They have to pick a size to set the rules at and most units cap at 10, or like 30. It seems like a reasonable break point for me.
No one is going to take 11 man units so I don’t know why you are focusing on that as if it matters?
Larger units can spread out more with aura abilities, smaller units have a harder time. We don’t know how a bunch of other rules interact in the game goin forward, there might be additional benefits to taking larger units such as more kill point focused missions. We already know larger units benefit more from stratagems, and we will get to use a good number more of them going forward.
dhallnet wrote: 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.
Because if we don't have a daily freak out over previews an angel won't get their wings.
More seriously the community is largely reacting as GW likely intends and is stirring the pot and stoking the boiler for the hype train with what is ultimately a very small amount of incomplete rules from which we're trying to paint whole pictures from.
ClockworkZion wrote: 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.
But it doesn't help basilisks. Nobody's going to fire a basilisk at an 11 man boyz just to get an average 2.5 more shots from the S9 -3AP D3 damage cannon. That'd be mental. You don't take basilisks to kill 11+ man units, and you won't after the blast change either.
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.
Nah. Keeping us worked up generates more publicity.
yukishiro1 wrote: But it doesn't help basilisks. Nobody's going to fire a basilisk at an 11 man boyz just to get an average 2.5 more shots from the S9 -3AP D3 damage cannon. That'd be mental.
I was using it as a way to discuss the weapon type and not actual tactics.
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?
Which is another terrible immersion breaking rule, which is why I say in response to wait and see: One terrible rule shouldn't be rescued by a second terrible rule. It leads to "The Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly" scenario.
Fine, so instead make rules stepwise increasing buff at 6+, 8+, 11+, 15+? And we all go around making regrssion analysis on hand held calculators or memorize pages of hit tables?
having a cut off *somewhere* isn't bad in itself. its just a lesser evil.
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.
But part of the pickle GW is in is their own fault considering they bragged about blasts finally getting more hits verse those exact things when 8th was released. So which way is cool according to them. I am not saying they can never change their opinion, but the wind surfing between editions is certainly a condition they suffer from historically. Just look at the heavy weapons and infantry from the other day. Suddenly, dead eyed cool as a cucumber Bob has a hit penalty because Timmy in the bunker corner suffers from wrestles leg syndrome.
Leth wrote: So what should the size be then? 13? 15? 17 1/2?
They have to pick a size to set the rules at and most units cap at 10, or like 30. It seems like a reasonable break point for me.
No one is going to take 11 man units so I don’t know why you are focusing on that as if it matters?
Larger units can spread out more with aura abilities, smaller units have a harder time. We don’t know how a bunch of other rules interact in the game goin forward, there might be additional benefits to taking larger units such as more kill point focused missions. We already know larger units benefit more from stratagems, and we will get to use a good number more of them going forward.
The point with the 11 man is that it punishes certain choices arbitrarily. But that's not the main point; that would be fine if there was any actual gain from the rule. The main point is why we think it will help the game to have a weapon type that is good at killing big squads. What's the value added from that?
We all know what the value added from old blast templates were. They punished clumping. That was obvious. It made a lot of sense. They took it away not because punishing clumping wasn't a good game mechanic, but because it was too clunky to administer.
It is not at all obvious what gameplay objective is furthered by punishing large units. As you yourself noted, this in effect punishes spreading out, and rewards clumping: the exact opposite of what the original blast rule set out to do. That doesn't mean it's bad, but it does make it very odd that they seem to be using a rule that used to punish clumping - and the fluff of which is very much about punishing clumping - to now reward it.
yukishiro1 wrote: But it doesn't help basilisks. Nobody's going to fire a basilisk at an 11 man boyz just to get an average 2.5 more shots from the S9 -3AP D3 damage cannon. That'd be mental.
I was using it as a way to discuss the weapon type and not actual tactics.
If I said Whirlwinds instead would you be happy?
Whirlwinds didn't need help, though. The only reason people didn't take them is because thunderfires are even better at doing the same thing, which won't change, unless you think whirlwinds will get the rule but thunderfires will not.
So we have a mechanic that doesn't help units that need it, and does help units that don't need it, while punishing units that don't need to be punished, while doing the opposite of what the fluff reason for it to exist is, for a gain nobody has actually been able to articulate.
This is what we normally call a bad rule.
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torblind wrote: Fine, so instead make rules stepwise increasing buff at 6+, 8+, 11+, 15+? And we all go around making regrssion analysis on hand held calculators or memorize pages of hit tables?
having a cut off *somewhere* isn't bad in itself. its just a lesser evil.
Well no, I'd argue that this hows why keying the amount of shots you get against the amount of models in the unit is just not a good mechanic in the first place. Why is this a good mechanic? I still haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's good specifically to increase the amount of shots a gun gets based on the number of models in the unit being shot.
Arbitrary results are fine if you get something greater from the rule than you lose due to the arbitrary nature. The problem here isn't that 11+ is an arbitrary cutoff, it's that there's no real gain from the rule in the first place to overcome the loss caused by the arbitrary cutoff.
Leth wrote: So what should the size be then? 13? 15? 17 1/2?
They have to pick a size to set the rules at and most units cap at 10, or like 30. It seems like a reasonable break point for me.
Going to be honest, no. The "rolls of 3" bit should have started at 11 or more, and then the "full" bonus at 20 or more.
6-12 people doesn't feel "hordey" to me. Unless we're going to see "Combat Squads" rolling out to every army.
Larger units can spread out more with aura abilities, smaller units have a harder time. We don’t know how a bunch of other rules interact in the game goin forward, there might be additional benefits to taking larger units such as more kill point focused missions. We already know larger units benefit more from stratagems, and we will get to use a good number more of them going forward.
We know that they're starting to bring in "Wholly Within" verbage, which makes a huge difference for smaller units vs larger units.
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ClockworkZion wrote: 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.
Basilisks weren't really "shunned", they just ended up having a super specific build. For some stupid reason, Catachans were amazing with artillery.
I am picturing Red Corsair leaving his 4 kids in a GW store and telling to take good care of them, and saying “don’t feth that up like your rules for 9th edition !!”.
The you see three GW employees feeding each one of Red Corsair’s kids, and a fourth... I don’t want to see this...
We know that they're starting to bring in "Wholly Within" verbage, which makes a huge difference for smaller units vs larger units.
Wholly within would just punish large units even more, though. Which again raises the question of why we need a particular kind of gun that gets more shots the more models are in the unit being shot (but not the more models that are in a given area).
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.
He's more on about spreading a singular unit of 30 out across a wide distance, still getting carpet bombed down a 40" conga line, but having 3 10 men units, interlaced, holding hands and generally touching bases has only the 1 unit of 10 get effected by the same blast even though in the previous example all 30 models could die. You could have a single model wrapped entirely by another unit, and only that one model would take the hits.
Which I agree is dumb and immersion breaking, Id prefer templates than this. It goes from 1 extreme to another, min 3 for 6-10 to suddenly max shots as soon as Jeff joins the gang making it 11. Having something that scales with intervales would of been better instead of from this. Maybe stages of 5 models etc.
yukishiro1 wrote: Wholly within would just punish large units even more, though.
Never said it didn't? Said it made a big difference for smaller units vs larger units.
If the 'big' auras such as reroll all hits/wounds end up as "Wholly Within" going forward? That makes a difference compared to the "I touched one guy!" bit we have now in some instances.
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.
Don't worry I'm sure when Troop sales drop off corporate will be asking why and 10th will be all hordes, all the time to compensate.
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.
yukishiro1 wrote: Wholly within would just punish large units even more, though.
Never said it didn't? Said it made a big difference for smaller units vs larger units.
If the 'big' auras such as reroll all hits/wounds end up as "Wholly Within" going forward? That makes a difference compared to the "I touched one guy!" bit we have now in some instances.
Definitely. Hence why if they are moving in that direction it's even more puzzling why they're focused on bringing more ways to make it easier to shoot large units off the table.
Does anyone in this entire thread think one of 8th's problems was that it was too difficult to shoot blobs of infantry off the table? Maybe these people exist, but I really doubt it.
This really seems like a change that serves no gameplay purpose, just because someone thought it would be "cool."
dhallnet wrote: 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.
Problem is GW throwing balance out of the window in order to sell more models. Sold enough horde models, now time to push elites. Helped by playtesters who have had years agenda of helping elite gunlines making house rules for that effect.
GW isn't even being subtle in their desire to have people buy elite armies and units to replace horde ones. And edition or two they will reverse it once elite sales have saturated market.
The majority of the whining centered around the start of 8th was "it was too difficult to shoot blobs of infantry off the table", so yeah apparently it was an issue.
Well no, I'd argue that this hows why keying the amount of shots you get against the amount of models in the unit is just not a good mechanic in the first place. Why is this a good mechanic? I still haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's good specifically to increase the amount of shots a gun gets based on the number of models in the unit being shot.
Because with how the game works high rate of fire weapons hurts small elite squads (quantity over quality) just as much if not more and the numbers of shots is the only thing they can tweak since templates are out of the equation.
It kinda makes sense then to tweak the number of shots on the number of bodies in the targeted squad.
dhallnet wrote: 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.
Problem is GW throwing balance out of the window in order to sell more models. Sold enough horde models, now time to push elites. Helped by playtesters who have had years agenda of helping elite gunlines making house rules for that effect.
GW isn't even being subtle in their desire to have people buy elite armies and units to replace horde ones. And edition or two they will reverse it once elite sales have saturated market.
Sure and GW is directed by a bunch of lizardmen.
Or maybe most elite were (arguably are) not so great.
Well no, I'd argue that this hows why keying the amount of shots you get against the amount of models in the unit is just not a good mechanic in the first place. Why is this a good mechanic? I still haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's good specifically to increase the amount of shots a gun gets based on the number of models in the unit being shot.
Because with how the game works high rate of fire weapons hurts small elite squads (quantity over quality) just as much if not more and the numbers of shots is the only thing they can tweak since templates are out of the equation.
It kinda makes sense then to tweak the number of shots on the number of bodies in the targeted squad.
Finally! A real argument! Thank you - not being sarcastic here. Genuinely, thank you: you're the first person in the thread to directly address the basic question. And you're correct: Flechette blasters, for example, are almost exactly as good at killing grots as they are at killing intercessors; you kill almost to the point the same value of each model with a volley of 50 shots. This is indeed a basic limitation of the game engine. You basically can't make high volume shots that are only good at killing chaff.
The trouble is...this rule does nothing to address that. It only impacts variable shot weapons. High volume of fire weapons are typically not variable. The flechette blaster is 5 shots, not 1d6 shots. Bolter fire is not variable. Hurricaine bolters are fixed shots. Etc etc.
So we have identified a reason that some guns might want to shoot more shots based on the number of models in the unit being shot - not because it makes sense, but because of the basic limitations of the way the game's math works.
But the rule isn't being applied to these weapons; it's being applied to weapons that don't have the characteristics we have identified as maybe being a good candidate for this rule.
So maybe the idea behind this would be good, but not for blast weapons.
Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.
The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.
The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.
Well no, I'd argue that this hows why keying the amount of shots you get against the amount of models in the unit is just not a good mechanic in the first place. Why is this a good mechanic? I still haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's good specifically to increase the amount of shots a gun gets based on the number of models in the unit being shot.
Because with how the game works high rate of fire weapons hurts small elite squads (quantity over quality) just as much if not more and the numbers of shots is the only thing they can tweak since templates are out of the equation.
It kinda makes sense then to tweak the number of shots on the number of bodies in the targeted squad.
Finally! A real argument! Thank you - not being sarcastic here. Genuinely, thank you: you're the first person in the thread to directly address the basic question. And you're correct: Flechette blasters, for example, are almost exactly as good at killing grots as they are at killing intercessors; you kill almost to the point the same value of each model with a volley of 50 shots. This is indeed a basic limitation of the game engine. You basically can't make high volume shots that are only good at killing chaff.
The trouble is...this rule does nothing to address that. It only impacts variable shot weapons. High volume of fire weapons are typically not variable. The flechette blaster is 5 shots, not 2d3 shots. Bolter fire is not variable. Hurricaine bolters are fixed shots. Etc etc.
So we have identified a reason that some guns might want to shoot more shots based on the number of models in the unit being shot - not because it makes sense, but because of the basic limitations of the way the game's math works - but they are not the guns being impacted by this change.
I would argue that the weapons with a fixed high number of shots were designed from the start to have this versatility of either aiming at hordes or elite. Random ROF was imo their attempt at making "balanced" weapons designed to deal with hordes (it won't be the first, nor the last, time that GW hopes the rng gods balance part of the game for them) without completely screwing elites. They are fixing that right now and maybe, if it's needed, they'll fix these other weapons in 10th ed
Leth wrote: So what should the size be then? 13? 15? 17 1/2?
They have to pick a size to set the rules at and most units cap at 10, or like 30. It seems like a reasonable break point for me.
No one is going to take 11 man units so I don’t know why you are focusing on that as if it matters?
Larger units can spread out more with aura abilities, smaller units have a harder time. We don’t know how a bunch of other rules interact in the game goin forward, there might be additional benefits to taking larger units such as more kill point focused missions. We already know larger units benefit more from stratagems, and we will get to use a good number more of them going forward.
Here me out...
You could not tie it to unit size at all...
It's not that difficult if you want to simulate a template while removing arguing.
Blast, pick a model in range and line of site to the firer and roll to hit. If successfully hit, the unit suffers a number of hits equal to the initial model hit and all other models in that unit within X" of that model. Any other hits from models from other units within X" are allocated to those units, not the original target. Measure from the center of the target models base.
That even leaves it open to massive amounts of granularity for blast size.
It also punishes clumping without tying it to unit size.
I am sure theres holes in that too, as I am spitballing, but it wouldn't be hard top tweak.
Or we could just return to blast templates, and start by remove the scatter die if that somehow is causing arguing.
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.
Maybe because there is nothing THEY feel THEY need to criticize. I've watched every video they've posted, they have criticized things GW have done in the past and GW keeps giving them stuff to preview so obviously GW doesn't care if they criticize their products or not. If GW got upset by them not kissing their ass they wouldn't keep giving the TT tactics guys stuff to play with.
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.
This is a great point and something I had not thought of before. It could mitigate some of the anti-horde tidbits we're seeing.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.
The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.
The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.
True, and we've been on this roller coaster for a long time. Remember the transition from 3rd to 4th to 5th? Strong melee from transports in 3rd, to reducing the effectiveness of melee and transports/vehicles in 4th (excluding Eldar skimmers), to increasing the durability of vehicles in 5th (aka "parking lot" edition). Looks like we may be getting back to the parking lot edition of the ride. If your primary goal is just selling waves of miniatures then I guess it makes sense.
But imagine if the goal really was to improve the ruleset to create a game that had more balance across factions and playstyles (at least as much as reasonably possible). "Beta" rules changes would be proposed and tested by the entire community and accepted or rejected based on feedback after a set period of time and trial. Games would be more satisfying for the players in the long run. The player base would be happier, bringing in more players by positive reviews and word-of-mouth instead of constantly having to release "new and improved" editions every three years. Sales of miniatures would increase as newer players picked up and came to appreciate the game. One can imagine . . .
Gnarlly wrote: "Beta" rules changes would be proposed and tested by the entire community and accepted or rejected based on feedback after a set period of time and trial.
You mean like giving your ruleset to a bunch of variably well known gaming communities already covering your games for them to playtest it ?
Edit : Ah no, you don't, you wish the community would write the rules. I would be out right away.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.
The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.
The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.
You’re exactly right about the necessity of owning everything. That said, the ETC/WTC meta in 8th was a lot more vehicle heavy than the ITC meta in 8th, so those players should be more prepared for Warhammer ’never over 10 models in a unit’. Personally for my Eldar in 8th I got 15 grav tanks and 11 flyers, for SM 6 flyers and about 16 other vehicles/walkers, for Astra/Imp soup about 20 tanks. Only for a couple ITC tournaments and one major I played infantry in 8th.
That said, mostly the GW balance roller coaster that is motivated by sales (now even our tables and game mats are made incompatible) is suited for the casual or habitual players, who simply don’t care what is good or what is bad. If you don’t care about competitiveness you can never be upset about the lack of it.
Gnarlly wrote: "Beta" rules changes would be proposed and tested by the entire community and accepted or rejected based on feedback after a set period of time and trial.
You mean like giving your ruleset to a bunch of variably well known gaming communities already covering your games for them to playtest it ?
Edit : Ah no, you don't, you wish the community would write the rules. I would be out right away.
No. I mean the entire player community, not select groups who have a financial interest in promoting/selling GW products. Of course there were no complaints in that Tabletop Tactics video or the recent Frontline Gaming video on 9th - you don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Edit to follow up on your edit: I am a huge fan of Blood Bowl. I believe it is GW's best ruleset and get more enjoyment from playing it than 40k. For the most part, the current rules are very similar to its 3rd edition published in the mid-90's. Essentially, a rules committee was developed to come up with a "Living Rulebook" and relatively minor tweaks to the rules have been made over the years to improve gameplay based on player feedback. That is what I would envision. Not sweeping changes each edition change that are difficult to balance.
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.
This is a great point and something I had not thought of before. It could mitigate some of the anti-horde tidbits we're seeing.
There's a slight difference with the way units are purchased in AoS vs 40k though--notably that units pay their points based on multiples of certain sizes and they're specific to certain unit types/subfactions.
To use an analogy, Plague Marines would get a reduced cost if fielded in a unit of 20 rather than a reduced cost at 7/10/15 when Mortarion is your Warlord.
Chaos Cultists might get a reduced cost if fielded in a unit of 40 compared to a unit of 20 or 30 when Typhus or a generic Death Guard character is your Warlord.
Poxwalkers wouldn't get a reduced cost unless their unit size goes bigger.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.
The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.
The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.
You’re exactly right about the necessity of owning everything. That said, the ETC/WTC meta in 8th was a lot more vehicle heavy than the ITC meta in 8th, so those players should be more prepared for Warhammer ’never over 10 models in a unit’. Personally for my Eldar in 8th I got 15 grav tanks and 11 flyers, for SM 6 flyers and about 16 other vehicles/walkers, for Astra/Imp soup about 20 tanks. Only for a couple ITC tournaments and one major I played infantry in 8th.
That said, mostly the GW balance roller coaster that is motivated by sales (now even our tables and game mats are made incompatible) is suited for the casual or habitual players, who simply don’t care what is good or what is bad. If you don’t care about competitiveness you can never be upset about the lack of it.
Bullcrap on your claim about tables and mats. MINIMUM size to make the game easier for new players to come into using Kill Team sets.
The only reason you could claim it's incompatible is because the third party tournament organizers adopted it as their table size so they could sell more tickets.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.
The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.
The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.
This is true. Nothing weathers the seas of change like a diverse collection. Why I usually recommend new players expand their army instead of starting new ones.
Gnarlly wrote: "Beta" rules changes would be proposed and tested by the entire community and accepted or rejected based on feedback after a set period of time and trial.
You mean like giving your ruleset to a bunch of variably well known gaming communities already covering your games for them to playtest it ?
Edit : Ah no, you don't, you wish the community would write the rules. I would be out right away.
No. I mean the entire player community, not select groups who have a financial interest in promoting/selling GW products. Of course there were no complaints in that Tabletop Tactics video or the recent Frontline Gaming video on 9th - you don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Tabletop Tactics has been getting review copies of the rules for a while now despite their complaining.
How about let's not try to shame our playtesters out of ther jobs.
I would argue that the weapons with a fixed high number of shots were designed from the start to have this versatility of either aiming at hordes or elite. Random ROF was imo their attempt at making "balanced" weapons designed to deal with hordes (it won't be the first, nor the last, time that GW hopes the rng gods balance part of the game for them) without completely screwing elites. They are fixing that right now and maybe, if it's needed, they'll fix these other weapons in 10th ed
Yeah, but virtually none of the weapons they mention being blast are actually stuff that is designed for shooting big units of crappy models. Look at the list. It's almost all stuff that actually better at shooting elites.
If anything, this blast rule seems to be more about making elite-killing weapons better at killing hordes - even if it doesn't make them actually good enough at it that you'd want to target the horde over the elite if you had a choice.
Precisely because of the issue you identified with how math works, very few of these weapons getting the blast target actually will be best shot at hordes of crappy units, even with the blast attribute. You're never going to want to shoot a D-Cannon, a Battle Cannon, or a Basilisk gun at an 11 man boyz unit if you can avoid it, whether you get max shots or not.
So again, it seems a weird change that doesn't actually do much besides punish a unit size that didn't need punishing anyway.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.
The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.
The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.
You’re exactly right about the necessity of owning everything. That said, the ETC/WTC meta in 8th was a lot more vehicle heavy than the ITC meta in 8th, so those players should be more prepared for Warhammer ’never over 10 models in a unit’. Personally for my Eldar in 8th I got 15 grav tanks and 11 flyers, for SM 6 flyers and about 16 other vehicles/walkers, for Astra/Imp soup about 20 tanks. Only for a couple ITC tournaments and one major I played infantry in 8th.
That said, mostly the GW balance roller coaster that is motivated by sales (now even our tables and game mats are made incompatible) is suited for the casual or habitual players, who simply don’t care what is good or what is bad. If you don’t care about competitiveness you can never be upset about the lack of it.
Bullcrap on your claim about tables and mats. MINIMUM size to make the game easier for new players to come into using Kill Team sets.
The only reason you could claim it's incompatible is because the third party tournament organizers adopted it as their table size so they could sell more tickets.
I felt that way also, yet these tournament organisers have repeatedly gone on record that GW gave them no choice and are brute forcing the change to smaller tables and mats.
Yaknow my favorite part about all this "blast interactions are stupid" arguments?
That they all require the assumption that weapons WHOSE PROFILE ARE BEING ALTERED, are not, yaknow, possibly changing in any way from their current numbers.
The thought that things that are being edited could be edited somehow does not occur to people.
If overall stats were changing too, they would have said so. What they said is there'll be an appendix that lists all the 170 weapons that get the blast rule. Not that these 170 weapons are getting new stat profiles in addition.
The whole point of the transition from 8th to 9th is that you will still use the 8th edition profiles for stuff.
BoomWolf wrote: Yaknow my favorite part about all this "blast interactions are stupid" arguments?
That they all require the assumption that weapons WHOSE PROFILE ARE BEING ALTERED, are not, yaknow, possibly changing in any way from their current numbers.
The thought that things that are being edited could be edited somehow does not occur to people.
