Eihnlazer wrote: im sure everyone has units they know need fixing in their own codex's.
Which you are more than welcome to do...after a flat 30% nerf to all Custodes units. And the removal of the 4++ MW shrug on EC. You can have +1 leadership instead.
I am definitely biased against the MW shrug. It definitely screws internal balance of the book when they can also pick up other traits when they need to.
At the same time I know I can drop 9 to 12 MW on a whim and without it I could probably do really well against 3 mans. Maybe a 5+++ wound be fine? I dunno.
GW is clearly comfortable with hard counters in the game. CA2022 exemplified this. The changes to Sisters in CA2022 and the Feb Balance slate have left them in a spot where if your opponent has more than 2 units that ignore LoS, you can pretty much just shake hands and go get an early lunch. According to your own stats from the other thread, AM have this same conundrum when they line up against astartes. Why shouldn't a Custodes player instantly lose when he lines up against Tsons?
So why should Custodes, whose weakness SHOULD be mortal wounds, be able to just go 'naw son, not weak to NOTHIN!' and declare themselves invulnerable? At this point, ALL mortal wound defense should be removed from Custodes. Did you line up against a Smite Spam army? Tough cookies. I had to play Tau smart missiles round one, you can deal with auto-loss games too.
What's with all these hyperbolic statements regarding custodes rules lately? "they are immune to mortals!" "you can't use rerolls against them!" they ignore about 50% mortals and you can't reroll against one unit. Is that still too strong? We can have a discussion about that, but stop with the hyperbole already.
Custodes deserve nerfs, don't get me wrong. But start increasing Trajann to 190, the bikes up by 5, the Salvo Launchers up to 10, increase the Wardens to 55, Terminators to 65 and the Achillus to 170base before altering faction rules. Bikes losing CORE is also an additional possibility, but I am not a fan of that nerf in particular because it would tip internal balance even more towards Emperors Chosen, because the free re-rolls becomes even more valuable.
I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.
I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.
Thats probably my issue atm. Im running Emissaries imperatus shield host and playing a shooty custodes list.
Apparently the reason im having such trouble against tau is strictly because of my build. I have no issue against some other things, but I litterally have no chance against tau with my current list.
So yes, some custodes play fine into tau, and some do not. The frustration I felt was mostly just due to my list choice.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.
I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.
Agreed. Having entire factions/subfactions that are hard counters to certain other factions but hopelessly weak against others is just bad design. Individual units? Sure. But entire factions/subfactions? No.
Eihnlazer wrote: im sure everyone has units they know need fixing in their own codex's.
Which you are more than welcome to do...after a flat 30% nerf to all Custodes units. And the removal of the 4++ MW shrug on EC. You can have +1 leadership instead.
I am definitely biased against the MW shrug. It definitely screws internal balance of the book when they can also pick up other traits when they need to.
At the same time I know I can drop 9 to 12 MW on a whim and without it I could probably do really well against 3 mans. Maybe a 5+++ wound be fine? I dunno.
GW is clearly comfortable with hard counters in the game. CA2022 exemplified this. The changes to Sisters in CA2022 and the Feb Balance slate have left them in a spot where if your opponent has more than 2 units that ignore LoS, you can pretty much just shake hands and go get an early lunch. According to your own stats from the other thread, AM have this same conundrum when they line up against astartes. Why shouldn't a Custodes player instantly lose when he lines up against Tsons?
So why should Custodes, whose weakness SHOULD be mortal wounds, be able to just go 'naw son, not weak to NOTHIN!' and declare themselves invulnerable? At this point, ALL mortal wound defense should be removed from Custodes. Did you line up against a Smite Spam army? Tough cookies. I had to play Tau smart missiles round one, you can deal with auto-loss games too.
CA does not exemplify anything. its a horrible book that is 6 months out of date the day it releases.
nah those are separate things. Cuting up one book in to 2 or even 3 is one thing. Thinking that every 6 month a CA book fixs the games problem enough for the game to continue on is another.
GW really does think that if they drop 2pts on GK termintors, that this somehow fixs the GK codex internal balance and brings great satisfaction to player who don't want to play 5, now 4, NDKS and 30 interceptors.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.
I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.
Agreed. Having entire factions/subfactions that are hard counters to certain other factions but hopelessly weak against others is just bad design. Individual units? Sure. But entire factions/subfactions? No.
Ahhh DttFE, what a god awful faction rule that everyone forgot about.
They could also use a small price increase on a few things. Another thread brought up Yarrick vs Shield Captain in Allarus armor, and I about did a spit take when I saw how cheap that shield captain is. . . .
I was like "that has to be a typo" then pulled it up in the app and was just amazed lol.
Any +5 thing on elite units may as well not exist, because you either have a very low chance of saving stuff, or you save some wounds incoming, but there are so many of them that your unit dies anyway. I have enough expiriance with +5inv to know that it does not work.
Karol wrote: Any +5 thing on elite units may as well not exist, because you either have a very low chance of saving stuff, or you save some wounds incoming, but there are so many of them that your unit dies anyway. I have enough expiriance with +5inv to know that it does not work.
Eihnlazer wrote: The ares is easily overcosted comparing it to any other large centerpiece model in the 400+ range.
They dropped it by 50pts, which was fine, but its still far too unreliable for a 400pt model.
As for the whole misappropriated in the flyer slot thing, thats not as cut and dry as you make it.
With flyer's being limited to 2 max instead of 3 in a superheavy detachment, the only issue i see is that noone would ever want to spam ares since they just arent that good currently.
They need either more reliability, or more potential output to make them worth the price tag.
Just thought I'd put my two cents in because this statement had me laughing out loud.
400pts gets you 22 T8 Wounds with a 3+ save, 5+ invuln and -1 to hit.
380pts gets orkz 24 T8 wounds with a 3+ save, 6+ invuln
Speed wise, Ares is 20-50' starting. Morkanaut is....8.
Ranged Combat.
Ares gets 1 gun thats D3 S14 -4 D3+6dmg attacks at BS2 that can choose to get Heavy 3 S9 -3 D3dmg.
It gets 2 guns at S9 -4AP D3+3 that re-rolls to wound against Vehicles...effectively making it 2+ to wound. OR it can 4 shots out of each gun at S7 -2 1dmg. Shortest range of everything is 36, the heavy stuff hits at Ranged 48 and 72...IE the entire fething board.
What does the Morkanaut get?
3D3 shots at S8 -3 D6dmg, hit rolls of 1 cause mortal wounds to yourself and it hits on 5s.
1D3 shots at S8 -3 D6dmg hit rolls of 1 cause mortals to self and hits on 5s.
2D3 Rokkitz at S8 -2AP 3dmg, hits on 5s.
20/12 shots at S5 no AP 1dmg.
All the morkanauts guns are Ranged 24-36, the big shootas (20/12 shot weapon) get the 20 at 18' range the 12 at 19-36.
-1 to hit against the Morkanaut means you are as likely to hurt yourself as the enemy and cuts its ranged dmg in half.
But yeah, the ares is totally overcosted compared to that.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ohhh! And the Morkanaut is considered a LoW now because reasons, so to even take it costs you 3CP
For Custodes just stick 30 points on Trajann and 10 points on the bikes and see what happens. You could (and probably should) nerf Emperor's Chosen, and take a scalpel to lots of other units - but that's fiddly and the above could be issued in a one page PDF tomorrow.
I think Tau are much harder to fix because basically the whole Codex is undercosted in the context of available synergy, army rules, sept bonuses, stratagems etc. Crisis Suits up 5, Broadsides both losing Core and going up 10 and Stormsurges up 25 would probably be a start.
Karol wrote: Doesn't change the fact that GW thinks that CA is a good way of dealing with rule and balance.
I feel like that's more a managerial mandate that they continue to use the format for updates. I mean this is the same company that seems to think the books and box department needs to turn a profit instead of it being a supporting department to the rest of the company.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tyel wrote: For Custodes just stick 30 points on Trajann and 10 points on the bikes and see what happens. You could (and probably should) nerf Emperor's Chosen, and take a scalpel to lots of other units - but that's fiddly and the above could be issued in a one page PDF tomorrow.
I think Tau are much harder to fix because basically the whole Codex is undercosted in the context of available synergy, army rules, sept bonuses, stratagems etc. Crisis Suits up 5, Broadsides both losing Core and going up 10 and Stormsurges up 25 would probably be a start.
They have to "auto use every turn" strats that could use a bump in CP cost too. Durability buffs like that should never be cheap.
Tyel wrote: For Custodes just stick 30 points on Trajann and 10 points on the bikes and see what happens. You could (and probably should) nerf Emperor's Chosen, and take a scalpel to lots of other units - but that's fiddly and the above could be issued in a one page PDF tomorrow.
I think Tau are much harder to fix because basically the whole Codex is undercosted in the context of available synergy, army rules, sept bonuses, stratagems etc. Crisis Suits up 5, Broadsides both losing Core and going up 10 and Stormsurges up 25 would probably be a start.
These custodes nerfs seem the most reasonable suggestions to me. I’d further add that either transhuman or no re-rolls need to go to a flat 2 CP. However, I think people are overrating changing the emperor’s chosen save from a 4+++ to 5+++. Reason being is that shield hosts are actually more balanced than people realize (emperors chosen just offers the most flexibility and durability) so all the competitive custodes armies would just become shadow keepers instead of E-chosen if this nerf happens.
For Tau I’d say nerf airburst, possibly Mon-kai, and SMS. A 5 point increase for the weapons and heavier range restriction on the army buff should do nicely. Tau will still be strong with these nerfs, but their seemingly unlimited LoS ignoring shooting is what’s making them OP right now.
Finally, we need to wait for data but I’m pretty sure harlequins are just plain OP as well. People being relieved that craftworld aren’t OP has completely eclipsed the fact that harlequins are. No armor save and T 3 doesn’t matter when every weapon in the game is at least -1 to -2 AP and when they have numerous other defensive buffs. Oh and just like custodes all their stuff got cheaper while getting free extra rules and better stats. It is my believe this army will be disgusting and make our currently balance grievance look like minor whining.
Karol wrote: nah those are separate things. Cuting up one book in to 2 or even 3 is one thing. Thinking that every 6 month a CA book fixs the games problem enough for the game to continue on is another.
GW really does think that if they drop 2pts on GK termintors, that this somehow fixs the GK codex internal balance and brings great satisfaction to player who don't want to play 5, now 4, NDKS and 30 interceptors.
It isn't like you take GK terminators and make them 50% more than Strikes and call the job done. It just doesn't work like that. Having 3 wounds has value beyond just an extra wound due to stratification of weapon damage.
Interceptors aren't magic, either. If you want to see fewer Interceptors - 1) get rid of purifying ritual as it requires a lot of individual casts, and 2) get rid of the obsec aura WLT. Points won't ever get you there.
Eihnlazer wrote: The ares is easily overcosted comparing it to any other large centerpiece model in the 400+ range.
They dropped it by 50pts, which was fine, but its still far too unreliable for a 400pt model.
As for the whole misappropriated in the flyer slot thing, thats not as cut and dry as you make it.
With flyer's being limited to 2 max instead of 3 in a superheavy detachment, the only issue i see is that noone would ever want to spam ares since they just arent that good currently.
They need either more reliability, or more potential output to make them worth the price tag.
Just thought I'd put my two cents in because this statement had me laughing out loud.
400pts gets you 22 T8 Wounds with a 3+ save, 5+ invuln and -1 to hit.
380pts gets orkz 24 T8 wounds with a 3+ save, 6+ invuln
Speed wise, Ares is 20-50' starting. Morkanaut is....8.
Ranged Combat.
Ares gets 1 gun thats D3 S14 -4 D3+6dmg attacks at BS2 that can choose to get Heavy 3 S9 -3 D3dmg.
It gets 2 guns at S9 -4AP D3+3 that re-rolls to wound against Vehicles...effectively making it 2+ to wound. OR it can 4 shots out of each gun at S7 -2 1dmg. Shortest range of everything is 36, the heavy stuff hits at Ranged 48 and 72...IE the entire fething board.
What does the Morkanaut get?
3D3 shots at S8 -3 D6dmg, hit rolls of 1 cause mortal wounds to yourself and it hits on 5s.
1D3 shots at S8 -3 D6dmg hit rolls of 1 cause mortals to self and hits on 5s.
2D3 Rokkitz at S8 -2AP 3dmg, hits on 5s.
20/12 shots at S5 no AP 1dmg.
All the morkanauts guns are Ranged 24-36, the big shootas (20/12 shot weapon) get the 20 at 18' range the 12 at 19-36.
-1 to hit against the Morkanaut means you are as likely to hurt yourself as the enemy and cuts its ranged dmg in half.
But yeah, the ares is totally overcosted compared to that.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ohhh! And the Morkanaut is considered a LoW now because reasons, so to even take it costs you 3CP
As i said, every codex has some stinkers that need help. Morka's gorka's and stompa's are all pretty bad in their own way. The morka and gorkanaughts should be exactly the same profile as knights (only hit on 5's in shooting with most of the guns) at their current price point. So cheaper than knights but be just as durable and killy in melee. Stompa should actually be a bit beefier than the Castellan only obviously not as good in shooting.
Custodes were fine without chapter tactics or combat doctrines, they got both without pts adjustments. We are being taken for a ride.
Each time a model with this code would lose a wound as the result of a mortal wound, roll one D6; on a 5+ that wound is not lost.
Each time a unit with this code is selected to shoot or fight, you can re-roll one wound roll when making that unit's attacks.
I think giving them chapter tactics was fine, it's pairing that with their karate system where things definitely got bent.
Actually I as much as I like the flavor aspect of doctrine systems and how they push armies to function more like their lore, they added a lot of issues to the game and probably should be removed.
Eihnlazer wrote: The ares is easily overcosted comparing it to any other large centerpiece model in the 400+ range.
They dropped it by 50pts, which was fine, but its still far too unreliable for a 400pt model.
As for the whole misappropriated in the flyer slot thing, thats not as cut and dry as you make it.
With flyer's being limited to 2 max instead of 3 in a superheavy detachment, the only issue i see is that noone would ever want to spam ares since they just arent that good currently.
They need either more reliability, or more potential output to make them worth the price tag.
Ahh so it's overcosted at 400 points for a centrepiece model? So it's comparable to the wraithknight, except it's overcosted?
**compares stats**
Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no.
And it has fly too?
Oh and the Wraithknight with even vaguely comparable weaponry is 160 points MORE expensive?
AND the Wraithknight requires a superheavy slot, costs CP, and gets no traits?
Yeh. No. Ares does not deserve buffs.
Whatever you custodes guys have been smoking lately, you really need to learn to share with the rest of the class.
Custodes were fine without chapter tactics or combat doctrines, they got both without pts adjustments. We are being taken for a ride.
Each time a model with this code would lose a wound as the result of a mortal wound, roll one D6; on a 5+ that wound is not lost.
Each time a unit with this code is selected to shoot or fight, you can re-roll one wound roll when making that unit's attacks.
Does this remind anyone of anything?
They weren't fine. They were being held up by a 3++ that was slowly going away.
They just need a point bump on Bikes and Trajan. Then we can see if there's more problems.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.
I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.
Whole armies hard countering others is something that should never exist in a game like 40k because it's a game where the vast majority of people have one or two armies and the games take way too long (and building armies way too much time, effort, and money) to ever tell people: "yeah. Don't bother. It's game over anyways."
The Ares debate also shows something important about the current game. I don't know how good they are, having never seen one, but if many players think that even those are bad that tells us that vehicles in general are completely worthless in the current game.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.
I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.
Whole armies hard countering others is something that should never exist in a game like 40k because it's a game where the vast majority of people have one or two armies and the games take way too long (and building armies way too much time, effort, and money) to ever tell people: "yeah. Don't bother. It's game over anyways."
The Ares debate also shows something important about the current game. I don't know how good they are, having never seen one, but if many players think that even those are bad that tells us that vehicles in general are completely worthless in the current game.
Yes there should be no hard counters. long odds, sure, hard counters, no.
As for how good vehicles are - have you seem some of the pictures/graphics of expected tabletops? Someone did a breakdown, I'm not sure of where/what it was - I think it was the new rule on fortification placement - and they figured out that you could only place a Hammerfall Bunker AT ALL on about half of the random tables you could have gotten. PLACE, let alone move around the board.
Here it is, I found it https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-deploying-fortifications-in-40k-9th-edition/ - Look at Table 2 and ask how a regular tank - let alone a LOW like a Knight or a BaneSwordHammer can go from one corner to the other. Check out the blue diagrams and ignore the orange borders. Realize many of these tanks are larger than the Hammerfall Bunker. If they don't fly, they don't move.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.
I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.
Whole armies hard countering others is something that should never exist in a game like 40k because it's a game where the vast majority of people have one or two armies and the games take way too long (and building armies way too much time, effort, and money) to ever tell people: "yeah. Don't bother. It's game over anyways."
The Ares debate also shows something important about the current game. I don't know how good they are, having never seen one, but if many players think that even those are bad that tells us that vehicles in general are completely worthless in the current game.
Yes there should be no hard counters. long odds, sure, hard counters, no.
As for how good vehicles are - have you seem some of the pictures/graphics of expected tabletops? Someone did a breakdown, I'm not sure of where/what it was - I think it was the new rule on fortification placement - and they figured out that you could only place a Hammerfall Bunker AT ALL on about half of the random tables you could have gotten. PLACE, let alone move around the board.
Here it is, I found it https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-deploying-fortifications-in-40k-9th-edition/ - Look at Table 2 and ask how a regular tank - let alone a LOW like a Knight or a BaneSwordHammer can go from one corner to the other. Check out the blue diagrams and ignore the orange borders. Realize many of these tanks are larger than the Hammerfall Bunker. If they don't fly, they don't move.
That is pretty horrible. Vehicles have a little more space, but still, there isn't that much space but more importantly, vehicles just don't bring that much to the table because of the sheer lethality of many armies.
And of course, this shows why the fortification rules are a joke. I fully understand not wanting them to be deployable just anywhere so they can lock off whole parts of the board, but this is a whole new story.
Salt donkey wrote: Finally, we need to wait for data but I’m pretty sure harlequins are just plain OP as well. People being relieved that craftworld aren’t OP has completely eclipsed the fact that harlequins are. No armor save and T 3 doesn’t matter when every weapon in the game is at least -1 to -2 AP and when they have numerous other defensive buffs. Oh and just like custodes all their stuff got cheaper while getting free extra rules and better stats. It is my believe this army will be disgusting and make our currently balance grievance look like minor whining.
I think Harlequin reviews have sort of been set back by exhaustion. By the time you've waded through the CWE they tend to just be "yeah, Harlequins are also a thing".
As you say - this stuff should be potent (although I'm not totally sure its going to be even more powerful than today's Custodes/Tau).
I think its partly rooted in people never really understanding (tbh I was with them) why Harlequins were so good at the start of 9th. As you say, this should allow them to do that, but better. So its hard to see why they wouldn't be top tier.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.
I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.
Whole armies hard countering others is something that should never exist in a game like 40k because it's a game where the vast majority of people have one or two armies and the games take way too long (and building armies way too much time, effort, and money) to ever tell people: "yeah. Don't bother. It's game over anyways."
The Ares debate also shows something important about the current game. I don't know how good they are, having never seen one, but if many players think that even those are bad that tells us that vehicles in general are completely worthless in the current game.
Yes there should be no hard counters. long odds, sure, hard counters, no.
As for how good vehicles are - have you seem some of the pictures/graphics of expected tabletops? Someone did a breakdown, I'm not sure of where/what it was - I think it was the new rule on fortification placement - and they figured out that you could only place a Hammerfall Bunker AT ALL on about half of the random tables you could have gotten. PLACE, let alone move around the board.
Here it is, I found it https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-deploying-fortifications-in-40k-9th-edition/ - Look at Table 2 and ask how a regular tank - let alone a LOW like a Knight or a BaneSwordHammer can go from one corner to the other. Check out the blue diagrams and ignore the orange borders. Realize many of these tanks are larger than the Hammerfall Bunker. If they don't fly, they don't move.
The current terrain rules just don't work well enough, and gwknows that, otherwise they wouldn't be spamming big Obscurring area terrain pieces on their own boards. They need to make other types of terrain actually useful, so we don't need boards like that. Go back to 4th edition terrain rules, drop the overly complicated stuff. If the only terrain that matters is big Obscurring pieces, then the terrain system isn't working.
And don't forget, anything with more than 18 wounds gets nothing from terrain unless it's literally big enough to hide the entire model.
The current terrain rules just don't work well enough, and gwknows that, otherwise they wouldn't be spamming big Obscurring area terrain pieces on their own boards. They need to make other types of terrain actually useful, so we don't need boards like that. Go back to 4th edition terrain rules, drop the overly complicated stuff. If the only terrain that matters is big Obscurring pieces, then the terrain system isn't working.
And don't forget, anything with more than 18 wounds gets nothing from terrain unless it's literally big enough to hide the entire model.
Well that and it's OK to have SOME firing lanes that go across the whole board. One across the middle of the board the long ways, and two going up the short side at 1/3 and 2/3 to represent streets/valleys etc isn't a bad thing. The important part is to not have ALL firing lanes do that, and make a calculated risk to go into those alleys.
The current terrain rules just don't work well enough, and gwknows that, otherwise they wouldn't be spamming big Obscurring area terrain pieces on their own boards. They need to make other types of terrain actually useful, so we don't need boards like that. Go back to 4th edition terrain rules, drop the overly complicated stuff. If the only terrain that matters is big Obscurring pieces, then the terrain system isn't working.
And don't forget, anything with more than 18 wounds gets nothing from terrain unless it's literally big enough to hide the entire model.
Well that and it's OK to have SOME firing lanes that go across the whole board. One across the middle of the board the long ways, and two going up the short side at 1/3 and 2/3 to represent streets/valleys etc isn't a bad thing. The important part is to not have ALL firing lanes do that, and make a calculated risk to go into those alleys.
Yes, but that would also work better if firepower was a little less extreme and not everything would just die the moment someone targets it.
The Ares debate also shows something important about the current game. I don't know how good they are, having never seen one, but if many players think that even those are bad that tells us that vehicles in general are completely worthless in the current game.
No, it tells us that those people are either delusional or just making noise to hear themselves make noise.
And vehicles are not worthless in this edition.
The current terrain rules just don't work well enough, and gwknows that, otherwise they wouldn't be spamming big Obscurring area terrain pieces on their own boards. They need to make other types of terrain actually useful, so we don't need boards like that. Go back to 4th edition terrain rules, drop the overly complicated stuff. If the only terrain that matters is big Obscurring pieces, then the terrain system isn't working.
And don't forget, anything with more than 18 wounds gets nothing from terrain unless it's literally big enough to hide the entire model.
Well that and it's OK to have SOME firing lanes that go across the whole board. One across the middle of the board the long ways, and two going up the short side at 1/3 and 2/3 to represent streets/valleys etc isn't a bad thing. The important part is to not have ALL firing lanes do that, and make a calculated risk to go into those alleys.
Aye. Gw's preferred terrain setups seem to be heavily skewed towards anything with the INFANTRY keyword. Notice that literally everything in their suggested board layouts has the BREACHABLE terrain trait. That means infantry can just Kool-aid Man right through it, while vehicles movement is heavily restricted. And vehicles can only benefit from DENSE or OBSCURRING, even if they have less than 18 wounds. The deck is stacked against vehicles and in favor of infantry on gw boards.
I may have missed the point - but I feel the Hammerfall Bunker is a bit of an exception because its a 6"x6" square - and you need a further 3" from it to any terrain piece. So you basically need a free square foot on the table to put it down. Unsurprisingly that is quite uncommon.
But that's quite a bit bigger than a Baneblade - and way bigger than a regular vehicle. A Rhino for instance is 4.5" long and 3" wide? I don't think it struggles to get around the table.
Tyel wrote: I may have missed the point - but I feel the Hammerfall Bunker is a bit of an exception because its a 6"x6" square - and you need a further 3" from it to any terrain piece. So you basically need a free square foot on the table to put it down. Unsurprisingly that is quite uncommon.
Tyel wrote: I may have missed the point - but I feel the Hammerfall Bunker is a bit of an exception because its a 6"x6" square - and you need a further 3" from it to any terrain piece. So you basically need a free square foot on the table to put it down. Unsurprisingly that is quite uncommon.
As i said, every codex has some stinkers that need help. Morka's gorka's and stompa's are all pretty bad in their own way. The morka and gorkanaughts should be exactly the same profile as knights (only hit on 5's in shooting with most of the guns) at their current price point. So cheaper than knights but be just as durable and killy in melee. Stompa should actually be a bit beefier than the Castellan only obviously not as good in shooting.
No, what you actually said was
Eihnlazer wrote: The ares is easily overcosted comparing it to any other large centerpiece model in the 400+ range.
The Morkanaut is 20pts cheaper, the Gork is cheaper still, while the Stompa is several hundred points more expensive. None of those 3 ever see competitive play and haven't in a long time. The Orkanauts should NOT be knights profiles. A knight has access to buffs, auras, traits, relics, stratagems etc. An Orkanaut has...none of that. Its a super heavy with no real purpose other than collecting dust.
I'm not saying the Ares is OP, I'm just pointing out that you said compared to any similar centerpiece model its over priced, and that just is not the case.
Tyel wrote: For Custodes just stick 30 points on Trajann and 10 points on the bikes and see what happens. You could (and probably should) nerf Emperor's Chosen, and take a scalpel to lots of other units - but that's fiddly and the above could be issued in a one page PDF tomorrow.
I think Tau are much harder to fix because basically the whole Codex is undercosted in the context of available synergy, army rules, sept bonuses, stratagems etc. Crisis Suits up 5, Broadsides both losing Core and going up 10 and Stormsurges up 25 would probably be a start.
Finally, we need to wait for data but I’m pretty sure harlequins are just plain OP as well. People being relieved that craftworld aren’t OP has completely eclipsed the fact that harlequins are. No armor save and T 3 doesn’t matter when every weapon in the game is at least -1 to -2 AP and when they have numerous other defensive buffs. Oh and just like custodes all their stuff got cheaper while getting free extra rules and better stats. It is my believe this army will be disgusting and make our currently balance grievance look like minor whining.
Harlequins are looking mightily strong and able to compete with Tau and Custodes but the major caveat here is you're unlikely to come across them in an event and even more unlikely to come across them in the wild either.
They're just not a prevalent or popular army.
Not that any balance concerns regarding them should be dismissed, but when close to half of all event attendees are Taustodes and with Custodes being incredibly easy to collect and paint allowing more people to jump on the bandwagon, it sort of amplifies the issues. It's why Marines being dominant for 18 months was so problematic; you just couldn't get away from them.
Salt donkey wrote: Finally, we need to wait for data but I’m pretty sure harlequins are just plain OP as well. People being relieved that craftworld aren’t OP has completely eclipsed the fact that harlequins are. No armor save and T 3 doesn’t matter when every weapon in the game is at least -1 to -2 AP and when they have numerous other defensive buffs. Oh and just like custodes all their stuff got cheaper while getting free extra rules and better stats. It is my believe this army will be disgusting and make our currently balance grievance look like minor whining.
