Maybe it's not rational, but seeing the buffs and changes being thrown out (mainly to SM) makes me simply not want to play until my codices drop (and counting on them getting as big buffs as SM)

It seems these new units and changes both to weapon dmg and stats are a far bigger boost than what a new codex usually brings for a faction.

Also, they dropped the Munitorium Field Manual not one month ago, and already they are changing the wounds and stats etc for not just one faction but many, in one fell swoop. Did they not know about this? I'm sure people like to have the book they bought a few weeks back be invalidated quickly.

Oh well, maybe I'm overreacting and everything is fine and balanced

Until the Guard dex drops, I'll limit myself to Kill Team and maybe the occasional small game in the 500/1000 points range.

I figure that 500 pt games will be more balanced on principle, as the very small CP pool will mean there won't be more than one stratagem per turn and the potential for min/maxing broken OP stuff is reduced.

I may figure wrong though.

When I get around to playing again, I will only be running my BA versus other SM armies and save the T'au to play against anything else.

Running any other way is going to make the game unfun for either myself or my opponent...

I think the real enjoyment many people get from 40k is edgy posts go show how critical they can be about something they only have passing information on and never used.

So in that sense you're still "playing". Thanks GW!

Totto wrote:
Maybe it's not rational, but seeing the buffs and changes being thrown out (mainly to SM) makes me simply not want to play until my codices drop (and counting on them getting as big buffs as SM)

It seems these new units and changes both to weapon dmg and stats are a far bigger boost than what a new codex usually brings for a faction.

Also, they dropped the Munitorium Field Manual not one month ago, and already they are changing the wounds and stats etc for not just one faction but many, in one fell swoop. Did they not know about this? I'm sure people like to have the book they bought a few weeks back be invalidated quickly.

Oh well, maybe I'm overreacting and everything is fine and balanced

Nothing is ever fine and balanced with GW. They are aiming for constantly shifting imbalance so if it WAS fine and balanced then somehow GW would have managed to screw up their own goal...

Constantly changing stuff and codex creep is standard with GW. As is design ethos changing with new edition and often mid-way as well. Scary prospect is they start buffing stats etc out and midway before all codexes comes out go for other route instead.

Totto wrote:
Maybe it's not rational...

Oh there's no maybe about it.

Totto wrote:
Maybe it's not rational, but seeing the buffs and changes being thrown out (mainly to SM) makes me simply not want to play until my codices drop (and counting on them getting as big buffs as SM)

It seems these new units and changes both to weapon dmg and stats are a far bigger boost than what a new codex usually brings for a faction.

Also, they dropped the Munitorium Field Manual not one month ago, and already they are changing the wounds and stats etc for not just one faction but many, in one fell swoop. Did they not know about this? I'm sure people like to have the book they bought a few weeks back be invalidated quickly.

Oh well, maybe I'm overreacting and everything is fine and balanced

i was barely tolerating 8th, i enjoy it for use as an engine for epic scale, but i was never really loving it, when i read the new rules for 9th i felt even less like playing it, the new changes just made it feel like a beta test. so i happily go back to playing 5th ed with a few house rules with friends.

The game has never and will never be "balanced" it was never intended to be a tournament system in that way, and now it is flatly impossible to do because there are to many factions with to much intentional variation to fit the setting.

tneva82 wrote:

Totto wrote:
Maybe it's not rational, but seeing the buffs and changes being thrown out (mainly to SM) makes me simply not want to play until my codices drop (and counting on them getting as big buffs as SM)

It seems these new units and changes both to weapon dmg and stats are a far bigger boost than what a new codex usually brings for a faction.

Also, they dropped the Munitorium Field Manual not one month ago, and already they are changing the wounds and stats etc for not just one faction but many, in one fell swoop. Did they not know about this? I'm sure people like to have the book they bought a few weeks back be invalidated quickly.

Oh well, maybe I'm overreacting and everything is fine and balanced

Nothing is ever fine and balanced with GW. They are aiming for constantly shifting imbalance so if it WAS fine and balanced then somehow GW would have managed to screw up their own goal...

Constantly changing stuff and codex creep is standard with GW. As is design ethos changing with new edition and often mid-way as well. Scary prospect is they start buffing stats etc out and midway before all codexes comes out go for other route instead.

I feel like 8th was doing pretty good before Marines 2.0
Sure the game wasn't perfect, some things were to strong, others to weak but in general it was fun to play and there was a good variety.

Then came along Marine 2.0, buffing an entire faction with an (almost) blanket -1 ap and +1 attack. And the rest of the factions were left wondering "how do we compete with this" and now there is another round of buffs for Marines...

Ive played 40k since 3e edition, I know their balance has been bad and I stopped playing during 6/7th because I didn't enjoy it. 8th was a breath of fresh air but now, I am getting massively turned off again.
Pandemic or not, the prospect of another 1 to 2 years of Marines Marines Marines in the vain hope that maybe other armies are brought up to level where they can once again compete is utterly unappealing to me.

I was working on ideas for re-tooling my current main army for 9th, but I suspect I will not be buying anything for a year atleast. I need to see where this is going first.

I feel a lot less inclined to play my orks right now for multiple reasons, including, but not limited to, the ones you mentioned.
Luckily, I also own DG which just had their awesome PA, probably get many of the imperial weapon upgrades early and are looking forward to 2W plague marines. I'm highly motivated to play them.

Picking an second army that is the polar opposite from my first one is one of the best things I've done in the context of 40k

Primaris armies aside, 40k is quite balanced at the moment IMHO.

Still looking forward to games.

Not doing any converting work on the building side, as who knows what the codex will bring, and I’ve been lightly burned on that before. (although it did work out in the end)

 Nevelon wrote:
Still looking forward to games.

Not doing any converting work on the building side, as who knows what the codex will bring, and I’ve been lightly burned on that before. (although it did work out in the end)

oddly thats one plus about Primaris. generally speaking a bx of intercessors is a LOT safer to build then a box of tac marines. but yeah I'm focusing on painting what I have till October. although I'm thinking of snagging a few more rhinos for my space wolves.

Same, here , stopped/cancelled all purchases.

regarding stopping all purchases, given the current supply situation if there is a unit you want but just don't know how to equip it I'd advise buying em if they become avaliable. I've a hunch the supply issues will continue for awhile.

Yeah, I was excited to see that 9th's core rules were also in Japanese for free, and had set about trying to get a few mini-armies from my collection ready, so the gf and I could have a go together.

The more GW showcase of this new edition... The less of the rules I think I will actually use. I've already got quite a few homebrew patches to make it work, but I doubt I'll invest in anything new unless GW really get their act together.

I simply can't unterstand how people get their knickers twisted about something that
a) we don't know the full extent about
b) is still at least a month and a half away

No, my local group and me will not stop playing 40k with each other. Utterly ridiculous to even think that.

If the imbalance widens between Marines and other factions due to the update and you dont feel of having a fun game, just play with the 8th edition rules until your army gets an update. There, problem solved.

No need to open thread after thread of whining and bi*ching about this.


Meanwhile, I'm ordering my next non-Marines army because the new edition is more fun than (even) 8th was for me.

Playing my first game of 9th on Monday against a good friend with all the new Indomitus stuff. We're both pretty casual but that will be the true litmus test of if I want to sit out 9th for a bit.

If my DG can't handle them prior to these buffs then I'll sit it out for the time being.

a_typical_hero wrote:
I simply can't unterstand how people get their knickers twisted about something that
a) we don't know the full extent about
b) is still at least a month and a half away

Because Marine 2.0 left a sour taste in peoples mouths and they have no faith in GW not creating a clusterfeth (and goes back well before the new marine dex).

This is what happens when you drip feed 'controversial' information like 2w marine and weapon buffs, people fill in the gaps themselves. Combine it with GW's release schedule and the notion 'Xenos will get fixed when their dex comes out, ps this may take 1-2 years, it isn't what people want to hear.

They already ran into this in 8th where everyone was put on par with the indexes and then armies get boosted by their codex, they had to release a bunch of stop-gap buffs in CA2017 to index armies to let them compete with codexes.

Edit: Also, do not underestimate how different the reaction to this would have been if they hadn't started the 'making elites more elite' with space marines, but any other faction, like Dark Eldar, Tau or Nids.

I don't think I will play any less because of it, but games will certainly have a lingering thought of ''well, what are the rules for this unit/weapon actually supposed to be?" and this will make it difficult to feel like I am learning anything or getting useful experience other than with the core rules of the edition.

Completely agree. The club is having the off 40k game but all of us with AOS armies are swapping over to that for the next few months

meh, did not like 8th, played a lot of Heresy until FW dropped the bollock on that too and now play Mournival Events Horus Heresy as it actually gets support.

The only game I like from GW main these days is the extremely flawed Necromunda

BrianDavion wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Still looking forward to games.

Not doing any converting work on the building side, as who knows what the codex will bring, and I’ve been lightly burned on that before. (although it did work out in the end)

oddly thats one plus about Primaris. generally speaking a bx of intercessors is a LOT safer to build then a box of tac marines. but yeah I'm focusing on painting what I have till October. although I'm thinking of snagging a few more rhinos for my space wolves.

Generally when a new edition drops I look at how the rules/points/fluff have changed and what I need to do to keep up. Should I swap out the plasma pistols on my assault squads for flamers (or back to them)? Do I need to change my “shelf” deployment of my squads with stuff from the swap pile? Any new bits I need to magnetize up?

With the complete mess that is the 9th initial points, and the new codex a few months out, I’m not even thinking about it. OK, that’s a bit of a lie. I think about it (like if they are going to standardize combi weapon points, some sarges are getting upgrades) but I’m not going to do anything about it. And I only think about it when it comes up, I’m not digging into the numbers looking for things that need to happen.

I’m doing a little future proofing when building my Indominous box. For the Outrider sarge, I left his pistol arm unglued, and smoothed the spot where the chainsword attaches. So if he gets options, I can retrofit some magnets in, or just glue on the better options. Planning on doing the same with the Assault Intercessors. And I might only build 5 of them to start. I want to grab a box of normal Intercessors and do some body swaps. Make 5 running autobolt rifle guys, and 5 slightly more static CC ones. Help break up the repetition of bodies in squads. Unfortunately, all the local stores are sold out of the basic guys.

I am still building up my quarantine ‘Nid army. Grabbed the SC box last weekend.

And am getting ready to start up a crusade campaign with The Boy.

Nothing has changed yet. I'm enjoying the game. What happens in October, happens in October. Until then, the game is working out okay.

I certainly won't be BUYING anything until the two new books drop, but playing building and painting are all unaffected.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ordana wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
I simply can't unterstand how people get their knickers twisted about something that
a) we don't know the full extent about
b) is still at least a month and a half away

Because Marine 2.0 left a sour taste in peoples mouths and they have no faith in GW not creating a clusterfeth (and goes back well before the new marine dex).

This is what happens when you drip feed 'controversial' information like 2w marine and weapon buffs, people fill in the gaps themselves. Combine it with GW's release schedule and the notion 'Xenos will get fixed when their dex comes out, ps this may take 1-2 years, it isn't what people want to hear.

They already ran into this in 8th where everyone was put on par with the indexes and then armies get boosted by their codex, they had to release a bunch of stop-gap buffs in CA2017 to index armies to let them compete with codexes.

Edit: Also, do not underestimate how different the reaction to this would have been if they hadn't started the 'making elites more elite' with space marines, but any other faction, like Dark Eldar, Tau or Nids.

Everyone was NOT put on par with the indexes. That's a bold faced lie. Just because you never played against quad stormraven or the secretly incredibly OP index Sisters list, didn't mean they weren't out there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimtuff wrote:
Playing my first game of 9th on Monday against a good friend with all the new Indomitus stuff. We're both pretty casual but that will be the true litmus test of if I want to sit out 9th for a bit.