Not being facetious or snide: Do we truly know for sure that weapon profiles are being altered beyond a page in the back of the rulebook that lists which weapons are now considered "Blast" weapons and a FAQ to update weapons' points costs? My understanding was that for the time being we would use our current codexes with their current datasheets and weapon profiles, and that any changes to weapon profiles in future codexes are most likely going to be just the addition of the word "Blast" in the notes field for those weapons.
Gnarlly wrote: "Beta" rules changes would be proposed and tested by the entire community and accepted or rejected based on feedback after a set period of time and trial.
You mean like giving your ruleset to a bunch of variably well known gaming communities already covering your games for them to playtest it ?
Edit : Ah no, you don't, you wish the community would write the rules. I would be out right away.
No. I mean the entire player community, not select groups who have a financial interest in promoting/selling GW products. Of course there were no complaints in that Tabletop Tactics video or the recent Frontline Gaming video on 9th - you don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Edit to follow up on your edit: I am a huge fan of Blood Bowl. I believe it is GW's best ruleset and get more enjoyment from playing it than 40k. For the most part, the current rules are very similar to its 3rd edition published in the mid-90's. Essentially, a rules committee was developed to come up with a "Living Rulebook" and relatively minor tweaks to the rules have been made over the years to improve gameplay based on player feedback. That is what I would envision. Not sweeping changes each edition change that are difficult to balance.
Yeah I know, I also played BB with these rules and a few other games with rules that were maintained by the community. These are pretty close to the original game tho and they aren't 40K, which has a much more sizeable player base and is played in multiple different ways. Just as an example, there is no "should i play competitive or narrative" question to ask yourself when you play bloodbowl, you play competitive by default because narrative doesn't really makes sense.
BoomWolf wrote: Yaknow my favorite part about all this "blast interactions are stupid" arguments?
That they all require the assumption that weapons WHOSE PROFILE ARE BEING ALTERED, are not, yaknow, possibly changing in any way from their current numbers.
The thought that things that are being edited could be edited somehow does not occur to people.
Not being facetious or snide: Do we truly know for sure that weapon profiles are being altered beyond a page in the back of the rulebook that lists which weapons are now considered "Blast" weapons and a FAQ to update weapons' points costs? My understanding was that for the time being we would use our current codexes with their current datasheets and weapon profiles, and that any changes to weapon profiles in future codexes are most likely going to be just the addition of the word "Blast" in the notes field for those weapons.
We don't know, that's my entire point.
We know NOTHING at this point, just a few pieces of a very big puzzle with no real knowledge how they connect, or even any clue how many pieces are in this puzzle anyway
Maybe they're moving competitive 40k to the moon. They haven't said they aren't! Anything is possible!
There's no reason from what they've said to think that we're going to see tweaks to weapon profiles. They're adding the blast rule to some weapons, and they're redoing the points values for everything in the game (not just those weapons). This is what they've told us. They've also specifically told us that the stat profiles you find in the 8th edition codexes are remaining the same.
So although anything is possible, there's absolutely no reason to think that stat profiles will be changing, and everything they've told us generally is to the contrary.
I would argue that the weapons with a fixed high number of shots were designed from the start to have this versatility of either aiming at hordes or elite. Random ROF was imo their attempt at making "balanced" weapons designed to deal with hordes (it won't be the first, nor the last, time that GW hopes the rng gods balance part of the game for them) without completely screwing elites. They are fixing that right now and maybe, if it's needed, they'll fix these other weapons in 10th ed
Yeah, but virtually none of the weapons they mention being blast are actually stuff that is designed for shooting big units of crappy models. Look at the list. It's almost all stuff that actually better at shooting elites.
If anything, this blast rule seems to be more about making elite-killing weapons better at killing hordes - even if it doesn't make them actually good enough at it that you'd want to target the horde over the elite if you had a choice.
Precisely because of the issue you identified with how math works, very few of these weapons getting the blast target actually will be best shot at hordes of crappy units, even with the blast attribute. You're never going to want to shoot a D-Cannon, a Battle Cannon, or a Basilisk gun at an 11 man boyz unit if you can avoid it, whether you get max shots or not.
So again, it seems a weird change that doesn't actually do much besides punish a unit size that didn't need punishing anyway.
There are 174 weapons being changed. You could focus on the 5 examples shown in the article or just wait and see the full list.
I would like to ask how is improving the D-Canon this way, moving away from designing a weapon better suited to take out a higher number of bodies ? And can't we have exceptions, particularly in other mildly elite armies (eldars aren't that much elite anymore sadly) where a weapon is designed to be highly effective against everything ? It's not because the basic intent is to have weapons effective against large count of bodies and less against more modest unit sizes that they can't ever be allowed to also be good at getting rid of smaller squads.
Gnarlly wrote: "Beta" rules changes would be proposed and tested by the entire community and accepted or rejected based on feedback after a set period of time and trial.
You mean like giving your ruleset to a bunch of variably well known gaming communities already covering your games for them to playtest it ?
Edit : Ah no, you don't, you wish the community would write the rules. I would be out right away.
No. I mean the entire player community, not select groups who have a financial interest in promoting/selling GW products. Of course there were no complaints in that Tabletop Tactics video or the recent Frontline Gaming video on 9th - you don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Edit to follow up on your edit: I am a huge fan of Blood Bowl. I believe it is GW's best ruleset and get more enjoyment from playing it than 40k. For the most part, the current rules are very similar to its 3rd edition published in the mid-90's. Essentially, a rules committee was developed to come up with a "Living Rulebook" and relatively minor tweaks to the rules have been made over the years to improve gameplay based on player feedback. That is what I would envision. Not sweeping changes each edition change that are difficult to balance.
Yeah I know, I also played BB with these rules and a few other games with rules that were maintained by the community. These are pretty close to the original game tho and they aren't 40K, which has a much more sizeable player base and is played in multiple different ways. Just as an example, there is no "should i play competitive or narrative" question to ask yourself when you play bloodbowl, you play competitive by default.
True, though I would argue that for the majority of 40k's existence, players have played "competitive by default." It is only recently that we have seen an attempt to shift away from points to "power levels" and increased emphasis on narrative-styles of organizing armies. Not saying narrative games did not exist in the past. I also would argue that the majority of players still prefer 40k using an equal amount of points per side with a prescribed "balanced" mission scenario (i.e. competitive 40k). It's simply easier to manage for gaming, from pick-up games to tournament level games.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.
The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.
The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.
You’re exactly right about the necessity of owning everything. That said, the ETC/WTC meta in 8th was a lot more vehicle heavy than the ITC meta in 8th, so those players should be more prepared for Warhammer ’never over 10 models in a unit’. Personally for my Eldar in 8th I got 15 grav tanks and 11 flyers, for SM 6 flyers and about 16 other vehicles/walkers, for Astra/Imp soup about 20 tanks. Only for a couple ITC tournaments and one major I played infantry in 8th.
That said, mostly the GW balance roller coaster that is motivated by sales (now even our tables and game mats are made incompatible) is suited for the casual or habitual players, who simply don’t care what is good or what is bad. If you don’t care about competitiveness you can never be upset about the lack of it.
Bullcrap on your claim about tables and mats. MINIMUM size to make the game easier for new players to come into using Kill Team sets.
The only reason you could claim it's incompatible is because the third party tournament organizers adopted it as their table size so they could sell more tickets.
I felt that way also, yet these tournament organisers have repeatedly gone on record that GW gave them no choice and are brute forcing the change to smaller tables and mats.
I watched Reese talk about it and they had no input on the table size changes in the rules, but they have full control over their tournaments.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
yukishiro1 wrote: If overall stats were changing too, they would have said so. What they said is there'll be an appendix that lists all the 170 weapons that get the blast rule. Not that these 170 weapons are getting new stat profiles in addition.
The whole point of the transition from 8th to 9th is that you will still use the 8th edition profiles for stuff.
GW has been drip feeding information. By your logic everything they don't say is automatically the same, despite the fact they keep saying they haven't said everything.
Gnarlly wrote: "Beta" rules changes would be proposed and tested by the entire community and accepted or rejected based on feedback after a set period of time and trial.
You mean like giving your ruleset to a bunch of variably well known gaming communities already covering your games for them to playtest it ?
Edit : Ah no, you don't, you wish the community would write the rules. I would be out right away.
No. I mean the entire player community, not select groups who have a financial interest in promoting/selling GW products. Of course there were no complaints in that Tabletop Tactics video or the recent Frontline Gaming video on 9th - you don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Edit to follow up on your edit: I am a huge fan of Blood Bowl. I believe it is GW's best ruleset and get more enjoyment from playing it than 40k. For the most part, the current rules are very similar to its 3rd edition published in the mid-90's. Essentially, a rules committee was developed to come up with a "Living Rulebook" and relatively minor tweaks to the rules have been made over the years to improve gameplay based on player feedback. That is what I would envision. Not sweeping changes each edition change that are difficult to balance.
Yeah I know, I also played BB with these rules and a few other games with rules that were maintained by the community. These are pretty close to the original game tho and they aren't 40K, which has a much more sizeable player base and is played in multiple different ways. Just as an example, there is no "should i play competitive or narrative" question to ask yourself when you play bloodbowl, you play competitive by default.
True, though I would argue that for the majority of 40k's existence, players have played "competitive by default." It is only recently that we have seen an attempt to shift away from points to "power levels" and increased emphasis on narrative-styles of organizing armies. Not saying narrative games did not exist in the past. I also would argue that the majority of players still prefer 40k using an equal amount of points per side with a prescribed "balanced" mission scenario (i.e. competitive 40k). It's simply easier to manage for gaming, from pick-up games to tournament level games.
When I say narrative, I mostly mean playing because you like the lore first and want to see stuff you think is cool on the table. Which is a huge appeal for many people in GW's 2 main games and tends to be lost when you start streamlining for competitive play.
There are 174 weapons being changed. You could focus on the 5 examples shown in the article or just wait and see the full list.
I would like to ask how is improving the D-Canon this way, moving away from designing a weapon better suited to take out a higher number of bodies ? And can't we have exceptions, particularly in other mildly elite armies (eldars aren't that much elite anymore sadly) where a weapon is designed to be highly effective against everything ? It's not because the basic intent is to have weapons effective against large count of bodies and less against more modest unit sizes that they can't ever be allowed to also be good at getting rid of smaller squads.
Examples are there to provide examples. It's pretty easy to tell what weapons are going to get blast, based on the historical list and the examples provided. It literally can only be things with variable shots, so that narrows it down tremendously.
I just don't see that it's a great idea to implement a rule that doesn't really do anything except punish large unit sizes by making them vulnerable both to high volume of fire weapons AND elite-killing weapons. Large unit sizes in 8th had a good balance - there were substantial advantages, but also substantial disadvantages. The 9th rules seem to remove most of these advantages, without compensating.
If anything, this dilutes weapon diversity. Previously volume of fire was good against everything, but big guns were only good against big targets. Now it seems we're going to a place where volume of fire is good against everything, big guns are good against big targets and also decent against large units, removing what used to be a useful distinguishing factor, and MSU units get all the advantages and none of the disadvantages. This doesn't seem like a positive development to me.
Leth wrote: So what should the size be then? 13? 15? 17 1/2?
They have to pick a size to set the rules at and most units cap at 10, or like 30. It seems like a reasonable break point for me.
No one is going to take 11 man units so I don’t know why you are focusing on that as if it matters?
Larger units can spread out more with aura abilities, smaller units have a harder time. We don’t know how a bunch of other rules interact in the game goin forward, there might be additional benefits to taking larger units such as more kill point focused missions. We already know larger units benefit more from stratagems, and we will get to use a good number more of them going forward.
Here me out...
You could not tie it to unit size at all...
It's not that difficult if you want to simulate a template while removing arguing.
Blast, pick a model in range and line of site to the firer and roll to hit. If successfully hit, the unit suffers a number of hits equal to the initial model hit and all other models in that unit within X" of that model. Any other hits from models from other units within X" are allocated to those units, not the original target. Measure from the center of the target models base.
That even leaves it open to massive amounts of granularity for blast size.
It also punishes clumping without tying it to unit size.
I am sure theres holes in that too, as I am spitballing, but it wouldn't be hard top tweak.
Or we could just return to blast templates, and start by remove the scatter die if that somehow is causing arguing.
Sounds like a blast template with extra steps.
II am fine with the change as long as weapons are pointed reasonably. Blast weapons were worthless in 8th meaning you had to take volume of fire weapons as the only way to deal with large numbers. Of models.
GW has been drip feeding information. By your logic everything they don't say is automatically the same, despite the fact they keep saying they haven't said everything.
No, that's not my logic. That's your straw man. Please look up the difference.
They have specifically said stat profiles are staying the same as those in the 8th edition codexes and PA books. They have also specifically said that weapons covered by this new blast rule will be listed in the appendix of the rules.
There is no reason to think that when they said "stat profiles aren't changing" they meant that for everything except blast weapons. The way they worded the FAQ listing makes it sound like it is just a list of weapons. If it was otherwise, there is no reason for them to word things how they have.
Is it possible that despite everything they've said, they are changing stat profiles? Yes, and it's possible that Warhammer World is being moved to an artificial island in the middle of the atlantic. They haven't said it isn't. That doesn't mean we should assume it's likely that it will be.
Nothing they have said has provided any suggestion that weapons are getting new stat profiles. They specifically said stat profiles are NOT changing in general. That means we should assume they aren't until we hear otherwise.
So back to 1/3 of the game spent properly spacing units. Got it. I don’t miss blast templates because I remember one of the. First questions asked was “how many blast weapons”, slowed the game down a lot.
If they were actually trying to simulate blast weapons without the clunkiness, they would have done this:
Weapons are Blast:X. When fired, you may fire at the targeted unit, plus any other, non-character units within X" of the targeted unit. Alternatively, you may fire X additional shots at the targeted unit instead, but only if the target unit has more models than the total number of shots you are making with the weapon.
This, of course, does the exact opposite of this rule - it punishes castling with lots of MSU, and rewards shooting at clustered models.
That I could come up with this far more elegant system in 2 minutes of thinking, that actually accomplishes what the idea of a blast weapon is, shows that they either were really bad at coming up with this rule, or that it's actually just an excuse to screw over 11+ man units, not actually about the blast rule itself.
Bullcrap on your claim about tables and mats. MINIMUM size to make the game easier for new players to come into using Kill Team sets.
The only reason you could claim it's incompatible is because the third party tournament organizers adopted it as their table size so they could sell more tickets.
Who has four killteam sets, let alone new players?
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.
The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.
The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.
Leth wrote: So back to 1/3 of the game spent properly spacing units. Got it. I don’t miss blast templates because I remember one of the. First questions asked was “how many blast weapons”, slowed the game down a lot.
Never a problem with right minded hobbyists however. Don’t change the game, avoid the player. My advice. And give me back my templates...
What they should have done is restat blast weapons to separate number of shots and size of blast. So like a Heavy 2 Blast(D6) weapon would get 2 Blast(D6) shots. You roll to hit for each Blast and then inflict D6 hits per Blast BUT the number of hits per Blast is capped at the number of models in the target unit (a bigger blast isn't going to cause a model to get hit more than once per blast). So a Str 3 Heavy 1 weapon with an enormous 10D6 Blast is going to wreck a 30-strong cultist horde, but it isn't going to scratch a knight. It'll tickle a 5-man intercessor squad like 5 lasgun shots.
The rule we got is just hideous. A kludge to end all kludges. Who writes this stuff?
Leth wrote: So back to 1/3 of the game spent properly spacing units. Got it. I don’t miss blast templates because I remember one of the. First questions asked was “how many blast weapons”, slowed the game down a lot.
The only people missing scattering templates are people who played max 1000 point games. I remember the 10 minutes required to shoot a few wyverns (they were the worst of all).
I would mind as much having the flamer blast back though (or the light flamer blast from even more years ago), but at the end of the day looking at who was under was just too cluncky stuff really
Abadabadoobaddon wrote: What they should have done is restat blast weapons to separate number of shots and size of blast. So like a Heavy 2 Blast(D6) weapon would get 2 Blast(D6) shots. You roll to hit for each Blast and then inflict D6 hits per Blast BUT the number of hits per Blast is capped at the number of models in the target unit (a bigger blast isn't going to cause a model to get hit more than once per blast). So a Str 3 Heavy 1 weapon with an enormous 10D6 Blast is going to wreck a 30-strong cultist horde, but it isn't going to scratch a knight. It'll tickle a 5-man intercessor squad like 5 lasgun shots.
The rule we got is just hideous. A kludge to end all kludges. Who writes this stuff?
This is another easy option. I don't like it as much because it still punishes large unit sizes for no real reason while letting multiple clumped MSUs off the hook, but at least it does so rationally.
The point being: there are multiple easy ways to simulate the effects of a blast template without the clunkiness involved. That they didn't choose one of these methods and instead chose to simply punish large unit sizes shows they weren't actually interested in simulating blast templates, they just wanted to screw big units.
Bullcrap on your claim about tables and mats. MINIMUM size to make the game easier for new players to come into using Kill Team sets.
The only reason you could claim it's incompatible is because the third party tournament organizers adopted it as their table size so they could sell more tickets.
Who has four killteam sets, let alone new players?
Leth wrote: So back to 1/3 of the game spent properly spacing units. Got it. I don’t miss blast templates because I remember one of the. First questions asked was “how many blast weapons”, slowed the game down a lot.
The only people missing scattering templates are people who played max 1000 point games. I remember the 10 minutes required to shoot a few wyverns (they were the worst of all).
I would mind as much having the flamer blast back though (or the light flamer blast from even more years ago), but at the end of the day looking at who was under was just too cluncky stuff really
On the topic of flamer type weapons, I wonder if they fixed them being able to target supersonic Fliers haha! Im gonna guess no
Abadabadoobaddon wrote: What they should have done is restat blast weapons to separate number of shots and size of blast. So like a Heavy 2 Blast(D6) weapon would get 2 Blast(D6) shots. You roll to hit for each Blast and then inflict D6 hits per Blast BUT the number of hits per Blast is capped at the number of models in the target unit (a bigger blast isn't going to cause a model to get hit more than once per blast). So a Str 3 Heavy 1 weapon with an enormous 10D6 Blast is going to wreck a 30-strong cultist horde, but it isn't going to scratch a knight. It'll tickle a 5-man intercessor squad like 5 lasgun shots.
The rule we got is just hideous. A kludge to end all kludges. Who writes this stuff?
This is another easy option. I don't like it as much because it still punishes large unit sizes for no real reason while letting multiple clumped MSUs off the hook, but at least it does so rationally.
The point being: there are multiple easy ways to simulate the effects of a blast template without the clunkiness involved. That they didn't choose one of these methods and instead chose to simply punish large unit sizes shows they weren't actually interested in simulating blast templates, they just wanted to screw big units.
The sad part is that the method I outlined is literally the way it worked in 7th except instead of measuring hits with a blast marker you just roll some D6s - the bigger the blast the more D6s. They could have done this in 8th when they got rid of templates, but no that was too complicated.
And now look at what we got instead. I don't think I could design a rule as klunky, uninspired, inelegant and just plan ugly if I tried. Truly truly awful.
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.
Yes. Templates were superior. Players must have been better too because the templates worked and I recall very few arguments... if any. But then again maybe competitive players argue more about things that make the game worth playing so now... it is like playing in a spoiled kid’s sandbox.
Abadabadoobaddon wrote: What they should have done is restat blast weapons to separate number of shots and size of blast. So like a Heavy 2 Blast(D6) weapon would get 2 Blast(D6) shots. You roll to hit for each Blast and then inflict D6 hits per Blast BUT the number of hits per Blast is capped at the number of models in the target unit (a bigger blast isn't going to cause a model to get hit more than once per blast). So a Str 3 Heavy 1 weapon with an enormous 10D6 Blast is going to wreck a 30-strong cultist horde, but it isn't going to scratch a knight. It'll tickle a 5-man intercessor squad like 5 lasgun shots.
The rule we got is just hideous. A kludge to end all kludges. Who writes this stuff?
This is another easy option. I don't like it as much because it still punishes large unit sizes for no real reason while letting multiple clumped MSUs off the hook, but at least it does so rationally.
The point being: there are multiple easy ways to simulate the effects of a blast template without the clunkiness involved. That they didn't choose one of these methods and instead chose to simply punish large unit sizes shows they weren't actually interested in simulating blast templates, they just wanted to screw big units.
Unlikely, given they like selling lots of models. Attributing to malice rather than oversight is just applying your own opinion, it’s not a fact.
And for those arguing about templates... they’re over three years gone now. Let it go!
Bullcrap on your claim about tables and mats. MINIMUM size to make the game easier for new players to come into using Kill Team sets.
The only reason you could claim it's incompatible is because the third party tournament organizers adopted it as their table size so they could sell more tickets.
Who has four killteam sets, let alone new players?
4 people playing doubles.
Lots of new players gonna throw down that way, huh... seems unlikely but sure. Ok. Now instead of one friend to game a noob should find three with KT sets. Ok...
It doesn't take a great jump of logic from that to say that a change that does nothing but screw large units is intended to screw large units.
Especially when they have specifically said that they want to make elite, lower model count armies more viable in 9th.
The other possibility is that these people are so clueless that they don't realize their blast rule hurts big units...despite that literally being the whole thrust of the rule.
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.
This is the issue. It doesn’t make the game better. It makes it easier for people who can’t use a template civilly. No need for civility. But of course without civility, people will simply min max their way to other arguments... maybe 11th edition will be better, after competitive gamers move to esports with TTS or similar GW sanctioned software and we can have realism and immersion and civil discourse again... and templates.
Bullcrap on your claim about tables and mats. MINIMUM size to make the game easier for new players to come into using Kill Team sets.
The only reason you could claim it's incompatible is because the third party tournament organizers adopted it as their table size so they could sell more tickets.
Who has four killteam sets, let alone new players?
4 people playing doubles.
Lots of new players gonna throw down that way, huh... seems unlikely but sure. Ok. Now instead of one friend to game a noob should find three with KT sets. Ok...
New players being coached by more experianced players is one good use of doubles.
Plus it lets people with smaller collections jump into larger games.
Templates were horrible. They slowed the game both when people weren't arguing and when they were arguing. Because even when people were being polite they were asking:
"I think I can hit 4 with the template. Check it out to see if I am correct. I don't want to be a cheater."
Then the next person comes over to check it out, even if they trust their friend, because it was just etiquette. A social contract of sort.
"Yes, I think you are right. It's a bit reaching on that Ork toe, but I don't mind."
"So four hits?"
"Four hits it is."
"Okay, let's roll."
Then you had people spacing their models just to minimize the amount of models getting hit in a blast. It was a very bad mechanic for a game that had outgrown its original size considerably. 2nd Edition blast weapon templates I could get behind, as well as in smaller games like Necromunda, but in the huge game that 40k has become they were just cumbersome and problematic at the end of the day, because it took until the end of the day to play game.
