I started playing back in the days of 4th edition 40K, and the game seemed reasonably well balanced as I got into the game over a few years. Sure, some units were crap, and others were slightly better, but that felt like it was the case for all armies. Felt like I could plonk my DE down, and have a chance no matter what my enemy threw on the table, even as newer codexes were released. Tau battlesuit spam? Challenging, but you could cope. Daemons? You had to play your deployment right, but you could adapt and it was fun.

One day in 5th though, I played a game against the newlyreleased Space Wolves. They seemed to have some combos that were just that little bit...too good. Not unbeatable, mind you, no more so than a particularly hardened Nob Bikerz unit, but they just seemed to be getting similar save levels and firepower for much lower points costs. It felt like the points costs themselves were far more out of whack than any combo or spammable unit available to any other faction at the time. Then the next codex came out, which was Grey Knights. And that one felt in turn like it skewered things horrendously.

I wasn't around for the big reset of 3rd, but starting in mid 4th, I couldn't feel anything intrinsically overly out of whack with the codexes. There was slight codex creep in that some units were better than others (usually the new model release), but as most armies had one or two above par units, which meant that it all kind of balanced out. Not such a rock paper scissors dynamic. But for me, I felt the first inklings it was all going completely out of sync with that Space Wolf codex, followed by a sudden jarring realisation with the Knights.

Now I'm aware that this is subjective. People feel the power creep at different stages. So for you, when was it? Is that point in my head just that? Imagined? Or did you feel it too? I'm curious.

Started mid 4th as well - some time around the end of fifth with Tau's first ascendency was when it became tangible that something was changing, with the introduction of 'you never get to kill anything' thanks to multiple profiles and high value individual models.

It was compounded when plastic drop pods became a thing, and every army and his dog was built around either alpha strike or counter alpha strike. The two together prompted my first break from the hobby until I started IG.

Quit the game early 3rd ed, returned early 6th ed. Tau 6e book was the first sign of trouble for me. CSM, DA and CD seemed fairly benign, then came Tau, SM, Eldar, IK.

Once the first codex came out in 3rd.

I played RT more as a RPG then a wargame, so there wasn’t a power issue. GMs will help with keeping things balanced. Only sporadically played 2nd near the tail end, so can’t speak to the creep.

3rd was pretty well set out of the box. Everyone was using the bare-bones codex in the book, and they were fairly balanced. But you could tell who at the table was using an actual codex. Those who had them were just better. And the codex creep did not stop there. The newer books were generally better then the old ones.

Late 5th, when Rhino-rush started to become the order of the day. Early 5th was more an exercise in taking away options (with the death of the armoury and list variants in favour of upgrade lists restricted to each unit entry) than in poor balance choices.

It didn't really take off until the Flyers designed/priced as skimmers and the 2+-armour MC spam started in 6th, but 5th was definitely the beginning of the trend.

January this year. They're not even trying to hide it with this Fall of Cadia crap. Eternally respawning Spess Mehrens in Pods? Sure! Want IWND on your Knight Crusader or Azrael? Have at it!

As for it appearing earlier, riddle me this - if "power creep" has been an issue since 3rd Edition then why is it always old Codexes dominating? Space Wolves ruled 5th Edition pretty much uncontested, despite the release of the gimmicky Matt Ward gak-books which were touted online as "Wolf-killers" but were never quite up to the task. Eldar and Tau are the bete noir of 7th Edition, and they're very far from the most recent releases. The last full army book to be released was, I think, Genestealer Cults back in October; GSC can give both Tau and Eldar a hard race but they're very far from an auto-win match-up, and against big Gladius armies (another thing people like to whine about) the GSC can really struggle.

So yeah - where's my power creep? Surely I should be driving over these old-ass books in my stretch Cult Limousine, no?

Day I started playing Sisters of Battle in 7th edition against a guy that felt it was a good idea to field a tesseract vault.

I don't play against necrons anymore.

Edit: By the way, it was my first ever game.

 BBAP wrote:
January this year. They're not even trying to hide it with this Fall of Cadia crap. Eternally respawning Spess Mehrens in Pods? Sure! Want IWND on your Knight Crusader or Azrael? Have at it!

As for it appearing earlier, riddle me this - if "power creep" has been an issue since 3rd Edition then why is it always old Codexes dominating? Space Wolves ruled 5th Edition pretty much uncontested, despite the release of the gimmicky Matt Ward gak-books which were touted online as "Wolf-killers" but were never quite up to the task. Eldar and Tau are the bete noir of 7th Edition, and they're very far from the most recent releases. The last full army book to be released was, I think, Genestealer Cults back in October; GSC can give both Tau and Eldar a hard race but they're very far from an auto-win match-up, and against big Gladius armies (another thing people like to whine about) the GSC can really struggle.

So yeah - where's my power creep? Surely I should be driving over these old-ass books in my stretch Cult Limousine, no?

The power creep is only for the "Have" armies

Orks, CSM, DE, Nids we don't get power creep. At the height of Orky power we were spamming cheap Killa Kanz and running Nob bikers. Nob bikers actually haven't changed since 4th edition and guess what? they suck horrendously now.

As far as when i really noticed the power creep? 5th edition really set the tone and 6th was worse, but then BOOM 7th edition. I played against a buddy of mine who has an eldar army, hes played that army for like a decade so he isn't a TFG or WAAC Player. His first time playing with his 7th edition codex (i had already read it and been disgusted) i had to keep pointing out that his units now did X + New shenanigans and his reactions were always the same quickly followed by "Thats not even fair". After tabling my army on turn 4 he looked at me and said "Well im not going to be able to play much this edition".

That teamed with the Necrons, SM, and Tau codex releases really showed that this game is going on a one up system right now for those armies who are part of the elite "have" group. Those of us without those armies can only sit back and watch.

CSM did have some major issues with it's 3.5 codex however, but in general if you want power creep you look to the Eldar as they've NEVER been a low tier army if they've been updated.

First game ever. Against 3 Imperial Knights. I now refuse to go near the things.

I feel it when I get table before the start of my first turn.


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 malamis wrote:
Started mid 4th as well - some time around the end of fifth with Tau's first ascendency was when it became tangible that something was changing, with the introduction of 'you never get to kill anything' thanks to multiple profiles and high value individual models.

It was compounded when plastic drop pods became a thing, and every army and his dog was built around either alpha strike or counter alpha strike. The two together prompted my first break from the hobby until I started IG.

How do you cope with Alpha Strike as IG?

I think the first time was when 5th ed came out and wound allocation got all wonky, I guess that was more of a meta shift. Soo... GK 5th ed.

After that I steadily rose, then Necrons Decurion came out and it jumped a few steps. It jumped again with Gladius as well as with Wraith knights and Imperial Knights.

Since then its been just crazy all over the place. Some armies are going at 100mph, while others are stuck in a school zone.