If my DG can't handle them prior to these buffs then I'll sit it out for the time being.

DG are one of the better armies in the game overall right now. If you can't at least hold your own, that's on you not on them.

Was tempted but gak tsunami of a launch along with a promise of everything coming together on the 32nd of never has caused me to amble back into my hipster hole muttering thatll not do geedub ,thatll not do

Well, I feel that Primaris Marines and all the units in their tail rope are dominating the game.
Not only in friendly games but also in the competitive scenery.

I'm reserving judgement until I see at least 2 or 3 non-marine Codices before I make any real moves.

It's been like 3 weeks since 9th launched in the middle of Covid; 9th edition hasn't even started in any real practical sense.

Totto wrote:
Maybe it's not rational, but seeing the buffs and changes being thrown out (mainly to SM) makes me simply not want to play until my codices drop (and counting on them getting as big buffs as SM)

It seems these new units and changes both to weapon dmg and stats are a far bigger boost than what a new codex usually brings for a faction.

Also, they dropped the Munitorium Field Manual not one month ago, and already they are changing the wounds and stats etc for not just one faction but many, in one fell swoop. Did they not know about this? I'm sure people like to have the book they bought a few weeks back be invalidated quickly.

Oh well, maybe I'm overreacting and everything is fine and balanced

Firstly, points for using 'codices' and not the bastardisation of 'codexes'.
With all the changes from 8th to 9th editions, it's only made me want to play 5th edition more. When my eldar and GK didn't completely suck.
The last 40k tourney I played in was for 5th edition. Yes, that long ago.

Not really put of playing but I think this is a bad way to introduce a new edition.
I don't really get the "oh so you know whats in the codex then" takes.
No. I don't. Which is the problem.
The indexes were hardly perfect but odd units and skews aside they gave a rough idea how armies would play. A new codex would mean buffs, nerfs, stratagems, warlord traits etc but broadly speaking units did what units did.

Now I have very little idea. Will a unit be buffed or ignored? Will rules completely change? It puts me off buying stuff that may end up awful. (Magnetising *everything* would help I guess, but I'm lazy.)

 Oaka wrote:
I don't think I will play any less because of it, but games will certainly have a lingering thought of ''well, what are the rules for this unit/weapon actually supposed to be?" and this will make it difficult to feel like I am learning anything or getting useful experience other than with the core rules of the edition.

Finally, a properly reflective and insightful comment.

I've thought this as well, but at the same time it is evident that points are part of that equation. My 2W rubrics might not have died to that HOGC, but then I'd have less of them and theyd likely be targeted differently.

It doesn't matter what units I use. It matters that things are relatively balanced and I can make interesting decisions on the table.

Frankly 2W rubrics with 12" flamers will treated as an entirely different unit than my 1W rubrics or even my rubrics from every other edition.

Likewise, not going to change my game playing experience, but I will feel that I'm not truly playing 9th yet. Pretty sure I've heard the TT boys say the same thing, that it will feel great when it all gets here. Just how long is that going to be? Who knows.

I'm looking forward to it still, I like the direction the rules have gone in, and Crusade sounds promising.

My small group consist of Harlequins, Custodes, Death Guard, and AdMech...and even though they all came out of the points and recent rules better than my Drukhari boys, I don't have to worry about the marine madness.

The rules for my army are fun to play with, and I am enjoying the army very much, even when it takes much longer to get a game now. Comparing to 8th ed, 9th is heaven. Games are fun, I don't feel as if my units do nothing. Halabards and swords are actualy a valid option. Termintors and Paladins are good, and have mechanics and rules that support them.

Against non-Marine armies I wouldn't/don't mind playing games casually. In that respect it's still mediocre 40k but at least you can have a decent time. The overall imbalances between non-Marine armies isn't too bad overall, at least it's certainly been much worse. Of course this time - and since 8th 2.0 - it isn't isolated Tau and Eldar players, but the majority of the playerbase, WAAC or casual, who you might as well pull up a sleeping bag and take a snooze whilst their reroll bubbles get it over with. To that end, no, I don't see myself really playing 40k until at least the GSC 'dex hopefully fixes things somewhat, though I won't hold my breath. Of course it's entirely possible Codex Creep will just do it's usual thing and by the time we get to the and of the update 'dexes that the curve has swung in another, hilariously imbalanced direction.

 bullyboy wrote:
Likewise, not going to change my game playing experience, but I will feel that I'm not truly playing 9th yet. Pretty sure I've heard the TT boys say the same thing, that it will feel great when it all gets here. Just how long is that going to be? Who knows.

The people who's livelihoods and freebies rely on encouraging people to play 40k tell us it'll get better, imagine that.

I havent fealt like playing regular 40k in a long time. Never less so than now.

GW needs to emphasise some necron buff or planned xenos buffs, assuming there are any. I feel like it would settle a lot of angry people. Not all, butsome.

 Sim-Life wrote:
GW needs to emphasise some necron buff or planned xenos buffs, assuming there are any. I feel like it would settle a lot of angry people. Not all, butsome.

Maybe GW feels that Xenos is neglectable at some point.
Loyal Marines are the driving force of 40k and most of the sales.

Just returned to the game in 9th after stopping playing 40K early into 8th due to having more fun in other games. ( AOS, Warmachine , SW Legions and Fallout).

Despite not being to field my Elysian Army, my Mech. Guard is into its 11th game of the new edition and I am enjoying the game once again, multiple minus to hit was a soul destroyer in 8th for me and the news this system was going got me dusting off the 40K figures. Cant see me entering local Tournaments until after the next Chapter Approved if at all, but in a relaxed setting with mates or family the rule set its an improvement over 8th especially at lower points.

My only real complaint is massive imbalances in the relative strength of certain Armies stratagems now we can all get the same number of CP, a factor that isn't accounted for in the army points and personally I cant see how you would manage to balance this and I agree with the sentiment that Xenos and Chaos need some love.

 Arbitrator wrote:
Against non-Marine armies I wouldn't/don't mind playing games casually. In that respect it's still mediocre 40k but at least you can have a decent time. The overall imbalances between non-Marine armies isn't too bad overall, at least it's certainly been much worse. Of course this time - and since 8th 2.0 - it isn't isolated Tau and Eldar players, but the majority of the playerbase, WAAC or casual, who you might as well pull up a sleeping bag and take a snooze whilst their reroll bubbles get it over with. To that end, no, I don't see myself really playing 40k until at least the GSC 'dex hopefully fixes things somewhat, though I won't hold my breath. Of course it's entirely possible Codex Creep will just do it's usual thing and by the time we get to the and of the update 'dexes that the curve has swung in another, hilariously imbalanced direction.

 bullyboy wrote:
Likewise, not going to change my game playing experience, but I will feel that I'm not truly playing 9th yet. Pretty sure I've heard the TT boys say the same thing, that it will feel great when it all gets here. Just how long is that going to be? Who knows.

The people who's livelihoods and freebies rely on encouraging people to play 40k tell us it'll get better, imagine that.

You mean the same people who blatantly say that the game is bad right now due to janky points in Munitorum manual...those guys? Out of all the online personae, these guys seem to be the most genuine.

It's a new edition, things change, welcome to 40K. If you think this is new for GW... I'll assure you it's not. GW has been doing this since Rogue Trader days. New edition means new rules and new codexes.

I'm looking forward to playing 9th, still haven't gotten any games because of quarantine. But I'm pretty annoyed at some of the trends at the moment, so I'm basically in a holding pattern to see how things shape up.

Right now I have more of an itch to play 2nd ed, where non-marine troops can threaten them with their guns. Lasguns with AP -1, Shuriken Catapults with AP-2 and 24" range. Plus no aura rerolls.

ERJAK wrote:
DG are one of the better armies in the game overall right now. If you can't at least hold your own, that's on you not on them.

Eh. I got murdered my first game with 9th ed DG because my army wasn't equipped to handle the mission properly and severe mistake in regards to Look out Sir! and coherency made my arch-contaminator first blood. Lessons were learned, but it's really easy to lose the game with DG if you don't bring the right tools or not play the mission properly - both incredibly easy things to do in your first game of a new edition.

It's an urban myth that DG can faceroll themselves to victory in 9th, I have yet to see data to support that myth.

With COVID still going on for the indefinite future, the oddities in the CA2020 points release, and the seemingly constant rules and stat changes, I have lost interest in 9th and will likely sit it out most of this edition. A bit of a shame considering I like most of the changes to the core rules, especially detachments/CP. But I figure by the time most armies get their updated codex and stats/rules changes, they will release 10th anyway.

That being said, I have been enjoying Apocalypse and Kill Team more than 8th/9th, so I don't consider my writing off of 9th to be a big loss. I've also been dabbling in 4th/5th edition rules again and enjoying that for home games.

 Tamwulf wrote:
It's a new edition, things change, welcome to 40K. If you think this is new for GW... I'll assure you it's not. GW has been doing this since Rogue Trader days. New edition means new rules and new codexes.

While what you say is true, the sort of shake-up we seem to be expecting around the time the SM Codex drops is unusual for within a "normal" edition - and in during the "game-changer" editions (2nd, 3rd, 8th) every got a rewritten army list at the start of the edition.

GW definitely seem to be making some questionable choices with how they've deployed 9th.

 Blackie wrote:
Primaris armies aside, 40k is quite balanced at the moment IMHO.

The funny thing is, the new changes barely affect primaris. A few vehicle guns will get a boost, but the wound and weapon changes mostly affect old marines.

I'll be honest, I was already cold on the changes 9th edition was bringing.

To me it seemed like nothing more than a glorified errata, with all the major problems of 8th left entirely untouched.

And then GW followed up by changing point costs with zero thought.

And now we start the edition with Marines - already the most buffed faction in 8th - getting even more buffs.

I'd say my enthusiasm had dropped but I'm not sure it can even get any lower at this point.

Arbitrator wrote:Against non-Marine armies I wouldn't/don't mind playing games casually. In that respect it's still mediocre 40k but at least you can have a decent time. The overall imbalances between non-Marine armies isn't too bad overall, at least it's certainly been much worse. Of course this time - and since 8th 2.0 - it isn't isolated Tau and Eldar players, but the majority of the playerbase, WAAC or casual, who you might as well pull up a sleeping bag and take a snooze whilst their reroll bubbles get it over with. To that end, no, I don't see myself really playing 40k until at least the GSC 'dex hopefully fixes things somewhat, though I won't hold my breath. Of course it's entirely possible Codex Creep will just do it's usual thing and by the time we get to the and of the update 'dexes that the curve has swung in another, hilariously imbalanced direction.

 bullyboy wrote:
Likewise, not going to change my game playing experience, but I will feel that I'm not truly playing 9th yet. Pretty sure I've heard the TT boys say the same thing, that it will feel great when it all gets here. Just how long is that going to be? Who knows.

The people who's livelihoods and freebies rely on encouraging people to play 40k tell us it'll get better, imagine that.

bullyboy wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
Against non-Marine armies I wouldn't/don't mind playing games casually. In that respect it's still mediocre 40k but at least you can have a decent time. The overall imbalances between non-Marine armies isn't too bad overall, at least it's certainly been much worse. Of course this time - and since 8th 2.0 - it isn't isolated Tau and Eldar players, but the majority of the playerbase, WAAC or casual, who you might as well pull up a sleeping bag and take a snooze whilst their reroll bubbles get it over with. To that end, no, I don't see myself really playing 40k until at least the GSC 'dex hopefully fixes things somewhat, though I won't hold my breath. Of course it's entirely possible Codex Creep will just do it's usual thing and by the time we get to the and of the update 'dexes that the curve has swung in another, hilariously imbalanced direction.

 bullyboy wrote:
Likewise, not going to change my game playing experience, but I will feel that I'm not truly playing 9th yet. Pretty sure I've heard the TT boys say the same thing, that it will feel great when it all gets here. Just how long is that going to be? Who knows.

