Gert wrote: [spoiler]
None of this matters because GW was always expensive even for a company that makes models. The price rises aren't tied to inflation or anything they just get raised while at the same time cheaper alternatives such as bundles or good value box sets become rare.
When my hobby group started 30k (pre-Calth) there were loads of FW bundles ranging from Tactical blobs to Vehicles+accompanying units. Calth dropped and even more 30k bundles got dropped, then a couple of months after Prospero was released the entire bundle range gets axed and so do the box sets in favour of some Legion upgrade kits and 10-man boxes of the plastic PA models. 30k goes from being still expensive but very accessible, to annoyingly expensive and almost impossible to get people to start.
That and the fact that GW intentionally makes their product as least efficient as possible in many cases. Take the Tau Fire Warrior box for instance. It's a 10 man kit, but if it had 10 more torsos and a few more legs, it would be 20 man kit of 10 strike team members and 10 breacher team members at virtually no cost increase. But then people would buy less kits because they would have more models.
I'm not trying to defend GW or say they're not greedy, they sure are, but there can be more than one reason why something is happening.
Karol wrote: It doesn't have to be a tournament. The 10VP for painting is a basic rule.
It is not a requirement to win a game - especially not via paint points - to learn how to play and build an understanding of the armies.
10VP is the avarge of what a secondary can give, any player can have 3 of them. If someone gets an extra one, without doing any game related activity then it gives them a huge edge over their opponent. It means they could fail to get any points from their regular secondary objective and still avarge the same number of points, they would normally get. And while it is true that having a painted army does not give you a win, if you play against another painted army, it very much adds to the chance of an opponent with an unpainted army losing. The game scoring system doesn't care how much someone understand the game or their army. It is like football, one team takes 20 shots scores 0, the other team shots one time and it scores. The team with the one goal scored is the winner. I do give you that, the new players very learns very fast that in order to have a chance to win vs armies that are painted his army has to be painted too. Takes like one game you lost because of paint points, and you know what you have to do.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: Some people would rather not admit that winning the game is a requirement for them to have fun.
And maybe it isn't. But when you dig down you suddenly find out that the game has nothing to do with the game, but with stuff like spending time with friends, showing your painted or converted army to others, not being at home with parents or wife on the weekend etc Sure all of those can be reasons that can make spending time, while losing, still enjoyable. But they have nothing to do with playing the game. Same way someone who only likes to paint models, doesn't really care about the quality of the game, and vice versa.
I agree with a few of the ops points, is it as bad ? I will say maybe lets see a few more books. However formations coming in under different names and all the amazing levels of bloat don't really make me feel good.
The prices are intense and out of this world, for me at least. I'm pretty much finishing out collections then just riding out this crazy train.
I started coasting on 40k a couple of years ago.
I looked at starting Imperial Guard, way too much money would be needed.
Killteam has me excited about Tau again. But again, I looked a new 40k army, way too much money. Even a Killteam is going to smart for what it is, but bareably so.
kirotheavenger wrote: These price increases were happening well before shipping went to chaos. Look at Eldar Banshees.
This is just GW seeing how high they can push their margins before people start walking away. There's no reason to excuse them.
Exactly this and yet people will take any chance to try and reason out some of their outrageous choices. It's crazy to me but there it is.
Some things they put out for in AoS actually aren't too bad, like the new blood knights price is great imo, even the new zombies and skeletons feels good to me for the sculpts. Most 40k offerings ? Feel like a kick in the gonads with a golf shoe.
The new kill team looks interesting though, a dice change and adding overwatch always on, and it would play a lot like infinity.
Cost wise it still isn't cheap, but it is cheaper then regular w40k too. I wonder how the AoS version of kill team is doing. Sadly I never saw anyone want to play it here,
kirotheavenger wrote: I started coasting on 40k a couple of years ago.
I looked at starting Imperial Guard, way too much money would be needed.
Killteam has me excited about Tau again. But again, I looked a new 40k army, way too much money. Even a Killteam is going to smart for what it is, but bareably so.
You want system shock looking up the cost of a new 40k army will give it to you. It's why I was so perplexed by all the people so over the top about new guard models with krieg squads, I think people are in some kind of mindset they won't be at minimum around 55 USD, but could be anywhere as high as 65 or 70 USD. GW have no filter when it comes to prices. The heavy ints are too dang high, but the cost of the flayed ones makes them look like a steal, makes me wonder what they are flaying, I'm assuming your wallets.
What boggles my mind is every time you raise the price issue, people come down on you like "no! If you buy this boxset you save so much money, every character alone is worth £25!"
Just... urgh... that's not how value works
Blackie wrote: I have opposite feelings. Now I can finally play my vehicles, even tons of them, after more than a decade. And they've never been so good.
Also all those clunky and controversial mechanics that vehicle had are long gone, and I cannot be happier about that.
“Unless you play drukari and to a lesser extent orkz and ad-mech, this statement is more or less wrong. See many vehicles in SM or CSM lists? How about those IG and their tanks? Sisters? Necrons? The best vehicles in these factions are need fillers no one wants to play. Even in drukhari, ad-mech, (and maybe orkz) only the extremely pushed vehicles see play. (Raiders, chicken walkers, buggies)”
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kirotheavenger wrote: These price increases were happening well before shipping went to chaos. Look at Eldar Banshees.
This is just GW seeing how high they can push their margins before people start walking away. There's no reason to excuse them.
They raised their prices twice in the last 4-5 years. Second time was definitely a consequence of brexit. Covid had nothing to do with prices.
Please stop trying to justify a Cooperation attempting to make more money. As someone else said, GW raises prices when they believe the margin increase from this will exceed lost sales. Nothing more nothing less. If the exporting thing was really an issue, then we’d see a further increase on the premium non-UK customers pay on product (which “coincidently” really started to increase once Brexit was announced and the pound sterling starting losing value relative to the rest of the worlds currency)
Finally GW did raise prices plenty before their actual “price raise.” They just did it for very specific models and for new releases. You saw this with a lot of new AOS units being priced 20-30% higher than their 40k equivalents. From a business perspective, raising prices on existing stock looks bad and makes it much harder to get rid of it from your shelves. However, new items being priced higher has neither of these shortcomings (new stuff always sells well). It’s also why GW announced the price increases at the end of 8th. That way they could sell off their now pricier shelf supply with new codex release and box sets throughout 9th. That way people would really only feel the effects of the increase once they got their new codex and therefore have to buy more models.
I don't justify anything, quite the opposite. In fact GW priced me out. I won't invest money in 40k models anymore and I'll just stick with the collections I have.
Since the end of 7th I've just bought a couple fantasy armies that were still on the catalogue (dark elves and empire) and Necromunda models. No 40k as I don't justify the current prices.
I'm ok with that. I wish GW stuff costs 50% less but amen, nothing I can do about it other than investing only in what I can afford.
Made a little chart for sisters, its price per sprue (in euros, with 15% off GW price, which is about how much you can buy them for when i live)
edit : the "base" sprue is one found in medium boxes (infantry). some characters are made of half that sprue size, which explains some very high price per sprue.
Automatically Appended Next Post: also adding to the conversation :
- stratagems should be removed entirely
- USR should be brought back
- Auras should use CP to be activated
- AP -1 should disappear on troops' weapons
Jidmah wrote: I've been with this hobby for over a decade and I can't remember a year when they didn't raise prices.
GW is selling a luxury good, their prices are not governed by supply and demand or production costs but solely by how much people are willing to pay.
They are not our friends, they are just being friendly because people are less willing to give money to donkey-caves.
From stories that are told about them and what I saw in 8th and 9th, a large enough chunk of GW buyers do not care, if they are donkeys or not.
Also there is a difference between a company not being a friend, and a company cutting up content, puting out unreleased or unupdated content, or content they know is bad, but they have to put out something so they put out X or Y. Still of course not as bad as a company deciding that the law suits from exploding gas tanks are going to cost them less the potential return of a whole car line or telling people that maybe DDT is not that healthy after all, and doesn't just kill insencts.
kirotheavenger wrote: These price increases were happening well before shipping went to chaos. Look at Eldar Banshees.
This is just GW seeing how high they can push their margins before people start walking away. There's no reason to excuse them.
At one point I was going to do some gardening so I went to home depot and bought a shovel. Just a standard shovel with a stainless steel head and solid construction, the exact thing you see in your head when you think "Shovel."
I remember looking at it, this thing that required a piece of wood to be shaped, stained, steel to be waterjet cut, hydroformed, eletropolished, then screwed in to the wood and a couple logos woodburned into the side of the handle....cost me exactly as much money as exactly 1, tiny, injection-molded howling banshee.
kirotheavenger wrote: These price increases were happening well before shipping went to chaos. Look at Eldar Banshees.
This is just GW seeing how high they can push their margins before people start walking away. There's no reason to excuse them.
At one point I was going to do some gardening so I went to home depot and bought a shovel. Just a standard shovel with a stainless steel head and solid construction, the exact thing you see in your head when you think "Shovel."
I remember looking at it, this thing that required a piece of wood to be shaped, stained, steel to be waterjet cut, hydroformed, eletropolished, then screwed in to the wood and a couple logos woodburned into the side of the handle....cost me exactly as much money as exactly 1, tiny, injection-molded howling banshee.
I love slice of life comparisons like this. This really is a silly hobby we partake in, but goshdarnit, I've sunk so much into it already, I can't stop now!
GW wrote:Since the release of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, it became clear some of Sean and Steve’s predictions for this codex were almost too on the money – some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended. As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari.
Obviously, to each their own. If you've made the decision the game is too expensive, and you're out, congratulations on your choice. I respect that.
The other way to roll, if you're ambivalent about prices is to take advantage of the four game sizes. Because technically, for every army that has a Combat Patrol box, you can say the cost for the army is $170 CAD.
You may not like the contents of the CP box. That's valid. You may prefer 2K point games- also valid. You may live in an area where it's hard to find a 25PL game- not only is this valid, it's kinda heart breaking: I wish everyone had the option of playing the game in ways that are less problematic.
The point is though, that GW made 4 game sizes a big part of this edition for a reason. They know that a segment of their audience is getting priced out of the 2k game. This is why their core mechanics now give us other options.
GW wrote:Since the release of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, it became clear some of Sean and Steve’s predictions for this codex were almost too on the money – some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended. As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari.
Classic GW. Never admit responsibility for the mess they made themselves by releasing broken products, then act like fixing those mistakes two months later is some kind of big favor and service to the community.
kirotheavenger wrote: These price increases were happening well before shipping went to chaos. Look at Eldar Banshees.
This is just GW seeing how high they can push their margins before people start walking away. There's no reason to excuse them.
At one point I was going to do some gardening so I went to home depot and bought a shovel. Just a standard shovel with a stainless steel head and solid construction, the exact thing you see in your head when you think "Shovel."
I remember looking at it, this thing that required a piece of wood to be shaped, stained, steel to be waterjet cut, hydroformed, eletropolished, then screwed in to the wood and a couple logos woodburned into the side of the handle....cost me exactly as much money as exactly 1, tiny, injection-molded howling banshee.
I love slice of life comparisons like this. This really is a silly hobby we partake in, but goshdarnit, I've sunk so much into it already, I can't stop now!
Sunk cost aside, there's massive economies of scale. The shovel probably sells in the hundreds of thousands, while the banshee sells in the dozens.
GW wrote:Since the release of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, it became clear some of Sean and Steve’s predictions for this codex were almost too on the money – some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended. As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari.
Are we assuming that they'll be nerfed so hard that they'll be useless?
Sim-Life wrote: Are we assuming that they'll be nerfed so hard that they'll be useless?
GW has a real knack for overcompensating and overbalancing. The middle ground is something they've never really heard about, let alone seen. It's always big pendulum swings with them.
The Drukhari raider went from 85 points to 95 in a FAQ soon after their codex dropped. Thus going from way underpriced to still very potent. Alongside the crayziest combos being shut down (dark technomancers + liquifier gun, and blender succubus toned down). But overall the codex is still very strong, so yes, GW can bring some corrections without overcompensating. There is hope.
I think Dark Eldar is a good example of them undercompensating.
Odds are they'll do the same with Admech as well, I'd be surprised if they drop very far.
GW wrote:Since the release of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, it became clear some of Sean and Steve’s predictions for this codex were almost too on the money – some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended. As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari.
Classic GW. Never admit responsibility for the mess they made themselves by releasing broken products, then act like fixing those mistakes two months later is some kind of big favor and service to the community.
The passage that xttz quoted IS an admission that there are problems, and the nerfs to come ARE taking responsibility. How can you not see that?
How can some one literally say "their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended" and provoke a response that they don't admit to making mistakes?
Maybe people don't like corpo talk? People seem to be okey when Square Enix comes out and says FFXIV was a disaster and we did bad. When corporations start talking about unexpected interactions, unplanned workings etc people seem to be less okey with it. Specially when designers of the rules say that months ahead they were warrning the design team that this or that maybe a tad too strong. And that is in reaction to things being implemented even stronger, then they have tested them.
also regarding the article art. GW doesn't put stuff for armies that aren't actually models, and the art for the article has some sort of a flyer for SoB. Does FW have SoB specific flyers.
also regarding the article art. GW doesn't put stuff for armies that aren't actually models, and the art for the article has some sort of a flyer for SoB. Does FW have SoB specific flyers.
Ayyyy, great catch Karol. They used to have a flyer but I'm pretty sure it's Aeronautica now instead of SoB. I bet you're right, because we also got some allusions to a new SoB flyer in some previous art.
GW wrote:Since the release of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, it became clear some of Sean and Steve’s predictions for this codex were almost too on the money – some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended. As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari.
Classic GW. Never admit responsibility for the mess they made themselves by releasing broken products, then act like fixing those mistakes two months later is some kind of big favor and service to the community.
The passage that xttz quoted IS an admission that there are problems, and the nerfs to come ARE taking responsibility. How can you not see that?
How can some one literally say "their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended" and provoke a response that they don't admit to making mistakes?
That's not an admission of fault or responsibility. It's weaselspeak to avoid admitting fault or responsibility. Note the use of the passive tense and qualifying language, not "we screwed up and released overpowered junk," but "some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended." Like it was just some unfortunate thing that just kind of happened without it being anybody's fault.
If your kid stole your car and drove it into a telephone pole and then came home and said "the car was operated with a bit less care than intended" would you pat him on the back for taking responsibility for his actions?
Blackie wrote: I don't justify anything, quite the opposite. In fact GW priced me out. I won't invest money in 40k models anymore and I'll just stick with the collections I have.
Since the end of 7th I've just bought a couple fantasy armies that were still on the catalogue (dark elves and empire) and Necromunda models. No 40k as I don't justify the current prices.
I'm ok with that. I wish GW stuff costs 50% less but amen, nothing I can do about it other than investing only in what I can afford.
Lol. So GW priced you out of 40k - but yet you'll still buy those other models GW raises prices on. That'll show 'em!
40k, not-40k, either way GW still pocketed your $. But you know, justify it however you wish.
Dark Eldar are in the awkward spot that the meta naturally favors them, so balancing them is a question of balancing them for tournament play, or balancing them for two friends playing each other with competitive armies (there is a difference).
I may not be super happy with the current direction of 40K, but I remember a time when GW saying that a codex is too strong and FAQing it within a few weeks of release would be unthinkable.
Yukishiro is right on the money though about the use of passive voice and qualifiers in that statement being very corporate.
GW wrote:Since the release of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, it became clear some of Sean and Steve’s predictions for this codex were almost too on the money – some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended. As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari.
Classic GW. Never admit responsibility for the mess they made themselves by releasing broken products, then act like fixing those mistakes two months later is some kind of big favor and service to the community.
The passage that xttz quoted IS an admission that there are problems, and the nerfs to come ARE taking responsibility. How can you not see that?
How can some one literally say "their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended" and provoke a response that they don't admit to making mistakes?
Yuk is being a bit too harsh, but he’s mostly right. It’s the classic non-apology, apology. Sure they admitted some fault, but they worded this in such a way that diminishes their culpability to lowest level it could be.
“Yeah the codex is too powerful, but that’s only become completely apparent after nearly 2 months. No we aren’t going to address that everyone besides us knew this book was broken the moment it was spoiled. It was simply that some of our play testers are better at predicting the future than us. It took us the 2 months to address this, not because that would give us a window to sell most of our excessive ad-mech shelf product, but because we needed the time to confirm that a consistently 65-70% winrate army is indeed broken. Same thing with drukhari.”
IMO in 8th there was a real push by GW to actually balance the game. In 9th I think the pattern is more to identify and push armies with too high of inventory, let that army be OP until enough of that inventory is sold, then “fix the army” so that GW can still appear to care about the health of the game. 8.5 marines where the turning point on this as marines took too much shelf space prior to them getting their absurd rules. This honestly is the disease that are causing the symptoms I mentioned at the start.
That's not an admission of fault or responsibility. It's weaselspeak to avoid admitting fault or responsibility. Note the use of the passive tense and qualifying language, not "we screwed up and released overpowered junk," but "some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended." Like it was just some unfortunate thing that just kind of happened without it being anybody's fault.
If your kid stole your car and drove it into a telephone pole and then came home and said "the car was operated with a bit less care than intended" would you pat him on the back for taking responsibility for his actions?
It is just some unfortunate thing, we are still talking about a game, the worst thing that can happen is that you don't play anymore. You cannot compare it with something that causes real harm, like crashing a car.
GW wrote:Since the release of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, it became clear some of Sean and Steve’s predictions for this codex were almost too on the money – some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended. As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari.
This is awesome. GW is responding out of loop and ahead of schedule. Community awareness works.
GW wrote:Since the release of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, it became clear some of Sean and Steve’s predictions for this codex were almost too on the money – some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended. As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari.
Classic GW. Never admit responsibility for the mess they made themselves by releasing broken products, then act like fixing those mistakes two months later is some kind of big favor and service to the community.
They didn't create a mess for themselves. They merely met their sales goals on Skitarii & Ballistari. So now you get the real rules for those units.
catbarf wrote: I may not be super happy with the current direction of 40K, but I remember a time when GW saying that a codex is too strong and FAQing it within a few weeks of release would be unthinkable.
Yukishiro is right on the money though about the use of passive voice and qualifiers in that statement being very corporate.
I don't really mind what words they use - as long as they're timely and effective.
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ccs wrote: They didn't create a mess for themselves. They merely met their sales goals on Skitarii & Ballistari. So now you get the real rules for those units.
Oh my god. I'm really over this tripe. You'd say the same thing even if they had a 0 day fix - "everyone saw the leaks and knew how powerful it'd be!". As if GW doesn't want to sell those models any more.
That's not an admission of fault or responsibility. It's weaselspeak to avoid admitting fault or responsibility. Note the use of the passive tense and qualifying language, not "we screwed up and released overpowered junk," but "some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended." Like it was just some unfortunate thing that just kind of happened without it being anybody's fault.
If your kid stole your car and drove it into a telephone pole and then came home and said "the car was operated with a bit less care than intended" would you pat him on the back for taking responsibility for his actions?
It is just some unfortunate thing, we are still talking about a game, the worst thing that can happen is that you don't play anymore. You cannot compare it with something that causes real harm, like crashing a car.
I didn't compare it to crashing a car, I compared it to describing crashing as "the car was operated with a bit less care than intended."
Of course it's just a game. That doesn't mean that the Ad Mech codex just popped up out of nowhere via immaculate conception. That statement is carefully designed to admit the bare minimum responsibility for the situation. The reality is that GW released a badly broken codex because their internal balance procedures are badly broken. The corporate don't-take-responsibility version of that is "some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended."
Blackie wrote: I don't justify anything, quite the opposite. In fact GW priced me out. I won't invest money in 40k models anymore and I'll just stick with the collections I have.
Since the end of 7th I've just bought a couple fantasy armies that were still on the catalogue (dark elves and empire) and Necromunda models. No 40k as I don't justify the current prices.
I'm ok with that. I wish GW stuff costs 50% less but amen, nothing I can do about it other than investing only in what I can afford.
Lol. So GW priced you out of 40k - but yet you'll still buy those other models GW raises prices on. That'll show 'em!
40k, not-40k, either way GW still pocketed your $. But you know, justify it however you wish.
Yes, what I mean is that I can't justify 50$ for 10 troops or 5 specialists and 65+ for a tank. Necromunda and the couple fantasy armies that are still on GW site have boxes that cost much lower. I'm not saying I'll never buy anything GW and contradict myself as I also say I'm buying stuff. I'm also glad I gave my money to GW as I've enjoyed their products and I keep enjoying them, since you know they last decades, if not forever. I just think that the current prices of the most recent 40k releases are too high for what I think is the value of those kits. So I don't care about the hundred upcoming ork releases, IMHO they don't worth what they cost and I have enough orks to ignore them and keep enjoying 40k.
10 guys from fantasy empire cost 30$, or 35$ for 5 knights. That's what I paid a few days ago from the GW site. A necromunda gang is 42 but I can play the game with just the lone standard kit, and I'd have really anything if I buy 4 boxes at most (2 regular gangs, 1 specialists, 1 weapons upgrade which is much cheaper). See what I mean? These are prices that are willing to accept and I'm happy to give GW my money for those miniatures.
But 65$ for Ghaz or 50$ for a buggy? Or 60$ for 10 battle sisters or 80$ for an exorcist? Hell, no. I'd love to collect a sororitas army or to expand even further my ork collection, models are awesome but I'm not willing to pay those prices and I'm ok with that. I have nothing against GW, their business their prices but it's also my choice to give them money or not and to buy kit X instead of kit Y. Is it really hard to understand?
catbarf wrote: I may not be super happy with the current direction of 40K, but I remember a time when GW saying that a codex is too strong and FAQing it within a few weeks of release would be unthinkable.
Yukishiro is right on the money though about the use of passive voice and qualifiers in that statement being very corporate.
I don't really mind what words they use - as long as they're timely and effective.
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ccs wrote: They didn't create a mess for themselves. They merely met their sales goals on Skitarii & Ballistari. So now you get the real rules for those units.
Oh my god. I'm really over this tripe. You'd say the same thing even if they had a 0 day fix - "everyone saw the leaks and knew how powerful it'd be!". As if GW doesn't want to sell those models any more.