Pretty much when they turned 40K into Apocalypse...

I've played since 3rd. Mine was at the start of 6th. Allies. As long as you are playing any single codex, you get to fight the strengths and weaknesses of a single codex but now, when anyone can take anything? You tend to play against the same thing every time.

I didn't mind the WH\DH ally mechanic, as you were limited to a single FOC\Detachment, and taking anything made for genuine sacrifice in your list, now? there is no limitation.

I played predominantly 2nd - went to college, graduated - then played a small amount of late 3rd and I think 3.5 (the trial assault rules predating 4th's proper release?).

At that time you had the usual minor power creep (i.e. each new Codex was a little bit better).

However having come back to the GW fluff, the game currently is unrecognizable in the amount of power creep since the last games I played. Across the board really. However with that power creep has come a 100-200% increase in the amount of models expected on a table.

Started following "current" 40K last two years via podcasts, game reports and forums. Short of recognizing the usual units, the amount of firepower and conversely the amount of armour/saves is genuinely unrecognizable. While the game framework under 7th is still the basic 3rd stuff - there is almost zero similarity.

I felt it in my last game, when I was up against a Warhound Titan at 1500 points with my Harlequins and Dark Eldar.

Being used to Imperial Knights and having finally really figured out how to get rid of them, the warhound felt like a joke. It killed maybe 250 points worth of stuff with its blasts before a single harlequin troupe stripped it of over half its HP in one round of melee, then I learned it only had a single attack, and removed 2 models with a Stomp. The remaining three took it down in its subsequent assault phase.

I finally got that perspective of "oh, this is where we've come from. 400 point superheavies that are *almost* stronger than this guy are just a normal thing now, that we've learned to accept and deal with. Deathstars that would swarm across the board and eat this gigantic model for lunch without taking a scratch are everywhere."

Started in 2nd edition, played through 4th.

Came back to 7th edition last year, and I was instantly horrified.

The very sight of all the knights, titans, super-heavies, lords of war, jetbike armies,....made me physically ill. The first time I played again Warcon I legit felt sad for the game.

the_scotsman wrote:
It killed maybe 250 points worth of stuff with its blasts before a single harlequin troupe stripped it of over half its HP in one round of melee, then I learned it only had a single attack, and removed 2 models with a Stomp. The remaining three took it down in its subsequent assault phase.

I am curious as to just how you did this?

CSM did have some major issues with it's 3.5 codex however, but in general if you want power creep you look to the Eldar as they've NEVER been a low tier army if they've been updated.

True. So true in fact, that the first time I experienced power creep actually was 2nd ed Eldar with their buckets upon buckets of sustained fire dice, and the "pop-up" attacks from the grav-tanks. 2nd ed Eldar was brutal.

The only time 40k was even close to balanced was the launch of 3rd, with the "get you by" army lists in the back of the book, and even some things then could be abused (Eldar Avatar, 2x 5-man Guardian squads and 3x Wraithlords in 500 points was a thing I believe in this time period). The minute they started releasing codexes though, things got spiraled out of control. Blood Angels came early on and had the overcharged Rhinos that could first turn assault if they rolled well enough.

I started at the very beginning of 3rd edition, right when the first codex was released. There was some definite "power creep" then, but it was very understandable. The core rulebook carried massively trimmed-down versions of all the factions, so as codexes were released, forces naturally got better, but I understood that this was bringing them to where they should be.

Cool beans.

But real, just brutally obvious, power creep didn't really hit the scene for me until Wave Serpent Spam. It was then that I really started noticing the power creep, where units just received massive points discounts for no reason, or where other units got huge buffs for, again, no reason. The most shockingly rampant power-creep that I saw was when they made Super Heavies a part of standard play. Around that same time we also saw the introduction of scat-bikes, decurions, and cheap and shockingly, brutally, effective formations.

Grey Knights and Leaf Blower lists in 5th edition.

So, so strong.

Third edition: Alaitoc with disruption table or Seer Council. Very hard to counter. Nids were generally very good. Iron Warriors with nine Oblits. Chaos with minor psyker powers (siren) and lots of Daemonettes.

 Yarium wrote:
I started at the very beginning of 3rd edition, right when the first codex was released. There was some definite "power creep" then, but it was very understandable. The core rulebook carried massively trimmed-down versions of all the factions, so as codexes were released, forces naturally got better, but I understood that this was bringing them to where they should be.

Cool beans.

But real, just brutally obvious, power creep didn't really hit the scene for me until Wave Serpent Spam. It was then that I really started noticing the power creep, where units just received massive points discounts for no reason, or where other units got huge buffs for, again, no reason. The most shockingly rampant power-creep that I saw was when they made Super Heavies a part of standard play. Around that same time we also saw the introduction of scat-bikes, decurions, and cheap and shockingly, brutally, effective formations.

We complained about the power creep in 3rd, and it was a real noticeable thing. To the point where I still recall it through the haze of years.

But it’s nothing compared to what’s been going on in the last few years. I’ve got this image of a 3rd ed player, just woken up from stasis, complaining about creep, just to be shut down hard by the 7th ed guy “let me tell you about wraithknights..."

 don_mondo wrote:
Pretty much when they turned 40K into Apocalypse...

Bingo.
It was an exciting time when they came up with the concept of Apocalypse (Oct 2007).
They added a few things in the BRB for Apocalypse specifically to help with "balancing the points" but the main intent was to "bring anything you want".
Ever since then, it has been a steady progression to pretty much make it always an Apocalypse game.
Formations were introduced for the first time in those books, it is now the norm.
This is when I first thought that if this version of the game was embraced too well by us: GW would see no reason not to make it the actual game.

I would also agree that the most noticeable power JUMP not creep was the Wolves (Oct 2009) and Grey Knights (Apr 2011) (Separated from Inquisition codex).
Eldar became a REAL force when they finally released the "new" Wave Serpent model (~Sept 2004).
Tau were pretty much awesome since the day of launch (Oct 2001).

I started at the tail end of 3rd. There has always been power creep (a few dud codexes would come up here and there, but the overall arch of power was consistently going upwards), and there always will be.

 BBAP wrote:
January this year. They're not even trying to hide it with this Fall of Cadia crap. Eternally respawning Spess Mehrens in Pods? Sure!

They would not spawn in the pods, as the dedicated transport is (a) not a part of the unit and (b) they enter reserve, not deep strike reserve.

I started in seventh - I felt the power creep when I got my hands on the Curse of the Wulfen supplement and saw the Bestial Swiftness and Alpha Hunters curses.
First turn charges to compete with armies that can end a game with first turn shooting.
Super Heavies had stepped out of Apoc before I started. Super powered Tau and Eldar were already running around - I felt it when my refusal to use the allies matrix stopped mattering.

I think most of you are mistaking mismatches with power creep.

Just because your special snowflake army can't beat "insert bs army I don't like here" you claim power creep.

