Since they were spoiled, the Iron Hands have been the center of most balance discussions over the last few weeks. Fortunately the FAQ brought them back down to a more reasonable level, but people are still wondering how the gak did that supplement make it to print without anyone asking "Isn't this too strong?" Well, I think its time we put more thought into the copy-pasted dev commentary at the start of every FAQ. In particular, " Although we strive to ensure that our rules are perfect, sometimes mistakes do creep in, or the intent of a rule isn’t as clear as it might be." When applied to the printed Iron Hands rules it doesn't make sense that there were multiple ways to interpret the rules and a lot of the imbalance isn't from a simple mistake like "oops we put the wrong number." Lots of people have suggested that GW might be ignoring the playtesters, but that doesn't make sense for a notoriously greedy company to waste time and resources like that.
So my premise is this: the playtesters aren't being ignored, but instead are instructed to "test the rules as we intend them to play not as they are specifically written." They've done this before with the first "no turn 1 deep strike" beta rule when they released a facebook pdf adding exceptions to the rule so it's not unprecedented. If the Iron Hands testing document wasn't just a copy of the supplement, but instead was an early version with "Dev's Intent" for every rule then it would explain the massive disconnect. Testers play for intent and a rule is fine, but when the finalized version rolls around it is completely different due to the lack of precision in GW's writing. It explains how things like infinite 6s or non-functional assault weapons after advancing makes it through testing.
RAI is a cancer. If RAW is done right then RAI isn't necessary. If you apply RAW vs RAI in the real world it looks something like this: Bob wants to eat a good steak so he goes to a steak house. When he gets there he orders the Salmon, a red wine (fish are typically paired with white wines), A1 steak sauce, and asks for it medium rare. The waiter comes back with the salmon and Bob flips out at the waiter that even though he ordered the salmon, his intention to eat steak was clear and he can't believe anyone would interpret his order that way.
So as a community should 40k stop giving GW the benefit of the doubt and start applying strict RAW to tournaments until things get fixed? Personally I think its going to suck in the short term, but it is time to rip off that bandaid especially now that we have FAQs as a tool for fixing things.
So as a community should 40k stop giving GW the benefit of the doubt and start applying strict RAW to tournaments until things get fixed?
No, because that would require people at tournaments to abandon their ITC house rules. Also, it's a pretty tone deaf thing to suggest.
Intentionally killing the tournament scene to "teach GW a lesson" is as asinine as the continued beating of the drum for RAW when people don't even follow the very basic and fundamental concept of RAW winning conditions in a given game.
RAI is how this game is played, like it or not. Want to play full RAW40k? You won't be doing it at any tournament without a much more seismic shift away from ITC.
DominayTrix wrote: Lots of people have suggested that GW might be ignoring the playtesters, but that doesn't make sense for a notoriously greedy company to waste time and resources like that.
We know that the dev studio has been point blank told by management in the past to do things like dramatically overpower the Wraithknight in 7E without increasing costs from some of the author's own statements. Likwise, having worked in QA departments before for dramatically bigger and even greedier companies, lots of games ship with all sorts of known issues that playtesters reported and development or management chose not to act on
DominayTrix wrote: Lots of people have suggested that GW might be ignoring the playtesters, but that doesn't make sense for a notoriously greedy company to waste time and resources like that.
We know that the dev studio has been point blank told by management in the past to do things like dramatically overpower the Wraithknight in 7E without increasing costs from some of the author's own statements. Likwise, having worked in QA departments before for dramatically bigger and even greedier companies, lots of games ship with all sorts of known issues that playtesters reported and development or management chose not to act on
“We know” - I bet my house that you can’t provide a single credible source for that invented quote.
DominayTrix wrote: Lots of people have suggested that GW might be ignoring the playtesters, but that doesn't make sense for a notoriously greedy company to waste time and resources like that.
We know that the dev studio has been point blank told by management in the past to do things like dramatically overpower the Wraithknight in 7E without increasing costs from some of the author's own statements. Likwise, having worked in QA departments before for dramatically bigger and even greedier companies, lots of games ship with all sorts of known issues that playtesters reported and development or management chose not to act on
“We know” - I bet my house that you can’t provide a single credible source for that invented quote.
Yeah... but no. OP’s hypothesis is nonsense, the analogy is not actually an analogy, and it’s just pure soapboxing. Comparing things to cancer is Reddit-esque edgery. RAI is a tool to make rules work, not something that people are told to use over the words.when playtesting.
This is just a personal agenda, sorry. Not one shred of it will match reality.
JohnnyHell wrote: Yeah... but no. OP’s hypothesis is nonsense, the analogy is not actually an analogy, and it’s just pure soapboxing. Comparing things to cancer is Reddit-esque edgery. RAI is a tool to make rules work, not something that people are told to use over the words.when playtesting.
This is just a personal agenda, sorry. Not one shred of it will match reality.
agreed. It makes zero sense. especially as the bit he's highlighting is a standard introduction GW's used for a few rules tweeks they've done in the past
They should always write rules for how they(GW) play the game. why on earth would they do otherwise? Since they're the ones who make the game, obviously with a specific style in mind. it just doesnt fit the RAW crowd, whom I'm assuming are not the intended audience to begin with. this is just backed up by GW's rules writing for 30 odd years now.
But since it doesnt fit how some players want the game to be, anytime something is exploitable, it becomes the "screw you first" players mindsets focus. Anything that gives them a "leg" up on their opponent, will be used tirelessly until otherwise rectified. Most of the stupid restrictions in the game come from those who choose to bludgeon others with excessive use. Unfortunately, this has negative effect on those who RAI vs. RAW(for an advantage).
DominayTrix wrote: Lots of people have suggested that GW might be ignoring the playtesters, but that doesn't make sense for a notoriously greedy company to waste time and resources like that.
We know that the dev studio has been point blank told by management in the past to do things like dramatically overpower the Wraithknight in 7E without increasing costs from some of the author's own statements. Likwise, having worked in QA departments before for dramatically bigger and even greedier companies, lots of games ship with all sorts of known issues that playtesters reported and development or management chose not to act on
“We know” - I bet my house that you can’t provide a single credible source for that invented quote.
DominayTrix wrote: Lots of people have suggested that GW might be ignoring the playtesters, but that doesn't make sense for a notoriously greedy company to waste time and resources like that.
We know that the dev studio has been point blank told by management in the past to do things like dramatically overpower the Wraithknight in 7E without increasing costs from some of the author's own statements. Likwise, having worked in QA departments before for dramatically bigger and even greedier companies, lots of games ship with all sorts of known issues that playtesters reported and development or management chose not to act on
“We know” - I bet my house that you can’t provide a single credible source for that invented quote.
JohnnyHell wrote: Yeah... but no. OP’s hypothesis is nonsense, the analogy is not actually an analogy, and it’s just pure soapboxing. Comparing things to cancer is Reddit-esque edgery. RAI is a tool to make rules work, not something that people are told to use over the words.when playtesting.
This is just a personal agenda, sorry. Not one shred of it will match reality.
agreed. It makes zero sense. especially as the bit he's highlighting is a standard introduction GW's used for a few rules tweeks they've done in the past
Right? We also know from crusaders like BaconCatBug (ironically, as he was soapboxing another point) that the game would be poorer if played purely by RAW, as in it just doesn’t function in lots of cases... but common sense sorts it right out. Honestly, this weird agenda people have about slavishly following rules to the detriment of reason, logic and fun is... well, alien to me.
Vaktathi wrote: ...Likwise, having worked in QA departments before for dramatically bigger and even greedier companies, lots of games ship with all sorts of known issues that playtesters reported and development or management chose not to act on
But this is often the result of not having enough time/money to fix the problems before the product ships not just because they listen to the feedback and go "nah, even though we paid to get this info we aren't going to do anything about it".
Vaktathi wrote: ...Likwise, having worked in QA departments before for dramatically bigger and even greedier companies, lots of games ship with all sorts of known issues that playtesters reported and development or management chose not to act on
But this is often the result of not having enough time/money to fix the problems before the product ships not just because they listen to the feedback and go "nah, even though we paid to get this info we aren't going to do anything about it".
And who’s to say that is the case here? No one has any proof anyone was ignored, heeded, or anywhere in between. GW done fethed up. At least they haven’t made us wait a whole edition for a fix. Patch is better than no patch, however you look at it. And no product has ever shipped with zero errors (cue BCB parachuting in with his “100% error record!” mantra). For the record this isn’t white knighting, it’s being pragmatic.
DominayTrix wrote: Lots of people have suggested that GW might be ignoring the playtesters, but that doesn't make sense for a notoriously greedy company to waste time and resources like that.
We know that the dev studio has been point blank told by management in the past to do things like dramatically overpower the Wraithknight in 7E without increasing costs from some of the author's own statements. Likwise, having worked in QA departments before for dramatically bigger and even greedier companies, lots of games ship with all sorts of known issues that playtesters reported and development or management chose not to act on
“We know” - I bet my house that you can’t provide a single credible source for that invented quote.
However I will say there is a bit of a stretch between "hey, I'm directing you to make this unit overpowered", and "hey those rules are really cool, so we'll keep them but we don't really wanna raise the cost of the unit". It's bad design but its probably not as malicious as how you made that sound.
JohnnyHell wrote: And who’s to say that is the case here? No one has any proof anyone was ignored, heeded, or anywhere in between. GW done fethed up. At least they haven’t made us wait a whole edition for a fix. Patch is better than no patch, however you look at it. And no product has ever shipped with zero errors (cue BCB parachuting in with his “100% error record!” mantra). For the record this isn’t white knighting, it’s being pragmatic.
Granted, nothing is 100% perfect at launch... but IMHO the IH rules that GW gave us before the patch were a purely unacceptable level of quality for a company with the resources of GW. Go ahead and disagree if you want, but I have more self-respect as a consumer.
This makes me incredibly angry. The dude who made that call on the wraithknight should be fired. Even if you don't care about the balance of the game, you can argue that the positive value of additional wraithknight kits being sold is massively outweighed by the revenue loss of a portion of your playerbase quitting your game entirely because of the frustrations of imbalance, as we saw that happening in 7th. It was an incredibly shortsighted business ploy that MAYBE generated a positive revenue in the short term but ultimately damaged the brand and in all likelihood cost the company net revenue in the long term.
DominayTrix wrote: Lots of people have suggested that GW might be ignoring the playtesters, but that doesn't make sense for a notoriously greedy company to waste time and resources like that.
We know that the dev studio has been point blank told by management in the past to do things like dramatically overpower the Wraithknight in 7E without increasing costs from some of the author's own statements. Likwise, having worked in QA departments before for dramatically bigger and even greedier companies, lots of games ship with all sorts of known issues that playtesters reported and development or management chose not to act on
“We know” - I bet my house that you can’t provide a single credible source for that invented quote.
However I will say there is a bit of a stretch between "hey, I'm directing you to make this unit overpowered", and "hey those rules are really cool, so we'll keep them but we don't really wanna raise the cost of the unit". It's bad design but its probably not as malicious as how you made that sound.
Ha! Fair enough then. Thanks for signing up!
The Wraithknights... well, that was a thing. The Eldar codex was designed at a time when we were told to make things a) exciting and interesting and b) reflect the narrative at all costs. So D-weapons, right? Because that's clearly what the weapons are. So we did it, and we tested them loads, and the points values shot up (I think the Wraithknight was about 450?). Then they went to review, and someone in a position of authority (who has since left0 said "I love it, but don't increase any points values."
Because, obviously, that means people need fewer models, see?
So I said "Ok, so I'll put the rules back to how they were," and was told "no, keep them, just don't change the points values".
Makes me wince, just thinking about it.
As I say, though those days are over
Malcious it isn't?
Just willingly breaking the game for more sales?
Not Online!!! wrote: Malcious it isn't? Just willingly breaking the game for more sales?
It isn't malicious. It's just stupid. See my explanation above as to why.
And you seem to not understand what shortterm win maximizing is in a market you basically controll and with a heavy side dose of sunk cost fallacy. (especially considering how many of us came crawling back at the start of 8th heralding it as the best ever thing since sliced bread) .
GW nearly shot themselves in 7th with such behaviour , yes, economically though it makes perfect sense and is the same reason why companies such as actibliz, etc are pushing for monetization for the sake of it, willfully imbalancing games and mechanics aswelll. And 8th has shown how good they can rebounce with an System that get's just as bloated again.
JohnnyHell wrote: And who’s to say that is the case here? No one has any proof anyone was ignored, heeded, or anywhere in between. GW done fethed up. At least they haven’t made us wait a whole edition for a fix. Patch is better than no patch, however you look at it. And no product has ever shipped with zero errors (cue BCB parachuting in with his “100% error record!” mantra). For the record this isn’t white knighting, it’s being pragmatic.
Granted, nothing is 100% perfect at launch... but IMHO the IH rules that GW gave us before the patch were a purely unacceptable level of quality for a company with the resources of GW. Go ahead and disagree if you want, but I have more self-respect as a consumer.
Didn’t say I disagreed that the rules were way out of kilter with the playing field. It’s entirely possible to disagree with elements of a position without being a polar opposite stance no matter what the internet may have you believe. Apply a little more nuance and dial back the insults and you can have more interesting discussions. ;-) “More self respect as a consumer” puh-lease, c’mon. Needless.
Not Online!!! wrote: And you seem to not understand what shortterm win maximizing is in a market you basically controll and with a heavy side dose of sunk cost fallacy. (especially considering how many of us came crawling back at the start of 8th heralding it as the best ever thing since sliced bread)
Yes, I do understand the concept and it is a bad business strategy. There has been a trend in American businesses recently where new businessmen come into a company and maximize short term gains in order to make themselves look good and pad their resumes. Their maximization strategies often hurts the company's long term profits, sometimes even bankrupting them, but the people who have caused it often don't stick around long enough to see those consequences, as they hop to another company before it crashes and burns.
Even if a lot of the playerbase did come crawling back for 8th edition, the lost sales revenue for the players who left for the duration of 7th edition probably cost the company more money than was gained in short term wraithknight sales boosts.
JohnnyHell wrote: Didn’t say I disagreed that the rules were way out of kilter with the playing field. It’s entirely possible to disagree with elements of a position without being a polar opposite stance no matter what the internet may have you believe. Apply a little more nuance and dial back the insults and you can have more interesting discussions. ;-) “More self respect as a consumer” puh-lease, c’mon. Needless.
I apologize for putting words in your mouth. But don't hide behind playing devil's advocate when your argument is refuted... Especially if it is something asinine as defending the pile of gak that is the pre-FAQIH codex with the statement "well nothing is perfect on launch."
Not Online!!! wrote: And you seem to not understand what shortterm win maximizing is in a market you basically controll and with a heavy side dose of sunk cost fallacy. (especially considering how many of us came crawling back at the start of 8th heralding it as the best ever thing since sliced bread)
Yes, I do understand the concept and it is a bad business strategy. There has been a trend in American businesses recently where new businessmen come into a company and maximize short term gains in order to make themselves look good and pad their resumes. Their maximization strategies often hurts the company's long term profits, sometimes even bankrupting them, but the people who have caused it often don't stick around long enough to see those consequences, as they hop to another company before it crashes and burns.
Even if a lot of the playerbase did come crawling back for 8th edition, the lost sales for the players who left for the duration of 7th edition probably cost the company more money than was gained in short term wratihknight sales boosts.
Dunno, GW is as successfull as never before atm.
As for the short term gain maximizers i don't think so.
GW plans long term and by rebouncing they can not only reach the metachasers but also the veterans that they might have trhown out and get them with repleneished wallets to spend even more.
Myself included.
This is also partly the reason why i now have a policy of first searching for alternatives.
Or why i refuse that CA is something good.
I got burnt one too many times, but i feel like i am in the minority.
Otoh the BSF enemy boxes are hillariously good priced comparatively more like old GW.
JohnnyHell wrote: And who’s to say that is the case here? No one has any proof anyone was ignored, heeded, or anywhere in between. GW done fethed up. At least they haven’t made us wait a whole edition for a fix. Patch is better than no patch, however you look at it. And no product has ever shipped with zero errors (cue BCB parachuting in with his “100% error record!” mantra). For the record this isn’t white knighting, it’s being pragmatic.
Granted, nothing is 100% perfect at launch... but IMHO the IH rules that GW gave us before the patch were a purely unacceptable level of quality for a company with the resources of GW. Go ahead and disagree if you want, but I have more self-respect as a consumer.
Didn’t say I disagreed that the rules were way out of kilter with the playing field. It’s entirely possible to disagree with elements of a position without being a polar opposite stance no matter what the internet may have you believe. Apply a little more nuance and dial back the insults and you can have more interesting discussions. ;-) “More self respect as a consumer” puh-lease, c’mon. Needless.
Patch is better then no patch yes.
But the reliance of first day patches is nothing good. Neither in the video game industry nor in the TG one.
It shows serious lack in planning capabilities and abuses workers for last minute crunch time.
Being successful is not the same as being optimally successful. Imagine how much more money GW would have now if 7th edition was as well received as 8th.
As for the short term gain maximizers i don't think so.
GW plans long term and by rebouncing they can not only reach the metachasers but also the veterans that they might have trhown out and get them with repleneished wallets to spend even more.
Myself included.
They once said that a release/new kit has to make profit (amortize itself) within the first weekend, otherwise it never will (and is considered a fail that did not payed off no matter how much is sold later), while all other sales after that are just a bonus.
Being successful is not the same as being optimally successful. Imagine how much more money GW would have now if 7th edition was as well received as 8th.
The irony is: 7th had some of the best work for factions done in dexes in a long time: Especially by FW....
The later implementation of formations and certain , let's just simply say questionable units as in our exemple above broke the camels back imo.
As for the short term gain maximizers i don't think so.
GW plans long term and by rebouncing they can not only reach the metachasers but also the veterans that they might have trhown out and get them with repleneished wallets to spend even more.
Myself included.
They once said that a release/new kit has to make profit (amortize itself) within the first weekend, otherwise it never will (and is considered a fail that did not payed off no matter how much is sold later), while all other sales after that are just a bonus.
Seems stupid considering the lifecycle of ertain kits.
Seems stupid considering the lifecycle of ertain kits.
but would perfectly explain why certain old kits are not replaced, as GW does not expect to sell enough of them in the first week to make it worth it, and some kits are released with a longer time in between and not on the same day
Seems stupid considering the lifecycle of ertain kits.
but would perfectly explain why certain old kits are not replaced, as GW does not expect to sell enough of them in the first week to make it worth it, and some kits are released with a longer time in between and not on the same day
The Wraithknights... well, that was a thing. The Eldar codex was designed at a time when we were told to make things a) exciting and interesting and b) reflect the narrative at all costs. So D-weapons, right? Because that's clearly what the weapons are. So we did it, and we tested them loads, and the points values shot up (I think the Wraithknight was about 450?). Then they went to review, and someone in a position of authority (who has since left0 said "I love it, but don't increase any points values."
Because, obviously, that means people need fewer models, see?
So I said "Ok, so I'll put the rules back to how they were," and was told "no, keep them, just don't change the points values".
Makes me wince, just thinking about it.
As I say, though those days are over
Malcious it isn't?
Just willingly breaking the game for more sales?
If that's the given reason, that's even more proof that it's just stupidity not a malicious directive to unbalance the game to sell more models. It seems like their reasoning was literally the opposite.
If you get the order to leave the price but add the new rules and weaponry. In order to sell MORE of the unt. then yes it is imo the basic premise of unblancing for sales and depending on view malicious or stupid.
JohnnyHell wrote: Yeah... but no. OP’s hypothesis is nonsense, the analogy is not actually an analogy, and it’s just pure soapboxing. Comparing things to cancer is Reddit-esque edgery. RAI is a tool to make rules work, not something that people are told to use over the words.when playtesting.
This is just a personal agenda, sorry. Not one shred of it will match reality.
agreed. It makes zero sense. especially as the bit he's highlighting is a standard introduction GW's used for a few rules tweeks they've done in the past
Right? We also know from crusaders like BaconCatBug (ironically, as he was soapboxing another point) that the game would be poorer if played purely by RAW, as in it just doesn’t function in lots of cases... but common sense sorts it right out. Honestly, this weird agenda people have about slavishly following rules to the detriment of reason, logic and fun is... well, alien to me.
These people do not play this game. They talk about it. They may even excessively write lists they'll never play and argue the efficiency of units they'll never use. They'll weigh in on the meta, which is arguably their only worthwhile contribution, but the RAW crowd need that little bastion of following the rules to the detriment of the experience. They need that safe haven because the lack of firsthand experience is huge. It's pretend for Internet outrage points.
The Wraithknights... well, that was a thing. The Eldar codex was designed at a time when we were told to make things a) exciting and interesting and b) reflect the narrative at all costs. So D-weapons, right? Because that's clearly what the weapons are. So we did it, and we tested them loads, and the points values shot up (I think the Wraithknight was about 450?). Then they went to review, and someone in a position of authority (who has since left0 said "I love it, but don't increase any points values."
Because, obviously, that means people need fewer models, see?
So I said "Ok, so I'll put the rules back to how they were," and was told "no, keep them, just don't change the points values".
Makes me wince, just thinking about it.
As I say, though those days are over
Malcious it isn't?
Just willingly breaking the game for more sales?
If that's the given reason, that's even more proof that it's just stupidity not a malicious directive to unbalance the game to sell more models. It seems like their reasoning was literally the opposite.
a combination of both, they wanted a point value so that people can fit 3 of them into a list, but just take the first or second draft of the rules because "who cares about rules anyway"
Cavatore said something similar about the Skaven in Warhammer, they just printed the first draft he proposed even with the remarks that it need some adjustment and testing
It was/is caused by GW marine rule boosting to boost sales strategy and either incompetence or plain disredgard for its wider community and even makers.
I know RAI versus RAW is a weird ideological conflict that has gone on for two decades and isn't going to stop - but how is this a good example?
Rites of Tempering change to only applying for infantry... was a change. Not a RAI/RAW issue.
The Ironstone change is the same.
Stratagems going up in CP is the same.
Psychic repair skill was nerfed.
I'm going to do a generic response since that is much easier than addressing each person individually. RAI is a good stop gap for when the rules are unclear or non-functional. No arguments there. The problem is that it has turned into the defacto norm and as such GW isn't being held to a reasonable standard. Is there really any excuse when GW flat out admits some things are not functional and they lean heavily on RAI to circumvent having to address the rules. The breaking point is where you start getting rules debates on "well I think this is the intention" vs "No I think this is the intention" and it turns into a popularity contest on what the actual intention is going to be. Savior protocols is the poster child for this debate as it has changed dramatically every single time there is an FAQ. Sometimes it reflects the community consensus, sometimes it doesn't.
