S or +1 to wound is going to be about the same for most of the range and thus quite easy to evaluate and balance for players and game developers.
Must be a nightmare trying to balance the effectiveness of weapons vs toughness of units in this edition and make it feel right as well as cost the right amount of points at the same time.
vipoid wrote:Out of interest, do you have any proposals for how a Melee Fightin' Stat would work to better represent good fighters?
Like Wyldhunt said, the opposed roll is a simple and clean way to handle it. Just so long as you do it better than how 40K did it in old editions, where you basically never hit on worse than 4+.
HH2.0 has improved the mechanic by making it 'steeper', ie you reach 5+ to hit in relatively common scenarios, but you could even go a step further and roll in some of those bonuses like exploding hits. Like, maybe when the expert swordsman fights conscripts, he hits on a 2+ with bonus exploding hit on a 6, while the conscripts need a 6 to hit him back. This gets you a six-to-one ratio of hits inflicted to hits received (functioning as both an offensive and defensive stat), so even if that master swordsman has exactly the same strength and attacks and everything as the conscripts, he'll still be able to take on several at once and expect to win.
That's just one way to do it, using a stat that has always existed in the game. There are other ways...
LunarSol wrote:What is a high melee fighting stat if not a large number of attacks with high accuracy? Ultimately however you define your core rules, the base stats you give your models are still going to in effect result in having more of these traits.
That's not to say there aren't other ways to simulate melee combat; I mean... I play Bushido, but more attacks at higher accuracy is generally what makes a character effective in melee regardless.
...and this brings up my other complaint with how 40K currently handles statlines, which is stats that step all over each other's toes. I mean, with WS vs Attacks you at least have some thematic difference between 'precise and measured' (high WS, low A) and 'violent and uncontrolled' (low WS, high A). But in the current implementation, A2 at 3+ comes out to the same average as A4 at 5+ in all circumstances. So in most cases, all WS or BS is being used for is a more granular way to control offensive ability than the jump from A1 to A2. Their function is identical, better number = more hits against all targets.
It gets worse with defensive stats, where T, W, and Sv are used seemingly interchangeably. It used to be that most things were W1, so T defined how tough you were while Sv defined armor (and of course vehicles were their own thing), but over time that's been eroded. Now this suit of armor gives you more T, this one gives you an extra Wound, this one boosts your Save. What does it mean, in terms of what it's simulating? Dunno. Is a battle tank's armor represented as its Save, which is barely better than that of a Stormtrooper, or its Toughness, which is comparable to big flesh lump daemons that aren't armored at all? How do you define a good anti-monster weapon when a monster's defensive profile isn't especially different from a tank or an airplane or a walker or a demigod?
Well, you make a kludgy Anti-Monster USR so that a weapon doesn't need to actually be uniquely good against monsters, you can just shortcut the attack process to declare it so. We've got these nitpicky stats that define weapons in terms of strength, armor piercing, actual damage done, but because they haven't built a coherent model out of these stats it all goes out the window in favor of Kills Monsters Good (3+). And on top of that you get weird stuff like meltaguns that are described as anti-tank weapons, go right through tank armor (high AP) and do devastating damage (high Dam), but 2/3 of the time they hit they don't do anything (wound on 5+). What does that mean? What's it actually modeling? Why is the attack process with a meltagun so different from the attack process with a chainfist?
I'm fine with either an effects-focused keyword-based design approach, or a simulation-focused stat-based design approach. It's the inconsistent mix on top of quasi-redundant stats that makes the game so unnecessarily complex, despite GW's attempts to streamline and simplify. You have all these fiddly stats to track, and then you also have to remember the bespoke abilities and USRs as well. It's a lot, and I think it's really telling when I can go back to 3rd-5th and get a game going with a newbie more easily than I can with 10th.
Another good post, catbarf.
Despite recent editions' attempts to streamline the game, I do feel like we've landed in this weird, tangled-up mess of legacy stats and rules that fail to evoke fluff as well as past editions did. 10th feels like it's doing a lot to try and address very specific issues of 9th (ex: meltas wounds tanks on a 5+ because multi-meltas were too strong in 9th). Maybe in 11th, the designers should step back re-evaluate more of the core elements in the game and go from there. *Do* we really need to-hit, to-wound, *and* save rolls followed by a potential damage roll? I've pitched dropping at least one of those steps in the past. Would the game be ruined if we moved away from IGOUGO? Do we need Beast and Mounted keywords in an edition where all they really do is tell you whether you can move through ruin walls? What are we trying to accomplish with this weird pseudo-PL points system? Etc.
Part of the inherent problem is just that its hard to make low volumes of anything effective in a system that has so many relatively high failure gates. 2+ seems great and all, but even if you're wounding on 2+ as well and cut straight through armor you're still failing about a third of your attacks. Any sort of Invul and it gets bad quick.
That said, I feel they didn't put enough effort into melee keywords. Blast would be very suitable for like, Thunder Hammers or something so they could get away with having lower attacks while still being decent into hordes.
There are several traps people can get caught in discussing this.
One is working within the 3 roll paradigm of hit wound save and how the statistics work out for that.
Another is the role that casualties play in the game.
These two combined multiply the issue.
In a 3 stage attack paradigm, the relative low success was less important when the leadership thresholds were reached. Casualties are a means rather than the ends here, to trigger a unit effect to prevent their action.
GW has shifted to a casualty as ends approach, putting greater strain on the attack rules.
They need to decide which way the game should go and build it that way, rather than trying to straddle both. Personally I find the kill centric approach really reductive and boring, but it seems to be what people measure effectiveness by and they enjoy killing.
I used to enjoy playing a game to the end and there still being a third or more of the forces left but a decisive victory still had. Games where you just remove handfuls of models is not my cup of tea.
Insectum7 wrote: I disagree that specialists need to be hitting on 3s. They just need to be capable in their role at the end of their Hit-Wound-Save chain. Nobody expects Ork Shootas to be hitting on 3s, the solution for them isn't high accuracy but high number of shots. 4+ to hit is fine if the weapon is capable.
It the the lore aspect more than the math aspect (although hitting on 4s does increase the variance). Gaunts are the baseline and they hit on 4s. Tyranid specialists should hit on 3+ because they are supposed to be better than Gaunts.
Insectum7 wrote: I disagree that specialists need to be hitting on 3s. They just need to be capable in their role at the end of their Hit-Wound-Save chain. Nobody expects Ork Shootas to be hitting on 3s, the solution for them isn't high accuracy but high number of shots. 4+ to hit is fine if the weapon is capable.
It the the lore aspect more than the math aspect (although hitting on 4s does increase the variance). Gaunts are the baseline and they hit on 4s. Tyranid specialists should hit on 3+ because they are supposed to be better than Gaunts.
Specialist should be better than the baseline.
What do you define as a specialist? To go back to the carnifex, it's still a blunt instrument of raw strength, rather than a creature of dexterity and skill. It also has a very broad generalist selection of wargear.
The game is/was too lethal and yet people still stand by wanting everything to kill everything faster. Hellebore speaks a lot of truth in that removing units shouldn't be the only or even best metric to work by, but it's pushed and treated that way.
The big perk of the carnifex (imo) is it's flexibility and the ability to have those high strength attacks in the first place, that's a perk enough not to need to make every attack more efficient as well.
Smaller armies, bigger table, lower casualty rates, make positioning and objective play the key feature.
I'd agree the Carnifex isn't supposed to be a specialist.
It kind of was a generalist specialist originally. You'd take specific gear and upgrades to make its generic core into a specialist for set roles back when Tyranids didn't have any other super-heavies to really cover all bases.
As the army expanded we gained more (often bigger) specialists in very set roles that basically do what the Carni does, better. The Carny even gets sold in a twinpack now and its downgraded somewhat. Heck 10th edition its lost a lot of its old upgrades too.
It's gone from tool-kit heavy specialist to tool-kit middleweight.
On the damage from I 100% agree. With the alternate turn sequence and GW's general approach to deal with a problem by making things more lethal, the game is focused heavily on lots of kills in a very short span of time. To the point where you can sometimes obliterate whole massive chunks of your opponent with a good turn.
In my view this is a negative, the best time in wargames is when its more of a scrum. When both sides are taking and giving blows and the potential for one side to win or lose hangs in the balance for the longest possible duration of turns. When you get a good turn on turn 2 with your alpha strike and half your opponent's army is wiped off the board that isn't as fun. Your opponent is suddenly smashed to bits and whatever game plan they had is gone; meanwhile your army now has a much easier time taking blows and giving out more.
What do you define as a specialist? To go back to the carnifex, it's still a blunt instrument of raw strength, rather than a creature of dexterity and skill. It also has a very broad generalist selection of wargear.
The base Carnifex is a generalist and a blunt instrument, in that I agree.
But a dakkafex with enhanced senses isn't a generalist, it is a mid-close range anti-infantry specialist. A screamer killer is an anti-heavy infantry specialist. A thornback is a infantry hunting specialist for heavy cover environments, etc.
More skilled than Guardsmen, sure, but that's not really what WS represents anymore. It's just a filter for overall damage output that on the face of it just models how often the unit hits- ignoring that a unit hitting 50% or 67% of the time against all targets in all situations is silly to begin with.
It doesn't bother me that a big, ponderous monster doesn't hit any more often than basic infantry. The stat isn't modeling anything deeper or more significant than that.
H.B.M.C. wrote: For the same reason it was stupid when Defilers hit on a 4+. They're more skilled than Guardsmen in close combat.
Is it more likely that a person sized crabby claw on a tank the size of a small outbuilding is deftly parrying swords duelling intently with people, or just lolz smashing at things and grabbing at them? The latter isn't skilled, it's just a case of being fast and large.
But this is where, as Catbarf says, the fluff goes wibbly wobbly and subjective regards representing trying to represent narrative nuance vs just giving a maths result. Maybe a fex should be a 4, maybe a guardsman should be a 5? Does it matter as said if it's static?
Also I'm not sure Gaunts are barticularly bad shots to begin with, either.
BS 4 covers the same wide gamut the same way S 3 does. Untrained, unfit human striking with a wooden spoon? S 3. Roided up hyper-trained half-beast-half-man from high gravity world? S 3. The ultimate test is whether the intended difference between units comes out at the end of the roll-chain.
Nah. 'Cause Daemon Engines were fixed and given better stats. The Carnifex was hitting on 3's. It regressed.
This is unacceptable.
Lol. The whole game has regressed and is unacceptable, man.
IIrc the BS3+ on a Carnifex was an upgrade anyways. I think it's been 4+ by default since 3rd edition. I imagine it could have been better in 2nd, though.
*Insofar as that BS3+ should be an option, which you should pay points for, because virtually all of the 'Fexes upgrades have vanished in 10th despite being pat of the actual physical kit.
*Insofar as that BS3+ should be an option, which you should pay points for, because virtually all of the 'Fexes upgrades have vanished in 10th despite being pat of the actual physical kit.
Yup, as part of the "regressed and unacceptable clause".
I think you have to balance lore and enabling armies to play the game though. All armies should have a way of dealing with say, a Knight or an Avatar or something like that. You can argue the toss over whether a Carnifex should hit on a 3+ or 4+ in combat but the fact is its incomprehensible that the Hive Mind bred something specifically to smash apart the enemies toughest units but in reality it only hits or punches through armour (wounds) 50% of the time. Plus it leads to poor playing experiences because if my friend brings his Knight or my Eldar player brings his Avatar, I have absolutely no reliable way of dealing with them apart from Zoanthropes and even they only wound on 4+ (5+ if the Avatar gets his -1 to wound thing).
Even the Norn Emissary is meant to be an Elite assassin in the lore but on the table its actually a tank that is meant to stand on an objective and hold it. Its ability to actually kill characters is not great.
Necronmaniac05 wrote:I think you have to balance lore and enabling armies to play the game though. All armies should have a way of dealing with say, a Knight or an Avatar or something like that. You can argue the toss over whether a Carnifex should hit on a 3+ or 4+ in combat but the fact is its incomprehensible that the Hive Mind bred something specifically to smash apart the enemies toughest units but in reality it only hits or punches through armour (wounds) 50% of the time. Plus it leads to poor playing experiences because if my friend brings his Knight or my Eldar player brings his Avatar, I have absolutely no reliable way of dealing with them apart from Zoanthropes and even they only wound on 4+ (5+ if the Avatar gets his -1 to wound thing).
Even the Norn Emissary is meant to be an Elite assassin in the lore but on the table its actually a tank that is meant to stand on an objective and hold it. Its ability to actually kill characters is not great.
It's absurd that any army would deploy anything with the intent of it missing half the time. You can rationalise almost any unit for any army doing a fixed volume of damage practically with the fluff if you try hard enough. The defining factor is the relative variables between them, the need for a game balance choice and as we see "I want it to have better stats" from players.
vict0988 wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote: For the same reason it was stupid when Defilers hit on a 4+. They're more skilled than Guardsmen in close combat.
What makes you say they are skilled in close combat? Not just deadly based on their power, but skilled.
I think that's the crux of this argument. What is skill? I asked the same thing last page and didn't really get a response.
Dudeface wrote: It's absurd that any army would deploy anything with the intent of it missing half the time. You can rationalise almost any unit for any army doing a fixed volume of damage practically with the fluff if you try hard enough. The defining factor is the relative variables between them, the need for a game balance choice and as we see "I want it to have better stats" from players.
Actually, most modern militaries deploy infantry knowing they will "miss". For every insurgent killed in Afghanistan, for example, around 250,000 rounds were fired. This is because most shooting is not with the intention of actually killing your target, but rather suppressing them so that you can bring in other elements to finish them off, be that artillery, air support, or a flanking manoeuvre. But 40K has no meaningful rules for suppression.
A Carnifex hitting on 4's would be much better if its Scything Talons weren't only a -2 Save Mod. Pre 8th this is a unit that ignored armor saves and IIrc nearly always wounded Infantry on a 2+ because of the Wound chart.
The Carnifex is also a unit which has been progressively pushed out of its role by a constant stream of new big monsters which do specific jobs better.
Lord Damocles wrote: The Carnifex is also a unit which has been progressively pushed out of its role by a constant stream of new big monsters which do specific jobs better.
