As far as I can tell they didn't update them yet? When I go to the FAQ page and hit sort by recently added its just the non codex marine one. Maybe I'm not doing something correct
Ordana wrote: Change the sorting to A>Z then back to recently updated and they will be the new ones.
Yeah I saw that in the other thread. Nothing earth shattering here which I suppose is a good thing considering marines just came out and psychic Awakening is a couple weeks away and CA 3 months away
There are some needed clarifications to be fair. No more infinite hits!
And they even admitted the messed that up really badly.
That's what you took from that?
Sounded more like "this is why you people don't deserve nice things". Honestly can't disagree.
BuT mUh RuLeS aS wRiTtEn
Nah, that was sneer for the sake of sneering from Cruddace. They screwed up when they wrote the rule. If you don't want that interaction, don't write the rules that way, simple as that. Breaking the game with that ruling didn't rely on tortured interpretations, or uncharitable reads; it was just literally a bad call (unlike the last FAQ where the charging out of a transport destroyed in overwatch really was a stretcccchhhhhhhh).
This is why it's so hard to give GW the benefit of the doubt; they should've just given a "mea culpa, we obviously didn't mean for infinite hits but that's what we wrote in the FAQ, so we're changing the ruling" -- that would've been fair.
No clarifications for Iron Hands?
I've been playing IH for about six years now and I strongly want a few nerfs that knock out or cheeziest combos before it can hurt the rest of the Marine book as a whole.
Please don't hyperbolize the facts to suit your agenda, Guard is currently fairly well balanced.
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Waaaghpower wrote: No clarifications for Iron Hands?
I've been playing IH for about six years now and I strongly want a few nerfs that knock out or cheeziest combos before it can hurt the rest of the Marine book as a whole.
I'd expect some nerfs and clarifications in the Iron Hands FAQ, which will likely come out next week sometime. Generally 2 weeks after a release they have errata for it.
Vaktathi wrote: IG Demolisher cannons are now straight D6 shots so they match with Space Marines again. Expect to see a lot more Demolishers going forward.
That's the biggest thing I've noticed thus far.
If AM is willing to get tanks within 24" of a target and move slowly to get grinding advance I'm more than happy to let them have the extra shots - the survivors anyway
Vaktathi wrote: IG Demolisher cannons are now straight D6 shots so they match with Space Marines again. Expect to see a lot more Demolishers going forward.
That's the biggest thing I've noticed thus far.
If AM is willing to get tanks within 24" of a target and move slowly to get grinding advance I'm more than happy to let them have the extra shots - the survivors anyway
I'd expect to see 1 demolisher become more common. Generally you're taking the Emperor's Fist anyway to get the relic battlecannon, well now you take a Demolisher as well since there's a 1 CP stratagem that lets you move 10" and still double tap.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: What was the point of this release? There are literally no updates except for the Guard Demo cannon...
Because they said they would. No change means they are very comfortable with where the game is. Truly, this is the way the BIG FAQ's were meant to be - some big clarifications, saving major balance changes for Chapter Approved. I'm quite happy with it. Think of it this way; each time they changed major rules and points costs in other BIG FAQ's, it's because those were seen as critically necessary changes.
Vaktathi wrote: IG Demolisher cannons are now straight D6 shots so they match with Space Marines again. Expect to see a lot more Demolishers going forward.
That's the biggest thing I've noticed thus far.
If AM is willing to get tanks within 24" of a target and move slowly to get grinding advance I'm more than happy to let them have the extra shots - the survivors anyway
With the mobility now present in the game in general, and a couple tricks IG now have access to, enemies are going to get that close regardles. Wont be the turn 1 alpha strike weapon of choice, but it certainly is a much greater pucker factor for a charging Knight or the like.
Waaaghpower wrote: No clarifications for Iron Hands?
I've been playing IH for about six years now and I strongly want a few nerfs that knock out or cheeziest combos before it can hurt the rest of the Marine book as a whole.
These will have been finished before the IH book even released, translation takes time.
I wouldn't except any SM things in the CA either for that reason.
As people said when the SM rules started to come out, nothing is going to be changed until the Spring Faq (unless something truly broken and in need of immediate intervention happens).
Waaaghpower wrote: No clarifications for Iron Hands?
I've been playing IH for about six years now and I strongly want a few nerfs that knock out or cheeziest combos before it can hurt the rest of the Marine book as a whole.
These will have been finished before the IH book even released, translation takes time.
I wouldn't except any SM things in the CA either for that reason.
As people said when the SM rules started to come out, nothing is going to be changed until the Spring Faq (unless something truly broken and in need of immediate intervention happens).
I'm not asking for major changes, just some clarifications. (For example, if they said that the Ironstone doesn't stack with the Dreadnought half damage stratagem, that'd be really nice.)
Waaaghpower wrote: No clarifications for Iron Hands?
I've been playing IH for about six years now and I strongly want a few nerfs that knock out or cheeziest combos before it can hurt the rest of the Marine book as a whole.
These will have been finished before the IH book even released, translation takes time.
I wouldn't except any SM things in the CA either for that reason.
As people said when the SM rules started to come out, nothing is going to be changed until the Spring Faq (unless something truly broken and in need of immediate intervention happens).
I'm not asking for major changes, just some clarifications. (For example, if they said that the Ironstone doesn't stack with the Dreadnought half damage stratagem, that'd be really nice.)
Clarifications come in the usual FAQ 2 weeks after release.
Which is next week?
That stuff was again, never going to be in this set of faqs that were likely written before the IH codex released.
Vaktathi wrote: IG Demolisher cannons are now straight D6 shots so they match with Space Marines again. Expect to see a lot more Demolishers going forward.
That's the biggest thing I've noticed thus far.
LOL. How is it possible to buff command tanks more? I'm sorry but 2d6str 10 shots with d6 damage against a single target all the time is basically the most OP thing in the game now. It will outdamage most titans. LOL. GW is a bunch of drunks. we really need to move on from their rules.
Please don't hyperbolize the facts to suit your agenda, Guard is currently fairly well balanced.
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Waaaghpower wrote: No clarifications for Iron Hands?
I've been playing IH for about six years now and I strongly want a few nerfs that knock out or cheeziest combos before it can hurt the rest of the Marine book as a whole.
I'd expect some nerfs and clarifications in the Iron Hands FAQ, which will likely come out next week sometime. Generally 2 weeks after a release they have errata for it.
LOL gaurd rarely count as primary faction and are included in basically every imperial list. The are not fairly balanced. Command tanks and infantry are on a short list of most OP units in the game.
Yeah, if its magenta its new.
I don't get what the change is though, does it stop Shield Drones from ignoring wounds, as its after when the sequence is supposed to end?
Well, it allows them to "eat" MWs attached to attacks now, since it ends the attack sequence (and an FAQ clarified that this is intended). They may also not be able to use FnP to soak the MW, but I'm not 100% on that one.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: What was the point of this release? There are literally no updates except for the Guard Demo cannon...
You mean figuratively.
There were dozens of other updates, but you decided to ignore them. Ignoring rules you don't think matter, but do, is the sign of a new player. You new here? There's some good resources I can provide.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Yeah, if its magenta its new.
I don't get what the change is though, does it stop Shield Drones from ignoring wounds, as its after when the sequence is supposed to end?
GW trying to be too smart and still leaving it unclear instead of just giving a simple x=y z=a and c=d result explanation.
It's if anything made it less clearer than it used to be IMHO.
flandarz wrote: Well, it allows them to "eat" MWs attached to attacks now, since it ends the attack sequence (and an FAQ clarified that this is intended). They may also not be able to use FnP to soak the MW, but I'm not 100% on that one.
FNPs trigger when a wound is lost, independent of the attack sequence (or else they wouldnt function against anything that didnt happen due to an attack).
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Yeah, if its magenta its new.
I don't get what the change is though, does it stop Shield Drones from ignoring wounds, as its after when the sequence is supposed to end?
GW trying to be too smart and still leaving it unclear instead of just giving a simple x=y z=a and c=d result explanation.
It's if anything made it less clearer than it used to be IMHO.
I think they're trying to make the rule less confusing, and the Q and A example helps, but honestly the rule is a "darling" (as Jervis would put it) and needs to be scrapped and done over instead.
flandarz wrote: Well, it allows them to "eat" MWs attached to attacks now, since it ends the attack sequence (and an FAQ clarified that this is intended). They may also not be able to use FnP to soak the MW, but I'm not 100% on that one.
FNPs trigger when a wound is lost, independent of the attack sequence (or else they wouldnt function against anything that didnt happen due to an attack).
That's what I figured, but other folks have argued otherwise, so I was a bit... iffy about it.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: What was the point of this release? There are literally no updates except for the Guard Demo cannon...
You mean figuratively.
There were dozens of other updates, but you decided to ignore them. Ignoring rules you don't think matter, but do, is the sign of a new player. You new here? There's some good resources I can provide.
No, I meant what was the point of releasing a SEPTEMBER FAQ with essentially:
"We think the game is in a good place, and wanted to tell you there are no new updates".
Just tell us there are no new updates, point changes may come in the next CA. No need to waste time or money having someone code up this release.
LOL gaurd rarely count as primary faction and are included in basically every imperial list. The are not fairly balanced. Command tanks and infantry are on a short list of most OP units in the game.
You are demonstrably wrong. Look at the link I said. Guard have a 51.33% win rate when included in any list. That is not imbalanced.
This is not ITC-only, this is across all tournaments. And honestly, if you consider Tank Commanders imbalanced... I'm really not sure what game you're playing.
LOL gaurd rarely count as primary faction and are included in basically every imperial list. The are not fairly balanced. Command tanks and infantry are on a short list of most OP units in the game.
You are demonstrably wrong. Look at the link I said. Guard have a 51.33% win rate when included in any list. That is not imbalanced.
This is not ITC-only, this is across all tournaments. And honestly, if you consider Tank Commanders imbalanced... I'm really not sure what game you're playing.
LOL gaurd rarely count as primary faction and are included in basically every imperial list. The are not fairly balanced. Command tanks and infantry are on a short list of most OP units in the game.
You are demonstrably wrong. Look at the link I said. Guard have a 51.33% win rate when included in any list. That is not imbalanced.
This is not ITC-only, this is across all tournaments. And honestly, if you consider Tank Commanders imbalanced... I'm really not sure what game you're playing.
Yeah I don't get that. I regularly run 3 executioners and if given the chance they easily delete units and give people that don't know better the feel bads but they're essentially immobile, have no invuln, and are a big liability in certain formats (the ones that matter)
nice changes for GK, they amanded the fact that GK flamers are not called flamers, so GKLR with incinerators aren't stricktly worse then those with flamestorms. And now blessed ammo works the way everything though it was suppose to work. Plus I think we are getting +2A from shock assault and being space marines.
Did anyone else notice that rather than dump everything into a new document, they just updated the relevant errata's and FAQ specific to the factions/codexes?? I am not seeing things right ?
Karol wrote: nice changes for GK, they amanded the fact that GK flamers are not called flamers, so GKLR with incinerators aren't stricktly worse then those with flamestorms. And now blessed ammo works the way everything though it was suppose to work. Plus I think we are getting +2A from shock assault and being space marines.
They probably left the bigger changes for the CA.
The Shock Assault and Flamestorm changes are the same as were in the "Errata for other Space Marine Forces" document when the new Codex: Space Marines came out, so they're not new. You only benefit from Shock Assault once, so only +1A for you, as far as I can tell.
Need to grab my copy of the GK book to see what the tweak to the Blessed Ammo strat is, but that's in another room.
Kinda annoyed the AM Demolisher Cannon update didn't make it to the FW Index, given I'm cleaning up a Thunderer at present.
Vaktathi wrote: IG Demolisher cannons are now straight D6 shots so they match with Space Marines again. Expect to see a lot more Demolishers going forward.
That's the biggest thing I've noticed thus far.
LOL. How is it possible to buff command tanks more? I'm sorry but 2d6str 10 shots with d6 damage against a single target all the time is basically the most OP thing in the game now. It will outdamage most titans. LOL. GW is a bunch of drunks. we really need to move on from their rules.
To be fair, as soon as the profile got changed for Marines everyone should have expected this, having identical weapons with different profiles is an issue GW has been largely keen to avoid in recent editions.
This is what happens when GW borks weapon profiles, creates a fix for specific units that overkills for some and still doesn't fix others, then goes back and tries to fix the profiles more broadly later anyway. GW didnt want to touch the weapon statlines...until Space Marines, then they had to update the other factions.
That said, the range is a limitation, and I don't expect to see gobs of demolishers everywherr for that reason, the BC is still more than competitive, and it's hardly going to outdamage a titan, but I would expect to see them more often for dealing with stuff like Knights.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL. How is it possible to buff command tanks more? I'm sorry but 2d6str 10 shots with d6 damage against a single target all the time is basically the most OP thing in the game now. It will outdamage most titans. LOL. GW is a bunch of drunks. we really need to move on from their rules.
You're more than welcome to. Then we wouldn't have to do this every single release or faq...
Xenomancers wrote: LOL. How is it possible to buff command tanks more? I'm sorry but 2d6str 10 shots with d6 damage against a single target all the time is basically the most OP thing in the game now. It will outdamage most titans. LOL. GW is a bunch of drunks. we really need to move on from their rules.
You're more than welcome to. Then we wouldn't have to do this every single release or faq...
Xenomancers is basicly the DakkaDakka chicken little at this point
No, I meant what was the point of releasing a SEPTEMBER FAQ with essentially:
"We think the game is in a good place, and wanted to tell you there are no new updates".
Just tell us there are no new updates, point changes may come in the next CA. No need to waste time or money having someone code up this release.
Thats what they did. They called it what they did because if they didnt, a band of gibbering lunatics on the internet would get angry at them for not releasing a document that they had promised to release.
No, I meant what was the point of releasing a SEPTEMBER FAQ with essentially:
"We think the game is in a good place, and wanted to tell you there are no new updates".
Just tell us there are no new updates, point changes may come in the next CA. No need to waste time or money having someone code up this release.
Thats what they did. They called it what they did because if they didnt, a band of gibbering lunatics on the internet would get angry at them for not releasing a document that they had promised to release.
For be fair, it's an FAQ, and they answered questions so clearly it did its job. It's not like we need an errata every single FAQ update.
The Shock Assault and Flamestorm changes are the same as were in the "Errata for other Space Marine Forces" document when the new Codex: Space Marines came out, so they're not new. You only benefit from Shock Assault once, so only +1A for you, as far as I can tell.
Need to grab my copy of the GK book to see what the tweak to the Blessed Ammo strat is, but that's in another room.
Ah I thought it is +1A extra, on top of the +1A from being space marines. Well at least there were no nerfs this time. That is good.
blessed ammo adds +1str and 1AP to bolter weapons. so hvy bolters can be str 6 ap-2
No, I meant what was the point of releasing a SEPTEMBER FAQ with essentially:
"We think the game is in a good place, and wanted to tell you there are no new updates".
Just tell us there are no new updates, point changes may come in the next CA. No need to waste time or money having someone code up this release.
Thats what they did. They called it what they did because if they didnt, a band of gibbering lunatics on the internet would get angry at them for not releasing a document that they had promised to release.
But that kind of a means that to get any fix, people have to pay for them. A fix in a FAQ anyone can use, to use CA rules which sometimes are less then 2 pages, you have to buy a high cost book.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
Which is exactly why I don't purchase the book, since there is absolutely nothing else of interest in there as far as I'm concerned.
The updated missions in there were pretty good, and if you can talk people into letting you use the looted wagon rules, you can slip those into matched play by paying the points out of the relevant wargear lists.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: What was the point of this release? There are literally no updates except for the Guard Demo cannon...
You mean figuratively.
There were dozens of other updates, but you decided to ignore them. Ignoring rules you don't think matter, but do, is the sign of a new player. You new here? There's some good resources I can provide.
No, I meant what was the point of releasing a SEPTEMBER FAQ with essentially:
"We think the game is in a good place, and wanted to tell you there are no new updates".
Just tell us there are no new updates, point changes may come in the next CA. No need to waste time or money having someone code up this release.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
that is like saying, if you buy a codex your not getting your money's worth, specially if the army is bad. One can not not buy a CA if it has point cost updates, unless you skip the update units. Now maybe some people get lucky and GW changes costs of stuff they do not use. But at least in GK case, stuff like draigo and GM NDK are kind of a important part of the army.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
that is like saying, if you buy a codex your not getting your money's worth, specially if the army is bad. One can not not buy a CA if it has point cost updates, unless you skip the update units. Now maybe some people get lucky and GW changes costs of stuff they do not use. But at least in GK case, stuff like draigo and GM NDK are kind of a important part of the army.
There's more than just the points in CA. I'm a massive fan of the custom character ruleset.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
that is like saying, if you buy a codex your not getting your money's worth, specially if the army is bad. One can not not buy a CA if it has point cost updates, unless you skip the update units. Now maybe some people get lucky and GW changes costs of stuff they do not use. But at least in GK case, stuff like draigo and GM NDK are kind of a important part of the army.
There's more than just the points in CA. I'm a massive fan of the custom character ruleset.
You mean the ones where people started showing off their custom fan made characters that had stories that were far more Mary Sue than ANYTHING that GW made and they stacked on 6+ of those rules because?
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
that is like saying, if you buy a codex your not getting your money's worth, specially if the army is bad. One can not not buy a CA if it has point cost updates, unless you skip the update units. Now maybe some people get lucky and GW changes costs of stuff they do not use. But at least in GK case, stuff like draigo and GM NDK are kind of a important part of the army.
No, I mean it's like buying car just for it's windhshield. CA is more than just points costs and -only- using it for points costs is a bit silly. The last one gave us an improves mission pack for matched play, and had the Sisters beta dex on it.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
that is like saying, if you buy a codex your not getting your money's worth, specially if the army is bad. One can not not buy a CA if it has point cost updates, unless you skip the update units. Now maybe some people get lucky and GW changes costs of stuff they do not use. But at least in GK case, stuff like draigo and GM NDK are kind of a important part of the army.
There's more than just the points in CA. I'm a massive fan of the custom character ruleset.
You mean the ones where people started showing off their custom fan made characters that had stories that were far more Mary Sue than ANYTHING that GW made and they stacked on 6+ of those rules because?
Pretty sure that's normal. I mean how else are they going to know the exploits of Captain Thunderfist Bloodhammer who surfed an Avatar of Khaine down the slopes of an exploding volcano?
Kinda annoyed the AM Demolisher Cannon update didn't make it to the FW Index, given I'm cleaning up a Thunderer at present.
I think they've basically written off FW stuff entirely and are leaving the legacy units on life support at this point.
I'd've agreed with that, if they hadn't a, said at the Q&A session at UK Games Expo that they were planning on supporting the range, they just weren't sure how best to do so yet; and b, we hadn't just seen them patch stuff from the Space Marine FW Index when the new Codex came out.
I might drop them an email, actually.
vaklor4 wrote: An FAQ that just answered frequently asked questions?
Xenomancers wrote: LOL. How is it possible to buff command tanks more? I'm sorry but 2d6str 10 shots with d6 damage against a single target all the time is basically the most OP thing in the game now. It will outdamage most titans. LOL. GW is a bunch of drunks. we really need to move on from their rules.
What's it matter? Aren't you going to be killing them quite handily with your now OP blue Ironhands?
Vaktathi wrote: IG Demolisher cannons are now straight D6 shots so they match with Space Marines again. Expect to see a lot more Demolishers going forward.
That's the biggest thing I've noticed thus far.
LOL. How is it possible to buff command tanks more? I'm sorry but 2d6str 10 shots with d6 damage against a single target all the time is basically the most OP thing in the game now. It will outdamage most titans. LOL. GW is a bunch of drunks. we really need to move on from their rules.
