The Giant unanswered question as of yet is have they changed fallback as they avoided talking about it when tripointing cameup but implied tripointing was and 8th edition thing??
That either means tripoint is just gone and you can move through enemies or it could also mean fallback has been altered in some way, if say it was now done is the charge phase for example?
the_scotsman wrote: Man alive there better be something real real good to incentivize taking units as a horde.
"Hordes, they're great! None of your dudes can fight, vehicles will score max hits on you automatically - enjoy those Heavy 12 Thunderfire cannons - and now you can't tie things up in melee anymore!
Hormagants, ork boyz, cultists, GSC - you just paint those things so the people you're playing against can feel cool while they make you shovel them off the board, right?"
Honestly, I will be glad to see this be the "elite" edition rather than "hordes/weight of fire" edition.
Dunno about you but i would prefer game be viable for both rather than what gw wants to sell next
yukishiro1 wrote: The more that I think about it, if they were actually going to restrict melee to only models within 1", not within 1" of 1", they would have already said so, because it would be without a doubt the biggest single change to the rules in the entire edition. They've answered questions about melee viability several times on various streams, and if they were making such a fundamental change, I refuse to believe that even GW would not yet have mentioned it.
All this junk about what is actually relatively minor changes to vehicles that they are hyping as "the" big change in 9th would pale in comparison to the significance of melee only within 1".
I don't think they are changing which models get to fight during the fight phase, at least not to reduce it. The statement that "engagement range" is within 1" was on Warhammer Daily. Statements on Warhammer Daily are off the cuff and rarely precise statements of rules. Stu stated multiple times that Vehicles and Monster would have a -1 Hit when targeting a unit within Engagement range with no qualifications. Then the Warhammer Community article comes out and that applies only to Heavy weapons.
I suggest you take nothing they say during Warhammer Daily as the full story. It's always partly accurate, but not precisely accurate.
The wait and see tactic aint panning out to well in regard to cultists price hike.
I also think this vehicle change is typical GW behavior of over compensating for a problem. The hit penalty for moving was dumb, good change. But the firing into combat AND allowing split fire, and engagement range remaining only an inch is open season for gamesmanship.
Maybe engagement is 1" but models within 3" can fight (please god) as that would clean the system up and help hordes fight. Right now a sydonian dragoon can be 1" away and his 4 buddies can all be 1" off from his 4" base and they all fight. But if I fight more then 2 ranks deep with orks, I'm shat outta luck lol.
I predict tanks and walkers constantly grabbing people in the assault phase now. The rolls flipped, instead of infantry chasing tanks down, expect the opposite. I can shut down a full unit of lootas with my fast tank, they can't shoot me or anything else, but I can shoot them. I could do this before, but at a cost to offensive tanks generally, now there isn't much downside. This makes fliers with hover mode God like. IDK, I'll continue to hope for the best, hopefully terrain will at least curb most of the gamesmanship. Thats really what will decide how much of an improvement this edition will be. So far everything rumored has been one step forward and one step back.
Before: "Hey guys! Heavies can remain stationary while their unit moves and get no penalty!"
After: "Hey guys, now the penalty got moving and firing heavies applies only to infantry, if *any model in the unit moves*
Well, 9th edition seems like it's more than the "round up all errata and updated datasheets" I thought it would be and is also "throw a bunch of random, untested new rules in the mix" as well.
yukishiro1 wrote: They're 9 points. Of course you're not going to kill a tank with one of them in one turn. If you could, it'd be pretty overpowered.
yeah, was just coming on to say something similar. You shouldn't expect to kill a tank with a single powerklaw or fist etc. You need specialist tank killers to kill....say, tanks? maybe orks will just have to look at some other units in their codex than massed boyz (although I'm sure they will still have their place).
Yeah the place is standing pretty in shelf. They weren'" uber in 8th and now rule nerfs and point hikes is going to be fun combo.
yukishiro1 wrote: Y
One of the best thing about power fists/klaws/etc is that they are usually insulated by a bunch of cheaper troops, so your chances of losing those points before they can do anything are much lower.
It also means you aren't looking at 13 pts but more like 200 pts of soft target that's one shotted instantly
tneva82 wrote: Funny thing. Vehicles/monsters got buffed and at same time infantry heavy weapons got nerfed
They did not get nerfed. They are exactly the same.
I think infantry heavy weapons got a major nerf. Nobody’s discussing it here though.
8th edition heavy weapons are -1 to hit if the MODEL moves. 9th edition heavy weapons get -1 to hit if the UNIT moves (only for infantry).
Personally I think that’s a big change.
It’s a big hit for those of us old Codex adherent guys still running 10 man tacs with the special/heavy.
Normally the turn you disembark, the guy with the heavy took the -1. But after that, the rest of the squad could wheel around to snag objectives, get new units into rapid fire, etc. The heavy generally had enough range he was happy keeping his feet planted.
Doctor-boom wrote: Somebody else noticed the Important rule change hidden in the "Big gun never tire" rule:
You now declare 1 weapon target, resolve, then declare next target or same for the next weapon from the same unit and resolve. Instead of declaring all at once and having to gamble what is enough firepower to kill the last bit of your target...
Nope. Nothing in rule means that. It might be core shooting rules is changed but if not nothing in rule overrides 8th ed sequence. Maybe sequence is changed but this proves it in neither way
Okay, I did miss that. So a minor nerf for most infantry units with Heavy weapons, a much bigger one to the odd one-heavy in a unit of five/ten, like Nevelon points out.
Stormonu wrote: Well, 9th edition seems like it's more than the "round up all errata and updated datasheets" I thought it would be and is also "throw a bunch of random, untested new rules in the mix" as well.
They had a sizable playtesting team, but go on claiming they don't playtest.
tneva82 wrote: Funny thing. Vehicles/monsters got buffed and at same time infantry heavy weapons got nerfed
They did not get nerfed. They are exactly the same.
I think infantry heavy weapons got a major nerf. Nobody’s discussing it here though.
8th edition heavy weapons are -1 to hit if the MODEL moves. 9th edition heavy weapons get -1 to hit if the UNIT moves (only for infantry).
Personally I think that’s a big change.
It’s a big hit for those of us old Codex adherent guys still running 10 man tacs with the special/heavy.
Normally the turn you disembark, the guy with the heavy took the -1. But after that, the rest of the squad could wheel around to snag objectives, get new units into rapid fire, etc. The heavy generally had enough range he was happy keeping his feet planted.
Will be sad to see that go.
While I don't disagree I suspect this is GW tightening up the wording so the rule actually does what they ment it to do in 8th but just didn't actually word it to do.
It seems more like aligning RAW to RAI by the designers.
JNAProductions wrote:Okay, I did miss that. So a minor nerf for most infantry units with Heavy weapons, a much bigger one to the odd one-heavy in a unit of five/ten, like Nevelon points out.
Unless they go back to making weapons cost different amounts for different units, I don't see how. I mean I guess they will up the base cost on vehicles generally, and in a weird way that will mean that infantry heavy weapons get cheaper by comparison. But I don't think they are going back to "tactical squads take a lascannon for 15 points, but it costs 40 on a vehicle." Though I guess they did that with thunder hammers, so it's not completely impossible.
yukishiro1 wrote: Unless they go back to making weapons cost different amounts for different units, I don't see how. I mean I guess they will up the base cost on vehicles generally, and in a weird way that will mean that infantry heavy weapons get cheaper by comparison. But I don't think they are going back to "tactical squads take a lascannon for 15 points, but it costs 40 on a vehicle." Though I guess they did that with thunder hammers, so it's not completely impossible.
Just put vehicle weapons into the vehicle wargear points lists and Bob's your uncle.
yukishiro1 wrote: Unless they go back to making weapons cost different amounts for different units, I don't see how. I mean I guess they will up the base cost on vehicles generally, and in a weird way that will mean that infantry heavy weapons get cheaper by comparison. But I don't think they are going back to "tactical squads take a lascannon for 15 points, but it costs 40 on a vehicle." Though I guess they did that with thunder hammers, so it's not completely impossible.
Just put vehicle weapons into the vehicle wargear points lists and Bob's your uncle.
yukishiro1 wrote: Unless they go back to making weapons cost different amounts for different units, I don't see how. I mean I guess they will up the base cost on vehicles generally, and in a weird way that will mean that infantry heavy weapons get cheaper by comparison. But I don't think they are going back to "tactical squads take a lascannon for 15 points, but it costs 40 on a vehicle." Though I guess they did that with thunder hammers, so it's not completely impossible.
A bigger issue is points costs needing to be broken down at the subfaction level. Adding power from paint makes balancing a nightmare.
yukishiro1 wrote: Unless they go back to making weapons cost different amounts for different units, I don't see how. I mean I guess they will up the base cost on vehicles generally, and in a weird way that will mean that infantry heavy weapons get cheaper by comparison. But I don't think they are going back to "tactical squads take a lascannon for 15 points, but it costs 40 on a vehicle." Though I guess they did that with thunder hammers, so it's not completely impossible.
Just put vehicle weapons into the vehicle wargear points lists and Bob's your uncle.
or even on the dataslate!!
No because that means a new dataslate everytime you change points costs.
tneva82 wrote: Funny thing. Vehicles/monsters got buffed and at same time infantry heavy weapons got nerfed
They did not get nerfed. They are exactly the same.
I think infantry heavy weapons got a major nerf. Nobody’s discussing it here though.
8th edition heavy weapons are -1 to hit if the MODEL moves. 9th edition heavy weapons get -1 to hit if the UNIT moves (only for infantry).
Personally I think that’s a big change.
Aaargh ! My classic infantry squads are doomed.
I have a heavy weapon in all my platoon squads since decades.
I will be so sad to be forced to shelve them.
ClockworkZion wrote: It's likely tied into streamlining the rules and preventing any gaming around the heavy weapon guy.
On the plus side they might make infantry heavy weapons cheaper as a result.
I think it will be the opposite : the studio will establish the price of heavy weapons based upon the increased power they will bring to vehicles.
So almost all heavy weapon that can be put either on a vehicle, or on infantry, will have a price assumed for a vehicle.
They weren't selling many vehicles in 8th, aside from those with fly. Doesn't take a galaxy brain to put two and two together and figure out what they want to make attractive for people to purchase at the release of 9th.
yukishiro1 wrote: They weren't selling many vehicles in 8th, aside from those with fly. Doesn't take a galaxy brain to put two and two together and figure out what they want to make attractive for people to purchase at the release of 9th.
Isn’t that a circular argument though? They don’t sell because they are underpowered, so by fixing imbalance they are going to sell more.
So getting mad at them for fixing imbalance seems counter productive.
yukishiro1 wrote: They weren't selling many vehicles in 8th, aside from those with fly. Doesn't take a galaxy brain to put two and two together and figure out what they want to make attractive for people to purchase at the release of 9th.
Isn’t that a circular argument though? They don’t sell because they are underpowered, so by fixing imbalance they are going to sell more.
So getting mad at them for fixing imbalance seems counter productive.
Except the idea is not to fix imbalance, it's to tilt it to make poorly selling models OP.
I'm not saying GW is doing this-I don't actually believe they understand their own game well enough to do so without being SO blatant that people might refuse to participate-but the idea is there.
yukishiro1 wrote: Unless they go back to making weapons cost different amounts for different units, I don't see how. I mean I guess they will up the base cost on vehicles generally, and in a weird way that will mean that infantry heavy weapons get cheaper by comparison. But I don't think they are going back to "tactical squads take a lascannon for 15 points, but it costs 40 on a vehicle." Though I guess they did that with thunder hammers, so it's not completely impossible.
A bigger issue is points costs needing to be broken down at the subfaction level. Adding power from paint makes balancing a nightmare.
Subfaction? How about by the codex. Why does a Word Bearers predator cost the same as an Iron Hands predator?
ClockworkZion wrote: It's likely tied into streamlining the rules and preventing any gaming around the heavy weapon guy..
might be that GW now moves away from single models meachnics to unit mechanics to speed the game up
but this is not streamlining, it is a design decision if the single models acts (like in 8th) or the unit acts (like in 3rd) with the simple difference that single models mechnaics are more detailed wihile units mechanics are faster
but as multiple targets can be selected it would be a strange mix that might make things more complicated than needed (unless multiple targets is a tank thing and won't be there for infantry)
I am starting to get frustrated by the teasing out of 9th edition. I want to introduce friends to the game but given we have incomplete information of the new edition, and the pitfalls of ingraining the rule-set of a previous edition, I am left telling them to hold off on learning the game.
I understand the need to create hype. But I feel like this company moves at a snails pace when it comes to releasing even core game mechanics and it has downsides to their business that they probably aren't recognizing.
yukishiro1 wrote: They weren't selling many vehicles in 8th, aside from those with fly. Doesn't take a galaxy brain to put two and two together and figure out what they want to make attractive for people to purchase at the release of 9th.
Isn’t that a circular argument though? They don’t sell because they are underpowered, so by fixing imbalance they are going to sell more.
So getting mad at them for fixing imbalance seems counter productive.
Except the idea is not to fix imbalance, it's to tilt it to make poorly selling models OP.
I'm not saying GW is doing this-I don't actually believe they understand their own game well enough to do so without being SO blatant that people might refuse to participate-but the idea is there.
That assumes that people only have what is currently the most efficient models and nothing else. I think for a large part of the community it is just going to result in more models that they own seeing the table.
ClockworkZion wrote: It's likely tied into streamlining the rules and preventing any gaming around the heavy weapon guy.
On the plus side they might make infantry heavy weapons cheaper as a result.
Gaming around the Heavy Weapon guy? Do you get tired of defending GW no matter what?
Pft, accusing me of being a white knight just because I'm trying to put myself in the dev's shoes and see why they made certain choices?
I never said it was a good change, I just said why I think they changed it.
Regardless I suspect GW is holding info back to keep the community riled up. They ignore a lot of questions that would soothe a lot of minds on how 9th will work with stuff like falling back even when they keep getting posted nearly a dozen times during the streams. Basically I feel like they want people to be worried and upset so we stay invested in the next news nugget to see if they address whatever we're worroed may be broken.
Ysclyth wrote: I am starting to get frustrated by the teasing out of 9th edition. I want to introduce friends to the game but given we have incomplete information of the new edition, and the pitfalls of ingraining the rule-set of a previous edition, I am left telling them to hold off on learning the game.
I understand the need to create hype. But I feel like this company moves at a snails pace when it comes to releasing even core game mechanics and it has downsides to their business that they probably aren't recognizing.
If you're trying to get your friends into the game, there is no point in sparing them of the truth of GW: incomplete information, errors in data sheet, and sprawling rules that span distal publications, with little-to-none attempts made to unify a database or create a coherent roadmap for newbies. Sure you could ask the folks in the GW store, their answer: BUY IT ALL! Just tell them to embrace the suffering, there is no respite.
Ysclyth wrote: I am starting to get frustrated by the teasing out of 9th edition. I want to introduce friends to the game but given we have incomplete information of the new edition, and the pitfalls of ingraining the rule-set of a previous edition, I am left telling them to hold off on learning the game.
I understand the need to create hype. But I feel like this company moves at a snails pace when it comes to releasing even core game mechanics and it has downsides to their business that they probably aren't recognizing.
If you're trying to get your friends into the game, there is no point in sparing them of the truth of GW: incomplete information, errors in data sheet, and sprawling rules that span distal publications, with little-to-none attempts made to unify a database or create a coherent roadmap for newbies. Sure you could ask the folks in the GW store, their answer: BUY IT ALL! Just tell them to embrace the suffering, there is no respite.
We actually do know of a roadmap for 9th: Kill Team into Crusade.
Ysclyth wrote: I am starting to get frustrated by the teasing out of 9th edition. I want to introduce friends to the game but given we have incomplete information of the new edition, and the pitfalls of ingraining the rule-set of a previous edition, I am left telling them to hold off on learning the game.
I understand the need to create hype. But I feel like this company moves at a snails pace when it comes to releasing even core game mechanics and it has downsides to their business that they probably aren't recognizing.
Well, it stands to reason that most, if not all, of the info for the ruleset will be out by the end of the month.
Usually there is a two week preorder timeline, and maybe that's when it would be best to approach it witht hem.
Mr Morden wrote: -1 to hit if anyone part of a unit moves is different.....well back to older ediitons. Must admit i liked the ability ot move other units.
Mr Morden wrote: -1 to hit if anyone part of a unit moves is different.....well back to older ediitons. Must admit i liked the ability ot move other units.
yukishiro1 wrote: They weren't selling many vehicles in 8th, aside from those with fly. Doesn't take a galaxy brain to put two and two together and figure out what they want to make attractive for people to purchase at the release of 9th.
Isn’t that a circular argument though? They don’t sell because they are underpowered, so by fixing imbalance they are going to sell more.
So getting mad at them for fixing imbalance seems counter productive.
Yes. So they will make previously underpowered stuff OP so that people will buy new models to replace old ones. And eventually they will swing it back into another way to sell more stuff.
It's not about balance but about sales.
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Ysclyth wrote: I am starting to get frustrated by the teasing out of 9th edition. I want to introduce friends to the game but given we have incomplete information of the new edition, and the pitfalls of ingraining the rule-set of a previous edition, I am left telling them to hold off on learning the game.
I understand the need to create hype. But I feel like this company moves at a snails pace when it comes to releasing even core game mechanics and it has downsides to their business that they probably aren't recognizing.
Pace is about same as for 8th ed that was even bigger change.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Leth wrote: That assumes that people only have what is currently the most efficient models and nothing else. I think for a large part of the community it is just going to result in more models that they own seeing the table.
Those will switch to the next OP then. But guess what? People who already have everything aren't GW's customers. As far as GW cares those can quit alltogether and GW doesn't care. If they already have everything they need they aren't buying models and thus are just non-customers for GW.
Stormonu wrote: Well, 9th edition seems like it's more than the "round up all errata and updated datasheets" I thought it would be and is also "throw a bunch of random, untested new rules in the mix" as well.
They had a sizable playtesting team, but go on claiming they don't playtest.
Point of order, we've had pages and pages long discussions where some of us wished they play tested enough to find simple broken combos or items that are found within minutes of reading a new codex and some have argued, perhaps yourself, that they couldn't possibly put in enough time to play test to find out these errors before final product would be sent out to printers.
Now they apparently have a sizable play test team ? Where was this play test team with most of the marine stuff ? Iron hands for instance, You can support the company all you want but people shouldn't then say they can't possibly play test enough and then months later say they had plenty of play testing so the changes are fine. Which is it ? Do they have plenty of play testing done or not enough time/people ? Either way I think any reasonable person will be worried some of these changes may be half baked.
Like for instance why have we gone all the way back to 4th edition where if anyone in the squad moves they all move ? We back to man spreading and knocking everyone over all the time ? Seems a bit silly to me.
Ysclyth wrote: I am starting to get frustrated by the teasing out of 9th edition. I want to introduce friends to the game but given we have incomplete information of the new edition, and the pitfalls of ingraining the rule-set of a previous edition, I am left telling them to hold off on learning the game.
I understand the need to create hype. But I feel like this company moves at a snails pace when it comes to releasing even core game mechanics and it has downsides to their business that they probably aren't recognizing.
Well, it stands to reason that most, if not all, of the info for the ruleset will be out by the end of the month.
Usually there is a two week preorder timeline, and maybe that's when it would be best to approach it witht hem.
This. When 8th edition was the hot new edition, the rulebook was leaked pretty entirely a couple weeks before it's actual release date (actually I think it was 3 weeks). Either way, we'll probably see the whole rulebook leaked by the end of this month anyways. Also, yeah, the slow pace of releases kind of kills any excitement for the new edition. But Games Workshop has been doing this teasing for over a year now, so it's probably just going to be the norm for all new announcements they make.
Doctor-boom wrote: Somebody else noticed the Important rule change hidden in the "Big gun never tire" rule:
You now declare 1 weapon target, resolve, then declare next target or same for the next weapon from the same unit and resolve. Instead of declaring all at once and having to gamble what is enough firepower to kill the last bit of your target...
You still declare everything before any are resolved. If you declare on units you are not engaged with, then those shots are lost of your other weapons haven't killed all the engaged enemy models. This was made explicit in the live stream.
tneva82 wrote: Yes. So they will make previously underpowered stuff OP so that people will buy new models to replace old ones. And eventually they will swing it back into another way to sell more stuff.
It's not about balance but about sales.
I find it actually surprising that people keep putting themselves in the crosshairs of GW harpooning whales. Change what's good every edition and competitive and wannabe competitive players build new armies. Get them used to that enough and maybe they'll build a new army twice a year to keep up with the latest hotness.
Seems like 40k is better when you don't try to always make your list as strong as possible. A greater number of units become "viable" and are no longer relegated to the shelf. More scenarios available because you don't necessarily restrict yourself to just matched play scenarios as readily as wannabe competitive players do. Overall hobby cost goes down as start collecting, starter set, battleforce boxes, versus boxes and easy to build are all on the table. As are the latest bad thing that the whales are dumping on the 2nd hand market to help pay for their new power list.
Mr Morden wrote: -1 to hit if anyone part of a unit moves is different.....well back to older ediitons. Must admit i liked the ability ot move other units.
I had to check my old mini-rulebooks, as I did not remember when they switched movement status from a unit as a whole basis, to a per figurine basis.