I must say that I really don't get the mindset behind squelching unit capabilities in order to open up niches for other units. Like, make a bunch of big, nasty CC monsters, all of which are effective, and let the player choose which they like. Role redundancy is perfectly fine.
It is less a mindset and more that GW really sucks at role redundancy. They always make one better than the others and not necessarily the one that is newer.
I mean it took forever for Haruspexes and Maleceptors to be good units.
Dudeface wrote: It's absurd that any army would deploy anything with the intent of it missing half the time. You can rationalise almost any unit for any army doing a fixed volume of damage practically with the fluff if you try hard enough. The defining factor is the relative variables between them, the need for a game balance choice and as we see "I want it to have better stats" from players.
Actually, most modern militaries deploy infantry knowing they will "miss". For every insurgent killed in Afghanistan, for example, around 250,000 rounds were fired. This is because most shooting is not with the intention of actually killing your target, but rather suppressing them so that you can bring in other elements to finish them off, be that artillery, air support, or a flanking manoeuvre. But 40K has no meaningful rules for suppression.
Surprised it took this long for this to come up.
Hitting half the time with any sort of front-like weaponry is CRAZY good by any sort of realistic margin. And while I’m a bit young to have any first hand experience on medieval battlefields, I can comfortably say that arrows and sword strokes did not have a 50% return rate on corpses (or even hits).
I understand that “my big beasty only hits half of its shots” feels bad, but it’s an argument that’s purely about feeling. And the issue isn’t actually that only 50% of shots hit, that’s merely a symptom of 40k being puddle deep and we’ve seen where trying to treat this symptom leads. Absolutely abused levels of lethality flying around so that every attack feels impactful, because it always kills. The actual issue is that the only reason to attack in 40k is to kill, so any attack which doesn’t cause critical existence failure is a waste of time / feels bad. The solution to the ACTUAL ISSUE is to give means of interaction beyond “I kill you or I don’t”. Mechanics like suppression, moral that actually matters, and a variety of malaise would make attacks more about killing and also widen the field for weapons which are useful beyond their sheer killiness. Not to mention allow actual tactics and maneuvers, like flanking, to be worth while snd rewarding.
But that kind of design takes effort, so it’s reserved for specialist games and 40k will never see it.
The actual issue is that the only reason to attack in 40k is to kill, so any attack which doesn’t cause critical existence failure is a waste of time / feels bad. The solution to the ACTUAL ISSUE is to give means of interaction beyond “I kill you or I don’t”. Mechanics like suppression, moral that actually matters, and a variety of malaise would make attacks more about killing and also widen the field for weapons which are useful beyond their sheer killiness. Not to mention allow actual tactics and maneuvers, like flanking, to be worth while snd rewarding.
But that kind of design takes effort, so it’s reserved for specialist games and 40k will never see it.
It could be cool to see a system where attacking is more about putting layers of pressure on enemy units to debuff them before you actually start inflicting significant casualties. It definitely sounds like it would be more tactically interesting.
I do wonder if the aesthetic of 40k would interfere with that though. Generally, I want my games to be full of over-the-top blood and guts. popping enemies like zits every time I shoot at them might get that feeling across better than spending multiple turns suppressing an enemy before finishing them off all at once.
I think the main issue is keeping the pace of 40k pretty fast. Suppression is great, but you want to make sure that the good stuff still happens enough to provide ample reward. You don't want the game to slog down into immobile firefights.
But I think that balance can totally be struck for 40k.
The problem with the game focusing on purely killing is that it's a zero sum experience.
To win you have to be the killier player. It means someone isn't enjoying being slaughtered.
Too much dopamine chasing for the one player to get the kill.
Mild dissatisfaction for both players is a better game than one player feeling great and the other hating it.
The loss of initiative is an example of this in microcosm - now you just take turns choosing who gets to kill who first. The game is just a string of mini alpha strikes
A Town Called Malus wrote: Actually, most modern militaries deploy infantry knowing they will "miss". For every insurgent killed in Afghanistan, for example, around 250,000 rounds were fired. This is because most shooting is not with the intention of actually killing your target, but rather suppressing them so that you can bring in other elements to finish them off, be that artillery, air support, or a flanking manoeuvre. But 40K has no meaningful rules for suppression.
Surprised it took this long for this to come up.
Hitting half the time with any sort of front-like weaponry is CRAZY good by any sort of realistic margin.
If you take BS4+ to be a literal representation of hitting half the time you are assuming a single attack represents a single pull of the trigger.
If you take a single attack to represent a single pull of the trigger you are assuming a turn represents approximately the, I dunno, one to ten seconds it takes to identify a target and fire in a combat environment.
If you take a turn to represent one to ten seconds then you have officers shouting contradictory orders to multiple units simultaneously on the vox net every few seconds, dudes going from dug in to dead sprint in an instant, troops failing their morale test (in prior editions) and fleeing at breakneck pace before recovering all in less time than it takes to respond to 'how's the weather?', tanks exploding and all the stunned occupants piling out immediately like candy disgorging from a pinata, reinforcements being kept in reserve for key moments like thirty seconds after contact, epic duels between legendary heroes over the instant they make contact.
And then you might as well just treat all the distances as 100% literal too, and rationalize how an anti-tank missile launcher has a maximum range of approximately eighty feet and your supersonic jet cruises at about 40MPH.
This is all absolute bugfuck insanity. 40K is a highly abstracted game; there's simply no way to rationalize weapon ranges and movement rates and implied timescales in a way that makes sense. Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill are stats that reflect the abstracted skill of the user by doing more damage or doing less damage. That's all they are, and trying to take them as representative of anything 'real' just does not work.
no, every model is realistically represented
each dice is a single shot, otherwise the 1 magazine the models carry would not be a realistic representation
H.B.M.C. wrote: Who thinks that BS4+ actually represents a 50% hit rate and that troops are firing one shot for every dice you roll?
From a once over of this page of the thread:
Dudeface wrote: It's absurd that any army would deploy anything with the intent of it missing half the time. You can rationalise almost any unit for any army doing a fixed volume of damage practically with the fluff if you try hard enough. The defining factor is the relative variables between them, the need for a game balance choice and as we see "I want it to have better stats" from players.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Whether the Carnifex is a "generalist" or not, it should still hit more often than baseline infantry.
Should it though? I don't know as I agree with that. At a baseline I don't think a Carnifex is particularly "skilled" at close combat. It's a huge multi-limbed alien trying to smash (generally) smaller things with weapons bigger than they are. It's big and dangerous but kinda slow and not that dextrous. Plenty of attacks can be avoided by a mad dive out of the way, and sometimes it just hacks several dudes to paste with a single blow. Sometimes everyone moves out of the way of its body-slam charge, other times it turns an entire squad into a smear on the ground with nothing but making should contact and letting gravity take over. 4+ feels like a fairly accurate representation of this. Not perfect by any means, but not unacceptable. And more over, the abstraction wasn't even really the point of my post; it was the introduction to the main thesis of the hit %, and your tears over not liking it, being a symptom rather than the cause.
Without restating my central point I'll just say this: We've done it your way before. Cranking the hit and wound % are cranked to satisfying people who simply want stuff to do more damage leads to the insane lethality of 8th and 9th edition. It leads to high RoF D weapons armies by numerous bricks at a time. It leads to plate-sized templates that wipe out multiple squads at once.
The carnifex not feeling good to use / like it does anything is not rooted in someone making it hit on a 4+ rather than a 3+. That is merely a symptom of the underlying problem. So much so that a competently designed symptom would probably make said Carnifex have a harder time hitting smaller numbers of numble infantry skittering around it, while also making sure that near every blow is going to land when it charges into fisticuffs range of an equally sized battle-tank.
The problem with Nids though is that their supposed monsters are either inaccurate (they hit on 4+ or worse) or are not strong enough to punch through most armoured targets (they are S9 or less with a couple of exceptions which hit the heady heights of S12).
So whether a Carnifex should hit on a 3+ or 4+ is not really the point. The point is that it is simply implausible that the Hive Mind, which is in the lore supposed to regularly evolve new creatures to combat new threats, has yet to evolve a creature which can both hit enemy super heavies regularly AND hit hard enough to actually do something when they do. Meanwhile, every Eldar gun seems to have the power to kill anything it touches.
And no I'm not saying every army should have masses of s13+ weaponry, but every army should have SOME.
So whether a Carnifex should hit on a 3+ or 4+ is not really the point. The point is that it is simply implausible that the Hive Mind, which is in the lore supposed to regularly evolve new creatures to combat new threats, has yet to evolve a creature which can both hit enemy super heavies regularly AND hit hard enough to actually do something when they do. Meanwhile, every Eldar gun seems to have the power to kill anything it touches.
I wish that were the case. If it were my Rangers sniper rifles & the scatter lasers on their bikes would be alot more dangerous.
Necronmaniac05 wrote: The problem with Nids though is that their supposed monsters are either inaccurate (they hit on 4+ or worse) or are not strong enough to punch through most armoured targets (they are S9 or less with a couple of exceptions which hit the heady heights of S12).
So whether a Carnifex should hit on a 3+ or 4+ is not really the point. The point is that it is simply implausible that the Hive Mind, which is in the lore supposed to regularly evolve new creatures to combat new threats, has yet to evolve a creature which can both hit enemy super heavies regularly AND hit hard enough to actually do something when they do. Meanwhile, every Eldar gun seems to have the power to kill anything it touches.
And no I'm not saying every army should have masses of s13+ weaponry, but every army should have SOME.
You get to S12?
I run Nurgle Daemons. I cap at S8.
That does tie into a perennial issue of 40k, which is some factions are left to languish (rules and/or models) without all the tools they need, while others get new stuff every other week.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Who thinks that BS4+ actually represents a 50% hit rate and that troops are firing one shot for every dice you roll?
From a once over of this page of the thread:
Dudeface wrote: It's absurd that any army would deploy anything with the intent of it missing half the time. You can rationalise almost any unit for any army doing a fixed volume of damage practically with the fluff if you try hard enough. The defining factor is the relative variables between them, the need for a game balance choice and as we see "I want it to have better stats" from players.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Whether the Carnifex is a "generalist" or not, it should still hit more often than baseline infantry.
Should it though? I don't know as I agree with that. At a baseline I don't think a Carnifex is particularly "skilled" at close combat. It's a huge multi-limbed alien trying to smash (generally) smaller things with weapons bigger than they are. It's big and dangerous but kinda slow and not that dextrous. Plenty of attacks can be avoided by a mad dive out of the way, and sometimes it just hacks several dudes to paste with a single blow. Sometimes everyone moves out of the way of its body-slam charge, other times it turns an entire squad into a smear on the ground with nothing but making should contact and letting gravity take over. 4+ feels like a fairly accurate representation of this. Not perfect by any means, but not unacceptable. And more over, the abstraction wasn't even really the point of my post; it was the introduction to the main thesis of the hit %, and your tears over not liking it, being a symptom rather than the cause.
Without restating my central point I'll just say this: We've done it your way before. Cranking the hit and wound % are cranked to satisfying people who simply want stuff to do more damage leads to the insane lethality of 8th and 9th edition. It leads to high RoF D weapons armies by numerous bricks at a time. It leads to plate-sized templates that wipe out multiple squads at once.
The carnifex not feeling good to use / like it does anything is not rooted in someone making it hit on a 4+ rather than a 3+. That is merely a symptom of the underlying problem. So much so that a competently designed symptom would probably make said Carnifex have a harder time hitting smaller numbers of numble infantry skittering around it, while also making sure that near every blow is going to land when it charges into fisticuffs range of an equally sized battle-tank.
I appreciate I don't agree with H.B.M.C. on all of this but I think I've been misquoted to some degree. I don't genuinely think 4+ represents a 50% chance of hitting, I also know its absurd that anyone/thing in our real world can be expected to hit 100% of the time. I was merely stating if such a thing existed where a near 100% hit rate were possible, whoever owned or employed that tool/person/weapon would be daft not to want to use it all the time.
Regards the carnifex, I'm glad we've reached the point of acknowledging the dice rolls are an abstraction, because at that point there's no reason for anyone to claim skill or anything else for higher dice rolls on them, it's not a regression, it's a mathematical abstraction to make them do the right amount of damage. None of our opinions matter over the fluff and nor do historic values either.
Bonus anecdote I'm reading genefather atm and the defiler is noted as employing "clumsy flailing" when engaging a knight acheron. Both have ws 3+.
Necronmaniac05 wrote: The problem with Nids though is that their supposed monsters are either inaccurate (they hit on 4+ or worse) or are not strong enough to punch through most armoured targets (they are S9 or less with a couple of exceptions which hit the heady heights of S12).
So whether a Carnifex should hit on a 3+ or 4+ is not really the point. The point is that it is simply implausible that the Hive Mind, which is in the lore supposed to regularly evolve new creatures to combat new threats, has yet to evolve a creature which can both hit enemy super heavies regularly AND hit hard enough to actually do something when they do. Meanwhile, every Eldar gun seems to have the power to kill anything it touches.
And no I'm not saying every army should have masses of s13+ weaponry, but every army should have SOME.
You get to S12? I run Nurgle Daemons. I cap at S8.
That does tie into a perennial issue of 40k, which is some factions are left to languish (rules and/or models) without all the tools they need, while others get new stuff every other week.
Whilst I don't disagree with your point, I always struggle to accept using a chunk of codex daemons on its own as much beyond a self imposed limitation which I do respect and acknowledge, but lack of range is part of the proce for your choice there. That aside, muegle soul grinders have S9 ranged and S16 melee and don't break theme for you.
Dudeface wrote: Hitting on a 4 should be normal, it should be acceptable, 3+ should be above average.
*sheds tears of the T'au finally accepted*
As part of this change, base Tau BS is being reduced by one step - any 4+ units move to 5+, etc.
Overread wrote:I'd agree the Carnifex isn't supposed to be a specialist.
It kind of was a generalist specialist originally. You'd take specific gear and upgrades to make its generic core into a specialist for set roles back when Tyranids didn't have any other super-heavies to really cover all bases.
You keep using this word, "originally" - I do not think it means what you think it means...
catbarf wrote: 40K's gone down the same road with mechanics like 'anti-X' for the same reason: the core rules don't work for what they want them to do. The core mechanics aren't impactful enough to make units behave how they should, or for weapons to have the appropriate targets, so these abilities are used to shortcut or magnify mechanics in lieu of the actual directly relevant attributes.