Of course, if you play very casual they can maybe work faster. Don't worry too much about spacing and just have some beer, pretzel, and fun, then there is nothing problematic with blasts. However, considering that GW seems to be aiming at the tourney crowd templates are very unlikely to have a comeback in the foreseeable future.
Personally I am glad that they are gone. Games have been much smoother with both friends and pugs after their removal.
No matter what we think about templates, there are multiple easy ways to simulate what a template does - punish model density - without the clunkiness, if that's what they wanted to do.
They didn't do that. Instead they nerfed big units, while doing nothing to what blast templates actually countered, which was castles. In fact, the new rules if anything reward model density, while punishing model numbers per unit, not per board space.
Measures should be forbidden except after shots are declared a la epic imho. Not for use during movement. Templates drove units out of cover because they ignored it. This was a tool for units of all sizes... context dependent, added to realism. Superior in every way.
Bullcrap on your claim about tables and mats. MINIMUM size to make the game easier for new players to come into using Kill Team sets.
The only reason you could claim it's incompatible is because the third party tournament organizers adopted it as their table size so they could sell more tickets.
Who has four killteam sets, let alone new players?
4 people playing doubles.
Lots of new players gonna throw down that way, huh... seems unlikely but sure. Ok. Now instead of one friend to game a noob should find three with KT sets. Ok...
New players being coached by more experianced players is one good use of doubles.
Plus it lets people with smaller collections jump into larger games.
As long as those smaller collections include four KT mats...
addnid wrote: I am picturing Red Corsair leaving his 4 kids in a GW store and telling to take good care of them, and saying “don’t feth that up like your rules for 9th edition !!”.
The you see three GW employees feeding each one of Red Corsair’s kids, and a fourth... I don’t want to see this...
torblind wrote: Fine, so instead make rules stepwise increasing buff at 6+, 8+, 11+, 15+? And we all go around making regrssion analysis on hand held calculators or memorize pages of hit tables?
having a cut off *somewhere* isn't bad in itself. its just a lesser evil.
Well no, I'd argue that this hows why keying the amount of shots you get against the amount of models in the unit is just not a good mechanic in the first place. Why is this a good mechanic? I still haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's good specifically to increase the amount of shots a gun gets based on the number of models in the unit being shot.
Arbitrary results are fine if you get something greater from the rule than you lose due to the arbitrary nature. The problem here isn't that 11+ is an arbitrary cutoff, it's that there's no real gain from the rule in the first place to overcome the loss caused by the arbitrary cutoff.
Does it have to be good? Can't it just not be bad?
From the sound things this dead horse has been kicked, shot, reanimated, killed again and cut to pieces and thrown to sea over and over again, but here goes:
Big explosion hits more people in a crowded place, than in a less crowded place.
*mic drop*
There you go. it mimics that. nice, huh? Thanks for making me do that pointless stupid dance. As if you didnt know this was the poing all along.
Is it "good"? I dunno. It's an abstraction that mimics real life evens. Good enough for me I guess. I work with numbers on a daily basis, I wouldn't personally mind a nice y=f(x) formula for every value of x from 1 to 20, but I can see how that won't work.
Or are you troubled by the fact that its "Hits", as in this has to mean more bullets passing through a barrel when shooting at larger units? There's really no need for that.
yukishiro1 wrote: No matter what we think about templates, there are multiple easy ways to simulate what a template does without the clunkiness, if that's what they wanted to do.
They didn't do that. Instead they nerfed big units, while doing nothing to what blast templates actually countered, which was castles.
In my experience arguing the game could use more reasons to discourage units from standing in a blob benefiting from overlapping auras just leads to people arguing about coherency and templates. Despite that not being what you're advocating.
yukishiro1 wrote: No matter what we think about templates, there are multiple easy ways to simulate what a template does without the clunkiness, if that's what they wanted to do.
They didn't do that. Instead they nerfed big units, while doing nothing to what blast templates actually countered, which was castles.
In my experience arguing the game could use more reasons to discourage units from standing in a blob benefiting from overlapping auras just leads to people arguing about coherency and templates. Despite that not being what you're advocating.
Really... I don’t spend time with people like that... why do you? And why is this game written with them in mind?
Does it have to be good? Can't it just not be bad?
From the sound things this dead horse has been kicked, shot, reanimated, killed again and cut to pieces and thrown to sea over and over again, but here goes:
Big explosion hits more people in a crowded place, than in a less crowded place.
*mic drop*
There you go. it mimics that. nice, huh?
No, it doesn't mimic that. That's the whole point. It doesn't mimic that at all.
If that's what it did, it would undoubtedly have a reason for existing. But it doesn't do that. It doesn't do that at all.
What this rule does is do more damage against big units, which tend to be spread out, then against a cluster of small MSUs packed base to base around an aura.
That is literally the opposite of mimicking a big explosion in crowded space.
Does it have to be good? Can't it just not be bad?
From the sound things this dead horse has been kicked, shot, reanimated, killed again and cut to pieces and thrown to sea over and over again, but here goes:
Big explosion hits more people in a crowded place, than in a less crowded place.
*mic drop*
There you go. it mimics that. nice, huh?
No, it doesn't mimic that. That's the whole point. It doesn't mimic that at all.
If that's what it did, it would undoubtedly have a reason for existing. But it doesn't do that. It doesn't do that at all.
What this rule does is do more damage against big units, which tend to be spread out, then against a cluster of small MSUs packed base to base around an aura.
That is literally the opposite of mimicking a big explosion in crowded space.
Sure it does.
2 guys lurk around on the battlefield, shell explodes over their heads, 1 die.
10 guys lurk around on the battlefield, shell explodes over their heads... 4 die.
2 guys lurk around on the battlefield, shell explodes over their heads, 1 die.
10 guys lurk around on the battlefield, shell explodes over their heads... 4 die.
20 guys etc...
etc..
why would this be a definite NO?
Do you not understand how this rule works?
Shoot at unit of 11 ork boyz spread over 30 inches of board space each 2" from the other: max shots.
Shoot at 60 models all camped within a 6" aura bubble, but each unit is no more than 5 each: no extra shots.
How does this simulate the effect of a big explosion in a crowded space?
You are far more likely to see the castle of MSU in 40k than a tightly packed large unit, BTW. So this isn't even a weird marginal case. This is literally in *most* cases, a rule that rewards shooting at a dispersed unit more than a cluster of tightly packed bodies.
Does it have to be good? Can't it just not be bad?
From the sound things this dead horse has been kicked, shot, reanimated, killed again and cut to pieces and thrown to sea over and over again, but here goes:
Big explosion hits more people in a crowded place, than in a less crowded place.
*mic drop*
There you go. it mimics that. nice, huh?
No, it doesn't mimic that. That's the whole point. It doesn't mimic that at all.
If that's what it did, it would undoubtedly have a reason for existing. But it doesn't do that. It doesn't do that at all.
What this rule does is do more damage against big units, which tend to be spread out, then against a cluster of small MSUs packed base to base around an aura.
That is literally the opposite of mimicking a big explosion in crowded space.
Sure it does.
2 guys lurk around on the battlefield, shell explodes over their heads, 1 die.
10 guys lurk around on the battlefield, shell explodes over their heads... 4 die.
20 guys etc...
etc..
why would this be a definite NO?
My reply above concerns this post...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
H.B.M.C. wrote: What is the incentive to take big units that start at 10 at anything other than 10 now?
Yes. And bunch them all up together under one aura multiplying min max bubble. Just like in real life!
There are 174 weapons being changed. You could focus on the 5 examples shown in the article or just wait and see the full list.
I would like to ask how is improving the D-Canon this way, moving away from designing a weapon better suited to take out a higher number of bodies ? And can't we have exceptions, particularly in other mildly elite armies (eldars aren't that much elite anymore sadly) where a weapon is designed to be highly effective against everything ? It's not because the basic intent is to have weapons effective against large count of bodies and less against more modest unit sizes that they can't ever be allowed to also be good at getting rid of smaller squads.
Examples are there to provide examples. It's pretty easy to tell what weapons are going to get blast, based on the historical list and the examples provided. It literally can only be things with variable shots, so that narrows it down tremendously.
I just don't see that it's a great idea to implement a rule that doesn't really do anything except punish large unit sizes by making them vulnerable both to high volume of fire weapons AND elite-killing weapons. Large unit sizes in 8th had a good balance - there were substantial advantages, but also substantial disadvantages. The 9th rules seem to remove most of these advantages, without compensating.
If anything, this dilutes weapon diversity. Previously volume of fire was good against everything, but big guns were only good against big targets. Now it seems we're going to a place where volume of fire is good against everything, big guns are good against big targets and also decent against large units, removing what used to be a useful distinguishing factor, and MSU units get all the advantages and none of the disadvantages. This doesn't seem like a positive development to me.
It feels like there is kind of a lot to unpack.
About the examples, you focus on them to say "see, it's bad !", when you know there are 169 other weapons impacted. You could have talked about how it improves shadow weavers instead. Sure, that's what GW has used, it's also a bunch of iconic weapons nobody uses anymore.
About a weapon being able to be effective against hordes AND elites at the same time, you don't think it should exist ? A deathstrike missile shouldn't be (roughly) just as bad for a horde or a few dudes ? Afaik dedicated anti elite weapons more often than not have a fixed number of shots (those I know of at least).
I would agree that maybe not all random weapons needed to be updated to blast and could have been adjusted to a fixed number of shots but for now that's the way they are taking. Maybe these weapons will change with a new codex. Who knows.
I don't agree that we lost diversity. Fixed high numbers of shots won't change at all and still be decent in most situations (vehicles, hordes, elites), the performance of blast weapons against elites will stay mostly as it was before as it will skew the rolls towards a bit better than average rather than the average (for the squads between 6 and 10 models), super elites won't be affected at all (under 6 models squads) and weapons which were supposed to be good at dealing with huge number of light infantry, might actually be. So imho we gained new toys.
I'm also not entirely sure hordes were perfectly fine. Sure one squad of 30 is fine, you're not limited to just one though.
And finally, MSU might (hard to tell right now, depends of which army we're talking about, how points costs changes, how the detachment choices are setup, etc) have a disadvantage as you might need to spend CPs to get all the slot you need for it.
Also, "blast" is just a name, it doesn't mean the intent was to do something the rule clearly isn't doing, which you seem a bit focused on. They could have labelled it "kaboom", guess they would have had another set of complaints though
The rule could be more elegant (clearly) but I don't think it misses it's point.
Leth wrote: So back to 1/3 of the game spent properly spacing units. Got it. I don’t miss blast templates because I remember one of the. First questions asked was “how many blast weapons”, slowed the game down a lot.
Not really. Only because your using other editions method to bias your understanding of what I posted.
A. there would be no scatter to fiddle with
B. You can literally pick any size for the radius, not whatever stupid limitation the manufacturing process dictates.
So sure units can space out to get hit less, but rather then max spacing equating to a single centered model hit by a small blast, you could make a small blast 5" a large 7" 12" whatever.
I don't buy the notion that spacing models was a bad idea, or a time sink. Heck, moving your models is a time sink so why not rank everything up and abstract terrain that gets in the way and takes time with bits of felt? Nah, I'd rather blasts work like they should work.
The main gripe I have with blasts and flamers in 8th is the lack of immersion. There is currently, and so far in 9th, no splash damage. A rapid fire battle canon can target a single devastator marine surrounded by 10 other models form other units within an inch and only he will take the 2d6 hits. Yet 10 guys daisy chained out to 30" being hit by a blast and murdering all of them. Or a daisy chain of 12 guys with only one guy in range of an 8" flamer will potentially murder all 6 guys.
Blasts should have a radius for splash damage and flamers should hit a set number of models within their short range. It's not a hard fix, yet somehow the excuse is time? It's not a fast paced game lol. Overwatch is fine, multiple overwatch at that with random charges. But somehow measuring out a radius is a bridge too far? I don't by it. Want fast and simple, play checkers. Don't spend months assembling the pieces and learning the rules to cry when resolving blasts in a radius takes 30 more seconds.
The rule could be more elegant (clearly) but I don't think it misses it's point.
I agree it doesn't miss it's point, assuming the point was to screw over 11+ man units. I just don't think that's a very good point to have.
But they called it blast for a reason. They're making reference to a historical rule that behaved completely different from this one, a rule that punished model density, not unit size. These are completely different mechanics. The only reason they borrowed that terminology from the past is to try to lend a veneer of respectability to what is actually just a rule designed to screw 11+ man units.
And it's not just the terminology. They specifically referenced the idea of big explosions in crowded spaces. Now the rule doesn't actually do that at all, and I have to assume they are competent enough to realize that, and therefore that there is some element of bait and switch at work. But we can't ignore what they called the rule and the supposed justification they made for it.
There are two possibilities:
1. Either they wanted to simulate a large explosion in a crowded area, i.e. a blast template, but without templates, and failed miserably, which shows a startling level of incompetence.
or.
2. They told us they wanted to mimic a large explosion in a crowded area, but in fact used the opportunity to sneak in a completely new mechanic designed to discourage taking units of more than 10 models.
I think the latter is far more likely; it seems you do too. I just don't see how this positively impacts the game.
Spacing affecting blast weapons could have been handled in other ways too. If any one model in the unit is within x" of x other models in the unit, then the blast weapon could hit more or something like that.
Failing to cover other relevant examples doesn't mean it doesn't still do what it does. Getting around it in more or less weird ways doesnt still mean that it doesn't do what it does.
This is an abstraction.
Why on earth would you go through a game of 40k looking for logical fallacies? There are too many to count. You go MSU to be better off wrt moral? Bigger squads is the answer to that. You pick casualties in the back, from out of sight of the firing gun? Come on! You target a unit indistinguishibly mixed in with models from another unit and miraculously manage to only hit the unit you were aiming for? ...
The blast rule should not be what keeps you from sleeping at night.
EDIT: With the intention being obviously what it is. That 11+ cut off surely is as good as any. Should it have been 12? 9? more steps? 11 seems like a perfectly ordinary number for that.
The rule could be more elegant (clearly) but I don't think it misses it's point.
I agree it doesn't miss it's point, assuming the point was to screw over 11+ man units. I just don't think that's a very good point to have.
But they called it blast for a reason. They're making reference to a historical rule that behaved completely different from this one, a rule that punished model density, not unit size. These are completely different mechanics. The only reason they borrowed that terminology from the past is to try to lend a veneer of respectability to what is actually just a rule designed to screw 11+ man units.
And it's not just the terminology. They specifically referenced the idea of big explosions in crowded spaces. Now the rule doesn't actually do that at all, and I have to assume they are competent enough to realize that, and therefore that there is some element of bait and switch at work. But we can't ignore what they called the rule and the supposed justification they made for it.
There are two possibilities:
1. Either they wanted to simulate a large explosion in a crowded area, i.e. a blast template, but without templates, and failed miserably, which shows a startling level of incompetence.
or.
2. They told us they wanted to mimic a large explosion in a crowded area, but in fact used the opportunity to sneak in a completely new mechanic designed to discourage taking units of more than 10 models.
I think the latter is far more likely; it seems you do too. I just don't see how this positively impacts the game.
I used to think this way. Now I honestly think that the people who are responsible are both arrogant and untalented. Not evil. But bad at their jobs.
Failing to cover other relevant examples doesn't mean it doesn't still do what it does. Getting around it in more or less weird ways doesnt still mean that it doesn't do what it does.
This is an abstraction.
Why on earth would you go through a game of 40k looking for logical fallacies? There are too many to count. You go MSU to be better off wrt moral? Bigger squads is the answer to that. You pick casualties in the back, from out of sight of the firing gun? Come on! You target a unit indistinguishibly mixed in with models from another unit and miraculously manage to only hit the unit you were aiming for? ...
The blast rule should not be what keeps you from sleeping at night.
But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
40k is full of abstractions that sometimes result in strange scenarios. But I cannot think of another rule like this that more often than not results in the exact opposite of what it is supposed to approximate.
Moreover, a big focus of 9th edition has been removing nonsensical results that existed in 8th edition. They have talked multiple times about taking out the "really?" moments in the game, like flyers move-blocking infantry, or grots tying up tanks, or a single infantry model on a crate laughing at a bloodthirster that can't hit it.
This rule is the guy on the crate laughing at the bloodthirster, more often than it isn't. For no apparent reason, because it's not even like the gain - screwing over 11+ man units - is anything the game was desperately calling out for. It seems like tossing in a nonsensical approximation that encourages the opposite of what they stated it is supposed to encourage, for absolutely no reason. I cannot for the life of me fathom why they thought this was a good thing to do.
Leth wrote: So back to 1/3 of the game spent properly spacing units. Got it. I don’t miss blast templates because I remember one of the. First questions asked was “how many blast weapons”, slowed the game down a lot.
The only people missing scattering templates are people who played max 1000 point games. I remember the 10 minutes required to shoot a few wyverns (they were the worst of all).
I would mind as much having the flamer blast back though (or the light flamer blast from even more years ago), but at the end of the day looking at who was under was just too cluncky stuff really
I've been playing since the release of 2nd edition and I play all sized games. Blasts were never an issue, it was when they introduced MULTIPLE blast that things got silly. Thats an easy fix, rather then making a quad launcher shoot 4 tiny blasts you just give it one large blast. GW hates taking the short simple route sometimes though for whatever reason.
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Leth wrote: So back to 1/3 of the game spent properly spacing units. Got it. I don’t miss blast templates because I remember one of the. First questions asked was “how many blast weapons”, slowed the game down a lot.
The only people missing scattering templates are people who played max 1000 point games. I remember the 10 minutes required to shoot a few wyverns (they were the worst of all).
I would mind as much having the flamer blast back though (or the light flamer blast from even more years ago), but at the end of the day looking at who was under was just too cluncky stuff really
I've been playing since the release of 2nd edition and I play all sized games. Blasts were never an issue, it was when they introduced MULTIPLE blast that things got silly. Thats an easy fix, rather then making a quad launcher shoot 4 tiny blasts you just give it one large blast. GW hates taking the short simple route sometimes though for whatever reason.
Multi blasts were tricky and power creepy... but fun.
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Like someone else pointed out, it doesnt miss the point. A gadzillion points could be made better in the game. so what.
Failing to cover other relevant examples doesn't mean it doesn't still do what it does. Getting around it in more or less weird ways doesnt still mean that it doesn't do what it does.
This is an abstraction.
Why on earth would you go through a game of 40k looking for logical fallacies? There are too many to count. You go MSU to be better off wrt moral? Bigger squads is the answer to that. You pick casualties in the back, from out of sight of the firing gun? Come on! You target a unit indistinguishibly mixed in with models from another unit and miraculously manage to only hit the unit you were aiming for? ...
The blast rule should not be what keeps you from sleeping at night.
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Like someone else pointed out, it doesnt miss the point. A gadzillion points could be made better in the game. so what.
Failing to cover other relevant examples doesn't mean it doesn't still do what it does. Getting around it in more or less weird ways doesnt still mean that it doesn't do what it does.
This is an abstraction.
Why on earth would you go through a game of 40k looking for logical fallacies? There are too many to count. You go MSU to be better off wrt moral? Bigger squads is the answer to that. You pick casualties in the back, from out of sight of the firing gun? Come on! You target a unit indistinguishibly mixed in with models from another unit and miraculously manage to only hit the unit you were aiming for? ...
The blast rule should not be what keeps you from sleeping at night.
Why do you champion mediocrity with such fervor?
wtf dont mix in me
Again, why do you champion mediocrity with such fervor?
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Give that horse a rest, it's starting to rot.
Auras cause the "clumping" you're so against, and even then people spider out their units to form some kind of aura octopus to gain buffs.
Just because we don't have templates that requires everyone to spend five minutes every time they move a unit it doesn't mean the abstraction failed, your imagination failed instead. Clumping units up to get them into cover (or letting a few models outside of terrain die first to allow the rest of the unit that fit in terrain to gain cover) was already a thing. This changed nothing, if anything it at least allows the weapons to hit units closer to how we imagine they should.
We haven't even seen the rules for hordes yet (we just know it's a rule), so frankly I don't get this several page whinefest. For all we know hordes will have bonuses, or the terrain rules will make it necessary for blast weapons to hit harder to work properly.
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Like someone else pointed out, it doesnt miss the point. A gadzillion points could be made better in the game. so what.
This seems like a weird response to "this mechanic more often than not encourages you to shoot the more dispersed unit over the clumped up bunch of models, the exact opposite of what they claim to be trying to simulate."
If a gadzillion points could be made better in the game...why not make them better, instead of adding a new rule that is even worse than those rules?
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Give that horse a rest, it's starting to rot.
Auras cause the "clumping" you're so against, and even then people spider out their units to form some kind of aura octopus to gain buffs.
Just because we don't have templates that requires everyone to spend five minutes every time they move a unit it doesn't mean the abstraction failed, your imagination failed instead. Clumping units up to get them into cover (or letting a few models outside of terrain die first to allow the rest of the unit that fit in terrain to gain cover) was already a thing. This changed nothing, if anything it at least allows the weapons to hit units closer to how we imagine they should.
We haven't even seen the rules for hordes yet (we just know it's a rule), so frankly I don't get this several page whinefest. For all we know hordes will have bonuses, or the terrain rules will make it necessary for blast weapons to hit harder to work properly.
Eldarsif wrote: Templates were horrible. They slowed the game both when people weren't arguing and when they were arguing. Because even when people were being polite they were asking:
"I think I can hit 4 with the template. Check it out to see if I am correct. I don't want to be a cheater."
Then the next person comes over to check it out, even if they trust their friend, because it was just etiquette. A social contract of sort.
"Yes, I think you are right. It's a bit reaching on that Ork toe, but I don't mind."
"So four hits?"
"Four hits it is."
"Okay, let's roll."
Then you had people spacing their models just to minimize the amount of models getting hit in a blast. It was a very bad mechanic for a game that had outgrown its original size considerably. 2nd Edition blast weapon templates I could get behind, as well as in smaller games like Necromunda, but in the huge game that 40k has become they were just cumbersome and problematic at the end of the day, because it took until the end of the day to play game.
Of course, if you play very casual they can maybe work faster. Don't worry too much about spacing and just have some beer, pretzel, and fun, then there is nothing problematic with blasts. However, considering that GW seems to be aiming at the tourney crowd templates are very unlikely to have a comeback in the foreseeable future.
Personally I am glad that they are gone. Games have been much smoother with both friends and pugs after their removal.
So polite social interaction and an actual strategy based on experience and skill? The horror.