The last time there was a major power creep was 5th ed Grey Knights, why? If 40+% of the armies at a GT with 80+ people are playing that one army......that's probably a problem.

At the moment, for example, there are two major armies from, a power standpoint (Eldar and Marines), but those armies are not necessarily winning it all from tourney to tourney.

5th ed GK were unbeatable, it was dumb, and there was nothing you could do other then lose your first game and hope not to play them the rest of the tourney.

Scatbikes were certainly a power creep.

2++ rerollable deathstars were a power creep in 6ed

 CrownAxe wrote:
2++ rerollable deathstars were a power creep in 6ed

Oh, yeah. That.

Im saying this with a grain of salt because I am really enjoying the game for the most part right now. I expect the cheese at tournaments but my local group is pretty friendly.

For me it was double checking every rule I knew when a player said he could assault out of deepstrike with his skyhammer AND have relentless on the devastators.

I just couldnt believe it. I was just dumbfounded. Why cant my warp talons and raptors do that?

Anyways, still enjoying the game but I was shocked at that.

I've been playing since 2nd edition and played all the way through 4th till just a few days before the release of 5th as I had far less time to dedicate to the game. Came back into the game mid 6th ed and noticed a dramatic shift in the power level of certain armies and the whole supeheavies and titans in everyday games and flyers everywhere all kinda threw me off dramatically. Now I'm back in the game after another 2 year hiatus and am still shocked at what a dramatic power shift has happened but I am more in it for hobby and casual fun games now so it doesn't quite bother me THAT much anymore.

 sfshilo wrote:
I think most of you are mistaking mismatches with power creep.

Just because your special snowflake army can't beat "insert bs army I don't like here" you claim power creep.

The last time there was a major power creep was 5th ed Grey Knights, why? If 40+% of the armies at a GT with 80+ people are playing that one army......that's probably a problem.

At the moment, for example, there are two major armies from, a power standpoint (Eldar and Marines), but those armies are not necessarily winning it all from tourney to tourney.

5th ed GK were unbeatable, it was dumb, and there was nothing you could do other then lose your first game and hope not to play them the rest of the tourney.

It may not occur so much within a single edition...but editions from 2nd to 7th? Massively different game, and FAR more shooty/killy by comparison.

2nd ed. - Space Wolf Wolfguard Terminators I recall being pretty broken. Ork Pulsa Rokkit armies tabling people before turn 2.

3rd ed. - Blood Angels' 42" assault range and similar rules before the Great Rhino Nerf that meant choppy Marines could look most of the opponents' army in combat at the top of turn and sweep from combat to combat with the opponent not firing a shot in the entire game.

4th ed. - Relatively balanced in my opinion.

5th/6th ed. - Was out of the game for a time.

7th ed. - Familiar to everyone, but there's a strong tendency for new to trump old (e.g. the Wraithknight competing with the Avatar of Khaine in the LoW slot, Deathwing Knights vs. old Deathwing Terminators, etc.).

I pretty much only play casually, so it really only comes up when my casual Eldar army wipes the floor with Orks because the imbalances are so extreme.

My second game ever in 5-th. I got a bunch of csm, raptors with lord, a crazed dread and probably some other random stuff.

Played against IG. Lost turn 2 without killing a single model. My raptors mishaped and died, csm got killed with leman russes and artillery, dread got killed 2-d turn.

Had to accept the game being not like in starter boxes like black reach.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
CSM did have some major issues with it's 3.5 codex however, but in general if you want power creep you look to the Eldar as they've NEVER been a low tier army if they've been updated.

Nope. Nope nope nope.

At the time 3.5 CSM existed and roamed about you also got the following....

Build Your Own 4th Ed SM Chapter. The birth of the Bikestar.
Black Templars.
Craftworld Eldar. Saim-Hann Starcannon Spam, Alaitoc Ranger Tables, Black Guardians Galore with Seer Councils.
Build Your Own Imperial Guard Regiment. Reroll those 1s.
Tau Fish of Fury.
4th ed. Tyranids. With T7, 2+ Carnifexes and Eternal Warrior on everyone.

The whole era had silly shenanigans. That's why I loved it. Because not only was everything ridiculous...it was varied. My local area had 4 different Eldar armies, 5-6 different CSM armies, 3-4 different SM armies...no one was fielding the same mono-lists we see today.

It was probably the best time to be playing to be honest.

With 6th edition. With it came the flyers, then came the superheavies / Lords of War and D weapons. It was the first time I felt like each Codex seemed to be more powerful than the previous.

Then came 7th edition, with formations that provide special bonuses to selections of specific units. This was a different kind of power creep, sometimes it adds flavor to an army with a mono-build playstyle, and sometimes it makes bad units playable. It's not entirely unwelcome.

But right now I feel like we hit the zenith of power creep. GW has all the pieces to make the game semi-balanced and create rules that make it where armies can have different playstyles again. The question is can they do it.

 Marmatag wrote:

 BBAP wrote:
January this year. They're not even trying to hide it with this Fall of Cadia crap. Eternally respawning Spess Mehrens in Pods? Sure!

They would not spawn in the pods, as the dedicated transport is (a) not a part of the unit and (b) they enter reserve, not deep strike reserve.

Oh okay, so they don't get to come back in the Pods, they just respawn eternally and walk on from your table edge forever. That's fine, then.

 Asmodai wrote:
3rd ed. - Blood Angels' 42" assault range and similar rules before the Great Rhino Nerf that meant choppy Marines could look most of the opponents' army in combat at the top of turn and sweep from combat to combat with the opponent not firing a shot in the entire game.

4th ed. - Relatively balanced in my opinion.

Units could Consolidate into combat in 4th too, IIRC. Either way it was a stupid idea and I'm glad they ditched it.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
CSM did have some major issues with it's 3.5 codex however, but in general if you want power creep you look to the Eldar as they've NEVER been a low tier army if they've been updated.

Nope. Nope nope nope.

At the time 3.5 CSM existed and roamed about you also got the following....

Build Your Own 4th Ed SM Chapter. The birth of the Bikestar.
Black Templars.
Craftworld Eldar. Saim-Hann Starcannon Spam, Alaitoc Ranger Tables, Black Guardians Galore with Seer Councils.
Build Your Own Imperial Guard Regiment. Reroll those 1s.
Tau Fish of Fury.
4th ed. Tyranids. With T7, 2+ Carnifexes and Eternal Warrior on everyone.

The whole era had silly shenanigans. That's why I loved it. Because not only was everything ridiculous...it was varied. My local area had 4 different Eldar armies, 5-6 different CSM armies, 3-4 different SM armies...no one was fielding the same mono-lists we see today.

It was probably the best time to be playing to be honest.

When I usually discuss a codex, it tends to stay within the edition it was made within so most of those are straight up 4th edition.

3E had more of an issue with BA Rhino Rush (The gods of the tier), Eldar (just.. Eldar forever), 3.5 CSM (in various ways, though I prefer the Siren Prince with Dreadaxe, Daemonic Strength and Daemonic stature), and Imperial Armoured Company (Remember Lucky Glancing hit?)

Units could Consolidate into combat in 4th too, IIRC. Either way it was a stupid idea and I'm glad they ditched it.

It also killed off the Elite Assault unit, and many codex's suffered for it, but as it is I wish they'd just improve those models now.

it always seems like Ive been an edition behind in list building (due to collecting codexes longer than playing the game) so when I was building 5th edition lists, 6th came. I started building 6th edition lists, Maelstrom came in 7th,

Now that I'm building Maelstrom lists, Special Detachment Formation edition is here.

This has been the biggest leap. I still use CAD with my Orks, and a CAD with some formations with my White Scars.

My CSM with the help of Traitor Legions puts me in the Special Detachment Formation lists, but... its still the same CSM early 6th edition book.

40K has never been balanced.

1st edition didn't even try.

2nd edition was all over the place but anyone who could deliver a strong character into assault had a huge advantage over those that couldn't. There was also some crazy stuff (space wolves could take a terminator squad where every model had a. Cyclone and an assault cannon)

3rd edition started somewhat balanced and then the codexes threw that out the window. (blood angels, chaos, eldar all bonkers good)

4th and 6th both saw an attempt to tone down the codexes that was abandoned before they were all done making the disparity worse.

I think that the reason so many people don't notice it initially is that when you're a beginner playing other beginners your armies are so badly optimised that you don't notice the disparity in the codexes.

Power 'creep' in this edition was the Necron codex. Power 'smack you in the face with a sledgehammer then stamp on your head like crushing a rotten watermelon' was the Eldar codex.

5th ed Blood Angels. Felt sooooo over the top!!

 timetowaste85 wrote:
5th ed Blood Angels. Felt sooooo over the top!!

Took time out 4th and 5th so not sure if sarcasm or not but BA in 3rd ed were monumentally OP with Rhino Rush and consolidation. DC would utterly rip apart even Genestealers on turn 1 who were supposed to be one of the big nasties of assault in 3rd.

Well I started in the later part of 6th (after Tau was out) so I learned the game in a world where Necron Bakeries, Tau Mobile Suit Gundam, and Wave Serpent car parks was a thing that existed to drain the fun out of everyone's day. The last days of 6th and early 7th looked like a sign of codex balance where everything seemed moderate with these interesting formations and alternatives to CADs with small but interesting benefits. Nids, Guard, Orks, Wolves (the strongest of the bunch but still manageable), Grey Knights, Dark Eldar, and Blood Angels all seemed fairly tame and while maybe a bit underpowered by poor design the intent seemed reasonable. That is until.....

Necrons came out and Decurion took things to a whole new level. Crazy good command benefits, multiple formations in a formation type thing, and all of this was basically "free" benefits on an already well designed army codex which made the Necrons incredibly powerful. Looking at the codex with Decurion it seems fairly in line with the other 7th edition codexes with things like Tesla and the spammed units like Night Scythes, and Annihilation Barges getting nerfed while units like Flayed Ones, Lychguard, and Tomb Blades got a lot better and became actually playable. Maybe GW did some last minute changes by adding the Decurion and didn't really design the faction around the system being there. Maybe they overshot the mark a bit and hopefully more restraint will be used for the next codex.....

If the Trukk of Balance had a few parts fall off with the release of the Necron book, then some of the wheels and the top half of the engine shot off with the release of Codex: Craftworld Eldar. To their credit GW did listen to community feedback and saw that maybe Wave Serpents where a bit too strong and needed to be toned down a bit. But for the rest of the book GW showed that their rules writers where actually no better than the Proposed Rules section of this forum with the amount of OP gak that they threw together for this codex. The initial reaction was shock to say the least and with the benefit of hindsight its safe to say that the initial reaction was well justified as Craftworld Eldar continues to be the most powerful codex in the game (until maybe the new Ya-knead or what ever the feth they are called the "we worship the definitely no a chaos god" god).

After that its hard to feel power creep when you can compare anything to the craftworld codex and go "meh might not be as bad as a Wraithknight"

The jump from the 7th DE codex (October 2014) to Necrons (January 2015) is fairly explicit. Blood Angels were in the middle and they were pretty weak too.

As people have said the Craftworld Codex reads as if they gave every unit an extra special rule and a 10% point reduction for no obvious reason.

I agree though that there is a difference between power creep and power asymmetry.

Way back in third it felt like there was limited asymmetry even if there were clearly good lists and bad lists. You typically didn't feel like your entire army was useless because your opponent had bought a skewed list.

Today if someone turns up with most of their points in a Wraith Knight, Riptides, some ludicrous deathstar or flying sometimes invisible monstrous creatures then you can quite easily have an army where 80% of your non-tournament worthy stuff is worthless. All you can expect it to0 do is clog up objectives and hopefully die slowly. This isn't fun.

Flyers were a foretaste of this because when they got released certain armies had no counter and so again just had to hide and hope for the best. Today while flyers are still quite good for certain factions they are rarely complained about because other things are better.

On the other hand there is power creep. It feels a lot easier to table or be tabled because almost everything does more damage now. Or at least that is true for the good factions.

 BBAP wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 BBAP wrote:
January this year. They're not even trying to hide it with this Fall of Cadia crap. Eternally respawning Spess Mehrens in Pods? Sure!

They would not spawn in the pods, as the dedicated transport is (a) not a part of the unit and (b) they enter reserve, not deep strike reserve.

Oh okay, so they don't get to come back in the Pods, they just respawn eternally and walk on from your table edge forever. That's fine, then.

1/3 respawn. That's hardly respawning eternally. I would definitely rather have objective secured. This is hardly power creep when the gladius, and even just a CAD are stronger.

 coblen wrote:

 BBAP wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 BBAP wrote:
January this year. They're not even trying to hide it with this Fall of Cadia crap. Eternally respawning Spess Mehrens in Pods? Sure!

They would not spawn in the pods, as the dedicated transport is (a) not a part of the unit and (b) they enter reserve, not deep strike reserve.

Oh okay, so they don't get to come back in the Pods, they just respawn eternally and walk on from your table edge forever. That's fine, then.

1/3 respawn. That's hardly respawning eternally. I would definitely rather have objective secured. This is hardly power creep when the gladius, and even just a CAD are stronger.

Not to mention foot slogging is incredibly slow. Unless your opponent is playing very aggresively a respawn unit is never going to rejoin the fight.

Poly Ranger wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
5th ed Blood Angels. Felt sooooo over the top!!

Took time out 4th and 5th so not sure if sarcasm or not but BA in 3rd ed were monumentally OP with Rhino Rush and consolidation. DC would utterly rip apart even Genestealers on turn 1 who were supposed to be one of the big nasties of assault in 3rd.

Not sarcasm, I started at the tail end of 4th. Everything felt pretty okay (I came from Fantasy), but BA just felt ridiculous.

 Marmatag wrote:

 BBAP wrote:
January this year. They're not even trying to hide it with this Fall of Cadia crap. Eternally respawning Spess Mehrens in Pods? Sure!

They would not spawn in the pods, as the dedicated transport is (a) not a part of the unit and (b) they enter reserve, not deep strike reserve.

wait what?

 thekerrick wrote:
Im saying this with a grain of salt because I am really enjoying the game for the most part right now. I expect the cheese at tournaments but my local group is pretty friendly.

For me it was double checking every rule I knew when a player said he could assault out of deepstrike with his skyhammer AND have relentless on the devastators.

I just couldnt believe it. I was just dumbfounded. Why cant my warp talons and raptors do that?

The way things are right now, you could probably claim that they can, and not be questioned.

When I looked back at the 5th ed Grey Knight's codex and compared it to the current one.
The units are the same (practically identical) but the current book is considered dumpster tier.
How the mighty have fallen.

I felt it most strongly when I looked at the latest Dark Angels codex, and saw that their Decurion gave away models at no pints cost. (As I understand it, the SM codex did this first, but I've never played against he latest SM codex).

IMO, every model you put on the table should have a points cost. I really dislike Maleficent Daemonology for this same reason.

 Ketara wrote:
I started playing back in the days of 4th edition 40K, and the game seemed reasonably well balanced as I got into the game over a few years. Sure, some units were crap, and others were slightly better, but that felt like it was the case for all armies. Felt like I could plonk my DE down, and have a chance no matter what my enemy threw on the table, even as newer codexes were released. Tau battlesuit spam? Challenging, but you could cope. Daemons? You had to play your deployment right, but you could adapt and it was fun.

One day in 5th though, I played a game against the newlyreleased Space Wolves. They seemed to have some combos that were just that little bit...too good. Not unbeatable, mind you, no more so than a particularly hardened Nob Bikerz unit, but they just seemed to be getting similar save levels and firepower for much lower points costs. It felt like the points costs themselves were far more out of whack than any combo or spammable unit available to any other faction at the time. Then the next codex came out, which was Grey Knights. And that one felt in turn like it skewered things horrendously.

I wasn't around for the big reset of 3rd, but starting in mid 4th, I couldn't feel anything intrinsically overly out of whack with the codexes. There was slight codex creep in that some units were better than others (usually the new model release), but as most armies had one or two above par units, which meant that it all kind of balanced out. Not such a rock paper scissors dynamic. But for me, I felt the first inklings it was all going completely out of sync with that Space Wolf codex, followed by a sudden jarring realisation with the Knights.

Now I'm aware that this is subjective. People feel the power creep at different stages. So for you, when was it? Is that point in my head just that? Imagined? Or did you feel it too? I'm curious.

Every edition has had its issues. 4E was awful for many Imperial armies like Imperial Guard and the Inquisition factions for instance.

That said, power ramp up became more noticeable every edition, 2E got so bad it needed a complete reboot, 3E leveled a lot out but wasn't perfect and had some issues, 4E a little more, 5E ticked the power level up higher (but had a largely "ok" overall average power level amongst most factions by the end, with some exceptions), and then 6E started to kick the power curve into overdrive, 7E started to tone that back down for the first 6 months or so in some ways, then just decided to say "feth it" with Necrons and started actively intending to push power level as a sales mechanism resulting in the quagmire of unplayability (from a balanced game viewpoint) we have today.

 sfshilo wrote:


5th ed GK were unbeatable, it was dumb, and there was nothing you could do other then lose your first game and hope not to play them the rest of the tourney.

5E GK's were hardly worse than anything out now, they definitely had some issues but were easily matched by most other 5E armies (5E Necrons, IG, Space Wolves, Blood Angels and Vanilla SM's all were pretty solid contenders even if not with every build), the big difference is that there's just much more broken stuff spread out over many more armies. 5E didn't have 2++ rerollable invul saves, Titans, D weapons, armies with 400-700 points worth of free units and upgrades, single troops units able to relocate across the table in a single turn or unleash more long range mid strength firepower than a 5E IG gunline could and take on-demand cover with them while sporting 3+ armor (scatterbikes), etc. The "bad" of 5E was primarily a handful of units being undercosted and a couple things taking unfair advantage of wound allocation and transport rules, not wholesale escalation of firepower and abilities to Apocalypse levels and beyond.

I don't feel any power creep at all.
I play with my friends, everything is fine, every game.
Some lists are better than other, that's it.
Ofc if I play my armored guard list against my friend's Iron Warriors tankhunter lascannons heavy list, I am going to loose.
But otherwise ? It is fairly balanced.

But I wish the vehicle's rules were better.

 godardc wrote:
I don't feel any power creep at all.
I play with my friend, everything is fine, every game.
Some lists are better than other, that's it.
Ofc if I play my armored guard list against my friend's Iron Warriors tankhunter lascannons heavy list, I am going to loose.
But otherwise ? It is fairly balanced.

But I wish the vehicle's rules were better.

My metal boxes and nuns strapped to chicken walkers' would very much appreciate an update to vehicles...and sister's vehicles at least get a invuln save.

From my memory:

Third wasn't too bad, there were strong armies and weak ones, but I don't remember any "why are we bothering to play?" matchups.

Fourth was a bit better, even though some armies just didn't get updated. Probably my favorite ruleset with a few caveats.

Fifth started really getting silly, and we started seeing some polarization with good and bad armies (leafblower and GK vs Blood Angels and Orks come to mind).

Sixth...Flyers, Super Heavies, Allies, and D weapons all make the jump to standard rules. 40K is now Calvinball.

I only started playing actual games in 6th, so I really had no feel for the meta yet. However, when my friend got his new 7th ed Necrons book with the Reclamation Legion + Canoptek Harvest formations, I quickly noticed how things had been shifting.

KayTwo wrote:
I feel it when I get table before the start of my first turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 malamis wrote:
Started mid 4th as well - some time around the end of fifth with Tau's first ascendency was when it became tangible that something was changing, with the introduction of 'you never get to kill anything' thanks to multiple profiles and high value individual models.

It was compounded when plastic drop pods became a thing, and every army and his dog was built around either alpha strike or counter alpha strike. The two together prompted my first break from the hobby until I started IG.

How do you cope with Alpha Strike as IG?

Bubble wrap. Lots of bubble wrap, always bubble wrap. A "good" list for IG needs at least one or two pretty big platoons. Space them out as much as you can when you deploy, then the marines disembarking from drop pods will never manage to get within melta range. I typically protect my Pask squadron with Bullgryns in front and a 40 man blob deployed with the maximum 2" spacing to protecting the flanks and rear. It also helps to keep vehicles with long range weapons along the back edge of the board so their rear armor cannot be shot at, period.

I remember the exact game. My horde IG vs. the (then) new 6th Edition Eldar codex. After the game I realized that my 150+ infantry Guard army was too small to field as an effective horde anymore. I simply did not have enough models to avoid getting tabled before the end of turn 5.

Its sadly only gotten worse. As near as I can figure I would need to field 300+ infantry,to have any hope of surviving (not winning) against top-tier armies at 1850pts. Unfortunately attempting to play that list even casually, is seizure-inducing and miserable for both my opponent and myself. 30 minute long movement phases! 60 minute long shooting phases!! Every turn!!!
This is why I only play codex IG only at 1500pt or less these days.

I still find that I have fun, challenging games against Orks, Nids, Chaos, other IG, Blood Angels, Grey Knights, and some Space Marine lists. However my experiences lately are this. Top tier codex = awful, frstrating game; mid-bottom tier codex = enjoyable, exciting game. It sucks but its true! Its not a very flattering statement on balance in current 40k but it is my experience for over a year now! My local gaming group has almost stopped playing top-tier books because we have friends without access to those armies and its nearly impossible to enjoy games against them unless the losing player is really chill about losing.

Or use psychic buffs.

When fliers came out is when it really hit me that they didn't care about balance. I slowly stopped playing at that point, though I'm hoping to get back in to it with eighth...

When the 2nd ed Eldar codex dropped I realized they didn't care.

Definitely when flyers came out, from that point on it seemed to be whatever the new flavour +1 was of the month.

For me it was the end of 4th and start of 5th edition, especially the Tau "fish of fury" bollocks that every TFG abused to its zenith.

Now getting back into 7th, Necrons are indeed powerful, but Elder seem broken. However, seeing as I'm a rather chill gamer who would rather play what they like/rule of cool than cheese, I don't mind it as much. Back in 4th, I was a proper win at all costs player.

I cringe internally so much to remember how much of a bell end I used to be..

Unbound........ So many scary things........ So much fear lol. My poor orks my flash gits never stood a chance when they Un-learnt how to shoot.

I think 6th ed.

I played a game where my buddy brought his new Wraithknight, that was just released. Did not bring enough firewarriors.

When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

I think we just had different gaming circles where the relative potency of things changed depending on the opposition.

Maybe but terminators were a joke in 2nd even unless you were CSM. Because they had heresy-era weapons that were way better than imperial weapons. The Land Raider and terminators are flawed conceptually. The power creep is only trackable since 3rd. If we look at the efficacy of the humble tac marine, we can clearly see the power creep.

Martel732 wrote:
Maybe but terminators were a joke in 2nd even unless you were CSM. Because they had heresy-era weapons that were way better than imperial weapons. The Land Raider and terminators are flawed conceptually. The power creep is only trackable since 3rd. If we look at the efficacy of the humble tac marine, we can clearly see the power creep.

I don't really want to argue with you.

I just want to point out that Tactical Marines are anything but humble.

What do you mean by that exactly? I'm not following.

Martel732 wrote:
What do you mean by that exactly? I'm not following.

Space Marines are insufferably arrogant. They are the polar opposite of humble.

I suppose. I was talking crunch.

Martel732 wrote:
I suppose. I was talking crunch.

Ah, right, stats.

Still, not humble.

Guardsmen are humble.

You say that, but guardsmen are better with any kind of force multiplier and are more durable/pt if they have any kin d of cover. Plus there are more and more weapons that treat marines like grots.

Martel732 wrote:
You say that, but guardsmen are better with any kind of force multiplier and are more durable/pt if they have any kin d of cover. Plus there are more and more weapons that treat marines like grots.

Splendid.

I will enjoy watching Astartes get splattered across the terrain.

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

IIRC, TH/SS Terminators were considered fairly efficient in 5e for the price.

Assault Terminators were generally okay (becoming good in some armies), it's the shooty ones that were universally panned (during 4th you could run Terminator Command squads with double Assault Cannons which was pretty much the only time shooty Terminators were respected).

nobody wrote:
Assault Terminators were generally okay (becoming good in some armies), it's the shooty ones that were universally panned (during 4th you could run Terminator Command squads with double Assault Cannons which was pretty much the only time shooty Terminators were respected).

I'll be a bit clearer.

I'm talking about 3e when I say they were powerful but too pricy to take most of the time.

Back then, my local "meta" was actually just a group of high school students (including myself), most of whom only played one army and stuck to it due to low funds.

We're not talking about skilled and experienced wargamers here, and it's very likely, given the responses my comment got, that my perception was limited to just my small circle of gamers. I wasn't active on WH40k forums at the time so I had no clue how things were being perceived by others.

And frankly, I was the worst of the group when it came to the game itself. I lost literally every game I ever played, including one against a person who had only been able to bring 900 points of models while I brought 1500.

Frankly, I am still a terrible 40k gamer. My issue comes from wanting to create an army that makes sense as a force in the lore, at the obvious expense of actually being useful on the tabletop.

 Pouncey wrote:

Frankly, I am still a terrible 40k gamer. My issue comes from wanting to create an army that makes sense as a force in the lore, at the obvious expense of actually being useful on the tabletop.

I've been doing that since the end of 5th edition, where before that I constantly played in tournaments (which made me hate the game). I was forced to conclude that this was the only way to have fun in this terribly written and unbalanced game. If I want to play balanced and competitive miniature games, I play Infinity the game.

Martel732 wrote:
Maybe but terminators were a joke in 2nd even unless you were CSM. Because they had heresy-era weapons that were way better than imperial weapons. The Land Raider and terminators are flawed conceptually. The power creep is only trackable since 3rd. If we look at the efficacy of the humble tac marine, we can clearly see the power creep.

Course, in 2nd it was more than the weapons. Back then they had no invulnerable save. They did save on a 3+ on 2d6, BUT... weapons then had negative modifiers to saves, so a bolter changed that to a 4+ on 2d6, a heavy bolter changed that (IIRC) to a 7+ on 2d6, and so on. Used to love using heavy bolters against standard power armor Marines...

 don_mondo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Maybe but terminators were a joke in 2nd even unless you were CSM. Because they had heresy-era weapons that were way better than imperial weapons. The Land Raider and terminators are flawed conceptually. The power creep is only trackable since 3rd. If we look at the efficacy of the humble tac marine, we can clearly see the power creep.

Course, in 2nd it was more than the weapons. Back then they had no invulnerable save. They did save on a 3+ on 2d6, BUT... weapons then had negative modifiers to saves, so a bolter changed that to a 4+ on 2d6, a heavy bolter changed that (IIRC) to a 7+ on 2d6, and so on. Used to love using heavy bolters against standard power armor Marines...

And of course if you fought Eldar Shuriken weapons made practically all armor a joke, guardians equipped with Shuriken pretty much nullified most saves.

The save rate was practically the same vs -6 though. What really killed them was shuriken cannons with a -3 and high rof.

Back before imperial guard got their 5th edition book. The old doctrines book in 4th and before we got our 5th edition book.

That said it pales in comparison to being dark eldar vs tau in current 7th edition. Every move is so hard for me as dark eldar and tau can hit you anywhere esp. with their stupid smart missile systems which don't need line of sight and go through cover. It's so absolutely stupid. They are made to counter dark eldar and they are just broken good.

This is from a CSM (Worldeaters) and Ork player. Been playing since end of 2nd. It seemed like both of these armies went one direction after 4th edition, and almost every other army when the other direction.

For Chaos Marines - I noticed power creep when the codex dropped that pulled Demons out of the CSM codex and made them their own army. Was that 5th? The skinny codex with the berzerker on the cover was the absolute best CSM codex (3.5). Until now. I'm seeing a lot of CSM love with the release of Traitor Legions and Wrath of Magnus. Im actually happy again playing Chaos Marines. Until recently Chaos Marines were just spiky vanilla Marines with a lot of bad overcosted options.

For Orks- It was the Codex that dropped the choppa rule making all armor AC 4: The Codex Phil Kelly did that lasted 12-15 years roughly. (5th?) The skinny one before that was the best Ork codex. I guess that was 3rd-4th too. At that time you had the skinny Ork Codex and the Speed Freak rules in the Armageddon Supplement. That was the Apex for Orks.

Orks got hammered by the introduction of Overwatch rule and new CC rules in general (being based on Initiative) and they never adjusted troop points costs to reflect core rule changes. Orks still need help. I just think gdub doesn't know what to do with them or they don't have an advocate. They seem to be the 40k punching bag/comic relief.

Up to 4th Edition there had always been imbalances but they seemed to fluctuate and it appeared there was at least an attempt to address the worst cases. But when 5th rolled around the space wolves were most definitely marines +1, and grey knights were just plain stupid.

 Asmodai wrote:
3rd ed. - Blood Angels' 42" assault range and similar rules before the Great Rhino Nerf that meant choppy Marines could look most of the opponents' army in combat at the top of turn and sweep from combat to combat with the opponent not firing a shot in the entire game.

You DO realize that you could only consolidate 3", right? If someone rolled 2D6 they were advancing, and could be targeted by the entirety of the enemy army. I know Blood Angels were bad, but their MAX assault range in Rhinos was 32", and that is rolling perfectly. First, they'd have to roll a 1 to fail their Black Rage. THEN they'd have to roll a 6 for max distance for the Rhino to travel. Not good odds starting out. 12" move with a further 6" on anything but a 1. 2" disembark and 6" charge. So more realistically, the charge is more like 26" and easily accounted for by not putting your troops up against the deployment zone edge if you're facing BA. That, and shooting their transports before they can pull that stunt. And let's face it: you have a better chance at getting first turn than they do rolling up a perfect Black Rage result. The worst part about BA is all the perks they got at no cost. Even their weakness, the Black Rage, could be designed around. Hell, they had a HS Dreadnought when other Chapters didn't. Just coincidence that it happens to be the one vehicle that can fire at full effect after moving. Great example of why Gav Thorpe shouldn't write a codex or army book ever again. OR Pete Haines.

 Asmodai wrote:
4th ed. - Relatively balanced in my opinion.

...

Did you mean to type that? Already addressed were the customizable army spam in this edition, and that should be enough to blow "relatively balanced" out of the water.







I also think people are mistaking Power Creep for Broken Book. In my mind the first Power Creep started with the Nid codex and Mutable Genus. Wasn't the most overpowered, but still not the most balanced. Next, Guard had to have it, THEN Marines, THEN CSM before they reined that gak in. THAT is Power Creep. See also WFB 7th Ed.

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

I think it would be fair to say they were bad competitively before, but became bad even in relatively friendly play as time went on. Up until Grav, special weapons options for defeating 2+ armor with Imperial armies were 2 shots with Gets Hot, or 1 safer and shorter ranged shot, but now it's potentially 3 shots with mid-range between the two options, and it's available on gobs of stuff and often on Relentless platforms, and that's not even counting the cannons. That said, it's only part of a general trend, Eldar getting BS4 and pseuodo-rending on everything, increased availability of AP2 to most armies in general, etc.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

I think it would be fair to say they were bad competitively before, but became bad even in relatively friendly play as time went on. Up until Grav, special weapons options for defeating 2+ armor with Imperial armies were 2 shots with Gets Hot, or 1 safer and shorter ranged shot, but now it's potentially 3 shots with mid-range between the two options, and it's available on gobs of stuff and often on Relentless platforms, and that's not even counting the cannons. That said, it's only part of a general trend, Eldar getting BS4 and pseuodo-rending on everything, increased availability of AP2 to most armies in general, etc.

I remember when Terminators were given their 5+ save in 3rd because even the devs realized that they were too fragile for their points.

nobody wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

I think it would be fair to say they were bad competitively before, but became bad even in relatively friendly play as time went on. Up until Grav, special weapons options for defeating 2+ armor with Imperial armies were 2 shots with Gets Hot, or 1 safer and shorter ranged shot, but now it's potentially 3 shots with mid-range between the two options, and it's available on gobs of stuff and often on Relentless platforms, and that's not even counting the cannons. That said, it's only part of a general trend, Eldar getting BS4 and pseuodo-rending on everything, increased availability of AP2 to most armies in general, etc.

I remember when Terminators were given their 5+ save in 3rd because even the devs realized that they were too fragile for their points.

My brother hates that rule. We played a game of 3rd a few months ago and he was lamenting how my Termies stuck around far longer than they should have.

Hit my buddy with 3 skyhammers. He wasn't ready. This was in response to his formations abuse, now we have a standing rule that we have to take a CAD at minimum before other shinanigans.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

I think it would be fair to say they were bad competitively before, but became bad even in relatively friendly play as time went on. Up until Grav, special weapons options for defeating 2+ armor with Imperial armies were 2 shots with Gets Hot, or 1 safer and shorter ranged shot, but now it's potentially 3 shots with mid-range between the two options, and it's available on gobs of stuff and often on Relentless platforms, and that's not even counting the cannons. That said, it's only part of a general trend, Eldar getting BS4 and pseuodo-rending on everything, increased availability of AP2 to most armies in general, etc.

They were garbage in casual play as well. They were merely bought and used because they're iconic. So even trying to defend them in that manner is doing more justice than actually deserved.

Plasma was plentiful enough in 3rd ed. Late 3rd had 3 shot starcannons. Loyalist terminators have never lived up to their billing.

I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

Fair enough.

Something a lot of people seem to forget is that, while AP2 guns are a lot more common these days, AP2 Melee weapons used to be all over the place, because any Power Weapon automatically cut through armor.