The people who's livelihoods and freebies rely on encouraging people to play 40k tell us it'll get better, imagine that.

You mean the same people who blatantly say that the game is bad right now due to janky points in Munitorum manual...those guys? Out of all the online personae, these guys seem to be the most genuine.

poison dart frogs seem cute and cuddly.

I'm excited to get my first game in and cant wait to see what my Bloody Rose & Flawless Host get in their codex.

I'm probably not playing much with my Deathwatch or CSM until the stat changes drop (there are too many units that are crap now that might get to be good then), and probably not playing much with my Necrons until their Codex appears, but I've still got the Custodians that kind of work right now.

I'll worry about it after a few games. Until then, the only thing dissuading me from the game are all the people who are, yet again, whining and moaning before the changes even hit.

Honestly, as long as Marines aren't part of the equation, the game's pretty fun at a casual level.

I was actually getting very disenchanted with the hype and uncertainty and the agonizing drip-feed of information that has constituted the last 3 or 4 months, but as with reality, the key to sanity is to stop following the news closely with every tidbit and analysis piece that gets released and wallow in blissful ignorance. I'm choosing not to think of the seismic changes evidently happening in a few months that will inevitably be done in stages leaving the game less balanced than a Jenga tower in a tumble dryer, but hey, who knows where it'll shake out when it's done? Marines might get an overall nerf if they lose Doctrines and get more points raises. If the staggering releases are disparate enough, then we try not to pair off new and old codexes (And I count Marines among the new, for the moment) until everyone has their stuff.

Now, granted, A) This is nothing remotely approaching an ideal state for the game; I should not feel exhausted dread reading game news like I'd dread reading real news, and I'm merely saying it's possible to have fun with the current rules, and B) It is far easier for me to be complacent since my actual games are being conducted in Tabletop Simulator, where your army can change at a whim, and I'm painting 3D-printed furry Emperor's Children mostly as a fun hobby project. I can very reasonably just ask that someone stop playing Marines against relative newbies the way one might ask someone to stop using a broken fighting game character, because they didn't spend hundreds of dollars and hours putting them on the table; they spent minutes picking models from a virtual gallery.

If you're stuck with a model collection that's getting pelted with feces-grade rules at the moment and is likely to stay so decorated for months to come, and your hobby area of choice is in a Marine-heavy physical materium... then your lack of enthusiasm is justified, because it sounds like things may get worse before they get better.

so, just reading the posts, there are like 4 people that are still playing, 5 if I am included among that number?

Everyone here seems to be going nuts about the new marine codex. I don't think this changes things up that much. If the basic marine goes to two wounds, and a tactical marine then cost 18 points, I don't think it changes the balance much in the game, since we already have 19 and 20 point primaris intercessors with better basic weapons.

Its also worth mentioning that many games have shake ups with new editions. I wont even begin to get into what happened with malifaux or infinity at edition changes, or god forbid Warmachine and Hordes, where skorne had to be redesigned from the ground up, I mean, it happens. Give things some time to shake out.

already, we are beginning to see tournament results where Drukhari, Sisters + IF, Orks, Salamanders, and even Space Wolves have won events, and the top 3 slots in those events are pretty varied between factions.

Point is this: the game is probably much better balanced than people think or would ever give it credit, and only time will tell.

I'm not, as I'm currently involved in a threeway Crusade (Salamanders / Mephrit Necrons / Kronos Tyranids) and having an absolute blast.

Hive Fleet Kronos have descended upon an Imperial World and the Salamanders managed to come to the aid of the local PDF before it was too late.
Unbeknownst to everyone fighting on the surface, the planet is also a tomb world of the Mephrit Dynasty, and the Necrons are now waking up amidst all the ruckus and is about to tell everyone else to get off their lawn.

40k is what you make it. Don't play with donkeycaves and you'll enjoy it far more.

It depends how things shake out. I can definitely foresee the possibility that the game may de facto fragment into games between 8th edition codex factions that haven't been inflated yet, and the post-inflation 9th edition armies with their codexes.

On the other hand, GW could surprise us all and actually deliver a SM codex (let's be honest, most people don't really care how the Necron one turns out) that isn't overpowered and doesn't inflate them into something that 8th edition codex factions can't compete with.

I will keep on hobbying along with stuff I want for hobby reasons, but I'm certainly not buying anything for competitive reasons until we see how things shake out.

The core rules are solid enough, probably a step up on 8th overall even if some pieces of them feel badly thought out. I do think the missions and particularly the secondaries are going to need and will see some significant changes, but that's nothing new.

I’ve enjoyed my first two games, and am quite happy with the core rules so far.

I'd say I'm looking forward to playing it.
There's increasing talk of getting a Crusade going. Right now it's a bit vague as not everyones even gotten the 9th ed book yet.
One guy (completely new to 40k) is really excited & has just started assembling his Indom set yesterday.
Another guy (also completely new) intends to do Orks. He's got the books but doesn't own anything yet model wise.
So we vets figure we've got about a month before anything gets started.

Me?
I was kicking around the idea of doing a Tyranid/GSC Crusade force. So bought some new stuff for my GSC.
Also kicked around the idea of Orks as the Goff Rokkas now have rules in WD.
I briefly considered my Khorne Demons.
But really? In all likely-hood I'm going to field my SW. Unless I get a 9e game in before the Crusade begins.

Why the SW? Because my SW have been at the tip of the spear in every edition for me (except 7th, wich was an error on my part as I wasn't aware 7th had dropped). So they'll lead the charge again.

Not sure what to play at the moment.
We're playing 8th-ed armies with the fresh and new 9th-ed rule book.
It would have been better to release the first 9th-ed codices right from the start of the 9th.
Releasing the SM and Necron codices in Oct is a bit late if you ask me.

I mean they are shaking the game up pretty hard core. Profiles needed a redesign, which is what we are looking at now. I doubt GW is going to make the game any more marine sided than it is already, not for a long period of time. Besides, points values and what not might be updated to accommodate these changes. The concept of a complete overhaul of unit profiles makes me excited about the new edition. I know that I might be setting myself up for disappointment but I really want this to work out.

I was very, very excited for 9th when they were first talking about the new rules. The haphazard points changes, the botched FAQs, and the sweeping update to SM makes me feel like it's half-baked. Puts a pretty big damper on my enthusiasm.

I like where the edition is going, but it really feels like they should have held off for a few more months - or highlighted their new app by giving everyone new Index rules, rather than making massive changes one army at a time.

 Jidmah wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
DG are one of the better armies in the game overall right now. If you can't at least hold your own, that's on you not on them.

Eh. I got murdered my first game with 9th ed DG because my army wasn't equipped to handle the mission properly and severe mistake in regards to Look out Sir! and coherency made my arch-contaminator first blood. Lessons were learned, but it's really easy to lose the game with DG if you don't bring the right tools or not play the mission properly - both incredibly easy things to do in your first game of a new edition.

It's an urban myth that DG can faceroll themselves to victory in 9th, I have yet to see data to support that myth.

So basically what you're saying is that you couldn't hold your own and it was due to your own mistakes, rather than any inherent flaw in the army?

Because that's what Isaid. YOU said 'faceroll win with DG'. That's not at all what I said.


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Voss wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Primaris armies aside, 40k is quite balanced at the moment IMHO.

The funny thing is, the new changes barely affect primaris. A few vehicle guns will get a boost, but the wound and weapon changes mostly affect old marines.

Also, primaris armies are largely mediocre. Intercessors, Aggressors and Eradicators are great. The rest range from decent to poor.

Now it's a good time to get the hang of the missions before the big stat change.

Did a couple of games already and they were fun.

Just watched the latest WC podcast with Stu Black, where he teased that a lot of the new codexes should be out "6 to 7 months from now". So given this bit of info and considering I'm in lockdown until the covid vaccines arrive, I can hold out just fine, and recon by the time I can finally leave the house, most statline revisions will already be in play.

In the meantime, I got plenty of building and painting to do.. more than enough to keep me busy!

tauist wrote:
Just watched the latest WC podcast with Stu Black, where he teased that a lot of the new codexes should be out "6 to 7 months from now". So given this bit of info and considering I'm in lockdown until the covid vaccines arrive, I can hold out just fine, and recon by the time I can finally leave the house, most statline revisions will already be in play.

In the meantime, I got plenty of building and painting to do.. more than enough to keep me busy!

With Knights, Sisters (both don't need any big changes, imo), Marines, and Necrons out of the way --

CSM / TS / DG
Daemons
T'au
Orks
DE / CW / Harlies
GSC / Nids
Custodes
Guard
Mechanicus


If they combined elves and CSM like marines (maybe bugs, too) we'd be looking at 8 books. Elves and bugs wouldn't need supplements (probably). Guard likely won't see W2 stuff and they'll get weapons so scratch them. Mechanicus got their new units so scratch them, too.

It seems plausible.

AdMech getting an updated book with their existing new units, plus whatever the previewed model is (Skitarii character?), plus their Crusade/objective content should be a pretty simple one to get out there - most of the work seems to be done already.

I'll likely wait to play a full Guard army until they get their codex.

In the meantime, I love the rules for Crusade, so I'll be doing a (hopefully exclusively, should I paint enough in time) Old Marine force for one.

 chromedog wrote:

Totto wrote:
Maybe it's not rational, but seeing the buffs and changes being thrown out (mainly to SM) makes me simply not want to play until my codices drop (and counting on them getting as big buffs as SM)

It seems these new units and changes both to weapon dmg and stats are a far bigger boost than what a new codex usually brings for a faction.

Also, they dropped the Munitorium Field Manual not one month ago, and already they are changing the wounds and stats etc for not just one faction but many, in one fell swoop. Did they not know about this? I'm sure people like to have the book they bought a few weeks back be invalidated quickly.

Oh well, maybe I'm overreacting and everything is fine and balanced

Firstly, points for using 'codices' and not the bastardisation of 'codexes'.
With all the changes from 8th to 9th editions, it's only made me want to play 5th edition more. When my eldar and GK didn't completely suck.
The last 40k tourney I played in was for 5th edition. Yes, that long ago.

GW themselves refer to them as "Codexes", so wouldn't that make "Codices" (while the correct plural form of codex) wrong when referring to multiple Games Workshop brand of Warhammer 40k books they call a Codex?

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

 chromedog wrote:

Totto wrote:
Maybe it's not rational, but seeing the buffs and changes being thrown out (mainly to SM) makes me simply not want to play until my codices drop (and counting on them getting as big buffs as SM)

It seems these new units and changes both to weapon dmg and stats are a far bigger boost than what a new codex usually brings for a faction.

Also, they dropped the Munitorium Field Manual not one month ago, and already they are changing the wounds and stats etc for not just one faction but many, in one fell swoop. Did they not know about this? I'm sure people like to have the book they bought a few weeks back be invalidated quickly.

Oh well, maybe I'm overreacting and everything is fine and balanced

Firstly, points for using 'codices' and not the bastardisation of 'codexes'.
With all the changes from 8th to 9th editions, it's only made me want to play 5th edition more. When my eldar and GK didn't completely suck.
The last 40k tourney I played in was for 5th edition. Yes, that long ago.

GW themselves refer to them as "Codexes", so wouldn't that make "Codices" (while the correct plural form of codex) wrong when referring to multiple Games Workshop brand of Warhammer 40k books they call a Codex?