It doesn't take long, especially if the guy knows his spacing because he's literally spacing them knowing what the max would be. The only part that lagged it down were scatter and multiple barrage. Fine, compromise and remove scatter. Place it, and roll to hit with BS and be done.
And as for arguing, anyone that I have ever played in a tournament or casually that would complain and watchdog blasts would literally argue over anything. BTW the same type still plays in 8th and they still argue, just over any other thing. It's best not to play anyone that's itching to complain about 1-2 more dudes being hit in a toy soldier game.
The rule is silly, but maybe designers intent was not to make a better simulation, but to nerf particular type of unit or rule combo (ie blobs on buffs).
You are suggesting that this rule doesn’t miss the point of blast weapons, but that it is not good at representing their dynamics at the same time, no?
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Give that horse a rest, it's starting to rot.
Auras cause the "clumping" you're so against, and even then people spider out their units to form some kind of aura octopus to gain buffs.
Just because we don't have templates that requires everyone to spend five minutes every time they move a unit it doesn't mean the abstraction failed, your imagination failed instead. Clumping units up to get them into cover (or letting a few models outside of terrain die first to allow the rest of the unit that fit in terrain to gain cover) was already a thing. This changed nothing, if anything it at least allows the weapons to hit units closer to how we imagine they should.
We haven't even seen the rules for hordes yet (we just know it's a rule), so frankly I don't get this several page whinefest. For all we know hordes will have bonuses, or the terrain rules will make it necessary for blast weapons to hit harder to work properly.
8th edition had the same problem. You're just throwing a fit because GW won't sell you a plastic tea cup saucer and bring back arguments.
I am not against the idea of blasts doing some kind of splash damage or the like but clearly that's not how it's going to work (unless there is a strat for that). So spending PAGES throwing a fit about it is beyond tired. It's not going to change just because it doesn't fit your narrow world view of how it "should" work.
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Give that horse a rest, it's starting to rot.
Auras cause the "clumping" you're so against, and even then people spider out their units to form some kind of aura octopus to gain buffs.
Just because we don't have templates that requires everyone to spend five minutes every time they move a unit it doesn't mean the abstraction failed, your imagination failed instead. Clumping units up to get them into cover (or letting a few models outside of terrain die first to allow the rest of the unit that fit in terrain to gain cover) was already a thing. This changed nothing, if anything it at least allows the weapons to hit units closer to how we imagine they should.
We haven't even seen the rules for hordes yet (we just know it's a rule), so frankly I don't get this several page whinefest. For all we know hordes will have bonuses, or the terrain rules will make it necessary for blast weapons to hit harder to work properly.
But it doesn't do that. It allows weapons to hit units the opposite of how we think they should in most cases, by more likely than not incentivizing you to target the spread out larger unit instead of the tightly packed clump of models that ought to be the obvious target for a big explosion. Going from the status quo of "everyone hit equally" to the new normal of "clumped up models being hit less hard than dispersed ones by blast weapons" is not a net gain in immersion or realism, it is a net loss. A rule that accomplishes the exact opposite of stated rationale is not an aid to imagination, it's a detriment to it.
I have also never said I wanted templates back, so I don't know why you want to make this personal and accuse me of a lack of imagination because I don't agree with you that this is a good change. If you want to accuse that imaginary straw man of lacking imagination go ahead, but please don't bring me into it.
This rule doesn't key off any "horde" keyword. Nor has any such keyword been announced, as far as I know. So I don't see what that has to do with anything either way.
Shadenuat wrote: The rule is silly, but maybe designers intent was not to make a better simulation, but to nerf particular type of unit or rule combo (ie blobs on buffs).
Honestly the less like a simulation the game can get the better. Honestly the game runs better when it does abstraction.
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Like someone else pointed out, it doesnt miss the point. A gadzillion points could be made better in the game. so what.
This seems like a weird response to "this mechanic more often than not encourages you to shoot the more dispersed unit over the clumped up bunch of models, the exact opposite of what they claim to be trying to simulate."
If a gadzillion points could be made better in the game...why not make them better, instead of adding a new rule that is even worse than those rules?
Because as any being with finite means you have to draw the line. Obviously.
Shoot a blast weapon against 30 orks, 10 die.
Shoot a blast weapon at 7 orks, 3 die.
Mission acomplished.
Failing to hit 5 out of 5 of clumped together gretchins in the corner? Above mission still acomblished.
Remember these are abstractions.
- number of hits doesnt have to reflect number of shells goind through the barrel.
- number of models doesn't have to reflect number of bodies in physical reality.
- the number 11 doesn't have to relate to 11 physical bodies. It's a game mechanic that does things to things like 30 orks as mentioned above
yukishiro1 wrote: But the point is that this is an abstraction so abstract it actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to approximate. If you have a rule that is supposed to approximate a big explosion in a crowded space, and instead it usually encourages you to shoot at a spread-out unit instead of shooting at a bunch of tightly packed models in a crowded space, this is not good abstraction. It's an abstraction that literally results in the opposite of what you are trying to simulate.
Give that horse a rest, it's starting to rot.
Auras cause the "clumping" you're so against, and even then people spider out their units to form some kind of aura octopus to gain buffs.
Just because we don't have templates that requires everyone to spend five minutes every time they move a unit it doesn't mean the abstraction failed, your imagination failed instead. Clumping units up to get them into cover (or letting a few models outside of terrain die first to allow the rest of the unit that fit in terrain to gain cover) was already a thing. This changed nothing, if anything it at least allows the weapons to hit units closer to how we imagine they should.
We haven't even seen the rules for hordes yet (we just know it's a rule), so frankly I don't get this several page whinefest. For all we know hordes will have bonuses, or the terrain rules will make it necessary for blast weapons to hit harder to work properly.
But it doesn't do that. It allows weapons to hit units the opposite of how we think they should in most cases, by more likely than not incentivizing you to target the spread out larger unit instead of the tightly packed clump of models that ought to be the obvious target for a big explosion. Going from the status quo of "everyone hit equally" to the new normal of "clumped up models being hit less hard than dispersed ones by blast weapons" is not a net gain in immersion or realism, it is a net loss. A rule that accomplishes the exact opposite of stated rationale is not an aid to imagination, it's a detriment to it.
I have also never said I wanted templates back, so I don't know why you want to make this personal and accuse me of a lack of imagination because I don't agree with you that this is a good change. If you want to accuse that imaginary straw man of lacking imagination go ahead, but please don't bring me into it.
This rule doesn't key off any "horde" keyword. Nor has any such keyword been announced, as far as I know. So I don't see what that has to do with anything either way.
I never said this rule triggers off a horde keyword, I said we don't know what rules that hordes get that might help them against this. If you're going to bitch at least get it right.
8th edition had the same problem. You're just throwing a fit because GW won't sell you a plastic tea cup saucer and bring back arguments.
I am not against the idea of blasts doing some kind of splash damage or the like but clearly that's not how it's going to work (unless there is a strat for that). So spending PAGES throwing a fit about it is beyond tired. It's not going to change just because it doesn't fit your narrow world view of how it "should" work.
Ah, now we get to the real rub of your argument: "stop throwing a fit because you don't like the rules! the rules are the rules and if you don't like them shut up, your opinion is not welcome!"
This is a message board forum. We come here to talk about things, not to not talk about them. If you don't want to talk about rules reveals for 9th edition, why are you posting in a thread about talking about rules reveals for 9th edition?
The only one I see "throwing a fit" here is, well...
Shadenuat wrote: The rule is silly, but maybe designers intent was not to make a better simulation, but to nerf particular type of unit or rule combo (ie blobs on buffs).
Honestly the less like a simulation the game can get the better. Honestly the game runs better when it does abstraction.
How is it that dispensing with common intuitions confirmed by everyday experience makes the game better? Unless one has no experience and less power of intuition... why not play a video game? No chance to argue there.
You are suggesting that this rule doesn’t miss the point of blast weapons, but that it is not good at representing their dynamics at the same time, no?
8th edition had the same problem. You're just throwing a fit because GW won't sell you a plastic tea cup saucer and bring back arguments.
I am not against the idea of blasts doing some kind of splash damage or the like but clearly that's not how it's going to work (unless there is a strat for that). So spending PAGES throwing a fit about it is beyond tired. It's not going to change just because it doesn't fit your narrow world view of how it "should" work.
Ah, now we get to the real rub of your argument: "stop throwing a fit because you don't like the rules! the rules are the rules and if you don't like them shut up, your opinion is not welcome!"
This is a message board forum. We come here to talk about things, not to not talk about them.
The only one I see "throwing a fit" here is, well...
No, you don't get it. It's one thing to go "I don't like this" or "this looks bad" it's another to complain that it causes the game to abstract wrong (in your opinion) and then spend pages browbeating people to establish nerd dominance.
You have been doing the last one since the WHC article went up and I'm pretty sure everyone gets it. You're salty about this and you can't understand people might not be as upset about it as you are. We good? Can we move on now?
I like the change to blast weapons, personally. While I did really like using blast templates back in the day I also appreciate the convenience that comes with not having them. The way 9th is slicing it creates a medium I am happy with.
But I can also understand how some people may not like that approach. And as always some of each portion confuse personal preference with overall quality. It is the nature of things.
Shadenuat wrote: The rule is silly, but maybe designers intent was not to make a better simulation, but to nerf particular type of unit or rule combo (ie blobs on buffs).
Honestly the less like a simulation the game can get the better. Honestly the game runs better when it does abstraction.
How is it that dispensing with common intuitions confirmed by everyday experience makes the game better? Unless one has no experience and less power of intuition... why not play a video game? No chance to argue there.
Video games do simulations better, table top games do abstractions better.
Like pretending that GW terrain full of holes blocks Line of Sight is more fun, in my opinion, than hunkering down with a laser pointer to line up a sniper shot through two (or more) buildings with a battle cannon so you can shoot something you can barely claim to actually see.
You are suggesting that this rule doesn’t miss the point of blast weapons, but that it is not good at representing their dynamics at the same time, no?
I don't understand. Did you misuote me?
I got tired of quoting.
So many fallacies and bad rules, why bother, right?
To this I asked why you champion such a sad state of affairs in the first place.
No, you don't get it. It's one thing to go "I don't like this" or "this looks bad" it's another to complain that it causes the game to abstract wrong (in your opinion) and then spend pages browbeating people to establish nerd dominance.
You have been doing the last one since the WHC article went up and I'm pretty sure everyone gets it. You're salty about this and you can't understand people might not be as upset about it as you are. We good? Can we move on now?
If you are feeling so "browbeaten" by someone pointing out that they don't think the rule is very good and not immediately agreeing with your responses that attempt to defend the rule, I think you may need to take a deep breath and a bit of a break, mate.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can continue to discuss things for as long as we want to discuss things. Nobody's forced to post in this thread, or on this topic.
The only one trying to browbeat anyone into anything here is you trying to shut down the discussion for no apparent reason.
The rule could be more elegant (clearly) but I don't think it misses it's point.
I agree it doesn't miss it's point, assuming the point was to screw over 11+ man units. I just don't think that's a very good point to have.
But they called it blast for a reason. They're making reference to a historical rule that behaved completely different from this one, a rule that punished model density, not unit size. These are completely different mechanics. The only reason they borrowed that terminology from the past is to try to lend a veneer of respectability to what is actually just a rule designed to screw 11+ man units.
And it's not just the terminology. They specifically referenced the idea of big explosions in crowded spaces. Now the rule doesn't actually do that at all, and I have to assume they are competent enough to realize that, and therefore that there is some element of bait and switch at work. But we can't ignore what they called the rule and the supposed justification they made for it.
There are two possibilities:
1. Either they wanted to simulate a large explosion in a crowded area, i.e. a blast template, but without templates, and failed miserably, which shows a startling level of incompetence.
or.
2. They told us they wanted to mimic a large explosion in a crowded area, but in fact used the opportunity to sneak in a completely new mechanic designed to discourage taking units of more than 10 models.
I think the latter is far more likely; it seems you do too. I just don't see how this positively impacts the game.
It's made to be efficient against 11+ men units. Yes. Quite literally. This is what they said " weapons designed to engage and destroy large groups of enemies will benefit from a more reliable number of attacks to ensure they make their presence felt". So obviously their definition of "large group of enemies" is "units of 11+ models".
As we already discussed they can't make a 2D6 weapon always make 12 shots, so you have to deal with the fact that now when something like a shadow weaver shoots "a large group" of grots, it won't just kill one model because you don't want to spend a CP to reroll your number of shots when you're using the weapon like you should. It's like you're mad at them because these weapons will achieve their intent without being overbearing on the rest of the game.
And SURE conga lines aren't really a large group of enemies but that's an issue with conga lines in the first place. And SURE 4*5 men isn't treated as 1*20 men, it's not perfect but also 4*5 men might be easier to tackle than 1*20 (for various reasons like buffs, charge rolls and whatnot like CP like previously mentioned but seems it wasn't worth noticing). Would it be fine if instead of "large groups of enemies" they would have written "large units" ? Do we need to argue every word ? Should we discuss the other weapons in the game that are more effective against certain targets and less against others ?
If you feel like having weapons which main purpose is to target large units (the game defining large units as 11+ models) is bad for the game, I can't argue with that, it's your opinion. As far as i'm concerned, I would like to know more and don't feel like it's a huge issue right now.
Shadenuat wrote: The rule is silly, but maybe designers intent was not to make a better simulation, but to nerf particular type of unit or rule combo (ie blobs on buffs).
Honestly the less like a simulation the game can get the better. Honestly the game runs better when it does abstraction.
How is it that dispensing with common intuitions confirmed by everyday experience makes the game better? Unless one has no experience and less power of intuition... why not play a video game? No chance to argue there.
Video games do simulations better, table top games do abstractions better.
Like pretending that GW terrain full of holes blocks Line of Sight is more fun, in my opinion, than hunkering down with a laser pointer to line up a sniper shot through two (or more) buildings with a battle cannon so you can shoot something you can barely claim to actually see.
This example is arbitrary ... not a simulation at all.
And given the upshot of abstraction, why bother with the painting and realistic terrain?
If you feel like having weapons which main purpose is to target large units (the game defining large units as 11+ models) is bad for the game, I can't argue with that, it's your opinion. As far as i'm concerned, I would like to know more and don't feel like it's a huge issue right now.
Because it is arbitrary and doesn’t capture the dynamics that blasts should represent... it could. Easily. This is the real trouble... disappointment that the experience must be leveled down so people who lack civility can play 40k without having to learn how to be civil, which had been a great social benefit of tabletop war games imho...
Leth wrote: So back to 1/3 of the game spent properly spacing units. Got it. I don’t miss blast templates because I remember one of the. First questions asked was “how many blast weapons”, slowed the game down a lot.
The only people missing scattering templates are people who played max 1000 point games. I remember the 10 minutes required to shoot a few wyverns (they were the worst of all).
I would mind as much having the flamer blast back though (or the light flamer blast from even more years ago), but at the end of the day looking at who was under was just too cluncky stuff really
I've been playing since the release of 2nd edition and I play all sized games. Blasts were never an issue, it was when they introduced MULTIPLE blast that things got silly. Thats an easy fix, rather then making a quad launcher shoot 4 tiny blasts you just give it one large blast. GW hates taking the short simple route sometimes though for whatever reason.
I suppose you never shot a Venom cannon or Thudd gun in 2nd edition.
You are suggesting that this rule doesn’t miss the point of blast weapons, but that it is not good at representing their dynamics at the same time, no?
I don't understand. Did you misuote me?
I got tired of quoting.
So many fallacies and bad rules, why bother, right?
To this I asked why you champion such a sad state of affairs in the first place.
It's made to be efficient against 11+ men units. Yes. Quite literally. This is what they said " weapons designed to engage and destroy large groups of enemies will benefit from a more reliable number of attacks to ensure they make their presence felt". So obviously their definition of "large group of enemies" is "units of 11+ models".
As we already discussed they can't make a 2D6 weapon always make 12 shots, so you have to deal with the fact that now when something like a shadow weaver shoots "a large group" of grots, it won't just kill one model because you don't want to spend a CP to reroll your number of shots when you're using the weapon like you should. It's like you're mad at them because these weapons will achieve their intent without being overbearing on the rest of the game.
And SURE conga lines aren't really a large group of enemies but that's an issue with conga lines in the first place. And SURE 4*5 men isn't treated as 1*20 men, it's not perfect but also 4*5 men might be easier to tackle than 1*20 (for various reasons like buffs, charge rolls and whatnot like CP like previously mentioned but seems it wasn't worth noticing). Would it be fine if instead of "large groups of enemies" they would have written "large units" ? Do we need to argue every word ? Should we discuss the other weapons in the game that are more effective against certain targets and less against others ?
If you feel like having weapons which main purpose is to target large units (the game defining large units as 11+ models) is bad for the game, I can't argue with that, it's your opinion. As far as i'm concerned, I would like to know more and don't feel like it's a huge issue right now.
I don't disagree with any of that in the abstract, aside from the idea that there is really anything to be gained from having weapons specifically designed to target units of 11+ models. And even that doesn't particularly bother me; I don't see the reason for it, but as long as the points are adjusted, if they really WANT to do that, go for it I guess?
I think I would like the rule more if they hadn't tried to call it blast and tried to rationalize it based on the old blast mechanics, when in fact it does pretty much the exact opposite of what the old blast mechanics do in terms of incentives.
And I'd also like it more if I thought it actually did that, i.e. it actually was going to make a certain category of guns that is specifically designed to target big units. Instead, it seems like it will mostly result in two things: anti-tank weapons being better against 11+ model units as well, removing their prior weakness and therefore making the game less specialized, not more, and further empowering indirect fire, which I really don't think needs it.
FWIW I have three night spinners and will happily enough cheese the hell out of them if they become even more ridiculously overpowered than they were before. But I just don't think that's really what the game was desperately calling out for. Just like I really don't think the problem with 8th was that blobs of infantry were too difficult to shoot off the table.
You are suggesting that this rule doesn’t miss the point of blast weapons, but that it is not good at representing their dynamics at the same time, no?
I don't understand. Did you misuote me?
I got tired of quoting.
So many fallacies and bad rules, why bother, right?
To this I asked why you champion such a sad state of affairs in the first place.
Sad?
And I said my person is OFF TOPIC.
I am not asking about your person. I am asking for your reasons... but no stress. Clearly, if you had some, you would volunteer them rather than take offense.
It's made to be efficient against 11+ men units. Yes. Quite literally. This is what they said " weapons designed to engage and destroy large groups of enemies will benefit from a more reliable number of attacks to ensure they make their presence felt". So obviously their definition of "large group of enemies" is "units of 11+ models".
As we already discussed they can't make a 2D6 weapon always make 12 shots, so you have to deal with the fact that now when something like a shadow weaver shoots "a large group" of grots, it won't just kill one model because you don't want to spend a CP to reroll your number of shots when you're using the weapon like you should. It's like you're mad at them because these weapons will achieve their intent without being overbearing on the rest of the game.
And SURE conga lines aren't really a large group of enemies but that's an issue with conga lines in the first place. And SURE 4*5 men isn't treated as 1*20 men, it's not perfect but also 4*5 men might be easier to tackle than 1*20 (for various reasons like buffs, charge rolls and whatnot like CP like previously mentioned but seems it wasn't worth noticing). Would it be fine if instead of "large groups of enemies" they would have written "large units" ? Do we need to argue every word ? Should we discuss the other weapons in the game that are more effective against certain targets and less against others ?
If you feel like having weapons which main purpose is to target large units (the game defining large units as 11+ models) is bad for the game, I can't argue with that, it's your opinion. As far as i'm concerned, I would like to know more and don't feel like it's a huge issue right now.
I don't disagree with any of that in the abstract, aside from the idea that there is really anything to be gained from having weapons specifically designed to target units of 11+ models. And even that doesn't particularly bother me; I don't see the reason for it, but as long as the points are adjusted, if they really WANT to do that, go for it I guess?
I think I would like the rule more if they hadn't tried to call it blast and tried to rationalize it based on the old blast mechanics, when in fact it does pretty much the exact opposite of what the old blast mechanics do in terms of incentives.
And I'd also like it more if I thought it actually did that, i.e. it actually was going to make a certain category of guns that is specifically designed to target big units. Instead, it seems like it will mostly result in two things: anti-tank weapons being better against 11+ model units as well, removing their prior weakness and therefore making the game less specialized, not more, and further empowering indirect fire, which I really don't think needs it.
FWIW I have three night spinners and will happily enough cheese the hell out of them if they become even more ridiculously overpowered than they were before. But I just don't think that's really what the game was desperately calling out for. Just like I really don't think the problem with 8th was that blobs of infantry were too difficult to shoot off the table.
You are suggesting that this rule doesn’t miss the point of blast weapons, but that it is not good at representing their dynamics at the same time, no?
I don't understand. Did you misuote me?
I got tired of quoting.
So many fallacies and bad rules, why bother, right?
To this I asked why you champion such a sad state of affairs in the first place.
Sad?
And I said my person is OFF TOPIC.
I am not asking about your person. I am asking for your reasons... but no stress. Clearly, if you had some, you would volunteer them rather than take offense.
If you feel like having weapons which main purpose is to target large units (the game defining large units as 11+ models) is bad for the game, I can't argue with that, it's your opinion. As far as i'm concerned, I would like to know more and don't feel like it's a huge issue right now.
Because it is arbitrary and doesn’t capture the dynamics that blasts should represent... it could. Easily. This is the real trouble... disappointment that the experience must be leveled down so people who lack civility can play 40k without having to learn how to be civil, which had been a great social benefit of tabletop war games imho...
"maybe it isn't it's intent and you which it was" was the point of the post you butchered.
If you feel like having weapons which main purpose is to target large units (the game defining large units as 11+ models) is bad for the game, I can't argue with that, it's your opinion. As far as i'm concerned, I would like to know more and don't feel like it's a huge issue right now.
Because it is arbitrary and doesn’t capture the dynamics that blasts should represent... it could. Easily. This is the real trouble... disappointment that the experience must be leveled down so people who lack civility can play 40k without having to learn how to be civil, which had been a great social benefit of tabletop war games imho...
"maybe it isn't it's intent and you which it was" was the point of the post you butchered.
"maybe it isn't it's intent and you which it was" was the point of the post you butchered.
Yeah, but in that case, wouldn't it have been better for them to be honest about what the intent was and explain why they wanted to punish taking 11+ models, instead of dressing it up in the "blast" language that seems intended to disguise that what they're actually doing is if anything the opposite of what blast meant for the previous 6-7 editions before 8th?