Where do you draw the line with special rules though? I think to the several pages of Weapon Qualities in the 40kRPGs, covering everything from Twin-Linked, Storm, Toxic, Concussive, Overcharging and so on.
Do these rules only exist because the core rules are don't work for their intended purpose? Or do they exist to add flavour and differentiate weaponry using more than just the raw stats?
vict0988 wrote: What makes you say they are skilled in close combat? Not just deadly based on their power, but skilled.
Do you think a bio-engineered monster whose entire purpose of to destroy things in close combat should have about the same chance as smacking something in close combat as the basic infantry of the Imperium?
Dudeface wrote: Whilst I don't disagree with your point, I always struggle to accept using a chunk of codex daemons on its own as much beyond a self imposed limitation which I do respect and acknowledge, but lack of range is part of the proce for your choice there. That aside, muegle soul grinders have S9 ranged and S16 melee and don't break theme for you.
Fair enough on Soul Grinders.
But Primaris-only or Firstborn-only Marines are both perfectly valid, with plenty of options. And there's much less distinction between them than between the Daemon factions.
alextroy wrote: I’ve not counted, but I think either half of Marines has more units than all 4 gods of Chaos Daemons
Pretty sure that's a yes.
Which leads back to the "Some armies get it all, some armies don't" issue.
It's especially blatant with Marines, as they've been stated as being1,000,000 strong. Even if that's off by a factor of ten or a hundred... They can still be outnumbered, in their entirety, by one planet's worth of Guard, or Orks, or Nids, or Daemons.
RaptorusRex wrote: That's old lore, and they've been fudging the numbers for while.
Again-it can be off by a factor of a hundred, with a hundred million Marines, and they're still outnumbered by a lot of forces on an individual planet.
vict0988 wrote: What makes you say they are skilled in close combat? Not just deadly based on their power, but skilled.
Do you think a bio-engineered monster whose entire purpose of to destroy things in close combat should have about the same chance as smacking something in close combat as the basic infantry of the Imperium?
Just chiming in on this point: yes. Despite the memes, your average guardsman isn't a talentless joke with zero melee training. They are reasonably competent at smacking/stabbing things when they need to. It's just that knives and fists aren't particularly good at turning those hits into meaningful damage when you're dealing with orks and super soldiers.
The point of a carnifex is not that the carnifex knows kung fu. The point of the carnifex is that he's big and strong enough to hurt things when he hits them. This was somewhat well represented back in the day when all MCs had a not-tiny chance of killing a vehicle with a single blow and carnifexes were one of the biggest models in the codex. You could sort of hand waive the carnifex as just being *the* beefy, dense monster that wasn't a rare and expensive hive tyrant. Its offense was good enough to seem like it was capable of doing its described job on the tabletop.
But now we have tervigons and trygons and norn queens, and it would feel weird for an itty bitty carnifex to have as much raw smacking power as they do. As this change of affairs happened, the carnifex was first leaning into its living battering ram thing (it's not as big as other bugs, but it's dense and can do a bunch of damage against large targets on the charge), but now that seems to have been left behind as well. So instead of being the go-to tool of the swarm for flipping tanks and smashing through walls, it has become more of dreadnaught equivalent; capable of duking it out with similarly-sized units, but not able to reliably take on larger threats the way it used to, and also not really equipped to bully smaller units all that well because of its unreliably chance of hitting. That same unreilably chance of hitting that both made more sense back when all you needed was one good hit and when you were still hitting most non-skimmer vehicles (its preferred target) on a 3+
In the current codex, tyrannofexes with rupture cannons should theoretically be the bugs that handle large enemies. I know that their own crummy accuracy (odd on what is basically a giant evolved gun) interfered with their abililty to do this job in the past. Not sure how they stand at the moment.
In the current codex, tyrannofexes with rupture cannons should theoretically be the bugs that handle large enemies.
The thing is, most armies should have multiple solutions for any given type of enemy, particularly pretty standard sorts of adversaries like "large targets". Carnifexes should ideally be another effective tool in the anti-large-target tool kit.
In the current codex, tyrannofexes with rupture cannons should theoretically be the bugs that handle large enemies.
The thing is, most armies should have multiple solutions for any given type of enemy, particularly pretty standard sorts of adversaries like "large targets". Carnifexes should ideally be another effective tool in the anti-large-target tool kit.
I'm not outright disagreeing, but if you mean at range there's the zoanthropes, hive guard, hive Tyrants for that matter, harpy, maleceptor and exocrine that maybe all deserve that title just as much if not more. In melee it's the haruspex, both norns, tyrant again, maybe tyrant guard, trygon and tervigon to some degree. You also need a home for the venomthrope and mawloc.
So if the somewhat more diminutive carnifex is the "tank killer" what do all these obviously bigger stronger looking bugs do?
Carnifex with crushing claws should be a tank-killer, that's the whole point of giving it crushing claws, they do less attacks than scything talons but hit much harder.
In the current codex, tyrannofexes with rupture cannons should theoretically be the bugs that handle large enemies.
The thing is, most armies should have multiple solutions for any given type of enemy, particularly pretty standard sorts of adversaries like "large targets". Carnifexes should ideally be another effective tool in the anti-large-target tool kit.
I'm not outright disagreeing, but if you mean at range there's the zoanthropes, hive guard, hive Tyrants for that matter, harpy, maleceptor and exocrine that maybe all deserve that title just as much if not more. In melee it's the haruspex, both norns, tyrant again, maybe tyrant guard, trygon and tervigon to some degree. You also need a home for the venomthrope and mawloc.
So if the somewhat more diminutive carnifex is the "tank killer" what do all these obviously bigger stronger looking bugs do?
They can all be large-target-engagers, just like SMs have a ***t-ton of units that can get Lascannons and Melta weapons, including my spirit animal, the Tactical Squad.
Insectum7 wrote: They can all be large-target-engagers, just like SMs have a ***t-ton of units that can get Lascannons and Melta weapons, including my spirit animal, the Tactical Squad.
The bigger stuff can just be killier at it.
Hmm. That's essentially how things worked back when the MC rules gave you 2d6 to pen vehicles and AP2 to potentially one-shot them. There was a period where something like a tervigon was a threat against large targets, just not a very reliable one due to its low number of attacks. It feels simultaneously weird and appropriate for a ranged specialist like the tyrannofex to also be smashing tanks in melee. Like, presumably you'd have to charge a reasonable number of points for a really high strength and decent damage stat on its melee weapons, but also it's a specialized shooting unit, and those usually don't want to pay points for melee prowess that they're usually not using.
I'm here for crushing claw carnies as anti-tank units, but also it seems like he should just kind of be outshined by a crushing claw tervigon (are they still able to take crushing claws?) that has the same type of weapon and twice the size. I guess maybe you could just ensure the carnifex has more attacks (more aggressive) or lean into the battering ram thing so that they have the edge on the charge?
The thing with the tervigon is that crushing tanks isn't its main job, its main job is supporting and spawning gants and if it gets to crush a tank then that would just be a nice bonus.
A carnifex may be individually outshinned by a Tervigon, but the Tervigon is so much more expensive (as it has to pay for its synapse and gaunt rules) that the Carnifex should be more efficient at tank crushing.
Tyran wrote: The thing with the tervigon is that crushing tanks isn't its main job, its main job is supporting and spawning gants and if it gets to crush a tank then that would just be a nice bonus.
A carnifex may be individually outshinned by a Tervigon, but the Tervigon is so much more expensive (as it has to pay for its synapse and gaunt rules) that the Carnifex should be more efficient at tank crushing.
OK, so now factor in the haruspex and maybe the trygon and a norn assimilator. They can't all be equally capable at the same thing or there's no point to them, unless the carnifex is either worse at it or some spammable cheap heap of crap.
Yeah the Tervigon could still be a capable tank crusher, but for the same price you could get 2 Carnifexes bringing more capability for similar points because they lack the other suppotive capabilities.
Tyran wrote: The thing with the tervigon is that crushing tanks isn't its main job, its main job is supporting and spawning gants and if it gets to crush a tank then that would just be a nice bonus.
A carnifex may be individually outshinned by a Tervigon, but the Tervigon is so much more expensive (as it has to pay for its synapse and gaunt rules) that the Carnifex should be more efficient at tank crushing.
OK, so now factor in the haruspex and maybe the trygon and a norn assimilator. They can't all be equally capable at the same thing or there's no point to them, unless the carnifex is either worse at it or some spammable cheap heap of crap.
They can all be good at smashing things, it's fine. It's not necessary, but its possible to diverge them via particular individual abilities that set them apart from one another.
The Trygon tunnels, the Haruspex is tanky, and the Assimilator . . . I dunno what that does.
Dudeface wrote: /quote]
OK, so now factor in the haruspex and maybe the trygon and a norn assimilator. They can't all be equally capable at the same thing or there's no point to them, unless the carnifex is either worse at it or some spammable cheap heap of crap.
Well the Carnifex should be more spammable, being the only one that can be bought in units.
That aside the Trygon has deep strike and tunneling rules so also not its main job.
As for Haruspex, they are trickier but I like the current implementation of feeder organism rules with the Assimilation Swarm.
And IMHO Norns should be more of an anti-everything in melee, but also absurdly much more expensive.
When it comes to tank hunting, crushing claws Carnifex are IMHO should be the cheapest, kinda crap at anything else but arguably the most efficient at melee AT because of how simplistic they are.
Tyran wrote: The thing with the tervigon is that crushing tanks isn't its main job, its main job is supporting and spawning gants and if it gets to crush a tank then that would just be a nice bonus.
A carnifex may be individually outshinned by a Tervigon, but the Tervigon is so much more expensive (as it has to pay for its synapse and gaunt rules) that the Carnifex should be more efficient at tank crushing.
OK, so now factor in the haruspex and maybe the trygon and a norn assimilator. They can't all be equally capable at the same thing or there's no point to them, unless the carnifex is either worse at it or some spammable cheap heap of crap.
I think you are mixing up two things, lore and rules. And because GW decided to glue the system to a d6, things that shouldn't be same "skilled" are. To give an example. A NDK GM is as good at hiting targets as an IG grunt. There is a proverbial milion and one things regarding GW esotheric "to hit" "to wound" stats. In 10th GW degraded the stats of some range weapons, I assume expecting them to be buffed, by the fact that they are heavy or assault. Problems start when they do it to weapons and then forget to give weapons one of those traits. Or they nerf the stats of something like a contemptor, to entice people to pick up and play with the much better primaris dreadnoughts (stat wise), but then because of copy past rules writing armies that don't have access to primaris, but who have multiple versions of contemptors get them nerfed in to unusability.
Lore wise, and even rules wise, monsters can be anti everyhting. Pure anti tank, range or melee, anti X but also support, the anti "knight" model, anti horde or anti elite unit etc. And GW could technicaly write good rules for all of those with synergies etc. And if they unglued themselfs from d6, then they could also make a melee carnifex and shoting carnifex different. But they don't, won't and I don't think they even are interested in doing such changes.
The thing is, most armies should have multiple solutions for any given type of enemy, particularly pretty standard sorts of adversaries like "large targets". Carnifexes should ideally be another effective tool in the anti-large-target tool kit.
They should, but it is not how GW writes rules. GW anwser to lets say, a knight players question of how is he suppose to play a game when GW didn't give his army an ability to score, in an edition all about scoring. Is silence. There are and were armies that couldn't score objectives, kill specific targets or kill anything. People seem to try to defend this with "wait for the codex" and "army X has few unit options, so it of course is bad". But then there were times in both 8th and 9th, and even in 10th, where marines, the army with a bucket of units didn't have enough different units to pick from, unless someone was in to picking bad ones. I would want to see what GW design tips are to playing a White Scar army in 10th ed. I expect it to be something in the line of play HH, while buying a different army for w40k.
Tyran wrote: The thing with the tervigon is that crushing tanks isn't its main job, its main job is supporting and spawning gants and if it gets to crush a tank then that would just be a nice bonus.
A carnifex may be individually outshinned by a Tervigon, but the Tervigon is so much more expensive (as it has to pay for its synapse and gaunt rules) that the Carnifex should be more efficient at tank crushing.
That's fair. Feels a little weird something like a carnifex is better at a job by virtue of being cheap rather than just being the smashiest guy in town, but it's a good solution to the "bigger bugs exist now" thing.
Tyran wrote: The thing with the tervigon is that crushing tanks isn't its main job, its main job is supporting and spawning gants and if it gets to crush a tank then that would just be a nice bonus.
A carnifex may be individually outshinned by a Tervigon, but the Tervigon is so much more expensive (as it has to pay for its synapse and gaunt rules) that the Carnifex should be more efficient at tank crushing.
OK, so now factor in the haruspex and maybe the trygon and a norn assimilator. They can't all be equally capable at the same thing or there's no point to them, unless the carnifex is either worse at it or some spammable cheap heap of crap.
I think you are mixing up two things, lore and rules. And because GW decided to glue the system to a d6, things that shouldn't be same "skilled" are. To give an example. A NDK GM is as good at hiting targets as an IG grunt. There is a proverbial milion and one things regarding GW esotheric "to hit" "to wound" stats. In 10th GW degraded the stats of some range weapons, I assume expecting them to be buffed, by the fact that they are heavy or assault. Problems start when they do it to weapons and then forget to give weapons one of those traits. Or they nerf the stats of something like a contemptor, to entice people to pick up and play with the much better primaris dreadnoughts (stat wise), but then because of copy past rules writing armies that don't have access to primaris, but who have multiple versions of contemptors get them nerfed in to unusability.
Lore wise, and even rules wise, monsters can be anti everyhting. Pure anti tank, range or melee, anti X but also support, the anti "knight" model, anti horde or anti elite unit etc. And GW could technicaly write good rules for all of those with synergies etc. And if they unglued themselfs from d6, then they could also make a melee carnifex and shoting carnifex different. But they don't, won't and I don't think they even are interested in doing such changes.
Not at all, ignoring fluff and based purely on in game roles, there are still too many big nid creatures to fit to roles without marginalising them via delivery method. In a world where a carnifex is suddenly capable anti-vehicle, the haruspex should become even better anti-vehicle, as should most other big bugs, but as other noted the only real thing you can do at that point is make the others more expensive/have other better rules that support other purposes. The carnifex always comes back to being a bit of a generalist and not as good at any one thing as the other bugs largely, which is where it is now. It makes it so it's only capable via weight of attacks and bodies due to being cheaper.