Or maybe their proof-reading guys and writers are not very good at their job

Totto wrote:
...Or maybe their proof-reading guys and writers are not very good at their job

Are you suggesting that brand names should always follow correct usage/spelling for the pre-existing terms? ("Krispy Kreme", "Froot Loops", "The Beatles"...)

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Totto wrote:
...Or maybe their proof-reading guys and writers are not very good at their job

Are you suggesting that brand names should always follow correct usage/spelling for the pre-existing terms? ("Krispy Kreme", "Froot Loops", "The Beatles"...)

Kind of a depends on a country. We have a law that forbids to name your company, bar etc in an insulting to religion or morals, insulting heads of state or , which is the important part, offends the language sensivity of the people. It was put down to protect the public used language from foreign influances. I assume that UK has no such laws.

Karol wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Totto wrote:
...Or maybe their proof-reading guys and writers are not very good at their job

Are you suggesting that brand names should always follow correct usage/spelling for the pre-existing terms? ("Krispy Kreme", "Froot Loops", "The Beatles"...)

Kind of a depends on a country. We have a law that forbids to name your company, bar etc in an insulting to religion or morals, insulting heads of state or , which is the important part, offends the language sensivity of the people. It was put down to protect the public used language from foreign influances. I assume that UK has no such laws.

According to a cursory search there don't appear to be any such restrictions on trademarks in the UK. Polish intellectual property law sounds fascinating.

ERJAK wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
DG are one of the better armies in the game overall right now. If you can't at least hold your own, that's on you not on them.

Eh. I got murdered my first game with 9th ed DG because my army wasn't equipped to handle the mission properly and severe mistake in regards to Look out Sir! and coherency made my arch-contaminator first blood. Lessons were learned, but it's really easy to lose the game with DG if you don't bring the right tools or not play the mission properly - both incredibly easy things to do in your first game of a new edition.

It's an urban myth that DG can faceroll themselves to victory in 9th, I have yet to see data to support that myth.

So basically what you're saying is that you couldn't hold your own and it was due to your own mistakes, rather than any inherent flaw in the army?

Yes, that's exactly what I said.

Because that's what Isaid. YOU said 'faceroll win with DG'. That's not at all what I said.

You still implied that anyone should be able to win with DG even if he had no clue how 9th works. It's quite easy to build a decent 8th edition DG army that has no chance of winning a game of 9th.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


According to a cursory search there don't appear to be any such restrictions on trademarks in the UK. Polish intellectual property law sounds fascinating.

Well it has been a few months since my last political science class, but from what I remember, it isn't part of intelectual law, it is just a law against people trying to use other languages, then polish in the public sphere. The rest is old laws we had since for ever, like the ones against insulting heads of state etc. Some are put there to make it easier for police to function, we have a law since for ever about "insulting the uniform of public official", which means that if you fall down pushed by a policmen and touch him on the way down, you just commited a criminal offence. Or if they carry you the patrol car, and you skip on the steps and fall out of their hands, this can be counted as "assaulting an officer while performing duty".

In general our law system, besides the stuff force by EU, is about how to make rich and politicians untouchable, and police allowed to do what ever they want with you. A friend of my had youth court for "assaulting an officer" because when he got smacked with a baton, he fell down hit the ground so hard his shoe came off and it hit another policmen on his visor. Had to do 6 months of youth correction, and got a life long ban on entering stadiums.

Arcanis161 wrote:
I'll likely wait to play a full Guard army until they get their codex.

In the meantime, I love the rules for Crusade, so I'll be doing a (hopefully exclusively, should I paint enough in time) Old Marine force for one.

Just play narrative with friends. When 8th dropped and my AM got a codex before my buddy's orks, thats what we did. Focus on the fun piece. We do that in kill team too, or else I wouldn't have much point in playing my friend since he's just so much better than I. If it gets really bad, just ask your friend to spot you some points.

We all gotta make do. Narrative 40k is way better than no 40k!

Its funny how my attitude about this has changed as I've gotten older. I think sometimes it probably explains a lot of GW's decisions too.

We play so many good games, its not really much issue for us to drop 40k for an edition if needed.

Kill team i think is what kept 40k on life support anyway, so i dont see it really changing.

My friends and I will focus on Kill Team for the time being, as much to give everyone time to paint up models as anything else. When we do decide to jump back into 40k, we'll make a decision as to which edition we'll play then. While most of the changes to 9th's core rules sound absolutely great from a competitive standpoint - they seem to have really gone all out to eliminate janky edge cases - they really don't matter all that much to us, as we'll be focusing almost entirely on narrative play anyway, and are happy to introduce our own rules to suit the narrative. In this way, 8th and 9th are both perfectly fine for us, and it might not make a huge difference which we choose. If we go with 8th, we'll probably add our own rules on top of it, like custom terrain rules for instance. If we go with 9th, we'll probably remove some rules that are more suited to competitive play, like the +-1 limit to shooting penalties. Either way, we'll be playing with a modified rule set that probably resembles some hybrid between 8th and 9th, so what we use as a basis, is largely just academic. The only thing I can say with certainty, is that I'll be pirating everything, and paying for nothing.

 Ginjitzu wrote:
My friends and I will focus on Kill Team for the time being, as much to give everyone time to paint up models as anything else. When we do decide to jump back into 40k, we'll make a decision as to which edition we'll play then. While most of the changes to 9th's core rules sound absolutely great from a competitive standpoint - they seem to have really gone all out to eliminate janky edge cases - they really don't matter all that much to us, as we'll be focusing almost entirely on narrative play anyway, and are happy to introduce our own rules to suit the narrative. In this way, 8th and 9th are both perfectly fine for us, and it might not make a huge difference which we choose. If we go with 8th, we'll probably add our own rules on top of it, like custom terrain rules for instance. If we go with 9th, we'll probably remove some rules that are more suited to competitive play, like the +-1 limit to shooting penalties. Either way, we'll be playing with a modified rule set that probably resembles some hybrid between 8th and 9th, so what we use as a basis, is largely just academic. The only thing I can say with certainty, is that I'll be pirating everything, and paying for nothing.

Yup, its surprising what you can do when you talk to your opponents(dont like that term)? It's like the game is about both players having fun....equally.

Racerguy180 wrote:

Yup, its surprising what you can do when you talk to your opponents(dont like that term)? It's like the game is about both players having fun....equally.

Burn this heretic!

Karol wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Totto wrote:
...Or maybe their proof-reading guys and writers are not very good at their job

Are you suggesting that brand names should always follow correct usage/spelling for the pre-existing terms? ("Krispy Kreme", "Froot Loops", "The Beatles"...)

Kind of a depends on a country. We have a law that forbids to name your company, bar etc in an insulting to religion or morals, insulting heads of state or , which is the important part, offends the language sensivity of the people. It was put down to protect the public used language from foreign influances. I assume that UK has no such laws.

Nope the UK is an english speaking country, generally English speaking countries see no need to pass "'language protection laws" for reason I would imagine are pretty obvious

Seems to me everything's *very* up in the air right now – there's new rules, but then there's also fairly significant rules changes we know are coming, but not til October at the earliest.

However, there's probably no better time for it, given that people aren't really out, about and playing games as usual for the most part. Personally, I'm just going to see how much of the old backlog I can get painted in the meantime, wait for the dust to settle, and crack back into some games down the line, once there's a bit of a clearer idea of what the heckins is going on


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

GSC / Nids

I always find it really weird when people suggest conflating Nids and GsC into a single Codex – they're two completely separate armies with completely different units (bar one)– you may as well argue for Sisters, AdMech and Guard to be rolled into a single book due to the sharing of Priests and Enginseers across Codices.

for the "world is burning" group:

3 games into 9th, 2 versus Ultramarines, 1 against Emperor's Children... all with Adepta Sororitas.

Won both vs the Ultramarines via points. Both games went to turn 5, and both players had decent capital left on the table (approximately 10% remaining).

Lost against Emperor's Children in a nail-biter (74-75). Completely due to my decisions in the game, no other reason for the loss.

Terrain has had a LARGE impact. We play fairly dense tables, so gaining cover benefits and blocking line of sight is relatively easy. We both prefer melee being an actual phase, and bounding terrain to block LOS used to be the ONLY way it worked in 8th, so our tables calibrated to allow those armies to function. I think Tabletop Titans said it best: if you're getting blown off the table by turn 2 and 3... you need more terrain on the table.

2 of the games were Crusade, 1 was Matched play. All of the games came down to playing the primary objective, NOT blowing your opponent off of the table. Staying castled and clustered doesn't seem to be a winning formula in the new edition. A singular roaming deathstar doesn't seem too advantageous either.

In my loss, one of the differences in the game was that he had a transport to get to the objective first, and enough armor to cover and feed my artillery units while he controlled that objective. I had a play to win regardless of that strategy, which was welcomed... but I resurrected the wrong HQ.

Positioning characters is EASY to mess up. And a smart opponent can punish such lapses in judgment. This is an amazing change from 8th.

I could go on at much greater length, but... the bottom line is: killing horde units (all super cheapy stuff that can bog out objectives to a brainless grind of a game...) has been great, transports have value even if they get popped, how you incorporate and use terrain has direct impact to the outcome of the game, and playing the arms race is no longer how you win.

Empirical statement: in my loss, my opponent killed maybe 200 points of my 1250 point list. No matter how killy or advantaged you may think Primaris are... if they cannot play the mission, you have a great chance at winning. It may cost you feeding your entire army to him over 3-4 turns, but as long as you're scoring and he is not... it doesn't matter if you're wiped out, you will score the tactical win.

My group (who is lucky enough to be able to play socially distanced garage hammer) feels less like playing 9th ed, but NOT 40k in general. Maybe it's just our play style, or maybe it's our armies, IDK, but we seem to be running into a lot of issues with it. Played about 30 games across different point levels from about 650 to 2000. The 850-1200 point games feel about right, while anything smaller requires everyone to be on the same page as to what they're bringing (because regardless of what GW says - they did NOT build the game to work at that level - the potential skew at 500 points is mind boggling), and anything bigger than about 1200 starts to feel clumsy with this rule set.

The missions seem to overly reward going first - since so many objectives are scored in the player's command phase, I can score my objectives, and then, if I want, leave said objective to make sure you can't score yours, and snowballing can happen surprisingly easily. Unfortunately, the secondaries don't seem set up to mitigate this as much as one would like, so yeah, going first - still too good.

The rollercoaster of the points, combined with all the faqs and errata of the (brand new) faqs is also already exhausting. I applaud GW for doing it of course, but come on - the "Look Out Sir" stuff should never have made it to print like that, let alone required two FAQs to properly fix. 8th was certainly not flawless in this regard but it was such a breath of fresh air compared to 7th that I think it was easier to overlook the issues. My group often jokes that chances are, if 8th ed had followed 5th ed, people would have hated it, but the fact that it came after 7th made it more popular.

So, TL;DR:

As many predicted - this being "THE MOST PLAY TESTED EDITION EVAAAAAR!" failed to prevent GW from making a boatload of the same old GW mistakes and until the edition gets shaken out a bit more, and more people are able to play so that we can see where the problems really seem to lie (vs our own anecdotal evidence based on a small number of games), we're going back to 8th like 9th never happened.

Honestly, the only thing affecting my attitude toward 9th (and late 8th if we're being honest) is the instability/uncertainty of everything that's going on.

The new space marine statlines feel unhinged. And i don't mean that in the "omgwtfsoOPaaaargh" sense anymore, really, I had that phase and I'm done with it.

I mean they don't seem at all consistent. Weapons seem to be getting stat changes completely randomly. The invictor is getting a heavy bolter with 1 shot. "what the hell does a heavy stubber DO now" is totally up in the air. There are three different statlines shown for autocannons, and a possible...I think SIX for various weapons that all fit the description of "Sword."