4th (2004-2008) and 5th edition (2008-2012) were per whole unit. Certainly 3rd too, but I did not played this game back then.
6th edition (2012-2014) introduced the per figurine granularity. Along with incentives to move your infantry models more.
We will be switching back, certainly for simplicity sake.
But I feel we will still have to move infantry a lot.
This means trying to make use of squads with a heavy weapon may not be a good choice.
Eldarain wrote: Adding power from paint makes balancing a nightmare.
Is this a marine faction ability or just for those that don't field grey models?
As for "playtesting", after what came out in the 8E codexes following the indexes, I don't trust nor count GW's Ivory Tower claims of playtesting as real, significant playtesting. Beyond maybe, alpha-level playtesting.
Eldarain wrote: Adding power from paint makes balancing a nightmare.
Is this a marine faction ability or just for those that don't field grey models?
As for "playtesting", after what came out in the 8E codexes following the indexes, I don't trust nor count GW's Ivory Tower claims of playtesting as real, significant playtesting. Beyond maybe, alpha-level playtesting.
The addition of abilities not factored into the points costs based on what subfaction you're playing. They are the most egregious example
Mr Morden wrote: -1 to hit if anyone part of a unit moves is different.....well back to older ediitons. Must admit i liked the ability ot move other units.
I had to check my old mini-rulebooks, as I did not remember when they switched movement status from a unit as a whole basis, to a per figurine basis.
4th (2004-2008) and 5th edition (2008-2012) were per whole unit. Certainly 3rd too, but I did not played this game back then.
6th edition (2012-2014) introduced the per figurine granularity. Along with incentives to move your infantry models more.
We will be switching back, certainly for simplicity sake.
But I feel we will still have to move infantry a lot.
This means trying to make use of squads with a heavy weapon may not be a good choice.
Stormonu wrote: Well, 9th edition seems like it's more than the "round up all errata and updated datasheets" I thought it would be and is also "throw a bunch of random, untested new rules in the mix" as well.
They had a sizable playtesting team, but go on claiming they don't playtest.
Point of order, we've had pages and pages long discussions where some of us wished they play tested enough to find simple broken combos or items that are found within minutes of reading a new codex and some have argued, perhaps yourself, that they couldn't possibly put in enough time to play test to find out these errors before final product would be sent out to printers.
Now they apparently have a sizable play test team ? Where was this play test team with most of the marine stuff ? Iron hands for instance, You can support the company all you want but people shouldn't then say they can't possibly play test enough and then months later say they had plenty of play testing so the changes are fine. Which is it ? Do they have plenty of play testing done or not enough time/people ? Either way I think any reasonable person will be worried some of these changes may be half baked.
Like for instance why have we gone all the way back to 4th edition where if anyone in the squad moves they all move ? We back to man spreading and knocking everyone over all the time ? Seems a bit silly to me.
They straight up admitted that they ignored the playtest team for IH. They caught it, they just waited until two weeks after the book was out to do anything about it.
It's all that man spreading goin on in the battlefield, they all bump each other and and need their personal space. Really it makes perfectly good sense. Now maybe once you can make a whole woman squad, maybe then I'll be like " No way, change the rule " but until then, it's totally fluffy.
Edit: Well how much faith should anyone put in to a company that ignores its play test results to sell books then ? Honestly admitting they knew it was broke as a joke but decided to let it fly just proves they are crooked and not inept which I guess is good ? All it means is you shouldn't trust their play testing so they could a million play testers of amazing skill, if they won't listen to them and leave problems baked in to fix it later, what good is it ?
Yeah, the "well we knew IH was totally overpowered and our playtesters were telling us but we released it anyway LOL oops sorry guys" thing doesn't really reflect well on how seriously they take playtesting.
Everything at GW these days is suit-driven in the first instance. Then the developers do whatever they want with the rules, and the playtesters give feedback that is ignored if it conflicts with the dictates from the suits about when something is going to come out, whether it's ready or not.
Let’s not pretend now that there won’t be a massive amount of FAQs and errata 2-4 weeks after release...
There is going to be tons of missed changes.
Tons of units from codexs with rules that no longer make sense or don’t work.
There is going to be rules with unintended changes.
I honestly don’t expect a clean book especially while looking at the rules jobs for recently obviously rushed PA books.
To be fair 8th edition for all the changes they had actually did a decent job.
Exactly and I'm not trying to drag this point out but they have released day 1 fixes to books that were released messed up before. If I recall correctly they did so at least once with Dark Angels and Space Wolves. They could have released fixes for that day 1.
They released the current guard codex with issues they obviously knew they wanted to fix, Commissars and Conscripts for instance, they could have had a day 1 fix there but no.
So long as they want missteps or crazy OP stuff to stay in books just to nerf it after release and people have snatched up the items it takes away any semblance of trust any wise person should have with them. You are left to ask over and over " Is this for balance ? Is it for the good of the game ? Is it all just to sell stuff or stir up hype ? Do they not know what they are doing or are they just ignoring balance in favor of money ? "
You never know, so anyone should question each change they hear as even with board size changes people are saying that was done just for selling things and had nothing to do with the good of the game. When you admit to ignore correct information for " reasons " you can't blame people for no longer trusting your " Professional " work.
I don't think they're competent enough to deliberately release OP stuff then nerf it two weeks later. I think that frankly gives them too much credit. Plus it's not like they do it every time - there are plenty of books they release that are just kinda garbage.
I think the truth is that they have release schedules they will not deviate from, and that informs everything. It's going out, whether it's ready or not. It doesn't matter if it's filled with embarrassing typos; it doesn't matter if it's filled with badly thought out rules interactions that are going to break the game's balance. If it's overpowered and that causes people to buy stuff you can nerf later...so much the better, the suits always love more $$$, but it's not the original plan behind it.
Some cases are clear however they knew there were issues, there is no way to assume that it wasn't until two weeks after the codex release for Guard Commissars and Conscripts were broke, they'd been so since the index, anyone could see that from the first game using them.
They admit they ignore play test stuff from IH, why ? The only reasonable excuse is for profit, as their experts said it was over the top so its not like they didn't know it was nuts.
GW is more clever than they are given credit for. I'm sure they don't always know what is up. However sometimes they do tend to ignore obvious issues just to fix it later and expect a big pat on the back, mold the meta to sway sales side to side and very few units have been bad forever. Well, except for Ogryns, they are pretty bad now and always.
Edit: There is no reason even if they need to meet deadlines to not release day 1 fixes if issues slipped by and they knew stuff was broke but couldn't be caught in time for the printers. It happens all the time with deadlines and it's not like people wouldn't respect that and they've expected us to accept it before. It would at least give hint to them wanting to release a quality product and frankly I think many of us would like it as it would show they care.
I don't think that's necessarily true. The other possibility is they ignored the IH issues because the suits said "it's coming out, whether it's ready or not, deal with it" and it took them as long as they did to issue the initial FAQ precisely because the issues were *so* big that it wasn't a question of just fixing a typo or something like that. They had to actually go back to the drawing board and work things over to figure out how they wanted to nerf the monster they had created. In point of fact, they didn't do enough, and had to nerf it a second time because it was *still* over the top.
That works for IH, but how does that fly for the Guard codex ? There was a lot of lead time that hinted to those two needed to be fixed issues that could have had an easy day 1 fix. Are we to believe they didn't get the touch of grace to see the problem and ponder a fix until two weeks after the proper codex dropped when the problems were there since the index ?
Did they not have time to brainstorm some fixes for IH in the time it took from book going to printers, then be released ? It's not an instant process. I'm sure the play testers could have even had some ideas on the matter. I get there is schedules but if you claim to be a quality product and you charge a mint for your items people should expect effort worth the cost.
Edit: It leads to a feeling like there will be many issues from this new edition that will be broke as hell on release and we'll be getting yet another broken product, paid for with a high price and lacking day 1 fixes for stuff people will pick up on from the first week out in the wild. That is what people are worried for and concerned of.
yukishiro1 wrote: Yeah, the "well we knew IH was totally overpowered and our playtesters were telling us but we released it anyway LOL oops sorry guys" thing doesn't really reflect well on how seriously they take playtesting.
Everything at GW these days is suit-driven in the first instance. Then the developers do whatever they want with the rules, and the playtesters give feedback that is ignored if it conflicts with the dictates from the suits about when something is going to come out, whether it's ready or not.
The community backlash from that might have them listening a lot more closely than they were before.
Plus 8th had Cruddace running around, but now Stu Black seems to be head cat herder, so maybe someone who isn't directly involved in the rules being involved will help get them listening to playtesters more.
AngryAngel80 wrote: That works for IH, but how does that fly for the Guard codex ? There was a lot of lead time that hinted to those two needed to be fixed issues that could have had an easy day 1 fix. Are we to believe they didn't get the touch of grace to see the problem and ponder a fix until two weeks after the proper codex dropped when the problems were there since the index ?
Did they not have time to brainstorm some fixes for IH in the time it took from book going to printers, then be released ? It's not an instant process. I'm sure the play testers could have even had some ideas on the matter. I get there is schedules but if you claim to be a quality product and you charge a mint for your items people should expect effort worth the cost.
Edit: It leads to a feeling like there will be many issues from this new edition that will be broke as hell on release and we'll be getting yet another broken product, paid for with a high price and lacking day 1 fixes for stuff people will pick up on from the first week out in the wild. That is what people are worried for and concerned of.
I'm not trying to defend them. I'm saying the problem is actually in some ways worse: that everything is determined by dictates from non-developer management about when something has to come out, not by developers deciding they have some nefarious plan to over or undercook something to generate model sales.
I just do not think the developers have that sort of power any more. They're just peons. Management says "X is coming out on Y date" and they come up with something. If it's right on the money, that's fine. If it's not, oh well. If it's way, way off...oh well, it's still coming out, and the upside of that attitude is there's no particular pressure to issue a FAQ that fixes it right away.
GW's focus is on selling people products. The game is just a vehicle to do that. What's important is the product sales. The game just has to be good enough that people keep spending on the products that are regularly released, and nothing can be allowed to jeopardize that regular release schedule except, well, literally a global pandemic that forcibly shuts their factory. And even that global pandemic was not allowed to endanger their yearly price hike. They just don't modify their plans for anything - not for unbalanced rules, not for typos, not for global catastrophes unless it physically disables them from producing stuff.
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't think they're competent enough to deliberately release OP stuff then nerf it two weeks later. I think that frankly gives them too much credit. Plus it's not like they do it every time - there are plenty of books they release that are just kinda garbage.
I think the truth is that they have release schedules they will not deviate from, and that informs everything. It's going out, whether it's ready or not. It doesn't matter if it's filled with embarrassing typos; it doesn't matter if it's filled with badly thought out rules interactions that are going to break the game's balance. If it's overpowered and that causes people to buy stuff you can nerf later...so much the better, the suits always love more $$$, but it's not the original plan behind it.
Making stuff op is easy. It's making things balanced that requires competence. Flipping balance this way and that way is dirt easy.
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't think they're competent enough to deliberately release OP stuff then nerf it two weeks later. I think that frankly gives them too much credit. Plus it's not like they do it every time - there are plenty of books they release that are just kinda garbage.
I think the truth is that they have release schedules they will not deviate from, and that informs everything. It's going out, whether it's ready or not. It doesn't matter if it's filled with embarrassing typos; it doesn't matter if it's filled with badly thought out rules interactions that are going to break the game's balance. If it's overpowered and that causes people to buy stuff you can nerf later...so much the better, the suits always love more $$$, but it's not the original plan behind it.
Making stuff op is easy. It's making things balanced that requires competence. Flipping balance this way and that way is dirt easy.
Complaining that things aren't balanced on release is easy, understanding that the team will never roll out a perfectly balanced game no matter how much playtesting is involved is hard.
I will give them some credit: they don't take a hammer to problems like they used to but instead of making smaller adjustments to try and dial things in.
That isn't to say I enjoy the way things end up broken, I kept not starting armies because melee was so meh for Templars and World Eaters which was a shame because I really like both of those factions but they were just not that interesting to play for all of 8th. Which basically means for the last 3 years GW was losing sales just because they couldn't get melee dialed in right.
Speaking of Day 1 errata, didn’t the space wolf codex have one - something to do with sagas or whatever their faction ability was?
And they still use the sledgehammer; I remember the commisar/conscript merry-go-round, and I seem to recall a recent change to deep strike had to be rolled back when Ork players complained it nerfed them too harshly.
Stormonu wrote: Speaking of Day 1 errata, didn’t the space wolf codex have one - something to do with sagas or whatever their faction ability was?
And they still use the sledgehammer; I remember the commisar/conscript merry-go-round, and I seem to recall a recent change to deep strike had to be rolled back when Ork players complained it nerfed them too harshly.
No deep strike change has been roll backed. Only change to change was originally it was you could DS to your own dz in turn 1. That got t2 earliest period.
Stormonu wrote: Speaking of Day 1 errata, didn’t the space wolf codex have one - something to do with sagas or whatever their faction ability was?
And they still use the sledgehammer; I remember the commisar/conscript merry-go-round, and I seem to recall a recent change to deep strike had to be rolled back when Ork players complained it nerfed them too harshly.
Early 8th definitely had more hammer, but the slow buffing of Marines (prior to the supplements and doctrines of the codex) and the way they shifted points later in the edition (incrementally instead of large jumps) shows they are trying to work in smaller steps to fine tune.
Complaining that things aren't balanced on release is easy, understanding that the team will never roll out a perfectly balanced game no matter how much playtesting is involved is hard.
no one is talking about perfect balance
but GW is also making basic mistakes regarding rules design (changes rules to be more "realistic" instead to benefit the game mechanics/balance) and from what we know their play testers don't get the full rules to play with
another problem is that last minute changes are a thing (that were never tested at all and no one knows what the impact on the game is) for different reasons (like changing the core rules in AoS because the played it wrong in the lauch/intro video instead of admit the mistake or make a new video)
perfec balance is not possible, but if you GW sees themselfes as the Porsche of Wargaming, they should at least have a Quality Managment like Porsche and not just the price
Everyone claims they aren't talking about perfect balance but the nitpicking says otherwise.
And citation on how they currently do their playtesting? I've only seen claims on how they used to playtest over a decade ago, not how it's currently done.
I won't claim they haven't screwed up (see Iron Hands for the obvious example of ignoring the playtesters) but hopefully the strong community pushback on that got them to listen to the feedback more.
Also I'd argue GW is pushing to be less realistic. 40k was trending towards a simulation from 5th to 7th with the number of rules interactions and layers.
8th was more geared towards accessibility for new players and 9th seems to be streamlining stuff further with more abstract terrain rules like obscuring that ignore TLoS.
Stormonu wrote: And they still use the sledgehammer; I remember the commisar/conscript merry-go-round, and I seem to recall a recent change to deep strike had to be rolled back when Ork players complained it nerfed them too harshly.
I'm not aware of any changes to ork deep strikes that have been rolled back.
There was a certain crowd which claimed that you couldn't use Da Jump in T1, but they were never right, the new rules just clarified that.
ClockworkZion wrote: Everyone claims they aren't talking about perfect balance but the nitpicking says otherwise.
how so?
nitpicking, first of all, does not mean you want perfect balance but you want obvious mistakes be removed
talking about unit X has no role on the battlefield because there are other units that do the job better for less points might be nitpicking but it is still not asking for perfect balance
And citation on how they currently do their playtesting? I've only seen claims on how they used to playtest over a decade ago, not how it's currently done.
I won't claim they haven't screwed up (see Iron Hands for the obvious example of ignoring the playtesters) but hopefully the strong community pushback on that got them to listen to the feedback more.
was'nt it with the Iron Hands were we got infos that the testers have never seen the full rules but were given very specific information?
might be wrong here and it was something else, but the infos are not a decade old, as a decade ago GW did no testing at all, so everything we have heard about playtesting has happended with 8th edition (or AoS 2.0 and Underworlds)
Also I'd argue GW is pushing to be less realistic. 40k was trending towards a simulation from 5th to 7th with the number of rules interactions and layers
8th was more geared towards accessibility for new players and 9th seems to be streamlining stuff further with more abstract terrain rules like obscuring that ignore TLoS.
.
it is not about if the game is becoming more of a simulation or not, but how and why rules are added/changed
dedicated transports have been added and removed in the past always with the argument that the new rules are more realistic
now with Tank/Monster rules immersion/realism was again an argument why those rules are better
point it is, rules need to made because they benefit the game and/or add more balance
realism is never a good argument unless you really make a simulation as I can bring in realistic arguments why a single nurgling can stop a tank, as I can bring in arguments why it can not
40k by itself can never be realistic as half of the stuff ingame would never exist at all. But the game has build its own world by the rules and background given and everything inside must just work within the given construct no matter how realistic it is or not
while would the argument for those rules be that Tanks have no Melee Attacks and adding such would make the game more complicated which the designers want to avoid, the rules that tanks can just ignore melee for shooting was chosen as the best solution to balance those units without adding another layer
if you just add them because of realism, sometimes it might work out well, sometimes it does not and you get into problems because you never thought about balance in the first place but only about how realistic your game is (although it is a game and not a simulation)
If it can be classified as "nitpicking" it is neither obvious or arguably important, and yet people treat it as if every small error breaks the game.
And the only concrete info about playtest I've seen dated back to around 5th ed. Since then the only other thing I saw was the studio ignoring the playtesters feedback for how broken Iron Hands could get.
ClockworkZion wrote: Everyone claims they aren't talking about perfect balance but the nitpicking says otherwise.
How exactly does it say otherwise? Do you live in a 5 year old's world of black and white where "it has room for improvement" = "I will settle for nothing else but perfection"?
some information for those of us who can't watch it?
thanks
sure,
Playtestings and preamble:
- cant reveal anything new (no suprise), they gonna talk about their thoughts on stuff already revealed.
- exp of play testing has been long, and is saying GW do, do it in depth
- they think 'everything' will work well
- they get the rules, submission feedback deadlines using forms
- gw rules team, suprised how responsive they were
Points:
- points going up is a good thing, games had too many models in them.
- everything being cheaper makes things hard to point at the lower end
- It plays better when its faster
- Stu black saying loosing a squad from his list is fairly accurate as to what to expect (so 200ish pts in current money)
Table sizes:
- table size is a guideline
- but, they recogmened the new table sizes
- it makes it more tactical
- it also makes combat armies better (interesting point).
- its been playtested on the new sizes
- good for tournaments, will be able to have more players + quicker games. expect all tournies to run the new size
Missions:
- big changes here
- current 40k environment is disparate, ITC, ETC, core etc
- Missions are an attempt to bring these inline with the use of secondaries
- Missions very much support a theme in an army and secondaries really support tailoring the mission to your specific army
- focus on seeing variety of opponents
- still wise to have some balance as missions might punish you.
Command points:
- They like paying for detachments. 8th was bad because detachments covered weaknesses from other armies and rewarded you for doing it with CP.
- Will be more refined, cross faction strats might be harder
Crusade:
- First time in their opinion 40k has a robust narative system since rouge trader
- Its not like necromunda 100% but similar to it in the xp system
- They really like crusade, very social experience and themed
Closing:
- best bits of 8th, new stuff makes it better. Sky isn't falling. They are very upbeat about it.
some information for those of us who can't watch it?
thanks
sure,
Playtestings and preamble:
- cant reveal anything new (no suprise), they gonna talk about their thoughts on stuff already revealed.
- exp of play testing has been long, and is saying GW do, do it in depth
- they think 'everything' will work well
- they get the rules, submission feedback deadlines using forms
- gw rules team, suprised how responsive they were
Points:
- points going up is a good thing, games had too many models in them.
- everything being cheaper makes things hard to point at the lower end
- It plays better when its faster
- Stu black saying loosing a squad from his list is fairly accurate as to what to expect (so 200ish pts in current money)
Table sizes:
- table size is a guideline
- but, they recogmened the new table sizes
- it makes it more tactical
- it also makes combat armies better (interesting point).
- its been playtested on the new sizes
- good for tournaments, will be able to have more players + quicker games. expect all tournies to run the new size
Missions:
- big changes here
- current 40k environment is disparate, ITC, ETC, core etc
- Missions are an attempt to bring these inline with the use of secondaries
- Missions very much support a theme in an army and secondaries really support tailoring the mission to your specific army
- focus on seeing variety of opponents
- still wise to have some balance as missions might punish you.
Command points:
- They like paying for detachments. 8th was bad because detachments covered weaknesses from other armies and rewarded you for doing it with CP.
- Will be more refined, cross faction strats might be harder
Crusade:
- First time in their opinion 40k has a robust narative system since rouge trader
- Its not like necromunda 100% but similar to it in the xp system
- They really like crusade, very social experience and themed
Closing:
- best bits of 8th, new stuff makes it better. Sky isn't falling. They are very upbeat about it.
They also state they've been testing " a lot all at once" and hope that codex creep won't be a problem this time round. Kind of suggests all 9th ed codex are done in some capacity and involved in the testing process.
Thanks for linking this video, it was really interesting to watch.
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
You might want to listen to their reasoning for that before judging them. It actually made a lot of sense to me.
and yet when people press them on the cultist intercissor hikes they get all defensive.
GW rulesteam beeing supposedly responsive torwards them is not GW rulesteam beeing actually responsive as anyone with a FW army can tell you.