Again, RAI isn't inherently bad just like mutation isn't inherently bad. It turns into a cancer once it starts disrupting things from working normally just like RAI is giving GW a cop out from fixing things like assault weapons. Forcing the tournament scene to strictly adhere to RAW is probably too extreme, in retrospect I'll cede that point. Ideally, I would want the major tournament organizers to do something more atune to "Obviously GW does not intend for you to have infinite hits on exploding 6s so we are going to house rule in that these hits do not cause additional hits themselves until GW fixes it." There's a subtle difference between "Uh yeah I know it says that but uh we don't think they intended that so we won't play it that way" vs "Uh yeah I know it says that and we don't think they intended that so for this tournament/league/whatever change the text to ________ until they fix it." Hopefully, this is where GW copy+pastes the fix into the FAQ assuming it does what they want it to. RAI people, we both want the same thing and we both agree that the game cannot be played strictly RAW, I am advocating that people stop pretending that words mean things they don't and change the text themselves. Just changing the method, not the end result.
Ultimately though it's irrelevant because I was unaware GW has been caught red handed and outed for intentionally buffing units for sales purposes. Testing for intent might explain how problems like Tigersharks not being able to fire their macro weapon or Longstrike buffing keywords that don't exist happens, but if there's more than just tinfoil conspiracy theories about sacrificing balance for sales yeah that's probably it and RAW vs RAI isn't relevant to the discussion anymore. I was assuming it was creating blissful ignorance for how powerful they were when played RAW.
JohnnyHell wrote: Yeah... but no. OP’s hypothesis is nonsense, the analogy is not actually an analogy, and it’s just pure soapboxing. Comparing things to cancer is Reddit-esque edgery. RAI is a tool to make rules work, not something that people are told to use over the words.when playtesting.
This is just a personal agenda, sorry. Not one shred of it will match reality.
agreed. It makes zero sense. especially as the bit he's highlighting is a standard introduction GW's used for a few rules tweeks they've done in the past
Right? We also know from crusaders like BaconCatBug (ironically, as he was soapboxing another point) that the game would be poorer if played purely by RAW, as in it just doesn’t function in lots of cases... but common sense sorts it right out. Honestly, this weird agenda people have about slavishly following rules to the detriment of reason, logic and fun is... well, alien to me.
These people do not play this game. They talk about it. They may even excessively write lists they'll never play and argue the efficiency of units they'll never use. They'll weigh in on the meta, which is arguably their only worthwhile contribution, but the RAW crowd need that little bastion of following the rules to the detriment of the experience. They need that safe haven because the lack of firsthand experience is huge. It's pretend for Internet outrage points.
And they're the reason we don't get nice things.
Wow I've never seen this articulated so well. Very well said
Tyel wrote: I know RAI versus RAW is a weird ideological conflict that has gone on for two decades and isn't going to stop - but how is this a good example?
Rites of Tempering change to only applying for infantry... was a change. Not a RAI/RAW issue.
The Ironstone change is the same.
Stratagems going up in CP is the same.
Psychic repair skill was nerfed.
JohnnyHell wrote: Yeah... but no. OP’s hypothesis is nonsense, the analogy is not actually an analogy, and it’s just pure soapboxing. Comparing things to cancer is Reddit-esque edgery. RAI is a tool to make rules work, not something that people are told to use over the words.when playtesting.
This is just a personal agenda, sorry. Not one shred of it will match reality.
agreed. It makes zero sense. especially as the bit he's highlighting is a standard introduction GW's used for a few rules tweeks they've done in the past
Right? We also know from crusaders like BaconCatBug (ironically, as he was soapboxing another point) that the game would be poorer if played purely by RAW, as in it just doesn’t function in lots of cases... but common sense sorts it right out. Honestly, this weird agenda people have about slavishly following rules to the detriment of reason, logic and fun is... well, alien to me.
These people do not play this game. They talk about it. They may even excessively write lists they'll never play and argue the efficiency of units they'll never use. They'll weigh in on the meta, which is arguably their only worthwhile contribution, but the RAW crowd need that little bastion of following the rules to the detriment of the experience. They need that safe haven because the lack of firsthand experience is huge. It's pretend for Internet outrage points.
And they're the reason we don't get nice things.
Wow I've never seen this articulated so well. Very well said
I did know a guy years ago who would try to pull all sorts of RAWBS. He would try to claim things like: A glancing hit with his meltagun on a roll of 2 was a still a 2, because you know you subtract first to a minimum of 1 and then add 1. So you know 2-2+1=2. Or he wouldn't tell you what was in each transport because the rules in 5th ed didn't say you had to. Or wobbly model rule in older editions did say your opponent had to agree. So once after I exploded one of his vehicles he put down a custom built crater that had a small hole in the center and very steep slopes that made it impossible to place your models without them falling over. He would then claim you couldn't charge his models because you couldn't place your models and he wouldn't let you use the wobbly model rule.
He also outright cheated too. Everybody hated that guy.
Edit: Lemondish is probably right for 99% of these rules lawyers. I have meet a few "that guys" while playing 40k over years.
And who’s to say that is the case here? No one has any proof anyone was ignored, heeded, or anywhere in between. GW done fethed up. At least they haven’t made us wait a whole edition for a fix. Patch is better than no patch, however you look at it. And no product has ever shipped with zero errors (cue BCB parachuting in with his “100% error record!” mantra). For the record this isn’t white knighting, it’s being pragmatic.
but they do it only for some armies. With IH they changed the rules fast, but other armies waited 6 months for an FAQ, and got nothing. Some armies like necron, are still waiting for quality of life errata.
I did know a guy years ago who would try to pull all sorts of RAWBS. He would try to claim things like: A glancing hit with his meltagun on a roll of 2 was a still a 2, because you know you subtract first to a minimum of 1 and then add 1. So you know 2-2+1=2. Or he wouldn't tell you what was in each transport because the rules in 5th ed didn't say you had to. Or wobbly model rule in older editions did say your opponent had to agree. So once after I exploded one of his vehicles he put down a custom built crater that had a small hole in the center and very steep slopes that made it impossible to place your models without them falling over. He would then claim you couldn't charge his models because you couldn't place your models and he wouldn't let you use the wobbly model rule.
He also outright cheated too. Everybody hated that guy.
Edit: Lemondish is probably right for 99% of these rules lawyers. I have meet a few "that guys" while playing 40k over years.
I love the mental gymnastics that TFG goes through to justify their behavior
Ironhands imbalance was caused by someone being an ironhands fan at GW central. You'd have to be flat out blind to not know it when writing the rules. While they were at it an imperial fist fan meanwhile was like...lets nerf guilliman and then give crimson fists and equal buff for the cost of free.
Xenomancers wrote: Ironhands imbalance was caused by someone being an ironhands fan at GW central. You'd have to be flat out blind to not know it when writing the rules. While they were at it an imperial fist fan meanwhile was like...lets nerf guilliman and then give crimson fists and equal buff for the cost of free.
This has been a common conspiracy theory since the dawn of time.
X is broken? Must have been a fan of X working on it.
Y made it through play-testing? Play-tester who's main army is Y probably protected it.
When arguments run together you pretty much know they're made up.
The likely reason(s)? Incompetence, miscommunication, and/or culture clash between departments. Given the first is unlikely to be bad enough to cause the issue it leaves miscommunication and culture clash. Did marketing force the rules writer's hands? Its possible. What matters now is they recognized what biting the hand that feeds them feels like. If it was miscommunication then GW needs to change its process.
Xenomancers wrote: Ironhands imbalance was caused by someone being an ironhands fan at GW central. You'd have to be flat out blind to not know it when writing the rules. While they were at it an imperial fist fan meanwhile was like...lets nerf guilliman and then give crimson fists and equal buff for the cost of free.
This has been a common conspiracy theory since the dawn of time.
X is broken? Must have been a fan of X working on it.
Y made it through play-testing? Play-tester who's main army is Y probably protected it.
When arguments run together you pretty much know they're made up.
The likely reason(s)? Incompetence, miscommunication, and/or culture clash between departments. Given the first is unlikely to be bad enough to cause the issue it leaves miscommunication and culture clash. Did marketing force the rules writer's hands? Its possible. What matters now is they recognized what biting the hand that feeds them feels like. If it was miscommunication then GW needs to change its process.
Xeno is partly right here. All broken Eldar stuff was because Phil Kelley loves the space elves and has written their stuff. Heck, their worst edition, 5th, they were at worst mid tier. That says a lot about the favoritism argument.
DominayTrix wrote: So as a community should 40k stop giving GW the benefit of the doubt and start applying strict RAW to tournaments until things get fixed? Personally I think its going to suck in the short term, but it is time to rip off that bandaid especially now that we have FAQs as a tool for fixing things.
You realize right that means "dont' play any 40k whatsoever" since it's literally impossible to play 40kraw? Games halt with rules that aren't even covered so you can't play the game to conclusion.
Have fun.
IH imbalance was caused btw not by RAI but GW being lousy designers...well actually scratch that. They wanted to sell their fliers and executioners super fast. Intentional so the supplement worked as intended.
How were IH intended to be played in a way they werent broken? All their rules are quite clear in what way they work and how they buff everything.
Only way they would have been balanced with RAI would be if GW intended that you would only use old marine units like tactical marines, rhinos, assault maries, terminators, drop pods, melee dreads and predators etc. Non of the new stuff at all and only the weakest units and preferably those that barely benefit from all their new rules. But I cant see how that is the case as IH lore makes them vehicle heavy and GW have pushed primaris to high heavens the last few years.
To say they made a supplement intended to NOT use those units just make GW look even more incompetent. Cant even believe this is made as a defense of the IH mess. Now you are gonna say that IF super doctrine is balanced because its obviously only intended to work ok lascannons and multi meltas in devastators/tactical squads despite its obvious synergy with heavy bolter weapons due to their own CHAPTER TACTIC. "Wow! How could anyone ever think their doctrine + tactic would ever be used together. Obviously not RAI"
I don't know, maybe GW expects people to have armies build around a highlander system. So no double units. no FW. most of the stuff becomes to swingy to judge, when all you have is one repulsor, one dread, and flyer etc.
If it is true that they play test stuff with painted studio armies, then it could be like that. They rarely have anything double then troops. Or it is is stuff like two units of agressors, but they aren't 6 men, and one is flamer and the other is dakka.
Maybe they think people play the game that way. Someone living in UK could ask,them to be honest.
The likely reason(s)? Incompetence, miscommunication, and/or culture clash between departments. Given the first is unlikely to be bad enough to cause the issue it leaves miscommunication and culture clash. Did marketing force the rules writer's hands? Its possible. What matters now is they recognized what biting the hand that feeds them feels like. If it was miscommunication then GW needs to change its process.
I am not very good with math, but I can draw analogy from sports. There is no chance to get a team or a sportsman dominate for 30 years, unless they are helped in some way or start from an unequal footing to begin with. Now I know w40k isn't considered to be a sport by people here. But I think the chance of eldar being great every edition on and on, is a bit strange to say the least.
The same goes for reverse situations, when armies are bad. And even more strange is the fact, that it is the same people writing and testing the books. If it was something like, eldar and marines are done by the Nothingam HQ, and ending up awesome, but NPC or background faction being done by some small sub studio in Canada, being hit or miss, and another one being done In San Paulo and always ending up really under powered, I could understand it. But codex like necron or GK, were writen and tested, by the same people that just did marines, or eldar or Inari, or the knight books. And it is not even the time difference. Take the DG book and place it next to GK. They came out at the same time. GK feel as if they weren't even writen for 8th ed.
Xeno is partly right here. All broken Eldar stuff was because Phil Kelley loves the space elves and has written their stuff. Heck, their worst edition, 5th, they were at worst mid tier. That says a lot about the favoritism argument.
The only edition since 2nd they didn't get a book.
Xenomancers wrote: Ironhands imbalance was caused by someone being an ironhands fan at GW central. You'd have to be flat out blind to not know it when writing the rules. While they were at it an imperial fist fan meanwhile was like...lets nerf guilliman and then give crimson fists and equal buff for the cost of free.
This has been a common conspiracy theory since the dawn of time.
Except it was an outright fact with the 3.5 CSM codex ref. Pete Haines and Iron Warriors. The guy said so himself.
Xenomancers wrote: Ironhands imbalance was caused by someone being an ironhands fan at GW central. You'd have to be flat out blind to not know it when writing the rules. While they were at it an imperial fist fan meanwhile was like...lets nerf guilliman and then give crimson fists and equal buff for the cost of free.
This has been a common conspiracy theory since the dawn of time.
X is broken? Must have been a fan of X working on it.
Y made it through play-testing? Play-tester who's main army is Y probably protected it.
When arguments run together you pretty much know they're made up.
The likely reason(s)? Incompetence, miscommunication, and/or culture clash between departments. Given the first is unlikely to be bad enough to cause the issue it leaves miscommunication and culture clash. Did marketing force the rules writer's hands? Its possible. What matters now is they recognized what biting the hand that feeds them feels like. If it was miscommunication then GW needs to change its process.
How can incompetence not cause the IH issues?
For all we know the designers still play the game with armies of rhino's and las/plas tacticals so they never considered someone might take 2 Repulsors and some flyers, which to me falls under incompetence.
The only way RAW to be enough is the game to be played for years with minimum changes. There are to many interactions to test after every new release to be cached during the testing.
The real problem is there are so many FAQ and erratas. If you are new player, you can`t get the rulebook, read it and start to play the game. You have to read alot of extra rules that are not updated in the rulebook and that is what annoy me.
Xenomancers wrote: Ironhands imbalance was caused by someone being an ironhands fan at GW central. You'd have to be flat out blind to not know it when writing the rules. While they were at it an imperial fist fan meanwhile was like...lets nerf guilliman and then give crimson fists and equal buff for the cost of free.
This has been a common conspiracy theory since the dawn of time.
Except it was an outright fact with the 3.5 CSM codex ref. Pete Haines and Iron Warriors. The guy said so himself.
It's also hard to justify iron hands getting three traits unless the designer was such an iron hands fan he couldn't let one of them go.
So as a community should 40k stop giving GW the benefit of the doubt and start applying strict RAW to tournaments until things get fixed?
No, because that would require people at tournaments to abandon their ITC house rules. Also, it's a pretty tone deaf thing to suggest.
Intentionally killing the tournament scene to "teach GW a lesson" is as asinine as the continued beating of the drum for RAW when people don't even follow the very basic and fundamental concept of RAW winning conditions in a given game.
RAI is how this game is played, like it or not. Want to play full RAW40k? You won't be doing it at any tournament without a much more seismic shift away from ITC.
Also the whole 'as annoying as it is baconcatbug has a point and the game literally doesn't function RAW because GW are bad at language' thing.
And I'm sorry, missions are house rules now? That's some bull.
I write procedures and instructions as part of my living, makes me no expert but sure causes me pain when writing is badly done.
A note of "intent" is helpful to put at the beginning of a document to identify what you are trying to achieve with the document and to give guidance if by some horrible mistake <giggle> a rule can be interpreted multiple ways.
A "scope" does not hurt to also define what you feel these rules should affect to ensure you are clear and no "scope creep" happens where you go a little too far.
Most quality systems have now pretty much banned the word "should" and use the word "shall" to make it clear things written do not falsely appear optional: unclear language is a choice and needs to be mercilessly edited out.
GW unfortunately likes to write so everything appears to be from a friend and the soft language causes no small amount of pain.
RAI is bad, full stop.
We cannot lay claim to read the mind of the author and unless they clearly write down their "intent" from the beginning it all becomes a matter of opinion.
The "Iron Hands Imbalance" was caused by bad writing and a decided lack of editing (with an eye to gaming not just language).
Take the most rabid competitive player in the GW shop and get them to itemize how they would leverage the most out of the rules and then have them make an army and beat the author's army of choice into the ground with it.
"But that was not in the SPIRIT of the game!" you could cry, well, rules and anything handed down by authority completely determines the tone of how a system plays-out and will be used to the letter and extreme of the law.
It has been hammered by many in Dakka that GW makes "horrible" rules, I feel their ideas are excellent but their complete dedication to friendly language shoots them in the foot again and again.
I feel they can have the best of both worlds and write all the text they want to explain but put the clear core rule in some box imbedded in that section of the book that they clearly state that ONLY the text in those designated boxes are the actual rules.
It would make it into a handy abridged rule book later on as well.
Marin wrote: The only way RAW to be enough is the game to be played for years with minimum changes. There are to many interactions to test after every new release to be cached during the testing.
The real problem is there are so many FAQ and erratas. If you are new player, you can`t get the rulebook, read it and start to play the game. You have to read alot of extra rules that are not updated in the rulebook and that is what annoy me.
I would even say that if you get the hands on the actual rule book, you may get the wrong idea about the game, and start buying the wrong units or even buy in to a faction you think works in a specific way, but it doesn't, because rules do not allow it.
I feel they can have the best of both worlds and write all the text they want to explain but put the clear core rule in some box imbedded in that section of the book that they clearly state that ONLY the text in those designated boxes are the actual rules.
This is very much true. A tight and clear rule set would be good for everyone, doesn't matter if someone plays tournaments or not. The whole RAI thing more often then not sounds like people trying to either defend GW, or defend their army choice.
Xeno is partly right here. All broken Eldar stuff was because Phil Kelley loves the space elves and has written their stuff. Heck, their worst edition, 5th, they were at worst mid tier. That says a lot about the favoritism argument.
The only edition since 2nd they didn't get a book.
2nd was...a bit funky. I try not to consider it when it comes to balance discussions because it was honestly all over the place. I maybe did 10ish games and I can't see why anyone would have liked it.
I love how all the bad things in the game are because GW is bad at making a game, and couldn't balance things if their life depended on it (and how anyone saying otherwise is apparently a battered wife).
But apparently they're so good that any army that's good is because it's GW's favorite army.
Isn't it much more likely the truth is somewhere in between? Sometimes they fanboi, and sometimes they're not great at ruleswriting.
Historically there have clearly been differences in codex power. "Balancing" is rudimentary at best - codexes written by "I love this faction, lets give them this rule, and that rule, and this random special wargear, and and and" run into "oh? Is it faction X's turn? Eh, who cares. What do they have on the model? I guess these guys have guns. Yeah, thats it."
Or the classic "its the start of the edition, we are pruning rules, trying to cut the power back" - "its the end of the edition, have all the rules for no points!"
At least these days GW changes the points to try and rectify their mistakes.
Since Eldar have a huge roster and elements of every unit type they have generally been competitive because some units have worked out to be very efficient, so you just spam them.
I always feel "but we wos bad in 5th" to be special pleading, although its mainly because I hated that edition. Its boring to say - but yes, I hate Grey Knights from that edition and I likely always will. Necrons have grown on me a little, but were in a similar boat. Its not like this was the whole edition, but... eh. Worst time in 40k going on and off back to 1998.
Not Online!!! wrote: Patch is better then no patch yes.
But the reliance of first day patches is nothing good. Neither in the video game industry nor in the TG one.
It shows serious lack in planning capabilities and abuses workers for last minute crunch time.
James Hewitt talked a bit about that in a response to a question about the FAQs:
Right, so, I've been expecting a question like this, and I've been mulling over the best way to answer it for a couple of days. Here's the best answer I can think of - apologies in advance if it rambles!
In a company the size of GW (which, I'll make clear, is not a big company by any means, but in terms of this industry it's monolithic) there are a lot of considerations. Everything that's done needs to be worthwhile, and needs to make a profit. When producing a game for GW, the sad truth is that quality of rules has very little impact on sales. Obviously you don't want the rules to be bad, but there's a real diminishing returns thing going on; the difference between a set of rules that's 60% perfect and one that's 70% perfect is going to be fairly significant, but the difference between 70% and 80% less so. And 80% to 90% even less.
So, as a designer, you're always pushing for more time. Any game design project has several stages - you do your R&D, your preparation, your grunt work (actually writing the thing), and your polish / testing / proofing. Management are always going to squeeze your deadlines, because they know that your instinct is to push for a good game, but they know that from a business point of view it only needs to be good enough to sell. Unfortunately, the grunt work is the bit that needs to happen, so the bits that get trimmed are R&D (which make things interesting and well-thought-out) and polish (which makes sure there are no mistakes).
That said, it's getting better. When I first started, playtesting was a bit of a dirty word; there was a real disdain for "balance" among the higher echelons of management. Silver Tower, for example, was playtested almost entirely in my own time, unpaid, using unpaid volunteers. But now, the are increasing numbers of external playtesters, and it's getting better. Thing is, no matter how rigorously the internal testing is, you're never going to find all the issues; it might seem shocking that a book comes out and the internet finds a dozen errata on day one, but remember that more people are seeing it in that one day than saw it throughout the entire production cycle. The only way to deal with it would be to have open playtesting, getting thousands of people to read the rules before they go to print, and sure enough that's what Forge World sometimes do - but it's not practical for main-range GW, because of their confidentiality rules and that kind of thing.
Hope that answers your question - sorry if it's a bit rambly!
The tl;dr: it's a problem caused by a combination of deadlines that need to be met and a limited number of eyes on any given rule set.
Not Online!!! wrote: Patch is better then no patch yes.
But the reliance of first day patches is nothing good. Neither in the video game industry nor in the TG one.
It shows serious lack in planning capabilities and abuses workers for last minute crunch time.
James Hewitt talked a bit about that in a response to a question about the FAQs:
Right, so, I've been expecting a question like this, and I've been mulling over the best way to answer it for a couple of days. Here's the best answer I can think of - apologies in advance if it rambles!
In a company the size of GW (which, I'll make clear, is not a big company by any means, but in terms of this industry it's monolithic) there are a lot of considerations. Everything that's done needs to be worthwhile, and needs to make a profit. When producing a game for GW, the sad truth is that quality of rules has very little impact on sales. Obviously you don't want the rules to be bad, but there's a real diminishing returns thing going on; the difference between a set of rules that's 60% perfect and one that's 70% perfect is going to be fairly significant, but the difference between 70% and 80% less so. And 80% to 90% even less.
So, as a designer, you're always pushing for more time. Any game design project has several stages - you do your R&D, your preparation, your grunt work (actually writing the thing), and your polish / testing / proofing. Management are always going to squeeze your deadlines, because they know that your instinct is to push for a good game, but they know that from a business point of view it only needs to be good enough to sell. Unfortunately, the grunt work is the bit that needs to happen, so the bits that get trimmed are R&D (which make things interesting and well-thought-out) and polish (which makes sure there are no mistakes).