It's all a likely result of the changes to monstrous creatures, most of which I welcome, but the removal of smash attacks etc. Has hurt nids as much as the weird reluctance to give them much high strength weaponry.
Not at all, ignoring fluff and based purely on in game roles, there are still too many big nid creatures to fit to roles without marginalising them via delivery method
That's really more a problem of sales driven bloat. they have expanded the lines so much with so many models doing the same job that they can only marginally differentiate them with a D6 system with the added resource mechanic system. you are in a situation now, especially with 10th, where you can only make one choice-the most efficient and powerful one, because of how the psudeo power level system works.
With GWs design ethos changed so radically from it's inception (seriously go back and look at unit/not wargear options for every faction circa 3rd/4th ed) squatting first born is only the start of what they need to do to maintain the model sales roadmap they are on. the newer better model must be pushed because everybody already has the old model, that isn't selling. for the poor carnifex that actually started with 6th ed when they moved the FW trygon/malwoc into the main line plastics to replace the carnifex. reducing its rules/effectiveness for the new FOMO unit.
Or you have multiple good options, and maybe you would want to run 4-6 of X, but you can't because of the rule of 3. So instead of running 6 plasma dreads, some marine players run 3 plasma ones and 3 las/RL ones. As long as the gap between the units isn't to big and they help the over all army game play, and if possible make it harder for the opponent to deal with army fast enough, they will be taken.
It is only when there are armies with multiple units per slot, but not really any worth taking that having multiple similar unit types becomes a problem.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dudeface 811846 11624284 wrote:
Not at all, ignoring fluff and based purely on in game roles, there are still too many big nid creatures to fit to roles without marginalising them via delivery method. In a world where a carnifex is suddenly capable anti-vehicle, the haruspex should become even better anti-vehicle, as should most other big bugs, but as other noted the only real thing you can do at that point is make the others more expensive/have other better rules that support other purposes. The carnifex always comes back to being a bit of a generalist and not as good at any one thing as the other bugs largely, which is where it is now. It makes it so it's only capable via weight of attacks and bodies due to being cheaper.
It's all a likely result of the changes to monstrous creatures, most of which I welcome, but the removal of smash attacks etc. Has hurt nids as much as the weird reluctance to give them much high strength weaponry.
yes. And the good (aka probably efficient but undercosted) carnifex is going to be run along side the haruspex (if GW graced it with above avarge rules and low cost), and other monsters to overwhelm other armies. That is how we get monster mash or DE meat mountain or marine dreadnought+tanks lists. The only way for GW to make them different without giving units too low point costs and/or too good rules, is if they ditched the d6, which as I said, they will not do.
This means the carnifex gets bounced between times where it is good and a good army, and times where using it is just stupid. And then the tyranid player better have a rule set and unit line up to support a swarm list.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
It's sterile because it's game-ified to the point there's basically no wargame itself left. Army building is so cookie cutter and devoid of nuance that the wargame feel is just dead, and that's really been an issue for much of nuhammer. Rather than sitting down and hammering out a list for a thematic force that feels like an actual army group, you're engaging in combos which bounce off of each other. In a large fashion list building with modern 40k for the past three editions has felt like deck building in MTG Commander instead. You get a deathstar, you select units to amp up that base strategy, and then you arbitrarily steamroll something through the deluge of buffs for certain units. Marine armies in particular feel like an antithesis of their old selves, a strange mixture of hero hammer blended with CWE.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
It's sterile because it's game-ified to the point there's basically no wargame itself left. Army building is so cookie cutter and devoid of nuance that the wargame feel is just dead, and that's really been an issue for much of nuhammer. Rather than sitting down and hammering out a list for a thematic force that feels like an actual army group, you're engaging in combos which bounce off of each other. In a large fashion list building with modern 40k for the past three editions has felt like deck building in MTG Commander instead. You get a deathstar, you select units to amp up that base strategy, and then you arbitrarily steamroll something through the deluge of buffs for certain units. Marine armies in particular feel like an antithesis of their old selves, a strange mixture of hero hammer blended with CWE.
GW are going after the people who play video games
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
It's sterile because it's game-ified to the point there's basically no wargame itself left. Army building is so cookie cutter and devoid of nuance that the wargame feel is just dead, and that's really been an issue for much of nuhammer. Rather than sitting down and hammering out a list for a thematic force that feels like an actual army group, you're engaging in combos which bounce off of each other. In a large fashion list building with modern 40k for the past three editions has felt like deck building in MTG Commander instead. You get a deathstar, you select units to amp up that base strategy, and then you arbitrarily steamroll something through the deluge of buffs for certain units. Marine armies in particular feel like an antithesis of their old selves, a strange mixture of hero hammer blended with CWE.
GW are going after the people who play video games
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
It's sterile because it's game-ified to the point there's basically no wargame itself left. Army building is so cookie cutter and devoid of nuance that the wargame feel is just dead, and that's really been an issue for much of nuhammer. Rather than sitting down and hammering out a list for a thematic force that feels like an actual army group, you're engaging in combos which bounce off of each other. In a large fashion list building with modern 40k for the past three editions has felt like deck building in MTG Commander instead. You get a deathstar, you select units to amp up that base strategy, and then you arbitrarily steamroll something through the deluge of buffs for certain units. Marine armies in particular feel like an antithesis of their old selves, a strange mixture of hero hammer blended with CWE.
Weirdly one of the most vocal problems for 10th is the opposite of this. There aren't layers of depth to army building to stack up buffs and overlapping combos, they've stripped those back and removed a lot of the deck-building gotcha moments that people spent a lot of time in the 'list building phase'. Whilst I aren't sure I agree 100% with the complaint in that direction, I do agree it to be a change for 10th that's clearly visible. So to that end I think your criticism in that regard is a little anachronistic, as it would definitely apply to 9th, but less so 10th. To the point I think some groups want that.
alextroy wrote: I find it interesting that so many people see 10th as sterile when it has more thematic rules than Index 8th Edition. Maybe it’s because 8th was a breathe of fresh air after 7th, while 10th is just a pullback from the excess of 9th?
It's sterile because it's game-ified to the point there's basically no wargame itself left. Army building is so cookie cutter and devoid of nuance that the wargame feel is just dead, and that's really been an issue for much of nuhammer. Rather than sitting down and hammering out a list for a thematic force that feels like an actual army group, you're engaging in combos which bounce off of each other. In a large fashion list building with modern 40k for the past three editions has felt like deck building in MTG Commander instead. You get a deathstar, you select units to amp up that base strategy, and then you arbitrarily steamroll something through the deluge of buffs for certain units. Marine armies in particular feel like an antithesis of their old selves, a strange mixture of hero hammer blended with CWE.
Weirdly one of the most vocal problems for 10th is the opposite of this. There aren't layers of depth to army building to stack up buffs and overlapping combos, they've stripped those back and removed a lot of the deck-building gotcha moments that people spent a lot of time in the 'list building phase'. Whilst I aren't sure I agree 100% with the complaint in that direction, I do agree it to be a change for 10th that's clearly visible. So to that end I think your criticism in that regard is a little anachronistic, as it would definitely apply to 9th, but less so 10th. To the point I think some groups want that.
Well I certainly haven't played 10th, I read over a lot of the rules and just stayed in my fethed off position for 40k as I gave up on the game at the state of 9e. When Deathwing became borderline unkillable, not because the raw stats of the unit, but they just cannot be killed because of silly interactions with interactions, I was just done. It's horrible gameplay, devoid of strategy, and chafes conceptually with being a wargame. 10e's got less of it but it still overall just reads frankly childish compared to proper wargames. Oddly the new Fantasy edition is looking like it's striving for that mature simulationism and avoidance of arbitrary crazy combo buffs, treading firmly in 6e's tradition which is a good sign.
Well I certainly haven't played 10th, I read over a lot of the rules and just stayed in my fethed off position for 40k as I gave up on the game at the state of 9e. When Deathwing became borderline unkillable, not because the raw stats of the unit, but they just cannot be killed because of silly interactions with interactions, I was just done. It's horrible gameplay, devoid of strategy, and chafes conceptually with being a wargame. 10e's got less of it but it still overall just reads frankly childish compared to proper wargames. Oddly the new Fantasy edition is looking like it's striving for that mature simulationism and avoidance of arbitrary crazy combo buffs, treading firmly in 6e's tradition which is a good sign.
It is even more fun when you are at an active game store and watch people play through 9th (even during covid lockdowns we were still getting loads of private group games in) from the beginning all the way through 10th and get to watch the game in action.....and then come here and have people tell you you have no experience for your opinions about how the game is.
It was pointed out earlier as a "game" it isn't bad, but it isn't a wargame in the way you and i are accustomed to, we are not the target audience anymore. there are very few people who come in and play 10th at our FLGS anymore, even some of the players who were current have suffered burn out or now focus on playing other games. battle tech is currently king of the hill at the moment, with various players promoting things they have gotten into recently like MCP.
I think it is good for the general store community for people to bring in different games and armies/minis for games they like to play. i am always willing to jump in and try something new out to see how it is. especially when i do not have to buy or bring anything to play.
Dudeface wrote: Weirdly one of the most vocal problems for 10th is the opposite of this. There aren't layers of depth to army building to stack up buffs and overlapping combos, they've stripped those back and removed a lot of the deck-building gotcha moments that people spent a lot of time in the 'list building phase'. Whilst I aren't sure I agree 100% with the complaint in that direction, I do agree it to be a change for 10th that's clearly visible. So to that end I think your criticism in that regard is a little anachronistic, as it would definitely apply to 9th, but less so 10th. To the point I think some groups want that.
I think 10th has sort of fallen between two stools.
The people who hated 8th and 9th have largely continued to chuck the same arrows at it. By contrast some of those who liked 8th and 9th see it as an unnecessary reset.
Put ruthlessly - 8th was a breath of fresh air because 7th was awful (unless you enjoyed clubbing people with the few top factions). The last year or so of 9th by contrast was arguably the best 40k has ever been.
I also think GW moved faster with 8th. Arguably it was an imbalanced mess - but I think we had 10 new codexes in 6 months. By contrast in 10th we've had 4. Depending on the definition of Spring we might get to 9 vs 16 - which would be better, but is still quite a gap. I also think the abuses of Indexhammer were less immediately obvious. In 8th some new tournament terror would appear every month - as players used and abused near unlimited soup, turn 1 deepstrike and unit spam etc. But these were always more terrifying online than in practice. At least initially they were not in every FLGS. This I think compared rather differently to "I've got an Eldar army that should be 20-30% more points, lets see how this goes". Things are better now - but first impressions are first impressions.
Might be the rose-colored glasses talking, but I feel like 8th was the edition with the most time spent being "pretty good" on the whole.
As Tyel pointed out, the boogeymen lists tended not to show up in your local store right away, and the meta was shifting so often that I didn't really have time to get properly frustrated with any OP build until they failed to tone down knights for like, a year. Things definitely jumped the shark with marines 2.0, but prior to that, especially if you weren't playing against knights, it was pretty easy to have a close game of 8th using a wide variety of lists.
But a bit more directly relevant to Dudeface's post: For me, it's not that I miss the wombo-combos of warlord traits/relics/detachment traits/strats from 9th; it's that those traits/relics/sometimes strats were a big part of how 9th retained some amount of customization. Like, as much as I hated having to jump through hoops to give my drukhari their relics/traits when those things probably should have just been wargear, at least I *could* build characters that felt flavorful an distinct from each other.
10th has generally removed more options than it added (at least for my armies). There's kind of a "right" build for your characters, especially once you've chosen a detachment. And that same feeling is there for your non-characters. Instead of having the option to build a 5-man warrior sqad that's cheap or even one with a cute sybarite decked out in too-expensive gear or a big squad that maximizes special weapons and defines its role through which guns it takes.... Now I'm just fielding 10-man squads, and the only gun choices are "do you want to play at a disadvantage or not?"
I think what was great about 8th edition was that some of us had to use books written for 5th all the way up to the end of 7th. To have a reset meta that I could actually compete in instead of being the NPC faction was great. There's none of this with 10th. Hell I got my book as the edition ended so there's no shortage of bad feelings on my part. But there was no great leveling of the playing field across factions or finally being able to get something current after a 5+yrs droubt. This was change for change sake. I'm glad faction secondaries are gone and strats have been reduced. But it's 2 steps back for one forward.
I started playing in 8th. And the rules for my army felt, as if they were either writen with some really ancient edition in mind or no edition at all. Till the PA book came out, I wouldn't even consider the army having a real codex in 8th. It was an exercise in spiting up wind. And certain armies had the expiriance in both 8th and 9th.
The only difference is that back in 8th or 9th, there still were options, there was FW that GW forgot existed, so some builds could run.
Sure if you played imperium the loyal 32, ravellans etc were a "fix" to every faction and playing vs some factions didn't make sense for an years. And that is IMO the biggest problem with GW. Fixing stuff or adding stuff that should just be, takes them years if not editions. And often when they do add them, like lets say jump pack troops and HQs, the time to use those already passed. So some people can have models bought 20-30 years ago and have great fun every edition without spending much, while others have to rebuy their army twice and edition, and often never get a good enough army to have fun.
As Tyel pointed out, the boogeymen lists tended not to show up in your local store right away, and the meta was shifting so often that I didn't really have time to get properly frustrated with any OP build until they failed to tone down knights for like, a year.
Is that why dark reapers were sold out world wide for the entire first half of the edition? Or later eldar flyers. The meta was not shifting at all. There were entire months of domination of one faction (Ynnari), then broken up ravellans+loyal 32 and kamikaze BA cpts invalidating every vehicle in the game.
the only variaty in lists and people playing different factions having fun, came at the end of edition when the 2.0 sm codex came out. Then we had RG centurion infiltration bombs, IH dreadnought builds, infantry spams. But all those were culled as soon as 9th started, and we were back to +60% win rate harlequin, replaced by DE and only after that mid 9th ed, did GW start to push the crazy button , not for all books though, really fast, up until they reached eldar book in 9th, which more or less anwsered the question who is the most OP in the edition. Which one would think should mean that eldar would be reigned in 10th, but that is not the case. They have more build options, more wins, then anyone else. CSM for example who are also very strong, have one way to play. Trying to play the army in a different way, with different units means the army drops below 50% win rates. And it gets even worse in non tournament setting, because somehow thanks to the rules that were supposed to be removed from 10th ed (as they were named the bad thing in 9th by GW), are somehow okey to have for eldar. Even the stupid one per unit marine re-roll got gutted from their codex.