Combine that with what feels like near-daily FAQs, changes, errata, model deletions, model undeletions, changes to the PA books that, in most cases, I can count on a single hand the games I've been able to actually play with their contents, I just have absolutely no solid ground on which to stand with 40k's rules.

As a result, I'm much less inclined to be excited about building up rule theory for my collection, and less likely to be interested in trying out rules. People say Crusade is fun - I haven't bothered to try it, because GW has basically said this is the Early-Alpha edition and there's gonna be new crusade junk added in every codex.

Tycho wrote:
My group (who is lucky enough to be able to play socially distanced garage hammer) feels less like playing 9th ed, but NOT 40k in general. Maybe it's just our play style, or maybe it's our armies, IDK, but we seem to be running into a lot of issues with it. Played about 30 games across different point levels from about 650 to 2000. The 850-1200 point games feel about right, while anything smaller requires everyone to be on the same page as to what they're bringing (because regardless of what GW says - they did NOT build the game to work at that level - the potential skew at 500 points is mind boggling), and anything bigger than about 1200 starts to feel clumsy with this rule set.

The missions seem to overly reward going first - since so many objectives are scored in the player's command phase, I can score my objectives, and then, if I want, leave said objective to make sure you can't score yours, and snowballing can happen surprisingly easily. Unfortunately, the secondaries don't seem set up to mitigate this as much as one would like, so yeah, going first - still too good.

The rollercoaster of the points, combined with all the faqs and errata of the (brand new) faqs is also already exhausting. I applaud GW for doing it of course, but come on - the "Look Out Sir" stuff should never have made it to print like that, let alone required two FAQs to properly fix. 8th was certainly not flawless in this regard but it was such a breath of fresh air compared to 7th that I think it was easier to overlook the issues. My group often jokes that chances are, if 8th ed had followed 5th ed, people would have hated it, but the fact that it came after 7th made it more popular.

So, TL;DR:

As many predicted - this being "THE MOST PLAY TESTED EDITION EVAAAAAR!" failed to prevent GW from making a boatload of the same old GW mistakes and until the edition gets shaken out a bit more, and more people are able to play so that we can see where the problems really seem to lie (vs our own anecdotal evidence based on a small number of games), we're going back to 8th like 9th never happened.

I'm pretty sure in every game we've played, the winner has elected to not take first turn. There is usually ample coverage of terrain between deployment zones that hidden deployments are fairly possible, and going first normally means that you are risking moving yourself into alpha strike territory. This really slows down the first few turns as both players maneuver to avoid/limit the lanes provided to key units... and placing units in key positions to control or cover objectives with fire seems to be more important than bombarding the enemy deployment zone.

My wife also plays no-holding-back harlequins, which turns the game into a bloodbath, but I also see ample opportunity for her to reserve that aggression a little and ambush objectives as opposed to being the first to get shot off of them. But I picked up that thought-nugget from the GW design team's notes on how those flimsy armies are designed to play. Hard to execute, but seems to be worth it if you can do it.

I think lining up armies with clear firing lanes to each other isn't going to be a rewarding experience as those slow, plodding artillery armies naturally have the advantage... and it downplays the advantage other armies also need to take advantage of to make up that difference. Who cares how fast Asuryani can move as long as they're stuck on no mans land with 3T, 4+ to save, and no invul, amirite?!

As a result, I'm much less inclined to be excited about building up rule theory for my collection, and less likely to be interested in trying out rules. People say Crusade is fun - I haven't bothered to try it, because GW has basically said this is the Early-Alpha edition and there's gonna be new crusade junk added in every codex.

We ran a few games of it. It IS fun, but it's an enormous amount of book-keeping, and there are quite a few things we stumbled into that I don't think GW thought through so we found ourselves constantly "house-ruling" it like it was 7th edition. It could be fun, but the issues with power level, combined with the other things I mentioned made us feel like we want to give it some more time to develop before we jump back in. It just feels like that classic GW situation of "the team that developed Crusade, did so in a vacuum where they weren't aware of some of the things that the other rules teams were doing" ...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I'm pretty sure in every game we've played, the winner has elected to not take first turn. There is usually ample coverage of terrain between deployment zones that hidden deployments are fairly possible, and going first normally means that you are risking moving yourself into alpha strike territory. This really slows down the first few turns as both players maneuver to avoid/limit the lanes provided to key units... and placing units in key positions to control or cover objectives with fire seems to be more important than bombarding the enemy deployment zone.

I think the issue becomes, since moving and shooting is so much better (props to GW for at least "fixing" the static gun-line issue), but many of us play armies that are capable of solidly grabbing two objectives, less strongly grabbing a third, reinforcing the first two AND surviving that first round of shooting. I do think a lot of it is maybe down to the armies we've gravitated to, but most of the feedback from other players has been along the same route - Step 1: Go first, Step 2: "Rhino Rush" (of Falcon rush etc etc), Step 3: Profit. lol

I think they did a decent job of fixing first turn alpha strike, but it often still feels like going second is too big of a disadvantage.

It could easily just be us, but again, we found a lot of problems in the missions, and even a lot of the 40k podcasts who have been abnormally positive about 9th have also had problems with the missions. I think a lot of our problems could easily be fixed with a small FAQ, but, rather than deal with it, we are sitting out and playing 8th until some of this gets sorted.

 Nazrak wrote:

I always find it really weird when people suggest conflating Nids and GsC into a single Codex – they're two completely separate armies with completely different units (bar one)– you may as well argue for Sisters, AdMech and Guard to be rolled into a single book due to the sharing of Priests and Enginseers across Codices.

It isn't that I think they're similar armies, but they're cross promotional and possibly capable of fitting into one book. Its unlikely in any case.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Empirical statement: in my loss, my opponent killed maybe 200 points of my 1250 point list. No matter how killy or advantaged you may think Primaris are... if they cannot play the mission, you have a great chance at winning. It may cost you feeding your entire army to him over 3-4 turns, but as long as you're scoring and he is not... it doesn't matter if you're wiped out, you will score the tactical win.

I'm finding that to be overly optimistic, because Primaris can play to the mission and still be effective.

As a recent example, I lost a game to Space Wolves over the weekend, using a Kraken Tyranid army that normally does great on playing to the mission exactly as you describe. He won the roll-off for first turn, then used a Warlord trait to redeploy three Phobos units directly in front of my deployment zone, and performed a turn 1 charge that boxed me into my deployment while he grabbed over half of the objectives and moved Thunderwolves up for a T2 charge. I eventually managed to break out and inflict more damage on him than he did on me, but there was no recovering from his lead on objectives.

My experience so far has been that Marine players who continue with the old static gunline or clustered deathball build will lose on objectives, but Marines still have more tricks in their bag than anyone else and can be easily built to play to the mission instead. Phobos Marines (and Invictors) allow Marines to forward-deploy better than most other armies, drop pods arriving T1 can do a lot of damage and keep you from moving forward, abilities like the Judiciar's make it tough to push them off objectives through melee, and Aggressors and auto bolt rifle Intercessors hard-counter cheap deep-striking objective-grabbers. If you don't get the first turn, there's not a lot you can do about it.

In contrast to some of my earlier posts on the subject, I am starting to feel that winning the first turn is too advantageous and makes it too easy to rack up an unassailable lead; I wonder if a good compromise between the current system and the old one would be for primaries to score VPs equal to the current turn #, so that objectives become more valuable as the game progresses.

I think it's also worth pointing out that Marines fare very well on secondaries, with typical Primaris lists not having all that many psykers or vehicles/monsters. Assassinate is a good counter to character spam, but those characters are a lot harder to get at than, say, Astra Militarum officers.

I'm honestly happy with all the announced changes, but it makes me feel less like playing for 2 reasons:
- Fairly substantial changes being announced every few weeks.
- I need to know that GW is capable of some kind of rough balance when they're releasing two codexes at the same time.

I'll see where I stand in a few months, when the dust has had a chance to settle.

These recent changes actually make me want to play more, and i don't even play space marines.

9th fixed many things that i disliked about 8th. Having more freedom in listbuilding is awesome (no more troops in my wraith host). Knowing that my Night lords will get +1W down the line also motivated me to finish painting them.

gak weapons getting reworked makes me happy too. Sure, these changes affect space marines first but where i play, i'm able to go mostly even against marines since people play models they like more than the models that are good.

My experience so far has been that Marine players who continue with the old static gunline or clustered deathball build will lose on objectives, but Marines still have more tricks in their bag than anyone else and can be easily built to play to the mission instead. Phobos Marines (and Invictors) allow Marines to forward-deploy better than most other armies, drop pods arriving T1 can do a lot of damage and keep you from moving forward, abilities like the Judiciar's make it tough to push them off objectives through melee, and Aggressors and auto bolt rifle Intercessors hard-counter cheap deep-striking objective-grabbers. If you don't get the first turn, there's not a lot you can do about it.

In contrast to some of my earlier posts on the subject, I am starting to feel that winning the first turn is too advantageous and makes it too easy to rack up an unassailable lead; I wonder if a good compromise between the current system and the old one would be for primaries to score VPs equal to the current turn #, so that objectives become more valuable as the game progresses.

Our experience pretty much matches this. We also have a lot of chaos players and have found that getting a unit onto an objective and then surrounding it with cheap demons becomes really strong as an "I go first" tactic ...

 catbarf wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Empirical statement: in my loss, my opponent killed maybe 200 points of my 1250 point list. No matter how killy or advantaged you may think Primaris are... if they cannot play the mission, you have a great chance at winning. It may cost you feeding your entire army to him over 3-4 turns, but as long as you're scoring and he is not... it doesn't matter if you're wiped out, you will score the tactical win.

I'm finding that to be overly optimistic, because Primaris can play to the mission and still be effective.

As a recent example, I lost a game to Space Wolves over the weekend, using a Kraken Tyranid army that normally does great on playing to the mission exactly as you describe. He won the roll-off for first turn, then used a Warlord trait to redeploy three Phobos units directly in front of my deployment zone, and performed a turn 1 charge that boxed me into my deployment while he grabbed over half of the objectives and moved Thunderwolves up for a T2 charge. I eventually managed to break out and inflict more damage on him than he did on me, but there was no recovering from his lead on objectives.

My experience so far has been that Marine players who continue with the old static gunline or clustered deathball build will lose on objectives, but Marines still have more tricks in their bag than anyone else and can be easily built to play to the mission instead. Phobos Marines (and Invictors) allow Marines to forward-deploy better than most other armies, drop pods arriving T1 can do a lot of damage and keep you from moving forward, abilities like the Judiciar's make it tough to push them off objectives through melee, and Aggressors and auto bolt rifle Intercessors hard-counter cheap deep-striking objective-grabbers. If you don't get the first turn, there's not a lot you can do about it.

In contrast to some of my earlier posts on the subject, I am starting to feel that winning the first turn is too advantageous and makes it too easy to rack up an unassailable lead; I wonder if a good compromise between the current system and the old one would be for primaries to score VPs equal to the current turn #, so that objectives become more valuable as the game progresses.

I think it's also worth pointing out that Marines fare very well on secondaries, with typical Primaris lists not having all that many psykers or vehicles/monsters. Assassinate is a good counter to character spam, but those characters are a lot harder to get at than, say, Astra Militarum officers.

I don't think that trait let's him re-deploy within 9" of your deployment zone so those were some lucky charges if he really was that far back.