I don't know about anyone else, but if they had said: "Ok guys, we know this is going to be controversial, but we think units of 11 or more models are too powerful and need to be toned down, so we're putting in a new mechanic to make variable shot weapons shoot harder at 11+ models than they do at 5 models, in order to encourage you not to take 11+ model units" I'd have reacted very differently than them saying "isn't it cool when a huge explosion in a crowded area blows up a ton of guys! now you can do that with the blast rule!" even though it isn't what the rule does at all.
jeff white wrote: Derailing? Asking why seems opposite to derailing...
Just stick to discussing the blast rule.
Also I never said the game was sad. I like the game.
I thought that you suggested that the rules were full of fallacies so why should we bother pointing them out and worse yet try to fix them... did I get that wrong? Because such a game is a sad one, in the sense of poorly kept, in poor condition... bad.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But maybe you like this condition... I just wondered. Now I guess I have my answer...and now I understand your position on this blast rule.
jeff white wrote: Derailing? Asking why seems opposite to derailing...
Just stick to discussing the blast rule.
Also I never said the game was sad. I like the game.
I thought that you suggested that the rules were full of fallacies so why should we bother pointing them out and worse yet try to fix them... did I get that wrong? Because such a game is a sad one, in the sense of poorly kept, in poor condition... bad.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But maybe you like this condition... I just wondered. Now I guess I have my answer...
You pulled me out of context (dont do that).
I was adressing that other yukishiro who was bothered with how this rule doesnt do more. And I am essentially arguing that it still does good even if it doesnt do all those things he also wanted done. And then I pointed out for meaningful reference that there are a bunch of things in the game up there, at the same level of lacking... physical representation.
But you know this. You're a grown person. You can read.
yeah, you thought the blast rule was going to cover blast effects and it's not really what it is about. I can understand But it's quite a lot of internet ink for an issue with a single word.
Regarding how you feel about the necessity of it, I don't know, as far as I'm concerned I'm at least happy that weapons supposed to deal with "large groups" might be able to now. For the possible issues, I'll just wait&see for now.
And I was talking about the weapon batteries, not the spinner, but obviously it will become better at killing "large groups which are units comprised of 11+ models" too.
Ugh, the triple nightspinner + 9 shadowweaver EC/MS list is IMO the single worst list in the game. So terrible to play, and to play against. I really hope it doesn't get buffed even more than it already has. It's on a level with broviathan for horrible lists that should never exist, IMO.
Indirect fire is a huge problem already in 8th and if 9th makes it even more powerful I do not think it will be good for anybody's fun.
"maybe it isn't it's intent and you which it was" was the point of the post you butchered.
Yeah, but in that case, wouldn't it have been better for them to be honest about what the intent was and explain why they wanted to punish taking 11+ models, instead of dressing it up in the "blast" language that seems intended to disguise that what they're actually doing is if anything the opposite of what blast meant for the previous 6-7 editions before 8th?
I don't know about anyone else, but if they had said: "Ok guys, we know this is going to be controversial, but we think units of 11 or more models are too powerful and need to be toned down, so we're putting in a new mechanic to make variable shot weapons shoot harder at 11+ models than they do at 5 models, in order to encourage you not to take 11+ model units" I'd have reacted very differently than them saying "isn't it cool when a huge explosion in a crowded area blows up a ton of guys! now you can do that with the blast rule!" even though it isn't what the rule does at all.
They actually did, they are literally doing it because these weapons were disappointing, to quote :
"We’ve all been there – a numberless horde of Tyranids is hurtling towards your army, but even as you line up your trusty ordnance weapon to blast a ruinous chunk from of their ranks, you roll a 1 for the number of shots it fires. Well, no more! The new rules for Blast weapons ensure you get the most bang for your buck when targeting larger concentrations of enemy troops…"
And that's it. It's stuff that wasn't working that they hope will now. Was it required ? Dunno, but these weapons sure were underwhelming.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
yukishiro1 wrote: Ugh, the triple nightspinner + 9 shadowweaver EC/MS list is IMO the single worst list in the game. So terrible to play, and to play against. I really hope it doesn't get buffed even more than it already has. It's on a level with broviathan for horrible lists that should never exist, IMO.
Indirect fire is a huge problem already in 8th and if 9th makes it even more powerful I do not think it will be good for anybody's fun.
We're getting a tease about the new cover rules tomorrow.
Shadow weavers as they are only works because they are single models instead of a unit and that interaction with that trait though.
Big units like Hormagaunts and Ork Boyz needed the new blast rules. Even things like Cultists and Guardian Defenders (yes, Guardian Defenders) could use a better counter. These things are buff magnets and potentially huge bullet sponges. So, obviously, you are gonna need more bullets against them.
With board sizes getting smaller and LoS blocking terrain becoming more of a thing you will have fewer chances to do real work against these units. Especially since most of them can be pretty scary if they actually get into your lines.
The players that needlessly suffer the most from this are probably Tau and Harlequin players that max units at 12. (Though I don't know any people that actually do that anymore [or if it is even still possible])
They actually did, they are literally doing it because these weapons were disappointing, to quote :
"We’ve all been there – a numberless horde of Tyranids is hurtling towards your army, but even as you line up your trusty ordnance weapon to blast a ruinous chunk from of their ranks, you roll a 1 for the number of shots it fires. Well, no more! The new rules for Blast weapons ensure you get the most bang for your buck when targeting larger concentrations of enemy troops…"
I don't want to beat a dead horse, but this is precisely what the rule doesn't actually do. It gives you more bang for your buck when shooting units of 11+ models, not when targeting larger concentrations. You can say this is just meaningless word-parsing, but I really don't think it is. It is the essence of the difference. Blast used to be about density, now it's about unit model count. It sounds similar at first, but the implications are completely different, and actually kind of the opposite.
They actually did, they are literally doing it because these weapons were disappointing, to quote :
"We’ve all been there – a numberless horde of Tyranids is hurtling towards your army, but even as you line up your trusty ordnance weapon to blast a ruinous chunk from of their ranks, you roll a 1 for the number of shots it fires. Well, no more! The new rules for Blast weapons ensure you get the most bang for your buck when targeting larger concentrations of enemy troops…"
I don't want to beat a dead horse, but this is precisely what the rule doesn't actually do. It gives you more bang for your buck when shooting units of 11+ models, not when targeting larger concentrations. You can say this is just meaningless word-parsing, but I really don't think it is. It is the essence of the difference. Blast used to be about density, now it's about unit model count. It sounds similar at first, but the implications are completely different, and actually kind of the opposite.
I won't quote again the next part where they define what "a large group of enemies" or rather a "larger concentration of enemy troops" is. So yeah, you are beating a dead horse
They actually did, they are literally doing it because these weapons were disappointing, to quote :
"We’ve all been there – a numberless horde of Tyranids is hurtling towards your army, but even as you line up your trusty ordnance weapon to blast a ruinous chunk from of their ranks, you roll a 1 for the number of shots it fires. Well, no more! The new rules for Blast weapons ensure you get the most bang for your buck when targeting larger concentrations of enemy troops…"
I don't want to beat a dead horse, but this is precisely what the rule doesn't actually do. It gives you more bang for your buck when shooting units of 11+ models, not when targeting larger concentrations. You can say this is just meaningless word-parsing, but I really don't think it is. It is the essence of the difference. Blast used to be about density, now it's about unit model count. It sounds similar at first, but the implications are completely different, and actually kind of the opposite.
And yet it may be exactly what they intended since it doesn't work like, say. Orbital Bombardment which can hit multiple units from a fixed point. Clearly they aren't trying to punish people for taking horde armies, they just want the weapons to work better against horde units.
Goobi2 wrote: Big units like Hormagaunts and Ork Boyz needed the new blast rules. Even things like Cultists and Guardian Defenders (yes, Guardian Defenders) could use a better counter. These things are buff magnets and potentially huge bullet sponges. So, obviously, you are gonna need more bullets against them.
Were hormagaunt or ork boyz hordes dominating the meta? Were guardian bombs? Cultist spam? I just find this argument really interesting, because it simply wasn't the case. The board size changes don't change this really btw, because all these units already to able to make T1 contact with almost any army on almost any deployment map. You can't get any faster than a T1 charge.
The counter for all these is still volume of fire weapons btw, not blast weapons. You get way more bang for your buck shooting all these targets with hurricane bolters than you do with blast weapons. So the rule doesn't even really improve someone's ability to counter these units.
The main impact of the rule seems to be: (1) more powerful indirect fire (does anyone think the game needs this?) and (2) anti-tank weapons that are still not very good for shooting 11+ unit models, but better than they used to be.
They actually did, they are literally doing it because these weapons were disappointing, to quote :
"We’ve all been there – a numberless horde of Tyranids is hurtling towards your army, but even as you line up your trusty ordnance weapon to blast a ruinous chunk from of their ranks, you roll a 1 for the number of shots it fires. Well, no more! The new rules for Blast weapons ensure you get the most bang for your buck when targeting larger concentrations of enemy troops…"
I don't want to beat a dead horse, but this is precisely what the rule doesn't actually do. It gives you more bang for your buck when shooting units of 11+ models, not when targeting larger concentrations. You can say this is just meaningless word-parsing, but I really don't think it is. It is the essence of the difference. Blast used to be about density, now it's about unit model count. It sounds similar at first, but the implications are completely different, and actually kind of the opposite.
I won't quote again the next part where they define what "a large group of enemies" or rather a "larger concentration of enemy troops" is. So yeah, you are beating a dead horse
A unit with 11+ models is not the same as a larger concentration of enemy troops. Words have meanings, and these do not mean the same thing. Old blast rewarded targeting larger concentrations of enemy troops; this new blast rule does not.
But this seems like a silly argument to have because we seem to both already agree this rule is totally different from what blast used to mean. It's not a good approximation at all of a blast weapon. Whether it is a good mechanic despite not being a good approximation of a blast weapon will depend on the rest of the rules.
If they want to call "blast" a weapon better suited to deal with huge units, I don't see why not. It's still related imho and evocative enough to remember what we are talking about. Unless you're extremely obtuse.
What matter is the rule.
But yeah, it isn't an oldschool blast, it's a 2020 blast, it has evolved and like all new stuff replacing older stuff, it's worse ofc ! (but so was rolling X dice tbh)
So that's it, maybe you're just old
Did anyone notice that the wording of the legion trait for Bile’s dudes includes all units with the trait? Is this different than the wording of the current chaos space marine codex? Is GW finally updating us to rolling the legion traits to all units (except cultists for obvious reasons)
macluvin wrote: Did anyone notice that the wording of the legion trait for Bile’s dudes includes all units with the trait? Is this different than the wording of the current chaos space marine codex? Is GW finally updating us to rolling the legion traits to all units (except cultists for obvious reasons)
No, that's how all the legion traits are worded in the codex. It's still just infantry, bikers, and dreadnoughts. I made the same mistake at first. Csm don't get nice things like that.
macluvin wrote: Did anyone notice that the wording of the legion trait for Bile’s dudes includes all units with the trait? Is this different than the wording of the current chaos space marine codex? Is GW finally updating us to rolling the legion traits to all units (except cultists for obvious reasons)
I like that cultists don't get the benefit. It is very fluffy and underlines their role as expendable scrubs. Plus, if it would not benefit them much anyway it is also not much of a loss. If it would benefit them significantly... well, there's the reason for them not to have it.
I could see a strategem for 'veteran cultists' that lets a unit get included though, maybe with some other benefit to represent CSM-aspirants.
I'd agree if they were costed as throw away chaff. But they've been at or above guardsmen the entire edition.
They've shown a willingness to have traits that apply different effects to varying units. They either should have been costed properly in their exempt from power from paint status or given their own trait in each legion.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I like that cultists don't get the benefit. It is very fluffy and underlines their role as expendable scrubs. Plus, if it would not benefit them much anyway it is also not much of a loss. If it would benefit them significantly... well, there's the reason for them not to have it.
I could see a strategem for 'veteran cultists' that lets a unit get included though, maybe with some other benefit to represent CSM-aspirants.
They really need some other rules for Cultists. Like giving them a Grot Shield equiv as a universal rule and/or let them "heal" d3 dead model as more cultists come out of the woodwork to support them, and give them a toned down Legion trait so it feels like they emulate the Legion they serve.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I like that cultists don't get the benefit. It is very fluffy and underlines their role as expendable scrubs. Plus, if it would not benefit them much anyway it is also not much of a loss. If it would benefit them significantly... well, there's the reason for them not to have it.
I could see a strategem for 'veteran cultists' that lets a unit get included though, maybe with some other benefit to represent CSM-aspirants.
They really need some other rules for Cultists. Like giving them a Grot Shield equiv as a universal rule and/or let them "heal" d3 dead model as more cultists come out of the woodwork to support them, and give them a toned down Legion trait so it feels like they emulate the Legion they serve.
I've suggested they get a rule to treat all infantry/bikers like they had the Character rule to block them for targeting purposes, and then they lose that rule when they get to below 5 dudes.
Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
yukishiro1 wrote: Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
it's possiable that GW concluded overly cheap hoard units like cultists, grots, guards etc where a bit too too and over all the costs of those cheap units went up to a greater proportion then elites.
yukishiro1 wrote: Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
it's possiable that GW concluded overly cheap hoard units like cultists, grots, guards etc where a bit too too and over all the costs of those cheap units went up to a greater proportion then elites.
Yes...but that would be super dumb. Did anyone really think one of 8th edition's problems was that cheap horde units were overpowered? Were lists full of 300 grots or cultists tearing up the competitive scene?
That's about as mental at looking at 8th edition and saying: "you know the problem with this edition? stuff doesn't die fast enough! we need more, deadlier shooting!"
yukishiro1 wrote: Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
it's possiable that GW concluded overly cheap hoard units like cultists, grots, guards etc where a bit too too and over all the costs of those cheap units went up to a greater proportion then elites.
Yes...but that would be super dumb. Did anyone really think one of 8th edition's problems was that cheap horde units were overpowered?
That was in fact one of the starting problems for 8th edition. I've never actually seen someone question that before, as it was the focus of the Needful Conscript Nerfing and the Unnecessary Commissar Annihilation.
Cheap guns and wounds and loads and loads of attack dice (and rerolls) were one of most mathematically effective approaches to the game before it was buried under the Marine Doctrine Problem. A conscript unit was able to turn up and roll a couple hundred dice to solve problems. (30 models, 60 attacks, doubled to 120 because First Rank, Second Rank, rerolls for various characters means 200+ dice just for hit rolls for a single unit, and then you move on to wounds). Various morale rules meant they stood there and soaked whatever was thrown at them.
Cultist had to be hit with point increases and specifically excluded from special rules and strats AND marines had to get free innate buffs (to shooting and melee attacks) before people even started considering that taking space marines instead might be a good idea.
So, yes. The cheap horde units were absolutely a problem child of 8th.
When it released? Sure. We're talking about 8th edition as it exists now. When's the last time a list full of hundreds of grots, conscripts or cultists was dominating the competitive scene in 8th edition?
That's like saying they're going to increase the points costs of razorwing flocks by 200% because they were the go-to list in the first two months of 8th.
The main use of these units was a CP farm, and that isn't there any more. If anything, they should be going down in price relative to other units, not up.
Why on earth would GW nerf cultists by not having them generate CP, and then also kick up their cost by 50%? Makes no sense from a balance perspective, unless there is something very good about big units they haven't revealed yet.
Not saying there is, mind you. It could well just be "this doesn't make sense, but we're doing it anyway."
Cultist had to be hit with point increases and specifically excluded from special rules and strats AND marines had to get free innate buffs (to shooting and melee attacks) before people even started considering that taking space marines instead might be a good idea.
So, yes. The cheap horde units were absolutely a problem child of 8th.
But that's because CSM are terrible, not because cultists were good. And besides...all those things already happened. They already got nerfed so bad that CSM squads, which are terrible, became a valid option. Why kick up their points AGAIN after the massive nerf to them from how CP is generated?
Eh. I think you're undervaluing cheap wounds and attacks, and you're still far too focused on the percentage increase rather than actual point cost, and how that compares to their effectiveness.
The changed to-wound chart helps too. Previously, cheap units couldn't threaten a large swath of opposition. Now they can.
I guess you could go with that takeaway. I was aiming more for not extrapolating too much from a single 9th edition data point, and providing some relevant context
yukishiro1 wrote: Why kick up their points AGAIN after the massive nerf to them from how CP is generated?
Because 9th isn't 8th and we'll be seeing points bumps across the board to compensate?
They're getting points kicked up by 50%. This is far more than we've been led to understand is the average increase. We went over this already a few posts ago.
Automatically Appended Next Post: P.S. I know a lot of people here think what Reece says is useless, but he also said on his podcast today that there are even more rules that discourage taking large units that are yet to come out. So it doesn't sound like there's anything for big units that we haven't been told that makes them much more valuable.
So basically: cultists are losing their CP generation, getting blown up easier by blast weapons, and there are even more rules that discourage you taking them as big units that we haven't even seen yet...and getting increased in cost by 50% to boot. All for a unit was already getting replaced by CSM - which are also terrible (there's a reason nobody ever takes tactical squads any more) - because they got nerfed so hard. Talk about the nerf bat!
yukishiro1 wrote: Why kick up their points AGAIN after the massive nerf to them from how CP is generated?
Because 9th isn't 8th and we'll be seeing points bumps across the board to compensate?
They're getting points kicked up by 50%. This is far more than we've been led to understand is the average increase. We went over this already a few posts ago.
Automatically Appended Next Post: P.S. I know a lot of people here think what Reece says is useless, but he also said on his podcast today that there are even more rules that discourage taking large units that are yet to come out. So it doesn't sound like there's anything for big units that we haven't been told that makes them much more valuable.
So basically: cultists are losing their CP generation, getting blown up easier by blast weapons, and there are even more rules that discourage you taking them as big units that we haven't even seen yet...and getting increased in cost by 50% to boot. All for a unit was already getting replaced by CSM - which are also terrible (there's a reason nobody ever takes tactical squads any more) - because they got nerfed so hard. Talk about the nerf bat!
Largest data point out of two data points isn't exactly damning evidence on any level.
And Reece and balance claims don't mix. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's based on something, but he's known for being off he mark on what is strong or weak *coughSTOMPAcough*.
I don't understand what you think your first sentence means. Everybody has said the points increase overall is about 20%, not 50%. Why would the fact that cultists are going up by 50% not be "damning evidence" that cultists are going up by 50%? I mean that's literally what the "data point" says: cultists are going up by 50%.
Are you trying to say that you don't believe that the average increase is about 20%?
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't understand what you think your first sentence means. Everybody has said the points increase overall is about 20%, not 50%. Why would the fact that cultists are going up by 50% not be "damning evidence" that cultists are going up by 50%? I mean that's literally what the "data point" says: cultists are going up by 50%.
Are you trying to say that you don't believe that the average increase is about 20%?
The only thing I've seen is that on average armies will lose the equivilant in points of about a squad of Marines, but we don't even know if they mean Tactical or Primaris. We also don't know if there are outliers that have it worse.
Two datapoints is crap for statistical analysis anyways.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And before I forget, we still don't know if GW is adjusting wargear costs on top of everything else too. Especially if they're separating Chainswords and Astartes Chainswords. That only makes me think we're going to see a wargear points hike too.
yukishiro1 wrote: Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
it's possiable that GW concluded overly cheap hoard units like cultists, grots, guards etc where a bit too too and over all the costs of those cheap units went up to a greater proportion then elites.
Yeah except hordes haven't been meta for a long time ago. It's been elite gunlines.
That was in fact one of the starting problems for 8th edition. I've never actually seen someone question that before, as it was the focus of the Needful Conscript Nerfing and the Unnecessary Commissar Annihilation.
Cheap guns and wounds and loads and loads of attack dice (and rerolls) were one of most mathematically effective approaches to the game before it was buried under the Marine Doctrine Problem. A conscript unit was able to turn up and roll a couple hundred dice to solve problems. (30 models, 60 attacks, doubled to 120 because First Rank, Second Rank, rerolls for various characters means 200+ dice just for hit rolls for a single unit, and then you move on to wounds). Various morale rules meant they stood there and soaked whatever was thrown at them.
Cultist had to be hit with point increases and specifically excluded from special rules and strats AND marines had to get free innate buffs (to shooting and melee attacks) before people even started considering that taking space marines instead might be a good idea.
So, yes. The cheap horde units were absolutely a problem child of 8th.
So let's nerf them because they USED to be problem? That would be stupid logic. Typical of GW thus then.
Cheap horde was solved long time ago. When 60+ model is easy peasy to remove and 100+ possible they aren't anymore of issue.
Why on earth would GW nerf cultists by not having them generate CP, and then also kick up their cost by 50%? Makes no sense from a balance perspective, unless there is something very good about big units they haven't revealed yet.
They sold enough horde models in start of 8th it's hard to sell more of them so time to sell something else that isn't as saturated and GW being GW isn't even particularly subtle so that everybody get's the memo. "buy elites. Buy tanks. Buy monsters"
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't understand what you think your first sentence means. Everybody has said the points increase overall is about 20%, not 50%. Why would the fact that cultists are going up by 50% not be "damning evidence" that cultists are going up by 50%? I mean that's literally what the "data point" says: cultists are going up by 50%.
Are you trying to say that you don't believe that the average increase is about 20%?
The only thing I've seen is that on average armies will lose the equivilant in points of about a squad of Marines, but we don't even know if they mean Tactical or Primaris. We also don't know if there are outliers that have it worse.
Two datapoints is crap for statistical analysis anyways.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And before I forget, we still don't know if GW is adjusting wargear costs on top of everything else too. Especially if they're separating Chainswords and Astartes Chainswords. That only makes me think we're going to see a wargear points hike too.
And funny thing that, squad of marines is closer to 20% than 50% increase...Unless marine squads have habit of being 1000 pts.
And unless weapon is used in option style it has point cost 0 regardless of weapon stats as it's baked into model's cost. Or do you REALLY think value of volcano cannon is 0? Doomsday cannon?
"marine standard wargear will go up and somehow also be counted separately when every other equal case has point cost baked into model cost!" Typical deniar's strawman arguments which are inevitably proven false. Why people just can't look at what GW does. It's not like GW is super complex or unpredictable and what they give separate points and what they bake into model cost is pretty easy to figure out.
tneva82 wrote: And funny thing that, squad of marines is closer to 20% than 50% increase...Unless marine squads have habit of being 1000 pts.
Do people not understand how averages work? Or how to crunch numbers for data? You can't look at 2 points out of hundreds and go "yup, this is the trend, everything will be X".
Cry me a river about cultists all you want, but at 4 ppm they were too cheap. We don't need the game drifting down to 1ppm or 1/2ppm units, so a points hike was needed. A points hike that will always feel greater for units who pay less points than ones who cost more ppm.