IF GW releases the dexes staggered as they do the average player will still feel Codex creep inevitably.
The rest is great and i trust them but that has been stuff we knew.
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
Having less room to manoeuvre doesn’t detract from careful movement. Like, at all?
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
Having less room to manoeuvre doesn’t detract from careful movement. Like, at all?
depends with the ranges on guns we have nowadays and as of yet no news in regards how good terrain actually will be , yes smaller tables will lower overall manouvre value.
That said, if the cover system is good then yes they might have a point.
Also not sure on the combat armies exemple, because smaller sizes makes them better but good enough remains to be seen.
Not Online!!! wrote: and yet when people press them on the cultist intercissor hikes they get all defensive.
GW rulesteam beeing supposedly responsive torwards them is not GW rulesteam beeing actually responsive as anyone with a FW army can tell you.
IF GW releases the dexes staggered as they do the average player will still feel Codex creep inevitably.
The rest is great and i trust them but that has been stuff we knew.
The gw rules team had nothing to do with forgeworld until about a year ago, at which point the 9th ed process was under way and they correctly binned off the index to start again.
If all the codex are written and balanced now, it doesnt matter when theyre released, unless you assume other people getting new stuff makes it better than yours by existing.
The vibe i was getting from them was smaller size, smaller model count makes the game more of a nail biter.
Like you dont have 150 models covering the board
You have to think about the moves you do make because there isnt as much room to correct a mistake later on
Not Online!!! wrote: and yet when people press them on the cultist intercissor hikes they get all defensive.
GW rulesteam beeing supposedly responsive torwards them is not GW rulesteam beeing actually responsive as anyone with a FW army can tell you.
IF GW releases the dexes staggered as they do the average player will still feel Codex creep inevitably.
The rest is great and i trust them but that has been stuff we knew.
The gw rules team had nothing to do with forgeworld until about a year ago, at which point the 9th ed process was under way and they correctly binned off the index to start again.
If all the codex are written and balanced now, it doesnt matter when theyre released, unless you assume other people getting new stuff makes it better than yours by existing.
GW-rulesteam hasn't taken over since the first CA? And where would you find that?
And no on the second bit, an actual propperly for the edition written dex will still be better adapted to said edition. sure it might not be as aggrivaiting but still noticeable , especially when your dex is potentially one of those that get a later release.
I gotta imagine that there's some kind of Kill Team style "long range" penalty. The problem is, it feels like GW is solving everything with "-1 to hit" in a system where they've already made it so modifiers don't stack. At this rate, everything will be -1 to hit all the time.
the_scotsman wrote: I gotta imagine that there's some kind of Kill Team style "long range" penalty. The problem is, it feels like GW is solving everything with "-1 to hit" in a system where they've already made it so modifiers don't stack. At this rate, everything will be -1 to hit all the time.
don't be daft mate.
It'll be a string of -1, +1, -1, +1 +1, -1, -1 again then +1 again.
Dudeface wrote: The gw rules team had nothing to do with forgeworld until about a year ago, at which point the 9th ed process was under way and they correctly binned off the index to start again.
FW did initial index(after being told 8th ed is coming together with public...). After that every single model rule and point cost has been GW rule team. How many CA's that is? 3 at least. And didn't custodes get rules in the meanwhile? Gw again.
Not Online!!! wrote: and yet when people press them on the cultist intercissor hikes they get all defensive.
GW rulesteam beeing supposedly responsive torwards them is not GW rulesteam beeing actually responsive as anyone with a FW army can tell you.
IF GW releases the dexes staggered as they do the average player will still feel Codex creep inevitably.
The rest is great and i trust them but that has been stuff we knew.
The gw rules team had nothing to do with forgeworld until about a year ago, at which point the 9th ed process was under way and they correctly binned off the index to start again.
If all the codex are written and balanced now, it doesnt matter when theyre released, unless you assume other people getting new stuff makes it better than yours by existing.
Factions with older codexes will have it rough until they get new ones. The new rules are going to make anyone with bonuses to playing mono stronger while making factions that currently rely on soup weaker. There will be codex creep at least until everyone has codexes written with that new direction.
Not Online!!! wrote: and yet when people press them on the cultist intercissor hikes they get all defensive.
GW rulesteam beeing supposedly responsive torwards them is not GW rulesteam beeing actually responsive as anyone with a FW army can tell you.
IF GW releases the dexes staggered as they do the average player will still feel Codex creep inevitably.
The rest is great and i trust them but that has been stuff we knew.
The gw rules team had nothing to do with forgeworld until about a year ago, at which point the 9th ed process was under way and they correctly binned off the index to start again.
If all the codex are written and balanced now, it doesnt matter when theyre released, unless you assume other people getting new stuff makes it better than yours by existing.
GW-rulesteam hasn't taken over since the first CA? And where would you find that?
And no on the second bit, an actual propperly for the edition written dex will still be better adapted to said edition. sure it might not be as aggrivaiting but still noticeable , especially when your dex is potentially one of those that get a later release.
AngryAngel80 wrote: That works for IH, but how does that fly for the Guard codex ? There was a lot of lead time that hinted to those two needed to be fixed issues that could have had an easy day 1 fix. Are we to believe they didn't get the touch of grace to see the problem and ponder a fix until two weeks after the proper codex dropped when the problems were there since the index ?
Did they not have time to brainstorm some fixes for IH in the time it took from book going to printers, then be released ? It's not an instant process. I'm sure the play testers could have even had some ideas on the matter. I get there is schedules but if you claim to be a quality product and you charge a mint for your items people should expect effort worth the cost.
Edit: It leads to a feeling like there will be many issues from this new edition that will be broke as hell on release and we'll be getting yet another broken product, paid for with a high price and lacking day 1 fixes for stuff people will pick up on from the first week out in the wild. That is what people are worried for and concerned of.
I'm not trying to defend them. I'm saying the problem is actually in some ways worse: that everything is determined by dictates from non-developer management about when something has to come out, not by developers deciding they have some nefarious plan to over or undercook something to generate model sales.
I just do not think the developers have that sort of power any more. They're just peons. Management says "X is coming out on Y date" and they come up with something. If it's right on the money, that's fine. If it's not, oh well. If it's way, way off...oh well, it's still coming out, and the upside of that attitude is there's no particular pressure to issue a FAQ that fixes it right away.
GW's focus is on selling people products. The game is just a vehicle to do that. What's important is the product sales. The game just has to be good enough that people keep spending on the products that are regularly released, and nothing can be allowed to jeopardize that regular release schedule except, well, literally a global pandemic that forcibly shuts their factory. And even that global pandemic was not allowed to endanger their yearly price hike. They just don't modify their plans for anything - not for unbalanced rules, not for typos, not for global catastrophes unless it physically disables them from producing stuff.
They don't change their plans because they are a BIG company. Which is overall a good thing (IMHO) for a wargame/model company (for those like me who have like 2000-4000 euros worth of models), because they sell everywhere, and it is easy to find people to play with, wherever life takes you. I wolund not inverst much in a game produced by a small buisness, because its just too much of a liability. So yes, downside to that is they juggernaut their way through every fiscal year, and don't react much to whatever happens around them (it seems that way, I am not 100% certain though) and yes, their prices are now absolute madness (If I started 40k now, I would probably just stick to one army (orks or nids), and not have 5 and half armies like now).
Dudeface wrote: The gw rules team had nothing to do with forgeworld until about a year ago, at which point the 9th ed process was under way and they correctly binned off the index to start again.
FW did initial index(after being told 8th ed is coming together with public...). After that every single model rule and point cost has been GW rule team. How many CA's that is? 3 at least. And didn't custodes get rules in the meanwhile? Gw again.
I forgot about the custodes rules, those were refined and managed well be comparison.
Never the less, whinging that an OOP army with bespoke rules written by FW wasn't handed over to the main rules team, actively developed and discussed with the player base (don't remember ever seeing anyone formally address them on those either) isn't really a fair complaint in comparison to the play testers providing feedback on the next product.
Not Online!!! wrote: and yet when people press them on the cultist intercissor hikes they get all defensive.
GW rulesteam beeing supposedly responsive torwards them is not GW rulesteam beeing actually responsive as anyone with a FW army can tell you.
IF GW releases the dexes staggered as they do the average player will still feel Codex creep inevitably.
The rest is great and i trust them but that has been stuff we knew.
The gw rules team had nothing to do with forgeworld until about a year ago, at which point the 9th ed process was under way and they correctly binned off the index to start again.
If all the codex are written and balanced now, it doesnt matter when theyre released, unless you assume other people getting new stuff makes it better than yours by existing.
GW-rulesteam hasn't taken over since the first CA? And where would you find that?
And no on the second bit, an actual propperly for the edition written dex will still be better adapted to said edition. sure it might not be as aggrivaiting but still noticeable , especially when your dex is potentially one of those that get a later release.
But if all codex are written at the same time, balanced at the same time, together, why is the one released later on suddenly "better"?
No existing codex has crusade content in, its safe to say every faction will get another book eventually.
I am talking about the experience of the player, not theirs.
It's a fact that tthe GW-rulesteam had more then enough time over 8th edition to fix well known issues within these indexes and didn't either via CA or FAQ.
And the second part is still true, the updated dexes will be better for the edition to play in, meaning that the more factions have a dex the few remaining will drop off/ have a worse experience, that is not whinging at them, that is a fact due to how gw decides to release their rules.
Yes, I have faith that tabletop tactics would have raised it up if melee armies were totally crap in 9th edition. I am pretty sure they would have play tested melee type armies. They even said 8th edition was overly shooty as an edition. I am sure the new 9th edition would have something for melee armies.
So, let's not panic yet. We haven't see the new rules for melee yet.
Not Online!!! wrote: and yet when people press them on the cultist intercissor hikes they get all defensive.
GW rulesteam beeing supposedly responsive torwards them is not GW rulesteam beeing actually responsive as anyone with a FW army can tell you.
IF GW releases the dexes staggered as they do the average player will still feel Codex creep inevitably.
The rest is great and i trust them but that has been stuff we knew.
The gw rules team had nothing to do with forgeworld until about a year ago, at which point the 9th ed process was under way and they correctly binned off the index to start again.
If all the codex are written and balanced now, it doesnt matter when theyre released, unless you assume other people getting new stuff makes it better than yours by existing.
GW-rulesteam hasn't taken over since the first CA? And where would you find that?
And no on the second bit, an actual propperly for the edition written dex will still be better adapted to said edition. sure it might not be as aggrivaiting but still noticeable , especially when your dex is potentially one of those that get a later release.
But if all codex are written at the same time, balanced at the same time, together, why is the one released later on suddenly "better"?
No existing codex has crusade content in, its safe to say every faction will get another book eventually.
I am talking about the experience of the player, not theirs.
It's a fact that tthe GW-rulesteam had more then enough time over 8th edition to fix well known issues within these indexes and didn't either via CA or FAQ.
And the second part is still true, the updated dexes will be better for the edition to play in, meaning that the more factions have a dex the few remaining will drop off/ have a worse experience, that is not whinging at them, that is a fact due to how gw decides to release their rules.
Well, the decision to outright remove FW from writing the rules for 40k was probably made at a point where 9th was already on the way, and they decided putting them together would be a decent timing (probably for time efficency)
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
Having less room to manoeuvre doesn’t detract from careful movement. Like, at all?
depends with the ranges on guns we have nowadays and as of yet no news in regards how good terrain actually will be , yes smaller tables will lower overall manouvre value.
That said, if the cover system is good then yes they might have a point.
Also not sure on the combat armies exemple, because smaller sizes makes them better but good enough remains to be seen.
We all know gun ranges are going to be the same. The game will have the same exact "I go first and since the table is even SMALLER I can shoot with more of my guys!"
Then codex creep will happen again of course.
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
Having less room to manoeuvre doesn’t detract from careful movement. Like, at all?
depends with the ranges on guns we have nowadays and as of yet no news in regards how good terrain actually will be , yes smaller tables will lower overall manouvre value.
That said, if the cover system is good then yes they might have a point.
Also not sure on the combat armies exemple, because smaller sizes makes them better but good enough remains to be seen.
We all know gun ranges are going to be the same. The game will have the same exact "I go first and since the table is even SMALLER I can shoot with more of my guys!"
Then codex creep will happen again of course.
And yet you'll keep playing, keep coming on here and continue to complain.
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
Having less room to manoeuvre doesn’t detract from careful movement. Like, at all?
depends with the ranges on guns we have nowadays and as of yet no news in regards how good terrain actually will be , yes smaller tables will lower overall manouvre value.
That said, if the cover system is good then yes they might have a point.
Also not sure on the combat armies exemple, because smaller sizes makes them better but good enough remains to be seen.
We all know gun ranges are going to be the same. The game will have the same exact "I go first and since the table is even SMALLER I can shoot with more of my guys!"
Then codex creep will happen again of course.
And yet you'll keep playing, keep coming on here and continue to complain.
Please don't advocate piracy or tell people who don't pirate that they're a problem. I'll also probably slow down my playing a lot as I did with 8th.
Also I'd be more than willing to do a different game but you obviously have no clue how hard it is to get people in an area to go into a new game.
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
Having less room to manoeuvre doesn’t detract from careful movement. Like, at all?
depends with the ranges on guns we have nowadays and as of yet no news in regards how good terrain actually will be , yes smaller tables will lower overall manouvre value.
That said, if the cover system is good then yes they might have a point.
Also not sure on the combat armies exemple, because smaller sizes makes them better but good enough remains to be seen.
We all know gun ranges are going to be the same. The game will have the same exact "I go first and since the table is even SMALLER I can shoot with more of my guys!"
Then codex creep will happen again of course.
And yet you'll keep playing, keep coming on here and continue to complain.
I'll also probably slow down my playing a lot as I did with 8th.
Also I'd be more than willing to do a different game but you obviously have no clue how hard it is to get people in an area to go into a new game.
It clearly pains you massively so stop playing, if you're still peddling the steal the rules angle then I really dont understand what you're in this for. If you don't pay someone for a product they generally stop making it.
Latro_ wrote: - they think 'everything' will work well
- points going up is a good thing, games had too many models in them.
- but, they recogmened the new table sizes
- They like paying for detachments.
- First time in their opinion 40k has a robust narative system since rouge trader
Everything is fine! Nothing is broken!
Are they even allowed to voice criticisms?
Maybe watch the video. They talk about how they actually saw their feedback and changes incorporated. They also talked about their strengths and the kind of things that they are good at finding in the rulesets.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I have watched the video. They level no criticisms at it whatsoever, almost as if doing so would see them punished.
A bit like video game reviewers.
Its not like TT hasn't criticized GW in the past. Chef goes on a rant about something GW has done wrong in basically every video involving him.
For their part the whole thing was probably hugely positive. Everything they helped on was probably a positive experience for them. But how much from them GW took out of the playtesting is unknown to them I think. I could see GW being supportive of TT's playtest findings and then not implementing any of them or adding in stuff post playtest that was never playtested which upends the hard work.
Then the edition itself could actually be pretty solid after playtesting but codex interaction completely bungles it once 9th edition books come out.
There are probably a bunch of other things that could cause TT to give a really positive outlook that I didn't think of that isn't just "they might be punished". Also they just might not want to be critical at this point, TT is unusually positive for 40k fans and media.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I have watched the video. They level no criticisms at it whatsoever, almost as if doing so would see them punished.
A bit like video game reviewers.
Yeah same feeling for myself. They promise it will be absolutely great, no downsides, everything fine.
But they can't tell you more, because of NDA. Sure.
The new gaming board size is said to be really nice, balanced between shooting and close combat, tested yadda-yadda.
I doubt I will enjoy it with my pure IG army which current plan for surviving is to keep distance.
They drop one of the real reasons for the size change : cramming more people into tournament venues.
No wonder why major ITC tournament organisers changed their board sizes overnight when GW dropped the news.
This is pretty reassuring. They've really hit a lot of the high notes in the video.
All I heard of was that ’all the big tournaments are committed to the minimum table size’, and ’gw didn’t give a choice’, and ’small table is more efficient’.
In the hundreds of nonsense posts supporting less space to maneouvre and move there hasn’t been even one compelling gameplay balance reason to support it. It’s all nonsense made up after the fact that GW decided to sell some boards and mats, and everyone backing the change has a financial interest or even an obligation to publicly support whatever GW decides to do.
And as far as combat goes, most of the playtesters that I’ve spoken with (many who even like the small table) have said 9th is very much a shooting edition, maybe even more than 8th.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I have watched the video. They level no criticisms at it whatsoever, almost as if doing so would see them punished.
A bit like video game reviewers.
Yeah same feeling for myself. They promise it will be absolutely great, no downsides, everything fine.
But they can't tell you more, because of NDA. Sure.
The new gaming board size is said to be really nice, balanced between shooting and close combat, tested yadda-yadda.
I doubt I will enjoy it with my pure IG army which current plan for surviving is to keep distance.
They drop one of the real reasons for the size change : cramming more people into tournament venues.
No wonder why major ITC tournament organisers changed their board sizes overnight when GW dropped the news.
They likely do have NDA's no need to be snarky about it. It's something they worked on of course they're going to be positive and enthusiastic, nobody would go and tell their fans "oh by the way we made this, it's rubbish though so we hate you all". Of course there is always a chance they're being genuine and do really like it, or it is actually good?
H.B.M.C. wrote: I have watched the video. They level no criticisms at it whatsoever, almost as if doing so would see them punished.
A bit like video game reviewers.
Do you expect them to start criticizing the edition before it's out, or even fully previewed for that matter? This is a video about the playtesting experience they've had, it's not a review of the edition. They can't even talk about everything yet.
They have also been critical of GW rules in their batreps, many many times. I fully expect they will give a review of the edition once they actually can.
Aash wrote: Is the blast rule tied to the Horde keyword or is it any unit with that number of models?
Number of models.
ClockworkZion wrote: They said they were raising points on most of the game, so why are we acting like Cultists will be the only things hit hard by this?
It's an example. They've made it far easier to kill big units, and at the same time they're increasing the price on said big units. If they're getting worse, why put their points up?
They're even talking about min-maxing Hormagaunt units with 10 or 11 models on the stream right now. That's the problem with arbitrary numbers.
Asmodai wrote: 0-5 models roll for # of shots as normal
6-10 models, roll for # of shots, 1's or 2's are treated as threes
11+ models, automatically fire max shots
H.B.M.C. wrote: 3-11 models = min 3 hits with blast.
12+ = full hits with blast.
Asmodai wrote: 0-5 models roll for # of shots as normal
6-10 models, roll for # of shots, 1's or 2's are treated as threes
11+ models, automatically fire max shots
H.B.M.C. wrote: 3-11 models = min 3 hits with blast.
12+ = full hits with blast.
Aash wrote: Is the blast rule tied to the Horde keyword or is it any unit with that number of models?
Number of models.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ClockworkZion wrote: They said they were raising points on most of the game, so why are we acting like Cultists will be the only things hit hard by this?
It's an example. They've made it far easier to kill big units, and at the same time they're increasing the price on said big units.
They're even talking about min-maxing Hormagaunt units with 10 or 11 models on the stream right now.
Meh, we'll see. I still feel like people are trying too hard to complain about things with not enough info.
They just highlighted how cool it will be that for 1cp a squad of guardsmen will be able to put down 6 shots per model with their 10 frag grenades vs a target with 11 models.
Blast Weapons will be listed as an appendix in the main rulebook for the start of the edition. Going forward, it will be added as a keyword in codices.
the_scotsman wrote: They just highlighted how cool it will be that for 1cp a squad of guardsmen will be able to put down 6 shots per model with their 10 frag grenades vs a target with 11 models.
Cool, coolcoolcool, great rules design lol.
Everything is great and works. I heard it on youtube.
the_scotsman wrote: They just highlighted how cool it will be that for 1cp a squad of guardsmen will be able to put down 6 shots per model with their 10 frag grenades vs a target with 11 models.
Cool, coolcoolcool, great rules design lol.
Everything is great and works. I heard it on youtube.
People complained about 37lasgun Shots at 12" , surely 60 frag Hits is fine and dandy.......
Lots of orks used as punching bag. Gw isn't even subtle on what they have sold enough in 8th and want to sell elites now. That's why predicting what is good and bad is easy with gw. A) no subtle rule interactions b) gw flat out non subtly spells it out
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
Having less room to manoeuvre doesn’t detract from careful movement. Like, at all?
depends with the ranges on guns we have nowadays and as of yet no news in regards how good terrain actually will be , yes smaller tables will lower overall manouvre value.
That said, if the cover system is good then yes they might have a point.
Also not sure on the combat armies exemple, because smaller sizes makes them better but good enough remains to be seen.
We all know gun ranges are going to be the same. The game will have the same exact "I go first and since the table is even SMALLER I can shoot with more of my guys!"
Then codex creep will happen again of course.
And yet you'll keep playing, keep coming on here and continue to complain.
When one sinks thousands of dollars into a product line, it's well within one's right to complain about changes to the product line that makes one's purchases less than useful, yes?
the_scotsman wrote: They just highlighted how cool it will be that for 1cp a squad of guardsmen will be able to put down 6 shots per model with their 10 frag grenades vs a target with 11 models.