That said, remember, Command Phase is the first thing that happens. If you score on your command phase, then move off the objective, you WON'T score it your next turn. You need 10 points for three rounds and 15 points for one round to max them. On most maps, even from your deployment zone, you should be able to snag 2 objectives for 10 points per-turn and then hopefully get a 15 on your breakout. There are some maps where you need 3 for 10 and those will hurt more if you're trapped, but those are less than half the missions.

There is a lot of truth to the observation that while Iron Hands castles got nerfed by the edition change and mission changes, the Space Marines still have a ton of tools to win via other methods.

But that has nothing to do with 5th, 8th, 2nd, or 9th edition. That's just that the Space Marine Codex has WAY too much garbage in it that it is practically impossible to change the game without them having some sort of gem to abuse the tabletop with. So them having Phobos units in your deployment zone isn't a result of 9th edition... it is a byproduct of the environment changes. Units that can PREVENT you from playing the objectives are very valuable, and honestly... Phobos Primaris wasn't exactly stomping the environment before the edition change. Just another example of their rules now being favorable to gain advantage, and another example of the SM Codex having so many options that there is nothing really that can change in the ruleset that can put them at a disadvantage (point costs, however, can definitely make a difference).

This also goes a ways to showing how 9th has empowered the melee phase, as this is not the first time I've seen word of Space Wolves doing well... and with melee of all things. A lot of the salt going around is because the game has changed tremendously. The scoring makes for radically different terms for playing. Melee is a threat now, and that shifts power away from castles and gunline and adds a whole different dimension of planning. Blasting your opponent off of the table turns 1-3 doesn't help you win games anymore, especially if your opponent maxes out Primary while your scoring 5 points on it. Tossing trash units into your list in massive amounts to win the scoring game while your points are free to load in heavy hitters to smash your opponent off of the table is no longer a tactic. And I feel that is a VERY healthy change to the theme and competition of the game. ObSec got powerful now with the emphasis on the mission, and it seems a lot of those units got a price bump... and it disproportionately affected the cheaper ObSec bodies, and I think that's a good thing. No more cheap grot tides protecting loota castles. No more buying the cheapest unit to spam ObSec to control the battlefield and just reaching the critical mass of "kill x models or lose immediately" syndrome. Those things just make lists more important than play. And again... big adjustments to the players. Marching a horde onto an objective and sitting passively there while hammering with artillery is no longer an playstyle encouraged by points... it has to be a 'choice'.

I think 9th is a really intriguing environment. And we'll see in October how much things are about to get flipped on their heads, but honestly... I've not played against a SM firstborn unit in 8th, so with the buffs largely aimed at them... I don't see the world shattering because firstborn will be playable again. If anything, it may diversify the table in the 50%+ of the games where you have to play against a SM flavor of some sort...

I hate the wealth of options at the SM disposal, but at the same time, I don't think buffing firstborn is going to be the "end of 40K" that it is made out to be. They'll have more usable options, but it'll break the current stagnation of "primaris only" lists that has swamped the environment. Who knows, maybe GW will also trim down the HORDES of unit profiles available to the Codex in October... and shove many of those more obscure units into legends. Lord knows that Codex could use some data slate trimming.

That said, remember, Command Phase is the first thing that happens. If you score on your command phase, then move off the objective, you WON'T score it your next turn. You need 10 points for three rounds and 15 points for one round to max them. On most maps, even from your deployment zone, you should be able to snag 2 objectives for 10 points per-turn and then hopefully get a 15 on your breakout. There are some maps where you need 3 for 10 and those will hurt more if you're trapped, but those are less than half the missions.

That's the problem. Score in my Command phase. Leave a less offensively capable (but tough) unit still chilling on the objective, send the more high powered one out to block the opponent. It's especially rough if you hit it just right on the last turn. There's not a lot the other player can do to defend it. Particularly if "Player 1" was already snowballing to begin with.

It's not that it's impossible if you go second, but it often does just feel like a 3-5 turn Alpha strike VS a turn 1 Alpha. Plus, the kind of army that does really well at going first, also helps you of you go second, so my fear is we will see a very homogenous build style in 9th. Ironically, Marine vs Marine games play pretty well! lol We've also found that movement doesn't mean as much as we had hoped it would. It often seems less about careful maneuvering, and more about just rushing to the objective. That said, I DO think they did a good job of making it so that your timing is important. It's not all negative, but for us, it's also not *quite* working. But again, who knows. It's just enough of an irritant that we're just going to play 8th a while longer, so no big deal.

Hopefully, when 9th really gets rolling, we'll see either fixes for some of the problems, or at least see solutions in the game play. Could easily just be the way my group plays, but yeah - a LOT of groups appear to be running into the same thing.

Our games have been less about a single unit capturing a strategic objective and more about portions of armies vying for control of that battlefield area. It gets more interesting with terrain laid out to restrict, obstruct, or otherwise hinder clearly targeting the area with long-range units. You don't have to totally block LOS, but -1 to hit makes a difference. Leaving a table with inconsequential terrain in relation to the objectives is probably where a good portion of problems come into play. You just create forced deployment positions and clear lanes that simplifies the game into who can shoot better again.

Not saying it is all wrong, just trying to highlight some of the differences that seem to be causing friction and reluctance in the community. The changes have been pretty big and jarring, i totally understand shutting it down.

I've just played a couple 8th games and 9th is going to be my first wh40k edition, coming from KT, so I want to play, a lot.
Of course I prefer to play with my Codex in hand with somewhat balanced rules for everyone, but if I have to play half a year casually to learn and lose, I don't care. I've picked an army that I really like, so if I have to be painting and just playing incursions with a friend it's fine for me.

Tycho wrote:

That said, remember, Command Phase is the first thing that happens. If you score on your command phase, then move off the objective, you WON'T score it your next turn. You need 10 points for three rounds and 15 points for one round to max them. On most maps, even from your deployment zone, you should be able to snag 2 objectives for 10 points per-turn and then hopefully get a 15 on your breakout. There are some maps where you need 3 for 10 and those will hurt more if you're trapped, but those are less than half the missions.

That's the problem. Score in my Command phase. Leave a less offensively capable (but tough) unit still chilling on the objective, send the more high powered one out to block the opponent. It's especially rough if you hit it just right on the last turn. There's not a lot the other player can do to defend it. Particularly if "Player 1" was already snowballing to begin with.

It's not that it's impossible if you go second, but it often does just feel like a 3-5 turn Alpha strike VS a turn 1 Alpha. Plus, the kind of army that does really well at going first, also helps you of you go second, so my fear is we will see a very homogenous build style in 9th. Ironically, Marine vs Marine games play pretty well! lol We've also found that movement doesn't mean as much as we had hoped it would. It often seems less about careful maneuvering, and more about just rushing to the objective. That said, I DO think they did a good job of making it so that your timing is important. It's not all negative, but for us, it's also not *quite* working. But again, who knows. It's just enough of an irritant that we're just going to play 8th a while longer, so no big deal.

Hopefully, when 9th really gets rolling, we'll see either fixes for some of the problems, or at least see solutions in the game play. Could easily just be the way my group plays, but yeah - a LOT of groups appear to be running into the same thing.

Most high powered units aren't ObSec though. One model can hold the objective against them.

You do need to play this edition really different. Durable, obsec is really important. It is why Custodes are doing well. You absolutely need lots of Dense and Obscuring terrain.

Our games have been less about a single unit capturing a strategic objective and more about portions of armies vying for control of that battlefield area. It gets more interesting with terrain laid out to restrict, obstruct, or otherwise hinder clearly targeting the area with long-range units. You don't have to totally block LOS, but -1 to hit makes a difference. Leaving a table with inconsequential terrain in relation to the objectives is probably where a good portion of problems come into play. You just create forced deployment positions and clear lanes that simplifies the game into who can shoot better again.

Not saying it is all wrong, just trying to highlight some of the differences that seem to be causing friction and reluctance in the community. The changes have been pretty big and jarring, i totally understand shutting it down.

The problem for my group is that the terrain layout you mention is what we're using - it just makes it that much easier for player 1 to get that extra advantage from the way the objectives are scored (because you can't shoot me off of them turn 1, and on subsequent turns, I can leave fewer units defending them since again, LoS tends to be blocked or obstructed). Part of the issue when this stuff gets brought up is that people automatically assume the groups running into this must surely be playing on planet bowling ball, but we aren't. If you have really fast units, and/or units that can fly, this terrain set up makes it even easier for them.

But at this point I'm harping on it so I'll leave it for now. Suffice it to say, these missions definitely have problems the way they're constructed, but it's entirely possible my group is playing in a way that exacerbates it. We've all played a very long time so we're perfectly used to changing with the edition. This edition just feels ... odd.

Tycho wrote:

Our games have been less about a single unit capturing a strategic objective and more about portions of armies vying for control of that battlefield area. It gets more interesting with terrain laid out to restrict, obstruct, or otherwise hinder clearly targeting the area with long-range units. You don't have to totally block LOS, but -1 to hit makes a difference. Leaving a table with inconsequential terrain in relation to the objectives is probably where a good portion of problems come into play. You just create forced deployment positions and clear lanes that simplifies the game into who can shoot better again.

Not saying it is all wrong, just trying to highlight some of the differences that seem to be causing friction and reluctance in the community. The changes have been pretty big and jarring, i totally understand shutting it down.

The problem for my group is that the terrain layout you mention is what we're using - it just makes it that much easier for player 1 to get that extra advantage from the way the objectives are scored (because you can't shoot me off of them turn 1, and on subsequent turns, I can leave fewer units defending them since again, LoS tends to be blocked or obstructed). Part of the issue when this stuff gets brought up is that people automatically assume the groups running into this must surely be playing on planet bowling ball, but we aren't. If you have really fast units, and/or units that can fly, this terrain set up makes it even easier for them.

But at this point I'm harping on it so I'll leave it for now. Suffice it to say, these missions definitely have problems the way they're constructed, but it's entirely possible my group is playing in a way that exacerbates it. We've all played a very long time so we're perfectly used to changing with the edition. This edition just feels ... odd.

Terrain should be exposing at least 4 of the center objectives. You might need to change some of your Obscuring to Dense.

Definitely not feeling the need to play until I get a new Codex. Once the new Marines dex becomes official I feel like auto losses to Marines will be the norm at least until the other factions get to catch up.

When and if that happens.

Right now, with no venues to play at due to the ongoing pandemic and local restrictions on events and business operations, the core rules still obviously being a work in progress, a metagame that GW appears to be wanting to reboot entirely but only through codex releases over time in a disjointed fashion instead of an Index form that will clearly and inevitably leave many factions in the dust for a while, nonexistent support for my FW DKoK, I see very little reason to pick up and learn 9E yet, and thus 40k as a whole is "on hold" for me.

I've played a few solo home-games of 8th in recent months, and will be trying out the (mostly metal) Grey Knight army I've been slowly working on (probably since the tail end of 5E to be honest, almost have it finished) shortly under those rules, but that's about it.

I've been getting back into Heavy Gear in a big way instead recently.

Most high powered units aren't ObSec though. One model can hold the objective against them.

You do need to play this edition really different. Durable, obsec is really important. It is why Custodes are doing well. You absolutely need lots of Dense and Obscuring terrain.

And most obsec units are paper thin. It's remarkably easy to shift them, or to get tougher obsec units in front of them to contest.

Terrain should be exposing at least 4 of the center objectives. You might need to change some of your Obscuring to Dense.

Been there, done that, bought the shirt. lol

a metagame that GW appears to be wanting to reboot entirely but only through codex releases over time in a disjointed fashion

I think this is a big part of it TBH. Marines or Mechanicus get to go first - good night. The way this appears to be shaking out, if your book doesn't work well with 9th, you'll be hurting even more than usual, and for an indeterminate period of time until your book gets released. Then, you just have to hope that GW either stuck with the design philosophy for all the books, OR hope that, if your book changes the direction, that it's changed in a favorable direction.