The Ad-mech codex was released on may 29th. It is now July 29th. You and I have different definitions of “timely” (and “effective” as well, drukhari are still at a >60% win rate). Imagine if it took 2 months for wizards of the coast to nerf a MTG deck with a 70% winrate in any competitive formate? Maybe you don’t play MTG, but I can tell you, pretty much no one would be praising WOTC when they did actually nerf the deck.
Criticizing prices is fine, but talking down or insulting people who buy the product despite those prices is just being a prick. Even if it bypasses the swiss cheese of Dakka's rule #1 enforcement. Just because it does not carry sufficient value for you, does not mean it doesn't carry sufficient value for someone else.
Hell, break a set of fully-painted minis down to currency-per-hour of entertainment provided and it looks a hell of a lot better than many other forms.
I didn't compare it to crashing a car, I compared it to describing crashing as "the car was operated with a bit less care than intended."
Of course it's just a game. That doesn't mean that the Ad Mech codex just popped up out of nowhere via immaculate conception. That statement is carefully designed to admit the bare minimum responsibility for the situation. The reality is that GW released a badly broken codex because their internal balance procedures are badly broken. The corporate don't-take-responsibility version of that is "some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended."
It is corporate speak, but I don't see the point of being angry about it because GW is a corporation, I expect them to speak as one. It is like being angry at water being wet.
catbarf wrote: I may not be super happy with the current direction of 40K, but I remember a time when GW saying that a codex is too strong and FAQing it within a few weeks of release would be unthinkable.
Yukishiro is right on the money though about the use of passive voice and qualifiers in that statement being very corporate.
I don't really mind what words they use - as long as they're timely and effective.
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ccs wrote: They didn't create a mess for themselves. They merely met their sales goals on Skitarii & Ballistari. So now you get the real rules for those units.
Oh my god. I'm really over this tripe. You'd say the same thing even if they had a 0 day fix - "everyone saw the leaks and knew how powerful it'd be!". As if GW doesn't want to sell those models any more.
The Ad-mech codex was released on may 29th. It is now July 29th. You and I have different definitions of “timely” (and “effective” as well, drukhari are still at a >60% win rate). Imagine if it took 2 months for wizards of the coast to nerf a MTG deck with a 70% winrate in any competitive formate? Maybe you don’t play MTG, but I can tell you, pretty much no one would be praising WOTC when they did actually nerf the deck.
People would be tolerant of that level of turnaround for a small indie developed video game in early access, but that would be an equally invalid analogy.
Don't get me wrong--GW is absurd in its bizarre blend of great ideas and shockingly incompetent ones. But MTG is not a valid comparison to wargaming and never has been.
That's not an admission of fault or responsibility. It's weaselspeak to avoid admitting fault or responsibility. Note the use of the passive tense and qualifying language, not "we screwed up and released overpowered junk," but "some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended." Like it was just some unfortunate thing that just kind of happened without it being anybody's fault.
If your kid stole your car and drove it into a telephone pole and then came home and said "the car was operated with a bit less care than intended" would you pat him on the back for taking responsibility for his actions?
It is just some unfortunate thing, we are still talking about a game, the worst thing that can happen is that you don't play anymore. You cannot compare it with something that causes real harm, like crashing a car.
I didn't compare it to crashing a car, I compared it to describing crashing as "the car was operated with a bit less care than intended."
Of course it's just a game. That doesn't mean that the Ad Mech codex just popped up out of nowhere via immaculate conception. That statement is carefully designed to admit the bare minimum responsibility for the situation. The reality is that GW released a badly broken codex because their internal balance procedures are badly broken. The corporate don't-take-responsibility version of that is "some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended."
Yuk I agree with most of what you’ve said here, but I don’t think anything with the internal balance is broken beyond what it’s supposed to be. Maybe not everything went exactly as intended, but I’m now certain GW has mastered the art of making overpowered rules to sell models.
I didn't compare it to crashing a car, I compared it to describing crashing as "the car was operated with a bit less care than intended."
Of course it's just a game. That doesn't mean that the Ad Mech codex just popped up out of nowhere via immaculate conception. That statement is carefully designed to admit the bare minimum responsibility for the situation. The reality is that GW released a badly broken codex because their internal balance procedures are badly broken. The corporate don't-take-responsibility version of that is "some of their rules interactions were a bit more powerful than intended."
It is corporate speak, but I don't see the point of being angry about it because GW is a corporation, I expect them to speak as one. It is like being angry at water being wet.
catbarf wrote: I may not be super happy with the current direction of 40K, but I remember a time when GW saying that a codex is too strong and FAQing it within a few weeks of release would be unthinkable.
Yukishiro is right on the money though about the use of passive voice and qualifiers in that statement being very corporate.
I don't really mind what words they use - as long as they're timely and effective.
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ccs wrote: They didn't create a mess for themselves. They merely met their sales goals on Skitarii & Ballistari. So now you get the real rules for those units.
Oh my god. I'm really over this tripe. You'd say the same thing even if they had a 0 day fix - "everyone saw the leaks and knew how powerful it'd be!". As if GW doesn't want to sell those models any more.
The Ad-mech codex was released on may 29th. It is now July 29th. You and I have different definitions of “timely” (and “effective” as well, drukhari are still at a >60% win rate). Imagine if it took 2 months for wizards of the coast to nerf a MTG deck with a 70% winrate in any competitive formate? Maybe you don’t play MTG, but I can tell you, pretty much no one would be praising WOTC when they did actually nerf the deck.
People would be tolerant of that level of turnaround for a small indie developed video game in early access, but that would be an equally invalid analogy.
Don't get me wrong--GW is absurd in its bizarre blend of great ideas and shockingly incompetent ones. But MTG is not a valid comparison to wargaming and never has been.
For a single player indie game? sure. For a competitive multiplayer game? Not on your life buddy. In fact, people would be even angrier if a video game character, class, race, ect had this level of winrate. Back when I played LoL, I remember seeing people go out of their minds when a champ had a +60% win rate for more than a few weeks. Because Riot almost always balanced their new champs no later than 2 weeks after being released (and certainly no later than a month). If a champion held a 70+ WR? You could expect an emergency patch that same week.
Not saying I hold GW to this standard (why I made the MTG comparison), but you brought up video games so.
If you can bring up a competitive, player vs player, “something” example where people would be ok with this turnaround, I’m all ears.
But GW professes to be more than just a corporation. All the hobby stuff is carefully designed to cultivate a friendly image. If they were upfront about being a faceless corporate behemoth only interested in extracting the maximum profit from you that'd be one thing, but they very much try to have it both ways.
Also, plenty of other corporations are better at owning up when they make mistakes. Just because "never admit responsibility, always use passive voice, always find ways to minimize the extent of the screw-up" is standard PR speak doesn't mean it's impossible to expect better, especially from a company whose marketing strategy is explicitly aimed at creating a contrary image.
Anyway the only reason I kept responding was because someone claimed that that statement was taking responsibility and admitting fault, which it transparently isn't. If we all agree now that it's classic corporate PR speak that does the exact opposite of taking responsibility and admitting fault, then I don't see any need to further belabor the point.
Bottom of the Warcom article:https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/07/29/metawatch-how-the-mechanicus-and-sororitas-are-shaking-up-warhammer-40000-tiers-in-a-major-way/
"As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari."
I know this is not the rule set etc.....but right here, this is why 40k is in a better place then all previous editions. In the past the meta would be dealing with this Admec crap for YEARS.
All the other stuff complained about on this thread, (power creep, certain armies being more competitive, etc.) has existed in every edition of 40k and I have played them all. The difference is now, sh** gets fixed, or at least there is an attempt to fix it. Could past editions have been better with this treatment? Probably. But that is not what existed and this right here is why 40k is in a better state than it ever has been. Is it perfect, no. But there is no other point in 40k history that I would prefer over the current state.
It is corporate speak, but I don't see the point of being angry about it because GW is a corporation, I expect them to speak as one. It is like being angry at water being wet.
Nah there is always a difference. Like in politics. Politician hires his entire family and buys himself a new house with state money is normal, people don't like it, but it is too be expected. But when he throws an event to open the house as a museum dedicated to his father , to avoid paying rent, paying for food and other expenses like electricity etc people will be very much against it.
GW does similar things. Prices rises, wanting to sell models, nothing knew or wrong with that. But when they somehow try to shape FAQs or Errata as something players should be thankful, and on top of that sometimes pay for. Then there is something wrong going on. Again GW can be as donkey-cave as they want, but stuff like saying we didn't expect is just either making fools of the players or thinking the players are stupid. How unknowladgable about the game do you have to be, to not see that liquifires in a cheap open top transport are kind of a broken?
The difference is now, sh** gets fixed, or at least there is an attempt to fix it.
Got tell GK or CSM players that their stuff got fixed in 9th, when DG and marines got updated. We even got our stuff pushed out of the regular update cycle just so GW can have SoB and Orks in the old release time, when neither the armies was in need of an update like 1ksons or GK.
Yuk I agree with most of what you’ve said here, but I don’t think anything with the internal balance is broken beyond what it’s supposed to be. Maybe not everything went exactly as intended, but I’m now certain GW has mastered the art of making overpowered rules to sell models.
Given how often they fail to do so, even for their fabled poster-boys, the evidence is against you, I'm afraid. Primaris took multiple iterations to become functional, and that was the new face of the entire game, and the entire corporation. There are units that sit on painting/store shelves for multiple editions at a time because the rules are so bad and never get fixed.
GW is hit and miss, consistently. Sometimes things are too good, sometimes things are too awful. They fail at catching both, so the idea they've 'mastered' anything when it comes to entire rules process (from conception all the way to playtesting and final revisions) is clearly wrong.
Some of it is simply that their design process is entirely, utterly wrong: they start with models that have passed the approval process and then start designing rules (sometimes for every little trivial detail on the sprue), rather than creating models based on finished and tested rules.
Bottom of the Warcom article:https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/07/29/metawatch-how-the-mechanicus-and-sororitas-are-shaking-up-warhammer-40000-tiers-in-a-major-way/
"As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari."
I know this is not the rule set etc.....but right here, this is why 40k is in a better place then all previous editions. In the past the meta would be dealing with this Admec crap for YEARS.
All the other stuff complained about on this thread, (power creep, certain armies being more competitive, etc.) has existed in every edition of 40k and I have played them all. The difference is now, sh** gets fixed, or at least there is an attempt to fix it. Could past editions have been better with this treatment? Probably. But that is not what existed and this right here is why 40k is in a better state than it ever has been. Is it perfect, no. But there is no other point in 40k history that I would prefer over the current state.
This is my just my opinion, take it or leave it.
I don't know if this is more of a shift in the playerbase rather than in the game, but I find in the past people were willing to fudge things or adjust for GW not bothering to fix things. Today people who play 40k will give me the spiel about how "at least GW's fixing things, this is the best 40k's ever been" and then in the next sentence tell me that if I don't want to get tabled in two turns I need to go buy different minis because all my stuff is terrible. GW's addressing the most egregious combos now, but the gap between good models and bad models is much wider than it's ever been before (so a "soft list" from a good army book will still casually table anything from a bad army book), GW's no more willing to fix the bad models.
Almost independent of anything GW does I want 40k players to stop telling me 9th is so much of an improvement. I'm glad you're having fun, but from where I'm sitting everything that's wrong with 9th is the exact same stuff that was wrong with 7th only worse. The "game is great as long as you buy a new army you don't like every six months!," "if you don't like GW maybe wargaming isn't the hobby for you?", and "real wargamers have fun getting two-turn tabled every turn, if you want to have a chance you obviously only care about winning" narratives I keep getting out of the 9e advocates are slowly strangling the community.
I don't know if this is more of a shift in the playerbase rather than in the game, but I find in the past people were willing to fudge things or adjust for GW not bothering to fix things. Today people who play 40k will give me the spiel about how "at least GW's fixing things, this is the best 40k's ever been" and then in the next sentence tell me that if I don't want to get tabled in two turns I need to go buy different minis because all my stuff is terrible. GW's addressing the most egregious combos now, but the gap between good models and bad models is much wider than it's ever been before (so a "soft list" from a good army book will still casually table anything from a bad army book), GW's no more willing to fix the bad models.
Almost independent of anything GW does I want 40k players to stop telling me 9th is so much of an improvement. I'm glad you're having fun, but from where I'm sitting everything that's wrong with 9th is the exact same stuff that was wrong with 7th only worse. The "game is great as long as you buy a new army you don't like every six months!," "if you don't like GW maybe wargaming isn't the hobby for you?", and "real wargamers have fun getting two-turn tabled every turn, if you want to have a chance you obviously only care about winning" narratives I keep getting out of the 9e advocates are slowly strangling the community.
Amen to that.
I'd also add that most of those who keep repeating to themselves that 40K now is the best it has ever been have barely played anything pre 9th or pre 8th. Certainly not any of the older editions.
I welcome the attempts of fixing broken rules and balancing armies every 6 months via new point costs, but the end result (ie how fun the game is) is still lacking compared to the past. Even compared to the much hated 7th ed.
catbarf wrote: I may not be super happy with the current direction of 40K, but I remember a time when GW saying that a codex is too strong and FAQing it within a few weeks of release would be unthinkable.
Yukishiro is right on the money though about the use of passive voice and qualifiers in that statement being very corporate.
I don't really mind what words they use - as long as they're timely and effective.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ccs wrote: They didn't create a mess for themselves. They merely met their sales goals on Skitarii & Ballistari. So now you get the real rules for those units.
Oh my god. I'm really over this tripe. You'd say the same thing even if they had a 0 day fix - "everyone saw the leaks and knew how powerful it'd be!". As if GW doesn't want to sell those models any more.
The Ad-mech codex was released on may 29th. It is now July 29th. You and I have different definitions of “timely” (and “effective” as well, drukhari are still at a >60% win rate). Imagine if it took 2 months for wizards of the coast to nerf a MTG deck with a 70% winrate in any competitive formate? Maybe you don’t play MTG, but I can tell you, pretty much no one would be praising WOTC when they did actually nerf the deck.
People would be tolerant of that level of turnaround for a small indie developed video game in early access, but that would be an equally invalid analogy.
Don't get me wrong--GW is absurd in its bizarre blend of great ideas and shockingly incompetent ones. But MTG is not a valid comparison to wargaming and never has been.
For a single player indie game? sure. For a competitive multiplayer game? Not on your life buddy. In fact, people would be even angrier if a video game character, class, race, ect had this level of winrate. Back when I played LoL, I remember seeing people go out of their minds when a champ had a +60% win rate for more than a few weeks. Because Riot almost always balanced their new champs no later than 2 weeks after being released (and certainly no later than a month). If a champion held a 70+ WR? You could expect an emergency patch that same week.
Not saying I hold GW to this standard (why I made the MTG comparison), but you brought up video games so.
If you can bring up a competitive, player vs player, “something” example where people would be ok with this turnaround, I’m all ears.
Not that I feel like defending GW but consider how many games of LoL are played every single day and realise that their 1 week since release will have more data points then a year of 40k tournaments.
Salt donkey wrote: The Ad-mech codex was released on may 29th. It is now July 29th. You and I have different definitions of “timely” (and “effective” as well, drukhari are still at a >60% win rate). Imagine if it took 2 months for wizards of the coast to nerf a MTG deck with a 70% winrate in any competitive formate? Maybe you don’t play MTG, but I can tell you, pretty much no one would be praising WOTC when they did actually nerf the deck.
You also have magnitudes more magic players exposed to broken decks. And let's not get into what it costs to win with MtG.
Amen to that.
I'd also add that most of those who keep repeating to themselves that 40K now is the best it has ever been have barely played anything pre 9th or pre 8th. Certainly not any of the older editions.
I welcome the attempts of fixing broken rules and balancing armies every 6 months via new point costs, but the end result (ie how fun the game is) is still lacking compared to the past. Even compared to the much hated 7th ed.
That is extremely subjective. I had far more fun in 8th than I ever got in 7th, 6th or 5th.
I don't know if this is more of a shift in the playerbase rather than in the game, but I find in the past people were willing to fudge things or adjust for GW not bothering to fix things. Today people who play 40k will give me the spiel about how "at least GW's fixing things, this is the best 40k's ever been" and then in the next sentence tell me that if I don't want to get tabled in two turns I need to go buy different minis because all my stuff is terrible. GW's addressing the most egregious combos now, but the gap between good models and bad models is much wider than it's ever been before (so a "soft list" from a good army book will still casually table anything from a bad army book), GW's no more willing to fix the bad models.
Almost independent of anything GW does I want 40k players to stop telling me 9th is so much of an improvement. I'm glad you're having fun, but from where I'm sitting everything that's wrong with 9th is the exact same stuff that was wrong with 7th only worse. The "game is great as long as you buy a new army you don't like every six months!," "if you don't like GW maybe wargaming isn't the hobby for you?", and "real wargamers have fun getting two-turn tabled every turn, if you want to have a chance you obviously only care about winning" narratives I keep getting out of the 9e advocates are slowly strangling the community.
Amen to that.
I'd also add that most of those who keep repeating to themselves that 40K now is the best it has ever been have barely played anything pre 9th or pre 8th. Certainly not any of the older editions.
I welcome the attempts of fixing broken rules and balancing armies every 6 months via new point costs, but the end result (ie how fun the game is) is still lacking compared to the past. Even compared to the much hated 7th ed.
Yea, no. Been playing since 2nd. Got into the hobby through HeroQuest.
Amen to that.
I'd also add that most of those who keep repeating to themselves that 40K now is the best it has ever been have barely played anything pre 9th or pre 8th. Certainly not any of the older editions.
I welcome the attempts of fixing broken rules and balancing armies every 6 months via new point costs, but the end result (ie how fun the game is) is still lacking compared to the past. Even compared to the much hated 7th ed.
That is extremely subjective. I had far more fun in 8th than I ever got in 7th, 6th or 5th.
I had some good fun in 8th (2019 pre SM 2.0 was a really great period, balance-wise and rules-wise pre PA bloat), but I still prefer older editions like 5th and 7th to some extent.
But we're talking about 9th now and it pales in comparison. Rules bloat, obsolete factions, terrible balance, slow release schedule.
And let's not get into what it costs to win with MtG.
That was probably true with a few years ago when Marine armies (which are almost always the most affordable way to go) were the hotness. Now that it's Admech, I don't think you can make an affordability argument if you want the best of the best in 40k. Then again, I haven't checked the prices of MTG singles in a few years, so maybe it's also gone insane. But we're at the point where an Admech player can basically expect to pay $1 per point, which is ludicrous.
Yuk I agree with most of what you’ve said here, but I don’t think anything with the internal balance is broken beyond what it’s supposed to be. Maybe not everything went exactly as intended, but I’m now certain GW has mastered the art of making overpowered rules to sell models.
Given how often they fail to do so, even for their fabled poster-boys, the evidence is against you, I'm afraid. Primaris took multiple iterations to become functional, and that was the new face of the entire game, and the entire corporation. There are units that sit on painting/store shelves for multiple editions at a time because the rules are so bad and never get fixed.
GW is hit and miss, consistently. Sometimes things are too good, sometimes things are too awful. They fail at catching both, so the idea they've 'mastered' anything when it comes to entire rules process (from conception all the way to playtesting and final revisions) is clearly wrong.
Some of it is simply that their design process is entirely, utterly wrong: they start with models that have passed the approval process and then start designing rules (sometimes for every little trivial detail on the sprue), rather than creating models based on finished and tested rules.
You’re wrong on a key assumption here. GW doesn’t want to make new models OP. They want to make inventory clogging models OP. Why? Because new models sell regardless of their rules, whereas old models don’t.
People assume that GW want sell the maximum amount of the new stuff, but the reality is they want to sell out of the inventory they produce. The want to produce as much product as possible to sell, but GW’s level of production available is very limited for it’s size. the name of the game is produce a new model with rules that will cause it sell what GW can produce, but not anything greater than that “.
As an example for selling too much product look no further than the indomitus debacle as a time where GW sold much more than they wanted, Reasons for this include box set effect “more on this later”, video marketing,worse production than expected, and very effective FMO exploiting. However, there’s no doubt in mind that some of this extra sales came from the perceived-rules power level. I doubt even you disagree with me here. This incident could have gone much better for GW had they handled it better, and they likely lossed potential future gains by making the Indomitus rules worse. At least I doubt that wouldn’t have sold out had eradicators only gotten 1 shot instead of 2.
The weak primaris rules was them going too far the other way. However, I think the 8.5 release was in large part made to sell off a bunch of the non-primaris stuff that didn’t sell enough with the first books release. Who knows exactly, but you are assuming GW was unhappy with how primaris sold at first , and I’m not so sure it was that far behind expectations,
Which leads us to now. With the ork release we see them again shaping the environment to make the correct number of sales. The “box set effect” I was talking about early is that new box sets sell well unless the value perceived as very low (and GW didn’t know this until that terrible eldar, psychic awakening came out). That said GW Rarely gives more than 1 unit very good rules on each side in a given box set, We see this again with the current ork beastsnagga box, where only the squig riders are very good. However, you’ll notice that untie outside of the box tend to be priced to move (T-Rex, better battle wagon) and also that the last ork release models also got improved (to move off all the leftover orktober product).
This is a clear system, and it’s why GWs stock as risen so much recently.
I had some good fun in 8th (2019 pre SM 2.0 was a really great period, balance-wise and rules-wise pre PA bloat), but I still prefer older editions like 5th and 7th to some extent.
But we're talking about 9th now and it pales in comparison. Rules bloat, obsolete factions, terrible balance, slow release schedule.
Yeah I don't see it, and at least when it comes to 9th's release schedule, while slower than 8th, is still far faster than 7th and earlier release schedules in which only Space Marines had a guaranteed release each edition.
When people say new GW is old GW with better marketing (which honestly, it is a big change considering how old GW had a stupid disdain for marketing), that also means the old editions have pretty much the same issues that 9th has, because GW hasn't become worse at writing rules, they just always have been kinda awful at it.
And let's not get into what it costs to win with MtG.
That was probably true with a few years ago when Marine armies (which are almost always the most affordable way to go) were the hotness. Now that it's Admech, I don't think you can make an affordability argument if you want the best of the best in 40k. Then again, I haven't checked the prices of MTG singles in a few years, so maybe it's also gone insane. But we're at the point where an Admech player can basically expect to pay $1 per point, which is ludicrous.
Admech is sort of the exception that proves the rule, but that army will still be useful 10 years from now over the quarterly buy in for MtG.
I love Commander, but I am under no delusion that I will ever be able to play competitively simply because I won't spend $50+ for certain cards in decks that play in ways I find completely unfun.
And let's not get into what it costs to win with MtG.
That was probably true with a few years ago when Marine armies (which are almost always the most affordable way to go) were the hotness. Now that it's Admech, I don't think you can make an affordability argument if you want the best of the best in 40k. Then again, I haven't checked the prices of MTG singles in a few years, so maybe it's also gone insane. But we're at the point where an Admech player can basically expect to pay $1 per point, which is ludicrous.
Admech is sort of the exception that proves the rule, but that army will still be useful 10 years from now over the quarterly buy in for MtG.
I love Commander, but I am under no delusion that I will ever be able to play competitively simply because I won't spend $50+ for certain cards in decks that play in ways I find completely unfun.
Yeah, I hear you. But kitchen table MtG is just as valid as beer and pretzels 40k, so those expensive cards don't have to go to waste (though yes, I know exactly what you mean and I couldn't stomach paying that much for cardboard either.)
When people say new GW is old GW with better marketing (which honestly, it is a big change considering how old GW had a stupid disdain for marketing), that also means the old editions have pretty much the same issues that 9th has, because GW hasn't become worse at writing rules, they just always have been kinda awful at it.
There's truth here. But I think the reason that GW looks worse these days is because the world has moved on, but GW largely hasn't. Back in the 90s and early 00s not updating your broken book releases in a timely fashion was more excusable. In 2021, we expect more because we have reason to expect more. There are probably people patting themselves on the back in GWHQ that it "only" took them 2 months to nerf the Ad Mech mess they released, but that's a snail's pace compared to the speed with which competitive gaming generally is now adjusted and balanced.
GW needs to either embrace more dynamic balancing, or it needs to put more effort into not releasing broken junk in the first place. Stuff like waiting a month for them to fix the Sisters codex to have Paragons not cost 240 points a model and ignore D1 weapons isn't good enough, nor is releasing the broken junk they did for DE and Ad Mech and then taking months to fix what was obvious to people within days was completely busted.
And let's not get into what it costs to win with MtG.
That was probably true with a few years ago when Marine armies (which are almost always the most affordable way to go) were the hotness. Now that it's Admech, I don't think you can make an affordability argument if you want the best of the best in 40k. Then again, I haven't checked the prices of MTG singles in a few years, so maybe it's also gone insane. But we're at the point where an Admech player can basically expect to pay $1 per point, which is ludicrous.
MTG is hard to compare with as it has an insane range between the floor and ceiling. The floor can be as low as popping out to the store with your buddy and each buying a $15 starter deck (though these can be inconsistent, you will have a miserable time if you use the bad one versus the better one your friend got while playing waiting for the Peter Noone concert to start...). The ceiling easily gets into the 10s of thousands of dollars for eternal formats, if you can even find copies of some of the cards to buy.
Bottom of the Warcom article:https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/07/29/metawatch-how-the-mechanicus-and-sororitas-are-shaking-up-warhammer-40000-tiers-in-a-major-way/
"As a result, expect to see a FAQ release for Adeptus Mechanicus tomorrow dealing with some of the sharpest ends of their collective stick – in particular, large blocks of Skitarii troops and some of the interactions over-tuning Ironstrider Ballistari."
I know this is not the rule set etc.....but right here, this is why 40k is in a better place then all previous editions. In the past the meta would be dealing with this Admec crap for YEARS.
All the other stuff complained about on this thread, (power creep, certain armies being more competitive, etc.) has existed in every edition of 40k and I have played them all. The difference is now, sh** gets fixed, or at least there is an attempt to fix it. Could past editions have been better with this treatment? Probably. But that is not what existed and this right here is why 40k is in a better state than it ever has been. Is it perfect, no. But there is no other point in 40k history that I would prefer over the current state.
This is my just my opinion, take it or leave it.
I remember 40k back when Chaos SM had codex 3.5 (great codex btw) and I played regularly starting 5th edition.
I echo all of what xeen stated.
The absolute gripe with tournaments and competitive lists was the absolute lack of support from GW.
I'd take 9th edition, with the current support, over any edition and I say that having issues with how the game is played today.
yukishiro1 wrote: GW needs to either embrace more dynamic balancing, or it needs to put more effort into not releasing broken junk in the first place. Stuff like waiting a month for them to fix the Sisters codex to have Paragons not cost 240 points a model and ignore D1 weapons isn't good enough, nor is releasing the broken junk they did for DE and Ad Mech and then taking months to fix what was obvious to people within days was completely busted.
I most certainly agree. I prefer the preventative solution instead where they catch obvious typos and mistakes before the book is off to the presses. But considering how little they pay their designers I'd be surprised if they even pay for a copy editor.
Salt donkey wrote: The Ad-mech codex was released on may 29th. It is now July 29th. You and I have different definitions of “timely” (and “effective” as well, drukhari are still at a >60% win rate). Imagine if it took 2 months for wizards of the coast to nerf a MTG deck with a 70% winrate in any competitive formate? Maybe you don’t play MTG, but I can tell you, pretty much no one would be praising WOTC when they did actually nerf the deck.
Two months is pretty quick when a fair chunk of that time can't generate useful data. Most people didn't start immediately winning tournaments with Lucius AdMech on May 29th. It can take time to assemble & paint up new lists, and many players have practice games to trial those lists before competitions! Some tournament formats don't even allow brand new books to be used until a few weeks after release, allowing players to have a chance to learn about them first. GW shouldn't really be accepting a bunch of game results from random folks playing TTS on May 30th. They need reliable data from organised events.
To be honest I'm glad GW waited a little while for fixes. Just because you think something is broken doesn't mean you know how much or how to fix it. Seeing the difference between a 55/60/65/70% win rate is an indication on how strong the nerf bat needs to swing. The alternative would be more kneejerk changes as we saw for the Commissar nerf a few years ago.
Seeing a wide range of results helps find if there is more than one issue to fix. They could have easily thrown out a nerf to Skitarii in mid-June and missed the Ironstrider issue completely. Piecemeal balances changes are even worse for the game than a slight delay.
I don't know if this is more of a shift in the playerbase rather than in the game, but I find in the past people were willing to fudge things or adjust for GW not bothering to fix things.
In my experience, folks who play casually in houses or garages with friends do still put in hot fixes. I just had a conversation today about how my group allows Inquisitorial detachments and exception to breaking army purity rules, and just a few weeks ago, I mentioned that we also made Platoon Commanders HQ choices rather than elites in order to better fit the needs of the Imperial Faction in our map based campaign.
People who play competitively, or play with strangers, or play in neutral locations like gaming clubs may not have the options to do these things. That's not their fault- these folks don't really have the option of house-ruling.
Today people who play 40k will give me the spiel about how "at least GW's fixing things, this is the best 40k's ever been"
I've given this response before, and when I have, I've done so under the assumption that the person I'm responding to belongs to the group I described above- they can't house-rule because of where they play or who they play with; in that context, this advice/ feedback is valid. If you've played for 30 years and never been able to house-rule, this IS a good time to be playing, because official fixes do come now, where they never did before.
and then in the next sentence tell me that if I don't want to get tabled in two turns I need to go buy different minis because all my stuff is terrible.
This sucks man. I'm sorry folks said that to you- I see it as pretty bad advice/ feedback. Some of my go-to advice for people in those situations probably wouldn't feel any better- first thing I'd do is ask about underperforming units and comb the dex for any strats/ relics/ chapter tactics/ auras or psychic powers that could offset the most egregious weaknesses of the problem units. Of course, you'd have probably done that already too, so my advice still wouldn't be helpful. I'd ask about your choices of secondaries. Then I'd inquire about cover. Then I'd ask if you had the option of playing Crusade, which might offer other kinds of satisfaction than victory, and may also offer battle honours that can comensate for the weakness of underperforming units.
GW's addressing the most egregious combos now, but the gap between good models and bad models is much wider than it's ever been before (so a "soft list" from a good army book will still casually table anything from a bad army book),
Maybe? But I'm not so sure. Using only 9th edition codices, pick two armies. For one army, make the best army that you can make at 25, 50, 100 and 150 PL. Then do it again for 500, 1000, 2000 and 3000 points. For the other army, make the worst. Then play them against each other.
Which game was most imbalanced? If a 2000 point battle feels worse than a 100 PL battle, might the problem be related to having to nickel and dime the cost of optimizing a unit via points rather than "Worst Edition Ever?" If an Incursion sized game with either points or PL feels better than its corresponding Strike Force game, might the default Strike Force game size be the problem and not Worst Edition Ever?
Now look, I know that can come across as someone telling you how to play, which is also not going to feel great. I'm really not trying to tell people how to play; I'm inquiring about how much of the current game they've actually played, and pointing out that if there are ways to play that they haven't tried yet which might be more satisfying, playing in those ways is the cheapest, most effort free way to solve the problem, because as your fellow gamer, and just all around compassionate dude, I just want you to be happy.
Tend to agree here; the update fixes do try to be minimal. Fixing the problem with the least amount of change is the best solution, but sometimes in their efforts to achieve "the least amount of change" they do err on the side of not fixing the problem. The flipside is that if they did fix underperforming units by reworking them from the ground up, just as many people would be upset about how extreme the changes are.
Almost independent of anything GW does I want 40k players to stop telling me 9th is so much of an improvement. I'm glad you're having fun, but from where I'm sitting everything that's wrong with 9th is the exact same stuff that was wrong with 7th only worse.
Well, okay. But how is that different than folks who are having fun being told by other players that they are wrong because it's the worst edition ever? We get just as sick of our beliefs and feelings being questioned or challenged, and just as many of us have been on the receiving end of hostile responses when things start to escalate. I believe that negative anti-GW opinions are more common in Dakka General than positive pro-GW opinions, and I feel like people who enjoy the game probably feel what you feel only more often because 80% of everything we read here is negative.
The "game is great as long as you buy a new army you don't like every six months!,"
Again, this is terrible. I can recall seeing this comment made to illustrate a problem, but I can't recall ever seeing it expressed by someone who was saying it as genuine advice; that's not to say it hasn't happened. I've certainly never suggested this myself- I tend to suggest any alternative to chasing the meta.
"if you don't like GW maybe wargaming isn't the hobby for you?",
I can't recall this either. Most people, if they were going to go this route, would say maybe 40k isn't for you. Many would list other games that might make you happier- they'd probably advise Bolt Action, X-Wing, Infinity... There's a list. The you get guys like me, who think you'd be happier if you were able to continue using the models and resources you've already invested in; we'd recommend Crusade, Apocalypse, Kill Team.
and "real wargamers have fun getting two-turn tabled every turn, if you want to have a chance you obviously only care about winning" narratives I keep getting out of the 9e advocates are slowly strangling the community.
So first off, yeah, there are some people who escalate to win at all costs pretty quickly and pretty aggressively. I typically don't throw WAAC around until the discussion escalates, and even then I try to avoid it. But I do say stuff that might come across that way; as a Crusade player, I care far more about achieving agendas than winning, because that's the way the system encourages me to play. If I get tabled turn two, but a single unit of Repentia redeem themselves in the eyes of the Emperor, even though I've just suffered an embarrassing defeat, it's still going to feel like an awesome game, because one unit completed a quest they've been working on over multiple games.
If you don't have a 9th dex yet for your faction of choice, that's a problem. But it is an edition churn problem, not a 9th edition problem.
As for 9e advocates strangling the community, I think we need to discuss who you mean by "community" and unpack the statement a bit. The Warhammer 40k Community? The Dakka General Community? The Wargame Community?
I mean, if we hypothesize that the best way to support a community based on a game is to ensure that the game continues to be played, those who support 9th edition are doing a lot for the community. Sure, there are people who are still playing older editions that have completely boycotted GW. If they didn't have us satisfied folks to keep the game going, how long would they continue to play fifth ed oldhammer and post in Dakka 40k General?
Dakka itself would survive the demise of GW, because it's not exclusively a 40k or even GW forum. But this particular forum wouldn't be here without satisfied people spending money on the game. So how exactly are we bad for the community?
I get it- financial success =/= game integrity. But the dollars coming in have to mean that somebody, somewhere likes what's going on.
GW continues to financially succeed only because they've created this massive self-feeding ecosystem and setting they have a monopoly over, which allows them, barring truly catastrophic fuckups, to weather their own price increases and the half-assed rules created far too slowly by underpaid rules writers.
I know it's no small order, but what GW needs is some form of noteworthy competition that might lead them to bother to put out a quality product at a reasonable price in the first place; Instead, as what is often the only game in town, they could just dangle bat feces on a string and call it a codex knowing people will pay for it anyway, so you get undertested codexes with glaring errors and gamebreaking combos every couple months, and the prices will just keep going up.
It's why I keep advocating 3d printing and alternate rulesets - There needs to be a viable alternative to 40K, not necessarily to destroy GW, but in order to put pressure on them to make 40K itself actually worthy of your time and money.
CEO Kasen wrote: GW continues to financially succeed only because they've created this massive self-feeding ecosystem and setting they have a monopoly over, which allows them, barring truly catastrophic fuckups, to weather their own price increases and the half-assed rules created far too slowly by underpaid rules writers.
I know it's no small order, but what GW needs is some form of noteworthy competition that might lead them to bother to put out a quality product at a reasonable price in the first place; Instead, as what is often the only game in town, they could just dangle bat feces on a string and call it a codex knowing people will pay for it anyway, so you get undertested codexes with glaring errors and gamebreaking combos every couple months, and the prices will just keep going up.
It's why I keep advocating 3d printing and alternate rulesets - There needs to be a viable alternative to 40K, not necessarily to destroy GW, but in order to put pressure on them to make 40K itself actually worthy of your time and money.
CEO Kasen wrote: GW continues to financially succeed only because they've created this massive self-feeding ecosystem and setting they have a monopoly over, which allows them, barring truly catastrophic fuckups, to weather their own price increases and the half-assed rules created far too slowly by underpaid rules writers.
I know it's no small order, but what GW needs is some form of noteworthy competition that might lead them to bother to put out a quality product at a reasonable price in the first place; Instead, as what is often the only game in town, they could just dangle bat feces on a string and call it a codex knowing people will pay for it anyway, so you get undertested codexes with glaring errors and gamebreaking combos every couple months, and the prices will just keep going up.
It's why I keep advocating 3d printing and alternate rulesets - There needs to be a viable alternative to 40K, not necessarily to destroy GW, but in order to put pressure on them to make 40K itself actually worthy of your time and money.
Well put. That's about the crux of the problem
I love that despite our divergent political viewpoints, we can just come together and agree on "Screw these guys.*"
* For their own good and the health of the game, of course.
I don't think 3d printing and alternate rulestets can put pressure on GW.
We need a comparable corporation that can compete by creating its own self-sustaining ecosystem with an unique IP. Basically that it is capable of beating GW at its own game.
I've never had more fun in the last few years than pulling out my 5th ed rulebook with my friend and playing that again. It feels so much more genuine without all the bloat everywhere. Everything I need is in my codex and that's that.
a_typical_hero wrote: I couldn't care less how GW phrases it or if they make a statement at all.
What counts is that there will be an errata tomorrow.
Same here. We should be encouraging GW to do this more, not showing them that the playerbase will be unhappy even when they do fix things. Like, at least stop to say 'I am glad they are fixing this, but...' before leaping into paragraphs describing how they did it badly.
Tyran wrote: I don't think 3d printing and alternate rulestets can put pressure on GW.
We need a comparable corporation that can compete by creating its own self-sustaining ecosystem with an unique IP. Basically that it is capable of beating GW at its own game.
In general, outside of war, the only thing that can bring a very big company down it its own structure. A ton of companies did it over time, often missing an important thing, they thought people wouldn't need or buy, or when they decided that people should really like something, but they don't.
Other companies won't kill GW. But if in 20 years people decide that they are interested in painting mostly, and not so much in to gaming, but GW decides to sell only pre paints, which are hard to paint over, it could kill the company.
Also player retention can be something that kills GW. If they keep it up there is no way, that my generation in 20-30 years is going to have the same number of players, painters, etc as the there are now among 30-40y old today. And there is a point, at which a 300$ for a box of 5 tacticals, maybe too much for even a 30+ year old to buy.
kirotheavenger wrote: What boggles my mind is every time you raise the price issue, people come down on you like "no! If you buy this boxset you save so much money, every character alone is worth £25!"
Just... urgh... that's not how value works
Well that is the real joke isn't it. They have inflated the prices so high they can rip you off in a box set for a monopose character or two and then make you think it's a deal only by comparing it to how over the top expensive all the other offerings have become. I'd say its quite clever if it wasn't so awful at the same time. I remember when characters were like 15 USD, now you are looking at 30 or more for generics and around the 50 mark for named or " strong " ones.
Admech is sort of the exception that proves the rule, but that army will still be useful 10 years from now over the quarterly buy in for MtG.
I love Commander, but I am under no delusion that I will ever be able to play competitively simply because I won't spend $50+ for certain cards in decks that play in ways I find completely unfun.
A full set of cards from a new MtG set bought from china costs a lot less, then then 2000pts recast army though. You can easily cover a year of playing with an investment of 200-350$ per year. And there is unplayable or unusable cards in an entire regular set . On the other hand you can buy a regular GW army, even a recast one at 2/3 the price, but you can easily end up with a bad army for 700 plus dollars, and that is assuming a full recast army. If someone goes for an army which isn't recast or GW originals, even from second hand, the cost of an army become astronomically high. So it is not a very favorable comparation.
CEO Kasen wrote: GW continues to financially succeed only because they've created this massive self-feeding ecosystem and setting they have a monopoly over, which allows them, barring truly catastrophic fuckups, to weather their own price increases and the half-assed rules created far too slowly by underpaid rules writers.
I know it's no small order, but what GW needs is some form of noteworthy competition that might lead them to bother to put out a quality product at a reasonable price in the first place; Instead, as what is often the only game in town, they could just dangle bat feces on a string and call it a codex knowing people will pay for it anyway, so you get undertested codexes with glaring errors and gamebreaking combos every couple months, and the prices will just keep going up.
It's why I keep advocating 3d printing and alternate rulesets - There needs to be a viable alternative to 40K, not necessarily to destroy GW, but in order to put pressure on them to make 40K itself actually worthy of your time and money.
The problem is the fans as much as GW. You see it here all the time, people with the opinion that "I'm having my fun and thats all that matters". They don't want to hold GW to a higher standard even though it would improve their enjoyment of the game as well. It boggles the mind. Having GW fix it gakky practices would benefit them but because they're okay with being gouged and paying for broken at release codexes somehow theres no point in trying to fix it? Its like Stolkholm syndrome.
PenitentJake wrote: ...As for 9e advocates strangling the community, I think we need to discuss who you mean by "community" and unpack the statement a bit. The Warhammer 40k Community? The Dakka General Community? The Wargame Community?...
Everyone. Dakka. People I know who play 40k. People I meet randomly at game stores. People I meet randomly on the Internet. I wouldn't be ranting about "the community" as a general phenomenon except that I have zero counterexamples; everyone I've spoken to about 9th is either giving me the same cookie-cutter spiel presuming I'm somehow not playing it right, or has quit. Even you, a perfectly pleasant person who's only trying to help, have in the course of your post told me that everything would be fine if I tried Crusade (it isn't; if I'm getting tabled in two turns because my models are terrible in matched play games I'm still getting tabled in two turns because my models are terrible in Crusade games, and the satisfaction of getting some minute advancement after getting tabled is really undercut by the fact that the people whose models aren't terrible are also getting advancements; yes, I have tried it) and that if I had a 9e Codex everything would be fine (which it wouldn't; the one army I used to own that got a 9e Codex (Deathwatch) got a pile of straight-up nerfs to things that didn't need nerfing and ended up more unplayable than if I'd just kept using their 8e book, which I can't, because that's not the Officially Sanctioned Way To Play The Game (TM) (R) (C)), presuming that if I were playing the game the way you are I'd be having fun. You're well-intentioned. Thank you for being that way. But we've had this argument a lot now and I don't think telling me that Crusade will solve all my problems again is going to make much difference.
CEO Kasen wrote: GW continues to financially succeed only because they've created this massive self-feeding ecosystem and setting they have a monopoly over, which allows them, barring truly catastrophic fuckups, to weather their own price increases and the half-assed rules created far too slowly by underpaid rules writers.
I know it's no small order, but what GW needs is some form of noteworthy competition that might lead them to bother to put out a quality product at a reasonable price in the first place; Instead, as what is often the only game in town, they could just dangle bat feces on a string and call it a codex knowing people will pay for it anyway, so you get undertested codexes with glaring errors and gamebreaking combos every couple months, and the prices will just keep going up.
It's why I keep advocating 3d printing and alternate rulesets - There needs to be a viable alternative to 40K, not necessarily to destroy GW, but in order to put pressure on them to make 40K itself actually worthy of your time and money.
The problem is the fans as much as GW. You see it here all the time, people with the opinion that "I'm having my fun and thats all that matters". They don't want to hold GW to a higher standard even though it would improve their enjoyment of the game as well. It boggles the mind. Having GW fix it gakky practices would benefit them but because they're okay with being gouged and paying for broken at release codexes somehow theres no point in trying to fix it? Its like Stolkholm syndrome.
As someone that was baited to return with the change of tune from 7th to 8th only for me to have my main army destroyed more or less, getting priced out and then getting sold 4 separate books for his faction (5) that still is there... yeah. The harsh truth is, and the harder this hits the longer you have been partaking, that GW has adopted a videogame marketing stratgey, including all the bad practices, and cranked that to 11.
Meanwhile we hear how much GW has improved, in regards to rules, but it stands to reason that 8th and 9th only really improved due to streamlining any actual depth out of the game and that lead to bloating rules with how many releases at the end of 8th? Hell we even have now cut content being sold separately, as a form of DLC equivalent.
Also the quality aspect that people praise is just, not there, 2w csm are not there despite being an easy FAQ fix, GSC still are a army crippled by its own design despite it being able to be fixed with a half decent FAQ and CA. CA still costs money including the pts update manual, because monetising a balance patch is acceptable by and large seemngly for the community.. The recent crackdown on the fandom also just shows how completely monopolistic GW's behaviour and strategy is, especially since Warhammer + on that part of the Hobby, BUT GW HAS INCREASED PARTICIPATION..
