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40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 12:05:17


Post by: Kroothawk


Here a nice presentation of the 40k Design Studio Open Day by Scissorheart with some comments on 40k 6th edition and some interesting hints on future plans:
http://natfka.blogspot.de/2012/07/faeit-212-exclusive-40k-design-studio.html

Some news:
- Phil Kelly not leaving GW, that rumour was false
- Design team aware of Tyranids needing a boost
- New Codices higher quality than 5th edition paperback ones
- Possibly more expansions in the next 4 years (one idea is relics from HH usable in the game)
- Flak Missiles are currently unavailable to all armies, but will come in future Codices
- Mat Ward is a nice fellow not deserving the flak he gets

Spoiler:
natfka wrote:Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012

Little did I know that when Scissorheart offered to do an exclusive report from the GW Headquarters in Nottingham, that we would receive such an in-depth and very well written report on the events and from personal conversations with the Design Team from GW. This is a lot for everyone to sink their teeth into, so lets get right to it.

Please do not forget to thank Scissorhands for such a great report on the days events in the comments.

via Scissorheart

Hi Natfka

As discussed a few weeks back, I attended the 40k Design Studio open day today. I've written up all my notes exclusively for you. I'm not sure if this is how you would like it presented but there's some fascinating tidbits of info in here! I've attached a pic too of my bro standing next to a life size Rhino!


Today, my brother and I attended the Warhammer World Design Studio open day at GW HQ in Nottingham UK. Throughout the day there were a number of seminars covering many aspects of the hobby, from painting, terrain building, flier demo’s, participation games, sculpting demo’s and most importantly (for me at least) a chance to chat with the key games designers about the new rules and the changes that have come to the game as a result. I was itching to get some insight into the thinking behind 6th Edition’s many features and I must say that I acquired far more information than I’d expected to during the course of the event. Here's a compilation of mine and my bro's notes

I’m a daily follower of Natfka’s blog and I promised him a few weeks back that I would give him an exclusive rundown of the day’s more interesting points so that I could share what I learnt with the community. So here we go.

The first seminar of the day was hosted by Jervis Johnson, Matt Ward and Jeremy Vetock and they took turns responding to a number of pre-defined questions before opening up to the audience. I was frantically making notes during the course of the seminar and I’ll summarise here what I wrote and how the guys answered

Q1. What were the key objectives of 6th Edition?

The ultimate goal of 6th edition according to Jervis was to tackle what both he and Matt described as ‘Associative and Disassociative’ rules and to add more realism to the game.

E.g. If a poisoned dagger had +1 WS in close combat, that would be deemed ‘dissacoiatve’ as it makes little sense. However, if it gave you a re-roll to wound, that would be ‘associative’ as it would capture the essence of a poisoned attack being made and potentially causing damage as a result of it being laced with some horrifying toxin.

Other examples of ‘associative’ rules included the abiltiy to throw grenades and the distinction between different power weapons. By making certain rules ‘associative’, the game adds more ‘weight’ to the feel of units on the table. Flyers crashing to the ground is another example of this, as is wound allocation in shooting (models vanishing from the front of units and not the back), Its all about realism.

Q2. Why include so much hobby and fluff info in the rulebook?

All three commented on the importance of seeing the hobby as a whole. A new player to 40k would grasp the broad depth of the hobby in one mighty tome. Again, Jervis mentioned the significance of adding ‘weight’ to the game and posited that all aspects were synonymous. In the opinion of the designers, the fluff adds an important aspect to the game as it puts the whole experience into context and provides a rich narrative for the tabletop game itself.

Q3. Why is the background of 40k so ‘Imperial centric’?

The designers consider the Imperium to be the largest empire of the 41st Millennium. The story really centres on the rise and fall of the Imperium and the Xeno Codex’s almost orbit this story. That’s pretty much the way its been written since Rogue Trader and there’s really no moving away from it as the central narrative to the 40k universe.

Q4. Why Hull Points?

According to Matt Ward, vehicles in previous editions didn’t seem to fit very well with the rest of the game system and made for odd and peculiar situations. He mentioned that there was little granularity to the vehicle rules compared to other unit types. The addition of Hull Points is therefore used to make vehicles more inclusive during a game and give them a continued presence even after having taken a few direct hits. Jervis said that it flattened out the extremes. Vehicles used to get obliterated in turn one or take damage that would render them ineffective for a turn or two which really didn’t flow too well. Hull Points therefore allow players to enjoy the attributes of their expensive vehicles without them vanishing off the table having done virtually nothing.

Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?

Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.

Q6. Why allies and fortifications?

Jervis said that the old fluff in previous editions made many references to scenarios where different races forged alliances in various situations. He felt that later editions had polarised armies and made them rather restricted. They want to open up the game as a means to circumvent some of those restrictions and allow for more diverse tactics on the table. The fluff can now follow on and provide literature that encompasses those often tenuous alliances. Many alliances have obvious narrative value.

In terms of fortifications, Jervis considered these beautiful plastic kits as somewhat wasted given their aesthetic value on the table. Giving these kits rules and points values feeds into the ‘associative’ aspect of 6th edition. I do agree here as I often wished for rules regarding the 5 massive quad guns in my terrain box!

Q6. Why random charge distances?

This rule apparently came as a result of the ‘associative’ wound allocation and Overwatch rules. There are 2 aspects to this however. If your front line is going to take Snapfire hits, there needs to be some compensation for the front line going down and cutting your charge range. The random charge role helps a unit to get into combat regardless of having been whittled down at the front (provided you roll high enough), but it also adds a sense of realism in that battles are violent and chaotic – meaning that sometimes, for whatever reason, you just don’t make it far enough! Jervis acknowledged that some gamers don’t like having control removed, but argued that a swirling battle full of death, destruction and explosions wasn’t really an environment where controlled and predictable actions were likely! In his words, it adds ‘tension and drama’ to the game.

Q7. How difficult was it to add flyer rules into the game?

Matt Ward picked this one up. He said that it was relatively simple given that flyers were an extension to the revised vehicle rules. The team said that they had an idea of the mechanic due to Apocalypse but held off until 6th to fully include them. Seems as though they had been toying with the idea in 5th but the rest of the rules didn’t allow for it too well.

Q8. Why Challenges?

The team wanted to create the sense that characters were leading their troops into battle and not just skulking around at the back of units. It also gave lesser characters (i.e. SM sergeants) the opportunity to exhibit moments of heroics (leaping in to save their captain with one wound left from a rampaging Daemon Prince for example).

Q9. Why change the Psychic rules?

The team wanted to make Psykers more akin to Wizards in WHFB. They felt that a half page of rules in a codex simply didn’t do them justice, especially for the likes of special character psykers. Lets face it, a psyker firing d6 s4 AP- hits in the shooting phase is little more than a gun and therefore, a menial extension to the shooting rules. The team considered the random aspect of it more ‘associative’ given the dangerous and often unpredictable nature of warp manipulation.


Some extra tidbits:

· 6th Edition was actually finished 6 months ago

· They thought long and hard about using a points system similar to WHFB instead of FOC’s but it would have been to difficult as there was so much emphasis on FOC's in the Codex’s. New players would have found it too confusing.

· The reason that charges are not allowed on Deep Strike is to prevent the utter predictability of mega-hard units appearing anywhere and destroying whatever they want every game. There was a possible hint about Genestealers being able to do this at some point in the future!

· The new edition nerf’s some units and provides buff’s to others. The new Codex’s will rebalance incidents where this is too extreme.

· One guy complained that the new rules were adding unnecessary complexity (e.g loads of new universal special rules). Ward argued that it’s best to keep lots of the rules universal in the main rulebook. New codex’s can then have units with a variety of the SR’s and opponents will know exactly what to expect. He did caveat this though by saying that USR’s would still apply to certain characters in Codex’s.


I spoke to Matt Ward in person after the seminar and I really must emphasise that he’s a really nice, polite and engaging fellow who doesn't deserve the flak he gets from some members of the community. He deserves praise for his role in bringing us 6th edition. He explained that rule setting is always going to be ‘a moving target’ and what works for one person is going to upset another. He said that there were many things that were out of his hands because business decisions have to be taken into account when developing game systems and rules. A couple of key points that came out of that conversation:

· Flak Missiles are currently unavailable to all armies, but we’ll soon see them filtering through into the game.

· We can expect a new FAQ before the end of the summer.

· He spoke about Tyranids being a tad difficult to work with as they have (in the past) been a little one dimensional (i.e charge everyone into CC). He made a point about there being no vehicle rules in the Tyranid army and that its monsterous creatures need to be able to kill Daemon Princes so how do you balance it out? We shall see!



I spoke to Jervis for a long time about ‘associative and disassocaitive’ rules but I think I’ve covered that off.



Next I spoke to Phil Kelly (the dude) who again is a really sound guy (and by the way - he isn't leaving GW).

Phil said that there are currently 6 ‘projects’ on the go for 40k. I think he was referring to Codex’s. I asked him about Tyranids too and he said (rather excitedly) that he has ‘some really great ideas up his sleeve’ for the Nids. Sounds encouraging! It's worth noting that everyone I spoke to in the design team understands the need for Nids to get a boost.

He also shared his personal opinion on 5th edition and said (with the greatest of respect) that Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function (which I personally agreed with). His words were that it ‘lost its craziness’. 6th has therefore moved to address this and give more feel and character to the units and the game as a whole. It does seem to be a consensus amongst GW staff that 2nd was a great edition in many ways (although obviously broken in others).

One other exciting thing that he mentioned was the release of expansions. He said that one example of an idea floating around is the introduction of relic’s which could be (for example) wargear from the Horus Heresry era, usable in today's battles. Possibly a new book or expansion but still just an idea at the moment.

Phil said that the quality of the new Codex’s far surpasses the paperback’s of 5th and beyond (I wonder how many are finished!?)



Lastly I spoke to Robin Cruddace. I asked him about GW’s release schedule and to my utter amazement, he said that they were aiming for some sort of release each month. Be it a codex or some sort of expansion. I would be surprised if this were true!

He said that there would most likely need to be a larger number of expansions between now and 4 years time so that you don’t reach a point where all codex’s for 6th are released with 2 years still to go before the next cycle. Take that how you will!

So there we have it folks. A very enjoyable day indeed – and most insightful!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 12:23:49


Post by: Morathi's Darkest Sin


The Robin comment interests me the most... they can't actually be considering getting all the codexes done during 6th can they?

I'd love to see it, just can't quite believe it.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 12:54:17


Post by: RandyMcStab


Yeah bring it on!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 13:31:06


Post by: Uriels_Flame


Excellent report. We shall see if they can keep to it, but I would assume then they have used the last 6 mths to catch up and have a release schedule in place?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 13:33:47


Post by: Da Boss


Interesting comments about what they perceived to be the weaknesses of 5th edition. I can't say I agree with them on that.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 14:17:29


Post by: AgeOfEgos


He explained that rule setting is always going to be ‘a moving target’ and what works for one person is going to upset another. He said that there were many things that were out of his hands because business decisions have to be taken into account when developing game systems and rules.



While we all know that GW is a business and businesses strive to make money, I think that's the first time that I've seen one of the designers admit that the suits influence rules.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 14:25:40


Post by: Just Dave


Interesting that they commented on the weaknesses of Tyranids, but appear to have made no mention of Sisters et al.?

Cruddance's comments were also interesting IMHO, but didn't they say for 5th Edition that they wanted to update all Codices?

Interesting report all-round though, albeit nothing too spectacular or novel IMHO. I wouldn't have imagined Ward to not be a nice guy or deserving of the flak he gets. I do still believe he's prone to questionable rules and even more questionable fluff, particularly when his enthusiasm can seem so apparent.

AgeOfEgos wrote:
He explained that rule setting is always going to be ‘a moving target’ and what works for one person is going to upset another. He said that there were many things that were out of his hands because business decisions have to be taken into account when developing game systems and rules.



While we all know that GW is a business and businesses strive to make money, I think that's the first time that I've seen one of the designers admit that the suits influence rules.


Agreed. That comment jumped out at me also.

Da Boss wrote:Interesting comments about what they perceived to be the weaknesses of 5th edition. I can't say I agree with them on that.


I think I can understand what they were saying, but I think it's a good thing to have and a solid 'core' to the game, that can then be built upon. Personally, I feel 6th Edition appears to have gone too far in the other direction (of non-competitiveness)...


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 14:31:37


Post by: 1hadhq


Q 3 and Q 5 =

I'd like to see them succeed speeding up the release and us having so many parts of the new edition before we enter 7th.


The team wanted to make Psykers more akin to Wizards in WHFB.


Thanks. Now, where are all these bound monsters to unleash ....




40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 14:32:59


Post by: Absolutionis


This writeup makes the demonized people at Games Workshop actually sound human, in a way. A bit of a relief, in a way.

Regardless, saying one thing and doing another is still GW's trend. I just got an email yesterday that almost ironically overemphasized the industry-leading quality of Finecast. Meanwhile all these recent waves increase prices. Meanwhile my Tyranids cry, forever alone.

It's still comforting hearing that the designers are different than the businessmen in GW.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 14:46:25


Post by: Squigsquasher


All in all, I am pleased.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 15:05:54


Post by: Myrthe


Kroothawk wrote:

Some news:
-
-
- New Codices higher quality than 5th edition paperback ones
-
-
-


I wonder if this means that they will be going hardcover like the WFB army books ?
I was afraid they might but I still hope not. While I don't play many armies, I do like to read up on them all in case I play against them. I won't be doing that at the HC prices, tho.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 15:07:10


Post by: davethepak


Excellent report, thank you VERY Much for posting it up.

on this note:

Lastly I spoke to Robin Cruddace. I asked him about GW’s release schedule and to my utter amazement, he said that they were aiming for some sort of release each month. Be it a codex or some sort of expansion. I would be surprised if this were true!


Communication and context is always important as without more information we should not draw too much inference from this;

For example, he says
"What is the Gw Release schedule?"

Is robin thinking in his head 40k, Specialist, and Fantasy? or was the actual question asked "What is the GW warhammer 40k release schedule?"

Regardless of this point, it was an excellent list - I would have loved speaking to them myself, would have almost been worth the trip.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 15:29:42


Post by: reds8n


Myrthe wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:

Some news:
-
-
- New Codices higher quality than 5th edition paperback ones
-
-
-


I wonder if this means that they will be going hardcover like the WFB army books ?
I was afraid they might but I still hope not. While I don't play many armies, I do like to read up on them all in case I play against them. I won't be doing that at the HC prices, tho.


hmm. well.. you might be disappointed then.

I'm about 99% certain that the codices will be both full colour and hardback, at least that was certainly the impression I got from speaking to the studio team.

.. who were all, as ever, really great to talk to, they're all proper sound.

They know there's a few issues that still need FAQing and they're working on it. I had a list of..oohh.. 10 -12 ones which they looekd at and answered and most of those they had since discovered or were aware needed clarifying.

.. good news for BT players who haven't lost typhoons... Lilith's grenades, alas, do not ignore armour saves,

A lot of the work, book writing wise, is already done, they've really been working hard it would seem.

They do want to increase the speed at which the codices/army books -- for three systems -- are released.

The schedule mr Cruddace mentioned was in relation to all 3 systems.