Please don't hyperbolize the facts to suit your agenda, Guard is currently fairly well balanced.
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Waaaghpower wrote: No clarifications for Iron Hands?
I've been playing IH for about six years now and I strongly want a few nerfs that knock out or cheeziest combos before it can hurt the rest of the Marine book as a whole.
I'd expect some nerfs and clarifications in the Iron Hands FAQ, which will likely come out next week sometime. Generally 2 weeks after a release they have errata for it.
LOL gaurd rarely count as primary faction and are included in basically every imperial list. The are not fairly balanced. Command tanks and infantry are on a short list of most OP units in the game.
Are you kidding me ? So all it took for guard to become the most OP thing ever, is D6 shot demolishers ? I thought IH were going to smash all forever, well glad to see that died off so quickly.
As for guard not being balanced, guard are pretty well balanced, unless you have a thing against them having actual good units at all in their codex in the wash of many lack luster choices. Sorry you have to fear anything at all a guard list can bring. Guard are balanced, the allies system isn't and never has been balanced this edition and it hampers many mono dex armies as it punishes units taken for allies when they end up just fine in a mono dex list. Unless I've been missing mono guard stomping all, which I don't think I have missed. Command tanks are the default tank choice for obvious reasons even when they cost more than currently. This sounds like a lot of out of this world fear over one change that really should have been expected with the change to vindicators.
Vaktathi wrote: IG Demolisher cannons are now straight D6 shots so they match with Space Marines again. Expect to see a lot more Demolishers going forward.
That's the biggest thing I've noticed thus far.
LOL. How is it possible to buff command tanks more? I'm sorry but 2d6str 10 shots with d6 damage against a single target all the time is basically the most OP thing in the game now. It will outdamage most titans. LOL. GW is a bunch of drunks. we really need to move on from their rules.
Please don't hyperbolize the facts to suit your agenda, Guard is currently fairly well balanced.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Waaaghpower wrote: No clarifications for Iron Hands?
I've been playing IH for about six years now and I strongly want a few nerfs that knock out or cheeziest combos before it can hurt the rest of the Marine book as a whole.
I'd expect some nerfs and clarifications in the Iron Hands FAQ, which will likely come out next week sometime. Generally 2 weeks after a release they have errata for it.
LOL gaurd rarely count as primary faction and are included in basically every imperial list. The are not fairly balanced. Command tanks and infantry are on a short list of most OP units in the game.
Are you kidding me ? So all it took for guard to become the most OP thing ever, is D6 shot demolishers ? I thought IH were going to smash all forever, well glad to see that died off so quickly.
As for guard not being balanced, guard are pretty well balanced, unless you have a thing against them having actual good units at all in their codex in the wash of many lack luster choices. Sorry you have to fear anything at all a guard list can bring. Guard are balanced, the allies system isn't and never has been balanced this edition and it hampers many mono dex armies as it punishes units taken for allies when they end up just fine in a mono dex list. Unless I've been missing mono guard stomping all, which I don't think I have missed. Command tanks are the default tank choice for obvious reasons even when they cost more than currently. This sounds like a lot of out of this world fear over one change that really should have been expected with the change to vindicators.
The annoying thing is a vindicator is D6 shots end off a Russ is now 2D6, D6 vrs 2D3 kinda was the more balanced position, but untill GW grows enough stones to admit their early edition fixes were bad and remove them Grinding advance etc are going to be causing janky interactions between codex's.
Yeah but for even with all this, Guard still aren't stomping faces all over and without grinding advance guard tanks would go back to being the crap choice that they were before grinding advance. I know it's been awhile but guard tanks were very meh before the current grinding advance and didn't even compare well vs say a predator.
So taking away grinding advance what would you give the tanks to make them not meh ? Lower the points even more so we can spam them ?
I also point out even with grinding advance some of the Russ options are jank and never taken outside a totally fluffy " But I love it ! " reason.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
Which is exactly why I don't purchase the book, since there is absolutely nothing else of interest in there as far as I'm concerned.
The updated missions in there were pretty good, and if you can talk people into letting you use the looted wagon rules, you can slip those into matched play by paying the points out of the relevant wargear lists.
Over the last year I've been using CA2018 missions exclusively - that's the reason why I'll be getting a physical copy of this year's CA for the first time, since I'm fairly sure that I'll be using the content.
No one needs a CA just for the points. Either use a tool with points integrated or copy the newest costs to the back of your codex.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
Which is exactly why I don't purchase the book, since there is absolutely nothing else of interest in there as far as I'm concerned.
The updated missions in there were pretty good, and if you can talk people into letting you use the looted wagon rules, you can slip those into matched play by paying the points out of the relevant wargear lists.
I prefer ITC missions myself but either way my group plays tournament style rules (often rotating specifics depending on what's coming up) so the Looted Wagon narrative or open play rules were absolutely useless to me. They didn't even have points costs for the vehicles did they?
Xenomancers wrote: LOL. How is it possible to buff command tanks more? I'm sorry but 2d6str 10 shots with d6 damage against a single target all the time is basically the most OP thing in the game now. It will outdamage most titans. LOL. GW is a bunch of drunks. we really need to move on from their rules.
What's it matter? Aren't you going to be killing them quite handily with your now OP blue Ironhands?
Think bigger, now it'll be blue iron hands actually guard tank commander repulsors!
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
Which is exactly why I don't purchase the book, since there is absolutely nothing else of interest in there as far as I'm concerned.
The updated missions in there were pretty good, and if you can talk people into letting you use the looted wagon rules, you can slip those into matched play by paying the points out of the relevant wargear lists.
I prefer ITC missions myself but either way my group plays tournament style rules (often rotating specifics depending on what's coming up) so the Looted Wagon narrative or open play rules were absolutely useless to me. They didn't even have points costs for the vehicles did they?
They didn't but I'm sure people could work out the points costs based on what the vehicle was looted from.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL. How is it possible to buff command tanks more? I'm sorry but 2d6str 10 shots with d6 damage against a single target all the time is basically the most OP thing in the game now. It will outdamage most titans. LOL. GW is a bunch of drunks. we really need to move on from their rules.
What's it matter? Aren't you going to be killing them quite handily with your now OP blue Ironhands?
Think bigger, now it'll be blue iron hands actually guard tank commander repulsors!
Na fam salamanders is where it at atm in the chasing game.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
Which is exactly why I don't purchase the book, since there is absolutely nothing else of interest in there as far as I'm concerned.
The updated missions in there were pretty good, and if you can talk people into letting you use the looted wagon rules, you can slip those into matched play by paying the points out of the relevant wargear lists.
I prefer ITC missions myself but either way my group plays tournament style rules (often rotating specifics depending on what's coming up) so the Looted Wagon narrative or open play rules were absolutely useless to me. They didn't even have points costs for the vehicles did they?
They didn't but I'm sure people could work out the points costs based on what the vehicle was looted from.
At that point we might as well just homebrew any old rules. I dont need a book to homebrew stuff. If GW wanted us to play with Looted Wagons, they'd have included points costs, the looted vehicle in the last CA was simply filler.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
I wouldn't go that far before seeing CA. No one outside of Eldar is spamming flyers (and if they are they aren't dominating nearly as much) so its entirely possible they will 'fix' the eldar problem by increasing the points.
What I am dissapointed by is not changing Alaitoc to match the Raven Guard trait.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
I wouldn't go that far before seeing CA. No one outside of Eldar is spamming flyers (and if they are they aren't dominating nearly as much) so its entirely possible they will 'fix' the eldar problem by increasing the points.
What I am dissapointed by is not changing Alaitoc to match the Raven Guard trait.
It's also mostly an ITC concern. They don't do very well at winning games in the CA18 missions, at least in my experience.
I'd be alright if they did nothing and put the responsibility for the answer squarely on the source of the problem - ITC missions and scoring are trash.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
that is like saying, if you buy a codex your not getting your money's worth, specially if the army is bad. One can not not buy a CA if it has point cost updates, unless you skip the update units. Now maybe some people get lucky and GW changes costs of stuff they do not use. But at least in GK case, stuff like draigo and GM NDK are kind of a important part of the army.
There's more than just the points in CA. I'm a massive fan of the custom character ruleset.
You mean the ones where people started showing off their custom fan made characters that had stories that were far more Mary Sue than ANYTHING that GW made and they stacked on 6+ of those rules because?
That's a fault of people writing bad stories, in all fairness, and using what are on the surface pretty nice customisation rules purely to gain an edge in their games. I tried to avoid putting more than 4 abilities on my characters because I simply didn't need more than that, and nothing that was just blatantly "the best option".
As with everything in 40k, you absolutely *can* go out of your way to break it and create imbalance, but that's not what I want, so I don't.
They are a bit unfun to play against, ignoring a lot of the rules that seem crucial to 8th ed. But that is just my personal expiriance. Maybe GW design team does like to play that way.
Let's not chicken little the process simply because big sweeping changes aren't needed at the moment.
I think that does depend on the army though. A necron or Inari player probably can't wait to get a total rules revamp, considering the stuff they have to play with now.
The idea that GW releases overpowered units to increase sales is defeated by the fact that for every new OP unit you can point to an equally new unit that was so gak no one bought it.
But they do have a slow reaction time to some things. when the castellan came out. It really did warp the meta game, making a lot of options, like most non flyer vehicles, bad. And the IG+catellan+smash cpt/custodes bikers, was a stapple for like a year, or so. that is long time considering some people play the game for a year, and then quit.
But maybe it is for the better, GW fixs are always bad for the armies. They fix nothing, they just destroy the validity of a unit or even entire army, like in case of Inari, and from what I understand after 5th ed GK were also fixed. And GW fixed so well that they are bad 3 editions later.
Karol wrote: But they do have a slow reaction time to some things. when the castellan came out. It really did warp the meta game, making a lot of options, like most non flyer vehicles, bad. And the IG+catellan+smash cpt/custodes bikers, was a stapple for like a year, or so. that is long time considering some people play the game for a year, and then quit.
But maybe it is for the better, GW fixs are always bad for the armies. They fix nothing, they just destroy the validity of a unit or even entire army, like in case of Inari, and from what I understand after 5th ed GK were also fixed. And GW fixed so well that they are bad 3 editions later.
The first Faq increased CP costs, it turned out not to be enough. Next faq increased the point cost.
GW reacted as fast as they told us they would react, twice a year. Which is infinity faster then GW's reaction time before 8th edition which was 'see you next edition'.
The idea that GW releases overpowered units to increase sales is defeated by the fact that for every new OP unit you can point to an equally new unit that was so gak no one bought it.
My argument was more in regards that daedalus claims that other games need to be perfectly balanced.
Go ahead and make a game with 30+ factions, hundreds of units, and 40k level customization and balance it perfectly.
Well they changed dark reapers and shining spears like 5-6 times, and they were always OP. And when they finaly did change the root of the problem aka Inari soul burst thingy, they just killed the army and the models.
Also saying they react faster then in the past, doesn't mean much, if it is still not fast enough. My grandma had hip surgery planed for 2024, then they moved it to december 2021, technicaly that is 2 years plus of wait time less. Does not change that fact that it was still 6 years of waiting. I get that they don't tweek everything, every month. Not with their policy of printed rules etc I get that.
But they do have WD and they do have a website. They knew that the castellan was running amok thanks to the cheap IG fueling it, they could have reacted faster. But they didn't, and I even understand that, Castellans were selling great and boosting sells of IG models too.
If they knee jerk reacted at the speed that this forum wanted there would be a few threads bemoaning how what they bought is now invalid and will never see the tabletop*. Other game companies do not knee jerk react at the speed you expect, look at how often MtG has its ban lists updated as an example.
*or at least wont be seen in the hyper competitive game that people deem the only way to play
Balance in a way that prevents others from claiming any subsequent changes are because of the desire for profit.
Remember-
If you buff something, it's for the money.
If you nerf something, it's also for the money ( to sell something else )
If you dont change something, it's for the money.
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
Which is exactly why I don't purchase the book, since there is absolutely nothing else of interest in there as far as I'm concerned.
What about the new missions and the complete set of matched play rules? I play Chaos Knights, so before the codex, CA 2018 contained my army's rules in Index: Renegade Knights too.
Daedalus81 wrote: Balance in a way that prevents others from claiming any subsequent changes are because of the desire for profit.
Remember-
If you buff something, it's for the money.
If you nerf something, it's also for the money ( to sell something else )
If you dont change something, it's for the money.
I up the point cost of every bad unit.
I up the point cost of every good init even more.
You can now play a 2000 game with 30 infantry marines.
There, people will be pissed but nobody can say I did it to sell more miniatures .
BroodSpawn wrote: If they knee jerk reacted at the speed that this forum wanted there would be a few threads bemoaning how what they bought is now invalid and will never see the tabletop*. Other game companies do not knee jerk react at the speed you expect, look at how often MtG has its ban lists updated as an example.
*or at least wont be seen in the hyper competitive game that people deem the only way to play
Of course other companies are interested in balance. Gw isn't as they make more money with imbalance and changing imbalance to another form of imbalance. Knee jerk reactions is name of game for gw.
No company makes money from 'balance ', every game on the market has some form of imbalance that drives sales. GW are interested in balancing to a degree as not doing so does not drive sales, look at 7th compared to current as an example of the difference in balance and sales as an example
Okey, but there is a difference between making codex sm and supplements, and suddenly sm being a really nice army. And puting out a unit, which with combination of a 4pts troop model, turns the meta in to you play a carbon copy army, you play a hard skew army or you lose. And then leave it like that for a year.
I mean GW knows that half the problems in 8th came from the fact that they costed IG wrong, yet they don't seem to be ready to change that. Maybe because of balance not being their goal, or maybe because of how good an old kit like IG sells for them.
BroodSpawn wrote: No company makes money from 'balance ', every game on the market has some form of imbalance that drives sales. GW are interested in balancing to a degree as not doing so does not drive sales, look at 7th compared to current as an example of the difference in balance and sales as an example
Exactly. Contemporary game design principle #1 is frustrate your players so that they will throw money at you in the hopes of not losing so much, without frustrating them so much they quit outright.
I hope the Monolith and Night Scythe are getting new datasheets in a couple of months, I'll be a sad bot if not. With updated Vindicator the Leman Russ is even easier to compare to a Monolith. Range is sort of an odd thing, how do you qualify going from 24" range to 72" range? But now that the 24" LR gun is more balanced compared to the 72" LR gun it's more clear than ever just how bad the Monolith is.
I need GW to pull through and give the Monolith another buff for me to not lose all hope, I try to keep my faith up but it's really hard. I agree that Vindicator Leman Russes aren't going to make waves, it's nice to see another option open up for the Leman Russ, maybe I'll see a little more diversity and as a Necron player I always welcome D6 damage weapons in the meta. I hope those that already have the demolisher cannon LR model feel empowered to use it more, it certainly packs a punch against heavily armoured tanks and that's pretty much how it should be.
The Monolith could also get an ability that lets it shoot three times if it moves less than 7" and another couple of times for 1 CP. Maybe it'll make a dent or two in Iron Hands if it gets to shoot 5 times each turn, 30 shots, 20 hits, 10 wounds, 5 unsaved wounds. Yeah, so a little more than 3 rounds for my 320 pt unit to take out a 300 pt model if we both use 1 CP each turn, him to make his take half damage, me to shoot another couple of times. That's reasonable right?
BroodSpawn wrote: If they knee jerk reacted at the speed that this forum wanted there would be a few threads bemoaning how what they bought is now invalid and will never see the tabletop*. Other game companies do not knee jerk react at the speed you expect, look at how often MtG has its ban lists updated as an example.
*or at least wont be seen in the hyper competitive game that people deem the only way to play
Of course other companies are interested in balance. Gw isn't as they make more money with imbalance and changing imbalance to another form of imbalance. Knee jerk reactions is name of game for gw.
Most armies sit in the 40-50% win rate which is a reason amount of factional balance. Internal balance needs more work and if the other books can reach C:SM levels (something that requires more than point changes or unplaytested errata).
Basically I see a lot of whinging that ignores the actual statenof the game and instead decides that it's broken with no real factual backing. This is most commonly done by plauers who don't fully understand the game or their army and tend to lose because of it, but I'm going to be charitable and assume that's not the issue here and instead just suggest to ease off your salt intake for a while.
Karol wrote: Okey, but there is a difference between making codex sm and supplements, and suddenly sm being a really nice army. And puting out a unit, which with combination of a 4pts troop model, turns the meta in to you play a carbon copy army, you play a hard skew army or you lose. And then leave it like that for a year.
I mean GW knows that half the problems in 8th came from the fact that they costed IG wrong, yet they don't seem to be ready to change that. Maybe because of balance not being their goal, or maybe because of how good an old kit like IG sells for them.
Or maybe because they don't feel they made a costing error on the Guard.
Let me ask you something. How high do you increase the cost of a Guardsman to in order to discourage the CP farm the ally rules allow? Is it 5pts? This won't phase the CP farming. 7pts? 10pts? (well now we're almost at the cost of a SM....) More?? And what do you think happens when you reach that point?
Well, I'll tell you what happens.
A) People will reach for whatever unit from whatever faction is cheaper. And the CP farm farms on. Well, now you have to jack those things pts up....
B) If you do solve the Guards pt cost/soup problem, you'll have insanely expensive Guard squads within their own codex. Wich will screw up actual Guard armies. And yeah, there IS a sales consideration there. If you screw up the core of an army to the point where people stop using the core unit, sales will suffer. Is the dip in sales worth solving the CP farm "problem" in this way?
The problem isn't pts. It's lies in the allies/CP/or stratagems systems. Maybe a combination of. (I'd say it's the mere existence of the CP & strats)
Karol wrote: But they do have a slow reaction time to some things. when the castellan came out. It really did warp the meta game, making a lot of options, like most non flyer vehicles, bad. And the IG+catellan+smash cpt/custodes bikers, was a stapple for like a year, or so. that is long time considering some people play the game for a year, and then quit.
But maybe it is for the better, GW fixs are always bad for the armies. They fix nothing, they just destroy the validity of a unit or even entire army, like in case of Inari, and from what I understand after 5th ed GK were also fixed. And GW fixed so well that they are bad 3 editions later.
The first Faq increased CP costs, it turned out not to be enough. Next faq increased the point cost.
GW reacted as fast as they told us they would react, twice a year. Which is infinity faster then GW's reaction time before 8th edition which was 'see you next edition'.
This is a really important point:
We know exactly when to expect changes, and for how long to at least plan on using an existing synergy/broken strat/unit. It gives players the ability to purchase units with a degree of consistency in expectation.
That’s huge, and far better than how 6th or 7th panned out.
So, am i only one who remembers they said during the last CA that rules balance wasn't for the CA that is why it was basically just points cost changes.
They were very clear rules changes would be for the big FAQ, and CA was the purview of points changes. So why are we assuming now they changed that so that rule changes would be in CA ?
Did they make some kind of public comment I'm unaware of or are we under some kind of grand illusion that their double speak makes any sense at all ? As honestly it feels like we just can't wrap our heads around the fact they lie a lot to us. Right to our face in fact.
Well that is my point, but people keep saying " Oh they will change things in CA " when last I remember CA was just for points, mostly. Just seems like people are dreaming or wishing but some books are most assuredly not doing well currently so could have done with some tweaking.
As is I doubt we'll see the other marine books touched on soon, nor do I imagine we'll see GK worked on who are abysmal. While some factions are doing fine aside from I'm sure wanting a touch up, to say the game is right where they want it is a bit daft. That said, I think people are getting their hopes up that CA will be more than maybe a couple rule tweaks, point updates and some new missions and the odd thing here and there.