I know the index books had their issues, but NOT having them is really highlighting a lot of issues right now. I think we'll be seeing even more of those once people are really able to play again.

Tycho wrote:

Most high powered units aren't ObSec though. One model can hold the objective against them.

You do need to play this edition really different. Durable, obsec is really important. It is why Custodes are doing well. You absolutely need lots of Dense and Obscuring terrain.

And most obsec units are paper thin. It's remarkably easy to shift them, or to get tougher obsec units in front of them to contest.

Terrain should be exposing at least 4 of the center objectives. You might need to change some of your Obscuring to Dense.

Been there, done that, bought the shirt. lol

a metagame that GW appears to be wanting to reboot entirely but only through codex releases over time in a disjointed fashion

I think this is a big part of it TBH. Marines or Mechanicus get to go first - good night. The way this appears to be shaking out, if your book doesn't work well with 9th, you'll be hurting even more than usual, and for an indeterminate period of time until your book gets released. Then, you just have to hope that GW either stuck with the design philosophy for all the books, OR hope that, if your book changes the direction, that it's changed in a favorable direction.

I know the index books had their issues, but NOT having them is really highlighting a lot of issues right now. I think we'll be seeing even more of those once people are really able to play again.

It would help to know your army and the army you are complaining of.

Audustum wrote:
I don't think that trait let's him re-deploy within 9" of your deployment zone so those were some lucky charges if he really was that far back.

You're forgetting that they're not deep striking, they're redeploying before the game starts. That means if they get the first turn, they get their regular 6" move, shoot, and then charge. I suppose if I really crammed my models into the rear I could stay away from the edge of my deployment zone- but even if I was 4" back, that's still only a 7" charge they need to make, and it hampers me further in getting out of my deployment.

And more importantly, they don't have to succeed at the charges or even go first. It's enough to get troops in the way of objectives, or on objectives, or in lanes between terrain that monsters/vehicles need to traverse.

Audustum wrote:
That said, remember, Command Phase is the first thing that happens. If you score on your command phase, then move off the objective, you WON'T score it your next turn. You need 10 points for three rounds and 15 points for one round to max them. On most maps, even from your deployment zone, you should be able to snag 2 objectives for 10 points per-turn and then hopefully get a 15 on your breakout. There are some maps where you need 3 for 10 and those will hurt more if you're trapped, but those are less than half the missions.

Most missions don't have two objectives in your deployment zone. Every turn that you spend cooped up with just a single objective while the opponent controls the midfield is 5VP for you, 15VP for your opponent. After two turns like this it is very difficult to come back.

The problem is just that there's not a lot of counterplay. Being able to start on the objective is a massive advantage, and short of countering with your own infiltrators (if your army even has them), you can't prevent it.

It would help to know your army and the army you are complaining of.

It doesn't really matter for us as we are happy to play 8th until this all gets sorted, but if you look around, a LOT of people (including som eplay testers) are saying the same.

Our group is a bit odd. We're in an area that's not been hit too hard so we can garage hammer, and there's about 20 of us. We figured it's not cool to have more than 3 or 4 people in a garage at once (social distancing obviously), so we've split into smaller localized groups. So there's about 5 groups of 4 that have each played 30+ games. Weirdly, the pandemic has allowed us to play MORE than usual. lol

The only armies you won't see much of in that group are 'Nids, DE, and Necrons (although I may revive my old 'cron army if the dex pans out).

We've run through a LOT of builds, but, like many others, have seen the power of transports, so currently, the more successful builds have a lot of fast moving transports. We actually find leaving the terrain more open gives player 2 a slightly better experience just because they can start the attrition process sooner. What we like is that it seems like a combined arms approach is back, which is good (especially if you do go second - having a heavily skewed list can really penalize you). There are just too many other problems for us to want to deal with atm.

Like I said, not trying to say the sky is falling and that it's all doom and gloom, but yeah, for us, 9th is off to a bad start, and my money is on it getting worse before it gets better. Especially since there are so many variables now - it's going to take a while to work through, and honestly, I'm pretty sure we've found some little time bombs that just haven't gone off yet (or that will be inconsequential once the army books are finally out), so yeah - 8th it is for now.

 catbarf wrote:

Audustum wrote:
I don't think that trait let's him re-deploy within 9" of your deployment zone so those were some lucky charges if he really was that far back.

You're forgetting that they're not deep striking, they're redeploying before the game starts. That means if they get the first turn, they get their regular 6" move, shoot, and then charge. I suppose if I really crammed my models into the rear I could stay away from the edge of my deployment zone- but even if I was 4" back, that's still only a 7" charge they need to make, and it hampers me further in getting out of my deployment.

And more importantly, they don't have to succeed at the charges or even go first. It's enough to get troops in the way of objectives, or on objectives, or in lanes between terrain that monsters/vehicles need to traverse.

Audustum wrote:
That said, remember, Command Phase is the first thing that happens. If you score on your command phase, then move off the objective, you WON'T score it your next turn. You need 10 points for three rounds and 15 points for one round to max them. On most maps, even from your deployment zone, you should be able to snag 2 objectives for 10 points per-turn and then hopefully get a 15 on your breakout. There are some maps where you need 3 for 10 and those will hurt more if you're trapped, but those are less than half the missions.

Most missions don't have two objectives in your deployment zone. Every turn that you spend cooped up with just a single objective while the opponent controls the midfield is 5VP for you, 15VP for your opponent. After two turns like this it is very difficult to come back.

The problem is just that there's not a lot of counterplay. Being able to start on the objective is a massive advantage, and short of countering with your own infiltrators (if your army even has them), you can't prevent it.

This is just not accurate. I play Custodes. When my opponent starts on the objective or tries to be close to my deployment zone, I just go forward and engage it.

But yes, they're still 3" out from your deployment after a 6" Move. That should give you plenty to avoid being charged if you want too, especially with Difficult Terrain giving a -2 to Move and to Charge.

The counterplay is that your opponent is gambling on only a 50% chance of going first with that kind of aggressive deployment and you should easily shoot or charge him off in retaliation. He loses important pieces in this and has a harder time getting secondaries. There is a fair amount to do here.

It sounds more like your list is just not effective at dealing damage and it may be something you need to revisit with a critical eye in design.

Also remember primary is capped at 45. More than one 15 is effective overkill unless you have a 5 in there somewhere.


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Tycho wrote:

It would help to know your army and the army you are complaining of.

It doesn't really matter for us as we are happy to play 8th until this all gets sorted, but if you look around, a LOT of people (including som eplay testers) are saying the same.

Our group is a bit odd. We're in an area that's not been hit too hard so we can garage hammer, and there's about 20 of us. We figured it's not cool to have more than 3 or 4 people in a garage at once (social distancing obviously), so we've split into smaller localized groups. So there's about 5 groups of 4 that have each played 30+ games. Weirdly, the pandemic has allowed us to play MORE than usual. lol

The only armies you won't see much of in that group are 'Nids, DE, and Necrons (although I may revive my old 'cron army if the dex pans out).

We've run through a LOT of builds, but, like many others, have seen the power of transports, so currently, the more successful builds have a lot of fast moving transports. We actually find leaving the terrain more open gives player 2 a slightly better experience just because they can start the attrition process sooner. What we like is that it seems like a combined arms approach is back, which is good (especially if you do go second - having a heavily skewed list can really penalize you). There are just too many other problems for us to want to deal with atm.

Like I said, not trying to say the sky is falling and that it's all doom and gloom, but yeah, for us, 9th is off to a bad start, and my money is on it getting worse before it gets better. Especially since there are so many variables now - it's going to take a while to work through, and honestly, I'm pretty sure we've found some little time bombs that just haven't gone off yet (or that will be inconsequential once the army books are finally out), so yeah - 8th it is for now.

Are you sure your faction isn't just weak?

I am just mostly baffled because your experience is kind of the opposite of what the tournament scene is developing. Space Marines are good, but Harlequins, Dark Eldar, Custodes and Death Guard are considered just as high tier. Except for Nurglings it's not about infiltration, it's about putting durable bodies down except for Harlies.

An example of the staple DG list (two detachments) is like 3x8 Nurglings, 3 PBC's, a DP and a little flex room from there. Custodes it's a bunch of Sword+Board guys and two terminator squads with one or two Telemons for ranged support. Harlies are haywire vehicle spam, solitaires, e.t.c. The idea is to be too hard to shift or too strong to be resisted. Going first isn't really conferring an advantage (I've won more games going second I think).

The continuation of IGOUGO, the gak wounding chart (which at least they might experiment with hence W2 Marines everywhere), and quite frankly the exhausting environment of COVID make me not enthused.

I am just mostly baffled because your experience is kind of the opposite of what the tournament scene is developing. Space Marines are good, but Harlequins, Dark Eldar, Custodes and Death Guard are considered just as high tier. Except for Nurglings it's not about infiltration, it's about putting durable bodies down except for Harlies.

We've had what? one tournament? Two? And based on a podcast I listened to recently, it sounds like one of them actually tweaked some things in the missions so it wasn't a straight up 9th ed mission style ...

Anyway, no, my factions are DG and Mechanicus, Marines and Tsons (although mainly the first two - I shelved the Marines a few months ago and my Tsons are pretty experimental right now) that's how I know how devastating it is when they go first.

Tycho wrote:

I am just mostly baffled because your experience is kind of the opposite of what the tournament scene is developing. Space Marines are good, but Harlequins, Dark Eldar, Custodes and Death Guard are considered just as high tier. Except for Nurglings it's not about infiltration, it's about putting durable bodies down except for Harlies.

We've had what? one tournament? Two? And based on a podcast I listened to recently, it sounds like one of them actually tweaked some things in the missions so it wasn't a straight up 9th ed mission style ...

Anyway, no, my factions are DG and Mechanicus, Marines and Tsons (although mainly the first two - I shelved the Marines a few months ago and my Tsons are pretty experimental right now) that's how I know how devastating it is when they go first.

It depends what you define as data. There's been more than 2 tournaments, 4-5 of the traditional GT caliber I think, a plethora of matches/events on Tabletop Simulator and guys like Nanavati and Siegler have been doing matches against each other and discussing what's good, what's bad, based on those.

It's not as much as we did have, but it's not nothing. It doesn't comport with this from what I can tell either.

Audustum wrote:
This is just not accurate. I play Custodes. When my opponent starts on the objective or tries to be close to my deployment zone, I just go forward and engage it.

But yes, they're still 3" out from your deployment after a 6" Move. That should give you plenty to avoid being charged if you want too, especially with Difficult Terrain giving a -2 to Move and to Charge.

Yes, that's 3" out from my deployment zone. How far back am I supposed to deploy my army? Not everyone has the luxury of a 2000pt army being under 20 models; my deployment zone is cramped as it is and I don't even play a particularly horde build. Even if I can start 6" back, I'm hamstringing myself by keeping my entire army even farther from the objectives. You're also assuming that I can deploy my army behind cover to reduce the risk of a turn 1 charge, despite the fact that I need to get out of my deployment zone to actually play the objectives.

You cannot simultaneously argue 'you can beat Primaris, just play the objectives' and also 'you can beat Primaris, just turtle up in your deployment zone as far back as possible behind cover'.

I did more damage to his list than he did to mine. Damage output is not the problem. The problem is that I lost a whole turn's worth of movement, allowing the rest of his army to push up and join the ones already occupying all the midfield objectives, and that put me on a defensive footing for the remainder of the game.

Lastly, and most importantly:

Audustum wrote:
The counterplay is that your opponent is gambling on only a 50% chance of going first with that kind of aggressive deployment and you should easily shoot or charge him off in retaliation. He loses important pieces in this and has a harder time getting secondaries. There is a fair amount to do here.