As I've pointed out, we don't know what wargear looks like. We don't know what terrain looks like. We don't even know if horde units are going to have benefits we haven't been shown yet.
It's too early to break out the Chicken Little impressions and cry about how Hordes are Dead.
Chaos on a cracker people need to chill the hell out already on this gnashing of teeth over Cultists. I have said I don't like where Cultists are at ruleswise, but I also don't like were they're at points wise. As far as I'm concerned 5ppm or less is too cheap and shouldn't be in the game. I also think free wargear needs to go too.
And while we're at it, if things aren't expensive enough to balance the game after the 9th ed points hike, then hit them again and take their points even higher!
A squad of marines is not 500 points, which is what they'd have to be for the 50% increase to be accurate. "A squad of marines" points to the same 20% multiple people have said. Every indication we have is that average costs are going up by 20%, not 50%. There is absolutely no reason to think otherwise. You are free to do so if you want to anyway, but it's backed up by nothing, and contradicted by every single person who knows the rules who has spoken up about it.
yukishiro1 wrote: A squad of marines is not 500 points, which is what they'd have to be for the 50% increase to be accurate. "A squad of marines" points to the same 20% multiple people have said. Every indication we have is that average costs are going up by 20%, not 50%. There is absolutely no reason to think otherwise. You are free to do so if you want to anyway, but it's backed up by nothing.
If you're going to try and claim and average with only two data points, the least you could do is actually average the numbers. So you know, 35%?
Otherwise you're just making up data points to fit whatever claims you want to make.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And I'm not claiming that Intercessors are getting a 50% increase. I am saying that Cultists may not have had it the worst out of the points hikes and we don't know of there aren't other factors at play that justify the numbers we do know.
All I do know is people are making bold claims like they have the rulebook in front of them.and know how every change is impacting the game.
Quit using 8th edition as a basis for your claims on how 9th will or won't work. Too many variables are chamging to even make clear predictions on that front.
Agree with ClockworkZion ^. You can't infer the things you are inferring from such a limited amount of information.
There's also the issue of comparing percentage rises, when clearly, a 50% rise from 4 to 6pts has a different impact on the overall game than a 20% rise on a significantly more expensive unit. The devil is in the detail, and the way the new rules are reflected in the amended points costs and the granularity they bring.
MJRyder wrote: Agree with ClockworkZion ^. You can't infer the things you are inferring from such a limited amount of information.
There's also the issue of comparing percentage rises, when clearly, a 50% rise from 4 to 6pts has a different impact on the overall game than a 20% rise on a significantly more expensive unit. The devil is in the detail, and the way the new rules are reflected in the amended points costs and the granularity they bring.
But if marines are said to lose squad we can tell pretty safely they aren't getting 50% price hike in average. Unless the Stu means having to lose some FW super heavy from his army to fit every point increase...but that would be seriously misleading way to say it. From main codex no unit is so expensive that losing it would indicate average point increase of 50%. 20% however is pretty much spot on.
And 20% is 20%. 50% is 50%. It's % that's safe to compare. Absolute points is the one where impact is different based on unit.
MJRyder wrote: Agree with ClockworkZion ^. You can't infer the things you are inferring from such a limited amount of information.
There's also the issue of comparing percentage rises, when clearly, a 50% rise from 4 to 6pts has a different impact on the overall game than a 20% rise on a significantly more expensive unit. The devil is in the detail, and the way the new rules are reflected in the amended points costs and the granularity they bring.
But if marines are said to lose squad we can tell pretty safely they aren't getting 50% price hike in average. Unless the Stu means having to lose some FW super heavy from his army to fit every point increase...but that would be seriously misleading way to say it. From main codex no unit is so expensive that losing it would indicate average point increase of 50%. 20% however is pretty much spot on.
And 20% is 20%. 50% is 50%. It's % that's safe to compare. Absolute points is the one where impact is different based on unit.
Losing a squad of Marines could mean anything from 60 points to nearly 200 points. It's not enough to base anything on, all we know is that his list as a whole lost a "squad" of Marines.
It has nothing to do with the points cost of a single unit, it has to do with the points shift for the entire army.
H.B.M.C. wrote: What is the incentive to take big units that start at 10 at anything other than 10 now?
Nothing if they weren't morale imune or imunisable and even less in the future.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: I like that cultists don't get the benefit. It is very fluffy and underlines their role as expendable scrubs. Plus, if it would not benefit them much anyway it is also not much of a loss. If it would benefit them significantly... well, there's the reason for them not to have it.
I could see a strategem for 'veteran cultists' that lets a unit get included though, maybe with some other benefit to represent CSM-aspirants.
Fluffy he says:
Alpha legion, and IW would disagree.
As should you know, the bile ones because bile would make them into new man, respectively should make them into new man.
People need to stop going into panic mode so soon. We don't even have the complete rules or picture yet. Maybe a big melee squad with large numbers have some advantages given to it that a small squad doesn't ? Its really too soon to conclude anything about how melee will do when they haven't released anything regarding how melee will work in 9th edition.
Given that I am sure they understand how shooty 9th ed was, I believe they will give melee something.
And also. Lets not forget Tabletop tactics are the playtesters too. Have you seen their genestealer armies? their orc armies? Their astra militarium army? They play horde lists quite often and they have more than one horde army. Trust me, if horde is broken (as in totally stomped), they would have surely feedback on that.
We don’t know at the moment, do we? We know 11+ is risking Blast related obliteration. But.....that’s it. That’s all we know,
We don’t know if Hordes will get other perks. We don’t know how all this interacts with the new terrain rules, because we don’t know what those are.
It could well be just don’t see Hordes anymore. And that would suck, as I don’t like rules excluding choices in such a simple manner.
Possibilities? Even with Blasts, you can only Kill What You Can See. So if I’ve a mob of 30 Boyz huddling in cover, and you can only see 3 of them? That’s all your Blast can kill.
Overall, we’re being deliberately drip fed info. Until we’ve seen the whole picture, we just don’t know anything like enough to pass judgement.
Eldarsif wrote: I would also add that the 50% increase of cultists just reflects on the lack of granularity in the current point system rather than anything else.
it's also a problem with how cheap units like cultists have gotten. the bottem area of troop choices (cultists guard etc) where so cheap it was proably becoming a problem, when you're so cheap a single point adjustment is a 25% increase, it gets REALY hard to add options or tweek points.
BTW there may well be more for hoards coming up. I know that AOS rewarded you with certain things if your unit size was above X. and this could be how GW does it. for example CSMs can take squads of up to 20 but never do, it might be tempted if a squad of 11+ CSMs could re-roll their armor save
some options could be:
- some Missions require Hordes to get points and/or Hordes get a Bonus
- 1x20 Models will be chaper in than 2x10
- changes in Cover might benefit Hordes
What I expect:
GW wants to make the game smaller by reducing the amounts of models used and instead of going back in points they change the army composition thru the backdoor
so people still play 2000 points, they can still play as many models as they want, but the rules are in a way that there is just no reason to go with 150 Orks instead of taking the big stuff (and it is more likley that we will see Knight style armies and tank companies over mass infantry)
It could also be that Blast weapons turn out to be relatively rare.
Eldar don’t have many from a brief thinking. D-Cannons were name checked, but other than it’s Grenades and Missile Launchers? Possibly the Prism Cannon on the right setting?
Guard? Yeah they’re gonna have loads, because Guard!
Orks? Squig Launcha, Stikkbommz. And then memory fails.
Blast Weapons May also come at a price premium. We just don’t know yet.
Eldenfirefly wrote: People need to stop going into panic mode so soon. We don't even have the complete rules or picture yet. Maybe a big melee squad with large numbers have some advantages given to it that a small squad doesn't ? Its really too soon to conclude anything about how melee will do when they haven't released anything regarding how melee will work in 9th edition.
Given that I am sure they understand how shooty 9th ed was, I believe they will give melee something.
And also. Lets not forget Tabletop tactics are the playtesters too. Have you seen their genestealer armies? their orc armies? Their astra militarium army? They play horde lists quite often and they have more than one horde army. Trust me, if horde is broken (as in totally stomped), they would have surely feedback on that.
In 20+ years I have been in 40k what you said has been said every time.
Every time they have been proven false.
"maybe maybe maybe". Lol. GW doesn't do subtle interactions. Top of that changes arent' even about balance but about GW deciding what they want to sell. And they are about as subtle in making sure players know what they want you to buy as is using nuke to get rid of fly.
And as for playtesters...yeah the guys that have been making house rules for their tournaments that favour marine gunlines and give 20% winrate loss to orks who already had under 50% WR at by the book 40k. The playtesters who have thus shown they want elite gunlines over hordes.
And yeah playtesters have already stated units like ork boyz and hormagaunts are going to drop out and we haven't even seen all the nerfs hordes get...
You assume they are aiming for balance. GW is going for marketing and playtesters to get game to be what they want. Elite gunlines rather than horde armies.
Eldarsif wrote: I would also add that the 50% increase of cultists just reflects on the lack of granularity in the current point system rather than anything else.
it's also a problem with how cheap units like cultists have gotten. the bottem area of troop choices (cultists guard etc) where so cheap it was proably becoming a problem, when you're so cheap a single point adjustment is a 25% increase, it gets REALY hard to add options or tweek points.
BTW there may well be more for hoards coming up. I know that AOS rewarded you with certain things if your unit size was above X. and this could be how GW does it. for example CSMs can take squads of up to 20 but never do, it might be tempted if a squad of 11+ CSMs could re-roll their armor save
You know you can increase granularity without giving hordes higher point increase % than elites right?
And hordes haven't been balance problem for well over a year minimum now.
Another points why I think that GW is turning 40k into a "big" model game:
it is easier for beginner to spend more money on 4 Gorkanauts and paint them than on 120 Boys
also more likley that the buy the 4 big units at once while none is doing that with infantry, so faster profit for GW
also, a big model only army, is cheaper at the moment than an infantry based one, also better for beginners
we have seen more big stuff in the Necron preview than infantry units, so the new models focus shifts as well
but instead of just changing the game by itself, they add rules so players get the impression/illusion that it was their free decsion to play that way
Blast Weapons May also come at a price premium. We just don’t know yet.
Actually we do know, as they said so: "Weapons with blast will receive a price increase to match their new benefits" (can't remember the exact words but the jist was pretty clear).
That is really the part that reassures me. We will probably have an elite meta (GW wants it that way and they have testers this edition) so no that much of an incentive to take expensive blasty weapons.
Eldenfirefly wrote: People need to stop going into panic mode so soon. We don't even have the complete rules or picture yet. Maybe a big melee squad with large numbers have some advantages given to it that a small squad doesn't ? Its really too soon to conclude anything about how melee will do when they haven't released anything regarding how melee will work in 9th edition.
Given that I am sure they understand how shooty 9th ed was, I believe they will give melee something.
And also. Lets not forget Tabletop tactics are the playtesters too. Have you seen their genestealer armies? their orc armies? Their astra militarium army? They play horde lists quite often and they have more than one horde army. Trust me, if horde is broken (as in totally stomped), they would have surely feedback on that.
In 20+ years I have been in 40k what you said has been said every time.
Every time they have been proven false.
"maybe maybe maybe". Lol. GW doesn't do subtle interactions. Top of that changes arent' even about balance but about GW deciding what they want to sell. And they are about as subtle in making sure players know what they want you to buy as is using nuke to get rid of fly.
And as for playtesters...yeah the guys that have been making house rules for their tournaments that favour marine gunlines and give 20% winrate loss to orks who already had under 50% WR at by the book 40k. The playtesters who have thus shown they want elite gunlines over hordes.
And yeah playtesters have already stated units like ork boyz and hormagaunts are going to drop out and we haven't even seen all the nerfs hordes get...
You assume they are aiming for balance. GW is going for marketing and playtesters to get game to be what they want. Elite gunlines rather than horde armies.
No way. "Every time"? Not at all.
I've been playing for 10 years and that isn't true in even just that period of time.
When they said HQs would no longer join units, everyone was up in arms about how it would be impossible to protect them, they'd get shot off the table, etc. Because they were reacting on limited information without knowing that the untargetability rule would be implemented (for better or worse).
When it was announced that flyers would no longer be snap-shottable-only, everyone predicted the end of flyers (and "immersion" arguments also came up quite a bit then too). That was before people knew about the penalties to hit/etc rules would be implemented (for better or worse).
On the opposite side, people thought that the simplified terrain rules would be a great change--it would simplify terrain rules, it would allow more varied and fluffier terrain types--and this has become one of the larger gripes in the competitive community (hence ITC/ETC terrain rules).
Absolutely we can (and should!) theorycraft about potential impact from the rules changes coming down the pike as we learn about them piece-meal. But making sweeping negative (or positive) conclusions is totally wrong. And with as much experience as you evidently have, you'll know that.
yukishiro1 wrote: Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
They probably viewed it under the lens of, "Cultists should not be the core of a Chaos Space Marine army, it should be the Marines", which is why Guardsmen didn't go up in the past when Cultists did.
As others have said, just being present on the board has an intrinsic value, regardless of Stats and relative ability.
Cultists, even at 6 points are pretty cheap, especially in their wider army setting (another factor). They’re pretty much ideal for holding backfield objectives, and deflecting charges. That in turn affects what I can do with the rest of my force.
It’ll also factor in to how terrain works in the new rules, which I believe is today’s topic?
Consider the humble Gobbo in WHFB. Traditionally they were dirt cheap, because you needed a lot of them. They largely relied on static combat res bonuses, and their Fanatics. But, they were also for a long time highly vulnerable to Routs.
See, it used to be in WHFB that if your General snuffed it, your whole army had to take a panic test. Every unit not immune to breaking had to test. When you had maybe Ld6 at most, that was a real problem for Gobbos.
Then....the death of the general was toned down. And as a result, Gobbos went up in points, because without that interaction, they were a slightly nastier prospect to fit, as I couldn’t ripple panic most of their army off the board.
I was thinking about the boxed game for 9th, but I'm starting to think that they might include 2 killzone boards in the box.
It would meet the minimum size for 1000pts and would be aimed at new players who can then play with the forces in the starter box on the "official GW game board".
yukishiro1 wrote: Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
They probably viewed it under the lens of, "Cultists should not be the core of a Chaos Space Marine army, it should be the Marines", which is why Guardsmen didn't go up in the past when Cultists did.
When I started playing CSMs didn't even have access to cultists
Aash wrote: I was thinking about the boxed game for 9th, but I'm starting to think that they might include 2 killzone boards in the box.
It would meet the minimum size for 1000pts and would be aimed at new players who can then play with the forces in the starter box on the "official GW game board".
Just speculation on my part. Thoughts?
I wondered the same thing many pages back, you can't buy the boards at the minute so they need a way to get out there and the price hop up to £120 would be a little better explained at that point.
yukishiro1 wrote: Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
They probably viewed it under the lens of, "Cultists should not be the core of a Chaos Space Marine army, it should be the Marines", which is why Guardsmen didn't go up in the past when Cultists did.
Then wouldn't it make more sense to make csm better instead of just making cultists worse? Most csm players would much rather run actual csm in their armies, but gw seems intent on making them Inferior Marines compared to our loyalists counterparts.
Eldarsif wrote: I would also add that the 50% increase of cultists just reflects on the lack of granularity in the current point system rather than anything else.
it's also a problem with how cheap units like cultists have gotten. the bottem area of troop choices (cultists guard etc) where so cheap it was proably becoming a problem, when you're so cheap a single point adjustment is a 25% increase, it gets REALY hard to add options or tweek points.
BTW there may well be more for hoards coming up. I know that AOS rewarded you with certain things if your unit size was above X. and this could be how GW does it. for example CSMs can take squads of up to 20 but never do, it might be tempted if a squad of 11+ CSMs could re-roll their armor save
You know you can increase granularity without giving hordes higher point increase % than elites right?
And hordes haven't been balance problem for well over a year minimum now.
The horde problem is a deceptive one. They can be really annoying in drawn out fights, but in the time span most tourneys allow a game to last they rarely get their full effectiveness on the field.
We don't know if they have changed the weapon cost on intercessors so the cost of an equipped intercessor is currently not known.
Either way, if they had raised the cultists by only 1 point people would still be complaining about a 25% point increase. It's the problem of the cultists being so cheap in the first place: No room for changes.
In the end I just want to see the full data set. I am not that worried about anti-horde right now as the armies fielding 11+ models in a unit on a regular basis aren't that many, meaning that if you bring in a lot of anti-horde weaponry you may end up lacking the tools to deal with elite and monster/vehicle heavy armies.
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Aash wrote: I was thinking about the boxed game for 9th, but I'm starting to think that they might include 2 killzone boards in the box.
It would meet the minimum size for 1000pts and would be aimed at new players who can then play with the forces in the starter box on the "official GW game board".
Just speculation on my part. Thoughts?
Would be cool to be honest. Could also be one of those poster maps that came with the First Strike box, and those suck.
I do, however, remember that in one stream they talked about plans for Kill Team in the near future so my guess is we'll see some of the Kill Team terrain boxes having a comeback along with repackaging for 40k. Personally I am kinda happy I bought quite a few Kill Team terrain boxes when they were first released, as well as Warcry. I now have a mat, Realms of Battles, and the paper boards for whatever I fancy.
we already know that 174 weapons and artifacts will get the Blast keyword
But how many of those are common?
There is probably a pub quiz to be found in seeing who knows and remembers all those 174 weapons. I would guess there is a lot of redundancy in the weapon profiles. Weapons with the same weapon profile, but given separate names due to how alien their factions are.
The reasons have been mentioned and it really has nothing to do with game mechanics. It is about the direction GW wants to take with their sale of models. There are various reasons to update the game to warrant the use of smaller model count armies. Many have been stated on this thread, but seemingly gets discarded in favor of debating 9th edition rules with only a fraction of information available.
Look, nobody ENJOYS buying 4x as many models as the guy you're playing against. I would love for GSC neophytes to be 7ppm, and acolytes to be like 9ppm, that'd be great, models are fething expensive and GSC take ages to paint.
...As long as that's not "I still have to play your 60% wr marines with my 38% wrGSC but now you get 2000 points to my 1850" then that's fine. If there's something in the core rules that favors cheaper models such that cheaper models get a price hike, that's fine. Honestly, that's GREAT.
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
Marine players got off a solid decade of bitching about how "tau only participate in one phase of the game mlehh they don't belong in 40k play the game" and went and bought up an army that sits utterly stationary, 30" away, and pumps shots into you until you're tabled. And then went "Wow it's great marines finally feel like they're supposed to in the fluff!"
If they were coming in to this edition going "Hey, we started designing the codexes with marines 2.0 with 9th edition in mind, and now we hope everyone is excited because now they get to get in on the fun!" that'd be one thing, but instead we've gotten pretty much just gushing about marines and dreadnoughts and tanks mowing down hordes of orks and hormagaunts and how much great fun that's going to be.
Aash wrote: I was thinking about the boxed game for 9th, but I'm starting to think that they might include 2 killzone boards in the box.
It would meet the minimum size for 1000pts and would be aimed at new players who can then play with the forces in the starter box on the "official GW game board".
Just speculation on my part. Thoughts?
That certainly would be cool and would make the box very beginner-friendly.
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
how many blast weapons do Marines even have? compared to say... the Guard, not a whole lot I wager
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
how many blast weapons do Marines even have? compared to say... the Guard, not a whole lot I wager
Marines never have to worry about getting hit by the new blasts rule (even if they decide to take 10 man squads most of the time, as they can just split them) and have plenty of blast weapons. Guard might have more (honestly, I don't know, marines have like 2 times as many units in general as any other faction so they might actually have more) but having fewer blast weapons than the army that has the most blast weapons in the game (but also has hordes) doesn't mean that isn't a rule that blatantly benefits elites over everybody else.
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
how many blast weapons do Marines even have? compared to say... the Guard, not a whole lot I wager
No, but they are uniquely equipped to avoid blast weapons with their ability to break their infantry units into combat squads. Playing a guard list with lots of blast weapons? Break your 10 man squads into 5s, break your 6 man squads of aggressors and the like into 3s. Can anyone else do that? Maybe they can and I'm forgetting.
Eldar don’t have many from a brief thinking. D-Cannons were name checked, but other than it’s Grenades and Missile Launchers? Possibly the Prism Cannon on the right setting?
Guard? Yeah they’re gonna have loads, because Guard!
Orks? Squig Launcha, Stikkbommz. And then memory fails.
Blast Weapons May also come at a price premium. We just don’t know yet.
I think you could be right. Some people here have been focused on the worst-case scenario of "OMG hordes are going to be taking 12 hits all the time!!", but those weapons are relatively rare and tend to be mounted on super-heavy platforms like Knights or Baneblades. They will rarely be cheap, at least.
Most of the time, horde units are now going to be seeing 6 shots instead of D6 from weapons like grenades or missile launchers, which isn't a huge difference to before. Flamer-style weapons aren't changed so far as we know, and will still do fully random hits. Hordes still have an incentive to take full sized units because many already have special rules that encourage it, such as Ork Boyz or Tyranid Hormaguants.
In fact I think the unit types hardest hit by this change will large squads of medium-heavy infantry, particularly marines. High-strength, multi-wound weapons with D3 or D6 shots are quite prevalent compared to 2D6/3D6 blast weapons. Suddenly things like plasma or venom cannons are now always doing 3 shots on any full size squad of Primaris marines. This encourages use of MSU / combat squads, but the big downside there is that a marine player will be getting half the benefit from any stratagems or physic boosts on those units compared to before.
I reckon the end meta result will be to push us into a choice of elite MSU infantry or large horde infantry, with little in between.
Eldar don’t have many from a brief thinking. D-Cannons were name checked, but other than it’s Grenades and Missile Launchers? Possibly the Prism Cannon on the right setting?
Guard? Yeah they’re gonna have loads, because Guard!
Orks? Squig Launcha, Stikkbommz. And then memory fails.
Blast Weapons May also come at a price premium. We just don’t know yet.
I think you could be right. Some people here have been focused on the worst-case scenario of "OMG hordes are going to be taking 12 hits all the time!!", but those weapons are relatively rare and tend to be mounted on super-heavy platforms like Knights or Baneblades. They will rarely be cheap, at least.
Most of the time, horde units are now going to be seeing 6 shots instead of D6 from weapons like grenades or missile launchers, which isn't a huge difference to before. Flamer-style weapons aren't changed so far as we know, and will still do fully random hits. Hordes still have an incentive to take full sized units because many already have special rules that encourage it, such as Ork Boyz or Tyranid Hormaguants.
In fact I think the unit types hardest hit by this change will large squads of medium-heavy infantry, particularly marines. High-strength, multi-wound weapons with D3 or D6 shots are quite prevalent compared to 2D6/3D6 blast weapons. Suddenly things like plasma or venom cannons are now always doing 3 shots on any full size squad of Primaris marines. This encourages use of MSU / combat squads, but the big downside there is that a marine player will be getting half the benefit from any stratagems or physic boosts on those units compared to before.
I reckon the end meta result will be to push us into a choice of elite MSU infantry or large horde infantry, with little in between.
Yeah, it's not like there's anything that you'd take as a dedicated antihorde infantry platform that would make it extremely punishing to bring large blobs of infantry like
thunderfire cannons
whirlwinds
night spinners
shadow spinners? The little ones that are currently tournament meta.
mortar teams
wyverns
mek gunz
Lots of these 'sit in the back, lob shots from out of LOS' units are currently or have been in the past tournament-level competitive. We did not need this pointless boost to their power at doing the exact job they already do extremely well.
Non-FW Marine weapons that I expect will be Blast or have at least one Blast profile:
- Missile Launcher
- Cyclone Missile Launcher
- Typhoon Missile Launcher
- Bellicatus Missile Launcher
- Deathwind Missile Launcher
- Thunderfire Cannon
- Whirlwind Missile Launcher
- Demolisher Cannon
- Frag Grenades
- Astartes Grenade Launcher
- Fragstorm Grenade Launcher
- Plasma Cannon
- Macro Plasma Incinerator
- Plasma Exterminator (?)
So at least 13-14. There's even more including FW (Scorpius Whirlwind and Quad Cannon come to mind), but it's entirely possible those aren't included in the 174 that will be in the main rulebook.
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Non-FW Marine weapons that I expect will be Blast or have at least one Blast profile:
- Missile Launcher
- Cyclone Missile Launcher
- Typhoon Missile Launcher
- Bellicatus Missile Launcher
- Deathwind Missile Launcher
- Whirlwind Missile Launcher
Space marines? Hey space marines? Can we talk, about your guns, and how many you have vs how many you maybe need?
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Non-FW Marine weapons that I expect will be Blast or have at least one Blast profile:
- Missile Launcher
- Cyclone Missile Launcher
- Typhoon Missile Launcher
- Bellicatus Missile Launcher
- Deathwind Missile Launcher
- Thunderfire Cannon
- Whirlwind Missile Launcher
- Demolisher Cannon
- Frag Grenades
- Astartes Grenade Launcher
- Fragstorm Grenade Launcher
- Plasma Cannon
- Macro Plasma Incinerator
- Plasma Exterminator (?)
So at least 13-14. There's even more including FW (Scorpius Whirlwind and Quad Cannon come to mind), but it's entirely possible those aren't included in the 174 that will be in the main rulebook.
What criteria did you apply in making this list?
I'm mostly assuming that weapons with both RANDOM High # of shots + High strength are assumed to be blast weapons. Presumably for useful delta comparison of the increased lethality this could present to hordes, we should exclude from analysis weapons with a FIXED high number of shots?
Note that my criteria does inadvertently exclude weapons which in prior editions used blast templates (e.g., various Necron small blasts, etc.).
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Non-FW Marine weapons that I expect will be Blast or have at least one Blast profile:
- Missile Launcher
- Cyclone Missile Launcher
- Typhoon Missile Launcher
- Bellicatus Missile Launcher
- Deathwind Missile Launcher
- Thunderfire Cannon
- Whirlwind Missile Launcher
- Demolisher Cannon
- Frag Grenades
- Astartes Grenade Launcher
- Fragstorm Grenade Launcher
- Plasma Cannon
- Macro Plasma Incinerator
- Plasma Exterminator (?)
So at least 13-14. There's even more including FW (Scorpius Whirlwind and Quad Cannon come to mind), but it's entirely possible those aren't included in the 174 that will be in the main rulebook.
What criteria did you apply in making this list?
I'm mostly assuming that weapons with both RANDOM High # of shots + High strength are assumed to be blast weapons. Presumably for useful delta comparison of the increased lethality this could present to hordes, we should exclude from analysis weapons with a FIXED high number of shots?
Note that my criteria does inadvertently exclude weapons which in prior editions used blast templates (e.g., various Necron small blasts, etc.).
They said it's pretty much any weapon with a random number of shots that make a to-hit roll. they specifically called out frag grenades, so it is not just things with high strength.
Add a "horde" discount like in AoS and make that you can only kill visible models in a unit and hordes would be viable even with this changes.
Something like (With current points, as an example). Boyz could be 7ppm but if you take 30 (This work best in AoS because you buy units in blocks of models) instead of costing 210 points they cost 180 or something, so 6ppm.
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Non-FW Marine weapons that I expect will be Blast or have at least one Blast profile:
- Missile Launcher
- Cyclone Missile Launcher
- Typhoon Missile Launcher
- Bellicatus Missile Launcher
- Deathwind Missile Launcher
- Thunderfire Cannon
- Whirlwind Missile Launcher
- Demolisher Cannon
- Frag Grenades
- Astartes Grenade Launcher
- Fragstorm Grenade Launcher
- Plasma Cannon
- Macro Plasma Incinerator
- Plasma Exterminator (?)
So at least 13-14. There's even more including FW (Scorpius Whirlwind and Quad Cannon come to mind), but it's entirely possible those aren't included in the 174 that will be in the main rulebook.
What criteria did you apply in making this list?
I'm mostly assuming that weapons with both RANDOM High # of shots + High strength are assumed to be blast weapons. Presumably for useful delta comparison of the increased lethality this could present to hordes, we should exclude from analysis weapons with a FIXED high number of shots?
Note that my criteria does inadvertently exclude weapons which in prior editions used blast templates (e.g., various Necron small blasts, etc.).
Basically extrapolating from examples they've given. If Frag Grenades are Blast, then it's pretty likely that any and all weapons with a profile for firing Frag Grenades or Frag Missiles will also be Blast. They also all used to be Blast weapons (the ones that existed in 6th & 7th, anyway).
Whirlwind, Demolisher & Thunderfire not being Blast would among the dumbest things ever to happen in 40k.
The Plasma Cannon used to be a small Blast weapon, and currently has random shots. It is of course possible that it won't be Blast, but that seems unlikely to me.
The Macro Plasma Incinerator is basically a ginat Plasma Cannon, and the Plasma Exterminator is a shorter-ranged Assault Pasma Cannon.
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
how many blast weapons do Marines even have? compared to say... the Guard, not a whole lot I wager
No, but they are uniquely equipped to avoid blast weapons with their ability to break their infantry units into combat squads. Playing a guard list with lots of blast weapons? Break your 10 man squads into 5s, break your 6 man squads of aggressors and the like into 3s. Can anyone else do that? Maybe they can and I'm forgetting.
Just checked Tactical flexability only works on full 10 model units and is done in the marine players movement phase so 1 unit per turn.
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
how many blast weapons do Marines even have? compared to say... the Guard, not a whole lot I wager
No, but they are uniquely equipped to avoid blast weapons with their ability to break their infantry units into combat squads. Playing a guard list with lots of blast weapons? Break your 10 man squads into 5s, break your 6 man squads of aggressors and the like into 3s. Can anyone else do that? Maybe they can and I'm forgetting.
Just checked Tactical flexability only works on full 10 model units and is done in the marine players movement phase so 1 unit per turn.
All marine armies have the combat squads special rule allowing all units with said rule to be split into two squads and most units also have a minimum number that’s five or less as well. So it’s every unit at the start of the game
Kdash wrote: So, as a quick experiment i went through Battlescribe noting down which weapons i'd expect to make the move to "Blast" weapons....
I gave up after looking at Marines, Guard, Sisters, Admech and Custodes.
Including FW models (and duplicating some weapons across codices - i.e. frag grenades and missile launchers) i got a total of 90 weapons.
I would carry on with the rest of the factions, but, frankly i cba.
Probably duplicates for the Copy Pasta Marines too. They probably consider the Vindicator from Death Guard different to the Vindicator from Blood Angels different to the Vindicator from Dark Angels and so on.
Kdash wrote: So, as a quick experiment i went through Battlescribe noting down which weapons i'd expect to make the move to "Blast" weapons....
I gave up after looking at Marines, Guard, Sisters, Admech and Custodes.
Including FW models (and duplicating some weapons across codices - i.e. frag grenades and missile launchers) i got a total of 88 weapons. (didnt realise Custodes and Admech don't get grenades lol)
I would carry on with the rest of the factions, but, frankly i cba.
Criteria was simply anything with a random number of shots.
Kdash wrote: So, as a quick experiment i went through Battlescribe noting down which weapons i'd expect to make the move to "Blast" weapons....
I gave up after looking at Marines, Guard, Sisters, Admech and Custodes.
Including FW models (and duplicating some weapons across codices - i.e. frag grenades and missile launchers) i got a total of 90 weapons.
I would carry on with the rest of the factions, but, frankly i cba.
Probably duplicates for the Copy Pasta Marines too. They probably consider the Vindicator from Death Guard different to the Vindicator from Blood Angels different to the Vindicator from Dark Angels and so on.
Should note that i also didn't do the BA/DA/DW/SW codices so those duplicates aren't included in the 88 either.
Also, "standard" marine special character wargear isn't included either... As the new BS setup seems to have removed them from the lists.
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
how many blast weapons do Marines even have? compared to say... the Guard, not a whole lot I wager
If i were to guess; frag grenade, fragstorm genade launchers, auxiliary grenade launcher, cerberus launcher, missile launchers, cyclone missile launcher, typhoon missile launcher, astartes grenade launcher, both variants of the whirlwind launcher, demolisher cannon, thunderfire cannon, plasma cannon, heavy plasma cannon, macro plasma incinerator and maybe plasma exterminators from the top of my head.
Admech for instance has 3 maybe 4 with the eradication beamer, belleros energy cannon, plasma culverin and maybe the neutron laser.
Guard would have from rough memory; artillery barrage, baneblade cannon, battle cannon, demolisher cannon, eradication nova cannon, executioner plasma cannon, plasma cannon, earth shaker cannon, manticore, deathstrike missile, frag grenade, frag bombs, grenade launcher, grenadier gauntlet, hellhammer cannon, mortar, magma cannon maybe, same with the melta cannon, multiple roocket pod, quake cannon, storm eagle rockets, stormsword siege cannon, taurox battle cannon, taurox missile launcher, tremor cannon, volcano cannon and wyvern quad stormshard mortar.
A lot of these are tied into super heavy vehicles or just turrets to leman russes. So roughly 15 for Marines, 27 to Guard. Admech have possibily 4.
Orkz would have lobba, burnabottles (how could I forget ), stikkbombs, stikkbomb chukka, stikkbomb flinga, maybe tankbusta bombs, stikksquig, squig launcher, heavy squig launcher, killkannon, kannon, kustom mega kannon, kustom mega zappa, maybe the bubble chukka but I doubt it, grotzookas, maybe the wazbom mega kannon, deffkannon and then supa rokkits.
In all cases im not counting relic weapons just yet, so 18 for Orkz, 2 are tied into a Stompa, 3 are soley on the Rukkatrukk and a whopping 6 (nearly a third) are pretty much grenades (or in the chukka/flingas case assault weapons).......
Already without those aforementioned relics we have 64 blast weapons from 4 races, I cant see Dark Eldar having any at all, Harliequins are probably the same again. My guess is most of these blast weapons are coming from Forge World. But already Marines have the lions share of blast types, with Guard being the kings as expected.
deffrekka wrote: My guess is most of these blast weapons are coming from Forge World.
If they're rewriting FW indexes for 9E then it's likely all those weapons will have the blast keyword in the same style as future 9E codexes. So they're probably not included in the main rulebook.
yukishiro1 wrote: Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
They probably viewed it under the lens of, "Cultists should not be the core of a Chaos Space Marine army, it should be the Marines", which is why Guardsmen didn't go up in the past when Cultists did.
Then wouldn't it make more sense to make csm better instead of just making cultists worse? Most csm players would much rather run actual csm in their armies, but gw seems intent on making them Inferior Marines compared to our loyalists counterparts.
Well we know cultists (and Intercessors) went up in points, maybe CSM stay the same? Staying similar when everything else changes is a buff after all
With the weapons that will get blast weapon type I have to say that quite a few of them are considered so subpar that they were rarely taken. Some are popular and will probably continue to be popular(like the Thunderfire cannon), but was anybody taking multiple Whirlwinds in their games? If anything this pushes the viability of certain weapons.
Eldarsif wrote: I would also add that the 50% increase of cultists just reflects on the lack of granularity in the current point system rather than anything else.
it's also a problem with how cheap units like cultists have gotten. the bottem area of troop choices (cultists guard etc) where so cheap it was proably becoming a problem, when you're so cheap a single point adjustment is a 25% increase, it gets REALY hard to add options or tweek points.
BTW there may well be more for hoards coming up. I know that AOS rewarded you with certain things if your unit size was above X. and this could be how GW does it. for example CSMs can take squads of up to 20 but never do, it might be tempted if a squad of 11+ CSMs could re-roll their armor save
You know you can increase granularity without giving hordes higher point increase % than elites right?
And hordes haven't been balance problem for well over a year minimum now.
To be fair here. Hordes absolutely were a massive issue with 8th upon release and for at least a year afterwards despite GW trying desperately to FAQ and or release things to remedy that. Again, "The Old Lady That Swallowed A Fly" syndrome. But GW's answer in 8th was always higher and higher rates of fire. Which solved the horde issue while simultaneously creating a new worse issue IMHO, especially when they doubled down on the idiocy that is rerolls.
Now, if GW halves the rates of fire of most weapons, and addresses auras and makes them command orders or something where you pick a unit in your characters detachment and they get his benefit or simply removes many of the reroll auras from the game. Then horde would be fine getting a larger point bump. Even casuals I know dislike the volume of dice at this point and I think even GW is aware they pushed it too far but you never do know for sure with them.
I will also say that all that speculation heavily leans on there being a massive day one patch to a TON of things in the game to work. Or, we play that good old kick the can game where the first two release armies reflect the new design paradigm and we have to wait for every other book to catch up, and hope GW doesn't change course mid way like they are renowned for. So far though we really are waiting and praying because literally nothing so far has been looking good for chaf.
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kodos wrote: Another points why I think that GW is turning 40k into a "big" model game:
it is easier for beginner to spend more money on 4 Gorkanauts and paint them than on 120 Boys
also more likley that the buy the 4 big units at once while none is doing that with infantry, so faster profit for GW
also, a big model only army, is cheaper at the moment than an infantry based one, also better for beginners
we have seen more big stuff in the Necron preview than infantry units, so the new models focus shifts as well
but instead of just changing the game by itself, they add rules so players get the impression/illusion that it was their free decsion to play that way
I love a good conspiracy but this really is a bit out there. Surely the real answer, especially for a business, is to make both viable. Then Timmy can buy 4 stompy bots and have something to play until he is bored and wants that green tide and he'd still have to stompies to play with in the meantime.
The Necrons don't really support that. I play Necrons, I own a metric Feth load of metal skelies, The army pretty much has no room for none character infantry, so why not expand with other more interesting machines since you can be WAY more creative then just another metal skeleton with an ax or a gun?
If they botched the rules and nerfed hordes too far I'd advise the old adage, never attribute to malice what can be so easily explained by incompetence. GW has literally never gotten it correct yet, and call me cynical but I don't expect them to ever, but hopefully they listen to feedback and make an honest effort.
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
how many blast weapons do Marines even have? compared to say... the Guard, not a whole lot I wager
yukishiro1 wrote: A squad of marines is not 500 points, which is what they'd have to be for the 50% increase to be accurate. "A squad of marines" points to the same 20% multiple people have said. Every indication we have is that average costs are going up by 20%, not 50%. There is absolutely no reason to think otherwise. You are free to do so if you want to anyway, but it's backed up by nothing, and contradicted by every single person who knows the rules who has spoken up about it.
Your focus on percentage increase is just a perfect example of why super cheap units are hard to point appropriately. If a model cost 2pts, it would have a 50% increase if it went to 3 points....but that's pretty much the only way it can be increased. If Cultists went up just 1 point that would still be a 25% increase. There is too little granularity in something that is pointed so low and this is something GW is moving away from. Good news is, you won;t need them to fuel your chaos armies anymore with cheap CP batteries. So if you think they're overcosted and useless (before seeing all the rules), just don't use them.
yukishiro1 wrote: Hard to believe they'd hike cultists' price by 50% without giving them something significant to boost their value. All the indications are that not a 50% price hike is far more than most units are seeing.
Of course, this is GW, so you never know. They might have just woke up, rolled out of bed, and decided "cultists should be terrible and nobody should use them, let's hike their points to the point where nobody will."
They probably viewed it under the lens of, "Cultists should not be the core of a Chaos Space Marine army, it should be the Marines", which is why Guardsmen didn't go up in the past when Cultists did.
Then wouldn't it make more sense to make csm better instead of just making cultists worse? Most csm players would much rather run actual csm in their armies, but gw seems intent on making them Inferior Marines compared to our loyalists counterparts.
Well we know cultists (and Intercessors) went up in points, maybe CSM stay the same? Staying similar when everything else changes is a buff after all
They said that everything will be getting an increase, though it is possible that csm will get a smaller bump % wise. But is it really the best way to represent veterans of hundreds to thousands of years of war by making them cheap?
yukishiro1 wrote: A squad of marines is not 500 points, which is what they'd have to be for the 50% increase to be accurate. "A squad of marines" points to the same 20% multiple people have said. Every indication we have is that average costs are going up by 20%, not 50%. There is absolutely no reason to think otherwise. You are free to do so if you want to anyway, but it's backed up by nothing, and contradicted by every single person who knows the rules who has spoken up about it.
Your focus on percentage increase is just a perfect example of why super cheap units are hard to point appropriately. If a model cost 2pts, it would have a 50% increase if it went to 3 points....but that's pretty much the only way it can be increased. If Cultists went up just 1 point that would still be a 25% increase. There is too little granularity in something that is pointed so low and this is something GW is moving away from. Good news is, you won;t need them to fuel your chaos armies anymore with cheap CP batteries. So if you think they're overcosted and useless (before seeing all the rules), just don't use them.
If Cultists went up to 6 points and Intercessors went up to 26, then it wouldn't be a big deal. It'd be "Okay, everything is apparently going up by about 50%."
The issue is, Intercessors, who are vastly superior to Cultists and indeed most other Troops in the game, got a 17% increase while Cultists got a 50%.
No, we don't have ALL the information. But the information we DO have paints a bad picture.
Did they ever say that 20 points for an Intercessor includes weapons and a Sergeant?
Because autorifles have a 99.999999% chance of not costing anything, but bolt rifles? There's a 50/50 split on them getting a points cost. Same with Marine Sergeants.
yukishiro1 wrote: A squad of marines is not 500 points, which is what they'd have to be for the 50% increase to be accurate. "A squad of marines" points to the same 20% multiple people have said. Every indication we have is that average costs are going up by 20%, not 50%. There is absolutely no reason to think otherwise. You are free to do so if you want to anyway, but it's backed up by nothing, and contradicted by every single person who knows the rules who has spoken up about it.
Your focus on percentage increase is just a perfect example of why super cheap units are hard to point appropriately. If a model cost 2pts, it would have a 50% increase if it went to 3 points....but that's pretty much the only way it can be increased. If Cultists went up just 1 point that would still be a 25% increase. There is too little granularity in something that is pointed so low and this is something GW is moving away from. Good news is, you won;t need them to fuel your chaos armies anymore with cheap CP batteries. So if you think they're overcosted and useless (before seeing all the rules), just don't use them.
I remember a 10 man tactical squad being 300 points in 2nd ed. They always cut points to encourage folks to use more models ($) rather then simply making the standard game sizes larger in the core rules. The starting cost for every unit in the game should have been 10 points. It's a nice clean number that's easily adjusted from. Also, when a unit is released and is too cheap, it needs to go up rather then bringing everyone else down. But the community complains too much when their units get balanced. GW did increases in CA17 but predictably in 18 and 19 you pretty much only saw across the games cuts. Why? Because now everyone is happy right? Only after two rounds of that stratagy and you entirely remove the room you built into the game for granular adjustments lol. So here we are.
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
how many blast weapons do Marines even have? compared to say... the Guard, not a whole lot I wager
No, but they are uniquely equipped to avoid blast weapons with their ability to break their infantry units into combat squads. Playing a guard list with lots of blast weapons? Break your 10 man squads into 5s, break your 6 man squads of aggressors and the like into 3s. Can anyone else do that? Maybe they can and I'm forgetting.
Just checked Tactical flexability only works on full 10 model units and is done in the marine players movement phase so 1 unit per turn.
All marine armies have the combat squads special rule allowing all units with said rule to be split into two squads and most units also have a minimum number that’s five or less as well. So it’s every unit at the start of the game
My bad, though this make it look more like Marines 2.0 is terrible for balance in both 8th which it broke and looks like it's still going to be broke in 9th.
Hey guys, calm down! Sure cultists are going up by 50% while the most numerous and effective troop choice in the game is only going up by 20%, and they put in a new special rule to make units with more than 10 models easier to kill, and they've said that this edition is supposed to favor small elite units, but it's just too soon to tell! There might be rules we haven't seen that make up for it! Like maybe the new terrain rules:
Lousy With Cultists In the 41st millennium Chaos Cultists are everywhere. Around every corner, down every dark alley, under every rock and shrub. In fact, most terrain is literally Lousy With Cultists! If a unit of Chaos Cultists ends their move within 1" of terrain set up D6 additional Chaos Cultist models within 1" of the unit and more than 1" from any enemy models. If for whatever reason it is not possible to set up all the additional Chaos Cultists or if the additional Chaos Cultists don't bring the size of the unit above 11, the unit instead takes D6 Mortal Wounds.
Additional models cost Reinforcement Points in Matched Play.
See - you never know! We just have to wait and see!
yukishiro1 wrote: A squad of marines is not 500 points, which is what they'd have to be for the 50% increase to be accurate. "A squad of marines" points to the same 20% multiple people have said. Every indication we have is that average costs are going up by 20%, not 50%. There is absolutely no reason to think otherwise. You are free to do so if you want to anyway, but it's backed up by nothing, and contradicted by every single person who knows the rules who has spoken up about it.
Your focus on percentage increase is just a perfect example of why super cheap units are hard to point appropriately. If a model cost 2pts, it would have a 50% increase if it went to 3 points....but that's pretty much the only way it can be increased. If Cultists went up just 1 point that would still be a 25% increase. There is too little granularity in something that is pointed so low and this is something GW is moving away from. Good news is, you won;t need them to fuel your chaos armies anymore with cheap CP batteries. So if you think they're overcosted and useless (before seeing all the rules), just don't use them.