New GW books is pretty sweet too, nice campaign at the back and some nice units/rules as well. The Contemptor-mortis pattern dreadnought looks pretty tasty, the Helios pattern tanks are now AA, the Avenger strike fighter is cool too -- it's a heavy choice for guard and SoB.

Had a great time -- few nice new/early BL releases too of course -- must have spent a couple of hours in total just chatting to the design studio guys. If you ever get the chance to attend something like this it's well worth it IMO.

EDIT : I mentioned how there'd been some changes to the digital versiosn of the necron and marine codices that weren't in the paper FAQ.. they will be added to that "soon". IIRC they said they hoped to have revised versions of the FAQS up within 1 month. Mr. Grant -- sorry if that's not your name ! -- has been handling the FAQs... I gather he's had a fair few emails ( ..some with interesting bonus content too t'would seem -- and has been making notes and getting ready.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 15:42:53


Post by: Kilkrazy


Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:The Robin comment interests me the most... they can't actually be considering getting all the codexes done during 6th can they?

I'd love to see it, just can't quite believe it.


They would sell more. Tau players like me haven't bought any Tau codexes in 5th edition.

I don't see why it isn't do-able. Most of a codex is pretty much recycled from previously written material. The layout and printing costs aren't much.

It's pleasing to read that everyone realises the Tyranids need a boost. To be cynical, though, they should have known that before they released them and the following codexes that helped weaken them. What is the point of a large, expensive, top flight design studio?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 15:53:46


Post by: Lovepug13


I can confirm it was a great day and I felt like a lot of my questions were answered at the Q&A Presentations....

Talking to the guys after reveals that:

1) They are a very decent bunch of guys
2) Number of Codex's already done / at printers (not clear which)
3) Expansion opportunity for the future - i.e. Codex's having warlord traits, psychic powers relevant to the army
4) Mega Nobz most likely plastic next year
5) Main rule book FAQ out in August 12
6) Picking the bones out of Codex conversations - Chaos is done, Eldar currently being worked on

Hope these help.....



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 16:01:03


Post by: MeanGreenStompa


Kroothawk wrote:
via Scissorheart


He also shared his personal opinion on 5th edition and said (with the greatest of respect) that Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function (which I personally agreed with). His words were that it ‘lost its craziness’. 6th has therefore moved to address this and give more feel and character to the units and the game as a whole. It does seem to be a consensus amongst GW staff that 2nd was a great edition in many ways (although obviously broken in others).


Wait a minute, Alessio making the game competitive and simplified was a bad thing?!?

2nd ed took an entire day to set up and play. It was rife with silly herohammer garbage like a terminator librarian on combat drugs with a displacer field and other gak butchering half your army.

I think the crew are drunk on nostalgia.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
reds8n wrote:
They do want to increase the speed at which the codices/army books -- for three systems -- are released.



Are you referring to a new 3rd system or to the LoTRs stuff?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 16:10:24


Post by: Howard A Treesong


MeanGreenStompa wrote:
2nd ed took an entire day to set up and play. It was rife with silly herohammer garbage like a terminator librarian on combat drugs with a displacer field and other gak butchering half your army.


It was pretty funny though.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 16:15:06


Post by: Adam LongWalker


AgeOfEgos wrote:
He explained that rule setting is always going to be ‘a moving target’ and what works for one person is going to upset another. He said that there were many things that were out of his hands because business decisions have to be taken into account when developing game systems and rules.



While we all know that GW is a business and businesses strive to make money, I think that's the first time that I've seen one of the designers admit that the suits influence rules.


I've heard comments like this before, sometimes first hand but, to me this just reaffirms all of the data collected throughout the years dealing with this company. This also reaffirms why the rule set and the most recent codexs have been written in the matter to take advantage of the new codex in selling models only.

Business over balance of game play.

As far as the interview at the design studio. I only wished it was someone more prominent, and a more respected person doing the interview, than that site. It is still gives out decent information, once you remove the chaff of what has been reported. Maybe there will be more interviews from different sites for viewing in the near future. Now that I would be interested in seeing.



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 16:19:43


Post by: Zwan1One


Interesting read. Always good to catch a glimpse into the minds at the design studio. An increase in production and release schedule is definitely welcomed when it comes to previously unreleased models missing from codex's.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 16:24:58


Post by: Alpharius


Howard A Treesong wrote:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
2nd ed took an entire day to set up and play. It was rife with silly herohammer garbage like a terminator librarian on combat drugs with a displacer field and other gak butchering half your army.


It was pretty funny though.


And more fun than Blandhammer 40K 3rd edition - though to be fair it was the one time that GW was able to reset everyone's codex back to the beginning!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 16:43:12


Post by: warboss


Alpharius wrote:
Howard A Treesong wrote:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
2nd ed took an entire day to set up and play. It was rife with silly herohammer garbage like a terminator librarian on combat drugs with a displacer field and other gak butchering half your army.


It was pretty funny though.


And more fun than Blandhammer 40K 3rd edition - though to be fair it was the one time that GW was able to reset everyone's codex back to the beginning!


I had a blast in 3rd edition except when games involved the two overpowered/broken codicies (Space Wolves and Chaos Marines 3.5.. the second version with customizable daemon princes). I'd say blandhammer might be a good name for using ONLY the armies in the back of the rulebook but not when referring to battles between two codex-available armies. Those of us who came into the game in 3rd generally found the 2nd edition books (that we universally bought for the fluff) an incomprehensible mess compared to the clarity we had in the then current early 3rd edition. To each his own I guess...


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 16:59:01


Post by: Brother SRM


warboss wrote:
I had a blast in 3rd edition except when games involved the two overpowered/broken codicies (Space Wolves and Chaos Marines 3.5.. the second version with customizable daemon princes). I'd say blandhammer might be a good name for using ONLY the armies in the back of the rulebook but not when referring to battles between two codex-available armies. Those of us who came into the game in 3rd generally found the 2nd edition books (that we universally bought for the fluff) an incomprehensible mess compared to the clarity we had in the then current early 3rd edition. To each his own I guess...

I think the idea is that a balance can be found between the craziness of 2nd and the formality of 3rd - I think we're nearing that point in a couple more codex releases.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 17:08:20


Post by: Nagashek


natfka wrote:Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Q1. What were the key objectives of 6th Edition?

The ultimate goal of 6th edition according to Jervis was to tackle what both he and Matt described as ‘Associative and Disassociative’ rules and to add more realism to the game.

E.g. If a poisoned dagger had +1 WS in close combat, that would be deemed ‘dissacoiatve’ as it makes little sense. However, if it gave you a re-roll to wound, that would be ‘associative’ as it would capture the essence of a poisoned attack being made and potentially causing damage as a result of it being laced with some horrifying toxin.

Other examples of ‘associative’ rules included the abiltiy to throw grenades and the distinction between different power weapons. By making certain rules ‘associative’, the game adds more ‘weight’ to the feel of units on the table. Flyers crashing to the ground is another example of this, as is wound allocation in shooting (models vanishing from the front of units and not the back), Its all about realism.

k, I buy that... I can agree with you there...

Q4. Why Hull Points?

According to Matt Ward, vehicles in previous editions didn’t seem to fit very well with the rest of the game system and made for odd and peculiar situations. He mentioned that there was little granularity to the vehicle rules compared to other unit types. The addition of Hull Points is therefore used to make vehicles more inclusive during a game and give them a continued presence even after having taken a few direct hits. Jervis said that it flattened out the extremes. Vehicles used to get obliterated in turn one or take damage that would render them ineffective for a turn or two which really didn’t flow too well. Hull Points therefore allow players to enjoy the attributes of their expensive vehicles without them vanishing off the table having done virtually nothing.

Still with you. Logical. An odd solution to the problem, but I haven't played with it enough yet to know if I agree with you there.

Q6. Why allies and fortifications?

Jervis said that the old fluff in previous editions made many references to scenarios where different races forged alliances in various situations. He felt that later editions had polarised armies and made them rather restricted. They want to open up the game as a means to circumvent some of those restrictions and allow for more diverse tactics on the table. The fluff can now follow on and provide literature that encompasses those often tenuous alliances. Many alliances have obvious narrative value.

In terms of fortifications, Jervis considered these beautiful plastic kits as somewhat wasted given their aesthetic value on the table. Giving these kits rules and points values feeds into the ‘associative’ aspect of 6th edition. I do agree here as I often wished for rules regarding the 5 massive quad guns in my terrain box!


I get you on the second one, but you totally lost me on the first. I mean, what you SAY is obvious, but how you DID it runs counter to this, as that whole allies matrix is unweildy, contradictory, and makes about as much sense as an autistic kid in a bowl of alphabet soup. Giving such a considered reason for the move, then making the move with no obvious signs of reasoning, balance, or adherance to fluff makes it a pointless mess.

Q6. Why random charge distances?

This rule apparently came as a result of the ‘associative’ wound allocation and Overwatch rules. There are 2 aspects to this however. If your front line is going to take Snapfire hits, there needs to be some compensation for the front line going down and cutting your charge range. The random charge role helps a unit to get into combat regardless of having been whittled down at the front (provided you roll high enough), but it also adds a sense of realism in that battles are violent and chaotic – meaning that sometimes, for whatever reason, you just don’t make it far enough! Jervis acknowledged that some gamers don’t like having control removed, but argued that a swirling battle full of death, destruction and explosions wasn’t really an environment where controlled and predictable actions were likely! In his words, it adds ‘tension and drama’ to the game.


It doesn't add "tension and drama." It removes an aspect of the game. If you want to add "a sense of realism in battles that are violent and chaotic" then why are not all movement values random? "Well, I was walking across that field, and I tripped over a rock. Cost my unit a few inches of movement because of it." If they honestly believe that random movement BENEFITS assault armies to make up for snapfire wounds, then that only cements my belief that these guys to not playtest this game and have no understanding of number theory. If they wanted assaulters to get in inspite of snapfire wounds, they would have found a better way of doing it. This is either a lie or a misunderstanding of a rule that they themselves created. It appears to be the latter. "Tension and Drama" are already created by snapfire. The randomness that can change your charge range? SNAP FIRE! If the target rolls high, your charge range gets reduced to below 6". If they roll poorly or average, your charge range stays at 6" You are introducing two sets of random variables where you once had none. Only one was needed to acheive the stated goal.

Q9. Why change the Psychic rules?

The team wanted to make Psykers more akin to Wizards in WHFB. They felt that a half page of rules in a codex simply didn’t do them justice, especially for the likes of special character psykers. Lets face it, a psyker firing d6 s4 AP- hits in the shooting phase is little more than a gun and therefore, a menial extension to the shooting rules. The team considered the random aspect of it more ‘associative’ given the dangerous and often unpredictable nature of warp manipulation.


I don't disagree for the most part. Psykers SHOULD be more than "just guns." I do however disagree with random "powers," as that makes them little more than "Wizards in WHFB." Random Wizard spells is an artifact of Dungeons and Dragons, where a wizard would have a whole spell book, but would memorize particular ones for a given day. Going off the assumption that your army is caught by surprise any time it is in a battle (a false and ludicrous assumption) you randomize your spells to figure out what your wizard was thinking about that morning. Naturally that goes counter to the realism that most armies don't just wander aimlessly around for no reason, but are usually manuvering to fight a particular enemy, making being "caught unprepared" to fight a particular force the exception rather than the norm. I digress.

Psykers are not mages. They either can weild a power or they can not. Why would they be spontaneously able to use one power but not another? That's all fine and good for chaos, but imperial psykers (especially Librarians) are trained to maintain control on their dark gift, lest their wandering mind be open for chaotic possession. Better ways to do this than just another RNG.


Some extra tidbits:

· 6th Edition was actually finished 6 months ago

So they still could have been advertising it to us, feeding us tidbits to get us foaming at the mouth... I see.

· The reason that charges are not allowed on Deep Strike is to prevent the utter predictability of mega-hard units appearing anywhere and destroying whatever they want every game. There was a possible hint about Genestealers being able to do this at some point in the future!


Which is also why they shortened the charges from vehicles and eliminated all other forms of assaulting from reserves such as WWP, outflanking, etc.? Deep strike is one thing, since you will start right there in charge range. Outflanking only starts in turn 2 at best, then has a 1/3 chance to come in on a bad side, and can be avoided. WWP is the same. Displace and avoid. Deepstrike can't be avoided. These are seperate things.

· The new edition nerf’s some units and provides buff’s to others. The new Codex’s will rebalance incidents where this is too extreme.


"Just like we did for Flayed Ones!"
Next I spoke to Phil Kelly (the dude) who again is a really sound guy (and by the way - he isn't leaving GW).

Phil said that there are currently 6 ‘projects’ on the go for 40k. I think he was referring to Codex’s. I asked him about Tyranids too and he said (rather excitedly) that he has ‘some really great ideas up his sleeve’ for the Nids. Sounds encouraging! It's worth noting that everyone I spoke to in the design team understands the need for Nids to get a boost.


So the idea that we've had that no company could survive by not having their releases planned and working monthes in advance is true, and this confirms that they continue to tell us nothing for their own inscrutable reasons.

He also shared his personal opinion on 5th edition and said (with the greatest of respect) that Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function (which I personally agreed with). His words were that it ‘lost its craziness’. 6th has therefore moved to address this and give more feel and character to the units and the game as a whole. It does seem to be a consensus amongst GW staff that 2nd was a great edition in many ways (although obviously broken in others).


So the major redeeming factor of 5th ed is, at least in his view (and possibly GW's) it's worst quality? I suppose it explains why GW stopped supporting tournaments... but their honest solution to the game being "flat and generic" was to introduce a system where by every army bar one could take the exact same broken units to support them or cover glaring holes in their army books, functionally making every book the same and thereby further removing distinction between armies? Are they seriously not aware of how that sounds? The core rules SHOULD be flat and generic! It is up to the codecies to provide variation and flavor! That's the point of any core rules set: to provide a stable framework around which the game is played. You can't return to the spirit of a previous age. And with some, you should not even bother to try. They are best left in the past. All of the editions had their redeeming qualities, but the least balanced of them should not be the picture that you hold yourself against.

Lastly I spoke to Robin Cruddace. I asked him about GW’s release schedule and to my utter amazement, he said that they were aiming for some sort of release each month. Be it a codex or some sort of expansion. I would be surprised if this were true!

He said that there would most likely need to be a larger number of expansions between now and 4 years time so that you don’t reach a point where all codex’s for 6th are released with 2 years still to go before the next cycle.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Heaven forbid all the rules should be current at the same time! OH NO! Then you might have to release additional rules and models in your hobby magazine and give people a reason to buy it! Let's focus on ACTUALLY releasing all your codecies for one edition. Then we can worry about what to do if there are gaps, hmm? Or here's an idea: release the expansions AFTER all of your codecies are out if you think (somehow) that your edition is stable enough (rules wise and fiscally) to keep it around instead of releasing a new edition just to promote sales. Then you can continue interest with new ways of playing via expansion or campaign rules. And hey! These could even have new rules for every army in them, allowing for more models to be sold. You might even focus on 2-4 armies at a time in these expansions or campaigns to prevent overload. If only GW had seen something like that before. Some template with a proven success record of generating new models (read: sales,) back story, rules, and modelling ideas. If only...