Preach! Completely agree on believing they will be better (or wose depending on how you look at it) than current Custodes.
Tyel wrote: I may have missed the point - but I feel the Hammerfall Bunker is a bit of an exception because its a 6"x6" square - and you need a further 3" from it to any terrain piece. So you basically need a free square foot on the table to put it down. Unsurprisingly that is quite uncommon.
9" - 9.5"(to be sure) =/= square foot.
3” in either direction, so it is 12”.
This right here may have been the most polite and quickest-resolved discussion in Dakka history.
The current terrain rules just don't work well enough, and gwknows that, otherwise they wouldn't be spamming big Obscurring area terrain pieces on their own boards. They need to make other types of terrain actually useful, so we don't need boards like that. Go back to 4th edition terrain rules, drop the overly complicated stuff. If the only terrain that matters is big Obscurring pieces, then the terrain system isn't working.
And don't forget, anything with more than 18 wounds gets nothing from terrain unless it's literally big enough to hide the entire model.
Well that and it's OK to have SOME firing lanes that go across the whole board. One across the middle of the board the long ways, and two going up the short side at 1/3 and 2/3 to represent streets/valleys etc isn't a bad thing. The important part is to not have ALL firing lanes do that, and make a calculated risk to go into those alleys.
Yes, but that would also work better if firepower was a little less extreme and not everything would just die the moment someone targets it.
That's the part that makes going in the alley a calculated risk. This is of course based on the assumption we make vehicles not suck even before the problems with terrain. 3ATVs have far more than 2/3 of the wounds - and the multiple model excess wounds speedbump to offset the lower T- and almsot all of the shots - if not more - of the Repulsor Executioner for about 2/3 the price.
Eihnlazer wrote: Thats probably my issue atm. Im running Emissaries imperatus shield host and playing a shooty custodes list.
Apparently the reason im having such trouble against tau is strictly because of my build. I have no issue against some other things, but I litterally have no chance against tau with my current list.
So yes, some custodes play fine into tau, and some do not. The frustration I felt was mostly just due to my list choice.
Are you sure? Maybe the Tau player was using loaded dice...
Seriously, reading this thread has been making me laugh a lot, so thanks for all the comedy gold!
Ahem, anyways I can agree with most posters in here that something should be done about Custodes and Tau. With Custodes, GW needs to take a fairly delicate touch due to the low model counts involved. It would be real easy to go too far and end up doing to them what they recently did to my poor Sisters of Battle (RIP ). Trajann obviously needs to cost more, ditto with Salvo Praetors, but I'm not sure anything else needs to take a whack yet. Increasing Salvos by 10 and Trajann by 20 would mean many Custodes players would have to cut 120 points out of their lists (basically 2 Alarus models or a unit of 3 Wardens and change). That might be too much, and yet it might not; likely you wouldn't see anyone running 9 bikes anymore (or just taking one unit with HBs instead). There are other things in the codex that are good, so you might see players just pivot to other stuff (maybe Telemons would start to become more popular again).
Tyel wrote: I may have missed the point - but I feel the Hammerfall Bunker is a bit of an exception because its a 6"x6" square - and you need a further 3" from it to any terrain piece. So you basically need a free square foot on the table to put it down. Unsurprisingly that is quite uncommon.
9" - 9.5"(to be sure) =/= square foot.
3” in either direction, so it is 12”.
You just added the 3" buffer a second time. 6" square + 3-3.5 (to be sure) = 9-9.5 (to be sure) inches + 3 inches a second time to get to the square foot.
And if you look placing the 6 inches doesn't include MOVING the 6" block. That six inch green block can almost assuredly move "down" the board towards "your" own deployment zone- the two orange buffer ballons are assumedly each 3" wide and do not touch meaning more than 6" of space there.. It may or may not be able to move across the back of your zone. It does not look like there are two orange spaces of width at the bottom, but maybe. The two orange spaces overlap between the two big grey blocks, so I doubt you can move 6" up that way either. Now a Repulsor is only roughly 5" wide (assuming the Hammerfall is 6x6, and my eyeballing a Repulsor against a Hammerfall - I have both but not a tape measure on my project table) so maybe it gets around better, but not by much. A Knight Castellan base is 170 x109 - 170mm = 6.69291339" According to another post on here a Baneblade is:
Length: 22cm (8.66141732") from the rear tracks to the front tracks. 20cm from the engine to the front of the tank.
Width: 14cm Not including Sponsons. 18cm (7.08661417") including sponsons
Height: 6 cm from the bottom of the tracks to the top of the main body. Add a further 1.5cm for the main gun mount.
Inches in Red are converted/added by me. That 8.5" by 7" Baneblade aint goin nowhere - and we should also rememeber this is assuming an oldschool 12 inches across the long axis zone the newer triangle etc zones may not even allow this much.
In other words for Terrain Layout 1 should you bring a Hammerfall Bunker and randomly roll for a mission you have a 50% chance of it being destroyed before you even roll a die. It’s worth noting that in the GW events this layout is only used for the Surround & Destroy, Retrieval Mission, and Scorched Earth missions.
Terrain Layout 2 is a bit more forgiving, with nice corners that have a clear place for a fortification to be deployed. 32% of the surface area of the board is blue, but as with the first layout most of the area is shaped in such a way to prohibit the use of larger fortifications. The rectangles plotted here are roughly 10″ by 16″ so unfortunately a Skyshield Landing Pad won’t fit but you can definitely get a Hammerfall Bunker or an Imperial Bastion in there.
The good news is that this layout has space for a fortification in the three missions that didn’t work at all for Layout 1. The bad news is that the other three missions still have a 50% chance of the deployment zone not having any space.
Tyel wrote: I may have missed the point - but I feel the Hammerfall Bunker is a bit of an exception because its a 6"x6" square - and you need a further 3" from it to any terrain piece. So you basically need a free square foot on the table to put it down. Unsurprisingly that is quite uncommon.
9" - 9.5"(to be sure) =/= square foot.
3” in either direction, so it is 12”.
You just added the 3" buffer a second time. 6" square + 3-3.5 (to be sure) = 9-9.5 (to be sure) inches + 3 inches a second time to get to the square foot.
yes?.... a 6" block with a 3" buffer is 3" left and 3" right (and top and bottom) so 3 (buffer left) + 6 (actual model) + 3 (buffer right) = 12" square.
Tyel wrote: I may have missed the point - but I feel the Hammerfall Bunker is a bit of an exception because its a 6"x6" square - and you need a further 3" from it to any terrain piece. So you basically need a free square foot on the table to put it down. Unsurprisingly that is quite uncommon.
9" - 9.5"(to be sure) =/= square foot.
3” in either direction, so it is 12”.
You just added the 3" buffer a second time. 6" square + 3-3.5 (to be sure) = 9-9.5 (to be sure) inches + 3 inches a second time to get to the square foot.
yes?.... a 6" block with a 3" buffer is 3" left and 3" right (and top and bottom) so 3 (buffer left) + 6 (actual model) + 3 (buffer right) = 12" square.
Only if you don't ignore one edge by placing it near a table edge, which is the only place you could ever expect to fit a fortification in the first place. So yes, technically you're correct, but practically you're entirely wrong.
Ahem, anyways I can agree with most posters in here that something should be done about Custodes and Tau. With Custodes, GW needs to take a fairly delicate touch due to the low model counts involved. It would be real easy to go too far and end up doing to them what they recently did to my poor Sisters of Battle (RIP ). Trajann obviously needs to cost more, ditto with Salvo Praetors, but I'm not sure anything else needs to take a whack yet. Increasing Salvos by 10 and Trajann by 20 would mean many Custodes players would have to cut 120 points out of their lists (basically 2 Alarus models or a unit of 3 Wardens and change). That might be too much, and yet it might not; likely you wouldn't see anyone running 9 bikes anymore (or just taking one unit with HBs instead). There are other things in the codex that are good, so you might see players just pivot to other stuff (maybe Telemons would start to become more popular again).
Agreed they need to play it light when adjusting points on such a low model count army.
But lets take a look at Trajann compared to the Ork Beastboss on Squigosaur which was considered so overwhelmingly OP that it took a 30pt Price hike to the face. Going from 145pts to 175pts.
For starters, The Beastboss is 175pts Trajann is 160pts. So he is about 10% cheaper.
Abilities: Beastboss - "Beast Snagga" Add 1 to hit against Vehicles/Monsters and 6+ invuln. - "Beastboss Aura" +1 to hit for Beast snagga Core/Characters within 6' of him in melee. - "Dead tough" 5+ Invuln save. - "Thick Hide" -1dmg when suffering dmg.
Trajann - "Adamantine Mantle" 5+ FNP - "Captain General" 2 warlord traits and +1 CP. - "Champion of the Imperium" Double Heroic intervention rules basically and Re-roll all hits for himself. - "Legendary Commander Aura" Re-roll Hit and wound rolls of 1. Custards hit on 2s so this is effectively re-roll hits to everyone. Since they are Base S5 and/or have spears they usually wound almost everything on 3s so the wound re-roll is a 50% re-roll, not bad. - "Master of Martial Strategy" 5+ refund on CP, and free change of your "Ka'tah" - "Moment Shackle" Once per Battle; Attack Again, Change incoming dmg to 0 or free interrupt in CC.
Weapons Beastboss - Beastchoppa. S user, AP-2 D2 +1 attack Slugga - Pistol 1, S4 AP0 D1. Squigosaur's Jaws - S7 AP-3 3dmg, Extra 3 attacks with this weapon and only 3. On a wound roll of 6 it inflicts 3 mortals and attack ends.
Trajann - Misericordia S User, AP-2 1dmg +1 attack. Watcher's Axe S x2 -3AP 3dmg Watcher's Axe (shooting) Rapid Fire 1, S5 -1AP 2dmg.
Rule selection: Beastboss - Ere We Go. Re-roll charges.
Trajann - Aegis of the Emperor 4+ invuln save. Martial Ka'tah: yeah.... Objective Secured: Because Reasons.
I'll be blunt here, Beastboss is better in CC, but barely 6 S6 AP-2 dmg attacks and 3 S7 AP-3 3dmg attacks is slightly better than 6 S10 AP-3 3dmg attacks or 7 S5 AP-2 1dmg attacks.
Shooting wise its not even a contest, Trajann is head and shoulders better.
Buffing: Trajann wins hands down. Giving everyone effectively re-roll hits and 50% of wounds is pretty damn good. Beastboss giving +1 to hit is ok, but its only good on beast snagga units which there aren't many of.
Durability: Trajann wins again. Beastboss has 9 wounds at T7 4+ save and 5+ invuln with -1dmg. Trajann has 8 wounds at T5 with 2+ save, 4+ invuln and 5+ FNP
Against bolters it takes 54 bolter hits to kill the Beastboss.(54 hits, 18 wounds, 9dmg) Against super charging Plasma guns it takes 20.25 hits to kill (20.25 hits, 13.5 wounds, 9dmg) Against bolters it takes 216 bolter hits to kill Trajann. (216 hits, 72 wounds, 12 failed armor saves, 8 failed FNP. 8 dmg) Against Super charging plasma guns it takes 19(ish) hits (more if using once per game ability) (19 hits, 12.6 wounds, 6.3 failed Invulns, 8.4ish failed FNP)
Against D3+3 weapons or worse it goes in favor of Trajann thanks to his better invuln and 5+FNP.
So Beastboss got hit with a 20% price hike because of how OP he was (LOL) but Trajann who is significantly better in almost all categories is somehow cheaper and by a significant margin. So yeah, I call BS.
Ahem, anyways I can agree with most posters in here that something should be done about Custodes and Tau. With Custodes, GW needs to take a fairly delicate touch due to the low model counts involved. It would be real easy to go too far and end up doing to them what they recently did to my poor Sisters of Battle (RIP ). Trajann obviously needs to cost more, ditto with Salvo Praetors, but I'm not sure anything else needs to take a whack yet. Increasing Salvos by 10 and Trajann by 20 would mean many Custodes players would have to cut 120 points out of their lists (basically 2 Alarus models or a unit of 3 Wardens and change). That might be too much, and yet it might not; likely you wouldn't see anyone running 9 bikes anymore (or just taking one unit with HBs instead). There are other things in the codex that are good, so you might see players just pivot to other stuff (maybe Telemons would start to become more popular again).
Agreed they need to play it light when adjusting points on such a low model count army.
But lets take a look at Trajann compared to the Ork Beastboss on Squigosaur which was considered so overwhelmingly OP that it took a 30pt Price hike to the face. Going from 145pts to 175pts.
For starters, The Beastboss is 175pts Trajann is 160pts. So he is about 10% cheaper.
Abilities:
Beastboss - "Beast Snagga" Add 1 to hit against Vehicles/Monsters and 6+ invuln.
- "Beastboss Aura" +1 to hit for Beast snagga Core/Characters within 6' of him in melee.
- "Dead tough" 5+ Invuln save.
- "Thick Hide" -1dmg when suffering dmg.
Trajann - "Adamantine Mantle" 5+ FNP - "Captain General" 2 warlord traits and +1 CP.
- "Champion of the Imperium" Double Heroic intervention rules basically and Re-roll all hits for himself.
- "Legendary Commander Aura" Re-roll Hit and wound rolls of 1. Custards hit on 2s so this is effectively re-roll hits to everyone. Since they are Base S5 and/or have spears they usually wound almost everything on 3s so the wound re-roll is a 50% re-roll, not bad.
- "Master of Martial Strategy" 5+ refund on CP, and free change of your "Ka'tah"
- "Moment Shackle" Once per Battle; Attack Again, Change incoming dmg to 0 or free interrupt in CC.
Weapons
Beastboss - Beastchoppa. S user, AP-2 D2 +1 attack
Slugga - Pistol 1, S4 AP0 D1.
Squigosaur's Jaws - S7 AP-3 3dmg, Extra 3 attacks with this weapon and only 3. On a wound roll of 6 it inflicts 3 mortals and attack ends.
Trajann - Misericordia S User, AP-2 1dmg +1 attack.
Watcher's Axe S x2 -3AP 3dmg
Watcher's Axe (shooting) Rapid Fire 1, S5 -1AP 2dmg.
Rule selection:
Beastboss - Ere We Go. Re-roll charges.
Trajann - Aegis of the Emperor 4+ invuln save.
Martial Ka'tah: yeah....
Objective Secured: Because Reasons.
I'll be blunt here, Beastboss is better in CC, but barely 6 S6 AP-2 dmg attacks and 3 S7 AP-3 3dmg attacks is slightly better than 6 S10 AP-3 3dmg attacks or 7 S5 AP-2 1dmg attacks.
Shooting wise its not even a contest, Trajann is head and shoulders better.
Buffing: Trajann wins hands down. Giving everyone effectively re-roll hits and 50% of wounds is pretty damn good. Beastboss giving +1 to hit is ok, but its only good on beast snagga units which there aren't many of.
Durability: Trajann wins again. Beastboss has 9 wounds at T7 4+ save and 5+ invuln with -1dmg. Trajann has 8 wounds at T5 with 2+ save, 4+ invuln and 5+ FNP
Against bolters it takes 54 bolter hits to kill the Beastboss.(54 hits, 18 wounds, 9dmg) Against super charging Plasma guns it takes 20.25 hits to kill (20.25 hits, 13.5 wounds, 9dmg)
Against bolters it takes 216 bolter hits to kill Trajann. (216 hits, 72 wounds, 12 failed armor saves, 8 failed FNP. 8 dmg) Against Super charging plasma guns it takes 19(ish) hits (more if using once per game ability) (19 hits, 12.6 wounds, 6.3 failed Invulns, 8.4ish failed FNP)
Against D3+3 weapons or worse it goes in favor of Trajann thanks to his better invuln and 5+FNP.
So Beastboss got hit with a 20% price hike because of how OP he was (LOL) but Trajann who is significantly better in almost all categories is somehow cheaper and by a significant margin. So yeah, I call BS.
To be fair you forgot to incorporate relic and warlord Trait for the Beastboss. Not saying he DESERVED the 30 point hike entirely but you forgot that part of the analysis.
Eihnlazer wrote: its more fair to compare the beastboss on squigasaur to the Shield captain on Dawneagle bike.
Both are calvary type bruisers.
Trajann being an infantry footslogger is alot less mobile than the beastboss and is intended to be moreof a force multiplier and scalpel.
You cannot compare trajann to anyone currently (other than mabey guilliman who is a bit overpriced).
Yes you can. You can compare them.
If they’re not 1-to-1 equivalent, that’s okay-different codecs have different needs.
But you can’t honestly say Trajann is correctly priced-not without being oblivious or willfully ignoring things.
Eihnlazer wrote: its more fair to compare the beastboss on squigasaur to the Shield captain on Dawneagle bike.
Both are calvary type bruisers.
Trajann being an infantry footslogger is alot less mobile than the beastboss and is intended to be moreof a force multiplier and scalpel.
You cannot compare trajann to anyone currently (other than mabey guilliman who is a bit overpriced).
Yes you can. You can compare them.
If they’re not 1-to-1 equivalent, that’s okay-different codecs have different needs.
But you can’t honestly say Trajann is correctly priced-not without being oblivious or willfully ignoring things.
Not going to disagree about Trajann's points but comparing apples to apples makes the point stick better.
Comparing units from different books is a pointless exercise.
You could drop intercessors to 10 ppm and raise the points of something else (like all characters) to perfectly counteract that and the lists would be identical.
What matters is the external balance between books as a whole, not the balance 1:1 for every single unit inside them.
Trajann looks cheap when compared to other characters in other books, but he could still cost 160 pts and be balanced.
That is if the point costs for all other custodes units were somehow high enough for the resulting lists to be externally balanced.
There aren't many good apples to apples options for Trajann, as you have to compare against an infantry named character without psychic and of course it is pointless using an 8th edition codex because I think we have almost all accepted that GW have abandoned those books.
Marneus Calgar though. 210 points.
T5 8W 2+/4++ halves damage vs T5 8W 2+/4++/5+++.
Not obsec vs obsec.
+2CP vs +1CP + extra warlord trait. (T gets the same trait as M but better then another really good one).
Chap Master and rr1s vs rr1s to both hit and wound.
7 S8 AP3 Dd3 vs. 6 S10 AP3 D3.
Ultramarines vs. any choice.
Super doctrines vs.Katahs.
Nothing vs Moment Shackle.
Even if Trajann was 210 points he would still be better than Marneus because although Marneus can use transhuman and fight on death he doesn't have access to things like Auspice, interrupt for 1CP, +1 to wound vs tough stuff, tanglefoot.
And remember, they reduced Trajann's cost in a book where they could have changed Marneus' cost too...
Eihnlazer wrote: its more fair to compare the beastboss on squigasaur to the Shield captain on Dawneagle bike.
Both are calvary type bruisers.
Trajann being an infantry footslogger is alot less mobile than the beastboss and is intended to be moreof a force multiplier and scalpel.
You cannot compare trajann to anyone currently (other than mabey guilliman who is a bit overpriced).
Both are HQs, have similar price, have similar weapon profiles, have similar durability profiles. Nope, not good enough. Why? Because one has Movement 10 and one has movement 6. Therefore 4" of difference means we can't compare the two units! Do you see how asinine that is? Lets turn that argument on its head, "Its more fair to compare Beastboss on Squigosaur to Trajann because Shield Captain on Dawneagle Bike is a jetbike!"
Trajann is 4" slower than Beastboss, Beastboss is 4" slower than Dawneagle.
I do agree that Trajann is more of a force multiplier, but that is kind of the point, his entire shtick is Force multiplying, yet he is almost as good as the beastboss on squigosaur in CC. So hes better in every single way except hes slower and is ever so slightly weaker in CC.
Not going to disagree about Trajann's points but comparing apples to apples makes the point stick better.
As I noted above, the biggest difference between Trajann and Beastboss on Squig is 4" of movement. So there is no apples to apples comparison regardless.
An easy way to tell if a unit is good enough in the context of the game in general is whether or not its taken on a regular basis in top performing tournament lists. I think there were like 5 Custard players in the top 8 at Cherokee and I think (not sure) they all took Trajann.
A good way to tell if a unit is good enough in the context of its own codex (internal balance) is whether or not its taken regularly in tournaments. Top list for orkz was Buggy spam, when that got nerfed they went with the Army of Renown, neither of which took Beastboss on Squigosaur. The 3rd option for Orkz is my Goff Alphork strike list, and I don't even take him because hes too expensive and does nothing to help my army because unless i'm going heavy on Beast Snagga boyz and Squighog boyz there is no point to using his aura buffs.
So even though he wasn't seen on a regular basis, GW decided to slap him in the face with a 30pt price hike, along with the named version which was seen even less because its character locked to snakebites...who suck.
Going back to the original point, Trajann definitely needs a nerf, based on his aura's and how much of a beatstick he is along with his durabiltiy, hes literally better than Calgar but significantly cheaper. You could more fairly compare Trajann to Girlyman than any other character. And he is what? 380pts?
Honestly comparing Guilliman and Trajann is a better split because Guilliman is a lot pricier for a worse rules which illustrates better how far out of bounds Trajann us right now.
ClockworkZion wrote: Honestly comparing Guilliman and Trajann is a better split because Guilliman is a lot pricier for a worse rules which illustrates better how far out of bounds Trajann us right now.
Or it shows that both Trajaan needs a point increase AND Roboute needs to be fixed.
Trajan isn't the only unit in the newer codexes that's "out of bounds" compared to similar units in older codexes. If gw has shown us anything in the recent codexes and "balance updates", it's that: 1; They're willing to price the units within them very "competitively", and 2; They have very little interest in updating the points/rules for similar units in older books to bring them more closely in line with the newer ones.
Aenar wrote: Comparing units from different books is a pointless exercise.
You could drop intercessors to 10 ppm and raise the points of something else (like all characters) to perfectly counteract that and the lists would be identical.
What matters is the external balance between books as a whole, not the balance 1:1 for every single unit inside them.
Trajann looks cheap when compared to other characters in other books, but he could still cost 160 pts and be balanced.
That is if the point costs for all other custodes units were somehow high enough for the resulting lists to be externally balanced.
Not convinced this is right.
If Trajann is undercosted by a lot, it means all Custodes competitive lists should include him. That's not great. (I mean - he is, and they do.)
In the same way your argument about Intercessors is a bit weird - because Marine Players would just minimise characters and spam intercessors and therefore get a more effective list than now. (You could say Marine players tend to minimise characters anyway - but that is in turn a reflection of their points efficiency.)
Its right that "if the best 2000 points of Custodes existed and was kind of mediocre, the fact Trajann was massively undercosted wouldn't be an issue". But first... that's not the case. And secondly, if it were, that would presumably mean almost everything else in the Custodes book was way overcosted. Which isn't great - and should hopefully be looked at.
Instead Custodes is massively overperforming. You could try and nuke the internal efficiency. Hike the cost of stratagems (or change them fundamentally). Attack the various special rules. But its a lot easier to go "in any other codex Trajann would be about 200 points, lets make him 200 points and see what happens".
Tyel wrote: If Trajann is undercosted by a lot, it means all Custodes competitive lists should include him.
Exactly. And that only makes sense if you assume players are going to take balanced lists instead of min/maxing their competitive options - which is a mistake GW has made many times in the past, seemingly out of laziness or incompetence.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Trajan isn't the only unit in the newer codexes that's "out of bounds" compared to similar units in older codexes. If gw has shown us anything in the recent codexes and "balance updates", it's that: 1; They're willing to price the units within them very "competitively", and 2; They have very little interest in updating the points/rules for similar units in older books to bring them more closely in line with the newer ones.
See this rings more true than anything else. GW either wittingly or unwittingly makes certain units OP. But here is the problem, they are about as competent at this as 95% of Dakka posters talking about other armies that they themselves don't have as a primary.
I'll give yet another ork example because....I R ORK!
When the Ork codex leaks were happening I flat out stated Ork boyz were going to be trash, I likewise stated that the pissing and moaning about Snakebites was a waste of time because they weren't in fact OP, they were actually garbage. We also had people freaking out for a bit about the new "Dakka" weapons and many competent ork players rightly pointed out that it was a de-facto nerf, or at best a side grade for a weapons system drastically under powered in todays meta.
Fast forward 6 months and here we are. Every contradiction I made to the GW playtesters and the Dakka Meta crowd was proven right across the board. I'm not smarter than anyone else, its just I literally only collect and play orkz and have done so for decades. I understand at a fundamental level the power imbalances and internal levels of ork units because I've used them exclusively against a host of other armies. GW does not employ someone like myself to playtest orkz, GW in fact doesn't even own an Ork Studio Army (Something they admitted to publicly)
So here we sit in 9th edition, GW thought they had made certain units broken/OP those would be the Killrig, kommandos and Beastboss on Squigosaur. Go back and look at the tournament meta data that came in from the release of the Ork codex until CA 2022 came out, now find me a rationale reason for nerfing the Beastboss by 30pts, likewise, find me a reason in that meta for why Kommandos who were being taken MSU in groups of 5 but still needed a 20% nerf. I'll give you a hint, it doesn't exist. Don't get me wrong, I think Kommandos are still good for what they bring to the table, but I play them very differently to how the tournament meta players do. So again, why did those ork units get beaten to death with the nerf bat while at the same time units like Chickenwalkers were receiving token nerfs that did little to adjust there actual value. I mean, think about that, The Beastboss on Squigosaur which was barely taken was nerfed by 20.6%, Kommandos who were used MSU for objective camping were nerfed by 20% but the chickenwalker which was spammed in basically every single Ad-Mech winning list was nerfed to lose core and then nerfed a 2nd time and received a world shattering, mind altering 15% points increase, or 10pts.
The point I'm making here is that GW really just doesn't understand their own armies that well and the ones they do play/like seem to receive more love in terms of rules adjustments. This is mostly just speculation, but i really don't think GW understand enough about the things they are doing and they should branch out and interact with community members who are Subject Matter Experts in a faction. And preferably ones who want competitive games rather than fluffy campaigns. A balanced army can always be used in fluffy campaigns while a fluffy army can't be used in competitive games often. anyway, have a good night.
Aenar wrote: Comparing units from different books is a pointless exercise.
This is a weird argument, and it always has been. The game is designed around the idea that a fair game is two armies at the same point value. If you can't compare units, that's a failure of the basic, fundamental principle that underlies the entire game.
You could drop intercessors to 10 ppm and raise the points of something else (like all characters) to perfectly counteract that and the lists would be identical.
No...? That's not a conclusion that's supported by anything. If you raise something and drop the cost of something else, the lists very much migrate to the new advantage.
What matters is the external balance between books as a whole, not the balance 1:1 for every single unit inside them.
Trajann looks cheap when compared to other characters in other books, but he could still cost 160 pts and be balanced.
That is if the point costs for all other custodes units were somehow high enough for the resulting lists to be externally balanced.
But, even assuming that's true... that isn't the situation. Trajann isn't magically balanced by too-expensive custodes units. Internal balance obviously matters, and it has a very telling and notable affect on external balance (which is why we see the meta shift so often when there is a points shakeup).
