This was hard to go through the last pages to find a little stuff...:

If I forgot something I'm sorry PM please for info forgotten to be added

Will be edited to add rumours

Rumours:

ARMY LIST
HQ:
Lord :
WS 6 | BS 5 | S 4 | T 4 | W 3 | I 5 | A 3 | Ld 10 | Sv 3+/5+
-Fearless
-Daemonic Aura (5+ invulnerable) as standard
-Can have an Icon
-Can have Terminator Armour, Bike, Wings, or Steed
-The Daemonic Steed options are:
.....-Palanquin of Nurgle: +1 A, +1 W; count as 2 models in Land Raider
.....-Juggernaut of Khorne: +1 A, +1 S; may not be transported
.....-Disc of Tzeentch: +1 A, Jump Pack
.....-Steed of Slaanesh: +1 A, Cavalry
-Can be marked
-The Chaos Lord is equiped with a Bolt Pistol and CCW. You can purchase a Combi-Weapon for him.
-According to the source of these rumours, the Chaos Lord entry is similar to the Carnifex entry, with nearly 3/4's of the page given over to all the options he can take. Chaos Lords have apparently just as much choice as before if not a little more.
-Daemon weapon are cheaper if in Terminator Armour.
-Cannot be saved from instant death (no rune or whatnot)
-Comes with Bolt Pistol, CCW, frag and krak grenades
-Can have:
...Icons;
...-Plasma Pistol
...-Power Weapon
...-Power Fist
...-Deamon Weapon
...-Lightning Claw
...-Pair of Lightning Claws
...-Melta Bombs

Daemon Prince:
WS 7 | BS 3 | S 6 | T 5 | W 4 | I 5 | A 4 | Ld 10 | Sv 3+/5+
-110 points
-Fearless
-Daemonic Aura (5+ invulnerable) as standard
-Very few options
-Can have an Icon
-Can have Wings
-Can have psychic powers
-Monstrous Creature
-Is immune to instant death
-May be marked
-May have pychic powers

Sorcerer:
WS 5 | BS 5 | S 4 | T 4 | W 2 | I 5 | A 3 | LD 10 | SV 3+/5+
-Fearless
-Daemonic Aura (5+ invulnerable) as standard
-Can have an Icon
-Can have Terminator Armour, Bike, Wings, or Steed
-Force Weapons as standard
-Sorcerers with an Icon of Tzeentch may use two powers per turn

Greater Daemon
WS 9 | BS ? | S 8 | T 6 | W 4 | I 5 | A ? | LD 10 | SV -/4+
-1 per army max
-100 points
-Does not take up a FOC slot, very cheap for its stats
-Fearless
-Daemonic Aura (4+ invulnerable) as standard
-Monstrous Creature
-Moves as Infantry (no option for wings)
-Can’t be marked
-Possession: When a Greater Daemon becomes available from Reserve, it can replace any friendly character model (aspiring champion, sorcerer, etc) you choose. There is no need to designate a Daemonvessel ahead of time.

ELITE:
Possessed:
WS 4 | BS 4 | S 5 | T 4 | W 1 | I 4 | A 2 | LD 10 | SV 3+/5+
-Cheaper than 22 Pts
-Daemonic Strength and Daemonic Aura (5+ invulnerable) as standard
-Can have an Icon
-Random Power Table. Roll d6 after deployment:
.....1: Scouts
.....2: Furious Charge
.....3: Fleet of foot
.....4: Rending
.....5: Feel no pain
.....6: Power weapons

Chosen:
-One attack
-Bolter, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Frags, Kraks
-Can have an Icon
-Huge amount of options (like Dark Angel company veterans)
-May have one heavy weapon and multiple special weapons
-Infiltrate as standard
-5 to 10 models a squad.
-Chosen are not fearless.

Terminators:
-30 Points
-Unit size 3-10
-Combibolter and power weapon
-Can have an Icon
-Any number of models can be upgraded to champions (+1A) for 10 pts
-One heavy weapon per squad, two if the squad is 10 models strong
-Reaper Autocannon is unchanged
-May always Deep Strike

Dreadnoughts:
-Can have Multi-Melta
-May be given 2 DCCW.
-Frenzy table still exists but is slightly changed: If no viable frenzy, count as sane.

TROOPS
Chaos space marines:
-Can have Icon
-Bolter, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Krak and Frag Grenades Standard.
-If 10 or more models, may take Heavy or second Special weapon.
-Aspiring champion limited to basic wargear upgrades (PW, PF, PP)
-5 to 20 squad size.

Khorne Berzerkers:
-Have the +1A over normal marines, WS5 and furious charge
-No chainaxes
-They are armed with CCW and BP, and have the option for plasma pistols as they do now.
-Fearless
-No more Blood Frenzy (so no more bonus movement, but also no more uselessly chasing Land Speeders around the table)

Plague Marines:
-Initiative 3
-T4(5)
-Blight grenades (-1A to enemies engaged in hth).
-Bolter, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Krak and Frag Grenades Standard.
-Fearless.
-Feel no Pain.
-Can take 2 Special weapons under 10 models.

Noise Marines/Emperors children:
-Access to sonic weapons (replaces bolter)
-Doomsiren AP3, only for Aspiring Champion
-1 blastmaster per squad
-Noise Marines are the cheapest of the Cult marines (before Sonic weaponry)
-Noise Marines can take a heavy weapon with only 6-strong squad
-no more Combat Drugs
- Bolter, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Krak and Frag Grenades Standard.
-Fearless
-Icon of Slaanesh (+1 I)
-One model may have a Blastmaster (blast mode now AP3)

Thousand Sons:
-Slow and purposeful on 1 dice
-Only 1 wound
-Sorcerer sergeant with 2 psychic powers, but no power fist option, and allows 2d6 for slow and purposeful
-No BP or CCW.
-Fearless
-Icon of Tzeentch (4+ Invulnerable)
-All models have AP3 Inferno bolts for their bolters
-Mandatory Sorcerer (comes with Force weapon)
-No more extra wound
-The only CSMs (cult or otherwise) that come with an Aspiring (you have to pay for him tho)
-Asprin Champion has Force Weapon and Bolt Pistol as standard.

Generic Lesser Daemons (Daemon Pack):
WS 4 | BS 4 | S 4 | T 4 | W 1 | I 4 | A 2 | LD 10 | SV -/5+
-Do not take up a troop slot
-5 to 20 in one squad
-No instability
-Can’t take marks
-13 Points
-Summoning: Daemon Packs enter play via Deep Strike, but MUST be placed within 6" of an Icon. Since Icons act like Teleport Homers, this means Daemons will never scatter! They may not move on the turn they arrive, but they CAN assault.

FAST ATTACK:
Raptors
-20 Points
-Less special weapons than before
-Can have an Icon
-May Deep Strike
-No more hit and run
-Can take 20 in one squad
-May take melta bombs

Bikes
-Can have an Icon
-3 to 10 in a squad
-Don't give +1 attack and can't use 2 CCW
-Can get 2 special weapons

Chaos Spawn:
-Does not take up a FOC slot
-About 40 Pts
-Worse save than before
-Slow and Purposeful & Beasts (this means they move 2d6-pick-highest, fleet 1d6, charge 2d6-pick-highest x2)

HEAVY SUPPORT:
Obliterators:
WS 4 | BS 4 | S 4 | T 4 | W 2 | I 4 | A 2 | LD 10 | SV 2+/5+
-Fearless
-75 points
-Slow and Purposeful
-Can morph Plasma cannon, Lascannon, twin-linked plasma gun, twin-linked flamer, twin-linked melta and MULTI-MELTA!!!
-Multimelta and plasma cannon added to available weapons
-Can’t be marked
-Power fists

Predator

Vindicator
-125 points

Land Raider
-Cheaper than before (220 points)
-No more Infernal Device
-Smoke Launcher and Search Light free

Defiler
-150 points
-Fleet
-WS3
-A3
-May exchange Reaper Autocannon and/or Heavy Flamer for additional CCW having up to 6A
-No longer a Monstrous Creature, has Dreadnought CCWs now (bringing its Strength up to 10)
-No more indirect fire

Havocs
-Can take Icons
-Havocs do not have combat squads. Kind of CSM squads that can take 4 special/heavies.
-15 points each
-Can be up*to 20 in one squad

VEHICLES:
-Smoke Launchers and Searchlights as standard on all vehicles
-Extra Armour is 15 points
-Combi-weapon upgrades are still possible.
-Mutated Hull is gone.
-Daemonic Possession no longer negates transport capacity, but reduces BS to 3.
-Rihno is 35 points
-There are still Dirge Casters, Pintle Mounted Weapons, Dozer Blades and Havok Launchers available for vehicles. Not all of those are available to all vehicles.
-Havoc Launcher is like a Typhoon Missile Launcher (+1 STR, - AP, -1 Shot and TL form the current one)

MARK OF CHAOS (Icons)
-These now take the form of Icons that most units can take. The cost of an Icon is fixed for each unit, regadless of unit size. This means larger units essentially pay less points per model for the same Icon.
-All units except vehicles, Obliterators and Cult units can purchase one of the following Icons (listed from least to most expensive):
-Icon of Chaos Glory: The new name for Mark of Chaos Undivided. Grants morale re-rolls. Not available to ICs as they are all Fearless anyway.
-Icon of Slaanesh: +1 initiative
-Icon of Khorne: +1 attack
-Icon of Tzeentch: Grants a 5+ invulnerable, or improved existing invulnerable by 1 (so Termies go up to 4+, for example)
-Icon of Nurgle: +1 tougness (does not count towards instant death)
-These Icons are the only way to align a non-Cult unit to a particular god. They grant no other benefits than what is listed above (Icon of Slaanesh does not grant access to Sonic weaponry, for example)
-All Icons also act as Teleport Homers for Daemons, Terminators and Obliterators.

PSYCHIC POWERS
-Some major powers still exist (Wind of Chaos, Gift of Chaos, Doombolt)
Doombolt changes to S4 AP3
-Warp Time is a new psychic power that allows the caster to re-roll failed rolls to hit and to wound in close combat
-Each god except Khorne also has one specific power:
-Nurgle: Nurgle's Rot; Range 12", all models in target unit take a S3 hit on 4+. Saves -allowed.
-Slaanesh: Lash of Submission; If target unit fails Ld test, you may move it 2d6"
-Tzeentch: Bolt of Change; as before but AP1
-No more mass mutation

UNIT LIST:
HQ: Chaos Lord, Chaos Sorcerer, Daemon Prince, Generic Greater Daemon*
Elites: Chosen, Terminators, Dreadnought, Possessed
Troops: Chaos Space Marines, Berserkers, Plague Marines, Thousand Sons, Noise Marines, Generic Daemons*
Fast: Raptors, Bikes, Chaos Spawn*
Heavy: Havocs, Defiler, Vindicator, Land Raider, Predator, Obliterators

Units marked with (*) do not actually use up slots on the Force Organisation Chart
There are no 0-1 or similar limits anymore except for Greater Daemons whoa re 0-1. Your unit choices are only limited by the FOC. Yes, you can have two Daemon Princes.

GENERAL:
-Veterans skills are mostly gone. A few units still have a predetermined skill, but you may no longer pick and choose.
-There are no cult units beyond those listed in the troops section. For example, the only plague marines are the "plague marines" unit entry in the troops section. You cannot take plague marine havocs or plague marine terminators. You can give terminators the mark of Nurgle, but they only gain +1T, they do not get FNP or blight grenades. This is true for all 4 gods.
-The only way to get a 2+ Save is via Terminator Armor.
-No way to counter psychic powers

DAEMON WEAPONS:
- Daemon Weapons cost 40 pts.
-Grants D6 extra attacks, but if a 1 is rolled for the number of attacks, the model takes a wound and can't make ANY attacks in that combat phase.
-Power Weapon
Two-Handed
- In addition the following marks will have the effect on the Weapon (Mark is determined by what has been applied to the Lord/Sorc):
…-No Mark - +1 STR
…-Khorne - Bloodfeeder - Additional D6 (total of 2D6 Attacks) if a 1 is rolled on either dice, you lose a wound and may not attack. Double 1s is not cumulative, you only lose 1 wound.
…-Nurgle - Plaguebringer - Poisoned attacks that always wound on a 4+.
…-Tzeentch - Deathscreamer - Can be used a shooting weapon with the following profile: 24", S4, AP3, Assault D6 - if a 1 is rolled for number of shots, lose a wound and no shots are fired.
…-Slaanesh - Blissgiver - Causes instant death

SPECIAL CHRACTERS:
-All are HQ choices

Typhus:
-Manreaper is a Nurgle Daemon Weapon that is also a Force weapon
-Has Nurgle's Rot psychic power, does not need to pass psychic test to use it, and may also use the Force weapon in the same turn

Abaddon:
-Has the benefits of all Icons (+1A, +1I, +1T, 4+ invulnerable)
-Drachnyen and the Talon now count as a single Daemon Weapon, which grants +1d6 attacks, doubles strength, and re-rolls all dice to hit and to wound!
-Immune to instant death
-Most expensive SC.

Ahriman:
-Knows all psychic powers except the Slaanesh and Nurgle specific ones
-Force Weapon
-May use up to three psychic powers (including the force weapon) per turn
-He is REALLY expensive. Aside from Abaddon he is the most expensive special character.
-His bolt pistol has inferno bolts not that you will use it all that much.

Kharn:
WS 7 | BS ? | S 5 | W 4 | W ? | I 5 | A ? | LD 10 | SV 3+/5+
-Gorechild gains 2D6 for armour penetration against vehicles
-Immune to all psychic powers
-Furious Charge
-Still hits allies on a 1

Fabius Bile:
-Not too bad. He has a decent amount of attacks. He has Feel No Pain now in addition to a 5+ Invulnerable. Can still enhance models.

Lucius:
-Ddecent for his points. He has a Doom Siren, removes attacks from enemies in BtB with him and does wounds whenever he makes a save in CC.

Huron Blackheart:
-Tyrant's claw is a powerfist with built in heavy flamer.
-Hamadyra grants him the "Warp Time" psychic power

Man people loved to whine please keep this thread free of that...

TheEndIsHere

Taken from me at libriarium online and warseer

 

TheEndIsHere

Posted By TheEndIsHere on 06/22/2007 3:22 PM

Man people loved to whine please keep this thread free of that...

Oops?

Seriously though, thanks for compiling this.  I know what hell it is to scour through Warseer rumor threads.

Uh, Greater Demons appear to be no brainers.

Stats are very good, 110 pts is very cheap, can be summoned into ANY Aspiring Champion on the board with no need to designate a vessel....and doesn't take up a FOC slot.  Pretty good bang for your buck there.

Generic Lesser Demons...well look generic.  I'm not so up in arms over the summoning.  Normally you would place the marker, which gave you roughly 4 inches, then moved 6 + 6 for assault....so a total of 16....barring a bad scatter.  Now you place them within 6 inches of any unit with a Icon (Which appears to be about the entire Chaos army), then they assault 6....so you lose 4 inches of movement in exchange for no scatter.  Not a deal breaker when they are 13 points.  I'll still be looking forward to the Demon Dex. 

New Spawn...models = good, rules look bad.  I'll buy them because I like the models...but probably will only see friendly games.

Overall, it will make me field a Khorne army again.  I couldn't bring myself to play all Letters w/ Zerks on bike summoning...and Zerks were a "fun" but worthless unit.  Overall they stayed about the same in doing wounds against MEQ it appears (Trade WS for Chainaxes)...but you can control the damn things, actually shoot your pistols as you charge in AND ride in a 35 pt rhino they won't jump out of.  Plus a Khorne Lord appears to be able to put some serious smackdown.

I imagine we will see Chaos Space Marine armies actually have Chaos Space Marines now.  I don't consider that a bad thing.  Just have to wait and see if the actual dex matches up...

 

Wow, just... wow.

Well, guess it is time to put the old Alpha Legion in the underground bunker and wait for Codex: Chaos Space Marines from the next edition.

Shouldn't be too long before they're playable... Say, 5 to 8 years or so?

Wow.

Don't give him a demon weapon. It looks great (+2d6 attacks!), but 11/36 of the time, you won't get to swing, AND you'll hurt yourself. Ick.

Rats. I would have loved to see the look on my opponents' face when I had my Juggernaut mounted Lord pop out of a Land Raider.

It would have been priceless.

As much as I want to continue with the Blood God, I'm afraid I'll have to try Thousand Sons this time. I can't believe I just typed that.

It's a mad mad world.

Posted By Janthkin on 06/22/2007 4:08 PM

Plus a Khorne Lord appears to be able to put some serious smackdown.

Don't give him a demon weapon. It looks great (+2d6 attacks!), but 11/36 of the time, you won't get to swing, AND you'll hurt yourself. Ick.

But..but...but....I have a 2%(Almost 3!) chance of getting 17 attacks!   Seriously speaking, I imagine one of those negatives about Demon weapons to be false....they probably floated both around until they decided on one.  I wouldn't be shocked if it was lose 1 wound on 1's or not attack on 1's...but not both.  Archaon being the template.

I hope Abaddon costs an arm and a leg.  The trend being, special chars allowed, he looks to be an absolute beast.  5 + d6 attacks at Str 8 and Ini 6.  Yes please.

 

*Edit  Here are some pics of the new Chaos models painted:

http://belloflostsouls.blogspot.com/

The possessed freaking rock.  Compare them to the seizure boys we had before....

Anyone want to explain how a Daemon Weapon that wounds you 1/6th of the time and also stops you from attacking is worth fourty points.

BYE

So I'm just curious, how does everyone feel about the upcoming Chaos book overall? Not too long ago there were alot of complaints about too many MEQ codexes being released, but that seems to have died down abit.

Are people excited that Chaos is getting balanced? Did Chaos even need balancing?

Are people going to appreciate a codex that doesn't make you flip back and forth constantly as you are writing an army list to check rules/stats/armoury? Or is streamling a Chaos codex taking the fun out of the book?

Are people bemoaning the loss of cultists and Basilisks? Are they excited about units and options that seem pretty competitive with each other?

Is the Chaos codex too bland? If yes, how so?

Obviously, we only have rumours to go off of, but most of them seem pretty feasible.

So what does everybody think? Just curious.

When you go through what is required to actually get the demons direclty in combat, you realize exactly how terribly designed they are. In every scenario for delivery, you're better off spending the points on more of the delivery unit instead of the new sucktacular demons.

And this is from someone who thought Chaos Demon Bomb armies needed a bit of nerfing, but this is rediculous.

Oh well at least in true GW fashion, there's a few stand outs in most slots that scream "TAKE ME!"

HQ: Flying Demon Prince (x2 Now)
Fast: Raptors
Heavy: Oblits!

Yay, because now every chaos army can take 9 Oblits as walking lascannons.

So, what do we have here. Daemon Princes are decent (not as good as Hive Tyrants however), Raptors are now like Assault Marines and Obliterators are still OK. The Oblits however aren't nearly as good as before as they've lost that Daemonic Resilience, lost the heavy bolters, and gained 5 points in price. It's now not enough to simply have Obliterators and expect that you can deal with tanks AND with hordes or large squads of SV4+ troopers.

I absolutely despise the new Daemon Weapon rules, Daemon rules, lesser Daemons, greater Daemons, Chaos Space Marine units, nerfed vehicle upgrades and most of the Cult Marines. Before we find out what a unit of Thousand Sons with Sorcerer costs, it's hard to decide whether they are useful at all. AP3 bolter may be nice and all but it's all about the points cost in the end.

All in all a big tone down for Chaos.

I believe this one. Go take a look at the WHFB Chaos book, and specifically the Daemon Sword rules - very similar issues.

Posted By Janthkin on 06/22/2007 8:56 PM

Seriously speaking, I imagine one of those negatives about Demon weapons to be false....they probably floated both around until they decided on one. I wouldn't be shocked if it was lose 1 wound on 1's or not attack on 1's...but not both. Archaon being the template.

I believe this one. Go take a look at the WHFB Chaos book, and specifically the Daemon Sword rules - very similar issues.

 

If I recall correctly, the Demon Sword rules stated if you roll a 1 you resolve the attack against yourself...so it's too late to do the math but I would imagine that's not as striking as not allowing a model to attack at all AND doing an auto wound with no ward/inv saves.  I don't feel like doing the math though .

If it is true, it's pretty bad judgement.  It doesn't give a Str bonus, so for 15 (Or whatever) points might as well go for a basic power weapon. 

Wasn't there a question for a while whether there is a limit to the number of attacks you can get? i.e. if the demon sword adds to the attack stat, can it run into a limit of ten attacks?

You are right there is a limit of 10 on your attack stat (and things like Charging are included in this limit), but I suspect it another case of GW forgetting their own rules.

Posted By Therion- on 06/22/2007 8:22 PM

Before we find out what a unit of Thousand Sons with Sorcerer costs, it's hard to decide whether they are useful at all. AP3 bolter may be nice and all but it's all about the points cost in the end.

Early rumors point to a price tag equal to their price last edition, but with a more expensive Sorceror, because of his standard-issue force weapon.

"You are right there is a limit of 10 on your attack stat (and things like Charging are included in this limit), but I suspect it another case of GW forgetting their own rules"

I must have missed this rule (I am more of a novice), do you know what page it is on?
If that is true, then there is almost no point in doing a Korn lord / daemon prince w/ d.weapon. The reward would be too insignificant.

Actually, I think that's wrong. The base stat may not exceed 10 but I think that you are allowed to get more than 10 attacks due to charging, extra weapon, drugs, etc...

I'll have to dig to see where I read that...

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I dislike the removal of the Legion specific rules.  I felt that there were some great opportunities available for both the undivided and marked legions.  I felt that it gave some good flavor to armies and nudged you into making some interesting army compositions (deathguard especially).  It seems that the legion specific rules were largely an overreacting to the abuse that was available to certain Iron Warriors builds.

I do like the changes to the cult troops for the most part.  I am most pleased with the changes to Plague Marines.   Emperors Children seem about the same.  The Thousand Sons got a much needed boost but it does not feel like it was based much in fluff. 

I think that Khorne Berzerkers made out the worst.  I find the 5 weapon skill satisfying on a gut level and  Furious charge is nice but I rarely took it when I had the option to buy it.  The problem is they no longer have choppas (which made them a viable threat to many close units which can now shrug them off) and end up costing more for an assault unit with no special movement.  They have ended up only slightly more effective against basic marines on the charge and are much worse in a sustained assault.  I just don't see them being an effective basis for competitive army at this point.

I am pretty disappointed by the loss of veteran skills and mutations which I felt added a great deal of flexibility to list building.  The loss of differentiated deamon weapons is weak.

Finally, I am disappointed by the generic deamon rules and the kind of Chaos Multicultural Alliance feel that the book has.

Overall I like some of the changes to some of the cult troops and the inclusion of a better sorcerer but am disappointed by the homogenization of the book.

(Dreaded Double Post)

I'm with you FF...

Really, they needed to make changes to IW and maybe EC (the dreaded Siren Price, mostly), tighten up some of the ambiguities and get all of the changes from the "stealth updates" under control.

Instead, well, we basically get the end of the Traitor Legions except for the Black Legion.

Apparently, we're supposed to make a Rainbow Colors of Chaos attack force, picking and choosing the best of the best and smile and be happy...

Posted By Zoned on 06/22/2007 7:53 PM
So I'm just curious, how does everyone feel about the upcoming Chaos book overall? Not too long ago there were alot of complaints about too many MEQ codexes being released, but that seems to have died down abit.

Are people excited that Chaos is getting balanced? Did Chaos even need balancing?

Are people going to appreciate a codex that doesn't make you flip back and forth constantly as you are writing an army list to check rules/stats/armoury? Or is streamling a Chaos codex taking the fun out of the book?