Cool, coolcoolcool, great rules design lol.
Everything is great and works. I heard it on youtube.
I regularly see guardsmen units running within 6" of enemy hordes....
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
Having less room to manoeuvre doesn’t detract from careful movement. Like, at all?
depends with the ranges on guns we have nowadays and as of yet no news in regards how good terrain actually will be , yes smaller tables will lower overall manouvre value.
That said, if the cover system is good then yes they might have a point.
Also not sure on the combat armies exemple, because smaller sizes makes them better but good enough remains to be seen.
We all know gun ranges are going to be the same. The game will have the same exact "I go first and since the table is even SMALLER I can shoot with more of my guys!"
Then codex creep will happen again of course.
And yet you'll keep playing, keep coming on here and continue to complain.
When one sinks thousands of dollars into a product line, it's well within one's right to complain about changes to the product line that makes one's purchases less than useful, yes?
Aye, but at some point it's better to cut your losses and move on instead of a falling into a sunk-cost fallacy.
tneva82 wrote: Smaller board making more tactical? Seriously doubting their qualification if removing importance of movement makes game more tactical...
Having less room to manoeuvre doesn’t detract from careful movement. Like, at all?
depends with the ranges on guns we have nowadays and as of yet no news in regards how good terrain actually will be , yes smaller tables will lower overall manouvre value.
That said, if the cover system is good then yes they might have a point.
Also not sure on the combat armies exemple, because smaller sizes makes them better but good enough remains to be seen.
We all know gun ranges are going to be the same. The game will have the same exact "I go first and since the table is even SMALLER I can shoot with more of my guys!"
Then codex creep will happen again of course.
And yet you'll keep playing, keep coming on here and continue to complain.
When one sinks thousands of dollars into a product line, it's well within one's right to complain about changes to the product line that makes one's purchases less than useful, yes?
Within reason, I'd argue years of being consistently negative and upset with them to the point you need to complain to others incessantly should be enough to suggest you need a new hobby though. Plus since Slayer doesn't buy their published materials, they have less to lose at least.
the_scotsman wrote: They just highlighted how cool it will be that for 1cp a squad of guardsmen will be able to put down 6 shots per model with their 10 frag grenades vs a target with 11 models.
Cool, coolcoolcool, great rules design lol.
Everything is great and works. I heard it on youtube.
I regularly see guardsmen units running within 6" of enemy hordes....
TIL 11 models is a "horde" and not 1 over the min unit size of like half the units in the game.
When one sinks thousands of dollars into a product line, it's well within one's right to complain about changes to the product line that makes one's purchases less than useful, yes?
What did they make less useful? Do you have all the points and rules in front of you along with new points? If so you should start leaking them somewhere.
By the way, can you look up the new points on Eldar Guardians and Shuriken Catapults? I am curious where these things fall right now.
TIL 11 models is a "horde" and not 1 over the min unit size of like half the units in the game.
Not really many units in the game that are 11 and beyond and most of them belong to horde armies. I mean, sure, you can run 11 Kabalite Warriors, but most run them 5-10 due to how the special and heavy weapons work, plus they fit better in a raider.
Ultimately the problem is that if they put this rule on something 20 or higher it would only kick in every 30 game or so due to how most people play smaller squads ingeneral. So I understand why they picked 6 and 11. Those numbers are more in line with the actual number of models in the game than whatever real life definition one has of a horde.
the_scotsman wrote: They just highlighted how cool it will be that for 1cp a squad of guardsmen will be able to put down 6 shots per model with their 10 frag grenades vs a target with 11 models.
Cool, coolcoolcool, great rules design lol.
Everything is great and works. I heard it on youtube.
I regularly see guardsmen units running within 6" of enemy hordes....
TIL 11 models is a "horde" and not 1 over the min unit size of like half the units in the game.
Don't about half the units in the game cap out at 10 models?
I do like that there is a 6+ caveat in the rule for smaller units as well, plus still rolling to hit means that they can still whiff. That said, I hope Blast Weapons saw a points bump to match.
ClockworkZion wrote: That said, I hope Blast Weapons saw a points bump to match.
That's GW logic.
Problem: Weapon X is ineffective.
Solution A: Reduce its cost to make it worth it's abilities.
Solution B: Increase its abilities to make it worth its cost.
ClockworkZion wrote: That said, I hope Blast Weapons saw a points bump to match.
That's GW logic.
Problem: Weapon X is ineffective.
Solution A: Reduce its cost to make it worth it's abilities.
Solution B: Increase its abilities to make it worth its cost.
You don't do both!
Right, it's not like Thunderfire Cannons, Basilisks, Battlecannons, neutron lasers, plasma whatevers (the big knight gun), plagueburst crawlers or any other blast weapon was top of the meta in 8th.
I play orks nids and GSC mainly and I am fine with how blast works, it seems like honestly simple and good rule design. They said blast weapons would go up in price reltively to where they sit today.
And if it becomes an elite meta, then no reason for people to take lots of blast weapons. So you bring your horde to a game, counter meta, your opponent expected a dredd mob instead of your 90 overpriced boyz, blam !
Perhaps you win thanks to him not havoing the right weapons to deal with your 90 overpriced boyz.
Who knows ? Problems will occur if rules kinf of "force" people to bring troops in sufficient numbers that hordes don't become "counter meta"... Then hordes seem kinda screwed. Not so much because of blast so much as vehicules/MCs still shooting while engaged.
ClockworkZion wrote: That said, I hope Blast Weapons saw a points bump to match.
That's GW logic.
Problem: Weapon X is ineffective.
Solution A: Reduce its cost to make it worth it's abilities.
Solution B: Increase its abilities to make it worth its cost.
You don't do both!
Right, it's not like Thunderfire Cannons, Basilisks, Battlecannons, neutron lasers, plasma whatevers (the big knight gun), plagueburst crawlers or any other blast weapon was top of the meta in 8th.
Oh wait.
Expect these to get an absurdly high point increase. GW has other, newer kits to sell
H.B.M.C. wrote: Problem: Weapon X is ineffective.
Solution A: Reduce its cost to make it worth it's abilities.
Solution B: Increase its abilities to make it worth its cost.
You don't do both!
Or you do both. You just increased the ability. To a point where it is exactly worth the cost? Well, given you changed more than a thousand different weapons, no. Some might need point increase, and other point decrease, to be worth their point.
Actually really like the blast rule. When it comes to random shots vs large enemies with a fragmentation type weapon, rolling a 1 is simply dumb. This is much better.
wouldn't it have been easier to skip dice rolling at all and just say that blast weapons have 1 attack against >6 models, 3 attacks against 6-10 models and 6 attacks against 11+ models?
Will be interesting to see if/how other new rules interact with this. For example, the rules for woods terrain could reduce the number of hits from blast weapons.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
kodos wrote: wouldn't it have been easier to skip dice rolling at all and just say that blast weapons have 1 attack against >6 models, 3 attacks against 6-10 models and 6 attacks against 11+ models?
kodos wrote: wouldn't it have been easier to skip dice rolling at all and just say that blast weapons have 1 attack against >6 models, 3 attacks against 6-10 models and 6 attacks against 11+ models?
Nope. Because they're bringing back small and large blast via this rule. Small blasts cap at 3, large cap at 6.
GW logic: I shoot a Wyvern quad stormshard mortar (Heavy 4D6) at 10 Boyz and I might only get 4 attacks, but if I shoot at 11 Boyz I magically get 24 attacks. (Assuming a Mortar becomes a Blast Weapon, which it should).
bullyboy wrote: Actually really like the blast rule. When it comes to random shots vs large enemies with a fragmentation type weapon, rolling a 1 is simply dumb. This is much better.
I like the blast rule as well. The super swingy nature of certain big guns made them virtually useless (I mean who was bringing Demolishers or Vindicators with any level of regularity in 8th?).
Doohicky wrote: So blast weapons that do D3 attacks get max attacks on groups of 6 or more?
Yes, but specifically ONLY 1d3 - they said that the result of the roll, not the result of the dice, needs to be less than 3.
So a weapon with a profile of, say, 3d3, gains no benefit from the "6 or more" part of the roll - the minimum result of the roll is already 3.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Terrain deets tomorrow. Really looking forward to that, finally some info we don't already *mostly* have.
Excellent spot. So volcano cannon as an example... It basically gets zero benefit until targetting squads of 11 or more models? At which time it jumps to 9 attacks.
Doohicky wrote: So blast weapons that do D3 attacks get max attacks on groups of 6 or more?
No, it would get minimum 2 attacks, the rule states rolls of 1 or 2 are treated as a 3, which on a d3 becomes a result of a 2.
This is wrong in two ways.
1, a 1-2 on a d3 is treated as a 1.
2, the whole rule refers only to the RESULT of the roll, and has nothing to do with the numbers on the dice themselves. the result of the roll becomes a 3.
So this blast weapon rule is pretty bad and completely arbitrary. Plus rolling to see how many dice you roll was meant to be a joke, not a core mechanic.
Instead it should be:
<WEAPON TYPE> Blast X: 1 shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X.
Doohicky wrote: So blast weapons that do D3 attacks get max attacks on groups of 6 or more?
If such a weapon exists then yes it sounds like it.
I mean there are a bunch of d3 shot weapons...
Yes, but are they blast?
I think even the Doomsday Cannon on low power is Heavy D6.
Of course, this all assuming that GW will not update the weapon profiles to go with the new rules, so it could very well be that any hypothetical D3 blast weapon gets changed to D6 blast.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BaconCatBug wrote: GW logic: I shoot a Wyvern quad stormshard mortar (Heavy 4D6) at 10 Boyz and I might only get 4 attacks, but if I shoot at 11 Boyz I magically get 24 attacks. (Assuming a Mortar becomes a Blast Weapon, which it should).
Yeah, it should be that each dice rolled counts as having a minimal score of 3, but in the rule it clearly says minimum 3.
Not sure how I feel about the blast rule.
Its better than what we have now, but I feel that it needs a little more fine tuning.
BaconCatBug wrote: GW logic: I shoot a Wyvern quad stormshard mortar (Heavy 4D6) at 10 Boyz and I might only get 4 attacks, but if I shoot at 11 Boyz I magically get 24 attacks. (Assuming a Mortar becomes a Blast Weapon, which it should).
Wow, mister I always complain about bad editing doesn't read rule very well. In your example, min number of attacks would be 12
BaconCatBug wrote: GW logic: I shoot a Wyvern quad stormshard mortar (Heavy 4D6) at 10 Boyz and I might only get 4 attacks, but if I shoot at 11 Boyz I magically get 24 attacks. (Assuming a Mortar becomes a Blast Weapon, which it should).
Wow, mister I always complain about bad editing doesn't read rule very well. In your example, min number of attacks would be 12
No, it wouldn't. Read the rule again. It says "it always make a minimum of 3 attacks" not that the minimum value of each dice is 3.
BaconCatBug wrote: GW logic: I shoot a Wyvern quad stormshard mortar (Heavy 4D6) at 10 Boyz and I might only get 4 attacks, but if I shoot at 11 Boyz I magically get 24 attacks. (Assuming a Mortar becomes a Blast Weapon, which it should).
Wow, mister I always complain about bad editing doesn't read rule very well. In your example, min number of attacks would be 12
I usually never say anything about this, but I feel curious today. Why even bother to answer some of the worst haters in the forum ?
BaconCatBug wrote: So this blast weapon rule is pretty bad and completely arbitrary. Plus rolling to see how many dice you roll was meant to be a joke, not a core mechanic.
Instead it should be:
<WEAPON TYPE> Blast X: 1 shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X.
Blast 6 vs 1 Model? 1 shot.
Blast 6 vs 30 models? 6 shots.
So blast weapons become useless agaisnt vehicles and monsters?
BaconCatBug wrote: So this blast weapon rule is pretty bad and completely arbitrary. Plus rolling to see how many dice you roll was meant to be a joke, not a core mechanic.
Instead it should be:
<WEAPON TYPE> Blast X: 1 shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X.
Blast 6 vs 1 Model? 1 shot.
Blast 6 vs 30 models? 6 shots.
So Volcano Cannons should get 1 shot when aimed at a Titan?
BaconCatBug wrote: So this blast weapon rule is pretty bad and completely arbitrary. Plus rolling to see how many dice you roll was meant to be a joke, not a core mechanic.
Instead it should be:
<WEAPON TYPE> Blast X: 1 shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X.
Blast 6 vs 1 Model? 1 shot.
Blast 6 vs 30 models? 6 shots.
So blast weapons become useless agaisnt vehicles and monsters?
BaconCatBug wrote: So this blast weapon rule is pretty bad and completely arbitrary. Plus rolling to see how many dice you roll was meant to be a joke, not a core mechanic.
Instead it should be:
<WEAPON TYPE> Blast X: 1 shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X.
Blast 6 vs 1 Model? 1 shot.
Blast 6 vs 30 models? 6 shots.
So Volcano Cannons should get 1 shot when aimed at a Titan?
Anti-Titan weapons and some others would need to be changed, yes. Or ya know, not make Volcano Cannons blast weapons.
kodos wrote: wouldn't it have been easier to skip dice rolling at all and just say that blast weapons have 1 attack against >6 models, 3 attacks against 6-10 models and 6 attacks against 11+ models?
Some blast weapons roll D3, 2D6, 3D6, etc
?
fixed attacks per shot depending on the unit size is not different than 3D6, you just don't roll the dice and you don't get the chance to roll 18 attacks against a single model unit (which kind of breaks the idea behind of making Blast better against Hordes without making them stronger against low model units)
kodos wrote: wouldn't it have been easier to skip dice rolling at all and just say that blast weapons have 1 attack against >6 models, 3 attacks against 6-10 models and 6 attacks against 11+ models?
Nope. Because they're bringing back small and large blast via this rule. Small blasts cap at 3, large cap at 6.
BaconCatBug wrote: GW logic: I shoot a Wyvern quad stormshard mortar (Heavy 4D6) at 10 Boyz and I might only get 4 attacks, but if I shoot at 11 Boyz I magically get 24 attacks. (Assuming a Mortar becomes a Blast Weapon, which it should).
Wow, mister I always complain about bad editing doesn't read rule very well. In your example, min number of attacks would be 12
I usually never say anything about this, but I feel curious today. Why even bother to answer some of the worst haters in the forum ?
BaconCatBug wrote: So this blast weapon rule is pretty bad and completely arbitrary. Plus rolling to see how many dice you roll was meant to be a joke, not a core mechanic.
Instead it should be:
<WEAPON TYPE> Blast X: 1 shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X.
Blast 6 vs 1 Model? 1 shot.
Blast 6 vs 30 models? 6 shots.
So blast weapons become useless agaisnt vehicles and monsters?
Not useless, they still get a random number of shots, and some have some decent damage output, they just smack large groups more consistently.
Firing a normal battle cannon twice at a unit of 10 has double the minimum of attacks (6 attacks) than firing a twin battle cannon (aka the Macharius Battle cannon) or a Rapid Fire Battle Cannon once (3 attacks).
BaconCatBug wrote: So this blast weapon rule is pretty bad and completely arbitrary. Plus rolling to see how many dice you roll was meant to be a joke, not a core mechanic.
Instead it should be:
<WEAPON TYPE> Blast X: 1 shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X.
Blast 6 vs 1 Model? 1 shot.
Blast 6 vs 30 models? 6 shots.
So blast weapons become useless agaisnt vehicles and monsters?
Not useless, they still get a random number of shots, and some have some decent damage output, they just smack large groups more consistently.
My understanding is that it still rolls the d6 and could still get 6shots on a single model. It’s just that with a squad of 6+ it would be a minimum of 3 shots and against a unit of 11+ it will always be a 6.
BaconCatBug wrote: So this blast weapon rule is pretty bad and completely arbitrary. Plus rolling to see how many dice you roll was meant to be a joke, not a core mechanic.
Instead it should be:
<WEAPON TYPE> Blast X: 1 shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X.
Blast 6 vs 1 Model? 1 shot.
Blast 6 vs 30 models? 6 shots.
So blast weapons become useless agaisnt vehicles and monsters?
Not useless, they still get a random number of shots, and some have some decent damage output, they just smack large groups more consistently.
My understanding is that it still rolls the d6 and could still get 6shots on a single model. It’s just that with a squad of 6+ it would be a minimum of 3 shots and against a unit of 11+ it will always be a 6.
It is. We just got sidetracked by BCB playing game dev in the middle of a news release thread leading to some confusion in the middle there.
Vehicles sound really strong in 9th. You cant prevent them from shooting, their blast weapons will obliterate 11+ models infantry. I think 9th edition armies will be quite vehicle heavy (unless they get something like a 50% point increase), and infantry units will have no more than 10 models.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: What's the point in moaning then, moan when you have something to moan about, not when you know 10% of the situation.
Amazing how much of this crap goes on, on this forum, absolute meltdowns were being had about Pariah about how necrons always get shafted as no models have been announced, having to tell absolute cry babies that wait until you know all the information to whinge and moan... Look who was right in that situation.
Sit down, shut up and save your bloody hissy fits until you have a reason to (if there is one at all).
You're obviously new to GW's new rules releases I take it to make this statement.
Been playing since 1997... Quite well aware of how it happens.
What doesn't make sense is the people within this forum.
p5freak wrote: Vehicles sound really strong in 9th. You cant prevent them from shooting, their blast weapons will obliterate 11+ models infantry. I think 9th edition armies will be quite vehicle heavy (unless they get something like a 50% point increase), and infantry units will have no more than 10 models.
Remember that Blast weapons can't work in Engagement range. That will actually curb a lot of vehicles if you can tarpit them.
p5freak wrote: Vehicles sound really strong in 9th. You cant prevent them from shooting, their blast weapons will obliterate 11+ models infantry. I think 9th edition armies will be quite vehicle heavy (unless they get something like a 50% point increase), and infantry units will have no more than 10 models.
Remember that Blast weapons can't work in Engagement range. That will actually curb a lot of vehicles if you can tarpit them.
p5freak wrote: Vehicles sound really strong in 9th. You cant prevent them from shooting, their blast weapons will obliterate 11+ models infantry. I think 9th edition armies will be quite vehicle heavy (unless they get something like a 50% point increase), and infantry units will have no more than 10 models.
That is good to point out, perhaps things like battlecanon TCs with sponsoon H bolters look great now, but will cost 230 points, and then won't look that great in the end (dare I say they will just look... Balanced ?). I also think 9th edition armies will be quite vehicle heavy, but perhaps not as much as some fear at the moment
This is the first rule that they previewed for 9th that I personally and not a fan of. There are many ways that this rule could have been better implemented. I think GW forgot that there are some weapons out there that have multi-D6 shots, and giving them full hits against 11+ is over the top. Basically now bring 10 guys or bring 50 guys, nothing in between
p5freak wrote: Vehicles sound really strong in 9th. You cant prevent them from shooting....
I thought if the vehicle can't kill the models in engagement range, then they can't shoot anything else? So tying them up in combat is still a thing, just some vehicles will be better at extracting themselves than others. Artillery with blast weapons are still looking pretty vulnerable.
To everyone saying "Wait and see" how long do we wait for?
Because first, it's "Wait for the full rules!"
Then, it's "Wait for it to play out on the tabletop-don't just theorycraft!"
Then, it's "Wait for the next Codex/Chapter Approved/Update!"
p5freak wrote: Vehicles sound really strong in 9th. You cant prevent them from shooting, their blast weapons will obliterate 11+ models infantry. I think 9th edition armies will be quite vehicle heavy (unless they get something like a 50% point increase), and infantry units will have no more than 10 models.
You can force them to shoot at less than optimal targets, LoS is apparently supposed to be harder to draw cross board, and blasts don't work in melee.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: What's the point in moaning then, moan when you have something to moan about, not when you know 10% of the situation.
Amazing how much of this crap goes on, on this forum, absolute meltdowns were being had about Pariah about how necrons always get shafted as no models had been announced (at that time), having to tell absolute cry babies that wait until you know all the information to whinge and moan... Look who was right in that situation.
Sit down, shut up and save your bloody hissy fits until you have a reason to (if there is one at all).
.... Amen. I guess I am blessed to have a decent size group of friends who are gamers, so have don’t often play strangers, nor play tournaments very often, so am not really at the mercy of the meta. It’s a game. However, if these changes are really going to be detrimental to your investment in this game, to your enjoyment, perhaps rather than indulge in a big bitch fest and pity party, get organized, run a petition or sign up and let GW know what the problem is - and yeah, maybe you need to vote with your wallet to get them to listen. If you want it done differently, do something. Maybe something along a pledge drive for players to sign onto that says unless GW starts releasing beta rules to allow community feedback, I as a player will not buy the next Space Marine codex. You get 5K signs in something like that...you have leverage.
xeen wrote: This is the first rule that they previewed for 9th that I personally and not a fan of. There are many ways that this rule could have been better implemented. I think GW forgot that there are some weapons out there that have multi-D6 shots, and giving them full hits against 11+ is over the top. Basically now bring 10 guys or bring 50 guys, nothing in between
I'm in the same boat. There is going to need to be some major changes to help balance this out against infantry. This is such a huge swing in the opposite direction that is not needed.
Because first, it's "Wait for the full rules!"
Then, it's "Wait for it to play out on the tabletop-don't just theorycraft!"