When Space Marines have literally only 4 base units in plastic to choose from, you can compare us. When SM have to pay more than 50+ points per their new Bladeguard squad members, we can compare them. There is no equal or comparison, so please stop comparing them.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: When Space Marines have literally only 4 base units in plastic to choose from, you can compare us. When SM have to pay more than 50+ points per their new Bladeguard squad members, we can compare them. There is no equal or comparison, so please stop comparing them.
You brought up the comparison to IG.
And amount of models (in plastic or not) has nothing to do with balance on the table.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: When Space Marines have literally only 4 base units in plastic to choose from, you can compare us. When SM have to pay more than 50+ points per their new Bladeguard squad members, we can compare them. There is no equal or comparison, so please stop comparing them.
You brought up the comparison to IG.
And amount of models (in plastic or not) has nothing to do with balance on the table.
Well, when your (Easily) available model range is literally 5-6 models, Nerfing our best unit is almost 20% of our game. Yes, Trajann is good, but lets be honest here. We're just the FOTM right now, and this time come June we'll be complaining about nerfing Eldar or Nerfing Tau. I think everyone is hyper focusing on one unit, that really isn't that major a problem. No one cried for Mortarian Nerfs when he was literally unkillable even by dual Hammerheads. Even two Shadowswords fail to effectively knock him down. Trajann can be killed in a single shooting phase. Or a single melee phase. He's only OP because of what he can do when on the table. The answer is very simple. Take him off the table. Then the majority of the gameplan for Custodes is toast.
Aenar wrote: Comparing units from different books is a pointless exercise.
No.
You could drop intercessors to 10 ppm and raise the points of something else (like all characters) to perfectly counteract that and the lists would be identical.
No.
What matters is the external balance between books as a whole, not the balance 1:1 for every single unit inside them.
Right, but external balance is decided by lists taken. Points costs of units will determine what units and how many units are in lists. Like if Intercessors were 10 ppm you'd see a lot of lists with 60+ Intercessors and assuming Characters were overpriced then people would just take as few characters as possible to go with their undercosted Intercessors. Lists that do well into Intercessor spam might be as good or better than before and lists that do poorly against Intercessor spam would do worse.
Trajann looks cheap when compared to other characters in other books, but he could still cost 160 pts and be balanced.
I think you'd need a very specific set of circumstances for that to be true. Assuming #1 other factions don't change #2 Custodes get pts costs that move them down to a 55% win rate #3 Trajann at 160 is not an autoinclude in competitive lists is a hard pill to swallow for me. Theoretically I agree, but in practical terms I don't buy it.
If Trajann or Intercessors are auto-includes then that's a problem, even if the army has a healthy win-rate in tournaments because people do or don't run the efficient units. It would also be possible for an army to underperform because too many people don't run the autoinclude units, like if they were expensive FW units. The overall army might have a 55% win rate, but GW lists have a 40% win rate and FW lists have a 70% win rate, that's not healthy at all. GW could continue nerfing the GW units to keep the army at a 55% win rate as more and more people drop the army or move over to using FW units until a small minority of players have a 10% win rate with GW units while the FW units keep pulling their 70% win rate.
Custodes should get an across-the-board 10% hike in a hotfix patch to start things off in compensation for their new Chapter Tactics and Combat Doctrines, then GW can further nerf their most popular units by 10% in the next CA. Better yet, remove Combat Doctrines and Chapter Tactics from Custodes in the next balance whatever the heck they call it. Bloat for the bloat god, writers justifying their existence by continually changing the game to require more work to maintain and balance.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: When Space Marines have literally only 4 base units in plastic to choose from, you can compare us. When SM have to pay more than 50+ points per their new Bladeguard squad members, we can compare them. There is no equal or comparison, so please stop comparing them.
You brought up the comparison to IG.
And amount of models (in plastic or not) has nothing to do with balance on the table.
Well, when your (Easily) available model range is literally 5-6 models, Nerfing our best unit is almost 20% of our game. Yes, Trajann is good, but lets be honest here. We're just the FOTM right now, and this time come June we'll be complaining about nerfing Eldar or Nerfing Tau. I think everyone is hyper focusing on one unit, that really isn't that major a problem. No one cried for Mortarian Nerfs when he was literally unkillable even by dual Hammerheads. Even two Shadowswords fail to effectively knock him down. Trajann can be killed in a single shooting phase. Or a single melee phase. He's only OP because of what he can do when on the table. The answer is very simple. Take him off the table. Then the majority of the gameplan for Custodes is toast.
The number of plastic kits that comprise your army is not something that should have any effect on balance decisions. It's really weird to insist it should. Not as weird as suggesting a model is only OP when he's actually being used though.
Custodes may just be the FOTM army right now and Eldar may end up being equally or more busted. That's still not a reason to leave Custodes as they are. Even if Eldar turn out to be more broken than Custodes that doesn't help anyone playing any of the other armies when they come up against the still-busted Custodes. Pointing at another army and claiming everything's fine because you're not as broken as them is spectacularly missing the point.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: When Space Marines have literally only 4 base units in plastic to choose from, you can compare us. When SM have to pay more than 50+ points per their new Bladeguard squad members, we can compare them. There is no equal or comparison, so please stop comparing them.
You brought up the comparison to IG.
And amount of models (in plastic or not) has nothing to do with balance on the table.
Well, when your (Easily) available model range is literally 5-6 models, Nerfing our best unit is almost 20% of our game. Yes, Trajann is good, but lets be honest here. We're just the FOTM right now, and this time come June we'll be complaining about nerfing Eldar or Nerfing Tau. I think everyone is hyper focusing on one unit, that really isn't that major a problem. No one cried for Mortarian Nerfs when he was literally unkillable even by dual Hammerheads. Even two Shadowswords fail to effectively knock him down. Trajann can be killed in a single shooting phase. Or a single melee phase. He's only OP because of what he can do when on the table. The answer is very simple. Take him off the table. Then the majority of the gameplan for Custodes is toast.
The difference with Mortarion is that Death Guard wasn't curb stomping the meta dead. They were strong, but not next level strong.
However, Custodes are OP as a package deal and it is quite literally destroying the meta along with their fish-siblings, the Tau. We never saw that with Death Guard, and it wasn't until Drukhari came along that we saw the first meta killing codexes.
Blackie wrote: Basic troops like intercessors as auto includes is not a problem if taken in healthy numbers. Spamming 40+ of them might be.
How can 5-10 intercessors in every possible SM list be considered a problem?
You are silly if you think people would bring no more than 10 Intercessors at 10 PPM.
Of course, 10ppm intercessors would be a problem. My point was a basic troop is not a problem if it is auto include in any possible list as long as numbers of the models stay healthy. I'm not against the idea of having intercessors as auto includes, I actually think basic troop choices should be incentivized. If 5-20 intercessors show up pretty much everytime that's not a problem.
I'm against spamming stuff instead, not just troops, and in that case I agree with you.
Intercessors only sure, but I'd like to see what lists look like if all or almost all troops units are 25% - 50% off - probably need some sort of mechanic to keep people from doing 3 empty Tac Squads i.e., you only get the discount on max size units, or something. Blobs of 30 boyz for 135 points or 7PL? 10 Heavy Intercessors for 7PL or 140points? Unit upgrades like Heavy Bolters, or Guardian Weapon Platforms etc. should probably still be full price above the half price bodies. Combine that with the variable cost strats being cheaper for max size instead of the other way around, and it could push people into taking more BLAST-able units.
Intercessors only sure, but I'd like to see what lists look like if all or almost all troops units are 25% - 50% off - probably need some sort of mechanic to keep people from doing 3 empty Tac Squads i.e., you only get the discount on max size units, or something. Blobs of 30 boyz for 135 points or 7PL? 10 Heavy Intercessors for 7PL or 140points? Unit upgrades like Heavy Bolters, or Guardian Weapon Platforms etc. should probably still be full price above the half price bodies. Combine that with the variable cost strats being cheaper for max size instead of the other way around, and it could push people into taking more BLAST-able units.
You could just make it an elites choice or make 3 unique named units.
Trajann could cost 5 points (FIVE) and be (externally) balanced if the resulting Custodes lists were (externally) balanced (ie 45-55% wr) across the field.
The internal balance of the Custodes book in this example would be bad, as every single list would include him. But that's an internal balance issue.
As for external balance, across different factions, both the point costs of individual units and their comparison are pointless. What matters is the end result, the balance that comes out of lists as a whole, especially now that we have the rule of three.
You don't play 2000 pts of Intercessors vs 2000 pts of Tyranid Warriors, you play 2000 pts of SM vs 2000 pts of Tyranids.
I still can't fathom why you think internal balance has no effect on external balance (especially when so many changes to the metagame over 30 years demonstrate otherwise).
Or why you think simply stating 'it is so' over and over again is convincing.
Aenar wrote: Again, comparing single units is pointless.
Trajann could cost 5 points (FIVE) and be (externally) balanced if the resulting Custodes lists were (externally) balanced (ie 45-55% wr) across the field. The internal balance of the Custodes book in this example would be bad, as every single list would include him. But that's an internal balance issue.
As for external balance, across different factions, both the point costs of individual units and their comparison are pointless. What matters is the end result, the balance that comes out of lists as a whole, especially now that we have the rule of three. You don't play 2000 pts of Intercessors vs 2000 pts of Tyranid Warriors, you play 2000 pts of SM vs 2000 pts of Tyranids.
Absolutely agree, though if the points are off by too much the bad internal balance tends to become an external balance issue. Trajan is kind of safe here since he can't be spammed, but if something else is too much below the curve costwise, it tends to warp the game in one way or another. If a unit is above the curve but part of the army's backbone, it tends to drag the whole army down.
On the other hand, on this forum people tend to compare a unit that is overperforming to units which are underperforming, which is almost always a useless discussion. In a perfect world, units should be neither one or the other.
Aenar wrote: Again, comparing single units is pointless.
Trajann could cost 5 points (FIVE) and be (externally) balanced if the resulting Custodes lists were (externally) balanced (ie 45-55% wr) across the field.
The internal balance of the Custodes book in this example would be bad, as every single list would include him. But that's an internal balance issue.
As for external balance, across different factions, both the point costs of individual units and their comparison are pointless. What matters is the end result, the balance that comes out of lists as a whole, especially now that we have the rule of three.
You don't play 2000 pts of Intercessors vs 2000 pts of Tyranid Warriors, you play 2000 pts of SM vs 2000 pts of Tyranids.
Absolutely agree, though if the points are off by too much the bad internal balance tends to become an external balance issue. Trajan is kind of safe here since he can't be spammed, but if something else is too much below the curve costwise, it tends to warp the game in one way or another.
That's why good listbuilding restrictions are necessary. But unfortunately, those seem to disappear more and more.
Well, when your (Easily) available model range is literally 5-6 models, Nerfing our best unit is almost 20% of our game. Yes, Trajann is good, but lets be honest here. We're just the FOTM right now, and this time come June we'll be complaining about nerfing Eldar or Nerfing Tau. I think everyone is hyper focusing on one unit, that really isn't that major a problem. No one cried for Mortarian Nerfs when he was literally unkillable even by dual Hammerheads. Even two Shadowswords fail to effectively knock him down. Trajann can be killed in a single shooting phase. Or a single melee phase. He's only OP because of what he can do when on the table. The answer is very simple. Take him off the table. Then the majority of the gameplan for Custodes is toast.
As mentioned, Deathguard weren't running away with the tournament scene like Custards are right now. When Custards are taking the majority of top 8 finishes in tournaments there is a problem. And no, I am not picking on Custards, or marines or insert random faction here. I have said the exact same thing about Ad-Mech and Drukhari.
As to your first sentence, no. Nerfing Trajann to be more realistic of a price wouldn't be nerfing 20% of your game, it would be a 30(ish) point hike which is about the max GW would do, and since you aren't orkz, its likely you won't get 30pts, you'll get 10-15. And what does that realistically do? Maybe you lose 1 model or a few upgrades. But the fact that people defend a model which has better buffing rules/abilities than girlyman who is more than twice the price is a bit ridiculous.
Aenar wrote: Again, comparing single units is pointless.
Trajann could cost 5 points (FIVE) and be (externally) balanced if the resulting Custodes lists were (externally) balanced (ie 45-55% wr) across the field.
The internal balance of the Custodes book in this example would be bad, as every single list would include him. But that's an internal balance issue.
As for external balance, across different factions, both the point costs of individual units and their comparison are pointless. What matters is the end result, the balance that comes out of lists as a whole, especially now that we have the rule of three.
You don't play 2000 pts of Intercessors vs 2000 pts of Tyranid Warriors, you play 2000 pts of SM vs 2000 pts of Tyranids.
Comparing single units is not pointless. It shows a power imbalance between similar units across multiple factions. And yeah, Trajann could be 5ppm and be balanced if Custards were pathetic and massively over priced in every other unit, but since those units themselves are under priced its a cascading effect which leads to Custards taking 4 of the top 8, 5 of the top 10 6 of the top 12 and 8 of the top 15 placings at Cherokee GT The only faction which stood against them realistically was Tau who swept the top 3, and yes, people are calling for them to be nerfed as well.
Dolnikan wrote: That's why good listbuilding restrictions are necessary. But unfortunately, those seem to disappear more and more.
List building restrictions mitigate the issue, but they don't solve it. No matter how tight your restrictions are, if one army can bring more overperforming units than another, external balance will suffer.
On the flip side, restrictions will absolutely ruin armies which don't have enough choices to mitigate underperforming datasheets in their army. For example, if you would force everyone to bring more troops drukhari and marines won't care, but orks would be boned.
Dolnikan wrote: That's why good listbuilding restrictions are necessary. But unfortunately, those seem to disappear more and more.
List building restrictions mitigate the issue, but they don't solve it. No matter how tight your restrictions are, if one army can bring more overperforming units than another, external balance will suffer.
On the flip side, restrictions will absolutely ruin armies which don't have enough choices to mitigate underperforming datasheets in their army. For example, if you would force everyone to bring more troops drukhari and marines won't care, but orks would be boned.
That indeed is a problem. But it does help with creating a kind of balancing baseline that currently is very absent from the game.
That's why good listbuilding restrictions are necessary. But unfortunately, those seem to disappear more and more.
What lol? Listbuilding restrictions are increasing if anything.
Really? We have multiple detachments of all kinds. You can very easily have an army of a few HQs and then spam whatever kind of unit/slot is exceptionally good in an army. With the old FOC you were forced into more things and really couldn't take more than a few of whatever kind of unit an army was exceptional at.
Slipspace 803732 11321886 wrote: Custodes may just be the FOTM army right now and Eldar may end up being equally or more busted. That's still not a reason to leave Custodes as they are. Even if Eldar turn out to be more broken than Custodes that doesn't help anyone playing any of the other armies when they come up against the still-busted Custodes. Pointing at another army and claiming everything's fine because you're not as broken as them is spectacularly missing the point.
It is still better to have tau and custodes to be the best armies, then have eldar at the top. Look what happened when ad mecha and orks got nerfed, alongside sisters. DE shot back up to 60%+ win rates in an instant. Any army which keeps eldar win rates down, till at least 10th ed should stay the way it is right now.
Slipspace 803732 11321886 wrote: Custodes may just be the FOTM army right now and Eldar may end up being equally or more busted. That's still not a reason to leave Custodes as they are. Even if Eldar turn out to be more broken than Custodes that doesn't help anyone playing any of the other armies when they come up against the still-busted Custodes. Pointing at another army and claiming everything's fine because you're not as broken as them is spectacularly missing the point.
It is still better to have tau and custodes to be the best armies, then have eldar at the top. Look what happened when ad mecha and orks got nerfed, alongside sisters. DE shot back up to 60%+ win rates in an instant. Any army which keeps eldar win rates down, till at least 10th ed should stay the way it is right now.
oh, you're back with your eldar hating lol.
DE != eldar btw
and DE shot back up because GW was dumb and buffed Covens when they nerfed the rest.
vict0988 wrote: Custodes and Tau can build OP lists using a FOC. It is fun that you think that armies are limited to only having good units in one battlefield role.
Of course, having an FOC doesn't stop armies from being OP, but it's another balancing tool that can dampen the effect of some imbalances in the game.
vict0988 wrote: Custodes and Tau can build OP lists using a FOC. It is fun that you think that armies are limited to only having good units in one battlefield role.
Of course, having an FOC doesn't stop armies from being OP, but it's another balancing tool that can dampen the effect of some imbalances in the game.
not really, giving each unit a stat that dictates how many copies you can bring would be better IMO, the FoC/Detachment system is the most annoying version of listbuilding any wargame i've played has
Slipspace 803732 11321886 wrote: Custodes may just be the FOTM army right now and Eldar may end up being equally or more busted. That's still not a reason to leave Custodes as they are. Even if Eldar turn out to be more broken than Custodes that doesn't help anyone playing any of the other armies when they come up against the still-busted Custodes. Pointing at another army and claiming everything's fine because you're not as broken as them is spectacularly missing the point.
It is still better to have tau and custodes to be the best armies, then have eldar at the top. Look what happened when ad mecha and orks got nerfed, alongside sisters. DE shot back up to 60%+ win rates in an instant. Any army which keeps eldar win rates down, till at least 10th ed should stay the way it is right now.
I take it you are not playing at all these days, because the current meta with Tau, Custodes, and Crusher Stampede, is not fun at all and I play Sisters and Death Guard(well, DG is now permanently shelved until 10th edition). A lot of armies I find even footing with, but you bring the Terrible Three and you can almost just forfeit first turn and get some icecream.
I think the issue is partly that we are trying to be nice (or "reasonable").
30 points on Trajann and 10 points on a bike is the "softly softly" approach. Akin to the first (largely unsuccessful) round of DE Nerfs.
Given full vent, Trajann would go to something like 50 points and other characters would go up 10-20 points. Bikes would be up 15, all the infantry would be up 5 points a model, and Forgeworld stuff would get an arbitrary 20% hike because screw Forgeworld that's why. You'd then hike all the 1 CP stratagems to 2 CP, and nerf Emperor's Chosen and Shadowkeepers just in case.
At that point I think Custodes would have about a 45% win rate and could maybe be accepted back into civilized society.
Rather than a faction running a 60-65% win rate, that pushes 70% if you take out losses to Tau (who are equally busted, and should get an equally severe points hike).
Playing vs DE at their peak was way more enjoyable than the Tau and Custodes lists now.
At least it felt like a game of 40k, just one side was playing with about 200 extra points.
Tau and Custodes feel like they're playing with 300 extra points and also are just nullifying core game and army mechanics, very much like Admech and Orks were doing before they got reigned in.
I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
CKO wrote: I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
Do you have any evidence for that? Or is it just a random assumption?
CKO wrote: I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
Yeahhh, because between Tau hover tank with big gun (140 pts, 12 damage per shot ignoring and and all saves plus a bucket of mortal wounds built in) and SM one (190 pts, ~5 damage gun that does not ignore ++ or better armour, can roll low whiffing damage, is disproportionately affected by damage reduction abilities, one-shots far less units in one turn, and is weaker in lots of other ways) is ZERO difference and only player skill matters, eh?
It's funny, because what you wrote sounds just like excuse of a player who knows opponent is very much more skilled, but your OP army carried you to easy win, and is now desperately trying to twist the situation around. Skill matters, yes, but DE wouldn't cruise to 65% winrate among equally skilled opponents with such laughable ease if the army wasn't broken.
Also, what you wrote made no sense in another way because good player saying 'it's the codex' instead of teaching weaker player what to improve is not good guy, but in fact an a-hole jerk clutching at straws to keep his advantage for next time. Literally not a single good player I know would hide behind codex, they would turn the game into teaching one or, if their codex is really so much better, limited their army to what would give both sides a fair fight, not lie.
CKO wrote: I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
Yeahhh, because between Tau hover tank with big gun (140 pts, 12 damage per shot ignoring and and all saves plus a bucket of mortal wounds built in) and SM one (190 pts, ~5 damage gun that does not ignore ++ or better armour, can roll low whiffing damage, is disproportionately affected by damage reduction abilities, one-shots far less units in one turn, and is weaker in lots of other ways) is ZERO difference and only player skill matters, eh?
It's funny, because what you wrote sounds just like excuse of a player who knows opponent is very much more skilled, but your OP army carried you to easy win, and is now desperately trying to twist the situation around. Skill matters, yes, but DE wouldn't cruise to 65% winrate among equally skilled opponents with such laughable ease if the army wasn't broken.
Also, what you wrote made no sense in another way because good player saying 'it's the codex' instead of teaching weaker player what to improve is not good guy, but in fact an a-hole jerk clutching at straws to keep his advantage for next time. Literally not a single good player I know would hide behind codex, they would turn the game into teaching one or, if their codex is really so much better, limited their army to what would give both sides a fair fight, not lie.
And this is basically my personal opinion on 9th and why im not a fan. Most of the 'skill' is in list building at this point. 9th feels more like MTG then it does 40k. The odds of you winning a match are more weighted by the list you bring rather then the skill. Just like MTG is more weighted by the deck you make, and how lucky you are to draw what you need.
40k any more i feel like i show up to a table, and get put on auto pilot while the game plays itself out.
There's loads of player skill in 9th. I don't really see the point in denying this.
But the reason "good players" congregate to a faction is because they want to win - and you are more likely to win with an overpowered codex. People didn't just suddenly realise big men in gold armour and Gundam was the way forward in the last 6 weeks.
Tyel wrote: There's loads of player skill in 9th. I don't really see the point in denying this.
But the reason "good players" congregate to a faction is because they want to win - and you are more likely to win with an overpowered codex. People didn't just suddenly realise big men in gold armour and Gundam was the way forward in the last 6 weeks.
Then dosnt that just sort of confirm what i was saying?
Most of the weight of winning is based upon the army you flock to because its clearly overpowered?
CKO wrote: I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
The reverse is more true. The less skilled will almost always blame the Codex - theirs & definitely the opponents. If they aren't winning such phrases as "That's OP", "That's broken", "something something somethingbalancesomething something something." start flying.
Tyel wrote: Given full vent, Trajann would go to something like 50 points and other characters would go up 10-20 points. Bikes would be up 15, all the infantry would be up 5 points a model, and Forgeworld stuff would get an arbitrary 20% hike because screw Forgeworld that's why. You'd then hike all the 1 CP stratagems to 2 CP, and nerf Emperor's Chosen and Shadowkeepers just in case.
It's comments like the bit in bold that make me very glad that none of the people on this forum will actually be contributing to the quarterly balance patches.
While FW made whichever models you're salty about, blame the Studio for the rules.
So I know this thread has been hashing a bunch of things out over the past few weeks, and there is no doubt that "balancing" the game of 40k (or whatever "balance" can be reasonably achieved in a wargame like this when the parent company just wants to push models and sales because hey it's a business) has many nuances that really are not as cut and dry or as straight forward as most would like. But now that Craftworlds, and by extension Harlequins, are joining the "top tier" again (just like 7th edition) in addition to Custodes, Tau, Dark Eldar and AdMech, how exactly SHOULD GW handle it? I have no proof to back that up, but as of this moment from what I have seen from the Eldar book it really looks like the power creep is about to get a worse before it gets better.
I am not being facetious, honestly I am not. I am genuinely curious as to how GW can reasonably balance this game with its myriad of factions while still pushing its agenda of "sell books and models and rules and the game and the hobby etc." in order to make a profit. How can the business aspect of it and the game itself remain healthy? I understand the book bloat could easily be solved by a living ruleset with multiple free pdfs's available and all that, but the internal/exeternal balance of the game is mostly what I am talking about.
Just for some context, I have been playing this game for about 14 years now (think I started in 4th or 5th) and I also happen to run a small business myself on the side (though it is a nonprofit so the goal of it is definitely "different" than the general "make a fuckton of money" approach companies like GW are going for). Not in any edition did the game ever truly feel "balanced" to me especially since I have been a Sisters player for my entire time in this game and was using an outdated 3rd edition book to play most of my games in 4th and 5th (didn't even really touch the White Dwarf codex and just was glad when the digital one hit). I am incredibly grateful for all the "love" we as a faction have received since circa 2019, but it doesn't change the fact that back over the summer of 2021 WE were one of the culprits of being a bit "unbalanced" as well.
So, again, does anyone actually have a way for GW to reasonably "balance" this game while still making all the money they want/need to make? Or is this just an impossible endeavor unless GW shifts its focus or there is some other change? Again, genuinely curious about all of this.
"While still making all the money" is not relevant to the discussion I believe.
I have never seen any actual evidence that imbalance = profit. For every FOTM player rushing to buy Tau there are other people that stop buying new stuff or stop playing all together because their army has been creeped into being dogshit.
WHFB had really bad balance in the run up to its death. Don't think that helped profit.
More factions being able to compete and more units being 'good' is not going to hurt GW's bottom line.
Toning down the game so armies aren't getting tabled in turn 2-3 so we can actually play with the models we bough isn't going to hurt GW's bottom line.
Well, they need to put out fewer books. They can't handle this pace. And frankly the pace is kind of nuts right now. Custodes, GSC, Tau, Nids, and Eldar in 3 months. CSM won't be far behind. Orks seem like a distant memory, but they were just 6 months ago. There's just no way for them to write it all without tripping over themselves.
People say they should have done a get you by supplement, but what would that look like exactly? GW likely has no roadmap for incoming mechanics and so such a book would be useless. Simply making all the other armies cheaper based on unknown info is also really bad for the player and collecting.
The best scenario is that they recognize the nature of the releases and quickly address issues - ideally in a digital ruleset.
GFdoubles wrote: ...I am not being facetious, honestly I am not. I am genuinely curious as to how GW can reasonably balance this game with its myriad of factions while still pushing its agenda of "sell books and models and rules and the game and the hobby etc." in order to make a profit. How can the business aspect of it and the game itself remain healthy? I understand the book bloat could easily be solved by a living ruleset with multiple free pdfs's available and all that, but the internal/exeternal balance of the game is mostly what I am talking about...
GW can't reasonably do anything to the game because their business model is running on pure inertia. They don't understand their customers particularly well (they overproduce starter content, basic Space Marines, and basic Stormcast, underproduce resculpts of classic models that have boatloads of fans ready to come out of the woodwork to grab every last box they can, underproduce things that are powerful in the game, and the whole idea of using Sigmar to make a more distinctive IP that prevents people from using third-party models in their game completely turns the relationship people who would consider using third-party models have with GW on its head, they're making it harder for people to buy their models and use them in different, better-designed games), the frantic Codex release model is good for pretty much nobody, including their sales figures (in my local community access to the Internet wasn't the thing that started pushing people to pirated material, it was the printed materials being valid as-written for about six months), and while the constant wheel of escalating power creep is great for squeezing money out of the whales who buy a new army every six months it's terrible for player retention and produces a lot of people like me who float around the fringes of the hobby complaining about how it used to be better. I have nothing positive to say about their rules or their business model. They're propped up right now by the fact that they make cool models, and the network effects of online content/what's on the shelf at game stores, which means their sales aren't particularly sensitive to the fact that they don't really know what they're doing from a business or game design standpoint.