Are people bemoaning the loss of cultists and Basilisks? Are they excited about units and options that seem pretty competitive with each other?

Is the Chaos codex too bland? If yes, how so?

Obviously, we only have rumours to go off of, but most of them seem pretty feasible.

So what does everybody think? Just curious.

I'm not really interested in stats at all, so my enjoyment is based on just how much i LIKE an army, and the fun of looking through the codex and putting together ideas, lists, stories with lists, lists with stories. You know, the endless permutations and the character. So I don't think I will like it. I don't like the new style of codex. I've looked at 2 and I just don't like the way they're layed out, but obviously you can't please everyone, so someone, like me, just has to be disappointed with some things.
My favourite chaos stuff is lost and the damned, playing with slaneesh colours, working out what to use for demon models that aren't to expensive and my beloved, crazy bezerkers. Awwwh, aren't they sweet? So I think the new chaos army is lacking in character. And variation. I can't create interesting, totally different army lists like slaneesh and khornate armies, and the fun things - like demons - are being limited. I'm not sure how it will work with the interaction with lost and the damned, but I'm still taking my IG traitor units from the old IG codex, so I'll probably continue with the old codex. I suppose we really have to see it to decide what we think. But.... I'm not enthusiastic. I want my chaos army to be.... chaotic. Now, if the rumours about this other cultist codex come true, which I doubt, and it won't be for years anyway, I'd buy it in a second.
Basically, I don't play chaos for the space marines, I play it for the mutants, demons and the things that are different, like obliterators and the defiler. The chaos space marines are just a simple, generic base to provide a strong base around which to put all the awesome stuff. This is really a chaos SPACE MARINES  codex. Which is good if that 's what you want... but there are already a lot of space marines to choose from, and I'd probably choose a loyalist space marines army if that was my focus.

I'm a little confused over the moaning over the loss of Legion specific rules. I can still play a Death Guard army, can't I? I can still take Lords with the Mark of Nurgle, Plague Marines, and now I have basic Chaos Marines/Termies/Raptros with Nurgle Icons for more Nurgly goodness? So what did I lose? Free aspiring Champs and +1 to summoning rolls for sacred units? Overall, I think the trade off came off well.

Concerning Berzerkers:

Current Berzerkers: 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/8 = 12.5%
New Berzkerers: 2/3 x 1/2 x 1/3 = 2/18 = 1/9 = 11%
New Berzerkes on the charge: 2/3 x 2/3 x 1/3 = 4/27 = 14.8%

If the rumours are true, it looks like Berzerkers lost a little effectiveness without charging, and gained a little effective on the charge. Time will tell how the points have been adjusted.

Up, I'm sure. Most of the cult troops look like they're going up 3-6 points each.

You don't have Plague Marine termies or Raptors; the Icon does not add the actual Plague Marine rules to units that take it. You don't have ANY Nurgle-specific Daemons (nor any lesser daemons worth considering). You don't have any Nurgle-specific wargear, beyond a single psychic power.

You can mark termies or raptors with the mark of nurgle.

The icon only works as a summoning beacon. Does it need to add plague marine rules?

All daemons are generic, unaligned daemons. You can use nurgle daemon models to represent them. No nurgle specific rules, but we are going for the nurgle look here.

Daemon weapon becomes nurgley when on a character with the mark.

There is enough in the whole list to play with if you choose to. If you don't want to, then that is your prerogative. My old Deathguard running friend seems to like all he sees so far. He hates playing Deathguard as they are right now vs. most armies.

The glass is either half empty or half full, depending on how you want to look at it.

The New Berzerkers will get a big boost when you add an Aspiring Champ. WS 5 Powerfists are awesome. Even if Berzerker Champs can't get access to powerfists, on the charge the new Berzerker Champ with power weapon is still pretty awesome. Now if they don't have access to powered weapons, then they will be weaksausce aginst MEQs.

Posted By Toreador on 06/27/2007 5:38 PM
   No nurgle specific rules, but we are going for the nurgle look here.

Some people are going for a nurgle (or other chaos god) look, and some want to have nurgle (or other chaos god) rules that change the game play and make it a different army. Otherwise they would just be the green, red, blue and pink armies, and you'd just paint your models a different colour. You can get a little bit of the feel of the chaos god with the icons and with the right lord, and of course by taking the cult troops, but for a lot of it you are just painting the army a gross green colour and calling it nurgle. People want different things, but in the last codex you could go either all out, or just take token troops towards a chaos god. Now, however, you cannot go all out, so this codex has lost something that some people want.

Posted By FireFall on 06/27/2007 1:47 PM
I think that Khorne Berzerkers made out the worst.  I find the 5 weapon skill satisfying on a gut level and  Furious charge is nice but I rarely took it when I had the option to buy it?

The WS5 doesn't sit well with me personally.  To me +1 A is reflective of a berzerker rage whereas WS is more of a finesse stat.  I think a better fit would have been Preferred Enemy: Everybody.

Posted By Zoned on 06/27/2007 4:29 PM
I'm a little confused over the moaning over the loss of Legion specific rules. I can still play a Death Guard army, can't I?

Not really.  There is no such thing as a "Death Guard army" anymore.  There is only the "Chaos Space Marines army".  You can take a CSM army and call it Death Guard or Black Legion or whatever you want, but it's still just a vanilla CSM army.

Posted By Zoned on 06/27/2007 4:29 PM
I can still take Lords with the Mark of Nurgle, Plague Marines, and now I have basic Chaos Marines/Termies/Raptros with Nurgle Icons for more Nurgly goodness?

Not only that, your "Death Guard army" can now take Thousand Sons as troops!  Hurrah!!

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 06/27/2007 8:40 PM

I think a better fit would have been Preferred Enemy: Everybody.

I like the WS5 deal, and it effectively makes them Preferred Enemy: Marines.  BUT I like your take much better in general.  HATE HATE HATE FTW!

As to Death Guard, I think they made out VERY well.  Keep their manreapers (plus some, but also with the 1 = no attak and/or a wound deal), get FNP on core troops, don't need to change squad sizes to keep their 2 weapons, can mark raptors and bikes and oblits (maybe) for tactical / modeling fun.  Sure they lose their Nurgley (and honestly pretty crappy) demons, including the adorable nurglings, and mutated hull, but the first one doesn't matter too much and the latter one got taken from everyone.  So ... DG players have little to whine about, ask me.

Even Tz (pronounced "Tizz" players have some tiny right to whine, as 1k Sons have been WAY changed up, more or less for the better but pretty drastically.  BUT again, now they can mark raptors, bikers, oblits (maybe) for more modeling and tactical fun.

- Salvage

And Death Guard "style" force having access to heavy weapons makes them actually competitive...

Posted By Toreador on 06/28/2007 7:42 AM
And Death Guard "style" force having access to heavy weapons makes them actually competitive...

"Where have you been?" and "What took you so long?" spring to mind...

Death Guard players have little to whine about?

Hmmm... so let's see... IF I decide that I like what's been done with the new Codex: Really it's Chaos and Not Just Regular Marines with Marks, I'll be able to field all sorts of new units in my Death Guard.  Right, that rocks!

Except, it won't be a true Death Guard army.  Like others have pointed out, it will be a force that you can dedicate to Nurgle, but any Chaos force can be dedicated to Nurgle.  That still doesn't make it a True Death Guard force. 

With all that being said, I'm going to take a serious look at what the new Codex does to my current forces of Chaos (over 19K points), and how I'm going to do the reorg... and if I don't like the Codex, I don't play the abusive lists the way others do, so my current opponents don't mind if I keep playing the old rules.

One final thought on all this: when do people think the aforementioned lists for the Chaos Legions will be out?  I ask this because I'm wondering how many people will get their Oblits, Havocs, Raptors, Bikes, etc. painted up to a nice Nurglesque scheme, only to find in the Death Guard Codex that they no longer are allowed because they made the force overpowered... 2 years? more?

-Vilegrimm

Vilegrimm, I am not so certain the legions will be represented. The next codex has a lot of rumours flying about on it. All we really know is that the power specific daemons are suppose to be in it. Beyond that it is all conjecture.

Been moving and lurking.... I don't need to comment all the time.

Vilegrimm -

What's the difference between a Chaos marine force dedicated to Nurgle and a Death Guard force?

Toreador - Thank god you're back, its hard fighting the pessimism of change without another voice of reason.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

The same difference that exists between a horse and a donkey. Both can pull a cart, but one is cooler to ride that the other.

Posted By Ozymandias on 06/28/2007 10:04 AM
Vilegrimm -

What's the difference between a Chaos marine force dedicated to Nurgle and a Death Guard force?

About the same as a Space Wolves force and an Ultramarines force who happen to wear light gray armour.

The unique nature, history and modus operandi of the force isn't reflected by using generic rules. The limitations encourage the army to be focused along a certain theme, while the loss of tactical options allows certain units to gain new powers and not make the list either overpowered or too complex.

Sometimes I want to play the Ultramarines 1st Company, the Death Guard Legion or the Tanith 1st and Only. In the past GW has catered to players that want to field a very specific force like that by providing fluff, rules and models. It's a shame that those players that were inspired by the fluff, modelling and unique tactical options that these specific forces present are screwed out of their hard work by the new Codex, which tries to simplify things down so that everyone will field the same generic optimal mixed Renegade build.

I want a little uniqueness and creativity in my hobby.

But they granted uniqueness and creativity and it was abused to 6-man las/plas, IW pie plates of doom, Siren Princes and Daemon Bombs.

If players can't use creative rules responsibly, then let their creativity shine in the models, not in special rules for Death Guard when the normal Chaos codex represents them just fine.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

So, you'd punish the (vast majority) of those who aren't tournament power gamers, for the actions of the few? More to the point, you're okay with punishing the players for the poor rules previously provided by the authors?

I don't think giving you rules for pure-Nurgle chaos marines is really a punishment. In fact, it seems that Death Guard go up in power using the new Chaos dex. I really can't see the problem here.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I have been watching, just not posting here. When the same things are said over and over and over again, with nothing new said, I tend to stay quiet. Up pops some interesting conversations again.

I can see why some people get up and arms about purist notions about the list, but really, we know little of the future of chaos.

They have said that the codexes they are producing are going to be the "main" lists. Any variants or sub lists will be handled through an entirely different channel. Anything in a codex has to be supported, and therefore those lists are the most broad. I am curious to see if they support sub lists in an entirely different way, if at all. I have hope that it will be WD and thematic campaign books where this shows up again, but that is wild speculation.

The way I see it so far, is we now have more playable "cultish lists" with the Thousand Sons, Death Guard and World Eaters being more viable on the tabletop. Emperor's Children had a much needed tone down. Sure you can't make the "pure" lists of before, but you can hold close to the theme for those armies if you so choose. The general undivided list is still quite good, and still has a lot available to make a wide range of forces.

To me it looks like a much better book overall in that most of it seems rather balanced and useful so far. I would much rather have many playable and competitive options over a limited few any day. I know some people will see it the other way, but only time will tell.

Hey wait. So you can't be creative with the new list? That is total and utter drek. People have been rather creative from the opening days of the game system, and with even more restrictive lists. I have seen some very very creative "generic" old school space marine armies.

Creativity is in the mind, not the rules.

This reminds me so much of little kids and boredom. It doesn't matter if they are sitting in the middle of a circus or a fun park, if they want to be bored they will be.

Posted By Ozymandias on 06/28/2007 11:11 AM
I don't think giving you rules for pure-Nurgle chaos marines is really a punishment. In fact, it seems that Death Guard go up in power using the new Chaos dex. I really can't see the problem here.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Again, Space Wolves or Dark Angels would go up in power using Ultramarines rules - assault cannon spamming Landspeeder Tornados, cheap 6 man Las/Plas squads, 2 assault cannon Terminator Squads.

Can you not understand why some people would prefer using rules tailored to their own army?

Saying "Yes, you can't take pet dire wolves for your Wolf Lord, but you can give him a Terminator retinue with multiple assault cannons." doesn't really address what the player was complaining about. They had something cool and unique and now have to field something overused and boring.

The fact it goes up in power is completely irrelevant. Most players don't care solely about the power level of their list - they care about its playing style and whether it makes for interesting and entertaining games.

Having to field the Death Guard as generic Marines who think Nurgle is "an OK bloke" doesn't really represent Death Guard as well as their own list did.

But also playing a neutered list (DG and TS) that gets stomped repeatedly, isn't any better is it? You can make it as pure in your mind as you want it to be.

And we really don't know if they will cover these sub lists or not yet. This is a specific dex that allows everyone to use the most of what they have with more to come in the future.

Well yes, I personally consider it a reasonable expectation that GW can write balanced rules for the different CSM Legions. It's not rocket science.

Since we don't know, it's safe to assume that they won't - at least not anytime soon. You don't see many people rushing out to pick up Chaos Dwarf or Squat miniatures since we don't know for sure that GW won't release rules for them in the future.

We also have no information about what more is to come in the future. Thus, it's only fair to assume the worst. If GW doesn't want people to assume the worst, then it's easy enough for them to provide a preview or say something more definitive on the matter.

GW might possibly have something really cool planned for Chaos in 3 years. I'm not going to buy an army though on that basis though.

I said it in another thread, but I'll repeat it here:
Hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours of work have been relegated to the "counts as" category. I have literally dozens of models who are not WYSIWYG under the new codex. My creativity in conversion and army selection has been "rewarded" by complete invalidation of my collection.

and such is life.

I have hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours of work in a lot of things that are now gone, or in games now defunct. At least with my GW stuff I can still use almost all of it in one way or the other.

Posted By Ozymandias on 06/28/2007 10:49 AM
But they granted uniqueness and creativity and it was abused to 6-man las/plas, IW pie plates of doom, Siren Princes and Daemon Bombs.

That has 0% to do with player abuse and 100% to do with poorly written rules.

40K uses a Points System to balance armies. The idea behind this system is that two forces chosen at the same points level will be of roughly equivalent power.

This obviously wasn't the case with the units you said were 'abused'. Were they really?

They were mis-costed. GW messed up in the Codex , not by giving players options, but by not understanding how the rules of 40K work and pricing units accordingly.

A Las/Plas squad is so effective, not because of being 6 men, but because it provides a benefit out of line with its points costs. Simply changing the points so that a Plasma Gun cost +20 points and a Lascannon would cost +50 points for the squad would almost instantly balance it.

Likewise with Assault Cannons in Terminator Squads - the second one was obviously a no brainer choice when the option was open. Rather than taking away the option and invalidating players' models, a better approach would be to adjust the points. "One Terminator may take a Heavy Flamer for +10 points, a Missile Launcher for +20 points of a Assault Cannon for +35 points. A second Terminator may take a Heavy Flamer for an addition +20 points, a Missile Launcher for +30 points or an Assault Cannon for +65 points.

Viola. Problem solved and no models become useless.

Iron Warriors? Allow them a fourth Heavy Support choice, but make any unit taken in the extra slot cost 200% its normal cost.

The point is that if the options in a Codex are properly priced it is impossible to abuse it. The problems you mentioned all result from the designers not understanding the game, playtesting and giving units the right points cost, not players somehow 'abusing' the list by following the rules it sets out.

Some things are worth it at almost any price.

And you have selected specific units, you just made other options more worthwhile in the dex. Everyone now will take min 5 man tac squads and max out on other cheaper options elsewhere in the dex, which you will have to increase in cost accordingly.

It looks to me they are balancing things in the codex. Sometimes it is by removing options...

I think the point is that the cult legions lose a bunch of stuff they're supposed to have but gain access to a bunch of stuff they aren't supposed to have.  What would Black Templars players say if they lost the Emperor's Champion and Neophytes but gained access to Librarians and Dev Squads?  Isn't that a lot better?  You can have the Emperor's Champion "count as" a company champion and the Neophytes can "count as" scouts.  What more could you want?!

It's interesting to look at the history of these armies.  The 5 main chaos armies (World Eaters, Emperor's Children, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, and Black Legion) started out as separate lists but have been progressively trimmed and squeezed and rolled into one single list.  The gods used to have 4 types of daemons each (16 total).  Now they all have to share 2.  Their legions used to be armies in their own right.  Now they are just unit entries.

And at the same time what started as a single space marine army has ballooned into 5 separate independent armies each with their own book.  This is of course necessary because Dark Angels really like teleporters while Blood Angels, Black Templars, and Space Wolves all like to flip out and fight in close combat in markedly different ways.  You see, Blood Angels like to flip out and fight like Russell Crowe whereas Space Wolves like to fight more like Mickey Rourke.  And Black Templars just go wacky wild nuts like Tom Cruise.  These important differences will be further explored in Codex: Blood Angels and Codex: Space Wolves.

And what's even better, is that this regime will be locked in stone.  Chaos will forever be relegated to a single vanilla list while Dark Angels will always get their own separate book because, dude, Deathwing Assault!  The music is about to stop and some are going to be left without a chair.  Sisters of Battle, I'm looking at you.

My night lords are hit hard. No discussion of any of the things that used to make them at all unique - no stealth adept and no night vision, it appears, and their advantage - no limit on raptors - has now been given to everyone.

What demon do NL use? One with wings - which , under the new demon summoning rules, is worthless. They charge 6" just like daemonettes... but without any of the good rules daemonettes get. And, I'm not talking about the generic demon rules that we are getting now... I'm looking forward even to the next Demon Codex.

So I'm a little discouraged, to say the least. If I use them as "counts as" I can at least give some of them night vision ("acute senses") and actually, I can give them more fast vehicles ( Tornados, etc) than I can right now. Not to mention the chaotic allies I can then take, like demonhosts.

Posted By Toreador on 06/28/2007 1:17 PM
And you have selected specific units, you just made other options more worthwhile in the dex. Everyone now will take min 5 man tac squads and max out on other cheaper options elsewhere in the dex, which you will have to increase in cost accordingly.

And?  If the other options are too effective for their pts, then you raise the pts cost.  If they are not effective enough then you lower the pts cost.  If they are neither then there is no problem.  Isn't that what assigning pts costs is all about?  Am I missing something?

The goal is not to get people to take suboptimal options.  The goal is to not have suboptimal options.  The only way to make people take suboptimal options is to FORCE them to do so, but as long as you're allowed to draw up your own army list there's really no way to accomplish this.

Posted By Toreador on 06/28/2007 1:17 PM
It looks to me they are balancing things in the codex. Sometimes it is by removing options...

Uh... forgive my skepticism but I really doubt they have accomplished this.  I'm entirely certain that even with the reduction of cult legion from army list to unit entry there will still be a best and worst choice.  Then all they'll have succeeded in doing is pissing a lot of people off.  At least we still have the option of using the SM codex.

For example, suppose I want an army of Thousand Sons with a unit of rubric terminators.  Well they don't exist anymore, but I can still take Tzeentch terminators and use "counts as".  However this poses a dilemma.  Tzeentch terminators are not led by a sorcerer.  I could give them a reaper autocannon and have it "count as" a psychic power, but it wouldn't require a psychic test.  All the other sorcerers in the army have to take psychic tests - why should this sorcerer be different?  Furthermore Tzeentch terminators do not have Slow and Purposeful while my power armor rubrics do.  This is inconsistent.  So for consistency's sake I'll just have my rubrics "count as" Tzeentch CSM and the heavy weapon will "count as" a psychic power.  Now everybody is on the same page.  But there's a problem - if I want to have sacred numbers then I can't take a heavy weapon.  So I say, "screw it - I'll just use the SM codex."

Posted By Asmodai on 06/28/2007 1:06 PM

Posted By Ozymandias on 06/28/2007 10:49 AM
But they granted uniqueness and creativity and it was abused to 6-man las/plas, IW pie plates of doom, Siren Princes and Daemon Bombs.

That has 0% to do with player abuse and 100% to do with poorly written rules.

40K uses a Points System to balance armies. The idea behind this system is that two forces chosen at the same points level will be of roughly equivalent power.

This obviously wasn't the case with the units you said were 'abused'. Were they really?

They were mis-costed. GW messed up in the Codex , not by giving players options, but by not understanding how the rules of 40K work and pricing units accordingly.

A Las/Plas squad is so effective, not because of being 6 men, but because it provides a benefit out of line with its points costs. Simply changing the points so that a Plasma Gun cost +20 points and a Lascannon would cost +50 points for the squad would almost instantly balance it.

Likewise with Assault Cannons in Terminator Squads - the second one was obviously a no brainer choice when the option was open. Rather than taking away the option and invalidating players' models, a better approach would be to adjust the points. "One Terminator may take a Heavy Flamer for +10 points, a Missile Launcher for +20 points of a Assault Cannon for +35 points. A second Terminator may take a Heavy Flamer for an addition +20 points, a Missile Launcher for +30 points or an Assault Cannon for +65 points.

Viola. Problem solved and no models become useless.

Iron Warriors? Allow them a fourth Heavy Support choice, but make any unit taken in the extra slot cost 200% its normal cost.

The point is that if the options in a Codex are properly priced it is impossible to abuse it. The problems you mentioned all result from the designers not understanding the game, playtesting and giving units the right points cost, not players somehow 'abusing' the list by following the rules it sets out.

They could also change the rules so that you can't take a heavy weapon unless you have 10 men.  Oh wait, they did that and everyone STILL female-dogged! 

I think once people see the new codex they'll come up with some ways to make their armies work.  After all, what did everyone do before the 3rd ed Codex 2.0?

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By Ozymandias on 06/28/2007 2:35 PM
After all, what did everyone do before the 3rd ed Codex 2.0?

Not play Chaos?

Some people, like ozymandias, have very different game expectations to others, mainly those with names beginning with 'A'.
Those with names beginning with 'A' and myself like to have specific rules and features for different armies, otherwise we'd just play space marines and say that they were evil space marines and paint them red with bronze trimming, for example. And how come space marine armies get different codexes whereas chaos armis don't even get separate lists? Part of what I like about the separate lists is not only the advantages, eg. night vision for night lords, but the disadvantages, like no heavy weapons in khornate armies. Yes, that is a massive pain in the A, but that's part of the army character and part of the fun is to work around it. Self-imposed limitations like that are just silly, because you really have no reason to cripple yourself if it is not part of the rules and no one understands what you are doing. If everyone can choose whatever they like out of the codex, yes there will be some variations in how many bezerker units people take or whatever, but a lot of the flavour will have been lost and the armies will be far more the same as each other. With less units, less rules, less wargear and less options, there are less chances to creatively create a charachterful, different army representing your unique back story, without resorting solely to pain. Yes, you can do a little of what you want, but it is obvious that with less options - there are less variations. It might be a fine army list if you're coming at it as a new player, it might be great. But compared to before, it seems to have lost a lot of what people like. For some people, increase in power of units is not that much of a replacement. What is the percentage of "hobby" players to competitive players (those for whom winning the game with a static army list is their focus)? I think the competitive players are going to be the noisiest of the lot, making their desire for more powerful units appear to be the most important, so it is no surprise that that is how the list is revised.

Ooh, I forgot about daemonhosts. Add in the much more powerful SM librarians, and your Ultrathrousand Sons will be in better shape than they've ever been!

I was still using the (initial version) of the Lustwing - terminators with sonic weapons, and summoned Daemonettes. Back then, the Mark of Slaanesh gave you +1 attack.

Under the current itteration of the CSM codex I really liked the way Death Guard played. They lacked heavy weapons and fought best at a short ranged firefight and were tough in assault too. I felt they fought more the way that you would expect Space Marines to (no long range gunline nonsense).

There were many people who enjoyed trying to maximize the force with the restrictions in place. There were a bunch of interesting ideas thrown about at deathguard.org to overcome the army?s limitations. 6 or 7 man terminator tank hunters with autocannons were tried, so were 7 plague marines in a rhino with tank hunter and 4 plasma guns. I played an infiltrating force. Nurgles rot was an interesting upgrade to use.