Time was, I could kill a whole squad of Terminators by charging a unit of Burna Boyz out of a truck, no problem. They didn't get overwatch, so the only guy who could get attacks was the captain - 2 attacks, 1 hit, half a wound - I have 11.5 Burnas ready to hit back, which would easily eliminate them. That's a shooty unit with offhand close combat ability, wiping out a dedicated assault squad without taking any casualties.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, there has been power creep since I started playing in mid-5th. Every codex that came out was better than the last, at least at my LGS. Dark Eldar came out and was the new hot stuff. I remember when Blood Angels came out, and everyone was terrified of how much better they were to regular Space Marines - Then, Space Wolves got their new codex, and not only were Grey Hunters a point cheaper than Tactical Marines, but they had free Special Weapons, more attacks, counter-attack, and could take 2 special weapons instead of 1 and a heavy - Almost universally better for most armies at the time.
(On top of which, a Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf with Saga of the Bear was Chapter Master Smashfather v1, Rune Priests with Jaws of the World Wolf were pretty much the definition of cheese, and that 4+ psychic denial bubble was the most overpowered thing since sliced bread.)

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot about Long Fangs. More weapons were available compared to Devestators, which was reasonable enough since they couldn't take body shields, but they COULD attach a Terminator body to the squad and use him to tank shots. Plus, their missile launchers were just straight-up cheaper than anyone elses, they had Split Fire, and if you really wanted the extra dakka you could give that Terminator a CML, giving you a crazy 7 Missile Launcher shots for less than 250 points - Back when Missile Launchers were still good.

Missile launchers were never good after 2nd ed.

They weren't bad weapons in 4E given that they could kill AV14 with glances and pens were way harsher in general, they were more popular than autocannons at the time, and the AP3 mattered more back then. In 5th they were great for SW's because they could get tons of them with split fire capability for an absurdly low price. Though yeah, they havent been particularly stellar options for most armies for many years.

Not being able to engage 2+ armor has ALWAYS been a killer for me. And the pathetic nature of the small blast template. Lascannons all the way since 3rd.

The big issue with Lascannons was that they were like 35pts apiece where ML's could be 15 or 20 and you could take plasma guns for AP2 for 10pts, Lascannons were stupid expensive before late 4th/early 5th for most armies (and is also when Plasma got bumped to 15pts).

But the range was $$. I think I mostly brought them on tanks, though. I just stopped using devastators.

Martel732 wrote:
But the range was $$. I think I mostly brought them on tanks, though. I just stopped using devastators.

I only ever recall MLs being used regularly in some of the early 5th edition Multi-Long-Fangs SW lists. Never saw much of them otherwise.

@OP: I became acutely aware of imbalances between codices when I first started (in 5th). At the time, my friend was running the shiny new SWs with their 15pt tacticals and free BP/CCW and 'nades. I, on the other hand, was running the old 3rd or 4th edition Black Templars codex (back when they had their own book), with my 16 point tacticals that could only have BP/CCW or Bolter, and had to pay 1ppm for frags, and 2ppm for kraks.

Always hilarious to see the supposedly "most numerous chapter" get constantly outnumbered in every battle...

As for power creep itself... I became most aware of that after having suffered with the old BTs for a while (against primarily new SWs, 4th ed Daemons, and Eldar), and then deciding to try out GKs since the new book was coming out. Hoooo boy, did that turn things around immediately. I remember testing the Warp Quake build against my friend's Daemons and almost tabling him before the first turn was over. We basically saw the writing on the wall then, and honestly most of them stopped playing - and I slowly started transitioning to Specialist Games. After 6th dropped though, things seemed to settle until TauDar showed up. Now it's just nonsense left and right.

Yeah before SWs were able to spam missiles with splitfire, it was mostly Las/Plas, to the point that it became a meme.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Didn't realize you had to pay for Frost Weapons. However, everything else still stands. It is a minimal investment to utterly kill a target.

And what Special Weapon spam? From Grey Hunters?

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Combi-weapons are really limited use to Space Wolves, there's a grand total of two unique formations they're worthwhile in.
Thunderstrike Formation - Twin-linked on arrival.
With a Divination Rune Priest - Re-rolls to hit.

If they were based on Bolt Pistols or Grey Hunters could get them they might see more use. But once the Wolf Guard have fired them they're now the equivalent of a really expensive Grey Hunter pack.

Anything on foot is too slow to keep up with Space Wolves playstyle these days but Termies feel it twice over because their classic transport option the Land Raider is one of the first things targeted for destruction.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Didn't realize you had to pay for Frost Weapons. However, everything else still stands. It is a minimal investment to utterly kill a target.

And what Special Weapon spam? From Grey Hunters?

Well, regular Wolf Guard can spam combi-weapons for only 28ppm instead of 38, and since we're comparing to Loyalists, Command Squads can bring five actual Special Weapons for super cheap.

Being able to do something marginally better than the rest of the Space Wolves codex doesn't really matter when other codices can do the same thing far, far better.

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Didn't realize you had to pay for Frost Weapons. However, everything else still stands. It is a minimal investment to utterly kill a target.

And what Special Weapon spam? From Grey Hunters?

Well, regular Wolf Guard can spam combi-weapons for only 28ppm instead of 38, and since we're comparing to Loyalists, Command Squads can bring five actual Special Weapons for super cheap.

Being able to do something marginally better than the rest of the Space Wolves codex doesn't really matter when other codices can do the same thing far, far better.

Regular Wolf Guard need to spend an extra 35 points for a Drop Pod so don't pretend they're cheaper. Space Wolves also don't have command squads so I'm not sure why you even bring that up.

@Slayer Fan, did you read my whole post?
Where I said that being able to do things marginally better than other Space Wolves still isn't good when other codices can do the exact same thing far better?
You quoted my whole post, but judging by your response you either skipped half of it or simply chose to ignore the half that you couldn't easily respond to.

Also: 5 Wolf Guard with Combi Weapons in a Drop Pod is 175 points, 5 Termies with Combi Weapons is 190. I don't have to pretend, because they are literally cheaper.
Since those Termies are extremely liable to mishap, while the Wolf Guard can reliably drop anywhere that they want to, I'm gonna go with the Wolf Guard any day.

Waaaghpower wrote:
@Slayer Fan, did you read my whole post?
Where I said that being able to do things marginally better than other Space Wolves still isn't good when other codices can do the exact same thing far better?
You quoted my whole post, but judging by your response you either skipped half of it or simply chose to ignore the half that you couldn't easily respond to.

Also: 5 Wolf Guard with Combi Weapons in a Drop Pod is 175 points, 5 Termies with Combi Weapons is 190. I don't have to pretend, because they are literally cheaper.
Since those Termies are extremely liable to mishap, while the Wolf Guard can reliably drop anywhere that they want to, I'm gonna go with the Wolf Guard any day.

It's an honest trade off though.
Both will trigger EWO responses or Deathmarks, only one has a hope in hell of surviving them.