WHFB had really bad balance in the run up to its death. Don't think that helped profit.
I don't think that GW learned from that, though - their response was to enter a disinvestment cycle with WHF. Like maybe now they're going to enter a disinvestment cycle (even harder) with Orks and IG?
CKO wrote: I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
Some days I wonder if my signature has run its course and I should change it, but then I see arguments like these.
CKO wrote: I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
Some days I wonder if my signature has run its course and I should change it, but then I see arguments like these.
Yeah. While it's true that better players will be better able to perceive which faction has advantage, especially when it's marginal, the win/loss ratios are so far out of whack that it's very clear that the most salient issue is that GW IS FAILING AT BALANCE.
Its kind of weird that Death Guard was actually really good when they first came out. But so many of the new codices that have come out since have been so powerful that they have pushed DG far down the tier list.
Its like they were the first 9th ed codex and they were actually A tier. But then quite a few of the codices coming since in 9th ed were literally S tier, SS tier or SSS tier. lol
Feels like GW is really going for the case of "When every faction is OP, then no faction is OP"
Tyel wrote: Given full vent, Trajann would go to something like 50 points and other characters would go up 10-20 points. Bikes would be up 15, all the infantry would be up 5 points a model, and Forgeworld stuff would get an arbitrary 20% hike because screw Forgeworld that's why. You'd then hike all the 1 CP stratagems to 2 CP, and nerf Emperor's Chosen and Shadowkeepers just in case.
It's comments like the bit in bold that make me very glad that none of the people on this forum will actually be contributing to the quarterly balance patches.
While FW made whichever models you're salty about, blame the Studio for the rules.
Agree with this. Even besides the FW nerf, most of the stuff they were proposing is just outrageous. The goal should not be to dumpster the faction into the trash heap.
Tyel wrote: Given full vent, Trajann would go to something like 50 points and other characters would go up 10-20 points. Bikes would be up 15, all the infantry would be up 5 points a model, and Forgeworld stuff would get an arbitrary 20% hike because screw Forgeworld that's why. You'd then hike all the 1 CP stratagems to 2 CP, and nerf Emperor's Chosen and Shadowkeepers just in case.
It's comments like the bit in bold that make me very glad that none of the people on this forum will actually be contributing to the quarterly balance patches.
While FW made whichever models you're salty about, blame the Studio for the rules.
Exactly. I'm surprised how often I have to remind people of this, but again: gw handled every errata and points adjustment for fw units after the initial 8th edition Indexes, and wrote all of the rules for fw units in 9th edition. Don't like the rules? Blame gw, not fw. And I'd be interested to know which fw units warrant statements like "screw Forgeworld", as the majority of the units in the Compendium have been power creeped on by the units in the newer codexes just as much as everything else from that early in the edition.
Daedalus81 wrote:Well, they need to put out fewer books. They can't handle this pace. And frankly the pace is kind of nuts right now. Custodes, GSC, Tau, Nids, and Eldar in 3 months. CSM won't be far behind. Orks seem like a distant memory, but they were just 6 months ago. There's just no way for them to write it all without tripping over themselves.
People say they should have done a get you by supplement, but what would that look like exactly? GW likely has no roadmap for incoming mechanics and so such a book would be useless. Simply making all the other armies cheaper based on unknown info is also really bad for the player and collecting.
The best scenario is that they recognize the nature of the releases and quickly address issues - ideally in a digital ruleset.
They absolutely should have a "roadmap for incoming mechanics". Gw's habit of changing their mind, or incorporating "cool new ideas" is one of the biggest factors in codex creep. These "paradigm shifts" in newer books have a tendency to leave "old paradigm" books behind. For example: in early 9th edition codexes Dd6 was considered "fine" for AT weapons. Then, gw decided that it wasn't reliable enough, and began rolling out things like Dd3+3, while leaving older units in older books with the "old paradigm" Dd6 weapons, thus making them weaker in comparison. Now we're seeing this same trend for "big guns" on tanks and MCs, while earlier books were more conservative with similar weapons on similar platforms, and those older units again look lackluster in comparison. The same can be said for defensive abilities: -1 damage rules and 4++ saves are now becoming more commonplace, while in earlier codexes they were rare. All of this contributes to making older codexes feel bad in comparison to newer ones.
Gw needs to pick a design plan, and stick with it. And if they decide to veer away from it, they should adjust older codexes to compensate, either through points or rules updates. And yes, it should absolutely be done quickly, and preferably through digital means.
Intercessors only sure, but I'd like to see what lists look like if all or almost all troops units are 25% - 50% off - probably need some sort of mechanic to keep people from doing 3 empty Tac Squads i.e., you only get the discount on max size units, or something. Blobs of 30 boyz for 135 points or 7PL? 10 Heavy Intercessors for 7PL or 140points? Unit upgrades like Heavy Bolters, or Guardian Weapon Platforms etc. should probably still be full price above the half price bodies. Combine that with the variable cost strats being cheaper for max size instead of the other way around, and it could push people into taking more BLAST-able units.
You could just make it an elites choice or make 3 unique named units.
Um, what? I'm talking about making Troops choices - the thing we want to see fielded in greater numbers as the backbone of most armies - cheaper enough people get rewarded for doing it.
Eldenfirefly wrote: Its kind of weird that Death Guard was actually really good when they first came out. But so many of the new codices that have come out since have been so powerful that they have pushed DG far down the tier list.
Its like they were the first 9th ed codex and they were actually A tier. But then quite a few of the codices coming since in 9th ed were literally S tier, SS tier or SSS tier. lol
Feels like GW is really going for the case of "When every faction is OP, then no faction is OP"
It's an effect of weapons and damage. -1D is amazing when the best weapons in the meta are D2. Now that people have moved past D2 it becomes harder for that to shine.
DG should do really well in melee versus Custodes with D2 T5 and suits with their T5. And Tau suits being multiples of 2 for wounds ( drones included ) promotes D2 weapons, which favors DG. The problem is DG tend to lean a lot on terminators, CusTau are still super strong, and most D2 stuff is probably less efficient than D3+3 when Custodes bikes are W5.
They absolutely should have a "roadmap for incoming mechanics". Gw's habit of changing their mind, or incorporating "cool new ideas" is one of the biggest factors in codex creep. These "paradigm shifts" in newer books have a tendency to leave "old paradigm" books behind. For example: in early 9th edition codexes Dd6 was considered "fine" for AT weapons. Then, gw decided that it wasn't reliable enough, and began rolling out things like Dd3+3, while leaving older units in older books with the "old paradigm" Dd6 weapons, thus making them weaker in comparison. Now we're seeing this same trend for "big guns" on tanks and MCs, while earlier books were more conservative with similar weapons on similar platforms, and those older units again look lackluster in comparison. The same can be said for defensive abilities: -1 damage rules and 4++ saves are now becoming more commonplace, while in earlier codexes they were rare. All of this contributes to making older codexes feel bad in comparison to newer ones.
Gw needs to pick a design plan, and stick with it. And if they decide to veer away from it, they should adjust older codexes to compensate, either through points or rules updates. And yes, it should absolutely be done quickly, and preferably through digital means.
For sure, but I feel like the whole thing is more a passion project without a ton of effective direction from management.
I'm not sure DD6 wasn't intended as D3+3 exists in both Marine and Necron codexes. Something like the Lancer could do with a S boost to get them wounding T6 or T7 on 2s. As it stands two Lancers kill a HH 23% of the time. Two unbuffed HH kill a Lancer 42% of the time, so, the gap isn't immense. If the Lancer was S14 it'd be 40%.
Some light taps could make things a bit better. CSM will for sure have DD6 lascannons.
CKO wrote: I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
The reverse is more true. The less skilled will almost always blame the Codex - theirs & definitely the opponents. If they aren't winning such phrases as "That's OP", "That's broken", "something something somethingbalancesomething something something." start flying.
GW could've given Cultists Assault 10 Autocannons at the same point cost and y'all would defend it via "player skill matters".
CKO wrote: I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
The reverse is more true. The less skilled will almost always blame the Codex - theirs & definitely the opponents. If they aren't winning such phrases as "That's OP", "That's broken", "something something somethingbalancesomething something something." start flying.
GW could've given Cultists Assault 10 Autocannons at the same point cost and y'all would defend it via "player skill matters".
It's true! A skilled player would have simply realized that including cultists with autocannons is the most logical choice when building an army, and played around it in an appropriate fashion.
GFdoubles wrote: ...does anyone actually have a way for GW to reasonably "balance" this game while still making all the money they want/need to make? Or is this just an impossible endeavor unless GW shifts its focus or there is some other change? Again, genuinely curious about all of this.
Yes, they just need to make better use of their playtesters by doing a regimented balance test after rules have been finalized. It's clear that is not currently something GW is doing, between what we've heard from playtesters and the results we see get published.
Ideally before playtesting begins GW should have hired a guy to do some basic math on how efficient a unit is at killing X, Y, Z and how durable the unit is versus A, B, C. Going further there should be a range of acceptable costs for units and permanent anchors for balance. Let's say you anchor the most useless model in the game at 5 points, you're never going to change this model's cost. Then you change the points costs of models in relation to this model, models that should be good against this model cannot be too expensive, otherwise they will be inefficient counters to this model, models that should be bad against the useless model cannot be too cheap, otherwise, they will counter everything. Now you can start to build a web of units that should be better and worse than each other. Maybe an Intercessor should be 15-25 points or something like that, now you have ensured that Intercessor prices never get so good they are the only thing Space Marine players ever take or so bad that they never take them.
Making the MFM pts update digital would enable a shorter turn-around time to fix more mistakes and avoid making changes that might have been reasonable in the past, but turn out to be bad because of new releases.
Releasing codexes at the same time as MFM updates would mean that the armies are meant to be balanced at a point in time instead of the designers having a running battle with balance as a new codex is released once every two months.
Moving Chapter Tactics, Relics, WL traits, Stratagems and Relics to Chapter Approved and away from codexes would make it easier to balance and compare the content instead of having it strewn across 40 publications.
Most importantly the designers should just have a think about what people might take if they were trying to win and how they might use things. You don't put a flamer Stratagem that increases number of shots in the same book where you put a flamer Stratagem that increases damage without considering how they might combo together.
Ordana wrote: WHFB had really bad balance in the run up to its death. Don't think that helped profit.
As I understand it End Times was more profitable than the rest of the last edition, it was probably a little more broken. But if people really wanted to play a broken game they would be playing the Storm of Magic expansion and nobody did.
Gadzilla666 wrote: For example: in early 9th edition codexes Dd6 was considered "fine" for AT weapons. Then, gw decided that it wasn't reliable enough, and began rolling out things like Dd3+3, while leaving older units in older books with the "old paradigm" Dd6 weapons, thus making them weaker in comparison.
Fake news, Necrons got a Dd6 weapon upgraded to D3d3, 3d3
It wasn't a problem and the unit just recently got buffed twice in quick succession. The only thing that matters is points efficiency, broken rules don't exist outside Relics and WL traits which have no adjustable cost.
Breton wrote: Um, what? I'm talking about making Troops choices - the thing we want to see fielded in greater numbers as the backbone of most armies - cheaper enough people get rewarded for doing it.
A Full Force Tactical Squad that has to include 10 Tactical Marines at the cost of 15 PPM instead of 5-10 at 18 PPM enables you to take more Tactical Marines (the backbone of the army), what battlefield role they have is kind of irrelevant isn't it? Making Asyxis, Nephritis and Johnny unique Tactical Squads was also an option I mentioned, but then you could use these cheap squads to fill out your Troops requirements so you don't see radically more troops. Another option would be a free super Sergeant upgrade for 10-man units, like getting a WL trait or Relic for the Sergeant. I'd prefer to give Sergeants a points increase and reduce the cost of the regular guys in the squad.
As I understand it End Times was more profitable than the rest of the last edition, it was probably a little more broken. But if people really wanted to play a broken game they would be playing the Storm of Magic expansion and nobody did.
Wasn't it because it was WFB content for the first time for multiple armies in years, and the fact that no one told any of the players that AoS was comming soon, meaning ton of players were expecting their game to get a second life with new rules and maybe new models?
I know that the backlash for AoS, besides it being a bad game in its initial form, came from the fact that the only info people got about AoS was in a WD with the GW usual secrecy telling people that something new coming soon. And then next month WFB was dead.
As I understand it End Times was more profitable than the rest of the last edition, it was probably a little more broken. But if people really wanted to play a broken game they would be playing the Storm of Magic expansion and nobody did.
Wasn't it because it was WFB content for the first time for multiple armies in years, and the fact that no one told any of the players that AoS was comming soon, meaning ton of players were expecting their game to get a second life with new rules and maybe new models?
Aenar wrote: Again, comparing single units is pointless.
Trajann could cost 5 points (FIVE) and be (externally) balanced if the resulting Custodes lists were (externally) balanced (ie 45-55% wr) across the field.
The internal balance of the Custodes book in this example would be bad, as every single list would include him. But that's an internal balance issue.
As for external balance, across different factions, both the point costs of individual units and their comparison are pointless. What matters is the end result, the balance that comes out of lists as a whole, especially now that we have the rule of three.
You don't play 2000 pts of Intercessors vs 2000 pts of Tyranid Warriors, you play 2000 pts of SM vs 2000 pts of Tyranids.
Absolutely agree, though if the points are off by too much the bad internal balance tends to become an external balance issue. Trajan is kind of safe here since he can't be spammed, but if something else is too much below the curve costwise, it tends to warp the game in one way or another.
That's why good listbuilding restrictions are necessary. But unfortunately, those seem to disappear more and more.
Ah yes the old "it's fine that unit is broken good because it's 0-1" argument which fails big time.
Slipspace 803732 11321886 wrote: Custodes may just be the FOTM army right now and Eldar may end up being equally or more busted. That's still not a reason to leave Custodes as they are. Even if Eldar turn out to be more broken than Custodes that doesn't help anyone playing any of the other armies when they come up against the still-busted Custodes. Pointing at another army and claiming everything's fine because you're not as broken as them is spectacularly missing the point.
It is still better to have tau and custodes to be the best armies, then have eldar at the top. Look what happened when ad mecha and orks got nerfed, alongside sisters. DE shot back up to 60%+ win rates in an instant. Any army which keeps eldar win rates down, till at least 10th ed should stay the way it is right now.
Ah yes. Good idea from you to publicly announce "I DON'T WANT GAME TO BE BALANCED!"
Gadzilla666 wrote: For example: in early 9th edition codexes Dd6 was considered "fine" for AT weapons. Then, gw decided that it wasn't reliable enough, and began rolling out things like Dd3+3, while leaving older units in older books with the "old paradigm" Dd6 weapons, thus making them weaker in comparison.
Fake news, Necrons got a Dd6 weapon upgraded to D3d3, 3d3
Meanwhile Lascannons, Lastalons, Krak Missiles, SuperKraks, Hunter Killer/Slayer, Melta Weapons, KMKs, Smashaguns, Rupture Canons, Quake Cannons, Stormwind Seige Canons, Vanquisher Battle Canons, etc. stayed D6 instead of being changed to D3+3 in a Chapter Approved.
It wasn't a problem and the unit just recently got buffed twice in quick succession. The only thing that matters is points efficiency, broken rules don't exist outside Relics and WL traits which have no adjustable cost.
Breton wrote: Um, what? I'm talking about making Troops choices - the thing we want to see fielded in greater numbers as the backbone of most armies - cheaper enough people get rewarded for doing it.
A Full Force Tactical Squad that has to include 10 Tactical Marines at the cost of 15 PPM instead of 5-10 at 18 PPM enables you to take more Tactical Marines (the backbone of the army), what battlefield role they have is kind of irrelevant isn't it? Making Asyxis, Nephritis and Johnny unique Tactical Squads was also an option I mentioned, but then you could use these cheap squads to fill out your Troops requirements so you don't see radically more troops. Another option would be a free super Sergeant upgrade for 10-man units, like getting a WL trait or Relic for the Sergeant. I'd prefer to give Sergeants a points increase and reduce the cost of the regular guys in the squad.
What battlefield role TROOPS have when trying to incentivize TROOPS choices with a discount for TROOPS choices does make their battlefield role pretty relevant. And no- making three named 100 point Tactical Squads doesn't do the same thing. It lets you fill the compulsory choices cheaper and max out even more on the "toys". This is one of the reasons they nixed the 3x5 bare bones Scout Squads as troops. By only giving the discount to full size squads: They can't go barebones AND its a MUCH tougher choice between 10 Heavy Intercessors w/ 2 Heavy Bolters for 160 vs 5 Aggressors for 225 How about 20 Assault Intercessors with two seargeants weilding powerfists for 210 or 5 Eradicators for 225?.
The best answer of course is to start at the beginning- first, make a typical Full SM Battle Company
Headquarters:
Captain
Chaplain
Lieutenant
Lieutenant OR Judiciar (depending on what they want to do with a Judiciar- I'd change Lieutenant to Slot Free with a Cap, Jud to Slot Free with a Chaplain, and then give it a Chaplain Lieutenant ability possibly even Captain/Lt bubble shooting, Chap/Jud bubble Fighting)
Company Champion
Company/Primaris Ancient
2 (Primaris and/or Firstborn Apothecary
Company Veterans: 6 that form two squads one for each Cap/Chap.
Line:
Troops: 60 total
10 Intercessors, 10 Assault Intercessors, 10 Heavy Intercessors, 10 Infiltrators, 10 Incursors, 10 Tacticals.
I'd do this with a Generic SM Battle Company because it's the most fluff detailed still-generic(i.e. Not the Spear of Macragge as led by Sgt Chronus on this day in this year vs the Necrons on Damnos) military org out there really. I'd make that. And I'd say that's 2,000 points. Everything in that army gets balanced against itself, then everything in the codex NOT in that list gets balanced against that list in a way to keep the TROOPS units at 6x10 for as long as possible. Next you make the typical army from the other factions balance it against this list, then balance the rest of their codex vs their list. After that I'd get rid of most of the generic detachments - and make more Specialist Detachments in the Codex/Supplement books like the Knight Det from a while back. One Battle Company and One Demi Company Det in the main codex that has 3/6 compulsory troop choices (but gives a bonus vs the 3+ batallion Det which has the advantage of being more flexible) Three Dets for the DA and their Wings - one Death, One Raven, one both Death and Raven. I'd make a couple Dets for Eldar. One Saim-Hann(Wild Rider etc favored), One Iyanden (Wraith favorered) potentially one that just lets you go hog-wild on Phoenix Lords and Aspects and one for all Harlis, one for mixing Harlequinns and Ynarri rules for their specialist Dets, one for Guard to do their Armored Fist Column, One for BA to do their first company with a bunch of Sanguinary Guard, Vangaurd Vets etc - One for all generic SM Chapters to do a First Company (Terminators, Van/Stern/Blade -guard Vets, Veteran Intercessors in a fairly equal mix) Some for Necrons and Tau that (insert fluffy non-standard army here) a couple for Nids that do Big Bugs and Little Bugs focus. Basically recycle those big but faction locked Dets from 6th/7th in a focused thematic prodding non-Monty-Haul manner. The problem with those Dets weren't the concept but the implementation.
@Breton the point of the named squads is for them to be max-sized, so maybe you're only spending 420 pts on Troops but you get 3x10 instead of spending 270 to get 3x5. I don't the big deal whether a unit is a Troops choice or an Elites choice, it's completely arbitrary if what you want to see is more Tactical Squads then cheap 10-man squads as Elites choices would do it better than cheap 10-man squads as Troops since you'd need both the 5-man Troops units and the cheap 10-man Elites units in the first scenario. Do you feel different about someone taking 3x5 Scouts now vs when they were Troops?
I feel like your idea is too restrictive, I know people gravitate towards the same sorts of lists anyway, but I like my freedom to explore and experiment and I don't think I have that freedom within your system.
Meanwhile Lascannons, Lastalons, Krak Missiles, SuperKraks, Hunter Killer/Slayer, Melta Weapons, KMKs, Smashaguns, Rupture Canons, Quake Cannons, Stormwind Seige Canons, Vanquisher Battle Canons, etc. stayed D6 instead of being changed to D3+3 in a Chapter Approved.
Aeldari missile launchers, blasters, blast pistols, daedalus missile launcher, nothing changed between the beginning of 9th and the middle of 9th in terms of codex design, some weapons got better, some didn't, that's true for every codex. Points efficiency is the only thing that matters, I don't care if you have a 6D6 damage weapon, there is a price point at which the weapon looks garbage.
Meanwhile Lascannons, Lastalons, Krak Missiles, SuperKraks, Hunter Killer/Slayer, Melta Weapons, KMKs, Smashaguns, Rupture Canons, Quake Cannons, Stormwind Seige Canons, Vanquisher Battle Canons, etc. stayed D6 instead of being changed to D3+3 in a Chapter Approved.
Aeldari missile launchers, blasters, blast pistols, daedalus missile launcher, nothing changed between the beginning of 9th and the middle of 9th in terms of codex design, some weapons got better, some didn't, that's true for every codex. Points efficiency is the only thing that matters, I don't care if you have a 6D6 damage weapon, there is a price point at which the weapon looks garbage.
tournament players care. They want game to be solved enough that the result is known after who goes first is solved.
And now that GW started catering to that it's getting there. You can predict game results with tournament lists after first turn roll with ridiculously high frequency. Spend bit time and can even get pretty close vp result as well.
Daedalus81 wrote: Well, they need to put out fewer books. They can't handle this pace. And frankly the pace is kind of nuts right now. Custodes, GSC, Tau, Nids, and Eldar in 3 months. CSM won't be far behind. Orks seem like a distant memory, but they were just 6 months ago. There's just no way for them to write it all without tripping over themselves.
People say they should have done a get you by supplement, but what would that look like exactly? GW likely has no roadmap for incoming mechanics and so such a book would be useless. Simply making all the other armies cheaper based on unknown info is also really bad for the player and collecting.
The best scenario is that they recognize the nature of the releases and quickly address issues - ideally in a digital ruleset.
I mean, GW having no roadmap for the incoming mechanics in a new edition is exactly the problem of why Codex creep is as high as it is.
Designers just make gak up when they work on a new codex and then the next designer for the next codex takes that as a baseline and adds more stuff he made up on top until the edition crumbles under its own weight and needs to be reset.
CKO wrote: I think the gap between player skill is at an all time high, which is the root of this frustration. Good players rather say, "Its the codex" instead of breaking down the true reasons why the lesser skilled player lost. "Its the codex" is an easier pill for the lesser skilled player to swallow and the good player doesn't want to come off as a jerk so they agree. Better choices lead to victory but when the choices are to buy all the new good stuff vs the cool looking things I want to go on the table the result is predetermined
its been my experience its the exact opposite. Its the poorly skilled player who buys all the cheese lists and then loses and complains that their faction is under powered and that your army is OP.
In 7th I ran into a small group of TFG players in Florida. They were all friends with the owner of the store and got discounts from him. None of them played Eldar before 7th but somehow all of them were running Double Wraithknight and Scatbike spam. Well fast forward to a local tournament i played in with my Orkz who were at the time perceived as the WORST codex in the edition. I beat 1 of the guys in the opening rounds and then in the last round I faced off against another one of them. Turn 1 I dropped Box cars on my SAG Big Mek and he 1 shot a wraithknight and a host of Scatbikes, the player almost flipped the table, screamed about how brokenly OP Orkz were, and how the SAG was easily 100% under priced etc etc etc.
If you understand orkz you know how horribly under powered we were in 7th, and you would realize that the chances of a SAG doing anything in a game was minor. So in reality, it was the bad player who picked up the FOTM and lost and blamed army power instead of his own inability or bad luck.
Ordana wrote: "While still making all the money" is not relevant to the discussion I believe.
I have never seen any actual evidence that imbalance = profit. For every FOTM player rushing to buy Tau there are other people that stop buying new stuff or stop playing all together because their army has been creeped into being dogshit.
WHFB had really bad balance in the run up to its death. Don't think that helped profit.
More factions being able to compete and more units being 'good' is not going to hurt GW's bottom line.
Toning down the game so armies aren't getting tabled in turn 2-3 so we can actually play with the models we bough isn't going to hurt GW's bottom line.
You have a rather large group of players, at least several thousand, who bounce between FOTM armies. You really only know about the big ones, but for every big one you know there were 5-10 small ones you didn't remember because they didn't have the skill to top the lists. And on top of that, for every guy like that you have a handful of similar players at their local stores. I know of a couple players just in my area who routinely switch armies during an edition and buy several thousand dollars worth of models every year.
Daedalus81 wrote: Well, they need to put out fewer books. They can't handle this pace. And frankly the pace is kind of nuts right now. Custodes, GSC, Tau, Nids, and Eldar in 3 months. CSM won't be far behind. Orks seem like a distant memory, but they were just 6 months ago. There's just no way for them to write it all without tripping over themselves.
People say they should have done a get you by supplement, but what would that look like exactly? GW likely has no roadmap for incoming mechanics and so such a book would be useless. Simply making all the other armies cheaper based on unknown info is also really bad for the player and collecting.
The best scenario is that they recognize the nature of the releases and quickly address issues - ideally in a digital ruleset.
They need to hire people who actually know wtf they are doing, and if they are overwhelmed, then instead of pushing out a poor product but have massive profits, maybe they should hire more people and expand and lower their profit threshold temporarily for increased profits later on? Or, and god help me this might be a stroke of genius (Sarcasm) they could just do what everyone else is and go digital so they can cut the lag time from months to days. but hey whatever.
I think the best way to create balance, and avoid power creep is to have consistency. Even if it means, say, mini-buffs non faction units. For instance:
New SM codex comes out in august of 2025 (Hypothetical) and they have a new Plasma statline for base non special plasma guns. It's now S6 D1 for normal and S7 3dam for overcharge. All base level plasma weapons should then get that profile. even non-SM ones.
They did it for some weapons when 9th first dropped, Melta if I recall correctly. All baseline melta weapons became 3+d3. I thought that was a great way to base elevate everyone, and make sure no one faction was completely bonkers. But then they did a hard u-turn from that design style, with making every stupid weapon a Specialized named weapon. Cogni-lascannons, or x9000 SUPER Plasma, or whatever Autocannon the dumb flyers have. Either you let everyone play with the toys, which is GOOD and creates relative balance, or you make every stupid unit a special snowflake with special guns, and you create worlds of inherent imbalance. They still haven't figured out who gets "combat deployment" on transports, which is silly.
Also, we need to go back to USRs. Make everyone play by the same rules.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think the best way to create balance, and avoid power creep is to have consistency. Even if it means, say, mini-buffs non faction units. For instance:
New SM codex comes out in august of 2025 (Hypothetical) and they have a new Plasma statline for base non special plasma guns. It's now S6 D1 for normal and S7 3dam for overcharge. All base level plasma weapons should then get that profile. even non-SM ones.