With the inclusion of Veteran skills and the limitations of the list, some very interesting armies were formulated and a small community formed around the list. I will echo many in this thread who say that once you lose some of the meager benefits of and the imposed structure of those legion rules, there is very little reason to stick to the background fluff.

Under the rumored dex, Plague Marines sound like a more powerful unit and perhaps a better buy but I don't see the same ingenuity and community forming around them.

Posted By Asmodai on 06/28/2007 1:06 PM

A Las/Plas squad is so effective, not because of being 6 men, but because it provides a benefit out of line with its points costs. Simply changing the points so that a Plasma Gun cost +20 points and a Lascannon would cost +50 points for the squad would almost instantly balance it.

The six-man las/plas is optimal not only because of the price of the weapons, but because the ability to take those weapons is granted by the slot, but the unit itself is priced by the model.

Effectively, you get the ability to take cheap special/heavy weapons for using up the force org slot; the models themselves (minus special equipment) don't figure into this value -- they all cost 15 points, you must take at least 5, and it's considered worthwhile to bump it up to six because of scoring rules.  The problem is that the cheap weapons come regardless of squad size, so any marines past 5 effectively cost more because you've already got the advantage of cheap weapons by virtue of it being a tactical squad, and it costs the same 15 points per model to field more tactical squads as it does to fill out existing tactical squads -- and more tactical squads means more cheap weapons.

Consider if a tactical squad, instead of being 5-10 marines at 15 points each was 5 marines for 100 points and you can add up to 5 additional marines for 10 points each. (Or, mathematically equivalently, a tactical squad costs 50 points to field, and contains 5-10 marines which cost 10 points each).

Posted By Toreador on 06/28/2007 1:17 PM
Some things are worth it at almost any price.

And you have selected specific units, you just made other options more worthwhile in the dex. Everyone now will take min 5 man tac squads and max out on other cheaper options elsewhere in the dex, which you will have to increase in cost accordingly.

It looks to me they are balancing things in the codex. Sometimes it is by removing options...

1. Huh? Landspeeder Tornado - 1000 points. ---- How many do you expect you'll see?

There's a right cost where the selection is neutral with the other alternative selections. That's the right cost. If 2 Assault Cannon Terminators is 'worth almost any price' then maybe the right price point for a squad is 750 points. I doubt it's that extreme though. There's a middle ground where they're equally as worthwhile as Veteran Squads, Tactical Squad or Sniper Scouts for the points (for examples).

2. You balance the whole 'dex, not specific units. I thought rewriting the entire Space Marine Codex to make all the units balanced in points was a tad ambitious for one post. Oh well, guess you can't please everyone. You increase or decrease everything in cost till its points reflect its in-game value. That's the whole point of having points.

3. Maybe, but it's a disappointing approach. I'd rather see them balance things by giving some thought to what's already there and adding cool new options.



Of course, some of the choir here would probably be ecstatic if GW told them to have their Tau army 'counts as' Eldar and talk about how lessening the variety really made the game more balanced and how people were being unreasonable to not be happy about having their Hammerhead 'counts as' a Falcon.

Posted By standgale on 06/28/2007 2:56 PM
And how come space marine armies get different codexes whereas chaos armis don't even get separate lists?

Because the variant space marine armies are very different from each other and can't be covered in a single codex.  For example, Ultramarines have terminators that like to teleport, but Dark Angels have terminators that like to teleport even more!  How can you represent these two radically different approaches to warfare in a single codex?  The answer: you can't!  It's just not possible!

Agree with Abby!

Chaos armies only need a single book because even though Khorne like to fight, and slaanesh likes to have sex, and nurgle likes to puke, and Tzeentch likes to read, all of those things are just different forms of fighting! So they can all easily be represented in the same book.

Before the battle begins, the Chaos people go to the chaos armory, and the armory attendent passes out Icons. But hey, he doesn't care about how he distributes the Icons because its CHAOSY that way, so each squad gets a different Icon, and they shrug and go fight, because they are nihilists.

What we are left with, is Chaos Skittles.

I can't understand why Deathwing and Ravenwing aren't covered each by a specific codex. They are way too different from regular Dark Angels to be in the same book.

I hope SM:Redux codex will have as many variants as there are chapter traits combined, because otherwise so much variety in a single book would be confusing.

On the other hand, Space Marine opponents are just "things" wanting to kill with various devices. Perhaps everything from Eldar to Kroot should be covered by Codex:Enemies. They're all enemies, aren't they?

To add to the above, it's obvious that Chaos doesn't require different books because they no longer have skulls. Remember skulls? Skulls are what made each god different, because the amount of skulls couldn't possibly be represented by the same rules. More skulls = more death, as evidenced by Khorne vs. Nurgle. But now that everyone only has spikes, they're all the same. Also, because Chaos are renegades now, they are more correctly represented by the chapters to whom they were previously loyal. So just use the red marines' rules for the red chaos guys and the green marines' rules for the purple chaos guys (slaanesh is purple and tzeentch is blue right?) since they were originally parts of those chapters anyway so it's more fluffy that way.

I want Codex: Not Marines

And in it, you pay a fixed point cost for a unit, and then roll a d6 to see what that unit is.

1= eldar guardians
2= ork boyz
3= Tau Firewarriors
4= Imperial Guardsmen
5+= Space Marines

Some good work done on this page, gentlemen I salute you!

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 06/29/2007 12:37 AM

Posted By standgale on 06/28/2007 2:56 PM
And how come space marine armies get different codexes whereas chaos armis don't even get separate lists?

Because the variant space marine armies are very different from each other and can't be covered in a single codex.  For example, Ultramarines have terminators that like to teleport, but Dark Angels have terminators that like to teleport even more!  How can you represent these two radically different approaches to warfare in a single codex?  The answer: you can't!  It's just not possible!

I want to be the surrogate father to your children.

I think most of us just gave up and reduced our commitment to chaos .

I should note at first during 3rd edition, Chaos was a reasonable army with some unique units, but slightly boring and tended to invite non fluffy armies. The nurglings in front of the thousand sons who were blocking line of sight to the khorne lord on juggernaut strikes me as one ugly abuse (good tactic though).  As army books were released chaos began to diminish in strength and got really boring and more than a little weak (Tyranids and Eldar as opposing forces walked over the 3rd ed army book), at which time the Chapter Approved Index Asartes articles began to come out.

These articles, which in many ways formed the basis of the 3,5 chaos codex, brought a lot of new life to a really tired codex and gave chaos fans a real reason to play (which Jervis's Chaos book had failed to do) and rebuild sections of thier army. They were a great deal like adding salt and seasonings to a bowl of mashed potatoes (which was what was happening to most chaos armies by that point).  Only one of those first four codexes from 1st edition remained playable until the end of 3rd ed. 40K  and even beyond. (Blood Angels).

When the 3.5 version of chaos was ready for release I can only remember people being excited even before the roumours phase. The direction the game was moving in was to expand the possibilites in game and the hobby aspects out of the game.

Now there is excitement among non chaos players, but I rarely hear chaos players being excited about the changes. Units are being contracted (or eliminated),  options are being removed, in a manner which 40K has not seen since the end of 2nd edition. This is not what excites people about a new book. Indeed it is beginning to look like chaos codexes are similar to star trek movies, only every second one is palatable.

If I may, these are rumors from Warseer once again. There's a whole thread on our favorite bodiless wretches from the Eye:

Thousand Sons

Unit Type: Infantry

Special Rules: Fearless, Slow and Purposeful (not Sorcerer), 4+ Invulnerable save (including the Mark of Tzeentch).

The Sorcerer Commands: The Aspiring Champion who leads the squad is a psyker. If the Aspiring Sorcerer is killed, the Thousand Sons roll a single dice for their Slow and Purposeful movement, unless the squad contains an Independent Character with the Mark of Tzeentch from the beginning of the turn.

Inferno Bolts: The shells fired by the bolters of the Thousand Sons Marines and the Aspiring Sorcerer's pistol are charged with baleful sorcerous energies, against which most mundane armour is no defense. The AP value of their bolt weapons is 3 instead of the normal 5.

Number/Squad
1 Aspiring Sorcerer and 4-19 Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines

Wargear

All:
Power Armour
No grenades!

Aspiring Sorcerer:
Bolt Pistol
Force Weapon

Thousand Sons:
Bolter

Special Rules:
+4 Invulnerable save (including Mark of Tzeentch)
Fearless
Slow and Purposeful
The Sorcerer Commands
Inferno Bolts

Character:
The Aspiring Sorcerer is a psyker and must be given [at least?] one of the following psychic powers:
- Doombolt
- Wind of Chaos
- Gift of Chaos
- Warp Time (caster rerolls hits and/or wounds, possibly only in close combat)
- Bolt of Change (now AP1)

Aspiring sorcerer must take psychic tests. They can use more than one power (possibly limited to two) at a time but can only fire one weapon per turn ( so no wind of chaos & doombolting that mass of conscripts in the same turn)

He may have meltabombs .

Icon:
One model may be given a personal icon.

Transport:
The squad may have a Chaos Rhino dedicated transport

Costs:
Sons cost between 20 and 25 points according to Drek, who seems to know what he's talking about. The sorceror costs "37 points more than a regular thousand son" (I'm betting 60).

Posted By whitedragon on 06/29/2007 6:24 AM
Before the battle begins, the Chaos people go to the chaos armory, and the armory attendent passes out Icons. But hey, he doesn't care about how he distributes the Icons because its CHAOSY that way, so each squad gets a different Icon, and they shrug and go fight, because they are nihilists.

Nihilists!  F*** me.  I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, dude, at least it's an ethos...

Yet more crap I stole from Warseer! Boy howdy will the be mad when they finally catch me. Most of this is from a poster named Drek who seems pretty reliable.

Big release date, according to the French GW site ( fr.games-workshop.com/news/sorties.asp ) is September 19. Army box comes out two weeks before that (Sept. 5).


No one gets drop pods. Icons act like teleport homers, daemons must land near (adjacent?) to one, but they can be used while inside a transport (daemons land within 6" of vehicle is the rumor). Oblits & termines who deep strike within 6" of one don't scatter. Daemons cannot move on the turn that they arrive but can assault.

Abaddon has 5+D6 Attacks at S8, In6.

Lords, Daemon Princes and Sorcerers can buy Wings. (Terminator Armor removes this option from Lords and Sorcs.)
Only Daemon Princes and Abaddon are immune to Instant Death. Daemon Weapons are cheaper for Lords that have purchased Terminator armor.

There is no collar of Khorne but Kharn has an equivalent special ability. There is no anti-psyker wargear in the codex, no collar, no talisman of Tzeetch, no psychic hood.

Possessed come with a single CCW and have no options other then an icon, aspiring champion, and rhino. Cost: 26 pts.

Chosen have 1 base attack, but have the bp + ccw + bolter thing too. They are just Chaos Marines with better leadership and infiltrate. 18 pts.

Terminators can still all be champs. They can upgrade combibolters to combiweapons for +5, PW to PF for +10 and either PW or both weapons to lightning claws for +10 (either way costs the same). Heavy weapon options haven't changed, but reaper autocannons cost 25 pts.

Chaos marines cost the same as loyalists now, but get effective higher Ld and effective A2 (bp + ccw + bolter)
Icon prices vary per listing but are given for the chaos marines below. They are bought for an entire unit, so the more the merrier. Price should be the same for CSMs, chosen, raptors, possessed, and havocs.
Chaos Glory - reroll morale - 10 pts
Khorne - +1 A - 30 pts
Slaanesh - +1 I - 20 - pts
Tzeentch - 5+ invulnerable OR +1 to existing invulnerable, sorcerers can use up to 2 powers a turn - 40 pts
Nurgle - +1 Toughness - 50 pts (!)

Plasma guns go up in cost just like in the DA & BA codices.

Cult troops:
Zerk - WS: 5, S4, I4, A3, furious charge.
Noise Marine - WS4, S4, I5, A2
Plague Marines - WS4, S4, In3, A2.
Thousand Sons - WS4, S4, I4, A1 (no bp + ccw + bolter like the others).
Don't need to buy icons but can have personal icons in the unit for daemon summoning/ deep striking purposes.

Noise marines also have bp + ccw & bolter. Bolter can become a sonic blaster for 5 points, one guy's can be a blastmaster. Champ can replace CCW with fist or PW, can also have meltabombs or AP3 doom siren as wargear (i.e. nothing is replaced for the former).

Plague marines and Thousand sons have the same points cost (between 20 & 25, I'm guessing 23). Plague marines have bp, ccw, & bolter (no more true grit but who cares), I3, and their blight grenades deprive units charging them of the extra attack for charging. Not sure about special weapon options.

Bikes MAY (or may not, according to some sources) have bp + ccw, giving them 2 attacks. Their special weapon options now replace their ccw. Cost: 33 points. One may be upgraded to champion, who can take a power weapon or fist, meltabombs, and plasma pistol.

Raptor champions can take lightning claws.

Defiler can still upgrade weapons to twinlinked lascannon, now 10 points cheaper.

Vindicator can be possessed, dreadnaught cannot.

hilarious

they should have kept the rule where if your lord has a mark then marked units are Troop

meh

The cult marines are in the troops section anyway. So the mark on the lord is no longer mandatory right?

Posted By Toreador on 06/28/2007 12:53 PM
and such is life.

I have hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours of work in a lot of things that are now gone, or in games now defunct. At least with my GW stuff I can still use almost all of it in one way or the other.

How is that a defense? "Life is crap, get over it, don't try to offer any thoughts on how it could be better."

Asmodai has been providing very, very good arguments for list balancing and point values being more intelligently assigned without reducing diversity, and Abby has been making very well observed points about the double standards in 40K.

Whereas yourself and Ozy, while lamenting the repetative *female dog*ing that goes on, have been just as dogged and repetative in your counter arguments as always!

Toreador- "Look on the bright side, things may get better, we shouldn't try to second guess GW, designing army lists is hard."

Ozy- "People who complain about a lack of diversity really mean 'I wanna broken list, Dark Angels is the best list in 40K, people should just suck it up."

 

Sorry, I was working backwards through the thread and getting more and more annoyed by the attitudes until I hit this post, at which point I snapped and posted this.

Its because I really don't see any lack of diversity. All I see are that the broken lists and no brainer options have gone away.

Yes, no more Daemonettes and Bloodletters, only generic daemons. But they were the only daemons worth taking so why bother with anything else? I can still make cult lists and it looks like Nurgle and Tzeentch are better than before, Khorne is roughly the same, and only Slaanesh is less powerful.

Saying our argument is "just as repetitive" doesn't really prove your point either. Sorry I am always positive, I just don't see the point in being the 51st person to say that I don't like the price increases or the vehicle rules so I instead will be the anti-Chicken Little for everyone at Dakka. The sky is NOT falling.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ok, I admit it, I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but I have a question
:
Wouldn't the codex been a great opportunity to further differentiate loyal marines and their chaotic cousins?
I feel that the chaos codex is more like a "very major divergence" - chapter with some funky guns and units thrown in.

Shrug...don't know how all of you Space Marine and Choas players feel, though.

Ok, ramble on guys!

Greets
Schepp himself

Posted By Schepp himself on 07/09/2007 12:45 PM
Ok, I admit it, I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but I have a question
:
Wouldn't the codex been a great opportunity to further differentiate loyal marines and their chaotic cousins?
I feel that the chaos codex is more like a "very major divergence" - chapter with some funky guns and units thrown in.

Shrug...don't know how all of you Space Marine and Choas players feel, though.

Ok, ramble on guys!

Greets
Schepp himself

And thats my big issue. The rumors make the chaos codex feel like marines with the Stomping Lord and +1 toughness divergent traits. Surprisingly, vanilla marines can now do what regular chaos can't (infiltrate, 6 man lascannon/plasma).  This is all rumors of course, but they just seem...meh.

 

 

To me Chaos always played like (or at least seemed like) playing Space Marines with Benefits.

Bout the only thing that Space Marines have now that the current 3.5ed Chaos dex doesn't have is Assault Cannons and drop pods. Granted those are HUGE in terms of in game effectiveness, but they're new to the 4th ed dex and Chaos has similar "options" that are nearly as powerful if not more so.

The new Chaos Dex has the following "competitive" options that Loyalists don't:

Oblits, now x9 for everyone.
Better Predators
More customizability for their tactical, bike, and assault units.
Dedicated troops for Khorne, Slannesh, Tzeench, and Nurgle. 3 of which are actually pretty damn good.
A better HQ setup than Marines can dream to have.

I'm leaving out things like the new gimped but fleeting defiler and Greater/Lesser demons, which are examples of things that Chaos used to have over loyalists, but aren't really good anymore.

Oh and they lost 6 Man Las/Plas. If you're talking about playing from a competitive aspect, I still think that the Chaos list is potentially stronger than the Marine dex, but they can't be shootier than Marines anymore.

9 obits helps make up for the loss of 6 man las/plas (which probably won't survive too much longer w/ SM's).

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Funny, just about everything I've heard from the Dev's mouths about a "SM Redux" is that it's not going to happen for a long time, if at all.

The only thing that even put such a concept on the radar was Brimstone on Warseer putting it on the "projected schedule" at the end of 2008, about when DA got hit with the Nerfhammer.

Given that Orks are set for the beginning of 2008, and that there's supposed to be a "Demon Codex" at some point in 2008, the fact that there will be a SM Redux seems less and less likely. Oh and did I mention that every time a developer was asked about SM redux they said they considered it but there were other dex's that needed to be done and that a Redux was a long ways away, if at all?

Don't act like the SM list is going to get toned down anytime soon.

It's not a priority. I think most gamers would rather see Orks and Dark Eldar get updates first. Necrons could use a bit of polish too.

Anyway, if Chaos plays like Marines with Divergeance anyway, maybe they should have just been implemented as a Divergent Trait 'Chaotic' in Codex Space Marines Redux. *Runs away*

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/09/2007 11:46 AM
Its because I really don't see any lack of diversity. All I see are that the broken lists and no brainer options have gone away.

Really?  That's all you see?  You don't see the complete absence of sorcerer chosen, rubric terminators, noise marine havocs, noise marine bikers?  You don't see 4 armies being reduced to unit entries and another 4 being eliminated completely?  You don't see 13 different types of daemons being dumbed down into 2?  You don't see how this might not promote diversity?  Maybe you're not looking hard enough.

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 07/09/2007 3:20 PM
Funny, just about everything I've heard from the Dev's mouths about a "SM Redux" is that it's not going to happen for a long time, if at all.

The only thing that even put such a concept on the radar was Brimstone on Warseer putting it on the "projected schedule" at the end of 2008, about when DA got hit with the Nerfhammer.

Given that Orks are set for the beginning of 2008, and that there's supposed to be a "Demon Codex" at some point in 2008, the fact that there will be a SM Redux seems less and less likely. Oh and did I mention that every time a developer was asked about SM redux they said they considered it but there were other dex's that needed to be done and that a Redux was a long ways away, if at all?

Don't act like the SM list is going to get toned down anytime soon.

Exactly.

Abby,

You missed the gain of Nurgle marked havocs, bikers, marked raptors, and all of the other things that are new. And when you lose a no-brainer option, or an option that is terrible, you haven't really lost anything.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 8:36 AM
Abby,

You missed the gain of Nurgle marked havocs, bikers, marked raptors, and all of the other things that are new. And when you lose a no-brainer option, or an option that is terrible, you haven't really lost anything.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Most daemons weren't no brainers or terrible.

Noise Marine havocs were a reasonable choice and very expensive option to assemble.

Sorry but you are wrong. People are concentrating on what were very expensive models they bought  being rendered worthless.  This is a rather expenisve hobby and removing options (or making them so terrible that they are unworthy of consideration is going to p*** off people. Telling people that they haven't just lost the time and effort they put into some wonderful conversions just makes them more angry, and when you platy in a WYSIWyG environment counts as doesn't cut any mustard.

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 07/09/2007 3:20 PM
Funny, just about everything I've heard from the Dev's mouths about a "SM Redux" is that it's not going to happen for a long time, if at all.

See we've been getting mixed signals on that.  JJ says that the studio believes the SM codex is a failure at bringing new gamers into the hobby yet they aren't planning on redoing it for a long time, if at all? 

That doesn't pass the sniff test with me.

Also, we have heard talk that the studio is debating about whether or not a new SM codex would be Codex: Ultramarines (i.e. Codex: Codex Marines), or Codex: Space Marines (i.e. with traits and the like).  That also doesn't gel with the above.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ozy- the fact is that not everyone took Daemonettes/Bloodletters. I used Plague Bearers, and I really enjoyed doing so. So it was not a "no-brainer" option.
So what I have lost is characterful rules for my daemons. I really hope that you will at least be able to give a chaos mark to daemon units, as it would at least go some way toward differentiating them.

As for being the anti chicken little, you really are being a bit insulting towards the rest of Dakka Dakka. I know myself that I judge each piece of news by itself, and decide whether I am happy or unhappy based on the news. I don't just engage autowhinge mode and start giving out. I am inclined toward pessimism where 40K is concerned, because I think the game has been getting steadily worse over the years, and as an Ork player I feel pretty hard done by.
If you are annoyed about something, do you really stay quiet, just so you won't be like the rest of us? That is a bit sad, to my mind.

It seems strange to me that an avid dark angels player would not understand the desire for characterful rules amongst other factions- you play a faction which has been excellently provided with it's own codex, it's own models and the support of the best supported range in 40K. But from my point of veiw, couldn't you have just represented all that with the vanilla marine codex? Why have a seperate book for a codex chapter, and then reduce diversity for chaos? Do you see the double standard, and why it causes so much consternation?

(And, on a more personally "I am really *fudge*ing sick of this gak GW" note, why oh why have more space marine armies when other armies are in dire need of attention, and have massively unfinished ranges?)

Da Boss,

I do agree that I hope that the generic daemons will be able to be marked and get some sort of bonus. That would make sense and go back to the way that daemons used to be. I do think though that your Death Guard army will be more effective and just as characterful as it was before.

This is what I have been seeing in this and other threads:

"I said it in another thread, but I'll repeat it here:
Hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours of work have been relegated to the "counts as" category. I have literally dozens of models who are not WYSIWYG under the new codex. My creativity in conversion and army selection has been "rewarded" by complete invalidation of my collection." (emphasis mine)

Creativity should not be in the rules in my opinion. What did people do during Rogue Trader and 2nd Ed??

I'm sorry, but there is a lot of chicken-littling going on in this thread and in the other Chaos rumors threads. Despite the fact that the studio has said that they are releasing a Daemon codex next year (which will give you back your daemons, cultists, and other things). Plus, with the BA codex in WD, why don't you think we'll see Legion specific rules in the future. The reason they were able to do the BA codex in WD was that the groundwork was already done w/ Codex: DA.

And finally, I would have been happy if they had included rules to represent Dark Angels in C:SM. It would have been much better than using the crappy 3rd Ed codex for 2 years. Though I will say again that DA had their own codex (shared with BA) before Chaos had theirs. .

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Just to follow-up with what efarrer talks about that is so important. What differentiates GW games and especially 40k in the past is that for the most part rules and list building options enabled players to create a wide and diverse range of models to fit in with what the list let you build. Kind of like giving a gamer a palette of 250 colors and letting them go to town with what they could build.

This is a dangerous path GW is treading. If they are looking to "separate" themselves from the competition like what Apocalypse is supposed to demonstrate, then taking this path is the wrong one.

With the new Codex's and the list building strategies of the game designers/bean counters you get a palette of 20 colors to work with. I could do this with most other game systems out there.  Why play 40k when they are going to make my investment worthless by restricting and even eliminating units and armies that ALOT of blood, sweat and tears have been poured into?