I remember a 10 man tactical squad being 300 points in 2nd ed. They always cut points to encourage folks to use more models ($) rather then simply making the standard game sizes larger in the core rules. The starting cost for every unit in the game should have been 10 points. It's a nice clean number that's easily adjusted from. Also, when a unit is released and is too cheap, it needs to go up rather then bringing everyone else down. But the community complains too much when their units get balanced. GW did increases in CA17 but predictably in 18 and 19 you pretty much only saw across the games cuts. Why? Because now everyone is happy right? Only after two rounds of that stratagy and you entirely remove the room you built into the game for granular adjustments lol. So here we are.
Can you really blame them? I mean, I'm always in favour of "nerfs" but people HATE nerfs. What people LOVE is buffs to their stuff so they can be as broken as everything else. They fell rewarded, instead of something being cut ouf of them.
One needs to be a very serious and commited developer to make what it is needed for the long term health of a game/product when doing it is in most cases negatively perceived by the consumers. And thats bad on itself, because you are selling a product.
Kanluwen wrote: Did they ever say that 20 points for an Intercessor includes weapons and a Sergeant?
Because autorifles have a 99.999999% chance of not costing anything, but bolt rifles? There's a 50/50 split on them getting a points cost. Same with Marine Sergeants.
Aren't bolt and stalker free and autos somehow cost points? lol
Man I can only hope when the new numarine book drops they did something to stalker bolt rifles. Damage 2 was/is stupid. AP -3 was even sillier. I'd rather see them -1 but ignore cover with a longer range.
The problem is when GW has been pretty much only previewing rules that benefit marines, talking about how great marines are going to be, saying how the armies people are playing have gotten so much more elite, in the middle of a marine meta that makes the most uninteractive, dull tau meta look like amazing fun in comparison.
how many blast weapons do Marines even have? compared to say... the Guard, not a whole lot I wager
No, but they are uniquely equipped to avoid blast weapons with their ability to break their infantry units into combat squads. Playing a guard list with lots of blast weapons? Break your 10 man squads into 5s, break your 6 man squads of aggressors and the like into 3s. Can anyone else do that? Maybe they can and I'm forgetting.
Just checked Tactical flexability only works on full 10 model units and is done in the marine players movement phase so 1 unit per turn.
All marine armies have the combat squads special rule allowing all units with said rule to be split into two squads and most units also have a minimum number that’s five or less as well. So it’s every unit at the start of the game
My bad, though this make it look more like Marines 2.0 is terrible for balance in both 8th which it broke and looks like it's still going to be broke in 9th.
That's what everything we've seen so far seems to suggest. Every rule either benefits loyalists, or they have a way around it, or both. I'm hoping the new terrain rules will help alleviate this perception, but am doubtful.
yukishiro1 wrote: A squad of marines is not 500 points, which is what they'd have to be for the 50% increase to be accurate. "A squad of marines" points to the same 20% multiple people have said. Every indication we have is that average costs are going up by 20%, not 50%. There is absolutely no reason to think otherwise. You are free to do so if you want to anyway, but it's backed up by nothing, and contradicted by every single person who knows the rules who has spoken up about it.
Your focus on percentage increase is just a perfect example of why super cheap units are hard to point appropriately. If a model cost 2pts, it would have a 50% increase if it went to 3 points....but that's pretty much the only way it can be increased. If Cultists went up just 1 point that would still be a 25% increase. There is too little granularity in something that is pointed so low and this is something GW is moving away from. Good news is, you won;t need them to fuel your chaos armies anymore with cheap CP batteries. So if you think they're overcosted and useless (before seeing all the rules), just don't use them.
I remember a 10 man tactical squad being 300 points in 2nd ed. They always cut points to encourage folks to use more models ($) rather then simply making the standard game sizes larger in the core rules. The starting cost for every unit in the game should have been 10 points. It's a nice clean number that's easily adjusted from. Also, when a unit is released and is too cheap, it needs to go up rather then bringing everyone else down. But the community complains too much when their units get balanced. GW did increases in CA17 but predictably in 18 and 19 you pretty much only saw across the games cuts. Why? Because now everyone is happy right? Only after two rounds of that stratagy and you entirely remove the room you built into the game for granular adjustments lol. So here we are.
Can you really blame them? I mean, I'm always in favour of "nerfs" but people HATE nerfs. What people LOVE is buffs to their stuff so they can be as broken as everything else. They fell rewarded, instead of something being cut ouf of them.
One needs to be a very serious and commited developer to make what it is needed for the long term health of a game/product when doing it is in most cases negatively perceived by the consumers. And thats bad on itself, because you are selling a product.
I never said I blamed them, at least not entirely. The issue is with both the community and the devs. Because both end up more unhappy in the end when they take the easy route.
Kanluwen wrote: Did they ever say that 20 points for an Intercessor includes weapons and a Sergeant?
Because autorifles have a 99.999999% chance of not costing anything, but bolt rifles? There's a 50/50 split on them getting a points cost. Same with Marine Sergeants.
Aren't bolt and stalker free and autos somehow cost points? lol
Man I can only hope when the new numarine book drops they did something to stalker bolt rifles. Damage 2 was/is stupid. AP -3 was even sillier. I'd rather see them -1 but ignore cover with a longer range.
Yep, Auto Bolt Rifles cost 1(gasp!) point. I don't know if Chapter Approved changed that, as I didn't nab it.
I could see Bolt Rifles being 1-2 points, Stalkers 3ppm, Auto Bolt Rifles 1-2 as well. Sergeants being a couple of points extra wouldn't be unreasonable either.
Yep, Auto Bolt Rifles cost 1(gasp!) point. I don't know if Chapter Approved changed that, as I didn't nab it.
I could see Bolt Rifles being 1-2 points, Stalkers 3ppm, Auto Bolt Rifles 1-2 as well. Sergeants being a couple of points extra wouldn't be unreasonable either.
When thinking of this point:
BrianDavion wrote: it's also a problem with how cheap units like cultists have gotten. the bottem area of troop choices (cultists guard etc) where so cheap it was proably becoming a problem, when you're so cheap a single point adjustment is a 25% increase, it gets REALY hard to add options or tweek points.
... what if the same is true of wargear, and intercessor bolt weapons are now all the 4-5pt range? That puts overall increase to Intercessors at almost 50% like Cultists, and means that any future point tweaks to those weapons have less substantial change relative to each other.
I'm gonna press x to doubt that the reason that Intercessors, the strongest troop unit in the game, seem OP in the new point costs is because there's secretly point costs on all their weapons and on sergeants.
new morale and new cover rules could greatly favor light troops over elite troops. That is, after all, how cover has worked for 7/8 editions of the game, and "best when hunkered down in cover holding objectives" is not a bad niche for light infantry to fill. It's certainly better than "They generate command points for some reason" or "you have to take them cus we say so, take your regulation 2-3 troops and Then you May Have Your Dessert"
but "it's gonna be real great for elite armies, it is one of our goals to shake up what's good and what's bad" does not inspire a TON of confidence that GW's actual intention is to create a game where all choices are valid choices for your army.
yukishiro1 wrote: A squad of marines is not 500 points, which is what they'd have to be for the 50% increase to be accurate. "A squad of marines" points to the same 20% multiple people have said. Every indication we have is that average costs are going up by 20%, not 50%. There is absolutely no reason to think otherwise. You are free to do so if you want to anyway, but it's backed up by nothing, and contradicted by every single person who knows the rules who has spoken up about it.
Your focus on percentage increase is just a perfect example of why super cheap units are hard to point appropriately. If a model cost 2pts, it would have a 50% increase if it went to 3 points....but that's pretty much the only way it can be increased. If Cultists went up just 1 point that would still be a 25% increase. There is too little granularity in something that is pointed so low and this is something GW is moving away from. Good news is, you won;t need them to fuel your chaos armies anymore with cheap CP batteries. So if you think they're overcosted and useless (before seeing all the rules), just don't use them.
I remember a 10 man tactical squad being 300 points in 2nd ed. They always cut points to encourage folks to use more models ($) rather then simply making the standard game sizes larger in the core rules. The starting cost for every unit in the game should have been 10 points. It's a nice clean number that's easily adjusted from. Also, when a unit is released and is too cheap, it needs to go up rather then bringing everyone else down. But the community complains too much when their units get balanced. GW did increases in CA17 but predictably in 18 and 19 you pretty much only saw across the games cuts. Why? Because now everyone is happy right? Only after two rounds of that stratagy and you entirely remove the room you built into the game for granular adjustments lol. So here we are.
Can you really blame them? I mean, I'm always in favour of "nerfs" but people HATE nerfs. What people LOVE is buffs to their stuff so they can be as broken as everything else. They fell rewarded, instead of something being cut ouf of them.
One needs to be a very serious and commited developer to make what it is needed for the long term health of a game/product when doing it is in most cases negatively perceived by the consumers. And thats bad on itself, because you are selling a product.
I never said I blamed them, at least not entirely. The issue is with both the community and the devs. Because both end up more unhappy in the end when they take the easy route.
don't tell anyone, but >.> <.<
One of the reasons we have such a frustratingly deadly game is because people bitch endlessly and get butthurt when they shoot a thing at a thing and the thing doesn't die.
And also...
one of the reasons every character seems super fething OP is because people bitch endlessly and get butthurt if anything kills their special little character guy, and they also do that if their special guy can't kill way bigger things than him.
Space marine captains can kill knights because of years of space marine players pouting and complaining when 75pt captains could not kill 150pt dreadnoughts or tank lascannons. And 1,000 voices cry out in pain and anguish any time a character assassinating unit is anywhere near efficient for their points.
1. Hill (raised bumpy thing). TLOS. 2. Obstacle (barriers, walls, barricades, crates, barrels). 3. Area terrain (ruins, woods, craters, swamps). Clearly defined footprint. 4. Buildings (units in your army, like Bastion, the Drill, etc.). These can be destroyed (the rest can't).
Terrain traits get added.
"Obscuring" - Scenery more than 5" tall, then you can't see through it (even if TLOS can).
"Dense Cover" and "Defensible" were mentioned. No details.
3 different kinds of cover - Dense Cover, Heavy Cover and Light Cover.
Railings on Sector Mechanicus - not great at stopping weapons. Fortified buildings - much better.
To Hit and Save modifiers for different types of cover.
Lots of pictures showing off what terrain density should be for different sizes, giving a better idea for tournament/event organisers (and for regular players!).
And that's all. Nothing on moving through terrain. Nothing on TLOS (can you fire at the tip of a spike on the wing on my Hive Tyrant, even when behind "Obscuring" terrain?).
1. Hill (raised bumpy thing). TLOS.
2. Obstacle (barriers, walls, barricades, crates, barrels).
3. Area terrain (ruins, woods, craters, swamps). Clearly defined footprint.
4. Buildings (units in your army, like Bastion, the Drill, etc.).
Terrain traits get added.
"Obscuring" - Scenery more than 5" tall, then you can't see through it (even if TLOS can).
"Dense Cover" and "Defensible" were mentioned. No details.
Thanks for this, keep it up, trapped in a meeting I dare not mute
Not one single rule has been explained. They did say that terrain is "robust" about 4,000 times.
They said their main objective with terrain was to encourage movement, there are 12 different rules that can apply to 4 categories of terrain. The most in depth they got into was that one of those traits was "obscuring"
and "obscuring" is a rule that says you can't see through it even if you can see through it using TLOS. It was not clear whether this was a trait you just decide to apply to a terrain piece, or whether it is a rule that applies if any piece of scenery over 5" tall. They mentioned something about "5" tall" specifically, which was odd.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Help me warhammer communinobi, you are my only hope.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The most interesting thing to me was:
"Dense Cover"
"Defensible"
Defensible is a way they could implement apoc-style "Embarkable' terrain. That would be a good thing, IMO. And "Dense Cover" could be the way they bring back old-style "cover saves" separate from your normal Save value.
Those leaks are pure frustration, just enough to make me not want top play 8th anymore, but not enough to get even the slightest idea of how 9th will really play.
They also hinted at dangerous and difficult terrain coming back as traits. At least said that a swamp would be terrain that would slow down your total movement.
Honestly what they've said about terrain sounds perfectly reasonable, but they're missing out on the other major factors of terrain:
Movement and Line of Sight.
I figure that the Terrain USRs ( ) will cover the movement side of things, but Line of Sight will determine whether this actually all works in practice. Being able to shoot something if you can see the tiniest sliver of it will continue to be a problem if banners/antennae/spikes/tails/etc. are not directly addressed by the rules.
There's also the question of LOS from within terrain. If I have area terrain that is obscuring, can I shoot out of it? Into it?
the_scotsman wrote: They mentioned something about "5" tall" specifically, which was odd.
Not that odd. Sector Mechanicus and Sector Imperialis terrain is done in 5" tall sections.
Stu stated that you and your opponent decide what traits apply to what terrain piece after setting up the board.
I would assume that the 5" tall bit was specifically to avoid things like the barricades/Aegis Defense Lines from getting the Obscured trait, which was a huge issue in Age of Sigmar with regards to the Realm of Fire's traits that made it so that line of sight could not be drawn through/over terrain pieces and people would cheese it with the Walls and Fences.
and "obscuring" is a rule that says you can't see through it even if you can see through it using TLOS. It was not clear whether this was a trait you just decide to apply to a terrain piece
They were very clear that GW terrain has set traits in the rules. If it's home made terrain they have guidelines on what traits 'should' be used.
The 5" thing sounds like a distinction to mean small pieces don't obscure.
ie. GW terrain of Imperial ruin always has obscured as a trait (I have randomly decided this, for the example). But if one of your ruins is small (ie less than 5" high) then obscured will not actually do anything despite it being a trait on it.
That's my take anyway
Eldarsif wrote: They also hinted at dangerous and difficult terrain coming back as traits. At least said that a swamp would be terrain that would slow down your total movement.
The problem is, almost nothing they mentioned could not just be applied to the current terrain rules. We already have dangerous terrain, and terrain that technically slows your movement.
The problem with terrain in 8th is
1) it's super hard to actually cause terrain to impact your game (gak like every single model in the unit needing to be within 1" of a Barricade AND the barricade having to be closer to the firing model than every model in the target unit)
2) the benefit that terrain actually applies tends to feel supremely unimportant. Oh, great, my tank shot with a lascannon gets a 5+ instead of a 6+. He still failed. Oop, 6 damage out of my 10 hit points.
Kanluwen wrote: I would assume that the 5" tall bit was specifically to avoid things like the barricades/Aegis Defense Lines from getting the Obscured trait...
Or, more likely, because their two chief 40K terrain sets are built around mainly 5" tall pieces.
the_scotsman wrote: Literally nothing. And it sounds like the WHC article is about Zoats. Lololololol. Horde players must be feeling soooooooo much better!
It took 20 or so minutes for the blast weapon article to appear after the stream was done.
Darsath wrote: So what's the breakdown of today's reveals? I missed the stream.
Literally nothing. And it sounds like the WHC article is about Zoats. Lololololol. Horde players must be feeling soooooooo much better!
They've generally been doing 2 posts a day with one of them being a "regular" article and one being a 9th edition article, so the Zoats article doesn't mean we won't get a terrain article at some point soon. The 9th edition ones tend to go up around 4.00 - 4.30pm UK time.
Sasori wrote: That one was really light on info. They talked a lot, but sure didn't say that much.
Hopefully the article provides more info.
Almost like this is a preview to give people a rough idea of what to expect, rather than someone reading a rulebook verbatim on stream!
The problem is that in previous streams, say, the blasts stream yesterday, they gave very concrete details of how Blasts work. Wheras with this stream, they just said how great and robust the terrain rules are, without actually telling anyone what any of them do. At all. Beyond, I suppose to be fair, the Obscuring thing they already mentioned, and something about some terrain giving to-hit modifiers.
Sasori wrote: That one was really light on info. They talked a lot, but sure didn't say that much.
Hopefully the article provides more info.
Almost like this is a preview to give people a rough idea of what to expect, rather than someone reading a rulebook verbatim on stream!
The difference being that several of these streams have actually had a lot of info. The Vehicle/MC and Blast Streams just this week were very informative and provided very concrete details. This one did not, and it's especially glaring as this rule is going to have such a huge impact.
Sasori wrote: That one was really light on info. They talked a lot, but sure didn't say that much.
Hopefully the article provides more info.
Almost like this is a preview to give people a rough idea of what to expect, rather than someone reading a rulebook verbatim on stream!
The problem is that in previous streams, say, the blasts stream yesterday, they gave very concrete details of how Blasts work. Wheras with this stream, they just said how great and robust the terrain rules are, without actually telling anyone what any of them do. At all. Beyond, I suppose to be fair, the Obscuring thing they already mentioned, and something about some terrain giving to-hit modifiers.
Sure but to be fair Blast is an incredibly focused rule, you're wanting details on terrain, which by all indications is a pretty sprawling topic covering lots of different areas. It's like expecting them to get really specific and cover every aspect of the Shooting phase in a single 30 minute stream.
Obscuring changes basically nothing for tournament players who are used to playing on tables with 4+ large L-shape ruins often tall enough to hide a Knight. Now some GW chapel plays as ”windows closed” which was a common tournament rule already.
Therion wrote: Obscuring changes basically nothing for tournament players who are used to playing on tables with 4+ large L-shape ruins often tall enough to hide a Knight. Now some GW chapel plays as ”windows closed” which was a common tournament rule already.
Infantry and especially hordes are still screwed.
And 5G causes corona virus.
Oh sorry I thought we were spouting off theories based on an abject lack of information.
We don't have the full 9th edition rules. But with what we DO have, melee and hordes don't seem like they're getting buffed. In fact, they seem pretty screwed.
We're working with the facts we have-and the facts we have do NOT paint a good picture.
Therion wrote: Obscuring changes basically nothing for tournament players who are used to playing on tables with 4+ large L-shape ruins often tall enough to hide a Knight. Now some GW chapel plays as ”windows closed” which was a common tournament rule already.
Infantry and especially hordes are still screwed.
And 5G causes corona virus.
Oh sorry I thought we were spouting off theories based on an abject lack of information.
So, are we or are we not allowed to voice our displeasure at the design direction? Because certainly it looks like some people can’t shut up about how hyped they are, despite likewise really not having any clue if 9th is good or not.
Some of the changes that I know of are good, some are terrible. Obscuring doesn’t change anything in competitive play. Removed - Rule #1 please
We don't have the full 9th edition rules. But with what we DO have, melee and hordes don't seem like they're getting buffed. In fact, they seem pretty screwed.
We're working with the facts we have-and the facts we have do NOT paint a good picture.
But we can reasonably say we don’t know the full facts, as there’s so far no mention of rules for Hordes.
Of course, that’s not say they’re yet to come, or even exist.
Regarding horde rules I do expect that the bravery rule from AoS will show up. There the unit gains +1 bravery(leadership) for every 10 models in the unit at the time of test.
Nah Man Pichu wrote: Yeah "Hordes are screwed" definitely isn't a hyperbolic statement.
Did you read the blast rules?
Sure but if I saw a weapon profile with a high AP value without knowing about Invuln saves I'd probably think that high armor-save models were screwed too.
Which is all I'm saying, insisting something's fethed based on like 8.6% of the actual rules being known is a pointless exercise by someone who just wants something to be mad about.
Nah Man Pichu wrote: Yeah "Hordes are screwed" definitely isn't a hyperbolic statement.
Did you read the blast rules?
Sure but if I saw a weapon profile with a high AP value without knowing about Invuln saves I'd probably think that high armor-save models were screwed too.
Which is all I'm saying, insisting something's fethed based on like 8.6% of the actual rules being known is a pointless exercise by someone who just wants something to be mad about.
Then do me a favor-list the rules that we have for a fact (not conjecture, not hype, nothing like that) that benefit hordes, and list those that penalize or hurt them.
Especially since, 8th edition books are valid in 9th. So a lot will be the same.
So one thing that you catch here if you read the text:
"Obstacles, on the other hand, are a footslogger’s best friend, as they offer the benefit of cover (which, for the most part, means +1 to your saving throws against ranged weapons) to Infantry, Beast or Swarm units if the obstacle is in the way of the firing unit."
IF THE OBSTACLE IS IN THE WAY OF THE FIRING UNIT.
You also have the Obscuring trait, which also triggers based on the terrain just being on the battlefield rather than units being right next to it
It seems we are seeing the return of the "intervening terrain" rules.
Latro_ wrote: lol so the terrain rules dont help CC they nerf it more. Now your shooty boys hug heavy cover and get a nice +1 save against my orks charging in.
ofc i dont get this.
clap clap clap
Heavy cover explicitly says it's ignored by charging units though?
Latro_ wrote: lol so the terrain rules dont help CC they nerf it more. Now your shooty boys hug heavy cover and get a nice +1 save against my orks charging in.
ofc i dont get this.
clap clap clap
Heavy cover explicitly says it's ignored by charging units though?
That means the Boyz who charge in won't get the save bonus, but the unit hunkered down will, not that if I charge your unit it loses Heavy cover
Latro_ wrote: lol so the terrain rules dont help CC they nerf it more. Now your shooty boys hug heavy cover and get a nice +1 save against my orks charging in.
ofc i dont get this.
clap clap clap
Did you even read the rules or just decide they were bad without doing so?
It specifically says the +1 save does not apply if the attacking unit charged.
In fact the charging orks WILL get cover save and the ones being charged won't which is a benefit to the chargers
I have to admit, I'm really not seeing where the melee boost is supposed to be coming in yet. The smaller table size will help this, but it remains to be seen how much.
These terrain rules are better, no doubt, but so far that's not really enough.
If overwatch actually goes away, then maybe that will be enough. So far we haven't seen a peep on it, so that may be a real possibility.
Also is it just me or does Heavy Cover not give a bonus against shooting?
That is correct. The terrain also needs the "Light Cover" trait to give a bonus to shooting. I can't think of a single instance where you'd get Heavy Cover without first getting Light Cover, however.
Latro_ wrote: lol so the terrain rules dont help CC they nerf it more. Now your shooty boys hug heavy cover and get a nice +1 save against my orks charging in.
ofc i dont get this.
clap clap clap
Did you even read the rules or just decide they were bad without doing so?
It specifically says the +1 save does not apply if the attacking unit charged.
In fact the charging orks WILL get cover save and the ones being charged won't which is a benefit to the chargers
Dude, it says the literal opposite. If the Orks charge a unit of CSM who are in heavy cover, the Orks made a charge move this turn, thus don't benefit from heavy cover, while the CSM do benefit.
(but so was rolling X dice 