They did it for some weapons when 9th first dropped, Melta if I recall correctly. All baseline melta weapons became 3+d3. I thought that was a great way to base elevate everyone, and make sure no one faction was completely bonkers. But then they did a hard u-turn from that design style, with making every stupid weapon a Specialized named weapon. Cogni-lascannons, or x9000 SUPER Plasma, or whatever Autocannon the dumb flyers have. Either you let everyone play with the toys, which is GOOD and creates relative balance, or you make every stupid unit a special snowflake with special guns, and you create worlds of inherent imbalance. They still haven't figured out who gets "combat deployment" on transports, which is silly.
Also, we need to go back to USRs. Make everyone play by the same rules.
Yeah, they did change all meltas at the beggining of 9th.. But not guns that acted like meltas yet werent called "Meltagun" (fusion guns for one)
100% we need to go back to a limited set of USRs and stick to them. (also we need to implement them in a smart way) I just play OnePageRules nowadays, its got that exact kind of clean and simple ruleset.
Yeah the melta changes actually highlight issues with GW's design. Unless you were using an Imperial issue Melta weapon your stats didn't actually get updated.
Eihnlazer wrote: worry not about that as the new fusion guns are always in melta range even if it was a delayed update. At least the harlequin fusion pistols are.
which was a mistake IMO.
Fire dragons getting rerolls was their "buffed melta", we didnt need to make them better
SemperMortis wrote: You have a rather large group of players, at least several thousand, who bounce between FOTM armies. You really only know about the big ones, but for every big one you know there were 5-10 small ones you didn't remember because they didn't have the skill to top the lists. And on top of that, for every guy like that you have a handful of similar players at their local stores. I know of a couple players just in my area who routinely switch armies during an edition and buy several thousand dollars worth of models every year.
But do they buy it from GW though - or do they swap them with people or scrounge them up off Ebay?
There was a debate about this in another thread - but I think GW's revenue is rooted mainly two million or so people spending £150~ a year.
I mean say there were 5000 players who blow £1000 every year (which I feel is a bit crazy - and if maintained over a few years would give you about 6~ armies). That's £5m of revenue. Of GW's... £350m last year?
I'm not convinced they'd overly care. Or certainly not enough to warp the whole game around them.
I think the issue is more likely to be that there's no such as "bad publicity". There's lots of talking about Custodes and Tau. There's not very much about say GSC.
I'm not convinced its a great thing - because it leads to "40k is a broken game, don't play it". But Codexes which drop with a whimper are probably a failure.
I think the issues with Custodes and Tau are easy to explain. Custodes were going to be terrible without their 3++ (see: the internet). Tau just "couldn't work" in 9th (Internet again). So they got compensating buff after compensating buff. And consequently they went far too far and they are busted as compared with the competition.
I'd argue "we want DE to be an assault-focused army" had the same. Everything had to be buffed up and dead cheap - or it would continue to be faction: Venom Spam+friends forever.
Eihnlazer wrote: worry not about that as the new fusion guns are always in melta range even if it was a delayed update. At least the harlequin fusion pistols are.
which was a mistake IMO.
Fire dragons getting rerolls was their "buffed melta", we didnt need to make them better
Based on Eldar performance over the past 18 months, it's clear that we indeed did need to make Fire Dragon Meltas better
Eihnlazer wrote: worry not about that as the new fusion guns are always in melta range even if it was a delayed update. At least the harlequin fusion pistols are.
which was a mistake IMO.
Fire dragons getting rerolls was their "buffed melta", we didnt need to make them better
Based on Eldar performance over the past 18 months, it's clear that we indeed did need to make Fire Dragon Meltas better
we did, they got T4, a reworked battle focus, new craftworld attributes and new exarch powers....
the gun itself shouldnt have been changed, make the platform better instead
Eihnlazer wrote: worry not about that as the new fusion guns are always in melta range even if it was a delayed update. At least the harlequin fusion pistols are.
which was a mistake IMO.
Fire dragons getting rerolls was their "buffed melta", we didnt need to make them better
Based on Eldar performance over the past 18 months, it's clear that we indeed did need to make Fire Dragon Meltas better
we did, they got T4, a reworked battle focus, new craftworld attributes and new exarch powers....
the gun itself shouldnt have been changed, make the platform better instead
I don't mean to derail the thread, but I don't agree. Eldar didn't need maximal power creep to be viable (and honestly, I don't think their new codex could be called "maximal power creep" in a world with Tau and Custodes), but Fire Dragons did need something to make them better at their job. Increasing damage is not always a bad thing -- it's just been increased too much in many books. I'm not sure the Fire Dragon damage increase was too much but I could be wrong.
Eihnlazer wrote: worry not about that as the new fusion guns are always in melta range even if it was a delayed update. At least the harlequin fusion pistols are.
which was a mistake IMO.
Fire dragons getting rerolls was their "buffed melta", we didnt need to make them better
Based on Eldar performance over the past 18 months, it's clear that we indeed did need to make Fire Dragon Meltas better
we did, they got T4, a reworked battle focus, new craftworld attributes and new exarch powers....
the gun itself shouldnt have been changed, make the platform better instead
I don't mean to derail the thread, but I don't agree. Eldar didn't need maximal power creep to be viable (and honestly, I don't think their new codex could be called "maximal power creep" in a world with Tau and Custodes), but Fire Dragons did need something to make them better at their job. Increasing damage is not always a bad thing -- it's just been increased too much in many books. I'm not sure the Fire Dragon damage increase was too much but I could be wrong.
its probably not too much when compared to all the damage creep everywhere but its still part of the damage creep, therefore part of the problem.
I still have yet to understand how Custodes gaining the same free rules every other army has been getting is considered power creep.
I mean the win rates dont lie, but that is actually all custodes got in their new dex. Shield hosts and ka'tah's. Bikes got +1w and lost obsec. Salvo launchers damage got more reliable but they lost reroll wounds vs vehicles. Wardens got cheaper and bodyguard but lost their deny on a 3+. All characters got +1w and a except for vexilla which only got +1w. All 3++ saves were taken away except for a one turn relic. Our strats got recosted to be more inline with other 9th books. Our faction specific secondaries are Mehhhh.
As far as datasheets go we were one of the least changed codex's in 9th.
Eihnlazer wrote: I still have yet to understand how Custodes gaining the same free rules every other army has been getting is considered power creep.
I mean the win rates dont lie, but that is actually all custodes got in their new dex. Shield hosts and ka'tah's. Bikes got +1w and lost obsec. Salvo launchers damage got more reliable but they lost reroll wounds vs vehicles. Wardens got cheaper and bodyguard but lost their deny on a 3+. All characters got +1w and a except for vexilla which only got +1w. All 3++ saves were taken away except for a one turn relic. Our strats got recosted to be more inline with other 9th books. Our faction specific secondaries are Mehhhh.
As far as datasheets go we were one of the least changed codex's in 9th.
you're looking at the datasheet, the power is in the stratagems as far as i understand. (I legit havnt looked at the codex since theyre one that interests me the least and no one locally plays them)
Plus, Custodes were already an A- tier faction. Yes, there's nothing revolutionary about the type of buffs they got, but they were already at a high baseline (especially from a datasheet perspective). And some of the buffs (the 4+++ from EC, for instance), specifically plugged their biggest hole as a faction. Silly example, but if Tau had a Sept that gave them +2 to hit in melee (in addition to other buffs), it would still be "just baseline" but it would obviously shore up one of the faction's biggest weaknesses. It makes more sense to look at the rules themselves than the rule category.
Meanwhile Lascannons, Lastalons, Krak Missiles, SuperKraks, Hunter Killer/Slayer, Melta Weapons, KMKs, Smashaguns, Rupture Canons, Quake Cannons, Stormwind Seige Canons, Vanquisher Battle Canons, etc. stayed D6 instead of being changed to D3+3 in a Chapter Approved.
I am of the mind that they shouldn't.
The problem becomes availability of weapons. Marines can push a ton of lascannons into a list. I imagine people would not enjoy Iron Hands drop pods pushing 15 D3+3 shots ( 6 of them at BS2 ) with RR1s for 38 to 40 points per shot as compared to a Ravager who gets them at 43 points a shot and the much softer Scourges at 30 a shot.
Throw a LT in the spare pod space for gaks and giggles.
Meanwhile Lascannons, Lastalons, Krak Missiles, SuperKraks, Hunter Killer/Slayer, Melta Weapons, KMKs, Smashaguns, Rupture Canons, Quake Cannons, Stormwind Seige Canons, Vanquisher Battle Canons, etc. stayed D6 instead of being changed to D3+3 in a Chapter Approved.
I am of the mind that they shouldn't.
The problem becomes availability of weapons. Marines can push a ton of lascannons into a list. I imagine people would not enjoy Iron Hands drop pods pushing 15 D3+3 shots ( 6 of them at BS2 ) with RR1s for 38 to 40 points per shot as compared to a Ravager who gets them at 43 points a shot and the much softer Scourges at 30 a shot.
Throw a LT in the spare pod space for gaks and giggles.
what if we could restrict how many heavy/special weapons one could bring in a list? Lets say you have 200 "special weapons points" that you can bring in a list, you could bring 30 tacticals if you wanted to, but you'd cap your points quickly
Daedalus81 wrote: That probably makes list building cumbersome and more difficult to validate.
Infinity does it and it's pretty trivial. You have a points allowance and a SWC ("support weapons cost") allowance, every loadout has a points cost and a SWC cost, and your list is limited by both points and SWC. Honestly it'd be a more logical way of restricting current 40k than the current detachment system, which is so bad at restricting players just spamming the best units that they keep having to add more "no duplicates" rules.
If previously D6 damage weapons have been changed to 3+D3 damage "because D6 is too random and players hate it" then it feels like this should have been a universal change.
You could even just make Lascannons flat 4 damage and save everyone a needless dice roll.
You would need to rebalance the points accordingly - but I don't think that's beyond the wit of man.
Tyel wrote: If previously D6 damage weapons have been changed to 3+D3 damage "because D6 is too random and players hate it" then it feels like this should have been a universal change.
You could even just make Lascannons flat 4 damage and save everyone a needless dice roll.
You would need to rebalance the points accordingly - but I don't think that's beyond the wit of man.
Well, I suppose 2D3 would be an appropriate compromise. GW likes the drama of the D6, I think.
Meanwhile Lascannons, Lastalons, Krak Missiles, SuperKraks, Hunter Killer/Slayer, Melta Weapons, KMKs, Smashaguns, Rupture Canons, Quake Cannons, Stormwind Seige Canons, Vanquisher Battle Canons, etc. stayed D6 instead of being changed to D3+3 in a Chapter Approved.
I am of the mind that they shouldn't.
The problem becomes availability of weapons. Marines can push a ton of lascannons into a list. I imagine people would not enjoy Iron Hands drop pods pushing 15 D3+3 shots ( 6 of them at BS2 ) with RR1s for 38 to 40 points per shot as compared to a Ravager who gets them at 43 points a shot and the much softer Scourges at 30 a shot.
Throw a LT in the spare pod space for gaks and giggles.
If they aren't playing with Multi-Melta in Drop Pods, what makes you think they'd shift to Lascannons with more reliable damage?
Eihnlazer wrote: I still have yet to understand how Custodes gaining the same free rules every other army has been getting is considered power creep.
I mean the win rates dont lie, but that is actually all custodes got in their new dex. Shield hosts and ka'tah's. Bikes got +1w and lost obsec. Salvo launchers damage got more reliable but they lost reroll wounds vs vehicles. Wardens got cheaper and bodyguard but lost their deny on a 3+. All characters got +1w and a except for vexilla which only got +1w. All 3++ saves were taken away except for a one turn relic. Our strats got recosted to be more inline with other 9th books. Our faction specific secondaries are Mehhhh.
As far as datasheets go we were one of the least changed codex's in 9th.
1 CP turn off all re-rolls against a unit.
4++ against Mortals (their biggest weakness)
Power in 9th edition goes a lot beyond just a stat line and point cost.
EviscerationPlague wrote: If they aren't playing with Multi-Melta in Drop Pods, what makes you think they'd shift to Lascannons with more reliable damage?
Lascannons don't require being within 12" and in range of counter fire from strats.
Daedalus81 wrote: That probably makes list building cumbersome and more difficult to validate.
Infinity does it and it's pretty trivial. You have a points allowance and a SWC ("support weapons cost") allowance, every loadout has a points cost and a SWC cost, and your list is limited by both points and SWC. Honestly it'd be a more logical way of restricting current 40k than the current detachment system, which is so bad at restricting players just spamming the best units that they keep having to add more "no duplicates" rules.
thats what i was referring to (while trying to not mention infinity since people on here tend to assume its a trash game that has zero good ideas)
Daedalus81 wrote: That probably makes list building cumbersome and more difficult to validate.
Infinity does it and it's pretty trivial. You have a points allowance and a SWC ("support weapons cost") allowance, every loadout has a points cost and a SWC cost, and your list is limited by both points and SWC. Honestly it'd be a more logical way of restricting current 40k than the current detachment system, which is so bad at restricting players just spamming the best units that they keep having to add more "no duplicates" rules.
thats what i was referring to (while trying to not mention infinity since people on here tend to assume its a trash game that has zero good ideas)
Eh. Those people tend to assume that all games other than as-written 9th are trash with zero good ideas and that there 's no reason to change anything about 9th because that'd only make it worse, carefully not mentioning the name of the other game isn't going to help.
EviscerationPlague wrote: If they aren't playing with Multi-Melta in Drop Pods, what makes you think they'd shift to Lascannons with more reliable damage?
Lascannons don't require being within 12" and in range of counter fire from strats.
MM pods still occasionally see play.
If Lascannons don't require being within 12" why are you talking about Drop Pods with them? If you're gonna Drop Pod, the Multi-Melta does significantly more.
EviscerationPlague wrote: If they aren't playing with Multi-Melta in Drop Pods, what makes you think they'd shift to Lascannons with more reliable damage?
Lascannons don't require being within 12" and in range of counter fire from strats.
MM pods still occasionally see play.
If Lascannons don't require being within 12" why are you talking about Drop Pods with them? If you're gonna Drop Pod, the Multi-Melta does significantly more.
(shrugs) Keeps them safe for a round or so of fire & lets you position them where needed, & with the longer range you can't necessarily be screened out.
EviscerationPlague wrote: If they aren't playing with Multi-Melta in Drop Pods, what makes you think they'd shift to Lascannons with more reliable damage?
Lascannons don't require being within 12" and in range of counter fire from strats.
MM pods still occasionally see play.
If Lascannons don't require being within 12" why are you talking about Drop Pods with them? If you're gonna Drop Pod, the Multi-Melta does significantly more.
Alpha-strike protection and beta-strike ability - especially with obscuring to maximize the available firing lanes.
It's pointless anyway because it all comes down to pts efficiency, lascannons could be better or worse than multi-meltas if the points were really low or really high regardless of whether lascannons were D6 or D3+3 Damage.
You all know this, it's the reason why there is good chaff, good elites and good monsters and bad chaff, bad elites and bad monsters instead of monsters and elites always being great and chaff always being bad.
There are two reasons to change weapon stats, to create a more fun gameplay experience or to make a unit more or less of a glasscannon, viability shouldn't factor into it at all. Lokhust Heavy Destroyers were viable at D6 damage and did not become OP at 3D3 damage.
Eihnlazer wrote: I still have yet to understand how Custodes gaining the same free rules every other army has been getting is considered power creep.
I mean the win rates dont lie, but that is actually all custodes got in their new dex. Shield hosts and ka'tah's. Bikes got +1w and lost obsec. Salvo launchers damage got more reliable but they lost reroll wounds vs vehicles. Wardens got cheaper and bodyguard but lost their deny on a 3+. All characters got +1w and a except for vexilla which only got +1w. All 3++ saves were taken away except for a one turn relic. Our strats got recosted to be more inline with other 9th books. Our faction specific secondaries are Mehhhh.
As far as datasheets go we were one of the least changed codex's in 9th.
you're looking at the datasheet, the power is in the stratagems as far as i understand. (I legit havnt looked at the codex since theyre one that interests me the least and no one locally plays them)
It's really hard to pin down with Custodes as their strats haven't really changed other than getting cheaper, but for smaller units.
Perhaps their win rates are more a factor of people pig piling the faction and winning a lot, because it's such an easy faction to start.
Perhaps...the only reason Custodes wasn't hitting high win rates since mid-edition is that people dropped them as they didn't want to deal with the weakness to morale and mortal wounds. Now that both those problems are "solved" people are picking them up again and they were already at a high level of viability?
Couple this with the nerfs to souping in armies in GK and Sisters and suddenly those armies are a lot easier for Custodes to tackle. That and the fact that it is still really hard to pick secondaries against Custodes as any kill oriented play is bound to fail.
So...Custodes were always kind of busted and we just didn't see it until the popularity came back.
Eihnlazer wrote: I still have yet to understand how Custodes gaining the same free rules every other army has been getting is considered power creep.
I mean the win rates dont lie, but that is actually all custodes got in their new dex. Shield hosts and ka'tah's. Bikes got +1w and lost obsec. Salvo launchers damage got more reliable but they lost reroll wounds vs vehicles. Wardens got cheaper and bodyguard but lost their deny on a 3+. All characters got +1w and a except for vexilla which only got +1w. All 3++ saves were taken away except for a one turn relic. Our strats got recosted to be more inline with other 9th books. Our faction specific secondaries are Mehhhh.
As far as datasheets go we were one of the least changed codex's in 9th.
you're looking at the datasheet, the power is in the stratagems as far as i understand. (I legit havnt looked at the codex since theyre one that interests me the least and no one locally plays them)
It's really hard to pin down with Custodes as their strats haven't really changed other than getting cheaper, but for smaller units.
Perhaps their win rates are more a factor of people pig piling the faction and winning a lot, because it's such an easy faction to start.
Perhaps...the only reason Custodes wasn't hitting high win rates since mid-edition is that people dropped them as they didn't want to deal with the weakness to morale and mortal wounds. Now that both those problems are "solved" people are picking them up again and they were already at a high level of viability?
Couple this with the nerfs to souping in armies in GK and Sisters and suddenly those armies are a lot easier for Custodes to tackle. That and the fact that it is still really hard to pick secondaries against Custodes as any kill oriented play is bound to fail.
So...Custodes were always kind of busted and we just didn't see it until the popularity came back.
Naw custodes got a lot from our new book. Free rules are free rules. Everything lost aside from the 3++ wasn’t that relevant, and even that mattered less than people think. If a 50% winrate Army receives a bunch free rules, stat buffs, and now has double the number of uses on 2 important defensive strats, than it’s not
hard to see why it now has a 65% winrate.
Naw custodes got a lot from our new book. Free rules are free rules. Everything lost aside from the 3++ wasn’t that relevant, and even that mattered less than people think. If a 50% winrate Army receives a bunch free rules, stat buffs, and now has double the number of uses on 2 important defensive strats, than it’s not
hard to see why it now has a 65% winrate.
They got a bunch of free rules, yes. But whether they improved +5%, +25%, or +50% changes in what way we perceive this situation.
I banded Custodes win rates into three periods - 11/1 to 1/9 ( pre-book ), 1/10 to 2/10 ( post-book, pre-ca ), 2/11 forward ( current )
I highlighted some of the armies where they saw a significant jump each period. e.g. Grey Knights went from 46% to 59% to 81% all with equivalent numbers of games. Custodes didn't gain all that much from 2/11, but improved considerably. Why? Because GK took a decent hit.
Part of our problem just may be that Chapter Approved hit armies in ways that Custodes just don't care about as much.
Really Daedalus? You don't see how Custodes getting a 4+++ against Mortals could dramatically improve the winrate against an army with access to lots of psychic?
But do they buy it from GW though - or do they swap them with people or scrounge them up off Ebay?
There was a debate about this in another thread - but I think GW's revenue is rooted mainly two million or so people spending £150~ a year.
I mean say there were 5000 players who blow £1000 every year (which I feel is a bit crazy - and if maintained over a few years would give you about 6~ armies). That's £5m of revenue. Of GW's... £350m last year?
I'm not convinced they'd overly care. Or certainly not enough to warp the whole game around them.
I think the issue is more likely to be that there's no such as "bad publicity". There's lots of talking about Custodes and Tau. There's not very much about say GSC.
I'm not convinced its a great thing - because it leads to "40k is a broken game, don't play it". But Codexes which drop with a whimper are probably a failure.
I think the issues with Custodes and Tau are easy to explain. Custodes were going to be terrible without their 3++ (see: the internet). Tau just "couldn't work" in 9th (Internet again). So they got compensating buff after compensating buff. And consequently they went far too far and they are busted as compared with the competition.
I'd argue "we want DE to be an assault-focused army" had the same. Everything had to be buffed up and dead cheap - or it would continue to be faction: Venom Spam+friends forever.
Not a bad notion, i'll bet a lot of them do buy 2nd hand but the ones i know buy from our local stores. But this got me thinking also....I am not a FOTM player by any stretch of the imagination...i own orkz and...nothing else
In the last year or so I have bought or received from my wife as a gift....The beast snagga box set, 1 unit of Squig riders, 1 Beastboss on squigosaur, 1 Mega armor warboss, 3x Kommandos, a new Dakkajet, and a unit of Meganobz and the new Ghazkuul/makari model. Just realized I spend way too much on Orkz every year
Naw custodes got a lot from our new book. Free rules are free rules. Everything lost aside from the 3++ wasn’t that relevant, and even that mattered less than people think. If a 50% winrate Army receives a bunch free rules, stat buffs, and now has double the number of uses on 2 important defensive strats, than it’s not
hard to see why it now has a 65% winrate.
They got a bunch of free rules, yes. But whether they improved +5%, +25%, or +50% changes in what way we perceive this situation.
I banded Custodes win rates into three periods - 11/1 to 1/9 ( pre-book ), 1/10 to 2/10 ( post-book, pre-ca ), 2/11 forward ( current )
I highlighted some of the armies where they saw a significant jump each period. e.g. Grey Knights went from 46% to 59% to 81% all with equivalent numbers of games. Custodes didn't gain all that much from 2/11, but improved considerably. Why? Because GK took a decent hit.
Part of our problem just may be that Chapter Approved hit armies in ways that Custodes just don't care about as much.
Spoiler:
Daed...how the flying Feth does every army in your graph have a 50%+ win rate? that is literally not physically possible. I think you might need to adjust your data bud
Ordana wrote: Really Daedalus? You don't see how Custodes getting a 4+++ against Mortals could dramatically improve the winrate against an army with access to lots of psychic?
Oo
Right, but THAT change is encompassed in the period between codex launch and chapter approved. And it highlights what I'm talking about. Custodes improved against GK by 13% with the new book. When CA hit they improved a further 12%. I doubt that Custodes became that much better over a month.
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SemperMortis wrote: Daed...how the flying Feth does every army in your graph have a 50%+ win rate? that is literally not physically possible. I think you might need to adjust your data bud
Sorry if it was clear - these are Custodes win rates against each of those armies, which is why they're so high.
Gadzilla666 wrote: For example: in early 9th edition codexes Dd6 was considered "fine" for AT weapons. Then, gw decided that it wasn't reliable enough, and began rolling out things like Dd3+3, while leaving older units in older books with the "old paradigm" Dd6 weapons, thus making them weaker in comparison.
Fake news, Necrons got a Dd6 weapon upgraded to D3d3, 3d3
It wasn't a problem and the unit just recently got buffed twice in quick succession. The only thing that matters is points efficiency, broken rules don't exist outside Relics and WL traits which have no adjustable cost.
I'm sorry, what? I never said that the various "improved weapons" were "broken" or "a problem". I said that improving those in order to make them more reliable while leaving others in the "old paradigm" with Dd6 was bad, as it made those comparatively worse. And making things like lascannons more reliable wouldn't necessarily require changing their damage to Dd3+3. D2d3 is more reliable than Dd6, as is Dd6[MINIMUM3], or even a flat number like D4. The idea is to avoid those 1 damage rolls.
And I don't disagree with you that points cost can make something "good". But most people don't want their units to be good simply because they're cheap. They want them to behave and work as they should in the fluff. And many things currently don't. 5 PPM CSM with their current rules could be completely ridiculous, but I don't want CSM to be a "horde army", for example.
I agree CA had an effect on certain factions but not sure on your timings here. Didn't Custodes get released on 15th January and CA 2 weeks later, 29th January?
Throw in some lag for tounaments adopting the changes (which isn't constant) and I think you are looking at a very thin period of new codex/no CA.
Gadzilla666 wrote: For example: in early 9th edition codexes Dd6 was considered "fine" for AT weapons. Then, gw decided that it wasn't reliable enough, and began rolling out things like Dd3+3, while leaving older units in older books with the "old paradigm" Dd6 weapons, thus making them weaker in comparison.
Fake news, Necrons got a Dd6 weapon upgraded to D3d3, 3d3
I'm sorry, what? I never said that the various "improved weapons" were "broken" or "a problem". I said that improving those in order to make them more reliable while leaving others in the "old paradigm" with Dd6 was bad, as it made those comparatively worse.
I didn't say you did, I said that you were wrong to suggest that early 9th edition codexes and newer 9th edition codexes are designed differently. Necrons got upgraded heavy gauss, Space Marines got upgraded multi-meltas, both of those weapons were upgraded more than dark lances and cognis lascannons would eventually be upgraded. Lascannons and Doomsday Arks do not need more damage, their lethality is perfectly fine if you ignore points. 2 weapons with D6 damage is better than one weapon with D3+3 damage, what's best is a question of pts-efficiency in scoring VP and preventing your opponent from scoring VP. Multi-meltas do too much damage, there is no room for meltaguns to have a role in the game.
vict0988 wrote: 2 weapons with D6 damage is better than one weapon with D3+3 damage, what's best is a question of pts-efficiency in scoring VP and preventing your opponent from scoring VP. Multi-meltas do too much damage, there is no room for meltaguns to have a role in the game.
No they are not, unless you have loaded dice or something. being sure that every and each one of your weapons is going to do 4W if not saved is huge to how you build your army, move your army, when comparing to an army where two weapons , which have to go through twice that many tests to save, wound, hit. which may end up doing 2W to something and that is before any -1D to wound or maxing wounds you can cause per phase etc.
vict0988 wrote: 2 weapons with D6 damage is better than one weapon with D3+3 damage, what's best is a question of pts-efficiency in scoring VP and preventing your opponent from scoring VP. Multi-meltas do too much damage, there is no room for meltaguns to have a role in the game.
No they are not, unless you have loaded dice or something. being sure that every and each one of your weapons is going to do 4W if not saved is huge to how you build your army, move your army, when comparing to an army where two weapons , which have to go through twice that many tests to save, wound, hit. which may end up doing 2W to something and that is before any -1D to wound or maxing wounds you can cause per phase etc.
Actually the math said it is, since having more shots generally increase the change of successful wound.
vict0988 wrote: 2 weapons with D6 damage is better than one weapon with D3+3 damage, what's best is a question of pts-efficiency in scoring VP and preventing your opponent from scoring VP. Multi-meltas do too much damage, there is no room for meltaguns to have a role in the game.