I feel that as a veteran hobbyist, it is more about taking one of two paths 1) Buy new models that only have options you will find in the new kits 2) Feel like an idiot and run most of your current army as "COUNTS AS" in order to make usable. 2 out of 3 of my primary armies are Chaos based and while I can make them work, the fact that I have to 'make them work' is a slowed concept.

While there are a few new options that are nice to see and somewhat useful, in my eyes most of it just an attempt to turn vanilla ice cream into chocolate and strawberry. When you go from Ben & Jerry flavors to this selection of flavors, it pretty hard to stomach.

REMEMBER:
40k Complexity Level (40kCL) = GIQJJ (gamer IQ of 'Jack' - Jervis Johnson Son)

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 9:36 AM
Da Boss,

I do agree that I hope that the generic daemons will be able to be marked and get some sort of bonus. That would make sense and go back to the way that daemons used to be. I do think though that your Death Guard army will be more effective and just as characterful as it was before.

This is what I have been seeing in this and other threads:

"I said it in another thread, but I'll repeat it here:
Hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours of work have been relegated to the "counts as" category. I have literally dozens of models who are not WYSIWYG under the new codex. My creativity in conversion and army selection has been "rewarded" by complete invalidation of my collection." (emphasis mine)

Creativity should not be in the rules in my opinion. What did people do during Rogue Trader and 2nd Ed??

I'm sorry, but there is a lot of chicken-littling going on in this thread and in the other Chaos rumors threads. Despite the fact that the studio has said that they are releasing a Daemon codex next year (which will give you back your daemons, cultists, and other things). Plus, with the BA codex in WD, why don't you think we'll see Legion specific rules in the future. The reason they were able to do the BA codex in WD was that the groundwork was already done w/ Codex: DA.

And finally, I would have been happy if they had included rules to represent Dark Angels in C:SM. It would have been much better than using the crappy 3rd Ed codex for 2 years. Though I will say again that DA had their own codex (shared with BA) before Chaos had theirs. .

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Unless I'm very wrong Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and the damned substainitally predate the Angels of death book.

In Rogue Trader and 2nd edition there were amzing rules for modifying and converting vehicles as well as (in the chaos book) rules for including all manner of chaos critters in a chaos spacemarine army, along with conversion suggestions and other neat ideas. The studio has not confirmed this. And it's use with chaos marine armies is currently speculative, outside of the apocolypse environment which appears to be bring any and all of  your toy soldiers and have a Gi joe vs Beasties style mash up. Not exactly what I'm looking for with my 1700 point Emperor's Chlidren army, thanks.

Lost and Damned and Slaves to Darkness are not codex's.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

If you can't understand why it is so galling to non marine players that DA/BA/SW/whatever have gotten their codices before chaos/orks/eldar/whatever over the years, and continue to do so, you must be fairly unimaginative. But i reckon you're just throwing in some tongue in cheek humour there.

07/10/2007 12:01 PM Quote Reply Alert
Lost and Damned and Slaves to Darkness are not codex's.

Ozymandias

They contained a mixture of fluff and armylists. They may not have been titled Codex: Beancounter's wet dream, but in a nutshell what else is a codex other than the rules to play an army in 40K.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 9:36 AM
Da Boss,



And finally, I would have been happy if they had included rules to represent Dark Angels in C:SM. It would have been much better than using the crappy 3rd Ed codex for 2 years. Though I will say again that DA had their own codex (shared with BA) before Chaos had theirs. .

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I do believe Chaos had 2 separate books back in RT era whereas marines did not,  but I could be wrong.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 10:01 AM
Lost and Damned and Slaves to Darkness are not codex's.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

In that case neither was anything else in RT.

07/10/2007 11:36 AM Quote Reply Alert
Da Boss,

I do agree that I hope that the generic daemons will be able to be marked and get some sort of bonus. That would make sense and go back to the way that daemons used to be. I do think though that your Death Guard army will be more effective and just as characterful as it was before.

This is what I have been seeing in this and other threads:

"I said it in another thread, but I'll repeat it here:
Hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours of work have been relegated to the "counts as" category. I have literally dozens of models who are not WYSIWYG under the new codex. My creativity in conversion and army selection has been "rewarded" by complete invalidation of my collection." (emphasis mine)

Creativity should not be in the rules in my opinion. What did people do during Rogue Trader and 2nd Ed??


Ozymandias, King of Kings


Actually, Upon further review it appears that you could make your own races in Rogue Trader. So inaddition to making units with ANYTHING in them you were not shackled by the in universe restraints. Ergo the rules allowed the ultimate in expressions of creativity in the basic rule book. This was scaled back to vehicles in the 2nd edition of the game, but it was in one of the primary rules expansions for 2nd edition 40K.

Posted By Da Boss on 07/10/2007 10:08 AM
If you can't understand why it is so galling to non marine players that DA/BA/SW/whatever have gotten their codices before chaos/orks/eldar/whatever over the years, and continue to do so, you must be fairly unimaginative. But i reckon you're just throwing in some tongue in cheek humour there.

I guess the was lost on everyone else...  But what I said was that  Codex; Angels of Death came out before Codex: Chaos.  That is 100% correct.

I do find it interesting that people are saying Chaos should get the same treatment as Space Marines, but wouldn't that mean more Marine codices?  If each legion got their own book (even if it was just the 4 cult legions) that would be 13 MEQ books (I didn't anything in Codex:Armageddon or Codex:EoT) and 6 Non-MEQ books.

I think everyone is forgetting supply and demand.  There is enough demand for a separate Dark Angels codex, there is not the same demand for a separate Death Guard codex.  If there was, you bet GW would be producing one!  It has nothing to do with "styles of combat" or fluff or anything else.  GW makes more money producing C: DA than it would C: Death Guard or C:TkSons.

Also, BTW I also play Dark Eldar (and Vampire Counts in Fantasy), so I know what it feels like to have an old codex and old, crappy models.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I don't really buy the "People want to play Space Marines!" argument. I think it's hard to say one way or the other. Perhaps people just want to play the army that they see advertised the most, and talked about the most, given the best support, continually updated with new options and garaunteed never to be dropped.
I really think the focus on marines is the worst thing about 40K, and has been since the start of Second Edition. I remember the White Dwarf articke where they declared this new focus. Looking back, it's one of the worst decisions they ever made, and they made it when they were still a free company.

And yeah, Vampire Counts character models SUCK.

And you're damn right, I don't want multiple books! One sourcebook per army please!

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 8:36 AM
You missed the gain of Nurgle marked havocs, bikers, marked raptors, and all of the other things that are new.

What good does that do a Thousand Sons player?  Has it ever occured to you that maybe some people don't want Nurgle havocs, bikers, and raptors?  Maybe they want sorcerers and rubric terminators and horrors and flamers and screamers?

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 8:36 AM
And when you lose a no-brainer option, or an option that is terrible, you haven't really lost anything.

By that logic, they might as well remove Orks from the game.  Since Orks are terrible we wouldn't really be losing anything, right?

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 8:49 AM
See we've been getting mixed signals on that.  JJ says that the studio believes the SM codex is a failure at bringing new gamers into the hobby yet they aren't planning on redoing it for a long time, if at all?

Of course they're planning on redoing it.  It will almost certainly get redone after 5th edition is released.  However they've said absolutely nothing to indicate that it will be redone sooner than that.  That the studio thinks the SM codex is a failure merely implies that they will try to correct its perceived shortcomings when it gets redone.  It does NOT imply that a redux is coming out any time soon.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 8:49 AM
Also, we have heard talk that the studio is debating about whether or not a new SM codex would be Codex: Ultramarines (i.e. Codex: Codex Marines), or Codex: Space Marines (i.e. with traits and the like).  That also doesn't gel with the above.

Sure it does.  Just because the studio is considering something doesn't mean its release is imminent.  They're debating what the focus of the SM codex will be when it gets redone.  Again, that doesn't imply that it's getting redone any time soon.  They may just be planning ahead so that any new codices will be consistent with the 5th ed SM codex when it's released.

And when the next SM codex finally rolls around (probably right after the release of 5th edition) my money is on it being Codex: Ultramarines.  No traits, no vet skills, no nothing.  Just look at the new Codex: Chaos Space Marines (a.k.a. Codex: Black Legion) and it's pretty apparent which way they're leaning.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 9:36 AM
Creativity should not be in the rules in my opinion.

Well, lately they've been doing a damn good job at making rules that are completely devoid of creativity.  But I don't think that's a good thing.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 9:36 AM
What did people do during Rogue Trader and 2nd Ed??

I don't know about 2nd ed, but during rogue trader people used to be able to field Fiends of Slaanesh, Steeds of Slaanesh, Daemonettes, Keepers of Secrets, Fleshhounds, Juggernauts, Bloodletters, Bloodthirsters, Beasts of Nurgle, Nurglings, Plaguebearers, Great Unclean Ones, Flamers, Discs of Tzeentch, Horrors, and Lords of Change.  And they did all of this with 5 separate army lists - one for each god and 1 for undivided (EC, WE, DG, TD, BL).  And there were cultists and beastmen too.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 9:36 AM
Despite the fact that the studio has said that they are releasing a Daemon codex next year (which will give you back your daemons, cultists, and other things).

There is absolutely zero indication that you will be able to include these daemons in your CSM army.  Furthermore Jervis has stated that the daemon codex would not include cultists.  LatD is dead.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 9:36 AM
Plus, with the BA codex in WD, why don't you think we'll see Legion specific rules in the future.

No.  Jervis has stated that the BA list in WD is a one-off deal and we shouldn't expect rules in WD in the future.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 10:01 AM
Lost and Damned and Slaves to Darkness are not codex's.

What the hell is your point then?  The Chaos legions had their own rules long before Blood Angels and Dark Angels did.  What difference does it make whose 2nd ed book came out first?  In 4th ed Codex: Tau came out before Codex: Dark Angels.  Do you know what that means?  I'm not sure but my first thought would be... JACK SQUAT.  Are you trying to be funny or are you really that daft?

awwh LatD is my favourite. Will the demon codex have mutants? They're not demons, so i'm guessing not. But what is life without mutants?

My Replies are in italics

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"What good does that do a Thousand Sons player?  Has it ever occured to you that maybe some people don't want Nurgle havocs, bikers, and raptors?  Maybe they want sorcerers and rubric terminators and horrors and flamers and screamers?"

***********

So you are saying that only some diversity is ok.  You lost some diversity in some areas and made it up in others.  You lost Plaguebearers but gained Nurgle marked raptors, havocs, etc.  That means just as many if not more net options.  And are you really saying that the changes to TkSons are bad?  They took one of the worst armies and are making them competitive!  That's what people have been complaining about!

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"By that logic, they might as well remove Orks from the game.  Since Orks are terrible we wouldn't really be losing anything, right?"

********

That is just a stupid analogy.  One is an option w/in a codex and the other is a whole new race.  Furthermore, lots of people don't think Orks are terrible and do quite well with them.  How many times have you taken bionics on a veteran sgt?  Please try to make your counter posts intelligent.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"Of course they're planning on redoing it.  It will almost certainly get redone after 5th edition is released.  However they've said absolutely nothing to indicate that it will be redone sooner than that.  That the studio thinks the SM codex is a failure merely implies that they will try to correct its perceived shortcomings when it gets redone.  It does NOT imply that a redux is coming out any time soon."

*****************

I disagree.  If your flagship product is a failure, you fix it as soon as you possibly can.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"I don't know about 2nd ed, but during rogue trader people used to be able to field Fiends of Slaanesh, Steeds of Slaanesh, Daemonettes, Keepers of Secrets, Fleshhounds, Juggernauts, Bloodletters, Bloodthirsters, Beasts of Nurgle, Nurglings, Plaguebearers, Great Unclean Ones, Flamers, Discs of Tzeentch, Horrors, and Lords of Change.  And they did all of this with 5 separate army lists - one for each god and 1 for undivided (EC, WE, DG, TD, BL).  And there were cultists and beastmen too."

*******************

I never played RT, but in 2nd ed there was one codex.  No one had legion-specific rules and everyone got along just fine.  If you wanted a Death Guard army, you only took Nurgle-marked troops and Nurgle-marked Daemons (and I've said I hope that they will allow you to mark daemons in the new dex).  Voila, you have a Death Guard army.  People didn't need Death Guard only rules to be creative.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"There is absolutely zero indication that you will be able to include these daemons in your CSM army.  Furthermore Jervis has stated that the daemon codex would not include cultists.  LatD is dead."

******************

This is news to me.  I don't remember seeing any rumors or quotes that support what you claim.  I'm not going to say it didn't happen, but I'd like to see where you heard that from.  Do you have a quote?

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"No.  Jervis has stated that the BA list in WD is a one-off deal and we shouldn't expect rules in WD in the future."

*********************

And they said they weren't going to release rules in WD anymore.  The BA codex is proof that wasn't true either.  You seem to have a selective capabilitiy to believe what GW says.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"What the hell is your point then?  The Chaos legions had their own rules long before Blood Angels and Dark Angels did.  What difference does it make whose 2nd ed book came out first?  In 4th ed Codex: Tau came out before Codex: Dark Angels.  Do you know what that means?  I'm not sure but my first thought would be... JACK SQUAT.  Are you trying to be funny or are you really that daft?"

*************

Apparently Da Boss is still the only one who caught the .  And I will say again that Codex: Angels of Death came out before Codex: Chaos.  Before 2nd ed, there were no "Codex" books.  There were army lists for sure, but my comment was regarding Codex's.  This forum is so bent on RAW but you sure like to disregard what I wrote.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By Da Boss on 07/10/2007 11:51 AM
I don't really buy the "People want to play Space Marines!" argument. I think it's hard to say one way or the other. Perhaps people just want to play the army that they see advertised the most, and talked about the most, given the best support, continually updated with new options and garaunteed never to be dropped.
I really think the focus on marines is the worst thing about 40K, and has been since the start of Second Edition. I remember the White Dwarf articke where they declared this new focus. Looking back, it's one of the worst decisions they ever made, and they made it when they were still a free company.

And yeah, Vampire Counts character models SUCK.

And you're damn right, I don't want multiple books! One sourcebook per army please!

Yes and no.  But you can't create demand from nothing.  My guess is they saw how popular Marines were and decided to capitalize on it.  It does create a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it has to start somewhere.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 2:27 PM
Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"What good does that do a Thousand Sons player?  Has it ever occured to you that maybe some people don't want Nurgle havocs, bikers, and raptors?  Maybe they want sorcerers and rubric terminators and horrors and flamers and screamers?"

***********

So you are saying that only some diversity is ok.  You lost some diversity in some areas and made it up in others.  You lost Plaguebearers but gained Nurgle marked raptors, havocs, etc.  That means just as many if not more net options.  And are you really saying that the changes to TkSons are bad?  They took one of the worst armies and are making them competitive!  That's what people have been complaining about!

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"Of course they're planning on redoing it.  It will almost certainly get redone after 5th edition is released.  However they've said absolutely nothing to indicate that it will be redone sooner than that.  That the studio thinks the SM codex is a failure merely implies that they will try to correct its perceived shortcomings when it gets redone.  It does NOT imply that a redux is coming out any time soon."

*****************

I disagree.  If your flagship product is a failure, you fix it as soon as you possibly can.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"I don't know about 2nd ed, but during rogue trader people used to be able to field Fiends of Slaanesh, Steeds of Slaanesh, Daemonettes, Keepers of Secrets, Fleshhounds, Juggernauts, Bloodletters, Bloodthirsters, Beasts of Nurgle, Nurglings, Plaguebearers, Great Unclean Ones, Flamers, Discs of Tzeentch, Horrors, and Lords of Change.  And they did all of this with 5 separate army lists - one for each god and 1 for undivided (EC, WE, DG, TD, BL).  And there were cultists and beastmen too."

*******************

I never played RT, but in 2nd ed there was one codex.  No one had legion-specific rules and everyone got along just fine.  If you wanted a Death Guard army, you only took Nurgle-marked troops and Nurgle-marked Daemons (and I've said I hope that they will allow you to mark daemons in the new dex).  Voila, you have a Death Guard army.  People didn't need Death Guard only rules to be creative.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"There is absolutely zero indication that you will be able to include these daemons in your CSM army.  Furthermore Jervis has stated that the daemon codex would not include cultists.  LatD is dead."

******************

This is news to me.  I don't remember seeing any rumors or quotes that support what you claim.  I'm not going to say it didn't happen, but I'd like to see where you heard that from.  Do you have a quote?

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"What the hell is your point then?  The Chaos legions had their own rules long before Blood Angels and Dark Angels did.  What difference does it make whose 2nd ed book came out first?  In 4th ed Codex: Tau came out before Codex: Dark Angels.  Do you know what that means?  I'm not sure but my first thought would be... JACK SQUAT.  Are you trying to be funny or are you really that daft?"

*************

Apparently Da Boss is still the only one who caught the .  And I will say again that Codex: Angels of Death came out before Codex: Chaos.  Before 2nd ed, there were no "Codex" books.  There were army lists for sure, but my comment was regarding Codex's.  This forum is so bent on RAW but you sure like to disregard what I wrote.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I hesitate to ask this question because if you were to confirm yourself as such I would have to raise my opinion of GW's online strategy.

Are you a GW sock puppet?

Regardless of critism you are insanely incapable of accepting that others may have valid concerns. It doesn't matter what anyone says be they grizzled veteran or new posters. When confronted with reality you engage in sophistry rather than admit your point was wrong.

To address what you have said.

Chaos players have long been proud of the fact that they can make unique armies out of thier single book which represented unique styles of play. If this book is similar to the Eldar there will be many clone armies built, and the best of those will be black legion style. Which is fine if you are a Black legion playeer. I'm not. Nor are many other chao players. We choose to build thematic armies which were generally pretty competitve, even the ones which weren't broken. The Eldar book, as well as the Blood Angels and Dark Angels are a poor signal for people who wish to play without special characters. THe current rumours for the Chaos book are telling many people that the armies they had are going to be rendered obsolete in a manner unseen since the 2nd to 3rd edition transition. It is depressing to have put the effort into making a neatly themed force to find units rendered obsolete at a whim. Had I had any idea that this would occur I wouldn't have bought some 60 deamons for use in my three god aligned armies Iwould have simply gotten 20 generic daemons (possibly from my dnd playing friends). Now from warseer:

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Which tends to indicate Apocolpyse or 2 force org use only.

For further evidence of the time lapse on the marine codex look to the thread with the scan of the release scehdule. Codex marines has been safe for at least  hald a year and there is evidence it is safe until at least summer summer 08.

As to the Codex Angels of death. Pure sophistry.

Posted By standgale on 07/10/2007 2:18 PM

There is absolutely zero indication that you will be able to include these daemons in your CSM army. Furthermore Jervis has stated that the daemon codex would not include cultists. LatD is dead.

awwh LatD is my favourite. Will the demon codex have mutants? They're not demons, so i'm guessing not. But what is life without mutants?

What's ironic about this is the Gaunt's Ghosts novels are their most popular fiction, and they depict almost no enemies aside from LatD Chaos Cultists.

Seems silly to cut them out from the game.

Efarrer:

Yep, you caught me.  I'm a GW sock puppet.  I'm actually JJ in disguise here to praise the almighty GW! 

And you accuse me of sophistry!  *rollseyes*

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 3:13 PM
Efarrer:

Yep, you caught me.  I'm a GW sock puppet.  I'm actually JJ in disguise here to praise the almighty GW! 

And you accuse me of sophistry!  *rollseyes*

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Rhetoric on my side perhaps, sarcasm sure, sophistry no. There was no attempt to play word games or to decieve. You on the other hand have tried to play all sorts of things to avoid flat out admitting that the Chaos has a much longer history of armylists than the Dark Angels and more diversity to boot. You seem to want to tell Chaos players that they are getting the sun and the moon. They aren't. This book is stripping many units from the army (including 13 types of daemon, specialized havocs as well as delisting amny unique characterful choices). People do not appear to be generally rejoicing here about those changes. Of the people I have seen no indication you play any Chaos armies, nor any indication you have ever played one. Your distaste for "broken" Chaos armies is thus probably based on your experience playing against them. I look forward with anticipation to reading your posts as you praise GW's creative minds for nerfing future codexes. I on the other hand have played chaos for 10 years now. The list got steadily more diverse and that was a good thing. It encouraged looking for new options. The current book has a multitude of highly playble lists. The new one is quickly looking like there will be 2-3 builds worth discussing, not 15-20.

You realize that the Sophists invented Rhetoric, right?  You claim sarcasm, but apparently you do not recognize it.  Again, here was what I posted:

"Though I will say again that DA had their own codex (shared with BA) before Chaos had theirs. ."

What did you think I was implying there?  means I'm winking, i.e. that comment is not serious.  Geez, is Da Boss the only one who caught that?  But, btw, saying Codex in reference to Codex's as opposed to army lists is not really "word games."  Get a life.

Again, I ask you to actually read my posts instead of generalizing what I am saying.  I am saying that the world is not coming to an end with the new Chaos dex.  There are a lot of really good things in there, especially for TkSons and Death Guard players.  I am saying that pissing and moaning isn't going to change the codex at this point and you should be focusing on the new positives rather than harping on the negatives. 

I've been playing 40k for a long time, over 10 years, and Dark Angels for most of that and I have to say that I am happy with the change in direction.  Do I wish it happened before C:SM, Nidzillas, and Mech Eldar, hell yeah, but better late than never!  I like simple 40k rules with more advanced expansions like CoD and Apocalypse, I think that satisfies both the newbies, tournament players, and veterans.  While I do not play Chaos, I have been itching to start a force for a long time, just waiting to see the final direction before I really start investing in another army. 

Call me a fanboy, call me a GW sock puppet (whatever that means), but I actually do enjoy playing this game and don't feel the need to speak up when I am the 50th person to not like something.  That's why I usually post when I have something to disagree about.  On Dakka, that means I end up posting quite a bit...   (someone has to be the anti- doom and gloom other than Toreador.)  I would like to see someone have a meaningful discussion with me as to why they dislike the new Chaos dex without resorting to sarcasm to make a point or calling me a fanboy when they can't make one.  Da Boss and Asmodai seem to be the only ones capable of doing that.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

You apparently don't even play chaos yet you think you can single handedly blow sunshine up the asses of jaded chaos players. Just let them be pissed. What does it matter to you?

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 4:21 PM
You realize that the Sophists invented Rhetoric, right? 
Ozymandias, King of Kings

And yet in the English language both mean distinct things.

Conversing with you while entertaining is not promoting any further movement on this topic thus I will refrain from further comment on your  remarkable optimism about an how the models in an army you do not play  will remain viable.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 2:27 PM
So you are saying that only some diversity is ok.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.  Why do you think people play cult armies?  For diversity?  If the goal was to have maximum diversity then they'd be playing vanilla Chaos.  No, people play cult armies because they don't want to play vanilla Chaos.  But with this new codex you don't have a choice - you have to play vanilla Chaos.  Sure, you can field a Tzeentch-themed vanilla army with some Thousand Sons, but you could already do that with the old codex and now you can't field a Thousand Sons army anymore.

So now here you come telling us that we have all these new options.  Well, thank you Captain Obvious.  And congratulations for completely missing the point.  We don't want options for vanilla Chaos.  We want options for cult legions.  You know, stuff like rubric terminators.  Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 2:27 PM
And are you really saying that the changes to TkSons are bad?  They took one of the worst armies and are making them competitive!

No, they took one of the worst armies and are making them not exist anymore.  There is no longer such a thing as a Thousand Sons army.  Thousand Sons are just a unit type in the vanilla Chaos list.  This makes many people Very Unhappy.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 2:27 PM
Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"By that logic, they might as well remove Orks from the game.  Since Orks are terrible we wouldn't really be losing anything, right?"