So why do people keep saying there will be rule updates in CA when thats been for the points ? Feels like making love out of nothing at all.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well that is my point, but people keep saying " Oh they will change things in CA " when last I remember CA was just for points, mostly. Just seems like people are dreaming or wishing but some books are most assuredly not doing well currently so could have done with some tweaking.
As is I doubt we'll see the other marine books touched on soon, nor do I imagine we'll see GK worked on who are abysmal. While some factions are doing fine aside from I'm sure wanting a touch up, to say the game is right where they want it is a bit daft. That said, I think people are getting their hopes up that CA will be more than maybe a couple rule tweaks, point updates and some new missions and the odd thing here and there.
So why do people keep saying there will be rule updates in CA when thats been for the points ? Feels like making love out of nothing at all.
Because it was CA17 that gave everyone a free relic, a unique WL trait and a couple of Stratagems to factions that had none. It was CA18 that changed datasheets for Daemons and introduced the 8 for Tau and beta Sisters. It has never just been for pts, conversely, FAQs were never meant to change pts, but they also went back on that because of the Castellan. If GW really wanted to they could pump out mono-faction benefits for each codex and mono-sub-faction benefits for CA19, I doubt they will, but it would be an option as a precursor to the second edition of every codex and possible sub-faction books. That's one avenue of development they could take if they want to double down on this "every sub-faction is a faction to itself". Just making the main book twice as large and doubling the price probably makes more sense for most factions that don't have as rich a lore as SM, as many units (Unique or otherwise) and then they could also cut down on the amount of armies to paint for all the sub-factions.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well that is my point, but people keep saying " Oh they will change things in CA " when last I remember CA was just for points, mostly. Just seems like people are dreaming or wishing but some books are most assuredly not doing well currently so could have done with some tweaking.
As is I doubt we'll see the other marine books touched on soon, nor do I imagine we'll see GK worked on who are abysmal. While some factions are doing fine aside from I'm sure wanting a touch up, to say the game is right where they want it is a bit daft. That said, I think people are getting their hopes up that CA will be more than maybe a couple rule tweaks, point updates and some new missions and the odd thing here and there.
So why do people keep saying there will be rule updates in CA when thats been for the points ? Feels like making love out of nothing at all.
The very first CA included rules updates for every Codex that didn’t have strats or ObSec, and last year had a Beta Codex and an Index in it. I know their WHC write up in 2017 said CA was for points and FAQs for balance updates, but there was a balance update in the first CA so it seems fair for people to wishlist tbh. There is precedent.
CA also introduced new Missions and updated the terrain rules. And that's just for Matched, for narrative they also introduced refined Cities of Death rules, character development and veteran units, and that's just from the top of my head. If you only use the last Page that you can simply get via Battlescribe that's your problem...
ClockworkZion wrote: If you buy CA only for the points costs you're not getting your money's worth out of the book.
Which is exactly why I don't purchase the book, since there is absolutely nothing else of interest in there as far as I'm concerned.
What about the new missions and the complete set of matched play rules? I play Chaos Knights, so before the codex, CA 2018 contained my army's rules in Index: Renegade Knights too.
Brother Castor wrote: For people who don't by CA, what missions do you play? I'd have gotten really bored of the BRB missions by now if I didn't have CA.
ITC, maelstrom, tournament missions.
I don't know what matched play rules you're on about.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well that is my point, but people keep saying " Oh they will change things in CA " when last I remember CA was just for points, mostly. Just seems like people are dreaming or wishing but some books are most assuredly not doing well currently so could have done with some tweaking.
As is I doubt we'll see the other marine books touched on soon, nor do I imagine we'll see GK worked on who are abysmal. While some factions are doing fine aside from I'm sure wanting a touch up, to say the game is right where they want it is a bit daft. That said, I think people are getting their hopes up that CA will be more than maybe a couple rule tweaks, point updates and some new missions and the odd thing here and there.
So why do people keep saying there will be rule updates in CA when thats been for the points ? Feels like making love out of nothing at all.
The very first CA included rules updates for every Codex that didn’t have strats or ObSec, and last year had a Beta Codex and an Index in it. I know their WHC write up in 2017 said CA was for points and FAQs for balance updates, but there was a balance update in the first CA so it seems fair for people to wishlist tbh. There is precedent.
I mean sure it gives precedent, but still illustrates you can't trust a damn thing GW says. As they say one thing and do another, and now if CA drops and no units really get any rules at all and they say " Well, we said CA was for points, dummy. " People will be saying those who wanted unit rules changed or bettered shouldn't have ever expected it despite the precedent. It's really a messed up thing that their only consistent policy is being expertly dodgy and unsure of what they say or intend from moment to moment.
As is, I wouldn't consider the intercessor stuff, demons stuff and sisters beta book really rule changes of merit to most people. At least nothing much larger this last big faq did which was little at all. Despite some armies needing some looking to.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Well that is my point, but people keep saying " Oh they will change things in CA " when last I remember CA was just for points, mostly. Just seems like people are dreaming or wishing but some books are most assuredly not doing well currently so could have done with some tweaking.
As is I doubt we'll see the other marine books touched on soon, nor do I imagine we'll see GK worked on who are abysmal. While some factions are doing fine aside from I'm sure wanting a touch up, to say the game is right where they want it is a bit daft. That said, I think people are getting their hopes up that CA will be more than maybe a couple rule tweaks, point updates and some new missions and the odd thing here and there.
So why do people keep saying there will be rule updates in CA when thats been for the points ? Feels like making love out of nothing at all.
The very first CA included rules updates for every Codex that didn’t have strats or ObSec, and last year had a Beta Codex and an Index in it. I know their WHC write up in 2017 said CA was for points and FAQs for balance updates, but there was a balance update in the first CA so it seems fair for people to wishlist tbh. There is precedent.
I mean sure it gives precedent, but still illustrates you can't trust a damn thing GW says. As they say one thing and do another, and now if CA drops and no units really get any rules at all and they say " Well, we said CA was for points, dummy. " People will be saying those who wanted unit rules changed or bettered shouldn't have ever expected it despite the precedent. It's really a messed up thing that their only consistent policy is being expertly dodgy and unsure of what they say or intend from moment to moment.
As is, I wouldn't consider the intercessor stuff, demons stuff and sisters beta book really rule changes of merit to most people. At least nothing much larger this last big faq did which was little at all. Despite some armies needing some looking to.
Just assume anything that GW says is the same as their rules by design, open to interpretation and if anything’s wrong it’s the customers fault for not knowing what they actually meant even if they is no relation with what they wrote.
Just assume anything that GW says is the same as their rules by design, open to interpretation and if anything’s wrong it’s the customers fault for not knowing what they actually meant even if they is no relation with what they wrote.
It is the customers fault when they apply absurd black and white positions not contained in GW statements.
I guess my concern is the point of the FAQ was to clear up improper or poorly worded rules that were causing concern among the community, not always balance per say.
That being said, does anyone in here think there are GLARING issues that need clearing up, non-balance related? I'm not talking RAW/RAI, but honestly garbage rules that need to be re-written to make them less ridiculous.
Infinite shooting? What counts as movement in regards to embarking/reinforcements? Do you get Grinding Advance with the Ravenguard reinforcement?
There are multiple issues that could have been addressed in this faq, as they just released the codexes with poor writing. Instead, they let us know that point changes are reserved for CA, and guard get D6 shots on Democannons. Nothing corrected, nothing re-worded.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I guess my concern is the point of the FAQ was to clear up improper or poorly worded rules that were causing concern among the community, not always balance per say.
That being said, does anyone in here think there are GLARING issues that need clearing up, non-balance related? I'm not talking RAW/RAI, but honestly garbage rules that need to be re-written to make them less ridiculous.
Infinite shooting? What counts as movement in regards to embarking/reinforcements? Do you get Grinding Advance with the Ravenguard reinforcement?
There are multiple issues that could have been addressed in this faq, as they just released the codexes with poor writing. Instead, they let us know that point changes are reserved for CA, and guard get D6 shots on Democannons. Nothing corrected, nothing re-worded.
Alcibiades wrote: Wait. Do Chaos Marines get Bolter Discipline? I thought they did, but I don't see it anywhere.
Umm. Umm. Great Job GW. They removed the Spring BIG FAQ from the FAQ page, meaning not only did they remove the rules for Bolter Discipline for all Astartes not in C:SM other than those in the Space Marine Update file, they also removed the CP update for Assassins since there is no Errata Document for Index: Assassins.
I don't know what matched play rules you're on about.
Chapter Approved has the updated character targeting rules, the update to smites and other psychic powers, etc.. E.g. all the "older" stuff that went through various Beta stages, got finalized and ultimately moved to CA.
I am sure the CA 2019 will have Tactical Restraint, the final rules for Tactical Reserves, Bolter Discipline, etc.. and stuff like that, which is atm still in the pdfs (and like character targeting, psychic discipline update, etc.. will disappear from the FAQs, once it's "properly published" in CA).
Alcibiades wrote: Wait. Do Chaos Marines get Bolter Discipline? I thought they did, but I don't see it anywhere.
Umm. Umm. Great Job GW. They removed the Spring BIG FAQ from the FAQ page, meaning not only did they remove the rules for Bolter Discipline for all Astartes not in C:SM other than those in the Space Marine Update file, they also removed the CP update for Assassins since there is no Errata Document for Index: Assassins.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I guess my concern is the point of the FAQ was to clear up improper or poorly worded rules that were causing concern among the community, not always balance per say.
That being said, does anyone in here think there are GLARING issues that need clearing up, non-balance related? I'm not talking RAW/RAI, but honestly garbage rules that need to be re-written to make them less ridiculous.
Infinite shooting? What counts as movement in regards to embarking/reinforcements? Do you get Grinding Advance with the Ravenguard reinforcement?
There are multiple issues that could have been addressed in this faq, as they just released the codexes with poor writing. Instead, they let us know that point changes are reserved for CA, and guard get D6 shots on Democannons. Nothing corrected, nothing re-worded.
Then I ask again, what is the point of a FAQ?
Even with the worst rules you can make a balanced game with proper pts, it's more about creating the wrong experience and the wrong incentives. I also feel like the big FAQs are supposed to be what creates errata for badly written rules, as has been mentioned, outside of wholly new datasheets and rules that's not something CA does. I don't like the following rules and would like to see them changed in no particular order:
*Tau Empire Saviour Protocols ability for Drones.
*Alaitoc stacking with flyers.
*Necron Night Scythes and Monoliths abilities are too bad to be usable and don't make thematic sense.
*Sub-faction benefits skew armies too much, fielding a more diverse list is discouraged outside soup.
*AOE abilities that are worse against characters should instead just be worse against characters with a wounds characteristic less than 10. I get not wanting to punish the character blob too much, but three Tank Commanders standing close together should be punished as much by these abilities as three Leman Russes for example.
*Many Stratagems with broad applications are too good in combination with high-PL units, that's a design issue with these individual Stratagems and not the fault of the unit.
*Too many abilities, WL traits and Stratagems stack power on top of power leading to units being more effective than the sum of the parts being put into them. It's compounding interest but instead of getting rich you're gakking on your opponent.
*Too many Stratagems for some mono-factions armies and all multi-faction armies to allow the opponent to read before the game starts.
Some things like faction benefits is an issue I've made out to be bigger than I now think it is, I kind of like Battalions being the mainstay for most lists and no-troops lists being a rarity. Soup is also a smaller problem than I initially thought, it does make more sense for many armies to have Astra Militarum allies than to fight alone, Tyranids and GSC are doing better in ITC than tentacle soup. Summoning a horde of Plague Bearers before the battle to act as a screen is super thematic on further inspection, even or maybe especially for Thousand Sons since Tzeentch has his labyrinthine plans that involve not only mortals but also other daemons. What I am saying is that I might change my mind on the list, a nerf to shield drones (or enough buffs to other drones that they are essentially getting nerfed) might make me totally ignore the "OOLOS drones can make suits invulnerable to lascannons for the first three turns" issue.
Yeah, it is kind of hard to design a book with powerful knight stuff, saying to yourself that high point cost and lack of CP is going to balance the whole thing, when at the same time CP farms existed.
And the fix to something is never a fix. It is always a make thing, so bad it gets never take kind of a nerf.
Alcibiades wrote: Wait. Do Chaos Marines get Bolter Discipline? I thought they did, but I don't see it anywhere.
Umm. Umm. Great Job GW. They removed the Spring BIG FAQ from the FAQ page, meaning not only did they remove the rules for Bolter Discipline for all Astartes not in C:SM other than those in the Space Marine Update file, they also removed the CP update for Assassins since there is no Errata Document for Index: Assassins.
If the Assassins update isn't in the Autumn file, I'd email GW about that one.
Karol wrote: Yeah, it is kind of hard to design a book with powerful knight stuff, saying to yourself that high point cost and lack of CP is going to balance the whole thing, when at the same time CP farms existed.
And the fix to something is never a fix. It is always a make thing, so bad it gets never take kind of a nerf.
That's not true, the Castellan got several nerfs (Raven Strat, no 3++ and pts) and in the end it's still a competitive unit. The Necron Tesseract Vault got a top placement after getting 70 pts increase, I think it was a bit too large but it's still not useless, now it's probably gotten power-creeped too hard to be useful. Lootas are still good despite not being able to Mop Up. Agents of Vect is still one of the more powerful Stratagems in the game despite costing another CP.
Most of the 200+ pt Titanic nerfs are stupid, I think GW were making sure that these units would only be usable in PL games which I think I'm fine with, so it's not really stupid. I had some wonky games before they nerf-hammered these things to oblivion and I think I prefer these units to be for PL games, they need to be bad if not terrible to avoid the creation of a mega-Titan meta ever coming close to being a thing and it was kind of close at one point with big bird. I don't think anyone wants to see every tenth table include a model costing more than 800 pts, it's already an issue for a lot of folks that 400 pt models are on a tenth of tables.
Yeah. I agree. 5 pt Cultists without legion traits also won Slaughterfest. Caladius still wrecked LGT post-nerf
Most of the 8th ed. nerfs aside from Ynnari and the "big bird & friends" nerf seem to have been pretty spot on, keeping the units playable and in the right build even competitive, while no longer being the spammed no-brainer choice they were before.
BroodSpawn wrote: No company makes money from 'balance ', every game on the market has some form of imbalance that drives sales. GW are interested in balancing to a degree as not doing so does not drive sales, look at 7th compared to current as an example of the difference in balance and sales as an example
Except game balance is even funkier. 8th ed is good example however how good PR makes people buy worse product gladly.
Karol wrote: Yeah, it is kind of hard to design a book with powerful knight stuff, saying to yourself that high point cost and lack of CP is going to balance the whole thing, when at the same time CP farms existed.
And the fix to something is never a fix. It is always a make thing, so bad it gets never take kind of a nerf.
That's not true, the Castellan got several nerfs (Raven Strat, no 3++ and pts) and in the end it's still a competitive unit. The Necron Tesseract Vault got a top placement after getting 70 pts increase, I think it was a bit too large but it's still not useless, now it's probably gotten power-creeped too hard to be useful. Lootas are still good despite not being able to Mop Up. Agents of Vect is still one of the more powerful Stratagems in the game despite costing another CP.
Most of the 200+ pt Titanic nerfs are stupid, I think GW were making sure that these units would only be usable in PL games which I think I'm fine with, so it's not really stupid. I had some wonky games before they nerf-hammered these things to oblivion and I think I prefer these units to be for PL games, they need to be bad if not terrible to avoid the creation of a mega-Titan meta ever coming close to being a thing and it was kind of close at one point with big bird. I don't think anyone wants to see every tenth table include a model costing more than 800 pts, it's already an issue for a lot of folks that 400 pt models are on a tenth of tables.
if the armies post nerf look exactly the same as they do pre nerf, and the army still is on the top of the heep, then it was not much of a nerf to begin with. How many times were dark reapers nerfed 7-8 times or something like that? they were all used up to castellan showing up, and then gone with the wind, then Inari change arrived.
This is the type of fixs GW makes. They don't change Inari to be a still good, but fun to play against army. They kill it. From what I understand from people telling me, the stuff that made GK good, was cut out of the codex as part of fixing them being too powerful. Same thing was told to me about necron, they were suppose to have some detachment that was really good, and now they are paying the price for it. And if legends are true then legion space marines are paying for their 3ed codex, meaning they are in a hell hole for 5 editions. Am not sure there even are people who played chaos back then.
BroodSpawn wrote: No company makes money from 'balance ', every game on the market has some form of imbalance that drives sales. GW are interested in balancing to a degree as not doing so does not drive sales, look at 7th compared to current as an example of the difference in balance and sales as an example
Except game balance is even funkier. 8th ed is good example however how good PR makes people buy worse product gladly.
Maybe.
But GW has it easy with the PR, given all competitors only ever put out far inferior products on the gaming/balance side of things.
Making a car that drives 300 mph might sound great, but 150 mph is fine, if all your competitors only ever manage to get to 50 mph.
You'd need to actually have a non-GW company make a somewhat playable game at some point to test whether or not it's purely PR.
BroodSpawn wrote: No company makes money from 'balance ', every game on the market has some form of imbalance that drives sales. GW are interested in balancing to a degree as not doing so does not drive sales, look at 7th compared to current as an example of the difference in balance and sales as an example
Except game balance is even funkier. 8th ed is good example however how good PR makes people buy worse product gladly.
I wonder what your playing when the balance in 8th looks worse then it was in 7th.
Sunny Side Up wrote: Yeah. I agree. 5 pt Cultists without legion traits also won Slaughterfest. Caladius still wrecked LGT post-nerf
Most of the 8th ed. nerfs aside from Ynnari and the "big bird & friends" nerf seem to have been pretty spot on, keeping the units playable and in the right build even competitive, while no longer being the spammed no-brainer choice they were before.
Point of order, some of their " balances " just destroyed units. Conscripts, straight trash and I've seen no one take them, not even me since it happened and I took them all the time from 3rd/4th edition forward till now. They nerfed them into a total waste option. Commissars, I always fielded them since 3rd, in as much number as I could, now they rarely see the table as they are awful. So yeah, some choices may still get used, what choice do some armies have ? Other choices just get nuked from orbit, as it apparently, was the only way to be sure.
Sunny Side Up wrote: Yeah. I agree. 5 pt Cultists without legion traits also won Slaughterfest. Caladius still wrecked LGT post-nerf
Most of the 8th ed. nerfs aside from Ynnari and the "big bird & friends" nerf seem to have been pretty spot on, keeping the units playable and in the right build even competitive, while no longer being the spammed no-brainer choice they were before.
Point of order, some of their " balances " just destroyed units. Conscripts, straight trash and I've seen no one take them, not even me since it happened and I took them all the time from 3rd/4th edition forward till now. They nerfed them into a total waste option. Commissars, I always fielded them since 3rd, in as much number as I could, now they rarely see the table as they are awful. So yeah, some choices may still get used, what choice do some armies have ? Other choices just get nuked from orbit, as it apparently, was the only way to be sure.
Its because they are chasing the "balance units" instead of balancing rules, the problem is the core rules, when str 3 mass fire is better at killing tanks than a few str 8 and when fire power is so strong wounds that dont spill damage is better than elite units (unless it has 3++, fnp's, negatives to be hit, etc...), then when you have units that are 4-6 points, making them 1pt more basically breaks them, when you riase the cost by 25% for 1 model vs a 200pts model lowering by 15pts (8%) it can be extreme, b.c lower points is better, and mass fire/bodies is mostly better unless its extremely point efficient (see old Castellan)
But as soon as the core rules change its completely different, you are not trying to balance every unit on this TINY ASS feth thin line where once you are 2-3% over the line i points you break the unit for better or for worst. If all "Heavy" units had an extra rule to take -1 to be wounded vs "light" guns, then that Str 3 can no longer hurt T6+ now there is no reason to nerf them b.c take 120 wont have any effect on many units in the game.
I know why they do it. Maybe they should fix their crap core rules though as opposed to just nuking units from orbit. It does bother me as for all these editions conscripts did something worthwhile, now junk. Commissars less so but still pretty crap as a unit choice goes.
It was an over reaction, and then with regular infantry squads being the same cost you really didn't get rid of the problem, you just got rid of units.
The commissar nerf would have been enough to make conscripts poop, or even the point cost increase, or the order thing but all together was way too much.
Karol wrote: Yeah, it is kind of hard to design a book with powerful knight stuff, saying to yourself that high point cost and lack of CP is going to balance the whole thing, when at the same time CP farms existed.
And the fix to something is never a fix. It is always a make thing, so bad it gets never take kind of a nerf.
That's not true, the Castellan got several nerfs (Raven Strat, no 3++ and pts) and in the end it's still a competitive unit. The Necron Tesseract Vault got a top placement after getting 70 pts increase, I think it was a bit too large but it's still not useless, now it's probably gotten power-creeped too hard to be useful. Lootas are still good despite not being able to Mop Up. Agents of Vect is still one of the more powerful Stratagems in the game despite costing another CP.
Most of the 200+ pt Titanic nerfs are stupid, I think GW were making sure that these units would only be usable in PL games which I think I'm fine with, so it's not really stupid. I had some wonky games before they nerf-hammered these things to oblivion and I think I prefer these units to be for PL games, they need to be bad if not terrible to avoid the creation of a mega-Titan meta ever coming close to being a thing and it was kind of close at one point with big bird. I don't think anyone wants to see every tenth table include a model costing more than 800 pts, it's already an issue for a lot of folks that 400 pt models are on a tenth of tables.
If that was their reasoning then why do knights, baneblades, wraithknights, scorpion tanks, and whatever the tau low is called still have sane points costs? Is a fellblade that much scarier than a baneblade? A stompa that much worse than a castellan?
Sunny Side Up wrote: Yeah. I agree. 5 pt Cultists without legion traits also won Slaughterfest. Caladius still wrecked LGT post-nerf
Most of the 8th ed. nerfs aside from Ynnari and the "big bird & friends" nerf seem to have been pretty spot on, keeping the units playable and in the right build even competitive, while no longer being the spammed no-brainer choice they were before.
That doesn't make them good. They were a literal tax for CP and nothing else at this point.
Karol wrote: If the armies post nerf look exactly the same as they do pre nerf, and the army still is on the top of the heep, then it was not much of a nerf to begin with. How many times were dark reapers nerfed 7-8 times or something like that? they were all used up to castellan showing up, and then gone with the wind, then Inari change arrived.
This is the type of fixs GW makes. They don't change Inari to be a still good, but fun to play against army. They kill it. From what I understand from people telling me, the stuff that made GK good, was cut out of the codex as part of fixing them being too powerful. Same thing was told to me about necron, they were suppose to have some detachment that was really good, and now they are paying the price for it. And if legends are true then legion space marines are paying for their 3ed codex, meaning they are in a hell hole for 5 editions. Am not sure there even are people who played chaos back then.
If it's not on top of the heap, but merely in a good-ish position then it's a perfect nerf. Going out and completely invalidating all the money and work people put into their Castellans by making them gak instead of just taking them down a notch to just be good would be a total git move. Dark Reapers weren't nerfed that many times, it was 3-4 times.
The Ynnari book was poorly written, but no more poorly written that what came before it. It's ten times better to produce a gak codex nobody uses outside casual than a completely OP codex that prevents most other factions from competing and wins the majority of competitive events. Index GK were not good, GK were amazing in 5th and good in 6th and 7th as far as I remember. I don't know what was cut from the codex, but I don't see it, in fact the codex added a new relatively OP datasheet in the form of the Dreadknight Grandmaster. Space Marines were amazing at the start of 8th and did really well again when their codex came out before everyone else. CSM have also done quite well this edition and were amazing in 6th before Heldrakes were nerfed and I think they were fine even after that. More or less all factions have had their time in the limelight and many factions have been utter gak at one point or another.
I am not saying that GW gets it right every time, but saying they are always torpedoing competitive choices is just wrong, it's more like GW aren't that good at balancing and sometimes they undershoot and need a few times to get it right (like with the Castellan), other times they overshoot and nuke a unit (or faction like the Ynnari). It's not a policy of always nuking units, GW just isn't that good at their jobs. But no game designer is perfect, LOL is another popular example that often makes big mistakes. If GW learns to embrace stats and math they'll be on the right path instead of going with gut feeling and marketing. Tournaments could perfectly well increase or decrease the costs of units, stratagems, relics, WL traits or faction abilities, it wouldn't be that hard and it was done all the time in European WHFB tournaments. Whether you make things cost CP to bring, give rewards for taking bad units, do it through pts or introduce a cheese score that gets higher the more meta units you include and then give rewards each round based on how few cheese points people have. A bunch of smaller formats might let GW more accurately see what effects different buffs or nerfs would have to the game. I have no idea how good their playtesting format is, I suspect it's still pretty bad when the playtesters knows that something OP is about to be released but GW still releases it.
Sunny Side Up wrote: Yeah. I agree. 5 pt Cultists without legion traits also won Slaughterfest. Caladius still wrecked LGT post-nerf
Most of the 8th ed. nerfs aside from Ynnari and the "big bird & friends" nerf seem to have been pretty spot on, keeping the units playable and in the right build even competitive, while no longer being the spammed no-brainer choice they were before.
That doesn't make them good. They were a literal tax for CP and nothing else at this point.
If Cultists at 5 pts get used in competitive armies that win tournaments then they clearly should not be 4 pts, even if you nerf their support so we don't see big blobs become common again, you'd still an abundance of Cultists as CP fodder. You can't just ignore the fact that you are getting relatively cheap CP compared to the factions that pay 2-4x what you're paying for a troops choice, if they were really truly terrible people would have more success with armies with actual CSM or just entirely without troops. If anything, the units that buff Cultists need buffs to allow the big units to have a small comeback and let them keep VotLW.
I think the Commissar and the Conscript nerfs were too many too fast, I'd like to see the Commissar come back and see if that's enough to whip the Conscripts back into being more useful, I've played against Conscripts once since they received all their nerfs and they were pretty underwhelming. I'm glad to see Infantry Squads being more common than Conscripts though, I feel that Infantry Squads should be an option on par with Conscripts.
BroodSpawn wrote: No company makes money from 'balance ', every game on the market has some form of imbalance that drives sales. GW are interested in balancing to a degree as not doing so does not drive sales, look at 7th compared to current as an example of the difference in balance and sales as an example
Except game balance is even funkier. 8th ed is good example however how good PR makes people buy worse product gladly.
Maybe.
But GW has it easy with the PR, given all competitors only ever put out far inferior products on the gaming/balance side of things.
Making a car that drives 300 mph might sound great, but 150 mph is fine, if all your competitors only ever manage to get to 50 mph.
You'd need to actually have a non-GW company make a somewhat playable game at some point to test whether or not it's purely PR.
I'm honestly not sure if you're being serious or sarcastic here.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
I wouldn't go that far before seeing CA. No one outside of Eldar is spamming flyers (and if they are they aren't dominating nearly as much) so its entirely possible they will 'fix' the eldar problem by increasing the points.
What I am dissapointed by is not changing Alaitoc to match the Raven Guard trait.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
They will probably get point increase.
Is anyone but eldar spamming flyers?
If no, then eldar are the problem, not flyers.
Putting a max of 3 on Flyers is just an insurance policy, Alaitoc Craftworld flyers would still have to be nerfed regardless as they'd most likely still be 3-of in every Craftworld list. Same way as rule of 3 is an insurance policy against any single unit being OP, no 7x Plague Crawler means regardless of whether it costs 0 pts, you still won't see more than 3 on every table. Same reason why Tau Commanders are max 1/Detachment, they technically still deserve to be nerfed, but it can't get too bad because you can't run 7-10 of them. The ITC format really needs to change their policy on flyers and secondary objectives if they don't get a pts update in CA19.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
They will probably get point increase.
Is anyone but eldar spamming flyers?
If no, then eldar are the problem, not flyers.
True, until IH start bringing flyers and then you realize players will bring things that work.
There is reason AM bring guard, GSC bring guard and Imperium bring guard. That is single unit spammed and not role, CWE have 5 unit of flyers.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
They will probably get point increase.
Is anyone but eldar spamming flyers?
If no, then eldar are the problem, not flyers.
Eldar Flying Circus in ITC are a problem. Without house rules that boost them, they're still very strong but not nearly as effective.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
They will probably get point increase.
Is anyone but eldar spamming flyers?
If no, then eldar are the problem, not flyers.
You dont see CWE flyer spam outside of ITC, maybe ITC is the problem and not CWE Flyers, when killing gives you more points than objectives, players will always take what gets kill more and max out secondaries, then if they have room they will take units for hold more.
Also b.c of units like Knights and now IH crap, why even take normal vehicles? OH and when a Transport gives up 2 points, why take those?
Look at ETC sometime you'll see transport, and yes you still see some flyers, but its not spam, 3-5 WS's, Fire Prisms, Nightspinners, and some flyers is the normal, but even DE will take some flyers and they have 1/2 the rules the CWE ones have.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
They will probably get point increase.
Is anyone but eldar spamming flyers?
If no, then eldar are the problem, not flyers.
You dont see CWE flyer spam outside of ITC, maybe ITC is the problem and not CWE Flyers, when killing gives you more points than objectives, players will always take what gets kill more and max out secondaries, then if they have room they will take units for hold more.
Also b.c of units like Knights and now IH crap, why even take normal vehicles? OH and when a Transport gives up 2 points, why take those?
Look at ETC sometime you'll see transport, and yes you still see some flyers, but its not spam, 3-5 WS's, Fire Prisms, Nightspinners, and some flyers is the normal, but even DE will take some flyers and they have 1/2 the rules the CWE ones have.
You are wrong even on ETC almost every team had flyer list. The winner team England have player with 8 flyers. Fly spam counters alot of builds.
Flyers spam should be addressed, but sadly to many of the aeldar things got addressed it making the army really hard to play. So leds hope they touch gently and not repeat the mistakes with Ynnari, reapers and spears nerfs.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
They will probably get point increase.
Is anyone but eldar spamming flyers?
If no, then eldar are the problem, not flyers.
You dont see CWE flyer spam outside of ITC, maybe ITC is the problem and not CWE Flyers, when killing gives you more points than objectives, players will always take what gets kill more and max out secondaries, then if they have room they will take units for hold more.
Also b.c of units like Knights and now IH crap, why even take normal vehicles? OH and when a Transport gives up 2 points, why take those?
Look at ETC sometime you'll see transport, and yes you still see some flyers, but its not spam, 3-5 WS's, Fire Prisms, Nightspinners, and some flyers is the normal, but even DE will take some flyers and they have 1/2 the rules the CWE ones have.
You guys are super uninformed, there were 105 Crimson Hunters at the ETC (some number of which were Exarchs), it's not just an ITC problem.
Transports are doing fine in ITC, there was exactly 1 guy bringing Chimeras in ETC, so another one that isn't just an issue with ITC. Chimera lists have topped events using the Champions Missions. Nova has less of a focus on killing stuff than ITC, but ETC is way further away from any other format than ITC, ETC is a team event, ITC is not. There are missions in both Maelstrom and Eternal War that heavily reward killing units, not to mention First Strike being quite punishing for an army without enough punch to go through a unit T1.
ITC missions require you to hold objectives. Secondaries are the only ones that require you to kill and make up 12 out of 42 total points. Of those 12 points - Recon, Behind Enemy Lines, Ground Control, King of the Hill, and Engineers all do not require you to kill anything.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
They will probably get point increase.
Is anyone but eldar spamming flyers?
If no, then eldar are the problem, not flyers.
You dont see CWE flyer spam outside of ITC, maybe ITC is the problem and not CWE Flyers, when killing gives you more points than objectives, players will always take what gets kill more and max out secondaries, then if they have room they will take units for hold more.
Also b.c of units like Knights and now IH crap, why even take normal vehicles? OH and when a Transport gives up 2 points, why take those?
Look at ETC sometime you'll see transport, and yes you still see some flyers, but its not spam, 3-5 WS's, Fire Prisms, Nightspinners, and some flyers is the normal, but even DE will take some flyers and they have 1/2 the rules the CWE ones have.
You guys are super uninformed, there were 105 Crimson Hunters at the ETC (some number of which were Exarchs), it's not just an ITC problem.
Transports are doing fine in ITC, there was exactly 1 guy bringing Chimeras in ETC, so another one that isn't just an issue with ITC. Chimera lists have topped events using the Champions Missions. Nova has less of a focus on killing stuff than ITC, but ETC is way further away from any other format than ITC, ETC is a team event, ITC is not. There are missions in both Maelstrom and Eternal War that heavily reward killing units, not to mention First Strike being quite punishing for an army without enough punch to go through a unit T1.
Can you point me to the Chimera list? I cannot for the life of me find a role for them in the current game, curious to see how someone else made them work, usually it seems the points would just be better spent on more grunts.
Karol wrote: If the armies post nerf look exactly the same as they do pre nerf, and the army still is on the top of the heep, then it was not much of a nerf to begin with. How many times were dark reapers nerfed 7-8 times or something like that? they were all used up to castellan showing up, and then gone with the wind, then Inari change arrived.
This is the type of fixs GW makes. They don't change Inari to be a still good, but fun to play against army. They kill it. From what I understand from people telling me, the stuff that made GK good, was cut out of the codex as part of fixing them being too powerful. Same thing was told to me about necron, they were suppose to have some detachment that was really good, and now they are paying the price for it. And if legends are true then legion space marines are paying for their 3ed codex, meaning they are in a hell hole for 5 editions. Am not sure there even are people who played chaos back then.
If it's not on top of the heap, but merely in a good-ish position then it's a perfect nerf. Going out and completely invalidating all the money and work people put into their Castellans by making them gak instead of just taking them down a notch to just be good would be a total git move. Dark Reapers weren't nerfed that many times, it was 3-4 times.
The Ynnari book was poorly written, but no more poorly written that what came before it. It's ten times better to produce a gak codex nobody uses outside casual than a completely OP codex that prevents most other factions from competing and wins the majority of competitive events. Index GK were not good, GK were amazing in 5th and good in 6th and 7th as far as I remember. I don't know what was cut from the codex, but I don't see it, in fact the codex added a new relatively OP datasheet in the form of the Dreadknight Grandmaster. Space Marines were amazing at the start of 8th and did really well again when their codex came out before everyone else. CSM have also done quite well this edition and were amazing in 6th before Heldrakes were nerfed and I think they were fine even after that. More or less all factions have had their time in the limelight and many factions have been utter gak at one point or another.
I am not saying that GW gets it right every time, but saying they are always torpedoing competitive choices is just wrong, it's more like GW aren't that good at balancing and sometimes they undershoot and need a few times to get it right (like with the Castellan), other times they overshoot and nuke a unit (or faction like the Ynnari). It's not a policy of always nuking units, GW just isn't that good at their jobs. But no game designer is perfect, LOL is another popular example that often makes big mistakes. If GW learns to embrace stats and math they'll be on the right path instead of going with gut feeling and marketing. Tournaments could perfectly well increase or decrease the costs of units, stratagems, relics, WL traits or faction abilities, it wouldn't be that hard and it was done all the time in European WHFB tournaments. Whether you make things cost CP to bring, give rewards for taking bad units, do it through pts or introduce a cheese score that gets higher the more meta units you include and then give rewards each round based on how few cheese points people have. A bunch of smaller formats might let GW more accurately see what effects different buffs or nerfs would have to the game. I have no idea how good their playtesting format is, I suspect it's still pretty bad when the playtesters knows that something OP is about to be released but GW still releases it.
Sunny Side Up wrote: Yeah. I agree. 5 pt Cultists without legion traits also won Slaughterfest. Caladius still wrecked LGT post-nerf
Most of the 8th ed. nerfs aside from Ynnari and the "big bird & friends" nerf seem to have been pretty spot on, keeping the units playable and in the right build even competitive, while no longer being the spammed no-brainer choice they were before.
That doesn't make them good. They were a literal tax for CP and nothing else at this point.
If Cultists at 5 pts get used in competitive armies that win tournaments then they clearly should not be 4 pts, even if you nerf their support so we don't see big blobs become common again, you'd still an abundance of Cultists as CP fodder. You can't just ignore the fact that you are getting relatively cheap CP compared to the factions that pay 2-4x what you're paying for a troops choice, if they were really truly terrible people would have more success with armies with actual CSM or just entirely without troops. If anything, the units that buff Cultists need buffs to allow the big units to have a small comeback and let them keep VotLW.
I think the Commissar and the Conscript nerfs were too many too fast, I'd like to see the Commissar come back and see if that's enough to whip the Conscripts back into being more useful, I've played against Conscripts once since they received all their nerfs and they were pretty underwhelming. I'm glad to see Infantry Squads being more common than Conscripts though, I feel that Infantry Squads should be an option on par with Conscripts.
That's because the Cultists are being used to fuel things that are good or too good, and not being bought on their own merit. So why do you nerf the Cultists? You completely avoided the subject.
Brandon Grant (ITC winner last year) was running a list with a couple chimeras for a lot of this seasons ITC (got to play against it a BAO, man that guy is good).
Uses the chimeras to move block, deploy guard squads up for board control, protect characters from snipers, charge things that don't want to be bad touched and flame the random tough to shoot things. I'm pretty sure he's talked about it or it's been talked about (google Brandon Grant Chimera gave a pretty good list).
Eldar flyers have been a problem for a long time in 8th (I've been crying about them for at least a year now) and GW doesn't seem to want to fix them. My guess is there is a fix in CA 2019 (everyone gets raven guard rules) and GW isn't going to step in when they already have a fix out to the printers.
It's pretty obvious that GW doesn't know what makes a strong unit and is unaware of the power combos out there. When your lead rules designer is wandering around a tournament taking notes on what players are doing this far into an edition it speaks to the amount of in house testing that has been done. The initial release of the SM codex vs what they have now really underscores just how bad GW is at balancing the game theoretically. If early 8th SM were supposed to be balanced for this edition space marines 2.0 is an admission of just how badly GW screwed that pooch.
Things as basic as the re-roll mechanic (all vs all failed), when to apply modifiers and character targeting rules show a lack of planning, consistency and general lack of top down leadership in the rules design studio (IMHO). Until GW knows what kind of game they are trying to make and how they want that game to function there's no way they can make balanced units. It's hard to design a coherent tight rules set when everyone gets to put a thumb on the scale and you have art/design and marketing running the show.
Nithaniel wrote: Bit dissapointed that there was no beta rule on flyers. Was hoping for a 0-3 flyer limit. Guess this means GW are happy with flyer spam lists...???
They will probably get point increase.
Is anyone but eldar spamming flyers?
If no, then eldar are the problem, not flyers.
You dont see CWE flyer spam outside of ITC, maybe ITC is the problem and not CWE Flyers, when killing gives you more points than objectives, players will always take what gets kill more and max out secondaries, then if they have room they will take units for hold more.
Also b.c of units like Knights and now IH crap, why even take normal vehicles? OH and when a Transport gives up 2 points, why take those?
Look at ETC sometime you'll see transport, and yes you still see some flyers, but its not spam, 3-5 WS's, Fire Prisms, Nightspinners, and some flyers is the normal, but even DE will take some flyers and they have 1/2 the rules the CWE ones have.
You guys are super uninformed, there were 105 Crimson Hunters at the ETC (some number of which were Exarchs), it's not just an ITC problem.
Transports are doing fine in ITC, there was exactly 1 guy bringing Chimeras in ETC, so another one that isn't just an issue with ITC. Chimera lists have topped events using the Champions Missions. Nova has less of a focus on killing stuff than ITC, but ETC is way further away from any other format than ITC, ETC is a team event, ITC is not. There are missions in both Maelstrom and Eternal War that heavily reward killing units, not to mention First Strike being quite punishing for an army without enough punch to go through a unit T1.
Can you point me to the Chimera list? I cannot for the life of me find a role for them in the current game, curious to see how someone else made them work, usually it seems the points would just be better spent on more grunts.
That will be pointless, because that list is design for team tournament and probably have serious weakness. ETC had inc readable amount of terrain and that also have huge impact of what is performing.
For instance the Russian captain was running mainly harlequin tropes, that are not viable in most other formats.
Uses the chimeras to move block, deploy guard squads up for board control, protect characters from snipers, charge things that don't want to be bad touched and flame the random tough to shoot things. I.
This part is so crucial these days. Especially for IG.
Uses the chimeras to move block, deploy guard squads up for board control, protect characters from snipers, charge things that don't want to be bad touched and flame the random tough to shoot things. I.
This part is so crucial these days. Especially for IG.
I think the most notable change is the Scorpius got the whirlwind keyword removed. The super heavy tanks for chaos got machine spirit. Demolisher cannons got changed to D6.
BroodSpawn wrote: No company makes money from 'balance ', every game on the market has some form of imbalance that drives sales. GW are interested in balancing to a degree as not doing so does not drive sales, look at 7th compared to current as an example of the difference in balance and sales as an example
Except game balance is even funkier. 8th ed is good example however how good PR makes people buy worse product gladly.
Maybe.
But GW has it easy with the PR, given all competitors only ever put out far inferior products on the gaming/balance side of things.
Making a car that drives 300 mph might sound great, but 150 mph is fine, if all your competitors only ever manage to get to 50 mph.
You'd need to actually have a non-GW company make a somewhat playable game at some point to test whether or not it's purely PR.
I'm honestly not sure if you're being serious or sarcastic here.
I sure hope he's being sarcastic, I don't know how anyone paying attention could have missed Privateer Press kicking GW into a road-side ditch for a while there. Granted PP eventually found a cliff of their own and GW was able to back out onto the road, but for a good few years it looked like PP was going to be the new king.
A starving camel is still bigger than a horse, and even at it's lowest GW was dominating the market share on minature games. It was less that PP was "dominating" over GW and more that 6th and 7th were so bad people were desperate for anything better.
BroodSpawn wrote: No company makes money from 'balance ', every game on the market has some form of imbalance that drives sales. GW are interested in balancing to a degree as not doing so does not drive sales, look at 7th compared to current as an example of the difference in balance and sales as an example
Except game balance is even funkier. 8th ed is good example however how good PR makes people buy worse product gladly.
Maybe.
But GW has it easy with the PR, given all competitors only ever put out far inferior products on the gaming/balance side of things.
Making a car that drives 300 mph might sound great, but 150 mph is fine, if all your competitors only ever manage to get to 50 mph.
You'd need to actually have a non-GW company make a somewhat playable game at some point to test whether or not it's purely PR.
I'm honestly not sure if you're being serious or sarcastic here.
I sure hope he's being sarcastic, I don't know how anyone paying attention could have missed Privateer Press kicking GW into a road-side ditch for a while there. Granted PP eventually found a cliff of their own and GW was able to back out onto the road, but for a good few years it looked like PP was going to be the new king.
Only if you don't know much about the industry would you think that. PP's business model was rotten and their long term problems are now short term ones. The rumor I have heard from retailers is that if their version of AOS bombs they will be in risk of going under.
chimeara wrote: I think the most notable change is the Scorpius got the whirlwind keyword removed. The super heavy tanks for chaos got machine spirit. Demolisher cannons got changed to D6.
YES! Finally. Was it just me annoying them about the super heavys? Idc. Going to take my little victory and be happy.
On a salty note I just rewatched the Outer Circles original csm and slaneesh videos from 6th and realized how little has changed since. Csm crap without fw and daemons except for pm and eldar flyers a problem. The more things change......
Yes because poor Guard need to be worried about their frickin 30 point characters when everyone invests a LOT more to kill them with a Sniper.
Err, yea, kinda. If you want any kind of functional guard the characters make them go. Killing a commander 1) is super easy, 2) provides easy access to head hunter, 3) is nearly the same as killing a squad of IS.
Yes because poor Guard need to be worried about their frickin 30 point characters when everyone invests a LOT more to kill them with a Sniper.
Err, yea, kinda. If you want any kind of functional guard the characters make them go. Killing a commander 1) is super easy, 2) provides easy access to head hunter, 3) is nearly the same as killing a squad of IS.
Yes because poor Guard need to be worried about their frickin 30 point characters when everyone invests a LOT more to kill them with a Sniper.
Err, yea, kinda. If you want any kind of functional guard the characters make them go. Killing a commander 1) is super easy, 2) provides easy access to head hunter, 3) is nearly the same as killing a squad of IS.
Agreed.
Guard killing 101: rip away all Voice of Command.
With how 8th works killing characters is really the ticket to crippling your opponent's army. Auras don't work if you're dead after all.
Basically everyone is playing the same game as Nids now in terms of killing off synergies.
That's because the Cultists are being used to fuel things that are good or too good, and not being bought on their own merit. So why do you nerf the Cultists? You completely avoided the subject.
That's a good point Slayer-Fan, it's more of a symptom nerf than a core issue nerf. Chaos Stratagems are too effective -> people need CP to fuel their Stratagems -> Cultists are the cheapest fuel for the CP pyre. If VotLW was only worked for non-Cultists and only against Infantry, if Endless Cacophony and Tide of Traits were another CP then I could totally see 4 pt Cultists. GW seems uninterested in balancing Stratagems since everything is perfectly balanced.
That's because the Cultists are being used to fuel things that are good or too good, and not being bought on their own merit. So why do you nerf the Cultists? You completely avoided the subject.
That's a good point Slayer-Fan, it's more of a symptom nerf than a core issue nerf. Chaos Stratagems are too effective -> people need CP to fuel their Stratagems -> Cultists are the cheapest fuel for the CP pyre. If VotLW was only worked for non-Cultists and only against Infantry, if Endless Cacophony and Tide of Traits were another CP then I could totally see 4 pt Cultists. GW seems uninterested in balancing Stratagems since everything is perfectly balanced.
Which is also not true, there are two effective stratagems in the book, the rest either got nerfed to gak or never worked in the first place.
If anything the whole stratagem cp system is just badly implemented overall and would require imo to be kicked out entirely.
That's because the Cultists are being used to fuel things that are good or too good, and not being bought on their own merit. So why do you nerf the Cultists? You completely avoided the subject.
That's a good point Slayer-Fan, it's more of a symptom nerf than a core issue nerf. Chaos Stratagems are too effective -> people need CP to fuel their Stratagems -> Cultists are the cheapest fuel for the CP pyre. If VotLW was only worked for non-Cultists and only against Infantry, if Endless Cacophony and Tide of Traits were another CP then I could totally see 4 pt Cultists. GW seems uninterested in balancing Stratagems since everything is perfectly balanced.
Which is also not true, there are two effective stratagems in the book, the rest either got nerfed to gak or never worked in the first place.
If anything the whole stratagem cp system is just badly implemented overall and would require imo to be kicked out entirely.
I'm not sure where you think my logic failed? Everything is relative, when three Stratagems are leagues better than the rest then, of course, the rest will look like trash. IMO Stratagems shouldn't be way better than the three basic book ones. If Cultists were 4 pts again I think Tide of Traitors would need another nerf, Cacophony and Vets definitely both need nerfs. But you'd also need to nerf the TS, DG and Daemon Stratagems, so nerfing the symptom and leaving the core issues to fester is easier, hence 5 pt Cultists and max 1 Commander/Tau Empire Detachment.
That's because the Cultists are being used to fuel things that are good or too good, and not being bought on their own merit. So why do you nerf the Cultists? You completely avoided the subject.
That's a good point Slayer-Fan, it's more of a symptom nerf than a core issue nerf. Chaos Stratagems are too effective -> people need CP to fuel their Stratagems -> Cultists are the cheapest fuel for the CP pyre. If VotLW was only worked for non-Cultists and only against Infantry, if Endless Cacophony and Tide of Traits were another CP then I could totally see 4 pt Cultists. GW seems uninterested in balancing Stratagems since everything is perfectly balanced.
Which is also not true, there are two effective stratagems in the book, the rest either got nerfed to gak or never worked in the first place.
If anything the whole stratagem cp system is just badly implemented overall and would require imo to be kicked out entirely.
I'm not sure where you think my logic failed? Everything is relative, when three Stratagems are leagues better than the rest then, of course, the rest will look like trash. IMO Stratagems shouldn't be way better than the three basic book ones. If Cultists were 4 pts again I think Tide of Traitors would need another nerf, Cacophony and Vets definitely both need nerfs. But you'd also need to nerf the TS, DG and Daemon Stratagems, so nerfing the symptom and leaving the core issues to fester is easier, hence 5 pt Cultists and max 1 Commander/Tau Empire Detachment.
Your logic fails not, your idea about csm stratagems beeing overall generalisticly over effective does however.(also balancing torwards the BRB traits and stratagems is imo not the way to go)
the issue(regardless if Cultists get nerfed or buffed) is that the issue ( broken stratagems dictating all csm armies) remains due to the completly gak internal balance that the csm dex has. Aswell as the cp system in the first place. You could nerf cultists to 6 pts, all you would do is either getting R&h back into the meta or red corsair marines. GW for some reason balanced stratagems around the internal cp Generation ability completely ignoring soupability and or hoping to promote soup, because two armies means twice the rules to sell!
You can see that if you have a mass army dex, like IG, which generally lack good stratagems with an elite army dex like csm. (altough Codex cultists, dp, Oblits and combiplastermites as it is also known, is in the first place an issue of GW 's own creation.)
Overall though it is a systemic flaw, because their baseline meassurement for strength of stratagem is tied to an unrealistic mono dex cp Generation ability rate.
Which brought us overeffective and cp supercharged knights, smaschcaptains and other "nice " tournament standard units. Whith their respective cp battery of choice.
Btw that is why i like the doctrine boosts for SM beeing tied to mono, because it lowers their own issues, however what i am not agreeing on is certain new traits which are frankly absurd.
Not Online!!! wrote: Your logic fails not, your idea about csm stratagems beeing overall generalisticly over effective does however.(also balancing torwards the BRB traits and stratagems is imo not the way to go)
the issue(regardless if Cultists get nerfed or buffed) is that the issue ( broken stratagems dictating all csm armies) remains due to the completly gak internal balance that the csm dex has. Aswell as the cp system in the first place. You could nerf cultists to 6 pts, all you would do is either getting R&h back into the meta or red corsair marines. GW for some reason balanced stratagems around the internal cp Generation ability completely ignoring soupability and or hoping to promote soup, because two armies means twice the rules to sell!
You can see that if you have a mass army dex, like IG, which generally lack good stratagems with an elite army dex like csm. (altough Codex cultists, dp, Oblits and combiplastermites as it is also known, is in the first place an issue of GW 's own creation.)
Overall though it is a systemic flaw, because their baseline meassurement for strength of stratagem is tied to an unrealistic mono dex cp Generation ability rate.
Which brought us overeffective and cp supercharged knights, smaschcaptains and other "nice " tournament standard units. Whith their respective cp battery of choice.
Btw that is why i like the doctrine boosts for SM beeing tied to mono, because it lowers their own issues, however what i am not agreeing on is certain new traits which are frankly absurd.
I did not mean to imply that all CSM Stratagems are good, you only need a few bad apples to spoil the system though. X-faction might be entirely externally balanced, save one choice and that one choice might let the faction dominate in tournaments, so you'd say x-faction is OP. I am not sure if you can really say GW balanced CP costs around anything or balanced relics and WL traits around anything, I think that's part of the why there are so many problems. GW only seems willing to go in and change rules when the faction is entirely broken, instead of just trying to create an overall better game by re-balancing all the Stratagems in the game. I think part of why BA and Knights ran Astra Militarum was for more than just CP generation, Astra Militarum are just really cheap bodies that are quite good at holding objectives for not many pts. Try to hold an objective with 180 pts of Knights? You get a single model, so any two models get close to the objective and it's lost, with AM you get to hold 3 objectives unless your opponent diverts resources from killing your Knights to killing the objective holders.
I think the Doctrine boosts were a terrible idea, instead of having the option of implementing a few buffs over the course of a game in thematic ways with Stratagems, you instead get forced into a straight jacket of staying inside a single doctrine for the entire game (or 4/5 turns of the game if you're playing Tactical/Assault Doctrine Chapters). IH could have had a Stratagem that let them move and fire without penalty and re-roll hit rolls of 1 with heavy weapons, instead, it's something everyone gets all the time while in the Devastator Doctrine. Now if you take a unit that does not benefit it'll be a disadvantage, taking Iron Hands Terminators is a joke, taking Iron Hands Assault Marines is a joke, taking flamers with Iron Hands is a joke. You are forcing people who have made these choices for their collection to permanently shelve these units, rip them apart or sell them off to someone who plays a chapter that can make better use of your models. This is the biggest crime a miniature games designer can make, card gamers might be willing to accept this kind of design but I don't think miniature gamers should. Giving a flat CP reward based on the purity level of the list and letting people invest the CP how they prefer would be much better. Maybe the Iron Hands Predator has more Stratagems going for it and they might be of a higher calibre than those available for Terminators, but it still requires CP to activate those Stratagems and if I just want to re-roll one failed wound roll with a thunder hammer and spend all my CP on that then that would be an option.
ClockworkZion wrote: A starving camel is still bigger than a horse, and even at it's lowest GW was dominating the market share on minature games. It was less that PP was "dominating" over GW and more that 6th and 7th were so bad people were desperate for anything better.
I only know what I actually saw, which was multiple venues in different cities go from almost exclusively GW to almost exclusively PP. In my defense I didn't say PP was dominating GW overall, I said they looked like they were going to replace GW as the big player. That's not the same thing at all.
ClockworkZion wrote: A starving camel is still bigger than a horse, and even at it's lowest GW was dominating the market share on minature games. It was less that PP was "dominating" over GW and more that 6th and 7th were so bad people were desperate for anything better.
I only know what I actually saw, which was multiple venues in different cities go from almost exclusively GW to almost exclusively PP. In my defense I didn't say PP was dominating GW overall, I said they looked like they were going to replace GW as the big player. That's not the same thing at all.
To be fair I saw the same thing. I even went to a regional convention and the PP events had similar turn out to the 40k events. There are local groups that play less popular games or games that aren't even supported anymore. I have seen large RPG groups that exclusively play 2nd Ed DND for instance. All this doesn't change the fact that GW outsells PP by quite a lot.
ClockworkZion wrote: GW is selling better than ever thanks to how much the game has improved over 7th edition as well as AoS becoming a decent ruleset in its own right.
ClockworkZion wrote: GW is selling better than ever thanks to how much the game has improved over 7th edition as well as AoS becoming a decent ruleset in its own right.
Good Marketing doesn't make a game better.
It's seen marked improvements all around from the last edition and despite the grumblins on this site the general community seems more positive about the game than it did last edition. So yeah, it's better. Not perfect, just better.
The health of the game is demonstably better than 7E, and the broad game balance is much better. That doesn't mean 8E is perfect, it's not, it's a grossly overabstracted ruleset trying to cover too many things, and still has its own host of balance issues. However, it is unquestionably better than the previous two editions in terms of balance and playability, though I'm not sure that's a particularly high bar given how poor 6E/7E functioned
We should also remember that complexity does not equal depth, and a lot of the former is mistaken for the latter when reminiscing about previous editions.
Vaktathi wrote: The health of the game is demonstably better than 7E, and the broad game balance is much better. That doesn't mean 8E is perfect, it's not, it's a grossly overabstracted ruleset trying to cover too many things, and still has its own host of balance issues. However, it is unquestionably better than the previous two editions in terms of balance and playability, though I'm not sure that's a particularly high bar given how poor 6E/7E functioned
We should also remember that complexity does not equal depth, and a lot of the former is mistaken for the latter when reminiscing about previous editions.
8e is being written by the same people as 6e/7e and has a lot of the same problems. USR bloat has been replaced by stratagem/relic bloat, their answer to all problems is still "buff the next Codex", old models still don't deserve working rules, they still don't fix anything if it'd require to admit they made an error in earlier releases, and their insistence on perfect models/rules correspondence still leaves us with about twice as many datasheets and 4-5x as many weapons as the game actually needs.
It may not have gotten as far as 6e/7e yet, but it's made a lot of progress towards that kludgy bloated mess in a fairly short time.
That's because the Cultists are being used to fuel things that are good or too good, and not being bought on their own merit. So why do you nerf the Cultists? You completely avoided the subject.
That's a good point Slayer-Fan, it's more of a symptom nerf than a core issue nerf. Chaos Stratagems are too effective -> people need CP to fuel their Stratagems -> Cultists are the cheapest fuel for the CP pyre. If VotLW was only worked for non-Cultists and only against Infantry, if Endless Cacophony and Tide of Traits were another CP then I could totally see 4 pt Cultists. GW seems uninterested in balancing Stratagems since everything is perfectly balanced.
The issue is the straight cost of the Strats, not who they affected.
Vaktathi wrote: The health of the game is demonstably better than 7E, and the broad game balance is much better. That doesn't mean 8E is perfect, it's not, it's a grossly overabstracted ruleset trying to cover too many things, and still has its own host of balance issues. However, it is unquestionably better than the previous two editions in terms of balance and playability, though I'm not sure that's a particularly high bar given how poor 6E/7E functioned
We should also remember that complexity does not equal depth, and a lot of the former is mistaken for the latter when reminiscing about previous editions.
8e is being written by the same people as 6e/7e and has a lot of the same problems. USR bloat has been replaced by stratagem/relic bloat, their answer to all problems is still "buff the next Codex", old models still don't deserve working rules, they still don't fix anything if it'd require to admit they made an error in earlier releases, and their insistence on perfect models/rules correspondence still leaves us with about twice as many datasheets and 4-5x as many weapons as the game actually needs.
It may not have gotten as far as 6e/7e yet, but it's made a lot of progress towards that kludgy bloated mess in a fairly short time.
I said it once and I'll say it again: the Marine supplements were a bad idea and the bloat is proving it
I disagree. I feel the marine supplements where a good idea that fell short by not re-point costing the C:SM units to compensate for the buffs from the doctrines.
That said, even without points adjustments to umita or wargear, if we could roll BA, SW, DA, and Deathwatch into supplements that'd be even better since they could update the core book while leaving the supplements unchanged for the most part (since they don't need to be updated to add new units and can contain all the unique units rather easilly).
Not counting the special characters do any of the armies, outside of DW of course, have that many non codex units? And gear options like the plasma cannon on termintors, could be covered an errata or CA.
Karol wrote: Not counting the special characters do any of the armies, outside of DW of course, have that many non codex units? And gear options like the plasma cannon on termintors, could be covered an errata or CA.
Space Wolves have the most, second most would be Blood Angels while Dark Angels have the least varience in unit types. BA and DA would be the easiest to mix and match, while Space Wolves would be the hardest, though that will likely change a bit as the game eventually starts dropping the old line.
Deathwatch is all unique units but they're just made of mixed model units so most of what makes them special is how they deploy models rather than the models themselves.
Vaktathi wrote: The health of the game is demonstably better than 7E, and the broad game balance is much better. That doesn't mean 8E is perfect, it's not, it's a grossly overabstracted ruleset trying to cover too many things, and still has its own host of balance issues. However, it is unquestionably better than the previous two editions in terms of balance and playability, though I'm not sure that's a particularly high bar given how poor 6E/7E functioned
We should also remember that complexity does not equal depth, and a lot of the former is mistaken for the latter when reminiscing about previous editions.
8e is being written by the same people as 6e/7e and has a lot of the same problems. USR bloat has been replaced by stratagem/relic bloat, their answer to all problems is still "buff the next Codex", old models still don't deserve working rules, they still don't fix anything if it'd require to admit they made an error in earlier releases, and their insistence on perfect models/rules correspondence still leaves us with about twice as many datasheets and 4-5x as many weapons as the game actually needs.
It may not have gotten as far as 6e/7e yet, but it's made a lot of progress towards that kludgy bloated mess in a fairly short time.
That's all fair, I won't really disagree, and 8E is definitely not perfect, it really needs to be broken into different scales (which it appears to be trying to do now).
Karol wrote: Not counting the special characters do any of the armies, outside of DW of course, have that many non codex units? And gear options like the plasma cannon on termintors, could be covered an errata or CA.
Most of them are pretend unique and could be done with option/rules you select. A few actually are different to any base unit - but very few.
Lots of people who were driven away by 6th/7th ed now play 8th ed - I think that speaks for itself - although 8th ed is not great - its light years ahead of the cluster feth of 7th
Karol wrote: Not counting the special characters do any of the armies, outside of DW of course, have that many non codex units? And gear options like the plasma cannon on termintors, could be covered an errata or CA.
Most of them are pretend unique and could be done with option/rules you select. A few actually are different to any base unit - but very few.
Lots of people who were driven away by 6th/7th ed now play 8th ed - I think that speaks for itself - although 8th ed is not great - its light years ahead of the cluster feth of 7th
When you leave a dog chained up in the yard and throw rocks at him, he will be glad when you start throwing whiffle-balls. "8th is better than 7th" is meaningless because literally anything would have been better than 7th. GW could have literally just re-released 3rd edition and people would have been happy.
ClockworkZion wrote: I disagree. I feel the marine supplements where a good idea that fell short by not re-point costing the C:SM units to compensate for the buffs from the doctrines.
That said, even without points adjustments to umita or wargear, if we could roll BA, SW, DA, and Deathwatch into supplements that'd be even better since they could update the core book while leaving the supplements unchanged for the most part (since they don't need to be updated to add new units and can contain all the unique units rather easilly).
It's unnecessary though. At maximum you needed:
. 3-4 unique units for each Chapter
. 3 Relics for each Chapter
. 3 Unique Strats for each Chapter
. However many Special Characters, some of which have no point. Nobody would miss Asmodai and Corbulo, sorry.
ClockworkZion wrote: I disagree. I feel the marine supplements where a good idea that fell short by not re-point costing the C:SM units to compensate for the buffs from the doctrines.
That said, even without points adjustments to umita or wargear, if we could roll BA, SW, DA, and Deathwatch into supplements that'd be even better since they could update the core book while leaving the supplements unchanged for the most part (since they don't need to be updated to add new units and can contain all the unique units rather easilly).
It's unnecessary though. At maximum you needed:
. 3-4 unique units for each Chapter
. 3 Relics for each Chapter
. 3 Unique Strats for each Chapter
. However many Special Characters, some of which have no point. Nobody would miss Asmodai and Corbulo, sorry.
Having an in depth lore section along with model images can be pretty important to a lot of players too. It's not for everyone but at least some of us eat that stuff up and use it to inspure the armies we build.
Karol wrote: Not counting the special characters do any of the armies, outside of DW of course, have that many non codex units? And gear options like the plasma cannon on termintors, could be covered an errata or CA.
Most of them are pretend unique and could be done with option/rules you select. A few actually are different to any base unit - but very few.
Lots of people who were driven away by 6th/7th ed now play 8th ed - I think that speaks for itself - although 8th ed is not great - its light years ahead of the cluster feth of 7th
When you leave a dog chained up in the yard and throw rocks at him, he will be glad when you start throwing whiffle-balls. "8th is better than 7th" is meaningless because literally anything would have been better than 7th. GW could have literally just re-released 3rd edition and people would have been happy.
If 8th was better but not good enough the people that left during 6/7th (like myself) would not have come back and stayed away instead.
I wouldn't pay more than 10€ for a Codex if it were for rules alone. The important part is the fluff, rules come and go, fluff you can reread every now and then. It's also the reason I didn't buy CSM 8th Edition codex, as I assume it's a copy&Paste Job like the Daemons Codex, so not really worth it if you have the 6th Edition Version already.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: I wouldn't pay more than 10€ for a Codex if it were for rules alone. The important part is the fluff, rules come and go, fluff you can reread every now and then. It's also the reason I didn't buy CSM 8th Edition codex, as I assume it's a copy&Paste Job like the Daemons Codex, so not really worth it if you have the 6th Edition Version already.
8th ed has different rules so it's not a copy paste job of 6th. Plus 8th has been adding more new lore as well.
Karol wrote: but GW has a site and BL, they can put lore there.
There is lore and then there is lore that is basically a documentary for people exploring the models for an army. A novel is nowhere near the same thing as a codex.
Karol wrote: but GW has a site and BL, they can put lore there.
There is lore and then there is lore that is basically a documentary for people exploring the models for an army. A novel is nowhere near the same thing as a codex.
Agreed. Despite the more tournament heavy focus of Dakka most players like having the lore in the codexes, and it also serves as a way to introduce new players (or players who are just starting a new army with a faction they never looked at before) to a given faction. The lore tends to give people a bit of grpunding on what the units are, what they do for the faction and generally get a feel for why the faction operates the way it does.
ClockworkZion wrote: I disagree. I feel the marine supplements where a good idea that fell short by not re-point costing the C:SM units to compensate for the buffs from the doctrines.
That said, even without points adjustments to umita or wargear, if we could roll BA, SW, DA, and Deathwatch into supplements that'd be even better since they could update the core book while leaving the supplements unchanged for the most part (since they don't need to be updated to add new units and can contain all the unique units rather easilly).
It's unnecessary though. At maximum you needed:
. 3-4 unique units for each Chapter
. 3 Relics for each Chapter
. 3 Unique Strats for each Chapter
. However many Special Characters, some of which have no point. Nobody would miss Asmodai and Corbulo, sorry.
What is it with you and absolute statements? Just because you wouldn't miss Asmodai, or Corbulo, or Crowe, or whoever, does not mean that nobody would.
Karol wrote: Not counting the special characters do any of the armies, outside of DW of course, have that many non codex units? And gear options like the plasma cannon on termintors, could be covered an errata or CA.
Most of them are pretend unique and could be done with option/rules you select. A few actually are different to any base unit - but very few.
Lots of people who were driven away by 6th/7th ed now play 8th ed - I think that speaks for itself - although 8th ed is not great - its light years ahead of the cluster feth of 7th
When you leave a dog chained up in the yard and throw rocks at him, he will be glad when you start throwing whiffle-balls. "8th is better than 7th" is meaningless because literally anything would have been better than 7th. GW could have literally just re-released 3rd edition and people would have been happy.
If 8th was better but not good enough the people that left during 6/7th (like myself) would not have come back and stayed away instead.
Your just plain and simply wrong.
GW is well on their way to making 8th like 7th though.
It started off as simple, but now you have all of these stratagems that give broken effects to the army that uses them, and there's so many unit-specific rules that its hard to keep up.
Removing USR was a mistake, and there should only be like 6 strats a book. Not 20+.
Karol wrote: but GW has a site and BL, they can put lore there.
There is lore and then there is lore that is basically a documentary for people exploring the models for an army. A novel is nowhere near the same thing as a codex.
Agreed. Despite the more tournament heavy focus of Dakka most players like having the lore in the codexes, and it also serves as a way to introduce new players (or players who are just starting a new army with a faction they never looked at before) to a given faction. The lore tends to give people a bit of grpunding on what the units are, what they do for the faction and generally get a feel for why the faction operates the way it does.
Actually, I'd prefer having the exact same lore that's now in my codices put on a webpage. What's the point of bringing your lore to a game?
Eldarain wrote: We'll probably be getting 9th after Psychic Awakening. To "streamline and improve the experience for the players" rinse repeat.
If they bring back old moral moves, change character targeting to something that's less stupid, remove 80% of the strats, change formerly blast weapons and flamers to actually be effective, and modify some of them to be unit abilities and bring back USR I'll be happy. Blast Templates and old vehicle rules would be nice as well, but I do understand how those can affect gameplay flow.
Karol wrote: but GW has a site and BL, they can put lore there.
There is lore and then there is lore that is basically a documentary for people exploring the models for an army. A novel is nowhere near the same thing as a codex.
Agreed. Despite the more tournament heavy focus of Dakka most players like having the lore in the codexes, and it also serves as a way to introduce new players (or players who are just starting a new army with a faction they never looked at before) to a given faction. The lore tends to give people a bit of grpunding on what the units are, what they do for the faction and generally get a feel for why the faction operates the way it does.
Actually, I'd prefer having the exact same lore that's now in my codices put on a webpage. What's the point of bringing your lore to a game?
What's the point of hiding lore on a website where you can't see.it when you're shopping in a store or browsing a friend's codex?
Eldarain wrote: We'll probably be getting 9th after Psychic Awakening. To "streamline and improve the experience for the players" rinse repeat.
If they bring back old moral moves, change character targeting to something that's less stupid, remove 80% of the strats, change formerly blast weapons and flamers to actually be effective, and modify some of them to be unit abilities and bring back USR I'll be happy.
Blast Templates and old vehicle rules would be nice as well, but I do understand how those can affect gameplay flow.
So basically ruin every improvement the game has then.
Blasts and flamers should stay dead just like guess ranges. If anything I'd prefer they switch to a D3/2D3/3D3 sort of system and drop the D6.
Moral needs improvement but the old system wasn't exactly better with the spamming of rules that gave out fearless, stubborn and the pld ATSKNF.
USRs meant you had to keep two books open all the time: your codex and the core rules. They should stay dead and instead the 40k team should work on standardizing language betree.
Basically they should work on improving what we've got, not rolling back to old janky mechanics.
Blast i: Roll one dice to hit for every model in the target unit, up to a maximum of i dice.
Conflagration j: Roll one dice to hit for every model in the target unit within range of this weapon, up to a maximum of j hits.
As always, a weapons abilities can allow it to automatically hit, so a flamer would be Assault 6, Automatically hit, but only be able to hit 6 models if there is a hoard with 6 models within range of the flamer, while only allowing single hits against characters. Same for blasts. Anti-Tank blast weapons could have an ability that allows you to generate 2 hits instead of 1 against VEHICLES and MONSTERS, or cause double damage against VEHICLES and MONSTERS.
You are trying to fix an issue that isn't there.
Blasts being converted to random hits is perfectly functional for the game.
For a time we had a problem with not enough anti horde weapon, but that has been solved by generally decreasing the cost of elite infantry and now hordes are no longer considered a big issue.
USRs meant you had to keep two books open all the time: your codex and the core rules. They should stay dead and instead the 40k team should work on standardizing language betree.
Funny, because in earlier editions I didn't need to have both the BRB and the codex to know what a USR was. It was only a problem in 6th and 7th when they introduced a bunch of USR that were just bloat.
In 4th ed you had a few USR, and it was fine.
You can have USR and still write out what they do on the datasheet or in the codex. They dont have to only appear in the main rule book. That is something completely different.
Magic and other games have USR and in magic they write out what the abilities does in many cases unless the card has a ton of rules then the most common ones just stays as one word USR. The most important part is that the rule is the same every time it is used and make for easier understanding of the unit/card.
If you dont get too many variations of mostly the same ability and keep the amount of USR low it wont take long before you know all of them and never have to look up that rule again. Helps a lot during games if your opponents abilities share the same name as yours so if you know your rules then you probably know most of your opponents as well.
The few times I played against Eldar or Dark Eldar back in 4th/5th I had quite a good idea of what everything did after a quick summary but last time against Eldar and Dark Eldar in this edition I had no idea since actually understanding everything he can do takes too much time in a tournament so he could have just BSed rules the whole game and I wouldnt notice since except for the basic statline and smite we have like 0 shared name of abilities despite them doing the same thing.
Basically they should work on improving what we've got, not rolling back to old janky mechanics.
The same could be said about what they threw out. Though blast templates had inherent problems. Whilst templates worked fine in WHFB, they were trickier to handle in 40k as you were allowed to spread out everything wide. That said, the current system needs a lot of work to accurately portray blast weapons. I think it should be like, you roll to hit, and then you roll 2D6 hits or something.
Karol wrote: but GW has a site and BL, they can put lore there.
There is lore and then there is lore that is basically a documentary for people exploring the models for an army. A novel is nowhere near the same thing as a codex.
Agreed. Despite the more tournament heavy focus of Dakka most players like having the lore in the codexes, and it also serves as a way to introduce new players (or players who are just starting a new army with a faction they never looked at before) to a given faction. The lore tends to give people a bit of grpunding on what the units are, what they do for the faction and generally get a feel for why the faction operates the way it does.
How much lore do you NEED in the codex though compared to functional rules? Nobody is buying a codex blind. Everyone is doing at least some minimal research before going into an army.
ClockworkZion wrote: I disagree. I feel the marine supplements where a good idea that fell short by not re-point costing the C:SM units to compensate for the buffs from the doctrines.
That said, even without points adjustments to umita or wargear, if we could roll BA, SW, DA, and Deathwatch into supplements that'd be even better since they could update the core book while leaving the supplements unchanged for the most part (since they don't need to be updated to add new units and can contain all the unique units rather easilly).
It's unnecessary though. At maximum you needed:
. 3-4 unique units for each Chapter
. 3 Relics for each Chapter
. 3 Unique Strats for each Chapter
. However many Special Characters, some of which have no point. Nobody would miss Asmodai and Corbulo, sorry.
What is it with you and absolute statements? Just because you wouldn't miss Asmodai, or Corbulo, or Crowe, or whoever, does not mean that nobody would.
They're not good characters, don't fulfill a purpose, and are overall just models that don't need special rules. Hell, you're better off 100% of the time just using Crowe as a regular Brotherhood Champion. What's wrong with using the model like that?
Karol wrote: but GW has a site and BL, they can put lore there.
There is lore and then there is lore that is basically a documentary for people exploring the models for an army. A novel is nowhere near the same thing as a codex.
Agreed. Despite the more tournament heavy focus of Dakka most players like having the lore in the codexes, and it also serves as a way to introduce new players (or players who are just starting a new army with a faction they never looked at before) to a given faction. The lore tends to give people a bit of grpunding on what the units are, what they do for the faction and generally get a feel for why the faction operates the way it does.
How much lore do you NEED in the codex though compared to functional rules? Nobody is buying a codex blind. Everyone is doing at least some minimal research before going into an army.
You don't *need* lore in the same way that you don't *need* rules. It's part of the transaction. It adds value (to some people). "Need" means nothing on it's own - it's only defined by what you need it for. So if you're going to start bandying about "need", you're going to "need" to ground it in a goal.
You don't "need" lore to play a technical game. You don't "need" rules to read about a faction. Sure, you can look up lore online, it's technically possible. Same could be said for rules.
At the end of the day, they're selling the experience. That involves more than mechanics. Because they lose to chess, blackjack, or DOTA (depending on the person) if they deal solely in mechanics.
ClockworkZion wrote: I disagree. I feel the marine supplements where a good idea that fell short by not re-point costing the C:SM units to compensate for the buffs from the doctrines.
That said, even without points adjustments to umita or wargear, if we could roll BA, SW, DA, and Deathwatch into supplements that'd be even better since they could update the core book while leaving the supplements unchanged for the most part (since they don't need to be updated to add new units and can contain all the unique units rather easilly).
It's unnecessary though. At maximum you needed:
. 3-4 unique units for each Chapter
. 3 Relics for each Chapter
. 3 Unique Strats for each Chapter
. However many Special Characters, some of which have no point. Nobody would miss Asmodai and Corbulo, sorry.
What is it with you and absolute statements? Just because you wouldn't miss Asmodai, or Corbulo, or Crowe, or whoever, does not mean that nobody would.
They're not good characters,
To you. There are people who love them. How many is certainly a question. "Good characters" in this context means nothing more than your opinion of their quality. But most people buy from GW, not you - suggesting they prefer GW's opinion on the matter more than yours.
don't fulfill a purpose,
If you want to field an army that includes Asmodai, you can use Asmodai to do so. That's a purpose. And I'm sure there are others. Maybe not one you care about, but certainly a purpose.
and are overall just models that don't need special rules.
Again with "need". It's such a meaningless word bandied about so absolutistly.
Hell, you're better off 100% of the time just using Crowe as a regular Brotherhood Champion.
Only if you consider "I want to use Crowe" to be 0% of the time. Which is provably false - there exists at least one time someone used Crowe when they didn't want a Brotherhood Champion.
What's wrong with using the model like that?
If you want to, sure, go ahead. But using him that way is a long way away from demanding that anyone who uses the model uses him that way.
Similarly, I like RPGs. What you're arguing would be similar to be demanding everyone spend at least one night a week playing D&D. I mean, what's wrong with playing D&D? The fact is, it's fine that I like it, but not fine that I demand others to behave the way I want to.
Spoletta wrote: You are trying to fix an issue that isn't there.
Blasts being converted to random hits is perfectly functional for the game.
For a time we had a problem with not enough anti horde weapon, but that has been solved by generally decreasing the cost of elite infantry and now hordes are no longer considered a big issue.
I just don't like how swingy d6 is for blasts, but that's just me.
And honestly I would have preferred they upped to cost of the hordes instead of dropping the elites points costs. They make stuff too cheap and I feel we'll be treading the same path WHFB did.
Funny, because in earlier editions I didn't need to have both the BRB and the codex to know what a USR was. It was only a problem in 6th and 7th when they introduced a bunch of USR that were just bloat.
In 4th ed you had a few USR, and it was fine.
Never played 4th, but I saw it often enough in 5th to know it was an issue. Some people don't keep rules like that in their head very easilly and need to have their books open to double check stuff.
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Klickor wrote: You can have USR and still write out what they do on the datasheet or in the codex. They dont have to only appear in the main rule book. That is something completely different.
Magic and other games have USR and in magic they write out what the abilities does in many cases unless the card has a ton of rules then the most common ones just stays as one word USR. The most important part is that the rule is the same every time it is used and make for easier understanding of the unit/card.
If you dont get too many variations of mostly the same ability and keep the amount of USR low it wont take long before you know all of them and never have to look up that rule again. Helps a lot during games if your opponents abilities share the same name as yours so if you know your rules then you probably know most of your opponents as well.
The few times I played against Eldar or Dark Eldar back in 4th/5th I had quite a good idea of what everything did after a quick summary but last time against Eldar and Dark Eldar in this edition I had no idea since actually understanding everything he can do takes too much time in a tournament so he could have just BSed rules the whole game and I wouldnt notice since except for the basic statline and smite we have like 0 shared name of abilities despite them doing the same thing.
If you have to reprint USRs in the codexes then their no different that the bespoke rules of now.
Basically they should work on improving what we've got, not rolling back to old janky mechanics.
The same could be said about what they threw out.
Though blast templates had inherent problems.
Whilst templates worked fine in WHFB, they were trickier to handle in 40k as you were allowed to spread out everything wide. That said, the current system needs a lot of work to accurately portray blast weapons. I think it should be like, you roll to hit, and then you roll 2D6 hits or something.
Even without the ability to spread out ut slowed down hames and had a problem with people cheating the scatter or arguing over how many models are actually touched by it.
I agree that they should be a fixed shot (like Heavy 1) with an effect that reads (if this weapon hits it does dX number of hits instead of one).
Karol wrote: but GW has a site and BL, they can put lore there.
There is lore and then there is lore that is basically a documentary for people exploring the models for an army. A novel is nowhere near the same thing as a codex.
Agreed. Despite the more tournament heavy focus of Dakka most players like having the lore in the codexes, and it also serves as a way to introduce new players (or players who are just starting a new army with a faction they never looked at before) to a given faction. The lore tends to give people a bit of grpunding on what the units are, what they do for the faction and generally get a feel for why the faction operates the way it does.
How much lore do you NEED in the codex though compared to functional rules? Nobody is buying a codex blind. Everyone is doing at least some minimal research before going into an army.
A lot more than you think people do. Just because you don't care about lore doesn't make it worthless to the rest of us.
Also, that initial research will get people's interest, but the codex will sell them the rest. Or are you going to claim people will spend hours researching every unit on Le xicanum before they buy the codex?
Basically they should work on improving what we've got, not rolling back to old janky mechanics.
The same could be said about what they threw out.
Though blast templates had inherent problems.
Whilst templates worked fine in WHFB, they were trickier to handle in 40k as you were allowed to spread out everything wide. That said, the current system needs a lot of work to accurately portray blast weapons. I think it should be like, you roll to hit, and then you roll 2D6 hits or something.
A lot more than you think people do. Just because you don't care about lore doesn't make it worthless to the rest of us.
Also, that initial research will get people's interest, but the codex will sell them the rest. Or are you going to claim people will spend hours researching every unit on Le xicanum before they buy the codex?
If they are smart or have friends or family playing, they are usally pointed to where ever the latest tournament builds are, the compare their budget with that they can buy, which almost always is less then what the tournament lists cost, and go with that.
If people were picking up armies based on lore or looks, you would have a lot more players picking up the bad armies. Yet it does not happen. I haven't played for decades, but I have yet to see a new player coming to the store and asking what is good for a bad army.
Never played 4th, but I saw it often enough in 5th to know it was an issue. Some people don't keep rules like that in their head very easilly and need to have their books open to double check stuff.
Also people don't trust other people, so if they aren't 100% sure, they will always ask to show them the rules.
A lot more than you think people do. Just because you don't care about lore doesn't make it worthless to the rest of us.
Also, that initial research will get people's interest, but the codex will sell them the rest. Or are you going to claim people will spend hours researching every unit on Le xicanum before they buy the codex?
If they are smart or have friends or family playing, they are usally pointed to where ever the latest tournament builds are, the compare their budget with that they can buy, which almost always is less then what the tournament lists cost, and go with that.
If people were picking up armies based on lore or looks, you would have a lot more players picking up the bad armies. Yet it does not happen. I haven't played for decades, but I have yet to see a new player coming to the store and asking what is good for a bad army.
Never played 4th, but I saw it often enough in 5th to know it was an issue. Some people don't keep rules like that in their head very easilly and need to have their books open to double check stuff.
Also people don't trust other people, so if they aren't 100% sure, they will always ask to show them the rules.
Assuming everyone, or even most people, care about tournament builds is a serious fallacy.
And your experiances aren't even close to universal since you live in Seal Clubbing Land.
A lot more than you think people do. Just because you don't care about lore doesn't make it worthless to the rest of us.
Also, that initial research will get people's interest, but the codex will sell them the rest. Or are you going to claim people will spend hours researching every unit on Le xicanum before they buy the codex?
If they are smart or have friends or family playing, they are usally pointed to where ever the latest tournament builds are, the compare their budget with that they can buy, which almost always is less then what the tournament lists cost, and go with that.
If people were picking up armies based on lore or looks, you would have a lot more players picking up the bad armies. Yet it does not happen. I haven't played for decades, but I have yet to see a new player coming to the store and asking what is good for a bad army.
Never played 4th, but I saw it often enough in 5th to know it was an issue. Some people don't keep rules like that in their head very easilly and need to have their books open to double check stuff.
Also people don't trust other people, so if they aren't 100% sure, they will always ask to show them the rules.
Assuming everyone, or even most people, care about tournament builds is a serious fallacy.
And your experiances aren't even close to universal since you live in Seal Clubbing Land.
dingdingdingding we have a winner. Karol's meta sucks and I truly feel bad for them, they are also a student with little disposable cash who made a decision they regret, so there's that as well. But I dont get why they chose GK to begin with and didnt check out their local scene first.
I would prefer if GW would just increase the quality of the rules to match the lore and models.
I agree Grey Knights need a massive overhaul (I'm rather hoping they go open beta in CA2019 like the Sisters did), but the fact that the army isn't good is not indicative of the game as a whole. They are an outlier on the bell curve, not the median example.
Basically they should work on improving what we've got, not rolling back to old janky mechanics.
The same could be said about what they threw out.
Though blast templates had inherent problems.
Whilst templates worked fine in WHFB, they were trickier to handle in 40k as you were allowed to spread out everything wide. That said, the current system needs a lot of work to accurately portray blast weapons. I think it should be like, you roll to hit, and then you roll 2D6 hits or something.
this sounds reasonable.
What would be the purpose of making the result more random and increasing the number of rolls?
ClockworkZion wrote: I agree Grey Knights need a massive overhaul (I'm rather hoping they go open beta in CA2019 like the Sisters did), but the fact that the army isn't good is not indicative of the game as a whole. They are an outlier on the bell curve, not the median example.
Whole armies unable to function on their own is kinda a big fething indicator of the health of the game don't you think?
ClockworkZion wrote: I agree Grey Knights need a massive overhaul (I'm rather hoping they go open beta in CA2019 like the Sisters did), but the fact that the army isn't good is not indicative of the game as a whole. They are an outlier on the bell curve, not the median example.
Whole armies unable to function on their own is kinda a big fething indicator of the health of the game don't you think?
If you think that's bad, you should see how bad Black has it in Chess. Literally the worst faction in the game.
ClockworkZion wrote: I agree Grey Knights need a massive overhaul (I'm rather hoping they go open beta in CA2019 like the Sisters did), but the fact that the army isn't good is not indicative of the game as a whole. They are an outlier on the bell curve, not the median example.
Whole armies unable to function on their own is kinda a big fething indicator of the health of the game don't you think?
If you think that's bad, you should see how bad Black has it in Chess. Literally the worst faction in the game.
Balance is relative, not absolute.
Chess also operates as AA, which helps partly negate that. Wanna try and defend IGOUGO again?
I think if GW was really going to in anyway overhaul GK we'd have heard something by now, even whispers.
Hell, we heard about and saw pictures of, Sisters back in January.
GK are getting squatted. GW has ordered two stores in my state to remove ALL non-primaris SM things, and GK models, and ship them back to the main. GW does not want people even buying their codex.
Both stores also suddenly started selling Baneblades, which I'd never seen on a shelf before in 8th. But I'm willing to chalk that up to Apoc coming.
We haven't even heard a question answered in terms of GK. The only new rules they got are scraps tossed to them from the SM improvements.
ClockworkZion wrote: I agree Grey Knights need a massive overhaul (I'm rather hoping they go open beta in CA2019 like the Sisters did), but the fact that the army isn't good is not indicative of the game as a whole. They are an outlier on the bell curve, not the median example.
Whole armies unable to function on their own is kinda a big fething indicator of the health of the game don't you think?
Whole army. Not armies. Most armies are sitting in the healthy mid 40 percent win rate zone (I think we have a few above that, but on a subfaction basis to subfaction balance basis the game is pretty decently okay). The only real outlier is the Grey Knights who are incredibly broken in the saddest way.
It's not a symptom of the game as a whole being unhealthy as much as it is a symptom that when the book was written (most likely before 8th even launched).
ClockworkZion wrote: I agree Grey Knights need a massive overhaul (I'm rather hoping they go open beta in CA2019 like the Sisters did), but the fact that the army isn't good is not indicative of the game as a whole. They are an outlier on the bell curve, not the median example.
Whole armies unable to function on their own is kinda a big fething indicator of the health of the game don't you think?
Whole army. Not armies. Most armies are sitting in the healthy mid 40 percent win rate zone (I think we have a few above that, but on a subfaction basis to subfaction balance basis the game is pretty decently okay). The only real outlier is the Grey Knights who are incredibly broken in the saddest way.
It's not a symptom of the game as a whole being unhealthy as much as it is a symptom that when the book was written (most likely before 8th even launched).
Grey Knights are not the only one.
And of those factions that supposedly are healthy i'd like to point the subfactions that are used, and believe me there are very few variations there.
ClockworkZion wrote: I agree Grey Knights need a massive overhaul (I'm rather hoping they go open beta in CA2019 like the Sisters did), but the fact that the army isn't good is not indicative of the game as a whole. They are an outlier on the bell curve, not the median example.
Whole armies unable to function on their own is kinda a big fething indicator of the health of the game don't you think?
If you think that's bad, you should see how bad Black has it in Chess. Literally the worst faction in the game.
Balance is relative, not absolute.
Chess also operates as AA, which helps partly negate that. Wanna try and defend IGOUGO again?
First, more to the actual point. What about this discussion was me defending AA? What about my post referenced it?
And, for bonus points, how was saying, in that other thread you're conflating with this one, that "Units have different values in AA than IGOUGO" a "defense of IGOUGO"?
Secondly, about how you approached the point. Chess being AA doesn't help negate Black's disadvantage. AA itself is the *root cause* of Black's disadvantage. Sure, IGOUGO would be even worse for black (likely). But Black is only worse *because* you alternate activations. If you instead had simulataneous (or even random) activations, Black's disadvantage disappears. Please make sure you understand the implications of a point before spouting off about them.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think if GW was really going to in anyway overhaul GK we'd have heard something by now, even whispers.
Hell, we heard about and saw pictures of, Sisters back in January.
GK are getting squatted. GW has ordered two stores in my state to remove ALL non-primaris SM things, and GK models, and ship them back to the main. GW does not want people even buying their codex.
Both stores also suddenly started selling Baneblades, which I'd never seen on a shelf before in 8th. But I'm willing to chalk that up to Apoc coming.
We haven't even heard a question answered in terms of GK. The only new rules they got are scraps tossed to them from the SM improvements.
Calling nonsense. The big reason we likely haven't heard anything yet is because they haven't finished Primaris Grey Knights yet.
Not Online!!! wrote: If in chess igougo would be the case white would have a 100% winrate..
Probably (I'd be interested if you had the solution. I don't think it's possible to 1-round the opponent moving each piece once. But that's really beside the point). But AA is why Black is behind - if activations weren't alternated (random or simultaneous, for example), Black is no longer behind.
GK/SW/DA/BA are all going to suffer in the new anti-marine meta and have no hope beyond CA 2019 (no rumors I've heard) and a 2020 spring release for BA. The armies with some of the worst win rates/twip are going to get worse as the meta shifts (the new SM are soooo good at killing other marines)...
I happen to play SW/BA/DA and the changes to Space Marines show that GW screwed up power armored dudes badly at the design phase of 8th but yet they can't take the time to at least update our re-rolls and points to match the base line of what they gave SM.
My armies being in the trash tier (I think DA and SW have win rates or TWiP at least as low as GK) says one thing about GWs attempt to balance the game at the beginning of 8th. The fact that GW only fixed SM (and left the rest of the marine factions to wallow in the dumpster fire) is salt in the wound.
bananathug wrote: GK/SW/DA/BA are all going to suffer in the new anti-marine meta and have no hope beyond CA 2019 (no rumors I've heard) and a 2020 spring release for BA. The armies with some of the worst win rates/twip are going to get worse as the meta shifts (the new SM are soooo good at killing other marines)...
I happen to play SW/BA/DA and the changes to Space Marines show that GW screwed up power armored dudes badly at the design phase of 8th but yet they can't take the time to at least update our re-rolls and points to match the base line of what they gave SM.
My armies being in the trash tier (I think DA and SW have win rates or TWiP at least as low as GK) says one thing about GWs attempt to balance the game at the beginning of 8th. The fact that GW only fixed SM (and left the rest of the marine factions to wallow in the dumpster fire) is salt in the wound.
I think Marines are about to learn why giving Marines more AP doesn't fix Marines the way people thought it would...
Basically they should work on improving what we've got, not rolling back to old janky mechanics.
The same could be said about what they threw out.
Though blast templates had inherent problems.
Whilst templates worked fine in WHFB, they were trickier to handle in 40k as you were allowed to spread out everything wide. That said, the current system needs a lot of work to accurately portray blast weapons. I think it should be like, you roll to hit, and then you roll 2D6 hits or something.
this sounds reasonable.
What would be the purpose of making the result more random and increasing the number of rolls?
cuz artillery is random?
How does it make more dice rolling? currently; you roll for # of shots, then roll those dice for hits, then roll that amount for wounds, then that many for damage(if applicable). so that's 4 different rolls.
Proposed is; roll die to hit, then use that # for rolling wounds, then roll for damage. So total of 3 different rolls, how exactly is that increasing the # of rolls.
Flamers would work the same as currently but they should cause multiple damage instead of 1(for reg flamer) and D3+X for heavy.
rather than random hits, I think it should be random on the wounds/damage instead.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think if GW was really going to in anyway overhaul GK we'd have heard something by now, even whispers.
Hell, we heard about and saw pictures of, Sisters back in January.
GK are getting squatted. GW has ordered two stores in my state to remove ALL non-primaris SM things, and GK models, and ship them back to the main. GW does not want people even buying their codex.
Both stores also suddenly started selling Baneblades, which I'd never seen on a shelf before in 8th. But I'm willing to chalk that up to Apoc coming.
We haven't even heard a question answered in terms of GK. The only new rules they got are scraps tossed to them from the SM improvements.
There is lots of stuff that is direct only. That doesn't mean those models are getting squatted. You should be careful how you claim things without evidence.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Amishprn86 wrote: Or just make all small blasts hits = 2 hits per every 10 models in a unit and large bast 3 hits for every 10 models in a unit.
Will it then be better for me to take 9 or 19 models in a unit?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think if GW was really going to in anyway overhaul GK we'd have heard something by now, even whispers.
Hell, we heard about and saw pictures of, Sisters back in January.
GK are getting squatted. GW has ordered two stores in my state to remove ALL non-primaris SM things, and GK models, and ship them back to the main. GW does not want people even buying their codex.
Both stores also suddenly started selling Baneblades, which I'd never seen on a shelf before in 8th. But I'm willing to chalk that up to Apoc coming.
We haven't even heard a question answered in terms of GK. The only new rules they got are scraps tossed to them from the SM improvements.
There is lots of stuff that is direct only. That doesn't mean those models are getting squatted. You should be careful how you claim things without evidence.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Amishprn86 wrote: Or just make all small blasts hits = 2 hits per every 10 models in a unit and large bast 3 hits for every 10 models in a unit.
Will it then be better for me to take 9 or 19 models in a unit?
Assuming everyone, or even most people, care about tournament builds is a serious fallacy.
And your experiances aren't even close to universal since you live in Seal Clubbing Land.
It has little to do with carrying about tournaments. See I got to sports school, and when have to pick their specialisation, more often then not they watch how the matchs look like. Noobs, if they are smart, know they are noobs and the best way to avoid spending 700$ on something that is really bad, is looking at what is played in tournaments all across the globe. Doesn't even matter, what they play, how the events are played, if they team events or not, is ITC or somethings else etc.
Because in the end, when you sit down, and you see that lets say farseers or jump pack marines HQs pop up in every list, or almost every list, then the world just did the testing and trying out for you. You don't have to buy all eldar HQs, you know that you want a seer. If you see that eldar plans, do really good in many events with many rule sets, then you can be sure that there has to be something good about, because all those people who are focused on winning are using them. It is safe choice to buy, and again the testing is done for you, for free, and you don't have worry about it. It has absolutly nothing to do with where play, plus the recant leviathan thing only shows me that my meta is neither worse or better, then what people in other countries play.
There is lots of stuff that is direct only. That doesn't mean those models are getting squatted. You should be careful how you claim things without evidence.
But if GW was planning something for GK, would be be seeing stuff or at least hearing rumors? The last info we got about GK is months old, and it is a strickt anwser of No to the question if GK are getting primiars.Not even a we don't plan it yet, or we focus on X for GK right now, a single word quick anwser of No, at GW design team panel. Plus GK seem to be missing in action. Demons and chaos is poping up everywhere, yet GK are no where to be seen. their last lore is pre 8th writen.
See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
ClockworkZion wrote: See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
Might be anecdotal but I've never encountered this mythical narrative or lore based play in 26 years of wargaming. It has always been take the obviously best choices and try to win. At best the most brutally unbalanced choices aligned with someone's interests. Ie. existing Saim Hann players just before the 6th/7th nonsense or the Iron Hands players who didn't start in the last two weeks.
ClockworkZion wrote: See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
Might be anecdotal but I've never encountered this mythical narrative or lore based play in 26 years of wargaming. It has always been take the obviously best choices and try to win. At best the most brutally unbalanced choices aligned with someone's interests. Ie. existing Saim Hann players just before the 6th/7th nonsense or the Iron Hands players who didn't start in the last two weeks.
There is a narrative gaming community away from Dakka, but it's not as developed as the AoS one is, at least online.
Assuming everyone, or even most people, care about tournament builds is a serious fallacy.
And your experiances aren't even close to universal since you live in Seal Clubbing Land.
It has little to do with carrying about tournaments. See I got to sports school, and when have to pick their specialisation, more often then not they watch how the matchs look like. Noobs, if they are smart, know they are noobs and the best way to avoid spending 700$ on something that is really bad, is looking at what is played in tournaments all across the globe. Doesn't even matter, what they play, how the events are played, if they team events or not, is ITC or somethings else etc.
Or if they are wise they buy just exactly the models which get them excited to paint and play - and then play with their like-minded friends. If nobody is engaging in seal-clubbing then it all works out great and everyone has a good time.
I tried to get one of my oldest friends to go to a tournament or two with me but he is sticking to playing with a few friends in front rooms. So it really does not matter that he is not going to go out and buy 12 smasha gunz for his Orks does it?
No you roll to hit, if it hits then it is instead X hits. So 1/2 way auto.
Seems too weak.
I think somehow making blasts work like the pie plates were by just using dice is pretty difficult as we expect them to do a lot of things at once:
- If you target large units it should generate many hits
- If you target small units it should not generate more hits than models
- Should not be good at sniping characters
- Should be good at destroying vehicles and monsters
- Should consider ballistic skill
- Models with low ballistic skill should still do okay with blast weapons
- Model spacing should not matter
- Should not have complicated rule-baggage attached that makes shooting those weapons a chore (7th edition multi-barrage)
Most of the suggestions here are pretty close to that, but always fail at one or two of those points. I don't have a great solution myself, maybe there simply isn't one.
ClockworkZion wrote: See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
Except even bad "lore friendly" armies will still stomp Grey Knights. So how wrong is Karol, really?
ClockworkZion wrote: See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
Except even bad "lore friendly" armies will still stomp Grey Knights. So how wrong is Karol, really?
As long as your argument is nothing but "it's better than the worst army in the game", basically any conclusion you draw from that is irrelevant.
Compared to the Jupiter, every city on earth is nearby.
No you roll to hit, if it hits then it is instead X hits. So 1/2 way auto.
Seems too weak.
I think somehow making blasts work like the pie plates were by just using dice is pretty difficult as we expect them to do a lot of things at once: - If you target large units it should generate many hits - If you target small units it should not generate more hits than models - Should not be good at sniping characters - Should be good at destroying vehicles and monsters - Should consider ballistic skill - Models with low ballistic skill should still do okay with blast weapons - Model spacing should not matter - Should not have complicated rule-baggage attached that makes shooting those weapons a chore (7th edition multi-barrage)
Most of the suggestions here are pretty close to that, but always fail at one or two of those points. I don't have a great solution myself, maybe there simply isn't one.
What if it worked like the following -
Roll to hit if hit roll XDX number of hits, depending on the weapon. Roll to wound Await saves Roll damage If target is X number of models, monster, possesses >=X number of wounds or vehicle, add 1 to hit roll. If target is > X number of models and NOT a monster or vehicle, or is a single model that possesses <= wounds, subtract 1 from hit roll.
The problem with the "cannot hit more models than that are in the unit" clause is that it conflicts with the "good at destroying vehicles and monster" clause as whilst they are a single model, they have enough wounds as 10 models. As such, you can't have a weapon that is both good against many models and good against single models with many wounds, unless you introduce some ridiculous weapon that deals 10 damage per hit.
Not Online!!! wrote: Why subtract from hit roll if the target is Infantry? That makes not much sense imo but your suggestion is decent imo
Its to represent the increased likelihood of an artillery shell missing a small target. The X in this case refers to something like 1-3 models ideally. Its so you don't just nuke MSUs off the table, giving armies like Custodes a chance.
Hard values tend to get a little tricky when making proposed rules, imo, so I prefer to leave it open.
Not Online!!! wrote: Why subtract from hit roll if the target is Infantry?
That makes not much sense imo but your suggestion is decent imo
Its to represent the increased likelihood of an artillery shell missing a small target.
The X in this case refers to something like 1-3 models ideally.
Hard values tend to get a little tricky when making proposed rules, imo, so I prefer to leave it open.
Ahh, imo subtract on small targets but add hits if the squad is bigger, like 1/5 etc might fix the issue. Not sure though
happy_inquisitor 780785 10588211 wrote:
Or if they are wise they buy just exactly the models which get them excited to paint and play - and then play with their like-minded friends. If nobody is engaging in seal-clubbing then it all works out great and everyone has a good time.
I tried to get one of my oldest friends to go to a tournament or two with me but he is sticking to playing with a few friends in front rooms. So it really does not matter that he is not going to go out and buy 12 smasha gunz for his Orks does it?
But what does like minded even mean? I started with 5 people from my school, as my most regular opponents. Two brothers played eldar soups, of different kinds, there was one person who had BAs, one person had marines which he played as different armies and one guy started with an IG army, and later on moved on to IG+castellan. Out of the 5 people only the brothers played tournaments. I have played in one store even in my entire life, stoped even trying to enlist for others as I couldn't fullfil half the comp limitations. eg stuff like no HQs over 9W, no +2 sv on models etc I live in a not so big town, no one here sits downs and thinks, that they have to spend 900$ for an army to win the euro champinships. If anything we miss a lot of stuff that seems to be normal in other countries. I have not seen an eldar army with 7-8 flyers for example, I have seen ones with 4-5 though. we don't use FW, so the leviathan problem or tau suit X breaking something for X months doesn't exist here.
As long as your argument is nothing but "it's better than the worst army in the game", basically any conclusion you draw from that is irrelevant.
But you can say it not just about GK, any bad codex will get stomped by a good one, specially in a non tournament setting. Because in a tournament setting both player will at least try to bring the best units possible. If DA player decides he likes Death Wing and his opponents play any of the new space marines, he won't be a happy player either. How fun is it to play Word Bearers right now, or Inari? And it is not like GW warns people from investing or playing those armies, or makes them cheaper to buy. So it is not like a WB army costs 150$, while the real chaos lists costs the proper 700$ or more and you have to pick between good pricy and bad, but cheap.
See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
okey, what do you think if 4 people start an army with 700$, and two pick their armies out of books with good rules and two pick their armies from bad books, who do you think will have the most fun playing the game? The person who picked power choices from a good book, the person who picked units from a good book not based on unit power, the person who picked good choices only out of a bad book, or the person who picked the stuff they wanted from a bad book. Because am telling you, if you made enough of those 4 players groups, you would see that the people who picked the stuff they want from a bad book, have the least fun. Specially if they get to play against people with good books, and it doesn't even matter if the people with good books went for power choices. I lost games to primaris only space marine armies, pre vigilus, pre supplement and pre codex 2.0. And back then primaris were considered costing too much, and bad unless they were hellblasters in DAs or something like that.
ClockworkZion wrote: See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
Except even bad "lore friendly" armies will still stomp Grey Knights. So how wrong is Karol, really?
Which, again, is an exception, not a rule. Using the crappiness of the Grey Knights as a defense of anything doesn't work.
ClockworkZion wrote: See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
Might be anecdotal but I've never encountered this mythical narrative or lore based play in 26 years of wargaming. It has always been take the obviously best choices and try to win. At best the most brutally unbalanced choices aligned with someone's interests. Ie. existing Saim Hann players just before the 6th/7th nonsense or the Iron Hands players who didn't start in the last two weeks.
Might be anecdotal as well but in real life I've never encountered the pure mathhammering that seems to be going on in the internet and especially dakka. I don't even know how people find the time to build and paint flavor of the month armies if they do have a job. And if they don't have a job I don't know how they have the money to buy those armies... Obviousely people here have very different playgroups.
happy_inquisitor 780785 10588211 wrote:
Or if they are wise they buy just exactly the models which get them excited to paint and play - and then play with their like-minded friends. If nobody is engaging in seal-clubbing then it all works out great and everyone has a good time.
I tried to get one of my oldest friends to go to a tournament or two with me but he is sticking to playing with a few friends in front rooms. So it really does not matter that he is not going to go out and buy 12 smasha gunz for his Orks does it?
But what does like minded even mean? I started with 5 people from my school, as my most regular opponents. Two brothers played eldar soups, of different kinds, there was one person who had BAs, one person had marines which he played as different armies and one guy started with an IG army, and later on moved on to IG+castellan. Out of the 5 people only the brothers played tournaments. I have played in one store even in my entire life, stoped even trying to enlist for others as I couldn't fullfil half the comp limitations. eg stuff like no HQs over 9W, no +2 sv on models etc I live in a not so big town, no one here sits downs and thinks, that they have to spend 900$ for an army to win the euro champinships. If anything we miss a lot of stuff that seems to be normal in other countries. I have not seen an eldar army with 7-8 flyers for example, I have seen ones with 4-5 though. we don't use FW, so the leviathan problem or tau suit X breaking something for X months doesn't exist here.
As long as your argument is nothing but "it's better than the worst army in the game", basically any conclusion you draw from that is irrelevant.
But you can say it not just about GK, any bad codex will get stomped by a good one, specially in a non tournament setting. Because in a tournament setting both player will at least try to bring the best units possible. If DA player decides he likes Death Wing and his opponents play any of the new space marines, he won't be a happy player either. How fun is it to play Word Bearers right now, or Inari? And it is not like GW warns people from investing or playing those armies, or makes them cheaper to buy. So it is not like a WB army costs 150$, while the real chaos lists costs the proper 700$ or more and you have to pick between good pricy and bad, but cheap.
See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
okey, what do you think if 4 people start an army with 700$, and two pick their armies out of books with good rules and two pick their armies from bad books, who do you think will have the most fun playing the game? The person who picked power choices from a good book, the person who picked units from a good book not based on unit power, the person who picked good choices only out of a bad book, or the person who picked the stuff they wanted from a bad book. Because am telling you, if you made enough of those 4 players groups, you would see that the people who picked the stuff they want from a bad book, have the least fun. Specially if they get to play against people with good books, and it doesn't even matter if the people with good books went for power choices. I lost games to primaris only space marine armies, pre vigilus, pre supplement and pre codex 2.0. And back then primaris were considered costing too much, and bad unless they were hellblasters in DAs or something like that.
Perhaps you picked the wrong game?
40k is a terrible hobby for chasing mechanical competence. It's shallow, more driven by narrative than balance, predicated on "anything can happen" randomness, and a massive investment in build coupled with extreme rebuild costs. There are some games that are great personal challenges, great ways to measure onesself. They tend to either be very stable mechanically (Chess), or highly optimized for competition (DOTA). 40k is great, but is not one of them.
The rules are deep, but the gameplay is shallow. For instance, while the exact "math" of what a "-1D aura" or "doubletap" is worth is very complex, the effect on gameplay is simple. "My guys won't die" or "I'll kill lots of stuff". There is some depth - target priority, ranges, utilizing CC, etc - but not nearly as much as the rules would have you believe. Chess, for example, has very shallow rules; I knew them all in 2nd grade. But the gameplay - I could spend a lifetime and not it's depth.
The tradeoffs between narrative and balance aren't optimized for competition. For instance, GW added a crapton of bloat in the form of Chapter Tactics and the SM supplements, ostensibly to expand the narrative and drive fluff. They're clearly making it hard to balance things, and GW decided that was a worthwhile trade for the increased "fluffyness". (IMO they got it wrong in both directions - the bloat hurt fluff. But that's not relevant. Chess, on the other hand, has no narrative bloat to concern itself. And games like DOTA and StarCraft only have narrative to support the game rules - never the other way around.
Chess has no random chance. Poker has some randomness, but in a very controlled manner. Things like CounterStrike have very little true randomness, even if it can feel that way. 40k, on the other hand, wants everything to change on a die roll. The same action leading to a different result is minimized in something like Counterstrike, and is impossible in Chess - but in 40k it's maximized. You charge X with your Y, and maybe you slaughter, maybe you whiff, maybe you get slaughtered. What's most likely might be obvious, but the odds of it going horribly sideways are never that low.
And then we get to mechanics and stability. In StarCraft or DOTA, you can alter your "build" - either the army you take or how you leverage it - for "free" between each game. To anything else in the game. This means that, if you wanted to try a Protoss Zealot Rush, you can; and then do Zerg Flyers next game. No switching costs. So, if you think one strategy is good, then later decide another strategy is better - no problem, just change. In 40k, you're talking hundreds of dollars of kit and hundreds of hours of time. And that's just builds within an army. Going from Serpent Spam to SM Obsec Spam, for instance, is not a simple change. So 40k is just a bad game for freely chasing the army style you want between games. It heavily pushes players to play whatever units they've always played, with a little variation over time.
To make matters worse, the mechanics are not stable. What's OP today is not OP tomorrow. Over the last two years, there have been probably a dozen or more entirely different "top lists" that don't even share an army. So, whatever's best today won't be best tomorrow. So even if you're God's gift to wargamming, and pick up exactly what's OP right now, in 6 months or less you'll need a different army. In a game where an army costs more than 6 months of disposable income (for most people), and takes more than 6 months of hobby time to prepare, there's simply no way for most people to do that.
With all these problems, 40k is a terrible game to play for technical mastery. It's a great game for getting into the hobby or social construct or lore. But not crunch. At best, you'll spend most of your time and energy arguing or complaining on the boards about why your one or three armies need to be buffed (or everyone else nerfed). At worst, you'll spend all your time and money on a hobby you don't enjoy, hate everything you're doing, and drive no value out of what should be the best times of your life. If you like the hobby, chasing the competitive scene can be a lot of fun. Or trying to do the best you can with what you have. But if you only care about crunch, there's nothing worthwhile here for you.
ClockworkZion wrote: See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
Might be anecdotal but I've never encountered this mythical narrative or lore based play in 26 years of wargaming. It has always been take the obviously best choices and try to win. At best the most brutally unbalanced choices aligned with someone's interests. Ie. existing Saim Hann players just before the 6th/7th nonsense or the Iron Hands players who didn't start in the last two weeks.
Might be anecdotal as well but in real life I've never encountered the pure mathhammering that seems to be going on in the internet and especially dakka. I don't even know how people find the time to build and paint flavor of the month armies if they do have a job. And if they don't have a job I don't know how they have the money to buy those armies... Obviousely people here have very different playgroups.
it's fairly common to borrow armies. Some people are flush and get them painted for them.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Seriously. 40k is a game where a squad of 10 guys with flashlights is more dangerous to a Demi-god than a squad of 2 guys with an anti-tank laser.
The problem is that you mentally take stock in getting a strong shot through and when it fails it feels bad. When you shoot lasguns at something big you don't do it with any real expectation so when they succeed it feels great.
40k is a terrible hobby for chasing mechanical competence. It's shallow, more driven by narrative than balance, predicated on "anything can happen" randomness, and a massive investment in build coupled with extreme rebuild costs. There are some games that are great personal challenges, great ways to measure onesself. They tend to either be very stable mechanically (Chess), or highly optimized for competition (DOTA). 40k is great, but is not one of them.
The rules are deep, but the gameplay is shallow. For instance, while the exact "math" of what a "-1D aura" or "doubletap" is worth is very complex, the effect on gameplay is simple. "My guys won't die" or "I'll kill lots of stuff". There is some depth - target priority, ranges, utilizing CC, etc - but not nearly as much as the rules would have you believe. Chess, for example, has very shallow rules; I knew them all in 2nd grade. But the gameplay - I could spend a lifetime and not it's depth.
The tradeoffs between narrative and balance aren't optimized for competition. For instance, GW added a crapton of bloat in the form of Chapter Tactics and the SM supplements, ostensibly to expand the narrative and drive fluff. They're clearly making it hard to balance things, and GW decided that was a worthwhile trade for the increased "fluffyness". (IMO they got it wrong in both directions - the bloat hurt fluff. But that's not relevant. Chess, on the other hand, has no narrative bloat to concern itself. And games like DOTA and StarCraft only have narrative to support the game rules - never the other way around.
Chess has no random chance. Poker has some randomness, but in a very controlled manner. Things like CounterStrike have very little true randomness, even if it can feel that way. 40k, on the other hand, wants everything to change on a die roll. The same action leading to a different result is minimized in something like Counterstrike, and is impossible in Chess - but in 40k it's maximized. You charge X with your Y, and maybe you slaughter, maybe you whiff, maybe you get slaughtered. What's most likely might be obvious, but the odds of it going horribly sideways are never that low.
And then we get to mechanics and stability. In StarCraft or DOTA, you can alter your "build" - either the army you take or how you leverage it - for "free" between each game. To anything else in the game. This means that, if you wanted to try a Protoss Zealot Rush, you can; and then do Zerg Flyers next game. No switching costs. So, if you think one strategy is good, then later decide another strategy is better - no problem, just change. In 40k, you're talking hundreds of dollars of kit and hundreds of hours of time. And that's just builds within an army. Going from Serpent Spam to SM Obsec Spam, for instance, is not a simple change. So 40k is just a bad game for freely chasing the army style you want between games. It heavily pushes players to play whatever units they've always played, with a little variation over time.
To make matters worse, the mechanics are not stable. What's OP today is not OP tomorrow. Over the last two years, there have been probably a dozen or more entirely different "top lists" that don't even share an army. So, whatever's best today won't be best tomorrow. So even if you're God's gift to wargamming, and pick up exactly what's OP right now, in 6 months or less you'll need a different army. In a game where an army costs more than 6 months of disposable income (for most people), and takes more than 6 months of hobby time to prepare, there's simply no way for most people to do that.
With all these problems, 40k is a terrible game to play for technical mastery. It's a great game for getting into the hobby or social construct or lore. But not crunch. At best, you'll spend most of your time and energy arguing or complaining on the boards about why your one or three armies need to be buffed (or everyone else nerfed). At worst, you'll spend all your time and money on a hobby you don't enjoy, hate everything you're doing, and drive no value out of what should be the best times of your life. If you like the hobby, chasing the competitive scene can be a lot of fun. Or trying to do the best you can with what you have. But if you only care about crunch, there's nothing worthwhile here for you.
Well done! A fantastically cogent post, and fully devoid of 'rant', too. GW should put this in the 40k rulebook as the first part of the introduction
No you roll to hit, if it hits then it is instead X hits. So 1/2 way auto.
Seems too weak.
I think somehow making blasts work like the pie plates were by just using dice is pretty difficult as we expect them to do a lot of things at once:
- If you target large units it should generate many hits
- If you target small units it should not generate more hits than models
- Should not be good at sniping characters
- Should be good at destroying vehicles and monsters
- Should consider ballistic skill
- Models with low ballistic skill should still do okay with blast weapons
- Model spacing should not matter
- Should not have complicated rule-baggage attached that makes shooting those weapons a chore (7th edition multi-barrage)
Most of the suggestions here are pretty close to that, but always fail at one or two of those points. I don't have a great solution myself, maybe there simply isn't one.
I feel like giving blast weapons a bunch of shots along with a rule like 'this weapon can't inflict more hits than the target unit has models' would suffice with a minimum of headache. They would be poor at sniping characters or killing vehicles, but effectiveness would be directly constrained by the size of the target unit. BS would matter, with high-BS models more effective, but also likely to reach their hard limit than low-BS models.
Then you could bump Flamers up to, say, Assault 2D6 and have them be a lot scarier against hordes without being totally broken.
You'd have to have a rule affecting T3 and below basically. That covers the hordes outside Orks, and since they aren't durable to begin with it wouldn't affect them.
You'd have to have a rule affecting T3 and below basically. That covers the hordes outside Orks, and since they aren't durable to begin with it wouldn't affect them.
Not sure I follow. A 2D6 flamer would be averaging 3.1 kills on Guardsmen or 2.9 on Orks. That seems plenty sufficient for a cheap special weapon. Where does AP come into it?
You'd have to have a rule affecting T3 and below basically. That covers the hordes outside Orks, and since they aren't durable to begin with it wouldn't affect them.
Not sure I follow. A 2D6 flamer would be averaging 3.1 kills on Guardsmen or 2.9 on Orks. That seems plenty sufficient for a cheap special weapon. Where does AP come into it?
This has to do with horde units being on equal or better durability compared to more elite units because of the way the weapon AP rules work. Flamers, assuming you ever got to use them because templates outside Torrents weren't exactly good, worked against horde units not just because of hitting multiple models but also ignoring their save.
ClockworkZion wrote: See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
Might be anecdotal but I've never encountered this mythical narrative or lore based play in 26 years of wargaming. It has always been take the obviously best choices and try to win. At best the most brutally unbalanced choices aligned with someone's interests. Ie. existing Saim Hann players just before the 6th/7th nonsense or the Iron Hands players who didn't start in the last two weeks.
Might be anecdotal as well but in real life I've never encountered the pure mathhammering that seems to be going on in the internet and especially dakka. I don't even know how people find the time to build and paint flavor of the month armies if they do have a job. And if they don't have a job I don't know how they have the money to buy those armies... Obviousely people here have very different playgroups.
ClockworkZion wrote: See, that's where you still get it wrong Karol. You're still talking solely in maximizing mechanical efficiency in your list and ignoring people who would build to themes or lore. Not all builds have to be based around trying to be the most mechanically efficient for people to want to play them or even have fun with them.
Might be anecdotal but I've never encountered this mythical narrative or lore based play in 26 years of wargaming. It has always been take the obviously best choices and try to win. At best the most brutally unbalanced choices aligned with someone's interests. Ie. existing Saim Hann players just before the 6th/7th nonsense or the Iron Hands players who didn't start in the last two weeks.
Might be anecdotal as well but in real life I've never encountered the pure mathhammering that seems to be going on in the internet and especially dakka. I don't even know how people find the time to build and paint flavor of the month armies if they do have a job. And if they don't have a job I don't know how they have the money to buy those armies... Obviousely people here have very different playgroups.
How do you think the people offering painting services stay in business?
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