No they are not, unless you have loaded dice or something. being sure that every and each one of your weapons is going to do 4W if not saved is huge to how you build your army, move your army, when comparing to an army where two weapons , which have to go through twice that many tests to save, wound, hit. which may end up doing 2W to something and that is before any -1D to wound or maxing wounds you can cause per phase etc.
Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
JNAProductions wrote: Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
I guess that's one way of looking at it.
The other is that on BS3, wounding on 3s, hitting a 5++, a single shot has a 70%~ chance to do zero damage.
By contrast, this falls to 49% with 2 such shots. Sure, some % you might only get one hit through and do 1 damage - but that's (at least potentially) better than nothing.
The odds of doing nothing with say 4 Lascannons are 24% - so will happen fairly frequently. By contrast the odds on the same with 4 MMs is 5.7%.
vict0988 wrote: 2 weapons with D6 damage is better than one weapon with D3+3 damage, what's best is a question of pts-efficiency in scoring VP and preventing your opponent from scoring VP. Multi-meltas do too much damage, there is no room for meltaguns to have a role in the game.
No they are not, unless you have loaded dice or something. being sure that every and each one of your weapons is going to do 4W if not saved is huge to how you build your army, move your army, when comparing to an army where two weapons , which have to go through twice that many tests to save, wound, hit. which may end up doing 2W to something and that is before any -1D to wound or maxing wounds you can cause per phase etc.
Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
Assuming getting 4 damage isn't the key and 1, 2 and 3 is irrelevant. And that 8+ might not be just wasted damage.
Something to keep in mind average damage by simple 2d6=7 doesn't tell real damage due to overkills, wounds not carrying over and 3 not neccessarily actually doing anything meaningful(ie target still alive).
8e necron pylon does average damage of 31 damage and spare vs baneblade. Yet it actually one shotted 24w baneblade less than 60% times. DUCY?
JNAProductions wrote: Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
Not when both shots have to hit, wound , go through an inv and/or FnP style save with possible -1 to hit etc If having two lascanons was so great people would be actually using stuff like predators or devastators with lascanons.
JNAProductions wrote: Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
Not when both shots have to hit, wound , go through an inv and/or FnP style save with possible -1 to hit etc If having two lascanons was so great people would be actually using stuff like predators or devastators with lascanons.
Because you rarely get 2 of guns X and 1 of gun Y for the same price.
If you got 2 lascannons for the price of 1 MM you would likely see more Lascannons.
JNAProductions wrote: Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
Not when both shots have to hit, wound , go through an inv and/or FnP style save with possible -1 to hit etc If having two lascanons was so great people would be actually using stuff like predators or devastators with lascanons.
And you have even worse odds of ONE shot hitting, wounding, and going through the save.
JNAProductions wrote: Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
Not when both shots have to hit, wound , go through an inv and/or FnP style save with possible -1 to hit etc If having two lascanons was so great people would be actually using stuff like predators or devastators with lascanons.
I'd rather have 2 chances to SUCCEED (and potentially do more damage) than 1 chance to only do d3+3.
Pts permitting of course.
JNAProductions wrote: Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
Not when both shots have to hit, wound , go through an inv and/or FnP style save with possible -1 to hit etc If having two lascanons was so great people would be actually using stuff like predators or devastators with lascanons.
Assuming same cost between the two, both have BS4, Both wound on 4s, no armor save allowed because reasons.
D3+3 hits 50% of the time, wounds 25% of the time and does 5dmg on average. That works out to a per turn average of 1.25dmg per turn.
2 shots at D6d = 1 hit, 0.5 wounds for 1.75dmg per turn.
So yes, 2D6 is better than D3+3. But that also depends on target. If I am aiming to kill 3-4 wound models i'll take the D3+3 because i'm guaranteed a dead model per turn where as the 2D6 might whiff and only do 1-3dmg a turn and leave an enemy model alive that would otherwise have been dead.
Against vehicles and tough targets i'll go with 2D6, against elite heavy infantry, D3+3 is probably the way to go.
Tyel wrote: I agree CA had an effect on certain factions but not sure on your timings here. Didn't Custodes get released on 15th January and CA 2 weeks later, 29th January?
Throw in some lag for tounaments adopting the changes (which isn't constant) and I think you are looking at a very thin period of new codex/no CA.
Right, so 1/10 was the end of the prior weekend. More precisely it should be 1/14, but there aren't typically tournaments mid-week. When tournaments implement Chapter Approved varies, but that was the first "official" weekend. It gets fuzzy.
Bear with me on this, because it's a lot to take in and I'm just ruminating.
This is the Custodes win rate by date vs just GK and then versus the whole field minus Tau and GK. The first red line is codex, second is CA, third is the week following CA when uptake would be at its highest. I threw out days with less than 10 Custodes games and less than 3 GK v Custodes matchups. Trendlines are the same, but this just reduces the visual noise. In effect Custodes improved more vs GK than the rest of the field. There is a small window, but the improvement is greatest when CA is in full effect.
Of course caveats - data, variables, etc etc. This is mostly just for exploring data and fun.
I should probably run it by week...
Spoiler:
Here it is by week ( Mon thru Sun; dropping the low game holidays ) with a 3 week moving average:
They absolutely should have a "roadmap for incoming mechanics". Gw's habit of changing their mind, or incorporating "cool new ideas" is one of the biggest factors in codex creep. These "paradigm shifts" in newer books have a tendency to leave "old paradigm" books behind. For example: in early 9th edition codexes Dd6 was considered "fine" for AT weapons. Then, gw decided that it wasn't reliable enough, and began rolling out things like Dd3+3, while leaving older units in older books with the "old paradigm" Dd6 weapons, thus making them weaker in comparison.
Except this isn't really true.
The Space Marine, Necrons and Death Guard books are full of damage D3+3 or D6+2 anti-tank weaponry.
They often just put it on really bad platforms (which is a separate issue entirely).
tneva82 wrote: Assuming getting 4 damage isn't the key and 1, 2 and 3 is irrelevant. And that 8+ might not be just wasted damage.
Something to keep in mind average damage by simple 2d6=7 doesn't tell real damage due to overkills, wounds not carrying over and 3 not neccessarily actually doing anything meaningful(ie target still alive).
8e necron pylon does average damage of 31 damage and spare vs baneblade. Yet it actually one shotted 24w baneblade less than 60% times. DUCY?
Indeed and you could argue this is now as big an issue as its ever been due to multi wound units becoming ever more common
A minimum damage 4 weapon is going to be a petty big advantage relative to D6 if your say shooting at units with 3 wounds and -1 damage.
Assuming everything gets though 2 D6 is only going to get double kills 25% of the time.
JNAProductions wrote: Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
Not when both shots have to hit, wound , go through an inv and/or FnP style save with possible -1 to hit etc If having two lascanons was so great people would be actually using stuff like predators or devastators with lascanons.
Assuming same cost between the two, both have BS4, Both wound on 4s, no armor save allowed because reasons.
D3+3 hits 50% of the time, wounds 25% of the time and does 5dmg on average. That works out to a per turn average of 1.25dmg per turn.
2 shots at D6d = 1 hit, 0.5 wounds for 1.75dmg per turn.
So yes, 2D6 is better than D3+3. But that also depends on target. If I am aiming to kill 3-4 wound models i'll take the D3+3 because i'm guaranteed a dead model per turn where as the 2D6 might whiff and only do 1-3dmg a turn and leave an enemy model alive that would otherwise have been dead.
Against vehicles and tough targets i'll go with 2D6, against elite heavy infantry, D3+3 is probably the way to go.
In most cases elite infantry have invul or access to transhuman, so the average is still lower. Volume wins in most cases, simple because it have higher chance to go to the damage phase, but you usually dont get 2 for 1.
So yeah, were "full" of better than D6 damage weapons. And guess what, the ones that are playable are actually played.
You forgot the:
Heat Ray (focused): d6+2 at 1/2 range - Triarch Stalker
Synaptic Obliterator: Heavy d3, flat 6 damage - 2 of these guns on the Seraptek Heavy Construct
So yeah, were "full" of better than D6 damage weapons. And guess what, the ones that are playable are actually played.
You forgot the:
Heat Ray (focused): d6+2 at 1/2 range - Triarch Stalker
Synaptic Obliterator: Heavy d3, flat 6 damage - 2 of these guns on the Seraptek Heavy Construct
fair enough on the triarch, but lol on the Seraptek
Seraptek would be fine with "Improved quantam Shielding: This model has a 5+ invunerable save and can never be wounded on an unmodified roll of a 1, 2, or 3. If an attack has a damage characteristic greater than 3 reduce the damage by 1".
GW games are clearly not balanced around playing one army, probably even one faction. From the way how rules are updated, FAQ and stuff gets buffed, or more often nerfed. It looks as if people are expected to own multiple armies. If you play stamped tyranids or custodes, tau seem like a normal army.
So yeah, were "full" of better than D6 damage weapons. And guess what, the ones that are playable are actually played.
You forgot the:
Heat Ray (focused): d6+2 at 1/2 range - Triarch Stalker
Synaptic Obliterator: Heavy d3, flat 6 damage - 2 of these guns on the Seraptek Heavy Construct
fair enough on the triarch, but lol on the Seraptek
Hey, if you're going to make a list of our "Better than d6" guns....
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Eihnlazer wrote: Seraptek would be fine with "Improved quantam Shielding: This model has a 5+ invunerable save and can never be wounded on an unmodified roll of a 1, 2, or 3. If an attack has a damage characteristic greater than 3 reduce the damage by 1".
It's as-is 5++ is still more than my poor Monolith has. :(
JNAProductions wrote: Assuming same hit rate, same wound rate, and same save rate, it's literally a question of which is better: 2d6 or d3+3.
This isn't hard to calculate-Anydice can do it in a jiffy.
2d6 is better than 1d3+3 a whopping 71% of the time, just on averages.
Not when both shots have to hit, wound , go through an inv and/or FnP style save with possible -1 to hit etc If having two lascanons was so great people would be actually using stuff like predators or devastators with lascanons.
And you have even worse odds of ONE shot hitting, wounding, and going through the save.
The odds of one getting through is lower than either of two. But your premise was BOTH being better than 1 - which requires BOTH of two to make it through.
Of course they are overpowered - they sell well. When they stop selling well / the initial spike in purchases is over, they will get nerfed for the next big hotness.
Imperial Guard doesn't sell as well, so it'll be a little bit "meh" claiming they have listened to the community, before they then release Space Marines v2 to super-buff them to remind people to buy them.
Sumilidon wrote: Of course they are overpowered - they sell well. When they stop selling well / the initial spike in purchases is over, they will get nerfed for the next big hotness.
Imperial Guard doesn't sell as well, so it'll be a little bit "meh" claiming they have listened to the community, before they then release Space Marines v2 to super-buff them to remind people to buy them.
Right, that's why GSC are also just killing it? Or why Thousand Sons dominated and then got heavily nerfed?
I'm just glad they finally put Death Guard in their place!
Sumilidon wrote: Of course they are overpowered - they sell well. When they stop selling well / the initial spike in purchases is over, they will get nerfed for the next big hotness.
Imperial Guard doesn't sell as well, so it'll be a little bit "meh" claiming they have listened to the community, before they then release Space Marines v2 to super-buff them to remind people to buy them.
Right, that's why GSC are also just killing it? Or why Thousand Sons dominated and then got heavily nerfed?
I'm just glad they finally put Death Guard in their place!
In the top tables with the best players yeah, they are doing great. The OP however has much more concern however on accessibility to such an overpowered army (notably Custodes) which filters down to the local club level. From my experience, GSC on a club level suck.
Also remember that those armies are doing really well following a supplement that people theoretically need to buy to get the rules to make them awesome....
Sumilidon wrote: Of course they are overpowered - they sell well. When they stop selling well / the initial spike in purchases is over, they will get nerfed for the next big hotness.
Imperial Guard doesn't sell as well, so it'll be a little bit "meh" claiming they have listened to the community, before they then release Space Marines v2 to super-buff them to remind people to buy them.
Right, that's why GSC are also just killing it? Or why Thousand Sons dominated and then got heavily nerfed?
I'm just glad they finally put Death Guard in their place!
In the top tables with the best players yeah, they are doing great. The OP however has much more concern however on accessibility to such an overpowered army (notably Custodes) which filters down to the local club level. From my experience, GSC on a club level suck.
Also remember that those armies are doing really well following a supplement that people theoretically need to buy to get the rules to make them awesome....
Speed Freaks isn't catapulting Orks. Neither is anything for the Sisters. Phobos army says what? DE supplement didn't make or break that army. AdMech and had the only supplement that truly amps them barring Nids, which is interacting with an old codex that has double shoot - a mechanic that is going away.
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Tyel wrote: Shoot a Custodian Guard squad with Transhuman up with a lascannon and an MM.
Is this assuming a D3+3 LC? Because otherwise it's no contest unless the range is 25"+.
Tyel wrote: Shoot a Custodian Guard squad with Transhuman up with a lascannon and an MM.
That’s two shots, hitting on a 3+ (probably), wounding on a 4+, saving on a 4+, for d6 or d+2 damage. As opposed by one identical shot, except it only ever gets d6 damage.
That’s not worth mathing out-two shots is better than one shot when the shots are identical.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Oh boy, one of them suggested nerfing Crisis Suits by doing the "what's in the box" loadout. I'm shocked he doesn't work for GW already!
There's some over the top as well as some very silly suggestions.
I do like this one:
Add “When firing at models not within line of sight, attacks made with this weapon are always made at -1 to the hit roll, cannot receive positive modifiers of any kind, and hit, wound, and damage rolls cannot be re-rolled” to all weapons which are eligible to fire at targets not in line of sight
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Tyel wrote: Sorry yes - I meant an Ad Mech Lascannon.
Should have just said a Bright Lance.
I presume you mean a single cognis LC otherwise it goes way in the other direction.
Such a LC can kill a Custodes 15.4% of the time ( 26.7% if a twin ). MM at range is 17.8% and 25.8 in half.
I think they are a little harsh on custodes myself. I think there is a bit of an underestimation on how the nerfs will affect the whole army. It's not an ad mech/DE situation that huge depth of stuff to pull from.
That being said, they clearly need some nerfs. Trajan, Bikes and some of the stratagems need to go up for sure. I think just making the defensive stratagems cost 2 by default for non-infantry units is the right way to price them. but +15 for Salvo Launchers or making them D6 just seems overboard.
VladimirHerzog wrote: yeah, nerfing non-LoS is sorely needed to future proof the edition.
So much crap has stemmed from those weapons. It's dumb that they're priced like regular guns, but suffer no drawbacks. And you can't just jack the points up to make them glass cannon. We definitely need a rule to deal with them.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Oh boy, one of them suggested nerfing Crisis Suits by doing the "what's in the box" loadout. I'm shocked he doesn't work for GW already!
There's some over the top as well as some very silly suggestions.
I do like this one:
Add “When firing at models not within line of sight, attacks made with this weapon are always made at -1 to the hit roll, cannot receive positive modifiers of any kind, and hit, wound, and damage rolls cannot be re-rolled” to all weapons which are eligible to fire at targets not in line of sight
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Tyel wrote: Sorry yes - I meant an Ad Mech Lascannon.
Should have just said a Bright Lance.
I presume you mean a single cognis LC otherwise it goes way in the other direction.
Such a LC can kill a Custodes 15.4% of the time ( 26.7% if a twin ). MM at range is 17.8% and 25.8 in half.
Yeah I think a simple "Take a -1 to hit" would've sufficed.
Really, what you choose to do reflects whether your thinking is "okay, 70%+ win rates against non-Custodes/Tau is a bit much, lets try and keep them still the best faction, but only with say a 60%~ win rate"...
Or "these two factions both need to be brought down to earth with massive cuts so they are not obviously better than say Death Guard".
The first proposal is probably closest to what I'd do day 1 - and what I expect GW to do. But as the weeks go past, I'm increasingly minded that its too soft. It will just produce a DE style scenario where Custodes and Tau remain the top factions until some new tier of overpoweredness shows up.
Its this statement:
Glancing down the page at what others have written, I think the things I’d specifically try and avoid doing are hitting Auspice and Alchemy at the same time (for the reasons outlined above) and taking CORE off Broadsides (because I think they become irrelevant and outmoded outside maybe Tau Sept if you do).
that I think hits the divide. To my mind you can only say taking CORE from Broadsides would make them "irrelevent", if "relevancy" is "regularly featuring in GT winning lists due to being quite blatantly overpushed". Which feels like a rather ludicrous bar for balance - and can only get that "hey, we nerfed them a 65% win rate, why aren't you happy?" result.
So much crap has stemmed from those weapons. It's dumb that they're priced like regular guns, but suffer no drawbacks. And you can't just jack the points up to make them glass cannon. We definitely need a rule to deal with them.
yeah, its the same reason why flyers got a blanket nerf, anything that makes terrain irrelevant is a mistake IMO (heck, i'd remove the breachable keyword too)
VladimirHerzog wrote: yeah, nerfing non-LoS is sorely needed to future proof the edition.
Why would you need to future proof the edition? It'll just go away summer of '23/summer '24 & everything will reset.
ok i'll spell it out : We need to reign in non-LoS before the guard codex comes out.
Ah, I see. You're trying to deny the Guard players one of the strengths of their faction.
This is nothing but the mewling cry of the bad player. Whatever the strength of a faction (except yours of course)? Nerf it into the ground!
VladimirHerzog wrote: yeah, nerfing non-LoS is sorely needed to future proof the edition.
Why would you need to future proof the edition? It'll just go away summer of '23/summer '24 & everything will reset.
ok i'll spell it out : We need to reign in non-LoS before the guard codex comes out.
Ah, I see. You're trying to deny the Guard players one of the strengths of their faction.
This is nothing but the mewling cry of the bad player. Whatever the strength of a faction (except yours of course)? Nerf it into the ground!
sure, i'm a bad player because i recognize that in a game as lethal as 40k, removing the main interaction i can have with my opponent (terrain) from the equation is problematic.
guard can still be a good mortar faction by having access to more mortars than other faction.
And no, i've called out bs stuff even if they are in my factions or not.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Oh boy, one of them suggested nerfing Crisis Suits by doing the "what's in the box" loadout. I'm shocked he doesn't work for GW already!
EviscerationPlague wrote: Oh boy, one of them suggested nerfing Crisis Suits by doing the "what's in the box" loadout. I'm shocked he doesn't work for GW already!
It'd only be fair.
yeah, as much as i dislike the rule, i dislike it not being applied equally to every faction.
but in an ideal world, i'd let people put whatever they want on their squads
I don't think its an issue if every codex has some limited - and relatively overcosted on planet bowling ball - ignore LOS options.
Its the counter to "I'm going to hide behind cover until you come out and then I can run round the corner and get my shooting phase off first". Which should in turn be sort of countered by "my stuff has M16" and just shoots across the table to do whatever it likes".
Hmm...well...maybe? I think the double edged sword there is that you suddenly make stuff with FLY the best units in the game.
i mean, fly *should* give an advantage over being on foot
Yea, but you know how it goes - only units with FLY will get used and anything without it suffers.
I don't want to discount the possibility as I am only speculating, however, the slow units at the point become really slow. Terminators don't get anywhere. Harlequins would walk circles around people just jumping over cover when you get too close.
Feels a lot like older editions.
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Tyel wrote: I don't think its an issue if every codex has some limited - and relatively overcosted on planet bowling ball - ignore LOS options.
Its the counter to "I'm going to hide behind cover until you come out and then I can run round the corner and get my shooting phase off first". Which should in turn be sort of countered by "my stuff has M16" and just shoots across the table to do whatever it likes".
Its points values that are the problem.
I don't agree that points can solve this. You have units that ignore LOS from soft infantry all the way to tanks. If two armies square off with glass cannon level no LOS shooting then the person that either goes first or has the more durable platform will get the edge.
Giving no LOS shooting a penalty that goes away when they can spot the target rewards movement and gives choice between focusing on something more important that isn't in LOS.
Battlefield choices are so much better, in my opinion.
Sumilidon wrote: Of course they are overpowered - they sell well. When they stop selling well / the initial spike in purchases is over, they will get nerfed for the next big hotness.
Imperial Guard doesn't sell as well, so it'll be a little bit "meh" claiming they have listened to the community, before they then release Space Marines v2 to super-buff them to remind people to buy them.
This is the single dumbest recurring myth in 40k.
I WISH GW was competent enough to push rules for strong sellers. At least then the system would make sense.
VladimirHerzog wrote: yeah, nerfing non-LoS is sorely needed to future proof the edition.
So much crap has stemmed from those weapons. It's dumb that they're priced like regular guns, but suffer no drawbacks. And you can't just jack the points up to make them glass cannon. We definitely need a rule to deal with them.
Also, I don't care HOW thematic it is: No weapon should EVER ignore both LoS AND cover.
Sumilidon wrote: Of course they are overpowered - they sell well. When they stop selling well / the initial spike in purchases is over, they will get nerfed for the next big hotness.
Imperial Guard doesn't sell as well, so it'll be a little bit "meh" claiming they have listened to the community, before they then release Space Marines v2 to super-buff them to remind people to buy them.
Right, that's why GSC are also just killing it? Or why Thousand Sons dominated and then got heavily nerfed?
I'm just glad they finally put Death Guard in their place!
In the top tables with the best players yeah, they are doing great. The OP however has much more concern however on accessibility to such an overpowered army (notably Custodes) which filters down to the local club level. From my experience, GSC on a club level suck.
Also remember that those armies are doing really well following a supplement that people theoretically need to buy to get the rules to make them awesome....
Space marines have historically sold better than any TWO other factions. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that in some cases they sold better than ALL the rest of 40k combined. And yet, they're by and large terrible. ESPECIALLY their fancy new primaris kits.
I don't want to discount the possibility as I am only speculating, however, the slow units at the point become really slow. Terminators don't get anywhere. Harlequins would walk circles around people just jumping over cover when you get too close.
i get that it feels bad, but thats pretty much how it should play, termis are tough as hell and slow, clowns are squishy but fast and hit hard
Space marines have historically sold better than any TWO other factions. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that in some cases they sold better than ALL the rest of 40k combined. And yet, they're by and large terrible. ESPECIALLY their fancy new primaris kits.
Such an easy theory to disprove.
If we add in incompetence *and* malice on GW's part, it makes sense - they want to make Marines powerful and easy to use, but they keep tripping over themselves.
I don't want to discount the possibility as I am only speculating, however, the slow units at the point become really slow. Terminators don't get anywhere. Harlequins would walk circles around people just jumping over cover when you get too close.
i get that it feels bad, but thats pretty much how it should play, termis are tough as hell and slow, clowns are squishy but fast and hit hard
Thousand Sons lack accessible powerful flying units ( as an example ). It seems like such a setup would make it harder to balance units especially in a objective based mission set.
Ah, I see. You're trying to deny the Guard players one of the strengths of their faction.
This is nothing but the mewling cry of the bad player. Whatever the strength of a faction (except yours of course)? Nerf it into the ground!
Removed - rule #1
Ignore LoS shooting is consistently problematic when it's not overcosted the same way flyers. The rule as a whole needs to be reined in. -1 to hit when targeting units they can't see would at least be a good start.
Space marines have historically sold better than any TWO other factions. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that in some cases they sold better than ALL the rest of 40k combined. And yet, they're by and large terrible. ESPECIALLY their fancy new primaris kits.
Such an easy theory to disprove.
If we add in incompetence *and* malice on GW's part, it makes sense - they want to make Marines powerful and easy to use, but they keep tripping over themselves.
I think GW legit thought Primaris were super amazing on the first iteration of rules.
Space marines have historically sold better than any TWO other factions. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that in some cases they sold better than ALL the rest of 40k combined. And yet, they're by and large terrible. ESPECIALLY their fancy new primaris kits.
Such an easy theory to disprove.
If we add in incompetence *and* malice on GW's part, it makes sense - they want to make Marines powerful and easy to use, but they keep tripping over themselves.
I think GW legit thought Primaris were super amazing on the first iteration of rules.
Anything with a BS worse than 2+ (i.e. 84%) - At a BS 3+ (67%) you don't get both D6 at the same rate you get the D3+3 and certainly not at a 71% clip. As near as I can tell, the gist of your claim may be entirely valid. However the gist of your claim is not the proffered premise. 2D6 to hit, chances both are 3+ is just under 45%. Unless you artificially boost the hit rate of the two shots to get "the same hit rate" for 2D6 damage you get for the single D3+3 attack.
I presume you mean a single cognis LC otherwise it goes way in the other direction.
Such a LC can kill a Custodes 15.4% of the time ( 26.7% if a twin ). MM at range is 17.8% and 25.8 in half.
The discussion has sort of moved on - but how did you do this maths?
To very roughly do my own numbers.
1 single Dark Lance (or a single Cognis Las - were such a thing to exist, as its different stats don't make a difference in this scenario as far as I can see), no mods. S8, AP-4, D3+3 damage.
1 MM outside 12". 2 shots S8 AP-4 D6 damage.
Into a squad of Transhumaned basic Custodes. (Before any other rerolls, buffs etc)
Lance is easy.
1*2/3*1/2*1/2=1/6 chance to kill a guy. 5/6 chance to bounce and do nothing. 16.66%
One shot with an MM.
1*2/3*1/2*1/2=also 1/6 chance to get a wound through. You then have a 2/3 chance to get a 3+ damage and so claim a kill. So the odds become 1/9.
So the odds of not getting any kills with 2 shots is - crudely (see below) - 8/9*8/9=79%. So you have around a 21% chance to kill at least one Custodes. (Of which, 1.2%~ is a chance of getting 2).
Technically however the odds are slightly higher than this - because if you got 2 hits through (as unlikely as this is) a 1+2 or 2+2 for damage would get a kill as well. Which I think adds another 1.5% chance to get a kill. So I think the figure would be about 22.5%.
If in 12" the odds of not getting at least one kill with the MM would be 5/6 - so 5/6*5/6=69.4444% So the odds of getting a kill would be 30.5%~ or so. With 2.7% chance of getting 2.
More relevantly on LOS ignoring weapons - I guess you could try to solve it with penalties. But I think the danger there is GW just go "oh its fixed now, we can throw really cheap ignore LOS weapons that are totally fine out and what will be the problem?"
For example the Eldar D-Cannon. 24", Heavy D3 Shots, S12 AP-4 Damage D6+2, Blast. Additional Mortal on 6s to wound. And it ignores LOS.
For 65 points, I think this is the most efficient way to put "high damage shooting" into a CWE list... and so its getting the ignore LOS essentially for free.
I mean a double lance war walker has some additional advantages - better movement (and pre-game positioning), better defenses. But you are paying 85 points - 30% more. A unmodified Fire Prism is 160 - so you'd get 2.5 D-Cannons for the same price? You are getting a fraction of the fire power. (And spending 2 CP to link 2 of them and ignore Invuls has to compare with the impact of having say 5 D-Cannons, and potentially buffing up one unit with the relevant CP).
The argument of cutting these things down at the points level is that yes, they would appear clearly overcosted on planet bowling ball. But I'm not sure that's a problem. If you have a weapon which is as good on planet bowling ball as other options - but dramatically better on "planet City Fight" - then its going to be an autotake. As arguably we have seen - the meta will warp into who can bring more undercosted ignore LOS shooting.