That said, it's getting better. When I first started, playtesting was a bit of a dirty word; there was a real disdain for "balance" among the higher echelons of management. Silver Tower, for example, was playtested almost entirely in my own time, unpaid, using unpaid volunteers. But now, the are increasing numbers of external playtesters, and it's getting better. Thing is, no matter how rigorously the internal testing is, you're never going to find all the issues; it might seem shocking that a book comes out and the internet finds a dozen errata on day one, but remember that more people are seeing it in that one day than saw it throughout the entire production cycle. The only way to deal with it would be to have open playtesting, getting thousands of people to read the rules before they go to print, and sure enough that's what Forge World sometimes do - but it's not practical for main-range GW, because of their confidentiality rules and that kind of thing.
Hope that answers your question - sorry if it's a bit rambly!
The tl;dr: it's a problem caused by a combination of deadlines that need to be met and a limited number of eyes on any given rule set.
I have long suspected that GW's weekly release schedule is hitting into the available time for quality control and play testing. Back when releases were monthly it didn't feel as bad, but I guess then the gaps between releasing Codex/army books was months.
The above sort of confirms my suspicions. As long as GW keep to this frantic release schedule, we'll continue to see glaring errors in writing, and in balance.
Bharring wrote: I love how all the bad things in the game are because GW is bad at making a game, and couldn't balance things if their life depended on it (and how anyone saying otherwise is apparently a battered wife).
But apparently they're so good that any army that's good is because it's GW's favorite army.
Isn't it much more likely the truth is somewhere in between? Sometimes they fanboi, and sometimes they're not great at ruleswriting.
You can tell when they are inspired by certain armies. Some armies they aren't inspired by at all. They are like a bad parent picking favorites. When the children cry because they are unhappy - there response is "at least you got a roof over your head".
Not Online!!! wrote: Patch is better then no patch yes.
But the reliance of first day patches is nothing good. Neither in the video game industry nor in the TG one.
It shows serious lack in planning capabilities and abuses workers for last minute crunch time.
James Hewitt talked a bit about that in a response to a question about the FAQs:
Right, so, I've been expecting a question like this, and I've been mulling over the best way to answer it for a couple of days. Here's the best answer I can think of - apologies in advance if it rambles!
In a company the size of GW (which, I'll make clear, is not a big company by any means, but in terms of this industry it's monolithic) there are a lot of considerations. Everything that's done needs to be worthwhile, and needs to make a profit. When producing a game for GW, the sad truth is that quality of rules has very little impact on sales. Obviously you don't want the rules to be bad, but there's a real diminishing returns thing going on; the difference between a set of rules that's 60% perfect and one that's 70% perfect is going to be fairly significant, but the difference between 70% and 80% less so. And 80% to 90% even less.
So, as a designer, you're always pushing for more time. Any game design project has several stages - you do your R&D, your preparation, your grunt work (actually writing the thing), and your polish / testing / proofing. Management are always going to squeeze your deadlines, because they know that your instinct is to push for a good game, but they know that from a business point of view it only needs to be good enough to sell. Unfortunately, the grunt work is the bit that needs to happen, so the bits that get trimmed are R&D (which make things interesting and well-thought-out) and polish (which makes sure there are no mistakes).
That said, it's getting better. When I first started, playtesting was a bit of a dirty word; there was a real disdain for "balance" among the higher echelons of management. Silver Tower, for example, was playtested almost entirely in my own time, unpaid, using unpaid volunteers. But now, the are increasing numbers of external playtesters, and it's getting better. Thing is, no matter how rigorously the internal testing is, you're never going to find all the issues; it might seem shocking that a book comes out and the internet finds a dozen errata on day one, but remember that more people are seeing it in that one day than saw it throughout the entire production cycle. The only way to deal with it would be to have open playtesting, getting thousands of people to read the rules before they go to print, and sure enough that's what Forge World sometimes do - but it's not practical for main-range GW, because of their confidentiality rules and that kind of thing.
Hope that answers your question - sorry if it's a bit rambly!
The tl;dr: it's a problem caused by a combination of deadlines that need to be met and a limited number of eyes on any given rule set.
I have long suspected that GW's weekly release schedule is hitting into the available time for quality control and play testing. Back when releases were monthly it didn't feel as bad, but I guess then the gaps between releasing Codex/army books was months.
The above sort of confirms my suspicions. As long as GW keep to this frantic release schedule, we'll continue to see glaring errors in writing, and in balance.
I mean on one hand i would like to say that is true on the other one i can't remember why the CSM dex release shoul've been so much worse then C: SM 2.0 (mind you the basic C:SM 2.'0 dex is imo actually a good piece of a ruleset)
Bharring wrote: I love how all the bad things in the game are because GW is bad at making a game, and couldn't balance things if their life depended on it (and how anyone saying otherwise is apparently a battered wife).
But apparently they're so good that any army that's good is because it's GW's favorite army.
Isn't it much more likely the truth is somewhere in between? Sometimes they fanboi, and sometimes they're not great at ruleswriting.
The bolded part is ... wrong, not to put too fine a point on it.
All the bad things are bad because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. The good things being good is not because GW is good, it's also because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. Those things aren't contradictory at all, there is no "somewhere in between" for the truth to be.
Not Online!!! wrote: Patch is better then no patch yes.
But the reliance of first day patches is nothing good. Neither in the video game industry nor in the TG one.
It shows serious lack in planning capabilities and abuses workers for last minute crunch time.
James Hewitt talked a bit about that in a response to a question about the FAQs:
Right, so, I've been expecting a question like this, and I've been mulling over the best way to answer it for a couple of days. Here's the best answer I can think of - apologies in advance if it rambles!
In a company the size of GW (which, I'll make clear, is not a big company by any means, but in terms of this industry it's monolithic) there are a lot of considerations. Everything that's done needs to be worthwhile, and needs to make a profit. When producing a game for GW, the sad truth is that quality of rules has very little impact on sales. Obviously you don't want the rules to be bad, but there's a real diminishing returns thing going on; the difference between a set of rules that's 60% perfect and one that's 70% perfect is going to be fairly significant, but the difference between 70% and 80% less so. And 80% to 90% even less.
So, as a designer, you're always pushing for more time. Any game design project has several stages - you do your R&D, your preparation, your grunt work (actually writing the thing), and your polish / testing / proofing. Management are always going to squeeze your deadlines, because they know that your instinct is to push for a good game, but they know that from a business point of view it only needs to be good enough to sell. Unfortunately, the grunt work is the bit that needs to happen, so the bits that get trimmed are R&D (which make things interesting and well-thought-out) and polish (which makes sure there are no mistakes).
That said, it's getting better. When I first started, playtesting was a bit of a dirty word; there was a real disdain for "balance" among the higher echelons of management. Silver Tower, for example, was playtested almost entirely in my own time, unpaid, using unpaid volunteers. But now, the are increasing numbers of external playtesters, and it's getting better. Thing is, no matter how rigorously the internal testing is, you're never going to find all the issues; it might seem shocking that a book comes out and the internet finds a dozen errata on day one, but remember that more people are seeing it in that one day than saw it throughout the entire production cycle. The only way to deal with it would be to have open playtesting, getting thousands of people to read the rules before they go to print, and sure enough that's what Forge World sometimes do - but it's not practical for main-range GW, because of their confidentiality rules and that kind of thing.
Hope that answers your question - sorry if it's a bit rambly!
The tl;dr: it's a problem caused by a combination of deadlines that need to be met and a limited number of eyes on any given rule set.
I agree with everything he said, but it doesn't take tens of thousands of eyes to see that things like the Ironstone are probably broken.
Bharring wrote: I love how all the bad things in the game are because GW is bad at making a game, and couldn't balance things if their life depended on it (and how anyone saying otherwise is apparently a battered wife).
But apparently they're so good that any army that's good is because it's GW's favorite army.
Isn't it much more likely the truth is somewhere in between? Sometimes they fanboi, and sometimes they're not great at ruleswriting.
The bolded part is ... wrong, not to put too fine a point on it.
All the bad things are bad because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. The good things being good is not because GW is good, it's also because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. Those things aren't contradictory at all, there is no "somewhere in between" for the truth to be.
This. It's a piece of piss to make an unit/army powerful. Even someone who has no idea how the game works could probably do it by just throw a metric fethton of special rules onto some base profiles and chances are at least a couple will end up brokenly powerful.
For an example of this in practice, see Iron Hands space marines
But in seriousness, they did with the Iron Hands the exact same mistake they made with Riptides, just across an entire army. A unit can be tough. A unit can be mobile. A unit can pack a lot of firepower. But when you combine any of those together, you are massively increasing their power far beyond what you might expect. A unit with high firepower which is tough lasts longer to shoot more, a unit which has firepower and mobile can more easily avoid units which threaten it and also more easily get into position to use that firepower, a unit with toughness and mobility is excellent at board control as it is difficult to remove and can easily claim objectives etc. The Riptide was terribly designed ruleswise because it combined all three of those. It had JSJ for mobility (with option to buff up to even more mobility), it had a 2+/5++ with possibility for a 5+++ and 3++ and it had a S8 AP2 pie plate weapon at will. That was one unit. The Iron Hands got toughness and mobility army wide at no extra cost on the units. Some of those units already had high firepower and so ended up with all three.
The bolded part is ... wrong, not to put too fine a point on it.
All the bad things are bad because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. The good things being good is not because GW is good, it's also because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. Those things aren't contradictory at all, there is no "somewhere in between" for the truth to be.
okey but at some point it stops to matter, if they do something for the Nth time, because they don't know how to do something, or because they don't like or like something.
Marine got the GK ammo stratagem in their doctrins as a flat buff they get for free, for the entire army, that is before any supplement or codex special rule. In game terms it doesn't matter at all if this was done, because GW doesn't know how to write balanced rules, dislikes GK, likes marines very much or they didn't have enough time to test.
Bharring wrote: I love how all the bad things in the game are because GW is bad at making a game, and couldn't balance things if their life depended on it (and how anyone saying otherwise is apparently a battered wife).
But apparently they're so good that any army that's good is because it's GW's favorite army.
Isn't it much more likely the truth is somewhere in between? Sometimes they fanboi, and sometimes they're not great at ruleswriting.
The bolded part is ... wrong, not to put too fine a point on it.
All the bad things are bad because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. The good things being good is not because GW is good, it's also because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. Those things aren't contradictory at all, there is no "somewhere in between" for the truth to be.
This. It's a piece of piss to make an unit/army powerful. Even someone who has no idea how the game works could probably do it by just throw a metric fethton of special rules onto some base profiles and chances are at least a couple will end up brokenly powerful.
For an example of this in practice, see Iron Hands space marines
But in seriousness, they did with the Iron Hands the exact same mistake they made with Riptides, just across an entire army. A unit can be tough. A unit can be mobile. A unit can pack a lot of firepower. But when you combine any of those together, you are massively increasing their power far beyond what you might expect. A unit with high firepower which is tough lasts longer to shoot more, a unit which has firepower and mobile can more easily avoid units which threaten it and also more easily get into position to use that firepower, a unit with toughness and mobility is excellent at board control as it is difficult to remove and can easily claim objectives etc. The Riptide was terribly designed ruleswise because it combined all three of those. It had JSJ for mobility (with option to buff up to even more mobility), it had a 2+/5++ with possibility for a 5+++ and 3++ and it had a S8 AP2 pie plate weapon at will. That was one unit. The Iron Hands got toughness and mobility army wide at no extra cost on the units. Some of those units already had high firepower and so ended up with all three.
The bolded part is ... wrong, not to put too fine a point on it.
All the bad things are bad because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. The good things being good is not because GW is good, it's also because GW isn't good at balancing units/factions. Those things aren't contradictory at all, there is no "somewhere in between" for the truth to be.
okey but at some point it stops to matter, if they do something for the Nth time, because they don't know how to do something, or because they don't like or like something.
Marine got the GK ammo stratagem in their doctrins as a flat buff they get for free, for the entire army, that is before any supplement or codex special rule. In game terms it doesn't matter at all if this was done, because GW doesn't know how to write balanced rules, dislikes GK, likes marines very much or they didn't have enough time to test.
To be fair - marines probably needed ap -1 on all their small guns and that GK stratagem is very overcosted and also gives +1 str. It gives me hope that all GK units will get psybolt ammo as a flat upgrade across the army.
Has anyone ever met a Rules Tester for 40k? I always assumed it was the Devs just "testing" their own rules. There is no squad of 8 pro players that get tossed codexes and then in a windowed room GW watches their play and judges if the codex is worthy, right?
TlR - DO testers even exist? Because I'm saying the evidence points to no, and GW has never actually demonstrated they actually exist.
To be fair - marines probably needed ap -1 on all their small guns and that GK stratagem is very overcosted and also gives +1 str. It gives me hope that all GK units will get psybolt ammo as a flat upgrade across the army.
Oh I am not claiming the changes or rules are bad. Am all in for all armies getting good rules. Am just saying that with a new company and unexpiriance company saying that they did this or that, because of this or that different thing maybe makes sense. For an established one it does not really matter that much. What matter is what GW does. For example if all future codex get supplements like that, then it would be awesome. Problems may start if after those, IMO, really good supplements, we got a necron codex with a really bad one, would be really bad. And what ever such a thing would be because of some ultra necron eternal hate or incompetance wouldn't matter much.
To be fair - marines probably needed ap -1 on all their small guns and that GK stratagem is very overcosted and also gives +1 str. It gives me hope that all GK units will get psybolt ammo as a flat upgrade across the army.
Oh I am not claiming the changes or rules are bad. Am all in for all armies getting good rules. Am just saying that with a new company and unexpiriance company saying that they did this or that, because of this or that different thing maybe makes sense. For an established one it does not really matter that much. What matter is what GW does. For example if all future codex get supplements like that, then it would be awesome. Problems may start if after those, IMO, really good supplements, we got a necron codex with a really bad one, would be really bad. And what ever such a thing would be because of some ultra necron eternal hate or incompetance wouldn't matter much.
Yeah when I first looked at Ironhands rules I instantly made these connections....
They have Ulthwe, Hawkshroud, and Tau spet army traits. Dark angels trait that works on the move. Siamhan ignore heavy penalties on all units - not just bikes. Cadian army trait that works on the move for heavies.
In addition to -1 AP on all their guns and +1 attack every first round of combat....WOW. Previously they only had the Ulthwe bonus on infantry and dreads...
Has anyone ever met a Rules Tester for 40k? I always assumed it was the Devs just "testing" their own rules. There is no squad of 8 pro players that get tossed codexes and then in a windowed room GW watches their play and judges if the codex is worthy, right?
TlR - DO testers even exist? Because I'm saying the evidence points to no, and GW has never actually demonstrated they actually exist.
Would be cool if they videoed some play testing so we could see what a horrible job they are doing.
People at my store claimed that the IH rules looked and felt, pre errata, as old grey knight rules. Am not sure how much of that was true, but all the older players agreed on that.
To be honest if GK rules felt like IH rules, I can imagine why people still dislike GK players.
I am not very good with math, but I can draw analogy from sports. There is no chance to get a team or a sportsman dominate for 30 years, unless they are helped in some way or start from an unequal footing to begin with. Now I know w40k isn't considered to be a sport by people here. But I think the chance of eldar being great every edition on and on, is a bit strange to say the least.
The same goes for reverse situations, when armies are bad. And even more strange is the fact, that it is the same people writing and testing the books. If it was something like, eldar and marines are done by the Nothingam HQ, and ending up awesome, but NPC or background faction being done by some small sub studio in Canada, being hit or miss, and another one being done In San Paulo and always ending up really under powered, I could understand it. But codex like necron or GK, were writen and tested, by the same people that just did marines, or eldar or Inari, or the knight books. And it is not even the time difference. Take the DG book and place it next to GK. They came out at the same time. GK feel as if they weren't even writen for 8th ed.
And yet Ynnari got nerfed into the ground. Marines didn't start off great, but are getting better. Someone mentioned Iron Hands, but they're pretty meh at the moment. Daemons used to be murderously good. So did GK.
As a once GK player, I am trying not to anger GW further, they might make my Paladins cost more, or do only 1" smites. We have been beaten into submission.
Karol wrote: People at my store claimed that the IH rules looked and felt, pre errata, as old grey knight rules. Am not sure how much of that was true, but all the older players agreed on that.
To be honest if GK rules felt like IH rules, I can imagine why people still dislike GK players.
Yes Karol. In fifth Grey Knights were epically OP. The psychic reverberation of that is still felt much like the reverb of fourth edition CSM bezerkers being able to wipe armies.
Moving on to the main point
That doesn't excuse terrible balance. But perfectbalance itself is not optimal either. To achieve it you would have to remove uniqueness and replace with profiles that could be accurately compared.
A fair example of this in my mind was the Old High Elf 8th edition book. If you didn't use one banner the list was very balanced and useable there were optimal and suboptimal choices but nothing was unusable. There were a few really op things such as allarielle and her special banner. Most people found the frostheart Phoenix to be a uunkillable beast but it didn't do much damage on its own. It was when you plopped down a 40+ white lions unit with allarielle using life magic in it and Banner of the world dragon and threw a couple characters. Then that unit was near impossible to kill and you had to kill his core. Which was hidden. And hope for the best.
The point is people have different mindsets and attack problems from different angles. Even if you had 8 of the best most WAAC players playtesting you would still have issues as they can't possibly foresee every possible interaction. They could catch more than happens for sure.
That said why do those bionic power armored buffoons get my tau trait that we need as we suck in combat and they in fact do not need it.
Has anyone ever met a Rules Tester for 40k? I always assumed it was the Devs just "testing" their own rules. There is no squad of 8 pro players that get tossed codexes and then in a windowed room GW watches their play and judges if the codex is worthy, right?
TlR - DO testers even exist? Because I'm saying the evidence points to no, and GW has never actually demonstrated they actually exist.
A couple of the guys at Frontline Gaming (the guys that host the biggest tournament in the world and run the most popular mission format for tournaments) playtest, I believe one of the guys at another podcast is a playtester as well, I think he has some tournament tops under his belt. Some people don't really want balance, they just want something interesting, for GW to shake up the meta to avoid the game ever getting stale and figured out. Frankie and Reece from FLG are outside playtesters, but I believe GW claims they have a seperate group of people that playtest in-house. According to playtesters and GW there was a miscommunication about the IH supplement, proving again that communication is important.
But IH weren't unbalanced, they were totally balanced for Maelstrom, 70% win-rate just like it was supposed to be, it was only op in ITC where they had an 80% win-rate. Now with the nerfs I'm sure they're going to be trash, 35% win-rate confirmed. /s
Not Online!!! wrote: Patch is better then no patch yes.
But the reliance of first day patches is nothing good. Neither in the video game industry nor in the TG one.
It shows serious lack in planning capabilities and abuses workers for last minute crunch time.
James Hewitt talked a bit about that in a response to a question about the FAQs:
Right, so, I've been expecting a question like this, and I've been mulling over the best way to answer it for a couple of days. Here's the best answer I can think of - apologies in advance if it rambles!
In a company the size of GW (which, I'll make clear, is not a big company by any means, but in terms of this industry it's monolithic) there are a lot of considerations. Everything that's done needs to be worthwhile, and needs to make a profit. When producing a game for GW, the sad truth is that quality of rules has very little impact on sales. Obviously you don't want the rules to be bad, but there's a real diminishing returns thing going on; the difference between a set of rules that's 60% perfect and one that's 70% perfect is going to be fairly significant, but the difference between 70% and 80% less so. And 80% to 90% even less.
So, as a designer, you're always pushing for more time. Any game design project has several stages - you do your R&D, your preparation, your grunt work (actually writing the thing), and your polish / testing / proofing. Management are always going to squeeze your deadlines, because they know that your instinct is to push for a good game, but they know that from a business point of view it only needs to be good enough to sell. Unfortunately, the grunt work is the bit that needs to happen, so the bits that get trimmed are R&D (which make things interesting and well-thought-out) and polish (which makes sure there are no mistakes).
That said, it's getting better. When I first started, playtesting was a bit of a dirty word; there was a real disdain for "balance" among the higher echelons of management. Silver Tower, for example, was playtested almost entirely in my own time, unpaid, using unpaid volunteers. But now, the are increasing numbers of external playtesters, and it's getting better. Thing is, no matter how rigorously the internal testing is, you're never going to find all the issues; it might seem shocking that a book comes out and the internet finds a dozen errata on day one, but remember that more people are seeing it in that one day than saw it throughout the entire production cycle. The only way to deal with it would be to have open playtesting, getting thousands of people to read the rules before they go to print, and sure enough that's what Forge World sometimes do - but it's not practical for main-range GW, because of their confidentiality rules and that kind of thing.
Hope that answers your question - sorry if it's a bit rambly!
The tl;dr: it's a problem caused by a combination of deadlines that need to be met and a limited number of eyes on any given rule set.
I have long suspected that GW's weekly release schedule is hitting into the available time for quality control and play testing. Back when releases were monthly it didn't feel as bad, but I guess then the gaps between releasing Codex/army books was months.
The above sort of confirms my suspicions. As long as GW keep to this frantic release schedule, we'll continue to see glaring errors in writing, and in balance.
I don't agree. I believe they've kept the same development cycle as before, they just don't sit on releases as long.
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Ordana wrote: The tl;dr: it's a problem caused by a combination of deadlines that need to be met and a limited number of eyes on any given rule set.
I agree with everything he said, but it doesn't take tens of thousands of eyes to see that things like the Ironstone are probably broken.
While true, the FAQ shows that there may have been a belief in the community being able to find a counter the team hadn't noticed yet and that's why they waited instead of doing a literal day 1 patch.
Has anyone ever met a Rules Tester for 40k? I always assumed it was the Devs just "testing" their own rules. There is no squad of 8 pro players that get tossed codexes and then in a windowed room GW watches their play and judges if the codex is worthy, right?
TlR - DO testers even exist? Because I'm saying the evidence points to no, and GW has never actually demonstrated they actually exist.
Reese exists and FLG has been credited as a play testing group.
Has anyone ever met a Rules Tester for 40k? I always assumed it was the Devs just "testing" their own rules. There is no squad of 8 pro players that get tossed codexes and then in a windowed room GW watches their play and judges if the codex is worthy, right?
TlR - DO testers even exist? Because I'm saying the evidence points to no, and GW has never actually demonstrated they actually exist.
There were Interviews in one WD with 4 groups of playtesters some months ago. 2 of these were tournament groups, the others more narratively focused. I didn't check if these actually exist but I'd assume someone would have mentioned it if they didn't exist
All the evidence I've been shown points to there are "infrequent" at best play-testers, but nothing consistent. And the releases show it. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
The releases indicate multiple groups of testers not in harmony. Why release a codex only to have it be completely invalidated by a different codex a month later?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: All the evidence I've been shown points to there are "infrequent" at best play-testers, but nothing consistent. And the releases show it. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
The releases indicate multiple groups of testers not in harmony. Why release a codex only to have it be completely invalidated by a different codex a month later?
They've outlined that they use both narrative and competetive playtesters on every book. Just because you have this conspiracy theory that they don't playtest the way you've decided is "correct" doesn't mean they're actually doing it wrong.
People who don't think games are playtested don't understand they're only seeing the little stuff that got through, not the real problems that would destroy the game if they were published.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: All the evidence I've been shown points to there are "infrequent" at best play-testers, but nothing consistent. And the releases show it. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
The releases indicate multiple groups of testers not in harmony. Why release a codex only to have it be completely invalidated by a different codex a month later?
They've outlined that they use both narrative and competetive playtesters on every book. Just because you have this conspiracy theory that they don't playtest the way you've decided is "correct" doesn't mean they're actually doing it wrong.
People who don't think games are playtested don't understand they're only seeing the little stuff that got through, not the real problems that would destroy the game if they were published.
Just because they say they playtest does not mean they actually play test. "Little stuff that got through"...You honestly telling me that I am better at finding broken combos than the people who Run ITC? I find these typically in the first read through of the book in a casual 15 minute review.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: All the evidence I've been shown points to there are "infrequent" at best play-testers, but nothing consistent. And the releases show it. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
The releases indicate multiple groups of testers not in harmony. Why release a codex only to have it be completely invalidated by a different codex a month later?
They've outlined that they use both narrative and competetive playtesters on every book. Just because you have this conspiracy theory that they don't playtest the way you've decided is "correct" doesn't mean they're actually doing it wrong.
People who don't think games are playtested don't understand they're only seeing the little stuff that got through, not the real problems that would destroy the game if they were published.
Just because they say they playtest does not mean they actually play test. "Little stuff that got through"...You honestly telling me that I am better at finding broken combos than the people who Run ITC? I find these typically in the first read through of the book in a casual 15 minute review.
By that logic, just because people claim they don't play test doesn't mean they don't playtest. I'd take the word of the people involved in a given project over the word of some random person on the internet anyday to be quite honest.
Heck, James Hewitt flat out mentions playtesting in his free time in the past, and how they were actively employing third party playtesters when he left GW. But sure, they don't playtest and it's all smoke and mirrors.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: All the evidence I've been shown points to there are "infrequent" at best play-testers, but nothing consistent. And the releases show it. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
The releases indicate multiple groups of testers not in harmony. Why release a codex only to have it be completely invalidated by a different codex a month later?
They've outlined that they use both narrative and competetive playtesters on every book. Just because you have this conspiracy theory that they don't playtest the way you've decided is "correct" doesn't mean they're actually doing it wrong.
People who don't think games are playtested don't understand they're only seeing the little stuff that got through, not the real problems that would destroy the game if they were published.
Just because they say they playtest does not mean they actually play test. "Little stuff that got through"...You honestly telling me that I am better at finding broken combos than the people who Run ITC? I find these typically in the first read through of the book in a casual 15 minute review.
By that logic, just because people claim they don't play test doesn't mean they don't playtest. I'd take the word of the people involved in a given project over the word of some random person on the internet anyday to be quite honest.
Heck, James Hewitt flat out mentions playtesting in his free time in the past, and how they were actively employing third party playtesters when he left GW. But sure, they don't playtest and it's all smoke and mirrors.
The evidence is in the quality of the rules being produced. Actual play testing can not be taking place if such power disparity exists. It is actually quite obvious without actually playing how most of these new rules in the supplements are not well internally balanced even. It would be super obvious at the point of actually playing. Like I think it's possible they actually print the rules before any actual play testing goes on. Then they ship the product to play testers to use and point out any issues they have so they can make a quick 2 week FAQ or errata. It's literally the only way such egregious errors in balance could make it to a printer. This way they aren't actually lying when they say play testing occurs. It's just happening at the wrong time.
The evidence is in the quality of the rules being produced. Actual play testing can not be taking place if such power disparity exists. It is actually quite obvious without actually playing how most of these new rules in the supplements are not well internally balanced even. It would be super obvious at the point of actually playing. Like I think it's possible they actually print the rules before any actual play testing goes on. Then they ship the product to play testers to use and point out any issues they have so they can make a quick 2 week FAQ or errata. It's literally the only way such egregious errors in balance could make it to a printer. This way they aren't actually lying when they say play testing occurs. It's just happening at the wrong time.
I imagine its more complex of a situation than imagined, but we'll likely never know why.
The evidence is in the quality of the rules being produced. Actual play testing can not be taking place if such power disparity exists. It is actually quite obvious without actually playing how most of these new rules in the supplements are not well internally balanced even. It would be super obvious at the point of actually playing. Like I think it's possible they actually print the rules before any actual play testing goes on. Then they ship the product to play testers to use and point out any issues they have so they can make a quick 2 week FAQ or errata. It's literally the only way such egregious errors in balance could make it to a printer. This way they aren't actually lying when they say play testing occurs. It's just happening at the wrong time.
That's not evidence, it's a belief. There is a difference that you clearly don't understand and it's resulted in you pretending to know more than you actually do.
Has anyone ever met a Rules Tester for 40k? I always assumed it was the Devs just "testing" their own rules. There is no squad of 8 pro players that get tossed codexes and then in a windowed room GW watches their play and judges if the codex is worthy, right?
TlR - DO testers even exist? Because I'm saying the evidence points to no, and GW has never actually demonstrated they actually exist.
A couple of the guys at Frontline Gaming (the guys that host the biggest tournament in the world and run the most popular mission format for tournaments) playtest, I believe one of the guys at another podcast is a playtester as well, I think he has some tournament tops under his belt. Some people don't really want balance, they just want something interesting, for GW to shake up the meta to avoid the game ever getting stale and figured out. Frankie and Reece from FLG are outside playtesters, but I believe GW claims they have a seperate group of people that playtest in-house. According to playtesters and GW there was a miscommunication about the IH supplement, proving again that communication is important.
But IH weren't unbalanced, they were totally balanced for Maelstrom, 70% win-rate just like it was supposed to be, it was only op in ITC where they had an 80% win-rate. Now with the nerfs I'm sure they're going to be trash, 35% win-rate confirmed. /s
Wait on what planet is 70% win ratio balanced?
Perfect balance is 50%, realistic expectations are 40-60%.
70% is like Castellen pre nerf and look how that worked out now it now a narative/casual play only mono army.
The evidence is in the quality of the rules being produced. Actual play testing can not be taking place if such power disparity exists. It is actually quite obvious without actually playing how most of these new rules in the supplements are not well internally balanced even. It would be super obvious at the point of actually playing. Like I think it's possible they actually print the rules before any actual play testing goes on. Then they ship the product to play testers to use and point out any issues they have so they can make a quick 2 week FAQ or errata. It's literally the only way such egregious errors in balance could make it to a printer. This way they aren't actually lying when they say play testing occurs. It's just happening at the wrong time.
That's not evidence, it's a belief. There is a difference that you clearly don't understand and it's resulted in you pretending to know more than you actually do.
You'd have to believe REALLY hard in the power of benefit of the doubt for something like Super Doctrines to be released in the first place.
The evidence is in the quality of the rules being produced. Actual play testing can not be taking place if such power disparity exists. It is actually quite obvious without actually playing how most of these new rules in the supplements are not well internally balanced even. It would be super obvious at the point of actually playing. Like I think it's possible they actually print the rules before any actual play testing goes on. Then they ship the product to play testers to use and point out any issues they have so they can make a quick 2 week FAQ or errata. It's literally the only way such egregious errors in balance could make it to a printer. This way they aren't actually lying when they say play testing occurs. It's just happening at the wrong time.
That's not evidence, it's a belief. There is a difference that you clearly don't understand and it's resulted in you pretending to know more than you actually do.
You'd have to believe REALLY hard in the power of benefit of the doubt for something like Super Doctrines to be released in the first place.
Nah. I believe it's just the first ripple of what they plan for 8.5 though and Marines are going to pull away for a bit before the game catches up again just like when they were the first codex while everything else was in the indices.
Ice_can 781553 10606546 wrote:
Wait on what planet is 70% win ratio balanced?
Perfect balance is 50%, realistic expectations are 40-60%.
70% is like Castellen pre nerf and look how that worked out now it now a narative/casual play only mono army.
70% win ratio over multiple match and including the possibility of mirror matchs, that drop the in rate of an army. Means something totaly dominating. In magic if a deck gets win ratios like this, there are emergancy bans, and sometimes people losing jobs.
Nah. I believe it's just the first ripple of what they plan for 8.5 though and Marines are going to pull away for a bit before the game catches up again just like when they were the first codex while everything else was in the indices.
okey, but then we are falling in to the loop of if something is good the GW is planning it for the future, and if they do something bad then this is just them missing something and will be fixed "soon".
When 8th started we had huge difference between books, mid 8th was the same, if this is 8.5. Then the end of 8th also had gigantic differences between books. The csm and the csm supplement from vigilus book have huge differences in power. Orcs and SW for example, two books that almost came out back to back, but it feels as if GW did not test much when doing the SW codex.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: All the evidence I've been shown points to there are "infrequent" at best play-testers, but nothing consistent. And the releases show it. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
The releases indicate multiple groups of testers not in harmony. Why release a codex only to have it be completely invalidated by a different codex a month later?
They've outlined that they use both narrative and competetive playtesters on every book. Just because you have this conspiracy theory that they don't playtest the way you've decided is "correct" doesn't mean they're actually doing it wrong.
People who don't think games are playtested don't understand they're only seeing the little stuff that got through, not the real problems that would destroy the game if they were published.
Just because they say they playtest does not mean they actually play test. "Little stuff that got through"...You honestly telling me that I am better at finding broken combos than the people who Run ITC? I find these typically in the first read through of the book in a casual 15 minute review.
By that logic, just because people claim they don't play test doesn't mean they don't playtest. I'd take the word of the people involved in a given project over the word of some random person on the internet anyday to be quite honest.
Heck, James Hewitt flat out mentions playtesting in his free time in the past, and how they were actively employing third party playtesters when he left GW. But sure, they don't playtest and it's all smoke and mirrors.
The evidence is in the quality of the rules being produced. Actual play testing can not be taking place if such power disparity exists. It is actually quite obvious without actually playing how most of these new rules in the supplements are not well internally balanced even. It would be super obvious at the point of actually playing. Like I think it's possible they actually print the rules before any actual play testing goes on. Then they ship the product to play testers to use and point out any issues they have so they can make a quick 2 week FAQ or errata. It's literally the only way such egregious errors in balance could make it to a printer. This way they aren't actually lying when they say play testing occurs. It's just happening at the wrong time.
There is an alternative possibility: playtesting is happening, but it's being done poorly or the feedback isn't being listened to. Granted, that just shifts the problem from "no playtesting resulting in terrible rules" to "poorly implemented playtesting resulting in terrible rules" but I wouldn't be surprised if GW is doing p[playtesting but in some uniquely stupid way. For example, I heard a while ago that their approach is to send lists to the playtesters to test, not send them the full rules and points and allow them to build their own armies from them in an attempt to break things. Not sure how true that is, but it would explain a lot. An IH army with a single Executioner, a Devastator squad, three units of Tacticals and some Intercessors is powerful but nowhere near as good as a tournament-style IH army.
Why are people still complaining about this? GW announced near the start of 8th that every book release will get an FAQ within a few week of it doing so. Don't assume that changes will be substantial or inconsequential.
GW shipped a book and adjusted it post release - something they have done with every single codex.
Ishagu wrote: Why are people still complaining about this? GW announced near the start of 8th that every book release will get an FAQ within a few week of it doing so. Don't assume that changes will be substantial or inconsequential.
GW shipped a book and adjusted it post release - something they have done with every single codex.
Because people, rightfully, want to know how something to obviously broken slipped past the writers.
That would be interesting, but we won’t find out, the rules have been patched to curb the worst, and it seems now it’s more a salt mine than a legitimate exploration of an issue.
Ishagu wrote: Why are people still complaining about this? GW announced near the start of 8th that every book release will get an FAQ within a few week of it doing so. Don't assume that changes will be substantial or inconsequential.
GW shipped a book and adjusted it post release - something they have done with every single codex.
Because people, rightfully, want to know how something to obviously broken slipped past the writers.
Because GW have a super fast release schedule and "broken" rules will slip through.
You know about the ones that do, and don't hear about the ones that get caught before publishing.
GW's FAQs are free, you are not affected negatively. Get over it. No one deserves to know anything about the process lol
When GW was working with a monthly rather than a weekly release schedule, loads of broken stuff still got through testing.
After 20 years of publishing rules as a major part of their core business model, any rational person would expect GW to be far far better at writing them. Instead we get the same problems every edition, and almost every publication.
Because GW have a super fast release schedule and "broken" rules will slip through.
You know about the ones that do, and don't hear about the ones that get caught before publishing.
GW's FAQs are free, you are not affected negatively. Get over it. No one deserves to know anything about the process lol
Would be interesting to know what they fixed, before the GK codex came out. Also the idea that FAQ don't affect armies negatively is not true. Every FAQ and errata Grey Knight got, save for the last one had nerfs in them. And the last GKFAQ wasn't much of an FAQ in the first place as all they did reprint stuff that was already changed, and fixing the fact that GK land raiders guns were not called the same as the guns on marine land raiders, so the change prior to that didn't work GK.
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JohnnyHell wrote: Oh, discuss? Fine. The polarising into camps, attacking each other, belittling each other... not so fine.
Okey, but what can be discussed, when one group decides that everything GW does is good and if it is not good it is a L2P issue , and the other side claims that everything GW does is bad.
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Ishagu wrote: Why are people still complaining about this? GW announced near the start of 8th that every book release will get an FAQ within a few week of it doing so. Don't assume that changes will be substantial or inconsequential.
GW shipped a book and adjusted it post release - something they have done with every single codex.
GK didn't get a FAQ for a long time, and when they did, it was part of nerfs and had no "fixs" in it, unless a fix is removing stuff, they claimed GK should do as part how they play, and changing no point costs or rules. But you are right the changes were not inconsequential. When an army was described in game play as deep striking turn one with majority of its units, and then the rules get change so it can't do that and has to have 50% of its units on the table, the changes are huge.
The evidence is in the quality of the rules being produced. Actual play testing can not be taking place if such power disparity exists. It is actually quite obvious without actually playing how most of these new rules in the supplements are not well internally balanced even. It would be super obvious at the point of actually playing. Like I think it's possible they actually print the rules before any actual play testing goes on. Then they ship the product to play testers to use and point out any issues they have so they can make a quick 2 week FAQ or errata. It's literally the only way such egregious errors in balance could make it to a printer. This way they aren't actually lying when they say play testing occurs. It's just happening at the wrong time.
That's not evidence, it's a belief. There is a difference that you clearly don't understand and it's resulted in you pretending to know more than you actually do.
You'd have to believe REALLY hard in the power of benefit of the doubt for something like Super Doctrines to be released in the first place.
Nah. I believe it's just the first ripple of what they plan for 8.5 though and Marines are going to pull away for a bit before the game catches up again just like when they were the first codex while everything else was in the indices.
It's a pretty hard to swallow pill when there is little to no guarantee this treatment will be distributed to all other armies. I'd bet there would be a completely different tune if this was a non-marine army that got several months of rules dominance without any indication that others will get buffed. Do you honestly think marine players would accept the same excuses if this was Tau for example? Still, I hope I'm wrong because "this is just the first wave" sounds infinitely preferable to any of the alternatives.
Edited for grammar
GW have outright stated that all of the Astartes books were written at the same time and released piecemeal over the course of 12+ months. Blood Angels, SW, GK, SM, all written before 8th even came out.
The new Astartes codex is the 1st actual new Marine book written into 8th edition, with all the things they learned in terms of making exciting and varied books.
This is why all Astartes were rubbish initially, and why this new book is such a big jump. This isn't an 8.5 codex or anything like that. I would actually like an 8.5 edition that consolidates all the matched play rule amendments into one book.
The new Astartes codex is the 1st actual new Marine book written into 8th edition, with all the things they learned in terms of making exciting and varied books.
Iron Hands had some overpowered combinations that have been amended. I see nothing wrong with Ultras, IF, RG, etc
Eldar have been the most powerful faction for two years in 8th and many more prior to that in 7th and 6th. Even if Astartes are the best there is nothing wrong with that.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: All the evidence I've been shown points to there are "infrequent" at best play-testers, but nothing consistent. And the releases show it. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
The releases indicate multiple groups of testers not in harmony. Why release a codex only to have it be completely invalidated by a different codex a month later?
They've outlined that they use both narrative and competetive playtesters on every book. Just because you have this conspiracy theory that they don't playtest the way you've decided is "correct" doesn't mean they're actually doing it wrong.
People who don't think games are playtested don't understand they're only seeing the little stuff that got through, not the real problems that would destroy the game if they were published.
Just because they say they playtest does not mean they actually play test. "Little stuff that got through"...You honestly telling me that I am better at finding broken combos than the people who Run ITC? I find these typically in the first read through of the book in a casual 15 minute review.
By that logic, just because people claim they don't play test doesn't mean they don't playtest. I'd take the word of the people involved in a given project over the word of some random person on the internet anyday to be quite honest.
Heck, James Hewitt flat out mentions playtesting in his free time in the past, and how they were actively employing third party playtesters when he left GW. But sure, they don't playtest and it's all smoke and mirrors.
The evidence is in the quality of the rules being produced. Actual play testing can not be taking place if such power disparity exists. It is actually quite obvious without actually playing how most of these new rules in the supplements are not well internally balanced even. It would be super obvious at the point of actually playing. Like I think it's possible they actually print the rules before any actual play testing goes on. Then they ship the product to play testers to use and point out any issues they have so they can make a quick 2 week FAQ or errata. It's literally the only way such egregious errors in balance could make it to a printer. This way they aren't actually lying when they say play testing occurs. It's just happening at the wrong time.
There is an alternative possibility: playtesting is happening, but it's being done poorly or the feedback isn't being listened to. Granted, that just shifts the problem from "no playtesting resulting in terrible rules" to "poorly implemented playtesting resulting in terrible rules" but I wouldn't be surprised if GW is doing p[playtesting but in some uniquely stupid way. For example, I heard a while ago that their approach is to send lists to the playtesters to test, not send them the full rules and points and allow them to build their own armies from them in an attempt to break things. Not sure how true that is, but it would explain a lot. An IH army with a single Executioner, a Devastator squad, three units of Tacticals and some Intercessors is powerful but nowhere near as good as a tournament-style IH army.
This game is mostly about list construction - if they are honestly sending lists and not letting players build their armies. The play testing is 100% worthless. It might actually be worse than not play testing at all. Plus a big part of balance is points. You don't even see the points if you aren't building a list. Where did you hear this? Is it reliable?
Iron Hands had some overpowered combinations that have been amended. I see nothing wrong with Ultras, IF, RG, etc
Uhhh IF are also a big problem. +1 damage to vehicles is more absurd than iron hands super doctrine actually. They just didn't get an absurd relic like ironstone. Seriously the game can not survive if IF don't have their super doctrine nerfed.
The new Astartes codex is the 1st actual new Marine book written into 8th edition, with all the things they learned in terms of making exciting and varied books.
Uhhh IF are also a big problem. +1 damage to vehicles is more absurd than iron hands super doctrine actually. They just didn't get an absurd relic like ironstone. Seriously the game can not survive if IF don't have their super doctrine nerfed.
I mean in theory D7 Lascannons are pretty scary but for the most part it means things like autocannons will get a buff against tanks.
And it's not an ability that works against MCs or Battlesuits meaning it's more restricted on units that it can affect. Paired with a need to eventually move into the Tactical doctrine (no later than turn 3 typically) and it's not even a buff the army can hang onto for long periods of time.
And no Marine army makes for a good gunline, not even the IF.
Heck the best anti-tank Primaris unit I can cook up is heavy plasma incinerator Hellblasters on overcharge. Average from them is 6 dmg (vs T8. -5AP means anything with a save worse than a Land Raider doesn't get a save) but they have a 36" range and if they move you probably don't want to over charge which cuts their firepower down further, even with rerolls.
Edit: I should mention that is a 175 point unit which makes it more expensive than most tanks which is a fair trade for how much hurt it can dish out.
Lord Damocles wrote: When GW was working with a monthly rather than a weekly release schedule, loads of broken stuff still got through testing.
After 20 years of publishing rules as a major part of their core business model, any rational person would expect GW to be far far better at writing them. Instead we get the same problems every edition, and almost every publication.
Agreed, trying to pin it on the release schedule is silly, particularly when releases are planned and executed over the space of a couple of years typically. Hell, even in earlier editions where we got only 1 or 2 codex releases a year there was mind bogglingly stupid stuff that got through like clockwork, and even with the errata the IH rules are still hilariously over the top and stupidly powerful
This is intentional rules bloat to drive sales, as we have seen GW do in the past. There's really no other explanation that passes muster.
Lord Damocles wrote: When GW was working with a monthly rather than a weekly release schedule, loads of broken stuff still got through testing.
After 20 years of publishing rules as a major part of their core business model, any rational person would expect GW to be far far better at writing them. Instead we get the same problems every edition, and almost every publication.
Agreed, trying to pin it on the release schedule is silly, particularly when releases are planned and executed over the space of a couple of years typically. Hell, even in earlier editions where we got only 1 or 2 codex releases a year there was mind bogglingly stupid stuff that got through like clockwork, and even with the errata the IH rules are still hilariously over the top and stupidly powerful
This is intentional rules bloat to drive sales, as we have seen GW do in the past. There's really no other explanation that passes muster.
The IH airforce is really the only truly broken thing about IH and honestly is on par with that janky Eldar Air Force list.
I feel like the issue there is less that the IH themselves and more how flyers work making them too spammable. The whole detachment system just doesn't work as intended in matched play and needs a rework. It was a nice idea to make fluffy armies functionally by changing requirements to play, but ultimately it's abused and the CP generation being tied to list creation is still a problem that needs correcting.
Ishagu wrote: How does anyone know the +1 damage is a big problem with Imperial Fists? How many games have you played? No one can categorically say anything.
Dark Eldar also have a +1 to wound and +1 damage in Psychic Awakening.
DE get +1 damage on poison weapons on a 6...it's garbage - to get that they would have to give up flayed skull or blackheart traits which are way better. +1 to would? I don't recal it but it must be for witches or something and they don't shoot well.
Playing the game is not required here to know +1 damage is broken as a blanket buff. It is quite literally better than a gman buff for heavy bolters (or any high ROF weapon) against vehicles without spending 400 points for it (remember everyone complaining about that? AND WE WERE PAYING 400 for it). It's kind of like getting to shoot twice with your who army against vehicles if you build into it. Simple math shows you a 10 point HB out performs a 25 lascannon against vehicles and we already know it out performs against infantry. It's too much. Anyone with common sense in a review would have literally started laughing at the writer of such a rule because they would have thought they were joking. "HAHA double damage with the whole army vs vehicles!!!" "Good one Timmy!" . It is clear - reviews don't actually take place.
Uhhh IF are also a big problem. +1 damage to vehicles is more absurd than iron hands super doctrine actually. They just didn't get an absurd relic like ironstone. Seriously the game can not survive if IF don't have their super doctrine nerfed.
I mean in theory D7 Lascannons are pretty scary but for the most part it means things like autocannons will get a buff against tanks.
And it's not an ability that works against MCs or Battlesuits meaning it's more restricted on units that it can affect. Paired with a need to eventually move into the Tactical doctrine (no later than turn 3 typically) and it's not even a buff the army can hang onto for long periods of time.
And no Marine army makes for a good gunline, not even the IF.
Heck the best anti-tank Primaris unit I can cook up is heavy plasma incinerator Hellblasters on overcharge. Average from them is 6 dmg (vs T8. -5AP means anything with a save worse than a Land Raider doesn't get a save) but they have a 36" range and if they move you probably don't want to over charge which cuts their firepower down further, even with rerolls.
Edit: I should mention that is a 175 point unit which makes it more expensive than most tanks which is a fair trade for how much hurt it can dish out.
Why would you ever need to go into tactical doctrine...you are spamming heavy weapons in this build. Even your troops can have heavies (though maybe they will have some bolters - AP doesn't really mater vs chaff much anyways) Like over half the armies in the game use a lot of vehicals and HB/AC type weapons are already pretty close to LC vs units that have high invune saves. High ROF is also superior vs tau because of drone spam. It's already superior to LC againt monsters with 4++ saves. Plus - It will literally force every space marine army to play as CF after the iron hands ironstone nerf. Marines pretty much have to play with vehicals in order to get effective anti tank. So do most the imperium of man. Plus 1 army invalidating an entire type of unit is dumb enough on it's own.
And its not like the weapons are bad against Tau either even if it doesnt deal double damage due to them churning through shield drones faster just due to number of ap 2 ignore cover shots. Not that many other monsters being played in the meta from what I know.
The extra wounds not working on infantry isnt bad since no marine army will have more anti infantry dakka then IF anyway since they lose nothing by loading up on it. Its a hard choice/balance for other chapters but not IF. Just load up on the heavy str 5+ ap2+ ignore cover dakka and kill everything.
The only real counter that would see a ton of play, matters a lot if a list is 15% or 1% of the meta, would be IH lists whit the relic but since they nerfed that IF wont have much of a problem with IH vehicles. Sure there is one he cant kill easily but the rest will die as flies.
Lord Damocles wrote: When GW was working with a monthly rather than a weekly release schedule, loads of broken stuff still got through testing.
After 20 years of publishing rules as a major part of their core business model, any rational person would expect GW to be far far better at writing them. Instead we get the same problems every edition, and almost every publication.
Agreed, trying to pin it on the release schedule is silly, particularly when releases are planned and executed over the space of a couple of years typically. Hell, even in earlier editions where we got only 1 or 2 codex releases a year there was mind bogglingly stupid stuff that got through like clockwork, and even with the errata the IH rules are still hilariously over the top and stupidly powerful
This is intentional rules bloat to drive sales, as we have seen GW do in the past. There's really no other explanation that passes muster.
The IH airforce is really the only truly broken thing about IH and honestly is on par with that janky Eldar Air Force list.
I feel like the issue there is less that the IH themselves and more how flyers work making them too spammable. The whole detachment system just doesn't work as intended in matched play and needs a rework. It was a nice idea to make fluffy armies functionally by changing requirements to play, but ultimately it's abused and the CP generation being tied to list creation is still a problem that needs correcting.
I'd agree that flyers and detachments definitely need reworking. That said, I still think the getting a half dozen faction traits and treating it as one is a wee bit excessive. Being able to Overwatch like Tau or Defensive Gunners IG, double damage table characteristics like Iyanden and Valhallans, reroll 1's like Cadians, ignore move and shoot penalties like Tallarn, with 6+++ on top of the various SM Doctrines and abilities, is a wee bit much
This is intentional rules bloat to drive sales, as we have seen GW do in the past. There's really no other explanation that passes muster.
Then why are Iron Hands so totally inconsistent with UM, RG, and WS? Why are the PA updates for Eldar not overwhelmingly crushing like IH?
Who knows, it's not like GW are consistent about anything, but a lot of these power issues are obvious at a passing glance to even super casual readings (as has often been the case in the past too) that makes it hard to see as anything but intentional on at least some level.
For all we know flyers will soon be adjusted. If they change the airwing detachment to 1 - 3 flyers, and be a single detachment per army in matched play there is nothing more to worry about.
It would fix the Eldar spam, IH spam and anything else that might abuse flyers.
Why would you ever need to go into tactical doctrine...you are spamming heavy weapons in this build. Even your troops can have heavies (though maybe they will have some bolters - AP doesn't really mater vs chaff much anyways) Like over half the armies in the game use a lot of vehicals and HB/AC type weapons are already pretty close to LC vs units that have high invune saves. High ROF is also superior vs tau because of drone spam. It's already superior to LC againt monsters with 4++ saves. Plus - It will literally force every space marine army to play as CF after the iron hands ironstone nerf. Marines pretty much have to play with vehicals in order to get effective anti tank. So do most the imperium of man. Plus 1 army invalidating an entire type of unit is dumb enough on it's own.
Why would you stay in the devastator doctrine when your unique bonus only works on VEHICLE or BUILDING units? Even so, you have more rapid fire bolters in any given list than you can evem take heavy weapons, so it makes more sense to switch to buff those than it does to sit in the heavy doctrine and marginally increase your AP value against troop units.
You have a very skewed perspective of how Marines work, and should work, I can get my head around. IF get buffs for every doctrine (some are only in relics, but the point stands), playing a static army that only uses one doctrine and doesn't between them (or even going forward and back as needed) seems rather silly.
Ishagu wrote: Xenomancers, you need to relax. The sky isn't falling. Take a deep breath, enjoy your army and play some games.
No one on the internet actually plays games. [/s]
Seriosuly though, IF have small buffs spread pver every doctrine in a manner similar to the UM, only they do it through hitting harder instead of hitting better. That said, IF don't have much in the way of easy defensive buffs, and almost all of their good strats cost 2CP a pop.
Basically they hit a bit harder, but die just like Marines. Which fits their lore pretty well actually.
Ishagu wrote: For all we know flyers will soon be adjusted. If they change the airwing detachment to 1 - 3 flyers, and be a single detachment per army in matched play there is nothing more to worry about.
It would fix the Eldar spam, IH spam and anything else that might abuse flyers.
The problem is obviously the army rules. Not the units or detachments.
Ishagu wrote: For all we know flyers will soon be adjusted. If they change the airwing detachment to 1 - 3 flyers, and be a single detachment per army in matched play there is nothing more to worry about.
It would fix the Eldar spam, IH spam and anything else that might abuse flyers.
The problem is obviously the army rules. Not the units or detachments.
No, it's arguably detachment issue. It's why Eldar and Dark Eldar are spamming flyers as well. This isn't just an Astartes problem.
I always find that the people who worry the most and make a big deal out of things are the ones who don't actually play that many games. You can't have played many or any games with or against the IF supplement?
Ishagu wrote: Xenomancers, you need to relax. The sky isn't falling. Take a deep breath, enjoy your army and play some games.
No one on the interner actually plays games. [/s]
That is very condescending to say to be honest. So everyone who has problems with w40k, isn't playing the game ? What else, they are all children, don't know what the game is REALLY about, and don't spend 99% of their time painting and writing lore for each model in their army. While everyone who does have fun in 8th ed, is not only having fun, but is also a better kind of human, or did I miss something?
Ishagu wrote: Xenomancers, you need to relax. The sky isn't falling. Take a deep breath, enjoy your army and play some games.
No one on the interner actually plays games. [/s]
I play quite a bit...It's okay...I'll relax...It's going to be the exact same as iron hands domination though. The only way to advance in tournament is going to be by not including any vehicles. Plus IF will likely still table you because they kill infantry with ease too.
Xenomancers wrote: DE get +1 damage on poison weapons on a 6...it's garbage - to get that they would have to give up flayed skull or blackheart traits which are way better. +1 to would? I don't recal it but it must be for witches or something and they don't shoot well.
Kabals get it and its thrash.
Coven have a variant where you can "Overcharge" any weapons when firing, but if you get any 1's (per weapon) you suffer a mortal wound. in exchange you get +1 wound and +1 dmg
Ishagu wrote: For all we know flyers will soon be adjusted. If they change the airwing detachment to 1 - 3 flyers, and be a single detachment per army in matched play there is nothing more to worry about.
It would fix the Eldar spam, IH spam and anything else that might abuse flyers.
The problem is obviously the army rules. Not the units or detachments.
Nah. CP generation working like AoS would mean less CP on turn 1 to go nuts with while averaging the same ampunt for everyone over the course of a game. That specifically ties into detachments.
And the abuse of flyers for some rather nutty combos is another detachment based issue.
I feel like you have a strong bias against the new Marine book as a whole and are using this as an excuse to soapbox about it instead of treating it as what it most likely is: the first in a series up army updates designed to increase the flavor and depth of individual army builds while supporting players to be able to run their own unique sub-factions. Marines are only strong because they got it first, but we saw expanded rules for the Eldar in a similar vein in PA and the official announcement said every faction gets something which means more of this is coming.
Sure this may not be making the tournament scene the happiest of campers, but for anyone with a strong narrative focus this is a fantastic update and it looks like more updates will be following.
Xenomancers wrote: DE get +1 damage on poison weapons on a 6...it's garbage - to get that they would have to give up flayed skull or blackheart traits which are way better. +1 to would? I don't recal it but it must be for witches or something and they don't shoot well.
Kabals get it and its thrash.
Coven have a variant where you can "Overcharge" any weapons when firing, but if you get any 1's (per weapon) you suffer a mortal wound. in exchange you get +1 wound and +1 dmg
Coven can also shrug off mortal wounds as well, meaning you shouldn't lose that many models to that downside.
Ishagu wrote: For all we know flyers will soon be adjusted. If they change the airwing detachment to 1 - 3 flyers, and be a single detachment per army in matched play there is nothing more to worry about.
It would fix the Eldar spam, IH spam and anything else that might abuse flyers.
The problem is obviously the army rules. Not the units or detachments.
No, it's arguably detachment issue. It's why Eldar and Dark Eldar are spamming flyers as well. This isn't just an Astartes problem.
I always find that the people who worry the most and make a big deal out of things are the ones who don't actually play that many games. You can't have played many or any games with or against the IF supplement?
I play more than most people. 3 game stores in range of my house to game and and basically every weekend I play a game or 2. I have no desire to play against IF though. Literally CAN NOT win against them without heavily counter building and not including vehicles. Which pretty much makes me not want to play at all. If you don't understand why you can't win against an army that is doing double damage against you for free...I just don't know what to say. I am not trying to be rude but I do play this game. You can't lose games if you are dealing double damage lol.
Ishagu wrote: Xenomancers, you need to relax. The sky isn't falling. Take a deep breath, enjoy your army and play some games.
No one on the interner actually plays games. [/s]
That is very condescending to say to be honest. So everyone who has problems with w40k, isn't playing the game ? What else, they are all children, don't know what the game is REALLY about, and don't spend 99% of their time painting and writing lore for each model in their army. While everyone who does have fun in 8th ed, is not only having fun, but is also a better kind of human, or did I miss something?
Xenomancers wrote: DE get +1 damage on poison weapons on a 6...it's garbage - to get that they would have to give up flayed skull or blackheart traits which are way better. +1 to would? I don't recal it but it must be for witches or something and they don't shoot well.
Kabals get it and its thrash.
Coven have a variant where you can "Overcharge" any weapons when firing, but if you get any 1's (per weapon) you suffer a mortal wound. in exchange you get +1 wound and +1 dmg
Seems like a good rule for covens but they are giving up PotF to get it...That does seem pretty good but then your realize...they only have poison weapons mainly and those wound on 6's regardless of +1 to wound vs vehicles. It affects very few weapons and it is a close combat force. Does not seem practical.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also - the sky literally is falling with a super doct like IF. I was right about ironhands. I'm probably even more right now. Not sure which is more busted though. Pre nerf ironstone or IF super doctrine.
Vaktathi wrote: Who knows, it's not like GW are consistent about anything, but a lot of these power issues are obvious at a passing glance to even super casual readings (as has often been the case in the past too) that makes it hard to see as anything but intentional on at least some level.
I think something that inconsistent should give a little pause. There are new eldar models and surely they'd want to push sales on those.
When confronted with such things the simplest explanation is often the most correct - incompetence. (And I don't mean that as a personal insult to GW folks)
Ishagu wrote: For all we know flyers will soon be adjusted. If they change the airwing detachment to 1 - 3 flyers, and be a single detachment per army in matched play there is nothing more to worry about.
It would fix the Eldar spam, IH spam and anything else that might abuse flyers.
The problem is obviously the army rules. Not the units or detachments.
No, it's arguably detachment issue. It's why Eldar and Dark Eldar are spamming flyers as well. This isn't just an Astartes problem.
I always find that the people who worry the most and make a big deal out of things are the ones who don't actually play that many games. You can't have played many or any games with or against the IF supplement?
I play more than most people. 3 game stores in range of my house to game and and basically every weekend I play a game or 2. I have no desire to play against IF though. Literally CAN NOT win against them without heavily counter building and not including vehicles. Which pretty much makes me not want to play at all. If you don't understand why you can't win against an army that is doing double damage against you for free...I just don't know what to say. I am not trying to be rude but I do play this game. You can't lose games if you are dealing double damage lol.
They only get increased damage against buildings and vehicles, everything else is a doctrine buff to AP thst every C:SM gets and making bolt weapons actually worth taking with exploding 6s.
Against MEQ for example a full sized unit of 10 with ABR in the tactical doctrine the IF do 1.25 more wounds on average than other chapters. Mind you, that's moving the unit from 5 to 6.25 damage against MEQ from 30 shots. If we don't go tactical that drops to to 3.33 for most chapters and 4.17 for the IF.
Against GEQ those numbers go to 8.89 for regular Marines, and 10.37 for IF outside of the tactical doctrine. This goes to 11.11 for most Marines and 12.97 for IF.
Those numbers are out of 30 shots from an 180+ point troop unit and they show the IF aren't doing "double" damage, but instead only average 1-2 extra damage. It's a definite buff, but is not a game breaker.
Coven can also shrug off mortal wounds as well, meaning you shouldn't lose that many models to that downside.
transports can't
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Xenomancers wrote: Seems like a good rule for covens but they are giving up PotF to get it...That does seem pretty good but then your realize...they only have poison weapons mainly and those wound on 6's regardless of +1 to wound vs vehicles. It affects very few weapons and it is a close combat force. Does not seem practical.
coven shooting can be decent, people are testing venom/raider spam. talos also can beenift from the +1 to wound on haywire blasters. the +1 to wound (from Dark Technomancer) does work on vehicles to woundon a 5+ with poison.
but yes, losing the 4++ is probably not going to be worth it.
Why would you ever need to go into tactical doctrine...you are spamming heavy weapons in this build. Even your troops can have heavies (though maybe they will have some bolters - AP doesn't really mater vs chaff much anyways) Like over half the armies in the game use a lot of vehicals and HB/AC type weapons are already pretty close to LC vs units that have high invune saves. High ROF is also superior vs tau because of drone spam. It's already superior to LC againt monsters with 4++ saves. Plus - It will literally force every space marine army to play as CF after the iron hands ironstone nerf. Marines pretty much have to play with vehicals in order to get effective anti tank. So do most the imperium of man. Plus 1 army invalidating an entire type of unit is dumb enough on it's own.
Why would you stay in the devastator doctrine when your unique bonus only works on VEHICLE or BUILDING units? Even so, you have more rapid fire bolters in any given list than you can evem take heavy weapons, so it makes more sense to switch to buff those than it does to sit in the heavy doctrine and marginally increase your AP value against troop units.
You have a very skewed perspective of how Marines work, and should work, I can get my head around. IF get buffs for every doctrine (some are only in relics, but the point stands), playing a static army that only uses one doctrine and doesn't between them (or even going forward and back as needed) seems rather silly.
You do know you can take only heavy weapons except a few cc/bolters on a few scouts and characters? You will stay in devastator the whole game to always get extra ap on those heavy weapons.
You dont care if the opponent dont have any vehicles since you have a gak ton of heavy bolter weapons, heavy stalker rifles on intercessors , sniper rifles, thunderfire cannons, dreads, heavy bolter devastators etc. Against infantry you will have a ton of str 4-7 ap 2-3 ignore cover shots from your whole army and dont care that its only damage 1 or 2 since you will still wreck any non tanks.
You are thinking about the super doctrine wrongly. Its not just a buff against vehicle. It lets you completely ignore normal anti tank weapons like lascannons and load up on anti infantry weapon like heavy bolters. You change the whole way you build your list. You dont have a few boosted lascannons and the rest normal rapid fire weapons. That is just wasting the doctrine ability and you would be better off playing anything else.
Intercessors with 36" str 4 ap3 d2-3 ignore cover and exploding 6s with CM and lt is a threat against everything. Why bother changing to tactical doctrine? Exploding 6s,quality of each shot and number of heavy bolter shots from the rest of the army will be enough against any infantry horde.
Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
Vaktathi wrote: Who knows, it's not like GW are consistent about anything, but a lot of these power issues are obvious at a passing glance to even super casual readings (as has often been the case in the past too) that makes it hard to see as anything but intentional on at least some level.
I think something that inconsistent should give a little pause. There are new eldar models and surely they'd want to push sales on those.
When confronted with such things the simplest explanation is often the most correct - incompetence. (And I don't mean that as a personal insult to GW folks)
In many cases I'd agree, and for most stuff that's usually what I chalk it up to, but it's hard to see where there wasnt an intent to provide overly powerful rules next to what Eldar get in PA and what CSM's got just a couple of months ago, at least on some level.
I feel like you have a strong bias against the new Marine book as a whole and are using this as an excuse to soapbox about it instead of treating it as what it most likely is: the first in a series up army updates designed to increase the flavor and depth of individual army builds while supporting players to be able to run their own unique sub-factions. Marines are only strong because they got it first, but we saw expanded rules for the Eldar in a similar vein in PA and the official announcement said every faction gets something which means more of this is coming.
The problem here, at least as I see it, is that what Eldar got in PA is substantially less powerful, other recent books such as CSM's didn't get nearly as much attention, we have no guarantee others will get such, and a lot of what went into these supplements basically reads like someone grabbing the best traits and abilities from 3 or 4 other books and slapping it onto their pet favorite for its own sake like a bad internet fandex.
Ishagu wrote: Xenomancers, you need to relax. The sky isn't falling. Take a deep breath, enjoy your army and play some games.
No one on the interner actually plays games. [/s]
That is very condescending to say to be honest. So everyone who has problems with w40k, isn't playing the game ? What else, they are all children, don't know what the game is REALLY about, and don't spend 99% of their time painting and writing lore for each model in their army. While everyone who does have fun in 8th ed, is not only having fun, but is also a better kind of human, or did I miss something?
He's just calling out Ishagu's No True Scotsman argument without flat out calling it a fallacy. It's a classic argument style on dakka. "I don't like your opinion so instead of addressing it with arguments or empirical data, I will just say you clearly don't play the game." Not to be confused with a genuine accusation of someone not playing the game.which is usually verified with some very simple obvious evidence to support their claim. Notice the lack of empirical evidence that space marines aren't the top faction regardless of what color they are, no evidence whatsoever that any other factions are going to get a 2.0 update, and the flat out assumption that Eldar Flyers are a detachment issue without ANY arguments as to why.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
It's not a trap - they average more damage than a lascannon in the doctrine - if an invune save comes in to play its even worse.
Vaktathi wrote: The problem here, at least as I see it, is that what Eldar got in PA is substantially less powerful, other recent books such as CSM's didn't get nearly as much attention, we have no guarantee others will get such, and a lot of what went into these supplements basically reads like someone grabbing the best traits and abilities from 3 or 4 other books and slapping it onto their pet favorite for its own sake like a bad internet fandex.
Marines haven't been the studio's pet favorite in terms of power at any point in the past. They have been mid-tier at best, and any time they pulled ahead they tend to get smacked back down by the shifting power curve. If they actually managed to sit on the top of the power curve for any length of time I'd be rather shocked honestly.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
It's not a trap - they average more damage than a lascannon in the doctrine - if an invune save comes in to play its even worse.
Lascannons have been trash since the edition started. Averaging more damage than a single shot heavy weapon is hardly a surprise. The issue there isn't the HB or even the Stalker, it's how pathetic dedicated anti-tank weapons are on average. I don't know how GW can fix them, but something needs to be done to lascannons and other similar weapons.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
Wait until someone tells you that even by wounding a third of the time the heavy bolter is better than the lascannon for its cost because an heavy bolter costs 10 points and a lascannon costs 25 points, not realizing that it is quite a dumb argument which makes the bolter the strongest weapon in the game, so OP that is infinite times better than the OP IF heavy bolters.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
Against T8 4++ a IF heavy bolter averages 0,77 wounds. Guess how many a non IF lascannon deals against the same profile? 0,77!!
The lascannon is more random than the HB actually and it costs a lot more. Having 3,5 shots makes a HB more likely to wound than a lascannon.
Sure if you are playing pure primaris it will be a little bit harder to get full use of the doctrine since you wont have heavy bolter devastators and thunderfire cannons that are insanely good in IF. But that is more you not playing to its strengths than the doctrine being insane.
4 heavy bolter devastators costs 105pts only. Thats dirt cheap and good against both tanks and infantry.
I would build around the heavy doctrine. Invictors with flamers get really nasty. They do about the same damage to vehicles with their shooting as a normal lascannon devastator unit.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
Wait until someone tells you that even by wounding a third of the time the heavy bolter is better than the lascannon for its cost because an heavy bolter costs 10 points and a lascannon costs 25 points, not realizing that it is quite a dumb argument which makes the bolter the strongest weapon in the game, so OP that is infinite times better than the OP IF heavy bolters.
How is it a dumb argument? What weapon for its cost in a marine army deals more damage to a tank than an IF heavy bolter at range and can be taken multiple of? And are also useful against non tanks. And by cost you can include the price of the unit carrying it. It makes the comparison bit bettee for the non HB options but they will still not be as well rounded.
Str 5 shooting is cheap and plentiful in marines not just the Heavy Bolter. Eliminators and TFC are great anti character and anti Infantry units that for their price are actually very good even against vehicles if IF.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
Wait until someone tells you that even by wounding a third of the time the heavy bolter is better than the lascannon for its cost because an heavy bolter costs 10 points and a lascannon costs 25 points, not realizing that it is quite a dumb argument which makes the bolter the strongest weapon in the game, so OP that is infinite times better than the OP IF heavy bolters.
Too late.
The issue is that they point at the lascannon as being worse while ignoring we have plenty of weapons better than lascannons even without the buff. Plasma Cannons are a more flexible and better weapon for example, and I feel are the better more flexible than heavy bolters and they average better wounds than a Lascannon. Likewise the Heavy Plasma Incinerator is way better than the Stalker Bolter too.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
Against T8 4++ a IF heavy bolter averages 0,77 wounds. Guess how many a non IF lascannon deals against the same profile? 0,77!!
The lascannon is more random than the HB actually and it costs a lot more. Having 3,5 shots makes a HB more likely to wound than a lascannon.
Sure if you are playing pure primaris it will be a little bit harder to get full use of the doctrine since you wont have heavy bolter devastators and thunderfire cannons that are insanely good in IF. But that is more you not playing to its strengths than the doctrine being insane.
4 heavy bolter devastators costs 105pts only. Thats dirt cheap and good against both tanks and infantry.
I would build around the heavy doctrine. Invictors with flamers get really nasty. They do about the same damage to vehicles with their shooting as a normal lascannon devastator unit.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
Wait until someone tells you that even by wounding a third of the time the heavy bolter is better than the lascannon for its cost because an heavy bolter costs 10 points and a lascannon costs 25 points, not realizing that it is quite a dumb argument which makes the bolter the strongest weapon in the game, so OP that is infinite times better than the OP IF heavy bolters.
How is it a dumb argument? What weapon for its cost in a marine army deals more damage to a tank than an IF heavy bolter at range and can be taken multiple of? And are also useful against non tanks. And by cost you can include the price of the unit carrying it. It makes the comparison bit bettee for the non HB options but they will still not be as well rounded.
Lascannons are trash and I still stand by the Plasma Cannon as a better choice over the Lascannon and Heavy Bolter. Being able to average the same number of wounds as a trash weapon with less points doesn't make an option good. Heck, Suppressors are a better choice than Lascannon Devastators as well.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
Stalkers are quite good. They won't be as long range as devastators or as damaging (especailly on models with no invulnerable), but they'll tons more durable and versatile.
Plasma isnt that good against horde or - to hit units. Or units with ++ saves. Against elite Infantry or astra tanks they are better. Heavy Bolter or other weapons with the same profile are way more allrounded and cheaper.
Also harder to build your list around to take full effect of doctrines since you cant take primaris plasma troops. There really isnt much of a downside to go all in on heavy weapons as IF and never leave that doctrine. Going half and half is just a huge waste and better of playing UM at that point. They actually have a doctrine that plays into that.
To drive the point further: 4 Devastators with Heavy Bolters do 2.67 dmg to a Predator equiv (T8, 3+). 4 Plasma Cannon Devastators average 8 dmg.
Meanwhile 4 Lascannon Devs average 6.22 wounds. EDIT: The math actually undersells this as it doesn't take the +1 damage into account, so this should be doing at least 1 more point of damage on average. So we're actually looking at 7.22 damage from 4 Lascannon Devastators.
I've said it before, I'll say it again, Heavy Bolters are trash shooting at vehicles even with the IF buff.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
Stalkers are quite good. They won't be as long range as devastators or as damaging (especailly on models with no invulnerable), but they'll tons more durable and versatile.
Problem is they're a single shot weapon that punishes you for moving and you have to take Primaris to take them. When running an elite army you want to be increasing your average number of shots to inflict more damge, not decreasing them. Going all in on Stalkers for IF is just not that great of a strategy if you want a true TAC list.
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Klickor wrote: Plasma isnt that good against horde or - to hit units. Or units with ++ saves. Against elite Infantry or astra tanks they are better. Heavy Bolter or other weapons with the same profile are way more allrounded and cheaper.
Also harder to build your list around to take full effect of doctrines since you cant take primaris plasma troops. There really isnt much of a downside to go all in on heavy weapons as IF and never leave that doctrine. Going half and half is just a huge waste and better of playing UM at that point. They actually have a doctrine that plays into that.
You're sorely mistaken if you think an anti-horde weapon is good against vehicles.
But against units with ++ saves or negative to hit modifiers the plasma gets worse fast.
You dont need more shots in an IF list if built right. Each of your shot have a chance of getting extra hits. Have ap3 and ignores cover so an enemy intercessor only survives on a 6+ since it deals 2 damage.
Since you dont need a lot of pure anti tank weapons you will have more anti Infantry options available than other TAC lists already.
If you take 3 HB devastators, 3 eliminator squads, 3 TFC, 20 stalker intercessors you will kill like 3 T8 3+ vehicles with that alone without character support. And you cant say that isnt enough shots to handle infantry units or characters if you want instead.
Doesn't change the math as the weapons are wounding on the same values. But you're right, I think I was thinking of the Stalker.
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Klickor wrote: But against units with ++ saves or negative to hit modifiers the plasma gets worse fast.
You dont need more shots in an IF list if built right. Each of your shot have a chance of getting extra hits. Have ap3 and ignores cover so an enemy intercessor only survives on a 6+ since it deals 2 damage.
Since you dont need a lot of pure anti tank weapons you will have more anti Infantry options available than other TAC lists already.
If you take 3 HB devastators, 3 eliminator squads, 3 TFC, 20 stalker intercessors you will kill like 3 T8 3+ vehicles with that alone without character support. And you cant say that isnt enough shots to handle infantry units or characters if you want instead.
You want more shots because those shots give you more chances to fish for 6s. 10 shots only average 1 extra hit, 20 shots average 3 extra hits, and 30 shots average 5 extra hits. Each extra hit is an additional chance to wound as well.
And 2dmg means nothing to chaffe. Making GEQ save on a 6+ or deny Orks a save with the ABR is more than good enough in most cases.
More shots isnt always better. Its the same % increase anyway. Its quality or quantity. One isnt better than the other.
But having 3 invictors, 3 tfc, 3 devastator squads and Infantry isnt a problem anyway.
You dont take 4HB for anti tank. You take the equivalent of 30-40 of them and just drown everything in str 4-7 ap2-3 dmg 1-3 shots that ignores cover. Chaff or tanks doesnt matter that is the point.
Monster spam would be the worst but you could still have a smash captain or 2 for that etc
Before someone tells me you want to use Stalkers so you can kill Marines, let's do some math:
Against MEQ (ABR/BR in Tactical, Stalker in Heavy Doctrine no move penalty):
ABR: 6.25
BR (outside of RF): 2.78
BR (inside of RF): 5.56
Stalkers: 3.47
Against Primaris (ABR/BR in Tactical, Stalker in Heavy Doctrine):
ABR: 2.88
BR (outside of RF): 1.14
BR (inside of RF): 2.53
Stalkers: 3.47
And you know what, I was wrong. Against MEQ they are better. What about GEQ?
Against GEQ (ABR/BR in Tactical, Stalker in Heavy Doctrine no move penalty):
ABR: 13.89
BR (outside of RF): 5.56
BR (inside of RF): 11.11
Stalkers: 5.56
So definitely worse against anything with worse saves than MEQ.
So what this has shown me, other than the BR being the most middle of the road/swingy choice, you want a mix of ABR and Stalkers if you want a TAC list.
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Klickor wrote: More shots isnt always better. Its the same % increase anyway. Its quality or quantity. One isnt better than the other.
But having 3 invictors, 3 tfc, 3 devastator squads and Infantry isnt a problem anyway.
You dont take 4HB for anti tank. You take the equivalent of 30-40 of them and just drown everything in str 4-7 ap2-3 dmg 1-3 shots that ignores cover. Chaff or tanks doesnt matter that is the point.
Monster spam would be the worst but you could still have a smash captain or 2 for that etc
I speak as a Primaris player, but 30-40 heavy bolters isn't that realistic of an option. Heck, even with Vanilla Marines that's 3 squads of Devastators (12), plus 3 squads of Devastator Centurions (18) to squeeze that into a list with the smallest amount of investment (unit wise).
The point with non primaris marines is ypu can sprinkle those heavy weapons across the units without needing to take a massive penalty as you need you MSU squad anyway so the body is free it's simple a choice of a 10 points heavy bolter or a 25 point lascannon or a missile launcher.
Most people see it as a choice between a heavy bolter and the above as scouts can't take a plasma cannon.
Also IF still have the broken vigilous detachment of MW spam for days at the moment when you can MW any vehical out of the game who needs another anti tank option?
Ice_can wrote: The point with non primaris marines is ypu can sprinkle those heavy weapons across the units without needing to take a massive penalty as you need you MSU squad anyway so the body is free it's simple a choice of a 10 points heavy bolter or a 25 point lascannon or a missile launcher.
Most people see it as a choice between a heavy bolter and the above as scouts can't take a plasma cannon.
Also IF still have the broken vigilous detachment of MW spam for days at the moment when you can MW any vehical out of the game who needs another anti tank option?
I wouldn't count on that detachment making the transition unscathed since they've crippled the others with the stuff they poached from the book.
And maybe that's the difference: I don't think spamming Scouts is all that interesting of a way to play. But I'm not an ITC tournament player and I build for more TAC lists that run the GW missions over some tourney homebrew.
Ice_can wrote: The point with non primaris marines is ypu can sprinkle those heavy weapons across the units without needing to take a massive penalty as you need you MSU squad anyway so the body is free it's simple a choice of a 10 points heavy bolter or a 25 point lascannon or a missile launcher.
Most people see it as a choice between a heavy bolter and the above as scouts can't take a plasma cannon.
Also IF still have the broken vigilous detachment of MW spam for days at the moment when you can MW any vehical out of the game who needs another anti tank option?
I wouldn't count on that detachment making the transition unscathed since they've crippled the others with the stuff they poached from the book.
And maybe that's the difference: I don't think spamming Scouts is all that interesting of a way to play. But I'm not an ITC tournament player and I build for more TAC lists that run the GW missions over some tourney homebrew.
ITC ETC doesn't matter scouts still good at 65 points with a heavy bolter even better at 55 with just bolters.
That formation is still in the game currently, I agree it needs to go but untill it does you can count on that 5man centurion squad with all Bolter still being a thing.
Also the issue Is it's not just bolters that +1 works on it's autocannon it's onslaught gattling cannons FFS.
Other armies have to go anti horde anti armour or combo weapons.
IF can go anti horde and combo weapons and still smash 100% armour lists. They have a much reduced weakness made even more busted with the ability to turn all bolt weapons into pistols take 2 heavybolter and a hurricane bolter "pistol" to the face.
Ice_can wrote: The point with non primaris marines is ypu can sprinkle those heavy weapons across the units without needing to take a massive penalty as you need you MSU squad anyway so the body is free it's simple a choice of a 10 points heavy bolter or a 25 point lascannon or a missile launcher.
Most people see it as a choice between a heavy bolter and the above as scouts can't take a plasma cannon.
Also IF still have the broken vigilous detachment of MW spam for days at the moment when you can MW any vehical out of the game who needs another anti tank option?
I wouldn't count on that detachment making the transition unscathed since they've crippled the others with the stuff they poached from the book.
And maybe that's the difference: I don't think spamming Scouts is all that interesting of a way to play. But I'm not an ITC tournament player and I build for more TAC lists that run the GW missions over some tourney homebrew.
ITC ETC doesn't matter scouts still good at 65 points with a heavy bolter even better at 55 with just bolters.
That formation is still in the game currently, I agree it needs to go but untill it does you can count on that 5man centurion squad with all Bolter still being a thing.
Also the issue Is it's not just bolters that +1 works on it's autocannon it's onslaught gattling cannons FFS.
Other armies have to go anti horde anti armour or combo weapons.
IF can go anti horde and combo weapons and still smash 100% armour lists. They have a much reduced weakness made even more busted with the ability to turn all bolt weapons into pistols take 2 heavybolter and a hurricane bolter "pistol" to the face.
TAC has always been about trying to balance horde, tank and MEQ+ killing power. IF just have a slightly easier time balancing it over Marines, but haven't gained bonuses to the heavies like the IH did that allow them to saunter around the board un-impeded.
And that pistol strat means you have to have not disenaged with the unit, and costs 2CP (and can only be used 1 time an assault phase in matched play). It's good for when they're stuck in combat, but if you've pinned multiple units only one is getting to do it (I'd rather spend 4CP and make an ABR unit auto-hit up to 30 times with their weapons instead, but I'm dumb like that).
Lascannons are the poker players equivalent of chasing cards.
Two wounding hits from an IF lascannon has a 42% chance to put a 12 wound model onto its last bracket.
Stalkers require 3 wounding hits to do the same.
When you back into the number of shots required for that its 5 and 17 respectively when the target has no invuln and 7 and 20 against a 5++.
A set os LC and a set of Stalkers seems like it would cover the scenarios more strongly and give some edge against T8. Plasma would certainly be a viable trade-off, but suffers in some scenarios.
Lascannons are the poker players equivalent of chasing cards.
Two wounding hits from an IF lascannon has a 42% chance to put a 12 wound model onto its last bracket.
Stalkers require 3 wounding hits to do the same.
When you back into the number of shots required for that its 5 and 17 respectively when the target has no invuln and 7 and 20 against a 5++.
A set os LC and a set of Stalkers seems like it would cover the scenarios more strongly and give some edge against T8. Plasma would certainly be a viable trade-off, but suffers in some scenarios.
Plasma does suffer a little against some things (are there T9 vehicles?), but even then it's a better TAC choice over Lascannons. It's not the best choice against everything, but it's not the worst either. And it's not even bad if you don't overcharge.
Heavybolter .889 wounds 11.25 points per wound
Krak Missile 1 wound 20 points per wound
Plasma Cannon .593 26 points per wound
Plasma Cannon OC 1.333 12 points per wound
Simply put heavy bolters is the most efficent anti tank for IF the advantage with the Plasma Cannon is it doesn't drop off as hard when your hitting tau but that's also not working out the rate of suicide from those 1's.
GW really do need to employ someone to do basic math an point out that some of the designs don't work on a D6 system. +1 on D12's ir higher arn't as game breaking but with D6's flat +1 or -1 just wiped out a massive chunk of your granularity or variable ratios.
Heavybolter .889 wounds 11.25 points per wound
Krak Missile 1 wound 20 points per wound
Plasma Cannon .593 26 points per wound
Plasma Cannon OC 1.333 12 points per wound
Simply put heavy bolters is the most efficent anti tank for IF the advantage with the Plasma Cannon is it doesn't drop off as hard when your hitting tau but that's also not working out the rate of suicide from those 1's.
GW really do need to employ someone to do basic math an point out that some of the designs don't work on a D6 system. +1 on D12's ir higher arn't as game breaking but with D6's flat +1 or -1 just wiped out a massive chunk of your granularity or variable ratios.
The game really needs to move to a D12 for sure.
Are you ranking individual shots on these weapons? Because that doesn't really represent the weapons properly.
I mean a full shooting attack averages like so:
Heavy Bolter: 1.11
Plasma Cannon: 1.11
Plasma Cannon OC: 2.5
Comparing a single shot of a multi-shot weapon doesn't give a clear picture.
Vaktathi wrote: The problem here, at least as I see it, is that what Eldar got in PA is substantially less powerful, other recent books such as CSM's didn't get nearly as much attention, we have no guarantee others will get such, and a lot of what went into these supplements basically reads like someone grabbing the best traits and abilities from 3 or 4 other books and slapping it onto their pet favorite for its own sake like a bad internet fandex.
Marines haven't been the studio's pet favorite in terms of power at any point in the past. They have been mid-tier at best, and any time they pulled ahead they tend to get smacked back down by the shifting power curve. If they actually managed to sit on the top of the power curve for any length of time I'd be rather shocked honestly.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
It's not a trap - they average more damage than a lascannon in the doctrine - if an invune save comes in to play its even worse.
Lascannons have been trash since the edition started. Averaging more damage than a single shot heavy weapon is hardly a surprise. The issue there isn't the HB or even the Stalker, it's how pathetic dedicated anti-tank weapons are on average. I don't know how GW can fix them, but something needs to be done to lascannons and other similar weapons.
I'm rating the HB against a unit without an invune save. Lascannons are actually REALLY good at that. HB in IF are EVEN BETTER. It's beyond stupid. LC are garbage vs invune saves. Guess what IF don't care about...4++ and 5++ invune saves - cause that is the only save you'll ever get against them anyways.
Lascannons are the poker players equivalent of chasing cards.
Two wounding hits from an IF lascannon has a 42% chance to put a 12 wound model onto its last bracket.
Stalkers require 3 wounding hits to do the same.
When you back into the number of shots required for that its 5 and 17 respectively when the target has no invuln and 7 and 20 against a 5++.
A set os LC and a set of Stalkers seems like it would cover the scenarios more strongly and give some edge against T8. Plasma would certainly be a viable trade-off, but suffers in some scenarios.
Plasma does suffer a little against some things (are there T9 vehicles?), but even then it's a better TAC choice over Lascannons. It's not the best choice against everything, but it's not the worst either. And it's not even bad if you don't overcharge.
Plasma cannons are garbage as -1 to hit penalties make the weapon useless. d3 shots with 1 damage each is worse than a heavy bolters 3 auto shots almost always - ESP now that HB have ap-2.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Galas wrote: what popular tank out there is T8 3+save and has a 5++ invul? I can't think of many.
Vaktathi wrote: The problem here, at least as I see it, is that what Eldar got in PA is substantially less powerful, other recent books such as CSM's didn't get nearly as much attention, we have no guarantee others will get such, and a lot of what went into these supplements basically reads like someone grabbing the best traits and abilities from 3 or 4 other books and slapping it onto their pet favorite for its own sake like a bad internet fandex.
Marines haven't been the studio's pet favorite in terms of power at any point in the past. They have been mid-tier at best, and any time they pulled ahead they tend to get smacked back down by the shifting power curve. If they actually managed to sit on the top of the power curve for any length of time I'd be rather shocked honestly.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
It's not a trap - they average more damage than a lascannon in the doctrine - if an invune save comes in to play its even worse.
Lascannons have been trash since the edition started. Averaging more damage than a single shot heavy weapon is hardly a surprise. The issue there isn't the HB or even the Stalker, it's how pathetic dedicated anti-tank weapons are on average. I don't know how GW can fix them, but something needs to be done to lascannons and other similar weapons.
I'm rating the HB against a unit without an invune save. Lascannons are actually REALLY good at that. HB in IF are EVEN BETTER. It's beyond stupid. LC are garbage vs invune saves. Guess what IF don't care about...4++ and 5++ invune saves - cause that is the only save you'll ever get against them anyways.
I did the math against regular tanks and the HB averages worse overall than the lascannon, and both are worse than the plasma cannon.
The only advantage the HB gets is being cheaper and better versus hordes.
Maybe it's a touch better when put against a Knight, but I'm going to doubt that. But let me go check.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Okay, Veruses a Knight (just one weapon, but full shooting profile):
HB: 1.11 damge
Lascannon: 2.04 (1.04 average + 1 for doctrine bonus)
Plasma Cannon:.59
Plasma Cannon OC: 1.33
Yeah, still not sold on the HB unless you're fighting a Knight army and have nothing else to point it at.
It just averages worse against vehicles than other weapons. Can it do some work with luck and saturation? Sure. Should you build a list around that? I don't think so.
Heavybolter .889 wounds 11.25 points per wound
Krak Missile 1 wound 20 points per wound
Plasma Cannon .593 26 points per wound
Plasma Cannon OC 1.333 12 points per wound
Simply put heavy bolters is the most efficent anti tank for IF the advantage with the Plasma Cannon is it doesn't drop off as hard when your hitting tau but that's also not working out the rate of suicide from those 1's.
GW really do need to employ someone to do basic math an point out that some of the designs don't work on a D6 system. +1 on D12's ir higher arn't as game breaking but with D6's flat +1 or -1 just wiped out a massive chunk of your granularity or variable ratios.
The game really needs to move to a D12 for sure.
Are you ranking individual shots on these weapons? Because that doesn't really represent the weapons properly.
I mean a full shooting attack averages like so:
Heavy Bolter: 1.11
Plasma Cannon: 1.11
Plasma Cannon OC: 2.5
Comparing a single shot of a multi-shot weapon doesn't give a clear picture.
That's full shot count on mathhammer website
No Captain or chaptermaster or LT as how exactly you math them in on fishing for 6's is a little odd.
Also I added the AP for devistator doctrine and the +1 for IF
The T8 breaks down a lot of the OC plasmas advantage over the Heavy Bolter for point per wound inflicted.
Can't remember last time a played against T7 without an invulnerable save.
Heavybolter .889 wounds 11.25 points per wound
Krak Missile 1 wound 20 points per wound
Plasma Cannon .593 26 points per wound
Plasma Cannon OC 1.333 12 points per wound
Simply put heavy bolters is the most efficent anti tank for IF the advantage with the Plasma Cannon is it doesn't drop off as hard when your hitting tau but that's also not working out the rate of suicide from those 1's.
GW really do need to employ someone to do basic math an point out that some of the designs don't work on a D6 system. +1 on D12's ir higher arn't as game breaking but with D6's flat +1 or -1 just wiped out a massive chunk of your granularity or variable ratios.
The game really needs to move to a D12 for sure.
Are you ranking individual shots on these weapons? Because that doesn't really represent the weapons properly.
I mean a full shooting attack averages like so:
Heavy Bolter: 1.11
Plasma Cannon: 1.11
Plasma Cannon OC: 2.5
Comparing a single shot of a multi-shot weapon doesn't give a clear picture.
That's full shot count on mathhammer website
No Captain or chaptermaster or LT as how exactly you math them in on fishing for 6's is a little odd.
Also I added the AP for devistator doctrine and the +1 for IF
If you want to argue that the HB is better because it's cheaper then adding other units onto it doesn't really make it work.
Additionally, I was also accounting for the -1AP bonus, +1dmg bonus and the exploding 6s for the HB when setting this up.
And I used a mathhammer site to crunch the numbers to reduce human error, but set everything up to compare best output from the weapons unsupported by other units since that opens a whole other can of worms.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Most Space Marine vehicles are T7 or T8, so if anyone has taken any of those then they'd be T7 or T8 without an invul.
Heavybolter .889 wounds 11.25 points per wound
Krak Missile 1 wound 20 points per wound
Plasma Cannon .593 26 points per wound
Plasma Cannon OC 1.333 12 points per wound
Simply put heavy bolters is the most efficent anti tank for IF the advantage with the Plasma Cannon is it doesn't drop off as hard when your hitting tau but that's also not working out the rate of suicide from those 1's.
GW really do need to employ someone to do basic math an point out that some of the designs don't work on a D6 system. +1 on D12's ir higher arn't as game breaking but with D6's flat +1 or -1 just wiped out a massive chunk of your granularity or variable ratios.
This is a poor way to do that analysis. The body matters. If you could take a 0 point model loaded with heavy bolters then have at it.
Ignore chrubs and other abilities --
4 HBDevs -- 105 points
12 * .666 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 3.5 / 105 = 0.033 wounds per point spent
4 LCDevs -- 165 points
4 * .666 * .666 * .666 * 4.5 = 5.3 / 165 = 0.032 wounds per point spent
4 Plasma Devs -- 129
8 * .666 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 2.4 / 129 = 0.018 wounds per point spent // No OC
8 * .666 * .5 * .666 * 3 = 5.3 / 129 = 0.041 wounds per point spent // OC
Vaktathi wrote: The problem here, at least as I see it, is that what Eldar got in PA is substantially less powerful, other recent books such as CSM's didn't get nearly as much attention, we have no guarantee others will get such, and a lot of what went into these supplements basically reads like someone grabbing the best traits and abilities from 3 or 4 other books and slapping it onto their pet favorite for its own sake like a bad internet fandex.
Marines haven't been the studio's pet favorite in terms of power at any point in the past. They have been mid-tier at best, and any time they pulled ahead they tend to get smacked back down by the shifting power curve. If they actually managed to sit on the top of the power curve for any length of time I'd be rather shocked honestly.
ClockworkZion wrote: Heavy stalkers are still trash for IF, even with the extra AP. And frankly since IF don't igbore move and shoot penalties for heavies, don't get increased range or extra shots on most heavy weapons (the only exception being heavy stalkers and heavy bolters) it's a trap to sit in the heavy doctrine to buff AP on those versuses troop units instead of the more plentiful rapid fire and assault weapons the army has access to.
Heavy bolters versues tanks are also a trap since you're only wounding a third of the shots you hit with and you only have 36" of range.
I'm biased as a Primaris only player but ultimately I feel I'd rather make stuff like Heavy plasma weapins better versuses tanks since they're also good against elite infantry over buffing heavy bolters and rather buff the basic bolter later in the game since it buffs the ABR which benefits the most (save for the storm bolter) from the CT.
It's not a trap - they average more damage than a lascannon in the doctrine - if an invune save comes in to play its even worse.
Lascannons have been trash since the edition started. Averaging more damage than a single shot heavy weapon is hardly a surprise. The issue there isn't the HB or even the Stalker, it's how pathetic dedicated anti-tank weapons are on average. I don't know how GW can fix them, but something needs to be done to lascannons and other similar weapons.
I'm rating the HB against a unit without an invune save. Lascannons are actually REALLY good at that. HB in IF are EVEN BETTER. It's beyond stupid. LC are garbage vs invune saves. Guess what IF don't care about...4++ and 5++ invune saves - cause that is the only save you'll ever get against them anyways.
I did the math against regular tanks and the HB averages worse overall than the lascannon, and both are worse than the plasma cannon.
The only advantage the HB gets is being cheaper and better versus hordes.
Maybe it's a touch better when put against a Knight, but I'm going to doubt that. But let me go check.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Okay, Veruses a Knight (just one weapon, but full shooting profile):
HB: 1.11 damge
Lascannon: 2.04 (1.04 average + 1 for doctrine bonus)
Plasma Cannon:.59
Plasma Cannon OC: 1.33
Yeah, still not sold on the HB unless you're fighting a Knight army and have nothing else to point it at.
It just averages worse against vehicles than other weapons. Can it do some work with luck and saturation? Sure. Should you build a list around that? I don't think so.
Nah dude...you don't compare IF HB against IF LC....you compare them against a lascannon that isn't IF. If my IF HB is better than your ultramarine lascannon at killing tanks. I win. Because my HB is also a lot better at killing infantry than your lascannon. IF decked out with lascannons might against beat out a marine player without any in total damage or end up doing about the same because they are paying about the same per damage but not all of those weapon costs add up right - you still have to pay for platforms. The point is - an army of HB is a mech fight should lose to an army with lascannons. It doesn't - it is broken.
This game is list construction and mostly rock paper scissors when it comes down to it. If you could build to counter your opponent you would basically never lose. For IF...this basically happens every game.
ClockworkZion wrote: Xeno, that makes no sense as it doesn't give you the best choice for the IF.
You are missing my point I think.
The point is not what is the best choice for the IF player for killing just tanks. The point is if an IF HB out damages the rest of the imperiums lascannons vs tanks...it is clearly a broken option that should not exist. I don't care if their anti tank guns are a little better at killing my tanks. I care that they can load up on anti infantry and destroy my whole army regardless of what I take.
This is what Gman did for marines. It was basically balanced when it ment they had 400 less point of units to attack you with. IF get it for free. It is beyond mind boggling. How does this get passed the concept phase?
ClockworkZion wrote: Xeno, that makes no sense as it doesn't give you the best choice for the IF.
You are missing my point I think.
The point is not what is the best choice for the IF player for killing just tanks. The point is if an IF HB out damages the rest of the imperiums lascannons vs tanks...it is clearly a broken option that should not exist. I don't care if their anti tank guns are a little better at killing my tanks. I care that they can load up on anti infantry and destroy my whole army regardless of what I take.
This is what Gman did for marines. It was basically balanced when it ment they had 400 less point of units to attack you with. IF get it for free. It is beyond mind boggling. How does this get passed the concept phase?
I don't agree. The issue isn't the IF HB as much as it is the Lascannon is just not that good at it's job. I mean the Plasma Cannon is an anti-TEQ weapon and it does the job better than the Lascannon does.
Iron Hands had some overpowered combinations that have been amended. I see nothing wrong with Ultras, IF, RG, etc
Eldar have been the most powerful faction for two years in 8th and many more prior to that in 7th and 6th. Even if Astartes are the best there is nothing wrong with that.
Super Doctrines are a broke idea, period. The Ultramarines one is basically just as good as the Iron Hands one if not better, and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Iron Hands had some overpowered combinations that have been amended. I see nothing wrong with Ultras, IF, RG, etc
Eldar have been the most powerful faction for two years in 8th and many more prior to that in 7th and 6th. Even if Astartes are the best there is nothing wrong with that.
Super Doctrines are a broke idea, period. The Ultramarines one is basically just as good as the Iron Hands one if not better, and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
I don't think they're broken considering the poor performance of Marines prior to these buffs. I think it's more they're ahead of the curve and hopefully the 1.5 updates in PA awakening helps with that so when the 2.0 codex updates come out the game reaches a better balance.
Iron Hands had some overpowered combinations that have been amended. I see nothing wrong with Ultras, IF, RG, etc
Eldar have been the most powerful faction for two years in 8th and many more prior to that in 7th and 6th. Even if Astartes are the best there is nothing wrong with that.
Super Doctrines are a broke idea, period. The Ultramarines one is basically just as good as the Iron Hands one if not better, and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
I don't think they're broken considering the poor performance of Marines prior to these buffs. I think it's more they're ahead of the curve and hopefully the 1.5 updates in PA awakening helps with that so when the 2.0 codex updates come out the game reaches a better balance.
I'm talking about Super Doctrines not the basic Doctrines themselves. Unfortunately it would be impossible to tell because two of the Supplements were released immediately with two more following only a couple of months.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Raven Guard one is super situationally broken, IMO.
There's a few instances where that bonus to ganking characters can be crazy in Tactical Doctrine...but it requires someone to actively build for it in a way that can detract from their effectiveness at literally anything else.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Raven Guard one is super situationally broken, IMO.
There's a few instances where that bonus to ganking characters can be crazy in Tactical Doctrine...but it requires someone to actively build for it in a way that can detract from their effectiveness at literally anything else.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Raven Guard one is super situationally broken, IMO.
There's a few instances where that bonus to ganking characters can be crazy in Tactical Doctrine...but it requires someone to actively build for it in a way that can detract from their effectiveness at literally anything else.
So good as a skew but bad as a TAC?
That's my personal take, yeah.
I haven't had much chance to test it yet, mind you, and I tend to play casually rather than competitively...but the big thing that I've found is that it really makes me wish for an actual 'assault' unit for Phobos kits.
I've been waiting for the Incursors box to come out(got 3 of them waiting for me on Saturday) to round out my all Phobos list, but so far 3x 10 man squads of Infiltrators, 3x Eliminators(2x Bolt Sniper Rifles, 1x Las Fusils), a Captain, and a few other goodies have been an interesting mix.
No Impulsors though! Considering one for the Orbital Strike Array.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Raven Guard one is super situationally broken, IMO.
There's a few instances where that bonus to ganking characters can be crazy in Tactical Doctrine...but it requires someone to actively build for it in a way that can detract from their effectiveness at literally anything else.
I gotta disagree. The best lists are using Knights (which are basically always Characters if you want your relics), the Primarchs, and if you have proper chaff clearing ala TCFs it isn't hard to go after a character with regular weapons. My current list doesn't have a terrible amount of anti-tank (and I'm experimenting still), but with strats and a host of rules I haven't cared as much as I usually would.
Heavybolter .889 wounds 11.25 points per wound
Krak Missile 1 wound 20 points per wound
Plasma Cannon .593 26 points per wound
Plasma Cannon OC 1.333 12 points per wound
Simply put heavy bolters is the most efficent anti tank for IF the advantage with the Plasma Cannon is it doesn't drop off as hard when your hitting tau but that's also not working out the rate of suicide from those 1's.
GW really do need to employ someone to do basic math an point out that some of the designs don't work on a D6 system. +1 on D12's ir higher arn't as game breaking but with D6's flat +1 or -1 just wiped out a massive chunk of your granularity or variable ratios.
This is a poor way to do that analysis. The body matters. If you could take a 0 point model loaded with heavy bolters then have at it.
Ignore chrubs and other abilities --
4 HBDevs -- 105 points
12 * .666 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 3.5 / 105 = 0.033 wounds per point spent
4 LCDevs -- 165 points
4 * .666 * .666 * .666 * 4.5 = 5.3 / 165 = 0.032 wounds per point spent
4 Plasma Devs -- 129
8 * .666 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 2.4 / 129 = 0.018 wounds per point spent // No OC
8 * .666 * .5 * .666 * 3 = 5.3 / 129 = 0.041 wounds per point spent // OC
Your using them as a MSUdev squad ie the fastest way to loose them.
I'm talking about adding a heavy weapon to an MSUtac squad the marines already payed for 's purely the weapon that's being added.
But that aside the balance for IF being able to go heavy into anti horde and still wreck armour will be a balance problem.
They can take the same list vrs a guard horde, gsc list as against Choas knights and disco lord spam.
It no longer about balancing the anti horde vrs anti TEQ (as they tend to be better at anti tank than anti tank weapons), it's cram in as much anti horde as you can and it'll destroy the opposite squew list without a problem anyways. If don't have to go TAC they can squew hard inti horde clearing and still be TAC and better than other armies anti armour spam lists, without the autoloose horde march up.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Raven Guard one is super situationally broken, IMO.
There's a few instances where that bonus to ganking characters can be crazy in Tactical Doctrine...but it requires someone to actively build for it in a way that can detract from their effectiveness at literally anything else.
I dunno. Eliminators are damn cheap. Seems easy enough to slide them in. Most seem to take max squads of them.
If IF are as broken as you say it is, it will be reflected in the data coming out in the next two months. I think a lot of the math hammer doesn't necessarily reflect on the tabletop as much as it the data suggests.
ClockworkZion wrote: Xeno, that makes no sense as it doesn't give you the best choice for the IF.
You are missing my point I think.
The point is not what is the best choice for the IF player for killing just tanks. The point is if an IF HB out damages the rest of the imperiums lascannons vs tanks...it is clearly a broken option that should not exist. I don't care if their anti tank guns are a little better at killing my tanks. I care that they can load up on anti infantry and destroy my whole army regardless of what I take.
This is what Gman did for marines. It was basically balanced when it ment they had 400 less point of units to attack you with. IF get it for free. It is beyond mind boggling. How does this get passed the concept phase?
I don't agree. The issue isn't the IF HB as much as it is the Lascannon is just not that good at it's job. I mean the Plasma Cannon is an anti-TEQ weapon and it does the job better than the Lascannon does.
Only when it overcharges...which let me tell you. Vs a lot of strong armies you can't do that. They need special help to be allowed to freely overcharge and then they don't really come on durable platforms. On a dread you are chosing 2 LC over a plasma...2 LC wins handily vs basically everything - yeah it costs more but you only get so many venerable dreads...Hellblasters are basically a crappy eliminator with lasfusil - and they are out performed by sniper rifles. Plasma devs are glass. Basically the only place you can get a really effective plasma is on a executioner...which is also glass...and you can get 4 auto shots with the min 3 damage str 10 ap-4 main gun which is flat out amazing. Drop pod plasma sterngaurd is nearly impossible to give them a +1 to hit and they will end up crushing something but killing 2-3 of their own dudes even with reroll 1's probably - if there is a -1 to hit in play - you literally could lose the whole unit. Imperial fists though. HB wins out on efficiency vs most vehical targets AND lets not forget - things like redemptors and punisher sicarians have redonkules amounts of heavy weapon shots that are getting +1 damage too. 29 shots in a reroll aura will hit 26 times and wound t8 getting almost 6 wounds through on a 3+ save. It literally averages just under a kill of a lemon russ commander. A contemptor mortis with 4 lc in say an ultramarines army doesn't even do that and the sicarian costs less...and murders hordes. Like...I don't understand why you don't understand this is a problem. IF are so strong with this super doctrine - you wont see a single vehical in the meta. Knights are instantly dead. Non imperial fist marines are dead. Imperial guard is dead. Dark eldar are dead. CWE might survive because wave serpants have -1 damage but the flyers are donzo. Even ork artillery is vehicle isn't it? Necrons are dead as DDA gets crushed by HB. Nids can't face a whole marine gunline with ignore cover unless they go full monster (which gets rekt by basically every other army) Even disco lords don't have a chance. Daemons might be the only army that can really take on imperial fists and still face other armies. Just wait. Just like ironhands dominated every event this last month - IF will do the same - and the reason is their super doctrine.
ClockworkZion wrote: Xeno, that makes no sense as it doesn't give you the best choice for the IF.
You are missing my point I think.
The point is not what is the best choice for the IF player for killing just tanks. The point is if an IF HB out damages the rest of the imperiums lascannons vs tanks...it is clearly a broken option that should not exist. I don't care if their anti tank guns are a little better at killing my tanks. I care that they can load up on anti infantry and destroy my whole army regardless of what I take.
This is what Gman did for marines. It was basically balanced when it ment they had 400 less point of units to attack you with. IF get it for free. It is beyond mind boggling. How does this get passed the concept phase?
I don't agree. The issue isn't the IF HB as much as it is the Lascannon is just not that good at it's job. I mean the Plasma Cannon is an anti-TEQ weapon and it does the job better than the Lascannon does.
Only when it overcharges...which let me tell you. Vs a lot of strong armies you can't do that. They need special help to be allowed to freely overcharge and then they don't really come on durable platforms. On a dread you are chosing 2 LC over a plasma...2 LC wins handily vs basically everything - yeah it costs more but you only get so many venerable dreads...Hellblasters are basically a crappy eliminator with lasfusil - and they are out performed by sniper rifles. Plasma devs are glass. Basically the only place you can get a really effective plasma is on a executioner...which is also glass...and you can get 4 auto shots with the min 3 damage str 10 ap-4 main gun which is flat out amazing. Drop pod plasma sterngaurd is nearly impossible to give them a +1 to hit and they will end up crushing something but killing 2-3 of their own dudes even with reroll 1's probably - if there is a -1 to hit in play - you literally could lose the whole unit. Imperial fists though. HB wins out on efficiency vs most vehical targets AND lets not forget - things like redemptors and punisher sicarians have redonkules amounts of heavy weapon shots that are getting +1 damage too. 29 shots in a reroll aura will hit 26 times and wound t8 getting almost 6 wounds through on a 3+ save. It literally averages just under a kill of a lemon russ commander. A contemptor mortis with 4 lc in say an ultramarines army doesn't even do that and the sicarian costs less...and murders hordes. Like...I don't understand why you don't understand this is a problem. IF are so strong with this super doctrine - you wont see a single vehical in the meta. Knights are instantly dead. Non imperial fist marines are dead. Imperial guard is dead. Dark eldar are dead. CWE might survive because wave serpants have -1 damage but the flyers are donzo. Even ork artillery is vehicle isn't it? Necrons are dead as DDA gets crushed by HB. Nids can't face a whole marine gunline with ignore cover unless they go full monster (which gets rekt by basically every other army) Even disco lords don't have a chance. Daemons might be the only army that can really take on imperial fists and still face other armies. Just wait. Just like ironhands dominated every event this last month - IF will do the same - and the reason is their super doctrine.
I'd honestly overcharge all day long because it's not hard to support a unit of Hellblasters (even a Redemptor popping Wisdom of the Ancients can do it).
The reason I don't get it is that you're insisting scattering S5 weapons all over your army somehow makes you able to reliably kill any vehicle in the game. Are you playing on a bowling ball? What about the fact you likely won't be close enough to start shooting turn 1? Now you're wasting a turn moving up and not shooting, likely while being shot. And fast armies (like the Discolord or White Scars) may be in combat with you before you can reliably do anything against them.
You're assuming people can't find counters to the army and that if it's a vehicle it's automatically dead, but unless you're focus firing down a single vehicle each turn (with you're "OP" HB) that isn't likely, Basically I think you're assuming too much in the favor for the IF.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Raven Guard one is super situationally broken, IMO.
There's a few instances where that bonus to ganking characters can be crazy in Tactical Doctrine...but it requires someone to actively build for it in a way that can detract from their effectiveness at literally anything else.
I dunno. Eliminators are damn cheap. Seems easy enough to slide them in. Most seem to take max squads of them.
Yea three squads are a little over 10% of your list. Which still gives you plenty of pts to spend on other things. Overall I found the bonus against characters to be really good on the table. Characters models are often models I want dead anyway so having the bonus helps. It is not just eliminators either, things like invictors become excellent assassins in melee with their fists, and even intercessors are deadly to most characters with their AP -2 bolt rifles.
On another note I also found that being able to kill characters really helps a lot in maelstrom of war missions, which are rather popular locally.
Also assault centurions plus chaplain with master of ambush is just plain brutal.
Edit:
Smirrors wrote: Ravenguard will potentially do quite well against IF.
It will depend heavily on who gets first turn I think.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Raven Guard one is super situationally broken, IMO.
There's a few instances where that bonus to ganking characters can be crazy in Tactical Doctrine...but it requires someone to actively build for it in a way that can detract from their effectiveness at literally anything else.
I gotta disagree. The best lists are using Knights (which are basically always Characters if you want your relics), the Primarchs, and if you have proper chaff clearing ala TCFs it isn't hard to go after a character with regular weapons. My current list doesn't have a terrible amount of anti-tank (and I'm experimenting still), but with strats and a host of rules I haven't cared as much as I usually would.
The ravengaurd super doctrine is also too much. +1 to wound characters...so usually a 2+ or a 4+ vs things you really shouldn't be hurtling with a sniper rifle. The only super doctrines that aren't 100% busted are the Ultramarines and white scars - white scars is terrible because turn 3 and Ultramarines though it is really good - Ultras chapter tactic is epic garbage. I think all super doctrines should be morphed into the founding chapter tactics of their armies with some nerfs.
Ironhands should be reroll 1's in the devastator doctrine with heavy weapons.
Ravengaurd should be +1 to wound with sniper weapons in tactical
IF should be +1 damage with weapons of str 8 or more against vehicals and buildings in dev White scars could probably stay the same
Ultras should be counts as stationary with infantry only in tactical
Salamanders should be reroll the number of shots with flame weapons and reroll hits with meltas in tactical
black templar should be like +1 to charge in assault doctrine.
and every chapter should have the ability to turn 1 squad to the doctrine of their choice for 1 CP.
These should not be game breaking....they should be a reward for playing a first founding chapter and not taking the always in cover and MOA combo for successors.
ClockworkZion wrote: Xeno, that makes no sense as it doesn't give you the best choice for the IF.
You are missing my point I think.
The point is not what is the best choice for the IF player for killing just tanks. The point is if an IF HB out damages the rest of the imperiums lascannons vs tanks...it is clearly a broken option that should not exist. I don't care if their anti tank guns are a little better at killing my tanks. I care that they can load up on anti infantry and destroy my whole army regardless of what I take.
This is what Gman did for marines. It was basically balanced when it ment they had 400 less point of units to attack you with. IF get it for free. It is beyond mind boggling. How does this get passed the concept phase?
I don't agree. The issue isn't the IF HB as much as it is the Lascannon is just not that good at it's job. I mean the Plasma Cannon is an anti-TEQ weapon and it does the job better than the Lascannon does.
Only when it overcharges...which let me tell you. Vs a lot of strong armies you can't do that. They need special help to be allowed to freely overcharge and then they don't really come on durable platforms. On a dread you are chosing 2 LC over a plasma...2 LC wins handily vs basically everything - yeah it costs more but you only get so many venerable dreads...Hellblasters are basically a crappy eliminator with lasfusil - and they are out performed by sniper rifles. Plasma devs are glass. Basically the only place you can get a really effective plasma is on a executioner...which is also glass...and you can get 4 auto shots with the min 3 damage str 10 ap-4 main gun which is flat out amazing. Drop pod plasma sterngaurd is nearly impossible to give them a +1 to hit and they will end up crushing something but killing 2-3 of their own dudes even with reroll 1's probably - if there is a -1 to hit in play - you literally could lose the whole unit. Imperial fists though. HB wins out on efficiency vs most vehical targets AND lets not forget - things like redemptors and punisher sicarians have redonkules amounts of heavy weapon shots that are getting +1 damage too. 29 shots in a reroll aura will hit 26 times and wound t8 getting almost 6 wounds through on a 3+ save. It literally averages just under a kill of a lemon russ commander. A contemptor mortis with 4 lc in say an ultramarines army doesn't even do that and the sicarian costs less...and murders hordes. Like...I don't understand why you don't understand this is a problem. IF are so strong with this super doctrine - you wont see a single vehical in the meta. Knights are instantly dead. Non imperial fist marines are dead. Imperial guard is dead. Dark eldar are dead. CWE might survive because wave serpants have -1 damage but the flyers are donzo. Even ork artillery is vehicle isn't it? Necrons are dead as DDA gets crushed by HB. Nids can't face a whole marine gunline with ignore cover unless they go full monster (which gets rekt by basically every other army) Even disco lords don't have a chance. Daemons might be the only army that can really take on imperial fists and still face other armies. Just wait. Just like ironhands dominated every event this last month - IF will do the same - and the reason is their super doctrine.
I'd honestly overcharge all day long because it's not hard to support a unit of Hellblasters (even a Redemptor popping Wisdom of the Ancients can do it).
The reason I don't get it is that you're insisting scattering S5 weapons all over your army somehow makes you able to reliably kill any vehicle in the game. Are you playing on a bowling ball? What about the fact you likely won't be close enough to start shooting turn 1? Now you're wasting a turn moving up and not shooting, likely while being shot. And fast armies (like the Discolord or White Scars) may be in combat with you before you can reliably do anything against them.
You're assuming people can't find counters to the army and that if it's a vehicle it's automatically dead, but unless you're focus firing down a single vehicle each turn (with you're "OP" HB) that isn't likely, Basically I think you're assuming too much in the favor for the IF.
There aren't counters to your opponent getting free rules that double their damage...there just isn't. What does bowling ball have to do with anything? If they are hiding from you they can't shoot you ether. At some point you have to face your opponent and they will straight up out damage you if you have vehicles. Plus it's not like every IF list isn't going to include 3 tfc. Maybe even some wirlwinds.
For plasma you are assuming no -1 to hit. So many armys can throw a -1 to hit on you and many other come with it naturally on their units + all flyers. Custodians have a damn -1 to hit banner. When it works it's great but a good portion of armies make plasma worthless. It is unusable in competitive play.
You keep spouting double damage, but unless we're talking the move from D1 to D2, it just isn't true. And even then it only averages maybe 1 more wound on average.
And LOS means indirect fire, or staying out of LoS so you have to move closer and they can weather your first turn unscathed. Do you not play or something?
Not a lot of those -1 to hit are on vehicles, but it's a fair point. That's why I'd only take some plasma. I'd also take Suppressors and probably a Repulsor Executioner too.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Raven Guard one is super situationally broken, IMO.
There's a few instances where that bonus to ganking characters can be crazy in Tactical Doctrine...but it requires someone to actively build for it in a way that can detract from their effectiveness at literally anything else.
I dunno. Eliminators are damn cheap. Seems easy enough to slide them in. Most seem to take max squads of them.
Yea three squads are a little over 10% of your list. Which still gives you plenty of pts to spend on other things. Overall I found the bonus against characters to be really good on the table. Characters models are often models I want dead anyway so having the bonus helps. Is not just eliminators either, things like invictors become excellent assassins in melee with their fists, and even intercessors are deadly to most characters with their AP -2 bolt rifles.
On another note I also found that being able to kill characters really helps a lot in maelstrom of war missions, which are rather popular locally.
Also assault centurions plus chaplain with master of ambush is just plain brutal.
Edit:
Smirrors wrote: Ravenguard will potentially do quite well against IF.
It will depend heavily on who gets first turn I think.
You can hide 2 eliminator squads inside an impulsor. Then drop them into position next to a reroll all hits aura. Or wait till you turn to tactical doctrine and get out and hit as normal with a +1 to hit.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ClockworkZion wrote: You keep spouting double damage, but unless we're talking the move from D1 to D2, it just isn't true. And even then it only averages maybe 1 more wound on average.
And LOS means indirect fire, or staying out of LoS so you have to move closer and they can weather your first turn unscathed. Do you not play or something?
Not a lot of those -1 to hit are on vehicles, but it's a fair point. That's why I'd only take some plasma. I'd also take Suppressors and probably a Repulsor Executioner too.
I don't put all my eggs in one basket.
It's going to be double damage. There is not reason not to maximize your number of shots with the current IF doctrine. You might not do it yourself because your aren't min maxing but tournament cheese lists will. Just wait too...We don't even know what kind of absurd stratagem combos IF are gonna have.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: and Raven Guard I've been testing and found to be pretty broken as well.
Raven Guard one is super situationally broken, IMO.
There's a few instances where that bonus to ganking characters can be crazy in Tactical Doctrine...but it requires someone to actively build for it in a way that can detract from their effectiveness at literally anything else.
I dunno. Eliminators are damn cheap. Seems easy enough to slide them in. Most seem to take max squads of them.
Yea three squads are a little over 10% of your list. Which still gives you plenty of pts to spend on other things. Overall I found the bonus against characters to be really good on the table. Characters models are often models I want dead anyway so having the bonus helps. Is not just eliminators either, things like invictors become excellent assassins in melee with their fists, and even intercessors are deadly to most characters with their AP -2 bolt rifles.
On another note I also found that being able to kill characters really helps a lot in maelstrom of war missions, which are rather popular locally.
Also assault centurions plus chaplain with master of ambush is just plain brutal.
Edit:
Smirrors wrote: Ravenguard will potentially do quite well against IF.
It will depend heavily on who gets first turn I think.
You can hide 2 eliminator squads inside an impulsor. Then drop them into position next to a reroll all hits aura. Or wait till you turn to tactical doctrine and get out and hit as normal with a +1 to hit.
Or just use the strike from the shadows strat and put them in reserve and arrive on turn two. The bonus to hit cancels out the heavy penalty.
ClockworkZion wrote: You keep spouting double damage, but unless we're talking the move from D1 to D2, it just isn't true. And even then it only averages maybe 1 more wound on average.
And LOS means indirect fire, or staying out of LoS so you have to move closer and they can weather your first turn unscathed. Do you not play or something?
Not a lot of those -1 to hit are on vehicles, but it's a fair point. That's why I'd only take some plasma. I'd also take Suppressors and probably a Repulsor Executioner too.
I don't put all my eggs in one basket.
It's going to be double damage. There is not reason not to maximize your number of shots with the current IF doctrine. You might not do it yourself because your aren't min maxing but tournament cheese lists will.
There is good reason not to. Monsters aren't affected.
Your using them as a MSUdev squad ie the fastest way to loose them.
I'm talking about adding a heavy weapon to an MSUtac squad the marines already payed for 's purely the weapon that's being added.
But that aside the balance for IF being able to go heavy into anti horde and still wreck armour will be a balance problem.
They can take the same list vrs a guard horde, gsc list as against Choas knights and disco lord spam.
It no longer about balancing the anti horde vrs anti TEQ (as they tend to be better at anti tank than anti tank weapons), it's cram in as much anti horde as you can and it'll destroy the opposite squew list without a problem anyways. If don't have to go TAC they can squew hard inti horde clearing and still be TAC and better than other armies anti armour spam lists, without the autoloose horde march up.
It doesn't matter much what models as long as it is apples to apples.
On it's own an MSU squad with a HB is pretty inconsequential. So are 3 such squads. Sure, the HBs are more versatile and reliable, but I find its hardly to the point where HBs/Asscans/etc are the only weapons you should take.
I understand the dynamic of have an army with solid anti-horde that can tackle tanks, too, but I don't foresee it working out perfectly.
3 tfc ~ 32(24+strat) bs 2 str5 ap2 ignores cover shots. 3 devastator squads ~ 47(bs 2 on some + exploding 6 is about the same as 11 more shots) bs 3 str5 ap 2 ignores cover. That is just short of 600pts of anti infantry units and without character rerolls they do ~ 25 damage to t8 3+/5++ profile. Thats almost 2 non LoW vehicles.
A single HB is crappy anti tank even with IF. But try spending 600pts on anti tank and anti horde, which ~ 80 str 5 ap2 ignores cover shot is excellent against, that can do better or equal than what IF can do against both. You can get either equal or bettet anti tank or anti infantry but not both unless you are IF. The ultimate TAC while skewing their whole list and they can counter other skew lists in the meta. Only monster spam they dont counter for free but its not like heavy bolters are worthless against them anyway.
IF heavy bolters even care less about negative to hit modifiers than other heavy weapons if you have CM rerolls close by since the extra hits from their CT compensate quite well the misses. Same with overwatching close to a CM. Its like they have OW on 5+ on bolters since 6s give 2 hits. Here (heavy) bolters really beats plasma cannons.
And you still have like 1400pts of other units to fill out your list. I would still take a smash captain for backup and a few units that can hit hard in melee. I would just not take any that need me to change doctrine. Hard to build a list with 3+ whirlwinds/tfc that benefits from going from devastator to tactical doctrine unless you load up on tons of intercessors with rf/assault bolters. And ofc they are good with IF CT but then you play with either your CT or your super doctrine when you could do both without any real downsides.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
They really weren't a staple this edition ever. They were just the decent of a bad situation.
They're simply just good now. Super Doctrines are the problem which people seem to be forgetting as usual.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
non-LOS shooting in general needs an adjustment tbh. I can't think of a faction that has access to it that doesn't use it extensively in competitive lists.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
non-LOS shooting in general needs an adjustment tbh. I can't think of a faction that has access to it that doesn't use it extensively in competitive lists.
And some of it just needs to be reworked period. I've been saying for awhile that Guard need to lose some of the Heavy Weapon Team options that feature in the Guard Squads, with Mortars being restricted to their own teams.
I've also been wondering if the bit for the Bolt Sniper Rifles' "ignore line of sight" rounds where it says you get a +1 to hit rolls is trying to suggest/imply that instead of hitting on a 3+, you're supposed to hit on a 4+. It would be a benefit(ignore LOS) while having a downside(degrading your shot performance).
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Just remove the slow units down stratagem. The TFC is like 3 ignore LOSHB...You must really hate wyverns...
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Just remove the slow units down stratagem. The TFC is like 3 ignore LOSHB...You must really hate wyverns...
To be fair. Its easier to hide a TFC and it has BS2 and 12" more range. It also has ap2 for at least one turn which means its a threat against units in cover. A wyvern does barely anything against marines, especially in cover or units with negative to hit modifiers. Wyvern is better against boys or other units with bad saves but I dont think it is close to as good as the TFC.
In IH and IF the TFC is even extra nasty. 2+ with reroll to hit as IH or ignore cover and able to threaten tanks as IF. Much stronger than a wyvern.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Just remove the slow units down stratagem. The TFC is like 3 ignore LOSHB...You must really hate wyverns...
To be fair. Its easier to hide a TFC and it has BS2 and 12" more range. It also has ap2 for at least one turn which means its a threat against units in cover. A wyvern does barely anything against marines, especially in cover or units with negative to hit modifiers. Wyvern is better against boys or other units with bad saves but I dont think it is close to as good as the TFC.
In IH and IF the TFC is even extra nasty. 2+ with reroll to hit as IH or ignore cover and able to threaten tanks as IF. Much stronger than a wyvern.
TFC is more versatile. The wyvern can also shoot twice and reroll all hits and wounds and can also get ap-1 on 6's. It's getting more than double the wounds on a target with that combo. It was a staple in every guard list for about a year. The TFC is also good but it is much less durable/ requires to be out of LOS to shoot twice. It's def not a better choice. reroll wounds is better than str 5.
How do you get full rerolls to hit though? To shoot twice you need extra support from a detachment and a character with a relic close by. Getting ap1 on 6s doesnt do much at all. It does wound a bit better that is true but it costs more in both points and CP and you quickly run into dimishing returns on the unit due to how narrow it is targeting. It is slightly more durable but it is also larger and dont come with a free techmarine.
Thought it was just the shoot out of LOS weapon that could double shoot and not that it had to be out of LOS.
I have played with wyverns myself since I needed artillery but I would rather bring in a Space marine detachment for it than a guard one. Too bad I lose the doctrines since BA dont get them smh.
Wyvern isnt bad but the TFC is just better. Especially the more marines there are in the meta. The more marines the better the TFC gets compared to the wyvern. That extra ap is important. Like I could still run 1 wyvern but never 3. If I had 3 TFC I would run them all the time though.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Just remove the slow units down stratagem. The TFC is like 3 ignore LOSHB...You must really hate wyverns...
To be fair. Its easier to hide a TFC and it has BS2 and 12" more range. It also has ap2 for at least one turn which means its a threat against units in cover. A wyvern does barely anything against marines, especially in cover or units with negative to hit modifiers. Wyvern is better against boys or other units with bad saves but I dont think it is close to as good as the TFC.
In IH and IF the TFC is even extra nasty. 2+ with reroll to hit as IH or ignore cover and able to threaten tanks as IF. Much stronger than a wyvern.
TFC is more versatile. The wyvern can also shoot twice and reroll all hits and wounds and can also get ap-1 on 6's. It's getting more than double the wounds on a target with that combo. It was a staple in every guard list for about a year. The TFC is also good but it is much less durable/ requires to be out of LOS to shoot twice. It's def not a better choice. reroll wounds is better than str 5.
The TFC strat doesn't require it to be out of LOS? It needs to fire weapons that ignore LOS.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Maybe a bit in points. OOLOS weapons need -1 to hit when they can't see the target in my opinion.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Maybe a bit in points. OOLOS weapons need -1 to hit when they can't see the target in my opinion.
The points difference is because kill the gunner and the TFC dies automatically 4W T4 Sv2+ isn't that hard to kill compaired to a wyvern.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Maybe a bit in points. OOLOS weapons need -1 to hit when they can't see the target in my opinion.
The points difference is because kill the gunner and the TFC dies automatically 4W T4 Sv2+ isn't that hard to kill compaired to a wyvern.
He is harder to kill than the gun itself since he is a character. A character that can stay way back and dont need LOS for anything. If he dies before the gun then I get surprised
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Maybe a bit in points. OOLOS weapons need -1 to hit when they can't see the target in my opinion.
The points difference is because kill the gunner and the TFC dies automatically 4W T4 Sv2+ isn't that hard to kill compaired to a wyvern.
He is harder to kill than the gun itself since he is a character. A character that can stay way back and dont need LOS for anything. If he dies before the gun then I get surprised
Seen it done 1 with targeted MW spells. The other with eliminators, might not have been a grate return for the points of shooting but he didn't live past 1 round of shooting.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The above post is right. Thunderfire Cannons are gonna be busted as Imperial Fists.
Thunderfire Cannons are busted anyway. They were a staple of competitive marine lists before their 2.0 codex dropped and have only gotten better over time.
They need a points adjustment and/or rules changes. They are far too debilitating to units.
Maybe a bit in points. OOLOS weapons need -1 to hit when they can't see the target in my opinion.
The points difference is because kill the gunner and the TFC dies automatically 4W T4 Sv2+ isn't that hard to kill compaired to a wyvern.
The gunner is a character so they have to shoot the T6 4W TFC first unless they can position accordingly. TFC also only die if there isn't a techmarine gunner within range, but are prevented from shooting without their own gunner. A small difference, but it does make them a bit more resilient in multiples.
Seen it done 1 with targeted MW spells. The other with eliminators, might not have been a grate return for the points of shooting but he didn't live past 1 round of shooting.
Those spells are all 24" or less, so if you're there with enough casters other things went wrong. It takes 9 RG eliminators in tactical (not possible turn 1) to down him in one go. Many armies have nothing approaching that ability.
How the hell did he die against those things? Unless the game was already lost or there were really bad terrain it shouldnt even be possible. Without knowing more it feels like quite the missplay.
Only 36" range on eliminators and the ignore los shots wont do much against 4w 2+ save. The mortal wound spel should have even shorter range.
Seen it done 1 with targeted MW spells. The other with eliminators, might not have been a grate return for the points of shooting but he didn't live past 1 round of shooting.
Those spells are all 24" or less, so if you're there with enough casters other things went wrong. It takes 9 RG eliminators in tactical (not possible turn 1) to down him in one go. Many armies have nothing approaching that ability.
Sorry probably should have been clearer he got shot turn 1 shot back and died turn 2 one round of shooting before he died.
The MW was GSC and I've very little knowledge of their shenanigans wasn't my game and the guy was pretty salty about GSCBS so I didn't press it think he packed up early
Seen it done 1 with targeted MW spells. The other with eliminators, might not have been a grate return for the points of shooting but he didn't live past 1 round of shooting.
Those spells are all 24" or less, so if you're there with enough casters other things went wrong. It takes 9 RG eliminators in tactical (not possible turn 1) to down him in one go. Many armies have nothing approaching that ability.
Flyers are how you take them out. Take 6 hell blasters in an impulsor could easily get the job done too.
Klickor wrote: Hellblasters in an impulsor sounds like a really ineffective counter to TFC I must say.
Impulsor moves 14" and can disembark hell blasters which can then move and shoot. The is a pretty huge threat range with fly for the impulsor 2. It's basically an automatic turn 2 strike which could easily take out all 3 TFC. They are AP -5 in tactical doctrine. It's hard to screen and it has massive mobility.
Flyers are how you take them out. Take 6 hell blasters in an impulsor could easily get the job done too.
Thankfully chaos has jack gak for flyers outside FW. *sigh* maybe the +1A will help the hell turkey (nope).
Hell turkey can't get the job done - you gotta go to FW. Not sure how I would handle nu marines with TS....I think I would just get destroyed. Standard Tzzangor drops should actually still be very effective against marines.
Flyers are how you take them out. Take 6 hell blasters in an impulsor could easily get the job done too.
Thankfully chaos has jack gak for flyers outside FW. *sigh* maybe the +1A will help the hell turkey (nope).
Hell turkey can't get the job done - you gotta go to FW. Not sure how I would handle nu marines with TS....I think I would just get destroyed. Standard Tzzangor drops should actually still be very effective against marines.
PA probably won't get me any traits. Maybe some spells. My war dogs can do work, but they'll have to push in a little too close. I'd probably just stay out of range of devs and pick them off and cross my fingers on the TFCs.
The worst part for me is that All is Dust is basically negated now.
Flyers are how you take them out. Take 6 hell blasters in an impulsor could easily get the job done too.
Thankfully chaos has jack gak for flyers outside FW. *sigh* maybe the +1A will help the hell turkey (nope).
Hell turkey can't get the job done - you gotta go to FW. Not sure how I would handle nu marines with TS....I think I would just get destroyed. Standard Tzzangor drops should actually still be very effective against marines.
PA probably won't get me any traits. Maybe some spells. My war dogs can do work, but they'll have to push in a little too close. I'd probably just stay out of range of devs and pick them off and cross my fingers on the TFCs.
The worst part for me is that All is Dust is basically negated now.
Compared to an intercessor a rubcic is just terrible now. I'd really just like to see rubrics get a 4++ save again and their bolters should be heavy 2 ap -2. if they are to retain that point cost.
Xenomancers wrote: Compared to an intercessor a rubcic is just terrible now. I'd really just like to see rubrics get a 4++ save again and their bolters should be heavy 2 ap -2. if they are to retain that point cost.
If they ever get an enhanced legion tactic they might be better, giving them an 'automaton' expanded trait that allows them to be treated as stationary would be amazing and wouldn't really further upgrade their psykers. But honestly, stuff like this is why my army hasn't been on a table in 3-4 months. Why bother? The game is in such a terrible state right now it's utterly pointless. CSM codex 1.5 was just a bone thrown to Chaos that didn't actually accomplish much, PA appears to be more bones thrown to more obviously inferior factions while GW continues to focus on Imperial units.
Xenomancers wrote: Compared to an intercessor a rubcic is just terrible now. I'd really just like to see rubrics get a 4++ save again and their bolters should be heavy 2 ap -2. if they are to retain that point cost.
If they ever get an enhanced legion tactic they might be better, giving them an 'automaton' expanded trait that allows them to be treated as stationary would be amazing and wouldn't really further upgrade their psykers. But honestly, stuff like this is why my army hasn't been on a table in 3-4 months. Why bother? The game is in such a terrible state right now it's utterly pointless. CSM codex 1.5 was just a bone thrown to Chaos that didn't actually accomplish much, PA appears to be more bones thrown to more obviously inferior factions while GW continues to focus on Imperial units.
*shrug* I'm getting a lot of mileage out of Vigilus for my BL. PA might do something for exalteds.
It's bad but I thought someone posted that GW did admit they got the cost of PA wrong and the tactical points change was only because of the new codex points changes are for CA.
I took that to mean Choas were going to 12 in CA, if I'm wrong yeah GW will need to fix that though why they didn't change it via vigilous stuff IDK.
Daedalus81 wrote: *shrug* I'm getting a lot of mileage out of Vigilus for my BL. PA might do something for exalteds.
Yeah, I had a number of good games for about 2 months or so after Vigilus/CSM 1.5 came out. It wasn't dominant, but it felt fresh and was competitive at least. But the first SM 2.0 preview made it painfully obvious the CSM role in the narrative.
Xenomancers wrote: Compared to an intercessor a rubcic is just terrible now. I'd really just like to see rubrics get a 4++ save again and their bolters should be heavy 2 ap -2. if they are to retain that point cost.
If they ever get an enhanced legion tactic they might be better, giving them an 'automaton' expanded trait that allows them to be treated as stationary would be amazing and wouldn't really further upgrade their psykers. But honestly, stuff like this is why my army hasn't been on a table in 3-4 months. Why bother? The game is in such a terrible state right now it's utterly pointless. CSM codex 1.5 was just a bone thrown to Chaos that didn't actually accomplish much, PA appears to be more bones thrown to more obviously inferior factions while GW continues to focus on Imperial units.
I've got TS and BL on the shelf right now too. I think I've heard - PA focus is going to be Nids/BA World Eaters/vs ? Maybe the world eaters PA will give all CSM a boost.
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Daedalus81 wrote: I'd be happy if i always counted as stationary for two shots on the move and a couple points off the top.
Xenomancers wrote: Compared to an intercessor a rubcic is just terrible now. I'd really just like to see rubrics get a 4++ save again and their bolters should be heavy 2 ap -2. if they are to retain that point cost.
If they ever get an enhanced legion tactic they might be better, giving them an 'automaton' expanded trait that allows them to be treated as stationary would be amazing and wouldn't really further upgrade their psykers. But honestly, stuff like this is why my army hasn't been on a table in 3-4 months. Why bother? The game is in such a terrible state right now it's utterly pointless. CSM codex 1.5 was just a bone thrown to Chaos that didn't actually accomplish much, PA appears to be more bones thrown to more obviously inferior factions while GW continues to focus on Imperial units.
*shrug* I'm getting a lot of mileage out of Vigilus for my BL. PA might do something for exalteds.
They already have that it just only counts for heavy weapons. So Just make them heavy weapons.
Or he wouldn't tell you what was in each transport because the rules in 5th ed didn't say you had to. Or wobbly model rule in older editions did say your opponent had to agree. So once after I exploded one of his vehicles he put down a custom built crater that had a small hole in the center and very steep slopes that made it impossible to place your models without them falling over. He would then claim you couldn't charge his models because you couldn't place your models and he wouldn't let you use the wobbly model rule.