Then, it's "Wait for the next Codex/Chapter Approved/Update!"
Wait for the full rules is all I ask the doomsayers to do because it's too easy to assume things that don't line up with how the rules work. Playing games could smooth that out too, but I don't push that too much. Codexes and Chapter Approved can make or break any system so that's a goal post I don't buy into.
Basically, claiming everyone wants to move goal posts on you because they want people to wait until the rules are out to call the game "broken" seems a bit much.
I don't see how this rule makes the game better. They wanted to reduce arbitrary results - this only increases it. Shoot at 10 boyz with 2d6 weapon? Get 2 shots if you roll badly. Shoot at 11? 12 shots every time! That makes sense!
Also, shoot at 20 models in a unit spread over 40 inches of board space? Max shots every time! Shoot at 60 models all packed within a 6 inch castle? Don't get any bonus at all, as long as they're all MSU units of 5 or less.
I don't get how this benefits the immersion factor, or how it leads to better balanced gameplay.
I think the rules for blast weapons are almost exactly what people guessed they would be. Cool. The context for these changes won't be known for a while yet though, so it's hard to judge. At least they didn't make the cut off 10 models and went with 11 instead.
Well, my first thought was that most blast weapons still get less hits than when they could put a blast marker over a piled in/disembarked/deep struck ork unit.
The only mildly annoying thing is that bringing fluffy 7 plague marines instead of optimized 5 is now getting punished.
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't see how this rule makes the game better. They wanted to reduce arbitrary results - this only increases it. Shoot at 10 boyz with 2d6 weapon? Get 2 shots if you roll badly. Shoot at 11? 12 shots every time! That makes sense!
Also, shoot at 20 models in a unit spread over 40 inches of board space? Max shots every time! Shoot at 60 models all packed within a 6 inch castle? Don't get any bonus at all, as long as they're all MSU units of 5 or less.
I don't get how this benefits the immersion factor, or how it leads to better balanced gameplay.
If the unit has 6 or more models you can't shoot less than 3 shots. So if you snake eyes on 2d6 it's still 3 shots.
We don't know for sure what weapons will be blast, much less if those profiles changed or not. We'll have to wait and see.
Oh, well that definitely changes the point. 3 shots against 10, vs 12 against 11!
I don't see how your second sentence addresses the point. How does it improve the game to punish someone for taking the same number of models in a larger unit, rather than taking them in two smaller units?
I just don't see the reason for this change. It doesn't "make sense." It leads to very strange and arbitrary results based on how you choose to take your models, and to bizarre incentives where you will be upset that one of your models lived because it means you'll get smashed with far more firepower than if you didn't from the next volley. It doesn't punish castling.
xeen wrote: This is the first rule that they previewed for 9th that I personally and not a fan of. There are many ways that this rule could have been better implemented. I think GW forgot that there are some weapons out there that have multi-D6 shots, and giving them full hits against 11+ is over the top. Basically now bring 10 guys or bring 50 guys, nothing in between
I'm in the same boat. There is going to need to be some major changes to help balance this out against infantry. This is such a huge swing in the opposite direction that is not needed.
The cover and terrain rules will be the key. Maybe why they're being so tight lipped about it. If infantry can get old fashioned cover saves again it would explain a lot.
yukishiro1 wrote: Oh, well that definitely changes the point. 3 shots against 10, vs 12 against 11!
I don't see how your second sentence addresses the point. How does it improve the game to punish someone for taking the same number of models in a larger unit, rather than taking them in two smaller units?
I just don't see the reason for this change.
My point was some of the profiles, like 2D6 might be changing. We also haven't seen the full terrain rules, though they did point out that board density is apparently high enough that you shouldn't get easy LoS cross the board.
There is also a chance that blast weapons could see a points hike to match their better killing power, especially since some of the ones I assume to be blasts in the future are currently free or so cheap they might as well be free.
I have to love how Harlequins are now classified as a hord3 unit at full size and get max shots. With the price per model too, doesn't sound good for foot Quins which I was very excited to try before.
I don't see how any of that addresses how it makes the game better either.
"We don't know the full rules" isn't an argument for the benefit of this change, it's an argument that we don't know what the full effect will be.
Assume all the changes are very worked out to be totally "balanced" in terms of point values. How does it improve the game to add this feature? What is the gameplay benefit of punishing people significantly for taking 11 models instead of 10?
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't see how any of that addresses how it makes the game better either.
"We don't know the full rules" isn't an argument for the benefit of this change, it's an argument that we don't know what the full effect will be.
Assume all the changes are very worked out to be totally "balanced" in terms of point values. How does it improve the game to add this feature? What is the gameplay benefit of punishing people significantly for taking 11 models instead of 10?
"We don't know the full rules" is more a plea for cooler heads until we know enough to definitively state that things are indeed actually broken.
Also it's an attempt to make certain unloved units more playable. Like the humble Basalisk.
yukishiro1 wrote: Oh, well that definitely changes the point. 3 shots against 10, vs 12 against 11!
I don't see how your second sentence addresses the point. How does it improve the game to punish someone for taking the same number of models in a larger unit, rather than taking them in two smaller units?
I just don't see the reason for this change. It doesn't "make sense." It leads to very strange and arbitrary results based on how you choose to take your models, and to bizarre incentives where you will be upset that one of your models lived because it means you'll get smashed with far more firepower than if you didn't from the next volley. It doesn't punish castling.
So what's the gameplay benefit?
I mean the stream said the reasoning was basically just "because we thought blowing up hordes was cool!"
Because first, it's "Wait for the full rules!"
Then, it's "Wait for it to play out on the tabletop-don't just theorycraft!"
Then, it's "Wait for the next Codex/Chapter Approved/Update!"
Wait for the full rules is all I ask the doomsayers to do because it's too easy to assume things that don't line up with how the rules work. Playing games could smooth that out too, but I don't push that too much. Codexes and Chapter Approved can make or break any system so that's a goal post I don't buy into.
Basically, claiming everyone wants to move goal posts on you because they want people to wait until the rules are out to call the game "broken" seems a bit much.
Alright-here's what I want to ask of you.
Full judgement should be reserved till the full rules are out-but can you agree that, especially for melee, things look grim as they are now? I won't claim that there's nothing in 9th rules that will fix that, but from what's been ACTUALLY SHOWN, it looks bad.
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't see how any of that addresses how it makes the game better either.
"We don't know the full rules" isn't an argument for the benefit of this change, it's an argument that we don't know what the full effect will be.
Assume all the changes are very worked out to be totally "balanced" in terms of point values. How does it improve the game to add this feature? What is the gameplay benefit of punishing people significantly for taking 11 models instead of 10?
"We don't know the full rules" is more a plea for cooler heads until we know enough to definitively state that things are indeed actually broken.
But I didn't say it was broken. Please read what I'm writing. You're repeatedly responding to a straw man while ignoring what I've actually written.
I said: I don't see the gameplay benefit of this rule, whether it's broken or not. What is the gameplay benefit of punishing people for taking 11 model or more units? How does this improve the game?
If you can't come up with any gameplay benefit that's fine, you can just say that.
I am going to wait with a verdict on whether it is bad or not when I can actually get a game in using the entire ruleset and new points.
I think it is no coincidence we'll be getting some terrain previews tomorrow. Could very well be that terrain and cover has changed so drastically that tank and blast weapons are just balancing that mechanic out.
p5freak wrote: Vehicles sound really strong in 9th. You cant prevent them from shooting....
I thought if the vehicle can't kill the models in engagement range, then they can't shoot anything else? So tying them up in combat is still a thing, just some vehicles will be better at extracting themselves than others. Artillery with blast weapons are still looking pretty vulnerable.
That seems to be exactly the case All depends on what does and does not get Blast keyword
yukishiro1 wrote: Oh, well that definitely changes the point. 3 shots against 10, vs 12 against 11!
I don't see how your second sentence addresses the point. How does it improve the game to punish someone for taking the same number of models in a larger unit, rather than taking them in two smaller units?
I just don't see the reason for this change. It doesn't "make sense." It leads to very strange and arbitrary results based on how you choose to take your models, and to bizarre incentives where you will be upset that one of your models lived because it means you'll get smashed with far more firepower than if you didn't from the next volley. It doesn't punish castling.
So what's the gameplay benefit?
I mean the stream said the reasoning was basically just "because we thought blowing up hordes was cool!"
Right, which is what makes me worried. GW themselves have not articulated any reason that this will actually improve gameplay.
A lot of the changes they have made have obvious arguments for them - the tank changes, changes to the "haha you can't fight my grot cause he's on a crate," etc.
This one has no obvious way it will improve the game, and GW hasn't explained why they think it will improve the game. It seems a case of "let's do this because it would be cool," not because it actually improves the game. And those decisions are always problematic.
Doohicky wrote: So blast weapons that do D3 attacks get max attacks on groups of 6 or more?
If such a weapon exists then yes it sounds like it.
I mean there are a bunch of d3 shot weapons...
Yes, but are they blast?
I think even the Doomsday Cannon on low power is Heavy D6.
Of course, this all assuming that GW will not update the weapon profiles to go with the new rules, so it could very well be that any hypothetical D3 blast weapon gets changed to D6 blast.
They listed the D-Cannon which is a D3 shot weapon.
I like this new rule but it's clearly not perfect, the threshold for max shots is way too low, should have been 15 at the minimum.
This one has no obvious way it will improve the game
Well, the obvious improvement is that it supposedly reduces tilting, ie. rolling 1 attack all rounds and therefore getting minimal use out of your battletank sucks and you end up paying more points than your tank was worth. Now, whether that this is a good implementation or not remains to be seen on the battlefield.
This one has no obvious way it will improve the game
Well, the obvious improvement is that it supposedly reduces tilting, ie. rolling 1 attack all rounds and therefore getting minimal use out of your battletank sucks and you end up paying more points than your tank was worth. Now, whether that this is a good implementation or not remains to be seen on the battlefield.
But that can still happen against stuff like Knights.
If they really wanted to avoid whiffing for stuff like that, they'd've just made weapons do a flat amount of shots. Or at least something with a bell curve-2d3, for instance.
Eldarsif wrote: I am going to wait with a verdict on whether it is bad or not when I can actually get a game in using the entire ruleset and new points.
I think it is no coincidence we'll be getting some terrain previews tomorrow. Could very well be that terrain and cover has changed so drastically that tank and blast weapons are just balancing that mechanic out.
Either way, I am excited for all of this.
How would blast weapons balance out terrain, when they key off how many models are in the unit, not how many models are in a given area?
Blast weapon fires at 11 ork dudes spread across 25 inches of board space - max shots!
Blast weapon fires at 60 models packed into a 6 inch radius castle in deep cover - no shot bonus at all, because they're all 5-man squads or lower.
How does this balance anything?
The only thing I can think of is that if the terrain rules, for example, say that the whole unit gets the full benefit of terrain (including LOS blocking) even if only one model is in it. This would mean there's a huge advantage to a big unit of 30, because you could "be in cover" based on one model 30 inches away from where your front models are. Blast would then serve to partially punish the advantages of having big squad sizes.
Needless to say, this would be a very stupid way to do cover, though. So it would be a case of one stupid rule compensating for another stupid rule.
This one has no obvious way it will improve the game
Well, the obvious improvement is that it supposedly reduces tilting, ie. rolling 1 attack all rounds and therefore getting minimal use out of your battletank sucks and you end up paying more points than your tank was worth. Now, whether that this is a good implementation or not remains to be seen on the battlefield.
But it will only improve tilting against units of 11 or more, or, to a very small extent, against units of 6 or more. How does that improve the game to smooth dice rolling only when targeting large units? Why is tilting problematic shooting at units of 11 but not when shooting at individual vehicles?
Given all we've seen so far looking like it's working against more numerous factions and specifically large units, I wonder if we might end up getting something like AoS where expanding existing units costs fewer points than taking new ones?
This one has no obvious way it will improve the game
Well, the obvious improvement is that it supposedly reduces tilting, ie. rolling 1 attack all rounds and therefore getting minimal use out of your battletank sucks and you end up paying more points than your tank was worth. Now, whether that this is a good implementation or not remains to be seen on the battlefield.
But that can still happen against stuff like Knights.
'
If they really wanted to avoid whiffing for stuff like that, they'd've just made weapons do a flat amount of shots. Or at least something with a bell curve-2d3, for instance.
But blast weapons weren't made to take down knights. Blast weapons were made to take down hordes of infantry. It's a different mindset, similar to 5th Edition. If you want to take down knights, you use more reliable weaponry. I think it is pretty representative of what the weapons are meant to do.
This one has no obvious way it will improve the game
Well, the obvious improvement is that it supposedly reduces tilting, ie. rolling 1 attack all rounds and therefore getting minimal use out of your battletank sucks and you end up paying more points than your tank was worth. Now, whether that this is a good implementation or not remains to be seen on the battlefield.
But that can still happen against stuff like Knights.
'
If they really wanted to avoid whiffing for stuff like that, they'd've just made weapons do a flat amount of shots. Or at least something with a bell curve-2d3, for instance.
But blast weapons weren't made to take down knights. Blast weapons were made to take down hordes of infantry. It's a different mindset, similar to 5th Edition. If you want to take down knights, you use more reliable weaponry. I think it is pretty representative of what the weapons are meant to do.
Then GW needs to design it so that a Battlecannon is NOT effective anti-tank. Because right now, it's better than a Vanquisher Cannon against basically everything.
Because first, it's "Wait for the full rules!"
Then, it's "Wait for it to play out on the tabletop-don't just theorycraft!"
Then, it's "Wait for the next Codex/Chapter Approved/Update!"
Wait for the full rules is all I ask the doomsayers to do because it's too easy to assume things that don't line up with how the rules work. Playing games could smooth that out too, but I don't push that too much. Codexes and Chapter Approved can make or break any system so that's a goal post I don't buy into.
Basically, claiming everyone wants to move goal posts on you because they want people to wait until the rules are out to call the game "broken" seems a bit much.
Alright-here's what I want to ask of you.
Full judgement should be reserved till the full rules are out-but can you agree that, especially for melee, things look grim as they are now? I won't claim that there's nothing in 9th rules that will fix that, but from what's been ACTUALLY SHOWN, it looks bad.
If you only accept things shown in picture form off the WHC articles, then yes, it looks bad. If you accept the few things they've said about terrain so far, then maybe not so much.
How would blast weapons balance out terrain, when they key off how many models are in the unit, not how many models are in a given area?
Because terrain might now offer a much more severe LOS blocking than before and/or better cover saves which could mean those tanks are going to have a hard time pushing those infantry off the board. Again, all very hypothetical until we have the end result in our hands and the models on the table. Even if weaponry gets the maximum amount of shots it does not automatically mean those models are going to die in droves. Frag grenades are S3(unless they have been boosted in str and ap) are still going to feel like small rocks on an intercessor in cover.
But it will only improve tilting against units of 11 or more. How does that improve the game to smooth dice rolling only when targeting large units? Why is tilting problematic shooting at units of 11 but not when shooting at individual vehicles?
Tilting is always problematic, don't get me wrong, and I would just love flat number of attacks in general. This will, however, mitigate some of that potentially, but only against certain targets. Again, I don't have the full ruleset so I can't speak of more than what I've seen so far.
I am also curious about point values. Who knows, maybe tanks and blast weaponry have gone up significantly up in point cost. I can't wait to see the points in the rulebook.
Eldarsif wrote: I am going to wait with a verdict on whether it is bad or not when I can actually get a game in using the entire ruleset and new points.
I think it is no coincidence we'll be getting some terrain previews tomorrow. Could very well be that terrain and cover has changed so drastically that tank and blast weapons are just balancing that mechanic out.
Either way, I am excited for all of this.
How would blast weapons balance out terrain, when they key off how many models are in the unit, not how many models are in a given area?
Blast weapon fires at 11 ork dudes spread across 25 inches of board space - max shots!
Blast weapon fires at 60 models packed into a 6 inch radius castle in deep cover - no shot bonus at all, because they're all 5-man squads or lower.
How does this balance anything?
The only thing I can think of is that if the terrain rules, for example, say that the whole unit gets the full benefit of terrain (including LOS blocking) even if only one model is in it. This would mean there's a huge advantage to a big unit of 30, because you could "be in cover" based on one model 30 inches away from where your front models are. Blast would then serve to partially punish the advantages of having big squad sizes.
Needless to say, this would be a very stupid way to do cover, though. So it would be a case of one stupid rule compensating for another stupid rule.
This one has no obvious way it will improve the game
Well, the obvious improvement is that it supposedly reduces tilting, ie. rolling 1 attack all rounds and therefore getting minimal use out of your battletank sucks and you end up paying more points than your tank was worth. Now, whether that this is a good implementation or not remains to be seen on the battlefield.
But it will only improve tilting against units of 11 or more, or, to a very small extent, against units of 6 or more. How does that improve the game to smooth dice rolling only when targeting large units? Why is tilting problematic shooting at units of 11 but not when shooting at individual vehicles?
Hopefully tomorrow’s terrain preview will make things clearer. I can think of several ways terrain could mitigate blasts.
One possibility would be that being in cover cancels the blast rule so that blast weapons have to roll as normal. Another could be how the terrain interacts with line of sight and/or saving throws.
As it stands however, this does look to be seriously damaging large units. If the designers want people to have fun blasting at hordes they had best make sure the rules will encourage people to actually take hordes.
Because first, it's "Wait for the full rules!"
Then, it's "Wait for it to play out on the tabletop-don't just theorycraft!"
Then, it's "Wait for the next Codex/Chapter Approved/Update!"
Wait for the full rules is all I ask the doomsayers to do because it's too easy to assume things that don't line up with how the rules work. Playing games could smooth that out too, but I don't push that too much. Codexes and Chapter Approved can make or break any system so that's a goal post I don't buy into.
Basically, claiming everyone wants to move goal posts on you because they want people to wait until the rules are out to call the game "broken" seems a bit much.
Alright-here's what I want to ask of you.
Full judgement should be reserved till the full rules are out-but can you agree that, especially for melee, things look grim as they are now? I won't claim that there's nothing in 9th rules that will fix that, but from what's been ACTUALLY SHOWN, it looks bad.
If you only accept things shown in picture form off the WHC articles, then yes, it looks bad. If you accept the few things they've said about terrain so far, then maybe not so much.
Then enlighten me. What details have they actually given?
Given GW's track record, I do not trust them when they say "It's better!" without any backing details. So, given what we know FOR SURE-not just rumour, not just hearsay, not just corporate amping up-do you agree with what I said?
Nazrak wrote: Given all we've seen so far looking like it's working against more numerous factions and specifically large units, I wonder if we might end up getting something like AoS where expanding existing units costs fewer points than taking new ones?
Unless the points preview for the cultists specifically cut that out, or cultists just don't get that for some reason, it doesn't seem like the case.
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't see how any of that addresses how it makes the game better either.
"We don't know the full rules" isn't an argument for the benefit of this change, it's an argument that we don't know what the full effect will be.
Assume all the changes are very worked out to be totally "balanced" in terms of point values. How does it improve the game to add this feature? What is the gameplay benefit of punishing people significantly for taking 11 models instead of 10?
"We don't know the full rules" is more a plea for cooler heads until we know enough to definitively state that things are indeed actually broken.
But I didn't say it was broken. Please read what I'm writing. You're repeatedly responding to a straw man while ignoring what I've actually written.
I said: I don't see the gameplay benefit of this rule, whether it's broken or not. What is the gameplay benefit of punishing people for taking 11 model or more units? How does this improve the game?
If you can't come up with any gameplay benefit that's fine, you can just say that.
Who said it was aimed specifically at you? I was just explaining why I have mentioned full rules being important.
What benefit does the game have by making anti-horde weapons useless all of 8th ed? This is GW trying to make anti-horde weapons actually playable. We'll see what mess it actually gives us in the long run, but I don't feel what they've shown so far damns hordes.
yukishiro1 wrote: Oh, well that definitely changes the point. 3 shots against 10, vs 12 against 11!
I don't see how your second sentence addresses the point. How does it improve the game to punish someone for taking the same number of models in a larger unit, rather than taking them in two smaller units?
I just don't see the reason for this change. It doesn't "make sense." It leads to very strange and arbitrary results based on how you choose to take your models, and to bizarre incentives where you will be upset that one of your models lived because it means you'll get smashed with far more firepower than if you didn't from the next volley. It doesn't punish castling.
So what's the gameplay benefit?
I mean the stream said the reasoning was basically just "because we thought blowing up hordes was cool!"
Right, which is what makes me worried. GW themselves have not articulated any reason that this will actually improve gameplay.
A lot of the changes they have made have obvious arguments for them - the tank changes, changes to the "haha you can't fight my grot cause he's on a crate," etc.
This one has no obvious way it will improve the game, and GW hasn't explained why they think it will improve the game. It seems a case of "let's do this because it would be cool," not because it actually improves the game. And those decisions are always problematic.
GW hasn't fully explained any of the rules they've previewed. They toss just enough scraps out to watch us go at it like a pack of hungry dogs. Basically if they can keep us wound up, it's working in their favor in keeping hype up to see if the new edition is going to crash and burn or not.
GW hasn't fully explained any of the rules they've previewed. They toss just enough scraps out to watch us go at it like a pack of hungry dogs. Basically if they can keep us wound up, it's working in their favor in keeping hype up to see if the new edition is going to crash and burn or not.