PenitentJake wrote: ...As for 9e advocates strangling the community, I think we need to discuss who you mean by "community" and unpack the statement a bit. The Warhammer 40k Community? The Dakka General Community? The Wargame Community?...
Everyone. Dakka. People I know who play 40k. People I meet randomly at game stores. People I meet randomly on the Internet. I wouldn't be ranting about "the community" as a general phenomenon except that I have zero counterexamples; everyone I've spoken to about 9th is either giving me the same cookie-cutter spiel presuming I'm somehow not playing it right, or has quit. Even you, a perfectly pleasant person who's only trying to help, have in the course of your post told me that everything would be fine if I tried Crusade (it isn't; if I'm getting tabled in two turns because my models are terrible in matched play games I'm still getting tabled in two turns because my models are terrible in Crusade games, and the satisfaction of getting some minute advancement after getting tabled is really undercut by the fact that the people whose models aren't terrible are also getting advancements; yes, I have tried it) and that if I had a 9e Codex everything would be fine (which it wouldn't; the one army I used to own that got a 9e Codex (Deathwatch) got a pile of straight-up nerfs to things that didn't need nerfing and ended up more unplayable than if I'd just kept using their 8e book, which I can't, because that's not the Officially Sanctioned Way To Play The Game (TM) (R) (C)), presuming that if I were playing the game the way you are I'd be having fun. You're well-intentioned. Thank you for being that way. But we've had this argument a lot now and I don't think telling me that Crusade will solve all my problems again is going to make much difference.
So how do you want to play 40k?
What's stopping you and a few friends from simply getting together, making a list of changes, & applying them to your games?
At this point the lowest-effort way to get a version of 40k that I'd want to play is probably patching xenos into 30k...
...What's stopping you and a few friends from simply getting together, making a list of changes, & applying them to your games?...
The fact that where I am it seems like the attitude of the 40k players is driving people who don't want to play tournament-standard 9th to quit wargaming entirely instead of trying to hack on the rules or play something else. Which is why I describe the attitude of the people who are playing tournament-standard 9th as "strangling the community".
The fact that where I am it seems like the attitude of the 40k players is driving people who don't want to play tournament-standard 9th to quit wargaming entirely instead of trying to hack on the rules or play something else. Which is why I describe the attitude of the people who are playing tournament-standard 9th as "strangling the community".
I think this is very powerful, and reinforced by the community.
If someone says they're not a fan of 9th edition for whatever reason, I can't suggest houserules or old hammer because 9th ed fans will jump on me about how bad 7th was, or how great GW is now, etc etc.
They very much set the position of "9th edition is the best it can be", so people that don't like it figure their only option is to leave. I can't really complain, my Necromunda group is swelling from all the disillusioned 40k players
That is all true and very much an issue I think there is no real answer for. People who love 9th will love it even if their core faction has 20 books with their rules in them, the models cost 200$ for new guard krieg box and 50% of a codex needs to be faqed day 1. That is obviously hyperbole for comedy sake but suffice to say GW can do little bad in some points of view.
In other points of view the game is broken and far from a great place for them to play. So no amount of real ground that can be had between these different view points.
I would say I had a lot of hope in 8th edition, but now I'm seeing a lot of the same things that made 7th bad, bloat, power creep, formations ( as armies of renown ) and add crazy prizes to the mix and over all this doesn't feel like a great time for me.
I'm glad others love it, but don't discount those who do not as I think really both views are valid based on what you want to tolerate or feel good with.
Interesting chat with the local GW manager yesterday. I talked about feeling a bit out of sync with 9th having played a grand total of one game and then only recently and feeling all at sea with all the changes to the relatively new rulebook (indeed almost brand new considering how much I have used it).
He felt he was in the same boat (had only 2 games of 40k in 9th, both disastrous like mine) and lots of customers had said similar things.
Ended talking about whether the new kill team might be bigger than expected with 40k players perhaps drifting over to that if its a nice self contained release.
This isn't meant to be an attack, but how can you feel "in" sync with a game you've played literally once?
I guess to come across as a 9th edition-liking community strangler - I find it hard to take a lot of the criticisms of 40k expressed on Dakka seriously because it tends to go "9th sucks, it just sucks, obviously though I've not played it, in fact I last gave GW any money some time back in early 7th, 5th or 2nd, but I can 100% confirm it just sucks".
Tyel wrote: This isn't meant to be an attack, but how can you feel "in" sync with a game you've played literally once?
I guess to come across as a 9th edition-liking community strangler - I find it hard to take a lot of the criticisms of 40k expressed on Dakka seriously because it tends to go "9th sucks, it just sucks, obviously though I've not played it, in fact I last gave GW any money some time back in early 7th, 5th or 2nd, but I can 100% confirm it just sucks".
So I skipped 3rd through 7th after a couple of games of 3rd. But in 8th I started playing at the start and as each new bit was added I kept abreast of it. The fragmentation of the rules didn't effect me because each bit was added whilst I was paying attention.
9th started with new elements and bits of 8th edition (which bits having now I think changed). There have been a bunch of new rules, FAQs, codex etc that have completely passed me by as I wasn't out regularly playing. Hence coming to it now and trying to get my head around which rules are in and which are out isn't straightforward.
I felt in sync with 8th because it was a complete release at the start that gradually changed. 9th is a bit more of a mess and that is exacerbated by not keeping abreast of what has been going on.
Every time I have had an opportunity to play 40k in the last month now the club has restarted I have ultimately opted to play something else that is easier to get the rules for. I tried once and I suspect the game was as painful for the oppo as me due to the mistakes I had made with list creation and mistakes in game. This didn't happen when getting into 8th which is my reference point.
9th might be great (cover looks a lot better, not sold on the new shorter ranged game though), but its that difficulty of getting back into it in the same way I was for 8th which is making me cool rapidly towards it.
Games like this are heavily reliant on momentum, and it's very easy to lose that when everyone stops being able to play for so long. However the release schedule didn't stop, so often only the Very Online kind of player will have fully kept up.
For the first few weeks after reopening my local club organised 40K & AOS games at low point values, ran by someone who had actively kept up to date on changes. Instead of playing one 2000pt game in an evening like before, we played 2-3 smaller games with rotating opponents. It let people re-learn the old rules as well the new ones, as there were quite a few club members who hadn't played at all for 9-18 months.
The momentum point is I think the right way of communicating what I was trying to say. The momentum with eighth started all in at launch. 9th was scattered across old 8th edition books and new ones and it has got more complicated since then.
Our Crusade effort might fit that bill, but there is still a fair amount of different stuff to the core game to absorb first and some forces now have their rules scattered in different places.
Tyel wrote: This isn't meant to be an attack, but how can you feel "in" sync with a game you've played literally once?
I guess to come across as a 9th edition-liking community strangler - I find it hard to take a lot of the criticisms of 40k expressed on Dakka seriously because it tends to go "9th sucks, it just sucks, obviously though I've not played it, in fact I last gave GW any money some time back in early 7th, 5th or 2nd, but I can 100% confirm it just sucks".
Oh that is easy. Imagine you want to play an army of magic wielding space knights, who blast their enemies with their guns and powers of their mind, only to find out after 2-3 games, that the lore you like has nothing to do with the table top rules reality. A wake up in 2-3 games, but even after one game you feel kind of a iffy.
I had that feeling in my 2ed game, which was less then 2 days after the official GK codex droping down in 8th. And it only got worse and worse with every game, and other factions getting their own books. Took me like 2 years to realise that GW isn't obliged to produce or fix the rules they make, and that balance is what people want for other armies. Ah and the most important lesson being that coming FAQ/errata X will fix your bad rules is a lie. Thankfully for GW after 2 years of playing I invested too much time and money, to just leave.
Tyel wrote: This isn't meant to be an attack, but how can you feel "in" sync with a game you've played literally once?
I guess to come across as a 9th edition-liking community strangler - I find it hard to take a lot of the criticisms of 40k expressed on Dakka seriously because it tends to go "9th sucks, it just sucks, obviously though I've not played it, in fact I last gave GW any money some time back in early 7th, 5th or 2nd, but I can 100% confirm it just sucks".
When did Codex: Strawmen get released? I must have missed it. I've not seen anyone hating on 9th without very valid reasons and the last time I checked 9th Ed didn't invalidate models bought in previous editions. At least not on a large scale (RIP Elysians and R&H).
Tyel wrote: This isn't meant to be an attack, but how can you feel "in" sync with a game you've played literally once?
I guess to come across as a 9th edition-liking community strangler - I find it hard to take a lot of the criticisms of 40k expressed on Dakka seriously because it tends to go "9th sucks, it just sucks, obviously though I've not played it, in fact I last gave GW any money some time back in early 7th, 5th or 2nd, but I can 100% confirm it just sucks".
I have a small example of why I dislike 9th, which, while minor, sorta resonates with me as an example of "wrongness". I've only played a few games mind you, and none so far using Marines.
Smoke Launchers are a Stratagem. . . Like, fething why?!
It may seem like a minor point but there were multiple times in 8th where I employed a Rhino rush up the table for the sake of the mission/initiative, and many Rhinos would pop smoke to help ride out the inevitable counterfire. Something about the removal of the ability to pull a tactic like that and sticking it behind a CP cost (and for one unit only) just really rubs me the wrong way, and seems sort of indicative of larger problems.
AnomanderRake wrote: satisfaction of getting some minute advancement after getting tabled is really undercut by the fact that the people whose models aren't terrible are also getting advancements.
Crusade is not the panacea for 9th "matched play" ills that some people think it is.
The problems are more fundamental when you need to balance the abilities of a unit both with & without powerups. The shift from baked in abilities to a resource managed style has really killed the game without heavy houserules for me. Glad I play in a permissive environment.
Tyel wrote: This isn't meant to be an attack, but how can you feel "in" sync with a game you've played literally once?
I guess to come across as a 9th edition-liking community strangler - I find it hard to take a lot of the criticisms of 40k expressed on Dakka seriously because it tends to go "9th sucks, it just sucks, obviously though I've not played it, in fact I last gave GW any money some time back in early 7th, 5th or 2nd, but I can 100% confirm it just sucks".
When did Codex: Strawmen get released? I must have missed it. I've not seen anyone hating on 9th without very valid reasons and the last time I checked 9th Ed didn't invalidate models bought in previous editions. At least not on a large scale (RIP Elysians and R&H).
If you had a proper build GK army with all models armed with falchions, bar a few hammers here and there, then your army was very much invalidated by the points costs hike of falchions. You litterally can't field the same army and fit in to 2k pts, and that is ingoring any rules changes to falchions or other weapon efficiency.
If someone played a BA+castellans+IG lists, their list no longer is valid in 9th. Same could be said about GSC as they run a lot of IG and tyranid stuff, for which they are punished harshly in 9th.
Karol wrote: Thankfully for GW after 2 years of playing I invested too much time and money, to just leave.
You keep peddling this sunk cost fallacy. You're not trapped, and the constant 'woe is me and the army I picked' is a little rediculous.
Two years isn't even that long... I know people who have quit gacha games that they played longer than that. Probably spent more than Karol did on 40k, too.
I just think 9th would have been really close to ideal if they didn't decide to up the power and deadliness of codexes and and complexity of army rules. The base game rules are excellent, but too many things within army books are obnoxious and I don't think they have ever been more needlessly complicated
Cynista wrote: I just think 9th would have been really close to ideal if they didn't decide to up the power and deadliness of codexes and and complexity of army rules. The base game rules are excellent, but too many things within army books are obnoxious and I don't think they have ever been more needlessly complicated
You've just described the entire history of GW. "This game would have been fantastic if they had the discipline to not go mad with all the army rules!" describes every edition of 40k, every edition of WHFB, every edition of LotR, every specialist game...
Cynista wrote: I just think 9th would have been really close to ideal if they didn't decide to up the power and deadliness of codexes and and complexity of army rules. The base game rules are excellent, but too many things within army books are obnoxious and I don't think they have ever been more needlessly complicated
You've just described the entire history of GW. "This game would have been fantastic if they had the discipline to not go mad with all the army rules!" describes every edition of 40k, every edition of WHFB, every edition of LotR, every specialist game...
Maybe GW should have not started with armies like orks, sob or DE etc who were already mid tier, but redo the really bad ones first like tau, knights, gsc etc
Cynista wrote: I just think 9th would have been really close to ideal if they didn't decide to up the power and deadliness of codexes and and complexity of army rules. The base game rules are excellent, but too many things within army books are obnoxious and I don't think they have ever been more needlessly complicated
You've just described the entire history of GW. "This game would have been fantastic if they had the discipline to not go mad with all the army rules!" describes every edition of 40k, every edition of WHFB, every edition of LotR, every specialist game...
Maybe GW should have not started with armies like orks, sob or DE etc who were already mid tier, but redo the really bad ones first like tau, knights, gsc etc
But those armies were not bad in 8th and GW certainly does not playtest correctly to identify those armies would be become bad in 9th because of the changes to the mission structure. Nor would redoing these armies even necessarily help, they all suffer from the fundamental problem that their army philosophy does not match favourably with having to spend a turn standing in the open on an objective in the midfield.
GW has their rules read months in advance. If someone decides to write a rules for a faction that will not work in the new setting, like terrain interactions for imperial knights or gsc, then it would be odd to assume that the faction will somehow just deal with it. If you write a codex that only works as a soup, and then remove the option to efficiently soup in the next edition. Then it is natural to assume that the army will not work within the new rule set.
If knights can't score and take objectives like other armies, then , and I am saying this as a non game designer, maybe knights should also have an different way to score and take objectives? And this doesn't even require a codex, it could be done on a one page PDF, just to let armies hold on till they get a new codex.
Models dictate Codex releases not rules. A holdover PDF doesn't get people buying a new army while they wait. A holdover PDF also doesn't make money and corporate clearly thinks it's done enough "good" over the last year.
If an army is bad, then at best what GW can get is people that get trapped in to the army, with a transition pdf the army should be enticing enough , if the pdf is writen well enough, for people to still buy the army.
Karol wrote: If an army is bad, then at best what GW can get is people that get trapped in to the army, with a transition pdf the army should be enticing enough , if the pdf is writen well enough, for people to still buy the army.
Thats not necessarily true. I've played Orks, Necrons, Space Marines, Deathwatch, CSM, Daemonkin, Daemons, Astra Militarum and Drukhari in 40k, not in that order. I only really start an army because I'm bored playing the one I have and want to try new rules/models/paintstyles and while I still play both Guard and CSM, they are not the same armies I had back in 5th and 6th respectively. I've found that 40k hobbyists don't tend to stick with one army, even if they stop playing 40k they usually move to AoS, LotR or sometimes a specialist game like Necromunda. GW doesn't need to care about significant rules balance IMO because of the appeal the models/settings have and the broad range of products means that usually there is something for everyone. Don't like the amount of rules you have to buy to play 40k? OK here's one book for LotR with literally everything and campaigns are optional. Don't like collecting a huge army? How about Necromunda or Warcry where one box sorts you out.
Obviously this isn't the case for all people everywhere but GW isn't going to operate based on the 40k scene in rural Alabama.
Back to my point about rules. IMOGW doesn't care if you don't like your rules because either:
A - You will start a new army/system and likely spend more money on their product.
B - Give up, at which point they don't care because 12 new people bought starter sets in the time it took for you to decide to quit the hobby.
It sucks but there comes a point where it comes down to you and your community to make your own happiness.
As a side anecdote, I've not played loads of 9th yet, a lot of 8th but not 9th. I have played only Deathwatch against T'au and one game against Necrons and have lost every game. I play with themed lists as much as possible (i.e. Firstborn only Deathwatch, Kabal only Drukhari) and with the limits on my collection this doesn't translate to effective lists. I've been playing since 5th and I'm so bad at the game and have such apathy towards meta gaming or spending hours making lists that my joy comes from converting, making up stories and to a degree painting.
Okey, so first difference I noticed. There are very few new people that start the game with doing 6 armies in the first 2-3 months of playing. I am sure that there are places in the world where this is possible. But I can assure you that for most people under 20 years, it is not.
And yeah you are right, with the way how armies stop being fun to play it does seem to be true, that in order to play w40k you should not play one army, but like 3 or 4 , maybe even go in to other games. Which again creates a huge problem for all the people that can afford one. And those people very much do get trapped. Because even if they have money to buy models every month, getting a new 2000pts army will take months, if not years. And face with such a prospect a lot of people just quit. w40k has a horrible player retention, most people that are starting don't even make it to the end of an edition, not to mention play more then one.
It would be nice, if at least on the forums you were told that when you are starting. And not given the fairy tale of play what you want and if paint long enough you will learn to like it. Followed by the good old, all armies get to shine at some point. Of course no mentions that some armies were good and fun to play 20 years ago.
I mean if someone had cousin that wanted to play w40k, and I stress it, wanted to play, and his army of choice was something like tau or csm. Would you tell them to go for it? I maybe if you really didn't like them. But if someone came up to me mid 8th and asked if playing GK is a good idea, I would tell them that it is not and that it is in fact a very bad idea.
Over all good rules for armies, or at least workable rule sets make model lines generate sells all the time. You don't end up with just marines being sellable all edition through, and other factions sell well for 3-4 months after the codex drops.
Karol wrote: Okey, so first difference I noticed. There are very few new people that start the game with doing 6 armies in the first 2-3 months of playing. I am sure that there are places in the world where this is possible. But I can assure you that for most people under 20 years, it is not.
Once upon a time, this was absolutely true; I even think it's still mostly true, because established players are slow to change the way they think about the game. For some people, 40k is always going to be the 2k matched play game, no matter how much more than that GW actually puts in the book.
But honestly? In the new system it's WAY smarter (IMHO) to buy 3 different Combat Patrol boxes for $170 each than it is to buy a $510 army from a single faction. Especially if two of the factions you buy can ally- that way you can play an Incursion game if someone wants. This is why I don't have to worry about "finding a game" - you probably have friends that would play if you supplied the models. Then you don't have to worry about metachasing or toxic environments. You'll also have more tools at your disposal to build narrative campaigns, which is my personal favourite part of the hobby.
But again, unless you can break the 2k matched pattern in your head, you might never get to see this side of the game.
Karol wrote: Okey, so first difference I noticed. There are very few new people that start the game with doing 6 armies in the first 2-3 months of playing. I am sure that there are places in the world where this is possible. But I can assure you that for most people under 20 years, it is not.
Karol, I started playing 40k a decade ago, I'm not expecting people to be buying 4 armies within 6 months.
And yeah you are right, with the way how armies stop being fun to play it does seem to be true, that in order to play w40k you should not play one army, but like 3 or 4 , maybe even go in to other games. Which again creates a huge problem for all the people that can afford one. And those people very much do get trapped. Because even if they have money to buy models every month, getting a new 2000pts army will take months, if not years. And face with such a prospect a lot of people just quit. w40k has a horrible player retention, most people that are starting don't even make it to the end of an edition, not to mention play more then one.
Your problem seems to lie in an inability to play anything less than 2k Points, which to me is just weird. That's a community issue and GW has no control over your community.
40k has bad player retention due to numerous reasons. It's sold to parents for their kids and when the kids grow up they lose interest because it's nerdy and not cool, although hopefully, this attitude is changing. Warhammer requires a location and player base to be played which is not possible at all times. For example, when I moved away from home for a year of study, none of my friends were there and the local GW wasn't great. When I came back home for visits I'd go to my local GW for LotR club on Friday and Warlords on Saturday, sometimes I'd even go to a friend's on Sunday before heading back to college. Most importantly, life comes at you fast and you never know if you'll be working 50 hours a week with all your free time taken up by sleep or overtime. Rules being bad is close to the bottom of the list for poor player retention.
I mean if someone had cousin that wanted to play w40k, and I stress it, wanted to play, and his army of choice was something like tau or csm. Would you tell them to go for it? I maybe if you really didn't like them. But if someone came up to me mid 8th and asked if playing GK is a good idea, I would tell them that it is not and that it is in fact a very bad idea.
I would tell someone they should go for what they think looks cool and then I would adapt myself to suit them as a beginner. Again, it's not GW's fault if your community is hostile to new starts.
Over all good rules for armies, or at least workable rule sets make model lines generate sells all the time. You don't end up with just marines being sellable all edition through, and other factions sell well for 3-4 months after the codex drops.
For veteran players who know the game? Sure, rules matter to some of these people. For new starts with no idea? Nah chief, they just want cool models.
Karol wrote: Okey, so first difference I noticed. There are very few new people that start the game with doing 6 armies in the first 2-3 months of playing. I am sure that there are places in the world where this is possible. But I can assure you that for most people under 20 years, it is not.
Once upon a time, this was absolutely true; I even think it's still mostly true, because established players are slow to change the way they think about the game. For some people, 40k is always going to be the 2k matched play game, no matter how much more than that GW actually puts in the book.
But honestly? In the new system it's WAY smarter (IMHO) to buy 3 different Combat Patrol boxes for $170 each than it is to buy a $510 army from a single faction. Especially if two of the factions you buy can ally- that way you can play an Incursion game if someone wants. This is why I don't have to worry about "finding a game" - you probably have friends that would play if you supplied the models. Then you don't have to worry about metachasing or toxic environments. You'll also have more tools at your disposal to build narrative campaigns, which is my personal favourite part of the hobby.
But again, unless you can break the 2k matched pattern in your head, you might never get to see this side of the game.
Or...for $510 you could have two factions each at the full tournament-standard game size for two or three different skirmish games. Or a starter box for every single faction in something like Warmachine or Infinity. Breaking the 2k matched pattern in your head doesn't make 40k anything less than stupidly expensive to have multiple armies for, by industry standards.
I remember 5th too well. It's balance was even worse than it's now if you compare codex and pre-codex armies. It had awful random missions that screwed a lot of army archetypes from the get go, codex releases were rare and there were no erratas and very few rule faqs, and there were lots of rule issues that just had to be rolled-off during the game. There was horrible inside-codex balance, just remember what possessed and vespids looked like. It had horrible multi-wound system (go on, try to kill those 10 paladins with 4+++ and all the different gear. You could shoot at them half game and still have a top-performing squad with a bunch of wounded models. Parking lots were extremely boring and yet extremely common. Grey knights made daemons auto-loose because they couldn't deploy their armies, blood angels were vanilla Marines +1 with no downsides. Space wolves were vanilla Marines +2 with no downsides... I can go on.
And people who played earlier say even worse things of 4th.
Yet it was new to most players. And thus really fun. But than 6th came and it was indeed the worst. So, 5th looked amazing in comparison. 7th started good but quickly power-creeped to the bottom right above 6th. 8th and 9th are just so much better than anything before, at least since 5th.
Or...for $510 you could have two factions each at the full tournament-standard game size for two or three different skirmish games. Or a starter box for every single faction in something like Warmachine or Infinity. Breaking the 2k matched pattern in your head doesn't make 40k anything less than stupidly expensive to have multiple armies for, by industry standards.
Certainly true, and if people have more fun playing Infinity or Warmachine, all the power to them; I'm certainly not going to try and twist their arm to stick with 40k. I would also hope they could find Infinity forums and Warmachine forums where they could write happy posts instead of continue visiting 40k forums to write unhappy posts. I'm not sure why more of that doesn't happen.
I've played a few other miniature games over the years- some that I liked. But most of them just aren't big enough for me- they're restricted to a handful of factions, or there aren't as many options within each faction. Or they're too infantry skewed, or too vehicle skewed. Or the background isn't imaginative or expansive. Some games do one element of what I like about 40k better than 40k does, but when that is the case, it's always at the expense of one of the other things I like about 40k. Based on what I am looking for, no other game does as much as 40k does as well as 40k does it.
Your experience will not be the same as mine, because you're clearly looking for different things in game system than I am.
Karol, I started playing 40k a decade ago, I'm not expecting people to be buying 4 armies within 6 months.
Well then we are back to square one. Either get lucky and get an army which was good for the edition you play in and have fun for 2-3 years, last one edition if it is unfun or wait the symbolic 10 years, which I think in case of some factions isn't symbolic. At least if the stories about chaos being good and fun in 3.5 ed last time. And I accept it, as it is the reality. But I don't have to like it. And I think GW could be better. I mean even if they have a codex draft, how hard is it to make a new pdf with rules updates, saying okey you will not get the new game mechanics, relics, stratagems etc. But we made your psycanons do 2D or your csm now have 2W. Does it lower GW sales? no. Would it make the sales higher, I think so, but I could be wrong. Plus all my talk about player retention etc make be a bad argument. For all I know GW may want people to buy an army for an edition, and then either buy a new one or leave and never return.
Your problem seems to lie in an inability to play anything less than 2k Points, which to me is just weird. That's a community issue and GW has no control over your community.
40k has bad player retention due to numerous reasons. It's sold to parents for their kids and when the kids grow up they lose interest because it's nerdy and not cool, although hopefully, this attitude is changing. Warhammer requires a location and player base to be played which is not possible at all times. For example, when I moved away from home for a year of study, none of my friends were there and the local GW wasn't great. When I came back home for visits I'd go to my local GW for LotR club on Friday and Warlords on Saturday, sometimes I'd even go to a friend's on Sunday before heading back to college. Most importantly, life comes at you fast and you never know if you'll be working 50 hours a week with all your free time taken up by sleep or overtime. Rules being bad is close to the bottom of the list for poor player retention.
I am not sure if you understand understand what impact your description have on someone my age or younger. You maybe under estimating what 1 or 3 years is for someone who is 13-15. I started at 13, played almost all 8th, and now a year of 9th. W40k is almost 1/4th of my entire life. You really don't want to hear that 1/4th of your entire time is just a wait time for something to maybe get better, or that you have to wait another 1-3 years to have fun. Lets say my army, without the need to buy a ton of new models, becomes fun to play in 2 years. I would be 18 by then, which for me means a break for military service. If I come back at 20-21 to the game my faction may not exist, or require a full rebuy. Which then would mean that all the years prior to that, all the money, time etc spend on the game was wasted time. And that I may have just bought a new phone every year instead of saving up for CA, codex and rulebook.
I would tell someone they should go for what they think looks cool and then I would adapt myself to suit them as a beginner. Again, it's not GW's fault if your community is hostile to new starts.
It is not a question of hostile community. People just couldn't and still can't afford bad armies. When I stared in 8th, most of my games were played vs 30year old veterans with gigantic collections. They were against people from my school. And those games were very unfun, there was also no space for adjustment, because no one had more then 1700-2000pts. Plus GW points aren't very balanced anyway. 2000pts of Inari were not the same thing as 2000pts of sm army made out of know no fear and dark imperium.
For veteran players who know the game? Sure, rules matter to some of these people. For new starts with no idea? Nah chief, they just want cool models.
Well my army didn't and still doesn't have a start collecting or patrol box. And when it does come up, I don't think I will buy it. I don't like power armoured GK, and I have more then enough termintors for a 2000pts army. And all it takes to check what is good and what is bad, is to just check the internet. Only problem is with factions like GK, who didn't have a winning army posted on multiple forums, because they weren't winning much world wide at the start of 8th. Of course I didn't know that back then. I think my very first posts on this forum were about how to make GK army work, because I was really confused how unsyngeric and inefficient the army was. Took like 2 years to understand that GW is very much willing to make bad armies and not fix them. Real mind blower that was for me, and a lesson for life outside of w40k too.
I feel like I should say I legitimately love Karol's posts. I feel like people write him off because he complains a lot but he is a perfect example of what 40k can be like for a lot of people that defenders (the US-centric ones especially) on this forum forget exist. He has a limited choice of opponents and those who do play have garbage attitude, its too expensive for him to just buy new stuff to fix his army and GWs release policies are ruining his experience of the game.
He's like the ultimate counter to people who like to say "I'm having fun so everything is fine."
[quote=Karol 799934 11187572 nullWell then we are back to square one. Either get lucky and get an army which was good for the edition you play in and have fun for 2-3 years, last one edition if it is unfun or wait the symbolic 10 years, which I think in case of some factions isn't symbolic. At least if the stories about chaos being good and fun in 3.5 ed last time. And I accept it, as it is the reality. But I don't have to like it. And I think GW could be better. I mean even if they have a codex draft, how hard is it to make a new pdf with rules updates, saying okey you will not get the new game mechanics, relics, stratagems etc. But we made your psycanons do 2D or your csm now have 2W. Does it lower GW sales? no. Would it make the sales higher, I think so, but I could be wrong. Plus all my talk about player retention etc make be a bad argument. For all I know GW may want people to buy an army for an edition, and then either buy a new one or leave and never return.
The biggest issue I'm seeing is that you don't think you have control over your hobby when you do. Grey Knights suck? Ok, how about a game against a friend where their army has to hold out for as long as possible against infinite Grey Knights. How about doing army swaps where each person swaps armies for that game. Take some initiative and be proactive about the change you want to see in your hobby.
Spoiler:
I am not sure if you understand understand what impact your description have on someone my age or younger. You maybe under estimating what 1 or 3 years is for someone who is 13-15. I started at 13, played almost all 8th, and now a year of 9th. W40k is almost 1/4th of my entire life. You really don't want to hear that 1/4th of your entire time is just a wait time for something to maybe get better, or that you have to wait another 1-3 years to have fun. Lets say my army, without the need to buy a ton of new models, becomes fun to play in 2 years. I would be 18 by then, which for me means a break for military service. If I come back at 20-21 to the game my faction may not exist, or require a full rebuy. Which then would mean that all the years prior to that, all the money, time etc spend on the game was wasted time. And that I may have just bought a new phone every year instead of saving up for CA, codex and rulebook.
You talked about rules being a main cause for bad player retention and I gave you bigger reasons.
As I said above, start taking action if your army is bad. Play different missions, point levels, literally anything except coming on here for the past year and whining about how bad Grey Knights are.
Spoiler:
It is not a question of hostile community. People just couldn't and still can't afford bad armies. When I stared in 8th, most of my games were played vs 30year old veterans with gigantic collections. They were against people from my school. And those games were very unfun, there was also no space for adjustment, because no one had more then 1700-2000pts. Plus GW points aren't very balanced anyway. 2000pts of Inari were not the same thing as 2000pts of sm army made out of know no fear and dark imperium.
Again, play different missions and for the love of Pete stop playing 2k games if they make you so miserable.
Spoiler:
Well my army didn't and still doesn't have a start collecting or patrol box. And when it does come up, I don't think I will buy it. I don't like power armoured GK, and I have more then enough termintors for a 2000pts army. And all it takes to check what is good and what is bad, is to just check the internet. Only problem is with factions like GK, who didn't have a winning army posted on multiple forums, because they weren't winning much world wide at the start of 8th. Of course I didn't know that back then. I think my very first posts on this forum were about how to make GK army work, because I was really confused how unsyngeric and inefficient the army was. Took like 2 years to understand that GW is very much willing to make bad armies and not fix them. Real mind blower that was for me, and a lesson for life outside of w40k too.
The only other piece of advice I can give you is that if 40k makes you so miserable that you find literally no joy in it then just stop doing it. All you do is come on the forum and complain about Grey Knights being bad and you never take advice from anyone. Take the advice or stop because what you are currently doing is not good for your mental health.
I don't mean to write off smaller games, but IMO you need at least 1000pts to really enjoy 40k.
At 500pts there's just too few moving parts for a game. Even at 1000 it's so-so, I get why 2000 is 'standard'.
I do sympathise with Karol's situation. I kinda feel similarly. Although I agree with those posters who say the solution is to just walk away. I hardly ever play 40k, and honestly I take every opportunity I can to replace those 40k games with another game instead.
I feel like you don't know much about Karol's group. Here's the lowdown:
- super hyper competitive
- 2000pts only
- Matched play only
- printed scenarios only
- total adherence to the rules as printed
- only the most up to date rules allowed
- no proxies
- no handicap
No I very much understand Karol's circumstances because they complain about it all the time. If their friends who are in the hobby with them aren't willing to make changes then Karol's only remaining option if they are so miserable is to stop doing the hobby.
I agree with the op. 8th was refreshing at the beginning. I won't play 9th. Been playing since 2nd edition and this edition is downright confusing with rules bloat, special tricks/combos, inflated prices...
I thought 8th was supposed to slow down edition releases as only codex books would change. Took an edition made by players and made it convoluted.
Thanks to 9th I'm saving a ton of cash, except for their specialist games.
455_PWR wrote: I agree with the op. 8th was refreshing at the beginning. I won't play 9th. Been playing since 2nd edition and this edition is downright confusing with rules bloat, special tricks/combos, inflated prices...
I thought 8th was supposed to slow down edition releases as only codex books would change. Took an edition made by players and made it convoluted.
Thanks to 9th I'm saving a ton of cash, except for their specialist games.
Still feel like the problem with 8th and still with 9th is it's very bare bones approach to its core rules. It leaves little in terms of core gameplay so all the variety of gameplay has to come from the codexes. It's a lot harder to design an army codex around other codex's mechanics instead of designing it around a universal set of core rules.
It's why 8th "worked" in the beginning (imo it was and still is simplistic to the point of being unfun) because everything was set back to square one with every army working from their index. Early releases came out a bit tempered but it kept getting more unstable as power creep and rules bloat began to rapidly fester and not enough ways to make units/abilities different/varied but balanced given the tiny design space the designers left for themselves.
The biggest issue I'm seeing is that you don't think you have control over your hobby when you do. Grey Knights suck? Ok, how about a game against a friend where their army has to hold out for as long as possible against infinite Grey Knights. How about doing army swaps where each person swaps armies for that game. Take some initiative and be proactive about the change you want to see in your hobby.
I don't have any friends, and out of the almost 20 people that started playing in 8th ed only 3 people still play, which includes me. Plus we had to change stores, because the one in our town went bankrupt durning covid.
You talked about rules being a main cause for bad player retention and I gave you bigger reasons.
As I said above, start taking action if your army is bad. Play different missions, point levels, literally anything except coming on here for the past year and whining about how bad Grey Knights are.
I really don't want to make it a me kind of a thing. I think this is a general thing for the entire w40k. Players retention seems to be bad all around the world, not just in the two stores I ever played at. And I don't see how changing points will help it either. If someone tells a knight player to play 1000pts, then they are in an even worse situation then they were before. And with most people here having army collections around 2000pts, telling someone you want to play 3k will not really work. And we play all the matched play scenarios, plus local event stuff, but I don't think that translates well to other places in the world, as tournament packs seem to always be kind of a different. There is no going around your army gives up max secondaries, because the design team decided to make abhore the witch a thing. It is like the paint thing, which doesn't affect me, not painted army, opponent with painted army gets 10VPs and as the number of new vs old players is skewed for the later, there is always more painted armies then unpainted ones . So a new player always plays with a handicap. Unless he doesn't play a game till he gets the army fully painted. But that would be kind of a wierd, you would have an army for months and never use it.
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Again, play different missions and for the love of Pete stop playing 2k games if they make you so miserable.
I play all the missions and 2k is the standard size game. Plus how do you make people play other size games anyway? GK don't get better in smaller size games, they in fact get worse, because of the points hike in 9th, not followed by the stats changes. And to show how big the changes are in the new codex all the upgrades save for 2 do not cost points. you have to pay for both falchions if you take them right now, in the new codex, you not only get buffed stats +1W and +1A , but you also still cost less then buying the falchion now. 1750pts of GK is a horrible to play. Not as bad as imperial knights, but still bad.
The only other piece of advice I can give you is that if 40k makes you so miserable that you find literally no joy in it then just stop doing it. All you do is come on the forum and complain about Grey Knights being bad and you never take advice from anyone. Take the advice or stop because what you are currently doing is not good for your mental health.
Take what advice? they make no sense. Ask your friends to play different way. Well first you have to have friends, and second you have to expect other people to not just now. I seen people ask for rules changes, mostly people who came from holland. You get a no, unless you are good friends with the people that decide what is okey and what isn't in the meta. And I am not even local to the place I play at. I already play all the scenarios, and I tried different primars and secondaries. The problem always turned up to be opponents ability to max out secondaries, no matter what I do. And I am not going to quit the game, I paid money for the models just the way other people did. GW owns me at least 6 months of fun playing. After that maybe I will leave, but not before. And I tried to quit in 8th, all did is that I had to up my anti depressants and had problems at school.
I feel like you don't know much about Karol's group. Here's the lowdown: - super hyper competitive - 2000pts only - Matched play only - printed scenarios only - total adherence to the rules as printed - only the most up to date rules allowed - no proxies - no handicap
No, there are no other groups he can play with.
He also never once did as much as buy a single model outside his original purchase to improve his army, rarely ever actually plays at all and refused offers from people willing to buy his army for what he original paid to get him out of the sunk cost problem.
Essentially he will endlessly complain about the game no matter what state GK are in unless his specific collection of models will become so OP that he can curb-stomp the hyper-competitive TFG convention that his store is.
He is as much part of the problem as his store is.
I feel like you don't know much about Karol's group. Here's the lowdown:
- super hyper competitive
- 2000pts only
- Matched play only
- printed scenarios only
- total adherence to the rules as printed
- only the most up to date rules allowed
- no proxies
- no handicap
No, there are no other groups he can play with.
He also never once did as much as buy a single model outside his original purchase to improve his army, rarely ever actually plays at all and refused offers from people willing to buy his army for what he original paid to get him out of the sunk cost problem.
Essentially he will endlessly complain about the game no matter what state GK are in unless his specific collection of models will become so OP that he can curb-stomp the hyper-competitive TFG convention that his store is.
He is as much part of the problem as his store is.
When I first saw his posts, I thought he was trolling, but then I realized that no troll is this dedicated.
Sim-Life wrote: I feel like I should say I legitimately love Karol's posts. I feel like people write him off because he complains a lot but he is a perfect example of what 40k can be like for a lot of people that defenders (the US-centric ones especially) on this forum forget exist. He has a limited choice of opponents and those who do play have garbage attitude, its too expensive for him to just buy new stuff to fix his army and GWs release policies are ruining his experience of the game.
He's like the ultimate counter to people who like to say "I'm having fun so everything is fine."
I feel like you don't know much about Karol's group. Here's the lowdown:
- super hyper competitive
- 2000pts only
- Matched play only
- printed scenarios only
- total adherence to the rules as printed
- only the most up to date rules allowed
- no proxies
- no handicap
No, there are no other groups he can play with.
None of these bolded problems are related to the game being played, though. If you have only a group of super competitive tryhards to interact with, most activities will be miserable.
The point about a faster release schedule I agree with.
Prices are not as clear. While I would appreciate it very much if GW sold their stuff cheaper, the reality is that each individual has to ask themselves if they can afford the hobby they want to participate in. Some have more upfront and running costs, some have less. Not every hobby is equally viable for everyone to pursue. I can't afford a horse or a race car for example. You don't see me posting on a car enthusiast forum that prices for turbochargers are too high so my car can't compete in time trial races.
Sim-Life wrote: I feel like I should say I legitimately love Karol's posts. I feel like people write him off because he complains a lot but he is a perfect example of what 40k can be like for a lot of people that defenders (the US-centric ones especially) on this forum forget exist. He has a limited choice of opponents and those who do play have garbage attitude, its too expensive for him to just buy new stuff to fix his army and GWs release policies are ruining his experience of the game.
He's like the ultimate counter to people who like to say "I'm having fun so everything is fine."
I feel like you don't know much about Karol's group. Here's the lowdown:
- super hyper competitive
- 2000pts only
- Matched play only
- printed scenarios only
- total adherence to the rules as printed
- only the most up to date rules allowed
- no proxies
- no handicap
No, there are no other groups he can play with.
None of these bolded problems are related to the game being played, though.
Good thing I never said they were. I said they were issues getting in the way of Karol enjoying the game specifically. Edit: and most of them could be rectified by GW honestly
To address the point you think I was making though, you can have fun losing a game. I've lost enough games of Warmahordes/Infinity/Malifaux to know this, but 40k just isn't a fun game. I don't remember the last time I saw anyone actively playing the game having fun. Its the people whose turn it isn't and who get to talk to friends and have a laugh that are having fun.
The biggest issue I'm seeing is that you don't think you have control over your hobby when you do. Grey Knights suck? Ok, how about a game against a friend where their army has to hold out for as long as possible against infinite Grey Knights. How about doing army swaps where each person swaps armies for that game. Take some initiative and be proactive about the change you want to see in your hobby.
I don't have any friends, and out of the almost 20 people that started playing in 8th ed only 3 people still play, which includes me. Plus we had to change stores, because the one in our town went bankrupt durning covid.
You talked about rules being a main cause for bad player retention and I gave you bigger reasons.
As I said above, start taking action if your army is bad. Play different missions, point levels, literally anything except coming on here for the past year and whining about how bad Grey Knights are.
I really don't want to make it a me kind of a thing. I think this is a general thing for the entire w40k. Players retention seems to be bad all around the world, not just in the two stores I ever played at. And I don't see how changing points will help it either. If someone tells a knight player to play 1000pts, then they are in an even worse situation then they were before. And with most people here having army collections around 2000pts, telling someone you want to play 3k will not really work. And we play all the matched play scenarios, plus local event stuff, but I don't think that translates well to other places in the world, as tournament packs seem to always be kind of a different. There is no going around your army gives up max secondaries, because the design team decided to make abhore the witch a thing. It is like the paint thing, which doesn't affect me, not painted army, opponent with painted army gets 10VPs and as the number of new vs old players is skewed for the later, there is always more painted armies then unpainted ones . So a new player always plays with a handicap. Unless he doesn't play a game till he gets the army fully painted. But that would be kind of a wierd, you would have an army for months and never use it.
a
Again, play different missions and for the love of Pete stop playing 2k games if they make you so miserable.
I play all the missions and 2k is the standard size game. Plus how do you make people play other size games anyway? GK don't get better in smaller size games, they in fact get worse, because of the points hike in 9th, not followed by the stats changes. And to show how big the changes are in the new codex all the upgrades save for 2 do not cost points. you have to pay for both falchions if you take them right now, in the new codex, you not only get buffed stats +1W and +1A , but you also still cost less then buying the falchion now. 1750pts of GK is a horrible to play. Not as bad as imperial knights, but still bad.
The only other piece of advice I can give you is that if 40k makes you so miserable that you find literally no joy in it then just stop doing it. All you do is come on the forum and complain about Grey Knights being bad and you never take advice from anyone. Take the advice or stop because what you are currently doing is not good for your mental health.
Take what advice? they make no sense. Ask your friends to play different way. Well first you have to have friends, and second you have to expect other people to not just now. I seen people ask for rules changes, mostly people who came from holland. You get a no, unless you are good friends with the people that decide what is okey and what isn't in the meta. And I am not even local to the place I play at. I already play all the scenarios, and I tried different primars and secondaries. The problem always turned up to be opponents ability to max out secondaries, no matter what I do. And I am not going to quit the game, I paid money for the models just the way other people did. GW owns me at least 6 months of fun playing. After that maybe I will leave, but not before. And I tried to quit in 8th, all did is that I had to up my anti depressants and had problems at school.
GK could get Drukhari level rules tomorrow and you still wouldn't have any fun playing in your community, lol.
@Karol
In the nicest way possible, most of the problems you are facing are nothing to with how 40k is balanced or how expensive GW models are. Your place of hobby seems to be the most toxic and unwelcoming environment I've ever seen and honestly, I'm not surprised that only 3 people are left out of 20 if that's the kind of thing you experience. Grey Knights getting a good Codex won't change any of the issues you're having.
Insectum7 wrote: The saving grace of 7th was that a lot of the armies had gobs of crazy gak to bring to the table. But it made for totally inaccessible gaming if both people weren't playing with the same level of bonkers.
Balance wise I feel like 8th was worse than current 9th in the post Marine 2.0 period, but alot of GWs trends have just really turned me off the game since then. I was looking forward to 9th, but I dislike the way it's been handled.
Agree with all of this except the note about 7th having any saving graces.
Balance-wise - we are currently in a way better spot imo than we were in 8th during Marine 2.0. I can bring my worst army in 9th and still have a better chance than I had with some of my best armies in 7th. I feel the same way when I compare 9th to 6th. Plus, we are actually finally seeing non-marine releases. What's interesting is that with 9th, as each book comes out, the internet screams and wails "OP" can't be beat, power creep, etc.
Yet, with the exception of Drukhari (which got nerfed quickly), none of the books have reached the level the internet has claimed. Maybe Admech needs a stronger FAQ? IDK - didn't read the latest FAQ. But the game actually seems remarkably balanced atm.
That said, our group did stop playing 9th. We plated a bit when it dropped (Covid took a long time to get to our corner of the world) and we got a ton of games in before a lot of other groups did. It got weird and stale very fast. We figured it was due to the old codexes. So we took a break until 9th ed books arrived. We've recently stopped again. We just don't like it, and I can't put my finger on the issue.
There are some specifics - the codexes needing so much book keeping is annoying for example. And the missions are so stale at this point. 9th feels for us like 5th did for many at the end where it's just "Oh ok - more of the same." We all have big collections and can bring a variety of things to games, but we are just bored with it.
We tried AoS last week and really enjoyed it. We may switch to that for a while.
Good thing I never said they were. I said they were issues getting in the way of Karol enjoying the game specifically.
How are Karol's posts a counter to people saying they are having fun with 40k then, if these problems are local to Karol and his group and are unrelated to the game itself?
Sim-Life wrote: To address the point you think I was making though, you can have fun losing a game. I've lost enough games of Warmahordes/Infinity/Malifaux to know this, but 40k just isn't a fun game. I don't remember the last time I saw anyone actively playing the game having fun. Its the people whose turn it isn't and who get to talk to friends and have a laugh that are having fun.
Also
car analogy
Want to throw in a food analogy there as well?
I did not think you were making a point about having fun losing a game. Your point was that 40k can be bad if you have to play in an environment as Karol's and that that is a good counter to all the people who enjoy 40k. My point is that apart from the drawn out release schedule, none of the points you stated are related to 40k itself and could be a problem with any other activity, too.
I neither need toy soldiers nor a fast car to sustain my body, so I don't see where you could make a good analogy with food. Do you want to allude to that access to affordable and healthy food should be a human right, just as having access to affordable plastic kits from Games Workshop?
Sim-Life wrote: 40k just isn't a fun game. I don't remember the last time I saw anyone actively playing the game having fun. Its the people whose turn it isn't and who get to talk to friends and have a laugh that are having fun.
This is my experience.
Karol may have a cut-throat meta that robs them of the out-of-game aspects that make 40k enjoyable for people, 40k is just fundamentally not that fun.
Well games are a bit like sports, while some requierments are unskipable. Like knowing the rules, knowing when and how they are broken and when they have to be followed to the point etc Other seem to be additional and not really mentioned in the materials GW puts out. They have a ton of pictures and guys going to tournaments and playing games. Ton of stuff about painting. Ton of stuff about lore. But no where does it say, watch out our rule sets are not that great and require you to have friends, because if you run in to strangers the game can become very unfun. Or stuff like you need a big house to play or people to be okey to have you at home. Now my knowladge about how the life of someone 20 or 30 plus is rather limited, as I was real small when my parents were that age, but I have my doubts about the viability of late 20 mid 30s guys invating a 13 year old to play a game at their home. And I litterally can't imagine how this should go the other way around, half the dudes at my old store were the same age as my mom. No way my step dad would let me waltz in with 2-3 dudes to play a game. The only place at home would be the main room and he works there.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Rihgu 799934 11188930 wrote:
GK could get Drukhari level rules tomorrow and you still wouldn't have any fun playing in your community, lol.
That is true. And I could end up like a guy who was one class up that started with me in 8th. His army was made out of two dark empires and 2 redemptor dreads. To makes matter worse, his choice, was Iron Hands. I don't think he got less bashed by other armies then I did in 8th. Then 2.0 came and over night he was considered a persona non grata, who should not be played, because IH are too OP. Was one of the big eye openers in my life. Because before that I thought that people waited for others to get a turn to be the best army, and that turned up to be a false assumption. I try to not think about stuff like that. It doesn't help, and it is like worrying that your mom will die on her way home or something similar, all it does it makes you take more medicin and feel crappy.
The changes are big though that is true. Free falchions make GK cost less with 2 wounds, then what they cost right now with 1. Regular nemezis swords which my dudes actually do have, turn them in to a bit worse blade guards that can teleport. Even if all the entire rule set of the codex is just a reprint of the 8th ed book with PA stuff added, this is a substential change to the army. Not sure if they are going to be DE tier, probably not, but comparing to 8th ed, the quality of playing the army is going to be huge. Although if GW gave the same blessed storm bolters to GK that dominions have, it would be a very scary army. And that it is without any rules changes, which very well may happen.
Good thing I never said they were. I said they were issues getting in the way of Karol enjoying the game specifically.
How are Karol's posts a counter to people saying they are having fun with 40k then, if these problems are local to Karol and his group and are unrelated to the game itself?
Sim-Life wrote: To address the point you think I was making though, you can have fun losing a game. I've lost enough games of Warmahordes/Infinity/Malifaux to know this, but 40k just isn't a fun game. I don't remember the last time I saw anyone actively playing the game having fun. Its the people whose turn it isn't and who get to talk to friends and have a laugh that are having fun.
Also
car analogy
Want to throw in a food analogy there as well?
I did not think you were making a point about having fun losing a game. Your point was that 40k can be bad if you have to play in an environment as Karol's and that that is a good counter to all the people who enjoy 40k. My point is that apart from the drawn out release schedule, none of the points you stated are related to 40k itself and could be a problem with any other activity, too.
I neither need toy soldiers nor a fast car to sustain my body, so I don't see where you could make a good analogy with food. Do you want to allude to that access to affordable and healthy food should be a human right, just as having access to affordable plastic kits from Games Workshop?
Sorry its been a few days since these posts and I lost my train of thought on them.
Actually my point was more about how, when someone says they don't enjoy an aspect of the game people say "well why don't you try playing with other people or changing the rules" like those things are easy to do or convince people of. Karol and a lot of people don't have those luxries. Its like when I say I don't like how unfluffy the armies feel and there is too much book keeping and you say "well just play Crusade, thats fluffy". No, its just adding more book keeping and just adding more rules. It doesn't solve the problem it just tries to sweep them under the rug and work around them.
Also the car analogy thing was more that car analogies are common, as are food analogies and they're totally different situations to toy soldiers. A cheaper Space Marine won't make your army explode.
Well truth be told, not all people that quit w40k before 9th in my town, quit because of the rules. The store closing was a big thing. Now I can take a 2h trip by bus to the store and then a 2,5h trip back. I don't do stuff at home, I have no social life and I go to the store when it doesn't get in the way of training or school stuff. But for some people it was not an option, for example 4 dudes live in the dorm. The have to be in it by 17 for supervised learning. There is no way they can fit 4,5h trip and a 1,5h game in to a span of time between 15 and 17. So they quit. I think they even still have their armies.
Sim-Life wrote: I feel like I should say I legitimately love Karol's posts. I feel like people write him off because he complains a lot but he is a perfect example of what 40k can be like for a lot of people that defenders (the US-centric ones especially) on this forum forget exist. He has a limited choice of opponents and those who do play have garbage attitude, its too expensive for him to just buy new stuff to fix his army and GWs release policies are ruining his experience of the game.
He's like the ultimate counter to people who like to say "I'm having fun so everything is fine."
Sure, but you could apply Karol's group's toxic attitude to essentially any activity and prove that that activity is un-fun.
Like, apply Karol's 40k community to an activity like Chess: one could argue that chess is an inherently unsafe activity and the World Chessling Federation is irresponsible and foolish for not requiring all chess players to wear jock cups because if Karol's group were playing chess they'd be constantly kicking eachother in the genitals under the table, or buying the chess sets with the heaviest pieces possible so that they could throw them at their opponent's head whenever they took a piece, so really the WCF is actively endangering peoples' lives by not having regulations for the heaviness of the chess pieces.
This is what I legitimately go to when Karol makes a complaint like 'all the players at my club model their archers as firing an arrow high up into the air so they can always draw line of sight to everything on the board' or 'all the players at my club will go out and have a smoke break for an hour and a half if they're losing the game, so that you either quit and concede or you have to keep paying hourly for table space'. ANYONE who does ANYTHING with that kind of an attitude will find a billion ways to make your life miserable.
Peer groups at that age can be, to put it kindly, extremely toxic.
If I had even played 40k or D&D or something like that at all at that age in my school, I would have been absolutely ridiculed by my "peers". Things have changed as far as what's "acceptable," but the behavior tendencies of adolescents will probably never change.
My advice to Karol is this: if you enjoy 40k just stick with it. Eventually you'll find a new peer group that's much healthier.
Peer groups at that age can be, to put it kindly, extremely toxic.
If I had even played 40k or D&D or something like that at all at that age in my school, I would have been absolutely ridiculed by my "peers". Things have changed as far as what's "acceptable," but the behavior tendencies of adolescents will probably never change.
My advice to Karol is this: if you enjoy 40k just stick with it. Eventually you'll find a new peer group that's much healthier.
Well, the problem is that he's NOT playing with his peer group.
1) He's stated repeatedly that most of the kids he started with have quit - assorted reasons,
2) He doesn't really have friends.
3) Now, since his local shop closed,, he's even more of the outsider. He's that kid/guy who just shows up on occasion. This, plus being a kid, makes it pretty difficult to be accepted. Acceptance goes a long way to getting people to play the game differently.
4) is financially limited, so making changes to his army is (almost) off the table.
Peer groups at that age can be, to put it kindly, extremely toxic.
If I had even played 40k or D&D or something like that at all at that age in my school, I would have been absolutely ridiculed by my "peers". Things have changed as far as what's "acceptable," but the behavior tendencies of adolescents will probably never change.
My advice to Karol is this: if you enjoy 40k just stick with it. Eventually you'll find a new peer group that's much healthier.
Well, the problem is that he's NOT playing with his peer group.
1) He's stated repeatedly that most of the kids he started with have quit - assorted reasons,
2) He doesn't really have friends.
3) Now, since his local shop closed,, he's even more of the outsider. He's that kid/guy who just shows up on occasion. This, plus being a kid, makes it pretty difficult to be accepted. Acceptance goes a long way to getting people to play the game differently.
4) is financially limited, so making changes to his army is (almost) off the table.
To be fair, some of my friends and I played like total asshats when we were 15, lol.
To be fair, some of my friends and I played like total asshats when we were 15, lol.
Ugg. Back when termies had 3+ 2D6 saves my buddy would roll one dice. If it was a 1 he would hit it with the second die to try and change the result. So obnoxious.
To be fair, some of my friends and I played like total asshats when we were 15, lol.
Ugg. Back when termies had 3+ 2D6 saves my buddy would roll one dice. If it was a 1 he would hit it with the second die to try and change the result. So obnoxious.
Hahahaha! That's pretty good. My buddy would say "rolling out bad luck" and roll the dice over and over until he felt they were "ripe" or whatever. Then he would roll his real roll. We managed to get him to stop that behavior eventually . . .
To be fair, some of my friends and I played like total asshats when we were 15, lol.
Ugg. Back when termies had 3+ 2D6 saves my buddy would roll one dice. If it was a 1 he would hit it with the second die to try and change the result. So obnoxious.
Hahahaha! That's pretty good. My buddy would say "rolling out bad luck" and roll the dice over and over until he felt they were "ripe" or whatever. Then he would roll his real roll. We managed to get him to stop that behavior eventually . . .
Well, everyone knows that a fully painted army gets better rolls! ( and honestly given my garbage rolls at times and my multiple grey models I'm inclined to agree )
The comments about player retention in this thread make me chuckle. There is a clear and present barrier to player retention that is far greater than any rules bloat or faction imbalance could ever hope to account for:
Painting.
Painting is the biggest reason new players give up.
A 2000pt army with even a handful of options to swap in and out of represents dozens if not hundreds of hours of painting and that's just putting vaguely appropriate paint on plastic. Actually producing GOOD paint jobs is several hundred hours of learning before you even bother painting up your actual army.
If the game took 10 seconds to learn and the balance was so pitch perfect you could put literally ANY combination of units on the table and win AND if it was the most fun tabletop wargame ever made, all at the same time; you'd still have significant problems with player retention. Because of painting.
If the goal is to increase player retention NOTHING will go further towards achieving that goal than prepainted models.
ERJAK wrote: The comments about player retention in this thread make me chuckle. There is a clear and present barrier to player retention that is far greater than any rules bloat or faction imbalance could ever hope to account for:
Painting.
Painting is the biggest reason new players give up.
A 2000pt army with even a handful of options to swap in and out of represents dozens if not hundreds of hours of painting and that's just putting vaguely appropriate paint on plastic. Actually producing GOOD paint jobs is several hundred hours of learning before you even bother painting up your actual army.
If the game took 10 seconds to learn and the balance was so pitch perfect you could put literally ANY combination of units on the table and win AND if it was the most fun tabletop wargame ever made, all at the same time; you'd still have significant problems with player retention. Because of painting.
If the goal is to increase player retention NOTHING will go further towards achieving that goal than prepainted models.
I would not like prepainted models but is actually the biggest truth.
I've found it's less painting and more just life moving on. What's fine for some in early secondary school years becomes an issue when they hit their final years. Partners sometimes take up free time and moving away from home to another city for college or university can impact as well. Sometimes people just grow apart for one reason or another. Of course this isn't true for everyone but of the 15ish regulars that used to comprise our group only 5 do Warhammer anymore.
ERJAK wrote: The comments about player retention in this thread make me chuckle. There is a clear and present barrier to player retention that is far greater than any rules bloat or faction imbalance could ever hope to account for:
Painting.
Painting is the biggest reason new players give up.
A 2000pt army with even a handful of options to swap in and out of represents dozens if not hundreds of hours of painting and that's just putting vaguely appropriate paint on plastic. Actually producing GOOD paint jobs is several hundred hours of learning before you even bother painting up your actual army.
If the game took 10 seconds to learn and the balance was so pitch perfect you could put literally ANY combination of units on the table and win AND if it was the most fun tabletop wargame ever made, all at the same time; you'd still have significant problems with player retention. Because of painting.
If the goal is to increase player retention NOTHING will go further towards achieving that goal than prepainted models.
Well I would say it is the biggest reason they don't start, but this is the hobby. Stripping that out takes a bit of the soul out, I think.
Prepainted models helped X-Wing, that's for sure. But the on-board model investment between X-Wing and 40K is huge (though, the collection aspect of X-Wing was much worse in their first version).
Oddly enough, I heard at my LGS (brand-spanking new as of Janguary), there has been more call for AoS than 40K. That may change as two of the bigger shops in the metro have announced that they are regressing back to masking up again, and this one doesn't feel so inclined.
Honestly, I don't think you'll ever build a decades-long 40K-style success out of a licensed IP like Star Wars or LoTR or some such.
Obviously, there's great money to be made with those, if you cash in on the hype. But ultimately, your company is slaved to some other company dictating what you can or cannot do creatively. What units you can add or not add, limiting your design space. Not to mention that as you are successful with your licensed IP, the licenser is gonna raise fees on contract renewals (every 3-5 years?) to cash in as well. And if you are in a lull, the fees gonna kill any and all profit really quick.
ERJAK wrote: The comments about player retention in this thread make me chuckle. There is a clear and present barrier to player retention that is far greater than any rules bloat or faction imbalance could ever hope to account for:
Painting.
Painting is the biggest reason new players give up.
A 2000pt army with even a handful of options to swap in and out of represents dozens if not hundreds of hours of painting and that's just putting vaguely appropriate paint on plastic. Actually producing GOOD paint jobs is several hundred hours of learning before you even bother painting up your actual army.
If the game took 10 seconds to learn and the balance was so pitch perfect you could put literally ANY combination of units on the table and win AND if it was the most fun tabletop wargame ever made, all at the same time; you'd still have significant problems with player retention. Because of painting.
If the goal is to increase player retention NOTHING will go further towards achieving that goal than prepainted models.
ERJAK wrote: The comments about player retention in this thread make me chuckle. There is a clear and present barrier to player retention that is far greater than any rules bloat or faction imbalance could ever hope to account for:
Painting.
Painting is the biggest reason new players give up.
A 2000pt army with even a handful of options to swap in and out of represents dozens if not hundreds of hours of painting and that's just putting vaguely appropriate paint on plastic. Actually producing GOOD paint jobs is several hundred hours of learning before you even bother painting up your actual army.
If the game took 10 seconds to learn and the balance was so pitch perfect you could put literally ANY combination of units on the table and win AND if it was the most fun tabletop wargame ever made, all at the same time; you'd still have significant problems with player retention. Because of painting.
If the goal is to increase player retention NOTHING will go further towards achieving that goal than prepainted models.
Sure. But there're probably more people buying GW for the painting than drop out of the game due to painting. There're probably more people buying GW for painting than actually play the games at all, period. Go check some of those instagram painting hashtags showing off the latest blends and effects and what not. That scene might not be as loud, but it's vastly bigger than the "competitive 40K" Frontline Gaming/Art of War/playing the game scene.
That is a bit like saying that, if you go a tournament and ask there you get the anwser that playing the game is the most important thing. Of course on instangram you are going to get a lot of painters. If you asked on people on ebay, you could come to the conclusion that the most important part of w40k is selling and reselling models.
If model looks or painting the models were the thing that shaped the hobby as most crucial thing, then the sales of stuff would be more flat, there would be no shortages of top tier models or if the production is too low, there would be shortages of both good and bad models, good and bad for playing not painting. But what happens is that the models that are top tier, game wise, are always sold out. Plus while a painter may not be limited in his boxs choices, as someone who plays in a less soup friendly 9th ed, he generally will not do stuff like buying 9 attack bikes or similar stuff.
I don't think pre paints can happen. Not when GW is bound on making people buy paints and paint the models, what ever they like it or not. Pre painted models would be a bit like giving a valid way to be f2p in a mobile game or have an actual chance to win in cassino.
Pre-paints makes sense maybe for small-size specialty games (Warcry etc) where the idea is you buy a box and you're good to go, but I really doubt that's a viable direction for largescale 40k/Sigmar.
Karol wrote: I don't think pre paints can happen. Not when GW is bound on making people buy paints and paint the models, what ever they like it or not. Pre painted models would be a bit like giving a valid way to be f2p in a mobile game or have an actual chance to win in cassino.
Weeell, since the players are still buying models it isn't quite like "viable f2p"; though that is absolutely a thing that happens in many successful mobile games, since whales stop playing when the servers are empty and no one is talking about the game (ergo, having a large base of non-paying customers actually helps keep the paying customers around). A pre-painted model line would be more similar to "dolphins" in a gacha game, light spenders who maybe just drop five bucks per month on the monthly pass and nothing else.
Hmm never thought about that. That would be interesting. Here is a pre painted squad of marines, probably easiest to do, fighting vs pre painted csm in our skirmish game. If you are interested in playing with more models and something other then limited one box infantry stuff, do w40k. But those models are all unpainted. I think you have a very good idea.
ERJAK wrote: The comments about player retention in this thread make me chuckle. There is a clear and present barrier to player retention that is far greater than any rules bloat or faction imbalance could ever hope to account for:
Painting.
Painting is the biggest reason new players give up.
A 2000pt army with even a handful of options to swap in and out of represents dozens if not hundreds of hours of painting and that's just putting vaguely appropriate paint on plastic. Actually producing GOOD paint jobs is several hundred hours of learning before you even bother painting up your actual army.
If the game took 10 seconds to learn and the balance was so pitch perfect you could put literally ANY combination of units on the table and win AND if it was the most fun tabletop wargame ever made, all at the same time; you'd still have significant problems with player retention. Because of painting.
If the goal is to increase player retention NOTHING will go further towards achieving that goal than prepainted models.
I'm just not seeing it. The amount of unpainted plastic out there would seem to indicate otherwise. I can see it as a potential reason some don't start the hobby, but nearly just as many people get into it because of the painting. Heck, at our LGS, more people bought the grey plastic version of the Space Marine Action figure than the painted version. They all wanted to paint their own.
And 2000 points taking HUNDREDS of hours? Hyperbole much? There are so many tutorials out their that show different ways to get a squad done quickly that produce table top standard quality. No one with an internet connection should be spending that much time on an army unless they want to.
Now for pre-paints themselves - Worked for Rackham right? Nope. Mongoose publishing? Nope. Honestly, some of Rackham's pre-paints were even pretty decent. No one bought them, and if they did move to pre-painted miniatures, you'd see a ton of people drop out of the hobby. Likely far more than you would bring in. About the only games I can think of that had any success were the clicks games which were pretty much fads, and X-Wing. And two of the biggest reasons X-Wing had success at all were the facts that it was a Star Wars property and it was competing against the single worst edition of 40k ever. So I'm not really seeing the evidence for pre-paints.
Smoke Launchers are a Stratagem. . . Like, fething why?!
It may seem like a minor point but there were multiple times in 8th where I employed a Rhino rush up the table for the sake of the mission/initiative, and many Rhinos would pop smoke to help ride out the inevitable counterfire. Something about the removal of the ability to pull a tactic like that and sticking it behind a CP cost (and for one unit only) just really rubs me the wrong way, and seems sort of indicative of larger problems.
Its part of the design philosophy though. You move the models around the table, but the tactics/strategy layer comes from cards/CPs.
Fundamentally our way of thinking doesn't fit with the modern game.
My equivalent would be 2nd ed. My mech platoon (3 chimera with troops, 3 'Russ) would roll onto the table, fire all its weapons, pop smoke, turn 2 drive through the smoke, guns blazing.
But now my strategy is meant to be move and fire models, while doing clever gotcha's with cards. I just don't think that way? But a lot of people do and indeed far prefer that to stuff limited by their model selection.
Smoke Launchers are a Stratagem. . . Like, fething why?!
But now my strategy is meant to be move and fire models, while doing clever gotcha's with cards. I just don't think that way? But a lot of people do and indeed far prefer that to stuff limited by their model selection.
No one likes gotchas. I mean some people do but we call those people donkey-caves.
That's not the only gotcha, in that situation it's easy.
Sometimes you think they know about it, and they're just being bold or weighing it against another risk elsewhere.
Then it comes to say the charge phase and you're like "ah ha!" and they respond "oh gak, I didn't realise, I'd have done my whole turn differently". It's too late to rewind, but you'd soured that whole turn and potentially even the whole game and it's not really anyone being a dick, it's just the game.
the_scotsman wrote: can we just. For a quick moment take a journey. And imagine how much. Games workshop would charge. For a pre-painted, pre-assembled model.
HAHHAAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
"Ok little jimmy you may have either an xbox or 10 space marine intercessors."