********

That is just a stupid analogy.  One is an option w/in a codex and the other is a whole new race.

Not really.  If the solution to terrible options is to remove them, then what happens if your codex consists entirely of terrible options?

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 2:27 PM
Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"Of course they're planning on redoing it.  It will almost certainly get redone after 5th edition is released.  However they've said absolutely nothing to indicate that it will be redone sooner than that.  That the studio thinks the SM codex is a failure merely implies that they will try to correct its perceived shortcomings when it gets redone.  It does NOT imply that a redux is coming out any time soon."

*****************

I disagree.  If your flagship product is a failure, you fix it as soon as you possibly can.

Well, it sounds like the folks at GW don't agree with you.  Gav Thorpe has stated that there are no plans for a SM codex redux.  Either he's lying or we're going to have to wait until 5th ed.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 2:27 PM
Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/10/2007 1:17 PM

"No.  Jervis has stated that the BA list in WD is a one-off deal and we shouldn't expect rules in WD in the future."

*********************

And they said they weren't going to release rules in WD anymore.  The BA codex is proof that wasn't true either.  You seem to have a selective capabilitiy to believe what GW says.

Yes, they said they wouldn't release rules in WD anymore and then they did.  After that they then said that this was a one-time exception to their "no rules in WD" policy and that they have no plans for continuing this in the future.  Of course maybe they're lying and they're really planning to release some legion rules in WD.  You're certainly welcome to disregard what the studio says in favor of wild speculation and wishful thinking.

Apparently my request for someone to disagree with me without resorting to sarcasm or name-calling was just too much to ask.

This isn't going anywhere and will only get worse and then get locked. I will remove myself so you all can go back to lamenting your new Codex.

Have fun.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Let me quote Homer Simpson-

"Sock Puppets!!!"

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 6:12 PM
Apparently my request for someone to disagree with me without resorting to sarcasm or name-calling was just too much to ask.

This isn't going anywhere and will only get worse and then get locked. I will remove myself so you all can go back to lamenting your new Codex.

Have fun.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I guess you missed the post right above yours.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/10/2007 4:21 PM
On Dakka, that means I end up posting quite a bit...   (someone has to be the anti- doom and gloom other than Toreador.) 

Do you know what the golden mean fallacy is?

My biggest complaint about the codex was the killing off of the character of the codex. Sure the codex was very potent and Open to abuse 8 times over (and I mean by 8 different types of armies). But it had flavor and Chaos Marines were veterans of 1000 wars but now with the new codex they have just become regular Space Marines with spiky bits. One other thing that perplexes me is who is the group of people that cried cheese to the extent to allow only 1 reaper autocannon/heavy flamer per Chaos Terminator squad? It was not like they were that much better than loyalist terminators.

The more I review the rumours, the more I am reminded of the first 3rd edition codex.

It is that reason alone that I feel a strong sense of dismay. The first codex was bland as velvetta. The second 3rd edition codex brought a great deal of character to the sub armies and encouraged most of the chaos players I knew to choose a legion and work on it. This codex appears set to reverse that, like a three year old Balderson Cheddar. I expect to see thousand sons laying down suppressive fire for beserkers as plague marine bikers swoop along the flank. It looks like a return to spreadable semi edible cheese is being planned.

What upsets me is that it feels like many of these changes are simply to force existing players to buy models which were no good under previous rules, while removing choices that existed. Though I don't think I'll ever be as irratated as I was when I had to remove some 36 plasma pistols and buy enough terminators to fill out my three man two reapers 2nd edition squads, the current rumours are leaving me pretty cold.

Hey,

Posted By efarrer on 07/11/2007 10:33 AM
The more I review the rumours, the more I am reminded of the first 3rd edition codex

The greatest danger of Codex: Rainbow Coalition may prove to be Mathhammer CSM Optibuilds. Let me give an example (if anyone can suggest more effective Units, please share). Let's start with the minimum standard FOC options:

@750pts:
HQ -
Flying Prince
(Why bother taking anything less?)
Troops -
2x Rubric Units in Rhinos
(Rush + 24in AP3 RFing backed by Magic Missile/ Force Weapon)

@1000pts, just add:
Elites -
1x MoT Chosen Unit w/ AWs
(A must-have for Infiltration)

Above 1000pts, add:
HQ -
2nd Flying Prince
(Hey, it worked the first time...) Elites -
2nd/ 3rd Chosen Unit
Heavy -
Obliterators
(Walking Lascannon/ Multimelta)
Fast -
MoT Bikers
(Tri-flamer Turbo Cav w/ Inv Sv)


Playa

Why not take 2 princes, 2 greater deamons and then whatever else you want as those 4 units will be retardedly good.

Maybe some makred nurgle bikers that are toughness 6 to deliver the deamons?

I've done some thinking about what's best for the new dex build wise and it really revolves around 3 units:

Flying DP (x2)

Raptors (x2 w/ Fists and possibly Flamers for horde control)

Oblits (x6 or x9)

Troops are arguable to go one way or the other, but I think the above style config would go best with Sonic Marines since everything else is so anti-MEQ they give you a decent set of move and fire troops and you still can take a 6 man squad and get an AP3 heavy weapon if you want for more anti-MEQ goodness.

I know if I was going to start Chaos with this book, that's probably what I would run.

Oh and BTW, this stuff is probably better list wise than the new Blood Angels, who were in turn more powerful than the Dark Angels. So much for the end of "Codex Creep". I can only hope that the trend continues with the Ork release.

'GW is great' are all cheering the 'balanced' nature of the new codex, where it is far FROM balanced. All it is is that what is now powerful shifted.

You might think that the 2x DP list is going to get you somewhere, but face the facts: Chaos is much weaker than it has been in years, and that in turn means it won't be able to deal with the top armies, for example Nids.

Maybe I'm just stupid, but I don't see what the uproar is over the loss of dedicated cult armies. Let's say you play Death Guard. Currently, you have the choice of playing a vanilla Chaos with Plague Marines, or you can play a pure Death Guard army where everything must have the mark of Nurgle. If you choose the latter, you get some minor bonuses to compensate for the loss of variety.

In the new codex, you can also play a vanilla Chaos army with an eclectic mix of cult troops. Or, you can play an army made entirely of Nurgle marked/themed models. Compared to the old pure Death Guard army, you lose the minor bonuses, but you have greater choice on Nurgle themed units.

So...people are gnashing their teeth and wailing into the sky for what reason again?

Now, I completely understand if you've actually got models that can't be used anymore or are very lame under the "counts as" rule - Termies with Sonic Blasters come to mind. Otherwise, I just don't understand what the fuss is all about.

Zoned

Posted By Therion- on 07/13/2007 11:19 PM
You might think that the 2x DP list is going to get you somewhere, but face the facts: Chaos is much weaker than it has been in years, and that in turn means it won't be able to deal with the top armies, for example Nids.

Oh, it's not as powerful as before.  I think the best lists could stand against the zilla list.  9 oblits are hard for a zilla list to handle. The 2+ save walking lascannons that are fearless are very good vs zillas.  Possessed preds also put a hurt on them.  Zillas work by supressing vehicles rather than destroying them.  The princes aren't what would make it powerful vs the zillas, though they would put a hurt on the dakkafexes.

Posted By Zoned on 07/15/2007 6:39 PM
In the new codex, you can also play a vanilla Chaos army with an eclectic mix of cult troops. Or, you can play an army made entirely of Nurgle marked/themed models. Compared to the old pure Death Guard army, you lose the minor bonuses, but you have greater choice on Nurgle themed units.

First of all, there is no "Mark of Nurgle" anymore.  You buy the unit a Nurgle icon and it gets +1T.  Secondly, units with a Nurgle icon are NOT the same as plague marines.  Unlike plague marines, units a Nurgle icon are not fearless and do not have feel no pain.  They are not meant to represent plague marines.  They are simply renegade CSM who happen to worship Nurgle.  You can have them "counts as" plague marines, but they are not plague marines.

Posted By Zoned on 07/15/2007 6:39 PM
So...people are gnashing their teeth and wailing into the sky for what reason again?

Well for starters the Thousand Sons have gone from an army of rubric marines, rubric terminators with terminator sorcerer champs, sorcerer possessed, sorcerer chosen, horrors, flamers, and screamers to a single unit entry in the vanilla list, generic daemons, and "counts as".  But I guess this fits with the new fluff:

After Ahriman's foray into the eldar Webway, the cyclopean primarch Magnus the Red at last permitted his prodigal sorcererous son to return home to the Planet of Sorcerers .  Upon his return Ahriman retired to his old abode - an ancient spire, its crystalline surface scrawled with arcane runes and ensorceled with eldritch might.  Ahriman locked himself away in his inner sactum for nine days and nine nights as the tower crackled with fell energies of such unbridled ferocity they sent fissures snaking along the smooth glassy surface of the vast amethyst plain below.

Finally on the ninth day Ahriman, Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons, favoured of Tzeentch, emerged and summoned his cabal of sorcerers to him.  To this inner circle of chosen sorcerers Ahriman revealed that through careful study of the forbidden knowledge he had gathered in the Webway along with his own experimentation he had discovered a secret of unimaginable power - a spell which would render the subject completely indestructible!

Ahriman ordered the elite striking force of the Thousand Sons - the terminator cadres - to be assembled around the base of his mighty tower.  Across the amethyst plain sorcerers clad in ancient suits of ornate terminator armour directed their minions, empty suits of hulking armour, each animated by a ghostly glow, the mindless spirit of a former battle brother.

As the last automaton shambled into place the scene fell silent.  A low chanting then drifted down from the pinnacle of the tower and echoed across the plain as Arhiman's Cabal began their ritual.  Suddenly, with a dreadful crack, baleful magicks arced from the tower summit to the throng gathered below, piercing sorcerer and automaton alike through the chest with coruscating bolts of pure gibbering Chaos.  Then as soon as it had begun it was over.

Ahriman ventured down from his spire to survey the fruits of his labour.  All that remained of the once proud terminator elite were burnt piles of ash scattered across the crystalline surface of the plain.  As the winds of change swept the ash away in the magic of the moment on a glory night, hideous laughter broke out across the plain like shattered glass.  For at the center of each pile of rapidly dissipating ash was a small gemstone, black as coal and completely indestructible.  The spell had succeeded.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/15/2007 10:41 PM
As the winds of change swept the ash away in the magic of the moment on a glory night, hideous laughter broke out across the plain like shattered glass.  For at the center of each pile of rapidly dissipating ash was a small gemstone, black as coal and completely indestructible.  The spell had succeeded.

Ahh, the classic "be careful what you wish for" story. Brilliant.

And, be careful what you wish for in a codex I guess. Want a more balanced codex? We'll remove some of the options, the result is almost guaranteed to be more balanced as there are less options and combinations to UNbalance it.

On another note, I played a 400point LatD game yesterday - I love those little guys (I won - good on you guys! I never win). I think they are a better embodiment of chaos than the marines, and I'm not saying get rid of chaos marines (not that it would happen anyway) because I like them too, but chaos is just simply not only about the chaos marine - as we all (mostly) know.

People are talking at crosspoints here. Some people just don't get that other people want variety, options, and to be able to field an army corresponding to their chosen dark God. Those some people need to simply accept that this is what the other people want. So they're annoyed. I understand that some people want to play a force like we'll find in the new codex, but we don't need to limit the codex to only cater to those people. We can have more variety and those who don't want to take different demons and who want to focus on marines can still do that by choosing those options. However, if we narrow the focus, those who want variety cannot be happy, no matter how happy the "some people" are.

Finally, who of the "dissenters" who really (and truthfully) like these rumours currently field a chaos army? Did I hear that some of those arguing do not in fact play chaos? By all means, said people can contribute to the discussion, but you can't really argue that your view is right if you do not have time, money and emotions currently invested in it. Sounds silly saying emotionally invested, but this is a game and a hobby. Emotions and feelings, like happiness and enjoyment, are the whole point - not money, fame, romance or whatever.

Just FYI, Jervis confirmed that there will be a Demon Codex released Next year in his Standard Bearer Article in the new WD.

Whatever that means.

I honestly don't think that a Codex devoted entirley to Daemons will be enough to hold people's interests or, for that matter, make whatever new plastic/metal kit they invent fly off the shelves. If it's a Daemon World Codex, as in one that features a lot of the things from the Lost & The Damned list, then yes, but otherwise, it's just a cheap way of advertising a new daemon kit.

BYE

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 07/16/2007 4:32 AM

I honestly don't think that a Codex devoted entirley to Daemons will be enough to hold people's interests or, for that matter, make whatever new plastic/metal kit they invent fly off the shelves. If it's a Daemon World Codex, as in one that features a lot of the things from the Lost & The Damned list, then yes, but otherwise, it's just a cheap way of advertising a new daemon kit.

Personally, fine by me. I'd love to play an all daemon 40k army. If new kits will give me variety, then so be it. I realize I could do that now, but I'd like to stick with a theme/cult.

The new limitations on Chaos cult armies does worry me a little. If they do not have cult demons, i'd be a bit disturbed. If it takes a new codex, such as a Daemon codex, to give me my daemons, then so be it. I'll play my khorne force to the best of my abilities and the new rules allow. Currently, I'm not horrified with what they have done to khorne forces. I always felt that the chain axe rule was not that great. I winced when I heard the Rage or extra move was taken out. But those rules always made me feel like I was playing a Blood Angel army with spikey bits. Or a BA player was playing a Khorne army that was "holy".

We are going to just have to wait and see. There is always potential for last minute changes and rumors to be false.

And I'd like to see daemon war engions in a Daemon world codex. Brass Scorpion maybe? Cannon of Khorne? Blood Cauldron? I've got models, I want to use them, I just don't like coming up with rules for them.

I agree, but the 2 x DP and 2 x GD (and from what i understand, you can take two of each and the GD is meant to have stats like bloodthirster) plus 9 oblits will be a pretty balsy list. I dont see much out there that will be able to just walk over that list. You have 4 fearless combat monsters, and 9 units that can shoot like hell. Throw in some troops to flavors for taking objectives or shooting and you have a tough army.

Are they Iron Warriors? no, but still pretty damn tough.

The Greater Demons are 0-1, but you need a delivery system for them and I don't like the idea of Bikes for it as if they don't come out (no more Chains) then you can be in bad situations.

Still 2xDP + 9 Oblits + Raptors + Sonic Marines will probably be a very solid army. Everything moves and fires, and you'll have 4 CC units, and you'll have Oblits out the yin-yang.

I think they will stand up to the Nids.

I swear i read somewhere you could take two and they did not take up a FOC slot. Maybe it is just one (which makes more sense) and 2 DP's?

But I agree, Chaos is getting nerfed, but they will still be very competetive. Much more so than the DA's.

What you're forgetting is that the old IW army didn't always beat Godzilla, and they had everything better than the future Chaos will have. Since the Obliterators lost the heavy bolters, and the army won't be packing 4 Daemonically Possessed Destructors anymore, how did you plan to kill the 70 Spinegaunts that are going to tie up all your heavy guns in CC for the 8 TMCs to smash? I have yet to receive confirmation whether Obliterators also lost TL Plasma Guns, and that would simply be another nail in their coffin.

IW had the versatility to go from having 20 lascannons to having a few lascannons and an insane amount of heavy bolters. Maybe it was too much, or maybe the opposition just happens to be so tough that it requires such versatility. Either way, Godzilla now dominates.

My apology to HBMC regarding the lesser daemons with with a generic (and horribly ineffective) statline. I couldn't believe that even a company as poorly managed as GW could go that low.

To Abby: The Mark of Nurgle will still exist as an upgrade to your HQ choices. Plague Marines will still exist as their own stand alone entry. Compared to the current codex,  Nurgle themed Terminators and Havocs in the new codex will do the exact same thing (barring the sacred number bonuses,) as the current dedicated cult versions.

As for 1K sons...granted, they will see alot of changes. Due to their massive unpopularity, we can't really be surprised. But I can't think of really anthing that currently exists that can't be reasonably used under "counts as." I mean, Slaaneshi Termies with Sonic Blasters/Blastmasters counting as Combi Bolters and Reapers is pushing it for me, but I can't find any 1K models you mentioned that can't be reasonably used in the new codex.


Zoned

Posted By Therion- on 07/16/2007 3:17 PM
My apology to HBMC regarding the lesser daemons with with a generic (and horribly ineffective) statline. I couldn't believe that even a company as poorly managed as GW could go that low.

It appears you have a greater faith in GW that I do. I gave up expecting them to do the right thing a long time ago.

BYE

Posted By Therion- on 07/16/2007 3:17 PM

I think they will stand up to the Nids.

What you're forgetting is that the old IW army didn't always beat Godzilla, and they had everything better than the future Chaos will have. Since the Obliterators lost the heavy bolters, and the army won't be packing 4 Daemonically Possessed Destructors anymore, how did you plan to kill the 70 Spinegaunts that are going to tie up all your heavy guns in CC for the 8 TMCs to smash? I have yet to receive confirmation whether Obliterators also TL Plasma Guns, and that would simply be another nail in their coffin.

IW had the versatility to go from having 20 lascannons to having a few lascannons and an insane amount of heavy bolters. Maybe it was too much, or maybe the opposition just happens to be so tough that it requires such versatility. Either way, Godzilla now dominates.

My apology to HBMC regarding the lesser daemons with with a generic (and horribly ineffective) statline. I couldn't believe that even a company as poorly managed as GW could go that low.

Sure they had more ability to be diverse with HB morphing oblits, but I still think the new rumored Chaos can stand up to Zilla, especially at 1500 points or possibly even 1750.

Sonic Marines became a de-facto troops choice in my eyes.  Smaller squads, not too terrible on rumored points costs, and move and fire guns with decent ROF.  Also because of the large amount of AP2 that 6-9 obltis can put out, cheap-o squads of Raptors w/ Fists and Flamers can do wonders for horde control. 

The DP's can take on the Fex's, the Oblits can shoot down the Flyrant, the troops and raptors can work on the little bugs, and with no vehilces in the list, the Sniper Fex's in heavy (VC+BS) will struggle to earn their points back.

No it's not going to be an easy fight, but fighting Zilla is never easy.  I do think that the new Chaos list will have the tools to deal with them, which is half the battle in that kind of matchup.


....

On another note, anyone notice how the Dark Angels just "reset the bar" in terms of codex creep?  From the readout of it, Chaos > Blood Angels > Dark Angels in terms of power, so are we officially back into "Codex Creep" mode at GW? 

You're of the opinion the BA "codex" is superior to the DA codex? I see them as different. BA has the advantage of the flying wing and speedy Baal. DA has the advantage of Lysander light deathwing/ravenwing with the flying landraider.

I will admit I've not seen either new version play yet.

Posted By jfrazell on 07/17/2007 6:11 AM
You're of the opinion the BA "codex" is superior to the DA codex? I see them as different. BA has the advantage of the flying wing and speedy Baal. DA has the advantage of Lysander light deathwing/ravenwing with the flying landraider.

I will admit I've not seen either new version play yet.

Mephiston > Ezekial
Lemartes > Asmodai (RIP)
Death Company > Company Veterans / Mixed Terminator Squads with one Weapon
Baal Predator > No unique vehicles

The Furioso is useless anyway, so not really an advantage.

The rending Death Companyquinstealers really are a significant advantage. BA pays for them now at least, but DA don't really get access to anything similar.

The Ravenwing is nice for people who like Bikes, but Bikes haven't been a tourney-worthy choice for Marines since, well, ever.

The Master of the Ravenwing bike is pretty expensive. It only carries a fraction of the armament of a Land Raider and lacks the transport capacity.

Really, if you only see BA as having the Baal and Assault Troops then yeah, they'll look about even. I don't think you can ignore Death Company and better characters though.

BA's have a lot going for them over the DA's.

Useful Troops.

Because of Combat Squads, Marines really lack a truely efficient troops options in the DA's. At least with the BA's, you get 5 Man Assault Squads with a PF as a troops choice. Admittedly you wouldn't take this config unless you HAD to, but at least they are useful in the context of the only really good BA army build.

Likewise, the best thing that combat squads did for the Dark Angels, Devastators, are available to the Blood Angels, the opposite thing being that the BA's at least get a somewhat useful troops option while being able to take the good stuff that lies in the rest of the list.

Rending Death Company, with Jump Packs + Chaplain
This is the key of what almost automatically makes the BA's better than the DA's. Feel No Pain Marines with Jump Packs, Rending, and Litanies of Hatred on the charge, with as many attacks as a kitted out genestealer. This unit will hammer things, absorb fire, and generally be a real pain to face against.

Veteran Assault Squads
This is what makes the BA a "good" army. Variable Squad Sizes, lots of attacks, Jump Packs (what the DA lack), multiple CC weapons (read: Fists) and multiple special weapons, all for a minimal increase over the Assault Squads, they contribute to the idea of Jump Pack Swarm overload.

Baal Predators
125 Points gets you an awesome Predator that puts out tons of shots and isn't half bad at putting glances on anything bar the Monolith. Much better than the options the DA have predator wise that's for sure.

Mephiston
A special character worth taking on his own. His all out offensive assault power is probably unrivaled in the world of "Loyalist Space marines". Given that he compliments the best BA army build of lots and lots of jump packers perfectly by not joining a squad and remains untargetable by shooting means that he can get where you need him to be 99.9% of the time and when he hits, he will hurt.

Nothing in the DA Dex has advantages that seriously stack up to this. Likewise, I don't think either the BA's or the DA's can stand up to the stuff that's possible in the new Chaos Dex, or at least in the case of Blood Angels, they are facing an uphill battle.

Mephiston is a non-invulnerable saving chump. He has nice stats, but like the harlequins he is a high cost paper tiger. Too many things can take him out, with hidden power fists and inv save HQ getting a nice beat down on him.

DC and the Vet assault squads are what the BA have over DA, and if you can counter them it is just a dice fest after that. Both lists in action seem to be quite equal so far with both having very different tactics. I do think BA is more forgiving than the DA.

The Baal pred is another paper tiger. It tends to have to go toe to toe with anti-tank weapons with long reach. I tend to see it like most other preds. Hiding and unable to shoot.

Mephiston has no Inv save, but can easily prove to be a useful tool on the field because you can almost always deliver him where you want him with impunity (much like Falcon bound harlies). And against like Falcon bound harlies, Mephiston is extremely useful if you use him right.

See a squad with a power fist? Don't hit it, hit the support squads, or take your chances with Might of Heroes and potentially clear the kill zone. Still with his points cost, I wouldn't use him in games of 1500 points or lower, he's not worth it. Over 1500 and he starts becoming a part of the plan. Heck, just charge him into a heavy support Fex or two Dakka Fex's and he can make his points back easily.

Baals, are probably the best Pred in the game. What you're saying about Preds is true, but it's near always true for any pred save for ones with Demonic Possession (which is getting toned down). Given that Baal's really work well with the Jump Pack army and can draw fire that would otherwise go into the assault squads, and you have something decent to take in heavy. Contrast this to the DA options, and you'll understand that while it may not be the best thing in the game in a heavy slot, it's certainly better than what's available for Dark Angels.

I still will take the las pred over the baal pred. Never had a problem facing them, they are so chancy.

Mephiston is great in the right spot, but like harlequins he can be put in a bad spot quickly. He is not all powerful like some make him out to be, but he has some really great potential, especially against nidzilla. Two very situational units, where as someone like Azrael is more utilitarian.

Ezekial is nothing in comparison sadly. A more useful power and he would be a little better.