You seem to have missed where I said that the key is a warlord trait that allows voluntary redeployment after the roll-off for first turn. If I won the first turn, he would have redeployed to put his Incursors on the objectives rather than deployed so aggressively. There is no gamble; either he gets an aggressive deployment and the first turn, or a more conservative deployment and going second.

Even if he didn't have that option, 'hope you win the coin flip, otherwise GG' isn't counterplay.

Kinda hard to stay excited for competitive/matchmaking games when vanilla marines have had 3 codices over the last 4 years and each time my armies are put on the "just wait til your turn" backburner. That being said, I like the missions better so I'm looking forward to games once balance starts to settle. Early 8th sucked in the exact same way. Now is a very good time for painting and ebay hunting.

the_scotsman wrote:
Honestly, the only thing affecting my attitude toward 9th (and late 8th if we're being honest) is the instability/uncertainty of everything that's going on.

The new space marine statlines feel unhinged. And i don't mean that in the "omgwtfsoOPaaaargh" sense anymore, really, I had that phase and I'm done with it.

I mean they don't seem at all consistent. Weapons seem to be getting stat changes completely randomly. The invictor is getting a heavy bolter with 1 shot. "what the hell does a heavy stubber DO now" is totally up in the air. There are three different statlines shown for autocannons, and a possible...I think SIX for various weapons that all fit the description of "Sword."

They're doing the Age of Sigmar thing to 40k here.
You saw a preview of it with all the unique Primaris guns. It'll get worse.
You think six variations of "sword" are bad here? AoS would make your head explode.
In AoS every unit has named weapons. So there's as many types of "swords" as there are different units that use swords. Or spears (on top of any special abilities, spears generally have a 2" melee range. But not always). Or lances. Or bows. Or....
Hell, even shields don't have a single common ability (adding to save #s - you might argue that this is already factored into the base units stat, but there's units where that doesn't seem to be the case). Instead? Some increase the save in melee (my Ungor shields), others only help against ranged. Some allow rerolls, some do effect x, others Y....
And every single weapon/attack has a specific "name".
God how I miss the generic weapon categories of the WHFB days. If I have to put up with a different type of HB on each different unit that could wield one....

the_scotsman wrote:
Combine that with what feels like near-daily FAQs, changes, errata, model deletions, model undeletions, changes to the PA books that, in most cases, I can count on a single hand the games I've been able to actually play with their contents, I just have absolutely no solid ground on which to stand with 40k's rules.

You could do what my circle does. We quickly grew tired of this crap in 8th. So we largely just stopped paying attention to it other than pts changes in CA.
If there was something SO terrible? WE implemented a change that satisfied our group.
The only time any of us brushed up on the official stuff of the moment was if we played some games at the not-quite-local-shop, or in my case each year before I went to GenCon (may/may not play some 40k, but best if ready to).
And here since March 2020+? There's only a very small circle of us that're getting together for games. So it really doesn't matter to us what GW says moment to moment or how other groups deal with it. Maybe come 2021

the_scotsman wrote:
As a result, I'm much less inclined to be excited about building up rule theory for my collection, and less likely to be interested in trying out rules. People say Crusade is fun - I haven't bothered to try it, because GW has basically said this is the Early-Alpha edition and there's gonna be new crusade junk added in every codex.

Set yourself up a small sealed group & as a group decide wich rules you want to apply. Within my group the general idea atm is that we won't add Codex Crusade rules to the mix until all factions in the Crusade have a new codex. Though we are open to maybe revising that as we get a look at the Codex specific stuff.

The idea is to be too hard to shift or too strong to be resisted. Going first isn't really conferring an advantage (I've won more games going second I think).

Says the Custodes player

I'm not saying it's impossible. Obviously it's possible, but I'm willing to bet that this ends up being one of those editions where there's three kinds of missions -

1. The book/GT Packet missions that some people use
2. The ITC missions that most people use
3. Tertiary mission packs at other assorted events

I'm willing to bet a lot on it that the GW missions get FAQ'd a good bit once this really gets rolling. I don't think it would take much and there's already been at least on tournament that did it successfully. I'm just saying, we aren't interested in dealing w/any of it until it ALL settles. Which likely won't be until next Spring after at least more than just 'crons and Marines have books and there's (hopefully) more wide-spread data that's been collected, because it's not JUST the missions.

One of the podcasts we listen to while playing was recently talking about how they haven't covered GSC much because "GSC hasn't really changed". Our poor GSC player about went cross eyed. GSC and Tau are two armies that are really up against it in this edition and won't likely have an answer until their books release. There's just a LOT of problems this launch caused that we don't feel like dealing with. We gave it a pretty good shot, but when you're staring down the barrel of a "day 2 FAQ" that was needed to fix the "Day 1 FAQ" and a lot of it is stuff that never should have made it to print to begin with ... well, you get tired of that after a bit. lol

I've played since RT - I applaud the effort they've made in updating the rules regularly, and of course no game is perfect and you will always need fixes, but at some point, they need to get better at actually writing the rules in the first place. So it's become like complex electronics - my group gave the beta release a shot and has elected to NOT be early adapters.

Well, I can't actually play so I'm excited for anything really.

To the point, I think the core rule changes for 9th are really exciting and I'm looking forward to play. The upcoming statisical changes look interesting, and I'd rather they be here now, but they just shake up army composition. The announced changes have dulled my interest in making changes to my army for 9th edition, but I'm excited to play it with what I've got in the meantime.

Not really. I wasn't overly keen on my last few games of 8th or my first of 9th. On top of that it looks like its going to be Marine dominated until the other books get up to speed so yeah, not particularly excited.

I've played a few games of 9th, mostly Orks vs daemons, then Orks vs chaos engines (mauler fiends, blood slaughterers, etc.). Both were fun and competitive. I'd suggest just being more selective of which armies you play against and/or which you use. Its going to be a painful transition for some armies, there is no doubt about it.

I am completely new to the hobby but the inclusion of the smaller playing area and the new indomitus/command boxes helped finally make the leap.

 catbarf wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Empirical statement: in my loss, my opponent killed maybe 200 points of my 1250 point list. No matter how killy or advantaged you may think Primaris are... if they cannot play the mission, you have a great chance at winning. It may cost you feeding your entire army to him over 3-4 turns, but as long as you're scoring and he is not... it doesn't matter if you're wiped out, you will score the tactical win.

I'm finding that to be overly optimistic, because Primaris can play to the mission and still be effective.

As a recent example, I lost a game to Space Wolves over the weekend, using a Kraken Tyranid army that normally does great on playing to the mission exactly as you describe. He won the roll-off for first turn, then used a Warlord trait to redeploy three Phobos units directly in front of my deployment zone, and performed a turn 1 charge that boxed me into my deployment while he grabbed over half of the objectives and moved Thunderwolves up for a T2 charge. I eventually managed to break out and inflict more damage on him than he did on me, but there was no recovering from his lead on objectives.

There isn't a single ability that allows RE deployment outside of the DZ brother. I think you got hornswaggled! Lol

dominuschao wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Empirical statement: in my loss, my opponent killed maybe 200 points of my 1250 point list. No matter how killy or advantaged you may think Primaris are... if they cannot play the mission, you have a great chance at winning. It may cost you feeding your entire army to him over 3-4 turns, but as long as you're scoring and he is not... it doesn't matter if you're wiped out, you will score the tactical win.

I'm finding that to be overly optimistic, because Primaris can play to the mission and still be effective.

As a recent example, I lost a game to Space Wolves over the weekend, using a Kraken Tyranid army that normally does great on playing to the mission exactly as you describe. He won the roll-off for first turn, then used a Warlord trait to redeploy three Phobos units directly in front of my deployment zone, and performed a turn 1 charge that boxed me into my deployment while he grabbed over half of the objectives and moved Thunderwolves up for a T2 charge. I eventually managed to break out and inflict more damage on him than he did on me, but there was no recovering from his lead on objectives.

There isn't a single ability that allows RE deployment outside of the DZ brother. I think you got hornswaggled! Lol

Nah - Lord of Deceit allows it. The PHOBOS units can then deploy anywhere 9" away from enemy DZ/models.

Thing is it is super easy to spot. Deploying an inch back from the DZ line or having appropriate scouts/infitrators/chaff of your own stops it dead. His opponent took advantage of bad deployment.

(Provided you get an army list before the game and they tell you what the trait does)

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Nah - Lord of Deceit allows it. The PHOBOS units can then deploy anywhere 9" away from enemy DZ/models.

Thing is it is super easy to spot. Deploying an inch back from the DZ line or having appropriate scouts/infitrators/chaff of your own stops it dead. His opponent took advantage of bad deployment.

(Provided you get an army list before the game and they tell you what the trait does)

You mind explaining why them starting the game 10 inches away instead of 9 makes the slightly difference.

You turned a 4 inch charge turn 1 into a 5 inch charge that's still plenty reliable, though in all honesty I think GW really needs to take long hard look at phobos units in 9th as they seem to be extremely abusable. Thier is very much too much unfun uninteractive playstyles were deepstike become impossible. Taking objectives without some ability to bypass the invictor bumrush is impossible. They might not be greatest balanced lists but they are toxic as feth.

Though that said even if they fail the charge being able to moveblock someone in their deployment zone your killing their ability to score/play the game anyway.

Because no one knows who goes first. Realistically your sacrificial units are back just a tiny bit to gamble on a failure and their units are not out in the open based on the risk of going second. If they have ruins 9" out then you damn well better plan ahead.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Because no one knows who goes first. Realistically your sacrificial units are back just a tiny bit to gamble on a failure and their units are not out in the open based on the risk of going second. If they have ruins 9" out then you damn well better plan ahead.

Which is part of the issue with being able to redeploy units that can sdeploy wherever they like. Like phobos units.

Also even if you go first being unable to move out of your deployment zone for the cost of say 10 scouts or such is still a very low cost for the ability to prevent you contesting any objectives turn 1 and havibg to try and shoot your opponent off all of them, obsec infiltration is severely undercosted so far in 9th.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

dominuschao wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Empirical statement: in my loss, my opponent killed maybe 200 points of my 1250 point list. No matter how killy or advantaged you may think Primaris are... if they cannot play the mission, you have a great chance at winning. It may cost you feeding your entire army to him over 3-4 turns, but as long as you're scoring and he is not... it doesn't matter if you're wiped out, you will score the tactical win.

I'm finding that to be overly optimistic, because Primaris can play to the mission and still be effective.

As a recent example, I lost a game to Space Wolves over the weekend, using a Kraken Tyranid army that normally does great on playing to the mission exactly as you describe. He won the roll-off for first turn, then used a Warlord trait to redeploy three Phobos units directly in front of my deployment zone, and performed a turn 1 charge that boxed me into my deployment while he grabbed over half of the objectives and moved Thunderwolves up for a T2 charge. I eventually managed to break out and inflict more damage on him than he did on me, but there was no recovering from his lead on objectives.

There isn't a single ability that allows RE deployment outside of the DZ brother. I think you got hornswaggled! Lol

Nah - Lord of Deceit allows it. The PHOBOS units can then deploy anywhere 9" away from enemy DZ/models.

Thing is it is super easy to spot. Deploying an inch back from the DZ line or having appropriate scouts/infitrators/chaff of your own stops it dead. His opponent took advantage of bad deployment.

(Provided you get an army list before the game and they tell you what the trait does)

Hmm I went to reference the FAQ which limited all these types of abilities to within their own DZ but apparantly those don't exist anymore. So yea my bad now theres several abilities that can do this again. At least until another faq clears it up or doesn't.