But blast weapons weren't made to take down knights. Blast weapons were made to take down hordes of infantry. It's a different mindset, similar to 5th Edition. If you want to take down knights, you use more reliable weaponry. I think it is pretty representative of what the weapons are meant to do.
To be fair, there are blast weapons made to take down Knights and other such units, the Volcano cannon springs to mind. Likewise, many blast weapons (overcharged Plasma, Battlecannons, etc) often tend to be as good or better than many dedicated single shot AT guns, both because they get more shots (with fewer chances to flubb) and because the Invul saves on something like a Knight negate the high AP of many AT weapons, though this appears to be more an unintended effect than an intentional design choice.
Because first, it's "Wait for the full rules!"
Then, it's "Wait for it to play out on the tabletop-don't just theorycraft!"
Then, it's "Wait for the next Codex/Chapter Approved/Update!"
Wait for the full rules is all I ask the doomsayers to do because it's too easy to assume things that don't line up with how the rules work. Playing games could smooth that out too, but I don't push that too much. Codexes and Chapter Approved can make or break any system so that's a goal post I don't buy into.
Basically, claiming everyone wants to move goal posts on you because they want people to wait until the rules are out to call the game "broken" seems a bit much.
Alright-here's what I want to ask of you.
Full judgement should be reserved till the full rules are out-but can you agree that, especially for melee, things look grim as they are now? I won't claim that there's nothing in 9th rules that will fix that, but from what's been ACTUALLY SHOWN, it looks bad.
If you only accept things shown in picture form off the WHC articles, then yes, it looks bad. If you accept the few things they've said about terrain so far, then maybe not so much.
Then enlighten me. What details have they actually given?
Given GW's track record, I do not trust them when they say "It's better!" without any backing details. So, given what we know FOR SURE-not just rumour, not just hearsay, not just corporate amping up-do you agree with what I said?
Well I've mentioned them a few of times now:
Terrain density blocks more of the table. Specifically "it'll be harder to draw line of sight across the entire table."
We also know that Obscuring is going to be a pretty common keyword since most GW terrain has a lot of holes and they want to shore that up.
I know it's not a lot to go on, but it is enough to sound like it'll balance shooting out a bit.
How would blast weapons balance out terrain, when they key off how many models are in the unit, not how many models are in a given area?
Because terrain might now offer a much more severe LOS blocking than before and/or better cover saves which could mean those tanks are going to have a hard time pushing those infantry off the board. Again, all very hypothetical until we have the end result in our hands and the models on the table. Even if weaponry gets the maximum amount of shots it does not automatically mean those models are going to die in droves. Frag grenades are S3(unless they have been boosted in str and ap) are still going to feel like small rocks on an intercessor in cover.
But it will only improve tilting against units of 11 or more. How does that improve the game to smooth dice rolling only when targeting large units? Why is tilting problematic shooting at units of 11 but not when shooting at individual vehicles?
Tilting is always problematic, don't get me wrong, and I would just love flat number of attacks in general. This will, however, mitigate some of that potentially, but only against certain targets. Again, I don't have the full ruleset so I can't speak of more than what I've seen so far.
I am also curious about point values. Who knows, maybe tanks and blast weaponry have gone up significantly up in point cost. I can't wait to see the points in the rulebook.
But again, how does this improve gameplay? How does terrain being more evident on the table benefit bigger units rather than smaller ones, such that there would be a need to balance it out by punishing bigger units? Whatever benefit a larger unit gets from terrain, a smaller unit gets too.
Similarly, improving tilting only against certain units actually increases tilting over the entire game, it doesn't reduce it.
You've come up with a variety of reasons why the change may not break the game. But that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking how it improves the game to have rules that mean that a unit of 11 spread across 20 inches of table space take far more damage from the same weapon than two units of 5 all in base to base contact each eachother in a tightly packed blob. Or even more generally, how it improves the game to punish people for taking larger units rather than smaller ones.
I haven't seen a single person in this thread actually advance any argument as to why it makes sense to punish people for taking an 11th model in a unit.
How would blast weapons balance out terrain, when they key off how many models are in the unit, not how many models are in a given area?
Because terrain might now offer a much more severe LOS blocking than before and/or better cover saves which could mean those tanks are going to have a hard time pushing those infantry off the board. Again, all very hypothetical until we have the end result in our hands and the models on the table. Even if weaponry gets the maximum amount of shots it does not automatically mean those models are going to die in droves. Frag grenades are S3(unless they have been boosted in str and ap) are still going to feel like small rocks on an intercessor in cover.
But it will only improve tilting against units of 11 or more. How does that improve the game to smooth dice rolling only when targeting large units? Why is tilting problematic shooting at units of 11 but not when shooting at individual vehicles?
Tilting is always problematic, don't get me wrong, and I would just love flat number of attacks in general. This will, however, mitigate some of that potentially, but only against certain targets. Again, I don't have the full ruleset so I can't speak of more than what I've seen so far.
I am also curious about point values. Who knows, maybe tanks and blast weaponry have gone up significantly up in point cost. I can't wait to see the points in the rulebook.
But again, how does this improve gameplay? How does terrain being more evident on the table benefit bigger units rather than smaller ones, such that there would be a need to balance it out by punishing bigger units? Whatever benefit a larger unit gets from terrain, a smaller unit gets too.
Similarly, improving tilting only against certain units actually increases tilting over the entire game, it doesn't reduce it.
You've come up with a variety of reasons why the change may not break the game. But that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking how it improves the game to have rules that mean that a unit of 11 spread across 20 inches of table space take far more damage from the same weapon than two units of 5 all in base to base contact each eachother in a tightly packed blob.
You might as well ask the same question in the current rule set. In 8th firing a 4d6 weapon at a 5 model unit standing near 2 other 5 model units the shots don’t spill over either.
Also it won’t be every random shot weapon just certain ones so plasma cannons might be or not. Sounds like some grenades will be so I might actually look at using my now guaranteed 6 shot frag grenade (that is at ap-1 as I’m using them in the Devastator doctrine)
You might as well ask the same question in the current rule set. In 8th firing a 4d6 weapon at a 5 model unit standing near 2 other 5 model units the shots don’t spill over either.
Right, but that's precisely my point. We already have lots of mechanics that tend to favor MSU units. Why do we need more?
Does anyone really think that the problem in 8th was there was too much incentive to take big units?
If anyone wants to argue that they're free to do so. But nobody actually has. And I think that is telling. The defenses of this are all "we don't know how it will shake out in practice," they are not conceptual arguments about how large unit sizes needed to be discouraged.
I can think of a few arguments against big unit sizes, but nobody has actually made them in this thread. GW didn't make them itself, either. And I find that interesting.
Because sacrifices have to be made if you want to make a ruleset that is playable. Old blast rules punished large units, this is a simplified version of doing the same thing.
Tyran wrote: Because sacrifices have to be made if you want to make a ruleset that is playable. Old blast rules punished large units, this is a simplified version of doing the same thing.
Old blast rules punished densely-packed units, not necessarily large units, and also punished densely-packed MSUs. Despite the arguments they could cause, the templates were really a more realistic way of handling blasts and flamers.
Tyran wrote: Because sacrifices have to be made if you want to make a ruleset that is playable. Old blast rules punished large units, this is a simplified version of doing the same thing.
Old LARGE blasts maybe did, but Small ones did not.
Yes they were, but they slowed the game a lot by forcing optimization of unit coherency and debates of what was or was not under the template.
We don't want to go back to the times in which the Tyranid player needed an hour every movement phase to keep his 200+ gaunts at a perfect 2" of each other.
How would blast weapons balance out terrain, when they key off how many models are in the unit, not how many models are in a given area?
Because terrain might now offer a much more severe LOS blocking than before and/or better cover saves which could mean those tanks are going to have a hard time pushing those infantry off the board. Again, all very hypothetical until we have the end result in our hands and the models on the table. Even if weaponry gets the maximum amount of shots it does not automatically mean those models are going to die in droves. Frag grenades are S3(unless they have been boosted in str and ap) are still going to feel like small rocks on an intercessor in cover.
But it will only improve tilting against units of 11 or more. How does that improve the game to smooth dice rolling only when targeting large units? Why is tilting problematic shooting at units of 11 but not when shooting at individual vehicles?
Tilting is always problematic, don't get me wrong, and I would just love flat number of attacks in general. This will, however, mitigate some of that potentially, but only against certain targets. Again, I don't have the full ruleset so I can't speak of more than what I've seen so far.
I am also curious about point values. Who knows, maybe tanks and blast weaponry have gone up significantly up in point cost. I can't wait to see the points in the rulebook.
But again, how does this improve gameplay? How does terrain being more evident on the table benefit bigger units rather than smaller ones, such that there would be a need to balance it out by punishing bigger units? Whatever benefit a larger unit gets from terrain, a smaller unit gets too.
Similarly, improving tilting only against certain units actually increases tilting over the entire game, it doesn't reduce it.
You've come up with a variety of reasons why the change may not break the game. But that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking how it improves the game to have rules that mean that a unit of 11 spread across 20 inches of table space take far more damage from the same weapon than two units of 5 all in base to base contact each eachother in a tightly packed blob. Or even more generally, how it improves the game to punish people for taking larger units rather than smaller ones.
I haven't seen a single person in this thread actually advance any argument as to why it makes sense to punish people for taking an 11th model in a unit.
It gives them the ability to actually differentiate weapons meant for dealing with light infantry (which are what tend to come in large units) from those with other aims. That's the gameplay benefit.
Now a plasma gun can have it's niche as an elite killer, the grenade launcher as chaff clearer, and there's the possibility for a meltagun (assuming the noticed that it was worse than plasma and swapped it 2d6 damage at half range or something) to be the anti-tank option. Surely that's better?
As for it kicking in at 11, there has to be a break point in a game of physical dice. Much like how a guardsman that rolls a 4 for his save is reduced to ground beef but a 5 means he's totally and completely fine. A sliding scale of x hits per y models would have worked, but this involves a bit less counting (an extremely minor time saver), reflects the most common unit sizes, and leaves a some of the random element that they love (while also sort of hearkening back to the old days where getting the blast template hole over a model meant it was having a bad day).
Tyran wrote: Because sacrifices have to be made if you want to make a ruleset that is playable. Old blast rules punished large units, this is a simplified version of doing the same thing.
While fair on the abstraction part, the old blast rules punished grouping models too closely together, not large units in and of themselves. These have very different tactical implications.
Tyran wrote: Because sacrifices have to be made if you want to make a ruleset that is playable. Old blast rules punished large units, this is a simplified version of doing the same thing.
But again, this doesn't answer the question: what about taking 11+ model units is problematic that needs to be discouraged through a gameplay mechanic?
The old blast mechnic didn't punish you based on unit size, it punished you for castling. It served a gameplay purpose. It made sense. It balanced risk-reward for castling around your auras. Removing it is partly what has led to the current 40k paradigm where many armies castle up around key characters.
Punishing you for taking larger units does not serve any obvious gameplay purpose. Nobody has articulated one in this thread, despite me asking about ten different people to do so. I find it really telling that nobody is willing to even try making an argument for why larger unit sizes should be discouraged.
Tyran wrote: Yes they were, but they slowed the game a lot by forcing optimization of unit coherency and debates of what was or was not under the template.
We don't want to go back to the times in which the Tyranid player needed an hour every movement phase to keep his 200+ gaunts at a perfect 2" of each other.
Agreed. But I don't think the proposed new blast rules in 9th are an ideal solution either. I get the sense that more thought was not given to this by GW and the playtesters given the numerous loopholes/issues Dakka members are finding just minutes after the announcement of the rules.
Because blast rules are not about balance, they are about immersion, because players wanted to regain some of that feel of a large blast template deleting a horde unit in one shot.
How would blast weapons balance out terrain, when they key off how many models are in the unit, not how many models are in a given area?
Because terrain might now offer a much more severe LOS blocking than before and/or better cover saves which could mean those tanks are going to have a hard time pushing those infantry off the board. Again, all very hypothetical until we have the end result in our hands and the models on the table. Even if weaponry gets the maximum amount of shots it does not automatically mean those models are going to die in droves. Frag grenades are S3(unless they have been boosted in str and ap) are still going to feel like small rocks on an intercessor in cover.
But it will only improve tilting against units of 11 or more. How does that improve the game to smooth dice rolling only when targeting large units? Why is tilting problematic shooting at units of 11 but not when shooting at individual vehicles?
Tilting is always problematic, don't get me wrong, and I would just love flat number of attacks in general. This will, however, mitigate some of that potentially, but only against certain targets. Again, I don't have the full ruleset so I can't speak of more than what I've seen so far.
I am also curious about point values. Who knows, maybe tanks and blast weaponry have gone up significantly up in point cost. I can't wait to see the points in the rulebook.
But again, how does this improve gameplay? How does terrain being more evident on the table benefit bigger units rather than smaller ones, such that there would be a need to balance it out by punishing bigger units? Whatever benefit a larger unit gets from terrain, a smaller unit gets too.
Similarly, improving tilting only against certain units actually increases tilting over the entire game, it doesn't reduce it.
You've come up with a variety of reasons why the change may not break the game. But that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking how it improves the game to have rules that mean that a unit of 11 spread across 20 inches of table space take far more damage from the same weapon than two units of 5 all in base to base contact each eachother in a tightly packed blob. Or even more generally, how it improves the game to punish people for taking larger units rather than smaller ones.
I haven't seen a single person in this thread actually advance any argument as to why it makes sense to punish people for taking an 11th model in a unit.
To give a more concrete speculation here, we know that morale has been significantly reworked.
Currently, morale has two problems
1) it basically only functions when your unit starts the turn really big, and ends the turn really small
2) it adds to the deadliness of the game by removing additional models that would otherwise be alive. This is distinct from how morale functions in many wargames, which is as a means to temporarily disable or reduce the effectiveness of models that would otherwise be fully active, which LOWERS deadliness.
Morale checks being triggerable against smaller units, even individual units, by a means other than models in the unit dying, and larger units getting a bonus to morale naturally rather than a natural penalty, would help put these blast rules into context. Especially if they used the same breakpoints, for example:
-A unit has 6+ models, +1LD
-A unit has 11+ models, +2LD
that way, the blast rule's spiky damage against units that are exactly at that breakpoint would serve as a convenient counterbalance to the natural optimization effort that would occur if GW implemented that sort of LD bonus alone. It would become a distinct advantage to field every one of your units at exactly 1 over minimum size to gain a morale bonus with very little cost.
Another thing that's been pointed out is that units could get cheaper the bigger they get, which is a mechanic in AOS. You're incentivized to bring a big horde because the natural disadvantages to having tons of models in the unit, like them not all being able to fight at once in close combat, are offset by a cheaper cost, so you can use hordes as damage soakers.
It gives them the ability to actually differentiate weapons meant for dealing with light infantry (which are what tend to come in large units) from those with other aims. That's the gameplay benefit.
Ah, finally an actual argument! I salute you for stepping up the challenge.
The trouble is, I'm not sure it's a very convincing one. They already differentiate weapons for dealing with light infantry vs those with other aims. We already have the variables of shot number, strength, AP, and damage. To take your example, plasma guns are already wasted on grots. What is it about the light infantry being in the same unit that means it's good for gameplay for them to be much more vulnerable than if they are split into two different units instead? If the answer is "nothing, but it's too complicated to do otherwise," why is making it easier to kill light infantry with certain weapons such an important objective that it is worth the irrational results the rules produce in order to accomplish the aim of making it easier to shoot light infantry generally? And why is this objective so important that it's worth the collateral damage to elite squads you can take in larger numbers?
Incidentally, the other problem with this argument is that a lot of the weapons - maybe even most - being given blast are emphatically *not* light infantry killers. You'd have to be mental to a shoot a D-cannon at a light infantry blob just to get an average 1 additional shot over shooting it at a tank, for example.
If we really wanted to improve certain weapons against light infantry, wouldn't it be easier and more balanced to do so simply by improving the shot values on these weapons directly, perhaps while also turning down their lethality? For example, you could make a frag grenade 10 automatic shots every time, but at S2 AP0. This would make it very good at killing grots, but pretty much useless against cents. Without the distorting effects this implentation of the blast rule creates.
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Tyran wrote: Because blast rules are not about balance, they are about immersion, because players wanted to regain some of that feel of a large blast template deleting a horde unit in one shot.
Ah, but once you start going here, you get into big trouble. Because this actual implementation is not immersive at all. Firing at 11 boyz spread across 25 inches of table, you get max shots - but shooting at 60 models in a tightly packed castle you don't, as long as they're all units of 5 or less.
This implementation of blast is deeply *anti-immersion*. It is almost as bad as the grot standing on the bale of hay laughing at the carnifex.
So we have a rule that has lost the immersion of the old rule, AND lost the gameplay benefits of the old rule. We're left with something that is not very immersive, and doesn't seem to serve any real gameplay purpose either.
This implementation of blast is deeply *anti-immersion*.
I imagined someone saying this out loud to me and physically shuddered.
wargames will always need to strike a balance between rules that are "realistic" and rules that take are abstracted and quicker to resolve.
This implementation of blast is, IMO, a pretty good compromise between 8th ed blast and pre-8th template blast. Yes, you can't target multiple units close together but if you allowed the person firing to pick which units he hits, you'd get non-immersive powergaming of where your explosion hits, and if you had to randomize it it'd take just as long to resolve as an old template did.
It's a compromise that doesn't seem to accomplish anything. I wasn't saying immersion is important, I was just saying this isn't immersive.
They've split the baby and ended up with a rule that is neither immersive, nor does it serve any real gameplay purpose that we can see.
The old blast templates were both immersive and they had a gameplay purpose. They were also clunky to use, so they got taken out because the developers judged that the benefits to immersion and gameplay weren't worth the cost.
This rule, by contrast, adds (minorly) to clunkiness without actually giving you either significant immersion or significant gameplay benefits. And it seems to arbitrarily single out a certain type of army building for a nerf, for no apparent reason. Why implement a new rule that doesn't really do anything but nerf something that nobody seems to think needed nerfing? It just seems bizarre.
This isn't blast in any meaningful sense. It's just anti-big-unit weaponry. It has completely different - in many ways, polar opposite - tactical implications. Did anybody really think what 9th edition needed was better ways to kill large units via shooting? Does anybody seriously think that the problem with 8th edition shooting was there wasn't *enough* volume of fire?
I mean, maybe I'm wrong and people do think that 8th edition shooting didn't have enough volume of fire and wasn't deadly enough to large units of infantry. But I haven't seen anyone make that argument here. And I kind-of doubt anyone will, because the overwhelming consensus is clearly the opposite, that in 8th it was too easy to shoot units off the table, not too difficult.
So I was going round and round with the blast rule and firing into combat.
I don't think you'll need really tons of infantry to protect the tanks and here's why. The unit sizes will be smaller, full stop.
If they aren't smaller, the blast rule changes will mulch them up fast. Which will lead to people leaning on MSU to limit auto number of shots from blasts, which in turn means the units are easier to knock out making them less of an issue to tie you up forever in CC.
Also it favors sponsons, and makes those tanks really more useful all over, think of a re tooled defensive gunner strat perhaps ? As well if infantry need to activate or use the objectives they'll be needed and doing less overall fighting.
Unless cover really throws this all out the window it looks like net gains for vehicles that mean less need for infantry outside using objectives. Will depend on terrain info tomorrow I suppose.
For now though ? Hordes feel like they will just be awful.
FWIW, I do think the impact of the rule is actually overstated re: hordes. If you were taking units of 20+ already, I don't see this changing it at all. The bonuses aren't actually all that large, except for certain gimmicky interactions. For example, grenades being blast weapons is pretty much irrelevant *except* for strats that let you throw a bunch of them at once. Similarly, a blast cannon or D-cannon being blast is totally irrelevant for hordes, because nobody is going to shoot that at a horde unit anyway; if they are, you're already winning because they're shooting at a hugely non-optimal target, even with the max shots.
So I don't think this rule is actually going to matter that much. I just find it a really weird thing they've done, for no apparent gain. The fact that the loss isn't going to be particularly significant either doesn't make it less weird.
The one thing this will absolutely do is cause units of slightly more than 10 to go down to 10. My 12-man troupe squads will certainly go down to 10 man squads instead. You will never see units of 11-15 again. Similarly, you probably will not see units of 6; they will all go down to 5. Which seems like a pointless loss to gameplay diversity, for no real gain.
The other thing it seems likely to do is make indirect fire even more powerful, since much of that is likely to get the blast rule, and those weapons often *are* designed to kill infantry. Which, again, seems like a bizarre choice. Do we really think one of the problems with 8th edition was that indirect fire wasn't lethal enough against infantry?
It seems to be boosting things that didn't need boosting while hurting things that didn't need nerfing. The fact that I don't think it'll change things all that much doesn't change what a strange choice that is.
Yeah, armies that have historically been known as "horde" armies will have fewer optional play styles. When I think of classic Tyranid, Ork, and even Necron armies, I think of hordes of models running across the tabletop to engage in melee, or in the case of Necrons, slowly marching towards the enemy with diminished hordes slowly reanimating.