It's probably worse than you think. They can go two routes - All pre-paints and no more model assembly/painting at all, OR they can have something like "core units" with pre-painted options.
The things is, they go the first route, they no longer make any sales off of hobby items like paint or primer. So those sales have to be made up somehow. They will also have to completely retool. So the cost of that retooling is going to be amortized over the life of the model, but knowing GW, it will probably just be permanently rolled in. THEN you have to account for the fact that they have no more painting articles or tutorials to do. So that's a staff reduction which you might THINK saves money, but now they have a ton of content to make up for in White Dwarf because ... no hobby material .... You also then have to roll in the loss of income due to the fact that a lot of the models they currently have, have had the tooling and R&D costs paid off for years so they are largely just profit and THAT also has to be made up somewhere. So yeah - 10 marines probably would cost darn near an xbox at that point, and that's not even addressing the fact of how many legions of players would insta-quit due to them not making buildable, paintable models.
The other route - the "partial" route would mean setting up completely new tooling so you still have that cost. They go this route they aren't going to make a pre-paint and a standard version of every model, so MAYBE they gain some extra sales from people who didn't want to paint, but those people will run out of options somewhat fast. Then you have the problem that some folks will decide to paint and now the pre-paints they bought originally will never fit in.
It's a lose-lose for GW. Wasn't there even a pre-painted Lord of the Rings game that failed? Am I recalling that correctly? There were even pre-painted marines at one point IIRC ....
Or they could just cast every faction in coloured plastic.
So all Space Marines are deep blue (obviously), all chaos are red, all Orks are green, etc etc.
Thus giving colour definition to armies even without paint. They already do this with the starter.
It would require them splitting Loyalist and Chaos Space Marine vehicles, but to me it seems clear they're diversifying lines more, Death Guard even share very little if anything with their generic CSM buddies now.
kirotheavenger wrote: Or they could just cast every faction in coloured plastic.
So all Space Marines are deep blue (obviously), all chaos are red, all Orks are green, etc etc.
Thus giving colour definition to armies even without paint. They already do this with the starter.
It would require them splitting Loyalist and Chaos Space Marine vehicles, but to me it seems clear they're diversifying lines more, Death Guard even share very little if anything with their generic CSM buddies now.
That's not what ERJAK is talking about though. That's not what pre-paints are ...
ERJAK wrote: The comments about player retention in this thread make me chuckle. There is a clear and present barrier to player retention that is far greater than any rules bloat or faction imbalance could ever hope to account for:
Painting.
Painting is the biggest reason new players give up.
A 2000pt army with even a handful of options to swap in and out of represents dozens if not hundreds of hours of painting and that's just putting vaguely appropriate paint on plastic. Actually producing GOOD paint jobs is several hundred hours of learning before you even bother painting up your actual army.
If the game took 10 seconds to learn and the balance was so pitch perfect you could put literally ANY combination of units on the table and win AND if it was the most fun tabletop wargame ever made, all at the same time; you'd still have significant problems with player retention. Because of painting.
If the goal is to increase player retention NOTHING will go further towards achieving that goal than prepainted models.
I disagree. Building and painting your own army is all part of the allure.
What I see consistently drive players away, new and veterans, are WAAC/TFG players. These people generally have a low appreciation (or none at all) for the other aspects of the hobby (e.g. Modeling, Painting, the Lore) and are so focused on rules and competitive game play to the detriment of other players 'complete hobby experience' that it creates a toxic and discouraging environment.
Edit as to not create confusion between "competitive players" and "tournament players".
I disagree. Building and painting your own army is all part of the allure.
What I see consistently drive players away, new and veterans, are "competitive players". These people generally have a low appreciation (or none at all) for the other aspects of the hobby (e.g. Modeling, Painting, the Lore) and are so focused on rules and competitive game play to the detriment of other players 'complete hobby experience' that it creates a toxic and discouraging environment.
I've played in Tournaments on both sides of the US, I have played in Florida, NC, SC, VA, CT, RI, MA and WA. When I go to tournaments the banter among players over how cool a special model looks or how a kustom job turned out is one of my favorite parts. I have not seen "Toxic and discouraging environment" in those settings. What I have seen as discouraging is the handful of players, and I mean handful, there aren't many of them, of WAAC/TFG players who DONT play tournaments because they tend to lose and instead focus on playing Meta Net Lists in pickup games against newbies. Getting tabled while playing your fluffy Imperial Guard tank list by a Meta gamer spamming MM Attack bikes and other competitive choices isn't fun and I've sadly seen this happen to more new players than it should.
I played against one of these TFG/WAAC players who in a pickup game demanded i measure every single ork models move, in an army of 150 infantry he wanted every single movement measured and refused to let me add advance in at the same time. After round 1 I told him "Have a good one, i'm done" and walked over to play a pickup game against a new kid (about 15) with a nicely painted Salamander army, spent the next 2 hours having a great time while teaching him about the rules.
Jidmah wrote: "Remember that tank can pop smoke for -1 to hit, still want to shoot it?"
Simple. I do this pretty much every game, winning through gotchas is not enjoyable at all.
That's a very different situation from "If this unit is within 6" of this character and your unit has that keyword and I have this warlord trait and my detachment has this faction trait and I use this stratagem because they're equipped with this wargear I get to delete your unit and theres nothing you can do."
Agree, toxic players are much more common among store regulars looking for pick-up groups or private gaming groups than at events. The larger the event, the lower the percentage of TFG. It's that way for pretty much every kind of game.
I also can confirm what ERJAK said. Having brought dozens of players into the game, for many people painting has been a huge motivation killer, though it kind of bleeds into the "my models suck" problem.
Many people start out, work hard to get their stuff painted, play their first few games and then realize that they need to buy and paint even more models to actually be able to win. At that point having to invest all the work to paint more is more of a problem than spending additional money for most - either they quit, or the start fielding large amounts of unpainted models. And the more unpainted models there are, the less is the motivation to actually paint them all.
Jidmah wrote: "Remember that tank can pop smoke for -1 to hit, still want to shoot it?"
Simple. I do this pretty much every game, winning through gotchas is not enjoyable at all.
That's a very different situation from "If this unit is within 6" of this character and your unit has that keyword and I have this warlord trait and my detachment has this faction trait and I use this stratagem because they're equipped with this wargear I get to delete your unit and theres nothing you can do."
Uh, stuff like that has been the very essence of 40k since ever. Stratagems have literally nothing to do with that.
Smoke Launchers are a Stratagem. . . Like, fething why?!
It may seem like a minor point but there were multiple times in 8th where I employed a Rhino rush up the table for the sake of the mission/initiative, and many Rhinos would pop smoke to help ride out the inevitable counterfire. Something about the removal of the ability to pull a tactic like that and sticking it behind a CP cost (and for one unit only) just really rubs me the wrong way, and seems sort of indicative of larger problems.
Its part of the design philosophy though. You move the models around the table, but the tactics/strategy layer comes from cards/CPs.
Fundamentally our way of thinking doesn't fit with the modern game.
My equivalent would be 2nd ed. My mech platoon (3 chimera with troops, 3 'Russ) would roll onto the table, fire all its weapons, pop smoke, turn 2 drive through the smoke, guns blazing.
But now my strategy is meant to be move and fire models, while doing clever gotcha's with cards. I just don't think that way? But a lot of people do and indeed far prefer that to stuff limited by their model selection.
The shift in philosophy has swung way to far imo. I'm fine with some "cards", but with things like the Smokescreen example it's really removing more organic tactical options and I just can't get behind the reasons for it.
And at least for this particular example, it's still limited to model selection since Smokescreen is only available on a tiny subset of units.
It might have been pretty raw at the time, but Index 8th with only the 6(?) basic Strats just felt like such a better experience.
Jidmah wrote: "Remember that tank can pop smoke for -1 to hit, still want to shoot it?"
Simple. I do this pretty much every game, winning through gotchas is not enjoyable at all.
That's a very different situation from "If this unit is within 6" of this character and your unit has that keyword and I have this warlord trait and my detachment has this faction trait and I use this stratagem because they're equipped with this wargear I get to delete your unit and theres nothing you can do."
Uh, stuff like that has been the very essence of 40k since ever. Stratagems have literally nothing to do with that.
I don't remember much of that in 3rd - 4th era in particular. 2nd had some wild combos but there were also more "organic" options that I felt balanced it out. Later editions of 40K are more restrained in the rules and army options so the weird combos feel more "gamey" for some reason.
I am only wait for the AoS shift to make spells models. Want to play a psychic heavy army like GK, demons or 1ksons, need to buy 2-3 boxs of models to represent something that was a token or a skill check before.
Also Endless Spells are optional and all Wizards get their own spell set plus sometimes more from faction allegiance. Don't make up problems where none exist.
When it is 2-3 difference boxs it is suddenly 90 euro, which is a lot of money. Specially now with the crazy inflation we have. Plus you actually have to be able to get them. When your store gets 2-3 boxs, then there is a high chance you won't get the spells you want. Not a problem for armies that aren't psychic power based, but it is a problem for armies that do need them.
From what I have seen all armies in AoS have to have to faction building, and the magic ones run the faction spells or not spells for the non magic factions. Even the steam dwarfs have relics that let them run around with spells in a bottle. So people very do need some of them. And from what I understand no army in AoS including the sun elfs and chaos demons are as "magical" as 1ksons or GK, unless summon mechanics are counted.
Karol wrote: From what I have seen all armies in AoS have to have to faction building, and the magic ones run the faction spells or not spells for the non magic factions. Even the steam dwarfs have relics that let them run around with spells in a bottle. So people very do need some of them. And from what I understand no army in AoS including the sun elfs and chaos demons are as "magical" as 1ksons or GK, unless summon mechanics are counted.
Karol, Endless Spells are in AoS, not 40k. And you play 40k, not AoS. And this is a 40k thread, not an AoS thread. So, why are you complaining about Endless Spells?
With how the rules from one end up in the other sooner or later, I fully expect stuff like faction buildings and faction spells to become obligatory sooner or later. AoS just had a new edition and it is greatly influanced by how 9th ed rules work. We even have a lot of faction terrain right now. Thankfuly to use them one has to use tournament rule sets and there is no , in order to get chapter tactics you have to field the bunker or the ork gargant head etc.
Karol wrote: From what I have seen all armies in AoS have to have to faction building,
12 out of 24 AoS armies have faction terrain all of which are optional. Sylvaneth have had Wyldwoods since AoS 1.
and the magic ones run the faction spells or not spells for the non magic factions.
13 out of 24 armies have faction-specific Endless Spells and Fyreslayers have their not-magic Endless Spells, for a total of 14 out of 24. Again, all optional.
Even the steam dwarfs have relics that let them run around with spells in a bottle.
One artefact, also optional.
So people very do need some of them.
Nope because (say it with me now) they are all optional.
And from what I understand no army in AoS including the sun elfs and chaos demons are as "magical" as 1ksons or GK, unless summon mechanics are counted.
Sacrosanct Stormcast, Cities of Sigmar, Soulblight, Ossiarch Bonereapers, Hedonites, Disciples, Maggotkin, Idoneth, Lumineth, Seraphon, Sylvaneth, Nighthaunt, Gloomspite, and Warclans are all pretty wizardy. Not a single one of these factions requires their Endless Spells (if they have them) to be good, fun or competetive.
Just because you hate 40k and want to be mad all the time about it doesn't mean you can just make things up that have no basis in reality.
Gert wrote: ...Just because you hate 40k and want to be mad all the time about it doesn't mean you can just make things up that have no basis in reality.
You clearly haven't been on Dakka very long. People who hate 40k and want to be mad about it make things up that have no basis in reality all the time, as do people who love 40k and want to smear other games/other editions, or people who had a favorite edition, or a least favorite edition, and that's just in 40k General.
Karol wrote: With how the rules from one end up in the other sooner or later, I fully expect stuff like faction buildings and faction spells to become obligatory sooner or later. AoS just had a new edition and it is greatly influanced by how 9th ed rules work. We even have a lot of faction terrain right now. Thankfuly to use them one has to use tournament rule sets and there is no , in order to get chapter tactics you have to field the bunker or the ork gargant head etc.
Soooo.....you're worrying about a problem that might exist, in a future edition, instead of wondering about the rules for your army in their Shiny New Best Ever Codex(TM) that's going to be released in a couple of weeks?
I think in the case of a fifteen-year-old your best bet is to wait three to five years; outside intervention is unlikely to make a difference, but eventually he'll be horribly embarrassed about it under his own power.
Soooo.....you're worrying about a problem that might exist, in a future edition, instead of wondering about the rules for your army in their Shiny New Best Ever Codex(TM) that's going to be released in a couple of weeks?
Why would I wonder, the codex was leaked already. Wondering about stuff that already exists seems strange.
Plus am I wrong for saying that the rules for w40k and AoS mirror each other? And in one of the last big events in the US the SoB terrain was a crucial part of the army performance, but it only worked, because the orgenisers allowed the people attending to replace a pice of event terrain with a faction specific pice of terrain. Am I suppose to think, that GW makes all those bunkers, ork fortifications etc to not sell them because under thet errain rules existing right now it is very hard to use them. And if they do that, why shouldn't they do faction spells too. Seem like a logical thing to do, specially as they could link them to the event books like the rust book, and have more then just a book for people to buy.
Soooo.....you're worrying about a problem that might exist, in a future edition, instead of wondering about the rules for your army in their Shiny New Best Ever Codex(TM) that's going to be released in a couple of weeks?
Why would I wonder, the codex was leaked already. Wondering about stuff that already exists seems strange.
Plus am I wrong for saying that the rules for w40k and AoS mirror each other? And in one of the last big events in the US the SoB terrain was a crucial part of the army performance, but it only worked, because the orgenisers allowed the people attending to replace a pice of event terrain with a faction specific pice of terrain. Am I suppose to think, that GW makes all those bunkers, ork fortifications etc to not sell them because under thet errain rules existing right now it is very hard to use them. And if they do that, why shouldn't they do faction spells too. Seem like a logical thing to do, specially as they could link them to the event books like the rust book, and have more then just a book for people to buy.
The entire codex? Or are you just referring to the limited amount of leaks we've already seen?
And gw already tried to incorporate those faction specific terrain pieces into games in that book they released earlier this year. You know, the one that went over like a lead balloon? You're worrying about problems that don't currently exist, instead of things that do.
Smoke Launchers are a Stratagem. . . Like, fething why?!
It may seem like a minor point but there were multiple times in 8th where I employed a Rhino rush up the table for the sake of the mission/initiative, and many Rhinos would pop smoke to help ride out the inevitable counterfire. Something about the removal of the ability to pull a tactic like that and sticking it behind a CP cost (and for one unit only) just really rubs me the wrong way, and seems sort of indicative of larger problems.
Its part of the design philosophy though. You move the models around the table, but the tactics/strategy layer comes from cards/CPs.
Fundamentally our way of thinking doesn't fit with the modern game.
My equivalent would be 2nd ed. My mech platoon (3 chimera with troops, 3 'Russ) would roll onto the table, fire all its weapons, pop smoke, turn 2 drive through the smoke, guns blazing.
But now my strategy is meant to be move and fire models, while doing clever gotcha's with cards. I just don't think that way? But a lot of people do and indeed far prefer that to stuff limited by their model selection.
I also can confirm what ERJAK said. Having brought dozens of players into the game, for many people painting has been a huge motivation killer, though it kind of bleeds into the "my models suck" problem.
Many people start out, work hard to get their stuff painted, play their first few games and then realize that they need to buy and paint even more models to actually be able to win. At that point having to invest all the work to paint more is more of a problem than spending additional money for most - either they quit, or the start fielding large amounts of unpainted models. And the more unpainted models there are, the less is the motivation to actually paint them all.
Unless you're talking about people who didn't talk to anyone or do any research, and just jumped right into the tournament scene with the first 5 things they bought, what you're describing sounds a lot less like a painting problem and a lot more like a problem with the way that group handles new players.
Smoke Launchers are a Stratagem. . . Like, fething why?!
It may seem like a minor point but there were multiple times in 8th where I employed a Rhino rush up the table for the sake of the mission/initiative, and many Rhinos would pop smoke to help ride out the inevitable counterfire. Something about the removal of the ability to pull a tactic like that and sticking it behind a CP cost (and for one unit only) just really rubs me the wrong way, and seems sort of indicative of larger problems.
Its part of the design philosophy though. You move the models around the table, but the tactics/strategy layer comes from cards/CPs.
Fundamentally our way of thinking doesn't fit with the modern game.
My equivalent would be 2nd ed. My mech platoon (3 chimera with troops, 3 'Russ) would roll onto the table, fire all its weapons, pop smoke, turn 2 drive through the smoke, guns blazing.
But now my strategy is meant to be move and fire models, while doing clever gotcha's with cards. I just don't think that way? But a lot of people do and indeed far prefer that to stuff limited by their model selection.
Yup, we are not of any interest to gw anymore.
Agree with this RE:9th. Even though it's (erroneously imo) labeled the "edition where movement finally matters", most of the strategic advantage still lies in setting up tactics that allow you to pop strats at the right moment. It's not movement at all anymore. No. It's timing. That's totally fine imo, but personally, I like the older way a little better. As stated above - just put the launchers on my vehicle where they belong and write rules such that I feel like I'm maneuvering my army to put it in the best possible place to win. The way it works now I feel less like a "general" moving his troops around the field and more like a Trainer making sure I've summoned the correct Pokeman to the battle and trying to ensure he get's his power-ups at the right time.
It's not inherently bad imo. It's just not the direction my group enjoys.
Agree with this RE:9th. Even though it's (erroneously imo) labeled the "edition where movement finally matters", most of the strategic advantage still lies in setting up tactics that allow you to pop strats at the right moment. It's not movement at all anymore. No. It's timing. That's totally fine imo, but personally, I like the older way a little better. As stated above - just put the launchers on my vehicle where they belong and write rules such that I feel like I'm maneuvering my army to put it in the best possible place to win. The way it works now I feel less like a "general" moving his troops around the field and more like a Trainer making sure I've summoned the correct Pokeman to the battle and trying to ensure he get's his power-ups at the right time.
It's not inherently bad imo. It's just not the direction my group enjoys.
Definitely gotta disagree here, movement is very easily the most important phase of the game that matters wayyyyy more than any other by an incredible margin. Using your movement to position correctly is a large part of the timing you mentioned, in fact! Especially with the way Primary works in 9th edition, your movement phase isn't just setting you up for this turn, you have to make sure it works with the upcoming turn as well
Edit: I still cannot get quoting to function correctly!
^Movement is important, sure, but there's a lot more emphasis on planning for and timing your Stratagems, as well as knowing the possible Strats your opponent can pull off. Imo it's pretty aggravating, its not the sort of thing I want to spend my time thinking about. I'd prefer to spend my time thinking about vectors of attack and LOS, and the engagement with terrain.
In prior editions we had Psychic powers, but the number of those were pretty limited in comparison to the 30 or so strats each book has, and Psychic powers were limited to only a few models and one phase.
I definitely don't agree with the idea that vectors of attack and LoS aren't important, or are de-emphasized. In 8th sure, but the terrain rules play a very important part of every game of 9th I've played. As far as strats and such go, I've found just asking your opponent what they can do to alleviate the mental burden. Whenever I plan to do something, I just ask if they can interact with it, if no, great! Off I go. If yes, cool, I didn't get caught out.
Gores wrote: I definitely don't agree with the idea that vectors of attack and LoS aren't important, or are de-emphasized. In 8th sure, but the terrain rules play a very important part of every game of 9th I've played. As far as strats and such go, I've found just asking your opponent what they can do to alleviate the mental burden. Whenever I plan to do something, I just ask if they can interact with it, if no, great! Off I go. If yes, cool, I didn't get caught out.
Oh I didn't suggest that movement and terrain weren't important as well, but strats add this other layer of gak on top that can actually be absolutely critical.
And as for asking about possible interactions, the issue I have is that covering the possibilities can actually be pretty difficult, especially since many can be combined. Imo it's a layer that just doesn't need to be there, or at least could be extremely cut down.
I really believe most 9th edition codex stratagems are much milder than their 8th counterpats.
Theres not that many times I have changed my strategy based in the stratagems my opponent has access too. The game is still all played on the table, I don't really care most of the time if my opponent has X buff to their shooting, etc... instead of a couple "I activate -1 to hit" or "You can't retreat", but even those aren't that relevant to my planning, because if the opponent really wants to use them theres nothing I can do agaisnt it.
Galas wrote: I really believe most 9th edition codex stratagems are much milder than their 8th counterpats.
Theres not that many times I have changed my strategy based in the stratagems my opponent has access too. The game is still all played on the table, I don't really care most of the time if my opponent has X buff to their shooting, etc... instead of a couple "I activate -1 to hit" or "You can't retreat", but even those aren't that relevant to my planning, because if the opponent really wants to use them theres nothing I can do agaisnt it.
That gets back to my original gripe about Smokescreen going from a native unit ability, Smoke Launchers, to being a Strat. The Strat actually removes strategic "on table" options in favor of a "gotcha mechanic" in response to an opponent action. It's a negative value-add to the game, imo. And if it's "not relevant to your planning" then it really didn't need to make the move to Strat from unit-ability.
I agree in the fact that I actually don't quite like that much stratagems.
Many of the things they do could be achieved by other means (Like changing the Cp strat of making units veterans for +X point costs like trueborns, etc...) or the "equipement" like melta bombs being just upgrades you pay for.
But they are also aren't as bad as most people makes them to be.
I really believe, tought, that they should be more attached to your actual commands assets. I'm not talking about straight up AoS command habilities but more LOTR might points.
Gores wrote: I definitely don't agree with the idea that vectors of attack and LoS aren't important, or are de-emphasized. In 8th sure, but the terrain rules play a very important part of every game of 9th I've played. As far as strats and such go, I've found just asking your opponent what they can do to alleviate the mental burden. Whenever I plan to do something, I just ask if they can interact with it, if no, great! Off I go. If yes, cool, I didn't get caught out.
Oh I didn't suggest that movement and terrain weren't important as well, but strats add this other layer of gak on top that can actually be absolutely critical.
And as for asking about possible interactions, the issue I have is that covering the possibilities can actually be pretty difficult, especially since many can be combined. Imo it's a layer that just doesn't need to be there, or at least could be extremely cut down.
Sure, that's totally fair. Personally I don't find the extra layer too burdensome, and adds more than it detracts until it starts taking away wargear and turning it into strats. But in general I'm a fan of the resource management aspect strats add, and in practice don't find theres actually a ton of possibilities my opponents have to gum up my works, but I also play a lot and everyone will have a different level of how much they think its fair to remember
The turning of equipment into strats is pretty awful. I'm surprised Hunter Killer missiles didn't suffer the same fate.
I dislike the implementation of stratagems because too many of them are tactical and not strategic. The idea of having a limited pool of strategic resources that you expend for various benefits is a sound idea - I really like the ones spent during list construction and wish those could be expanded - but Strats that you use during the game for extra damage and whatnot, and especially the reactionary 'gotcha!' strats, are just awful.
As to the (non-problem of) Endless Spells, those would be cool in 40k. In fact, I'm sure that a lot of here thought that the much-hyped Psychic Awakening was GW's way of introducing such a concept into 40k. Instead there wasn't much psychics, and not a lot of awakening, just repeated Primaris rules and half-hearted tweaks to each army in the build up to 9th but man, it would'a been cool if we'd have got some. I own tons of Endless Spells and I don't even play AoS. They're great minis.
I do think movement (on table with models) is less important now. For two extremes we have gone from 24” apart deployment on a 4’ deep table and moving on average 4” or 8” per turn, to starting 18” apart on a board 44” deep with movement being 6” or D6+6” and lots of ways of going faster.
Transports are now far less necessary and simply not worth it.
Ground ones without invs yes. Flying, open topped ones with inv save were and are doing great for both armies that have them. Being able to ignore multiple core mechanics of the game can give good results , specially when the effects can be stacked up.
My biggest issue is the lack of FAQ's to other factions when new codexes are released, IE:
When Space Marines dropped:
- Chaos Marines not getting 2 wounds when Space Marines dropped.
- Not all weapons being properly updated when melta changed. Such as Tau fusion blasters, or Knights thermal cannons.
When Dark Eldar dropped:
- Eldar bright lances not becoming D3 + 3.
When Ad-Mech dropped:
- Lascannons not getting some kind of buff. I would have changed all lascannons to Damage D6 (minimum 3). That retains the "Ad-Mech horde the best toys" but at least makes the standard lascannon useful.
* * * * *
These army of renown's often don't have enough restrictions. They should have anything from a 0 - 3 CP cost in addition to their datasheet restrictions. Which means a cost that can be tweaked. Something like the Ad-Mech Defence Cohort could be 0 CP as it's not really that great, while something like the Skitarii Veteran Cohort could cost 2 or 3 CP.
H.B.M.C. wrote: As to the (non-problem of) Endless Spells, those would be cool in 40k. In fact, I'm sure that a lot of here thought that the much-hyped Psychic Awakening was GW's way of introducing such a concept into 40k. Instead there wasn't much psychics, and not a lot of awakening, just repeated Primaris rules and half-hearted tweaks to each army in the build up to 9th but man, it would'a been cool if we'd have got some. I own tons of Endless Spells and I don't even play AoS. They're great minis.
They used to make vortex grenade models. There are lots of ways to get tabletop effects in 40k, but they aren't making them. Popping smoke, forcefields...
There could be models for the mysterious objectives, such as the Skyfire system, the booby-trap, the comms array, etc. Mysterious objectives fell out a couple of editions ago though.
The precursor to Endless Spells was from, Storm of Chaos (I think), with a bunch of specially coloured domes for different spell effects. I don't think it was an End Times release. Could be wrong.
In any case, those were pretty cool. Basically a bigger version of the Vortex grenade dome they made for 1st Ed Apocalypse.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The precursor to Endless Spells was from, Storm of Chaos (I think), with a bunch of specially coloured domes for different spell effects. I don't think it was an End Times release. Could be wrong.
In any case, those were pretty cool. Basically a bigger version of the Vortex grenade dome they made for 1st Ed Apocalypse.
Storm of Chaos had none of that, because 6th edition Fantasy Battle was still sensible. The spell domes became a thing towards 8th edition, when Purple Suns and their ilk were devouring armies left and right.
Definitely gotta disagree here, movement is very easily the most important phase of the game that matters wayyyyy more than any other by an incredible margin. Using your movement to position correctly is a large part of the timing you mentioned, in fact! Especially with the way Primary works in 9th edition, your movement phase isn't just setting you up for this turn, you have to make sure it works with the upcoming turn as well
Yeah movement is important. No one is suggesting it's not important at all. But it's considerably less important than when we were on bigger tables. Considerably. This is partly because of the small table size, partly because of the strats and partly because of the way the missions work. Even things like the fact that you essentially have "risk free" deep-strike have a big effect in this. They're not going to scatter. They're not going to die. They're not going to bounce 12" away from where I needed them and get stuck out of position. So it's ... about timing .... it's the only variable you have to calculate.
In prior editions, on bigger tables, you make a mistake on turn 1 in the movement phase, you may well have been SOL. Mistakes in movement could be crushing and unrecoverable. You had to be really good at it. In 9th? yeah. No. Not so much man. My SLOWEST armies can get anywhere I need them whenever I need them there and it's pretty hard to get caught out (and I'm not even playing the "fast" armies like Eldar jetbikes). It happens, but not as often as it used to. The game essentially boils down to "Do I take the objective first and resist his attempts to kill me off of it, or do I let him take the objective and kill HIM off of it." So it's really timing. Again, people get the two confused.
FAR more important is timing. I can even have the wrong unit lined up to take an objective and still be fine because the armies have so many mechanisms to correct for that. It's not necessarily bad. I want to stress that. It isn't. The game being generally more forgiving in this particular aspect is probably a good thing for accessibility of new players (despite things being so killy), but it DOES make the game far more tactically shallow than previous editions.
It's not that it's categorically "bad". It's just a different game and I think people are responding to that.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The precursor to Endless Spells was from, Storm of Chaos (I think), with a bunch of specially coloured domes for different spell effects. I don't think it was an End Times release. Could be wrong.
In any case, those were pretty cool. Basically a bigger version of the Vortex grenade dome they made for 1st Ed Apocalypse.
Storm of Chaos had none of that, because 6th edition Fantasy Battle was still sensible. The spell domes became a thing towards 8th edition, when Purple Suns and their ilk were devouring armies left and right.
He's referring to Storm of Magic, which came out in 8th.
Definitely gotta disagree here, movement is very easily the most important phase of the game that matters wayyyyy more than any other by an incredible margin. Using your movement to position correctly is a large part of the timing you mentioned, in fact! Especially with the way Primary works in 9th edition, your movement phase isn't just setting you up for this turn, you have to make sure it works with the upcoming turn as well
Yeah movement is important. No one is suggesting it's not important at all. But it's considerably less important than when we were on bigger tables. Considerably. This is partly because of the small table size, partly because of the strats and partly because of the way the missions work. Even things like the fact that you essentially have "risk free" deep-strike have a big effect in this. They're not going to scatter. They're not going to die. They're not going to bounce 12" away from where I needed them and get stuck out of position. So it's ... about timing .... it's the only variable you have to calculate.
In prior editions, on bigger tables, you make a mistake on turn 1 in the movement phase, you may well have been SOL. Mistakes in movement could be crushing and unrecoverable. You had to be really good at it. In 9th? yeah. No. Not so much man. My SLOWEST armies can get anywhere I need them whenever I need them there and it's pretty hard to get caught out (and I'm not even playing the "fast" armies like Eldar jetbikes). It happens, but not as often as it used to. The game essentially boils down to "Do I take the objective first and resist his attempts to kill me off of it, or do I let him take the objective and kill HIM off of it." So it's really timing. Again, people get the two confused.
FAR more important is timing. I can even have the wrong unit lined up to take an objective and still be fine because the armies have so many mechanisms to correct for that. It's not necessarily bad. I want to stress that. It isn't. The game being generally more forgiving in this particular aspect is probably a good thing for accessibility of new players (despite things being so killy), but it DOES make the game far more tactically shallow than previous editions.
It's not that it's categorically "bad". It's just a different game and I think people are responding to that.
I'm having a hard time conceiving of a turn 1 movement blunder in older editions that wasn't either 1) you somehow decided they should look at your tank's ass or 2) you decided to expose yourself without having enough firepower to stop them from taking you off the table.
With the primary / secondary gun rules on vehicles plus no move and shoot on heavies you had ridiculously slow moving armies that hoped you walked into the firing lane.
Scattering deepstrike wasn't about timing. It was about gambling or having the army with the options to mitigate.
I played 9th on a 4x6 recently and it gave a huge advantage to shooting. Providing more space isn't going to give you deeper tactical choice. It will just make guns better.
I can say without hesitation and with complete certainty that if anything similar to AoS endless spells comes to W40K... It will be the day that I exit the hobby. And I'm not the only one to have this sentiment.
AoS is all about magic so it works for that system, that universe.
W40K is all about guns and archaic technology, magic is not and should not be a trope at the forefront of this system, this universe.
Yeah I just flatly disagree that 9th is less punishing on movement than other editions. the board got smaller, definitely, but so did the game by a turn, and the Scoring window got, generally, 2 turns shorter. This means that if you make a movement mistake with how primary works you give up potentially 2 turns of points out of your 4 possible instead of probably none before 8th and probably 1 of 6 in 8th. The smaller board just means slower armies that don't move an entire continent in one turn, especially the ones that are primarily melee (DG) get to actually participate in the game instead of desperately advancing 2-3 turns trying to get into position while eating a wall of bullets
Gores wrote: This means that if you make a movement mistake you give up potentially 2 turns of points out of your 4 possible instead of probably none before 8th and probably 1 of 6 in 8th.
I mean sure if you only play with one unit per objective.
I dislike the implementation of stratagems because too many of them are tactical and not strategic.
Could you define what you mean here? I've checked three thesaurus websites and two paper thesauruses (thesauri?), and they all agree that tactic and strategem are synonymous. I don't mean this as a language nazi burn- I respect your posts, so I know that there is a difference from your perspective- I'm just curious what it is.
I dislike the implementation of stratagems because too many of them are tactical and not strategic.
Could you define what you mean here? I've checked three thesaurus websites and two paper thesauruses (thesauri?), and they all agree that tactic and strategem are synonymous. I don't mean this as a language nazi burn- I respect your posts, so I know that there is a difference from your perspective- I'm just curious what it is.
Typically when talking about wargames, strategy is your 'set game plan' and tactics are your decisions in the moment.
I construct my list to present my opponent with no infantry bodies off the bat (I plan to teleport my one un-transported infantry unit and transport the rest) and I design the list to have a turn 2 tempo setup, I.e. all my units will be in position to do their maximum damage on turn 2. I spend 3cp on a second detachment, 1cp on an extra relic, 2cp to deep strike my unit, and 1cp on an extra warlord trait.
I have spent 7/12 of my CP on Strategy. I'm gonna use those CP, and basically spend them, before I know ANYTHING about what my opponent is doing, at all.
Tactical CP use, would be when I come up against an opponent with good shooting, I decide to spend 2cp on a defensive stratagem to make my units -1 to hit.
OR, I come up against an opponent who's vulnerable to melee. I instead spend 2cp on an offensive stratagem to really put the damage in on my units that make it in turn 2.
I'm having a hard time conceiving of a turn 1 movement blunder in older editions that wasn't either 1) you somehow decided they should look at your tank's ass or 2) you decided to expose yourself without having enough firepower to stop them from taking you off the table.
With the primary / secondary gun rules on vehicles plus no move and shoot on heavies you had ridiculously slow moving armies that hoped you walked into the firing lane.
Scattering deepstrike wasn't about timing. It was about gambling or having the army with the options to mitigate.
I played 9th on a 4x6 recently and it gave a huge advantage to shooting. Providing more space isn't going to give you deeper tactical choice. It will just make guns better.
Older editions had bigger tables, slower models, different and often fewer objectives, considerably fewer rules that allow units to move even faster, and many more pitfalls to movement and things like deepstriking. I didn't say previously that deepstriking was about timing before. NOW it IS all timing. The other variables have been completely removed.
Older editions - need that tank squadron to hit that key target turn 3? Didn't move 'em turn 1 cause you thought someone was going to enter a fire lane and they didn't? You're probably sunk.
Playing a mission with a single take and hold objective and you played to cagey and are now out of range when you need to get there? Ooops.
The very fact that models were slower and tables were bigger and the table (typically but not always) had fewer objectives is exactly why it mattered so much how you moved. Movement itself was a valuable resource you needed to spend carefully. Not so much anymore.
W40K is all about guns and archaic technology, magic is not and should not be a trope at the forefront of this system, this universe.
yeah, man. Ever since they added the Warp and Chaos, 40k has really shifted from its roots..... I remember back when the Emperor was a little normal man with no magical powers whatsoever. Same with the eldar, they were much better when they didnt get all these psychic things added to them......
oni wrote: I can say without hesitation and with complete certainty that if anything similar to AoS endless spells comes to W40K... It will be the day that I exit the hobby. And I'm not the only one to have this sentiment.
AoS is all about magic so it works for that system, that universe.
W40K is all about guns and archaic technology, magic is not and should not be a trope at the forefront of this system, this universe.
What, you can't envision a psyker in 40k unleashing an effect that sticks around & has a cool ass model to represent it?
oni wrote: I can say without hesitation and with complete certainty that if anything similar to AoS endless spells comes to W40K... It will be the day that I exit the hobby. And I'm not the only one to have this sentiment.
AoS is all about magic so it works for that system, that universe.
W40K is all about guns and archaic technology, magic is not and should not be a trope at the forefront of this system, this universe.
What, you can't envision a psyker in 40k unleashing an effect that sticks around & has a cool ass model to represent it?
Obviously not. Weird table effects like Ectoplasmic mists and Stasis fields were never in the game from the very beginning.
Tyran wrote: The issue is that while the Warp and Psykers have an important presence on the setting and on the tabletop, it isn't an uniform one.
Something like Endless Spells would make all the factions that lack Psykers feel excluded, and there is a surprising amount of them.
Which ones? Admech, Tau, Drukhari and Knights?
Tau have psykers in the fluff, just give them IG auxiliaries.
Drukhari have ways to feth with magic
Admech and Knights are fine trading raw firepower for their access to magic.
Tyran wrote: The issue is that while the Warp and Psykers have an important presence on the setting and on the tabletop, it isn't an uniform one.
Something like Endless Spells would make all the factions that lack Psykers feel excluded, and there is a surprising amount of them.
Which ones? Admech, Tau, Drukhari and Knights?
Tau have psykers in the fluff, just give them IG auxiliaries.
Drukhari have ways to feth with magic
Admech and Knights are fine trading raw firepower for their access to magic.
Admech and Necrons would be perfectly thematic to "capture" Endless Powers in highly technologically advanced bottles, a la Kharadron Overlords doing the same thing in AoS.
Gores wrote: ^ Would you mind explaining that a bit more? I don't really understand what you're trying to say
I mean you can't make many mistakes with movement because the game is incredibly forgiving unless you somehow have equal to or less units than there are objectives. If a unit you can't grab an objective chances are you have two other units who can.
Tyran wrote: The issue is that while the Warp and Psykers have an important presence on the setting and on the tabletop, it isn't an uniform one.
Something like Endless Spells would make all the factions that lack Psykers feel excluded, and there is a surprising amount of them.
Which ones? Admech, Tau, Drukhari and Knights?
Tau have psykers in the fluff, just give them IG auxiliaries.
Drukhari have ways to feth with magic
Admech and Knights are fine trading raw firepower for their access to magic.
Admech and Necrons would be perfectly thematic to "capture" Endless Powers in highly technologically advanced bottles, a la Kharadron Overlords doing the same thing in AoS.
Tau have psykers in the fluff, just give them IG auxiliaries.
Drukhari have ways to feth with magic
Admech and Knights are fine trading raw firepower for their access to magic.
You forgot about Necrons, Black Templars and Sisters of Battle.
And sure you could find ways around that, but would the players of such factions would want too? in the case Tau, Necrons and Admech, who are all about different takes on technology (new and innovative in the case of Tau, archaic and dogmatic in the case of Admech; and ancient and eldritch in the case of Necrons), such focus on magic would clash with their themes.
I mean, the fact that your answer regarding the Tau was to force them to take non-Tau might anger some Tau players.
C'tan have control over the material world around them and could create lasting effects with established lore already.
Dhrukari used to have a black hole in a bottle iirc, so no problem there either with Looney Toon magic.
AdMech surely have some Dark Age tech lying around to unleash.
Black Templar, World Eaters and Sororitas get eternal prayers.
Knights are fine. A tank company won't get a psyker tank either. Even if that would be fittingly hilarious.
The faction is actually called T'au EMPIRE. It is about time the EMPIRE part gets explored (including psyker auxiliaries) instead of yet another bigger mecha.
And IMHO it should be done by having an Auxiliaries codex, not by having an Auxiliaries take the spotlight of the Tau in their own codex.
Moreover I don't think I have ever heard of psykers even being present in auxiliary forces. Kroot do not seem to have psykers, and human psykers are not useful without psychic training, which the Tau lack.
PenitentJake wrote: Could you define what you mean here? I've checked three thesaurus websites and two paper thesauruses (thesauri?), and they all agree that tactic and strategem are synonymous. I don't mean this as a language nazi burn- I respect your posts, so I know that there is a difference from your perspective- I'm just curious what it is.
As scotsman said, one is a before the game thing, one is a during the game thing.
To put it another way, strategy is your overarching plan or set of goals. Tactics are the specific actions or steps you undertake to accomplish your strategy. What did I plan to do vs how do I enact/react to the current situation.
oni wrote: I can say without hesitation and with complete certainty that if anything similar to AoS endless spells comes to W40K... It will be the day that I exit the hobby. And I'm not the only one to have this sentiment.
AoS is all about magic so it works for that system, that universe.
W40K is all about guns and archaic technology, magic is not and should not be a trope at the forefront of this system, this universe.
This feels silly.
The Warp is magic and is a gigantic part of why the universe exists as it does.
I think I'd prefer endless spells more as a specific thing for Extremely Magic armies than a general rule like it is in AoS; I'd be totally down for buying a model that my casters manifest when I'm a Thousand Sons player but when I'm a Necrons player I'd be pretty annoyed seeing Ultramarines armies with that kind of ability.
Arachnofiend wrote: I think I'd prefer endless spells more as a specific thing for Extremely Magic armies than a general rule like it is in AoS; I'd be totally down for buying a model that my casters manifest when I'm a Thousand Sons player but when I'm a Necrons player I'd be pretty annoyed seeing Ultramarines armies with that kind of ability.
I'd agree with this. The concept wouldn't work well unless each army had something fitting like Dark Tech or what have you, but that might be a tall order.
VladimirHerzog wrote:Tau have psykers in the fluff, just give them IG auxiliaries.
Not even they are really needed. They have a space-born race as part of their auxiliaries in BFG, all it would take is a suit that also provides zero-g for them to survive on the ground, and there you go. They are the Nicassar, and one of the first races the Tau brought in (at least as of the old BFG document).
Tyran wrote:Moreover I don't think I have ever heard of psykers even being present in auxiliary forces. Kroot do not seem to have psykers, and human psykers are not useful without psychic training, which the Tau lack.
I wouldn't poo-poo the idea of Kroot psykers so quickly. Remember, they had spread across a few world before they met the Tau. Just because they haven't been shown, doesn't mean they don't exist. There are whole operations that Kroot do with no knowledge of the Tau, because they can do Warp travel. And if they got their hands on an Eldar or Nicassar...
I dislike the implementation of stratagems because too many of them are tactical and not strategic.
Could you define what you mean here? I've checked three thesaurus websites and two paper thesauruses (thesauri?), and they all agree that tactic and strategem are synonymous. I don't mean this as a language nazi burn- I respect your posts, so I know that there is a difference from your perspective- I'm just curious what it is.
A strategy is your high-level plan to win a battle or war, or the goals which you have identified which will allow you to do so. Hannibal: I will eliminate the Roman Legions at Cannae by encircling their larger force, depriving the Romans of the use of those men in future battles.
Tactics are how you go about executing your strategy. Hannibal: I will use my cavalry to rout the enemy cavalry. I will lure the enemy into overcommitting their forces to the centre by putting my weaker troops there, who will give ground and draw the enemy in at the prospect of a retreating enemy. Once the enemy has overcommitted, I will use my strongest troops, who have until this moment held back, to attack the flanks of the enemy force whilst my cavalry charges into the rear. Once the enemy forces have been encircled, I will halt the orderly retreat of my central forces and start to advance on the trapped enemy and destroy them.
Or D-Day. Strategy: Capture key locations in Normandy which allow the Allied forces to establish a beachhead with the capability to quickly ship new supplies into the theatre of war and with enough men and material to defend against counterattack from the German forces. Tactics: Massed troop landings supported by coastal bombardment of enemy defences on multiple beaches who will quickly move inland and link up, forming a unified front. Massed dropping of paratroopers behind the enemy lines on the night before the naval landings with the goals of securing key targets and eliminating enemy positions which threaten the landings on the beaches. French Resistance operations disrupting enemy communications before the invasion.
Or D-Day. Strategy: Capture key locations in Normandy which allow the Allied forces to establish a beachhead with the capability to quickly ship new supplies into the theatre of war and with enough men and material to defend against counterattack from the German forces.
Tactics: Massed troop landings supported by coastal bombardment of enemy defences on multiple beaches who will quickly move inland and link up, forming a unified front. Massed dropping of paratroopers behind the enemy lines on the night before the naval landings with the goals of securing key targets and eliminating enemy positions which threaten the landings on the beaches. French Resistance operations disrupting enemy communications before the invasion.
Now do policy and strategy. Bonus points for including Ends-Ways-Means.
I'd be fine giving kroot psychers, but they would be different.
Mabey give them 2 deny's each and one cast on D6 like the wyrdvanes. Their powers would be small buffs and mabey a targeted single mortal wound power.
Stuff like reroll 1's to advance aura, ignore any penalties in the charge phase aura, and target unit takes 1 mortal wound and cant overwatch kroot hounds. All going off on a 3 or 4.
Back on topic though, 9th is definitely not a bad edition. The core game is basically the best its ever been. Codex creep has been harsh, but only because of GW's archaic profiteering and slow release schedual.
exalted!