As Tyel pointed out, the boogeymen lists tended not to show up in your local store right away, and the meta was shifting so often that I didn't really have time to get properly frustrated with any OP build until they failed to tone down knights for like, a year.
Is that why dark reapers were sold out world wide for the entire first half of the edition? Or later eldar flyers. The meta was not shifting at all. There were entire months of domination of one faction (Ynnari), then broken up ravellans+loyal 32 and kamikaze BA cpts invalidating every vehicle in the game.
the only variaty in lists and people playing different factions having fun, came at the end of edition when the 2.0 sm codex came out. Then we had RG centurion infiltration bombs, IH dreadnought builds, infantry spams. But all those were culled as soon as 9th started, and we were back to +60% win rate harlequin, replaced by DE and only after that mid 9th ed, did GW start to push the crazy button , not for all books though, really fast, up until they reached eldar book in 9th, which more or less anwsered the question who is the most OP in the edition. Which one would think should mean that eldar would be reigned in 10th, but that is not the case. They have more build options, more wins, then anyone else. CSM for example who are also very strong, have one way to play. Trying to play the army in a different way, with different units means the army drops below 50% win rates. And it gets even worse in non tournament setting, because somehow thanks to the rules that were supposed to be removed from 10th ed (as they were named the bad thing in 9th by GW), are somehow okey to have for eldar. Even the stupid one per unit marine re-roll got gutted from their codex.
Meanwhile, as all those 40k horror stories were playing out.... well, somewhere (probably in your tourney scenes).....
All around the world (even when everything was closed up due to Covid!) there were countless thousands of games, campaigns, & Crusades being played where the people involved were having fun.
As Tyel pointed out, the boogeymen lists tended not to show up in your local store right away, and the meta was shifting so often that I didn't really have time to get properly frustrated with any OP build until they failed to tone down knights for like, a year.
Is that why dark reapers were sold out world wide for the entire first half of the edition? Or later eldar flyers. The meta was not shifting at all. There were entire months of domination of one faction (Ynnari), then broken up ravellans+loyal 32 and kamikaze BA cpts invalidating every vehicle in the game.
the only variaty in lists and people playing different factions having fun, came at the end of edition when the 2.0 sm codex came out. Then we had RG centurion infiltration bombs, IH dreadnought builds, infantry spams. But all those were culled as soon as 9th started, and we were back to +60% win rate harlequin, replaced by DE and only after that mid 9th ed, did GW start to push the crazy button , not for all books though, really fast, up until they reached eldar book in 9th, which more or less anwsered the question who is the most OP in the edition. Which one would think should mean that eldar would be reigned in 10th, but that is not the case. They have more build options, more wins, then anyone else. CSM for example who are also very strong, have one way to play. Trying to play the army in a different way, with different units means the army drops below 50% win rates. And it gets even worse in non tournament setting, because somehow thanks to the rules that were supposed to be removed from 10th ed (as they were named the bad thing in 9th by GW), are somehow okey to have for eldar. Even the stupid one per unit marine re-roll got gutted from their codex.
Meanwhile, as all those 40k horror stories were playing out.... well, somewhere (probably in your tourney scenes).....
All around the world (even when everything was closed up due to Covid!) there were countless thousands of games, campaigns, & Crusades being played where the people involved were having fun.
Spoiler:
Even the 3 GK players I personally know.
You know that dismissing someones experiences while being as condescending as possible doesn't really bolster your argument right? People have fun with Monopoly, I will never understand it but they do. Usually it has nothing to do with the game and all to do with the people you play with.
The only place I can play at locally is a very competitive scene, they are all really cool guys and I enjoy them but it shows just how bad 40k has become in my opinion. I have played Tyranids since 3rd when I first started and I feel so empty building a list now. An army that used to have thousands of options to build YOUR perfect organism now has...nothing really. I enjoy playing with these guys but I do not enjoy what 40k is now, the GAME is causing me to not enjoy it, not the people, not the tourney scene.
IDK if my opinion is interesting or not. I am 45 years old, watched WH as an outsider develop over the years but never really found war-gaming to be my thing. Played Battletech, Whitedwarf, and WH, never 40k, but I was aware of it as a TTRPG guy growing up in the 90's. I just prefer TTRPG over wargaming and that is still true. So again, my opinion might not be that interesting.
What I will say is committing to wargaming is a deep commitment. Time, Money, but most of all brain power. It is like going over to a friends house and they whip out a new board game. They have min-maxed the rules already so you know its a night of but stomping ahead or you have to study like you are back in school to try to compete.
I remember when DND released 2nd Edition. Everyone liked it. Why? Because it grew the IP horizontally, 1st ED fit inside 2nd for the most part and what was missing you could just add back with no conversations.
3rd ED introduced some cools ideas but ret-conned so much and changed the way things worked. GW has followed this playbook and IMHO, its a big mistake. It is far better to grow your system horizontally than create new versions with a million revisions.
That is why I use my own custom system for Role Playing in the WH universe. Warth and Glory and Dark Heresy were just never properly fleshed out and wargaming is too cumbersome.
Looking back on things and seeing the Warhammer war gaming communities reactions to the constant revision, IMHO not surprising. All of us gamers need fewer systems more conciliation and the game needs to be easy and cheap to get into not a puzzle of growing complexity.
I feel 10th is not in a great place, but something needed to be done about 9th because the last few years of it just weren't fun. 10th does a good job addressing 9ths issues in my eyes, and it seems to me that 40k's biggest problem has shifted from core design to army balance, which is an improvement in principle IMO even if it doesn't feel like such in practice.
Xulld wrote: IDK if my opinion is interesting or not. I am 45 years old, watched WH as an outsider develop over the years but never really found war-gaming to be my thing. Played Battletech, Whitedwarf, and WH, never 40k, but I was aware of it as a TTRPG guy growing up in the 90's. I just prefer TTRPG over wargaming and that is still true. So again, my opinion might not be that interesting.
Your opinion is interesting to me, because my background is similar to yours- I've played dozens of RPGs starting with D&D in 1981 at age 8. I was GMing multiple groups by the time I was 10 and I wrote my first RPG at 12. But I never really went deep down the wargame rabbit hole; I've played a few, but only 40k/ Necromunda/ Kill Team/ Space Hulk really caught on for me.
I often find myself at odds with the majority opinion on Dakka, because most people here are primarily wargamers. In my personal experience, wargamers and roleplayers tend to value different aspects of the games they play. Wargamers love balance, while roleplayers will be more interested in mechanics that reflect and empower the stories they are trying to tell- think of the playing card use in Deadlands, the Priority system in Shadowrun, the Rings in Legend of the Five Rings.
What I will say is committing to wargaming is a deep commitment. Time, Money, but most of all brain power. It is like going over to a friends house and they whip out a new board game. They have min-maxed the rules already so you know its a night of but stomping ahead or you have to study like you are back in school to try to compete.
I totally agree with your first sentence here, but I don't think it's at all connected to the sentences that follow it.
In my experience as a roleplayer, and a person who continues to prefer roleplaying to wargames, my friends tend to be roleplayers too, which means we tend to want the same things in the games we play- namely, sprawling campaign narratives, engaging storylines involving characters or units which grow as a result of their in-game experiences. Balance, for us, a secondary or even tertiary concern- which is not to say that we don't care about balance at all; of course we do- it just isn't our priority.
I remember when DND released 2nd Edition. Everyone liked it. Why? Because it grew the IP horizontally, 1st ED fit inside 2nd for the most part and what was missing you could just add back with no conversations.
Second ed AD&D was pretty universally loved, though without the internet, it was harder to gauge popular opinion outside your peer group, so I don't trust myself to declare that with certainty. It tremendously clarified AD&D, and made a playable game out of an inspired, but rough-around the edges proof-of-concept beta edition.
And yes, they grew the IP laterally for sure- Darksun, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Dragonlance... And a virtual arsenal of Complete <Class> books that made each class as diverse as the class system had made the Adventurer.
3rd ED introduced some cools ideas but ret-conned so much and changed the way things worked.
Okay wait. You can't give 3rd ed just one line after lavishing such praise on 2nd Ed. AD&D.
Third ed didn't just revolutionize D&D, it rocked the RPG industry, because 3rd ed D&D was also the open GL/SRD system. D20 was EVERYWHERE. It was my favourite edition of the game (3.5 was better, but I regard it as the same edition). I don't really think it's fair to say 3rd ed "retconned" AD&D- all of the original campaign worlds eventually got the D20 treatment.
I loved D20 Forgotten Realms Rokugan, though at the time, I had never played the the Classic Legend of the Five Rings RPG- only the card game. For my, what made 3.5 pop was the inclusion of feat trees and the fully developed skills system, and the fact that the two reacted dynamically. Previous versions of the game hadn't included skill ranks- they used only proficient/non-proficient and defaulted to the attribute bonus, similar to how 5th ed handles skills (which was my biggest disappointment with 5th ed).
But the open GL did have casualties- Deadlands, which I talked about earlier, had one of the best mechanics systems I've ever played; it incorporated a standard deck of 52 playing cards + 2 Jokers into almost every element of the game in order to reflect the importance of gambling in the Wild West. The interactions between dice and cards were a flash of genius. And the open GL killed it, as D20 Deadlands eclipsed it by capitalizing on open GL surfers- the people who in the past would have avoided trying a second RPG because they didn't want to invest time into learning a new system were now free to try ANY and EVERY game with an open GLD20 sourcebook.
While I hated what open GL did to Deadlands, the story with West End Games is more nuanced. At first, I preferred WEG's Star Wars to the D20 version. But then they released the Dark Side Sourcebook for the D20 version, and was one of my favourite books of all time.
There was a time when it looked like open GL/ D20 systems might absorb the entire gaming industry. I don't think Shadowrun, World of Darkness or Cyberpunk ever went D20, but I think Call of Cthulu did. RPG magazines released a few homebrew D20 versions of other RPGs, and lots of GMs were doing their own conversions- World of Darkness Homebrew rules to insert into D20 modern, for example.
I found 3.5 to be superior to any other version of D&D I played, and I have played most of them. YMMV.
GW has followed this playbook and IMHO, its a big mistake. It is far better to grow your system horizontally than create new versions with a million revisions.
I am with you- edition churn sucks. But the problem for 40k is that being a miniature/pseudo-wargame, the kind of lateral, horizontal growth that you're advocating for tends to interfere with balance, which tends to impact wargames more than RPGs, to the point where lateral growth begins to be regarded as bloat, and players (who are mostly wargamers) begin to want a new edition to cure the bloat.
I've said it before: if GW had stuck with 2nd or 3rd edition, we'd have full armies for Emperor's Children, Kroot, Vespids, Eldar Corsairs, Eldar Exodites, Imperial Agents, and the armies that we have for all of the existing factions would be much larger and fleshed-out. If they hadn't diverted so much capital, energy, talent and time redesigning EVERYTHING 10 freakin times, we'd be much, much further ahead.
But people would call it all bloat. They'd be pissed off there were so many factions. Heck, we do it already; people bitched that harlequins shouldn't be a faction, inquisition shouldn't be faction, aircraft and superheavies shouldn't exist, all chaos should be in one dex, all marines should be in one dex, subfactions shouldn't have their own rules or supplements, 3 ways to play is too much... it goes on and on.
In wargaming, horizontal growth needs hard limits, because it unbalances the game, and is perceived as bloat by the majority of the playerbase, who place tremendous value on knowing the capabilities of their enemies... Because that's an important strategic skill in a wargame. In an RPG, on the other hand, often you aren't supposed to know the exact capabilities of your foe, because that facilitates the drama that is necessary to roleplaying; the first time a character encounters a skeleton, they make a wisdom check or use a lore skill to see if they know that bludgeoning weapons will be more effective. The storyteller delivers information on a need to know basis, and the players react in character.
That is why I use my own custom system for Role Playing in the WH universe.
Cheers mate! If you got it, and you like it, and people play it with you and they like it, stick to it. A custom system will ALWAYS fill your specific needs better than anything else. You're lucky to have a player group that makes that possible.
Warth and Glory and Dark Heresy were just never properly fleshed out and wargaming is too cumbersome.
I never played Wrath and Glory, but I loved Dark Heresy. At a time when GW was starving Sisters of Battle players in 40k, Fantasy Flight Games gave me glorious insights about the growth of various sisters troop types over time- now you didn't just have Seraphim, there were ranks and skills and quirks there. It helped me see my 40k army in a different light. And certainly did grow horizontally as a game with Rogue Trader as a parallel game using the same system, and tons of expansion books.
I'd much rather have seen Dark Heresy continue than to have Wrath and Glory exist at all. Dark Heresy Commorragh would have been amazing, and we'd have it by now if the game had continued.
Looking back on things and seeing the Warhammer war gaming communities reactions to the constant revision, IMHO not surprising. All of us gamers need fewer systems more conciliation and the game needs to be easy and cheap to get into not a puzzle of growing complexity.
I can't speak to "wargaming communities," but here on Dakka, people were both screaming for a new edition because of the Horizontal Growth that they saw as bloat, and disappointed with what they got in 10th because GW went too far and threw the baby out with the bathwater.
Either games gow wider, which means there are more armies, and every army's range is bigger.. OR they constantly blow it all up and redo everything again.
I am with you- edition churn sucks. But the problem for 40k is that being a miniature/pseudo-wargame, the kind of lateral, horizontal growth that you're advocating for tends to interfere with balance, which tends to impact wargames more than RPGs, to the point where lateral growth begins to be regarded as bloat, and players (who are mostly wargamers) begin to want a new edition to cure the bloat.
I've said it before: if GW had stuck with 2nd or 3rd edition, we'd have full armies for Emperor's Children, Kroot, Vespids, Eldar Corsairs, Eldar Exodites, Imperial Agents, and the armies that we have for all of the existing factions would be much larger and fleshed-out. If they hadn't diverted so much capital, energy, talent and time redesigning EVERYTHING 10 freakin times, we'd be much, much further ahead.
But people would call it all bloat. They'd be pissed off there were so many factions. Heck, we do it already; people bitched that harlequins shouldn't be a faction, inquisition shouldn't be faction, aircraft and superheavies shouldn't exist, all chaos should be in one dex, all marines should be in one dex, subfactions shouldn't have their own rules or supplements, 3 ways to play is too much... it goes on and on.
yes and no
GW manages to mess up balance and adding bloat despite releasing a new game under the same name on a regular bases
comparing it to other similar games that manage to grow while keeping the same core rules without being bloated
problem with 40k is that their fleshed out factions are often just the same but with different models
no big difference in play style or role on the table, but some extra rules to give them different kind of re-rolls for the illusion that there is a difference
Marines having different sub-factions just makes no sense of they are not options but doing the very same thing but better, that is why people don't like it, if 1 factions is doing the very same as another but better there is no real reason of having the other faction in the game at all.
I am with you- edition churn sucks. But the problem for 40k is that being a miniature/pseudo-wargame, the kind of lateral, horizontal growth that you're advocating for tends to interfere with balance, which tends to impact wargames more than RPGs, to the point where lateral growth begins to be regarded as bloat, and players (who are mostly wargamers) begin to want a new edition to cure the bloat.
I've said it before: if GW had stuck with 2nd or 3rd edition, we'd have full armies for Emperor's Children, Kroot, Vespids, Eldar Corsairs, Eldar Exodites, Imperial Agents, and the armies that we have for all of the existing factions would be much larger and fleshed-out. If they hadn't diverted so much capital, energy, talent and time redesigning EVERYTHING 10 freakin times, we'd be much, much further ahead.
But people would call it all bloat. They'd be pissed off there were so many factions. Heck, we do it already; people bitched that harlequins shouldn't be a faction, inquisition shouldn't be faction, aircraft and superheavies shouldn't exist, all chaos should be in one dex, all marines should be in one dex, subfactions shouldn't have their own rules or supplements, 3 ways to play is too much... it goes on and on.
yes and no
GW manages to mess up balance and adding bloat despite releasing a new game under the same name on a regular bases
comparing it to other similar games that manage to grow while keeping the same core rules without being bloated
problem with 40k is that their fleshed out factions are often just the same but with different models
no big difference in play style or role on the table, but some extra rules to give them different kind of re-rolls for the illusion that there is a difference
Marines having different sub-factions just makes no sense of they are not options but doing the very same thing but better, that is why people don't like it, if 1 factions is doing the very same as another but better there is no real reason of having the other faction in the game at all.
I largely agree with this. This is a big part of why the abundance of marine subfactions/releases annoy me. "Oh look. A new color of power armor. I bet it's 90% the same as the other 20 we have floating around." I'd feel a lot better about Wolves and BA having their own books if they distinguished themselves from other marines in ways other than "stabs better", "spicy assault marines", and "Sometimes our mounted units can bite instead of shoot."
LoV might be a decent example of how to do lots of horizontal expansion? Stat-wise, they have a lot of crossover with armies like skitarii or marines, but they seem to have done a decent job of making them feel unique with their judgement token mechanic and special weapon rules. If we were to stick with a given edition longer and do more horizontal expansion, I think giving each faction its own little gimmicky mechanics like that are the way to go. Don't just give armies flat bonuses to things; give them rules that change how the game is played. Have an army that's all about their fast vehicles/bikes? Give them a speed/maneuvering subsystem to play with. Have a faction that wants to be sneaky? Give them a blip and/or trap subsystem. Want to expand kroot out into a full faction? Give them some battlefield evolution rules they can sink their beaks into instead of shrinking it down to just situational FNP.
10th is a step in this direction, but I feel like it's shackled somewhat by the desire to make detachment rules modular. Stratagems, though not necessarily a bad fit for this sort of gimmicky mechanic, might be eating up design space that could be better utilized by more distinctive/less-modular rules too. Like, imagine if you could free up the stratagem section of your detachment with a page's worth of rules on blip mechanics.
kodos wrote: yes and no
GW manages to mess up balance and adding bloat despite releasing a new game under the same name on a regular bases
comparing it to other similar games that manage to grow while keeping the same core rules without being bloated
Well, as I said, I don't have a lot of experience with wargames that aren't made by GW- I've played Battle Tech (but preferred the Mechwarrior RPG), Full Throttle, Fairy Meat, Zombies!, Legions of Steel and Inferno... But not often, and it's been decades since I've played them. So I can't compare other "similar games" - but I was responding to Xull, who was comparing elements of 40k to DISSIMILAR games (RPGs).
And in terms of RPGS, guess what?
Same gak.
The Complete <Class> Books in Second ed AD&D that I rave about as a genuine and excellent example of horizontal growth? Hated by some members of the community as bloat. Prestige and Paragon classes in 3.5? Loved by me, and clear examples of game-changing horizontal growth, but also hated be some and described as bloat.
Basically with all games, players tend to regard the stuff THEY use as awesome horizontal growth, but they call everyone else's horizontal growth bloat. You'll get people who want to rage quit if Dark Angels suddenly become just Green Space Marines, but those exact people will swear up and down that there should be no difference between the Order of Our Martyred Lady and the Bloody Rose, because THAT would be bloat.
In 9th, subfactions for ALL factions were differentiated from each other by having bespoke relics, WL Traits, Strats, Detachment rules. Some subfactions are further distinguished by bespoke units (mostly marines, but also some Orks, Guard, Sisters- usually just a single named character from one or two of the six subfactions). To handwave all that differentiation away as "often just the same but with different models" feels somewhat short sighted to me. Admittedly, 9th, and to a lesser extent 8th, were the only editions of the game where the subfactions of EVERY faction got this level of detail and attention. And ALL of it was referred to as bloat by the majority of Dakkanaughts, who were SCREAMING for a new edition.
And then that edition came, and now subfaction identities exist only for marines again. Oh, you can APPROXIMATE the old distinctions by choosing the closest detachment to express the fighting style of your subfaction; but there's nothing stopping an OoOML player saying "Yeah, even though years of lore and two editions worth of rules suggest that the OoOML have a deeper connection with Martyrdom than other Orders... But My DUDES! So I want them to be enraged hand to hand monsters, so I'll use the detachment would be more suitable for Bloody Rose."
The result being that no subfaction is actually unique anymore... Except Marines and Chaos Cult Marines, because Dark Angels will have six custom detachments that can only be used by them, as will Death Guard, World Eaters, etc. Everyone else? Sure, we can pick the faction-based detachment that we feel best expresses our subfaction, but there's nothing guaranteeing that we won't face someone else who uses the detachment YOU think best expresses YOUR chosen subfaction for THEIR subfaction.
Now some people like that, because they claim it presents a less Flanderized version of subfaction identity... And I can understand that point of view... But I personally disagree with it.
To me, it feels like someone looking at the DC universe and saying "I know the authors of the IP created Batman as a gadjet user and Superman as a guy who flies and has super strength and laser eyes... But MY BATMAN, and he should be able to fly because Bats fly. And MY SUPERMAN should be as good at gadgets as Batman because, who are we kidding, if Superman applied himself to gadget crafting, he could obviously find a way to do it as good as Batman does."
Or a Star Wars guy who says "Sure, the actual published IP, written by the actual designers says Jedi use lightsabers and Clone troopers use guns... But MY Stormtroopers, so they should use light sabers cuz they're cool, and MY Jedi, so they channel their Force powers through guns."
And yes, I know that neither of those analogies are 100% applicable, but they do illustrate my feeling about people who whine that subfaction identities are Flanderization rather than world building/ horizontal growth. I also know that many people may feel an urge to attack the analogies rather than responding to the point I'm using these analogies to make.
As I've said before, Space Marines and Cult Marines are different, because they have their own dexes, but I'll use Space Marines to express the same thought I was trying to express via the use of my analogies:
Before Thunderwolf Cavalry were created, and before Iron Hands siege rules existed, you may have like Space Wolves and bought a bunch of them. And because at the time you made those purchases, rules that supported Space Wolves may have given you the room to say "My DUDES! They are the best siege warfare fighters in Marinedom," and you may have gone with that and enjoyed it immensely.
And then later, Thunderwolves come along, and the siege thing that YOU (not GW) invented for YOUR Space Wolves (not GW's) is now being given to Ironhands (to whom it was always more appropriate according to... You know, the guys who actually made the game). And you'll scream "They're Flanderizing my Space Wolves!"
They aren't. They're giving the Space Wolves the flavour that the Space Wolves were always supposed have, and they're giving the flavour that YOU created for YOUR Space Wolves to Iron Hands because in their view of the IP that they created and continue to own, Iron Hands, all other things being equal, will ALWAYS be slightly better at siege warfare than Space Wolves. It's the perk Iron Hands get for not having a handful of Bespoke named Dreads and Dudes who can ride wolves.
If I am a sisters player and I want to explore Martyrdom as a concept with my army and their fighting style, I will choose to play OoOML. If I want to explore bloody hand to hand vengeance, I will choose Bloody Rose. I will not say "Look, I know more about the game world than the people who made the game because I'm better than all of them, despite the fact that they dominate the gaming industry while I work at Walmart, so give me my Hand to Hand OoOML monsters and my Martyred Bloody Rose and don't dare Flanderize me!"
Obviously, the 10th ed design team did not agree with my point of view, because they created an edition which will produce OoOML hand to hand monsters and Bloody Rose martyrs. Yay, nothing is flanderized any more. But nothing is unique either. Why bother even deciding whether you play OoOML or Bloody Rose? It doesn't make a difference.
For those of you who screamed about Flanderization all through 9th, congratulations- you got what you wanted. I hope you enjoy it, but I suspect that most of you won't.
PenitentJake wrote: "Look, I know more about the game world than the people who made the game because I'm better than all of them, despite the fact that they dominate the gaming industry while I work at Walmart, so give me my Hand to Hand OoOML monsters and my Martyred Bloody Rose and don't dare Flanderize me!"
"Look, I'm not going to collect the same army a second time because you arbitrarily decided the only chapter in the whole galaxy who uses item x or unit x is locked behind a different color of Space Marine."
When we talk about "flanderisation", I feel most people dislike how GW tends to reduce whole armies to a single point of their identity.
Since 5th edition, we got the chapter master of the Space Wolves, Logan Grimnar "The Great Wolf", who is a werwolf himself, carrying the axe of wolf god Morkai and a skinned wolf's pelt, riding on a sled decorated with a wolf head, pulled by wolves.
They are the most egregious example, but WE, DG, BA and others go into the same direction.
And then on the other hand, there are no generic rules for "beast cavalry" for other chapters, outside of Thunderwolves, that are exclusive to SW.
I have seen art of Logan Grimnar from the 2ed codex. He has been a "wolf" since at least then. And if something is a thing for at least 9 editions out of 10, then it isn't "flanderisation" it is an theme.
Having a good jump pack, terminator, biker etc army is way better then what marines have now. Where technicaly they are multiple chapters and they even have rules, even unique ones, but in the end the only two things worth playing is either BT or Ultramarines. And some armies like the "mongol/tatar/hun" White Scars don't have a way to be played, because in their goal to remove everything non primaris, they somehow forgot that their plans for 10th ed don't include bikers, biker HQs etc.
What such a way of releasing rules gets combined with an extremly small pool of viable models to use and an updating cycle that takes multiple editions/years, there is a huge problem with keeping people happy with the factions they play. And that is all before adding non marine factions to the mix. And to make matters more fun GW decided that their flagship army, is going to be colour locked. Every other army can be painted what ever way the person ones. But if someone decides that his DA are going to be running around in black armour, then suddenly they are locked out of all the special characters etc.
I largely agree with this. This is a big part of why the abundance of marine subfactions/releases annoy me. "Oh look. A new color of power armor. I bet it's 90% the same as the other 20 we have floating around." I'd feel a lot better about Wolves and BA having their own books if they distinguished themselves from other marines in ways other than "stabs better", "spicy assault marines", and "Sometimes our mounted units can bite instead of shoot."
10th is a step in this direction, but I feel like it's shackled somewhat by the desire to make detachment rules modular. Stratagems, though not necessarily a bad fit for this sort of gimmicky mechanic, might be eating up design space that could be better utilized by more distinctive/less-modular rules too. Like, imagine if you could free up the stratagem section of your detachment with a page's worth of rules on blip mechanics.
Thing is the 90% generaly doesn't matter. When a marine faction is good, it doesn't really use those units. What were DA in 9th? 30 DW Knights and RW, some regular terminators maybe. No other marine army can do that, because it doesn't have access to knights. BA when they were a valid army to play were running maxed out Sang Guard and DC. And again no other marine army could run such a list, because they didn't have access to the faction units. Same with SW, Death Watch etc. Those were distinct armies, as different from each other as any other army in the game. What GW did with this edition is do a 180 to early 8th. Sure they are detachments and they have rules, stratagems etc. They aren't faction locked, even if they are named after specific chapters. Great. But who is going to be playing with the 1st company detachment ? And what is the White Scar player suppose to play with when his entire model line was reduced 3 units of outriders, bike chaplain and primaris quads. All the rules in the not WS detachment proc of mounted stuff, only the codex doesn't have mounted stuff in it. In fact ironicaly, the Space Wolves codex benefits more from the detachment, because they have all marine units and TWC, which are actualy good.
The "modular" way of building lists by GW means that you can have an army with the same, or almost the same, load out of units, but because the best detachment works best when combined with ultramarine special characters and units, playing any other chapters just means the person is playing space marine minus. And there aren't many people playing and enjoying w40k, who pick DA and then decide to make it green wing.
Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.
aphyon wrote: Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.
All of this is true- the 3 - 3.5 40k era was great for most factions. If you happened to play a faction with good subfaction support, what you had in that era WAS better than anything that has been done since. The issue is that it wasn't consistent - some factions had ZERO subfaction attention- sisters being one such faction (though the Hunter nature of the dex did still allow some variety, and of course, load out options were plentiful, fluffy and cool).
The reason I prefer 9th is that EVERY faction's subfactions were given identities that mattered on the table, and that the form those identities took was somewhat standardized (a bespoke detachment rule or two, a bespoke strat, a bespoke Relic, a bespoke WL trait. It is true, however that supplements- both those for marines and those published in campaign books- did upset this standardization. But every subfaction in the game having the above minimum standard went a long way toward making other factions feel like they were finally getting the same kind of attention which marine players have taken for granted since 2nd ed.
aphyon wrote: Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.
All of this is true- the 3 - 3.5 40k era was great for most factions. If you happened to play a faction with good subfaction support, what you had in that era WAS better than anything that has been done since. The issue is that it wasn't consistent - some factions had ZERO subfaction attention- sisters being one such faction (though the Hunter nature of the dex did still allow some variety, and of course, load out options were plentiful, fluffy and cool).
The reason I prefer 9th is that EVERY faction's subfactions were given identities that mattered on the table, and that the form those identities took was somewhat standardized (a bespoke detachment rule or two, a bespoke strat, a bespoke Relic, a bespoke WL trait. It is true, however that supplements- both those for marines and those published in campaign books- did upset this standardization. But every subfaction in the game having the above minimum standard went a long way toward making other factions feel like they were finally getting the same kind of attention which marine players have taken for granted since 2nd ed.
Hehe. Well I'd just say that unequal faction treatment that's more fun and thematic is a better place to be than equal treatment among factions that's boring.
Played my first game of 10th edition yesterday. It was a pretty Kafkaesque feeling game, none of my units performed in a familiar way. Made me rethink my entire army composure.
Don't know if 10th edition has drained the soul from 40K, but it certainly has changed things alot. I hardly recognize the game anymore to be honest. Feels like now, you either need super specific tools for every job, or you need to attach specific characters to units, in order to milk them for their special abilities. All about those LETHAL HITS, getting Twin linked, or DESTASTATING WOUNDS, unless you have the exact ANTI- keyword you happen to need.
aphyon wrote: Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.
All of this is true- the 3 - 3.5 40k era was great for most factions. If you happened to play a faction with good subfaction support, what you had in that era WAS better than anything that has been done since. The issue is that it wasn't consistent - some factions had ZERO subfaction attention- sisters being one such faction (though the Hunter nature of the dex did still allow some variety, and of course, load out options were plentiful, fluffy and cool).
The reason I prefer 9th is that EVERY faction's subfactions were given identities that mattered on the table, and that the form those identities took was somewhat standardized (a bespoke detachment rule or two, a bespoke strat, a bespoke Relic, a bespoke WL trait. It is true, however that supplements- both those for marines and those published in campaign books- did upset this standardization. But every subfaction in the game having the above minimum standard went a long way toward making other factions feel like they were finally getting the same kind of attention which marine players have taken for granted since 2nd ed.
Hehe. Well I'd just say that unequal faction treatment that's more fun and thematic is a better place to be than equal treatment among factions that's boring.
I would agree with this sentiment.
In any case, I maintain that 10th went in entirely the wrong direction when it came to slimming down 9th.
Take Eldar for example. Eldar had a core rule (Battle Focus) that reflected the speed/mobility of the Eldar. It then had subfaction abilities (some perhaps went a little overboard but it was a nice thing to have). But then it also added an entire 'Fate Dice' system that was completely superflous to the army.
So what did 10th do? It dropped everything *except* the superflous Fate Dice mechanic.
This is the equivalent of throwing the baby out but keeping the bathwater.
This sort of design is very offputting to me. I hate the modern thing of giving everyone bespoke special rules with hard to remember names instead of just developing a system and a statline that allows for units to be differentiated by statline.
Ideally in my view special rules should be reserved for a couple of units per army, with statlines and gear allowing for the differentiation between the rest. When every unit has a special rule it just makes me think the underlying system is not robustly designed.
You can even see this in MESBG where they've taken a game that used to have very limited special rules and tacked on "legendary legions" which allow you to get special rules for basic units as long as you take them in a pre-determined formation. Yuck! I hate it.
Da Boss wrote: This sort of design is very offputting to me. I hate the modern thing of giving everyone bespoke special rules with hard to remember names instead of just developing a system and a statline that allows for units to be differentiated by statline.
Ideally in my view special rules should be reserved for a couple of units per army, with statlines and gear allowing for the differentiation between the rest. When every unit has a special rule it just makes me think the underlying system is not robustly designed.
You can even see this in MESBG where they've taken a game that used to have very limited special rules and tacked on "legendary legions" which allow you to get special rules for basic units as long as you take them in a pre-determined formation. Yuck! I hate it.
I think adding special rules for very specific formations can be ok[maybe representing adaptations made to unit doctrine as part of the formation], provided they're not too powerful.
The rest of your post I agree with wholeheartedly agree with. A units statline feels like the least relevant thing about it atm, and that's a bad sign.
In moderation, in some special circumstances, I agree about special formations. I think MESBG goes way overboard because they're catering more to a tournament focused crowd (which is fine - it was the organised play scene that kept that game alive, I'm happy GW is making a game that those people like, it's just not for me). I prefer the simplicity of the blue rulebook.
Part of the problem at least has to be the move away from comparative charts for opposed rolls while keeping the D6 based system and the spread all the way up from a grot to a knight titan in the game. It's not surprising they have to fall back on a lot of bespoke rules with those sorts of limitations on this sort of scope of game.
Da Boss wrote: In moderation, in some special circumstances, I agree about special formations. I think MESBG goes way overboard because they're catering more to a tournament focused crowd (which is fine - it was the organised play scene that kept that game alive, I'm happy GW is making a game that those people like, it's just not for me). I prefer the simplicity of the blue rulebook.
Part of the problem at least has to be the move away from comparative charts for opposed rolls while keeping the D6 based system and the spread all the way up from a grot to a knight titan in the game. It's not surprising they have to fall back on a lot of bespoke rules with those sorts of limitations on this sort of scope of game.
Would agree, the change to fixed to hit rolls for close combat was a mistake imo.
Would add that the D stat on weapons was a good idea poorly implemented when it came to vehicles, with the range of wounds/D being too narrow. Vehicles should have wounds that they can tank small arms all day, with heavy weapons necessary. Imo a light vehicle[DE raider, land speeder] should have 10+ wounds, medium[Rhino, Predator] having 20+ and heavy [Leman Russ, Land Raider]having 30+. A dedicated anti tanks weapon such as a lascannon would do something like 6+3D6 damage.
Da Boss wrote: This sort of design is very offputting to me. I hate the modern thing of giving everyone bespoke special rules with hard to remember names instead of just developing a system and a statline that allows for units to be differentiated by statline.
Ideally in my view special rules should be reserved for a couple of units per army, with statlines and gear allowing for the differentiation between the rest. When every unit has a special rule it just makes me think the underlying system is not robustly designed.
You can even see this in MESBG where they've taken a game that used to have very limited special rules and tacked on "legendary legions" which allow you to get special rules for basic units as long as you take them in a pre-determined formation. Yuck! I hate it.
the problem with stats and w40k is, that as long as the game is based around d6 a lot of the stats are either unimportant or in order to make them important GW has to rise to number of dice a unit rolls per weapon or per model. Now if w40k run a d10 or a d12, then we could have bigger difference between units even from the same faction. Unit X from a feral world would could have a lower to hit with range weapons, but higher with melee ones. Stuff like Inv or FnP saves wouldn't be needed at worse as much, and at best at all, because being tough or resilient would be backed in to the model stat line. But GW is never going to switch out of d6, leaving us with the change factor being special rules and points per model. And while GW takes ages to update faction, and they updates and changes often are adressing problems or errors that no longer exist.
GW didn't like custodes armies to be 17 bikes and dreadnoughts, so they nerfed the living hell out of them, but the only way to make the infantry work was rule stacking and making the army a real stat check for other armies. Problems with such design start when GW decides to nerf the infantry, and as no one is buying bikes and dreadnoughts (too few custodes player are forging the narrative), the army suddenly stops to work at all. And GW fix to armies not working is, leave the army in limbo for 2-3 years, or pull a votan with them. Making a once elite army in to swarm central with overlaid buffs.
In any case, I maintain that 10th went in entirely the wrong direction when it came to slimming down 9th.
Take Eldar for example. Eldar had a core rule (Battle Focus) that reflected the speed/mobility of the Eldar. It then had subfaction abilities (some perhaps went a little overboard but it was a nice thing to have). But then it also added an entire 'Fate Dice' system that was completely superflous to the army.
So what did 10th do? It dropped everything *except* the superflous Fate Dice mechanic.
This is the equivalent of throwing the baby out but keeping the bathwater.
Totally agree. I would drop the soulless feels-bad Strands of Fate mechanic for a return to Move-Shoot-Move (battlefocus) in a heartbeat. My guess is battle focus will be one of the detachment abilities when the codex comes around.
Honestly, I'm not sure giving all armies an army-wide rule was a great idea in the first place. It works okay for something like tyranids that really ought to have synapse beasties in most or all lists. But for a lot of armies, they might have been better off just expanding on detachment abilities. So instead of giving fate dice to absolutely every eldar faction, you can make that an Ulthwe/Seer Support mechanic, representing the seer council being powerful and organized enough to help micromanage the battle. Meanwhile a Saimhann/We Like Skimmers list could replace the guardian defenders fate dice generation rule with the ability to fight better when working in tandem with a wave serpent or something.
SideSwipe wrote:
Would add that the D stat on weapons was a good idea poorly implemented when it came to vehicles, with the range of wounds/D being too narrow. Vehicles should have wounds that they can tank small arms all day, with heavy weapons necessary. Imo a light vehicle[DE raider, land speeder] should have 10+ wounds, medium[Rhino, Predator] having 20+ and heavy [Leman Russ, Land Raider]having 30+. A dedicated anti tanks weapon such as a lascannon would do something like 6+3D6 damage.
This is just my half baked idea though.
I agree with your sentiment here, but in practice, I'm not sure if lascannons basically one-shotting raiders is ideal. I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but I kind of liked where things were at in 8th/9th. Power creep in 9th meant that too many things had an extra pip of AP that made the math a little wonky. But generally, small arms were *bad* enough at hurting vehicles that you didn't want to rely on them for that job, but they were *good enough* against vehicles for a squad of bolters or shuriken catapults to still contribute to the destruction of an enemy rhino. Inefficient-but-relevant is where I like my small arms in regards to tanks. And as I argued at the time, a lot of the perceived issues with vehicle durability could have been solved by just giving vehicles like, 30% more wounds. So 13 wound rhinos for instance. Enough to make them noticably more durable against small arms and D2 weapons like plasma, but not so much as to make rolling D1 weapons against them a waste of time.
aphyon wrote: Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.
I don't really feel pain. I understand now, after watching some interviews with ex GW employees that pet projects are a thing, that armies without a new or update model line have a low chance to be fixed, if they happen to be bad. What I would like GW to do, within the boundries of stuff they can do, and not some fairy tale stuff like drop the game to 30 models max and make the d10 or d12 the basic dice, is to adress the actual problems. And if a problem gets noticed, and agreed uppon, then don't make expetions for one army to keep the problem rules or mechanic set. GW fixes boomerang kill armies. In 8th it became comical to even me at some point, how every FAQ or "fix" to other armies somehow ended up as a GK nerf as a bonus.
Miracle dice are a problem? Eldar mortal/dev wounds generation are a problem ? Overwatch on Knights and WK are a problem (but not on a baneblade)? fix the specific units, mechanic, rule or faction. Don't make it so that just because you found out that marines play with 18 agressors/interceptors, suddenly all units come in fixed msu sizes. Or do a supposed dev wounds fix, because of how powerful one faction is, and ton of other suddenly are left without core army mechanics or stuff that was suppose to replace the removal of gear/psychic powers from the faction.
Now I don't know how, or even if GK existed in 3.5 ed. But I have seen their first codex. It was a mind blowing book. No detachment, no NDK, but pages of weapons, grenades with cool effects, upgrades for units etc. Comparing to that the 8th and 9th ed codex, and both indexes feel as if someone at GW tried to phase out GK, by killing the player base with bad rules. And after what they did to White Scar players with the marine codex, I don't think that GW is beyond killing factions they don't care much about. Only thing new is that they learned from the WFB to AoS change, to do it slowly, and not by just killing stuff all of the sudden, but by giving stuff bad rules over a long span of time.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
SideSwipe 811846 11628478 wrote:
Would agree, the change to fixed to hit rolls for close combat was a mistake imo.
Would add that the D stat on weapons was a good idea poorly implemented when it came to vehicles, with the range of wounds/D being too narrow. Vehicles should have wounds that they can tank small arms all day, with heavy weapons necessary. Imo a light vehicle[DE raider, land speeder] should have 10+ wounds, medium[Rhino, Predator] having 20+ and heavy [Leman Russ, Land Raider]having 30+. A dedicated anti tanks weapon such as a lascannon would do something like 6+3D6 damage.
This is just my half baked idea though.
Wasn't that a mechanic that was limited to titans, some few psychic powers and only eldar could spam it a lot, which was such a problem to w40k, that to make marines even semi viable as a faction, GW had to give them free, in points, but not cash, transports?
Now I don't know how, or even if GK existed in 3.5 ed. But I have seen their first codex. It was a mind blowing book. No detachment, no NDK, but pages of weapons, grenades with cool effects, upgrades for units etc. Comparing to that the 8th and 9th ed codex, and both indexes feel as if someone at GW tried to phase out GK, by killing the player base with bad rules. And after what they did to White Scar players with the marine codex, I don't think that GW is beyond killing factions they don't care much about. Only thing new is that they learned from the WFB to AoS change, to do it slowly, and not by just killing stuff all of the sudden, but by giving stuff bad rules over a long span of time.
Grey Knights were a single model in 2nd, and teamed with inquisiton in 3rd and 4th (with Inq taking the forefront, then GK), Inq was dropped in 5th, and the rest is history. Which is kinda funny, as what you're describing about post-8th GK is what happened to your old book makes, the Inquisition. It's been half alive for nearly every codex after 4th, and is now, finally, not an independent faction and just a handful of options.
Grey Knights were a single model in 2nd, and teamed with inquisiton in 3rd and 4th.
Minor correction, GK were a single "type" of model, GK Terminators. There was a small collection of bodies and parts to make a 5 man squad with variations between them. Three bodies, with arms, weapons and extra shields to swap between them. They were also associated with the Inquisition in 1st and 2nd ed, sharing Psychic powers and being part of the Ordo Malleus.
No offense meant to GK fans, but I always felt they were a poor choice for a full faction. A faction specialised at killing one other faction is a bit of a poor design choice. They'd work better as an auxillary unit for imperial forces for special scenarios or something. Cool idea in the background, great models, but the old codex where you had to distort the fluff of your army if you were playing against them always really irked me quite a lot.
As an exercise for the slow grow league that starts at my store tomorrow, I've been building 500 point armies that include models I have.
Since it's tangential, I've hidden the armies in spoilers- but they're short lists, and there's some specific thoughts about each list.
So far I've got:
Drukhari
Spoiler:
Archon 75
Labrynthine Cunning 30
10 Kabalites 110
Succubus 50
10 Wyches 90
Haemonculus 60
The Art of Pain 25
5 Wracks 60
This list is designed to maximize pain tokens- it starts with 4, and if you use Alliance of Agony (and with Labyrinthine Cunning it's free), you can empower every model on the table for one Pain Token.
The army feels fluffy- it's a young Kabal, making a deal with a young Cult and and a young Coven. Each leader has their own agenda, but they are banding together for a shot at a tiny realspace raid to help them in the early stages of their rise to power. Alone, any one of these forces would be absorbed by the ruthlessness of Commorragh, but together they can scrape out a truce, allowing each to dig in.
Ordo Hereticus Chamber Militant (Sisters)
Spoiler:
Inquisitor 55
10 Vigilators 105
Cannoness 50
Mantle of Ophelia 25
10 Battle Sisters 100
Palatine 50
Blade of Saint Ellynor 15
10 Battle Sisters 100
This army feels fluffy; the Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor and his retinue of Arbites are on the trail of a rogue psyker (see the chaos list at the end of the thread), and they've enlisted the support of a local mission's Cannoness and Palatine and their respective bodyguards.
The two Battle Sisters squads are my miracle batteries, and that works for me, but the issue is that fluffy as they are, Agents are at a real disadvantage; their own special rule Assigned Agents does nothing but allow the models to be used, so it doesn't actually buff the forces that have it the way other faction rules do. And they don't have access to the allied faction's detachment rule doesn't apply, nor do their strats and enhancements.
One third of this army does not benefit from any detachment rules, strats or enhancements. It's the whole reason I built a pure sisters alternative.
Ministorum Sisters
Spoiler:
Missionary 30
3 Arcoflagellants 40
Preacher 40
Saintly Example 10
3 Arcoflagellants 40
Cannoness 50
Mantle of Ophelia 25
10 Battle Sisters 100
Palatine 50
Blade of Saint Ellynor 15
10 Battle Sisters 100
The sisters part is the same as the other army, I just replaced the Inquisitor and Arbites with a missionary and preacher, each leading a small unit of Arcos. These guys act as distractions and martyrs while the sisters camp objectives and generate MD.
This army has symmetry to it- Missionary + Palatine on one task, Cannoness and Preacher on the other. This is the core of a small Mission. It feels very fluffy- I could see this growing into the leadership detachment for a modular army.
Genestealer Cult
Spoiler:
Patriarch 85
Focus of Adoration 10
10 Genestealers 170
10 Genestealers 170
10 Death Korps of Krieg 65
This army represents the First Brood and the humans they've managed to infect up to this point in the cult's growth. These brood-brothers have not yet bred the first generation of acolytes, but that will happen soon enough.
This army is the first that I couldn't get to 500 points, because it only has one character- at this stage in a cult's development, the Patriarch is the only character a Cult can actually have at this stage in it's growth. The Magus- always the first-born second generation neophyte- is still three generations away from being born.
One character means only one enhancement.
The issue with this list is my decision to use the Krieg as my brood brothers. I did this because I have the models. But a Cult this young would not target guardsmen; they would swell their ranks with faceless "citizen" brood brothers and use them to fight, steal, and breed the hybrids that form the military leadership of the organization. Then and only then would they risk infiltrating the guard.
Now I can get around this- I could buy two Necromunda gangs and equip them as Infantry Squads- this was always my intent for the majority of the brood brothers in my army, which should cap at two units with Platoon Command Squads.
But I already have the Krieg, and the box can build the loadout necessary to field the unit, where Necromunda gangs might require conversion to field as guard.
The gist of it is that the first three of these armies felt as fluffy as this edition can make them, and it was an easy build. The Hereticus Chamber Militant army is fluffy, but quite weak due to the limitations of Agents- namely, they can't use strats and enhancements, and they don't benefit from the army's detachment rule.
The fourth army, GSC can't take a second enhancement because I designed it as a fluffy First Brood army, so it weighs in at 490.
None of these lists are going to win me a game against an optimized list from any of the higher tier army, but they all made it to 500pts despite the PL-style points; sometimes that meant selecting a different suite of Enhancement than I'd have chosen for narrative / rule of cool, but serviceable enough.
The last list though, is a hard one- I can't get it to work out to 500 the way the others did. The big reason for that?
Chaos enhancements are god-locked, so each flavour of chaos can actually only have one enhancement, and it's based on your god, so you don't get to choose it. Unlike the problem with the GSC list, where the problem was my self imposed First and Second Generation restrictions, here it's a lack of options that prevent me from taking enough enhancements to get me to the finish line.
Here's the best I could do for my narrative vision:
Spoiler:
Dark Commune 55
Intoxicating Elixir 15
10 Cultist Mob 55
Rogue Psyker 60
10 Cultist Mob 55
Rogue Psyker 60
10 Cultist Mob 55
Traitor Enforcer 65
Traitor Guard 70
This is nice fluffy list- another 4 unit symmetrical force. This cult will continue to grow, but they will eventually either learn to summon daemons or discover a Daemonforge- either of which will act as a beacon for the Emperor's Children.
Da Boss wrote: In moderation, in some special circumstances, I agree about special formations. I think MESBG goes way overboard because they're catering more to a tournament focused crowd (which is fine - it was the organised play scene that kept that game alive, I'm happy GW is making a game that those people like, it's just not for me). I prefer the simplicity of the blue rulebook.
Part of the problem at least has to be the move away from comparative charts for opposed rolls while keeping the D6 based system and the spread all the way up from a grot to a knight titan in the game. It's not surprising they have to fall back on a lot of bespoke rules with those sorts of limitations on this sort of scope of game.
All Space Marines being -1 to hit in melee compared to all Astra Militarum or all Tau was bad game design, the stat spread inside armies was too small for that system to work. My Flayed Ones hunt down Devastators? Hit on 4+, my Flayed Ones throwing themselves against Terminators or Assault Marines? Hitting on 4+. Flayed Ones attacking Guardsmen? 3+. Attacking Rough Riders? 3+. There were some Eldar units with WS 5+ and Ogryn had WS 4, but for the most part it was awfully implemented. Much easier to just give the appropriate units -1 to hit in melee with a Duelist ability if every Marine and Necron is going to be the same WS. The babying around not hitting on 3+ has also gotten worse, so it'd all just be hitting on 4+ because everyone would be WS 5 because "nuh uh my Assault Marines are just as trained as Howling Banshees" and "might as well give it to Devastator Marines while we're at it".
Da Boss wrote:No offense meant to GK fans, but I always felt they were a poor choice for a full faction. A faction specialised at killing one other faction is a bit of a poor design choice. They'd work better as an auxillary unit for imperial forces for special scenarios or something. Cool idea in the background, great models, but the old codex where you had to distort the fluff of your army if you were playing against them always really irked me quite a lot.
Indeed they were never meant to be a full faction in the lore either, that is why it was codex demon hunters not grey knights. it would be more appropriate to call it codex ordo malleus. as the entire point is that the GK part of it was the chamber militant of the inquisitional ordo meant to deal with demons and chaos aligned forces. they do work best as an allied force to bulk up an imperial faction like guard. which is why they had a special unique allies rule.
It is why i still prefer the 3rd ed codex because the 5th ed codex did turn them into singular full faction instead of just a part of the inquisition.
Played my first game of 10th edition yesterday. It was a pretty Kafkaesque feeling game, none of my units performed in a familiar way. Made me rethink my entire army composure.
Don't know if 10th edition has drained the soul from 40K, but it certainly has changed things alot. I hardly recognize the game anymore to be honest. Feels like now, you either need super specific tools for every job, or you need to attach specific characters to units, in order to milk them for their special abilities. All about those LETHAL HITS, getting Twin linked, or DESTASTATING WOUNDS, unless you have the exact ANTI- keyword you happen to need.
Very true-spam the best units and play the war of attrition is NU-40K in a nutshell. faction is irrelevant, lore is irrelevant.
10th edition is effectively already dead at our FLGS there are a few people who play from time to time. but even now less than a year after it's release players are jumping ship to play other games or in our local groups case we have a strong oldhammer group that plays house 5th ed.
We had a semi regular guy come in yesterday looking for a 10th ed game but nobody was playing, the guys who might play 10th were playing MCP or monpoc and the rest of us with 40K armies only play oldhammer. one of the guys who jumped into 40K just shy of a year ago who has 3 armies-chaos/guard/marines has finally washed his hands of 10th (he was doing both for a while) and is now only playing oldhammer.
"Spam the best units and play the war of attrition" sums up things well I'd say. No wonder my last game felt weird, I used a "lore accurate" force, and it felt like the game hates you for it
I wish 40K got its own dose of TOW treatment. Wouldnt mind a 40K fork which kept it a bit more old school and true to the pre 8th ed fluff
Da Boss wrote:No offense meant to GK fans, but I always felt they were a poor choice for a full faction. A faction specialised at killing one other faction is a bit of a poor design choice. They'd work better as an auxillary unit for imperial forces for special scenarios or something. Cool idea in the background, great models, but the old codex where you had to distort the fluff of your army if you were playing against them always really irked me quite a lot.
Indeed they were never meant to be a full faction in the lore either, that is why it was codex demon hunters not grey knights. it would be more appropriate to call it codex ordo malleus. as the entire point is that the GK part of it was the chamber militant of the inquisitional ordo meant to deal with demons and chaos aligned forces. they do work best as an allied force to bulk up an imperial faction like guard. which is why they had a special unique allies rule.
It is why i still prefer the 3rd ed codex because the 5th ed codex did turn them into singular full faction instead of just a part of the inquisition.
Both of these attitudes are examples of the "Horizontal growth inhibitors" that I wrote about earlier.
The 3rd ed Hunter dexes were as they were not because that's all they were intended to be, but because that's all GW could make of them DURING THE 3RD EDITION.
It's funny that we've had almost four decades of edition churn, and people still believe that GW's planning is self contained within a single edition. If you don't think that the Hunter dexes were released as transitional "proof of concept" work prior to larger releases and integration of both Inquisition and the respective chambers militant, I think there might be some "big picture" skills in need of further development.
GW released an entire game about the Inquisition; the Overkill box set was great for Deathwatch; Hexfire for GK and Ashes of Faith is keeping the Inquisition present for 10th. As GW engages media- through WH+ and the Amazon deal, or the once rumoured Eisenhorn show, Inquisition will become more important- if this media pulls new players, they will expect to play what the media depicts. And Inquisition, including their Chambers Militant, are an important part of that- their stories have always been amongst the most intriguing in the Warhammer 40k Universe.
I personally believe 40k should have larger ranges and more subfaction development for neglected factions and fewer editions. These characteristics go hand in hand- increasing the units in a given army, or increasing the number of armies allows new money to come in without an edition reset. If there are fewer new models, editions must get shorter, because it becomes the only way to bring in new money.
In any case, I maintain that 10th went in entirely the wrong direction when it came to slimming down 9th.
Take Eldar for example. Eldar had a core rule (Battle Focus) that reflected the speed/mobility of the Eldar. It then had subfaction abilities (some perhaps went a little overboard but it was a nice thing to have). But then it also added an entire 'Fate Dice' system that was completely superflous to the army.
So what did 10th do? It dropped everything *except* the superflous Fate Dice mechanic.
This is the equivalent of throwing the baby out but keeping the bathwater.
Totally agree. I would drop the soulless feels-bad Strands of Fate mechanic for a return to Move-Shoot-Move (battlefocus) in a heartbeat. My guess is battle focus will be one of the detachment abilities when the codex comes around.
Honestly, I'm not sure giving all armies an army-wide rule was a great idea in the first place. It works okay for something like tyranids that really ought to have synapse beasties in most or all lists. But for a lot of armies, they might have been better off just expanding on detachment abilities. So instead of giving fate dice to absolutely every eldar faction, you can make that an Ulthwe/Seer Support mechanic, representing the seer council being powerful and organized enough to help micromanage the battle. Meanwhile a Saimhann/We Like Skimmers list could replace the guardian defenders fate dice generation rule with the ability to fight better when working in tandem with a wave serpent or something.
SideSwipe wrote:
Would add that the D stat on weapons was a good idea poorly implemented when it came to vehicles, with the range of wounds/D being too narrow. Vehicles should have wounds that they can tank small arms all day, with heavy weapons necessary. Imo a light vehicle[DE raider, land speeder] should have 10+ wounds, medium[Rhino, Predator] having 20+ and heavy [Leman Russ, Land Raider]having 30+. A dedicated anti tanks weapon such as a lascannon would do something like 6+3D6 damage.
This is just my half baked idea though.
I agree with your sentiment here, but in practice, I'm not sure if lascannons basically one-shotting raiders is ideal. I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but I kind of liked where things were at in 8th/9th. Power creep in 9th meant that too many things had an extra pip of AP that made the math a little wonky. But generally, small arms were *bad* enough at hurting vehicles that you didn't want to rely on them for that job, but they were *good enough* against vehicles for a squad of bolters or shuriken catapults to still contribute to the destruction of an enemy rhino. Inefficient-but-relevant is where I like my small arms in regards to tanks. And as I argued at the time, a lot of the perceived issues with vehicle durability could have been solved by just giving vehicles like, 30% more wounds. So 13 wound rhinos for instance. Enough to make them noticably more durable against small arms and D2 weapons like plasma, but not so much as to make rolling D1 weapons against them a waste of time.
I think what you're suggesting is acceptable to me. I think where we differ is how relevant/irrelevant we think small arms should be.
I'm ok with small arms taking wounds off vehicles, but I'm against any situation where massed D2 weaponry is considered the best option for anti tank, especially when in competition with a traditionally dedicated anti tank weapon such as a lascannon.