The state of hordes will likely be very sad in 9th, and I don't see how even the best terrain rules will help. I also doubt that 40k will see the same discount to troops/battleline units that AOS has. The only possible hope for hordes is getting first turn with the ability to advance/charge across a shortened gameplay table in that first turn.
Ah, but once you start going here, you get into big trouble. Because this actual implementation is not immersive at all. Firing at 11 boyz spread across 25 inches of table, you get max shots - but shooting at 60 models in a tightly packed castle you don't, as long as they're all units of 5 or less.
This implementation of blast is deeply *anti-immersion*. It is almost as bad as the grot standing on the bale of hay laughing at the carnifex.
So we have a rule that has lost the immersion of the old rule, AND lost the gameplay benefits of the old rule. We're left with something that is not very immersive, and doesn't seem to serve any real gameplay purpose either.
And that's where you start hitting YMMV, because immersion is subjective. if it isn't immersive to you, well too bad for you.
It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
yukishiro1 wrote: It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
Forge the narrative, so that it's one heroic dude jumping in front of the Battlecannon shot somehow!
Gnarlly wrote: Yeah, armies that have historically been known as "horde" armies will have fewer optional play styles. When I think of classic Tyranid, Ork, and even Necron armies, I think of hordes of models running across the tabletop to engage in melee, or in the case of Necrons, slowly marching towards the enemy with diminished hordes slowly reanimating.
The state of hordes will likely be very sad in 9th, and I don't see how even the best terrain rules will help. I also doubt that 40k will see the same discount to troops/battleline units that AOS has. The only possible hope for hordes is getting first turn with the ability to advance/charge across a shortened gameplay table in that first turn.
Terrain rules absolutely can matter for this. Here’s an extreme example: if the new rule states that any model “toeing in” to terrain grants a Cover Save to the whole unit (like it was in 7th), then a larger unit has more opportunities to toe into cover while holding position across the board (like onto an objective, for example).
Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with assessing potential impacts to these rules: but folks making declarative, absolute judgments on these rules are de facto wrong (even if they turn out to be right in their assumptions later) because these rules don’t exist in a vacuum and we don’t know all of the interactions yet.
It gives them the ability to actually differentiate weapons meant for dealing with light infantry (which are what tend to come in large units) from those with other aims. That's the gameplay benefit.
Ah, finally an actual argument! I salute you for stepping up the challenge.
The trouble is, I'm not sure it's a very convincing one. They already differentiate weapons for dealing with light infantry vs those with other aims. We already have the variables of shot number, strength, AP, and damage. To take your example, plasma guns are already wasted on grots. What is it about the light infantry being in the same unit that means it's good for gameplay for them to be much more vulnerable than if they are split into two different units instead? If the answer is "nothing, but it's too complicated to do otherwise," why is making it easier to kill light infantry with certain weapons such an important objective that it is worth the irrational results the rules produce in order to accomplish the aim of making it easier to shoot light infantry generally? And why is this objective so important that it's worth the collateral damage to elite squads you can take in larger numbers?
Incidentally, the other problem with this argument is that a lot of the weapons - maybe even most - being given blast are emphatically *not* light infantry killers. You'd have to be mental to a shoot a D-cannon at a light infantry blob just to get an average 1 additional shot over shooting it at a tank, for example.
If we really wanted to improve certain weapons against light infantry, wouldn't it be easier and more balanced to do so simply by improving the shot values on these weapons directly, perhaps while also turning down their lethality? For example, you could make a frag grenade 10 automatic shots every time, but at S2 AP0. This would make it very good at killing grots, but pretty much useless against cents. Without the distorting effects this implentation of the blast rule creates.
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Tyran wrote: Because blast rules are not about balance, they are about immersion, because players wanted to regain some of that feel of a large blast template deleting a horde unit in one shot.
Ah, but once you start going here, you get into big trouble. Because this actual implementation is not immersive at all. Firing at 11 boyz spread across 25 inches of table, you get max shots - but shooting at 60 models in a tightly packed castle you don't, as long as they're all units of 5 or less.
This implementation of blast is deeply *anti-immersion*. It is almost as bad as the grot standing on the bale of hay laughing at the carnifex.
Just adding more shots all the time is what got us into this "all plasma all the time" mess. If you give the grenade launcher 10 attacks at S2, it's now 10 times as effective an anti-tank weapon as a lasgun (assuming you're not in rapid fire range) and 5 times as effective against marines and anything else that's toughness four or five. It's the opposite side of the same problem many anti-tank weapons currently suffer from, where the single d6 damage they can put out is outperformed by multishot D2 guns that are then also obviously superior at dealing with infantry (ideally they address this somehow, too).
The only way to address having a weapon that's supposed to be good against large concentrations of troops is to reference those large numbers somehow. Blast templates did this, but the inevitable result of those was the extremely tedious positioning game that every unit had to go through each time they moved, ran, consolidated, etc.. This wasn't tactical skill or an interesting decision, it was just fiddly and time consuming. And that's without getting into the whole scatter die problem.
The new system will push you away from taking eleven guys in a squad instead of ten or thirty, yes, but there are always going to be break points like that. In a 1 hit per 10 guys scheme, for example, that 11th and 21st dude would run into the same issue.
As for Auras and clumping, that's only an issue because they didn't limit the number of units buffed, which is a different (if important) problem. Castling was traditionally a defensive measure, not a buff-bot enabler.
If you wanted to specifically target clumped MSUs (without the endless tedium of the old ways), though, you'd need to switch to something slightly more abstract, like each unit within 3" of a point chosen by the firer is attacked (and probably exclude characters so artillery isn't suddenly the best sniper in the game). There are a couple of effects like this in the game, most of which are exploding vehicles, so it wouldn't be that outlandish, but then you'd have the weirdness of always firing at the edges of units and it'd go against their current ethos of trying to use a single set of stats for everything.
yukishiro1 wrote: FWIW, I do think the impact of the rule is actually overstated re: hordes. If you were taking units of 20+ already, I don't see this changing it at all. The bonuses aren't actually all that large, except for certain gimmicky interactions. For example, grenades being blast weapons is pretty much irrelevant *except* for strats that let you throw a bunch of them at once. Similarly, a blast cannon or D-cannon being blast is totally irrelevant for hordes, because nobody is going to shoot that at a horde unit anyway; if they are, you're already winning because they're shooting at a hugely non-optimal target, even with the max shots.
So I don't think this rule is actually going to matter that much. I just find it a really weird thing they've done, for no apparent gain. The fact that the loss isn't going to be particularly significant either doesn't make it less weird.
The one thing this will absolutely do is cause units of slightly more than 10 to go down to 10. My 12-man troupe squads will certainly go down to 10 man squads instead. You will never see units of 11-15 again. Which seems like a pointless loss to gameplay diversity, for no real gain.
If there are no changes to cover/wound allocation/LoS/blast weapon costs/etc, there are some fairly big impacts.
A Cadian Tank Commander for example, with a battlecannon, heavy bolter, and plasma cannon sponsons, is basically going to take 2 turns to kill a Boyz squad no matter if its 10, 20, or 30 models (on average, against 30, it'll leave 4 Boyz alive after 2 turns of fire, so not a total wipe, but close enough) with these new rules assuming nothing else changes. The damage scaling is such that the blast weapons effectively means that in many instances large unit sizes aren't meaningfully more resilient than smaller units.
As noted, 12 and 15 strong units will disappear, but often in many cases so will 20, and potentially even 30 strong units may not find enough resilience to justify the added investment.
Now, hopefully we'll see some of those other changes, but even very large units are going to be facing some intense pressure.
I'm going to go into the future and say this, what will 9th look like ? For at least the start, people living up limited amounts of infantry and vehicles everywhere as people stretch out with moving and shooting without penalty. The meta may regulate but for a bit its going to be Tanksgiving as people live up the changes.
Which is another reason why you'll see less need for infantry screens. Your tanks don't need to just park, spray and pray. They can all move around and shoot just fine meaning even with a smaller board they can choose to play some keep away which will help them for at least a couple turns to keep out of CC.
I'm curious to see how terrain will factor in and morale having a deeper impact, maybe as mentioned before larger squads will somehow be better for morale ? For all we know right now, MSU is the way, Hordes look smashed and vehicles feel like the flavor of the day with elites.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
Was it more immersive in 8th Ed. Rules where you could roll a 1 against the 11 boyz and the 60 models packed together either way?
Was it more immersive when models caught beneath the scattered pie plate took full shot impact while the unit a mere millimeter away took exactly 0 shot impact from the resounding explosion?
Maybe both were immersive for you. Maybe neither were. And that’s the point: forge a narrative with the rule set given to you. The rules, in their various iterations have done better or worse jobs of capturing enough of a narrative element to spark creative thought processes. Personally, I think 9th is better than 8th but worse than Templates from a narrative perspective, but better from a game design (leveraging simplicity and reduced administrative burden) perspective.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
Was it more immersive in 8th Ed. Rules where you could roll a 1 against the 11 boyz and the 60 models packed together either way?
Was it more immersive when models caught beneath the scattered pie plate took full shot impact while the unit a mere millimeter away took exactly 0 shot impact from the resounding explosion?
Maybe both were immersive for you. Maybe neither were. And that’s the point: forge a narrative with the rule set given to you. The rules, in their various iterations have done better or worse jobs of capturing enough of a narrative element to spark creative thought processes. Personally, I think 9th is better than 8th but worse than Templates from a narrative perspective, but better from a game design (leveraging simplicity and reduced administrative burden) perspective.
Both aren't immersive either, but these changes absolutely feth up horde armies that aren't guard (which are comprised of 10 men units) as if they needed this nerf (i.e. they didn't)
I mean it doesn't do guard infantry a huge boon either, it just doesn't hurt them as much as say Orks or Nids. Yeah feels like a dire time to be a horde unless something we don't know will turn that all around.
yukishiro1 wrote: FWIW, I do think the impact of the rule is actually overstated re: hordes. If you were taking units of 20+ already, I don't see this changing it at all. The bonuses aren't actually all that large, except for certain gimmicky interactions. For example, grenades being blast weapons is pretty much irrelevant *except* for strats that let you throw a bunch of them at once. Similarly, a blast cannon or D-cannon being blast is totally irrelevant for hordes, because nobody is going to shoot that at a horde unit anyway; if they are, you're already winning because they're shooting at a hugely non-optimal target, even with the max shots.
So I don't think this rule is actually going to matter that much. I just find it a really weird thing they've done, for no apparent gain. The fact that the loss isn't going to be particularly significant either doesn't make it less weird.
The one thing this will absolutely do is cause units of slightly more than 10 to go down to 10. My 12-man troupe squads will certainly go down to 10 man squads instead. You will never see units of 11-15 again. Which seems like a pointless loss to gameplay diversity, for no real gain.
If there are no changes to cover/wound allocation/LoS/blast weapon costs/etc, there are some fairly big impacts.
A Cadian Tank Commander for example, with a battlecannon, heavy bolter, and plasma cannon sponsons, is basically going to take 2 turns to kill a Boyz squad no matter if its 10, 20, or 30 models (on average, against 30, it'll leave 4 Boyz alive after 2 turns of fire, so not a total wipe, but close enough) with these new rules assuming nothing else changes. The damage scaling is such that the blast weapons effectively means that in many instances large unit sizes aren't meaningfully more resilient than smaller units.
As noted, 12 and 15 strong units will disappear, but often in many cases so will 20, and potentially even 30 strong units may not find enough resilience to justify the added investment.
Now, hopefully we'll see some of those other changes, but even very large units are going to be facing some intense pressure.
I expect the FOC changes will apply a similar opposite pressure. Having to ‘pay’ CP to take a certain volume of troops split across smaller unit sizes versus taking larger units to eek out a CP benefit at the cost of resilience if (and only if) your opponent brings blast weapons.
And if the meta tilts away from taking large units for this reason, then that reduces the requirement to bring blast weapons, which therefore reduces the likelihood of their appearance in opponent lists.
Blast rules are supposed to simulate the impact of weapons with large blast radiuses, and that these weapons are more deadly against multiple bodies close together. Presumably we all agree on this, right? I mean that's literally how a blast radius works.
But this implementation of blast actually does precisely the opposite: it punishes armies that spread out, while rewarding armies that clump together tightly.
Why? Because horde armies are fundamentally board control armies. They are played by spreading out and taking up space on the board. Nobody runs their hordes in tight clumps (besides noobs). The way these armies work is by spreading out across the battlefield. The major advantage of large units (and there are many disadvantages) is that you can spread out while still gaining access to psychic and aura buffs. This naturally leads to a dispersed playstyle where you are more able to string your models across wide areas of space.
Meanwhile, MSU armies are inherently incentivized by 40k's rules to cluster together, for all sorts of reasons (to benefit from auras, to avoid getting wrapped easily, to take advantage of their smaller size to hide behind terrain...we could go on and on here). You are much more likely to castle with an elite MSU army than with a horde.
And yet this blast mechanic penalizes the armies that play by spreading out across the table, and rewards the armies that play by clustering up close together in a tight ball.
So we have a mechanic that actually accomplishes precisely the opposite of what it is supposed to do.
This is the grot locking down the leman russ all over again.
Blast rules are supposed to simulate the impact of weapons with large blast radiuses, and that these weapons are more deadly against multiple bodies close together. Presumably we all agree on this, right? I mean that's literally how a blast radius works.
But this implementation of blast actually does precisely the opposite: it punishes armies that spread out, while rewarding armies that clump together tightly.
Why? Because horde armies are fundamentally board control armies. They are played by spreading out and taking up space on the board. Nobody runs their hordes in tight clumps (besides noobs). The way these armies work is by spreading out evenly across the battlefield.
Meanwhile, MSU armies are inherently incentivized by 40k's rules to cluster together, for all sorts of reasons (to benefit from auras, to avoid getting wrapped easily, to take advantage of their smaller size to hide behind terrain...we could go on and on here).
And yet this blast mechanic penalizes the armies that play by spreading out across the table, and rewards the armies that play be clustering up close together in a tight ball.
So we have a mechanic that actually accomplishes precisely the opposite of what it is supposed to do.
This is the grot locking down the leman russ all over again.
Oh yes, definitely. While 9th resolves a bit more of this problem than 8th did, it’s definitely more abstract in this implementation than the old Template rules were. Not any less immersive, per se, but definitely more abstract.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
Maybe it is. Again, subjective.
To be fair I originally got started in pen and paper RPGs in 1991. I have had a few years to practice my immersion.
I would also like to remind that with subjective takes that there is no "winning" the argument. Either you like something or don't. You don't like the new blast rules, more power to you. Others, however, might like it and more power to them.
This implementation of blast is, IMO, a pretty good compromise between 8th ed blast and pre-8th template blast. Yes, you can't target multiple units close together but if you allowed the person firing to pick which units he hits, you'd get non-immersive powergaming of where your explosion hits, and if you had to randomize it it'd take just as long to resolve as an old template did.
One of the things I'll genuinely be curious about is if they're going to add "splash" damage via the weapons themselves.
The Deathstrike Missile, for example, is currently:
200" Heavy 3D6 S* AP* D* It inflicts a mortal wound each time you hit the target unit. After you resolve the damage on the targeted unit, you roll a D6 for every other unit within 6" of the target unit--on a 4+ that unit also suffers D3 Mortal Wounds.
I could see that getting added on with variable damage scores to other weapons too.
I agree that large units and hordes don’t seem to be in a good place from the rules revealed so far. I’m hoping that there are some other things to come to balance this out. Not sure if there will be, if the comments I’ve read about from playtesters are true: smaller table and points increases are primarily to speed up the game. If speeding up the game is the goal, then hordes of infantry might be getting nerfed to encourage elites monsters and vehicles so that the model count drops and games play faster.
As for the new blast rule, I think it’s ok, not great. If it were me I’d have it as a fixed number of shots capped at a set maximum and never more than the number of models in the target unit. Blast(x) as has been discussed in other threads.
Regarding the max hits on a conga line large unit, I agree this isn’t very nice, I’d hope that the rules have changed so that conga lines aren’t particularly beneficial, I’d like to see aura rules completely reworked if not eliminated completely.
Personally I’d like to see larger units have a place. The sort of rules I’m hoping for to help encourage large units of light infantry are:
Morale is less effective against larger units
Cover saves benefit light armour more than heavy armour (basically going back to an unmodifiable cover save rather than a modifier to your existing armour)
Possibly a points discount for larger units AOS style
yukishiro1 wrote: It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
Maybe it is. Again, subjective.
To be fair I originally got started in pen and paper RPGs in 1991. I have had a few years to practice my immersion.
Please find a better metaphor.
But in point of fact, he already answered that even he doesn't think that is immersive.
Does anyone really think it's immersive that the new blast rule punishes spreading out and rewards clumping up? Maybe some of you do. But I kinda doubt it.
I agree that large units and hordes don’t seem to be in a good place from the rules revealed so far. I’m hoping that there are some other things to come to balance this out. Not sure if there will be, if the comments I’ve read about from playtesters are true: smaller table and points increases are primarily to speed up the game. If speeding up the game is the goal, then hordes of infantry might be getting nerfed to encourage elites monsters and vehicles so that the model count drops and games play faster.
Could be. It wasn't easy to field horde in competitive settings due to how slow they often played unless you were using movement trays that brought its own issues. Considering that GW appears to be focusing on the tourney aspect in many ways I do wonder if some of the design choices are reflecting that.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
Maybe it is. Again, subjective.
To be fair I originally got started in pen and paper RPGs in 1991. I have had a few years to practice my immersion.
And some people enjoy getting punched in the face and think it shows affection. But I don't think that means that we should change our laws to recognize being punched in the face as a good thing.
But in point of fact, he already answered that even he doesn't think that is immersive.
Does anyone really think it's immersive that the new blast rule punishes spreading out and rewards clumping up? Maybe some of you do. But I kinda doubt it.
That is perhaps the most stupid comparison I have seen. Are you seriously trying to compare liking the new rules to real life abuse?
yukishiro1 wrote: It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
Maybe it is. Again, subjective.
To be fair I originally got started in pen and paper RPGs in 1991. I have had a few years to practice my immersion.
And some people enjoy getting punched in the face and think it shows affection. But I don't think that means that we should change our laws to recognize being punched in the face as a good thing.
But in point of fact, he already answered that even he doesn't think that is immersive.
Does anyone really think it's immersive that the new blast rule punishes spreading out and rewards clumping up? Maybe some of you do. But I kinda doubt it.
Does the new blast rule punish spreading out and reward clumping up? I think it’s indifferent to positioning provided it has LOS and range.
It discourages large units and encourages small units, but that’s hardly the same thing.
That is perhaps the most stupid comparison I have seen. Are you seriously trying to compare liking the new rules to real life abuse?
No. Why on earth would you interpret it that way? The point was that something is subjective is neither here nor there when nobody actually holds those views.
Again: Does anyone really think it's immersive that the new blast rule punishes spreading out and rewards clumping up? Maybe some of you do. But I kinda doubt it.
If you don't want to answer that's fine. But if people can't even answer questions honestly about what they do or do subjectively like, I don't see how we can have any discussions subjective opinions.
Eldarsif wrote: Considering that GW appears to be focusing on the tourney aspect in many ways I do wonder if some of the design choices are reflecting that.
I think a lot of the design choices are with tournaments in mind, especially speeding up the gameplay in a tournament setting. GW wants control of the tournament scene again. Many tournament players complained about ork horde armies eating up the limited time, sometimes necessitating chess clocks. Let's then reduce the size of armies by increasing points (which is actually the best proposed change IMO), shortening the table size to decrease required movement time (and increase sales of GW-sized boards), and disincentivizing taking a horde army in the first place (because there is more money to be made in tank/vehicle/elite sales?).
yukishiro1 wrote: It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
Maybe it is. Again, subjective.
To be fair I originally got started in pen and paper RPGs in 1991. I have had a few years to practice my immersion.
And some people enjoy getting punched in the face and think it shows affection. But I don't think that means that we should change our laws to recognize being punched in the face as a good thing.
But in point of fact, he already answered that even he doesn't think that is immersive.
Does anyone really think it's immersive that the new blast rule punishes spreading out and rewards clumping up? Maybe some of you do. But I kinda doubt it.
I am really failing to understand the logic you're using to make that claim, so...can't really answer the question as you posed it.
Why does my 30 ork boyz being in 3 units of 10 instead of 1 unit of 30 mean that they're necessarily more clumped up? If anything, they have the potential to be farther apart, since now they can secure more objectives and don't all have to be in coherency with one another. But I'd be more inclined to consider the composition as mostly neutral to how close together the models are going to be placed on the board.
Does the new blast rule punish spreading out and reward clumping up? I think it’s indifferent to positioning provided it has LOS and range.
It discourages large units and encourages small units, but that’s hardly the same thing.
But the effect of that is to punish spreading out, and reward castling up. Read my previous post. Horde armies essentially always play by spreading out and occupying space. MSU armies typically play by casting up around key auras and characters. That's just the way it works in 40k. There are a few exceptions to this general rule, but there is no doubt that if you nerf big units, what you are doing overall is nerfing spreading out, and encouraging castling up.
Does the new blast rule punish spreading out and reward clumping up? I think it’s indifferent to positioning provided it has LOS and range.
It discourages large units and encourages small units, but that’s hardly the same thing.
But the effect of that is to punish spreading out, and reward castling up. Read my previous post. Horde armies essentially always play by spreading out and occupying space. MSU armies typically play by casting up around key auras and characters. That's just the way it works in 40k. There are a few exceptions to this general rule, but there is no doubt that if you nerf big units, what you are doing overall is nerfing spreading out, and encouraging castling up.
I think I'll need a source on that one. The MSU builds and units I play very often take the minimum sized unit to allow them to be disposable, because I'm going to be using them to punch above their weight class so I don't care if they die. Charging minimum troop squads in to steal an objective with obsec, blocking the movement of a much more expensive unit with a min-size unit, stopping a more expensive unit from firing by tying them up in combat, preventing an expensive unit from deep striking by creating a denial zone, or stringing out to prevent a more expensive melee unit from getting to my good stuff behind the screen.
You're taking a specific example of a build in your head, like a tau gunline, and extrapolating to every build that uses small cheap units. Venomspam is an undeniably MSU build, and basically uses not a single aura at all.
Auras need to go to "one unit wholly within" to make castling less appealing.
I wonder what inadvertent effects changing the general definition of "within" in the rules to "all models in a unit within" would have? Particularly if we know they've codified the first one I can think of - close combat - to have its own uniquely named Engagement Range rule.
I am really failing to understand the logic you're using to make that claim, so...can't really answer the question as you posed it.
Why does my 30 ork boyz being in 3 units of 10 instead of 1 unit of 30 mean that they're necessarily more clumped up? If anything, they have the potential to be farther apart, since now they can secure more objectives and don't all have to be in coherency with one another. But I'd be more inclined to consider the composition as mostly neutral to how close together the models are going to be placed on the board.
But that's not how 40k is actually played. Nobody runs 10 man ork boyz units because they're junk for all sorts of reasons we don't need to into here unless you want to, but if they did, they'd have to be clumped up more closely together in order to get the same aura benefits and range to buffing psykers as the 30 man gets from conga-lining a far smaller number of models. This is just how the mechanics of the game work. You need to conga 3x as many models in 3 10 man units to get the same buffs as if you conga a 30 man unit. It's just geometry.
Smaller unit sizes result in greater model clumping. This is just how competitive 40k works on a mechanical level. Watch a couple competitive games. It is almost guaranteed that the larger the unit sizes, the less clumping you'll see. It is one of the strongest correlations in 40k. Small units usually cluster; big units usually spread out.
punisher357 wrote: Not sure if anyone pointed this out here, but someonein another thread did.
"if the DICE ROLLED RESULTS IN LESS THAN 3 SHOTS BEING MADE"
roll 3d3
Roll a 1, a 2, and a 2
Results in 5 shots being made
No adjustment vs 6+ models.
was already pointed out, if the rules are like they are written in the preview, 3D6 Blast won't have a penefit against 6-10 model units as 3 is the lowest possible result
Auras need to go to "one unit wholly within" to make castling less appealing.
I wonder what inadvertent effects changing the general definition of "within" in the rules to "all models in a unit within" would have? Particularly if we know they've codified the first one I can think of - close combat - to have its own uniquely named Engagement Range rule.
I think it would be a change for the better. Fewer castles, more strategic choices as to which unit(s) to include in the aura bubble, likely a decrease in the points cost for currently costly HQ units that provide auras. I'm all for such a change across all armies with aura-providing units.
Auras need to go to "one unit wholly within" to make castling less appealing.
That would make clumping up more appealing, not less appealing. The major advantage of the current system is it allows units to spread out across the battlefield while still getting buffs. Changing auras to "wholly within" encourages units to clump up very close together.
It would certainly nerf auras at the same time you were encouraging clumping. But encourage clumping it would.
Auras need to go to "one unit wholly within" to make castling less appealing.
That would make clumping up more appealing, not less appealing. The major advantage of the current system is it allows units to spread out across the battlefield while still getting buffs. Changing auras to "wholly within" encourages units to clump up very close together.
It would certainly nerf auras at the same time you were encouraging clumping. But encourage clumping it would.
You missed the "one unit" part meaning power pairs, not castles, would be the end result.
I am really failing to understand the logic you're using to make that claim, so...can't really answer the question as you posed it.
Why does my 30 ork boyz being in 3 units of 10 instead of 1 unit of 30 mean that they're necessarily more clumped up? If anything, they have the potential to be farther apart, since now they can secure more objectives and don't all have to be in coherency with one another. But I'd be more inclined to consider the composition as mostly neutral to how close together the models are going to be placed on the board.
But that's not how 40k is actually played. Nobody runs 10 man ork boyz units because they're junk for all sorts of reasons we don't need to into here unless you want to, but if they did, they'd have to be clumped up more closely together in order to get the same aura benefits and range to buffing psykers as the 30 man gets from conga-lining a far smaller number of models. This is just how the mechanics of the game work. You need to conga 3x as many models in 3 10 man units to get the same buffs as if you conga a 30 man unit. It's just geometry.
Smaller unit sizes result in greater model clumping. This is just how competitive 40k works on a mechanical level. Watch a couple competitive games. It is almost guaranteed that the larger the unit sizes, the less clumping you'll see. It is one of the strongest correlations in 40k. Small units usually cluster; big units usually spread out.
Care to field the example of venomspam, then? Current and pretty much always the best build DE seem to have, always MSU, never clumped/castling?
Or are you just interested in engaging that strawman? Because I can leave you to it, man, you seem to be having fun.
Auras need to go to "one unit wholly within" to make castling less appealing.
I wonder what inadvertent effects changing the general definition of "within" in the rules to "all models in a unit within" would have? Particularly if we know they've codified the first one I can think of - close combat - to have its own uniquely named Engagement Range rule.
I think it would be a change for the better. Fewer castles, more strategic choices as to which unit(s) to include in the aura bubble, likely a decrease in the points cost for currently costly HQ units that provide auras. I'm all for such a change across all armies with aura-providing units.
Yeah, I'm mostly thinking what things would be impacted negatively. The things I can come up with that would be most common are:
1) can't declare a charge unless all models within 12"
2) some aura abilities like the painboy are very short with the idea that they can't be used on a big bunch of units all at once
3) targeting with offensive abilities that target units would need to have all enemy models within range, like psychic powers.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?
Maybe it is. Again, subjective.
To be fair I originally got started in pen and paper RPGs in 1991. I have had a few years to practice my immersion.
Please find a better metaphor.
But in point of fact, he already answered that even he doesn't think that is immersive.
Does anyone really think it's immersive that the new blast rule punishes spreading out and rewards clumping up? Maybe some of you do. But I kinda doubt it.
It's completely agnostic to how you arrange the models. It doesn't punish spreading out or reward clumping up at all.
Now, you're free to not like this particular move from interacting with models to interacting with units, but at the scale 40k is currently played at I'd much rather continue down that road a bit more. This hasn't been a skirmish game in decades and what worked with two tac squads and a captain vs. forty orks and a warboss is just too fiddly for the new normal (not that I'd be opposed to moving to Apoc at 2k sized games and leave 40k as the 750-1500pt version while adding a bit more crunch back).
A lot of your complaints seem to be coming from conflating a potentially useful game mechanic with the potential balance implications of its implementation in specific instances that we don't even know all the information for. Would this Blast be bad for balance in the current 8th edition meta without any other point adjustments or other rule changes being implemented? Obviously. But suddenly deciding that the assault rule is too good and doubling (or adding 5pts, whichever is more) the cost of all such weapons because "so fast, guys" would be equally stupid. Bad implementation doesn't make a mechanic bad.
You're taking a specific example of a build in your head, like a tau gunline, and extrapolating to every build that uses small cheap units. Venomspam is an undeniably MSU build, and basically uses not a single aura at all.
No, I'm generalizing across the whole game. You're the one who has taken a specific build here to try to refute a general observation.
There are obviously exceptions to every rule. But the general correlation between larger unit sizes resulting in greater spread is not only real, it is one of the strongest correlations in 40k. Not every MSU army clumps up, but most do. Meanwhile, there are *no* horde armies that clump up. You can find a few army lists that take a single large unit that clumps up to some degree - possessed bomb, for example, or the guardian bomb - but they are both rare and not actually horde armies. And these particular armies are ones that are least impacted by the blast rules, because they have ways to make it impossible to shoot them before they've delivered their payload (guardian blob via deep strike) or very difficult (possessed using the various ways to limit targeting to the closest visible unit).
P.S. I don't think you know what a straw man is. I was directly responding to your argument re: boyz units. That's not a straw man, it's a direct engagement with your argument. If what you were trying to say is that my premise that large units spread out and small units clump up is wrong, that's not a straw man, it's an (allegedly) invalid premise. A straw man is a fake argument you attribute to someone else, not a false argument you make yourself.
I am really failing to understand the logic you're using to make that claim, so...can't really answer the question as you posed it.
Why does my 30 ork boyz being in 3 units of 10 instead of 1 unit of 30 mean that they're necessarily more clumped up? If anything, they have the potential to be farther apart, since now they can secure more objectives and don't all have to be in coherency with one another. But I'd be more inclined to consider the composition as mostly neutral to how close together the models are going to be placed on the board.
But that's not how 40k is actually played. Nobody runs 10 man ork boyz units because they're junk for all sorts of reasons we don't need to into here unless you want to, but if they did, they'd have to be clumped up more closely together in order to get the same aura benefits and range to buffing psykers as the 30 man gets from conga-lining a far smaller number of models. This is just how the mechanics of the game work. You need to conga 3x as many models in 3 10 man units to get the same buffs as if you conga a 30 man unit. It's just geometry.
Smaller unit sizes result in greater model clumping. This is just how competitive 40k works on a mechanical level. Watch a couple competitive games. It is almost guaranteed that the larger the unit sizes, the less clumping you'll see. It is one of the strongest correlations in 40k. Small units usually cluster; big units usually spread out.
Care to field the example of venomspam, then? Current and pretty much always the best build DE seem to have, always MSU, never clumped/castling?
Or are you just interested in engaging that strawman? Because I can leave you to it, man, you seem to be having fun.
Auras need to go to "one unit wholly within" to make castling less appealing.
I wonder what inadvertent effects changing the general definition of "within" in the rules to "all models in a unit within" would have? Particularly if we know they've codified the first one I can think of - close combat - to have its own uniquely named Engagement Range rule.
I think it would be a change for the better. Fewer castles, more strategic choices as to which unit(s) to include in the aura bubble, likely a decrease in the points cost for currently costly HQ units that provide auras. I'm all for such a change across all armies with aura-providing units.
Yeah, I'm mostly thinking what things would be impacted negatively. The things I can come up with that would be most common are:
1) can't declare a charge unless all models within 12"
2) some aura abilities like the painboy are very short with the idea that they can't be used on a big bunch of units all at once
3) targeting with offensive abilities that target units would need to have all enemy models within range, like psychic powers.
Actually, some auras may be impossible to actually implement with normal-sized squads. Example: A Cryptek's 3" aura and a 10+ squad of Necron Warriors.
You're taking a specific example of a build in your head, like a tau gunline, and extrapolating to every build that uses small cheap units. Venomspam is an undeniably MSU build, and basically uses not a single aura at all.
No, I'm generalizing across the whole game. You're the one who has taken a specific build here to try to refute a general observation.
There are obviously exceptions to every rule. But the general correlation between larger unit sizes resulting in greater spread is not only real, it is one of the strongest correlations in 40k. Not every MSU army clumps up, but most do. Meanwhile, there are *no* horde armies that clump up. You can find a few army lists that take a single large unit that clumps up to some degree - possessed bomb, for example, or the guardian bomb - but they are both rare and not actually horde armies. And these particular armies are ones that are least impacted by the blast rules, because they have ways to make it impossible to shoot them before they've delivered their payload (guardian blob via deep strike) or very difficult (possessed using the various ways to limit targeting to the closest visible unit).
P.S. I don't think you know what a straw man is. I was directly responding to your argument re: boyz units. That's not a straw man, it's a direct engagement with your argument. If what you were trying to say is that my premise that large units spread out and small units clump up is wrong, that's not a straw man, it's an (allegedly) invalid premise. A straw man is a fake argument you attribute to someone else, not a false argument you make yourself.
Most of the games I’ve played against orks they have large mobs clumped up, either to get force field protection or to benefit from da jump. In my experience your claim isn’t the case the majority of the time.
As for conga lines, I’d like to see the rules adjusted to discourage them.
ClockworkZion wrote: When AoS went "wholly within" most of the auras got bigger to compensate.
Yes, but none of them got enough bigger that the change didn't result in greater clumping, not less clumping.
Changing auras to be wholly within might or might not be good for the game. But it would increase unit density in the aura radius, not decrease it.
Just like the blast rules will result in more clumping, the exact opposite of what the rule is supposed to simulate.
Is the rule supposed to simulate less clumping? I thought it was supposed to introduce a difference between weapons that are effective against hordes versus weapons that are good against elites/vehicles/monsters because in 8th weight of fire is good against everything.
Honestly I don't get the clumping thing anyways. Blast templates where the only thing forcing people to spread out before and units are easier to tuck into cover when they move as tight groups.
You're taking a specific example of a build in your head, like a tau gunline, and extrapolating to every build that uses small cheap units. Venomspam is an undeniably MSU build, and basically uses not a single aura at all.
No, I'm generalizing across the whole game. You're the one who has taken a specific build here to try to refute a general observation.
There are obviously exceptions to every rule. But the general correlation between larger unit sizes resulting in greater spread is not only real, it is one of the strongest correlations in 40k. Not every MSU army clumps up, but most do. Meanwhile, there are *no* horde armies that clump up. You can find a few army lists that take a single large unit that clumps up to some degree - possessed bomb, for example, or the guardian bomb - but they are both rare and not actually horde armies. And these particular armies are ones that are least impacted by the blast rules, because they have ways to make it impossible to shoot them before they've delivered their payload (guardian blob via deep strike) or very difficult (possessed using the various ways to limit targeting to the closest visible unit).
P.S. I don't think you know what a straw man is. I was directly responding to your argument re: boyz units. That's not a straw man, it's a direct engagement with your argument. If what you were trying to say is that my premise that large units spread out and small units clump up is wrong, that's not a straw man, it's an (allegedly) invalid premise. A straw man is a fake argument you attribute to someone else, not a false argument you make yourself.
Most of the games I’ve played against orks they have large mobs clumped up, either to get force field protection or to be if it from da jump. In my experience your claim isn’t the case the majority of the time.
As for conga lines, I’d like to see the rules adjusted to discourage them.
I'm not trying to be elitist here at all, but do you play competitively? Because I'm really not making a controversial statement here re: horde armies spreading out. This is simply the way competitive 40k is played. Ask anybody.
Clumping T1 is occasionally something you see in ork lists T1 when not going first if they have a KFF to try to mitigate the alpha strike, but as soon as the game starts, those units will immediately move forward out of the aura radius and start taking up space. Nobody tries to move their 90 ork boyz up the field in base to base contact trying to maintain a KFF bubble. In fact, you're more likely to see clumping around a KFF with smaller units than with larger ones.
I mean, all horde units are clumped up in deployment, because there physically is not enough space in the deployment zone on a lot of maps not to clump up if you have 200 models to deploy. But this ends as soon as the game starts and the army starts to move out. It's not clumped because it wants to be clumped, it's clumped because it has no choice but to clump.
D2 weapons punish me for taking primaris
Melta Weapons punish me for taking vehicles
Multi-shot weapons punish light infantry
High strength weapons cancel out the points I spend on toughness
Mortal Wounds punish me for taking higher armor saves
It’s almost like things are good against specific things and the rules reflect that. I think the max number of shots is a bit much for multiple D6 weapons, however I expect lots of things to adjust in points or profiles to reflect the change.
Leth wrote: D2 weapons punish me for taking primaris
Melta Weapons punish me for taking vehicles
Multi-shot weapons punish light infantry
High strength weapons cancel out the points I spend on toughness
Mortal Wounds punish me for taking higher armor saves
It’s almost like hints are good against specific things and the rules reflect that.
Also, as was stated above, it’s a total regardless of D6, not a max of every die. So the people that are panicking are mis-interpreters of the rules. Suprise suprise.
Good point. The rules do play a lot of rock-paper-scissors-Spock-lizard.
ClockworkZion wrote: When AoS went "wholly within" most of the auras got bigger to compensate.
Yes, but none of them got enough bigger that the change didn't result in greater clumping, not less clumping.
Changing auras to be wholly within might or might not be good for the game. But it would increase unit density in the aura radius, not decrease it.
Just like the blast rules will result in more clumping, the exact opposite of what the rule is supposed to simulate.
Is the rule supposed to simulate less clumping? I thought it was supposed to introduce a difference between weapons that are effective against hordes versus weapons that are good against elites/vehicles/monsters because in 8th weight of fire is good against everything.
It's literally called "blast." The whole idea is that these weapons have blast radii and that makes them good at blowing up large numbers of bodies packed together.
The implementation is completely opposite, but that's the idea behind the concept. It's not a coincidence that we used to have blast templates. That wasn't just a random choice.
I mean if you want to say that fluff/immersion behind the rule is completely opposite to what the rule is trying to accomplish, and that that is intentional, that's fine, that's an argument you can make. But it doesn't seem to be the argument most people here want to make.
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't see how any of that addresses how it makes the game better either.
"We don't know the full rules" isn't an argument for the benefit of this change, it's an argument that we don't know what the full effect will be.
Assume all the changes are very worked out to be totally "balanced" in terms of point values. How does it improve the game to add this feature? What is the gameplay benefit of punishing people significantly for taking 11 models instead of 10?
"We don't know the full rules" is more a plea for cooler heads until we know enough to definitively state that things are indeed actually broken.
Also it's an attempt to make certain unloved units more playable. Like the humble Basalisk.
Why would you choose one of the most played, consistent tanks in the guard army for your example?
Solid rules should never require other rules to bail them out. This is another example where a sloppy solution took me literally 2 minutes to find a problem with. So no, the bigger picture isn't needed. From their own mouth GW stated some 100+ (117 or 170 hard to tell from that guy) existing weapons are being classed as blasts, and you have to be a pretty disingenuous if you seriously suggest that it is somehow difficult to determine 90% of those. We know from their own promo video that at the very least the knights rapid fire BC is blast. That's 3 hits on a 10 man unit, but suddenly 12 on an 11 man unit (Jesus Christ Timmy I told you to stay home). I don't care how terrain interacts with that, it shouldn't be a crutch for a lazy rule with horrible design. The rule was arbitrary enough when I thought it was per die rolled, but immediately became a joke when you realize it's based on the entire lot. Then it also breaks down when realizing d3 hit weapons.
As someone else pointed out, if a death guard player takes 7 plague marines he is suddenly and arbitrarily punished. This not only breaks immersion, it dis-incentivizes fluffy narrative sized units from being taken.
Meanwhile D3 shot weapons gain WAY more by comparison gaining max output verse anything over 5 models. As if there was any more reason why an admech player should take neutron lasers over eradication beamers. Go ahead, tell me to wait and see if neutron lasers are actually blast, as if them not suddenly makes a garbage rule good.
As an aside, before the complainer complainers arrive and pounce on me, I am actually liking the majority of what I am seeing. Just because GW successfully babysits 3 of my kids, doesn't get them off the hook for knocking the 4th into a well.
Leth wrote: D2 weapons punish me for taking primaris
Melta Weapons punish me for taking vehicles
Multi-shot weapons punish light infantry
High strength weapons cancel out the points I spend on toughness
Mortal Wounds punish me for taking higher armor saves
It’s almost like hints are good against specific things and the rules reflect that. I think the max number of shots is a bit much, however I expect lots of things to adjust in points or profiles to reflect the change.
So why do we need a weapon type to punish squads of 11 men? Do you think there was a gap in the rules previously for weapons that were good at shooting 11 men? I mean you even gave an example of multi-shot weapons already punishing light infantry. Why do we need a special weapon type to punish light infantry in 11+ man squads? What does this add to the game? All those other things add something to the game. What does this add?
I'm not saying there's no possible reason. I'm just asking what this particular reason is. We already have a lot of different weapon profiles that punish different types of targets. Why is the amount of models in a unit a good candidate to punish, and why is it the larger units that should be punished if so?
I dunno why it needs so many pages of arguing. We had weapons designed to take out high numbers of models that weren't really working because they were too random, now they might do while not auto deleting smaller units.
This being immersive or improving gameplay has barely any relevance, it's just about improving the function of some weapons.
I mentioned the Basalisk because it's one of the tanks I have seen shunned by a number of people talking about the Guard codex. Pick a different tank and the point still stands: most tanks that used to have blast weapons are largely sidelined in 8th over tanks with fixed numbers of shots.
Eldarsif wrote: I am going to wait with a verdict on whether it is bad or not when I can actually get a game in using the entire ruleset and new points.
I think it is no coincidence we'll be getting some terrain previews tomorrow. Could very well be that terrain and cover has changed so drastically that tank and blast weapons are just balancing that mechanic out.
Either way, I am excited for all of this.
It's beyond reason to me that GW didn't lead with new terrain rules when it was easily the single greatest short coming of 8th and arguably has the most responsibility of holding 9th on it's shoulders.
Whoever is responsible for generating PR in GW, if there is one, should seriously be evaluated.