Anything with a BS worse than 2+ (i.e. 84%) - At a BS 3+ (67%) you don't get both D6 at the same rate you get the D3+3 and certainly not at a 71% clip. As near as I can tell, the gist of your claim may be entirely valid. However the gist of your claim is not the proffered premise. 2D6 to hit, chances both are 3+ is just under 45%. Unless you artificially boost the hit rate of the two shots to get "the same hit rate" for 2D6 damage you get for the single D3+3 attack.
Two d6 damage weapons, hitting on a 3+, wounding on a 3+, and saving on a 4+ into a Custodian Guard have a mere 4.94% chance of both hits landing... But have a 34.57% chance of one hit landing. That means that you've got a 27.85% chance of killing a Custodian Guard with those two shots.
A d3+3 damage weapon, hitting on a 3+, wounding on a 3+, and saving on a 4+ into a Custodian Guard has a 22.22% chance of landing its damage, which will instantly kill the Custode.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Oh boy, one of them suggested nerfing Crisis Suits by doing the "what's in the box" loadout. I'm shocked he doesn't work for GW already!
I would die laughing as basically any other faction suffers the same horrendous nerf that orkz did at the hand of this "If its in the box you have to use it" mindset.
Lootas and Burnas: well...there is the option to make a spanner so therefore for every 5 models, 1 must be a mek.
Won't happen though. I don't think any other faction really got hit like we did in this regard, and I don't think anyone else ever will.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Oh boy, one of them suggested nerfing Crisis Suits by doing the "what's in the box" loadout. I'm shocked he doesn't work for GW already!
I would die laughing as basically any other faction suffers the same horrendous nerf that orkz did at the hand of this "If its in the box you have to use it" mindset.
Lootas and Burnas: well...there is the option to make a spanner so therefore for every 5 models, 1 must be a mek.
Won't happen though. I don't think any other faction really got hit like we did in this regard, and I don't think anyone else ever will.
10-man Intercessor Squad? You get two Sergeants... and they're both free!
I presume you mean a single cognis LC otherwise it goes way in the other direction.
Such a LC can kill a Custodes 15.4% of the time ( 26.7% if a twin ). MM at range is 17.8% and 25.8 in half.
The discussion has sort of moved on - but how did you do this maths?
To very roughly do my own numbers.
1 single Dark Lance (or a single Cognis Las - were such a thing to exist, as its different stats don't make a difference in this scenario as far as I can see), no mods. S8, AP-4, D3+3 damage.
1 MM outside 12". 2 shots S8 AP-4 D6 damage.
Into a squad of Transhumaned basic Custodes. (Before any other rerolls, buffs etc)
Lance is easy.
1*2/3*1/2*1/2=1/6 chance to kill a guy. 5/6 chance to bounce and do nothing. 16.66%
One shot with an MM.
1*2/3*1/2*1/2=also 1/6 chance to get a wound through. You then have a 2/3 chance to get a 3+ damage and so claim a kill. So the odds become 1/9.
So the odds of not getting any kills with 2 shots is - crudely (see below) - 8/9*8/9=79%. So you have around a 21% chance to kill at least one Custodes. (Of which, 1.2%~ is a chance of getting 2).
Technically however the odds are slightly higher than this - because if you got 2 hits through (as unlikely as this is) a 1+2 or 2+2 for damage would get a kill as well. Which I think adds another 1.5% chance to get a kill. So I think the figure would be about 22.5%.
If in 12" the odds of not getting at least one kill with the MM would be 5/6 - so 5/6*5/6=69.4444% So the odds of getting a kill would be 30.5%~ or so. With 2.7% chance of getting 2.
More relevantly on LOS ignoring weapons - I guess you could try to solve it with penalties. But I think the danger there is GW just go "oh its fixed now, we can throw really cheap ignore LOS weapons that are totally fine out and what will be the problem?"
For example the Eldar D-Cannon. 24", Heavy D3 Shots, S12 AP-4 Damage D6+2, Blast. Additional Mortal on 6s to wound. And it ignores LOS.
For 65 points, I think this is the most efficient way to put "high damage shooting" into a CWE list... and so its getting the ignore LOS essentially for free.
I mean a double lance war walker has some additional advantages - better movement (and pre-game positioning), better defenses. But you are paying 85 points - 30% more. A unmodified Fire Prism is 160 - so you'd get 2.5 D-Cannons for the same price? You are getting a fraction of the fire power. (And spending 2 CP to link 2 of them and ignore Invuls has to compare with the impact of having say 5 D-Cannons, and potentially buffing up one unit with the relevant CP).
The argument of cutting these things down at the points level is that yes, they would appear clearly overcosted on planet bowling ball. But I'm not sure that's a problem. If you have a weapon which is as good on planet bowling ball as other options - but dramatically better on "planet City Fight" - then its going to be an autotake. As arguably we have seen - the meta will warp into who can bring more undercosted ignore LOS shooting.
Not math so much as simulating the dice rolls over many thousands of attempts, which allows for accounting where you have things like D2 weapons hitting a W3 model.
D-Cannons are certainly another problematic no LOS weapon.
Hmm....how about we split the difference? Increase the relative prices of ignore LOS weapons and make them -1 to hit if they can't actually see what they're shooting at.
The one saving grace for support platforms is they're vehicle, so no breaching. If the terrain has a swiss cheese ruins then too many support platforms will be vulnerable or say too far back to be as useful as other options.
Without posting pictures its hard to say - but I think an effective range of about 30" will allow you to cover the vast majority of the relevant parts of a table. Especially if there's some nice LOS blocking terrain in the center of the board - which is fairly standard.
There also aren't that many units that can just zip 24" across the table.
I think having been possibly prematurely written off, its starting to become clearer there are some gems in the CWE roster. Be interesting to see if that starts to come through tomorrow.
Tyel wrote: Without posting pictures its hard to say - but I think an effective range of about 30" will allow you to cover the vast majority of the relevant parts of a table. Especially if there's some nice LOS blocking terrain in the center of the board - which is fairly standard.
There also aren't that many units that can just zip 24" across the table.
I think having been possibly prematurely written off, its starting to become clearer there are some gems in the CWE roster. Be interesting to see if that starts to come through tomorrow.
i'm not saying theyre bad or that they won't be problematic, just that having them on a platform that moves only 6"m doesnt fly, isnt infantry and doesnt have Core makes them probably less problematic than Airbursts for example.
I think the d-cannon hype won't live and that people will got to the mini nightspinners instead (i know thats what i'll be using first)
Tyel wrote: Without posting pictures its hard to say - but I think an effective range of about 30" will allow you to cover the vast majority of the relevant parts of a table. Especially if there's some nice LOS blocking terrain in the center of the board - which is fairly standard.
There also aren't that many units that can just zip 24" across the table.
I think having been possibly prematurely written off, its starting to become clearer there are some gems in the CWE roster. Be interesting to see if that starts to come through tomorrow.
It all depends where the terrain is. I don't think you can risk these not being in a closed off ruin, which limits their zone of control. I think Tau will struggle heavily against them as they'll get no markerlights on and they likely won't be the closest unit for Montka.
This weekend should be interesting in any case.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And GW spoketh ( soon )
VladimirHerzog wrote: I think the d-cannon hype won't live and that people will got to the mini nightspinners instead (i know thats what i'll be using first)
I think the mini nightspinners are good - but you can just take a Big Nightspinner. And for 5/10 points more, you get
2D6 S7 AP-2 2 Damage (plus shurikens/cannon) versus 3D6 S6 AP-2 1 damage. Damage 2 isn't what it was - but its still relevant. I therefore think these are reasonably on par.
In my "Eldar Goodstuff" I can see 3*3 D-Cannons and 2 Night Spinners. That might be overkill on heavy guns as against more general clearance - and swapping one D-cannon unit to Shadowweavers might make some sense. But then this is a meta defined by Custodes and Tau. Then you probably want 3*10 Dire Avengers - which I might be too bullish on, but 33 S4 AP-2 Shuriken shots just seems great for just 120 points (and you can maybe make one obsec or whatever with Exarch powers). Then you want some fast units. I'm not sure whether that's basic Shuriken Jetbikes or Warp Spiders - it might be a mix of both.
Finally say 400-500ish points of some punchy stuff - probably Scorpions and Shining Spears. Banshees may actually be the best for their points - but I'm not convinced they can survive without transportation which I think is too expensive (although YMMV on that).
I sort of wonder if the Avatar has been written off too quickly. He feels a bit slow - and an obvious fire magnet. But equally, I'm not sure if people can just ignore him - and if they are focusing him down it means all the above is free to keep doing a lot of damage. Admittedly its probably reasonably easy to go and calculate what a buffed up Crisis squad or Custodes Bikers would do to him. But I fear it would make me sad.
Gotta be honest, i'm loving the complains about D3+3 and D3+2 etc weapons. I was promised when this edition came out with Multi-melta's doing D6+2 and D6+4 that everyone's weapons would follow suit. What did we get for the Ork equivalent? D3 rokkitz...but they became heavy instead of assault....on a weapon system with 24' range and the #1 unit that uses the weapon doesn't ignore the -1 to hit, nor is there any realistic mechanic to mitigate it
kirotheavenger wrote: GW appears hellbent that Ork infantry is not allowed to be shooty. The only Ork units that may be shooty are vehicles.
Shoota Boyz: Completely unusable
Tankbustas: Borderline unusable
Burna Boyz: Not competitive, fine (ish) for friendly games
Flash Gitz: Borderline unusable
Lootas: Literally the worst 9th edition Auto-cannon infantry unit in the game. (even after their "buff")
Big Mek With SAG: Borderline unusable
Somewhere along the line someone decided that nailing Orks to BS5+ would be hilarious, independent of whether they just badly handicapped a whole army.
AnomanderRake wrote: Somewhere along the line someone decided that nailing Orks to BS5+ would be hilarious, independent of whether they just badly handicapped a whole army.
5+ bs isn’t too bad, it worked in 8th with dakkadakkadakka and strat support, we just need the weapons to match. Ork guns are pretty crazy in the lore, massively powerful, a lot of times better than what other armies field, they just happen to belong to people who don’t care if they hit or not. You can just tack on more strength and shots to ork guns, but gw isn’t a fan.
To a degree there's a form follows function. Shoota Boyz have better assault than regular troops - so probably need to have "bad" shooting potential. But the result is just a bad unit. (The most latest modern equivelent is Storm Guardians - who are not a viable assault unit with 2 S3 AP1 attacks at 8 points.)
But really, the sickness I feel with Orks is in their purity bonus. Speedwaaagh should have somehow counted for all "shooty" infantry. Or there should have been some sort of "Dakkawaaagh" for these units. So... yeah. The Codex is telling you "don't take these".
Shootas should just be assault 4, orks don’t aim, that’s why they’re bs 5+. You could also reduce dice and just have assault s5 or something because unlike bolters ork guns do actually fire massive bullets. I like the 5+ bs, I just don’t like gw not statting/pricing guns equivalently for it.
SemperMortis wrote: Gotta be honest, i'm loving the complains about D3+3 and D3+2 etc weapons. I was promised when this edition came out with Multi-melta's doing D6+2 and D6+4 that everyone's weapons would follow suit. What did we get for the Ork equivalent? D3 rokkitz...but they became heavy instead of assault....on a weapon system with 24' range and the #1 unit that uses the weapon doesn't ignore the -1 to hit, nor is there any realistic mechanic to mitigate it
Cruddace must have lost to an ork player and pitched a hissy-fit lol
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Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: Shootas should just be assault 4, orks don’t aim, that’s why they’re bs 5+. You could also reduce dice and just have assault s5 or something because unlike bolters ork guns do actually fire massive bullets. I like the 5+ bs, I just don’t like gw not statting/pricing guns equivalently for it.
Yeah you can make it work, and you've got a faction then that cares a lot about hit modifiers (since losing half your potential from a -1 to hit is significant). It's just that GW doesn't want to do the work, and seems to balance Ork units specifically on the "what if you rolled max shots, max damage, and all your shots hit?" level.
That reason is why I kinda liked how orks uniquely had 6’s always hit, could have been interesting honestly if orks just never worried about modifiers, they’re not aiming, so them hitting is morks will anyways. It is funny that the one thing that orks need to balance em is the one thing that they can’t do: math.
To a degree there's a form follows function. Shoota Boyz have better assault than regular troops - so probably need to have "bad" shooting potential. But the result is just a bad unit. (The most latest modern equivelent is Storm Guardians - who are not a viable assault unit with 2 S3 AP1 attacks at 8 points.)
But really, the sickness I feel with Orks is in their purity bonus. Speedwaaagh should have somehow counted for all "shooty" infantry. Or there should have been some sort of "Dakkawaaagh" for these units. So... yeah. The Codex is telling you "don't take these".
Except that isn't true anymore. Space Marines have default 2 attacks each now, their primaris bros have 3 attacks each. So 2 base attacks at S4 isn't much to write home about...especially since they screwed over the entire point of shoota boyz to begin with. This is one of hte reasons why I say GW doesn't know wtf they are doing with orkz. They created dakka weapons, made shootas a Dakka weapon instead of assault...the entire point of Shootas was you could soften up targets WAY BACK in 4th with some 6s to hit assault weapons, then bum rush in with 2 attacks base, 3 for charging, so you hit ALMOST as hard as choppa boyz but 1 fewer attacks.
Now? You lost advance and shoot, the dmg absolutely did not scale up. Think about that, S4 boyz with 3 attacks at -1AP don't feel that impressive, so why would 2 S4 no AP ranged shots seem ok in an edition with all the new troops getting ridiculous upgrades? Tau getting +6 range and -1AP on their S5 weapons for no real points increase compared to SHoota boyz going to T5 but gaining nothing for ranged combat...actually losing some thanks to DDD getting removed from the game.
Would be nice like I said if GW would hire someone who knows orkz and understands them rather then it being an after thought by a SM player or a Space Elf player with an inferiority complex from that one time they got spanked by orkz.
The quality of a 40k codex seems entirely dependant on if the writer likes the army and sadly for Orks there seems to be no one on the team that looks out for them.
Ordana wrote: The quality of a 40k codex seems entirely dependant on if the writer likes the army and sadly for Orks there seems to be no one on the team that looks out for them.
At one point, gw didn't even have a studio army of Orks. Don't know if they do now or not.
Ordana wrote: The quality of a 40k codex seems entirely dependant on if the writer likes the army and sadly for Orks there seems to be no one on the team that looks out for them.
At one point, gw didn't even have a studio army of Orks. Don't know if they do now or not.
Unfortunately Orky BS is a brain bug that got stuck in GW's minds many editions ago and never went away. Now all Orks are bad shots, even the ones that dedicate themselves to shooting.
Unfortunately Orky BS is a brain bug that got stuck in GW's minds many editions ago and never went away. Now all Orks are bad shots, even the ones that dedicate themselves to shooting.
Makes no sense.
The irony is that they even contradict themselves with this mentality with the exceptions already shown in the codex, like Big Meks having 4+ BS and Flash Gitz being BS4+, so it's not like Orks can't have it, they're just too lazy to implement it effectively.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Oh boy, one of them suggested nerfing Crisis Suits by doing the "what's in the box" loadout. I'm shocked he doesn't work for GW already!
It'd only be fair.
It wouldn't do anything but turn the codex entry into multiple pages to cover what would be allowed. It isn't like you only get a single plasma rifle in the crisis kit, you get three. Same with all of their other weapons. So how do you possibly write the unit entry to disallow someone taking the spare guns from one kit and adding them to a different kit? The only ways would be to list every possible loadout you can make from a single kit and also limit crisis teams to only being able to have 3 models, or to come up with some weird "you cannot have more plasma rifles, burst cannons, missile pods etc. in the unit than you have crisis suits" rule.
You think the plague marine unit entry is awful? A crisis suit can have 3 of the same gun, 2 of the same and a 3rd different, or all 3 different. The crisis kit comes with 3 burst cannons, flamers, plasma rifles, missile pods, and fusion blasters. That means, going off what is available in only one box, there are 35 possible unique loadouts for a single crisis suit.
Crisis teams are, as a unit, possibly the most flexible unit in the game when it comes to equipment loadout, even when you limit them to what is only in their box.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Oh boy, one of them suggested nerfing Crisis Suits by doing the "what's in the box" loadout. I'm shocked he doesn't work for GW already!
It'd only be fair.
It wouldn't do anything but turn the codex entry into multiple pages to cover what would be allowed. It isn't like you only get a single plasma rifle in the crisis kit, you get three. Same with all of their other weapons. So how do you possibly write the unit entry to disallow someone taking the spare guns from one kit and adding them to a different kit? The only ways would be to list every possible loadout you can make from a single kit and also limit crisis teams to only being able to have 3 models, or to come up with some weird "you cannot have more plasma rifles, burst cannons, missile pods etc. in the unit than you have crisis suits" rule.
You think the plague marine unit entry is awful? A crisis suit can have 3 of the same gun, 2 of the same and a 3rd different, or all 3 different. The crisis kit comes with 3 burst cannons, flamers, plasma rifles, missile pods, and fusion blasters. That means, going off what is available in only one box, there are 35 possible unique loadouts for a single crisis suit.
Crisis teams are, as a unit, possibly the most flexible unit in the game when it comes to equipment loadout, even when you limit them to what is only in their box.
This -
This suggesting this is complete nonsense if you ever took a cursory glance at an crisis suit entry.
Also, i don't like it when key units that epitomise the "doctrine" of an army get such a treatment.
Ordana wrote: The quality of a 40k codex seems entirely dependant on if the writer likes the army and sadly for Orks there seems to be no one on the team that looks out for them.
At one point, gw didn't even have a studio army of Orks. Don't know if they do now or not.
Oh man, is that true? Oof.
Take a look at the recent Ork dex, and compare it just in regards to how it "functions" and "ties in with its components" with, say, any other 9th dex, f.e. GSC or Drukhari, or dunno.
The first thing you realise is that the units don't tie into one another, the second thing you realise is that if a unit can not stand on its own merits there's rarely a way to make that unit work.
Unfortunately Orky BS is a brain bug that got stuck in GW's minds many editions ago and never went away. Now all Orks are bad shots, even the ones that dedicate themselves to shooting.
Makes no sense.
No it makes perfect sense they are Orks. they are more impressed by the load noise and the bright flashes the guns make. the entire point of the football hooligans...er i mean orks was to brawl.
If you want good shooting bring something manned by a grot. besides it isn't like they needed to be good at it, they did just fine in previous editions. i always look forward to our ork players creating all sorts of silliness in our 5th ed games.
Ordana wrote: The quality of a 40k codex seems entirely dependant on if the writer likes the army and sadly for Orks there seems to be no one on the team that looks out for them.
At one point, gw didn't even have a studio army of Orks. Don't know if they do now or not.
Oh man, is that true? Oof.
Completely true, they admitted as much on their facebook page I believe when questioned about why they didn't have a display army for orkz out at an event.
The irony is that they even contradict themselves with this mentality with the exceptions already shown in the codex, like Big Meks having 4+ BS and Flash Gitz being BS4+, so it's not like Orks can't have it, they're just too lazy to implement it effectively.
its because again, the Ork codex writers do not play orkz and have no concept of how anything works. Their knowledge feels like its mostly based on bad memes about orkz from decades ago and not much else. 9ppm Troop choice with 2 S4 shots at 18' range or 3 S4 shots at 9' range but hitting on 5s, no advance and shoot and only 1 small way to buff them to BS4. Also, they nerfed hordes to be functionally useless which means you can't even lump 30 of them together and go for the "always counts as half range" strat because its useless on 10 boyz.
No it makes perfect sense they are Orks. they are more impressed by the load noise and the bright flashes the guns make. the entire point of the football hooligans...er i mean orks was to brawl.
If you want good shooting bring something manned by a grot. besides it isn't like they needed to be good at it, they did just fine in previous editions. i always look forward to our ork players creating all sorts of silliness in our 5th ed games.
Except for the Orkz whose entire purpose on the battlefield is to shoot big guns etc. Lootas sole purpose on the battlefield is to shoot deffguns and loot their destroyed targets to build even bigger guns. Half of them are modeled with targeting equipment on them but for some reason they still hit on 5s, but its ok because they can have piss poor accuracy if they get lots of shots right? Thats why Deffguns (Auto-cannons) have the same number of shots as imperial equivalents...unless we get within half range...because an over priced, paper skinned heavy support choice really really wants to be as close to the enemies small arms as possible...but the added bonus is amazing, its...ready for this? 1 extra shot per gun! WOOOHOO!!! Now instead of being massively over priced, under performing and dying to a stiff breeze they are only heavily overpriced, under performing and die to a stiff breeze. Buts its ok, you can put them in a Trukk to make them more durable! Of course, the trukk is functionally useless and artificially increases their price by another 70pts....oh well.
Nobody who has played orkz for a long time thinks this current codex is at all thought out or smart. We have a couple of competitive builds almost exclusively by accident rather than intent.
Unfortunately Orky BS is a brain bug that got stuck in GW's minds many editions ago and never went away. Now all Orks are bad shots, even the ones that dedicate themselves to shooting.
Makes no sense.
The irony is that they even contradict themselves with this mentality with the exceptions already shown in the codex, like Big Meks having 4+ BS and Flash Gitz being BS4+, so it's not like Orks can't have it, they're just too lazy to implement it effectively.
We really must email GW and get them to errata those exceptions back into line with the rest of the faction.
Ordana wrote: The quality of a 40k codex seems entirely dependant on if the writer likes the army and sadly for Orks there seems to be no one on the team that looks out for them.
At one point, gw didn't even have a studio army of Orks. Don't know if they do now or not.
Oh man, is that true? Oof.
It isn't true.
One time GW said that their studio Ork army wasn't large enough to take to some tournament or other, which was clearly untrue (they have multiple Stompas), and was clearly said because they wanted to take one of the newer codex releases instead.
You can see the studio Ork armies in literally every edition of Codex: Orks.
Ordana wrote: The quality of a 40k codex seems entirely dependant on if the writer likes the army and sadly for Orks there seems to be no one on the team that looks out for them.
At one point, gw didn't even have a studio army of Orks. Don't know if they do now or not.
Oh man, is that true? Oof.
It isn't true.
One time GW said that their studio Ork army wasn't large enough to take to some tournament or other, which was clearly untrue (they have multiple Stompas), and was clearly said because they wanted to take one of the newer codex releases instead.
You can see the studio Ork armies in literally every edition of Codex: Orks.
Except...it is true
Automatically Appended Next Post: We even got a campaign together of ork players to send GW models so they could actually have an ork army because christ that is pathetic.
ClockworkZion wrote: There is a big difference between "doesn't have a studio army" and "the studio army isn't 4k of models"
There isn't a big difference when they brought out every main army in the game but couldn't muster one for Orkz...one of the original factions for the game. Think about what I just said, they couldn't muster 4k points of Orkz,.....the company that makes the bloody game....couldn't muster 4k points of orkz, in 8th edition, when that Stompa they have in every picture was 1/4th of the requirements. I mean, in fairness they only had 3 decades or so to acquire 4k points of orkz. And its not like Ork armies are all that massive for private collectors, so they couldn't just go to a well known local ork player and use their army. I mean at last check I think I have only about 13,000pts of Orkz without any upgrades.
ClockworkZion wrote: There is a big difference between "doesn't have a studio army" and "the studio army isn't 4k of models"
There isn't a big difference when they brought out every main army in the game but couldn't muster one for Orkz...one of the original factions for the game. Think about what I just said, they couldn't muster 4k points of Orkz,.....the company that makes the bloody game....couldn't muster 4k points of orkz, in 8th edition, when that Stompa they have in every picture was 1/4th of the requirements. I mean, in fairness they only had 3 decades or so to acquire 4k points of orkz. And its not like Ork armies are all that massive for private collectors, so they couldn't just go to a well known local ork player and use their army. I mean at last check I think I have only about 13,000pts of Orkz without any upgrades.
I think your forgetting that the studio army is painted by the studio team which is not particularly large and has to paint everything that we see on the boxes, on the website, and in the codexes. This means a lot of times they paint one of a unit, maybe more if they decide they need multiple variants of the same unit. As such getting 4k of a horde army they likely have one, maybe two of each unit would be impressive. So yeah, I can get why they don't have 4k of Orks. They likely don't have 4k of Nids either.
aphyon wrote: No it makes perfect sense they are Orks. they are more impressed by the load noise and the bright flashes the guns make. the entire point of the football hooligans...er i mean orks was to brawl.
If you want good shooting bring something manned by a grot. besides it isn't like they needed to be good at it, they did just fine in previous editions. i always look forward to our ork players creating all sorts of silliness in our 5th ed games.
In 5th orks also relied heavily on shooting units. Dakka jets, lootas, big guns, kanz, buggies, koptas or shoota boyz were core assets of pretty much every army, none of the particularly great melee units. Choppa boyz were primarily used as trukk boyz or when you simply had too many AOBR boyz, and besides them only other relevant melee units was nobz which had to rely on wound allocation rules that are cursed to this day to be a threat at all.
Orks have not been a melee focused army since 4th edition, count the number of melee units if you don't want to take my word for it.
Posts like yours annoy me to no end, because they clearly show the same complete lack of knowledge and interest as GW' devs display over and over again. The only difference is that you aren't getting paid to pay attention, while they are.
One time GW said that their studio Ork army wasn't large enough to take to some tournament or other, which was clearly untrue (they have multiple Stompas), and was clearly said because they wanted to take one of the newer codex releases instead.
You can see the studio Ork armies in literally every edition of Codex: Orks.
Why are you spreading this misinformation? The army in the codices has been confirmed to be an employee's personal property.
During 8th when this topic came up the studio collection consist of the red and yellow painted models from 7th edition's box arts which was insufficient to form a playable army. There was a call to send GW boyz among the the ork player to ensure that they could at least play orks.
Clearly we didn't sent enough.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ClockworkZion wrote: There is a big difference between "doesn't have a studio army" and "the studio army isn't 4k of models"
Having one of every unit would easily get you to 4k.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ClockworkZion wrote: I think your forgetting that the studio army is painted by the studio team which is not particularly large and has to paint everything that we see on the boxes, on the website, and in the codexes. This means a lot of times they paint one of a unit, maybe more if they decide they need multiple variants of the same unit. As such getting 4k of a horde army they likely have one, maybe two of each unit would be impressive. So yeah, I can get why they don't have 4k of Orks. They likely don't have 4k of Nids either.
Only 10 datasheets in the ork codex have the "mob" keyword, three of those are nobz, manz and flash gits, lootas are often displayed as units of just 5 and we already know that they had two sets of warbikers painted up in their collection at that time, beast snaggas didn't exist yet.
So, essentially those horde units which are so problematic to paint are just boyz, gretchin, storm boyz, burnas, kommadoz and tank bustas.
It's also worth noting that the high investment you have to put into orks to get to a playable army has been criticized multiple times, so GW can't really hide behind something that is in their power to change.