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 07/17/2007 4:33 AM

On another note, anyone notice how the Dark Angels just "reset the bar" in terms of codex creep?  From the readout of it, Chaos > Blood Angels > Dark Angels in terms of power, so are we officially back into "Codex Creep" mode at GW? 

I guess we will no for sure when the chaos 'dex comes out.

Looking at the relative power levels, it seems to be more a trend of inconsistency than Codex Creep.

Admodai, where are you getting your data?

Or is the graph just an approximation? And if so, are those relative power levels really the consensus?

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 07/16/2007 4:32 AM

I honestly don't think that a Codex devoted entirley to Daemons will be enough to hold people's interests or, for that matter, make whatever new plastic/metal kit they invent fly off the shelves. If it's a Daemon World Codex, as in one that features a lot of the things from the Lost & The Damned list, then yes, but otherwise, it's just a cheap way of advertising a new daemon kit.

QFT.

It's hard to imagine GW would even consider a second Chaos book that wasn't LatD or at very least Daemonworld-based.  But eliminating Bloodletters, Daemonettes, etc. from the CSM codex was pretty hard to imagine too.

Posted By bigchris1313 on 07/17/2007 1:38 PM
Admodai, where are you getting your data?

Or is the graph just an approximation? And if so, are those relative power levels really the consensus?

After carefully considering the viablility of all builds and unit choices in every type of environment, against all other lists and all degrees of skill, I made up some numbers.

Asmodai's graph, for the most part, shows the commonly accepted power levels. But, why is BA lower than BT? Oh and you forgot Tau. They were out after Tyranids.

Posted By stonefox on 07/17/2007 4:19 PM
Asmodai's graph, for the most part, shows the commonly accepted power levels. But, why is BA lower than BT? Oh and you forgot Tau. They were out after Tyranids.

Oops. Forgot about Tau. I'd put them at about the same tier as BT.

As for BT and BA, I've never really seen that much comparison between the two. BT have some point sinks, but keep Las/Plas Squads (and cheaper Landspeeder Tornados).

I'd place Nids a notch above Space Marines, and on the same level as Eldar.

Posted By Therion- on 07/17/2007 7:51 PM
I'd place Nids a notch above Space Marines, and on the same level as Eldar.

So where would you place Tau? 

Hey,

Posted By stonefox on 07/17/2007 8:16 PM

Posted By Therion- on 07/17/2007 7:51 PM
I'd place Nids a notch above Space Marines, and on the same level as Eldar.

So where would you place Tau?

Wait for it . . .


Playa

Thousand Sons:

...

-The only CSMs (cult or otherwise) that come with an Aspiring (you have to pay for him tho)

So no Aspiring Champs for normal marines or other cults? Or do you just mean the champ is included in the squad already?

Posted By stonefox on 07/17/2007 8:16 PM

Posted By Therion- on 07/17/2007 7:51 PM
I'd place Nids a notch above Space Marines, and on the same level as Eldar.

So where would you place Tau? 

I wouldn't place them. It's pretty pointless to rate scrub armies. It's sufficient to say that Nids and Eldar are a notch higher than Space Marines and Chaos.

scrub army?

forgive my knowledge of dakka speak. it's been a long time since i've read this board.

the Tau are far from Scrubs, Mech Tau are very powerful, and have made a good showing of themselves in tournaments. And what kind of comparison would it be if you didnt have all armies up for comparison? the enitre thing would be rather pointless.

I would place Nids above marines also.

I would still like to see two good players go head to head with marines vs nidzilla. It just seems on paper that the marines "should" be able to handle them with the amount of rending and powerfist attacks they can field. Sadly we can't come up with a nidzilla player around here.

I have seen it MANY times, and the marines usually get tooled. I have seen chaos vs Nidzilla a ton of times too, and chaos gets punked more often than not also. I have one buddy who plays chaos with a pretty optimised list that says he has figured out how to beat Nidzillas, but i have not personally seen him do it, although i dont doubt he's telling the truth.

Eldar is the only army i have seen go rounds with Nidzillas and come out ahead as much or more than the big guys.

I have seen the opposite were 3/4 times bugs beat three Falcon lists. I actually shelved my bugs after beating Falcon lists consistantly because I felt the list if done right can be ran effectively even with newer players. One Falcon list player was undefeated and definatley knew his list and tactics.

Posted By Asmodai on 07/17/2007 1:49 PM

Posted By bigchris1313 on 07/17/2007 1:38 PM
Admodai, where are you getting your data?

Or is the graph just an approximation? And if so, are those relative power levels really the consensus?

After carefully considering the viablility of all builds and unit choices in every type of environment, against all other lists and all degrees of skill, I made up some numbers.

- sigged

Posted By gorgon on 07/17/2007 1:40 PM

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 07/16/2007 4:32 AM

I honestly don't think that a Codex devoted entirley to Daemons will be enough to hold people's interests or, for that matter, make whatever new plastic/metal kit they invent fly off the shelves. If it's a Daemon World Codex, as in one that features a lot of the things from the Lost & The Damned list, then yes, but otherwise, it's just a cheap way of advertising a new daemon kit.

QFT.

It's hard to imagine GW would even consider a second Chaos book that wasn't LatD or at very least Daemonworld-based.  But eliminating Bloodletters, Daemonettes, etc. from the CSM codex was pretty hard to imagine too.

Well, that depends on whether they decide to release cultist/mutant models.  No models, no rules.  That's how it goes.  I can certainly see them just throwing out an all-daemon codex to squeeze some extra sales out of the plastic daemons.  It's an obvious ploy to get 2 armies worth of sales (40k daemon codex + WHFB Chaos armybook) out of a single model line.

Posted By Playa on 07/17/2007 8:22 PM
Hey,

Posted By stonefox on 07/17/2007 8:16 PM

Posted By Therion- on 07/17/2007 7:51 PM
I'd place Nids a notch above Space Marines, and on the same level as Eldar.

So where would you place Tau?

Wait for it . . . 

In my opponent's "strategic assets"!!  *Badum-ching!*

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/18/2007 3:49 PM
Well, that depends on whether they decide to release cultist/mutant models.  No models, no rules.  That's how it goes.  I can certainly see them just throwing out an all-daemon codex to squeeze some extra sales out of the plastic daemons.  It's an obvious ploy to get 2 armies worth of sales (40k daemon codex + WHFB Chaos armybook) out of a single model line.

Releasing actual mutant models would be cheating. I like it when they have "make it up yourself" kits like they did with the mutant bags which were what? - zombies and catachans? Maybe a chaos marine mutation sprue or maybe I got mine from elsewhere. That was great fun.
I am jealous of the cool demon options in WH Fantasy though. Sigh, if only we could afford another couple of armies and a rule book.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 07/18/2007 3:49 PM
Well, that depends on whether they decide to release cultist/mutant models.  No models, no rules.  That's how it goes. 

You're kidding right?  There are plenty of examples of units with rules with no models.  I guess Drop Pods don't really have rules because there are no models released for them.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/18/2007 8:48 PM
You're kidding right?  There are plenty of examples of units with rules with no models.  I guess Drop Pods don't really have rules because there are no models released for them.

Don't be obtuse Ozy. GW have stated that they are not going to produce armies that don't have models. This is the reason why armies like Kroot Mercs, LatD and Feral Orks will not exist in the future - they have no model support. Most of the models have to be converted.

And a model does exist for the Drop Pod...

BYE

Forge World makes a Drop Pod and FW has their own rules for Drop Pods that are different from the rules in C:SM. If that counted as a model then all of the proxies in every GT would be illegal.

And GW said that every new codex and army would be fully supported. I don't think that means that every single unit choice is definitely going to have a model range released. I could totally see them re-releasing the mutant sprues that standgale mentioned.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

H.B.M.C you aren't exactly correct about that. What they said all main army books will be supported, and so adding a new race/book to the list will be rare. Anything else they put out won't be fully supported. So they can still have sub-lists and off the wall things, but they won't necessarily be supported by miniatures from GW.

I'm siding with Toreador here. Come on guys, haven't you joined in enough RAW arguments to know that this could possibly be what GW meant? Since GW loves making vague/awkward rules at times, but also insist that you follow RAW, this could just be another incarnation of that policy.

I can't wait for the disgusting overabundance of [demon-abusing, veteran-skill spamming] Chaos generals to start whining like the little kiddies they are and selling off their armies after the new release; and finally being forced to try something new beyond simply letting their 180-pt demon prince and infiltrating Greater Demon (or their 4 Heavies) own the other player for them...

It's happened to Eldar and DA...you just wait...

Posted By ColonelEllios on 07/20/2007 9:53 AM

I can't wait for the justified legions of [people who spent a lot of time and money building armies that GW's rules (whether or not they were playtested enough!) allowed them to build] Chaos generals to start whining like the upset customers they are having their forces rendered useless after the new release; and again being forced to buy additional models to make their forces legal to field again... Even if it is in a form they have no interest in playing (Renegades - Whee!)...

I helped you out a little there...

If only someone would put their bloodletter on ebay I'd be ok with that.

Dude....

seriously, you will be happy when people's armies get invalidated? GW *fudge*ed up by allowing the armies to be made in the first place. If you lay down a collection of bee bee guns and a machine gun and one guy chooses to use with the machine gun and hoses everyone else, you cant fault him for it. Would it make you happy if everyone took crappy lists that were easy to beat? Everyone plays in their own way, all equally valid so long as they are allowed within the rules.

If they limit TMC's to 3 per army or something similar, will you be happy at the loss all the Nidzilla player's have to go through? That is lame.

And, the Eldar and the DA are not even remotely close ot one another, the Eldar are FAR superior. Yes they got changed, but they still kick ass. The DA's got changed, but they are now an inferior list.

Posted By Reecius on 07/20/2007 1:35 PM

I can't wait for the disgusting overabundance of [demon-abusing, veteran-skill spamming] Chaos generals to start whining like the little kiddies they are and selling off their armies after the new release; and finally being forced to try something new beyond simply letting their 180-pt demon prince and infiltrating Greater Demon (or their 4 Heavies) own the other player for them...
It's happened to Eldar and DA...you just wait...

Dude....

seriously, you will be happy when people's armies get invalidated? GW *fudge*ed up by allowing the armies to be made in the first place. If you lay down a collection of bee bee guns and a machine gun and one guy chooses to use with the machine gun and hoses everyone else, you cant fault him for it. Would it make you happy if everyone took crappy lists that were easy to beat? Everyone plays in their own way, all equally valid so long as they are allowed within the rules.

If they limit TMC's to 3 per army or something similar, will you be happy at the loss all the Nidzilla player's have to go through? That is lame.

And, the Eldar and the DA are not even remotely close ot one another, the Eldar are FAR superior. Yes they got changed, but they still kick ass. The DA's got changed, but they are now an inferior list.

I believe you meant "When they limi TMC's to 3 per army"t

Posted By Reecius on 07/20/2007 1:35 PM

I can't wait for the disgusting overabundance of [demon-abusing, veteran-skill spamming] Chaos generals to start whining like the little kiddies they are and selling off their armies after the new release; and finally being forced to try something new beyond simply letting their 180-pt demon prince and infiltrating Greater Demon (or their 4 Heavies) own the other player for them...
It's happened to Eldar and DA...you just wait...

Dude....

seriously, you will be happy when people's armies get invalidated? GW *fudge*ed up by allowing the armies to be made in the first place. If you lay down a collection of bee bee guns and a machine gun and one guy chooses to use with the machine gun and hoses everyone else, you cant fault him for it. Would it make you happy if everyone took crappy lists that were easy to beat? Everyone plays in their own way, all equally valid so long as they are allowed within the rules.

If they limit TMC's to 3 per army or something similar, will you be happy at the loss all the Nidzilla player's have to go through? That is lame.

And, the Eldar and the DA are not even remotely close ot one another, the Eldar are FAR superior. Yes they got changed, but they still kick ass. The DA's got changed, but they are now an inferior list.

I'd rather see the game and all the main lists be reasonably balanced, if that means some peoples armies get hosed then tough. Someone may have goofed up and created the situation in the first place but that is no excuse for not fixing it.  If nids got limited to 3 tmcs I wouldn't be 'happy' at other players armies being invalidated, More accurately I wouldn't care as long as the result was a better codex (not that i have an issue with more than 3tmcs by the way, I'm just using the same example).

Posted By ColonelEllios on 07/20/2007 9:53 AM

I can't wait for the disgusting overabundance of [demon-abusing, veteran-skill spamming] Chaos generals to start whining like the little kiddies they are and selling off their armies after the new release; and finally being forced to try something new beyond simply letting their 180-pt demon prince and infiltrating Greater Demon (or their 4 Heavies) own the other player for them...

It's happened to Eldar and DA...you just wait...

I'm trying not to get banned here, but I have to ask:

Are you really that stupid Ellios?

You're happy because there are Chaos players who's entire armies are invalidated? You really think that it's just 'trying something new'. You feel comfortable picking on a few people who abused the Chaos 'Dex compared to the overwhelming massive majority of people who played the army legitimately and are being shafted because their carefully constructed Night Lords, or Death Guard or, dare I say it, Iron Warrior armies are being invalidated?

Or those of us, such as myself, who spent a lot of time, money and effort into making a Lost & The Damned army only to see the army removed from the game?

I 'spose I should just stop being a whiny little kiddy and 'try something new'. Is that it?

Screw you.

I've been playing this game way to long to have some moron tell me that I'm whining because my army's been invalidated.

BYE

In my opinion the Chaos Codex revision is a mixed bag.

The facts:

The previous C:CSM was hideously overpowered and completely flawed in design. It had a couple of ambiguous rules and a ton of exploitable ones and everything went from bad to worse when Pete Haines made the FAQ for the C:CSM making psychic powers etc not count for the wargear cap. Never in the history of 40K or FB has there been an army book as imbalanced and overpowered as this book, so making a new one was top priority.

Each time a new army book or codex is coming out, everybody talks how they're going to make an army out of it, but the only time I've ever seen everyone actually doing it, was with C:CSM. It was that good, and it kept proving it tournament after tournament. Take a daemonbomb or siren princes or the oblits&preds and you've got a great chance of winning a GT. I did that too. Siren had to be removed (and it was), Obliterators had to be nerfed (and they were), and daemonic possession had to be balanced (and it was), and the daemons were changed altogether. In my opinion regarding the main issues the book is a massive success on all accounts as all of the armies that were ruining the 40K scene were removed from the game. A vast majority of the models in the above armies can be used to make a reasonable army in the new book.

GW did the same regarding Eldar, so although people might think differently GW does pay attention to what's going on at gladiator tournaments and other GTs. If a variant of an army is so popular that you see one third of the top 50 playing it year after year, something must be wrong and has to be fixed.

Now what I usually disagree with is what they give the players as replacements. I whined and moaned about the Eldar not because I couldn't play with my 18 strong Seer Council anymore, but because the revision was a great chance to make a balanced book where all the units are worth considering. That potential was squandered and instead the shift of power went all too clearly from infantry based armies to swordwinds and the book is within itself totally imbalanced, every force organisation slot having a unit that completely outshines all the rest.

I thought GW would allow 9 Obliterators still to be fielded, and they did. This is a nice choice that doesn't directly invalidate the armies of IW players who have liked to abuse the most underpriced unit in the game to win tournaments. As far as Death Guard and Thousand Sons and whatnot are concerned, I've never actually seen anyone play these armies. A couple of my friends who own these cult armies never actually play them in tournaments, and they are most definately not very offended that their armies are changing altogether.

As far as LatD is concerned, it's a shame it doesn't have proper rules. I do think that rules for LatD don't belong in C:CSM and should be included in another codex about Chaos cults, daemons or daemonworld armies. Maybe we'll yet get that book. No offence to HBMC who I feel for, but I can't really see why you're surprised or even angry that LatD didn't have rules for it in C:CSM. The rules were included in a campaign booklet in the first place, and it's not like we've seen any new versions of those wacky Space Wolf guys or Ulthwé Strike Forces either. GW has consistently shown a tendency to think of armies in campaign booklets as campaign armies -- Something that won't be in the game for long. They followed this same principle regarding Warhammer Armies: Storm of Chaos when they chose not to allow the book to be used at their own GT.

It remains to be seen if C:CSM allows some new serious types of power armies to be built a'lá C:Eldar, but all in all I'm not too disappointed. The minimum requirements for the revision have been fulfilled atleast, and as far as the tournament scene is concerned change is a good thing. Now postpone those Orks and make a new C:Tyranids.

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 07/22/2007 4:59 AM
I'm trying not to get banned here, but I have to ask:

Are you really that stupid Ellios?

Or those of us, such as myself, who spent a lot of time, money and effort into making a Lost & The Damned army only to see the army removed from the game?

I 'spose I should just stop being a whiny little kiddy and 'try something new'. Is that it?

Screw you.

I've been playing this game way to long to have some moron tell me that I'm whining because my army's been invalidated.

BYE

Hmmm...sounds an awful lot like the whining I've heard from the last two Codex releases...

Yep...almost exactly the same!

Look, you and I and anyone who's been playing this game for more than 1/2 a decade knows that the current (and previous) Codex: Chaos(es) consistently appear at the top of the tourney ladder, are consistently abused more than any other army list, and have perhaps the highest number of obviously mis-costed and/or blatantly broken units/abilities in this game. I won't be the least bit sorry to see it go. No, I can't wait for the "machine gun" (to use someone else's analogy) to be removed from the "first come first served" armory of the 40k Codexes.

To sum up my feelings in short; "Join the club." No amount of whining on anyone's part here is going to change anything GW does. Plus, why do you care? Make a "Revisited" C:LatD...

Uhm, no. Some of us have decided to get off the ride and not play anymore. The chaos codex and its direction are pretty much that tipping point. While I was lucky, I never did get into a chaos army, I'm pretty much watching several club members lose an army in some shape or form, lets see:

night lords
alpha legion
WE
TS
DG
LatD nurgle
IW


In favor, as GW put it, of non-foundning chaos renegardes......

Uhm, no. This is pretty much GW's ultimate FU. Chaos, its basic foundation, is from the first founders. Yeah there are renegades, but COME ON, you cant have chaos without the orginals.....

Posted By ColonelEllios on 07/23/2007 4:17 AM

Hmmm...sounds an awful lot like the whining I've heard from the last two Codex releases...

Yep...almost exactly the same!

Look, you and I and anyone who's been playing this game for more than 1/2 a decade knows that the current (and previous) Codex: Chaos(es) consistently appear at the top of the tourney ladder, are consistently abused more than any other army list, and have perhaps the highest number of obviously mis-costed and/or blatantly broken units/abilities in this game. I won't be the least bit sorry to see it go. No, I can't wait for the "machine gun" (to use someone else's analogy) to be removed from the "first come first served" armory of the 40k Codexes.

To sum up my feelings in short; "Join the club." No amount of whining on anyone's part here is going to change anything GW does. Plus, why do you care? Make a "Revisited" C:LatD...

You mean the Dark Angels (who suck) and the Eldar who lost many expensive options (seer council, Court of the Young King and had some options made near worthless such as the Viper).

Every army should be near the top of the ladder. There are less than 10 factions all told. No army should be as far down as say witchhunters. That said the optimum way to balance things is not being done. All books should be released within a short span, not this dribbling half drunken pee that GW is taking against the wall of balance. The Eldar book written in 2006 as part of the old power curve is far  superior to DArk Angels Blood Angels and by now rmours have revealed enough to say far superior to Chaos. 40K has returned to where I started playing. Eldar will be the top tournament choice as soon as a weakened nid codex is done.

As to me... Uraban War, Confrontation and LOTR are calling.

WOah.. hold on here. Dark Angels don't suck, they just have a problem competing with certain powerful builds of other lists (zilla, mech eldar, daemon bomb), which is a problem with a lot of armies in the current incarnation. Even min/max marines have issues, so why would DA be any better? They are underpowered compared to most power lists. If this is the level they are shooting for, I have hope. It's a nice fun list.

Court of the Young king was bad, in game and in rules questions, no great loss. Everything can still be used. Viper is still damn good, beating out the warwalker in speed and survivability while being very cheap when outfitted with two shuriken cannnon.

And has been stated time and time again, the falcon is the major problem with the eldar list being powerful. The rest of the list is a very good, and rather balanced list. With a single falcon in the list, it is usually a very competitive game with my DA. Anything more and it's just a points denial game that I can't win.

Time is the only thing that will tell. This is the first step in the world of Chaos. They keep saying that they want to revisit the legions and that is all based on the bean counters I would bet.

Reign in a few codexes, come out with a few more Chaos books, and release a new Ork list and the game would be worlds better. It's not really that far off if they choose to do it.

UW and Confrontation will both be dead in the near future, with maybe UW redoing itself again...

If they weren't so careless about how they added Harlequins to the list, nobody would be calling the Eldar broken. It's not Falcons that break the list, but the 3 squads of Harlies that can take a ride in them.

Harlequins are the biggest mistake GW has made in any recently redone codex. (And vectored engines don't help--they should be Wave Serpent only)

Regardless, Mech Eldar is on-par with the other "power" lists, I have my doubts as to whether this will change with the new Chaos codex. It appears to me the new C:CSM will be just as powerful, but in a slightly different way (more along the lines of the other new releases).

Harlequins are the most whined about theory hammer glass tigers I have ever seen. They aren't even close to broken, and fielding three units of them in Falcons leaves little for anyone to deal with in a 1500 pt game. There are so many ways to deal with harlequins it isn't even funny. Taking quins against any kind of horde is absolutely horrible, and almost everyone has something that can get close and shoot them. Putting them in falcons makes them even smaller in squad size and even easier to deal with once they deploy. Bikes and assault troops held in the back lines also do a great job of blocking any falcons trying to dump em in your back lines.

Harlequins have amazing "potential", but in reality are a lot less of a threat than most people give them credit for.

Without those three unstoppable Falcons you wouldn't even have an argument.

Eldar in a single incarnation are very powerful. Mech eldar. Every other incarnation of them is rather reasonable and would probably take somewhat of a stomping from the new Chaos dex.

Toreador is correct, Harlies arent game breaking at all. They are deffintely good, and i am really happy they are back in the game, as i have had a harlie army since way way back when, and i feel that they are one of the abolulte coolest things in the game, but broken they are not. They drop like flies to any kind of shooting.

The falcon, as everyone knows, is just flat out too good. Other than the Falcon, the rest of the army is fairly well blanaced, IMO. The only other unit that I feel is a little too good compared to its equivilant FOC entires is Eldrad, who is crazy good.

But back to the original point, I think it is totally unjustified to ever say you would be happy that someone's army would become invalidated just because you dont like the way they build it. That is flat out immature and mean spirited. We all know how long it takes to build an army and how much money it takes. to express joy at someone else's loss is lame, period.

If you think the rules need to be changed (and i agree, the Chaos codex is broken) then that is fine. But to direct your anger at the people who bought the codex, made a 100% legal army, and then have that taken away, is stupid. Be mad at the game designers for making a crappy product that should have been done right the first time.

First of all, I think we all know what type of person builds and abuses a Chaos army list just because its the most powerful in the game. I'm talking about people who use 180 pt neigh-unstoppable DPs, bike squads to demon-bomb, and infiltrating demonhosts (Greater Demons). It's the same type of player that takes possessed+mut. hull vindicators, or multiple indirect-firing Defilers, or nine Obliterators... It's those players, the ones who played Chaos from the get go because it's the "strongest," those players that I hope scrap their armies, because Chaos is no longer "top dog." I have nothing against people who put effort into LatD lists like HBMC, although that list too can be abused somewhat. I feel for HBMC, but I think he's overreacting as well.

Not to say it hasn't been done with the old Craftworld: Eldar. Similar types of people abused the heck out of the Ranger Disruption table, but since that's gone it doesn't really bear mentioning. I heard many complaints just like HBMCs from the old Craftworld crowd...

So, secondly, how is Mech Eldar so unstoppable? You talk it up but I haven't seen it win consistently. The cornerstone of the Mech Eldar builds I'm familiar with is the three Falcon formation--this formation wouldn't be as useful if you couldn't deploy Harlequins from the Falcons. The other foot-based aspects severely lack the punch needed to "drive up and win" with Mech Eldar, the way you seem to be viewing it.

Please explain--all the "veterans" in my area seem to think Mech Eldar is pants, and I tend to agree.

then open your flipping eyes and go read the tournament results for crying out loud!!!!!!!!!!

I tried to be nice but you are willfully ignorant.

Who won the Adepticon gladiator, the single most ruthless power game, gloves off, anything goes tournament? MECH ELDAR.

Go read the tournament reports for the Vegas GT, eldar all over the top 10.


Apraently you have never read or seen the eldar codex, and the unit fire dragon means nothing to you. If 6 BS4 melta guns at close range lack "punch" then i dont know what game you play.

You and your veteran buddies are plain wrong, 100%, end of story.



You are so so so just plain WRONG! I hope your army bursts into flames because you are lame. That is esentially what you are saying. Because you play the game one way you are hoping that people lose their army that play it differently? that is beyond selfish and stupid.

You know what kinds of people play the game to win? competetive people, nothing more, nothing less. That is the difference. I have a LOT of friends who play powerful armies and it is fun to play them. it is a CHALLENGE. when you have two good players with good lists, the game is more engaging, IMO. If you bring a limp you know what of a list, and get your butt handed to you then you need to go back to the old drawing board, or play with like minded people.

How about this, i hope they make EVERY list broken so that people who play poorly and never win games will move onto to something more friendly and stop complaining.

Mech eldar is formed around points denial. If you can't disable the falcons, you can't get points for them. Dragons are much more prevalent in these parts, cheaper and easier to get the kills. When you consider you have on the order of 400pts left after taking tricked out falcons filled with harlequins on the board, of course they are pants.

They consistently place in the top 10 and usually the top 5 in most tournaments I have seen.

Posted By Toreador on 07/23/2007 9:15 AM
WOah.. hold on here. Dark Angels don't suck, they just have a problem competing with certain powerful builds of other lists (zilla, mech eldar, daemon bomb), which is a problem with a lot of armies in the current incarnation. Even min/max marines have issues, so why would DA be any better? They are underpowered compared to most power lists. If this is the level they are shooting for, I have hope. It's a nice fun list.

Court of the Young king was bad, in game and in rules questions, no great loss. Everything can still be used. Viper is still damn good, beating out the warwalker in speed and survivability while being very cheap when outfitted with two shuriken cannnon.

And has been stated time and time again, the falcon is the major problem with the eldar list being powerful. The rest of the list is a very good, and rather balanced list. With a single falcon in the list, it is usually a very competitive game with my DA. Anything more and it's just a points denial game that I can't win.

Time is the only thing that will tell. This is the first step in the world of Chaos. They keep saying that they want to revisit the legions and that is all based on the bean counters I would bet.

Reign in a few codexes, come out with a few more Chaos books, and release a new Ork list and the game would be worlds better. It's not really that far off if they choose to do it.

UW and Confrontation will both be dead in the near future, with maybe UW redoing itself again...

Gah I hate quoting .

If you are weak relative to power game lists you dont win games. That sucks. Hence Dark angels suck.

Viper should not be used. Why? It is not an effecient use of your points. That is the long and the short of it. A unit which is not an worth it's points is no good. The army is meant to be played with 2+ falcons. Your Dark Angels can't deal with it. That is a problem. But you'll learn to live with it for the next five years until the Eldar book is redone. And that's fine because the Dark Angles are underpowered but that how GW wants it.

Your love for confronation has been noted in MANY posts on the Confrontation thread so fine. You don't like it. Is it going to die? Time will tell. They seem happy with AT-43.

I am ok with it, because almost all lists can't deal with 2+ falcons. It's not exactly a great bar to go off of when few if any can compete.

We have tended to play with a "gentleman's agreement" around the shop lately. Certain things aren't fun to game with, so we design more around "fun" lists. It allows things like Sisters and IG to be played. It's a sad state of affairs when you have to agree to not use lists as they can be used.

Oddly it has been happening with a bit of Warmachine/Hordes too, which is meant to be played harshly.

And I love Confrontation as it is, just don't like the road it is going down.

Having been gaming for 25 odd years, few if anything lasts

Posted By Toreador on 07/23/2007 9:23 PM
I am ok with it, because almost all lists can't deal with 2+ falcons. It's not exactly a great bar to go off of when few if any can compete.

We have tended to play with a "gentleman's agreement" around the shop lately. Certain things aren't fun to game with, so we design more around "fun" lists. It allows things like Sisters and IG to be played. It's a sad state of affairs when you have to agree to not use lists as they can be used.

Oddly it has been happening with a bit of Warmachine/Hordes too, which is meant to be played harshly.

And I love Confrontation as it is, just don't like the road it is going down.

Having been gaming for 25 odd years, few if anything lasts

For the record, you just made my point. A gentleman's agreement required to make the effing game somewhat balanced?

That is why I'm irritated with 40K right now. Now you factor in the codex cycle (16 codex at 3 per good year) that means the incredible 2+ Falcon force will remain legal  and dominate the torunament scene for 5 years barring codex creep. That is unworkable, and means either the Eldar will be depowered by White Dwarf, breaking the codex cycle, or  just accepting that they broke the darn thing and doing a global fix. THe biggest problem that GW has is they are trying to fix things in issolation instead of fixing the whole product.

You don't deserve as much frustration as I have, because I can't recall you cheering the desecration of the Chaos book the way some others have, but gimme a break... there are books which needed it more.

One thing I do love about Classic Battletech. 2nd generation rules still legal, 2nd generation sheets still good. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy (kinda like a bottle of dram).

Posted By Reecius on 07/23/2007 12:17 PM

then open your flipping eyes and go read the tournament results for crying out loud!!!!!!!!!!

Who won the Adepticon gladiator, the single most ruthless power game, gloves off, anything goes tournament? MECH ELDAR.

Go read the tournament reports for the Vegas GT, eldar all over the top 10.

Apraently you have never read or seen the eldar codex, and the unit fire dragon means nothing to you. If 6 BS4 melta guns at close range lack "punch" then i dont know what game you play.

You and your veteran buddies are plain wrong, 100%, end of story.

 

   Thank you for confirming that you're basing your assumptions upon tournament data. I more-or-less discount tournament results, especially those at Adepticon. The Gladiator tournament was not your run-of-the-mill, average and balanced tournament. From what I know about it, I'm not surprised Mech Eldar won--the mission progression favored the list drastically.

    As far as being wrong, well, you're just plain wrong. I've seen Mech Eldar played several different ways by different, highly skilled and in some cases GT-winning players; using lists I (and you) would consider very powerful. I have not in my experience been convinced that Mech Eldar is worth all of the moaning you hear about it around here, using the basis of standard missions.

You know what kinds of people play the game to win? competetive people, nothing more, nothing less. That is the difference. I have a LOT of friends who play powerful armies and it is fun to play them. it is a CHALLENGE. when you have two good players with good lists, the game is more engaging, IMO. If you bring a limp you know what of a list, and get your butt handed to you then you need to go back to the old drawing board, or play with like minded people.

   There is a very large difference between playing competitively, and playing "competitively" by breaking an army list. I have no respect for an opponent that makes the transgressions I listed above; playing with an abusive list just isn't fair, and Chaos is the only Codex left capable of playing unfairly (meaning there's practically  nothing any other codex army can do against your units). Certain people still make the choice to abuse obviously broken units/combinations, and those people don't deserve your respect, because in all liklihood they heard about said broken combination and built their army to exploit it. I respect an opponent that wins with style and a unique army far more than an opponent that wins with their army list, and most Chaos generals tend to be lacking on the former.

   Truly competitive gamers seek to prove their skill through playing the game, not breaking an army list. For example, Falcons are good, but they're not broken. Obliterators are good, because they are broken. People who purposely abuse lists (like Iron Warriors) "official" though they may be, are simply cowards. It's a fine distinction that experienced gamers eventually learn to make.

Wait, so Falcons aren't broken but Obliterators are.

WOW. Now that's just amazing.

Falcons are neigh unkillable when used right. Ever played a mission OTHER than Seek and Destroy, where you use objectives that have things to do with scoring units? Yeah, Falcons tend to dominate those by tank shocking units off objectives and/or just being alive to go claim them. Play Cleanse vs. Mech Eldar with 3 Holofield Grav Tanks and tell me how well that goes for you. Harlies+Falcons are indeed very broken, however the real problem comes from what you can do when you have a unit that durable.

I don't know how you're going to discount tournament results like Adepticon or the other GT's/RT's that show things like Mech Eldar and Godzilla Nids are as competitive as the "old" chaos you hate so much was.

Mmm...I see I should've specified Voodoo.

I've been discounting the recent GT results because no precedent has been set. That is, Vegas GT is the first one of the past year or so that had a clear preponderance of Eldar armies.

Adepticon I absolutely disregard, because they were using non-standard missions.

As far as seek-and-destroy (are you admitting this is a weakness of Falcon lists? Escalation also seems to screw them over pretty big), I did say "standard missions," of which there are 5.

Posted By efarrer on 07/23/2007 11:48 PM

That is why I'm irritated with 40K right now. Now you factor in the codex cycle (16 codex at 3 per good year) that means the incredible 2+ Falcon force will remain legal  and dominate the torunament scene for 5 years barring codex creep. That is unworkable, and means either the Eldar will be depowered by White Dwarf, breaking the codex cycle, or  just accepting that they broke the darn thing and doing a global fix. THe biggest problem that GW has is they are trying to fix things in issolation instead of fixing the whole product.

 

40k isn't first and foremost a tourney game, whilst one would hope things are reasonably balalnced, in a game with so many options it is pretty darn inevitable that in a given environment 1 or 2 lists are going to be dominant in that environment.

Could GW make the falcon list less nasty, yes, and without codex creep in the way you seem to imply.  It only takes 1 list with a decent anti falcon unit to make the all falcon lists suddenly risky for a tourney. Its quite possible to have such a unit which doesn't impact much beyond falcons (or skimmers in general).

However, there is another solution, given that 40k is a hobby more than a tourney system then acknowlege that fact, and think again about how tourneys are run. Changing from VP totaling, to fixed points for any win changed the viability of some lists. Go even more radical, think of other ways of evening the playing field for different kinds of lists. For 2 day events something as simple as playing 3 (or 4) 1000 pts on day 1 and 3 1750 pt games on day 2 (using same codex) would probably alter things a lot, a lot of lists play very differently at smaller vs larger points (nids very obviously if you want nidzilla). Smaller games would also possibly allow an extra game which can again alter things slightly as more games puts more emphasis on consistency. Maybe allow players to handicap themselves points wise in return for extra points per game, play with 50pts less and get an extra 1 point per game played irrespective of win/loss and allow that to be usd 3 times for 150pts = 3pts, do you max out your list and lose to someone who went the extra point per game but was still a good enough player to score wins.  There are probably all sorts of things that you can do that change the environment that the players have to plan for, tourney organisers need to take some blame if they aren't looking at new ways of taking a general hobby game and turning it into a competitve tourney scene.

 

 

Posted By ColonelEllios on 07/23/2007 4:17 AM

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 07/22/2007 4:59 AM
Are you really that stupid Ellios?

Hmmm...sounds an awful lot like the whining I've heard from the last two Codex releases...

Yep...almost exactly the same!

Ellios, the next time someone asks you a question like the one above, do us a favour and save us all a lot of time by simply answering 'Yes'.

BYE

Posted By ColonelEllios on 07/24/2007 5:24 AM

Mmm...I see I should've specified Voodoo.

I've been discounting the recent GT results because no precedent has been set. That is, Vegas GT is the first one of the past year or so that had a clear preponderance of Eldar armies.

Adepticon I absolutely disregard, because they were using non-standard missions.

As far as seek-and-destroy (are you admitting this is a weakness of Falcon lists? Escalation also seems to screw them over pretty big), I did say "standard missions," of which there are 5.

Mech Eldar did exceptional at the last UKGT final and that was using the latest codex.  They weren't "overall" but came in third due to the scoring system.  If you sort by VP's, Eldar came on top, beating IW.

I don't see Adepticon being discounted because of specialist missions, all they did was use Objectives and mixed things up to help keep things different and to try and curb extreme armies.

Vegas was simply the first US GT that had Mech Eldar as a possiblity.  I was at the Baltimore GamesDay and the highest scoring Eldar army (battle points wise) was run by someone from my shop running...full on Mech Eldar.

And no, I'm not calling Seek-and-Destroy a weakness of the Falcon lists, but it's merely the mission which doesn't give them even more of an advantage.  They still have a huge advantage in denying you 500+VP's by keeping their tanks nearly unkillable, they can play VP denial better than anyone else in the game.  They simply don't have the possibility to claim objectives/table quarters/deployment zone/center of the board as easily as they do now with the abilities to tank shock units off them as well as the ability to reliably stay alive to the point where said objectives CAN be claimed.

Also escallation hurting Mech Eldar?  If anything an army with that much speed is doing just fine by escallation, they get to react to opponents deployment and they can always count on being moving fast, unlike the slight risk run by not having enough terrain to hide skimmers behind in missions where they start on the board.

And FYI, it's not just "Falcons" that are the problem, Fire Prisms count too just they're not as abusable since they can be neutralized in terms of killing power much easier than Falcons can (ie Falcons can always be counted on to transport what you want, where you want, when you want), but they still present all the real inherent advantages stated above in relations to VP Denial and objective claiming.  The problem is the combo of Holofields+Spirit Stones on a Fast Skimming Tank. 

If you can't see that, I'm not sure what else can be said.

Posted By ColonelEllios on 07/24/2007 4:15 AM

   There is a very large difference between playing competitively, and playing "competitively" by breaking an army list. I have no respect for an opponent that makes the transgressions I listed above; playing with an abusive list just isn't fair, and Chaos is the only Codex left capable of playing unfairly (meaning there's practically  nothing any other codex army can do against your units). Certain people still make the choice to abuse obviously broken units/combinations, and those people don't deserve your respect, because in all liklihood they heard about said broken combination and built their army to exploit it. I respect an opponent that wins with style and a unique army far more than an opponent that wins with their army list, and most Chaos generals tend to be lacking on the former.

   Truly competitive gamers seek to prove their skill through playing the game, not breaking an army list. For example, Falcons are good, but they're not broken. Obliterators are good, because they are broken. People who purposely abuse lists (like Iron Warriors) "official" though they may be, are simply cowards. It's a fine distinction that experienced gamers eventually learn to make.

In anaswer to your first sentence. Yes there is a difference between people who play competitvely and those who "break army lists". The people who "break" army lists win. You obviously haven't seen what mech Eldar or tyranids can do to the "broken chaos lists". Way to aint chaos players with a huge effing brush on the last sentence of your first paragraph.

Your second paragraph is kinda the proff in the pudding. Obis die to anything s8 that ignores armour. It should take five hits to remove an obi squad from the game. I can't recall how many hits are required to remove falcons but it ain't five.

You want to know how many shots it takes to reliably destroy a fully kitted out falcon by a SM with a las cannon? about 27, give or take. That is flipping insane. That is far and away more broken than Obliterators, who I agree are undercosted for what they can do.

Ellios, you are more than entitled to your opinions on the game, but you obviously don't have the firmest grasp on what you are talking about. For that matter, you really dont know how to discuss a topic very cogently either.

You are making 100% arbitrary and uninformed statements about the game and from this foundation of sand, you are making sweeping conclusions about what you think should happen. That is the absoulte wrong way to argue a point because no one is going to put any stock in what you are saying. Also, that is the best way to screw the game up.

If you are going to make assertions like you are, you need:
1.) Facts not opinions
2.) To have more than a rudimentary knowledge of the topic
3.) The maturity to admit when you are wrong, which you are.

You can not on a whim say one army or the other is for cowards or people who lack imagination because that is an assinine statement and is purely subjective, most likely based on your experiance of getting beat by said army. You cant just discount one tournament that you obviously know very little about because of an uninformed opinion as to what goes on at said tournament. And, by the way, Vegas is not the only major tourny so far to use the new Eldar, it is the 4th, IIRC, and in every tourny eldar have perofrmed VERY well. Further, you can't say the game does not revolve around statistics and math and then offer no proof as to why it does not, but then go on to use maths to prove your point.

All you do is make yourself look bad and bring on ridicule.

If you think i, or anyone else here is an idiot and that we are wrong, then fine, prove it. If you just stomp your feet and scream that we are dumb and people that use armies you dont like are worthy of contempt, you sound just like the whinny, immature child you accuse choas players of being.

And like I have said for awhile. I really think that if the rules for fast moving skimmer was brought inline with "hull down" or obscured, it would fix the issue entirely.

Posted By Reecius on 07/24/2007 9:11 AM
You want to know how many shots it takes to reliably destroy a fully kitted out falcon by a SM with a las cannon? about 27, give or take. That is flipping insane. 

1/9 glances kill; about 1/2 cause a glance. That's about 18-20 shots. I've been seeing a lot of padded numbers when talking about Falcons. You have nearly 70% error. Also, it takes (very approximately) 13-15 lascannon shots to kill a monolith (assuming no hull down), a vehicle with a similar cost and durability to a tricked out Falcon, to put things into perspective. Not so awe inspiring now, eh?

 For that matter, you really dont know how to discuss a topic very cogently either.

Do you really think I was trying to be cogent (or even that serious) in my first reply?

You are making 100% arbitrary and uninformed statements about the game and from this foundation of sand, you are making sweeping conclusions about what you think should happen. That is the absoulte wrong way to argue a point because no one is going to put any stock in what you are saying. Also, that is the best way to screw the game up.

Ah yes...so because you have two or three "friends" who mindlessly back up what you're saying, you're right; right? If my statements are opinion, yours are no different.

If you are going to make assertions like you are, you need:
1.) Facts not opinions
2.) To have more than a rudimentary knowledge of the topic
3.) The maturity to admit when you are wrong, which you are.

You can not on a whim say one army or the other is for cowards or people who lack imagination because that is an assinine statement and is purely subjective, most likely based on your experiance of getting beat by said army. You cant just discount one tournament that you obviously know very little about because of an uninformed opinion as to what goes on at said tournament. And, by the way, Vegas is not the only major tourny so far to use the new Eldar, it is the 4th, IIRC, and in every tourny eldar have perofrmed VERY well. Further, you can't say the game does not revolve around statistics and math and then offer no proof as to why it does not, but then go on to use maths to prove your point.

I made it very clear, since my first reply, what type of Chaos general I was alluding to. HBMC, for his part, seems to think my statements are directed at him, a person I've never met in my life. For all that he wishes to whine and call me stupid, it's really so much "the pot calling the kettle black." At least I was smart enough not to choose an army to fall in love with out of a campaign book with half-arsed rules support... This game changes, and every time it changes it screws over someone new. Once again, to put my feelings in short, every person who's posted in this thread whining about the new 'dex needs to "join the club." (yes, I did the bold/italic for HBMC; it's that important)

All you do is make yourself look bad and bring on ridicule.

I bring on ridicule because I'm not afraid to criticize people for having a ridiculous viewpoint and operating in an egocentric bubble. Falcons are not unkillable or broken, and Chaos players are not the first ones to lose variety or viability of an army, nor are they the first to argue about it. And, seeing as though it's the only truly broken codex remaining, I believe it's high time that it got its kimuppants (sp?).

And finally, this point is just for you Reecius; terrain placement, mission objectives, the random variability of die rolls, and the skill of your opponent cannot be represented mathematically (in the case of die rolls not in any single game; there's not enough rolling done), and thus this is not a game purely of "math and statistics" as you would have us believe.

I don't feel that a single falcon or prism is broken. The problem is when you have multiples on the board.

Okay, a marine shooting. 2/3 hit, 2/3 glance and on a tricked out falcon or prism 1/36 kill. (yes, I am not counting immobilized since vectored engines do save it, and it still can shoot and or deliver cargo at that point)

So lets say that you have 6 las cannons shooting over 6 turns at a single falcon trying to get a kill. Figure up the odds, and then figure it up against,.. say... a Land Raider or even a predator. What are the chances then? Now figure it out with 2+ falcons or prisms.

Terrain placement doesn't count as much for falcons as it does any other vehicle. A falcon can truly zip across the board in the open and still have a great chance of surviving the return fire and delivering cargo. Few other transports can do that! You don't need to figure any other statistics into mathhammer to even prove this point, but since you insist. A falcon is a master of both terrain and mission. Because of it's speed and survivability it can limit fire lanes and move to position itself to take objectives much easier than any other vehicle. Skill only makes this unit meaner. An unskilled opponent can scoot a falcon around the board and count on it surviving a skilled player can make it a scalpel.

Luck is your only saving grace, and sometimes it happens. But luck cannot be counted on.

I do play eldar, and against eldar. I have my eyes wide open on this one.

Posted By ColonelEllios on 07/24/2007 10:27 AM

Posted By Reecius on 07/24/2007 9:11 AM
You want to know how many shots it takes to reliably destroy a fully kitted out falcon by a SM with a las cannon? about 27, give or take. That is flipping insane. 

1/9 glances kill; about 1/2 cause a glance. That's about 18-20 shots. I've been seeing a lot of padded numbers when talking about Falcons. You have nearly 70% error. Also, it takes (very approximately) 13-15 lascannon shots to kill a monolith (assuming no hull down), a vehicle with a similar cost and durability to a tricked out Falcon, to put things into perspective. Not so awe inspiring now, eh?

Well average is 20.5 marine lascannon shots for a Falcon and 13.5 for a Monolith.
That's over 50% more shots for the lith, yes I would consider that a big deal.

Hopefully in 5th edition we will get a fix (since the Eldar codex won't be revamped for years) and the stupid skimmer/glace rules will change. It's amazing a skimmer moving no farther than a ground vehicle can land and dump it's passengers yet still be moving so fast it can't be hit.
Changing it to 12" would make sense.
Though the entire vehicle rules should be overhauled but that's a different matter.

I love how that many shots to kill a Falcon is somehow "OK" and makes it doable to kill 3 Holofield+Stone Skimmers in a 1500 point came (or even 1750 for that matter).

Considering no matter what Gav Thorpe says, the best way to kill a Falcon with Marines is to use Lascannons or Assault Cannons, which have the same chance of glancing per shot fired, there is no way that you're going to get that many shots on a Grav Tank all game to pull it off.

And I also love how all the points about how it is very overpowering are completely ignored, but lets all do the happy dance that Chaos can't take a Demon Prince that moves 12" a turn with T5 and a 2+/5+ save and 3 Wounds because it was so terrible.

And FYI, I play Marines, Necrons, and Orks. So no Chaos lamenting or love lost here, but to hear this kind of stuff is beyond amazing.

The Falcon is the new Wraithlord

I don't lament chaos losing things, to bring greater balance. I feel sorry for the lost options, but we don't exactly know if they will come back or not at this point, so I am not going too crazy.

I await to see if it has balance. If they can do that, I will like it. Otherwise it is a complete waste.

The Eldar list is really only broken because of the falcon, and when it is tricked out and or in multiples. Prisms and Waveserpents aren't even that bad in comparison. A prism is still points denial, but destroy a weapon and it becomes tank shock only. Waveserpent doesn't have holofields. It's the falcon that is the standout problem.

Yep.
The falcon is the major problem with the list alright.

Toreador, you were right, i screwed up my math. the chances are .666 to hit then .666 to glance, then .028 to kill, so it does take more shots than i had said, i was going too fast and multiplied the last figure by .083 thinking that it was 1 in 12 to roll box cars, but that is obviosuly incorrect, i forgot that the odds of that with two dice is 1 in 36, as with two dice there are a total of 36 possible results.

A space marine firing a las cannon would have the following chance of destroying a fully kitted Falcon:

1 x .666 to hit = .666 x .666 to glance = .4435 x .028 to destroy = .0124. Therefore, the odds are about 1.24% for a one shot one kill.

or fractionally

2/3 x 2/3 = 4/9 x 1/36 = 1/81 = 0.0123

If i have made any errors please correct me, but according to this, it takes 81 shots to reliably destroy a falcon.

81 shots

54 hit

36 glances

1 result of box cars

However, in this examply, you would also role every other result on the damage table multiple times, which means the tank would have been destroyed due to multiple imobolized and weapon destroyed results.

with 36 rolls on the damage table, you would also have 5 weapon destroyed results, 3 immobilized and 27 stunned results, with only results of 4 and 4 or higher doing anything substantial to the vehicle.

This is not even remotely close in comparison to the Monolith. A space marine firing a las cannon at a monolith has a

2/3 to hit x 1/6 to pen = 1/9 x 1/2 to destroy = 1/18

or

2/3 to hit x 1/6 to glance = 1/9 x 1/6 to destroy on a glance = 1/54

As you can see, a monolith is far less survivable than a falcon.

But for one shot one kill against a Falcon, it is 1 in 81. That is insane.

Ellios, I apologize for antagonizing you, but your attitudes about the game rub me the wrong way and i am sure you feel the same way about me, which is fine.

My point is this:

I dont want anyone's army to be invalidated. I know how much time and energy it takes to build a force and to have it become invalid is just plain unfair. To call someone who takes a legal army breaking the rules is just wrong. In order to break a rule, you have to do something that is prohibited by the rules, which a legal list does not do. You may not like, but that does not make it wrong.

To say that everyone who plays a certain army is a coward or small minded is just as idiotic as saying all jewish people are greedy or some other racial or cultural stereotype. It is absolutely incorrect. Unless you have met every single chaos player in the world and they were catagorically jerks, then you have made a statement that is not founded in fact and is pure conjecture (and mean spirited conjecture at that).

So by all means, continue to spout your half crocked ideas that are not based on fact or even experiance from the sounds of it, and we will continue to laugh.

"Ellios, I apologize for antagonizing you..."

    Well, I guess that's as close to "sorry, I was wrong" as I'm ever gonna get...

On a serious note, I have two important points to make here:

The first is that unfortunately, Reecius and Toreador are both guilty of padding the numbers, if inadvertently. This is because you have calculated the chance of straight-up killing a Falcon, which is first and foremost not a fair way to talk about its survivability. Vectored Engines only work once, and destroying an immobile Falcon is usually a joke for any army capable of immobilizing one in the first place (so...uh...all of them...). If you have experience as an Eldar general, you realize this is true; an immobilized Falcon is as good as dead (and your opponent can generally ignore it until he has the firepower to finish it off--its not going anywhere). The squad inside can't get where you were planning on getting them, and subsequently die, and the Falcon causes minimal shooting damage with its BS 3 and loss of mobility. You also immediately get 1/2 VPs for an immobile vehicle, making the comparison even more unfair because you're ignoring the possibility of Immobilized on a Falcon and not on a Monolith (or any other vehicle used for comparison) thus making the Falcon seem even more imbalanced, especially considering that with vectored engines, immobilization means essentially the same thing for a Falcon as any other vehicle.

Secondly, you're also falsely inflating the worth of the Falcon by parading around the fact that it's "50% more survivable than a Monolith." This fact seems impressive, until you realize that a Falcon doesn't have the benefit of AV 14, meaning it's vulnerable to more than twice the variety of weapons than a Monolith would ever have to worry about. This is why using Lascannons as a basis for your argument is another inadvisable move; it's basically misleading. While a Lascannon is just about the only weapon in a Marine army capable of truly threatening a Monolith, there are many times the number of weapons that pose a serious threat to a Falcon. Seeing as though 50%=1/2, and it's vulnerable to approximately twice as many weapons, 50%+50% = 1/2 + 1/2 = 1, so it's actually a wash.

So there we have it; even the MathHammer proves that a Falcon is no more impressive than any other main battle tank in the same class. (Indeed, a high-AV tank with Hull-Down can be more survivable than a Falcon...not to mention Smoke Launchers...)

Perhaps this is where Gav's advice of "using less Lascannon-like weapons..." comes from?

Falcon lists are only broken is certain meta-game environments (i.e. those dominated by Imperial armies). Players complain about not being able to kill a Falcon by shooting all their lascannons at it--and they fail to realize that just about every other heavy/special weapon in their army can also threaten it. If you're having problems with close-in Falcons, you don't have enough special weapons, or enough weapon variety; it's the only possible answer.

EDIT: Please accept that I'm not downplaying the Falcon either--it's very tough to deal with if taken in numbers; but it's not impossible to deal with, nor is it "broken." Your opponent can still do something about them. It's powerful, but no more worth complaining about than 'Zilla Nids or any other top-tier list. Also, the Falcon is not "the new Wraithlord" for several reasons--it gets no cover save, can be killed in one hit, needs to be carrying even more points worth of infantry to accomplish anything, can be stopped from shooting until it's dead, and has BS 3. It has nothing over the Wraithlord as a dominant Heavy Support choice other than speed and transport capacity (which you still need to fill).

Wow.

Just, Wow.

Are you seriously saying that what you are posting is any possible stand in for real analysis, or even any kind of rebuttle?

You threw around some numbers you pull out of the air, backed up with assumptions and conjecture, again! You prove nothing, you have no facts, hahahah, the one bit of math you use is rediculous, 50% + 50% = 1, what were you adding? what was the point of that?



is this a joke? What did you prove? i dont even know what you were TRYING to prove!

I could go on and pick this apart but it is so wrong in so many places that it would take too long and it would probably not teach you anything.

Holy smokes, i dont know if i should laugh or cry.



The only possible answer is that at this point, i am wasting my time in responding to this.

Posted By Reecius on 07/24/2007 1:13 PM

You threw around some numbers you pull out of the air, backed up with assumptions and conjecture, again! You prove nothing, you have no facts, hahahah, the one bit of math you use is rediculous, 50% + 50% = 1, what were you adding? what was the point of that?

I was afraid you wouldn't understand that bit.

1) A falcon is 50% more survivable than a Monolith using lascannons as a basis for the math

2) A falcon is vulnerable to twice as many weapons as a monolith

3) 50% more surviveable, but to twice as many weapons, means that you have a "wash," or no difference in surviveability

4) 50% + 50% = 100% (or 1), or alternatively 50% - 50% = 0%; by mathematical definition (I probably haven't presented it correctly) something that is 50% less vulnerable than something else, but only to half of the factors, means that it is 0% less vulnerable, or just as vulnerable to being blown up as, in this case, a monolith.

Using math was probably the wrong way for me to go--it's not my strongest ability. I was trying to represent the falsehood of your argument with numbers; perhaps I should try it another way:

If every army used an even spread of the available weapons (instead of massing up on lascannons) a Monolith would be just as well off as a Falcon.
That is to say, while a Falcon is 50% more survivable to a lascannon shot, it's 100% less survivable to, say, an autocannon shot, because autocannon can't hurt the Monolith. It's a wash.


Even if I'm wrong, or I make no sense, this still rings true:

Falcon lists are only broken is certain meta-game environments (i.e. those dominated by Imperial armies). Players complain about not being able to kill a Falcon by shooting all their lascannons at it--and they fail to realize that just about every other heavy/special weapon in their army can also threaten it. If you're having problems with close-in Falcons, you don't have enough special weapons, or enough weapon variety; it's the only possible answer. (i.e. your las/plas squads can use the plasma gun against a Falcon, but not a Monolith)

Okay, simple response as I am at work and don't have the time.

The Falcon is more maneuverable than the monolith, and can actually use fire lanes to control what is shot at it. Most armies barring guard can't field many multiple shot low strength weapons, and as has been said much earlier in another thread they are even worse at causing damage to a Falcon than a las cannon as it takes many more shots to get a scoring hit. Figure the probabilities if you want, but they are much worse.

One of the balancing factors in the old dex has been mitigated with vectored engines. Immobilizing the falcon allows it to offload it's cargo and then act as a pillbox, which is still quite a threat.

How many points is a tricked Falcon? How about a Pred with the new pts? It can't even carry passengers AND has to seek cover to have a 50% chance to make it a glance!

Most armies fielding las-cannon equivalents have to remove those to field the multiple shot lower strength weapons, which take more hits to bring down a falcon, which pretty much is a wash if not a worse chance. You need more AC and AutoC to bring down a Falcon than you do LC. You just don't get that many AT choices in most armies.

Eldar have just as much a problem bringing down falcons, and have those multi shot lower strength weapons.
Guard have a horrible problem with it.
Orks right now have almost no chance.
SOB and Daemonhunters can't fight themselves out of a wet paper bag.
Dark Eldar have the same issue as imperials.
Chaos pretty much = Imperial
Zilla nids seems to be good against most anything. Normal nids... not that many good AT weapons.
Tau and Necrons I don't have much experience with vs Eldar. The would seem to have a better chance of it..... So are those the magical two you were talking about not having problems?

The fact is that the imperial armies have some of the better way to deal with the Falcon, and they have a hard time of it.

And the new chaos is getting neutered quite a bit in AT, and the survivability of Oblits...

Ok, this is getting RIDICULOUS.

This, certainly is not true:


It doesn't matter if it's Imperial or not, facts are facts that a S9 1 shot gun is as good as a 2 Shot S7 Gun (Autocannons, Missile Pods), which is as good as a 4 Shot S6 Gun (Scatter Lasers, Assault Cannons), which is better than S6 3 shot guns (Multi-Lasers, Shurican Cannons).

This covers just about every major "gun" out there reguardless of army's that are capable of downing the Falcon. Not many of them are going to be as good as the Space Marine (BS4) with the Lascannon (S9).

The amount of Lascannon shots (or number of assault cannons/autocannons/missile pods/Scatter Lasers) that it takes to down a Falcon by a BS4 model is 20.5 (assuming no Vectored Engines). Multiply that by 3, 61.5, and that's how many shots in a game you need to bring one down all three. Given that vs. a competent opponent, you will not get that many shots off in a game (terrain is easy to use when your a Fast Skimmer), and any reasonable person who has played with or against the list can tell you how good that is.

This is a problem for any army other than Necrons to deal with for a variety of reasons, not the least of which has to do with the fact that it:

1.) Denies VP's
2.) Easily Scores on Objectives
3.) Not only scores, but can tank shock units off objectives.

And then it gets to do this little job of dropping off units wherever you want on the table, when you want it, with very little chances that your opponent can stop you.

As a Marine & Necron player, I would gladly trade the survivability of my tanks for that of the Holofield+Stones Grav Tank. There isn't anything in the game that durable. Especially while at the same time being that Fast and Versatile when it comes to scoring and objectives.

Hey I'll swap you a falcon for a battlewagon if you want.
I mean, if it's as good as every other main tank out there. That would mean I'd actually have a model for my mainline tank too, sweet!

Quite a few commenst about how many SM lascannons to kill a falcon, mostly trying to work out chance of outright kill and simply taking an average from that one figure.  I think reecius aluded to the fact that multi shots get cumulatively better from earlier immobilses and weapon destroyed results.

Here are the figures for the probability of killing a falcon after X shots, with or without vectored engines, and including all the cumlulative chance of immbilises and weapon destroyed results from the earlier shots.

chance to after x shots vs vector engines

1    1.23
5    8.38
10    20.46
20    48.4
30    71.13
40    85.19

chance to after x shots vs no vector engines
1    4.94
5    22.38
10    39.9
20    65.03
30    80.9
40    90.24

A falcon without Vectored engines is far easier to take down, needing 20.5 shots on average. However, simply downing a Falcon does not take it out of the fight. As others have noted, the payload the Falcon carries is often deadlier than the falcon itself. With vectored engines, they land unharmed and can proceed to attack the next turn.

Also, the Falcon can still shoot if it has any functional weapons. Therefore, it is still a threat and it requires further resources to destroy. Simply immobilising a Falcon does not nuetralize it by any means so long as it has vectored engines. That just multiplies its effectiveness over other vehicles by an even greater degree.

Puree, how did you factor in the increasing damage to a Falcon, that was something i knew was in effect, but that is beyond me as to how to calculate.

Posted By Reecius on 07/24/2007 4:01 PM


Puree, how did you factor in the increasing damage to a Falcon, that was something i knew was in effect, but that is beyond me as to how to calculate.

Conceptually its a simple problem, just the processing that is difficult unless you are some maths savant (which I aint). Fortunately computers have a purpose beyond MMOs and reading dakka.

This thread has gotten a bit off topic. So how about them Chaos rumors?

Ozymandias, King of Kings

cool, that is very handy. I would have a lot of fun with a program like that, coming up with all kinds of probabilities for certain occurances.

.

Posted By puree on 07/24/2007 4:49 PM

A few years ago I wrote a pretty impressive simulator...

...and then promptly threw out your shoulder patting yourself on the back!

Seriously though, it would be nice if you could resurrect that program.

Ellios:  Based on Puree's analysis - roughly 30 lascannon (or equivalent) shots per falcon are needed to attain any sort of reliablility on winning the Falcon's VPs.  That's 90 shots per game vs. 3 falcons, or at best, 15 lascannon (or equivalents) over six turns.  Considering that you can easily run the 3 falcon flying circus in 1000 points - no army that I can think of can bring that kind of firepower.

We playtested against this even with maxed obliterators (which strangely only require 2.7 lascannon (BS4) shots to kill) and they were found wanting.

I do not understand why one unit (falcon) is deemed acceptable, and the other unit unit (obiliterators) are deemed overpowered.

Someone, not naming names, either doesn't like Pete Haines, hates oblits, or loves Eldar. The last one is similar to what Pete Haines did with oblits 'cuz he "just happened" to play IW. All three possibilities are purely hypothetical but I will claim credit if one of them turns out to be true.

I imagine it is because Obliterators cause a lot more direct damage, and in conjunction with the rest of the army are very hard to deal with.

Falcons are more indirect in a game. They don't have a lot of direct damage potential, and if you aren't that worried about the cargo, you try to ignore them after getting a hit that makes them not shoot. Oblits on the other hand are tearing your army apart every phase in shooting, and are hard to negate when you have daemon bombs flying down your neck.

I still see them as equal problems.

Well a Falcon can put 5 str 6 shots and 2 str 8 down range every turn. That ain't chicken feed.

Posted By Ozymandias on 07/24/2007 4:18 PM
This thread has gotten a bit off topic. So how about them Chaos rumors?

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I agree here. Is there anyway we could have the falcon survivability stuff moved to discussions or tactica or somewhere more appropriate?

I've been thinking about this whole reorganization of chaos that seems to be in the works. I like how they are trying to put a focus back onto generic chaos marines. The majority of those who turn to chaos, i feel, are going to be those. Things like berserkers, plauge marines, etc should be placed more in a 'elite' or 'chosen' kind of capacity. These are beings which have been gifted for outstanding service.

However, I have to disagree with the removal or limiting of 'cult' armies. This goes across the board. There are plenty of fluffy instances of cult armies. I don't really see the problem with having cult marines in termie armor, as havoks, or on bikes.... well, plague marines on bikes are just a disgusting thought... all those little fleshy bits falling off as they ride at full speed. i mean, come on. they should get a tank-shock like affect when they charge, else the victim just stands there retching.

And I do have problems with putting limits on people who play properly. No beard, no cheese, no nothin. Those who abuse a list should just be ignored. Unfortunately, people seem to be so obsessed with tourny play and focus on the fact that these combinations are allowed. I agree that limits should be placed in these circumstances. But when I come across an army I probably have no chance of winning against, i'm happy to just focus on taking out the uber-unit or whatever little goal i give myself.

I never really understood why people were so upset with the most recent chaos release for a long time. Sure there were/are some powerful units in there, but i feel everything has a counter. And if there isn't something that is a direct counter for a unit, there's always faith in dice. This game is as much chance as anything else. You can weigh the dice in your favor with tactics, but in the end it's all up to the Dice Gods.

Yes, but imbalanced lists makes for bad games. Play daemonhunters awhile.

Part of the reason the falcon discussion is here, and has it's place, is that the "new" balance won't work with falcons out there. DA, BA, Chaos, and Orks will be pretty much hosed if Zilla, Falcons, and C:SM aren't brought into balance, IF these new armies are balanced against each other.

And I have hopes. For some time now the developers have stated that they want to do legion books, along with legion specific sprues just like the loyalist chapters. It's great if they can put it into operation. But, if it doesn't work out, then a lot of armies are changed dramatically.

The thing is, it has to all be balanced out, and it looks like they are working towards that end.

Only time will tell.

(much easier to glance a falcon and shut down it's firing than to bring it down, Most people seem to be happy with at least that result.)

Am I the only one who finds ColonelEllios' avatar more than a little ironic?

ColonelEllios = bald guy

snake = mathematics

Posted By Toreador on 07/25/2007 9:52 AM
Yes, but imbalanced lists makes for bad games. Play daemonhunters awhile.

Part of the reason the falcon discussion is here, and has it's place, is that the "new" balance won't work with falcons out there. DA, BA, Chaos, and Orks will be pretty much hosed if Zilla, Falcons, and C:SM aren't brought into balance, IF these new armies are balanced against each other. .

...
The thing is, it has to all be balanced out, and it looks like they are working towards that end.

The issue is that GW has said Falcons won't get fixed until Codex Eldar is redone (i.e. 5th ed.). This means that if the new balance doesn't work with Falcons and Nidzilla, there's a 0% of 40K getting balanced before 5th ed. - longer if they keep with the same set of Codexes like with 3rd to 4th.

Posted By Asmodai on 07/25/2007 10:22 PM

The issue is that GW has said Falcons won't get fixed until Codex Eldar is redone (i.e. 5th ed.). This means that if the new balance doesn't work with Falcons and Nidzilla, there's a 0% of 40K getting balanced before 5th ed. - longer if they keep with the same set of Codexes like with 3rd to 4th.

I must have missed that, when did they say they were broken and will get fixed in the next eldar codex?

Falcons work pretty nearly the same as they did in 3rd, and all they changed with the new codex is nerfing spirit stones and increasing the cost of holofields.

Obviously they are aware of how beefy the holo+stone combo is, and decided to leave it alone...

Just be happy they "fixed" the starcannon...

Like I said...it's not the Falcons but what's in them that counts. Making harlies 0-3 and allowing them to ride in Falcons are the two most unbalancing things GW did for this recent codex. I don't hear anybody complaining up-and-down about Fire Prisms, and defensively the two vehicles are the same!

If your opponent is using tri-Falcon, there are ways to counter and minimize the damage he does.

If you could only put regular aspects in Falcons, people wouldn't be complaining as much. Fire Dragons would be the best choice for it (as always) and aren't nearly as dangerous as properly used harlies are.

Posted By puree on 07/26/2007 3:41 AM

Posted By Asmodai on 07/25/2007 10:22 PM

The issue is that GW has said Falcons won't get fixed until Codex Eldar is redone (i.e. 5th ed.). This means that if the new balance doesn't work with Falcons and Nidzilla, there's a 0% of 40K getting balanced before 5th ed. - longer if they keep with the same set of Codexes like with 3rd to 4th.

I must have missed that, when did they say they were broken and will get fixed in the next eldar codex?

From the Gav interview still on the front page of N&R: " The only time rules would change would be in a new Codex: Eldar, which obviously won¡¦t be for many years yet."

Posted By Asmodai on 07/26/2007 4:28 AM

Posted By puree on 07/26/2007 3:41 AM

Posted By Asmodai on 07/25/2007 10:22 PM

The issue is that GW has said Falcons won't get fixed until Codex Eldar is redone (i.e. 5th ed.). This means that if the new balance doesn't work with Falcons and Nidzilla, there's a 0% of 40K getting balanced before 5th ed. - longer if they keep with the same set of Codexes like with 3rd to 4th.

I must have missed that, when did they say they were broken and will get fixed in the next eldar codex?

From the Gav interview still on the front page of N&R: " The only time rules would change would be in a new Codex: Eldar, which obviously won¡¦t be for many years yet."

Ah - I had already read that, he didn't say or admit that falcons were broken or would be fixed in the next codex, just that any changes would have to wait for the next codex. I read that as a sort of obvious throw away answer that any changes to eldar would obviously have to wait for the next codex, nothing to do with GW saying falcons would be 'fixed'.

Posted By puree on 07/26/2007 4:51 AM

Posted By Asmodai on 07/26/2007 4:28 AM

Posted By puree on 07/26/2007 3:41 AM

Posted By Asmodai on 07/25/2007 10:22 PM

The issue is that GW has said Falcons won't get fixed until Codex Eldar is redone (i.e. 5th ed.). This means that if the new balance doesn't work with Falcons and Nidzilla, there's a 0% of 40K getting balanced before 5th ed. - longer if they keep with the same set of Codexes like with 3rd to 4th.

I must have missed that, when did they say they were broken and will get fixed in the next eldar codex?

From the Gav interview still on the front page of N&R: " The only time rules would change would be in a new Codex: Eldar, which obviously won¡¦t be for many years yet."

Ah - I had already read that, he didn't say or admit that falcons were broken or would be fixed in the next codex, just that any changes would have to wait for the next codex. I read that as a sort of obvious throw away answer that any changes to eldar would obviously have to wait for the next codex, nothing to do with GW saying falcons would be 'fixed'.

Right and Siren Princes and Iron Warriors with 9 Oblits and 4 Vindicators were weren't broken and weren't guaranteed to be fixed in the next Codex either.

You can file 'Falcons won't get nerfed' next to 'Terminators will still have 2 assault cannons' and 'Marines won't come in combat squads' in the 'Yeah Right' rumours bin.

GW seems to be more perceptive to these sort of issues now then they were in third.

Posted By Asmodai on 07/26/2007 6:00 AM

Posted By puree on 07/26/2007 4:51 AM

Posted By Asmodai on 07/26/2007 4:28 AM

Posted By puree on 07/26/2007 3:41 AM

Posted By Asmodai on 07/25/2007 10:22 PM

The issue is that GW has said Falcons won't get fixed until Codex Eldar is redone (i.e. 5th ed.). This means that if the new balance doesn't work with Falcons and Nidzilla, there's a 0% of 40K getting balanced before 5th ed. - longer if they keep with the same set of Codexes like with 3rd to 4th.

I must have missed that, when did they say they were broken and will get fixed in the next eldar codex?

From the Gav interview still on the front page of N&R: " The only time rules would change would be in a new Codex: Eldar, which obviously won¡¦t be for many years yet."

Ah - I had already read that, he didn't say or admit that falcons were broken or would be fixed in the next codex, just that any changes would have to wait for the next codex. I read that as a sort of obvious throw away answer that any changes to eldar would obviously have to wait for the next codex, nothing to do with GW saying falcons would be 'fixed'.

Right and Siren Princes and Iron Warriors with 9 Oblits and 4 Vindicators were weren't broken and weren't guaranteed to be fixed in the next Codex either.

You can file 'Falcons won't get nerfed' next to 'Terminators will still have 2 assault cannons' and 'Marines won't come in combat squads' in the 'Yeah Right' rumours bin.

GW seems to be more perceptive to these sort of issues now then they were in third.

Lol - I don't disagree with that, I was just commenting that at first I thought you were saying GW had actually said falcons would be fixed (and therefore saying they were 'broken' as is), but thats not really true.