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Imperial_Armour_Books/

The Armageddon and Eye of Terror campaigns got me into this game. Storm of Chaos got me into Fantasy. Actual, solid campaign rules (especially ones to go with those handy and ingenious little map tiles) would keep me playing it. That goes double for WHFB, as campaign play is rediculously fun and better to hold interest than even tournies, as it blends the best of both worlds. It's where D+D dorks and competitive gamers can meet in the middle, carving out their own stories with a roll of the bones and a cunning plan.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 17:13:42


Post by: Kroothawk


MeanGreenStompa wrote:
reds8n wrote:They do want to increase the speed at which the codices/army books -- for three systems -- are released.

Are you referring to a new 3rd system or to the LoTRs stuff?

Can you repeat the question after the release of the Hobbit movie?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 17:19:24


Post by: ShumaGorath


He also shared his personal opinion on 5th edition and said (with the greatest of respect) that Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function (which I personally agreed with). His words were that it ‘lost its craziness’. 6th has therefore moved to address this and give more feel and character to the units and the game as a whole. It does seem to be a consensus amongst GW staff that 2nd was a great edition in many ways (although obviously broken in others).


Remember kids, having rules that are written in a way that leads to an actually playable game isn't zany enough. What we needed all along was to throw game balance to the wolves and have fist fights over how psychic hoods actually work. Matt Ward sounds like a great guy, get him the feth away from 40k. Apparently a nice guy is the last thing the game needs.

This rule apparently came as a result of the ‘associative’ wound allocation and Overwatch rules. There are 2 aspects to this however. If your front line is going to take Snapfire hits, there needs to be some compensation for the front line going down and cutting your charge range. The random charge role helps a unit to get into combat regardless of having been whittled down at the front (provided you roll high enough), but it also adds a sense of realism in that battles are violent and chaotic – meaning that sometimes, for whatever reason, you just don’t make it far enough! Jervis acknowledged that some gamers don’t like having control removed, but argued that a swirling battle full of death, destruction and explosions wasn’t really an environment where controlled and predictable actions were likely! In his words, it adds ‘tension and drama’ to the game.


Unless my unit is actually shot at that is dissasociative. You guys are awful at this.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 17:30:59


Post by: filbert


Kroothawk wrote:
- New Codices higher price than 5th edition paperback ones


That's how I read that one initially


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 17:41:04


Post by: Spellbound


Tyranids need a way to kill daemon princes!

Because all their own monstrous creatures with more wounds and toughness aren't good enough! Instead they let people use grenades in cc so now when I charge a squad of marines, instead of facing 10 S4 attacks I now face 10 S6 attacks! Hooray!

I have thought since my first couple 6th games that the new edition was not as competitive as 5th and was designed to make the game "wild and crazy, where anything can happen!" I see now that was truly their intention all along. I'm not sure I can get behind that, but I'll try to adapt.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 18:42:46


Post by: Kilkrazy


filbert wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:
- New Codices higher price than 5th edition paperback ones


That's how I read that one initially


Tau codex, which launched at £12 in 2006 is now £20 before it even gets into hard back with extra pages for 6th edition. (This edition is only 64 pages, a lot of them recycled from the 3rd edition codex.)


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 18:51:25


Post by: filbert


Kilkrazy wrote:

Tau codex, which launched at £12 in 2006 is now £20 before it even gets into hard back with extra pages for 6th edition. (This edition is only 64 pages, a lot of them recycled from the 3rd edition codex.)


It's nuts, frankly. The same Tau codex, albeit updated for 6th, will probably be upwards of £25, maybe more. I mean, I like the production values on the new rulebook and all the artwork is spiffing, it really is but it gets to a point where all the nice, glossy pages and finery can not dress up the fact that I am paying through the nose for a book.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 18:51:56


Post by: Spellbound


When the new space marine book came out and we saw how thick it was, I was happy with its price. Most of the books after had similar amounts of content in them (though unfortunately still not as much), and overall I like them.

Except grey knights. That codex needs to burn.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 18:58:25


Post by: Kilkrazy


filbert wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:

Tau codex, which launched at £12 in 2006 is now £20 before it even gets into hard back with extra pages for 6th edition. (This edition is only 64 pages, a lot of them recycled from the 3rd edition codex.)


It's nuts, frankly. The same Tau codex, albeit updated for 6th, will probably be upwards of £25, maybe more. I mean, I like the production values on the new rulebook and all the artwork is spiffing, it really is but it gets to a point where all the nice, glossy pages and finery can not dress up the fact that I am paying through the nose for a book.


For a book the size of a copy of FHM, but five times more expensive and with less original content.

If they made the codex 100,000 pages long and cost £10,000, would it be a good buy? [/rhetorical]


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 19:01:15


Post by: Leth


Spellbound wrote:Tyranids need a way to kill daemon princes!

Because all their own monstrous creatures with more wounds and toughness aren't good enough! Instead they let people use grenades in cc so now when I charge a squad of marines, instead of facing 10 S4 attacks I now face 10 S6 attacks! Hooray!

I have thought since my first couple 6th games that the new edition was not as competitive as 5th and was designed to make the game "wild and crazy, where anything can happen!" I see now that was truly their intention all along. I'm not sure I can get behind that, but I'll try to adapt.


It is competitive in a different way. Although charge ranges are random, most everything else has been semi standardized. Checking ranges, rules are pretty standardized in the main rule book. Things like slow and purposeful no longer random. Night fight is now fixed. Wound removal is pretty fixed. Things of this nature. Adds a much more tactical and nuanced approach to how you fight in some cases.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 19:18:05


Post by: ShumaGorath


Leth wrote:
Spellbound wrote:Tyranids need a way to kill daemon princes!

Because all their own monstrous creatures with more wounds and toughness aren't good enough! Instead they let people use grenades in cc so now when I charge a squad of marines, instead of facing 10 S4 attacks I now face 10 S6 attacks! Hooray!

I have thought since my first couple 6th games that the new edition was not as competitive as 5th and was designed to make the game "wild and crazy, where anything can happen!" I see now that was truly their intention all along. I'm not sure I can get behind that, but I'll try to adapt.


It is competitive in a different way. Although charge ranges are random, most everything else has been semi standardized. Checking ranges, rules are pretty standardized in the main rule book. Things like slow and purposeful no longer random. Night fight is now fixed. Wound removal is pretty fixed. Things of this nature. Adds a much more tactical and nuanced approach to how you fight in some cases.


Which is offset by incredibly noncompetitive missions, overpowering or downright useless random general traits, overpowering or downright useless random psychic powers, night fight randomly in every mission, doubled force org charts, and cherry picking overpowered units via allies. Anything can be a competitive thing, that's in the nature of games. This ruleset is a much worse competitive game than it has been previously and that's clearly GWs intention. They don't seem to want to engage in the market for competitive games.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 19:32:40


Post by: Dysartes


Kroothawk wrote:
natfka wrote:Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?

Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.


Interesting, though not overly surprising, that Mr Ward doesn't know the history of the game...

- Sisters were 2nd edition
- Necrons were first introduced, with a limited army list, in second edition
- Dark Eldar were in the 3rd ed starter set
- Tau debuted during 3rd edition.

There have been some hefty evolutions for Necrons and DE in their latest books, but if his point was that the game has moved on since 2nd & 3rd ed due to these races, he really needs to do his research before making statements...


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 19:36:59


Post by: Kanluwen


Dysartes wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:
natfka wrote:Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?

Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.


Interesting, though not overly surprising, that Mr Ward doesn't know the history of the game...

Interesting, though not overly surprising, that people jump on Ward.

The statement is "since 2nd and 3rd".


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 19:40:39


Post by: Kilkrazy


Deldar, Sisters and Neccies were in 3rd edition as well as Tau.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 19:51:07


Post by: undertow


Kilkrazy wrote:For a book the size of a copy of FHM, but five times more expensive and with less original content.

If they made the codex 100,000 pages long and cost £10,000, would it be a good buy? [/rhetorical]
So you're comparing a crappy men's magazine that is probably at least 1/3 ads, printed on crappy paper and stapled together to a book that is (arguably) 100% content, printed on thicker (better) paper and properly bound? Really?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 19:54:55


Post by: Kilkrazy


Yes, and I think FHM is better value.

I spent 10 years in the magazine publishing trade and I know whereof I speak.




40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 19:56:52


Post by: Compel


I would have gone for "surely you must have known that something wasn't right with the Grey Knights codex while you were playtesting it. Even casual players can tell it was off the wall crazy."

That's actually a rephrase of what I was originally going to put down...


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 19:57:39


Post by: Sidstyler


You know, I think it would be perfectly alright for them to bring back a little "wild and crazy"...if the game didn't cost so fething much. I don't know why anyone at GW doesn't understand this, but when I'm being asked to invest damn near $1000 for just one army and all the necessary items to play the game with, the game better be fething balanced. You simply can't have situations like this where some armies just aren't viable at all, like Tyranids, Sisters, and Daemons (and for no apparent reason, other than the writer's whim it would seem), when every army is equally as expensive. You can't sell this as a "beer and pretzels" game, not even if it cost half as much as it did, and tell people they just shouldn't take it seriously when everything about the game, including the fluff itself, says I really should be. This game is a serious investment of cash, and it's not worth it if the game feels so random and pointless that I might as well not even be there for all the control I have over the outcome. More random and zany isn't where this game needs to be going, unless GW plans on drastically reducing the cost of their models and making the game one of the cheapest to play, then it will be acceptable.

But yeah, all rulebooks will be hardcover and cost too damn much, no surprises there...and with the new allies rules you'll have to buy more than just the one for your army now, especially if you're playing xenos. I also find it funny how they promise to update everyone for 6th...when they said the same gak for 5th edition and didn't deliver...but then at the same damn event admit that they can't update everyone because that's not what the suits want, they want to push useless expansions and other bs we don't need to try and make more money first.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 20:11:26


Post by: Dysartes


Kanluwen wrote:
Dysartes wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:
natfka wrote:Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?

Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.


Interesting, though not overly surprising, that Mr Ward doesn't know the history of the game...

Interesting, though not overly surprising, that people jump on Ward.

The statement is "since 2nd and 3rd".


Yes, yes it was - and all four armies have been around, with a codex of some description, since the end of that window. Not seeing how you're contradicting my point here, Kan - care to elaborate?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 20:26:14


Post by: MasterSlowPoke


Those four armies have far expanded what they were since 2nd. The only similarity between the 2nd edition Necron Raiders and the 5th edition Necron codex is the name only.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 20:26:20


Post by: Nagashek


Compel wrote:"surely you must have known that something wasn't right with the Grey Knights codex while you were playtesting it. Even casual players can tell it was off the wall crazy."


Mat Ward wrote: "I don't know what you're talking about. I thought an army that had two wounds had alot going for it. And don't call me Shirley. Next question."


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 20:55:57


Post by: Leth


Grey knights look like they were built for 6th edition, alot of the things that made them crazy are pretty balanced out from what I have seen so far this edition.

ShumaGorath wrote: Which is offset by incredibly noncompetitive missions, overpowering or downright useless random general traits, overpowering or downright useless random psychic powers, night fight randomly in every mission, doubled force org charts, and cherry picking overpowered units via allies. Anything can be a competitive thing, that's in the nature of games. This ruleset is a much worse competitive game than it has been previously and that's clearly GWs intention. They don't seem to want to engage in the market for competitive games.


Missions people at tournaments have usually(in my experience) created their own anyway so that is moot. Random general traits have also been easily addressed in the competitive scene. Night fight is not the boogyman that it was in 5th edition, most people pretty much ignore the double charts, or rather I have not seen it come up yet. Cherry picking is severely limited for most armies and then if you do you are limiting your armies synergies as they for the most part don't work together.

GW usually has made it clear they have not designed it for tournament super competitive play. The tournament community has usually found ways to make it more competitive to their liking such as controlling some of the random factors, it really is not that hard. Also now that GW has completely pulled out of the tournament market we are given free reign in what modifications you want to have. My group personally does not use mysterious terrain right now as we are focusing on learning the basic rules first. We also haven't done double force org charts, cause we really have not found it to be a benefit.

Random psychic powers are a 100% option to take right now, even then the ability to mitigate your risk is pretty good. Especially with how power selection is determined.

Now these are all personal opinions of mine, and I build lists with the units I want to use and try to make them work (I ran all infantry guard in the 4th edition book. I was not going for the win very often let me tell you)

I think once we get out of the 5th edition mindset and army lists and look at it from the perspective of 6th edition, I am not as worried about it. I think NOVA(I am looking forward to going) will be a real eye opener for what kind of direction we can expect armies to go.

I have had a bunch of knee jerk reactions to the rules until I tried them out and found that some other rule makes it either good/bad. I thought Gauss was going to be the god amongst men until I realized that with the new edition we are not going to see as many vehicles on the table. Heck I look forward to running my all infantry marines again(here to hoping Devastators get a price fix sometime soon)

I am excited, a lot of people I know are enjoying the rules and a few players have come out of retirement to try it and have liked it so far. That is a small group and I am sure others have had opposite results.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 20:59:35


Post by: Kanluwen


Dysartes wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Dysartes wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:
natfka wrote:Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?

Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.


Interesting, though not overly surprising, that Mr Ward doesn't know the history of the game...

Interesting, though not overly surprising, that people jump on Ward.

The statement is "since 2nd and 3rd".


Yes, yes it was - and all four armies have been around, with a codex of some description, since the end of that window. Not seeing how you're contradicting my point here, Kan - care to elaborate?

You insinuated that "Ward doesn't know the history of the game", yet there's nothing to suggest that.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 21:12:35


Post by: Kilkrazy


MasterSlowPoke wrote:Those four armies have far expanded what they were since 2nd. The only similarity between the 2nd edition Necron Raiders and the 5th edition Necron codex is the name only.


I don't think that excuses them. It's not like the numerous SM codexes, and IG have been vastly modified to take a lot of their time.

Once again, one questions what a Design Staff of 80 people have been doing for the past six years.




40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 21:25:52


Post by: Alpharius


Kanluwen wrote:
Dysartes wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Dysartes wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:
natfka wrote:Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?

Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.


Interesting, though not overly surprising, that Mr Ward doesn't know the history of the game...

Interesting, though not overly surprising, that people jump on Ward.

The statement is "since 2nd and 3rd".


Yes, yes it was - and all four armies have been around, with a codex of some description, since the end of that window. Not seeing how you're contradicting my point here, Kan - care to elaborate?

You insinuated that "Ward doesn't know the history of the game", yet there's nothing to suggest that.


Mat Ward says they've moved on since 2nd and 3rd editions since 'we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons' yet we've had all of those races since 2nd and 3rd - what exactly are you missing here Kan, aside from a chance to leap to GW's defense blindly, of course!

[Edited for spelling - twice!]


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 21:26:37


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Dysartes wrote:Interesting, though not overly surprising, that Mr Ward doesn't know the history of the game...

- Sisters were 2nd edition
- Necrons were first introduced, with a limited army list, in second edition
- Dark Eldar were in the 3rd ed starter set
- Tau debuted during 3rd edition.

There have been some hefty evolutions for Necrons and DE in their latest books, but if his point was that the game has moved on since 2nd & 3rd ed due to these races, he really needs to do his research before making statements...


Plus none of these things are examples of the fluff 'moving on'. They're examples of retroactive continuity. The 40K universe didn't "move on" and introduce the Tau. Instead they were written as having always been there. Ditto for the DE. And the Necrons.

This isn't progress in the story, it's simply adding more elements to the existing story.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 21:36:13


Post by: Kanluwen


Alpharius wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Dysartes wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Dysartes wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:
natfka wrote:Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?

Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.


Interesting, though not overly surprising, that Mr Ward doesn't know the history of the game...

Interesting, though not overly surprising, that people jump on Ward.

The statement is "since 2nd and 3rd".


Yes, yes it was - and all four armies have been around, with a codex of some description, since the end of that window. Not seeing how you're contradicting my point here, Kan - care to elaborate?

You insinuated that "Ward doesn't know the history of the game", yet there's nothing to suggest that.


Mat Ward says they've moved on since 2nd and 3rd editions since 'we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons' yet we've had all of those races since 2nd and 3rd - what exactly are you missing here Kan

Absolutely nothing.
What you're clearly missing, however, is that Dysartes posted what--to me at the time-- read as a dig at an author who gets nothing but vitriol flung his way for various ridiculous reasons(no different than what was done to Casey Hudson for daring to make a Mass Effect 3 ending which the fanbase didn't like) ranging from "He writes overpowered books!" to "I don't like how he portrayed X, Y, or Z". If that wasn't Dysartes' intent, then I will certainly take this time to apologize for jumping on his case. I grow weary of seeing this constant Ward hate in every freakin' thread where the man's name is mentioned--and even in some where he isn't! It's silly, it's overdone, and people need to move on.

And before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy:
I know I'm a hypocrite for my vitriol towards Cruddace.

But let's be fair. "Hot-Shot Lasguns" is a far bigger atrocity to the background than Draigo!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 21:40:10


Post by: MasterSlowPoke


Kilkrazy wrote:I don't think that excuses them. It's not like the numerous SM codexes, and IG have been vastly modified to take a lot of their time.

Once again, one questions what a Design Staff of 80 people have been doing for the past six years.


The Necrons were basically just random models without fluff in 2nd edition, their third edition book greatly expanded the history of the universe, and the 5th edition book finally got around to talking about the Necrons themselves. There's a huge amount of growth in expanding the breadth of the universe there. Same thing with the Dark Eldar, introduced in 3rd with about 150 words written about them altogether, and vastly expanded later. Tau didn't even exist until most of the way through 3rd (and are sure to get some big fluff expansion soon to explain why they have Ultrafriends now), and I don't really know too much about the Sisters.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 22:06:08


Post by: Nagashek


MasterSlowPoke wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:I don't think that excuses them. It's not like the numerous SM codexes, and IG have been vastly modified to take a lot of their time.

Once again, one questions what a Design Staff of 80 people have been doing for the past six years.


The Necrons were basically just random models without fluff in 2nd edition, their third edition book greatly expanded the history of the universe, and the 5th edition book finally got around to talking about the Necrons themselves. There's a huge amount of growth in expanding the breadth of the universe there. Same thing with the Dark Eldar, introduced in 3rd with about 150 words written about them altogether, and vastly expanded later. Tau didn't even exist until most of the way through 3rd (and are sure to get some big fluff expansion soon to explain why they have Ultrafriends now), and I don't really know too much about the Sisters.


Any of these backgrounds I could have done over the span of any given November I didn't have anything better to do. In fact probably all of them.

As for Tau, they came out in 2001, nearly halfway through 3rd. So only "most" in the way that 51% of a thing is "most" of it. Technically correct ("The best kind of correct!") but somewhat misleading. And a fluff explaination for why UM and Tau are BFFs now? Oh, I await THAT with baited breath, I can assure you... I'll enjoy reading that as much as I enjoyed watching Eowyn get saved by Aragorn in the cinematic bumbling of the Battle of the Pelennor.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 22:08:05


Post by: NAVARRO


They want fun? Make Nids allies to Imperial guard, and bring Genecult back.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 22:25:56


Post by: catharsix


1hadhq wrote:Q 3 and Q 5 =

I'd like to see them succeed speeding up the release and us having so many parts of the new edition before we enter 7th.


The team wanted to make Psykers more akin to Wizards in WHFB.


Thanks. Now, where are all these bound monsters to unleash ....




Well, on the one hand, I don't see how it would make sense, "Fluff-wise," to integrate monsters (or whatever the analogue for the GRIMDARK Sci-Fi setting of 40K) into the game like Storm of Magic did, I do really like some of the models released for SoM. With the exception of the Manticore, which was just pants (although the 2 riders are both ACE) all the other big beasties are pretty cool. And the big scary army-specific monsters like Arachnorak and the OK Mammoth-looking beast - all really cool models that, if I was a Fantasy player, I would like an excuse to use.

Who knows if something like that is in the pipeline for 40K, but it would be a way to open a bunch of new models up to marketing to numerous armies, not only to one specific army for each crature (or whatever).


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 22:26:53


Post by: Noisy_Marine


Hot-shot lasgun = hellgun damnit!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 22:30:58


Post by: ph34r


Noisy_Marine wrote:Hot-shot lasgun = hellgun damnit!
Hot-shot lasgun is actually the original name. New players often get turned around by things like this, the new necron fluff, salamanders skin tone, etc.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 22:32:17


Post by: Kroothawk


Kanluwen wrote:What you're clearly missing, however, is that Dysartes posted what--to me at the time-- read as a dig at an author who gets nothing but vitriol flung his way for various ridiculous reasons(no different than what was done to Casey Hudson for daring to make a Mass Effect 3 ending which the fanbase didn't like) ranging from "He writes overpowered books!" to "I don't like how he portrayed X, Y, or Z". If that wasn't Dysartes' intent, then I will certainly take this time to apologize for jumping on his case. I grow weary of seeing this constant Ward hate in every freakin' thread where the man's name is mentioned--and even in some where he isn't! It's silly, it's overdone, and people need to move on.

Guess, you still don't get it.
If the report tells the truth, Mat Ward stated that editions 4+ differ from editions 2+3 in that they had Tau, Necrons, Dark Eldar and Sororitas. Dysartes just stated the fact that Mat Ward then is not familiar with the history of 40k, as Necrons and Sororitas were introduced in 2nd edition, Dark Eldar and Tau in 3rd edition (some of them with even earlier roots: Evil robots and Pirate Eldar). Whether or not you like Mat Ward, his statement is wrong.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 22:33:07


Post by: Noisy_Marine


Whoa. Now I'm confused. Oh well, I think hellgun sounds better. And Litanies of Hate sounds better than Liturgies of Battle, but maybe that's just me.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 22:51:52


Post by: MasterSlowPoke


Kroothawk wrote:Guess, you still don't get it.
If the report tells the truth, Mat Ward stated that editions 4+ differ from editions 2+3 in that they had Tau, Necrons, Dark Eldar and Sororitas. Dysartes just stated the fact that Mat Ward then is not familiar with the history of 40k, as Necrons and Sororitas were introduced in 2nd edition, Dark Eldar and Tau in 3rd edition (some of them with even earlier roots: Evil robots and Pirate Eldar). Whether or not you like Mat Ward, his statement is wrong.


The statement was in reference to the storyline, which those races have definitely changed. The idea that Ward isn't familiar with the Necron history, considering he wrote the only other Necron book, is insane.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 23:05:33


Post by: Da Boss


Necrons had fluff and an army list in second edition. They were a mysterious threat, but many of the elements of "modern" necrons were there- the phase out, the living metal, the self repair, the scarabs eating tanks, the destroyers and so on. Sisters had models and fluff in second edition. Tau were a mid third edition release. Ward's statement is incorrect as presented- though I am sure it could be a poorly worded interpretation of what he's actually said.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 23:07:21


Post by: Nagashek


NAVARRO wrote:They want fun? Make Nids allies to Imperial guard, and bring Genecult back.


this x1000.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/15 23:19:33


Post by: CT GAMER


MeanGreenStompa wrote:


Wait a minute, Alessio making the game competitive and simplified was a bad thing?!?

2nd ed took an entire day to set up and play. It was rife with silly herohammer garbage like a terminator librarian on combat drugs with a displacer field and other gak butchering half your army.

I think the crew are drunk on nostalgia.


I'll have what they are drinking then.

I'm loving 6th edition and the switch of focus. I have not been this excited about the game in years.

The only people I have met who are unhappy with it are the sportshammer players. [shrug].


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 00:25:00


Post by: Totalwar1402


Kroothawk wrote:Here a nice presentation of the 40k Design Studio Open Day by Scissorheart with some comments on 40k 6th edition and some interesting hints on future plans:
http://natfka.blogspot.de/2012/07/faeit-212-exclusive-40k-design-studio.html

Some news:
- Phil Kelly not leaving GW, that rumour was false
- Design team aware of Tyranids needing a boost
- New Codices higher quality than 5th edition paperback ones
- Possibly more expansions in the next 4 years (one idea is relics from HH usable in the game)
- Flak Missiles are currently unavailable to all armies, but will come in future Codices
- Mat Ward is a nice fellow not deserving the flak he gets

Spoiler:
natfka wrote:Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012

Little did I know that when Scissorheart offered to do an exclusive report from the GW Headquarters in Nottingham, that we would receive such an in-depth and very well written report on the events and from personal conversations with the Design Team from GW. This is a lot for everyone to sink their teeth into, so lets get right to it.

Please do not forget to thank Scissorhands for such a great report on the days events in the comments.

via Scissorheart

Hi Natfka

As discussed a few weeks back, I attended the 40k Design Studio open day today. I've written up all my notes exclusively for you. I'm not sure if this is how you would like it presented but there's some fascinating tidbits of info in here! I've attached a pic too of my bro standing next to a life size Rhino!


Today, my brother and I attended the Warhammer World Design Studio open day at GW HQ in Nottingham UK. Throughout the day there were a number of seminars covering many aspects of the hobby, from painting, terrain building, flier demo’s, participation games, sculpting demo’s and most importantly (for me at least) a chance to chat with the key games designers about the new rules and the changes that have come to the game as a result. I was itching to get some insight into the thinking behind 6th Edition’s many features and I must say that I acquired far more information than I’d expected to during the course of the event. Here's a compilation of mine and my bro's notes

I’m a daily follower of Natfka’s blog and I promised him a few weeks back that I would give him an exclusive rundown of the day’s more interesting points so that I could share what I learnt with the community. So here we go.

The first seminar of the day was hosted by Jervis Johnson, Matt Ward and Jeremy Vetock and they took turns responding to a number of pre-defined questions before opening up to the audience. I was frantically making notes during the course of the seminar and I’ll summarise here what I wrote and how the guys answered

Q1. What were the key objectives of 6th Edition?

The ultimate goal of 6th edition according to Jervis was to tackle what both he and Matt described as ‘Associative and Disassociative’ rules and to add more realism to the game.

E.g. If a poisoned dagger had +1 WS in close combat, that would be deemed ‘dissacoiatve’ as it makes little sense. However, if it gave you a re-roll to wound, that would be ‘associative’ as it would capture the essence of a poisoned attack being made and potentially causing damage as a result of it being laced with some horrifying toxin.

Other examples of ‘associative’ rules included the abiltiy to throw grenades and the distinction between different power weapons. By making certain rules ‘associative’, the game adds more ‘weight’ to the feel of units on the table. Flyers crashing to the ground is another example of this, as is wound allocation in shooting (models vanishing from the front of units and not the back), Its all about realism.

Q2. Why include so much hobby and fluff info in the rulebook?

All three commented on the importance of seeing the hobby as a whole. A new player to 40k would grasp the broad depth of the hobby in one mighty tome. Again, Jervis mentioned the significance of adding ‘weight’ to the game and posited that all aspects were synonymous. In the opinion of the designers, the fluff adds an important aspect to the game as it puts the whole experience into context and provides a rich narrative for the tabletop game itself.

Q3. Why is the background of 40k so ‘Imperial centric’?

The designers consider the Imperium to be the largest empire of the 41st Millennium. The story really centres on the rise and fall of the Imperium and the Xeno Codex’s almost orbit this story. That’s pretty much the way its been written since Rogue Trader and there’s really no moving away from it as the central narrative to the 40k universe.

Q4. Why Hull Points?

According to Matt Ward, vehicles in previous editions didn’t seem to fit very well with the rest of the game system and made for odd and peculiar situations. He mentioned that there was little granularity to the vehicle rules compared to other unit types. The addition of Hull Points is therefore used to make vehicles more inclusive during a game and give them a continued presence even after having taken a few direct hits. Jervis said that it flattened out the extremes. Vehicles used to get obliterated in turn one or take damage that would render them ineffective for a turn or two which really didn’t flow too well. Hull Points therefore allow players to enjoy the attributes of their expensive vehicles without them vanishing off the table having done virtually nothing.

Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?

Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.

Q6. Why allies and fortifications?

Jervis said that the old fluff in previous editions made many references to scenarios where different races forged alliances in various situations. He felt that later editions had polarised armies and made them rather restricted. They want to open up the game as a means to circumvent some of those restrictions and allow for more diverse tactics on the table. The fluff can now follow on and provide literature that encompasses those often tenuous alliances. Many alliances have obvious narrative value.

In terms of fortifications, Jervis considered these beautiful plastic kits as somewhat wasted given their aesthetic value on the table. Giving these kits rules and points values feeds into the ‘associative’ aspect of 6th edition. I do agree here as I often wished for rules regarding the 5 massive quad guns in my terrain box!

Q6. Why random charge distances?

This rule apparently came as a result of the ‘associative’ wound allocation and Overwatch rules. There are 2 aspects to this however. If your front line is going to take Snapfire hits, there needs to be some compensation for the front line going down and cutting your charge range. The random charge role helps a unit to get into combat regardless of having been whittled down at the front (provided you roll high enough), but it also adds a sense of realism in that battles are violent and chaotic – meaning that sometimes, for whatever reason, you just don’t make it far enough! Jervis acknowledged that some gamers don’t like having control removed, but argued that a swirling battle full of death, destruction and explosions wasn’t really an environment where controlled and predictable actions were likely! In his words, it adds ‘tension and drama’ to the game.

Q7. How difficult was it to add flyer rules into the game?

Matt Ward picked this one up. He said that it was relatively simple given that flyers were an extension to the revised vehicle rules. The team said that they had an idea of the mechanic due to Apocalypse but held off until 6th to fully include them. Seems as though they had been toying with the idea in 5th but the rest of the rules didn’t allow for it too well.

Q8. Why Challenges?

The team wanted to create the sense that characters were leading their troops into battle and not just skulking around at the back of units. It also gave lesser characters (i.e. SM sergeants) the opportunity to exhibit moments of heroics (leaping in to save their captain with one wound left from a rampaging Daemon Prince for example).

Q9. Why change the Psychic rules?

The team wanted to make Psykers more akin to Wizards in WHFB. They felt that a half page of rules in a codex simply didn’t do them justice, especially for the likes of special character psykers. Lets face it, a psyker firing d6 s4 AP- hits in the shooting phase is little more than a gun and therefore, a menial extension to the shooting rules. The team considered the random aspect of it more ‘associative’ given the dangerous and often unpredictable nature of warp manipulation.


Some extra tidbits:

· 6th Edition was actually finished 6 months ago

· They thought long and hard about using a points system similar to WHFB instead of FOC’s but it would have been to difficult as there was so much emphasis on FOC's in the Codex’s. New players would have found it too confusing.

· The reason that charges are not allowed on Deep Strike is to prevent the utter predictability of mega-hard units appearing anywhere and destroying whatever they want every game. There was a possible hint about Genestealers being able to do this at some point in the future!

· The new edition nerf’s some units and provides buff’s to others. The new Codex’s will rebalance incidents where this is too extreme.

· One guy complained that the new rules were adding unnecessary complexity (e.g loads of new universal special rules). Ward argued that it’s best to keep lots of the rules universal in the main rulebook. New codex’s can then have units with a variety of the SR’s and opponents will know exactly what to expect. He did caveat this though by saying that USR’s would still apply to certain characters in Codex’s.


I spoke to Matt Ward in person after the seminar and I really must emphasise that he’s a really nice, polite and engaging fellow who doesn't deserve the flak he gets from some members of the community. He deserves praise for his role in bringing us 6th edition. He explained that rule setting is always going to be ‘a moving target’ and what works for one person is going to upset another. He said that there were many things that were out of his hands because business decisions have to be taken into account when developing game systems and rules. A couple of key points that came out of that conversation:

· Flak Missiles are currently unavailable to all armies, but we’ll soon see them filtering through into the game.

· We can expect a new FAQ before the end of the summer.

· He spoke about Tyranids being a tad difficult to work with as they have (in the past) been a little one dimensional (i.e charge everyone into CC). He made a point about there being no vehicle rules in the Tyranid army and that its monsterous creatures need to be able to kill Daemon Princes so how do you balance it out? We shall see!



I spoke to Jervis for a long time about ‘associative and disassocaitive’ rules but I think I’ve covered that off.



Next I spoke to Phil Kelly (the dude) who again is a really sound guy (and by the way - he isn't leaving GW).

Phil said that there are currently 6 ‘projects’ on the go for 40k. I think he was referring to Codex’s. I asked him about Tyranids too and he said (rather excitedly) that he has ‘some really great ideas up his sleeve’ for the Nids. Sounds encouraging! It's worth noting that everyone I spoke to in the design team understands the need for Nids to get a boost.

He also shared his personal opinion on 5th edition and said (with the greatest of respect) that Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function (which I personally agreed with). His words were that it ‘lost its craziness’. 6th has therefore moved to address this and give more feel and character to the units and the game as a whole. It does seem to be a consensus amongst GW staff that 2nd was a great edition in many ways (although obviously broken in others).

One other exciting thing that he mentioned was the release of expansions. He said that one example of an idea floating around is the introduction of relic’s which could be (for example) wargear from the Horus Heresry era, usable in today's battles. Possibly a new book or expansion but still just an idea at the moment.

Phil said that the quality of the new Codex’s far surpasses the paperback’s of 5th and beyond (I wonder how many are finished!?)



Lastly I spoke to Robin Cruddace. I asked him about GW’s release schedule and to my utter amazement, he said that they were aiming for some sort of release each month. Be it a codex or some sort of expansion. I would be surprised if this were true!

He said that there would most likely need to be a larger number of expansions between now and 4 years time so that you don’t reach a point where all codex’s for 6th are released with 2 years still to go before the next cycle. Take that how you will!

So there we have it folks. A very enjoyable day indeed – and most insightful!


Was there any mention of Sisters of Battle or suggestion from the developers about them? Anything implied or which could be infered?

Oddly I really wouldn't want another Nid dex. We already got a ton of stuff and its just the rules which are the problem; which is bearable. Nids have a ton of models in plastic and got a decent wave release.

I'am amazed that they think 5th edition wasn't the zainy edition? The idea that 6th is gonna be more OTT is either awesome or terrifying depending on how you take it. I mean are we going to see Soulstorm style Living Saints?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 01:26:12


Post by: focusedfire


natfka wrote:
Faeit 212 Exclusive: 40k Design Studio Open Day
Saturday, July 14, 2012

Q3. Why is the background of 40k so ‘Imperial centric’?

The designers consider the Imperium to be the largest empire of the 41st Millennium. The story really centres on the rise and fall of the Imperium and the Xeno Codex’s almost orbit this story. That’s pretty much the way its been written since Rogue Trader and there’s really no moving away from it as the central narrative to the 40k universe.


This^, imo, is indicative of one of GW's biggest failings and really comes across as the designers just being lazy. To put it another way, if the game was truly locked into being Imperium centric then Xenos vs Xenos games would have no point, rarely happen and would not be as enjoyable as Imperium based games.

It makes no since to have a business that tries to only attempts to maximize profits on one 40k model line out of eight(Basic SM units use mostly the same models). This especially true when the company's total sales(Not revenues but actual # of sales) are slumping. A case can be made that they have saturated their market.

Now if they are going to increase sales, they need to either:

1)Lower prices......................not gonna happen

2)Advertise in an attempt to increase the sie of their market ..............Stone wall of silence campaign seems to point that GW will not go this route

3)Find a synergistic relationship with a more mainstream product .................GWs overealous IP protection and a history of not playing well with others indicates that this is unlikely.
(BTW: No, the Ebooks on Ipabs don't count).

or

4)Finally, they could find a way to attempt to maximize the other model lines.......................This is what 6th ed is. IMO, based upon the answer to Q3, GW may have been hoping that the allies matrix would help to sell Imperial armies to xenos players but the current anecdotal evidence is that the opposite is happening. (Anecdotal evidence= Threads on Dakka and what has been flying off of the store shelves in our area.)

The point that I am getting to is that GW needs to back away from the Imperium centric mindset and saying that there is no way to move away from established fluff comes across as both ironic and somewhat hypocritical.


natfka wrote:Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?

Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.


Wait, They are at a point that they (GW) have titled as "The Time of Ending". If there was ever a time to organically/intuitively move towards an increased focus on the other factions, It is when they are beginning to wax in power and the Imperium is waning.

The line about not ruling out changing in the future sounds like when someone says that they will stop procrastinating, eventually.

Also, as others have said, the last sentence is either quoted in the wrong context or Mr. Ward has a very skewed (Ward-centric) veiw of the 40k history.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 01:48:11


Post by: davethepak


Kilkrazy wrote:Yes, and I think FHM is better value.

I spent 10 years in the magazine publishing trade and I know whereof I speak.


Well, I have spent over 30 years gaming, and I think its not.
I have got a lot of out of my 40k investment - more hours of modeling/painting/converting/collecting/gaming than I have spent.

Value....hmmm...

You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means...

However, I am excited to see your battle reports where you can get four years and thousands of hours of entertainment out of that issue....


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 03:18:02


Post by: Starfarer


Kroothawk wrote:
If the report tells the truth, Mat Ward stated that editions 4+ differ from editions 2+3 in that they had Tau, Necrons, Dark Eldar and Sororitas. Dysartes just stated the fact that Mat Ward then is not familiar with the history of 40k, as Necrons and Sororitas were introduced in 2nd edition, Dark Eldar and Tau in 3rd edition (some of them with even earlier roots: Evil robots and Pirate Eldar). Whether or not you like Mat Ward, his statement is wrong.


By statement I assume you mean a 2nd hand report that paraphrases what he said in a seminar, and is not a direct quote, so perhaps could be an extremely simplified version of his actual explanation. But sure, let's take that and turn it into Mat Ward not knowing anything about 40k fluff.

If everyone wasn't frothing at the mouth ready to jump on Mat Ward and/or GW for half a second its pretty easy to realize he was referring to the universe being expanded by the addition of new cares or going further into the background of previously minor factions in the universe. So their interest is not in moving forward in time, but expanding the story in other ways.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 04:58:55


Post by: AethyrKnight


Phil said that there are currently 6 ‘projects’ on the go for 40k. I think he was referring to Codex’s. I asked him about Tyranids too and he said (rather excitedly) that he has ‘some really great ideas up his sleeve’ for the Nids. Sounds encouraging! It's worth noting that everyone I spoke to in the design team understands the need for Nids to get a boost.


· He spoke about Tyranids being a tad difficult to work with as they have (in the past) been a little one dimensional (i.e charge everyone into CC). He made a point about there being no vehicle rules in the Tyranid army and that its monsterous creatures need to be able to kill Daemon Princes so how do you balance it out? We shall see!

So, I'm gathering from this that we can expect to see a WD Tyranid release, same as was done with the Eldar Night Spinner?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 06:30:35


Post by: Marrak


AethyrKnight wrote:
Phil said that there are currently 6 ‘projects’ on the go for 40k. I think he was referring to Codex’s. I asked him about Tyranids too and he said (rather excitedly) that he has ‘some really great ideas up his sleeve’ for the Nids. Sounds encouraging! It's worth noting that everyone I spoke to in the design team understands the need for Nids to get a boost.


· He spoke about Tyranids being a tad difficult to work with as they have (in the past) been a little one dimensional (i.e charge everyone into CC). He made a point about there being no vehicle rules in the Tyranid army and that its monsterous creatures need to be able to kill Daemon Princes so how do you balance it out? We shall see!

So, I'm gathering from this that we can expect to see a WD Tyranid release, same as was done with the Eldar Night Spinner?


I have my own theories about this, but they're pretty much in line with what you just suggested. Either way, I'm glad that the issue with nids is at the very least recognized, even if they're not entirely sure how to manage to move forward.

...and frankly, I wouldn't mind having SOME units that freak out my opponents for their CC capacity that don't cost half the army, and suddenly trip when they hit a twig. -_-


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 06:37:17


Post by: stepee


Did anyone ask when the E-codex's would be available for the android os?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 06:53:29


Post by: -Loki-


stepee wrote:Did anyone ask when the E-codex's would be available for the android os?


Seriously? Don't hold your breath.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 08:42:02


Post by: xttz


AethyrKnight wrote:
Phil said that there are currently 6 ‘projects’ on the go for 40k. I think he was referring to Codex’s. I asked him about Tyranids too and he said (rather excitedly) that he has ‘some really great ideas up his sleeve’ for the Nids. Sounds encouraging! It's worth noting that everyone I spoke to in the design team understands the need for Nids to get a boost.


· He spoke about Tyranids being a tad difficult to work with as they have (in the past) been a little one dimensional (i.e charge everyone into CC). He made a point about there being no vehicle rules in the Tyranid army and that its monsterous creatures need to be able to kill Daemon Princes so how do you balance it out? We shall see!

So, I'm gathering from this that we can expect to see a WD Tyranid release, same as was done with the Eldar Night Spinner?


The annoying thing is that 'nids really need a rebalance rather than new content. Adjusted point costs, unit/weapon statlines, and a couple of rules amendments. While I could see them doing a Night Spinner style release with new rules in WD (such as a Harpy kit with alternate build option for the new unit), it won't really do much to help things. The best we could hope for is if that new unit was a direct counter to flyers.

I guess a digital re-release of the 5e codex with tweaked rules would be too much to hope for


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 08:47:57


Post by: reds8n


https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.463196863699799.113604.212614545424700&type=1

snaps from the day.

was fun indeed.


Loved these models brought along by one of the attendees.

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40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 10:54:01


Post by: AlexHolker


MasterSlowPoke wrote:The idea that Ward isn't familiar with the Necron history, considering he wrote the only other Necron book, is insane.

That he wrote the only other Necron book proves he isn't familiar with the Necron history. Just like turning the Grey Knights into a bunch of closeted Chaos worshippers proves he isn't familiar with Grey Knights history.

I don't think Ward is evil or a bad person, but I do think he's incapable of doing his job, and the game has suffered for it.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 10:55:24


Post by: BrookM


Since when are the GK chaos lovers?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 11:00:30


Post by: AlexHolker


BrookM wrote:Since when are the GK chaos lovers?

Since they started using sorcery and the magic numbers of the Chaos gods, wield a daemon weapon in battle and perform blood sacrifices due to the influence of a Bloodthirster.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 11:28:45


Post by: Just Dave


AlexHolker wrote:
BrookM wrote:Since when are the GK chaos lovers?

Since they started using sorcery and the magic numbers of the Chaos gods, wield a daemon weapon in battle and perform blood sacrifices due to the influence of a Bloodthirster.


I'm curious, do you genuinely believe this? Particularly regarding Sorcery*?


*Noting the (typical) difference between Sorcery and psychic powers.


Regarding the Necrons, I don't think it suggests Ward has a lack of knowledge regarding their background. It wasn't ignorance of the Necron background IMHO, but a substantial re-write. A re-write that was IMHO needed to benefit them as a collectible, characterful and customisable faction in 40k.
That said, the rules are looking to be pretty questionable in 6th...


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 13:44:44


Post by: English Assassin


AlexHolker wrote:
BrookM wrote:Since when are the GK chaos lovers?

Since they started using sorcery and the magic numbers of the Chaos gods, wield a daemon weapon in battle and perform blood sacrifices due to the influence of a Bloodthirster.

I hate to defend The Great Beast, but it's worth pointing out that as far back as 2nd ed. the Grey Knights had a 'mystical' style which librarians (at least as I recall) conspicuously didn't have. (I'm thinking in particular of Captain Stern's story in the Dark Millennium rulebook.)


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 18:04:54


Post by: Kurce


Wait, so they actually did try to make the game more competitive and streamlined and they said it made the game flat and boring? If there aren't rules arguments and shouting matches and possibly even fisticuffs then they apparently are doing it wrong!!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 19:48:53


Post by: Vampirate of Sartosa


Nagashek wrote:
NAVARRO wrote:They want fun? Make Nids allies to Imperial guard, and bring Genecult back.


this x1000.

I don't like that idea for Genecults, if only because I always saw the Nids as consuming the Cults as soon as they showed up. The Nids aren't particularly discriminating in who they eat.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 20:32:56


Post by: Experiment 626


Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:
Nagashek wrote:
NAVARRO wrote:They want fun? Make Nids allies to Imperial guard, and bring Genecult back.


this x1000.

I don't like that idea for Genecults, if only because I always saw the Nids as consuming the Cults as soon as they showed up. The Nids aren't particularly discriminating in who they eat.


Personally I agree with this view.

In the end, the cults are either killed by their enemies or else the 'Nids devour them as they wipe out the planet and every last scrap of biological matter on it.

Plus, you know that it would end being horribly abused in the end... For every person who's actually 'doing it right' and just sticking to some guardsmen + transport + maybe one or two pieces of heavier equipment, you'd have 10+ gak-wipes adding Tervigons + Swarmlord + 'Stealers to their armoured gunline.

Thanks but no thanks.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 22:49:44


Post by: Brother SRM


If the next Tyranid codex (or a WD dex) let you run a Genestealer Cult army using certain units from each codex instead of a flat alliance, I think it could work. I don't think Genestealer Cults have Tervigons and Manticores very often though.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 22:54:50


Post by: ShumaGorath


Brother SRM wrote:If the next Tyranid codex (or a WD dex) let you run a Genestealer Cult army using certain units from each codex instead of a flat alliance, I think it could work. I don't think Genestealer Cults have Tervigons and Manticores very often though.


Genesteler cults don't ally with any tyranid type outside of the genestealer. The swarm just eats them as they lie down and die in proximity to the hive mind. Genestealer cults via allies would rely on players using their judgement. 40k players aren't that trustworthy.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/16 23:51:21


Post by: AgeOfEgos


In the old school fluff, after a Tyranid invasion defeated the standing army--it would talk about how the Cult would line up willingly, praising the Hive Mind while marching on ships for consumption.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:
Nagashek wrote:
NAVARRO wrote:They want fun? Make Nids allies to Imperial guard, and bring Genecult back.


this x1000.

I don't like that idea for Genecults, if only because I always saw the Nids as consuming the Cults as soon as they showed up. The Nids aren't particularly discriminating in who they eat.


Personally I agree with this view.

In the end, the cults are either killed by their enemies or else the 'Nids devour them as they wipe out the planet and every last scrap of biological matter on it.

Plus, you know that it would end being horribly abused in the end... For every person who's actually 'doing it right' and just sticking to some guardsmen + transport + maybe one or two pieces of heavier equipment, you'd have 10+ gak-wipes adding Tervigons + Swarmlord + 'Stealers to their armoured gunline.

Thanks but no thanks.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 00:23:13


Post by: CT GAMER


ShumaGorath wrote: 40k players aren't that trustworthy.


Suffer not the unclean to live...


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 01:11:10


Post by: RogueRegault


MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Wait a minute, Alessio making the game competitive and simplified was a bad thing?!?

2nd ed took an entire day to set up and play. It was rife with silly herohammer garbage like a terminator librarian on combat drugs with a displacer field and other gak butchering half your army.

I think the crew are drunk on nostalgia.



The only things I seriously miss from 2nd edition are To hit modifiers instead of cover, armor save modifiers instead of AP, and point limits instead of FOCs. Instead they decided to bring back the Imperial Assassin with Polymorphine, Melta Bombs, and Digital Weapons popping out of a termagant squad during a Virus Outbreak.

On the bright side, I might get to dust off my Ork Splatta Cannon. (Literally. It's sat in one place for 15 years now.)

Did anyone bother asking about the craziness of the Tau FAQ? If they went for "associative" rules, than why are some squad leader troops still characters in their own squad (Paladins, Nobs), yet Shas'vre Bodyguards(And probably some others in other armies) only count as infantry?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 15:11:29


Post by: pretre


Wow. Not sure how I missed this thread. Great info.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 15:36:41


Post by: adamsouza


Genestealer Cults used to be IG with Genestealers, Hybrids, a Patriach, and Limos. Why this isn't a White Dwarf Army already, I do not know.



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 16:07:46


Post by: Vaktathi


While interesting, and I'm glad they did something like this, I find it sad that they find balance to be contrary to 'fun' or whatever, when many other games don't seem to have the same problem.

While I can understand their reasoning for some of the changes, it really doesn't seem like they thought them through or tested them much, Vehicles and Allies in particular.



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 16:21:00


Post by: adamsouza


Vaktathi wrote: it really doesn't seem like they thought them through or tested them much, Vehicles and Allies in particular.


We've had the rules for less than a month. They had them finished at least 6 months ago. Something tells me that they spent more time testing them than any of the critics here have.



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 16:21:07


Post by: pretre


I don't think that it says they find balance to be contrary, but that they found the game to be too simple.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 16:32:43


Post by: adamsouza


3rd Ed really felt stripped down after playing 2nd Ed.

What do you mean I can't throw my grenades at him ? They are GRENADES !!! That's what you do with them.

All those Psychic powers ? Yeah forget them.

Special Characters ? Forget them to.



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 16:38:51


Post by: gorgon


This sounds like it was a great time. Thanks for passing the info along.

Regarding GCults, there aren't many on this forum who have put more time and effort into a GCult army than me, and I'm firmly in the camp of "do it right or don't do it at all." I'm a Tyranid player too, and think the allies system is inherently unfair. But allowing Tyranids to ally with IG doesn't really result in a GCult. GCult have their own background, units and depth, and if they're going to be done, they at least deserve a decent FW army list. Note that GCults had no connection to Tyranids originally.

Back on topic, Phil K's comments about Alessio are interesting to me. If you remember, about a year ago we had a bunch of rumors about 6th edition, most of which turned out to be false. But one of them hinted that Alessio's departure is what let them monkey with the system more. Then we had the pancake edition, which were similar to, but 100% identical to the rumors from last summer. Anyway, it kinda seems to me like 6th edition took some interesting twists and turns during its development.

Regarding 2nd edition etc., I played in GW GTs back in that era. The main problems with the game are that it was heavily "patched," and required a lot of decisions from TOs about what to allow. But it was a fun, playable (once patched) game with a ton of flavor. If it was as terrible as some suggest, the game wouldn't have grown as much as it did during that era.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 16:44:46


Post by: Eisenhorn


I think the Merican Lancers just found allies,I am so stealing this Westminster Guard idea someday.

I love the game is getting more in depth,the Sportshammer people might not be happy but they will figure out what is best and be happy.
But the majority of the gamers play for fun and 6th is fun squared


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 16:49:57


Post by: Vaktathi


adamsouza wrote:
Vaktathi wrote: it really doesn't seem like they thought them through or tested them much, Vehicles and Allies in particular.


We've had the rules for less than a month. They had them finished at least 6 months ago. Something tells me that they spent more time testing them than any of the critics here have.

Because they had the rules done for 6 months doesn't mean they were testing it for that period of time. 6 months is about what you'd need for editorial, pictures, sourcing, printing, stocking, and shipping. 6 months means they finished them 6 months ago, not that they were testing and making changes in the meantime. You can see the playtesting group in the credits section, half of them are design studio staff that worked on writing it and it's a relatively small playtest group for a product of this size.

Just as an FYI, codex books are usually finished about 4-6 months before release as well, that doesn't stop them from getting out blatantly broken (good and bad) rules and units that are picked up on by 90% of the players as soon as they open the book.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 17:58:07


Post by: Wafflecakes


RogueRegault wrote:

On the bright side, I might get to dust off my Ork Splatta Cannon. (Literally. It's sat in one place for 15 years now.)


Can relate with that massively! Haven't played any edition since 2nd after the abject horror I experienced as half of my army became obsolete - especially my beloved boarboyz and artillery.

Kannon or Lobba?! Pah!!
Subsequent army lists were a slap in the face as my glorious arsenal of pulsa rockets, splatta kannons, smasha guns, squig katapults and traktor kannons gathered dust!

I sit in wait of the 6th edition dex - which will inevitably dash my naive optimism.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 20:46:26


Post by: Davylove21


According to a guy on ATT who attended, Target Locks are going to be FAQ'd to infer Split Fire imminently, so I guess that will be the FAQ before Summer's end.

How on Earth did that not make the first FAQ if the book's been done for 6 months?!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 21:24:34


Post by: Flashman


Interesting write up. For me I don't think 40K is in that bad a place considering where the company's head is at these days.

The dicussion about Associative/Disassociative rules was ironic, because I was turned off Fantasy by some of the rules which didn't really work in my head, namely Horde. Spreading your formation wide allows extra ranks to attack? That makes no sense

I'd prefer not to see a dumb Storm of Magic type 40K release in a year's time, but I can happily ignore the tacky add ons if the core rule system is sound (which I think it is).


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 21:48:43


Post by: Bloodwin


I've not managed to get a game in yet but I love 6th compared to 5th. I love how it feels more like a game you are meant to tinker with because of all the sprawling USRs It does feel like earlier editions where there were lots of possibilities and very fluff orientated. I like the renewed emphasis on characters because that's what most of the novels are about - heroes being heroic. As opposed to cheese spam. Every game needs to have cycles some editions will add loads to the game others will strip it back. In 10 years time we will have people nostalgic for the Alessio years who want a stripped down game.

I look forward to expansions and would like to see something along the lines of Storm of Magic for psykers with warp enfused fortifications. Although that might be a bit much with the new psyker rules being so recent. Maybe they should aim for fortifications with some new modular terrain kits.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 22:01:16


Post by: DemetriDominov


Thanks for the article, I've always liked Philly Kelly's work, not that I'd really believe a senior developer would be leaving GW anyway.

I just bought the new edition and seeing the changes of how they've compiled everything from fluff, hobbying, and the rules into this massive book along with mind blowing art is pretty awesome. I have yet to play the game though, and read the rules in their entirety for that matter, but I am at least impressed at how pretty this hard copy of this "Lexicanum" is. Which sparks the idea, maybe GW should consider making an actual paper version of the Lexicanum. I'd buy it.

Furthermore, anyone else interested in how the 40k game developed over the editions? Like 1st edition is the orginal, 2nd is the crazy days, 3rd is the blandhammer, ect.? Anyone who's actually been around long enough care to explain the evolution of 40k?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 22:03:09


Post by: BrookM


Different minds, different ideas.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/17 22:15:11


Post by: Vaktathi


DemetriDominov wrote:
Furthermore, anyone else interested in how the 40k game developed over the editions? Like 1st edition is the orginal, 2nd is the crazy days, 3rd is the blandhammer, ect.? Anyone who's actually been around long enough care to explain the evolution of 40k?
Rogue Trader (1st edition) was crazier than anything GW has put out since. Rules for air-to-air combat, dinosaurs, etc with much more tongue-in-cheek heavy metal style 80's cyberpunk fluff, vehicles had turning radii, etc. A lot more "techy" less "Catholic Space Dark Ages in SPAAACE". Definitely a bit "racier" in terms of content. Game was highly random in almost every way, no army lists or points anything, GM required to setup battles and judge things, lots of D100 tables.

2nd edition was the first edition where it didn't need a 3rd player as a GM, where stuff still was random and whacky but a bit more codified and the 40k universe as we know it took shape. Didn't work well much past what we would currently consider 1000-1250pts. A bit cartoonisized in terms of fluff. The game was ridiculously imbalanced.

3rd edition was the age of "GRIMDARK", and the first few years stripped the game down to an awkward bland version of 2nd in the name of playability. Gradually added more and more stuff back in and introduced several races as core races that had been side-show WD features in 2nd.

4th edition was a carry-on of 3rd, cutting down on lots of the WD extras and focusing more on codex+BGB, non-skimmer tanks *really* sucked during this period, this was the age of the Eldar, Tau and Necrons on top.

5th edition was an awkward attempt to force a competitive overlay over 3rd and 4th, that sorta half-assed it, resulting in core rules that worked out more competitively but only in the most meta of senses, with fluff moving more and more towards exaggerated kiddy filler.



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 00:07:40


Post by: adamsouza


RT - No army lists. More like races you could slap gear on till you reached a point limit. Less serious. It was the 80's the bar was set pretty low.

2nd Edition - Army lists YAY !!! Hand to hand combat was broken. If you were really good, like say a Genestealer or Lord Mephiston, you would chew through ANYTHING if you got your mits on it and thye wouldn't even get a chance to hit you back. Weapons had armor modifiers instead of AP. Basically a more complicated way of doing everything we do now. Wargear was on cards, psychic rules were an expansion.

3rd Edition - 2nd edition kicked in the nuts. It's more blanced, hand to hand works better, AP better than save modifiers, but army lists were basically genericed and Psychic power and personalities were nerfed with a lead pipe.

4th edition - some of the nerfed stuff returns in gimped format. Skimmers FTW !!!

5th edition - enough years went by that they printed a new edition ? Bitching new plastics a plenty.

6th edition - Brings back lots of the cool stuff from 2nd edition in a format that is more balanced.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 00:28:29


Post by: English Assassin


Vaktathi wrote:
DemetriDominov wrote:
Furthermore, anyone else interested in how the 40k game developed over the editions? Like 1st edition is the orginal, 2nd is the crazy days, 3rd is the blandhammer, ect.? Anyone who's actually been around long enough care to explain the evolution of 40k?
Rogue Trader (1st edition) was crazier than anything GW has put out since. Rules for air-to-air combat, dinosaurs, etc with much more tongue-in-cheek heavy metal style 80's cyberpunk fluff, vehicles had turning radii, etc. A lot more "techy" less "Catholic Space Dark Ages in SPAAACE". Definitely a bit "racier" in terms of content. Game was highly random in almost every way, no army lists or points anything, GM required to setup battles and judge things, lots of D100 tables.

It's worth adding to this, as an historical note, that Rogue Trader developed significantly over its six-year life. Revised rules and army lists for all the factions (well, Marines, Guard, Orks, Eldar, Chaos and Tyranids, which was all there was) were published in White Dwarf and later collected in compendia. By about 1990, the game's core mechanics were already 90% 2nd edition (albeit mercifully without the ghastly cards for everything).


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 00:37:15


Post by: plastictrees


And Squats, Harlequins (who could take Landraiders and Rhinos), GS cult etc.
The rules for robots were nice and ridiculous as well.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 08:28:07


Post by: endtransmission


Vehicle rules for RT were hilarious with the targetting grid transparency that you placed over a diagram of the vehicle you were shooting at to determine which part of the tank got hit.

RT also allowed all imperial armies to take land speeders, jetbikes, rhinos, predators and land raiders.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 12:12:54


Post by: Kilkrazy


BrookM wrote:Since when are the GK chaos lovers?


Since Chaos was begin to grow.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 12:24:27


Post by: BrookM


Kilkrazy wrote:
BrookM wrote:Since when are the GK chaos lovers?


Since Chaos was begin to grow.
Should've seen that one coming.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 13:15:29


Post by: gorgon


adamsouza wrote:RT - No army lists. More like races you could slap gear on till you reached a point limit. Less serious. It was the 80's the bar was set pretty low.


There were plenty of army lists. Multiples for some armies, in fact. They just weren't in the rulebook, they came later.

As English Assassin said, the game evolved *greatly* during its lifespan.

2nd Edition - Army lists YAY !!! Hand to hand combat was broken. If you were really good, like say a Genestealer or Lord Mephiston, you would chew through ANYTHING if you got your mits on it and thye wouldn't even get a chance to hit you back. Weapons had armor modifiers instead of AP. Basically a more complicated way of doing everything we do now. Wargear was on cards, psychic rules were an expansion.


That's being disingenuous. If you were smart about it, you could limit said ubercharacters to one kill in combat per player turn. You could also hit them with stasis grenades or vortex, or just lay down some blind and watch them stumble slowly out of the cloud. Second edition was a shooty edition -- and that is the truth.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 14:01:54


Post by: endtransmission


I loved combining Gate with a mass of purestrains for ultimate maneuvering.

That or anti-plant missiles removing all the forests on the table, leaving those sneaky terminators in front of a massive blob of brood brothers and hybrid heavies


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 23:50:20


Post by: thefarseerofnorthryde


Kroothawk wrote:

- Mat Ward is a nice fellow not deserving the flak he gets



Sure, mat ward is nice himself, but he can't write a good codex if his life depended on it


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/18 23:58:58


Post by: Necroshea


thefarseerofnorthryde wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:

- Mat Ward is a nice fellow not deserving the flak he gets



Sure, mat ward is nice himself, but he can't write a good codex if his life depended on it


This, sorta.

His bit about the rules and the suits controlling them strike me as strange though. I don't hate the guy because he writes bad rules. I hate him because he mauls fluff. So adamant about retconning the crap out of armies, but they never want to touch the main storyline. I'll accept armies drastically changing if they'd just let the damn corpse die and move on with the story.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 00:14:40


Post by: ShumaGorath


DemetriDominov wrote:
Furthermore, anyone else interested in how the 40k game developed over the editions? Like 1st edition is the orginal, 2nd is the crazy days, 3rd is the blandhammer, ect.? Anyone who's actually been around long enough care to explain the evolution of 40k?


1st edition: Basically a weird hybrid of a pen and paper RPG and a tabletop battle game. It was very story line driven, very hoakie and pulpy, and incredibly 80s.

2nd edition: Turned it into a larger scale battle game between two forces. Made the game function without a dungeon master arbitrating imbalances or setting up scenarios. Was better codefied as a universe. Was hilariously unbalanced, poorly written, and not easily playable. This was the last time a tactical marine was good.

3rd edition: A hard restart cutting out a lot of the wackiness of the previous editions. Had issues with phalanx formations, assaults being unbroken for an entire game, and missing rules (such as no description of what to do with destroyed vehicles). Much more easily playable than second and was somewhat balanced until codexes started the trend of different author different power level.

4th edition: A refinement of third with expanded codexes and better written rules. A few instances of content cutting for gameplay benefit (specifically chaos) but on the whole the game expanded. The ruleset was nice but interacted badly with codexes, eldar skimmers and tyranid monstrous creatures won every game. No one took troops.

5th edition: A refinement of fourth with reduced effectiveness in skimmers, random game length, and a dramatic power increase for most vehicles. Probably the best ruleset GW has put out for competitive play, but codex imbalance started to hit a xenith midway through the edition and the overt overpowering of transports saw some armies practically vanish outside of friendly non competitive play. True line of sight and wound allocation were some of the most reviled rules GW has put into a rulebook.

6th edition: GW has decided to abandon efforts to create a competitively balanced game in an attempt to recapture the narrative gameplay of second edition. Flyers and flying MCs are intensely overpowered (but neat), there was a dramatic increase in random and "zany" rules. The game isn't particularly workable as a competitive game without quite a bit of tournament house ruling. As a ruleset in isolation it's the worst written since third with a rather intense number of conflicts between its own pages and lengthy (and bad) FAQs released for all codexes.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 00:29:42


Post by: Compel


That sorta covers it, Shuma...

However, while I have ranted at length at my local club about a lot of the sheer stupidity wtf elements of 6th edition, a lot is actually quite fixable either at club level or with GW writing sensible FAQs.

Club Level fixes:

Ignoring the whole new terrain placement rules stuff.
Ignoring the double force org stuff.
Putting allies back to their 'special' status... EG, when there's multiple players.

FAQ fixes:
Flakk missiles... please, pretty pretty please....
Reversal on character stuff, so that Ork Nob Warbikers aren't the best sniper unit in the game...

Truth is, these fixes are extremely minor compared to say, the list of changes that many UK clubs and tournaments do in Fantasy 8th edition in order to make a halfway sensible game.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 02:02:29


Post by: adamsouza


gorgon wrote:
adamsouza wrote:RT - No army lists. More like races you could slap gear on till you reached a point limit. Less serious. It was the 80's the bar was set pretty low.


There were plenty of army lists. Multiples for some armies, in fact. They just weren't in the rulebook, they came later.


I only had the RT Rulebook back then, so I never saw an army list until 2nd Ed.

gorgon wrote: As English Assassin said, the game evolved *greatly* during its lifespan.


True. I can honestly say I've enjoyed playing it all along that evolution.

gorgon wrote:
2nd Edition - Army lists YAY !!! Hand to hand combat was broken. If you were really good, like say a Genestealer or Lord Mephiston, you would chew through ANYTHING if you got your mits on it and thye wouldn't even get a chance to hit you back. Weapons had armor modifiers instead of AP. Basically a more complicated way of doing everything we do now. Wargear was on cards, psychic rules were an expansion.


That's being disingenuous. If you were smart about it, you could limit said ubercharacters to one kill in combat per player turn. You could also hit them with stasis grenades or vortex, or just lay down some blind and watch them stumble slowly out of the cloud. Second edition was a shooty edition -- and that is the truth.


That was not my experience. All the "solustions" you propose were wargear cards and not something the rank and file would have access to.

He asked what was different and H2H was much more exploitable in 2nd Edition than in any edition since. Higher initiative went first. You added your highest attack roll to your Weapon Skill and compared to your enemy's roll. The difference was how many time the loser got hit. Genestealers had like a 6 WS and 4 attack dice resulting in them out performing pretty much anyone in H2H.

One time I saw a lone genestealer make it across the board, his brood decimated by assualt cannons, to avenge the fallen as he single handedly wiped out all but one terminator in H2H.
Lord Mephiston was legendary, in or gaming group, for chopping tanks to peices.

That reminds me, stat lines were higher in 2nd edtion. Space Marine veterans and termies had 5's for WS and BS. I'm pretty sure Mephiston had S7. Basic stat lines were nerfed in 3E and stayed that way.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 02:42:08


Post by: megatrons2nd


Compel wrote:
Club Level fixes:

Ignoring the double force org stuff.
Putting allies back to their 'special' status... EG, when there's multiple players.




Both of these severely hurt some armies. Those that do not have access to Skyfire units or Flyers of their own. Tau specifically suffers at higher point games as they rapidly run out of slots to use for their anti tank.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 08:23:56


Post by: Ledabot


I found that quite a nice read, smiled when he said Matt's a nice guy. Sure he is, he just can write rules.

Tau among others are expecting a flyer within the year, so I don't know how long they have to wait for there anti-flyer stuff. The lack of allies really hurts them since they wont be able to deal with them at all without grabbing terrain.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 08:58:48


Post by: Sigvatr


Flashman wrote:Interesting write up. For me I don't think 40K is in that bad a place considering where the company's head is at these days.

The dicussion about Associative/Disassociative rules was ironic, because I was turned off Fantasy by some of the rules which didn't really work in my head, namely Horde. Spreading your formation wide allows extra ranks to attack? That makes no sense

I'd prefer not to see a dumb Storm of Magic type 40K release in a year's time, but I can happily ignore the tacky add ons if the core rule system is sound (which I think it is).


Precisely. WHFB 8th was already ruined by the overly imbalanced magic system and instead of trying to fix it, they release an add-on that further aggreviates the problem making magic bat-crap insanely OP.

Well, on to the shelves with my WHFB minis, more time for 40k. 9th will come someday.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 12:32:06


Post by: Nevelon


thefarseerofnorthryde wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:

- Mat Ward is a nice fellow not deserving the flak he gets



Sure, mat ward is nice himself, but he can't write a good codex if his life depended on it


There is something I heard regarding the comic industry, looks to fit here as well.

You can get lots of regular work if you have at least two of the following:

You are a nice guy and work well with others,
You get your work in on time,
You make a quality product.



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 13:11:09


Post by: Nagashek


Experiment 626 wrote:
Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:
Nagashek wrote:
NAVARRO wrote:They want fun? Make Nids allies to Imperial guard, and bring Genecult back.


this x1000.

I don't like that idea for Genecults, if only because I always saw the Nids as consuming the Cults as soon as they showed up. The Nids aren't particularly discriminating in who they eat.


Personally I agree with this view.

In the end, the cults are either killed by their enemies or else the 'Nids devour them as they wipe out the planet and every last scrap of biological matter on it.

Plus, you know that it would end being horribly abused in the end... For every person who's actually 'doing it right' and just sticking to some guardsmen + transport + maybe one or two pieces of heavier equipment, you'd have 10+ gak-wipes adding Tervigons + Swarmlord + 'Stealers to their armoured gunline.

Thanks but no thanks.


Of course that's what happens. And according to the Allies rules you ally "conveniently" with the other part of your army list only for as long as you need to for that battle or part of a battle. Yet these ally lists will become the staple of what most people play over a period of time. That "one shot alliance forged out of self serving need" sure did happen every week that I played that guy, or for every game of that tournament. I see no difference between a Genestealer list that should only be alive long enough for the Swarm to show up or to be destroyed, or Necrons and Blood Angels teaming up. Oh yea, except one of those things makes sense and the other doesn't. At least my Genestealer list could represent a different cult on a different world any time I play.

As far as abuse... well, is that any more abusive than any one of a dozen combos people have already come up with with the allies matrix? Any less fluffy? At least with TMC's in your GS cult you can just explain it as the GS cult was still fighting the PDF or SM who came to fight when the rest of the Swarm arrived. :shrug:

Davylove21 wrote:According to a guy on ATT who attended, Target Locks are going to be FAQ'd to infer Split Fire imminently, so I guess that will be the FAQ before Summer's end.

How on Earth did that not make the first FAQ if the book's been done for 6 months?!


Exactly this. If there's already a USR that covers TLs, then why in the 9 hells were target locks just FAQ'd out of existence?

Vaktathi wrote:4th edition was a carry-on of 3rd, cutting down on lots of the WD extras and focusing more on codex+BGB, non-skimmer tanks *really* sucked during this period, this was the age of the Eldar, Tau and Necrons on top.


Incorrect. Unless you had the best meta EVAR allowing those armies to just wtfpwn everyone, Tau was never a top tier army. Not even close. Eldar wasn't PRECISELY tearing things up either. It was doing well, and Necrons were... okay. But to say that these were the top ranking armies in 4e is just disingenuous. The Eldar armies that were winning IIRC had little to do with skimmer rules and more to do with rediculous Seer Councils. Tyranid armies were solid, Necrons were solid (but hardly winning GTs) Eldar were solid, SM were very solid and super customizable, but IW were just hammering everyone until they got the 4e CSM book and Demon Bombing was a common tactic as well. (Very late into 4e) Sadly, my Meta echoed the national meta, and my Tau were not in a happy place.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 13:17:39


Post by: Alpharius


ShumaGorath wrote:
DemetriDominov wrote:
Furthermore, anyone else interested in how the 40k game developed over the editions? Like 1st edition is the orginal, 2nd is the crazy days, 3rd is the blandhammer, ect.? Anyone who's actually been around long enough care to explain the evolution of 40k?


1st edition: Basically a weird hybrid of a pen and paper RPG and a tabletop battle game. It was very story line driven, very hoakie and pulpy, and incredibly 80s.

2nd edition: Turned it into a larger scale battle game between two forces. Made the game function without a dungeon master arbitrating imbalances or setting up scenarios. Was better codefied as a universe. Was hilariously unbalanced, poorly written, and not easily playable. This was the last time a tactical marine was good.

3rd edition: A hard restart cutting out a lot of the wackiness of the previous editions. Had issues with phalanx formations, assaults being unbroken for an entire game, and missing rules (such as no description of what to do with destroyed vehicles). Much more easily playable than second and was somewhat balanced until codexes started the trend of different author different power level.

4th edition: A refinement of third with expanded codexes and better written rules. A few instances of content cutting for gameplay benefit (specifically chaos) but on the whole the game expanded. The ruleset was nice but interacted badly with codexes, eldar skimmers and tyranid monstrous creatures won every game. No one took troops.

5th edition: A refinement of fourth with reduced effectiveness in skimmers, random game length, and a dramatic power increase for most vehicles. Probably the best ruleset GW has put out for competitive play, but codex imbalance started to hit a xenith midway through the edition and the overt overpowering of transports saw some armies practically vanish outside of friendly non competitive play. True line of sight and wound allocation were some of the most reviled rules GW has put into a rulebook.

6th edition: GW has decided to abandon efforts to create a competitively balanced game in an attempt to recapture the narrative gameplay of second edition. Flyers and flying MCs are intensely overpowered (but neat), there was a dramatic increase in random and "zany" rules. The game isn't particularly workable as a competitive game without quite a bit of tournament house ruling. As a ruleset in isolation it's the worst written since third with a rather intense number of conflicts between its own pages and lengthy (and bad) FAQs released for all codexes.


An excellent summary of the editions - thank you for posting it!

I laughed especially hard at this extremely sad but true comment:

2nd edition: Turned it into a larger scale battle game between two forces. Made the game function without a dungeon master arbitrating imbalances or setting up scenarios. Was better codefied as a universe. Was hilariously unbalanced, poorly written, and not easily playable. This was the last time a tactical marine was good.





40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 13:35:08


Post by: gorgon


Alpharius wrote:I laughed especially hard at this extremely sad but true comment:

2nd edition: Turned it into a larger scale battle game between two forces. Made the game function without a dungeon master arbitrating imbalances or setting up scenarios. Was better codefied as a universe. Was hilariously unbalanced, poorly written, and not easily playable. This was the last time a tactical marine was good.



Wow...you guys really think that? I must have been living in Bizarro world. In my experience, Tacs were *terrible* competitive choices in 2nd since armor mods were so harsh.

Case in point...at the 1998 Baltimore GT, GW staff told me I was the ONLY SM player with a Tac squad (and that was only a combat squad since the tourney rules allowed buying them that way). I won best comp mainly because of that. So there were all of 5 Tac marines at the entire tourney. The next year under 3rd edition rules, some guy brought 81 slogging marines...6 Tac squads, 2 Dev squads and a Captain. Five Tacs at the entire tourney one year...60 in one army the next. I don't know how anyone can claim that the AP system wasn't a gigantic boost to power armor.

I'm a little afraid to look out the window in case I see that the grass is blue and the sky is green.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/19 13:48:07


Post by: Nevelon


gorgon wrote:
Alpharius wrote:I laughed especially hard at this extremely sad but true comment:

2nd edition: Turned it into a larger scale battle game between two forces. Made the game function without a dungeon master arbitrating imbalances or setting up scenarios. Was better codefied as a universe. Was hilariously unbalanced, poorly written, and not easily playable. This was the last time a tactical marine was good.



Wow...you guys really think that? I must have been living in Bizarro world. In my experience, Tacs were *terrible* competitive choices in 2nd since armor mods were so harsh.

Case in point...at the 1998 Baltimore GT, GW staff told me I was the ONLY SM player with a Tac squad (and that was only a combat squad since the tourney rules allowed buying them that way). I won best comp mainly because of that. So there were all of 5 Tac marines at the entire tourney. The next year under 3rd edition rules, some guy brought 81 slogging marines...6 Tac squads, 2 Dev squads and a Captain. Five Tacs at the entire tourney one year...60 in one army the next. I don't know how anyone can claim that the AP system wasn't a gigantic boost to power armor.

I'm a little afraid to look out the window in case I see that the grass is blue and the sky is green.


My recollection is the same as yours. I didn't play in tournaments in 2nd, but most of the games at my FLGS were armies full of super-elite units and broken characters. You never saw basic troops.

I had a lot of success in 3rd with lines of tactical marines just boltering foes to death. Tac squads weren't just a mediatory troop pick, but the workhorse cornerstone upon which my army was based. Just like the fluff said. I will admit that codex creep, the basic marine got overshadowed buy the fancy and new stuff, but at least at the start of 3rd, he was still going strong.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/20 14:00:02


Post by: Alpharius


gorgon wrote:
Alpharius wrote:I laughed especially hard at this extremely sad but true comment:

2nd edition: Turned it into a larger scale battle game between two forces. Made the game function without a dungeon master arbitrating imbalances or setting up scenarios. Was better codefied as a universe. Was hilariously unbalanced, poorly written, and not easily playable. This was the last time a tactical marine was good.



Wow...you guys really think that? I must have been living in Bizarro world. In my experience, Tacs were *terrible* competitive choices in 2nd since armor mods were so harsh.

Case in point...at the 1998 Baltimore GT, GW staff told me I was the ONLY SM player with a Tac squad (and that was only a combat squad since the tourney rules allowed buying them that way). I won best comp mainly because of that. So there were all of 5 Tac marines at the entire tourney. The next year under 3rd edition rules, some guy brought 81 slogging marines...6 Tac squads, 2 Dev squads and a Captain. Five Tacs at the entire tourney one year...60 in one army the next. I don't know how anyone can claim that the AP system wasn't a gigantic boost to power armor.

I'm a little afraid to look out the window in case I see that the grass is blue and the sky is green.


So your main issue here is that everyone's got opinions and if they're different from yours, then they must be crazy?

OK!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/20 14:10:33


Post by: Sephyr



Nice that ward is a pleasant fellow, but some of his answers are just splitting hairs. 'Granularity'? Random charge being a boon to assault that overwatch somehow fixes?

I'd rather have a curmudgeon writing solid, balanced, timely rules than a cool guy flying by the seat of his pants.

And it's quite easy to say "Oh, we'll fix the wors t of the imbalances eventually" when you're looking at 2-4 years until the next codex hits for the affected factions...at which point a new edition will have some 40% odds of borking things again.

Though it was nice that they admitted that IoM gets extra care.



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/20 14:48:26


Post by: gorgon


Alpharius wrote:
gorgon wrote:
Alpharius wrote:I laughed especially hard at this extremely sad but true comment:

2nd edition: Turned it into a larger scale battle game between two forces. Made the game function without a dungeon master arbitrating imbalances or setting up scenarios. Was better codefied as a universe. Was hilariously unbalanced, poorly written, and not easily playable. This was the last time a tactical marine was good.



Wow...you guys really think that? I must have been living in Bizarro world. In my experience, Tacs were *terrible* competitive choices in 2nd since armor mods were so harsh.

Case in point...at the 1998 Baltimore GT, GW staff told me I was the ONLY SM player with a Tac squad (and that was only a combat squad since the tourney rules allowed buying them that way). I won best comp mainly because of that. So there were all of 5 Tac marines at the entire tourney. The next year under 3rd edition rules, some guy brought 81 slogging marines...6 Tac squads, 2 Dev squads and a Captain. Five Tacs at the entire tourney one year...60 in one army the next. I don't know how anyone can claim that the AP system wasn't a gigantic boost to power armor.

I'm a little afraid to look out the window in case I see that the grass is blue and the sky is green.


So your main issue here is that everyone's got opinions and if they're different from yours, then they must be crazy?


Imagine someone told you that "4th edition was the last time transports were any good." From my standpoint, that's very close to what was said about Tacs. I didn't call you crazy...that may have been your experience. However, that experience is literally completely opposite to mine, and therefore is probably evidence of the existence of parallel universes.

Nevelon wrote:My recollection is the same as yours. I didn't play in tournaments in 2nd, but most of the games at my FLGS were armies full of super-elite units and broken characters. You never saw basic troops.


There was one important exception. Eldar Guardians with shuricats were the best basic unit in the game. They were cheap with a S4, -2 save, sustained fire die weapon, and you could play VP shenanigans with them. Just an awesome unit in a codex full of them.

I had a lot of success in 3rd with lines of tactical marines just boltering foes to death. Tac squads weren't just a mediatory troop pick, but the workhorse cornerstone upon which my army was based. Just like the fluff said. I will admit that codex creep, the basic marine got overshadowed buy the fancy and new stuff, but at least at the start of 3rd, he was still going strong.


Yeah, FROM MY STANDPOINT, early 3rd edition was really the heyday of the Tac marine. They were very good with the Rhino Rush back then too. While they didn't have a ton of attacks, power weapons were rarer and rending didn't even exist, which made that 3+ save pretty formidable.

But I fear we are veering wildly off-topic.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/20 14:59:49


Post by: Alpharius


I guess we'll all have to agree that the abandonment of the armor save modifier (and no more Terminator saves of 3+ on 2d6!) was the worst thing GW ever did to 40K, right?



40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/20 15:12:35


Post by: Kanluwen


Alpharius wrote:I guess we'll all have to agree that the abandonment of the armor save modifier (and no more Terminator saves of 3+ on 2d6!) was the worst thing GW ever did to 40K, right?



Maybe.

I still maintain that the return of Hot-Shot Lasguns is a tremendous affront to 40k fans everywhere.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/20 16:38:26


Post by: Samurai_Eduh


Kanluwen wrote:
Alpharius wrote:I guess we'll all have to agree that the abandonment of the armor save modifier (and no more Terminator saves of 3+ on 2d6!) was the worst thing GW ever did to 40K, right?



Maybe.

I still maintain that the return of Hot-Shot Lasguns is a tremendous affront to 40k fans everywhere.


Why is that?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/20 17:23:27


Post by: Alpharius


Samurai_Eduh wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Alpharius wrote:I guess we'll all have to agree that the abandonment of the armor save modifier (and no more Terminator saves of 3+ on 2d6!) was the worst thing GW ever did to 40K, right?



Maybe.

I still maintain that the return of Hot-Shot Lasguns is a tremendous affront to 40k fans everywhere.


Why is that?


Now you've done it!



Paging Dr. Kan - stat!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/20 19:59:40


Post by: Kanluwen


Samurai_Eduh wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Alpharius wrote:I guess we'll all have to agree that the abandonment of the armor save modifier (and no more Terminator saves of 3+ on 2d6!) was the worst thing GW ever did to 40K, right?



Maybe.

I still maintain that the return of Hot-Shot Lasguns is a tremendous affront to 40k fans everywhere.


Why is that?

It just sounds too silly.

The stats are the exact same, but calling them "Hellguns" rather than "Hot-Shot Lasguns" just makes them sound far more unique and potentially awesome.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/21 02:10:03


Post by: Brother SRM


I'll call them Hellguns til the day I die.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/21 07:13:46


Post by: jah-joshua


Hot-Shot Lasguns sounds a lot like the Halfling Hot Pot...
let the Ratlings have 'em, as i believe it works as a reference to an overpowered sniper shot...

Stomtroopers would definitely have to have their Hellguns pried from their cold dead hands...
much cooler...

now give us plastic Hellguns and some Stormtroopers to tote 'em, GW!!!

cheers
jah


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/22 16:55:03


Post by: Testify


Alpharius wrote:I guess we'll all have to agree that the abandonment of the armor save modifier (and no more Terminator saves of 3+ on 2d6!) was the worst thing GW ever did to 40K, right?


Can't figure out if you're being tongue-in-cheek...
Save modifiers would make power armour useless.

Sephyr wrote:
Though it was nice that they admitted that IoM gets extra care.

This...is news to you?

Spoiler:

Second edition boxed set:


Third edition:



Fourth edition:

etc...

Pretending that the design team were "denying" this makes it look like they're trying to hide something when they're not. 40k has always been about the Imperium of Man and its struggles with xenos/heretics.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/22 17:05:15


Post by: Dysartes


Testify wrote:40k has always been about the Imperium of Man and its struggles with xenos/heretics.


Indeed - and I've got no idea why people think this should (or will) change, certainly from the perspective of the fiction. I could see an argument for the release schedule being rebalanced, though.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/22 17:17:42


Post by: phantommaster


I simply refuse to pay for Codexes now so I won't be paying £25-30 for a hardback one. I still have my old Daemonhunter and Necron Codex's in perfect condition and they were only £10 which I thought was steep then. Maybe if they had a decent excuse such as the money went to charity but now its just a price hike for the hell of it.

Nice to see they know some problems though.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/23 22:46:04


Post by: Lynata


Just Dave wrote:Interesting that they commented on the weaknesses of Tyranids, but appear to have made no mention of Sisters et al.
For some reason I am not surprised.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Dysartes wrote:Interesting, though not overly surprising, that Mr Ward doesn't know the history of the game...
- Sisters were 2nd edition
- Necrons were first introduced, with a limited army list, in second edition
- Dark Eldar were in the 3rd ed starter set
- Tau debuted during 3rd edition.
There have been some hefty evolutions for Necrons and DE in their latest books, but if his point was that the game has moved on since 2nd & 3rd ed due to these races, he really needs to do his research before making statements...

Plus none of these things are examples of the fluff 'moving on'. They're examples of retroactive continuity. The 40K universe didn't "move on" and introduce the Tau. Instead they were written as having always been there. Ditto for the DE. And the Necrons.
This isn't progress in the story, it's simply adding more elements to the existing story.
And in terms of fluff, the Sisters at least have always been there. Few people may know this, but they've been mentioned in Rogue Trader already - and they have changed little since then, less than the Imperial Guard.
The designers notes for the WH Codex even mention a Rogue Trader SoB miniature. I don't think I've ever seen it with my own eyes, though, unless that remark was referring to what people think was a female Space Marine.

Yes, the timeline has been moving forward since 2E. By about a single year or so. The trend to cram more and more stuff into 999.M41 isn't that new, sadly.
Would be cool if they'd flesh out and insert more stuff into the other years, methinks.

DemetriDominov wrote:I have yet to play the game though, and read the rules in their entirety for that matter, but I am at least impressed at how pretty this hard copy of this "Lexicanum" is. Which sparks the idea, maybe GW should consider making an actual paper version of the Lexicanum. I'd buy it.
Lexicanum isn't theirs and actually contradicts some of the GW material, as it attempts to "unify" fluff that was never meant to be consistent with each other in the first place.
If you're referring to some sort of publication collecting all the fluff actually created or adopted by the studio, however, that'd be cool. They used to do this with stuff like the Index Astartes, which collected various articles from issues of White Dwarf. Personally, I'd love to see the studio becoming more active in this rather than leaving the field entirely to outsourced writers. GW wouldn't even have to write new stuff; re-releasing all the snippets they had printed in WD over the decades would already go a long way. So much fluff that next to no-one knows about!

@OP: Thanks for posting the article. I'm gonna look forward to seeing those 6E Codices. From the sound of it and judging from the rulebook, they're gonna end up pretty.

Also:


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/23 23:59:46


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Wouldn't it be "Create Game where everyone hates each other... complain about Allies Table that messes all that up"?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 00:25:32


Post by: Harriticus


- New Codices higher quality than 5th edition paperback ones


$50 Codex's. Great


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 00:29:03


Post by: Platuan4th


Necroshea wrote: I hate him because he mauls fluff. So adamant about retconning the crap out of armies, but they never want to touch the main storyline.


People keep saying this and continue to forget(or not know) that the studio has a Fluff Overlord that has to approve everything. They made a huge deal about that in the WD released in the month that the 2 Daemon books were released.

So if it's in the books, it's because that's what the studio wants, not ONE AUTHOR.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 00:49:48


Post by: Puscifer


Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:The Robin comment interests me the most... they can't actually be considering getting all the codexes done during 6th can they?

I'd love to see it, just can't quite believe it.


It would suggest that this book may be the one to rule them all and have updates added to it rather than a 7th edition.

This was suggested earlier this year.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 01:14:52


Post by: Brother SRM


Harriticus wrote:
- New Codices higher quality than 5th edition paperback ones


$50 Codex's. Great

A $50 codex is what? What is it!? Apostrophes aren't for plurals.

I don't really mind a hardback codex if it's full of color artwork, nice design work, and so on. I love the 6th ed rulebook, and I'll be happy with similar codices. At the price point they're at now, they should be color anyway.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 02:26:05


Post by: Experiment 626


Brother SRM wrote:
Harriticus wrote:
- New Codices higher quality than 5th edition paperback ones


$50 Codex's. Great

A $50 codex is what? What is it!? Apostrophes aren't for plurals.

I don't really mind a hardback codex if it's full of color artwork, nice design work, and so on. I love the 6th ed rulebook, and I'll be happy with similar codices. At the price point they're at now, they should be color anyway.


+1

I'd rather pay $50 for a codex and get a nice, solid hardback who's spine won't break after the third time I use it! (oh codex space marines, how I hate you for this!!!)

Pretty artwork, full colour, better quality papper AND not having to shell out additional funds to get it spiral bound because the spine will break?! Why the fething hell has it taken GW this long to get it right in the first place?!!
Oh, and it's also a handy tool for smacking useless gak-wipe opponents with too!


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 02:28:18


Post by: Puscifer


Personally, I'd prefer all the new Dexes on the iPad.

The Marine one is pretty good value considering what you can do with it and the fact they are updated quite often.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 03:14:30


Post by: NimbleJack3


Puscifer wrote:Personally, I'd prefer all the new Dexes on the iPad.

The Marine one is pretty good value considering what you can do with it and the fact they are updated quite often.


That would be neat, if it didn't prohibit anyone who doesn't own an iPad from owning a copy of the books. I don't have one, and having to shell out a few hundred quid just to start purchasing the codices is insane. Paper codices are accessible to everyone who can read, and hopefully they stay that way.

I'm hoping that the Orks do not in fact get a codex - as it stands, Nobz are complete cheese (10-man squads of multi-wound models with PKs and Look Out, Sir?) and the rest of the codex seems to be holding out against its' old age. At the low and high ends of the points scale, Orks trample most armies into the dirt.
Our lack of anti-tank might crush us if mech becomes even more prominent in 6E, but fingers crossed it won't.


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 11:06:36


Post by: Sigvatr


NimbleJack3 wrote:At the low and high ends of the points scale, Orks trample most armies into the dirt.


Uhm...I don't think that's what actually happens in games...


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 12:10:44


Post by: Alpharius


Platuan4th wrote:
Necroshea wrote: I hate him because he mauls fluff. So adamant about retconning the crap out of armies, but they never want to touch the main storyline.


People keep saying this and continue to forget(or not know) that the studio has a Fluff Overlord that has to approve everything. They made a huge deal about that in the WD released in the month that the 2 Daemon books were released.

So if it's in the books, it's because that's what the studio wants, not ONE AUTHOR.


I don't know about Alan Merrett though.

Most times it seems as if he's either championing absolutely craptastic ideas for the background or asleep at the wheel.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if he just rubber stamps stuff that may or may not come across his desk.

You know, from appearances and all that...


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 12:14:04


Post by: Sidstyler


Puscifer wrote:
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:The Robin comment interests me the most... they can't actually be considering getting all the codexes done during 6th can they?

I'd love to see it, just can't quite believe it.


It would suggest that this book may be the one to rule them all and have updates added to it rather than a 7th edition.

This was suggested earlier this year.


PFFFFFTTTT

Why would they change now?


40k Design Studio Open Day Report @ 2012/07/24 18:17:10


Post by: ShumaGorath


Alpharius wrote:
Platuan4th wrote:
Necroshea wrote: I hate him because he mauls fluff. So adamant about retconning the crap out of armies, but they never want to touch the main storyline.


People keep saying this and continue to forget(or not know) that the studio has a Fluff Overlord that has to approve everything. They made a huge deal about that in the WD released in the month that the 2 Daemon books were released.

So if it's in the books, it's because that's what the studio wants, not ONE AUTHOR.


I don't know about Alan Merrett though.

Most times it seems as if he's either championing absolutely craptastic ideas for the background or asleep at the wheel.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if he just rubber stamps stuff that may or may not come across his desk.

You know, from appearances and all that...


He doesn't appear to do a very good job. GWs left hand never talks to its right, and the fluff department is no exception.