They also painted ten or more primaris units in every color of the rainbow at that time, so there really isn't a good excuse to not paint a hundred or so ork boyz so you can actually play the army you are writing rules for.
The simply truth is that no one at GW cares enough about orks to be bothered by not being able to form a coherent army from them, and you can't excuse that.
Jidmah wrote: Why are you spreading this misinformation? The army in the codices has been confirmed to be an employee's personal property.
During 8th when this topic came up the studio collection consist of the red and yellow painted models from 7th edition's box arts which was insufficient to form a playable army. There was a call to send GW boyz among the the ork player to ensure that they could at least play orks.
I think your forgetting that the studio army is painted by the studio team which is not particularly large and has to paint everything that we see on the boxes, on the website, and in the codexes. This means a lot of times they paint one of a unit, maybe more if they decide they need multiple variants of the same unit. As such getting 4k of a horde army they likely have one, maybe two of each unit would be impressive. So yeah, I can get why they don't have 4k of Orks. They likely don't have 4k of Nids either.
Again, Orkz were one of the original factions. So GW has had almost 40 years to paint up 4k points of orkz. 100pts a year is kind of a stretch for them I guess, and as Jidmah pointed out, they had the time to paint up 10-20 of each new primaris Marine and others units.
And as Jidmah also pointed out, very few units in the Ork codex are in fact "mobz" they are usually slightly larger squads than other factions. Lootas come in mobz of up to 15, so 5 more than a Marine tac squad. Burnas/Kommandos/Nobz same thing. Warbikers which in my opinion are a pain in the ass to paint are still limited to (at the time) 15. But also, lets take a look at what GW was pricing ork units at in 8th.
Just the buggies, you know the brand new models they were pushing hard with its own mini-game.
Megatrakk Scrapjet 100pts.
Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy 140 pts.
Boomdakka Snazzwagon 100 pts.
Kustom Boostablasta 100 pts.
Shockjump Dragsta 120 pts.
Defkilla Wartrike 120 pts.
So just 1 full squadron of each of these new units (squadrons of 3, you could take up to 9 total in 3 squads). That right there is 2,040pts, or if you just got 1 of each to show off it would have been 680pts. The Stompa was 850pts naked and equipped standard it was closer to 1k points. Killakanz were 40pts each, 50ish with weapons so 1 full squad of them would be 300pts. Wagonz were 120 naked while bonebreakers and Gunswagons were 140pts naked (160+ equipped) and the Nauts were pushing around 250pts each. I can keep going, the point though is that ork squads don't have to be huge nor do you have to show off a horde army, you could just as easily show off a mech army, or the infamous Kan wall or Biker spam.
GW has no excuse not to have 4k points of one of their original armies that has been around since the 80s, nor do they have an excuse not to have at least 1 rules writer on staff who actually understands our faction and can stop them from doing stupid things like creating "Dakka" weapon profiles or making our iconic troop choice functionally useless and our secondary troop choice somehow even worse while at the same time making the "hot new" troop choice just more expensive trash than boyz.
Why shouldGW have 4k points of Orks? Or any faction?
Believe me, I'm the last person to defend GW, but the studio army is for photographing and showing off, it's not actually meant to be a playable army.
They have 1-2 of every unit painted, when they need to show off large units they copy+paste the same 10 guys multiple times in the photgraphs.
For a horde army, it's easy to see why 1-2 of every unit wouldn't add up to 4k.
And that's okay.
Voss wrote: Except they playtest with the studio armies. So it really does matter.
GW has, at least based on the WD articles, played with Highlander style lists over the competetive format's "as many fit in a list" approach which is where the external playtesters come in.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also the studio army usually sits in Warhammer World on display, and isn't really intended to be played with, so people likely playtest with personal armies or proxies instead.
Voss wrote: Except they playtest with the studio armies. So it really does matter.
GW has, at least based on the WD articles, played with Highlander style lists over the competetive format's "as many fit in a list" approach which is where the external playtesters come in.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also the studio army usually sits in Warhammer World on display, and isn't really intended to be played with, so people likely playtest with personal armies or proxies instead.
And from time to time, they take them out and put little signs up indicating they're out for battle or whatever.
Voss wrote: Except they playtest with the studio armies. So it really does matter.
GW has, at least based on the WD articles, played with Highlander style lists over the competetive format's "as many fit in a list" approach which is where the external playtesters come in.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also the studio army usually sits in Warhammer World on display, and isn't really intended to be played with, so people likely playtest with personal armies or proxies instead.
And from time to time, they take them out and put little signs up indicating they're out for battle or whatever.
I think that's just taking them out to be cleaned and used for marketing shots honestly.
Believe me, I'm the last person to defend GW, but the studio army is for photographing and showing off, it's not actually meant to be a playable army.
They have 1-2 of every unit painted, when they need to show off large units they copy+paste the same 10 guys multiple times in the photgraphs.
For a horde army, it's easy to see why 1-2 of every unit wouldn't add up to 4k.
And that's okay.
Because it was GW doing a promotion where they brought out their studio armies for Adepticon. So they had Studio armies for every other major faction except Orkz. And again, that includes factions which were new in comparison to Orkz who have been around as long as basically the game has been around. You can still find the old Cardboard Deffdreadz ffs
So why should GW have a studio army? honestly they don't have to. I'm not advocating for them having one, its just a symptom of the problem. GW does not understand orkz because nobody at GW plays orkz. GW writes rules for us but doesn't understand their own creation enough to make it balanced or good. The 9th edition Codex is literally the best since 4th edition, and it was by dumb luck rather than thought out process. They accidentally made some ork things too good while trying to promote what they thought would be good (beast snaggas) who turned out to be garbage
It would just be nice if GW had more interest in writing better rules for orkz so that 2/3rds of our codex isn't in the scrapheap again.
Ordana wrote: The quality of a 40k codex seems entirely dependant on if the writer likes the army and sadly for Orks there seems to be no one on the team that looks out for them.
At one point, gw didn't even have a studio army of Orks. Don't know if they do now or not.
Oh man, is that true? Oof.
It isn't true.
One time GW said that their studio Ork army wasn't large enough to take to some tournament or other, which was clearly untrue (they have multiple Stompas), and was clearly said because they wanted to take one of the newer codex releases instead.
You can see the studio Ork armies in literally every edition of Codex: Orks.
Except...it is true
Automatically Appended Next Post: We even got a campaign together of ork players to send GW models so they could actually have an ork army because christ that is pathetic.
This took place in 2018 btw
I don't know how you think that GW literally saying that they have a studio army somehow counters my claim that they have a studio army
Ordana wrote: The quality of a 40k codex seems entirely dependant on if the writer likes the army and sadly for Orks there seems to be no one on the team that looks out for them.
At one point, gw didn't even have a studio army of Orks. Don't know if they do now or not.
Oh man, is that true? Oof.
It isn't true.
One time GW said that their studio Ork army wasn't large enough to take to some tournament or other, which was clearly untrue (they have multiple Stompas), and was clearly said because they wanted to take one of the newer codex releases instead.
You can see the studio Ork armies in literally every edition of Codex: Orks.
Except...it is true
Automatically Appended Next Post: We even got a campaign together of ork players to send GW models so they could actually have an ork army because christ that is pathetic.
This took place in 2018 btw
I don't know how you think that GW literally saying that they have a studio army somehow counters my claim that they have a studio army
I just went to Battlescribe. And I made a list that consisted of most every Ork unit before big Ghaz came out-minimum units too!
It's over 4,500 points.
Spoiler:
++ Unbound Army (Faction) (Orks) [262 PL, 4,670pts] ++
+ Configuration +
Clan Kultur: No Clan / Specialist Mob
Detachment Command Cost
+ HQ +
Big Mek in Mega Armour [6 PL, 85pts]: Kustom Mega-Blasta
I think it's fair to call out that Semper changed the goalposts.
I also think it's fair to look askance at GW for not having at least one full unit of every model they've put out (including Forge World units) for their own internal testing purposes, and preferably they'd have at least 2 of each and more of troops.
I think it's very, very odd to call out Lord Damocles as suggesting that "a sub-4k Studio Army is meaningful" while quoting him explicitly stating that GW's statement that they didn't have a big enough army was a lie.
Edit: I mean, folks... That's the WH40k Facebook team's word on the subject. There's not enough salt in the ocean to just take that at face value.
Believe me, I'm the last person to defend GW, but the studio army is for photographing and showing off, it's not actually meant to be a playable army.
I agree, designers should not be playtesting their own work, it's too time-consuming for 40k and they are too busy with their update schedule and they're too biased to get any good information out of things anyway. I'd rather the designers play competitive games with what is currently out so they have an understanding of where the game is at instead of living in WIP land full time. The things the designers actually need to test can be done with empty bases, like how many Ork Boyz can I fit into a 5-man Intercessor unit now that they are getting larger bases and do Ork Boyz need to be cheaper to account for that fact. The designers wouldn't have time for more than a dozen Ork games while designing the codex, that's a drop in the bucket.
GW has two teams of out of house playtesters, get the casuals to verify whether the rules are thematic and fun, then finalize rules and send them off to see what's broken when it gets spammed by the competitive playtesters.
Jidmah wrote: Why are you spreading this misinformation? The army in the codices has been confirmed to be an employee's personal property.
During 8th when this topic came up the studio collection consist of the red and yellow painted models from 7th edition's box arts which was insufficient to form a playable army. There was a call to send GW boyz among the the ork player to ensure that they could at least play orks.
Confirmed where, Jid?
On the facebook thread (or a related one) that was posted earlier. Someone counted up the unique ork units seen in 7th and 8th edition books and called them out for lying because those added up to a lot more than 4k. The social media account responded that the majority of those orks came from a private collection, and we know that they aren't the same orks Phil Kelly used in his WD battle reports.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ClockworkZion wrote: Was GW's post about not having 4k in points before or after the current codex dropped?
And it could be someone was wrong and they have more than 4k.
I also think it's fair to look askance at GW for not having at least one full unit of every model they've put out (including Forge World units) for their own internal testing purposes, and preferably they'd have at least 2 of each and more of troops.
I think it's very, very odd to call out Lord Damocles as suggesting that "a sub-4k Studio Army is meaningful" while quoting him explicitly stating that GW's statement that they didn't have a big enough army was a lie.
Edit: I mean, folks... That's the WH40k Facebook team's word on the subject. There's not enough salt in the ocean to just take that at face value.
My apologies, was not my intention to move the goalposts. I just assumed it would be kind of common sense for the game creators who are fielding massive armies of almost every other faction to have at least 4k points of one of their founding factions which has been around for almost 40 years.
Well this thread is clearly dead. The original person who brought up GWs Orks distastes sorta of had a point. Since then it’s been pages of a back and forth on how many points of orks GW owns or doesn’t own, which is not at all relevant to a balance discussion.
Nobody who has played orkz for a long time thinks this current codex is at all thought out or smart. We have a couple of competitive builds almost exclusively by accident rather than intent
Well that would be the point, since i do not play the current edition and i despise everything about 9th the orks i play against use the 4th ed codex that was used half way through 5th and was a very thematic codex.
Jidmah wrote:
aphyon wrote: No it makes perfect sense they are Orks. they are more impressed by the load noise and the bright flashes the guns make. the entire point of the football hooligans...er i mean orks was to brawl.
If you want good shooting bring something manned by a grot. besides it isn't like they needed to be good at it, they did just fine in previous editions. i always look forward to our ork players creating all sorts of silliness in our 5th ed games.
In 5th orks also relied heavily on shooting units. Dakka jets, lootas, big guns, kanz, buggies, koptas or shoota boyz were core assets of pretty much every army, none of the particularly great melee units. Choppa boyz were primarily used as trukk boyz or when you simply had too many AOBR boyz, and besides them only other relevant melee units was nobz which had to rely on wound allocation rules that are cursed to this day to be a threat at all.
Orks have not been a melee focused army since 4th edition, count the number of melee units if you don't want to take my word for it.
Posts like yours annoy me to no end, because they clearly show the same complete lack of knowledge and interest as GW' devs display over and over again. The only difference is that you aren't getting paid to pay attention, while they are.
Or...wait for it, you do not have a clue-the context of how i play 40k is more focused on the lore. as i noted in the above reply. the 4th ed codex IS the one our group uses because it is still on of the best representations of how orks should be in the 40K universe back when most of the important original designers still had a hand in designing things, Even the 4th ed codex had loads of shooting units and yes 5th added even more, but aside from grots (you know the guys inside the killa kanz you mentioned) orks were never "good" at shooting. they made up for the fact with sheer weight of fire which incidentally also fits into the original lore about how they fights mo dakka became a meme for a reason.
As a side note, yes that would allocation nonsense was dumb and that is why we do not use it in our 5th ed games.
aphyon wrote: Or...wait for it, you do not have a clue-the context of how i play 40k is more focused on the lore. as i noted in the above reply. the 4th ed codex IS the one our group uses because it is still on of the best representations of how orks should be in the 40K universe back when most of the important original designers still had a hand in designing things,
Ork lore hasn't notably changed since 4th outside of Thrakka teleporting all over the galaxy (which is kind of dumb, and not the good kind) and Octarius and its overfiend getting eaten by nids.
There was not 5th edition book, by the way.
I suggest giving page 28 of that 4th edition's codex you think so highly of a read which outlines how orks outshot the Farsight Conclave and almost killed Commander Farsight himself in the war of dakka. Read the whole thing while you are at it.
An ork player not having a significant portion of their army dedicated to dakka is not lore focused, quite the opposite.
Even the 4th ed codex had loads of shooting units and yes 5th added even more, but aside from grots (you know the guys inside the killa kanz you mentioned) orks were never "good" at shooting. they made up for the fact with sheer weight of fire which incidentally also fits into the original lore about how they fights mo dakka became a meme for a reason.
You also seem to fail to understand that being good shooting is not the same as having a good ballistic skill. All the units I listed were good shooting units, despite most of them hitting on 5+.
In fact, six shots hitting on 5s are better than three shots hitting on 3s because three shots can't ever kill more than three models.
It's also worth mentioning that ballistic skill is an arbitrarily chosen number to represent part of an abstract concept and is not part of the lore. Im surprised that after all these discussions people still don't get that a unit's abilities on the tabletop has to match its lore, not the numbers in the rulebook.
As a side note, yes that would allocation nonsense was dumb and that is why we do not use it in our 5th ed games.
While I can understand that reasoning, it also means that you neutered two more melee units out of the few orks actually did have. Nobz had little chance of survival without that exploit, as everyone experienced when 6th came around.
Bottom line, you are wrong. Orks are and have always been as much of a shooting army as marines are, both in rules and in the lore.
4th edition softback literally has under the description of the shota the statement, atleast in german, that it is the favourite weapon of boys all over.
count 1 and 1 together with regrowing teef economy and by extent you should see more shoota boys than choppa boys.
Not Online!!! wrote: 4th edition softback literally has under the description of the shota the statement, atleast in german, that it is the favourite weapon of boys all over.
count 1 and 1 together with regrowing teef economy and by extent you should see more shoota boys than choppa boys.
Yeah, flipping through that book just now made me realize how little love went into all the books afterwards. The only book that even came close was the the PA one.
From a pure gameplay perspective the current one does compare to 4th, so I'm really not in a place to complain. But imagine how awesome the codex could have been if someone actually put their heart into it...
Not Online!!! wrote: 4th edition softback literally has under the description of the shota the statement, atleast in german, that it is the favourite weapon of boys all over. count 1 and 1 together with regrowing teef economy and by extent you should see more shoota boys than choppa boys.
Yeah, flipping through that book just now made me realize how little love went into all the books afterwards. The only book that even came close was the the PA one.
From a pure gameplay perspective the current one does compare to 4th, so I'm really not in a place to complain. But imagine how awesome the codex could have been if someone actually put their heart into it...
You see that quite well, everytime in every edition, cue guard compared to R&H in 6th-7th or more current, compare the GSC dex if you got access to it to the Ork dex. Both 9th, except one actually is written in a holistically functional approach (and in a fun + surprisingly customizable format even though HQ's don't really get options sadly) and the other feels like a disjointed mess of limits, specific as in box with lawtext formulation and going against its own faction ethos with that
Heck nobs didn't even get normal access to souped up shootas anymore, because there are none in the box, but somehow the lore hasn't changed, so why are they only using combishootas, or melee equipment?
Stuff like that is annoying, doubly so when synergies have become more and more dictating of how an army plays and yet the ork dex has little actual synergistic behaviour of charachters and boys and stratagems, nvm an atual custom trait builder...
It's not just that. Kustom jobs which were a very popular mechanic from PA were not just nerfed by putting insane point costs on them, but they also axed almost all of the ones which were regularly taken, none of which were considered powerful. Now this awesome mechanic is largely unused because you now have to pay 20 points for upgrades that weren't even worth a CP, not to mention that buggies are now forced to chose between bringing a second one and paying points for mostly mediocre updates.
Specialist mobs are not just boring but also break auras, transports and other synergies. Trukk boyz didn't even function at launch, a clear indication how well playtested this was IMO.
There are more than 10 characters which provide +1 to hit in melee as an aura, on top of many rules that do the same.
Many stratagems and relics that were generalist stratagems are now locked into beastsnaggas. At the same time the stratagems are all so expensive and have so little impact that most CP are spent on core stratagems.
Seriously bad crusade rules. - If you chose a wartrike to lead your cursade force, half the rules don't work, he basically auto-loses challenges and you can't take crusade relics. If a warboss on warbike leads your force, it loses character protection if it levels up too often. - Playing speed waaagh! is in general a really bad idea, as crusade rules HATE vehicles. Not only are you locked out of most cool rules and can't do actions, you also shower your opponent's in experience each time you play. - No trait table for speed freeks or walkers or vehicles. It's cavalry or bust. - Scrap points are a broken mechanic because most people don't play with a lot of vehicles in crusade, so you need to spend RP to gain scrap. Kustom jobs require you to spend scrap AND PL/points, and the PL costs for them are way too high. On a losing streak, your are seriously starved for RP as an ork because not only does the scrap mechanic eat away at them, you also lose more units in games and thus take more battle scars, at least until you have an experienced mek or doc. - Specalist mobs cannot be taken unless your unit has gathered 16 exp AND you have to spend RP to get them right when they level up. If you miss that opportunity or don't have enough RP to hand out two specialist mobs at once, you need to wait for the next level. - Agendas require you to kill titanic models in 50 PL games, kill vehicles or monsters with your warboss(which you see 1-2 per army at best), kill vehicles or monsters with bestsnaggas only, and an agenda that rewards you for killing stuff during your Waaagh!, which is strictly inferior to just having any kill agenda from the BRB. The only decent one is the makin' stunts, but RAW you are never allowed to perform that action because you have to advance to perform it and advancing units are not allowed to perform actions - In general, if you ever play an ork crusade, make sure to make it a beast snagga heavy bloodaxe army, otherwise the crusade rules will probably disappoint you.
So yeah, it basically reads like a codex that was halfway done, then they slapped the entire beast snagga thing in there (confirmed to not be playtested), randomly wrote the BEAST SNAGGA keyword everywhere it made sense and sent it off to the printers without playing it once. Then it somehow turned out to be rather strong anyways, and they made sure that wasn't the case by nerfing every model that was part of a top 10 list into the ground. Now ork tournament players are stuck with exploiting a stratagem they worded badly and forgot to FAQ, despite the same type of stratagem already causing problems for the same reason in the past.
Ever since Phil Kelly lost interest with orks it has been this way, and I don't see it changing unless they hire a new guy who loves orks.
Wow, sorry to hear about orks and crusade. I don't have the dex because the kommandos are the only orks I have, but I had considered a small force.
This doesn't motivate me to follow through.
I'm kind of surprised to hear it after being told there was no need to fix stupid Crusade rules because there just aren't any. Except maybe the one about Chaos and their (un)holy numbers.
It's probably not too bad if you build a traditional footslogger army around kommadoz and beast snagga boyz and make them blood axes. You kind of need the extra stratagems from the supplement because the balancing mechanism for crusade points fails if you have nothing to spend those CP on. The extra relics and warlord traits are also quite cool to customize some characters.
Wow, sorry to hear about orks and crusade. I don't have the dex because the kommandos are the only orks I have, but I had considered a small force.
This doesn't motivate me to follow through.
I'm kind of surprised to hear it after being told there was no need to fix stupid Crusade rules because there just aren't any. Except maybe the one about Chaos and their (un)holy numbers.
I'm fairly sure that I said that your fix in specific was nonsense, not that there was no need for fixes. It was also related to you implementing an inefficient fix trying to prevent people from power-gaming PLs, not to codex specific crusade rules not performing whatsoever.
The reason I dropped that discussion was because you never back down from any argument ever, therefore there is no point in trying to exchange arguments with you.
There also isn't really any way to easily house-rule the issue outlined above, so you are completely off topic. I guess me calling your absolutely perfect silver bullet for every issue in the entire crusade system "nonsense" must have struck a nerf.
The problem isn't just the crusade rules though, atleast with narrative inclined people you can just beforehand discuss what is wrong and isn't about it to avoid issues, houserule or just do a full on standalone campaign without crusade rules.
Otoh, the "normal" list part of the dex is just... a mess and it translates poorly.
Harlequins looking incredibly strong on the weekend results. CWE doing okay too - at least until they hit the finals, where I think they got knocked about a bit by the last two (but I mean its a relatively small number of players and games, so hard to say with clarity).
Probably want a few more weeks (and a few bigger tournaments) - but those initial "not a meta defining codex" takes are perhaps looking... questionable.
Tyel wrote: Harlequins looking incredibly strong on the weekend results. CWE doing okay too - at least until they hit the finals, where I think they got knocked about a bit by the last two (but I mean its a relatively small number of players and games, so hard to say with clarity).
Probably want a few more weeks (and a few bigger tournaments) - but those initial "not a meta defining codex" takes are perhaps looking... questionable.
Yea, I'll be pulling up the win rates against various armies for knife ears once I can get to my other PC. Should be interesting. They don't seem to be entirely beyond Tau and Custodes yet ( except perhaps Harlies ).
I'm fairly sure that I said that your fix in specific was nonsense, not that there was no need for fixes.
Well I said "House Rule some balance stuff that doesn't make any sense" and gave an example for me.
It was also related to you implementing an inefficient fix trying to prevent people from power-gaming PLs, not to codex specific crusade rules not performing whatsoever.
It wasn't to prevent Power Gaming PL, it was to bridge points players into PL - the premise was how to start a Crusade - which led me to Points to PL - but that's neither here nor there.
The reason I dropped that discussion was because you never back down from any argument ever, therefore there is no point in trying to exchange arguments with you.
There also isn't really any way to easily house-rule the issue outlined above, so you are completely off topic. I guess me calling your absolutely perfect silver bullet for every issue in the entire crusade system "nonsense" must have struck a nerf.
No nerve particularly. I just have a pretty good memory. The glee you apparently have for hoping you "struck a nerve" is sobering to see. Most of those seriously bad crusade rules can be house ruled - like anything else. The hardest one is probably the missing trait tables, but even then you could just borrow someone else's and ork-ify them. The generic SM list looks pretty easy to do that. Walkers - Marksman's Honors turns into Dedeye's Eye, Aquila Imperialis to Boss Pole or Orkoid Fungus, Purity Seals to Gork's Gift, Bladesman's Honor to Top Choppa, Terminator Honors to Mek's Favor, the Centurios Service Studs - you probably have to punt so borrow the Armour Plating from GSC. All it takes is an organization night, have everyone show up with their list of stuff they don't like, and find a way everyone will agree to fix it - which is usually most easily/likely solved by borrowing another rule.
Tyel wrote: Without posting pictures its hard to say - but I think an effective range of about 30" will allow you to cover the vast majority of the relevant parts of a table. Especially if there's some nice LOS blocking terrain in the center of the board - which is fairly standard.
There also aren't that many units that can just zip 24" across the table.
I think having been possibly prematurely written off, its starting to become clearer there are some gems in the CWE roster. Be interesting to see if that starts to come through tomorrow.
i'm not saying theyre bad or that they won't be problematic, just that having them on a platform that moves only 6"m doesnt fly, isnt infantry and doesnt have Core makes them probably less problematic than Airbursts for example.
I think the d-cannon hype won't live and that people will got to the mini nightspinners instead (i know thats what i'll be using first)
I played 4 games this weekend with the new codex and i must say that spinners and cannons losing access to rerolls is huge. I used 2 spinners and 2 shadowweavers. We are using the UK terrain pack, that i personally thing is lacking cover and lacking containers that could slow fast moving CC durable elite armies. Spinners without the rerolls and random shots were unreliable(as i expected) and failed in many occasions to kill what they should and they are practically useless vs anything that have -1D and more than 1 wound. I took the support weapons to pick up the slack when the spinners bounced, but i`m totally unsatisfied with their performance, random shots, without the guardian strat and if the opponent used terrain -1 to hit, they failed me alotof times(2 of them failed to kill one ruststalker). Person should not expect alot from 90 pts, but still....
I have the feeling that most of my opponents whined more from my LOS that it actually did. I tried using D-cannons before and i`m sure that they simple don`t have the range to be effective on most terrain types, especially now since most of the armies are much faster and having them tied in close combat is not something i want to experience.
Daedalus81 wrote: Looks like Harlequins are the problem and not necessarily CW or Asuryani.
Green - 56%+
Yellow - 45% to 55%
Orange - < 45%
I for one welcome our new meta overlords.
Thank god, means i'm not gonna have to endure people whining that my elves are too strong Hopefully we stay at that level (or even drop a little bit)
I doubt it, the WR will increase, because the list will become better and people will play better. Tao and custodes will probably eat some nerfs also, but they will probably also adapt more to the new treat.
Breton wrote: What qualifies as each? Pure Harlequins are Harlequin, Pure Craftworld is Craftworld, mixed Craftworld and Harlequin is Asuryani?
Yea Asuryani is going to Ynnari / DE / CW / Harlies. It's a category that is probably under performing at the moment until someone finds just the right combination of soup.
). Trajann obviously needs to cost more, ditto with Salvo Praetors, but I'm not sure anything else needs to take a whack yet. Increasing Salvos by 10 and Trajann by 20 would mean many Custodes players would have to cut 120 points out of their lists (basically 2 Alarus models or a unit of 3 Wardens and change). That might be too much, and yet it might not; likely you wouldn't see anyone running 9 bikes anymore (or just taking one unit with 
That six inch green block can almost assuredly move "down" the board towards "your" own deployment zone- the two orange buffer ballons are assumedly each 3" wide and do not touch meaning more than 6" of space there.. It may or may not be able to move across the back of your zone. It does not look like there are two orange spaces of width at the bottom, but maybe. The two orange spaces overlap between the two big grey blocks, so I doubt you can move 6" up that way either. Now a Repulsor is only roughly 5" wide (assuming the Hammerfall is 6x6, and my eyeballing a Repulsor against a Hammerfall - I have both but not a tape measure on my project table) so maybe it gets around better, but not by much. A Knight Castellan base is 170 x109 - 170mm = 6.69291339" According to another post on here a Baneblade is:
